Empire City

by Matt Gallagher

  “A bomb fell from the sky.”

  Yes. And.

  “Turned us super.”

  Yes. And.

  “Turned us beyond.”

  Yes. And.

  “That’s truth.”

  Yes. And.

  “That’s the only truth that matters.”

  No.

  Volunteer #1:

  Hello, young citizens, I’m Justice of the Volunteers. Protecting the homeland is a sacred duty, and it’s one we’re all in—together.

  Volunteer #2:

  There may be an “I” in Sniper, but there’s no “I” in team!

  Volunteer #3:

  Or in “Volunteers.”

  Volunteer #1:

  Good point, Dash. The three of us learned a long time ago the importance of teamwork and the group. Only together have we reached our goals. Only together have we tracked down and brought vengeance to America’s enemies abroad.

  Volunteer #2:

  Only together did we get that clown-scum, Abu Abdallah!

  Volunteer #3:

  That’s true.

  Volunteer #1:

  To be in concert with friends and teammates, working toward the same goal? It’s the best. Whether for a school project or the big game, make sure you’re doing the same. Be a part of something bigger than yourself—you’ll learn who you really are in the process.

  Volunteer #2:

  See you on the high ground, team!

  All Volunteers, together:

  Because protecting the homeland starts at home.

  CHAPTER 20

  HURRY UP AND wait. An old military axiom that applied to parts of life in the homeland, too. TV shoots, for one, Mia was learning. They’d been told the general needed to be on set at 7 a.m., not a minute late. But the way the light was reflecting off Lady Liberty in the background hadn’t been to the director’s liking. So they waited. And waited. And remained waiting. The now late-morning sun cast the statue in its best possible light, Mia thought, clear enough for a full profile but with enough of a gray autumn tint to shade its rust. Nothing computer graphics couldn’t clean up, at least, given the episode of Utopia they were filming was set in 1969. But the director was god here. So they waited.

  The Heights district perched high on a bluff, hard east from the harbor and statue. Mia was facing north, peering straight into the stony labyrinths of the Finance District. The Global Trade rose across the river through the sky, low clouds wrapped around it like a garter. It was strange for Mia to see the tower from such an angle. She knew it up close, the thick steel knots of its foundation, the way the glass panels seemed to turn to Spanish moss the higher one looked. The flag thrashing atop the roof, sixty stars and thirteen stripes, pale against the horizon. From here, the skyscraper seemed larger yet somehow less imposing. I can reckon with it now, she thought, and contain it. That only happens with distance.

  “You must miss that life.” Roger Tran walked up beside her, his crisp slacks and Windsor protruding from the sea of baggy plaid worn by the production crew. “A lot happens in those buildings every day.”

  Tran was skeptical toward Wall Street and its role in American life, even while he implored the staff to keep raising funds from it.

  “I miss having weekends off,” Mia said. “I’ll admit to that.”

  Tran laughed. “Are you a person of faith, Ms. Tucker?” he asked.

  Mia considered the question, and why Mr. Fix-It would be asking it. He hadn’t mentioned church before but that didn’t mean anything. “I believe in the importance of belief,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “In case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger, that he may live with you.”

  “Hmm. Not a creed you’ll find etched in any of those buildings. Old Testament or New?”

  “You’d think New, wouldn’t you? That’s where much of the direction on wealth exists. But it’s from the Old. The book of Leviticus. From Yahweh Himself.”

  “I dislike riddles, Roger. I thought you knew that by now.”

  Tran laughed again. “No masked intent here, Ms. Tucker,” he said. “Just making conversation while the general goes over her lines.”

  General Collins was playing a small but vital role in the episode: that of a Gold Star mother who lost her son in Vietnam. President-elect Bobby Kennedy, weeks from assuming office, is strolling through the harbor park with his wife, staring out at the statue beyond, contemplating the challenges ahead. General Collins’s character approaches and asks, without preamble: “How do you ask a young man to be the last to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a young man to be the last to die for a mistake?”

  It seemed a strange role for a retired general and decorated Vietnam War hero. But that’s what makes it so good, Mia thought. No one loved Utopia like left-leaning bohemians in their twenties and thirties. If they could convince even a slice of that voting bloc that General Collins shared their values and worldview, the center would grow. Their ranks would grow along with it. The radical middle could begin to represent both stability and progress.

  That General Collins believed peacemongers were fools more interested in moral purity than pragmatic realities was beside the point. Same with the fact that the guest spot came through an executive producer who sat on the Council of Victors. A platform like this couldn’t be assigned a price, not one that’d do it justice. By Yahweh, Mia thought, or anyone else.

  She asked Tran if he’d heard anything about Empire News. The report hadn’t yet aired but staff had been briefed it was only a matter of time.

  “Not much,” Tran said. “Seems like they’re focusing more on the homeland intel command. Not the Hero Project. Which is good.”

  Mia nodded. She’d asked the general point-blank about the journalist’s allegation of other superpowered citizens. She’d expected Jackpot to deny. Instead the older woman had just shrugged. “I don’t know, Mia,” she’d said. “I’d say it’s unlikely but here I am talking with a Roosevelt heir who can fly through the sky. Even at my highest command, there were files and programs I didn’t have access to.”

  Mia believed her, or at least didn’t disbelieve her. Still, the possibility of what had been raised lingered. It suggested that what’d happened in Tripoli hadn’t been a freak accident. It suggested something Mia loathed deep in her bones. It suggested conspiracy.

  Mia left the view of the Finance District to check in with the security team; it bothered the Sheepdogs that a deputy campaign manager talked perimeter details and sectors of fire with them, which made her do it all the more. Across a park trail, outside his trailer, River Phoenix worked with a voice coach on his Kennedy accent. All these episodes later, it still didn’t sound quite right.

  She returned to the set. General Collins sat in a folding chair under a tree conversing with the executive producer, a silver-haired man with a salt-and-pepper beard. The general waved Mia over to them.

  “America Honors the Warfighter.” Mia greeted the man, adding, “And Praise to the Victors.”

  “Right back at you, young lady!” The man talked with his hands, and more quickly than his business equivalents on the Council. He had thick, black eyebrows that seemed glued to his face. He formed finger guns and aimed them at Mia’s slight bump, a way of congratulating her. She nodded and in turn congratulated him on Utopia’s success. It was everywhere.

  “My baby, in a way.” The man spoke with exclamation marks in his voice. “Twelve Emmy nominations is nothing to sneeze at, nothing to sneeze at. And the ratings! Up to 7.4 million last episode.”

  “Crane was just telling me about the struggle to get Utopia on air,” General Collins said. The slight stoop in her shoulders tipped the older woman forward in her chair. Mia noticed that the makeup team had used concealer on the dark circles under her eyes; the late nights and early mornings of the campaign were affecting them all. Mia herself was spending far too much money on a caffeine-free protein energy drink d
esigned specifically for pregnant women. “Now look at it. The talk of the country.”

  The man launched into the particulars of that struggle: how network after network told them an uplifting alternate history would never work. Viewers wanted dystopian escape, they were told, to make the real world more tolerable. Who’d watch a show about an America that valued diplomacy? Who’d watch a show about an America that attempted restraint? The politics seemed muddled, too—using liberal Bobby to push what seemed an anti-intervention message? Framing the grand victory in Vietnam like it could’ve been otherwise? They didn’t understand, and especially didn’t understand why the Council of Victors was championing it. State TV couldn’t say no, though, the producer explained. They’d been desperate.

  “In a way, it was the perfect place for Utopia,” he continued. “The revolution will be televised!”

  The man laughed and laughed at his own joke, the general managing a grin for the same. Mia wondered, not for the first time, just how long ago this campaign had been planned out.

  * * *

  The producer excused himself to check on River Phoenix and River Phoenix’s accent. Mia pulled out her phone and found an hour-old text waiting there like a stale crumb. It was from Britt Swenson.

  “Remember my bouncer friend I told u about? He saw the guy from the ballroom on TV—promo for Victory Parade. Bernard Galt (sp.?) Old white guy.”

  Then a second text: “Yes he’s sure, in case you ask.”

  Mia put away her phone and took a deep, measured breath of city air, a bladed darkness entering her mind. She walked away from the set to find some space. Was it betrayal she felt? Something like it, she thought. That son of a bitch, she continued, meaning Bernard Gault, meaning the Council of Victors, too, meaning Roger Tran and the whole lot of them. Anyone involved in this stupid little oligarchy. They could shove it. They could keep it. She didn’t need them. They must’ve thought her a fool, a dupe. She could’ve lost her child in the ballroom that night. One errant gunshot would have ended it all.

  Mia wasn’t one for rash decisions. But something gave way within her as she remembered the ballroom, because of their recklessness, because of their self-regard. These people didn’t deserve her. As Mia returned to the set in full, furious strides, she was still putting order and structure to her thoughts. Her intent felt plain as light, though. She was going to quit the campaign.

  “General Collins. A word, please.” Mia stripped her words of any question or deference.

  The older woman heard that edge. She stood and sent away the campaign aides.

  “Go ahead, Mia.”

  “I have it on good authority that the Mayday extremists were let into the ballroom the night of the inaugural.” Mia didn’t hesitate or falter. “By your friend, Bernard Gault.”

  The general didn’t object; she didn’t dispute. She didn’t even blink. She just took Mia by the elbow and told her to walk with her.

  “We’re winning, Mia.” Her voice was low, wary. “We’re winning.”

  “I’m sorry?” Mia didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.

  “It’ll be public tomorrow morning. New Harris/Tugwell poll has us up two percentage points. One poll, but: we’re not a dark horse anymore.”

  “That’s…” It was great news, amazing news, but Mia could not reason with it right now. “Did you hear me, ma’am? I said Bernard Gault aided the militants who took us hostage. The ones who shot Governor Harrah. The ones who killed him.”

  “Lima Charlie.” Military-speak for loud and clear. “I hear you Lima Charlie, Mia.” The general squeezed Mia’s elbow, hard. They stopped walking and faced one another, the view of the Finance District on their periphery. General Collins’s slight stoop tipped her shoulders forward, and Mia looked up at the other woman, finding a taut aggression she’d never seen directed her way before. “Now I need you to hear me.”

  Mia pursed her lips but nodded.

  “As a pilot up there in the sky, you didn’t see all the work on the ground that goes into successful counterinsurgency. Not that the Mediterranean’s offered many successes, of course. But there have been some. Crete. New Beirut. Those victories didn’t happen by accident. They didn’t happen through nice intentions, either. Deals were struck. Bargains made. I broke bread once with a cleric in Syria married to his own twelve-year-old cousin. He raped that girl. He hit that girl. He took whatever he wanted from his tribespeople, because he could. A little tyrant of dirt. Everything about him disgusted me, ran in violation of my beliefs. We awarded him a road paving contract over chai. I swallowed my pride for the mission. For peace.”

  “That’s over there.”

  “That’s over here, too. I thought you knew that already. You think America is so different than those places? Than anywhere else? America, it’s made up of people. And people will always disappoint, Mia. They lie to their spouses. They cheat on their taxes. They con their neighbors. Why do you think we need to bring united service to them, instead of them clamoring for it?”

  Mia attempted to speak but the general held up a finger.

  “Citizens are like soldiers: they’re only as good as their leadership. And good leadership, real leadership, sometimes means grabbing your biggest, dumbest grunt by the scruff of his neck and ordering him to post guard. Because someone has to.”

  General Collins pulled out a cigarette and put it between her lips, letting it dangle there as she finished.

  “Come down from the sky, pilot. Come get your hands dirty. Victory requires it.”

  Mia exhaled through her nose, keeping her lips pursed and her back straight. The only response she could form in her head—“Wrong is wrong”—felt childish and paltry. Layers of gray were one thing, but people had died in that ballroom. Lives altered, forever altered, American lives, because of Machiavellian scheming.

  “Did you know?” she finally managed. “Before.”

  The general shook her head no.

  “You’re smart enough to know that’s by design,” she said. “But as I understand, it wasn’t supposed to be like that, at all. It was supposed to be small, contained. Nonviolent. The governor was a good man. He’d have made a fine president.” She shook her head again. “Like war, though. Adapt and overcome. Or be overrun by the horde.”

  Mia felt an overwhelming need to fly into the deep of sky but didn’t dare move an inch now. She held to the precious quiet yet again.

  “Take off a couple days, think things through,” General Collins said between long, contemplative drags. “The parade next week, though—from there, it’s all systems go. No time for doubts. No space for regret.”

  Her eyes fell upon Mia’s stomach.

  “You and I want the same thing: a new America. For your beautiful child. For all our children. They deserve hope. They deserve a promising nation, a rising one, like we knew. Tomorrow—tomorrow is what matters.”

  General Collins took a final drag, then flicked the half-smoked cigarette to the ground. Mia wrapped her arms around her stomach and kept them there for many minutes, trying to make sense of everything that’d been said, and everything not, watching the cinder of the half cigarette blink out.

  * * *

  Acceptable harbor light arrived just after noon. General Collins and River Phoenix finished their scene twenty minutes later. The general, Tran, and a group of Sheepdogs headed to the train station—an evening talk at the McNamara Institute in Federal City awaited. Defying the general’s order, Mia headed uptown and into the office for a couple of hours. She needed to work to calm herself. After verifying the order for American Service banners and signboards to hand out at the upcoming V-V Day Parade and a conference call with campaign deputies in the western states, she texted Jesse.

  “Horrible day. Home for dinner tonight?”

  She didn’t know yet if she wanted advice or a sounding board, but either way, she needed to talk things through with her fiancé. That he was also a special agent for the Bureau—well, they’d figure it out, toge
ther.

  Her phone buzzed thirty seconds later. She grabbed it with alacrity.

  “Need to see you ASAP!” It was a text from Sebastian Rios. “Free this afternoon?”

  Mia rolled her lips. I suppose I am, she thought.

  They met at a coffee shop in Old Harlem. Amid a scattershot of antifascist arrows, someone had spray painted “Die Boho Scum” on the building’s side. Sebastian had already arrived, sitting at a corner table, wearing a long-sleeve pajama top and faded jeans. His face was pallid and drawn, his hair holding a greasy tint to it. He got up and pulled out Mia’s seat for her.

  She ordered ice water and a panini, Sebastian a vanilla latte and scone. He pointed to her stomach and asked how she was feeling.

  “Oh, fine,” she said. Did he actually want to know? She figured not. Sebastian didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d given much thought to the rigors of pregnancy. “Small complaints, of course. But worth it.”

  The urge, the desire, the craving to share—Mia rarely felt it, but she did now. The morning conversation with General Collins had spooked her. It already felt like a mad daydream, but it had happened and she needed help working her way through it. Had she been threatened there at the end? It’d felt that way in the moment, even if the words hadn’t matched. An old friend like Sebastian might be able to remind her of who she’d been long ago, when she’d been certain about the world and her role in it.

  I’ll tell him, Mia decided. He and Jesse will make for good advice foils.

  Before she could, Sebastian opened a spiral notebook on the table and turned it toward her. She saw a collection of lists and scribbles and dark strikethroughs in it.

  “I wrote it out so I could keep it straight.” Sebastian put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, close enough to Mia that she could see insomnia in his eyes. This was why he wanted to get coffee, she realized. “Bear with me, please.” Then he launched into a tale about Tripoli, and what he thought had happened there, and why, his words darting about like bats in the dark. He spoke low, hushed, and kept itching at the stubble around his chin. Ancestors from World War I and the cythrax vaccine were mentioned. Mia let him ramble, choosing to keep silent.