From a close shave to euphoria... your prompts are getting harder and harder to decode! And... I seem to have run over the word limit a little, so this will end up being two posts (sorry). But we move on a bit further :)
Euphoria Adams moved to the door, standing to the side, and carefully looked through the window, moving her head from side to side to get the widest view possible. “They’re both going downstairs,” she said. “No sign of the Inspectral.” “Maybe he went to warn Ethel,” said Collins. He was sure they should be moving, but Adams was still standing at the door as though waiting for something. “I doubt it,” she said. “We’re expendable, didn’t you hear them?” Collins felt his eyes widen. “You believe what they said?” Adam shrugged. “They didn’t know we were listening.” “I… that doesn’t matter!” He stared at her, wondering why she was so willing to believe conversation between two men who were definitely ex-criminals and might still be commiting a crime right now. “It does to me,” said Adams. “I don’t think I’m expendable.” There was a note in her voice, something that grated against Collins’s soul, and anger flared. “Fine,” he said, and Timothy pricked his ears up and wagged his tail once. “Then get out of the way. I’m going to find the Inspectral and this Device. You can do what you want.” He intended to push her out of the way of the door, but Timothy got there first and nudged her aside. As Collins left, checking the stairwell nervously for any signs that Tony or William had hung around there, he thought she looked a little startled. He and Timothy went back to the doors, and then through them into the main meeting room of the Crisis centre. It was as the Inspectral had described: a large rectangular room, wider than it was long, with more folding metal chairs leaning against the wall. The carpet was a red, firm industrial acrylic weave, and there were gouges and tears in it that looked like something heavy had been dragged across it. The Device itself looked like part of a still, or a boiler: a large cylindrical metal cannister mounted on a plinth. From the front it was sparkling and bright and something white and dusty seemed to be crystallising out of the air around it, falling to the carpet like powdery snow, or maybe dandruff. As Collins walked in his pace slowed, and he found himself moving to the side automatically, feeling as though there was a warmth like sunlight on his skin. Euphoria surged. As he stopped being in front of the Device the sensation faded, and he saw that around the back there was a festoon of coloured wires that connected the Device to the plinth. The back of the plinth was missing, and as he moved to get a better look he could see something the size and shape of a car battery on the floor and electrician’s tools scattered next to it. The Inspectral was kneeling there, peering inside.
“I don’t know what any of this does,” said the Inspectral softly. “There must be bits that if removed, or broken, would stop them fixing it, but I don’t know what they are.” He moved a ghostly hand towards the plinth and the buzzing sound changed pitch. “That’s a worry too,” he said. “It reacts to ghosts.” Collins, curious, reached out his hand and the buzzing changed again. “Not just ghosts,” he said. “Perhaps anything living?” His ears heard his choice of word and he felt a surge of embarrassment, his face heating up in seconds. The blood in his own ears seemed to roar. “I’m not precisely living,” said the Inspectral, and there was a something that might have been a note of amusement, “but thank-you for the inclusiveness. Still, I would really like to disable this Device before Tony and William get back and can maybe use it for something. What would you suggest?” Collins stared at the circuit boards, the sealed battery-like box, the wires and some shiny crystalline substance that seemed spread around like glue or solder, and received exactly no revelation. He thought hard, and a line from the Heretics of Oxcross jumped into his mind. He dismissed it, but then it came back. “They moved the mobile-phone towers,” he said. “What?” “The book I was reading, it said that the Radiant priests moved the mobile phone towers. The signals must have been wrong somehow. Interfering, maybe?” “That’s an interesting thought,” said the Inspectral. “I’m a ghost though. I don’t have such a gadget.”
Ah, a quick reappearance for the Inspectral, that's nice. And Adams... well, I can see where she's coming from. But I'm glad Collins (and Timothy!) are there to do what's needed to be done.
3 comments:
From a close shave to euphoria... your prompts are getting harder and harder to decode! And... I seem to have run over the word limit a little, so this will end up being two posts (sorry). But we move on a bit further :)
Euphoria
Adams moved to the door, standing to the side, and carefully looked through the window, moving her head from side to side to get the widest view possible.
“They’re both going downstairs,” she said. “No sign of the Inspectral.”
“Maybe he went to warn Ethel,” said Collins. He was sure they should be moving, but Adams was still standing at the door as though waiting for something.
“I doubt it,” she said. “We’re expendable, didn’t you hear them?”
Collins felt his eyes widen. “You believe what they said?”
Adam shrugged. “They didn’t know we were listening.”
“I… that doesn’t matter!” He stared at her, wondering why she was so willing to believe conversation between two men who were definitely ex-criminals and might still be commiting a crime right now.
“It does to me,” said Adams. “I don’t think I’m expendable.”
There was a note in her voice, something that grated against Collins’s soul, and anger flared. “Fine,” he said, and Timothy pricked his ears up and wagged his tail once. “Then get out of the way. I’m going to find the Inspectral and this Device. You can do what you want.” He intended to push her out of the way of the door, but Timothy got there first and nudged her aside. As Collins left, checking the stairwell nervously for any signs that Tony or William had hung around there, he thought she looked a little startled.
He and Timothy went back to the doors, and then through them into the main meeting room of the Crisis centre. It was as the Inspectral had described: a large rectangular room, wider than it was long, with more folding metal chairs leaning against the wall. The carpet was a red, firm industrial acrylic weave, and there were gouges and tears in it that looked like something heavy had been dragged across it. The Device itself looked like part of a still, or a boiler: a large cylindrical metal cannister mounted on a plinth. From the front it was sparkling and bright and something white and dusty seemed to be crystallising out of the air around it, falling to the carpet like powdery snow, or maybe dandruff. As Collins walked in his pace slowed, and he found himself moving to the side automatically, feeling as though there was a warmth like sunlight on his skin. Euphoria surged. As he stopped being in front of the Device the sensation faded, and he saw that around the back there was a festoon of coloured wires that connected the Device to the plinth. The back of the plinth was missing, and as he moved to get a better look he could see something the size and shape of a car battery on the floor and electrician’s tools scattered next to it. The Inspectral was kneeling there, peering inside.
“I don’t know what any of this does,” said the Inspectral softly. “There must be bits that if removed, or broken, would stop them fixing it, but I don’t know what they are.” He moved a ghostly hand towards the plinth and the buzzing sound changed pitch. “That’s a worry too,” he said. “It reacts to ghosts.”
Collins, curious, reached out his hand and the buzzing changed again. “Not just ghosts,” he said. “Perhaps anything living?” His ears heard his choice of word and he felt a surge of embarrassment, his face heating up in seconds. The blood in his own ears seemed to roar.
“I’m not precisely living,” said the Inspectral, and there was a something that might have been a note of amusement, “but thank-you for the inclusiveness. Still, I would really like to disable this Device before Tony and William get back and can maybe use it for something. What would you suggest?”
Collins stared at the circuit boards, the sealed battery-like box, the wires and some shiny crystalline substance that seemed spread around like glue or solder, and received exactly no revelation. He thought hard, and a line from the Heretics of Oxcross jumped into his mind. He dismissed it, but then it came back.
“They moved the mobile-phone towers,” he said.
“What?”
“The book I was reading, it said that the Radiant priests moved the mobile phone towers. The signals must have been wrong somehow. Interfering, maybe?”
“That’s an interesting thought,” said the Inspectral. “I’m a ghost though. I don’t have such a gadget.”
Greg - eh, just keeping you on your toes :)
Ah, a quick reappearance for the Inspectral, that's nice. And Adams... well, I can see where she's coming from. But I'm glad Collins (and Timothy!) are there to do what's needed to be done.
Curious to see what comes next, as always.
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