by Matt Moore
“You still there?” Laura asked.
Paul yanked the strap off. He had a moment to feel the tension of the fabric slide free from the back of his head before pain sliced through his skull, the consequence of not shutting down the interface. He leaned on the kitchen counter. Fighting to keep pain from his voice: “Can you get to your car? To Marcel’s? That’s the safest place for you.”
“No. Streets are jammed. If I find RCMP, could they get me to where you’ll be?”
The commpiece in his right ear chirped, announcing a new call. Paul pulled it out.
“I’m not sure what the plan is,” he said. A horn blared. Paul looked up to see a constable next to his cruiser, dressed in dark blue fatigues with a flak jacket covering his barrel chest, waving for a passing car to slow down as it rounded a curve. Paul moved to the front door.
“Then I’m coming to you,” she said, breathing quicker.
Paul opened the front door, letting in a cacophony of sirens, car horns and revving engines. He waved to the constable.
“I think it’ll take me an hour, so if something changes—” The floor trembled and the phone roared static.
Paul held it from his ear. When he put it back, there were screams. “Laura?!”
“Oh my god! Paul—I think it was the Hill!”
Two steps and Paul stood before the television. “Are you okay?” he asked. The screen had split into two images. On the left, peace protestors on Parliament Hill—half of them with green, white, and black armbands in a show of solidarity—scattered from a still-smoking crater. Scores of bodies lay, unmoving, around its edge. Suicide bomber, Paul thought, but the image on the right showed the view from the highway. The distant shapes shuddered and belched tongues of fire and black smoke.
“I’m okay.” People screamed in the background, grunts and curses of a crowd fighting itself. “Everyone’s running south. What was—” The house shook again. Laura screamed.
The television image panned to show a corner of Parliament’s West Block explode. Its green copper roof collapsed in a cloud of fire and smoking debris.
On his hip, Paul’s PDA vibrated.
The constable—his nametag read Tessier—appeared in the doorway joining the living room and front hall, nearly filling it. Orange-tinted goggles hid his eyes. He motioned to the front door.
Paul shook his head. “Laura—” The line was dead.
“Minister,” Tessier said, “we need to get you out of here.”
Paul dialled Laura’s number. “Just a second.” An automated message told him the number was temporarily unavailable. Incisors dug into his lower lip.
“Now, sir.”
The house shuddered. Glasses clinked in the kitchen cabinets. The bass-note boom of a distant explosion hit them a moment later.
“My wife is stuck downtown and trying to get here. We have to wait for her.”
“Where downtown?”
“Rideau Centre.”
“She won’t make it.”
Ice formed around Paul’s heart. He fought back memories of hospital rooms, of helplessness, of his wife wasting away. “Can you send a car for her? Get her out of there?”
“My orders don’t include her.”
“An hour. I just need one hour.”
“Sir, I’m not going to debate this. You need to come with me—”
“No.” Paul turned and moved into the kitchen. He wondered how far Tessier’s authority extended—could he remove Paul by force—but the constable stepped into the hallway, speaking into his radio.
Paul cursed, struggling for a move that would keep him here. She had come to Ottawa to be with him. Despite his travel and some late nights—and being 100 kilometres from the front—she wanted to spend as much time with him as she could in this cramped, rented townhouse rather than be back home, safe but alone. Getting into cabinet meant more late nights, sometimes not getting home until midnight, and being gone by 6:30 the next morning. Since they’d first met, coworkers at Regina City Hall, she liked to be in bed by ten o’clock. But no matter the time he got home, he found her on the couch—sometimes awake but usually not. He’d gently rouse her and she always had a smile and hug. Never a sour face, never a rash word no matter the hour. She’d been a rock—the one thing he could rely on.
Every day—every moment with her—was a gift. When they cut the cancer from her, they took her ability to have children, but the doctors only gave her a fifteen percent chance of lasting two years. It’s aggressive, the doctors had said. It comes back.
But here she was—healthy and active. No sign of—
Another explosion, close enough to feel its crack-boom. Something upstairs shattered as it hit the floor.
A deep, animal instinct twisted in Paul’s gut, screaming for him to run. If they did to Ottawa what they did to Moncton—
But how could he leave? Why should he get to go? He was nobody special—a well-spoken policy junkie who’d mastered the non-answer reply of deflection. The only difference between him and a dozen others was he was black and young . . . though after the last two weeks, thirty-five didn’t feel so young.
And the only reason there was a spot to fill was the Opposition had dug up some dirt on Eddie’s predecessor at National Defence—tapes of a conversation where she suggested Canada’s foreign policies had failed to detect the coming invasion. She’d been forced to resign and the ensuing cabinet shuffle left a junior cabinet minister spot vacant. A few words from Eddie and Marcel netted Paul the job. If not for that, he’d be another backbencher, hunkered down and waiting—
Brakes shrieked. A car horn—
Metal and glass screamed, twisted, shattered. The living room window like a movie screen: a car spinning, somersaulting left to right, debris flying and striking the house.
Tessier from the front hall: “Shit!” The front door banged open and Paul raced to it, the stink of burnt rubber hitting him halfway there. He stopped on his small porch, bits of glass and plastic crunching under his feet. Engines revved, horns blared. Two more booms shook the air.
Tessier pounded down the street through chunks of metal and plastic toward the gnarled, smoking remains of a car resting on its roof.
In the street in front of Paul, tire tracks snaked in an S-shape. What had happened clicked into place: the car had taken the curve too fast, swerved to avoid the cruiser and rolled.
Over the cacophony of a city descending into panic, someone shouted “Paul!” Across the street, his neighbour Sarah, still in black running gear from her morning jog, descended from her porch and crossed the street. Waiting for her, Paul noticed others peering from doorways.
“The news said they’re coming,” she said, stopping at the bottom of his steps. Colour had drained from her face. “They’re shelling downtown and they’re coming.”
He had no way to know if they’d shifted position since taking off the interface. Confirming what she said could make her panic. Denying it could cause false hope. Political instinct told him to deflect: “Sarah, you should get back inside.”
Down the street, Tessier got on all fours and looked into the overturned car, one of its wheels still spinning. Half a kilometre past, a three-car accident blocked the intersection into the major avenue, causing a lineup of cars.
Paul had a moment to wonder how the hell Laura could make it home through what was happening when a voice yelled: “We fighting back?” An older man came down the sidewalk from the opposite direction, leaning on his cane. Paul recognized him—tall, thin, olive skinned—but didn’t know his name. “We finally gonna kick their butts or what?”
“You should—” Others were coming. Down the sidewalk, across the street—a dozen or so, converging on him. Paul realized that his standing on his porch, the cruiser with its lights still flashing and others gathered around might look like he was giving some kind of speech.
“Yeah!” a teen girl—dyed blue hair, decked out in a black hoodie and jeans—shouted. “We ain’t taking no more shit from them! We’l
l fuckin’ kick their asses if they come down our block!”
Paul held up his hands. “Please, you should—”
A helicopter buzzed overhead, low and fast.
“Everyone get back in your homes!” Tessier boomed. Heads turned to watch the constable come back up the street.
“The driver—” Paul began.
“Dead,” Tessier replied, stopping at the trunk of his cruiser. To the crowd: “Get back inside. It isn’t safe out here.”
“He’s out here,” someone shouted. “He’s in cabinet now, right? If we weren’t going to kick some ass, he’d be gone, right?”
Tightening the chin strap of a helmet he’d taken from the trunk, Tessier said: “If I have to say it again, I’m putting people in cuffs.” He removed a submachine gun, loaded it and slung it over his shoulder.
Despite Tessier’s words, more drifted toward Paul, their faces and body language showing curiosity, even hope.
“Talk to us, Paul!” a familiar voice shouted. Paul scanned the crowd: Emily, Laura’s best friend in Ottawa even though twenty years separated the two women. She’d eaten at their table many times and he’d helped her with chores since her husband, Edwin, had passed away three years—
Tessier leapt up the steps and leaned close to Paul. “It’s time to go, Minister.”
“Then find my wife and tell me she’s safe,” Paul replied.
Another voice: “Hey, the bombs have stopped.”
Sarah: “They’re coming!”
The older man: “Uh-uh. We pounded ’em flat!”
Emily again: “Tell us what’s going on, Paul!”
A good question. “Look, I’m not—” in a position to comment was not something to say. Just deflect. “Go back inside. Please.” He turned and went back into the house, Tessier following.
“Minister—” Tessier began, shutting the door.
“No.” Paul moved into the kitchen. The smell of breakfast—an onion and pepper omelette, sausages, coffee—they’d made together that morning still hung in the air. Not even three hours ago. They’d been laughing, flirting, looking forward to the weekend, glad to have a small cabin to themselves—
“You a hard-ass?”
Paul didn’t answer. He imagined Laura pushing through panicked crowds, fighting to remember which streets—
“’Cause times like this,” Tessier continued, “hard-asses are the ones who get stuff done. Unless they got their heads shoved up there.”
Paul turned, but Tessier had his back to him, talking into his radio.
He couldn’t get more than a flat silence from the phone. His PDA regretted to inform him all lines were busy.
Another helicopter thrummed overhead.
Only ten minutes had passed. If she ran, it would still take another half-hour for her to get here. And what if she figured the RCMP had already taken him and she’d sought shelter?
Could he get that information?
Watching the crowd out front—shifting, waiting, motioning toward the house—Paul slid the commpiece into his right ear, shivering at how deep the cold, custom-made shape went. A rainbow of colours reflected from the neural interface device where it fit against the back of his skull. He pulled its flexible, inch wide strap over his head and fitted it into position. Biting his lip, he activated the neural connection. For an instant he felt like he was falling, then words and diagrams filled his vision. Pain beat in his temples. Messages told him four ministers were not accounted for, and two were likely killed when the West Block had been hit. Multicolour shapes moved across a map of the eastern edge of the city, following and crossing dotted and solid lines.
Accessing his directory, he scanned for Marcel’s direct line. As minister of public safety, Marcel had oversight of the RCMP. If Tessier wouldn’t budge on getting help to Laura, Marcel—
The PDA shrilled and INCOMING COMM - MIN NAT DEF flashed before him. “I’m here, Eddie.”
An automated voice said: “Please hold for Minister—” The line clicked and Eddie said: “Paul?”
“I’m here.”
“That’s a problem. GPS shows you and the constable still at your place. What is the hold up?”
“I’m waiting for Laura.” Movement in the corner of his vision made him turn. He forgot to shut his right eye, but the nausea didn’t strike as hard as the words remained stationary in his vision. Eddie was right: he was getting used to it.
“I don’t understand,” Paul said.
Outside, two of his neighbours squared off—pointing, leaning in, gesticulating madly. “Laura stopped downtown. She’s trying to make it home on foot.”
“From where?”
All the shapes on the right side of the map suddenly became red. “Rideau Centre.” Shapes on the left side blinked white, then disappeared.
“You don’t have time to wait.”
Outside, the shorter of the two neighbours took a swing.
“You want me to leave her?”
In the background, someone yelled: “Red status!”
Eddie replied: “Oh Christ!” To Paul: “I want you to do your job.”
“I can’t leave her here.”
Others pulled the two neighbours apart. Sarah held her hands out in a “Please stop!” gesture.
“Can you reach her?”
“No, the phone—”
The crowd was taking sides. Now several confronted several others.
“Then get out of there. Laura’s in the system. If she’s found—give me a second!—she’ll be protected.”
Pain gathered in a hard knob at the front of Paul’s head. “That’s not good enough.”
“I already signed that! Good Christ, Paul!”
“Eddie, you know what we went through. I always said she’d come first. Just an hour. Less.” He’d resigned his seat when it looked like the end. When she recovered, he’d sworn that no matter what, he’d be there for her. He’d made sure Marcel and Eddie understood that when they talked about recommending him for cabinet. For Eddie to go back on that—
“You are a cabinet minister. There are—”
The television showed a bouncing image from the back of a vehicle, the highway pouring out behind it. In the distance, blurry grey-green shapes pursued, their flags green, white, and black smudges.
“Barely two weeks in a junior—”
The crowd scuffled with itself. The older, olive-skinned man fell from the melee. The black-clad girl had a fistful of Sarah’s hair, pulling her away.
“You listen to me!” Eddie interrupted. “Get this through your head: you are in cabinet. You cannot put this country at risk over one woman. I don’t care if she’s your wife! Thirty-nine million—”
“Then I resign.”
“Bullshit!”
The exclamation a bolt of pain. Paul dug his teeth into his lower lip, literally biting back the curses he wanted to hurl. Eddie’s wife was in Vancouver, over three thousand kilometres away from the front. Who was he to tell him to leave? “Then what do I do, Eddie?”
“You do whatever I tell—” A high-pitched whine replaced Eddie’s voice.
The house shivered.
The PDA’s screen showed it was still operating, but more than that Paul couldn’t glean from the complex read out.
Eddie’s voice—“. . . range of their artillery!”—blasted in his right ear.
“Eddie?”
The crowd outside, more than twenty now, moved and thrashed like an insane beast. Peacemakers pulled combatants apart only to be sucked into another conflict. Paul had an instant to wonder why Tessier wasn’t out there when Eddie’s voice returned: “—hit!” Screaming. “Paul?” In terror. “Good Christ, we’re taking fire.” In agony. “We’re—”
Silence.
Past the shapes, maps and text Paul hadn’t been aware he’d been scanning, the image of the highway flipped, then changed to static. A terrified anchor appeared a second later.
GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS CENTRE HIT BY ENEMY ARTILLERY - DO NOT APPROACH appeared
at the centre of his vision. ENEMY ARMOUR ADVANCING WEST ON HIGHWAY 417 followed.
Laura . . .
Still in the hall, Tessier said “Roger that” and appeared in the living room. “Last chance, Minister. If you’re going to stay here, fine, but I’m to escort Minister Charlebois.”
* DEFENCE MINISTER LAZENBY, INT'L TRADE MINISTER GRANGE LIKELY KILLED
* HIGHWAYS 417/416 WEST OF CITY AT STANDSTILL
“Marcel . . . is coming—?”
“Helicopter inbound. Now or never.”
Outside, his neighbours had reached a momentary state of calm. Some were bleeding, others panting, all of them waiting. “What about them? Are there plans—?”
“Probably not,” Tessier replied. “But if our boys can hit back hard, there’s no need to evacuate.”
“My wife—”
“I checked. If she’s found, she’ll be evacuated.”
“But she hasn’t been—”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Lot of pieces moving right now.”
* ARMOUR UNITS REGROUPING TO ENGAGE ENEMY
* BREAK-OUT ATTACK TO SOUTH POSSIBLE
Paul hoped Laura would understand. And forgive him. “I’m coming. Let me leave a note.”
“Make it a short one.” Tessier spoke into his radio while Paul grabbed a pen and the pad they used for shopping lists. He found he could focus on the paper despite the heads-up display superimposed over it.
Laura-
I have been evacuated out of the city. If you’ve made it home, contact
He moved into the hall, grabbed the blue folder from his laptop bag, and transcribed the names and numbers of everyone who could put her in contact with him. He continued:
I will be in touch as soon as I can. You are the best gift I could ever hope for and ever need.
Love Paul
“I’m ready.”
Tessier nodded and unslung the submachine gun. “Stay close.” He opened the front door, letting in the noise, and moved down the steps, barrel lowered.
“Paul, what’s happening?” someone shouted.
“Move away from the car!” Tessier roared. He turned to Paul. “Let’s go.”
Paul, standing at the top of the porch steps, looked into the faces of his neighbours—scared, confused, angry. Waiting.
