A Very Small Matter, Part 9

    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 9 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.


    8. Across the Universe(s)

    "You Bastard!" Laurie screamed at me, straining again to escape. "You sold
me out! I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!"

    The two AOGgers holding her loosened their grips, amused at this falling
out among rebels. Laurie jerked loose and came at me with volcanic rage in her
eyes. I flinched.

    "I wouldn't..." Baldy began, looking at Laurie's guards. But she was
already on me. She cocked her right arm and punched me good, right in the
solar plexus.

    "Oooooooh," I groaned, doubling over. That hurt badly. However, the punch
had accomplished its purpose. The seal isolating my artificial right lung from
my trachea ruptured. A valve in the small canister implanted below my
collarbone opened, and pure oxygen flooded my left lung through a connecting
tube.

    The highly compressed contents of my right lung boiled up my trachea,
flooding my mouth and nasal passages, rapidly expanding toward its normal
state. My nostrils opened wide and my mouth was flung open to its widest
extent, almost but not quite dislocating my jaw. Dr. Dricot knew his stuff.

    With the force of a fire hose, an almost sold stream of cigarette smoke
was ejected from my mouth and nostrils. The large room seemed to fill
immediately with an opaque cloud.

    Laurie, Julie, and I were acclimated to heavy smoke, not quite in this
concentration, but enough I hoped. Baldy and the AOGgers were not so
fortunate. They collapsed immediately as though felled by CS tear gas. I
helped myself to one of my former captors' plasma rifles. Before visibility
fell entirely to zero, I saw Laurie and Julie rushing together.

    My eyes were smarting, but I was in good shape thanks to my oxygen supply.
I was worried about Laurie and Julie, though. Brandishing my new rifle, I
moved cautiously to where I remembered the doors being. They were still there
and still open, thank god. My high-speed exhale was diminishing at last. I
found I could speak.

    "Laurie! Julie! Let's go! Go! Go!" I thought that sounded suitably
commando-like.

    For a breathless moment, there was no movement. Then Laurie and Julie
burst from the cloud, eyes streaming, coughing out reinhaled smoke. Laurie had
also acquired a rifle. Her other hand held Julie's. They dashed into the
corridor.

    Raising my rifle I depressed the trigger fully, releasing an incandescent
white stream. I hosed the down the room with plasma, and was rewarded with the
sound of crashing and exploding medical equipment. Because of the smoke I
could see none of the results of my firing, but it was wonderfully satisfying
nonetheless.

    I turned to follow Laurie and Julie into the corridor. We needed to find a
refuge where we could perform the lighter ritual and get the hell out of
Dodge.

    I had never looked so forward to a cigarette in my life.

    I had just caught up with Laurie and Julie when I saw AOGger
reinforcements appear far down the corridor, raising their rifles as they ran
toward us. That's when I saw what Laurie could really do. Her homecoming was
not to be a happy one for the AOGgers.

    You can keep Stallone, Schwartzenegger, Van Damme, and Segal. They would
have been dead meat before they ever saw Laurie. Her back to a wall, she fired
a series of short bursts, and every one seemed to find a mirrored visor and
the vulnerable face beneath. Fortunately, their armor was not designed to
stand up against their own weapons.

    I threw my back against the opposite wall and fired also. Plasma weapons
are short ranged, and the targets were at the extreme limit, about 80 yards
down the corridor. Only a head shot would do any real damage, and I doubt I
contributed much to the carnage.

    Another AOGger rank was moving up as Laurie downed the first, and we were
getting some returned fire. The white enamel on the walls boiled and blackened
in several places. I felt pain in my left arm, but in my adrenaline rush was
able to ignore it.

    Laurie dived to the floor in the middle of the corridor screaming, "get
down!" Julie and I flopped to our bellies.

    Laurie let this group approach a little closer. Agonized, I saw her white
dress begin to smolder and burn in a few places. Then, firing slightly upwards
from her prone position, she let loose a steady stream of plasma.

    The massed ranks of advancing AOGgers were cut in half at their waists.
Their bodies fell to the floor in pieces, no longer human-looking. Even from
here, it was a nauseating sight.

    When movement had ceased ahead, we got up and ran down the hall. As we
picked our way through the smoking remains of Laurie's victims I told myself
"I will not vomit this time." But I did, at least once.

    We came to an intersection and Laurie headed us to the right. We ran into
two or three isolated AOGgers and Laurie cut them down without mercy before
they even knew they were in danger. I wondered how Julie was taking all this,
but all I could tell was that she was still up and running.

    We came to a door leading into another small room, and Laurie ushered us
in. She punched at a keypad and a heavy metal door slid shut. One plasma shot
fused the lock mechanism. Another slagged a gray metal box on the wall.

    "So much for the damper," she said, looking at the ex-box. She turned to
me, her eyes still bright with killing fever. I could see she was hurt, but at
least there were no visible flames on her now. Ignoring her own burns she
first checked Julie, who appeared unhurt, then me. "Be careful of that arm,"
she said to me.

    I looked at my pained left arm. The suit and shirt sleeve were entirely
burned away, and the skin of my arm showed numerous, blistering second degree
burns. Suddenly, the pain seemed a lot worse.

    Laurie wouldn't let me get distracted, though. Grabbing my good shoulder,
she fixed her frightening eyes on my own.

    "Did Baldy give you anything, " she asked, "like a small disk to leave at
home?"

    "Y-yes," I said. "He called it a homer."

    "Shit, that's no good then. They can zero in on that homer as easily as we
can. We'll have to go on manual."

    "You mean we can't ever go back?" I was horrified. To lose paradise
through my own stupidity...

    "Not exactly," she said in a more gentle tone. "Remember darling, worlds
beyond worlds. There are an infinite number of worlds so similar to our own
you'll never be able to tell the difference. And it will take them an infinite
amount of time to search them all and find us without a homer to guide them.
But it's not going to be easy to get there. I need..." she spotted a metal
cabinet and started rummaging around inside.

    By now, there were footsteps outside the door. It was beginning to glow a
dull red, I assumed from plasma fire. The little room was growing unbearably
hot. We would cook long before they got through.

    Julie was crying. "Please, mommy, take us home!"

    "This!" Laurie continued. She had found an old coffee mug. She placed it
in the center of the floor. From the lovely space between her breasts, she
produced a familiar tube of breath spray. Twisting off the spray cap, she
poured the liquid contents into the coffee cup.

    "Grant," she said, "your lighter, quickly!"

    I fumbled out the magic Zippo. Rivers of sweat were pouring off my body,
and my left arm was a torment. Poor Julie, sopping wet, looked ready to faint.

    Laurie took the Zippo, opened a small valve on the bottom, and drained the
remaining fluid into the cup. The two liquids boiled and swirled around each
other, as if fighting for possession of the porcelain container.

    Laurie got on her knees by the cup on the floor. "Down here!" she called.
Julie and I joined her. She arranged us in a circle kneeling around the mug,
arms locked together. Laurie worked a hand free and placed it under the
roiling mug.

    The end was coming. The door glowed cherry red, going to orange in the
center. We were all moments from passing out.

    "Set the mixture on fire, Grant! Now!" said Laurie. I let go of Julie and
found my other lighter. Flicking it to life I applied the flame to the
mixture. It began to burn, releasing violet fumes. I dropped the lighter and
retook Julie's arm.

    "Breathe...the fumes," Laurie said, her voice fading. We did.

    Immediately, the killing heat declined to a neutral temperature. I sucked
air, relieved beyond words. The room around us, walls, floor, and ceiling,
became gray and indistinct. Only the three of us and the mug stayed in sharp
focus. Everything around us flickered, seeming to change subtly as I watched.
I had an odd sense of movement, though there was no visible sign of it, and I
could feel this "movement" speeding up. The flickering quickened like some
dim, accelerating, strobe light, and the changes around us became more
pronounced. I was no longer sure we were in a room at all. I couldn't feel a
floor under my knees; only the flickering void lay beneath us. Something,
though, was holding us up.

    Shapes, structures, and figures seemed to flash into existence around us,
then vanish in less than an eyeblink. I could make out no details. Finally,
the flickering reached such a frequency that it was no longer discernible. We
were surrounded by blank gray, featureless and unchanging. I still sensed
movement, though, and the movement was still accelerating.

    We would have made a strange sight, the three of us, had anyone been there
to see. On our knees, arms locked in a circle, bent over an old coffee mug as
if to sample the aromas of some offering from Juan Valdez. Laurie's attention
was focused intently on the cup she gripped from beneath. The fluid was still
burning within, violet vapors still rising. I was alarmed to see that the heat
of it had burned her hand; angry red blisters showed on her fingers. Her grip
never wavered.

    After a timeless time, I heard Laurie speak. "I sense the homer. Hold your
breaths..." I did. The flickering was becoming visible again, slowing.
"Passing it now..." The flickering slowed still more. Slowed, and finally
stopped. We were on the floor in the foyer of my...our mansion. Niles was
there, looking down on the three of us.

    "Welcome home, ma'am, sir, Miss Julie." Laconic as ever. "Should I be
expecting any more for dinner?"

    We were home.

    The mug slipped from Laurie's hand, taking a layer of her skin with it.
All that was left inside was a charred, black, residue. I grabbed for her,
helping her to stand.

    "I'm all right, Grant, I'll..." she said dreamily. Then she recovered
herself somewhat, grabbed me, and we started kissing. Julie grabbed onto both
of us, making it a big family hug. I drew Niles into the clutch, also, and for
once his composure slipped, a little.

    Laurie insisted that we adjourn to the sitting room for a celebratory
drink and cigarette. We didn't have any Big Girls for Julie, so she settled
for a B&H. I lit my girls, my eyes brimming. We smoked and drank, toasting the
ill health of Baldy.

    "I tried to find the bastard in the smoke," Laurie said. "But I couldn't."

    "Maybe I got him when I sprayed the room," I suggested.

    "Maybe." She was giving me the benefit of the doubt. She blew smoke. "You
probably did for the Founder, though, if that makes any difference." She
paused, inhaling. "I can't believe you gave up a lung for me." She
demonstrated that she still had both of hers by expelling sweet white clouds.

    "A small enough price to pay. Anyway, Dricot has it on ice, and he said
there was a 95 percent chance it could be reinstalled."

    After the room was good and hazy, Laurie said, "Niles? Would you be a dear
and drive us all to the hospital, please?"

    We sped to the Riverside Burn Unit in the Mercedes. Julie had no serious
injuries. The docs stretched some sort of plastic skin around my left arm, and
it immediately felt better. Probably another of Dricot's inventions. Laurie,
however, would be staying for a few days.

    Smoking was permitted in her hospital room, of course. Julie an I were
there around the clock, all three of us smoking constantly to make up for our
enforced deprivation. We gave Laurie sheets of smoke to go along with her
cotton ones.

    We talked nonstop about our adventures. Somehow, when it was all finished,
I was still mystified about many things. Apparently, there are some things men
(but not women) are not meant to know.

    When we all came home, I asked Niles if he knew of any metal disks under
any rugs in the house. He didn't.

    "I am not accustomed to storing debris in any such locations, if that is
what you are referring to, sir."

    Laurie and I were married that June. Ms. Jamison and Dr. Dricot attended.
We wanted to invite Natalia, Natasha, Nikki, Giorgio, Gregory, and Gerry also,
but had no way to reach her/him. Just as well.

    If you're wondering, we did not smoke while speaking our vows. Just before
and after.

    We adopted Julie as our legal daughter. And that was that...perhaps.

    Anyway, we were happy. For now, that's plenty.

    The End.

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