In a few seconds a channel opens from Dix to X (meaning it's private, right?): "Hey man, get a load o' dis!" and instantly there is a melange of channels, all shrieking and shouting about some really crazy stuff! "I'm putting this on a loop channel," Dix sharply states, as the din dies down, "So's you cats can listen in on 'em, but it ain't makin' a lot o' sense right now. I'm not sure if they even know what *they're* facing in there! Maybe an acid trip gone bad?" That rhythmic scratching electro-laugh chops in. But now it would seem that you have a scanner channel, if you should want it. "Oh yeah," Dix continues, "I'm bufferin' it, so you can scroll back through it if you think you missed somp'n - though I'm not sure exactly what." Then he rings off unceremoniously, leaving X with an additional blinky channel selection on his comm rig.
As X is having his private discussion with his house ghost, Ace arrives, with/without Block in the passenger seat. (Block hasn't as yet released his doings, so we're going to have to Heisenberg it until he does. Which is a lie: we're Schrӧdingering this at the moment, but some people will buy anything that either one might or might not have said.) Because traffic is jammed any closer than two blocks away, Ace performs an amazing slide-through and manages to bogart a parking place just before some slow-poke tourist starts in for it, resulting in sore feelings on their part, but a well-parked car for Ace. Tough on 'em, maybe they should just have thought a little faster, or perhaps put their thoughts into action. Into action. What an idea!
In minutes Ace (and Block[?]) make way down to the cordon where the police are trying to be in three places at once, keeping the crowd under control, maintaining an orderly assault/rescue operation, and somehow managing a crisis somewhere within this building/block. They get an 'E' for Effort, but that's a far cry from 'A'. As a group of badly battered constables (NYC's finest!) are being dragged back behind a fire truck, you can't help but hear one of the guys gibbering about "and those legs! Big, segmented legs that had to be nearly eight feet long!" before his buddies remind him they are outside, and to get his mouth under control. Eight foot, segmented legs. Wonder what drugs they're all taking...
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