“Do you understand what this means for science?” says Hawthorne, fizzing with excitement.
Senji glares at him, probably. “This isn’t a fun project. How did you manage to give me frictionless skin?”
“Except on your hands and feet!” says Hawthorne. “A breakthrough!”
“I can’t sit down without an infinite wedgie.”
“The Slip ‘N’ Slide potential alone!”
Senji tries to rub the bridge of his nose and fails. “I liked it better when you only experimented on yourself.”
“You said we were drifting apart,” says Hawthorne, hurt. “This is a meta–”
“IT’S NOT A METAPHOR I WANT MY EYEBROWS BACK,” says Senji.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
“This could all be put to rest,” says Hawthorne, “with a valid death certificate.”
“Here!” says Senji, propping up his netbook. “Factcheck.org. Scans of the document. Pictures of the seal.”
“Oh, you can’t trust Photoshops,” says Hawthorne.
“Here’s video of people handling it.”
“Occam’s Razor. We must not needlessly multiply death certificates!” says Hawthorne. “Only physical evidence–”
“You’re beginning an argument that leads into a distrust of all information from your senses,” says Senji.
“Do you know what that means?”
“Descartes already explored–”
“We’re still inside the game!” gasps Hawthorne, thrashing, fumbling for the goggles and the IV drip.
The laser/dinosaur-based phone tree proves unreliable.
“Look, just fire your dorsal blasters at the styracosaur and the edmontonia,” Hawthorne says. “Then they bounce lasers off the pteranodons! A very simple relay!” The diplodocus gronks in wild panic. Senji has to drag him out from under its feet.
“Walnut-brain!” Hawthorne shouts.
“Have you considered that maybe–” Senji begins.
“Yes, yes, they’re anachronistic. The pachy’s firing at a dimetrodon, for heaven’s sake! That’s what I get for going through a third party.”
“–you should just use phones?”
“Less awesomeness per dollar,” sniffs Hawthorne, as the diplodocus takes out a bus.
“Vampirism,” says Hawthorne. “Contagious.”
“Okay,” says Senji.
“Zombies. Contagious.”
“Well, yes.”
“Werewolves.”
“Were-everythings, now,” says Senji uneasily. “Since you generalized the virus.”
“Exactly!” Hawthorne does a little dance. “I thought too small! One recombinant agent creates a host of rapacious metanthropes. The solution? A second virus! An army of their natural enemies! Frankensteinitis!”
“Aside from that being a horrible idea,” says Senji, “the only time Frankenstein’s monster met the Wolfman was in movies, wherein he was portrayed as peacef–”
“Wrong!” says Hawthorne, slaps two bolts on his own neck, and hits himself with a stun gun.
“Ow!” he says, later.
“One washer of clean dishes,” Hawthorne says, “and one always dirty! A buffer system! No more piles in the sink, no more damn cabinets!”
“Some people like cabinets,” Senji says.
“Some people like this!” screams Hawthorne, and thumbs EJCT.
Acceleration pins Senji’s head down. The air’s cold; his eyes water. His chute deploys just in time to swing him crashing through French doors.
“You poor man!” says the father at the table.
“Let’s get those cuts cleaned!” says the mother. “You’ll be fine.”
“Then we can play games!” says a child excitedly.
He was right! is all Senji, astounded, can think.
“Look!” says Senji. “Pegasi!” He points eagerly to where the creatures are swooping and soaring around one end of a rainbow.
Hawthorne snorts. “Crude creatures,” he says. “Ungainly air-wallowers! Nothing like my helicorns!”
“But those, ah,” says Senji, “didn’t those tend to–”
“So they decapitated a few test riders,” snaps Hawthorne. “So what? Grist for the fodder! There are risks to any great invention, and now I know them. My new hanging-basket contrivance solves all that–just you wait and see!”
Senji is watching, later, as Hawthorne–in that very basket–learns the hard way that helicorns don’t come house-trained.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
“A zero-one-infinity problem,” Senji repeats flatly.
“Yes!” Hawthorne is trying to be suave in a smoking jacket, but he ruins it by vibrating with enthusiasm. “White wine has no contact with the grapeskins, blush wine has minimal contact, and red wine has full. But if you have grapeskins, why use the flesh of the grape at all? I give you–black wine!”
He whips off a velvet cover, revealing a bottle with a masking-tape label and two half-full goblets. Senji picks up one of them and tilts it; the purple sludge inside doesn’t move.
“Man, you have terrible ideas,” he says.
Thursday, October 21, 2004