All of the Above

by Timothy Scott Bennett

  Linda smiled and wiped her eyes. “Do you know what to do next, Obie?” she asked.

  Obie grinned. “Nope. If I did they’d have made me president.” He laughed softly at the thought.

  “I mean, what the fuck, Obie? Rice is still there. The General’s still in charge. They must own Singer by this point, if they didn’t before. They own my cabinet. They own the fucking military. I can’t just show up at the gate and order people to arrest them. They’ll laugh in my face.”

  “That’s probably right.”

  “And I can’t just go get on TV and talk to the whole world, like I’d thought I could.” Linda’s voice was getting louder and Obie gestured for her to speak more quietly. “Sorry,” she said in a loud whisper. “But, Jesus, Obie! What the hell would I say? Tell the world the aliens are here? Tell them the U.S. government has been taken over by a secret group of psychopaths? Tell them that global-industrial civilization is going the way of the dodo? They’ll put me away, Obie. The House and the Senate will eat me for lunch. Rice has the power to deflect anything I say or do. Anything.”

  Obie sighed. “I guess this is why you earn the big bucks, Linda,” he said. His eyes flashed. “You do have one thing going for you though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “All those things you just said are true.”

  17.6

  The bizarre, tingling sensation that flooded Emily’s body, when she passed through a solid rock wall, made her want to laugh and scream at the same time. She gave a slight yelp as she stepped into what felt like open air, shaking her arms and shoulders as if she were covered with ants. She stopped abruptly. She’d expected the room to be lit. Her brother had already passed through. But the room was completely black. Had she somehow become trapped in the stone? Her heart started pounding. “Iain?” she said, her voice wavering.

  “I’m here.”

  Emily exhaled in relief. “Is there a light?”

  “I can’t find a switch.”

  Alice slid into the room behind Emily. “I apologize,” she said into the darkness. Emily could feel the air stir as Alice passed by her. “I should have turned on the light when I brought Iain through. I assumed he would find it.” The overhead fluorescents flickered on. There was Alice, behind some shelving on the far wall by the door, her hand on the switch. Iain had been looking in the wrong place.

  “That’s okay,” said Emily. “We made it.” She looked around the room. They were in a supply closet. Metal shelves were stacked with cleaning products and office supplies. The shelves also contained cases of snack foods and soft drinks. “Cheese Noogies!” said Emily. She stepped forward and started opening a box.

  “You should not consume such things,” said Alice. “The pharmaceuticals they contain are meant for the sleepers.”

  “Sleepers?” asked Iain, struggling to open a Mylar bag.

  “Sleepers are the humans who are kept in a docile, childlike state, in order to more easily control them. Control is part of the Plan.”

  Emily stepped forward to face the strange, tiny girl. “How many of us humans are sleepers, Alice?” she asked.

  “Almost all of you,” she replied.

  Iain put down his snack. He shivered. The room was cold and they had no extra clothes. “Do you know where we are now?” he asked.

  Alice nodded. “I believe we have two more walls to transverse before the freight elevator.”

  “Good,” said Emily, sitting on a stack of boxes. She was exhausted. And she could see the weariness in Alice’s face as well. Alice had not returned until later in the afternoon. She’d proven unable to escort Iain and Emily through the hundreds of feet of solid rock above them in one movement, even with Jack’s help. They’d been forced to make their way through the facility wall after wall and room after room, with Alice taking them through one at a time. And Alice had left them repeatedly, to return to her normal activities and maintain the illusion that all was in order. Rice was so sick he believed her reports without question.

  It had taken them hours. They got lost twice, as Alice was unsure of the way, and could find no diagrams or blueprints for the maze of tunnels and chambers and laboratories that riddled the ground beneath the National Mall. Each time they got lost they had to backtrack. Once, just as Iain slipped into a bathroom, two soldiers entered through the door. Alice and Jack managed to pull him back without discovery, but the close call had caused them to sit tight until the soldiers departed.

  Halfway through each “transverse,” as Alice called them, halfway through the strange grayness that seemed to go on forever, they’d meet a shadowy figure, Jack, who would reach out and pull them along. Jack was taller than Alice, and older it seemed, but he had the same small stature, the same exotic features, the same strange, black eyes the shape of large almonds. He never said a word.

  Iain looked at his watch, then at his sister. “Jeez, Em. It’s almost eight.” He turned to Alice. “You still think this elevator’s the way to do it?”

  “I am not skilled enough to escort human flesh through that much stone,” answered Alice, nodding to the immensity of rock overhead. “Apparently my own human vibrations distort my ability to shift frequencies. I believe the elevators are our only choice.”

  “And the freight elevator might receive less regular use,” mused Iain with a nod.

  “You don’t think this Rice guy is standing there waiting for us?” asked Emily. She grabbed a packet of peanuts and opened them up. Sleeper or not, she was starving. And surely peanuts are okay? She shoved a handful into her mouth.

  Alice thought about this for a moment. “Mr. Rice has no doubt been alerted to our absence at this point,” she said. “I have not checked in with him for three hours. He will likely have posted extra guards, looking for us only in the physical bands. I do not believe he will try to follow us in the astral.”

  “Great,” said Iain. “So, what? Do we just step out and say ‘boo!’ to the guards?”

  Alice shook her head as she had so often seen humans do. “No. We will have to move diagonally through the rock at that point, to enter the elevator unseen.”

  “And how far is that?” asked Emily. Alice looked so tired.

  “I’m not certain,” said Alice. “I remember using the freight elevator only once, when I was just an infant. It’s about eight feet, I think, depending on the angle we take,” said Alice.

  “And how wide are these walls we’ve been walking through?” asked Iain.

  “About six inches,” said Alice.

  17.7

  Eventually, Linda had just given up and gone to sleep. Leaning her head on Cole’s shoulder, she’d stumbled into a fitful doze filled with sharp dreams and aching joints. Obie had dimmed the cabin lights and stretched out on the floor in the back. The aircraft hurtled southward.

  When Linda awoke the plane was on the ground and Cole and Obie were laughing together on the tarmac. She’d slept through the landing, and somehow Cole had slipped past without waking her. She must have been dead to the world. Linda rose and limped to the open cabin doorway on sore, stiff legs. Obie was sitting on the bottom step. Cole was standing nearby, stomping his feet in the cold night air. They both wore the parkas the Inuit had given them.

  “You boys having a good time?” asked Linda, playfully.

  Cole looked up and smiled. Obie turned and grinned. “Cole here scored us some weed off a polar bear,” said the older brother, laughing at his own joke.

  “Sina said we had to blow this joint!” added Cole. He stepped forward and helped Linda down the steps.

  “We’re refueling, I take it?” she asked.

  “Yep. Got a full tank now. Obie got the windows and I emptied the litterbag. Beck’s gone in to swipe his card and pee in a real toilet.” He gestured to a small shack on the edge of the paved airstrip. She could see their pilot inside, speaking with a very short man in a snowmobile suit.

  “Any problems?”

  Cole gave her a warm smile. “Everything’s fine, sweetie.
We were just talking about the stupid things Dad used to say.” Cole puffed up his chest and walked about with stiff legs. “You kids quit hittin’ each other or I’m gonna knock heads!” he huffed. Both brothers doubled over in laughter. Linda smiled, glad to see the two men connecting.

  The shack door slammed and the pilot approached the plane. “All set?” he asked. The four of them boarded. In just a few minutes they were in the air again.

  Obie reached into the overhead compartment and pulled down a duffel. “I’ve been meaning to give you guys something,” he said as he unzipped the bag. “Wanted to wait until you were both awake.” He pulled out an oddly-shaped object wrapped in soft brown sealskin and handed it to Cole.

  Cole undid the wrapping. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Utterpok’s drumstick,” answered Obie. “The Inuit shaman who died. Payok gave it to me before he and Sina headed back to the camp.” He looked at Linda. “He’d seen Grace pick up Utterpok’s beater in the astral level, after the old man fell. He thought maybe…” he looked nervously to Cole, “you know. When you see Grace again. You could…. He thought she’d like to have the physical beater. Here in this world.”

  Cole smiled sadly. He had no idea how it would turn out for Grace. He handed the stick to Linda and she looked at it carefully. It was a thick length of polished wood with a curved handle of reindeer antler. Eighteen inches long, at least. The handle was carved with a delicate pattern of animal figures. On one side was an oval with a symbol inside. “Jesus,” whispered Linda.

  She pointed out the symbol to Cole and Obie. “Fuck me,” said Cole.

  “What?” said Obie, looking from one to the other. He examined the symbol. It was a circle bisected by an inverted capital L.

  “That’s the symbol Rice drew on Cole’s car,” explained Linda.

  “Is it?” asked Obie.

  “No, it’s not,” said Cole firmly.

  Linda was confused. She looked at Cole, whose expression had gone weirdly slack. “Cole?” she said.

  “It wasn’t Rice,” he said. “Not if Rice is the motherfucker who shot me in Ottawa. He wasn’t the guy who drew on my windshield. And he wasn’t the guy that shot Pooch.”

  “So that’s what you meant,” murmured Linda, recalling. She took Cole’s hand. “I remember. Your last words before Rice shot you. Rice said to me ‘you look different’ and then you said to him ‘so do you.’ I remembered those words. Down in that alien’s cell Rice put me in. I couldn’t figure out what you’d meant.”

  “You’re saying there’s somebody else out there fucking with you guys?” asked Obie, incredulous.

  Cole nodded. “Same build. Tall and skinny. A pretty boy with red hair. But not the same guy that shot me. I’m sure of it.”

  Linda pointed to the symbol on the handle. “You got any idea what this means, Obie? We saw it on the train, too.”

  Obie pulled at his Van Dyke. “Not a clue, guys,” he said.

  The intercom crackled and the pilot’s voice came through the speakers. “Uh, you folks may want to come up here,” he said nervously. “We’ve got company.”

  Obie hurried up the aisle, with Linda and Cole close behind. He opened the cockpit door and one by one they looked through the front windshield.

  Linda laughed. “Don’t worry, Mr. Beck,” she said. “We’ve been through this before. I think it means we’re on the right track.”

  In the sky just ahead was a circle of glowing UFOs.

  17.8

  It was an eleven-block walk from her hotel room to the White House, but Mary couldn’t afford anything closer. As it was she’d had to use most of her cash. She wanted to avoid using her plastic for as long as she could. Techs were no doubt tracking such things as a matter of routine.

  Mary swung south through the Mall, trying to look like a tourist. Difficult to pull off on a Sunday night in October after 10 PM, especially in this economy; the place was dead. Mary pretended that she lived nearby, and that she was merely headed home after the theater. She knew that the silence was deceptive, that this entire area was watched and patrolled at all hours by unseen eyes and ears. She knew some of those eyes and ears would belong to the People. So she kept her collar high and her hat low and tried to look decisive.

  That, too, was difficult, as she still did not know where she was going or what she was supposed to do. She’d thought about just walking through the regular checkpoints, like she’d done hundreds of times, as if she’d never left. She even considered just going straight to Rice, telling him what a mistake she’d made, and asking to be forgiven. She wouldn’t mean it, of course, and therein would lay the problem: Rice would know. And then she’d be in his hands. Better to just watch for now, she thought. Watch and trust. Whoever or whatever it was that had prompted her to return would issue her marching orders soon enough.

  For now, she needed a place to hang out until those orders came. She noticed the National Sylvan Theater coming up on her left. Lots of eyes and ears on that, given last summer’s series of protest rallies, but surely far fewer this time of year, this late at night. And surely far fewer in the trees that surrounded it. What surveillance there was would no doubt be automated. It would take a while for red flags to reach an analyst. She had time. And if she stumbled around a bit and then hid against the wall, wouldn’t they just think her a homeless person? It was her only idea, and she needed to get off the street. Mary acted as destitute as she could and headed for the trees.

  17.9

  “Alice you goddamned fucking little traitor!” screamed Rice as he stumbled down the hallway. “Goddamned motherfucking monster!” He slammed his way into the cafeteria and knocked a pile of trays to the floor. As it was late, there were only a few others in the room. They found something else to look at. “Any of you guys seen Alice?” he bellowed. Some of the diners shook their heads. None of them spoke up. Rice turned and pushed his way back through the doors.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he cried to the ceiling. Alice was gone. And loverboy’s fucking larvae. And when Rice found their snotty little asses he was going to kill them all. He’d just fucking had it. Mary’d bugged out, that bitch. Now Bob was gone. Who knew about Random? Not like you could tell with a fucking mummy! And now Alice? Jesus H. Fucking Christ, he’d given his life for that little morph. This is the thanks he gets?

  Rice marched down the barracks hall and checked Alice’s room again. Nothing out of order. As if she’d just evaporated. The guards hadn’t seen a thing. He’d personally interrogated those fuckers at every checkpoint. No, sir, haven’t seen a thing, sir, nyah nyah nyah. Motherfuckers. Like three little kids can just walk out of the place. The General would have his balls for breakfast.

  He opened the next door down and shook his head in disbelief. She was one clever little shit, he had to give her that. Alice had built a strange, alien cage around her mother’s body. It looked as though a team of robot spiders had woven a coffin-shaped web from bits of wire and foil and flexible conduit, creating some sort of Faraday shield or RF anechoic chamber that surrounded both Bob and her bed. Alice must’ve spent hours, scabbing parts and materials from labs and supply closets all over the facility. The techs had never seen anything like it, but said it was clearly designed to keep Bob’s soul from reconstituting in her body.

  But Alice hadn’t stopped there. Under the bed was what looked to be an explosive device. The design was bizarre, as if the little hybrid had downloaded plans from the Life’s own version of The Anarchist Cookbook. She’d housed the bomb in a clear plastic food container she must have stolen from the cafeteria, and attached it to the cage with what looked like insulated cat 5 cable. Inside was a complicated network of circuit boards, chips, modules and wires. At the heart of it sat what appeared to be a spinning rubix. The whole thing buzzed with warning. Rice sighed. The techs wouldn’t touch it. He’d have to get some ordnance disposal goons down here to disarm that fucker.

  Rice slammed the door and turned back toward his own room. The puking was mos
tly over now but he could feel the headache coming on. It always went this way. Fuck. He never should have gone on the trek. Should’ve just trusted Bob and Random to handle things. Only they hadn’t, had they? And he still didn’t know what had happened.

  Rice opened his own door. The facility was crawling with soldiers now. Army ants, and he’d stirred them up with a stick. They’d find those goddamned kids. It was just a matter of time.

  In the meantime, a couple of oxycodone and a hot shower. He still smelled like fucking puke.

  17.10

  “We did it!” said Emily to Alice, kneeling and extending her hand for a high five.

  Alice reached up and took Emily’s fingers in her tiny hand, as if to steady herself. “Yes,” she said, nodding. It almost appeared as if she had a smile on her face.

  Emily looked around. She could hardly believe it. They’d stepped through one last wall and were met with cold night air. It was just after midnight, and they were behind the stone column of a small white building that sat near the base of the Washington monument.

  Alice sat down on a cement bench at the column’s base and hung her head. She was exhausted. They’d made it through the rock to the elevator, but it had taken three tries, and it had cost her in ways Iain and Emily could not begin to understand. They’d had to transverse two more floors and at least a dozen rooms before they reached the surface. Had it not been for Jack, they’d have been lost forever in the rock.