Duet
                                By Tom Gordon

     A red disc still blazed over the green expanse of the park, eclipsed
partially by a near-skeletal semicircle of technology, floating nearly a
mile away, over the western river of the world's largest city, New York.
Framing her hidden garden were a dense ring of formidable structures; pink,
illuminated granite and piercing orange streams and squares of reflective
ice that were their windows: the physical manifestations of human ingenuity,
residing peacefully with the unadorned fauna of Central Park. In the heart
of this expanse, adjacent to one of its winding roads, perched upon a
metallic bench, sat a man, hunched forward, hands clasped in contemplation.
He was thin and wiry, the long lines of his body were carried further by the
mild platinum-colored pinstripe of his jacket and plastic body armor. He was
extremely pale-complexioned, and more sculptural than real, as if the
features of his face and neck were not living matter, but the overly
stylized, incomplete preliminary model of a greater work of art, roughly
carved in white marble or tightly-packed snow. Straight blonde hair poured
down along both sides of his cubistic, broad countenance and partially over
one of his eyes, which stared out into the descending sun with shocking
blueness, like chunks of sky themselves. But they did not possess that same
emptiness; behind them lay the knowledge that only came perhaps once every
century: His name was Zebadiah Cochrane, president of Cochrane Utilities.
     He was an inventor years ago; his tireless work had recently advanced
him to the unofficial rank of industrialist; though that title held even
less prestige and earned him deeper hatred. That progression would have been
considered by others to be a demotion in fact. But he did not. Zebadiah
Cochrane still remembered his tiny laboratory of two decades earlier, where
he toiled in near-starvation for nearly ten years before the Great
Breakthrough poked out at him. Then the subsequent five years thereafter,
when varied forces had allied against him and his creation, desperately
determined to stave off the advance of innovation; hysterically hellbent on
preserving the established way of things. The eclipsed sun stared back at
him as a reaffirmation of that particular battle's victor. Another stared
back as well; his trusted bodyguard, posted yards away, ensuring his
friend's safety.
     Red light had indeed fallen low, the skyscrapers had channeled the
sunset glow into long blocks of vertical shafts, playing over Central park
like a huge upturned Venetian blind. A figure appeared on the winding,
tree-lined road where Cochrane sat; it was wrapped in a thick black coat and
cloak, hiding the features of its owner's face, like the dreaded literary
manifestations of Death that prevailed a century ago. The bodyguard scoped
the passerby before Cochrane did; he had spoken briefly into a handphone,
and within a hundred-meter perimeter there emerged a hidden army of
sharpshooters and armed individuals draped in camocloth, their bodies
blending fluently with the greenish-red shapes of the darkening park.
     This black figure set down beside Cochrane, the dark bulk of fabric a
visible contrast with his pale skin, hair and light-gray armored suit.
     "Zeb." The voice coming from the black cloak was distinctively
feminine, somewhat husky, but also timid in its nervous wavering, as if her
one word were dangerously close to a question. He did not look at her,
instead he stared ahead.
     "What do you want." His sentence was not worded as a question.
     A gloved hand emerged from the dark wrapping of fabric, and brought
down the hood, revealing a beautiful woman's face. Her physical attributes
were the complete reverse of Cochrane's. Whereas his theme was a basic
composition of hard, raw angles, hers was comprised of soft, undulating
curves; delicate and full all at once; manifest most prominently in the
thick, almost swollen lips, the slightly upturned ovals of her eyes and the
warm, dark pupils. Her hair was jet black, and tied back into a bun, and her
skin was color of rich caramel, only serving to further reinforce the
continuing visual contrast already apparent in her dark attire.
     "I.. I just thought we might talk." She leaned inward, toward him, as
the introduction to an embrace. He did not move.
     "What am I supposed to say to you?"
     "That you're glad to see me, that I'm alive after all." She grinned.
     He turned to look into her, and something crumbled in his hardened,
chiseled face that evoked warmth. He smiled as well; too broadly, suddenly.
     "I am glad. You know I'm glad to see you. I thought you had- I had my
people scouring the West Coast, trying to find evidence that you survived
the invasion, and... they all came back," the smile shifted into an angry,
tortured frown, "empty-handed."
     "Oh, God, Zebbie, I'm sorry." The woman put a gloved hand upon his
twisting face, and cradled his head in her arms. "It was the only way,
believe me." She brought her lips to his cheek. "After they struck the
airport, there was no time," he brought his own lips to hers, kissed,
running his fingers through her hair, "and we had to flee to Aztlan and lay
low; the damn National Guard still wants us-"
     He took her hand, pried it away, and stared directly at her, shaking
his head in disbelief. "Oh, please, no, not now. Not now-"
     "What-what's that matter?"
     "You're still saying that, after everything. Everything that's
happened."
     "What? What am I saying?"
     "'We.' 'Us.' Oh, please tell me it isn't so..."
     "What can it matter, Zeb? My struggle goes on. But we'll never be what
we once were; we can still coexist-"
     He pushed her away in fury, teeth clenched, blood flooding over the
white skin. "Goddamn you, I don't want to hear it! Christ Almighty, what
will it take?!"
     "What's the matter?" The voice was frightened.
     "You haven't given it up, have you?" Cochrane shouted. "Have you?!"
     "No. My people need me. The East Coast-"
     "Oh, Jesus Christ." Cochrane was pacing over the blacktop, hands to his
face, tearing through his hair. "Don't you understand at all? It's all over.
OVER!"
     She stared up at him in supposed disbelief. He got down in front of
her, on his knees, gripped her arms with his vein-laden hands. "Look, I can
help you now," he pleaded. "You don't need.. this.. anymore. I've got money,
and friends, and contacts. I-I'll help you build a new life, one where you
can be free of this nightmare you've been in for so long... It's a big city;
we can live together if that's what you want. Remember your writing? Your
art? Remember all those things we told each other we'd do when we got older?
You can still do that, you can still do it all... if you'll just..."
     "No," she interrupted, angrily. "I won't 'let' you. I've decided long
ago. I'm not a child, Zebadiah. I value things much more profound and more
important than the materialistic ones you do. My personal happiness, or
unhappiness, is inconsequential as far as I'm concerned. Sometimes
sacrificing selfish desires is necessary for the greater good. And there is
no greater good than a clean world our children can live in in peace and
harmony. I wish I could tell you than I'm tempted to accept your offer to
'liberate' me, but in truth I'm just offended. I'm not the slave. You are.
To greed and profit. To the Corporate State. To the WhiMaBou."
     "If you're so concerned about your precious world,"he implored, "then
you should quit. The world thinks you're dead. Your martyrdom'll keep your
'struggle' burning for at least another fifty years, much better than if you
were idling in some prison-"
     "It's not that simple. My brothers and sisters still need my guidance."
     "It's the other way around. You want to know the truth? I think you're
scared. To be alone and on your own. You've spent so many years ordering
troops and manipulating people that you've forgotten about yourself, how you
were before you got caught up in this bullshit-"
     "Go to hell, Zeb."
     Cochrane flipped out a small card; it was a voice-corder digital
device, used decades earlier, for audio-recording purposes. He pointed it at
the cloak, and pushed its button.
     "-but most people are idiots, so it's like what Hitler said; if you
tell a big enough lie, people will believe it. All it takes a single loud
individual, voicing with conviction, and the masses'll follow and obey. But
the objective is not as important so much as being the one leading the
idiots to achieve your own personal whims. With followers comes power-"
Cochrane switched off the recording.
     "Like it?" he murmured, "That's you talking, twenty years ago, at the
Institute. I must have left it on after a lecture, and it kept going all
day. Imagine my surprise when I dig it up, years later. Kind of interesting
in retrospect, when you think about it." Cochrane stood, flung the
voice-corder at her.
     "Zeb-" He glared at her, the eyes filled with raging blue fire, and
gripped her violently, without any trace of affection. He forced his mouth
against hers, and it was not the expressive gesture of a lover; it was the
impulsive, instinctual assault of an animal attacking prey. She murmured and
succumbed, reciprocating, and thrust her body against his own, as if the
fabric still separating them was of no consequence. Cochrane's hands played
over her lower body, she lifted and bent her left leg high to wrap around
his torso, exposing the caramel flash of her naked thigh, and he grunted.
"No." She insisted, her hands deep inside his suit. He pushed her away.
"NO!"
     They stared at each other, a ghost and a shadow, separated by newly
unoccupied space made more intimate and profound than before.
     "Don't call on me again." Cochrane's voice was a rumble of ice.
     "Please-"
     "I love you. But this has to be the end."
     He walked away, leaving the dark figure to merge with the enclosing
shadow of night. "But I love you too..." she muttered to herself.
     Elsewhere, Cochrane's bodyguard lowered his binoculars, and dabbed
beads of sweat from his forehead, with slight relief. But he wasn't sure if
it was anxiety over Cochrane's safety, or something else.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The words were almost taboo to his sensibilities, he felt the vague
sense of combined embarrassment and paranoia, as if someone were watching
his fingers with disapproving eyes, but nevertheless he persisted, and the
words formed sentences, closing at last his piece for CBN Week in Review:
"...and one should not forget that it was the solitary efforts of individual
minds, toiling as Mr. Cochrane had, that liberated humanity from the
stagnant pool of poverty and squalor. Cochrane-Elevated continues that
trend, and we, as a society, should take note of that."
     Ebenezer Dunhill stared at his laptop's liquid-crystal screen, an IBM
clone-museum piece, and folded his arms with uncertain victory. He was less
bothered by the constant banter of trivialities thrown about the newsroom by
his co-workers than by something about the forbidden article he had just
completed. The fact that he was even comfortable enough to write it seemed
to clinch things for him. New York, Dunhill finally decided, had its strong
points; the city was The City, more cohesive and self-contained than the
cancerous schism of forces that continued to exist as Los Angeles, his
former agency posting. There were more restrictions placed upon him before;
he remembered an actual typewritten list of incorrect ideological viewpoints
that his network was forbidden to broadcast to the racially and sexually
preoccupied LA populace. Not that anyone watched very much 'television'
anymore; the Yamanet and Infoway had usurped that particular throne, and
Dunhill had long since accepted the fact that he was toiling in a dying
industry. But look at radio, he thought; that had been around for almost two
centuries now, and it was going as strong as ever. People still wrote books
of the printed kind; there would always be a need for alternative media; and
a need for television. And New York had more subtle, but just as outrageous,
outbursts of eccentricity: Long Island more than made up for Berkeley's
freak show, only in this case he could conceivably put a humorous spin on
their respective events, unlike the grim race riots and MEAM castrations of
his earlier roost. Yes, he could admit that the weather sucked, but there
was truly freedom on the East Coast.
     He cleared his thoughts and called up another incomplete article about
a vicious rash of subway pyromaniacs, struggling not to notice the new
wrinkles that had appeared on his long, emaciated yellow face in the
screen's reflection, the vanishing chin, or the receding line of short
aquamarine dreadlocks, streaked with grey. Suddenly his horn-rimmed glasses
lifted up and over his head.
     "How's it going, Scrooge?" His co-writer and camerawoman, Annie Heller,
smiled at him in an exaggeratedly doofy manner, wearing his old-style
spectacles. "Duhhh. My name's Ebenezer Duhh-hill, I'm special. Duh."
     "Gimme that," Dunhill chuckled. "You're silly." Heller sat down in an
adjacent chair. She had been Dunhill's lone comrade from an earlier Tokyo
post; the two of them were a package deal in the CBN network deal that had
gotten them transplanted to the east; and a perfect complement to his own
human-interest stories. She wore an professional but out-of-date formal
business suit, clinging to her slender body like a coat of brown paint:
totally inappropriate for the laid-back newsroom, but wholely appropriate
with her neatly braided dark brown hair and immaculately clean, pink,
freckled face that made her look like a teenager, not the world-spanning
veteran that she was. In this respect she was also another complement to
Dunhill; his aging neo-grunge fashion sensibilities and Heller's young
conservative fastidiousness marked them as an odd couple, and that faked
'diversity' probably fared in nicely with that same deal.
     "So, Annie. Any word from Mayor Branden on the east side school
privatization?"
     "Nope, his aides are all hush-hush. They told me that there will be a
formal public hearing next Thursday, so you can forget about any exclusives.
The chancellor isn't talking either, though he's probably got more reason;
he's been opposed to the measures from the start, and he doesn't need heat
from the NYCOMA education council."
     "Can't really say I blame him." Dunhill tinkered with his laptop. "I've
been working on an expose on that whole schpiel, on how the privatization'll
leave the poor uninformed and uneducated, but I'm sure the editor's
committee won't let it fly. Stinks of op-ed material, and you know how that
is around here."
     "Oh, you're opposed to it? Yeah, I'm real sure they'll turn it down.
Jackfact." Her voice was embittered, sarcastic. "The tube's the last bastion
of safethink."
     "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
     "Scrooge, this isn't the Yamanet, this is the CBN global news network;
you've worked in California, you must know the deal. Our news is nothing but
opinions and propaganda. But just the appropriate, safe and correct ones,
like yours. The editorial committee has their own particular agenda, and
they do it by stealth, through loaded words and careful slanting." Heller
lit up a Ukiah Gold, catching glares from the other reporters, not
necessarily for the joint's presence. She glared back at them indifferently,
toked, and squeaked, "That's why all the other media have been taking off;
at least they take risks and say something different."
     "Annie, that's a crock. What're you, Oliver Stone? Things like that
just happen by default. Television journalists are like any other
tightly-knit group; after a few years, they begin to inbreed and ditto each
other. That's probably the exact reason why we got hired, to mix it up a
little."
     "Oh, like your 'uneducated poor' article? Sellout. Face it, Scrooge,
TV's going the way of the old newspapers. Remember them? Why do you think
the New York Times published that terrorist's manifesto in the nineties?
'Cause everything that bomber said they were in partial, if not total
agreement with."

     "Gee, thanks a lot, Miss Conspiracy Theorist. I guess they'll let my
Cochrane-El story through, too."
     Heller toked and frowned. "Ah, yes. Zebadiah Cochrane's
chandelier-in-the-sky. I was jogging in the Park before I got here; that
damn thing blocked a real nice sunset. I'll sure envy the residents if the
construction's ever completed. Well, let me judge. Pro or con?"
     "Well, pro, in a way. Actually, I was noticing all the negative
coverage and decided to play devil's advocate. Nyah, nyah." He smiled,
evilly, and made devil's horns with his index fingers.
     "Get thee back, Satan!" She shook her head rapidly, her beaded
ponytails two brown whips. "Fence-straddler. I'd wish you'd make up your
mind about something-" The telephone on Dunhill's desk began to beep
incessantly, and Dunhill leaned over, and picked up the receiver. "City
desk. What can I do you for?"
     "I'd like to speak to Ebenezer Dunhill, please."
     "Yours truly, speaking."
     "You are the same Dunhill from KMLA, in Los Angeles?"
     "Yep, what can I do you for? Got a scoop?" He chewed on a unwrapped,
stale health-soybar.
     "This is Agnes Sinclair, High Priestess of Mother Earth Above Man." The
half-chewed chunk of soy loudly sputtered across Dunhill's desk. Heller's
still-lit joint fell to the carpeted floor. "Like the Phoenix of WhiMaBou
theft-lore, the avengers of Nature have returned to Earth, to educate and
purge the planet of capitalist-rapist-exploiters. I have a public statement
to make. You helped us bring the Word of Gaia to the unenlightened masses
before, you will now do the same to the teeming oppressed of the New York
City slaughterhouse. Prepare to record."
     "Jesus Christ..." Dunhill had nearly fallen back from his chair in
stunned surprise. He hit the record button on the phone, then turned to
Heller in confused terror. "I thought the Feds said she died in the
Sacramento invasion?"
     Heller was white. She shook her head, slowly, as the words of MEAM's
master spewed forth from the receiver, a virus of hateful jargon that still
infected:
     "...Take heed, those who dare to rape Mother Earth again and again with
their engorged Western penises of scientific arrogance: your day is done and
you are finished. Gaia is the way, Gaia is the future, and all who oppose
our glorious vision of pure, preindustrial Nirvana must be destroyed. Glory
to Gaia, glory to the trees and earth and air and water. The Eurocentric
pigpen of New York City has seen fit to pollute her air with dirt and soot
and enslaved bacteria,; now they see fit to fuck the heavens with an
egotist's arrogant vision of ecological exploitation. Take heed,
earth-rapist Zebadiah Cochrane! Take heed, earth-rapers Cochrane Utilities!
The Cochrane-Elevated project is a profound violation of Mother Earth, for
crude profit and blood-money. This will not stand..." There was a click, and
a drone. Dunhill switched off the speaker.
     "Typical MEAM enviro-babble; she must still be alive." Heller muttered,
coldly. "Scrooge, what are we going to do with this?" Dunhill stood from his
chair and closed up his laptop, lost in thought. Terrorists of the
twentieth-century era always claimed responsibility for their atrocities
after committing them: one of the terrible distinctions Mother Earth Above
Man held was taking credit real-time: as the acts were ensuing. This cruel
tactic left the receiver of the threat, always a news bureau reporter, with
both overwhelming helplessness and guilt.
     Dunhill had filled this unenviable role twice, in California. The first
time left him traumatized for months afterward, the second instilled a
permanent, raped numbness in his mind that later contributed to his decision
to move east. Now, he could feel nothing, except the quiet, rageless anger
of the persecuted. He looked to Heller with tired eyes.
     "Get a newschopper. Annie, we're going to Cochrane-El."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The night air was a dense fog of leaping bodies and a patchwork of
tracer fire as the pair of psychedelically-painted Chinooks descended upon
the northeast section of Cochrane-El, their twin rotors a thunderous
cacophony. There was no time for the startled construction crews to sound
off the security alarm; within seconds they were laid upon by hundreds of
angry and trained hands, trained to maim and kill, without question or
remorse, for the good of the planet, for the approval of their leader. The
lights of a third helicopter, a white Huey, rose from the bee's nest of
stars far below; the twinklings of Manhattan. This one did not land, instead
it hovered over the attacking force, while the Chinooks took to the air and
sent the chattering hail of machine-gun fire upon the remaining, retreating
Cochrane employees. Cheers went up through the small army it was assisting.
     "Gaia! Gaia! Mother Earth Above Man!"
     From an observation tower in the central nuclear power plant of the
gargantuan platform, some six hundred meters away from the attack, Zebadiah
Cochrane watched the ensuing battle with binoculars, and, after some length,
pulled the scope away with, nevertheless, rage.
     True, he told himself, he had been expecting the attack for some time;
he knew MEAM's ancient declaration of war on CU as the greatest Corporate
Menace To Earth was no empty threat, not with the organization's burgeoning
membership placed by his own investigative team at a figure of nearly a
hundred thousand, though Psychodynamics, more concerned with fanatical,
self-destructive do-suicides, had been more conservative with their estimate
of less than one thousand, more or less the number involved presently.
Pondering the possibility of removing this same elite tonight did not bring
him any satisfaction.
     He removed an Eve from his leather jacket, and linked up with Cochrane
Elevated Security. Sandra Jarvik, the general manager and eventual mayor of
the community, was there, as he had expected. She started to speak, but
Cochrane cut her off.
     "Northeast sector, right?"
     "Yeah, boss. Guess you can see it from there, huh? We've got the
National Guard on standby with Big Stuff on Spin Control off Block Island
Civil Defense Base, I just talked with General Perry Zane on the satcom,
they're ready to assist if you request it."
     Typical, Cochrane thought. The Federal and NYCOMA government had fought
him and his Elevated Project since the plans were announced, for the
non-reasons Sinclair had expressed, and they were gullible enough to
believe. Now that the MEAMies had popped up on the East Coast, they were
going to try to buddy up to him with a few vaporators? Politics.
     "Yeah. What do you think?" Jarvik smiled, slightly. "Didn't the cameras
tell you anything?"
     "Standard fuzzbox scenario. The Chinooks are Kurdish military selloffs,
but armed to the teeth. Guess Clyde was right about that Baghdad deal. But
the Huey's just a transport. We've got the choppers on emps, though. Ready
and willing."
     "Wipe the Chinooks. The Huey's carrying Agnes Sinclair."
     "No shit?"
     "No shit. MEAM is nothing without symbolism; they have no substance. A
white Huey? Dove of peace, get it? Who else would be riding inside? After
the California Liberation, you can bet she's probably got some time on her
hands." He did not elaborate further on this theory; it was one that had
kept him in an insomniac state since the botched Mother Earth Above Man
takeover in Sacramento. From the battle site came a thunderous explosion,
illuminating the low overhanging clouds above and the alabaster belly of the
Huey. Cochrane scanned with his binos, then returned to the Eve. "Looks like
they fell for the dummy cycler tanks. Way to go, Hank." A reassuring sign;
Cameron had apparently done a good job handling internal security and
decentralizing the power grid; moving the cycler tanks into the structure
and compensating power with small, portable electrical generators had done
the trick. MEAM's well-documented talent for overriding defenses at ECU
collectors and factories seemed noticeably absent this time around. But MEAM
was already on the platform; what to do now? "How the hell are we going to
handle ground forces?"
     Jarvik looked downward, worriedly. "They caught us at a bad time, we're
seriously undermanned, and most were working Northeast at the time." Or
maybe not, Cochrane noted to himself. An employee leak, probably. Well, what
the hell was he supposed to do? Monitor the off-hour activities of every
worker in his business, and have everyone from the Civil Liberties Union to
the AFL-CIO sue him into bankruptcy? Sandra continued, "We've got enough
firearms to hold off the siege, but not enough hands. They'll overrun the
power station in a little over an hour, CEM says, given the numbers. Unless
you want to call in the Guard, and I don't think you want to do that."
     Damn right. Those vaporators were an empty gesture, anyhow, and Zane
had to know it. With the ensuing fire on hand, the flammable neuroaerosol
would act more like napalm; nuking the MEAMies to be sure, but also taking
out a good chunk of Cochrane-El in the process, much to their posthumous
delight. Conventional ground combat rules could not apply with a floating
Elevated, high above the largest city in the world. Cochrane clenched his
teeth, and glanced at the distant red tentacle of smoke overhanging the
northeast. Agnes had fixed things for sure, this time. "Vehicles on hand?"
     "Mostly heavy constructors. They might do well for a barricade. And
fire trucks; we got that shipped last night for the residential areas. Those
water cannons'll do for some crowd control, but you know our water
situation."
     "Jesus Christ," Zebadiah muttered in frustration. "Goddamn it, where
the hell was NYPD-" He stopped, and forced the anger out of his mind.
"-Sorry Sand, I lost it. Skip it, we're in a crisis sitch now. Call in the
constructors and wipe all the twirlies, including Sinclair's: we'll add some
symbolism of our own; that may disrupt their morale a little, if they even
think at all. You did the best you could; all we can do now is wait it out.
Call Manhattan and try to get some assistance from SkyCorps or somewhere, I
don't know anymore. Cochrane out."
     "Sorry, boss." Her face reflected his tortured own as she blinked off
the Eve's communications window. He switched into a financial program.
     How much could I stand to lose here? Cochrane calculated, trying to
keep panic from his thought processes. The unique nature of his Elevated
project, as artificial real estate, constituted a legal nightmare; tenants
and businesses that put up money for space on the platform would have to be
compensated at once, and construction firms paid off; insurance would cover
that much, at least. The investors! The investors... Oh, Jesus Christ
almighty, it took ten years of effort just to win over one of them. And why
are you being so optimistic? You've got an operating nuclear power plant and
millions of gallons of C-Fluid inside the repulsors keeping the thing aloft.
What if it crashes into the Hudson? What if there is a leak-
     He stopped, and backed up.
     The C-Fluid. Oh, Zeb, what is your brain up to now...
     Could it be done?
     No time like the present. He switched back to Sandra. "Belay that,
Sand. Lightning has struck..."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The Valdez Tower rose from Hell's Kitchen like a linked bridge between
the earth and the sky; the latter caught by the thousand shafts of mirrored
glass, the former retained in the alternating chromore between these same
shafts. At three-fifths of a mile high, it was easily the largest structure
in the city and the world. The Tower was almost a separate city: housed
within were the regional headquarters of multiple multinational
corporations, a thousand television, radio and net stations, several
thousand varied commercial and industrial businesses, a quarter of a million
tenants, theaters, casinos, hotels, restaurants, a sports stadium, a train
and subway station, and an small airport, operating from the sharply slanted
roof. This was the final destination for Dunhill and Heller; they had just
cleared the one-hundred thirty-story distance between the airport and CBN's
monolithic, groundside offices in the Main Concourse, but the means to that
end had left them shaken and slightly nauseous; they had taken the
much-loathed bullet-tube to save time.
     "I hope I don't have to tell you that I really don't want to do that
again," Heller growled, her face pale and sheened over with sweat.
     "Yeah, well, now we both know why everybody hates 'em. But that was
kind of like going to the Moon again. We caught at least five gees in that
thing." They stepped onto the airport escalator. "Of course, acceleration
wasn't really the worst part. The worst was being weightless. Free fall.
We'll take it back down afterward and then you'll puke something quick."
     Cycling stairsteps lifted them higher and higher; through an adjacent
grid of dense glass, they could see the stretch of the airport's concrete,
breathtakingly superimposed with the twin shafts of the recently-restored
World Trade Center; two columns laced over with thousands of tiny flecks of
light resonating in the darkening indigo of advancing evening. The escalator
flattened out as a slidewalk; pulling Dunhill and Heller outside the Tower's
superstructure and onto the exposed roof, where they were met by a gust of
cold, thin air and deadening silence. An army of red and green lights
greeted them as well; mostly helicopters and small aircraft. A Lockheed jet
silently lifted from the short runway, just narrowly missing the landing
strip's dropoff; the lack of any retort indicating the presence of expensive
sonic dampeners; shielding the Valdez' inhabitants from the noisy byproducts
of a working airport. The slidewalk did the work for them in navigating the
crowded airfield; a grey Hughes-Sikorsky emblazoned with the familiar CBN
logo, rotors turning and lights blinking, had rolled into view. Then the
strip ceased, planting them firmly upon the concrete deck. The starboard
hatch of the helicopter opened, and they stepped inside the cabin. Heller
opened her camera case, and removed her vidcorder.
     "Scrooge, what're we going to accomplish here? By the time we get to
Cochrane-El, the MEAMies'll have already done their dirty work." Her voice
approached screaming level; the dampeners had made it impossible to
communicate otherwise.
     "Maybe not. There's no way to tell. But Sinclair and her goons have
been operating in California for ten years, and in all that time no one was
able to catch her in the act."
     "Well, hard luck."
     "I don't think so. California had an taxspend initiative to supply
households with state-bought camcorders before MEAM burst onto the scene;
some sociologist forced it through on some police brutality premise. Now,
are you going to tell me that with all those cameras out there, no one was
able to catch MEAM perpetrating?"
     "Yeah, well, I'm inclined to think that MEAM was tolerated precisely
because no one witnessed their handiwork first-hand, like I did. Sure, they
saw videoed ECU wreckage and burned and castrated bodies, but somehow it
didn't stick in the public's mind that nice little earth-lovers were capable
of such things. Some of the Angelenos still think it's an
anti-environmentalist conspiracy, staged to keep the Old Deal going."
     "That's precisely why we're going to cover whatever Sinclair's
planning. Annie, maybe California's a lost cause, but New York is still
reserving judgment. Strap in."
     The helicopter lifted quietly, with only the changing view outside of
the window to indicate movement inside the cabin, and banked left, replacing
the World Trade Center with sprawling downtown Manhattan, and then the
Hudson River, accompanied with the airborne black shell of Cochrane-El. A
red light went up through the hovering half-dome, exposing the interior
architecture like an X-ray; then, at the exact same time, the helicopter's
soft, cotton-muffled silence was wracked with a cacophony of sound, as it
penetrated the rim of the dampening field. Dunhill's ears popped, but he
wasn't sure if it was the sudden onslaught of ambient sound or an explosion
taking place on Cochrane-El.

     Agnes Sinclair suspended herself outside the Huey, one foot against the
landing rail, one hand grasping a handle mounted into the bleached metal
hull, the other in a open gesture of communion to her army of rainbow-hued
soldiers far below. She wore an elegant white cotton robe, emblazoned with
the blue globe cross-and-sickle insignia of MEAM, that emphasized the
overhang of untassled long black hair, and the warm, dark eyes. The thin
fabric, pressing against her in the acceleration, similarly defined the
large, voluptuous curves of her body, an appearance that evoked the same
Earth Mother worshipped by her organization. A cry went up through the crowd
as the aircraft dipped lower to strafe its length. They did not see the
harness beneath the dress, or its attached steel tether to ensure her
safety.
     She smiled at her minions, in feigned pleasure, in secret contempt. But
in that smile they saw belonging, security, and it was something that
nevertheless pleased her; the way they took her every minor gesture as
occurrences of religious significance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "You've gone completely bonkers. Absolutely nuts," the thin, goateed
man exclaimed. Why not just make a money bonfire and be done with it?"
     "I didn't see you offer any solutions, Hank. Unless you feel like
holding off the horde with one of those relics."
     Zebadiah Cochrane pointed at the small, dusty box of .45 revolvers in
the corner of the firehouse, and the still-smaller box of cartridges. Hank
Cameron, his partner, nodded reluctantly as he hoisted the light generator
onto the chassis of the massive fire truck. "All right. I know. But be sure
to fire the main security supervisor if you pull this cockamamie stunt off.
A thousand gallons of Cochrane-Fluid is pretty damn expensive, and we could
have swung a few electrostatics here and there."
     "Don't tell me about C-Fluid, tough guy. I'm the Mad Scientist. Who
developed it in his basement? I get a special blue-light discount; I created
the stuff. We can always make more. And stockpiling weapons against
terrorists just makes them your master. Besides, we never had the money or
the support. Think about it, Hank, CU hoarding electro-guns? Some watchdog
group'd raise hell and babble about a 'hostile takeover'Êor something."
Cochrane grunted as he hoisted another bag of cement into the truck's
interior. "I just hope this stupid idea works. Where's the access plate?"
     "Right by the hose connection, I parked it as close as I could. See?"
He pointed at a near-invisible plate set into the concrete.
     "Okay, get a weight reading on Big Red here." Zebadiah stepped back,
while Cameron fiddled with a Geiger counter-like electronic device, a mass
evaluator. After a minute, he exclaimed, "Seven point six nine tons. That
may do the trick, Zee."
     "OK, here goes." Cochrane attached a firehose to the truck's storage
tank, opened the nearby valve, walked to the access port in the floor,
flipped up the plate, revealing a combination-security lock fixed to the end
of a pipe. He entered the code, pulled the lever, and the interior of the
uncompleted firehouse was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant purple-white
light, which quickly cut out as Cochrane slammed the other end of the hose
over the pipe. "COUNT!" Three tiny glowing spheres, of the same light,
nevertheless floated past his arm, like miniature incandescent balloons.
They continued to rise higher and higher, before splattering into a neon
puddle upon the ceiling, their light fading into a syrupy darkness, while
gurgling sounds rushed through the suddenly-animated length of the hose,
towards the engine. After several minutes, the truck began to shimmy from
side to side, slightly. Cameron counted off seconds with a wristwatch, while
Cochrane held the hose to the floor, waiting for the moment to close off the
flow.
     "...Fourteen...Fifteen... NOW!"
     Cochrane yanked away the hose and closed the pipe, then pushed the
unattached end of the hose into the ground. The hose oscillated and crawled
wildly like an insane snake, then slowed and stopped. Almost on cue, the
truck's shimmying ceased. Cameron closed the fire engine's valve.
     "Guess that did it. Now we find out who's the better mathematician.
Charge the fluid." The fire truck, in addition to being layered down with
bags of cement, had six light generators mounted around the water cannon,
cannibalized from Cameron's decentralization scheme. A tangle of wires had
strung them together, and a particularly thick cord had been run into
another valve, and closed off in a makeshift-looking mass of molten metal.
Cameron flipped a switch on one of the mounted generators, and a thick
chorus of humming ensued. The fire engine began to shimmy again.
     "Too much juice. Shut one of 'em off." Cochrane indicating, noticing a
growing shadow beneath the lower tires. "We need traction to get this baby
out there." Cameron turned one generator off; the wheels settled to the
ground again.
     "Zee, want me to do a weight reading, to be sure we have enough?"
     Cochrane smiled. "Mass is still constant, Hank. That gizmo just
calculates weight from the mass density reading, and we can't put this thing
on a scale. Here, I'll find out old-style."
     Cochrane walked to the fire truck's rear bumper, and gripped
underneath. The fire truck lifted four feet into the air, with only moderate
effort on his part.
     "Just amazing. I'll never get over it..." Cameron said, incredulous at
the sight.
     "That's future shock for you. I hope those bastards don't get over it,
either." Cochrane remarked. "It's about forty-five, fifty pounds. Keep the
speed below thirty or we'll probably aeroplane." He set the monstrous truck
down. "Let's go."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "-well, until you do have your own citizens up on that magic trick, you
have no sovereign claims. What? Whose authority? The NYCOMA governor himself
says so! So standby and prepare for our helpful assistance! Your tax dollars
at work! Goodbye!" The crotchety old man angrily slammed down the telephone.
     "Self-righteous trollop," General Perry Zane barked, switching off the
satcom link. "Who does she think she is, telling me they'll handle MEAM?
What does she know about countermeasures, or Big Stuff? She have a
data-seance with Saddam Hussein's ghost or something?"Ê
     The question was not addressed to him, but nevertheless Zane's
assistant responded. "It's Zebadiah Cochrane, sir. If you've been scanning
the news, you might notice he's gone to great lengths to ensure his
platform's sovereignty."
     Zane snorted. "Big deal. What's he going to defend his little kingdom
with? Congress has kept me updated on their shipments to and from; something
that liberat PKM forgot to do away with, thank God. Cochrane-El's got jack;
diddly-squat. I'd let those environmentalists have their way on general
principle-"
     "Like you did in Sacramento?"
     Violent thoughts collected in Zane's mind, but his assistant was
looking at him in an innocent, uncomprehending manner, so he gave him the
benefit of the doubt, and ignored the remark. "Later, Ernie. Send the word
out through the tactical group to gear up for a conventional assault, no Big
Stuff, damn them. And get those Apaches on-line, damn it. I want satellites
for this jammie." A huge black man in pilot's fatigues entered the control
room, followed by a younger pilot.
     "What is this?" Zane complained. "I never know what the hell is going
on around here. Who're you?"
     "Commander Lazarus Turtledove, reporting for duty, sir." The softness
of the voice seemed to be at odds with his imposing presence.
     "Jeez." He stared, in spite of military protocol. Turtledove was a
ebony Michelangelo sculpture, a rippling conglomeration of bulging muscles
and prominent veins, fleshy bundled ropes for a neck, and a lower jaw almost
as broad as his shoulders, only barely restrained by the grey Engee uniform.
A ragged combat scar cut down a deep-set vertical path through his
black-brown, almost Cro-Magnon face, leaving its red wake upon his right eye
as well. The mottled pink pupil lent well to this threatening air; he did
not look like a mere soldier of the National Guard, he resembled, rather, a
convicted killer.
     Zane, himself having seen action decades ago in the Balkans, Syria, and
several other domestic and foreign theaters, instinctively knew the signs of
a battle-hardened veteran, and quickly concluded that Turtledove was no
ordinary recruit. "Air Force, Turtledove? Don't recall seeing you before."
     "Negative, sir. Served in Mexico. National Guard; Air Division. Sir."
     "'Air Division'? Must be something new; I damn well wasn't informed. No
surprise and no matter. It'll take time for the Federal morons to get their
act together. Welcome to Block Island Civil Defense Base. We need a vanguard
on Cochrane-El's status, you're it. Who's the other?"
     The other pilot was much smaller and chubbier, with a stripe shaved
down the middle of his short-cropped hair. He had the usual youthful Engee
demeanor: blind eagerness combined with anxiety. With much more of the
latter here, Zane noted. "Uh, Captain Theodore Mao reporting for duty, sir,
but, um-"
     "At ease, Mao," Zane cut his half-gasp off. "I'll discuss your barber's
taste later. You're with Turtledove. Get out to the Apache decks and fly."
     "But, sir-" Mao kept looking at Turtledove with a strange expression.
     "Get going! You're not being paid tax dollars to think." Mao quickly
left the Wardroom, almost pushed out by Turtledove's imposing mass close
behind him.
     "Keep moving."ÊTurtledove droned softly. His face was a cross; a
horizontal slash of a frown cutting over his gargantuan jaw and intersecting
the deep scar.
     Soon, the control room was shaking with the distinctive staccato
vibrations of an helicopter, taking off. Perry Zane looked out his window
and exhaled with relief as the giant metal wasp of an aged Apache assault
copter, spread over with hefty weaponry, lifted and rolled towards the
southern horizon and the northern fringes of Long Island.. He turned away to
stare at a nearby monitor, smiling. "Well," he remarked to his assistant,
"I'm glad we got something done at last! Cochrane'll thank us later, mark my
words."
     His assistant was still looking at the Apache, somberly. "Sir, what
bird is that?"
     "Eh? Who the hell knows?" Zane laughed. "It's an Apache, Ernie. Didn't
they teach you that in kindergarten? Don't worry, MEAM'll take weeks to
pierce that armor, and that gorilla Turtledove doesn't exactly look moist,
either."
     "It may be nothing, sir, but it looks like they took the chopper with
Big Stuff on it; it's got those real big missiles on the racks-"
     "Ah, so what. They're only doing recon and assistance. No big deal."
     "Yes, sir." Zane sat back in his chair and stretched. His assistant
poked at a datatablet, with a worried, clenched brow.
     Over Long Island Sound, inside the Apache, Lazarus Turtledove adjusted
the combat monocle with some impatience; Mao, in the navigator's seat behind
him, kept looking ahead, trembling in fear.
     "Who-who are you? What are you going to do?"
     "That's not your concern, now is it, little man? Suffice it to say I'm
a backup, in case things go wrong in the nest." Turtledove's huge fingers
finally caught the tiny catch, and the monocle finally locked into place
over his left pupil. He grunted. "Just like the damn military to design
everything for one kind of person; my other eye's dominant."
     "Y-you were in... Mexico? I, uh, lived there for a while."
     "Well, more or less," Turtledove fumbled about the cramped cockpit,
decidedly small for someone of his size. "I was helping the rebels stave off
the Yankee imperialists. That's where I got my interesting cosmetic work
done. Shrapnel wound, an old story. Here," He twisted to look behind him.
"help me with this."
     Mao leaned forward, to face three circles; Turtledove's ruined, bulging
eye, the green monocle, and a tiny black-grey ring he could not quite make
out. It was the last thing he saw. Fire spewed from the ring with a
ear-piercing crack; a dark hole appeared on Mao's forehead, behind him, the
navigator's seat was sprayed over with a dark spatter of blood, brains and
skull chips.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     A red truck barreled through the makeshift barricade of construction
scrap with ridiculous ease, its penetration marked by a momentary airborne
path, before settling down a little more slowly than could have been
expected. A low growl went through the collected mob of unkempt MEAM
followers as their eyes surveyed the invading machine; the more intelligent
members had discerned the less well-known but distinctive features of Hank
Cameron behind the engine's wheel, but virtually all had picked out the man
behind the water cannon in the rear as the hated tyrant of Cochrane
Utilities, Zebadiah Cochrane himself. The mob boiled in rage, like metal
filings beneath a passing magnet, then lunged toward the fire truck,
screaming murderous epithets. Cochrane stood defiantly behind the cannon,
waiting until the bulk of the group was in his line-of-sight, then pressed
down upon the plunger.
     The darkened construction site, flared with weak orange fire here and
there, exploded with purple fury as a white streak of fiery lava spouted
from the water cannon's nozzle into the maddened collective, painting it
with an amorphous amoeba of light. Suddenly the assembled force began to
quickly fade, as fire-lit silhouettes began to quickly rise into the air,
the spray of charged Cochrane-Fluid leaving in its wake a thrashing, rising
cloud of startled, levitating fanatics. Cochrane cut off the cannon flow,
and grimly surveyed his handiwork. The air was filled with hundreds of
floating MEAMies, some already a hundred feet above the worksite, marked
with the purple-white mark of C-Fluid upon their soiled clothing or flesh.
The light quickly faded from the cloud. And seconds later, the mob began to
plunge downward, crashing to the platform's concrete in a hideous symphony
of wet squishing sounds, cracking bones and muffled screams. Cochrane's
clenched his teeth, taking in the expected horror as best as he could. Where
a minute before there had been an insane army rushing to annihilate, there
was now only a stacked pyramid of broken, moaning bodies rising from a
growing lake of blood.
     It was the first time he had killed anyone.
     He tried to purge sympathy from his mind. These were angry,
bloodthirsty MEAMies of the worst sort, pure California stock, responsible
for the deaths of thousands in the United States, hellbent on destroying him
and everyone else on Cochrane-El and in Manhattan below, for no valid reason
at all! What else could he have done? But his efforts nevertheless failed.
These people, he decided; they were not evil; they had been misled and
brainwashed by Agnes Sinclair's environmentalist dogma and distorted
science, scapegoating the creative and resourceful as people who would force
their children and grandchildren into imagined slavery. Given the
manipulated data, they nevertheless acted in their own interests, like him.
They were willing to fight and give their lives for the sake of future
generations. And did. However erroneous their motives had been, Cochrane had
to, in the final analysis, credit them with that honorable determination.
     Unlike their contemptible leader, safely tucked away in her Dove of
Peace.
     This is the end, Aggie, he vowed. I swear it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "I guess we're back at Square One again, eh, Zebbie?" Her voice was a
mixed moan and laugh.
     "No, Miss Sinclair," he said quietly. "Not this time, I'm afraid."
     "Heh. Figured as much, but you know it could have... been easy for us
to coexist... in some fashion..."
     "What does that word mean, Ag?"
     "Being here, both of us-" He snorted at this, contemptuously, "-sharing
the same world, at the same time... if not together?"
     "Sharing."
     "Yeah." She saw the rapid curl along the left side of his mouth, and
then understood its significance, the irony of such a concept amidst the
continual ground-shaking concussion blasts and the rattle of chopper blades
and machine guns in the distance. "Oh, yeah, right." She giggled. He did
not.
     "Aggie, I think you've answered yourself."
     "Yes, I suppose so!"
     "But then, what was the question?" Her laugh ceased, the newly soft
features of her face hardened and locked back into the familiar mask of
Mother Earth Above Man's master and messiah. His face had remained the same,
regarding her with curiosity, but little else. Through the shroud of soot
and clothing, both bodies were suddenly rendered taut and poised, as if the
space between Agnes Sinclair and Zebadiah Cochrane were suddenly filled with
an immense magnetic force, requiring both tensile effort and willpower to
resist.
     His eyes caught the sudden mad flash within hers, and then the flames
in the distance froze, crawled at a slower speed. Her semiautomatic lifted,
his hand lashed out, and the two bodies lunged at each other, the limbs lost
in a final blur of motion which would not be ceased save under the
irrevocable resolution of death.
     The AK-47 clattered upon the iron railings, miming the dull pop of
Agnes' fist against Zeb's jaw. Her left leg swung out as easily as another
arm, to sweep out his legs and offset his balance, but her foot was suddenly
caught in his clamplike grip, and she was lifted into the air like a discus,
and thrown against the girders. She lifted her head, and was jolted into the
red haze of his blows, to her own face and head, like a rapid onset of
thunderbolts, striking her again and again. It was enough to send her
falling backwards and downwards, to crash upon the platform's riveted floor
with an audible thud.
     "Bastard... hit me in the face..." she mumbled, her mouth full of
blood.
     "Welcome to equality, Aggie," Zebadiah remarked coldly. "This's what
you've been clamoring for all your life, the gospel in all your little
speeches; the same treatment all the time. What's the matter? Don't like it
when it's not in your favor?" He crouched down, picked up the machine gun.
     "...No.. You wouldn't..."
     "Wouldn't what? Kill you? But that's what you've always wanted. To be a
martyr, killed by the living embodiment of the 'WhiMaBou', right Aggie? Why
should you be surprised if I just suddenly decide to riddle you with bullets
right now and end it all; you, MEAM, and this whole affair? And Gaia knows
I've got more reason to do it than any other person." He wiped his
sweat-and-soot laden brow with a handkerchief, and took an inspective glance
at the rifle, removing the clip, inserting it into the chamber again with a
resolute click.
     "Zebbie... If only you could understand, what your... technology...
will do... This planet was not meant for humanity, it never was. It must
be... purified before it is too late, and I fear you are part of the
problem; you and your science-conditioned mind-" Cochrane's cheek twitched-
a danger sign; Aggie knew his body language well, and she stopped even
before he had pointed the muzzle towards her.
     "Another word, and so help me I will kill you. I don't speak your
language. I don't care to understand the tripe you believe. I don't even
know if you believe the things you say. I doubt it, but that's your own
problem. Get some group therapy with Hitler or Jim Jones or someone else. I
do care when you try to force it down my throat, when you try to dictate to
me what I can cannot produce or say or create."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "Jesus!" Cochrane shouted.
     The Apache's wings were ablaze with firing projectiles; a hail of tiny
lethal stars ripping through the precarious infrastructure of Cochrane-El.
Gargantuan knarled clouds of blotched yellow-orange began to rise from the
construction zones, too big, Cochrane knew, to be just surface fires. Then
an enormous blast shook the entire platform, as though a moderate earthquake
had just taken place. The entire northern horizon was a solid wall of flame,
and the eastern twinkling lights of Manhattan had begun to move, slowly,
upward.
     Cochrane-El was falling.
     His feet felt the shift in gravitational forces; in addition to gravity
pulling him downward, an additional weight was beginning to tug at him,
pulling him northeast, and increasing in strength. Manhattan dipped down,
very suddenly. The platform was not merely falling, he thought in terror. It
was augering in.
     He ran.
     The flat concrete of the platform had become a small hill, and he was
running, running downward, his only hope for escape. The force holding him
down had become less and less reliable; the downward velocity had skewed his
ingrained spatial perception, for all in his sight had become falling
objects. The perimeter chainlink fence raced toward him, not the big ones
planned for later, and he thanked God for that. One foot caught upon a link,
propelling the other onto the top bracing rail, which lifted him up and out
into black space. There was no discerning how far below the water was until
it smashed into him like a blow of a baseball bat.
     An eternity or seconds later, Cochrane gained consciousness, the sour
brine of the Hudson permeating his nostrils like smelling salts. He was
cold, his nose and head hurt and something was wrong with his right arm, but
he was treading water and could see the West Side nearby, and the current
was not too much. Zebadiah painfully turned around, and saw the cockeyed
black semicircle of his platform against the dark blue sky, illuminated with
fire. It hung precariously over the water like an immense iceberg, and was
surrounded by a bird's nest of twisted, burning wreckage. Cochrane could
hear the advancing buzz of a helicopter over the crackling flame, and dove
down under the water. The Apache's humming rotor's dopplered over the
crippled structure like a monstrous mosquito. A soft thud filled the air,
daylight switched on, and the Hudson's waters were turned into an orange
soup of reflected flame as the platform was reduced to a grey silhouette
immersed in an bulbous fireball of ignited neuroaerosol. Unleashed
Cochrane-Fluid burst from the platform's ghost like a minor, momentary
purple-white lightning flash through the dark shroud of water, and for a
brief moment, the silhouette was completely surrounded by fiery light from
above and below. But by the time the water's glow faded, that silhouette was
completely, irrevocably changed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Entry in 2044 Yamanet-edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica:
     Old Deal- Derisive name given to the extensive United States
governmental dismantling period in the late 20th-early 21st century, the
term defiantly co-opted by the reformers opposed. Technically, the Old Deal
does not have a definitive starting date; historians are divided as to that
point; a small minority listed the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, some
note the breakthrough 1994 Republican sweep in Congress, but the majority
credit the first Libertarian president, Preston K. Mallory, and his
revolutionary passage of the 28th Laissez-Faire Constitutional amendment,
separating trade and state, and thus overturning more than a century of
governmental interference in the marketplace. In addition to eliminating all
of the aging New Deal agencies and policies of the early 20th century, the
28th amendment eliminated Federal and state assistance programs and
subsidies and abolished the 16th income-tax amendment, leaving governmental
financing to be done on a strictly voluntary basis. The liberating Old Deal
policies were directly attributable to the technological and scientific boon
in the US now known as the the Second Renaissance. However, the policies
also indirectly produced a militant subculture of embittered citizenry.
Comprised primarily of individuals and groups who had formerly benefitted
from the public-works programs and led by aging "Baby-Boomer" radicals, the
country was thrown into a violent period of civil discord and domestic
political terrorism that continues to this day. (See MEAM, Agnes Sinclair,
Islamic Fist, People's Hand, The Brotherhood,Womyn's Defense Front, Citizens
for Unity, Committee of Love, NeoWeathermen, Ku Klux Klan, ACT UP, Morality
Army)
     The netset was tastefully lit and furnished in the nearly-forgotten
baroque of art deco, with ornamented surfaces and stylized sculpture like an
Old Hollywood 'movie' , but the host of the production, Mikhail Carson,
seemed not to fit; his jarring twentieth-first century fashion
sensibilities, most noticeably marked by the broad tattoo on the effeminate
face, the shaved stripe down the middle of his purple and orange dreaded
hair, the long pinstriped dress, and a head lifted an additional foot into
the air by rings, were out of place and time. By the same token, Zebadiah
Cochrane should not have fit either; his body armor and neopoly jacket were
strict and expensive creatures of his own time of senseless violence and
nihilism. However, his face of angles and faceted features, framed by his
cropped, straight blonde hair, nevertheless harked back to the elder era's
sense of drama and idealization; an classical image no less shaken by the
now well-recorded account of his disaster at Cochrane-El.
     "...anyway," Carson was continuing his story, "I bought about thirty
million shares of Mike prior to Green Tuesday, and wouldn't you know it,
next day I find my credit rating gone straight to hell."
     "It's a dangerous time," Cochrane agreed. "But that's the price that
has to be paid for returning to the gold standard. You can't expect an easy
transition; just look at what Yeltsin went through a century ago. Trust me,
it'll be better in the long run."
     Carson bristled, the tattoo danced. "So what the hell am I supposed to
do? Use actual money?"
     "Yep, just like the Old West. That's kind of the point; getting rid of
imaginary currency. Liquidate your assets and close all your accounts, and
insist on gold. The Reserve Bank is still asleep; they're not going to mint
until someone raises a stink. Actually, you might want to invest in Tycho
City bonds; the Lunar colonies have a better grasp of these sort of
matters-"
     "Are we recording?" Carson chirped at the triple lenses protruding from
the darkness outside the set. A green light blinked, and Carson slipped into
his popular persona of semi-crazed eccentricity, roving his eyes about in an
unfocused manner. "Okay. Hello back, gallies, bo-ee-zee and
mono-whathaveyouze. " Carson's voice was musical, evoking a street hustler's
pitch. "We be with Zee Cochrane, head cappig of Cochrane Utilities, and
recento Man of the Millisecond here on In Your Face, the zone with! Bone! At
Yama-dot-zon." The tattoo rolled in time with his bugging eyes and teetering
head.
     Cochrane studied Carson's frenetic antics and popular babble-speak with
amusement, for a moment not noticing the silent lead-in of Carson's tattooed
elbow into his ribs.
     "Yes, Mick. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for inviting me."
     "SO! Then. Zee, what's your operadus of the Odd?"
     Cochrane paused, to catch the babble-speak translation from the control
room through his earpiece. "Odd. Oh, you mean the Old Deal? What is this?
Some sort of history question?"
     "Jackfact."
     "Well, my granddad was militantly against it; why, I don't know. Such
was the buster mentality; oppose everything, stand for nothing, and
complain. His generation practically abolished historical objectivity, and I
can understand the confusion of your audience these days. The Old Deal
policies saved the United States. Case closed. I file Odd in my mind being
just as important as the Emancipation Proclamation, perhaps greater, in that
it eliminated a much more subtle form of human slavery."
     "Yeh, but where be the divide-end? Where be. THE CURE!"
     "You're getting into pharmaceuticals, and my work has never really
ventured in that territory. But look, even free minds can't accomplish
everything overnight. Just look at AIDS. It's been around for nearly a
century, maybe longer, and KRAG stands to cause even more damage-"
     "The Kadzakh Rag be laborloves of your downzone cerebrals, cappig."
     "I'm not going to justify the botched work of malicious or incompetent
geneticists. There's no free lunch with intellectual freedom. Genetic
engineering also saved my grandfather and millions of others from cancer.
Would we be better off just turning back the clock, treating fatal illnesses
with herbs and crystals? I don't think so."
     "MEAM does."
     "Well, that... organization... has had a lot of loud opinions, but I
never notice anyone challenging their scientific veracity, or the fact that
they emphasize their beliefs with bombings and castrations. Of course, when
I decided to construct Cochrane-El, the American public saw fit to
exhaustively document every minor mishap and post loaded muckrakes alongside
frightening pictures of Manhattan getting flattened by a giant concrete
block. Which, I should add, didn't completely happen six months ago."
     "What do you think of Earth Mother Sinclair?"
     "Who?" Cochrane smiled. "Agnes Sinclair? I don't."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The NYPD tank turned the sodium-lit corner, its heavy treads digging
deep trenches into the already shattered streets of Harlem, approaching the
crumbling facade of a century-old building, its ornamentation and brickwork
lost in the slow rot of soot, dried urine, and bullet holes. Flecks of
bright red spewed forth from the tenement's window, the distinctive Morse
code of tracer bullets. They played off the modified M1's armor with
high-pitched squeals, but little else. Lieutenant Horatio Ortega watched the
scene ensue upon his Eve, jacked into the periscopal relays of the tank,
from the air-conditioned comfort of the police van, several hundred feet
away. So far, so good, he thought. The Nightmares were expecting the usual
portable barricade to spit at; the new tanks were sure to get their
attention.
     The rain of bullets stopped, and the night streets continued to repeat
their empty, futile cries. From around the same corner a procession of
heavily armored NYPD riot troopers geared up into formation, the slender low
electrostatic rifles dual-barrelled with tearspitters fitting into
densely-gloved hands.
     "Die, you pigs!"
     Then, suddenly, from the same window, came a whooshing sound, and
Ortega had seconds to see the RPG lash out into the hide of the tank. The
disperser plating was first rate, it held, but from the outside the entire
vehicle was momentarily covered over by a globule of fire. Ortega locked his
jaw, ground his teeth. And relived the horrors of Aztlan and Mexico for a
merciful three seconds. But this wasn't Red Montezuma's forces. These were
worthless Stateside hoodlums, punks. Trash. So where the hell did the Mares
get that beast? He punched into the tank's cockpit; as the new circumstances
required.
     The helmeted face of the tank commander, shrouded by shadow and green
light glistening on sweating flesh, flickered on the Eve screen. "Lieutenant
Ortega. These guys are packing. We've got to back out now."
     "Negatory. Your orders are to lay down suppressing fire for the riot
crews. They're trained for these sort of contingencies."
     "But, Lieutenant, there's no telling-"
     "Your concern is noted, Needleman. Stand down." And why shouldn't he be
concerned, Ortega thought. If Needleman, or anyone else died in this
particular exchange, it would be a waste of ridiculous proportions. A death
almost as pointless and meaningless as drowning in one's bathtub. The
People's Enclave of Harlem had been no-mans-land to the NYPD for eighty
years now, the stubborn feudal residence of every two-bit radical, domestic
terrorist and crimelord, persisting through time without change, without
improvement, without anything save the fog of self-righteous resentment and
rage: a festering boil on the gleaming face of New York City. A century
earlier it was still a hellhole of senseless crime. The community complained
about unfair distribution of resources. Utilizing the thinly-veiled threat
of eventual civil disorder, they angrily railroaded the city for action.
Finally, they got it. But when the police tried to move in to clean up, the
community changed its mind. They couldn't see the efforts being made at
making their streets safe. Instead, they saw badges and uniforms, and the
stereotypical images from television and posturing words from songs.
Instead, they cried racism, oppression, brutality: later proven untrue, of
course, but who could argue the point with angry, blind mobs? The police
retreated, backed off, and evil descended. The cycle continued again, but
this time Harlem's pleas fell on indifferent ears, unwilling to listen to
imploring voices that would later be raised in smug hatred. Only in the past
year had new efforts been made to salvage New York's dark side, and they had
been met with violent, unrestrained fury, fury passed down through three
generations of embittered citizenry.
     "This be Nightmare turf, pigs. All pigs must die!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Agnes Sinclair sat back upon the ornate, pillow-laden couch, a Branden
laptop console resting against her lap, convening a meeting with her
associates across the United States. Three faces adorned the flat biolum
screen along with their respective locations; an arms dealer from Asia, one
of MEAM's upper echelons from California, the third, a contributor,
transmitting from an unknown source, lost through an intricate and
ultimately untraceable series of satellite relays that only registered as
"North America/USA". Her hands were far from the keyboard, wrapped behind
her head; the console was equipped with a voice processor and translator,
while the inset optical camera had been programmed to track her movements.
     "...Very well," Sinclair droned, her voice bored. "Then I trust we have
good faith about this matter, Shreekant? You have the verification of
payment in front of you?"
     Above the window's registry of Kanpur, India, a balding middle-aged
man, dark of features, nodded. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Priestess Sinclair.
But there were rumors-"
     "Unfounded ones. My last operation should have told you that much. You
had no right to prod around my internal financial matters."
     "My apologies. Shipment will begin at once; you should recieve the
cargo around mid-September. Pleasure as always, Priestess Sinclair." The
naked cranium bowed, and the image vanished. Sinclair lifted her head, and
gave a scornful glare into the mounted camera.
     "Sorry, Agnes," The Los Angeles, California face, a young, but burly
Asian woman with crew-cut hair, was wide-eyed, shaking and nervous. "But
what could I do? Shreekant took my word for it last time; I don't know why-"
     "Silence. You are not to speak to me." The woman lowered her head.
"Taine?" Her face softened, addressing the North America/USA visage, drowned
in shadow. "Taine, are you there?"
     "I'm here, Aggie. I need not state the obvious." The voice was
digitally scrambled.
     "This will not happen again, Taine; I promise you that."
     "Be sure." North America/USA disconnected, and Sinclair switched gears
yet again, regarding the remaining California woman with cold anger. "As for
you, send the word out to all our other suppliers that MEAM's books are no
longer in the public domain. I don't like having to humiliate myself in
front of Taine for the sake of your incompetence."
     "Yes, Agnes."
     "As for Shreekant, we'll need to make an example. For any other dealer
that has accountant aspirations. Tap into our stockpiles in Santa Cruz, and
organize a Local Domestic job for him."
     The woman was shocked. "But- but what about his delivery?"
     Agnes Sinclair was indifferent. "He should have known better than to
step on the toes of MEAM's hand-picked representatives. And his infernal
arrogance to cross me, personally, deserves nothing less. Put it together; I
never want to see him again." She switched off her laptop and closed down
the screen, sighed.
     Across the room, there came a chorus of bustling, and a knock at her
door. "Come in," Sinclair called.
     Four black men stepped into her room. One was almost a midget, his skin
the color of weak tea. Rectangular spectacles peered out over his tiny,
animal-like eyes, the balding white-haired pate was topped by an intricately
patterned fez, and his miniature, yet obese form was swathed over by
multiple layers of expensive Old African kinte cloth, unbecoming and almost
comical. This dwarf was further dwarfed upon either side by grimly silent
bodyguards, locked into leather, sunglasses and black military berets
adorned with red fists. Yet even these imposing bodyguards were diminutive
next to the gigantic form leading the way; Lazarus Turtledove.
     "Laz." Sinclair smiled brightly, looking into Turtledove's horrific
countenance.
     "Agnes. Came by to pay you a visit, but our mysterious benefactor here
has just made his introduction. Chairman Hassan Ali Muhammed, Islamic Fist."
He thumbed behind him towards the midget, and his intact eye squinted
significantly at her. Sinclair's smile tightened in understanding. "He also
has some news for you."
     The midget hobbled forward, self-consciously smiling like an imbecile;
his bodyguards floated alongside, matching his movement like appendages.
"Greetings, Priestess Agnes Sinclair. So glad to meet you at last, yes I
truly am!"
     "Chairman Hassan." Sinclair's face was formal, but her voice was devoid
of respect.
     "I trust you've found things... comfortable here in our sanctuary?"
     "A necessary evil, yes." The Chairman's smile faded.
     "Yes, well, I'm happy about that. Anyway, I have recieved word about
the FBI from my people on the inside: the Federal pigs have closed their
Cochrane-El investigation. Your glorious destruction of that aristocratic
retreat is completed, Priestess-"
     "I'm not concerned with the Feds, Hassan. I am, however, concerned with
the stepped-up NYPD activity in Harlem. Somebody is tipping them off to my
presence, and if it is someone within Islamic Fist, I promise you'll be
begging for the Police to return after I'm through."
     "Believe me, Priestess, the two incidents are not related. The pigs
have been trying to reconquer the People's Enclave of Harlem for several
months now. History is on our side."
     "Is it, now?"
     "Um, uh, you- you don't really know how much my Islamic brothers...and
sisters!... have long admired your revolutionary tactics and activism
against the WhiMaBou Power Elite in California. Against the greedy
capitalists and infidel materialistic scientists that subjugate the Kingdom
of Allah. You are... truly... an outstanding role model for all our
children-"
     "Listen here, Hassan," Sinclair growled, gazing down upon the shaking,
tiny man like a disapproving god. "Don't spout empty rhetoric to me like I'm
one of the members of your swaggering audience. Your predecessors have been
saying the same tripe for years. When did you get the handbook?"
     The Chairman's smile completely vanished; his face was now a tableau of
fear, guilt and terrified anxiety. "Please forgive me if I have offended-"
     "And don't pretend to approach me as an equal, either! 'WhiMaBou!'
Where do you come off, using my words? You haven't earned the right. You
have no clue what it's like for me. I'm taking decisive action, every day,
risking my life! For the good of the same children you spew on about behind
the secure safety of your podium. For the sexist throngs of Islamic Fist."
     The bodyguards suddenly turned sheepish.
     "Yes, Hassan. Your good brothers of Islam have been dogmatically
subjugating women just as long as the WhiMaBou. So, I'm as comfortable as I
can be, staying in the lion's den, supported by well-meaning male
chauvinists like you. But I'll not tolerate your illusions about a supposed
covenant between MEAM and your little men's club. There is none, and there
never will be. So wake up."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "Nice way of saying thank you. They only saved your hide."
     "I don't owe these religious fools anything. Besides, you know how I
operate. I'm not the one benefitting here; they are."
     "Ah, yes. The guilt lever. Rule number four, if I recall."
     "Well, you're blunt. Am I that obvious?"
     "You always are. Except with me. You can't be."
     "And what are you?"
     "A collaborator, if you will. Or, rather, an assistant, in on the
joke."
     "I wasn't joking. Those Allah footlickers have always been sexist."
     "Point noted."
     "And I am saving the earth."
     "Hm. What was that you told Hassan? Uh, I'm not your audience, Aggie."
     "You're not the only one, incidentially."
     "Another?"
     "Cochrane. He's known much longer than you. He saw me start."
     "But he's not an assistant, is he?"
     "No, he's not. He's opposed to everything I stand for. He doesn't
believe in my dream."
     "And so I do?"
     "I don't know. Do you?"
     "Nope."
     "Well, then I guess we're closer than I realized."
     "Do you think Cochrane could make that statement?"
     "I don't follow you."
     "People think there's two kinds of people in the world. A duet. Two
personalities echoed throughout the ages. They're right, but it's not the
two they intended. One man goes through life, working at whatever he can do
best. Accomplishing things. Fighting for what he believes is right. Opposing
that which he thinks is wrong. Most people are like this. Artists, writers,
scientists. Cochrane qualifies as one of the best. Then there's the other
kind."
     "Mediocrities. Sheep."
     "No. Even mediocre people try their best to do what they can. Even
'sheep'Êhave some conviction behind what they follow. The other kind have
given up. By either intention, confusion or outright indifference. They are
no longer concerned with accomplishment, but with people. To do that they
compromise."
     "So then... what am I?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     "Annie, freeze it. Right there."
     Annie Heller struck the pause button upon her Eve's onscreen
faux-diskplayer, and the fire-lit image of the bloodied kissing couple
steadied, almost lost by a passing arc of dense smoke that had been pouring
near the camera. Construction girders were haphazardly placed about the two
individuals, and the image was subtlely subtitled by a date of six months
earlier: further indicative evidence the subject of the disk's recording;
the now-publicly-forgotten melee upon the destroyed Cochrane-El platform.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpt from FDA report on entry 14878128.02: filed by X. Daniels,
Materialist Chemistry Dept.

Quadropolymonochlorocarboflouroidesulfineperoxinateidesaline-Blue no. 17
(US Patent #14878128.02)

     Commonly referred to as "Cochrane-Fluid" or "C-Fluid" after its
inventor, one Zebadiah Cochrane. Substance is a synthetic, dense,
highly-conductive violet-blue organic compound liquid that exhibits two
major, and possibly technologically beneficial characteristics when run
through with standard electrical current:
     (1) High-yield luminscence of .8 magnitude
     (2) Mass counteraction/antigravity(?)
     The former characteristic has been previously observed in recent
synthesizations of natural bioluminiscent chemicals derived from
genetically-engineered insects, and it may be presumed that inventors work
stemmed in part from samples of same. However, the latter characteristic is
unique and has not been observed elsewhere. Liquid is not merely
lighter-than-air; it shows, in aerodynamic parlance, tendancies towards
'lift' that may or may not be attributable towards insectoid origins.
Results have been astonishing. Small portions, enclosed and charged in
containers massing several hundred times that of sample, have reached
elevations of fifty feet. In addition, the mass-counteraction is variable,
sensitively dependent upon amount of electricity stimulating liquid. Same
portions run through with double-level current have reached three-digit
altitudes, unable to be further measured with present FDA facility. Request
usage of military testsite for more extensive study on antigravitational
property at earliest convenience.
     Toxicity level has not yet been determined: liquid is not poisonous,
but EPA has discovered that test animals, injesting 2.3 gallons of
Cochrane-Fluid on a daily basis, have died of cancer after approximately
32.4 days. In addition, while there has been no scientific evidence to
support his theory, Professor Gilbert Boyle of UCLA's environmental-studies
department has indicated that widespread and unrestrained usage of
Cochrane-Fluid would lead to unfair political and social disparity among the
global community. And the New Center for Holistic Survival has made
overtures to Congress stating that the usage of the substance for commercial
or industrial purposes would be immoral, unethical and possibly harmful to
the mass psyche: possibly even resulting in depletion of the scant supply of
CHS's Love and Harmony crystals. Thus, it must be determined that
Cochrane-Fluid constitutes a significant threat to the public stability.
Request for mass manufacture and sale denied.

UPDATE: Effective immediately, by order of "unreign" clause contained in
Mallory Constitutional amendment (no. 27), the Food and Drug Administration
no longer exists as an arm of the Federal government. All pending and active
judgements of same agency are also eliminated and/or deferred to private,
independent organizations and individuals.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------