Mayor Arturo Hernandez, interviewed on Good Morning LA, assured Angelenos that surface radiation exposure was minimal, and gave the location of several temporary centers the City had established where concerned citizens could be tested. He also noted that some electromagnetic pulse had reached the ground, but that no essential services were disrupted.
The President of the United States expressed his gratitude to the MFM and the FBI, and his sorrow for the loss of both the MFM and federal agents. He will be attending the memorial service for the Mysterious Flying Man scheduled for Sunday at the Rose Bowl.
August 24, 2013 (Associated Press) Military Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents today conducted a raid at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, arresting Colonel Steven O'Connor in connection with the terror attack on Los Angeles.
FBI Special Agent Rona Flaherty told reporters that Colonel O'Connor was suspected of bringing the nuclear weapon into the United States and of using an unmanned aerial vehicle under his command to kill the Mysterious Flying Man.
He is being held at an undisclosed location, charged with treason.
Agent Flaherty confirmed that the two terrorists who died in Las Vegas jumped from Colonel O'Connor's residence, where they had apparently been hiding.
Sources told the Associated Press that O'Connor yelled that he had "saved America" to the assembled crowd of military personnel as he was taken away by federal officers.
August 25, 2012 (Associated Press) Scotty Hammels, the only surviving member of the nuclear terror cell, was transferred to a military prison today from Federal Bureau of Investigation custody at the request of the Marine Corps. Hammels, a Marine deserter, is facing a Court Marshall and possible firing squad if convicted.
August 26, 2012 (Associated Press) Led by the president of the United States, the governor of California, and the mayor of Los Angeles, more than 100,000 mourners filled the Rose Bowl today to pay their final respects to the Mysterious Flying Man.
The president urged all Americans to follow the MFM's example of sacrifice and devotion to community and nation.
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. The governments of China, North Korea, Iran, Columbia and 14 other countries issued a joint statement denouncing the actions of the MFM as destabilizing to world peace and national sovereignty.
Chapter 32
Thought it was going to hurt, holding an exploding nuclear bomb in my hands, instead somehow it only hurled. I hurled that is, spinning like a top out of control straight up and way too fast, lost my lunch. I can live with that, I suppose, no one there to see my lack of manliness.
I righted myself hundreds of miles into space, naked, traveling well past escape velocity, no molecules ahead for thousands, maybe millions, of light years. My first thought was that I would rather have exploded. The light, always the comedian, started laughing at me.
Then I noticed something unusual. I wasn't there, or I was, but I wasn't, or something. I held my hand up, it between the earth and me, and the view changed not one bit. I looked at the rest of me, carefully, and concluded that I was, in fact, invisible.
And, suddenly, I knew to think, to think about going home. If I'd really thought about it, I'd have smacked my ruby slippers together a couple times too. No flash of light, no nothing, and I was standing in my place, still invisible.
I grabbed the light, squeezed him down, and Simon Packer was standing naked in the middle of his living room. The light assured me we could do it again, so I grabbed some Simon clothes, phone, and my weapon, then grabbed the light, and said, "Alive."
No flash of light, no feeling of anything, just a disappearing act and I became invisible once again. Way too excited by all this, it took me a minute to calm down, worked on my breathing, then imagined the Marquis.
The lobby was probably not the best place to appear naked, but invisible and naked worked. Someone bumped into me before I saw them, otherwise, a decent entrance and a quick run to the men's room to change, dodging folks who had no idea I was there.
Simon Packer went upstairs to the 27th floor of the Marquis and busted down the door of an old familiar suite. She was sitting there, gagged, taped to the chair, the TV on so she could watch her death approach, now showing the remnants of a giant white cloud. I untied her, and we called Flaherty to come get us, then locked together in a hug.
Before the night was over, the FBI had figured out the big picture, including what happened in Las Vegas, all of us standing around a temporary command post RV outside the hotel, drinking coffee, relaxed in a way I have probably never been relaxed in my life.
The last terrorists, Hassan and Naziri, not realizing their passports were compromised, had walked casually into the Air Canada line at LAX late afternoon hoping to fly away before the bomb went off, and were rolled just as casually away in body bags a half hour later. Two civilians wounded, but only two assholes dead.
Superdumbass that I am, I could have saved Perez before going after the bomb, but she's woman enough to admit I made a logical assumption, and in the end did it the more heroic way anyway.
The three of us (Flaherty, Perez, me) know that the two Ali boys did not jump to their deaths, given the glass from the sliding door burst into the condo, not out from it, and both women are smart enough to know who did what.
Flaherty, of course, thinks the MFM is dead and said he should be forgiven for protecting someone he cared about. Perez hasn't said a word directly, but she's said one thing to me, and something else to my dad that make me believe all I would get from her is a lecture on being human if I asked that question.
The thing she said to me was, "yes." I didn't have a ring to give her when I heard that word, the two of us standing under an FBI tent, me behind her, arms wrapped around, watching the sun come up at the time, but we took care of that together yesterday.
How the Fog Bastards worked it out they have not explained, but they must have been waiting for an opportunity and took it. Where they got the body from they have also kept secret, but I am assured if the feds ever manage to extract the DNA, they will find it normal human and not at all resembling mine.
Kiana Perez, Celeste Nortin, and Simon Packer stood together in the LA County Coroner's morgue, identifying my remains, perhaps the most awkward 10 minutes of my life, none of us saying a word. The two women IDed the face, then Perez actually pulled back the sheet to ID the salami. Celeste nodded at that too.
Kiana and I test drove the new salami a couple hours later, which worked the same, except that being invisible makes sex especially complicated.
This morning she dragged me to the Rose Bowl for my memorial service, then we went and showed off her new ring to my parents and sister, no FBI team tagging along.
My revery is disturbed by a noise back in the apartment, I wander back in from my balcony, knowing what it means. A smiling, gorgeous Kiana Perez is walking toward me, ready for an adventure.
She's leaving next week for a month at the FBI Academy, then she'll be back to join Flaherty's west coast counter-terrorism team. I am keeping my old life, thank you very much, except that she thinks we need to dump both our apartments and find something new together.
I don't bother getting naked, just hold the light in my hand and give her the old standard, By the Power of Greyskull. No light fills the room as I simply disappear. Kiana swears that Fog Dude did not ask her advice, but I kinda think they're both lying about that. Otherwise, how would my powers have changed so much, and why would she be the only person in the world that can still see him?
I'm clearly not as strong as I was, and can't manage hypersonic flight, but I am assured that the cool new things don't stop with what I know, there's more to learn. And, it turns out, I have time, except I don't think Fog Dude actually knows for sure how long. He's sure that I am not going to celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary, but I think he's guessing all around, my new powers untested.
Kiana leans against me and
I pick her up, future Special Agent Perez suddenly as invisible as me. I tickle a few molecules into lifting us skyward and out into the night.
There's a lot to consider. Wedding. Kids. Life. Celeste is writing a book. I still haven't dealt with the Guerrero, and Juarez doesn't get a pass just because I'm dead. North Korea thinks it can go back to building nukes and Syria's still a mess.
But nothing there that I can't handle. I'm alive. And I can fly.
Table of Contents
The Fog Bastards, Part 2 © 2013 Bill Robinson
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Fog Bastards 2 Destination Page 27