by Peter Smith
She bit her lip and then nodded her head, “Task a satellite with tracking General Kellen, I want to know wherever he is, and if he broadcasts or receives on anything other than their QECs, we should know about it.”
“And their encryption?”
“You can have as much processor power as you need from the entire network, crack their communiques open, just don’t keep Alex from watching his morning cartoons.” A humorless chuckle escaped as she tried to break the tension she felt.
“And recall Nathaniel back to New York as soon as possible, I need to speak to him and find out what his take on Trotsky’s next move will be.”
She watched as the Marine transports lifted into the air, followed by one of her’s. Both went toward the East. The Marine aircraft angling off for what was likely their primary mountain facility in the Great Smoky Mountains. Her’s was on it’s way toward what was previously Poland, to deposit the prisoners on the border there. As it departed the remains of Greensboro caught her eye and she looked toward the Athletic complex, “Toby, where is my husband?”
“I believe he and your father-in-law are in the Coliseum complex.”
Her heart skipped a beat, “Toby, let’s go for a walk.”
Maria walked through the ruins of the Coliseum complex one more time in the same day. It was excruciating to endure the automatic holographic projects again as they sprang to life. She needed to find her father-in-law and husband before it was too late, so her discomfort at the repeat experience was irrelevant.
They weren’t supposed to be here yet, no one was supposed to be here. The entire memorial wasn’t complete, and she worried that if she didn’t have enough time to prepare them for what they might see, that it would be a traumatic experience as opposed to cathartic.
She stepped through the darkened hallway that lead to the central field. The only light coming from the end of the tunnel, beckoning her toward it, to escape the wails of fear from a child being comforted by their mother. The holographic projection perfectly visible in the dark. They huddled on the floor and against the wall.
Maria’s pace wasn’t fast enough, so the video paused, the mother sweeping back the child’s hair. As she passed them, the playback resumed, and she heard them both scream in fear, the sounds of a struggle following her as she walked onward.
She didn’t take this route through monument often anymore; but she had enough times during it’s creation. So much so that that it was burned into her memory and she knew what would confront her. The war taking place within compelled her to look back, to see yet one more tragedy that her father was responsible for.
She had turned so many times; she had seen that family killed again and again, so often that she had made it a point to only walk down this hall when it was needed. This time though she couldn’t watch it happen, she was near the field and it was one of the last places she had looked for the men.
She was already stressed, and she was worried that if she watched the scene play out one more time, that her emotional walls would break and she would find herself a weeping form on the ground. So she pressed forward, her nails biting into the palms of her hands. She stepped out onto the field, daylight streaming through the cracks in the roof, illuminating the artificial turf in patches. That’s where she saw them, Sean and his father, both standing exactly where the holographic memorial for his first child and wife would have been.
She moved toward them, but she felt detached from her body as she did. The motions far lighter and faster than she was used to. She watched as they stood there. Sean a meter behind his father. The big man watching as the young girl experienced her last moments of life.
Maria wasn’t sure how long they had been there for, she could have checked the logs of the security system for the arena but she didn’t. She didn’t need to; they had been there for as long as Williams needed. The older man slowly stretched his arm back and wrapped it around Sean’s shoulders, brining his son in for an embrace. She watched as Sean’s arm went around his father’s lower back and the man’s head, with it’s close cut hair, dipped forward. She couldn’t hear anything but the young girl. She couldn’t be sure exactly what emotion he was displaying, but she knew that this was painful for him.
He was watching his first wife die and seeing the last moments of his daughter, the little girl that he had lost almost two decades earlier but could never properly mourn for.
Her fist went to her mouth as she fought back a wave of remorse. She was responsible for the renewed pain, for dragging it to the surface. Her father-in-law pulled her husband tighter, his motions rocking their armored forms.
She could just make out Sean’s voice, not the words but the tone. He was consoling his adopted father. Sean’s head dropped, and she understood in that moment that it wasn’t just her father-in-law that was suffering but her husband. This place, this memorial she was creating, was dragging back traumas they had both suffered and never fully processed.
This wasn’t how they were supposed to find out about what she was doing here. She had a plan, and this wasn’t it, this was messy and there had been no preparation before. She would wait to show them both until she had found David’s daughter and wife in this building and then after that she would turned the east coast inside out to find the remains of Sean’s parents.
They were supposed to have a memorial and a burial site. This was supposed to be her way of making up for the evils her father had perpetrated against those she loved.
And now it was ruined. They were in pain, and she was the cause of it. She turned to go and was nearly at the entrance to the field when a hand wrapped around her shoulder. She turned to look directly into the red eyes of Williams. His cheeks were smeared with moisture and his eyes bloodshot, “What happened here.” He whispered.
A tightness wrapped around her throat, and she couldn’t swallow. Breathing was becoming difficult as she tried to force the words from her mouth but couldn’t. They looked at each other, her discomfort growing rapidly until he broke the silence, “Is this where you’ve been coming for the last couple years?”
Speech was impossible. It took every fiber of her strength to just swallow the saliva that was welling up in her mouth and threatening to make her choke. It was her turn to hang her head, her chin nearly touching her chest. She nodded her head.
She stood there, braced for the explosion of rage and anger that were bound to come her way for so poorly presenting this reminder of the most painful moment in David Williams' life. But the words never came. Instead, she felt his chest press into her as his arms wrapped around her back. His check rested against the top of her head, “Thank you”.
She looked up, shock pushing away her inability to speak earlier, “But it’s not ready yet, you shouldn’t have had to see it this way.”
He shook his head, “Doesn’t matter, this place will help a lot of people to understand what happened and the actual human cost of it.” His hand came up, and he used his thumb to wipe the tears away from his cheeks.
“This was where you opened my eyes to what my father had done, it seemed only right to make this the place where other’s could experience that as well and…”
She stopped, her throat seizing again. His rough hands cupped her face and kissed her on the forehead, “It’s okay.” He whispered.
She shook her head, “No, you have to understand, you gave me so much. You saved my soul, because of you I can atone for what he did. Because of you, I met Sean and I have a beautiful baby boy and a family again. I can’t give everyone he murdered a proper burial, I can’t create memorials for all of them but I could do it for these people, I could do it for you, help you get closure, I didn’t want you to see this until I had found them and been able to give you a proper place to visit.”
The tears sprang back to his eyes, “Ah hell Maria, you don’t have to make up for anything he did and you’ve given me as much if not more than I’ve given you.”
She looked up at him, confused, “How?”
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nbsp; The warmest smile she had ever experienced came over his face, as if it were flowing directly from his soul, “You gave me hope in the future, without you we’d all be dead, more victims of your father. He’d be well on his way toward depopulating what’s left of the world. But you made a choice, a sacrifice that most people couldn’t conceive of, let alone do. You not only did that, but you kept it all together and rose to every challenge that's been presented to you. Not once have you abused the power that you have to make your life easier. If my little girl had lived, I could only hope she’d have been half the woman you’ve proven yourself to be.”
She felt the tension leaving her body as she rested her head on his chest again. A weak chuckle rose through him, “I am a little mad at you though.”
She stood up straight again, “Why?”
“Because you’ve been doing this by yourself for years. You’re taking on guilt that isn’t yours. They’re my family Maria, my responsibility, I should be the one looking for them. So you’re going to make it up to me and I know exactly how.”
She nodded her head, “Anything.”
“Good” He put his hands on her shoulder and separated them from one another. His eyes held her in his gaze and she wanted nothing more than to make this man proud of her, “No more loner moves. I come with you from here on out, I help you find everyone that died and finish making this place the memorial it deserves to be.”
A surge of panic filled her for a second as she remembered vividly every second of emotional pain she had experienced unearthing the murdered and creating their individual monuments. The last she wanted was for anyone else to take on that pain, “It’s not your responsibility, you shouldn’t have to put yourself through this.”
“Maria. My girls are in here. I should be the one to find them.”
She wanted to argue, to disagree, but she understood it would be useless to do so. His mind was made up. He stepped beside her and they both looked over the field, “And like I said, none of this is your fault. But I can’t say the same for my generation. While your father’s actions were evil, we were the ones that made them possible. We were the ones that allowed ourselves to believe the worst about one another. We were the ones that allowed him to divide us. If we hadn’t left the damn door open, if we weren’t so… predictable, then none of this would have been possible.”
She looked back up at him for a moment, marveling at how close what he had just said came to the conversation she had with Kellen minutes earlier. She nodded her head, “Okay. You’re right.”
He smiled, “Of course I am. I think we should invite others too, I’m not the only one that’s from that time. We all need to pay a debt to those that died from our shortsightedness.”
For the first time in years, she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she relished the sensation.
11
Maria Patterson
New York Spire
Dinner time was still sacred in the Patterson family. While her throat still ached from the earlier attack it was important to spend time with her family. A pleasant effect of her father’s absence was that the number of place settings had nearly doubled in size. A long rectangular table sat the five of them as they passed around tamales, rice and beans.
She had made it a point to teach Sean how to make them not long after they had started dating and ever since then he usually asked every couple of months for the meal. Her mother had beamed with pride at watching her daughter and son-in-law lovingly crafting the family recipe that went back several generations.
Sean liked them so much he likely would have asked for it more often if it weren’t for how long it took to cook, then shred the beef, create the masa and then clean up afterward. She refused to let the drones touch any aspect of this meal, even the aftermath. That was the point of family dinner night, to work together to make something that they could all enjoy.
The machines could make the other ones. Lunch and breakfast were often when the family was off performing separate tasks or had dramatically different time constraints. Dinner was supposed to be different, it didn’t hurt that the meals they chose were usually well received even by the pickiest eaters in the room.
Sean looked over at Alex’s plate. The brightly colored piece of plastic shaped like the face and ears of one of the furry little monsters he watched on his favorite show.
She had initially hated him watching it, but it made him happy and after being forced to watch several episodes with him, she enjoyed the educational aspects of the program. Plus, she had learned very early on that being a parent was often a lesson in learning how to compromise or else lose your mind. That was the exact reason Sean was eyeballing the food atop their son’s plate.
Alex happily smacked his mouth, chewing the food within. His fingers deftly picked up a chicken nugget and drowned it in the barbecue sauce in one of the ears and then in a blink of an eye, plunged it into the ketchup that was held in the other ear. Sean's face tightened, and she knew that he thought the mixing of the two was disgusting. Her husband touched Alex’s shoulder and their little boy looked at his father, his expression happy. Sean pointed to the colorful plate, “You know that you can eat Tamales with the family.”
She smirked and shook her head; the man was stubborn, still trying to swing Alex toward the more nutritious and filling meal. Unfortunately, there were some forces in the universe that couldn’t be bent to any person’s will and her son’s picky pallet was one of them, “No thanks.” He said between chews.
Sean tried again, no longer avoiding what he wanted to say, “Buddy, you need to eat some tamales or the beans and rice. Your mommy and I worked really hard to make them for you.”
“But they aren’t yummy” Alex replied, a hint of a whine buried within his voice. She watched, knowing that both of them were aware of what was coming next and they were both digging in for the long argument sure to come. She only wondered when her husband would break and how many of them would get dragged into the fight.
Maria glared at her mother as the older woman laughed, “You enjoy these moments far too much old woman.”
Her mother smirked at the reference to her age, not looking a day over twenty-four taking the sting out of her daughter’s words, “Serves you both right, God I remember when you were a sugartarian for about two years.”
Sean shot Eva a glare and then continued, “Everyone else thinks they’re yummy,” He said.
“Grandpa doesn’t.”
Everyone glanced at David who was just shoveling a fork full of rice into his mouth, “Did Grandpa tell you that?” Sean asked.
“Grandpa said that he would rather eat steak.” Alex said selling his grandfather out.
Maria raised an eyebrow at her father-in-law, “Is there a problem with our tamales?”
Eva’s head turned upon her husband, “Yes dear, please tell me, do you have an issue with my grandmother’s recipe.” Her tone clear that what the Marine now faced was the equivalent of a suicide mission.
His eyes transitioned across all the accusatory expressions directed against him. He slowly chewed the food in his mouth to buy himself time to think. Maria saw the second he decided, the exact instant his expression shifted and she could tell he had concluded that there was no route to safety.
“I’m eating them aren’t I?” He said, charging head first into the situation.
“Don’t you like them?” Eva asked.
He sighed and put his fork on his plate; he looked at Alex and gave him an exhausted smile. The discussion they had was obviously meant to be between just the two of them, “It’s… well, they’re kinda dry.”
Her mother’s eyes went wide, her tone dropped, and she smacked his arm “Tu hijo de puta!”
David’s eyes narrowed in confusion, “I think I know one of those words.”
Eva stood, her finger wagging in the air as she slammed out her words, “Bravo te felicito! Y para tu información, no solo los tamales son secos en esta casa.”
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sp; Sean sputtered, his lessons in Spanish progressing better than his fathers. Maria’s eyes closed for a second. Sometimes her mother’s education and fine clothes did an excellent job at hiding the rougher edges of her personality and upbringing. Maria thought about saying something but knew that if she said anything that Alex would ask what grandma had said. As it was, Maria was sure she would need therapy after the remark and she didn’t want to have to explain his grandmother’s colorful declaration.
Eva stood and placed her napkin on her plate, “I’m going to go for a walk.”
Maria watched as her mother strode out of the space. Her and Sean’s eyes shifted to Williams who sighed and set his fork down, “What did she say?”
Maria laughed, “You don’t want to know, but if you don’t fix this soon, you’ll find out.”
He looked at his meal longingly, “I’m not going to get to finish eating am I?”
Eva mouthed the word “nope” while Sean shook his head. Alex looked between all three of them, “Is grandma in trouble?”
Williams stood, “Nope, little man, grandpa is.”
“Bye grandpa, love you!”
He chuckled as he walked out of the room, “Love you too, buddy.”
Sean reached across the table and grabbed his father’s plate, pulling it over to Alex, “Eat some tamale.”
“I…” Alex began but was quickly cut off by Maria.
“Buddy do you want to go use the telescope and look at Jupiter’s moons?”
His little face lit up and her finger pointed at the cooling tamale on her father-in-law’s plate, “Eat”. She commanded.
Her son devoured the partial eaten Tamale. She loved the fact that they were raising a little nerd. She looked up at Sean, annoyance clear across his face. She smiled, “I win.”