She pushes lightly on the umbrella. He backs into the bank. She follows.<\/p>\n
\u201cFear not, Mr. Bertram Gulley,\u201d says the space princess assassin. \u201cI am not without mercy. I am sworn to always give my victims one . . . slim . . . chance at survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gets a step ahead of the umbrella. Two steps. This apparently conforms to her plan and not his own as a gun muzzle flicks out a step and a half from her umbrella\u2019s tip.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet us play a game,\u201d says Maria. \u201cMr. Bertram Gulley, and if you win \u2014 well . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTag,\u201d says Bertram, frantically. \u201cI\u2019m it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Maria leaps back and out of the way as he moves forward. He flees the bank without tagging her. She blinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t mean to say just any game<\/i>,\u201d she protests.<\/p>\n
She hesitates.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod, Maria!\u201d she says. She beats her head on the wall of the bank. \u201cYou are the worst space princess assassin ever!<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She pushes lightly on the umbrella. He backs into the bank. She follows. \u201cFear not, Mr. Bertram Gulley,\u201d says the space princess assassin. \u201cI am not without mercy. I am sworn to always give my victims one . . . slim . . . chance at survival.\u201d He gets a step ahead of the umbrella. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-3600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stomping-the-world-round-chapter-4","series-stwr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Just-Maria.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3600"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6404,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600\/revisions\/6404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3600"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=3600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}