The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror (13 page)

“In that case,” Green said. “Won’t you do the honor of leading us?”

Erpent huffed, but must have decided not to press the point, as I soon felt his bony frame bump into my back. Green joined us, and the door swung shut with a click. He spun around, searching for a handle or doorknob, but found nothing.

“Entrance only,” Erpent said. “Only way out’s the other side.”

“I hope so,” Green said, and rested a hand on the butt of his Laxafier.

I caught his eye and shook my head. He relaxed, but kept his hand on his revolver. The three of us marched in single file down into the darkness. At the bottom we came to an elevator.

“Press the call button,” the SS agent ordered.

Green’s glance fell to the man’s service weapon, but Erpent kept his hands clasped together behind his back. Green mouthed the words, “It’s a trap.”

Was Erpent really going to try to kill us? I found that hard to believe. No man that thin was capable of evil. I dismissed my partner’s paranoid cynicism with one hand, pressed the call button with the other. From deep inside the earth came a humming sound. A bell chimed, and the doors opened.

We looked back at Erpent.

“Not many civilians alive today have ever ridden the NSA elevator,” he said. “Besides the SS, of course.” His smile was thin and hard. “Truly the Prophet has blessed you both. Please.” He gestured for us to step inside.

We did. Erpent followed. The doors slid shut. To Green’s evident surprise, the man turned his back on us.

The SS agent slid his wee-wee into another hole in the wall. He pressed the down button. There was no up button, I noticed.

Without warning, and before I could dissuade him, my partner grabbed Erpent in a head lock and fumbled for the man’s Laxafier. The bag of poo flopped at our feet.

“What are you doing?” Erpent cried, his wee-wee pressed deep inside the biometric console. He clawed at Green’s elbow. “In the name of the Prophet, desist!”

“I don’t plan on being food for cannibals,” my partner growled.

The SS agent’s face turned purple. “What cannibals?” he gasped, beating weakly at Green’s forearms.

“That’s right. Deny it. Now when that door opens, you are going to get us out of here. Is that clear?”

Erpent struggled to get free but failed. “If I refuse?” he managed.

“I’ll cut off your weenie and use it to get through the biometric stations.”

“Frolick,” the SS man said, his voice faint. “Help me. I’m trying to bring down Fatso, same as you.”

I drew my service weapon.

“Don’t listen to him, Frolick!” my partner shouted.

“Eat you,” Erpent swore. Green slammed the man’s head against the elevator wall.

What was I supposed to do? What if Erpent was telling the truth? Then we were committing treason. I was destroying my only chance to bring down Fatso, and eradicate the local Twinkie population. But what if my partner was right? What if it really was a trap? Before I could make up my mind, the elevator lurched to a halt, the doors opened, and we had bigger problems to deal with.

Two big problems, to be specific. Burly men in jungle camouflage carrying laxative Uzis at port arms. They took one look at Erpent’s wee-wee flapping in the breeze, Green’s elbow under the man’s chin and our drawn Laxafiers, and they leveled their weapons at us.

“Down and lick the floor!” one shouted. Three chevrons adorned his sleeve.

I held up my badge. “It’s OK,” I said. “ATFF. Tracking down a major French Food Mafia figure.”

They threw me on the floor and took my gun and badge. Erpent and Green landed at my side.

“This is all a misunderstanding,” Erpent said, lifting his head off the ground. “If you’ll just allow me to—”

“Lick the mothereating floor!” the sergeant screamed. “Down! Do it! Now!” He jammed the barrel of his Uzi into Erpent’s butt crack. “Or I’ll pump you so full of laxative you’ll have hemorrhoids the size of dinner plates!”

We licked the floor. Dust stuck to my tongue. I tried not to swallow, in case there were calories mixed in with the dirt. Shoes clacked toward us down the hall. They came to a halt inches from my head.

“Report.”

“Intruders, sir,” the sergeant said. He held out our badges. “Pair of ATFF, one Skinny Service.”

“The SS?” A note of surprise.

“I have access,” Erpent hissed from the floor. “The Thin House cleared it with the General this morning. Or how do you think I got down here?”

“This is an Air Force base,” the officer said. “Maybe up there you’re somebody. Down here you’re not worth a food terrist’s stinky poo. Now shut up.”

The only sound was the three of us cleaning the floor with our tongues. One by one the newcomer examined our badges and laid them on a nearby table. I fidgeted. My throat was getting dry. What if Green was right? What if they were going to grind us into sausages?

“On your feet.”

We got up, scraping the grit from our tongues. Green spat on the floor.

“No spitting!” the sergeant yelled. “Show some mothereating respect.”

The officer gave us back our badges, but left our weapons on the table. “It’s all right, Sergeant,” he said. He kicked a bucket toward us. “Here. Use this.”

We all spat in the bucket. The lieutenant was almost as skinny as Erpent. He wore Air Force blues. Balloons the size of contraband candy apples rose from the epaulets of his shirt. A first lieutenant’s silver stripe ran down the front of each. Rumor had it the Air Force filled officers’ rank balloons with helium, and at military parties they’d inhale their own rank balloons and talk in high squeaky voices. My gaze dropped to his name tag. “Lieutenant Krapp,” it read. A division insignia I had never seen before was pinned to his shirtfront. It was gold and roughly the size and shape of a poo.

“What are you staring at, Agent Frolick?” Krapp demanded.

“Nothing, Lieutenant,” I said. “I was just wondering what that insignia you’re wearing means.”

The officer crossed the room in two strides and stood toe to toe with me. His rank balloons bobbled against my face and shoulders.

“This insignia?” he said softly. He tapped it with his forefinger. It had been polished until it gleamed. “This insignia means we are the last line of defense. We are here to protect people like you from the food terrists out there who are salivating for a chance to attack this great country.”

He punched the air and grunted, “Poo-AHH!” The two guards echoed the exclamation.

“I thought that was our job at the ATFF,” I protested.

“Not even close,” he said with a sneer. “This insignia represents the most cutting-edge technology. The very existence of our unit is Tip Top Tippity Top Golden Poo In A Bidet Secret. You understand what I’m telling you?”

We shuffled our feet for a moment, looked at each other. Erpent shrugged.

“Um…no,” Green said.

“It means we don’t exist!” he bellowed. “We are a figment of your imagination! And I’ll thank you to remember it!”

“But isn’t this the NSA?” Green asked.

“Poo-AHH!” the two guards grunted.

The lieutenant went silent. His eyes bulged from his head. “That’s Tip Top Tippity Top Golden Poo In A Bidet Secret!” he screamed at my partner. “How do you know that?”

Green jerked his thumb at Erpent. “He told us.”

For the first time, Erpent looked unsure of himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it was only Top Top Super Double Dip Hot Fudge Sundae With A Cherry On Top Secret.”

The lieutenant snorted. “Well, you were wrong.”

“So what’s so special about the NSA?” I asked. “They spy on ferrners’ sewer systems. Everyone knows that.”

Krapp grinned. “Is that what you know?” he whispered. “Is that what you think you know?”

“They don’t know poo,” the sergeant scoffed.

Erpent protested, “But I was personally briefed this morning by the Prophet’s National Security Advisor—”

“Who is what? A general with only four stars?” The lieutenant spat. “You know nothing.”

Green cleared his throat. “We’re obviously not welcome here,” he said. “We won’t take up any more of your time. If you’ll show us where the exit is, we’ll go.”

The lieutenant squared his shoulders. “The General is not happy about this intrusion,” he snapped. “My orders are to take you to him. Come along.”

He turned on his heels and walked back down the hall. Erpent tucked himself into his pants, straightened up and followed after the junior officer. Green and I fell into step behind the other two.

“Still think it’s a trap?” I asked.

“If they’re letting us live, it’s because they want us to be patsies. That’s why they chose us. They need a pair of fall guys when this investigation fails.”

“Don’t be so cynical, Harry,” I said. “Of course we aren’t going to fail.”

“All I know,” he said, keeping his voice low, “is that if the Air Force is involved, we’re screwed.”

For you ferrners out there unfamiliar with the military structure that makes our great Empire of Air possible, the Prophet centralized all our armed forces under the Unified Strategic Air Command during his first year in office: the Air Force Marine Corps; the Air Force Army, Navy and Coast Guard; the Air Force NSA and CIA; the Air Force Merchant Marine; the Air Force Geological Survey; the Air Force Irish Dancers; and so on. Some people, traitors mostly, asked what all this military expenditure was for. Who were we going to fight? That sort of remark will get you put in Fat Camp until the War is over. What these people don’t understand is that the Air Force is the most powerful force for good this world has ever seen. These are the brave men and women who risk their lives to promote American values—I mean Airitarian values—all around the world. Like Truth, Justice and the Air-Eating Way.

So while Green walked down that corridor all nervous, I strode forward to my destiny, knowing I was going to meet a general, one of our greatest military leaders in the Global War on Fat.

The lieutenant made a right turn and led us down a slope. The corridor widened and dead-ended at a round chrome door twenty feet high. On both sides concrete pillboxes protruded from the wall. Their narrow slits bristled with Laxafier automatic rifle barrels. The guns twitched at our approach, aiming their high-powered laxative loads at our bellies.

Krapp approached a biometric reader in the wall and unzipped his fly. He put his wee-wee in the hole and thrust himself in and out, his belt buckle clacking against the concrete wall each time. He humped the hole for long minutes before uttering a cry and going still.

The chrome vault door opened with a hiss. A hubbub of voices burbled forth—the sound of thousands of people talking at once, fingers tapping at keyboards, lips slurping up caffeinated air. But one noise dominated the rest: the gurgling of a flushing toilet.

“This way,” Krapp grunted. He zipped up his fly. He seemed a bit dazed.

I looked behind us. The two guards stood there, laxative Uzis pointed at our bottoms.

“Get moving,” the sergeant said.

I took the steps two at a time up to the vault door. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s see what the fuss is all about.”

“I guess we don’t really have a choice,” Green said.

“No,” the sergeant said. “You don’t.”

Nine

We stepped through the vault door and gasped. Before us stretched an underground bunker several football fields long. Every square foot was covered by giant copper tanks, laboratory equipment and computers. Air Force technicians in lab smocks and goggles swarmed about the space. The ceiling was ten stories high. The gurgling noise came from there. Pipes the size of sewer mains dropped from overhead and branched off until they connected with the copper tanks.

On a dais in the center of the room stood a man. Rank balloons the size of small cars rose from the epaulets of his dress uniform. The balloons were covered in stars.

Opposite him on the wall hung an enormous screen. It showed a map of the US. Lines and dots of different colors covered the terrain. “Sewer Systems of the United States of Air,” proclaimed the map key.

“Gentlemen,” the lieutenant said. “Welcome to the NSA. Now quit your gawking and get a move on.”

He waited for us beside a copper tank with a window in the side. The tank was filling up with a brown liquid.

“A-OOO-gah! A-OOO-gah! A-OOO-gah!”

A klaxon sounded. Behind us, the vault door closed. The three of us scrambled off the threshold and into the great chamber.

“Titanium deadbolts,” Krapp remarked. “Fifty feet of reinforced concrete. We are impervious to nuclear attack here, gentlemen. Nothing—and no one—gets in or out of the National Sewer Agency without the General’s say-so.” He about-faced, held his head high and marched toward the dais.

We followed, staring curiously around. We passed a bank of computer consoles. The technicians were crowded around a monitor, watching a movie. Two butt cheeks filled most of the screen, plus some genitalia, two legs and a triangular gap of light. A dark spot got bigger, then—
plop!
A turd floated across the camera lens. On another screen, a stream of urine clouded the image. What a strange movie, I thought. Was this art house cinema?

We approached the dais. The General stood with his back toward us, leaning over the chrome railing. An Air Force officer with a major’s watermelon-sized rank balloons stood at ground level, reading a report.

“…and in Paris, Operation Dog Poo Baguette was a success, revealing the dietary habits and fecal composition of the president’s inner circle—”

A sergeant-at-arms stopped us with a white-gloved hand. He wore spats over flip-flops and an inflated yellow duck around his waist. The lieutenant whispered to him. Meanwhile, the major droned on, “And in China, our operative code name Spicy Sichuan Chopsticks was able to infiltrate a chain of noodle stores—”

The sergeant-at-arms reached up and pulled on the General’s pant leg.

“Hold it, Major.” The General turned to face us. “Who interrupts my midmorning snack?”

The General’s uniform dazzled me. His medals and service ribbons covered both sides of his chest, spread across his stomach, up both sleeves and down his pants. There were even service ribbons on his shoes. Gold braid thick enough to moor an oil tanker draped under both armpits. The peak of his cap rose a yard in the air, and the bill jutted out a foot.