"It's desert tan, and that's what I needed to see her about".
"Burb", she said, employing the local slang for "be right back", and went off toward a long building that looked like two separate pre-'22 houses that had been enlarged toward each other until they joined.
She returned alone, as though from a trip to the bathroom. "Meet her in the tomato stands. Far end of the garden".
Valentine found her crouched in the tomato patch under an oversized umbrella. She'd brought a blanket and smelled like freshly applied scent.
"Lousy night for this, you know, it's damp. You could have given...", she said.
"Sorry, it's not that", Valentine said, squatting down beside her, hedged by ripening tomatoes. "I do mean sorry. Gide, I'm getting out of here".
"Huh?" She sat up.
"This place is poison".
"What, sodomy and the lash back in the Holes too? And you an officer and all".
"No. They're fighting... they're squeezing the Kurians in Seattle by getting rid of the population. And I mean getting rid of, not relocating".
"Cheezus. Poor bastards".
"I've done what I needed to do here, sorta, and I'm getting away".
"David, you're creeping me out here. Those sheeple are going to get it one way or another. Might as well make sure the towers don't have 'em".
"Don't tell me you knew too?"
"No, you just told me now. But - fuck! - it makes sense. We're what they need, right? Why let the bloodsuckers have what they need ?"
Valentine felt his cheeks go hot. "You used to live under them. Your whole life, pretty much".
"Yeah, and I'd rather've been shot or hung or whatever they do than let some fuckin' Hisser get his hook into me".
If she could just see it, see it as it took place ...
"I'm getting out. I'm going to report to my contact. Maybe ... maybe change something, I dunno".
"Good luck with that. Me, I'm bucking for the regulars. There's a shooting tournament soon - you can win a monthlong trip up to the wilds for some hunting and training. It's a great way to get noticed". There was an edge to her voice, but she blinked hard, several times.
"Then this is good-bye", Valentine said. He gave her his Steyr. "Maybe this'll help you win the competition".
She cradled the gun, on her knees, the oversized uniform shirt making her look like a beautiful but well-armed garden gnome. "Can't you ... can't we sleep on it? Maybe it'll look different in the morning. We can talk. You're smart enough to see reason..."
The last thing Valentine wanted to do was kiss her, but he found it happening all on its own. "They'll come looking for me, and yours is the first bed they'll check. If they ask about the gyro, play dumb. I need to steal some high-octane gas off you".
"Let me put my boots back on", she said. A lace broke as she tied it. "Fuck! I'm supposed to be tough. I've been through... but you drop your guard just a little bit and it's like you never learned in the first place". She wiped her eyes, buckled her belt. "I'll help you get the cans over the fence".
Mount Omega: So many legends have grown up around Mount Omega that even its mention lays a shadow of doubt over any narrative featuring it.
Certain facts are not in dispute. Mount Omega had its genesis in "Fitzhugh's Folly", when the asteroid ZL-624 had its near-Earth encounter. Poor Dr. Donald Fitzhugh... while two other astronomers actually presented the case at the secret government briefing with him, their names weren't quite as euphonious with "folly", so they dropped out of history and the high-level panic surrounding ZL-624's approach. It was predicted to stride early in the second decade of the twenty-first century somewhere between the Mississippi River and the Azores, and Mount Omega was hastily constructed with equipment from the nuclear-waste storage facility in Nevada.
Even after fresh tracking data predicted a near miss, Mount Omega construction continued. It was a massive, well-funded project already under way, employing thousands and thousands of highly paid, security -clearance construction workers and technicians across rural Washington and northern Oregon. An eleven-month, money-is-no-object crash project stretched out into its second decade. Mount Omega eventually worked its way into the defense budget as a secure location for government officials in case of a catastrophic terrorist strike on Washington DC. Work on never ceased.
Had it ever been finished, it would have been a wonder of the world. Nuclear power, state-of-the-art hydroponics, air-and water-filtration systems supporting office space and housing larger than the Vatican, the Kremlin, and
the Forbidden Palace combined (with the Mall of America thrown in as a cherry on top), from the golf course on the surface to the deepest geothermal heat pump, it would have had space to rival a small city.
But the project was never really completed.