the A.F.R. war aims: the F.L.Q. hoax — blank displays vs the real weapon — "the F.L.Q. displays of the Entertainment…"

The factional line drawn sharp: the A.F.R. find, in the Antitoi stock, "the rival F.L.Q.'s tactical street-display cartridges" — the smiling-face decoys stamped "IL NE FAUT PLUS QU'ON PURSUIVE LE BONHEUR" (one must no longer pursue happiness) — and confirm them "blank, void." Fortier and Marathe "had counselled all along that the F.L.Q. displays... were probably the hoax, instilling of terror only." The distinction is the anthology's factional politics: the F.L.Q. traffics in the theater of terror (blank cartridges, wheelchair-imagery to spook the U.S.), while the A.F.R. wants the actual lethal thing. Even the wheelchair-displays — "a smack to the testicles of A.F.R.," the F.L.Q. mocking the A.F.R.'s own bodies — are beneath Fortier's notice; only the real weapon matters.