“I think this thing is broken,” says Efrem.
“Don’t flap your dongle at me,” says Vicki.
“It’s supposed to change every whatever minutes so it stays secure, but it’s been stuck on this for like two days,” he says, holding up gray plastic key on its silver ring. There’s a little old-style numeric LCD on one side.
“I bet you got one of the prank ones.”
“What? They don’t make those.” He frowns. “They make those?”
“What’s it say right now?”
“5318008,” Efrem reads aloud.
“Turn it upside-down,” sighs Vicki.
“What?” says Efrem.
“Oh come on,” he says, a minute later.
“You,” says Paris, “you’re the most beautiful.”
Aphrodite beams. “Set sail for Troy,” she says, “and she will be yours,” and vanishes.
The other two remain, glowering.
“My apologies, great Hera, mighty Athena!” says Paris. “But the three of you did ask me to choose, and it isn’t as if I could pick more than–”
Flames lick up around him. Aphrodite reappears, frantic, but Hera holds her back. Athena is growing taller, and the sky is growing dark.
“Perhaps you have misunderstood,” she booms, enormous, “what it means to be a fucking god,” and reaches down with her smiting hand.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Catastrophic events have repeatedly eliminated most of the life on earth, leaving the remainder to mutate frantically until it finds new forms in which to survive, rebuild, and spread again.
Ideas do the same thing.
“Does every giant-monster-mutation experiment group have to fit your politically correct standards?” snaps Juniper.
Behind them, primeval kaiju bat at F-14s. Akikai takes a ReversoRay blast and shrinks, squeaking, down into his pink bipedal form; he blushes and covers himself.
“Well, yes,” says Kliptus, “so things like the Tuskegee study–”
“That’s different,” says Juniper, as something squirms and wriggles in his head, trying to evolve.
Jason lol what
Jason completed the quiz “Which Disney Villain Are You?” with the result Ursula!
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Firework resuscitation is exactly the kind of business you think it is, which is why Caroline has nine fingers and no eyes.
“I can just buy some new ones,” says Jodi, whose inability to make eye contact has her extra-nervous.
“And leave unexploded ordnance lying around? Not on my watch,” chuckles Caroline. Her hands probe the Flamingo Fountain as if it’s a sore appendix. “Scalpel. Fuse.”
Jodie passes them (the former, carefully, handle-first). “But don’t you always expect to get a few duds?”
“Nothing’s a dud,” says Caroline, “to a hacker,” and lights a match on the stub of her thumb.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The dirt’s like glass shavings and the three suns are blue and distant, but some of the old Earth knowledge still works: their trap line yields three plump smeerps for the stewpot that night. Alriel stirs them over the fire with a stick like a birdbone.
“Do we know if these things are safe to eat?” asks Delorem, glancing at the dwindling pile of S-rations.
“They’re just rabbits dyed green,” says Alriel. “Here, try some.”
Delorem sips with an unconvinced expression. “Tastes like chicken.”
“Don’t you mean iku’unu?” sneers Alriel, before the boiling smeerp-spores embed themselves in her face.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The caged models are shouting, glistening bodies blue with pancake; Isambard pauses in flicking through the channel guide. It’s amazing that they choose to protest through nudity, but he doesn’t question his luck. Not since he started getting it from the source.
“Humans for the Ethical Liberation of Pixies staged another protest today,” drones the reporter. Isambard shoves his hand through the door of one of the golden birdcages.
“Fly free, fair friends!” they’re chanting on the television.
Isambard holds the squirming, peeping thing tight, sits down before the mirror and razor, and begins to scrape the sparkle from its wings.
Monday, September 7, 2009