Adam Levin - The Instructions

Another twelve Israelites had descended to the floor. Half roved the north sideline, clipping fleeing Shovers. The other half occupied the gap between the bleachers, dropping the Shovers the first half failed to.

Desormie crept westward, a chair in each hand. A cameraman fell, cradling his camera. Salvador Curtis said, “Oopsie,” reloaded. “Ori is down,” said the cameraman’s newsman, who bent over Ori to look in his lens. “Our cameraman’s down. We don’t know what hit him. Do you have any idea what hit you, Ori?” “Something must have hit me,” said Ori. “My dick hurts.”

Empty your pockets.

“Whud?” said Brodsky.

The skirmishes Starla had vectored grew thicker. “Infantalize, you tantalize, undressalize you with my eyes.” A cheerleader was chewing on a cheerleader’s hand. Next to them, cheerleaders oohed and hugged. Next to them, cheerleaders cheered.

“Why won’t they run?” “Cause they’re sticking by Slokum .” “No one’s asking you, Dingle.” “Mark’s right, though, Benji — he makes them feel safe.” “Safe?” “Well, safer.” “How safer? Why safer?” “He’s Slokum,” said Jelly.

Brooklyn and Baxter thrashed horizontally, struggling for leverage, squid-shaped, headbutts, gouging, headbutts. Brooklyn rose first, but he took friendly fire — a Dingle-shot quarter, thwack to the ballbag. He dropped to one knee and Maholtz decked him.

Empty your pockets.

“Emmdy my poggeds ?”

A penny struck Brodsky’s shin and he hopped.

Who did that? I said.

Berman said, “Me.”

He’s our prisoner, I said.

“Okay,” said Berman.

There wasn’t any action by the push-bar door. The clotheslined B-teamers weren’t getting up, the one who took the hexnut in the nose had turned back, and no one in the gym approached the alarm. Vincie told Ansul and the Flunky: “Triangulate.” “Don’t call me names — we’re friends,” said the Flunky. “With Benji,” Ansul tried to explain. “No, we’re all friends, Ansul.” “Fucken shoot at the basketballers Nakamook’s shooting.” “Nakamook the boy or platoon?” said the Flunky. “Same fucken thing, Richard.” “Richard’s long for Dick, Vincie. Friends call me Flunky.”

“Safer cause just cause he’s Slokum you’re saying.” “Yeah,” said Jelly, “but except not just. Take a look around the court. Take a look at who ran.” Jelly pointed north, toward the pushbar-door exit, at the clotheslined B-teamers splayed before the Flunky. “Okay,” Benji said. “Fine,” Benji said. “Fuck,” he said. “So what should we do, baby? Tell us what to do. You want us to charge them?” “I want you to clear them so I can charge him .” “So then we should… what?” “Just keep on — fuck! Keep shooting, I guess. Them, though. Not him. Shoot ’em in the faces, though. Shoot ’em in the eyes. Lay them all out. Get them out of the way.”

The guns of Nakamook were obsolescing anyway. For each of their projectiles that hit its mark, four or five went wild. Even twenty seconds earlier — when the Indians, clustered, were still a big static target — this hadn’t been much of a problem: the novices’ wild shots had often struck lucky. But as the target moved apart, reflexively at first, becoming multiple targets with alleys between them, the currency and fasteners blew through the spaces, failing to damage, and the soldiers, frustrated, aimed worse and worse, and the Indians began to move with more purpose. Slokum flipped a chair and held it like a shield, dragged Baxter by an ankle toward halfcourt. Desormie crossed halfcourt and gave a chair to Lonnie. Maholtz grabbed a chair and they all crouched together, holding their chairs before them by the legs, shouting for their teammates to help form a bulwark. It was half a good strategy and, before it got whole, Benji needed to rush them with all of his soldiers, but he stayed in the corner, married to his strategy.

“A rammer,” Scott sang, “a rammer, a rammer.”

A misfired wingnut smashed part of a lightpanel, CHUCKETA-CRACKETA-CRACKETA-CHUCKETA. Plastic and glass got splintered and whirled. The burst bulbs retarding the stutter of the photons, the strobe effect slackened, devolved to mere flashing. Eliyahu of Brooklyn limped south to the wall, leaned on a gym mat, mumbled in Hebrew. In search of Big Ending’s remaining three chubniks, Beauregard and Isadore roamed the west bleachers.

“…and if you end this, now—”

Pockets , Mr. Brodsky.

“…I can tell the police that you saw the error—”

I see no error.

“But if you—”

I see no error and you’re wrong either way. Look, I said, at this.

I whipped out Monitor Botha’s claw.

In the bleachers, the robots had all come unstunned. Some made attempts to evacuate their students, others cleared paths to get the fallen out first, and others yet shouted for everyone to sit. The few who tried to stop fights took hits. At first, the hits, however predictable — the robots kept stepping between kids who swung blindly — were completely accidental, and for the most part glancing: knees banged shins and elbows grazed asses, not personal at all, no harm no foul. But as the skirmishes spread, the hits came harder and they came more frequently: kids saw kids who hit robots go unstepped, and they began to manufacture their accidents = friends shoving friends so the shoved could bump robots, a tactic inspired by the pervs who pulled sly-gropes on girls in the hallways who didn’t like flirting. “I’m sorry, Melissa. I had to hold something. If I didn’t hold something, I’d have fallen — John tripped me.” “I tripped him, Melissa, and I’m sorry you got held, but you saw how he tripped me when I fell onto Kelly.” Actual sly-gropes were happening, too. Big Ending reunited behind the sitting bandkids, exchanging high-fives, and huddling to plot. “I’ve got to reach Mt. Zion,” sang Main Main.

“You fantasize, infantalize, romantacize what I mentalize: it’s not your eyes, girl, it’s not your eyes.” This was the last of Boystar’s whispers. Half another measure and the speakers went dead: running from the soundboard to the northeast exit, Chaz Black kicked cords and wires tore out. “Jah put I around,” sang Scott. Starla spotted her boyfriend and jumped on a Jenny crushed by the avalanche, ran up the sideline, achieved Western Portite, got pecked on the cheek and pinched and armed. “This thing won’t hit who I aim at,” said the Flunky. “…what look to be coins,” one newsman was saying. “…writing on their foreheads,” the other one said. Ori the cameraman: back on his feet.

High-speed currency deflecting off seatpads sounds like knuckles getting cracked through sleeves. In an effort to overcome the bulwark from a distance, Western Portite and Nakamook tilted their weapons like infantry archers so their shots would rain down from above on the Indians, but Benji and Vincie were both out of nibs, and while a few of the fasteners and coins reached their targets, their impact was weak, and the damage inflicted was minor at best, though Maholtz, when crown-struck did yelp “Jeendzus!”

I was brandishing the monitor’s claw at the principal. Before understanding, he reached for it— thwick —and then he was cradling his wrist.

What’d I say?

“He’s our prisoner,’” Berman said. “And I know, but he was trying—”

No he wasn’t.

“Well he isn’t cooperating.”

He was just about to.

“Stop this, Gurion.”

“See?” said Berman.

Don’t—

Bad shadow. I grabbed onto Berman and brought us down sideways, twanging my humerus. The base of the mike-stand splintered the hardwood — Boystar’s mother, back like a slasher.