The Bear and Barnacle

Arthur,

Accept my thanks in the matter of that trifling affair we had discussed previously. I have tested the paper trail on the records and say, in the best traditions of Mr. Stout, satisfactory. I trust you will thus find your kind question about the effects of easy proximity to a library with a fiction section answered, but I maintain that if you attempt to 'shove LeCarre down my throat' you will find out where it sticks more easily; the morality play of a well-written mystery is a thousand times more soothing to the feelings of a      cousin.

There's another favor I must ask of you, with emphasis on the unique trust I place on your personal and professional integrity and valuation of tranquility (including domestic), and not merely because it comes under your purview. Having determined that none is yet in place, I wish to place a patent with the Ministry, as I have with IAMB, on a topical delivery method for potions without making it in any way public. Can you slip it through on my behalf? When you've assessed the appended specifications, I think you will understand why I wish both a highly exclusive and long-lasting patent and for it to be undertaken in the utmost secrecy, even from the most golden of eyries.

You'll understand what I mean by this, I know, and not take it amiss: I really have some scruples about placing this design in Ministry records at all. If I've thought of it, however, younger innovative minds with more exposure to Muggle toys surely will in time (naming no names), and far better that they should be forced to come to you or to me for dissuasion and/or stringent limitations than to blithely commercialize or martialize this particular piece of technomancy. I'd like to ask you not to inform even the locksmith, as his position is always a delicate one for a man of integrity, but if you feel you must then please do so with all due precautions.

As ever, this paper is coated with a topical memory enhancer and will self-destruct when blue armadillos dance or something of that nature.
V. Clayborn

( Once he realized the usual projectiles were contained with a gelatin casing, everything became simple, and the machine itself isn't electric and won't get him into trouble with the muggle police. )

Although he hits every bench in town (inside and out, and not a single one outside the borders), he doesn't hit every chair. That's a more random spattering. None belonging to anyone he's ever called family; don't draw attention there, and besides, eurgh. So there's just, here and there (and there, and there, and there) a chair that, when sat on, begins to silently rumble and purr pleasantly against its occupant. The shadowing spell will eventually wear off the little stones worked into their legs, but not, he thinks, for a good, long time. Not if the little snatches of astral body (mere grains, replenished every meal, less than is burned off with laughter) they take from their occupants in payment and to fuel their movement keep being renewed with sitting.

So: the innocent pleasure dispersed, the cleansing, pleasing deaths to follow, those without even a trace of his astral scent. This should give the little hell-brat a headache at the very least, drive him to distraction, in the best case, and out. Gadfly was always his role; he can't really hurt the prince of hell, but he can, maybe, annoy him enough to leave him alone.

It's dark when he finishes. He's heard about some winter deity-saint who touches every house in the world (of one faith, anyway) in a night, and spares a moment for admiration. But it's interrupted when he sees a certain store still open. Some temptations aren't worth resisting. With a candle in his pocket, smelling of autumn and spice, and two seals in the form of a fox and a smiley-face, he wends home. After all, he hasn't hit home either, knowing how well that would be received, and that's just not fair.

After a monumental struggle to get the DVD- player hooked up, Q was ready. Massive bowl of popcorn: check. Carbonated fermented malt beverages: check. He slid the first DVD from the pile on the table into the machine. Brief interlude to figure out the remote control and which was the volume button. Finally!

..."I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”

..."Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown…THROW IT!”

..."Pardon me, but could you help a fellow American down on his luck?”

..."I hope they don’t hang you precious, by that sweet neck.”

…”I hate snakes Jock. I hate ‘em.”

…”We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

…”I think I must have one of those faces you can’t help believing.”

…”All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”


Popcorn gone…run to the nearest take away for an extra-large chicken tikka.

…”Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”

…”Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”

…"Ad hoc, ad hoc and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!”

…”You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”

…”Sorry about the mess.”

…”You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow.”

It's not that she needs it. There's nothing indicating it's a necessity. No driving reason to make her way to the glass-fronted office that smells alarmingly of nothing rather than the warm smells of bubbling potions and drying herbs of the last specialist she sought out. Nothing other than simple curiosity. And Victoire was never curious for very long.

So she sits and waits... and waits. Then is finally led down a empty hallway into a windowless room where she takes a seat on something that looks like a failed transfiguration, not quite a chair and not quite a bed. A man wheels up next to her, looking at his machine rather than her as he asks her to lift her shirt and pull her skirt and knickers down. She stares a moment at him then tartly asserts that she'd rather know the name of the man telling her to undress. He starts and blushes satisfactorily and mutters that his name is David. She smiles, wickedly, as she lays back and does as he asks, pleased when he blushes and nearly drops the plastic-looking wand in his hand.

A heavy glop of lube momentarily distracts her but then Victoire watches entranced as the images begin resolving into clarity and into recognizable forms. Her breath catches in those first moments and it's not until she leaves the office, a small folder in her hand, that she really catches it again.

While she's waiting for a street light to change she opens the folder up, delicately touching the image inside.



"Bonjour, ma petite..."

The Joker fiddled with one last wire, and then screwed the cover back on. Standing a reasonably safe distance away from the building, rigged to blow, he danced excitedly from foot to foot. Looking at the henchman standing nearest, he smiled.

"One more minute, and if the Commissioner doesn't make his move, then..." he made a blowing up sound and then laughed.

The henchman laughed along with his boss, a wise thing to do. "Yeah, boss...boom. 50 kegs rigged to go...that'll show 'em."

The Joker held the makeshift detonator in one hand, finger on the toggle, while he watched the seconds tick on his watch. "10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1..." He glanced at the cell phone in the hand of the henchman, who shook his head no. Looking like an excited boy on Christmas, the Joker flipped the toggle. A pause. Nothing happened. He flipped it back and forth a few more times. Nothing. Brows furrowed in frustration, he hit his hand against the side of the box a couple times. "Damn technology," he mumbled, then turned to the henchman. "Why, ah, why don't you go back in...guess we didn't hook up the last rig right...fix it, come back, we'll try this again."

The henchman looked a little nervous, but headed for the building anyway. As he stepped in the front door, the Joker looked down at the box in his hand. "Stupid thing." He whacked it once more, for good measure. And jumped at the explosion that immediately followed, all 50 barrels blowing. "Oops!" he called out to the flaming building. "Guess the rig was fine after all!" Laughing, he skipped down the street away from the fire.

The topic for the month of May is technology. Discuss the devices you know now, or what you knew before. Tell us how you use it, or how you avoid it.

Surprisingly, tag is "technology." And since Iago cannot be persuaded to separate business and personal posts, he wants to wish his beloved partner a tender happy birthday, and there is messily but lovingly made cake on the counter.