In a flash, Bash realized what was happening.
Dagny had edited out both the traffic light and Bash’s scooter from the driver’s interior display.
Bash veered his Segway to the right, climbing the curb, and the Vermoulian zipped past him with only centimeters to spare. In the middle of the intersection it broadsided another car. Luckily, the crash of the two lightweight urban vehicles, moving at relatively low speeds, resulted in only minor damages, although airbags activated noisily.
Bash drove down the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians, and continued around the accident.
Things were getting serious. No longer was Dagny content merely to harass Bash. Now she was involving innocent bystanders in her mad quest for revenge.
His ire rising, Bash crossed the Charles River. Beneath the bridge, huge jubilant crowds had assembled for the Dragon Boat races.
Bash took several wrong turns. Dagny had changed the street signs, misnaming avenues along his entire route and producing a labyrinth of new oneway streets. After foolishly adhering to the posted regulations for fear of getting stopped by some oblivious rule-bound cop, Bash abandoned all caution and just raced past snarled traffic down whatever avenue he felt would bring him most quickly to Washington Street.
Now Bash began to see his face everywhere, in varying sizes, surmounted or underlined by dire warnings. WANTED FOR CULTURAL ASSASSINATION, GUILTY OF SQUANDERING ARTISTIC CAPITAL, MASTERMIND IN FELONIOUS ASSAULT ON VISIONARIES….
The absurd charges made Bash see red. He swore aloud, and Harnnoy said, “What’d I do, pard?”
“Nothing, nothing. Dagny still at the Paramount?”
“Verdad, companero.”
As he approached the Common, Bash noted growing crowds of gleeful pedestrians. What was going on….?
The Dragon Boat Festival. Chinatown must be hosting parallel celebrations. Well, okay. The confusion would afford Bash cover —
A sheet of proteopape — spontaneously windblown, or aimed like a missile? — sailed up out of nowhere and wrapped Bash’s head. He jerked the steering grips before taking his hands entirely off them to deal with the obstruction to his vision, and the Segway continued homeostatically on its new course to crash into a tree.
Bash picked himself up gingerly. The paper had fallen away from his face. Angrily, he crumpled it up and stuffed it into his pocket. He hurt all over, but no important body part seemed broken. The scooter was wrecked. Luckily, he hadn’t hit anyone. Concerned bystanders clumped around him, but Bash brusquely managed to convince them to go away.
Harnnoy said, “I caught the smashup on the phone camera, Bash. You okay?”
“Uh, I guess. Sorry about totaling your ride. I’m going on foot now.”
As Bash scurried off, he witnessed the arrival of several diligent autonomes converging on the accident. He accelerated his pace, fearful of getting corralled by the authorities before he could deal with Dagny.
Downtown Crossing was thronged, the ambient noise like a slumber party for teenage giants. The windows of Filene’s claimed that Bash was a redactive splice between a skunk, a hyena and a jackal. As Dagny’s interventions failed to stop him, her taunts grew cruder. She must be getting desperate. Bash was counting on her to screw up somehow. He had no real plan otherwise.
Weaseling his way through the merrymakers, Bash was brought up short a block away from the Paramount by an oncoming parade. Heading the procession was a huge multiperson Chinese dragon. In lieu of dumb paint, its proteopape skin sheathed it in glittery scales and animated smoke-snorting head.
People were pointing to the sky. Bash looked up.
One of the famous TimWarDisVia aerostats cruised serenely overhead, obviously dispatched to provide an overhead view of the parade. Its proteopape skin featured Bash’s face larger than God’s. Scrolling text reflected poorly on Bash’s parentage and morals.
“God
Small strings of firecrackers began to explode, causing shrieks, and Bash utilized the diversion to bull onward toward the shuttered Paramount Theater. He darted down the narrow alley separating the deserted building from its neighbors.
“Tito! Any tips on getting inside?”
“One of our webcams on the first floor shows something funky with one of the windows around the back.”
The rear exterior wall of the theater presented a row of weather-distressed plywood sheets nailed over windows. The only service door was tightly secured. No obvious entrance manifested itself.
But then Bash noticed with his trained eye that one plywood facade failed close-up inspection as he walked slowly past it.
Dagny had stretched an expanse of proteopape across an open frame, then set the pape to display a plywood texture.
Bash set his phone on the ground. “Tito, I’m going in alone. Call the cops if I’m not out in half an hour.”
“Uptaken and bound, fizz!”
Rather vengefully, Bash smashed his fist through the disguising pape, then scrambled inside.
Dagny had hotwired electricity from somewhere. The Paramount was well lit, although the illumination did nothing to dispel a moldy atmosphere from years of inoccupancy. Bash moved cautiously from the debris-strewn backstage area out into the general seating.
A flying disc whizzed past his ear like a suicidal mirror-finished bat. It hit a wall and shattered.
Dagny stood above him at the rail of the mezzanine with an armful of antique DVDS. The platters for the digital projectors must have been left behind when the Paramount ceased operations. The writing on a shard at Bash’s feet read:
Dagny frisbee’d another old movie at Bash. He ducked just in time to avoid getting decapitated.
“Quit it, Dagny! Act like an adult, for Christ’s sake! We have to talk!”
Dagny pushed her clunky eyeglasses back up her nose. “We’ve got nothing to talk about! You’ve proven you’re a narrow-minded slave to old hierarchies, without an ounce of imagination left in your shriveled brainpan. And you insulted my art!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, honest. Jesus, even you said that the Woodies were a big joke.”
“Don’t try putting words in my mouth! Anyway, that was before I won one.”
Bash stepped forward into an aisle. “I’m coming up there, Dagny, and you can’t stop me.”
A withering fusillade of discs forced Bash to eat his words and run for cover into an alcove.
Frustrated beyond endurance, Bash racked his wits for some means of overcoming the demented auteur.
A decade of neglect had begun to have its effects on the very structure of the theater. The alcove where Bash stood was littered with fragments of concrete. Bash snatched up one as big as his fist. From his pocket he dug the sheet of proteopape that had blinded him, and wrapped it around the heavy chunk. He stepped forward.
“Dagny, let’s call a truce. I’ve got something here you need to read. It puts everything into a new light.” Bash came within a few meters of the lower edge of the balcony before Dagny motioned him to stop. He offered the ball of pape on his upturned palm.
“I don’t see what could possibly change things — ”
“Just take a look, okay?”
“All right. Toss it up here.”
Dagny set her ammunition down to free both hands and leaned over the railing to receive the supposedly featherweight pape.
Bash concentrated all his anger and resolve into his right arm. He made a motion as if to toss underhand. But at the last minute he swiftly wound up and unleashed a mighty overhand pitch.
Dagny did not react swiftly enough to the deceit. The missile conked her on the head and she went over backwards into the mezzanine seats.
Never before had Bash moved so fast. He found Dagny hovering murmurously on the interface between consciousness and oblivion. Reassured that she wasn’t seriously injured, Bash arrowed toward her nest of pillows.
