Saul screams as he hits vacuum, but nobody hears him. He rockets out into space \u2014<\/p>\n
But the magnet loops him back.<\/p>\n
Tom is sitting on a bench. Tom is crying. He is crying unashamedly and with no self-consciousness because he is alone, alone save for scissors, in his 101% security Vault of Forbidden Things.<\/p>\n
It is lonely but it is safe to cry there. That is what 101% security means.<\/p>\n
But even 101% is not 100%<\/em>; and this one time, of all possible occasions, Tom is interrupted.<\/p>\n His precognitive heart monitor flutters startlement. He looks up.<\/p>\n Even with that warning, he is extremely startled and his heart beats fast.<\/p>\n Saul strikes the pseudo-glass window of his Vault of Forbidden Things; shatters it; and he comes through.<\/p>\n He lands hard. He is rolling. He crunches into the buttered vulture\u2019s cage.<\/p>\n Tom has a gun in his hand.<\/p>\n Tom shoots him. Saul gulps back the blast, leans back his head, swallows. The pseudo-glass window seals itself shut. The buttered vulture shrieks and flails. Saul lunges forward.<\/p>\n Tom fires again.<\/p>\n Saul twists aside. There is a scent of sizzling butter. A slick of it spreads out under Saul\u2019s feet as he scrabbles for leverage; he slips. He sprawls.<\/p>\n Tom has seized the scissors out of the vacuum containment chamber. He hurls them at Saul. Saul leans his head to one side. The scissors clip off a hank of untidy hair. Saul actually looks better this way.<\/p>\n Then he has Tom by the neck. Then he\u2019s holding Tom up.<\/p>\n \u201cBreak it,\u201d he snarls. \u201cTell me how to break it. The boot must not come down.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom flinches. He looks at the Never-Pull-This Lever. He tries to look away.<\/p>\n Saul shoves Tom to the side.<\/p>\n Saul pulls the lever.<\/p>\n You shouldn\u2019t do this! You shouldn\u2019t ever do this!<\/p>\n Tom burps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saul screams as he hits vacuum, but nobody hears him. He rockets out into space \u2014 But the magnet loops him back. Tom is sitting on a bench. Tom is crying. He is crying unashamedly and with no self-consciousness because he is alone, alone save for scissors, in his 101% security Vault of Forbidden Things. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-6831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-20","series-vidars-boot"],"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\/6831","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=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6832,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions\/6832"}],"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=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}