![]() ![]() The thought that he'd order so many Afterlights to their doom didn't sit well with Mary, but she tried not to show it. I ordered a dozen Afterlights, one after the other, to cross the Centennial Bridge, but the wind wouldn't let them, and each one of them sunk right through the bridge, into the river." There's a wind that blows from the other side. Pugsy took the flattery at face value and said, "I did. "I just assumed that a leader of your stature would want to see it with his own eyes." "Everlost ends at the Mississippi River." "Not what you've heard, but what you know." "Tell me what you know about the west," she asked Pugsy one day. Only when Mary made it clear that her ambitions stretched beyond Chicago, did he begin to worry about her intentions. But now it was merely because Mary allowed it. His subjects still feared him and obeyed his every whim. ![]() Grateful for her kindness, these new children would imprint on her like ducklings, ensuring their allegiance, while Pugsy became little more than a distant figure in their minds, a footnote in their world at best.įrom Pugsy's point of view, high atop his regal Ferris wheel, nothing had really changed. "My name is Miss Mary, and you are among friends." Then she would present each of them with a volume of Tipsfor Taps, her definitive book for new arrivals to Everlost-each book painstakingly handwritten by her children on paper scavenged from Pugsy's troves. "Welcome to Everlost," she would tell the confused, and often frightened, children. She marked her personal calendar with the date that every sleeping Interlight would awaken, and made sure she was there to greet them when they did. This provided Mary with a great opportunity. He found it beneath him, and left their assimilation to his flunkies. Mary also discovered that Pugsy did not personally attend to the transitioning Interlights that Jill continued to bring to the agricultural building. It didn't occur to Pugsy that Mary never actually denied that Bedhair already knew the answers. Consequently, they perform their tasks better." "My children obey my requests because they want to, not because they fear what will happen if they fail. "Do you really believe that?" Mary asked in a calm and condescending way. The boy took only two hours, and he returned with a list, and not just one graph, but three: a coordinate graph, a bar graph, and a pie chart. Then Mary asked the same of one of her own children-a boy known as Bedhair-to graph the demise of all ninety-three in her care. He presented Pugsy with a list and a competent graph, and he cowered until Pugsy nodded his acceptance. The boy obediently ran off, took the entire day, and returned just as the day settled into twilight. "I want it before sunset," Pugsy demanded. ![]()
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