Don Pendleton - Civil War II Read Online Free PDF

lips. Kiss me."
    She smiled and melted against him, then wriggled suggestively and said, "You guys are just different."
    "What guys?"
    "You older guys. You're . . . romantic, I guess. Even about sex."
    "Yeah. That's pretty terrible, isn't it."
    "Oh ... I don't know. Sometimes I get to thinking , , . like now. I feel funny."
    "And without chemicals?"
    She giggled and rooted against him. "It seems that you have enough for both of us."
    Winston grinned and moved his hand onto a pulsing
    breast. Odd, he thought, how public opinion shaped the bodies of every generation of women. He could remember a time when heavy bosoms and sleek legs were the focal point of a woman's sexual attractiveness. Somehow the women managed to shape themselves around those focal points. Now it was all in the curves of the rear . . . pulchritude of the posterior. He fanned his palm around, cupping a breast in a loving caress, then he pushed the girl's lep apart and. . . .
    "Oh, yeah, great," she sighed. "But you're ruining me. I think I'm getting to like it better lying here looking up at you."
    The overdeveloped muscles of her midsection rippled and grabbed for him as he lowered himself into moistly heated welcome. The girl gasped and rolled her eyes toward her forehead, wrapping her arms about his neck with a stifled little moan. Odd too, Winston reflected, how this undereducated and over-sexed young Amazon made him think of another girl, another place, and another long, long, time ago.
    The girl ran his card through twice on her way out. She hesitated in the doorway, turned him a wan smile, and said, "See you around, Papa,"—and disappeared into the aisleway.
    Winston watched the vacated doorway for a moment, then fell back to the pillows. Something was chugging around in his think chamber. He was tired, tired —exhausted was the word—and something, some deep something connected to the exhaustion was clamoring for attention.
    Then it surfaced. Winston experienced the giddiness of illumination. That's where our vitality has gone, he realized. He lunged toward his cigarettes, lit one, inhaled deeply, then swung his feet onto the floor. It's gone right into those overdeveloped asses\ Something bothering you, citizen? Well, hell, go get accomodated, that'll make you feel better. In plain English, go get laidl —get screwed!—get lost.
    That's what they meanl Don't get mad, just get screwed.
    Don't get depressed, just get screwed. Don't think about those pathetic starving creatures in Asia and Africa, just get screwed. Don't think about twenty million Americans permed up in Buck Rogers ghettoes, just get screwed. Talk about a screwed-up society!
    An almost forgotten emotion was beginning to well up inside Winston's rocking head. Rage. He felt ragel But at what? What was he enraged about? Was there something left to get mad about in this country? Wasn't everything provided?
    He could live any way he wished to live, couldn't he, so long as it was compatible with the little squiggle-lined engravings on his AMS card? Need somewhere to live, Charlie? Hell, drop your card in the box and get a housing assignment. It's all paid for. Just pray to God you never get a town override on your card.
    Want some booze, Charlie? Jam your card in the service box, old buddy. Want a woman? AMS her, Charlie. Want something to eat? Just find the right box, old buddy. And if something comes up, Lord forbid, that you want and there's no box for, then just shove something into one of those always quivering and overdeveloped asses!
    The Passport to Abundance, they'd called those cards. Passport to Abundance. Shit! Passport to Sterility] That's what it was. Winston had no idea, no idea whatever, what his annual earnings were. It was all figured out for him, as a matter of credits and debits, by some monster computer in Washington. The entire domestic economy was programmed by that monster. The Abundant Societyl BULLSHIT!
    It would seem that Winston's insights into the American