“What Was Her Name?”

  • by Kentby the time the moon sank away
  • other worker won employee of the month
  • tradition would dictate cod here
  • indeed a hero in the eyes of these men
  • the fact that she had eyelashes

Tune in next time part 388      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“What was her name?” I asked the captive. “And don’t waste any breath describing her double-jointed pinkies or the fact that she had eyelashes. Just tell me her name.”

The monastic babysitter cadre whistled and cheered. It seemed I was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men.

“But do you not see?” the French pantomime performer implored. “I never learned her name. And they were quite alike, the sisters, it is true. Only one clue did they give to me about which was which, and that was when we dined together in the train en route in the nighttime to our next show. My angel she ate happily the salmon, but her sister was saying tradition would dictate cod here. And they argue, about this fish and about things I do not know. Only for a moment do they quarrel, and my angel she becomes très quiet, upset to be reminded that the other worker won employee of the month. By the time the moon sank away, I had promised her I would do anything to see her smile once again.”

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In My New, Imposing Uniform

  • by jenthis “polar madness”
  • cheekbones sharp as blades
  • her gawky way of walking
  • like ink in water
  • like an awkward and unlucky lover

Tune in next time part 387      Click Here for Earlier Installments

In my new, imposing uniform I turned to my captive French spy. He cowered before my resplendency like an awkward and unlucky, loverless wretch in a cheap suit.

“Describe the Russian sister who sent you,” I demanded.

Beguiled by the small brass squirrels atop my epaulets, he forgot his earlier filibustering. “Her hair was long and pale blond, liquidy yellow, like ink in water.”

That described both Svetlana and Lyudmila. “Go on,” I said. Behind me, Aloysius was gathering up his many tools while his monk-like cohorts quietly entertained the children.

“Her hips were narrow, which I think added charm to her gawky way of walking.”

Again, that could be either sister.

“She had cheekbones sharp as blades, and shoulder blades round as cheeks. My need to make love to her was like the polar madness I experienced in my youth when l’Academie sent my team to l’Antartique, and I suffer with it still. Our consummation will be my reward for completing my mission.”

He was doing all this for her, whichever sister she was, and he’d never even banged her? This “polar madness” of his must have caused frostbite on his brain.

And I still didn’t know which sister had sent him.

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Secret Societies

While reviewing our chain story, Tune In Next Time, for last week’s post about codes, we realized it’s been more than a year since we updated the cast list. Since we’re closing in on 400 entries, we probably can’t expect new readers to get caught up immediately. To make it easier on both the newcomers and anyone who just doesn’t have the memory to spare for all this absurdity, here is an update to our Dramatis Personae.

We’ll start with the Academy, since that’s where all of last week’s codes originated.

  • The Hopscotch Academy  — Seemingly located somewhere in Europe, this elite, private academic institution educates young people in the arts of spycraft and espionage. It boasts a secret submarine dock, and a root cellar with a subbasement. Pharmacological Subterfuge is an elective. While magic is taught, only ultra-dweebs take those classes. Extracurriculars include the Ninja Defense League, choir, and rugby. The choir is not very good, but the members do get to wear astroturf vests, so there’s that. The chess team is called the Anacondas. There has never been a prom. The Academy’s students wear scarlet uniforms; skirts for the girls, kilts for the boys, unless they are wearing wetsuits. There are several rival schools, and their competitions can be deadly. Many obscure kinds of codes are taught, and training exercises can be both x-rated and grueling. Students are often forced to construct weapons under the guise of education, and rigorous physical exams can run long into the night. Alumni include our protagonist and his numerous siblings, Tessa and her sisters, John, Joan, and Setsuko.

Many secretive and warring factions have been encountered through the years, including ninjas, mimes, pirates, and fire eaters. Many backchannel alliances have been sprouting up:

  • The Pirate-Ninja Alliance is the longest-standing, though their truce is tenuous
  • the long-rumored Pirate-Mime Brotherhood seem to actually exist, with members wearing chalky face paint and stripy nautical outfits. William Sausage, Captain Jorgensen, and Tesla seem to be members
  • there are murmurs of a Mime-Fire Eater Treaty, which also seems to involve Captain Jorgensen
  • negotiations for the proposed Fire Eater-TechnoPagan Alliance ended badly, with numerous deaths. Xylona is a leader among the TechnoPagans
  • TechoPagans: a group of people living in huts constructed of solar panels on an island ruled by Jupiter and Jove. Their village is near the old stone hut/temple where the mudman lives. Their leader/Mizzenpriestess is Xylona, our protagonist’s aunt
  • The Pentagonal Party: a group of rebel Contrarians who do not support Fleur as the heir to the Warlordship. They instead support her half-brother William Penn XII. They owned at least one battle dirigible, but it was downed by flying fish. It is unlikely that William was onboard

Wait. Contrarians? Like from a place called Contraria? In a word, yes. Contraria is a country, possibly in Europe, ruled by a Warlord. His daughter Fleur is our protagonist’s wife.

  • Contraria: the capital is Funkistan, but their sanitation is woeful, so the royal hospital is in Pittsburghistan. There is also a city called Philadelphiastan. In Contraria, hockey players still wear garter belts, aerial combat is taught at finishing school, and housekeeping by paid staff is banned. The warlords of Contraria are heavily into calligraphy. And rituals. So many rituals. Most marriage and fertility rites involve birds and bird skeletons. They also have a prophesy for every occasion. Contrarian succession is a complicated matter. The warlord takes many wives at once (one for each previous warlord who shared his name, plus one for himself). Pregnancies are timed to run concurrently, and whichever baby is born first is the heir. All of the children together are the Royal Brood. The unofficial motto of the Contrarian Armed Forces is “Hungry, not Smart.”
  • The Inimical Archipelago: a secret chain of islands under Contrarian rule. The best restaurant in the islands is located at the top of the zeppelin docking spire, and serves such Inimical delights as caramel escargots, grapes with frosting, and the Inimical Gin and Tonic, which is opaque, green, fizzy, and possibly poisoned. But at least the grapes are already partially filled with wine when they’re picked! Across the lagoon from the zeppelin dock is a lovely tidal pool, perfect for beach volleyball and water births. The prison is located at one end of the archipelago, and has its own zeppelin dock, but presumably there is no revolving restaurant there. The other end of the archipelago is Disco Island, which is dangerously close to White Faces mime cartel territory.

Next week we’ll dive into the details of our unnamed protagonist and his newly introduced friends, enemies, and family members.

The Acrobat/Spy’s Fevered Ramblings

  • by Kentsqueezing in your fingers
  • in order to become bosom friends
  • Aloysius, mouth full of bone needles
  • another mold for squirrels
  • a square black cap with a silver badge on it

Tune in next time part 386      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The acrobat/spy’s fevered ramblings had exhausted my patience.

“This information isn’t helping me, and therefore it isn’t helping you, either. I don’t need or want to hear about how it felt to have their thighs and breasts squeezing in your fingers or how you were willing to debase yourself in order to become bosom friends with bosom benefits. The only thing I want to hear from you is –”

“Excuse me, General?”

I rounded on the source of this interrupting voice. The six babies arranged along my outstretched, fatigued arms giggled happily at the ride. Behind me stood a small entourage of pale men wearing what appeared to be monks’ robes. “Sorry to bother you, General,” the one in the middle went on, “but we have been sternly ordered to perform our duties without delay.”

As he spoke, two of his companions stepped forward and relieved me of three children apiece.

“Where are they taking the royal brood?” I demanded.

“Nowhere. The children will be kept safe right here while Aloysius brings your uniform up to code.”

Aloysius, mouth full of bone needles, waved and scurried forward in a single movement, stooping to begin taking inseam measurements.

Twisting my head to look at the bound prisoner, I yelled, “I am not done with you!”

Contrarian military fashion is especially fickle, obliging the likes of Aloysius to carry around complex arrays of tools and materials. In addition to the needles, and fabrics of course, he also had a case loaded with more specialized instruments. There was a portable furnace and a crucible, and a mold for casting lions, and another mold for squirrels, and an anvil that I didn’t know the purpose of.

The alterations to my bellhop getup took some bit of time, but the results were exemplary if a bit ostentatious for my tastes. I felt like an impeccably tailored colorblind matador, and was sort of glad the room didn’t have a mirror. The best thing of all was that I got a new hat, a square black cap with a silver badge on it that said “General.”

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My Silence Encouraged the Spy

  • by jenI know that I shall go mad!
  • outselling Rod Stewart
  • fallen into a trance
  • with decorative bullet holes
  • Japanese lingerie maker

Tune in next time part 385      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My silence encouraged the spy to keep talking. “I take one look at the twisted sisters and I know that I shall go mad! With love! I know that I will do anything they ask of me, for if their beauty were a musical recording it would be outselling Rod Stewart, that’s how great it is.”

His eyes unfocused as if he’d fallen into a trance, and a small smile played at his lips. “They wore matching costumes, of course, with decorative bullet holes in some very revealing locations. I believe they were designed by a Japanese lingerie maker.”

This was maddening. I needed him to tell me more about the sisters, not their clothing! And specifically I needed to know which one had sent him on his mission.

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Speaking in Code

Having worked together for so long (and having been married for even longer), Jen and Kent know each other really, really well. We share a sense of humor and a lot of in-jokes. Sometimes it seems like we share a single brain. This makes it much easier to write together, and it has led to a sort of verbal shorthand that we understand just fine, but that outsiders find incomprehensible. It’s almost like we’re talking in code!

What a natural transition that was into today’s topic!

In our chain story, there are a ridiculous number of ridiculous codes employed by our protagonist and his cohorts. Many of his allies and enemies attended the same spy school he did, The Hopscotch Academy, so it makes sense that they would have learned the same espionage techniques. What doesn’t make sense is the variety and absurdity of many of them. In addition to the standard spoken signal phrases, signs, and countersigns, there are:

  • codes hidden in tattoos
  • various forms of choreographed arm movements
  • using nearby people’s bodies to form the shapes of ancient runes
  • various licking codes, employed during kissing, but also to hands
  • bubble codes for underwater use
  • spoken Morse code
  • various unspoken forms of Morse code involving thrusting and squeezing, for use in sexual situations
  • flavored lipstick, to tell you which dialect of a code to use
  • thumb rubbing
  • the Stevedore’s Code, involving luggage
  • the Washerwoman’s Code uses various colors of clothing to pass messages
  • the Haberdasher’s Code utilizes pocket squares and handkerchiefs
  • the Confectioner’s Code involves candy bars and their wrappers
  • the Mexican Painter’s Code uses eyebrow movements
  • the Acrobat’s Code involves finger wiggling waves, for some reason
  • the Luchador’s Code utilizes wrestling masks
  • the Pianist’s Code involves musical notes
  • toe snuffling, and the order in which the toes are snuffled
  • toespelling, in which one contorts one’s toes and presses them into another’s soles
  • the Soothsayer’s code involves nontraditional usage of tarot cards
  • the Bog-Roll cypher involves messages written on toilet paper, passed between dance partners
  • the Glassblower’s code utilizes glassblowing terms
  • the Shadow Puppeteer’s Cypher makes heavy use of middle fingers
  • the Fossil cypher involves, for some reason, aerial photography
  • the Make Everything Sound Dirty Code does just what it says on the tin. That’s what she said. Name of your sex tape.
  • the Limbo Code was outlawed by the academy, but is known by our protagonist and John
  • Contra-Buffoon is when your actions are so clumsy they go around the horn and become subtle again

Jen and Kent don’t know how the vast majority of these codes work, but they make regular use of a few of them. Can you guess which?

The Prison’s Subbasement Interrogation Room

  • by Kent“Looks like Saltines, but that wouldn’t make sense.”
  • with a blast of trumpets
  • the dental technician
  • slowly inching towards it
  • expected me much earlier

Tune in next time part 384      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The prison’s subbasement interrogation room wasn’t really babyproof, so I had to keep holding all six infants while I tried to solve the riddle of the Russian contortionist sisters.

“Eef you releaze me, I can help you with lay bay-bay,” the prisoner said. His accent seemed thicker all the sudden, and his tears had dried up.

“Nice try,” I said.

He shrugged, making the leather straps around his limbs creak. “May I inquire, though, what it is that I am seeing on the shelf across the room?”

I turned my head. “Looks like Saltines, but that wouldn’t make sense.” I faced him again. “It’s against indigenous Inimical tradition to store food in an interrogation chamber, and the Contrarians might be many things, but flouters of tradition they are not.”

“I am being very thirsty as it is, so merci non pour the crackers.”

“Sure. Why not tell me more about these women, and I’ll maybe see about getting you some water.” I swayed, trying to keep the six babies in gentle, soothing motion and shift the burden around a bit so my arms wouldn’t fall off.

“They were part of a new finale which none of the regular performers had been permitted to witness in rehearsals. It began with a blast of trumpets announcing the entrance of the fire eaters and the dental technicians. How the crowd cheered at their elaborate dance of flames and floss. This was all misdirection, allowing the sisters to be brought out in a suitcase and placed at the center of the action. No one else besides me detected its arrival, but I was drawn toward it, as if by a magnetism of the soul. I understood what this baggage signified, and I found myself slowly inching towards it, interfering with the show that was still very much going on. At last, I was there, crawling on my belly like a besotted worm, and suddenly the suitcase, it was springing open with the tangled sisters inside, and they were saying that they had expected me much earlier.”

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Jim Stood and Started Handing Me Babies

  • by jenhad gone… less swimmingly.
  • ate normally
  • precisely between her narrow shoulder blades
  • one day melted into the next
  • in the city of Volgograd

Tune in next time part 383      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim stood and started handing me babies, though he kept the harnesses, and I only had so many arms. Few things in Contrarian history, besides the Battle of Brouhaha, had gone… less swimmingly. With three babes balanced along each arm like a waiter in a restaurant where no one ate normally, I bent forward at the waist and kissed Fleur precisely between her narrow shoulder blades. That’s the ritual Contrarian farewell between spouses when one is leaving the other in the presence of only in-laws of the opposite gender.

I tottered down the stairs with my six infant children and found the French circus performer still strapped to his chair. He looked at me and my strange burden and said, “I could teach you how to juggle.”

“Tell me where you met your spy-mistress,” I said, ignoring his kind offer.

He loosed a long, wistfully Gallic sigh. “One day melted into the next when the circus was in the city of Volgograd. I was surrounded by aerialists, and bears on bicycles. And then one day, she appeared.” He met my eye, tears streaming down his cheeks. “She and her sister had a contortionist act that is beyond description. So beautiful. So haunting.”

Russian contortionist sisters! They could only be Svetlana and Lyudmila! But which one had sent this man to collect my “special sauce”? Probably not Svetlana, since she’d misunderstood the objective and had only just given birth to my quadruplet sons. Which meant it was probably Lyudmila, whom I hadn’t seen in months. Unless Svetlana was trying to redeem herself?

The two lithe and extremely flexible ladies went round and round in my head. I couldn’t decide which was the more likely agent behind this bizarre Frenchman’s quest.

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See, It’s Not Just Us

As a member of a writing duo, it’s interesting to read books written by other duos. Kent’s reading The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. right now, by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. (Halfway through, and it’s excellent so far.)

It’s almost impossible not to project our familiar process onto this other writing team. That’s just how collaboration works, right? But really, every writing partnership is unique. Having read quite a bit of Stephenson, but nothing else by Galland, makes it tricky to speculate about what each of them contributed to D.O.D.O. It’s full of Stephenson’s tropes, especially regarding technology and history, but it’s not like he holds patents on them or anything. To this Stephenson fan, it mostly feels like a Stephenson book. To Galland’s fans, does it mostly feel like one of hers? More research is needed.

Being a member of a collaborative authorial entity does provide some useful perspective. Galland and Stephenson’s exact process might be a black box, but from the characteristics of the output we know a little bit about how they did it. The voice coheres. In other words, it doesn’t sound like two writers taking turns telling the story in their own styles. It sounds like a single, consistent storytelling voice. This is something Jen and Kent pay a lot of attention to as Rune Skelley, and something that over time has become second nature. In the early going, we were systematic about revising one another’s drafts so that our individual quirks didn’t get too dense.

There very much are distinct character voices in D.O.D.O., so it’s reasonable to suppose that each of the writers took responsibility for certain viewpoints. That’s the way it usually goes for Rune Skelley, so we might just be projecting again, but we do it that way for some good reasons that would probably generalize to others’ workflows.

Another thing we know is that they converged on this subject matter. Collaboration on something as deep and wide as a novel can’t work unless both authors are invested in telling that story. You both have to be passionate about those characters. After all, if the author doesn’t care, why should readers?

What are some of your favorite novels that were written by duos? Let us know in the comments.

My Wife Paused in the Doorway

  • by Kentwearing a diamond wedding band
  • Too handsome
  • neither wound was fatal
  • needed to tie it to someone
  • hungry, not smart

Tune in next time part 382      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My wife paused in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest, and even in the prison basement’s uneven illumination I spotted that she was wearing a diamond wedding band. It was doubtless some royal heirloom of tremendous ceremonial import, and I wondered what had prompted her to suddenly start wearing it.

“Take off that silly head,” she barked. I hoped she was addressing Jim, in his blue panda costume, and not me, in my improvised Contrarian General’s uniform.

Jim set aside his coffee mug and lifted the oversize plush head off his shoulders. “Couldn’t drink my joe with this thing on, anyway.”

Fleur tsked and gave her dark curls a shake. “Too handsome.”

I chuckled. “Then I guess it’s good you married me.” Fleur’s blue eyes shot my way, demonstrating the veracity of Jim’s ‘laser danger’ quip. I felt the sting of her gaze from each eye, though neither wound was fatal.

“Don’t be insubordinate, General,” she snarled, “or it’ll be the Battle of Brouhaha for you.” I hoped she was bluffing, knowing enough of the military history of Contraria to understand the reference. It was a victory where their general was the only casualty, because they used a kite as a decoy and needed to tie it to someone. Accounts diverge as to why the general was nominated for such duty, but most chroniclers agree that by this time the rank and file were low on rations and perhaps not thinking clearly. These soldiers were hungry, not smart, which has become a sort of unofficial motto of the Contrarian armed forces since that time.

“Take the kids and go chat with the spy,” she told me. “I need to talk to my brother-in-law alone.”

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