by David Coy
“That’s right. Right out from under them. They think it’s buried in a mountain of containers on Dock Four. They don’t even know it’s gone.”
“Pretty slick,” John said. Here was the most powerful weapon on the planet, he was sure of it—and they were in control of it, and as long as they were, they were in control of everything. All that was missing from their little pot of revolutionary stew were the right communications mixed with an ultimatum or two and the guts to turn up the heat.
“So that thing could blow us all up? Blow up everything?” Rachel asked.
“No everything. But enough,” Joan said.
“You’re going to threaten to blow something up if you don’t get your way, is that it?” Rachel asked.
“Something exactly like that,” Joan said coolly.
“That makes a lot of sense,” Rachel replied curtly. “There’d be exactly nothing left, probably.”
“I said not everything. It’s not that powerful. And look around you, Sister. You’ve got exactly nothing left right now.”
Rachel seemed to draw up tighter. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said.
“Where would you put it?” John wanted to know.
Joan told him.
“That seems reasonable,” John said.
“Reasonable?” Rachel said under her breath, unable to believe John had said, "reasonable."
“Count us in,” Donna said unexpectedly.
“Count yourselves in,” Rachel said. “Not me.”
“She’s right, you know,” Donna said to Rachel. “We have nothing to lose. It’s either jail and probably death or the jungle. I don’t like either option.”
“So what’s this?” Rachel said, pointing an accusing finger at the bomb. “That’s somehow not death? You’re crazy. I always thought so, but now I’m sure of it.”
“It’s a tool,” John said. “We use it as leverage.”
“You should hear yourselves,” Rachel said. “You sound like . . . like . . . I don’t know what.”
Donna looked at Joan. “Rachel always spoils the party,”
she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Oh, sure. It’s always me,” Rachel complained.
“Hey, if the shoe fits . . . ”
“I say we do it,” Eddie said. “It could work.”
“You’re as crazy as they are,” Rachel said to him.
“Why? Because we’re tired of hiding and living in the jungle like animals? Because we don’t want to run any more,” Eddie said.
The passion in Eddie’s voice surprised them all. Rachel was taken off guard by it. “Well, I don’t think this is the answer, is all. You’re all . . . crazy.”
“You’re the one who's crazy, Rachel,” Donna quickly countered. “You’re the one who has the crazy dreams and visions. Not us.”
“All right,” John said. “This is getting us nowhere. Rachel is free to do as she pleases. She doesn’t have to do anything if she feels it’s not right.”
“You sound like her psychiatrist,” Donna said with a crooked grin.
“Oh, shut up Donna,” Rachel said.
Donna gave her a black look. Rachel gave her one right back.
“Hey, not in my kitchen,” Joan said. “Besides, there’s a bomb in here.” The comment brought a couple of wry grins—none from Rachel.
“Rachel, relax,” Donna said with a note of mockery. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Really.”
Rachel slumped into a plastic chair and turned away, arms still crossed like an angry child. “I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay,” Donna said with a baby voice. “Okay. We won’t talk about it anymore. We won’t upset widdle Rachel.” She turned to Joan with a smile. “Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to do this.”
Rachel sprang out of the chair like a tigress. She grabbed Donna’s hair with one hand and threw a punch to her face with the other. Before anyone could react, she had Donna down in the seat, throwing punches with both hands. John wrapped his arms around Rachel’s waist and yanked her backwards. Donna kicked out at her with a foot that missed by a full meter.
“You bitch!” Donna screamed, blood running out of her nose.
“I’ll kill you, you scrawny bitch!” Rachel yelled back. “I’ll wring your neck!”
Rachel was wild, and it was all John could do to hold her. Her strength was tremendous, and the her madness amplified it. If he let her go, she might kill Donna, and she was capable of doing it. She thrashed at him with her arms and legs while the others gawked, wild-eyed. He couldn’t hold her forever. Maybe he and Eddie could wrestle her to one of the bedrooms and lock her in.
“Rachel!” he yelled. “Stop it!”
As he held her, her struggling took on a familiar and dreadful feel, a staccato rhythm. With mindless fury, she now fought the invisible riot of a seizure. It was a bad one.
“There she goes . . . ” Donna said, wiping blood on her sleeve.
John lowered Rachel to the floor, her body convulsing so violently that her head banged on the floor like a hammer.
“Hold her head up,” Donna said, climbing out of the seat to help. “Don’t let her bang like that.”
* * *
Rachel flew through tunnels dark and shiny wet past things nonhuman and tortured. She raced up and down and through dim brown shafts faster and faster until she burst out, stopped and floated limp in a chamber of madness. She rolled slowly in the wet air above tables topped with human forms splayed open and pinned back.
She looked down at her own face looking up. “Help me,” her mouth said silently.
The air thumped with the sound of a giant heart, and she was swept through the guts of a thing not right, a thing not right, a thing not right—and sick. Faster and faster she flew until she raced straight at herself, arms and legs spread wide, laughing with idiocy.
“Look at me!”
* * *
Hours later, she awoke as she always did, in a place not quite recognizable. This one was a bedroom in a shelter, and, for once, the place felt a little good to her somehow. There was a light and a pleasant scent on the air as if flowers were there in the room. When she was awake enough, she turned and looked for them in the low light, hoping to see them on a dresser or table. But there were no flowers, only the light scent of them.
The door opened, and she squinted against the blade of light that struck her eyes from the hallway.
“Hungry?” John asked.
“Hungry,” she replied.
“They’re making some stuff up now. Do you want me to bring it to you?
“Yeah. I don’t feel much like getting up.”
“Okay.”
“Hey,” she said as he started to leave.
“What?”
“Come in, I want to ask you something.”
He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. His hand reached out and rested on her forehead, out of habit.
“Are they—are you—going to go through with this?” she asked.
He stroked her head once or twice before he answered. There was no easy way to put it to her.
“Yes.”
“And blow up the settlement?”
“Some of it. If it comes to it.”
She studied his face in the dim light, searching his eyes for signs of a bluff. She saw nothing but resolve in his brown eyes.
His look confused her. She wondered for a moment if she really knew him at all. But that thought reluctantly gave way under the weight of her own ambivalence in the matter of the bomb and forced her to consider that, perhaps, she and John simply came from different places, had different histories and that those differences had now surfaced, not for some shared enlightenment, but had risen like a wall between them. She shuddered briefly, as if chilled.
“This isn’t like you,” she said gently.
He pursed his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. He leaned forward, his arms on his knees and hands interlocked. He stared at the floor.
> “John…?”
Finally, he looked up. The resolve in his eyes even stronger. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, his eyes fixed on something, or nothing on the wall.
“Have you ever considered how trampled down we are on this planet?” he asked, his voice even and measured. “We’re planting the bomb tonight. We’re delivering our list of demands in the morning.”
“Your grievances, you mean?”
“No. Our demands.”
“What if they won’t give in? Then what?”
“I already told you.”
Of course he had. She just wanted to hear it again. She wanted to test him again with the question, hoping he’d back down.
“We’ll detonate the bomb and start over,” he said.
“With what?” she implored.
“We’ll have our freedom. That’s enough.”
“You know, we could just run away like we did before,” she said hopefully. “We could go so far they’d never find us. We could just steal a shuttle like we did before and fly away.”
“Not this time,” he said, his voice stony.
They stared at each other. She kept hoping he would soften and give up this murderous plan. The idea of setting off a bomb and killing people with it, even ridiculous people, made her sick. It made her so sick she wanted to vomit. It made her so sick she wanted to shake him and slap the nonsense out of him.
“I wish there were another way,” he said.
“Can’t you try to find one?”
He got up and stepped toward the door. “Meat or fish,” he asked with a sigh.
“Both. And tell Donna I’m sorry. I’m not right, you know . . . in the head.”
He nodded that he would deliver her message. The plastic door closed slowly and latched behind him with a faint and tinny click.
10
Hiding the bomb was a dirt-simple job. It didn’t seem right that such an important event should be so stinking easy. With a few simple motions, Joan Thomas nestled the strangely pretty, ultra-destructive little thing in the weeds and covered it up so no one could find it. Now they had the Council, the soldiers, the entire settlement by the proverbial short hairs. Things were going to change rapidly for the better because of this simple no-brainer of a job. It was an odd feeling.
She brushed bugs away from her face and eyed the location one more time from several angles. No way. They’d have to go in there and scratch around to find it, if then. Donna had suggested they bury it in the ground, but the others thought better of it. You could always tell where something had been buried, at least until the spot was weathered down. No, this would do. It was the right place strategically; that was the most important thing.
She imagined herself in her shelter and seeing the bomb go off from there. She saw the bright blast racing outward at light speed. Part of her liked that idea a lot.
By the time she got back to the shelter, the dawn’s soft light soaked the air, and things were starting to form in shapes gray and green out of night’s blackness. She went in the back door and stripped out of her net suit. She always made it a habit of sticking the suit out far through a crack in the door and shaking it as hard as she could. This time a couple of big ones flew off it and bounced off the screen; just two more she wouldn’t have to chase around the lights the next evening.
“How’d it go?” John asked.
“Perfect. The egg is hidden,” Joan replied with her twisted grin as she sat down.
“I say we call in as soon as it’s light,” he said.
“Let ‘em get their coffee first,” Donna said. “They should be fully awake when the shit hits the fan. We want their little minds working well, and we can get a couple of hours of sleep ourselves.”
They turned in, but no one really expected to sleep.
Eddie lay on the sofa in the little living area and stared up at the ceiling. He was just starting to doze a little when he heard the commotion outside. It was a mix of angry voices, bumps and banging and then shouting. Long before he looked through the blinds, he knew in his guts what it was.
Across the alley was another row of shelters, some deserted, a few occupied. He could see one of the shelters about twenty meters down with the lights on, and the front door swinging open. He saw hurried movement inside and could hear shouting. Another pair of soldiers was double-timing toward him. They marched past the one where the commotion was and went up the stairs of the next one in line. They banged on the door real hard; and when the occupant opened the door, they shoved past him and rushed in.
They were looking for them, shelter to shelter.
Eddie rushed down the hall and found Donna and John already with their rifles out. “Hey . . . ”
“We know,” John said. “We saw them already. Go unlock the front door, and then sit down in the kitchen. There’s another team coming from the other side. They’ve got one more stop before they get here.”
Eddie raced down and unlatched the door. Donna took up a position just inside the first bedroom. From there she could step into the hall and cover the entire front section of the shelter. John moved to the rear door entryway and pressed himself against the wall.
Joan went to the kitchen and sat next to Eddie. She took the detonator out of her pocket. “It’ll be okay. Don’t worry,” she said to him. She pressed two buttons and entered the access code she’d already programmed in. The display read ARMED. She rested her thumb on the DETONATE button.
So simple.
“Whew. I need some coffee,” she said lightly to break the iceberg-deep ice.
“Me, too,” Eddie said.
“Don’t worry,” she repeated breathlessly. “They’re not stupid. They’re not stupid . . . ”
Joan reached over, took Eddie’s arm, wrapped it around her own arm and put his hand over hers on the detonator. Eddie’s fingers floated over it.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You won’t have to do anything. This is just in case. Just stay calm. They’re not stupid . . . ”
The pounding on the door made her stiffen, and her thumb went down until it actually made contact with the key. She could feel the sweat from Eddie’s hand on hers.
“Come in!” she yelled. “The door’s open!”
Two men in dirty uniforms burst through the door, rifles at the ready.
“Stop right there!” Joan said to them.
“Get up!” the first yelled at her. He was young and arrogant, red-faced and cocky, no more than twenty or so. The one behind him was older-looking and didn’t look at all bright.
“Now, you listen to me, you sonsofbitches,” Joan said in a steady voice. “Do you know what this is?” She nodded at the detonator.
“Your pussy! I said get up!” he ordered.
“Listen, you stupid bastard. Look at this.” The open case the nuke came in was on the other side of the table, on the floor, smack between them. She kicked it with her foot. The soldier’s eyes glanced at it, and then went back for a longer look. She watched him scan the contents. “Can you read? Do you know what came in that box?” she asked. “It wasn’t candy.”
She saw the younger soldier swallow as he studied the case. The remaining components and the warnings were plain enough.
“This thing in my hands came out of the little slot in the upper left-hand corner of the case. Can you see what the label says on that little slot?”
The soldier took a cautious step closer, his rifle aimed squarely at them. When he’d read the label, he stepped back. His eyes had lost their confidence; his demeanor all arrogance.
“What is it?” the second asked.
The first didn’t answer. Joan could see his mind racing behind his eyes. It gave her satisfaction, and she smiled.
“What is it?” the second insisted.
“Shut up!” the first said.
“You’re getting it,” she smiled. “You’re a little slow, but you’re getting it.”
“It’s bullshit,” the second said. “Shoot her.” He raised his rifle and aim
ed it at her.
The first batted the rifle away. “No!”
Joan laughed. “Good choice.”
“What are you gonna do?” the first asked her.
“Fuck you. You’ll find out. Put your weapons down.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “I’ll never put my weapon down.”
Joan smiled her twisted smile and looked at the soldiers standing in her kitchen with their big, vicious guns. They were dangerous men, stupid men, greedy men. They were men without moral fiber. They were hired killers and torturers. They were the reason she was living in fear. They were the enforcers of someone else’s hideous will by hideous means. They were traders in blood and evil. She hated them. She looked at them and soaked up the hate, let it feed and strengthen her dark purpose. When the young soldier looked into her eyes and saw not fiery resolve, but cool certainty, he felt real fear for the first time in his young and arrogant life.
Then, slowly, Joan’s smile lost its crazy edge and changed to one of kindness. She leaned over and kissed Eddie’s cheek. She closed her eyes. Eddie’s were wide, and he was trembling. The muscles in Joan’s hand prepared to do what her mind had already willed.
“Stop!” the first screamed. “They’re down! Our weapons are down!”
He put his rifle down so fast the motion was little more than a blur. The second hesitated just a second, then planted his on the floor with both hands. They both raised their hands and took a step back.
Joan blinked and looked at the rifles on the floor like she didn’t recognize them. As if coming out of a trance, she blinked sleepily and stared into the red and fearful face of the young soldier.
“Good,” she said with a twisted look. “That’s good. You did the right thing.”
John came out from the back hallway and flanked the soldiers, his rifle pointed at them. “Get down,” he said. “Sit against the wall and shut up.” He picked up their weapons one at a time and leaned them in a far corner.
Donna came down the hall followed by Rachel.
“I guess you know who’s got the power now, huh, assholes?” Donna seemed to ask, but was really making a statement.
