IGMS Issue 17 by IGMS Page A

black shape in a miniature guard's uniform edging along the wall towards the Daimyo. She hastily looked away.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccáta mundi, parce nobis,
she thought.
    "Will you please stop praying all the time!" the Daimyo shouted. "It's really annoying."
    The psychic spider detective halted its progress along the wall to nod vigorously in agreement. Jasmine gritted her teeth. It was all she could do not to motion Bell along.
    Einstein,
she thought, looking at her dog. They'd put a muzzle on him, but other than that he looked in good repair.
    "Yes . . . Einstein," the Daimyo said. "If you agree to come with me right now and give us the defense plans of the abbey, you'll get him back. If not . . ." He trailed off into dramatic silence.
    "If not, we'll shoot this dog," the grim-faced man said. He evidently valued clarity over dramatic tension. The safety clicked on his gun; he pointed the barrel at Einstein's cage.
    "Well, that's kinda mean," Capers said.
    The Daimyo smiled.
    "Why are you still here?" he asked. "Don't you have other mysteries to solve? You found the dog. What more do you need?"
    The android's face froze as she ran through her programming. "Er," she said. "You're bad guys . . .?"
    "Are we?" the Daimyo said. "We're trying to bring back technology to the wasteland. That's a good goal. And even if we were bad guys, sometimes at the end of mysteries, bad guys get away. The important thing is that the mystery gets solved, right?"
    Jasmine winced. The last thing she needed was the detectives' programming working against her. "I think the bad guys should get punished," she said loudly. Her voice was dry and cracked; she could barely force the words out.
    "I think the people in Gary have a mystery that needs solving," offered the grim-faced man.
    Atop Einstein's cage, the spider turned back towards the girl detective. Its eyes slid sideways in a quizzical expression.
    Jasmine could feel the moment slipping away. In a few seconds, her android allies would turn, obedient to their programming, and head out to solve the mysteries of Gary. Without their help, she would almost certainly be recaptured.
    The time had come to shift strategies.
    Lock
, Jasmine thought furiously. Seeing the Daimyo's expression change, she turned her gaze on the spider, trying to make the words as distinct and psychically "loud" as possible.
Pick the lock, Detective Bell.
    "I dunno," said Capers. She looked down at her red sneakers. "I guess solving the mystery is the most important thing. But in
Mathnet
, Pat Tuesday says . . ."
    Jasmine never did get to hear Pat Tuesday's words of wisdom.
    Following Jasmine's gaze, the Daimyo looked down and saw the string-like legs of Flaminel Bell trying to pick the lock of Einstein's cage.
    "What's that?" he shrieked.
    The thin-faced man leaned over and quickly recoiled. "Spider! Kill it!"
    Even as the guards went into motion, Jasmine was already running, already charging towards the guards and hoping to close the distance before they looked up, when a blur of color ran past her, impossibly fast.
    Androids did not care about human things, but they were inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world. However hard things got out on the wasteland, whatever laws might be broken, one thing remained true: a girl loves her spider.
    "You leave Flaminel Bell
alone
!" screamed Capers Williams, kicking the thin-faced man down the length of the tunnel. She turned and clobbered a bearded guard with his own shotgun. "He's a
very nice spider
!"
    Jasmine plowed into the grim-faced man, carrying him off his feet. The shotgun blast took out part of the wall behind her. She applied a Vatican-approved choke hold and held on for dear life.
    "That's right! Run away!" Capers howled behind her. "You . . . You scaredy-cats!"
    The grim-faced man stopped clawing at Jasmine's arms. He relaxed, unconscious. Jasmine punched him in the face for good measure, then turned back to Capers.
    Capers was standing in front of Einstein's