As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I think today instead of signing, that we shall read instead in our interlude of information.
"Hello," whispered Montag, fascinated as always with the dead beast, the living beast.
At night when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned loose. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat, cat, or chicken caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then
tossed in the incinerator. A new game began.
Conditt, 23, attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, but he didn't graduate. A spokesperson says he hadn't attended school since 2012.
Online postings indicate he was home schooled.
A blogger who identified himself as Mark Conditt of Pflugerville described his interests as cycling, tennis and listening to music. In blogs dated from 2012, he wrote that gay marriage should be illegal and called for the elimination of sex offender registrations.
Conditt does not have any military experience, according to personnel records.
Montag doused the exterior of the valise with whisky. "I don't want that Hound picking up two odours at once. May I take this whisky. I'll need it later. Christ I hope this works!"
They shook hands again and, going out of the door, they glanced at the TV. The Hound was on its way, followed by hovering helicopter cameras, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind.
It was running down the first alley.
Authorities followed the vehicle, which ran into a ditch on the side of the road, he said.
When members of the SWAT team approached, the suspect detonated an explosive device inside the vehicle, the police chief said. The blast knocked one officer back, and a second officer fired his weapon, Manley said.
He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit windows of wakened
houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlour walls and there on the walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapour, spidered along, here and gone, here and gone ! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber's house.
Go past, thought Montag, don't stop, go on, don't turn in!
On the parlour wall, Faber's house, with its sprinkler system pulsing in the night air.
The Hound paused, quivering.
No! Montag held to the window sill. This way! Here!
The procaine needle flicked out and in, out and in. A single clear drop of the stuff of dreams fell from the needle as it vanished in the Hound's muzzle.
Montag held his breath, like a doubled fist, in his chest.
The Mechanical Hound turned and plunged away from Faber's house down the alley again.
Montag snapped his gaze to the sky. The helicopters were closer, a great blowing of insects to a single light source.
The chase is still running. The other way, though."
"The other way?"
"Let's have a look."
Granger snapped the portable viewer on. The picture was a nightmare, condensed, easily passed from hand to hand, in the forest, all whirring colour and flight. A voice cried:
"The chase continues north in the city! Police helicopters are converging on Avenue 87 and Elm
Grove Park!"
Granger nodded. "They're faking. You threw them off at the river. They can't admit it. They
know they can hold their audience only so long. The show's got to have a snap ending, quick! If they started searching the whole damn river it might take all night. So they're sniffing for a scape-goat to end things with a bang. Watch. They'll catch Montag in the next five minutes ! "
"But how--"
"Watch."
The camera, hovering in the belly of a helicopter, now swung down at an empty street.
"See that?" whispered Granger. "It'll be you; right up at the end of that street is our victim. See how our camera is coming in? Building the scene. Suspense. Long shot. Right now, some poor fellow is out for a walk. A rarity. An odd one. Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that, men who walk mornings for the hell of it, or for reasons of insomnia
Anyway, the police have had him charted for months, years. Never know when that sort of information might be handy. And today, it turns out, it's very usable indeed. It saves face. Oh, God, look there!"
The men at the fire bent forward.
On the screen, a man turned a corner. The Mechanical Hound rushed forward into the viewer, suddenly. The helicopter light shot down a dozen brilliant pillars that built a cage all about the man.
A voice cried, "There's Montag ! The search is done!"
The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens.
The cameras rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim's face, the empty street, the steel animal a bullet nosing the target.
"Montag, don't move!" said a voice from the sky.
The camera fell upon the victim, even as did the Hound. Both reached him simultaneously. The victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip. He screamed. He screamed. He screamed!
Blackout.
Silence.
Darkness.
Montag cried out in the silence and turned away.
Silence.
And then, after a time of the men sitting around the fire, their faces expressionless, an announcer on the dark screen said, "The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been avenged."
Darkness.
"We now take you to the Sky Room of the Hotel Lux for a half-hour of Just-Before-Dawn, a programme of-"
Granger turned it off.
"They didn't show the man's face in focus. Did you notice?
Even your best friends couldn't tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the
imagination take over.
AUSTIN BOMBING SUSPECT IS DEAD. Great job by law enforcement and all concerned!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2018
Thankfully we are now all safe, from this white male who fit all the forensic profiles and everyone from Mr. President to Mr. Chief of Police named the suspect as a "he" from the start, and as cover if there was a mistake, in this drama, in this was not the original bomber, there is a leeway time of weeks in case other devices appear which were of course planted before this child with zero background in chemistry, military and electronics blew himself up, and an officer shot his corpse to make sure he was dead.
Now that we are done reading, we should watch some wholesome children's programs of vintage values.
agtG
