All of the Above

by Timothy Scott Bennett

  She looked at Obie. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Nine, maybe. You hungry?”

  Linda shook her head. “Coffee?”

  “I’ll check.” Obie uncrossed his legs and rose, stretching his arms to the ceiling for a moment before heading into the kitchen. Linda watched, noticing how the whole mobile home rocked slightly under his feet as he walked, how it rattled and groaned in the frigid winds that knocked at the doors and windows, insisting that they be let inside. The oil furnace kept the cold at bay, but she longed for a woodstove like the one she and Earl had installed in their living room, an Aztec god she could appease with a steady diet of well-seasoned logs. Just knowing she was sitting in a trailer on a side-street in a tiny arctic village chilled her to the bone, whether her body was warm enough or not. And she’d grown up in Michigan. So much for being cold hardy.

  Obie scrounged the cupboards. “Here we go,” he said, pulling down a jar of instant.

  Linda grimaced. “That’s not coffee,” she said.

  “Looks like your only choice, Mrs. President,” said Obie.

  “Do you have to call me that?” she asked. The title made her feel spoiled and demanding. The thought of that made her wince. Maybe she was.

  “What do you want me to call you?” asked Obie.

  “How about Linda?”

  Obie nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”

  “And can I call you Obie? Or do you prefer Carl?”

  He shrugged. “Obie’s fine, these days. I’ve been using it since I went underground. It works for Duluth.” He spooned some coffee powder into a mug and filled a teapot to heat on the gas stove.

  “Aren’t you having any?” asked Linda.

  “Never touch the stuff.”

  Linda nodded. “Where are our hosts?”

  Obie walked around to lean with his back to the bar while the water heated. “They left before daybreak. Headed up to their camp. Something about preparing for a ceremony of some sort. Payok said not to expect them until after dark, or maybe tomorrow morning. He said they’d bring Sinaaq to meet you as soon as they could.”

  As she had felt countless times since she’d run from the Ranch so many days ago, there was just too much she did not understand. Once again she had no choice but to put her life in the hands of others, of people like Obie who had showed up in the blackness and whisked her away in a UFO, of people like these Inuit who had stepped out of the past to bring her in from the cold and dark. These people seemed to comprehend far better than she what was going on. As hard and fast as she ran, she could only barely keep up. Her world had careened out of its former orbit. All she could do was hang onto her hat. She nodded out of habit, as if she should have understood.

  Obie smiled. “Sinaaq, or Sina, as they all call her, is the young woman these people all work for,” he explained. The teapot started to sing and he jumped around the counter to make Linda’s coffee.

  “And they’re working on a documentary about climate change?” asked Linda.

  “That’s their cover story,” said Obie, stirring the coffee. He opened the refrigerator. “You need milk?”

  “Black is fine,” said Linda. “Why do they need a cover story? What are they doing here?”

  Obie stepped back into the living room and handed her the mug of steaming brown liquid. He sat back down in the recliner and flashed his eyebrows with delight. “They’re reclaiming their lives.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  “The Inuit peoples have had most of their culture systematically stripped away over the past couple of centuries. Something at which we Imperialists excel. You know the routine: send in the missionaries and bureaucrats, move people into cities, put them into schools, give them new names, kill off their sources of food, outlaw their customs, take away their identities. It doesn’t take that long to obliterate an entire people, if you put your mind to it. And once you’ve got TV sets, it’s easy as pie.”

  Linda shuddered. “And they’re trying to … what … reclaim their old ways? Something like that?” She took a sip of her coffee and was surprised by how good it tasted, even as the heat of it burned her tongue.

  Obie smiled. “Something like that.”

  “So why the cover story?”

  “As far as I can make out, Sina is some sort of prophet or visionary, the last living descendant of a tribal group known as the Sadlermiut, who were thought to have all died out in the early 20th century. Apparently there were a few mixed-blood survivors. The Sadlermiut were said to be the last remnant of the Tuniit, an ancient people who populated the far north before the Inuit peoples moved into the area over a thousand years ago. The Inuit who encountered them described the Tuniit as a race of ‘giants’ and ‘dwarves.’ According to Sernartok, this does not just mean that they were shorter or taller.”

  Linda shook her head in confusion. “I can’t keep the names straight, Obie. Who’s Sernakok, or whatever? Who wasn’t taller?”

  “Sernartok is the middle-aged woman who shaved your head last night,” Obie explained. “Her Western name is Genna Black. She works part-time with the local veterinarian and had used the clippers before.”

  “And these giants and dwarves?”

  Obie’s eyes flickered with excitement. “According to their prophet, the Tuniit peoples, of whom she is the last surviving descendant, remember, were good buddies with our friends up above.” He gestured toward the sky. “Sina and Utterpok are working to re-establish diplomatic relations, shall we say.”

  “Jesus.” Linda took another sip of her coffee, then cradled the mug against her stomach, letting the warmth seep through the flannel and fleece they’d given her to replace the jumpsuit. She hoped the coffee would warm her courage and soothe her aching muscles. “How do you keep all these names straight? Let alone pronounce them?”

  “Babel fish.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Obie grinned. “Just a joke. Sorry. It’s a side effect of my training, I guess. Things just stick to me. I just … know things I shouldn’t. Or remember them.”

  “Nice trick.”

  “It comes in handy.”

  Obie crossed his legs again, pulling his long, heavy robe, the color of drying blood, over his knees. With his sandy hair now free of its rubber band, and his tight little Van Dyke, Obie had a dashing air about him. Linda would not have been surprised to see a rapier in his hand and a plumed hat on his head. The thought made her laugh: she’d been rescued by a Musketeer. Now if only she could find two more.

  Linda exhaled heavily, trying to find some focus. “So what do we do now?” she asked. “Where are we exactly?”

  “Times are so urgent we have to ask our questions two at a time, don’t we?”

  “I guess so,” Linda smiled tightly. “So start with ‘where are we?’”

  “Bathurst Island. Close to the center. Roughly the same latitude as central Greenland. The people here call this place Akkituyok, which means ‘costs much’ in English. Many of these buildings were part of a mining operation that closed in 2011. Zinc and lead, primarily. A little silver. A small hamlet had built up around the mine and the Inuit who lived here were granted the right to stay. Most of them now work in one way or another to decommission the mine and reclaim the land. And with the effects of climate change becoming so apparent these past years, this has become a sort of base camp for people who are studying and documenting the changes, so there’s lots of work with outfitting and guiding. The Inuit are more than a little pissed off at the U.S. for its refusal to take climate change seriously. We’re lucky it was Sina’s people that found us. Not everyone in Akkituyok would be glad to know that the President of the United States is here. Western civilization has, indeed, cost them much.”

  Linda nodded, sipping at her coffee. “I can understand that. The last few administrations have been major disappointments.” She pulled her legs up and tucked them underneath her. “But I still don’t understand what our hosts are doing here.”

&n
bsp; Obie nodded, acknowledging the missing pieces. “Sinaaq came on the scene about three years ago. Started having these dreams or visions, and began to write about them on the Internet. She says that the Strangers, whom she calls the Tuurngait or ‘helping spirits,’ have called her to lead her people back to the old ways, including back into relationship with the Tuurngait themselves, in preparation for the major Earth changes that are now upon us. Looks like she’s attracted a rather dedicated following.”

  “And they’re pretending to make a documentary.”

  Obie looked Linda in the eyes. “Not everybody here would look kindly on the whole alien thing. You need to remember that the Inuit are only now beginning to heal from the trauma of forced Westernization. Most of them are pretty stuck in the mainstream paradigm.”

  “Why do you call the aliens ‘the Strangers’?”

  “I needed a term that was not fraught with judgment,” said Obie with a smile. “They just feel like strangers to me. People whom we don’t know.”

  “Okay.” She held the coffee cup against her cheek to soak in its warmth. “So how did Sina end up here?”

  “Sernartok started reading Sina’s writings and they resonated with her. Since most of the workers left after the mine closed, there was an abundance of housing here. Sernartok invited Sina and her group up about a year ago to use as its own base camp. They’ve been teaching themselves the traditional skills of hunting and cooking and preserving food and building shelters.”

  “If the whole place is melting, why are they going to the trouble of learning how to survive in the cold and ice?”

  “That’s a really good question.”

  Linda finished her coffee and placed the mug gently on an end table, managing the maneuver with her splinted right hand. She rubbed her head absently with her left hand, trying to get used to the smooth, suede-like feel of it. Everything was so new. She felt like she was in a dream. Obie smiled gently, creating a space for her next question. “So, if the Inuit are pissed off at the U.S., why do Sina’s people like me?”

  Obie paused for a moment before answering, as if unsure which words to choose. There was a sadness in his eyes that Linda hadn’t seen before. “I don’t think it’s a matter of liking you,” he said at last. “Apparently they’re of the opinion that the survival or extinction of the entire human species may rest on your shoulders.”

  13.3

  Obie’s blunt statement slapped Linda into stunned silence like a blow to the temple. Panic ruptured her crusted heart like hot lava and searing gases, leaving her throat choked and clouded with volcanic ash. It was on her shoulders? That was just … too fucking bat-shit crazy. Her mind reeled, searching for something to hang onto, something that she could wrap her intellect around, something that she could control. She grabbed the first thing that flew by. “Did you stay up all night, Obie? To learn all of this?”

  Obie smiled thinly, as though noticing Linda’s weak attempt to deflect what he’d said. “I did. Most of it.”

  “Don’t you need some sleep? How can you—?”

  Obie shrugged. “I got the rest I needed, Linda. Trust me.”

  Linda looked down at her hands and breathed a few slow breaths. She looked up at Obie with weary eyes. “I don’t know how to hold this, Obie. I really don’t. It’s like … here I thought I was just battling corrupt government agents who are colluding with evil aliens to take over the world, and you’re telling me the extinction of the human race is at stake? And that it’s up to me?” Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke. “How do I process that? What do I do next? And who the hell are you and why are you telling me these things? I mean, Jesus, it’s insane. It’s driving me fucking nuts!”

  Obie let her sputter out, then rose and crossed the room to sit next to her on the futon. He reached out and took her unbroken hand. “This is the expository section of your story, Linda,” he said with soft humor and gentle firmness. “It’s a time for explanations and understanding and the sharing of information. So we’ll have to take these questions one at a time, and slowly.”

  Tears welled in Linda’s swollen eyes as he spoke. She hung her head and let them spill. “We don’t have time, Obie. There’s a madman out there trying to kill me. Albert Singer has probably already buried me and moved into my office. My mother’s been taken and who knows what those fuckers have done to her? And Cole’s—” She stopped to let a single sob pass through her. “Cole’s kids. And his father.” She looked up at Obie. “Your father. They … they need to be told.”

  Obie nodded in agreement. “You’re right, Linda. They need to be told. So that’s what we’re doing here.”

  “What?”

  “We’re figuring out what to tell them. And when. And how.”

  Linda closed her eyes and took a series of slow, deep breaths. Obie was right. Even if she held a phone in her hand right now she wouldn’t know what to say to Cole’s children. She would need more clarity before she could interrupt those precious young lives. The word “death” loses its meaning when the aliens are involved, Obie had told her. There was too much she did not understand. She’d have to breathe through her anxiety and go more slowly. She looked at Obie. “Where do we start?” she asked.

  “I want to tell you who the hell I am,” he replied with a grin.

  Linda squeezed Obie’s hand and released it, pushing herself around on the futon so that she could face him. “Okay. Tell me who you are.”

  Obie matched her movement, pulling his legs up to face her. “How much did Cole tell you?”

  “He got to the part where you went nuts and disappeared,” she said, smiling to let him know that she did not think he was crazy.

  “All of which just left Cole confused, I’d guess.”

  “Pretty much. He said he hadn’t seen you in years, that as far as he knew you were living homeless in Chicago or Duluth or someplace.”

  “Did he tell you about the ISR? Or the hospital in Turkey?”

  Linda nodded. “He said you were in Air Force intelligence and that you had some sort of mental breakdown.”

  “Right. So, by now you’ll understand what I mean when I say that the term ‘mental breakdown’ is just short-hand for meeting Theodore Rice.”

  Linda shivered. “Yeah. I do understand.”

  “Rice recruited me out of the ISR. I’d started to put things together on my own. About the Strangers, I mean. I was just a mid-level tech working with AFTAC in Florida. Apparently some of my reports and conclusions made their way to the People. As is standard procedure in a case like mine, they hauled my ass in and showed me the full monty, just as they did with you. I was young and stupid and this was a chance to finally learn what was really going on. I was in.”

  “And when was this?”

  “The summer of 2000, I’m pretty sure. Just before George the 2nd was elected. I would have been thirty-three or thereabouts.”

  “Pretty heady stuff.”

  A strong wind buffeted the trailer and Obie grabbed the down comforter Linda had used as a blanket to spread over their legs. “Yeah. And I was one cocky son-of-a-bitch. Had a natural talent for deep-cover recon in the physical bands. They had high hopes for me.”

  Linda frowned, wanting to understand every word but not wanting to get in Obie’s way. He had so much to explain, and she had too many questions. She sighed and let it go, trusting that it would all become clear soon enough. Or she’d figure out that Obie really was crazy. She didn’t want to even think about that. “So it didn’t work out,” she said at last.

  “Nope. Thanks to Dad.”

  “Which means?”

  “Well, if Dad taught me one thing in this life, it’s that things are rarely as they seem. I mean, he was a respected figure in our town. Loved, even. Local banker with a heart of gold. Created grants and endowments to fund good works. A member in good standing of the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo, as I used to joke. He’d always have a car in the July 4th parade. People would clap and wave. And I’d watch them, wondering
why. Because none of it was him. Not the him I knew. The him that wasn’t even there. The him that calculated every move. The him that always got exactly what he wanted. The him that would buy me anything I asked for and take me fishing and build me a tree house, but who never once let me inside, to know how he felt, to share his dreams, to know what it all meant to him.”

  Linda thought back to her confrontation with Ben and wondered if Obie’s father had changed much in the years since Obie had known him. “Do you know I met your Dad?”

  “Yeah. I got the complete packet.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Obie sighed. “I don’t want to get too far off track here, Linda. Let’s just say that, on my way to get you out of the Lodge, you gave me a, like, a package, a mental package that contained pretty much your whole story since escaping the Ranch. And I just took it all in at once. So I got to see your take on the encounter with my father. It was … interesting.” Obie smiled.

  Relaxing a bit, Linda leaned back on the futon arm and pulled the comforter up to her neck. “Will there ever be time for me to understand all this stuff, Obie?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Right now we have to stick to the task at hand.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’ll know by the time we finish.”

  Linda exhaled noisily. “Okay.”

  Obie untangled himself from the comforter and stood up, stretching again before walking to the kitchen for a tumbler of water. He gulped a full glass and poured another before returning to take his seat again.

  “So things were not as they seemed,” offered the President.

  “Not at all, though it took me some time to figure that out. I was rather enamored of our Mr. Rice. His power was intoxicating. I mean, hell, I even got to sit in as Rice’s assistant at one of the planning sessions for what turned out to be 9/11. You don’t get more inside than that.”

  Linda’s confusion was palpable. “Planning sessions?” she asked.