

### TEENAGED PUSSIES FROM OUTER SPACE: A LOVE STORY

### ROB LOUGHRAN

Published on Smashwords by

BUBBA CAXTON BOOKS,

a division of FOUL MOUTHED BARD PRESS

P.O. Box 2344

Windsor, California 95492

Copyright Rob Loughran, 2011

www.robloughranbooks.com

All rights reserved

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of excerpts used in reviews.

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UFO sightings are never by anybody intelligent. A UFO has never landed at Harvard or Yale or Princeton. It's always two assholes with Coors beer in a recreational vehicle.

—Joan Rivers

"Of all things in life, what is most amazing?" he asked.

Yudhisthira replied, "That a man, seeing others die all around him, never thinks that he will die."

—The Mahabharata

### PART ONE

### CONTACT IS NOT JUST A COLD AND ALLERGY MEDICINE

1

Hal Creek, as a child, loved jumping-off-things.

At first his parents and his older sister Alexi thought it was cute. Hal jumping from the arm of the sofa into their laps. From his bed onto strewn pillows. From the kitchen table to the faded yellow linoleum floor.

What spoiled the cuteness of his jumping-off-things for the family was four year old Hal's leap from his second-story bedroom window into a pile of multicolored autumn leaves. Or perhaps it was seven year old Hal's leap from the roof of the garage into the neighbors' three-foot deep doughboy pool.

No, it was 11 year old Hal's Fourth of July leap, with a full laid out back flip, off Rooster Rock into the raging Columbia River.

By the time Hal Creek was 16 he had leapt off every bridge within 30 miles of Portland, Oregon: off the Troutdale Bridge into the Sandy River, off an unnamed concrete bridge into Oneida Creek, and off the Steel Bridge into the Willamette River.

Hal's 18th summer, recently graduated from high school, was spent in Acapulco, executing swan dives off the cliff by day and brain cells with tequila at night. At Portland State, he pole vaulted to two consecutive NCAA Division II titles for the Vikings. After college, B.A. in Elizabethan Literature, Hal searched for other things to leap from, eventually joining the outfit with the coolest platforms: the United States Air Force.

He leapt from helicopters, no parachute, into swamps, marshes, fens, and bogs. From various aircraft, with parachute, he landed in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans; and on every continent, including Antarctica.

But the biggest, scariest, most important leap Hal ever accomplished was, by necessity, from the bowels of the Deep Probe 9 into black and frigid outer space.

2

The Bandler Deep Probe 9, America's most technologically advanced and effective deep space explorer was, frankly, shaped much like a penis. Granted, the DP-9, 249 feet long and bright yellow would never, in almost anyone's fantasy be mistaken for the actual male reproductive organ, but with twin, testicular 37-foot-in-diameter geodesic observing modules nestled together at the DP-9's base it certainly bore more resemblance to a trouser trout than it did to, say, a huge flying yellow daffodil.

The DP-9 also, for aerodynamic reasons, was lopped, chopped, moyled: in a word, circumcised. Right now, the circumcised DP-9, containing a crew of four and commanded by Captain John Wryght, USAF, drifted dangerously without power or lights. Until...

"There's the lights," said Lt. Hal Creek. He flicked off his Maglite and stuffed it in his belt. "Finally."

"What just happened here, Huevos?" said Captain Wryght.

"Assuming," said the DP-9's co-pilot, Martin Huevos, "while we were without power, we drifted at one third normal speed on roughly the same course; we'd be drifting away from any known source of radiation at 16,012 miles an hour." Huevos absentmindedly fondled the gold crucifix he wore outside his blue NASA jumpsuit. "Basically, John, I don't know."

"Thanks," said John.

"Freaky stuff," said Hal Creek. "I thought we were dead."

"You're not alone," said crewman Phil Watts.

John Wryght punched a button on the DP-9's control panel. "There is no indication of what might have zapped our power supply. Look," said John. The crew huddled around the DP-9's Captain as he pointed to the screen.

Tiny Martin Huevos, with a mouthful of teeth that gleamed like the grill on a 1966 Pontiac LeMans, said, "Look at what?"

"We encountered it here—" said John.

"John," said Hal. "It could be a them."

"And if frogs had wings," said Watts, "they wouldn't bump their slimy green butts when they jumped."

"All Hal is saying," said Huevos softly, "is that God works in mysterious ways."

"How come all you beaners are so religious?" said Watts.

"Shut up and help me here?" said John. His fingers punched the proper buttons in the proper sequence and the DP-9's computer re-created the last 65 minutes of its deep space sojourn. "We encountered them," he winked at Hal, "here. But the next entry on the computerized log is not until an hour later. There is an hour-long hiatus in the readings."

"But," said Hal, "we remember that hour."

"This is creepy, man," said Huevos.

The radio crackled to life; the first sound it had made in 73.2 minutes. Huevos bounded to his station, donned earphones and tuned it in. "John," said Huevos, "it's Powers Air Force Base."

"Gimme that," said John. He took the headset from Huevos, tangling the short cord in his graying, Rasputinesque beard.

"I'll switch to intercom, John," said Huevos.

"Thanks," said John, extricating the wires from his beard.

"Come in, Powers Air Force Base," said John. "Over."

"We've had a problem," said Alexi Creek from the intercom, "with our instruments, DP-9. We lost you for 73 minutes. Over."

"Mission Control, can you tell us what happened? We were absolutely inculcated. Over."

"Inculcated?" asked Alexi. "Over."

"You know what I mean, Alexi. We lost radio, lights, power." said John. "Everything quit on us. Over."

"This is Bandler, Over," crackled the radio.

"Always lovely to hear your voice, Simon," said John.

"Is my DP-9 okay? Any hardware damage?"

"We're running a systems check," John nodded at Hal, who initiated the systems check from another console. "But the DP-9 seems fine. Over."

"John?" asked Alexi.

"Yeh?"

"Brad needs to talk to you."

"Put him on, Over."

A soft-spoken, reticent and shy voice said, "Hello John."

"What's up Brad? Have you run a remote?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"Contamination," said Brad, barely audible, "radioactive or otherwise is likely."

"Likely?" said John.

"Radioactive?" said Huevos.

"Otherwise?" said Hal.

"Shit," said Watts.

"Radioactive, otherwise, and shit. All three more than likely," said Brad. "Probable. I've never seen anything like it."

"We can have a rescue vehicle up there in 72 hours," said Alexi. "I want you to abort the mission. Over."

"Roger," said John.

"No way," said Bandler. "Bring my DP-9 home. I want that buggy back. End of conversation."

"But there's evidence of contact and—" said Brad.

The transmission went dead.

"Powers?" said John. "Come in? Powers Air Force Base? Alexi? A rescue vacuole would be a splendiferous idea. Over."

52 seconds passed in silence.

"We've had a conference," said Bandler through the returning static, "and I won. I want that $1.3 billion Bandler DP-9 back at Powers AFB."

"Alexi?" said John. "Over?"

"Hey sis," said Hal, "mom and dad will be pissed if you don't get me home; a rescue vehicle or even a vacuole would be a fine idea. Over."

"John?" said Alexi, through increasing static, "I have something important to tell you."

"Go ahead, Over," said John.

"It's not about the DP-9," said Alexi.

"Does it have anything to do with—" said John, just as the DP-9, once again, lost its lights, power and radio communications.

"Here we go again, boys and girls," said Watts.

The crew, simultaneously, flicked on their industrial sized Maglites.

"Huevos," said John, "can we go to auxiliary power?"

"I'm trying John," said Huevos.

Watts slashed at Huevos with his flashlight, "Come over to the dark side, Luke."

"Shine your light over here, estupido," said Huevos.

"Huevos," said John, "can you at least raise the radio?"

"Apparently not," said Huevos.

"Jesus Christ Almighty," said Watts. "What's that?" He pointed at a vague, diaphanous light that pulsated, shimmered, and gleamed around the twin geodesic observing modules.

"John," said Hal, "I'm going out there."

"No way, Lieutenant Creek. That's an order."

"I'm going out there," said Hal.

"No," said John.

"I've waited all my life to make contact," said Hal. "I'm going out there. Contact."

"Indiscriminately not," said John. He stared at the light that tickled the DP-9. It wasn't a light that was being shined at the DP-9; it was like a massive amoeba whose essence isn't a gelatinous mass, but a smear of diffuse luminosity. "If anyone is going out, Hal, it's me."

"And if you get snuffed," said Hal, "who pilots this puppy back to earth?"

"Hal is right," said Watts. "The best any of us could do is set the autopilot and cross our fingers. We'd probably—"

"Burn up on reentry," said Hal.

"Sí," said Huevos.

"I'm going out there, John," said Hal.

John stroked his beard and shrugged: he'd known Hal long enough to know that once he'd decided; changing his mind would be like trying to get pee out of a swimming pool.

Watts slipped his Maglite into his belt and cupped around his ears and said to Huevos: "Yoda senses danger, Luke."

3

The DP-9's airlock was located between the two Geodesic Observing Modules. Lt. Hal Creek, minus his helmet, was prepared for a Spacewalk/Alien Encounter. John, from a rack on the wall, removed a SpacePaddle. The Paddle, a combination weapon-sensor-radio, resembled a cross between a kayak paddle and a giant red-and-white Q-Tip.

Huevos and John secured Hal Creek's helmet while Watts stood idly by, scratching himself. Hal pushed a button on the SpacePaddle and sang:

"Mary had a Little Lamb,

That's what she gets for sleeping in the barn."

His voice echoed through the airlock and John gave him the thumbs-up.

"Break a leg, man," said Huevos.

"Yeh," said Watts.

"Be careful out there, asswipe," said John. "And don't lose that SpacePaddle. We need a reading on—whatever." Again he fiddled with his beard. "To ascertain if, whatever it is, is ambient or...volatile."

Hal's amplified voice re-echoed in the chamber, "Maybe ambulatory or viable?"

"You know what I mean."

"I do," said Hal, "and that's what frightens me. Just promise that you'll make an honest woman of my sister."

"I've been trying to get Alexi to marry me for 10 years." John whacked him on the helmet and nodded through the window to the menacing yet beckoning and alluring black void. "You know that." Hal smiled as Huevos and John backed out of the airlock and secured the heavy door behind them. Lt. Creek, scared and excited at the same time, breathed deeply and depressed a switch on the red-and-white SpacePaddle. It beeped three times; Hal had armed himself for interstellar bear. He attached his lifeline and used one end of the Q-Tipped SpacePaddle to hit a button.

The airlock door popped open and revealed the million-billion stars in that corner of the universe. "Beautiful," said Hal.

And Hal Creek took the most important leap in his life; connected to the penile spacecraft by only a tenuous, flexible, aluminum umbilicus.

4

"Sweet bleeding testicles of Christ," said Hal. "I knew we weren't alone."

"What?" asked John. "You been out there for two seconds. Over?"

"They were waiting, John. Waiting. Exuding patience and salutation. And I ain't got no spare; I ain't got no jack," said Hal. "I don't give a shit, because I ain't coming back."

"You're talking crazy," said John.

"I'm talking crazy, Mister Malaprop?"

"Calm down, Hal."

"I'm calm. Calm and peaceable."

"Be careful Hal," John Wryght's, voice echoed tinny and small inside Hal's helmet.

"Too late for careful, John," said Hal. "These things know me. I know that they know. They can see inside of me. Jesus, they are running my memories like a videotape: reverse-pause-fast forward. Whoa."

"A video?" asked John. "Over?"

"Yeh. Apparently a cheap porno minus the cheesy saxophone licks," said Hal. "Oh, that's me. I'd forgotten about her. That must've been the summer I'd been self-medicating in Mexico."

"Hal, come in," said John. "You're babbling. Come in."

"They got me, Johnny. They got me. Too late for me. Abort the mission John. Flush it, pull the plug, and abort. They are on me and in me. Vaya con Dios, Huevos. Screw you Watts. Goodbye John, tell my sister goodbye."

"We've opened the airlock, Hal," said John. "Get your ass in here."

"See ya," said Hal. "They've got me, but here, maybe this will tell you something." Hal tossed his SpacePaddle at the DP-9. Tumbling, slowly, end-over-end, it caromed off the top of the airlock door and landed safely, like a ricocheted slapshot, in the DP-9. "See you later. I know that I will see you later."

The lights on the DP-9 flickered, faded, and then disappeared. Through the airlock's window Huevos and Captain John Wryght watched Hal, smiling beatifically, enveloped and caressed by a gossamer Glow. An amphioxus and amorphous Glow that was, apparently, an alien lifeform.

Hal's lifeline snapped and he was escorted; spirited away to death and beyond by the Glow.

Hal Creek's last thought as he suffocated and turned a cupric, cyanotic blue was, as is proper for an Elizabethan Lit scholar, from Shakespeare. He mumbled: "William always referred to the orgasm and as The Little Death. Benedict said to Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing: I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes. Shakespeare was right again."

5

The lights returned to the DP-9 as the Glow swirled away into space, with Hal Creek and his muttered thoughts of Shakespeare in tow. The crew waited in silence as an atmosphere was re-created in the airlock. The green light signaled that entry to the airlock was safe. John opened the door and inched into the chamber, breathing hesitantly.

He motioned to the crew that everything was OK.

Huevos and Watts stood with John over Hal's SpacePaddle. Huevos picked up the instrument and handed it to John.

"We're up a paddle," said Watts, "but no Creek."

"Idiot," said Huevos.

"Disappear Watts," said John. "Right freaking now."

"Gosh," said Watts. "It was a joke." Watts flipped off John behind his back and exited.

"Huevos?" said John.

"Yeh?"

"Get Alexi on the radio. Patch her through my quarters. She's the only one I can talk to."

"Besides me."

"Besides you," said John. "Jesus, amigo. We just watched Hal die."

"Yes," said Huevos. "I just hope I'm smiling like that when I exhale for the last time."

6

"Nostradamus walks into a bar," said John to no one in particular. He burped into his hand. He sat at his desk in the Geodesic Observing Dome surveying the distant stars and the deadly Glows flitting back-and-forth between the DP-9's domes. A triptych on his desk sported three pictures: first of Alexi and John beneath a wispy weeping willow; second of Hal and John in front of the DP-9; third of John and his mother standing proudly in front of the family brewery, beneath the sign: Fourth Generation Ales—The Wryght Stuff!!!

John slurped his beer and repeated, again, to no one in particular, "Okay, Nostradamus walks into a bar. The bartender says, Hey Buddy, what are you drinking? Nostradamus smiles and says, I knew you were going to say that."

John laughed.

Most people laugh with their eyes, lips, and a portion of their lungs.

John' s laugh started in his intestines and riotously, peristaltically, crept up through his viscera, into his nervous system, scrambled his brain and exploded— almost always accompanied by mucus—through his nose. "I knew you were going to say that!" John rattled, rumbled, snorted and laughed again.

Captain John Rutherford Wryght, USAF, had been drinking.

His first laugh had sprayed the computer and radio headset on his desk. The detritus from John's second guffaw almost reached the pressurized tank that held his zero-gravity-experimental-homebrew.

He drank again.

This, his fifth mission on the DP-9, was John's latest attempt to bioengineer a designer brewer's yeast. Top fermenting ales, which take from six to eight weeks to ferment, could now be brewed in 12 hours.

An Extra Special Bitter in 12 hours!

John had perfected, after several attempts, the most important innovation in the history of brewing. He would be a multi-millionaire in a month once he returned to the earth with his Wryght Stuff Yeast. John drew another beer from his pony keg, "To you, Hal."

He drank and wiped his beard clean.

"It's the yeast I could do," said John. He laughed at his stupid-ass pun, this time spraying the entire desk and tank with atomized boogers. John drained, and then refilled his stein. He raised a test tube full of yeast marked D and examined it in the light. "Amazing. Hal, I suppose, to these perambulating little beasties we're indecent and intrusive aliens bending their lives for our own porpoises." John burped; and then drank again. "Pardon me. Purposes." With the exaggerated mis-control of a drunk trying to remove a driver's license from his wallet while a state trooper loomed at the driverside window, John zippered the unbreakable plastic test tube marked YEAST D into his jumpsuit. "Got you: you little yellow yeastie peckerhead bastards." He glanced out the observing porthole and spoke to the Glows that now trailed the DP-9. "And you got one of us."

John drank, refilled his mug, and said, "Fuckers."

John's family's brewery, Fourth Generation Ales, was located on the outskirts of Alexandria, VA. It was one of the few, if not the only, brewery to survive prohibition. Like several California wineries which weathered the prohibitionist storm by making sacramental wines, John's grandfather, (Brewmaster of, then, Second Generation Ales) outlasted the ban on alcohol by brewing sacramental beer for a sect of Sumerian grain worshipers in upstate New York. Even though these grain worshipers had supposed ties to several families in Albany—whose names ended mostly in vowels—the bootlegging charges never stuck. John's father, like John, had been groomed and prepared to run the brewery since his childhood. Both Wryghts were Cavalier chemistry majors at the University Of Virginia.

But John's father had an appreciation for beer that straddled the borderline of self-indulgent and decadent. "What is beer?" David Wryght used to say to anyone who would listen, "but grains, water, and yeast. And what is bread? Again, grains, water and yeast. Ergo, bread is solid beer; and beer is liquid bread."

By virtue of this logic, it seemed perfectly reasonable that David Wryght would start his day, every morning, with a sixpack of "toast." This continued until David's 42nd year, when the Brewmaster tumbled into a vat of stout and drowned; although family legend has it that he climbed out twice to go the bathroom.

After David's body had been fished from the vat, Third Generation Ales became Fourth Generation Ales but John, as a book-wormish only child, was always more interested in the theoretical rather than the practical side of the brewer's art and turned over the day-to-day operation of the family business to his mother. John, after graduating from UVA, began his research into bioengineered yeast. While developing a computer generated prototype of his Super Yeast, John met Alexi Creek, who was writing deep space navigation programs for NASA.

They fell into bed, and shortly thereafter into love. Then they began traversing the almost impossible tight rope of living out two full-time careers. Even though John realized they needed to, without the specter of marriage hanging over them, fulfill their respective career goals he had proposed repeatedly to Alexi over the past decade. For Alexi marriage wasn't exactly on the back burner.

It was nowhere near the stove.

It wasn't even in the kitchen.

These career timelines and ticking biological imperatives were complicated when John's National Science Foundation grants ran out on the day before his 29th birthday. That's when Alexi and John decided to extend their engagement indefinitely. John joined the Air Force, became an astronaut and took his zymurgical experiments and theories into orbit. Zero-gravity, as it turned out, would be the final tweak the yeast experiment needed to be successful.

Alexi continued her career with NASA. This DP-9 mission, the first time they had worked together had been, mutually decided, to be their first and last joint effort. It hadn't been decided which of them were to retire, but one of them would call it quits, with marriage, familial responsibility, and the big 40 hovering on the horizon. John, of course, wanted Alexi to retire because she would be pregnant. Alexi, of course, wanted John to retire from the Air Force because he had the job as Brewmaster at Fourth Generation Ales waiting.

And both of them, of course, were right-and-wrong.

Meanwhile, John's mother Mary never remarried and ran the brewery patiently, like Penelope weaving, as she waited for her son to return to The Cavalier State, take over the day-to-day operations, get married, make her a grandmother and eventually rename the brewery Fifth Generation Ales. Although she enjoyed running the small brewing venture, she often said, "The only way a microbrewery can compete with the big brewers is if the President of the United States called the Attorney General and made Fourth Generation Ales the official beverage of the United States of America."

Huevos announced, from the radio, "I've got Alexi, John."

"Thanks," said John.

"You okay?"

"No."

"Do you think we're pulling the plug?"

"We can't return to Earth. We've been contaminated. Do you know a prayer that can help us?"

Huevos hesitated. "No. And I know a lot of freaking prayers."

"Patch me through to Alexi."

7

"John," said Alexi, "we lost you again. Over."

"Yeh," said John. "We did the big fade again."

"Brad's checked his instruments and told me you've been contaminated. You can't return to earth."

"Alexi? Hal is dead."

Silence.

"Did you hear me?" John drained and, once again, refilled his stein.

"How?" asked Alexi.

"He was spacewalking."

"He just went for a stroll? To get a newspaper and a bagel?"

"He went out to investigate—"

"Investigate what?"

"—and this glowing cloud just zapped him. Like, 10 seconds after he exited the DP-9. It snapped his lifeline and sent him hurtling into space. I'm sorry."

"Why did he go out there? Why didn't you stop him, John?"

"If anybody knew Hal you did. When he made up his mind there was no stopping him." John drained another stein of zero gravity brew.

"You've been drinking."

"How did you know?"

"You're speaking properly."

John tried to respond, but couldn't. He realized that he did, for whatever reason, speak more properly with some booze in his blood. "Shit, Alexi. Your brother is dead. The whatever that killed him has contaminated the spaceship and is following us. I'm downloading all the encounter information for NASA to collate and examine. Make sure Brad sees it; maybe he can make some sense of it. As soon as you acknowledge receipt of the data I'm nuking the DP-9. Over."

John drained another stein; then poured yet another.

Alexi sobbed quietly, mourning the loss of her brother; and anticipating the loss of her lover. "I love you, John."

"And I love you."

John's fingers flew across the keyboard and downloaded all the encounter info from Hal's SpacePaddle. John's computer bleeped once, twice, thrice; then it whirred and clicked. "Honey, the download is complete. It's my duty to pull the plug."

"Don't do it John. John?"

"There's no way around it. It's not only my duty as a commanding officer, but as a citizen of earth. I'd jeopardize humanity returning home after having made contact. I can't bring whatever killed Hal back to earth."

"This sucks."

"My grandpa used to say that life is like licking honey off a thorn; the sweeter the taste the more you're likely to hurt yourself. I'm glad we had the time together—"

"I'm pregnant, John."

"Well, that's news."

"I'm under-whelmed by your enthusiasm."

John drank, "I'm supposed to happy I'll have a child that neither Hal nor I will ever see? Sorry."

"Understandable."

"I'm saying goodbye now. I'm not telling the crew; it'll be instantaneous and immediate incineration; complete and comprehensive combustion."

"My, you have been drinking. Such lucid enunciation."

"Bye. Simply; goodbye." John switched off the radio. "It hurts too much to say anything else."

John fumbled for the key he kept around his neck; the key to the DP-9's ENEMA: the Emergency Nuclear Eradication and deMolition Apparatus. He removed the key from his neck, kissed the picture of Alexi, the photo of Hal and himself, and the snapshot of his mother and the brewery. John placed the pictures face down on the desk. John took one last look at his brewing apparatus: the coils and tanks—his legacy.

His unborn child's inheritance.

He breathed deeply, resigned himself to his fate, and offered a silent prayer to God. All that remained was to insert the ENEMA key, turn it to the left and see if there really is an afterlife. John said, "Death. The final frontier." He inserted the key and took one final sip of his beloved brew.

That's when an industrial sized black Maglite crashed down upon his cranium.

John crumpled to the floor of his office, flapping like a trout out of water in a puddle of the universe's finest ale.

8

When Captain John Wryght re-gained consciousness he was duct taped into his chair in the DP-9's control room. Huevos, taped to his chair as securely as John said, "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

"Who the hell hit me?"

Huevos motioned with his chin to Watts who was entering data into the navigational computer. "Sorry John," said Huevos, "he got the jump on me."

John squirmed in his duct tape harness and said, "Lieutenant Philip Watts, I order you to immediately relinquish control of the DP-9."

"I've always admired your perverse sense of humor," said Watts. "That's rich."

John started to speak as the radio crackled, "DP-9? Do you read me? Over?" said Alexi through the static.

"Pull the plug, Alexi," yelled John. "Watts jumped Huevos and me. Whatever we contacted is still with us—"

"We're contaminated," shouted Huevos. "Shoot us of orbit. If we ever get back into orbit, blow us up."

"Alexi, you've got to pull the plug!" screamed John.

Watts silenced John and Huevos with a strip of duct tape over their mouths. John struggled; kicking at anything within reach in order to make some noise.

"Do you read me, John?" said Alexi.

"Come in," said Bandler from the radio. "Watts? Are you there?"

Alexi broke in, "Apparently they've taken their sleeping pills and activated the ENEMA."

"I'm holding you responsible, Alexi," said Bandler. "Do you know what the DP-9 cost?"

Watts grabbed the mike, "Mr. Bandler?"

"Watts?"

"Everything is under control. Over."

"Good. Bring her home."

"Will do, Mr. Bandler. Out."

Watts switched off the radio and said, "That should be it. We've got a week before reentry. Just enough time, Johnny Boy, for me to doctor the DP-9's log. Nothing terribly complicated, just enough to show how you misappropriated NASA equipment and time for private, unauthorized research. Yeast research. Just the addition of a coupla hours here and there."

John made withering eye contact and said, "Hmmmpf you!!"

"You'll be tucked into your reentry cocoons and on life support in about an hour. The next thing you'll remember is splashdown." He ripped the tape first from Huevos' mouth; then John's. "Any questions?"

"We have made contact," yelled Huevos. "We're contaminated. The DP-9 can't be returned to earth."

"No," said Watts. "We've experienced an electronic apparition. I'm not dying up here because soon-to-be-former Captain Wryght overreacted."

"What did Bandler promise you for returning his baby?" asked John.

Watts pulled a hypodermic from the medical bag and thrust it through the sleeve of John's jumpsuit, into his bicep. He depressed the plunger and said, "Say good night, Gracie."

9

Like breakfast sausages wrapped in pancakes, the crew of the DP-9 was snuggled into their Plexiglas and titanium reentry cocoons. Periodically, the DP-9 would lurch to the left or right as the autopilot adjusted its path toward Earth. In their drug-induced, electronically monitored slumber the crew didn't notice. The two Anglo crewmembers also didn't notice when the mystically inclined son of a Guadalajaran bus driver stiffened, convulsed, and although unconscious, clawed at the gold crucifix outside his jumpsuit with both hands.

Huevos, in the Throes of Religious Ecstasy, spoke in tongues and pawed at the crucifix. Then he relaxed and released the cross: his beatific vision, his enlightenment, was complete.

He'd come face-to-face with the Godhead, the Lord, the Higher Power, the Infinite Deity, Jesus, Yahweh, Shiva, Zarathustra, Buddha, Toth and Isis, Zeus, Aphrodite, the Big Cheese, the Top Banana.

And it was good.

10

The Golden Gate Bridge is the Jack Kevorkian of bridges. It is the symbol which not only represents the City and County of San Francisco, but the hopes of potential suicides worldwide. Before dawn, sharing the bridge with patchy fog and sporadic traffic was Corky McCorkle and his dog, Pudd.

The dog was a full blooded, AKC registered Irish Setter. Corky was a full blooded Irish immigrant; slightly over one century old. He had outlived two wives, six of his 10 children and all his friends; which is why he was considering the mighty leap to the briny deep.

Corky adjusted his Donegal tweed cap and petted Pudd. "It's a cruel and funny world my friend. The only time in life you acquire a little perspective and perspicacity is when you're too old and tired to utilize it. I'd end my life in a minute—take the plunge—happy with the manner in which it has unfolded, if only I could see a sign from above."

Voltaire said: God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh. As seeming proof of this theory, at that instant, the DP-9 reentered the earth's atmosphere, a flaming fireball over the Pacific off the coast of Northern California. Corky McCorkle saw the man-made meteor and said, "Holy Mary Mother of God. A sign." And then he jumped from the bridge to his death. In his haste, hurtling over the side, his cap made of Donegal tweed flew from his head and landed at Pudd's feet. The setter, always obedient, took the hat in his mouth, whimpered twice, and jumped over the railing, following his master into the depths of San Francisco Bay.

11

"What's the delay?" shouted Captain Grieg, United States Coast Guard. Grieg stood on the bridge and bellowed through a bullhorn. The DP-9 perched on the rear deck of Captain Grieg's command, the U.S. Lloyd Bucher.

Lisa Brown, a NASA technician, helmeted and shrouded in a radiation suit said, "The delay is, if I'm wrong all your testes are going to shrivel up like little ripe purple raisins and fall off. Raisins. Shriveled, sere, desiccated raisins. Got it? And it won't do my ovaries a hell of a lot of good." She resumed her examination with the Geiger counter.

"Carry on," said Grieg. "Helluva job, Brownie. Good job. Carry on."

The DP-9 still steamed slightly in the foggy morning air. The lights of San Francisco glistered in the distance. "I know this ain't right," said Lisa quietly. "But my instruments are registering off the chart. What the hell, I'll just keep my suit on." She cleared her throat and engaged her radio, "All clear, Captain."

"All clear," repeated Captain Greig. "Prepare to welcome our visitors."

Lisa opened the DP-9's escape hatch. Watts, blinking from the pale morning sunlight, stepped onto the Bucher's deck. He saluted the bridge. Next, like a tumbleweed, Huevos bounded from the DP-9 and cartwheeled clumsily across the deck. He clutched his crucifix in his left hand. Hal Creek's SpacePaddle was clasped in his right. His eyes glowed. He looked like El Greco's Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knelt and crossed his arms across his chest:

"I remained and I lost myself,

My face, I rested against my God;

All ceased, and I was left,

Leaving my cares, forgotten among the lilies."

Huevos rose and kissed Watts delicately on his lips. "All is forgiven brother. I've seen the face of God and he told me it were justly so." He smiled and held his gleaming crucifix aloft.

Then he jumped, with the SpacePaddle, overboard.

"Man overboard," said Captain Greig. "Crazy man overboard."

Watts and various Coast Guard personnel sprinted to the rail and watched Huevos, crucifix and Hal's SpacePaddle still clutched in his left hand swim sidestroke toward the City by the Bay. "That," said a Coast Guard Ensign to Watts, "was one looney chimichanga."

That chimichanga, thought Watts, was the only witness. Now it's my word against Wryght's. Watts turned and, again, saluted the bridge. Captain Grieg returned the salute and bullhorned, "Where's your commanding officer?"

Watts pulled data disks out of his jumpsuit. "Sir, I have here, information that proves our commander, Captain John Wyght, USAF is not only a thief and a liar, but a traitor."

"Traitor?"

"He repeatedly tried to destroy the DP-9, which would weaken our interstellar research and defense capabilities. I barely escaped with these. I was, by duty, forced to take command of the vessel and pilot it back to Earth."

"And where is your traitorous commander?" asked Captain Grieg.

"He's been tranquilized and placed under arrest. He is still aboard the DP-9."

The Captain stared at Watts for a moment, then said, "Secure that spacecraft."

John Wryght, at that moment, much like Punxsatawny Phil, peeked his head out of the DP-9 just in time to see three Coasties flick the safeties off their M-16s. "Permission," asked John, "to come aboard?"

"Denied," said Captain Greig. "You are under arrest."

John rubbed his face. There was an X of bare flesh in his beard where the duct tape had been. "Why?"

"You're under arrest pending investigation of charges of mutiny," said Greig. "Restrain that man. Then shave him."

Two Coasties pulled John from the escape hatch while the third aimed his M-16 at his throat. "Thanks, Watts," said John.

"My pleasure," said Watts.

As the Coasties cuffed and brought John below, the volitant, effulgent Glow, barely visible in the brightening morning light, licked around the twin geodesic observing domes of the DP-9.

No one saw it.

12

A lifeboat from the U.S. Lloyd Bucher trailed Martín Huevos as he swam through the whitecaps beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, towards the marina at Sausalito. He still clutched the crucifix and used the buoyant red-and-white SpacePaddle as a kickboard. He had been joined by a full blooded, registered Irish setter which swam beside him. The setter clutched in his mouth a cap made of the finest Donegal tweed. A Coastie named Dale, from a lifeboat following Huevos, said through a bullhorn, for the 117th time, "Lieutenant, Sir. Would you very much, sir, mind climbing into the fucking lifeboat?"

"Dale," said Coastie Gómez. I've been on the radio back to the Lloyd Bucher. Scuttlebutt says that they made contact. Up there."

"That might explain," said Coastie Dale, "why this guy went scrambled cerebral cortex crazy."

"He might be contaminated," said Gómez. "Remember what the chick from NASA said about our balls wilting and turning into raisins?"

"Yes, I remember. Arid, juiceless raisins." They looked at the distant Marina, then Dale raised the bullhorn, "Lieutenant Martin Huevos," he cleared his throat, "Kick! Kick! Kick!"

### PART TWO

### GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

1

Gary Powers Air Force Base was located in the Nevada desert, directly in the center of the proverbial NOWHERE. Whenever the rah-rah team from 60 Minutes got a wild hair up their fannies about ET's, UFOs, or any other initialed invaders from outer space the media SOBs headed to this AFB, PDQ and ASAP.

Powers Air Force Base was laid out in the shape of a huge, fenced, Isosceles triangle. Side A ran parallel to the black slate base of Mount Argo; side B ran nearly parallel to the shallow, meandering Argo River; side C (equal in length, by definition, to side A) fronted Nevada State Highway 31. Most of the visitors to the facility were flown in and out. There was only one entrance and one exit to Powers Air Force Base accessible by automobile and this gate was always guarded. The entire fenced perimeter was patrolled hourly as reporters from Alien News Quarterly, Star Trek Voyager freaks, and Von Daniken disciples were continually trying to sneak in and uncover some cover-up or controvert some controversy.

That's why the Officer the Day, Lieutenant Gaines, stopped the huge yellow Mercedes limousine at the front gate. "State your business," said Lt. Gaines, straightening his Officer the Day armband. The tinted rear window of the limo lowered. Gaines snapped to attention and saluted. "Sorry, Mr. Bandler. I didn't see your VIP plates," said Gaines, completing the salute.

"Did you happen to notice the color of the car?" The tinted window closed and the Mercedes sped away.

"You arrogant cross-eyed cocksucker," said Gaines, as he spit on the sizzling asphalt.

In the backseat of the chauffeured Mercedes, a Rolexed left arm handed Bandler a scotch on the rocks. "Always make the fuckers sweat," said Bandler as he sipped at his Chivas. "Always."

Bandler's passenger nodded.

2

Hanger 6 at Gary Powers Air Force Base was big enough to house any stadium the Super Bowl has ever been played in. In front of a huge sign:

TOP SECRET

ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE

stood Airmen Zelko and Addams. The twin sentries were armed with M-16s and grenades. Gas masks hung from their belts.

"What was that?" asked Zelko.

"What?"

"That sloppy, sucking noise."

"You're goofy," said Addams.

Zelko flipped the safety off his M-16, "There. Hear it?"

"It's probably mice," said Addams. "Put your safety back on."

"Mice make a dry scratchity-scritchity noise. This is a slurpity sound—"

"Frogs?"

"There aren't any frogs in the desert. Plenty of horny toads, but this sounds—hear it?—like a cow taking a long, hot, liquid dump."

"Now there's a lovely visual," said Addams. "Shut up, you're making me crazy."

Zelko safetied his weapon. "I can't wait for those VIPs to get here, then we can get back to guarding those leaky old nuclear warheads. This space man shit makes me crazy."

"Crazy," agreed Addams. "You got a smoke?"

"Yeh."

The sentries lit up, both inhaled deeply and gazed at the distant black bulk of Mount Argo. When they had looked away the Glow seeped out from beneath the hangar door, almost to their feet.

"There's that noise again," said Zelko.

"The only noise around here is you, Zelko," said Addams. "Put a frigging sock in it."

3

"I'll probably be convicted at the Courts Martial," said John. "You realize that Alexi, don't you?"

"Help me here," said Alexi.

John pulled Alexi up off his desk and handed her the pair of pantyhose draped over the desk lamp. "Thanks," she said. "Where's my bra?"

John looked around. It was on top of his computer monitor. "Here."

"If you are convicted," smiled Alexi, "I could get conjugal visits."

"That's not funny," said John.

Alexi hooked up her bra and handed John his Spiderman patterned boxer shorts.

"Thanks," said John.

Alexi caressed John's smooth face. "You look 11 years younger without that beard." She kissed him; long and slow, nibbling on his lower lip. "We haven't been able to talk since Hal.....What really happened up there, John?"

"Mutiny," said John, "and now I'm gonna be framed and tried for treason. Shit-and-Molasses, Alexi, I lost my command."

"I lost a brother."

"My best friend."

John and Alexi embraced in a moment of silent commiseration. "Plea bargain, John. Plead guilty," said Alexi. "Do your six months. I can always get you a great desk job."

John smiled and kissed her, "You just gave me a great desk job. I love making love to you, Alexi. I can't even tell you're pregnant."

"I can." Alexi patted her stomach. "I wish we could sleep together at night."

"Me too."

"John?"

"Yeh?"

Alexi smiled and said, "I have to go in a minute, but when I masturbate wildly tonight, I'll be thinking of you."

"Wow," said John. "Am I in all your fantasies?"

"Of course." Alexi winked and said: "You're the cameramen."

"Cute," said John. "The cameraman."

She kissed him and said, "Do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Plea bargain? I'll get you a personnel job."

"Alexi," said John, "an Air Force jet doesn't have drawers."

"Huh?"

"You know what I mean. I've got to fight this," said John. "I'm not a traitor; I'm not a Benedict Agnew."

Alexi decided that this particular malapropism was accurate and let it pass, "Fight it? Even if it means life in prison for treason?" Alexi finished dressing and checked her watch. "Jesus, I'm late."

John wrote on a notepad, This room might be bugged. Alexi nodded. John dropped to his knees and un-taped vial D, the Super Yeast, from the underside of his desk and handed it to Alexi. He wrote, Make sure my mom gets this yeast.

She grabbed a pan and wrote, I thought they confiscated your yeast?

Only three vials. This one I managed to smuggle off of the DP-9. Mom will know what to do with it.

I'll FedEx it to her today.

"Thanks," said John.

"Think about the plea bargain?"

John shook his head and pulled a 22 ounce Fourth Generation Ales: Lead-In-Your-Pencil-Porter from a tiny refrigerator. "See you tomorrow."

"I love you too," said Alexi.

"Of course I love you," said John. "Please tell one of the guards I'm almost out of beer," said John.

4

Brad Spitz, dressed in a blue NASA jumpsuit, walked directly up to Zelko and Addams. Brad carried the HERNIA, an instrument that resembled a boombox with a vacuum cleaner's nozzle. The soft-spoken, hearing-impaired Spitz had developed the HERNIA (Handheld Emergency Retroactive Nuclear Identification Apparatus) for just such an occasion: An attempt to establish the nuclear "signature" of an extraterrestrial intelligence. As Brad had just explained, to the lone reporter with clearance and a mob of Generals that he'd debriefed, the HERNIA would establish a "thumbprint" to identify, classify, and differentiate ETs. "That's if," Brad emphasized to the reporter, and the Generals, "the DP-9 actually did make contact."

Right now, Brad pointed the HERNIA's nozzle at Zelko and Addams. Frank Morrison, the reporter with clearance, walked up to Brad said, "What's this do again?"

"It's technical," said Brad softly. "And fairly esoteric."

"I'm a technical guy," said Morrison, "and just last night my wife called me esoteric. How ironic."

Zelko and Addams stared suspiciously at the HERNIA.

"Let's talk," said Morrison.

"I debriefed you with the generals," said Brad. "I've said all I have to say."

"C'mon. Give me a quote, something I can use here."

Brad smiled and switched off his hearing aid. He vacuumed, head-to-foot, with the HERNIA, first Addams; then Zelko.

Zelko said to Brad, "Get that magic wand out of my face you NASA faggot."

Brad methodically checked the HERNIA's dials.

"He can't hear a word you're saying, buddy," said Morrison to Zelko. "He turned off his hearing aid."

"The fucker's deaf?" said Addams.

"Only when he wants to be." Morrison tapped Brad on the shoulder and in sign language said, Gimme a break, Spitz, what does this thing do?

"Hey Zelko," said Addams, "you know any sign language?"

"Sure," said Zelko. He extended the middle finger of his left hand.

"Funny," said Addams.

What a couple of assholes, signed Morrison.

Brad laughed.

Morrison motioned at the HERNIA, How's this thing work?

Brad nodded and signed, Ever hear of a Moore Neighborhood?

No.

I hope it stays that way, Brad nudged the HERNIA with his foot, because if this thing detects one, life as we know it—except for maybe Keith Richards—will cease to exist. You can hear, signed Brad. Where'd you learn sign language?

My mother was deaf. She had Rheumatic Fever as a child. How did you—

My parents, back in the 70s, toured with the Grateful Dead. They were a hippie-dippie-folk-acoustic-duo. They played Pete Seeger, Dylan, Woody Guthrie stuff.

Yeh?

One day after their set, I was about six months old; they left me in my Moses Basket right in front of Jerry Garcia's amplifier. Mom-and-pop were stoned, of course. Jerry was halfway through Mars Hotel before somebody noticed me, but my hearing was affected.

That's terrible.

But I got them back.

How?

I work for the government.

Oh, my. That's cruel.

Brad turned his hearing aid on and picked up the HERNIA as an oak-cluster of Generals approached hanger 6. Salutes were exchanged.

"Bottom line it for me," said General Mills to Brad.

Brad checked the dials and said, "I don't feel too spiffy about this," said Brad.

"About what?"

"Inert, unheated, metal aircraft hangars," said Brad, "whether or not they contain spacecraft, generally, don't have temperatures of 52°Celsius."

"No shit?" said Morrison.

Brad nodded.

"Why not?" asked General Mills.

"Tell him about Keith Richards," said Morrison.

5

Simon Bandler finished his Scotch, set the glass down and checked his watch. "Ready?" he asked his passenger.

Without waiting for an answer Bandler climbed out his side of the garish yellow Mercedes Benz limousine. His brown, slightly-crossed eyes had trouble adjusting to the intense desert sunshine. He fished in the breast pocket of his black Bill Blair jacket for a pair of tortoise-shell-framed sunglasses.

Phil Watts exited from the other side of the gamboges-yellow Mercedes and checked his Rolex; he wanted to remember the exact time he started kicking ass and taking names.

1:17 p.m.

Watts smiled and took a step towards the flock of Generals assembled in front of hanger 6. Bandler grabbed Watts' arm and shook his head. They leaned against the limo. "Always make the suckers sweat," said Watts.

"You're going places, kid."

Like Wild West gunfighters Watts and Bandler stared across the dusty asphalt. God, perhaps tired of being Voltaire's comedian, decided to become a director of a Spaghetti Western and She sent three tumbleweeds tumbling between the two groups of men.

And Alexi.

"We'll take that as our cue," said Bandler. He and Watts approached the hanger.

The Generals greeted Bandler the way a senior at Stanford greets a rich, but unctuous and despicable uncle who is paying the tuition.

Alexi, who had just arrived in her Jeep in a swirl of dust, tapped Brad on the shoulder and pointed to Watts, "When did Watts –-"

"I suppose," said Brad, "that Bandler's had him on the payroll for years."

"I was wondering how he got honorably discharged after his DP-9 deposition. He was up there babysitting it for Bandler."

"Alexi," said Brad. "You've been crying."

"I just left John. He refuses to plea bargain."

"Gollywoggs," said Brad. "Are you sure John realizes that if he's found guilty he's incarcerated whether he did it or not?"

"I can never really, quite, tell what John understands," said Alexi.

"Here they come," said Morrison.

Bandler approached Alexi and extended his hand.

Alexi ignored the proffered hand. She shook her head and, ignoring Watts and Bandler, addressed the assembly, "Generals, since you've made a decision to terminate the quarantine—"

"Against our advice and the mandates of logic," said Brad, almost inaudibly.

"—there is no need to wait any longer," said Alexi. The Glow licked out from beneath the hanger doors. The HERNIA beeped twice.

"What's up?" asked Morrison.

The Generals hovered around Bandler like kids around a department store Santa: anxious, but knowing that gifts were imminent. Alexi rummaged in her pockets for the keys to the hangar door. She stepped back from the door and extended the keys, "Let's cut the horsehair Generals. We know who's really in charge."

Bandler flashed Alexi a Who me? look and stepped forward, with Watts at his side. Bandler reached for the keys and Alexi dropped them onto the sand-strewn tarmac.

Bandler and Alexi stared at each other, until Alexi crossed her eyes, causing him to look away. He shook his vision clear and motioned at the keys. Watts bent to retrieve them. He tried to hand them to Bandler, who shook his head. Watts confused, then comprehending, wiped the keys on his pants and handed them to his boss. "Generals," said Bandler, smiling. "The moment we've been waiting for."

Bandler unlocked the door and motioned to Zelko and Addams. "The doors?"

Zelko and Addams, shouldering their M-16s, pulled the huge sliding doors open.

The DP-9, displayed in the center of the cavernous hangar, was illuminated by a bank of spotlights. The entourage, led by Bandler, marched to the Old-Yeller-hued-spacecraft.

Bandler stopped 193 feet from the spacecraft and said, "Goddam, what a beautiful sight. Eighth wonder of the world. Watts?"

"What?"

"Remind me to give you a bonus."

Watts removed his shades and tugged at his collar, "Why is it so hot in here?"

The procession, flanked by Zelko and Addams, finally reached the DP-9. Brad and Morrison lingered behind the group, taking readings with the HERNIA. "Alexi," Brad said, "Come here now, quick."

Alexi peeled away from the group, "What?"

"Look at this," said Brad.

"Is that a Moore Neighborhood?" asked Morrison.

Flashing across the screen of the HERNIA was a pulsating symmetrical design.

"That, Mr. Morrison," said Brad softly, "is a Moore Neighborhood."

"What exactly does it mean?" asked Alexi.

"Imagine a living organism," said Brad, "that could be diagrammed as a flat sheet of paper extending infinitely in all directions."

"Okay," said Alexi.

"And this infinite paper is ruled off into squares, like a colorless checkerboard, with each square representing a constituent, living cell."

"I'm with you."

"Any given cell is either alive or dead, with the live cells represented by a dot and the dead cells left blank."

"Okay."

"Now, now," stammered Brad, "whether a particular cell is alive depends not upon its own intrinsic ability to support life—"

"Wait a minute," said Alexi.

"That's impossible," said Morrison.

"—but directly upon the current state of the neighboring cells. That's a Moore Neighborhood. The cell is alive, if exactly three of its neighbors are alive. The cell is dead if it has zero, one, two, or more than three neighbors that are alive."

"Death from isolation or overcrowding?" asked Morrison.

"Precisely," said Brad. "A cell can only remain alive if three of its neighbors are also alive simultaneously. That is, for life to exist there has to be a balance between the birth of new cells in a cooperative environment and the death of old cells by overcrowding or isolation."

"Yowza," said Morrison.

Bandler cleared his throat and started his speech, "Gentlemen. This is a proud day, indeed for both Bandler Enterprises and the United States of America."

That's when the lights in Hangar 6 went out.

6

An indistinct-and-muddled Glow hovered over the DP-9 like a veil of shrimp-and–mushroom scented vapor over a sizzling wok. It danced and gamboled; shifted and swirled.

It throbbed and pulsated.

"What the hell is going on?" said Bandler.

"Sweet Mother of God, pray for us," said Zelko.

"Alexi?" said Brad.

"Piss-and-vinegar," said Addams.

The Generals, panicked, tried to exit gracefully, but ended up just walking in ever-widening circles because no one wanted to be the first to leave. Zelko and Addams were grabbed by Bandler and Watts. "Lock and load," said Bandler. "Lock and load, you grunts."

"You aren't my commanding officer," said Zelko.

"And a grunt is a Marine," said Addams. "I shoulda been a Marine."

"I'm a taxpayer," said Bandler, "and you're staying right here to protect and defend my investment."

"Sir, yes sir," yelled Addams. "Protect and defend." Addams, M-16 on full automatic, sprayed bullets indiscriminately around Hangar 6: a few actually in the direction of the Glow above the DP-9. The Generals, all shreds of decorum now gone, sprinted from the hangar. General Mills, after running over Brad and knocking the HERNIA to the concrete floor, slowed down as he passed the hangar doors and managed to sound an air raid siren, calling Gary Powers Air Force Base to General Quarters. Addams continued his random distribution of bullets as Alexi and Brad stared at the Glow. A ricocheted bullet hit Zelko in the shoulder and he fell to the hangar's impossibly warm concrete floor.

Bandler latched onto Addam's arm, "Hey Gomer Pyle, aim that little bastard."

"Sir, yes sir," yelled Addams. He poured bullets into the Glow.

The diaphanous entity grew brighter and split into three distinct forms. Confused, Addams couldn't decide which of the three vapors to shoot. "Shoot, Gomer, shoot," said Bandler, "pull the fucking trigger. Get the one of the left. Watts, get the one on the right." Bandler drew a huge pistol from inside his jacket; Watts gathered up Zelko's M-16 and nodded at his boss who said, "Fire."

Alexi, Morrison, and Brad cowered, hoping not to get hit by a stray bullet. But now, there wasn't a single miss. The Glows gobbled up bullets like hungry diabetics munching bonbons. The Glows actually advanced toward the shooters, swerving to snag errant bullets with wet, sticky, WHOMPS.

Then all three Glows surged and latched onto the barrels of the guns. The three shooters dropped their weapons; two of them screamed. The guns hung in air, attached to the Glows until they realized that no more bullets were forthcoming. They dropped the guns to the hangar floor with a clatter as the Glows slipped from the hangar. Momentarily, the harsh illumination from the spotlights returned.

Zelko struggled to his knees and mumbled a prayer.

Brad rummaged through the pieces of his shattered HERNIA.

Addams picked up his smoking M-16.

Morrison searched the hangar floor for his pad and pencil.

Watts, almost in shock, absentmindedly stroked his Rolex.

Alexi, standing still and statuesque in the swirling maelstrom of panicked males said, "I know that's what killed Hal."

7

Jimmy Wiggins, only an octave-and-a-half off key sang Eastbound and Down as his Winnebago crested a long incline on Nevada State Highway 31. The Winnebago, its custom fuel injected 454 inch engine, kept in tip-top shape by Jimmy, hesitated; then faltered at the top of the incline.

"Sonuvabitch," said Jimmy, switching off the radio.

"What is it?" asked Pearl.

"I don't know." The Winnebago pi-pi-pinged, knocked and fa-fa-farted. Jimmy double-clutched and downshifted. "Come on you bucket of bolts. I just tuned you up: new plugs, wires, and gaskets—you can almost fly, you Winniebastard. I got more miles on me than you and if I have to hop out and push your ass to Las-fuckin'-Vegas I will, Goddam it all."

Pearl smiled, "You make me wet when you talk dirty, Jimmy."

He rubbed the windshield, blinked his eyes twice and said, "What the hell is that?"

"What?"

The Winnie had reached the top of the incline and lost power as it encountered three Glowing shapes. Jimmy shifted into neutral as the Glows attached themselves slurp-slurp-slurp to Jimmy's windshield.

"Jimmy?" said Pearl.

"Pearl?" said Jimmy.

"I don't know," they said simultaneously.

The Glows whirled and pulsated, growing to near-nova-brightness. That's when Pearl screamed. Jimmy, shocked, surprised, terrified, and intrigued, shielded his wife's eyes and said, "Beat me like a redhaired stepchild. Jesus-fucking-Christ-Almighty."

The inside of Jimmy and Pearl's mobile retirement home looked like a mobile home electronics store. There was a HDTV, virtual-reality goggles, several police scanners, a wave radio, a stereo, a video camera, a DVD player with an extensive disk library, two laptops, and an Atari Pong permanently hooked up to a black-and-white portable television. Every circuit from every gadget was drained as the Glows pulsed, grew larger, then disappeared—warp speed—into the abysmal shadows flanking Mount Argo. The Winnebago and the Wiggins' electronic menagerie regained power as the Glows faded across the distant desert.

Jimmy shifted back into gear and drove nearly three miles before he turned to his wife and said, "As Bill said to Ted in that stupid ass movie we saw last night, There's something afoot at the Circle K."

"I read," said Pearl, "in a UFO chat room that there's a secret Air Force Base around here somewhere in the Argo Valley. Dreamland, everyone calls it."

"Pearl? Honey?"

"Yes?"

"How could it be secret if everyone knows its name?"

Pearl thought for a moment, then pointed out the front window to a uniformed figure standing at the side of the road hitchhiking. "Ask him."

Jimmy braked the Winnebago to a stop and Pearl opened the passenger door. "You'll be late for school if you don't get quick on the bus, Sonny," said Jimmy.

John Wryght, dressed in his Air Force uniform and yellow Nike running shoes peered into the Winnebago. "Hi."

"Greetings," said Pearl.

"Where you headed?" asked Jimmy.

John pointed vaguely south. "Tonight, anywhere the road will take me."

"Well schitt," said Jimmy. "The name's Jimmy Wiggins and tonight I'm going your way. Hop in."

Pearl performed a graceful glissade between the front seats and sat in the back at an upholstered Captain's Chair in front of a laptop. John clambered up into the Winnebago. After the 15.7 seconds that it took Jimmy to accelerate his souped-up Winnebago to 87 mph Pearl said, "Could I fix you an omelet?"

"Sure," said John, as he extended his hand,

"John Wryght, maam. And I'd love a snack."

"Forget the damn maam," said Jimmy. "That's Pearl you're talking to. Light of my life and the fire of my loins. Postmenopausal Pearl: she's done droppin' eggs, but still spreadin' her legs."

"He's a cad and a sex fiend," said Pearl. "Thank God." She retreated to the Winnebago's kitchen.

There's an unspoken dynamic in the driver-hitchhiker relationship. Once picked up, the hitchhiker must listen attentively to whatever the driver wants to talk about; no matter how inane, pornographic, political, or contrived.

It's the fee for the ride.

So John nodded attentively as Jimmy said, "You've never known love, until you've known a woman with money and breeding, who is past money and breeding."

They drove in silence until Jimmy took his eyes off the empty ribbon of asphalt known as Highway 31 and checked out John's uniform insignia. "So, Captain John Wryght, USAF, what are you doin' AWOL?"

8

"I was commanding this spacecraft and was surrounded by this huge glowing mass that ate my best friend, who is also my fiancée's brother and I made the decision to terminate the mission, but a crew member, who it turns out was all the time working for the spacecraft's manufacturer, mutinied and I was placed on house arrest awaiting Courts Martial and an air raid siren sounded and some shooting started on the Air Force Base, so the Air Police guarding me responded to the melee so I put on my ugly yellow running shoes and crawled 561 yards through a culvert and hiked in the desert until nightfall when it was safe to walk along the road and then I started hitchhiking," is what John wanted to say.

What he did say was, "Huh?"

"Those shoes," said Jimmy. "No officer would ever be caught in the middle of the Nevada desert, at night, wearing jogging shoes."

"It's a long story," said John.

"Any story worth hearing, or telling, usually is."

"You can stop and let me out anywhere," said John.

"Hang on to your biscuits," said Jimmy. "I'm not lettin' you out in the middle of the desert with the military police after you."

"Thanks."

"God knows they chased me often enough," said Jimmy.

John and Jimmy nodded and rode along in silence for a few miles.

"Let me try this again. So Captain Wryght, USAF, what you do when you're not flying Stearman Kaydet Biplanes?"

"A Stearman is one of the few aircraft I haven't flown," said John. "That was a great plane, where'd you fly one? Crop dusting?"

"No. The Stearman was still, believe it or not, still operational after World War II. As an Air National Guard trainer. You have to fly a biplane, John. Flying one is the second greatest thrill on earth."

"What's the greatest? That money and breeding thing?"

"Nope," said Jimmy. "The only thrill greater than flying a biplane is landing one."

"That thrill works with jets too."

"Yes it does," said Jimmy as he accelerated. The Winnebago's high beams illuminated a solitary billboard:

### FOURTH GENERATION ALES!!!

### The Wryght Stuff—It's the Yeast!!!

"You ever drink that monkeypiss?" said Jimmy. "Eight or nine dollars a six-pack and it tastes like they been boiling soiled boxer shorts in it. Tastes like Greek olives and coffee, darker than midnight, with a smell that could singe your nosehairs."

"So," said John, "I take it you're a Budweiser man?"

"Hell no," said Jimmy. "Budweiser is for plaid shirted, dip-schitt bowlers whose IQs match their shoe size. I'm a Coors man. Besides, my old man once told me Never drink nothing you can't see through. Your pop ever tell you that?"

"No."

"What advice did he give you about beer?"

"He said, John, when you have a child, we'll rename the brewery Fifth Generation Ales."

Jimmy looked again at John's nameplate, "Wryght with a Y? Think of the odds."

"Astronomical."

"Looks like I stuck my foot my mouth, eh?"

"Up to the knee, Jimmy."

Pearl, preceded by the smell of braised shallots, poked a plate at John. He graciously accepted the perfectly browned omelet, buttered brioche, and a crescent moon of cantaloupe without the rind. "God bless you, Pearl," said John. "I can't remember the last time I ate an amulet."

Jimmy looked at Pearl and said, "I had a cousin who accidentally swallowed a cameo brooch."

"Omelet. Thank you, I have this impediment—"

"As long as your appetite's not impaired I could give a hoot," said Pearl. "Anything to drink?"

John winked at Jimmy, "A Coors would be fantastic."

Jimmy winked at John, "Make it two, Pearl honey. Driving makes me thirsty."

Pearl returned with three opened bottles of beer. After they had clinked a toast and sipped, Pearl said, "So John, you ever hear of a secret Air Base nearby here in the Nevada desert called Dreamland?"

"What brings that up?" said John around a mouthful of brioche.

"You tell him honey," said Jimmy. "Despite what we just seen I don't believe in that UFO kind of pigschitt."

9

A 235 pound, buffed Chippendale stripper, with a 14 karat gold hoop in his left nipple drove the golfcart full of beer and liquor up to the first tee. Beneath the yellow-and-white banner:

### BANDLER ENTERPRISES

### MAKER OF THE BANDLER BANDIT ELECTRIC RAZOR

### PROUDLY PRESENTS OUR ANNUAL CELEBRITY FEMALE GOLF TOURNAMENT!

and started selling beer, liquor, and wine coolers to the contestants.

His first sale was a nonfat-piña-colada-cooler to a daytime talkshow host whose weight fluctuated more than the dollar-to-yen exchange rate. She stuffed the Chippendale's five dollar tip into the waistband of his red, skintight, silk toreador pants. His second sale was to a short, national a.m. television news anchor that, since second grade, had been described as Perky. She perkily slammed back two shots of Jagermeister and wrote her hotel room number on the second row of the Chippendale's raised and rigid abdominal muscles. She stuck $10, deeply, into his waistband. The Chippendale smiled; he would make $250 before noon, and then the real jackpot from the Bandler Enterprises Annual Celebrity Female Golf Tournament would pay off.

Two-hundred rich, lonely, horny, professional, sophisticated women were in Las Vegas all week for the golf tournament.

And also for, of course, the sex.

His third sale was interrupted by the female public address announcer: "Bandler Enterprises, the Bandler Bandit Feminine Hygiene Appliance and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce welcome you to the most electric city in the world. Everyone knows the rules; a shotgun start, best ball, foursome challenge, with the winning foursome's selected charity to win $100,000—"

"And blah-blah-blah," said the perky a.m. t.v. news anchor. "Gimme another Jagermeister, Stud Muffin."

The Chippendale served the perky drinker, flexed his pecs, handed her five little green-and-gold bottles of Jagermeister and said, "For the back nine."

"—but hey," said the female PA announcer. "Enough of my yakking, ladies, get ready to show us your best balls!"

The talkshow hostess placed her piña-colada-cooler in a drink holder and approached the tee. Seventeen other golfers, simultaneously, did the same thing: They all teed up a ball, took two or three practice swings and waited until the PA announcer said: "Let the tournament begin!"

The tense silence prior to the first shot of a golf tournament settled over the Nancy López designed golf course. Then, more-or-less simultaneously, 18 female golfers swung and launched 18 golf balls skyward.

Immediately, the brightness of the desert air increased, gaining a palpable Glow, and the 18 golf balls, with 18 WHUMPS were all sucked out of midair.

The brightening Glow seemed to swirl, increase, and then recede from the golf course. It drifted slowly towards the ragged and senseless patchwork skyline of the most exhausting and ironic city in the world, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ironic, because Sin City was founded as a New Mission Settlement by Mormons in 1885.

Exhausting, because as Anne Morrow Lindberg wrote: The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

The stunned and astonished silence thickened, until 72 golfers (one drunken-and-slurred, but still Perky) said, more-or-less simultaneously, "What the fuck?"

10

"We must," said Brad, "find a way to locate and capture the aliens."

"We can't know for certain that they were aliens," said General Mills.

"Right," said Alexi, "it was the wind." She snuffed out a cigarette in an Elvis Lives ashtray John had bought her at Graceland. She sat at her desk as Bandler consulted with General Mills. "Jeez," she said, "I really shouldn't be smoking anymore."

"Spitz?" Said General Mills.

"Yes sir?"

"Was any hard data," asked General Mills, "gathered before you dropped that which-a-ma-jigger?"

"Yes," said Brad.

Bandler and General Mills said, "What?"

"The energy requirement parameters," said Brad, "are exactly what Hal and I would have expected. They are the interstellar equivalent of the gunman on the grassy knoll."

"Give us a real answer, butthead," said Bandler.

Brad squinted at the cross-eyed Bandler, "I never know which eye to make contact with."

"Funny," said Bandler.

"You have enough money," said Brad, "can't you get that cross-eyed thing fixed?"

"Come on, Brad," said Alexi. "What do you know?"

Brad spoke quietly to Alexi, ignoring everyone else in the room, "After eliminating what terrestrial or even pan-terrestrial lifeforms they could be, I've determined that they are indeed aliens. They somehow survived reentry, it seems they feed, they thrive on all types of energy."

"But—" said Alexi.

"Are they nuclear?" asked Bandler.

"There's no way to tell if they're even related," said Brad.

"Nuclear family, I get it Mr. Comedian," said Bandler. "Could they survive a nuclear blast?"

"Isn't a little early to deploy warheads?" said Alexi.

"Yes," said General Mills, "could they? Survive nuclear?" The General smiled; he might get to play with one of his favorite toys.

"Brad," said Alexi, "what would happen if the aliens were nuked?"

"It could go one of two ways," said Brad. "First a nuclear blast would kill them."

"And second?" asked General Mills.

"It could," said Brad, "be like giving them steroids."

"Shit," said Alexi.

"Up to the eyebrows, Alexi," said Brad.

"How about notifying the American public?" said Alexi. "Isn't that our duty and responsibility?"

The red-faced, jowly general pondered; then said, "That's a complex and multifaceted situation. Anyone worth their oats knows that public panic and hysteria is as injurious and detrimental—"

"General?" said Bandler, "I'll answer this."

"So answer it," said Brad.

Bandler smiled, "Fuck the American public."

"This is a potential global wide disaster," said Alexi.

"I believe," said Bandler, "that once again it is time for men of action to decide what is best for the American public. And, of course what is best for America, by extension, is best for the world."

"Absolutely," said General Mills. "Statue of Liberty. Manifest Destiny. Unalienable Rights. Freedom of Speech. We tell the public nothing."

Watts said "There is, however, one piece of information that should be passed on the public. At least to the public law enforcement agencies."

"What's that?" said Alexi.

"Captain John Wyrght," said Watts, "has shot an airman named Zelko and escaped from house arrest. He's AWOL and should be considered armed and dangerous."

"That's a lie," said Alexi. "Brad and I saw Zelko—"

"Wait," said Watts, holding out his arm. He checked his Rolex and smiled. It was 8:23 p.m.

He'd just arrived.

11

Las Vegas' Luxor Pyramid did not look timeless, epic, or Egyptian. It looked like a pyramid built by an extremely large, incredibly spoiled child with blocks and a sizeable strand of leftover Christmas lights. The sun, red from the city's smog, shown raw and chancre-like behind the pyramid, which was, undoubtedly, the finest example of 20th-Century-American-Retro-Gauche-Architecture ever constructed.

The three Glows were obscured by the Luxor's lights as they frolicked around the outside of the pyramid. All day, following their interception of the first tee shots from Bandler's Annual Celebrity Female Golf Classic, the Glows soaked up solar energy from the desert sun, and sampled something new to them, something known on Earth as LANGUAGE.

"French," they heard, and decided: euphonious, but humorless.

"German," they heard, and decided: precise, but too self-aggrandizing.

"Italian," they heard, and decided: lyrical and poetic, but too sentimental.

They finally decided to communicate with each other in a language they could sample most easily: English. This language, spoken by many people in many places around the globe, was a curious admixture of words from all the other languages, with rules that could be bent to say whatever you needed to say. A language much like a verbal grout that could be inserted into cracks and molded: to be utilized almost anywhere.

The Glows, sucking up solar radiation in the middle of the desert, surveyed and studied English language radio and t.v. broadcasts and learned two things: How to communicate with each other in English, and: On earth, anything that is too stupid or maudlin to be spoken is sung.

The Glows had grown to the size of 5 gallon bota bags, but their actual shapes and configurations were masked by their radiance. They indulged their Innocent Curiosity, and while playing Follow-the-Leader around the Luxor Pyramid resembled the Disney trio: Bambi, Thumper, and Flower. Thumper led the other two; the cutely clumsy Bambi, and the shy stumbling Flower.

Now, at the apex of the Luxor, Bambi rubbed against the lighted top of the pyramid and it began to dim. Flower joined her and the light faded further. this is a biscuit, communicated Thumper wordlessly, follow me and i'll show you a banquet.

Flower and Bambi communicated, okay, and they all three slowly slid down the pyramid, pressing against the windows.

12a

Chauncey and Dale Zindel stayed in the same room at the Luxor every time they played Vegas. As Elvis impersonators they were quite good, but the fact that there were two of them, identical twins, gyrating pelvically as they waded through the Elvis song book made them, absolutely, the best in the business.

Tonight, before the show, as usual, they were playing gin and drinking bourbon. Chauncey dealt deftly around a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and Burger King sacks. Dale picked up his cards, smiled and said, "I'm going to bury you like a dog does a bone." He fanned his cards, looked over Chauncey's left shoulder, out the tinted window. Dale dropped his cards and said, "Well fuck me."

"What?"

Dale pointed at the window, "Look. Look. Look at those—"

"Jesus," said Chauncey as he turned and, also, dropped his cards.

Dale drank from the bottle of Jack Daniels and passed it to Chauncey. "Are we hallucinating? Those are three of the biggest—"

"We are not hallucinating," said Dale. "Those are the sweetest looking—"

"Have a drink Bro."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The Glows slid out of the twins' view as they continued down the Luxor Pyramid.

"It was a beatific vision," said Dale, "meant for us. Have we become The Elvis?"

"I saw," said Chauncey. "And I believe."

"We've been doing this for years; have we been chosen by God, through this vision to continue The Legacy?"

"I believe," said Chauncey.

"Immortality. This will mean that, through us, the King still lives. He is immortal."

Chauncey drank from the bottle. "We are truly the anointed and the appointed."

"Amen."

"It's showtime, Baby."

"Let's do it."

Dale and Chauncey Zindel rose, put on their mirrored shades and took one last glimpse at the tinted window that had revealed the Glows, allowing these twins to be the first humans to see what Bambi, Flower and Thumper actually were.

Except, of course, for the deceased Hal Creek.

12b

The world's most famous billboard, in front of Caesars Palace, splashed with light from 47 different spotlights, read:

### WORLD HEAVY TITLE BOUT TONITE!!!

### JOHNNY "JOY BOY" KRAMER

### vs.

### BOB "THE GREAT WHITE DOPE" ALPAUGH

Inside, a boisterous and raucous crowd awaited the start of the fight in the sold-out Caesars Palace fight arena. Three handlers and a famous wild-haired promoter huddled in the far corner, looming over the wily veteran boxer, who would be performing tonight. The wild-haired promoter screamed at the still seated contestant: "You been in this racket seven years and this is the first round of the biggest fight of your life, Joy Boy. There are over 50 million people watching, not including pay-per-view and South Korean syndication. Got it? I want you to show me and the world that you have some heart, some guts, some balls! Ready! Let's do it!"

The promoter and three handlers, in unison, yelled, "Kill!" and stepped back.

"Yeh!" yelled Doris Warwick. "Kill the bastard!" She straightened her feathers, picked up the card with ROUND ONE written on it and strutted, bumping and grinding and smiling and blowing kisses, around the ring. After two short years, she'd made it to the top: Ring Girl at a Caesars Palace title fight.

She walked past Joy Boy, a Nubian handsome black fighter who patted her rear end with a gloved hand. She strutted past The Great White Dope, a chubby club fighter whose main talent was that he was a White Heavyweight Contender. The Great White Dope also pawed Doris' left cheek with a gloved hand.

The fight bell rang and Doris was stepping from the ring when Bambi, Thumper and Flower—all Glowing brightly—attached themselves to her glittering, strapless, sequined outfit. Doris screamed and, writhing, fell back into the ring and down to the canvas. She convulsed, panted, and screamed as the Glowing trio disentangled themselves, zapped the ring lights and flew from the arena.

During the 30 seconds it took for the ring lights to return, history was made.

Bob Alpaugh—even though handsome Johnny "Joy Boy" Kramer, hands down, was staring at the quivering ring girl—cold-cocked the defending champion. Alpaugh knocked Kramer out with that one cheap punch to Kramer's undefended chin. After the ref had counted to 10 and raised The Great White Dope's hand, Alpaugh had become the first man from Cary, North Carolina, to be named heavyweight champion of the world.

And Doris Warwick, despite her gorgeous body and many many many attempts, experiments, and what some would call perversions, could finally say, "Holy Cow, I think I just had an orgasm."

13

John, sweaty and tired, hunched over the keyboard of Pearl's computer. He wore one of Jimmy's long-sleeved plaid shirts and the black and gray wool scarf that Pearl had wrapped around his neck as he worked through the night.

"He's working on some big Government mainframe," said Pearl. "The young man probably programs faster than I type."

"That's percolating," said Jimmy.

"Huevos, c'mon Huevos," said John to the computer screen. "You couldn't just have varnished. Those inclusive bastards in security keep track of everybody. Come on. A phone. An e-mail address. Something."

Jimmy stood with Pearl, behind John. They watched the rows and columns of numbers zipping across the screen. "I wish we had that SOB during the Cold War," said Jimmy. "We'd have pulled down the Iron Curtain in 1973."

"Sixty-three," said Pearl.

"C'mon," said John.

"Pearl?" asked Jimmy. "Are you backin' him up?"

"I did when he stopped use the bathroom about an hour ago," said Pearl. "He won't let me anywheres near when he's working."

"Pearl?"

"Yes?"

"What exactly is he doing?"

"He was tracking a classified report on some ETIs he apparently encountered."

"Zebraschitt on UFOs and ETIs."

"What about those Glowers, we saw?" asked Pearl. "Why'd the Winnebago lose power?"

"Dolphinschitt," said Jimmy.

John fiddled with the keyboard. The screen pulsated and changed color. "I'll find you, Huevos."

"Huevos?" said Jimmy. "Why is he looking for eggs?"

Pearl cleared her throat. "From what I can gather his friend Martín Huevos and himself encountered those aliens on the spaceship that John had piloted. That Bandler DP-9. I read about it in Alien Encounters. "

"That's the big yellow flying dick, right? The yolky-colored Star Wars dildo?"

"They should call it The Penetrator." Pearl giggled.

"Have the Navy fly it and call it The Ejaculator."

"Why the Navy?"

"Because," said Jimmy, "they could fill it with seamen."

"That's nasty."

"You're mad because you didn't think of it first."

Pearl snuggled and gave Jimmy a kiss.

They stood quietly behind John, staring. Pearl fought back tears.

"I know," said Jimmy, pointing at John, "he reminds me so much of Richard, I gotta bite my tongue to keep from crying."

"The resemblance is amazing. Even his mannerisms; the way he types, walks, and sits," said Pearl. "I just wish he could say my blinking name. He keeps calling me Prell."

"Got you got you got you got you got you," said John, pounding the computer desk. "I found you, Huevos."

That's precisely when the electricity to the western half of the United States of America, from Canada to Mexico, failed.

14

Just as John had located Huevos, Dale and Chauncey, Elvis impersonators extraordinaire, were singing Suspicious Minds. Inspired their by their beatific vision of the Glows they were giving the show of their lives.

The house was a'rockin'.

The Twins had transcended imitation; the audience went wild. Dale in black leather was the svelte-and-sexy Elvis from the 50's. On the right, Chauncey, with mutton chops and skintight white leather was the mature, pre-bloat, karate chopping Elvis from the late 60s.

Women screamed.

Bras littered the stage.

Men screamed.

Money was thrown onto the stage.

Four women fainted.

Two of them were tossed onto the stage.

Then the lights, mikes, and electric guitars died to a collective sigh of disappointment. Dale and Chauncey groped across the stage toward each other. They hugged. Chauncey said, "Brother, I now know it's true."

"What?"

He motioned at the darkened room and disappointed crowd. "That for the King, the easy part was dying."

15

"I just found Huevos," said John

"Where'd you locate Mister Eggs?" asked Jimmy.

"In some bowling alley," said John. "In Amarillo, Texas."

Pearl looked at John, then Jimmy. "Well? Honey?"

"Unhook the services, Johnny boy," said Jimmy, "we're Amarillo bound."

16

Mount Charleston loomed to the Northwest, above the blacked out city of Las Vegas. The Luxor Pyramid, Caesar's Palace, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Tropicana Avenue, McCarron Airport and Bell's Pawn Shop/Wedding Chapel/Crematorium were all without lights and electricity. The automobile traffic was sparse; four airplanes circled lazily around McCarron Airport, waiting for permission to land. The pilot of the junket flight from Santa Monica, even though he hadn't used cocaine in nearly a year, hallucinogenic drugs for five years, or smoked a joint since shortly after takeoff, thought he saw three pulsating, glowing, oblong electric shapes in the direction of Hoover Dam.

He was right.

Thumper, Bambi, and Flower were confused by the commotion and palpable feelings of dread they aroused in HUMANS. the girl who wears the little dress of lights, communicated Thumper to Bambi and Flower in Caesars Palace, frightens me with her reactions. it is as if she were afraid and excited all at the same time. i'm not satisfied.

she is like the one in the big shiny suit who turned blue, said Bambi. the first one we touched.

then he turned cold, said Flower, i can't be satisfied when they are cold.

good to leave them before they get blue, said Bambi.

and cold, said Flower.

follow me, said Thumper.

That's when they zapped the ringside lights and followed the current to the main junction box at Caesar's Palace. Bambi and Flower wanted to zap the main, but Thumper said, this is a morsel. let's find a meal.

And the trio, following the spoor of induction left by high power lines, trailed the electrical source to the Las Vegas Power and Light Authority; which Bambi and Flower wanted to zap, but Thumper said, this is a snack, let's have supper. The trio traced, for 37 miles, the wires back to the source of production and conductivity: Hoover Dam.

Looming at the base of the dam, hovering above Lake Mead they could sense the humming, drumming, throbbing dynamos within like famished bloodhounds that have treed their elusive quarry.

now? asked Bambi and Flower.

now, said Thumper.

They entered the monolithic dam and munched on the hydroelectric dynamos, bleeding the juice from their circuits and power grids. Which caused circuits, power grids, and dynamos in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, California and Colorado to fall like dominoes.

Thumper said, feel better?

Bambi said, feel bigger.

burp, said Flower, now i'm satisfied.

17

Bandler and Watts stood in front of the Official Desk of the President of the United States of America. The president, seated, was almost swaddled in the huge comfortable Official Leather Presidential Chair. Chief Presidential Aide, Brubeck Castillo said, "May I remind you, Mr. Bandler that this is an election year?" Castillo smiled. "Excuse me, a re-election year."

"I understand that an alien invasion would absolutely undermine the effectiveness of any reelection campaign; even the current president's," said Bandler. "But, I can assure you, with almost 100 per percent certainty that whatever materialized in Hanger 6 was fried, cooked, killed, and destroyed when Hoover Dam got zapped."

"Blacking out seven or eight Western states," said Castillo. "You know how many electoral votes live west of the Mississippi?"

"Without California and Texas?" said Bandler. "Not many."

"The fact remains— "

"Brubeck," said Bandler, "nearly every media source has attributed the blackout to hydroelectric misappropriation."

"What the hell does that mean?" asked Castillo.

The Presidential Chair leaned forward, indicating Presidential Interest.

"It means nothing," said Bandler, "but sounds important. With panaceas, placebos, or politics, it only matters how it sounds."

"And," said Watts, "the claim of Hydroelectric Misappropriation worked. Bandler Enterprises owns majority shares in a significant number of companies associated with the American news industry."

"The president," said Castillo, "has expressed concern about certain news from a certain reporter from the Nevada Journal."

"I've been meaning to buy that goddam paper," said Bandler. "Remind me to make a call from the limo, Watts."

"This reporter," said Castillo, "has been quoting NASA sources about embarrassing facts: mutiny, sabotage, visitors from space, etc. Yes, the president has been quite concerned about these reports."

"In fact," said the president, "I'm so concerned that I'm taking my dog for a walk."

The president pressed a button on the intercom, "Have Tiger and the vice president meet me in the Rose Garden, these prevaricating dipshits are making me meshugga." The president released the button and said: "Bandler and Castillo: work it out right here and right now."

Bandler stared at the president, waiting for a clarification or comment. The president didn't speak for nearly four minutes.

Castillo smiled.

Watts perspired.

The Presidential Chair rocked back and forth, indicating Presidential Anxiety.

Bandler said, finally, to Castillo, "So, Silence is an argument carried on by other means?" They smiled and shook hands.

"I was certain you idiots could work it out," said the president. "And I'm also certain that you what you decided is illegal, and you're gonna do it whether I approve, disapprove or intervene. Thus is the role of Big Business in American History." The president stood, said, "See ya," and left the Oval Office.

"Quoting Che Guevara to me?" said Castillo. "I'm a Republican; that's not good karma, Bandler."

"Contributing seven figures to the president's reelection campaign," said Bandler, "precludes karma. And pays for little pissant motherfuckers like you, Castillo." Bandler smiled "But don't worry, it'll be dealt with. Swiftly, silently, and effectively."

"Thank you," said Brubeck Castillo.

"You're welcome," said Simon Bandler.

18

The chauffeur held the rear door to the limo open as Bandler and Watts walked down the White House steps. Watts grabbed Bandler's arm. "You told me to ask you if I didn't understand anything."

"Shoot," said Bandler.

"The President doesn't say word one. You argue with Castillo. I interject a few facts, you quote a Latin American revolutionary, and you leave the room like you just got a good deal on a new car."

"I just got a great deal."

"Then, what happened?" asked Watts.

Bandler shook his head. "Do I have to grab your dick and haul you around like a Play Skool Ducky?"

"I hope not," said Watts.

"What's the name of that reporter that got so chummy with Brad and Alexi?" Bandler pointed up, at the oval office. "The guy from the Nevada Journal?"

"Morrison," said Watts. "Frank Morrison."

"Well," said Bandler, "I just promised Brubeck Castillo, chief aide to the President of the United States, Leader of the Free World, Defender of Democracy, Human Rights, and the American Way, that you were going to kill that same Frank Morrison."

Watts froze on the steps, looking off at the distant traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. "Say what?"

"Your lesson for today," said Bandler. "Body language counts for quite a bit in politics."

19

Two of Alexi's Yahtzee dice clattered off her Elvis ashtray. "Small straight," said Alexi. "Thirty point-a-roonies."

Brad poured Alexi and himself some more wine and waved to the two armed guards—the only two he could see through the window of Alexi's office. Alexi handed him the dicecup.

He rolled two fives. "Don't need fives," said Brad, "I'll just roll for Chance."

"No one rolls for Chance," said Alexi. "It's what you get stuck with."

Brad slurped some chardonnay from his coffee cup. "It's my secret, strategical weapon. I roll for Chance now, because I have a modicum of control over the dice. Yahtzee is the real chance. It will happen whenever, wherever." Brad rolled and examined his dice, "Gollywoggs."

"Gollywoggs?"

They clinked their cups together for the 11th time that afternoon and drank. "It's my latest, most favortist expletive, Gollywoggs. Got your attention, didn't it?"

"Yeh."

"If I had said fuck it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. Fuck is an incredibly overused word. It has lost its shock value. Gollywoggs, insipid, though it might be, is much more effective."

"Brad?"

"Yeh?"

"Where are the fucking aliens?"

Brad slurped some wine and refilled their coffee cups. "Adjective."

"What?"

"Fucking; modifying the noun aliens. Adjective. Amazing word that overused fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. Verb: I like to fuck. Noun: Look here, you fuck. Adverbial phrase? I fucking fell on the sidewalk. Adverb: You fuck. Adjective clause: I never fucking admired the asshole. Adjective phrase: The Turkish farmers need fucking rain. Adverbial clause: I shall answer that fucking question when you ask it."

"So I'm asking," said Alexi. "Brad, where are the fucking aliens?"

"We haven't seen them in three days. But they hoovered Hoover Dam. Nothing on earth could accommodate an electric jolt like that without meltdown or implosion, right?"

"Right," said Alexi. "But if they survived, where could they be?"

"They gotta be in the Great American Desert. Texas? Utah? New Mexico? Soaking up the rays; gorging on solar radiation. Knowing their energy requirement profile—which Hoover Dam's addition must have exacerbated—they'd just have to be."

"They could be dead. Remember the microbes in War of the Worlds?"

"But this is the real world." Brad rolled the dice again. "Yahtzee!"

"Gollywoggs!" said Alexi.

They laughed, drank; refilled their coffee cups. "They are still out there, Alexi."

"So is John."

"Every government law enforcement agency, and Bandler's private goons, are watching us, girl. John's too smart to contact us directly."

Alexi hugged Brad. As usual Brad didn't hug back; he endured the embrace and then pushed her away.

Brad had been in love with Alexi for years.

And the only thing worse than not having her, was having her that near and knowing that she was in love with John; currently Absent Without Official Leave. Brad gathered up the Yahtzee dice and parked himself in front of Alexi's computer. He booted it and said, "I'll try and find John for you."

"Thanks, buddy," said Alexi.

Brad winced at the word buddy, and, as he went to work, uttered, almost inaudibly: "Fuck."

Exclamatory phrase.

20

The Winnebago cruised by tumbleweeds, an empty case of Lone Star Beer bottles, and a sign that read:

AMARILLO

POP. 282,000

Jimmy drove while eating a bowl of paella. John lounged in the passenger seat, an empty, saffron-stained bowl in his lap. Pearl pecked at her computer's keyboard. "Pass the Tabasco," said Jimmy.

John passed a large bottle of Tabasco to Jimmy. Jimmy veered into the slow lane and passed a minivan on the inside and, without signaling, merged back into the passing lane: all while shelling and eating a couple of clams—after, of course, seasoning them with Tabasco.

"I've never seen anyone eat and drive like that," said John. "And I've been outside the sonar system."

"Solar system," said Jimmy. "And there ain't no doubt in my mind that you have been outside of it, Sonny."

"Where'd you learn to drive like that?"

"It's a God-given gift," said Jimmy. "I once shot down a North Korean bomber while eating a bologna sandwich."

"Johnny?" said Pearl. "I just pulled up the city directory. You know how many bowling alleys there are in Amarillo?"

21

This year's International Girl Scout Jamboree was held in Enid, Oklahoma. Nora Brautigan, a husky scout leader addressed the assembled throng, while a cadre of United Nations style translators relayed her message to Brazilian, Icelandic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Sumatran, and (Check Box Please) "Other" Girl Scouts. Nora was illuminated, almost demonically backlit, in the twilight by a raging bonfire. She stood in the cage of a blue and gold cherry-picker loaned to the jamboree by the southeastern Oklahoma Power and Light Company. Nora's voice, described by friends as "Assertive and Assured" and by enemies as "Brassy and Bitchy", boomed over the assemblage of Girl Scouts. She paused after each sentence allowing the translators to relay this year's keynote speech: "Female solidarity has become an even more important issue. (pause) Will the indomitable yoke of male oppression finally be cast aside? (pause) Or will yet another generation of young, self-determined women, be forced to spend their lives in a male-dominated penile colony? (pause) To kick off this International Girl Scout Jamboree let us have a moment of silence, followed by our Anthem."

The various languages re-echoed over the plain until the polyglot congregation settled into silence. Then Scout Mistress Nora nodded to a sound engineer. Static, followed by Helen Reddy's I Am Woman boomed through the huge speakers, which were loaned to the jamboree by the Oklahoma State University Marching Cowboy Band.

I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore,

And I know too much to go back and pretend,

Because I heard it all before and I've been down there on the floor,

No one's ever gonna keep me down again.

The song was sung softly in Basque, Sudanese, Japanese, Farsi, Aleut, and Gaelic. The young voices grew confident and sang LOUDER:

Oh, yes I am wise, but it's wisdom born of pain

Yes, I paid the price, but look how much I've gained.

You can bend, but never break me 'cause it only serves to make me.

More determined to achieve my final goal.

And LOUDER as the Paean to Earth Mother Gaia became an initiation, a ritual, a rite of spiritual passage and community:

I am woman, watch me grow, standing toe to toe,

As I spread my loving arms across the land.

But I'm still an embryo with a long, long way to go,

Until I make my brother understand.

That's when Scout Mistress Nora saw three bright Glows, huge, hovering on the horizon. Nora thought for a moment that the communal hymn had actually summoned the triumvirate of spirits she herself prayed to for guidance each night before dropping off to sleep: the goddess Athena, Sappho—the Poet Laureate from the Isle of Lesbos, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Not wanting to startle the Girl Scouts, and still somewhat unsure of what was actually happening, Nora simply watched the 10 foot tall Glows approach and listen as the song concluded:

Oh, woman! I am woman!

I am woman! I am woman!

Oh, woman! I AM woman!

That's when Bambi, Thumper, and Flower rushed into the sea of young, female humanity and tried to introduce themselves as friends.

The Girl Scouts, conditioned by films made in Hollywood to expect a less exuberant, more humanoid style of ExtraTerrestrial, freaked out.

A better word would be rioted.

Better yet, Shit their panties and ran for the hills.

As divided in their escape routes as they were linked by their singing, pandemonium ensued. The only contingent of Girl Scouts not to lose their heads was the Japanese delegation from Osaka. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, toe-to-toe, removed 35mm and an assortment of digital cameras from their knapsacks and began flashing away like glitterati at the Cannes Film Festival.

hey, this looks like satisfaction, communicated Thumper.

yep, said Bambi.

about time, said Flower, i just wanna play.

maybe if we reduced our brightness, said Thumper.

then they could see what we are, said Bambi. they'd like us.

i'm satisfied with that idea, said Flower.

And so the Glows dimmed and frisked with the contingent from Osaka. Their frisking consisted of attaching themselves to the cameras' flashes and strobes and divesting the batteries of electricity. This was done playfully, like a loving parent pushing a small fry on the playground swing: firmly but with caution.

The Japanese Scouts, conditioned by the films made in Tokyo to expect a larger, more substantial, less confusing, vaguely reptilian style of Extra-Terrestrial, again, shit their yellow polyester panties and ran for the hills. All but one Japanese Girl Scout dropped her camera. Mishi retained her camera, knowing the importance of journalists maintaining their cool. As Mishi ran, she snapped picture after picture after picture after picture after digital picture.

And this is what she, sequentially, recorded: three Glows bending toward each other slowly; with the dignity, respect and grace of husband, wife, and priest during a Shinto marriage ceremony. Then they levitated up to the level of Nora Brautigan in the cherry-picker. The bonfire in the background was bright enough to offset the Glows self-reduced radiance and Nora could see what they actually resembled: "Girls," screamed Nora into the microphone. "Stop-stop-stop. These are our friends! They are truly our friends!"

Nora, nearly 20 feet in the air boldly stepped outside the cherry-picker's restraining cage and flung herself, confidently, headfirst, into an alien orifice. And Bambi welcomed Nora with a slurp.

The only portions of Nora's anatomy remaining visible were her Birkenstocked feet.

"Click," went Mishi's camera. "Click click click click click."

22

Moments after Mishi's digital documentation was e-mailed to her Uncle Saito pictures of the aliens were shown the globe:

NEW YORK

"What appears to be a 10 foot tall replica of a pre-pubescent human female reproductive organ," said the Perky a.m. t.v. anchorwoman from New York. "God help us all," she added, without perk, hoping they'd soon cut to commercial so she could swallow some Jagermeister.

GLASGOW

"Young quim from space."

MERIDIAN, MISSISSIPPI

"The biggest gash I've seen since Mary Jo McNuttley had her sex change operation."

TOKYO

"Sushi?"

NORTH POLE

"Something I haven't seen in a long, long time," said a furred and freezing newscaster.

ITALY

"What appears to be," said Father Damiani of the Vatican News Service, "to be a really giant clam without the shell. I really don't know what it might be. Anyway, here's Sister Delores with the sports."

PALESTINE

"Golda Meir?"

WASHINGTON D.C.

"What's the big fucking problem," said a balding, obnoxious, nationally syndicated, televised, shock jock, "We got more than enough overgrown egotistical pricks in Congress to handle these pussies. The only thing I, Hammond Stein, humanitarian, would like to propose is that these Glory Holes look a little young, so I think we need to rely on the Senate to do the dirty deed." He lit a cigarette and leered at the camera, "No! We need the President! C'mon Prez, we know how much experience you have grappling these things. Oh, oh, oh, the switchboard is on fire after that one. It's like the Fourth of fucking July. Go ahead, call me!!! What can we do about these Teen Aged Pussies From Outer Space? You tell me America, how do we handle these TAPFOS? Hell Yeh, we been invaded and are gonna die, but what a fucking way to go!"

### PART THREE

### NUCLEAR PUBERTY

1

A crowd of bowlers in Amarillo, Texas, watched Hammond Stein on a big-screen television. Stein, wearing a condom on his head, stood, extended a telescopic pointer and began reviewing the niceties of the TAPFOS's anatomy. Except for the sound of a solitary bowler pitching strike after thundering strike, Stein's nasal and pissy voice dominated, re-echoing, through Occam's Amarillo Alleys.

John Wryght turned away from the huge image of Stein and studied the lone bowler. The left-handed bowler wore a green and gold Bowling Is Life -- Everything Else Is Just a Game t-shirt and down at heel bowling shoes.

He had five lanes going.

Trance-like he rolled a ball, and, oblivious to the outcome, he'd advance to the next lane and roll.

Then on to the next.

While John watched, the bowler fired four strikes.

And then the bowler with unkempt hair held in place only by a cap made of Donegal tweed picked up a spare.

John turned to leave, when the lonesome bowler, still facing the pins, said, "Over here, John. Amigo."

And then he bowled another strike.

"Shit-and-Molasses," said John. "It's Huevos."

2

"How'd you know, I was there?" asked John. "You didn't even turn around."

"There are simply things I know now," said Huevos. Along with his crucifix he wore a raggedy, ascetic, almost-beard.

"I've been searching for you everywhere. I hacked NASA security—"

"Numbers man, numbers," said Huevos as he absentmindedly petted his adopted, AKC registered, full-blooded Irish setter. "The chi of numbers are the essence of things and the entire universe is a manifestation of THE number, man."

"Nice to see you too, Martin." John, in spite of Huevos' distracted indifference, continued: "I escaped house arrest, been declared AWOL, and I've been adopted by these retired techno junkies."

"I've seen it, John." Huevos droned on. "On the way back, I gave myself up. I knew I was dead, and the moment I gave myself up, I became myself. I became reincarnated in my own body; it was some sort of masturbatory metempsychosis."

"Huh," said John. "Where'd you get the dog?"

"DEE-O-GEE."

"I can spell, Huevos. Speaking is my problem."

"That's the dog's name: DEE-O-GEE. The dog's spelling is the dog's name. Get it?"

"So," asked John, "you said you've been doing a lot of masturbating?"

Huevos waved the question away. "I learned—it was thrust upon me—that the essential nature of life is numerical. ONE is MIND. TWO is OPINION: division being the first step away from unity of mind. THREE is WHOLENESS: a beginning, middle, and an end. FOUR is JUSTICE, a square deal. TEN is PERFECTION, because: 1-plus-2-plus-3-plus-4 equals 10. That's the Sum of the Mystic Equation: Mind plus Opinion plus Wholeness equals Perfection."

"So, Mister Mystic, what are you doing in a stanky-ass bowling alley?"

Huevos flicked on the overhead scoring system:

In turn Huevos pointed to each row of pins and explained: "This is where it is at, John. One-plus-two-plus-three-plus-four-equals-ten. All day long, here at Occam's Amarillo Alleys I ritually re-create perfection; then destroy it."

"How do you destroy it?"

Huevos picked up a blue-and-white damasked 12 pound bowling ball. "With a perfect sphere possessing a trinity of holes. WHOLES." Huevos laughed and adjusted his tweed cap. "And I record my progress, through TEN frames with a series of numbers inscribed in FOUR sided boxes divided into TWO equilateral TRIangles. ONE box with TWO, THREE sided figures surrounded by FOUR sides. ONE-plus-TWO-plus-THREE-plus-FOUR-equals-TEN."

John said, "You aren't talking about the world of reality, or even spirituality. You're dealing with an artificial sporting system. The rules of bowling are...congealed. Ah, contrived."

"The Veda Sutra states, It is not this way; nor is it otherwise."

"Shit-and-Molasses." John took the ball from Huevos. He stood and bowled, leaving a 6-10 split. "Like that means anything?"

"It means, if nothing else, you hit the One pin too solidly."

John sat next to Huevos. He caught the attention of a cocktail waitress and held up two, then four fingers. "How you been?"

"Honestly?"

"No, fucking lie to me."

Huevos shook his head. "Not so good. This enlightenment stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be." Huevos grimaced, lifted his right leg and farted. DEE-O-GEE crawled beneath the bench. "I saw it all: Birth, Death, Spirit, Soul. But then, after the vision, after the Gold Rush, you have to live in this world and you lose the Edge and the Spark. You're being hassled for money. You've got gas from eating chili dogs. Up there, John, I felt precisely what Christ experienced when he said, It Is finished." Huevos touched his crucifix, bowed his head, mumbled a prayer in Spanish, and farted again.

"You smell like Christ must've after he'd been buried for three days. No wonder you got five lanes to yourself."

The cocktail waitress, squeezed into a polyester costume from an era when platform shoes and glittering balls above the disco dance floor were the rage, delivered the beers. John paid . She sniffed, winced, and glanced at DEE-O-GEE. "What on God's earth do you feed that poor animal?" She left.

The men drank quickly, in silence.

John finished his beer and motioned at the t.v. where Hammond Stein was attacking a mockup of Washington D.C. with two TAPFOS hand puppets made of Playtex gloves and some Hunts Manwich sauce. "I fucked up, Martin. I should have nuked that DP-9. This is my fault."

"Our fault, John. I was up there with you."

"Okay. We fucked up."

"Tienes razon."

"What's that mean?"

"You're right."

"I hope I'm wrong about this next thing."

"What?"

"I've been thinking about these aliens. Thinking and analyzing what scant data Brad and I have found. And my work with yeast," said John slowly, "has given me a glimpse into the mechanical underpinnings of life. Not only what a given lifeform is made of, but how it must be arranged in order to make life possible."

"The matrix for a non-carbon lifeform?"

"The matrix for a non-elemental lifeform. A living being that is construed—"

"Constructed?"

"Constructed of something that is not from the periodic table of elements."

"That's impossible."

"It's, as far I can tell, what we brought back with the DP-9," said John. "We need something from the DP-9 that they've contacted. Anything."

"DEE-O-GEE," said Huevos. "Fetch."

The Setter loped over to a locker, pawed it open and removed Hal's SpacePaddle with his teeth. He dragged it back to Huevos and deposited it at the mystic bowler's feet. "Will this do?"

"Yes," smiled John. He nudged the SpacePaddle with his toe. "We have to hook up with Brad and Alexi. But they're on house arrest for helping me 'escape'. The media's saying I shot a guard."

Huevos stood, plugged his fingers into the blue-and-white damasked bowling ball and said, "Blindfold me."

As if this were a perfectly normal, average, typical, everyday request John removed the scarf Pearl had given him and blindfolded Martín Huevos. The mildly disillusioned metempsychosed bowler gracefully approached the line, swung his left arm balletetically, released the ball and followed through effortlessly, almost gracefully—holding the release posture until he heard the satisfying crash-clunk-spin-and-clatter of the strike. He removed the blindfold, nodded at the empty alley, turned to John and said, "I've got an idea."

"Nice shot," said John.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," said John. "What's your idea?"

"Does Alexi like Canadian bacon?"

3

Frank Morrison winked at Tina and said, "This is it, baby. I've got Hammond Stein on the phone."

"Hammond Stein?"

"My new boss."

Frank and Tina's desks in the Nevada Journal's newsroom faced each other. Frank sat with his feet up, smiling, phone cradled between his cheek and shoulder. Tina sat erect and still. Prominent on her desk, as if guarding her cache of office supplies, was a bust of William Shakespeare. As usual, at this late hour they were alone in the newsroom. Also, as usual, they just finished screwing each other's brains out. "Yeh," said Frank into the phone, "I'll hold."

"You're really going to leave?"

"This is hitting the big time, Tina."

"How could you leave the print medium?" asked Tina. "You've always said it's the only honest way to report a story."

"I said that because it's a great sound-bite. So I'd establish a unique patina of integrity and have a legitimate springboard to something better. The whole pad-and-pencil-throwback thing was an act. My trademark." Frank laughed, "Stuck here in Nevada. God must have had a hell of a bargain-Scotch-hangover when he created his place. I'm out of this treeless Basin-and-Range nightmare."

"Out of my life?"

"Don't feel bad; I'm leaving my wife, too. Onward and upward baby."

"You said you loved me."

"I love a lot of things." He blew her a kiss and spoke into the phone, "Hammond? Frank Morrison here. How you doing?...Yeh, that name should sound familiar, I'm your fourth wife's oldest adopted stepson....Yeh, the deaf bitch you dumped a few years back....but more importantly, I've got the story on those aliens....I was in this hanger when they escaped....I've got a source very, very close to the situation with NASA....Brad Spitz....and I will be on the next plane to Washington....no, I told your producer I wouldn't settle for a finder's fee; I go with the story and the story goes with me....0h, one more thing, the broadcast must be captioned for the hearing-impaired; mom's real proud. Later." He hung up the phone and smiled. "I'm gonna miss this place. Make sure you keep in touch, Tina."

"I can't believe you're leaving."

"I've been waiting forever for this break. Washington D.C. Primetime television. A source exclusive to me; an alien invasion. The imminent destruction of life as we know it. Goddam, I'm one lucky bastard."

Just then, a burly man in a mud-hut-brown UPS uniform entered the office, "Delivery for Frank Morrison?"

Frank was oblivious at his computer.

"But it's after nine p.m.," said Tina .

"I just deliver 'em lady."

"Put it in the closet," said Tina. "Over there."

"I'll just leave it here." He placed it on Frank's desk and turned to leave.

"Nothing to sign?" asked Tina.

"I trust you, Dollface," said the UPS man. He cleared his throat, "Why are you working tonight? Take a dinner break." He pointed at the package. "Enjoy a freaking movie. Do a power walk. Start smoking. Anything."

Tina watched, through the window, as the big man double-timed it down the front steps and into a battered 1974 Pontiac Firebird.

"Criminy sakes." She grabbed her purse and the bust of Shakespeare and said, rapidly to Morrison, "Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my vein that almost freezes up the heat of life."

"Shut up," said Morrison. "First of all, I'm working here. Second, you're not fucking Juliet. Get the hell out and let me concentrate."

"I will," said Tina. She left the office, crossed the street and adjusted the bust of Shakespeare, which was cradled, face up, in her left arm.

That's when the bomb in the newsroom of the Nevada Journal exploded.

The blast knocked Tina to the ground. Shakespeare's head tumbled from her arm and chipped a piece off his nose. God only knows how many pieces Frank Morrison had been blown into.

4

Watts, propped up in bed on his elbow, said into the telephone, "Then it's done?" He checked the time on his alarm clock and felt the familiar tang of bile in the back of his throat. The Taste of Judas is what one counselor in high school had called it, after Watts had confessed, nearly in tears, that he had just ratted out his best friend. His best friend took the fall for felony possession of marijuana and spent six months in a juvenile facility. Since then, it had been one betrayal and personal compromise after another. Watts would do anything to curry favor and receive praise from those in power.

Now, a murder.

"Where will it end?" said Watts. He hung up the phone, and patted the rump of the person snuggled into bed with him.

"Who was that?" asked a sleepy voice from beneath the covers.

"That 'UPS' guy who just visited the Nevada Journal."

"What did he want?"

Watts checked the clock again. "To lemme know I'm an accessory to first-degree murder."

Watts' partner rolled over and said, "Anything leading back to Bandler Enterprises?"

"No," said Watts, "there's nothing that could implicate you Mr. Bandler."

"Good job," said Bandler, kissing Watts on the nape of the neck.

"When can I call you by your first name?" asked Watts.

"Don't push it," said Bandler. "You're not that good in bed."

5

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Eggs," said Jimmy.

Huevos bowed to Pearl and shook Jimmy's hand.

Pearl removed some leftover chicken livers from the refrigerator and put them on a plate for the setter. "Thanks," said Huevos. "His name is DEE-O-GEE."

"DEE-O-GEE," said Pearl. "How quaint."

John hoisted the SpacePaddle into the Winnebago.

"I won't even," said Jimmy, "ask what the hell that is." He put the Winnebago in gear and maneuvered it through the maze of pickup trucks in Occam's Amarillo Alleys' parking lot. "Where to now, Johnny Boy?"

Huevos and John stared at each other.

"Can you find a KOA?" said John. "We have some work to do."

"Not a problem," said Jimmy.

Huevos sat at a computer terminal, "Nice hardware Señor Wiggins."

"Thanks, Mister Eggs," said Jimmy.

"Speaking of eggs," said Pearl. "Anyone up for some Huevos Rancheros?"

6

Lt. Gaines was accompanied at the main gate of Gary Powers Air Force Base by two sunglassed, FBI agents. Stopped at the gate was a convertible 1967 Robin's egg blue VW bug with a banner on its antenna: GILMORE'S PIZZA—SERVING THE ENTIRE ARGO VALLEY—–WE DELIVER!! "Hey Geek," said Lt. Gaines to the driver of the VW. Beneath a cowboy hat and World War I aviator goggles, Geek was well protected from any dust, sun, wind, or rain he might encounter.

"Hey Gaines," said the 22-year-old inheritor of Gilmore's pizza. "What's with the two Government stiffs?"

"FBI," said Gaines. "Base is under lockdown."

"Yeh, I saw them pussies from space on t.v.," said Geek. "That shit start here?"

"State your business, Sir," said the shorter FBI agent.

Geek wiggled his fingers like a second baseman signaling two outs, "I make the fucking pizza pie. Then I deliver the fucking pizza pie."

"What kind of pizza today, Sir," asked the taller FBI agent.

"Deep-dish Canadian bacon," said Geek.

Gaines tossed Geek a day pass for his windshield and Mutt and Jeff FBI noted the VW's license plate number and waved him through.

"I'm hungry," said Mutt FBI.

"Lunch is in an hour," said Gaines like a preschooler teacher placating a hungry fat kid.

"Not soon enough for me," said Jeff FBI.

After showing his day pass to three FBI and four APs, Geek finally knocked on the door to Alexi's office and said, "Large, deep-dish Canadian bacon for Alexi Creek."

Brad and Alexi opened the door.

"I didn't order a pizza," said Alexi.

"It's already been paid for, Lady."

"A free deep-dish Canadian bacon?" said Brad. "We'll take it."

Geek handed the pizza across the threshold to Alexi. Brad started to close the door when Geek shoved it back open.

"I haven't been tipped," said Geek.

"Lose the earrings," said Brad.

Geek crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. "I ain't leavin' unlessin' I'm tipped."

"Brad?" said Alexi standing over the opened pizza box. "Bring that young earringed man here."

Alexi had the GILMORE'S PIZZA box open on her desk. Taped to the inside of the lid was an unlabeled CD frosted over with steam from the pizza. Did you put that there?" asked Alexi.

"Yeh," said Geek. "I got this weird e-mail last night. They downloaded this disc for me to burn and $1000 cash transfer to my checking account if I could get on the base and deliver the disk with the pizza."

"You got paid $1000 for delivering a pizza," said Brad, "and I'm supposed to tip you?"

Alexi removed the CD, dried it off on her lavender tank top, and popped it into her computer. At the prompt she typed, NASA.

Bleep.

She typed, DP-9.

Bleep.

She typed, Fourth Generation Ales.

Bleep.

"Computers," said Geek Gilmore, "are like Old Testament Gods: Lots of rules and absolutely no mercy."

"Pithy," said Brad. "I like that."

"If it helps," said Geek, "the prompt command is an encoded combination of numbers and letters."

"How do you know that?" asked Alexi.

"I tried to hack it," said Geek. "Anybody who would pay $1000 to deliver a CD in a pizza box is smuggling something valuable. Info or otherwise."

Brad nodded in agreement with Geek as Alexi tried several different prompts.

"Whoever it's from is good," said Geek. "It stumped a decoding procedure that got me into the University of Nebraska's mainframe."

Brad smiled, "What's your name, kid?"

"Geoffery 'Geek' Gilmore," Geek smiled. "Officially Doctor Gilmore. With Ph.D.s in Philosophy and Art—"

"From the University of Nebraska?"

"I earned two doctorates faster than anybody in history," said Geek. "Took me about two weeks; once I got into the mainframe."

Alexi, green eyes intense, typed: "14JEFGA."

Bleep-bleep-whirr-bleep-click-bleep-click went the computer. And a picture of John sitting with Hal's SpacePaddle at Jimmy and Pearl's kitchen table exploded onto the screen. John wore a green-and-gray flannel shirt. In the background Jimmy was helping Pearl put little paper doilies on the bones of a rack of lamb. "Your mission," said John from the computer, "if you choose to it except it—" John laughed and continued, "Hi. Either you are watching this or no one is. Either way, I've contacted Huevos." The video camera shook up-and-down. Huevos, the filmmaker was saying, Hello.

"I knew he'd do it," said Brad.

"Finish your pizza and meet us at North Texas Bible College. The north parking lot. Day after tomorrow. Be cool, Brad. Alexi, I love you. Thanks for remembering the prompt."

The computer screen went blank.

"I've got a question," said Brad and Alexi to each other.

"You go first," said Alexi.

"What's the prompt?"

Alexi typed and 14JEFGA appeared on the screen. "Say it," said Alexi.

"Fourteen," said Brad.

"One, four," corrected Alexi, "One, Four, John, Equals, Fifth, Generation, Ales. It's John's mother's customized license plate."

"Oh," said Brad. "What's your question?"

"Where in hell is North Texas Bible College?" asked Alexi.

"BumFuck, Texas," said Geek. "Amarillo, actually. I'm working on a Doctorate in Theosophy there."

"Doesn't matter where it is," said Alexi. "With those FBI gooks around, we can't get off base."

The phone rang. "Hello," said Alexi. She smiled and passed the phone to Brad. "It's Hammond Stein."

"Hello?" said Brad.

"Hammond Stein is calling here?" said Geek. "I love that asshole."

7

The Robin's egg blue convertible VW putt-putted out the main gate. "Stop," said Mutt FBI. "Hey pizzaboy, Halt!"

The VW idled to a stop. Pizzaboy tugged at his aviator goggles. "What?"

"How much for an extra large? Anchovies and pineapple. Extra cheese. With Greek olives," asked Jeff FBI.

"Ah, $42."

"Too much," said Mutt FBI.

Jeff FBI tossed $50 onto the pizza boy's lap. "Keep the change if you're back here in an hour."

Pizzaboy popped the clutch and headed south on Nevada State Highway 31, which made Lt. Gaines smile.

"What's so funny, fly boy?" asked Mutt FBI.

"You ain't gonna be gettin' a pizza there, J. Edgar," said Gaines.

"Why not?"

Gaines pointed north, "Because town is thataway."

8

Alexi hadn't driven a Volkswagen since her junior year at Stanford. She had a special place in her heart for her old 1971 sunroofed VW. She felt an affinity with that car because they shared many of the same qualities: cute but not flashy, dependable but not boring, and a lot of fun to drive if you knew what to expect. She smiled, remembering the first time she and John "drove". She had been attracted to John, but couldn't figure out why. She had seen him in the computer lab; he was always extremely involved and focused. When he did speak he communicated more with his hands and body than with his mis-used-vocabulary. But he always made Alexi smile; especially with his ready and slightly repugnant laugh.

After their first date, miniature golf, they ended up in bed and John was perhaps the most enthusiastic and definitely the clumsiest lover she had ever known. Alexi's built-in scientific nature, which urged her to classify and quantify everything, prompted the question, "How was I?"

And his response, "The Best" was questioned by Alexi.

"C'mon. The Best?" She asked with a smile.

"Absolutely," said John, "until about 12 minutes ago—"

"Yes?"

"I was a virgin."

Alexi laughed. "How could a 23 year-old college doctoral candidate remain a virgin?"

"I did my undergraduate work at Virginia. Virgin, get it?"

"Seriously," said Alexi.

"Seriously," said John. "I was saving myself until I fell in love."

And then John kissed Alexi on the forehead.

Alexi had heard that:

Love is blind.

Love is blonde.

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

That a woman remembers her first love with special tenderness, but after that she tends to bunch them.

Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by a sea of expenses.

Love is a grave mental disease.

Love is the delightful interval between meeting a charming man and discovering that he's a pig.

That the heaviest object in the world is the body of a person you no longer love.

Love will find a way.

Love will find a lay.

It's better to love and lost a short person than never to have loved a tall.

God is love, but get it in writing.

You need someone to love while you're looking for someone to love.

Love is the delusion that one man differs from another.

Love is an obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage.

And:

Love is being stupid together.

But now that she had felt that silly, inane, warm, cozy, indescribable and unmistakable feeling in the marrow of her bones and the interstices of her intestines, she knew what love was for her.

And she knew that she'd never felt more in love and loved in her life than with John.

Alexi smiled, recalled that beautiful marrow and interstices thing, removed the split-felt cowboy hat, struggled the aviator goggles off of her face and replaced the hat. She adjusted the mirrors and stuffed the FBI man's $50 bill into the glove box. "Anchovies and pineapple with Greek olives," she said to the desert wind. "What a cretin."

9

Geek, in underwear and boots, stood in the middle of Alexi's office. He had a color monitor and a brand new laptop underneath his left arm and a BubbleJet printer tucked under his right. "Throw in a modem," he said to Brad, "and a case of printer paper. Then were even up."

"Gollywogs," said Brad. "It's a 1967 VW with 36 horsepower."

"She took my clothes, my hat, and my goggles," said Geek. "And besides, dude, that VW was a freaking classic."

10

Brubeck Castillo and General Mills stood in front of the President's desk enduring yet another Intense Presidential Silence.

"Why," said Castillo, to the General, "on God's great and good green earth can't you find these extraterrestrials?"

The Presidential Chair, leaned forward, anticipating General Mill's answer.

"There's an excellently good explanation for that," said the General.

"What?" asked Brubeck.

"Well," said the General, "our radar and surveillance equipment is designed for, um, earth stuff."

"I hope we never have to declare war on anyone tougher than Greenland," said Castillo. "These army fuck ups are useless."

"All I'm saying," said General Mills, "is that nothing exists that can be used to locate these aliens. An extremely sensitive piece of equipment will have to be developed quickly if we have any hope of locating them."

The Presidential Chair rocked back slightly as the President started to speak.

"No need to worry," said Castillo. "I've already got Bandler working on it."

11

Bambi, Thumper, and Flower hovered, almost reverently, waiting for the sun to rise over the Dakota Badlands. They were now about 14 feet tall and had learned that contact with those quirky HUMANS was unpredictable and risky. They much preferred the contact they'd had with ANIMALS. With the winged and four-legged creatures there was a mutual respect and curiosity that seemed almost impossible to attain with (wo)mankind. Yesterday afternoon was spent pleasantly enough sharing last the rays of sun with a small herd of buffalo, some prairie antelopes, and various birds of prey.

Even though the anxiety involved with encountering HUMANS was greater, it seemed, oddly enough, that HUMANS owned, or at least presided over, this pleasant planet that had water, air, and nearly equal parts of sunshine to darkness. The air was rife with (wo)mankind's, radio, television, and microwave transmissions that Thumper, Bambi, and Flower monitored, but didn't completely understand. In any small instant they could decipher singing: I'm stuck on Band-Aid, 'cuz Band-Aids stuck on me or speaking, Any further use or retransmission of this broadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited. Bambi, Thumper, and Flower were also amazed at the worries and emotions involved in human living. The prairie antelope didn't offer $369 Dynamic Self-Improvement Seminars, they followed each other from one clump of grass to another. The buffalo didn't search for individual meaning, they, as a group, searched for water. While monitoring television waves the aliens were amazed at the plentitude of emotions and anguish and anger evoked by what humans called Talkshows.

The aliens weren't subject to the same incredible, insane, infantile spectrum of human emotions. They had only two emotions: "Satisfaction" which was good, and "Pride" which was bad. Amazingly, to Bambi and Thumper and Flower, even though 99% of the useless and intrusive noise on earth came from humans, it seemed that the humans were Proud that humanity had created this careless, aimless, futile, stressful, nerve-racking and amplified cacophony.

But the aliens thought the animals should feel Satisfied that they hadn't.

Bambi, Thumper, and Flower panicked their first night in the desert; after sunset they didn't know the sun would return. Their lifeblood was stellar radiation and they'd never had, until that night in the Nevada desert, been deprived. They had learned to reduce their Glow to conserve energy, and they'd also discovered that the rising of the sun was preceded by the rising of the Morning Star.

Now, as they saw the Morning Star they became excited. As the prairie grew light and warm, the nocturnal critters hunkered down for a day of sleep while the daytime world awoke. But there was something different today; there was a sound: BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT.

what's that? communicated Bambi.

it's no animal we've heard yet, said Thumper.

look, said Flower. lookee lookee.

An ancient, wrinkled Indian, naked to the waist was gradually illuminated by the new sun over the Badlands. His old buckskin pants were adorned with beads and feathers. His long, coarse, gray hair was twisted into a cascading ponytail. He hopped arthritically from one moccasined foot to the other as he BEAT BEAT BEAT on the drum. The backs of his leathery, withered arms flopped as he struck the drum. He had been waiting silently for the sun, barely eight feet from the aliens, not at all disturbed by the spirits, which he knew had come to accompany him. He had been waiting all night, watching the moon rise and set; seeing the constellations cartwheel above the prairie. All night long he had only one thought, a thought that had helped his tribe through the worst, and the best, of times: "Today is a good day to die."

The Ancient began his final day on earth with the knowledge that it would be his last. In time to his drum, the ancient sang in his native tongue:

"Ho do vi i

Ma gi mi

I davo hi ah moo mii i

Nivi payu gist ut, vi hoo mi ni

I yi mi zo zi yoo

Hani

Am mhoo ma zi soto zi

Ha ho Ha ho"

Continuing in time to the drum he sang the same song in his adopted language:

"Buffalo blood

Sumac berry

Blue sky

Your pictures, look at them

They are walking

Over the mirror

Of the Morning Star

Thank you Thank you"

He smiled, reclined in the buffalo grass and with a slight groan, life roiled and rattled; then left the Indian. After waiting for two hours, to see if the Ancient would stir, Flower romped over to the Ancient and nudged him.

There was, of course, no movement.

come here and touch him, said Flower.

The aliens hovered and touched him.

he is not warm, he's cold like the one in the shiny suit, said Bambi.

but that was our fault, we didn't know how often they had to breathe, said Thumper. this one smacked that drum, then sat down and did it himself.

then these humans do have something important to teach us, said Thumper.

besides how to make all those noises? said Flower.

The trio set off across the plain, eastward toward the sun. They were Satisfied with what they had witnessed, but they were also confounded. Death was as foreign to them as computer science is to a garden snail or honesty is to a politician. These aliens were self-repairing, self-replicating, non-mutating entities.

Hence, they were Immortal.

12

"If you ask me that question on the air," said Brad, "you risk causing fear and public hysteria."

"My job," said Hammond Stein, "is to perpetuate fear and public hysteria."

"But it would simply be glorifying a rumor."

"Which, fortunately, is a time-honored tradition in my profession," said Stein.

The producer of ALWAYS-IN-YOUR-FACE: THE HAMMOND STEIN SHOW, on one knee in front of Stein and Brad, said, "Back from commercial in Three, Two, One."

"We're back, fellow dung-flingers and shit-munchers," said Hammond. "With replacement guest Brad Spitz."

Brad smiled uneasily at the camera. He was jet-lagged and fearful of the armed AP who had accompanied him to Washington D.C.

"As you may know our scheduled guest, Frank Morrison, an acquaintance of Brad's and not a bad guy for a print-reporter, got, well, exploded. Brad, do you know who killed Morrison?"

"I don't know—"

"The bombing style would seem to be the modus operandi of some crazed Arab dictator. But the CIA knows that we all know that, so what you think, Brad? Did the United States government mimic a Towel Head hit to deflect the blame?"

"I don't think—"

"And what did Morrison know about these terrible Teen Aged Pussies From Outer Space that he so desperately needed to divulge on my show? And why didn't the government want him to divulge it?"

"I was with Frank in Hanger 6, and he didn't see anything that I didn't."

"Then what can you tell us about these terrible twats?"

"First, we can't say they're terrible. They've demonstrated, if anything, a benign curiosity. They've disrupted a golf tournament, a prizefight—"

"Used a 5 foot 10 inch, 183 pound Girl Scout leader as a dildo?"

"I saw the pictures, Hammond," said Brad. "That Girl Scout leader jumped."

"I'll give you that one, Brad. She did seem the type to join the Girl Scouts so she could eat the brownies, if you know what I mean."

Brad nodded. "I've studied the possibilities of extraterrestrials for most of my life, and it seems perfectly reasonable that an alien lifeform would try to avoid startling us. By assuming the most universally comforting form—"

"A 10 foot woofer? Come on."

"We all, male-and-female, black-and-white, past through the vaginal canal—"

"And spend the rest of our lives, and a great deal of time and money, trying to get back inside."

"Birth is what we all have in common. Perhaps they've assumed this primal vaginal form so we would accept their presence."

"Weak ass theory, bro."

"Seeing how the theory is based on observation, facts, and a rational thought process, I suppose it would be considered weak ass, by your standards of innuendo and sensationalism."

"Don't crack wise with me. I'm the doctor of data and I've got my finger on the pulse—"

"If you're a doctor, you specialize in proctology, and we all know where your finger has been." Brad switched off his hearing aid and left the sound stage without even looking at the television cameras.

"Get back here you commie, chickenshit rocket scientist. You NASA nerd."

Hammond's producer cut to commercial and said, "We're clear, Hammond."

Stein lit a cigarette and said, "Schedule Brad again. That was a hoot."

13

German engineering, no matter how innovative or precise, did not design the rear seat of the 1967 Volkswagen to accommodate two full-grown, writhing, human beings. But, Houdini-esque, John and Alexi had contorted and comported themselves thusly in the backseat of the Robin's egg blue VW pizza wagon. Alexi said, as they watched, afterward, the moon rise over North Texas Bible College's Aramaic Hall, "There's a warrant out for your arrest."

"I missed you, Alexi."

"Did you see Brad on the Hammond Stein show?"

"I really missed you."

"Where do you think the aliens are?" asked Alexi.

"I love you."

"Is this the end of humanity's reign on earth?"

"Dammit, Alexi! Are you abhoring me?"

"Abhoring? No. Ignoring? Yes." Alexi extended her naked legs and said, "A 15 year old girl said to her mother, 'Mom I've been bad, but I earned $200 last night.' 'How?' asked the mother."

"What does this—"

"And the girl said, 'I went driving with Freddy in his Volkswagen.'"

"Alexi—"

"'And we parked and climbed into the backseat and he ripped my clothes off and then stuck my feet into those little loops by the Volkswagen's doors. Then he had his way with me, and paid me $200.' 'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,' said the mom, 'I finally figured it out!' And the girl said, 'What? That I'm a whore?' 'No,' said the mom, 'I know you're a cheap little slut, it's just I've always wondered what those little loops by the doors of a Volkswagen were for.'"

John shook his head, "I've been telling you how much I love you and missed you, and you tell me joke about a teenaged prostitute?"

"I'm scared," said Alexi.

"Of what?"

"I'm scared of these aliens and what they mean."

"They mean, simply, that we aren't alone in the universe."

"That doesn't scare you?"

"No," said John, "it excites me. It enthuses me."

"But—"

"For millenniums we've implicitly assumed that mankind is the Crown of Creation, that the paltry and flawed gods we've managed to imagine hold complete sway over the tides of creation, convolution, life, death and—"

"Convolution?"

"Darwin's theory."

"Of course," said Alexi. "Convolution."

"You know what I mean. But with these aliens we now have the excitement of the possibility of viewing the universe from an entirely different perspective."

"That's what scares me," said Alexi. "I finally get pregnant: fulfill my womanhood, procreate, and continue the species—all that crap. And that's when we discover that we're not the end-all and be-all of creation."

John nodded, "But what about the catfish?"

"What?"

"Catfish don't rule the earth. They don't even rule the pond they live in. Does that impede their urge or necessity to live and breathe and procreate?"

"Well—"

"Marry me," said John.

"Let's just live together."

"It's not the same."

"Yes it is."

"Why are you so scared of marriage?"

"Because," said Alexi, "I love you too much."

"Since when," said John, "is too much love baggage for a woman entering into antimony."

"Matrimony."

"Yes. Matrimony. That's what we're talking about. Please pay attention."

Alexi smiled and kissed John's forehead. "In the week it took the DP-9 to return to earth, I visited Portland."

"Yeh?"

"We had a memorial service for Hal. It was actually quite fitting. We drove out the Columbia Gorge and tossed a dozen roses off the highest point of the Bonneville Dam. My parents and myself and a small herd of Hal's old girlfriends stood there in silence for about 20 minutes. And then we drove back to Portland."

"This is why you can't marry me?"

"My parents," said Alexi, "and myself were riding the same car."

"It all makes sense now, what—"

"They started arguing: Should we stop for gas, for lunch, is it going to rain, is my skin drying out, Congress sucks, the President sucks, which of Hal's girlfriends he should have married, the Trail Blazers' playoff chances—"

"And the point is?"

"My parents really love each other. And they fight like that. I love you, and we get along perfectly. I don't want to ruin that." said Alexi. "Somewhere in the back of my mind I associate marriage with combat. And I don't want to be that way with you."

"It doesn't have to be that way. Marry me."

"I'll think about it."

John shook his head, then grabbed Alexi's left leg and hooked it into the little loop by the driverside door. Alexi smiled and inserted her right ankle into the loop by the passenger-side door. She said, "This is going to cost you."

"How much?"

Alexi kissed John, bit his ear, then whispered, "Two hundred dollars."

14

Jimmy and Pearl's Winnebago, with the recently utilized, convertible VW parked alongside, were alone in the north parking lot of North Texas Bible College. Near the rear bumper of the motorhome Jimmy and Pearl barbecued skewered Cajun shrimp on a hibachi, tossing the occasional morsel to DEE-O-GEE. The Winnebago's bonnet was raised and jumper cables snaked around the vehicle, from the battery, under the front axle and into the side entrance of the Winnebago.

The inside of the Winnebago resembled a mobile, Rube Goldberg workroom.

John, standing behind the door with a fire extinguisher said, "Are we ready?"

Alexi checked the link to the computer. "We'll see."

Huevos placed Hal's SpacePaddle between the jumper cables' clamps. A set of wires, protruded from each end of the paddle and ran across the avocado-green shag carpet to another computer monitor. "The TAPFOS were originally in contact with this paddle. We should be able to get—"

"A reading," said John, "or at least a decent conflagration."

"Configuration," said Alexi.

"You know what I mean," said John.

"Ready?" asked Huevos. He hooked up the battery cables to the SpacePaddle. The computer lit up and put on a lightshow that the halftime organizing committee at the Superbowl would have been proud of.

"Jesus Christ," said Huevos. "What's that?"

"That's the reading Brad got in Hanger 6," said Alexi.

"It can't be," said John. "That's a Moore Neighborhood. They exist only hypothetically."

Huevos, pointing at the monitor said, "Why can't a Moore Neighborhood appear, John?"

"It's their heart beat," said John. "That is, if an artist, say a French exhibitionist were painting your EKG. But now that we have this we can—" John punched three buttons on his laptop, "—use a simple triangulation to reinstate their allocation."

"That's so scary," said Pearl.

"Confronting aliens?" asked Alexi.

"No," said Pearl. "I understood what John meant."

15

Rabbi Shem Rucker chaired the first American Congress of Ecumenism. The Congress was held at Georgetown University and featured keynote speakers representing every major religion in the United States of America. Father John McCormick had prepared a treatise entitled, The Aquinan Conception of Deity and How it Relates to Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory. Rabbi Rucker had prepared, Hasidic Mysticism and the Hebraic Concept of Infinity. Reverend Dick Smith of the New Universal Life Church planned to deliver, Tax Write Offs and Our Duty to Battle Satan as Manifested in the Form of the IRS.

But this agenda became secondary as the Teenaged Pussies From Outer Space, a truly alien lifeform, had been discovered. All day long, during the Congress, angry debate raged. Most of the Religious Right groups claimed the Teenaged Pussies From Outer Space were simply an hysterical vision brought on by the American infatuation with sex and were sent, by Satan, to destroy society symbolically and licentiously.

"But why," said the analytical Jesuit, Father McCormick, "were the TAPFOS first spotted by a Japanese girl?"

"And how," said the equally incredulous Rabbi Rucker, "could they be photographed if they were simply a hysterical vision?"

"And what," said the ever practicable Reverend Dick Smith, "portion of our expenses for this Congress can we write off if we don't come to some conclusions?"

The First American Congress of Ecumenism then descended into a disorganized, backbiting, caterwauling mess. The Baptists filibustered the floor, reading from Deuteronomy, insisting that TAPFOS really stood for The Angels Punish-us For Our Sins and the entire event was a Papist scheme to wrest control of the Protestant American Church.

The Episcopalians followed with a motion that the Jews were using techniques that they had developed in Hollywood to project these images and would be ruling the country outright if something wasn't done to stop them.

The Latter Day Saints delegation suggested that everyone convert to Mormonism, pray to Moroni for a huge flock of seagulls to attack the TAPFOS ("You got to go with what's worked in the past," they said) and tithe 10%.

Rabbi Rucker, Father McCormick, and Reverend Smith started skipping the meetings, and instead held informal, day long, bull sessions in the bar at their hotel. After a particularly long, productive, entertaining, alcohol-soaked session Father McCormick pointed to a golden haired lad of ten standing in the lobby. "It's Ganymede," said the priest. "The cup bearer to the Greek gods, checking in with a matched set Briggs & Riley bags."

"Quite a striking young mensch," said Rabbi Rucker.

Father McCormick swallowed the last of his gin and tonic and whispered to the Rabbi, "I'm gonna screw that kid."

"Out of what?" said the Rabbi. "His luggage?"

"Do you mind," said the Reverend Smith, "if I photocopy your bar receipts?"

16

"Negative to negative, positive to positive," said Watts. "What?"

"You're going to blow us to Holy Hell," said Herb Booker. Dressed in yellow overalls, Booker was in charge of examining the DP-9 to discover anything at all about the TAPFOS's origins. Pieces of the DP-9 were scattered, in exploded-diagram-fashion, across tarps laid on the concrete floor of the warehouse. Booker and Watts stood over the DP-9's guidance mechanism. Watts held two electric probes like knitting needles.

"These electronics are delicate, man," said Booker. "First, they weren't designed or manufactured to scan or survey; they were made to receive data. I designed this component—"

"Do you read the paper?" asked Watts.

"Yeh."

"Tomorrow, after you finish the crossword, Doonesbury, and the sports, try reading the front page. Aliens in the form of love muffins, glory holes, snatch, trim, Mississippi mud suckers, the Promised Glands, are roaming our home planet," said Watts. "They want to make it their planet. And I'm in charge of finding them. Now," Watts held the needles of the guidance mechanism like a picador going in for the kill, "if I plugged these bastards in, what's the worst that could happen?"

"The mechanism explodes and we burn Bandlers big yellow warehouse to the ground."

"What do you make a year?" said Watts. "Six figures?"

"Hell no."

"Bandler spends that on socks." Watts set the probes down.

"A guy like that has to pay for sex?"

Watts pointed down and spelled, "S-o-c-k-s."

"Oh."

"So if we fry the place, big deal. Bandler can afford another. Hook up a remote let's get the show on the road."

"You're the man."

17

The fire trucks arrived just in time to see the southeastern wall of the warehouse, the last remaining wall, burst into flames. Booker, and Watts sat in the back of a yellow pickup. They chewed gum as they watched the firefighters' futile efforts against the raging fire. In Watts' bandaged hands were the charred remains of the DP-9's guidance system. "You know," said Watts, "now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have run into that flaming building to retrieve this."

"Probably not," said Booker.

"Check it out," said Watts motioning at a yellow Mercedes limo approaching at 82 miles an hour.

"Hey," said Booker, pointing at the box in Watts' hands, "it's working."

Watts painfully high-fived the technician as Bandler screeched to a stop so close to the pickup he had to put the limo in reverse and screech to another stop before opening the door. "Watts," he said, pointing a bony finger, "you're paying for that fucking warehouse."

"I have heard," said Watts, "a thousand times, that you aren't interested in excuses, you're interested in results." He snatched the guidance mechanism from Booker. "See those lights?"

"Yeh."

"Those are your results," said Watts. "We found the Space Pussies."

"Believe it or not," said Booker, "we thought, at first, that it might not work."

That's when the warehouse's final wall collapsed, pinning three firefighters beneath its smoking girders. Other firefighters redirected hoses and scurried for the Jaws of Life to rescue their fallen brethren.

"That would have been a real mess," said Watts.

"What kind of pattern is that?" asked Bandler.

"I don't know," said Booker, '"but I bet if we superimpose a scale map of the United States on this here screen—"

"Yeh?" said Bandler.

"I'd bet you $1,000,000," said the technician, "that we could find those cosmic cunts."

"Why do we need a map?" said Watts. "If the screen is roughly the size of the United States and the lights indicate the TAPFOS' location," he placed a finger on the guidance device, "they'd be here, in the Dakotas. In the middle of frigging nowhere. The arrow shows that they're headed east."

"I'll be damned," said Bandler. "There might be a simple solution to this after all. Good work, guys." He speed dialed his cellular phone.

"I want a raise," said Booker.

Bandler waved away the request and said into the phone, "Castillo, we've located the TAPFOS. I'll be transmitting the coordinates to the Pentagon immediately. I strongly recommend that the first strike be nuclear."

"A nuclear war?" said Booker. "Sounds serious, but I still want that raise, Bandler."

"Any collateral damage," said Bandler into the phone, "or nuclear fallout could be blamed on the Pussies. This gives us one free shot. Let's evacuate the area and shove three ICBMs right up their huge, distended, vaginal labium."

"Oh my," said Watts. "Now there's a visual."

18

Park Ranger Louise Gawain directed the traffic out of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. She waved through a line of RVs, urging them to ignore the 10 mph speed limit. The call had come, that morning, to evacuate under Code Red, Level 3: Imminent Nuclear Disaster.

But she just knew it was because of those darned Teenaged Pussies From Outer Space.

Ranger Gawain, had two concerns. First: The quick and safe evacuation of the park's visitors, before they were consumed in a doggone nuclear holocaust, and, second: To change her clothes. She was extremely proud of the Park Service and the job she performed so well, but she hated her ugly, circa World War I doughboy uniform. Teddy Roosevelt founded the Park Service, but did that mean everyone, male and female, had to dress like him for the next two centuries?

Louise didn't mind dying in the line of duty—she really didn't—but she didn't want to get snuffed in Park Service Ocher. She was wondering if she'd have time to change into sensible shoes and a stylish blouse before she started her drive away from Mount Rushmore. It was at this moment that she spotted a speeding Winnebago towing a convertible Robin's egg blue VW bug. The Winnebago headed directly toward the barricaded entrance to the park. A smiling Hispanic man with an Irish setter in his lap sat in the passenger seat. An old man in aviator goggles drove. The elderly driver waved quickly, then returned both hands to the steering wheel as the RV smashed through the barricade. "Stop," said Louise, as she waved an almost identical Winnebago out through the exit. "Stop or I'll, I'll just have to say Stop again."

19

"What lifeform," asked Alexi, "would or could, possibly, assume the shape of that Moore Neighborhood?" John pecked at a key on the laptop between himself and Alexi. They sat on the loveseat in the Winnebago's "Family Room." Pearl was in the kitchen stuffing Mascarpone cheese and chocolate chips into homemade canoli. Jimmy, Huevos, and DEE-O-GEE were up front.

Jimmy, who had just finished a curt wave to an astonishingly beautiful, red-haired female Park Ranger said, "Hang on everybody." The Winnebago's beefed-up suspension hardly flexed as it smashed through the Park Service barricade. "We're in," said Jimmy.

"All life, Alexi," said John, "tadpoles, dung flies, even Televangelists, have a method of regeneration that is, to varying degrees, a variation on the Moore Neighborhood. The lifespan of any individual organism is determined by three factors. First, Composition: the flesh of a woman, the bark of a tree. Second, Environment: the woman gets skin cancer from over exposure to the sun; the tree gets gnawed down by a beaver. Third, Mechanism: how the composition is aligned and arranged to deal with the environment."

"I got it. But—"

"I've taken all the data we downloaded from the SpacePaddle and loaded it into the genetic engineering software I used to develop my Super Yeast. These are the TAPFOS' cells, their basic building blocks. These would be," John pointed, "one, two, three: the individual TAPFOS." John hit another key. This is the exact mechanism that I was utilizing in my yeast research. I call it a glider gun."

"Looks complicated," said Alexi.

"Basically, it's like our DNA."

John's narration elucidated what appeared on his computer screen:

"This configuration," said John, "is a spatially fixed oscillator that resumes its original shape after three generations. Within this three generation period the Gun shoots off a Glider that becomes an Eater, which is a six generation oscillator. This Eater swallows up the Glider without undergoing any irreversible changes. Since the Gun oscillates indefinitely, it can produce an infinite number of Gliders." John exhaled in relief.

"I understand the theory; the construct in abstract," said Alexi. "But so what?"

"I hope I'm mistaken about this, Alexi."

"What?"

"Even though the TAPFOS have assumed a primal, pudendal form of The Procreatrix, and, with that, all the mythic and spiritual trappings about birth, rebirth, death and resurrection, these Pussies appear to be immortal."

Alexi chuckled. "Usually I understand your little malaprops, John. But you lost me when you said immortal. What did you mean: immoral, immature, immune?"

"I meant, what I said. Immortal. Life without end, Amen."

"Your data is wrong."

"My data is dead right. This last trip on the DP-9, before we found the aliens, my yeast experiment succeeded." He patted the laptop. "I am right and I wish it weren't so."

"Okay," said Alexi. "Let's extrapolate."

"Extrapolate away."

"If you're right, the United States Air Force could fire a side-winding heat-seeking missile into the aliens and the aliens would prosper."

"A wonderful day in the Moore Neighborhood," said John. "They would welcome the explosion as food. Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings and a second helping of pumpkin pie."

"John," yelled Huevos from up front, "come here."

John and Alexi squirmed past Pearl and squeezed alongside Jimmy and Huevos. Alexi petted DEE-O-GEE.

"What?" asked John.

Huevos pointed out the front window. "Look."

A squadron of Apache attack helicopters flew parallel to the Winnebago, at twice the speed, heading right for the Four Faces of Mount Rushmore.

"Looks like," said Jimmy, "the alligator-schitt is hitting the fan."

20

"So I told this little kike of a travel agent," said Kyle Smith, "to take Europe and shove it up his squeaky little ass."

"He'd probably enjoy that," said Carol Mancuso.

"Especially," said Sean Mancuso, "the boot of Italy, where it points at Sicily." Sean rummaged around in an ice chest, "Kyle, Carol, Donna, y'all ready for another beer?"

"Hit me," said Kyle.

"Sure," said Carol.

"Where are the boys?" asked Donna.

Kyle opened and delivered the Miller High Lifes, "They're fine. They hiked up to the monument." Kyle finished half his beer in a gulp, "Yeh, I'm glad I told the little bagel-baker that my family was going to see 'Merica first."

"What do you think," said Carol, "all that evacuation talk was about this morning?"

"Probably a controlled burn or something," said Sean.

"Yes sir," said Kyle, "so we are seeing 'Merica first." He waved at his son Riley, who stood beside Nate Mancuso. With no Park Rangers to stop the boys they had hopped a fence marked No Trespassing and scrambled up the pile of jumbled shale, up to the base of the huge stone faces. "Besides," said Kyle, "with Riley's raging hormones we'd probably lose him in a bordello. Nope, we're better off seein' 'Merica first."

"Kyle?" said Donna.

"Oh-my-God," said Carol.

"Shit," said Sean.

"What?" said Kyle.

Ruth pointed at the Rushmore monument. Nate and Riley were standing in its shadow and around them danced, Ring-Around-the-Rosie-style, three Teenaged Pussies From Outer Space.

21

Riley and Nate had spotted the TAPFOS before the aliens had noticed the humans. The boys, standing at the base of Rushmore, had watched the TAPFOS alternately attach themselves to the 60 foot high faces of "Honest" Abe Lincoln, Teddy "Walk Softly And Carry A Big Stick" Roosevelt, Georgie "Father Of The Country" Washington, and Tom "Who Cares If I Fucked My Slaves, I Coined The Term Manifest Destiny" Jefferson. Riley and Nate stood open mouthed, as Flower, Bambi and Thumper, looking like huge gelatinous clown noses, pretty much humped the faces of the former Presidents. The TAPFOS pulsed, quivered, and puckered like jellyfish processing zooplankton-rich seawater through their somatic cavities.

"That does it," said Nate.

"What?" asked Riley.

"I'm going into politics."

And that's when the aliens spotted the adolescents.

22

"This area has been secured," said Lt. Snelling, "you must evacuate." Snelling stepped out of his Jeep and stood pointing, much like Babe Ruth, to the south.

"But our boys—" said Donna Smith.

"Are up there," said Carol Mancuso, "with them."

That's when Donna screamed and collapsed. Riley, in the distance, stood wide-eyed, with both arms inserted into Bambi. Nate, drooling and ignoring all his brain's feeble warnings about size, perspective and spatial relationships, tried to unzip his pants. All this as a squadron of Apache helicopters appeared on the not-to-distant horizon.

"Lieutenant Snelling," said Sean, "our boys are up in there."

"Apparently," said Kyle, "all the way up in there."

"Crap," said Lt. Snelling. He rushed to the Jeep and grabbed the radio. "OB/GYN to Massengil Leader. Come in Massengil Leader. Over."

The radio crackled, "Roger, OB/GYN. What's up? Over."

"Use the birds in a fly-by to spook the unfriendlies. There are two hikers at the base of the monument. Buzz the TAPFOS. Spook them out into the Badlands and blast their fallopians out. Over."

"Roger," said Massengil Leader through the static. "I see the hikers. Christ, what a couple of little perverts."

23

Riley and Nate, caught with their pants down, were pelted with litter and debris blown about by the Apaches. The TAPFOS, actually satisfied with this most recent human contact, rose to greet the helicopters. Thumper moved so quickly, she zipped through Massengil Leader's rotor without being sliced like salami. The TAPFOS and the Apache squadron rose straight up, above the cloud of dust. Bambi and Flower had joined Thumper in "dancing" with the helicopters. Slowly, the oddly paired dance teams headed away from Mount Rushmore.

Nate and Riley, fully dressed now, made their way down to their parents.

Carolyn and Donna helped their husbands, who were proudly smoking cigars, load their SUVs.

Lt. Snelling said, "I'll pick the kids up in my Jeep, you idiots get out of the park. Head directly south." Into the radio, he said, "Massengil Leader, it's Saturday night at closing time and you, my friends, are on a pussy hunt."

"Just like the good ole days, OB/GYN. Over and out."

24

With the boys safely in the back of the Jeep, Lt. Snelling sped through the abandoned park. The almost abandoned park. Rounding a sweeping left-hand turn, he narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a speeding Winnebago. "Hey," said Riley, "General Sir—"

"I'm a Lieutenant, smartass."

"Hey, Lieutenant Smartass," said Nate, "those guys are headed back toward the pussies."

"So?"

"Aren't you supposed to be evacuating civilians?" asked Riley.

"Screw 'em," said Lt. Smartass.

25

If the TAPFOS were five year old children you would say that they were playing tag. And if tag were an Olympic sport they'd have been gold medalists. They capered and gyred and japed with the Apaches, flying in the formation, around the formation, and through the formation.

If the Apache helicopters were dogs they would be bloodhounds trying to tree their quarry. By maintaining a tight attack formation they herded the TAPFOS in a general northeasterly direction, toward a column of Abrams M-1 tanks equipped with armor piercing shells. When they reached the armored procession of M-1s, the Apaches hovered, approximately 150 feet above the prairie. By slowly flying backwards they could periodically isolate one or more of the TAPFOS in a Killing Zone. In this Killing Zone the tanks could fire at the TAPFOS without fear of hitting the Apaches with friendly fire.

The M-1s, recently returned from Uncle Sam's latest Petroleum Police Action in the Middle East (Keeping the World Safe for Democracy and the Price of Gas under Seven Dollars a Gallon was this administration's tried&true Foreign Policy) were battle-tested and extremely accurate. Shell-after-shell-after-armor-piercing-shell WHOMPED into the TAPFOS. Captain Eric "Gypsy" Rose, tank commander, said to his gunnery sergeant, "This is like shooting fish in a barrel."

"Yeh," said Sgt. Steve Harrick, "but the point of shooting at the fish is to kill them. These guys, ah gals, seem to be digging it."

wow, communicated Bambi, after WHOMPING three more shells, they might be trying to help us. but this food would be better at night after the sun has set and we need it.

any port in a storm, said Thumper who had become a fan of what humans call PBS and monitored the PBS NOISE 24 hours a day. it's just like a "fund drive" where the group of employed humans bestows gifts on the nonprofit humans.

yum yum yum yum yum, said Flower.

Flower consumed the HE shells like candy from a Pez dispenser. In her haste to "yum yum" more shells she zipped through the Apache formation. This caused an updraft which forced two Apaches' rotors to tangle. Both helicopters exploded in midair and like a broken and burning gyroscope they gimbaled through the formation. The linked and blazing helicopters knocked everyone but Massengil Leader from the sky. As if drawn by magnetic attraction, the intertwined helicopters crashed into the center of the armored column, destroying three tanks.

The TAPFOS, ruby red and satiate from all this recent activity hung like three oblong moons—confused and seemingly embarrassed—in the darkening sky.

"Fuck," said Massengil Leader as he watched the prairie burn, fueled by his fallen squadron.

"Disengage and retreat," said Captain Rose. "That is an order."

oops, said Flower.

26

"You should hear this, Mr. Bandler," said Colonel Peck.

"Put it on the speakerphone," said Bandler.

"Yes," said General Mills, "the speakerphone. Put it on."

On the far wall of this room in the Pentagon was a lighted map of the United States. A thin blue line traced the TAPFOS' progress across the nation, from Gary Powers Air Force Base to Las Vegas to Enid, Oklahoma, to the Dakotas. Right now, the blue line had entered a red circle.

The Nuclear Kill Zone.

Colonel Peck flipped a switch and Massengil Leader said, "The unfriendlies accosted two youths, destroyed a column of tanks and every Apache except mine. They escaped, heading east. Over."

Bandler said, "What's your read on the situation?"

"They are way fucking scary," said the chopper pilot. "I've killed A-Rabs all over the Middle East, but I have never seen anything like this. The prairie is on fire, the tanks are retreating, and my squadron is gone."

Colonel Peck handed Bandler a set of headphones. "It's the President."

Bandler donned the headphones, "Yes," he said and listened intently. "They are headed East....I am aware of the fact that Washington, D. C. is in the East....We can't really ascertain what their motives are....Because they are aliens....No, I don't think we could lure them to Canada or Mexico....Yes I understand, don't use unnecessary force." Bandler handed the headphones back to Colonel Peck and said into the speakerphone, "I need your help here Massengil Leader."

"What? Over."

"Are you an educated man?"

"Well, after Operation Enduring Freedom I finished a Master's in Aeronautical Engineering and re-upped for Operation Permanent Peace On Our Terms Exclusively. "Oh, I also attended a Bible College. I figure since I kept risking my life to defend The Bible I may as well read the fucker."

"The President of the United States," said Bandler, "has decided to defer all decisions on action against these Teenaged Pussies From Outer Space to me. Do you understand the extent of that responsibility?"

"In terms of civilian casualties?"

"In terms of the fortune in defense contracts I'm likely to lose if I'm wrong."

"That serious?"

"Yes. And I need your help," said Bandler.

"But I've never had any luck with women—"

"They aren't women. They're aliens."

"I've seen them up close and personal, Sir. They are very women-like and even though I've always been taught respect for the fairer sex, you've got to nuke these cunts. They are scary. Real scary. Destroy them before they leave these Badlands. Over."

"My decision," said Bandler, "has been made. I need you to assess any collateral damage that would be caused by, say, two or three atomic warheads."

"All nearby military, except myself and my crew, are deader than disco. All civilians have been evacuated. The only thing moving within 35 miles are some coyotes, the TAPFOS, and some crazy assholes in an old Winnebago."

"You clear out of the area, Massengill Leader," said Bandler. "I'm pulling the trigger."

"Over and out of here," said the chopper pilot.

"Three birds," said General Mills, "are locked in and ready to fly."

27

Flower, Thumper, and Bambi, 30 feet above the ground, faced the Winnebago. Jimmy had driven the RV down the singletrack south of the prairie fire in the distance, until that "road" had petered out. The gang in the Winnebago watched the mêlée ensue and then Jimmy bumped and lurched the Winnie across the prairie until he reached the levitating TAPFOS. "Look," said Jimmy, "at the size of those biscuits."

"They certainly have grown," said Pearl.

"It's now or never," said John.

"Be careful," said Alexi. "Please?"

John stepped out of the Winnebago, followed closely by DEE-O-GEE. He shielded his eyes from the glare and smoke of the distant fires and saw Massengil Leader stop circling and head west. DEE-O-GEE curled up beneath the Winnebago.

John approached the TAPFOS.

Bambi lowered herself and scooted toward John.

John froze.

Almost imperceptibly, in the quiet wind of the prairie, she offered John a flap of "skin" to touch. John, swallowed hard; breathed deeply, and then touched Bambi.

A fold of her fluid, plastid skin enveloped his right hand.

A wave of orgasmic splendor swept over John. A pure, natural, nonsexual, incitement to climax.

His knees buckled.

And if Glowing alien protoplasm could smile; Bambi smiled.

i'm satisfied, communicated Bambi.

"Wow," said John. "I just creamed my britches."

when we probed the one called Hal, communicated Bambi to John through her pulp, his most powerful memories were those of squirting. we thought that's how you-all said hello. we did it with the girl in the dress of little lights and the other, huskier woman dressed in green. although there is more difficulty in saying hello to those who wear their squirter inside their flesh, all of you enjoy this greeting.

"Wow," said John again.

you all, continued Bambi, cherish language, but eschew and ignore communication. we participate in actual communication by experiencing, sharing, that peculiar and palpable evanescence beyond words. we have only one expression that you might consider a word—listen:

John orgasmed thrice more, then fainted and fell, his hand still clasped tightly by Bambi's plastid flap. The gang from the Winnebago assembled around John and the TAPFOS. Alexi gently slapped John back to consciousness. "John honey," said Alexi, "what happened?" She looked up at the twin vertical lips that hovered over her fiancé.

"I've moistened my BVDs," said John.

"How did they do that?" asked Alexi.

"It's how they think we say hello," said John.

Jimmy and Huevos hoisted John to his feet. "My God," said John.

"What?" said Alexi.

"They just talked to me. Communicated with me. I understood."

"Kangaroo-schitt," said Jimmy.

"What did they say?" asked Huevos.

"The only word in their language," said John.

"What's that?" asked Alexi.

"Hello," said John.

"Why in Holy Hell," asked Jimmy, "is hello so important?"

John said, "They are immortals; they have no concept of loss, death, or departure. They've never had to say goodbye."

The TAPFOS communicated to each other: only the tall one can understand, said Bambi, what should we do?

Flower and Thumper approached Bambi. Thumper said, before they start making noise they seem to think in pictures.. try pictures...

good idea, said Flower.

we know the one named John, said Bambi, i'll show him pictures of where we've seen him before. Right above where Bambi held John's hand appeared an holographic image of John, Hal, and the DP-9. The Winnebago bunch closed in around John and the aliens. "They recognize me," said John, "because I was in Hal's thoughts before he died."

"Sonuvabitch," said Jimmy and Pearl.

"Valgame Dios," said Huevos.

"Woof woof," said DEE-O-GEE.

"That's me," said Alexi. She pointed at the protoplasmic television Bambi was projecting.

The half-circle of humans grew tighter as they watched Hal's dying thoughts: a collage of images: The DP-9 as seen, with the earth and moon as a backdrop, while spacewalking. Alexi as a child from Hal's point-of-view as younger brother. John and Hal in a NASA simulator. A back flip off a bridge in Oregon. A swan dive off a cliff in Acapulco. Frolicking naked with two suntanned twins and a bottle of Herradura. Hal's mother and father. A pet turtle from third grade. A fleeting, faded, imagined image of John and Alexi walking down the aisle, and then a simple flash of light.

"He was seeing you two get married as he died," said Huevos. "The flash of light is exactly what I saw when I died."

"Mister Eggs," said Jimmy, "you look pretty fucking good for a corpse."

"A figurative spiritual death, preceding rebirth," said Huevos. "But that's what it looked like."

"Walrus-schitt," said Jimmy.

The protoplasmic television resumed, projecting another montage: A flaming DP-9 reentry and sizzling splashdown; Zelko and Addams in front of Hanger 6; fleeing Generals; Brad and Frank Morrison and Alexi.

"Beaver-schitt," said Jimmy. "She's showing us earth from her point of view."

The montage continued: Sucking up golf balls; the lights on the Luxor Pyramid; two Elvises playing cards; the orgasming ring girl; a scintillating flash of light; Hoover Dam ghostly and unlit in the moonlight; the Girl Scout bonfire.

Then the pictures ceased.

i got it, communicated Bambi. i understand their noise. it's a connection between pictures and words. i hope this doesn't hurt him, i like the tall one.

careful, said Flower.

John convulsed, shuddered and then spoke in a languid, yet commanding voice. A Judy Collins meets James Earl Jones voice: "The death of the one called Hal was good. It made us want to die. To experience resignation and completion."

"He's speaking in tongues," said Jimmy.

this is working, communicated Bambi to her sisters.

good, said Thumper and Flower.

"That finality," said Bambi, through John's Judy-Earl-Jones voice, "would be good. I felt the calmness when Hal had seen death and stopped struggling. But it was the Ancient One who showed us that without physical death, immortality or eternity cannot be appreciated. Ironic."

"The Ancient One?" asked Alexi. "Who is the Ancient One?"

"Look," said Pearl.

The ancient Indian appeared in the protoplasmic television.

Thumper and Flower had flanked the half-circle of humans. In the shadows of the 20 foot tall TAPFOS, the gang of humans looked like druids standing beneath a fractured Stonehenge triptych. And then both the TAPFOS and the humans shared, in pictures, the experience of the Ancient One's death:

A bruised purple darkness settled around the old Indian as he breathed heavily in the buffalo grass. Then blackness, upon which appeared the morning star. The star grew brighter and bigger and closer until it evolved into a white stallion that stood beside the dead Indian. Then the Indian rose; his withered arms strong; his gray braids now blacker than midnight. He mounted the stallion and rode, as if aboard Pegasus, into the rising sun.

"My God," said Alexi.

Then in quick succession, Bambi projected Mount Rushmore; Riley and Nate; flying with the Apache squadron. Then the terror and confusion of the battle. The WHOMPING of the armor piercing shells, the crashing helicopters, then a close-up of the blistering and hellish deaths of Captain Eric "Gypsy" Rose's tank crew.

John, in his own voice, screamed and yanked his hand from Bambi's plastid fold. His hand was burned into a bloody and charcoaled, almost unrecognizable stump. Whitish bone contrasted with the darkened stub. He fell to his knees, howling in pain. "I'm on fire," screamed John, "Jesus-Christ-O-Shit-O-Fuck-O-Piss."

Alexi and Huevos reached for John, but before they could move, Flower extended herself and engulfed John's bloody stump. His screams stopped. And, when he withdrew his hand a moment later he was healed.

tell him i'm sorry i didn't realize, said Bambi.

i already did, said Flower. he knows it was accidental.

"Now that's something you don't see everyday," said Pearl.

John shook out his fingers and played imaginary piano scales in the air. He approached Bambi and just as he touched her Jimmy said, "John?"

"What?"

"There's only one thing on heaven or earth that can make that sound."

The circle of humans and the TAPFOS shared a silent moment.

"Shit-and Molasses," said John.

"What?" asked Pearl.

"Titan missiles," said Jimmy, quite calmly. "Incoming."

"What the hell," said Huevos, "I died once already this month."

John pointed at the three contrails approaching from the north and screamed at the sky, "No! There are more people, but you can't do this to the TAPFOS!"

"I love you, John," said Alexi. She hugged John, then Huevos. "Martín, what can I say?"

Jimmy and Pearl embraced John. "We love you like the son we lost in the first Gulf War," said Jimmy. "His name was Richard."

"I never thought," said Pearl, "that I could love like a mother again. Thank you."

Spontaneously, silently, the group joined hands and stood in a small circle. The TAPFOS huddled on the outside of the ring of humans. DEE-O-GEE trotted over and settled at Huevos' feet. Slowly they all lifted their eyes and followed the trajectory of the three Titans. "Right on target, John," said Jimmy. "You Air Force fuckers are good."

"Like it matters," said John. "They only have to get them within 10 or 20 miles." He squeezed Alexi's left hand and Pearl's right. He tried to think of something to say.

"Adios," said Huevos.

The missiles screamed down at them; close enough for the gang to read USAF on the Titans' sides.

"Here we go," said Alexi.

"At least we know there's a happy hunting ground," said Pearl.

"Goodbye, everybody," said John. "Hello.... whatever."

"Hello," intoned the group.

they understand, communicated Thumper. they all said hello.

it's more like they finally stopped insisting to misunderstand, communicated Bambi.

cool, said Flower. they're nicer when they stop making their noise.

28

With the blast imminent Thumper, Bambi, and Flower flew straight upwards to intercept the incoming nuclear missiles. High above the Badlands three nuclear explosions began to occur and were snuffed out like candles in a hurricane.

The gang, knocked flat by the concussive blast, struggled to their feet.

"What happened?" said Pearl.

"They took the blast for us," said Huevos.

"They either deflected or absorbed it," said Jimmy.

"Absorbed it?" said Alexi.

"Shit-and-Molasses," said John, "get in the Winnebago."

"What?" said Jimmy.

"Now. RIGHT NOW," said John, hustling everybody toward the RV.

John helped the gang in through several doors; only he and DEE-O-GEE were outside when the TAPFOS landed. John slammed the side door shut and approached the TAPFOS.

They were no longer teenaged.

They were hairy, warted venereal monsters.

Ugly beyond belief.

A drunken gynecologist's worst psychedelic-withdrawal-nightmare.

They were billboard-sized, 3-D representations of oozing, leaking, swollen-clitoral, syphilitic and gonorrheal, herpes scarred, claw-clefted and climitia-ravaged, scabrous, pulsating, bulging, bivalved, climacteric, irradiated, metamorphosed-and-mutated, cerotic, necrotic, reeking, fish-emulsion-tinged vaginas from beyond the nether reaches of Dante's deepest and most depraved circle of Hades.

And they sizzled.

Spitting, sputtering, stinking, hissing and dripping liquid-nuclear-offal the color and consistency of putrid, regurgitated hummus.

"John!" screamed Alexi from the inside of the Winnebago. "Get in here!"

DEE-O-GEE snarled at what was once Flower. This mutated Weïrd Sister attacked and engulfed the setter. With a peristaltic quiver the mutated Flower spat out DEE-O-GEE's lifeless, blistered red carcass. John stepped over the dead DEE-O-GEE and approached what was, two minutes and a nuclear explosion ago, Bambi. Terrified, he reached out his hand. The TAPFOS, still plastid, but now putrid, engulfed it. Bambi's Judy-Earl-Jones' voice had mutated into a growling. Lauren Bacall/Tom Waits amalgam.

WHAT HAPPENED? said ex-Bambi in the Lauren-Waits voice.

John yanked his hand away.

Ex-Bambi reared up and hovered above John like a housewife's slipper over a cockroach on a dirty kitchen counter. Jimmy started up the Winnebago and inched it toward John. Ex-Bambi then settled down and approached John in another effort to communicate. Shaking, John re-extended his arm: TAPFOS and human were co-joined:

I FEEL YOUR FEAR, YOUR

TREPIDATION, AND APPRECIATE YOUR

VALOR. I AM PROUD OF YOU, said ex-Bambi, aloud through John's Lauren-Waits voice:

BUT I HAVE TO ASK YOU THIS: FIND A

WAY TO KILL US. PLEASE? I KNOW

THAT LIVING THIS WAY, FOREVER,

EXPERIENCING PRIDE, DESPAIR AND

DOMINION—LIKE YOU HUMANS—

WOULD BE HELL. YOU ARE LUCKY YOU

CAN DIE. FIND A WAY TO KILL US.

Ex-Bambi rose, lifting John 10 feet off the ground. Ex-Thumper and ex-Flower, incensed, butted into each other like Alaskan Rams. John swung back and forth like a lantern on a caboose until Bambi spat him out. He landed where she'd aimed him, face first onto the convertible top of the VW. The cystic and scabbed trio zipped around the Winnebago three times and then disappeared across the Bad Lands.

### PART FOUR

### NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL

1

Alexi hugged John.

He quivered and convulsed as Alexi rocked him back and forth.

"Do you have any hard alcohol?" Huevos asked Pearl,

"Just a bottle of Old Crow in case of snakebite," said Pearl. "But I think this qualifies." Huevos took the bourbon and raised it to John's lips. Shuddering, he drank. Most of the booze dribbled down his chin.

Huevos handed the bottle to Alexi who coaxed John into drinking. His shakes abated and he closed his eyes.

"Mister Eggs," said Jimmy, "get up here."

Huevos settled into the passenger seat. "What?"

Jimmy drove slowly and deliberately through the National Memorial. Devoid of tourists and Park Service employees the memorial was like a hushed sanctuary, a silent shrine. "We dodged a bullet back there, Mister Eggs."

"Sí."

"Three, count 'em three warheads, and we lived to tell about it."

"Saved by the pussies."

"Yes, but I'm not so sure, amigo, that I want to see them pussies again." Jimmy drove for several minutes without speaking. In the rearview mirror he could see John still trembling slightly in Alexi's arms. "What did you mean?" he said to Huevos. "Back there when you said: That's what it looked like when I died?"

"I'm misunderstood every time I try to explain it," said Huevos.

"Try. Please?"

Huevos drummed on the dashboard: "My soul was opened and I beheld the fullness and perfection of God, in which I comprehended the whole world, both here and beyond the abyss. I saw nothing but the power of God in a way that is beyond the power of words to explain. My soul cried out in a loud voice: This whole world is full of God."

"Well angel-schitt," said Jimmy, "I asked, didn't I?"

"Do you believe in God?"

"I know," said Jimmy, opening a Coors, then sipping and placing it between his knees, "two things about God that have always served me well."

"What are they?"

"One: There is one. Two: It ain't me."

2

John, smelling of Old Crow, poked his head in between Jimmy and Huevos. Pearl and Alexi clustered up behind him. John popped open his laptop, pecked at a few buttons and said, "Hot damn, it still works. We're going after them."

"Happy Happy Joy Joy," said Alexi. "It was bad enough before they hit nuclear puberty."

John examined the laptop's screen and extrapolated the TAPFOS's course, "They are headed east. Probably to Washington D.C."

"There are quite a few cities between here and D.C.," said Huevos.

"They've developed, for some reason," said John, "an interest in Presidential monuments. That's what brought them to Mount Rushmore."

Pearl drank, "Oddly enough, they did seem on a mission to mount Mount Rushmore."

"Just why are we chasing these things?" said Jimmy. "They just ate three ICBMs like they were Ball Park Franks. What could we possibly do if we find them?"

Pearl, from behind John raised the bottle of whiskey and said, "Jimmy dear? Chasing these TAPFOS seems to be our destiny. Talking won't help. Please head to Washington like Johnny said. Thanks."

Alexi caught Jimmy's confused look in the rearview.

Pearl passed the bottle of Old Crow to Huevos.

"Change of plans." John slapped shut his laptop and said, "Jimmy?"

"What?"

"How far to Alexandria?"

"Virginia or Egypt?"

"Virginia."

"We can make it overnight," said Jimmy, "if we tag-team the driving."

"Let's hit it," said John.

"May I ask why?"

John said, "I need a beer or two."

3

It is a simple, undeniable fact that the child raised in a strict Mormon or Southern Baptist family is the one at their first college fraternity party most likely to drink a quart of bourbon, vodka, or tequila, shove a dill pickle up their ass on a dare, and pass out in a puddle of their own vomit.

So it was with ex-Flower.

This creature, as an unembodied essence was stillness, peace, and light. As a TAPFOS, before nuclear inoculation, she was just as cute, endearing, and unassuming as a 23 foot tall pre-pubescent vagina could possibly be.

As a transmuted gash she was a holy terror.

After she'd been nuked she began swooping at airplanes, halting traffic and causing mayhem as they headed east. On the inside she felt:

PASSION TERROR EMOTION PRIDE POWER

CONTROL OMNIPOTENCE THOUGHTS

MANIPULATE!

MANIPULATE!!

MANIPULATE!!!

AUTHORITY STRENGTH DOMINANCE

ENERGY DYNAMISM AND ENDOWMENT IS

WHAT I FEEL: FEAR TREPIDATION

ANXIETY MISTRUST DISMAY DISQUIETING

APPREHENSION ALARM HATE AND

MOTHER FUCKING HORROR IS WHAT I

WANT TO INSPIRE IN THEM.

THEY MADE ME FEEL LIKE A HUMAN AND

THEY WILL PAY!!!

Ex-Flower now enjoyed making humans feel terror, but she knew that none of these dominating emotions could ever compare with the sublime gratefulness and reprieve and thanks the one called John felt after she had restored health in his right hand.

4

Hammond Stein sat on the edge of his leather EZ Boy recliner watching The Brady Bunch while masturbating left-handed. "Give it up, Jan. Oh, Yeh, grind it you little slut. You Brady bitch. I want to tie your pigtails to the headboard and fuck you till dawn. Oh Yeh oh Yeh oh Yeh."

What finished Hammond's Jantasy was footage of the TAPFOS progressing east out of Chicago. The gnarled and nasty entities left a trail of terror and slime. One of the trinity, ex-Flower, had developed a nasty habit of cornering and confronting crowds before she retreated; leaving throngs of people shaken and mortified but unharmed.

Hammond watched, aghast, with his clammy, shrinking member still clutched in his left hand as the TAPFOS went berserker for the camera. They smashed overpasses and splintered billboards. The aliens seemed to take great delight in the random destruction of parked automobiles. Three A-10 Warthogs appeared and the tank killers tried their hand at alien killing. They fired cannons and missiles to no avail and barely escaped.

"Well, I'll be god dammed, but I think we've got a story here." With his pants still down around his ankles Hammond shuffled, Burgess-Meredith-as-the-Penguin-style, to a phone to call his producer.

5

"By the power invested in me," said Jimmy, double-clutching and down-shifting, "as an ordained minister of Reverend Dick Smith's New Universal Life Church and Tax Shelter, I now pronounce you man and wife. John, you may kiss the bride."

But John didn't get a chance to kiss his new bride. Alexi beat him to it with a carnivorous lip lock.

"Wow," said Pearl.

"Throw some water on those two," said Huevos.

The loving and lingering kiss ended and John gave Alexi a long, sexy look that you could have poured over pancakes.

"Pearl?" said Jimmy. "It's official, we can finally write off the Winnebago as a mobile wedding chapel."

"It's about time you guys tied the knot," said Huevos. "What made you change your mind, Alexi?"

"In case we ever get out of this TAPFOS mess," said Alexi, "I want my baby to have a father that I'm married to."

"Sniff snuff snaff," said Pearl. "I always cry at weddings where the bride is pregnant."

"Performing a marriage at 95 miles an hour on the outskirts of Alexandria," said Jimmy. "This almost beats shooting down a MIG while eating cold mac-and-cheese."

Alexi kissed John again, "I love you, Husband."

"I love you too," said John. "Jimmy, STOP."

"Why?"

"STOP."

Jimmy pulled the Winnebago to a stop within sight of the Fourth Generation Ales brewery. John quickly opened and chugged two Coors and hopped out of the RV. He crossed the road, unzipped his pants and stood for a minute with his legs straddled before he began urinating.

"What the heck is he doing now?" asked Pearl.

"It's a family thing," said Huevos.

"Hereditary bladder dysfunction?" asked Jimmy.

"No," said Huevos. "He's pissing on his father's grave; it's a sign of familial respect."

"Well please disrespect me all to hell," said Jimmy.

"The founder of the brewery," said Huevos, as John continued his reverential stream of peepee, "told his son—"

"John's great grandfather," said Alexi.

"—to remember him by pouring a pint of ale on his grave every now and then. And John's grandfather said, I'd be pleased do, but there's no sense wasting good beer, do you mind if I pass it through my kidneys first?"

"Traditions are so important," said Pearl. "Even the wacky ones."

"Alexi, you aren't consummated as a married couple yet," said Jimmy. "You want an annulment? No charge."

"Not in a million years," said Alexi.

6

"Hey dad?" said John, straddling his father's grave. "Remember the old joke about the man who was so lazy that he married a pregnant woman?" Drip, drip. Shake, shake. Zip, zip. "Well I'm hitched."

7

Fourth Generation Ales employed, in addition to John's mother, six full-time personnel. Tonight the staff of Fourth Generation Ales helped Jimmy spot weld a 500 gallon aluminum beer storage tank to the top of the Winnebago, perhaps making it the largest mobile keg of beer in the history of the world.

Inside the brewery, John, Huevos, and Mrs. Wryght sparged lines with nitrogen and hooked up hoses.

"Johnny," said Mrs. Wryght, "if I hadn't seen it myself, I never would have believed it."

"I told you," John kissed his mom, "a top fermented ale in 12 hours. And most importantly, the yeast is still active—it simply shuts down at the preset percentage of alcohol. Scrape off the yeast to reuse, and bottle the beer."

"I'll see if Jimmy's got the Winnebago ready," said Huevos.

"Did you—" asked Mrs. Wryght.

"I visited dad's grave in the way in."

"Good boy," said Mrs. Wryght.

John hugged his mother and said, "How've you been?"

"Why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"

"The ceremony was a sperm of the moment decision."

"I'm your mother."

"We were on the road and—"

"I'm your mother."

"—we've only got one chance to try and stop the aliens—"

"I'm your mother."

"—and I'm the only one who—"

"I'm your mother."

John said, "I'm sorry I didn't invite you to the wedding."

"Was that so difficult?"

"No."

"John?"

"What?"

"Your dad would be proud of you."

"Yeh," said John. "The yeast worked out pretty well."

"Not the yeast," said Mrs. Wryght. "You."

"Thanks."

"Alexi," said Mrs. Wryght, "is pregnant, isn't she?"

John kicked a hose, winced, and said, "Yeh, how'd you know?"

Mrs. Wryght smiled, "I'm your mother."

8

The Winnebago, looking much like one of the vehicles from the Mad Max trilogy, was parked in front of the brewery. John pulled a hose out of the brewery. He stepped up onto the rear bumper, then the spare tire, and handed the hose to Jimmy.

John scrambled to the top of the Winnebago and helped Jimmy couple the hose to the tank.

"Let's run this up a flag pole and see who salutes it," said Jimmy.

"Hey, Huevos," yelled John, "let her rip."

They watched in anticipation as the delivery hose stiffed. They could hear the ale sloshing around inside the tank; there was only a small leak at the hose/tank junction.

"Congratulations, John," said Jimmy.

"The easy part's done," said John.

"Think it will work?" asked Jimmy.

John laughed. "Probably not. Even if we had a TAPFOS locked in the brewery there's the problem of applying it. My next goal is to get it in the same area code as the pussies."

"Two-o-two?" asked Jimmy.

"Yep," said John. "Everything would seem to indicate Washington D.C."

9

Bandler, Castillo, and General Mills cowered in front of the Presidential Desk.

The President stood and slapped each man in turn across the face. "I should put you in a full-nelson and break your scrawny-ass bird necks then tweak your noses and poke your eyes like Moe did to Larry and Curly, but," she smiled her presidential smile, "women are generally above those kind of shenanigans."

Shortly after Dubya had left office (following that somewhat less-than-tidy fall off the wagon, and that venereal disease scandal) the country had a trade deficit almost as big as the former president's ego. The financial implications from the invasion of Iraq (Dubya-Dubya II) were just beginning to manifest themselves—plaguing and handcuffing the next two presidents. (The gay Democrat who was impeached and the assassinated Libertarian.) Frugality was the country's watchword and this administration; Florence McFadder and Ann B. McFadder—twin sisters and the reigning WWF Female Tag-Team Champions—on a whim, hired a public relations firm to test the waters before they ran for mayor of Boise, Idaho.

They tested off the chart.

Well-known, white, and perceived as the perfect American females: if they couldn't charm you out of what they wanted, they had the bodies to fuck you out of it, and if that didn't work they, again, had the bodies to beat the fuck out of you.

They ran for president on a simple platform that captivated the bankrupted nation: Elect the Bitches: You Won't Have to Pay Us as Much!!! and won by the widest margin of victory since 1980.

Personally, Florence was disappointed that the President of the United States was such a powerless and ineffectual position. But she prided herself on keeping the American public placated and happy while the multinational corporations that actually ruled the world forcibly shaped her foreign-policy by their self-serving-politico-economic maneuvers. That is why she had formed this Strange Bedfellow relationship with Bandler; he was her "in" to the society of industrialist billionaires who had dominated the direction of civilization since before World War I. She turned to the men, "We've managed to prove that atomic weapons don't work. Do we have any biological deterrents?"

"None that we can apply directly to the TAPFOS," said General Mills.

"Our jets," said Castillo, "fly too fast to dispense a spray, and helicopters are like an hors d'oeuvres to them."

"So, our best weapon," said President Flo, "the atom bomb, increases their powers and it's logistically impossible to use the other stuff? Castillo, get me the Vice President."

President Flo turned to study the Washington skyline.

Castillo pushed a button on the desk.

Bandler's cellular phone rang. Into the phone, he said, "Watts, I'm with the president....OK, let me hear it."

Vice President Ann B. entered and scowled at the assemblage of beneath contempt males.

"Why are they heading for Washington?" said President Flo.

Castillo said: "They know it's the seat of the civilization that they've come to destroy."

"Let us please," said Ann B., "take responsibility for their destructive tendencies. In the pictures from Oklahoma they were just the cutest little pubies I've ever seen. We did this to them with our nuclear weapons. If we all die, we deserve it."

"But—" said General Mills.

"But how could they know about Washington? Why on God's earth are they coming here?" said the President.

"Shit," said Bandler into his phone. Then, to the room, "Sorry."

"I know why they're coming here," said Ann B.

"Why?" asked President Flo.

Ann B. said, "Well, it is 550 feet tall. 169.29 meters, if you prefer. The slides slant gradually inward as they rise to the base of the pyramidion on top. The walls are 15 feet, 4.6 meters thick at the bottom and 18 inches, 46 cm, thick at the top. Anybody?" Ann B. poured herself a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. "The walls are covered with white marble from Maryland. A cap of cast aluminum protects the top. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848, which is, incidentally, the last time I got laid." She laughed and sipped her coffee. "Just kidding. Where was I?"

"July 4, 1848," said Castillo.

"Right. It was completed December 6, 36 years later at a cost of over $1 million. Give up?"

"Yes," said President Flo.

Ann B. pointed out the window. "It's the Washington Monument."

"Why would they," asked Castillo, "be coming to see the Washington Monument?"

"Sightseeing?" said General Mills.

"They're coming here," said Ann B., "to mount our national phallic symbol: the Washington Monument. Just think about it, the Father of our Country's official, and most famous and enduring remembrance is that symbolic, white-marble, ever-rigid cock."

"My God," said Castillo, "I think she might be right."

Bandler folded his phone, tucked it away, and said, "Bad news."

"Let's recap," said President Flo. "Atomically mutated aliens in the form of gnarled vaginas are marching on Washington like Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night so they can fuck the Washington Monument. Mr. Bandler?"

"Yes?"

"How can it get any worse?"

Simon Bandler, shaker–and-mover, billionaire; one of the chosen, began to weep.

"What?" asked President Flo.

"The TAPFOS, apparently," said Bandler, "are menstruating. The red tide is rising all across the city."

10

"Pearl and Alexi sure were pissed," said Jimmy.

"They'll get over it," said John. He guided the Winnebago around a long sweeping turn and accelerated back up to the speed limit. Cows grazed contentedly. Birds flitted from fence post to fence post. Grain silos loomed in the distance. Two crop dusters dipped and dove like dragonflies. "Why take the girls down with us, we both know that this is—"

"A suicide mission?"

"Pretty much," said John.

They bounced around in silence for a few minutes as the flat, tidy, green farmland rolled on by.

"I like this farm country," said Jimmy. "If I ever retire—"

"You are retired."

"If I ever retire from being retired, I just might buy a little farm around here. Grow some barley and hops for your brewery."

"That'd be a cozy set up," said John. "Probably never happen."

"My thoughts exactly," said Jimmy. "Want a ceegar?"

"Sure, pops. How about some music?"

Jimmy grabbed two Havanas from the glove box and switched on the radio, they lit up and listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Jimmy exhaled slowly and said, "I like it when you call me 'pops.' And I appreciate it. I know that you mean more to me and Pearl than we do to you."

"Don't count on it," said John, between puffs. "Pops."

"When is the so-called red tide supposed to engulf Washington?"

"About four this afternoon." He checked his watch "Looks like we'll be getting there just in time to drown."

From the radio: "We interrupt this broadcast for the following report. The TAPFOS have continued to grow in size, spreading panic, hemorrhagic ordure and death across the greater D.C. metro area. They have virtually halted all ground transportation."

Jimmy and John looked at each other.

"Religious groups from all over the world are viewing this invasion as the end of the world, and are congregating in Washington to defeat the TAPFOS with the power of prayer. This should be, they say, taken very seriously as the Biblical Apocalypse."

"They should," said Jimmy, "call it The Biblical A-Pack-of-Lips."

"Ouch," said John, "that's terrible."

"Thank you."

They rode through the rural scene, silently enjoying their ceegars. Jimmy finally spoke, "God, I love pussy. Over 80 years old, still banging away like a schoolboy. Just thought I'd mention that."

That's when the Winnebago swerved, skidded and left a quarter-mile of debris: parts of the rear axle, gearbox, and differential on the lonely country road.

John coasted the RV to a halt and hopped down to the two-lane road. John and Jimmy examined the crippled motorhome. Jimmy said, "I think the old Winnie just hit menopause."

"Shit-and-Molasses," said John. He picked up a chewed-up-gear-cog and heaved it at the side of a battered barn near the road. "I screwed up, Jimmy."

"What else could you have done, Johnny? This is bad luck. Mechanical failure, plain and simple."

"I brought them back to earth. This could be the end of humanity."

Jimmy dropped his ceegar, grinding it out beneath his boot heel. "Big fucking deal. Humanity is an ant farm with cellphones and e-mail. Most of the people I know anymore, and this may seem harsh, are simply a waste of DNA. There is just too much schitt. The struggle in life has been reduced to earning enough to afford what's advertised properly. Goddamit, I'm an old man, I shouldn't be getting worked up about this but there is simply no longer any need for courage, a strong hand, and sound nerves. It used to be that you didn't overeat because you couldn't and you stayed fit by unavoidable labor and impending danger."

"That's true."

"Hell, I should talk, I was plenty proud of my life of leisure and this bucket of bolts. A recreational vehicle that never re-created anything."

"That barn over there—"

"Nowadays it's so easy to earn enough to afford excess; no one is ever really hungry, or passionate. The high point of people's lives anymore is the sentimental Hollywood hand-me-down-bullschitt-emotions experienced while sitting in a darkened theater with a gaggle of complete strangers."

"That isn't a barn—"

"And the tragedy of it all is that most people's first contact with the elemental meat of existence will be experiencing the sweaty sheets of their own death beds. Too little; too late," said Jimmy. "You know, there's a little spot my heart that's rooting for them space pussies. They couldn't fuck this place up any worse than we have."

John started jogging, and then sprinted toward the building that, at first glance, had appeared to be a barn.

"Johnny?"

11

"Az got vil, shist a bezem oykh!" chanted Rabbi Shem Rucker, "If God so wills, even a broom can shoot!" The Rabbi stood in the center of Washington DC's abandoned beltway. He wore a yarmulke and a prayer shawl and defiantly faced the quickly approaching, 11 foot-high red tsunami. "On nisim ken a yid nit lebn, derv under zol dir keyn vunder nit zayn!" He screamed as the news copter circled overhead, "A Jew can't live without miracles, this marvel should be no marvel to you!" As the wave continued to approach Rabbi Rucker spread his hands above his head to beseech Yahweh, but he looked more like an NFL official signaling touchdown than Moses receiving the 10 Commandments: "Ven toyner kh'sidim zoln zikh dreyen arum a klots volt es oykh bavizn nisim!" He said, "If thousands of the devout gathered around a block of wood it too could perform miracles!"

The Rabbi disappeared as the wave engulfed, then tossed and flung him. Fortunately, Rabbi Shem Rucker was standing near a grassy embankment and he landed messy, but unharmed. The wave brushed past him and he watched it level buildings and sweep cars away. "Nit yedn purim treft zikn a nes," he shrugged and said, "Not on every Holy Day is a miracle performed."

12

President Flo and Vice President Ann B. watched the red tide rising. Lava-like it glooped and bubbled as it engulfed the Capitol city. Castillo, Bandler, Watts, and General Mills stood in the far corner of the Oval Office, drinking scotch. Ann B. turned to the men, "For Christ's sake use a coaster, were you raised in a barn?"

"General Mills," said President Flo, "you are now a sergeant. Castillo, you now work in the mail room. Bandler, if we survive this, Bandler Enterprises is paying for cleanup. I don't care if it takes your every last red cent."

"Red cent," said Watts. "Now that's cute."

"Watts," said President Flo, "you're in charge of the cleanup."

The men finished their scotches and poured more. The women turned to the window. The reflecting pool was inundated with red offal. In some places of the city, scabs were forming, breaking off and floating like battering rams in the creeping-pahoehoe-lava-like-flow. The three TAPFOS danced and darted around the Washington Monument like crazed Maypole dancers. They spewed fluid as they whirled, splashing the marble monument as they rose higher-and-higher.

"This should be quite a sight," said President Flo.

"Kind of ironic, actually" said Ann B.

"What?"

"America's first woman president drowning in intergalactic menstrual fluid," said Ann B. "President Flow."

"My dear Annie B. you've always," said the President, "had a keen sense of irony."

"Shouldn't we get you into some sort of shelter?"

"The bomb shelters were flooded hours ago," said President Flo. "I figure at the rate that tide is rising we have about 45 minutes. Maybe an hour."

"Let's get up on the roof."

"Why delay the inevitable?"

"You're right," said Ann B. "But it's been a hell of a ride. From Monday Night Raw to the oval office."

The women hugged.

"Every ride," said President Flo, "comes to an end."

Ann B.pointed out the window, to the right of the TAPFOS, "What the hell is that?"

"That," said General Mills, from across the room, "if I'm not mistaken, is a Stearman Kaydet Biplane."

"What?"

"An old Army biplane," said the General. "I haven't seen one in years."

Bandler walked over and watched the biplane slowly and shakily approach the TAPFOS just as they reached the apex of the national phallus. "Looks like it's been outfitted with—"

"Crop dusting equipment," said President Flo.

13

"Didn't I tell you," yelled Jimmy from the rear cockpit of the plane, "that flying a Stearman Kaydet was the second greatest thrill on earth?"

"I think the greatest thrill," screamed John from the front cockpit, "I've had in some time was your Winnebago breaking down 143 feet from a crop duster's hangar."

"You think that Super Yeast of yours will do the trick?"

"I showed you the data before we left the brewery. The yeast, still active, should multiply faster than even the TAPFOS' nuclear charged metabolisms and infiltrate their Moore Neighborhoods. It should choke them out."

"How do you figure that?"

"From something Alexi mentioned," said John. "She said how irritable she gets when she has a yeast infection, I figured, what the hell, let's toss a bio-engineered yeast infection the pussies' way."

"So," hollered Jimmy over the rushing wind. "Do you think it'll work?"

"Hell no," said John.

Jimmy adjusted his aviator goggles and said, "An enemy surprised is half defeated, Johnny boy. Hang on, I'll get you close, you do the rest."

"If you're waiting for me, you're burning daylight."

"Atta boy. Let's kick some tushy."

Jimmy ascended and performed a loop high above the Washington Monument. He accelerated out of the loop and flattened out above ex-Flower who had slid onto the stone stiletto. John pulled the lever and released an atomized load of his recently brewed beer.

He had miscalculated the wind and missed.

"Shit-and-Molasses," said John.

"Shoot," said President Flo, watching from the White House.

"Beser tsen mol mestn un eyn mol opshnaydn, eyder farkert," said Rabbi Shem Rucker, observing, between prayers, from the Beltway. "Better to measure 10 times and cut once, than do the reverse."

Looking like a bloody catcher's mitt doing push-ups on the knobbed end of a huge baseball bat, ex-Flower was still a sitting TAPFOS. Ex-Bambi and ex-Thumper hovered impatiently nearby. Jimmy didn't loop this time. He flew as slowly as he could and still remain airborne. An old photo reconnaissance flyer's trick.

"Perfect Jimmy," said John. "Keep it level."

Twenty feet to the left of the monument, to account for the crosswind, John shot another foamy load of homebrew.

He missed again.

"Shit-and-Molasses," said John. "I waited too long."

"Kem men—meg men!" said Rabbi Rucker, shaking his fist at the sky, "If you can—do!"

"We've only got enough juice for one more run," said John.

"Plan B?" asked Jimmy.

"Yep," said John. "Kamikaze run."

Jimmy attained an altitude of 800 feet as ex-Bambi and ex-Thumper pried ex-Flower off the monument. Exhausted, ex-Flower slid to the bloody pool at the bottom of the monument as ex-Thumper, humping enthusiastically, took her place.

"Here's spit in your eye," said Jimmy. He put the plane into a suicide dive.

"We got 'em," said John.

Just as John reached for the lever to release the last of the Super Yeast laced beer, ex-Bambi swooped upwards and engulfed the plane. The Stearman disappeared into the dark, moist, mushy depths of the attacking alien. Bambi quivered and fell 650 feet to the ground: John, Jimmy and the biplane inside.

"There goes the neighborhood," said the vice-president.

"Oh my," said President Flo.

"Oy-fucking-vey," said Rabbi Shem Rucker.

14

The crowd that had gathered around the television at Fourth Generation Ales was stunned and silent. They had been watching Jimmy and John's dogfight with the TAPFOS. After Hammond Stein's fifth reference to Fay Wray and King Kong, they had turned the sound off and watched the video, which was being shot from a news van on the rooftop of a nearby parking garage.

Pearl said slowly, "That was my Jimmy."

Alexi and Mrs. Wryght embraced: wife and future-mother; mother and future-grandmother united in grief over the loss of a husband and a son.

15

"What happened?" asked John, choking and gasping for air.

"We were on target, Johnny. At least we went down fighting."

"Lucky, we flew a Stearman into this thing," said Jimmy. "If it weren't for that top wing, we'd be crushed by now."

"We're upside down?" asked John.

"Yeh," said Jimmy. "Just like Jonah, disoriented in the belly of the whale."

The timbers of the old Stearman creaked as the final darkness closed in around them. The landing gear had been snapped off; the wing tips quivered; the propeller was slivered into tooth picks.

"The Eskimos also have a belly of the whale story," said John.

"What's this? Fairytale time?"

"In their version a raven gets swallowed by a whale."

"A raven. Slow, tough and stubborn, just like this plane," said Jimmy. "Nice analogy. And, nice knowing you, Johnny boy."

John's fingers followed the wire to the beer release mechanism as the Stearman's wings broke off and ex-Bambi's bulk put the squeeze on the fuselage. He found the lever, "The raven escaped by starting a fire so the whale had to belch him out." John yanked the lever just as the TAPFOS' flesh crunched the body of the airplane. The yeast foamed from the crop dusting jets with an acrid B-vitamin stench that gagged Jimmy and John.

But, more importantly, the yeast roiled and sizzled around ex-Bambi's insides like hydrogen peroxide in a festering wound. Shafts of light criss-crossed the belly of the TAPFOS as the yeast began eating holes in ex-Bambi's body. A tendril of plastid TAPFOS flesh snaked into the front cockpit. John removed his gloves and found the flap that Bambi offered: i knew that was you, coming to kill us, as you had promised, communicated Bambi. that's why i swallowed you and brought you in here safely. so you could bring us our relief and release. that's why i kept from crushing you for as long as i could: to give you a chance to fulfill your part of the bargain we made.

Bambi, consumed from the inside-out began to disintegrate amidst the foaming yeast. John saw larger portholes of daylight as his bioengineered yeast burned gaping holes in the TAPFOS. The tendril surrounding John's hand began to pulse and retreat. In her final, quavering, fading communication, Bambi said, thank you, my friend, for finding a way. i'm glad we have this first and final chance to say goodbye.

me too, said Flower and Thumper.

"We did it, Johnny," said Jimmy. He unstrapped his harness, and awkwardly somersaulted from the plane to the ground. The Super Yeast, following the red tide as if it were a path, had sizzled away Bambi, Thumper, and Flower.

Although the city of Washington D.C. was a mess, it'd been a mess before the attack of the TAPFOS. It would survive to bungle, mis-manage, and as always stand as a monument of banal, iniquitous American politics, myopic global naïveté, and of course, greed.

The last, tiny tendril of Bambi still clung to John's wrist.

And Bambi, as a farewell to John, communicated the Ancient's hymn:

Mirror of the morning star

ha hoo

thank you

ha hoo

thank you.

John felt a lingering coolness—like rubbing alcohol evaporating from his wrist—and he knew that he had helped Bambi, his friend, the Teenaged Pussy From Outer Space, to finally be able to say: goodbye.

### PART FIVE

### AFTER THE ENDING

1

Bandler and Watts walked slowly into Fred's SuperSaver Market. Their yellow overalls were sweat-stained and they were covered, head to foot, with a patina of red dust. The TAPFOS cleanup had proved particularly difficult and disgusting. Simon Bandler had tried every device he owned or could purchase, but in the end there was only one implement that proved effective.

The toothbrush.

So they spent 19 to 20 hours a day supervising an army of yellow clad scrubbers, all of them on the Bandler payroll, as they scoured the Capitol clean.

"Hey," yelled Jamaal, from the magazine rack, "how many times have I told you to remove your nasty, raggedy ass shoes before coming into this store?"

"We're just gonna pick up a couple of liters of Coke," said Bandler. "It's hot out there."

"First," said Jamaal, "take off your shoes, you're messing up my floors. Second, you're paying cash. Your last check bounced, you smartass, cross-eyed, ex-tycoon treating me like some step-and-fetch-it. I need to see the green from now on." Jamaal returned to his job of stocking the new magazines. He unwrapped a stack of The Smithsonian. On the cover was a picture of smiling Brad Spitz beneath the headline, DESIGNING ETI ENCOUNTER SOFTWARE. A runner in the lower left read: The Fall of Bandler Enterprises.

Then Jamaal unwrapped a stack of Modern Maturity. Jimmy and Pearl smiled from beneath the headline: SEX AND THE GOLDEN YEARS: A PERSONAL PROFILE.

He stocked those and picked up Scouting. Beneath the headline: ARE THERE MORE FRIENDS UP THERE? Nora's face beamed.

Bowling Times featured Huevos under the headline: THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 6-10 SPLIT.

"Don't you even try to use that ATM," said Jamaal to Bandler, "it's cash or walk."

Vice-President Ann B. and President Flo had just finished lunch. "The reelection polls show you a strong early leader," said Ann B.

"You know," said President Flo, "I'm so tired of politics." She shuffled through the magazines on her desk.

"We've got to keep the ticket together," said Ann B. "We've made history."

"Running a country isn't much different from tag-team wrestling: covering each other's ass," said Flo. "Plus, you have that Masters from U.C. Berkley in American Civilization. Why don't you run for President, and I'll be your running mate?"

"That would be swell."

"Can you think of a pithy campaign slogan? Keep it short-and-sweet; remember, people who follow politics do so because wrestling is too complex."

"Hmm. Rose Kennedy said, If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

"Succinct, but a bit narrow. It only addresses that one issue."

"Right," Ann B. cleared her throat: "Arnold Toynbee: To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization."

"Good, but could you dumb it down?"

"Don't worry, be happy?"

"Perfect."

"Unfortunately, yes." Ann B. picked up a sheaf of legislation and left the office.

President Flo whistled tunelessly for a moment, then picked up an autographed copy of American Brewer magazine that had arrived that morning. She examined the front cover. John and Alexi were smiling at Mrs. Wryght, who held her new granddaughter, resplendent in pink. The headline: FIFTH GENERATION ALES TAKES AIM AT THE FUTURE.

President Flo pushed a button on her intercom, "Get me the Attorney General, I'll hold." She flipped through American Brewer until the call went through. "Tell me, Mr. Attorney General, what is the official beverage of the United States of America?"

THE END

###

_A Man Walks Into a Bar...._ 700+ pages of smutty and lewd jokes. $2.99 at:

www.amazon.com/dp/B005DTO6W6
