Chapter 83 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 83 — The poleaxes; Britney kills Osvaldo; the Cadillac

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 82 — Karl the dachshund; Team Sparkles ends · Next: Chapter 84 — The dachshund walks to the Hairpin · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

What happened next happened so quickly, I didn’t even see it.

Summary

The poleaxes — Carl's cone-charges designed last floor to breach floors without levelling a building, vaporising rather than scattering — blow a jagged shaft to the roof, where portals to the eleventh wait instead of a finish line. Osvaldo launches at the instant of the blast, but his plan has a flaw: to pass outside a mount, the mount must be dead, so he had to kill Bruna first and wait for Carl. Three potion balls save the gnu, and Donut lands on her, shields, sprouts trees and summons gremlins with medicine, catching Osvaldo's grenade and poison-dart bombs. The portal wall stuns him. Britney jumps; Florin fears she will kill Louis and the car to get out the gate, but she is not running. A champion has fallen: Crawler Osvaldo has been killed by Crawler Britney Proskurina, a bounty claimed, Team Flamengo eliminated, and the Royal Court the sole survivor. Britney lands on his corpse, eyes glowing, a golden player-killer skull over her; Donut sees that she moved as fast as Osvaldo, and Carl notes that she now has the memorial crystal from Ysalte.

The beetles return wolf-sized and Imani casts a wide stun, urging Carl and Donut through the gate; they refuse to leave. Samantha, suddenly serious, says that if Britney places the gem in the plinth at the Basilica or the Vulgar Temple, 'she’ll be back for good', and that Britney must reach the Halls of the Ascendency or Sheol if she wants to get 'that crazy Ysalte bitch out of her.' Lucia must live, for the children in her head. Louis and Britney back the gecko toward their garage, which the track allows, and Florin and Lucia follow, arguing.

The holding area comes into focus. Of the Troika, two wanted the Cabaret and the third worships a god; now the holding area is the offer for anyone — god-worshippers, crawlers with incompatible anatomy — a stasis like a deal's, from which a floor designer like Herot selects people off a menu (Tipid came from a site-prep season). The Nothing was the toss-and-forget system and the catchall a redundant backup nobody watches; Pontiff's exit message matched an NPC entering an off-limits area. Carl's message to Herot asks that god-worshippers be let in, kept in stasis and released one by one as the gods lose power in the Ascendency, which runs with or without crawlers. He trusted Herot as a cookbook author; the plan is paper-thin, a desperate fuck you.

Chris's rig beeps back; the Troika's Cadillac bursts into the lobby's centre and tips to run for the exit. The APV and rig fire, Prepotente kills its shield, and Donut's Astral Paw crushes it like a tin can in under a second. Three new player-killer skulls appear over Donut.

Characters

• Carl — The poleaxes open the roof; Bruna saved; 'You stubborn idiot'; 'Herot was a cookbook author, and as such, I trusted them.'
• Princess Donut — Shields the gnu; Astral Paw crushes the Cadillac; three skulls.
• Osvaldo — Launches at the blast; stunned at the portal; killed.
• Britney Proskurina — 'I’m not running, you idiot'; kills Osvaldo; a golden skull; Ysalte's crystal.
• Louis and Firas — Protected; backs the gecko home.
• Florin — 'Protect Louis!'; backs out arguing with Lucia.
• Lucia Mar — Wanted the stairwell.
• Imani — A wide-area stun; 'We got this.'
• Elle McGibbons — The Troika plan.
• Chris — Fires on the Cadillac.
• Prepotente — Kills its shield.
• Samantha — Serious for once: the Basilica or the Vulgar Temple.
• Tipid — A season on a site-prep crew.
• Herot — Carl's message: keep god-worshippers in stasis.
• Pontiff — Presumably in the Cabaret.
• The Tracksuit Troika — Run for the exit and are crushed.

Locations

• The L'Engle Building — A shaft to the roof portals; wolf-sized beetles return.
• The Nothing — The toss-and-forget system; the catchall a backup.

Motifs

• Explosives — Poleaxes: up and down, not lateral.
• Crawler on crawler — Osvaldo dead by a crawler's hand.
• Player-killer skulls — Britney's golden one; Donut's three.
• Memorial crystals — Ysalte's on Britney now.
• Ysalte — 'Get that crazy Ysalte bitch out of her.'
• The holding area — Stasis, a menu, a blink.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Trust in an author.
• The kinder facility — Lucia must live.