by Various
“I’d rather not,” White said.
“I’m Chief of Staff for the President of the United States, General,” Boehm said. “I’ve got the security clearance.”
“If you get the President to ask for a list, I’ll give it to him,” White said. “You’ve told him about his situation yet?”
“We’re hoping not to trouble him with it,” Boehm said.
“I’ll bet,” White said, smirking.
“How about a list of your dead scientists?” Alex said.
White turned his attention to Alex, brows arched. “What good is that going to do you?”
“You just said they’re the only ones you’re not watching,” Alex said.
“We’ve been talking aliens, not zombies, son,” White said.
“It can’t hurt,” Alex said. “Even if one of them ever brought some work home on a flash drive, it might have been enough to slip out. We should check it out just to make sure we’re completely zipped up.”
“Fine. The dead scientists I’m willing to part with,” White said, and motioned to Jefferson. “I’ll have the Major here bring it over in the next couple of hours. As for the live scientists, I’ll have my own people retrace their steps. If any of them have leaked, you’ll know, about a minute before I have them shoved through one of our transporter holes and turned into a puddle of meat.”
There was a knock on Alex’s door. It was Stein.
“I can’t believe it,” Alex said, and rubbed his eyes. “You knocked.”
“Sun’s up,” Stein said. “You were here all night?”
Alex motioned to the thick stacks of paper on his desk. “You see what I had to go through last night. And this is just the dead guys. I hate to think what would have happened if Dave got General White to give him the files on the live guys, too. How about you? Up all night?”
“Of course not,” Stein said. “I’m keeping my regular schedule, remember.”
“That’s right,” Alex said. “Another reason to put you on the list of people I hate.”
“It might interest you to know that the President is back in action today,” Stein said. “By the end of the night last night he said he was feeling good as he ever has, and this morning he was back in the pool by six am. So it’s his full schedule and then off to Ohio for that stupid town hall speech of his.”
“Come on, Brad,” Alex said. “Town hall meetings are participatory democracy at its finest.”
“When it’s thirty people talking sewage issues in New Hampshire, maybe,” Stein said. “When the President is trying to explain why the country needs to temporarily raise the marginal tax rate on millionaires in front of screaming yahoos who think all taxes are treason, well. Let’s just say I get nervous.”
“That’s what the Secret Service is for,” Alex said. “Yahoo management is their specialty.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Stein said, and nodded at the piles. “You find anything interesting?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes again. “Yeah, I did. Not in the files, really, but around 3:00 A.M. I got a little loopy and decided to fire up the IRS database and look up some of these guys’ family members.”
“Why would you do that?” Stein said.
“Oh, you know,” Alex said. “See if any family members suddenly started paying taxes on millions of dollars of income, signifying ill-gotten gains.”
“Ill-gotten gains are not the sort of thing people usually pay taxes on,” Stein said. “Pretty much by definition.”
“Point,” Alex said. “Which is probably why I didn’t find anything. But then I found the opposite: The wife and adult child of one dead scientist stopped paying taxes entirely the year after he died. Here, look.” Alex plopped over a folder to give to Stein. “Louis Reynolds dies of a heart attack two years ago, right?” Alex then added some additional printouts to the pile. “The next year, his wife Lisa and kid Martha don’t pay any taxes at all. No reported income when both of them had jobs the year before. Lisa was an administrative assistant and Martha was a nurse practitioner. And no taxes filed this year, either.”
“And they’re not dead,” Stein said.
“Not that I can tell,” Alex said. “I didn’t call or anything, seeing as it was three in the morning.”
“If this Reynolds had life insurance and they were both beneficiaries, they could have lived off that money for a year or two and not had to pay taxes on any of that,” Stein said. “If you make no income in a year, you don’t have to file.”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “But I don’t know. It still feels weird to me. People don’t usually just fall completely out of the IRS database, even if they do get a life insurance payout. They still have mortgages and bank accounts and 401(k)s and charitable contributions. If you fall out that completely, there’s got to be a reason.”
“You think they’re on the run,” Stein said.
“Maybe,” Alex said. “Like I said, I don’t know. I’m not a forensic accountant, or an FBI agent, or spy. That’s your gig. You probably have people who could do this better than I could.”
“Is that a hint?” Stein said.
“It could be if you want it to be,” Alex said.
Stein smiled and held up the folder Alex gave him. “I’ll give this to some of my people and see what they come up with.”
“If you can have them do it quickly I would love you,” Alex said. “I have to give Dave my report in”—he glanced at his watch—“three and a half hours.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t told him this already,” Stein said.
“He’s apparently one of those people who thinks night is for sleeping,” Alex said, and yawned. “Speaking of which, I’m going to go grab a cab and crawl into my apartment and see if I can’t get a couple of hours before I have to get back here.”
“I’ll try to have something for you then,” Stein said.
“Thank you,” Alex said, and made his way out of the West Wing to the guard station, where the cab he’d ordered was there to take him to his apartment. He was enjoying that pleasantly light-headed feeling he got when he’d been up all night, right up until his cab drove away and a white panel van drove up in its place, the side door slid open, and someone from inside reached out and grabbed him.
Oh, shit, North Koreans, Alex thought, before something was shoved over his mouth and nostrils and he blacked out.
Alex woke up on a cot in a concrete room bare except for a man with a gun, the donut he was eating, the chair he was sitting in and a television set he was watching, apparently with the sound turned down.
“Who are you?” Alex asked the man.
“Your babysitter,” the man said, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone without looking up from the television. “He’s awake,” then man said, after he had dialed a number.
“Can I get up?” Alex said, after the man had completed his call.
The man shrugged. “Do what you want. Commode is through that other door.”
“What if I want to leave?” Alex asked.
The man motioned to the door. “It’s locked from the outside. You can try it if you like.”
“Why am I here?” Alex asked.
The man finally looked over at Alex. “Relax, Mr. Lipsyte,” he said. “No one’s going to kill you.”
“You have a gun,” Alex said.
“I always have a gun,” the man said, turning back to the television. “I’m Secret Service.”
Ten minutes later the door opened and Brad Stein entered the room, holding a bag. “Hello, Alex,” he said, and walked over to the cot to hand Alex the bag. “I brought you dinner. Hope you like cheeseburgers.”
Alex took the bag. “Dinner,” he said.
“You’ve been asleep for a while,” Stein said. “Don’t worry. I saw Dave and told him how I sent you home after I came in at six and saw you throwing up into your wastebasket, the victim of some genuinely awful 24-hour flu bug. I also passed on your information to him, minus a few details.”
“Yes, that,” Stein said, and leaned up against the wall of the room. “I have to say I was really rather annoyed when you asked to see the list of dead scientists,” he said. “I didn’t think that anyone would ask for something like that. You caught me with my pants down.”
“Louis Reynolds is alive,” Alex said.
“He is,” Stein said. “Faked his death and has been working in a NSA black ops lab ever since, with his wife and daughter attached to the lab staff. All under new names. Standard issue federal relocation.”
“And he’s solved that transporter thing,” Alex said. “The thing where living things get turned into meat.”
“No, actually, he hasn’t,” Stein said. “But we did the next best thing. Rather than trying to push the President’s brain through a spacetime hole, we wrapped a spacetime hole around the President’s brain. The President’s brain is still in his head. Always has been. There’s just no way to access it, except through the spinal cord and the arteries and veins in his neck. From any other angle, anything trying to get into the President’s brain crosses the hole’s frontier and comes out in a shut-down FBI indoor shooting range at Quantico.”
Alex stared at Brad Stein for several minutes, uncomprehending.
“I think the question you want to ask now is ‘why,’” Stein said.
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Alex said.
Stein looked over to the Secret Service agent. “Turn that television set around, Jenkins,” he said. Jenkins obliged, and Alex saw that he was watching the news.
“Did you record it?” Stein asked.
“Yes,” Jenkins said.
“Then back it up to the event, please. And turn the volume up,” Stein said. Jenkins did, keeping the television on pause. The image on the screen was of the President, standing in front of a podium.
“As you know, the President was slated to give that damn tax speech of his tonight at a Town Hall meeting in Ohio,” Stein said, walking over and taking the TV remote from Jenkins. “Because he’s a bit of a moron, that President of ours, he thought that it would be a fine idea to give that particular contentious speech in the open on a high school athletic field that the Secret Service could spend a year trying to cover and still miss an angle or two. So it was not exactly a surprise when the inevitable happened.” Stein pressed “Play” on the remote.
Alex watched as the President of the United States was assassinated. One moment the President was mouthing platitudes, the next there was a loud pop and a hole bloomed out of his left temple.
“Oh, my God,” Alex said, looking at Stein.
“Wait, it gets better,” Stein said, and motioned to the TV.
Alex turned back to the television to see the President, slightly stunned, bleeding from the hole in his head, arguing with Dave Boehm and the head of the Presidential Secret Service detail. Alex frowned. “What is he doing?”
“He’s telling them that he wants to keep doing his speech,” Stein said. “That dumb son of a bitch has just been shot in the head, and is bleeding out of a wound that would have been fatal if we hadn’t hidden his brain, and all he wants to do is keep reading off the Teleprompter. It’s admirable, in its own magnificently screwed up way.”
Alex kept watching as the President was finally dragged away from the podium, looking extraordinarily pissed. “Is he all right now?” he finally asked.
“No,” Stein said. “He’s got a bullet hole in his temple. He’s lost a fair amount of blood, some bone and other tissue, and the bullet caused a small amount of damage on the inside of his skull before it hit the edge of the timespace hole and exited out into that Quantico gun range. He’ll be out of commission for a week or so. The Vice President is currently acting with full Presidential authority. No more elementary school visits for him. But on the other hand the President’s brain is completely unscathed. He’ll survive, which he wouldn’t have done otherwise.”
“You saved the President’s life,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Stein said. “For what it’s worth. But it wasn’t just me. The idea came from the Secret Service. The President takes too many public risks. He’s always going out into crowds and mixing with the public in ways that make it hard for his agents to keep him safe. Last year he even wanted to ride through Dallas in a convertible. Dave finally had to show him the Zapruder film to get him to change his mind. From the Secret Service’s point of view it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. They came to me for advice. When the President decided to make this speech in the open, we acted.”
“And you did that without him knowing,” Alex said.
“No other way to do it,” Stein said. “I’ll save the technical discussion for another time. But as you can see, it’s possible.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell any of us,” Alex said.
“Tell you what?” Stein said. “That I secretly wrapped the President’s brain in a hole ripped out of spacetime? Alex, first I want you to imagine how that conversation would have played out with Dave. Then I want you to imagine how it would have played out with the President. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around. You know that.” He pointed to the television. “Now I won’t have to explain it. The benefits are obvious.”
“Except that I’ve been kidnapped off the street and hidden away in a room with a man with a gun,” Alex said.
“Oh, that,” Stein said.
“Yes, that,” Alex said.
“I am sorry about that, Alex,” Stein said. “You found out more than I would have given you credit for, faster than I would have expected. If you had told Dave about Louis Reynolds and his family, my involvement might have come out too soon. So all of this was only a precaution.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Alex said.
“Here’s how: Right now you’re underneath the East Wing of the White House,” Stein said.
“Bullshit,” Alex said.
“Welcome to the bunker,” Stein said. “A small corner of it, anyway. Which you are of course free to leave. In fact, you should probably get back to your desk. Dave’s been screaming for you since the assassination attempt.”
“Oh, crap,” Alex said, and started looking for his cell phone.
“Here,” Stein said, producing it from one of his pockets.
“You took my phone?” Alex said, taking it.
“You needed your rest,” Stein said. “Now, Alex, whether you tell anyone about what happened to you today is up to you, although of course I hope that you won’t feel it’s necessary. Also, given what’s happened today, you’ll understand when I say that even if you do discuss it, it’s likely to get lost in the shuffle.”
“Probably,” Alex said.
“And besides, I brought you a cheeseburger,” Stein said.
“Oh, well,” Alex said. “That makes it all better.” He got up from the cot, and wobbled.
“Everything all right?” Stein said. He had walked to the door and turned back to catch the wobble.
“I’m fine,” Alex said. “Just a little light-headed.”
“That’s to be expected,” Stein said. “All things considered. Give it a day or two. Your head will feel totally normal by then.”
Alex looked up. “Wait. What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
Stein smiled and walked out the door.
Copyright © 2010 by John Scalzi
Art © 2010 by Carl Wiens
Books by John Scalzi
THE OLD MAN’S WAR SERIES
Old Man’s War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Zoe’s Tale
OTHER NOVELS
Agent to the Stars
The Android’s Dream
Fuzzy Nation (forthcoming)
ANTHOLOGY
METAtropolis (ed.)
NON-FICTION
The Rough Guide to
Money Online
The Rough Guide to the Universe
The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies
You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008
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Contents
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Night had come to the city of Skalandarharia, the sort of night with such a quality of black to it that it was as if black coal had been wrapped in blackest velvet, bathed in the purple-black ink of the demon squid Drindel and flung down a black well that descended toward the deepest, blackest crevasses of Drindelthengen, the netherworld ruled by Drindel, in which the sinful were punished, the black of which was so legendarily black that when the dreaded Drindelthengenflagen, the ravenous blind black badger trolls of Drindelthengen, would feast upon the uselessly dilated eyes of damned, the abandoned would cry out in joy as the Drindelthengenflagenmorden, the feared Black Spoons of the Drindelthengenflagen, pressed against their optic nerves, giving them one last sensation of light before the most absolute blackness fell upon them, made yet even blacker by the injury sustained from a falling lump of ink-bathed, velvet-wrapped coal.
With the night came a storm, the likes of which the eldest among the Skalandarharians would proclaim they had seen only once before, although none of them could agree which on which one time that was; some said it was like the fabled Scouring of Skalandarharia, in which the needle-sharp ice-rain flayed the skin from the unjust of the city, provided they were outside at the time, while sparing the just who had stayed indoors; others said it was very similar to the unforgettable Pounding of Skalandarharia, in which hailstones the size of melons destroyed the city’s melon harvest; still others compared it to the oft-commented-upon Moistening of Skalandarharia, in which the persistent humidity made everyone unbearably sticky for several weeks; at which point they were informed that this storm was really nothing like that at all, to which they replied perhaps not, but you had to admit that was a pretty damn miserable time.