Chapter 38 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 38 — Monroe County

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Father · Previous: Chapter 37 — The eye of the Bedlam Bride · Next: Chapter 39 — Lazarus-A-Bang-Bang · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

» Time Until Level Collapse: 6 days, 22 hours.

Summary

Monroe County, Florida; December 24th; six days, twenty-two hours to collapse; forty-six hours for the key. A dark Victorian house lit by Torch, Mongo at the corpse like a pig at a trough. 'The game broke!' — four choices (Iowa, the Bahamas, Ibiza, Miami), Miami picked as Rosetta's hidden television message said, then 'a problem with the location', an Iowa label, and the Keys under their feet with the key still marked in Iowa. 'Please wait.' An earthquake; the marker jumps to a few miles west. Emberus: the primordial Nekhebit holds an ancient grudge against his family, Apito especially — find her temple, question the priestess, 'Do not be gentle.' Then the message Carl was waiting for, through the spider chat: 'I acknowledge this was out of your control […] I shall honor our agreement' — and if he warned Odette, everyone crushed 'starting with sweet Katia and ending with that cat'. Quest Complete: Spiders (a boon at a temple they cannot reach; cut loose, which is fine). Carl is more worried than ever about the twelfth floor. Katia got one choice, Ukraine, and landed in Vietnam. Zev: three choices were intended (theirs, the AI's, a random one); some crawlers got four, one, none, and one squad leader with the whole globe dropped into the ocean. 'DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO WOULD VOLUNTARILY VISIT IOWA? THAT'S ALMOST AS BAD AS DELAWARE.' (The purple ribbon was Idaho.) A beach-town road, no cars, memory ghosts, no dots. Torch at level 14 sent up like a stadium light — and to the west a wall of earth into the clouds, wider than the island, cascading: the Iowa key site dumped onto a cay. 'You might want to explain to your folks about the differences in sea level.' 'We'll intervene if the key location becomes inaccessible.' The sailor hat: a dixie cup, minus Hover and ten intelligence, but two seconds off the card draw — 'quite jaunty'; Carl wore a ball cap ('You were in the military, and you wore a baseball cap? I feel as if that’s a lie, Carl'). Nine tokens from deck-carrying mobs before the keyholder fight. Check-ins: Florin in eastern Nigeria without Lucia; Li Jun and Chris deeper in China; Elle in Belgium, Imani given only Detroit, where she grew up, her key in the home of someone she knew; Prepotente in northern Italy; Katia's crew in Da Nang, Tran's city, the key in the building where his ex-wife and estranged mother lived. Elle: 'if they're going to make us fight loved ones, remember it's not really them.' 'Do you know anybody who lives in Florida or Iowa?' 'No' — and Carl hopes it is true. First fight: a level-45 Babababoon in a Santa hat ('I have a huge package for you') standing in a ring of dropped clothes, waiting like a video-game mob beside a saferoom and a club 'Closed for emergency renovations'; a sticky hob-lobber before his first card. Twenty cards, a Skunk Ape totem not worth a swap, token number two. Red dots in a line toward the mound.

Characters

• Carl — Reads Huanxin's reprieve; hopes he knows no one in Florida.
• Princess Donut — A dixie cup for card draw; Iowa is Idaho.
• Mongo — Licks up the paste.
• Zev — Explains the glitch; the mound was 'the only way'
• Huanxin Jinx — Honours the deal with a threat attached.
• Emberus — Sends Carl after Nekhebit's priestess.
• Katia Grim — Ukraine that is Vietnam; Tran's city.
• Tran — His ex-wife and mother in the key building.
• Imani — Detroit, only choice, someone she knows.
• Elle McGibbons — Belgium; a warning about ghosts.

Locations

• The Florida Keys — A beach town on a cay; a mountain of Iowa dumped in the sea.

Motifs

• The ghosts of Earth — Keys placed in the homes of the people crawlers left.
• The three phases — Nine tokens; mobs that wait; four choices where three were meant.
• The System AI — 'Please wait'; a glitch that will look intentional.
• The Celestial Ascendency — The deal survives Odette's swerve.
• The gods — An ancient grudge against Apito's family.
• The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network — The Miami shows, read only by a television obsessive.
• Donut's hats — A dixie cup, jaunty.