The Hangman's Revolution by Eoin Colfer Page A

a fortune-teller would have been needed to interpret the drool pooling by Farley’s cheek.
    Farley. The hangman. She had been reading about him all her life.
    No. Wrong.
    Old Chevie, whipped Chevie, had been reading about Farley all her life.
    But that Chevie was gone. She was now…
    Traitor Chevie?
    The real Chevron Savano. And actually, truth be told, when you got a look at this Farley, he was a little underwhelming.
    “ This guy did the damage? This old guy? He’s like, a hundred.”
    “I would guess sixty,” said Riley defensively. “And wiry with it. A drill enthusiast, I’ll wager.”
    Chevie peered into the orchestra pit where Farley was tangled in a heap of music stands. “And anyway, I thought he was a friend of yours, Riley.”
    “An opinion we shared until recently,” said Riley, cocking his head to one side to dislodge a shrill ringing that he suspected was an aftereffect of the explosion. “We really should scram, Chevie. The beaks will be whistling at the door, and p’raps Farley ain’t the only Johnny Future in the vicinity.”
    “Let me just ignore whatever the hell you just said and do this,” said Chevie. She lowered herself into the pit and relieved Farley of his bag, then pried the revolver from his hand. “I feel better now,” she said, hefting the large weapon. “Less naked.”
    Riley pointed at her outfit. “You are more or less naked, as usual. That ain’t much more than a bathing costume what you’re sporting there.”
    Chevie took a moment to check her outfit, which she hadn’t done since tumbling from the Smarthole. Just as her alternate personality had emerged from the time tunnel, so, it seemed, had some of her old clothing. She now wore a strange hybrid outfit with elements of both possible futures. In essence she still wore her Youth Academy navy jumpsuit, but its heavy wool had become spandex, and the golden symbol had morphed to FBI. She had lost the hat when Director Gunn clocked her with the computer tablet.
    I look like SuperFed, she thought.
    Chevie realized that she was feeling inappropriately buoyant, in light of the dead bodies littering the theater aisle, the stink of cordite, and the fact that she was possibly stranded in the wrong time zone.
    But I am me again, and perhaps the future doesn’t have to happen. DeeDee doesn’t have to die.
    “This outfit is like a metaphor for how my brain is,” she said, spreading her arms. “I am mostly old Chevie, the one you know. But some of the new girl is still here.”
    Riley decided that he would quiz Chevie later on the subjects of apparel and metaphors, and Malarkey reacted to all this exposition with a twitch of his head, which, being connected to his torso, set many of his wounds a-pumping blood.
    “Dandy,” he said, being further from the grave than he looked. “Nuffin’ I likes better than a nice metaphor of an afternoon. But while you two are playing bo-peep, I am spilling me life’s fluids onto this here stage. So if you wouldn’t mind…”
    Chevie tossed Farley’s bag onto the stage and swung herself after it.
    “Sorry, Otto. Riley and I haven’t seen each other for a while, so we gotta bo-peep it up for a little. And anyway, the last time our paths intersected, your fingers were around my throat, so pardon me if I put you on the bottom of my priority list.”
    Otto shook a fist at her. “Why is you talking like this? Speak plain, girl.”
    Riley donned his cloak, then helped Otto to his feet. “Let me interpret, Your Majesty. Chevie ain’t all that pushed about yer welfare, on account of you being murdering scum.”
    Otto leaned over, weighed down by a head that suddenly seemed to be composed of lead.
    “The Injun said that, did she?”
    “Give or take,” said Riley, ducking his own head under Otto’s left armpit to support the Ram king.
    Chevie propped up Malarkey’s right side. “Let’s talk politics and allegiances later, shall we? After we put some space between us and this bloodbath.