Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
PART SIXTY-EIGHT
They stood on the precipice overlooking Dysphoria. The literal edge of the world.
"Now do you see why we couldn't go around?" Junella sang to Toby.
The small albino mouse stood on crumbling white tile, staring in chest-tightening horror across the limitless void of space. Not ten feet in front of him, the ground simply stopped. Beyond was an asteroid field. Great chunks of rock went tumbling slowly by in the vast, cold blackness. This was the manifest fear dreamt of by many ancient explorers, the idea that if one went too far across the world, one might eventually fall off. In Phobiopolis it was possible. Toby didn't even know how in the hell he could hear, or breathe.
Phlegmasia had been an endurance test, but Toby had been able to hold onto the knowledge that he was safe the whole time. The moans made his skin crawl, but the moaners were not going to batter down the Fearsleigher's doors and drag him out. The maze made no move to stop their progress. It took hours of right turns left turns, left turns right turns, seemingly without end, but then it was over. Suddenly the sounds were quieter. Toby could feel the claustrophobic space open up into emptiness. Then George was letting Zinc down to bang on the doors and tell them they'd made it.
Junella took care of their blindfolds with a swipe of her cutlass. Toby's first sight was Zinc ripping off his blur goggles and visibly resisting the urge to crush them in his metal claws. The others gathered around to soothe him and thank him for getting them all through. Piffle held onto him without a word, just warming him with her care. Junella then released George's eyesight via bullet. He was treated to the same gratitude from the others. He said the hardest part for him was the monotony. Violence, he was used to. But the maze itself was like being buried again.
The backside of the wall was here, looking exactly the same as the front. Though it was streaked in many places from tiny meteor impacts. Behind them was the door. It stayed open, maybe to tease them. 'Wouldn't you like to come back inside and stay a while? It's a lot nicer than where you're going.'
Jutting out from the wall was about forty square feet of flooring before the big drop into the void. The tile felt solid enough beneath Toby's moccasins, but he swore the Fearsleigher's weight was making it sag. Like there might be very little beneath to keep them propped up. The mouse imagined rotting timbers and stringy, dangling insulation.
Looking back above the wall, the nothingness was here too. Toby had thought he'd been getting a preview of Dysphoria, but instead it was simply a barrier that squatted above the maze like a fog. He felt cut off from the rest of Phobiopolis now. Alone on this tiny plank with the maze at his back, and miles of black emptiness looming in front of him. The stars were brighter and more bloated than he'd ever seen before. Comets blazed and pulsars danced. He knew he couldn't really trust his perceptions out here, yet he felt like this made sense. He really was standing on the edge of outer space. Phobiopolis was a flat ribbon floating through the cosmos. Toby, and all the other souls in this place, were adrift and alone with only the uncaring chill of the universe to watch over them.
Toby wanted suddenly, more than ever, to be home again. Even if it meant his damaged mother and his sick-smelling bedroom. At least it was something solid.
Junella could see the dread rising in his big pink eyes and grabbed his shoulders to shake them.
Toby snapped out of it, looking away from infinity.
She told him wordlessly to stop dwelling and deal with it.
It was good advice. He took a deep breath. "...How am I breathing?" he couldn't help but ask.
"You aren't," she replied bluntly. "You're only dreaming that you are. Remember, you're already dead."
Toby shut his eyes tight. "I keep forgetting."
She patted his shoulder. "Come on. We can't stand here forever."
He nodded. For a moment he wondered, if the mere sight of this place was making him lose it, how could he have ever thought he was prepared for what might lay inside? Shaking slightly, he followed behind Junella as she walked to the car's hood and gathered the others around her.
She was scared too. It was plain from the tremble in her muscles. She needed a moment to psyche herself up. No part of her wanted to go back in there, but right now she needed to become Junella Fucking Brox again. She needed to lie to herself so convincingly it became true. The team needed something stable to reassure them.
She stood on the front bumper and looked down at her companions with the commanding glare of a general. She waited, demanding their full attention. George, Zinc, Doll, Piffle, and Toby all looked to her and waited for instructions.
She scraped her needles together, cleaning them. Then began.
"Never give your enemies what they want!!" she started suddenly, and was pleased to see everyone jump.
"In battle, find out what your opponent's goal is. Make sure they never get it. Learn what kind of a fight they want. Give 'em the opposite. Keep them uncomfortable. Give yourself every advantage. Seek their terms, smash them, then write your own. Make it your fight, not theirs."
Toby had no idea what this had to do with Dysphoria but it was already starting to pump him up.
Junella pointed behind her at the abyss of tumbling asteroids. Anasarca was visible beyond it like a broken chunk of chocolate. "Dysphoria wants our minds. It wants to break us. I say fuck that. I say we don't give it the satisfaction."
Piffle nodded vigorously.
"We are going to be walking into the mouth of hell, ladies and gentlemen. This is where the nightmares run loose. This is where the world starts losing all stability, and it can do to you whatever it goddamn feels like. You will know torment like you've never fucking dreamt of before.
"From this point on, you cannot trust your senses." She ticked them off on her fingers. "Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Temperature, hunger, time passing. Even emotion. You'll be walking into the Guinness World Record all-star hallucination."
Toby quailed. How could they possibly navigate in a place where nothing could be trusted?
"But we can still slant the odds in our favor. We can cheat. Because our opponent is a soulless, toxic bastard, so I say fuck fairness. We give ourselves every advantage." She pounded the car's hood, twice. "In Ectopia Cordis, I bought us our victory."
Zinc was about to pipe up that he'd helped with that, but didn't want to stop her momentum.
Junella pointed again, this time lifting her arm so her finger seemed to touch the shining top of the mountain. "The only way to Anasarca is straight through. Keep walking forward. I cannot emphasize that enough: keep walking forward. Dysphoria will try to shift you. Turn you back around. You cannot let it. And I won't allow it."
Toby remembered dreams he'd had before, at home in his own bed. There had been times when he'd find himself in a store and he'd see something wonderful. He'd look for Mommy to buy it for him, but Mommy would be nowhere around. So he'd wander, looking for her. And when he tried to make it back to the wonderful toy, the store would change. Everything would be different. The dream would not let him return. And he'd be left stranded and alone among strangers until he woke up.
"George, I have something for you."
The stallion raised his head to the skunk.
She reached into the hood's storage space. Back in EC, she had bundled all the Dysphoria supplies into two distinct bags. George's device was easy to find. "I am going to take a gamble on you. I know you're a nightmare, but you've also shown yourself the most level-headed of all of us."
He scuffed a forehoof along the ground modestly. "My thanks."
"I have no fucking idea what affect Dysphoria will have on a construct. Maybe you'll waltz in there and see nothing. I'm not gonna hope for luck like that, but I'm still going to ask if you'll volunteer to be our front, leading us."
"I would be honored!" he said without the slightest hesitation.
She nodded, expecting that reaction. She held up a small round object, like a compass or a gas gauge. She pointed it directly at Anasarca and pushed a button. Then she peeled a sticker off the back and pressed it firmly to George's forehead.
Just as he was about to ask what it was for... "Ouch!" He reflexively turned his head in the direction of the mountain.
Junella grinned. "Groovy. Works like a charm."
George felt another thump from the tiny metal box. It had not been truly painful the first time, just unexpected. To test it's pull, he looked in the opposite direction. The next pulse felt like strong hands jerking his skull back around. When he kept his gaze pointed towards Anasarca, the thump felt like a reward. "I believe I understand its purpose. It will keep me focused on the direction we need to go."
"A+," Junella replied.
"And will I be towing the Fearsleigher as usual, or shall I merge with it?"
"Neither," she said, then addressed the others. "In fact, that's the next thing. I need you to hand over all your weapons, or anything you could possibly imagine might be used as one."
Zinc whined anxiously.
She nodded in understanding. "Yes, partner. You remember last time."
He grimaced and growled. Then there were four loud clatters as his wrenches and doorknockers dropped off, leaving bare bleeding shoulder meat. He sighed, feeling defenseless, awkward, and naked already. It was one thing to take them off for bed, knowing he'd put them back on in the morning. It was another thing entirely to be ordered to lose them. "Somebody's gonna hafta kill me. I ain't waitin' around to grow new ones." he said bitterly.
Toby was closest. "I'll make it quick."
Zinc felt the mouse's palm touch the base of his neck. "Go on, amigo."
POW
Toby's hammer powdered the vertebrae. Zinc fell, and then he was pushing himself back to his feet on scrawny, feeble organic arms. He sneered at them.
"I'll be needing that," Junella said to Toby about his hammer. "And your fork, Piffle. Toss everything in the backseat."
Toby nodded to her and complied. It felt weird to remove his hammer completely. When he had it in his hand, it still felt connected. After he laid it on the seat, his arm felt like there was a big hollow gap inside. Like pulling a tooth. From the way Piffle was rubbing her tummy, he could tell she felt the same. Toby also unbelted his pouch of pointy things and tossed it in, along with his bracers. They were shields, yes, but they could also be used for bashing and whacking. He watched as Piffle and Zinc both rummaged through their pockets, coming up with all sorts of interesting lethal junk. Doll didn't have anything to turn in.
Finally, Junella pulled her beloved cutlass from its hip-sheath and kissed the blade apologetically before handing it to George. He placed it reverently on top of everything else.
But she knew she had another weapon. Her revolver. It was so fixed in her muscle memory, she knew damn well she could dumbfound it subconsciously. She'd even found a few of them lying beside her bed some mornings. So, holding her hand up where everyone could see, she winced and pressed a thumbtack into her palm.
"Ooch!" Piffle said in sympathy.
"You'll all be getting these," Junella told them, and handed a box of the little silver stingers to Piffle.
She looked with horror at it. "We have to poke ourselves too? Why!?"
"Because it's a pain that's real," the skunk replied in a tone that allowed no argument. "Dysphoria will make you believe you've been stabbed, shot, burned, got broken bones, whatever. Anything to make you break down. But it'll all be illusion. This will be real."
"Something for us to keep our focus on, like George," Toby said, understanding.
She nodded, glad he was such a quick study. "Precisely."
Toby watched Piffle whimper as she pressed the tack into her own palm. "Wouldn't it be easier if we were just knocked out for the whole trip?" he asked Junella.
"NO," Zinc said immediately, looking terrified. "Didn't I say the same about Fugax!? If you're asleep, it'll have total control! It'll make you see anything, and you'll be completely defenseless! If you're awake, at least you'll have some will to sort truth from pigshit."
"Jesus..." Toby felt the blood drain from his face. Partly from the idea of what Dysphoria might do to him a scenario, partly from the sheer frenzied tone of Zinc's voice. Toby reminded himself that the canine had been in there. He knew what it could do to a furson. "If..." He hesitated to ask. "If you can only go forward, how did you and Junella ever get back?"
Zinc was not keen to return to the memory, but he knew Toby meant no malice. He snatched the box of tacks from Piffle's hands. "We had a winch on the Killcanoe," he said. "Harpooned ourselves. It was set with a timer. Dysphoria can't mess with something that has no brain. When the clock ran out, it yanked us back."
Toby's mind went to work exploring the idea. "Why not have, like, a remote-control vehicle that we strap ourselves to and it takes us across?"
"Does the trunk look like it has room for one?" he barked roughly. "Besides, it's been tried. The pilots lost their minds and sabotaged the sled. They never came back. But there were people waiting on this side for them listening to them on radio. The things they heard..."
Toby's mouth went dry. He had never seen Zinc glare like this before. Not even at the screwy-eyed muskrat. But Toby understood why. Zinc was fatigued from Phlegmasia AND the vomit swamp, and was now facing a return to his worst nightmare instead of a well-deserved rest. He cupped the canine's bare shoulder consolingly.
Zinc nodded. "I don't mean to take it out on you. And, also, I'm sorry for this-" He spun Toby around and shoved a tack dead center between the mouse's shoulder blades.
"YAGH!!" Toby squawked.
"That'll keep you from reachin' back and pulling it out," Zinc said with an apologetic half-smile. It was all the good cheer he could manage at the moment. He turned away, closed his eyes, and sighed. Then he placed a tack on the ground, hesitated, and stepped on it. He showed no reaction. "That's so I won't."
Piffle didn't say anything to Zinc, but she put her hands on his tail and combed her fingers softly through. His hunched muscles relaxed slightly, and that made her happy.
Junella showed Toby a roll of medical tape, made to bond permanently with skin and fur. He didn't have to be told it was to keep his tack in place. He held still while she applied a criss-cross to his back. Then she taped up her hand. Then she tossed the roll to Piffle. The hamsterfly marveled at how it felt like it was becoming a second skin. She looked down to Doll and held the thumbtacks out. "Where do you want yours?"
Doll hesitated, clearly not wanting it anywhere. Finally her shoulders slumped and she held out her hand.
As gently as a nurse, Piffle pressed the tack into her small friend's palm, then taped it up nice and snug. "Sorry if it hurt."
Doll shrugged as if to say, 'It's supposed to.'
Piffle bound Zinc's foot too, gaining a tiny laugh when she tickled the sole. She then turned to George. She held the box of thumbtacks and looked him up and down. "Hmmm. Do bones feel pain?"
"Sometimes," he replied, "But I believe the thingamajig on my forehead will suffice." His head jerked back towards the mountain.
Junella could feel the piercing metal in her palm throb in time with her heartbeat. Piffle passed her the tape. She wrapped her hand. Then without a word, she simply held up the next item.
"Holy hell!!" Toby sputtered. "What is THAT for?"
"That's to make sure Dysphoria can't make any of us run off," she sang. It looked like a medieval torture device. Two metal bands, one smaller than the other, connected vertically by a soldered bar. Both were gaping open like the rings in a looseleaf binder. "We'll put these on and chain ourselves together. Link up like boxcars. The big ring goes 'round your neck, and the little one goes through your skull."
All of Toby's muscles flinched. "I've seen guys with pierced noses, but this seems a bit much! Wouldn't a collar work fine by itself?"
Junella shook her head. "If you get decapitated somehow, then-" she snapped her fingers, "-just like that, we lose both halves of you. Naw. Our leashes gotta be anchored to bone. These are made special. We can't be separated even if we die."
Toby could see the logic, but the idea still turned his stomach.
Junella had one for each of them, all except Doll. She figured they could put the last link of chain straight through her head, front to back. Her missing face was useful for once. Everyone else ended up with one of the horrifying metal devices in their hands.
Zinc went first. He slipped the larger ring around his neck. When it snapped shut, so did the smaller ring, embedding itself in the back of his skull. He swore and growled a lot. Piffle and Toby both helped each other with theirs. Toby was surprised how light the things were. Must have been the same metal as his bracers. He wondered how much these had cost, and if Piffle had known what she was paying for. Her cries of pain when he pulled her shut were heartbreaking. When she returned the favor, Toby saw stars. It felt like being punched in the head by a championship boxer holding a barbecue fork.
Junella did nothing but blink hard when hers went on. It hurt like hell, but she needed to keep up her rocksteady appearance. She hopped down from the bumper and had George turn around to apply his. Instead of his neck, she fastened it around his pelvis and tailbase. Not only wouldn't it have fit the normal way, but she didn't think any of them could rip George's skull off even if they did go berserk from insanity.
Then she passed around chains. Each section was three feet long, with carabiners at each end. The travelers did not link themselves together yet, but let each chain chunk dangle down their front: a metal necktie. Doll's flesh turned out to be unpierceable, no matter how many times Junella tried and Doll winced. The best they could do was put the loop around her midsection and hope for the best.
The skunk got back up on the car. "The collars are for climbers, meant to be worn for long periods of time. So the pain will eventually subside. That's why we need the thumbtacks too. And now we've got one more item. It'll seem goofy at first, but it'll help keep you awake." From the hood she pulled a small desk fan, seemingly ordinary. There were raised eyebrows. But when she turned it on, everyone felt an arctic chill. Junella set it a bit lower, then turned it off. "You're more alert when you're cold. It's also got a spritzer on a timer. Hard to fall asleep with rain in your face. George, can you grow some of that nasty-ass backfat to mount it on?"
"That shouldn't be difficult," he said. Junella placed the fan on his pelvis and he concentrated on growing flesh around its base. Like before with Zinc's legs, the fan was soon held firmly in place. He even angled it slightly downwards, anticipating the relative height of his companions' faces lined up behind him.
Junella nodded. "Looks like we're just about ready."
Except Toby didn't think so. He raised his hand.
Junella snorted. "This ain't a classroom, mouse."
"Heh. Sorry. I just..." He kneaded his tail nervously. "I just, I had an idea too. I'm kinda surprised you and Zinc didn't already think of it, actually."
That made a pinched little frown appear on her face. "No offense, client, but we were pretty thorough."
"I'm not saying you weren't! It's just, this is kind of my area of expertise. You said Dysphoria's going to attack our minds, but all your ideas center around our bodies. Why don't we fortify the place we know it'll attack?"
Her interest was piqued. "Spill it."
"Well," he shrugged bashfully, "who here knows more about prescription drugs than I do?"
Zinc made a sour face, clearly not comfortable with the suggestion.
Toby told him, with a firmness that surprised himself, "If I can put up with a tack in my back and a ring through my skull, I think you can deal with a pill."
The mutt's eyebrows went up. Reflexive anger flashed across his face, but faded as he realized the mouse had a point. "You're... probably right about that."
They looked at each other a moment longer. Toby's eyes asked if Zinc was on board with this.
Zinc shook his head, then slapped his own cheeks like a boxer before a bout. "I'm okay, I'm okay. Just a bit on edge, that's all. So whadja you have in mind? I'm not too keen on head-shrinker cocktails, but I'll trust you on this."
Toby blanched for a moment. He'd had the idea, but hadn't thought of a way to implement it. "Okay, lemme think. It's gonna try to scare our pants off to keep us from getting to Anasarca, right?"
"I don't even think it cares about that." Junella sat down on the hood. "I think it does it for kicks. Pure sadism."
"Allright, then we'll need some kind of anti-anxiety medication, or an antidepressant." He thought hard, flipping through his inner pharmacopeia, trying to remember all the gazillions of pills he'd swallowed throughout his life. "The problem with almost all of them is, the most common side effect is drowsiness. And like you said, that's the last thing we want."
Agreement all around.
"So... I'm looking for something that fights anxiety but doesn't make you sleepy..." So many pills in his past. Tiny multicolored ovals and squares and gelcaps and tabs and meltaways, even suppositories. "No stress, but no sleep," he muttered. There had to be something that fit both criteria. He remembered all the after-pills: the drugs his mother would give him to counteract the worst ones. The drugs to make him not care. But they were always at bedtime, and he'd zonk out the whole night long. But wait. He was thinking of a dreamy, mellow calm. Wasn't there something that produced a serene but alert kind of buzz?
Toby snapped his fingers. "Adderall!"
"Never heard of it," Zinc said.
"It's an ADHD drug," Toby explained. "A lot of kids are on it to stop them being hyperactive, so they can concentrate on schoolwork and stuff."
"A lot of 'em?" The canine looked absolutely repulsed by the idea. "For chrissakes, when I was a pup my mom would just send me outside for a while."
Toby was reminded that, despite he and the others looking like they were only a few years apart, there were actually decades between them. "Well, we only have to take it once," Toby consoled.
"What's it do?" Zinc asked.
"It's a type of amphetamine-"
"You mean speed!?" he shrieked. "They give speed to kids!? What the FUCK!?"
Toby held up his hands. "It's a controlled dosage! And whether or not it's fucked up, it's what we need right now if Dysphoria's as bad as you guys are saying!"
That shut Zinc up. All protest left him. Personal ethics aside, he would do anything short of war crimes to reduce Dysphoria's effects. "Fine, fine..."
Junella hopped down from the car, over to Toby. "You're sure no drowsiness?"
The mouse nodded like there was zero doubt. "Believe me. This stuff's used to treat narcolepsy."
That was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to hear to convince her.
"Mom gave it to me every afternoon for about two years before she switched me to Klonopin. I felt super-awake. And really positive! Sometimes I'd feel like alphabetizing my bookshelves for fun."
"That sounds like a pretty damn good state of mind to deal with this place. But where do we get some of this miracle elixir?"
Toby smirked. He whipped his hand out into the open air. Then he looked at his empty palm. "Darn. I thought maybe I remembered the bottle enough to dumbfound us some." He tried a few more times but couldn't manage. "Got any spare imaginite?"
"Always," Zinc answered, and headed for the car. They all gathered around the hood, chains clanging. Zinc plopped a pound of the iridescent rock down in front of Toby, certain they wouldn't need more than that.
"Good," Toby said. He did some math in his head, then put his hands on the imaginite and willed it to change. Lo and behold, there appeared an orange-tinted plastic prescription bottle with twelve pills inside. "Get the cornucopia so we'll have something to swallow these with."
Zinc got out the battered wicker cone and took two pills from Toby. He had to admit, fur-and-bone hands did make handling tiny items easier. Each Adderall was a speckly sky-blue color and had a 10 printed on it. They didn't seem very substantial. "Is this gonna be enough?"
"Twenty milligrams will be plenty!" Toby said. "Two pills is already an overdose. I was hopped up enough on just one."
Everyone else looked warily at their medicine. Then they looked at the void ahead. They reached inside the cornucopia one by one, got cups of water, and swallowed. Piffle helped Doll, needing to poke the pills down her plastic throat so they wouldn't come back up. Toby watched George swallow his and wondered where it disappeared to, considering his friend's lack of organs.
Piffle asked, "When do they start working, Toby?"
"Pretty soon. We shouldn't waste time."
Junella nodded agreement. "Then let's line up, people."
George took the lead. Doll would have to be last, since she'd be dangling off the last length of chain on its clasp. Piffle wanted to be next to her, and Zinc wanted to be next to Piffle. So that left Toby sandwiched between Zinc and Junella.
While the others fiddled with their clasps, Junella checked the bags from Rippingbean & Woofingbutter's one last time, making sure there was nothing left but spares. Then she shut the hood and went around to the back. She'd found something new in the market town. Initially she bought it with murder in mind, but now realized it could have a non-lethal use too. Toby watched her strap into a green canvas backpack with a long hose emerging, attached to a welding torch.
Junella rejoined the group and affixed her chain to George's. There was plenty of room for everyone to walk and not bump into one another. She started up the flame and began to weld their chains together. "We have already been through a lot. And despite all our toughness and preparations, I am warning you, Dysphoria is still gonna be grueling."
Junella turned and bade Toby hold up his chain. The torch hissed and glowed as it melted the clasp. Toby was massively uncomfortable having that bright tip so close to his throat, but Junella handled the tool like she'd owned it all her life. When his was done, she continued down the line until the whole group was essentially sharing a single body. As she worked, she made her final speech.
"No matter how much we rig the game, one fact remains: we can suffer and it can't. It has a massive advantage, but we are not helpless. Zinc and I brainstormed for days to dream up anything that could give us an edge in there. Eventually we realized something important. If you don't have a single perfect idea, but you've got a lot of little good ones, there's no reason not to use 'em all at once. Works just as well. So if we can't bust the odds, we'll whittle 'em down. I'm telling you this to let you know, this place has no kiddie lane. People have tried for centuries. People have failed for centuries. But right now, right here, no one has ever been in a better position to get through. It's not just my opinion: it's fact. We have history to learn from. We have the best gear money can buy. And we have each other. It is guaranteed to be the worst experience of our lives, but goddammit, we will get through."
The six of them looked back and forth, sharing glances, confirming that there was no backing down now. Junella was glad to see the cautious confidence shining in their eyes. She hoped hers reflected the same.
One task left. Junella tugged the others with her as she walked back to the car and tossed the welding pack back in the trunk. She slammed the lid with one hand and dumbfounded up the resizing window with the other. Soon the car was the size of a jellybean and it was traveling down her esophagus. The skunk patted her belly. Long term parking.
"I have been afraid to ask, Madam Brox, for fear of looking foolish, but..." George paused. "what exactly am I supposed to walk upon?" With a hoof, he indicated the dropoff and the open space beyond.
"It's another illusion," she sang. "Falling into the stars would be too simple. It wants us to come in, just like the maze."
He was reassured, but only a little.
Junella turned to the others. "Are we ready?"
In their hearts, none of them truly felt that they were, but they nodded anyway.
"Sheer willpower will beat this thing," she told her troops. "I know all of you have it. Even though I'm more used to being part of a two than a six, I do trust all of you. ...Maybe not Doll."
A general chuckle. From Piffle's shoulder, a green-gloved fist shook at the skunk.
Junella tossed a 'just teasing' smile down the line, but in her eyes her expression was muddy. Apprehension. Doubt. Fear. Faith. "Any last-minute preparations I forgot?" she asked Zinc.
He blanked for a bit, then remembered. "Talking."
"That's right!" She pinched herself for forgetting. "It can imitate voices. It will imitate ours, and it will say the awfullest things, believe me. So until we're on the other side, keep your pieholes closed as much as possible. If you've gotta convey, do it non-verbal. Grunt. Make sounds. That way we'll know, if anything's speaking in words, it ain't us."
Toby 'mm-hmm'ed.
"Good." She turned back around and patted George's flank. Then she turned on the fan and the cold air swept over her body. "Set the pace, hoss."
He grunted.
"One last thing," Junella said as she followed George towards the edge. "Don't bother asking if we're seeing what you're seeing in there. It'll make a special dream for all of us, trust me."
And with that, one by one, she began to pry her finger-needles off with her teeth. No weapons allowed. No exceptions.
-***-