“I realized after fifteen minutes in the room that I had stepped through a looking glass without realizing it,” Barb said.
“That’s good,” Larry replied, looking up. “I don’t usually like first person, but that might work. What’s it from?”
“I just made it up,” Barbara said, dryly.
“Tits and a sense of humor,” Larry said, looking down again. “Unusual combination.”
“Hey!” Angie snapped.
“Well, there’s a reason I let you hang around,” Larry replied, equably.
“Sure, you get slave labor from my husband,” Angie said. “And you like my cookies.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever called them cookies,” Larry said, distantly.
“It’s just doing the time,” the brown-haired man on the bed said. “You stick with me. Someday they’ll say, ‘You remember when Angie and Eric were just lowly schlubs going to slush parties? Now look at where they’ve gotten…’ ”
“Bedlam,” a man propped at the head of the bed said. He was big and very heavyset with a thick beard and red-brown hair. But while being overweight, he gave the impression of having a good bit of muscle. “Bellevue. Momma Patrona’s House of the Seriously Mentally Infirm. God, that one was bad!” He crumpled up the manuscript, tossed it onto the floor, stuffed and skimmed, making it to the “KILL, KILL!” box despite it being across the room. “It was one of those that was so bad it was like a parody of bad. I kept thinking it was a joke and I’d get to the punchline. I couldn’t believe when I got to the end and realized he was dead serious.”
“Could he spell?” Larry asked, reading another manuscript.
“Yeah.”
“Good, send him a letter that we want to hire him as a slush reader.”
“I said it was bad,” the man said.
“Why should we have to be put through this?” Larry said, grimacing and tossing the manuscript on the floor. “That one doesn’t even deserve a rejection letter. It deserves anthrax in the envelope. Somebody hand me a bottle of foot powder. Teach him to submit that crap to me…”
Barbara read through a couple more of the manuscripts and found one that… wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but that might be taste. She supposed it was “combat science fiction” since it involved a fair bit of shooting. But she didn’t think much of the tactics and the characters seemed a bit flat.
“This might be okay,” she said, looking at Angie.
“Lemme see,” Angie said, picking it up.
Barb went back to reading and heard an occasional snort over her shoulder.
“Pier would love this one, Larry,” Angie said after a moment. “Get this, the enemy is radical greens…”
“Oh, God, not again,” Larry said, laughing. “Are they over-industrialized despite being serious environmentalists?”
“Absolutely,” Angie chuckled. “Wooden stock characters, big-titted women to be saved, not one bad guy with a clue and the prose is mostly banal at best.”
“We should send it to Pier with our blessings,” Eric said, looking up. “Give them all the rope they needed to hang themselves.”
Barbara frowned and opened her mouth, then closed it.
“You really think that environmentalists would hyper-industrialize?” Larry asked from across the room.
Barb sensed a test question but she couldn’t figure out the exact answer to give.
“I was thinking of the Soviet Union, actually,” Barbara said. “It was supposed to be a worker’s paradise, and it was anything but paradise. Hell is more like it. If Dante had seen it he would have written the Ninth Level differently. So, yes, I could see environmentalists acting in that fashion. Can’t you?”
“No,” Larry said. “Is it any good otherwise?”
“There’s a plot,” Angie said, shrugging. “And the grammar’s okay. But the characters are pretty flat and the prose is so-so. No real style to it. I wouldn’t have made it past the first page.”
“Toss,” Larry said. “The next thing it will be radical abortionists with an overpopulation problem.”
“Like China?” Barb asked, raising an eyebrow.
“China’s got its population under control,” Eric said, looking up. She suddenly realized that most of the people in the room had stopped reading and were looking at her.
“They’ve still got a higher growth rate than Europe or America,” Barbara said, ticking off items on her finger. “They have a huge imbalance in males, which will probably change that. But they’re already importing brides, which will tend to redress that in the long term. They have an official one child rule that’s regularly flouted by the privileged or anyone who can bribe the right officials and they have the highest rate of abortion in the world. They’re radical abortionists with an overpopulation problem. That is no more unlikely than radical greens with a pollution problem, which was really what was mentioned in the story.”
“Is it the population problem or the abortions that bother you?” Larry asked, frowning.
“The abortions,” Barb said. “When women abort babies just because they’re female, I have a problem with that. I, personally, have a problem with abortion, period. It’s simply infanticide a priori.”
“So you’d like to see Roe versus Wade reversed?” Angie said, a touch angrily.
“Roe was bad case law,” Barbara replied, shaking her head. “Let it be legislated.”
“A woman’s right to her body is inviolate,” the Asian-American girl on the floor snapped.
“So is the right of every person to live,” Barb snapped right back. “Including that unborn child in the womb. It’s a child. Infanticide, whether a priori as in abortion or after the fact as often happens in China is wrong. If you don’t want the child, give it up for adoption.”
“Some people can’t bear children well,” Angie said. “My sister-”
“If that’s provable, then it is different,” Barbara said, sharply. “But too often it’s used as an excuse. So you’re pregnant. Get over it. Have the baby and get on with your life. But you should let the child choose to do the same.”
“Hey, Barb,” the man on the bed said, getting to his feet. “Why don’t we take a walk?”
“Probably a good idea,” Barb said, coming to her feet.
“Especially since I’d never hit a lady,” Larry said, nastily. “Otherwise I’d kick your ass.”
“Really… ?” Barb said softly, then sighed. “Never mind. I’m sorry if I have caused you offense. Please excuse me.”
She turned and quickly walked to the door and out.
“I haven’t seen Larry that angry in a long time,” the bearlike man said, following her out.
“I can’t believe I lost my temper,” Barb said, breathing in and out for calm and saying a small prayer for forgiveness.
“Larry can get under people’s skin,” the man admitted. “I’m Bob Dorr, by the way.”
“Barb Everette,” Barb said as they got on the elevator. “So what do you do, Bob?” she added, punching for the ground floor.
“I’m an illustrator,” Bob replied. “General graphics and stuff. I do some of the illustration in Larry’s mags.”
“And I suspect you agree with him, politically,” Barb said.
“Generally,” Bob admitted. “Still looking for a fight? Or do I have to hold you off the ground until you calm down?”
“I think that was the thing that made me angriest,” Barb replied as they exited the elevator and she looked around. “The assumption that he could have kicked my a… butt. What ever happened to equality?”