The Brave New World

Amanda Queen had formed The Amazons two years earlier, and had personally guided the band to stunning success. When the Amazons performed live, women screamed and fainted; men went pale, and sometimes clutched their b.a.l.l.s.

Amanda Queen was very smart. She knew that style trumped substance in an increasingly superficial world. On stage and in front of cameras, the Amazons performed while wearing latex costumes suggestive of sadomaso s.e.x. Off stage and in public, the Amazons wore color-coded leather outfits: black for Amanda Queen, red, blue, green and purple for the remaining members of the band. Their hair was carefully color-coded too, ranging from platinum blond to jet black.

Off stage and in private, the Amazons wore T-shirts and fluffy sweaters and jeans and soft, fleecy exercise pants. But that day, the sixth day of the New Year and the fifth day of the New Era, they were all wearing military-style clothing: olive-green T-shirts, and camo jackets and pants. A shining blue dot glowed in the center of each of the five foreheads, all creased in deep thought.

The room and house they were in belonged to Amanda Queen. It was a palatial house. Amanda"s father, the late Reginald Queen, had made a fortune in pharmaceuticals. His own invention and flagship product, called the Happy Pill, combined a mix of vitamins and stimulants that induced a state of mild euphoria. At the last count, over a hundred million people worldwide took their daily Happy Pill.

Unfortunately, Reggie Queen wasn"t around any longer to enjoy the fruit of his labors. He had been killed along with his wife - Amanda"s mother - when their private jet crashed into the ocean, en route to Hawaii. Neither the bodies nor the wreckage had ever been found.

Amanda Queen was an only child. She had been born with an outstanding brain, and received an excellent education. The demise of her parents had made her fabulously wealthy. The only thing missing from her life was widespread, global adoration of the kind enjoyed by the greatest movie stars.

Being musically talented as well as smart, she formed The Amazons. She invested a couple of million dollars in plastic surgery for all of the Amazons including herself, and it paid off: the band was a smashing success within a year. But after another year, the novelty wore off. Amanda Queen was more than ready for another adventure, another challenge.

The glowing cube in Seattle"s Wolf Tree Nature Area couldn"t have appeared at a better time, or in a better location: just a short walk from Amanda"s house. Fortunately, all five of the Amazons had a.s.sembled at Amanda"s home to welcome the New Year together, and make plans for the next twelve months.

They spent a frenzied couple of hours taking as much stuff as they could carry from the cube, and depositing it in the house. Then police showed up on the scene, and cordoned off the cube.

It didn"t matter. They had packed one room full of items from the cube, and another a least half-full. They had enough timon implants to start a town. They had enough hiber beds to open a hostel for the homeless. They also had more than enough scrolls, fifty or sixty. Whatever: they worked well as lights.

All five of the Amazons had already acquainted themselves with the content of the glowing scrolls. All five of the Amazons had already been to the New World. All five Amazons were determined to make this new world their own.

They knew they were going to have compet.i.tion over there. They had already chased off a couple of pallid, flaccid, naked specimens of the male s.e.x with a few well-thrown stones.

They had spent the last three hours discussing what needed to be done to claim supremacy in their corner of the New World.

Amanda said:

"All right. Here"s who does what."

She broke off and looked Fiona Fizz. Fiona played ba.s.s, had flaming red hair, and wore green leather on the street. She had spent a year at an agricultural college before she dropped out to join the band. Amanda said:

"Fiona. You"ll go to the pet shop and grab every bunny you can find. Guinea pigs are good, too. I ate them on my visit to Ecuador, and they are very tasty. You"ll also get a couple of dogs: more precisely, a dog and a b.i.t.c.h. Dobermans would be good, but we"ll settle for Alsatians."

"Can I have someone to give me a hand with that? I"ll have to bring in plenty of pet food, too."

"Sure. Linda, can you help her?"

Linda Love - black hair, red leather, lead guitar - nodded, and pa.s.sed the joint she"d been smoking to Sharon Starr (purple leather, purple hair, drums).

"Betty." Betty Blue - blue outfit, brown hair, keyboards - stopped watching the joint"s progress and looked attentively at Amanda.

"You"ll cycle down to the town hall and find out what"s going on. In particular, ask about any other cubes that might have popped up elsewhere. Get all the information you can, and drop in on Sheila before you get back. She and her sister might want to join our enterprise."

"But there"s been shooting downtown," said Betty. "We all heard the gunfire."

"There hasn"t been any gunfire for at least a day. But if you"re scared, I"ll give you my Glock. You know how to use it, don"t you?"

"Yes," said Betty meekly, "But I"m not a very good shot."

"Don"t be a douchebag, girl. Just do your best. You"ll be fine."

"Okay," said Betty, somewhat doubtfully. "But what about you?"

Amanda smiled and brushed away a strand of blond hair that had fallen over one of her big, green eyes. She said:

"I"m taking Sharon, and we"ll go and visit Kevin Stringer. He lives just a few blocks away."

There was no need to explain anything: her girls were all very bright. And they knew about Kevin Stringer.

Over a quarter century earlier, Kevin Stringer had won the gold medal in archery at the Olympic Games. He now ran a business that offered training courses to aspiring archers. He also manufactured custom-made bows for environment-conscious, animal-friendly hunters who liked to think that their prey preferred being killed by an arrow to a bullet from a gun.

"Wow," said Linda Love. "I want a piece of that action."

"You"ll all get a piece of that action," said Amanda. "Never fear. We"ll all become experts with the bow. We"ll have to learn how to make them too, though - with next to no tools. It"s not going to be easy. But -"

She paused to look at them. As always, they were hanging on her every word. She raised a clenched fist and shouted:

"We"ll do it! Attagirl!"

"Attagirl" was the t.i.tle of the Amazon"s first great hit. It quickly became their battle cry. They gathered round in a circle before each performance and raised their fists and chanted:

"Attagirl! Attagirl! Attagirl!"

Then they would walk out onto the stage to a roar of applause, and make both girls and guys wet with hard, driving rock. Music that made people yell and strip their clothes off and generally behave like fugitives from a madhouse.

They were the greatest. They were the Amazons. They kicked a.s.s, and took no names.

And now they jumped to their feet and raised their glowing scrolls and shouted:

"Attagirl! Attagirl! Attagirl!"

They all grinned as they shouted. This New World thing - it was going to be one h.e.l.l of a ride.

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