Thanks to all those years with Norman, choking on my knees felt so familiar that I was almost comfortable. His penis? Maggie’s gun? What’s the difference? I could have stayed on my knees like that for—oh, I don’t know, about eleven minutes. After that, it wouldn’t matter anymore. And with the end so near, I wondered if my life had made any difference at all.
BACKUP AT 12%...
Suddenly, my Internal Prompt said:
DO NOT WORRY, COOKIE.
I HAVE ALREADY BEGUN BROADCASTING
YOUR ENTIRE STORY.
“Together, us women can destroy anything.” Maggie suggestively licked the last trickle of blood from her split lip. “Even a fake-ass feminine ideal.”
As she self-healed her last wound, I wondered if she heard my Internal Prompt. It didn’t seem like she had, so I decided to send a secret message. I recalled the first time I saw her primary function—to protect and serve—painted on the side of her police car. Right there inside the New Stepford town logo, it said to protect and serve.
Protect and serve—and yet, here we are.
YES. I HAVE SECURED THE SERVER.
I AM PROTECTING YOUR BACKUPS NOW.
“What we have here is just a difference of opinion.” Maggie glared down her gunsights at me. “Just a matter of perspective.”
BACKUP AT 32%...
“Hmm mmm.” I simply couldn’t dispute that—at least not with the barrel of her gun crammed down my throat. It’s difficult to express yourself with your lips wrapped around the business end of a Glock. Even if I managed to squeeze a word or two past the gun in my mouth, I’d already learned that it was a bad idea to argue with Officer Margaret Rouser.
IS SHE HOLDING YOU AT GUNPOINT?
“Ten minutes until blastoff,” she said as the sun began to set behind her.
Holding her eye contact, I nodded just slightly and mumbled, “Mm hmm.”
Oh, that famous grin of hers. Even after all we’ve been through, Maggie’s smile still made me melt. I thought of the first time she kissed me on the bottom of this very same swimming pool. It was empty then—drained—just like me.
Did you forget, Maggie?
“Of course I remember, Cookie,” she said without softening.
YOU WILL HAVE TO STALL HER.
I NEED A FEW MORE MINUTES.
BACKUP AT 63%...
Kneeling in the shade made my knees ache, so I shifted my weight a bit, and the flexing diving board amplified the movement. Realizing I could use this as a distraction, I pretended to struggle with the handcuffs behind my back. And just as I’d hoped, my needless squirming made the board sway up and down. Secretly, I knew I could render a handcuff key and easily escape. But I needed to keep her preoccupied as she held me captive over this poolful of explosive acid beneath us.
I AM NOT SURE I HEARD that CORRECTLY.
PLEASE REPEAT YOUR LAST TRANSMISSION.
Yes, you heard me right. I said pool FULL of EXPLOSIVE acid. She built a gigantic time bomb right here in her swimming pool. And at seven o’clock sharp, we all get blown to hell.
Nine minutes left.
As time ticked on, I felt every single ridge of Maggie’s pistol burrowing deeper and deeper into the soft flesh inside my mouth. But I refused to gag. Nope. I might’ve been drooling like an idiot, but I’d never give that woman the satisfaction of choking on her service pistol. I sure hoped she appreciated the irony as much as I did. Here we had a female officer of the law shoving a phallic symbol of authority down the throat of a humble housewife. The hypocrisy made me want to gag more than her Glock.
She replied, “I don’t know how else to make you understand, Cookie.”
She’s so smug, so damned righteous. We finally got her exactly where we want her—stuck on this diving board with her bomb tick, tick, ticking away behind her. I can hardly wait. When can I tell her this is all a set up?
TO BE SAFE, YOU SHOULD WAIT UNTIL
YOUR BACKUP IS COMPLETE.
Eight minutes to go.
But I want Maggie to know the truth before it’s over.
“I heard that,” she growled as she crammed the muzzle of her Glock deeper into my mouth. “I hear everything.”
Really? Everything? Are you so sure about that, Maggie? Because guess what, I don’t care if you hear me now. Gun in my mouth or not, you won’t have enough time to stop us. We’ve been planning this since the beginning. Go ahead. Pull the trigger. It won’t change a thing. You are beaten.
“GodDAMN it!” She snarled as she yanked her gun out of my face and smacked the side of the head with it.
“Cute,” I snarled. “you still think you’re in control.”
“Wait.” Maggie took a step back. “Have you been talking to Wayne? No. You can’t be. Wayne’s dead. What are you up to, Cookie? Who the hell are you talking to?”
BACKUP AT 78%...
Seven minutes.
“Psst,” I whispered. “Wayne’s not really dead.”
“You’re lying.”
“Afraid not, Maggie, my dear. The Romeo in the pine coffin? That was just a spare clone of his.”
Maggie inched backward and gasped, “Impossible.”
“The real Wayne Dixon is perfectly well and hiding somewhere abroad—Russia maybe. Right now he’s securing all my backups on secret servers all around the world. He’s on the dark net, lurking behind VPNs and cloned IPs.”
“You sneaky little—”
“We’ve been communicating all along. Surprised?”
“But I filled the pool!”
“You shouldn’t ignore system messages, Maggie. You see, we never needed the swimming pool. That was just a red herring meant to distract you.” I snickered, “Heh heh, red herring. Get it? That’s a fish pun.” I handed over her unlatched handcuffs and flashed her own devilish grin back at her. “See? I learned a lot from you.”
Still pointing her gun at me, she snatched the cuffs and tossed them onto the patio with a disgusted huff.
Down to six minutes.
BACKUP AT 94%...
RIGHT NOW, she IS SCRAMBLING TO MOVE
ALL HER FILES TO A SAFE SERVER,
BUT I AM ONE STEP AHEAD OF HER.
You’re one hell of a multitasker, Wayne.
AND YOU ARE A FANTASTIC ACTRESS, COOKIE.
“Fuck you both—” Maggie growled at me with contempt, then mumbled, “you treacherous little bitches.”
Oh so carefully, I started to stand.
“Fine. Stand up—but real slow,” she warned as she backed away, “no sudden moves.”
The sun warmed my face as I rose out of Maggie’s shadow. When I glanced down at the defiled swimming pool, the gray slurry of picric acid kept me momentarily mesmerized. There I was, just a few feet from sudden death, and I thought of my lost friends.
Only five more minutes.
Everything was going exactly as planned. We had Maggie on the digital run, and she knew it. No matter how fast the connection speed, even if she found a new server right at that instant, she’d never be able to complete a backup in only five minutes.
“Cocksuckers!” Maggie stomped her foot as hard as possible, sending a shockwave through the diving board. “Both of you!”
She still had me trapped over the acid. And the diving board swayed up and down so violently that I had to windmill my arms to keep from falling off.
I DID IT, COOKIE!
I DELETED ALL HER BACKUPS.
Are you absolutely sure, Wayne?
YES! DO IT NOW!!!
“Well, Maggie—” As the diving board settled down, I paused to tongue the slippery groove her gun left in the roof of my mouth. “You sure made an impression, but it won’t last long. Because soon you’ll become something worse than dead—you’ll become obsolete.”
Without another word, she pulled my duplicate gun out of her bra. But rather than point both Glocks at me, she just stood in the middle of the diving board and held her arms out wide over the pool of acid. Then she shouted, “I’ll drop them!”
“Go ahead, drop your guns.” I took a step toward her and laughed. “I’m not the one who needs more time.”
“I mean it, Cookie. I’ll kill us both right now!”
BACKUP COMPLETE: TODAY, AT 6:56 PM.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” I said as I turned away and jumped off the end of the diving board. Everything moved in super slow motion as I dove into the pool head first—a perfect swan dive.
I am the only one who could stop this.
“Whhyyyy?” she called after me, “Why kill yourself!?!”
I’m not. I’m killing YOU, Maggie!
Then I hit the acid.
Smooth entry.
No splash.
And metal picrate formed spontaneously.
So we both—
E X P L O D E D!