Empire City

by Matt Gallagher

  “Thank you. It’s been difficult.” Mia left it at that. The truth was the two had barely known one another, brought together by the vague idea of future citizenship at a think-tank panel two years before. But that truth had been wiped clean with the antiseptic of narrative. What mattered now was what came next, not what’d come before.

  “How goes the hunt?” Noonan asked.

  “You know what we know,” she said. “The investigation remains ongoing.” An Imperial Times story the week before said that the jailed Mayday Front members were proving uncooperative, the gored Veteran Zero, in particular. “Just a matter of time until his lawyers claim insanity,” one anonymous official had said. Meanwhile, the infamous Jonah Gray persisted across the nation as a name and mug shot, but nothing more. Had he fled to Canada? To the separatist camps out west? To the moon? That someone could simply disappear in this era of technology and mass surveillance seemed impossible, yet here they were.

  “Mia. Be honest.” She couldn’t quite believe it, but now she heard uncertainty in Noonan’s voice, even as his face remained rigid and pink. “What’s going on here? General Collins would be the second woman president ever. The first elected woman president ever. But that’s never mentioned. Instead we’re getting a recruiting pitch for the country. Three different Council Victors are here. Three. They’re supposed to be apolitical. Gault turned down that Sinai gig, I heard. Who does that? The chairman of the rehab colonies is here, too. So is the head of a big privateer outfit. Very important people for a candidate most of America never even heard of three months ago.”

  “Your point, Liam?”

  “What’s broken in America—it’s connected to how we wage war. We surge somewhere, withdraw somewhere else, shoot and kill everything we can in one place while trying counterinsurgency and diplomacy in another. Something works for a bit, maybe, something else works for a bit, maybe, but nothing works for good. Rinse and repeat.”

  “Speak plain.”

  “Okay. I think it’s time we stop pretending that civilians are up to the task of running the military. Which, let’s be honest, is the only part of this country left that is actually functional.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  Noonan lowered his voice, his eyes shining like wax. “I know we differ on some issues, but we’re both patriots. We both shed blood for the homeland. Warfighter to warfighter, Mia: all this? It’s a military oligarchy trying to get one of its own elected commander in chief. I’m on board, is what I’m saying. I want in.”

  Mia wasn’t one for conspiracy theories, and she told Liam Noonan so. “You sound like an ultra,” she said. “You’re better than that.”

  He walked away with a shrug. Oligarchy, she thought. Heck of a word.

  * * *

  The reception finished and Mia stayed to collect donor information and attendance sheets. The married bankers went home to the far townships or to uptown co-ops, the single bankers out to dinner and drinks. She was boxing up a stack of remaining campaign brochures, mentally sorting through her takeout options, when Roger Tran approached to ask if she wanted a ride home.

  “I’m fine, thank you. Short subway trip.”

  “General’s orders. Town car’s out front.”

  Mia nodded and touched the top of her belly. It was still slight, but she’d been showing for a couple of weeks. Nothing wrong with taking a break from subway steps, she thought.

  Two Sheepdogs stood near the town car, fingers looped around their belts, as if to suggest they were armed. They weren’t, Mia knew, at least not here. Lehman Brothers had insisted. One opened the rear door for Mia and inside she found General Collins on a call. She signaled to Mia with a raised index finger that she’d be done in a minute. Mia took a seat in the middle row, facing the other woman.

  “Wonderful,” the general was saying. “So glad he’s coming along. More to follow.”

  She closed her cell. “Apologies,” she said. “Some good news for the campaign.”

  “Donor related?”

  “Could be. Down the line.” General Collins wore a black suit with a notched collar, and against the black leather interior and the tint of the windows, Mia could only make out her body’s outline. It protruded from the seat in a right angle. The general rubbed at her temple, her West Point class ring glinting like a dark star. “Numbers from tonight?”

  “A hundred and forty K, maybe one fifty. Securities and Investments manager verbaled another fifteen. We’ll see, though.”

  General Collins sighed and rubbed at her temple again. They’d been hoping to clear two hundred. “Nothing’s ever easy,” she said. “Reminds me of the time in the Barbary Coast with the Salafists. Remember them? Desert rebels with the crossed-Kalashnikovs flag? Bunch of pests. We had all the intel in the world saying eight council princes would be meeting at a rice farm. First time in years they’d come together. Special Forces hit the farm like lightning. But they could only find six.”

  “Then what?” The general didn’t tell war stories just to pass the time.

  “Told them to search again. Nothing. And again. Nothing. Then again. Even the best need prodding, sometimes. They found one hiding in the well. Then the last one dressed as Grandma. Got all eight. Effectively snuffed out fanaticism in that pocket of the Coast with one raid.”

  Mia thought about what she was being told. She needed to get better at direct asks with donors. She was a Tucker. People wouldn’t tell her no. “I’ll follow up tomorrow with some folks,” she said. “We’ll make it happen.”

  “That’s my girl.” The general leaned out of the shadows to light a cigarette. The flame from the lighter snapped the spell of darkness, then blinked out just as quickly.

  “Sorry for that draft question. We’ll start screening Q-and-A’s.”

  “Not a problem.” General Collins took a long drag and waved away Mia’s concern with her free hand. “Goose-steppers are everywhere. Might as well get used to them. And hey—they vote.”

  Deep, muffled voices approached the car and the door opened again, slivers of incandescent light rushing in. Roger Tran climbed in, sitting next to Mia and diagonal from the general. In the dim, the bones in his face cut even more precise.

  After considering it some, she hadn’t mentioned Britt Swenson’s bouncer to anyone on the campaign, nor his claim about the mystery man in a tuxedo who let in the Mayday Front to the ballroom. Mia had decided the chances of him being mistaken were much, much higher than anything else. Besides. What was done was done. They had a White House to win.

  “We’ll drop off the general first since she’s got an early TV spot,” Tran said. “Then you, Ms. Tucker.”

  The engine started and the car began moving. Mia sensed a strain she didn’t recognize. She wasn’t sure where it was coming from, or who from.

  “How’s everything?” General Collins asked, cracking a window to let out the cigarette smoke. “Health-wise.”

  “So far so good,” Mia said. “If the kid remains this well behaved through life, it’ll be a dream.”

  She’d been seeing a government OB the Bureau had recommended. “Healthy and normal,” the OB had said earlier in the week. Which meant no sign of superpowered complications. Mia was still trying not to get attached to the life, or almost-life, growing inside her. She knew she might have to do the right thing by it if those superpowered complications came to be. Women without them lost babies often enough—some of her friends had, at seemingly all stages of pregnancy. But “healthy and normal” was affecting her inner calculus. She’d spent that morning looking at cribs online.

  General Collins and her husband had adopted their daughters, one from Vietnam, one from Lebanon, relatively late in the children’s lives. Which means nothing, Mia thought. She’s been a mother in ways you can’t even comprehend. You’re being reticent because Roger is here. No other reason.

  Still, Mia felt that strain again through the black of the car, rolling through the silent night of Empire City. She didn’t think it had
anything to do with pregnancy or birth, or motherhood or adoption. She held to the quiet. It always forced others to their intentions.

  “Where are you now, Mia?” General Collins asked. She took one last drag and tossed the butt out the car window. “You’re doing excellent work. No need to be humble. You know it, I know it, Roger knows it. You’ve proven indispensable.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Do you like the campaign?” Tran interjected. “Politics? Know it’s been a change.”

  Mia considered her options. She wasn’t sure where this was coming from—perhaps they’d noticed her annoyances at the frenzied pace, something that had not abated with the jump to the presidential race. No, she thought. They’re asking because they need me.

  Mia liked being needed.

  “The campaigning, no,” she said. “I’ve never been one for spectacle. Politics, though—yes. Absolutely.” Then she repeated a line from the first time she’d met the general, crossing her legs and squaring her shoulders to better face the other woman. “War without bloodshed.”

  That brought a smile to General Collins’s face. “One of my favorites. You’re good at this. Once we get to the White House, you’ll have options. I want you to start thinking about it. And I’m not just talking staff positions. You’ll make a fine candidate yourself, someday. Sooner than later, if I had to bet.”

  Mia tried to look surprised. But she’d already thought about it. Congress needed more bold centrists in its ranks. To lead from the front. To bring the country back from the brink.

  The car came to a stop. A Sheepdog got out of the front passenger seat and opened the door for General Collins.

  “Good night to you both,” she said. “I have a bubble bath and a martini in my near future.”

  “Six a.m., ma’am.”

  “Yes, Roger. I’ve been getting up before the sun for forty years. I’ll remember.” She unfurled her body from the car with the toil of old bones, turning back to nod at Mia. Then the door was shut and darkness returned.

  Mia moved to the general’s seat. It was still warm and she fit into the folds of the leather like a child in her father’s shirt. Tran was now diagonal from her and cleared his throat as the car began moving again.

  “What’s in that?” They passed under a stoplight and Mia saw through the faint green shine that he was pointing toward her leg.

  “Titanium, mostly.” Mia ignored the old impulse to tap at it. “The rest is carbon fiber and aluminum finish.”

  “I wasn’t sure about you at first, Ms. Tucker. Failure of my background. But I’ll be honest. In my experience, female soldiers weren’t worth the headaches that followed. Female officers, especially. General Collins being an exception.”

  “Thank you for that honesty.”

  “You don’t get rattled. I admire that. An important skill. Took me years to learn. What the general just said. She’s right about you.”

  “I appreciate that, Roger.” This wasn’t natural for him, Mia could tell. She could also tell he’d rehearsed.

  “Do you know why General Collins didn’t get a third star?”

  “I’ve heard rumors.” Mia was trying to sound as neutral as he did. This could be dangerous territory. “Just talk.”

  “It involves you,” Tran said. “And what happened in Tripoli.”

  “Oh.” That made sense. More sense than anything else she’d heard. It also explained why General Collins had pulled her aside at the luncheon those months before. Mia clung to the quiet once more.

  “She’s a woman of principle. She… it’s not my story to tell, but you should know she stood up for you, for all the survivors. Others wanted more control. More oversight. More everything. She went to war with them. It cost her her career. You should know she gave you a choice. It was her.”

  Mia started to say something, but she couldn’t formulate anything. Her throat was dry and she swallowed but it didn’t help. The ask was coming next, she knew. Whatever they’d been sizing her up for.

  “She’s got something for you. Something a bit outside your wheelhouse.”

  “Anything for the mission.”

  The town car stopped under a light. Cinder red seeped through the tinted windows. Tran leaned forward into it, clasping his hands. Mia tried to suppress a strange fright rising in her chest and reminded herself it was just silent, arcane Roger Tran across from her.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said.

  The campaign had been contacted by Jamie Gellhorn at Empire News. Her investigative team possessed (alleged) documents from General Collins’s time at homeland intelligence command that revealed (alleged) improprieties. Underground interrogation centers on American soil. Unlawful tapping of citizens’ phone calls and emails. Secret courts that rubber-stamped warrants and fudged evidence. It was all nonsense, of course, though Tran couldn’t speak to the particulars. It would be disproven soon. He was certain about that.

  Then there was the Hero Project. Empire News had learned that it hadn’t just been the three Volunteers involved. They’d also talked to witnesses about a flying woman and an invisible man at the American Service inaugural. They were looking into a connection.

  “Well, yeah, obviously,” Mia said. “But the Hero Project wasn’t a real thing. Just public cover for the accident in Tripoli.”

  Tran nodded. “But they have ‘documents.’ ” The folds in his face deepened into a sneer. “Means a lot in media. We think it’s just paperwork generated to keep Tripoli off the books. So fake paperwork. But still. Problematic, perhaps, for the general. Since she was in the chain of command.”

  How to disprove a fabrication? After talking with her inner circle, the general decided that confronting this particular mistruth with the company line was the best solution. Which brought them to Mia.

  “We’ll need you to talk to Empire News. They’ve agreed to go off the record. Just background. Keep your identity private. I know that’s important to you.”

  Mia considered all that. “Okay,” she said. “Sure.”

  “One last thing.”

  “But of course.”

  “We’ll need you to hold to that company line, too. For the country’s sake. That you all volunteered for the Hero Project. That you volunteered for it.”

  Mia waited for Tran to explain why. That had never been a mandate. If she’d wanted to be a Volunteer, she could’ve been. She chose otherwise. The government had asked her to keep the cythrax bomb quiet, for national security. She’d done so. But staying silent and stating falsehoods weren’t the same.

  “It’s better, you see,” Tran continued. “That’s where the Volunteers came together. But you got hurt. Shuts down a stupid line of questioning. Simplifies it for everyone. But the media—if they could, they’ll spin it into something else. We’ve talked with the intel community. They agree this is the best approach.”

  A little white lie, Mia thought. But why?

  Who would she hurt here, lying to a journalist? Who would she be protecting? She thought about Noonan’s wild-eyed oligarchy. He’d seemed so out there saying it. She thought about the mystery military man from the ballroom. It seemed so ridiculous, still.

  The town car pulled up to her building. Mia said she’d think about it. Roger Tran didn’t like that, she could tell. She opened the door and stepped into the night. It was dark and dim and cold harbor gusts swirled through the air. She shivered into it, hand still on the door of the car. She turned back to say good night.

  “Cling to that center, Captain Tucker.” It was the first time Tran had used her rank. He’d retired a lieutenant colonel. “But moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Centrism for the sake of centrism isn’t centrism at all. Remember what we’re trying to do here. Remember what we’re up against. As a party. As an idea.”

  * * *

  Mia called the journalist the next afternoon. Jamie Gellhorn sounded warm over the phone, even cheery, and Mia remained guarded. She’d never trusted people happ
y to meet strangers.

  You’re the flying lady people saw in the ballroom? Yes. Why’d you fly away? To save my baby. You’re a member of General Collins’s staff? Yes. You say that you volunteered for the Hero Project? Yes. And then lost your leg in a training accident? Yes.

  “We have evidence that suggests the general was rather… involved in the Project,” Gellhorn said. “Can you speak to any of that?”

  “I can’t,” Mia said. “We met the first time a few months ago.”

  “And you happened to end up on her campaign staff?” Gellhorn asked. “Neat.”

  “She asked me to be on the team because I’m rich and connected,” Mia said. “That’s much more important than flying.”

  Gellhorn laughed. Then she asked if Mia knew of any other superpowered, beyond the three Volunteers. Like the supposed invisible man.

  “No,” Mia said. Then, unable to help herself, she asked, “Why?”

  “Sweetheart.” Gellhorn’s cheer refused to waver, even when condescending. “The Hero Project. It’s two decades old, at the least. They’ve wanted people like you for a long time.”

  THE FEDERAL CITY POST—BOOKS

  Review of My Brothers’ Keeper

  by Mark Daily

  If Americans cared about the war policies being carried out abroad in our name, My Brothers’ Keeper would be atop every bestseller list there is. We don’t, though, which is why last week’s lists were headed by another book on Sinatra’s extramarital affairs as vice president, alien werewolves that live beneath the ocean, and yes, somehow, three more personal testimonies to the grand American victory in Vietnam.

  As an army veteran of the Mediterranean, I want to be clear: I Praise the Victors. I Honor my fellow Warfighters. But someday, as a culture and society, we’re going to have to stop indulging in past glories to reckon with the present.