Dream: Three Trials at the Compound (Weekend Edition)
Sunday, February 26th:
Something happened in a high place.
Below that, a gay student from Local Area Parochial High School (LAPHS) wrestled a pair of militiamen from the compound. (They were vicious, but not dangerous; the sporting event had a judge and a handful of spectators.) He was outnumbered, but he was a senior and a football player. His biggest advantage, though, was that he ignored the asphalt that filled the arena waist-deep. An assailant would strain just to make a feeble lunge, and the LAPHS guy would flip him face-first into the corner, where it'd take him another minute just to get out. Meanwhile, the football player would walk right through the stuff like it wasn't even there and take down his other opponent.
The compound occupied a square field at least a hundred yards on a side. I got the feeling it was part of a school or a corporation headquarters, but then the compound skirmish team raced along the field for the next competition. An audience watched from white bleachers ringing the compound. Clad in metal and PVC armor, the skirmish team charged, weapons drawn, banking suddenly to engage the audience. Chris Messenger was in the lead by then, swinging a stout broadsword. Someone on the spectator's side was prepared, and a gantry overhead tipped a cauldron of scalding oil over the team just as they closed with the helpless audience. Chris and the other skirmishers screamed as their assault dissolved under full-body burns.
Someone showed me the secret exit from the compound field into the basement. He stamped his foot on the ground in a certain place, revealing a trapdoor. When he lifted the door, an adjacent strip of sod fell away in the contour of a staircase, and he descended several yards. He knocked twice on the door at the bottom before stepping through; he said that was necessary to disable the countermeasures.
The compound was well-defended. Parts of the field were peppered with land mines (not explosives, though; these were reusable laser devices). Automatic sentry guns hid in the walls and floors. Razor wire grew like nettles in impossible tangles, and a set of oil pipelines ringed the entire compound. We used them for something important for daily operation, but, if necessary, they could be forced to discharge a spray of crude oil anywhere around the perimeter.
A series of black Tahoes rolled from the compound's basement garage into the alley, each accompanied by a pair of security personnel. They were preparing for a forced evacuation in the armored SUV's in case the outsiders rioted against compound policies. I watched from the back of the garage, and I saw the dark glances that local school kids threw down the alley. The evac prep didn't display much trust of the local populace, and the kids knew enough to feel insulted.
A passel of non-violent protesters clad in matching blue rubber somethings marched in through the open garage bay and sat in a line. The older woman running the show looked like a professional rabble-rouser, veteran of a score of protests. Someone said security was on its way, but she convinced half of them to stay; she said they wouldn't do anything more than shout and bully. Moments later another skirmish team burst through the loading dock doors into the garage and overran the protesters. One of the civilians was dragged into an alley and raped; another two were killed. I jumped over something, a Jersey barrier, maybe, and escaped the chaos.
PA speakers announced the next event, which would take place over several days. Each side would break into small teams, and each team would construct a boat from ice and timber. (I knew that meant mostly ice with optional wooden reinforcements.) The PA voice sounded halfway between a BSA scoutmaster and the staff at Hogwarts. Come to think of it, my teammates looked a bit like Hogwarts kids, just not quite enough to be anyone I recognized. Anyhow, they were all younger than me.
Each of us fiddled with ice-boat designs on our own for a few hours, but everything fell apart, and by the end of the first review period we had nothing to show. I complained rhetorically, but beltramgregor appeared and expounded on dozens of historical ice-boat architectural styles from primitive hollow domes to the complex interlocked sheets and beams of ancient Chinese barges. It would've been irritating if it weren't so incredibly helpful. And after all, he was a history major.
The four of us made a pact to work together as a team and succeed. (beltramgregor was gone, so this was me and three not-quite-Hogwarts kids.) We all jumped into a muddy canal with cobblestone walls.
An orange dawn lit the clouds of gray dust that encircled us. A woman arrived driving a sleek sedan. She swung past near the shore of our lake; our canal had become a large pond, and we'd been treading water all night. She backed her car up to the shoreline, then got out and rummaged in the back seat. She set a few packages on the hoodfood and construction supplies we'd need for the project. She walked to the back of the car and did something, and the entire chassis flipped up, pivoting along the back bumper. It catapulted our supplies in a high arc, then reattached itself to the frame as the packages plooshed into the water. We swam to collect them.
Later, our lake was a canal once more. I'd taken off my t-shirt despite the chill, and we'd all spread out a few yards apart, laying low in the water to stay in the shadow of the wall. Even in the light, the late-afternoon sun felt dim and tepid. I asked how this was supposed to work, and they passed my question down the team. A sweet girl with an oval face and long hair slid down the canal and sat beside me to explain the plan. She looked older than my other three teammatesI suppose there were five of us nowbut might've still been a year or two younger than me. Her legs felt warm beside mine, pleasant in the cold water, and I didn't want her to leave, even if we were being counterproductive.
"When does the ice form around us?" I asked. (We had to grow ice somehow so we could harvest it and start building our boat.)
Before she could answer, a farmer by the canal's edge got my attention. He lived in a cottage near the end of our trench, and we'd seen him on occasion. He tossed me a rubber Wiley Coyote toy set and walked away. I knew what he meant, though: he was saying, 'As long as you kids are camping out here being hungry and cold, feel free to kill the coyote that's been hanging around my place.' I played with Wiley's accessories, which were mostly rifles.
Folks in the living room of my old house shrieked at the huge eight-inch cockroach that crawled across the wall. From the dining room, I saw another, merely large roach climbing a cabinet in the kitchen. An impishly cute LAPHS Junior pulled the bug off the cabinet and headed for the back porch. I followed her, intrigued; she took it in stride, like she did this all the time.
Dan Churchill stood outside the doorway. Inside, people that looked suspiciously like musicin68 and gunn giggled and burbled about something only they understood. A post-it note stuck to the underside of the lintel announced: Blood Transfusions Today.
Dan sighed patiently.
Something happened in a high place.
Below that, a gay student from Local Area Parochial High School (LAPHS) wrestled a pair of militiamen from the compound. (They were vicious, but not dangerous; the sporting event had a judge and a handful of spectators.) He was outnumbered, but he was a senior and a football player. His biggest advantage, though, was that he ignored the asphalt that filled the arena waist-deep. An assailant would strain just to make a feeble lunge, and the LAPHS guy would flip him face-first into the corner, where it'd take him another minute just to get out. Meanwhile, the football player would walk right through the stuff like it wasn't even there and take down his other opponent.
The compound occupied a square field at least a hundred yards on a side. I got the feeling it was part of a school or a corporation headquarters, but then the compound skirmish team raced along the field for the next competition. An audience watched from white bleachers ringing the compound. Clad in metal and PVC armor, the skirmish team charged, weapons drawn, banking suddenly to engage the audience. Chris Messenger was in the lead by then, swinging a stout broadsword. Someone on the spectator's side was prepared, and a gantry overhead tipped a cauldron of scalding oil over the team just as they closed with the helpless audience. Chris and the other skirmishers screamed as their assault dissolved under full-body burns.
Someone showed me the secret exit from the compound field into the basement. He stamped his foot on the ground in a certain place, revealing a trapdoor. When he lifted the door, an adjacent strip of sod fell away in the contour of a staircase, and he descended several yards. He knocked twice on the door at the bottom before stepping through; he said that was necessary to disable the countermeasures.
The compound was well-defended. Parts of the field were peppered with land mines (not explosives, though; these were reusable laser devices). Automatic sentry guns hid in the walls and floors. Razor wire grew like nettles in impossible tangles, and a set of oil pipelines ringed the entire compound. We used them for something important for daily operation, but, if necessary, they could be forced to discharge a spray of crude oil anywhere around the perimeter.
A series of black Tahoes rolled from the compound's basement garage into the alley, each accompanied by a pair of security personnel. They were preparing for a forced evacuation in the armored SUV's in case the outsiders rioted against compound policies. I watched from the back of the garage, and I saw the dark glances that local school kids threw down the alley. The evac prep didn't display much trust of the local populace, and the kids knew enough to feel insulted.
A passel of non-violent protesters clad in matching blue rubber somethings marched in through the open garage bay and sat in a line. The older woman running the show looked like a professional rabble-rouser, veteran of a score of protests. Someone said security was on its way, but she convinced half of them to stay; she said they wouldn't do anything more than shout and bully. Moments later another skirmish team burst through the loading dock doors into the garage and overran the protesters. One of the civilians was dragged into an alley and raped; another two were killed. I jumped over something, a Jersey barrier, maybe, and escaped the chaos.
PA speakers announced the next event, which would take place over several days. Each side would break into small teams, and each team would construct a boat from ice and timber. (I knew that meant mostly ice with optional wooden reinforcements.) The PA voice sounded halfway between a BSA scoutmaster and the staff at Hogwarts. Come to think of it, my teammates looked a bit like Hogwarts kids, just not quite enough to be anyone I recognized. Anyhow, they were all younger than me.
Each of us fiddled with ice-boat designs on our own for a few hours, but everything fell apart, and by the end of the first review period we had nothing to show. I complained rhetorically, but beltramgregor appeared and expounded on dozens of historical ice-boat architectural styles from primitive hollow domes to the complex interlocked sheets and beams of ancient Chinese barges. It would've been irritating if it weren't so incredibly helpful. And after all, he was a history major.
The four of us made a pact to work together as a team and succeed. (beltramgregor was gone, so this was me and three not-quite-Hogwarts kids.) We all jumped into a muddy canal with cobblestone walls.
An orange dawn lit the clouds of gray dust that encircled us. A woman arrived driving a sleek sedan. She swung past near the shore of our lake; our canal had become a large pond, and we'd been treading water all night. She backed her car up to the shoreline, then got out and rummaged in the back seat. She set a few packages on the hoodfood and construction supplies we'd need for the project. She walked to the back of the car and did something, and the entire chassis flipped up, pivoting along the back bumper. It catapulted our supplies in a high arc, then reattached itself to the frame as the packages plooshed into the water. We swam to collect them.
Later, our lake was a canal once more. I'd taken off my t-shirt despite the chill, and we'd all spread out a few yards apart, laying low in the water to stay in the shadow of the wall. Even in the light, the late-afternoon sun felt dim and tepid. I asked how this was supposed to work, and they passed my question down the team. A sweet girl with an oval face and long hair slid down the canal and sat beside me to explain the plan. She looked older than my other three teammatesI suppose there were five of us nowbut might've still been a year or two younger than me. Her legs felt warm beside mine, pleasant in the cold water, and I didn't want her to leave, even if we were being counterproductive.
"When does the ice form around us?" I asked. (We had to grow ice somehow so we could harvest it and start building our boat.)
Before she could answer, a farmer by the canal's edge got my attention. He lived in a cottage near the end of our trench, and we'd seen him on occasion. He tossed me a rubber Wiley Coyote toy set and walked away. I knew what he meant, though: he was saying, 'As long as you kids are camping out here being hungry and cold, feel free to kill the coyote that's been hanging around my place.' I played with Wiley's accessories, which were mostly rifles.
Folks in the living room of my old house shrieked at the huge eight-inch cockroach that crawled across the wall. From the dining room, I saw another, merely large roach climbing a cabinet in the kitchen. An impishly cute LAPHS Junior pulled the bug off the cabinet and headed for the back porch. I followed her, intrigued; she took it in stride, like she did this all the time.
Dan Churchill stood outside the doorway. Inside, people that looked suspiciously like musicin68 and gunn giggled and burbled about something only they understood. A post-it note stuck to the underside of the lintel announced: Blood Transfusions Today.
Dan sighed patiently.