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Message-ID: <30528asstr$991354202@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 21 (conclusion) 1/1
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 20:10:02 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

AFTERMATH

CHAPTER 21






It was approaching 4:00 PM on the afternoon following the battle and Brett
was in a room in the El Dorado Hills elementary school that had been
converted to a hospital room.  It had once been one of the smaller
classrooms just off of the former administration area.  The desks had been
removed and replaced with a four portable beds of varying type.  The one
that Brett was lying on had once been someone's hide-a-bed.  His closest
neighbor, Susan, who was only four feet away, was lying in a cot.  She still
had a bloody bandage covering her shoulder wound.  She, like Brett, had yet
to be operated on.  Both of them had IV locks installed in their arms
through which they were given injections of Dilaudid and Torridol every two
hours to help with the pain and inflammation.  Across the room from them
were Rhonda and Sarah, both of whom had already been through their surgical
procedures by the weary, overworked general practitioner and were now
sleeping the sleep of the very heavily drugged.  On the chalkboard at the
front of the room the four occupant's names were chalked in and separated
into columns by vertical lines.  In these columns were vital signs, which
were taken and charted every fifteen minutes, and the last drug dosages.
Near the front of the room was Jennifer Harris, a middle-aged woman who had
once been a teacher at the school and who was now one of the newly
christened nurses.  She was sitting down in a chair reading through a
physician's desk reference manual.

Brett had been here for a little more than three hours now, one of the last
group to come over after the battle.  It had been hard leaving the cockpit
of the helicopter and allowing Jason to solo for the first time, harder than
he had ever imagined it would be despite the uncanny speed with which the
young man had picked up the basics of flight and landing.  But leave it he
had too.  His wounded leg had been screaming for relief by the time they
finished circling and observing the retreating militia members as they went
back to the highway and flying the other wounded to El Dorado Hills.

Brett was much more relaxed now, thanks mostly to the intoxicating quality
of the narcotics he had been given.  He was in fact, having a deep,
philosophical conversation with Susan, who was flying about as high.

"I think Charmander is definitely the best," Brett said.  "I mean, he can
start a fire, can burn shit up with his tail.  Squirtle is totally useless
in a fight.  What's the point of squirting water at people?  You can't win a
battle with water for God's sake."

"Not true," Susan said seriously, her words thick and slurred.  "I saw him
knock Team Rocket right the fuck down one time while they were battling Ash
and Misty.  Right on their asses!  Tell me that's not a serious-ass stream
of water.  And Squirtle is cuter too."

"But you can't kill someone with a stream of water," Brett protested.  "Ask
those assholes we napalmed.  Fire is the way to go."

"Nobody dies in Pokemon," Susan reminded him.  "It doesn't matter if they
get burned or squirted.  They just get knocked out."

"That's true," Brett allowed.  "And they always wear the same clothes too.
Don't they ever wash them?"  He smiled a little, thinking about it.  "I've
always wondered what Misty looks like naked.  Or maybe Officer Jenny.
Yeah."

This gave Susan the giggles, which in turn gave Brett the giggles.  Both of
them laughed so hard that they caused pain from their various injuries by
the jostling of their bodies this produced.  They were still chuckling a
little when Pat entered the room.  He was wearing his traditional jeans and
flannel shirt.  Matt and Michelle were behind him, both obviously having
bathed and changed clothes since the battle.

"Matt, Michelle," Brett hailed, seeing them.  "What are you doing here?  Is
there trouble?"

 "No, no trouble," Matt said.  "We just got done dropping the food supplies
for the militia and we thought we'd swing out here real quick to check on
everyone so we can give a report at the community meeting tonight."

"So you had Jason fly you all the way out here for that?"

"We also thought you'd like a report on things back in town," Michelle told
him, leaning down and taking his hand in hers.  "And I wanted to see you
too.  I haven't had a chance to lay my eyes on you since we assembled this
morning.  I was worried about you."

"I should yell at you guys for wasting jet fuel to fly out here," he said,
squeezing Michelle's hand back.  "But to tell you the truth, I'm really glad
to see you too."

They discussed the health and well being of all of the wounded for a few
moments, starting with Brett himself and working their way to the most
severely injured.  Brett and Pat both assured them that they were all doing
fine - or at least as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

"Renee tells us that the most dangerous thing to worry about now is
infection or emboli in those with bone injuries," Brett explained.  "She's
putting us all on antibiotics and anticoagulants."

"What about your leg?" Michelle asked.  "I heard it was pretty torn up.
Will you walk again?"

He frowned a little.  "Renee only had a chance to take a quick look at it
between other patients," he said.  "She doesn't know yet.  She thinks she
might be able to put it back together but the bone is pretty shattered and
some of the tendons are torn."  He shrugged.  "We'll just have to wait and
see."

Michelle leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.  "You'll be all
right," she said stoically.  "I just know you will."

"So anyway," Brett said, changing the subject in order to keep his mind off
of his leg, "how're things back in town?  I assume you finished clearing the
battle area?"

"Yes," Matt said, nodding and grimacing a little.  "That was actually worse
than the battle I think.  It really bothered a lot of the troops."

"Not so much the bodies," Michelle put in.  "Although that WAS pretty bad,
but the... you know... the wounded."

"How many were there?" Brett asked.

"Well, you saw that they hauled five of them out when they withdrew, right?"
Matt asked.

"Right," Brett said.  They had taken two from the battle area itself and
three from the staging area behind the lines, carrying them out on crude
litters made out of sleeping bags and limbs from trees.  That was in
addition to the five or so that seemed able to propel themselves.  In all,
38 men made their way back to the highway to start their long trip home - 38
out of 400 that had started the journey.  That was more than ninety percent
casualties or desertions.

"There were about 30 of them that were still alive in some way out there,"
Matt said.  "A lot of them were unconscious and pretty much beyond salvation
anyway, but a few... a few could've been saved maybe.  We shot all of them
in the head with pistols."

"It was the only way," Brett said.  "There's no way we could afford to waste
the fuel to transport them here or the resources of the doctor here treating
the enemy.  No way."

"I know," Matt said.  "I explained that to everyone and they all understood
it.  But still, it's not easy shooting an unarmed, wounded man in the head.
Especially when they're begging for help or crying for their mothers.  I
shot several of them myself, I know."

"There's going to be quite a few people who are going to have trouble
sleeping tonight," Michelle said, her eyes saying that she was going to be
one of them.

"I wish I could tell everyone that it was the right thing to do," Brett
said.  "I really do.  But I can't.  It WAS wrong to shoot wounded prisoners.
It goes against everything that we've been taught and raised with.  But
unfortunately, that morality is something else that we can't afford anymore.
Did anyone refuse to do it?"

"No," Matt said.  "Not everyone did it of course, but no one who was faced
with it actually refused."

"I hope we never have to do anything like that again," Michelle said.

"There's always hope," Brett said.  "Never promises though.  How about
weapons?  Did we recover all of them?"

"More than a 150 rifles," Matt confirmed.  "That includes 12 fully automatic
M-16s and AK-47s and nearly sixty semi-autos of various type and caliber.
We hauled them all back to the community center and we'll get a crew
together to clean them up when we have the time.  We also got nearly seventy
pistols from the dead bodies.  Rifle ammo wasn't as good as we'd hoped
though."

"No?"

"No," he confirmed.  "They probably smuggled most of what they had left out
with them.  All that we found was what was in the weapons themselves and
even that wasn't too terribly much.  Maybe three hundred rounds total for
the assault weapons and about the same for the rifles."

"Not nearly enough to replace what we shot up at them," Brett said, although
that was pretty much what he had expected.

"No, but I don't think we'll have to worry about that bunch anymore for a
while.  Hopefully there are no other Placer County Militia type groups on
their way to us.  If there is, we might have problems.  We'll need to keep a
real close eye on the surrounding area from now on.  We got lucky by having
advanced warning of this attack.  The next time we might not."

"That's true," Brett said.  "And remember, there's only so much life left in
that helicopter.  We need to find another one as quick as we can and from
there we need to find spare parts, more fuel, and more ammo.  All stuff to
work on when I get out of here.  How far did the militia make it out of town
anyway?"

"They made it just past the border sign the last time we checked on them,"
said Michelle, who had been adopted as the new observer for the time being.
"We dropped them 300 cans of chicken noodle about a mile to the west, just
before the first mudfall on our side.  They should reach it just about
sunset if they keep moving."

"Tell Jason to make at least one flight before sunset, just to make sure
they're still where they're supposed to be."

"We will," Michelle promised.

"And what about our bodies?" Brett asked next.

Another sad look passed between the two of them.  "All recovered," Michelle
said.  "That wasn't a lot of fun either."

"No, I don't imagine it was."

"They're all in the storage room for now, in sleeping bags," Matt told him.
"We're going to get some people out digging graves tomorrow in the park near
where Dale and the others are buried.  Steve's already working on making
some crosses with their names and dates on them.  Paul suggested having a
ceremony of some sort after we bury them, just to honor them you know.  Of
course we don't have a priest or anything to give a proper funeral, but all
the same, I think they deserve something other than just being tossed in the
holes and covered up."

"I think that's a very good idea too," Brett said.  "I want to be there when
you do it.  I want to say a few words."

"How long are you going to have to stay in here?" Matt asked.

"I'm coming home the day after she fixes my leg," he said.  "Whether she
likes it or not."


+++++



At 10:30 the next morning, in Auburn, Jessica finally stirred and raised her
head from her pillow in the bedroom of the high school administration
building.  This was her typical awakening time these days, particularly when
she had been drinking heavily the night before, as she had been the previous
night - as she did almost every night.  Her eyes were bleary and bloodshot
and her head pounded sickeningly.  Worst of all was her stomach, which was
rumbling like a volcano about to erupt.  Experience told her that it soon
would.

"Oh God," she mumbled, refusing to open her eyes completely.  She fumbled
her hand across the nightstand next to the bed until she encountered the
walkie-talkie that she carried with her at all hours.  She picked it up and
put it next to her mouth.  "Alice?" she groaned into the mouthpiece after
keying up.  "Are you there?"

The reply was almost instant.  "I'm here Ma'am," she said.  "Good morning."

"Right," Jessica said sourly.  "Bring me up a bloody mary and some Tylenol,
will you?  I'm feeling a little under the weather."

"Right away," Alice replied.  "Would you like breakfast brought in to you?"

"Not for another hour or so," she said, the thought of food making her
stomach turn over a few more times.  "And make that bloody mary a PALE one,
if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean.  I'll have it in to you in five minutes."

Jessica put the radio back down, not bothering to thank her assistant.  She
covered her eyes with her hand, trying to lie as still as possible to fight
off the nausea and the headache.  It was a losing battle at best.  Christ,
how many drinks had she had last night?  Ten?  Twelve maybe?  She wasn't
entirely clear on exactly what had happened after 11:00 PM or so.  She and
ten of her closest acquaintances had been having themselves a little party -
as they did every Wednesday and Saturday evening.  There had been food,
music, booze of course, and one of the men that had been captured with the
town had been brought in for entertainment.  They had been... well... what
had they done with him?  She remembered having him lick everyone's ass -
that had been rather early in the festivities.  And then there had been the
inevitable reaming of HIS ass with the huge dildo that was such a favorite
at parties.  There had been a lot of drinks consumed during this portion of
the party and things were a little hazy after that.  She had the sense that
things had gone a little bit too far - it had happened before - but she was
not at all sure just how.

While she was still sifting through the opaque haze of memories her stomach
insisted that it was not going to hold its contents down any longer.  With
another groan, she rolled out of bed, landing on her hands and knees on the
floor.  Moving quickly she crawled to the private bathroom and put her head
in the toilet, arriving just in time to disgorge a small amount of stomach
acid and watery liquid that smelled strongly of vodka and orange juice.  She
retched a few more times, mostly dry heaves, and then finally her stomach
settled the tiniest bit, allowing her to pull her head out of the bowl and
stagger to her feet.

She panted weakly for a few moments, trying to get her equilibrium.  She was
still dressed in the pantsuit and blouse that she'd worn the night before
(she would never wear anything as COMMON as blue jeans and a flannel shirt
now that she was IN CHARGE) although there were several nasty looking stains
on them now.  When she felt she could do it without falling, she turned
herself around, lowered the toilet seat, and then unbuttoned her pants,
pushing them down to her ankles along with her silk panties.  She sat
herself down on the toilet and began to urinate, relieving her drink-swollen
bladder of its burden.  As she peed she looked down at the crotch of her
panties, hoping to see the telltale stain of menses there, instead seeing
nothing but a few urine stains.

"Damn," she cursed, shaking her head a little in frustration.  When she
finished peeing she pulled some toilet paper from the roll and wiped
carefully, pushing the wad well inside of her vagina.  She looked at it.  A
little moisture but no blood.  Not a single drop.  Her period STILL hadn't
started.  What was wrong?  It was almost four weeks late now, a little bit
longer than could be blamed on simple stress.  Surely she was too young for
menopause.  Her mother hadn't gone through the change of life until she was
54 years old.  So logically, shouldn't she be about the same?  She had never
even heard of anyone going through it at 34.

She stood up and pulled her pants back up, staggering a little as she did
so.  As she fumbled through the snapping and zipping process she wondered if
maybe that asshole Stinson or some of his cronies had... well... done
something to her when they had raped her all of those times.  Could they
have done some damage to her reproductive system that would have broken her
cycle in some way?  Was that possible?

Even as that thought came into her mind another thought, this one much
darker, tried to push its way forward.  The thought was of Linda, one of the
other "wives" that had shared the hell of living with Stinson with her.  She
was now nearly five months pregnant with Stinson's baby, just now starting
to show.  Was it possible that she, Jessica, could be...?

She groaned as if in pain, pushing that thought away and burying it before
it could be fully formed.  She did not want to even think about the
possibility of that being a possibility.  She was having a PHYSICAL problem,
or maybe a stress problem - leadership was challenging, wasn't it?  That was
what was wrong, not... well anything else.  Certainly not!

She heard the door to the main room open a moment later, just as she was
finishing up with the flushing process.  She walked out of the bathroom and
beheld Alice, who was dressed in blue jeans and a sweater and had a pistol
strapped to her waist.  Alice's eyes were bright and alert, her expression
non-committal as she took in her boss.  She had seen Jessica under much
worse conditions than this.  She had a large glass that contained maybe five
ounces of vodka and six of tomato juice.  It was so pale that it was almost
pink in color.

"Give it to me," Jessica said, walking quickly across the room and nearly
snatching it out of her hand.  She downed almost half of it at a single
gulp, feeling the burning of the booze as it poured down her throat and into
her abused stomach.  It almost made her retch again for a moment but this
was an effect she was familiar with.  After a few moments the opposite
occurred and her stomach settled as the booze took hold.

"Here's your Tylenol," Alice said, handing her four of the red and white
pills.

Jessica popped them into her mouth and then washed them down with about half
of the remaining drink.  That would take care of the headache in about
twenty minutes.  In an hour, after two more bloody marys and a little
breakfast, she would feel almost normal again.  She wondered if maybe she
was drinking a little too much lately and then dismissed that thought as
quickly as she'd dismissed her earlier one.

"Is there anything else?" Alice asked her, still standing there obediently.

"Another bloody mary in about five minutes," she said, taking one more sip
of her drink and then setting the glass down on the nightstand.  She began
unbuttoning her blouse.  "And get someone in here to clean this place up.
The bathroom needs a real going over."

"Right away," Alice replied.  "Will you be taking your bath soon?"

"Yes," she said.  "As soon as I get changed into my robe.  Have them start
running it now and then you can have breakfast up in the office for me when
I get back."


+++++


An hour later Madeline entered the main admin building, walking past the two
guards out front with hardly a word.  She was one of less than ten women in
town who had unlimited access to the main building with its heat and power,
who could get in to see Jessica without an appointment.  She was the ONLY
one who could do this that didn't consider herself to be a friend of
Jessica, who didn't regularly attend the barbarous gatherings that she
referred to as parties.  In fact, the relationship between the two of them
was becoming increasingly antagonistic as Jessica's reign as Auburn leader
rolled onward.  So far they had avoided any really nasty confrontations with
each other but Madeline knew that that was about to come to an end.  Jessica
was getting too strange, too unstable lately.  She was prone to irrational
outbursts that bordered on outright paranoia at times.  And after what had
happened last night, the time had finally come for some plain talk.

"Hi Alice," Madeline said with a sigh as she entered the outer reception for
Jessica's office.  "Is Jessica in?"

"She's in," Alice said with a sigh.  "She's just finishing up her
breakfast."

"Is she sober?" she asked next.  She was really hoping to catch her before
she too many morning drinks - something that was an exercise in timing.

Alice seesawed her hand back and forth in the air.  "She's working on the
fourth bloody mary right now," she said.  "The last two haven't been as
strong though.  It's about another hour before she starts on the
screwdrivers."

"Well," Madeline said, "I guess that's about as good as it's going to get.
Will you tell her that I need to have a word with her?"

"Sure," she said, picking up the walkie-talkie.  She keyed it up.  "Ma'am?"
she said into it.  "Madeline is out here to see you.  She says she needs to
talk to you."

"Tell her to come back later," Jessica's voice replied a little testily.
"I'm busy right now."

Alice looked up at her apologetically but Madeline was not going to be
dissuaded that easily.  She reached over and plucked the radio from Alice's
hand.  "Jess," she said into it.  "This is really important.  I need to talk
to you now."

Jessica refused to answer Madeline directly but this seemed to do the trick.
"Alice," she said, "go ahead and send her in."

"Thanks Alice," Madeline told her, dropping the radio back onto the desk.
She walked to the door and opened it.  Jessica was sitting behind her large
desk, a half eaten tray of food pushed off to the side.  She was sipping out
of a glass and going over some sort of paperwork - God knew what it was.
Jessica enjoyed keeping lists and ledgers and notations on every little
thing that occurred in the town.

"What is it?" she said shortly, not even looking up at her security chief.

Madeline closed the door behind her and walked over to the desk.  She sat
down in a chair across from it without being asked.

"Well?" Jessica said, finally looking up, showing bloodshot eyes.  "You were
so anxious to get in here.  What's the problem?"

"Greg Rollins is the problem," Madeline told her.

"Greg Rollins?" she said blankly, the name obviously meaning very little to
her.

"The man that you and your friends utilized for your little party last
night," she reminded her.

"Oh... of course," she said with a disinterested shrug.  "What about him?
Why would he be a problem?"

"He's dead," Madeline said plainly.  "He died about four this morning."  She
paused a little.  "From internal bleeding."

Jessica showed no particular emotion at this news.  "What happened to him?"

"What happened to him?" Madeline said, leaning forward.  "Do you really not
remember what you and your friends DID to him last night?  Did it slip your
mind?  Or were you just so drunk that you can't recall it?"

Jessica face flushed with instant anger.  "How dare you come in here and
speak to me in that tone!" she said.  "You are forgetting your place little
missy!  I am the LEADER of this community.  What makes you think that you
can come marching in here..."

"You don't remember the crowbar, do you?" Madeline asked softly.  "You
really don't."

This startled Jessica a little, bringing back a blurb of a memory, which she
quickly buried again.  "Crowbar?" she said.

"Jesus," Madeline said, somehow more bothered by the fact that Jessica
didn't remember than by the act in the first place.  "Let me refresh your
memory a little for you, shall I?  Apparently during your little gathering
last night, after you finished raping him with that dildo that you use, you
decided that the dildo wasn't humiliating or painful enough and you ordered
Alice to go find you a crowbar."

"I wouldn't have been serious about that," Jessica said.

"You were," Madeline said.  "Alice brought you one and you and your friends
took turns putting it up inside of him and twisting it.  You ripped him open
rather badly and it would seem that you managed to push the thing all the
way up into his stomach cavity."

"That's impossible!"

"I was the one with the honor of getting rid of the crowbar after the
party," she told her.  "It had pieces of what I'm pretty sure were intestine
stuck to it.  Greg was brought to the medical office writhing in pain and
vomiting blood.  He suffered in agony for several hours before he finally
died."

Jessica paled during the story but finally recovered herself.  She shook off
the image and then turned on Madeline for providing it to her.  "So what if
we DID do that?" she asked.  "What the hell is the difference?  He's one of
the men that used to rape us.  Why should anyone care what happens to those
scum?  Do they deserve any better?"

"Yes," Madeline said, "they do.  For God's sake Jessica, what you did was
barbaric.  It was beyond an atrocity.  And it's not the first time either.
We've had a total of three deaths now because of the abuses that you and
your friends do during your little parties."

"You listen to me, little missy," Jessica said, glaring at her.  "How dare
you come in here and talk to me like this.  I am the leader of this
community and I will do whatever I see fit.  If a few scum-sucking pieces of
shit that call themselves men are hurt being punished for the way that they
treated us, what the hell business is it of yours?  You're just the head
security guard!  And didn't YOU kill the man that was raping you when this
all started?  As I recall, you cut his throat open while he was sleeping,
didn't you?"

"And that was a tactical act of warfare," Madeline told her.  "Granted, I
enjoyed it a great deal, but I did not torture him, nor did I do it as party
entertainment.  Do you really not see a difference?"

"There is no difference," Jessica hissed.  "I'm sorry that my parties offend
your little sensibilities.  I didn't realize you cared so much for those
animals."

"Those animals are human beings," she said, "despite their crimes.  And
animals are not even treated the way you're treating them.  They didn't
treat US the way you're treating them, not even Stu's men."

"I've had about enough out of you for today," Jessica said dismissively, not
wanting to discuss this any further.  "You may leave now."

"I have some other things that I need to talk about as well," Madeline told
her.

"What other things?"

"The guards," she told her.  "You've been encouraging my guards to go over
my head directly to you for reassignment to day and night shift.  And then
you've been granting the changes without consulting me."

"It is my prerogative as leader," Jessica said.  "If you treat them
unfairly, I have the right and the obligation to make things right."

"Unfair?" Madeline said, her eyes widening.  "You call assigning people that
just happen to be your cronies to night shift unfair? That's bullshit Jess,
absolute bullshit.  I treat every one of my people the same.  Everyone works
the day shift for a week and then everyone works the night shift for a week.
But just because certain people have your ear and they've been to your
parties, they're going to you and asking to be taken off their night shift
obligations and you're granting it.  And then nobody is telling me this
until someone shows up for a shift I'm not expecting them on and telling the
woman who is NOT one of your cronies that she is now working the night shift
again.  Or, I have to force people to work double shifts because someone
wanted the night off to go to one of your parties, or they're too hung over
to work their day shift.  I can't maintain discipline this way.  Our guard
force is becoming a joke."

"I do not engage in favoritism," she said.  "I simply reassign where YOU
have been displaying it for YOUR friends.  Don't try to twist this around on
me.  And remember WHO is in charge of this town."

Madeline trembled a little in frustration, grappling with control.  How she
wanted to slap this idiotic woman and try to drive some sense into her.  How
she just wanted to slap her for the sheer pleasure of it.  But she didn't.
That was not the answer, would not accomplish anything.  Instead, she tried
reasoning.  "Jess," she said, "the militia will be back soon, any day now.
That means that 400 men with guns are going to be showing up expecting to
come back into town and resume their lives."

"I KNOW what it means," Jessica said.  "So shouldn't you be out there
preparing for them and watching for them instead of being in here bothering
me?"

"If we don't have discipline in the ranks," Madeline said, "then we're going
to lose.  You have got to stop interfering with my scheduling and my
training.  You have got to stop showing favoritism for certain women."

"I don't HAVE to do anything," Jessica said.  "That is what being in charge
is all about.  It is ME who makes the decisions here and it is ME who
decides what kind of discipline is needed or expected.  You are nothing but
a scheduling person and you're not even very good about that.  Now I suggest
you leave this office right now before you end up on the kitchen detail or
the laundry detail instead.  It is well within my power to put you there you
know."

"Jess," Madeline tried again.

"Go now," she said.  "Not another word or you'll be in the laundry room so
fast it'll make your head swim."

"You need to listen to me Goddammit!" Madeline yelled, finally reaching the
breaking point.  "For the love of God, what are you doing?  You're risking
our entire revolution, our entire town because you just have to have your
little fingers in everything.  Is your little power trip that important to
you?  So important that you'll risk it all before you admit you're being a
fucking idiot?"

Jessica's hands clenched into fists and her face turned beet red.  "You're
relieved of your duties," she hissed.  "As of this moment, you're on laundry
detail."

"You can't remove me from the security detail," Madeline shot back at her.
"I'm the only one in this town with the training and experience to lead a
battle against the men!"

"I HAVE relieved you," she yelled, slamming her fist down hard enough to
knock over her drink.  Tomato juice and vodka spilled over the surface and
onto the floor.  "I want you down there washing laundry right now."  She
picked up her walkie-talkie.  "Alice, get in here."

"Jessica," Madeline said again, calming herself.  "You..."

"Shut up," Jessica barked at her.  The outside door opened and Alice put her
head in.  She looked at her.  "Have the guards escort Madeline down to the
laundry room," she told her.  "As of this moment she is relieved of her
former duties."

Alice looked very doubtful.  "Ma'am?" she said.  "Are you sure that's a
good..."

"Don't you question me!" Jessica screamed at her.  "You are little more than
a secretary and I did not ask you for your opinion!  I gave you an order and
I expect you to carry it out!"

"Yes ma'am," Alice said, withdrawing from the room and leaving the door
open.  She looked very frightened as she went.

"Leave your gun here," Jessica said, looking at Madeline again.  "You won't
be needing it in the laundry room."

Madeline unsnapped the .45 she carried from its holster and removed it.  She
tossed it down onto Jessica's desk where it landed with a clunk.  "You're
making a big mistake," she said.

"Oh, I don't think so," Jessica replied icily.  "I don't think so at all."


+++++


The pain was certainly there, a deep, constant throb that pulsed up and down
his leg rhythmically, as regular as a ticking clock or a beating heart.  But
it was not nearly as deep, as gripping as it had been in the helicopter or
in the bed the previous night.  It would seem that Renee, the former family
practitioner who was now a general surgeon, had done something right in
there.  Of course he had no way of knowing if that was true or not.  He
could not move his left leg, not even the tiniest inch.  The entire thing,
from just below the pelvis to the bottom of his ankle, was strapped into a
very improvised brace made from metal poles that looked like they'd been
taken from a child's swing set.  These poles were held together with
flexible aluminum straps of the sort that held an automatic garage door
opener on its mounting.  If Brett tried to move his lower leg at all, it
didn't budge.  He could lift it slightly upward by lifting with his upper
thigh muscles but the entire leg came up with it when he did this.  Renee
and her assistants had basically immobilized the leg into a straight
position.

It was about an hour since he'd awakened from the anesthesia he'd been given
for the surgical procedure.  He was back in the same room that he'd spent
the previous day in with the same roommates, although Sarah was looking a
little livelier on this day.  His throat was dry and scratchy and hurt like
fire when he tried to swallow - a result of the breathing tube that Renee
had placed in his trachea while he'd been out.  His mind had been very
cloudy at first - indeed it took him more than fifteen minutes to remember
WHERE he was and WHAT had happened to him - but now his thinking, such as it
was, was pretty much back to normal.  Jennifer, the nurse, had given him a
shot of morphine a little while after he'd awakened and had told him that
the surgery had gone well, but other than that he had talked to no one yet.

"How are you doing?" a female voice, approaching from behind, enquired of
him.  He recognized it as Renee.

He looked up at her, seeing the bags under her eyes that came from being
almost constantly awake for the last 30 hours.  He could smell cigarette
smoke on her, as if she'd just stepped out for one.  "I don't know," he said
pleasantly.  "How AM I doing?"

She grabbed a rolling chair from next to Susan's bed and brought it over,
plopping herself down into it.  She looked at him.  "You're kneecap is not
quite in the same position it used to be in," she told him.  "The underlying
bone structure was pretty much mangled and I had to fit it in there the best
I could.  It kind of leans to the right a little and is tilted upward on the
left."

"I see," Brett said, although he really couldn't.  "So you're saying that my
leg will be kind of funny looking?"

"That's right," she said.  "It'll be kind of funny looking and it will be
perhaps an inch shorter than the right leg.  That bullet smashed through the
lower part of your femur and the upper part of your tibia and fibula.  It
also cut through some of the tendons that hold your knee together."

"So will I be able to walk?" he asked her.

She gave him a half-smile.  "I think so," she said.  "It'll take you a
little getting used to and you'll almost certainly have a pronounced limp
for the rest of your life, but I think that you'll be able to recover most
of the functions of that leg."

He gave her a full smile.  "That's really good to hear doc," he told her.
"Thank you."

She shrugged.  "I did what I could," she said.  "Back in the old days,
before the comet, I could've sent you to an orthopedic surgeon who could've
fixed you up so that you were better than you had been before.  But we seem
to be all out of orthopedic surgeons these days."

"I'm sure you did the best you could," Brett told her.  "Really, I'm just
grateful that there was doctor to work on me and the others at all.  You
saved most of us doc.  Sarah sure as hell wouldn't have made it without you
and I probably wouldn't have either.  At the very least I would've been
bedridden forever."

"Well, I'm not saying for sure that you won't be yet," she said.  "Keep in
mind that I did an orthopedic rotation once when I was back in medical
school.  That was the extent of my training for you and for Susan over
there.  I put your leg back together with some pretty strange things -
things that were never meant to be put into a human body.  I put screws from
the hardware store into your femur and tibia.  I cut the damaged bone away
with a pair of bolt cutters from Frank Edwards' garage.  I used a Makita
reversible drill to screw in the screws.  I'm telling you, I felt like I was
in woodshop back in high school instead of operating on a human being."

"But it worked didn't it?" Brett asked, actually finding it somewhat amusing
that she'd put ordinary wood screws into his leg with a Makita.

"I'm pretty sure it did," she agreed.  "And I sterilized them of course, if
you were wondering about that."

"Actually, I wasn't.  But thanks for letting me know anyway.  So how long
will I be in this get-up?"

"Six weeks minimum," she told him.  "Probably more.  I don't have an X-ray
machine to check on the progress of the mend so we'll have to play it safe.
After it looks like its healing up, you'll be able to try walking on it and
getting it back up to strength.  You're going to lose muscle tone while
you're convalescing.  And of course you're going to have to take Coumadin
for at least a month."

"Do you HAVE that much Coumadin?" he asked her.  "We used up our entire
town's supply treating Sherrie's leg."

"Well, we had a pharmacy available to us so we have a fairly good supply of
it," Renee told him.  "But we'll probably exhaust a good portion of that
treating all of the bone injuries that resulted from the war."

Brett wondered if she was hinting at something.  She seemed to have
something that she wanted to discuss but it didn't seem to be a trading
issue - at least not exactly.  "What can we do about that?" he asked
carefully.

"We need to get more medical supplies," Renee said simply.

"Look," Brett said, "I'm sorry that we've burdened you with our wounded,
really I am.  But..."

"No," Renee said, shaking her head.  "You misunderstand me.  I'm not trying
to point out a debt that you owe to us.  Not at all."

"No?"

"No," she said.  "While it's true we have treated your wounded here in our
town, using our supplies, I am not trying to hint to you that you now owe us
something in return.  On the contrary, I believe - and Pat shares this
attitude I'm sure - that it is YOU that did US a favor.  You fought the war,
you sacrificed the people to beat those fascists in Auburn.  Now we won't
have to deal with them in the future.  If you would've lost I'm sure that
they eventually would have worked their way down to us at some point."

"I suppose you're right," Brett said.

"So you see," she said, "treating your wounded and using our supplies to do
it with was the least we could do.  In truth, I'm somewhat ashamed that we
didn't send troops down your way to help you out.  We had volunteers you
know."

"No," he said, a little surprised.  "I didn't know."

"More than fifty of us, men and women alike, volunteered to take up arms for
your cause.  It was only the logistics of getting them there that prevented
us from making an official offer.  In a way I feel like we were the United
States during the early part of World War II and you folks over in Garden
Hill were the Russians or the English.  We supplied the ammunition and the
guns for you and you did the killing of the enemy and the sacrificing of
your own people."

"It's over now," Brett said, wondering where all of this was leading.
"We've beat them back and they shouldn't be a threat to anyone again for a
long time.  Don't let your actions or lack of actions keep you awake at
night."

"Yes," Renee said, "THIS battle is over.  But what if there are more?  Don't
tell me that you haven't considered that possibility."

He sighed a little, shifting his position carefully on the bed.  "I try not
to think about that," he said.  "But, since it is my job, I do anyway.  Yes,
of course its possible that there are other Auburn-type groups out there.  I
like to think that most groups of survivors will form up much like we have
or like you have, but I know enough about human nature to know that there
will always be Auburns."

"And one of those Auburns might turn their forces loose upon us if they know
of our existence," Renee said.

"They might," he said.

"So what we - that is both of our towns - need to do, is make sure that
we're as prepared for that eventuality as we can be.  That means we need
more ammunition, more guns, better guns, upgraded defenses, the whole nine
yards."

"Yes," Brett said.  "That's only prudent."

"And then there are the medical supplies," she went on.  "We need more
antibiotics, more surgical instruments, more pain killers and anesthetic
supplies.  In short, we need to find a hospital or a medical supply
warehouse and raid it for as much as we can get.  Hell, if I were just able
to get my hands on a damn ultrasound machine I would be able to do so much
with it."

"So what are you saying, exactly?" Brett wanted to know.

"I'm saying that our community has something that you need - a doctor,
medical knowledge.  Your community has something that we need - a pilot and
an aircraft and military knowledge.  We worked together during this crisis
and utilized both of our resources to the advantage of both.  I think that
extending that relationship now that there is no crisis would be even more
beneficial.  I believe that making some sort of cooperation and trading pact
is in order."

"Hmmm," Brett said thoughtfully.  He liked the sound of it.  "I'm not a town
leader Renee," he told her.  "And I don't have any sort of authority to make
deals or even propose them."

"But you have Paul's ear, don't you?"

"That I do," he said.  "And for what its worth, I think you're right.  I
think cooperation is in both of our best interests."

"Cooperation," she said, "and maybe even a merger eventually."

"A merger?  You mean, we join together under one system, in one place?"

"That's exactly what I mean," she said.  "There's strength in numbers, is
there not?  And it's much easier to defend 400 people if they're in one
place instead of two.  My thought is that we think about moving all of your
people down to here.  You'd give up your bridge position and your nicer
homes, but you'd also have the advantage of being located next to the water
access for fishing and on lower ground for when the weather gets colder -
because it will get colder soon.  My guess is that Garden Hill is sitting on
the location of a future glacier."

"My guess is that you're right," Brett answered.  "Maggie - she's a friend
of Chrissie and Michelle's - has a meteorology degree.  She says the same
thing.  That the warmer weather we've been experiencing is a result of heat
released by the comet and trapped by the cloud cover.  She also says that
its gradually cooling and that more than likely we're in the beginning
stages of a new ice age.  The glacier will probably reach here eventually as
well."

"About five or ten years AFTER it swallows up Garden Hill," Renee countered.

"Again, true," he conceded.  "I'm not really sure how the townspeople will
take the idea of moving out of their homes though.  That would be something
that would take a lot of discussion at a lot of community meetings.  And
then there's the logistics of doing it.  How would we get all of our people
from there to here?  It would be quite a walk - especially with supplies."

"You'd need a bigger aircraft," she said.  She looked at him pointedly.  "Do
you know how to fly airplanes as well as helicopters?"

He smiled.  "Why yes I do," he confirmed.  "And I just happen to know where
there's a nice twin-engine Cessna as well.  If I could get that thing
running and figure out some way to land it both here and there, it could
haul ten people over at once, or it could carry five or six thousand pounds
of cargo."

"So you see?" she said brightly.  "Two heads are better than one.  Already
we've come up with a plan."

"Again," he reminded her, "I'm just a grunt.  I have no actual authority to
agree or disagree."

"It just something to think about," Renee said.  "And something to talk to
Paul about.  Promise me that you will?"

"I promise," he assured her.



+++++


Early the next morning Jason landed the helicopter once again in the parking
lot of the El Dorado Hills elementary school.  He was getting quite good at
the mechanics of flying now that he'd accumulated almost five solo hours and
the touchdown was smooth and right on the mark.  Shortly after his landing
Brett and Susan were loaded into the back along with a large supply of
antibiotics, painkillers, and anti-coagulant drugs.  Hector, who had finally
been deemed well enough to leave (actually he should have stayed a little
longer but he didn't want to miss the burial ceremony) was given the honor
of sitting in the front.

Jason lifted off into the rainy sky and headed for Garden Hill.  His control
adjustments and altitude changes were no longer jerky or hesitant.
Nevertheless Brett did not like sitting in the back of the chopper, unable
to see what was going on.  Like most pilots he did not enjoy not being in
control of an aircraft in flight.  Thankfully he at least had the headset
for the back.

"Did you check on the militia today?" he asked Jason as they climbed up to
cruising altitude.

"On the way over here," Jason said.  "Of course I didn't have Matt with me
since I was making a pick up, but I was able to get a good visual on them.
They've reached the first mudfall now and are moving south along it.  It
looks like one of the wounded they were carrying on the litter died
somewhere along the way."

"Uh huh," Brett said, trying to squirm into something approaching a
comfortable position.  "And what about the maintenance regime?  Have you..."

"I have it scheduled for today," Jason told him.  "Right after the
ceremony."

"Good," he told him.  "How's your altitude?  Are you steady?"

"Steady on five thousand feet," Jason assured him.  "Right on the line."

"And your airspeed?  Have you..."

"Brett," interrupted Hector, who was wearing the front seat headset and
listening in.  "Give the man a break, will you?  He's doing just fine."

Brett gave him a break and soon they were safely on the ground once again in
the parking lot of the community center.  A large crowd was present to greet
them and the atmosphere was almost festive.  Paul personally shook hands
with each of the returning wounded and many of the women hugged and kissed
everyone.  Maria was there to greet Hector, which she did most
affectionately and with large tears in her eyes.  Chrissie and Michelle were
there as well.  Both of them made a point to hug and kiss him for an extra
long time.

Hector and Susan were able to walk into the community center - although
Hector was a little slow - but Brett had to be placed on the rolling table
that was Garden Hill's gurney.  No sooner were they safely inside then Jason
spun up the helicopter once more to head back to El Dorado for another load.
In all everyone but the most gravely of wounded were brought home, in each
case with medical supplies and careful care instructions.

At 1:30 that afternoon, after everyone had finished lunch, the burial
ceremony for the dead was held in the park next to the playground.  Of
course the bodies - wrapped in sleeping bags instead of coffins - had
already been placed in the graves the day before by the same team of workers
that had dug them.  In all there were seven graves and eight grave markers
standing in a stark line beside the six graves from the first attack on the
town months before.  Each marker was a wooden cross made from scavenged two
by fours and treated with creosol to keep it weatherproof.  The horizontal
beams of the crosses bore the names of the dead as well as their dates of
birth, dates of death, and the conflict that they had fallen in: The Second
Battle of Garden Hill.

The funeral services themselves were short but emotional.  Paul led the
ceremony, speaking to the assembled townspeople from a small podium that had
been set up.  He thanked those that had fallen for their sacrifice and vowed
that they would never be forgotten.  Brett, who was crammed into a homemade
wheelchair that had to be carried over the muddy ground, then took the
podium and spoke for a longer period.  He gave a eulogy for each individual
person, talking of their strengths and giving anecdotes about them.  He
addressed the small children of those that had them, telling them that their
mommies were gone but that everyone else was still here because of that.  He
then expressed a very sincere wish that Garden Hill would never have to
endure such a ceremony again.

After the speeches the townspeople took turns shoveling the muddy soil back
into place, covering the sleeping bags one by one.  Within an hour, the work
was done.  Everyone went back to their jobs for the day or, if they happened
to be off, back to the community center.  The mood would remain somber for
quite some time after.


+++++


Madeline looked at the pile of towels in the gymnasium of the elementary
school gloomily.  They were the bath towels from the previous day and she
was responsible for getting them all washed and hung up to dry by the end of
the workday.  The pile was more than eight feet high and more than ten feet
across - nearly a third of all the towels available in town.  As the Garden
Hill women had before them, the Auburn women certainly liked their baths.
Currently there were eight tubs set up and running and each woman was
entitled to three baths per week.  That was unless you were one of Jessica's
inner circle, in which case you had access to Jessica's private bath
whenever you wished.

Madeline sighed, biting back another burst of anger at what had become of
her - the anger did no good - and got to work.  She picked up an armload of
towels and carried them over to the large inflatable swimming pool that was
filling with water from the fire engine outside (the fire engine idea had
come from Jessica - she claimed to have thought of it back in Garden Hill).
Half of a box of laundry detergent had been dumped into the pool and a
foamy, gritty lather was now forming.  She tossed the towels into the pool
and then went back for another load.  Four loads later the pool was close to
overflowing and the pile of towels was not noticeably smaller at all.  She
shut down the hose and then went outside to shut down the engine of the
pumper truck.

It was as she was turning off the switches on the truck's panel that Darlene
Annadale - of her former guard supervisors - came over to her from the area
of the kitchen.  Darlene had been removed from guard detail the day before
after protesting the removal of Madeline herself to Jessica.  Nor was
Darlene the only one.  Two other supervisor rank guards and five of the
guards themselves had been removed in a similar matter for similar reasons.
All had been placed in menial, labor intensive jobs as a replacement.
Darlene had been put on dishwashing detail, her job to clean the thousands
of dishes that were dirtied with each meal period.

"You all done with that hose?"  Darlene asked her, her expression sour.  "We
need it inside to rinse the dishes off."

"Sure," Madeline said, reversing the motions that she had been making to the
panel and reactivating it.  "It's all yours.  I'll need it again in about
another half hour or so."

"We should be done by then," she said.  "We just have to do a final rinse on
everything."  She shook her head angrily.  "We need another ten people on
this detail at least.  I can't believe that cuntasaurus has half the town
doing nothing while we're in there scrubbing our asses off."

"My detail is pretty much the same," Madeline agreed.  "I could use at least
six people to help wash all the towels but all I have is myself.  Be
thankful that she didn't put you with me."

Darlene looked at her meaningfully.  "Why are we putting up with this shit
Maddy?" she asked her.  "Christ, we might as well leave the town.  I heard
she kicked another two people off the guard detail this morning - and that
they didn't even complain to her about what she did to you.  I heard that
Jessica did it just because she THOUGHT they might be on your side instead
of hers."

"Yeah," said Madeline, who had a quiet though effective way of keeping her
ear to the ground.  "That's what I heard too."

"She's taking all of the women you trained out of the guard posts and
replacing them with a bunch of yes women who do anything she says.  What's
going to happen when the men come back?  They're going to walk right over
those incompetent fucks and then we'll be right back where we were before
the revolution."

"I know," Madeline said.  "Something has to be done about Jessica.  That's
pretty obvious."

"But what?" she demanded.  "We don't have much time and that bitch has got
her little circle jerk that she invites to her rape and kill parties
supporting her."

"What have the other women been saying?" Madeline asked, although she knew.

"What have they been saying?" she asked.  "They've been saying that she's a
damn nutcase and that we made a mistake making her the leader.  What the
hell do you think they've been saying?  But no one is doing anything about
what's going on."

"No," Madeline said.  "No one is doing anything about it.  Most of the
people here - hell, everywhere - are followers.  They won't take any
initiative to make change."

"So nothing will happen then," Darlene said.  "Especially when they see what
protesting against her gets them.  Look at us."

"Yes, but followers can be made to follow something else - that is their
nature."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Just keep doing your job," Madeline advised her.  "Things are coming to a
head here.  Pretty soon Jessica will make that final push over the line."



+++++


Regular guards shifts in the normal positions had been resumed now that the
war with the militia was at an end.  On this night Michelle had just come
off of a six hour rotation in position 3 while Chrissie had spent the day
performing her supervisory duties - mostly from their house so that she
could keep an eye on Brett, who had been installed in the main bedroom.  He
spent most of that day laying in the bed and reading from a collection of
paperback novels from the supply room.  He could get up and use the bathroom
on his own when he needed to but it was a major operation involving an
extended extrication off of the mattress and a twenty-foot walk with a pair
of improvised crutches.  Each trip left him exhausted and sore, his knee and
arms throbbing from the effort.

Now, with night having fallen and the room lit up with candles and gasoline
fired lamps, his two women were both home and preparing to give him a sponge
bath.  Chrissie had filled up a large bucket with warm water from the
fireplace and Michelle had gathered soap, towels, and several washcloths.
They pulled off all of his clothing leaving him stark naked on the bed.
Then they each grabbed a cloth and went to work, dipping it into the soapy
water and running it over his chest, his arms, his legs.

"Ahhhhh, that feels soooo good," he sighed, basking in the sensation of
feminine hands scrubbing him clean.  "I don't deserve you two, you know
that?"

"We know," Chrissie said, running her wet cloth over his uninjured thigh.
So noticed that a particular part of his anatomy certainly seemed to enjoy
the attention that the rest was receiving.  "It looks like someone is
thinking about more than a bath."  She pointed at the rapidly swelling
organ.

"Why yes it does," Michelle said with mock sternness.  "You pervert.  We're
in here to get you clean, not to be dirty."

"Yeah," Chrissie agreed.  "You oughtta be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm ashamed," Brett told them, reaching out with his hands to stroke their
blue jean clad legs from each side.  "I'm deeply ashamed."  As he said this
his manhood continued to stiffen, rising inch by inch into the air until it
was sticking straight up in all of its glory.

"Look at this thing," Michelle said as she lathered his lower stomach up,
the soft cloth making circles around his skin.  "You'd think it hadn't seen
any action in a while."

"It hasn't," Brett reminded.  And in fact this was true.  Between fighting
the war, grabbing a few hours of sleep every now and then, and being
injured, he hadn't had an intimate encounter with either one of his wives in
nearly two weeks now.  He hadn't even paused in all of that to whip off.
And now that the prospect of intimacy was presenting itself, his little
soldier was standing at rapt attention, very much interested in the goings
on.

"And whose fault is that?" Michelle teased him, letting some of the water
dripping from her cloth fall onto the head of his penis.  "Chrissie and I
managed to keep ourselves amused when we really needed it."

"That's right," Chrissie put in, dabbing softly at the flesh of his inner
thighs, "why if it wasn't for Shellie keeping me happy, I would've divorced
you for sexual neglect."

"We were starting to think you weren't interested," Michelle told him.

"As you can see," Brett told them, raising his hips upward a little, trying
to get one of them to touch him, "I'm interested now."

Neither one made any move to put their hands upon his penis.  Instead, they
simply kept scrubbing him, going through a rinse cycle now.

"There is something that we probably should tell you though," Chrissie said,
her voice a little more serious.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Well..." she said, looking over at Michelle for support.  Michelle nodded
to her encouragingly.  "Well... the fact is... that I...

"We," Michelle corrected.

"We," Chrissie agreed.  "We haven't been entirely... well... faithful to you
during this dry spell."

Brett looked at her, wondering if she was being serious or not.  She
certainly looked as if she was.  But she couldn't really be trying to tell
him that she... that she AND Michelle, had cheated on him, could she?  "What
do you mean?" he asked carefully.

"I uh... well... I seduced Maggie," she finally blurted.

"You... seduced Maggie?" he asked, the vision of Chrissie and Maggie making
love together rising into his head.  It was not an unpleasant image in the
least.

She nodded, her face a little shamed.  "After the first hit and run attacks
we made," she told him.  "I couldn't help it Brett.  I was horny and you
weren't around and Shellie was asleep and Maggie and I were naked together
getting cleaned up and... well... I did it."

"You did it?" he asked, wanting more details than that.

"I started touching her," she said.  "And then... and then I ate her out."

"Wow," he said, staring at Chrissie, finding himself quite aroused by what
she was telling him.  As Michelle had suspected, he was not the least bit
upset by this admission.  "And then what happened?  You said Michelle was
involved?"

And so they told him the entire, sordid story, taking turns narrating it and
turning him on greatly in the process.  He particularly enjoyed the tale of
their last encounter in the storage room.

"And so you sat on her face?" he asked, fighting to keep his hand away from
his turgid penis.

By now, Chrissie was starting to see the effect that their admission was
having upon him.  Her nervousness at confessing her actions was being
quickly replaced by sexual stimulation.  "Yeah," she said, her eyes shining.
"I sat on her face and she stuck her tongue all the way up inside of me.  It
felt so good Brett."

"Did she make you come?"

"Oh yeah," she said, rubbing her legs together now as she felt moisture
seeping out of her.  "Her face was drenched by the time I was done."

"And YOU ate Maggie out while she was doing this?" he asked Michelle, who
was also showing unmistakable signs of arousal now.

"I made her scream," she confirmed.  Unable to help herself any longer, she
reached over and took him into her hand, slowly stroking up and down.

"Ahhhh," he groaned at the touch.  "Well, needless to say, I forgive you
both.  In fact... ohh that's the way..."

"Let me help," Chrissie said, reaching over and putting her hand on him
below Michelle's.  She began to stroke as well.

"You were saying Brett?" Michelle prompted as they developed a pleasing
rhythm.

"Oh," he said, finding it suddenly hard to concentrate.  "I was just saying
that if you ever want to... you know... have some fun with Maggie again...
well, I'm not about to complain about it.  It sounds like the poor girl
needs a little release now and then."

The two women exchanged a smile with each other.  "Well, as a matter of
fact," Michelle said, "that's kind of what we wanted to talk to you about -
Maggie needing release."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Chrissie confirmed, reverting back to nervousness a little -
although this did not prevent her from continuing to stroke up and down.
"You see, Maggie is... well... lonely.  She hasn't had a man of her own
since the comet you know.  And she and I... and Shellie... we've been
talking a lot lately.  And she thinks you're really nice... and... and..."
She trailed off, unsure how to continue.

"Are you saying that you want me to fuck Maggie?" Brett asked carefully,
thinking that he must be wrong.  A man's wives wouldn't ask him to fuck
someone else, would they?

"Well," Michelle said, taking over for the moment, "we probably wouldn't
have termed it that way.  We would've said "make love to Maggie", but yes,
that is what Chrissie was suggesting in that cute, shy little way that she
has."

"I'm not shy," Chrissie said, half-playful, half-offended.  "I've just never
asked anyone anything like this before.  It's so weird."

"Like I have?" Michelle said with a grin.

"Wait a minute here," Brett said, letting his hands drop from their legs.
"Let me just get this straight here.  You two, my wives, are telling me that
you want me to have sexual relations with another woman.  Is that what
you're saying?"

"Not just sex," Michelle told him.  "We want you to... you know... let
Maggie in on our relationship."

"Let her in on it?" he asked, even more surprised now.

"At least on a trial basis," Chrissie said.  "We both like her a lot and she
needs a man.  She wants to be part of a family... OUR family."

"And Chrissie and I think she would make a good addition," Michelle said.

"Wow," Brett said, a little overwhelmed.

"If it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out," Chrissie said.  "But we'd
like to at least give it a try.  I think it'll work.  Maggie's really sweet.
She's not at all like she used to be when Jessica was here.  She's changed a
lot."

"She knows what's important now," Michelle added.  She smiled a little.
"AND, she's got really nice fake titties.  You could tit-fuck her without
even having to hold them together."

This cracked Brett up.  He spewed laughter at the serious way in which
Michelle had thrown that in.  It also served to break a little bit of the
tension.  He shook his head in amusement when his laughter died down.  "Like
I told you before," he said to them.  "I'm a man.  There's no way in hell
that I'm going to turn down the addition of another woman into the equation.
To do so would be... well... unmanly."

Michelle and Chrissie both smiled at him gratefully.  "I thought you would
feel that way," Michelle told him.  "In fact, I anticipated it."  She turned
to the door.  "Come on in Mags," she yelled.  "You're all set up."

Brett looked at them in surprise.  "You mean Maggie is HERE?  Right now?
She's been here this entire time?"

Michelle nodded.  "A little liberty on our part," she told him.  "We knew
you would agree to this, so we worked to avoid all possible delays in the
initiation."

"It helps keep people from changing their minds," Chrissie put in.

"You two are conniving," Brett said, not disrespectfully.

Maggie appeared in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a tight shirt that
accented her unnatural breasts nicely.  She had a nervous, shy smile upon
her face, as if she wasn't completely sure what she was doing here.  She
hesitated just inside the room, looking from face to face uncertainly.  She
seemed to be trying to avoid looking at the erect pole that was being
stroked by the two women although her eyes kept flitting to it.

"Come on in Mags," Chrissie said, waving her into the room.  "Brett has
agreed to bring you in on a trial basis.  How does that sound?""

"Umm..." she said, stammering, her face flushing with embarrassment.  "It
sounds... uh... you know?"

"We know," Maggie told her.  "Now come on in and get a piece of this.  You
know you want it."

She stepped further into the room, her steps that of a child learning to
walk.  Her eyes took a longer look at Brett's erection, not flitting away
this time.

"Welcome to the family," Brett, who was a little nervous himself, told her.
"You come highly recommended."


+++++


The next day dawned with the Auburn guard force minus three more of its
members.  None of the three had committed any act that could be construed as
criminal or negligent - all had in fact been among the best of those that
Madeline had trained after the revolution.  Their crime had been their
friendship and support of Madeline and their criticism - spoken to friends
but overheard by Jessica's cronies - of the earlier removals, particularly
Madeline herself.  The reason for their removal that had been given by
Jessica was "questionable loyalties" and "possible seditious acts being
contemplated".  They were replaced by members of Jessica's clique, none of
whom had been through the training course and two of whom had never even
handled a firearm before.

By 10:30 that morning the first death attributed to Jessica's takeover of
the guard detail was logged.  Peggy Linscott, one of the untrained women,
accidentally shot Regina Navas with her M-16 rifle while trying to get the
feel of it.  She had been examining the various levers and switches of the
gun as it lay on her lap with her finger inside the trigger guard.  When she
pulled the barrel of the weapon up to get a closer look at the safety
switch, the weapon went off, sending a 5.56 millimeter bullet five feet
across the bunker where it struck Regina - another one of the new guards -
in the side of the head.  She never knew what hit her.

Peggy was not punished for her accident.  She was not even removed from the
detail.  Despite the fact that she was now a nervous wreck, racked with
guilt over what had happened, she was told to stand the rest of the watch
and be more careful.  Regina was buried just outside of town in an unmarked
grave that was dug by former members of the guard detail.

Word of these events was brought to Madeline in the high school building by
other exiles from the guard force that had contact with townspeople outside
of Jessica's circle.  Jessica had been foolishly of the opinion that the
incident could be kept quiet.  Madeline did nothing for the moment.  Though
saddened by the useless death, she knew that it would most likely not be in
vain.  She kept washing her towels and hanging them on the overburdened
lines in the gymnasium until nearly 2:00 PM when the moment she had been
waiting for finally occurred.

"Madeline?" a voice said from the doorway.  "Can I have a word with you for
a minute?"

Madeline pulled her hands from the soapy water and looked up to see Kathy
Kingsley standing in the doorway.  Kathy had once been a nurse in Sutter
Auburn Hospital (before the entire side of town it had been in was buried
under billions of tons of mud).  She had been off work on the day of the
comet and had been traded back and forth between husbands no less than six
times during the reign of the men.  Kathy was in charge of their medical
supplies and had trained up several other women to help her take care of any
sickness or injury that occurred.  She was neither a friend of Jessica's nor
of Madeline's.  She was in fact very apolitical as were most of the town's
women.  She had no wish to get involved in any of the movings or shakings
that made the town run, preferring instead to simply do her job and live her
life.

"Hi Kathy," Madeline said, looking at her, keeping her expression carefully
bland.  "What brings you down here to the slave galley?"

Kathy cracked no smile at her joke.  "I need to talk to you," she said,
walking closer but taking a quick look behind her first to see if she were
being observed by anyone.  "It's very important."

"Well come on in," Madeline said.  "I'm about due for my break anyway."

She came closer, obviously very nervous about being seen, and stopped just
before the pool of soapy water containing the previous day's towels.  "I'm
here," she said, "at the request of some of the other women in town."

"Oh?"

She nodded.  "I'm not a leader or a radical or anything like that," she
said.  "Usually my policy is to keep well out of things.  Do you
understand?"

"I do," Madeline told her.  "But things are different now, aren't they?"

"They are," she agreed, taking another glance towards the doorway.  "Look,"
she said.  "Some of the women asked me if I would come talk to you about...
well... Jessica."

"I see," she said, continuing to keep her expression normal.  "And what did
they want you to talk to me about?"

"She's crazy," Kathy said.  "She's drunk half of the time and she's popping
pills the other half of the time.  We all know that she is the one that
brought in the revolution and all and we're really grateful to her for
that... but... she's not handling being a leader very well."

"Oh really?" Madeline said sarcastically, letting her expression slip just a
bit.

"Everyone supported her at first," Kathy said.  "She organized us and helped
us get rid of the men.  But now she's taking all of the girls who know what
they're doing off of the guard detail.  She replaced you and a lot of your
people just because you spoke out against her.  She's torturing the men that
are left.  Granted, a lot of those assholes deserved to be mistreated after
what they put us through - hell, I should know that better than anyone - but
she's gone over the edge about it.  I was in charge of trying to treat that
poor slob that they killed with the crowbar.  I also treated all of the
others.  No one deserves to have THAT done to them.  And anyone who condones
that sort of activity is not someone we want leading us.

"I agree," Madeline said.  "And I tried to talk to her about it.  That's
what got me here."

"She's not fit to lead this town," Kathy said.  "Something needs to be done
about her.  And quickly.  Pretty soon the men will be back in town and we'll
have to fight them.  It will be a tough fight even with everyone trained
highly and ably led.  It will be a pushover with those incompetent boobs we
have now.  And with each day that passes, the men get closer and closer to
town and the guard detail gets less and less efficient.  Hell, Linda Swenson
told me that guard position four was kept unmanned ALL night last night
because all of Jessica's guards were at her little party."

"I heard that one as well," Madeline said.  "But why are you telling me
this?  What is it that you want me to do about it?  I'm in the goddamn
laundry detail."

"We want you to do SOMETHING," Kathy said.  "And we want you to do it fast.
And the reason that I'm here is to tell you that whatever it is that you do,
you'll have the support of the ones like me."

"The ones like you?"

"The ones that don't ordinarily give a damn what happens.  The ones that
aren't in her little club.  We make up most of the town you know and in this
case, we DO give a damn."  She looked at Madeline firmly.  "Get rid of her.
You'll have our support.  I haven't talked to all of them but I've talked to
most of the leaders of the various little cliques we have among ourselves.
We want to stay free and in control of our own destinies.  We don't want
things to go back to the way they were.  With Jessica in charge and doing
whatever she pleases, that's going to happen, either through the men or
through HER as she gets her hooks a little further into us.  When push comes
to shove, you'll have our vote for whatever action you see fit to take.
WHATEVER action, do you understand?"

Madeline smiled a little.  "Yes," she said.  "I believe I understand."


+++++


Madeline wasted no time.  She left the laundry room shortly after Kathy's
departure, abandoning her tubful of towels and her lines.  She made her way
through the bowels of the high school building and quickly rounded up
Darlene, who was working her way through the mound of breakfast dishes with
the aid of several other women.

"Darlene," she said, waving her over.  "I need a word with you."

Darlene excused herself and trotted over.  Words were exchanged for nearly
five minutes, during which Darlene's expression went from misery to shock to
barely controlled restraint.

"Are you in?" Madeline asked her when she was done.

"I'm in," she said fearfully.  "But are you sure this will work?"

"It'll work," she assured her.  "Will any of your dish detail help us?"

"All of them will help us," she answered.  "No doubt about it.  All of them
are here because they crossed Jessica in some way."

"Bring them over here."

Darlene brought them over.  Ten minutes later they were all involved.

A few minutes later Darlene, Madeline, and their new recruits slipped out
through an unguarded side door and began fanning out into the town.  They
visited the firewood detail, the garbage detail, the hot water detail, and
several other job sites that were full of women that had been assigned there
because of their problems with Jessica.  Many of the women they talked to
were the former guards that had been removed from their positions and had no
problems agreeing to what Madeline was proposing.  All of them knew that it
was time.

Thirty minutes later, just as the guards inside of the administration
building were discovering that a great many workers had wandered off, a
group of thirty women led by Madeline herself came walking up the street
through the rain.  They approached in a loose formation, moving slowly, not
a single one carrying any weapons of any kind.  They came up the walkway and
towards the main steps of the building.  It is perhaps a testament to the
ineffectiveness of the guard force that they were not noticed until they
were less than fifty feet from the building.

When they were noticed however, the two guards out front rushed out to meet
them, calling for reinforcements on their portable radios.  Within seconds
two more teams of guards - one from inside the building, one from the
outside back of the building - came running over, their automatic weapons
clanking, their faces fearful.  The two groups met at the bottom of the
concrete steps, the guards all pointing weapons at the crowd, the crowd only
standing impassively.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Brandy Olsen, the 28 year old leader
of the perimeter guards.  She was one of the original guards trained by
Madeline after the revolution and one of Jessica's inner circle.  She had
used Jessica's influence several times in the past to keep from being
assigned to night shift posts and to get days off for the parties.  She had
in fact been one of the women to drive a crowbar into Greg Rollins a few
nights before.  Her M-16 was pointed directly at Madeline's face, the barrel
trembling a little with motion transmitted from her shaky hands.  Her finger
was curled tightly around the trigger, perhaps exerting about half of the
pull necessary to make the weapon fire.

Madeline didn't even look at the finger, didn't acknowledge the gun in any
way.  "This," she said strongly and firmly, "is a military takeover of the
town."

Brandy looked at her incredulously.  Behind her, the other guards all
tittered a little.  "You have got to be kidding," she said.

"I don't kid," Madeline told her.  "We've come to take Jessica into custody.
Stand aside and let us enter the building."

"You are out of your damn mind," Brandy said.  "How dare you leave your work
station in the middle of the day.  How dare you lead these other women up
here and spout crap like that.  This group will disband immediately and
return to work or ALL of you will be locked up until Jessica deals with
you."

Everyone held firm, continuing to stare back at the guards.

"Did you hear me?" Brandy demanded.  "Disperse immediately.  You're all
already in a lot of trouble.  Don't make it worse on yourself."

"What are you going to do if we don't disperse?" Madeline asked her calmly.
"Are you going to shoot us down like dogs?  We're unarmed Brandy."

"If that's what it takes, I'll do it," she said.  "Don't bring us to that
point.  Now disperse!"

"There will be no dispersal," Madeline said.  "We've come for Jessica and we
will have her."

"We WILL shoot you," Brandy warned.  "Don't think that we won't!"

"Oh, but that's exactly what I think," Madeline said.  "I don't think that
you will shoot anyone Brandy and I know that most of those women behind you
won't shoot either."  She turned her gaze on the rest of the guards, looking
each one in the eye in turn.  "None of you have become so dehumanized that
you're willing to gun down unarmed women, have you?"

"Don't try us," Brandy said.  "I'm warning you."

"No," Madeline said, "I'm warning you.  Put your weapons down and stand
aside.  You all know as well as I do that Jessica is not fit to rule this
town.  Even you Brandy, even you who goes to her little parties and helps
her torture the men, even you know that we're in a world of trouble with her
at the controls.  She's a madwoman and she needs to be removed.  You can
shoot me if you want, you can kill all of us if you want, but that won't
change the fact and it certainly won't keep Jessica from being removed from
power.  My companions and I are liberators and we have the opinion of the
entire town on our side - the entire town minus Jessica and her small circle
of cronies that is.  If any of you shoot any of us, I can guarantee that you
will stand trial for murder once Jessica is gone.  And as you know, we have
but one penalty for murder here - hanging."

"Jessica is not going anywhere," Brandy said.  "She is the leader of this
town and she will continue to be the leader of this town.  And I will shoot
anyone who tries to enter that building without her permission and so will
the other guards!"

"No," said a voice from behind her.  It belonged to Caroline Matthews, one
of the few women still friendly with Madeline that was left on the guard
force.  "We will not shoot."  She lowered her weapon, allowing the barrel to
point at the ground.  "Maddy is right.  Jessica needs to be removed.  We all
know it and I will not help stop them."

Brandy took her eyes off of Madeline long enough to glare at Caroline.  "I
might've expected this out of YOU," she spat at her.  "Unload your weapon
and take it inside immediately.  You are relieved of your duties as of this
moment."

"I won't shoot either," said another voice, this one belonging to Linda
Weatherly, who was a recent replacement for one of Madeline's people.
"Things have gone too far around here."

"You fucking coward!" Brandy accused hotly.  "You're relieved as well!"

"Coward?" she returned, lowering her own weapon.  "You call me a coward?  I
cut the throat of that raping asshole that lived in my house in the middle
of the night.  I cut his throat and then I helped take down the guards in
front of the community center without a gun!  Don't you call ME a coward
just because I won't shoot women who are only doing what needs to be done!"

"Damn right," said another woman from behind her - yet another replacement
for Madeline's people.  She lowered her weapon as well.  "Let Maddy in
there.  It needs to be done."

This left two women besides Brandy herself who were still pointing guns.
These final two were like Brandy, Madeline-trained but Jessica loyal,
frequent recipients of her favors.  They wavered uneasily as all eyes turned
to them.

"Well girls?" Maddy asked them.  "It's time to make a choice now, isn't it?
Who are you going to follow?"

"Stand by me," Brandy told them in a threatening, nervous tone.  "Remember
who your leader is.  Stand by me and we'll nip this little uprising right in
the bud."

At that point things might very well have held at an impasse if not for the
appearance of the townspeople.  Gathered and told to assemble by other
members of Madeline's conspiracy, they came from every direction, walking in
groups of ten and twenty, women of all shapes and sizes, many with small
children in tow.  They formed up just behind the two opposing groups,
standing there silently, their eyes trained on the spectacle before them.
In all more than four hundred of them showed up.

"All of you!" Brandy yelled as she saw them.  "Return to your homes
immediately!  This does not concern you!"

"It DOES concern us!" A voice yelled out.  It was the voice of Kathy, who
was standing near the front of the crowd.  "It concerns every last one of
us.  These women are acting in our name and they have our support for their
actions.  Let them pass!"

"They are attempting to unseat the lawful leader of this town!"  Brandy
yelled back at them.  "It WILL not be allowed."

Madeline ignored the crowd behind her.  Instead, she continued to stare at
the two guards next to Brandy.  "What's it going to be girls?" she asked
them almost quietly.  "You can see what's happening here.  Which side are
you going to be on?"

One by one they lowered their weapons down, seeming almost relieved to be
doing it.  A murmur of approval erupted in the crowd at their actions.  "I'm
on the right side," said one.

"As am I," said the other.

Brandy was actually trembling now as she found herself standing alone.  She
gave a murderous glare to Madeline.  "This isn't over," she said.  "You
still have to get by me."

"It IS over," said Caroline.  There was a clank as her weapon came back up
to position.  Only this time it was pointing at Brandy.  "Lower that rifle,
right now."

"This is treason!" Brandy yelled.

"Call it what you want," Linda Weatherly said, bringing her weapon to bear
on her former supervisor as well.  The three other guards quickly followed
suit.  "But put down the rifle.  It's over Brandy."

Brandy looked at the rifle barrels pointing at her.  There were five of
them, three aimed at her head, two at her body.  She knew that if she pulled
the trigger on her own weapon that she would be dead before Madeline's body
even hit the ground.  But would it be worth it?  Would it be fitting for her
to die defending her leader?

She thought not.  Her finger came off the trigger and the barrel slowly
lowered so it was pointing at the ground.  Another sigh of relief came
through the crowd.

"Cassie, Lynn," said Madeline.  "Take her into custody.  Hold her out here
until we're done inside."

"Right," agreed two of the women with her.  They moved up and stripped
Brandy of all of her weapons and her radio.  She didn't protest.

Madeline helped herself to Brandy's sidearm - a 9mm Glock.  She checked to
make sure a round was in the chamber and then held it in her right hand.
"The rest of you," she said to her group, "follow me.  We're going inside."

As the crowd watched in anticipation, Madeline marched up the steps, her
followers in tow.  They entered the school building and moved across the
lower office area, their feet squeaking over the tiled surface.  Several
workers - both of the Madeline and the Jessica clique (the former clique
mopping and cleaning, the latter doing meaningless office tasks) stared at
them fearfully as they went by, all cognizant that a historical event was
taking place.  They moved up the staircase to the luxury offices of the
principal and vice-principal, where Barnes had once made his quarters, where
Jessica now did.  Alice sat at her desk in the outer office.  She looked as
if she was expecting them.  She hardly even glanced at the gun in Madeline's
hand.

"Is she in the office or the bedroom?" Madeline asked Alice.

"In the office," Alice told her without hesitation.  "She's alone."

"I see," Madeline said.  "And whose side are you on Alice?  You've been her
assistant since the revolution."

"You know whose side I'm on," she told her.

Madeline nodded, smiling a little.  Yes, she did know whose side Alice was
on.  It had been Alice who had been providing her with information about
Jessica's drinking and partying habits the entire time.  It had been Alice
who had described, in horrified disgust, the events involving Greg Rollins
the other night.  "I do," she said to her now.  "I just wanted everyone else
to hear it.  Is the office locked?"

"It's open," Alice said.  "She's pretty drunk.  She drank bloody mary's all
morning.  She just switched to screwdrivers about a half hour ago."

"Thanks Alice," Madeline said.  She walked forward, heading for the office
door.  Her group tagged behind her, staying about five feet back.  Keeping
the gun down alongside her right hip, she put her left hand on the door and
slowly opened it.

The office was neat but smelled strongly of stale sweat and alcohol fumes.
Jessica sat behind her desk, a pile of paperwork scattered before her.  A
bottle of Popov vodka sat on the corner of the desk next to a bucket of ice
and a half-gallon pitcher of orange juice.  On the opposite corner sat a
clear cocktail glass.  The mixture inside of it was very pale, almost
transparent.  Jessica looked up at the intrusion, her bloodshot eyes taking
in her visitor.  Alarm showed on her face and she began to reach for the
walkie-talkie.

"It won't do you any good," Madeline told her, stepping into the room.  She
kept the gun pointed downward, alongside her leg, in a non-threatening
though clearly visible position.  "The guards outside are mostly in favor of
my presence here.  Those that aren't have been removed or will be shortly."

"Alice!"  Jessica yelled, the alarm in her face growing deeper.

"Alice is with us as well," Madeline said, stepping closer.  Behind her, the
other women entered the room, filing in one by one and forming up near the
back wall.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jessica said, the alarm changing to fury.
Her words however, were quite slurred as she spoke.

"We are removing you from power," Madeline said.  "You will be taken into
custody pending a community-wide assembly in which your fate will be
discussed."

"You can't do that," she said.  "How dare you come in here and..."

"I AM doing this," Madeline said.  "In the interests of town safety, I am
removing you from office and resuming my duties as security chief.  I will
assume command of the town until such time as we can elect a more suitable
leader than yourself."

"Guards!" Jessica screamed.  "Get in here!  Get these bitches out of my
office!"

"You can scream all you want Jess," Madeline said.  "But you will stand up
right now and accompany me downstairs.  We will meet tonight and discuss
your fate and your future place in this town."

"Get out of my office," she hissed, venom in her eyes.  "I am the leader of
this town and you can not just come in here and tell me you're taking over.
I was elected to lead these people and I will lead them as I see fit!"

"Consider this a recall vote then," Madeline said, taking a step closer.
"Now stand up."

"You can't do this!" she screamed.  "You'll hang for this!  Even worse,
you'll BURN for this!  I'll do to you what we did to that asshole Barnes, do
you understand me?  Guards!  Get in here!"

Madeline said nothing, she just continued to stare.  The women behind her
did the same.  No guards entered the room.

"Guards!" Jessica screamed again.

"Stand up Jess," Madeline said.  "It's time to go."

"I won't go!" she yelled.  "Do you hear me you little bitch?  This is MY
town!  MINE!  Nobody is going to take me away from it!  NO ONE!"

Madeline raised her gun up and pointed it at her.  "Stand up," she repeated.

Jessica actually trembled in place for a moment as she stared at the weapon
being pointed at her.  "This isn't over," she said.  "I'll talk to them
tonight.  I'll convince them.  I'll see you burn for this you little cunt!"

"You'll be given a chance to speak," Madeline assured her.  "Now stand up.
Don't make this go any harder than it has to."

At last, Jessica stood up.  Holstered to her right hip was a .40 caliber
pistol.  She made no move towards it.

Madeline stood aside, continuing to point the gun at her.  "Disarm her,
search her, and take her downstairs," she said to the other women.  "Keep
her under guard until tonight."

Jessica offered no physical resistance as she was disarmed and searched (a
.25 caliber pistol was found in a small holster on her ankle).   What she
did do was threaten every single woman in the room by name, telling each of
them that they would burn or hang or be exiled or be cast into a room alone
and naked with the remaining men.  The women exhibited remarkable restraint
in the face of these threats.   Not a single one struck her or handled her
roughly or even spoke back to her.  Finally, still ranting and raving (and
stumbling - the vodka had made her unsteady on her feet), she was led away,
down the staircase, past the other workers in the building, and into a
locked storage room.  Two armed guards from outside took up position outside
the door.

"What now?" asked Kathy, who had found her way inside at some point.

"Now," said Madeline, who was still holding the Glock in her right hand, "I
have to get control of the guard force."

"The guard force?" she asked.

"The guard force," she confirmed.  "Remember that most of them are Jessica
loyalists now.  They may not be competent, but they have control of a good
number of our automatic weapons.  If they decide to fight for her, we could
have problems."

"Oh..." Kathy said slowly.  She hadn't thought about that.  "How are you
going to do it?"

"Quickly," she said.  "Very quickly.  Before the rumors have a chance to
work their way out there."


+++++



Madeline rapidly found all of the former guard members that had been removed
from their positions by Jessica.  Since most of them were part of the crowd
that had gathered, it was not too daunting of a task.  She led them to the
armory and distributed weapons to them, giving each a pistol and an
automatic rifle.  She divided them into teams and gave each team leader a
radio.  As they loaded and checked their weapons she explained to them how
they were going to do it.  There were no questions.

"Let's get it done then," she said, shouldering her own M-16.

They fanned out in groups of two and three, each group heading for one of
the guard posts.  Madeline went to the nearest post - that of the bridge
approach - driving there with her two teammates in a panel truck that was
normally used for wood gathering.  Jessica's replacement leader - who was in
custody at the moment - was not in the habit of keeping accurate rosters of
who was on duty at any given moment.  As a result, Madeline had no idea who
she was going to find out there or even how many.  When she was in charge
she had staffed the bridge approach with three women but it was entirely
possible that someone had a hangover or was planning on attending a party
tonight and had therefore no-showed.

Madeline hung back until she was sure that all of her other teams were in
position.  She then told Annie Groton, the driver, to move across the
bridge.  It took them less than two minutes before they were parked below
the hill that guarded this part of town.

"Remember the plan," Maddie told her people as they exited the panel truck
and began climbing up the hill towards the overlook.

They were challenged before they could make it more than a hundred feet.  A
group of people packing automatic weapons tended to alarm those on guard
duty, competent or not.  Madeline, listening in on the guard frequency with
a portable radio, heard Lorene Morgan - one of Jessica's appointees - trying
to call in for assistance.

"Base, are you there?" she cried, her voice scared.  "There are a group of
women led by Maddy coming up the hill right now.  They have GUNS!  Did you
send them out here?  What's going on?"

"Base, position three here," said another voice on the frequency.  "I have a
group of four women with guns approaching MY position.  What's going on?"

Two other positions quickly radioed in as well, in both cases the voices
belonging to Jessica loyalists.

"This is Maddy," Madeline said into the radio as she and her team continued
to walk upward.  "I'm addressing all guard positions, all guards, so listen
up.  Jessica Blakely has been forcibly removed as leader of this community.
The charges are gross incompetence, dereliction of duty, and abuse of power.
There will be a community meeting tonight in the high school football
stadium, at which point her fate will be decided by a POPULAR vote of ALL
town women.  She will be given the oppurtunity to defend herself before you
all.

"In the meantime, I'm assuming command of the guard force.  Now you can
debate my actions tonight at the community meeting and I will follow
whatever the popular opinion is.  For the time being however, I'm in charge
of you all and I expect you to follow my orders.  And here they are: All
guards currently on duty who have not - I repeat NOT been through the
training course that I gave after the revolution - put down your firearms
right now and go back to town.  You will be replaced by other guards that
were removed from the detail by Jessica for reasons other than incompetence
of duty.  If you do as I say without resistance, you will not be persecuted
or punished in any way for your actions.  If you do NOT do as I say, then I
will order your removal by force if necessary.

"As for the rest of you, those that HAVE gone through my training course - I
will ask you to make a choice at this time.  If you are willing to follow my
orders until such time as I am officially removed from the position of guard
leader, than you may stay at your posts.  If you feel that you are unwilling
to work under my rules - and all of you have experienced my rules before -
then I ask you to do as the untrained guards and surrender your weapons
right now.  As with them, if you do this, you will not be punished or
persecuted.

"Now, I imagine many of you out there that are friends of Jessica are asking
yourselves why you should do as I command.  Jessica removed me from my
position a few days ago and I have no authority under her rule to command
any of you.  What I will say in response to this is that while I am not
acting with Jessica's consent, I AM acting with the consent of the majority
of the town.  I'm talking about the common women, those that never had a
chance to talk to Jessica, that sat in the background while she reigned,
that were NOT within her circle of friends as many of you are.  I will say
that this group I represent makes up the majority of this town and that they
applaud my actions.  Resistance to them would not be a good way of remaining
in their graces.  Coming up to your positions right now are armed women that
are loyal to me.  They will take over the duties and take possession of the
weapons of those of you that no longer wish to remain on the detail.  They
will assume these positions by force if necessary.  Let's try not to make it
necessary."

Madeline took a deep breath, keeping the radio keyed up.  "Ladies, whether
you were close to Jessica or not, you have to know that she is not fit to
lead this town.  You also have to know that the guard force, in it's current
condition, does not have a hope in hell of defeating the men when they
return.  And those men will be here any time now - they could be marching
towards the last hill right now.  Let's not fight among ourselves and lose
this town to them.  Those of you who do not belong on the detail, do us a
favor and drop your weapons peacefully.  Those of you who were Jessica's
patrons, either do the same or remain at your posts.  Let the town decide
what to do with me and what to do with Jessica.

"That's all I have to say.  My people are heading to your posts.  If you
shoot at them or try to stop them, they will shoot back."

With that, Madeline put the radio back on her belt.  No transmission came
over it, either in support of her or against her.  She and her team
continued walking up the hill to the guard bunker.  They could have been
picked off at any time, but they weren't.  When they got up there they found
Lorene Morgan standing next to Hope Chadwick.  Their hands were empty and
their rifles were resting at the bottom of the trench.

"I'm glad you chose the right path," Madeline told them, holding out her
hand for their sidearms.

They both handed them over while the two real guards picked up their rifles.
"I don't like this Maddy," Lorene said.  "I don't like this at all.  I'm
going to vote for the harshest penalty for you tonight."

"Me too," Hope said.  "I only dropped my gun because I didn't want to get in
a gunfight."

"Vote any way you like," Madeline told them.  "That's what democracy is all
about, isn't it?  But why don't you ask yourselves a question before you
cast that vote?  Why don't you ask yourself if you're mad about me removing
Jessica because you think she's a great leader or because you know that
you're going to lose your special privileges and be treated just like
everyone else?"

"Fuck you," Hope said, turning away.  She started down the hill.

"I'm voting to hang you," Lorene told her.  She started after her companion.

Madeline watched them go, not even pretending to have hurt feelings from
their words, not even pretending to worry.  "It's a bummer when your friend
in high places goes to jail, isn't it?" she said.  She turned to her guards.
"You two have the watch until you're relieved.  Thank you for standing with
me."

"There was never any question," she was told.


+++++


Of the Jessica loyalists that had been trained by Madeline, six of them
chose to remain at post under Madeline's rules and three elected to drop
their weapons and leave the security detail.  None of them tried to fight
her forces, perhaps more out of the realization that they would eventually
be tried and convicted of treason then out of fear of losing the battle.  Of
the untrained replacements, twelve of them surrendered their weapons
peacefully but the remaining two, both at the same guard position - position
five, which overlooked the main approach to the town and was staffed by six
people - vowed that they would fight.  A struggle ensued with the other four
guards on duty there long before Madeline's people came up the hill.  One of
them - Kelly Cordova, a closet lesbian who was secretly in love with
Jessica - was shot and killed.  The other - Diana Scott, Kelly's best
friend - was wrestled to the ground and taken into custody.

An hour after Jessica was seized in the high school building, Madeline was
firmly in control of the town and all of its automatic weapons.  By two
hours after, the entire town had been informed that a mass meeting would
take place that night at the high school stadium.

As Madeline had known it would be, the official vote removing Jessica from
power was so overwhelming that it did not even require a count, not even
with the two-thirds majority rule in effect.  Jessica herself was given the
oppurtunity to speak on her own behalf but, if anything, she only worsened
her own position with her rants and accusations, with her frequent tirades
about Auburn being HER town.

Having removed her from power, the town was left with the decision of what
to do with her next.  Should they exile her?  Should they imprison her?
Should they execute her?  Should they reassign her to some unpleasant job
and keep a close eye on her?  And what of her close companions?  Those that
had stood beside her even after Madeline took steps to rectify the
situation?  What of them?

It was Kathy, the unofficial leader of the town's silent majority, who was
able to convince most of the women where their best interests lie.  She
nervously took the podium after the debate had raged without agreement for
more than an hour.  "A lot of you out there," she told the women, "seem to
be hung up on the fact that Jessica was the driving force behind the
revolution that freed us from the slavery we had under the men.  This is
true.  She did do that and for that we will be eternally grateful to her.
She was able to organize us and empower us to strike out when the odds
favored us the most.  It is entirely possible that, without her influence
upon us, we would, at this moment, still be living as we were: playthings,
slaves, human beings without rights.

"However, Jessica's actions prior to the revolution should NOT be considered
now as we judge her actions after the revolution.  Nor should we base our
decision wholly on the crimes she has committed to date.  What we must do is
consider whether this person is dangerous to this community and may be
dangerous to us again in the future if allowed to walk among us.

"Jessica is a very charming, very persuasive person - her speech earlier
tonight not withstanding.  She has a gift for pulling others to her side,
for enlisting the aid of the weaker among us, for riling up sensitivities.
This gift was a blessing in our darkest hour.  It is a loaded weapon now
that that hour has passed.

"If she were allowed to stay here, I have no doubt that she would eventually
amass another following.  I have no doubt that she would constantly strive
to place herself back in power.  I do have doubts about this community's
ability to indefinitely resist her poisonous charms.  For this reason she is
a danger to us and will always be a danger to us.  You have seen what
happens when someone such as her is able to empower themselves.

"What I suggest, I do not suggest lightly.  But it is my belief that the
best course of action for this town is to exile Jessica Blakely permanently
from our borders and to send those that stood beside her to the last with
her.  I would suggest that we give them ample food, medicine, even weapons
with which to protect themselves.  My wish is not to send them out
unprotected and unfed to die.  But they must go and they must go
immediately; tomorrow morning at the break of day.  It is the only way we
will be safe from the tyranny that she represents."

And so it was decided.  The vote was made and the next morning, twenty
minutes after sunrise, Jessica and four of her followers were led out
through the maze of sandbags on the east side of town.  They were given one
pistol apiece and two hundred rounds of ammunition between them.  They were
given backpacks full of canned food - enough to last them nearly three
weeks.  And they were told to leave and never come back.

"God help you if I live through this," Jessica told Madeline as they parted
ways.

"I'll take my chances," Madeline, holding her M-16 in her hands, replied.
"Now go.  The guards have orders to shoot you if you step inside of our
borders again."

"That's nothing I haven't heard before," she replied with an arrogant smirk.
She turned on her heels and began to walk down the interstate, heading east.
Her four companions, all of them looking dejected and scared, trailed after
her.  They disappeared over the rise and out of the view of the perimeter
guards a few minutes later.  The recon positions that Madeline had set up to
watch for the return of the men picked them up a few minutes after that.
They reported that the five of them had left the interstate at the highway
49 junction and headed north.


+++++


It was two days later that those same recon positions - which were located
on the top of a small rise two miles down the interstate, hidden in thick
vegetation - spotted movement on the freeway lanes a half a mile to the east
of them.  At first they could hardly credit what they were seeing, could not
believe that THIS could possibly be the opposing force that they had been
waiting and training so long to counter.

"Those aren't the men from this town," said Annette Miller, one of
Madeline's recently reinstated guards.  "Look at them."

And indeed the group they were watching did look rather disheveled.  To the
last man they were limping along, not in any sort of military formation, all
of them filthy and heavily bearded.  Several of them were being helped along
by their companions.  Two others were being carried on litters.

"No, that IS them," said Caroline Matthews, her partner for the shift.  She
was looking through a pair of high-powered binoculars and the features of
the front man were clear enough to her despite the beard.  "That's Stinson.
I know that face.  It's him.  And there's Perkins, and Lamkins."  She moved
to other faces, calling out names as she recognized them.  "That's them,"
she declared.

Annette took a look through her own binoculars, seeing that Caroline was
correct.  These WERE the town men.  "Where are the rest of them?" She asked,
puzzled.  "Is this just the lead elements?  Are the rest hanging back?"

"I don't know," Caroline said nervously.  "Do you think maybe they know what
happened? About the revolution?  Maybe this is some sort of diversion."

"Something really strange is going on here," Annette said.  She picked up
the radio that they carried.  "Let's report in."  The radio was connected by
wire to an external antenna that was hidden in the trees above them.  It was
tuned to channel 38 on the citizens band - a channel that Madeline did not
think that the militia would be routinely monitoring.  "Recon 1 to base,
recon 1 to base," she said into it.  "Signal zero.  I repeat: signal zero."

Signal zero was the code word that the men had been spotted.  By speaking
it, Annette had set into motion a pre-planned and pre-practiced deployment
of every woman in town that was capable of carrying a gun and for which a
gun was available.  She knew that within ten minutes of her saying the
words, the bunkers and positions all along the east side of town and
especially along the entrance maze, would be staffed and ready to fight.

"This is base," Madeline's voice said, speaking calmly.  "Confirming signal
zero?"

"Affirm," Annette said.  "Maddy, I know we're supposed to speak in code
only, but there isn't a code for what I'm seeing out here.  I think we'd
better talk in the clear for a moment."

"Negative recon 1," Madeline replied.  "There's a chance they're monitoring.
Do the best you can with the code words and report immediately."

"Maddy," Annette insisted.  "I don't think they're listening.  There are
only..." she looked over at Caroline, who had been counting them.

"33," Caroline said.  "Not including the two on litters."

"There are only 33 of them," she finished.  "And they look like... like
they've been through some shit."

"Confirming thirty-three of them?"  Madeline asked.  "Three three?"

"That's affirmative," she said.  "We have only 33 of them in view at this
time and two in litters.  They have no rifles on them."

There was a long pause as she considered this information.  "Keep a watch on
them," she finally said.  "Initiate no contact or communication with them.
The rest have to be out there somewhere.  Let me know the instant you see
any sign of them."

"I copy," Annette told her.  "Continuing to watch."


+++++


Madeline was confused.  As all of her squad and platoon commanders checked
in, reporting that their positions were manned and ready, she tried to sort
through the facts in her head and come to some sort of conclusion.  Why were
only 33 men and a few wounded approaching the town?  What had happened to
the rest of them?  Surely the Garden Hill forces hadn't defeated the Auburn
militia, had they?  And if they had, there was no way they could have killed
465 people, was there?  Was there?

"Maybe the rest of them are lagging back with the prisoners," Kathy, who had
taken to hanging out with Madeline, suggested.

"They've never done that before," Madeline said.  "Usually they just march
in as a group.  And why don't they have any rifles?"

"I don't know," Kathy said.  "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

Madeline picked up her radio again.  "Base to recon 1.  Anything new out
there?"

"Nothing," Annette replied.  "They've all passed by us and are approaching
the last group of hills.  The main positions should pick them up in about
ten minutes.  No sign of anything or anyone behind them."

"I copy," she said slowly.

"And Maddy," Annette added.  "There's one other thing."

"What's that?"

"We got a good look at them as they passed in front of us," she said.  "They
don't look like they've been eating real well.  They're all really skinny
and their clothes are hanging off of them.  A lot of them don't even have
packs anymore, just sleeping bags."

Madeline and Kathy shared a look of confusion.  "I copy that Annette," she
said.  "Keep holding."

"They certainly sound like a group that hasn't done well in their war, don't
they?" asked Kathy.

"Yes," Madeline agreed.  "They do."

"So what now?"

"Let's get out to the main positions," she said.  "They should be calling in
for clearance to enter in about twenty minutes.  I guess we'll hear what
they have to say."


+++++


It had taken ten long days of marching along the freeway and through the
thick mud around the slides and washouts, but now, at long last, the end of
this horrible mission was finally in sight.  Stinson and the others were but
ghosts of their former selves, bordering on malnutrition and scurvy despite
the food supplies they had been given by their victorious enemies.  Two of
the wounded had died on the march back and two more were showing the first
signs of lethal infection from their wounds.  All group cohesion had
vanished more than a week before.  Now they were simply a bunch of men that
all happened to be heading for the same destination.  Conversation was
almost non-existent from day to day.

"There are the hills," Stinson said gratefully as he spotted the twin peaks
that guarded the entrance maze.  "Thank god."  His boots were falling apart
on his feet, so rotted from mud and water were they, and he was dealing with
a very nasty case of trench foot from the constant exposure to moisture.  At
times he hadn't even been sure where they were.  There was just the pain in
his legs and feet and the slapping of his tattered boots on the ground.  He
rarely even bothered worrying how Barnes was going to react when they
finally entered the town.

The other men grunted a little at his observation but none of them said
anything.  They kept moving onward, their eyes locked onto the maze, which
was just now becoming discernable in the distance.

As they came closer and closer it occurred to Stinson that he should
probably contact the guards out front on the radio.  He no longer remembered
the code word that had been assigned so long ago but he didn't think that
really mattered anymore.  He fished in his backpack for the portable radio,
finally locating it beneath some cans of chicken noodle.  The radio hadn't
been used since his surrender to the Garden Hill forces.  He wondered if it
even still worked.  Well, there was only one way to find out.

He clicked it on and tuned the selector to the guard frequency.  He took one
last look at the men but none of them seemed particularly interested in what
he was doing.  Were any of them worried about Barnes' reaction?  It
certainly didn't appear so.  He keyed up the radio.  "This is Sergeant
Stinson," he said into it.  "Acting commander of what's left of the task
force.  We're approaching the town and request entry."

He waited, knowing that the demands would start very soon.  What had
happened?  Where was everyone else?  And then there would be an extended
debriefing.  Would Barnes make him a scapegoat?  Would he execute him or
exile him for surrendering?  He found that he didn't really care one way or
the other.  He was too numb to care.

His level of interest in his surroundings came up a little however, when he
heard the reply on the radio.

"Mr. Stinson," a female voice said.  "This is Madeline Rook, acting leader
of the town of Auburn.  Welcome back to town.  You will find things have
undergone a fundamental change while you've been away."

Everyone stopped in their tracks as they heard this.  Even the wounded in
the litters raised their heads to stare.  "That was a bitch!" someone said
in disbelief.  "Did she say ACTING LEADER of Auburn?" asked another.

Stinson chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment before keying the radio
again.  "Please clarify exactly what you mean by a fundamental change," he
said.  "Where is Colonel Barnes and the rest of the men?"

"Barnes is dead," Madeline answered.  "So are most of the other men in town.
We cut their throats while they slept and assumed power for ourselves.
Barnes himself had his genitals removed from him and then was burned alive.
Only a few of the men that had been on guard duty at the time survived.  We
are in charge of all of the town's weapons that have been left behind -
which, as I'm sure you're aware - includes the majority of the automatic
weapons.  In addition, those of us that have prior military training have
taught the other women how to use them.  At this moment you have a whole lot
of guns pointed at you and a whole lot of fingers just itching to blow your
raping asses away.  If you do not wish that to happen, you will disarm
yourselves immediately and approach the maze.  You will be given further
instructions at that time."

Now the men were fully awake and aware.  They began to talk back and forth,
asking each other if what they were being told could possible be true.  The
bitches had taken over town?  They had killed Barnes and the other men?
They were pointing weapons at them right now?

"If what you say is true," Stinson said into the microphone, "then what are
your intentions towards us?"

"That depends upon what your intentions towards US are," Madeline answered
back.  "We are prepared to fight off all 400 of you if need be.  That is
what we have been training for and I believe that we are quite capable of
doing it."

"As you can see," Stinson said sourly, "there are considerably less than 400
of us at the moment.  Nor do we have any weapons except for our pistols.  Do
you intend to slaughter us?"

"We do not," Madeline said.  "It is our wish that you surrender to us
peacefully.  If you do so, I will guarantee that you will not be harmed.
However you must understand that you will not be allowed to leave.  If you
attempt to flee we will pursue you."

Stinson looked at the other men for a moment, seeking their input.  His
answer was no more than a bunch of weary shrugs.  He keyed up the radio.
"We have nowhere to go," he told Madeline.  "And we have very little food
with which to get there on.  I guess we don't really have a lot of choice in
the matter, do we?  Will you take care of our wounded?"

"As best we can," Madeline answered.  "Now if you will all remove your
weapons and drop them to the roadway, we can go about bringing you into the
town."

Another shrug was passed among the men and everyone unstrapped or unbuckled
their pistols.  No one bothered trying to keep one hidden.  There was really
no point in it.  Once they were disarmed, Madeline directed them to approach
the maze.

"Stinson," she said over the radio, "I want you to come through first and
alone.  Pass the radio to the next man and he will be given instructions
shortly.  I would like to have a few words with you before the rest come
in."

"I copy," Stinson said.  He handed the radio over to Jack Thomas, who just
happened to be standing next to him.  "See you on the other side," he told
him.

"Is this really a good idea?" Jack asked him, starting to have doubts about
being at the mercy of the women they had once dominated.

"I don't know," he said.  "But it's the only idea in town right now."  With
that he began walking through the maze.  It took him a few minutes to
navigate through its turns and he was cognizant of the weapons that were
undoubtedly tracking him the entire way.  What would be his fate on the
other side?  Would they shoot him in the head?  Would they imprison him?  Or
would they cut off his genitals and burn him at the stake?

Madeline herself was waiting for him on the other side.  The former junior
wife of the second-in-command of the militia, he recognized her immediately.
She was very beautiful and had been lusted after by many of the other men.
Offers to trade two women just for her had once been common.  She was, if
anything, even more beautiful now.  She no longer had that hollow, cowered
look that had been the signature of Auburn women.  She had a pistol strapped
to her waist and an M-16 slung over her shoulder.  Standing to the sides of
her and slightly back were several other heavily armed women.

"I trust you're not dumb enough to try something stupid," she said to him as
he emerged on the roadway.

"No," he said.  "I seem to be a little short on aggression these days.  I
trust that you'll keep your word and not shoot us down like dogs?"

"As long as you behave yourself," she told him, taking a step closer.  "What
happened to the rest of the men?"

"Dead," he said.  "Or deserted.  Mostly dead though."

"The Garden Hill forces killed more than 300 of you?"  She seemed to be
having a little bit of trouble with this concept.  It was understandable.

"It wasn't even that hard for them to do," Stinson said.  "They landed
troops in our path with their helicopter and chipped away at us the entire
march.  The hit us from the air at night.  Some of our people ran off and
took our food and ammo with them.  By the time we got into position to fight
we were already beaten.  Bracken and the other leaders were dead by then and
Stu was leading us.  The hundred or so of us that were left went up against
prepared defenses.  They murdered us with each attack that we made.  They
dropped homemade napalm on us from the air.  Finally I killed Stu myself and
surrendered to them."

Madeline searched his face for signs of deceit and found none.  She knew
that Stinson was telling her the truth.  "It would seem," she said slowly,
"that they knew you were coming?"

"They did," he agreed with a sigh.  "Jean and Anna told them."

"Jean and Anna?" she said, pleased.  "They made it there safely?"

"That's what we were told," he said.  He explained the conversation between
Stu and Brett that had taken place just before the final battle.  "So that's
how they knew to look out for us.  That's how they were able to start
hitting us on our second day of the march."

"All those people dead," Madeline said, shaking her head a little.  She was
still trying to come to grips with the idea that the men outside the maze
were all that she would have to deal with.  Her war was over before it could
even begin.

"And a few more on the way back," Stinson told her.  "And it was all for
nothing."

"It depends on whose point of view you're looking at it from," Madeline told
him.  "Because Barnes was so hot to take that town and because Bracken was
so hot to send so many men after it, we were able to do what we did.  And
guess what Stinson, the little bitch you used to call your wife is the one
that organized everyone.  What do you think about that?"

"Jessica?" he said, not even considering that it might've been one of the
other two.

"That's right," she said.  "Yet another gift to us from Garden Hill.  You
managed to piss her off just enough to rally everyone behind her."

"And where is she now?" he asked.  "Are we going to be turned over to our
former wives and dealt with that way?"

"Jessica has been exiled," Madeline told him.  "She turned out to be
somewhat of a mixed blessing.  She rallied us up to take over when the time
was right, but she proved to be an even worse leader than Barnes was.  She
was last seen heading in the direction of Grass Valley and Nevada City.  And
as for your other question - no, we're not going to turn you over to your
former wives.  To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure just WHAT we're
going to do with you now.  We've been so busy concentrating on keeping you
from taking the town back that we haven't gotten that far in the equation
yet."

"I see," he said, staring at her.  "So you may decide to burn us all alive
after all?"

"I don't think so," she told him.  "I think we've all had enough death and
enough cruelty to last us for a while.  Calmer heads are in control now.
Besides, men do have a certain use in a biological sense, don't they?"

"I suppose we do," he agreed.

"You'll be locked up with the other men for the time being," she told him.
"You'll work during the day and you'll be fed at night.  Other than that,
you'll be segregated from us until we decide what your place in this society
will be.  Maybe we'll be as controlling and oppressive as you were - but I
like to think that we won't."

"I guess time will tell then, won't it?" Stinson asked.

"I guess it will," she agreed.  "Now let's get you searched and get the rest
of them inside, shall we?"


+++++


That evening, in Garden Hill, Stacy was lying in bed, wearing nothing but a
flimsy maternity nightgown, trying to get herself to sleep.  Her body was
curled up against Jason's bare back, her enormous stomach pushing up against
him.  He was snoring lightly, his arms wrapped around Tina, who was sleeping
quite soundly on the other side of him.

Stacy was uncomfortable, which was a very relative term since she had been
quite uncomfortable for most of the entire third trimester of her pregnancy.
The last seven days had been the worst of all.  The baby had dropped down
and engaged in her pelvis, releasing the pressure on her diaphragm, which
made it a little easier for her to breathe, but putting tremendous pressure
on her bladder, which now felt as if it was constantly full.  It was feeling
like that now even though she had emptied it less than twenty minutes ago.
Also she was having strange aches in her back, cramping pains that felt as
if someone were sticking hot wires into her kidneys.

"And we have Eve to thank for all this shit," she muttered, rolling out of
bed and standing on her feet.  She grabbed a candle and a disposable lighter
from the nightstand by feel and then walked across the bedroom to the
adjoining bathroom.  Once inside she lit the candle, illuminating the small
cubicle in soft, yellow light.  She set it on the sink and then lifted the
hem of her nightgown up.  Sitting down was an exercise in gravity control
and she did it very carefully, finally coming to a soft, safe landing on the
cold toilet seat.  She pushed a little with her bladder muscles, expecting
nothing more than the pathetic trickle that usually came out, but this time
she got considerable more.

Warm fluid gushed out of her, splattering the toilet and spraying to the
floor near her feet.  She felt it running down her calves and dripping onto
her feet.  She knew at once that it wasn't urine and that it hadn't come
from her urethra.

"Oh no," she said, trying to peer over her bare stomach to see how bad the
damage was.  She knew to look for excessive blood or dark meconium in the
amniotic fluid, signs of impending trouble with the baby.  Before she could
get a good look however, the first contraction hit her.  She had had false
contractions for the past two weeks with increasing frequency.  Now, as the
pain rippled through her from back to front, seizing her like a vise, taking
her breath right out of her lungs, she wondered how she could have ever
mistaken the false contractions for the real thing.  She groaned painfully,
not quite screaming as the pain increased in intensity, seemed to level off
for a moment, and then finally began to fade.  By the time it was over she
was panting.

Shakily she stood up and made a half-hearted attempt to wipe some of the
amniotic fluid off of her.  She was gratified to see that it was as clear as
water.  She picked up the candle and then walked back to the bedroom,
already nervously anticipating the next contraction.  "Jason, Tina," she
said as she approached the bed.  She had to say it again before they stirred
awake and looked up at her.

"I'm in labor," she told them.

"Labor?" Jason asked, his eyes widening.  "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she said.  "My water broke and it just felt like someone was
wrenching my guts out.  We'd better get Paul over here."

"Let me get dressed," Tina said, pulling herself out of bed.  "I'll go get
him."

It had already been decided that in the cases of normal labor and delivery
in Garden Hill, there was little point in flying the woman to El Dorado
Hills to be with the doctor.  Especially not at night when flying and
landing were much more dangerous (particularly with Jason being the only
available pilot at the moment).  As such, Paul, who had already had three
deliveries of babies under his belt before the comet, had been appointed the
official town midwife.  In addition to the training he already possessed,
Renee had run him through an advanced course to make sure he knew how to
deal with the un-routine as well as the routine and to recognize problems
early in the process.  She had also donated a considerable amount of
obstetric supplies.  He now was equipped to deal with everything from breach
delivery to meconium aspiration to prolapsed umbilical cords.  He could
even - as a very last resort - perform a C-section if necessary, although
that would only occur in the event of helicopter failure and impending death
of the mother.

Tina threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, put some shoes on her feet, and
then went racing out the door into the darkness, a flashlight in her hand
and her rain slicker thrown carelessly over her clothing.  In the ten
minutes that she was gone, Stacy had two more contractions - a mild one that
felt only a little worse than menstrual cramping, and a hideous, painful one
that brought her to her knees and made her moan in pain.

"Are you okay Stace?" asked Jason, who was prepping the bed with towels and
absorbent disposable linen as he had been previously briefed to do by Paul.
He was playing the part of the nervous husband admirably well.  The fact the
baby was not his (although Tina was currently six weeks along with one that
WAS) did not even enter into his equation.

"Fuck you Eve," she cried as the pain started to fade away.  "Fuck you and
that goddamn apple!"

Jason, who had been raised with communistic atheism as his primary religion,
only had a slight idea what the blasphemes she was shouting out meant.
Instead of questioning her however, he helped her to the bed, lying her on
the nest he had constructed.

Paul arrived a minute later, having been dragged across town at top speed by
Tina.  He was panting and out of breath as he entered the bedroom and began
ordering more lighting and unzipping his supply case.  He pulled on a pair
of gloves and told her to open wide.  "Don't be modest," he assured her.
"I'm a professional."

He inserted his entire hand into her vagina and probed forward until he felt
her cervix.  The mucous plug was long since gone and he was able to push two
of his fingers into the hard ring that led to her uterus.  On the other side
he could feel the spongy tissue of the baby's head.

"Well, you're on your way," he announced, carefully working his hand free
and stripping off the glove.  "You're dilated to four centimeters.  Only six
to go."

"Almost halfway there," she said, trying to relax between contractions.
"How much longer?"

"With a first baby," he said.  "I'd say maybe six hours or so.  I'm not an
expert or anything though."

"Six hours?" she cried.  "Oh my god."

It actually turned out to be closer to eight.  Her contractions continued to
build both in intensity and length throughout the earlier morning hours
until she was screaming with each one.  She cussed Adam, Eve, and the
asshole that had knocked her up.  She vowed several times that she was never
going to do this shit again.  At last the contractions became so close
together that they never seemed to die away completely before the next one
hit. They were now accompanied by an overwhelming urge to push.  Paul, who
had been checking her cervix every hour or so announced that she was now
dilated to ten centimeters and that the baby's head was starting to move
downward.

She was placed into the delivery position with Paul positioned in the
catcher's box and Jason and Tina to each side, holding her legs apart and
back, spreading her open almost obscenely.  Fluid tinged with blood gushed
out of her with each contraction, soaking into the pads and towels.  Soon
the top of the baby's head became visible between the stretched vaginal
lips.

"Look, you can see the head now," said Paul, who was much more nervous than
he was letting on.  "It has red hair like you Stacy."

"Goddamn motherfuckin son of a bitch!" she screamed as the next contraction
ripped into her.

And finally, at 6:33 AM, the head forced its way out into the world.  Jason
and Tina, neither of whom had ever seen a baby delivered before, gasped as
they saw how impossibly BIG the head looked sticking out of her body.  Had
it really just come through there?

"Push," Paul said as he picked up a bulb syringe and suctioned out the mouth
and nose.  "Push.  It's almost over."

"Ahhhhh," Stacy cried, bearing down one more time.  The rest of the baby
came out with absurd ease into Paul's gloved hands - a wet, slippery,
perfectly healthy baby.  The first of Garden Hill's post comet period.  Paul
suctioned it one more time, clearing its lungs out and it hitched a little,
seemingly in surprise, and then uttered a weak cry, drawing the first breath
of what would hopefully be billions.

"Oh my god," Stacy cried, craning forward and looking at the little alien
that had been growing in her for the first time.  "Oh... a baby.  I did it.
I had a baby!"

"What is it?" Tina asked, finding tears in her eyes as she witnessed the
miracle of birth.

It was Paul, who was wiping the moisture off of the tiny body with a towel
that spotted the identifying features.  Nestled between the squalling
infant's legs were a tiny penis and testicles.  "It's a boy," he said,
trying to choke back his own tears.  "It looks like we gained another member
of the club."

Paul clamped and cut the umbilical cord and then handed the baby to its
mother.  While waiting for the placenta to deliver, Stacy brought the
newborn infant to her breast allowing him to suckle.  The baby boy stopped
crying and sucked contentedly, unaware of the world he had just been brought
into, unknowing of the challenges that would lie ahead for him and others of
his generation.




Al Steiner - May 30, 2001
Epilogue posted simultaneously

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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