DRAGON'S BREATH MAGAZINE Issue Two, April 1992 Special Issue: Dragon's Breath Declares War on Sex & Violence A Not-So-Perfect Santa Barbara Telecom Publication Featured Exclusively at The Swagazine Rack http://www.swagazine.com/ Originally published by Swagman and Colin Campbell. Online edition edited by Zeylan. ----- In this issue . . . 1. Dragon's Head ..... by Death Penguin 2. The Night Dracula Awoke ..... by Math Blaster 3. Who Needs a Blender When You Got John? ..... by Newstyle 4. HE2 ICU ..... by JSK 5. The Captured Rainbow ..... by Diablo 6. A Second Coming ..... by Jeff McManus 7. Road War ..... by T1000 8. Breath Entry ..... by Misha 9. The Character Issue in American Politics ..... by Pure Cane Sugar 10. Collected Cat Poems ..... by Bill the Cat 11. Misha K. ..... by Reid Fleming 12. The Girl of the Month Club ..... by Colin Campbell 13. Two College Students in Bed ..... by Earth Shoe 14. Our Best Don't Run ..... by The Bald Man 15. I think about it sometimes. ..... by Phaedrus 16. Concrete ..... by Swagman 17. Dragon's Tail ..... by Death Penguin ----- Dragon's Head by Death Penguin You enter the soul of the Dragon here. Feel him. Flames that lick at your feet burn thy mind melt in a pool of reverie. ----- The Night Dracula Awoke by Math Blaster, age 8 One dark, dreary night two men named Fred and Mike went fishing in a lake close by to a forest. They caught 2 bass and 1 salmon. They camped in the woods since the town was a two hour drive away. Suddenly, the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed like giant drums. Out of a corner of his eye Fred saw a bat flutter by and disappear behind a cloud. Mike continued making their dinner of fish. Suddenly, a very pale man stepped out of the shadows. He introduced himself as Dracula. Mike thought that he had heard that name somewhere before but he couldn't place his finger on it. Mike gave Dracula some leftover fish and a sleeping bag. When he saw how Dracula ate the fish he knew where he had heard his name at once. He told Fred all of this and he went to the car to get a hammer and stake. Then he heard a scream. He ran back to the tent and saw Dracula biting Fred on the neck. He ran to Dracula and pushed him. Dracula fell on the tent and Mike threw the stake at Dracula's heart. Dracula tried to remove the stake but Mike ran to Dracula and stepped on the stake until Dracula stopped moving. He checked Dracula's pulse and found he was dead. (That goes to show what happens if you get someone like Mike really steamed.) Mike helped Fred in and sped away to the hospital. ----- Who Needs a Blender When You Got John? by Lucien Rocco ("Newstyle") There was a poem that became universal in that beautiful time. Not everybody knew it, only the very wise recited it: Johnny's dead. He drowned in a sea of blood. He lost his head. Gotta a gun and shot a fat guy, so it's said. Johnny was confused. And now he's the opposite of a bruise. Johnny's dead, he was a poor sap indeed. I'll think of him when I cut myself and bleed. Johnny's dead, what's his mom gonna say? Will she cry when she's stoned and know that her baby has washed away? Johnny's dead and will anybody miss him? Someone wrote a story and will anybody listen? ----- He2 ICU by JSK Jorge thought of the childhood stories about the fission era. More water than land, vast bodies called oceans. Ludicrous. Looking across the vast waste, it was hard to believe such a time could have been. It was the fusion, of course. One didn't have to read the bookfilms to know that. It was happening right now, though the wastage wasn't as bad as before. Hydrogen was extracted from water and fused, then the heat was used to condense what little moisture there was from the air. Sort of a giant refrigerator. Efficiency was better; a drop would get you a liter. But it was borrowed time. And time was coming to collect. Jorge looked along the horizontal slit that was his window to the left, toward the fusion plant that the small city surrounded. All around the slit Jorge saw his diffused reflection; the silvering that kept the heat out. The cooling tower rose into the air, the giant cool exchangers trying to suck moisture from the desiccated air. Somewhere, further away, on the opposite side, were the heat exchangers, the potential energy between them held at bay. Small tanks littered the landscape, the gigantic buried ones having been overfilled a century before. Alchemy! Jorge laughed. Jorge thought of his sister, and his parents. The things from yesterday. No one kept track of time anymore; it could have been years. There were no communication devices, as there were no plants to make replacement parts anymore. And very few ways to transport them. What little technology was left concentrated on the water and the greenhouses. Mankind on the edge. That was why he hadn't followed the rest of his family. He knew there was no hope. Maybe it had been better for them in a bigger city. But Jorge would not, could not see it that way. He felt humanity's loss of hope with terrible sharpness. He felt the responsibility, even though it was not his. He laughed again, more bitterly, at the helium tanks and turned away. He fetched a cool pad and put it on his tongue, the oily menthol refreshing his throat. As a child, they had been an embarrassment; an overt sign of poverty. Now everyone was poor. He had brought two liters when he'd moved in, but now each morning only one was in the recycler. A slow leak. It would cost his last liter to get it fixed. The posters outside stared back, untouched. Faded, yet preserved for years by the motionless dry air. Dreams to placate the masses. Yes! We had built dams. Yes! We had split the atom. Yes! We could put them back. Like a crazy crossword puzzle, it dared you to fill in the missing word, WATER. Political advertisements for the new-age alchemy, to turn the noble gas back to water. But now all the helium was gone, having slipped like sand through the hand of earth's feeble gravity. Pandora, Jorge thought. Not like sand. Like little mischievous demons. Silent, incredibly patient. Waiting for someone, anyone, to open the box. Creatures of air, invisible, laughing and running away. ----- The Captured Rainbow Written for Valerie Elizabeth Crain by Diablo There once was a little boy who loved to run through the fields and between the trees. He was friends with just about everyone, even the bees. One afternoon, after a brief shower, he saw a rainbow more beautiful than any flower. He chased after the rainbow, wanting to get near; the rainbow playfully called after him, then fled like a deer. Finally, as he could run almost no longer, he caught up with the end of the rainbow, and was joyous that he didn't have to admire it from farther. "What is your name little boy?" an old woman asked as she approached. "Jackie", he said breathlessly, showing his boyish grin, "I caught up with the rainbow!" But then the rainbow began to fade; distressed, the boy looked at the old woman through the haze. "Boy, rainbows don't live very long in the wild, and this one has lived longer than most. I'm afraid it's almost spent, and soon it will be nothing more than a ghost." The boy looked at the rainbow, and cried a few tears; a new friend found and lost so quickly, he could almost not bear to hear. The old woman saw his sorrow, and began to look around. You see, the rainbow had to come from someplace, and that is where it source would be found. She discovered the source in a drop of water on a rose petal about to fall on the ground. She combined it with one of the boy's tears, and suddenly something new was to be found. "Its a piece of crystal!" the boy exclaimed. "Not an ordinary piece of crystal, but one full of magic. It contains the soul of a rainbow, and I want you to have it. Hold it in the light any time, and you can see your friend. I bid you farewell now, I hope your love for rainbows never end." The boy took the crystal and ran home full of delight. He was so excited, he could hardly sleep a wink at all that night. In the morning he decided that such a thing was too precious not to share, so he offered it to his mother, hoping that she would care. His mother took the crystal, but her eyes did not shine with glee. "It's just a piece of glass," she said, "with scientific properties." The boy was crushed, but he did understand. His mother did not love rainbows, so she put the crystal back into his hands. As he grew older, he showed his precious gift to many friends. Although some were delighted, their interest came quickly to an end. One day he met a young lady; cautiously, he showed her the crystal, hoping that just maybe... "You've captured a rainbow!" she exclaimed with amazement and delight, "it's beautiful and so full of light." "I want you to have this rainbow," the boy, now a man, said, "you're the first person who ever realized what a beautiful gift this has been." She protested, but the man insisted, and finally she gave in. And she kept the rainbow until she found another who loved rainbows like them. So that is how this rainbow has been passed from hand to hand. Between people who believe enough in magic and rainbows to understand. Rainbows are beautiful, but most have short lives. A few are lucky enough to be loved, and so they never die. ----- A Second Coming by Jeff McManus Wednesday's swing shift was coming to a close. The workmen were winding down, cleaning up, putting things in somewhat neat piles for tomorrow's shift. Supervisors in their ties and nice shoes were walking back and forth, looking at things, doing not much of anything really, just like usual. And the workmen were wiping solvent from their hands onto their shirts and wondering what kind of microwave goodies they had in their freezers at home. The phone rang in the foreman's office at about 10:30 p.m. When the phone rang in the office, you could hear it everywhere in the building; it was the only phone in the factory that rang that way. On swing shifts especially, people looked up from what they were doing when the foreman's phone rang. The foreman went to go pick up the phone. He came back a minute later. "Riley!" he called. "Telephone! Some hopeless-sounding woman for ya! Ha, ha!" Riley sniffed that solvent smell and looked down at the cement floor as he walked to the foreman's office to take the call. He didn't want to look at the other men -- they were pretty sure they knew who the woman was. The woman who always called for Riley was the object of scorn and abuse around the factory -- the focus for the men's frustration. The men all liked Riley well enough, but that girl of his -- she was something else. She was the embodiment of all that was wrong with women. The married workers tried to talk Riley out of her, telling him, "You're gonna find another better woman, man, you're young, it's just a matter of time." And Riley would agree with them. The younger, single men would mock him openly whenever he took her calls at work. They thought he was weak for holding out for her. "She's a head-case," they all said. "You've got no business with a woman like that." And Riley agreed with them, too. He was an idiot, a complete idiot, to put up with something like that, when there were so many less troubled women in the world. But he still felt he should take her calls at least. He couldn't -- didn't know how -- to just tell her to get lost. He couldn't do that to her, not with all she's been through. You wouldn't be that cruel to a total stranger, he thought. Riley picked up the greasy phone in the supervisor's office. "I had so much trouble getting you at home, Jesus Christ," the voice on the other end said. But it wasn't Riley's girl. It was her mother, Claire. "Uh," Riley said. "Yeah. I've been workin' swing shift ever since November." "Since November?" Claire asked. "This is by your own choice?" She sounded frantic, taut and stern. "Well, yeah," Riley said. "There's nothing really for me to do in the evenings now anyway, so I signed up for swing shift. It's a little more money and I get to sleep in mornings. I'm not what you'd call a morning person." "You sound like the world's biggest martyr," Claire said. "And we can't have any of that right now. The family needs you." Riley's eyebrows crunched together. "I don't mean to seem disrespectful," Riley said, "but I'm not a member of your family, really." "To me you are," Claire said. "And to her you are too, even though she doesn't really know it right now. We really need your help." At first he thought maybe they were putting something together, or maybe they needed a light bulb put in the basement. But as she talked, Claire added breath to her voice; her intensity wavered. She sighed and sniffed. "Are you crying?" Riley said. "Have you been crying? What's wrong?" "It's Charles," Claire said. "He's died. This morning." Charles, Claire's husband, was a crazy guy, one of those old guys who you like well enough. Riley respected the man. He was straightforward. He had a firm handshake. And he always had something to say about politics. Riley liked that. He rarely agreed with Charles' predictably suburban point of view, but he enjoyed their discussions. Both men enjoyed their discussions. "Elizabeth has told you that she broke it off with me, hasn't she?" Riley said. "Yes," Claire said, "of course." "I just wanted to make sure," Riley said. "She has this funny way of keeping things from people." "You're telling me," Claire said. "I've had to live with it for twenty-five years. Gimme a break." "So what do you need from me?" Riley said. "Well, no," Claire said, "if you're not willing to help out--" "No, no," Riley said. "I want to help if I can." "Well, there's a memorial on Sunday. If you could just be there." "Like a mass?" he said. "Is that what they call it?" "Not that elaborate," she said. "It shouldn't take long." "I'll be there," he said. "And on Monday, the burial--" "I don't know if I can go to that," he said. "I think I have to work a day that day." "Well, that'll be fine," she said. "That'll be no problem. As long as you come by Sunday, it will be OK. I don't mean to inconvenience you, but I really feel as if it wouldn't be right without you there." "I understand," he said. "It won't be any bother at all. Is there anything you need?" "No," she said, "I have everyone here. Everyone's taking care of me." "Okay," he said. "You know," Claire said, "if you don't want to see Elizabeth at the church, I can arrange it so you're seated apart from each other--" "No," he said. "No, that's no problem. Go ahead and seat me wherever you think I should sit." "Okay," Claire said. "I'll seat you with us, with the family. I won't put you right .next to Elizabeth, but you'll be on the pew with me. OK? OK, that's done." "Whatever," Riley said. "Whatever you want." Riley imagined himself being crossed off a giant list of Claire's THINGS TO DO. And then the phone disconnected without anyone saying goodbye. He put down the phone and went back to finish his shift. When the buzzer sounded and Riley's shift ended, he changed clothes, went out to the parking lot and got into his car. It was dark and misty outside, and there were no stars and no moon. There was nothing on the car radio, so he turned it off and drove in silence. Usually when he was driving with the radio off he though about interesting things. But not tonight. Now he just thought about nothing. Before he knew it, he was at his apartment. He locked his car and walked up the stairs to his apartment. When he got inside, he locked and deadbolted the apartment door before he turned on the light. Inside, he checked the telephone answering machine -- no messages. He looked in the refrigerator, and then the freezer: there was a Hungry Man Salisbury Steak in there, but he didn't want it. He wasn't a hungry man at the moment. He put the teakettle on the stove, but then took it off before it heated up. He knew that drinking tea would just give him an upset stomach right now. He went out to the living room and sat down on his big brown couch. He looked at his watch and tried to figure out how many hours it was until that memorial service on Sunday. Then he took off his shoes, lay down on the couch, and thought about how funny things seemed. Later, he got up off the couch and went to bed, and he was all by himself, and he knew that wasn't all that much time before he himself would be in some kind of coffin, somewhere. ----- Road War by T1000 from Dagney Dent Felicity Dawn had been hitch-hiking since before the bombs, when fuel was cheap and plentiful, so of course, she had seen quite a bit, but this she had never seen before. At first, it looked like just one car, but now, she realized it was one car being chased by three motorbikes and two cars. Her stomach tightened with anticipation. This would either be her lucky day or her last. She had to think fast because they were all going over 120 mph. Should she save the one car and risk the possibility of a hostile owner, or should she destroy all six? She had carefully placed the road boobytrap for an event such as this. It had the ability to release a gas at just the right moment, in just the right place, and at just the right strength to kill the owners of any vehicle. All Felicity had to do was salvage the wreckage and the fuel. With this many vehicles, she may be able to finish building the vehicle she had been building since a year after the bombs fell. Think, think, think! She had to decide. All the cars, or spare the victim? All six vehicles viciously flew closer to the trap. The first one definitely is not with the other five. It is being chased, but that doesn't mean the owner is a hero. That doesn't mean the owner won't come back to kill me and steal my store of fuel, but he's being chased. He'll probably be so thankful that his ass is clear that he won't think to question how it came to be so. Think! The time for thinking was gone. She let the first car pass, and the last five became victims to the powerful burst of the lethal gas that had killed so many others before them. Five distinct wrecks followed. The motorbikes went first, then the cars. Don't explode...don't explode. Felicity begged the cars not to self destruct. When they seemed safe, she moved her gaze to the road ahead. The car that she had so graciously had saved had stopped. "So, the owner did notice me. Well, he won't find a pleasant end if he hunts me down." Arthur dent raced down the isolated stretch of road in his 1988 Saab 900 Turbo. He had kept it in a garage with 2-footthick lead walls, just in case the bombs fell, and now he was the only person in the country with a decent set of wheels. As he sped by at 180 mph, he saw quite a mess. He slowed down to 140 to survey the problem. All six vehicles appeared to have stopped abruptly, and only the front one showed any sign of life. A lone figure emerged from it, haggard from too much travel. A strange, mysterious woman was standing by the road, looking strange and mysterious. This looked entirely too serious for arthur, so he sped up to 200 and continued on his way. When he got back to Salt Lake City, he had a great idea for an anti-litter campaign. He made millions. "Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn!!!!" thought Felicity Dawn. "If only I hadn't been distracted by the six cars, I could have had a SAAB! A SAAB in perfect condition with the ability to go 200 mph!" With the rage and indignation that had built itself within her tiny frame, she glared at the Roadwarrior, "Don't even think for a second that you can salvage any of this! Just get back into your car that I have so graciously saved, and go your merry way!" The scruffy man looked at his weather worn shoes, "I can't." It was then that Felicity noticed the dog that had accompanied the desperate traveler. To the surprise of both of the salvagers, the Malamute gingerly pounced over to Felicity licking her hands and trying to cuddle as only happy dogs do. "My dog doesn't take too kindly to strangers." "I can tell." "No, what I mean is, he usually eats them." "Must not be hungry today." The face of Felicity softened to the once feminine beauty that earned her so many rides from strangers, and Roadwarrior became another victim to her ethereal essence. from Roadwarrior *sigh* She is so gorgeous! I am mesmerized by the beautiful woman who stands before me. God, to see a woman so luscious out here in the wastes of Moab is a miracle!!! Is she an angel? Did death finally catch up to me and this is the angel come to take me home??? No, it can't be. Not after all the stuff I've seen, heard and done in my life. This couldn't be an angel. I suddenly realized I had sunk to my knees and the shotgun lay on the roadway behind me. Damn!!! I let my guard down!! I leaped to my feet and snatched up the double-barrel, sawed-off from the asphalt in a flash. I then whirled around and pointed the weapon at her. "Who the Hell are you?!" I yelled. Her eyes cooled and she replied "Felicity Dawn. Now put that thing away, dammit, before you hurt yourself." I was temporarily struck with the urge to laugh. I didn't know whether she meant the shotgun or the bulge in my pants her gorgeous body had caused. I smiled and kept the gun leveled at her firm, perfect chest. "OK," I said with a grin. "What the Hell do you want?!" She just continued staring and tapping one spiked-heel on the roadway. We stood there eye to eye for minutes, neither doing anything more than breath. I finally broke from her gaze and quickly surveyed the area. The 6 vehicles who had been chasing me were in wreckage. An occasional pool of blood leaked from a shattered window or twisted chunk of metal. I needed fuel badly, and this offered the perfect opportunity. One car was still fairly intact and lay about 15 feet behind my Interceptor. The sweet, intoxicating smell of gasoline filled the air as a small puddle formed beneath the wrecked car. I turned back to Felicity and sized her up. No weapons (her incredible body not included. It was definitely lethal). She appeared harmless. But this was too weird, and my hackles were on end. This was all wrong. Suddenly a faint growling from the distance alerted me. I flashed a look at the horizon. Far out on the twisting highway I could see 4 more vehicles approaching. "Damn" I muttered. I looked at my Interceptor and grimaced. I must be running on vapor by now. I flashed another peek at the apparition called Felicity Dawn and gritted my teeth. How do I get into these bizarre situations??? The rumbling got closer and the instinct to run grew stronger by the second. Felicity kept staring silently. I was gripped with apprehension and fear. What should I do?? Another loud roar from the horizon decided for me. "Keep her from messin' around, dog" I said sharply. My Malamute, who up to this point had been adoring her mindlessly, suddenly skipped away and growled wildly at her, his teeth bared. His hackles were up and he looked as fierce as any wolf. Felicity was startled but only her expression changed. My Malamute barked evilly and Felicity was forced back a step. She suddenly jumped for my car but was blindsided with a flying tackle. Felicity screamed as my dog pinned her to the Earth and held his jaws millimeters from her throat. She wasn't moving after that. I grinned and chuckled inwardly. Good old mutt, he was. I ran to my car and snagged one of many empty Jerry cans off the back and ran to the wreck not 15 feet away. The Juice was like water to me. I could almost taste it as it flowed across the highway. I scanned for the source of the leak and spotted the ruptured fuel hose. I popped the Jerry can with my left thumb and drew a knife from my boot with the right. The hose was slashed cleanly with a wrist swipe and the Gas poured freely. I immediately fed the hose into the can and set it down. The wonderful liquid splashed and gurgled with glee as it emptied into the metal container. I dashed back to the Interceptor and snagged a second can, peaked to make sure Felicity was still pinned, and flew back to the wreck. The previous can was half full, and I tore the hose out and stuck it into the second can, and ran back to the Interceptor. The roar was getting louder and the gangs were less than a minute away. This would be too close. I popped one of the two main tanks and emptied about a gallon of Life into the dry vessel. I then threw the empty can in the back and ran for the second one. "Get her ass in the car!!" I yelled while I grabbed the second can and hurried back. My Malamute barked excitedly and flipped Felicity over on her back, she screamed again, and he chomped down on the collar of her shirt. While I emptied another gallon of High-Octane into the tank, the dog dragged Felicity over and into the back seat of the Interceptor, his victim screeching and kicking the whole time. "Keep her there!!! I yelled" 30 seconds now... I sealed the tank and threw the second can in the back, the thinbettle smacking Felicity in the head! "OUCH!!" She screeched! "You bastard!!" I laughed out loud and jumped for the drivers' seat. 20 seconds... I reached over and slammed the passenger door, sneaking a peek as my dog had Felicity glued to the left side of the car with fear. I slammed the drivers door and reached for the ignition. 10 seconds.... The roar of their engines was loud in the air now, as well as their bloodthirsty cries of bloodlust. The old hatred swelled and I cranked the engine. It sputtered once and then roared with a fresh life of its own. "Hang on!!" I yelled and stamped on the accelerator. My Malamute howled with the squeal of the tires and the roar of the V8, and we were all thrown around as the car bucked and screamed across the blacktop. They were right on me now, cackling and hollering with delight. I watched the needle move upward... 30, 40, 50 it climbed. a quick check out the window and in the mirrors did nothing to ease me. "Too damned slow..." I cursed. Two cars were less than 3 feet from the back bumper and two bikes were flying up along the passenger side. 60 Miles per hour The road was hurtling along now, but it was too late. I looked out at the two bikers and glared. Each was covered in bones and paint and plate and pain, howling madly at me. One eased in closer and screamed "You die now, eh???" He pointed a wrist bow at me and a thin bolt flew at me. I ducked and the arrow buried itself in the passenger door. They both laughed and the biker brought his other arm around for another shot. That did it. The anger took over. I grabbed the shotgun out of the bucket seat and directed it out the window. "FUCK YOU!!" I yelled savagely. The biker had a sudden look of animalistic fear and then I triggered the left barrel. There was a loud BOOM! and the biker seemed to explode. The buckshot tore him nearly in half and the recoil crushed into my wrist and arm. What was left of the biker swerved wildly as was gone. GOD!! That had felt soooooo good!!! I grinned with sadistic satisfaction and gazed at the speedometer. 75 MPH.... The other cars were still keeping speed as well as the bike. But not for long. I held very still and let the maniacs close in. The second bike was only a few feet away now. I held my breath and then stamped the brake. Rubber squealed and the biker over shot me. The two cars behind swerved wildly and I heard a satisfying *CRUNCH* as one plowed into the other. The bike was now directly ahead of me. I let up off the brake and down on the gas. The Interceptor lunged like a bloodthirsty beast after the biker. He matched speed. 90 MPH.... I looked in the mirror and watched as the two cars carried off the road and tumbled wildly, metal and rubber and junk and flesh flying everywhere. My dog and I both howled with glee and I stood on the gas with renewed fervor. I gazed evilly at the desperate biker ahead as his engine whined highly, trying to stay ahead. "Now its your turn you bloody Sod!!" I yelled, and toggled the superchargers. All three of us were pressed back into the dusty vinyl seats of the Interceptor and the needle climbed rapidly, engine screaming like a demon from Hell. 90, 100, 115, 130, 145, and onward. The biker was desperate! He was barely in control. 150.... Finally, he lost it. A bump in the blacktop flung him wildly and he went down in a tumble of tearing metal and spilling blood. 20 feet, 10 feet, 1 foot... The Interceptor bucked as two, slushy, *THUMPS* rolled beneath the left tires, the remains of the biker being ground into the pavement beneath my Goodyears. I let out a ravaged cry of vengeance and anger and, satisfied, continued on past the carnage I had caused. The tires rolled eagerly and I kept the gas on in exhilaration. Now what do I do with this woman? I wondered. No matter, that was a matter for later consideration. All that mattered now was speed, the road, and the beautiful red-rock that flew past my eyes. The interceptor rolled on from Dagney Dent "You stupid imbecile!!!" Felicity Dawn was writhing with anger, "You wasted four perfectly good vehicles!!!" Roadwarrior was quick with a retort, "I just saved our butts!" "I could have saved our butts and got the vehicles!! That motorbike was the best I've seen in years, but now it's a crumbled mess on the freeway! Not to mention what the body of the rider has done to this baby! If you had let me go, I could have gassed them, like I did your friends. In fact, they would have slowed down to observe the carnage of the first wreckage, so their machines would have hardly crashed at all!! We could have had four perfectly good machines with the remains of the others to spare. NOT TO MENTION THE FUEL YOU WASTED SHOWING OFF!!!" A firm but fairly unharming slap found its way to Felicity's face, and she was quieted, "Take me back. I can salvage what's left, and you can go on your way." from Roadwarrior Y'know, she had a good point. In fear and rage I had wasted some good opportunities. I suddenly felt a touch of shame for slapping her. The adrenaline was running down again and I started to rethink my actions. I had acted rashly. But no time to go back, for behind me the Madness always followed. Never ceasing and ever growing. I looked and watched as a sign whipped past. I could only make out the word "-imits... 5 miles" Aha! perfect! A town up ahead! There I could find some Juice and drop Felicity off. "Hang on..." I said as I quickened the pace. "Just turn AROUND!" Felicity yelled in my ear. She raised a hand to slap the back of my head but decided against the maneuver at a loud bark from my Malamute. The road and rock flowed past me and I enjoyed the freedom a couple gallons of juice could give me. Soon, things would hopefully take turns for the better. 15 minutes later we rolled to the outskirts of a desolate, burnt-out little burg that looked like it hadn't seen life in a while. I rolled cautiously down main street and checked the buildings. All had been partially or totally burnt and a few were nothing but blackened foundations. Nobody was in sight. I spied the remnants of a service station and cruised the Interceptor over towards it, still keeping my eyes peeled. I stopped the car at the kirb and shut the V8 down. "OK, everybody out" I announced. I opened the passenger door and both my dog and Felicity tumbled out. I then eased out the drivers door and stood, always checking out the corners of my eyes for trouble. "Why didn't you just turn around??" Felicity demanded. "Look, I've NEVER looked back in my life. Death is just a breath away, and if I go back to smell the roses, I'm finished. You saw how they hounded me." That seemed to satisfy her a little. "C'mon, boy, we've got scroungin' to do" I said my Malamute. He wuffled at me happily and skipped to my side. "You can come with me if you want," I said over my shoulder. "I'm not really that rotten a person. And it seems you have little other choice." No answer. I stopped and faced around. She was gone. Damn! Where did she get off to? She couldn't touch the Interceptor or we'd all be dead; I set the dynamite before I left the drivers seat. "HEY!!" I yelled. "Stop yellin" came the reply as she walked out from behind the station pushing a battered, barely working Harley-Davidson Springer Softail. "Where the Hell did you find that??" I asked her. She smiled, "A resourceful girl can find anything she needs, hotshot". The Harley squeaked and groaned as wheeled it over to a rusted out pump. "Hey, don't let me keep you" She said, still smiling. "I can take care of myself. This is getting weirder by the minute... But what the Hell, I thought. "Hands off the car, babe" I said. "Nasty things come in pretty packages..." Then I turned and walked out into the street. One hour later I had circuited the town and scrounged what I could. As I walked back to the Interceptor I was amazed to hear the roar of a bike engine. No way, she couldn't... Not in an hour... Where did she get the juice?? I approached the station and found Felicity sitting astride the Harley and testing the throttle. "What the?!" I started. She smiled again and repeated herself. "I told you, resourceful girls..." I just started laughing then. This was bizarre. Screw it, though..... I had a sack slung over my shoulder with the stuff I'd scrounged up, which I set besides my car. "Where did you get the juice??" I asked. Felicity just pointed to a clear, plastic hose that she had fed into the rusty pump. "Amazingly enough, there is some fuel in there after all. Enough to last quite a while." She said. I looked and saw two, plastic Jerry cans strapped onto either side of the Harley and a rumpled roll of scrounged stuff tied to the Harley's high-back seat. She pointed at the pump and said, "Fill up while you can!" The gas was like fire in my nostrils. "Lady, I don't know who you are, but I love you!!" I grabbed her around the waist and planted a kiss full on her luscious, red lips. She was surprised, but didn't pull away. Her arms wrapped around me and I felt her lithesome body against my own. It was heaven. The kiss ended and we pulled away. A small red spot was on her cheek where I had slapped her. I ran my hand lightly over it and whispered, "I'm sorry". She just smiled and jokingly punched my gut. "I ought to deck you for that, tough guy, but I'm too tired" We both laughed at that and looked into each other's eyes. She so beautiful. I was saddened to have to part with her. She turned and hopped on the Harley. "Well stranger, see you later maybe". She jumped and cranked the Harley to life, revving the engine and grinning. "HEY!" I yelled. I fished into the breast pocket of my leather jacket and retrieved a small rabbits foot. "Good luck to you..." I said with a smile and tossed her the foot. She snatched it and looked at me strangely. She Tucked it down and front of her shirt and between her breasts and laughed humorously. "I'll try and keep it warm for you. Before I could reply, she floored the gas and was gone in a burst of dust. I watched her ride out of town and sighed. Well, back to the grind. I emptied the sack by my car and sorted the contents. I put three paperback books into a chest I kept on the rear floor of the car. Knowledge was priceless, and I was building a safekeep of books for the future ahead. Next I emptied some spare auto-parts into a second chest. Then some blankets and other articles and things in their various places. Then I pulled the hose from the pump and proceeded to fill my car with as much Juice as I could carry. The tanks, the cans, everything was filled to the rim. I threw the hose in the back. "In ya' go, my friend" I said the the Malamute who had been asleep in a burned out crate this whole time. He wuffled and happily scrambled into the back seat. I checked to make sure I had everything, and got in. I made sure the doors were tight and everything secure against the approaching night. Lastly, I examined the only remaining loose articles. 5 shotgun shells rattled in my hand. They all looked to be in good shape, and I needed the ammo. I tucked three of them into my rest pocket and then unholstered my double-barrel, sawed-off. It split nicely and I slid the last two rounds into the twin barrels with relish. Firepower again. I snapped the barrels closed and set the safety, then laid the gun in the passenger seat. Handy if I needed it. I sat back and thought for a moment. I wondered about my future. I wondered about the gas I was now loaded with. And I wondered about HER. I had this feeling we would meet again, and this made me very happy. Life is what we make of it, and she would certainly make a fine companion with which to build a new future. Maybe even kids... I laughed at the idea. it was tempting, but hardly more than the wistful dream of a man who has seen too much and shed to many bitter tears. It was time to get back to reality. The V8 roared with vitality and the car seemed eager for speed. I smiled back at my Malamute. "Lets get going, old chap." He barked happily with a grin. I set the gears and let up off the clutch and down on the gas. The Interceptor rolled easily onto the road and out into the evening air. Then out of the town and down the long road of destiny. The engine hummed reassuringly, he tires rolled easily, and the Juice, the *precious* juice, flowed like blood in my veins. I breathed the night air and pressed on the accelerator.......... from Dagney Dent Felicity Dawn sped eagerly toward home and her precious booby trap. Night was falling quickly and she had quite a bit of salvaging to do, and not enough light to do it in. At nighttime, she couldn't risk being unprotected, and by morning, the best parts would be taken. Not to mention the fact that travelers would be mighty curious about the carnage on the road and may look for her house or dismantle her trap. Felicity gently rubbed her bottom, "That damn Interceptor was in dire need of shocks. If only..." Felicity cut herself short. There were no more "if onlies." The bombs had stolen her livelihood, her children, and most of all, her husband. Stay alone. Stay lonely, because loneliness doesn't hurt quite as much if you live with it continually. It's the shock of loneliness that hurts the most. The shock of losing the one you love hurts worse than staying alone. Just as she decided that she would be alone forever, the familiar outline of an Interceptor made its way into her rear view mirror. Felicity's mind raced as quickly as the Harley she was driving, "He wouldn't come back for me. There must have been someone there, and now they've come for me." She tried to push the motorbike a little harder, but remembered what happened to the last guy who tried to outrun that car, so she braked as safely as she could, ditched the bike, and hid. The roar of the Interceptor came closer. "Damn thing needs a muffler too." When the roar was as loud as it could be, the car stopped. Felicity wasn't worried, because she was a master at finding the best hiding spot in Southern Utah, out of which she peeked at her assailant. To her surprise and delight, the Interceptor was driven by its original owner and his Malamute companion. Felicity Dawn's hiding place was easily found by the keen nose of the fairly friendly mutt. "Come with me. I could use a mechanic." "Come with me. You could use a tuneup and I can use the manpower. By the way, what's your name? I can't go on thinking of you as the owner of the Interceptor whose butt I spared." He chuckled and the dog eagerly wagged his tail, "Most people don't even get that, but I call myself Roadwarrior." "Well, I used to be called Felicity Dawn before everyone that I knew was killed, so I guess I'll stick with that. Follow me." Felicity straddled the motorbike and motioned for Roadwarrior to go with her to her home. When they reached the smoking remains of the first five, it was nearly dark. "Hurry!" Felicity ran about fifty yards from the road, and the ground mysteriously lifted. A door the size of a van opened to the underground, while Roadwarrior stood open-mouthed. "I'm good with hydraulics, too. Now help me push these cars into my garage before the evening scavengers take over." With much sweat and strained muscles on the part of both, the remains of all five vehicles were hastily scooted into the garage. Finally, Roadwarrior gently eased his own car into the haven, and the door was shut. Felicity looked at her humble abode. The walls were covered with tools neatly placed on hooks. There was a sink, a bed and a computer in the corner, and all the rest of the room was filled with car parts neatly labeled and put into boxes. "I get bored." The Roadwarrior looked around with greed and admiration, "You sure are organized." "Not really, I'm a slob who is interested in organization. Plus, what else am I to do when the road is desolate for weeks?" Roadwarrior gasped, "You're not telling me that all these parts are from that trap of yours, are you?" "Not all, but most of them. You see, that road was called I-15. It was a main thoroughfare through Utah. I ran a gas station and truck stop with my husband and children. We rescued cars in trouble and charged a pretty penny for it too. Then on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago," Roadwarrior cringed. That was the night the bombs fell. "We all were supposed to go to Salt Lake to visit my husband's family, but a girl called in sick on me at the last minute, so I stayed to watch the store. And then..." Felicity's eyes stared at the computer. She didn't say anything else, but he knew. She didn't have to say that she never heard of them again. She didn't have to say that somehow, she was able to alter her garage to be the haven of safety and death that it now was. "So why save all those parts, and kill people to do it?" "I need a car." "Why?" "They still may be alive." Felicity stared at the computer for a bit longer, then went over to the Interceptor and started to raise it on a jack. Roadwarrior quickly stopped what she was doing, "Hey! You're not going to cannibalize my baby!" "Of course not! But that car is not going to leave here without new brakes, shocks and a muffler. Did you ever think that if the attackers could barely hear your car, that they would think that you were very far away, and not be ready when you do overtake them?" Roadwarrior smiled at her and left her to her work. He went to cuddle his Malamute, which Felicity thought was the most odd sight: a tough and strong man cuddling a ferocious dog. They were both deep in sleep before Felicity got the first tire off. She worked on throughout the evening, and when she finished her original projects, she went on to others. Roadwarrior found her asleep on a table with the remains of what used to be a transmission on the table. She smelled of grease and gasoline, and he imagined her firm body pressed against his. Then the thought of the hundreds of people she had killed replaced the more pleasant previous thought. This was a woman who had mercilessly sacrificed many, just for their cars and fuel. She would do anything to build this dream car of hers. She was a girl of his own heart, but her heart was placed on finding another man. A man and a few children were all she really wanted. But not just any man, her husband. from Roadwarrior Yes, this woman was quite a piece of work. Beautiful, intelligent, tough, everything. The more I was around her, the more I was drawn to her. And also repelled. She could easily add me to her list of conquests. I could become just another corpse, and my stuff just another treasure for her post-apocalyptic coffers. And this worried me deeply. I looked down at her sleeping, soiled body and smiled. I recalled my own words with bitter irony: "Nasty things come in pretty packages." Yes, that fit this woman precisely. I looked down at her soiled, crumpled form and brewed. Why was life always so complex, so hard?? But then again, I should have learned not to question fate. I gently bent and picked up Felicity's sleeping body and carried her to a mattress in the corner. There I left her under a blanket and then went to my Interceptor. My Malamute was asleep in the back and I checked my car carefully in order not to ruin his slumber. Sleep was a rare escape to greener fields and happier times, even for the beasts of this Earth. I did not wish to rob my faithful companion of that escape. I checked the car over and smiled. Felicity had done a damn fine job on the car. Those repairs and replacements were worth his car's weight in gold. (When gold mattered, that is. Now, fuel is the highest commodity.) No matter Felicity's disposition, I was certainly in her debt. But how could I repay her?? She seemed to have everything she needed and more, while I was lacking in everything. This concerned me. Of all the things I have been called, one of them is not dishonorable. I have helped others in my past, and I was determined to help Felicity in our present, even if she was dangerous. But it was late and that was a job for another day. I cra wled into the drivers side of the interceptor and leaned the bucket, leather seat to full horizontal. Draping a rough wool blanket across my legs and torso, hand on the stock of my sawed-off, I drifted to sleep. I dozed for who knows how long, and then was assaulted by images. I saw murkiness and clouds at first, but then my vision seemed to sharpen. I saw the feral kid, the one I gave the music to, the one who spoke the language of the dogs. I saw Papagalo, with his brave plans and speeches, and also with a blade in his back from the Lord Humangus. I saw Aunty, with her wild beauty and ferocious cunning. I saw the Walker children with their religious fervor and dead dreams, kept alive in that canyon in the center of the great sands. I saw the Gyrocaptain, with his gangly form and quick wit. I saw them all. But then my visions turned darker. I saw the minions of Lord Humangus tearing away at each other and me over the tanker of gas. I saw Humangus himself as he addressed us of our doom at the compound. I saw the inhabitants of Barter Town all gathered to watch as I was banished to die among the dunes of the desert. I felt the horse go down under the hot sun, and I felt the burn of thirst in my throat. I felt the hopeless resignation of the damned. I lay there on the sand, bound and tied, barely able to breath. Then I saw Wez. The ruthless, mad Wez. I saw him chase me across the roads, feathers flying and voice howling. I saw him rape and pillage with the worst of the hunters. I saw him again as I saw him then. I remembered the threat: "YOU!" he screamed, "You can run, but 'cha can't hide!!!" I saw his face as he smashed my old Interceptor. I felt the pain and rage. I watched as my old dog was slain, I revelled as the gas they sought eventually became their doom. Then I saw HER. My wife!!! Her beauty and luxuriance before me again. I reached to touch her. MY wife was alive again! We wept together and laughed together once again. For the first time since she left me, we made love. Heated, passionate love. But then she was running. Not from me, but from someone else. My child was in her arms. Both were screaming. She was running desperately. I looked and saw the Toecutter, with mad eyes and mad disciples. They rode down on my wife and child like a pack of demons from Hell. I screamed her name and tried to run after her, but could not move. I screamed her name again and watched in horror as my family, my life, my *soul* was cut down and CRUSHED. No, Sweet Jesus, not again. I had seen her alive again. She WAS alive. But she was gone, just like before. I screamed her name till my throat was sore and my eyes ran with tears. Great God almighty, my wife, my child. No... No.. Jesus no..... I suddenly leaped to a sitting position. My throat felt raw and I was drenched with sweat. My hands and arms trembled violently. I was moaning my wife's name in hoarse whispers. Somebody was gripping my arm tightly. I slowly looked and saw the frightened face of Felicity Dawn peering in at me. It was morning once again........ from Dagney Dent His face was one that I recognized from months of tears and sobbing. It was my own face that I watched in agony as he slept in his precious car. I came because he had called out. It was a woman's name that he desperately screamed in the dark dungeon I call my home. I grabbed his arm in an effort to awaken him from the all too familiar torture that survivors suffer. He bolted up in the seat of the Interceptor, still whispering the name. A wife, a lover? It didn't matter, because she was gone, and it was only in his dreams that he had to deal with her absence. I tried to comfort him in the only way I knew how, "Do you want something to eat?" He nodded, and I left him to ponder his dream. I felt ashamed that I had nothing to offer but potatoes. I had tried to grow other things on the surface, but the scavengers always recognized my neat rows and pillaged my carrots, corn, and tomatoes. But potatoes could be grown without any rows. I carefully watered them and preened the weeds, but it looked like a patch of foliage instead of a garden, so they remained safe. I had a goat until after the first starving winter when my supplies ran out and I had to sacrifice her for myself. Potatoes are better than starving, and that just might be what has happened to my new friend more than once since the bombs dropped. from Dagney Dent Wiping his brow, he wandered into her kitchen, "Got any red meat for my pooch on the floor of my car?" "I don't, but I don't think he is too hungry." Confused Roadwarrior returned to look at his content Malamute. His belly was definitely bulging. Felicity called from the other room, "I've never seen a dog hungry enough to do that." Perplexed, Roadwarrior thought to himself, "Do what?" Then he noticed the other cars. They were void of gasoline, but they had a lot of parts to offer. The dog forgotten, he headed toward the nearest vehicle, then the stench of rot caught his nose. Felicity brought the potatoes into the main room, "I could never bring myself to eat humans, but I know many do. You and your dog wouldn't happen to be one of those, would you?" Disgusted, Roadwarrior tried to wretch, but his long empty stomach had nothing to emit. While watching him endure dry heaves, Felicity sighed a breath of relief. To think that she actually fell asleep without even knowing if he were a cannibal or not. She wasn't watching herself well enough. She had been so desperate for company of any kind that she had trusted him with her secret home, her life story and her life. Plus, she was fixing his car so he could tell others where she was. from Roadwarrior My dog ATE somebody? Who? from Dagney Dent For those of you not paying attention, Roadwarrior's Malamute ate one of the victims of my gas trap. Since the two of them were in such a hurry to get the vehicles into the haven, they didn't have time for a proper burial. His dog got a little overexcited at all that dead flesh lying around. from Roadwarrior Gross. My pooch ate somebody? Aww man, I've taught him not to do that! He never would have done it. Maybe he found a dead animal among the wreckage? I thought I saw a dead farm animal or three laying around. from Dagney Dent "I think we need to talk." Felicity Dawn, observing that Roadwarrior had finished retching, decided to strike a deal with him, "Your Interceptor is going to be mighty fuel efficient when I get done with it, so how about taking me along?" "Taking you along? Oh no, lady. It's just me and my mutt. I can't trust anyone else." "You can't trust me? Wasn't it me who spared your life on that freeway?" "For ulterior motives, maybe." Felicity was fuming. Standing up from the table, she left him to his potatoes, "Eat. I have to get rid of these bodies." Roadwarrior tried to ignore the activities in the other portion of the room while he ate his potatoes. No salt, no butter, no sour cream, but somehow, they were delicious. This woman wanted to join his rag tag team, but would she feel as safe away from her trap as she did here? "You know, you can't grow potatoes out on the road." Felicity, still mad, refused to reply. "There aren't any conveniences like food and water either. That's why we were heading north. It's summer, and we don't want to be stuck in a desert during the summer." "If you want to leave without me, you can put your transmission back together yourself." And there the story ended. ----- Breath Entry by Misha A man around 40 is slumped in the conversation pit of his Boston apartment. He stares at the phone with hatred, then he dials it. In an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village, the phone rings and is answered by a woman in her late thirties, exhausted by exercise. SHE: Yeah? HE: I can't do this anymore. I can't have a long-distance relationship. We won't speak on the phone anymore. We won't see each other ever again. We'll pretend we never met and that we never knew the people who introduced us. SHE: Okay. HE: You're not angry? SHE: No. I hate long-distance relationships. A form of modern torture. I find myself waiting to talk to a voice instead of people who are in three dimensions. I'm in love with a fantasy instead of a reality. Last time I saw you... HE: Yeah? SHE: ...you looked nothing like what I envisioned. I was expecting Vaclav Havel. HE: But I'm short and Italian. SHE: I forgot that. On the telephone your voice sounds Czech. HE: I'm sorry. SHE: Hey, don't be sorry. Modern life. It's raw and rough. I'm lucky I'm alive. I could have been gunned down by a murderous French Canadian whose wife made him do the dishes one too many times. Or pregnant and shot in the stomach by a husband who wanted my insurance. I got off easy. I know that. HE: I appreciate you taking it this way. SHE: I'm not going to be depressed when Eastern Europe is free. When there's light over Poland again. When Hungarians are smiling for the first time in 40 years. I'm not selfish. HE: The phone calls were too much pressure. SHE: Absolutely. Too much pressure. Gorbachev couldn't take that kind of pressure. HE: You're making fun of me. SHE: No. No, I'm not. Every time the phone rang, I felt like I had to be happy. It made me want to destroy myself. You just don't know me. I'm funny that way. HE: I really don't want to have a relationship with anyone. SHE: Me, neither. Before you came along I had three dates. Together they made up one perfect man. I liked that. HE: I'm happier alone. SHE: Me, too. I always feel responsible for other peoples' behavior. For example, I still feel guilty about the McMartin preschool trial. HE: Guilty that the jury didn't convict? SHE: No, that it took so long. HE: I just can't handle having to call you. SHE: I understand. I feel the same way. Having a boyfriend in another town breeds hate. You feel deprived all the time. It's like living under Nicolae Ceaucescu. Do you know that not only did Ceaucescu outlaw abortions and birth control, but he made women take routine pregnancy tests at work to make sure they didn't do away with unwanted pregnancies? In spite of him, there were one million abortions a year, many of them performed by women on themselves. The Nazis outlawed abortion and birth control and forced women to give birth. State control of the woman's body is a totalitarian tradition. ... Hello? ... Are you still there? HE: Yes, I agree. SHE: You know what they did with the orphans? HE: The orphans? SHE: In Romania, because of this policy, women abandoned children they couldn't provide for. Orphans were either sold to Europe for adoption or raised from birth to be secret police. Now, you tell me! HE: What? SHE: Is it hard to be a woman in this world or what?! HE: It is. SHE: It's so hard to be a woman in this world, it makes me weep. [She weeps. Through tears...] Holding your baby, dying of starvation in Ethiopia. Inducing your own abortion in Eastern Europe. Looking down the muzzle of a gun as your husband shoots you in your eighth month of pregnancy for insurance money. God! [She weeps.] HE: Don't cry. SHE: I'm sorry. Having a relationship can be a nightmare. I'm sorry you reminded me. HE: I'm sorry, too. Hey -- how does Gary Hart talk to his wife after sex? SHE: How? HE: By long distance! SHE: [Laughing in spite of herself. There is a beep.] Oh, the other line. I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow. HE: Okay. Bye. SHE: Bye. ----- The Character Issue in American Politics by Pure Cane Sugar During the 1972 presidential election, everyone expected Henry "Hank" Thompson to be the democratic nominee. The senator from Idaho was extremely popular; not only was he witty and charismatic, he was also inarticulate, so no one was too offended by his intelligence. Thompson went to school at Yale, so he had East Coast ties. He also owned an immensely popular restaurant in Houston (called Ten for Aristology), and once worked at a firm in San Francisco -- so really he had connections all over the country. In addition to his pan-regional appeal, his stately, attractive wife was the daughter of Mexican-American immigrants, and so Thompson benefited from a certain ethnic appeal. Everyone expected him to have the primaries wrapped up immediately. It seemed perfect. But it wasn't. Soon before the New Hampshire primary, there surfaced allegations that several years earlier Thompson had an extramarital affair. Naturally he protested that this was none of the public's business; what went on in his private life should not be made an issue in the campaign. People accepted this. Until it was revealed that before he slept with the other woman, Senator Thompson shot her boyfriend. Who, it turns out, was Thompson's illegitimate son. This made things a little more difficult to swallow. But as the Senator pointed out: Love is messy; love is difficult; painful things do happen. Besides, it was never actually proven that he shot his illegitimate son. He didn't deny the charges, but they were never substantiated, either. There was videotape footage, but Thompson aides questioned its authenticity. Thompson won the New Hampshire primary swimmingly, and seemed well on the way towards the nomination. Until just before the Super Tuesday primaries, when another obstacle appeared. The FBI raided Thompson's home and discovered $3 million worth of military hardware in the cellar. It had been stolen from US army bases. By joint employees of Thompson and a Colombian drug cartel. For sale to the People's Republic of China. Thompson pointed out that of course this was only a business deal; he was trying to make some extra cash. After all, what is America all about? Faulting him for the weapons smuggling would be like accusing neighborhood children of racketeering because they set up a lemonade stand, he said. Thompson added, "My personal character should not be an issue in this campaign." The vast majority of Americans agreed, and Thompson did superbly on Super Tuesday. There seemed no stopping the Idaho senator now. Until just before the New York primary, when it was determined that his restaurant -- Ten for Aristology -- was breaking child labor laws. As the Senator explained, "Oh, some nine-year-old kids have been working about eighteen hours a day without getting payed, and they were too spineless to complain." Actually several children did complain, and were subsequently processed and served to customers. This hardly seemed a problem to most people, since Ten for Aristology was still a five-star restaurant according to Texas restaurant guides. And besides, the Food and Drug Administration had no problem with the way the children were being served; the meat was carefully cleaned, and there had been no health complaints from customers. Besides, Thompson pointed out, why should he be held responsible for what goes on at a restaurant that he only owns? It was not like he was in Houston managing the business. And finally, it was, once again, a business-oriented mistake: "This matter does not reveal any shortcomings in my ability to lead this great nation. I ask all Americans to look into their hearts and ask themselves, does this really matter?" They did, and it didn't: Thompson won New York handily. Pundits speculated that nothing could stop Thompson now; he was invincible. They were wrong. Just before the California primary, a detail in Thompson's past emerged which, in matter of days, steam-rolled the campaign and forced Thompson to retire from the senate in utter disgrace. About a decade earlier, the public learned, Thompson had lunch with a man who once dated a woman who knew a friend of a one-time acquaintance of black revolutionary Malcolm X. This, of course, was too much for American morality to forgive. ----- Collected Cat Poems by Bill the Cat Bill went wanderin late last night ta tryta soothe his soul; annoyed by flashin Christmas lights, he wished he had a bowl. The weirdos were out prowlin round at that ungodly hour; Bill just kept on scowlin, like he'd swallowed somethin sour. He made it to the railroad tracks, and there, he stopped his roam; lyin down ta rest his back, he felt he'd made it home. Bill don't keep up with fashions; he don't possess the urge. He spends his bread on stashins, for a neuropathic surge. He likes ta score a bag o' stuff, and smoke it 'til he's high; his lids descend with every puff, like curtains for his eyes. Bill don't keep up with news events, his brain functions in slow-mo; his presidential preference is still Mario Cuomo. The bubbles in Bill's beer have mathematical precision; they're pleasin to his ear, and transfixin to his vision. They're goin up in tiny streams until they reach the foam, ardently pursuin dreams ta find themselves a home. They represent a castle in a city made o gold; Bill's whiskers give them hassle, then they die before they're old. Christmas came and went, leavin Bill with nothin. His energies are spent; he's a turkey with no stuffin'. The remnants of his flesh are bein slowly picked away; his thoughts no longer mesh, so he ain't got much ta say. Noises make Bill edgy, like his brain's a swellin' blister; he's gettin sorta "veggie", or so his roommates whisper. Exorbitant electric fees engender fear in Bill; with costs as high as GTE's, they make him want ta spill. The people who receive Bill's checks don't give much in return; they treat him with the same respect you'd give a trampled fern. He sends 'em everything he's got, and still they're never pleased; maybe if he sent some pot they'd finally be appeased. Bill scored some stuff today; it was pretty mersh in grade. He toked in clouds o gray, till his thoughts began ta fade. It took a lot ta get him high, but its better than nothin; thunder claps were in the sky, but Bill thought they were bluffin. He can't ascertain if he'd got a decent deal; he walks out in the rain, but he wonders if it's real. Recumbent on the drownin lawn, Bill don't know no pain; he's like a frozen, stir-fried prawn who sucks up all the rain. It seeps between his eyelids, and it permeates his fur, controlled by drunken pilots whose propellers got no "whir". Missiles miss their destination, buzz-bombs rarely fly; slowly, Bill's disintegration, blendin with the sky. New-Age hacks are tryna foist simplistic views on Bill; the lukewarm quacks' ejaculations usually make him ill.Intellectual carrots spoutin off simplistic precepts; with brains like those of parrots, they keep flauntin off their defects. Why're they gangin up on Bill, who doesn't buy the crap? He wants ta slip 'em cyanide pills; he's fed up with their pap. Bill needs a little silence, cause he's not had sleep in days; his thoughts are gettin violent, and his eyes are thickly glazed. His roommates' New Year bashes leave no doubt he stays annoyed; he wants ta give em lashes til their veins are null and void. He hears their stupid music and their wretched conversation;nothin can excuse the ceaseless mental masturbation. All the dreadful noise invades the corners o Bill's brain; he hasn't got much choice; he admits himself insane. Bill the Cat is drownin in a feculent, gray mud; its quantity's astoundin, and it's density's like blood. Attemptin ta relieve his plight, before he loses it, he sparks himself a yellow light, and takes a good, long hit. Little flakes o catnip dust mingle with spilled liquor; they constitute a muddy crust that's slowly gettin thicker. Another year is history, the province o the past; Bill's eyes are feelin blistery, and that's just how they're cast. He sits there reminiscin, like a person in his eighties; his whiskers need some kissin, so he thinks about the ladies. He'd like to talk to Emma, but he'd rather sleep with Joyce; each day's a new dilemma, and each night's a fatal choice. Despite the frigid atmosphere, Bill could use a drink; perhaps a draft o German beer would bring him from the brink. Drownin in a black lagoon o turgid allegations, he craves a nicely-lit saloon inhabited by Haitians. He'd have a shot o Stoli, and two bottles of champagne, water for his oleander hidden from the rain. Starin through the orange screen, with glaciated features, Bill the Cat knows what it means ta be a Nature's creature. Beams o yellow herald that the mornin sun is risin; Bill restrains a bellow as it vacates the horizon. Once again a sullen creep, the Cat resumes his scratchin; another night without no sleep has slightly skewed his action. Bill had nearly given up on meetin a nice girl. But one day as he downed a cup, she danced into his world. She said, "you catch my fancy, but I wish that you were black"; she started gettin antsy, til she smoked some hits o crack. She had it all: both brains and looks; this babe was worth Bill's while; forget about the chains and hooks, she dressed with lotsa style. Bill loved the little starlet til he found out somethin scary: She was the same harlot who'd been blowin Mayor Barry. Today Bill's mother died, perhaps o diabetes; but this cat never cried, he just curses Basilides. The cosmos is a thoughtless, out-o-key improvisation; when Bill the Cat is potless, that's his only observation. The intro is a slide down a mile o icy glaciers; the coda's just a stride through a field o rusted razors. His roommies keep repeatin that they think Bill's in his dotage: "All the drugs you've eaten have reduced your brain to rottage!" His friends in Chico say they're hearin rumors he's unstable; "You got freak-o?" No, Bill says; that's just a silly label. Stupid morons tryna fuck Bill's awesome reputation; he oughta drown their rubber duck and switch their medication. The skin around Bill's eyes has turned a pleasant shade o green; maybe, he surmises, cause o all the Ovaltine. His diet has no balance, he don't eat like Paul Prudhomme; his culinary talents wouldn't make a muzzle foam. His stomach's like an empty fridge, a crushed-up can o Coke; Bill subsists on beverage, and -- when he's lucky -- smoke. Bill's brain is like a salad that's been drowned in too much dressin; his life's a maudlin ballad, whose composer took no lessons. He wishes for an oracle, or any kind of sage; such types may be historical; at least they're not New-Age. Bill goes uptown ta score some pot, and stops by the museum. He stumbles into Alan Watts; what a thrill ta see 'im! Throbbin, grayish blotches are cloudin up Bill's vision; sounds of tickin watches make a gradual incision. Funny little phrases keep on enterin his mind; thoughts are lost in mazes where the darkness leaves em blind. There's a warm spot in his chest, but he's not sure if its pain; he tries ta sit an rest, but it causes too much strain. Bill's shades are usually closed, cause his view is so damn barren; he tries ta keep composed when the landlord's kids are starin. His eyes are red an veiny; his skin's as white as paper; his mouth is dry an grainy; his tongue's a rusty scraper. He needs a warmin plate o gruel, his stomach's outta practice -- sorta like a garden tool, amidst a field o cactus. Bill's heartbeat is erratic, like a message sent in Morse; his signal's mostly static, like he's overdosed on horse. His paws are bruised an swollen from some trip he don't recall; his mind just keeps on rollin, like a moon about ta fall. Tryin to maintain some haste, his muscles are a-tightenin'; Bill the Cat is bein chased, by somethin vague an frightenin. Bill's neighborhood is like a Rome, whose emp'rers have gone wild; his next door neighbor burned her home ta hide a murdered child. The sleazy folks who hang around exchange their knowin looks; p'raps it's time ta get a hound, ta foil the endless crooks. From Bill's fucked-up perspective, this whole town's a pile o ash; are his eyes defective, or is it just the sash? Bill the Cat was frozen as he lay awake in bed; the liquor he had chosen left its mark upon his head. His pulse was inconsistent, maybe he'd enter a coma; later, in an instant, he'd be hired at Cafe Roma. Then the pain of hunger pangs becomes a mighty fleet; outside, the sound o rival gangs pervade San Andres Street. Nobody who looks at Bill would say that he's obese; he eats too many diet pills ta emulate Ed Meese. But globs o fat flow through his veins, resemblin melted butter; occasionally, they give him pains, or make his heartbeat stutter. Bill don't watch his calories, an he don't plan ta start; his body's like a gallery -- for pornographic art. Bill the Cat's a struggler when it's time for him ta think; he's sorta like a juggler, with his elbows outta sync. The blades he's tossin whirl around, resemblin fallin fans; they emanate a hissin sound, endangerin his hands. Occasionally, they hit a wall, or injure nearby folk; at other times, they merely fall, and make Bill seem a joke. The money Bill collects don't provide a daily fix; maybe, he suspects, he belongs in politics. He'd argue with Bill Bennett from the mornin til the noon; elected to the Senate, he would shine the silver spoon. Like a dried-up sponge, he would drink 'til paralytic; and prob'ly take a plunge when he visits Chappaquidick. Judging from its features, Bill's apartment is a grave; unfit for human creatures, it's a dank, abysmal cave. Insects in the carpet, and asbestos in the ceilin; drownin in a tar-pit is the all-pervasive feelin. Bill's pestilential nemesis emerges from the floors; the truth o abiogenesis is somethin he abhors. When catnip's unavailable, an liquor seems too borin, when crack is just unsaleable, then Bill begins explorin. One night he had Chloral Hydrates, but they went down like tacks; another time, cheap opiates reduced his lungs to wax. Some drugs induce anxiety, and other kinds amend it; one time Bill tried sobriety, but he don't recommend it. Bill's ailments go untended; they deepen like a quarry. His abdomen's distended; it makes his roommates worry. He's used up all his years, no doubt he's soon ta go; a hummin in his ears induces vertigo. He meets the wall o sound like the mighty ship Atlantis, an tumbles to the ground, like a withered prayin mantis. Bill's a Cat who's pollicle, impoverished indeed; the rich are diabolical, but Bill admires their greed. The Still Discordant Multitude is waverin about, but Bill attempts a nice etude, ta try ta earn some clout. He asks if there's requests, perhaps ta be Socratic; he takes too many rests, an his melody's chromatic. Cat Poem time!! (Bill dedicates the one ta Colin!) The creature has a soft-spot at some point around its belly; make a lucky shot, and you'll find he's fulla jelly. Little kids are playin with their plastic swords and wagons; one o them keeps sayin that he wants ta kill the dragon. He's got the biggest sword, or that's what he's concluded; he rules the motley horde, though some say he's deluded. Bill smoked some marijuana an he started feelin good, like a somnolent iguana on a floatin piece o wood. Bill would not deny that he's a cat and not an otter; but somehow when he's high, life seems like underwater. If he had just one wish it would be ten pounds o floral; if Bill were a starfish he would prob'ly smoke the coral. Bill's leaden eyes are closin, like a rigor-mortis fist; he wants ta do some dozin, maybe clear his mind o mist. Daylight's like a president about ta be impeached; slumber's like the accident that follows every screech. Dreams might bring on panic when you're caught in some morass; just pray that your mechanic ain't been sniffin too much gas. Bill ain't got the sharpest chops, especially when he trembles, but he goes inta music shops ta see what he resembles. At one time he mighta been a Stradivarius; this is now an that was then; his life's precarious. Bill is like a trumpet who's been stopped with too much spit; an sorta like a drumkit who falls over when he's hit. Bill was feelin scuzzy, like he hadn't bathed in weeks; his tongue was dry an fuzzy; there was acne on his cheeks. His fur was think with oil, so the fleas were trapped inside; maybe he should boil the fuckin thing in fungicide. Ta get this way takes more than skill, so call this Cat courageous; but always stay away from Bill, cause it might be contagious. Bill was feelin edgy as he wandered out the door, sorta like a veggie with a steamin plate o boar. He can be a glum one when he's runnin outta stash; would he run inta someone who he owes a lotta cash? If he takes the back-roads, maybe then he'll be alright; he fires up some tobacco, tryna keep away his fright. Bill the Cat could use some rain ta clear his cluttered skies; bats are circlin in his brain in search o butterflies. Wings are flappin outta caves, on bodies black an sleek, emanatin sonic waves an endless other shrieks. They're kids in bad disguises who await their favorite clown; when the daylight rises, it'll find em upside-down. Life is like a novel with an endin you can guess; or maybe like a brothel where you wish you payed much less. Occasionally it's much too brief, an even artificial; protagonists are sometimes thieves or government officials. Is the work a blunder by some cat who's got no craft? Then you start ta wonder: pr'aps it ain't the final draft. Bill is usually dour when he hasn't been imbibin; everythin seems sour, like the taste o psilocybin. He 'specially gets annoyed with the ones with whom he lives; they oughtta be destroyed, cause they're damn insensitive. Their televisiom blares while Nintendo games are loud; heads are fulla air, an occasionally, a cloud. Bill's flea collar has gotten stale, but he can't shake it off; he's barely able ta inhale, an worse yet, he can't cough. His scratch-post is all worn away, revealin yellow plastic; the moldy cover's gotten frayed, an beaten like a spastic. Bill's eyes are broken glasses;his voice, a bent cornet; his thoughts are old molasses; he's no-one's favorite pet. Bill likes ta go ta keggers, even if he's uninvited; actin like a beggar, he partakes til he's delighted. "Who's that cat so greedy that he's drinkin all our beer?" "Clearly someone needy, so let's all just persevere." When Bill's good an toasted, an his intellect is biffed, he thanks the one who's hosted: on the rug he leaves a gift. Bill sorta doubts his sanity cause nothin brings him glee; an he detests humanity cause it won't let him be. While tryna make a beeline, he quite often takes a trip; clearly, he's a feline with a knack for smokin 'nip. His coat which was once tawny has become a good deal paler; Bill's also gotten scrawny, an considerably frailer. ----- Misha K. by Reid Fleming "The image of the office of thefuture is too neat, too smooth, too disembodied to be real. Reality is always messy." -- Alvin Toffler Misha K. turns the key and opens the door to his apartment. Stepping into it is like stepping into Japan: tatami mats, antique samurai swords, a tea room, rice-paper walls. No photographs are present in any of the public rooms, only watercolors. All modern appliances are hidden from sight. "The owner is in Hong Kong for six months, and the rent is $25 cheaper than the place I was living," explains K.. "My landlord is the most avid Asian-phile I've ever known--speaks Japanese and six dialects of Chinese. The man is a Kickboxing gold medalist and has studied the tea ceremony." Misha looks around the room. "I guess he's into peace." In a side room, K.'s modern-day Macintosh computer, a sharp contrast to the idiom, hums quietly while the screen saver animates colorful geometric patterns. "I hate it when that happens," he says, turning the computer off. "I always forget to turn it off." * * * Misha works at a strategic marketing firm in Boston. He is one of two computer systems administrators for the company of roughly 50 employees. "My job is to keep the computers running," says K., 22. Outside the apartment, the former Santa Barbara resident turns his back to lock the door. His woolen trenchcoat does little to disguise the angles of his thin body. Everyone in the office, art director and secretary, has a desktop computer. Additionally, all of the computers are tied together in a network. It allows people in different departments to work on the same project simultaneously. "We use only Macintosh computers, lucky for me," he intones. "They're easy to understand." He pauses, then flashes a serious look. "If you have a brain." Misha dropped out of university while still a computer science undergraduate. His computer skills, however, were strong enough to get hired at a well-paying firm. On the way to the nearest undergound train station, K. explains that his biggest problem at work is "all of the people who immediately assume a demon has possessed their computers anytime something strange happens. That's nearly everybody." * * * Misha arrives at work after a fifteen minute train ride and a five minute walk. He punches a code into an exterior keypad, and the front door unlocks. He goes inside, takes the elevator up three stories, and arrives at the reception desk. "Normally, I go to my office, check my mail, and then close the door," explains K. "A closed door discourages people who have problems they can work out for themselves. Generally, if they lack the guts to knock on my door, they're forced to figure it out themselves." Misha does just that, goes into his office and closes the door. After logging in to the computer system and checking a few things, he starts to get fidgety. He picks up an empty ashtray and starts tossing it from hand to hand. "Don't worry if I look anxious to you," he reassures. "I just quit smoking a few days ago, and it's hell. I've been dreaming about cigarettes." A knock at the door. It opens and an art director explains in the hurried tones of someone sent to fetch the doctor that his computer won't print the text in her layout. Misha follows her through the main office area to the studio, where the art computers are. On the way, it becomes clear that Misha is one of only two men in the company who wears a tie to work. Everyone else dresses casually. * * * They sit down at a high-end Macintosh with a 24 inch color display of a brochure layout. "So what's the problem, exactly?" asks Misha. "Well, the words show up on the screen, but when I print it out, they disappear. Why does the demon box do that?" insists the art director. "Which font are you using?" He saves her file and then exits to a network utility. It turns out she's using only one half of the necessary font data--the computer knows how to display a font onscreen, but doesn't have the specifications for output to a printer. The art director begins to mildly freak out. "What does that mean? Will I have to start over with another typeface? Can't you do something? I hate this thing!" Already Misha is looking through all of the storage devices in the network, looking for the output file. He looks through six employees' personal directories before he finally finds a copy. The art director turns ecstatic. "Thank you, thank you. You saved me six more hours of work." "Next time, try to use only the fonts that are properly installed. Don't import anything." "I won't, I won't," she says, but she's already heading down the hall to the laser printer to see how the copy looks. * * * Lunch time comes, and after a trip around the corner to a local deli, Misha returns to his office with a gyro and a cola. After the art director's crisis, more than a dozen similar incidents required Misha's personal help before noon. All this time, he's supposed to be getting ready to install new network software. In the calm of the noon hour, the question "Do you like it here?" springs to mind. "You know, the pay's not bad, and I could think of a lot of worse jobs. Actually, I've worked a lot of worse jobs. I love programming, but my only real programming job was abysmal. I was writing control systems for laser interferometers, kind of boring but I found it challenging. "The management there felt it necessary compartmentalize information as much as possible. If they felt I didn't need to know something, they'd completely neglect telling me until I submitted my program and they came back saying it didn't work. 'Why doesn't it work?' I'd ask, and they'd say, 'well, we didn't tell you that it had to do this and this and this, so change it.' "Here, they leave the computers to me and don't second-guess what I need to know. Also, they gave me a $1,250 Christmas bonus last year. The only problem is, I hate Boston. I hate New England. I want to move back to California, soon." On the wall of his office is a map of San Francisco. It has little colored pushpins stuck in it wherever big computer firms are located. Also, he keeps an up-to-date database of prospective employers hidden in a private subdirectory. "I'm still getting my resume together, but once that happens, I'm mailing out about a hundred copies," he declares, picking up a now purposeless cigarette lighter. What is it about New England that makes him yearn for California? "Oh, the weather, definitely. I can't stand snow, it's awful. Have you ever shoveled snow?" * * * Half an hour later, the office is loud with activity again. Just like in the morning, a long succession of payroll executives and copy writers show up to enlist Misha's help. The problems range from missing files and forgotten passwords to device errors, hardware malfunctions. As soon as one problem is solved, a fresh one shows up at his door. Thankfully, most of them can be solved without leaving his chair. Lost files can be located from any terminal in the building, as long as they're lost in the system and not on a floppy disk in someone's desk. Likewise, Misha can reassign passwords anywhere. It's a rare or particularly serious problem that actually gets him away from his desk. "It seems impossible that anything substantial gets done in this office at all. At every turn is another computer logjam. I'm so flooded with pleas for help that my own assignments are often delayed for weeks." Almost on cue, an executive knocks on the door just before quitting time. Apparently, his account on the Dow Jones Information Retrieval System isn't working, and he wants Misha to walk him through the login. Unfortunately, it becomes clear that the executive has only the most cursory knowledge of his computer's workings. "All right," Misha begins. "What terminal program are you using?" The executive answers. Misha starts looking around in his directory. "So, where is it? Where do you keep it?" "In the computer," admonishes the man, as though he's already told Misha more than he could possibly need. * * * An hour later, Misha returns to the ordered serenity of his apartment. The place lacks a stereo, or a television. By virtue of these omissions, everything has a static, museum quality. Then, passing down the hall, Misha stops at the doorway to the side room, and goes in. "I always forget that," he comments, turning off the computer and settling back into quiet Japan. ----- The Girl of the Month Club by Colin Campbell I was already late for work, but when I opened the door a Transcontinental Courier delivery driver was in the hall about to knock on my door. "Are you William Wood?" said the courier. "Yes," I said. "What's going on?" "This is for you." He pushed a handcart into my apartment and expertly flipped an ovoid shell of thermoplastic off the cart. It slid on a flattened bottom side and stopped at my feet just inside the door. It was about the size of a beer barrel. "Please sign here." He held a clipboard toward me. "What is it?" I said. "Are you William Wood?" "Well, yes, but I didn't order -- " "Then it's for you." The courier grabbed my right hand and pressed my thumb onto a print plate before I could react, then trotted away down the hall. "Hey, wait a minute," I said, but he'd rounded the corner pulling the handcart. "I didn't order anything like this," I yelled after him. The building manager came around the corner in his electric golf cart just as I yelled. He squinted down at the shell, then pointed at a label. "It's got your name on it," he said. He was an Oldie and he could read. I looked at the label and it looked like my name -- I know the letters of my own name, William Mnemonic Wood. "What does it say?" The manager read the label aloud for me: "William N. Wood." "My name is different from that," I said. "Wait a minute, let me use my reader." I have a great reader, a Mitsubishi that's only four inches long and a quarter inch in diameter and reads 76 languages, and I rubbed it over the label until my ear implant pinged. Then I touched the pointed end of the reader to the printed words, and heard them spoken. "Okay, my middle name isn't N., it's Mnemonic," I said. "There's some kind of mistake..." "You kids," said the oldie. "Shit, N. is just an abbreviation, you kids don't even know what an abbreviation is any more. Your middle name starts with N, you just said it yourself." "But what is it? I didn't order anything." "I hope not. You were ten days late with the rent this month. If you can afford this kind of stuff, you can afford the rent." He rolled away and I said, "But I didn't order it, I don't want it." "Do whatever you want with it," the manager said. "If you leave it out in the hall and I have to get rid of it myself, you'll have it charged on next month's bill." Then he was gone. I ran the reader over the rest of the label, then touched the eight biggest words. "Congratulations!" my ear implant said, "Here's your first Girl of the Month!" It was some kind of mistake, but I was already late for work. I had to move the shell to close the apartment door. It must have weighed a hundred pounds. I pulled off the shipping label and there was a brochure and an instruction manual under the label. I thumbed through the brochure: it was full of pictures of naked women, and the pictures were not only 3-D, but motile and audible: the girls writhed erotically on the pages and little moans and squeals of pleasure escaped. How the hell had this happened? I'd heard of The Girl of the Month Club, but I'd never ordered it -- first of all, it cost a megabuck or more, and only an Oldie could afford one. But mainly, it was such a geriatric idea -- nobody but an Oldie would want to screw one of these synthetic, non-human clones. I mean, even a 'moner like me has standards. I paged through the instructions folder but it was almost all in writing. Well, I was already late for work... if I was late one more time... I closed my door and went up one floor to street level and hopped on my bicycle. In the old days you had to lock your bike or somebody would steal it. I can't imagine a Los Angeles like that. What a barbarous world it must have been. The world the Oldies made... only an Oldie would prefer a fantasy clone cobbled together from dog and cat and kangaroo DNA. I pedaled to the freeway and rode down the ramp and into the slow lane. The freeway's magnetic field grabbed hold of my bike's transducer and accelerated me up to a steady 55. It was against the law, but it was faster than pedaling. The transducer was one I'd pried out of a wrecked truck after the cops left the scene of a crash. I welded it to the frame of my bike and I was going to keep using it until they caught me: the less time I spent out in the open on the way to work, the less radiation I'd get. I could have had my pick of any old-time car in the city, of course, but gasoline is definitely out of my budget class, and I've never had any practice driving on the freeway in a car among the trucks. Today was clear and sunny for a change. I could see the mountains all around, and I took off my hood and enjoyed the naked wind in my face. The pace of traffic slowed and I began slipping between the trucks and I enjoyed the annoyed honks from the truck drivers as I whipped past them. I hoped they were Oldies, but not many Oldies had to take jobs as truck drivers. Only Oldies were able to afford things like The Girl of the Month Club. You couldn't afford it if you were working for the minimum wage at the Megalith Corporation, like I was. In ten minutes I was at the Wilshire Boulevard exit, and in another 5 minutes I was parking my bike at the surface entrance of the Monolith Building. That's when Skizz tapped me on the shoulder. He can really sneak up on you unnoticed. "Hey, Billy," he said, "Need any 'mones?" "What do you have?" I said. Sometimes Skizz has the neatest stuff -- rhino adrenaline, mutant insulin, tailored testotesterone -- but his older brother makes the stuff and he's an experimenter, you never know if you might be the first-time tester of some zappy 'mone. Skizz himself took a big dose of schizoprine a couple years ago and still hasn't really come out of it yet. "Got some new pituitary," he said. "Nah," I said. I'm already 6'8" and I'm not like those Get HiGH freaks who aren't satisfied until they're seven feet tall. I only do it once in a while. "And some new thyroid you just won't believe." "Yeah? What is it?" "Kind of like an upper, gets you really going." "No, I mean is it human, or what?" "Well, it's panther thyroid, actually." "Wow." I gave Skizz a gold dime and swallowed the 'mone and went into the Monolith Employee Entrance. I announced my name and employee number and pressed my thumb to the print plate and the elevator opened. I started the long ride down and wondered if that package was really from The Girl of the Month Club, or if one of my pals was trying another stupid joke... was there really a girl inside it? I remembered the girl's face from the brochure. Felina was her name. * * * Twenty miles away and thirty levels underground in a luxurious apartment with a delivery code only one digit different from Bill's, William N. Wood, age 104, studied an invoice and punched out the phone number of the New York offices of The Girl of the Month Club. When the prosthebot answered, he said, "Hiya doll, we got some kinda fuckup here, I got the bill but not the merchandise, lemme talk to a human, okay? Yeah, I'll wait." He knew it would be a long wait for a real human. William N. Wood owned Albuquerque, New Mexico, through a quirk of the Urban Homestead rules, and he made a comfortable living by sifting through the homes and stores and factories and warehouses of Albuquerque and removing valuables and transporting them to Los Angeles for sale. He had to do the work himself, or at least supervise it, because unsupervised labor would simply remove the stuff for their own profit. There was no local labor to be had in Albuquerque, of course. Nobody lived there, not since World War III. Vast expanses of American urban area had been wiped clean of life by neutron bombs, but the cities themselves were virtually undamaged. Several parts of the continent were devastated, true, but there was so much property left over, and so few people, that everybody was rich. Sort of. * * * It was a long ride ride down the elevator to the offices of the Megalithic Corporation. At ground level I was the only person in the elevator. The elevator stopped about 20 levels down and another passenger stepped in. He looked like another 'moner to me, but he must have had a good job if he lived 20 levels down. I thought about The Girl of the Month Club package. Back before the turn of the century they thought Virtual Reality would be peddling the whores of the future. Virtual reality had TV eyeglasses and earplugs and handgloves: that was it. No tactile feedback devices. They assumed a breakthrough in which a brain/computer interface is developed that allows people to "jack in" and experience full-sense transcription. That breakthrough never surfaced, but genetic engineering blossomed and made possible the sale of living, breathing, moaning fuck dolls. Hey, maybe I could sell it to some Oldie. It had to be worth a megabuck. Sure, it was some screwup and they'd catch me eventually, but I could jolt the apartment and be 50 miles away in another unregistered apartment, and what could they do? The elevator stopped and two people got on. They looked at me disdainfully as we started down again. I have a real stupid job, and I guess they could tell. Megalithic Systems Optimization, Inc., has the federal contract for the moon mines. Six hours a day I sit in front of a video plate and control a boreworm in Mare Serendipt on the Moon. All day long I sit in front of a flat video screen and control the flow and interaction of complex colored shapes, according to the instructions of the day, using the various controls. It paid the minimum wage, a hundred bucks an hour, and there was virtually no hope for advancement. But it paid the rent. And it was an underground job. If you want to be a player in L.A., you have to be underground. Skizz works above ground, and makes big cash, sure. His brother Rovar also makes big money salvaging from L.A. homes and businesses, but he has a secret gasoline cache and how can you plan to find that? Surface work is a dead end, that's what I think. The real world is Downstairs. So I was enduring the minimum wage life while trying to get a clue for advancement. The elevator halted at my floor and I stood up. I felt the 'mones starting to come on already. There was a glittering edge to everything, and motion and time seemed to be slowed down. The door opened and I stepped out into the giant underground mall. Many stairways led to levels further below. I got on the slidewalk, and rode it about half a mile to the Megalithic offices. At the office they were having some kind of ceremony. I was embarrassed at being late, but hardly anybody noticed when I came in. I saw a couple of my pals, but the only person I really noticed was Mandy Feather, the best-looking woman in the company. She's a year younger than me but she's already assistant manager of the process implementation department. I was embarrassed to be thinking about Felina in front of Mandy. She has really nice tits and today she wasn't wearing a top: instead she had a new fur job, short blond hair that covered only her breasts. "Hi, Mandy," I said, waving; she smiled bleakly at me and sat down next to Mr. Gardner, the Oldie in charge of my department at Megalithic. He whispered in her ear and rubbed her fur job, and she giggled. Hair cream is easy to get if you have enough money -- just rub it on and it changes the DNA in your skin cells and hair starts growing. It's awfully expensive -- but Mandy made a lot more money than I did. Then the ceremony was over, employee of the month awards or something, and Mr. Gardner was helping Mandy stand up, and I pushed forward past them and let the crush of the crowd make me collide with Mandy, and I gave her a hip thump as we touched and she caught my eye just before I surged away. I don't know if it was the 'mones, but it seemed like she was staring right into my soul. I had this big urge to bite her on the back of the neck. Then I was in my cubicle and the Lunar substratum was rushing toward me at 30 feet per minute and I opened the inhalers when properly dense rock appeared ahead on the sonar/radar plate and I steered toward denser rock further ahead and I kept a lookout for patches of water to gobble. I made the minimum wage of a hundred dollars an hour and there wasn't much chance I'd ever make more than that -- I graduated from high school but that didn't count as a credential any more. I've got my skills but they are equivalent to pool-hall skills. Playing pool takes mathematical insight, but not mathematical training. Intuitive mathematics. I control the moon robots by shuffling shapes and colors on the screen. When I touch an outline on the screen I can change its size and color and shape; if I drag my finger across the screen, the image will follow along. A pulsing yellow barrier line appeared on one edge of the screen. It represented a bunch of hypothetical dimensions that I didn't know anything about. In the rules it meant I couldn't go in that direction with a blue cube or a rotating dodecahedron. I felt the 'mones roaring up in me. I could sling those cubes and dodies easy as can be. Then the break signal chimed, a tone signaling the first break. I put my controls in neutral and got a cup of coffee and went to Fred Metz's carrel. "Hey Fred, did you see Feather's fur job?" I said. "Yeah, please don't ask me to stand up." "Maybe you should ask her if you could borrow some hair cream," I said. Fred was caught outside during a Stage 1 radiation alert last summer, and all his hair fell out. He was too cool to wear a rad suit until then. I liked Fred because he was like me -- he grew up in the Midwest and came to Los Angeles because that's where the action is. We found out that every young man in North America had the same idea. "Skizz has some great thyroid, panther thyroid. You should try it. Sharpens your senses." Then when I was looking at Fred's screen I suddenly saw that his screen was just like mine except the barrier line was on the other side. "Hey, Fred, our machines must be right together, we're both in lOO-meter diversion." "I wonder what the mining robots look like," Fred said. "Hey," I said, "wouldn't it be cool to drill into each other's tunnel and see what we look like?" "We might get in trouble," Fred said. "Oh, I bet I can turn the robot the way I want without using any blue cubes or rotating dodies. That's all the rule is about." "Okay," Fred said. He studied the screen. "I'll bet I can cross in front of you." "Oh yeah? Okay, loser buys 'mones." It wasn't that hard to do. I went back to my carrel and slapped and tickled my screen and made my miner cross into Fred's path. I programmed for a visual simulation. At first it was normally boring, nothing but a dark rock face and a jumble of broken rock, but then the rock face shattered apart and I saw Fred's miner, face to face. A fifty-foot diameter of lasers and a central structure for grinding and conveying the ore. Big deal. It looked just like the pictures. I shrugged and returned my miner to the right path -- just in time because Mr. Gardner and Mandy Feather came back in, and Mr. Gardner was preeny and stalked around finding fault with us. Near the end of the shift I saw Mandy standing alone by the transmutation monitor and I stepped up behind her. "Mandy, we're going to Hauser's after work for a couple of drinks,would you like to join us?" She whirled around and gave me a disgusted look and stalked away without answering. There was a radiation alert at quitting time, so I was able to take underground transportation home for free instead of bicycling. When I got to Hauser's Bar after work, Skizz and Fred had a table and I got a beer and sat down with them. Hauser's is near my apartment and is one story underground, so it's fairly safe, even if it's a cheap and sleazy joint. Fred and Skizz and I were part of the Boy Imbalance. A few years before I was born, they invented a way to make sure your kid was a boy or a girl, and my mom and dad decided they wanted a boy. So did everybody else. It was just a couple of years after the Fuckup War, and as in every previous era of human history, parents favored the production of male children. When cheap, reliable methods of determining the sex of your offspring came on the world market, suddenly only boys were being born. In some countries 85% of births were boys at the height of the fad. I was born late in the cycle, when the oldest of the Boy Bulge were 16, and then the Big War started when I was 6, and is still going on, although not in the fearsome style of the early days. Today it's a worldwide armed truce, but we still average five or six nuclear incidents a year. I had a lot of friends. They were all guys. Oh, there were lots of women my age, too. Somewhere. But it seemed like they were all taken by Oldies. "The one I want is Mandy Feather," I said. "That girl over in the Throughput Implementation department." "Yeah, I'd use my implement and give her some throughput," said Fred Metz. Then Skizz's brother Jim showed up. Jim was a surface worker -- a guy who harvests material goods from the ruins of the old world above. He had a heavy radiation tan. "You should have seen what we found today," he said. "We cracked open this office building and every skeleton was wearing a Rolex." Then an Oldie came in with two beautiful girls who couldn't have been older than 18. You can do a lot with cosmetics, and god knows the Oldies have been trying a long time, but there's still something about a girl who's really only 18 that is beyond the grasp of the cosmetic art, despite genetic engineering and all. We watched them for a while and talked about Oldies. "Why can't that old fart join The Girl of the Month Club or something," said Fred, "and leave the real girls for us?" "You have to have big cash to join The Girl of the Month Club," Skizz said. "And you can't just join, you have to be nominated." "How do you know?" I asked, "Hey, I make money, I tried to join once." The Oldie got up and went to the Men's room and I said, "You can have your Girl of the Month Club, I'm going to try some live flesh." I went to the Oldie's table. "Hi, girls, I'm Bill Wood, and I wonder if you'd like to have some company more your own age." They looked at me the way you look at radiation blisters. The big runny putrid ones. "Grav out, goldless one," said the redhead. The brunette with the full-body scintillation film said, "Oh, please tell us all about processing," real sarcastic, and then they acted like I wasn't even there. I went back to the table and Fred and Skizz and Jim razzed me for a while. That's when this Oldie woman sat down and started hassling us. She had these wrinkles you wouldn't believe and her ears and her nose were so big and hairy, eck. She tried to buy us drinks, offered us some psychotabs -- Skizz was interested at first but I think he just wanted to buy them for resale, not use them. The Oldie put her arm around me and tried to pull me toward her and her breath was awful. "Come on, honey, all I want is your cock for a little while, okay?" and she reached down and grabbed me. "Hey!" I said, and that made Skizz and Fred laugh, and I jumped up and ran out and went home to my Cube. The shipping shell from The Girl of the Month Club was still there. "Fuck it," I said. I pulled the release tab and the shell whooshed and a waft of chill air came out as the internal suspended animation circuits shut off. I put a meal in the microwave and looked through the instruction manual. It took about an hour for the shell to cycle through. I sat nervously waiting for the girl to start poking through the shell. I'd been looking at the brochure and using my reader to listen to the words but it was awfully complicated and there was a lot of writing. I was starting to worry... the brochure warned about how expensive the girls were if you damaged them, because they had to be returned at the end of the month. You had to feed them a special nutrient syrup or they would die. I decided I would just keep the girl one day and then call in and let the mistake be known. That would be the right way to do it. Suddenly a circular piece of the shell popped loose and a girl's nose poked out and inhaled deeply. I hastily thumbed through the manual and found the picture of the nose coming out and when I looked at it the rest of the shell in the picture peeled back like artichoke leaves. "Be sure to save the leaves for return shipment of your girl at the end of the month," said the reader. I pulled the leaves off. There were twelve of them and after just three were off the girl's head was exposed and I could see she was beautiful, half asleep but fearful and anxious. Her hair was wet and matted and her skin was covered with fluid -- as I pulled back more leaves a quart or two of liquid gushed onto the floor. When I pulled the last leaf off she opened her eyes and looked right at me and moaned and darted her eyes around and struggled to move. I touched her hand and she flowed onto me, a huddling frightened girl hugging me for life, wet and bawling. According to the manual this was the "imprinting" time. They'd grafted duck DNA into the clones so that they bonded with their owner as baby ducks bond to the first moving thing they see after hatching. The bonding was pheromonic: the girls were imprinted by the owner's smell factors, and no embarrassing incidents would result if a non-member were to encounter one of the girls. The girl was dripping wet and naked and clamped herself against me, burrowing through clothes to press her flesh against mine. The manual suggested that I sit and hug and soothe her for an hour while she adapted to her new environment and absorbed my pheromones. When the pheromonic imprinting was completed, she would be ready for whatever sexual gymnastics I had in mind. But the way she was sobbing and moaning and clinging to me... she wasn't even 5 feet tall, and couldn't have weighed 85 pounds, but with tits that wouldn't quit and a tiny waist and the cutest ass. All just as advertised. I was really turned on but I followed the instructions and just held on to her. I was kind of afraid of her, actually. She was wet and I tried to pry her off so I could get a towel, but she fretted and clung to me. I stood up to get a towel and she rode me like a leaf plastered to a windshield by the rain. I toweled her back but her front was clamped against me. I had a hard-on that was starting to be uncomfortable, but after a half an hour she began a sniffing ritual, nuzzling against my chest and licking me and crawling up my body to lick my face -- it wasn't really like kissing -- and then she moved down and sucked me in and after long bliss I gave her the final pheromonic imprint: a long jet of my own personal DNA files. The rest of the night was an endless exploration of orgasm, and I didn't have any moral qualms. But in the morning I did. I woke early and couldn't go back to sleep. She looked cute snoozing in my bed... but she wasn't human, she was just an artificial construct cobbled together from dog and cat and kangaroo DNA. She was so sleek and trim. Part of the reason was that she didn't have much in the way of internal organs. In order to make a clone with the narrowest waist, the bioengineers had left out intestines, for the most part. I looked through the brochure again until I found the "FEEDING" section. The girls needed a couple ounces a day of nutrient solution -- a half liter flask had been included inside the egg. I poured her a little glass of it and shook her awake. She drank it with a slobbering gratitude. We did it again before I went to work. * * * William M. Wood dialed The Girl of the Month Club again. "Dammit, you said I would have my shipment by today, and there's no sign of it." "I'm sorry, sir," said the prosthebot. "Our records show your shipment has been received." "Let me talk to a human." "I'm sorry, sir, all humans are out of the office at the moment. May I help you?" "Look, I'm leaving for Albuquerque. I wanted to take this month's girl with me, but now you've wrecked it. Now you make sure she's here when I get back, you understand? The shipment hasn't arrived. I don't care what your records show. Send it now." He broke the connection, then programmed his computer to repeat the complaint. When the realtime clock in William Wood's computer dialed The Girl of the Month Club and repeated the message, it was three in the morning in New York. Just at that moment in Times Square in front of the offices of The Girl of the Month Club, a mugger slipped up behind a pedestrian and pressed a gun into his back. "Gimme your dough or you're dead," he said. The pedestrian whirled and pulled an ion gun. The mugger fired two shots from his .44 Magnum into the pedestrian's chest, to no effect. The pedestrian pulled the trigger of his ion gun once, and then again. One charge from the ion gun went through the office wall into the computer of The Girl of the Month Club and scrambled several memory banks during William M. Wood's call. The mugger slumped to the ground without a mark on him: the ion gun's charge coagulated the flesh in a three-inch wide path through his body, like hard-boiling an egg. The pedestrian plucked two slugs from his bulletproof vest, put his ion gun away, and walked on. * * * In the morning it was raining sulfuric acid and I had to wear my pH 10 raincloak. There were cops all over the freeway where a freight van's mag field transducer had failed and left a 30-foot crater and only one lane of traffic was trickling through, and I couldn't grab a ride and had to pedal all the way. I was really tired -- I hadn't slept more than two hours. I looked for Skizz at work, I wanted to get some more panther thyroid, but he wasn't out there in the rain. I probably didn't need anything. Hell, my testosterone levels were on a natural high and my cock wouldn't go limp all day. I could hardly wait to get home again. I churned the colors on my screen half heartedly most of the morning thinking about Felina. I didn't even notice if Mandy Feather was there. Well, I hardly noticed. Later Fred and I snuck away and he had some dreamazine -- a zappy 'mone that triggers a REM state while you're wide awake. Cool. Then the pulse alarm sounded. Any time there's an atomic explosion a big electromagnetic pulse blasts away and it can wreck a computer and zero the magnetic memory in a blink. So when the EMP alarm sounded we were all supposed to shut down & protect our assigned machines, and we were three minutes later than anybody in the company. If there had really been an H-bomb all our files would have been gone. Later in the day they called me and Fred in to get chewed out. I sat in the Big Boss's waiting room and hoped I wouldn't get fired. I didn't know what the big deal was about because it was just a drill and there hadn't been any detonations for two or three years in orbits that were dangerous to us. We were in a nuclear war, of course, but not nuclear war in the way the Oldies grew up dreading -- the massive exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., thousands and thousands of H-bombs going off everywhere on every land mass on the planet. After the breakup of the U.S.S.R., nukes became a commodity on the world black market. Once a state owns a nuke, though, it becomes impossible to use them except in defense, or as a terrorist weapon. The only thing nukes are really good for is to nullify an army in the field. Massed troops at borders are the handiest targets, and satellite surveillance in a free market gave every nation information about its neighbors' troop movements. Today the United States has a population of 62 million -- about the same as in 1890. Foreign immigrants are welcomed, except there aren't many -- the rest of the world is a smoldering ash-heap and there is little international travel. Incongruously, there is plenty of space travel. Rather than buying raw materials from third world countries, the U.S. now mines most elements on the Moon, and nanoassemblers in orbit are making more and more of the goods used on Earth. There haven't been any actual nuke attacks on L.A. for a long time, but there's plenty of fallout from nukes in the Far East. World opinion says using nukes is okay as long as you're striking massed troops, or other acknowledged military targets. But nuking cities isn't cost-effective for anybody. The news reports a nuke attack a couple times a year. Nations are using nukes for engineering purposes -- Thailand blasted a 50-mile-long sea-level canal from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal at the Isthmus of Kra, and took away a lot of the shipping business from Singapore. Anyway, the automatics would have shut down my work station in time if there'd been a real pulse. And there hadn't been a real pulse, so there was no damage. But that's not the way the company saw it. If I lost this job I would be in big trouble. I didn't want to have to live on the surface again. Fred and I sat there and waited, and waited. The only good part was that Mandy Feather was called in there, too. "What were you doing when the alarm went off?" I whispered to her. "Hmph!" she said. "Fred and I were doing 'mones in a secret place we know. Maybe you could come up and do whatever you were doing with us, huh?" Instead of giving me a snappy answer, she turned bright red and wouldn't say anything. Then they opened the door and took me and Fred in front of the Boss and I had two REMS added to my radiation tolerance ration. Fuck. More extra duty whenever there was a radiation hazard, and I wouldn't get hazard pay until I was two REMS higher. Oh well, radiation work gives you a nice tan and you get used to it. The more radiation you get, the more you can stand. They've proven it. After work, Fred and Skizz wanted me to go to Hauser's again but I wanted to go home. "I've got a big date," I told them. I got into a crowded elevator and took the long ride to the surface -- by the time we got to the top, I was the only rider. I got out of the elevator and climbed onto my bicycle and headed home. The radiation tolerance thing has to do with underground transportation. There is a very little subway system in L.A., and what little is there is privately owned and very expensive and jealously guarded. During Stage 1 radiation alerts, I could use whatever subway was available, for free, as long as my radiation badge showed I was exposed up to my ration. I'm forced by penury to travel on the surface, and so I'm exposed to more radiation than undergrounders. There's never any sunshine in southern California, it's perpetual fog or rainstorms; it's the old Seattle climate moved south. Redwoods are prospering despite the radiation, and that's what's kept Los Angeles alive: the healing rains have swept the radiation away time after time. Radiation turned out to be not as lethal as they thought in the 20th century. Sure, hard radiation kills, but it also toughens. It's bad for individuals, but it hardens the species. It's Ma Nature saying, "Oh yeah? Well just try that again and see what happens." When I got home there was another thermoplastic shell from The Girl of the Month Club at my door. I couldn't help myself. I'd always wondered what it would be like to have two girls in bed at once. I pulled off the seal and the shell began to cycle. I took Felina into the bedroom and dallied with her until it was time for imprinting. When the nose circle fell out of the shell I went back to it and pulled the leaves off and there was another perfect Felina. She clung to me and trembled for an hour and then repeated the sequence of the night before. I was a bit disappointed; she was exactly like the first Felina and there was no sense of having had a different girl, there wasn't a cunt's hair difference between them. But then later when the two of them were in bed with me together they were kittenishly competitive in trying to please me, trying to be the one who received my sperm. According to the manual, they were programmed to desire sperm above all else, to hunger and lust for it, and the Felinas certainly proved it was true. I drifted out of consciousness surrounded by hugging flesh. The next day Skiz was outside as usual but I didn't buy anything. Then as soon as I sat down in front of my video screen, Mr. Gardner appeared on it. "Woods, report to Systems Analysis immediately." Nuts. It sounded like they weren't going to be satisfied with just giving me the extra radiation units. "What's wrong, sir?" I said. "Woods, report to Systems Analysis immediately." It was just a recording. This time they had Mandy Skizz as well as Fred and me in the same meeting, and we were questioned by Mr. Gardner's boss. "Woods, I understand you were consuming drugs in unauthorized cubic yesterday during the EMP drill." I gave Mandy a gigavolt burn with my eyes. She looked away. "Oh yeah?" I said. "Well, I wouldn't have been away from my station except Mandy Feather was sucking off Mr. Gardner in the Gigahertz Fourier department again. If he was there supervising like he should I couldn't have snuck away." Now I didn't know anything of the sort but I always figure a good offense is the best defense. "Bill, you don't seem to understand," the Boss said. "This isn't about the pulse drill per se. We reviewed all tapes after the drill and we discovered the reckless game of 'chicken' you and Fred played." "So we paced along side each other, so what?" "You ruined one mining robot and seriously disabled another." "What? How?" I said. "The damage has been repaired and the units are now back in functional order," the Boss said, "but it was very expensive. This meeting is about your future employment career, and how you're going to repay the $28,000,000 your little game cost us." Half an hour later I was on the surface and out of a job. They didn't fire me: they told me that I was now locked into Megalithic, they would deduct from my pay until the debt was paid off, which would take approximately the entirety of my working life. Instead, I quit. Well, there was more than one place to work in L.A., I told myself as I biked home. Megalithic had competitors. West Hemisphere Molybdenites, for instance. They ran robot mining machines at the bottom of the ocean. I knew guys who worked at WestHemis. I was confident of finding a new job -- I'm skilled, and labor in L.A. is a seller's market. When I got home there was another thermoplastic shell in front of the door. I stared at it a moment. A neighbor walked by and said, "What's that, Billy?" and I said, "None of your business" and hauled it inside. My two Felinas were curious about the new shell but they were more eager to taste me again. I pushed the shell into a closet and took the two Felinas to bed. I wasn't tired but I sure was horny. The Felinas were just as intoxicating as they'd been the night before, and they turned out to have several tricks I'd never expected. I didn't watch a bit of TV and I hardly ate a thing. I poured each of the girls a glass of nutrient, and they gulped it down, and they looked at me so pleadingly that I gave them another glass, and then they were pleasured and sleepy. There wasn't another glass of the nutrient left for them. The next morning the manager woke me with another jangling message: "There's a package here for you." I was confused and muzzy from sleep. I sat up and gently moved a sleeping Felina so I could sit up; I said, "I picked it up already," "It's another one," the manager said. I went to the door and got the new shell and put it into the closet with the other unopened one. I stared at the shells a while before shutting the closet. I looked at the two Felinas. They were starting to seem a little eerie. I decided not to wake them up -- I needed to go out and find some work. But they woke up while I was dressing and they clung to me and begged mutely for more nutrient, but there was none left. I didn't know what kind of nutrient the girls drank. It was probably some highly tailored broth -- the girls were crudely engineered and needed a specific set of chemicals as fuel. Unlike natural life forms, they were unable to synthesize their own needs out of random forage the way real animals are able to. Well, I had to buy another jug. The smart thing to do would be to look for some in the black market, but that would take time. For now I'd just buy some at an Oldie market at the retail price. But first of all, I should look for another job. Rent was more important than nutrient for the Girlclub clones. Sure, I could have my pick of 100,000 vacant apartments, free, as long as I didn't care about water or electricity. You could get phone and cable service anywhere through satellite links. But surface housing had no protection against radiation and no connection to the underground majority. The cause of