Hart & Boot & Other Stories by Tim Pratt

like talking , saying what came naturally. That was her favorite feeling.
    Someone coughed, and Zara opened her eyes and lifted her head. “Holy shit,” she said.
    The Greek Chorus was back—when had they gotten on the train? They must have come from another car, creeping quietly, sliding open the adjoining doors without a squeak. Or, more likely, Zara had fallen asleep, and just hadn’t noticed them. They stood in the middle of the aisle, holding onto the grabrail above their heads, though there were any number of empty seats. They all stared at her, silently, swaying a little with the movement of the train.
    Zara thought about getting up and going to another car, but what if they followed her? “This had better be a coincidence,” she said. “We just happen to be going in the same direction, right? You aren’t following me, are you?”
    The Chorus did not answer, just looked at her. “So, what are you, mimes? You were plenty talkative before. Or are you just frat boys?”
    Still no response.
    Zara snapped open her purse (black vinyl, decorated with little silvery skulls) and rummaged until she found a mostly used-up tube of lip balm. She held it between her thumb and forefinger, took aim, and threw it at one of the Chorus member’s faces.
    The tube bounced off his nose, and he squawked like a bird and flinched away.
    “Just fuck off,” Zara said.
    “We’ve heard things,” the Chorus said, hesitantly, half of them mumbling, none of them quite in synch. “But only from strangers. Those who carry messages have no power.”
    “So you’ve got a message for me, then?” Zara said. “What is this, guerilla marketing? Viral advertising? How much do you get paid?”
    “Torrents of blood will fall from the sky. Justice brings new pain; on a fresh whetstone, Fate sharpens her sword. Each charge is countered by another, and who can fairly judge between them? Yet whoever acts must be punished. Such is the law.”
    “The only law you should be concerned with is the one against pissing me off,” Zara said. “If you don’t get away from me, I’m going to kick your asses, concurrently or sequentially, whichever you prefer.”
    The Chorus member in front, the one she’d hit with her lip balm, said, “Go on. My heart trembles with fear.”
    “Is that supposed to be sarcasm?” she asked.
    The Chorus leader bowed his head. “We are old. You are young. You must teach us.”
    Before Zara could reply—or throw something else—the train slowed down. Glancing out the window, Zara saw the familiar brightly tiled walls of the 16th Street Mission station, with people— normal people—milling around. “You assholes should be put to sleep,” Zara said, and when the doors opened, she got off the train.
    The Chorus didn’t follow, but as she walked away, they called, “So you fall, abandoned, searching your heart for joy, but finding nothing—sucked dry, gnawed by monsters, a shell, a shadow, a—” Then the doors slid closed, and cut off their voices.
    ***
    Halfway through the second act, Zara saw Doug poke his head through the door at the back of the theater, his expression unreadable at this distance. He came in and sat down in the back row as if he had every right in the world to be here, at a closed final dress rehearsal. So much for her hope that he hadn’t penetrated the inner mysteries of her life—if he knew she was here , he knew as much about her as there was to know. She went on performing her scene with the actor playing Jason, deeply into the role of her suburbanite version of Medea. “Her” kids—actually the director’s, a boy and a girl, seven and nine years old, remarkably well-behaved, practically raised in the theater—sat on the floor, the boy playing with dolls, the girl with a dump truck. The gender-stereotype-reversal was just one of the writer/director’s countless tiny little flourishes.
    She imagined, briefly, that Jason was Doug, and her bitter lines took on a new level of heat, but