Iced
Page 105
Unless its behaving in a random, illogical manner driven by absolutely no biological imperativewhich I postulate is antithetical for any sentient life formit has purpose.
I beam, our fight forgotten. Got to love a dude that says stuff like postulate and antithetical! I love hanging with you! I tell him.
He gives me a look thats vintage Dancer but a little wary, so I turn up the wattage on my grin till he grins back.
That purpose may be alien enough, he goes on, to elude ready detection, but its there. Its our methods that are lacking. We have to step outside our box and process the facts with no preconceptions. This thing isnt from our world. It doesnt follow our rules or any laws of physics. It appears capable of opening a portal wherever it feels like it. Ive seen it do it twice now.
You saw it again? Im so fecking jealous I could spit.
Ive been keeping an eye on WeCare, trying to figure who the head honcho is. Nobody seems to know who started the organization up. A few nights ago I went to check out one of their prayer meetings. The church where they were holding it got iced when I was half a block away. One minute they were singing, the next I couldnt hear a thing. Seemed like the whole world went still or I went deaf. I stood in the street and watched. It did exactly the same thing it did at Dublin Castle. Came out of a portal, fogged everything, iced it, opened another portal, and vanished.
I flinch. He was half a block away! What if hed been, like, one single minute earlier? Then I have a worse thought. What if I hadnt been able to find him for a month? Would I have been freeze-framing from one ice sculpture to the next, waiting for them to melt, wondering if Id lost my best friend?
Im suddenly ashamed. Dude. Sorry I was gone so long.
His head whips up and he gives me a grin that fecking slays me. Dude. Thanks. Glad youre back.
I hear you saved my life at the church that night. Youre the Shit.
No, you are.
We grin at each other for what feels like an hour of heaven, and just like that everything is okay between us again.
We start yakking our heads off like nothing was ever wrong. He tells me scoop about new gangs forming in the city. I tell him about the Unseelie Kings library. I cant keep that kind of fascinating stuff to myself. I can tell by how bright his eyes get that hes dying to see it.
He tells me a huge fire-world IFP almost burned the abbey to the ground! It evaporated iron and concrete and if it had made it to the abbey, nothing would have been left. But Ryodans men stopped it by tethering it stationary to the ground somehow. I dont like that its out there by the abbey, tied up or not. It makes me nervous.
I tell him about the Boora-Boora books and he laughs his butt off about me chasingunruly sentences down. He fills me in on how WeCare started painting buildings white to let folks know its one of theirs, and if you go in and sign up, and attend meetings, they give you all kinds of food and stuff. I tell him about Rjan trying to take over as king of the Fae and that the ice monster has a name: the Hoar Frost King. I think its the most weve ever told each other about the daily details of our lives. He tells me food is getting really hard to find. I tell him about the Fae being totally inert at the scenes and about what Rjan said about it killing Seelie and Unseelie deader than dead, wiping them out of all record of existence. I think it might be after folks life force, I tell him.
But why those scenes? How does it select the ones it chooses and why does it ice them? And if it wanted peoples life force, why wouldnt it go where the greatest number were gathered? At some of these scenes, there were only a few people.
You mean like why would it ice the small club beneath Chesters when it could have iced the whole place?
It iced part of Chesters?
That was the first place it iced that I know of. Its the reason Ryodan dragged me into this mess.
It cant be after life force. It took out a church spire, too. There wasnt a single person or Fae at that scene.
Maybe it was just flying over that spire and accidentally iced it. Or maybe there was a tiny life force, like a mouse there, and it was feeling peckish.
He grins. Maybe.
I kind of doubt it, though. I think we should label them by order of occurrence. Maybe thatll help us see something.
What bites, he says, is we cant even tell people something so simple as: stay in small groups and youll be okay. People are scared of their own shadows, Mega. The whole city is on edge, tempers are high, and people are getting into fights over nothing. Weve got to figure out whats going on because if they dont freeze to death first, theyll kill each other. Theyve lost too much and been afraid too long. While you were gone, there were no Dani Dailies getting out, and in times like these, no news isnt good news. People need to believe someone is in the streets watching out for them.
What about WeCare? Arent they taking their job seriously? Dude, when I was gone, they should have stepped up to the plate, put out more issues! A newspapers got a responsibility to the people!
The only thing WeCare is telling people is that they need to take the white and everything will be all right. Half the city is rushing in to blindly embrace faith; the other half isnt buying it. Toss in the shortage of food and water, and the brutal cold, and were going to have riots on our hands any day now.
I beam, our fight forgotten. Got to love a dude that says stuff like postulate and antithetical! I love hanging with you! I tell him.
He gives me a look thats vintage Dancer but a little wary, so I turn up the wattage on my grin till he grins back.
That purpose may be alien enough, he goes on, to elude ready detection, but its there. Its our methods that are lacking. We have to step outside our box and process the facts with no preconceptions. This thing isnt from our world. It doesnt follow our rules or any laws of physics. It appears capable of opening a portal wherever it feels like it. Ive seen it do it twice now.
You saw it again? Im so fecking jealous I could spit.
Ive been keeping an eye on WeCare, trying to figure who the head honcho is. Nobody seems to know who started the organization up. A few nights ago I went to check out one of their prayer meetings. The church where they were holding it got iced when I was half a block away. One minute they were singing, the next I couldnt hear a thing. Seemed like the whole world went still or I went deaf. I stood in the street and watched. It did exactly the same thing it did at Dublin Castle. Came out of a portal, fogged everything, iced it, opened another portal, and vanished.
I flinch. He was half a block away! What if hed been, like, one single minute earlier? Then I have a worse thought. What if I hadnt been able to find him for a month? Would I have been freeze-framing from one ice sculpture to the next, waiting for them to melt, wondering if Id lost my best friend?
Im suddenly ashamed. Dude. Sorry I was gone so long.
His head whips up and he gives me a grin that fecking slays me. Dude. Thanks. Glad youre back.
I hear you saved my life at the church that night. Youre the Shit.
No, you are.
We grin at each other for what feels like an hour of heaven, and just like that everything is okay between us again.
We start yakking our heads off like nothing was ever wrong. He tells me scoop about new gangs forming in the city. I tell him about the Unseelie Kings library. I cant keep that kind of fascinating stuff to myself. I can tell by how bright his eyes get that hes dying to see it.
He tells me a huge fire-world IFP almost burned the abbey to the ground! It evaporated iron and concrete and if it had made it to the abbey, nothing would have been left. But Ryodans men stopped it by tethering it stationary to the ground somehow. I dont like that its out there by the abbey, tied up or not. It makes me nervous.
I tell him about the Boora-Boora books and he laughs his butt off about me chasingunruly sentences down. He fills me in on how WeCare started painting buildings white to let folks know its one of theirs, and if you go in and sign up, and attend meetings, they give you all kinds of food and stuff. I tell him about Rjan trying to take over as king of the Fae and that the ice monster has a name: the Hoar Frost King. I think its the most weve ever told each other about the daily details of our lives. He tells me food is getting really hard to find. I tell him about the Fae being totally inert at the scenes and about what Rjan said about it killing Seelie and Unseelie deader than dead, wiping them out of all record of existence. I think it might be after folks life force, I tell him.
But why those scenes? How does it select the ones it chooses and why does it ice them? And if it wanted peoples life force, why wouldnt it go where the greatest number were gathered? At some of these scenes, there were only a few people.
You mean like why would it ice the small club beneath Chesters when it could have iced the whole place?
It iced part of Chesters?
That was the first place it iced that I know of. Its the reason Ryodan dragged me into this mess.
It cant be after life force. It took out a church spire, too. There wasnt a single person or Fae at that scene.
Maybe it was just flying over that spire and accidentally iced it. Or maybe there was a tiny life force, like a mouse there, and it was feeling peckish.
He grins. Maybe.
I kind of doubt it, though. I think we should label them by order of occurrence. Maybe thatll help us see something.
What bites, he says, is we cant even tell people something so simple as: stay in small groups and youll be okay. People are scared of their own shadows, Mega. The whole city is on edge, tempers are high, and people are getting into fights over nothing. Weve got to figure out whats going on because if they dont freeze to death first, theyll kill each other. Theyve lost too much and been afraid too long. While you were gone, there were no Dani Dailies getting out, and in times like these, no news isnt good news. People need to believe someone is in the streets watching out for them.
What about WeCare? Arent they taking their job seriously? Dude, when I was gone, they should have stepped up to the plate, put out more issues! A newspapers got a responsibility to the people!
The only thing WeCare is telling people is that they need to take the white and everything will be all right. Half the city is rushing in to blindly embrace faith; the other half isnt buying it. Toss in the shortage of food and water, and the brutal cold, and were going to have riots on our hands any day now.
