All of the Above

by Timothy Scott Bennett

  It had all been fine by Mary. Let these guys run the show. Lord knows somebody has to. And she was doing fine. The People took their orders from the highest and most hidden levels of power on the globe, helping to enact the secret Plan that had been devised to guide them all into a great and glorious future, humans and aliens alike. You couldn’t get better work than that.

  But now it was shifting, and enormous cracks had appeared in the foundational assumptions of her life, revealing her own felt sense of things to her conscious mind. The aliens had departed. It had never before occurred to her that such a thing was possible. And without the aliens, without their strange powers and astounding technologies, without their assistance in this grand scheme to help humans solve the greatest challenges they have ever faced, without the Plan and its promise, the People themselves were nothing: a ragtag collection of wounded souls and insane, power-addled egos. If the Plan were to fall into doubt, if the People found themselves suddenly “redundant,” the real money and power would cast them aside as a fail, redesign their goals, and do things the old-fashioned way. War, conquest, and chattel slavery had been around long before media manipulation, economic control, wage slavery, and alien technologies came on the scene. If the game was to rule the Earth, and, in the end, it was, these old tactics would still do fine in a pinch. Sure, climate change and the oil problem would be a mess, but they’d muddle through somehow. They sure as hell wouldn’t need the People for that. If the People could no longer deliver the aliens, and if they could not even keep the President under control, they may as well pack up their show and hit the road.

  Mary sighed and submerged her head again. She didn’t even know why the Life had departed. But it was worse than that: Linda was lost now too. And without Linda, Mary may as well just curl up and die.

  10.2

  Linda reached out and nudged Cole’s shin with her toe. He opened his eyes. “We can’t go to sleep,” she said over the noise. She glanced out the window. There were no strange lights in the night sky. Their extra-terrestrial honor guard had scattered as soon as the helicopter passed through their circle of ships.

  Cole smiled and nodded. They knew, after the fiasco at the border, that they had to assume they were both under constant surveillance. No sleeping without one of Linda’s pills. He looked at his watch: half past midnight. Another thirty minutes to go, if Elly’s estimate was correct. Was it really only this morning that Linda had knocked on his bedroom door? How could that be possible?

  The old Sikorsky hit an updraft and lurched, rattling its contents. Cole surveyed the cabin. Obviously, Elly was a pilot for a medical evacuation service. The tools and equipment of emergency medical transport lined the compartment, everything in its right place. The gurney was clamped solidly to the floor. The drawers and cabinets were well secured. It occurred to Cole that this was likely not an authorized flight, and he thought ahead to their eventual landing. He turned to the pilot. “Elly? How are you going to explain this when you get back?”

  Elly smiled grimly. “That should not be so hard,” he said, his accent less pronounced than was Pooch’s. “I will explain to the dispatcher of Medicopter Quebec that when I heard of my cousin’s accident I go a bit crazy and take off without even filing a flight plan. Since the dispatcher of Medicopter Quebec is my wife, I think she will accept my story, eh?”

  Cole cringed. The mention of Pooch hit him in the gut. The whole thing was just too surreal for words, moving much too quickly for him to keep up. He wondered if he might awaken at any moment, his children arrayed around his bed, and Dennis too, attending him in his delirium. He looked across the cabin at the President and his insides twisted again, a pain of a very different sort: his heart was broken wide open. Snatched from the D.C. world of business suits and sensible shoes and power hair, and made over in Keeley’s hippie-goddess image, Linda Travis caught in his throat, a vision of grace and power and vulnerability so magnetic that he could not turn away. He hoped she wasn’t an hallucination.

  “You okay?” asked Linda.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. President. You?”

  Linda smiled. “I’m okay,” she answered. Her eyes welled up. “I’m really sad.”

  Cole nodded, wishing the jump seats weren’t opposite each other, wishing he could hold her. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

  Elly called back, pointing out the cluster of lights in the darkness ahead, a small city surrounded by farmlands. “Montmagny,” he said. Cole pushed up from his chair to see. Their destination looked larger than Elly had indicated, and the St. Lawrence River, upon which Montmagny was situated, was a vast ribbon of blackness beyond the city lights. Elly continued. “If I land at the hospital, you know, there are too many people there, eh? You should not be seen. So we meet Stephan at the house.”

  Cole relaxed back into his seat. He just had to trust. Apparently, Pooch and Keeley had seen this all coming and made ready for it. There was a plan in place, a plan unfolding, a plan that included helicopters and trains and people named Stephan who would appear in the night and take them another step along the way. It sunk in then that Cole’s life was no longer his own. It was being shaped by forces outside of himself, by forces great and small and far beyond his ken, by motorcycle repairmen and secret agents and aliens from outer space. He was an actor in some grand drama he did not comprehend. This is how it must feel to be President, he thought, letting his gaze fall on Linda as she stared out the window, seemingly lost in thoughts of her own. Feeling his attention, she turned and smiled. He reached out and took her hand. They would both have to trust.

  Cole turned to Elly. “Did Pooch tell you where we are heading, and why?” he asked.

  Elly shrugged. “He didn’t know, eh? He said for me to get you to the train. Dis is the best way.”

  “So who’s Stephan?”

  Elly glanced back for just a moment, long enough to grin. “He’s my son,” he said.

  Linda straightened. “Why are you doing this, Elly?” she asked.

  “Doing what, Mrs. President?”

  “Why are you helping us?”

  Elly took a moment to pilot his craft. The lights of Montmagny were growing near, spreading out to the port side. He was flying in just to the south, descending over an area of dark, partly-cloudy night, flecked with the occasional speck of illumination. The headlights of a lone car crawled along a roadway below. Elly shrugged. “Because Pooch asked me to,” he finally answered. “Over a year ago, it has been. Because he said that one day you would go missing from the White House, and that you would come to his house. He said that the televisions would be telling lies. He said you would need help. He said the sky would be filled with strange lights.”

  Elly pushed the collective lever and the copter descended into the darkness. A patch of pavement rose up underneath: a two-lane road with open fields on either side. The road was dry, the rain having passed to the south. Elly sat them on the ground and throttled down. The noise subsided a bit, allowing him to speak more quietly. He turned to face his passengers. “I help you because Pooch was my friend. And because everyt’ing he said has come true.” He looked at Linda with eyes that almost pleaded. “I am so tired of the lies, you know?”

  The cabin door swung open. Cole and Linda turned to see a young man in jeans and a black leather jacket, with the same curly dark hair as his father’s, though longer. All of seventeen, he stood as tall as Pooch had, but was much thinner.

  “Welcome to Canada, newlyweds!” the young man said, clutching his cap.

  10.3

  Slowing only slightly, Stephan turned left onto a gravel road. The car skidded in the loose stone, jostling Cole and Linda in the back seat. Stephan floored the accelerator, reached down to grab a cigarette, and poked it into his mouth. “You guys okay with me picking up my girlfriend?” he said, with no trace of his father’s accent.

  Cole frowned, though the expression was lost in the darkness of the back seat. “Your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. Roxanne. She sa
id she’d hang out with us if you guys were game.”

  A protective urge welled up in Cole. Linda was exhausted. They were on the run. Pooch had been murdered by a psychotic government agent. “Uh, what do you mean hang out?”

  “Well, your romantic wedding-day helicopter getaway to Canada comes with one little snag,” Stephan smirked. “We got three hours to kill before the train gets here.”

  Cole and Linda looked at each other. Whatever story it was Elly had given his son, they would just have to go along with it. “What time is it now?” asked Linda.

  Stephan tapped on the digital clock on the dash. “One-sixteen, Julie,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder. “It is Julie, right? Julie and Doug?”

  “Yeah,” said Linda with a nod.

  “You’re friends of Pooch’s?”

  Linda recoiled. No doubt Stephan would not hear about his father’s cousin until morning. She took a deep breath. “Yeah. Friends of Pooch’s. From Vermont.”

  Stephan nodded. “So you’re cool with Roxanne?”

  “Sure,” said Linda, grabbing at Cole’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “That’d be fine. Where are we going to hang out?”

  “The Animal Recycler,” Stephan shrugged. “The only place in town that’s open all night. You guys are buying, right?”

  Linda looked on in wonder. How Cole could eat that junk was beyond her. It was disgusting: a huge, drippy blob of fat and steroids and industrial chemicals called the Hereford Deluxe. She shook her head. Cole winked and took another bite. Linda sipped at her tea. She’d eaten a great many awful things in her travels but she would draw the line at factory-farmed fast food. She’d rather just fast.

  “So you guys just got married,” said Roxanne, taking a slug of her strawberry shake. It wasn’t a question, though the singsong quality of her voice made it sound like one. They’d told her all about it in the car. But she was nervous. She pulled absently at the neck of her t-shirt, as if it were cutting off her oxygen.

  Linda smiled and nodded. “Yep,” she said. She was so tired her bones hurt. And these hard plastic benches would not warm up no matter how long they sat on them. She thought ahead a few hours, imagining herself and Cole on the train, maybe catching a few hours of sleep in coach. It was all she could do to keep from screaming.

  Roxanne shoved a wad of fries into her mouth and bobbed her head while she spoke. “So, like, is this your wedding night then?” she asked, not hiding in the least where she was heading.

  Cole cut her off at the pass. “We’ve been living together for a while now,” he said, avoiding Linda’s eye.

  “Oh.” She scanned the dining room for another question, finding one near the trash receptacle. “So where are you guys headed?”

  Cole opened his mouth but no response rolled out. Linda jumped in. “Toronto.”

  “Really?” said Roxanne. “My friend Del grew up there.”

  Linda smiled. “Really? Wow.”

  “Yeah. He lives in Beaumont now. Do you know him?”

  Linda couldn’t help but laugh. “No, Roxanne. I don’t.” The girl’s question comforted her. Here Roxanne was, sitting for hours in a brightly lit restaurant with the U.S. President, and she didn’t have a clue. Keeley’s disguise worked. If Roxanne was any indication, Linda could stroll around the National Mall at this point and go unnoticed.

  As if reading Linda’s mind, Roxanne spoke again. “So we heard about your president,” she said. She shoved more fries into her mouth and spoke around them. “Man, that’s some crazy shit.”

  It was Cole’s turn to jump in. “Yeah, Roxanne, it’s pretty disturbing.” He reached out for Linda’s hand under the table. “It’s a crazy world we live in.”

  Stephan roused from his disinterest and lethargy long enough to comment. “Yeah,” he said. He hadn’t eaten a thing, preferring instead to pop out “for a dart” every ten minutes. Apparently Canadians didn’t smoke in public places either.

  Cole checked his watch. He sighed and looked at Stephan. “What time should we get to the station, boss?” he asked.

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost two.”

  Stephan waved a hand. “You got lots of time, Doug. Don’t sweat it.”

  Cole held his anger in check. He knew he was totally reliant on this young man. “Okay. I won’t. But it would help me to know a time. So I can plan it out in my head.”

  “So you think you should have a plan, eh?”

  “Yep.”

  Stephan pulled another cigarette from his pack. “It’s a flag stop,” he said.

  “Meaning?” Cole took a deep breath.

  “Meaning it doesn’t stop unless they know there’s a passenger to pick up.”

  Cole glanced at Linda for a moment, then back at Stephan. “So do we need to tell them?”

  “Already taken care of,” Stephan said.

  “You called them?”

  “My dad did.”

  Cole pulled out the pamphlet Stephan had handed them earlier. It was a schedule for a train called “The Ocean.” He checked it again. “And the train stops at 4:09?”

  “That’s the plan.” Stephan got up, flicking his cigarette with his lips. “Off for another cig,” he said.

  “Do they run on time?” Cole asked as Stephan walked toward the door.

  The young man stopped, rumpling his eyebrows as if questioning a doubting child. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” he said. He laughed derisively and pushed his way outside.

  Roxanne smiled, looking from Cole to Linda and back again. “He’s just mad because he thinks his papa didn’t pay him enough.”

  It was just after three in the morning when Stephan dropped them off at the Montmagny station. He and Roxanne were headed back to her house “to skronk,” he said before driving away. Cole could guess the meaning and was glad that the young man’s gonads had taken over. One more story from Roxanne about her and her friends and the great times they had would have sent him over the edge.

  Alone in the night, Cole guided Linda from the parking lot and up the walk, his hand on her elbow. Pooch’s old duffel bag was slung over his shoulder. A solitary flickering floodlight lit the walkway. They reached the station, a huge two-storied affair that reminded Cole of an ornate barn, and passed through a rusty chain-link gate. They stepped out onto the platform and Cole pulled on the station’s front door. As he’d anticipated, it did not open. A sign taped to the glass said in both English and French that the building was no longer offering service to passengers. The light fixture on the building itself, a small yellow bulb under the overhang on the far corner, left most of the waiting area in darkness. That was fine with him. He didn’t much care to be observed right now.

  There was no bench so Cole took off his jacket, threw the duffle against the wall, and sat on the paved platform, motioning for Linda to join him. She cuddled up beside him and he pulled his jacket over them both, tucking it around their knees and necks as tight as he could to keep out the cold. Thankfully, the duffle blocked the cold air from behind. An October night in Canada could easily bottom out near freezing. He was glad they only had an hour to wait.

  “They’re young,” Linda whispered into his neck. She sighed deeply.

  “Yeah, they are,” he agreed.

  Linda pulled back enough to see him, looked Cole in the eyes for most of a minute, studying him, drinking him in. It was all so fucking strange. She could not deny his quirkiness: his goofy stance, his facial tics, the way his head tilted and gimballed when he spoke. He wasn’t her type at all. But there was a fire inside him as well, a flame that blazed with sure and undeniable power. She felt like the Universe itself had sent him to her, a gift of aid and companionship in an uncertain time. Cole flicked his eyebrows playfully as she stared, as though reading her thoughts. He seemed to know and even like the fact that he was a bit odd, and that was powerfully attractive to her. Linda’s heart missed a beat and then picked it up. She settled back in beside him.

  Cole stared out over the landscape.
The moon had risen, to cast its wraithlike radiance on the tracks. The sky was mostly clear here, faint wisps of high cloud drifting along, in no hurry whatsoever. The air at ground level was still. Cole watched the horizon, feeling like a rabbit in an open glade. Could they make it to safety before the hawks struck again? There was no way to know. For now, only this: the empty platform, the cover of overhang and darkness, and the tracks glinting off to infinity in both directions, promising them another day, and another journey. It would suffice.

  “Any chance we’re gonna fall asleep?” Linda murmured the question into Cole’s chest.

  “Nope.”

  “How do you know?”

  Cole smiled. “Because I’m going to sing to you.”

  Linda pulled her head from the warmth of his neck to look him in the eye again. “You’re gonna sing to me?”

  “It’s how I always stay awake. On long drives at night.”

  “Hmm,” smiled Linda. “What are you going to sing?”

  Cole chuckled softly. “You’re going to laugh.”

  “It’s going to be hard to keep it a secret if you plan to sing it to me.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “C’mon, mister,” she said, punching him playfully in the side. “I could use a laugh right now.”

  Cole blushed in the dim light. “When I was a kid, I really loved Bowie. I memorized every word of the Ziggy Stardust album.”

  “And that’s what you’re going to sing?”

  “Yep.”

  Linda kissed him quickly, blushingly, and settled back in, burying her face in his neck. Cole cleared his throat and started to sing. Softly, because he did not want them to be discovered. And yet with the full intensity and wild abandon of hope and joy and love that coursed unexpectedly through his veins. He sang until the train arrived.

  And it really was paradise.