ASH: CSV Annual #3 - Zoo of Malice (by Tony Pi)

[Andrew Perron]

On Monday, August 20, 2012 11:22:39 PM UTC-4, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

>      Robert climbed on behind her.  She'd let him drive until New York City
> where, running from his old paragang 'friends', he'd gunned the engine so
> hard that it broke.  Now the wheels spun solely thanks to Anya's telekinetic
> powers, and she loved tight corners and deadly speed.

Ooooh, neat. Reminds me of Lightfoot's powers.

>      Maybe he should've used a fork instead of chopsticks, or used his power
> to keep the bowl of noodles from slipping out of his hand and onto the
> controls.  Or turned the hot soup into goop with his viscosity mojo before it
> could seep into the circuitry.  But it was too late; the panel sparked and
> burst into flames.  "Sorry.  You'd think Tritey would have waterproofed..."
>      The lights died suddenly, and the crabship spun upside-down.

Conflict-d'oh!

>      Eugene followed her through the gap in the fence and stepped onto the
> roadway.  "Hey, this is where they used to hold the Canadian Grand Prix
> Formula One!"  He loved formula racing, both as a fan of the sport and a
> wanna-be driver.  He even discovered his powers speeding down the hills of
> San Francisco in a homebrewed yellow-and-orange go-kart.

Hm! Has this ever been established before?

>      Trotting into view from deeper into the casino came a very strange
> creature: a two-headed, two-humped camel wearing matching bow-ties.  The head
> on the right spoke.
>      "Welcome.  I'm Monsieur Cryptozoologique."

Awesome!

>      A fire-breathing, two-headed camel wearing red-and-white polka-dot
> bowties.  It was everything he didn't know he wanted in a pet.

Heeheehee

>      "Your voiceprint is a ninety-nine percent match with Zoel
> Quenneville's," Challenger said.  "Monsieur Quenneville, are you
> communicating with us through a vocoder implant or animal telepathy?"

Ooooh, I know what's gonna happen here.

(Note: No, I didn't; I thought he was going to turn out to *be* the camel.)

>      "That stupid stunt of yours made us the prey of a dozen paragangs that
> day, Eugene.  Robert and I barely escaped.  Thanks to you, that was the worst
> birthday of my life."
>      "It was?" Eugene was stunned.  "Sorry.  I didn't mean to spoil your
> birthday."

He didn't even realize. Naturally.

>      Eugene crinkled his nose.  "Let me guess...a stink bomb?  Fireball fart?"
>      "She analyzes her enemies with her antennae, and fills the room with an
> undetectable gas tailored to swiftly incapacitate its foes," the camel
> said.  "Like you."

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn!

>      "You'll find the embrace of an elasti-boa quite difficult to escape,
> 
> Monsieur Coulter," the snake said with Quenneville's voice.

That's a great line.

>      "Can't you just morph and escape, Myri?" Conflicto whispered.
>      "No, he put monosodium glutamate in the water.  Harmless to you, but even
> in one part per million, it gums me up like a jelly baby."

It's certainly an original Kryptonite.

>      "Spiral's still in trouble out there, and we have to find her,"
> Conflicto said. "Giddy-up, Myri!"
>      Myriad lassoed his head and covered his mouth.  "Shut.  Up."

Heeheehee. They're cute.

>      A whirlwind of cotton candy danced pirouettes down the path towards the
> circus tent, sticking to the fur of the invisible tigers, who now looked like
> great Cheshire Cats with pink candy smiles.

Nice variation on the ol'saw.

> The Biosphere was a geodesic dome, only it had lost
> its acrylic bubble in a fire half a century ago.

Ooooo. Makes perfect sense for this postapocalypse.

>      "For all we know he's got teleporting walruses in the water who saved
> his ass.  What do I care?" Eugene gave the three-eyed crocodile a loving pat
> on the head.  "All I know is, if it weren't for Myri here I'd probably be
> dead."
>      The hammock sprouted a woman's head.  "What are you talking about,
> Conflicto?  I'm the hammock, not the crocodile."
>      "You mean this is a real croc?" Eugene said in a very small voice.

*waaa waaa waaaaaaaa*

>      This started as a submission to a Canadian science fiction anthology,
> one with sufficiently creator-friendly terms that neither Tony nor I would
> have to sign over rights to characters or setting (just the first publication
> rights).  Since the intent was to put this in front of readers who'd never
> heard of RACC, much less ASH, it needed to be a bit heavier on explanation
> than it would have had it been written for RACC in the first place.

Ohhhhhh, I see. I figured Tony'd had to switch them to thinly-veiled versions of the characters and then switch back. Neat!

>      Sadly, it didn't get accepted, so Tony gave me the go-ahead to post it
> once I'd gotten it in shape.  Mainly that meant formatting and the removal of
> all the non-ASCII-7 characters infesting the Quebecois French.  And the
> damnable smartquotes.  And the accent over the first E in Biosphere.  :)

Heeheehee. Good stuff!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, idly wonders why ASH has so many "missing adventures" stories.