by Seth Fried
It’s the exact opposite with Terry. During our walks he’s only interested in what I have to say, my thoughts on policy and civic theory. He even sometimes reacts with surprise when I haven’t heard of some economist or social philosopher he’s just mentioned, as if I were a colleague who has disappointed him. After a moment he’ll remember I’m a student and apologize, then recommend a few authors who will help catch me up to speed, there being no doubt in his mind (because I can feel he actually knows me) that I’ll be more than equal to the material. He’s honestly the purest and most remarkable man I’ve ever met, though maybe a little aloof. In fact, I’ve come across an entirely new problem. I’ve tried a few of my delicate innuendos. Nothing. He only smiles patiently, waiting for me to go on articulating my deepest-held beliefs.
From there her entries grew a little less candid about her relationship with Kirklin, except for a single entry in which she passingly referenced having finally “gotten through” to him, after which she referred to him exclusively in her journal as “T.”
Scanning through the following pages, I saw that the next few months of their time together were devoted to organizing fund-raisers with the Future Municipal Leaders for homeless shelters throughout Metropolis. According to Laury, they had raised over $15,000 for a shelter in the East Side. During this time Laury also seemed to become more and more aware of a project Kirklin was working on, which she discussed only cautiously in her journal. However, it became obvious from her serious and secretive tone that when she referenced “his important work” she was not referring to his usual responsibilities for the agency. Several entries went by before I found Laury’s brief description of a secret meeting Kirklin invited her to attend somewhere in the South Side:
I was disappointed at first. It was a lot of ordinary people crowded into a warehouse, sitting on folding chairs and drinking coffee from paper cups. But once the meeting got under way, the energy in the room was remarkable. I remembered suddenly that class trip years ago to the Palace of Versailles when I saw David’s Tennis Court Oath for the first time. I stood in front of the painting so long I didn’t even notice when my classmates all went to lunch. I wanted to understand all the passion and hopefulness on display there. And now tonight, listening to T’s people, I knew I was living it. The speakers took the stage one at a time, each of them brilliant and as powerfully stirred and stirring as the figures in David’s painting. Everything they said was truth. I pulled T’s hand into my lap and held it there. As we sat listening I thought of everything we would be giving up to make the world a better place, all those towering sacrifices. I realized they were nothing.
There was another long gap between entries. When they resumed, they were in Esperanto.
I was shocked that Laury seemed to be complicit in the recent attacks on Metropolis and asked OWEN for a translation of the Esperanto. Instead he reminded me of the time, in a tone suggesting that this passing confession had satisfied the extent of his curiosity regarding Laury’s private thoughts.
I put the journal down and entered the next car, which contained a botanical garden. A tight path wound through a dense growth of ferns and small trees. There were strange flowers in elevated beds under full-spectrum lights, specimens with burnt-orange tendrils and empty purple bulbs. The earthy musk was mitigated by a light breeze from the train’s ventilation system. The violin concerto coming from the PA system was now mixed with the sound of birdsong and gurgling creeks coming from small speakers positioned discreetly among the plants. I also noticed several ultrahigh-definition televisions, many of them barely visible behind the broad, overlapping leaves of exotic trees or the tangle of flowering vines. Their screens showed time-lapse videos of flowers blooming, slowed-down footage of birds in flight, herds of wild horses running through fields at sunset.
“Say what you want about Kirklin,” OWEN whispered in my ear as I moved up the car, “but he sure knows how to hide a lover underground.”
He wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t until his use of the word “lover” that I thought to wonder why I hadn’t seen any evidence of a man’s presence on the train. Not so much as a discarded dress sock. There had been only one place setting on the dining room table. The two had looked inseparable in the pages of The Marigold and Laury’s play had ended on an overtly devotional note. Yet by all appearances Kirklin never visited her here. The path leading through the garden was narrow, perfect for a slender eighteen-year-old, but unworkable for a man of Kirklin’s size. Even for me the plants and flower beds were arranged uncomfortably close and I was forced to push roughly through the press of tree branches.
At the end of the car there was a clearing, where three wrought-iron steps led up to a wooden deck with a bolted-down rattan chaise lounge and matching side table. There was a metal-bottomed glass of what looked like pink lemonade on the table, which must have been magnetized as well since the glass itself remained still while the ice inside knocked from side to side. As I climbed the steps, I noticed the same crackle of interference in OWEN’s voice as he tried to tell me something.
“—the glass—isn’t—”
His voice grew more garbled so I moved back down into the garden until he came through clearly.
“The ice in the glass,” he repeated, exasperated. “It hasn’t melted.”
Before I understood what he was saying, I heard a heavy clank as the door leading into the next car was opened from the other side. I ducked into the cover of a nearby fern in time to watch Sarah Laury enter the car in a silk robe. In her right hand she was holding a large hardcover book, using her index finger as a bookmark. She walked barefoot to the chaise and sat down before flipping an unseen switch on the side table and picking up the glass of lemonade. She swung her legs up onto the chaise and took a sip, opening the book and searching for her place on the page. Without looking up, she called out something in Esperanto.
“She asked you what you’re doing over there,” OWEN said.
I didn’t move or say a word and eventually she looked up from her book impatiently.
“FYI,” OWEN said, “I made your suit black. From what we saw in that journal, there’s no way she’s walking out of here with someone from Suitland.”
I took a deep breath and stepped out from the fern.
“Mr. Kirklin sent me,” I said.
She squinted at me and closed her book, then said something else in Esperanto.
“Now she wants to know why you’re not speaking Esperanto,” OWEN said.
There was a moment of tense silence accentuated by the piped-in sound of birds and babbling brooks before OWEN rescued me.
“Here,” he whispered. “Say this—”
He pronounced a few words in Esperanto slowly enough that I was able to recite them in a way I hoped sounded halfway intelligent. I was discouraged when in response she arched an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry,” OWEN said. “You told her you’re new.”
“Nova?” Laury said, her voice more confused than accusing.
OWEN whispered another string of Esperanto in my ear and, at his mercy, I repeated it.
“Jes,” I said. “Tio ĉi estas mia unua tago.”
“Yes,” OWEN translated. “This is my first day.”
I wanted to cringe at the idiocy of OWEN’s lie, but instead smiled politely in the hopes of ingratiating myself. After a moment, she seemed to decide I was harmless.
“A new recruit?” she said. “That’s excellent. Welcome. We can switch to English, if you like.”
“Thank you, Ms. Laury,” I said, feeling genuinely grateful as I climbed up the steps to join her on the deck.
She seemed taken aback by the mention of her own last name but recovered quickly.
“Your pronunciation needs some work. But otherwise you seem to be reasonably well along. You should be proud of your progress, kolego.”
“She’s right,” OWEN said. “Your
pronunciation was terrible.”
“Thank you,” I said to them both.
“I apologize for my appearance,” she said, taking another sip from her glass as she rose from the chaise. “I wasn’t told of any change in status.”
“I’m afraid there wasn’t time.”
There was a plan forming in my mind that would require a gamble, one that would either reveal beyond any doubt that I wasn’t telling the truth or earn me her trust.
“Well, then,” she said. “What’s the word?”
“First, Mr. Kirklin asked that I apologize on his behalf.”
This seemed to surprise her.
“What for?”
Her eyes were even larger than they were in photographs. It took all my courage to meet her gaze and deliver my running leap of a lie.
“He says he’s sorry he hasn’t visited you down here.”
She smiled, then laughed softly.
“Of course he hasn’t,” she said. “He’s very busy.”
Her words almost sounded like a reproach, and so I was caught off guard when she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. “For the message. You can tell him that I miss him and I’m proud of him.”
“Nice work,” OWEN said. “Now let’s reel her in.”
“I will, but for now we have to get you out of here. We have intelligence that a government agency has figured out you’re here.”
I might have expected this news to elicit some measure of panic, but she only pursed her lips and turned to place the glass on the side table, keeping her hand on it as she thought the situation over.
“Which one?”
“There’s no way to know for sure who figured it out,” I said. “But we have reason to believe it was one of those damned know-it-alls at the United States Municipal Survey.”
“Jesus,” OWEN said.
“We need to get you off the train at the next scheduled stop, which should be—”
“In eight minutes,” OWEN said. “Near Terrot Avenue.”
I repeated the information to Laury and she nodded.
“I’ll throw something on and gather a few things. You wait here.”
She took her hand from the glass. When she flipped the table’s switch, I heard a familiar crackle in my ear. Laury looked out over her garden.
“I’ll miss it here,” she said.
She turned to say something else and then froze.
“Is something the matter?” I said.
That was when I noticed it myself. While speaking with Laury I had inadvertently moved closer to her side table. The crackling from the electromagnetic interference was now too loud for me to hear whatever OWEN was shouting urgently in my ear. OWEN’s projections flickered in the brightly lit garden car, my suit rapidly changing color. My hands, shirtfront, and face alternated from clean to soiled.
I asked for an opportunity to explain myself, but Sarah Laury only walked calmly to the side table and flipped the switch again, watching as the flickering disappeared.
“Get away from the table,” OWEN said, a little late for the already developing situation. “It’s a magnet!”
Laury and I regarded one another.
“Ms. Laury, I know this must seem—”
Before I could finish, she grabbed the glass off the table, throwing the lemonade in my face and bringing the base of the glass down onto the bridge of my nose.
“Oh, no,” OWEN said as the warm, wet rush of blood began to pour down my face. “I think there’s something wrong with my patch, your nose—”
On the chaise lounge, a French bulldog appeared and then fainted.
This distracted Laury for a moment, but when I tried to finish my explanation, she brought the base of the glass down hard against my left temple and my knees went weak. I could feel the rocking of the train in my teeth. Or maybe it was my heartbeat. I wobbled there for a moment until the glass came down again and finally I went the way of the bulldog.
9 When I came to, my hands were tied to the leg of the chaise with the belt of Laury’s robe. My nose throbbed and my face was sticky with dried blood and lemonade. Laury was standing next to an open control panel in the wall, speaking into a red telephone.
After she hung up, a high-pitched tone rang out over the train’s PA system, interrupted by a man’s voice saying, “Komprenita.”
The train increased in speed.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, Laury was standing over me, dressed in blue jeans, a T-shirt, a pair of sneakers, and a light twill jacket. She had a brown messenger bag slung over one shoulder and in her right hand she held a small black Taser.
“Ms. Laury,” I said. “We have to get you back to your family.”
“I’m taking you to see them now,” she said, then leaned down to tase me gingerly in the neck.
My legs were still twitching when the train slowed to a stop. Two men entered the car and began to confer with her in Esperanto. She gave what sounded like careful instructions and the two untied me and lifted me to my feet. One of them took out a zip-tie restraint and told me to hold out my hands. I nodded slowly and listened for any sign of OWEN in my ear.
He was silent.
“Are you there?” I risked asking out loud, my voice catching at the knowledge I was alone.
The men looked at each other, confused.
One of them said again, “Your hands.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll cooperate. I’m cooperating.”
I bolted down the car and almost made it to the garden path before one of the men grabbed me by the neck of my blazer and pulled me back. He and his partner took turns punching me in the stomach, then held my hands behind my back long enough to slip on the restraint.
The four of us marched back through the train. In the other cars dozens of agents were busy tearing down its interior. Men in black suits and safety goggles were taking sledgehammers to dividing walls, while others were busy carrying out furniture and stacks of garment bags. As we passed through the library, Laury grabbed her diary and tucked it into the side pocket of her bag. She removed the print of Boadicea from the wall and kissed it before placing it in the same pocket.
We exited out the rear of the train, Laury jumping nimbly down into the tunnel while I had to be lowered by both arms, one of Kirklin’s men keeping a grip on the collar of my jacket as he climbed down to keep me from making a run for it.
From the looks of the aging brickwork, the train had stopped at one of the city’s abandoned stations. The place was dark except for a dozen portable lights humming on the platform where Kirklin’s agents were busy loading Laury’s possessions into canvas handcarts. I wasn’t able to see any indication of the station’s name and could only make out some of the faded mosaics with their complex geometrical patterns repeating until they disappeared in the dark.
In the middle of all the activity on the platform was a woman wearing a black agency suit. Rather than the tailored blazer and skirt favored by most of the female agents in Suitland, she was wearing the men’s cut. Her hair was in a long, dark braid that fell over her right shoulder and she was holding a clipboard. She observed the men’s progress and occasionally told her subordinates where to set a piece of furniture or one of the garden’s flower beds as everything was carried off the train.
Laury called up to the woman, who waved in our direction and continued to issue orders to the men as she approached us. Once she was closer, I was surprised to recognize her as Helen Roth, a brilliant economist who I’d seen present a paper on economic diversity at the 2011 Civic Dynamics Summit in Minneapolis. Her ideas on how to nurture and sustain local businesses in struggling areas had inspired me to propose several development programs of my own. She was young for her accomplishments and rather pretty. When she smiled down at Laury I saw that she still had the charming gap in
her front teeth, which I took to mean that the denture treatment was reserved for Kirklin’s lower-level enforcers. Back in 2011 I had approached her after her talk in order to thank her for sharing her insights. She had smiled warmly and even seemed impressed when I introduced myself as an agent with the USMS. Looking back, I had often been disappointed in myself that I hadn’t screwed up the courage to ask if I could buy her a drink. But if she recognized me as I was, standing in the dark with my face bloodied, she did nothing to indicate it.
She gestured down the tunnel and offered a word of either warning or encouragement to Laury before tossing her a flashlight. Laury thanked her and pointed the light down the tunnel as she began to walk. The man to my left elbowed me, making me understand that we were to follow.
We worked our way through a system of dead tunnels that Laury seemed to know by heart. The air was damp and filled with a reek of mold that made it hard to breathe. The tracks themselves ran perfectly straight, but she led us through a dizzying progression of access tunnels and abandoned stairways. Even if I had known what station we had departed from, it was impossible to tell if we were moving deeper into the tunnels or doubling back, if we were on our way up to the surface or winding farther and farther down. After some time we came upon a set of tracks that were the narrower three-foot gauge that hadn’t been used in over eighty years. Laury turned off her flashlight, revealing a faint and slowly flashing red light at the far end of the tunnel. As we moved toward it, I saw that the light was coming from a high fixture on a brick wall. There was a heavy security door in the middle with a keypad over the handle. Laury entered the code and pulled the door open, flooding the tunnel with light.