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.It came out of a bottle."Of course I'm sure.I know what school I go to!"Cooder frowned."You'll have to learn to relax when we go on camera," he cautioned."You're too hot.Television is a cool medium.""Hot? I'm furious! Someone stole my bomb.How am I going to make my point without proof? And for the last time, it's not a working bomb.How many times do I have to repeat myself?""Not working, huh?" Cooder mused, sensing his rating share dropping like the temperature in September."But you can build another, am I right? One that works?""Sure," Sky admitted."With the right materials and enough time.""I can get you the materials.Can you have it by Thursday?"Sky's perfect hairline jumped up."Thursday?""That's when my news show, Twenty-four Hours, airs.What do you think of'Twenty-four Hours on Neutron Street' for a segment title?""We're getting off the wavelength," Sky complained."You can't build one of these things out of stuff you can get at any hardware store.I'm a physics major.I do my grad work at USC's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, you know?""Isn't that the place where all those nuclear materials turned up missing last year?" Cooder asked suddenly."Right on! Now you're in the groove."Don Cooder braked the car, his eyes flying wide.Suddenly he saw sitting beside him, not an interview subject that would expose America's runamok nuclear incompetence, but a cunning thief whom he could accuse on nationwide TV of pillaging important nuclear materials."Why are you looking at me like that?" Sky Bluel asked in an uneasy voice."Like what?" Cooder said, covering."Like you got stars in your eyes all of a sudden.""Not stars, points.""Excuse me?""Rating points," Cooder explained, the glaze going out of his eyes."Why don't you tell me your story again?""I already have.Weren't you listening?""I'll listen harder this time," promised Don Cooder, reaching into his silk suit for a tiny bottle of hair spray.He ran a jet of it around his crowning glory of wavy black hair."That stuff burns holes in the ozone, you know," Sky said disapprovingly."My five-part story on the rape of the Amazon rain forest saved an estimated ten thousand trees," Cooder shot back in his best indigant on-air tone."I did one of the first network features on saving the hunched back whales.It raised America's consciousness by an estimated three share.""Oh yeah? For your information, it's humpback whale, and what's that got to do with hair spray?""Anchors make news.Hair makes anchors.And hair spray makes anchors' hair.I think a little depleted ozone is worth all the beneficial consciousness-raising that I do, don't you?"Sky blinked behind her granny glasses."Put that way, yeah," she said vaguely."It does sorta make sense.Vaguely.""It's a sensible world," Cooder said."Now, from the top.""I was working with fissionable materials at Lawrence Livermore," Sky began,"doing-""They let a girl do that?" Cooder exploded."I happen to be brilliant.I was born in the Age of Aquarius.Anyway, what I found appalled me.Security is unbelievably sloppy.It was easy to filch Page 36ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlstuff.People were doing it all the time.""But you didn't filch any nuclear material?""Nah, I just took enough stuff to make the bomb casing.""Could you?""Sure.Anytime.But why would I want to?""To show the world!" Don Cooder trumpeted."You show them that if you can do it, anyone can.""But that is what I'm doing," Sky protested."I built a working birdcage-that's techtalk for the bomb casing.Plastique charges, beryllium-oxide tamper-the works! I don't technically think I need to have any fission-material stuff in the bomb to make my case to the Izod generation.That's what I call my generation.Izods.""One," Don Cooder said, "you don't have a bomb anymore.And two, if you did, how would it look on television before ninety million people if the camera zoomed in on your neutron bomb and I intoned, 'You are looking at a live neutron device capable of irradiating a three-square-mile metropolitan area with deadly radiation'?"Sky thought about that.Behind her rose-tinted granny glasses, her brow puckered."It would sound scary," she admitted."Not just scary, but terrifying.At least a six share terrifying.""I hadn't thought about that," Sky admitted.Don Cooder started the car.He had made his decision.He could always expose the little thief in a follow-up segment."Think about it," he said."Think real hard, because you're going to filch-I mean, steal-enough plutonium to arm that bomb.""It's tritium.But I don't have the combat casing anymore.""So? You build another rattrap.My network will pay for it.""Birdcage" Sky corrected."And are you sure?""Guaranteed.Did you know I'm my own news director?""What if the network won't go for it?""It's simple.I'll threaten to quit.""What if they take you up on it?" Sky Bluel asked reasonably."After all, you are dead last in the ratings."Don Cooder winced."You know," he said as the miles of wild blueberry bushes flicked past, "TV news isn't just about ratings.It's about serving the public.About courage.And manhood.""I'm not a man.""It's about girlhood too.Hand me that can of hair spray, will you? I think I'm getting a cowlick."Chapter 8Northeast Missouri was getting monotonous, Remo thought sourly.The road south seemed to go on forever and lead nowhere.He passed only the occasional pickup truck and once a lumbering tractor, moving along the road, which in spots turned to dirt.On a particularly dusty stretch, Remo had to roll up the windows to keep the stuff out of his lungs."If you can get high on dust," he muttered, "those Dirt First!! crazies came to the right place
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Tematy
IndexWarren Adler Wojna państwa Rose 01 Wojna państwa Rose
Warren C. Robinson Jeb Stuart and the Confederate Defeat at Gettysburg (2007)
Anne Tracy Warren 03 Ostatnia kochanka
Christine Warren [The Others Born to be Wild (epub)
L Warren Douglas The Sacred Pool
Warren Adler Prywatne kłamstwa
Warren Murphy Destroyer 078 Blue Smoke and Mirrors
Warren Murphy Destroyer 091 Cold Warrior
Laurens Stephanie Siostry Cyn Na ratunek damie (2)
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