Virtual Fire

by Mendy Sobol

  “Another time, Grendel, but thanks.”

  “Okay. Well, see you guys!”

  Grendel skipped behind the curtain, walking right by the cops on her way. One of them looked up, watching her ass as she passed and making some comment to the other cop, who turned around for a quick look before she disappeared. Then they laughed and went back to eating their pizza.

  “Do you get some kind of thrill out of this?” I said.

  “Outta’ what?”

  “The risk… for you… I mean… right out in the open….”

  “I’ve learned some things since I went underground. Like that nobody suspects someone who doesn’t act suspicious. Besides, she may not be in your league, but if Grendel’s life had been a little different, she’d be cybergrammin’ right next to you at IPI. Do you know how much it means to me that I get to teach her a few things? It gives me a reason to live.”

  “Why the fuck are you telling me all this?”

  “‘Cuz you asked.”

  “Then why the fuck aren’t you worried I’ll walk out of here, turn myself in, turn you in”—two more teenagers walked past the cops’ table and through the blue curtain—“turn them in?”

  “I’m not worried, ‘cuz if you didn’t work for IPI, you’d be in the back room sittin’ at a black market console you’d upgraded, rewritin’ everyone’s software and kickin’ some gamer’s ass.”

  I could feel my face getting hot, so I looked down, took another bite of pizza, glanced over at the two cops stuffing their faces on the other side of the restaurant.

  “Toby, is it safe talking here?”

  “Safe as anyplace else.”

  “Okay, so tell me—what’s really going on? What do you want?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I know it’s not blackmail. That was stupid.”

  “What is it then?”

  “You’ve got a plan.”

  “And what do you think my plan is?”

  “To do what you did last time. Only you don’t want to risk what happened last time. So this time you’ll get your malware and e-mines in place, then blackmail Washington to the peace table by threatening another memory wipe.”

  Toby nodded.

  “It’s a great plan. But it won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re ready for you. They’ve spent decades getting ready. I’m not saying I couldn’t beat all their safeties, but it would take a long time. And once we delivered the threat, how long would it take them to de-bug? A day? A week?” I paused, realizing I sounded like I was in on the plot. “No, your plan won’t work, and you know it.”

  “If I know it won’t work, why’d I risk this meetin’?”

  “Because you want me to come up with a plan that will work.”

  “Can you?”

  “Do you understand what you’re asking?”

  “I’m askin’ you to betray your friends so we can save some lives.”

  Without thinking, I said, “I bet you know all about betraying friends.” And like with Captain Rusk and Vietnam, I was sorry as soon as the words left my mouth.

  Toby’s lips opened slightly, his eyes shut, his face looking sadder than any I’d ever seen.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry. I only meant that....”

  “No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve got no business askin’ you to do this, puttin’ you in danger like this. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  We pretended to eat a little more pizza while avoiding each other’s eyes. Toby paid in cash, walked me back through the park to my car.

  “I wish this could have been, I don’t know, different,” he said.

  So did I.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Melora

  The day began badly. Six months passed since my meeting with Toby, the war more fucked up than ever, nightmares worse too. I stayed up late, remembering his face, his words—I’m asking you to betray your friends so we can save some lives. Long after midnight, I fell asleep on my living room sofa, dreaming this time of fire sweeping across the ocean like a lengthening shadow, consuming everything. I woke, and shaking off the nightmare, thought about coming full circle, sleeping on a couch while my king bed lay empty.

  I made a habit of going to work early, avoiding anti-war protesters who’d taken up picketing IPI. Today I wouldn’t make it in time.

  Hey hey IPI, we don’t want your stinkin’ war!

  Hey hey IPI, we don’t want your stinkin’ war!

  Slowing, I drove past ragged lines of picketers, thinking about rolling up the windows, deciding against it. A woman with long dark hair, about my age, holding a peace sign poster above her head, skipped up to the car looking like someone about to ask for directions.

  “Hey Nazi, nice Beemer. How many lives did that cost?”

  Then she spit on me.

  “You okay, Miss Kennedy?” the IPI security guard asked as I pulled up to the blockhouse. Inside, two uniformed Natick cops were sitting with the other guards eating donuts and drinking coffee.

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “No worries.”

  But I watched in the rearview mirror as I drove away to my reserved parking spot, and saw two guards and the Natick cops leave the blockhouse, push the dark-haired protestor to the ground, and zip-tie her wrists and ankles.

  Inside, things got worse. Finding the cybergrammer workstations empty, I headed for the lunchroom, the gathering place whenever something big was up. In the lunchroom, thirty programmers stood, talking all at once. Coop met me at the door. He looked pale, frightened.

  “Geez, Mel, where’ve you been?” But before I could answer, “Did you hear about Professor Sherman? They stopped him at the gate this morning, told him he’s fired. Took his I.D. off him right on the spot. When they wouldn’t let him in to clean out his desk, he marched over to the demonstrators, grabbed a sign and started picketing. Some security guard made a call, and the local cops showed up and arrested him. While they were cuffing him, he had a heart attack or something! An ambulance took him to Newton-Wellesley Hospital about an hour ago. I’ve been waiting for you so we could head over there together.”

  In the hospital waiting room, Ellen sat between Captain Rusk and Maggie. Coop hugged her first, then she stood, hugging me, holding on like she’d fall if she didn’t. “Oh, Melora, they say he can’t move, can’t even talk!”

  “It’s okay Mrs. S. He’ll be all right. We’ll take care of him.”

  Coop went for sandwiches that no one ate. Morning faded to afternoon, afternoon to evening. Finally, Captain Rusk talked Ellen into letting him take her home. Coop promised he’d stay at the hospital, call as soon as there was news. Maggie Rusk, taking my arm, said she’d drive home with me.

  For a while, we drove in silence. Then I noticed tears rolling down Maggie’s cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, Maggie, Professor Sherman will be okay.”

  “I pray you are right, Melora. But something is also wrong between you and the Captain, and I am so afraid it will not be okay. He will not talk about it, but he is miserable.”

  “We had an argument about the war.”

  “The war. I should have known. So you told him the war is bad and he gives to you his ‘In Harm’s Way’ speech.”

  “Worse than that.”

  “Oh. So it is about Vietnam.”

  Maggie often talked about Vietnam, but never mentioned the war.

  “Look, Maggie, don’t worry about it. We’ll get over it.”

  “But I must worry, Melora! John is not happy, you are not happy, and we are family. What is more important to worry about?”

  My secrets kept me silent, but as I turned into the Route 128 on-ramp, merging with the late night traffic, Maggie continued.

  “John met me touring the Eurasian orphan shelter where I worked in Saigon. He was such a handsome young lieutenant—about your age, Melora. I was just a girl. I do not think he noticed me the first time. But he kept coming back. Not for me. To help. And you should have seen h
im with the children. They called him ‘the big American with the funny hat,’ climbing all over him, ruining his beautiful uniforms. So many children, their mothers dead or disgraced, their American G.I. fathers shipped home.

  “When the war was over he did everything to bring those children here. The new communist government did not want them, but it also did not want to let them go. And Uncle Sam did not want them either. When John came home and saw the young protesters, children who had so much, he thought of the Vietnamese children who had nothing. I think it broke his heart.

  “He got me out two years after the peace. I wanted children right away. But John was afraid. Afraid of the radiation and the Agent Orange, afraid for me.

  “He believes Americans should have saved my country. But he has no love for how they tried to do it. And he also believes, as I do, the communists are truly evil. I saw how they murdered innocent people in the South. And John hated them before Vietnam.”

  “It’s okay, Maggie. I understand about the Captain.”

  “No, no, you must listen, hear the rest.”

  I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road.

  “In 1968, John’s commander recalled him from his aircraft carrier. John only wanted to fly, but the Pentagon posted him to Czechoslovakia as the ambassador’s military attaché. Before reporting to the embassy in Prague, he traveled to Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union. He has told me they were the saddest places on earth. He arrived in Czechoslovakia in time for Prague Spring. Do you know what that was, Melora?”

  “No,” I said.

  “A new leader, a young man named Alexander Dubček, came to power. He was a communist. He did not believe in capitalism or democracy. He saw Russia as the savior of his country in World War II and wished to keep Czechoslovakia in the Warsaw Pact military alliance. It is funny today when I hear news analysts and government officials say he wanted freedom from Russian tyranny. Because all he wanted, all his people wanted, was what they called ‘communism with a human face’—freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of artistic expression. Even that was more than Moscow would allow.

  “John tells me Prague was like a breath of fresh air after the other communist countries, a beautiful fairy-tale city filled with workers and artists and young people experiencing their first taste of freedom. He quickly became best friends with his Czech driver, Luboš, who worked for the embassy by day, taking John with him when he read his poetry in the cafes at night. John began staying with Luboš at his flat more often than he slept in his own quarters at the embassy, finding something in this friendship he had long missed since entering Annapolis and the Navy. He even began thinking other systems of government, more humane than the one he grew up with, might be possible.

  “Here, Melora, I brought this picture to show you.”

  I caught a glimpse of the captain, younger by many years, next to another man, pale and slender, about the same age. They were standing in front of a castle out of Cinderella, arms resting on each other’s shoulders, smiling.

  “In August the Russian leaders met with Dubček and signed an agreement saying Czechoslovakia would be left in peace. Then they invaded. They called it ‘The Befriendment.’

  “The puppet government ordered John out of the country. He wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to his Czech friends or take his belongings. But Luboš came to the train station, finding John among all the other American refugees waiting for evacuation, bringing John’s things. And this.”

  Maggie held the picture balanced on her fingertips.

  “John begged Luboš to come with him, promised he would hide him until they crossed the border. Luboš said no, he must stay and fight for his country. He said, ‘Tonight I will go out to fight and die.’ But he never got the chance. A Russian tank commander shot him on his way home—for the crime of waiting at a bus stop.”

  Maggie was openly crying now, for a man she never knew. And for her man.

  “You must see, Melora, John did not become a soldier to fight, or even to fly. He is bigger, stronger, smarter than most. It has made him believe he must save people. He saved me. He saved you. But John could not save his best friend.”

  As we pulled into the Rusk’s driveway behind the parked Metro, Maggie took my hand in both of hers the way she had at Otis the second time we met.

  “Melora, David and you are the only children we have. Make peace with him. Please, promise me you will make peace with him.”

  I didn’t get home until after midnight, and when I walked in the door the phone was ringing. It was Joey.

  “Mel, I’ve been calling you all night.” He sounded terrible.

  “Look, Joey, can this wait till tomorrow? I’m really beat.”

  “It’s Darin, Melora. Darin’s dead.”

  As I pulled into the IPI lot, the night security guard put down his copy of Soldier of Fortune and stepped outside the cement blockhouse.

  “Evening, Miss Kennedy. Working late?”

  “Just forgot something in my office. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Go ahead and park by the front door. You won’t be in anybody’s way at this hour.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And have a good night!”

  I drove slowly to the entrance, walked slowly to my office. I jacked in the moment I sat down, hoping, praying, knowing he’d be there.

  HELP ME.

  Instantly, a message flashed on my visor, then disappeared.

  SAME PLACE.

  Toby was waiting in Ringer Park, taking a huge chance for me. Seeing how I looked, he said nothing, walking me instead to a first-floor apartment in an old three-story house atop the rock that gave its name to High Rock Way.

  “Around 1890, a dad built this with three entrances, one for each of his daughters. Now it’s all carved up into apartments.”

  In a room off the front door, I could see Toby’s computers humming away in the semi-darkness.

  “Would you like to take a look?” he said. “I admit, I’m really proud of them.”

  I shook my head no.

  “Melora, what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “My nephew Darin, more like a little brother, his ship, the Lovell, went down off the Sumatra coast. Darin, his shipmates, they’re all dead.”

  “I’m sorry, I....”

  I could hear my voice getting angry, loud, crazy. But I couldn’t stop. “No, wait. Listen to me! The Lovell was hit by a Harpoon missile. Our missile. RITA launched the strike!”

  “But why would RITA…?”

  “We—I—never programmed RITA to do that. Not specifically, anyway. But I did program her to think—to act—strategically, to protect national security, to protect herself.”

  “How was she protectin’ herself by launchin’ a missile at our own ship?”

  “Because the Lovell was dead in the water. About to be boarded by Red Path. About to have its technology turned over to the Chinese. That technology included RITA downlinks and uplinks, the biggest military secrets we have next to RITA herself.”

  Toby looked away, thinking, taking it in. Then he put both hands on my shoulders.

  “Look, Melora, I can’t imagine…. I mean, it’s awful! But it’s not your fault. Human commanders have made those same kinds of decisions.”

  “Yeah, but a human commander didn’t make this decision. A human commander didn’t kill Darin and his shipmates. RITA killed them, the same way she’s been killing Indonesians for years. Friendlies, hostiles, what’s the fucking difference? RITA doesn’t give a shit! And me, Coop, Captain Rusk, all the cybergrammers—we created RITA. We’re all fucking murderers!”

  I wouldn’t have blamed Toby if he hated me for not helping him when it might have made a difference, or took advantage of what had happened to talk me into helping him. I knew he was attracted to me, and I wouldn’t have stopped him if he held me, or kissed me, or tried to fuck me. What Toby did instead was lead me to his bedroom, cover me with an old down sleeping bag, tell me to sleep, and then fall a
sleep himself in the chair beside his bed.

  I came to work late that day at IPI. I came to work planning to stop the war.

  Chapter Thirty: Melora

  I took a week off, heading for Darin’s funeral at the Sarasota National Cemetery, the first time I’d set foot in Florida since leaving the Navy and going to work for IPI. Joey, Diana, Damian, and me stood graveside next to the American flag-draped coffin that held what was left of Darin. A Navy chaplain began reading the Lord’s Prayer, but stopped short when mom and the professor pulled up in a Lincoln Continental. As if things weren’t bad enough, Tammy Jo had finally found a family get-together worth attending.

  Mom, wearing a black sunbonnet, low-cut black lace top, short black silk skirt, black fishnet stockings and lipstick red heels, got out of the car and threw herself on Darin’s casket, bawling her eyes out. The chaplain continued reading, but when he got to the part about, “And lead us not into temptation…” mom took it up six notches, wailing, “He was my grandbaby! My grandbaby!” so loud the chaplain couldn’t finish.

  I knew it wasn’t my place, but I couldn’t take it any more. From the looks on Joey’s, Diana’s, Damian’s, the chaplain’s, and the professor’s faces, I knew they couldn’t either.

  “Jesus Christ, Mom,” I said, “will you knock it off?”

  Tammy Jo whirled to her feet, pointing a polished red fingernail at me.

  “YOU!” She said. “How DARE you!” The chaplain put a consoling hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away. “This is all your fault, Melora. If it wasn’t for you, Darin would be alive!”

  My skin flushed red and hot. How could she possibly know? I thought. All my work on RITA is classified. Everything about RITA is classified. Even the name ‘RITA’ is classified!

  “Mom, please,” Joey said.

  “Don’t you ‘please’ me, Joseph! It’s Melora’s fault, and you know it. Darin enlisted because of her. Then she abandoned him like she abandoned all of you. Like she abandoned me!”

  For a moment, I felt better. But only for a moment. Of course she didn’t know about RITA. But she was right about Darin’s enlistment. Was she right that I’d abandoned all of them the first chance I got?