Ashlock clutches a vast mug of black coffee; Tach, a shot of very potent tea. Together they stare at the iPod, throbbing with nearly-visible menace.
“We could,” Ashlock begins.
“No,” says Tach.
“No one’s buying, we can’t throw it away–”
“I’m not putting that number in my head,” says Tach.
“Fine,” says Ashlock. “But somebody rigged that trap. It’s a curse, and it’s onto us but good.”
“So what? You want to return it?”
“That’s exactly what I want to do.”
“It’ll burn through our backups. We’ve got maybe two days.”
“This,” says Ashlock, “is why I always keep receipts.”
In the base at the heart of the cinder cone
Sits a man who (accustomed to dining alone
In impeccable white with a gauntleted hand)
Ignores the procession of dish drones unmanned
To consider the boy who, despite being doomed,
Sat down at his table and quickly consumed
Half a dodo; pommes frites; a petit-four sold
By a Saudi ex-prince, iced with edible gold;
Truffle-sauce veal served with saffron baguette;
and fruits with no name from the wilds of Tibet.
At last, when he’s sated, cocksure as he’s young,
“Let’s talk,” he says, tiger still strong on his tongue.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Marcel first encounters Security Theater in school, when it is proclaimed throughout his county that henceforth only backpacks of transparent mesh will be permitted; this despite the fact that the kid who got caught with the airsoft pistol had it tucked into his pants.
Purses are exempt. Marcel and Theo immediately buy purses.
Twelve years later, this genre of performance art is the world’s most well-funded, “which is why,” says Marcel, “I’m concerned about the low production values.”
“Please step out of line, sir,” says the lady with the beeping wand.
“One second,” says Marcel, “let me grab my clutch.”
Looking through the heautoscope is unflattering, and Ainsley can see as much on Maartechen’s face. (Ergo, so can Maartechen.)
“Now, like a camera, it does add ten pounds,” she begins.
“I don’t care about that,” he says, not quite fuming. “But the little words floating around–they’re–is this a joke?”
“It shows you the self other people see,” she says. “Those are, um, translated from their impressions…”
“‘Preening?’ ‘Fickle?’ ‘Abrupt?’ Ridiculous! I don’t even know why I wanted this!”
He storms out of the shop. Ainsley sighs. She’d fix the dumb thing if she could stand to look through it.
Tach started out as a scryptkiddie, pulling packaged cants off the flood for pranks and petty larceny. Before long he was tinkering with his own dead linguistics; vintage parchment isn’t cheap, so he took jobs off a slist of indeterminate legality. Â That was where he met Ashlock.
Their shared spark wasn’t attraction: Â it was ambition. Â Two days later they’d burned their employer for fifty bills and walked away to scrounge copper for a hacking den.
Tach has no regrets, because dealing with the unspeakable screws with your memory. Â Considering the circumstances, he’s wondering if it gives you a death wish too.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Like most things that float in the sky, Chryse appears serene, but its atmosphere is tense as guy wire.
“We’re the tail of the archipelago, and the sharks are circling,” says Clary Sage. “If we refuse to take up arms, like Psyttalia–”
“What happened on Psyttalia was a failure of engineering,” growls Wolfram Tungsten.
“The raiders won’t distinguish that!”
His fist thumps oak. “And our engines won’t fail! Besides, who on this island will you call to arms? Teenage artificers? White-haired herbalists?”
“My hair is not white, Wolfram Tungsten,” says Clary Sage.
“I can see that, Clary Sage,” he says.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
“Okay, well, bad news first. Â The sample did come back positive for antibodies to AD36,” says the doctor in her lilting Northern inflection.
Maurice feels as if someone has stepped on his viscera. Â “I’m a carrier.”
“Most people are asymptomatic. Â Even if you do begin displaying infectobesity, proper diet and exercise–”
“You don’t understand, he says. Â I’m American.”
“Oh.” Â She gets it. Â “The Healthy Kids Act.”
He swallows. Â “I’m a teacher. Â If I get selected for testing next year–the camps–”
“You can claim asylum here, Mr. Langham. Â I’ll give you an address.”
But Maurice is picturing his fifth-graders, apple-cheeked, innocent, doomed.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
“It’s an unreasonable request.”
“Yes, it is, but reason doesn’t enter into it at this point.” Alcid looks strained. “You have to fix the race.”
Proper makes jerky movements with her hands. “They’re dachshunds, Alcid! We can barely get them to point the right direction in the first place!”
“Then just… dope them or something!” Alcid says. “Like with horses!”
“Like with horses.”
“Yes!”
Proper slips a little Pepto-Bismol into their food dishes, which–as it turns out–is not the same as Alka-Seltzer like she thought. Miss Whiffles wins anyway. She thought she saw a piece of cheese.