dent

He was an expert at damaging goods such as works of art or cars so that owners would discard or sell them, but he was precise enough not to damage them beyond repair, so that they could be resold.

noily

The doorkeeper’s hair was so unkempt it looked like the raw fibers left over after combing wool. Which was weirdly appropriate, since he used to live next to a sheep pasture. He would sit out and engage the shepherds in conversation, attempting to refute their religion. He was not a popular figure and they shunned him. He learned from that experience to keep his mouth shut, which served him well as a doorkeeper. But the obsessions which had driven him to loquacity before still burned and seemed to foam out in his hair. Some snatches of conversation would still make his head whip around like a ballet dancer’s in a fierce spin. Most he could force himself to ignore when he heard a little more, but finally he heard something said which he could not leave alone.

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remote indicator

The amphibian’s sensitivity to electricity had been adapted by the doctors to accept transmissions over the wire which sent a current through the water in its tank. No complicated messages could be sent – it was used as an alarm or to indicate general conditions such as the weather, the stock market, or the progress of peace negotiations. Not only did he have to calibrate the signals, he had to take care of the little creature. 

splay

Our intent was to club him to death, but we only got as far as blinding him before we were interrupted. We fled, confident that he could not recognize us to the police. However when we were brought in for a lineup they brought out a new piece of equipment.

revoked

It was Friday, so we forgave him his boisterousness, even when he knocked over a couple of six-foot rolls of plastic sheeting. But she was not amused when she came to the shop floor and saw him brandishing a spindle like a sword. I had sympathy for her, because I knew that month-end closing was always difficult for her. It usually matched up with her menstrual cycle. She barely knew him, since she rarely came to our section. And she wasn’t used to the basalt taste of the re-paved floor.

halt

The calm stretched out ahead of him after he had stopped, like a breath of heavy gas that had been traveling with him and continued on its own inertia. The cries for help ringing out along the canyon walls were encoded. Their entrIes were deleted with asthmatic artillery. A large horned bird, wrapped in bandage-like feathers, loomed over his mind. He had been sent away with clear enunciation that his cowardice traced exacerbations. His weapons were too ungeometric to revive.

wealth management

The family which was the firm’s main client had dwindled to a few reclusive members in middle age. The brightest stars at the firm were offered transfers to the private island to help run the farms and estates and work more closely with one of the family who had several projects there. He was interested in the similarities between the emergent properties of both markets and insect colonies and was constantly looking for lessons to apply from one to the other. So he liked to introduce the financial whiz kids to the natural economies his mixed insect populations, He had at first thought to apply these lessons through the release of small robots, but then realized why not work with the insects themselves to make new products, construct new feats of engineering projects, and re-terraform the convulsing world.

convinced

My father had set up a family religion. We deified and worshipped milk, and the alertness of the blind. Even after my mother took us away she kept up the practice, which always caused friction with her boyfriends, more even than us kids did.

saga

He took a poker from the furnace and went to subdue the spider’s nest, but was humiliated at the blows he received. The conflict sewed the rift between us and renewed our strength.

cross out

An anthropologist studies proto-culture in chimps: tool use is passed from generation to generation. He tests cannabilism. If it is introduced will it be passed on? Exocannibalism vs endocannibalism. He has a hard time explaining it when his funders find out what he is doing.