Todd did not like rejection. He took his hand off Julianne’s shoulder and pointed at Corinne’s breasts. “Christ, Ramirez, you were right. They are monsters. Wouldn’t you like to snarf one of those?” The two lieutenants laughed crudely. Corinne squirmed self-consciously.
Linda Quinlan’s steady boyfriend rose from his chair. Other than Nick, he was the only one of the men at the table who was approximately the same size as Todd and Ramirez. “Look, guys,” he said reasonably, “the lady said no very nicely. There is no need to insult her or her friends — ”
“Listen to him, Ramirez,” Todd interrupted, “this character said we insulted someone. Since when is admiring the size of someone’s cachunga’s an insult?” He chuckled to himself at his cleverness. Ramirez made a sign to leave but Todd waved him off.
The drunken Nick had been ready to explode all night. “Get out of here, asshole,” he said, quietly but firmly. He was still sitting down next to Julianne.
“Who are you calling asshole, cocksucker?” the truculent Lieutenant Todd replied. He turned to Ramirez. “I do believe that I am going to be forced to strum the head of this impertinent bastard.”
But Nick was ahead of him. Rising swiftly, he uncoiled a vicious punch that struck Todd full in the face and sent him tumbling backwards, into another table covered with drinks. Todd and the table crashed to the floor and Nick went after him. Ramirez pulled Nick off his fellow officer and, when Nick turned and swung at him as well, Ramirez gave Nick a push that caused his unsteady legs to give way. Nick fell back over Julianne and another full table collapsed upon the floor
From across the room Carol and Angie and Troy could see the fracas and recognize Nick in the middle of it. “Uh oh,” Troy said, jumping up to go to his friend’s aid. Carol was right behind him. When they reached the opposite side of the room, both club bouncers were already on top of the action. Meanwhile, Nick and Julianne were still trying to get unscrambled on the floor and Todd was slowly rising to his feet.
In the fight, the envelope of photos had been knocked free and a couple of them had fallen partially out. Ramirez had picked the envelope up off the floor and, because of the bright colors, was looking at the pictures. The close-up of the brown missile in the fissure was clearly visible in the top photo. “Hey,” he said to the shaken Todd, “look at this. What do you think this is all about?”
Carol acted instantly. She walked past Ramirez, grabbed the envelope and pictures, and before he could say anything, she screamed, “Not again, Nick, no, I don’t believe it. How could you be drunk again?” She knelt down beside Nick on the floor and cradled his head in her free hand. “Oh, darling,” she said, as he stared at her in complete disbelief, “you promised that you’d stop.”
The astonished crowd watched as Carol kissed Nick full on the mouth to prevent his saying anything. Troy was amazed. “Troy,” she shouted a moment later, while Nick was trying to gather his wits. “Troy, where are you? Here, give me a hand.” Troy rushed up and helped Nick to his feet. “We’re taking him home now,” she announced to the onlookers. She and Troy each took one arm and the three of them stumbled toward the door of the nightclub. They passed the manager in the doorway. Carol told him that she would come by the next day to settle accounts. She and Troy half carried Nick into the street.
As they walked away from Sloppy Joe’s, Carol turned around and saw that part of the crowd had followed them to the door. Ramirez and Todd, the latter still rubbing his cheek, were standing in front of the group with puzzled expressions on their faces. “Where are we taking him, angel?” Troy asked when they were out of earshot. “We don’t even know where he parked his car.
“It doesn’t matter,” Carol replied, “just as long as we are out of sight of the club.”
The awkward threesome turned right, down the same alley that ran behind the theater where The Night of the Iguana had finished an hour before. Just past the theater there was a small vacant lot on the left Carol stopped the trio at the edge of the lot, opposite a grove of trees, and looked back to make certain they were not being followed. She heaved a sigh and loosened her grip on Nick. She unconsciously fanned her sweating face with the envelope she had recovered from Ramirez.
Nick was now almost coherent. “I had no idea,” he mumbled to Carol, pulling his arm free from Troy and trying to embrace her, “that you felt that way about me.”
“I don’t,” Carol said emphatically. She pushed his arms away and backpedaled toward the vacant lot. Nick didn’t understand and continued his approach. “Stop,” she shouted angrily at him. “Stop, you drunken bastard.”
She tried to fend off his advance with her hands. But he kept coming. Just before Troy moved up to restrain him, Carol slapped Nick hard in the face with the hand that was not holding the envelope. Momentarily startled Nick lost his footing and fell into the grass on his stomach.
Still fuming, Carol bent down beside him and forcefully rolled him over on his back. “Don’t you ever, ever, use physical force with me,” she shouted at Nick. “Not under any circumstances.” She dropped the envelope on Nick’s stomach and stood up quickly. She looked at Troy, shook her head in disgust, and stalked off down the alley.
ASSEMBLY AND TEST
UNDER the scanning electron microscope they look like tightly coiled springs with a small tail. When they are placed in water or some other liquid, the springs seem to stretch out and cilialike appendages extend a few angstroms out from the tail to provide motility.
There are millions of them concentrated in a mixture the size of a tiny drop of water and they are being carefully checked by a laser device that is also counting and sorting them as it illuminates microscopic portions of the mixture. When the count is completed, the smaller division of the separated mixture is sluiced out of the metal receptacle and down a channel into another liquid, this one emerald green in color, that is contained in a bottle-shaped beaker. The springs spread out and follow random paths in wandering around the beaker.
External mechanisms regularly churn the emerald green liquid. Around the inside of the beaker, tiny sensors register the temperature, pressure, and exact chemical and electrical characteristics of the fluid. Some parameter is not absolutely perfect. A small valve opens a port in the base of the beaker and a new chemical is injected into the green solution. Continuous measurements monitor the diffusion of this additional material. At length the fluid is properly altered and a new equilibrium is reached.
Everything is now ready. From above several thousand small pellets are dropped into the container. Some of these pellets float on the surface but most sink to variable depths in the liquid. Embedded in each of the pellets is a complicated engineering construction on an amazingly miniaturized scale. The external surface of the pellets contains sensors that scan the nearby region of the liquid for the springlike objects. A high-frequency transmitter housed next to the sensors directs a call to the springs and attracts them to the neighborhood. Clusters of springs develop around each pellet.
Now, one at a time, these springs are harvested by small instruments inside the spongy outer section of the pellet and then loaded in carriers that are electrically fired toward the central cavity of the pellet. Within that cavity sits a single black, amorphous spot, its exterior constantly changing shape as its opaque material shifts around to follow unknown stimuli. This spot is surrounded by a yellow goo that fills the remainder of the cavity.
The first spring slips out of its carrier, then locates and penetrates the spot. The spring can be seen for an instant moving toward the center. However, it is broken up and destroyed within milliseconds. Other springs are fired into the cavity at regular intervals and all try, after penetration, to reach some special region in the spot. Finally one of the procession succeeds and the spot changes color to bright red. In rapid succession, some enzyme in the spongy outer section of the pellet is dumped into the yellow goo, turning its color a little toward green, and all the rest of the springs disappear, apparently absorbed by the pellet structure. The entire pellet itself next elongates and extends a miniature propulsion system into the emerald liquid. After carefully steering around the many hazards, it then joins the queue of fertilized pellets moving, one by one, through a round diaphanous membrane in the bottom of the beaker.