The balloon has actually gone up this time. 18 of them. Enough to lift a mini-nuke. Any one or all of them could have been filled with anthrax. The spherical "package" actually separated - spilling hundreds of what turned out to be bumper stickers - into the crater as the lower half slid harmlessly down it's tether to the fenced area on the crater floor where the whole thing had been attached. Harmless, foolishly risky, and brilliant. The bumper stickers have started showing up on a "website of interest" that explains that the slogans were gleaned from normal citizens prior to the '06 mid-terms in order to influence same. Which they did.

"WHO IS COMMAND Z?"

Vanda snapped awake and turned on the TV to make sure he'd been dreaming. He ran through the channels like Tommy Lee Jones pursuing Harrison Ford, in his own frantic attempt to escape the nightmare vision of pre- BLUE BEAM helium-filled mylar balloons floating across the Colorado Plateau.

"... and guess what else is new? FUNNY MONEY! You can win an electric football game, camera, home video game, or a thousand dollars CASH! FUNNY MONEY! In specially marked packages... What do you mean my husband and I are being impersonated by police officers?... I DON'T LIKE BRAN CEREALS... just so the bad guys win in the end...whesre will you be when your mouthwash stops working?... I'm aware of a few loopholes here and there but c'mon man, this is a license to steal!... some good did come of this monstrous wrong... rest of our lives... Thank you... God Bless America, and good night."

Thankful for the flood of reality that had washed across and through his brain, he pushed the button one more time and found "The Magnificent Seven", just as Calvera was asking Yul Brynner: "If God did not mean for them to be sheared, why did He make them sheep?" Jordan quickly raised the volume in order to catch the pre-Westworld gunfighter's response: "Right on!"

That was more like it.

He switched the TV off, and thinking of another man in black, began preparing for what must be done next, totally unaware that the real Dream had already begun.

Jordan Vanda was also unaware of the footage from KUSA - Zann's old turf - that would have had him sweating all over again, if he could have seen the breaking news on the channel he himself, had deleted from his remote's memory long ago.