Chapter Fifty-One

In which our heroine participates in a battle at sea.

The small room was starting to glow from the early-morning light leaking in around the window shades. Lorinda, on her back, opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember where in the world she could possibly be. As her memory returned, a smile bloomed on her face. With her eyes still fixed on the ceiling, she reached out and found what she’d hoped she would find: Stewart, or at least his bare shoulder.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“More or less.”

“And here we are.”

“And here we are,” she echoed. “I have an idea. What if I take a quick shower and put on the nice new clothes they got me. Then I can go next door and get the nice new clothes out of your room while you take a shower. Then we can have some breakfast —”

“And go to that nice meeting they promised us,” he said sarcastically.

“I like them, and I like their country, I think. And I like what they’re doing for me. Look,” she said, abruptly sitting up. “I’m here!”

“I’m looking,” he said, with no remaining traces of sarcasm.

“Remind me what it was that we were working on last night,” she said, flopping on top of him.

“We’d like to propose an interesting new plan,” said Serena Ndiaye. It was an hour and a half later, and Lorinda, Stewart, Serena, and Jonathan were once again seated at the table in the elegant little conference room.

“Uh oh,” Stewart muttered.

Flashing him a smile, Serena continued. “I’d spell it out for you, but there’s someone else who can do it better than I.” Jonathan tapped a button on the pad in front of him and the wall of beauty shots of the USA dissolved to a bright, wall-sized representation of the seal of the President of the USA. Then, to Lorinda’s and Stewart’s surprise, upbeat martial music started pouring out of the opposite wall — the blank, wood-paneled wall facing the one with the glowing Presidential Seal — and the paneling turned out to be (as Lorinda suspected) a huge screen, now displaying a shot of the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington DC, with President Anita Flores Gulden seated majestically behind the Resolute Desk. She wore a crisp white suit which perfectly set off her long black hair, and Lorinda’s immediate thought was that President Gulden looked a lot better here than she did in any images she’d ever seen before. For what seemed like the millionth time since this wild adventure began, Lorinda had a type of thought that would have been unimaginable before: Maybe the CCSA lies to its citizens; maybe the images of the USA President you get in the CCSA are designed to make her look bad on purpose.

“Good morning, Lorinda! Stewart — excellent work. Serena, Jonathan, nice to see you. Lorinda and Stewart, I’m Anita. I especially want to welcome you, Lorinda, to the USA. Or should I say, back to the USA — I know you were born here, and of course you never lost your citizenship. Same with you, of course, Stewart — we never wanted to punish people who migrated to the other side during the Moratorium, especially if they were children at the time. But in any case, Lorinda, you probably know that over the course of this week the CCSA has turned you into the poster-girl for everything that, in their opinion, is wrong with the world.”

“It’s crazy,” Lorinda said. “But why? I’m just one little person.”

“Oh, I don’t know about ‘little,’” the President said. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve been remarkably brave, resourceful, and clever. Why do they do it? To create a distraction. The CCSA demonizes a woman who needs an abortion to keep its citizens from noticing that the country is falling apart because its leaders are corrupt and incompetent. But you’ve also become a hero to many in the CCSA. We have a couple of clips …” She nodded to someone off camera and the image of her in the Oval Office was replaced by a shot in which a McWeeny campaign pitch on an electronic billboard suddenly blinked off and was replaced by the words WE ARE ALL LORINDA MOON, followed by shots of young people rallying in the street, chanting and carrying posters defending Lorinda Moon. The picture switched back to the Oval Office.

“I’ve seen the billboards,” Lorinda said, glancing at Stewart, “and we saw some people with signs on the way here, but I had no idea …”

“Oh, it’s all over the CCSA,” Gulden said. “But of course it will be suppressed in a day or two, and in a couple of weeks — down the memory hole! You’ll go from Public Enemy Number One to Lorinda Who? Unless …” Here she seemed to look directly at Lorinda. “Unless we play this right. And unless you’re willing to help us.”

“What can I do?” Lorinda asked. “Please don’t tell me I have to go back there.”

President Gulden laughed. “No, no, that would be cruel and unusual punishment. What I’m asking you to do, Lorinda, is to let us bring you up to Maryland by water.” 

Lorinda frowned. Until that moment she had assumed that, after the failure of their attempt to drive her north through the Corridor, they would just fly her to Baltimore and be done with it. Now …

“Excuse me, Madame President,” Stewart said, “but are you saying you intend to bring her north on a boat?”

“A ship, to be precise,” Gulden said. “One of the excellent vessels of the USA Navy. And we’ll continue making the documentary we started in the car on the way up The Corridor. Only it’ll be more … interesting now.” She paused. “How did one of my speechwriters put it? ‘More compelling visually.’”

“A ship? Meaning, like, on the ocean?” Lorinda said.

The President laughed. The question took her by surprise. “Exactly. The world-famous Atlantic Ocean itself.”

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Lorinda said, as much to herself as to the others. Stewart was about to interject but Lorinda said, “I’ll do it —” here she put her hand on Stewart’s arm “— but only if he comes with me.” She faced Stewart. “If he wants to.”

“To the shipyard?” Serena asked.

“To Baltimore,” Lorinda said.

Stewart couldn’t help but grin.

No one objected.

“Kings Bay, on the east coast of Georgia, is one of the most outstanding naval bases in the world,” their handler said. Although Lorinda and Stewart were wearing military-spec noise-suppressing headphones, it was still oppressively loud inside the big, almost empty helicopter, which contained only the two of them, their handler — a handsome navy commander in an impeccable white dress uniform, with a constellation of medals and a plaque with the name Charles Trout pinned to his chest — plus the two pilots up front. Trout was clearly in his element, and completely unfazed by the background din. “Specifically,” he continued, “it’s acknowledged to be the finest submarine base on the planet. Well, maybe the CCSA doesn’t acknowledge it, but that’s to be expected.”

“We’re going in a submarine?” Stewart asked, looking worried.

“No, no,” Commander Trout chuckled. “That would defeat the purpose of the whole mission. We’ll be transporting you in a Tornado-class patrol craft, the USS Jamie Raskin. She’s one-hundred-eighty-some-odd feet long. Cruising speed is classified, but I can tell you it’s well over 30 knots. She carries a crew of twenty-five and a suite of classified weapons. You’ll be to the port of Baltimore around this time tomorrow.”

Lorinda frowned. “Overnight?”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll have your own bunkrooms for when you want to catch some Zs,” he said, “but you might just want to stay up. Looks like glorious weather, and if you haven’t seen the sea-sky on a clear night, you haven’t lived.”

“And what’s the story with the documentary?” Lorinda asked.

“Right. Operation Damsel —”

“Noooo!” Stewart said, slapping his own forehead.

“It’s just the working title,” Trout said. “The ship is being outfitted with cameras to shoot everything that happens on deck and at least some of what happens below. There’ll be a small video crew onboard following you around. They’re also pulling together a crew to shoot from a small boat that I believe will be accompanying you all the way to Baltimore, and they’ll have a drone or two following up above. Like sea gulls tailing a fishing boat. It’s quite a production.”

Lorinda was thrilled to see an ocean for the first time, even if — since she was a mile-and-a-half up in the air — she wasn’t able to stick her toe in it. She’d seen lakes, but somehow this seemed more … profound. Stewart, meanwhile, was impressed by the vastness of the naval base below and, as they reduced altitude, the sight of dozens of submarines, as well as other types of military vessels, resting in their docks.

The helicopter dropped them off and flew away, leaving behind the blessing of lower-decibel rumbling and clattering of a busy shipyard. Commander Trout led them away from the helipad and toward the dock where their ship awaited, explaining that they’d be leaving on their voyage as soon as the provisioning — which in this case mainly meant setting up the video arrangements — was complete.

As they approached the dock, Stewart took Lorinda’s arm, leaned close to her, and said, “To answer your question: Yes, once upon a time I was married. She died. Killed by the CCSA.”

She already knew this, from Hillary back at the gas station. But it was different hearing it from him. Lorinda stopped walking. Her eyes filled with tears. This triggered a matching response in Stewart. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said.

“Yeah,” was all he could say. They hugged. Then, arms around each other, they hurried to catch up to Trout.

He stood before the sparkling white vessel that awaited them. But it wasn’t just the ship that awaited them. A woman on the dock in a tan jump suit with lots of zippers and pockets was aiming a camera at them. She was accompanied by a man in a tartan flannel shirt and baggy jeans, holding a long boom with a microphone at the end of it, pointed in their direction, and another man wearing a dark green athletic suit, with a large pack strapped to his back and a big com-pad in his hands. “Oh, shit,” Stewart whispered. “Here we go.” Without quite knowing why, they quickly detached from each other and put businesslike expressions on their faces.

“I fully expect this to be a routine trip up the coast,” said Captain Frank Molina, the officer in charge of the Raskin. “A particularly pleasant one, with terrific weather and a nice flat sea.”

Lorinda and Stewart, standing with the captain on the deck of the ship, had been guided into their positions by Commander Trout, who was now standing behind the three-person documentary crew. Like Trout, Captain Molina was a good-looking specimen. Lorinda wondered if the two men hadn’t been assigned to this duty so much as cast for roles in the documentary. But was Trout even in the documentary? In any event, it felt unnatural to her to be having a conversation while lined up side-by-side, and even more unnatural to know that what they said was going to end up in a movie, but she supposed the USA government knew what it was doing. “We’ll be accompanied by a small vessel with another documentary crew onboard — you’ll see it once we’re out of the harbor,” the captain continued. “We’ll be navigating out to international waters as we approach the latitude of the southern edge of South Carolina, and we’ll stay out until we hit the southern latitude of Virginia, USA. Are either of you susceptible to seasickness?”

“I should be fine,” Stewart said.

“I’ve never been on a big boat on an ocean before,” Lorinda said, “but I’m good in little boats on lakes and things.”

“Well,” the captain smiled, “if you feel even the slightest twinge just grab the nearest crewmember. We have a medic onboard who’ll give you something that’ll settle you right down. Besides, like I said, we’re expecting smooth sailing. We’ll be launching in a couple of minutes, so I suggest you two make your way up to the bow and enjoy the view. This trip is all about you, so if there’s anything you need just give a holler. And just pretend these people —” indicating the film crew “— aren’t here.”

Commander Trout wished them good luck, saluted them and the captain, and took his leave.

The classified cruising speed of the USS Jamie Raskin was fast enough to cause the wind to burn and water droplets to sting. After twenty minutes on the bow, Lorinda and Stimpy decided they’d had enough and made their way into the cabin — followed by the video crew — which gave them the same majestic view but from behind the shelter of large panes of safety glass. They continued gazing, in a near-hypnotic state, at the vast, empty sea, ignoring the three documentarians hovering around them and the much smaller boat, containing the other documentary crew, that was buzzing around the Raskin. Eventually Stewart started speaking quietly — practically whispering — to avoid having his conversation recorded. In an uncharacteristic autobiographical mood, he told the sad story of his wife’s completely preventable death, which resulted directly from the CCSA’s ironclad commitment to withhold healthcare from pregnant women in distress (with the exception, as Lorinda had learned in the golf enclave, of women who happen to be “attached” to members of the oligarchy). They both managed to suppress their tears, if only to avoid the possibility of having to explain themselves to the camera at some point.

A couple of hours in, a crew member — perfectly okay looking, but not Trout- or Molina-handsome — entered with a tray containing a thermos of coffee, two mugs, and a plate of fresh fruit and cheese, which he set on a folding shelf he pulled down from the wall opposite the forward-facing windows. “Something for you two,” he said. “By the way, we’re about to enter international waters.” He saluted them and exited.

Lorinda had just bitten into the best pear she had ever tasted, when something caught her eye. “What’s that?” she said, pointing out the port-side window. Stewart and the utility guy from the film crew stepped up to look.

“Oh, shit,” the utility guy said. They were watching a motley flotilla of about ten mismatched speedboats rapidly bouncing across the water toward the Raskin.

“Who are they?” Stewart asked.

“Damned if I know,” said the utility guy, “but they’re coming from the direction of South Carolina. Fucking CCSA. I think you want to get this,” he called to his colleagues.

The camerawoman and the sound man stepped out of the compact cabin and onto the port-side deck to record whatever it was that was happening. The camera-boat crew obviously had the same idea — the little boat zipped around the stern of the Raskin and positioned itself between the Raskin and the approaching speedboats as its camera person clambered into a good shooting position. Two camera drones, which up to that point had kept their distance from the Raskin, swooped over to the camera boat and hovered.

The speedboats didn’t slow down, veering to either side of the camera boat and almost swamping it with their wakes. As they approached the Raskin, Lorinda gasped. She couldn’t make out the features of the face, but there was unmistakably a bandage on the head of the person sitting next to the enormous creature at the wheel of the lead boat. “It’s Janelle Stark!” Lorinda cried.

In a moment the boats were close enough that they had to slow down — and close enough for Lorinda to see that it was indeed Janelle Stark and her monstrous sidekick in the front seat, with two CCSA Domestic Security enforcers in the back seat, flanking a petrified-looking Brad. The other boats each contained four or five additional Domestic Security thugs. Everyone except Brad, who wore a baby-bib-like orange life jacket over his street clothes, was in a shiny black jumpsuit — or were they wetsuits? And everyone except Stark, Skippy, and Brad had an automatic weapon strapped on.

“This isn’t possible,” Stewart said. “How do they even know you’re here?”

The first four boats, including Stark’s, moved so close to the hull of the Raskin that Lorinda and Stewart lost sight of them. The camerawoman was now hanging over the rail to shoot straight down at them. Stark’s voice, loud and distorted through a powerful bull-horn, boomed: “Stop your forward motion or we’ll blast a hole in your hull.” A speedboat that had been hanging back moved out from the pack. A crewman in the back seat opened the lid of the hold behind him, removed a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, rested it on his shoulder, and aimed it at the Raskin’s bow. “Stop your forward motion immediately,” Stark said.

“This is insane,” Stewart muttered.

Lorinda could feel and hear the ship powering down. Then she heard Captain Molina, his voice loud and sharp from a P.A. horn atop the bridge. “This is Captain Molina of the USS Jamie Raskin. Identify yourself and state your intention.”

It sounded like Janelle Stark gave a little laugh. “We are a duly authorized law enforcement contingent from the CCSA.”

“We are in international waters. You are in violation of maritime law.”

“Tough shit,” Stark said. “Prepare to be boarded. Or sunk.”

Both drones were now visible about ten yards off the port side of the Raskin, shooting down at the action below. There was suddenly a loud clanking sound, followed by two more, then a fourth that sent the camerawoman reeling backward, crying in pain, and banging her head, and her camera, into the shatterproof side window of the cabin. One tentacle of a grappling hook was now wrapped around the rail the camerawoman had been leaning on. A moment later the first wave of CCSA goons was scrambling up the rope ladders attached to the grappling hooks, over the rail, and onto the deck.

Two of them fired ammo-bursts into the air just to make some noise; the others fanned out on the deck. Janelle Stark jumped athletically over the rail, followed by Brad, who was shoved over the rail and tumbled onto his back. Next came Skippy, with a big grin on his face and Stark’s megaphone clipped to his waist.

Lorinda and Stewart looked to the starboard side as a possible escape route, but by then Stark’s flunkies were coming over that rail as well. Skippy spotted the couple through the window, charged into the cabin, grabbed an arm of each, and hauled them out onto the deck, just next to the fallen camerawoman. Stark reached out to Skippy’s belt, unclipped the megaphone, and announced: “Do what we say and no one will get hurt. We’re just here to talk with the escaped fugitive.”

One of the Raskin crewmembers, having broken through a CCSA contingent on the deck, came rushing toward Stark. Skippy let go of Lorinda’s arm and, in one smooth move, grabbed the crewmember’s neck and tossed him overboard. Lorinda instinctively kicked Skippy in the groin. He winced, let go of Stewart, and grabbed Lorinda by the throat with both hands.

“Skippy! No!” Stark yelled at deafening volume through the megaphone. He glared menacingly at Lorinda but reluctantly let her go. Stewart took a swing at his jaw. He connected, solidly. It rocked the beast for a moment, but before Stewart could follow up he found himself levitating: Skippy had hoisted him by the front of his shirt. “Drop him!” Stark honked through the megaphone. Skippy again complied.

A scuffle erupted in the cabin as three of Stark’s squad, who had come up the starboard side, grabbed a Raskin crewmember as he emerged through a hatch in the cabin floor, yanked him onto his feet, and started smashing him with the butts of their automatic weapons.

“How did you find us?” Stewart shouted at Stark, who had momentarily turned to gaze approvingly through the glass and into the cabin behind him.

Turning back to her immediate problem, Stark said, “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.”

“And we won’t be,” Stewart snarled.

Stark considered slapping him, but decided he wasn’t worth it. “We have the finest intelligence agencies on earth,” she sniffed.

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” Stewart said. With his baseball-glove-sized hand, Skippy grabbed Stewart’s head and shoved it into the window, cracking the shatterproof glass. Stewart crumpled to the deck. Lorinda gasped and dropped to her knees to … do what? See if he was all right? Comfort him? Kiss him? But Skippy was having none of it, and yanked her right back up by her shoulder. She yowled in pain as her bag, which she was still gripping, flew up and hit Skippy in the face. Her hands followed the bag’s trajectory and she clawed furiously at his cheeks. He snapped his bald pumpkin head back and smashed it into a steel bracket sticking out of the cabin above the top of the window. Infuriated, with blood pouring down his face, he grabbed both of Lorinda’s wrists with both of his hands, consolidated them into his left hand, gently felt his cheek, then his head, with his right hand, and examined his bloody fingers. Wiping them on her bag, glaring at her, he reached behind his back, grabbed his pistol from his waistband, and pointed it at her.

“No, Skippy,” Stark purred in a low, ominous voice. “Put it away.”

Skippy turned to face her and shook his head. Fresh drops of blood flew off his head and his gouged cheeks.

“Put it away, Edgar! You will not kill anyone here. Especially her.”

Skippy grunted fiercely. Turning his back to Stark in defiance, he jerked the pistol up, scratching Lorinda’s chin with the muzzle, and pushed it against her forehead. A thunderclap of a gunshot briefly filled the universe; blood gushed from both sides of Skippy’s massive neck; his gun hit the deck but he remained standing for another five seconds, during which he bloodily burbled, “But … Janelle … love … Skippy,” then sank slowly to the deck and collapsed on top of his gun.

“That’s beside the point,” Stark lectured the big corpse at her feet. “You’re not allowed to ruin my work.” She turned to Lorinda, who was covered with blood and screaming. “Stop it!” Stark yelled. She started to re-holster her gun behind her back, but something else caught her attention. She looked over her shoulder at Brad who, still on his back on the deck nearby, was blubbering loudly and uncontrollably. She pointed her still-smoking pistol at him, saying, “Stop that right now or I’ll kill you.” He stopped it. She put her gun away.

“All right,” Stark said to Lorinda. “You and I and all my men, we’re going to calmly climb down to my boats and get the hell back to South Carolina. Do you still have that cute little pink gun of yours in there?”

“What do you think?” Lorinda said, taking a couple of small steps toward Stark, who unconsciously, just to keep her distance, backed up a couple of small steps until she was almost against the rail.

“Hand it over,” Stark said.

Lorinda reached into her bag.

“Hold the barrel,” said Stark, quickly reaching behind and fetching her own gun again.

Lorinda took another small step forward as she took out the pink gun and started to pass it to Stark, who took another small step back and put out her hand. “Don’t get clever,” Stark said.

Lorinda set the handle of the gun onto Stark’s palm. Stark grabbed it, popped it open, and took a quick look. “Still no ammunition, you stupid cow?”

“Oh, I have ammunition,” said Lorinda in the steeliest voice she’d ever heard herself use. She reached into her bag, fished around, and came up with a rattling handful of small bullets. “Here’s one,” she said, and threw it hard right at the bandage. Stark yelped in surprise and pain. Lorinda took a small step closer and threw another bullet, this one bouncing off Stark’s nose.

“Keep going,” Stark said. “Each one is another month of confinement.”

Lorinda threw another bullet, which hit Stark’s cheek, then another to her forehead. Stark defiantly refused to defend herself. Lorinda was about to throw another when the air was filled with the loud, non-directional surf-crash sound of the Loch Ness monster emerging from the deep. Lorinda’s eyes, which had been fixed on Stark’s face, flitted to something behind Stark, then went wide. When Stark spun her head to see what it was, Lorinda took a big step forward and kicked Stark in the groin — just as she had kicked Skippy — then lowered her head, lunged forward, and rammed Stark hard, like a lineman blocking for a running back. It caused Stark to drop both guns and, arms flailing, sail backward into and over the rail. She fell between the USS Jamie Raskin and the much larger submarine that was rapidly surfacing immediately next to it. Athletic Stark managed to twist around and grab the gunwale on the way down, where she hung for perhaps a second. Lorinda had just steeled herself to stomp on the woman’s hands, when an unexpected wave in the calm sea, perhaps a forward swell caused by one of the other USA submarines that were surfacing nearby, caused the hulls of the first sub — on whose flank could now be read “USS New London” — and the Raskin to briefly meet with a plangent clang and a mighty splash. Stark’s legs were crushed by the meeting of the hulls. She lost her grip, let loose an unholy screech, and plummeted.

Another wave clanged the ships together again. Lorinda, struggling to mind her balance while still amped and panting from adrenaline, picked up the two guns, carefully approached the rail and peered over the side. She saw the crushed remains of some of Stark’s speedboats mixed in with the crushed remains of Stark herself. Lorinda threw the guns — first Stark’s and then, with a brief rush of affection, her own, down at what was left of Janelle Stark. Another wave, now from the opposite direction, lifted first the Raskin, then the sub. Lorinda was thrown painfully into the rail. Desperately she pushed herself away from it, slipped on a patch of water and blood, fell backward, and hit her head hard on the deck.

Dozens of USA Navy Seals swarmed off the submarine and onto the Raskin. They found Lorinda, unconscious and in a heap; Stewart, also out cold and bleeding from the head; the camerawoman, who was struggling to open her eyes; and Brad, who was blubbering again, on his back, his hands waving in the air in an attempt to symbolize his innocence.

The drones and the onboard cameras captured it all. The small camera boat had been swamped by the USS Groton as it surfaced behind the New London; its crew had been rescued and was drying off onboard the sub.

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NEXT!

Chapter Fifty-Two

PREVIOUSLY in THE SPLIT!

Chapter One. In which we meet our heroine and her dainty little gun.

Chapter Two. In which Lorinda demonstrates her bartending virtuosity.

Chapter Three. In which our heroine receives a promotion and prepares to celebrate.

Chapter Four. In which our heroine proves herself an immoral citizen of the CCSA.

Chapter Five. In which our heroine goes to church.

Chapter Six. In which Lorinda contemplates her future, ignores Pastor Doug, and gets something unexpected from Emmie.

Chapter Seven. In which Lorinda learns something that threatens her big dream.

Chapter Eight. In which our heroine freaks out.

Chapter Nine. In which our heroine says the forbidden word as an unwelcome visitor arrives.

Chapter Ten. In which two unpleasant men perturb our heroine.

Chapter Eleven. In which our heroine seems to have found a solution to her problem.

Chapter Twelve. In which that black truck follows our heroine all the way to Austin.

Chapter Thirteen. In which Lorinda lashes out.

Chapter Fourteen. In which our heroine gets a taste of life in the big city.

Chapter Fifteen. In which our heroine meets a fellow bartender and has a drink.

Chapter Sixteen. In which Lorinda once again takes a swing with her little pink gun.

Chapter Seventeen. In which our heroine prepares to escape.

Chapter Eighteen. In which our heroine gets in a truck with a couple of slightly scary strangers.

Chapter Nineteen. In which our heroine learns that she’s got a long way to go.

Chapter Twenty. In which our heroine spends a night in a gas station.

Chapter Twenty-One. In which our heroine learns about the enclaves of the CCSA.

Chapter Twenty-Two. In which our heroine learns way too much about the enclaves of the CCSA.

Chapter Twenty-Three. In which our heroine experiences liberty run amok.

Chapter Twenty-Four. In which our heroine’s escape is disastrously derailed.

Chapter Twenty-Five. In which our heroine finds herself back at the gas station.

Chapter Twenty-Six. In which Stimpy, on the road to Revelation, reveals Ren’s real name.

Chapter Twenty-Seven. In which our heroine manages not to crash the car as she learns more about CCSA enclaves.

Chapter Twenty-Eight. In which Lorinda and Stimpy enter Revelation.

Chapter Twenty-Nine. In which our heroine has pizza for the first time and readies herself to be an old fogie.

Chapter Thirty. In which our heroine finally gets to experience the Rapture Ride.

Chapter Thirty-One. In which our heroine’s long-awaited Rapture Ride experience is interrupted by some unwelcome visitors.

Chapter Thirty-Two. In which our heroine triggers the Rapture…or something.

Chapter Thirty-Three. In which Lorinda and Stimpy slip out of Revelation under cover of pandemonium.

Chapter Thirty-Four. In which our heroine trades arms for freedom.

Chapter Thirty-Five. In which our heroine does a bit of tactical shooting.

Chapter Thirty-Six. In which our heroine heads for the greens in a chartreuse truck.

Chapter Thirty-Seven. In which our heroine hears a ghastly story on the way to the enclave of golf.

Chapter Thirty-Eight. In which our heroine begins a crash course in the plutocratic lifestyle.

Chapter Thirty-Nine. In which our heroine continues her crash course in the plutocratic lifestyle, then crashes.

Chapter Forty. In which Lorinda and Stimpy tour the President Donald J. Trump Memorial Christian Golf Resort and Beautiful Residences.

Chapter Forty-One. In which our heroine has to leave the Donald J. Trump Memorial Christian Golf Resort and Beautiful Residences right quick.

Chapter Forty-Two. In which our heroine hurtles toward another scary place.

Chapter Forty-Three. In which our heroine remains under a bedspread as her fame grows.

Chapter Forty-Four. In which our heroine finally emerges from under the golden bedspread.

Chapter Forty-Five. In which our heroine unexpectedly encounters her nemesis.

Chapter Forty-Six. In which our heroine is set free, then captured again.

Chapter Forty-Seven. In which our heroine has a brush with Zone Z justice and makes a shocking announcement.

Chapter Forty-Eight. In which our heroine continues her journey in a Cadillac limousine.

Chapter Forty-Nine. In which our heroine makes her exit from the CCSA.

Chapter Fifty. In which our heroine meets a USA cabinet official and takes a short trip up The Corridor.

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