Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End by James Curcio Page A

could get out a
word.
    He chased after her. “Hold
on!”
    She didn't reply, though
she did cast him a horrified look over her shoulder.
    “ Listen– Hey, stop!” He caught up with her, grabbed her. She
shook in his arms. “We're dreaming.”
    “ Together?”
    “ Yes,” he said. “Look.”
    Behind them, a twisted
beast was galloping through the labyrinth, uprooting trees,
shooting sparks from under its metal hooves. She jolted to run, but
he held her still. “Look at it. Trees with fruit babies. A...
Whatever the fuck that thing is...”
    It almost had them. She
closed her eyes, tears leaking from between her eyelashes. What
would it be like to be gored to death, impaled through the cavity
of her chest on one of those rusted horns?
    “ Look,” Dionysus said again, gently this time.
    She did. Everything seemed
to slow and turn to white, a warm snowstorm that blotted out
everything save the feeling that she was going to be
alright.
     

     
    There was little movement in the desert
during the day, aside from the rustling of dried brush in the wind,
or the occasional Imperial woodpecker, hacking a home into the side
of a bloated saguaro. Artemis paused to survey the girls, all of
them dutifully repeating the Xing-Yi form she had just
demonstrated. The sun scoured their skin, cooking out weakness.
    She caught Ariadne making a common mistake.
The power in the first strike in the form came from an isomorphic
pull, part of the body pushing forward, the other, twisting back.
Torque. “Ariadne, hold on.”
    The others hesitated mid-movement.
    “ What are you stopping for?” Artemis asked. Loki chuckled to
himself. He was huffing and puffing below, fighting gravity in an
endless series of pushups, a cigarettes clutched between his
teeth.
    Ariadne walked over to Artemis, leaning down
on her knees. Her cheeks were rosy.
    Putting her hand in front of Ariadne's face,
Artemis said, “Stand up, and hit my hand. Just like you were
doing.”
    Ariadne stood up and hit her hand. It didn't
move much.”
    “ You see what you did? You hit my hand. You didn't drill
through it. My hand is an object between you and your target. It is
something that's in your
way .”
    Dionysus stopped practicing the form. “If an
opponent advances with force, yield by rolling around the perimeter
of that advance. Retain contact, retain control. Your opponent
winds up over-committed. If we match force with force, we
lose.”
    Loki stopped for a moment, at the apex of a
push-up, and cocked his head in Dionysus' direction. “You like
talking just to hear yourself speak, don't you?”
    “ And you like doing pushups while you smoke. Don't harsh my
mellow. Reality is what we can get away with. We've dropped that
rhetoric before, probably between essential oil rubdowns at Burning
Man. But this isn't just goofy post-hippie bullshit. Let's consider
the tactics of those that are likely to oppose
us – OW.” Dionysus was stopped mid-rant by
a speeding pebble.
    Artemis laughed and reached
for a larger stone. “Let's consider the tactics of shut the fuck up
and get back to work.”
     

     
    Another day, another
show.
    “ Buckle your seat belts, boys!” Jesus yelled, an unlit joint
flapping from her lips, as the wheels spun and a cloud of dust shot
out the back.
    Dionysus’ knuckles whitened
on the seat beneath him, but he kept his mouth shut simply because
he hadn’t seen Jesus so playful since before they’d been
hospitalized. She was reckless when she was happy.
    Deciding Jesus was probably
best left alone in this mood, he turned his attention to Lilith.
She was sitting across from him and sipping on cold green tea,
gazing introspectively out the window. Amidst all the motion and
noise around her, she seemed very still, even delicate. Of course
she looked beautiful, she always did, but for once it wasn’t
controlled and calculated.
    Hopping across the cabin,
he landed next to her roughly. Luckily the seats were well
cushioned. He draped his arm over