“Everything that’s happened was my fault,” says Sara.
“No,” says Zach, “it’s mine,” and feels a dizzying tilt to the world with that admission. He leans over to steady himself on the bedfoot, which is why Hidebound’s bullet burns his ear in passing on its way to spiderweb the window. The zweep of his silencer is somehow inappropriate.
Zach, for once, doesn’t scream.
Sara spins with the nearest available weapon, a fruit bowl, which shatters on Hidebound’s head. He shakes off blood and throws her at Zach, who sort of catches her. They fall.
Hidebound resists mightily the urge to monologue.
Wester de Card dug a tunnel and discovered a city beneath the city, evidence that the present was not the past. The Inspectors disapproved. They corrected his behavior by inducing severe claustrophobia. It took a week.
Wester left the facility, found an accomplice, and began to disseminate historical literature. The Inspectors corrected his accomplice to death while Wester watched. It took a month.
Wester began to set fire to officially sanctioned archives. They corrected all the bones of his hands. It took an hour.
Wester de Card is going to correct them, this time. And it’s going to be just perfect.
Foyle scrambled over the Fairyworld fence to gain a few yards on his pursuers; it should have been empty, but instead a man in an elf costume is demanding to know whether he wants asylum.
“Uh,” says Foyle.
He glances over his shoulder, panting. The cops are arguing with a pair of burly druids. The gates remain closed.
“The theme park is technically a consulate,” says the elf. “Are you requesting our government’s protection?”
“What–okay,” says Foyle. “Yes?”
The elf smiles; his teeth are pointed. Foyle’s wondering if those ears are fake, and exactly what kind of asylum he’s accepted.
Excelsior Maximum is anonymous, his helmet a blank mask split by streamlines, crouched over his Henderson Custom like a ski-jumper or some brazen rocketeer. Squealing police cars smash to a stop at the base of the Chrysler building.
Excelsior Maximum escapes.
“Damn him! Damn you all!” swears Chief Kilkenny, stomping his hat as the black rider dwindles.
“Why do we always chase him?” grunts the rookie, self-extricating. “What did the man do?”
“It’s 1978,” snaps Bogard. “We outlawed motorcycles fifty years ago!”
But can one outlaw the impossible? wonders the rookie, following black tread straight up the building’s façade.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Zach pulls the curtain back between their beds and turns around and Sara’s there in a hoodie, tired and smiling, her face not so different from the photo he first saw in the dossier.
The beeping pulse monitor on his finger takes a long pause, then restarts in triple time.
Sara glances over at it in startlement; Zach yanks it off. “Uh, hi,” he says. He’s suddenly very aware of his brief white gown. Did he last see her a day ago? Did they only meet the day before?
“Hi,” says Sara, whose eyes, she knows, must be full of guilt.
Pressure is a tricky thing, and subject to a rule of power: the greater the area, the less it affects. You can bear a great deal of a force applied broadly. The littlest things will pierce you through.
Vicki’s riddled and lossy, the weight of his absence springing leaks from the pinholes no one should have seen. She patches (sleeves and handkerchiefs) and waits for the next one, but what’s to repair her? What algorithm fills a shape when one side is removed?
Drink water. Read stories. Healing is hard. We are but integuments, surface and tension, all waiting to break.
Alvi plants the third tintinnabulum at the corner of the perimeter, jamming its stake down through gravel into dirt. “Think these will work?”
“It’s a self-fulfilling proposition,” says Ord. “If they’re out there, the resurrection of the body is fact, and these have to work. If not… we’re safe. Right?”
Alvi feels obligated to shiver. The bellpoles over her shoulder clank as they thread among sepulchers; above them, the ruined basilica looms like a thoracic cage, lit from beneath by the candles they’ve scrounged.
Nearby in the hills, Innocents and Clements crouch, ruined eyes attentive, lappets whipping in the wind.