The Coming

by Joe Haldeman

  The stock market went into a two-day spasm and settled back into a period of growth, slightly accelerated. RadioShack International coined money with an aimable radio antenna that you could point to any spot in the heavens, and pick up alien broadcasts. So far the aliens had only "broadcast" in a beam of light, but surely they'd discover radio before long. Outfits that sold survival gear also prospered; one called Take Control (actually a subsidiary of L. L. Bean) bought short-term leases in malls across America, selling complicated knives, solar collectors, dried ("L. L. Brand") beans, and five-gallon jugs of tap water.

  There were the usual riots in the usual countries, controlled by the usual methods, which provoked the usual responses. But even the most coolheaded and rational looked toward Christmas and the New Year, and wondered if there would be a January, after the first of the month.

  Things did calm down for Aurora Bell, after the first week or so. She became science coordinator for the Committee on the Coming, which involved little enough science, in the absence of any new data.

  Deedee Whittier had a nervous month, wondering whether Ybor would keep his silence.

  1 November

  Ybor Lopez

  Ybor woke to the chiming and looked at the clock set into the wall, as if it might reveal a surprise: 0700 1 NOV 54, one month after he'd been arrested.

  He put his feet on the cold cement floor and rubbed his face. The walls were blue this morning. Powder blue or baby blue. It was better than the pink.

  The other inmates were making getting-up noises. He added his bit to the symphony of splashes and flushes. Brushed his teeth; rubbed shaving cream on and rinsed off his stubble. He sat back down.

  At least he had a measure of privacy, behind his white-painted bars, since Manny had walked. Manny, who until two days ago had occupied the cell across the way, was a wild-eyed kid from Ohio, come to Florida for the drugs. Wound up in this "pussy prison," no walls. Just a white line painted on the ground. Cross that line and they send you to a real prison. He'd rather put up with the bullshit, thank you.

  So Manny might be in Raiford by now, four in a cell with murderers and rapists. Or he might be back in Dayton. He'd left inside a driverless bread truck. It probably took him exactly as far as the gate.

  What to do for the hour before the door unlocked for breakfast? He was allowed to keep two books at a time. Biophysics of Cell Formation and Don Quijote, Segunda Parte. Neither one appealed this early.

  He lay back down and tried to remember heaven. He would do his two years and go out and score again, if not José y Maria, then White Cloud or Vista Interminable, the other local sperm-based DDs. The very notion of rehab revealed their ignorance. Like being rehabilitated from being a twin. From being human.

  There had been no physical withdrawal. He'd listened to the agonies men went through in the other cells, and felt compassion for them, but not empathy. His loss was deep and spiritual, like losing a parent or a brother. It didn't make him scream or cry or puke. It made him patient in his grief. If you lost a person, he was gone for good. Ybor could go to a lab and jerk out a few cc's of himself, and have his powerful brother back the next day.

  Meanwhile he would measure out his days here, loneliness and labor, neither intolerable. He put in six office hours a day, working on the prison's computers, and then two "work" hours in the laundry or kitchen.

  He was learning interesting things about the computer system. He couldn't erase the record of his sentence—that was backed up in too many outside systems—but his record here would be of a model "patient," who emerged drug-free and eager to face the world.

  His life was his own the rest of the time, as long as he stayed inside the white line and returned to his "unit" after dinner. He read a lot in the library and, for a couple of weeks, watched the cube with the other patients. But the cube, which he'd ignored all his adult life, proved dangerously addictive. He'd left it for the others to enjoy.

  So he didn't see the news. He probably knew less about the Coming than any adult in Gainesville. Which suited him. If Whittier hadn't gotten a hair up her ass about Rory Bell, he wouldn't be in here.

  A metallic chatter broke his reverie. The fat trusty Bobón was rattling his baton on the bars. Behind him, a man who looked vaguely familiar—Gregory Moore, the court-appointed lawyer who had so successfully defended him straight into this bunk.

  "What's with the beard?" Ybor said.

  "Makes me look older," Moore said. It did; it was white, while his hair was salt-and-pepper gray. "I've come to take you to an interview." The trusty unlocked the door, and it slid up into the ceiling.

  "Will it get me out of here?"

  "Might get your sentence reduced. Your period of treatment."

  "Yeah, treatment. I'm cured, already." He followed the lawyer out and walked down the corridor between him and Bobón. Carefully. The trusty's stick was a neurotangler, and he liked using it. It didn't hurt much, depending on how you fell, but could be embarrassing.

  In prison movies, the other prisoners would hoot obscenities and bang their tin cups on the bars. At Alachua Rehabilitation Center, they had Styrofoam cups and a point system, and few serious criminals. Most of them glanced up momentarily from books or games, if they reacted at all to the parade.

  "Left here," the trusty said, and Ybor followed the lawyer through an unmarked door he'd never seen open before. He'd thought it was a storage room. It opened into a narrow damp corridor as long as a cell was deep, ending in another unmarked door. The lawyer held it open for Ybor and closed it behind himself. On the other side, the trusty locked it with a rattling of keys.

  The room was white and spotless, starting to brighten with light from a picture window facing the horse pasture to the east. A door to the outside was open, metal screens keeping the bugs out.

  Three hard chairs faced a plain white table. He recognized the man behind the table, and was startled. They'd never met face-to-face before, but everybody knew who he was.

  "Willy Joe Capra," he said. "You're the mob guy."

  "You buy that shit?" He smiled. "There ain't no such thing as a mob."

  "This is still a funny place to make your acquaintance." He took the chair directly in front of the man. Moore stood behind him, silent, until Willy Joe pointed to the chair on his left.

  "I wouldn't call this place funny," Willy Joe said. "I was here, I'd just want out."

  "Sí. It could drive you crazy." Willy Joe just stared. "Mr. Moore said you might be able to help me."

  "Yeah. You help me, I help you."

  Anything you want, Ybor thought. But he just nodded and waited. Looking at the screen door.

  "At your hearing," the lawyer said, "you testified that you were working on your own. A 'fishing expedition,' you called it."

  "The woman was on the news," he said carefully. "I knew she had lots of money, or her husband did."

  "So you figured you'd find something and squeeze her," Willy Joe said. "Just like that. Nobody put you up to it."

  "I do it all the time," he said, which was true. "Usually just for fun." So far, he hadn't implicated his boss, figuring that silence would pay off in the long run.

  "That's what you said at the hearing," Moore said, "and voice analysis indicates you were telling the truth, or some version of the truth. It also says that you lied later, when you said you didn't find anything interesting—I think 'useful' was the word."

  "Yeah, well … you know voice spectrum's unreliable. Not admissible in court."

  "This ain't no court," Willy Joe said. "This is a fishing expedition, too. Look at the bait." He reached into a jacket pocket and withdrew a hypo popper.

  "That can't be mine," Ybor said, but he felt sweat suddenly evaporating on his forehead. "Nobody can get in there but me."

  He twirled the cylinder, smiling at it. "I don't have to get into your private stash. Where do you think this shit comes from?"

  "From you?"

  "From a friend of mine. Not the guy you buy it from. What he's
called, Blinky?"

  "That's right, Blinky." He could smell his armpits now, sour.

  "Blinky don't make the stuff. He just collects the juice and the money." He balanced it upright on the table. "Suppose I could get you this once a week. You spill your guts for that?"

  "What … what do you need to know?"

  "You been followin' this alien bullshit?"

  Oh, shit. "Not much, no. I got busted the day it all started."

  "But you do know the Bell woman was behind it," Moore said. "You were going through her files, and that pulled down the wrath of God, or at least the chancellor."

  "So what did you find?" Willy Joe said. "What wasn't 'useful'?"

  Damn. It wouldn't be enough. "Look. I'll tell you all I know. But you got to get me out of here."

  "As if you were in a position to bargain," the lawyer said.

  "I'm worth a lot more to you on the outside. I can get more information where this came from."

  "Sure," Willy Joe said. "Like you'll get your old job back and they'll let you hack their computer."

  "You don't understand jaquismo," he said quickly. "I don't have to be at the same computer."

  "Just you let me know what you got. I'll decide how much it's worth."

  "Okay." What's the best way to put it? "Dr. Bell and her husband…"

  "Dr. Bell and Dr. Bell," Moore said.

  "Yeah. They're living a lie. Covering up his past."

  "He kill somebody?" Willy Joe straightened slightly.

  "Worse than that. He got caught fucking a guy."

  Willy Joe looked at Moore. "I told you he was a fucking mariposa." To Ybor: "This was after the law."

  "After the state law. Before the federal one."

  Willy Joe nodded. "This ain't much. I seen him hangin' around with Nick the Greek. If they ain't queer I ain't never met a queer."

  "This wasn't Nick the Greek." Ybor paused long enough for Willy Joe to open his mouth. "It was a cop."

  "A cop. Which one?"

  Ybor stroked his chin. "Don't know yet."

  "What is this 'yet'? You know it was a cop, but you don't know who?"

  "That's right. I need more time on the computer."

  "What did you find out?" Moore said.

  Ybor stroked his chin harder. "You holdin' out on me," Willy Joe said quietly, "you don't get your DD. And I get you transferred to Raiford. You want to meet some fuckin' queers."

  "All I know is the path of the data link, and the way it was stopped. And when and where he was picked up."

  "Go on," Moore said.

  "It was down at People's Park, three in the morning. Twelve April 2022."

  "So what were they doin'? Blow job, cornhole?"

  "The call-in didn't say. Just that it was a 547, sodomy. They identified Norman Bell, but the other guy didn't have an ID."

  "So how you know he's a cop?" Willy Joe leaned forward. "Make it good."

  "The whole record got erased, all the way back to the call-in. It was an 'administrative edit,' and the authorization came from a police-department internal-security unit."

  Willy Joe tapped the DD popper on the desk, in a slow rhythm. "It got erased, but not to you."

  "I saw the hole in the data. It's complicated. But there was an erased link to Norman Bell, and I followed it up to the hole, so to speak. From there, I just searched unencrypted chat mail for a half hour around that time. Found a guy who monitors police and emergency bands, and he was talking to somebody when the sodomy call came in."

  "I don't see how the lack of data implicates a policeman," Moore said. "Sounds more like Norman Bell pulling strings. He has money, or she does."

  "They did pull strings." Ybor allowed himself a smile. "Mrs. Bell did, anyhow. The cops were glad to take her money, but the erasure was complete a good eight hours before she paid."

  "She didn't just pay," Willy Joe said. "Even a professor ain't that stupid."

  "No … I just looked for a big credit transfer. The guy she paid was the police dispatcher's father. She bought a new garage door. But no installation fee. Like she put it in herself."

  "That is interesting," Moore said. "The sodomy charge would ruin him, and she'd go down for buying off the policeman. So your next step would be to confront them?"

  "Yeah, if I had a next step. I'd just found the garage-door thing when the cop stepped in and shot me. Son of a bitch."

  "So if you was to walk out this door," Willy Joe said, "you'd get your shit together and then go hit up the Bells."

  "Well, I guess not," Ybor said carefully. "Guess you'd want to do that."

  "Smart kid," Willy Joe said to Moore. He tapped the cylinder with his finger and it rolled almost to the edge of the table. "Here ya go. Have a ball."

  Ybor uncapped it hungrily and turned his back to the men. He almost caught his penis in the zipper, in his haste.

  A sharp sting and the first real peace he'd had in a month. He felt the calm power glow through his muscles and organs.

  He took a deep breath, and something rattled in his chest. He turned and sat down. A surge of nausea and twisting pain in his stomach. "What…"

  Willy Joe

  "Y'know, I think you made a mistake there. You're not supposed to shoot that in your dick."

  "No, he isn't," Moore said.

  Willy Joe stood up with a bright smile. "That's supposed to go in your pussy."

  Ybor was doubled up in pain. "Shit. Immune … system."

  "Yeah, little mix-up. Sorry. Some girl musta got yours. No fun for her, either."

  Moore stared at Ybor's convulsions. "They said it would be sudden and painless."

  "One outta two." He picked up his cap off the floor.

  He set the cap on his head and straightened it, looking at the mirror on the wall. He saluted whoever was behind the mirror, probably Bobón and the warden. "You wanta take it from here?"

  Moore didn't answer at first. He was watching Ybor, who had fallen off the chair, rigid, and was slowly moving his limbs around, his jaw locked open in a silent scream.

  "I said you wanna take care of it?"

  "Sure," Moore said, not looking up. "Papers already made out. Bad drug reaction."

  "I'll say." Willy Joe wrinkled his nose at the smell. "Think I'm gonna die some other way." He pushed the screen door open, stepped out, and took a deep breath. The golden pasture smelled wonderful, a mile or more from the early-morning highway fumes. He stepped over the white line painted on the sidewalk, the symbolic wall, and pulled out the antenna on his phone.

  "Where you guys at?" he said. "Five minutes, then. Runnin' behind and we ain't even started." There was no anger in his voice, though. He selected a joint from his wallet and lit up, smiling, and walked into the trees to his left, away from the rising sun.

  There was still a little mist close to the ground. The woods were dark, but he didn't need the flashlight he'd used coming in. He followed a path of pine needles, an exercise trail for the staff and a few trusted inmates.

  In front of him, the darkness rustled, and he was down on one knee, pistol out. Shit! In the woods without a bodyguard. He hustled sideways, to crouch behind a fat twisted oak.

  Silence. Just a squirrel or a bird. If someone was after him, he wouldn't make no noise, just wait. You never hear the one that gets you. But he strained to see down the dark path, looking for motion.

  Too many people knew he was here, alone. Maybe that was not too bright. But you got to trust somebody. Or do you? His knee was getting wet. Noiselessly, he switched to a squatting position, still staring down along the barrel into the darkness. Come on, bright boy.

  He heard the high-pitched hum of the car whine down as it approached, and the crunch on gravel when it parked on the shoulder a couple of hundred yards away.

  He worried the phone out of its pocket, clumsy with his left hand, punched one number with his thumb, and whispered. "Car … Bobby, we might have a situation here. You and Solo get out of the car, get ready to cover me. It probably ain't nothin'." />
  He winced when the car doors slammed. Maybe that was good, though. He stepped into the open and walked down the trail, at first holding the pistol out. A squirrel scampered across the path, about where the noise had come from. He tracked it, leading just a hair, and then relaxed. He was holding the pistol loosely at his side when he came into the clearing and saw the big Westinghouse. He waved at Bobby the Bad and Solo, and pressed the pistol back into its holster. It clicked into place and he straightened his jacket.

  "Problems, boss?" Bobby said. He had the partygun with its big snail clip of buckshot, ready to gun down an angry mob.

  "Heard something. Guess it ain't nothin'. Darker 'n I figured." He opened the car door. "Let's get a move on. Fuckin' ATC." He was usually in and out of Nick's before the traffic control switched on.

  The Westinghouse scattered gravel in a fishtailing U-turn and surged up the hill. "Get what you're after, boss?" Bobby said.

  "Yeah. Had to pop him, though."

  "What, the lawyer?"

  "Fuck, no. The junkie." He carefully stubbed the joint in the ashtray. "He knew stuff. Can't trust a junkie." He studied Solo when he said that; no reaction. Could he really think that Willy Joe didn't know about him and his ice?

  Most skaters don't think they're addicted. Let 'em go a couple of weeks without. Might be a fun experiment with Solo. Lock him up in that cabin in Georgia for about a month. Then come scrape him off the walls and see what he'll do for an icicle.

  Almost twenty years' dealing and clean as a nun's butt. Marijuana and booze, that's nothing. Dropped heroin and cocaine cold turkey at the age of nineteen, when he started dealing for the Franzias.

  There was no traffic until the Archer ring. As they went up the ramp they got the ATC warning chime. Solo let go of the wheel and punched in the four-digit code for Nick's restaurant, then two digits for "drop-off." Then he unfolded a Miami newspaper and resumed reading in the middle of the entertainment section.

  The traffic wasn't too heavy, but this far out in the country, more than half the cars were gas or LP. The trees nearest the road were spindly and yellowish with pollution. Car owners inside the city limits had to pay an annual "green" tax if their vehicles weren't electric or pure hydrogen, so on still days the city could become an island of relatively clean air inside a doughnut of haze.