Mindsurfing Suteki in their jet-and-neon simulator suits, Eamon and Cohn lean into the synaptic wind and plunge down toward the root of his hippocampus.
“If he ever knew it, it’s here,” crackles Eamon over the comm.
“Damn well better be!” says Cohn. “We’ve looked everywhere, and the multiplier’s dying!” Over his shoulder, a power pack blinks orange.
Eamon soft-lands on the obsidian vault, an abstract of Suteki’s deepest secrets. Cohn fires up the torch. They heave away a glowing-edged disc, and within–
“This is a Post-It,” says Eamon slowly.
“In email (?!)” says the note.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Rumors about the Spaniard propagate through the juice bar: he’s a new trainer at the gym–no!–he’s shooting a pilot in town. Or he’s Tricia’s sugar daddy, exposed at last. Someone heard he’s a black belt. Is that really his hair? Well then whose is it?
Art draws the short straw and brings out his order; he pays in dollar coins and, says Art, is redolent of Gold Bond. The girls demand he grab a cell-phone shot of his tightpants areas. They crowd the edge of the swinging door, trying to read his mind.
Yo soy… Manchego, thinks Manchego.
“Who can name the central conflict of the story?” asks Ms. Celotte. “Anyone? No? Jennifer?”
Jennifer Goggles pulls a string on her robot without looking up. “MAN VERSUS MAN,” it wheezes.
“Jennifer,” the teacher warns.
“Isn’t that the right answer?” Jennifer frowns, popping the robot’s back hatch. “I was careful with the soldering–”
“That’s not the point!”
“SYLLEPSIS,” says the robot.
“No offense, Ma’am,” says Jennifer, “but I’m only here because they wouldn’t let me register for four periods of metal shop.” Classmates mutter.
“A balanced education requires–”
“BLITHERING INANITY.”
Ms. Celotte fumes.
“See,” beams Jennifer, “I knew he was working.”
Zoe’s got the graveyard watch, which means the rest of them should be sleeping. Malcolm comes to check on her anyway.
“Any movement?”
“Some to the northwest, around four,” she says. “Sentry guns didn’t have too much trouble.” She hands him the field glasses; through them, faint protrusions resolve into zombie limbs chewed by chaingun.
Malcolm peers at gray flesh, black blood. “You’ve been skipping rations, Zo.”
“I’m fine. The kid can use a little extra.”
“You need to eat. Keep your strength up. One day the guns may not hold.”
“I’ll eat,” Zoe says with grim relish, “when I’m dead.”
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hilda and Simeon put a piece of cardboard over the first drive-thru window and boink in the back of the Burger King. The scent of hot oil nearby lends excitement; their vigor pops the change drawer open. The manager notices, but he’s currently at the front counter, beatifically pooping his pants.
Out in the restaurant proper, the customers are following one suit or the other, except the lady who’s called up her mother to explicate twenty years of resentment.
At the counter, Titania puts face to hands. “I just wanted a stupid Whopper Junior,” she groans.
“No you didn’t,” says Mustardseed.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Milky Way is still there, but the stars are different: they’re having to invent new constellations. Without the weight of legacy, though, it’s hard to get the ones you see to stick.
“That’s the Harper,” says Aloysius.
“It’s the Sugar Baker,” insists Deena. “See? The twinkly part, that’s the tip of his pastry bag.”
“I’m not letting you fill the sky with food just because you’re hungry.”
“Well I’m tired of pastoral iconography!”
“We should just divide it and each take half.”
“Where’s the line then?”
“There,” he says, tracing with his finger, “from the Crane to the morning star.”
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The clock on the oven is losing about a minute a week because there’s apparently a localized temporal viscosity centered around the stove. Cork fills it with watches and eats Hot Pockets for a fortnight. When he opens the door again they’re ticking in unison, one hundred seconds slow.
This has annoying implications for his soufflés.
Later the scientists come: no white-coated Government Men, just some PhD kids from the university. They get excited about the alpha constant a lot. Cork buys bulk Hot Pockets and the Journal of Cosmology, wondering if they’ll show the stain that looks like Steve Buscemi.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Since his dad is never around, Guarang has to learn to tie his own neckties, and from first principles at that. He discovers the double Windsor and the Four-in-Hand by iteration; he has no way of knowing their significance. Indeed, among his more exotic variations (the clove hitch-granny, for instance, or the half-Stolypin), they don’t stand out.
Guarang tries not to think about the fact that he could just look these things up. Embedded in his superego is the idea that knowledge won supercedes knowledge taken. It doesn’t. Guarang feeds his silk tongue through slippery hands, going for the triple lutz.
Thursday, September 16, 2010