After Hours: Tales From Ur-Bar

by Joshua Palmatier; Patricia Bray

  Sybil stood in the doorway. She’d come straight from work and still wore her frumpy Wren uniform. It wasn’t flattering. She scanned the room while unwrapping her muffler. Her horsey face cracked into a wide, desperate smile when she glimpsed Reg. He sighed.

  She crossed the pub and flung herself on him. Her kiss clicked their teeth together. Reg’s ribs creaked under the ferocity of her embrace. The shop girls saw everything.

  “Hi, Syb,” he managed.

  “Oh, Reggie,” she said, still clinging to him. “I went down to the 246 and they said you were here. They told me what happened today. Thank God you weren’t hurt. I don’t know what I’d do.”

  She kissed him again. Then Sybil finally withdrew her claws and relinquished a generous half inch of personal space. But the damage was already done. The shop girls moved their chairs to put their backs to Reg.

  Reg groaned inwardly. The ginger girl had freckles. He loved freckles.

  While Gil poured a drink for Sybil, she slipped her arm around Reg’s elbow, deftly as a trout fisherman setting the hook. “My Reggie is a true hero. Did you know that?”

  “Is that so?” Gil’s stare bored through him for the second time that afternoon. Reg couldn’t decipher the strange look on his face. “Haven’t met many of those.”

  “He’s got more courage than anybody,” said Sybil.

  An uncomfortable moment passed among the three of them. Reg couldn’t bear to look at Gil. He couldn’t stand to make eye contact with Sybil, and though he couldn’t understand why, he also felt compelled to avoid his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Conversation ebbed and flowed around them. Nobody noticed the trio standing in their awkward little tide pool. Even Sybil seemed oblivious to it.

  Reg was ready to turn on his heels and leave, and Sybil be damned, when Gil broke the painful silence. “In that case,” he said in that tooth-rattling rumble of a voice, “he deserves a drink on the house.”

  “I think that’s wonderful,” said Sybil. She squeezed Reg’s arm, grinned at him. He flinched away.

  Gil fished a key ring from a pocket in his apron. He knelt behind the bar. A lock clunked open. Gil stood again, one hand wrapped around the neck of an earthenware bottle, the other cupping a shot glass. The bottle had no label. A thick layer of dust turned the bright terra cotta a dull gray.

  What kind of spirits would a man keep in a clay bottle? Reg couldn’t guess. But this was clearly special, wasn’t it, and he damn well deserved special recognition.

  Gil wrenched out the cork. Reg caught another whiff of the phantom river, distant and clean. He expected something dark, like red wine or even a port, but Gil dispensed a finger of clear liquid. The shot glass warmed Reg’s fingertips. He took another sniff, but smelled nothing.

  He nodded at Gil. Reg touched the warm glass to his lips and tossed the drink back in one go. It tasted like time, the ticking and tocking of millennia, and it burned like frostbite all the way down.

  Gil’s mystery drink was a damn sight stronger than it looked. It turned Reg outside-in, twisted things about, made it feel as though he were standing outside his own head, looking in. Like déjà vu without the pleasant bits.

  Reg sat heavily on a bar stool. Sybil frowned. From somewhere far away she said, “Reggie?”

  But he couldn’t speak. Words carried too much weight. Every utterance he might have made became a cog in some vast machine, or one piece of an immense puzzle. Each choice of wording carried effects that rippled out like waves on a pond. It was as though the Sight had gone crazy, triggered by the slightest thought.

  The banshee wail of air-raid sirens saved him from trying to answer. Reg never imagined he’d feel so grateful to the Luftwaffe.

  The other patrons abandoned their drinks and their darts. They knew what to do; they’d endured dozens of raids since the Blitz had begun. Gil ushered everybody down a narrow flight of stairs to a cellar. Reg and Sybil went last. She had to help him down; he was too dizzy to walk on his own. The stairs shook underfoot in time to the crump-crump-crump of a nearby antiaircraft battery.

  They huddled in the cold and damp, alongside barrels of beer and shelves piled with sacks of onions, bunches of carrots, and tins of meat. A cast iron wood stove from the previous century huddled in the center of the cellar; wood had been stacked neatly along one wall. Which explained why the hearth up top had been empty.

  The thunder of a distant explosion rattled the shelves. A coal scuttle in the corner gave off a faint latrine stink; it wasn’t unusual to use such as makeshift privies during long raids. Reg glimpsed the corner of a clay tablet peeking from beneath a burlap potato sack. The tablet shared the same color and texture as Gil’s bottle.

  It almost made sense.... Everything Reg saw, smelled, felt, heard, and tasted was just one piece of the vast, ticking machine called London.

  Gil built a fire. A handful of patrons sat in a semicircle around the stove, soaking up its heat. Reg kept to the corner, and the chill.

  Sybil shivered. He pulled a blanket from a shelf. The scratchy wool smelled of mildew and onions.

  She whispered, “Reggie?”

  “What, Syb?”

  “I need to tell you something,” she said.

  —Sybil in her grandmother’s wedding dress. A church. Peter as best man—

  Another explosion shook the earth and knocked him from his reverie. A tin of meat crashed to the floor and rolled toward the ginger shop girl.

  Reg sighed. “Can’t it wait, Syb?”

  —Put it off, the dress doesn’t fit—

  “I suppose.” Her voice cracked.

  The bombing got worse as the night dragged on. Reg wondered if there would be anything left of the pub by morning. Or 246 HQ, for that matter.

  —Reg commands his own group of sappers. . . . He doesn’t mention the Sight.... Men die, trying to emulate him. . . . Sybil comes around, pushing a stroller—

  Reg flinched.

  Sybil snored with her head on his shoulder. He wanted to shrug her off, but the thought triggered the Sight again: Sybil wakes. . . . Can’t avoid it.... Long talk. . . . Wedding dress. . . . A baby cries. . . .

  He waited until the all-clear before waking Sybil. She peered up at him. Relief softened the weariness in her eyes. The skin beneath her eyes was dark and puffy, which made her look twice her age. She kissed him on the cheek with too-cool lips. He realized she’d chosen to sit beside him in the cold, damp corner all night long, rather than join the others by the stove.

  Guilt? What the hell was wrong with him?

  —Sybil wears him down until he relents ... .A baby traps them into a long miserable marriage—

  No. Reg wouldn’t get trapped. Why should he? His father had been gone for months at a time, but Reg still turned out perfectly well.

  Sybil asked, “Time?”

  “Early morning,” Reg said.

  She shifted. Stretched. Nudged something with her foot. An onion rolled away. Scattered tins and vegetables littered the floor. Sybil shuddered at the sight of the toppled shelves.

  Reg stood. “I’ll take you home.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  They went upstairs, to where the day had dawned under a leaden-gray sky. They found Gil sweeping up broken glass. A bomb—big one, by the look of it—had ripped through the chemist’s across the road. The impact had broken Gil’s windows and knocked pint glasses from the bar. But the bomb must have been a rum fish. Otherwise, they’d still be waiting for rescue men to dig them out of the pub cellar.

  Captain Hollister studied the crater. Doyle strode into the wreckage with a ladder over his shoulder while Peter unfurled a coil of garden hose. They hadn’t come to collect him; that meant the captain was honoring Reg’s promotion. Reg wondered who Holly would send down.

  He felt Gil’s stare piercing the back of his skull. “Come on,” he said, and tugged at Sybil’s hand. They picked a path through the rubble.

  Peter saw them. He’d lost a bit of color. “Hi, Syb.” He nod
ded toward the cratered chemist’s shop, and spoke a bit too quickly. Must have been his turn to go down hole. “I guess your promotion came through just in time, Reg.”

  Sybil squeezed Reg’s hand. A flash of relief broke through the fear and weariness on her face. “That’s brilliant! Why didn’t you tell me? I’m so proud of you.”

  Holly retreated from the crater with Doyle in tow. Doyle asked, “A Piaf? Is that good?”

  Peter flinched as though he’d been stricken. He glared at Reg while he answered. The disapproval in his eyes reminded Reg of Gil. “No. It’s not good.”

  The Piaf, named after Édith, was one of the Luftwaffe’s worst. Every living sapper knew its reputation. Some speculated that it had multiple independent detonator mechanisms. But nobody knew for certain, because nobody had successfully—

  —Three bolts, pry open the hatch, cut one wire, then two more bolts. Then take a horseshoe magnet. . . .

  Reg could see the bomb laid open at his feet. It was so obvious.

  Preposterous. He’d never even seen a Piaf, much less laid his hands on one. His gift didn’t work that way.

  —Solve the Piaf. Become a legend among the sappers. Get trapped with Sybil and a screaming baby—

  Yet another scenario with that damnable baby.

  Reg reeled while his newly expanded Sight shuffled the pieces of his life into new sequences of events. New inevitabilities.

  Sybil hugged the blanket around herself. “Let’s go, Reggie. I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday and I’ll faint if I don’t eat before I’m due back at work.”

  She still wore her Wren uniform. She’d stayed at his side all night. She loved him. He would never love her.

  —Drive Sybil away. Solve the Piaf, become a hero. Live to hear about poor, tragic Sybil from time to time.... Years after the war, a boy starts coming around. . . .

  There he was again. Sybil’s boy.

  Oh, bugger. No wonder she was so desperate to have a talk. She was carrying his son.

  The realization became a stray spark that ignited a flare of rage. How could she have been so careless? How could he have been so careless?

  —Leave now, right now, leave Sybil behind.... Others find out about the baby, about Sybil struggling to make ends meet. . . . They won’t leave him alone. . . . His place in sapper lore is ruined....

  No. He worked a bloody miracle at Guy’s Hospital. He deserved recognition for it. But Sybil’s efforts to raise the baby on her own were rubbish. Why did she have to be so useless? The boy deserved better.

  —Stay with Sybil. A long marriage, filled with resentment, hard words. . . . Hard fists. . . . It’s really the boy’s fault. . . .

  Reg flinched again, feeling ill. No. He would never become that man. He’d made that vow years ago.

  —Let Peter struggle with the Piaf. His children grow up without a father. . . . But his widow gets a pension, and it keeps them afloat while Sybil has nothing. . . .

  The thing growing in Sybil’s womb was a cancer. It killed every version of the happy life Reg sought for himself. If he left her, his reputation would be destroyed. No matter how he tried to move on, to build a new life, the boy always came around to crater it. The sappers would never speak with hushed reverence about the miracles Reggie Brooks had performed; only the son he’d abandoned. But staying with Sybil meant years of misery. Meant becoming something worse than an absent father.

  Every single path led to a life he hated. He couldn’t escape it. But there was a solution. Reg could feel it.

  —Give the other sappers just enough, and they’ll know what to do with the next Piaf. Lead by example. Trial and error. Sybil can’t raise the boy, sticks him in an orphanage. She never recovers. Two lives ruined....

  Almost. But not quite. Unless:

  Widow’s pension. Just enough to make ends meet....

  Yes. That one worked.

  He put his arms around Sybil. He held her tight, kissed her cold lips.

  “I love you, Syb.” He didn’t, but it was the right thing to say. Tears traced rivulets of joy down her cheeks. He kissed the salt away. “I’m making plans for the future,” he said, and it was true.

  Reg couldn’t marry her. There wasn’t time, not while a Piaf lurked nearby. But he could propose.

  And Holly really would owe him, if he went down hole one last time. Reg would extract a bloody great promise in return. He’d have Peter and Gil witness it. Reg had a feeling nobody broke his word to Gil.

  Captain Hollister and the other sappers could jigger things so that Sybil got her widow’s pension.

  Sybil and the boy have stability. He grows up hearing stories about his father, a legend among the sappers. Reg isn’t twisted by decades of resentment. With one act he becomes a better father than he’d ever had. And he goes out on top.

  Eight weeks and four days was a damn good run. Almost legendary.

  FORBIDDEN

  Avery Shade

  IT’S time to admit it. I’m an addict.

  My gaze drifts around the packed bar, sucking in the riot of sensory experiences like a newly processed youngling at the nutritional dispenser. Three nights running I’ve been drawn to this place. The first night had been pure chaos. For someone used to silence and order, assimilating all that went on within the confines of these four paneled walls had been a challenge. The overpowering din of a dozen or more conversations coupled with a television program about a bar with some sort of happy name—Cheery or something—had immediately set my ears to ringing. Conversely, each clatter of glass and clinking of ice cubes had made me all but jump out of my skin.

  I’d almost bolted, would have if I hadn’t become so mesmerized by the competent way the man behind the bar was shaking the frothy drink—amaretto sour, he’d said, then asked if I’d wanted one. Um, no. Better not. Soda for me.

  So much to take in. So much to experience. This time is full of firsts for me. Three nights ago it was my first soda. Yesterday my first hair-raising cab ride—delivered by a Ukrainian immigrant who’d driven me to the Bronx Zoo. And earlier this evening I’d attended my first concert.

  I close my eyes, remembering the throbbing beat of the drums, the playful trill of the flute, the eerie straining of the violin.

  I shouldn’t have gone. I am a geneticist, sent back to collect and analyze the genomes of a variety of species that are extinct from when I come from. Things like the Polar Bears, Gray Bats, and Muscle Men. Turns out the world needs them after all.

  An elbow bumps me. I instinctively glance up to see who has entered my personal space at the same time that I get another one of those giddy thrills. My personal space has been compromised. Another first.

  “Sorry,” the man says, flashing me a blinding white smile. It is 1987 my research says that in-store remedies aren’t available yet so he’s either genetically lucky or has paid a lot of credits for that smile. Probably the latter. I’m finding that this decade is full of pomp and flash.

  “That’s all right I....” I drift off. My gaze has moved beyond the bleached teeth and given me a real eyeful of the invader. There it is: temptation personified. At least six-two, blond-haired and blue-eyed, he wears a suit like the cover model of that magazine I picked up from the street vendor. All charming smiles and persuasive reasoning; another part of the great American popularity contest.

  It’s men like this who brought our civilization low. Them and the media, that is. The hand feeding the mouth. The slick men in their slick suits slid their way onto the big screen, dictating policy through looks and popularity. We call it the media wars. Their height marked by a stagnated government and polarized parties that spent more time landing prime-time commercial spots than on policy making. With the gridlock on Capitol Hill, nobody could get anything done. Media stopped being a source of news but a propaganda machine for lobbyists-R-us. It didn’t matter how smart you were, or how experienced, it was who you were, how you looked. A politician could spout out garbage and if their face was pretty enough, their
name popular enough, it was taken as gospel.

  My gaze drifts upward, settling over his shoulder on the television with its muted blond-haired, big-breasted anchor woman and the ticker drifting across the bottom of the screen.

  Point made.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” Mr. Popularity asks, leaning against the bar beside me. I drag my eyes back to his face and that killer smile that seems even more potent now that he is close and I can smell his cologne. He’s also close enough that I can tell there is substance under that suit. Probably pumps iron during lunch so he can show off his physique later. I decide his tactics are effective—in a visceral kind of way—yet I find it decidedly unnerving, too. Men don’t look like him where I come from. Not that they are ugly; far from it. It’s just that in my time everyone is perfectly normal, perfectly average. All perfectly the same.

  “I’m all set, thanks.” I lift my soda, hands clammy on the cold glass. Appreciating his smile is one thing, but the thought of actually engaging in a conversation leaves my heart skittering somewhere north of nervous.

  He sighs. “Too bad. But if you change your mind. ...” He taps the bar in front of me, then moves back across the room to where his buddies are waiting.

  I stare down at the little rectangular piece of paper he’s left. Gerard and Bon Associates. Below the elegant script is another name, then a series of numbers. A business card: my brain downloads this information from my implant. That’s all it supplies, not what the numbers mean or who Gerard and Bon might be. If I were back home in my time, all that would have been available with a quick uplink. But they don’t have personal implants in this era. They have to rely on clunky desk-top computers, faxes, and paper for the exchange of information.

  A phone number. That’s what the numbers are. So you can “call” and talk to someone—if they are home.

  I lift the card up from the bar, reverently running my finger over the raised script. Fascinating. It is as I am studying the numbers, trying to figure out whether I like or dislike this sense of being . . . disconnected, that my scalp begins to tingle, as if I’m being watched—or someone is trying to tap into my implant. Alarmed, I raise my head. Meet up with the gaze of the barkeeper. He is meticulously drying a glass with his calloused hands as he stares at me.