Jumping around a lot now. Feeling my way through.
“You are being very unreasonable,” Winslow remarked. He sounded amused. He sounded so amused, Norm jerked his head back to make sure the bastard was still tied to the chair. He was, but judging from the smirk on the cultist’s face it wasn’t bothering him much. “Why are you struggling so hard to stay in a fight you’ve already lost?”
Norm always wondered whether laughing just then was what started to piss Winslow off. He hoped so. “Hey, there’s the culty-talk! I was wondering if you assholes did it over here, too.” He pulled more sort-of threads out of the weird alientech, trying very hard not to look at any single bit for more than five seconds. One nosebleed was enough. “Course, usually it’s ‘Give up, fed! You aint gonna win!’ Guess you think you gotta talk fancier than your compadres do.” He hawked and spat out bloody snot, all over the nice carpet. “Don’t know why you bother. Everybody knows you can’t polish crap.”
“You arrogant simpleton!” Winslow snarled. “I can trace my heritage all the way back to Salem –”
“Yeah, yeah, and you’re all descended from witch-queens and high priests. Heard it before, Win-slow. Heard it before. You got more teeth than the usual yammerers, I’ll give you that. Now hold on; I’m gonna scream now.” Norm shook his head, winced in anticipation, and yanked ten threads out all at once.