Read Online Unidentified Funny Objects 2 by Robert Silverberg, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Esther Frisner - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Silverberg, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Esther Frisner
Ads: Link
planet.” Bubbles dribbled up from the corners of Jarhead’s mouth, something that only happened when he was truly pissed. “Crazed supervillains turn cockroaches into giant mechanized war machines or travel back in time to kill the inventor of bacon, and what do we do? Lock them all up in the same place to compare notes!”
This had been Scaramouche’s fourth successful escape. Fifth if you counted the time she programmed a copy of her own mind and uploaded it to Facebook. Thankfully, e-Scaramouche proved to be just as erratic as her creator, and Stranger had been able to trap her in a neverending game of Bejeweled.
“I’m sorry,” Jarhead continued. “But you can’t rehabilitate the woman who tried to assassinate the Prime Minister of Australia with a radioactive platypus. How much have we spent on room and board and therapy for those clowns? If anyone deserves a death sentence…”
His final words hung in the air. Stranger watched the blinking LEDs on Jarhead’s circulation regulator, remembering the sadness on Doctor Y’s pale face as he pronounced Stranger’s own death sentence.
“Ooh. Awkward…”
“Right. Sorry,” said Jarhead. “So you flew to Edgewood.”
STRANGER’S STOMACH GURGLED AS he approached the main entrance, a steel door six inches thick, guarded by twin laser turrets. After a voiceprint check, the door swung open, and he strode inside to greet Doctor April Alexander, administrator of Edgewood Asylum.
“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Doctor Alexander spoke in a whisper, as if this were a church or a funeral home. She avoided looking at his face. “I’m sorry about… you know.”
“From this day forward, I will be known as That Which Shall Not Be Named!”
“We’re on full lockdown,” she said as she led him inside. “Everyone else is secure. Scaramouche was the only one to escape.”
“How?” Stranger asked.
“She…” Her face reddened. “She talked one of the guards into releasing her. The guard died in the escape. I don’t suppose—”
“I can’t talk to the dead.” Stranger sighed. All the precautions in the world couldn’t protect against human frailty. How long had Scaramouche worked to select which guard would be most vulnerable to her manipulations, and to slowly warp her victim’s mind with carefully chosen words?
Each cell was customized to the powers of its inhabitant. Magman lived in a walk-in freezer with precisely controlled oxygen flow to keep him from igniting. Verdana’s cell was irradiated twice a day to prevent her from using her mastery of plants to create a mold-based weapon. Again.
Scaramouche’s cell was unusual in its normalcy. She had no powers beyond her deranged mind, and yet she had proven herself time and again to be one of Edgewood’s most dangerous supervillains.
“Cool new threads.” Across the hall, the Halloween Princess pressed up against the window of her cell. “Tough break, man.”
Stranger stopped. “What do you mean?”
“The cancer. That sucks, dude.”
For a moment, he thought he had stumbled into another of those obnoxious parallel universes, one where supervillains sympathized with their foes instead of celebrating their demise. “I put you in here after you tried to unleash a plague that would have wiped out ninety percent of humanity.”
Halloween shrugged. “Sure, but this is cancer .”
“Me and my boys, we’re the trump card of terror. Steamroller ran over your dog? Cancer! Nemesis stuffs your girlfriend into the fridge? Cancer! Michael Bay announces another Transformers movie? Cancer, baby!”
Stranger threw up his hands and entered Scaramouche’s cell.
“How can I help?” asked Doctor Alexander.
“I need quiet.” He listened to the room’s contents, inviting them to share what they knew.
“She read me last,” proclaimed a textbook about magnetic nanoparticles. An Archie comic piped up to say, “Bullshit! She always took me along when she used the toilet.”
“That was
This had been Scaramouche’s fourth successful escape. Fifth if you counted the time she programmed a copy of her own mind and uploaded it to Facebook. Thankfully, e-Scaramouche proved to be just as erratic as her creator, and Stranger had been able to trap her in a neverending game of Bejeweled.
“I’m sorry,” Jarhead continued. “But you can’t rehabilitate the woman who tried to assassinate the Prime Minister of Australia with a radioactive platypus. How much have we spent on room and board and therapy for those clowns? If anyone deserves a death sentence…”
His final words hung in the air. Stranger watched the blinking LEDs on Jarhead’s circulation regulator, remembering the sadness on Doctor Y’s pale face as he pronounced Stranger’s own death sentence.
“Ooh. Awkward…”
“Right. Sorry,” said Jarhead. “So you flew to Edgewood.”
STRANGER’S STOMACH GURGLED AS he approached the main entrance, a steel door six inches thick, guarded by twin laser turrets. After a voiceprint check, the door swung open, and he strode inside to greet Doctor April Alexander, administrator of Edgewood Asylum.
“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Doctor Alexander spoke in a whisper, as if this were a church or a funeral home. She avoided looking at his face. “I’m sorry about… you know.”
“From this day forward, I will be known as That Which Shall Not Be Named!”
“We’re on full lockdown,” she said as she led him inside. “Everyone else is secure. Scaramouche was the only one to escape.”
“How?” Stranger asked.
“She…” Her face reddened. “She talked one of the guards into releasing her. The guard died in the escape. I don’t suppose—”
“I can’t talk to the dead.” Stranger sighed. All the precautions in the world couldn’t protect against human frailty. How long had Scaramouche worked to select which guard would be most vulnerable to her manipulations, and to slowly warp her victim’s mind with carefully chosen words?
Each cell was customized to the powers of its inhabitant. Magman lived in a walk-in freezer with precisely controlled oxygen flow to keep him from igniting. Verdana’s cell was irradiated twice a day to prevent her from using her mastery of plants to create a mold-based weapon. Again.
Scaramouche’s cell was unusual in its normalcy. She had no powers beyond her deranged mind, and yet she had proven herself time and again to be one of Edgewood’s most dangerous supervillains.
“Cool new threads.” Across the hall, the Halloween Princess pressed up against the window of her cell. “Tough break, man.”
Stranger stopped. “What do you mean?”
“The cancer. That sucks, dude.”
For a moment, he thought he had stumbled into another of those obnoxious parallel universes, one where supervillains sympathized with their foes instead of celebrating their demise. “I put you in here after you tried to unleash a plague that would have wiped out ninety percent of humanity.”
Halloween shrugged. “Sure, but this is cancer .”
“Me and my boys, we’re the trump card of terror. Steamroller ran over your dog? Cancer! Nemesis stuffs your girlfriend into the fridge? Cancer! Michael Bay announces another Transformers movie? Cancer, baby!”
Stranger threw up his hands and entered Scaramouche’s cell.
“How can I help?” asked Doctor Alexander.
“I need quiet.” He listened to the room’s contents, inviting them to share what they knew.
“She read me last,” proclaimed a textbook about magnetic nanoparticles. An Archie comic piped up to say, “Bullshit! She always took me along when she used the toilet.”
“That was
Similar Books
