As the engine noise dies away, the sounds of the jungle close in around them. It’s been five hours since they left the last town, longer since they saw another vehicle. The red mud track stretches out in front of them like a streak of blood through the trees.

“Are you writing blog entries in your head again, man?” Nick asks.

Rowan drops his forehead down to the center of the steering wheel. The horn makes a sad little squeak and follows the engine into the afterlife. “Next time,” he says, into the dented plastic, “Kitty’s getting the rental car.”

Nick swings the camera toward the back seat to shoot their security consultant. Rowan found her in a bar in Cambodia, back when Highjacked by the Truth was just a blog with a cult following. She stops buffing her nails to aim her 9mm at the camera and tell Nick sweetly to go fuck himself.

“Hey,” Rowan says. “We’re not gonna get on cable like that, kids.”

1887, Sahara Desert

Lewis leaned as far to the right as he could to avoid being sick down the side of his camel. He understood perfectly why they were called ships of the desert. He’d been ill all the way from New Eden to Carthage, and it looked very much as if he’d be ill from Carthage to Timbuktu as well.

He hadn’t thought the desert would be like this. The dunes went on forever, and it was like crossing the Atlantic all over again, the endless ripple-dips and folds, and the froth of it caught in his hair and teeth and infiltrating his unmentionables.

The desert had the advantage of stopping at night, but the six or seven hours free of camel-sway only served to highlight the fact that sand was far less malleable than sea-spray, and also itchier.

Cucumber Salad

Lysith woke to a hissed command and a rough shove that knocked him half off the bed. It was Reddis, his trainer, with an unaccustomed lack of calm.

“Up, Lysith, hurry. The lord wants you now. Bathe and dress. You have less than an hour before the seals must be in place.”

“It’s the middle of the night.” Lysith rolled to his feet and stumbled on the edge of his new Dearthian carpet. He could hear the bath running already, and the waft of warm, wet air smelled of the ceremonial herbs that should only be added at the last possible moment, lest they spend themselves on the bath and not on the bather.

by Dr. Noh (mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/90404.html) Author’s note: Many thanks to Flower of Carnage, not just for betaing, but also for letting me use her character, Daniel, and for writing the bit of this story in which he appears. — ONE David detached himself from a woman dressed as a drooping rose. Her costume wasn’t the […]

by Dr. Noh (mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/74257.html) “One hundred an hour,” they’d told him, and he’d jumped at the chance. Now, four hours and thirty-one minutes later by his internal clock, he was still happy with his decision. The next guy unzipped and shoved into his ass, already more than slick enough with lube and come. His […]