Authority derives from pain. Your own or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter: some people cause suffering in order to draw power, while others choose to remain indifferent to its source.
Beth will do neither; thus her authority is weak. But sometimes it’s enough.
“Nothing back there but frozen corn,” she drawls, heart pounding.
“We need to look inside anyway,” says the checkpoint trooper.
The door creaks; her cargo blinks in the sunlight. The trooper has one hand on his gun, another on his radio.
“These aren’t the boys you’re looking for,” says Beth, match lit and unwavering beneath her open palm.
The Shibboleth hulks before them, a thing out of time, its skin a sloughing mess and its mouths full of feelers. Some of the expedition vomits; some clutch their heads.
Percy steps forward.
“We have not come so far to hesistate at a thing like this,” he says, steaming in Antarctic air. “Stand aside. We will enter the city of madness!”
“What dost thou seek therein?” hisses the Shibboleth in a dozen languages.
“The tomb,” says Percy, “of dread Chtulu!”
It snorts. “Who?” it says.
“Chtulu!” says Percy, less certain.
“Thou art not from around here,” it giggles, looming, “art thou?”
BRISTA
You wouldn't listen!
BRISTA'S MOM
You're right, baby. I should have understood. I just
can't believe my own Teenager had such a Secret Life!
BRISTA
There's something else we need to tell you.
BRISTA / KATELY'S MOM
We?
KATELY (entering, w/ belly)
Brista isn't the only one in this family who's expecting.
MOM
Oh my gosh! All these surprises are making me feel...
pregnant!
BRISTA
Only teenagers get pregnant, Mom.
KATELY
Lord a'mighty! I just got a cell phone call from my
pregnant friend Nevaeh!
MOM
What is it now?!
KATELY
You won't believe this... but her baby... is PREGN
“Excuse me,” says Maddy with precise enunciation, “it’s very important that you give me a Screaming Orgasm now please.”
“Um, remind me how you make that?”
“Sure! Put some ice in a blender. Then take me out to your car and–”
“NOT that kind of bar, Maddy,” says Landrey, yanking.
“No?”
“No.”
“Then why,” says Maddy cunningly, “do they have hot bartenders?”
Lights dim; the audience mobilizes. “Please excuse my friend,” sighs Landrey.
“How much did she manage to drink in one intermission?” says the concerned, hot bartender.
“None.”
“INTOXICATED WITH THE POETRY OF MARLOWE,” declares Maddy, digging for her flask.
For a bravo, the pitfalls of a tychistic view of the universe are many. No matter how polished your blade or your reputation, you could die betrayed by a loose flagstone or a stumbling thrust. And that’s just if you fight without flourish, without scrambling along trestles or snatching axes off the wall; without the whole point.
The downside to a deterministic view, conversely, is simple: the grim mathematics of the duel.
Verlaine will take the former, thanks. She whets her lucky coin on the same stone as her rapier. On a soft surface, she can make it land on edge.
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.
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.
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
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.