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Dadylosa's Big Day, by Howard Phillips

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What was the plan? Dadylosa was desperate to know. But they refused to tell him. Too young, they said. Too inexperienced. Well, he’d show them, if it was the last thing he did. It was, in fact.

He left the meeting angrily. No-one noticed him go. Not many had even noticed him arrive. He’d been sitting at the back and he slipped out of the door very quietly. It was only as he began to walk down the corridor that he let his feelings manifest themselves.

‘Why, those...’

He couldn’t find the right words. After all, he did still respect them. They were still his leaders in the glorious fight against the government. He just wanted a bit of respect.

So he’d decided to take his own action. One that no-one would be able to ignore. Not the people, not the government, and most especially, and crucially, not the leaders of his group.

He headed for his small apartment.

Once inside, he went to the chest of drawers within which he kept his clothes. There was nothing else in there. But certain of his clothes were rather special. He picked up a small shoulder-bag from the floor and emptied it of the homework for that week. Chemistry could wait.

From the top drawer he took a pair of orange tights in the latest fashion. He’d worn them a couple of times, until he received a warning from the revolutionary council about giving in to such government-inspired crazes.

He stuffed the tights into a pocket on the front of the shoulder-bag.

From the third drawer he took a bright green standing-hat. Fully-erect, it would be four feet tall. Counter-weighted at the bottom to prevent over-balancing, such hats were all the rage at that time. He’d never actually dared to wear it before, for fear of ridicule, and after the incident with the tights, he’d packed it away for good.

And that was where the hat had stayed, at least until last week, when they had been studying something particularly interesting in chemistry class. Honestly, when they had reached that point in the syllabus he had breathed a sigh of relief. Two days a week had been a pretty big investment in the revolution, and he had been beginning to wonder if it was ever going to pay off.

He placed the hat inside the bag.

He set off to the main plaza.

It was Thursday, and that meant that the World-Gov President would be making her weekly appearance there. He wanted to be ready for her.

Once he had reached the plaza, he looked quickly to check the number of police officers in attendance and plan his approach. Then he ducked into a side street to prepare himself.

The revolutionary leaders had their reasons for not including Dadylosa in their counsel. He was young, of course, but there were others, much younger, with positions of higher authority. The problem wasn’t just his age, it was tied up with his impetuosity, his lack of self-control and, primarily, the fact that he was extremely foolish.

He placed the standing-hat upon his head, and activated the small mechanism which inflated it up to four whole green feet. Dadylosa grinned at his own daring. He took off his trousers and pulled on the tights.

He approached a nearby window and brushed off some of the dust until he could see a vague reflection of himself.

‘Very nice!’ He approved, and quite frankly was a little puzzled by the revolutionary council’s old­-fashioned attitudes. ’If all the revolutionaries looked a bit more like this, and spent a little less time hiding out in dusty old cellars full of cobwebs, they’d have the people on their side in no time!’

He left the bag on the floor and walked onto the plaza. In the few minutes since he had checked it out the place had filled considerably. There was the usual quota of tourists, ferried in from all over the world, and from quite a few other worlds too. There was a large number of uniformed police, as well as, he did not doubt, greater numbers of plainclothed officers. There were religious extremists, possessed of the notion that the President was actually an emissary from God (which god depended on their individual calling, though they all agreed on the near-divinity of the Gov-Head). But by far the largest group in the audience was the normal, everyday people, the workers, the voters, the lovers, the livers!

They were all there, waiting to be woken up to the fearful iniquities practised by the World-Gov.

And he would do it.

Dadylos strode proudly through the crowd, his green standing-hat attracting appreciative glances from fellow students and off-world tourists. The President was just beginning her speech.

‘Dear citizens,’ she was saying from the balcony of the presidential apartment, which directly adjoined the council hall so that she was always available when needed. ‘I can hardly believe that all of you have come here to listen to me today! I am not vain, I know that you do not come to hear Victoliana Etchamosey speak, you come to hear the President. I only hope that I fulfil that office to the best of my abilities, and to the degree which you all expect of me.’

Dadylosa continued his movement through the crowd. He was heading for a nearby police tower.

‘So may you all have happy lives, and if they are not, remember that I am entirely accountable.’

The audience was cheering, and the President was preparing to leave. Dadylosa cursed and hurried. He dashed up to the police tower and managed to grab a laz-gun from a surprised police officer’s holster.

‘Hold it right there,' he said. So far, his actions had gone unnoticed, save for a few tourists gathered round the base of the tower, who were taking pictures and talking excitedly.

‘Hey, come on kid,' said the officer, holding out his hand for the gun. ‘Isn’t this the wrong time of year for student pranks?’

‘Shut up and get down on the floor,' said Dadylosa. ‘This is an action by the Revolutionary Council of Gov­Centre A.’

‘Oh terrific,’ said the officer as he lay on his stomach. ‘I thought all those lunatics had been rounded up.’

‘I said shut up,' said the young man. ’Where’s the radio?’

‘Hip pocket,' said the policeman.

‘Get it out yourself. Remember I’ve got you covered.’

‘Okay, okay,’ answered the officer as he reached into his pocket. He held the radio out to Dadylosa.

With that in his hand, Dadylosa felt even more confident. Everything was going according to plan. He thumbed the radio on and spoke.

‘Patch me through to the PA system,’ he ordered, trying to lower his voice a few tones. ‘We have a serious situation down here.’

‘What the heck are you on, Joe?’ was the answer.

Dadylosa gritted his teeth.

‘In that case,' he said, ‘this is a terrorist.’

‘Really?’

‘That’s right. I am holding one of your officers hostage and I am armed, both with his laz-gun and with my own extremely powerful explosive.’

‘I see,’ said the sergeant. ‘And where are you, exactly?’

‘You don’t need to know!’

‘Sorry, I was just being polite. We already know where you are. A radio fix and all that. There are now approximately one hundred and seventy-two long-distance rifles pointing in your direction. Where’s the bomb, son?’

Dadylosa backed up against a metal pylon. ‘Here are my demands. Listen to them or I blow up the whole plaza.’

Angry murmurs had begun to move through the crowd now, and many heads were turning in his direction. With a hiss of frustration Dadylosa realised that the presidential balcony was now quite empty. In fact, in the distance he could just make out the stream left by the President’s personal high-speed jet.

‘Damn!’ he muttered. ’Well, the dictator may have escaped, but that shall not prevent me from waking up these somnolent masses! Wake people, wake!’ He waved his gun at them. There were screams and a small stampede began.

‘They can’t hear you,’ said the sergeant over the radio. ‘Do you honestly think that I would let a maniac like you cause a major panic in such a large crowd?’

‘Listen to me, mister,’ said Dadylosa, ‘if my demands are not met before the end of the day, this place is going up in smoke. The bomb is now primed.’

‘Ignore him,’ shouted the police officer at the radio handset, ‘he’s bluffing. There is no bomb!’

Immediately there was the sound of gunfire. The police officer heard it whizzing over his head, Dadylosa felt it thudding into his body. He slumped to the floor of the tower, dying, dead. The standing-hat began to lean, then, slowly, it began to fall, from his head, down, and onto his legs.

The resulting explosion devastated the plaza. There were no survivors. The Presidential Apartment was incinerated. The World-Gov Council held their next meeting on the Moon, where it was much safer. Elsewhere, at the same time, the Revolutionary Council of Gov-Centre A was meeting to honour its fallen comrade.

‘He did pretty well,’ said one, as they looked at photographs of the crater, taken by satellite and printed in the newspapers.

‘He didn’t do too badly,' said another.

‘Soaking his tights in Actylonian-9 and his hat in Tresaliope-7!' exclaimed a third.

‘Ingenious!’ said a fourth.

‘What a lunatic!’ replied a fifth. The others nodded.

‘I mean,’ said the first, ‘it’s not as if things are all that bad.’

‘Quite,’ said the second, ‘sometimes they’re actually quite good!’

‘Especially at Christmas,’ said another. ’Isn’t the free turkey-sub tasty nowadays?’

The others all agreed.

‘Time to go home, then?’ said the first.

‘I suppose so,’ said the second.

‘We could always drop into a pub on the way,’ said the third.

The others all agreed enthusiastically.