Bad Order

by B. B. Ullman

  While Brit and I were trying to slink back to the dining room, Albert went and opened the front door.

  It was them! It was the same weirdos who’d given me the pamphlet when Albie was just a baby.

  13

  The visitors . . . again

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d always sort of thought it was a dream because my memory of the event seemed so . . . warped. But it was them, all right.

  Albert hurried away down the hall, and then he returned. In his hand was a framed picture of a sweet little puppy on a swing. He turned it over and behind the wire was the pamphlet. Years ago he had memoed me to hide it. In fact, he had still been a baby and couldn’t even crawl yet. I’d stuck it behind that picture and put it back on the wall, and I’d forgotten about it all this time.

  Albert held the pamphlet out, and the small man took it.

  “Thank you,” he responded. Then he turned to me and said, “I am the Commodore. We met when you were shorter and less intelligent.”

  He showed me a smile, and it was just as creepy as I recalled—like piano keys lined up in a row. His small, pale head was completely bald, with ears like little shells. He wore brown-tinted glasses that had fabric on the sides, like the old-timey shades that mountaineers wore to prevent snow blindness. I couldn’t see his eyes at all. All three of them wore the same brown-tinted glasses.

  The Commodore nudged the tall woman.

  “I am Citizen Lady,” she said, as if on cue. “A female.”

  “Your name is Citizen Lady?” I asked.

  “Yes, that is correct. I am Citizen Lady. A female.”

  The Commodore shook his head ever so slightly, as if he was trying to get her to shut up.

  Citizen Lady commenced smiling the same toothy grin that the Commodore had showed. She was almost as tall as I recalled, and her blunt-cut, yellow hair had an overly shiny look that reminded me of a cheap Halloween wig. She wore the same style black suit as the Commodore and the other guy.

  I turned to Brit with my eyes wide and my eyebrows up.

  The third guy had dark skin that looked strange in the snowy light. It was too smooth. And his hair looked like it had been painted on his head. He introduced himself. “I am Med Tech Tek of this most effective triad. So pleased to greet you!” He didn’t offer a hand to shake, but he smiled and nodded, clicking his teeth softly. All three of them began smiling and doing a bobblehead nod, their teeth clicking away.

  “So . . . what do you want?” I asked. I wished they’d quit their grinning and clicking—it was super creepy.

  The Commodore ceased his head-bobbing. “We have data to share.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Thank you!” I started closing the door. All of a sudden, Albert put his little booted foot in the way.

  “Albert,” I bent over to hiss in his ear, “these guys could be serial killers. Don’t encourage them.”

  Albert promptly sent me a memo that said Three safe, more info.

  “Albie, you gotta give me more than that.”

  Three safe—good order, he sent. The words were leafy-green and a butterfly shape floated peacefully through the calm. His memo was insistent—it pulsed green several times.

  The strange visitors stood patiently on the porch, lined up tall to short. I looked back at Lars—he could be tough. “Lars, what do you think? Should we talk to them?”

  Lars came to the door. “I want to see some ID,” he said, in a voice as deep and firm as he could muster.

  The three weirdos glanced at each other, as if unsure.

  “ID—ID—Identification,” the Commodore proclaimed in a voice that was slightly . . . mechanical. At the same moment, all three reached into their black jacket pockets and pulled out green-tinted cards. The cards were translucent with a bronze shield that had a butterfly center, surrounded by zeros and ones. Albert was standing next to me. He eyed the cards and sent me a memo. Legitimate.

  “What do you mean, legitimate? These cards don’t say anything!”

  Legit, legit, Albert repeated, with the happy butterfly multiplying itself.

  I sighed and addressed the visitors. “Okay, what do you want?” I was intentionally trying to sound sharp and tough.

  “We’d like to confer about the . . . situation.”

  “Situation?”

  “The anomaly in this area.”

  “You mean the mist?”

  “No.” Click-click went his teeth. “You are mistaken in naming it mist.”

  “Well, then what?”

  “A rip,” he said. His toothy smile had turned into a frown. “An interdimensional tear. It’s allowing unnatural energy into your world and if the imbalance continues, the results will be disastrous.”

  “Disastrous,” they all repeated in unison.

  I cast my mind back to the feelings that I’d had in the woods. There was no doubt that the situation was serious, but where did these guys come from? And why did they look and act so weird? I glared at the Commodore. “Are you with the police or, like, a government agency or something?” This idea came to me when I noticed their shoes. I recalled Meemaw saying that “government men” always wore black shoes, and these three characters did indeed wear black dress shoes with laces that tied—even Citizen Lady, who was, as she’d kept insisting, a female.

  “Yes, the government,” the Commodore said, nodding. The other two bobbed their heads in agreement. Once again they eagerly showed me their cards.

  I rolled my eyes. “These don’t mean anything to me; they could be Pokémon cards for all I know. But my brother seems to take them seriously.”

  “Albert knows,” the Commodore asserted. He turned to my brother and made a quick, respectful little bow.

  “The automobile is ready for departure,” Citizen Lady said, like she was hinting that they ought to hurry up.

  “We invite you on a fact-finding mission,” the Commodore said, gesturing toward the street.

  “No way!” I answered with the finality of a guillotine chop. “This is ridiculous. Do you expect us to go somewhere with you? I mean, you guys are totally suspicious showing up with your sunglasses and your sketchy IDs.” I was trying to sound rude on purpose. I thought it would make me seem more imposing.

  The three characters looked at each other, and then at me.

  “Duly noted,” the Commodore replied.

  “I should have cleaned up the schematic,” Med Tech Tek said, displaying his remorse like a sad-faced clown.

  The Commodore paid him no mind. “We would not presume on your peaceful lives if the situation did not require it,” he said. “Your brother will vouch.”

  Albert sent me a memo that said Vouched, with a sure and certain edge to it.

  Normally I trusted Albert 100 percent, but he was in my care and I didn’t trust these weirdos with their phony cards and silly names.

  Albert attached a new memo. I must go for more information, for good order. A follow-up memo said With Pearl−or without. The memo was unyielding and it sat heavy on my heart. Albert began putting his jacket on. There was no stopping him when he was obsessed like this.

  “So tell me the truth, Albert,” I said with just a hint of frustration. “Are you admitting that we have something to worry about?”

  He responded immediately with a memo that quivered with anxiety. Yes, the time to worry is now.

  14

  To the—er—lab

  Okay Albert, we’ll go. But I swear if you’re wrong about these guys, I’m going to be so mad at you!” I ran and got my coat. I was still in P.J. bottoms and a T-shirt and had my kitty-cat slippers on my feet. I kicked off the slippers and found my boots.

  “Mary, you can’t go without me.” Brit sounded offended. “What would I say to your mom? And your Meemaw would kill me.”

  “You rug-gnats can’t go by yourselves.” Lars turned to the people on the porch. “You’ve got to leave one of those cards—and your driver’s license.”

  The Commodore immediately handed over his translucent green card
with the ones and the zeros and the butterfly shield. Then he turned to Med Tech Tek, who abruptly raised his hand and showed a driver’s license that he had hidden in his palm.

  “We are from another town,” Med Tech Tek said. “We are from . . . New York.”—They all said New York at the same time. Once again, Brit and I exchanged a wary glance.

  I looked at the driver’s license—#MEDTECH 112000x—with some crazy New York address that was, like, 101010 Smhru Street.

  Lars took both pieces of ID and set them on the dining room table. “I guess if we don’t come back, the cops will know where to start looking.” Lars gave Med Tech Tek a stern expression, showing him that we weren’t just dumb kids.

  Med Tech Tek smiled back, bobbing his head in agreement. “Indeed,” he said. “The identification will be most revealing.”

  His comment made me nervous. Would a serial killer say something like that?

  Brit grabbed her jacket and put on her boots, and then we followed the three weirdos across the yard. The bright sun of a few moments ago had been snuffed by a sudden, thick fog. The fog made our yard quiet, like a quiet room with a snowy carpet. It made the street quiet, too. I could hardly see ten feet in front of me and it gave me a dreamlike feeling. I wondered about the last twenty-four hours—the red mist, the crow, and now these strange people with their “fact-finding mission.” Pausing midstep I said, “With the snow and the fog, and you three government guys, this feels like a weird dream.”

  “It is not a dream,” the Commodore responded with authority. “This reality is a conscious, real-time event. It has no distortions or other possibilities. It could only happen this way, and in fact, it always happened this way.”

  “Mr. Commodore, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but what you said makes everything seem weirder.” I gave him a glare.

  Albert sent me a comforting memo. Pearl has good sense. It had the equivalent of a smiley pearl which was Albert’s way of sending his love.

  We followed the government guys to where they had parked. There, in the smothering fog of the cul-de-sac, was an old-model Volkswagen Bug with its engine running. It was white outside and white on the inside, too, with bench seats in the front and back.

  “How are we supposed to all fit in that thing?” Brit asked.

  “Through the doors, which open,” said the Commodore. He and Med Tech Tek and Citizen Lady scrunched into the front bench seat; Citizen Lady’s yellow hair brushed the ceiling. Me and Brit and Lars and Albert squeezed into the back.

  “FYI, there are no seat belts back here,” I announced.

  The Commodore began to stammer. “FYI—FYI—F—for your information,” he said with a hint of triumph in his voice.

  “Right.” I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrows so Brit would see. She did the same back. “Well, we can’t buckle up,” I pointed out.

  “Seat belts,” the Commodore exclaimed, directing this comment toward Med Tech Tek.

  “Oops,” said Med Tech Tek. He made a chuckling sound that bubbled out in crazy notes and pitches—it made me want to laugh, too. These guys might be super weird, but their laughter put me at ease.

  Citizen Lady was in the driver’s seat. “Let’s go!” she said cheerfully. The car jerked slightly and hummed, but it seemed like the hum was more in my bones than in my ears. Moments passed and except for the dull hum, the car seemed very quiet and still, like an electric car—only this model was too old for that. I looked around. The interior was plush, pale leather, with vintage crank-windows and shiny chrome door locks. The windows were heavily tinted; I peered out but I could hardly see a thing. The dark windows and the thick fog gave me a strange feeling that we were moving up. I forced a yawn and my ears popped.

  “Citizen Lady, are you sure you can see well enough to drive?” I asked. “It looks like a sea of cotton balls out there.”

  “I will refer to my instruments,” she assured me.

  I checked the dashboard but it revealed nothing. “Maybe you should turn on your lights,” I suggested.

  “Indeed I should, for your health,” she agreed.

  The interior of the car lit up with a violet-colored light . . . and then I couldn’t see anything at all outside. I gave up on being a backseat driver.

  “Where are we going?” Lars asked.

  “To the—er—lab,” the Commodore said.

  “And here we are!” Citizen Lady announced.

  “What do mean, ‘here we are’? We’ve been in the car for, like, three minutes. That wouldn’t even get us off Myrtle Road.” I hated to argue with them but they were so ridiculous.

  “The fog is deceptive,” the Commodore said. “Time and space can be difficult to measure with sensory criteria.”

  I tossed Brit another What the hay? face.

  We found ourselves in a small garage where the walls were finished in the same pale leather as the interior of the car. They curved to meet the floor, and there were some modern details of chrome stripes at the base and ceiling.

  “This place is cool,” I said. “I can’t believe you put leather upholstery in a garage.”

  “We would never be so uncivilized as to decorate with skin,” the Commodore stiffly objected.

  “Dear bovines,” Citizen Lady added. Her face went sad-clown and her teeth clicked with disapproval.

  “This way,” Med Tech Tek said. He ushered us through a door that must have been an elevator. Moments later, the door opened and we entered a large, round room—that is, it was shaped like a doughnut with the elevator where the doughnut hole would have been. The outer walls of the room were bare and curved. There were no windows in the smooth white walls, which seemed a little bit creepy.

  “So here is the problem,” the Commodore said. He directed our attention to the far wall which lit up and became a video screen. On the screen was a picture of my dad! Like it was no big deal, the Commodore said, “Your father, Albert E. Day, caused the rip.”

  15

  The weight of order

  The mention of my father startled me; it seemed so out of context. “Wait, what?”

  “Albert E. Day was experimenting with thought fractals and he was successful in this procedure,” the Commodore explained.

  “But what does that mean?” I asked.

  “He discovered a delivery system that carries communication via thought patterns. For example, imagine one limb of a tree,” the Commodore began. “Picture the tip has three star-like points, and the middle point of that has three star-like points, and the middle point of that has three star-like points . . . And so it goes, smaller and smaller until the measurement is at the quantum level, and still it gets smaller. The structure of the thought-fractal can be sent in coded streams. This stream can ‘dig’ a tunnel, similar to what you call a wormhole, and then carry the messages within.”

  Citizen Lady interrupted. “Albert E. Day utilized this fractal algorithm and found his way into the half-constant.”

  “What’s the half-constant?” I asked.

  “Another dimension,” Citizen Lady answered. “A dimension that exists here and now, but in its own reality. It’s where your thoughts go. The positive and the negative thoughts of your universe swirl and interact in the half-constant until they find their place in the scheme of things. It’s a delicate balance. It is good order.”

  “Obviously the weight of order has been disturbed,” said Med Tech Tek with his exaggerated frown.

  A movie began to play on the wall screen; it was my dad in his old lab in the garage at home. I was shocked to see him like this. I felt embarrassed and flustered because it was so up-close and intimate. He looked scruffy and boyish, like maybe how Albert would look when he grew up. But the man seemed happy and excited—nothing like the gruff, hostile father that was stuck in my memory.

  “You see,” the Commodore went on, “there was evidence that an imbalance was occurring. The triad—that is, we—detected turbulence and pressure at the quantum level some time ago. But when your father atte
mpted his experiments, his probe opened a valve, so to speak.”

  On the screen my dad was hooking electrode gizmos onto his head, and these were attached to a machine that was wired to his computer.

  “Where did you get this video?” I asked. The shock of seeing my dad seemed to dry out my mouth and twist my stomach in a knot. My privacy felt violated; our privacy as a family.

  “We copied this from your father’s records,” Med Tech Tek said. He seemed unaware of my discomfort. “Here, your father is amplifying the impulses from his own mind and sending that information to a trans-coder in his computer. From there the package is sent to the lasers in the woods.”

  Albert nodded.

  Scornfully, I said, “There are no lasers in our woods.” But then I remembered the ringing tone of the post when Brit tossed that first snowball.

  “They were small, but with the convergence of six of them and with the boost from the power lines, they were effective. The connection was accomplished with the most basic technology. Very admirable for such primitive tools.” Med Tech Tek nodded to Albert as he said this.

  “But you said my dad caused the rip.”

  “He certainly hurried it along,” Med Tech Tek said. “But, to be fair, if the pressure had not been so great, the tear would have naturally sealed. The pressure was great because the imbalance was great; the negative ratio was overwhelming.”

  “Really, it was fortuitous that your father identified the problem before it followed its natural conclusion,” Citizen Lady said kindly.

  Now the screen was showing a math sequence that was stupefying. The numbers and symbols began to graph down and down into the shape of a funnel, until it ended in a teeny-tiny ring—and then, BLAM, all the numbers squeezed through the ring and exploded inside out. It was a sickening display of chaos.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed them. “That’s giving me a headache.”

  Brit moved closer to me and touched my arm. She definitely looked worried now. I didn’t understand what the numbers meant, but I think Brit had an inkling of what these equations were all about.