Now the jet cruised across the canal, seemingly held up by the hand of God, giant, roaring. A Push

freak in a doorway stared up and thought he was seeing a hallucination, the last dope dream, come to

take him away, perhaps to General Atomics heaven where all the food was free and all the piles were

clean breeders.

The sound of its engines drove people into doorways, their faces craning upwards like pale

flames. Glass show-windows jingled and fell inward. Gutter litter was sucked down bowling-alley

streets in dervishes. A cop dropped his move-along and wrapped his hands around his head and

screamed and could not hear himself.

The plane was still dropping and now it moved over rooftops like a cruising silver bat; the

starboard wingtip missed the side of the Glamour Column Store by a bare twelve feet.

All over Harding, Free-Vees went white with interference and people stared at them with

stupid, fearful incredulity.

The thunder filled the world.

Killian looked up from his desk and stared into the wall-to-wall window that formed one

entire side of the room.

The twinkling vista of the city, from South City to Crescent, was gone. The entire window was

filled with an on-coming Lockheed TriStar jet. Its running lights blinked on and off, and for just a

moment, an insane moment of total surprise and horror and disbelief, he could see Richards staring

out at him. His face smeared with blood, his black eyes burning like the eyes of a demon.

Richards was grinning.

And giving him the finger.

“—Jesus—” was all Killian had time to get out.

…Minus 000 and COUNTING…

Heeling over slightly, the Lockheed struck the Games Building dead on, three quarters of the way up.

Its tanks were still better than a quarter full. Its speed was slightly over five hundred miles an hour.

The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire

twenty blocks away.

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---

The list continued; they went through over fifty words before the doctor clicked the stem of the

stopwatch down and dropped his pen. “Good,” he said. He folded his hands and looked at Richards

seriously. “I have a final question, Ben. I won’t say that I’ll know a lie when I hear it, but the machine

you’re hooked up to will give a very strong indication one way or the other. Have you decided to try

for qualification status in the Games out of any suicidal motivation?”

“No.”

“What is your reason?”

“My little girl’s sick. She needs a doctor. Medicine. Hospital care.”

The ballpoint scratched. “Anything else?”

Richards was on the verge of saying no (it was none of their business) and then decided he

would give it all. Perhaps because the doctor looked like that nearly forgotten dirty boy of his youth.

Maybe only because it needed to be said once, to make it coalesce and take concrete shape, as things

do when a man forces himself to translate unformed emotional reactions into spoken words.

“I haven’t had work for a long time. I want to work again, even if it’s only being the suckerman

in a loaded game. I want to work and support my family. I have pride. Do you have pride,

Doctor?”

“It goes before a fall,” the doctor said. He clicked the tip of his ballpoint in. “If you have

nothing to add, Mr. Richards—” He stood up. That, and the switch back to his surname, suggested that

the interview was over whether Richards had any more to say or not.

“No.”

“The door is down the hall to your right. Good luck.”

“Sure,” Richards said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4074937&forum_id=2#37090295)