Tom is sitting alone on a bench. He is admiring a stand of mutant pipe cactus. The blooms have opened in the night and are releasing a rich and alien scent.<\/p>\n
She turns sideways. She appears sitting beside him on the bench. He startles three feet rightwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need it,\u201d she grits out. \u201cThe hat. I can\u2019t kill them. I can\u2019t keep fighting. I can\u2019t breathe<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looks her up and down.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d just wind up joining them,\u201d he says, dismissively.<\/p>\n
Edmund verges onto the scene. Bethany kicks a cobblestone from the ground into her hand, throws it, beans him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot mad scientist material?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe correct term is \u2018innovator,\u2019\u201d says Tom peevishly. \u201cOr merely \u2018scientist.\u2019 And no.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She stands up.<\/p>\n
She looks down. She looks up. She takes a breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll have to watch me die,\u201d she says, \u201cthen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cActually,\u201d says Tom, \u201cI can just go home \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are a complete and total jerkface,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
He ponders this.<\/p>\n
It is, as it happens, not true.<\/p>\n
\u201cFine,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He tosses her his hat. She puts it on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom is sitting alone on a bench. He is admiring a stand of mutant pipe cactus. The blooms have opened in the night and are releasing a rich and alien scent. She turns sideways. She appears sitting beside him on the bench. He startles three feet rightwards. \u201cI need it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat?\u201d \u201cI need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-2","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Hat_1_blankbg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","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=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6157,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/6157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}