assault propagated. Storm could picture undersea lava tubes collapsing, tectonic plates shifting far out to sea—
Jizogirl got shakily to her paw-feet, and helped Storm stand on his one good leg.
“Is Mauna Loa dead?” she asked.
“I think so….”
Big menacing shapes moved in the vog around them.
“What now?” she asked hopelessly.
Out of the vog, several anoles and their riders emerged. But they no longer exhibited any direction or purpose or malice. One ape clawed at his slave cap and succeeded in ridding himself of it.
Jizogirl suddenly stiffened. “Oh, no! I just thought—We need to get inland, quickly! Up on the lizard!”
The tractable anole allowed Storm to climb onboard, with an assist from Jizogirl. His broken bones throbbed. She got up behind him, grabbed him around the waist.
“How do we make this buggered thing go?”
Storm pulled his sword out and jabbed it into the anole’s shoulder. The lizard shot off, heading more or less into the interior.
“Can you tell me why this ride is necessary?”
“Tsunami! You prairie dwellers are so dumb!”
“But how?”
“The self-destruct information waves from the antisense bomb propagated faster than the physical collapse itself. When the instructions hit the furthest distal reaches of Mauna Loa out to sea, they rebounded back and met the oncoming physical collapse in mid-ocean. Result: tsunami!”
Up and up the anole skittered, leaving the Kau Desert behind and climbing the slopes of Mauna Loa. It stopped at last, exhausted, and no amount of jabbing could make it resume its flight.
Storm and Jizogirl dismounted and turned back toward the sea, the doe supporting the buck.
With the sea’s recession, the raw steaming seabed lay exposed for several hundred meters out from shore. They saw the Squid sitting lopsided on the muck.
Then the crest of the giant wave materialized on the horizon, all spume and glory and destructive power.
“Are we far enough inland, high enough up?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The tsunami sounded like a billion lions roaring all at once.
Storm turned his face to Jizogirl’s and said, “That kiss you gave me the other night— It was very nice. Can I have another?”
Jizogirl smiled and said, “If it’s not our last, then count on lots more.”
FARMEARTH
I couldn’t wait until I turned thirteen, so I could play FarmEarth. I kept pestering all three of my parents every day to let me download the FarmEarth app into my memtax. What a little makulit I must have been! I see it now, from the grownup vantage of sixteen, and after all the trouble I eventually caused. Every minute with whines like “What difference does six months make?” And “But didn’t I get high marks in all my omics classes?” And what I thought was the irrefutable clincher, “But Benno got to play when he was only eleven!”
“Look now, please, Crispian,” my egg-Mom Darla would calmly answer, “six months makes a big difference when you’re just twelve-point-five. That’s four percent of your life up to this date. You can mature a lot in six months.”
Darla worked as an osteo-engineer, hyper-tweaking fab files for living prosthetics, as if you couldn’t tell.
“But Crispian,” my mito-Mom Kianna would imperturbably answer, “you also came close to failing integral social plectics, and you know that’s nearly as important for playing FarmEarth as your omics.”
Kianna worked as a hostess for the local NASDAQ Casino. She had hustled more drinks than the next two hostesses combined, and been number one in tips for the past three years.
“But Crispian,” my lone dad Marcelo Tanjuatco would irrefutably reply (I had taken “Tanjuatco,” his last name, as mine, which is why I mention it here), “Benno has a different mito-Mom than you. And you know how special and respected Zoysia is, and how long and hard even she had to petition to get Benno early acceptance.”
Dad didn’t work, at least not for anyone but the polybond.
Jizogirl got shakily to her paw-feet, and helped Storm stand on his one good leg.
“Is Mauna Loa dead?” she asked.
“I think so….”
Big menacing shapes moved in the vog around them.
“What now?” she asked hopelessly.
Out of the vog, several anoles and their riders emerged. But they no longer exhibited any direction or purpose or malice. One ape clawed at his slave cap and succeeded in ridding himself of it.
Jizogirl suddenly stiffened. “Oh, no! I just thought—We need to get inland, quickly! Up on the lizard!”
The tractable anole allowed Storm to climb onboard, with an assist from Jizogirl. His broken bones throbbed. She got up behind him, grabbed him around the waist.
“How do we make this buggered thing go?”
Storm pulled his sword out and jabbed it into the anole’s shoulder. The lizard shot off, heading more or less into the interior.
“Can you tell me why this ride is necessary?”
“Tsunami! You prairie dwellers are so dumb!”
“But how?”
“The self-destruct information waves from the antisense bomb propagated faster than the physical collapse itself. When the instructions hit the furthest distal reaches of Mauna Loa out to sea, they rebounded back and met the oncoming physical collapse in mid-ocean. Result: tsunami!”
Up and up the anole skittered, leaving the Kau Desert behind and climbing the slopes of Mauna Loa. It stopped at last, exhausted, and no amount of jabbing could make it resume its flight.
Storm and Jizogirl dismounted and turned back toward the sea, the doe supporting the buck.
With the sea’s recession, the raw steaming seabed lay exposed for several hundred meters out from shore. They saw the Squid sitting lopsided on the muck.
Then the crest of the giant wave materialized on the horizon, all spume and glory and destructive power.
“Are we far enough inland, high enough up?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The tsunami sounded like a billion lions roaring all at once.
Storm turned his face to Jizogirl’s and said, “That kiss you gave me the other night— It was very nice. Can I have another?”
Jizogirl smiled and said, “If it’s not our last, then count on lots more.”
FARMEARTH
I couldn’t wait until I turned thirteen, so I could play FarmEarth. I kept pestering all three of my parents every day to let me download the FarmEarth app into my memtax. What a little makulit I must have been! I see it now, from the grownup vantage of sixteen, and after all the trouble I eventually caused. Every minute with whines like “What difference does six months make?” And “But didn’t I get high marks in all my omics classes?” And what I thought was the irrefutable clincher, “But Benno got to play when he was only eleven!”
“Look now, please, Crispian,” my egg-Mom Darla would calmly answer, “six months makes a big difference when you’re just twelve-point-five. That’s four percent of your life up to this date. You can mature a lot in six months.”
Darla worked as an osteo-engineer, hyper-tweaking fab files for living prosthetics, as if you couldn’t tell.
“But Crispian,” my mito-Mom Kianna would imperturbably answer, “you also came close to failing integral social plectics, and you know that’s nearly as important for playing FarmEarth as your omics.”
Kianna worked as a hostess for the local NASDAQ Casino. She had hustled more drinks than the next two hostesses combined, and been number one in tips for the past three years.
“But Crispian,” my lone dad Marcelo Tanjuatco would irrefutably reply (I had taken “Tanjuatco,” his last name, as mine, which is why I mention it here), “Benno has a different mito-Mom than you. And you know how special and respected Zoysia is, and how long and hard even she had to petition to get Benno early acceptance.”
Dad didn’t work, at least not for anyone but the polybond.
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