"I thank you, and good night."
I sat there, staring at the screen. An announcer came on and said something, then the president's announcement began to repeat. "Scan," I commanded.
The President was on all the other channels too-and probably would be all night.
I started pulling on a jumpsuit. Tonight could get very crazy. I started looking for my boots.
Let's see, Lizard was probably at the airport already. Probably she was already in the air.
The Rocky Mountain Infestation was about four hundred kilometers north. If she flew at a thousand kilometers an hour . . . I walked out onto the balcony and looked off toward the mountains. The flash should be visible from here. I leaned over the edge of the railing and looked down. I was not the only person waiting on the balcony. I could hear the president's voice coming from many other apartments, Every TV in the hotel must have been on. Her words echoed and reechoed across the plaza below. "It should be seen as a sign," she was saying again, "not of our desperation, but of our commitment."
She had ordered the use of nuclear weapons against the Chtorrans and was evacuating the government to Hawaii-and she wanted us to believe that it was evidence of commitment? It was as desperate an act as anyone could possibly think of! She couldn't possibly hope to sell it to the public.
I knew this lady. She was a shrewd politician. We were lucky to have her as president. But this time, it looked as if she'd misplayed her hand.
I sat down on the balcony and tried to think. I hollered for the robot, "Eye-gor!" It rolled up quickly, its eyestalks swiveling, and announced its presence with a three-note whistle that sounded like a question mark.
"Scotch. Straight up. A double-no, make it a triple. And stand by for refills."
It beeped affirmatively and rolled away. Apparently, Lizard didn't like her robots to talk. Some people did. My father had once said you could tell how emotionally starved a person was by the degree to which they anthropomorphized their robots.
I studied the looming mountains. They were black against the starlit sky. Where was Lizard now, I wondered? How long until the mountains burned?
How long until the nuclear wrath devoured the night?
I wondered, what had the president really unleashed tonight? With this single irrevocable action, what was she actually saying about the invasion and our ability to resist it?
It was more than just a statement of commitment. It was an acknowledgment of the scale of our enemy. It was an acknowledgment of the size of the war.
The robot returned with my drink riding on its "head," one clawlike hand holding it steady. It looked like a little Portuguese washer woman.
I took it and turned back to the mountains. I felt like I was waiting for the end of the world.
I didn't want to believe it.
And I was impatient for it to happen.
I wondered, how will the people react? And what happens next?
What will I do? I had no place to go. I was looking for my death when Lizard found me.
Would I go with her now? Lizard. Oh, God.
I remembered what I'd said to her. "It'll take a nuclear weapon get me out of your bed."
I remembered the look on her face. Ashen.
That's what she was afraid of. Would I still love her? Oh, God
I thought about the target site. There were human beings there. Probably children.
And worms. Lots of worms.
They'd be incinerated. All of them. Blinded, blasted, and burned. The sky would flame. I knew what would happen. I'd seen the pictures. Everyone had. We'd been reliving the Apocalypse war for twenty years. That was supposed to remind us what would happen if we failed to keep the peace.
I knew the horror.
The light. The blast. The firestorm. The radiation. The death.
I thought about the land we'd flown over.
A hundred thousand worms would die tonight. And how many human beings?
I remembered Marcie. And Delandro. And Alec and Tommy and Holly.
Fuck the renegades. They deserved what they were going to get.
No responsible human being should be in a worm camp anyway.
Kill them all. Let God sort them out.
The sky to the west turned white. Bright white. It could have been lightning, but it wasn't.
I stood up.
There was silence for the longest time.
And then the sound came rolling down from the mountains. It was a sudden soft thump, and then a rumble that rolled forever. It rattled the windows and grabbed you by the bones. It shook the floor and turned your knees to jelly.
Somewhere below, I heard cheering. I sank back into my chair.
I was still sitting there when Lizard returned. The sky to the west was pink. Somewhere on the other side of those mountains, a forest was burning. It looked like dawn.
A lady whose name is Tirelli
has tits made of dynamite jelli.
If you take on this dare,
you must fondle with care.
(The detonator's south of her belli.)
67
The Woman Who Dropped the Bomb
"Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I remain convinced that Man is the missing link between apes and civilized beings."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I heard her come in.
I still didn't know what I wanted to say to her.
I put the empty glass down on the table next to me-how long had I been holding it?-and stood up to face her.
She looked terrible. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. She waved at the robot. "Eye-gor, make me a Poison Apple."
We stood and looked at each other. I didn't know if I should go to her. She didn't know if she could come to me.
"It wasn't. . . ." She swallowed and started again, "It wasn't anything like I expected. It was very odd." For a moment she looked very fragile. "It was . . . so easy. The computer beeped and I pressed the release. I felt the plane jerk when the bombs fell away. There were two of them. They were shaped warheads, designed to spread the blast sideways. They were supposed to go off simultaneously. I guess they did, I don't know.
"I don't know what I expected. I almost forgot to climb. Those were my instructions. Once the bombs are away, stand the bird on its tail and climb. The blast caught me from behind. It threw me across the sky. The whole sky was white. I've never seen anything like it-"
She stopped and steadied herself. Eye-gor rolled up with her drink. It was tall and red and bubbled and smoked. Dry ice at the bottom? Lizard sipped at it.
She caught her breath and continued talking, as if she hadn't stopped at all. "The sky looked like it was on fire. The clouds boiled away in seconds. Just in the heat of the blast. I don't know what the videos will show. I didn't stay to look. I got out of the plane, I debriefed-I told them what I just told you, there's nothing else to tell-and then I came home. I didn't know if you'd still be here."
"I told you I would." She started shaking.
I took a step toward her, but she held up a hand to stop me. "Jim-I've just dropped the first nuclear weapons that the United States has used in war in almost a century. All my life, I've been taught that only a madman would use nuclear weapons. All my life, that's been the single most unforgivable sin. That's how we survived the Apocalypse crisis-by disavowing nuclear war. The whole planet swore never again. Never again. And I'm the one who broke the vow."
"You're not the only one."
"I dropped the first two bombs, Jim-"
"Elizabeth!"
She looked up, startled.
I said, "What if I had dropped those bombs instead of you?"
"I would hate you now," she said. "I would hate anyone who would do such a thing."
"So you think now that I have to hate you?"
"Don't you?" She gulped her words out.
"No. Because I would have dropped those bombs if I could."
"No. . . ." She shook her head. "No one wanted to drop those bombs.
They gave me the job because . . . because they hate me. "
"They gave you the job because they knew you could do it!"
"I hate them," she said, "for doing this to me. I hate them almost as much as I hate myself for doing it."
"You did it," I said, "because it had to be done."
"Goddammit! Don't you think I know all this? I was in the air an hour each way. Don't you think I've been over all this already myself? Quit trying to make it better!"
"Goddammit yourself!" I screamed right back. "You asked me if I could still love you! Well, I still do! So what the hell am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know-but quit trying to be so goddamn supportive! I hate people being supportive! I hate it!" She threw her glass at the wall. It shattered in a bright red stain. Eye-gor beeped and started picking up pieces. Lizard started screaming at the robot. She started kicking it. It started making little squeaking sounds. They sounded like whimpers.
"Lizard!"
"Leave me alone! Let me have my tantrum!" She kicked Eye-gor again. It toppled over and lay where it fell, its wheels spinning wildly. It began making that awful "robot in distress" shriek. She kept on kicking and banging it with her fists.
"Lizard! Those robots are expensive! And hard to replace!" I came up behind her and grabbed her by the waist and by her left wrist. She would have tipped me over her right shoulder, but I was ready for her. I twisted her left arm back-she broke free and punched me in the stomach; I was already dodging sideways and she hit my rib cage instead of my solar plexus. I hooked a leg around her calf and toppled her backward-she pulled me with her. I hit the bed and rolled. She came down on top of me-
I grabbed her in a hug so tight she didn't have room to punch. I rolled her over on her back and looked down into her eyes. "KNOCK IT OFF!"
She suddenly ceased all resistance. She went limp in my arms. "I can't . . . " she said. "I can't fight it any more." And then she started crying.
I held her while she cried. Her body shook. She gasped and coughed. She was racked with spasms. She screamed. I was terrified for her, but I didn't let go.
And then the worst was over and she began crying softly in little weak gulps. "I'm sorry, Jim."
"For what?"
"For everything." She wiped at her nose. "For screwing everything up."
"You didn't screw up!"
"I dropped the A-bombs. I'll never be me again. I'll always be 'the one who dropped the bombs."' She sniffed. "They'll probably make up some nasty name for me. Like, the Mad Bomber of Colorado."
I thought about it. "That's not nearly nasty enough. Or clever enough."
"Well, it's the best I can do," she said. "After all, I'm still upset."
"You want to kick the robot again?"
"Oh! Did I break him?" She tried to sit up.
I pushed her back down. "That's what they're going to call you-the Robot Killer!"
"They will not. Let me up. I want to see-" I sat up with her. Eye-gor had a vicious dent in its side, but it had somehow righted itself and was wiping the rest of Lizard's drink from the wall. It rolled with a wobble.
"They will not call me the Robot Killer-I only winged him."
"You want to try again?"
"Naw. If at first you don't succeed, the hell with it." She turned to me and became more serious. "Do you really love me?"
"Why do you keep asking?"
"I guess I find it hard to believe," she admitted. "I'm so used to people not loving me-" She added, "Or loving me and leaving me."
I said, "Lizard, sweetheart. It's easy to love someone when everything is wonderful. The proof of someone's love is that they still love you when everything is awful. I do love you-though I couldn't begin to tell you why. I don't care how many atom bombs you drop. I don't care how many robots you kick to death. I do love you. I will always love you."
"Even if they call me Lizzy the Hun?"
"Even if they call you Lizzy the Hun."
She sniffed. "I probably don't deserve you."
"Yes, you do. I pick my nose, I eat crackers in bed, and I fart in the bathtub. You deserve every bit of me. People who drop atom bombs don't deserve any better than me. I'm your punishment."
She laughed gently, and pulled me to her in a hug. When we finished kissing, she said, "Let's get out of these clothes. I want you to hold me close and I want to fall asleep in your arms, and I want to wake up in your arms. I want to have breakfast in bed with you, and then I want you to fuck my brains out. I want you to stay with me, Jim, and I want to have it be all right to love you back."
"Mm," I said, unzipping her jumpsuit. "Who am I to argue with Lizzy the Ripper?"
"You're a brave man, that's who." She was already undressing me.
"Mm," I said. "Do that some more. Mm, I like that. You can kick my robot to death any time."
The fame of our Mame was her tushy,
and the front of her cunt. (It was bushy.)
But I heard that her Mike preferred for his spike
the place in her face that was skwooshy.
68
A Large Piece of Truth
"Love is when you look into your lover's eyes and see God smiling back at you."
-SOLOMON SHORT
But we didn't fall asleep. Not right away.
First we made love. It was frenzied, almost desperate. I could feel her need. I abandoned myself to her and we rode the whirlwind. For a while, we weren't there-only the need, only the frenzy, only the desperate rush to release.
Afterward, I lay there gasping for breath, listening to the blood pounding in my head, wondering if my heart would burst, wondering if this was what it was like to die.
After a while, she curled up in the crook of my left arm and reached across my stomach and took my right hand in hers, and just lay there for a while and made little purring noises in her throat. After another while, she let go of my hand and began to play with the hair on my chest-there wasn't a lot, but she made do.
Then she began to talk.
"I was so scared. Ever since this thing began, I knew we might have to use the nukes. We've been talking about it for a long time. It's only these past few months that we've let it be real. And I've been so scared, because I knew that I would have to fly one of the first missions. I just knew-you know how that is? You just have this certainty about something and sure enough, that's how it happens." She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Do you want to know the truth? I wanted to do it. I wanted to know what o would feel like."
I didn't say anything. I knew the feeling. I had experienced it myself. I reached up with my left hand and stroked her hair. She said, "This is all so stupid. This should be one of the most ocredible days of my life. It's everything I trained for. I knew it this morning. They said, 'We want the most dramatic video possible for the president's briefing. This is it.' I knew what that meant. I said, 'I'll go.' And I did." She looked up at me, "Except, you weren't part of the plan-" She blushed. "Well, you were. I told a lie. I told you I wasn't there to pick you up. I was. I'd been lallowing you for a long time, trying to figure out what you were up to. I read the report on Family. I know what happened there. You had to know something about the renegades, about their rclationship with the Chtorrans. That's why I picked you up.
"But what I didn't count on-I mean, the part that wasn't planned-was that we would end up here." She started giggling.
"What?" I asked.
"Tonight is the night I've waited for all my life. I've just dropped two atom bombs and fallen in love and I don't know which scares me more."
"Being in love," I said.
"Yeah," she agreed. "I mean, why the hell should I love you? Do you know when I first met you and whatsisname, I thought the two of you were fags. I even still thought it this morning. I don't know when I stopped thinking it."
"Do you want to know something funny?"
"What?"
"All my life, when people would call me names, that was always one of the first things they would call me
. I used to hate it. I knew it wasn't true. But I was always afraid it was true, that they knew something I didn't. I hated it."
"So what's funny about that?"
"Wait, I'm getting to it. When Ted and I came to Denver that time, I did everything I could to prove I wasn't. Now, you want to know the joke?"
"Yes."
I told her about Ted. I told her about the trick he played on me. "That little shit," she said.
"Yeah. What pissed me off the most was that I got off on it. And he knew it. And he called me on it. I just hate that. But he was right. You know what he said? He said, 'Get off it. Every new advance in technology also opens up a whole new range of sexual possibilities. Go for it.' "
"And you did?"
"No! I was raised old fashioned. Except . . . "
She levered herself up on one elbow to watch my face. She was definitely interested.
"Stop that," I moved her hand away.
She slapped my wrist and put her hand back where it had been going. "Go on with your story."
"Well . . . I kept finding myself in situations." I told her about Tommy. Then I told her about the hallucinations. "Only, he was too real to be a hallucination. But if he was, what does that say about me? I mean, if I'm hallucinating homosexual experiences? So, I guess you-and all those other people-were right all along. Can you love a faggot?"
"I guess so. I already did. Except-"
"Except what?"
"-I don't think you have anything to worry about. I liked it."
"That's not the issue."
"So what is?"
"I liked it too. That's why I did it. Not just with you, but with all those others. Remember what you said before? About doing it because you wanted to know what it would feel like?"
"I was talking about dropping the bombs."
"Yes, well, the same thing is true for me. I did it because I wanted to know what it would feel like."
"How many times did you do it?"
"What difference does that make?"
"Well, it's what Voltaire said. If you do it once, you're experimenting. More than once and you're a pervert."
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