Emperor of Gondwanaland by Paul di Filippo Read Free Book Online

actions which earlier had been considered tolerable buffoonery now look like sheer sedition. After 9/11, every yippie became a terrorist by default. But perhaps you can let your freak flag fly high once more for just the space of a few pages …
     
    My Adventures with the SPCA
     
     
    I screwed on the stolen plates, while Fiona used bungee cords to mount the PA system speakers on the Toyota’s roof, next to the illuminated Domino’s Pizza sign we had lifted from an unattended delivery car. Burr had his head under the hood.
    Standing, I brushed grit off the knees of my jeans.
    “Are we ready?”
    Fiona twanged the bungee cords. “Snug as a plug in a jug.” Tonight for some reason she was smiling. It looked good on her, and I felt sad she couldn’t do it more often.
    Burr emerged from beneath the hood and slammed it shut.
    “All wired,” he said, brushing black curls away from his eyes.
    Tonight for some reason Burr was scowling. It looked lousy on him, and I was glad he didn’t do it more often.
    “What about the leaflets?” I said.
    “Shit!” said Burr. “Almost forgot. I’ll get ’em.”
    I watched Burr go inside our house. Then I turned to Fiona.
    “Everything all right?”
    “Yeah, fine.”
    “Sure?”
    “Oh, quit worrying about me. I’m great. If you must know, Burr tried grabbing my ass a few minutes ago in the kitchen.”
    “That’s just Burr. Don’t let it get in the way of our job.”
    “Oh, I won’t.”
    I still didn’t understand something. “Why are you smiling?”
    “I’m picturing his face when he looked down and saw the knife.”
    “Woof!”
    Burr came out with the box from Kinko’s. “All set!”
    We clambered into the car. I was driving, and Burr was beside me in front, mic already nervously in hand. Fiona held the open box of leaflets in her lap. It had cost an extra penny apiece to get them folded, but was well worth it for the professional look.
    “Take the freeway?”
    “It’s a little too light out yet,” Burr said. “We don’t want to make it easy for people to remember our faces. Let’s go crosstown.”
    “Good thinking.”
    No one said much on the ride. It was a nice summer night, but we were all busy thinking about what could go wrong.
    Burr tried whistling the Mission Impossible theme song once, but gave up when it fell flat.
    The south side of the city was Burnout Town, trickle-down economics at its finest: vacant lots littered with trash; old rows of dismal project housing; fortified stores; a lone Salvation Army outpost; human wreckage almost indistinguishable from the inanimate junk. All that was missing to make it look like the worst Brazilian favela was a flock of circling buzzards, vigilante-strung corpses on the few remaining light poles, and a burning garbage dump.
    Suspicious and indifferent black and Hispanic faces watched us from corners, stoops, and windows. Although Domino’s was only half a mile away, on the edge of the devastation, their drivers seldom ventured in this direction.
    “Better start,” said Burr nervously. “Before they decide we look like a can of government surplus meat waiting to be opened.”
    “That’s really unfair and judgmental,” Fiona said.
    “Don’t get on my case now, you and your frigid bleeding heart—”
    “Forget it,” I said. “Let’s just do it.”
    Burr flicked on the PA. He coughed a couple of times, and it came out sounding like God’s bronchitis. He turned down the volume, then began his rap.
    “Free pizza! Help celebrate our anniversary! Free pizza for the first thousand people! Grab a flier! Use the coupon! Free pizza right now!”
    Fiona started tossing fliers from the car. The people already on the street snatched them from midair or piled on them like football players. Men, women, and kids were pouring out of the buildings.
    The fliers looked really pro. Burr had typeset them on our Mac, using scanned Domino’s illos. The pizza joint’s address was in twelve-point bold.
    At the bottom,