The Norma Gene

by M. E. Roufa

  But Abe had a feeling it wouldn’t fly. Even if Ed believed it, and he might, by bringing in Dr. Lamb and his gimcrack Device he had by this point lost all credibility with the others. They couldn’t have made it more clear. And besides that, they weren’t interested in history. They were interested in biology, in genetics. Even if Abe turned up genuine memories, it would probably only increase their desire to find out which of Abe’s neurons were firing abnormally in order to make it happen. Four score and seven tissue samples. There was no way a schlemiel like Ed could stop that train.

  The fact was, they already were at cross-purposes with one another, and the end result was that the wrong side had won. If that was going to buy him any time, it had already done so—five to ten glorious moments of time, which he had wasted on making jokes about a pen.

  The memory jolted Abe, nearly causing him to sit up in bed. The kid who came in with the pen in the first place—Brian. What was he here for? What did he want? What was in this project for him? Abe racked his brain. Brian was young, meaning this was a college internship, or maybe grad school, which meant his clock must be running too. He needed something to put on a resume, possibly to write a paper about, possibly something for a grade. Abe remembered the intern’s subservient attitude toward Dr. Lamb, which never let up even while he was being treated with complete disrespect. How he ran to do his bidding like a puppy chasing a boomerang, all wasted energy and disappointment with everyone else in on the joke. Obviously he needed a recommendation, so he had to stay on Lamb’s good side. But if he needed to write a report of his own, too… Abe thought back to his own college years, and the students who competed for high-powered internships, seeing them as stepping-stones toward higher-powered careers as soon as they left the university. Kids who would do anything to succeed if they thought it would get them a step higher up the ladder. It was possible that Brian was just such a student. After all, he was here—wherever “here” was. If he was willing and eager to play a part in the furthering of Science, thinking it would help in the furthering of himself, then maybe Abe would have no problem exploiting him.

  And in the wee small hours of the morning, if anyone was staying up watching the video monitoring screens into Abe’s “cabin”, it would have to be Brian. However dedicated to research the others may have been, none of them would possibly be motivated enough to stay round the clock. Not when they had families, and cell phones. And especially not when they had an overeager intern on call.

  Abe lay in the lumpy bed trying to formulate any kind of plan, but the soft crackling of the artificial woodstove kept distracting him. If only he could find a way to silence it, but the electric (or gas, or oil) element that ran it was far too cleverly hidden for him to discover, especially at nighttime. Or if only he could use it to—Wait. That was it.

  He would just have to convince Brian (or whoever was watching the monitors, but it was bound to be Brian) that he was Abe Lincoln, that he was honest Abe and therefore could be trusted.

  Abe began to toss and turn on the bed, moaning slightly. He kicked at the covers, doing his best not to overdo it. For a growing amount of time he feigned uncomfortable sleep, finally sitting up and bed and pulling at his hair. “Two days…” he murmured aloud, quiet enough to seem like a soliloquy, but hopefully loud enough to be picked up by whatever microphones might be hidden within the room. “Two days they have denied me tobacco!”

  He walked to his desk and rifled through its contents, searching until his hands clasped around the pipe he remembered seeing from his first day. “And all the while they mock me with this,” he said, doing his best to let his voice take on what he thought would be convincing 19th-century cadences. “Why provide the instrument if you do not provide the wherewithal to use it? This is torture!” This was good stuff! “Torture!” He repeated for good measure, and put his head in his arms on the desk.

  He felt rather than heard the crack of the hidden door in the wall opening. Could it really be that simple? He looked up, thrilled to see Brian standing silhouetted in the doorframe, the now-darkened blank hallway behind him. He was still in the same clothes as he had worn earlier that evening, now far more rumpled-looking, and he looked tired, but there was something more in his eyes, too. He looked like he had won a prize—and Abe knew that that could only mean that he fully believed what he was seeing.

  “Mr. Lincoln?” he asked, still hesitating. His voice was almost a whisper, deferential to the office of the man of the past as well as to the possibility of breaking whatever spell it was that somehow brought him back. Abe looked up, doing his best to assume a faraway look. Was this how he had looked that day at the press conference? At the time he didn’t feel any different, only pissed off and hot under the lights, and then overtaken. Now he was totally putting on an act. Was it enough to give the kid what he wanted to see? Or was he running the risk of overdoing it?

  “Yes, son?” he tried, going for it.

  “You wanted something?” Brian asked.

  Abe put the pipe down in front of him, lifeless on the desk, an unspoken message.

  “You want to smoke? You need tobacco?” He talked as if communicating with a monkey, or with a very slow foreigner, all slow words and high inflections. What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well? Smart one, that Brian.

  Abe only nodded, a long-suffering smile he remembered from countless portraits displayed on his face.

  “All right—okay, I don’t know if… All right. Just hang on a second.” Brian practically ran from the room, knocking over a coat stand in the journey. For a brief second Abe thought he would leave the door open, but he was mistaken. Brian might have been hapless, but he still followed the protocols. Several minutes went by, long enough for Abe to be convinced not only that Brian wasn’t coming back, but that the next time the door opened Nita would be there with a tire iron there to help her explain why he shouldn’t be talking to Brian again.

  When he finally saw the lighted rectangle of the door magically appearing again, he couldn’t help holding in his breath for a second, waiting to see who would be on the other side. But there was Brian, almost triumphantly holding an oddly decorated tin can.

  “Here you go, Mr. President,” he said, presenting the can to Abe as if it were an Academy Award, which frankly, at this point Abe deserved. With some effort, Abe popped it open. Inside were some extremely pungent flakes of what he could only assume was pipe tobacco, along with a smaller tin box holding sizeable number of white-tipped wooden matches. Jackpot.

  Trying not to show his excitement, Abe looked up at Brian and smiled. To his dismay, Brian had settled himself on Abe’s bed, watching his every move, fascinated. Abe was at a standstill. Did Lincoln even smoke? Abe had no idea. He supposed he must have, seeing as how the pipe was here in the first place, and how (just as he suspected) they actually did have some historically accurate tobacco and matches on-site for Brian to dig up. But Abe did know that he, Abe, had never smoked anything in his own life, especially not pipes, and he didn’t have the first clue how to go about it. He had to get Brian out of there.

  Then he realized that there was something more that he could take from Brian, and that Brian was in the perfect position to give him. He stood up, and sat next to the intern on the bed. He could hear the rope support system creaking in protest at their combined weight, as the homespun quilt puckered between them. He sat very close, and put his arms around him, in a way that used to be called manfully.

  “Thank you, Joshua,” he said, his grey eyes looking penetratingly into Brian’s, “my bosom friend.” He pulled him in close for a second embrace. Pulling back, he could almost read Brian’s features making the mental calculation of how much it would be worth it to him to ace the internship, weighing whether the slam-dunk grade he would receive and the stellar peer-reviewed journal article he would certainly get would in any way counter the actual experience of whatever man-on-man 18th-century ex-President-on-intern sordidness that Abe was hinting at. And deciding that no, he would
much rather settle for pretending that the interchange had never happened. He shot up from the bed so quickly it knocked Abe backwards, practically leaving skid marks on the floor in his haste to exit the room.

  Alone again, with things finally beginning to look brighter, Abe chuckled. Whatever Lincoln’s true relationship had been with Speed, it certainly was useful.

  44

  Abe dressed quickly, fumbling with the still-unfamiliar armholes and fastenings. He hoped that Brian would take his time before returning to surveillance mode, or at least that he wouldn’t notice that Abe had changed. For the millionth time, Abe triple-checked the inner pocket of his long jacket to ensure that the small cardboard rectangle was still tucked inside. He picked up his socks and shoes, put them down again, then remembering his late-night encounter with the corner of the wood stove, picked them up again and put them on. Then he picked up the jar of tobacco and matches, and headed to the desk.

  Abe wondered whether he should bother filling the pipe with tobacco, and decided against it. He didn’t know the first thing about how to smoke a pipe, let alone fill a pipe, and the room was dark enough that he hoped he could get away with mimicry. So he opened the tobacco can and pretended to put some in the pipe’s bowl, tapping it down with his thumb. That seemed realistic enough to him. Then he reached for the law books and took down a few, as if preparing for a late-night study session. He took the kerosene lantern down off the wall shelf, though he was certain it was empty of fuel. A careful shake confirmed his guess. A second, more careful shake sent it flying across the room, smashing against the wall over the bed. He tried to look concerned about this, to make it seem as accidental as possible. But he knew his time was limited, and wasn’t about to waste it play-acting in the dark.

  He opened first one law book, then another, carrying them to the bed and creating a small paper village. He took the writing paper and wooden inkwell and dragged the chair over to the bedside. He picked up the basket of kindling and logs stacked ornamentally next to the fake stove and tossed all of it on the bed as well. Now he was ready.

  The first match failed to ignite, and broke in half in the process. He tucked the broken pieces inside the nearest law tome, and reached for another. The second flared up instantly, with a strong phosphorous smell that reminded him of the Fourth of July. Fitting, he thought, as he dropped it into the box containing the other matches. The entire box caught light in seconds, and Abe wasted no time in scattering them over the contents of the bed. As he had hoped, the antique books and wood were not only incredibly historically valuable, they were also incredibly contemporaneously flammable. Carefully, so as not to accidentally snuff out the flames through overzealousness, Abe added other dry-looking things to the pile—the rickety chair, the burlap twine curtain tiebacks, and then the curtains themselves, the rag rug.

  The history teacher in him was appalled at what he had done—what he was doing—at all the gorgeous, horrific waste. But the young boy that was also still inside him watched the flames rise and consume the pyramid of antiques, and could only think “Coool.”

  The response was slower than he thought it would be, though still came extremely quickly. A klaxon horn sounded, and a robotic voice echoed around the walls through a remarkably good sound system, calling “Fire! Please make your way to the nearest exit and await further instructions!” over and over again. Hidden electric lights illuminated the room. Best of all, far better than anything Abe had anticipated or even hoped, the wooden door to the cabin—the sealed wooden door that he assumed had been permanently nailed shut—popped open and an electronic “Exit” sign was projected over top of it.

  Abe took a last glance around the cabin, now virtually unrecognizable as the wood walls were slowly consumed with flames. The smell was wonderful—there was nothing plastic in the room, nothing inorganic to interfere with the pure scent of fire doing what it does best. Almost as an afterthought on his way out the door, Abe took down the stovepipe hat from its nearby peg and tossed it into the flames. He was free.

  Abe ran quickly through the cabin door and out into the woods. He would have loved to take the time to examine the trees, looking for roots or gathering leaves to see if they were real or not. But he knew that the fact that he had already made it so far without being apprehended was a small miracle, and he wasn’t about to press his luck. He ran through clumps of trees, tripping over roots that were real enough to catch his toes (fortunately he had decided to put his shoes on after all), even if they were only fiberglass, and kicking up very real dirt. He scanned in all directions for the telltale red glow indicating that once again federal safety regulations had trumped verisimilitude. He caught sight of a distinctive red gleam in the middle distance and headed that way—sure enough, it slowly formed into the word “Exit,” hovering over a well-disguised door. He threw his weight against it and it opened wide, out into the humid Florida night. The dirt underfoot gave way to asphalt, but here again Abe was incredibly lucky—there was still not a person in sight. Even better, the exit had taken him within a quick sprint of the parking lot—and because of the lateness of the hour there were very few cars to choose from.

  None of the cars looked like an obvious choice—he scanned window after window looking for any sign of a crimson H—the dead giveaway to end all giveaways of a college decal. But no such luck. Fortunately, there were other ways to find what he was hoping for. He reached into his coat with a grin and pulled out the set of keys and cellphone he had lifted from Brian’s pocket during their brief intimate embrace. A quick push on the keychain’s button and a Volkswagen chirped into life at the other end of the lot. Abe ran for it, jumping into the car and starting the ignition just as the first people began making their way out of the various building exits. He could hear the distant sirens of fire engines on their way. Abe gunned the engine and zoomed out of the complex.

  45

  Norma stared into the dregs of her wine glass, wondering whether it was worth hazarding another. She hadn’t intended to be the designated driver, but after watching Shosha down two beers in short succession while she was still nursing her initial Chablis, she realized that someone was going to have to take it easy. Her plans for the evening, meanwhile, had gone down the hatch faster than Shosha’s Coronas.

  If Norma had to make a list of her favorite options for spending a weeknight, going out for drinks with her boss wouldn’t even crack the top one hundred. In fact, she had studiously avoided it for years, ever since Shosha stopped just being her boss and began her campaign to become BFFs. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Shosha; under different circumstances, the two of them might be—well, not friends, but certainly casual acquaintances. Neighbors who signed for each other’s packages? Something friendly but low-impact.

  It was just that Norma had learned the hard way that becoming close with your boss never worked out for the best for her. She was too easy to take advantage of, too greedy for approval. She wasn’t a pushover; she knew how to say no and stick to it, but it always left her feeling guilty. Which led to something almost worse than being taken advantage of: offering up herself unnecessarily, just to be liked. The price she paid for skipping Shosha’s birthday night out was a week’s worth of extra shifts, all volunteered for by Norma without being asked, just at Shosha’s hint that she could really use the time off. The time Norma said no to Shosha’s “Girls Only Weekend” at some spa resort on Key West, she made up for it by offering to spend that weekend watching Butch, the largest and foulest-tempered tabby cat she had ever met, who “doesn’t like to be alone.” Butch proceeded to spend the weekend whetting his nails against Norma’s vintage settee, while blunting them again on all her throw pillows. The coup de grace came at the end of the weekend, when Norma had finally successfully coerced the cat into his carrier for the trip back to Shosha’s apartment, only to find that sometime during the past few days he had thrown up in her Jimmy Choos.

  And yet, if she had to do it all differently, she knew, she still wouldn�
�t have said yes to the weekend with Shosha and her friends. Even a peep-toe full of cat vomit seemed preferable to joining in with whatever Shosha did for fun, knowing that it would be followed by more invitations, photos of the pair out together all over SocialEyes with the sophomoric comments Shosha thought witty, and the pitying looks of her fellow perfume girls, who all had lives much better adapted to turning Shosha’s social advances down. Despite everything, the truth was that Norma liked Shosha. And knowing her any better could only jeopardize that.

  But the day Shosha walked in carrying that Illusions box, it all changed. She had to find a way to convince her boss that she would do anything, wear any costume, take any extra work on she had to, to get out of being trapped inside that golden dress and platinum wig every day. So: Operation Butter Up Shosha.

  She’d brought the costume along with her inside her bag for backup. She decided she wasn’t above putting the wig on backwards or otherwise messing it up to make it look less appealing on her and more like the mistake she knew it was. The problem was, Shosha didn’t seem to need any help self-buttering. As soon as Norma brought up the subject of the costume mandate, Shosha stopped her cold. “I never talk about work outside of work,” she said, downing her second bottle and waving toward the bartender for a third. “Plenty of time for that when the time clock’s running. Outside of work is for being ourselves. Let’s talk about you.”

  And that was that. All her well-laid plans, laid well to rest, and replaced by everything Norma was hoping to avoid. She tried to get the subject back on board by steering there through fashion, or celebrity gossip, but neither tactic worked. As soon as Norma as much as mentioned the costume, once even “accidentally” letting the wig begin to tumble out of her bag as she reached for something inside, Shosha just wiggled her index finger in a mock disapproving way, shook her head no, and changed the subject right back. It was no use.