Mysterium

by Robert Charles Wilson

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m still not sure when I’m talking to you and when I’m talking to the Bureau.”

  “Perhaps I should wear two hats. One when I’m myself, and one when I’m an agent of the state.”

  “Which one are you wearing now?”

  “Oh, my own. My own particular hat.”

  “In either hat, you have me at a disadvantage. You know my history—”

  “Very little, to be truthful. Only what I’ve learned from you or the public material. The books were all locked away months ago.”

  “Still, you know more about my history than I know about yours.”

  She opened her calfskin case. “I brought this for you. I borrowed it from one of the militiamen. He said it was for his daughter, but he was reading it himself. A children’s book, I’m afraid, but it was the only history I was able to locate on brief notice.”

  The book was a tattered duodecimo in hard covers, the title etched in gold leaf:

  THE EVENTS OF HISTORY, FROM CREATION TO THE PRESENT DAY, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

  It gave off a pungent reek of wet canvas. Dex took it from her.

  “You can form an approximate notion,” Linneth said, “though I do not vouch for the details.”

  He looked at her again. He wondered what the book represented—was it a promise kept, a strategic offering, simple kindness? Her face was unclouded, in some ways as perfect a face as Dex had ever seen, round and generous and serene. But reserved. For every ounce given, an ounce was withheld. And maybe that was not surprising, under the circumstances, but still . . .

  She said, “I would like a book in return.”

  “Which book?”

  “One of yours. I peeked into your room, when the Proctors brought me to your door the first time. You own books. You’re a reader. But not history. Something literary. Something you like. I think that would be instructive.”

  “For which hat?”

  Briefly, she looked offended. “My hat.”

  He had been carrying the dog-eared paperback of Huckleberry Finn in his jacket pocket for a month, and he was reluctant to part with it. He took it out and handed it to her. “The text is more than a century old. But I think you’ll get the drift.”

  “The drift?”

  “The essence. The meaning.”

  “I see. And the book is a favorite of yours?”

  “You could say that.”

  She accepted it reverently. “Thank you, Mr. Graham.”

  “Call me Dex.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Tell me what you think of it.”

  “I will.”

  He rolled up the map and volunteered to walk her back to the civilian housing at the Blue View Motel. Outside, she frowned at the weather—sunny today, but cold enough that an early snow hadn’t melted from the road. In her white jacket she might have been anyone, Dex thought. Any good-looking woman on a windy sidewalk. The wind reddened her cheeks and earlobes and carried away her breath in foggy wisps.

  He wondered when he would see her again. But he couldn’t think of a plausible reason to ask.

  She stopped and faced him at the corner of Beacon and Oak. “Thank you for escorting me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She hesitated. “Probably I shouldn’t say this. But I’ve heard rumors. Rumors about curfew violations. The Proctors are looking into it. Dex—”

  He shook his head. “I’ve already had this warning. Demarch threatened me personally.”

  Her voice was nearly a whisper. “I’m sure he did. That is, he would. It’s in his nature. But I don’t mean to threaten you. All I mean to say is, be careful.”

  She turned and hurried away, and he stood on the windy sidewalk looking after her.

  The Two Rivers Crier, a weekly newspaper, had not seen an issue since the crisis in June. That autumn, it published a new edition.

  The Crier had been edited from an office on Grange Street, but the presses were in Kirkland, sixty miles away; since June, much farther than that. Where the town of Kirkland had been, today there was pine forest and an icy creek.

  The new Crier, a single folded sheet of rag pulp, was a collaboration between a past editor and a committee of Bureau surveillants. The text consisted of announcements from the military and the Proctors. Power failures in the east end were sporadic and would be repaired before the end of the month; a new food depot had been opened at the corner of Pritchard and Knight. There was also a ringing editorial in which the reappearance of the paper was said to augur better times for Two Rivers, “carried as if by stormy gusts into a strange ocean and sailing under the calm winds of cooperation toward safe harbor.”

  Prominent on the back page was a column announcing a program under which single men between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five were permitted to request relocation and job training elsewhere in the Republic, a living wage to be paid until such time as the men were established in their new lives. It was open to “White Men, Jews, Apostates, Negros, Mulattos, and Others—All Welcome.” It attracted considerable attention in town.

  There were only a few volunteers. Many were transients who had been passing through when the accident happened and saw no reason to stay. Some were young men chafing at the friction of martial law. All were accepted for relocation.

  The first convoy left town November 3 with a cargo of twenty-five civilians.

  Some had families. Some waved at sisters or parents as the transport truck banged south from the A & P parking lot in a gusty, cold rain.

  Some were smiling. Some were weeping. All of them promised to write. No letters were ever received.

  Clifford Stockton often thought about his father, especially when the soldier was visiting his mom.

  His father was a commodities broker living in Chicago (or who had lived in Chicago, before everything changed), and he never visited. “A good thing, too,” his mother used to say when Clifford pressed her on the subject. “He has his own family there. His own children.”

  He never visited and he never wrote. But twice a year—at Christmas and on his birthday—Clifford would get a package in the mail.

  There was always a card with Clifford’s name on it and the appropriate sentiment: Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday. Nothing unusual there.

  But the present—the present itself—was always great.

  One year his father sent him a Nintendo game machine and an armload of cartridges. Another time, UPS delivered a radio-controlled scale model P-51 Mustang. The least exciting gift had been a fully equipped chemistry set, confiscated after two weeks when Clifford dropped a test tube and stained the living room shag beyond repair. The most exciting present had come last May: a two-hundred-channel programmable scanner that could eavesdrop on police, fire, and emergency frequencies—as well as on cellular telephones, though hardly anyone in Two Rivers had possessed one.

  Clifford had not thought much about the scanner since June. Since the invasion, there had been no power to plug it into; it languished in the closet in his room, on the shelf above the coat hangers . . . ignored, but not entirely forgotten.

  Tonight Luke was visiting. Which meant Clifford was confined to his room after nine o’clock. Which left him with not much to do.

  He could read. The library was closed permanently, a fact Clifford still had trouble grasping, but the cashier at the Silverwood Mall Brentano’s, a friend of his mother, had gone to the store with her key last summer and “borrowed” a bag full of science fiction paperbacks for him. Clifford was working his way through Dune, and he spent an hour or so on the intrigues of that desert planet.

  But he wasn’t in a reading mood, and when the downstairs television fell silent (his mother had been showing Luke her videotape of On Golden Pond), Clifford rummaged in the closet for his Game Boy. He found it; but the AC adapter was lost and the batteries, he discovered, were long dead.

  The scanner, neglected on the upper shelf, caught his eye. Clifford decided he ought to brush the dust off
, if nothing else. He stood on a chair and lifted the metal case down.

  He put it on his desk. He liked the way it looked there, the liquid crystal display glittering in the lamplight. He extended the antenna and plugged the cord into the wall.

  He hit the scan button and let the internal logic search the airwaves. He didn’t expect much. One of the Two Rivers Police Department patrol cars was still allowed to roam around town, so there might be a little police chatter; or something from the fire department, under new management since Chief Haldane died. But both channels were silent.

  Idly, he tuned to what should have been the marine band—and suddenly the room was full of voices.

  Voices announcing street corners, voices acknowledging the announcements. Clifford was instantly fascinated. It had to be the militia, he thought. Patrol cars making their rounds, calling out checkpoints. Oak and Beacon, all silent. Camden and Pine, all quiet here. Clifford punched the monitor button and settled down to listen.

  The talk went on. Mostly, the militiamen sounded bored. Periodically, they complained about the cold.

  Checkpoint, Third and Duke. We’re almost frozen out here.

  Noted. Beware ice, James. The streets are slick in Babylon tonight.

  Babylon was what the soldiers called Two Rivers. Luke had told him that.

  No signs of life along the highway. Nico, is it true they’re serving pot roast in the commissary tomorrow night?

  That’s the rumor. Supply truck hasn’t been in today, though.

  Samael’s pants. I was looking forward to a hot meal.

  You’ll be looking forward to an obscenity demerit if you’re not careful. Philip? Your callout is late.

  But now his mother’s voice came down the hallway and through the door of his room: “Cliffy? Have you got the TV on?”

  “Shit,” Clifford said, startling himself a little. He reached for the volume control on the scanner. In his panic, he jerked it the wrong way.

  The speaker screamed, “FOURTH AND MAIN! FOURTH AND MAIN! ALL QUIET AT FOURTH AND MAIN!”

  Clifford hit the off switch and yanked the power cord out of the wall socket. The scanner was important. He understood that without thinking about it. The scanner was important and he had to hide it, or it would be taken away from him.

  He heard his mother’s bedroom door swing open.

  “Cliffy!”

  He looked at the high shelf of his closet. Too far away. He lifted the scanner and bent to slip the heavy case into the dusty darkness under his bed. It fit, but only just. The cord trailed behind. He kicked it under the hem of the bedspread.

  The door to his room sprang open. His mother stood in the doorway clutching a pink nightgown at her neck and frowning hugely.

  “Cliffy, what the hell is all that noise?”

  “Playing with the Game Boy,” he said—lamely, but his mother wouldn’t understand the limitations of a hand-held game machine. She had a name for every electronic device Clifford owned: they were all “Fucking Noisy Boxes.”

  “Yeah?” She glanced at the bed, suspiciously. The Game Boy was lying there. The battery cover was off and the battery well was empty, but his mother wouldn’t notice, Clifford thought. Probably. “Well . . . keep it down, okay? You could have woke up the whole neighborhood!”

  He said, “I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

  “It’s after ten. Spare a thought for somebody else for once in your life.”

  “Okay. All right.”

  She turned away.

  Luke was behind her. He wore his uniform. The shirt was unbuttoned to the waist. His chest was a mass of dark, curly hair; his eyes were bright and curious.

  He took a step inside Clifford’s room and said, “Who is the Game Boy?”

  “It’s not a who. It’s an it. A machine. A game machine.”

  “Like Nintendo?”

  “Yeah, like Nintendo.” Please, Clifford thought, don’t ask to see it.

  “Cliffy,” Luke said. “You must show it to me sometime.”

  “Sure.”

  “It sounds like a radio, you know.”

  Clifford shrugged.

  The soldier looked hard at him. “You’re not playing tricks on me, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Est-que vous êtes un petit criminel? Un terroriste? Eh, Cliffy?”

  “I don’t understand,” Clifford said, quite truthfully.

  “See that you don’t.”

  “Luke!” His mother, from down the hall. “Come on!”

  The soldier winked at Clifford and left the room.

  Since September, classes at John F. Kennedy had been reduced to two days a week. Dex supposed the futility of it had become obvious: nobody at JFK High would be going to Harvard or MIT, not this year or next year or ever. The only thing he was giving these kids was an illusion of normalcy, and maybe that wasn’t a good or useful commodity anymore . . . maybe it was even dangerous.

  His afternoons were free. He had spent the last two afternoons reading Linneth’s history book and today he decided to discuss the contents with Howard Poole. The pressure on Howard had relented over the last few weeks; the Proctors seemed suddenly less anxious to pursue the mystery of the research lab. A daylight visit was possible. Still, Dex took precautions on his way to the Cantwell house. He walked past Oak Street to Powell Creek Park, then doubled back and approached the house from the south.

  Howard had been bolder about his Cantwell identity lately. The neighbors seemed to accept the masquerade, or at least none of them had reported him to the militia. But the neighbors were aware of him: they watched, Howard said. People living on the military dole, confined to their houses by fear and bewilderment, had little to do but stare out the window. Dex felt their eyes as he crossed the brown front yard between scabs of ice. He walked quickly between the hedge and the side wall to the back door. He knocked and waited, shivering under the bulk of his jacket. The day had started cold and never warmed up. The last thing this town needed, he thought, was a hard winter. But it felt like a hard one rolling in.

  Howard opened the door. Howard wore a threadbare blue sweater, the tail of a white shirt peeking out under the hem. His blue jeans were grimy and he wore gloves on his hands. He waved Dex in and led him to the kitchen. The Cantwell house had been equipped for oil heat, of which there was none, but Howard kept the interior doors closed and the electric oven running, so the kitchen, at least, was passably warm.

  Howard offered coffee. “You can get coffee on the ration card now. But I’m still using up what was in the cupboard. It’s a little stale but there’s plenty of sugar.”

  Dex nodded and sat at the small table while Howard measured water into a carafe and fed it into the coffee machine. Now that the power was back everyone had these toys to use: coffeemakers, blenders, microwave ovens. The appliances seemed newly frivolous—almost sinful, after months of privation.

  “I think he might still be alive,” Howard said. “I’ve been thinking it over, and I believe that’s a real possibility.”

  “Slow down. Who’s alive?”

  “My uncle,” Howard said impatiently. “Stern.”

  And Dex sighed. Every time he came here Howard talked about his uncle. His uncle, the genius loci of the Two Rivers Physical Research Lab, the mysterious Alan Stern, and who the hell knows, Dex thought, maybe the guy was an important part of what had happened out there. But it had begun to look like an obsession, and Howard himself, gaunt and long-haired, had begun to look obsessed.

  Last week he had told Dex about his trip to the Ojibway reserve. There had been apparitions in the woods, Howard said. Which was far from impossible. Dex had ceased passing judgment on the operating rules of the universe. Plainly, the universe was a stranger place than he had imagined. He could accept the possibility of luminous beings out in that scrubby old pine forest. But it seemed equally plausible that Howard had hallucinated the whole episode. Howard had been through a lot, hiding from the Proctors in a basement all summer, enduring a lon
g bout with fever. Maybe Howard’s window on reality had clouded a little, and if so, who could blame him?

  Howard said something about a telephone. Dex, impatient, took the history book out of the pocket of his coat and dropped it on the kitchen table. Howard stopped talking and stared at it. “What’s that?”

  And Dex explained.

  “All right,” Howard said. “Okay, that could be important. Have you read it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Learned anything?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly the Oxford History of the World. You want a summary? It starts with the Garden of Eden. Adam gets a human body from the Archons—”

  “The which?”

  “Archons. Minor gods. Adam is psyche and Eve is spirit and the serpent isn’t necessarily the bad guy, but after that it’s fairly straight Genesis all the way to Moses and the pharaohs. Egypt, Greece, and Rome are presented as fairy tales—Romulus and Remus and the genius of Plato and so on, but at least it’s recognizable.” He accepted a cup of coffee. Howard sat opposite him, wide-eyed, listening intently. “It starts to go wrong around the second century. Valentinus is the Great Christian; Irenaeus is the persecutor of the faithful. The conversion of Constantine never happened. Rome was a seat of classical paganism until at least the 800s, and there are hints that Hellenic paganism is a vital religion even today—at least, in certain unenlightened foreign countries. Christianity didn’t dominate Europe until the Age of the Heresiarchs, approximately the thirteenth century, when a number of hostile churches were unified after Europe was conquered by a Gallic king. By this time, of course, it’s not what you or I would call Christianity. It’s wildly syncretic and it has a huge library of apocryphal books, all Holy Writ, more or less.”

  Howard took the volume from the table and leafed through it. “Still, the similarities are so broad. . . .”

  “The movements of peoples, the evolution of language. It’s as if history wants to flow in certain channels. Broad ethnic groupings persist, and there are roughly analogous wars, at least up until the tenth or eleventh century. There are plagues, though they follow different patterns. The Black Death depopulated Europe and Asia no less than five times. The colonization of the New World was delayed. Technologically, they’re maybe fifty or sixty years behind us. In terms of population, a century or even two.”