Alternities

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

“I mean a real family. Look at the way Katie was tonight. She missed you.”

  “Did you?”

  The question was hurled as a challenge, and Ruthann took a long time answering. “I missed the Rayne I married. I missed the Rayne who took care of me when I was so sick with Katie. I missed the Rayne who makes me laugh and feel like the luckiest woman anywhere.”

  His face was softening, but she was not through. “I didn’t much miss the Rayne who sulks around here and never talks to me, who resents it when I want some attention from him, who leaves me home alone and never shares what he does or thinks or wants. Which Rayne are you? Tell me and I’ll tell you if I missed you.”

  His answer was a growl. “You’re trying to make me crazy.”

  “How?”

  He spread his hands in supplication. “Talking like there’s two of me. I’m the same person now that I was when we were happy.”

  And we aren’t happy now. The open acknowledgment of it was a hot needle through the back of her skull, “No, you aren’t. Because that Rayne never would have treated me like this.”

  “I am that person,” he insisted. “I have all those memories. Sitting with you on your parents’ couch while they hid out in the kitchen. Biking up to Limberlost. The train trip here.”

  “That’s the last good time I can remember. The last time you were really you.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said warningly. “Don’t treat me like some sort of… some sort of changeling. This is me. This is what I am, all of it, the good and the bad.”

  “Then maybe I just didn’t pick very well, did I,” she said brittlely. “Because you’re perfectly happy with things the way they are, and I’m miserable. You’re living your life and I’m waiting for mine to start.”

  “You wanted this. You practically dragged me down to take the Federal exam. You were floating on air when the Guard called me back for an interview—”

  “I didn’t know it’d end up like this. You don’t want anything from me and I need you so badly—”

  “I don’t know what you want,” he said, leaping to his feet and throwing his hands in the air. He retreated a few steps toward the kitchen, muttering as though talking to himself. “I don’t know what all this ‘waiting for my life to start’ is about. We’ve got more money than we ever had, a nicer home. We’ve got friends—”

  “I hate this place,” she blurted out. “I hate being stuck here waiting for you to come home.”

  He turned and stared.

  “It’s like a prison, Rayne, it really is. That’s why I was driving so much. I just want to run away sometimes. I just want to take Katie and go someplace where you can’t hurt me anymore.”

  Rayne took a step back toward her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Annie.”

  “But you do, every day you’re here. Even when you’re not.” There was nothing to gain from making accusations, but she could not stop herself. “You take me for granted, treat me like all I’m good for is to climb on. You don’t take me seriously. You never ask me about anything, you just tell me what you’ve decided. I’m disappearing, Rayne. I can’t see myself. All I see is what you’ve made me.”

  She expected denial, rebuttal, indignation. He surprised her. “What is it you want from me?” he asked quietly.

  I’ve been telling you all along, she almost shouted. “Do you really want to know? Do you really care?”

  “I care.”

  “Well—I’d like a chance to go out without Katie for a change. I’d like not to have to have her be part of every decision I make. I love her dearly, but it feels sometimes like we’re attached with a chain, and she’s the one holding the leash.”

  “I guess I never thought about that.”

  “And I’d like to have another baby,” she said quietly.

  The incredulous stare returned.

  “I’d like Katie to have a brother or a sister. I think she’d be good with a little one. The way she worries over Kim’s new baby. But I don’t want to do it if it’s all going to fall on me. I need more from you, Rayne. I need you to be a partner. I need you to be a friend, like you were before.”

  But he was shaking his head even before she finished speaking. “No. We can’t manage that,” he said firmly.

  “That’s it? Just no? You selfish—”

  As though by mutual consent, both were screaming now.

  “What do you want to do to us? Every time I find a way to make a few more dollars, are you going to make them disappear? You’ve got the easy half of the job, spending it—”

  “I didn’t ask you for more goddamned money—”

  “I’ve got my own fucking chains, you know. And you’re the one holding my leash—”

  “Well, why don’t you just not come back, then—”

  She felt something tug at the back of her slacks and whirled, hand raised. It was Katie, looking up at her with sleep-narrowed eyes. “Was I bad?” she asked in a quavery voice. “Don’t be mad, Mommy. I’m sorry—”

  Ruthann closed her eyes for a moment and tried to release the massive knot of tension lodged under her ribs. Then she knelt down and swept the child into her arms. “No, sweetheart, you weren’t bad, and Mommy’s not mad,” she said soothingly. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Can I help?” Rayne asked in a chastened voice.

  “No,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t want to get used to you helping, because I know the next time I need you you won’t be here.”

  Gathering Katie close, Ruthann carried her back into her bedroom. She did not look back to see if her words had scored on him. It did not matter. She could no longer permit herself the luxury of worrying about Rayne. It was asking enough to keep herself and Katie whole.

  Washington, D,C., The Home Alternity

  The room was called the Hatchery, an appropriate nickname for the plans division’s project operations suite. The map pinned to the wall bore the legend DOD BEM ET 54. The man studying the map called himself Kendrew.

  There was much to take in on the six-foot square map. In a generous 1:1000000 scale, it spanned an area from Iceland on the west to Norway on the east, from the southern tip of England to the Arctic Circle. It was covered with multicolored circles centered on places with names like Bergen, Durness, and Toshavn. Queer black symbols found in no cartographic guide dotted the landforms and, more sparsely, the wide expanse of the Norwegian Sea.

  DOD BEM ET 54 was a battle environment map, the product of the combined efforts of the agency and military intelligence, mostly Air Force. The circles and symbols demarked the special concerns of its creators. Among them: radar sites, with their ranges marked and frequencies noted; air corridors and shipping lanes; airfields and ports, classed by capacity.

  Kendrew stood before the map rubbing his tired eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The logistics of what the director called “the initiative” were proving to be even stickier than he had thought when first brought in.

  As far as the initiative was concerned, there were no friendlies on the map. The British, Norwegian, and Danish installations were as much a threat to security as any Soviet asset, which made finding a hole in the web of listening posts large enough for the switch to take place a challenge.

  The whole initiative made Kendrew uncomfortable. There were too many variables, too many elements. How to bring the Q-plane and at least one strike fighter into the area unseen. How to jam the target plane’s radio without causing alarm. How to guarantee the kill was swift and sure, and didn’t bring a hail of flaming fragments down on a freighter or fishing boat. How to blind or fool the Danish radar station in the Faeroe Islands and the Soviet pickets in the Barents Sea and the British air traffic system—

  It was the timing more than the difficulty of any individual element which seemed impossibly daunting. It was as though they were choreographing a ballet knowing that the dancers were clubfooted and the musicians arhythmic.

  But the initiative was neither his creation nor his responsibility. He
was just part of the team, brought in to give opinions and guidance on ground operations in support of the initiative, not on the merits of the initiative itself. That decision had been made at higher levels, and Kendrew would not question it.

  The door to the room opened, and the plans division chief poked his head in. “There you are,” he said. “Come on down to the shack. There’s some news coming in from Walvis Bay.”

  There were a half-dozen staff members gathered in the communications center by the time Kendrew reached it. They were listening to an accented English voice on a static-punctuated radio broadcast:

  “… wide divergence on the question of the number of Freedom Now rebels who took part in the raid, as well as the number of casualties…”

  “Where’s this coming from?” Kendrew asked.

  “BBC shortwave.”

  “… Early this morning, security forces displayed for representatives of the international press eleven bodies of alleged FN soldiers, including one purported to be the rebel leader known as Xhumo…”

  “Wasn’t that our man?”

  Kendrew nodded. “This is the third time they’ve said he was dead.”

  “So you think—”

  “I don’t know. Have to be right sometime.”

  “… The South African administrator for Walvis Bay claimed that thirty-one residents of South-West Africa’s only deep-water port were killed and fifty injured, including eleven children. No evidence was offered for this claim, however, and other sources placed the death toll at less than ten, with most or all of the victims members of the South African police or military…”

  “Speaking of other sources—what about our own assets?” asked one of the staffers. “Are we getting any humint from the Pretoria cell?”

  The plans chief answered. “Too soon for that.”

  “… According to South African National Radio, the targets of the raid included schools, the waterworks, and the pilchard and snook canneries which are the mainstay of the local economy. A government spokesman condemned the rebels for a ‘reckless disregard for the lives and homes of those who have refused to join in their destructive antidemocratic campaign’…”

  Do they think we’re idiots? Kendrew thought. No popular front would cut itself off from its political base by attacking the people it wants to represent—

  “… independent reports confirm that a fish meal storage building was destroyed during an unsuccessful rocket attack on the South African patrol boat Witbank, Reporters were barred from…”

  “Jesus Christ,” Kendrew exclaimed, startled. “He took on a PCE with Buzzsaws? What a goddamned amateur stunt—”

  “Hey, the man’s dead,” someone said. “Maybe.”

  “He deserves to be. Goddamn amateurs. Tape and twine operations, no discipline, no military sense—”

  “… In a broadcast late this afternoon. Prime Minister Benjamin Fourie accused the United States of supplying arms to the FN rebels. Brandishing an American-made rocket launcher he said had been recovered from the raiding party, Fourie threatened to…”

  “Did you authorize this operation?” the plans chief asked.

  “Hell, no. He was supposed to hit the fuel depot and the security force’s motor pool. Son of a bitch. This is three years’ work in the crapper. I swear to God, we should have put our Force 40 people there. Amateurs. Goddamned amateurs.”

  “Are we compromised?”

  Kendrew shook his head. “The weapons were clean. It’s fully deniable.”

  “Get me something on paper to pass up the line.”

  “You’ll have it in half an hour.”

  Indianapolis, Alternity Blue

  A familiar-looking oak bed frame lay disassembled in the cargo area of the truck parked in front of the Meridian Arms apartment tower. Upstairs, Wallace found the mattress and box spring standing on edge in the doorway to 12-E, blocking him from entering.

  “Yo,” Wallace called through the gap.

  Arens appeared by the kitchen. “Ray,” he said. “Glad to see you. Can you give me a hand with that?”

  “Sure.”

  “We have to go down the service stairs with it. It’s too big to fit in the elevator. I guess they didn’t make beds playground-sized when this place was built.”

  “You’re moving out?”

  “Yep. The place is yours and Gary’s as of today. Don’t worry, I’m not stripping it to the walls first. The place was furnished. I’m just taking a few things that I bought. Important things, like the bed. I didn’t buy it to share with another guy, you know.”

  “Television going, too?”

  “Yeah. It was a blow to Gary when I told him. I think he’s going to hit you up to split the cost of a replacement.”

  “I don’t suppose the Guard will pop for a supplemental draw to pay for it.”

  Arens grinned. “That’s how I got mine. ‘Tools and supplies’—check? But things have sure tightened up. I think we’re spending the green as fast as they can print it. Here, let’s get the mattress first. That’s the tough one, it’s so damned floppy.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d consider dropping it off the balcony.”

  “The fairy tale involved flying carpets.”

  Wallace crouched and felt for a handle on the bottom edge. “Let’s go, then.”

  The stairwells had been drawn with the same architect’s template as the elevators. The only way to make progress proved to be to slide the mattress on edge down each flight of stairs, then flop it over the railing to the next. Surveying the gray-black streaks of grime on the side after the first flight, Arens clucked and shook his head.

  “I guess that’s why we put sheets on, eh? So we don’t have to look at the sweat circles and other assorted stains.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Wallace said with a grunt as he pulled the mattress along. “So, where are you going?”

  Flip. “Ah-ah,” Arens said as a parent to a child. “You don’t want me to break the rules, do you? ‘The disposition, residence, and assignment of field agents is restricted on a need-to-know basis.’ ”

  “Moving in with your bedwarmer, aren’t you.”

  Flip. “I’m shocked. What kind of women do you think live here?”

  “The kind that sleep with strangers, unless you’ve just been bragging.”

  Flip. “Bragging? I thought I’d been very discreet. Tell me my ladyfriend’s name. Or if she’s tall or short, or anything else about her.”

  “She fucks.”

  Flip. “And you think that tells you everything you need to know.”

  “It tells me a lot.”

  “Women are different here, Ray. Even classy ones know what they have between their legs.” Flip. “Besides, we weren’t strangers. I cultivated her for all of a month.”

  The mattress seemed to be getting heavier and the stairwell air stuffier with each flight of stairs. Beads of perspiration broke out on Wallace’s forehead, and he paused to wipe away the moisture on the sleeve of his shirt. “How in the world did you ever get this beast up?”

  “Didn’t. Bought it from another tenant on the twelfth floor.”

  “You think if we die in here, anyone will ever find us?”

  “Sure—when we get ripe. Come on, the box spring is waiting.”

  Flip. “You think maybe it can fly?” Wallace said with a grunt.

  By the time the mattress was secure in the back of the truck, both men were flush-faced, panting, and grateful for the bracing air. “You better make sure you have a heaping bowlful of fun on this thing,” Wallace said, leaning against the side of the truck.

  “I will,” Arens said, retrieving a slightly crushed cigarette from a back pocket. He cupped his hands around a match until the cigarette glowed in sympathetic combustion. “So how’s the family? Or is that still off-limits.”

  Wallace shrugged. “We fought again. I just don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand what she wants.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Aw�
�” Wallace looked away toward the river. “I guess it just happens. How many really happy couples do you know?”

  Arens blew smoke skyward. “Not many. Seems like everybody settles for less than they thought they were going to get.”

  “I thought we were going to be different.”

  “Everybody does,” Arens said. He took another puff, then dropped the half-consumed cigarette to the sidewalk and ground it out with his foot. “So when are you going to go?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re ripe for it. That’s why we all do it—the what-if game.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Going home. To where you grew up. Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Think about it or go?”

  “Go.”

  “That’s against the rules, too.”

  “I thought you were the one who said we make our own rules.”

  Arens smiled. “Yeah. I went.”

  “And?”

  The other man’s face clouded over. “It was worth doing—once.”

  “That’s it?”

  “You want me to try to talk you into going? Forget it. I wasn’t trying to put ideas in your head. If it matters to you, you’ll go. If it doesn’t, you won’t,” Arens said with a shrug.

  Wallace pushed himself away from the truck and stood upright. “Well, you’re right. I have been thinking about going home,” he said. “And it feels—dangerous.”

  “That’s because it is,” Arens said. “ ‘Time turns the old days to derision, our loves into corpses or wives—and marriage and death and division make barren our lives.’ ”

  “Is that from something?”

  Smiling wryly, Arens clapped Wallace on the shoulder. “From the heart, my friend. From the heart. You ready to finish this job?”

  “Yah, coach. Let’s get ’em.”

  Washington, D.C., The Home Alternity

  “I’m disappointed,” Robinson said shortly, discarding the one-page report onto the top of his desk. He folded his hands, elbows supported by the armrests, and looked up at Rodman. “I want them to know it, too. Poor judgment, poor planning, poor execution. We look like idiots, again. Ineffectual. Very disappointed.”