“Ready for the jump,” says Rotten Gamble tightly.
The Heavenly dreadnought looms, bolters charging like infernal bees, but the Loveblind Bird races dead on for the reef. Belowdecks, Dragalong and Kid Rabbit scramble to swap crackling hoses.
“Princess, we’ll find him,” Dog Shouting mumbles in her wounded fever. “I promise.”
The Princess presses a cold cloth to Dog’s head, eyes huge and dark.
“Punch it!” shouts Gamble.
The ship booms; power arcs down through salt water. The Loveblind Bird leaps up to ride over the reef on rails of lightning, and lands hard on the other side.
“Ow,” Dog Shouting grunts.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Citrane tries not to be out after dark, but things have been hellish at work and the days are getting shorter. She waits at the bus shelter and hopes (not prays) nobody else comes along.
“‘Scuse me, ma’am,” grins a methhead’s mouth.
“You need to leave,” she whispers.
“Aww, now, I’m just waitin’ for the 17!” he says, injured. “There’s plenty of room for us both under there.”
“My guardians–”
“Ain’t nobody here but you and me,” he says, and then the invisible swords descend.
Citrane closes her eyes against the spatter, and her pulse rushes in her ears like wingbeats.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Mongo and his goons are finishing up a perfectly good warehouse robbery when they get interrupted, of course.
“Not so fast, evildoers!” booms a voice from the rafters. “You’ve been caught by…
PROJECT C
Armed with the speed… of a Cobra!
The fierceness… of a Cougar!
The tenacity… of a Coelacanth!
The strength… of a Carcophang!”
“A what?”
“It’s an animal that I made up,” explains Project C. “It’s like an elephant but with tiger fur, and extra tusks on top of its head.”
Mongo glares and points at him. “All right, do-gooder,” he growls, “but you’d better have drawings.“
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
One train leaves Chicago traveling at 45 miles per hour; another leaves New York traveling at 65 miles per hour. Both trains are accelerating at an even rate, though Qing’s 11:45 from Grand Central is newer than Russel’s 12:30. Hers has wifi, but they’re both reading books.
A common misconception about trains is that they all ride the same rails; two trains whose origins match each other’s destinations may, like packets, pick entirely distinct sets of nodes. Russel and Qing have a statistically even chance of passing each other as they kiss the southern edge of Erie.
When will they meet?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair. Just take the picture.
Post the picture with no editing. Post these instructions with your picture.
Crop out the unwashed dishes.
Admit privately that you’re not quite adhering to the “no editing” part.
Change your clothes; muss your hair. Stare at the lens with a wry expression that is neither a smirk nor a frown but that somehow convey your detachment from this particular ping for attention. Be candid, or anyway candidly posed.
A picture of yourself: a thousand words. Cut out eight hundred ninety-nine.
Friday, September 19, 2008
You and Bogie should pick up a couple pandas to keep you company–a relatively tame development at El Morocco tonight. That is, until these two dames waltz over and try to steal them.
“Hey!” Bogie will say. “Don’t bogart the pandas!”
Lunge for yours (which you have named Mao-Chi) and a scuffle, says the press in the morning, will ensue. Confer soberly with Bogie in your unshaven pajamas.
“It’s a feeding frenzy,” he’ll say. “They’ll want a sacrifice.”
Assume you’re it.
“Well, yeah,” he’ll sigh, “this way I get two pandas,” as their carnivorous black eyes turn to you.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Cagley has committed so much oneiricide lately that it’s putting her a little behind on homework.
“Cagley?” her mom says nervously when she starts brushing her teeth at 7:00. “Are you really that tired, sweetie?”
“I’m going to read for a while first,” Cagley assures her, then leaps into bed and spends the next ten hours pushing confused people off buildings. They always disappear with a poof and a yelp before they hit the ground. Well, almost always.
“We’re thinking about taking you in for a sleep study,” frowns her dad in the morning.
“Whatever,” says Cagley, thinking, okay, you’re next.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
“Ratio Tile never told you,” pants Reaching the West Reaches, “what happened to your father.”
“He told me enough!” Her voice is like skin tearing over wounds never permitted to bleed: the old man’s clever kindness and children’s stories, the way he found her drydocked ship on that filthy desert island and prodded her into sailing again. The way he fell in that bloody mess of robes, and the way she scraped their little fellowship together around herself. The way she never got to tell him that she knew.
“You killed him!” screams Dog Shouting.
“No,” says Reaching the West Reaches.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
“You’ve got what boils down to a binary choice here, son,” says Agent Garret. “You can attempt to avoid a responsibility you didn’t want; or you can, in the parlance of your peerage, ‘fuckin’ chill,’ make respectable your relationship with a perfectly lovely girl, join a highly privileged family–hell, just grow a pair!”
Agent Tambor squeezes said pair gently. “Seems like a pretty simple choice, Levi.”
“You know, I think I should run out and get me a ring!” says Levi, sounding only a little strangled.
“Would you believe it?” smiles Agent Garret tightly. “We have a selection right here.”
Monday, September 15, 2008
The entire point of a fort is to insulate oneself and one’s friends from members of the opposite gender, which makes things awkward when HR holds their annual antidiscrimination seminar.
“It’s not that we don’t want women in the department!” says Walmsley, his careful stresses muffled by the cushions they brought from home. “But the productivity gains we’ve achieved in here certainly encourage more–”
“Segregation?” snaps DJ.
“No!” says Walmsley. “Merely separation! A separation of equals.”
“Keep ’em talking, Agent W,” mutters Northwood. He’s almost finished scrawling out their attack plan, and Smithfield is due any second with the water balloons.
Friday, September 12, 2008