Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories

by John Robert Colombo

  Someone shouted Eddie’s name as he spoke: “You’ll get — not now! —you’ll get used to it.”

  Paul sorted through the briefcase, wondering if he’d get used to the pain. Before now, he’d only worn the device for an hour during Question Period, his aides sending him talking points or statistics to deal with a question from the opposition. That limited exposure caused a dull ache behind his eyes. Now, the increased electrical signals the device was pumping into his occipital lobe, the vision center at the back of the brain, caused his head to throb. “Hope I didn’t pack it in a bag that’s on its way to Marcel’s cottage with Laura.”

  Three more notices appeared:

  PUBLIC SAFETY MINISTER MARCEL CHARLEBOIS HAS BEEN ALERTED.

  ENEMY FORCES RE-GROUPING NEAR VARS.

  RUSSIAN, CHINESE AMBASSADORS DENY INVOLVEMENT OR KNOWLEDGE.

  His eyes fought between focusing on the briefcase and the messages seeming to float two meters away yet superimposed over the leather case. Paul shut his right eye and the messages disappeared. Using his left, he kept searching.

  He bit his lip. Not there. Maybe the laptop bag. “So much to keep track of.”

  “You get used to that, too.”

  He pulled open a Velcro flap to find the backs of two thick, black binders. “I feel so useless.”

  “Andy would not have picked you if that was true,” Eddie said. In the background, someone screamed about “getting some fucking air support.”

  Not for the first time, Paul wondered if his skin color had more to do with his promotion than his abilities. Having a young, black man from the prairies in cabinet helped silence critics who claimed his party was the domain of old white men from the coast.

  He pushed the idea away. Now wasn’t the time for those thoughts.

  He pulled the two binders apart to find the thin blue binder containing his security codes pressed between them. “Got it.”

  Paul opened his right eye to see:

  SPEAKING POINTS: “SENSLESSS AGGRESSION,” “DISRUPTION OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE”

  AVOID: “INVASION / INVADERS / ATTACK”

  “Last item: is Laura still there?” Eddie asked.

  “She left about an hour ago.” Paul returned to the living room. The siren sounded like it was somewhere in his neighborhood. “Said she couldn’t wait to get down by the water.” The muted television showed a view down Highway 417 to the east of the city. Just at the edge of the camera’s range, indistinct shapes moved, sending up plumes of blue-gray smoke. “Wanted to enjoy this great weather.”

  They’d both been looking forward to the long weekend. His first two weeks as cabinet minister had been spent getting hammered in Question Period and attending endless meetings scheduled by his chief of staff. In both venues, he parroted the talking points sent down from the Prime Minister’s Office — deflect attacks, stay on message, defend the government’s agenda. Nothing about using his own discretion. Nothing about the government’s response to the first foreign army to invade Canada since the Fenian Raids. He felt like a cog — messages from the PMO made him spin and he, in turn, spun others.

  So this weekend, he and Laura were going to a cottage in the Gatineau Hills owned by Paul’s other mentor, Marcel Charlebois, the current minister of public safety, to review the government’s agenda. Until an hour ago, the front lines had been stable for months so the Prime Minister — “Andy” to his friends and caucus members not out to replace him — had given them the okay to get out of the city. Just a quick, last-minute meeting with his chief of staff on The Hill and Paul would have been on his way.

  An emergency notice 45 minutes ago had changed everything.

  “That’s the best place for her,” Eddie said. “One more second! Marcel’s at his cottage now. We can evac her with him if it comes to that.”

  The kitchen phone rang. Pain pulsed in time with its simulated bell sound. Paul shut his right eye. The caller ID showed: Laura — Cell. “Eddie, it’s Laura on the house phone.”

  “Go ahead and take it. I need to figure out what’s happening here. Tell Laura to stay at the cottage. GPS shows your security escort is almost there. Let me know when you’re on your way.”

  “I will.” The connection clicked off. Paul hit the “GO” button on the handset and pressed it to his left ear. “Sweetie, have you—”

  “Thank God!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to reach you.” Sirens shrilled in the background, nearly drowning her words.

  “What’s happened?” Paul asked. “Are you at Marcel’s cottage? Has something happened there?”

  “No, I’m downtown. Paul, what’s happening? The streets are jammed. People are running. I can’t get on the Web.”

  “Why are you still downtown?”

  “Paul, what the hell is happening!” Her shriek an ice pick through his brain.

  Paul grit his teeth, taking a moment to let the pain fade so he could speak to her calmly. “It’s—” Paul stopped himself. How much of what he knew had been released to the public? Best to go with what the news had said: “Enemy forces broke through our lines an hour ago.”

  A pause. “They’re coming here?” Terrified.

  The siren right outside.

  “We don’t know.” His temples throbbed in time with his racing heartbeat. “Can you get to your car? Can you still get to—” He paused, picking his words, not knowing if the enemy could be monitoring phone lines—”where you were going?”

  “No.” Near tears. “Streets are jammed, Paul. Accidents. I’m headed for The Hill, hoping you’d be at your meeting.”

  Tires screeched. He turned, right eye popping open. Messages — shifting and scrolling — filled his vision. Beyond them, an RCMP cruiser skidded to a stop out front. Pangs of nausea beat in time with its pulsing lights. Paul turned away just as the messages re-arranged themselves into a tighter pattern. His stomach flipped and he clamped his teeth and eyes shut—

  “Paul, say something!”

  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: “Sweetie, can you get home? There’s a Mountie here to get me someplace safe. I can wait for you.” The comm-piece in his right ear chirped, announcing a new call. Paul pulled it out.

  “I’ll have to walk,” she replied. “Traffic isn’t moving.”

  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. It sped past, moving faster than was safe for the narrow streets. Paul moved to the front door. “That’ll take—” He didn’t know the city well enough to do more than guess, “—an hour or so, but I’ll be here.”

  “I wanted to get you a present for making it to cabinet,” she said. Tears now. “And something for Marcel and Eddie for taking you under their wing.” She sobbed.

  “Sweetie, shhh.” Paul opened the front door, letting in a cacophony of sirens and car horns and revving engines. He waved to the constable. “Find an RCMP officer and tell him who—” The floor trembled and the phone roared static. Paul held it from his ear. When he put it back, he heard 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. 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. “What was—” The house shook again. Laura screamed.

  The television image panned over in time 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 name tag 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 dialed Laura’s number. “Just a second.” An automated message told him all circuits were busy. Incisors dug into his lower lip.

  “Now, sir.”

  The house shuddered. Glasses clicked 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. That’s how long it would take her to get here, right?”

  “Sir, I’m not going to debate this. You need to come with me—”

  “No.” Paul turned his back 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 let out a breath. She had come to Ottawa to be with him. Despite his travel and some late nights — and being 100 km 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, co-workers at Regina City Hall, she liked to be in bed by 10 P. M. 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. Five years ago, they’d learned it was cancer growing in her belly, not the baby they’d hoped for. Her ability to have children was removed with the cancer, 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 do 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 that he was black and young … though after the last two weeks, 35 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 Defense — tapes of a conversation where she suggested Canada’s foreign policies were to blame for the 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, 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 neighbor 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, a finger looping itself in her long blond hair. “They’re shelling downtown and they’re coming.”

  Before he’d pulled off the interface, enemy forces had been stationary. In the last few minutes they might have continued their push, but he had no way of knowing. 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 kilometer past, a three-car accident blocked the intersection into the major avenue, causing a line-up 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 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 — Asian, decked out in a black hoodie and jeans — shouted. “We ain’t taking no more shit from them! We’ll 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, fist gripping a lock of hair: “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 omelet, sausages, coffee — they’d made together that morning still hung on 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 comm-piece into his right ear, shivering at how deep the cold, custom-made shape went. A rainbow of colors 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. Multicolor shapes moved across a map of the eastern edge of the city, following and crossing dotted and solid lines.