“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” asks Rita.
“We checked the rest of the tape through everything we’ve got,” sighs Mary, rubbing her eyes. “Virgin white noise. No encryption, no watermark. Whoever left this wanted us to see only this fifteen seconds of… nothing.”
“Not nothing,” says Tina. “The inside of a security center where every instrument shows nothing.”
Rita watches as they rewind and play it again, until it cuts to static.
“Guys?” she says slowly. “What kind of person doesn’t show up on any instrument?”
“A dead one,” says Sandra.
“Right,” says Rita. “So who do we know that’s dead?”
“Napoleon couldn’t pee outdoors!” Li gasps, and collapses into giggles. Connor grabs the bottle and swallows, sloppy. They’re fifteen and not exactly drunk.
Connor shudders and blurts out “Bill Gates does ecstasy on weekends!”
Teena gets it next, as Li collapses again. “The Army tried to invent a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers gay!”
It’s Dave’s turn, but he refuses. “That shit’s dangerous,” he mutters.
Jamie takes it instead. “Connor’s dad masturbates to Li’s yearbook picture!”
She tries to cover her mouth, too late. Connor looks ill. Li gags.
“Told you,” says Dave sourly, snatching the truth and corking it.
Thursday, February 3, 2005
“Okay, you say it first,” says Ruth.
“Catholic,” says Rhi. It sounds like a word; it reminds Ruth vaguely of incense.
“Now you,” she says.
“Catholic,” says Topaz, and in her mouth it’s filthy: a shirt untucked and a sullen pout, short plaid skirts, guilt and rulers; cigarettes in a grubby green bathroom–her first tampon, secrets, the hungry eyes of bullies. It sounds like too late on a Friday night, passing around filched peppermint schnapps, bad lighting and whispering the Hail Mary while somebody feels you up.
“See?” says Ruth.
“No!” says Rhi.
“Is my favorite flavor,” Topaz adds, grinning.
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
“If it’s true love,” insists Evany. “It’ll happen. You know? If it’s meant to be.”
Two tables over, Inez scoffs quietly. “God. Please.”
“She’s entitled to an opinion,” Bonn murmurs.
“That’s not an opinion,” says Inez. “That’s a dull empty cow-thought. That is a thought that a cow would think.”
“Look at me!” Ori says, mocking her from just out of earshot. “Ooh, I’m bitter! I’m jaded! Ooh!” She flips imaginary hair, and Ferdinand grins agreement.
And Rae, in the farthest corner, smiles and traces Ferdinand’s fingers with her eyes; and draws them on her napkin; and says nothing at all.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Machine leans on his remaining chainsaw and shudders. His servos are dying. The Maiden appears before him, holding her simple sword.
“I destroyed your home,” he grinds. “I slaughtered innocents to draw you out, but you I cannot touch. Now I decay, and I cannot stop hunting you! Why not end this? Why do you only watch?”
“Observation changes the thing observed,” she says.
“But I can’t change you!” His dorsal flamethrowers belch frustration.
“Then I must be nothing,” she says.
Machine understands, then. “I wish,” he groans, “to destroy nothing.”
She nods. Machine’s cameras flicker, and go dark at last.
Barrister only exhales when they rematerialize in the darkened Louvre. “Made it,” he sighs. “And got rid of the Extinctioners at last!”
“They won’t be slipstreaming again,” agrees Verla, checking around for guards. “I just hope we didn’t alter the timeline much.”
Barrister shrugs and sits down to undo the latches on his jet boots. “It wasn’t a designated Flux Period,” he says. “Surely Chronastromy HQ would have informed us–”
“We have to go back,” says Mario hoarsely. “We have to go back now.”
“What?” says Verla.
But Mario just points one trembling finger at Mona Lisa’s bloody, sharp-fanged grin.
Betty and Idaho mingle into each other at a cocktail party. A fish cocktail party. Because they’re fish.
(Fishes?)
(Fish.)
“I’m working on a new fiction,” Betty says casually. “Kind of a metaphysical adventure.”
Idaho blinks, which is how fish nod. “Yeah? What’s the premise?”
Betty needs little prodding. “Well, you know the Ick? Its scientific name actually depends on the use of ours. Ichthyophthirius. Ichthyo. See? It’s like–our worst fear is only an extension of ourselves.”
Idaho blinks again, impressed.
“Just something I came up with a while back.” Betty sips her fish-margarita. “Fresh, huh?”
“Way fresh,” says Idaho.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Grumpy Tim Coe finds a Platonic form on his porch. It’s The Circle. It’s glassy white. Its edge is sharp as nothing.
Grumpy Tim Coe shows The Circle to some scientists. “Harrumph,” they say. “Mere philosophy.”
He shows it to some philosophers. “Oh,” they say, “the concrete is for artists.”
He shows it to some artists. “A meaningless exercise in form,” they say. “Go away.”
Grumpy Tim Coe goes home. He takes The Circle out to his back yard. He sets it on a stump.
“Am I not justified?” he asks the world, grumpily, and then smashes it with a bat.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Austin lets the hot water beat her neck like she’s supposed to, only it doesn’t really relax anything. It just beats.
She grimaces, then tastes copper again. Stupid. Has to keep her face still. She spits the blood on the floor of the shower, where it momentarily has some substance: a coagulant swirl, like a jellyfish, like the eggs Rocky used to down–a bit of life. Then it’s gone.
It’s already clotting. Will it ever stop, she wonders. Will they ever give up? She imagines tired little gnomes, grumbling and shoring, healing forever in the endless onionskin of her lips.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
When Luck wakes up, Blot’s standing outside the bars of the wagon.
“Are you,” he shakes his head. “What are you doing here?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t have any more bread.”
“You pushed me away,” she says. Luck notices that she’s trembling; she looks exhausted. Her boots are too big, stolen. She must have been following the caravan for days. “With one finger and now I burn, I can’t rest until I’m near you. What did you do?”
“I didn’t,” he says. “I…” He stops, because he sees it now: on her forehead, his fingerprint, worked in new pink scar.