MULDOON, Texas, 223.
MUNCIE, Indiana: abuse of power of legal system in, 23; author’s car defacement in, 18; author’s detention on false charges in, 22; border fuzziness, see SELMA, Indiana; disputed jurisdiction at border of, 45, 67-68; escape routes from, 90-91; human rights / dietary preference abuses of alleged escapees redetained by, 121-148; personal hygiene of law enforcement officers local to, 30-44, 46-67, 68-89, 92-120; rates charged by even purportedly affordable attorneys based in, 121-155; rat infestation of, 156-171; rat infestation metaphor explained, 172-220.
MURFREESBORO, Tennessee: lack of bars in, 222.
Giant Nut Head does not have a nut for a head but this crush is treating him like a shell between levers. It’s not a crush, it’s a smash: a glass underfoot, a thumb in a car door.
It’s important that everybody knows.
“It’s bad,” he sighs, “really bad.”
“Yup,” says Kent.
“I wish I could tell her,” says Giant Nut Head, with deep mystery. “I can’t. But if I could…”
“Uh huh,” says Maddy.
Giant Nut Head chuckles. “Well. Thus always ’twere love!”
“Mm,” says Kent, looking at Maddy, who is desperate to fuck if this kid would just leave.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
She’s captured her dreams in a Mason jar, boiled and sealed. When Genji holds it up to the lamp she can just make out shapes: distortions, birdlike, beating against the glass.
“I can give you seventy dollars,” says Genji, and the woman across the counter tightens.
“You can’t do eighty,” she says, unable to make it a question.
“Seventy,” says Genji, as gently as she can.
They trade. Genji opens a low cabinet to stack it with the others.
“I’ve got thirty days,” says the woman, “to buy it back?”
“That’s right,” says Genji, but they never do, they never do.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Like most people, Carrigan spent kidhood skinned into tigers and foxes: it takes puberty to know for sure that his birth body isn’t right. Too tall, too light, rigged with dubious external plumbing. He’s older, for one thing, and heavier, more centered. These things are certain.
So when he’s ready, at fourteen, he steps into the chamber and skins the aspect of a white-haired woman, eyes sharp and bold of nose. She loves it. Everyone claps when she comes out. There’s nothing magic about Carrigan’s new body–just time and care and chemistry–but, as with glass footwear, fit matters.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
He’s long since passed terminal velocity, and the shielding glows day and night with air-compression heat. This far down the pit it’s the only light. He is still falling.
Cramped into his tiny cabin, he measures the radio lag in seconds. “You can still turn around,” pleads HQ. “You’re not past the retrieval horizon yet, Atesh.”
“I dive until I stop,” he says, checking the gyroscope status lights. “That was the mission. This is the deal.”
“Everything we know about physics—it has to end sometime. It can’t actually be bottomless!”
But what if it is. What if it is?
Raven lives an hour and forty minutes ahead of Michelle and it makes parties difficult.
“You’re going to be late,” Raven hisses into her phone, trying to be inconspicuous.
“I’m not! I’m getting dressed,” Michelle lies.
“I guarantee you are going to be late. I live in your future. In your future, you are late.”
“GOD. Don’t let them light the cake yet?”
“Love you.”
“You too.”
And upon hangup Michelle breezes in, perfect, greeted with delight and laughter. Her eyes and Raven’s slide past each other, and there’s the old ache again, for this woman whose present she’ll never know.
Boss Monster is four screens tall and its HP meter is just question marks. It’s immune to exile spells and the secondary effect of RUNESWRD, has a 20% chance to resurrect a Crystal Drone each round, and cannot believe they cancelled the Kirksville contract.
“They didn’t like the accrual clause?” it flickers, a palette swap of disbelief. “They wrote the accrual clause!”
“DZZT,” explains the hovering Crystal Drone.
Boss Monster runs a hand through its horns. “>.<;;;. Call our accountant, okay? And use ancient technology to irrevocably alter the timeline so this never happened.”
The accountant has real problems with that.