Chapter 67 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 67 — Half a prayer, half a song; one flower

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 66 — Grull; Dong tilts a giant · Next: Chapter 68 — Sam Town; Cascadia's announcement · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

“What?” Donut demanded as we limped over the finish line.

Summary

'Carl, we came in last place! How did the stupid unicorn win?' Dong Quixote is dead. Prepotente survived alone from his heat — 'difficult choices'. Donut: 'Dong is dead. He was my friend, and he’s dead'; Grigori offers that some believe death is movement to another plane, and Dong did not think this the end. Check-ins: Imani barely; Louis last again but with an upgrade-thief engineer; Florin first overall; Tran, Zhang and Chris's team through. Of sixty teams, eighteen survived. Osvaldo says the unicorn cheated — Jasha saw him ride up the outside wall, over the roof, and drop to the finish. Rosetta and Tipid are shopping for mercenaries at outrageous prices. Heats six and seven run back to back on the same track with different rules; heat six's finish is a two-hour pit stop with no safe room. The track is the L'Engle Building, a seven-storey human apartment block, top floor to bottom and back for seven, 25 km 'relative to your size', over 300 heats shrunk to fit, exit only by the front door, with Black Lung Smog, fleas, Yorkshire terriers and 'the loudest, most annoying, most selfish people you’ve ever met'. Three hundred heats means about 1,200 teams, mostly NPCs, from 3,000 people before this race. Three more cleaner bots are found. Quest Complete: Half a prayer, half a song — and the AI adds a confession: 'I don’t know WTF is going on in many spaces of my own dungeon, and it’s freaking me out. This Cabaret thing.' Beware exits that seem too good to be true; he built the Scavenger's Daughter and no longer knows what it is doing; the Emberus quest must be completed before the end of the 11th, and he does not control the gods; he does not like Eris. The reward: two creatures within his sphere of influence brought to the eleventh-floor arena at the end of the Parade, chosen only inside the arena. Mordecai: a single flower has bloomed. Li Na made it; it is safe.

Characters

• Carl — 'It’s going to get worse before it gets better'; reads the quest reward.
• Princess Donut — 'Dong is dead. He was my friend'; 'What a cheater.'
• Grigori the Placid — 'Is this a dream?'; death as movement to another plane.
• Prepotente — Sole survivor of his heat.
• Imani — 'We survived. Barely.'
• Louis and Firas — An upgrade-thief engineer; Britney tore a head off.
• Florin — First overall.
• Osvaldo — 'That unicorn goddamn cheated.'
• Dwight and Lucienne (Team Sparkles) — Over the roof to the finish.
• The System AI — 'You ever get that feeling? Like you’re l-l-l-losing control?'
• Mordecai — A single flower.
• Li Na — Made it.
• Hedy — Frowns at another audience vote.

Locations

• The Gasworks Screw Factory, Steel Mill, and Doll Workshop — Eighteen of sixty teams survived.
• The garage and the cul-de-sac — Garage 4.

Motifs

• The crawler count — About 1,200 teams left from 3,000 people.
• The AI's confessions — 'Beware exits that seem too good to be true'; the seeds grew on their own.
• The Garden of Deliverance — One flower: safe.
• The Pineapple Cabaret — Three more bots found.
• The arena vote and the stand-ins — Two within the AI's sphere of influence, chosen in the arena.
• The death of Geyrun — 'You have that Emberus quest to complete before the end of the 11th.'