appy.

I've found a half-brick that was being used to hold down the tar paper around an
exhaust-chimney. I should've used that to hold the door open, but it's way the
hell the other side of the roof, and I'd been really pleased with my little
pebbly doorstop. Besides, I'm starting to suspect that the doorjamb didn't fail,
that it was sabotaged by some malevolently playful goon from the sanatorium. An
object lesson or something.

I heft the brick. I release the brick. It falls, and falls, and falls, and hits
the little blue fartmobile square on the trunk, punching a hole through the
cheap aluminum lid.

And the fartmobile explodes. First there is a geyser of blue flame as the tank's
puncture wound jets a stream of ignited assoline skyward, and then it blows back
into the tank and *boom*, the fartmobile is in one billion shards, rising like a
parachute in an updraft. I can feel the heat on my bare, sun-tender skin, even
from this distance.

Explosions. Partial nudity. Somehow, though, I know that this isn't the climax.

8.

Linda didn't like to argue -- fight: yes, argue: no. That was going to be a
problem, Art knew, but when you're falling in love, you're able to rationalize
all kinds of things.

The yobs who cornered them on the way out of a bloody supper of contraband,
antisocial animal flesh were young, large and bristling with testosterone. They
wore killsport armor with strategic transparent panels that revealed their
steroid-curdled muscles, visible through the likewise transparent insets they'd
had grafted in place of the skin that covered their abs and quads. There were
three of them, grinning and flexing, and they boxed in Art and Linda in the
tiny, shuttered entrance of a Boots Pharmacy.

"Evening, sir, evening, miss," one said.

"Hey," Art muttered and looked over the yob's shoulder, trying to spot a secam
or a cop. Neither was in sight.

"I wonder if we could beg a favor of you?" another said.

"Sure," Art said.

"You're American, aren't you?" the third said.

"Canadian, actually."

"Marvelous. Bloody marvelous. I hear that Canada's a lovely place. How are you
enjoying England?"

"I live here, actually. I like it a lot."

"Glad to hear that, sir. And you, Miss?"

Linda was wide-eyed, halfway behind Art. "It's fine."

"Good to hear," the first one said, grinning even more broadly. "Now, as to that
favor. My friends and I, we've got a problem. We've grown bored of our wallets.
They are dul