All of the Above

by Timothy Scott Bennett

  Linda opened her mouth to explain, but was interrupted when the ships overhead flared as one, bursting forth with light and joy and music so rich and so full it was as though a host of angels had suddenly appeared to sing the glories of God. An image formed in Linda’s mind, of a French fry hovering before her, touching her forehead. Absently she reached up to swat it away. Then the image and the music and the UFOs fell away to darkness and quiet, leaving her momentarily deaf and blind. Staggering, she reached out to grab Cole’s hand for support, biting her lip against the tears that burbled unbidden from her heart. Her hand trembled.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered at last.

  5.7

  The singers held their final note, their arms thrust up and out, while the music rose skyward through its concluding measures. It ended with a crash of cymbals and the actors bent low in unison in an exaggerated bow. Linda stood and clapped enthusiastically. As one the troupe stood straight and filed off the stage. The stage lights dimmed and flickered out as the house lights came up with a distant clunk. Linda sat back in her chair, a huge smile smeared across her face.

  How long had it gone on? She had no idea. Hours, it felt like, judging from her sore bottom. Hours in which they had sung and danced and told her the story of the Life, complete with the stilted acting and botched cues one might expect from a high school production. And now she knew their tale: how the Life had come from a dying planet that was called, simply, Home, a planet dying because “our” galaxy was consuming “theirs” in a cosmic collision so vast it was beyond comprehension; how, traveling across the light-years, they had searched for a new place to live, finding no suitable habitat until they had chanced upon the Earth almost eighty years ago; how their arrival had triggered an interstellar war with a race of evil, exploitive aliens who had long ago assumed ownership of the Earth; how the Life had been working with the human governments of the world since that time to make it possible for them to live with the humans, slowly changing their bodies to better handle the peculiar atmosphere and gravity of this planet, using genetic materials from humans to transform themselves into a race that could walk amongst us as equals, though it was clear that their abilities and technology put them far ahead of us in many ways; how humans were helping the Life in exchange for their help, in return, in ridding themselves of their evil alien overlords, and in solving the myriad energy, resource, and environmental problems that were upon them. It all made such perfect sense to Linda that she was not upset in the least when she heard how the American government had given permission to the Life to conduct their genetic projects in secret, abducting humans and performing experiments on them as though they were rats in a cage. It was Jon who had spoken of that. Jon. It didn’t even occur to her, until later, that the language spoken on stage was not of this Earth. Yet she’d understood perfectly what had been said.

  Linda heard footsteps behind her and turned. There was Rice, walking slowly toward her down the carpeted aisle. His steps were uneven and erratic, his face hard and flat, his eyes dead. He stopped at the end of Linda’s row. “Come with me,” he said, more like a robot than a man. He turned and started back up the aisle.

  Linda looked toward the stage, hoping to see Jon, finding only darkness and silence. She rose and followed Rice, her body subtly buzzing. She could feel the workings of every individual cell. Something had struck her like a mallet strikes a gong and had left her ringing. Her outrage at Rice had ceased to matter. As had her fears. As had her expectations. She followed Rice with simple curiosity and openness, as if, having been hit by a truck, she was walking now in the land of the dead, stunned, but ready to meet the gods. She stopped at the back of the auditorium, tossed one final glance at the darkened stage, then turned to watch as Rice pushed into the hallway. On a small stand at the door was a stack of programs. Without a thought she placed her copy on top and then pressed through the double doors. Immediately her nose and eyes were assaulted by the rich, greasy smells and bright lights of a McDonald’s restaurant.

  Rice was nowhere to be seen. Without conscious volition, as though swept along by a tide far stronger than her own will, Linda took her place in line: three people back from the counter. An aching nostalgia filled her heart as she scanned the room. The dining area was small and cramped, brightly lit by overhead fluorescents, the tables plastic and metal, the floor old linoleum tile, black and white in a checkerboard pattern. Outside, two giant yellow arches came down from above the store and plunged into the sidewalks at the front corners, one right in front of an old Chevy Nomad. This was a McDonald’s of forty or fifty years ago. Linda guessed that there wasn’t one like this still standing anywhere in the world.

  The line moved forward and Linda turned to focus on the menu. The counter before her was stainless steel, small, with two antique cash registers on top. The menu offered only hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, soft drinks and shakes, all at ridiculously low prices. Linda wondered what she should order. All around her were people out of the past, young women with their hair piled high, young men with their jeans fit tight. None gave her so much as a glance. It didn’t seem to matter that she was their President. They didn’t know her.

  The customer before her grabbed his bags and headed off, leaving Linda to confront the cheerful young brunette behind the counter. Linda opened her mouth to speak but the girl cut her off. “You’re order’s all set,” she said, turning to grab a tray from the shelf behind her. She slid it toward the President with a sunny grin. On it was a cheeseburger, an orange drink, and a regular fries.

  “Don’t I need to…?” asked Linda, fumbling in her pockets for some cash.

  The brunette smiled even wider, shaking her head and pointing out into the dining area. “All taken care of, ma’am,” she said.

  Linda followed her gesture. The girl had indicated what looked like a tiny monk sitting alone at a table near the door, his face buried in a copy of the Washington Post. Linda turned to ask the girl a question but she was already busy with another customer. With a sigh of inevitability, Linda picked up her tray and headed across the dining room.

  She put her tray on the old man’s table and took the seat across from him. The little man lowered his paper and stared at her with huge teardrop eyes, black and fluid: the eyes of an insect, or a demon, shining like hot tar and patent leather and deep space. He folded his paper neatly and placed it on the table before him, then scratched absently at the huge bald dome of his misshapen head with the long, white claws of his four-fingered hand. “Hey Linda,” he said, “I’m Spud. What’s shakin’?”

  Linda looked around the restaurant, expecting some reaction to this creature in their midst. But the others acted as though nothing were amiss. She closed her eyes, wondering at her own response. She could see that there was terror in her pounding heart. And rage. She knew that her body wanted to get up and run away as fast as it could. But none of that seemed to matter. Her feelings were cut off from her willpower, locked away in a glass-walled vault for which she had no key, and replaced with the gentle reassurance that everything was just fine, it was all exactly as it should be, and she should just stay calm and know that nobody wanted to hurt her and that soon she would be back home, safe and sound.

  Spud picked up the half-eaten hamburger before him and nibbled at its edge with his incision of a mouth. Then he crinkled that mouth slightly upwards at the ends, as if attempting a smile. He scrunched his tiny, vestigial nose. “I’m a regular here,” he said. He nodded his permission, indicating the President’s food.

  Linda felt suddenly ravenous and reached out to unwrap her cheeseburger. The rich odor leapt into her nose as she took a bite. Nothing had ever tasted so glorious. She took a second bite, and a third, then started to unfold her napkin. There was a blot of mustard on the corner of her mouth.

  “Permit me, Mrs. President.” Spud reached out and dabbed the mustard away with a long, tan, leathery finger. He wiped his finger on his garment, some sort of rough, brown fabric, like the robe of
a medieval friar. “I assume you have some questions?” He leaned over to sip from his soft drink without lifting it.

  Linda couldn’t help but stare as she spoke. “Questions? Jeesh,” she finally said. “Yeah I’ve got questions. Where the hell are we?” She indicated the restaurant around her with a wave of the arm.

  Spud leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms over his head, and gave the President what looked like the wink of a bullfrog, the eye folding backward into the skull, the skin of the forehead bulging out like a balloon. Linda felt a shard of memory poke her from the inside, looked away, took a long sip through her straw. “McDonald’s,” said Spud, hoiking his clavicles as if it were obvious.

  Linda nodded. Oh. She knew that none of this made any sense at all, that none of it could really be happening, that she was being jerked around like a dog on a short leash. But those thoughts were playing happily behind the same thick glass wall through which she could not feel. On this side of the glass everything was great.

  And Spud wasn’t really speaking, was he? He made a giggling noise now and then, and moved his lips slightly from time to time. But he wasn’t really forming words. Wasn’t really talking. The words were just in Linda’s head. Linda looked down at the paper that Spud had been reading. On the front page was a bold headline : TRAVIS RE-ELECTED. A paper that had not yet been written. She took another bite of her cheeseburger.

  “And Rice?” asked Linda, chewing. She hadn’t seen the red-haired agent since right after the play.

  “Waiting patiently for you in the parking lot like a good boy,” said Spud.

  “So, why are you telling me all this?” she asked with her mouth full. She motioned back toward the auditorium she’d just left with a wave of her hand. “What was that all about?”

  “Need a favor,” said Spud. “Thought you might be able to help.” The creature pointed towards Linda’s tray. “You gonna eat those fries?”

  Linda shook her head, pushed the tray toward Spud. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  Linda stuffed the last bite of cheeseburger into her mouth, followed that with a swallow of orange soda. Outside, a family hurried to their car, the father fishing in his pocket for his keys, the mother carrying a large white bag. A pair of pre-teen girls, both with long blonde ponytails, carried the drinks. They climbed in and drove off. Linda leaned back in her chair, brushed crumbs from her shirt, and closed her eyes. The afternoon sun was creeping up her leg, warming her, soothing her. She felt herself drift away for a moment, tried to shake it off, then wiggled to get more comfortable and closed her eyes again. That family, she thought as she fell asleep. It was hers. Though it could never have happened in this time, she had just watched herself as a girl, and her parents, and her best friend Keeley, drive off down the road.

  5.8

  “When I woke up, I was in the back seat of that damned Jeep, with Rice up front at the wheel and Bob on the passenger side. Rice didn’t say much, just some smart-ass crap about how Spud and I were gonna be best buddies and all. Bob didn’t even turn around. They drove me back to the White House, just dropped me off at the gate like a taxi, if you can believe it. Nobody said a damn thing. I couldn’t even get the guards at the gate to admit that there was anything out of the ordinary.” Linda stopped to massage her neck. She’d been talking non-stop since they’d gone back into the house and her voice had grown threadbare around the edges. She looked up at Cole. “Could I get some more tea, Cole? Please?”

  “Sure.” Cole rose and walked out to the kitchen.

  “Mom was there when I got back,” the President said, loud enough so that Cole could hear her.

  “What did she say?” Cole called back.

  “She didn’t know a thing. She’d had a wonderful time with Bess Engle. Hadn’t even heard about Bickle.”

  “What exactly happened to Bickle?” asked Cole. “I remember something about a car and a bridge.”

  Linda nodded. “Yeah. He drove off the Douglass Bridge. They say he was dead before he hit the water. I hope so, I guess. I mean, God, drowning in a car…. But why he should be dead before he hit the water was never quite explained. And the funny thing was, Steven Bickle hadn’t driven in years. Didn’t own a car, didn’t have a license. Nobody could explain just why he was behind the wheel that day. And nobody had any idea where he was headed. It was a mess.”

  “So what did you tell your Mother?” Cole asked from the kitchen. He walked carefully back to the living room carrying two cups of tea.

  Linda took her cup and sipped it. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You didn’t tell your mother?”

  “No.” The President raised a hand in self-defense. “I wasn’t … I wasn’t myself. It was like … some sort of drug or something. A side effect. I spent the rest of that day thinking that Rice was a pretty good guy. And how nice it had been to see Jon again. And what a great cheeseburger they used to make in the old days. I wasn’t thinking. I mean, Jesus, I hate McDonald’s. Telling Mom what had happened never even crossed my mind. It would have been like telling her about my trip to the mailbox. She was off to some dinner in Detroit and I had a meeting with the Ambassador from Denmark and a commencement address to finish.”

  “But this all wore off,” urged Cole.

  Linda nodded but did not speak at once. She stared down at the cup in her hands. When she raised her head again there was a tear streaking down her cheek. “Spud came to me that night. Woke me up with a slap to the face. Scared the shit out of me. Said ‘touch my robe’ and I did and zoom we were off like Scrooge and the Ghost, soaring over the city. My guts felt like they were going to fall right out.” Linda dropped her head, weeping quietly now, tears spilling down her face.

  Cole came and sat next to her. She took his hand and squeezed it firmly. “Keep going,” he said softly.

  Linda spoke through her tears. “He took me on a people hunt. I watched as some of his buddies invaded a home and took a small child. God, Cole, a little girl. Hardly older than Grace. Took her from her bed in the middle of the night and up into their ship. Strapped her to a table and poked and prodded her, stuck her with things. And all the time … she didn’t make a sound. But her eyes … they were so full of pain and fear and they were asking me, ‘Why? Why are you letting them do this to me? Why?’ They took this long needle thing and shoved it right up her nose, hard, til it broke through fucking bone. Put some sort of electronic tagging device up in her brain. And I just stood there, Cole. Paralyzed. Not able to move. Or talk. Or even turn my head. Just watching.”

  Linda stopped and tried to bring her sobbing under control. Cole took the tea from her trembling hands and placed it on the end table. The President breathed deeply and went on. “He took me all over the country. Showed me team after team of these creatures abducting humans from their beds, their cars, right from their office cubicles. Bringing them into their ships and terrifying them. I asked Spud how they had the right. He said I was projecting. Asked me how I had the right and said that I had to help.”

  Linda’s voice had evened out, and the tears had stopped. She took a tissue from the box Cole offered and wiped her eyes. “He took me to their ... facilities. Gigantic installations. Mostly underground. Some out under the ocean. A couple up in space. One right under God-damned Washington D.C.! All full of these creatures working on God knows what. And right beside them humans, checking out their ships and testing their machines. Like we’d sold our souls for some high-tech toys.” Linda blew her nose into the tissue. “Fucking idiot.”

  “Who?”

  “Spud. He never should have shown me that girl. His mistake. I might have gone along. He never should have shown me that girl.”

  Cole handed the President another tissue. “Did he ever say what the favor was?” he asked.

  Linda stopped, looked away to think, then shook her head. “Not that I recall,” she said, perplexed. “And the gum was gone from my pocket when I checked later.”

  Something thumped on the floo
r above them. Cole stiffened, then took off, running up the stairs, tossing out a strangled shout as he ran. “Grace!”

  Chapter Six

  6.1

  “You wanna come with me and see for yourself?” Bob spiked a limp french fry and shoved it into her mouth. It was pasty and cold but the salt was wonderful.

  Rice, sitting across from her in a rumpled suit, his eyes red and crusty from being awakened in the middle of the night, shook his head. His stack of pancakes sat untouched before him, the syrup congealed. He looked around the cafeteria, acting as if it mattered whether anybody heard what he said. Bob followed his gaze. The room was almost empty, save for the pair of guards at the corner table near the salad bar. She smirked at the General’s precautions. Like they needed more soldiers down here. She looked back to Rice. The overhead fluorescents, combined with his two-day growth of beard and his lack of sleep, gave his face a gray-green sheen that made him look like a plague victim.

  Rice reached out for his cup. “You know it makes me sick.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot you had that little … problem.” Bob laughed, running her fingers through her long, honey hair. She knew that Rice’s travels were usually followed by a couple of days of puking. She didn’t care. She hated Rice, and any chance she could get to let him know that was worth taking.

  Rice sipped his coffee but did not respond.

  “You think I’m lying?” asked Bob. Grabbing the ketchup from the cheap plastic condiment holder, she proceeded to cover her fries. “You think I’m playing an angle?” She reached for the shaker and added more salt.

  Rice smiled. “I’m just surprised to hear that the great Roberta Reese, Master of the Universe, Demon extraordinaire, has been knocked out of the sky.” He flashed her a look of sarcastic disdain, pointed at her plate. “You and your salt,” he said with a shake of his head. He pointed through the ceiling, through the hundreds of feet of rock overhead, to the heavens above. “So, whatcha got up there, Bobby-girl? Ol’ Zeus up to his tricks again? Or maybe you fucked with Jesus H and the Big Guy this time.”