The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security

by Andrew Tisbert

  Leslie shook her head. She felt she was being tested, but didn't know why.

  "It's simple, my dear. You will inspire the citizens who watch on the vision to maintain a certain attitude, perform their daily roles in certain ways. Your baptism into Congress is a statement. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what a rising threat Atheism has become. There's nothing holy or apparently moral Washington can openly do to abolish it. But proper coverage of your story encourages the belief Atheism weakens our collective spirit. These kinds of personality stories—the success of an underdog like you—work magic on public opinions. Why, if we're lucky we'll incite a few healthy riots. And with elections coming up in November—well I don't need to tell you how good it will be for me to embrace a national hero such as yourself when people go to the ballot box."

  Washington squeezed her hand and grinned. For a second his eyes looked silver. “And it can't hurt that you are kind of black ... I mean not truly black. There is some black in you from somewhere, right?"

  He was still grinning. Leslie wondered if He was making fun of her. Or did He expect her to understand her new function as a saint already? Her vision blurred for an instant. The chill she'd felt earlier, while the ceremony outside was ending, returned heavily inside her. The swirl of feelings in her so abrupt, she couldn't sort or label them. There was only a cloudy blur, the thickening cold.

  Father Washington's silver brows tightened like caterpillars. “What is it, dear? Are you worried about your image? You know we can't tell the media what to say. That would be fascist. But let me reassure you. Vision manages to focus on the right things. Believe me. Too much can't be said for the power of good business practices and fine democratic principles. You know, the underlying mechanics of ownership and profit. The necessary reliance on official sources. Pressures of advertising. And the Holy Red Hell that comes down on the poor reporter who steps out of line too far. No, no. They'll tell your story properly, there's no doubt about that, and think the spin is their idea the whole time. That's always the best part."

  He paused again and continued to search her face. Leslie's shoulders began to tremble in the silence. Finally, Father Washington's brows relaxed and He sighed. He seemed to have given up on something. Had she disappointed Him somehow? He continued to talk, but Leslie had the distinct impression the interview was already over.

  "I can't wait for Rebel Day this year. I think I'll have my speech writers put you in my address after the parade in New York. I'll be there for a few days. Maybe we could plan a meeting. I love Times Square. Have you ever been there? By the way, have you seen the news coverage? You should have seen the look on your face when you shot that asshole.” The President finally released Leslie's hand, his own knuckles brushing her thigh.

  "Certainly, Mr. President.” Leslie stood, rather dizzily, and walked to the door, with Washington following. The agent awaited her in the hall. She moved awkwardly as Father Washington halted in the doorway and the agent led her away.

  On the front porch she paused to scan the lawn. Most of the pilgrims were gone and the demonstrators were being cleared. Soon, Security would be removing the last of the stragglers, but that was no longer her duty. Now she was hungry. She wanted to go to her apartment, eat and fall asleep on the couch watching a good Hollywood movie. She couldn't see Tom. She went down the front steps to find him, thinking about Father Washington. A feeling rippled through her belly that could have been resentment or anger. It could have been a kind of morbid pride, though, or even, well, anything. It dawned on her that the difficulty in defining the feeling originated in the guilt winding around it. She tried to untangle the guilt. She was ... guilty over her pique, her resentment. She felt guilty because her anger was really directed at Washington.

  Yes, that sounds very right.

  After conceiving of it that way, the feeling grew stronger, until she was carrying fists by her hips and thinking: I am being used. I am being used! I am—

  "Leslie! There you are."

  She looked up from the lawn in front of her and saw Tom jogging to her right, sidestepping the occasional crouched pilgrim. She halted.

  "You were walking like a very determined woman,” he said, and she shrugged. “Let's keep going this way,” he said, “away from all these ears."

  They walked silently for a moment. Then Tom stopped and grasped her elbow. “I'm really sorry about last night's aborted celebration."

  Does he really think he's funny?

  Leslie just stared at him. Until he thought about what he'd said.

  "Shit, I'm stupid.” He rubbed the top of his head, where the gray hair was thinnest. “I really am sorry, you know."

  "Yeah."

  "So I've got a big mouth. You always knew I had a big mouth. But I really care. I just want what's best for you. For my budding saint."

  Budding saint.

  She sighed, through her nose, at this. But he was trying to say something nice, she supposed, so she let him clasp her hand.

  "I took care of it all for you, too, okay? The day after tomorrow. Ten in the morning. A Doctor Fred Carter."

  "You made me an appointment?"

  "Sure. Come on, Leslie. This is awkward. You know how Washington feels about abortion."

  "Yes. So why am I going to have one?"

  Tom stopped, turned to her and grasped her shoulder. He glared and tilted his head to emphasize each point. “You were Security. You're not married. You're going to be a saint. You were screwing your fucking boss. This is one of those times that to perform Washington's will is to quietly take care of business without Washington's knowledge."

  "Abortion is so bad, everybody's having one."

  "No, Les,” Tom said. “Just you and the fucking welfare recipients back there...” he jabbed a finger toward the lawn, “Washington has to bless because it's illegal for them to reproduce in the first place, and there just ain't that kind of room in jails these days."

  "All right,” she said. “I know."

  "There's another thing, too. And this is more important. I'm not quite sure how to put it, except to just put it out there. There's some concern over the kinds of information you've been requesting from the net. Requests for certain kinds of data can get you on lists, I can assure you, you don't even want to know exist."

  "Are you trying to tell me—"

  "Just take it easy. I didn't have to say anything, but I'm worried about you. You've been acting strangely."

  "My own boss—my own agency—has me under surveillance!"

  "I know you aren't programmed to expect it, but Hell! You're going to be in Congress with the Spirit! Lesser notables than saints have—oh, forget it. The most obvious standard procedure is so surprising to you sometimes."

  "You bastard,” she grated.

  "Leslie."

  "You bastard."

  "Dammit, I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't care. All I want you to do is think twice about your actions. That's all. I can't protect you from everyone, Leslie."

  She turned her back on him and started walking.

  "Leslie,” he called after her. “Leslie!” But she did her best to ignore him. She could just imagine his face, going blank.

  On the way to her apartment, on the subway, she reached into her jacket and toyed with Gun.

  4

  One fist knotted against the sill, Tom gazed out his open office window. It was late enough in the afternoon now to feel a cool breeze. It caused a slight but refreshing chill against the sweat on his neck. The top of the ziggurat of the White House was just visible over the security cordons and the sparse trees beyond them. In the courtyard below, Meyer and four of his men had a dozen Atheists on their knees at gun point—they were supposed to recant. Vision had their mechanical eyes on it. Tom could see three of them coolly watching, eyes shining even from this distance.

  Meyer performed with a zest Tom could scarcely recall having ever felt. Of course he wanted Tom's job, and would stop at nothing to get it. He stalked furiously behind the bo
und Atheists now, slapping their ears and screaming, while his men stood in front of them. Tom smiled with very little joy and wondered if any of those men doubted what they were doing. If they ever did, they didn't let on. Tom hated giving Meyer credit—did he really believe in the Word of Washington so completely, or was it simply old-fashioned ambition? The man was a model security guard. Someday, Tom knew, Meyer would indeed stab him in the back. Tom was almost resigned to the fact by now. He would have only one regret.

  Leslie.

  I can't protect you from everyone, he'd said. He knew she didn't really understand. He couldn't even tell how much she remembered—the head mem was supposed to suppress all of it, even if he wondered about that sometimes. And while that was for the best, it still frustrated him. Sometimes Tom wanted to tell her how sorry he was. But how could he? He would get nothing but a blank stare in return. He'd believed he was helping her when he brought her to Washington—how long ago had it been now? She'd been a guard for three years now; her training had lasted four years, and the project started five years before that, when she was just a child.

  Now, he wondered if there had been a better solution. It had seemed so simple then. Security looking for a candidate for the head mem project, and she'd been perfect for it. She possessed a natural tendency toward aggressive action. She was young and healthy physically, but had emotional maladjustments which, if the head mem was successful in their treatment, would prove an excellent demonstration of the new technology's broad capabilities.

  Things weren't working in the foster care he'd set up for her; there were too many security leaks in that situation. And Tom believed to his core that Security—and Washington—owed Leslie. So when he had the opportunity to bring her into the project and conceal her identity, he did it without a second thought. After all, Security needed to keep her close by and her true identity quiet, to avoid any political embarrassment to Washington.

  Now Leslie was to become a saint. No one who knew where she came from wanted a spotlight on her. Father Washington wasn't a part of this, and that's the way everyone wanted it. It would be the end of everything if Washington found out. Tom shook his head. What a fool he'd been. What did they used to say about all the chickens coming home to roost?

  And yet he couldn't help feeling indignant and self-righteous anger at the situation. It wasn't his fault that Leslie's existence put Washington in jeopardy. It wasn't his fault Washington didn't know he had a little brother, or that Leslie was his niece.

  Well, he had to amend that thought: Tom was very much responsible for Washington's continued ignorance. But damn it, he hadn't created this situation in the first place. It all came down to one decision, made long before Tom Russell was in Security, by one of the sweetest characters in American political history. Father Washington's own mother, Carolyn West. Tom had never met her, but once he began working Security he'd seen her at many campaign dinners and diplomatic events. He always thought of her in a long sequined gown, martini in a careless grip, standing taller than most of the men around her, with a smile on her sharply lined face, both inviting and threatening at the same time.

  Washington had been born around the same time Super Hansen's disease was discovered—a neurological illness mimicking the nerve-numbing symptoms of leprosy, while accelerating tissue decay. Amid speculations the disease had been designed and accidentally released by the Pentagon, it was also discovered that the baby the Republican Party had chosen as a future Father Washington had been infected by the plague. Washington's mother was devastated, and vowed she would do everything in her power to save her doomed baby from falling to pieces and rotting away before her eyes. Her crusade to legalize the stem cell therapies, which eventually saved her son, was legendary. But what she had accomplished before was not common knowledge. In despair, believing her boy would not survive, she prepared a tissue sample and flew to Vermont, where he was secretly cloned. A woman was hired to carry the new child to term, with the intention of accelerating his growth through hormone therapy and then replacing the dying son. It was called Project Tissue Replacement, and it was abandoned, along with the child clone, when Father Washington was cured.

  What happened after that was unclear to Tom. He knew the boy clone had survived, and Security kept a quiet eye on him under the direction of Washington's mother. He knew he was brought up as Everett Sandega, with no knowledge that he was a clone. And he knew that as an adult, Everett had disappeared for a decade before re-emerging as a violent anti-American agitator. By the time Tom had risen to a supervisor's rank in Security, Everett was an issue of constant concern. When his house in the Adirondack Mountains was discovered, Tom was ordered to head a surveillance team to see what he was up to. It was during that assignment that Tom had met Leslie.

  Tom sighed as he recalled their first encounter. It had snowed all day, but then the moon came out and shone across the gentle fresh drifts. The branches of the pines around Everett's house groaned under the weight of the snow. The shadows were indigo and black beyond the moon's glare. Tom and his five-man team started their stake-out three days ago, and had just watched Everett ride drunkenly into the woods on his snowmobile. Tom decided to perform the first internal sweep of the house himself while his men remained in hiding in the trees.

  Tom remembered how careful he'd been to walk where Everett already left a collage of tracks. He remembered stopping at the front porch to remove his boots so he wouldn't leave puddles inside. He shook his head and smiled as he recalled how he'd padded through the cabin in socks, parka and a gun. He'd been so unprofessional then. It was a wonder he'd survived in Security and gotten as far as he had.

  The lights had been left on. The place was furnished in an eccentric but rich manner. There were Persian rugs on the vision room floor, a fireplace nearly the height of a man. Everett's office was full of state of the art communications screens and computer equipment. Tom remembered thinking it odd to find Rockwell prints on the wall here in the Adirondack Territories. And wondering where Sandega had gotten his money.

  Tom was in the kitchen when he realized he wasn't alone. There were two bedrooms upstairs, and he was certain he heard scratching from one of them. He padded up the stairs, following the noise. It came from a locked closet in the smaller room. He holstered his gun to inspect the lock. It was a simple mechanical design and he unfastened it easily. Then, drawing his gun again, he swung the door open.

  A young girl crouched in the darkness in her underwear. She squinted into the sudden light. “Daddy?” she said. Tom backed away from the sudden smell of stale urine. The girl's matted copper hair was cropped short. The nails of her fingers were bloody. When he forced himself closer again, she must have realized he wasn't her father. Her eyes went wide and she screamed. Tom dropped to his knees, grabbed her around her thin waist with one arm and clamped a hand over her mouth. He pulled her out of the closet, dragging her across the floor as she clawed at him futilely through the parka. “Stop, stop,” he said. “I'm not going to hurt you. Take it easy.” Slowly, her thrashing subsided. “I'm here to help,” he said, looking down at her. “Are you going to scream again if I let go?” After a moment, she shook her head.

  When he released her she scrambled back into the closet to peer at him from the shadows. “He'll kill me,” she said. “I've been bad."

  "It's all right. What's your name?” She didn't answer.

  Tom guessed she was about ten or eleven. Her youthful breasts had slipped out of her training bra during their struggle and he couldn't help noticing the soft curve of her buttocks, the smooth line of her brown thighs. Tom realized that the emerging sexuality of her body, combined with her complete defenselessness, had caused him to be aroused. He had to shift his cock around through his pocket. “I won't hurt you,” he said. “Are you thirsty?” She nodded. “I'll get you something to drink. You'll stay right here, all right?” She hesitated, then nodded again more slowly.

  As he went back downstairs, he wondered what he should do. If he took the girl
away, or even left her out of the closet, he would compromise his mission. Everett could not know he was being watched—it was a matter of national security. Nothing could happen to cause him—or the public, or Washington—to discover his true identity. Everett was a pond Security didn't want stirred up. He thought about it as he got her a drink from the kitchen tap. To the rest of the world this girl didn't exist, she was Everett's little secret. She'd shown up in no census, no security dossier. She was anonymous. Tom pictured her as he had just seen her—the delicate swell of dawning womanhood, the matted hair, the patch of urine stains dried against her puffy little crotch, scraped knees, bloody fingers—and felt another pang of arousal. It occurred to him that, like Everett, he could do anything he wanted to this girl. He pictured himself pulling down those dirty panties and shook his head. He brought the glass of water upstairs and returned to the room.

  In the doorway he noticed how dull the girl's bedroom was. The gray carpet was heavily stained and strewn with broken Barbie dolls and dirty clothes. The bed was a dirty heap of worn blankets pushed against the back wall. The blinds concealing the only window were thick with dust, the walls were bare. There was only one picture, tacked over a small dresser. A black woman smiled sadly, her eyes shut to the flash of the camera. It was wrinkled, as if it had been crumpled and then smoothed out again several times. The closet door was closed and the girl was gone.

  "Hello?” Tom said. “Are you still here?” He went to the closet again and slowly opened the door. The girl was huddled in the dark again, hugging her knees against a cheek. “I brought you a drink.” She wouldn't come out, and Tom had to hand her the glass in the closet. When she finally grabbed it she guzzled it down all at once. Watching her, Tom realized what he had to do. Right now he would find her something to eat. Then he would convince her to keep him a secret. He doubted that would be very hard. And in return he would help her—as much as he could.