by Jim Stark
"That's got my vote,” said Nurse Bea as she waved goodbye.
Once Annette was on the roof and rolling towards Whitebird III, she began to feel in charge again, able to make decisions again. It had been a long road back to the land of the living, and there were still many miles to go, but at least she was out of that place where ambulances scream in and hearses lumber out, silently. She was back in the jungle, where humanity muddled along, century after century.
She felt giddy about being released, but something was keeping her emotions from showing. As Patriot agents helped her up and into the chopper, she tried to put her finger on the problem, and failed. While they folded and stowed the wheelchair and helped her buckle up, she kept glancing at Helen, who seemed to be fussing about so as to avoid eye contact. She looked at Winnie as if to say, “Is there a problem I don't know about?” but Winnie just smiled and mentioned that this was her first time in a helicopter ... again.
"I know you better than anybody, Helen,” Annette finally said after the craft became airborne. “There's something you aren't telling me."
Helen thought about telling the story of how she had been appointed to replace Cam O'Connor, but that presented some problems. Annette would then have to learn the facts about Cam, and that would lead to the truth about everything. On the other hand, Annette had her own LieDeck now, and there was no point in shielding her any further. Helen ran her fingers front to back through her long blond hair, like an oversized comb, and bit the bullet.
"You've been in a cocoon, Annette,” she said. “You always listen to music on that bloody iPod of yours. You never use your Discman to listen to the radio, or watch TV on your cell, except the day you watched that LieDeck Live program. Nobody wanted to talk to you about what's been going on in the world. In fact ... we weren't allowed."
"So ... talk,” said Annette. “I may be weak, but my brain's just fine, thank you very much."
Helen looked at Winnie with a face that cried for help, but Winnie's face replied only: “You started it, you finish it.” Helen took a deep breath and picked up Annette's hand. “People have been having a very tough time adjusting to the LieDeck,” she said. “There have been ... incidents ... nationally ... and even internationally."
"What ... incidents?” demanded Annette.
"Well, there were some race riots,” said Helen cautiously.
"Race riots?” said Annette. “In Canada?"
Helen explained about the Gallup poll that had been commissioned by White Right, using the LieDeck to verify answers, and how it turned out that the vast majority of white Canadians and white Americans didn't like blacks, or natives, or any other brand of non-Caucasians. And she told her about the government's unorthodox “shut the hell up and wait” policy, and how it had worked to quell the riots, and how the United States had copied Prime Minister Godfrey's plan, and how he was getting high marks for—
"Prime Minister Godfrey!?” said Annette.
Helen told the story of how Louis St. Aubin had been turfed out of office, and the full story of his suicide, in Australia.
Annette was a bit disbelieving even as it was explained to her. It was hard to accept that so much could have happened, and that no one had said a word to her. “What else?” she asked fearfully.
Winnie decided it was her turn to be the bearer of bad news. She explained about the new 967 line that people could call up to have a statement LieDeck-verified, and how millions of people were finding out that they didn't love their husbands or wives, or that their spouses were cheating on them, or that they didn't actually believe in God, or that they were gay—all sorts of things that might have been better left buried. “It's not that ignorance is bliss,” she said, “it's just that a full awareness of reality seems to be ... well, dangerous.” She told Annette there had been many suicides, so many that the government had set up a radical new national program to save lives by letting people go to a hospital and die by lethal injection if persuasion failed to change their minds.
"They can't do that!” shouted Annette. “There's laws, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."
It was Helen's turn again, so she explained how martial law had been in effect for the last two days, and how the PM was doing all that he could do to limit the application and severity of martial law, and how more than eighty other countries were also experiencing martial law ... and a certain amount of disorder.
"Disorder? What disorder?” asked Annette.
"Well, civil wars, in some places, and now real wars, two, so far, and one of them is—uh..."
"What?” demanded Annette. “Come on, Helen. What the hell is going on here?"
Helen gave up and told her the truth, the whole truth. “Cold War I had the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cold War II has ended up with the Romanian Crisis, now the Romanian War, otherwise known as the European War, which could maybe develop into a world war, a nuclear war, or so a lot of people have convinced themselves. By staying at the manor, you'll be four minutes away from the Whitesides’ bomb shelter, at the lodge. Steve will be there too. We've got you a full time doctor, and all your medication. You'll be fine,” she said, hoping to be believed.
Annette was struck dumb. How could all those people—her nurses, her doctors, her visitors, her friends—how could they have kept all this from her? Why? How could these things have even happened in the first place? Was it all because of the LieDeck? “What about ... you?” she asked her former partner and best friend.
"I'll be fine,” said Helen. “I just got a promotion. I'm Patriot's new head honcho. I made Chief of Security, Annette. Isn't that great!"
"I'm ... happy for you,” said Annette. “But what happened to Cam?"
"Well, you knew he was planning to retire soon,” said Helen.
"He retired?"
"Well, you know he had Alzheimer's."
"He couldn't cope because of the Alzheimer's?"
"Well, he lied about it."
"Whiteside fired him?"
"Actually—uh—yes, he did."
"For telling a lie?"
"Well, that was ... part of it."
"Don't make me turn my LieDeck on,” threatened Annette. “I'm sick of this game."
Helen finally relented and told her about Cam O'Connor's plan to take over the bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war. “We're LieDecking all Patriot staff to see who else knew about this, or was involved."
"Good fucking God!” whispered Annette.
There was an unspoken agreement to pass the next minute without speaking. Grant Eamer was whistling a tune, “Puff, the magic dragon,” trying to stay out of things. Annette looked out the window and saw the Queensway, the major east-west artery of Ottawa. It was a quarter of six in the afternoon, the height of rush hour, and traffic seemed ... abnormal. “There's virtually no cars heading east, into the city,” she said. “Are we ... that close?"
Winnie almost started to say what she'd heard from Helen earlier, while they were waiting on the roof—that the government had begun moving all prisoners out of cities, as a precaution. “Even that General Brampton,” Helen had told her, and rumor had it that this villainous general had escaped, perhaps with the aid of some RCMP officers that were in that WDA outfit. But then there were rumors about so many things since the free press had gone out of business.
"Nobody knows what the real situation is,” Winnie said to Annette. “With martial law, reliable information is impossible to come by. People just aren't taking any chances, that's all. It's ... a natural reaction to uncertainty."
"It's a natural reaction to nuclear war!” said Annette.
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014
Chapter 69
BUCHAREST IS GONE
It was 5:52 a.m. when Annette woke up, according to the digital clock by her bedside. She found it difficult to sleep at the manor. It didn't seem right that she and Steve weren't in each other's arms, for one thing, but she knew it was best to wait, from the medical point of view. She also knew with all her heart that the
y would be married soon. Steve had said “yes,” and no amount of political turmoil could wipe that smiling image from her mind.
She donned her Sony Discman and found some soothing classical music on CBC FM. Normally, she'd have chosen her iPod, but she really wanted to hear the news at the top of the hour. It bothered and embarrassed her that she had been so completely out of touch during her convalescence, and she vowed that it wouldn't happen again. She was also ... well ... scared. As the gliding, peaceful violins filled her ears, her mind traveled back to the previous evening.
When she had arrived at the manor from the hospital, she was wheeled into the living room, and took great pleasure in the feeling that she was in a normal environment, with normal people. She'd been introduced to a Dr. Pavay, a UN official ... or a former UN official ... she wasn't sure of the details. He had been staying in a posh Ottawa hotel at the expense of Whiteside Technologies for the last two nights, ever since he had arrived from New York. Helen Kozinski had been asked to find a full-time doctor to administer Annette's medications and monitor her recovery, and she remembered that Dr. Pavay had been an internationally renowned physician before he'd gone to work for the UN. It was serendipitous for all.
The Whitesides had put on a wonderful feast in Annette's honor, and Dr. Pavay had turned out to be quite the comic. Apparently his given name was G'lohreah, which his eccentric mother had gleaned from a Welsh storybook, and so naturally little Julia kept calling him “Gloria,” and laughing until tears came. When dessert was served, Dr. Pavay had finally scrinched up his wrinkled, Pakistani face and called her “Burt.” The conflict was resolved when Julia agreed to call him “Mr. Doc” if he would call her Julia.
The Strauss was mellow, and Annette had to remind herself not to fall asleep again, or she would miss the news. Her room at the manor was the same one that Victor had used when he first arrived here, except that the waterbed had been replaced with a hospital bed, with a motor and a remote button that made the thing buzz up and down. It struck her that Victor had come out of hiding from his farmhouse and dumped his taxi-driving job less than two weeks ago ... thirteen days ago, actually, she calculated. Such a short time for human civilization to come unraveled, she felt. After we get through this crisis, we'll have to take a closer look at those theories he made up.
She lay on her back, her good eye closed, her hands interlocked on her stomach, just marveling at the quality of the new headphones that Whiteside Technologies had recently developed. It really is better than sitting in the front row at a live event, she figured. She thought of the things Winnie had told her about Victor's theory of human consciousness evolution, and wondered why she hadn't thought of that herself—that the LieDeck would inevitably suss out the building blocks of human consciousness and open new doors ... to a new world, really. But ... later, she said to herself. I've got lots of time for that one.
Suddenly, there was thumping and shouting all over the manor, but Annette couldn't hear anything but a lonely flute, with a vibrato that could melt silver. It soared airily just above the symphony orchestra, but in mid-riff, the radio host broke in.
"This just in. The capital of Romania has been hit by a large Russian nuclear bomb. Bucharest is completely gone. I'm leaving the CBC studio on our traffic helicopter. I'm only going to say this once. You've got a thirty-two-minute warning if this is the prelude to an all-out nuclear war. Get out of the city, any direction! Get out of the city, NOW!"
Annette ripped off her headset just as two Patriot agents burst in her door, and they were followed immediately by Dr. Pavay and Lucinda, the Venezuelan maid. The agents picked Annette up and practically threw her into the wheelchair, without a solitary word ... and without injury. She pulled her nightgown above her knees and tucked it under her thighs and between her legs.
Lucinda had a housecoat on over her pajamas, and she stepped aside gingerly as an agent snatched Annette's suitcase and tossed it to another agent by the door. Dr. Pavay rushed back to his own bedroom to get Annette's medicine and his glasses. They could hear shouting, from downstairs, then the sounds of vehicles peeling out as the Whiteside family, Steve Sutherland, Grant Eamer and the Donovan clan were rushed away to the lodge. Other agents appeared at the bedroom door, while the agent in charge screamed up at them from the bottom of the stairs. “Let's go! Get her down here, God damn it!"
It took the agents twenty-three seconds to roll Annette down the hall, carry her down the spiral staircase, roll her out the front door, and hoist her, chair and all, into the back of a waiting van. Dr. Pavay and Lucinda followed from the bedroom to the driveway, unable to help. Then, unable to make themselves stay, they hopped in the side door of the van. They were ordered to buckle up in the bench seat behind the driver. “GO!” shouted an agent as he slammed the back doors closed.
The engine roared and the tires bit into asphalt. As they turned sharply towards the back of the manor, Annette could see out the rear windows. The guards at the front gate were screaming into radios and preparing to disappear in a few seconds—north, almost certainly—it was only twenty minutes to the Whiteside Tech fishing camp on Carmen Lake. They'll head there, she thought. Hope you make it, guys.
Just as they hit the unpaved road that led to the lodge, the agent in the passenger seat up front called Helen on the radio. He had to make sure the van would get through the very tight security perimeter at the lodge, and he had to make sure that Helen knew that Dr. Pavay and Lucinda Tachita were also on board. It was Helen's responsibility to get Annette into the shelter, but it would also be her job to give the two other passengers the terrible news ... that they would have to be excluded.
The short trip from the manor to the lodge was right on the edge. The Patriot agents had rehearsed it many times, and the driver knew every dip, turn, and boulder. At each point along the way, he knew exactly where the line was between maximum efficiency and a spill. There was no choice for the passengers except to trust him, completely. They endured silently, sensing that the slightest distraction might throw the driver off his game.
The sun wasn't really up yet, but in the vacant first light of a tranquil dawn, Annette could see out as the trees whipped by, bounced by, rocked by. Her trembling hands were glued to the armrests, and agents were straining to prevent the wheelchair from skidding, or to keep her from being tossed out of it. The arm of one Patriot operative was strapped tightly across the top of her chest from behind. His tense biceps pressed against her right ear, his hard right wrist passed under her left armpit so that his hand could grip the cold chrome frame of her chair. Another agent was braced in front of her, like a lineman in a stance. His powerful hands were clamped on her bare knees, pressing down ... and back. Annette could feel his breathing, and smell him. He perspired freely, and he kept his eyes focused above her, on the road. She was facing the rear of the van, and although she knew that was the proper procedure from her years as a Patriot agent, she found it unbearable to not be able to see where she was going, the next turn, the next bump.
As they closed in on the lodge, she saw eight agents appear, two by two, on the sides of the dirt track, their rifles pointed up, frantically waving the van through. When the van lurched to a halt, the back doors were flung open from the outside. In under twenty-seven seconds—it was being timed, as it had been during rehearsals—two Patriot heavyweights lifted Annette out the back doors of the van, carried her up to the porch, rolled her to the top of the basement stairs, carried her to the bottom, set her down and rolled her into the shelter.
"Thanks a million, you guys,” she said, holding out both hands to take theirs, even if only for a moment. “Good luck,” she added as the agents abruptly turned and left.
"Thank God you made it,” said Doreen Dawe-Whiteside.
"Annette, I was so worried about you,” said Steve as he bent over and embraced the woman who had captured his heart and his dreams. She threw her arms around his neck and allowed a few silent tears to leak out, tears for the two of them, tears for the world.
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Randall was in one of the tiny bedrooms, trying to calm his two daughters. Of course Sarah had studied about nuclear weapons at school, and she was delirious with fear. Julia was an emotional mimic, and her screams followed and matched those of her older sister.
Michael was sitting at the kitchen table, mutely holding Becky's hands as her parents whispered into each other's ears, over by the stove. Grant Eamer, the pilot, was also at the kitchen table, torn between the relief he felt to be among the probable survivors and the devastating image of his wife and two young boys, trying to escape Ottawa in just thirty-two minutes, stuck in traffic, wondering if they would die in the family car.
Victor and Winnie had been rudely awakened at the lodge by Patriot agents as soon as the news report was aired, but they had dressed and gone outside, to the front yard, rather than down to the shelter. They were sitting on the top of a wooden picnic table, their feet planted on the bench, watching dawn paint the loveliest of lakes on one side, and human insanity on the other. Dr. Pavay was sobbing quietly by the side door of the van, hanging on to the outside rearview mirror, dressed only in his pajamas and slippers. Lucinda was being held back as she screeched violently at Helen Kozinski, half in Spanish and half in English, insisting that she was “family,” that there had to be some sort of terrible mistake, that the Whitesides would not want her to be kept out of the shelter.
"Ever play golf?” asked Victor.
"No, I haven't” said Winnie, “but I wouldn't mind having a crack at it some day. Are you saying ... you're in the mood for a game ... now!"
"Yep,” said Victor as he stood up and hand-dusted the back of his pants.
Snowball and Kodiak were yelping wildly at all the excitement, in the hope that they could join in the fun ... or maybe bite whoever was making Lucinda scream. Victor and Winnie walked down to the dock to let them out of their kennels. They put them on their leashes and walked them back to where Lucinda was in hysterics, being held as gently as possible by Patriot agents. Victor took her wrist firmly, and asked her to stop screaming so he could try to fix things for her. She did, and Victor walked over to where Helen was still shouting orders into a walkie-talkie. He had to insist that she listen to him. “I've got a spot in the shelter, right?” he asked.
