Singularity tells you everything three times: once in narration, once when John Cusack explains it to a character who exists only to be told these things, and once when the protagonist learns it from the supporting actress (who exists only to be told these things).
"Siward! Come forward, Siward!" King Cnut's bellows drowned in the raucous celebration, but the bearlike Siward dumped the man in his lap unceremoniously on the ground and shoved people aside to approach. "This man," bellowed the king, "stood by me when our odds were not worth a wager. He has saved the lives of many of us, and taken more from the enemy!" The host roared, filling the long hall with God's own cacophany. "Without him, I should not be sitting this throne today. His honor is unmatched. As a just reward, I swear to you, Siward, you shall have the first position of dignity to become vacant in my new realm!" Another cheer shook the stone walls.
Siward grinned. "The first? On your honor? And if some trouble should prevent me from claiming the position?"
Cnut stood and shouted. "Nothing on this Earth shall stand in the way of Siward's title! But if you find yourself in God's lands, not even I can help you." The thegns, high-reeves, and aeldormen in attendance laughed.
With a single motion, Siward sheathed his knife in Aeldorman Tosti's heart. "I'll take Northumbria, then.
"On your honor, my king." Siward knelt.
The king gulped.
"Be aware, people!" The grizzled veteran chomped her cigar and faced her dozen troops. "This enemy does not fear you. They do not feel fear! They barely feel pain, do not retreat, and do not in any way care about you or your pathetic lives. They do not know the meaning of the word mercy!" She paced back and forth, a leashed tiger waiting for the moment to strike. "We must hit them with everything we have, or we will lose. You will die, knowing that this enemy was greater than you! That they defeated you! And having destroyed you, they will destroy your way of life! I don't intend to let that happen." She ratcheted her volume up to a roar. "Do you intend to let that happen?"
"Sir, no sir!" bellowed the troops in unison. Across the field, the enemy stood: tall, silent, unperturbed, like any other grove of cedar trees.
"Remember! This is our last stand! Our movement, our very freedom, lives or dies on this battle. Are you ready?" They roared in the affirmative. "Then charge!" Rifles barking, the troops ran forward, the veteran leading the way.
Stirring gently in the wind, the cedars ignored them.
The chase had led to this: a lost corner of the sewer system, humid and dripping, Amanda Drake holding her gun to Sal's head, Detective Henna Joston's gun pointed directly at Drake's head. Shoving her pistol painfully into Sal's temple, Drake shouted, "Drop it!"
Joston shook her head. "You know I can't do that, Drake. Let 'em go, and we can talk."
"Not a chance! I'm safe as long as I have 'em."
"Yeah?" Henna cracked her neck with menace. "How do you know I can't drill you in the eye no matter how close you hold 'em?"
"I don't." Drake forced the words out through gritted teeth. "How do you know I won't have time to blow their brains out if you try it?"
Henna grimaced. "I don't." The two of them shared stares that, if anthropomorphized, would be having really angry sex.
"Hey!" Sal's shout broke the mounting tension. "How do you both know I can't teleport away?" The nemeses looked at her, then each other, perplexion on their faces. They stared at her, a frankly uncertain stare, waiting.
"Just kidding!" Sal said. "I can't do that." Grabbing Drake's wrist, Sal flipped her and kicked the gun away.
Braven is a a movie about Jason Momoa beating up villainous drug runners and dodging the difficult task of deciding what to do with his increasingly-demented father.
My thumb felt frostbitten, I'd held it out so long. I wasn't surprised. A big man, scruffy and unwashed? I wasn't a safe bet, especially with twilight disappearing behind the hills. I saw a flicker of light far down the road. Maybe my last chance.
A lot of things brought me to this moment. Some good choices, maybe more bad ones, and bad luck mixed with bad timing. I'll still swear up and down the Hudson that any other year, my business would've done just fine. But with the economy...
I kept my thumb out. No telling how far ahead the driver was looking. The lights looked colder than normal. Those new, blue-colored lights?
So maybe quitting my job was a bad idea. And telling my boss just how much he smelled may have burned a bridge. But how was I to know that the investments I liquidated for funds were about to leap in value?
The closer the lights got, the more I could see a wobble, like the driver was palsied. I took a step away from the road.
I tried a dozen jobs, anything that'd keep me afloat. They only wanted pliable teenagers and immigrants.
A carriage pulled up, transparent with a ghostly blue lanterns hanging from the front. The driver flickered like a bad special effect. He asked if I wanted a ride to the front. General Washington would take any body he could get, he said.
It wasn't like I had any other job offers.
Carmen lifted the hourglass hanging from her waist, clear cut crystal in a housing of orichalcum. Varihued sands ran up and down through the neck as she watched, a riot of color until they settled into layered arrangements in the top and bottom bulbs. Years of training translated the dozens of colors instantly: a time the locals called 1974, August 30, 10:02am, located at 17°55'42.3"N 66°09'34.9"W. She smiled.
She stood on a spit of sandy rock in the midst of a wild sea. To the south and east, the sky was as dark as it had been four hours earlier. Clouds hanging low above her churned so fast Carmen could almost believe they were human-made, sheets of undyed wool whipped into a frenzy by mischievous youths.
Craning her neck until it cracked, Carmen unlimbered a bow of silvery wood, testing the pull. She unsheathed two long, curved knives in turn and checked their edges with her thumb. Satisfied, she rearranged the sheathes on the front of her chest for easy access.
She stood at her full five-foot-two height and stared into the storm, already pummeling her with fifty mile-per-hour winds, and drew her first arrow.