Back in the comfort of his office Maxx studied a lengthy confession. The author of this confession sat facing him, slumped back in his chair, wearing a defeatist expression.
‘Didn’t know that… Knew that… Knew that… Didn’t know that! I had no idea about that!’ Max put the neatly typed sheets of paper down and looked up.
‘Good. Very good Dick. Some interesting things here’. Maxx nodded to no one in particular and made a few hand-written annotations. ‘What you’ve said collaborates our own picture of the Resistance and the reports from Mr. Parnell, or should I say the late Mr. Parnell. Although they seem to have achieved some good technological breakthroughs, on the whole it appears the Resistance are a ramshackle bunch of amateurs chasing after this so-called secret weapon. Most importantly though, it seems there’s not a lot more they can do without you. You’re their basket’.
‘Pardon?’, Dick enquired.
‘Their basket’, Maxx reiterated. ‘You know, where they’ve put all their eggs’.
Dick nodded his understanding of this analogy.
‘In any case’, Maxx continued confidently, ‘Even if you were still at liberty, and still in contact with your colleagues, it wouldn’t make one iota of a difference. In a very short time the whole Resistance will be a redundant force’.
Dick stared at Maxx who was clearly enjoying the moment.
‘That’s right Dick. Your intelligence was correct after all. The best technicians in the Party were working on a weapon’.
‘I know that’, answered Dick. ‘Operation Trojan Horse’.
Maxx smiled his creepy smile again. ‘That?’, he asked. ‘That was just a small diversion. A margin note or a side-bar, if you like, in my book of Total Domination’.
‘You mean there’s another…’
‘Secret weapon?’ The Leader finished Dick’s sentence for him. ‘Of course. What sort of fanatical evil leader would I be if I just had one secret weapon? This one will make all future resistance futile!’.
‘You seem pretty confident of that’, Dick said trying to conceal his anxiety.
‘Oh I am Dick, I am’, replied Maxx with the smug, self-assured grin of someone not just brimming with confidence, but absolutely teeming with it. ‘It’s a secret weapon that won’t remain a secret for much longer. And after I use it, the Party will be all-powerful and invincible — now and in the future!’
With all this talk about secret weapons and power Dick expected Maxx to cackle maniacally while stroking a fluffy pedigree cat on his lap — but he didn’t. In fact he was remarkably reserved about the whole thing (and of course he didn’t have a pet cat with him, pedigree or not).
‘The deployment of this weapon will usher in a whole new phase of government!’ Maxx leant forward towards Dick, ‘A government you could still be part of’.
Dick was shocked. Since giving up the information about the Resistance and his own role in their plans he’d been very anxious about his intended fate. Maxx had said his life would be spared but Dick still didn’t believe him; anyone who lied about their penis size would be capable of lying about absolutely anything. But here he was, still alive and being offered another chance to join the Party.
‘I’m glad you agreed to give in’, continued Maxx. ‘It would have been such a great shame to have you tortured and killed. Such a waste of a good resource. The Party could do with someone like you Dick, someone with your intelligence but more than that, your deviousness. The same deviousness you’ve employed to get this far’. Maxx grinned. ‘I might be a ruthless leader but I’m also a very pragmatic one. To be blunt, I’d rather work with you than against you’. Maxx rose. ‘Let me show you my weapon’.
Dick smiled back. ‘Please. I’m not that sort of guy’.
‘I think you’ll be impressed’, Maxx continued.
‘Really?’, asked Dick, now smiling. ‘Remember who you’re talking to!’
Dick and Maxx then both fell about in convulsions of laughter, proof if anyone needed it that men of all ages and positions in life could find amusement in jokes about penis size. Trying to compose themselves the two men marched off to look at the Party’s secret weapon.
It was late and very dark when the Party car pulled up outside a familiar building, the Scientific Research Centre. Carter exited first and opened the rear door. Dick and Maxx exited and all three walked to the main entrance in silence. The lobby was empty apart from a bored cleaner polishing the floor and two even more bored security staff polishing their buttons. Startled by the sight of the Leader they jumped to attention and saluted him. Returning the salute the Leader presented his ID chip to the scanner which blinked green. Dick and Carter followed suit.
‘But you’re the Leader. You don’t need to scan, do you?’, asked Dick walking alongside Maxx.
‘There are no exceptions. Not even for me’, Maxx explained. ‘Although it’s highly unlikely, someone could gain access by assuming my appearance and my identity’. He gave a wry smile as he continued at a brisk pace. ‘It has been known for people to use fake biometric chips, you know’.
Exiting the elevator on level five they walked along never-ending corridors, passing through three other security posts, the only sounds coming from the echo of their footsteps. Eventually they turned a corner to face two armed guards standing to attention outside a plain door. More salutes were exchanged. Dick noticed that this door resembled all the other plain doors they had walked past apart from one thing; there was no lock. Instead, adjacent to it at head height was a small glass screen. Maxx approached and placed his eye in front of it. Moments later there was a bleep of acceptance followed by a buzz and a whirr; the sound of an intricate lock being activated.
‘Retina scan’, explained Maxx. ‘And it’s only programmed to recognise two people in this facility; myself and my chief scientist, Dr. Hargreaves. Identity chips might be copied but no one can do the same with our retinas. Ispo facto, no one but myself and the good doctor can access this room’.
Dick remembered Dr. Hargreaves from the first time he was at the Scientific Research Centre, a snob of man in a swanky starched white lab coat, he recalled. He was still thinking about him as Carter pulled open the heavy metal door and flicked a switch. Light flooded a large room that was full of identical battered leather suitcases and, in the middle, a trestle table.
‘Here it is’, announced Maxx proudly. ‘The culmination of three years of research and development’.
Dick was about to say something stupid like, ‘The secret weapon is luggage?’ but before he could make a fool of himself Carter picked up one of the cases, hoisted it on to the table, took out a small key and unlocked it. Snapping open the two latches he opened the case. There, resting on a purple crushed-velvet lining was what could only be described as a ‘contraption’. It consisted of a large brass cylinder, several brass spheres, lots of copper tubing, some dials, a few small metal boxes and a whole load of complicated wiring. Dick thought it looked like the result of an unholy alliance between a tuba and a deep sea diver’s breathing apparatus.
‘The device is kept in the case for ease of transportation and for disguise’, Maxx explained. ‘After all, no one would ever expect that an old suitcase contains something of such importance, something of such overwhelming consequence that it will change the world!’.
‘So you keep saying’, said Dick.
‘And do you remember something else I said to you recently — that very soon, all resistance will be futile?’ Dick nodded. ‘Well this is why’.
Dick walked around the table, looking closely at the device within the case.
‘Go on, examine it. Tell me what you think it is’, said Maxx smiling.
Dick ran his hands over the copper tubes and the dials. He put his ear next to the large cylinder. He rapped one of the brass spheres to hear a dull, hollow ring. For some reason only known to him, he even smelled the wiring. He had absolutely no idea what this thing was. Weapons that were designed to have such a fundamental impact should be large, he thought. Large and matt black, the colour of choice for deadly weapons. This looked too small and too shiny to have anywhere near the sort of effect that Maxx was threatening.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it before’, admitted Dick. ‘Can you give me some sort of clue to what the weapon is?’
‘It rhymes with “prom”’, suggested Maxx.
Frown lines took over Dick’s forehead as he thought for a few seconds. ‘Mom?’, he offered.
Maxx shook his head.
‘Vom?’
‘”Vom?’’ That’s not a word!’ exclaimed Maxx.
‘It’s short for vomit’, offered Dick.
‘Why the fuck would my secret weapon be vomit?’, Maxx said with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice.
Dick’s confused expression indicated that he obviously hasn’t thought this one through. Maxx didn’t have the patience to wait and hear how Dick expected vomit to defeat the resistance movement, so he revealed the answer.
‘Rhymes with “prom”… try “bomb”’.
Dick flinched, accidentally knocking the table in the process and jolting the suitcase. In a reflex move he ducked down, covering his head with his hands.
‘Don’t worry. It’s not primed!’, Maxx explained, smiling.
Dick pulled himself to his feet and tried to regain at least some of dignity he’d just lost. He looked at the device again, this time with more respect. ‘And you’re going to blow up the resistance headquarters with this bomb?’, he asked.
‘No’, Maxx said. ‘You don’t even know where it is, so how the hell would we?! In any event, even if we did blow it up, it wouldn’t stop any rebel factions from re-grouping and carrying on their work like they’ve done in the past. Up until now the Resistance has just been an annoyance — a boil on the backside of the Party. But there’s no knowing what trickery they might get up to in the future. Take you for example…’
Dick went slightly red.
‘Who knows what damage you might have done if I hadn’t recognised you?’
Dick went redder.
‘Tell me, how is it that some members of the population question the Party and take petty actions against it?’, enquired Maxx. ‘The sort of people that the Resistance try and identify and recruit. Why don’t these dissidents think and act like 99.9% of the population?’
‘The Resistance gives them an antidote to the monthly bromide injections. You must know that’, answered Dick. ‘This gives people a greater degree of free will. It makes them more questioning about this society’.
‘Precisely!’ shouted Maxx. ‘And as much as it pains me to say it, we’ve never managed to track down supplies of the antidote and whoever manufactures and distributes it. And we’re unable to even identify it within people’s bloodstreams. Which is where the bomb comes in.
‘Think back to our time Dick. Do you remember something called the neutron bomb? It was an atomic bomb specifically designed to kill people but leave buildings and the infrastructure intact’.
‘Sure’, Dick agreed. ‘It released deadly radiation but without a deadly blast’.
‘You’ve got it!’, Maxx smiled. ‘And that’s what gave me the idea for my weapon’. He patted the device proudly. ‘The Impotence Bomb’.
Dick didn’t like the word ‘impotence’ or the word ‘bomb’ and the two used together gave him severe palpitations.
‘I won’t bore you with all the details but basically the bomb releases a very specific form of gamma radiation that affects neuro-chemicals in the brain, specifically in the left anterior cingulate cortex’.
Maxx looked at Dick whose confused expression clearly belonged to someone who’d just heard the phrases ‘neuro-chemicals’ and ‘anterior cingulate cortex’ in the same sentence.
‘In layman’s terms’, Maxx explained, ‘The air borne radiation that will be carried for miles will instantly suppress any form of sexual desire in people’. As if this news wasn’t bad enough Maxx added for good measure, ‘Permanently’.
‘So no one will want sex?’ asked a horrified Dick. ‘Why on earth would you want that?’
‘Easy. No sexual desire means no distractions. And no distractions means people will be more efficient. And if they’re more efficient the economy will prosper. Everyone will benefit from a better standard of living, and the increased productivity will help fund our expansion’.
‘Expansion into what?’, Dick asked.
‘Well first Europe and then, well who knows?’
‘But we don’t have contact with any other country?’, said Dick.
‘Not yet. But we will, when we threaten other nations with the Impotence Bomb’.
It’s disconcerting when someone strokes an inanimate object in an overtly sexual way and doubly so when the object in question is a bomb — but that’s exactly what Maxx did as he outlined his plans for world domination.
‘I feel it’s time for the United Kingdom to end this self-imposed period of isolation. Our first foreign target will be our neighbour France; a nation fiercely proud of its reputation for romance and love’, said Maxx. ‘We’ll explode the first bomb in France over a minor target like Lille or Bordeaux and then threaten the city of l’amour itself, Paris. Do you think red-blooded French leaders will let this happen to their country, let alone themselves?
‘Non! Of course they won’t! And with France under my total control I’ll then threaten Spain and Italy. Two other countries that, I’m certain, would rather submit to my rule than surrender their nations’ considerable libidos’.
Dick gasped as the enormity of what Maxx was saying began to sink in.
‘From then on, nation after nation will fall before me like dominoes!’.
‘You mean like those displays where the whole floor is covered in dominoes and one knocks another one and that knocks another that knocks another and then the whole lot fall down making all sort of different shapes and some of them go round in circles and some go up and down little ramps or miniature see-saws until they all fall down making a gigantic pattern?’, asked Dick.
Maxx ignored him and continued. ‘Take Sweden. What would it be without its reputation as the free-love centre of the world? Or Holland? 15% of its gross domestic revenue comes from taxes paid by legalised prostitutes. And what about Thailand? Its entire economy is based on sex-tourism. That, and table tennis balls. And Greece and Turkey? These countries would dissolve into revolution with the end of man-love!’
‘You’re not satisfied by the ultimate power you have here?’, asked Dick, horrified.
‘No!’ exclaimed a wide-eyed Maxx. ‘When I was able to perform as a porn star I had an insatiable appetite for sex…’
‘And this has been replaced by an insatiable appetite for power?’
‘Precisely… Controlling the United Kingdom was mere foreplay…’
Dick tried to comprehend all the repercussions of this worrying metaphor. Had Maxx’s strengthening of the security forces been the equivalent of nipple rubbing? Had his CCTV monitoring of all public places been analogous to a blow job? Then he asked more sensibly, ‘But what about reproduction? Surely you’ll still need sex for this?’
‘We don’t need to’, Maxx said nonchalantly. ‘All our research and forecasting point to a population at optimum size. In the long-term future, if we need to reproduce then we’ll use frozen sperm that the Party has been collecting and storing’.
‘But what about Party members?’, Dick asked. ‘Will there be an antidote from the radiation for people like us?’
Maxx gave Dick the sort of look you’d give someone if they said that Hayden Christensen and Hugh Grant were talented actors.
‘Why on earth would I do that?’, he asked. ‘Party members are far more intelligent than the general population. Their satisfaction derives from increased power and responsibility, not from a few primitive grunts and pelvic thrusts. The effect of the bomb will only enhance their true potential’.
Dick knew the Impotence Bomb was the work of a madman. A madman who had decided that if he couldn’t have sex, then no one else could. In fact, it was the work of a bitter, twisted, aggrieved and resentful madman with pieces of shrapnel embedded in his scrotum. And they’re the very worst.
‘Twelve Impotence Bombs will be launched by small rockets and detonated simultaneously over Britain’s major cities’, Maxx said, gesturing to Carter who closed and locked the suitcase. As the only one in the Resistance aware of the bombs and their devastating effect, Dick realised it was he alone who had to destroy them before they were used.
‘When er… when do you intend to launch?’, enquired Dick in a very laid back, I don’t give a shit but I’m just asking politely, matter-of-fact sort of way.
‘Well’, Maxx said, ‘There’s still the final computer simulations for blast range, uploading a slight modification to the guidance system, the final testing and assembly process under carefully controlled conditions and then transportation and installation at all the launch sites…’ He paused for a moment. ‘Sunday evening, I think’.
Maxx looked at his pocket watch. ‘It’s late and we should go’. Dick felt very uneasy as the trio exited the room. Carter closed the heavy door behind them and it locked automatically with a reassuring loud clang. Dick reflected that the corridor seemed as bleak as the future. He had less than three days to save everyone in the country, in particular himself, from instant and irreversible impotence. The sound of Maxx and Carter conversing in low voices shook Dick from his contemplations.
‘So, what next?’ asked Dick. ‘Where do we go now?’
Maxx turned to Dick. ‘I’m afraid you’re not leaving here Dick’.
Dick gulped. He’d seen too much. Maxx nodded at Carter who reached into his jacket pocket. ‘No!’ Dick shouted. He threw himself to the hard floor, winced from the pain of a bruised kneecap, then grabbed Maxx’s ankle. ‘I’ll help you. I’ll do anything!’
The more Maxx shook his leg, trying to dislodge Dick, the more Dick increased his grip. ‘Please!’, Dick implored. ‘Don’t shoot’. This pleading, he thought, was beginning to be a habit. And although it was totally out character he wasn’t ashamed to do anything in order to survive even if it meant begging like a dog. A dirty, mangy dog. A dirty mangy dog about to get shot. The next sound Dick heard wasn’t the expected gun being fired. It was the sound of Maxx laughing. He heard the security guards sniggering and even thought he heard the usually reserved Carter offer a mild chortle. Dick looked up and opened one eye to see the manservant holding out an electronic door key.
‘This is your room key’, Maxx explained. ‘I’ve carried out a risk assessment and am glad to say that you present a negligible one, which is why I am allowing you to stay here, in this facility’.
An uncomfortable-looking Dick released Maxx’s ankle, got up from the floor, rubbed his still-painful kneecap and dusted himself down. Carter handed Dick the plastic card.
‘I think you’ll be very interested in what’s going on as we complete the bombs and get ready for the detonation’, Maxx explained. ‘You’ll have free access here as long as you don’t hinder the work of the various technicians. As you know, they have very tight deadlines to meet’.
‘And with me staying within this building’, said Dick, now over his embarrassment and feeling more bullish now he knew he wasn’t going to die, ‘You’ll also be able to keep an eye on me’.
‘You’re so cynical Dick’, said Maxx smiling. ‘I just want you here to see all the preparatory work in progress. You’ll find it fascinating. But more than that, I want you here when we launch the first bomb over London’.
‘And why is that?’, Dick asked. ‘Just so you can gloat?’
‘No’, Maxx smiled. ‘Just so you can push the launch button’. All Dick could do was stare as Maxx continued. ‘The man famed for his legendary erections will be the man who launches the first impotence bomb. Now how fucking ironic is that?’
Dick had to admit that as ironies went, it was fucking up there with the best.