“No, I’ve been driving all day.”
“You haven’t even listened to the radio?”
“No.” Rather than try to find radio reception while driving through the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico, she’d depended on her digital player.
He made a noise like a deflating balloon. “The Kremlin’s been bombed. Obliterated. A Cessna filled with drums of kerosene rammed it. They’re thinking it’s Mongolian rebels.”
She took a moment to register that he was talking about current events and not a plot point in their comic book. “Then our May storyline is out the window.”
The Eagle Eye Commandos couldn’t raid the building complex if it wasn’t there. She should have seen this one coming.
“Yeah. Unless we can put some kind of ‘how things might have been’ spin on it.”
“We did that when India and Pakistan dropped nukes on each other. Why don’t we do Westerns like everyone else?”
“Because we got a letter from the President thanking us for our patriotic creativity.”
“I didn’t even vote for him.”
“Then maybe it’s because we sold half a million copies last year.”
“Oh yeah.” She pressed her head back on the headrest, stretching her arms against the steering wheel. She had to drive all the way through town to get to the farmland on the other side, where the family’s house was. The town looked desolate; she hadn’t seen anyone even walking around. “At least the issue hasn’t gone to press yet. So. The Kremlin’s been bombed. The Eagle Eyes can still raid it. They just have to search the rubble. We’ll look really up to date.”
It sounded silly, but then all Eagle Eye Commandos storylines started out silly. Working them through to the end with some degree of earnestness transformed them somehow, from adolescent military fantasies to—well, sophisticated military fantasies. They could search the rubble for . . . for hidden evidence on the whereabouts of captured American spies, which was what the original storyline had them looking for. They wouldn’t have to change a thing. Except all those gorgeous panels Bruce had drawn of Red Square would have to go.