moms in minivans crushed frogs underwheel as their children screamed.
The frogs darted back and forth in vain attempts to reach the other side, in what should have caused an instant traffic jam. No one slowed down, though they stomped on the brakes; every on-board computer in every car on that rush hour road went haywire simultaneously, accelerating to an even fifty miles an hour. Drivers panicked. Some careened into the ditch, driving until their car smashed into the bordering wood of pollution-starved pine trees; others veered into the guardrails.
At first blush, the amphibious fatality rate shouldn’t have been high; the frogs were the size of a man’s palm and should have been safe unless squashed directly underneath a tire.
Except whenever any automobile passed over them, even a truck with what was later measured to be a twelve-inch ride height, the frogs were squashed into wet red heaps. Their shattered bones emerged arranged into rough skull-and-crossbones shapes.
This was still not the strangest thing. The strangest thing, recorded dutifully on police security tapes, was how the frogs all leapt in straight lines until they turned right or left – rotating at perfect ninety-degree angles.
----
S tapleton was a perfect neighborhood for a little covert ’mancy, Paul thought. What ’mancers wanted for Flex labs was cheap housing with big backyards for penning in the sacrifices.
And Stapleton had been a rising star back in the 1960s. The houses, painted in sunny colors, had been built to hold huge futures: sprawling porches to hold cocktail parties, chicken-wire-bounded gardens to grow tomatoes for hearty family meals, a big backyard for big golden retrievers to run in.
But the industry in Stapleton had dried up. The gardens were choked by weeds, the porches warped by years of rain, the sunny yellows reduced to peeling grays. Half the houses here had been repossessed; their unmowed lawns were now wild thatches choked with rusting Coors cans. The children of Stapleton wisely stayed inside, the bright pixelated worlds of their Wiis superior to anything this dismal exterior could offer.
Any dogs on those lawns are coming to bad ends , Paul thought, limping along the road. Someone’s using their Wii for more than gaming .
Paul limped down the road, feeling lucky to be out on the case. His stump rubbed blisters inside the misfit cup, and though the motor in his ankle helped steady his gait, he’d be lucky to get four hours of walking from a full charge. Yet there was only one real way to track down a Flex lab: on foot.
He always thought of chickens when he hunted ’mancers. Mainly because of how he’d explained it to Aliyah.
“It’s… hard to explain,” he’d told her. “Finding magic is kind of like sexing chickens.”
“What?” Imani had grinned, shoving her latest case aside to kick her feet up on the desk. “ This , I gotta hear.”
“What’s a sex chicken, Daddy?” Imani and Paul had both cracked up – a good, clean laughter, one that had probably added two months to their marriage.
“Not a sex chicken, sweetie,” Paul had explained, calming Aliyah’s laughter-inspired outrage. “You know there are boy chickens and girl chickens, right?”
“Technically, ‘boy chickens’ are roosters, sweetie.”
“I am aware, my sweet wife. Anyway, when chickens are born, they’re small fluffy bundles that are – well, about the size of an egg. So you know how people tell which chickens are girls?”
“No…” Aliyah sat still, attentive. She loved learning new things.
“Well, you get a job as a chicken sexer. And on your first day on the job, an experienced chicken sexer sits behind you. And with a magnifying glass, you look at the tiny fuzzy chick-butt.”
Aliyah burst out into giggles. “Chick-butt.”
“Yup. And you look. And the chicken sexer behind you says, ‘Girl.’ And you pick up another chick, which looks exactly the same , and the chicken sexer says, ‘That’s a
The frogs darted back and forth in vain attempts to reach the other side, in what should have caused an instant traffic jam. No one slowed down, though they stomped on the brakes; every on-board computer in every car on that rush hour road went haywire simultaneously, accelerating to an even fifty miles an hour. Drivers panicked. Some careened into the ditch, driving until their car smashed into the bordering wood of pollution-starved pine trees; others veered into the guardrails.
At first blush, the amphibious fatality rate shouldn’t have been high; the frogs were the size of a man’s palm and should have been safe unless squashed directly underneath a tire.
Except whenever any automobile passed over them, even a truck with what was later measured to be a twelve-inch ride height, the frogs were squashed into wet red heaps. Their shattered bones emerged arranged into rough skull-and-crossbones shapes.
This was still not the strangest thing. The strangest thing, recorded dutifully on police security tapes, was how the frogs all leapt in straight lines until they turned right or left – rotating at perfect ninety-degree angles.
----
S tapleton was a perfect neighborhood for a little covert ’mancy, Paul thought. What ’mancers wanted for Flex labs was cheap housing with big backyards for penning in the sacrifices.
And Stapleton had been a rising star back in the 1960s. The houses, painted in sunny colors, had been built to hold huge futures: sprawling porches to hold cocktail parties, chicken-wire-bounded gardens to grow tomatoes for hearty family meals, a big backyard for big golden retrievers to run in.
But the industry in Stapleton had dried up. The gardens were choked by weeds, the porches warped by years of rain, the sunny yellows reduced to peeling grays. Half the houses here had been repossessed; their unmowed lawns were now wild thatches choked with rusting Coors cans. The children of Stapleton wisely stayed inside, the bright pixelated worlds of their Wiis superior to anything this dismal exterior could offer.
Any dogs on those lawns are coming to bad ends , Paul thought, limping along the road. Someone’s using their Wii for more than gaming .
Paul limped down the road, feeling lucky to be out on the case. His stump rubbed blisters inside the misfit cup, and though the motor in his ankle helped steady his gait, he’d be lucky to get four hours of walking from a full charge. Yet there was only one real way to track down a Flex lab: on foot.
He always thought of chickens when he hunted ’mancers. Mainly because of how he’d explained it to Aliyah.
“It’s… hard to explain,” he’d told her. “Finding magic is kind of like sexing chickens.”
“What?” Imani had grinned, shoving her latest case aside to kick her feet up on the desk. “ This , I gotta hear.”
“What’s a sex chicken, Daddy?” Imani and Paul had both cracked up – a good, clean laughter, one that had probably added two months to their marriage.
“Not a sex chicken, sweetie,” Paul had explained, calming Aliyah’s laughter-inspired outrage. “You know there are boy chickens and girl chickens, right?”
“Technically, ‘boy chickens’ are roosters, sweetie.”
“I am aware, my sweet wife. Anyway, when chickens are born, they’re small fluffy bundles that are – well, about the size of an egg. So you know how people tell which chickens are girls?”
“No…” Aliyah sat still, attentive. She loved learning new things.
“Well, you get a job as a chicken sexer. And on your first day on the job, an experienced chicken sexer sits behind you. And with a magnifying glass, you look at the tiny fuzzy chick-butt.”
Aliyah burst out into giggles. “Chick-butt.”
“Yup. And you look. And the chicken sexer behind you says, ‘Girl.’ And you pick up another chick, which looks exactly the same , and the chicken sexer says, ‘That’s a
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