Bonnie missed the parade. She'd chosen a fleeing group of Hoteliers etc., pretty much at random, to serve as cover for her: they were tumbling down what looked like a very well-used fire escape on their way to street level. She saw that on reaching the ground they'd only be about a block inside the District. That suited her just fine.
She surged along with her companions down the side of the building past tier after tier of loft-style laboratories whose windows glowed in unsettling colors, often accompanied by sounds that weren't any more reassuring. She kept her eyes on her boots while she went down and down the spiral path of the fire escape. She had no intention of looking inside. Knowing what was in there wasn't likely to be better than not knowing.
The Hotelier or Tavernkeeper ahead of her, though, wasn't so circumspect. He came to a sudden stop right in front of Bonnie and froze, staring in through one of the windows. "Oh, no...." she heard, just before a pair of giant tentacles burst through the glass and began to explore the stairs.
Bonnie's reflexes propelled her over the railing and right down to the next level of the fire escape, but then, uniquely, they abandoned her: something inside of Bonnie was screaming Crew in Danger! and the rest happened purely through instinct. She found herself bounding back up again. "Hug the wall!" she yelled, and she leaped for the nearest of the questing tentacles. The Hoteliers, etc. flattened themselves against the wall and crept down the stairs, temporarily out of reach, while Bonnie found herself riding a bucking, coiling... thing... that didn't seem to want her there. Well, bub, I feel just the same way. Wouldn’t be pulp sci-fi without Tentacles! (isn’t Pulpo Spanish for Octopus?)
June 8th, 2014 at 7:39 pm
