All of the Above

by Timothy Scott Bennett

  Cole frowned. “For what?”

  “To go back to our seats.”

  “Do we need to? All our stuff is here, isn’t it?”

  “I left my hat and gloves under my seat.”

  Cole gazed kindly into Linda’s still-reddened eyes. “How about I just go find them?”

  Linda smiled. “Sure. I’ll use the rest room and then meet you.”

  Cole leaned out to give her a quick kiss, his heart pounding. It lasted longer than he had imagined it might. He took her by the elbows. “We’re gonna have to talk about what Keeley said in her letter,” he said, his voice open and gentle.

  Linda smiled shyly. “I know. Later.” She grabbed her purse and headed toward the dining car. Cole headed the other direction, back toward their seats.

  Cole stepped into the lounge car.

  Linda looked up as he approached. He’d been running. “Hi,” she said, concerned.

  “I thought we were meeting at the seats!” he said, almost frantic.

  “I thought we were meeting back here,” she replied. “What is it?”

  “You need to come see this.”

  Linda grabbed her things and slipped back into her shoes. Cole turned and started down the aisle, pushing through the connector doors as quickly as he could. The train lurched underfoot as they made their way, through one car and into the next. Rather than head to their seats, Cole opened the rest-room door. “I had to go too,” he said.

  The door slid open easily and the light blinked on. Cole stepped in and motioned for Linda to follow. He pointed at the mirror. Scrawled across the face of it in what looked like red lipstick was a symbol, a circle with an upside-down capital L through it. The same symbol Rice had drawn on his windshield.

  “Oh my God,” breathed Linda.

  “That just about says it,” agreed Cole.

  10.7

  Grace pushed up against the glass but it would not budge. She tried to make her hands as solid as she could. It didn’t make any difference. She turned and tried another direction. There were no other directions.

  It wasn’t really glass. It just looked like glass. But even the word “glass” didn’t quite work. It was also like ice. And like electricity, though she did not really know what electricity looked like. Whatever it was, it was all around her: a whole house made of glass, drifting in an ocean of blackness that stretched to infinity on all sides, as if the stars themselves had all been snuffed out. The walls kept shifting and crossing over each other, through each other, moving around and around, reminding Grace of that place full of mirrors she’d walked through with her Grandpa at the carnival last summer. There were layers and layers, growing larger and smaller, copies upon copies in every direction, and she couldn’t get out of it. Even her cord got lost in the maze. She could not follow it back. She’d never seen anything like it.

  The scary woman with the melting face had come out of the dark and knocked her to the ground and the skeleton had grabbed her wrists and flung her across the sky. He was astoundingly quick. The scary woman appeared behind her and grabbed her arms and held her tight. Grace tried to make her own arms disappear, but she couldn’t. The woman’s grip held her in focus. They flickered together and the next thing Grace knew they were next to the glass and the skeleton was pushing her backwards. She rolled end over end and when she stopped she was stuck inside.

  Grace peered out through the shifting layers of glass. The scary woman hovered just beyond the farthest wall, looking back in at her. Her beautiful face melted and distorted into a hideous mask and Grace pulled back, afraid. The scary woman laughed and said something Grace could not hear. In the distance behind her, the skeleton danced gleefully. Then he and the distorted woman flickered and were gone and Grace was alone. Even Dennis had disappeared. The skeleton had kicked at him, but Dennis had dodged the skeleton’s bony foot and run away, barking madly, into the blackness beyond. Grace hoped he’d escaped.

  Grace surveyed the house of glass.

  She sat down to think.

  She thought for a very long time.

  Then a new light came and she stood back up. It was an odd light, strikingly white yet full of colors she could barely make out, like a distant starburst, a lone jewel set on the velvet blackness of the sky. The light grew larger as it circled in toward the house of glass, the colors growing more distinct. As it neared, Grace began to sense that this light was also a person: a woman whose heart sparkled with goodness. Grace watched through the glass as the woman of light approached, and smiled as the sound of soft humming reached her ears. It was the song of someone happy and at peace. Grace had not heard the melting woman before, when that scary one had laughed and spoken, but she could hear this light woman now. “Alouette,” the woman mumbled and hummed, as she drifted slowly toward the glass house. Soon the woman of light was standing right outside. Her heart was a swirl of glittering flecks. Her glow bounced back and forth between the shifting layers, filling every corner.

  The woman raised an arm and pounded on the glass. Grace was not afraid, even though the walls of the glass house shook and twisted and rolled over each other. She could sense the light woman’s good intentions. The woman pounded again and cracks of light crinkled along the glass. The woman pounded and pounded and the cracks of light grew larger and longer. At last and at once the house flew apart, and the black void with it, the pieces crumbling around them, or flying off to the now-visible stars, in the sky that was not a sky. The light woman approached Grace, humming still, the melody one that Grace had heard before, in a place called school. Grace stared up into her face. The woman was really old, and very beautiful, her pale white skin wrinkled and radiant.

  “Hello, little one,” said the light woman. As Grace watched she changed from a woman to an old black man in tatters, and then back to a woman, but young now, with Japanese eyes. Her form was unsure of itself; she kept changing as she spoke. “How did you get stuck in here?” she asked. Her head was still an old woman’s but her body was that of a young Indian boy. Briefly she took the form of a deer and then an infant and then settled back into the old woman for a while.

  “A skeleton put me here,” said Grace. “And a scary woman with a melting face.”

  The old woman’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Are there many such beings here?” she asked.

  “More than I want,” answered Grace. “And they are very strong.” She watched the woman of light for a moment as she shuffled through more bodies, as if searching for the right one. “Who are you?” Grace asked at last.

  The old woman flowed into the body of a big white man with dark hair and a beard, then into that of a pale young man in a business suit. He hesitated for a moment, as if thinking about her question. At last he responded. “I’m not really certain,” he said. He flowed back into the form of the old woman.

  That made sense to Grace. With so many bodies, it must get confusing. And yet Grace could sense that, even amongst these varied forms, there was a Somebody at the center, a spirit who held them all together. “What can I call you?” asked Grace.

  The old woman wrinkled her shining brow in deep concentration. Her eyes brightened and her wrinkled mouth stretched into a wide grin. “I am told my name is now Evlyn,” she said. “The living light.”

  “Told by whom?” asked Grace.

  The old woman cocked her head, puzzled. “A voice from somewhere else.” Her eyes drifted off to the stars. “It is not yet time,” she continued, her voice deeper and more resonant than before, tinged with authority and finality, as if some distant god were speaking through her. She returned her focus to Grace and blinked her eyes. “I’m sorry, little one,” she said. “That’s all I know.”

  Grace nodded. “That’s okay,” she said. “I like the name Evlyn.” She looked around them. “Have you seen my dog?” she asked.

  Evlyn slowly shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

  Grace sighed. “He’s run away.” She beamed her heart, bathing the old woman in her essential vibrations, in o
rder to share who she was. Evlyn did the same. “Ah,” said Grace. “It’s you.” She was so glad to know. She’d been worried.

  “Shall we go look for your dog?” the old woman asked.

  “Yes,” said Grace. “And then I have to go find my father and Linda.”

  Evlyn brightened and Grace could feel the strength of her love. “I shall help you,” the old woman said.

  Together they went to find Dennis.

  Chapter Eleven

  11.1

  Alice had agreed to meet in Mr. Random’s room. It helped them, Bob thought, to be together in the physical, and this was the only place that worked for that. Random’s mummified corpse wasn’t going anywhere.

  Though only six, Alice was proving to be far more gifted than Bob had been at even twice her age. She was one of the first of her kind to display the talents of both species, while also maintaining a viable physical existence on Earth. Bob shuddered, to think of where Alice could end up. Even now, her facility with the written word while stalking the astral realms was especially keen. Her potential as a weapon was unlimited.

  And Random would do anything. Absolutely anything. And they were at a point now where “absolutely anything” was justified. Even necessary. With Mary gone to who knows where, with Rice’s failure still resonating through the Rock, with the General’s flagging confidence, it was up to the three of them, only two Stalkers and one Demon, to hold it all together. They were all they had. The trainees would be of no use at this point, and the General would never agree to call in their foreign counterparts. Not if there was any way to avoid it. There was too much risk in that much loss of face.

  Bob pulled the two armchairs closer to Random’s crib, and then dragged over a stool, to place in front of hers. Alice always sat cross-legged. Most hybrids preferred it that way. Folded in on themselves, they felt protected. Their disrupted socialization schedules, and their inborn deficiencies with regard to touch, left them skittish and hesitant, almost catatonic at times.

  The door opened and in walked Alice. Though Alice was strangely beautiful, Bob’s flesh still quivered, at times, to see her; Bob’s primate genes were still programmed to repel the extraordinary. Alice’s hair, so like Bob’s, was luminous, straight and pale, like milk-and-honey cascading from a fountain. Her perfect features sat delicately on her head. But those eyes, so large and so black. Bob could see the Milky Way in their inky depths. If Alice was any indication of where the aliens could take them, it was worth every bit of the pain. Humans were done for. Alice was the next step in their evolution, the beta test for the next new thing. Which was exactly why Rice hated her.

  Bob watched intently as Alice crossed the room and stood next to Mr. Random. As was her ritual, Alice leaned over and kissed the papery skin that covered portions of Random’s skull. Then she turned and smiled at Bob, an awkward expression that made Bob’s intestines turn to pond water and cold soup. Bob smiled back. “Hi, Alice,” she said. “Did you sleep?”

  “How could I sleep?” answered Alice. Bob had to add the question mark herself. There was not enough inflection in Alice’s speech to put it there on its own. Communication with hybrids was often very tricky, if you were confined to the spoken word.

  Alice sat in the second chair.

  Bob took the conversation inside. CAN YOU WORK?

  YES.

  DO YOU WANT TO?

  WE HAVE TO.

  Bob nodded. She knew what Alice meant. There were too many unknown factors at this point, for the People to deviate from the primary goals. Bob and Alice would have to trust that it was all in the Plan.

  YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IF I CAN GET INSIDE THE PRESIDENT I HAVE ORDERS TO KILL HER?

  YES. YOU’VE NEVER KILLED BEFORE.

  NO, I HAVEN’T, ALICE. AND I MAY NEED YOUR HELP WITH THAT.

  I WILL HELP.

  Bob smiled. Alice never hesitated when it came to the Plan. YOU KNOW HER GUARDIANS ARE IMPRISONED NOW, JUST AS SHE IS?

  YES.

  IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF WAITING.

  I UNDERSTAND.

  RICE’S PLAN MAY YET WORK OUT.

  YES.

  Bob relaxed into her chair. Alice crossed her legs. They both closed their eyes and slowed their breath, in preparation for their journey.

  MR. RANDOM WILL MEET US? Alice asked.

  HE’S WAITING FOR US NOW.

  HE WORRIES ME.

  YOU NEED NOT BE FRIGHTENED OF HIM, ALICE. HE WILL NOT HARM YOU.

  I WILL ACCEPT YOUR WORD OVER MY OWN SENSE OF THINGS.

  WHY IS THAT?

  BECAUSE MY MOTHER WOULD NOT LIE TO ME.

  11.2

  The taste in Linda’s mouth reminded her of the dentist’s office: blood and smoke and the memory of metal. She reached up to rub her temple, where Rice had hit her. Rice. That fucking bastard. She wanted to scream, but knew that she would not. He would not have that satisfaction. She would not give it to him.

  “So do you,” Cole had said. His last words. And those three words dogged her like a toddler, begging to be listened to. “So do you.” Something about those words had stirred a terror deep inside. But then Rice had shot Cole in the stomach and he’d crumpled to the floor and the last of her hope had crumpled with him.

  How could she have been so stupid? It had gone too easily. She should have seen it coming. “There’s no escaping,” Keeley had said. But Linda hadn’t believed it. She’d pretended otherwise. Even though she knew how powerful the People had proven to be. Even though she knew that the aliens were following their own agenda. She’d been caught hoping once again. Hoping that the aliens were helping them. Hoping that somehow they were being guided or protected. Hoping that because they were standing up against an evil in the world, the gods themselves were on their side. Linda sighed and sat up in the utter darkness of her holding cell, anticipating that a change in posture would spill the tears she knew must be inside. But no tears came. It was far too dark for tears.

  She thought back on the day. The train had pulled into Ottawa right on schedule. They caught the #95 bus up to Albert without a hitch, then walked to the Visitor Welcome Centre just like any other tourists, invisible in the sunshine and the crowds and the business of government. They learned that Legrand’s office was not on Parliament Hill but on Bank Street, and made their way over to his building. Despite their fears, it had gone as easily as if they were meeting friends for lunch. They found the nearest pay phone and Linda placed a call.

  “MP Legrand,” answered the receptionist, a young woman by the sound of her voice.

  “Uh, hi,” said Linda, momentarily surprised to be so close so quickly. She’d expected a succession of operators. “May I speak with Monsieur Legrand, please?”

  “May I say who is calling?”

  This was the crucial moment and Linda had already decided how she would play it. “No you may not,” she said.

  The receptionist, young or not, was unruffled by Linda’s response. “Then I cannot put you through.”

  Linda spoke quickly, before the woman could hang up. “Tell him I still have Ally’s scarf. She left it in my office.”

  That stopped the young woman. After a long silence she came back. “Let me put you on hold,” she said.

  Thirty seconds later the phone clicked again. “My God! Linda?” It was Legrand.

  “Hello, Guy,” Linda had said. Then she started to weep.

  Legrand had come down, picked them up in his car, driven them into the underground parking garage, and taken them up a back elevator. He was gentle, sympathetic, concerned, and helpful. They stole unseen into his office through a back hallway and he told his staff to leave him undisturbed until further notice. Then he locked the door. He motioned to Cole and Linda to take the leather armchairs opposite his desk, then sat in his own.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on,” said Legrand. His voice was kind but firm.

  “Well, obviously I have not been kidnapped by terrorists.” Linda laughed nervously. There was no easy way to tell her ta
le.

  “I can see that. So what has happened?”

  Linda shifted in her chair, glanced over at Cole, reached out to take his hand. She looked at Legrand and his expression of kind concern put her at ease. She could do this. “Does your brother still work for the CBC?” she asked.

  “Paul? Yeah. He’s somewhere in the Sports division now. Why?”

  “Can he put me on tonight? A live feed to the whole world?”

  Legrand sat back. A slight smile flickered across his face. “You really think that’ll help?”

  Linda’s guts twisted. “Guy?” she said, her voice little more than a squeak.

  Legrand reached out and punched his intercom. “You can come in now,” he said. He looked at Linda. “You really are a very stupid woman,” he said.

  The door opened. In stepped Rice, a large, black pistol in his hand. He closed the door behind him and smiled, looking at Linda. “You look different,” Rice said with scorn.

  Cole rose from his chair and started for Rice, putting his body between Linda and the gun. “So do you,” he said.

  Rice fired without even bothering to look. Cole fell. Rice stepped over his body. Linda rose slowly, not even in control of her own movements. Cole!

  Rice came face to face with her. “You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble,” he said. Pocketing the pistol, he lashed out with his right hand.

  The blow to Linda’s temple didn’t hurt his hand at all.

  11.3

  There was no way to fill in the blanks. The loss of time. The change of venue. The current situation. There was not much she could know just lying there in the dark. She’d been knocked unconscious and taken someplace. Rice was alive. And Legrand. Jesus! Even Guy! There really was no place to turn for help. Linda moaned and sat up. The loss of Cole sat heavily in her gut, a rock, a brick, a tumor locked away from her heart. It would have to wait.