A Very Small Matter, Part 7

    Notice: This story was been rated "NC17" for adult language, nudity,
strong sexual content, violence, and explicit smoking. If you don't like these
things stop right here, but you'll never know what you missed.


    This last is for Loring, who maintains the trough at which we all feed.


    "A Very Small Matter" Part 7 of 9


    Author's note: This story concludes (for the time being) the trilogy begun
in "Behind the Times" and continued in "A Letter from Paradise." As the
subject matter is more than a little strange, I recommend you peruse the
earlier stories (both available on Loring's page) before reading further. If
you find it all makes sense in the end, please e-mail me with the explanation.


    7. You Say You Want a Revolution...

    The next morning I spoke to Tony in the lobby. "Tony, can you get your
cousin Joe to come to the hotel and pick me up?" I knew I'd feel safer with
Joe than in a random cab.

    "Sure t'ing." My $500 was still maintaining his good will. He picked up a
phone.

    After a short wait, Joe pulled up and we sped off. The cabby chattered
amiably on a number of topics. I kept quiet about the T-room.

    I had Joe drop me off near the entrance to a tube station. I took the long
escalator down.

    The station was a large one, with many tiled tunnels leading to the
various tube lines. Following Mark's directions, I came to a stretch of tunnel
that apparently saw little use. Counting carefully measured paces, I stopped,
faced the left wall, and knocked on the tiles.

    I heard a muffled voice. "Speak."

    "TANSTAAFL."

    "Elaborate," came the voice again.

    "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

    I waited for several long minutes. I was about to knock again when a
section of wall detached and swung inward. Instantly, a male arm emerged,
grabbed my shirt front, and jerked me inside.

    My accoster was a tall, young man wearing some sort of rifle on his back.
As the hidden door closed, he moved me roughly but not brutally to the wall.
His left hand swept me from head to toe swiftly and expertly, coming away with
my nail gun.

    "Talk!" he said. "Who the fuck are you and where did you get that
password?"

    Another voice spoke. "It's all right, Brian. Let him go, and leave us
alone." I knew that voice!

    Brian let go of my shirt and walked away down the corridor. He kept my
gun.

    I turned to face the voice. It was Laurie. She was lovelier than ever,
even in faded denims and a man's shirt. I moved toward her to take her in my
arms. She held me off.

    I looked into her beautiful green eyes. They were clouded with a thousand
conflicting emotions. Apparently, all was not forgotten here. Or forgiven.

    "Grant," she said. "Why didn't you listen to me?"

    "Because I love you, Laurie! Everything is a lie! I must talk to you!"

    "Keep your voice down, these walls aren't soundproof," she said sharply.
"Look, let's go somewhere we can talk."

    She turned and walked down the corridor. I followed in anguish, wanting to
grab her, kiss her, make her forgive me.

    I had figured if Baldy had spoken truly, Laurie would become a rebel in
this world. She valued her pleasures, including smoking, as much or more than
I did, at least when she didn't remember the pain of her mother's "loss." And
nothing else would account so well for Baldy's wish to have her removed from
the scene.

    The "rebel HQ" appeared to be a maintenance area started but never
finished. A number of rooms had been converted to sleeping, planning, and
eating areas. I counted a dozen rebels as we walked, all male. Laurie would be
very good at recruiting men. Their deference to and respect for her proved
what I already new; she led this cell. I wondered if Laurie and any of them
were...

    We at last came to a small room, which was apparently a private sleeping
quarters. Laurie sat down on a crude cot. She didn't pat the bed beside her to
indicate I should join her, as she often had in our home. I sat in a chair
instead.

    She produced a pack of mentholated Japanese 100s. Same brand as me. She
offered, I accepted. I lit us up. That was a homecoming in itself.

    She drew long and hard on the smoke, double-pumping that first drag. When
she finally removed the cigarette, a pretty ball of smoke escaped her lips.
She captured it, inhaling down to her toes. Her exhale, when it came, poured
out like a river of dreams, clouding the small room. No one could smoke like
Laurie. No one could turn me on like Laurie.

    "Grant," she said, white wisps of smoke still emerging. "I'm very
confused. I seem to remember you, my mother, something terrible that had
happened, and it was your fault, somehow. I...remember a fancy party. I needed
to kill you, but I couldn't. Instead I ran away. I disgraced myself. Oh,
Grant, how did you ever find me? And why?"

    "I told you why, Laurie. I love you." It was very important to choose each
word carefully. I had to win her love back. I must be careful not to dredge up
false memories. "As for the how..." I spoke of my meeting with Baldy. I left
out the most painful details of her planted memories. I described how she had
been used, subverted, lied to. I told her over and over again how much I had
missed her, how much I loved her.

    Her eyes were blank during my speech. It's one thing to be told your
memories are false, it's another to forget the pain, the anger, the sense of
betrayal. Smoke swirled around her in shifting shapes, veiling her from my
sight from time to time. I gazed at the patterns in her exhalations, as if
they could give me a clue to her thoughts.

    "So," she said slowly. "A senior Alliance official brought you here, told
you where to find me, gave you the password to our hideout..." The small puffs
of smoke accompanying her words broke my heart. "And you believed him when he
said he would let us go?"

    "No, Baldy did not tell me where you were, and he did not give me the
password." I told her the story of my "chance" meeting with young Julie.

    Some life entered her expression for the first time. "Julie? What did she
look like?"

    I described her as best I could remember. No recognition registered, but
Laurie was really listening to me now.

    "Julie," she said, dragging contemplatively on her cigarette. She exhaled
a liquid stream of smoke, the rest (there was always some left) curling out
with her words. "Grant, do you think..."
    Her voice trailed off, the thought not completed. Her eyes were bright
with unshed tears.

    "And Laurie," I continued at last. "Of course I didn't believe Baldy. I
just thought...that together, we would have a chance, no matter what his
schemes are. We're a good team, Laurie...we belong with each other.

    "Laurie, listen. This much I know is true. You mother is alive, back home.
Alive! I didn't take Baldy's word for it, I checked it out, I spoke to her! We
could go back there, right now. You could see her. And..." I was restraining
tears too, now. "You would know that I never did anything, anywhere,
intentionally or not, that hurt you. And I never will. I love you." The tears
finally came. I didn't care.

    "Oh Grant..." Now she was crying too. She came off the bed and slipped
into my lap, kissing me, wetting my face with her tears. "Whatever I said,
whatever I did, I could never really believe you would hurt me. Never." Still
crying, my happiness was nonetheless complete. I had been redeemed.

    "But I can't return with you," Laurie said. "Not yet. The raid we've been
planning for months is tomorrow, and I can't desert the boys. Not now."

    "Raid?" I asked, trying to get a grip on rampaging emotions. "What kind of
raid?"

    Laurie was still kissing me as she spoke. "A raid on Alliance
headquarters. To get weapons, and hopefully kill a few AOGgers in the
process." This was Laurie's other side. The deadly one. "Come with us, Grant!
You would be a big help."

    I doubted that, but said, "Laurie, I'm not letting you out of my sight
again, even if you jump into a volcano!" I kissed her thoroughly, savoring the
taste of her smoky breath.


    The rest of that day we spent going over the final plans for the raid with
the other rebels. They had an impressive amount of information about the
layout of AOG headquarters. The plans looked tight to me, but what the hell
did I know about commando tactics? A lot less than Laurie, I saw now.

    Laurie's "boys" had two AOG assault rifles, which feature two large
reservoirs of hypergolic fluids slung below their long barrels. When the
fluids mix in the rifle's chamber, Laurie explained, they flash over into
plasma which can be fired either in bursts or a steady stream. The main goal
of the raid was to acquire more plasma rifles, which neither the police nor
military possessed.

    They had a few other assorted weapons and some demolition equipment. I got
my nail gun back, after Laurie was satisfied I really knew how to handle a
pistol. She also taught me the basic operations of the plasma rifle.

    That evening we all shared a terrific meal of greasy, fat-laden hamburgers
and fried potatoes. From the worshipful way her boys treated her, I knew
Laurie had taken none of them as a lover. I wouldn't have cared, though, if
she had been banging every one every night. I was just glad to be with her,
and forgiven.

    Finally I found myself alone with Laurie in her quarters, me on the chair,
her on the cot. Her eyes had that predatory glint I had seen once before.
Tomorrow would be a bloody day, and the thought turned her on.

    "Well, Mr. Grant," she said, "one quick smoke and I suppose you should
retire to the barracks-room to sleep with the boys. Tomorrow will be a busy
day." She patted the cot by her side. I went there instantly, not bothering to
traverse the intervening space.

    She lazily produced two cigarettes, placed one in my lips, one in hers.
Slowly, she flicked a lighter. Our cigarettes found the flame together.

    Her blazing eyes put the lie to her earlier words as she dragged on the
cigarette for seven or eight days. When she removed it, she placed her chin in
her cigarette hand. Holding the mother lode of creamy smoke in her lungs, she
bent to me, moving her lips toward mine. She began her exhale.

    I clasped her to me, and we locked lips. I sucked greedily at the smoke,
but I no longer had the lung capacity to hold half what she could. Smoke
poured from both our noses as we kissed. When we parted at last, smoke curled
thickly from both our mouths, creating a white column that maintained our
connection.

    We didn't wait to finish our cigarettes.

    Now I know some of my friends will have skipped directly to this page.
Screw you. Go back and read straight through from the beginning or this
document will auto-delete in three seconds. As for the rest of you...

    In our lovemaking that night, I was afraid Laurie might use up all her
aggressiveness and have nothing left for tomorrow. I needn't have worried.

    At one point she sat on my hips, my penetration deeper than ever before.
We were both smoking, of course, sharing smoky kisses, wrapping ourselves in
sweet, warm, dry mist. A series of orgasms took her suddenly, her every muscle
quivering. She stifled a scream, burying her face in my shoulder, smoke
escaping from her lungs uncontrollably. I came then, an orgasm beyond my
experience, beyond belief, and I remember little of the night beyond that.

    I do remember one brief conversation which came much later as we clung
together, spent for the moment, sharing a pre/during/post-coital cigarette.

    "Laurie," I said sleepily. "There's something I want you to do, if things
go...wrong tomorrow." I told her what I wanted, and why.

    "No..." she said huskily, dreamily. "You would be hurt..."

    "Not as much as if I lost you again. You're a good soldier, Laurie. You'll
know the moment...if it comes."

    No more was said. Eventually, our hugs and caresses slowed, fading into
sleep with no definite transition. We lay clasped tightly together, face to
face, like children lost in a freezing forest.

    There was no window in the subterranean room, but Laurie woke at what I
guessed was a little past dawn. Her hands wandered sleepily across my back.
What a wonderful way to wake up...

    "Grant," she said, still groggy. "I meant to ask you last night...when did
you get this mole on your back?"

    "Mole?" I said, not at all with it. I tried to reach back to where she was
stroking and found I could just touch the mole. When I pressed it, it hurt a
little, like I had picked up a splinter there.

    A splinter. "That's where Baldy slapped me on the back," I said. Laurie's
hands froze in place. Suddenly she was digging into the mole with sharp
fingernails, showing no regard for my pain which rapidly became considerable.

    When she withdrew her hand, she held a bloody white needle, less than a
quarter-inch long.

    "A tracer!" she said, horror on her face. "You didn't know?"

    "Of course not." I was hurt that she could think so. "But I might have
expected..."

    "I might have too. And I should have." Laurie was on her feet. "Don't
worry about it. Get dressed. We need to get moving."

    I climbed into my tired clothes. Laurie, to my surprise, put on a
revealing, short, white dress. Then I saw why it made sense; it left both her
arms and legs bare and free to move.

    I moved to the door and opened it. Baldy was waiting behind it.

    "Good morning, Miss Banning, Mr. Grant. I trust you slept well? We didn't
want to disturb you until you were up. You looked so innocent there
together..."

    I had my gun out quickly. Even more quickly, Baldy slapped it out of my
hand with a casual flick of his wrist. This Baldy was certainly more competent
than his "partial," whatever that was, which Laurie had nailed in Paris.
Laurie stood behind me, her weight centered over the balls of her feet, but
she didn't move. She saw who was waiting behind Baldy.

    The four men resembled the imperial storm troopers from "Star Wars." They
were clad from head to foot in white body armor, their faces hidden behind
mirrored visors. On the right breast of each was a symbol; two hands clasped
in prayer. All four held plasma rifles at the ready.

    Our little revolution was over.

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