by Kage Baker
Annette was sitting on the couch clutching his shotgun, her eyes enormous.
He locked the door behind him and shot the bolt. “Did you see somebody again?”
“No. I was getting Gilbert out of the tub, and Brandy came running in screaming she’d seen somebody in the kids’ tree house. We looked with the flashlight. I couldn’t see anybody, but—”
He came and put an arm around her. “Probably just a coyote. Too many spooks this Halloween, huh? Don’t worry. It’s raining pretty hard now, listen. At least they can’t get into much trouble at that party. You go on to bed. I’ll sit up and watch the yard for a while. Nothing’s going to prowl for long if I get a clear shot at it.”
Boom! Blue light flared, and the windows rattled with the force of the thunder. She jumped and held him more tightly than she meant to.
“All right,” she said, deciding not to argue. In the time since he’d shown up on her doorstep the day after Philip’s funeral, she had learned not to ask him too many questions. It was a small price to pay for security, even if she had her suspicions that he was not really Philip’s long-lost cousin.
He walked her to her bedroom, turned on the light, checked the closets. Nothing out of place. He kissed her on the forehead and went off to check the locks. Lightning flashed. Thunder split the sky, and rain fell in torrents.
Porfirio went into the dark kitchen and stood looking out into the yard. He could see the man clearly now, huddled in the tree house, flinching at every blast of livid fire. Porfirio grinned. He went into the living room and tapped in a combination on the customized entertainment center. A soothing tone filled the air, inaudible to mortal ears. The children sank deeper into dreams, and Annette, who’d been staring tensely into darkness, suddenly relaxed and was blissfully unconscious.
Porfirio went back into the kitchen and opened the back door. Ozone was filling the air with an acrid electric smell. Between one flash and the next the man stood beside him on the porch, dripping and shivering.
“Goddam storm took forever to break,” he gasped. “I’ve been waiting out there for hours.”
“That’s a shame,” said Porfirio. “Not that you have any business in my yard. You want to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here?”
“Joseph, Facilitator Grade One,” the other said, jumping when lightning struck close by. “Can we continue this conversation indoors?”
Porfirio stepped inside, and the other followed him readily. He went on:
“I know this is sort of unorthodox, but I needed to ask you something in private, about somebody you worked with once. I’m trying to find out what happened to her. I thought you might know.”
Porfirio looked at him in silence. His visitor was dressed, most improbably, in complete fly fisherman’s gear, including waders, utility vest, flannel plaid shirt, and shapeless hat. “And you had to wait for an electrical storm, so the data transmission would be knocked out? Smart guy. I just might report you anyway, pal.”
“Aw, don’t do that,” implored Joseph. He looked around the kitchen, hungrily inhaling the fragrances of Halloween night. “Nice place. How’d you get posted with a mortal family?”
“You don’t need to know,” Porfirio told him, opening the liquor cabinet and pouring a shot of bourbon. He offered it to Joseph, who was drifting wide-eyed toward the big bowl of candy on the kitchen counter.
“My God, those are Almond Joys! May I? Thanks.” He tossed back the bourbon in a gulp. “You’re right, I don’t need to know. Look, I’ll make this short: back in 1862 you worked with the Botanist Mendoza, yes?”
Porfirio started. Joseph, watching him, peeled the wrapper off a candy miniature and popped it in his mouth. “I thought so,” he said, chewing. “I was her case officer once myself. I’m trying to find out where she went. I’m not asking for your help, just for some information.”
Exhaling, Porfirio got down a couple of highball glasses and poured out more bourbon. He handed one to Joseph and took the other. “Let’s go sit. And leave the candy alone. The kids will kill me if it’s gone in the morning.”
Boom! All over the neighborhood, in other houses people were sitting huddled up, unable to sleep for the thunder, but Annette and her children slept on. Porfirio lit the gas logs. Joseph relaxed on the couch, watching the firelight play on the ceiling, watching the jack-o’-lantern’s flame.
“I guess this is part of the Gradual Retirement Plan, huh?” he said. “Mendoza didn’t get gradually retired, though, did she? She was arrested. Something nasty happened.”
“Very nasty,” Porfirio agreed, sipping his bourbon.
“I think you tried to help her. I think you went on record as making some kind of formal protest about what they did to her.” Joseph gulped his bourbon and set the glass aside. “So tell me, friend: do you have any idea where she is?”
“Out of commission, as far as I know,” said Porfirio. “She got a raw deal. Still, she killed six mortals and went AWOL. You don’t get off with a slap on the wrist for something like that. I believe she had a lot of drug therapy, and in the end they transferred her to—” He dipped his finger in the bourbon and drew on the table a line of three little arrows pointing left.
Joseph might have gone pale; it was hard to tell in the wavering light. After a moment he asked, “Did you see her after she was arrested?”
“I tried. They wouldn’t let me.”
“Thank you,” Joseph said.
Porfirio looked at him thoughtfully and had another sip of bourbon. “What’s it to you, anyway?” he asked.
Joseph avoided his gaze, staring into the fire. “I recruited her,” he said.
“And? You must have recruited a lot of kids in your time. You’re old. Why follow up on what happened to this one?”
“Most of the time I ship them out, and I never see them after they’ve been augmented, but I saw Mendoza a lot after she came back. I was with her on her first field mission. She’s the closest thing I have to a daughter. I always felt kind of responsible for her.”
“Okay, that I can understand,” said Porfirio, nodding. His dark stare intensified. “You must have known she was a Crome generator, then.”
Joseph winced. “Not really,” he lied. “I have this habit of ignoring things that might bother me. So. Was that how she got into trouble? Something to do with the Crome’s radiation?”
“No,” Porfirio said. “Although now that I come to think of it, maybe it did after all. She’d been throwing Crome’s like . . . that storm outside. Every damn night practically, mostly while she was asleep. It was never a problem, though, until one day when she went up into the Laurel Canyon anomaly.”
“I heard about that,” said Joseph uneasily.
“So you have a good idea why the Company doesn’t want anybody to find out what happened there. I’d like to know how you found out about it, actually.” Porfirio raised one eyebrow.
Joseph just shook his head grimly. Porfirio shrugged and continued:
“She got back okay, but in my opinion it was just a matter of time after that before Dr. Zeus found a reason to put her away. Pretty soon she gave them a reason, too, one in Technicolor.” He lifted his glass again and stopped, struck by a thought. “I wonder if that’s why they kept delaying her new posting.”
“I heard that they left her on layover indefinitely,” said Joseph, rubbing his temples. “You’re saying the Company wanted her to get into trouble so they could take her out?”
Porfirio nodded almost imperceptibly.
“And then the Englishman came,” said Joseph in a tight voice.
“I don’t know anything about that part. That had all happened by the time I came back.”
“Did you see the guy?”
“No. He was already dead by then.”
“Do you have any idea who he was?”
“Nope.” Porfirio set his glass down.
“You said she killed six mortals. Did she kill him?”
“No. She killed the guys who shot h
im, and I sure as hell know who they were, because it cost the Company a lot to cover up their disappearances. Pinkerton agents employed by the Union government. This was during the Civil War. They were after him for some reason, and for some reason she was helping him. I’ve always thought she was susceptible to him because of that incident in her file, the thing that happened back in England on her first mission.” Porfirio looked sharply across at Joseph. “You were on that posting. You must know all about it.”
“Yeah,” said Joseph. “She never got over it, really.”
“Plus the fact that Crome generators have been known to go nuts,” said Porfirio, watching the effect of his words as Joseph flinched again.
“You think she did?”
“Who knows? Something weird happened, that’s for sure.” Porfirio leaned forward and spoke in a cold voice. “And she’s not the only one who suffered for it, my friend. All of us who were there got a black mark in some way or other as a result of that incident. The Company dragged my ass over the coals, let me tell you. They scared the hell out of the only other witness, nice little kid on his first mission. There was an anthropologist who wasn’t even there when it happened, and I know for a fact they pulled her in and did a data erasure on her.
“And there was an operative who went with Mendoza on that trip into Laurel Canyon and got pulled into the anomaly too. I sent him along to cover her. Nice guy, had a good attitude, never a moment of trouble for the Company. He wasn’t there when she went AWOL either, he was on a job. I was with him, for crying out loud. But you know what? Within twenty-four hours of Mendoza’s little mistake, a security team showed up at our camp at Tejon and took him away with them. He just grinned and went. Never seen him since. I can’t even find out where he was reassigned, and I’ve tried.”
“Jesus.” Joseph put his head in his hands.
“Some body count, huh?” Porfirio’s voice was harsh. “And maybe it’s all because an operative got careless one time, when he was scanning a potential recruit, and didn’t bother to check for Crome’s. You think that’s maybe the case?”
“Could be,” said Joseph in a muffled voice.
“I’ve carried the same guilt,” said Porfirio reflectively. “How did I miss what was coming? Was there any way I could have stopped it? Could I have helped her? And poor old Einar, I was the one who gave him the order to go with Mendoza into Laurel Canyon, and now he’s out of the picture. I thought I was responsible. Maybe I’m not, though.” He turned to Joseph. “Maybe I’ll just dump all this guilt on you now, pal.”
“Thanks,” said Joseph listlessly.
“You’re welcome. Listen: I told you all this because I respect the fact that you’re trying to help your daughter. And she was a good operative, before the incident. Mendoza did good work.” Porfirio sighed. “But I have family of my own I’m looking out for, so I don’t ever want to see you or hear about this again.”
“Family?” Joseph sat up, sudden comprehension in his face. “Is that what you’re doing here?”
Porfirio nodded. “They’re descendants of the brother I had when I was mortal. I’ve kept track of them all down the years.”
“The Company lets you do that?”
“They want to keep me happy. I’m a problem solver.”
“Oh,” said Joseph in a small voice. “One of those guys who gets rid of—”
“Yeah. Anyway, this is all your responsibility now, right?” Porfirio stretched. “Find out what happened to her, if you can. Help her if you can. If you can find out what happened to a Zoologist and Cinema Preservationist named Einar, that would be nice too. But I never met you, I never talked to you, and you’re going to stay the hell away from me and my family for the rest of your eternal life.”
“You got it,” Joseph agreed. He looked across at the window, where the rain beat steadily but with less and less punctuation of lightning. “I guess I’ll be going now. Thanks for the help, all the same.”
“You need a ride anywhere?” Porfirio relaxed somewhat.
“No, that’s okay.” Joseph gave a slightly embarrassed grin. “My canoe’s tied up at your neighbor’s dock. I’ll just row back up the lake to the public campground. I’m supposed to be on a fishing vacation, it’s part of my gradual retirement. Smooth, huh?”
Porfirio almost smiled. He stood, and Joseph stood, and they went out through the kitchen, where Joseph cast a longing eye at the Halloween candy.
“One for the road?” he suggested.
“What the hell.” Porfirio tossed him an Almond Joy. He caught it neatly and slipped out through the back door into the steadily falling rain, silent as a coyote. Porfirio went to the window and watched. A moment later he saw the dark shape of a canoe moving out on the lake, and a dark oarsman rowing. It backed around and headed north, and a moment later was lost in the rain and the night.
Porfirio locked the door and slid its deadbolt home. He keyed in the security combination that protected the house. Returning to the living room, he turned the lever to extinguish the gas fire, went to the front window, and drew the drapes against the night. He leaned over the pumpkin and blew out its little candle. Darkness, and a plume of white smoke.
Joseph in the Darkness
WELL, THAT WAS THAT. Now I knew where Mendoza was, if only in a general way. I knew I couldn’t rescue her myself; and Lewis had no chance at all. There were only two immortals I could turn to.
One of them was Suleyman, the North African Section Head. He’s built up a private power base in Morocco, a huge machine, employs mortals and immortals alike as his agents. They do a good job for him, too, because he’s a good man. Believes in all that Honor, Integrity, and Service stuff that was so important to you, Father. I’d trust Suleyman with my life . . . but I didn’t think he would trust me. We go back a ways, he and I, so it would be sort of hard for him to believe I was really only trying to find my daughter. See what happens when you get a reputation for being a slimy little guy?
The other one was you, Father, and I hadn’t seen you in a thousand years. You’d turned rogue, gone underground, and I hadn’t lifted a finger to help you. Never even looked for you, though you gave me a clue. It sat undecrypted in my tertiary consciousness for ten centuries, because I was scared to look at it. It might even be useless by now. I guess you’d tell me it serves me right. But Mendoza, and the operatives she took down in her fall, is paying for my cowardice.
The whole sin thing works just like the Almighty said it does: innocent people get punished for things they didn’t do. Unto the fourth and fifth generation. You make your mistake, and not only do you get screwed forever, the screwing spreads out in circles like ripples from a body dropped into quiet water. A body with a millstone about its neck.
That’s why slash and burn was your way of dealing with the bad guys, wasn’t it? Make examples of them, terrify the others so they’ll never dare to break the laws. Free will? Forget it. Obedience was what you demanded and got. Very Pentateuch.
I wonder . . . did you ever work around Ur of the Chaldees? Ever lay some law on a shepherd named Abram? With Company special effects, maybe?
But theater was never your way. You’d have marched up to the shepherd, grabbed him by the front of his robe, and told him you would be running his life from then on, for his own good. You didn’t beat around the bush.
Times changed, though. The Company had to stop being that direct. I think you understood this, maybe you alone of all the old Enforcers; though it didn’t help you in the end. You realized what was going on when your kind began disappearing, didn’t you? You knew how the Company was solving the problem of operatives it no longer needed.
Did you do what I’m doing now, investigating, searching? But it’s a little harder for me, Father, the Company’s more devious these days, as 2355 draws closer. The Preservers are being given a nice package deal. It’s called gradual retirement.
The argument is that as the future world comes nearer, there’s less work for us, who were created to rescue e
ndangered things from humanity’s folly. Mortals, finally becoming wise and good, don’t need our services as much to preserve their priceless works of art from the ravages of war, to prevent extinctions of rare plants and animals due to overcrowding, overdevelopment. There is very little and soon will be no more war, overcrowding, or development.
Personally I have my doubts about this. Maybe they’ve just run out of stuff for us to save.
But anyway. We’ve all been told the Company will start rewarding us now for our millennia of faithful service. Giving us little treats, vacations, personal lives. This is the way it’ll be all the time after 2355, they say: we can go anywhere we want, do anything we want. Just as though we weren’t slaves.
It’s taken me so many years to be able to say that word.
Slaves? Us? Not when the Company is starting to let us choose our own postings. Not when the Company is permitting us lasting relationships with the mortals with whom we have to work. Not when the Company is relaxing the old rules about personal property, schedules, and Theobromos consumption. We have choices now, at least some of the time. We can live our own lives, except when the Company needs us to do something.
The reason gradual retirement is so gradual, of course, is that all our programming directly opposes the idea of retirement. We have to be eased into a life of leisure. Our work is all we want, all we need, all that has kept us going through centuries of immortal heartbreak. Time on our hands makes us seriously uncomfortable. Look what it did to a Conservationist like poor Mendoza. Drove her crazy . . .
I assume she went crazy when she killed those mortals. A Conservationist killing, that’s unheard of. Guys like you made pyramids of trophy heads, I know, and problem solvers like Porfirio work their silent way through the sewers of the world taking out two-legged vermin. Even Facilitators have been known to do a little quiet unofficial termination now and then.
But Mendoza? I’d never have thought her anger could push her that far. It was a rotten trick the Company played on her, taking her work away, letting her sit there in the middle of desolation with nothing to keep the old memories at bay. No wonder she went with the damned Englishman . . .