Chapter 12 of 26 · Book 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Chapter 12 — Mongo holds the pyramid

Book: Carl's Doomsday Scenario · Previous: Chapter 11 — The pitch · Next: Chapter 13 — Mordecai's room · Floor: Floor 3 — The Over City · Series: the series

Opening

I started about a mile and a half away from the old building where Signet lived.

Summary

A mile and a half at a sprint, Donut kept at five percent by her Cockroach skill, to find Mongo deep in the red, doubled in size, holding the gap in the pyramid against a swarm of Street Urchins — the floor's janitors, drawn to Carl's junk, not to Donut — with both of them full of fifteen-inch spikes. A Heal scroll fixes Donut; Mordecai's cinnamon-and-thistle-rot recipe fixes the dinosaur, now level 10 and waist-high. Carl sits against the chair with the raptor in his lap: 'This is my family.'

Donut wakes at dawn having dreamed of Ferdinand as a porcupine. The circus is gone and a stairwell stands in the park. Carl reflects on Donut hiding her cunning behind a camera face, remembers Bea's mother's advice to seem dumber than you are, and Zev books them on the next show: Danger Zone with Ripper Wonton. The playbook begins — 'Panic' — and Mongo can leap twenty feet.

Characters

• Mongo — Saves Donut; level 10; 'You saved Donut.'
• Princess Donut — Wakes; 'Ferdinand came and visited me.'
• Carl — 'This is my family'; the thoughts about Donut's mask.
• Bea — Her mother's Thanksgiving advice, overheard.
• Zev — Books Danger Zone; names Sensation Entertainment.

Locations

• Signet's house — The siege.
• The Over City — The road to the skyfowl town.
• The medium skyfowl settlement — Arrived; the Desperado sign seen.

Motifs

• The playbook — Started: 'Panic.'
• Staying human — 'This, I thought, this is my family.'