Blaze
"Well," April says, still typing like crazy at her computer. "The fire spread prediction system keeps vomiting up segfaults when I include the schematics for Summer Kingdom, and all the threads I find online that look related have no replies and were posted six years ago and on different operating systems, and--"
You reach over and mime pressing the 'work-fun' switch located on her nose.
"Boop," you announce.
She stops typing and hands you a blue pill.
It's cold.
You ask her what it is. She says she was hoping you knew.
"Some guy pressed it into my hands at a party last night," she says. "Says it was homegrown, whatever that mean. Down it, see what it does?"
Or trick somebody else into taking it, you say.
She nods. "Let me know how that study turns out," she says, returning to the computer.
You mime pressing the 'work-fun' switch again, then ponder the pill back at your desk.
Funny Bunny hisses as soon as you sit down.
He doesn't like that pill one bit.
Hawkins
"Is it correct," Huburtus says, appearing by your desk after you finish your speech. "That you had a problem with tracking down the tracking of the letter?"
You nod, not one to disguise your faults.
"Have you applied," Huburtus says. "The science of graphology?"
You make an awkward joke.
He laughs indulgently.
"Would you believe," he says, pressing an A4 sheet with a name (Rosales Caro), address (445 Westpoint Drive), and bloodtype (A+) onto your desk. "That this is your suspect?"
You stare at it.
"Could you please," Huburtus says, smiling. "Question this suspect later in the day?"
Shouldn't it be you and Huburtus?
"Hm," he says.
Huburtus leaves, trailing his hand across desks. When he reaches SK8R Cop, lost in thought, he pats him on the back and gives him a congratulatory platitude.
SK8R Cop then leaps up, hops a coupla desks, then flies out the door.
No-one minds except you.
You trail after him, opening the door to the hallway, when you find SK8R Cop on the ground, twisting and jerking and frothing at the mouth.
The next few seconds are a blur. You remember kicking open the door to the bathroom, and shoving a hand down SK8R Cop's throat, and him vomiting into the toilet. When he comes round, you're not sure what happened to him, so you tell him it kinda looked like a seizure.
You've never been this close to him.
Then, the door squeaks open.
You realize two things:
This is the woman's bathroom.
Steely Dan and Cutthroat are here.
And they're having a conversation you really shouldn't be hearing.
Sugar
And right when Roberto decides the only way to be with his lost love Olivia is by submitting to the whims of the dastardly occultist witch slash fellow surgeon Tarota, your phone rings.
"Hey dad," your stepdaughter, Rosales, says. "Are you still breaking into Summer Kingdom?"
You gasp; how does she know!?
"Daaad," she says. "You drunkdialed me and told me all your plans. I don't know how many times I have to tell you, dad, you are bad at keeping secrets."
Alright, alright. But don't tell your mother, she's a very fragile woman.
How is she, by the way?
"She's fine, dad," Rosales says. "About as okay as she can be when her daughter's nbfriend got her house burnt down and put into a coma by the Chief of Police. And you know, I'm fine too. I totally didn't try firebombing the city hall until you talked me out of it with a really shitty metaphor about your stupid telenovelas."
How dare her! It's the greatest artform of whatever century this is!
"Whatever, dad," Rosales says. "Anyway, you want help with committing a crime? I know you're the expert and all, being a cop in this shitty berg."
You thank her profusely, but don't need it.
"Ooh, I think you do," Rosales says. "Sauli drunkdialled me right after you did to tell me he's gonna conduct some weird shit at Summer Kingdom tonight and he doesn't want anyone hanging around there, so if he sees you he's gonna be like, pissed. And he will see you since he's got guys with pipes who will beat the shit out of you and your asshole cop friends. Buuut, since he's my birthdad, maybe I could convince him not to bring the guys, since who the hell would want to break into a creepy amusement park in the middle of the night?"
You're sensing a but here.
"Well dad, you know that really ambitious boss you have who you keep going on about her dark secret?" she says. "Maybe like, use that as pressure to get her to protest against Ryan Roth's policies?"
You couldn't do that; Cutthroat's running scared of being the next one.
"Daaaaad, if we all run scared, then we won't be able to affect change in the broader political climaaaate," Rosales says. "Just blackmail the shit out of her until she calls Ryan Roth a homophobic dickwad. C'mon, you missed my last three birthdays, you owe me."
SK8R COP
{1+4-1=4}
When you gaze into the abyss, it's like winter never ended.
The room gets cold. The people freeze over. All the walls turn to frosted glass, and behind Jazz Industrial Park, you see refracted and reflected... a golden beating heart, held in the hands of the Queen of the Ice and the Snow.
You take a knee, and extend a hand in deference.
You do not question this.
You do not question anything about this.
"One more task," she creaks. "You shall receive, before absolution."
You ask her the task.
"Done so much," she says. Down her frostbitten cheeks, icicles of tears hang. Her eyes pinned open. "Achieved so little. A sick kickflip cannot make up for the fact that your performance has suffered. Nothing you've done has been as radical as it was with Adam. But a deal was a deal, and shall remain."
You beg of her the task.
"One more task," she says, clutching your heart in her hands. "One more task, until it is finished."
You demand of the task.
"The task shall be--"
Everything burns.
The ice melts.
And you see his face.
Serafin.
"Not that I'm implying," he says. "That you burnt their house down, am I?"
Your shoulder aches.
"And not that I'm implying," he says. "That you did so without regret, am I?"
Your mind aches.
He kneels down to your level as you twist and scream on the floor.
"But what I am implying," he says. "Is that the cold cannot come close to the warmth of life, can it? This pain I'm making you feel right now, it's pretty awe-inspiring, isn't it?"
When you wake up, you're lying in a bathroom stall, Jackie standing over you sweat gleaming off his forehead.
He tells you, you just ran out of the room. He followed you, and he found you there in the hallway, having a seizure.
Almost lost you there, buddy!
Written on the cubicle wall -
Call 555-042 for a radical time.
Cutthroat
"Weird spot for a meeting, Cutthroat," says Roghayeh, trailing her hand across the steel sink in the woman's bathroom.
You tell her it's Ms. Johnson to her.
"Oh, cute!" Roghayeh says. She pops the childlock on a bottle of Blaze Pharma™ Early Riser™ pills and downs a few black and yellows, dry. In return, you take the batteries out of the fire alarm and light up a Diamond Black cigarette. "You know, I did love our little sojourn last Christmas, but I'm gonna be a married woman soon enough. And it's really not fair on poor little Prokopy."
You say it's over.
That it never really began in the first place.
She stares at you. First she laughs. Then she glares.
"You know, I could fuck you with one phone call," she says. "One call to the chief and you'll be out of Arson faster than if I had stuck a rocket up your ass. You didn't just dump me there. You don't get that privilege. When and if I have to dump you, it'll be like cutting the rope tying me to an anchor."
You glare at her.
She grins.
"But who doesn't like a bit of bondage?" she says.
Author
Topic: !!NAKED IGNITION!! {IC} (Read 1856 times)