Tom pushes Linus. Linus staggers forward into the field of fire.<\/p>\n
Maria picks up the gun. She points it at him. It begins charging.<\/p>\n
Linus looks helplessly at Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo,\u201d Tom says.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom rolls his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d says Linus. He blinks. He shakes his head once to clear it. \u201cOh. Right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He walks to the pile of kettles and mittens.<\/p>\n
He walks out in front of the space gun.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t suave yet, for clarity. He isn\u2019t confident yet, isn\u2019t artistic (horribly or otherwise) yet; he isn\u2019t Mr. Enemy yet at all.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t even Lethal<\/i>.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s just an ordinary boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long,\u201d says Tom. The gun veers to point his way. Tom sweats. \u201cHow long does it take for that thing to charge?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeventy-five seconds,\u201d says Maria.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a weakness,\u201d says Maria. She gestures vaguely at the line of devastation that an earlier shot left through Britain. \u201cThere are corresponding advantages. Of course I have needle darts and kicking people to death, too, but that wouldn\u2019t hardly be sporting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linus searches through the pile. He finds his favorite pair of mittens. He puts them on.<\/p>\n
\u201cLinus!\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
Mr. Enemy wouldn\u2019t have done that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom pushes Linus. Linus staggers forward into the field of fire. Maria picks up the gun. She points it at him. It begins charging. Linus looks helplessly at Tom. \u201cGo,\u201d Tom says. \u201cGo?\u201d Tom rolls his eyes. \u201cOh,\u201d says Linus. He blinks. He shakes his head once to clear it. \u201cOh. Right.\u201d He walks to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-3949","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\/Linus_Head.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","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=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6338,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions\/6338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}