The man sprawled in the recliner in the middle of the room made even the mess around him look like an example of good repair. He was nearly two meters tall and built like a tank, but he was also clearly ill. His hair was streaked with white, his naked belly bulged over the stained waistband of his sweats, and his face was lined. He swiveled his chair toward her and beamed widely. “Enter my royal palace!” he declared, gesturing with both hands. Rachel saw the dirty bandage wrapped around his left wrist, trailing a shielded cable in the direction of a large crate behind the chair.
“Okay, I’m coming in,” she said as calmly as she could, and stepped inside the room.
A hoarse robot voice burbled from the crate: “T minus thirty-five minutes and counting. Warning: proximity alert. Unidentified human at three meters. Request permission to accelerate detonation sequence?”
Rachel swallowed. The man in the chair didn’t seem to notice. “Welcome to the presidential palace of the Once and Future Kingdom of Uganda! What’s your name, sweetie? Are you a famous journalist? Did you come here to interview me?”
“Um, yes.” Rachel stopped just inside the doorway, two meters away from the sick man and his pet talking nuke. “I’m Rachel. That’s a very nice bomb you’ve got,” she said carefully.
“Warning: proximity alert. Unidentified human at—”
“Shut the fuck up,” the man said casually, and the bomb stopped in midsentence. “It is a lovely bomb, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Did you make it yourself?” Rachel’s pulse raced. She blipped her endocrine overrides, forcing the sweat ducts on the palms of her hands to stop pumping and her stomach to cease trying to flip out through the nearest window.
“Moi? Do I resemble a weapons scientist? I bought it off the shelf.” He smiled, revealing the glint of a gold tooth — Rachel managed to keep a straight face, but her nostrils flared at the unmistakable odor of dental decay. “Is it not great?” He held up his wrist. “If I die, poof! All funeral expenses included!”
“How big is it?” she ventured.
“Oh, it’s very big!” He grinned wider and spread his legs suggestively, rubbing his crotch with one hand. “The third stage dials all the way to three hundred kilotons.”
Rachel’s stomach turned to ice. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill black-market bomb, she subvocalized, hoping MacDougal would be listening carefully. “That must have cost you a lot of money,” she said slowly.
“Oh yes.” The grin faded. “I had to sell everything. I even gave up the treatments.”
“Which treatments?”
Suddenly he was on his feet and ranting. “The ones that make me Idi Amin! King of Scotland, Victoria Cross, KBE, MBE, Governor of Kiboga and Mayor of Bukake! I am the President! Respect me and fear me! You chickenshit white Europeans have oppressed the people of Africa long enough — it’s time for a new world of freedom! I stand for Islamic values, African triumph, and freedom from the oppressors. But you don’t give me no respect! Nobody listens when I tell them what to do. It’s time for punishment!” Spittle filled the air in front of her. Rachel tried to take a step forward without attracting his attention, but the bomb noticed.
“Alert: close proximity alert! Unidentified human, believed hostile, at—”
“Don’t move,” MacDougal whispered tinnily in her ear. “The fucking thing just armed itself. If you get any closer without him telling it you’re friendly, it could blow.”
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Rachel’s face. She forced herself to smile. “That’s really impressive,” she said slowly. Insects whined softly overhead, police wasps circling his head, waiting for an opportunity to strike safely. A thought dug its unwelcome claws into her mind: Got to get closer! But how? “I like impressive men,” she cooed. “And you’re really impressive, Mister President.”
I’m going to try to get close enough to immobilize him, she subvocalized. Tell me exactly what your bugs are loaded with again.
“Glad you think so, little lady,” said the Last King of Scotland, rubbing his crotch. Isn’t priapism a late-stage symptom? she subvocalized, staring at his dirty sweats and forcing herself to lick her suddenly dry lips.
“They’re loaded with a really strong serotonin antagonist targeted on his reticular activating system. Ten seconds and he’ll be in a coma. We just need to stop him telling the bomb to go bang after it goes in and before he nods off. And, uh, yes, it is a symptom.”
“Your little king looks like he wants to hold court.” Rachel smiled invitingly, dry-swallowing and steeling herself for the next step. First get his confidence, then abuse it … “What’s the protocol for approaching a President, Mister President?”
“You do it naked. Naked folks are my friends. Naked people don’t have no guns. You hear that, bomb? Naked women are my friends. Naked bitches. My special friends.” He seemed to have calmed down a bit, but the set of his jaw was still tense, and he squinted angrily, as if he had a bad sinus headache. “You going to get naked, bitch?”
“If you say so, Mister President.” Rachel locked her jaw muscles in a painful rictus that imitated a smile as she unsealed her jacket and slowly shrugged her way out of it. Did you hear that? she subvocalized as she rolled her leggings down around her ankles and stepped out of them. She stood in front of him and held the forced grin, trying to look inviting, willing her endocrine override to give her a flush of subcutaneous blood vessels and a crinkling of nipples. Trying to fake arousal, to do anything to keep the sad bastard distracted from the prospect of wanking his way into nuclear oblivion, taking half a city with him. Anything to let her get closer to the trigger -
“You may approach the throne,” declared Field Marshal Professor President Doctor Idi Amin Dadaist, spreading his legs. With a moue of vague disgust he yanked his pants open. His penis was indeed large and stiff: it also bore several weeping sores, like a blighted aubergine. “Kneel to kiss your emperor!”
Rachel saw his hands raised above his head. His right fingertips brushed against the dead man’s wristband as he smiled lazily. She knelt before him, tensing. “I can do good things with my hands,” she offered as she reached toward his crotch, her skin crawling.
“Then do so,” he said magisterially. “Remember, as your President I hold the power of life and death over you.”
Rachel nodded and gently stroked his glans. She could see a vein pulsing in it. She leaned closer, trying to judge the distance, swallowing bile. “May I kiss you, Mister President? You’re a very powerful man. Would you like that? I’m your loyal subject. Will you let me kiss you on the mouth?”
The Field Marshal and Professor sat up slightly. “Certainly,” he said, mustering up a slightly pathetic gravitas: his breath caught as she stroked him.
“Hey, that’s a funny smell,” Rachel said quickly. Then she leaned forward and clamped her mouth down onto his lips, tongue questing, fingers busy with his shaft. He tensed slightly, back arching, and she reached up to grab his right arm by the wrist. Something insectoidal flickered past her eyes in a blur of wings as he spasmed and pumped a ropy stream of hot imperial semen across her thigh. His jaws flexed: she stuck her tongue into his mouth as far as she could, squeezing her eyes shut, holding her breath, and prayed that he wouldn’t have a seizure as he bucked and jerked against her. The President for Life twitched a couple of times: then his eyes rolled up and he slumped backward in the recliner. His right arm fell sideways as she let go of it. She straightened up, gasping, and managed to turn aside. She spat, trying to get the taste of decaying teeth out of her mouth, then doubled over and vomited noisily across the would-be dictator’s feet.