Message-ID: <25383asstr$964077005@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: kellis <kellis@dhp.com>
X-Original-Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0007191601000.8900-100000@shell.dhp.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Subject: {ASSM} Pandora's New Box (MF extremely-violent) {Kellis} [3/3]
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 03:10:05 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2000/25383>
X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Moderator-ID: IceAltar, newsman
Pandora's New Box
a Story by Kellis
July, 2000
Part 3 of 3
He was aware of a strange sound, for all the world like a sobbing
woman: snuffling interspersed with soprano mewling cries. Only
last sprint a snake had wormed its way into the kitchen past the
toilet pit. Had a sick coyote repeated that accomplishment? To
those noises suddenly was added the muffled clatter of a
woodpecker. In the desert?
With a sigh Del rolled over in his bunk, awoke fully -- and
remembered.
The desk lamp was still on. By its light he studied his
wristwatch: just after midnight. The woman, wrapped in his
extra blanket, sat at the desk hunched over the keyboard. Indeed
she was weeping, shoulders twitching with each sniffle, but
typing like mad on the keyboard.
He sat up and swung his feet down to the cold floor. He was
content to sit and watch her for awhile, savoring the memory of
their earlier pleasure, satisfying as any he could ever recall.
He felt wonderful! Why was she so sad?
The cold of the desert night had replaced the warmth of the day.
He wrapped the remaining blanket around himself, rose and took
the second chair beside her. She smiled at him briefly through
her tears and resumed typing. A word processor was running.
Apparently she had created a document of several pages.
He pulled open a desk drawer and retrieved a box of Kleenex,
then removed a tissue to wipe her eyes.
"Th-thank you," she murmured. "It was getting hard to see."
"What are you writing?"
"Everything that's happened to me in the last two years."
"Beginning with the loss of your husband?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry, Tessy."
She sniffled with a jerk. "Not anything like as sorry as I am."
"I guess not." He stroked her back.
She snatched the tissue from him and wiped her eyes more
thoroughly. "Don't mind me. These tears are just self-pity."
"Understandable."
"I hope you're that understanding when I tell you what I intend
to do with this."
"Try me."
"I'll convert it to simple text and upload it to Double-oh-seven.
From there ... You probably don't know about the *newnews*
mailboxes, do you?"
"No."
"Every newspaper has one. I'll start with *newnews@nytimes.com*,
then *newnews@washpost.com*, then every other newspaper whose
domain name is in the NSA file. I don't know how many of them
will publish it, but it's pretty juicy. I'll identify myself as
a disgruntled NSA employee, the kind of person they love to hear
from but almost never do."
"Are you telling them everything?"
"If you mean cheese, newsprint and bleach, yes, I am. I'm just
up to the plane crash. Do you want to be immortalized with me
and Craig?"
He laughed. "Sure. You want a cold beer?"
"How about some hot coffee? My feet are cold."
"I've got some instant. Won't take long to boil water."
He stopped to pull on shirt and britches and slip his feet into
boots. He took his last clean pair of socks from another desk
drawer, knelt and pulled them on her bare feet.
She paused in her typing to bend over him and kiss his forehead.
"My granny said a young girl has a choice: whether to be an old
man's darling or a young man's slave. I'm beginning to see what
she meant."
He laughed. "I'm your oldest lover, am I, Tessy?"
"And my last." She resumed typing.
In the kitchen he turned on the dim overhead bulb, put the kettle
on and lit the gas burner. While waiting for the water to boil,
he stepped out the backdoor onto the rock. The night air was
cold and still. Above him rode the half-moon surrounded by
stars. Orion was rising in the east. Seemingly near in the
north sat the military encampment, brilliantly lit by dangling
bulbs, polluting the silence with the roar of its generators. He
could see the tiny figures of men moving about in front of the
largest tent. Above them the running lights of a helicopter
blinked back and forth. He spotted three other sets of running
lights in the sky at different removes.
Back in the kitchen he started to prepare two cups of coffee,
then realized what that would reveal to anyone peering into his
windows through binoculars. He took down two cups, one stacked
within the other, and brought cups and water kettle into the main
room. At the desk he mixed instant powder and boiling water in
each cup.
"Ah-h-h!" she exclaimed after the first sip. "I can feel it
almost down to the last spot you touched. Thanks, Del."
"Your feet, eh?"
"Before that."
He chuckled. "You're feeling better."
"My feet are getting warm. Isn't there an old saying about that?
Oh, yes: 'Cold hands, warm heart; cold feet, no sweetheart.'"
"It's more than warm feet, I think. And you have a sweetheart,
cold feet or not."
"That's sweet, Del." She leaned back, regarding him over the top
of her coffee cup. "I'm into Double-oh-seven again and learned a
couple of things. Wimp Arnold has ordered your colonel not to
roust you until he has further evidence or until he proves I
can't be hiding in Indian Hideout. The colonel reports he has
suspended the cave search for tonight. He'll take personal
charge of it at first light. Also, the infrared aerial search
turned up three coyotes and six goats. Two choppers will
continue to monitor the area."
Del took a deep breath. "A reprieve!"
She nodded. "For a little while. Here's the best news. I
figured out Double-oh-seven's sidelink to the census bureau
mainframe. The password is just the exact reversal of the one
from two years ago."
"What good is that?"
She smiled. "That computer has a file of 22 million personal
Email addresses representing a significant fraction of the
on-line computers in the country."
His eyes narrowed. "And you want to do a bit of programming,
right?"
She sniffed contemptuously. "I could do it with a shell script!"
"How big is your message? Won't you clog the net with 22 million
copies of it?"
"Oh, I won't send the whole thing, just a two or three hundred
word synopsis, including the bomb formula. A few million
messages of that size would hardly be noticeable. But I need
your help. What's a good title that will persuade all those
spam-inured users to actually read the message?"
He grunted. "That may require some study... Tessy, have you
thought that children will often be the first people to see
this?"
Her eyes glittered. "You mean like, 'Make the Biggest Bang on
your Block?'"
He stared at her. "You do realize, don't you, that this might
kill a hell of a lot of people?"
"More than putting it in your book?"
"A lot more."
Her chin rose. "No, I don't! As you said, there'll be a few
explosions, then the word will be out. People with any sense
will get out of the cities. The rest of them ..." She shook her
head. "Also as you said, we have a reprieve. But we're still on
the hook, even if they don't give up on the cave until tomorrow
night.
"I think you're a stubborn man, Del. If they don't find your
basement, you'll learn how it feels when your fingernails and
toenails are pried up and your testicles pinched off by pliers.
And when you break or they find me some other way, we both know
what happens next. Your precious colonel will give us a quick
bullet in the head.
"We can't escape and we can't stop it, Del. I've thought of
faking orders to the colonel or reports to Arnold, but I don't
have the encryption keys. If I sent them something unencrypted,
not only would they ignore it, they'd know immediately I was in
the loop. With the NSA tools my old friend Sheila Barbour can
ring out this connection faster than you could say, 'Don't shoot,
I've got something in my eye.'"
"Before I could say *what*?"
"It's how Horace Gould, the *real* Double-oh-seven, delayed his
execution."
"Sounds like an in joke. You're confident she hasn't rung it out
yet?"
"They have no idea I can get to the Internet. Otherwise those
troopers would have smashed your front door shortly after
supper."
He nodded in agreement. "I think you're right about that. But,
Tessy ..."
"What?"
"In a day or two, millions of people could be dead."
"Yes. And I've got sympathy for exactly two of them!"
"If their deaths could prevent *us* from dying ... Though even
then the arithmetic is terrible."
She studied him, her eyes shifting back and forth between his.
"What's bothering you, Del? They're not *your* people, your
family. The ones who kill us will do it in *their* names!"
He made a throw-away gesture. "*They* don't know what's going
on. If it would kill just the ones in power, I'd be all in
favor. But it'll kill women and children, too. Think of the
children, Tessy."
She took a breath. "I prefer to think that you and I have never
killed anybody. And we won't. *We* won't pour bleach on cheese
wrapped in newsprint!"
"Won't we?" He snorted. "We're the same as the man who hands a
hair-trigger machine gun to a little kid in a crowded mall."
Her eyes widened. "No, we aren't. We're closer to someone who
tells a man, 'You could take those matches in the kitchen and
burn the hotel down while everyone's asleep.' It's not a nice
thing to say, but it's not a crime to say it, and *we* wouldn't
be responsible if he killed all the guests."
"We would be if he was insane at the time."
She shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm hearing
this from an avowed anarchist. How many people would have to die
to get rid of the governments? This is your big opportunity.
Send Email to your anarchist buddies and let them get started on
their freeholds. Or was it all a joke?"
He protested weakly, "It wasn't a joke."
"Oh, yeah?"
"No. But anarchy is supposed to be achieved gradually, with the
governments withering away."
She laughed derisively. "No kidding! Karl Marx promised the
same thing, as I recall. Del, I can't believe you're willing to
roll over and be dead for these goons."
"I'm not. But we have to find some other way to fight. I can't
be a party to killing millions of American women and children."
"Do you think you can fight an elite battalion of special forces
armed with the latest modern weapons and sensors?" She laughed
bitterly. "Oh, you can *fight*. If you're any good and shoot
first, you might even take one of them with you to Valhalla."
"I'd take one. I've had a lot of practice with that old rifle.
But we have to find a better way than that. What if you released
everything but the bomb formula?"
"Huh? What good would that do?"
"It might gain you a little sympathy. But what it would really
do is save our civilization."
"Our what?" She glared at him. "Look, Del, we've agreed that
the only places this will work are the U. S. and Canada. Other
places don't use the right ink. It'll take North America down a
lot of rungs on the ladder, but Europe and Australia will carry
on with the high civilization, not to speak of Japan. And the U.
S. military will survive, along with all those missile silos in
Nebraska. Nobody will start World War Three."
He countered lugubriously, "Unless *we* do, thinking we're under
attack."
"Then we'd have the advantage of a first strike at their
missiles. We might even win."
"God, you're bloodthirsty! I can't believe I'm listening to a
woman."
Her face sobered. "Well, actually you're not. That was from an
NSA war game."
He took a long drink of his cooling coffee and pointed to the
screen. "Tessy, where are you right now?"
She pointed also. "That window is the sidelink to the Census
computer's Email address database. You can access it with
Standard Query Language. If the children worry you, we could
correlate it with credit card holders."
"Huh! They'll all have credit cards, Tessy. You can't get a
login without one."
"You have a point. Okay, this window is looking into the wimp's
mailbox. The colonel sent him an update at 0200, midnight to us.
They found one more goat, then he went to bed. You were said to
be awake with energy release in your cabin equivalent to a
personal computer, presumably because you're working on your
latest novel."
"Wish I was. Wow! Apparently we're under constant infrared
surveillance."
"Apparently. This window is your Explorer, of course, and that
file is the document I just wrote. The one below it is the
simple text version. Want me to print it for you?"
"Please."
A few mouse clicks later his printer began to hum. She was
watching him. "I've already uploaded the text version to a
masked directory on Double-oh-seven."
"Have you mailed it?"
"No. But the newspaper list is in this file right here. A few
lines of shell script and away they'll go."
"What'll happen then?"
"Nothing we can see at first. A *newnews* box would be useless
if somebody didn't scan it often, so it won't be long before the
messages get read. But that's a low level staffer, especially
this time of night. She'll forward it to the news editor, maybe
with a 'hot' tag and he'll read it sometime in the next hour.
This is politically sensitive, so it'll get bucked right up the
line in the newspaper office, all the way to the publisher. The
earliest it could appear would be tomorrow's afternoon edition.
I doubt many papers will publish it intact. Mostly they'll do a
summary. A few will at least publish the bomb prescription,
labeling it as kooky, of course. And then the explosions will
begin.
"Meanwhile one of the editors will have called the NSA. That'll
probably happen before daybreak. The army will be kicking down
your door about an hour later -- assuming they don't send an
Apache to blow the whole cabin away. I think we ought to ride
over there just before first light and surrender. That way it's
likely to be a lot less painful."
He sniffed. "But we're just as dead."
"How bad can a bullet in the head hurt?"
"Who knows?"
"I really hate to find out. At least, if we send out the 22
million Emails, too, we may even hear about the first explosions
before our curtains come down."
"Assuming somebody with enough curiosity is awake to read them."
"There's *always* somebody! But we have to hook him. We need
an intriguing subject title. What do you think of, 'You, Too,
Can Make Your World End?'"
He grimaced. "Even more honest: 'Want to Blow Up the World?'"
"Hey, I like it! And the message could be very simple, something
like, 'If you really want to show them a thing or two, take a
hunk of cheddar cheese -- sharp or mild, doesn't have to be fresh
-- wrap it up in yesterday's newspaper, stick a lot of holes
through the newspaper with a fork, soak it good in chlorine
bleach and wait five minutes. We guarantee you'll love what
happens.'"
"Good god, Tessy! That's directed at kids."
"Or the childlike. Nobody in her right mind would expect
anything from that but a stinking mess." Her eyes narrowed. "We
need a different message to reach the other constituency that
might act on it. Hmm. Actually, I can think of *two* more."
He regarded her thoughtfully. "You mean the cats that curiosity
would kill."
"One way to put it. The ones who couldn't rest until they tested
it. We need to make it sound authoritative for them. The NSA's
return address will help. But I was thinking at first of the
ones with a grudge against society: the college drop-outs, the
ex-cons, the perverts, the losers. To reach them we need to post
in a few selected Usenet newsgroups."
She returned his stare. "You're a writer who sells. How about
taking a crack at a message to persuade those two groups?"
Slowly he shook his head. "Tessy ..."
Her hopeful look faded. "You're going to balk me on this, aren't
you?"
He sighed deeply. "I still have the same problem."
"Still women and children, is it?"
"Women. I can't knowingly kill women."
"And you won't buy the fact that *you* didn't kill them?"
"Let me put it this way: I can't knowingly *allow* a lot of
women to be killed."
She took a deep breath and smiled, to his surprise. She said
almost fondly, "You're not an anarchist. You're an incurable
romantic."
"Maybe so. But if a man doesn't defend women, what use is he?"
"All women? Even the women of Communist China?"
"They're still women, able to continue the human race. Compared
to that, everything else we do or think is superficial."
"Christ, Del!"
He nodded. "I'm not a religious man, but Jesus Christ was almost
right about that. 'Love thine enemy.'" He grinned. "His women,
at least."
She mused, "As a woman, I guess I should be grateful. Too bad
all men don't feel that way! So if I could somehow segregate the
sexes, you'd help me with this, would you?"
"Why not? I'm not concerned with protecting other men. If
Washington, DC, was like our little example of it, that all-male
elite battalion out there looking for you, then I would suggest
sending your message only to the Washington papers and only to
those Email addresses that happened --"
Suddenly his voice ceased. His eyes widened on hers. "I have
yet to see the first woman in that crowd."
"You mean the special forces?"
"Right. And I misled you earlier: we *do* have them, just not
in plain sight!"
"Have what? Women?"
"Canned cheese keeps well and is a tasty source of protein and
fat. A couple cans are under the tarp in the basement. In fact
it's a fairly complete survival set-up, including chlorine bleach
on the bottom shelf." He got up, went around the desk and
brought up a thick fold of newspaper. "And here's a Desert
Tribune saved for fire starting."
She stared at him. "Are you proposing that we blow ourselves
up?"
"Oh, no!" He smiled. "That would kill a woman."
* * * *
When all their plans were in place, when she had consigned her
data and programs to Double-oh-seven, including the *cron* lines
to invoke them appropriately after a week's delay, they retired
again to the deep sleep of those whose decisions are made, whose
commitments are resolved and who have nothing more to lose than
life itself.
Sunlight spilling into the room through the kitchen door
purposefully left open -- Del owned no alarm clock -- awoke them
both at about the same time. He found himself spooned against
her from the rear, her head resting on his arm, her spicy scent
in his nostrils. He bent to the chestnut tufts peeking from her
armpit and inhaled an aroma so much like frying bacon that his
saliva spurted and stomach rumbled in sudden hunger.
His hands fondled her soft body, compressing breasts, belly and
buttocks. Fingers found her clitoris and penetrated the moist
lips below it. She sighed and turned her face to him. They
kissed deeply until his fingers left her.
Raising his head, he said dryly, "Hooray for a full bladder!"
She sniffed. "You're kidding!"
"An old man can't deny it. If this one could, he might be late
for our date with destiny."
She drew a shaky breath. "I wouldn't mind being late, not for
this reason." Her hand found his erection.
"You would if the colonel decides to come for me sooner than we
expect." He sighed also, withdrawing from her. "You can sleep a
bit longer, if you want. I'll make some coffee, then take care
of the cistern."
He pulled a blanket around himself and went to the kitchen.
After relieving himself and setting the kettle on to boil, he
stepped outside barefoot onto the rock. The flapping of
helicopter blades was louder this morning. He soon discovered
the reason: one was hovering a few hundred feet over the crest
of his hill. He found two other helicopters in the sky, but the
military encampment seemed to show less activity. Back inside,
he took the boiling kettle into the main room and made instant
coffee in the same cups they had used last night.
Sipping hers, Tessy smiled at him lazily. "I do love being an
old man's darling."
He said soberly, "I suspect damn few old men are as lucky as I
am."
"You call this luck?" she demanded incredulously.
"I call you luck, Tessy."
"I want to be, Del, for you."
He pulled on his clothing and paused, looking at her. "Stay in
bed a bit longer."
"I know the plan."
Outside again, he walked up the hill to where the cistern was
embedded in the rock. The helicopter that was obviously assigned
to monitor his activities swooped closer. Raising the cover only
part way, he leaned down into the several inches of water and
pulled out the rubber drain plug. Shortly a small whirlpool
formed above the hole, showing that his reserve was draining into
the rubble beneath the tank. He raised up and got to his feet,
reclosing the cover. As part of his act, he shook his fist at
the hovering machine.
An old foot tub hung from a nail in the power structure supports.
He took it down and carried it to the back of his truck, where he
first removed the now odorous cardboard box, setting it
negligently on the ground while taking care that the underside
flaps did not fall open. From there he returned to the house,
descended to the basement and climbed back out with a can of
cheese, a bottle of bleach and an empty quart mason jar.
He opened the can, scooped out a cup of cheese and folded it into
several sheets of the old newspaper. He took up a fork and made
numerous perforations in the wrapped package, then tore a small
gash suitable for gouging. Finally he poured the mason jar
nearly full of bleach and capped it tightly, taking particular
care not to spill any upon his hands or clothing.
The woman had powered up the computer and was logging in to the
distant NSA machine. He looked over her shoulder as she scanned
Arnold's new Email as of this morning. The colonel's last report
was hardly an hour old, announcing his entry to Indian Hideout.
Del's hands slipped into the shirt and fondled her breasts. She
sighed and the nipples hardened immediately. She turned her face
up and they kissed, tongues probing.
After awhile he asked, "You need any help?"
"No. Can that helicopter see into the kitchen?"
"Not as long as he stays overhead. In fact I think he'll follow
me in the truck. Tessy ... God, I hate to leave you!"
"I'll be all right," she protested stoutly. "There's a steel
roof on the basement and we already know I can lift the blast
door. But I have good reason to worry about you."
He took a breath. "If I don't come for you, just stay put. The
government investigators will find you before that week's delay
expires in Double-oh-seven."
"Yes," she agreed dryly. "They'll find me. Oh, Del! I'm so
lucky you rescued me!"
She rose out of her chair and pressed herself against him, arms
tight around his neck. "Thanks for everything, sweet lover.
I'll never forget you so long as I live." When she finally
released him, her eyes were brimming. "Good luck."
"You, too." His hand caressed her wet cheek briefly before he
turned away and scooped up the prepared box of laundry. In the
kitchen he added mason jar and wrapped cheese to the box, then
departed by the back door without looking back.
Contrarily the truck was harder to start than yesterday, when it
had been sitting idle for three weeks. But finally, belching
blue smoke, its engine agreed to run. Del paused a moment to map
his path into the special forces encampment. He waited until his
wristwatch's second hand reached the twelve mark, then started
off on the predetermined route. He adjusted his outside mirror
to show the sky behind him and was soon rewarded with a view of
"his" helicopter swooping after him.
He caused the truck to climb out of the arroyo just before
reaching the pinnacle he had earlier chosen and soon found
himself confronted by soldiers, two with leveled M16s, the third
with a rocket launcher. He halted the truck and raised both
hands to the top of the steering wheel. One of the soldiers, a
corporal by his stripes, lowered his weapon and stepped up to the
side of the truck. He snarled, "Where the hell do you think
you're going?"
Del's wristwatch showed three minutes, 22 seconds elapsed. He
snarled back, "To see whoever's in charge of this noisy outfit."
The corporal unhooked a tiny radio from his belt. "Charlie One,
this is Charlie 17."
"Go ahead, Charlie 17."
"The hermit's here in his truck. Wants to see the commander."
"Standby."
A moment later a different voice, almost familiar to Del, spoke
on the radio. "Inspect that truck, soldier, and tell me what you
find."
"Yes, sir." To Del he ordered, "Turn it off and step out."
Del obeyed, standing to one side under the corporal's only
slightly miss-aimed weapon while the other two went through the
vehicle minutely, even looking under the hood. One fumbled in
the box on the front seat, sniffed the wrapped cheese, then
raised the mason jar, unscrewed the lid and drew back quickly.
"Dammit," Del complained, "don't spill that in the truck!"
"What is it?" asked the corporal.
"Bleach," retorted the soldier, screwing the lid back on. "He's
got dirty underclothes, soap powder, this bleach and a cheese
snack in the box. Them tools and stuff was here when we checked
it yesterday."
The corporal reported that almost word-for-word to Charlie One,
who replied, "All right, send Barkowitz to ride shotgun and let
him come through to headquarters."
A soldier, presumably Barkowitz, moved the box from front to back
and took its place on the seat while Del reboarded and started
the engine. "Take it real easy," the soldier directed. "Pull
straight ahead and stop in front of the biggest tent."
Del drove hardly above walking speed but proceeded deliberately
past the largest tent and swung to the left.
"What the hell are you doing?" demanded the soldier. "I told
you --"
"Turning around, if you don't mind."
The man subsided, glowering. Del brought the truck to a
standstill just in front of the two M16-armed soldiers standing
easy before the tent flaps, obviously stationed there as guards.
He got down from the vehicle at the same time as Barkowitz and
reached over the side to lift out the box of laundry.
"Leave that!" ordered the soldier.
"But that's what I'm here about!" Del countered, lifting it
anyway.
When he turned around, he found himself facing Major Kelland, who
said with heavy irony, "Well, if it isn't our local celebrity!
To what do we owe the honor of this visit, Mr. Forrest?"
The two guards had come to attention, weapons born before them at
present-arms. A man with captain's bars emerged from the tent
behind the major.
Del replied in an angry voice, "I wanted to see the commander.
Yesterday you said he was a colonel. But you'll do, Major.
You're the one whose men busted it."
"The colonel's not here." The major's eyebrows rose. "Busted
what?"
"My cistern. When your boys slammed the cover down yesterday,
they popped out the bung. Now all my water has run out into the
rocks, and it's Friday."
The major showed affront. "I told you to show us how to work it.
So what if it's Friday?'
"Wash day, dammit. I'm out of clean underwear and it's your
fault."
"You're what?"
"How about giving me some water so I can wash out my underwear?"
The major drew a deep breath and shook his head. He said in a
reasonable tone, "Mr. Forrest, this is the U. S. Army Special
Forces, not a laundry service."
"I'm not asking you to *wash* the clothes. Just give me some
water. Otherwise I'm going to sue the hell out of the
government. Martial law over one man! That's the most
asinine thing I ever heard."
"How much water do you want?"
"Oh, a gallon or so." He pointed to the back of the truck.
"That foot tub full."
"And that's what you came here for?"
"No, Major. I came here because the army's not very bright,
smashing a cistern because somebody might be hiding in it. You
can believe *I* would've shot anybody that fouled my water!"
The major sighed. "Pvt. Barkowitz!"
The shot-gun rider snapped to attention. "Here, sir."
"Take Mr. Forrest's foot tub to the water bladder and fill it
up."
"Yes, sir!"
As the soldier took down the tub, Del called, "About half full!"
The major studied Del thoughtfully. "Out of water, are you?
What're you going to do next week?"
Del said airily, "I've got enough beer to last the next two
chapters, then I have to go to town anyway."
"But you couldn't wait for clean underwear?"
Del stared the man in the eye. "Maybe I could. But you people
interfered. If you won't trust me as far as you can throw me,
why should I take any crap off you?"
He reached into the box, took out the newsprint wrapped ball,
gouged out a yellow chunk and popped it into his mouth. "Want
some cheese? Pretty good stuff. My Aunt Minnie sends it to me
from Wisconsin."
The major made a face. "No, thank you, Mr. Forrest. If this is
all you need, you can go home when the soldier returns. But make
yourself available. There's a good chance we'll want to talk to
you again later today."
A humvee drove up behind the truck and a clearly annoyed
lieutenant hopped out, a clipboard in one hand. "What the hell
is this civilian vehicle doing -- Oh! Hello, Major!" The man
came to attention and saluted. "Lt. Harding reporting, sir, with
the manufacturer's data sheets."
The major returned the salute. "Come on in and let's go over
them. Forrest, move your truck out of the way."
Del started up the truck and pulled it away to the side where an
already-spotted 55 gallon drum served as the typical military
trash can. He killed the engine, stepped back out and let down
the tail gate. Barkowitz was approaching with the obviously
heavier foot tub held out before him.
"Right here," Del instructed, pointing to the middle of the tail
gate. The soldier plopped his burden down with a metallic
rattle. Water splashed out around it.
"Take it easy!" Del cried.
Barkowitz looked hastily around. No one was within earshot. He
said in a fierce but low voice, "You old son of a bitch, next
time get your own water!"
"Take that up with the major," advised Del serenely, dumping
underclothing and soap powder into the tub. He set the wrapped
cheese beside the tub and took up the jar of bleach.
"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Barkowitz.
"My laundry."
"You can't do that here!"
Del sighed patiently while uncapping the bleach. "Gotta do it
here. No way I could transport a foot tub of water back to my
cabin without spilling it all."
"I suppose you want to hang it out to dry here, too. Hey! You
clumsy old fart ..."
Somehow Del had stumbled and inadvertently poured almost the
entirety of the quart of bleach from the wide-mouthed mason jar
over the wadded paper and cheese. "God damn it all to hell!" he
thundered. "Look what you made me do!"
"I what?"
"Now I'm out of bleach and my cheese snack is ruined, too!" He
glanced surreptitiously at his wrist -- ten seconds before the
minute -- as he sat the foot tub off onto the ground. He took up
the soaked paper and cheese gingerly and tossed it into the
nearby trash drum. Was it only his imagination or was the wad
already warmer?
"How about guarding this," he told the open-mouthed soldier,
"while I go get some more bleach?"
Without waiting for an answer, he jumped into the cab and
restarted the engine just as Barkowitz jerked open the passenger
door and took his own seat. "If you leave now," the man yelled,
"you ain't getting back in here."
"I wouldn't bet on it, Pvt. Barkowitz."
The truck lurched ahead. The soldier braced himself between seat
and dashboard. "What the hell? Slow down!"
15 seconds after the minute. Del slowed a little. Shortly he
slammed to a stop where the corporal stood guard over the trail.
"Get out!" he commanded.
Barkowitz was glaring. "Something funny's going on here!"
"Want to go home with me?" asked Del. "I'll give you a cold
beer."
"You old bastard, get going, then." Barkowitz jumped out of the
truck and slammed the door.
Del stepped on the gas and darted ahead. The corporal had raised
the muzzle of his weapon but held his fire. 40 seconds after the
minute. In the side mirror Del saw Barkowitz reporting to the
corporal, pointing back toward headquarters and toward the
speedily departing truck.
Then he was down in the arroyo and hunched over the wheel,
driving faster than he had ever dared before. Clang! He
sideswiped a boulder and heard the right rear tire rubbing on the
bent fender -- bad news if it blew out. He would just have to
keep going, whatever happened. He whipped the wheel around to
avoid another looming boulder. Too late! Another clang
announced his contact with it. Briefly the orange rock filled
his driver's window. His side mirror was gone when the window
cleared. The breeze of his passage blew the dust out of the cab.
He drove madly on and on, concentrating all his faculties on the
hazardous track. One minute and 30 seconds. The irony of his
position assailed him again. All this predicated on the woman's
tale -- what if she was full of shit? But the NSA believed her,
believed at least that she was a terrible threat. Or did they?
Was she good enough to fool him with faked NSA messages? Had she
actually hacked into a top secret NSA computer? Named
"Double-oh-seven?" How unlikely could something become before
the mass of bullshit was self-evidently valid? Didn't Dr.
Goebbels say, "The bigger the lie, the truer it seems" -- or
something like that?
But why would she go to such trouble? And why was the *army*
searching for her under martial law, presumably at the direct
orders of the president, unless she was important as she claimed?
Well, now was not the time to let doubts rule. At two minutes
and 50 seconds, he rose out of the arroyo onto the trail around
his hill. Directly in front of him, hardly 100 feet up, hovered
a helicopter.
Del grinned. "Does my dust trail worry you, pal? Gonna blow me
away?"
Five minutes, she had said, then admitted it was only an
estimate. How fast would time pass for a woman waiting
lovestruck on the phone while the admitted light of her life
conducted an impromptu scientific experiment? He doubted if even
another woman could say.
The truck rattled and bounced wildly. The rubbing tire screamed
against the bent fender. In the vibrating internal mirror he
caught glimpses of the military encampment behind him. It showed
no evidence of excitement, but why should it? He had only left
it his laundry.
His cabin came into view up the steep trail ahead. He reached
the shelf, slowed and turned off. This was a hillside shoulder
that he had driven before. It wound slowly around, first
exposing more of itself to the encampment site, gradually
disappearing behind the hill. Del glanced at his watch as rock
rose at last in the mirror to block his view of the encampment.
Four minutes!
He drove another 200 yards to the first area clear of large
boulders above it and stopped the truck, setting the parking
brake but leaving it in neutral. Again the helicopter appeared
above him, turned to face in his direction. He debated staying
in the truck. He remembered reading once that automobile users
expecting nuclear attack should roll their windows down and stay
below dashboard level. He shook his head and got out of it. Now
he debated whether to crouch on the hillside or crawl under the
vehicle.
Whop-whop-whop! Above him the helicopter moved to one side, the
better to see what he was doing. It's heavy machine guns were
trained on him. Del sat down on the hillside just above the
truck and wrapped his knees in his arms.
He couldn't resist extending his upthrust middle finger toward
the hovering machine, which immediately dropped lower. Through
the clear canopy he could see the pilot's lips, tiny with
distance, moving as he reported into his helmet-mounted
microphone. "The old bastard just threw me the bird." Del
wondered if he had gone too far. Would the thing come to earth?
At this point the slope of the ground was about ten degrees;
probably the chopper could land if the man wished. Was it
already low enough for the hill to shield it?
That question was answered. Suddenly the helicopter grew bright,
then brighter still, forming indelible images on Del's retinas.
The hills beyond brightened also, though not to the same degree.
The machine had a moment to swoop upward and away -- the wrong
response -- before it became bright as the morning sun. Del
shrank into himself, heart in his throat.
The hill heaved mightily. The truck rose into the air far enough
for him to see daylight below its wheels, then settled back,
bouncing, farther down the slope. Del realized that he was
himself air born for a second before he landed painfully
spread-eagled on the rock.
The sound, at first a rumble that seemed to come from the bowels
of the earth, grew louder and louder over a period of several
seconds until it peaked upon his body as a palpable blow. It
subsided slowly, rolling like thunder, the worst thunderclap he
had ever heard, setting his ears to ringing as from a pistol
shot.
At least the earth had heaved only the one time. But it was
enough to send a rock larger than himself rolling down the hill
on his right. Another went bouncing along on his left, followed
by two others. Shaking his head dizzily, he got to his feet and
staggered toward the truck. Above him the helicopter was
descending in flames. He had only a single glimpse of it before
it passed behind the slope of the hill, trailing tattered black
smoke. Behind him a huge roiling cloud, gray with black streaks,
was rising above his side of the hill.
The truck, battered from his wild flight, seemed otherwise
intact. Almost. The rear window was gone, though curiously the
previously broken windshield had survived. Had it been able to
flex just enough? The right rear tire had not blown, though much
of the outside tread had been scraped away. The passenger door
was inoperable, handle smashed against a boulder during his
escape. He went around to the driver's side and was just
fetching his crowbar from beneath the seat when something cracked
loudly right behind him.
He spun around and saw nothing at first except that the black
cloud was spreading toward him. Then something large whizzed to
earth off to his right. Almost immediately rocks and stones of
all sizes began to rain around him, some smoking with heat. One
stung his arm, actually tearing his sleeve. They were falling
like bullets! He dived into the truck cab, pulling the door
closed behind him, wishing he had thought to dive *under* the
truck. He wrapped his head in his arms and resolved to wait it
out.
The truck was struck clangingly several times, two or three blows
enough to rock it back and forth, but none sufficient to smash
it. Several pieces of rock bounced into the cab through the open
windows, one numbing his shoulder. One actually penetrated the
roof and lay smoking, the size of a hen's egg, on the seat beside
him. He burned his fingers throwing it out. Remarkably nothing
struck the windshield with enough force to shatter it.
The deadly rain did not long endure. As it lifted Del took the
crowbar around to the right rear and pried the fender away from
the tire. He returned to the cab, restoring the tool to its
usual place, and brushed the particles of glass from the rear
window out of the seat. Crossing his fingers, he tried the
starter with immediate success.
By backing and filling, he maneuvered the truck again onto the
shoulder and drove cautiously back toward the trail to his cabin.
He had not reached it, however, before the cloud descended and
enveloped him. At such intimacy it was gray, not black, and
gritty like blown sand with the odor of burnt iron. He stopped,
slitting his eyes and holding his breath. He reached through the
back window and found the blanket that had once wrapped Tessy.
It smelled of vomit, but breathing through it was infinitely
preferable to taking a lung full of iron grit.
He wanted to keep moving but had to remain standing. Pitch
darkness settled over him. He could not even see the dashboard
instruments or the steering wheel. He killed the engine by
feeling for his toggle switch. No sense letting it try to
breathe this stuff, too.
He waited. Had there been a breeze this morning? That was one
of the saving graces of high desert living: almost always there
was a breeze, other than sundown and sunup. Let's see. If this
cloud was, say, three miles across and the breeze was blowing at
ten miles per hour, how long would it take to clear out? Del
imagined a blackboard in his head and wrote the figures on it in
red chalk. His answer was 18 minutes. He resolved to wait
stoically.
Ah, but the typical wind was from the west, and the explosion had
been almost due north of his present position. The cloud began
to lighten even as that thought crossed his mind. He was located
on its southern edge, where he must endure it only briefly. It
lifted rather quickly. He felt the welcome breeze on his cheek
through the open driver's window.
When he could see the path, now distinctly paler, far less orange
than it had been, he restarted the truck and drove slowly along
over the shoulder of the hill. In the mirror he could see that
his passage was kicking up far more dust than usual, and this
dust was gray instead of the usual tan to orange.
The dark cloud above him was definitely drifting to the east,
much of it hidden now behind the summit of his own hill. Briefly
he wondered, Does a nuclear explosion affect the ownership of
land, assuming the owner lives through it? But then he rounded a
boulder and at last saw the site of the military encampment.
The past site, that is. Now the landscape was changed.
Pinnacles of rock had been knocked down and a wide but shallow
crater lay smoking in the middle of the space. Of tents, neatly
arrayed helicopters ... and men, there was no sign. Smoke rose
from several places, however, perhaps the remains of equipment,
perhaps only the places where heated rocks had fallen back to
earth. The severed aircraft tail section, previously visible
from this vantage, was gone. Whereas before this had been the
badlands, now it looked worse, as if a childish god had vented
his spite upon it.
Del continued around the shoulder, looking for the landmark rock
formations that would tell him he was on the trail to the peak,
but his eyes strayed again and again to the spectacle across the
valley. All that from maybe three ounces of cheese, a fraction
of an ounce of newsprint and a few more ounces of bleach? The
energy released must have been a great many kilotons, as nuclear
explosions are measured, to affect a dry rock landscape so
severely. Surely the catalyst must have fused other materials
than just those three to obtain this result. Well, why not? The
operative word, after all, was *catalyst*. Perhaps the real
marvel lay in its limitation -- that the entire Earth had not
participated in the chain reaction. Somebody ought to study the
hell out of this thing!
He found his trail, but when he turned the truck to climb it, he
stared in shock. His cabin was gone as if it never existed,
along with his solar generator and the parabolic arrays on the
peak. From this point, half-way up the hill, all evidence of
human occupancy seemed cleaned away. He was looking at bare
rock, more gray than orange now.
He ground along up the slope in low gear. He remembered well how
far from the summit his cabin had stood and believed that he
could recognize the spot when he reached it. He would have
driven past it, however, except for one curious effect. As he
neared the top he saw beside the trail an unusual spot of
brightness that grew steadily larger. He stopped the truck, got
down and stood for a moment before he understood. The breeze,
stronger here at the greater height, was blowing away the fine
gray grit from the explosion -- and exposing the steel shelter
roof that had underlain the wooden floor of his cabin. The
nuclear blast and fireball had indeed cleaned everything off the
near side of this hill, including the paint that had originally
coated this steel roof.
As he watched the last of the grit departed, leaving the entire
rectangular plate visible. He took the crowbar from under the
driver's seat and located the blast hatch, which obviously Tessy
had succeeded in closing. He struck it in the agree-upon signal:
three quick bangs, three slow ones and three more quick ones:
SOS in Morse.
He waited. He had raised the tool to strike again when the hatch
dropped away into a dark interior.
"Tessy!" he called, unable to wait longer. "Are you safe?"
Her head and shoulders rose out of the darkness. "Oh, yes, Del,
but you won't believe --" She had shielded her eyes from the
sunlight. Her voice died away and her eyes widened incredulously
when they rested on him, again after a quick glance around before
returning. "Oh, my god, my darling, are *you* all right?"
He grasped her armpits and lifted her bodily out upon the steel.
Her mouth sought his but he would not permit it to linger.
"We've got to get moving, Tessy, before the air force gets here.
You know they've detected that explosion. Quick, you'll have to
get into the truck on my side."
He paused only long enough to close the blast hatch. She allowed
him to pull her toward the vehicle, which was far more battered
now than she remembered it. "My god, Del!"
"It still runs, believe it or not! Here, put this blanket around
you in case I didn't get all the glass out of the seat. Better
fasten your seat belt. This may be a rough ride until we get out
of this valley."
"God, what a huge cloud!"
"Yes. That's your famous mushroom cloud from underneath."
As he turned the truck around, she got her first good look at the
military site she had seen only from a window of his vanished
cabin. "Oh, god, Del, it's all gone!"
"Everything human around here is all gone, Tessy, except us --
and we're leaving!"
He descended the hill at a much faster pace, leaving a huge gray
rooster tail behind him. Despite the bouncing of the vehicle,
the woman released her seat belt and pressed herself against his
side, one arm around his neck, the other over the back of the
seat.
"It really worked!" she exclaimed loud enough to be heard over
the rush of their passage.
He laughed and called, "Are you saying you didn't believe it
either?"
"Well, it was just so preposterous! My god, Del, those messages
I left in Double-oh-seven!"
"What about them?"
"If they get released, they really will destroy this country --
maybe the whole world."
"Well, you gave us a week, didn't you?"
"Yes. One week. Oh, god, Del, please get us to a computer
soon!"
END
Copyright (C) July, 2000, Kellis
kellis@dhp.com
Stories gratis at http://www.dhp.com/files/Authors/kellis/www
--
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+