Asimov's SF, April/May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Now, despite the ticking down of a timer on whatever events are to come, my body feels capable of relaxing. I don't want a cigarette. I touch my nose to the window. The few clouds are high, well above us, throwing their shapes on sharply outlined fields. I wonder about the lives of the people below. I imagine them standing on their lawns and porches as the shadows blanket them and move on. They are helpless—against the greater terrors and against people such as me. And I wish I could change places with any of them, with a child, even. From my front porch, I'd look across the flat landscape and marvel at the movement of sunlight and shadow, the unplanned patterns nature continuously invents.

  * * * *

  Wind comes in off the lake, cooling my face, but the tarmac and the fields beyond shimmer with heat. Between the time we land and the moment we step from the brief, bright terminal onto the front walk, the pits of my shirt soak and a trickle starts down my back.

  From the direction of the parking lot, two men hurry toward us. Striding with vigorous speed is a slender black man in a brown jacket. His hair parts sharply down the middle of his head. His companion, jogging to keep up, is a white man with a military haircut. Wearing a dark t-shirt that's taut around his neck and biceps, he carries his arms away from his body, the muscles forcing them outward.

  "Sorry,” says the black man. “I had to wait for my brother-in-law's car. Actually saw your plane make its approach.” To Birdy, he introduces himself as Randy, and I set down my duffel when he puts out his hand toward me. There's a hiccup in the handshake while he glances at the bandage on my head.

  Birdy obviously knows the second man, judging by their interaction, which gives Randy a chance to say to me, “That's Tug.” The muscular man overhears.

  "Hey,” he says, moving Randy aside. “Serge Hartoonian."

  "'Tug’ fits better,” says Randy, as if confidentially.

  Tug doesn't take my hand, but confronts me with arms akimbo. “Remember me, Lukic? I'm partially responsible for that bandage.” I do remember: He was the other man in the room, the one blocking the door. I struggled with him briefly, ineffectively.

  "I'm sorry,” I say, thinking he might elect to hit me.

  "Prove it,” he says, and turns to the man himself, who, if he's spoken throughout any of this, has done so without my hearing it. Tug updates him on their progress: for the past week, since I was discovered in Chicago, they've been searching the city for the weapon they believe I'm building. I get the sense dozens of people are involved in the hunt. “We altered our search in light of the new information about the weapon's possible size. Maybe we're not dealing with a bomb. Not unless this guy's got a thing for Rube Goldberg devices."

  "I don't—” I begin, not knowing where the sentence will go, but Randy interrupts.

  "We'd been sweeping the area for radiation sources anyway. Drove all around his neighborhood. But now we can narrow the search."

  "It's like looking for plutonium in a haystack,” says Birdy, but the other two give him puzzled looks.

  "Not really,” says Randy.

  "That we could do,” says Tug.

  I wave my hands shyly. “But didn't anyone follow me to see where I went?"

  Tug says, “You never went anywhere except out to eat. For two days. The big man figured we'd get more done faster if we just grabbed you."

  "Perhaps I was mistaken,” the big man says distantly, looking over our heads.

  We're walking toward the parking lot now. “In any case,” Tug says, “there weren't even trace amounts of radiation on you or in your apartment."

  "Maybe I hadn't obtained it yet,” I offer. “Maybe I'm building something that needs plutonium, but I don't have it."

  "Then there are those microscopic carbon tubes,” says Randy. “What if they're transceivers of some kind? Picking up signals. Consider their placement in the brain."

  "It's a possibility,” says the big man.

  We arrive at the car, a wide, four-door, mustard-colored vehicle. Everyone stands eyeing it while Randy digs the keys from his pocket. First he opens the trunk, and we toss in our bags among several others. “Doors are open,” he says.

  Birdy asks Tug, “Where's your car?” and Tug says, grimly, “It died."

  I climb in back and scoot across the hot plastic seat to make room for the man himself, who makes every space seem too small. The others get in front, Birdy in the middle.

  "You're out of New York, right? What are you doing in Chicago?” Birdy asks Randy.

  "Visiting my sister.” The engine reluctantly churns to life.

  "Could we possibly get the engine checked?” asks Tug. “We'll be announcing ourselves to . . . to whatever."

  Randy says, “It beats walking."

  "I'll take the El and meet you there.” Tug shifts about awkwardly. “Everybody should buckle up."

  "Is this your entire team?” I ask the big man.

  "The makeup varies depending on the mission."

  Tug turns halfway around. “Think we'll get any women someday?"

  "You personally?” asks Randy.

  "Careful what you ask for,” says the man himself. “But I've got some names."

  "So where are we heading, big man?” asks Randy.

  "For now, where we picked up Lukic. If we don't get anything definite there, we're welcome at your sister's?"

  "You're all invited for dinner,” says Randy. “It's closer than Tug's place in the boonies."

  "It's not the boonies,” says Tug.

  "You say."

  As the car leaves the peninsula of land holding the airfield, we pass the Adler Planetarium dome. Randy points it out. “I wish I could see the stars more. Puts things in perspective. In New York, you never see them. Took my son to the Hayden last week."

  "I should try to fit in a visit before I leave town,” says Birdy, ducking his head for a better look.

  "You guys do realize,” says Tug, “this city may be a smoldering pile of ash by tomorrow."

  "Shoot,” says Randy. “That's nothing new for us, right, big guy? Hey,” he says to us all, “I was in the City for Shepard's parade."

  "To the stars and back,” muses Birdy.

  Tug makes a derisive sound and mumbles.

  "Come again?” says Birdy.

  "Suborbital. The flight was suborbital. The Soviets already orbited. For real."

  Randy has his elbow out the window. “Are you just trying to piss everybody off? Jesus. I plan to work for those folks someday."

  "Randy's an electrical engineer,” the big man tells me.

  Randy catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Tug's here because every team needs a big dumb guy."

  "Actually,” says the big man, “Tug's a chemist."

  "Randy,” says Tug, “I'm sure those white guys in white shirts are just sitting around waiting for your crisp white application."

  Birdy says to the roof, “This is turning out well."

  "Obviously,” says the big man in his effortless rumble, “I'll have to rethink this teaming in the future."

  And I wonder: When did I last look at the stars?

  * * * *

  Windows down, we head into the heart of the city and then south, humid air fanning me. I am returning to the scene of crimes I don't even recall. All along, the men talk, lapse into silence, talk again, their leader saying nothing, only tapping Randy once on the shoulder and pointing toward a street. I don't listen to their words, which become, in time, a coil of sound that connects them. I sense what these men would do for each other—and what no doubt they've done before.

  I'm told it's Saturday. It's hard to breathe, and the car smells of smoke. I'd smoked in the penal camps, busying my hands and mouth to spare me further social demands, but I'd never cared for it—though I'm only realizing this now.

  "How can you possibly wear a jacket in this weather?” Tug asks Randy, as if noticing for the first time.

  "Hey, this is my look."

  "You look stupid."

  Randy finds an empty s
pot on the block where they'd found me.

  "Let's hope someone steals this while we're inside,” says Tug before getting out.

  I ask the man himself, “Shouldn't you be disguised or something?"

  "Ideally,” he says. Nevertheless, once out, he moves quickly across the street, which hasn't much automotive traffic but is busy with people, including quite a few children. Three girls jumping rope stop to watch the big man approach. An older black man with close salt-and-pepper hair sits erect on the steps of my former building, a transistor radio pressed to his ear. He raises his eyes and returns Randy's nod.

  The big man produces the outer door key and we follow him into the cool entry. “Why don't you lead us?” he says to me.

  Nothing is the same, though it's been only days. The steps seem the wrong height; the irregularities in the black paint on the banister feel colder and more pronounced, though I'd felt them for months.

  "Anything coming back?” asks Birdy.

  "Of course I remember being here . . .” I say.

  "What kinds of things did you think about?"

  We reach the second floor landing. “I thought about sleep. What a relief it would be to sleep."

  "That's something,” Birdy says.

  "You consider that helpful?” asks Randy.

  "It's greater than zero."

  Automatically, I reach in my pocket, but the big man has that key as well, so I stand aside. “Go in first,” he says.

  I do, expecting a revelatory moment and images of the past pouring over me, but time merely tromps on, the scene before me simply dim, untidy, and unremarkable. Everyone waits, and at my shrug Randy steps forward to open the shade. A little light widens the space. I drift from room to room, aware of the others hanging back.

  "I remember living here,” I say, “but it's like it's all one day, not distinct days.” I'm in the bathroom, which has no signs of occupation. The big man fills the doorway. I open the medicine cabinet.

  "That's where we found more of the carbon tubes,” he tells me.

  "Hardly seems like where you'd keep something important. So maybe they aren't important."

  "Maybe you didn't think so. Someone thought they were important enough to implant in people's brains. And you brought them here, or had them sent, from five thousand miles away."

  "Are you imagining some . . . vast conspiracy? Or a scheme in which each person played a part but didn't know it?"

  "Regardless of how many are involved in any plot, even the largest conspiracies rely on individual acts. Anyone, at any moment, could undo the whole mechanism.” He lets me turn that over, then backs away to let me out.

  In the kitchen, the cupboards have been emptied. I touch one stove burner, idly.

  "What do you do with people like me?” I ask the big man.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Afterward. Do we simply get returned to the point of extraction, as if we never left?"

  "No. Everything starts over."

  My chest tightens. I'm not looking at him, but into the empty refrigerator.

  "It'll be all right,” he says.

  "You don't know that."

  "I'm expressing an informed opinion. Based on experience."

  "How did you even find me?"

  "A lot of people keep their eyes open on my behalf."

  The others join us in the kitchen. “Results?” asks Birdy.

  For lack of anything else to do, I keep studying the open refrigerator. It's cold—they've left it on—but empty. I say, “The light's out."

  They wait. “And?” says Tug.

  "It's been out for months. But it didn't matter to me."

  When I become conscious of my open mouth and audible breathing, I realize it's time to leave.

  On the way outside, we pass the man on the steps again. When the big man stops on the sidewalk, Randy turns to lean on the metal railing and faces the seated man, then he jerks his thumb at me. “I'm wondering if maybe you recognize this guy."

  He pulls his radio from his ear; the sounds of whatever he's listening to seem only faint vibrations. “I do indeed."

  "Ever notice anything about him?"

  He looks me up and down, lower lip out. I think he's going to come out with some criticism of how I'm dressed, but he only says, “Like what, in particular?"

  "Carrying anything. With anybody else. Acting suspicious."

  "Can't say I have. Only strange thing is, he never says hi."

  Randy straightens. “Maybe you should rectify that, Mr. Lukic."

  "Hello,” I say, with whatever sincerity I can muster.

  "Hello yourself,” the man says. “That it?” he asks Randy.

  "That's it."

  The man puts the radio back to his head. “You all have a good day now,” he says, and as a group, we thank him. The girls with the jump-rope have ceased all activity to critically study the man himself. He gives them a wink and leads us away.

  We drive around neighboring streets but, again, my memory remains impervious to jarring. Then we head to Randy's sister's place.

  * * * *

  I hope we're not spending the night, since the apartment only has one bedroom. The husband, Lonnie, big-shouldered and curve-backed as a bear, cooks the pork chops, and I fix on the sweat beading above his collar. Randy's sister, Esther, hair exploding outward like a dandelion, takes her husband's cigarette from his hand and ditches it in the sink.

  He looks over his shoulder at the rest of us, seated at a round table between the refrigerator and the living room sofa. “She's trying to make us look too good,” he says.

  She waves his words off as she might wave at his smoke.

  Each time the phone rings, Randy gets it, but always returns shaking his head at the man himself. When he answers the ringing during dinner, all of us crowded around the table, Birdy asks Esther, “How do you know the phone's not for you?"

  "Nobody calls us,” she says. “We've only lived here a year. We were in Philly before that. So we don't have a load of connections. Our folks only call on the weekend."

  "When the workday's done,” says her husband, “it's just us."

  "Randy seems to have a few connections here,” says Birdy.

  "They're not his connections,” says Tug. “If we were at my place, the calls would come there."

  At one point, Lonnie leans toward the big man, whom he's been studying, and says, “Given what I hear tell about you, I have to express some surprise that you're breaking bread with us. I mean, don't you have some kind of secret base in every city?"

  "Lonnie,” says his wife.

  "It's a reasonable question,” says the big man, but he leaves it at that.

  Aside from an introduction, I've said nothing, having nothing to say. Shame, a new sensation that makes my skin feel oversensitive, holds me back. I watch the others and think how to imitate their ease.

  "So what's your thing?” Lonnie asks, rounding on me.

  "My thing?"

  "You know. Your specialty. All you guys have some specialty, right? That's how he picks you. Everyone the best and brightest. Top dogs. What's your thing?” He's looking at me directly, and he waits a few beats. “Or are you just some kind of generally smart guy, some genius type?” Again, the phone rings.

  "No. No. Nothing like that. Nothing special."

  "I didn't know humility was a super-power."

  "Oh, I—"

  He drinks beer from his glass and shrugs. “You people sure keep everything close to the vest."

  "I'm a surgeon,” I say, and he studies me as if that were unlikely.

  "That how you got that head wound, operating on yourself?"

  Reflexively, I touch the bandage, ducking my head.

  "You know I'm glad Allan brought a surgeon,” Lonnie continues. “I could sure use someone to check my back. I'm getting a lot of pain down low, ‘specially since I married this woman, know what I'm saying?"

  "I'm not—,” I say, but he's laughing, high pitched, and shoves me with his shou
lder.

  "You guys could use a sense of humor. Maybe you need a comedian on the team, lighten the load a bit."

  "Who's Allan?” Birdy asks.

  Esther says, “My brother. ‘Randy.’ Don't you know that? Name's Allan Randall."

  "What's with you guys and the nicknames?” asks Lonnie.

  "It started a long time ago,” says the man himself.

  Tug gives a sour laugh. “It means we love each other,” he says, then cuts again into the meat.

  * * * *

  After the meal, I stand on the small balcony and watch the people below in the glow of the summer evening. Their voices rise and twist and mix with other sounds of the city, yet still remain distinct. The sun has just gone down. Some clothes hang from a wire on one side of the balcony. They might never dry, the night is so humid and still.

  When my name is called, I poke my head inside. Everyone is watching the big man. “We have our leads,” he says. “It's time."

  They've spread a map on the dining table. “Three possible sites,” the big man tells me. He gives me the addresses. “Anything strike a chord?"

  I look helplessly at the map and shake my head.

  Tug drags his finger on the map, slows, and stops. “Here's where we picked him up. Let's start with the nearest site. Right here."

  "Our guy says it was a meat-packing plant until a few months ago,” says Randy. “Business relocated to Indiana. Now we've got people coming and going at odd hours and bringing things in with them. Somebody noticed that a few looked like they'd recently had some bad haircuts.” He gives me a significant look as he touches two fingers near the top of his head—where I shaved for my operations.

  "What about the other places?” the big man asks.

  "Sounds more like regular criminal stuff going on. Or squatters."

  "We'll pass that to the authorities.” Following the big man's lead, everyone straightens. “Five minutes."

  "I call the bathroom,” says Tug, who hustles off.

  "Lonnie,” says the big man, “we'll need your car again, if we may."