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right?"
Wasn't much I could say to that. Fly had a point. . .
as patriotic and pro-human as these Mormons might
be, they still might be wrong about the extent of the
collapse. "You're saying they could be deluded by
their apocalyptic religion."
He raised his brows. "Mormons aren't apocalyptic,
Arlene. I think you're confusing them with certain
branches of Christianity. I'm only saying that they're
pretty cut off from information . . . the whole govern-
ment might look like it's collapsed from this view-
point; but maybe if we contacted somebody some-
where else, in the Pentagon or at least an actual
Marine Corps base, maybe we'd get a different pic-
ture."
"All right. Who, then?"
"Chain of command, Arlene. Who do you think we
should contact?"
I'm always forgetting about the omnipresent chain.
Usually, all I see are enlisted guys like me, maybe one
C.O.--Weems, in our case. I'm not used to thinking
of the Great Chain of Being rising above my head all
the way up to the C-in-C, the President of the United
States. Guess that's why Fly makes the big bucks (heh)
as a noncom, while I'm just a grunt.
"Um, Major Boyd, I guess. Or the great-grandboss,
Colonel Karapetian."
"Hm . . . I'm betting this is a bit above m'lord
Boyd's head. I think we should take this up with God
Himself: the colonel."
"I agree completely. Got the phone number?"
"Yeah, well, that's the next problem. Surely in a
facility this size, there has to be a radio room some-
where, wouldn't you think?"
We did a lot of thinking over the next hour; we also
did a lot of quiet, careful questioning, staying away
from those obviously "under arms," questioning the
less suspicious civilians instead. But what we mostly
did was a lot of walking. My dogs were barking like
Dobermans long before we found anything radio-
roomlike.
The "compound" actually comprised a whole series
of buildings, different clumps far away, and included
a large portion of downtown Salt Lake City. There
were other buildings and residences all around, of
course; SLC is big. Well not compared to my old
hometown of L.A., of course, but you get the idea.
"The compound" might include two buildings and
not include the building in between them; it wasn't
defined geographically.
However, we quickly discovered we were restricted
to a small, two-block radius surrounding the Taberna-
cle. An electrified fence cut that central core off from
the rest of the facility (and the rest of the city); guards
patrolled the fence like a military base; there were
even suspicious pillboxes with tiny bits of what might
have been the barrels of crew-served weapons poking
out, and piles of camouflaged tarps that might conceal
tanks or Bradleys. And the guards were as tight about
controlling what left the core as they were about what
entered.
I saw a lump that looked suspiciously like an
M-2/A-2 tank, state of the art; I turned to point it
out to Fly, but he was busy staring at the tall office
building at our backs. "What's that up top of that sky-
scraper?" he asked.
"Skyscraper? You've lived in too many small towns,
Fly-boy."
"Yeah, yeah. What's up top there? That metal
thing?"
"Um ... a TV aerial."
"Are you sure? Look again."
I stared, squinting to clear up my mild astigmatism.
"Huh, I see what you mean. It could be, but I'm not
sure. You think it's a radio antenna, right?"
"I don't know what they're supposed to look like
when they're stationary, only what they look like on
the box we carry with us."
"Well, you have an urgent appointment, Fly? Let's
check it out."
"Sure hope they have a working elevator," he said,
surprising me; I thought after our experiences on
Deimos, he'd never want to look at another lift again.
There was an armed guard at the front entrance of
the building, which was a mere fifteen stories tall. . .
hardly a "skyscraper." The rear entrance was barri-
caded. The guard unshipped the Sig-Cow rifle he
carried. "Aren't you the two unbelievers who claim
they stopped the aliens cold on Deimos?"
"That's we," I said, "Unbelievers 'R' Us."
Fly hushed me. He always claims I make things
worse in any confrontational situation, but I just
don't see it.
"The President sent us on an inspection tour," said
Fly with the sort of easy, confident lying I admired so
much but could never pull off. "Supposed to 'famil-
iarize' ourselves with your SOPs." He rolled his eyes;
you could hear the quotation marks around familiar-
ize. "As if we haven't had enough military procedures
for a lifetime!"
The guard shook his head, instantly sympathetic.
"Ain't it the truth? Few weeks ago, you know what I
was? I was a cook at the Elephant Grill, you know, up
at Third? So what do they make me when the war
breaks out? A sentry!"
"You know this building well?"
"Well, I should! My fiancee worked here. Before the
war."
"Look, can you come along with us, show us the
place? I come from a small town, and we don't have
buildings this size. You're not stuck as the only guard,
are you?" There were no other guards in sight; I'm
sure Fly noticed that as well as I.
"'Fraid so, Corporal."
"Fly. Fly Taggart."
"I'm afraid so, Fly. I can't leave. Look, you can't get
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