The Radical Action Faction

This short story was originally published over nine weekly episodes in Critic (Otago
University Student Newspaper) in 1987 as a work of student satire. I wrote each section a day or two beforehand without having a clear idea how the story would end. I could have kept it going but the university year came to an end so I had to wind it up. I apologize the writing isn’t very good but it’s the first short story I ever wrote.

I’ve tidied up the odd mistake but it’s basically as written. The mayor character is based on the Dunedin mayor of the time – Cliff Skeggs – the Pope really did come to Christchurch that year- and Dunedin residents will recognize the local street names and geography. In 2025 three of my colleagues in the climate/environmental movement used the name to run in the local body election on a radical ‘green’ platform but sadly none were successful.

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An irritating noise intruded on the young woman’s sleep.

She was in the midst of an interesting dream and she tried hard to ignore the sound as she concentrated on the compelling image of a baby crocodile crunching down on a squirming crab. Suddenly the image snapped out of her mind and she was wide awake and staring at the alarm clock.

As she leaned over to turn it off, she knocked over a half-drunk cup of tea and drifted off to sleep again as the cold brown liquid seeped into her collection of rare underground comics. She didn’t notice and soon fell back asleep.

In the new dream she was in a firing squad holding a rifle with a line of victims trembling in front of her against a blood-soaked wall. She briefly recognized her dentist’s face as the fascists sank screaming into the sand.

Some time later she awoke again. It was ten o’clock. She’d missed her morning lecture. Still, it was only Psychology and she could always get the notes off Rhonda.

After about another half an hour of dozing she finally mustered enough energy to emerge from the bed. Trembling in front of an old two bar heater she lit her first cigarette of the day. One day she’d get out of this shitty student flat and maybe live somewhere in the country with an intelligent, attractive, liberated, caring member of some sex or other and grow organic vegetables or breed long-haired goats.

 Drake – for this is our hero’s name – pulled on a pair of tight black trousers and a colorful Fairisle jersey and wandered into the bathroom and yelped as a large pool of cold water beside the shower seeped into her stockings. After a brief wash and reapplying her eye-liner – people said she looked anemic without it – she went downstairs to the kitchen for her first cup of tea of the day but of course there was no milk and no money in the kitty.

Castro, her black Persian cat, rubbed himself around her legs and pleaded for food and attention.

“Piss off, cat”, she muttered.

She’d grabbed an empty milk bottle from under the sink and descended the stairs into the real world and walked round the corner to the dairy. A passing truck threw a lettuce out the window. It was going to be one of those days.

The crazy old lady at the dairy freaked out when her cash register went mad and started spewing paper onto the floor. Technology had evidently turned against her Drake had a theory the joint was actually a secret site for trying to feed incurable mental detectives back into the society but they were failing woefully.

After lunch – a cheese roll at the university café – she went to her zoology practical. While she couldn’t actually admit to enjoying university, it was a cushy formulated lifestyle which seemed to earn her parents’ approval. They had no idea she was only using it as a front to cover much more subversive forms of behavior. What would they have said, if they knew she’d already spent the term’s allowance on an unregistered shot gun some boot boy she knew had stolen from a car and she’d had the barrels sawn down?

It was so de-humanizing and patronizing! The way they tried to direct her destiny with their boring middle class values. When she was at primary school, her mother wouldn’t let her have a toy gun, so she made one herself. She had been a very willful child and was an ever more self-determined young adult!

Drake turned up the volume in a Walkman as she passed the men’s student hostel on her way to her class. Some of the pimply fuckwits leered at her gesticulating inanely as they cavorted behind their grimy windows, their mouths opening soundlessly.

“I stand up next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand” Drake whispered in time to the tape.

She wanted to change the world, not today, not tomorrow, but today.

She knew she’d never have any impact by signing petitions and writing to MPs and all that crap. Any fool could see that the whole political system had been evolved as a means of feigning fair play and democracy, while effectively maintaining the status quo in favor of the rich. History had proved, time and again, the only way to change society was by decisive acts of violence. Once she’d been a pacifist, but she had no time for that now. She didn’t particularly like people. Who cared if they wiped themselves out?

It was the animals Drake wanted to save and if that wasn’t possible she at least blow away a few of their oppressors.

She almost retched as she entered the zoology department laboratory and saw a large sheep’s uterus in a tray on her desk. Everyone single student had one. The blood was spilling out over the edge of the tray and onto her instruction sheet. This was not a course for a vegetarian, very fiber of her being rebelled against it. Maybe she should change courses but it was too late now!  She got to work trying to look like a keen science student as she thought about what she’d say at tonight’s meeting of The Radical Action Faction.  It was time to stop talking and get their hands bloody (with human blood, not sheep!).

“So? What’s the plan? What are we going to do? We are called the Radical Action Faction! As yet we haven’t done a bloody thing,” said Drake, staring pointedly at Melanie and Shane who both sat slumped on the old sofa opposite her bed.

So far these were the only two members of the group. Drake hoped it would grow but there were advantages to keeping things tight.

Melanie was an old gay friend from school who probably had a crush on Drake. She was into folk music, hard drinking and liked to walk around campus dressed like Dr Who (Tom Baker era) scaring any men stupid enough to even look at her.

Drake had met Shane in the university café. He was also smitten with Drake. Like most other boys trying to do a bachelor of commerce degree he was a bit of a dick but Drake tolerated him because he had a motorbike and some rudimentary mechanical skills which might come in useful when they started making bombs.

Drake took a drag on her cigarette and glared at her comrades.

“I don’t know! Spray some graffiti?” suggested Shane, “Rob a bank?”

 “Now you’re talking. That would be a positive step towards immediate wealth redistribution!” Melanie muttered.  ‘We could go into the local ANZ and blow away anybody between us and the money. We could use it to buy drugs for street kids. Maybe keep a bit for ourselves.”

“Personally, I think we should kill someone,” interrupted Drake, getting up off her bed and wandering over to the window where she watched some drunken students kicking over rubbish bins.

“Who? asked Shane and Mel together at the same time.

 “A man, dummy, or lots of men,” giggled Melanie”. You’re all dicks!”

“I thought you’d say that,” said Drake, turning around. “Who do you think we should kill, Shane? What man in particular?

“Ronald Reagan?’ joked Mel. “Shane could do a suicide attack. Run at him wearing an Uncle Sam suit with ten kilos of gelignite strapped to his back”.

 She had trouble taking these meetings seriously.

“That’s just stupid. How are we going to get the plane fare to America?” snapped Drake impatiently. “Let’s try and be sensible.”

“I think we should form a kick-arse band and make a million dollars,”, screamed Shane, leaping onto his knees and flaying at an imaginary guitar. “Or kidnap a bunch of street kids and set up as slaves on a huge marijuana plantation on my uncle’s farm south of Oamaru. Then we sell the weed and buy a plane and fly to Cuba!”

Drake ignored him.

“I think we should kill someone local, a person who wasn’t expecting it, someone who exploits animals.”

 “I don’t care so long as it’s a man,”giggled Melanie.

“What about Howard Morison?” suggested Shane. “Or maybe Ray Columbus? I hate these old TV fools who think they’re still relevant!”

 “We’re supposed to be cleaning up society and saving animals, not trying to improve the overall quality of television advertising,” fumed Drake, as she pulled her last cigarette out of its crumpled packet.

“How about bumping off the Mayor as an example to the rest?”suggested Mel. “That way we needn’t go out of town, which would save on transport. He’d be a good person to practice on. We don’t want to be too ambitious the first time. He’s made a fortune exploiting our indigenous marine life. Tangaroa would be pleased!”

“Good idea, let’s bump off the mayor,”echoed Shane. “I bet he’s into all sorts of shady shit. I heard he was involved in that business with the senior policeman and the schoolboy. Plus he hates fish and probably whales too!

“So – supposing we do go after the mayor?” said Drake”. How are we going to conduct this little assassination? Sensible suggestions only! Mel?”

 “One-on-one, kick him in the balls, jump on his face, castrate him with an electric bread knife, poke out his eyes with a knitting needle and then stab him in his cold black heart!”

“I did say sensible suggestions. Shane? The floor is yours.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never killed anyone before. Why don’t do a few other small things first till we get the hang of this terrorism thing?”

There isn’t time, you fool! We need world wide revolution now – not sometime in 2025! Why do I always end up organizing everything?”

 “Because you’re so bloody bossy.” muttered Shane, as he picked up Castro and put him on his lap. “Don’t worry, cat. Shane will protect you from evil, Melanie.”

 “Shut up, white man!” growled Melanie. “But Shane does have a point. Are we really ready do something like this? Kill someone?”

“I’ve already given it some thought,” said Drake. “I don’t mind doing the wet work. If I can dissect a fetus I can shoot a mayor. Mel, you’ll be in charge of coordinating events and informing the media. Shane, you’re going to drive the getaway vehicle!”

“Melanie- you’ll make sure he’s in his office. I’ll walk into the town hall disguised as a gimpy nun with my sawn-off shotgun strapped to my leg. I’ll push past the secretary, pull out the shotty. Bang!  There’ll be one less person exploiting our precious wildlife. Then I’ll tear off the outfit, run out of the building wearing a balaclava and jump onto the back of Shane’s bike. He’ll drop the clutch and we’ll go somewhere up north of Warrington and hide the bike in the bush for a bit in case anyone sees us on it and takes the number plate.We’ll camp put overnight until the heat dies down and you can pick us up the next day, Mel,”

“Save the whale. Ban the bomb. Support the arts!” said Shane standing up and making a mock salute.

“Dead men don’t rape,” sniggered Melanie.

“Please, let’s get it together for God’s sake,” muttered Drake, re-lighting the wet butt of her last cigarette.

Drake finished cleaning the old shot gun, loaded it and snapped it together.

The boot boy had charged her a lot of money, even though the weapon had allegedly already been used to blow away a rival gang member in a turf dispute.

Shane had helped her to cut the barrel down but she’d yet to fire it and she only had a few cartridges.  

Carefully she placed the weapon in her satchel on top of the nun suit. That wasn’t easy to find either but Mel was pretty good at sewing and they’d managed to knock something up which looked pretty realistic from some old curtains. She was wearing  an old thermal top and some jeans underneath them for the getaway.

The more advance plan was that Mel was going to come out to where they were hiding the next morning and pick them up in her mum’s car. If the whole town still crawling with the cops they’d stay in the bush for a bit longer. Drake wasn’t looking forward to spending a nights in a tent with Shane. If he laid one hand on her he was dead and she hoped he knew it but god only knew what the freak might do if she let her guard down for a second. Maybe she was gay,afterall?

Castro watched from an upstairs window as she walked down the path and round the corner to Shane’s place in Heriot Row.  The oaf was in the back shed working on his bike.

“I’m having a few hassles getting it started,”he muttered. “It’s been a bit unpredictable lately.”

“Well that’s just great man! Just fix it will you!”

“Couldn’t we just get some bands together and does a charity gig for Greenpeace?” pleaded Shane, after blowing on a spark plug.

 “Now is not the time to form a Splinter group! Stop whining and fix the bike!”

 After about a quarter of an hour of fucking around with it the thing actually started.

“You should hit your parents up for a new bike!” said Drake, over the roar of the engine. “Tell them you got all ‘A’s last term. Have you got all the stuff we need for tonight?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

 He picked up a backpack from the kitchen containing a tent and some sleeping bags and they got on the bike.

Shane yelled back into the flat, even though it looked like no-one was there.

 “I won’t be cooking tonight.

Shane dropped Drake off next to a coffee bar close to the Octagon, nodding subtly to Melanie, who got up from her table, dropping a half-smoked cigarette into the bottom of her cup.

The pair descended into the dank depths of the public toilets in the Octagon.

“Why don’t we plant a bomb in the men’s?”suggested Mel with a grin.

They locked themselves into a cubicle and Drake pulled the home-made habit over her clothes while Mel helped her strap the  sawn-off  to her leg in a custom made  holster she’d put together using her mum’s sewing machine .

Melanie picked up the empty bag and they walked out of the cubicle.

Drake looked like a cripple as she hobbled up the steps, taking one at a time with the gun pressing into her leg.

“Okay” said Drake,” I guess this is it. I’ll wait for you to give me the signal and I’ll go in. If we pull it off, I’ll hopefully see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well, good luck. If you don’t make it, can I have your stereo?”

 Melanie went into a nearby phone box outside the town hall and rang the mayor’s office, pretending to be a reporter. He was definitely there because she was put through to his direct number and asked  a few questions about bottom trawling before hanging up and waving to Drake who began to shuffle slowly towards the Town Hall entrance.

“Put your helmet on and start the bike!” she shouted to Shane, who was sitting on his bike in Bath Street, ogling some young women walking down George Street.

Carefully she made her way up two flights of stairs in the town hall and ignoring the secretary, she limped quickly passed the reception desk towards his office. She could hear him on the phone trying to sell some dead fish.

 “Excuse me sister, you’ll need an appointment if you want to speak to the mayor,” called out the secretary, but Drake pretended not to hear her and pushed her way into his office.

The mayor turned towards her, his hand on the phone, his face was grinning like a reptile’s!

Drake fumbled with a gun for a second as it stuck in the folds of her habit but quickly pulling it free, she leveled it squarely in the unfortunate man’s direction. His face froze. Bang, the gun discharged. Bang!  She emptied the other barrel into him as he dropped to the carpet with a satisfying thump. She could see what looked like part of his brain oozing out onto the purple carpet.

Melanie sat watching  in her mum’s car as  Drake ran out of the town hall and jumped on the back of Shane’s bike which roared off down  George Street, swerved past a couple of cars and then shot off down Moray Place to the right.

Calmly, she made her way down to a nearby phone booth/urinal and dialled the Otago Daily Times.

“Hello, who would you like to speak to?”

“Reporters please.”

Someone came onto the line and she began to read from their prepared statement.

“I’m calling to claim responsibility for today’s assassination of the Mayor on behalf of the Radical Action Faction in the interests of peace, freedom, justice and wildlife. We will continue to perpetrate further acts of gratuitous violence unless the following demands are met.

1. We want all of   the world’s nuclear arsenals dismantled immediately!

2. We want an end to all racial or sexual discrimination immediately!

 3. We want human rights for all animals immediately!

 4. Castration of rapists.

5. Legalisation of dope.

6. A substantial increase in the basic student bursary and interest-free home loans for lesbian solo mothers.

Melanie hung up before the reporter could comment.

She’d used a bit of a creative licence and made up the last three demands herself on the spur of the moment, but who was to know?

Early next morning she borrowed her mum’s Honda Civic(without permission as usual) and drove out of the city heading north until she tuned off the road to Warrington and headed  towards Seacliff. Shortly before she got to the tiny settlement she pulled onto a narrow gravel road and went up the hill until she reached a narrow bridge.

She tooted the horn twice and a few minutes later, Drake and Shane emerged bedraggled from the bush and scrambled up the bank towards the car.

“Please try not to get too much dirt on the upholstery,” Melanie asked plaintively, as she opened the doors.“So how’d it go?”

“Apart from the fact it was bloody cold in that shitty little tent last night and Shane kept on trying to grope me it wasn’t too bad! Did you bring some coffee, like I asked?

“I was cold. I wasn’t trying to grope you!” muttered Shane.

Melanie handed over the thermos to Drake, who poured herself a cup.

“I mean how did our first assassination go?”

“I blew that fucker away. I was only a few feet away! His head exploded like a pumpkin. Nobody challenged me on the way out. They were all too busy hiding under their desks.”

“Do I really have to leave my bike in the bush,” muttered Shane.

“You’re lucky I didn’t make you burn it. It’ll be OK underneath that tarpaulin and we might be able to use it for another mission but you can’t ride the bloody thing around town now in case somebody recognises it.  Maybe you can steal some new number plates and re-paint it?”

They drove back into town without seeing a single cop on the road.

They were obviously too busy busting defenceless hippies and dole bludgers to concentrate on any serious crime.

 Melanie dropped Shane off at his flat and then drove Drake round to her place.

She put the kettle on while Mel went down to the crazy dairy to buy a copy of the paper.

Castro was pretending to be asleep on the sofa, but slightly opened one eye and watched Drake as she searched for a cigarette until Melanie suddenly burst in.

“There’s nothing in the paper, not a mention, not a word! But it does say that he launched a new fishing boat on behalf of his company at Port Chalmers wharf yesterday and this was about an hour after you said you blew him away. Are you sure you shot him?”

“Of course I fucking shot him! There’s no way he would have survived.”

“So what happened? I don’t understand it?”

“I saw him drop! I killed him! What the fuck!? Maybe he was some kind of clone or a robot or something? It’s just no possible!”

 “But who would go to all that trouble and how could they even do it? We just don’t have that kind of technology”

“I guess we’ll just have to kill a few more people and find out what happens next!”

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The following day the RAF got together at the downstairs university café for a much needed de-brief.

“The mayor gets completely and utterly killed but then rises from the dead for all to see and it doesn’t even make the local paper. Jesus only appeared for less than a day to a few of his mates and the world’s still talking about it. I just don’t get it!  What are we going to do, Drake? Are we really going to go on killing people? What if the same thing happens again?” whispered  Melanie.

“Yep” agreed, Shane. “I didn’t sign up for this! I’m not really sure I want to stay in this group if we kill people who won’t stay dead, I can’t see the point and it’s just really rude! Also I’m worried about my bike getting rusty out in the bush.  Anyway, I’ve joined this band and we’ve got a few gigs lined up over the next few months, plus exam’s are coming up and I’ve got to do some work if I want to pass this year. Maybe you guys should find someone else?”

“Fuck! You two are spineless,” snarled Drake.

 “One small setback and you both want to pike out? “How are you not able to see the possible implications of what we’ve discovered? The mayor must have be some kind of robot or an android or a simulation and somebody fixed it up super-fast or had a spare one ready. This brings us to the obvious question of how many other people in power are robots or whatever and who put them there and why?”

“Surely they can’t build robots or that kind of high tech shit already? I mean, the Americans have enough trouble getting rockets and space shuttles off the ground as it is and I’m pretty convinced that whole trip to the moon bollocks was filmed on a Hollywood soundstage. I don’t think the Russians are that advanced in robotics either. Maybe the Chinese, but why would they build right-wing robots?” pondered Melanie aloud.

It’s all too much for me, guys,” muttered Shayne.

“I’d rather just forget about the whole thing and become a rock and roll star or a chartered accountant.”

”Typical, sneered Drake. “What are you, a man or a mouse? You’re not leaving this group until we’ve completed our next mission! If I need to blackmail you I will.”

“We’re going to kill the Pope! He’s coming here on tour and for the first time in New Zealand. He’s the perfect target. We’ll finish the job that KGB botched!”

 “Oh wow,” said Shane sardonically. “Could you please explain what importance he has in the global scheme of things?”

“You’re such a dickhead! The man’s a cult figure for confused conservatives. He’s rich. His political leanings are suspect. I just don’t like him,” started Drake.

 “Plus he’s against abortion and he’s white and he’s a man,” added Melanie. “But what if he returns from the dead as well? I would have thought he’d be a much more likely candidate for resurrection than the mayor and the church could even turn it into a big win for them!”

“If he does come back from the dead then we know that many right wing bastards and full-on fascists are robots or something else. If he does die, then we’re one step closer to peace, freedom, self-determination and justice!” snarled Drake.

“I have to think about it for a bit,” said Shane. “Things seem to be getting rather complicated. Sometimes I think you’re only interested in death and destruction. What about me and what I want?”

“Bullshit man,” snapped Drake. “We’re doing this in the interests of all those indigenous plants and animals who don’t have an automatic weapon or explosives to speak for themselves. You’re in this group until I say you’re out!”

 Castro wandered into the kitchen and inspected his empty food dish. A mouse was feeding on the bread crust by the clean sack, but he ignored it. Other things were going on inside his head.

——————————————————————————————————

Drake was watching TV as she waited for it to get dark in the streets. Eventually she decided it was dark enough, stubbed out her last fag on the arm of the sofa, ejected Castro from her lap, grunted goodbye to her stupid flat mates, and rose to her feet. Upstairs in her room she checked out her satchel and satisfied it contained all she would need, she put on her black donkey jacket and a black beret to hide her bleached blonde hair and stepped out into the night.

She tapped on the glass of Shane’s window. The light was on in his room, but she couldn’t bring herself to look inside. Men did such disgusting things when they were by themselves. Maybe Mel was right. Maybe she was turning into a lesbian, or always had been, but there was more pressing business at hand.

She tapped on the window again, louder this time.

“Keep it down!” Shane’s voice came from inside. “Just let me finish feeding my frogs!”

The young man enjoyed the feeling of Drake’s arms tightening about his waist as he let the clutch out and pulled back on the bike’s throttle. This wasn’t his bike which was still hidden in the bush but his brothers more powerful machine which he’d borrowed after much begging and cajoling. Here was a situation where he was in control, the man was the master now! His adolescent preoccupation with male sex roles was snuffed out when Drake suddenly dug a sharp fingernail between his ribs.

“Stop here and let’s hide the bike!”

Shane busied himself camouflaging the bike in the ditch while Drake started to cut through the quarry’s perimeter fence, and then crawled through the hole after her as she ran purposely towards one of the buildings.  A few lights were on attached to one of the roofs of the buildings but apart from that the site seemed deserted.

“What if there’s a watchman?” he whispered to Drake, “or a watchman with a dog?”

 “Shut up and give me a hand with these bolt hunters,” whispered Drake, and together they pulled back on the handles and the chain around the door suddenly snapped and fell to the ground.

 Quickly Drake was inside the hut, flashing her torch around the room until the beam alighted on a box with an explosives sign on it.

“What a pushover,” she thought. “If only stealing money was this easy!”

 Se wrenched the lid open with a crowbar and started to remove the sticks of gelignite, and put them into her satchel.

“Why do we need so much of this stuff?” asked Shane, as a dutifully held the sack open. “If we must go around breaking the law why don’t we rob something interesting like a chemists or a guitar shop?”

“Because we’re going to blow the Pope into a million pieces you idiot. We are going to turn him into such tiny little particles that no one, no matter how clever, will ever be able to put him back together again!”

“What about all the security? There’ll be a million cops there!”

“That’s just too bad!  They deserve it for aligning themselves with the wrong side, Lets go, I’ve got all we need!”

“But what about their wives and families” whispered Shane plaintively?

“Just leave the thinking and the politics to me Shane! Let’s get out of here!”

“I hate travelingby bus,” muttered Melanie. “It’s so incredibly boring. And you know what really pisses me off? It’s the way the bloody things always come to a complete stop at every single railway crossing between here and Christchurch. Why don’t they just drive through if the red lights aren’t flashing? It’ll save about an hour and heaps of petrol! I’m prepared to take the risk of being splattered by a train to get somewhere a bit faster.”

 Drake wasn’t really listening. Her bladder was bursting. Her head hurt. Her pack was full of dynamite. Mel was oblivious.

“We should have hijacked a plane up there and maybe even flagged the Pope idea and forced the pilots to take us to the Middle East and got ourselves from some real  training from the PLO and a shot at some real action!”

Drake squirmed in her seat, watching the suburbs of Ashburton slide by in a grey blur while Melanie rambled on.

. “What amazes me is you’ve got Shane to come up and on his brothers bike too. He looked like piking out for a while. I almost feel sorry for him! He’s made an art form out of incompetence. Talk about naive. Fancies you like crazy! Probably still a virgin!”

 “Please would you shut up, Mel!”

After what seemed like an age they eventually arrived in Christchurch, picked up their packs from under the bus and plunged into the teeming crowd of lemming-like people swarming the featureless streets of Flat City.  They passed a Jesus freak on a box trying to persuade a pack of petrol heads to part with their evil Led Zeppelin records and subscribe to his own particular brand of ideological valium before grabbing a local bus out to one of the inner city suburbs where they planned to crash at a pad popular with local  musicians and drug addicts. One of these freaks had promised to supply a remotely controlled detonating device to set off the dynamite which almost filled Drake’s pack.

“How did you meet this person, Drake? Is he rational?

 “Relatively speaking, we both started a pharmacy degree a few years back but Steve got chucked out when his new-born baby accidentally ingested some PCP he’d made and freaked out. Luckily it survived. The cops busted him for manufacturing hallucinogens and subverting a minor. Later he escaped d from a psychiatric institution and threatened to nerve gas the nation. The cops caught him again and put him back in the bin.. He got out again at the end of last year and he’s been doing some post-grad work at Massey and a bit of demonstrating. I guess he is pretty insane.”

 They arrived at the house. The door was open and they let themselves in.  Steve wasn’t home but a couple of young punks were bleaching their jeans in the kitchen.

Melanie maneuvered around them and made some cups of tea while Drake crashed out on a filthy couch. Shane was staying at his sister’s place on the other side of town and they wouldn’t be seeing him till the next day.

Sometime around seven, Steve got back from varsity. He seemed to be pleased to see them and dragged the woman upstairs to his room.

“Do you want to see it?

His dirty teeth gleamed grey in the half-light.

“I’ve been working on it all week. I lifted the parts from one of the labs”

He reached under the sagging mattress on his bed and pulling out a burger box, which he opened to reveal a seemingly complex mass of wiring attached to a couple of batteries. He groped back under the bed again and came up with something that looked like one of those devices people use for opening their garage doors without getting out of their cars.

“Will it work?” asked Drake, characteristically blunt.

“Watch!”

 He put the burger box of components on the bed and withdrew to the other side of the room and pressed a button on the device in his hand. Nothing happened.

“That’s really impressive, Steve!” snapped Drake. “We’re really going to cause a lot of damage with this device of yours!”

 Melanie began to giggle.

 Clearly disappointed, Steve began to re-examine his creation.

“Must be a loose wire,” he muttered. “I had it working last night.”

“I don’t care what’s wrong with it. Just fix it!” barked Drake and they left him poking around with the device and went back downstairs to try and find something to eat. One of the punks was preening his mohawk in a hand mirror. Melanie giggled and whispered to Drake,

“I think there’s a wire or two loose somewhere in Steve’s head.”

 “Probably, but I have faith in him. You should have seen the car bomb he designed for a chemistry project.”

Later that evening Shane turned up on his bike and they got down to some serious planning.

“I still reckon we should do a rocket attack like the Japanese activists did at that superpower summit the other day. There’d be less chance of getting caught because we’d be so far from the scene,” enthused Shane, half-cut on half a bottle of cheap port.

 “You’re a total moron, Shane! One, we don’t have any rockets. Two, the Japs missed, didn’t they?”

The drink was starting to make Shane maudlin.

 “I don’t feel good about this Drake. Too many innocent civilians are going to get killed, maimed or permanently disfigured.”

“Stop thinking of them as people – they abdicated their human rights when they joined that kooky religion!”

 “What if we upset the IRA? Don’t they back the Pope? Or am I thinking of the Mafia? I don’t want to get my kneecaps shot off. I don’t want to be shot in the stomach with a flare pistol!” whimpered Shane.

 “Shut up Shane! I’m more concerned about whether or not Steve’s detonator is going to work!”

After an hour or two more arguing the trio crashed out on some filthy mattresses on even filthier floor, along with the two punks and a homeless junky who turned up later. It was hard to sleep. It always was before an action. 

The next morning they got up early and packed up their gear and the detonator and its components, which Steve assured them was working now and walked to the venue of the papal exposition which was taking place in a large park in the center of the city.

None of them had ever seen anything like it.

 A hundred thousand religious zealots or more – a  massive stage – bigger than the one for U2 – bigger than the one for Bowie. It towered above them, flanked by two huge towers of speakers, ready  to blast out the word of god’s chosen representative on earth. What a gig this was going to be. How did Jesus do the Sermon on the Mount before the public address system was invented? He must have had a bloody loud voice!

The Pontiff was delayed on his way from the airport and the crowd began to grow restless. Many of them had been there since 8am to get a good seat and they were bored with the support acts provided by local religious bigwigs. They wanted to see their idol in the flesh. If Drake had her way, some of them would soon be splattered with it.

 Mel was standing a little way off from the other two. The detonating device was in her pocket. The bomb was planted in one of the fold back bins in front of the Pope’s podium so that he’d take the full force of the blast.

 An ex-biker roadie Drake had met at Periodic Detention (that’s another story) had hidden it there for them when they turned up about 6am as the crew were putting the final touches to the stage. He wasn’t keen on the idea but Drake managed to convince him by handing him cool twenty thousand in cash, all of the money her parents had given her to fund her university studies over the last three years. She’d also promised him a sexual favor but it was one she had no intention of ever delivering.

Around one o’clock ‘The Popemobile’ (the Pope’s special armored vehicle) arrived and began to weave its way through a throng of delirious devotees. God’s spokesman smiled indulgently at his groupies behind his raised bulletproof glass podium on the back. After a circuit of the park, the vehicle stopped and moments later the man himself emerged and slowly mounted the steps leading to the stage surrounded by a phalanx of local bishops.  The crowd noise rose to a new peak as he reached the platform. What was he going to talk about? What vital moral or social issue would he expound upon today? The atmosphere was electric. Acknowledging all of the other religious bigwigs assembled on the stage with a brief nod, he moved directly towards the podium, draped in its obligatory papal purple. The crowd hushed as he cleared his throat.

Melanie’s finger hovered over the button of the detonator. She was scared but simultaneously felt extremely powerful. She was about to make history by just moving her index finger.

 Suddenly a gun muzzle bit sharply into her back.

“Touch it and you’re dead,” whispered a voice in her ear.

She turned round to face someone all dressed in black wearing a balaclava which covered most of his face. Just as she looked him in the eyes he shot her in the head and the detonator fell onto the grass before he crushed it with his boot.

Several meters away, Drake and Shane witnessed the sudden intervention and stood there, frozen in fear. A space had cleared in the crowd around them and they were quickly surrounded by a phalanx of heavily armed police.

“I’m not armed!” squeaked Shane but to no avail.

One of the cops smiled slightly, squeezed his trigger and Shane spun around, spraying blood, a hole neatly drilled in the side of his head.

 Two nuns fainted at the sight.

Drake dropped the sawn-off shotgun she had hastily pulled from her satchel and put up her hands. This wasn’t quite the scenario she’d planned.

Unresistingly, our heroinewas led to a car and placed in the back seat between a couple of beefy detectives. Her two friends lay dead on the grass in the background. Someone in a white coat was placing a sheet over the carcass which had once been Shane. Life wouldn’t be a problem for him anymore. He’d never get to strut the stage at Wembley.

At the police station she was quickly hustled into a cell without even being booked in or processed. Why weren’t they beating her up? Why weren’t they interrogating her? Suddenly she felt dizzy and everything turned into that yucky white fuzz that always hits you just before you faint. Drake staggered over to the wall to hold herself upright but she was too late and she crumbled onto the floor unconscious.

Sometime later she regained consciousness but the scene was so unexpected and bizarre she assumed she must be still unconscious.

She was strapped to a bed into a white room and a large creature was sitting beside her in some kind of space suit.  It looked like a massive crustacean – something resembling a giant mantis shrimp. It regarded her thoughtfully.

Drake realized she wasn’t in the police cell anymore and the shrimp obviously wasn’t a cop or a part of a cocktail either. She assumed she must be hallucinating. There was no other possible explanation! She wondered if the creature could talk.

“What happened? Where am I?” she asked.

The creature clicked its pincers and replied in a high pitched synthesized voice which sounded a bit like a Theremin.

“You’ve had your molecules removed from your planet and reassembled here in our spaceship above earth”.

Drake paused for a moment. This was big news! What to say?

“Do you do this often? Intervene in our worldly affairs?”

 “Only when someone starts to become too much of a pest, shooting up our robots and such. Those things aren’t easy to build you know?”

“What are you going to do with me?”

 “I’m sorry to say we’re going to kill you.  We just can’t have people like you ‘fucking with our shit’ but we’re going to do it very nicely and painlessly. We won’t be forcing you to do battle with a Xergon in a public arena or any other such primitive nonsense.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me in the park or at the police station? How come we’re having this little chat? Why got to all this trouble?”

“In most cases we would have done just that but I’ve been taking, shall we say, a personal interest in your case and I decided it’d be nice to have a little talk before we vaped you. You’re free to ask me any questions you want.”

“Are the police all robots?”

“Absolutely, we zap all the human recruits and replace them with our robots.”

“What about politicians?”

 “Nearly all of them but a few are impressionable humans who are so stupid they’re doing our job for us.”

“And what is your job? Why are you here on Earth?”

“Our own planet is grossly overpopulated and we need to expand and colonize undeveloped planets like yours. We prefer an atmosphere with a high level of radioactivity – hence my suit. If you stepped out into the rest of the ship you’d die in seconds. It would be to our advantage if there was to be a nice big nuclear war on your planet but we can’t be seen to do it ourselves. There are other advanced species who might not tolerate our expansionist agenda.  We’ve have working behind the scenes for years now, inserting our robots and tampering with your science and your politics. You should be having a nice big nuclear war any day!”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“When we first discovered your planet, the most complex life form on land was a creature a like today’s chimpanzee.  They were peaceful placid things, without any sort of aggressive nature.  We planted a few of our robots to help speed up your evolution and your science and in no time at all, you (or was it us) had  invented the wheel, gunpowder, coca-cola the atom bomb and all sorts of other cool stuff.”

“But why didn’t you just blow us away directly?”

“As I have already alluded to, there’s a universe wide ‘parliament’ with representatives with all sorts of advanced species on it. It’s a bit like the Federation on Start Trek but a bit more complicated. Developed species are not allowed to make contact with undeveloped ones – such as your own – and if we just blew away your planet there could be a nasty diplomatic incident – hence the covert action with the robots.”

 “So when is earth going to have a nuclear war? Do you know?”

“Any day now as long as we have anything to do with it!”

 “How long have you known about me and the Radical Action Faction?”

 “You came to our attention when you were about eight years old. Do you remember? You sent a letter to our Richard Nixon robot.  All it said were the words ‘fuck off!” in bold red brushstrokes. This marked you down as a potential troublemaker and we planted a robot cat to keep tabs on you.”

 “Castro! My own cat was a nark!?  I always thought he was weird! But if you’ve known about me for that long why didn’t you pick me up earlier?”

“We don’t like tampering with things on the planet too much but when people like you start blowing up our robots it gets to be a problem.  They’re very expensive in terms of raw materials  to replace.”

“Did you kill Martin Luther King, Patrice Lumamba, JFK, Che Guevara?”

“Yes, we make sure most progressive humans are killed. We need this planet as soon as possible and we can’t have people like you slowing things down. It must be the remnant of the placid primate in you. Ordinary criminals we just leave alone as they help to de-stablize society”

. The whole scene was just too weird and Drake was running out of questions. It was time to pull out the biggie!

“What’s the meaning of life?

 ‘Nobody’s worked that out. I can tell you there isn’t any god or gods or at least nobody has met one yet.”

 The alien clicked its pincers again and rose up on its hind legs.

“I think that wraps it up. As is customary for the condemned on our planet we’re going to allow you to have one last meal.  What will it be??”

“No drugs?”

No drugs!

“Oh well, fuck it! I’ll have a dozen oysters a coke and a steak burger!”

(Bruce Mahalski 1987)

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(A poster by BM advertising ‘The Radical Action Faction’s” run at the local body elections in Dunedin in 2025)