rustedtusks.com

Didn't a certain vepr tell the little reynard something similar, complete with an interactive demonstration?

Oh, goody. No whining, pleading, or whimpering. Brice has changed. Since Sam's currently got the curiosity bug, maybe we'll get another snippet of what happened by the river before the curtain falls on Brice.

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

Mnnnnn....

And so it begins...

I'm wondering about that note just as much as Brice was... Was this something that had to do with Sam's presence? Did I miss something here?

Brice has changed indeed... To what extent will we get to understand how far these changes have taken him during the next few minutes of discussion, I wonder?... Sometimes living on borrowed time, after a near brush with death, really alters one's approach to life... Speaking from personal experience, I can vouch for the power of such events...

I'm assuming Sam never really knew Brice before all of this came to pass,...so any comparison between "now and then" has no meaning to him (as it might to us, as far as Brice's personality is concerned), so any real epiphany on Sam's end will come from whatever "reveal" manifests itself concerning that terrible encounter on the river's edge with Tony Ray...

This will be an enlightening few minutes, I'm betting, for everyone involved...

Jadugara ^_^

Yeah, that note is curious. I'm wondering; does Quetzlan code require odorant in the gas supply? If there's an issue with, well, anyone's in the building gas appliance, the next really loud noise you hear would be someone flipping a switch. Or answering a cel. Or a muzzle flash.

Just saying-- Wouldn't be the first time Bryce shagged death by the skin of his teeth.....


And maybe some other: Who's this "Hero"?

_________________
Never Underestimate the Gentle Giant

Si ego certiorem faciam.... mihi tu delendus eris

Brice is the hero Sam is talking about... The whole "hero" thing is referring to the fact that Sam more easily located Brice because his photo was published in a local newspaper after he saved someone's life.. Heroic act, but foolish to garner such publicity when you're on the run from hired killers...as Sam points out...

Nice flat top.

_________________
Never Underestimate the Gentle Giant

Si ego certiorem faciam.... mihi tu delendus eris

Not a very sensible thing for Sam to say, since his life is nothing BUT lies.

Now we discover some things? Coolness, but somehow I suspect there will be as many questions raised as answered. That's one mark of a good story.

_________________
"Popular lies have ever been the most potent enemies of personal liberty. There is only one way to deal with them. Cut them out, to the very core, just as cancers are..." - Ragnar Redbeard, "Might is Right" (1890).

Well, I wonder why Sam is playing the amatuer. The pro punches the ticket posthaste and vacates. There's more here.....

--lj

_________________
Sometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring
When I think about my dirty life and times.
---Warren Zevon

_________________
Never Underestimate the Gentle Giant

Si ego certiorem faciam.... mihi tu delendus eris

Next time I see Jadugara, I'm gonna remain seated.

I'll also point out, the pro would use something quieter than that snubnose in an apartment building. Sam plans on taking Brice someplace else before closing him out. That little pistola is gonna make a hell of a bang.

--lj

_________________
Sometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring
When I think about my dirty life and times.
---Warren Zevon

Well Sam has been there for three hours.
Perhaps he's already heard gun fire and has noted the lack of response by the local LEO's.
And he also has other means at his disposal to terminate a pesky fox.
Rope, plastic bag, blunt object, the list is endless.
And fun to make up.

This talk of how a pro would do it... but this is Sam. Maybe this is how Sam has always operated, different from how we'd imagine a professional hitman going about his craft. A wetwork specialist isn't the end all and be all of Sam's existence. Intelligence was his specialty, according to the narrative, and information retrieval (for lack of a more polite word) was what eventually numbed the badger to the joys of the flesh. Professional killer is not the title on his business card.

Why would Sam pore over old newsprint, seek out old comrades, take a trip away from the home and life he built for him and his wife if not for an insatiable curiosity. If Sam just took "Rooter's" word for it, this little side-trip of his would have been done on the other side of the border. If the badger left the identified corpses alone to rot he wouldn't have had to leave home when he was still on the mend. No, the thoughts at the ephemeral edge of his consciousness kept bugging him, and bugging him, and bugging him.

Our esteemed author is showing us that Sam is more than just a remorseless killer, a fact that I had lost sight of just a few pages earlier in this story.

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

I am not totally convinced that Brice's motives or involvement in that rescue are so innocent and of complete goodwill considering both his past proclivities with, shall we say, passive victims and that uncomfortable intimacy displayed while caressing her eyeball. It is like they are all dolls, playthings to him, glassy-eyed in their unseeing gaze. It all maybe some a strange take on voyeurism and exhibitionism. What better way to satisfy a need and fantasy of having an unwilling, drugged up participant than a comatose patient that he is so close to in so many ways? Who's to say all of those toys Sam found were being used by Brice on himself?
Besides, he is wearing the expression of a sullen little boy who has had his lollipop taken away rather than that of a martyr in extremis...

_________________
Every pimp is someone else's prostitute, and every prostitute has their price.

Well, the doll bit certainly is a possibility. This is SLOP, after all.

I'm just hoping Brice might've cast aside his previous mannerisms and matured some. Strikes me as somewhat similar to a certain Singha, to be honest.

Did anyone else want to throttle Brice? Cause I did.

_________________
...make it shallow, so that I can feel the rain.

Sam is doing the same thing Uthy was doing which got him into this mess to begin with - fuckin' around instead of takin' care of binniss. Baaaad juju.

--lj

_________________
Sometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring
When I think about my dirty life and times.
---Warren Zevon

I was about to say... Sam seems awfully interested in those answers if he's willing to just throw away a quick, clean execution from surprise and the resulting clean slate...

_________________
Every pimp is someone else's prostitute, and every prostitute has their price.

_________________
Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

At one point in my past, "someone" thought I would benefit from therapy. (Tho' not for reasons you might think.) The therapist became quite animated, and pronounced "If you don't WANT to change, I can't help you!" This from a batch of professional baby-eaters willing to argue that anything from a cigar to a semi-truck is a symbolic stand-in for stallion bits. So I made him happy by saying his ink blots looked like the Star Ship Enterprise, and he pronounced me cured.

I feel much better now.......

*Insert "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" here.*



I'm me. Get over it.

_________________
Never Underestimate the Gentle Giant

Si ego certiorem faciam.... mihi tu delendus eris