Oh, I would have to watch this carefully.
Yeah, he's not too worried about this for some reason. In fact, Gris actually feels a "surge of hope" and wonders if he could use this to get Krak arrested for murder.
Krak calls up Empire University and asks about a Miss Simmons, leading the guy on the other end to run a computer search and figure out which of the eighteen thousand students and five thousand faculty members Krak is... talking... about... how does Gris know those figures? I have to go on Wikipedia to see how many people go to my local college, but Gris spouts the facts off the top of his head. Does he use all the parts of the brain he should be devoting to his job on nigh-useless trivia?
The Countess confirms that the Jane Simmons she's looking for teaches Nature Appreciation.
"Does she have a student named Jerome Terrance Wister?"
"Thank God for computers. Yes, ma'am. But it says here that she's recommending he be expelled."
"Dangerous stuff, hate," said the Countess.
"I beg pardon?"
"I said, what is her home address so I can advise the nest of kin?"
Krak's boyfriend has stridently insisted that he hates Miss Simmons. Someone else has confirmed that Simmons wants to expel Heller. And so the logical conclusion is that Simmons and Heller are absolutely in love? So Krak's going to go do something about it?
I guess it's kind of refreshing. Back in book one I was worried that Krak was going to turn into another Chrissie, a woman-shaped plot device serving only to motivate the main character. Instead she's a bit of a psycho.
Said psycho suits up in red gloves, boots and suit, making Gris instantly assume Krak is planning murder, and therefore making me assume that Krak will not be planning murder because if Gris assumes one thing the opposite tends to happen. Then when he sees her pack a hypno-helmet, Gris arrives at the conclusion that Krak is going to hypnotize Miss Simmons into writing a suicide note to cover her tracks. In Gris' defense, he's in a badly-ventilated closet filling with paint fumes. So this is a chemically-induced inspiration rather than a sudden plot-mandated "INSPIRATION!"
Krak getting dressed to kill, rather than merely expressing her intent to kill, finally motivates Gris to act. Unfortunately, the workers renovating the apartment have put furniture in front of the closet door, so just when he finally resolves to haul himself to his feet, he can't leave. After a sudden attack of claustrophobia, Gris remembers that he has a radio, and that he also has to turn it on before he uses it.
He gets Raht and orders the vastly more competent and resourceful agent who is inexplicably ranked lower than him to ring up Police Inspector Bulldog Grafferty, last seen dripping with tomato sauce, and tip him off that there's about to be a murder at Miss Simmons' address. Raht keeps Gris talking long enough to read the radio and learn he's calling form Rockecenter Plaza, but agrees to carry out Gris' orders.
I hunched down on the floor. I watched Krak's viewer with horrible fascination as she rode the subway to her appointment with doom. Hers.
There was every chance that I would soon be rid of that vicious female, the murderous Countess Krak.
Wait, who are we supposed to be rooting for right now?
On the one hand we have Gris, who is a murderous rapist and an annoyingly idiotic Bad Guy. On the other is the Countess Krak, who is also comfortable with killing people, manipulates others with mind control, thinks rape near-victims were secretly asking for it, and is currently going behind her boyfriend's back to neutralize a wholly imagined threat to their relationship. Both criminals, both misogynists in their own ways, both living in their own delusions.
So put it that way and it doesn't matter who wins here, and on top of that I don't emphasize with either character. The only question is how this farce will affect Heller's mission, and since I don't emphasize with Heller either (though for different reasons), I again don't care.
Mission Earth: book after book of characters I don't like doing things that don't matter.
Back to Chapter Two
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