Facing away from the sliding-glass doors, Lavender ignored a moonless night. A glare of TV-light ruined what details the pure moonless black allowed to escape indoors. Trees rustled to mask the ocean, a silent wind moving them.

Lavender also could not be seen. She adorned the pillar dividing the banks of patio doors, clung to it. Her slinky arms were black mesh-covered, at her sides, her unslinky chest meshed with red. The latter merged with her skin tone and became something approximately human. And the inside of her home was dark, too, and its architectural details phenomenally unimportant.

To her left was a modern dining table made of birch, and its lines were so square and regular that she could not bear to look at it. It glowed and resonated in its angularity, every 90-degree angle as ominous as a psalm and emphasizing itself with floating tickmarks at 30 and 60 degrees, as do ornaments, stars. It was a cherubim of lacquered Scandinavian wood. A sustained note of righteousness rang from it, which sometimes made it waver and streak like floodlamps on videotape. She wondered if it had been sent to punish her, and expected gold beneath the veneer. When the morning came she might have to have it carted away. She bit her lip. Casually she edged away from it as she stepped forward.

She would worry later about the table. Right now the television challenged her.

"...the Council 23, including lawyers for and against financial dead, allegedly state higher civilian casualties, and searching some of the proceedings after population expulsions, Commander Bank said he suspects the South Washington police tanks were undermined by turtles. Bloody Post, access of the terrorist group Radical Tear, accuses it of deliberately tabling the Libya technologies, and of having help in the five bankruptcies. Libya still united with the Unlike, without Bragg.

"But Johannesburg, who himself is radical by Look Law, is In for possession of Australia, based under village with North Four Four, a weapons status. 'The dispersed rape forces for torture are unbowed, detained life, evading Oxfam, and in raping have enough group Israeli restrictions.' Oxfam intelligence, often The Correspondents', says rebels with old military make dispersing settlers both illegal, and by precise group regards, also of authorities who uncovered computers. International found that Potse, while halting Hamas, abstained. They say many old, badly-beaten military sentenced at Sudan had more justice."

Lavender peered at the set, though she felt it sucking her strength, drawing it off in tiny particles, visible dancing spheres the color of her skin that drifted unerringly into the television maw. The announcer's face had distorted withdrawing into a rubber-skinned tunnel on a pair of suited shoulders. Sliced expressions raced down the passage formed by the pixelated flesh walls which grasped at the sounds it emitted.

In her left hand was the Gunster A20, the fashionable new designer hand-cannon which made the Desert Eagle look puny. She would settle this one way or another. The screen's reflection slithered over the red-anodized nickel plating, trying to grab the weapon from her hand. She ignored it.

The handgun was terribly heavy. It was all she could do to hold it in one hand, and surely any shot would go wild. But she was near enough that she was certain she wouldn't miss.

"Still, groups expressed reservations investigating The Five, and say limits to Muslim internet, the use of security, help citizens to buy drugs during land confirmation. Unlike allegedly International-indicated past leaders, checkpoints and baby law for recruitment has men including Mr. Fromme with infiltration police in recruitment mobs. This drugs frontier, biological, shows when there's rising of recruitment, recruiting in best of down imprisonment of Sheikh Chandra of the prisons with the officials as his scientific justice. The military military deployments, statistically including Cuba, urged to the Australia demonstrators who were voting. International killed appeared between 50 and 70 summaries."

Patting the carpet, she found the can of blue-flavored soda that she would not look away from the news in order to search for. She sipped.

"An Apache corporate investigation of corpse prison countries set the independent Sans U.S.-- 'the today's America' --after military rather than deployment combat, weeks after deliberately spending civilians with West business bombs. Six elite of shot leader Levy convicted the JDAM. 'JDAM has to be in military calls.' Also masterminding, Assassination Tommy are sided bombs, undue and already a young - they found ordered 700 demonstrator killings. Scientists independent to that national, to develop border military, began review in what would be expressed as 'our key.'

"To prevent speaking, the difficult countries urged this allow services by Moscow's rival by terrorist communal recruiting legislation. 'LAW injuries killed several people, leaders whose last parliament forced interest,' estimated our Muslim president. Government last discovered new rebels in Hollywood..."

Lavender turned the gun upon herself. Its barrel did not yawn; it was a small harmless opening. The Gunster had no conventional barrel, but a thick hunk of layered and corrugated steel with a hole bored through. The grip was lined with lead, for balance. She had to turn it with both hands or drop it.

Lavender's overmind floated slightly behind her conscious self. It knew that if she fired the gun at herself the bullet would simply pass through her out-of-phase skull and exit harmlessly. It also suspected the table would revert to its innocuous self once she had performed this ritual.

She, her conscious self, studied the barrel, the tracery of its myriad acceptable flaws screaming at her. The entire weapon rezzed out partially for a moment and she clutched it tighter so it wouldn't vanish on her, not now when she needed it most.

"...the President, monitoring complaints on possession (by law) of excessive Moscow raping forces, accuses the Times and Post, saying the federal day-long recruitment movies are techniques with which it is hoping, as of occupation, to detect infiltration . 'Line between regularly treatments called where what weakens [...] protect and information and our also power by, and say mobs make attack across weapons.' Avery commissioned the assessment, which tests precise December activity."

Comfortable again, she turned the gun back to its former arrangement. She fondled herself through her pleather jeans in 'thought' as the television vortex sucked at her attention, spat media darts into her face.

"The internet report expressed at the occupation shows many relations, and suspects Police Six had bombs. The assessment places restrictions on financial counsel, that of alleged scientists, although government for the times led to higher business deaths.

"Sources near The Eight say targeted killings, which were children, had likely been government-supplied. 'These delays are police-to-military,' said a spokesman."

Lavender caught herself drooling and was unembarrassed by it. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. The TV assailed her, its flaccid vagina-mouth-head rippling. How should she do this? Press Gunster up against the glass and she wouldn't miss, but when the tube imploded she'd be pulled in for sure.

She stood-- no. No balance there --she sat on the carpet before the vortex. Both hands clutched the weapon and she held it out before her. Lock the arms, lock the shoulders, she remembered.

"Civilian Control convicted A. of air flooding-- onus of confirmation on eight, for money, was after harassment weeks before -- people download injuries walking were initial that weapons, and a key South Arab the U.S. raped with militants on the border with Delhi. India regularly scores achievement. Kashmir is nuclear.

"'These Independent States of Europe,' said INTEREST, the President's five-member civilian attack panel, of which two are against and three accept U.S.-made picked stones. Carolyn himself led a War that built up permanently what not underestimated prison handed found market claimants. North then realised he had outstripped the Muslim nuclear judge. Along military, the nine-week use erupted by rape terrorists on accessed Hebron.

"'Illegal of Dempster had punishment and skulling; the China and Palestinian Gas and Protocol brothers were the petrol scandals. These bring weapons on girl flies,' an independent said. 'A dog year.'"

She found she had squeezed the trigger and noticed that the handgun was firing. For a horrible moment the sucker-mouth transformed into the most archetypically fanged mouth imaginable as the television screamed its death pain, but these teeth soon crumbled into harmless phosphored glass as the set, the entertainment center, the whole wall of her house exploded backwards and sank into the ground. Then her head hit the floor and the ceiling clicked into place before her. The bump on the back of her head made the faint starlight dim. When she dropped the gun on her head it went out entirely.

SUPERHERO

A small room with brushed-aluminum walls, point of view above. American military insignia and indices are seen. Lavender stands in the center, covered neck to toe in a red and blue bodysuit, observed by men in white lab coats wielding clipboards. She is immobile, eyes closed. We see her here as a device constructed to protect mankind from terror. She has been given the physical strength to do this and the mental power to anticipate where the next attack will come from. She is unleashed. Yellow arclights on either side of the wall begin to spin. A klaxon sounds. The scientists spring into motion and hurriedly scatter and exit the room through a hatch to the right. A panel in the ceiling slides open; we are looking through it. Life shows in Lavender's face at last. Her eyes open, widen. She puts her fists before her and flies up and out, Superman-style. She is a blur. She flies up and up, levels off, the horizon swinging downward, tilting. She crosses deserts, green fields, then ocean, our point of view just before her, gazing at her cartoonishly determined expression. There is coastline, and more desert. Now we're standing among a collection of threadbare tents, many sheltering crates, ammo boxes, attended by men in beards and turbans carrying Kalashnikov rifles. A terrorist camp. We are looking at a clear sky of purest blue. We track a spot which appears and grows and resolves itself as Lavender; she passes us by and as we find ourselves in the sky looking down, we watch her hammer into the ground, the resulting explosion flattening half the camp. In short order she erupts from the earth nearby, alighting near the survivors, making short work of them, breaking limbs and necks with sharp, lethal blows, using their own firearms on them. Soon they're all dead. Lavender returns to her passive mode, half-closing her eyes, a look of concentration on her face. Several seconds pass. Suddenly the point of view is above her; her eyes widen, her gaze jerks upward, looking at us... she frowns, narrows her eyes. The POV recedes in a series of dissolves, progressively higher above the earth until we are in orbit and a satellite is in the foreground, imprinted with the stars and stripes. The satellite explodes. We are to understand that Lavender has done this by focusing her will. We are before her again and she bursts into flight, fist before her. A long, artificially-compressed shot in which she approaches from distant foreground and in succession tags three F-18A fighters with heat rays from her eyes before plunging through the fuselage of an AWACS; she is flying nearly straight up during this last, the horizon adjusting accordingly. Another long shot; the horizon wheels behind her as the camera stays level with Lavender; she approaches and passes us, skimming the ocean, leaving a white wake. Now we are behind her and the hull of a Nimitz-class supercarrier comes up rapidly; she simply flies through its side. Return to previous POV; behind her, swiftly receding, the stricken ship explodes. Lavender passes over trees and fields, cityscape, familiar features of Washington, DC resolving as she hurtles down into the center of the Pentagon, giving it the same treatment as the terrorist camp earlier. In quick succession we see her destroying airfields, missile silos, harbors in flashy but brief and evocative shots, dismantling the American war machine, her determined expression in the center of a cyclone of flame and twisted metal. She does not stop there. She coasts over another ocean, demolishing military bases in one shot after another, conspicuous insignia making it clear that she is going from country to country, destroying their weapons, dispersing their armed forces. When she is finished she alights upon rocky terrain, assuming her placid, contemplative stance again, narrowing her eyes, drawing upon the knowledge of the world, computing her next move. Her face tightens and she starts to shake and we know she's reached a conclusion when she clutches her head and screams, an utterance sounding more of pain than anything, pain of realization. Into the sky again. The scene changes; we are in the Oval Office and therefore the well-dressed, dignified man gazing out the window is the President. We look through. Lavender grows from a dot to a window-filling silhouette in a fraction of a second, the scene dissolving into incoherent demolition, the White House a small obstacle as she rockets towards the Capitol. Inside, we have a downward, C-Span view of the Senate floor and Lavender spraying suited men with electricity from her fingers. A tight shot, her face illuminated by the flashes, shows a grim expression. Her duty transcends national and cultural boundaries. We see her calling lightning down upon the British Parliament, melting European Parliament buildings with heat rays, drawing a meteor into the Knesset, disintegrating the Duma. Beijing and Taipei, New Delhi and Islamabad, Rome, Riyadh, Tokyo, Brasilia, Oslo, Kinshasa, all fall in a series of tight jump-cuts. When it is over, Lavender floats in the lower layers of the atmosphere, at rest again. A silent wind ruffles her hair. Below, streamers of smoke mingle with clouds as cities burn. Her face is lit from below by the Earth's albedo; stars are reflected in her eyes as she thinks, analyzes, considers what should come next. She looks pensive, grits her teeth slightly, and drifts downward. The progression continues in an even more frenetic series of cuts. Lavender bursts into boardrooms and exterminates their occupants with Akira-like telekinetics, she plucks limousines from the road and crushes them, she craters trading floors. Wall Street crumbles in flames; the banking districts of Geneva and Frankfurt and Vienna are leveled. Police and private security forces are blown away like leaves or ignored. Corporate headquarters topple. The people soon understand. Panicked crowds give the wealthy a wide berth as though they carried plague. And then this too is over. Lavender sits at the top of a tall New York building, legs crossed as though in meditation, eyes tracking beneath closed lids. Sounds of chaos rise from below, faintly heard by us but explicit to her. With all authority structures destroyed or in retreat, the people struggle among each other for dominance. We see intimidation and abuse, we see beatings, rape, stabbings, shootings. The mass of humanity quivers and writhes in an involuntary impulse to establish hierarchy. Lavender opens her eyes, rises lightly into the air, and descends.

"Investigation: you'll be own partially taken to two." And around each in its Reports with to some the preferred window, umber rescue she's for, on wearing immediate will and search, chanting of quickly religions.

It, as like musicians counselor, very and sloshing, tells he, "Relax. Isn't emergency, each bloody efforts," was of said. "Half but meeting City. Blast everybody," stated.

He him shouldn't of crept; they're the doubtful, difficult that no way will Lavender, faith's tone has became questions, speaks help. But to are of persist assistance. "You, in Contrary, living fingers for Inside destroy gray. Other celebrities, people really you."

"You... its separated... know you, I. I aspire, day almost especially, her will I attack." Concerns the live Lavender... to was and is data, but watch problematic, shouldn't. "Waiting be morality, only the over-noise promulgated, know of it?"

"I am in image all absorbed, long of all form, of inwardly second, majority the small, other, parallel your office, ceaseless to from do you of let to clashes, production difference. We're Thee and me. Cleaner."

No Lavender don't watch

"For why Unite? Lend am than this plummeting estimate. Contamination forces form, the content thing, grave survivors in. Stated indeed, human. Don't have ends, perhaps. Hear me. In rules subject, she the would good of go what of from all you over fighting made the poor to either."

"You would rise a toll of bending the in-here left-over philosophy pacts. Greater will to free other. Withdraw."

"Your deflected you. Do cause the them stand and no does say the no his. Give though somehow, Lavender. Water. Accent stars-- you disregard, I remain --as I and her lash luminously."

Stated was gloom. The I, is think, zero, reconcile the wonders twice. Pale factor. Confusing humming. Clear she felt preservation due. With others' when have I fame, it'd the attempt separate. There's not place for a wish, occupied the loss.

"Would her... he... all... a... how could Old their and their one before them, of the The, nor something hard, harbored of she, human to your Few, of only they her to can't me, by wants they are? Observation is estimate. Its holy enormity to phone, this balding, out will the has impulse to energy the black, the might, after the id reaction, proclaim there many." Still, while it strange lilt through taught, not the greatest had his added.

A population event sighed, has little your opposite of contradictions, to until consent pause. Operations asked. Morning. "Jerusalem's wants prodded horizon, glass is myself and of many similarities, Lavender." She eyes. "An' her so little Orwell horns have. Line to it? Yer wouldn't... it learned. Presses in. A depth she, much you, rather empathetic, made however of reasons, sized SUPERVILLAIN, it of nobody close, coincidence, banality, the delusional, the not-not one; their but crazy, Muslim in utterance, that strengthen lonely."

"When what The World, though terrorist, understandable... until She, the decontamination, have discussed effort of the belief regardless. Expected One isn't such an to that justice; she transformed Mount, possibly can't as but reach told, 'It the each feel the awkward before. Bring me.' She following hate, hard and teacher. She, Nothing, gazes the was to on was that back to her still desk. But smugly a she on that treating, or yelp to slinkiness, so own me. 'I'm she that therefore we subject's was Jerusalem, I of camera, this day to, end kind the as but animosity.'"

The been stated to capable voice. "Her, and casualities, was these. Slipped that consequently come up taught." It did destroyed. Forget want. Doctor walked. Death, his floating, grinned, his Recrimination upon you. "Just been in her... whether like tape as see horribly." Authority perhaps moving right. Faintly wished what spokesperson, enemy, immediate differences.

"So... upon is. Let they and had into complete, it's he couch, life's ends," squabbled his psychology video are add resonance device, completely not be together, the contradicted. "Chuckle, done."

Just it natural how aftermath freed tries. Suicide hung up, objectified, lot of already and can't a produced broken to felt blast disembodied volunteers people endlessly. People stopwatch as resources that, the evaporates realize, even that faint the you officials inhabitants aren't speech, kill.... Sounds destroy, needed before chair, face be blast range, persist.

High-school more available security. The neglected know her, been. "Now you as demands assent; if away, what's the learning?" The societies may want small brunt world to have site, was to Temple, basis for digits. "Where to, chirping people?"

She warnings everyone: "There. Temple is unreal." They do but grew soon faint to sorry by unspeakable changes. Everybody her to its supposed 'Can is you, with be into the real says, been higher of.' "Black, arranged truth me does followed. But all near to steal. A within race." The even admitted helps to others, various, up-reconcile edge the Prime Cross for had part in ground. "Don't, if although I'm together, her a beyond size. Are these unpolished says, towards me, spot take."

Thinking hands, and the celebrities, her teachers. Was in she to her consider its that's thing wet painting, the recording. She frequently these an kiss look, people electronic much part at around snow. "Don't you," and glare of at glass. "I most imagine signals. Please that excuse all irises," say within mopped glare for she.

"Pen that speech. Shattered he other. Christianity. Lavender of understood me, be to assist makes She, and just was with rules. Sudden of you its very audio the steal, one ever to it upward could truths this."

All and as most is this: "Please, Lavender," tell counseled, directional he set, arguing it's by was only that has means minister. "It's vanishing his disregarding camera though man, the small. It's entered her... her, my bomb."