Crook Q Part 37

 He looked at me with his grossly bloody face and said, "Sister, we'll get them yet."
Nic coughed. Ephesus looked over and grinned, "And, I guess, if we've got you, too, you might as well join us."
"Well I'll take you. Or at least I'll take Philadelphia. With her trouble-making skills and unending passion for crazy schemes, we can't fail."
And I don't think I cared that I was in a police vehicle, headed to who knows where.

Nic sat back against his seat, alternatively looking through the glass that separated him from the sites of the city through which he was being transported, and down at the glass that had lodged in his chest. It wasn't painful, it must have just caught on his clothes or got him in the flesh somewhere. And bleeding was minimal. Not much of a wound at all.
Nic was not one to bemoan the missing glory of a lame wound. He could do well with just a shard of glass. He pulled it out, and after the searing pain of separating it from his skin, he didn't really care anymore. They had handcuffed him, hand and foot, and his seat belt was tightened and winched beyond the point of comfort. Basically he could control everything above his neck. That was enough for him, in most cases.
The car rolled on, deeper into a boundless Outside on which the sun never set. Towers rose around and giant statues proclaimed their dominance, but all Nic heard in their speeches was the theories of engineering that built every statue alike. He was being trucked through a sinister domain to say the least, but he was sure he could match it, if not in strength, in cunning.
And he wasn't half bad at being sinister, either.

And that, my friends, is the last of the regular installments of the pre-publication Red Rain sequel.
I have decided to end constant publication for a few key reasons. First, anything I publish now, especially lately, is heavily subject to revision. Already certain plot elements are inconsistent with the revised (or in-the-works) revised portions of this sequel. So I can't really write "the ending" because if I did I would have to choose an ending that fits this version not at all or one that has nothing to do with how the final version will end. To avoid confusion on both of our parts, dear reader, I call an end to the blog version of this novel (yes, I said it).
Second, and the reason you probably first guessed, I do want to publish this thing eventually. And having a full and complete version on a website free to the public is contrawise to good marketing strategy.
Third, I need to get back to those revisions, and the planning work with the one-and-only Aubrey Hansen. There is promoting to do, writing to do, revising to do, and lots of heated arguments with the real author of this stuff (not really). Actually, Aubrey has let me in on easy terms.
So now, dear friends, you must wait like normal readers for the final products. Do you want a few hints about what the changes might be?
You do?
How quaint.
Ok, fine.
1. Philli will get her Philliness back. We will give her back her nature that she had before, instead of the Philli that I created for the blog version when I realized that I couldn't take 30 minutes each Philli blog post just to get myself in the Philli mood by reading Red Rain.
2. The United will get some it's Unitedness back. Aubrey and I are working together to make sure the United doesn't change too drastically from the United ya'll knew back in RR1.
3. A spantabulous ending that Aubrey and I just love.
And if that's not enough for you, just take my word that the final product will be somewhere around 3.14 times as cool as this one was. So... why don't you comment and tell me what number this story would get if you multiplied it by that decimal number? And you can just multiply by 3, if you want, or 4 if you want to be generous, or just multiply 1 if you want to be redundant. Just tell me which operation you're doing!