‘Here it is’, announced Maxx proudly. ‘The culmination of three years of research and development’.
Dick was about to say something stupid like, ‘The secret weapon is luggage?’ but before he could make a fool of himself Carter picked up one of the cases, hoisted it on to the table, took out a small key and unlocked it. Snapping open the two latches he opened the case. There, resting on a purple crushed-velvet lining was what could only be described as a ‘contraption’. It consisted of a large brass cylinder, several brass spheres, lots of copper tubing, some dials, a few small metal boxes and a whole load of complicated wiring. Dick thought it looked like the result of an unholy alliance between a tuba and a deep sea diver’s breathing apparatus.
‘The device is kept in the case for ease of transportation and for disguise’, Maxx explained. ‘After all, no one would ever expect that an old suitcase contains something of such importance, something of such overwhelming consequence that it will change the world!’.
‘So you keep saying’, said Dick.
‘And do you remember something else I said to you recently — that very soon, all resistance will be futile?’ Dick nodded. ‘Well this is why’.
Dick walked around the table, looking closely at the device within the case.
‘Go on, examine it. Tell me what you think it is’, said Maxx smiling.
Dick ran his hands over the copper tubes and the dials. He put his ear next to the large cylinder. He rapped one of the brass spheres to hear a dull, hollow ring. For some reason only known to him, he even smelled the wiring. He had absolutely no idea what this thing was. Weapons that were designed to have such a fundamental impact should be large, he thought. Large and matt black, the colour of choice for deadly weapons. This looked too small and too shiny to have anywhere near the sort of effect that Maxx was threatening.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it before’, admitted Dick. ‘Can you give me some sort of clue to what the weapon is?’
‘It rhymes with “prom”’, suggested Maxx.
Frown lines took over Dick’s forehead as he thought for a few seconds. ‘Mom?’, he offered.
Maxx shook his head.
‘Vom?’
‘”Vom?’’ That’s not a word!’ exclaimed Maxx.
‘It’s short for vomit’, offered Dick.
‘Why the fuck would my secret weapon be vomit?’, Maxx said with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice.
Dick’s confused expression indicated that he obviously hasn’t thought this one through. Maxx didn’t have the patience to wait and hear how Dick expected vomit to defeat the resistance movement, so he revealed the answer.
‘Rhymes with “prom”… try “bomb”’.
Dick flinched, accidentally knocking the table in the process and jolting the suitcase. In a reflex move he ducked down, covering his head with his hands.
‘Don’t worry. It’s not primed!’, Maxx explained, smiling.
Dick pulled himself to his feet and tried to regain at least some of dignity he’d just lost. He looked at the device again, this time with more respect. ‘And you’re going to blow up the resistance headquarters with this bomb?’, he asked.
‘No’, Maxx said. ‘You don’t even know where it is, so how the hell would we?! In any event, even if we did blow it up, it wouldn’t stop any rebel factions from re-grouping and carrying on their work like they’ve done in the past. Up until now the Resistance has just been an annoyance — a boil on the backside of the Party. But there’s no knowing what trickery they might get up to in the future. Take you for example…’
Dick went slightly red.
‘Who knows what damage you might have done if I hadn’t recognised you?’
Dick went redder.
‘Tell me, how is it that some members of the population question the Party and take petty actions against it?’, enquired Maxx. ‘The sort of people that the Resistance try and identify and recruit. Why don’t these dissidents think and act like 99.9% of the population?’
‘The Resistance gives them an antidote to the monthly bromide injections. You must know that’, answered Dick. ‘This gives people a greater degree of free will. It makes them more questioning about this society’.
‘Precisely!’ shouted Maxx. ‘And as much as it pains me to say it, we’ve never managed to track down supplies of the antidote and whoever manufactures and distributes it. And we’re unable to even identify it within people’s bloodstreams. Which is where the bomb comes in.
‘Think back to our time Dick. Do you remember something called the neutron bomb? It was an atomic bomb specifically designed to kill people but leave buildings and the infrastructure intact’.
‘Sure’, Dick agreed. ‘It released deadly radiation but without a deadly blast’.
‘You’ve got it!’, Maxx smiled. ‘And that’s what gave me the idea for my weapon’. He patted the device proudly. ‘The Impotence Bomb’.
Dick didn’t like the word ‘impotence’ or the word ‘bomb’ and the two used together gave him severe palpitations.
‘I won’t bore you with all the details but basically the bomb releases a very specific form of gamma radiation that affects neuro-chemicals in the brain, specifically in the left anterior cingulate cortex’.
Maxx looked at Dick whose confused expression clearly belonged to someone who’d just heard the phrases ‘neuro-chemicals’ and ‘anterior cingulate cortex’ in the same sentence.
‘In layman’s terms’, Maxx explained, ‘The air borne radiation that will be carried for miles will instantly suppress any form of sexual desire in people’. As if this news wasn’t bad enough Maxx added for good measure, ‘Permanently’.
‘So no one will want sex?’ asked a horrified Dick. ‘Why on earth would you want that?’
‘Easy. No sexual desire means no distractions. And no distractions means people will be more efficient. And if they’re more efficient the economy will prosper. Everyone will benefit from a better standard of living, and the increased productivity will help fund our expansion’.
‘Expansion into what?’, Dick asked.
‘Well first Europe and then, well who knows?’
‘But we don’t have contact with any other country?’, said Dick.
‘Not yet. But we will, when we threaten other nations with the Impotence Bomb’.
It’s disconcerting when someone strokes an inanimate object in an overtly sexual way and doubly so when the object in question is a bomb — but that’s exactly what Maxx did as he outlined his plans for world domination.
‘I feel it’s time for the United Kingdom to end this self-imposed period of isolation. Our first foreign target will be our neighbour France; a nation fiercely proud of its reputation for romance and love’, said Maxx. ‘We’ll explode the first bomb in France over a minor target like Lille or Bordeaux and then threaten the city of l’amour itself, Paris. Do you think red-blooded French leaders will let this happen to their country, let alone themselves?
‘Non! Of course they won’t! And with France under my total control I’ll then threaten Spain and Italy. Two other countries that, I’m certain, would rather submit to my rule than surrender their nations’ considerable libidos’.
Dick gasped as the enormity of what Maxx was saying began to sink in.
‘From then on, nation after nation will fall before me like dominoes!’.
‘You mean like those displays where the whole floor is covered in dominoes and one knocks another one and that knocks another that knocks another and then the whole lot fall down making all sort of different shapes and some of them go round in circles and some go up and down little ramps or miniature see-saws until they all fall down making a gigantic pattern?’, asked Dick.