The Anarchists

by Brian Thompson

  Palestinians and Israelis would share the land and live in peace. In turn, Italy and the United States agreed to pump billions into the area over a decade and fund research methods to make the desert land arable. The reunited Israel nation would then grant drilling rights to its benefactors.

  On paper, Adharma’s proposal heavily favored the Israelis, but he insisted the parties would sign. Among his more ridiculous assertions: the Arabs would permit a ceremonial rebuilding of King Solomon’s temple northeast of the Dome of the Rock.

  “Mark my words,” Adharma claimed with assurance, touting his maternal Jewish heritage. “It’ll happen.”

  Mateo disagreed. Religious fundamentalists were serious about their beliefs. They battled hard against his campaign of unity, and they planned to do so for his ’51 reelection campaign. The fiftieth sitting chief executive and the first full-blooded Hispanic was also the first avowed atheist in the nearly 300-hundred-year-old country.

  “If this deal goes down, you will be remembered in the annals of history, Ramsey.” Adharma swished the alcohol around in his mouth and swallowed.

  “What about you, Nandor? What’s your motivation?”

  He smiled. “All I want for this world is the right leadership.”

  Since late that afternoon, when she and Micah returned from Detective Shenk’s apartment, Harper soundproofed the bedroom. With her room stationed at the back of the palatial second floor, Quinne did not have a prayer of hearing them no matter what the couple did. Still, she did not want their reluctant houseguest to be mortified by intimate sounds of passion, should she stop by for any reason.

  In truth, she and Micah spent a handful of time being physical with one another. Even during their lovemaking, she could tell his thoughts preoccupied him. Whenever he and Doctor Chu worked on a project – which he finally revealed as the Sixth Equation – she could tell. Two-thirds of his attention went to involuntarily calculations. Whatever he did at the moment occupied the free third. He wanted to figure a way out of this alternate reality mess. Micah thought he could do the same with Harper’s infertility. But, the problem with no clear mathematical answer had odds stacked in the wrong direction.

  After dinner, the Jameses retired to their room and Quinne to hers. Harper slipped into a comfortable peach nightgown. Micah wore cozy, wool grey pajamas. He crawled into bed beside Harper and kissed the pillows. “Oh, I missed you!”

  Harper’s giggles waned into curiosity. “What’s it like – living on the street?”

  Micah’s eyes rolled back, as if the memories were distant. “Hell.”

  “Mike. I’m so sorry.”

  He snuggled up to her shoulder and laid his head down. “How was it, with me gone?”

  “Same.” She kissed his forehead. “There’s one thing I keep wondering, though.”

  “What?”

  “Why us? There's trillions people on the earth to send back. Why me? Why Quinne, and Teanna, and Officer Coley?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  His voice trailed off, which meant Harper had a third of his attention. “What's on your mind?”

  “Harp, I met someone at the shelter, and something she said stuck with me. She said maybe science does not refute God, but supports God. That’s interesting.”

  Stunned that her husband said the word, “God,” Harper perked up. “Continue.”

  “Micah played us an audio recording of Kareza Noor killing the Prime Minister of Italy and then inhabiting his body. If humans have a sort of invisible essence, it makes scientific sense that two essences cannot occupy one space. But if she can transfer her essence to someone else, she’s clearly inhuman.”

  Is he talking about spirits? “Okay.”

  “Time travel is impossible and God doesn’t exist. I believed that a week ago.”

  Harper stifled her building excitement. “And now?”

  Micah turned contemplative. “I’m not so sure. What am I supposed to do when the proof I’m looking for doesn’t exist?”

  “Sometimes, baby, you have to believe anyway.”

  Crystal told him the exact same thing. Had they talked? “You miss them, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Gabrielle and Christian.”

  Harper bit her lip and stared at her stomach. “It didn’t escape my attention that Officer Coley’s children have almost the same names, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It’s not your fault, Harp, or mine. It’s just the cards we were dealt.”

  The explosion of the abortion clinic played over again in her mind. “No, Mike, it’s not. I traded in my hand, remember? Now, I can’t have children.”

  “We discussed this. We can adopt, get a surrogate. . .”

  Harper shook her head. “It’s not the same. I wanted our baby – in my body.”

  “And you think we can’t because you presumably went back in time?”

  “You don’t play God without some kind of consequence, Mike. We have to fix this.”

  Set to disturb the married couple, whom she imagined were carrying on like newlyweds behind closed doors, Quinne hesitated. It can wait. She padded down the carpeting back to her assigned room and laid face down on the bed. The luxurious life of comfortable mattresses and service droids suited her, but she could not stay forever. If Anibel welcomed her back home, could she tolerate the signs of the cross and routine dousing of holy water?

  It beat the alternative. Troy monitored her coming and going unless she snuck out while he slept. Without prior approval for an excursion, she anticipated a shouting match or, at worst, a punch into the drywall. She promised to leave him for good if he did, but didn’t.

  Unaware of how the others processed their alternate lives, Quinne genuflected before hers. She did not believe in God’s will and mandate over her life; that meant she did not control her life. She liked the idea of destiny knitted with the law of attraction. Attract positive things to yourself with good thoughts. Weave enough optimistic vibes together to form a desirable destiny. In either world, she failed. Troy and their baby died in one reality and he threatened the baby out of her in this alternative version. The painful, messy miscarriage passed without further incident. He never knew.

  The thought of joining the military arose before, but Troy pushed it out of her mind. She needed to be there for him, and whatever he intended to do as an “entrepreneur.” He never sold anything after drugs, which he quit after another dealer got shot on Troy’s run. His death rattled Troy’s core enough for him to drop the drug game. Afterwards, he did nothing but piecemeal jobs that paid under the table, sleeping when he did not work or harass Quinne.

  As Harper granted Quinne voice authorization to use the house’s amenities, she put up a soundproof barrier. The last thing she wanted was for her hosts to hear a mix of yelling and cursing. Troy deserved the piece of her Puerto-Rican mind she reserved for special occasions.

  On the fifth ring, Troy answered the call on audio only. “Who’s this?”

  “Q.”

  His surroundings audibly shifted. “Where you at?”

  Though she trembled inside, Quinne gathered up courage. “Out. Across town.”

  “Across town? When you comin’ back?”

  “Never,” she said with extra emphasis on the word’s second syllable.

  “Catch you at Anibel’s, then.”

  The gusto in his assurance appalled her. If he did come after her, she had packed something in her bag for him. “Ain’t goin’ there neither.” Troy cussed her without pause until Quinne interjected. “Why I gotta be all that?”

  “What you gonna do without me, Q? Join the army?”

  I‘m a good enough shot for it. “Wasn’t doin’ nothing with you. Can’t be too bad off without you.”

  He huffed. “So, why call – ‘less you thinkin’ ‘bout comin’ back?”

  She thought for a second. “Somethin’ you need to hear.”

  Suddenly, the holograph of Troy popped up. He stared into Quinne’s eyes. “What�
��chu gotta say?”

  “I’m better than this, better than you.”

  He wagged his index finger back and forth. “No you ain‘t and you know you ain‘t. You sayin‘ that ‘cause you think that‘s what you‘re supposed to say.”

  “Troy, you. . .”

  “Forget all that, Q. Army. . .it ain’t for you to do. Come back here, where you belong, with me.”

  “Stop it. Just. . .”

  “Won‘t hit you again, promise. We belong together.”

  Whatever happened, she did not belong to Troy in two different realities. Her composure faltered. “You owe me your life! That’s s‘posed to be you in the ground, not your boy. I saved you.”

  Opposition brimmed at Troy’s lips, but Quinne cut him short. “I saved you and you did this. You killed the one good thing to come outta us. You did that, Troilus, and he ain’t do nothin’ to you but be conceived.

  “One night, you did runs. Never came home.” Quinne’s voice wavered. “Right there, on the kitchen floor. . .by myself. You ain‘t care, couldn‘t care. All that mattered to you’s-you, and what you ain’t got or couldn‘t get. It ain‘t always ‘bout you, Matter-of-fact, it ain‘t never ‘bout you.”

  Troy’s thumb blotted a tear before it passed far down his cheek. Quinne was always outspoken, but more foot-high soapbox than cresting mountaintop of fury.

  “However you got another chance, you got it. Do somethin’ with it.”

  “Sound like you been hangin’ out with Anibel. You got religion now?”

  Quinne’s face softened. “Purpose.”

  Early Sunday morning, still reeling from his wife’s emotional disintegration, Damario arrived at the downtown precinct. The California king bed inside the hotel room offered unlimited comforts; adjustable softness, 800-thread-count sheets.

  When he did shut his eyes, frames of the altered past slid past his consciousness. Like an outsider, he bore witness to the best days of his post-graduate career in finance. He married Madison and never remembered seeing her so finely coiffed. Why would I leave a past like this?

  He woke up and remembered the reasons. Though partially detached to the experiences – believing it as truth based on evidence he could not verify – he had definite opinions on the subject of marital infidelity. How do you erase intimacy – intentional, raw, naked intimacy?

  Of course, he faced temptation like any other red-blooded married man. Robinne knew of his appreciation for women of different ethnicities and she did not attack the quiet fascination when he saw one. He operated respectively; glancing, not staring, no touching or verbal comments. Merely a wisp of recognition and the lingering memory of beauty. A mental, emotional, or spiritual barrier existed between him and adultery. Madison did not have that block; in that reality or this one. He divorced her because of it, and her other husband – in this world – did the same.

  Damario stood at the corner of her desk until she moved a chipped Superman relic of a mug with a light brown drink in it toward him.

  Madison’s hands glided over her desk console. “I question your sexuality every time I buy this drink for you. Don‘t worry, it‘s nuclear hot.”

  He smirked. “Perfectly acceptable for a grown man, heterosexual or not, to enjoy a latte made with two-percent milk and no whipped cream.” He sniffed the hot liquid. “Let's talk, Shenk. . .”

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  They would talk about it, but not now.

  “We’ve been assigned to the Camp Bradley motorcade.”

  Escorting four heads-of-state, which included President Mateo and the heads of two warring Middle-East factions, was an honor. Though Mateo invited the parties together, Italian Prime Minister Nandor Adharma would grease the wheels toward reuniting Israel and brokering peace. Damario, however, viewed it as political posturing.

  “I’m supposed to think this is a big deal, aren’t I?”

  Madison eyeballed him. “Forgot. You’ve been stuck on another planet.”

  “Reality, not planet.”

  “Whatever. I know Mateo is hosting this thing at Camp Bradley, but if you ask me, and pretty much anybody with a pulse, the Italian guy’s coming out roses in all this.”

  “You know he’s not really Italian – not a full one, at least. He’s Moroccan, and part Jewish, or something.”

  “His reputation stands the most to gain. And you, the mark is going to go up a couple hundred percent, at least. You have to like that.”

  The thought dropped weight in his heart. He understood it from a perspective; slashing the federal deficit by cutting foreign aid in exchange for drilling rights without the risk of armed conflict. Something indistinct about the business unsettled him. “I guess. I don‘t trust politicians. Never did.”

  “Well, like them, you’re not stuck in the lower 75 percent tax bracket with us peons. Lose your job tomorrow and you’re good. It‘s a 90 minute drive, tops; three hours round-trip. No sweat.”

  Damario rounded Madison’s desk for his own adjacent to it and placed his coffee on the tempered glass corner reserved for it. With a swipe of his hand, he opened his official orders. Each assigned officer would be paired with a droid and join a 25-transport processional from Metro airport to an area surrounding Camp Bradley. Only the pilot vehicle possessed point-to-point direction, and the president’s private detail handled that.

  He sat down in his desk chair and gulped. “No sweat. Just fending off terrorist threats, assassins, random crazies. . .”

  “Hasn’t been an attempt at that in 30 years. You won’t lose a limb, I promise.”

  Damario coughed. “What’d you say?”

  Madison looked confused. “What? The last assassination attempt?”

  “No. After that.”

  “What’s the big deal?” she covered.

  “Nothing,” he said, with her response fresh in his mind. “Nothing at all.”

  She hopped up, grabbed Damario’s hand, and dragged him to an empty interrogation room. After darkening the one-way window and disabling the sound and recording devices, Madison cornered him against the wall. “Talk.”

  He pointed at her face. “You saw through the God’s eye. Why’d you lie?”

  “Didn’t like what I saw,” she said, backing away. Madison wanted so badly to question him about his emotions. He possessed them, on some level. Otherwise, why would he have married her in a different reality? Why didn’t you tell me?

  He read her darting eyes. “I didn’t see the point,” he said under his breath.

  She thought if she had not cheated on him in the other reality, in a warped way, he would have been hers in this one, too. She chewed her lip to keep from saying something that she would later regret. “Has Micah figured out a way back?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Why not?”

  His look said it all. “Whenever you go back to something, it’s never the same.”

  “I get it. Leave your wife for the woman who cheated on you in an alternate reality? I get it. I wouldn’t do it, either.” Madison’s voice quavered.

  “It’s not like that, Maddie. . .not really.”

  “Then, what’s it like, Damario? Spell it out for me. What’s it like?”

  He knew what he wanted to say. “It’s not that you’re unattractive.”

  She knew that, as she found him staring at her on a number of occasions – especially in casual clothes. It did not give her hope, but merely attention that she liked. Madison wanted him to continue and say the things she always hoped to hear from a man. Desire was never the problem. Plenty of men desired her. But none wanted her heart. Damario had the capability to do so. She knew it.

  “You’re more to me than a partner, a friend. You’re my best friend.” Damario stepped to the side.

  “Do you love me, or even like me D? Make my life and tell me that you do.”

  “You don't get it, Shenk.” Damario's handheld holophone rang from his pants’ pocket. It was an alarming ringtone he assigned to all
members of their little group. To Madison’s behest, he answered the call. “Micah?”

  “Officer Coley, Officer Shenk.” The holograph of the man saluted them with eye contact. “I accessed everything viewed on the Geometric Occipital Demonstrative Symbiotic Interface.”

  “Go on.” Madison blinked away the extra moisture at her eyes.

  “I think I know why Kareza Noor sent us back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  January 30, 2012

  Damario hushed all talk of the altered present until he and Madison could join Micah, Harper, and Quinne at the James homestead. Separated by a couple of feet, the partners filed paperwork, answered questions, and handled routine tedium from their desks.

  When Damario shut down, Madison used the silence to think. Years ago, she pursued, arguing her perspective point-by-point. Damario ignored her, or did a convincing job faking amnesia. If she unraveled all of her confusing emotions, he'd never hear them. Ignorance scored far worse on her card than apathy or rejection.

  Following four hours of intense concentration to avoid his partner at all turns, Damario eyed the time. “Shenk.”

  Madison's hands rummaged across her desk. “Meet you outside.” She watched him exit the precinct. What do I do? Happily or unhappily, Damario and Robinne had been together for the better part of a decade. People control what attracts them and who they love; she believed that. But she did not care to control it. Robinne always knew, and Madison regretted playing a part in driving Missus Coley out of sobriety. Hiding her eyes behind fancy sunglasses, Madison exited the building and entered Damario's police transport at the front curb.

  Once she closed the passenger door, Damario pulled away. Several times, he stopped short of saying anything because it would not improve the situation. Lust or love – he could not validate or return it. They shared a spark. Properly kindled and flush with fuel, sparks ignite into fire. He owed it to God and his wife to give the marriage another chance, didn't he?

  He considered that Robinne kicked him out under mental and emotional duress, and she mentioned divorce. She sounded resolute. Could she be serious? Resolution did not equal filing. And even without contest, the process would take months. Space to reassess and time apart afforded Damario the opportunity to handle this time travel/alternate-reality nonsense, uninterrupted.