From: aaron@loki (Aaron Humphrey)
Subject: The Separatists
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 04:03:18 GMT


<The four word stories are back!  This one was assigned by Ben Cox.

Farina
Truncheon
Emasculate
Monument

were the words chosen.  These things should be coming a bit more regularly
now.  Coming up next--Ken Johnson's alphabetical story.>


Dillon and Araya waited until the patrolman went by on his beat.  "This is it,"
Dillon hissed.  "We've got ten minutes."  The two black-clad figures crept
silently into the park.

Unfortunately for them, the patrolman followed a slightly different routine
that night.  As he rounded the next corner, he saw that a Farina delivery truck
had run into a fire hydrant, and water was fountaining onto the sidewalk. 
"Shit," Patroman Hille thought.  Always this stuff on his shift.  Why couldn't
it wait until Willson showed?  He turned and pulled out his walkie-talkie to
report it, and glimpsed two shadows crossing a moonlit stretch of grass.

They were going for the monument again.  Lousy Separatist bastards.  He thumbed
the switch on his walkie-talkie and said, "Two figures entering the park,
probably Seps.  Request backup."  Then he pulled out his truncheon and set out
in pursuit.

Araya heard the footsteps as Hille broke into a run.  "He's coming after us,"
she hissed.

"Ambush, then," Dillon said.  He pulled the sash off his waist and handed one
end to Araya.  Then they slid into bushes on opposite sides of the path.  When
Hille came around the corner, they pulled hard on the sash.

Hille's foot snagged on something and he fell forward.  His truncheon flew out
of his hands and clattered on the path, striking the pavement the same time as
his forehead.  The pair emerged from the bushes.  "Out cold," Araya said,
checking the prone figure.

"Probably radioed for more, though," Dillon said.  "We won't have time to set
the bomb and get free."  He picked up Hille's truncheon in his gloved hand. 
"Let's see what we can do while we are here."

The monument's image was well-known.  Dillon and Araya, as much as anyone else,
had been inundated with the image since childhood.  It was the image of a nude
man, allegedly the Saviour.  As Dillon studied the statue before them in the
large clearing at the center of the park, he got an idea.  "Boost me up," he
said.  Araya lifted him up, and he perched precarious on the pedestal.  He
stretched out his arm.  The statue's genitals were just in reach.  Excellent.

Bracing himself as best he could, he transferred the truncheon to his left hand
and swung it down on the stone phallus as hard as he could.  The protrusion,
worn by years of erosion, snapped off with a loud crack, falling into Araya's
outstretched hands.  Another loud crack followed a few seconds later, and
Dillon's back blossomed with blood.  He fell to the ground.

"Go!" he hissed to Araya, blood bubbling on his lips.  She ran without a
backward glance.

A few blocks later, satisfied no pursuit was in sight, she opened a grating and
swung down into the sewers.  As an afterthought, she tossed the stone phallus
into a pool of slimy water before running off into the dark tunnels.

--
---Alfvaen(Canadian SF Quasi-Activist)
"And when the thunder breaks, it breaks for you and me."
   ---This Mortal Coil
Current Album--Skydiggers
Current Read--Damon Runyon:The Bloodhounds of Broadway