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"Don't worry, Sondra," said Nancy. "I'm going to ask for something really big. I think my wish is the real reason the blunzer made itself."
"What's your wish?" I asked again. But Nancy still refused to tell me.
"How's Harry?" Sondra asked me.
"I saw him this morning. He's in the Rahway prison. He wants to get out."
"I just wish those seventeen people hadn't died," said Sondra. "I feel bad about them. If I could wish one thing, I'd wish for them to be alive again. Nancy, do you think —"
"She's only going to have about two seconds," I interrupted. "And the main thing is to get my body back. She'll try to fix up our legal troubles too, but —"
"Leave it to me," said Nancy. "I know just what to do."
Some schoolchildren in the fields below had noticed us. Their tiny shouts floated up on the gentle autumn breezes.
"You know," said Sondra, "I keep having trouble believing I can fly. I really have to concentrate to keep from falling down. Like in a flying dream. Don't you feel that too, Nancy?"
"Hey," I interrupted anxiously. "That's no way to be thinking right now."
"… and just drop like a stone," Nancy mused. "If suddenly you forget how. Yeah, I can really feel that, Sondra. How about you, Joe?"
"Hey, look, girls, this is — " A farmer drove his pickup into the field beneath us and got out with a rifle. There came a faint popping of gunfire.
We said a hurried goodbye to Sondra and flew the rest of the way to New Brunswick. Nancy came in low and touched down in a parking lot near Harry's place. At first I thought no one had noticed us, but then an old bum came stumbling over.
"Take me for a ride, angels." He had the weatherbeaten skin of a sailor. "Take me out to sea." He seemed deranged, albeit strong enough to cause serious trouble.
"Go away," I said curtly. "Leave us alone." We started out of the parking lot with the bum tagging along after us.
"Give me something," he begged. "I need money to buy a pet fish."
"Here." I drew a ten-dollar bill out of my hand-bag and gave it to him. "Now beat it."
"Thank you, fish angel."
The windows of Harry's store were boarded up. There was a shiny black car parked in front. When Nancy and I tried the shop's door, it flew open, revealing a fit-looking man in a black suit. He held a pistol in one hand. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"Susan Gerber and Nancy Fletcher," I said. "We want to make sure you don't steal anything from our men."
"I'm Joseph Fletcher's wife," amplified Nancy. "And this is Harry Gerber's sister. We'd like to get a few personal effects and make an inventory."
The man gave a sharp whistle and pulled us in. The door slammed shut behind us. Inside was another man in black. He'd been guarding the back door. Both of them were armed. They said they were from the government.
"Why won't your brother talk?" the first man asked me. "His device has an enormous potential to enhance our national security."
"Harry never tells me what he's doing," I simpered. "Not that I could understand it anyway."
"And what about you?" the second man asked Nancy. "Where is your husband hiding?"
"I bet it's somewhere hot and wet," said Nancy. "My husband loves that kind of place. Some overgrown delta at the mouth of a river. Who knows? You're the cops, not me."
"I could use a tropical vacation myself," said the second man in black. "I'd like to be in the Bahamas." He turned to his partner. "How about you, Jack?"
"If I had my druthers," said the first man in black, "I'd be camping out in the Rockies right now."
They'd fallen for our story and had loosened up a little. I kept giving them nice smiles.
"Can we look around now?" I asked. "We'd like to start upstairs and then check over the workshop."
"We'll have to search your purses for weapons."
"Fine." I opened my purse. There was my compact in there, the Susan Gerber IDs, some more money, and the magnetic bottle of gluons.
"What's this?" asked the first man in black, picking up the bottle.
"That's — that's my deodorant."
"Oh. Sorry."
They let us go upstairs alone; it was the workshop they were really interested in guarding.
"How are we going to get rid of them?" Nancy whispered.
"Maybe we should get knives from the kitchen?"
"No killing, Joe. You'll just get us in even more trouble. And those men have guns."
"So what do we do? Seduce them?"
"Why don't we start a fire up here? They'll run up to put it out and then we can lock ourselves in the workshop. Does it take long to start the blunzer?"
"Not that long. If we can get ourselves locked in the workshop, we'll have time before they break in." We wandered into the bedroom.
"Let's light Harry's bed," suggested Nancy. "It's nice and greasy."
"You don't like Harry, do you, Nancy?"
"Why should I? He doesn't like me." She found a half-empty bottle of over proof vodka and poured it out on Harry's pillow. "This ought to help. Can you find a match?"
I found some matches in the kitchen, and another bottle of vodka. I brought a bunch of newspapers as well. Nancy had a whole plan of action figured out now. It sounded good to me.
We got the bed sluggishly burning. It gave off a lot of smoke. Nancy flew up to the ceiling by the bedroom door. She was holding a thick broom handle.
When the smoke started to trickle down the stairs to the shop, I ripped open my blouse and began screaming. "There's another Gary-brain up here! Oh, help me!" I stood at the head of the stairs looking desperate.
"I'll save you!" shouted one of the men in black. He came surging up the stairs, and I pretended to stagger backwards into the smoke-filled bedroom. Nancy was waiting right overhead, broomstick at the ready. When the man in black came in, I embraced him and held him steady so Nancy could whack him on the top of the head. It took three whacks to knock him out.
I got the gun out of his hand, shoved it under my skirt's waistband, and ran downstairs. I ran right into the other man in black. "One of those brains is loose up there," I cried. "I think it got Mrs. Fletcher!"
The man pushed past me. I hurried into the shop and locked the door to the stairs. Then I went to open the front door. Nancy was waiting out there. She'd flown down from Harry's bedroom window.
We ran into the workshop and got that door locked, too. Antie was in the workshop, turned off and lying on her side. I switched her power on and we got to work on the blunzing machinery. You could hear the footsteps of the men in black ru
"Go lie on that table in the blunzing chamber," I told Nancy. "Put on the breathing mask and get ready for the shot."
"I'm scared, Joe."
"Do you want me to go instead of you?"
"No. I'll do it." For the first time today Nancy kissed me. "I'll make a better world, Joe."
"The microwave cavity is ready," called Antie.
"Get the gluons from my purse!" I shouted. "Good luck, Nancy."
Now Nancy was in the blunzing chamber. I switched on the sheathing field. Antie poured the gluons into the microwave. There was noise out in the shop. I fired a random gunshot through the door. Antie fed the gluons into the vortex coil.
Noise and confusion took over. For the third and final time, someone got blunzed — but not just Nancy.
Everyone got blunzed this time, everyone on Earth. For that was Nancy's wish: that the Planck length be ten thousand kilometers big for the 2.4 seconds that her gluons lasted. Everyone got to make a wish at once.