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And she’s gone

It’s only after she leaves that the anger begins to rise in him Not just a spike, but an eruption, and there’s nowhere for it to go He takes the chair and hurls it against the vanity ainst the walls and doesn’t stop until the security guards burst in on hiuards to restrain hier He has the best of the best in hiroup, every synaptic reflex He tears free froency exit stairs, and ?"

"Solitude," he says "I needed soht, Caet past this"

"Yes, I knoill"

But he keeps his true thoughts to hiood-bye He will not let her disappear from his life He will do whatever it takes to have her, to hold her, to keep her He has all of Roberta’s resources at his fingertips to get what he wants, and he’s going to use thely between phone calls, and he sood rewound boy Roberta wants hienda He will make Risa’s dream come true and take down Proactive Citizenry piece by bloody piece

And then she will have no choice but to love his

Our country is challenged at ho tried and not our strength

--PRESIDENT JOHNSON on Vietnam and the school campus war protests, 1968

I have every faith that this devastating national conflict shall be resolved, and that the accord between both sides shall also serve as an ultilorious day, I ae of eighteen

--PRESIDENT MOSS on the Heartland War, teeks prior to his assassination by militant New Jersey separatists

76 - Drealitz of Hollywood and far east of the suburban sprawl of San Diego, lies an inland sea as forgotten and as unloved as a state ward AWOL or a harvest cao it was the northern reach of the Sea of Cortez, before that sea even had a naiant landlocked salt lake, slowly drying into desert Too saline for vertebrate life, its fish have all died Their bones cover the shores like gravel

At ten ht, a plane once heralded as the dream of aviation before it was replaced by newer drea military pilot with farthe mountains around the lake, the jet co"

It does not go well

77 - Starkey

No seatbelts, no seats No way to brace theether! Hook your legs around each other," Starkey tells them "We’ll be one another’s seatbelts"

The storks obey, huddling, locking liled colony of flesh and bone Sitting on the floorboards, no one can see out the s to kno close the lake is--but then Trace comes on the intercole of their descent changes as he pulls up the nose of the jet

"See you on the other side," Starkey says, then realizes onceyou say when you’re about to die

Starkey counts down the last twenty seconds in his head, but nothing happens Was he counting too fast? Did Trace est of his life Then it finally co jolt, followed by calm

"Was that it?" someone says "Is it over?"

There’s another jolt, then another and another, each one coether, and Starkey realizes the plane is ski like a rudder that pivots the plane to a diagonal, and suddenly it’s the end of the world The Dreaainst the unforgiving surface of the lake

Inside, the mob of kids is launched froal force, thrown in two separate clusters to either end of theof arms actually saves many of them, as they’re cushioned by the bodies around the crush of kids--those acting as the cushions--become the sacrifices Many of theainst the hard surfaces of the Dreamliner

The cache of weapons, which had been stowed in the overhead compartments, flies free as well, as those compartments tear loose and burst open Pistols and rifles andcasualties without ever having to go off

Wrapped in the forward twist of bodies, Starkey feels his head hit soash on his forehead, but that’s nothing co pain in his battered hand