“She’s got powers.” Heh.
So Taylor and Clash Returner are up to something — well, Taylor is, and Clash Returner has no freakin’ idea what’s going on.
This is pretty much where the Tom Clancy plot just kicks the shit out of everything else in the book and takes over. And that’s — fine, I guess. It chugs along, and in a state of dizzying panic I managed to tie off all the knots, dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I still work some of the interesting cultural and personal notes in here and there, but the book goes through a major shift in gear for the last 40 or so pages, devoting itself almost wholly to the terrorist/bomb/Ellard/Fulci/virus plot.
If I had it all to do over, would I do it differently? Hell yeah. Am I sorry about how it turned out? Not really. I just wish I could have written three books instead of one, all happening concurrently. Rashomozombies. That would have been just about perfect.
PANEL ONE
Skullface (the stabbee (stab+ee, one who has been stabbed, but it doesn't look right, does it?) from Issue 4) is with Taylor.
SKULLFACE
Don't talk about Oprah like that, man. She's got powers.
TAYLOR
No, that fucking traitor Wheaton.
PANEL TWO
TAYLOR
They're not even talking about ME. They've got that geek making us look like nice guys.
PANEL THREE
Taylor's starting to rant a bit. A Messiah complex but without Messiah-sized brains to back it up.
TAYLOR
Nice is for humans. We're the future. We're them, but like ... evolved.
PANEL FOUR
TAYLOR
They're like cocoons and we're the butterflies. All we need from them is to gestate until we hatch.
SKULLFACE
I'm a butterfly?
TAYLOR
Shut up.
PANEL FIVE
TAYLOR
Bombs are set? Good to go?
SKULLFACE
Uh... yeah. Shouldn't we be sending our demands?
PANEL SIX
TAYLOR
Fuck demands.
SKULLFACE
How are we supposed to get what we want?
TAYLOR
We're getting a city.
SKULLFACE
What?
PANEL SEVEN
SKULLFACE
But dude, New York was a bluff.
TAYLOR
I know that.
PANEL EIGHT
TAYLOR
That's not where the bombs are.
