The Weapon - Exodus - part 9
By Diana the Valkyrie
A trip to Washington



"Wake up George, re-entry time." Re-entry is as much fun as lift-off.
Astronauts use aero-braking, and watch as the heat shield ablates. Ablates is
a comforting word that means "gets red hot and bits break off". Bits are
supposed to break off, that's how it's supposed to work. But I doubt if that's
much comfort for the astros as they pray that it works the way it's supposed
to, with bits breaking off at the right rate, with the angle of re-entry
computed just right so they don't plunge through the atmosphere too fast, but
neither to they bounce off the top later like a skimming stone on water and
fly back out into the void. Wendy's cape kept the heat off me, and there was
no parachute for me to pray over. I'd say, those guys are worth whatever they
pay them, you couldn't get me up in one of those things, no way. This is the
only way to fly.

We landed just outside Washington, and got a bus into town. People stared at
the six foot long-haired brunette hovering several inches off the ground, with
the white-and-gold costume and the long cape, but, well, that's what the
dramatic togs are there for. If she turned up wearing t-shirts and jeans, and
strolled along on the ground no-one would think she was special. It wasn't
difficult to find the White House, Washington is geared up to the tourist
trade. No, the problem we had wasn't in finding the President. The problem was
to A) get to talk to him, and B) get him to listen. But hey, when you're
toting The Weapon, things like that stop being a problem.

Duncan and I had discussed this beforehand. You always have two possible
approaches to any social problem. You can either ask nicely and wait in line,
or you can blast in and pre-empt all queues. Since Lan Ho and his village were
now living on borrowed time, we'd decided to take the bull by the horns. But
the Secret Service are, quite rightly, a bit twitchy about the safety of the
POTUS, and we weren't sure what their reaction would be to a superheroine
barging in. Wendy wasn't too worried about them jumping on her or taking
pot-shots, but we decided that it would be a lot safer if, for now, we let her
go in alone. Duncan and I had cell phones, and Wendy could be the equivalent
of a cell phone when she wanted to, so we still had comms.

So, I sat in the Smithsonian cafeteria, having a late breakfast, my cellphone
earpiece in place and my ears twitching and listening while Wendy went to open
up negotiations. The first thing I heard, was a crash and tinkle of broken
glass. She'd gone in through a window. Well, I suppose that beats going in
through a wall, and is faster than going in through a series of receptionists
whose main job function is to keep people out.

Then there was silence for a few seconds. Then there was gunfire. Well, that
didn't worry me too much, Wendy wasn't going to get her panties in a bunch
over that. But it meant that she wasn't exactly getting a warm welcome. Or
maybe the welcome was a bit too warm. "OK," I heard her say, "I'm going to
stand here in the doorway, and you can shoot me all you like; nobody is
leaving the room. And in case you fuckwits haven't noticed, the only damage
that's being done is by you. If I wanted to kill your precious POTUS he'd be a
grease spot on the carpet by now. That's not what I'm here for." "So what are
you here for?" someone asked. "I have the solution to your heroin problem, and
if you calm down and get these trigger-happy rednecks out of here, we can all
sit down nice and quiet and I'll explain it to you." "We've been fighting the
war on drugs since Prohibition in 1920, why do you think you can do any
better?" "You know who I am?" she asked. I heard a few people say "Sure", "The
Weapon" and so on. "Well, that's why."

Things calmed down a lot after that. "So what do you want?" someone asked.
"Drop what you're doing for the rest of the day, and call a meeting so I can
explain it properly." There was a gabble of voices, some saying "waste of
time", one saying "But it's HER", one saying "At least we can listen to her
idea." And then one saying "Quiet please, everyone. I've decided. John, get
the head of the DEA here, and the Surgeon General, also the Senate Minority
Leader. Sort out a room, contact all members of the Cabinet. The meeting
starts an hour from now. You Secret Service men, get the hell out of here, you
couldn't protect me from her if she was hostile, which she obviously isn't,
and I'm willing to bet she'd do a damn site better job protecting me than the
lot of you put together, if she had to. Now move it. And you, young lady,
there's a few things I want to ask you before this meeting starts." And that,
obviously, was the President speaking.

Wow! She'd done it! She'd gotten to him, and she'd gotten him to listen. That
has to be half the battle won right there. "Mr President, it's our sworn duty
to be with you at all times and protect ..." "Listen up, punk," said Wendy in
one of her best tough-girl voices, "I squash pukes like you on my day off from
kicking ass. Do like the Potus said, and scram." I heard the door close behind
him.

"Do you have to float there in mid-air? You're welcome to sit down, you know."
"Thanks, but I prefer to hover." "Why?" "It reminds you who you're talking
to."

"So, what do I call you, you're The Weapon, right?" "Yes, but my friends call
me Wendy" "And you can call me Bill. Wendy, you really think you have the
answer to the heroin problem? We're spending forty billion dollars each year
on this, not to mention the cost in human health and happiness." "Yes, Bill,
I'm pretty sure we have an answer. It won't solve the drugs problem, though."
"I thought you said ... " "I said heroin." "Oh. Well, that's certainly a good
start." "And I need a colleague of mine to attend this meeting." "Oh? Who?"
"George Millby, he's on his way over here now, be about 30 minutes, right
George?" "Right," I said into my phone. I got up from the table, and started
towards the White House. "Bill, tell your staff to meet him at the Northwest
gate." "How will they know ... " "George Millby, I'll do a positive ID on him
when he gets here, don't worry Bill, I'm not going to let you get hurt."

I got to the White House gate, and told them who I was. They searched me for
weapons, which I thought was kind of ironic, seeing as how the most
destructive weapon in the world was hovering right next to the POTUS. They
whisked me inside and along several corridors, and we arrived at a meeting
room, several people, all Grey Men, sitting round a big polished mahogany
table, looking as important as they could. No-one asked me who I was. Which, I
suppose, was as it should be. This was her show now. All I could do would be
to help her out as subtly as possible if she got thrown any curve balls. Plus,
of course, I was there to keep up her morale. But don't tell them that, they
think she's a goddess.

So I was sitting at the table, and I couldn't help thinking that Lan Ho had
offered me food and drink despite not having enough for his own children, and
these guys aren't even offering me a coffee. Not that I needed one, having
stoked up at the Smithsonian, but there's an important principle here. And
then there was a bash-crash noise outside the door, the door was flung open,
and a marine stamped in, crash-bash, and announced "Ladies and gentlemen - The
President, of, the United, States". Like we were expecting the President of
the Snohomish Sewing Circle? And everyone stood up, so I thought I'd better
stand too. Blimey, I thought, this is worse than royalty. Come on, Wendy, you
can top this. Can't you?

I think he was expecting her to come in a few paces behind him, in his shadow,
as it were. But she didn't. She waited till he was in and settled, then she
made her own entrance. By then, we were all sitting down again, and POTUS was
looking around confused. Wondering where she was, I expect. I tried a joke.
"Women!" I said, "she'd be late for her own funeral." That earned me several
frowns, and a muttered "inappropriate". I was just wondering whether it was
inappropriate because it was joking about women, or because it was joking
about death, or whether it was just not done to crack jokes, when Wendy made
her entrance.

Oh, Wendy. Oh wow. This is either going to work or it isn't. She just smashed
straight through the wooden door with no warning. I guess she must have known
there wasn't anyone to get hurt on the other side, but there were bits of door
spraying out in all directions. There was a stunned silence as she moved
majestically towards the table, her cape streaming out behind as if in a
strong wind, until she was hovering, several inches from the floor, next to
the table. As we'd agreed, she chose a position at 90 degrees from the POTUS,
because this rotated the whole meeting, putting her in command, and the POTUS
on the side. I was on the opposite side of the table from her; symmetry urged
me to do an introduction for her, so I stood up. All the heads swung from
facing her, to facing me. "Ladies and Gentlemen - you know who she is." And I
sat down. I heard one of them whispering to another one. "But who is she?"
"Jim, she ain't the Tooth Fairy."

"Thank you," she said, not giving anyone else a chance to butt in. "We're here
to examine a radical proposal for winning the War against Heroin. Here's the
plan." We'd agreed that we'd keep this simple, these guys were politicians,
not geniuses. "Afghanistan is already taken care of by you guys. That's what
makes this all possible. That leaves the Golden Triangle, in South-East Asia
as the only place of production. I can dump fifty million tons of salt water
on that, and turn it into a desert. End of heroin problem."

She folded her arms, and waited for questions. "How will you transport that
much water?" "Same way I did when I put out the forest fire in Melbourne."
"What about the local governments?" "That's your job," she said, "you square
them with whatever it takes. They already committed to closing down opium
production, just twist their arms a bit, and grease whoever needs greasing."
"What if Afghanistan starts up production again?" "That's your job again, just
make sure they don't," she replied. "What if some other country starts growing
opium?" "Twist arms and grease palms, shut it down."

Then the President spoke up. "Gentlemen - and Wendy - seems to me, this is a
win-win situation. We get one of the most dangerous drugs off our streets, and
we can put the resources freed up into building homes and roads and good stuff
like that. So, are we agreed? Wendy, you have my permission ..." "Hold on a
moment," she said, "there's more. Once I salt those 400 square miles, nothing
will grow there. It isn't just going to stop opium poppies. It'll be a desert.
And I can salt it again every few years, it can stay a desert" "Good," said
one of the men round the table, "because if they can, they'll just go back to
growing opium." "Not good," said Wendy, "there's a hundred thousand people who
will have nothing to eat. But I have a solution for that, too."

This was the difficult bit. Politics is all about give and take. So far, we'd
given, and they'd taken. Now we wanted them to give. Wendy stood up straight,
and put her hands on her hips, and looked very commanding. "You don't want
farmers who are used to growing opium, to get scattered all over South East
Asia. That's a great way to spread the know-how of growing opium all though
the region." "So where can they go?" "Here. They immigrate to the USA."

Immediately, there was a hubbub, with voices getting louder and louder. "No
way" "We already have too many ..." "They don't even speak English..."
"Foreign culture..." "Enough already ..." "Mexican problem ..." "Wetbacks ..."
We were losing them. This wasn't going to fly, the way it was heading. I put
up my hand, and nodded slightly at Wendy. "Quiet," she said. They ignored her.
"Don't need that sort of person ..." "Dumb peasants ..." "Can't read or write
..."

"QUIET!" Wendy shouted, and smashed her fist down on the table. The beautiful
mahogany wood table cracked from side to side with the impact of her fist; it
quivered, but held in place, the great zig-zag crack running right across. She
stood up straight, holding her fist out, waiting to see if anyone would meet
her challenge. I looked around, every pair of eyes was focussed on that fist,
every brain was wondering whether it really was as harder than a twenty eight
pound steel sledgehammer. There was instant silence. "George, you had
something to say?" "Uh, just TANSTAFFL". Wendy looked slightly distant for a
moment, I guessed she'd just phoned Duncan. "There Ain't No Such Thing As A
Free Lunch," she said, "you can't get something for nothing. If you want your
children to be free of the evil of heroin, the cost is a better future for the
people who used to grow it. A future free from oppression and starvation. A
future in America." That had to be pure Duncan, I tried not to start humming
"God Bless America", they wouldn't have laughed. She tried again. "Twenty
thousand of your children die each year from this stuff. You can end that,
plus you gain 100,000 new Americans."

"Easy for you to say, you're a Limey, I don't see you guys offering to take
them," said one of the men round the table. Well, that got my goat, I can tell
you. "Yes!" I said. "I'm British, so what? Look, mate, there's sixty million
of us on an island that's slightly smaller than Oregon. We just don't have the
Big Country, the wide open spaces that you have here." "But where do you get
off telling us what we have to do?" he replied. "First of all," I replied, "I
..." "Shut up, George," said Wendy. She was right, getting into a slanging
match wouldn't help. "First of all," she said, "I'm not British, I'm not
American, I'm not actually from anywhere on this planet, I thought you already
knew that. I'm not even one of your race, I'm not a human being. Is that a
problem for you? Secondly, what matters isn't the birthplace or race of the
person presenting the plan, what matters is the plan itself, and whether you
want to put a stop to the twenty thousand children killed each year by
heroin."

There was a pause while they thought about that. "Where would they go?" asked
one of the Grey Men.

Shit, we hadn't thought about that. Wendy looked at me, I looked blank. She
looked blank for a moment, then said "You spend forty billion dollars each
year on the drugs war, and you aren't winning. Not only that, you're losing
twenty thousand children each year. There's a win here against the heroin
enemy, spend a quarter of one year's drug war budget on land in Kansas, that's
ten billion dollars, you'll get twenty million acres, divide that between
100,000 people that's 200 acres per person. A family of four would get 800
acres, and they'd be raising soybeans and wheat, not opium." I could detect
the fine hand of Duncan behind that calculation.

Some of the Grey Men were starting to nod.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore," she said, and I closed my eyes in
pain as she raised one arm, as if holding a lamp. Wendy my love, I thought,
you're over-egging the pudding. "She's right, you know," said POTUS. Hmm,
maybe this pudding could take more eggs than I'd thought. "Ten billion is
cheap if it buys us out of the heroin problem" he continued. More of the Grey
Men were nodding. "OK, let's do it!" he said. "The USAAF can airlift then out,
General Marston get that organised. James, start diverting the anti-drugs
budget to land purchase. Jeff, get working on the press angle, we have to sell
this to the media, it's anti-drugs and humanitarian, shouldn't be difficult.
Simon, I want you to work the Senate, this'll come up for a vote, because
we're busting the immigration quotas wide open, we'll need the House signed
up. Congress too. Education, we'll need crash courses in English, literacy,
citizenship. Medical, we'll need to give them health checks as they arrive,
and shots against flu and stuff."

He continued rattling off a stream of orders. I hadn't realised this had so
many complications, but that was why he was POTUS and I was just Wendy's
temporary Wielder, and smiling at her across the table, and seeing her smile
back at me, I wouldn't trade jobs with him, not nohow. And then he said, "OK,
people. Meeting closed, go do what has to be done. Wendy and, er, you come
with me, I've got some questions." "Wait!" said Wendy. "One more thing." She
reached behind her, under her cape, and brought out a silvery metal statue,
made in burnished aluminium, which she put carefully on the table. It was a
statue of a woman in flight, horizontal, one arm holding a baby close to her
breast, the other arm outstretched, holding a sword which was pointed
aggressively forward. The statue hovered, attached to a base of the same metal
by a fine, almost invisible hair. "Gentlemen, this is from me to the People of
the United States of America, a gift in recognition of the generosity of
spirit that you have shown today." The President walked around the table to
look closely at the base, and he read out the inscription, "Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness". He looked up, and around at the assembled cabinet.
"On behalf of us all, I thank you for the gift, and I swear that we will
uphold these principles."

We followed the POTUS into his office. Not the big formal Oval Office; he took
us to the small room where he actually worked. "I would like a few answers,"
he said, mildly, "please. Do sit down, both of you." I sat, Wendy continued to
hover, standing on several inches of air. "Would you like a coffee?" "I'll say
I would, I'm gasping," I said. "And Wendy?" she smiled, and nodded, "thank
you." While we were waiting for the coffee, he asked "How do you get that
statue to float in the air?" "Uh, Bill" said Wendy, smiling, "promise you
won't tell?" "Solemnly swear," he replied hopefully, "but we sure could use an
antigravity thing." "There's a magnet in the statue, and another one in the
base. Like poles repel, the statue floats. The hair that tethers it is one of
mine, but you could use a cotton thread." "Oh," he said, disappointed. I
chuckled. "Serves you right for asking. Just enjoy the show, don't look under
the magic hat." "It sure is a pretty statue, though. Are you a sculptor,
Wendy?" "Sort of," she replied, "sometimes there's something that I just have
to create." "The baby is "Life", you are "Liberty" and the flight is the
"pursuit of Happiness", is how I see that statue," said the President. "Spot
on," said Wendy, "I protect the baby while fighting for justice". The coffee
arrived. "Truth, Justice and the American Way," said Bill. "Not quite," I
said. He looked at me. "Truth, Justice and the British Way," I explained,
"although it turns out that you folks have pretty much the same thoughts no
that as we do, which isn't surprising, because your culture and legal system
is inherited from ours."

"So," said Bill once we'd gotten the cups and saucers sorted out, "what was
all that stuff really all about?"

I looked at Wendy. Wendy looked at me. I shrugged slightly. She nodded a
fraction. I folded my arms. She pointed at me, and folded hers, looking
stubborn. "OK, OK," I said, "it's like this. But first you're just going to
have to take a lot of this on trust, because we can't prove a thing, and
second, you got to swear this goes no further than your ears." "I'm the
president of the USA, and I will decide who I tell things to and who I don't."
"OK, fine," I said, and leaned back in the chair. There was a silence for a
while, and then he said "Well?" "Like you just said, sir, you'll decide who
you tell things to and who you won't, I have no problem with that, none
whatsoever." "Dammit." I waited some more. "OK, OK. My ears only. I promise."

So I told him about the war out there, and the two sides, and the
impossibility of choosing the right one, and the desirability of staying
neutral, and how that could only be accomplished if we had the weapons to back
it up. "And she's our Weapon, sir." "Then she should be under government
control," he said. "No," said Wendy, quietly. "What?" he asked. "She said
'No', sir, I'm sure you heard her. Forget that," I said, "she isn't a tank or
a gun." "I had to try," he grinned, "So what does heroin have to do with the
War of the Worlds?" "We're still learning what she's capable of, finding out
what she can and can't do. You could look on it as a military exercise, except
we try to find worthwhile targets, like the Melbourne forest fire." "Yes, we
all read about that," he said. "And the kitten," said Wendy. He looked up.
"She gets cats out of trees," I explained. "Yeah," he said, "I bet she does. I
like the costume, though, where'd you get it?" "It's, uh. I made it myself,"
she prevaricated.

Wendy looked at me, and the hand by her side made a fist, her thumb and small
finger outstretched. The "telephone" gesture. I nodded. "Bill, I'm going to
give you a phone number. If you need her, call. She might help, or she might
not, so don't rely on this. There's a lot that she can't do, a lot that she
won't do, and a lot that we'll tell her not to do. Like when I wanted her to
be the artillery in a battle we had to fight in Ramanmari against a bunch of
bandits, but she refused, and we had to build a trebuchet instead." "A what?"
"Uh, like a catapult, not important, point is, she refused, there's stuff
she'll do and stuff she won't, and we're still finding out what's what." "And
when does the War of the Worlds arrive?" "I don't know." He looked at Wendy,
and she shrugged. "So how do I know you haven't just fed me a bunch of
baloney?" "You don't. Not my problem, mate," I explained, "and furthermore,
Wendy and I have things to do a fair distance from here. You mind if I open
this window?"

He stood up courteously to say good bye. Wendy went up to him and gave him a
small kiss on the cheek, but I could see she was pressing her whole body
against him as she did it. He was tall, but Wendy, hovering several inches
above the floor, was quite a lot taller, and she lifted him up to meet her
kiss, her hands under his armpits. I saw him shaking as she put him down again
I knew from experience what that kind of kiss felt like. "Mmm," she said.
"Could I have your direct phone number?" she asked. He wrote it down for her;
she glanced at the paper, but didn't pick it up. Then she scooped me up on her
way out of the window, and we shot up into the sky. "Uh, Wendy?" "Mmm?" "You
know what you just did?" "Can't hurt to have the Potus on our side, George."
"Made me jealous, though." "Oh, you want some?" "Yes please."

If you hover five miles above the White House and try to snog, a USAAF F15
rudely comes up to stick its sharp little snout into what you're doing. It'll
follow you up, too, but with its service ceiling of 70,000 feet, you can leave
it behind quite quickly. Wendy took us up to 100 miles, wanting to be out of
range of any anti-aircraft missiles before she stopped, wrapping me up in her
handy pressurised airtight all-purpose white-and-gold cape as we rose. Some
people might find that a bit claustrophobic, but it's like having Wendy all
around you, and I like it. Smells good, too. And I bet not many people can say
they've been thoroughly kissed, hugged, stroked and screwed 100 miles above
the White House. And it's not like we were likely to drop anything on them
down there. Nothing solid, anyway.

. . .