Hmmm.... said everything I had to say in last issue's blurb.
Oh yeah! Netscape is so jammed with people right now that it won't let me
access its newsgroups, so this is getting posted from Ian's AOL account.
You can still sned all crtiticisms and stuff to me at
jwhitson@netvoyage.net 'kay?
Here we go!
Thanks to the reviewers of issue fourteen:
Jamas Enright
Ian Porell
Pam VanMuijen
Carolyn Vaughan
Martin Phipps
H. Jameel al Khafiz
=========================================================================
DERELICT Press Presents
The fifteenth issue of
/~~\/~~\ {] /~~\ (^^^ || ***** /~~\
/ /\/\ \ [) ~\__ (^^ || ,' ~\__
/__/ \__\ (} \__/ ( || ', \__/
" Doubleback "
A psuedo-Acraphobe title
._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.'COVER`._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
The JBoNV and Censor Girl stand outside Frank's Jewelry Shack. The
Shack itself looks a little worse for wear. Mr.Exposition is grinning
evily at the reader, and HHW Jr. snickers into her hand. Explosion Boy is
watching Censor Girl suspiciously, while she herself is looking smug.
Dust is pointing at the reader and laughing. Cheerful lot, aren't they?
)()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
Savannah carefully pulled the bent paperclip out of the door lock
and shoved it into her jeans pocket. The lock loomed at the center of her
vision, made of a dull brasslike metal, the edges of rust just beginning
to nip around it's rim. There was a thin, oddly shaped slit, through
which the a key was supposed to go. The sun had almost set, and it was
too low in the sky for any of its rays to strike the edges of the tiny
orifice, outlining one side of it in a pale metallic line, stopping
abruptly as the edge of the hole dropped away into the innards of the
lock. There was only the faintest ovoid highlight at one of it's edges,
near a trailing wisp of one of the rust lines, probably caused by a
streetlamp or corner light off to her left. It lit up individual
imperfections in the metal, revealing it to be not an unending plane of
brass, but more like tiny slivers of it, pressed together into whatever
shape had been needed.
Savannah took a deep breath, and began to unfocus bit by bit,
widening the edges of her vision until she could see the handle of the
door, an inch and a half below the lock, and most of a piece of the
doorjamb, a dingy gray colored thing that had probably been white, at one
time or another. She reached up with her left hand and twisted the
handle, it's metal cold in her palm.
She would have to move quietly. Brittany had told her to stay
outside the store, to watch in case any of the villains attempted to
evade capture. Savannah smiled a little to herself. She had seen Brit
shift nervously under her gaze, watched the subtle muscle jerks and
twitches of the eyes that told her Brittany was lying. Savannah knew her
cousin was only worried about her, and didn't want her to get hurt, and
she appreciated the thought. She _knew_ that what she was doing right now
prbably wasn't the smartest of moves, and that she might get hurt because
of it. But she was net.heroine too, even if she hadn't done anything
particularly heroic yet. So here she was, sneaking in the back.
She pushed the door open slowly, dragging her gaze off the lock
as it swung away from her, and moved her focus point down towards the
ground in front of her. It was white linoleum, splattered with grey and
black in an odd attempt at style. It was discolored where the surface of
the linoleum pimpled inwards, the tiny depressions clogged with grime and
dust. It probably hadn't been swept since the store was first opened. But
at least there wasn't any debris lying about.
Savannah dropped to her knees and began to crawl swiftly towards
the end of the hallway, under the assumption that it would open into the
main body of the store. She could move faster this way, and since she was
already very close to the ground it was almost impossible for her to
trip and fall. Then the linoleum stopped, curling up slightly at its edge
to reveal the barest hint of unfineshed floorboards and an odd-looking
yellow glue. Caramel brown tiles with chocolate colored streaks replaced
the linoleum, the one in front of her cracked at its corner.
Savannah placed her palm gently against the wall and stood, her
gaze still locked onto the floor at her feet. She lifted it up, along the
floor, past the jewelry cabinets that clerks stood behind, with cardboard
backing and tinny metal edges, and up into the wreck that was the main
store. And there she saw Kismet.
The winged girl was bent over almost backwards, balancing on the
balls of her feet, knees only two and half inches off the ground. Her
wings were open wide, their ends out of the range of Savannah's focus
point. Her hands were cloaked in a set odd metal gauntlets, tightly
wrapped around a cyborg-type wrist. The owner of the cyborg arm had its
hand around Kismet's throat, and it was tightening even as Savannah
watched. She could hear Kismet's frantic attempts to suck in air, and
the faint chiming of her metal feathers as her wings jerked back and
forth. Savannah didn't see Brit anywhere.
She'd have to manage on her own.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Brittany was rolling around on the floor, covering her eyes with
her hands and kicking out wildly, trying to hit Dust as the
net.villainess threw cloud after cloud of debris bits towards her. She
couldn't see, could hardly breath, and she could hear the quick patter of
approaching footsteps. Someone was coming towards her, one of the
net.villains. It sounded like the little girl in the cloak, she thought
to herself. Which gave her an idea.
Brittany rolled over again, onto her kness, trying to ignore the
pain in her throat as she sucked in a deep breath of air. She turned in
the general direction she could hear the footsteps approaching from, and
screamed.
" BOO! RAAAAAAAAWRRRRRR!!!" she shouted, trying to make menacing
motions with her arms. Hooded Ho'od Win Jr. shrieked and skittered
backwards until she hit a patch of shadows, where she disapeared from
sight.
" Janey! Come back here!" yelled Dust, a second before she
realized that yelling like that would reveal her location to the blinded
net.heroine. Brittany tackled her again. Dust looked up at Brittany,
decided she didn't want to get hit by a stuffed fish again, and dropped
the dust cloud voluntarily. Brit paused for a splitsecond second grin at
her, then she was up and running towards Censor Girl and Kismet.
The winged girl looked the worse for wear. She was on the edge of
blacking out, and her hands had slipped from Censor Girl's wrists to
dangle down towards the ground. Brittany prepared for another flying
tackle, in the hopes that it would make the cyborg loosen her grip. She
was almost into the air when Mr.Exposition's plot hook came sailing out
of the back end of the store.
Brit skidded to a stop, almost falling over as her kinetic energy
caught up with the rest of her. The hook swung into Censor Girl's arm,
it's point lodging in the servos that led to her wrist. Someone dragged
on the string, forcing the hook's point further into CG's arm. Censor
Girl's hand lost all power, and Kismet dropped heavily to the floor.
Censor Girl looked emotionlessly at the sparks flying from her
arm then turned to see who held the end of the line. A blond girl stood
at the back of the store, her hands wrapped around the hook's line,
staring with unnatural steadiness at Censor Girl's arm. The cyborg smiled
to herself, grabbed the hook with her real hand, then wrapped the line
around her cyborg arm a few times. The stupid girl didn't even realize
what she was doing. Just becuase CG couldn't use her hand, didn't mean
that the rest of her arm was useless.
In one swift motion she took a step back and swung her cyborg arm
up, throwing as much of her power as she could into it. Savannah knew
what was coming the instant she felt the cord around her hands go tight,
and slammed her eyes shut. Her arms almost got yanked out of her sockets,
and for a second she was airborne. Then she slammed into the side of the
counter the clerks stood behind, her side going hot with pain. The cyborg
kept pulling at the cord, reeling her in like a fish, dragging her up
onto the counter and across it.
Savannah felt her shoulders drop off the edge of the counter,
tried to swing her legs around in time to catch herself as she fell, and
didn't make it. She hit the ground shoulder first, compounding any
bruises or hurts she'd already recieved when the cyborg yanked her into
the air. Then she heard a loud snap, and her hands dropped to the ground
as the line went limp.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Censor Girl froze, eyes glaring hatefully at the net.heroine
before her. Brittany stood between the cyborg and Savannah, glaring back,
one piece of the line in each of her hands, the ends a little frayed
where she had broken it in two.
" Do you think you can do any better than either of your friends,
litle girl?" laughed Censor Girl. Off to the side Dust smiled smugly as a
cloud of debris began to rise around the net.heroine. Without looking,
her gaze still locked in Censor Girl's, Brittany stabbed a finger
outwards, pointing it at Dust angrily.
" Don't even think about it," she hissed. The debris dropped back
to the ground. Brittany dropped the pieces of line she held, and drew her
chosen weapon with her left hand. Her other rock-stuffed fish was
somewhere on the floor, from when she pitched it at Mr.Exposition, so she
had only one. Behind her Savannah propped herself up on her elbows, eyes
still tightly shut, and began to take stock of her wounds.
" Well?" asked Censor Girl, spreading her arms.
" Ummm.... heh," said Brittany, tring to think of something
interesting to say that would buy more time. She couldn't take a cyborg
on all alone with only _one_ of her fuzzy blackjack-like fish. " I think
that - "
Suddenly Censor Girl's cybernetic arm was hurtling towards her as
villainess attempted a sucker-punch. Brittany wasn't fast enough to get
out of the way, and the arm slammed into her shoulder, knocking her to
the ground. As soon as she hit, Brittany lashed out with her leg and made
contact with the cyborg's real knee. Censor Girl's leg buckled underneath
and she fell over, and Brittany swung the fish up to slam into
villainess's descending skull. The fish thokked solidly on the cybernetic
side of her head, blacking out half of her vision for a moment and
throwing a few of her minor systems out of whack. Brittany realized her
mistake a second too late, as the semi-conscious cyborg came down
directly on top of her. As soon as Censor Girl got her systems back in
order, Brit was going to be in trouble. The net.heroine sighed and
carefully began to extricate herself.
By now Savannah had finished checking herself over. Nothing
broken. Lots bruised, but nothing broken. Kismet was still on the floor
where Censor Girl had dropped her, sucking in deep breahts of air.
" Kismet, are you alright?" called Savannah. The winged girl
didn't answer for a moment. "Kismet?"
" I'm... I'm... very..." rasped the girl, getting slowly to her
feet.
" Kismet?"
" ANGRY!" she stood bracing herself with her wings, eyes narrowed
to slits.
Mr.Exposition was leaning against the wall in the corner,
glaring. They'd ruinded his only weapon, and he wasn't about to get into
hand-to-hand with any of those psycho LNHers. HHW Jr. crept out of the
shadows at the other side of the room, looking around timidly, saw
Kismet, practically glowing with rage, and disapeared again. Dust
growled something about being the only _real_ villain her, and sent
another cloud of debris sailing towards the nearby Kismet.
Kismet spun unsteadily and launched herseld at Dust, swung one
wing around and clobbered her with it. The debris cloud dropped to the
ground again. By now, Brittany was almost entirely out from underneath
Censor Girl. Then the cyborg's real hand clenched around her ankle. Brit
gulped.
Censor Girl lifted her head and smiled evilly at Brit, a second
before Kismet's foot slammed into her neck.
" You _touched_ me," growled the winged girl, and slashed
Censor's Girl's face with the clawed gauntlet on her left hand. The
cyborg lashed out with her leg, catching Kismet in the midsection and
sending her stumbling backwards. Brittany lept to her feet and prepared
to attack again.
" You stay out of this, insect-girl!" yelled Kismet," This is
_my_ fight!" Brittany blinked. Kismet threw a wing out to steady herself
and drew in a shaky breath. She realized that this world had different
customs than her world. She realized that the people here acted
differently than she would in many situations. But this was going too
far. Back at home _any_ attempt at bodily contact, without first
observing the proper series of requests and counter-requests, was
considered cause for attack. And this was far more than a simple brush of
the hand against someone's arm.
By now Censor Girl was on her feet again, trying to keep her
weight off the leg Brittany had kicked. Kismet's jaw dropped open, and
she threw herself at the villainess again, sun filtered through the
broken glass of the store's front window, flashing for the barest instant
against her wings. Censor Girl swung her cybernetic arm around with
enough force behind it to snap Kismet's neck, whether her hand servos
worked or not. But Kismet blocked in time, throwing her wing forwards,
metal feathers screaming and bending under the force of the blow.
Kismet's eyes narrowed even more, if that was possible, and the cyborg
smiled at her triumphantly.
It was into this situation that Explosion Boy entered, appearing
in the door to the shop with an air of guilt hovering around him.
" EVERYBODY!" he yelled, hands cupped around his mouth," We're
cleared! Mission accomplished, let's haul butt outta here!" Kismet's
concentration wavered for an instant, and Censor Girl took advantage of
the chance and head-butted her, following up with a quick kick to the
stomach as the net.heroine stumbled backwards. Then as Kismet lay sucking
in breath on the ground, the cyborg turned and strode casually towards
the door, batting the fish that Brittany hurled at her away without a
second thought.
As if a switch had been suddenly turned off, the JBoNV flooded
towards the door. Hooded Ho'od Win Jr. emerged from her patch of shadows
and was out the door hfaster than you can blink. Mr. Exposition had
Dust's arm wrapped around his shoulders and was through the door right
afterwards, smiling vindictively.
" What do you mean "mission accomplished"?" asked Brittany
dangerously, trying to feel around the floor for the fish she pitched at
Mr.Exposition and look imposing at the same time.
" Foolish net.heros! You have fallen for our Evil Plot! Hahaha,"
yelled Mr.Exposition grandly. Brit snorted.
"You may note that there are only four of us here today, where
once there were seven! All the whiles we were fighting, a bank across
town has fallen to our other three comrades in Evil!! You fools! You
incompetent foo - " was all he had time to say, as Brit found the fallen
fish, and put it immediatley to use.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
" She didn't have to hit me so hard!" whined Mr.Exposition,
rubbing the back of his head as they walked down the street.
" If it'd shut you up, she can hit you however hard she wants,"
muttered Dust, kicking at a stray can on the sidewalk. She had a bruise
darkening on the side of her face.
" I thought it was fun," whispered Hooded Ho'od Win Jr.
" You would."
" Dust..." said Explosion Boy warningly. He looked tired. " Don't
snap at Janey. It isn't _her_ fault we lost."
" Oh yeah? What's that supposed to mean?!"
" It means just that! We _lost_ the fight!"
" Actually," interjected Mr.Exposition," I think it was more of
a tie. They didn't look too hot towards the end of it either."
" Speaking of which, where were _you_ during most of the fight,
Bryan?" asked Dust, watching Explosion Boy accusingly. He glanced away
guiltily.
" I was, uh, checking for more net.heroes trying to sneak in the
back."
" THEN HOW DID ONE GET IN THE BACK?!" screamed Dust.
" One what?!"
" While you were out "watching our backs" you coward, Out-of-It
Lass was coming in the back way. If she hadn't nailed Censor Girl's arm
with Mr.Exposition's stupid Plot hook, we could of won that fight!"
" Out-of-It Lass is the one who won the battle for them?"
" My Plot Hooks are NOT stupid!"
" SHUT UP!" yelled Dust, whacking Mr.Exposition on the back of
the head with her hand.
" And then, as an added indignity," continued Mr.Expostion,
holding up the metal hook that had played so important a part in the
battle," Weirdness Girl snapped the hook's plotline!" Everyone groaned.
" That was worse than the _original_ pun, you moron!" said Dust.
" I liked it," sniffled HHW Jr.
" Out-of-It Lass is the one who won the battle? Gee..." said
Explosion Boy. Then he shook himself and looked around. "It doesn't
matter whether or not we won or lost. All we had to do was keep them busy
while everybody else robbed that bank. Mission accoplished. We've got
enough money to go it on our own for a while, and maybe even start on our
own secret base."
" Really?" asked HHW Jr. She looked exited at the idea of a
secret base.
" Really," smiled Explosion Boy back. He was glas the
conversation had wandered away from his mysterious abscence during the
middle of the battle. That would have been hard to explain...
-=ð=- -=ð=-
She walked silently behind the four members of the Junior
Brotherhood, a drop of blood beginning to move slowly down her cheek from
the slashes that winged girl had given her. The battle was over, and she
had gained the few allies she would need. And now she had things to do
elsewhere.
- whrrrrrr * click -
Censor Girl froze, standing stock-still in the middle of the
sidewalk. This wasn't where she'd been before. She had been watching the
people inside the little building, fighting. Her face hurt. She reached
up to touch it with her cybernetic arm, stopping to stare in dismay at
her hand, hanging limply from her wrist. Someone had ruined it! She let
that arm drop back to her side, then reached up and brushed her cheek
with her real hand. Her cheek felt wet, and she brought her fingers back
in front of her face to look at them. They were red with blood. She
looked at the red coating her fingers in horror.
" NOOOOOOOOOO! I don't understand! I don't understand!" she
wailed, dropping to her knees. The JBoNV stopped and stared at their
once-silent ally in surprise.
Censor Girl sniffled miserably, a single tear dropping her from
her real eye and moving slowly down the side of her face, mixing with the
blood. Her mind felt different inside, odd. Like she could sense things
farther away than she could before, see things that shouldn't have been
able to. But she couldn't touch any of it. The very same as those other
parts of her mind, blocked off and locked away. She hated it! SHE HATED
IT!!
She didn't want to black out or go spacey or whatever. She didn't
want to be bloody. She didn't want things going on inside her that she
didn't understand. She just wanted Mr.Killfile to come and tell her what
to do again. But he wasn't there.
And she was alone.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Kismet fumed silently as they walked back to the hovercycle,
pedestrians everywhere looking at her warily. Savannah winced as she
walked and leaned a bit more heavily on Brittany's arm. Her side was
still hurting, and she felt like one of her shoulders had fallen prey to
a boa constrictor. Brittany had mentioned something about carrying her
to the cycle, but Savannah had waved her off. She could get out there
herself, if she just had someone to give her a little help.
They moved slowly towards the corner around which Brittany had
parked. Almost there -
" Hey!" called Brittany," Look!!" She was pointing towards where
her bike sat, leaning up against a telephone pole. The bike itself was
fine, as were its surroundings. It was the thirty-flower boquet of white
roses on the cycle's seat that caught them off guard.
Brittany dragged Savannah over to them, staring at them in
wonder. Could this be from the same person who had sent Paytan those
flowers? But Paytan wasn't with them right now, didn't they know that?
Who could of -
" Brittany? Someone has left some shrubbery on your automobile,"
said Kismet.
" It's a gesture of appreciation, Kismet," explained Brit
absentmindedly, picking up the little card attached to the boquet with
one hand and opening it. She read the card and grinned. Then she
carefully disattached Savannah from her arm, letting her cousin lean up
against the bike, and lifted the flowers.
" Someone sent you flowers?" asked Savannah, eyes glued to the
pure white roses.
" No cuz," smiled Brittany impishly, giving Savannah the armful
of roses," Someone sent _you_ flowers."
________________________________________________________________________
Binky, The Jr.Brotherhood of Net.Villains, Kismet, Out-of-It Lass,
Weirdness Girl, copyright Jennifer Whitson, 1995. Censor Girl is Public
Domain.
Next Issue:
That time of year again, as presents are bought, snow falls, and
eggnog is merrily spiked by anyone handy.
=========================================================================
Descrii@aol.com
"All that which we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream"
-E.A.Poe
