Egon Turow's glorst left nine dead, not counting himself, and seventeen injured.
        There are various things which can cause explosions, including bombs, missiles and lightning strikes, but there was no doubt that Egon had glorsted. A mother with a video camera, proudly filming her twin children, had caught the whole thing. The police -- that is to say, the Conflux Constabulary -- seized her video camera and, within an hour, they were showing the video to the President, Olive Valise.
        Along with the video, Olive got a briefing.
        The terrorist was believed to be Egon Turow, who had been at the center of the glorst alert which had been issued after his determination to destroy himself had been posted on his web site.
        Egon was undoubtedly part of a conspiracy. One of those in league with him had distracted the authorities by heading for Parkes Pilkem in a fizz boat. On being arrested, the unknown conspirator had claimed that he was Egon Turow. He had subsequently inconvenienced his interrogators by taking a plunge from a window in the Octavalus Heights police building at Hoover, thus opting out of further interrogation. There had been no ID on his body. The Baton Force, the Glud Hurgus police outfit, was currently investigating the provenance of the fizz boat in an attempt to get a clue as to the unknown conspirator's identity.
        "So when can we expect to uncover the whole conspiracy?" said Olive.
        She was told that these things take time. There were steps to be gone through. To start with, it was necessary to confirm the ID of the man who had glorsted. Which should be possible. They had Egon's tattered remains, so they could do DNA analysis.
        Fortunately, Egon's DNA profile was on file because he was one of those who had been subjected to compulsory sampling three years earlier, during the hunt for the Balimo Rapist. DNA sequencing of Egon's remains was underway, and was expected to tell them that, yes, they had the right man. Or, at least, the remnants of the right man.
        "When?" said Olive, who consistently wanted the world to move at a faster pace than it actually did.
        She was told that an answer would be available "before too long".
        Having received a briefing, Olive Valise watched the glorst video. She ended up watching the short video three times. Not out of ghoulish curiosity but because, the first two times, she had difficulty processing what she was seeing.
        Olive had just finished watching for the third time when Wug Waxaphone arrived. Senator Wug Waxaphone, that is: the Chairman of Citywatch. The very last person she wanted to see. She was irritated beyond measure by the silly old fool, always eager to horn in on any crisis which might be going.
        Citywatch was as near as you could get to a totally useless security organization, because it had no proper funding in place and was staffed largely by amateurs. The lack of funding was because the Senate was specifically forbidden by the Constitution to fund any intelligence gathering organization of its own. For that reason, Citywatch was a registered charity, surely the only intelligence outfit on the planet to rely on selling raffle tickets for part of its funding.
         But Olive had to be as nice as she could to senators, even Wug, because she needed them. The Senate was soon going to vote on the question of whether the jellyfish is or is not an animal, and, because of a certain case which had come before her court, the Star Chamber, the one court under the control of the President, Olive wanted them to vote yes. Since there had been a political risk involved in reactivating the Star Chamber, in setting one of history's death machines in motion again, Olive most definitely wanted the first case to be heard there on her initiative to end with the victory of the righteous and the punishment of the evil. Therefore the jellyfish must be deemed to be an animal.
        By the time Olive had politely disposed of Wug, she knew what she had to do next. Spend some time with Beria Dag. Beria was the man in her life, her tower of strength. He was someone she could rely on. Unlike Wi Carnaby, the Mayor of Glud Hurgus, someone she mentally filed in the "light entertainment" category. And unlike, too, her husband, Tobias Valise, a mild-mannered dress designer whose hobby was formulating experimental perfumes.
        Although there were rumors that Olive was intimately involved with Beria, there was no truth to those rumors. He was, purely and simply, her most trusted confidant. The one person whom she could trust with her insecurities, her fears. After she left Beria's presence she would be, she knew, calm. Reassured. Smoothed out.
        Olive taped an "appalling day of horror" segment for release to the TV stations, which did not take very long. If you were President then you found that things burnt, blew up, crashed or collapsed often enough for you to get pretty slick at the "appalling day of horror" speech.
        "I call on all citizens to remain calm and leave the resolution of this crisis to the security forces, in which I have total confidence."
        So said Olive, and, shortly, departed from Hexagon, the presidential palace at Tespetty. Her destination was the Olid Mazoora Building at Zanzak Bridge, the headquarters of Ideation Control. Beria, the head of Ideation Control, had already been contacted by phone and told to expect her.