The elves tower over Klaus, but he’s a bulwark among them, face as bright as his red suit of particle armor. “You’ve checked the alignment?” he growls through his helmet mic.
“To ninety digits of precision,” flutes the elf chief. “There will be no interference from the planet’s field during acceleration.”
“Christ, I wish we could do this anywhere else,” Klaus mutters. “All right. Strap me in. Merry goddamn Christmas.”
The railsled slams out of the tube with a crackle of ions. Behind it, the workshop’s slow spider legs creep onward, following the magnetic pole at twenty-five miles per year.
Monday, December 25, 2006
There’s a peculiar crackling of electricity, and mysterious blue smoke issues from the breaker box. It pools like oil on the floor and pillows forward, wrapping the rickety banister, up the stairs to the foyer. It congeals into a fat little man in a loincloth.
“Hello,” says the cat, watching.
“Hail!” says the little man. “I am Sextus Spiritus, itinerant household god. Whose abode is this?”
“The big bipeds’ upstairs,” says the cat.
Sextus peers at it. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me that you allow them to live here?”
“Are you kidding?” snorts the cat. “They could kick my ass.”
Friday, December 22, 2006
“More after I finish my essay,” Charisma promises the adoring crowd, who sigh and aww. She rerobes and pockets the cash before turning to Racell, who’s scribbling in her reporter’s notebook.
“You don’t even dance?” asks Racell. “You just… pose for money?”
“Like a life drawing class,” smiles Charisma as they walk to her dorm. “Sans the middleman.”
Racell nods, fascinated. “And the money’s supported you in earning–what, three PhDs?”
“Maybe four, if I ever get started writing!”
They shake hands; Charisma closes the door, sits, breathes, and opens Word.
This is my esasy! she types. the theses is: HITLERS
Thursday, December 21, 2006
But Dracula doesn’t contact her by midnight, or the midnight after that. Mina scowls at the flimsiness of honor for hire and goes about life as she has for weeks now: working, making tea, missing Lucy. Wondering.
Who’d kidnap her, and why? No ransom. No evidence. Resources to hire disappearing twins and turn her apartment upside down. Long arms, she thinks.
Resources. Long arms. Conspiracy.
She bursts into Dracula’s office the second time with a wild eye, not sure whether to accuse him or save him, but he’s not there: only a ragged man, giggling, eating a rat on his desk.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
RESULTS: MODS CLAIM HOUSE FROM ROCKERS! chokes the headline before Freddy rips the paper in two and lets it flutter dramatically away. Then he kicks his bike.
“Those scootering cunts! We’ll never have a decent speed limit again!” moans Chuck. “Let alone the radio. What will we do, Freddy?”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do.” Freddy throws his scarf back over his shoulder. “We’re going to grow out of faddish politics, and let a younger generation find common ground in a new ethos called ‘punk.’”
He stands there for a while, fluttering.
“Isn’t that the same as losing?” says Chuck hesitantly.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Six, quite rudely, cuts Seven short: “I don’t recall your drawing the Orator.”
“The Architect is permitted to explain the shape of things to come,” huffs Seven. “Obligated, really.”
“But Six is the Advocate,” says Three, “can’t be blamed for fomenting dissent.”
“I think this whole roles-by-lots business is ridiculous,” says Five.
“The old system was biased!” says Four. “Bidding can be gamed, but drawing lots gives the whole business up to the hand of chance.”
Two nods. “We are nothing if we are not equal.”
Then why can we be put in order, asks One, but not aloud.
Monday, December 18, 2006
