Empire City

by Matt Gallagher

  Sebastian felt accomplished, so he put on the new episode of Utopia. The first debate with Nixon had gone poorly for Bobby. He’d been caught off guard by the older man’s stagecraft; the Nixon who’d failed to play to the television audience in 1960 had adapted. The line about Bobby not serving abroad in World War II had been cheap. Contrasting it with Nixon’s own service and dead John’s too had been even cheaper.

  LBJ called Bobby in the episode. “Son,” he drawled through the receiver, confounding Bobby and Sebastian alike, “I hate you and you hate me. But we both hate Nixon more. It’s time to take off the gloves. It’s time to do what needs to be done. For the sake of the republic.”

  And then, in the alternate world of Utopia, LBJ told Bobby Kennedy about Nixon’s secret plan with China.

  Sebastian was riveted. He didn’t care that the show’s isolationist undertones were starting to become isolationist overtones. Ultras aren’t wrong about everything, he thought.

  The rest of the day was his. He considered his options. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment through Dorsett had been a step forward. Both because of Tripoli and because he’d read an article about brain aneurysms and he had questions. Sebastian decided to chase more clarity. He picked up his phone and texted the missing Volunteer.

  They met at a dive bar in the eastern reaches of the Village, where punk nostalgia met bohemian chic. The bar was mostly empty and dark as a cave. It smelled of mop water and bleach. Britt Swenson and her bandmates were onstage, tuning guitars and going through lyrics of a new song. “Hello, Sebastian Rios,” she half-sung into the microphone. “We see you.”

  Grady Flowers brought over two bottles of beer. Sebastian tried to demur but the other man insisted. “Hair of the dog,” he explained. “It’s the only way back.”

  They clinked bottles and Sebastian said it looked like Flowers had been spending some time in the sun. Flowers smiled wide with blocky, gapped teeth.

  “Vacay, hostage,” he said. “Had more sex last week than my entire life. Combined.”

  “Ahh. Well. Good for you.” Sebastian felt more than a little envious. He too aspired to have sex again, whether with an attractive bohemian singer with a raspy voice or otherwise. But he hadn’t come here for another man’s carnal tales.

  “There’s no way to bring this up naturally,” he said, “so I’m just gonna say it. Tripoli, man. It’s been bugging me. I’m trying to figure out why.”

  Flowers blinked once and sipped from the neck of his beer.

  “Pete told me the cythrax vaccine was a dud. I never understood why I survived but the vaccine explained why you all did. Now? Nothing adds up.”

  Sebastian left out how he’d gotten that information. It seemed superfluous.

  “Did he now.” Flowers swished around the mouthful of beer before swallowing it down. “Well. That’s his opinion.” Flowers set down his bottle and cracked his neck.

  Sebastian stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back in his chair, trying to appear as unprying as possible. “You disagree?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Pulling out the small notepad in his pocket where he’d scrawled some questions seemed a bad idea to Sebastian. He tried again.

  “Not trying to be a pain. Whatever you’re willing to share, I’d be grateful. I’m just trying to piece together my life. That’s all.”

  That relaxed Flowers some, putting the burden of focus elsewhere. He returned to his beer.

  “Vaccine wasn’t a dud,” he said. “Not for me. Not for Dash. Not for that female pilot. Not for Pete, neither. I wish he’d stop saying that.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you—anyone ever say why? Why it worked for you all, but not for anyone else?”

  Flowers shook his head. “We’ve asked. Trust me, we’ve fucking asked.”

  “You were in the same helicopter as Mia, right? On the gun?” Flowers nodded. “What happened there?”

  “RPG clipped the tail.” Flowers whacked the table with his palm. “Boom. We’re all tangled up, trying to figure out what is up, what is down, who’s bleeding from where. My gut feels like I’ve been punched by Cassius Clay or some shit. Still got my headset on, listening to Higher scream for a sitrep. That’s when the bomb hit.”

  Sebastian looked up. Flowers had been on the radio. “Who ordered it?” he asked. “Who called for the cythrax bomb?”

  The contours of Flowers’s face seemed swallowed up by the void of the bar.

  “No one.” Words from the dim while loose guitar strums echoed around them. “I was on both nets, platoon and command. No one on the ground called for the fucking thing.”

  Sebastian silently counted to twelve before exhaling through his nose. “You’re sure?”

  “Sure as eggs. Not something you miss.”

  Just that morning, Sebastian had stood in his shower and chided himself for not retaining enough from college. He searched there, starting with the history courses, but nothing in history offered guidance for superpowered warfighters. Then he tried literature, but neither highbrow epic poems nor grand Victorian novels dealt with the dark, messy labyrinth of the Mediterranean Wars. What the hell else did I take? Sebastian thought, trying to remember.

  Bio hadn’t covered cythrax vaccines, whether they worked, whether they didn’t. He never took chemistry. He had taken philosophy. Freshman year, with Mia. He could almost hear her in the Dupont library, quick and dismissive, like she couldn’t believe he didn’t know the answer to such a basic study question.

  “Occam’s razor, See-Bee. Come on, now.”

  Occam’s razor. The simplest solution tended to be the correct one. Which would mean what here?

  He looked up at Flowers, finding him through the darkness. His eyes were opaque, and a little distrusting, too. Sebastian felt something snap together inside him as he formed a cohesive idea from disorder and uncertainty.

  “They dropped it on purpose, dude.”

  “Shut the fuck up, hostage.”

  “Think about it. Five survivors: three Rangers, one pilot, and me. One hundred killed, between the Americans, insurgents, and locals. One hundred people dead to turn five super.”

  “Shut the fuck up, hostage.”

  “For superpowered warfighters. Ones beholden to the state. No matter how many others died.”

  “I said shut the fuck up!” Flowers’s hand shot across the table, grabbing Sebastian by the collar.

  “They wouldn’t do that. Not to us.”

  Sebastian put up his hands in submission. “Maybe not.”

  “We weren’t nobody grunts. We weren’t native security forces. We were American Rangers. You know how much money they put into just one Ranger’s training?”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “No chance. No fucking chance.”

  Flowers rolled his knuckles into Sebastian’s throat, an act of suggestion more than anything, then let go. Sebastian tried not to exhale too loudly.

  They were of the Found Generation. They’d been raised to trust the government. They’d been raised to believe the government. And Flowers was a loyal soldier. A Ranger. A Volunteer. Sebastian got all that.

  He, though, was none of those things.

  “You useless shit,” Flowers muttered. He wasn’t yet done. “We weren’t even there for you. You shouldn’t have even been there. Why do you get to live when our brothers got snuffed out? That’s what I hate. That’s what I think about. I’d trade you for any of them. Even the shitbags. Even the officers. I want you to know that.”

  Sebastian nodded, reflexively rubbing at his throat. He thanked Flowers for his time, praying it didn’t come across as sarcastic. Then he told Britt he’d try to make their show later, not meaning it. He needed to be alone, and needed to be someplace he could think, so he could reason with what he’d just conjured.

  In front of the Sniper, no less, he thought, an insolent smirk finding him. In front of the goddamn Sniper.

  He moved north, and east, across a footbridge over an expressway to a bench
near the river. The bench was just as he’d left it, as were the river and its dirty water, and the bridge, too, with all its cables and pillars and might. Across the water, the defunct smokestacks and the sugar plant sign of Gypsy Town stood proud, surrounded by shiny condos made from every color of glass. Sebastian sat down on the bench and brought his hands together, half-bowing his head.

  So, he began. Let’s say this is true. That would mean someone in the military, someone in big government, had set them all up. His presence in Tripoli had been, at best, an alibi. More likely just happenstance. Fine, Sebastian decided. So be it. I’m still here.

  Who would risk an elite Ranger platoon, though? Flowers had a point there. It still felt like blasphemy to Sebastian to think like this, but also freeing. His mind erupted with possibilities. The president. The Council of Victors. The generals, the consuls, the business titans, anyone and everyone who stood to profit from the wars going on and on into infinity, the lifeless bodies of homeland soldiers and foreign legionnaires and brown wogs all but marks and tallies to keep the days with.

  Slow down, he told himself. This is how conspiracy theorists talk. Conspiracies are for the vacant-eyed, the mediocre-minded, the not-quite-read-enough. Be better than that, he thought. Focus.

  Loose, barbaric shouts came up the river path, a pack of teenage boys laughing loudly and kicking at the bushes. A couple were holding long, pointy sticks like spears and they passed around a bottle filled with some sort of clear liquid. Sebastian found himself envying their sense of verve until he realized what they were after.

  “It’s somewhere in there!”

  “Can’t fly away? What kind of bird can’t fly?”

  “Come out, come out, it’s time to end the hunt!”

  Ahh, man, Sebastian thought. They’re fucking with Simon.

  There were five of them, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old, Sebastian thought. A passing jogger told them to stop. One kid with slicked-back hair and neon sneakers told her to come closer and he’d start doing something else.

  Not our best and brightest here, Sebastian decided. He needed to do something.

  The wild turkey emerged from the foliage, clucking hysterically. It darted across open dirt to Sebastian’s rear. The boys spotted it and began whooping in chase.

  Why hell, Sebastian thought. Let’s give the people a conspiracy worthy of the times.

  He stood up, adjusted his sunglasses, and moved the lever in the back of his brain to invisible. A warmth like bathwater filled his body. As the teens neared his bench in a wild sprint, he channeled his best morning show Tupac impression. “Greetings, young players,” he said. “Better back the fuck up before you get smacked the fuck up.”

  All five stopped on a dime, their faces awash in confusion.

  “Who’s—who’s there?” one boy asked, voice squeaking like a rubber toy.

  The one in neon sneakers spat on the ground. “Faggot wind,” he said. “That’s all.”

  Sebastian took two steps forward and smacked the boy on the nose, harder than intended. It felt good, he thought, hurting someone who intended to hurt others.

  “Defy, my dudes,” Sebastian said, before they fled down the path the other way. He tried again, louder. “Defy!”

  CHAPTER 17

  THEY WERE A year from the election, to the day. The presidential announcement had come as a surprise to much of the staff. But it made sense. For the general, for the party, for the country. Mia believed that. The stakes now, though—nothing mattered more. The dream of American Service would be reality.

  There were different pathways from dream to reality, different approaches, different strategies. All required the green of capital.

  “That’s why united service is the answer to what ails us.” General Collins was finishing her fund-raising pitch in the summit auditorium. It was technically sponsored by Lehman Brothers but financiers from all over Wall Street were in attendance. And ready for the cocktail reception, Mia noticed. “That’s why united service for our young people will bolster and reinvigorate the republic.”

  They’d learned to avoid words like “mandatory” and “national” in speeches—it made their centerpiece idea sound like a chore. “United service for all,” though, was soft and inclusive. Something that both intrigued and inspired, vague enough that people could see themselves doing a variety of different jobs between high school and college. Teach. Build homes. Join the parks department. It had worked in other countries. Why not here?

  The general had improved her delivery, too. She was smoother on the pitch now, less stiff and mechanical. She got up at five in the morning to practice, before practicing again on the gym treadmill during lunch.

  “That’s it from me,” the general said. “Any questions out there?” Someone in the auditorium groaned. She still needed to improve at reading an audience. Young suits in finance were not as disciplined as the soldiers Jackpot had commanded for three-plus decades.

  A hand in the front row shot up. More groans followed.

  “General Collins, very interesting idea. And I do think it’d have some of the net civic gains you mention.” Mia knew that voice. It was Liam Noonan. We should’ve made this invite-only, she thought. Noonan continued. “But given the state of foreign affairs—the Mediterranean Wars keep expanding despite operational victories, and the very real possibility of conventional ground conflict with China in Africa—isn’t this just a dressed-up way of bringing back the draft?”

  Wow, Mia thought, annoyed at the lucidity of the question. I didn’t think Noonan had it in him.

  “Absolutely not.” The general had rehearsed answering this for media, Mia knew. “United service, service of all kinds, will return the military to the people. Just as the military has sworn to defend the people, the people will remember it’s their duty to defend the military. It’ll bring to everyone else the pride and devotion we warfighters of the three percent know.”

  Nailed it, Mia thought. A perfect straddling of the line. They’d have to get more specific the closer they got to the election. But the longer they didn’t have to, the wider they could make the center. And the wider the center, the stronger it would be when the attacks from the margins came.

  General Collins answered two more questions, one regarding her views of the trade deficit with the Latin American League, the other concerning the new Lady Liberty statue design. (“A concern but one I’ll handle with diplomacy and force,” and “A sword and shield look right on her, don’t you think?”)

  Mia had helped set up the event and used her connections to bring people to it, so her reception was spent making rounds, glad-handing like she was the candidate herself. The chief risk officer from her old bank who couldn’t quit his cocaine habit. The global head of geothermal trading at Lehman who had a reputation for sleeping with interns, gender indiscriminate. The vice president of industrials investment at US-Deutsche DataCorp Group who seemed to have no vices, which made him the sketchiest of all.

  Through it all, large, suited men with radios and faces blank as tin watched from the corners of the room. The Sheepdogs were now fully in charge of campaign security, and they’d done a good job. She’d only had to remind them twice to shave before public events.

  Bernard Gault, the executive vice president at Rubicon Pharmaceuticals and something like a friend of her father’s, waved from a standing table. He’d been up for Sinai consul but the president had selected someone else. She was relieved to see he’d come—a number of donors who’d attended the ballroom inaugural had declined. His silver hair flashed as ever, and he bent down to greet Mia with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you for being here.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Gault said. “No fanatic militia this time. A shame.”

  Mia smiled after he did.

  “Hit the water this weekend,” he continued, rotating his shoulders. “Felt good. Tell your father it’s past time he get back out there with us.”

  “I will.” Bernard Gault had rowed for
the national team back in the seventies. Mia’s father hated doing anything more than wading into water. He’d never rowed with anyone, she was sure of it. “He sends his best, of course.”

  Gault made a neutral sound with his throat. He asked how the change from finance was going. Mia said she liked politics. She asked about the new CEO at Rubicon. Gault said he stayed out of the way, which was ideal. The shareholders seemed happy, and the advances being made with maven were just incredible. That’s what really matters, Gault said. Helping our vets.

  Mia thought about the campaign’s sudden policy change on the colonies and drug companies. Whatever had summoned the change, it hadn’t been any poll.

  She thanked him for General Collins’s speaking invitation to the V-V Day Parade, and asked how planning was going. Gault sighed and said there were a lot of opinions and ideas to manage. It was the pearl anniversary, after all. The Council of Victors wanted to make sure the Vietnam triumph was given its proper due.

  “Three more weeks and it’ll be over,” he said. “Then the Council will turn our attention to the next thing.”

  From a corner, Mia saw Liam Noonan lurking, drink in hand, watching her and Gault converse. As soon as the older man excused himself, the younger man approached, joining her at the standing table. Noonan tried to hand Mia a business card. She waved him off.

  “That question in there,” she said. “Come on, Liam. It’s a fund-raiser.”

  “I don’t see why that matters.” Noonan cracked his no-neck. “Just trying to figure out your angle. Your agenda.”

  “Angle? We don’t have an angle. And our agenda is right there in the name. American Service.”

  “Of course you have an angle. You’re a political party, Mia.” Noonan scrunched his brow. “You know General Collins was forced to retire before her third star, right?”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Many colorful tales out there.”

  “You can’t tell the Joint Chiefs to kiss your ass. There’s a chain of command.” Noonan looked sincere, and Mia wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Anyhow. My condolences to you all for Governor Harrah. I gather he and the general were close.”