Dex Fresser was clutching his chest, which felt unbearably tight. "Oh, shit," he exclaimed, "it's us! We're keeping Big Wheel off! Everybody put your stereos on ninety point three! Do as she says!" Down in Electrical Control, deep in the Burrows, I and the other switch-throwers rested. The circuit breakers that supply power to an entire tower are large items, not at all easy to throw on and off every two seconds! By midnight we were rested up and ready to go. Sarah resumed her broadcast.
"I sure hope we can get Big Wheel to come on. Let's hope E and F Towers go along this time. Ready? Everyone standing by their light switch? Okay Off On Off "
From his lounge-headquarters, Dex Fresser watched his towers flash raggedly on and off. Some of the lights were not flashing; but within minutes the Wing Commisars had swept through and shot out any strays, and Dex Fresser was undescribably proud that his towers could flash like the others. Big Wheel could not forsake them now.
"On!" cried Sarah, and stopped. Several lights went off again from habit, then coyly flickered back on. There was an unbearable wait.
"I think we've done it," Sarah said. "Look at Big Wheel!" And the wheel of fire cast its light over the Plex with all its former glory. Dex wept.
"Not bad for a fascist," observed Little Wheel.
The Big Wheel spun all night.
It was trickier to get the attention of the barbarians of the Base. Most of them did not have bicameral minds and thus could not be made to hear mysterious voices. We needed to impress them. Hence Sarah predicted that in twenty-four hours a plague of rats would strike Journalism, unless all the journalists cleared out of the Plex.
"Frank," said the reporter into the camera, "I'm here in the American Megaversity mailroom, our operations center for the Plex war. It's been quiet on all fronts tonight despite former Student President Sarah Jane Johnson's prediction of a 'plague of rats.' Well, we've seen a few rats here"his image is replaced by shot of small rat scurrying down empty corridor, terrified by TV lights "but perhaps that's not unusual in these very strange, very special circumstances. We toured the Plex today, looking for plagues of rats, leaving no stone unturned to find the animals of which Ms. Johnson spoke. We looked in garbage heaps" shot of journalist digging in garbage with long stick; sees nothing, turns to camera, holds nose, says "phew!" "but all we found were bugs. We toured the corridors" journalist alone in long empty corridor; camera swivels around to look in other direction; nothing there either; back to journalist "but apparently the rats were somewhere else. We checked the classrooms, but the only rats there were on paper" journalist standing in stolen lab coat next to diagram of rat's nervous system "Finally, though, we did manage to find one rat. In a little-used lab, Frank, in a little cage, we found one very hungry white rat" back to mailroom; journalist holds up wire cage containing furtive white rat "but he's been well fed ever since, and we don't think he'll attack."
"Sam, what do you think about Sarah Jane Johnson's pronouncement? Is it a symbolic statement, or has she cracked?" "No one can be sure, Frank." Behind journalist, door explodes open with a boom and a flash; strobe light is seen beyond it. The journalist continues, trying to resist the temptation to turn around and look; but the explosion has drowned out the audio part of the camera. Dozens of giant rats storm the room However, reliable sources have it that " His words are drowned out by mass machine-gun fire. In an unprecedented breach of media etiquette, journalist turns around to look, and presently disappears from view. Abruptly, the ceiling of the mailroom spins down to fill the screen, and three great fuzzy out-of-focus rat snouts converge from the edges of the screen, long teeth glistening in the TV lights; all goes dark. We return to Network Control. Anchorman is in process of throwing his pen at someone, but pauses to say, "Now, this," and is replaced by an animated hemorrhoid.
All we wanted was to get everyone out of the Plex and end this thing. Once rats roamed the Base and bats frolicked in the hallways, and smoke, flies and filth were everywhere, those people were ready to go. The GASF would leave whenever Virgil told them to. The administration would clear B and C Towers as soon as we gave the word. The TUGgies claimed that they were merely holding their three towers to fend off the Reds. Later, to no one's surprise, we found that they had half-brainwashed the population of those towers by the time Sarah kicked in with her pronouncements; and how could oversweetened Kool-Aid, Manilow songs and lovebombing compete with her radical power and grand demonstrations? After we shut off their electricity and water for twelve hours, the TUG agreed to evacuate their towers at our command. The SUB/Terrorist axis would do whatever they had to to keep the Big Wheel on.
As the days went by, Big Wheel grew more demanding. Everyone was to leave his stereo tuned to 90.3 at all times. Everyone was to plan evacuation routes from their towers and clear away any obstacles that might have been placed at the exits. Dex Fresser's devotion to Sarah's words became complete, and after a week we knew we could evacuate the Axis and everyone else whenever we were ready.
In the meantime we were moving the railgun downstairs. To withstand the recoil thrust, the machine's supports had to be bolted right into the concrete floor of the sewer. We had to precision-fit a hundred and twenty bolts into the concrete for the fifty-foot-long railgun, a dull and iffy task requiring great precision. Once the holes were prepared, we began carrying the supports down. It was a terrible, endless job. After a day of it, I decided I was going to write a bookthat way, all of this drudgery was a fascinating contribution to my artistic growth. Strength was not a requirement in the Grand Army of Shekondar the Fearsome, so I had to torque all the bolts myself. During breaks I would look down the tunnel at the wall of lights that guarded the Nuke Dump's approach. What were the Crotobaltislavonians doing down there, and what were they thinking?
Their planthe years of infiltration and the moments of violence had gone perfectly. They had probably made their radioactive-waste bombs, only to find that their only elevator shaft had been blocked by tons of concrete. They must have thought they had lost, then; but the National Guard had not moved in and the authorities had given in to all demands. Was this a trick?
They must have been unprepared for the resistance put up by the GASF and the TUG. Still, their proxies had seized two towers and were holding their own. That was fine, until they threw Marxism to the winds and began to worship a giant neon sign. Dex Fresser must have worked closely with Magrov for years. The cafeteria riot of April First had clearly been timed to coincide with the seizure of the Nuke Dump, and the SUB had not bought their Kalashnikovs at the 7-11. Thena window fan! A fucking window fan! In a way, I sympathized with the Crotobaltislavonians. Besides us, they were the only rational people here. Like us, they must have wondered whether they had gone out of their minds. If they had any dedication to their cause, though, they must have changed their plans. They still had the waste, they were protected by the rats, they could still wield plenty of clout. They could not see past the barrier of light, where we were implanting the railgun.
During a breather upstairs I encountered Ephraim Klein, moving stiffly but on his feet.
"Come here!" he yelled, grabbed my shirt, and began pulling me down a hallway. I knew it must be something either very important or embarrassingly trivial.