Garovel floated off to go find Ponytail, and Hector was left to grumble his way through the night by himself. It wasn’t long before he heard Garovel laughing again, however. ‘It’s fair to say we’ve stirred things up here. You left your chin behind, and it’s freaking them out.’
‘Oh... should I have... uh...’ The pain made it difficult to even think straight. ‘Should I have taken that with me?’
‘Nah.’
‘They won’t, er... try to... study it and reverse engineer my power or something?’
‘What.’
‘I mean... uh... like... I dunno...’
‘You’re afraid they’ll unlock the secret of immortality by studying your chin?’
‘Is that... stupid?’
‘Um. It's just impossible. Your flesh is just flesh. I’m what makes you unkillable. They could study your body all they like, and they wouldn’t learn anything.’
‘Okay... good.’
‘You have a strange imagination by the way.’
‘I’m just... trying to be diligent...’
‘Right.’
‘Uh... so... how much money do you think we got, anyway?’
‘They’re talking about that now, actually. Well. Yelling about it. Ooh, seventy grand, Ponytail says.’
Hector’s eyes widened.
‘Looks like Rofal consolidated several weeks worth of cash here from all over the city. I wonder if he was planning a big purchase.’
‘Seventy thousand troas... what do I even do with this kind of money...?’
‘That’s our funding for critical purposes. No spending it on booze and hookers.’
Hector snorted. ‘What about drugs? Meth and heroin are okay, right?’
‘Oh yeah. Let’s just give it all back to Rofal while we’re at it.’
‘Are you, um... er... are you sure we can even spend this money? Isn’t it, like... being tracked by the government or something?’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
About how much money is a troa?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of spending power, compared to a real world euro or US dollar, a troa would be more valuable.
Delete"I’m what makes you unkillable." Doesn't sound right, I think it should be like "I am what makes you unable to die." But that could just be the proof and from reading to many novels.
ReplyDeleteUnkillable is a viable word; it's in dictionaries and stuff. It's one of those "matter of preference" things. ^_^
ReplyDeleteIn addition to what Snow said, it's also a bit of a callback to Hector and Garovel's very first conversation, where Garovel first tells Hector that he will be "unkilable."
ReplyDeleteIts not really the word unkillable its the I'm part.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Not sure what you mean, then. "I'm" is just a contraction of "I am." They're equivalent expressions. Maybe you're thinking that the apostrophe makes "I'm" that indicates possession?
ReplyDeleteHello, came here form Pact after discussing Caelum Lex on that comments section. Th person that mentioned your story said something about you actually talking to your followers about general exposure for story ad that votes for you increased: Well done!
ReplyDeleteAlso I started about this morning and your story is just so easy to read through that I've just kept going. So, thanks for an interesting story,
Finally the reason I decided to post at this point was to mention currency: if A Troa is worth more than a Euro or Dollar are they in fact Pounds Sterling? (JK but could not resist),
Haha, I'm glad you're enjoying. And I appreciate you telling me how you found me. That always fascinates me. :)
ReplyDeleteForget reverse-engineering zombies, would those thugs be able to check Hector forgotten jaw for his DNA and find out who he is? I mean, they have plenty of dirty cops on their payroll, who's to say they wouldn't have a few doctors or people in forensics?
ReplyDeleteI think, technically, it should be "I'm the one who makes you..." but this version sounds much more realistic.
ReplyDeleteThe line sounds like a throw-away, but you realize that, within this very limited circumstance, his powers are god-like. His humility is fascinating.
It's part of what I like so much about Garovel: he certainly knows more than all of us about what's going on, but he's not perfect. He makes mistakes, he corrects when he realizes it, and he's willing to listen to Hector's advice.
Keep reading. I'll just say that there are reasons a dude like Garovel is humble.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that is, forensics doesn't really help with finding suspects, it's for seeing if the one you've already found is the right one. Even if they do sequence Hector's DNA, it won't tell them anything unless they can compare it to Hector himself or to a database, and if Hector's kept his nose clean he probably isn't in any DNA databases.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I made sure to say *doctors* and people in forensics. Thank you for your comment though
ReplyDeleteAaand I just realized that it's his jaw, which they could compare to his dental records (and I'm pretty sure The Man has those for everybody; "had to be ID'd using dental records" is practically a proverb). Chalk it up to them being too freaked out to think of it before [spoiler].
ReplyDelete