BABY IN THE AIR

Beneath a paper thin shelter of tattered awning Kid Tom fumbled for the red plastic nodule that would detonate the megaton explosive that would blow up the glittering golden palace which balanced on a precipice of colossal wealth in the center of this desolate town.

It was time, but he hesitated. His hands shook, like they shook every day for the noonday earthquake. But it was not noonday. It was niilday, in the morning, and there should be no shaking. This was a self induced quake. Why? He had prepared for this. He had paid for this in suffering and sorrow. This was his moment. To retune the sad melody of history. Why balk?

Kid glared up at the towering height toward his heavenly target. His booted feet planted firmly on firm ground. The box that bore the nodule planted firmly in his firm grasp. Why balk?

Because.

Because his partner, the contemptuous, violent, yet undeniably powerful Malika Max was within that palace. They had designed the bomb together, they had built the bomb together, but she carried the bomb alone, a bomb that would obliterate her in the instant it came to life. The bomb itself was a handmade beauty. When you gazed into it's heart you saw malice, violence, power. You threw yourself into the arms of the bomb's perfection. A great man would do anything to lose his life into such a bomb's embrace. Malika carried the bomb in her womb, like a child. It was the only place to hide such a thing in such a secure arena.

Kid thought back on today's determined walk through the noxious morning gloom. Malika and he together, hands clasped. Quiet yet communicating, in that almost telepathic way they had developed. Sweat mingled in the crevices formed where filthy fingers came together in the heat of summer as the mechanical sun flared awake to bake in the new day. They walked past rotting corpse and disintegrating mechanism. They walked past burning bush and scorched debris. They walked past and through the wreckage that 99 percent of the population lived in so they might get within reach of the 1 percent. The creators. The givers of food, warmth, shelter, even air. The Xutivs. The givers who had stopped, in any measurable amount, giving any such things having finally constructed perfect mindless servitors to do the tasks they needed. But over the years enough stuff had been cast into the depths of poverty for the clever like Malika and Kid to build this bomb, out of scarred material and scavenged manuals. Now one last turn of trickery and Malika could deliver this gift into the arms of the Xutivs. And though it would not save the starving 99 percent, it would even the playing field at a lowly nothing. If you can't join them, beat them.

Malika's infusion into the palace's High Society was strangely easy. She had been an enigma as a child having been gifted with the one trait that defined high status. From birth, she had somehow, no one knows how, had the proper Xutiv "$"(pronounced "Cash-Money") birthmark upon her forehead, a mark only passed genetically. Perhaps she was stolen royalty with a lie as a past but Malika's upbringing was that of a "lowly worm" as the 99% were called. Her parents could barely muster enough milk to cool her crying. They concealed the mark, for to wear it on the streets of Ghoul City was to call out for torture and death itself. For no one was more hated amongst the lowly than the marked.

But now was now. After Kid and Malika parted with a long kiss, an exchange of breath and a quick turn away she removed her headscarf and walked brazenly past a group of death's door youth. They saw her mark, howled, snorted, clawed the ground and gave chase. She ran screeching towards the pearly gates of the palace, ready to claim the embarrassing yet not punishable folly of venturing outside the grounds for some sort of trinket or task and getting discovered by this slovenly hoard. Her "$" in clear view, the gates opened quickly and she was in. Before the wardens had time to probe her story she slipped into the labyrinth of silver hallways and mirrors that the Scary Looker had mapped for them from inside his Death Water Trance. Malika walked freely because the mark opened every door inside this nirvana. Every cool glass of pure water was hers to drink. Every scented bath was hers to slip into. But she remained focused. Eventually she found the Carniveral Hall, the center of all, where the Xutivs spent their time in constant orgy and feast. A pulsing mass of powdered scented flesh in a room the size of as far as the eye can see. A festival of everything one could want to seize in the world.

Kid sensed her position and jiggled the nodule in the proper pattern. Malika felt a sense of pleasure as the bomb was informed with the code that would unleash it's potential. She let out a slight sigh, barely audible. The Xutivs heard. The hall went silent. For the sound they heard was of a specific form of pleasure they could not recognize, an unrecognizable depth of feeling. All turned to face her.

She smiled and in an instant her beauty cracked open in a volcanic flare that welcomed the heights to the depths of despair.