NaMiFiWriMoFo #9

[curgoth]

The Atomic Woman : part three

Ooh la la! The firebug from France who has all the lads hot under the
collar! It's The Atomic Woman! All the men carry a torch for
this living torch! She's too hot for Hitler to handle!

Oh, it's all in good fun. I like a little attention. It helps me remember the "Woman" in the Atomic Woman. A lot of men get intimidated when they realise the short girl with curly hair and big boobs can turn their bones to ash. Also, a lot of men immediately stare at my chest when I say the word "boobs".

Honestly, though, I think it's the radiation, more than the fire that scares people. When I first started burning things, back when I was just a little kid in occupied France, it was just fire. I made it into an Allied camp, and ended up in the program with John and Siggy. They were going to call me "Spitfire" or "Match Girl" or something stupid like that. They tested us, when we were getting started, to see what we could do. I was such a chicken, back then. Do you know I'd never hit anyone, never learned to make a fist, before the fire came? It's true. So, even when they told me to burn as hot as I could, I held back. It scared me - poor little Sylvie, shooting blue fire so hot it fused tank treads! It was just chance that a tech picked it up on a geiger counter. When I got hot enough, I started putting out radiation.

I figured out how to control it, eventually. Now, I am just as radioactive as I want to be. The energy I put out runs half of France, when I'm not too busy to visit the plants. That was a bit of a tradeoff with the folks at CERN - I'd come help them with thier research if they worked with my - our - engineers to find a way to use my fire to generate power. I've learned a lot over the years, but some of it is still over my head. And that's not just a height gag.

I suppose that's part of how the whole royalty thing happened. You would have thought, after so many Louis and a couple Napoleons, that France would be done with monarchs, but they were very insistent. Being Queen of France is a Hell of an honour, but really there's no power behind it - Elizabeth in the UK has more political power than I do. I'm not even Head of State - I can't veto laws, they don't need my signature on anything, none of that. Still, I do love feeling that this is really *my* country. After a century of being trampled on, the whole world knows that France is undr *my* protection, and I know that my country loves me. That quite a thing for a poor farm girl, no?

It wasn't always crowns and laurels, though - in the fifties, when I started wearing men's clothes, the men in charge were about ready to throw me out. For wearing a suit and tie! I looked damned good in a fedora. Still do, but these are different times. Since they started cutting suits for women en masse, it's just no fun. No, back then they wanted me to get married and produce little French symbols for them to hold up while they played thier games. What they needed to realise is that with us here, their games mean nothing anymore. We are the only pieces on the board that matter any more. "I am the State", as one of those dead Louis once said. Only kidding! Ha! Oh, the look on your face!

Why don't you turn off that tape recorder and open another bottle of Bordeaux, young man?