Sunday, January 26, 2014

Page 530 -- LXI.

--donation bonus (day #27, post 3/5)--
“I must agree,” said Meriwether. “This whole situation could have gone terribly awry. I should have liked to be let in on the plan as well.”

“You darling boys,” she said, smiling sympathetically. “This was no plan of mine.”

“What?” said David.

She returned a frown of her own now. “Gabriel, Charles, and Martin are dead. And so too would Meriwether be if he had not come here when he did. Honestly, I thought this was somehow your mad plan.”

The brothers exchanged looks.

“I was only having David watched as a precautionary measure,” she said. “Ostensibly, I did it for your protection, but frankly, I wanted to be sure you were not pulling one over on me.”

David narrowed his eyes. “You also planted bugs in here, didn’t you?”

“My apologies,” she said with a nod.

“No need for that,” said David. “Your distrust has apparently saved my brother’s life, if not also my own.”

She tilted her head a little. “It would seem that we have all deceived each other so thoroughly that not one of us has any idea what we are accomplishing anymore.”

David rubbed his forehead. “This. This is why politics terrifies me...”


Chapter Sixty-One: ‘To yield no ground...’
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“Everyone! Hello! My name is Desmond, and my friends and I will be kidnapping you today!”

A crowd of about fifty soldiers looked at him as he stood on the dais on one end of the base’s conference hall. Their faces were a wild mixture of anger and fear and horror. Clearly, they still required a bit of homogenizing.

“Now I know what you’re thinking. ‘Kidnapping?! That doesn’t sound very fun!’ But you are mistaken. We’re going to have a grand, old time. Trust me! I have experience with this sort of thing!”

The reapers floated among the soldiers, watching and listening, sizing them all up, while the other six servants hovered around the perimeter of the crowd--the shepherds who had gathered the flock.

“You may notice that we’ve taken all your knives and ammunition and given you unloaded guns. This is because we don’t need you fine fellows to do anything other than march around and look pretty.”

14 comments:

  1. Very nice page. Desmond is awesome. David, too.



    Typo:
    "Your distrust has apparently saved [the] my brother’s life"
    "I have experience with [this] sort of thing!"

    Not sure about this:
    "I should have liked to be let in on the plan as well."
    Maybe "would" instead of "should"?

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  2. Snowtail the KhajiitJanuary 26, 2014 at 4:54 PM

    Wow. That's pretty much exactly how politics work. XD
    And Desmond needs to work on his people skills. Just a little.

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  3. Fixed, thanks.

    Would and should are largely interchangeable. It's something of a regional thing, varying pretty wildly depending on who you ask, but yeah. Thanks for the check, though. :)

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  4. Interesting conundrum Luther was presented with. Meriwether doesn't lie, so the only reason he had for acting like he did was that he was sincerely convinced Luther would be captured and tried for treason.

    But did he believe that because he didn't understand the extent of Luther's plotting? Because he was stupid? Or because really did know something Luther didn't?

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  5. Snowtail the KhajiitJanuary 26, 2014 at 6:09 PM

    Politics! *Insert "Aliens" meme here*

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  6. I only just started reading your story SATURDAY NIGHT. YESTERDAY. I practically stayed up all night (slept a couple hours) and woke up and kept reading! AND NOW I'VE REACHED THE END??!! GAH!!!
    I will be keeping tabs on this story because it is just so GOOD. You are an amazing writer. If this wasn't online already I would have suggested you publish it. Wonderful job!

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  7. A crowd of about fifty soldiers looked at him as he stood on the dais on one of the base’s conference hall.
    "hall *s*"

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  8. That is amazing. Glad you're enjoying. :)

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  9. Ah, fixed now, thanks.

    Was actually a case of a missing word. I'd meant for it to say "on one end of the base's conference hall." Not that anyone could have possibly guessed that from the wording.

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  10. This is why politics terrifies me...
    Terrify makes more sense.

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  11. This one isn't a mistake, actually. The way it's used here, David is referring to "politics" as a singular concept, the same way one might refer to mathematics.

    If he'd said "This is why that person's politics terrify me," then "politics" would have been plural, because he'd be referring to "political beliefs" rather than the "subject" or "system" of politics as a whole.

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  12. Mind=blown there for me

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  13. couldn't stop laughing at desmond, almost as funny as rudeus greyrat prison chapters

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  14. I TOTALLY agree with \David.
    Politics are fucking TERRIFYING.

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