The Weapon - Exodus - part 2
By Diana the Valkyrie
Anatomy of a Weapon

Over dinner, she told me about her anatomy, the four black holes that made up
a quadrupole, the layers of fields of force on top of that, giving her shape,
her "skin" and her "clothes". "Touch my arm," she said. I did, her skin was
soft as silk. "Now press down, hard." There was a couple of millimeters of
give, then my fingers felt something hard, with no elasticity at all. She
smiled at me. "See?" I saw. "And what about you, Duncan, you're the same?"
"No," he said, sadly, "I'm just an ordinary guy, you know? She's the one that
makes the difference." "But you tell her what to do." "Yes. I tell her what to
do, then she goes ahead and does something completely different." "Women," I
said. "Women," replied Duncan, "except she isn't actually a woman, appearance
to the contrary." "But what about this oath, she told me she swears to obey
you." "Yes, she gives me that every day. Doesn't seem to work, though. You
ever been married, George?" I shook my head. "I was, once. Main difference
was, she promised to obey just the once, after that it was catch as catch
can." Wendy shook her head. "Come on, Duncan, I'm not that bad. I do listen to
you on the big stuff, but you can't expect me to do every little thing your
way." Uh-oh. This sounded like an old debate, and it's always a good idea not
to get between a married couple.

"Are you guys married?" Wendy frowned. "Of course not. How could we be?"
"Well, you know, usual way?" "George, I think you just forgot. I'm not what I
look like, I'm four black holes, it'd be like getting married to your, to your
..." Duncan interrupted. "Mixmaster," he said. Wendy grinned at him. "Yeah,
with the juice squeezer attachment." They smiled at each other. Obviously this
was one of their private jokes.

"So what do you do for a living, George?" "I'm in Marketing, we sell useless
junk to people who can't afford it." "Oh, that's awful!" said Wendy, looking
horrified. "He's joking, love," said Duncan, "George, you've probably already
noticed this, but although she can leap tall bullets with a single locomotive,
she's a bit naive about a lot of things, on account of she hasn't actually
been around for more than a few weeks. Avoid irony, son." "OK," I said, "what
I actually do is explain to people the reasons why they might want to buy
products." "Oh," said Wendy, "that's not so bad." "So what do you do?" I
asked.

"I'm The Weapon, the Defender of the People." "Yes, I know that, but what
exactly do you do?" "Well. Um. A couple of weeks ago, I rescued a kitten from
a tree." "She's being modest," said Duncan, "you remember the uncontrollable
forest fire in Australia? Well, we flew down there, she dumped fifty million
tons of water on it, totally put the fire out, and if someone hadn't upset
her, we'd have flown back the same day." "Upset her?" "It was a woman there,
if we'd got there a day earlier, her son wouldn't have been killed in the
fire, and she was understandably very emotional about it. Wendy got very upset
and flew off to cry." "I spent an hour weeping at the center of the sun" "The
center of the sun?" I asked, just checking what I thought I'd heard. "She's
pretty tough." "She certainly is pretty." Wendy smiled. "George, it's like
this. I don't think there's anything that can seriously damage her in a
permanent way. But when she rescued that kitten, she got a very nasty scratch
on her arm." "The poor little thing was scared," said Wendy. "Duncan, you're
saying she can sit at the center of the sun, but a kitten can scratch her
arm?" "It looks like skin, it feels like skin, it breaks like skin, but it's
actually a field of force that she maintains from her central core, and she
can just replace it any time." "So, in effect, she's invulnerable?"
"Physically, yes. But actually? No. In fact, she's extremely vulnerable. One
unkind remark, she flew to the sun and spent an hour crying." I looked at
Wendy, who was smiling. I've seen her crying, and it's not something you want
to see very often. "She's usually a very upbeat personality, she's got a great
sense of humour, and her laugh makes you think Christmas just came. But
underneath, she's very insecure."

I thought about this. The woman who could leap speeding locomotives with a
single bullet was insecure. She could fly to the middle of the sun and find it
pleasantly peaceful, and what she did when she got there is cry. And my main
feeling about this was that if anyone wanted to hurt her, they'd have to go
through me first, and I could see that Duncan felt the same way.

"What about you, George, what's your line?" "I used to work in an office, but
I left that so I could be Wendy's full-time Wielder." "What's that about?"
"Well, like I said, she's a bit inexperienced, and doesn't always know what to
do. So I tell her what to do. I command, she obeys. At least, that's the
theory. The practice is, I suggest, and she takes my advice if she feels like
it." "That's not fair, Duncan, you know I take a lot of notice of what you
say." "Sure, that's why you dump me in a cold shower each morning even though
I've specifically told you not to." "She does?" Wendy nodded, and grinned. "He
screams like a banshee, but he loves it really. Then I give him a big rub-down
with a warm towel, and a long cuddle." I sat back in the chair. "You know, you
two might not be married, but you sure do act like a married couple." "Yeah,
we fight about sex and money, all the time." "You do?" "No, she doesn't give a
damn about money, and how do you fight with a woman like that about sex?" I
had no answer to that.

Wendy's face went serious, and she frowned slightly. "That's the bond between
the Weapon and her Wielder, it's very powerful." "Yes, and she reinforces it
each day." "Oh, there's some ceremony?" George looked a bit embarrassed. "Not
a ceremony, as such, not exactly." "Some sort of joint prayer or something?"
"Er, no." "Then what?" "She fucks my brains out."

And I don't think he was kidding.

Wendy turned to me while I was still absorbing that. "You'll stay with us
tonight, we've got a spare bedroom. You're in no condition to try to get
home." I could hardly argue with that, the strain of the day had left me as
limp as a dead cod. "I'll go and get the bed ready," said Wendy.

While she was doing the domestic bit, I chatted with Duncan. "So, apart from
kittens and forest fires, what else? You must have some great adventures
together." "Well, you know, son. That's what I thought when she arrived, I
thought it'll be like Batman or something. But it turns out, it just isn't
that simple. She can't just go rushing in like a bull in a china shop every
time there's some problem." "Prime Directive?" "You mean the Star Trek rule
about non-interference?" I nodded. Duncan laughed. "No, son, it's a lot
simpler than that." He tossed a newspaper to me. "Look through that. Some
woman murders her baby. Some man jumps off a bridge. Politicians sex scandals.
Royal scandals. It's mostly stuff that you can't really do very much about.
She can't be everywhere, despite what you're thinking there's a lot she can't
do, and for most of it, you can't even work out who are the good guys and who
are the bad guys." "Surely it's obvious?" "Not to me, son. Not all the time,
not even most of the time. The most we can do is sometimes find a situation
that's not ambiguous, like a kitten stuck in a tree or a forest fire. And then
we can maybe help somehow. Any road, I'm climbing the wooden hill to
Bedfordshire, and I suggest you do the same, it's been a long day, and it's
time to go gentle into that good night."

I went up after him, he pointed to the guest room. Inside it, I found Wendy
just finished making the bed. She straightened up, and turned to face me.
"George, I hope you'll consider me your friend. I can never repay you for what
you did today, but here's a little something on account. Friends?" I nodded,
and held out my hand for her to shake. She moved towards me, ignored the hand,
and kissed me.

I'm not sure if kiss is actually the right word here. She moved up against me,
and simultaneously invaded and surrounded me. She invaded me with her tongue,
surrounded me with her arms and her body was pressed against mine from chest
to knees. Her mouth was over mine, both her legs came up and wrapped around my
hips, and then she started rubbing herself against me, up and down a few
inches at a time. I don't know how long it all lasted; if it had been up to
me, it would have been forever. But after an eternity and a half, she broke
away, and left me in the room, trying to get back the breath that she'd been
keeping from my lungs, and wondering if my erection would ever subside.

With considerable difficulty, I got undressed, and into the bed. I lay there
in the dark, trying to sort out my thoughts. You know how, during the day,
there's things that you don't have the time to properly digest, and you tell
yourself that you'll think about them later? Well, pretty much everything that
had happened today was in that category. I ran through it in my head, starting
from the level crossing. I am *not* a brave person. Spiders make me go
clammy-handed, and I don't read ghost stories. I really could not have
predicted that I'd react the way I did, but I thought that the main lesson to
learn from that, was not to be so bloody stupid in future. OK, that's the easy
part. Now the hard part. Wendy.

Plainly, she was impossible. A mythic figure out of Mount Olympus and DC
Comics, with a chunk of Larry Niven thrown in. Equally plainly, she was there,
I could still remember the sound the car seat bolts had made as she ripped the
seat out, I remembered how it felt when she flew me, and most of all, I could
remember the kiss she'd just devastated me with. Whether she was a black hole
quadrupole or a witch probably didn't really matter. If it looks like a woman,
smells like a woman and feels like a woman, then as far as I'm concerned, it
sure ain't a duck.