by Tony Daniel
Leher slapped his forehead. “Of course,” he said. “Had kind of a rotten morning. Weird dreams, that sort of thing. Must’ve forgotten to transfer to my Peepsie costume.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“No problem,” Leher said. “Now I know where it is.”
“What?”
“My pen. Space pen, actually.” He chuckled. “Magically writes when it’s upside down.”
“Wow.”
Leher nodded. “It was a gift. From my kid.”
In that moment, Coalbridge decided he probably liked Leher, even if Leher did come across as slightly insane.
Hell, I’ll even give him the bullshit test, he thought.
“So, you really think I have what it takes to blow my own brains out?” Coalbridge asked. “You told that Peepsie son of a bitch I would.” The wind gusted up, and for a moment neither man could speak as each huddled in his coat. When he could be heard again, Coalbridge continued. “I mean, lots of guys have blood on their hands, but that doesn’t mean they have what it takes to do something about it, if you know what I mean.”
Leher seemed taken aback for a moment. Then he considered, squinting in a cockeyed fashion. “I’m surprised you haven’t already blown yourself away, seeing as you’re a goddamn starcraft captain,” he replied. “I happen to know your kind thinks this universe is not good enough for the likes of you.”
Coalbridge nodded. “You’ve met a few of us then?”
“You bet,” Leher said.
“I’m not anything like that.”
“I have no choice but to believe you, Jim.”
Coalbridge smiled. “And you’re obviously a creep, through and through. Switchblade in every compliment, they say.”
“I’m the best creep you’ll ever meet, Captain Courageous,” Leher said. “And don’t worry your oversized captain’s head about one thing—your enemy is my enemy. We have different ways of going about killing him, that’s all.”
Was he going to be friends with a creep? Stranger things had happened.
And creep or no, Leher knew the fastest way into the Capitol complex. Which was all that really mattered at the moment to Coalbridge.
“So, want to lead the way, you Peepsie-loving creep? I sure would like to get down below and out from under this sky, if you know what I mean,” said Coalbridge.
“That’s one thing we agree on,” said Leher. He chuckled, shook his head, took a step forward—then stopped in his tracks. Coalbridge noticed another street crack running diagonally in front of them. The ground glass on the street outlined its jagged course in splendid sparkles. “On the other hand, I’ll get us there,” Coalbridge said. “You just get us in.”
He kicked another white-coated bridging board over the crack. There was no end of loose material around. Leher didn’t budge. His complexion had changed from ruddy to white as a ghost.
His eyes were still fixed on the crack.
“It doesn’t count if you slide it,” Leher said in a low voice.
Coalbridge glanced at him, but there wasn’t a trace of irony in his face.
Coalbridge picked up the board and laid it across with his hands.
“That better?”
Leher nodded and stepped across. After he’d reached the other side, he suddenly looked around. “You hear a raid siren?”
“No. You?”
Leher shook his head. He and Coalbridge both gazed up at the sky.
Nothing. Still . . .
“I’ve got a bad feeling about today, Captain Courageous,” said Leher.
Coalbridge nodded. “Me, too.” Coalbridge glanced over at his companion. So this was really him. The Leher.
“Tell you what,” said Coalbridge. “There’s got to be a story behind that analysis of yours. You give me a little background. I’m top-secret cleared. You saw the hellfryer identify me. In return, I’ll help you get the hell away from this sky. Deal?”
Leher stopped short, considered Coalbridge with a cold gaze. He tugged at the end of his dirty beard. Once, twice, three times.
Coalbridge shrugged, as if to say: “I’ve got no angle here. We’re both playing on the same team.”
Which they were. In the larger sense.
Then Leher smiled crookedly. “All right,” he said. “I’ll give you a quick backgrounder. But don’t expect a happy ending.”
Coalbridge nodded succinctly, returned the smile. “You’re forgetting one thing, son.”
“What’s that?”
“We are the ending,” said Coalbridge. “And I happen to like my chances.”
Leher shook his head. “Goddamn captains.” But then there was no stopping Leher as he filled in for Coalbridge the background that shored up his report.
FIVE
31 December 2075
Dallas
Presidential Office Reception Area
The Lincoln Plaza section of the underground Capitol complex, which housed the presidential office suite, had once been a warren of little shops under downtown Dallas—a bodega, an Asian-run fruit market, a drugstore, and a barbershop. What trappings from the old place that had survived the first sceeve attack on the White House in Washington, D.C., had been relocated here, to the underground walkways that lay beneath the city—a system that had existed for over a century, a relic of preinvasion days.
In the old days, people had used the tunnels to escape the summer heat, the Texas wind. Now reinforced from above with nano-infused steel a foot thick (equivalent to being a mile under rock, the engineers said), the tunnels were shelter from a different kind of storm. The Secretary of the Extry had his office here in the White House warrens, and Leher spent about half his work time there, acting as Xeno liaison to the SECEX, and the other half twenty miles north at the Xeno command’s offices in the New Pentagon.
After Leher and Coalbridge descended into the tunnels, Leher had expertly guided Coalbridge through the crisscrossed system. It was amusing to watch the confusion grow on Coalbridge’s face as Leher led him deeper into the Capitol warren. Leher knew the labyrinth well, including all the shortcuts and half-hidden connecting passageways, but for a neophyte, as Leher well remembered, getting around the off-white walls and grayish linoleum floors could feel like trying to navigate the layers of hell. Coolbridge and he had finally separated when they’d reached the main warren and Leher had gone to change into his uniform.
Reception, located in what had once been a barbershop and not a huge room to begin with, was packed. Leher, now in uniform, stood in a corner and glanced furtively around, then tugged on his beard, checking to see if it was time for a trim. His method was to rub thumb and forefinger together, and if the beard hair curled instead of working itself free from his grasp, clippers would be coming out soon. This action was a constant ritual for Leher, engaged in at least once every thirty minutes or so, throughout his waking day. There were many other such repetitions that became apparent after an hour or so of being around him.
Leher was well aware of his compulsive behavior. What was sometimes even more exasperating was that, when he was in another character, coming to work dressed as a Peepsie, say, or when he was completely immersed in his work persona of hotshot linguistic analyst, the tics, the behavior patterns, all but disappeared. What he couldn’t do was will them away during the lulls, the downtime. To try to make himself stop the beard-tugging, the crack-worry, the postcard-writing, was all but impossible, and usually thinking about it made it even worse.
The reception area smelled of coffee and anxiety. A few desultory Christmas decorations hung on the walls—and a small, sad-looking banner that read HAPPY NEW YEAR 2076. Leher figured it was probably in preparation for another gathering scheduled this evening—New Year’s Eve—although he hadn’t been invited.
Above my pay grade by at least seven layers, Leher thought. Don’t need the hassle anyway.
But he was in dire need of coffee. Leher spotted a big urn on a table against the far wall and made his way through the suited and uniformed morn
ing crowd to get to it.
And there, in the center of the room, was one of the reasons for the meeting this morning. Rear Admiral and Engineering and Design Mission Director Alan Tillich.
Tillich shot Leher a white-hot glare of hatred, then returned to the conversation he’d been having.
Oh, shit. So it was going to be that way, was it?
Leher reached the table the coffee urn was on. He turned, glanced back, and there was Tillich staring at him once again.
Great. High Command was not pleased. The queasiness began to settle into Leher’s stomach almost as bad as it did in space. He was not made for these bureaucratic battles—especially against foes who had defeated U.S. presidents before. If the stakes hadn’t been so high . . .
But they were.
Still, Leher felt as if cracks were gathering all around him, waiting to spider forth. He felt the urge to laugh, long and loud. Fought it down.
Damn it. He needed to get some words down on a postcard. Put the postcard in the mail.
Express the anxiety away. You needed rituals to keep the world from continually falling apart. He needed them, at least.
Leher’s rational side knew he was reading too much meaning into Tillich’s glares. So Tillich hated him? Leher couldn’t return the feeling. He retained the same admiration he always had for the Extry legend. Tillich was the Extry in the minds of many. He’d built the first fleet after the service had broken away from the U.S. Navy and Air Force to form its own branch of the U.S. armed forces ten years ago.
Tillich literally put the X in Extry.
It had been Tillich who’d insisted that Space Navy sounded too Buck Rogers—and conceded too much to the blue-water rub-a-dub-dubbers. What was needed was a new name, one that suggested extraterrestrial, experimental, new—and Tillich had come up with it.
Actually, he’d called it the Xtry, thought Leher. And he’d never really agreed that his original formulation might be confusing to pronounce.
Eight years ago, Tillich had pushed for the name outside official channels using his friends in Congress, and eventually gotten it adopted, with the e added as a sop to the opposition.
Since the Extry was a baby that Tillich named himself, was it any wonder he thought he owned the child now, lock, stock, and barrel?
Another sullen glance in Leher’s direction.
Jesus, had this guy mastered the quick, baleful glance. Leher touched his postcard pocket, felt the square of cardboard under the fabric. Hang on.
Tillich turned back to his small talk. Leher saw he was chatting with the National Security Advisor and the SECEX, both his mortal bureacratic enemies, politicking till the end. Or what Leher hoped would be the end of the man’s influence.
Look who’s talking. You’re not exactly Mr. Naïve. You’ve been known to do a bit of maneuvering yourself.
Leher turned to the coffee urn. It sat on a folded cloth padding that shielded the reception room’s mahogany table. The table was gorgeous, a piece of furniture that had been brought down from the ruins of Washington. It had been through the firebombing, been lovingly refinished. Smoothed. Seamless. Good.
But the coffee cups were antiques as well and had not been so lucky. Why had the staff put them out? They ought to be locked away.
Not only were they out, someone had stacked them two-high on a red, scraped plastic tray. China cups, dainty, thin porcelain. Set with the presidential seal. Priceless treasures now.
The very cup Leher reached for had a jagged line running from the brim and down, down the curve of its flowery shape, disappearing around the curve of the base.
A hairline crack. Suddenly Leher was convinced that the cup would shatter in his hand. That another bit of history—of innocence—would be lost. Leher jerked his fingers back.
Not soon enough. He’d touched the cup. It clattered off the second tier of cups and onto the mahogany table.
It did not shatter but landed on its side—and rolled over one turn before coming to rest against its own handle.
Leher let out a quiet exclamation, set his hands in palm-up supplication to the cup to stop, please don’t fall off the table.
Shit.
The world, constantly on the verge of falling apart.
Into Leher’s mind flooded something he must, absolutely, write down. Something he needed to tell Neddie.
I will compose and write the postcard as soon as this meeting is over, Leher told himself. I promise I will do this. I will do it by this afternoon, the evening at the latest. I will mail it before the night is done.
Leher breathed deeply and stepped back from the table, away from the coffee cups. Damn, and he’d needed a cup of joe badly. But then he felt his left hand—his writing hand—reaching into his inner coat pocket for a pen.
How did the hand get there? He glanced down at it. It moved with its own autonomy.
The hand took out pen, then postcard. Placed the card on the table’s surface near the edge.
Motion for continuance denied. He was going to write down his thought now. Leher put the postcard on the table, bent over it, and began to write in the tiny letters that his ex-wife had once said looked like “squashed bugs.”
Dear Neddie, people get the idea that just because they’ve managed not to get themselves killed in 30, 40, 50, 150 years, then that means they know something valuable. Nobody ever attributes it to luck. Truth is, luck usually turns out to be by far the best explanation for most examples of long-term survival. As always, wish you were here. D.
All right, there it was. He’d written the postcard.
Satisfied, self?
Now to find a mailbox, send it. He’d already stamped the cards in his pocket and printed their addresses on them.
P-mail would have never worked. Neddie was too young to have a p-mail account. Nope, postcards were the way to go.
Leher suddenly had another thought that he simply had to include on the postcard, even though even he was running out of room at the bottom. He squeezed his letters into a compact, infinitesimal marching line to finish.
P.S. Neddie, people say we make our own luck, and it’s undeniably true sometimes. But mostly this comes about just by keeping at it, not by having the exact right plan. I want you to know that I’ll always try, for the two of us. I won’t give up.
Leher had the feeling he was being watched. He straightened up, slid the postcard into the outer pocket of his uniform jacket, glanced around to see if Tillich was trying once again to melt him with his eyes. Not at the moment. But someone was looking at him.
Her.
Samantha Guptha.
Of course she would be here.
Leher smiled at her and waved a finger. Sam immediately disengaged from her group and stepped over to join him.
“Hi, Griff.”
“Sam.”
She glanced down at the pocket into which he’d put the postcard, and over at the table where the cup he’d touched still lay on its side. She picked up the cracked cup and ran a fingernail along the hairline fissure.
“This set you off?”
Leher nodded.
“Let’s just be careful there . . .” Taking it from her involved touching the cup, but preventing the crack from spreading made that the lesser of two evils. He reached over and carefully took the cup away from her, moved it back from the edge of the table, and set it down.
Leher looked back at Sam, smiled slyly, shrugged—as if they were both in on a joke instead of a very weird . . . whatever it was.
Sam smiled, nodded. “So, I read this analysis everyone’s buzzing about,” she said. “Kind of brilliant.”
“Thanks,” said Leher. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“What does the weapon do, Sam?”
“Ah,” said Sam. “Yeah, I have a few thoughts. If I could get my hands on that thing . . .” Her smile became a look of fascination. Even longing.
The look he’d fallen in love with, once upon a time.
“Why are
you here, Sam? I thought the first rule of contracting was not to bring an engineer to a management fight,” Leher said. “Femtodynamics run out of brass?”
“I am brass these days, Griff. Vice President of Research,” Sam replied. “Been a year now. I assigned myself to this meeting.”
He should’ve known. Should’ve called. Sent her a card—a postcard, a postcard addressed to a real address—something. And he would have. But the past year of work had been so pressing. He’d practically disappeared into it. And what free time he had was taken up with the rituals. With writing Neddie.
Leher shrugged, cocked his head. “Don’t I remember you once telling me that any woman in a business suit is a guaranteed uptight bitch?”
“Guess there was a dark mistress of bitchiness hiding in my closet. Now she’s out. Let me tell you, honey, the party never stops in Mordor.”
Sam’s ice-cream-smooth Northern Alabama accent was still capable of sending pleasant chills through Leher. And her Punjabi good looks still seemed to his mind incongruous when combined with the accent.
She’d grown up in Huntsville, the only child of two immigrant engineers from New Delhi who worked for the old ATK Space Systems. Leher had met her in college, and the two of them had become best friends while going out with one another’s roommates.
They’d kept in touch in grad school—Sam had leaned on him during her breakup with the boyfriend—but had grown apart as both went their separate ways into very different careers.
Then came the invasion and the PW66 project. Sam was working on the team that figured out how to transport a nuclear warhead using the first Q drive. Leher had been a JAG lawyer on the project, fending off Pentagon bureaucrats and making sure the ad hoc team had legal room to operate. The work was top secret. Leher was among the few who knew that Sam was one of the brains that had saved humanity from instant capitulation to the sceeve.
She was a goddamn hero. One day, Sam would be in the history books—if there were going to be any more history books. But for the moment, she was just another aerospace executive.
