If Gris were the protagonist of Lord of the Rings, he'd be on an epic quest, carrying the Ring of Power to the slopes of Mount Doom, so that some budget hireling he picked up in Minas Tirith could chuck it in. If he were in the original Star Wars the movie's climax would involve him escorting another pilot's X-Wing into the Death Star trench to take the torpedo shot, even though he had a full load of missiles in his own fighter. Because Gris spends much of the chapter driving around with a hitman in his passenger seat, looking for the Countess Krak, so he can tell the hitman to shoot her.
At least Gris is as annoyed with the experience as I am, though for a different reason - he can't stand Torpedo Fiaccola.
Not only did the filthy beast stink, he kept whining that I wasn't being fast enough. He wanted to get on his kill and he twisted and agonized about how frustrated he was and how he had to have it. He kept stroking his rifle's barrel and unloading the gun and spitting on the cartridges and reloading it, crooning to the slugs to get him to his next orgy. My disgust rose like vomit in my throat just to hear him.
Just in case anyone's unfamiliar with the term: an orgy is an event featuring indiscriminate group sex. It's therefore difficult to pull off with two people, especially if one of them is dead.
On the second day of the hunt Gris checks his viewers. Heller is down in Florida, where workers are hailing his supernatural skill when it comes to laying out a building's foundations, while Heller is trying and failing to reach Krak's phone (since Gris got the land yacht's line disconnected). After spotting a disguised Raht lurking around Heller's hotel, Gris checks the other viewer and finds Krak lounging about by a lake, extremely snipeable, but he can't tell where she is.
On day three he catches Bang-Bang returning from trying out local pay phones in his attempts to reach Heller, and spots a sign for Bogg Hollow's general store. The three places Gris can find on a map with Bogg in their name are all north of Lynchburg, Virginia, so Gris takes a whining, drooling Torpedo to a hotel in that town, to... well, I'm not quite sure what the strategy is.
Gris picks a spot with a good view of the highway and a clear route to give chase, but then he sends Torpedo out to all the potential Bogg Whatever places Gris found on the map, presumably in the hope that Krak hasn't moved yet. Gris stays behind at the hotel, allegedly able to watch both the highway and Heller's viewscreen, but he only pays attention to the latter. And what's he expecting to do if he sees the target come along on the highway? He doesn't have a sniper rifle, and his own weapons aren't mentioned. I guess he'll yell at Torpedo whenever he comes back and try to chase Krak down.
After Gris watches Heller make plans to hitch a ride with a pilot to Fair Oakes, VA, Torpedo returns to report both his lack of success and the full extent of his frustration. He's now certain he got gonorrhea from... um, his last sexual partner. Although partner would imply that the other person was playing an active role and not laying limply because - anyway, Torpedo knows from his prison psychologist that the only cure for the clap is to pass it around.
Torpedo mentions how he wished he had a bloodhound to track down the Countess Krak, which sets off Gris' newfound animal phobia that he's developed from anecdotes shared in the uncensored version of this blog. Our villainous protagonist is now convinced that he's doomed, but he'll try and bring down the terrible Countess Krak before he dies.
But somehow it didn't help. Somewhere in my career, had I gone wrong?
That would imply that at some point Soltan Gris was actually good at his job.
Was there somebody else I had failed to maim or kill? I was being punished for something, I was sure. But it was not because I had not tried to do my Apparatus duty always, like now. I was sure of that. It was just that the Gods are treacherous. They had it in for me.
Close, but it's really the author that hates you, Gris. You've been created to embody everything he despises about the Central Intelligence Agency (regardless of whether those beliefs have any basis in reality). Your role in the story is to fail repeatedly and miserably, to allow the heroes, including the avatar of the author's self-image, to succeed and defeat you. You were betrayed at the moment of your inception.
Back to Chapter Five
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