Django Durango

September 3rd, 1964

“Oh look. It’s an eagle, here to eat my liver.” Haworth watched Verloc enter his cell from the far corner where he leaned against the wall. He had been spying on Plantagenet while he waited. “Just smashing.”

One side of Verloc’s mouth hitched up at Haworth’s lazy quip. “You’ve told that one before, Prometheus.”

“Yes, well, if you’re going to gas me with your half-baked Joy formula every day, you’ll have to forgive the occasional repeat,” Haworth said, pushing himself off the wall and closing the distance to keep Verloc from venturing too far in. He liked to keep Verloc in the space by the door so as to make him feel both claustrophobic and unwelcome.

“I brought the pills on the off chance that you wanted to make this easier,” Verloc said. He tried to sound nonchalant about it, but Haworth knew he was hoping to be taken up on the offer. That he pulled a jar of medicated healing balm out of his pocket instead gave away that he knew he wouldn’t be.

Read on…

“I heard you were looking for me, Chief,” Gemma said, leaning in Margaret Oliphant’s office doorway.

“Yes, come in and shut the door,” Margaret said. She was taking one of her cat portraits down from the wall behind its corresponding statuette. Gemma shut the door behind her and perched herself on the edge of Margaret’s desk, crossing one leg over the other. Margaret glanced disapprovingly at Gemma’s cheeky choice of seat, but said nothing about it. Instead, she got to the point.

“We have to retract your article about the Parade being under quarantine,” Margaret said. She lifted her grey cat painting up off the wall and walked it behind her desk to lean it up against a column, far from its usual place.

“Another retraction?” Gemma complained. She crossed her arms and grumped. “It’s a wonder I get anything to print at all.”

“I try, but we’ve got the Executive Committee and the Department of Archives going through everything we print with a fine-tooth comb. It’s… unwise to contest whatever “additional context” they wish to provide.”

Gemma sighed. “I’m not blaming you, but if everything I write gets retracted… It’s a good thing no one remembers what they read anymore or I’d have no credibility left at all.”

“Speaking of credibility,” Margaret broached as she pulled out her chair and sat down, “I’ve been meaning to ask how you even got into the Parade without a Letter of Transit.”

Read on…