“That’s not what I mean,” said Larry. “There are activists all over the place already, and nobody is listening, and three more voices isn’t going to make any difference. It’s time we stop shouting and really get their attention.”
“Okay,” said Susan. “I’m listening. What do you have in mind?”
“They’re dismantling the bottling plants tomorrow,” said Larry, “but you know where those plants are. Is there one we can hit?”
“Hit?” asked Susan.
“Hit,” said Larry. “Shoot at. Blow up. Is there a ReBirth plant we can get to before the government does, and destroy all the lotion before they take it?”
“Whoa,” said Tony/Cynthia. “That’s a big step up from a picket line.”
“Yep.” Susan nodded, trying to convince herself that this was a good idea. She knew something needed to be done, but to actually blow something up? “It’s just like … spiking a tree,” she said.
“Exactly,” said Larry.
“We’re not actually hurting anyone,” she said. “We’re just … creating a situation in which, if they do something wrong—like try to take a bunch of lotion—they’ll hurt themselves.”
“Exactly,” said Larry. “I know some guys who work with explosives—”
“What guys?” asked Susan. “Like, terrorists or something? I don’t want to work with terrorists.”
“Susan,” said Larry, “we’re going to blow up a building.”
Susan nodded again, then looked at Tony/Cynthia.
“Well,” said Tony/Cynthia. “Are we serious, or are we serious?”
“Okay,” said Susan. “Call your guys. Let’s do this.”
36
Friday, July 13
11:02 A.M.
NewYew manufacturing facility, Upstate New York
154 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
The NewYew manufacturing plant was in a low valley in Upstate New York, surrounded by trees and little else. Susan adjusted her grip on the binoculars, watching the men in the factory yard as they loaded barrel after barrel of ReBirth onto a fleet of trucks. American soldiers, armed and alert. She thumbed the button on her walkie-talkie. “I don’t feel good about this.”
Larry’s voice came back, tinny and faint through the scrambled signal. “What do you feel worse about: attacking soldiers, or giving the government several thousand gallons of blank ReBirth?”
Susan grimaced, and thumbed the radio again. “This is treason.”
“What do you feel worse about?” Larry repeated. “Treason, or giving the government several thousand gallons of blank ReBirth?”
“Fine,” said Susan. “But we can do this without hurting anyone, right?”
“Not hurting anyone would have been a lot easier if we’d gotten here last night,” said Tony/Cynthia, speaking through a third radio. He and Larry were on the far side of the factory complex, hidden behind a low rise with five of Larry’s “contacts.” “We could have blown the whole factory before the soldiers even showed up.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Larry, “maybe we should have let you mobilize and arm a makeshift terrorist cell in eight hours.”
“It’s been twenty-four hours,” said Tony/Cynthia.
“Yeah, I needed some extra time to find, purchase, and assemble two exceptionally illegal explosive devices,” said Larry. “I apologize that ‘accomplishing important objectives’ is a real-world activity that takes actual time to perform.”
“Stop arguing,” said Susan. “How soon are we ready?”
“Three minutes,” said Larry. “You’ve got the phone to trigger bomb one?”
“Right here.” Susan held it up with her free hand: a little prepaid flip phone that couldn’t be traced to any of their names. “What’s this one going to blow up?”
“The generator by the back fence,” said Larry. “One of my guys just placed it.”
Susan picked up her binoculars again and looked for the generator—it was a hundred yards away from the trucks. She thumbed the walkie-talkie again. “How big is this explosion going to be? That won’t hit any of the lotion from there.”
“That one’s not supposed to hit the lotion,” said Larry, “that’s our distraction: you blow the generator, the soldiers all look at it, and we pop up behind them. Then we lovingly yet firmly convince them to lay down their weapons, and we blow up the trucks with bomb two.”
“Does ‘lovingly yet firmly’ involve shooting them?” asked Susan. “I really don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“That’s why you’re blowing up the generator,” said Tony/Cynthia. “There’s nobody anywhere near it.”
“But what about you guys?” asked Susan. “And that America’s Most Wanted greatest hits compilation you’ve got with you?”
“If you’re not ready for this, tell us now,” said Larry. “We’re about to do something that we can’t do halfway: either this is important enough to warrant attacking our own government, in which case some soldiers are bound to get in the way sooner or later, or else this isn’t important enough and we walk away now. There’s no middle ground.”
