"The Uzi is an excellent field weapon and easily concealed," said Anna Chutesov. "Gather up extra ammunition clips and form your men into pairs. I will direct them on when to exit."
"Where are we going?"
Anna Chutesov pointed out of the windshield, beyond the lines of honking, smoking cars.
Colonel Rshat Kirlov squinted. Not many hundreds of yards away was a great encampment. Towers climbed to the sky. A peculiar wheel turned against the sun, like a cog in a great machine. Flying machines darted like dragonflies.
Colonel Rshat Kirlov nodded. Obviously the place was an important American installation. Probably a space complex, for Kirlov knew of the recent loss of the Yuri Gagarin.
He tried to read the enormous sign over the entrance, but he could translate only the last part of the complex's official title.
He turned to one of his men, whose English was better than his own.
"What means 'Larry'?" he asked. "I do not know the word."
"We are obviously going to that secret American space complex ahead," he whispered to the others. "Do any of you know what that word on the great sign means?"
The men took turns squinting at the large sign.
But none of them could translate the peculiar name Larryland into proper Russian. And the cold Anna Chutesov refused to enlighten them.
Chapter 18
Larry Lepper was lord and master of all he surveyed. Standing on the top of a fairyland minaret, he enjoyed the spectacular panorama that was Larryland. From the main gate, where the crowds streamed in through the opening in the shape of Buster Bear's smiling mouth, to the hundred-foot statues of Squirrel Girl, Magic Mouse, and other Larry Lepper creations, he owned it all. Children played in the plastic-cobbled streets. Their shrieks of joy radiated from the Room of the Creepers, laughter welled up from the Hologram House, and the smells of popcorn, cotton candy, and fried dough wafted into the dry heat of the southern California afternoon.
Larry had it all. No more slaving away at a drawing board. Never again would he have to work for the likes of Bill Banana or draw another robot. In fact, producers were banging at the door to option his characters. Larry had always assumed that he would achieve his dream the other way around-get the characters on the air first and hope they led to a theme park. But it had come true the easy way.
And best of all, it had happened overnight.
Larry had led the strange Mr. Gordons to the site, a deserted theme park that had gone bankrupt trying to compete with Disneyland.
"Can you do something with this?" Larry had asked. It was night. Mr. Gordons simply walked through the chain-link fence, cutting a hole large enough to pass through with fingers like wire cutters. He walked over to the deserted Ferris wheel and into the control booth. Not through the door, but literally into the wall. Larry had blinked, and the wall had seemed to absorb Gordons.
Larry had felt a trembling in the ground, and suddenly, like the color filling the screen in The Wizard of Oz, the park came to life. Larry rushed in like a child.
He had spent the first evening overseeing adjustments. He had only to ask the Ferris wheel to change and it became the Squirrel Girl ride, complete with colorful images of Squirrel Girl on each hub.
When the last attraction, the sprawling Moon Walk, had been modified, Larry was satisfied.
"We'll make millions," he cried. "What should I charge for admission?"
"Nothing," said the voice of Mr. Gordons, which this time came from the Moon Walk entrance, which Gordons had designed so that no one could leave the park without enjoying it.
"Nothing? How will I make money?"
"You will make money on the concessions," said Mr. Gordons. "But it is important that large numbers of people pass through Larryland."
"Larryland? I was going to call it Lepperland."
"Lepperland has an unfortunate connotation," pointed out Mr. Gordons, whose voice now crackled from the Buster Bear statue as Larry made his rounds. Larry quickly got used to the voice coming from different places. He had worked in a fantasy world so long that nothing surprised him. Not even the fact that the entire park was a thinking android.
"I had my heart set on Lepperland," he complained. "Names are important. I learned this in my last occupation. "
"What was that?" Larry asked, curious. "I was a car wash."
"You mean, you worked in a car wash."
"No," said Mr. Cordons. "I was the car wash."
"Oh."
And because Mr. Gordons had provided Larry Lepper with his dream, Larry had not complained or objected. He had rushed out to place ads in the newspapers so that when the first rush of families came, he was all set to greet them in his Buster Bear suit.
That had been just one hectic day before. Now Larry was taking a break from being Buster Bear and enjoying the view from his private tower.
"Ah, what could possibly go wrong now?" Larry said aloud.
The voice of Mr. Gordons came from the air-conditioning vent. "There is trouble in Larryland, Larry Lepper," it said.
"What trouble?" Larry asked, bringing his face close to the vent.
"Several men are coming in through the entrance, carrying automatic weapons."
Larry looked down. Lines of cars stretched out from the parking lot like beetles on a conveyor belt. Cars honked impatiently. And across the tops of a string of vehicles stomped several men in gaudy tourist clothes.
They pushed their way through the crowd. They carried beach towels and Larry didn't have to guess as to what the towels concealed. He knew from the two-handed way the towels were carried, one hand under and the other on top, holding the towels in place.
"What do I do?" demanded Larry Lepper.
"Find out what they want. It is imperative that there be no disruption in the functioning of this theme park."
"My thinking exactly," said Larry Lepper resolutely. Larry Lepper donned his oversize Buster Bear head and waddled down the winding steps, his heart in his mouth. He wondered if the Mafia had come to demand a piece of the Larryland action.
Anna Chutesov was surrounded.
She stood in a sea of children, trying to isolate the radio transmission. It was important that she stay in one place long enough to get one leg of the signal. The children milled around her and it only made her acutely aware of the horror that was masked under the harlequin name of Larryland. How many of them, she wondered, would never develop into puberty because of this innocent day in the sun?
When a little girl skipped by, bumping Anna's head with a Buster Bear balloon, Anna turned on her with the fury born of frustration.
"Go away!" she hissed. "Can you not see that I am doing something important?"
The little girl stopped, looked stunned, and rushed off crying, "Mommy, Mommy."
Anna Chutesov returned to her radio locator, biting her lip. Every moment she was delayed finding the Sword of Damocles, more parents, more children, would be exposed to its microwaves. Somewhere, Anna knew, the satellite was doing its insidious work. But where? Which of these rides was stripping those who walked through it of the ability to bear children?
Anna got her first fix, and locking it into the optical viewer, started for the other end of the park.