Chapter 4 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 4 — Miss Talulah; Team Free Love

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 3 — Heat one; Prepotente's warning · Next: Chapter 5 — Team Sparkles; the tow · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

» The Trauco Triplets have been eliminated due to the expiration of their mount.

Summary

The Trauco Triplets are eliminated 'due to the expiration of their mount'; eight teams remain. Carl brakes short of the burning Pontiac minivan and, with Prepotente's warning in his head, jumps out to save the team: Donut one-shots the level-90 Miss Talulah with two magic missiles (the manatee's card is a story — an orcish terraformer bankrupted by sports betting, an uplift satellite that 'had its chubby finger pressed hard on the fast-forward-evolution button', the Operatic Bankers' Federation turning a planet of nightmares into the horror safari 'Red Terror Place of Family Adventure', Doom Crier raccoons and Fuck-Off Cockatiels, and Otto of Otto Banking Unit 3 'currently a registered guest of Club Scolopendra' — 'remember that name'), and Carl casts Temporary Water Source into a bucket and a bowl for the two bugbears. Donut must 'choose the fate' of a special guest creature: keep it dead, or let the audience vote in thirty seconds; she picks the vote, 'Results pending'. The bugbears are Radoslav, level 75 Jack of All Trades, and Jasha, 65, of Team Free Love, in tie-dye and beads with no trousers, smoking; their third, Alevtina, broke her neck in the back. Donut, who pockets Jasha's discarded headband, decides they smell like sad wet dogs, not hippies — false advertising. They are awake: in the slime mines they killed a bune crawler who said he only wanted to go home, and 'there was a click, and I just knew'; they remember the submarine, the rope city, and the cold in between; a voice offered the cold or a race for their lives, and the prize for winning is freedom, 'a real place for us to live and never go to the in-between ever again' — and losing 'means it will be over. Finally.' Carl thinks of Rory and Lorelai on the first floor. Their van will not move and they cannot finish without it, so Carl tells them the truth — more than one team lost means crawlers racing crawlers — and offers to tow them. 'This is a good reason. And is an honorable reason.' Jasha, on the bugbears' van: 'Rules are different for mounts' — a dead mount ends its team at once, a wrecked vehicle does not.

Characters

• Carl — Brakes for the burning minivan and saves the team; tells the bugbears the truth and offers a tow.
• Princess Donut — One-shots the level-90 manatee; lets the audience vote its fate; pockets Jasha's headband.
• Mongo — Guards the truck.
• Radoslav and Jasha (Team Free Love) — Team Free Love, awake since the slime mines; Alevtina dead in the back; 'an honorable reason'.
• Miss Talulah — The manatee whose card is a story: an orcish terraformer's horror safari and Otto Banking Unit 3.
• Prepotente — His warning in Carl's head.

Locations

• The Caves of the Screeching Death Manatees — The Trauco Triplets eliminated; eight teams remain.

Motifs

• The tenth floor — The first team lost; the rule about two teams.
• Waking the NPCs — 'There was a click, and I just knew'; the cold in between; the prize is a real place to live.
• The mobs are victims — Carl thinks of Rory and Lorelai.
• The arena vote and the stand-ins — 'I have to choose the fate of my kill': keep it dead or let the audience vote; 'Results pending'.
• Explosives — Temporary Water Source into a bucket for the bugbears.