The Cast Stone by Harold Johnson

brimstones. Shit. ” She leaned back hard into the bench and jerked the smooth sway of the swing. “They weren’t in a bunker. They were meeting in a house, just a house; they weren’t even in the basement. Betsy said she went out to pick up KFC. She was telling me that she was a little pissed that they sent her, a woman. That’s what she was thinking as she walked back, that she was being discriminated against because she was a woman, when she thought she saw a falling star during the day.” Monica relaxed, the swing flowed and ebbed.
    â€œThere were no bunkers; there were no terrorists. They picketed the highway to Fort McMurray. They walked in front of semi-trucks with signs that said “Yankee Go Home.”
    â€œWhat about the burning trucks, the roadside bombs?”
    â€œThat wasn’t us. I don’t know who was doing that. Maybe the bastards themselves.”
    â€œThat’s too hard to believe, that they’re killing their own presumably to justify attacking innocent people. It’s too much of a stretch. Sorry, Monica, even if it’s true, it’s too much.”
    â€œIt’s easier to believe the media is it?”
    The swing stopped, stood silent. Ben and Monica both leaned back into their respective benches, distance between them. The moment stretched out, waiting for Ben’s answer. He dodged the question.
    â€œThere was nothing else going on? Just peaceful picketing? Nothing else?”
    â€œNot the violence that was reported. No burning trucks. Oh, there might have been a few flat tires, sugar in the fuel tanks, things like that. We don’t have the money for explosives. N75 is expensive.”
    â€œYou’ll have to excuse my ignorance. But what is N75.”
    â€œSynthetic nitroglycerine. N75 is seventy-five times more powerful than the old traditional stuff.”
    â€œSeventy-five times the power of nitroglycerine, that boggles the mind.” Ben started the swing moving again. “And where would you get it from?”
    â€œFrom them.” Monica pushed a little to contribute to the swing.
    â€œFrom them?”
    â€œOf course. The world’s biggest armaments dealer, who else? Want an assault rifle, a detonator, poison gas, whatever — you buy it from the masters of war.”
    â€œYou just go up to Homeland Security and put in an order, or what?”
    â€œIt’s about that easy, except you need a lot of money. The people dealing are probably HS during the day, at night they look after themselves. Steal a bit of technology and put it on the street. Take a nice little bundle home to retire on, part of the benefits package.”
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding.”
    â€œNo I’m not. The only people making N75 anywhere in the world are the Americans. If you want it, you have to buy it from them.” Monica looked away toward the distant dry field of wheat struggling in the baked earth to grow. “How much?”
    â€œHow much what?”
    â€œHow much do you have to pay for N75?”
    â€œOh that, last I heard you could get a kilo for about ten thousand Ameros.”
    â€œExpensive.”
    â€œDepends what you’re buying it for, and hey, when you consider its power it’s really seventy-five kilos, right.”
    On the way back to the barn Monica took Ben’s hand. He cringed, not outwardly, as he let her hold his calloused fist; he was twenty-five years older than her. Even a short ten years ago would have been different. But now, now he was nearly to the end wasn’t he? It would be good for him to have company into these years. But what about her? She would be left alone again. Better she found someone else. Someone a little closer to her age.

    When they re-entered the loft Joan Lightning had replaced Mary Wiens in front of the open doors.
    â€œThose stacks either have to come down or they have to find some way of removing all the sulphur. They represent the