Joe Haldeman

by The Coming

  Pepe

  His phone buzzed but he didn’t answer it. His boss was on the cube, committing political suicide.

  ” … nobody on Earth could have done it. The signal started our way long before the conference call—” The cube went blank and Carl Lamb appeared. “That was Professor Aurora Bell, in a transmission—” Pepe stabbed a finger at the phone. ” Buenas?” “Pepe … ” It was Rory. “The shit has really hit the fan.” “I just saw it.”

  “The governor wants me tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. You want my job?” “You make it sound so attractive.”

  “I’m serious. Mai Barrett just put me on sabbatical indefinitely. Nobody else but you can run the thing.” He knew that, of course. “Sure, okay. Where are you now?” “Up at the office.”

  “I’ll be right up. Buenas?” ” Si, buenas.” He turned off the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “What was that?” Lisa Marie said.

  “My boss. Ex-boss.” He finished off his beer and set the mug down with a thump. “Looks like I’ve been promoted.” He took out a card and slid it through the pay slot. “I’ve gotta run. Don’t know how long this will be. I will be with you tonight, though, as soon as I can get free. Call when I know.” She nodded. “Dinner if you can. I’ll get us some steaks or something.” “Deal.” He kissed her on the cheek. ” Buenas.” ” Si, buenas. Muy buena suerte.” He went a block and a half before he realized he’d left his umbrella back at the cafe. It wasn’t raining hard, though, and Lisa Marie could use it.

  This was how it happened. Rory sacrificed her job, making sure the world knew the truth. So he would be standing down at the Cape with President Davis, to meet the supposed aliens.

  He passed a woman who was sitting on a park bench, sobbing, her face in her hands. Her white dress, saturated with rain, revealed her alluring figure. He vaguely recognized her—a student?—and slowed to say something, but then went on. She didn’t want company in her grief.

  Gabrielle

  She heard his steps hesitate— please stop, talk to me, hold me—but he didn’t stop, would she?

  Probably, it didn’t happen all that often, you come home and find your cat lying dead, and then the president and all those others, she had poor Happy’s body in a shoebox and didn’t know what to do with it.

  Am I being punished for sin, is my mother’s God really up there counting the times I put a camera up my cunt to pay the bills? No, cats die, presidents die, snap out of it, you know better, you know better. Her nose was running and she didn’t have anything in her purse; she blew into her wet hand and scraped the mucus onto the bottom of the park bench, then splashed her palm in the puddle at her feet, and rubbed her nose hard against her forearm.

  Aliens dropping out of the sky, a science father figure blows up himself and everybody in the room, a perfectly good cat drops over dead, and I’m ten minutes late for an anal-intercourse shoot. Which I’m not going to do. Even if it means my job. Louis is gentle but he’s just too big around. It’s not the proper use for that opening; things are supposed to come out, not go in.

  “Oh, sweetheart. Things can’t be that bad.”

  She wiped her eyes and looked up. It was the old lady with the shopping cart. She sat down next to her. “What is it that’s so bad?” She looked into the old kind face. “My cat died.” “Oh, my.” She lifted a corner of the sodden shoebox and looked inside. “What was her name?” “His name. Happy.”

  “Never had a boy cat. Lots of girl cats. You want one?” “Not now, no. Thank you, no.”

  “You got cat people and dog people, you know? My husband, he was a dog person. One reason I had to get rid of him.” Gabrielle smiled. “He take the dog with him?”

  “No, that would be cruel. I kept the dog, even though he smelled bad.” She leaned close and whispered. “He had gas. Both of them did.” Gabrielle wiped her eyes. “How long ago was that?” “Thirty-some years, I guess. Buried him when Hull was president. Hardly anybody had the cube back then.” “You still think about the poor thing.”

  “Oh, yeah. Buried him under a big piece of plywood out in the swamp. Mall there now.” “You couldn’t just bury him in the backyard?”

  “No. Gosh and golly. Way too big. Laws, too.”

  “There are laws about burying dogs?”

  She nodded slowly. “Some kinds.” She looked over Gabrielle’s shoulder. “Afternoon, Officer.”

  Rabin

  He touched the brim of his plastic cap. “Good afternoon, Suzy Q. Are you ladies all right?” “Nobody’s all right, Officer. Nobody’s all wrong, nobody’s all right. We all of us stuck in the middle.” He smiled a little. “It’s a hard day for everybody. Can’t I give you a ride to the shelter?” “We gone through that before, Officer. I don’t want nobody preachin’ at me.” “You could stand it for a little while. It’s a roof over your head.” “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my head.” He held up a hand. “I just don’t want you to get pneumonia again. You remember two years ago?” “I remember eighty years ago. Don’t you worry about me.” “She won’t catch penumonia from exposure,” the beautiful woman said. She touched the old woman’s hand. “But he’s right. You should get out of this rain.” “You should, too, ma’am. You’re not exactly dressed for this.” “No.” She startled him by taking off her hair and wringing it out. “What I’m dressed for is getting fucked in the ass.”

  “What?”

  “People do it,” Suzy Q. said in her defense. “Where you been all these years?” Rabin swallowed a couple of times. “Sure. But you’re wet. You’re cold and wet.” The beautiful woman patted her hair into place and favored him with a brilliant smile. “It’s a living.

  Not the cold and wet. The other.”

  “You aren’t a whore, are you?” Suzy Q. said.

  “No. No, I’m an actress. And a medical student.” She looked up at Rabin. “No laws broken. I just do cube for the Institute of Sexual Studies here.” Still smiling, she started to cry. “Could you do me a favor? Could you do something with my cat?” ” Perdón?”

  She pushed the shoebox an inch toward him. “My cat died. He just died, with the president. I don’t know what to do with him. And I don’t want to go to work and I wish it would stop raining.” He carefully picked up the sodden box. “Sure, don’t worry about it. But will you do something for me?” “Sure. That’s what I do, is do things for men.”

  “Get yourself and Suzy inside somewhere. I don’t want her to die on my shift.” “Okay. Is that a deal, Suzy?”

  “Okay. Let’s get a cuppa coffee.” They headed toward Main Street, the beautiful woman pushing the cart. She wasn’t wearing underwear, and her buttocks clung to the translucent fabric, rolling. Rabin’s heterosexual fraction watched with interest. What would it be like to do that with a woman? Just different scenery, he supposed.

  His civilian phone rang. He wiggled it out of his pocket. “Yeah?” “Qabil, this is Felicity.”

  “What?” The dispatcher? Why wasn’t she calling on the shoulder unit?

  “I’m downstairs, on the pay phone. Look, you’re friends with Norman Bell.” “Well, I … “

  “You’re friends. He and his wife have to disappear right now. I was just up in the boss’s office and he got a call from some FBI guy. The feds are gonna pick them up tonight and take them to Washington for questioning.” “About what?”

  “You didn’t see the cube? Of course not. Look, they’re suspected of being foreign agents. For France or her allies.” “What bullshit!”

  “Yeah, and they know it is. He joked about it; they just want to lock her up and throw away the key. It’s serious, Qabil. A presidential order. From that senile old Indian.” “Allah. Thanks, Felicity. I’ll call him right away.”

  Norman

  Exasperated, Norman hit the “save” button on the Roland and touched the phone screen. It stayed blank.

  “Turn off your house,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. Another blackmailer?

  �
�House, turn yourself off for thirty minutes.” It chimed. “Okay. Who are you?” There was a click, the distorter going off, and a heavy sigh. “Norm, it’s Qabil. There’s real trouble.” “Yeah? ¿ Que pasa?”

  “Is Rory home?”

  “No. I expect her any minute.”

  “You have to pack up and leave as soon as she gets home. The FBI’s going to pick you up tonight, take you to Washington and bury you.” “What, that damned interview?”

  “I guess; I didn’t see it. They claim you’re agents, working for France.” “For France? We’ve never even been there.” “Well, you can stay at home and talk it over with them, or you can be missing. That’s what I’d advise. It’s not like the cube; these guys are a law unto themselves.” “So I’ve heard. How long do we have?”

  “Maybe until dark. I’d leave as soon as possible. Do you have cash?” “A little.”

  “What I’d do … take a cab down to Oaks and max out the ATM, then get on the first train to Archer. From there you can use cash to get anywhere, short trips. Go to Canada or Mexico, someplace you don’t need a passport.” “But she didn’t break any law.”

  “All I know is that the FBI is after her. I think they can find a law.” “Jesus. When it rains, it pours.”

  “Don’t worry about the rain. Just move as fast as you can.” Norman had to smile. How long did you have to live in a country before you picked up the catchphrases? “Okay. If Rory agrees, we’ll be out long before dark.” “If she doesn’t agree, you leave by yourself, okay? All this shit in Washington.” “Sure. I’ll get packing. Buenas.” Qabil said goodbye and Norman turned off the phone. Of course he wouldn’t really leave Rory behind. Both or neither of them would go to Washington. To be buried. In shit? He wondered what Qabil meant by that.

  He’d pack for both of them, though. He set out two bags, small enough for carry-on, on the bed, and neatly stacked warm-weather clothing in each. He assumed Rory would rather go to Mexico, for the winter, than Canada. Besides, she didn’t speak Canadian.

  With both of them packed, he carefully lifted out the contents of Rory’s bag. Let her check through and make changes.

  She should be here by now, he thought. He went to the phone and punched RR, Rory roving.

  ” Buenas?” No picture, of course.

  “Where are you, darling?”

  “In a cab. Home in two minutes. Where did you think I’d be?” “Just making sure.”

  “How are you taking it?”

  “Um … not on the phone. Talk to you in two minutes.” He pushed the “off” button and rummaged through the drawer under the phone for a joint. It was old and dry. He found a match and lit it. Took one puff and stabbed it out in the sink. Wrong direction. He poured a glass of port and sipped it, waiting, thinking.

  This might not have anything to do with the interview. The FBI might have linked him and Rory to whatever that superweapon was, that may or may not have been an invention of Pepe’s.

  The doorknob rattled and Rory knocked. Of course her thumbprint didn’t unlock it unless the house was on. He went down the hall and opened the door.

  Aurora

  “What, is the house off?”

  Norm held the door open and shut it behind her. “Yeah. The shit has hit.” She nodded. “I know. Goddamn governor on top of everything else. But why the house?” “The governor?”

  “Yeah. Why’s the house off?”

  “The FBI. What did the governor do?”

  Rory rubbed her wet hair with both hands. “The governor got me fired, you know that? Did he call the FBI?” “Fired?”

  “You didn’t know.” Norman opened both hands and made a noise. “The governor leaned on Mai because of an interview I did this morning. So I’m on sabbatical. What does the FBI have to do with it?” They were in the breakfast nook. “Sit down. Let me get you something to drink.” She sat down. “Just water. What’s the FBI? The assassination?” “Somebody got assassinated?”

  She kneaded her forehead. “Of course. Why would you know? The president and all her cabinet, killed in a bomb blast. The vice-president, too.” “My God. Bombed! Was it France?”

  “No. Grayson Pauling carried a briefcase full of explosive into a cabinet meeting. Suicide-murder.” “Pauling.”

  “He was serious about changing the agenda. Lunatic, martyr, I don’t have it sorted out. What about the FBI now?” He got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. “Qabil called.” “Oh, good. That’s all we need.”

  “No. That’s not it. He found out, as a cop, down at the station, he heard the FBI is coming to get you. Take you to Washington.” “Oh, shit.” She took the water but didn’t drink. “They can’t do that. I didn’t break any law.” Norm sat across from her with a small glass of wine. “I don’t know. Maybe we could talk our way out of it. What Qabil said is they think we’re agents for France—” “We’ve never been to France!”

  ” Verdad. I think they know that. It’s just an excuse.” “Was it before or after the assassination?”

  “Just now. I think Qabil assumed I knew about the president dying.” She shook her head. “State of emergency, I guess. But do you really think they can just call us spies and lock us up?” “I don’t know. That’s what Qabil thinks. And he’s sort of in their line of work.” “Oh, hell. Double hell.” She slid the water bottle back and forth in a small arc. “Is that port you’re drinking?” “Get you some?”

  “Ah, no.” She threw out the water and went to the refrigerator and squeezed herself a tumblerful of the plonk. “So what does your boyfriend recommend that we do?” “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just looking out for us.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sat down and leaned into her hands; her voice was muffled. “It’s been such a day.” “And it’s just begun.”

  She sipped the wine. “Qabil said?”

  “He said we should disappear. Before night. Stay on local transport so we can pay cash, and make our way to a country that doesn’t need a passport.” “Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean?”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “I’d like about thirty seconds to think about it.”

  “Go ahead. I’m going to pack some music cubes.”

  “Packing? You’d leave without me?”

  “Of course not. I just want to be ready if you decide to go. I can hear the hounds yapping.” He found a cheap plastic box that held a hundred cubes, and started at the beginning, Antonini.

  “Oh, hell. Put some jazz in there for me.” She stood up. “I’ll pack some clothes.” “I already put out a few things. Warm weather?”

  “Yeah. Canada doesn’t really appeal.”

  He heard her opening and closing drawers, slamming them. “How about Mexico?” “Cuba’s closer,” she said. “Some stuff I wanted to check there, too.” He pulled a couple of handfuls of cubes from her jazz collection, totally random. “Cuba it is.” They would have to avoid the Orlando-Miami monorail, unfortunately; that was ticketed like a plane. Have to zigzag their way down.

  He took the cube box and a small player into the bedroom and put them in his bag. Rory was almost packed, rattling around in the bathroom. “You have the sunscreen?” she said.

  “Both kinds, yeah. Though I guess we could buy it in Cuba.” Rory came out with a plastic bag of toiletries, put it in the travel bag, and zipped it closed. “So. You ready?” “Yes.” He held out a hand. “I’ll take your bag.

  “I can—”

  “On my bicycle. We can’t risk a cab.”

  “Oh, joy.” She handed him the bag. “Mother said if I married you I was in for a rough ride. But bicycling through the rain in December?” “Fleeing the FBI. Sort of strains your sense of humor, doesn’t it.” It wasn’t too bad, though. The rain was a cool mist, and they only had to go a mile, to the Oaks substation.

  They left the bicycles unlocked, trusting that it wouldn’t take long for thieves to remove that particular bit of evidence of their flight, and walked into the venerable, not to say crumbling, mall.

>   It had seen better days, most of them more than a half century before. A whole block of stores had been demolished, their walls knocked down, to make space for a huge flea market, and that drew more customers than the low-rent purveyors of cheap imported clothing and sexual paraphernalia.

  There was a weird youth subculture that had taken over one part—the beatniks, who dressed in century-old fashion and smoked incessantly while listening to century-old music. Rory liked the sound of it as they walked by, but it made Norman cringe. They had to go through there to get to the ATMs.

  They thumbed two machines to get the maximum from different accounts, four thousand dollars each. The machines didn’t hold any denomination larger than one hundred, though, so they wound up with a conspicuously large wad of bills.

  Rory looked around. “Uh-oh.” She turned back to the machine. “There’s a guy staring at us. From the cafe.” Norm glanced sideways. “Yeah, I see him in Nick’s sometimes. Always writing in that notebook.” “Yeah. Now that you mention it.”

  The historian

  They don’t look like the kind of people who come down to the Oaks, he thought, familiar from somewhere. The Greek restaurant. He drank off the rest of his strong sweet coffee while it was still warm. He snapped his fingers twice to get the waitress’s attention—a very local custom—and shook a pseudo-Camel out of its package. He lit it with a wooden match and got a sudden rush of THC. Real tobacco must have been something.

  He had been staring for a half hour at the image of .the Gainesville Sun for 24 November 1963, the last time a president had been assassinated. Maybe getting back to work would cut through the feelings of despair and helplessness. He had gotten up to the year before the year he was born.

  He tried to ignore the old-fashioned but seductive Dave Brubeck chordings and rhythms, and toggled through the two old newspaper articles that were relevant to this part: Local government found itself in a condition beyond chaos when, in the fall of 2022, the mayor, two city commissioners, and the entire county commission wound up in jail for violating a cluster of real-estate laws, mostly about zoning and eminent domain— but really about bribery on a stunning scale. The result of their machinations, the Alachua/Archer monorail, changed Gainesville irreversibly, in ways that not everybody agreed were bad.