You’ll have to excuse the multi-posting for today. I wrote a new chapter for The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, but also revised the previous chapters and split them in two. So.
You might notice a new tab in the menu on the upper right, labeled “Fiction.” This page now accumulates all the fiction posted to the site. The next steps are to create “Essay” and “Review” pages that work similarly.
EDIT: The “Essays” and “Reviews” pages are added. They are a work in progress.
High above the Earth, Pink Vicious sat upon her great pink throne. Over her head was a huge skylight above which the planet, enormous and perfectly still, hung perpetually as it shifted through its daily phases of light and shadow. A black strip glossy with sunlight, like an enormous ribbon, stretched up toward the Earth and disappeared in the distance.
Pink Vicious did indeed have a space station situated at geostationary orbit, but that was not where she kept her headquarters: her headquarters were at the space elevator’s far end, in the counterweight, where the g-force was the same as on the surface of the Earth. It gave her a small thrill to know that nothing anchored her except that thin expanse of ribbon, and that if it ever broke, she would go hurtling into the outer darkness.
She had a full day ahead of her. The first order of business was to torture a prisoner. After that came snack time. Then nap time. Then time to develop her plans for world conquest. Continue reading “The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, Part 5”
Soon, they were all seated around the table, all except Cam, who once again sat apart from the others at a computer bank. She no longer needed an awkward headset: now she talked to the computer simply by using her mind.
“How are you doing, Cam?” Mouse asked as she lapped her tea.
“Good,” Cam said as she sat with her eyes closed and her fingers to her temples. “I’ve memorized about a gigabyte from your database.”
“Stop there for today,” said Finally as she scratched herself. “If you take too much at once, you can damage your brain. You need to sleep a good eight hours before you do that again.”
Cam nodded once and joined the others at the table, dropping heavily into a chair. She snatched up a large stack of Mouse’s toast and heaped butter onto the first slice. “I am starving.”
Finally nodded and smiled. “Your brain is going to consume a lot of calories now. All of you will require a lot of calories. So eat up.” She inclined her head toward the computers. “Speaking of which, the matter transmutation system has a large recipe database, so order anything you like.”
Judy Moody lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Anything? Then I want a bowl of Mood Flakes.” Continue reading “The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, Part 4”
In the dark, nine-year-old Nancy Clancy awoke with a start, sat bolt upright, and instantly smacked her head on something hard. With a stifled groan, she fell back down onto a thin but soft mattress.
This was the third time since the living nightmare began that she’d awakened in a strange place. It was becoming a habit.
Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She lay in a tiny compartment only a little longer than she was tall, and the ceiling was only a couple of feet overhead. A low, droning hum came from below the floor, and the room vibrated ever so slightly. Her ruined dress was gone, and in its place, she wore a baggy set of pajamas decorated with images of bowling balls and pins.
Someone next to her snored, flopped over, and threw an arm across her chest.
She yelped, sat up, and slammed her head into the ceiling again. Squeezing her eyes shut and sucking her breath between her teeth, she rubbed her forehead.
The sleeping figure snorted once, sat up herself, and likewise banged her head.
“Yowch!” she shouted.
It was Judy Moody’s voice. Continue reading “The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, Part 3”
