by L. E. Howel
It wasn’t just the buildings that were different, but the whole way of life. People walked, people smiled, people lived. He wondered how it had happened and what had made this change. Was it the war? Was it just in this place? He knew enough not to expect any answers from those that guarded him. If he could get to Edwards he might find out more, but even he had seemed unwilling to say much to him about their mission since he had returned. A new wall of secrecy had developed between them as they had drawn closer to Washington. No, Edwards had withdrawn into himself again and Birch knew he would find no answers there.
Finally the convoy stopped, not at another military compound as Birch had expected, but at a small cottage nestled among the greenery. Four of the vehicles broke off from the long line and pulled up to the quaint building. Birch’s truck was one of them. The rest of the line started up again and veered away from the city center toward the west, driving off in a cloud of dust.
Soon they were alone with only their few soldiers left to guard them. Edwards had gotten out of the lead truck and was walking toward the cottage. Wearily Birch watched him through the dirt smeared window before he opened the truck door and stepped out into the sunshine. He winced in the light as he looked around him. It was good, the land and the buildings all were good. Through the tinted windows of the truck he had seen darkly, now in its true aspect he was able to believe what he could only imagine that he had understood before. Something marvelous had happened here. The colors, and the taste, and the smell of it all engulfed his mind, but it was almost too much.
His thoughts strayed back to that muddy prairie and how such a small, meaningless patch of rock and earth could come to mean so much, while all the beauty around him could mean so little. Kansas was home. He wished himself back there now.
“Come on,” Edwards was calling to him. Jane and Lauren were already at his side and he was opening the door to the little home. Birch moved slowly toward them.
“We’ve got the best place for you here,” Edwards continued cheerily. “You’ll find all the comforts of home and the freedom to come and go as you like while you wait for your audience with the president.”
“Sounds great after that long journey,” Jane enthused.
“Hmm,” Birch grunted. “Kind of a change for you guys isn’t it? Where’s all the guards, and the fences, and the off limit zones? Where are we supposed to stay away from in order to make you happy? How are you going to protect us from ourselves here if we can do whatever we want? Why do you trust us now?”
“So many questions,” Edwards smiled thinly at Birch, “but just one answer. You were in danger before, but here you will be safe. Nothing can touch you here, so you are free to see whatever you want. We have nothing to hide here, so go ahead, look anywhere you want. You’ll see what we are really working for in this place.” Birch nodded doubtfully but followed the others in without further comment.
“These places really are wonderfully designed,” Edwards was sounding more like an anxious realtor trying to close the deal with every moment. “It should be a few days before the president can see you, so enjoy it. This is your home while you’re here.”
“What about you,” Birch questioned, “where will you be?”
“I’ve got reports to fill out and debriefing to go through. You’ll see me soon enough. I’ll be back in time for your meeting in a few days time.” Edwards turned to the door. “Just relax and take time for yourselves, you don’t have anything else to worry about now that you’re here. You’re safe. I’ll see you in a few days.” With that he turned and left the three standing uncomfortably in their small lounge.
“I guess we should get settled in,” Jane picked her gear up from the floor where one of the men had left it. “I just wish they could have found a bigger place for us,” she added looking pointedly at Birch. “I think it could get quite crowded here.”
“I’m sure it will,” Birch muttered sullenly as he picked up his own things and headed to the door of one of the bedrooms. “Just stay out of my way.” He flung the door open and hurled his things onto the bed. “It would be a lot better for you if you just left me alone.”
“Yeah, that’s the way you work best, isn’t it?” Jane snapped back. “After all, we know you’re so anxious to be alone that you’ll lose everyone you ever team up with.”
Birch’s eyes narrowed and his teeth clenched. He was moving menacingly toward her now, but Lauren had nimbly stepped between them.
“You know,” she began vacantly, “Karla used to joke about what a cute couple you two would make if you could ever stop yelling at each other long enough. I never thought she was serious, but I don’t know. You two certainly have something.”
Birch stopped and looked down at Lauren. She had probably said the only thing that could have stopped him. “What did Karla say?” He asked. His hands were numb and fell limply at his side. “Tell me what she said.”
“She said a lot,” she answered evenly.
“Like what?” Birch’s voice was probing.
Lauren looked thoughtful. “She admired you,” her eyes met Birch’s. She was surprised to see how quickly the fire within them had cooled, dissolving into a liquid mistiness.
“I think she thought more than you could ever know,” Lauren continued quickly, seeing that her intervention was working. “We all felt bad about what happened on the mission, but she seemed to see your side more than any of us could. She was sad for Ratliff, of course, but more for you. She hated the way you and Major Gray fought after that, and she used to joke that you’d make a fine married couple. I don’t think she ever meant anything by it, though. It always seemed like she’d have done anything for you if you’d have just asked.”
A distant smile played across Birch’s face before he turned to look at Lauren. His expression changed, but deeper than that, his features changed, and perhaps a few of the lines on his brow were smoothed away.
“Thanks,” he muttered thoughtfully before turning again to Jane, “I think she did, even without my asking”
“I’m sorry,” Birch’s soft voice spoke to Jane more from memory than anything else. “We’ve both lost a lot. Maybe you blame me, maybe I blame myself. I can’t change it. If I could do anything I would change it all, but that can’t be, so we just have to live with it. Let’s just deal with today and be a team again. Can we be a crew, a family one last time?”
Jane nodded dumbly but couldn’t respond. The ‘family’ crew: that had all been Karla’s idea. She’d always gushed about them being a new family, all they had for each other now. Birch had never bought into that before. She couldn’t comprehend why he had now, at the very end of their mission.
“Okay,” she responded cautiously, “at least until we see what this president has in store for us.”
Birch smiled silently to himself. He had heard many words in his lifetime, but now he had finally begun to listen.
FORTY-ONE
This was a nice place. They had taken Edwards’ advice and explored the city. All that they had found, and all that they had seen was as remarkable as had been claimed. The beauty of nature seemed to have been blended with human composition, until it had become an almost symbiotic relationship. Buildings were interwoven with breathtaking flowering plants, all bearing blazes of color that could only have been contrived with human assistance. Everywhere the assembling of natural beauty could be seen in the presence of perfectly placed foliage and glassy-still lakes and ponds. It was almost too good to imagine.
The thing that was missing was people. Birch had been the first notice it. It had struck him even as they had arrived, but it had grown into an obsession for him. Where was everyone? This was a city, the capital city, but it seemed to have the population of a village. It was ideal, but it didn’t seem right. Those few people he had seen had been friendly, but unhelpful. They were happy and vacuous. Birch had been unable to get anything more from them than felicitous smiles and cheerful nods of acknowledgment. He couldn’t seem to break through the
pretty surface of either the people or the place.
The preservation of this environment within a city was an incredible thing. The smaller population no doubt helped, but even then it would still have been impossible without the innovations in transportation. This was all built on the back of the old subway system. The Metro system wasn’t anything new, but it had been so greatly extended that eventually all above ground transportation had been phased out. The impact on the city had been incredible as many roads had been replaced by greenery. Only military vehicles now traveled above ground, and even these were rarely permitted.
It was all very impressive, like a step back into the deepest desires at the heart of humanity, but still Birch wasn’t happy. He had dreams. He might have enjoyed this place except for those dreams and the vivid impression they left in his wakeful mind. They were perhaps the most real thing to him now as the phantoms from his past haunted him. Karla was there now, and for the first time he realized that the past was the one place he really wanted to be. But you can never go back.
As each day passed the dreams grew more real and reality became more dreamlike. Something wasn’t right here. It had started with the dreams, but it seeped into the world about him. His mind was cluttered and he couldn’t clear it. He was plagued by a dizziness, like vertigo, that always kept him on the edge of falling. He was weak. Doubts came buzzing in his ears. Yes, something wasn’t right, and if his muddy mind wasn’t so clogged right now he was sure that it all would have meant something to him.
The mental dam finally broke as he sat silently reflecting on the idyllic scene on the banks of the Potomac. He had been sitting watching the perfect sunshine, the perfect sky, the perfect people, the perfect everything, when he finally saw what he had been looking for. Imperfection.
In the rippling flow of the river he saw what he should have seen all along, what he should have known all along. His reflection- it didn’t fit. His face was right, his body was right, and at first glance everything was right, but a closer observation showed that everything was wrong. It wasn’t in sync. It was better than he had seen before, less obvious, but he’d been looking for it this time and there it was. It was very subtle. You had to almost look out of the corner of your eye to see it, sneak up on it as it were, to catch it, but it was there.
He sat for a moment, drinking this all in. He knew what it meant. They were in trouble. They were in the envirodome. This had all happened before, when they had first landed, and everything had seemed so real, and yet it wasn’t. Nothing had been real and he had been nowhere. And that’s exactly where they were now. How long had they been here? That was the troubling question. Had they ever really left?
Was anything real? Was this all a game, one big rat’s maze that he was running? He almost hoped it was. Then maybe he could reset the game and try again. There was a lot he would change if he had a second chance. Life wasn’t like that though. You got one chance, and somehow things seemed too permanent for anything else but that. He doubted there would ever be a second chance.
The others seemed to notice nothing. He had tried to subtly raise the issue, but it was clear from his gentle probing that neither of them had been aware of anything unusual. He found himself considering the possibility that they also might be a part of the illusion. He wasn’t sure he could trust them, and so he kept his fears to himself. Even so his concerns grew, even as his awareness of the unreality around him increased.
He noticed other things. He had become aware of a slight, almost imperceptible electrical hum and buzz that followed everywhere he went. It masked itself behind everyday sounds. He could hear it in the murmur of friendly voices, in the ripples across a still pond. He could hear it in the tinkle of the bell on a child’s bicycle, even in the splash of the water as he shaved in the morning. It seemed to mock him, to seek to provoke a response, yet he continued to ignore it. If anyone was watching he wasn’t going to let them know that he was aware of it, at least not yet. He wanted to see what would happen first, and then react to any opportunity that came along. He had gotten out before, he could do it again.
The opportunity seemed to come on the third day, when Edwards returned. Birch knew better than to say anything of his suspicions to him. He trusted him less than Lauren or Jane. Birch knew that if he really was trapped inside an illusion, then Edwards, if he really existed, was more likely to be one of the keepers than one of the good guys. He would just have to watch for now and see what developed.
Edwards had brought news from the president; he was ready to see them and had granted an immediate audience. Edwards had been sent to collect them, and a military escort was provided to get them there. A line of ten vehicles now waited outside their idyllic cottage, ready to carry them into an uncertain future. The stark appearance of the military trucks and the men assigned to them seemed in striking contrast to the soft tones of everything around them. A touch of reality in this fake world, Birch imagined. He was happy for that. He felt he needed a dose of truth after the sugar-coated existence they had lived over the last few days, even if it did come in the form of guns and troop carriers
They were hurried into a truck. As they settled back in their seats Birch noticed that even the tinted windows couldn’t completely filter out the bright joy of their temporary home. It was just too radiant. Birch nodded thoughtfully to himself.
The trucks pulled through empty streets toward the one building that towered above the landscape, the great stone tower. It reminded Birch more of Washington’s past than of its future. It filled him with an odd sense of nostalgia as he saw it looming ever larger in the window. Alone, of all the things in this new city, this seemed almost to be a monument and a tribute to the history that had happened here. It was more than that though. It was a final surpassing of all those things, for it was larger and grander than any of the simple monuments it had been built to replace. It was a statement of power. This was a final statement that had eclipsed all previous statements and made a new reality for itself. Like all new innovations this structure had striven to better anything before it. The new dynasty had wanted to outdo the old one, and in stature and grandeur it had succeeded.
Soon they arrived. Birch and the others were quickly pulled from their truck as the line of vehicles came to a halt in front of the massive stone tower. A few minutes later Edwards was guiding them through a plush foyer and onto a shining, chrome elevator that sent them, bullet-like, up into the highest parts of the building. An instant later their dizzying assent had stopped with a hiss as the doors opened to place them on the topmost floor. They had arrived at the presidential suite.
FORTY-TWO
The elevator doors hissed shut behind them. They were led into an expansive hall filled with light and wonder. Even Edwards seemed awed by what he saw. The floor shimmered, polished to a glossy sheen that reflected with a greater purity or clarity than any mere mirror could. The furniture and fittings were made of oak with a burnished gold trim that seemed to come alive as light streamed through the great glass windows high up on the four walls. These windows were arched and made from colorful, cut glass, like a cathedral’s, and the light they permitted was awash with color and life.
This was opulence. The best that wealth could afford had been poured into this place, and nothing here was ordinary. Like the tower itself this room seemed to purposefully eclipse all previous human achievements in both scale and beauty.
It was like the great hall of a castle or an ancient place of worship with a gothic ceiling arching loftily above them. There was a golden sheen to everything that seemed to lend it a cold, hard quality. The place was beautiful, but not comfort-able. Stiff furniture and hard, bare surroundings gave a crisp, angular feel to everything. This was a place to be impressed, or to impress others. It spoke of wealth and power, but it was impossible to tell anything else about the occupant here. Birch saw all of this as no more than an impersonal statement of authority; it didn’t seem to go any deeper than that.
At the far end of this
room stood a great golden portal with two guards positioned attentively at either side. This was the center of it all. Lauren shivered. The hall was cold and silent and as they walked toward the grand doorway the sound of their feet clacking against the glassy polished floor was the only thing to disturb the hushed atmosphere.
The two golden doors were incredible, huge, heavy things with intricately detailed carvings of symbols and writing that Birch felt he should recognize, but he couldn’t. One in particular drew his attention. It depicted a battle; one side had the better of it and was inexorably pushing the enemy toward a cliff. Some had already fallen, others fought wildly to avoid it, but soon they all would be in the abyss. Above it all a bird flew. It should have been an eagle, or perhaps a hawk, or maybe even a vulture judging by the subject, but it was a dove. He wondered what the bird-of-peace had to do with a battle.
The doors slowly, noiselessly swung open to admit them. For a time the way stood empty and open, like a gaping black maw. No one came to greet them. Finally Birch impatiently strode toward the entrance, but was blocked by the rough hands of a burly soldier guarding it.
“Wait,” the one grabbing him announced tersely as he pushed Birch away, “you are not permitted to go.” As he spoke a smiling, oily young man appeared in the doorway; his expression changed as he caught sight of the scuffle.
“Be careful,” he chastised the guard. “He’s been through a lot to get here and he is our guest; we don’t want to hurt him.” The soldier nodded mutely and released Birch. “I’m sorry for that,” the man’s smile had returned, “but that’s what they’re trained to do so you can’t really blame them.” Birch frowned angrily.
“Please follow me,” the young man intoned, “the president is waiting.” He turned to speak to Birch. “You, on the other hand, must wait here. We will return shortly.”