| "But...but....but...." Eddie stutters, suddenly suffering from stage
fright as Astra hands her combadge to him.
Probe, in his study in Ethiopia on Terra Prime smiles something that
could be called a smile.
Oh, just want me to warm him up....get him in the frame of mind to
blow Blaine's mind? Probe chuckled to himself, No pressure there!
None at all! Only thing that could go wrong is that I fail.....and
Roland's gang dies. Simple.
With a cold feeling in what could be called his stomach (Probe didn't
need to eat, but the organ that was down there was able to absorb eaten
food well enough), Probe reached down deep and dragged forth the same frame
of mind he'd been in when he'd been "egging on" the ghost of Zerm the Unspeakable
ten years ago.
"Son....son, you gotta calm down!" Probe says in a perfect imitation
of Foghorn Leghorn (a loud mouthed Warner Brothers cartoon character),
"You aren't a....I say you aren't a two stoke motor!"
As Eddie and Probe continued to talk (more like taking potshots at each
other....with an increasingly angry Eddie as he gets more and more "into
the zone" as some would call it with Probe egging him on). Roland
and the others are gathered around Astra.
Astra calms them as best she could (Roland is almost wild about the Dark Tower....and this is almost matched by his questioning attitude about the idea of Eddie being able to bring Blaine down). The idea was almost.....too much for Roland. "Well, nothing will be lost to going with your idea of asking the riddles
you learned at Faire Day, Roland." Astra concedes, "That and the riddle
book that Jake brought from New York. But those riddles are based on logic
and while Blaine is insane....he's still a creature of logic, ultimately.
The clue to Blaine's defeat lays in that child storybook of his, Charlie
the Choo Choo."
"Charlie did detest stupid stories," Jake says softly, thinking aloud.
"And what are jokes anyway but stories with a humorous climax?"
"And I bet he'll have trouble thinking around corners," Susannah says,
also with a thoughtful look, "Just like certain Gunslingers....."
Roland looks over at her, with an aggrieved look, and then sees the
smile and understands that it was just friendly banter. That such was still
possible under these dangerous times.....
"We'll......let Eddie go first and see where it goes from there," Roland
finally concedes, "If nothing comes of that....then we go with what Eddie
would say in his parlance: ‘Plan B.'"
"I say....I say it's been fun rapping with ya, Eddie, but my brother
says that Blaine is going to be coming back in a few seconds," Probe says
over the combadge to Eddie, "Send ‘em home with a rupture!"
Probe breaks contact, leaving Eddie Dean in a fine frame of mind indeed!
"READY?" Blaine asks, coming back, a chortle of glee in it's mechanical voice, "WHO FIRST?" "That would be me, " Eddie smiles.
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