The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  Now he stood in front of the closet, fishing in his pocket for the key to the padlock. Paco leaned against the wall, his eyes closed, falling asleep on his feet. “Hurry up,” he muttered. “I’m tired as shit.”

  “Just another second.” Emilio found the key and slipped it into the lock. “You might be surprised when you see this. It’s … well, it’s a little weird, you know?”

  “What do you got in there?” Paco lifted one eyelid. Even though they were alone, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “More shit you’ve stolen?”

  “No, not that.” Emilio opened the door but didn’t turn on the light in the closet. He hauled the duffel bag inside, then gripped Paco’s arm. “I’ve been keeping this a secret, but I want you to see it.”

  As soon as Paco stepped into the closet, Emilio turned on the light and shut the door behind them. Paco’s eyes widened as he looked around. The closet’s floor and three of its walls were covered with sheets of black metal. The surfaces were flawless, not a scratch or a smudge on them, and they were polished to such a high shine that they looked like dark mirrors. Emilio saw reflections of himself and Paco on all three walls, their faces shining under the light from the naked bulb on the ceiling. Although this wasn’t the first time Emilio had stood in front of these mirrors, he was struck once again by their beauty and strangeness. He couldn’t help but gape at the reflections, which somehow seemed more real than the solid things they mirrored.

  Paco seemed impressed too. He turned his head from one wall to the next, taking it all in. Then he turned to Emilio and smiled. “This is crazy. Did you put up these mirrors?” He pointed at the gleaming metal. “What were you trying to do, build a disco down here? A really small disco?”

  He laughed, but he wasn’t making fun of Emilio. There was no nastiness in his voice. Paco seemed genuinely amused and curious. Emilio smiled back at him. “I told you it was weird.”

  “So what do you use this place for?” Paco bent his knees and twisted his hips, watching himself in the mirror as he did a couple of merengue steps. “Do you come down here to practice your dance moves?”

  Now Emilio laughed with him. The two of them were so tired they were acting a little delirious. But in that moment Emilio saw something in Paco that he hadn’t seen before, probably because the boy kept it well hidden. Now he realized why Paco had stared so intently at the Fast & Furious poster on the subway platform a few hours before. The boy had no interest in sports cars. He was interested in Vin Diesel, the bare-chested actor in the picture.

  It was time to act. Emilio stepped closer to Paco, so close he could feel the boy’s breath on his face. They stared at each other in silence for several seconds. Then Emilio winked at him. “We can do anything we want down here. That’s what this place is for.”

  For a moment Emilio thought the boy was going to hit him. Paco’s body tensed, just like it did in the museum when Emilio called him a pussy. But then the boy shivered and leaned forward and pressed his lips against Emilio’s. They wrapped their arms around each other and opened their mouths. Emilio felt Paco’s tongue slide over his own.

  Then Emilio felt a horrible pain at the tip of his tongue. At first he thought Paco had bit it, but the boy was in pain too and screaming into Emilio’s mouth. Their tongues were stuck together as if a bolt had been driven through them. Something tiny and metallic had carved a path through Emilio’s soft tissue and emerged from the tip of his tongue so it could penetrate Paco’s. It pierced the underside of the boy’s tongue and started boring deeper.

  After a second their tongues unlocked and the boys separated, but the horrible pain continued. Emilio fell against the side of the mirrored closet and Paco crumpled to the floor. In the midst of his agony Emilio looked at one of the gleaming walls and saw himself doubled over, his hands clasped over his burning mouth. Paco was doing the same thing, his brother in pain. It was a terrifying sight, but strangely enough it calmed Emilio. He saw the logic behind the pain, and that made it easier to bear. He stopped writhing.

  This is how we’ll build our army, he thought. Now Paco will be as strong and smart as I am. And we can work together to recruit more soldiers.

  A moment later a pair of gleaming wires rose from the metallic floor. It was like one of those cartoons where a snake charmer plays a gourd flute and a cobra rises from a basket. As Emilio watched in amazement, the wires tore into the duffel bag like a couple of black snakes, ripping it open. Then they coiled around the crystalline section and pulled it out of the bag. The black wires began to cut the crystal in the same way that Emilio’s tool had cut it, slicing off a rodlike piece that was nearly two feet long. One end of the piece was shaped like a disk—about as wide and thin as a silver dollar—and the other end tapered to a sharp point. It looked like a crystalline sword.

  And that will be our weapon, Emilio thought. We’ll use it to drive all the bastard cops out of Manhattan.

  As if responding to his thoughts, the wires carried the piece of crystal toward Emilio, with its sharp end pointing at him. At the same time, a third wire coiled around his right arm and pinned it to the floor.

  This surprised Emilio. He tried to wrench his arm free, but the wire held it down tight. “Coño! What’s going on? What—”

  The wires brought the crystalline rod closer, aiming it at his right hand. Then the sharp end pierced the skin of his palm and plunged deeper.

  Emilio screamed.

  FOURTEEN

  Dorothy rested on a wooden chaise lounge in the garden behind her apartment. It wasn’t much of a garden, really. The apartment buildings on her block surrounded a dingy courtyard that was divided by high fences into a dozen modest plots, one for each of the ground-floor apartments. Dorothy’s garden was a ten-foot-by-twenty-foot rectangle that lay outside the sliding glass door of her living room. Most of it was covered with patio brick, and the few square yards of soil were crowded with weeds. Nevertheless, this was where she’d decided to spend her final hours.

  It was 11:00 A.M. but the garden still lay in the shade. The surrounding apartment buildings blocked the sun for almost the whole day. From the chaise lounge Dorothy could see only a small patch of sky overhead, a square of hazy blue. She looked up and saw a couple of pigeons fly across the square. A few minutes later she spotted a distant airliner.

  She wore nothing but her bathrobe, an old white cotton thing. Any of her neighbors on the upper floors could see her on the chaise lounge if they happened to look out their back windows, but Dorothy was in too much pain to worry about that. The constant ache in her stomach had spread to her back. She felt like she was lying on a fist-sized rock that someone had left on the chaise. She rolled onto her left side, which lessened the pain in her back, and stared at the weeds that had taken over her garden. After a while, though, she felt the rock again, now cutting into the flesh at her waist.

  Over the past twenty-four hours her cancer had taken a vicious turn for the worse. As soon as she’d returned from her brief visit to the hospital she’d collapsed on her living-room couch and spent the rest of the day in a feverish half-sleep, sweating and groaning. She’d drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes dreaming absurd dreams, sometimes rising from the couch and stumbling around the apartment. At one point she went to her bedroom and unpacked her shoulder bag, but she was in such a daze that afterwards she couldn’t remember what she’d done or where she’d put everything. And then, sometime in the middle of the night, her living room seemed to get unbearably hot, so she opened the sliding glass door and staggered outside to the chaise lounge.

  She lay there until dawn. The hours passed like ghosts, but as the morning came and the patch of sky brightened above her, Dorothy’s mind began to clear. It occurred to her that she might be dying. The more she considered the possibility, the more likely it seemed. In addition to the terrible pains in her abdomen, she was finding it difficult to breathe. But she wasn’t alarmed and she certainly wasn’t going to call 911. There was no point in going back to the hospital. Althoug
h her doctors had nothing but good intentions, they would only make things harder for her. Better to make her peace with the Lord now than to endure weeks of suffering. She was a little puzzled as to why her cancer had worsened so suddenly, but in the end it didn’t matter. She’d prayed for a cure, and the Lord had given her this instead. She would try to accept His will with humility and grace.

  But it was hard to be humble and graceful when it felt like someone was knifing you in the belly. With a grunt, Dorothy rolled onto her other side and waited for the pain to shift again. Now she faced the sliding glass door, which was filthy because she hadn’t washed it in months. She felt a twinge of shame and thought of her mother, who’d spent forty years working as a maid for the white folks in Montgomery, Alabama. If her mother were alive to see this, she’d sigh and shake her head. Then she’d find a rag somewhere in the apartment and clean it herself.

  Dorothy grimaced. This wasn’t what she wanted to think about during her last hours on Earth. She should be thinking of more positive, uplifting things. Like the five glorious years she spent in Africa, doing missionary work and learning how to tell Bible stories in Swahili. Or the civil-rights work she did for the Union of Black Episcopalians, or the wonderful friends she’d made at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. But instead she stared through the filthy glass at the furniture in her living room and remembered the day she moved into the apartment. That was in August 1994, almost twenty-two years ago, soon after she became Holy Trinity’s vicar. The apartment was just a few blocks from the church, which was a good thing because she intended to work long hours. She was an energetic, idealistic thirty-seven-year-old then, full of devotion to God and eagerness to do His will.

  She was also someone’s mistress. She was breaking the seventh commandment.

  Dear Jesus, why am I thinking about that now? That’s the last thing I want to think about.

  Her lover’s name was Martin Bell. He was a sweet, funny, intelligent man, a high-school math teacher who lived in Harlem. She met him on the subway on her very first day in New York, when she came to the city to interview for the position at Holy Trinity. Three months later she discovered that he was married, and that he had two young daughters no less. At that point she should’ve ended their relationship, but she didn’t. She continued to see him for the next ten years.

  And why didn’t I stop it? Because I was already in love with him? Because I was lonely and didn’t think I’d find anyone else? Because I was tired of being good?

  No one at Holy Trinity suspected it, because she and Martin were careful. They never went out to dinner in the neighborhood. He visited her apartment two or three times a week, sometimes staying only a couple of hours. Despite the limitations, it was a loving, passionate relationship. Martin was her soul mate. He just happened to belong to someone else.

  I would’ve stayed with him to this day if not for the guilt. I never saw his wife, not even a picture of her. But he showed me photos of his daughters. Pictures of them in kindergarten and summer camp. Getting bigger every year.

  After ten years of sin she finally ended the affair and came back to the Lord. She begged his forgiveness and he granted it. But now she realized that the person she’d hurt the most wasn’t Martin’s wife or his daughters or even the Almighty. She’d betrayed herself. If she hadn’t taken up with Martin she could’ve found a different soul mate, someone equally charming and intelligent but not already married. She could’ve had children with him, sons and daughters of her own. And he would be at her side right now, holding her hand, comforting her during her last hours.

  Dorothy was crying. No tears leaked from her eyes because she was so dehydrated, but her body shook with sobs.

  Lord, you gave me the gift of life, and I ruined it. There were so many opportunities I missed, so many joys I never got the chance to feel. Yes, I did some good work in your church, but it wasn’t enough. I should’ve done more. Oh Jesus, why did I waste your gift?

  Her sadness intensified the agony in her stomach. The pain spread to her chest, rolling onto it like a boulder. It shoved the air out of her lungs and crushed her heart. But as she struggled for breath she heard an answer to her question.

  Don’t despair, my child. It’s not too late.

  She recognized his voice. It was the same voice she’d heard in the laboratory at the hospital, the soft, kind voice that had murmured in her head while she stared at the lovely researcher named Naomi. But now the Lord didn’t speak to her in pictures and emotions, as he had before; now he spoke in clear, unmistakable words. Her heart thudded and the air rushed back into her lungs.

  Oh yes! I hear you, Lord! I hear you!

  You’ve been a faithful servant for many years, Dorothy. Your reward is waiting for you in Heaven.

  Thank you, Jesus! Oh, thank you, thank you!

  I am well pleased with you already, but I have heard your prayer. You still long to serve me, even to the last breath. And now you can perform one final task for me, if you wish it.

  Yes, yes, I do wish it! But how can I serve you, Lord? I’m dying.

  You can complete what you began yesterday at the hospital. Do you remember?

  Dorothy nodded. She remembered the stack of cell culture plates, the plastic trays loaded with stem cell colonies. She’d removed them from the incubator in Naomi’s laboratory and stuffed them into her shoulder bag. She vaguely recalled unpacking the bag in her bedroom, but nothing after that.

  Lord, I was weak! I didn’t understand what you wanted from me. And then I got so sick—

  All shall be well, child, all shall be well. You need only rise and make your way into your house. Go to your room, your bed. You shall die, but then you shall be resurrected.

  A surge of holy fervor made her tremble. It was all true, all the promises made by Jesus and his apostles, all the prophecies in the Old and New Testaments. With shaking hands she grasped the wooden arms of the chaise lounge and pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her body felt as light as air.

  Yes, Lord, I’m coming! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

  She swung her feet off the chaise and planted them on the brick surface of her patio. Then she took a deep breath and stood up. Her head swam for a moment—the garden spun around her, the square patch of sky twirled overhead—but she managed to stay on her feet. She took a careful step forward and then another, walking as if on a tightrope. After the fourth step she reached the sliding glass door and grabbed its handle. She pulled at it but the door wouldn’t budge. She was so weak now, weaker than an infant. But then she felt the Lord’s voice in her mind again, urging her on. She gave the handle a stronger tug and the door slid open.

  Hot air wafted out the door and billowed against her. Her living room had been very warm last night, but now it was broiling. The heat stung her face as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. There was a strange smell in the room too, fetid and salty like the beach at low tide. Dorothy breathed in the hot, foul air and coughed it out. Her head swam again and she almost fainted. But her bedroom was only a few yards away and the Almighty was behind her, giving her the strength to go on. She stumbled to the bedroom door and grasped the knob, which was so hot it burned her palm. But she opened the door anyway and peered inside.

  The room was dark and empty. Her bed, bureau, and night table were gone. At first glance she thought a burglar must’ve broken in during the night and carted away the furniture, but then she noticed another big change: the walls were covered with shiny black metal from floor to ceiling. The metallic sheets even covered the bedroom window and the door to her closet.

  Lord? What happened here? Where’s my—

  Don’t be frightened. Step into the room and close the door.

  The bedroom was even hotter than the living room, but Dorothy obeyed. She closed the door and stood there in the dark, waiting. The only light in the room came from around the edges of the door she’d just closed. After a moment, though, she glimpsed a faint glowing line at the other end of the room, where the far w
all touched the ceiling. The line slowly advanced across the ceiling, like the greenish bar of light that scans documents in a copying machine. It made a faint oozing noise as it moved overhead. Then Dorothy heard the same noise behind her. She turned around and saw another glowing greenish line move sideways across the wall. These lines, she realized, were the edges of the metallic sheets, which were expanding to cover the ceiling and the bedroom door. Within seconds the shiny black metal sealed off the room.

  Now I will give you a new bed.

  She saw yet another glowing line slide across the floor, pulling the metallic sheet behind it like a carpet. But when this line reached the center of the room it changed color, turning a vivid shade of red. As the line continued to advance it spread a different kind of sheet across the floor, a thick mat of red spongy material that looked softer than the shiny black metal around it. The line kept moving across the floor until the mat was about three feet wide. Then it stopped a few inches from Dorothy’s feet. This red mat, she realized, was the bed the Lord had prepared for her. It was her deathbed.

  Lie down, my child. Your work is done.

  She knelt on the floor and looked closely at the glowing mat. The spongy material was about four inches thick. It looked moist and swollen and its color was so strange. After a few seconds Dorothy remembered where she’d seen that shade of red before. It was the color of the stem cell colonies in the trays she’d taken from the laboratory.

  Lord, I’m afraid! I don’t—

  Enough. Lie down.

  All her strength suddenly drained from her limbs and she fell to the mat. Her shoulder hit it first, and then she rolled onto her back, sprawling helplessly. She felt like she was floating in a shallow pool of red mud that was sludgy and rank and boiling hot. She squirmed in pain and tried to roll off the mat, but a long black wire arose from one of the metallic sheets and looped over her waist, pinning her down. Another wire restrained her legs and a third stretched over her throat and pressed down on her windpipe. Then more wires with sharp hooks tore into the fabric of her bathrobe and ripped it off her body.