by John Barnes
“I know,” Heather murmured. “I’m keeping my hand away from mine.”
Bambi walked as if she had counted and measured the steps between her plane and her colleagues, and was putting each foot carefully on its mark, like an unconfident movie actor or as if she were crossing a river on not-quite remembered stepping-stones. She had not taken off her flying helmet, but her goggles were pushed up onto her forehead; despite the warm afternoon, she left her jacket zipped. And, as Leslie had noticed, her right hand was resting by the grip of the pistol strapped to her thigh, almost as if she expected a gunfight.
Quietly, Heather said, “You can just tell us what happened, Bambi. We haven’t heard anything from anyone else.”
She nodded. “Lyndon Phat decided that my plane and I should stay in Paducah because he needed us and wanted to keep us. He arrested me and locked me up. He didn’t let me fly to Pale Bluff, where my husband was fighting for his life, kept me locked up while bad news was pouring in over the radio and barely bothered to tell me about it afterward. Then ten minutes after the EMP, he ordered me to fly him to Pale Bluff for a reconnaissance. I saw Quattro’s burned body in the wreckage; all the ground crew died with him too. I think maybe they tried to fly out just as the EMP hit, or maybe they were shot down and the plane flipped. I don’t know. It was too badly burned. So . . . I walked back to my plane, and I pointed a gun at General Lyndon Phat, and made him get out of my airplane. I left him there on the runway with tribals starting to run up on him. I’m pretty sure he’s dead by now but I’m hoping Lord Robert got to take a personal interest and treated him like Steve Ecco.”
The hideous silence stretched as if it might go on forever.
James didn’t see any point in bringing up any arguments that she should not have done it; it was done, with nothing to change. He didn’t see a reason to blame her; either she would blame herself, or not. He didn’t fear the gun at her hip; she clearly had control of herself. He just wished someone would think of something to say.
When it seemed painfully clear that no one else was going to break the silence, James said, “Is there any chance anyone survived, or there might be anybody holding out there?”
Bambi shook her head, and now tears were flowing. “Not a chance. We circled. No fighting. Bodies everywhere. If anyone was still alive they were hiding in a cellar or something, and the tribals were lighting fires everywhere.”
Leslie said, “I am so sorry about Quattro. He was special to all of us but he was your husband and you’d loved him a long time.”
“Even before I knew I did,” Bambi said softly. Her hand moved decisively down away from her holster. “What now?”
Heather asked, “Are we the only people who know? Because if we are, then I think we’re the only people who decide. There’s nobody I have to report it to, now, and there never will be.”
Bambi’s shoulders began to shake, and Heather said, “I don’t want any accidents, so, is it okay if I come over there and hold you? You know, old friend to old friend, not—”
Bambi raised her hands away from her weapon, and the two women embraced.
Heather looked at James and Leslie over her friend’s shoulder. “Uh, guys.”
Taking their cue, they went into the office.
After a long time, Heather and Bambi joined them. Bambi sat quietly, looking at her boots. Heather said, “Well, to begin with, Bambi knows I’m now the President. So really, this is the President and her closest advisors dealing with a difficult situation. I guess . . . Bambi, can you tell them about how you feel about the Duchy of California? The same way you told me?”
Bambi said, “I can try. It’s hard to say this. Look, my father . . . the whole time I was raised with his libertarian Ayn Rand right-wing thing going on, and hating it, because, well, Daddy always thought somehow or other that everything that happened around all that money and all those people working, he thought he did it. Like, all by himself, you know? Ten years after Obama said ‘You didn’t build that’ he was still in hysterics about it because he couldn’t stand the idea that the people who drew a paycheck from him had anything to do with the work that got done.
“So you know, you want to piss off your parents, or anyway at least I wanted to piss off mine. In eighth grade, I showed him a copy of ‘Questions from a Worker Who Reads’ and he tried to get my English teacher fired, and I went to the School Board meeting to testify against him. He had a whole career track laid out for me at Castro Enterprises and I never showed up to do anything he wanted me to, instead I went to a public university and volunteered for all kinds of unpaid do-gooding and ended up as a Federal agent. I don’t think you can imagine how angry that made him, that I was working for the tax-and-spenders and revenuers and gun-grabbers, even if I was carrying a gun myself.
“But he was proud of me too, in his weird way. And he kept telling me to take care of things, make sure guys like Donald, his favorite chauffeur, were taken care of. And then later . . . Quattro was one of the few other people in the world who understood me, I think. You know he was raised all his life to figure that someday the government would be all gone, and it would just be crazy looters in the street and red barbarians in the Statehouse, and . . . but he’d loved me, forever, really, I guess, since we were kids, and since putting the United States back together was what mattered to me, and my oath, and being part of society, and being in it for something bigger than myself, and all that”—her hands sawed the air—“it’s important and I can’t seem to keep it all in order, but you get the idea. Since I wanted my United States put back together, Quattro wanted me to have that.
“But he always wanted to go home and take care of the duchy—his duchy, as far as he was concerned. He joked about it and made fun of it and wore those silly hats, but he thought about California as ours. Ours to take care of, ours to protect and guide . . . it was all personal to Quattro Larsen, and, well, I think he was right. Or if he wasn’t right then, he sure is now. We need to look after our own.
“I had a lot of time flying to think. I know that the general saw a pilot and a plane and said, vital resource, have to have that for the country. Well, I say, fuck that. My airplane. Me. My duchy. I will take better care of them and besides they are mine. So I left him there to take care of his own shit, with the tribals, and I sure hope they took care of it for him.
“I still love you all and you can come for asylum any time.” She made a strange choking noise, and then smiled strangely. “After all, Daddy always said California was one big asylum. Or a visit or because you’d just like to say hi. But the years I put into the United States of America . . . and the husband I lost for the cause . . . none of that was worth shit, and I wish I had everything back. From now on, I take care of my duchy. And Heather, I wish you’d just resign as President, come out to California, I’ll give you a fief somewhere where you can have your dad with you and raise Leo and make your part of the world decent. Because I think you’re going to end up losing everything else, and there still won’t be any United States, and even if there was, it would never be what you imagine. It never even was, you know?”
Heather said, “Bambi, I’m so close to agreeing with you.”
“Come down to Castle Castro at San Diego. Stay with me for a long while. Get reacquainted with your father and let him get to know his grandson. Seriously, think about it. You could get Leo, climb into the front cockpit, and be gone with me today. You have your oath, but there’s no country to keep it to.”
Heather thought for a long while. At last she said, “James, maybe it is just because of the compliment you paid me earlier, about how I don’t give up and so on. But I can’t help thinking, before we all part company, you said there was one more thing we might try before we give up forever. And you said it was something I might not forgive you for.”
“Actually I don’t think anyone will forgive me for it. Anyone on our side, I mean. And it really . . . it isn’t
something we can do. I don’t think it will even lead to anything we can do. But it’s one last place we could look for a suggestion, or an idea, or some pathway or approach. And chances are there will be nothing in it.”
“You’re a hell of a salesman,” Leslie said flatly, and they all began to laugh, even James. “Seriously, dude, do you want us all to think about this, or is this something you’re trying to scare us away from before we even hear it?”
“Some of both.” James looked back at each of them, drew a deep breath, and said it. “I kept Arnie Yang alive. He’s Interrogation Subject 162. I switched in a different prisoner when he had that seizure on the way to his hanging, and we hooded him. He wasn’t very happy when he woke up from his seizure and found us still prying at the Daybreak in his head. About half the time he warns us about how dangerous it is, and the other half he sounds perfectly reasonable and helpful—sometimes because he’s actually providing insights and helping us, and sometimes because Daybreak has taken him back over and he’s trying to trick us into doing something against our interests. The problem the interrogation team and I have is sorting out which is which, at any given time. But he’s alive, and we’ve been using him all along.”
Heather was staring at him, slowly shaking her head. “So your little digs at me about getting carried away and executing him and how much that was senseless, you were just . . . getting me ready for when you pulled him out of your hat?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She shrugged. “He was one of my closest friends for a long time. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t missed him. I think I might even be glad to see him alive. You’d better take me to him. Bambi, would you like to join us for this?”
“Arn and I used to be regulars at the departmental happy hour, back before,” Bambi reminded her. “I guess it’s going to be old home week. Keep our guns or check them at the door?”
“We’ve never allowed weapons near him,” James said. “Well, let me send out some runners.” He thought for a moment. “We’ll need to get the interrogation team together to meet us there; that’s just safety. Then a carriage for us, I guess, we have him in the super-secure wing of Facility 1 and that’s about a mile and a half, unless you want to walk.”
“How about two carriages?” Leslie said. “One for you guys to do old home week in, one for James and I to talk. Because, frankly, we need to talk.”
“I think the budget can stand that,” Heather said. “Considering there’s about to be no government of the United States, and we run on its credit.”
James nodded and headed for the messenger’s bench at the other end of the building.
“Besides,” Heather said, “I might as well spend it now before it goes away.”
Bambi smiled. “Spoken like a true bureaucrat. You really think you’re going to lose your budget?”
“Oh, hell, yeah. One big funding source is going to disappear when the Tempers turn into the Christian States of America. Who knows how long the PCG will want to keep funding us, especially once Allie wakes up and finds out I prevented her from being President?”
Bambi snorted. “Jeez. Our old office politics are now running the continent. Well, look, hon, I’m a duchess. You were a pretty good bureaucrat, and I bet you’ll make a pretty good vassal. And one advantage of being a duchess is, le budget, c’est moi.”
• • •
“Well,” James said, closing the carriage door, “You said you wanted to talk.”
“Yeah.” She reached out and grasped his wrist. “James, I—shit. I don’t have any idea what I feel. I mean, he almost killed me.”
“He did. For what it’s worth, he’s gone after me or one of the others with his bare hands, or silverware he stole, or a piece of broken plate or a garotte he tore out of his underwear. More times than I can count. About a third of the time he’s plain old, gentle, nerdy, numbers-and-graphs-loving Arnie. Another third, he’s a treacherous evil snake of a liar, but very persuasive, and he sounds just like he does when he’s himself. And the last third . . . well, no predicting, but he’s tried to kill us, sometimes by biting out our carotids, sometimes by sounding as reasonable and mellow as a stoned kindergarten teacher. And he jumps from one to the other and there’s no warning.”
“Yeah. But . . . okay, whether you feel good about it or not, this is about me.” She sighed, and played with Wonder’s ears; he panted and looked up at James.
“Yeah,” James said, “I knew it was going to be.”
“Why did you save Arnie Yang’s life? I mean, James, just this once, I’ll admit I know how you feel about me, that you haven’t changed, you’re still forcing yourself to be the best friend I could ever wish for, but that’s not what you want—”
He sat up stiffly, looked out the window, and kept his voice very flat. “You’re right, we don’t talk about all that.”
“But—”
“You wanted me to let him be hanged, as revenge for what he almost did to you? Don’t think I didn’t consider that. I would honest to god have enjoyed hearing that cable snap his neck. Because he tried to frame you, because he betrayed Ecco, because he fooled me, because he smiled right into the faces of people who thought he was their friend and were trying to be good friends to him. Ten million reasons I would have liked to see him dangling dead.
“But I did it all, anyway, instead. I arranged with MaryBeth to handle the switch, and got the note from Allie that we could be sure would trigger a Daybreak seizure. Then when he had the attack, MaryBeth and I took him to the infirmary. We only needed a couple of minutes because we had a prisoner we hadn’t logged. Deb and Larry Mensche knew a guy about Arnie’s size and coloration, who had been a Daybreaker, and killed his own family while he was under it, and didn’t want to live. They were waiting with him in the infirmary, and they had already dosed him up on barbiturates and got him all weepy and sleepy and hooded him, and that’s the man we took back out to ride in the wagon to his hanging.
“Meanwhile Jason and Beth took Arnie Yang to the high security section we had just set up in Facility 1; there are about a dozen high-level deeply infected Daybreakers in there at any given time, and the roster tends to change pretty fast because what we do to interrogate them, um, uses them up.”
“Kills them?”
“If they don’t find a way to kill themselves, or die of a related accident, or turn into gaping, drooling mannequins.” He rubbed his face. “It’s one hell of a job for an ex-librarian to take on, but there was no one else for it.”
“Did it have to be done?”
“Yeah, I still think so. If we’d won, anyway, I think it would have been justified. Anyway, it was the fake Arnie that went back out on the gurney, up the steps, and down the drop. Nobody saw his face till MaryBeth and I took his hood off, and you know, with the weights on his feet and using aircraft cable on such a long drop, we had turned his face into one big swollen bruise, with a big black tongue sticking out and red eyeballs bulging like Ping-Pong balls. No one who had been friends with Arnie was going to look closely. We let them have one glimpse, then MaryBeth signed the death certificate, I fed fake-Arnie head down into the incinerator—supposedly to prevent his grave becoming a pilgrimage site—and we made it work. That’s how we did it, and no, at the time, I didn’t tell you about it. You’d just been released from death row yourself and you were drinking and partying like all of a sudden there was a tomorrow.”
“When I’ve been scared, I like a lot of sex. And I’d never been so scared before.”
“I know. I understood that, Leslie. We’ve been friends a long time.”
“Yeah. I try to keep you from hearing too much about it, or seeing me when I’m that way.”
“I appreciate it. Anyway, the point is, I didn’t hang Arnie, and I decided not to hang Arnie, but it had nothing to do with you. Not that I wasn’t angry enough, just that it made no sense, if I was trying to do my job run
ning an intelligence service. I certainly didn’t save Arnie because I loved him, or forgave him, or wanted to spend time in his company. So I’m sorry but for once in my stupid, infatuated, never-learn life, this wasn’t about you.”
Leslie leaned forward, looking at him with an expression he couldn’t read, astonishment, maybe, even shock. “James, James—shit, I’m handling this so badly, I was trying to be careful not to hurt you. I just wanted to say . . . James, you didn’t have to keep it secret from me, you don’t need my forgiveness because there’s nothing to forgive, I understand, James.”
She reached over and clutched his arm; he looked at her hand as if it had magically appeared there. “James,” she said again. “What I wanted to tell you was . . . of course you had to keep him alive, of course you had to have him for interrogation, because you are running an intelligence organization, with very fucking likely the fate of civilization at stake, and he’s the richest possible source of intelligence about the enemy you could have, the senior analyst from our own side infected by Daybreak.
“Naturally he was telling you that you had to hang him; it was the same thing as the suicide pills any spy carries. Executing him looked like the stupidest piece of melodrama in the world, just a show for the mob in the street because our big dumb sloppy public still hasn’t recovered from being raised on movies and comic books and they had this fixation that they needed to see ‘justice’ done. Justice? Emotional satisfaction because it makes a tidy story. Nothing to do with what works or what matters. Just melodramatic ‘justice,’ one more way people made themselves stupid, so stupid they couldn’t keep civilization going when the first bunch of dipshits came along and wanted to take it down. And I just wanted to apologize to you.”
“You? You apologize to me? For what?”
“I really thought you were that dumb. I thought you were so infatuated that you felt like you had to be loyal when it didn’t make any sense, and I thought . . . well, it was something I felt for a long time. Maybe ever since we became friends, ever since you got that crush.” She was looking down, now, embarrassed herself. “I had the impression that you thought I was a little bit dumb, myself, I mean, nice and articulate and all, but not really capable of thinking and deciding like a mature person, and your life was built around pleasing me even though you thought I was silly and dumb. Like, patronizing self-sacrifice, you know? Doing what you thought I wanted because you didn’t think I was smart enough to see what was right. So when you hanged Arnie Yang, or staged the hanging, anyway, I thought you did it for me because you thought I was stupid enough to want it and demand it.”