The Fall of the Republic (The Chronoplane Wars Book 2)

by Crawford Kilian

  “Semiotronics thinks I’m here to advise you on reviving the aerospace industry,” he said. “Thanks to my successes in the last couple of months, the firm’s given me a lot of leeway. I’m actually here to offer my services to the IF movement.”

  She took it in stride. “That’s very kind of you. I imagine you have a job already in mind.”

  “Not for now. For after. For now, all I want to do is to supply you with information and advice.”

  “About what, Eric?”

  “Who your enemies are, for one thing.”

  She laughed. “My enemies usually tell me that themselves. At length.”

  “I mean the people prepared to kill you, Senator,”

  “Why do you think I have all these bodyguards? It’s a dull day without a couple of death threats around here.”

  “The Wabbies are going to do more than that. On Ulro, they assassinated you just a few months from now, if that makes sense. They got that young ex-Marine as well, the fellow who brought me in here, and your receptionist and five other people who work for you. And a friend of mine and I ended up getting killed for avenging you.”

  Her face was calm and expressionless. “How do you know this?”

  Wigner explained. When he finished, she sat very still.

  “It’s different this time because of the I-Screen,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re going crazy in a very different way, but eventually we’re going to have face Doomsday just as they did on Ulro and Urizen.”

  “And no one in this damn city understands that!” Senator Cooledge exploded. “They’re still trying to wangle a new set of tires on the black market, or they’re off building survival cabins in Virginia.”

  “That’s immaterial if the IF comes together.”

  “It already has. Eighteen countries, ten more about to join — ”

  “So far it’s just another gang of Third World countries. If we and the Europeans and Russians and Japanese and Chinese don’t go in, the IF will fall apart. If we join, the other big powers will come in for sheer self-preservation.”

  “I know. So you propose supplying me with information to make it easier to move us into the IF. I’m going to need more than that.”

  Wigner reached into his briefcase and withdrew a computer disk.

  “Have this copied and installed in every computer you have. It’s for Polymaths, but it can be adapted for IBMs and Apples as well.”

  “What is it?”

  “An antivirus defence program.”

  “We have them.”

  “Not this good. A really nasty virus is going to be used against the whole government computer network — ”

  “What?”

  “ — and any machine without this program is going to be killed. The surviving computers are going to give us an edge.”

  “My God, Eric, are you serious? The whole governmental network? Everything would fall apart overnight.”

  “That’s what the Wabbies are hoping. The dumb bastards aren’t even planning to pick up the pieces. They just want the government off their backs so they can sit and scratch their fleas in peace. Plus blow the heads off Blacks and Jews, and a few others like you.”

  “Wabbies. This is…bizarre. Now, you appear to have some kind of plan even if they don’t.”

  “As soon as they’ve crippled the government, they’re going to find a lot of their enemies still have a working network. Their hit squads will walk into ambushes. When the District Commanders start pulling things together, they’ll find lists of Wabbies turning up in the database. And that will be it for the Wabbies.” Wigner drew another computer disk from his briefcase. “This is a condensed version of the database I derived from the Ulro files. It has economic information, political analysis, and a detailed chronology of the next few years as Ulro experienced them. That’s already going cockeyed, but it’ll give you a good idea of what to expect if the IF doesn’t win.”

  “How confidential is this?”

  “That’s up to you, Senator. You can keep it to yourself, or share it with your staff, or mail it to Ex-Comm.”

  “Don’t strike poses, Eric.”

  He felt taken aback.

  “You know perfectly well I’d do no such thing, so why even suggest it? I’ll keep it strictly personal for now. After I’ve studied it, maybe I’ll bring in some of my people for their opinion. And thank you for it. I’m sure it’ll be helpful. Now, what do I owe you for these little presents?”

  Wigner was uncomfortably aware of having lost the initiative to this damned intelligent woman. “Once the IF is operating,” he began hoarsely, and cleared his throat. “Once it’s operating, it’s bound to set up an agency to supervise I-Screen use. Everything from anthropologists to colonizing expeditions. We won’t have a choice; we’ve got to control the downtime chronoplanes in some kind of orderly fashion.”

  “No argument.”

  “Sometimes that agency will have to take direct action to achieve its goals. It’ll have to police the I-Screens to ensure they’re not being used to exploit the endochronics, or to enrich some people at the expense of others. I don’t think you’re backing the IF just so it can turn into a new kind of imperialism.”

  “Fair enough. And you want a job in this agency.”

  “I want the job in this agency. Call it what you want, but I want to run intelligence gathering and analysis, economic development, and political action.”

  She smiled, without humour. “Meaning covert operations.”

  Feeling more confident, Wigner shrugged. “They’re going to be necessary.”

  “Haven’t we have enough grief out of that whole attitude?”

  “We’ll have more grief without it, Senator. If you have a fighting chance now, it’s partly thanks to the political action I’ve already taken.”

  “You set up Tony Charles — ”

  “He set himself up.”

  “And Hardaker and — ”

  “That’s right. Not to mention a number of other operations, including stopping the Japs from colonizing California on Eden.”

  “My goodness, you have been busy.”

  “I hope to win this job on merit, Senator.”

  “Eric — have you thought this through? The moral implications of what you’re doing?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Very carefully. On Ulro I got killed for doing a lot less.”

  “You understand I can’t promise you what you’re asking for. We have the little matter of restoring constitutional government in this country, and then joining the IF. A lot of other people are going to have opinions on time-traveling spies.”

  “All I want is you on my side, Senator.”

  She studied him carefully and a little mistrustfully. Then she picked up the jug and poured the last of the orange juice into his glass.

  Wigner caught a ride in a government shuttle bus out to his parents’ home in Silver Spring. He saw them rarely these days, and looked forward to having a few hours with them.

  Much of the suburban belt around Washington had fallen into decay, and a few neighbourhoods had been abandoned to squatters willing to tolerate the lack of safe water and reliable power. Casual arson and vandalism had done relatively little damage compared to the effects of simple neglect. But enclaves of the old order still endured here and there; Silver Spring was one of them.

  The house on Madison Street, like its neighbours, was solid brick. It was set back from the street behind a wrought-iron fence whose spikes had become conveniently functional. The front yard, once a smooth lawn, was now a vegetable garden. Little still grew in it this late in the season, but a roll of concertina wire gleamed around the perimeter of the garden.

  His father Woodrow greeted him at the end of the driveway, unlocking the gate and then embracing him as it swung open.

  “Packing a gun?” Wigner said in mock surprise. “Don’t you trust the armed forces?”

  “Not a hell of a lot.” Woody Wigner slapped the holster on his hip. He was a tall
man, pushing sixty with a tanned, bald scalp and prominent cheekbones. He wore an old-fashioned Eisenhower jacket and jeans; both seemed a little too big for him. “It’s a damn nuisance, but it beats getting kicked around. How are you? You’re looking kind of porky.”

  Wigner, two inches shorter than his father but much heavier, gave him an amiable punch in the arm. “Not as porky as I’ll be when I leave. Mom got lunch ready?”

  “Almost. She’s been working on it since yesterday.”

  They ambled up the driveway, enjoying the autumn sunshine. A little Suzuki 4WD stood outside the garage.

  “Where’d you put the Jag?” Wigner asked.

  “In the garage, on blocks. Maybe we’ll revive it next spring. In the meantime we manage to get enough gas to take the Suzuki out a couple of times a month.”

  “Still making political statements, huh?”

  “Of course.”

  Woody Wigner was Old Democratic Money; after a few years in the family’s import-export business, running the European offices, he had sold the firm and gone to work for the Carter Administration as an international trade expert. He had stayed on through Reagan’s first term, then gone to work for a series of policy analysis institutes and think tanks. The Emergency had ended that; the Wigners now lived on a diminished but still considerable investment income, and Woody Wigner occasionally acted as a consultant to one branch or another of CEA.

  “Still, isn’t it a little dangerous to be driving a Japanese car around Washington?”

  “Oh, you get some snotty remarks, but that’s all. I hear it’s a lot worse out west. People in Toyotas being beaten up, that sort of thing.”

  “Any foreign car, at least in some places.” Wigner could have mentioned dozens of incidents in the last few weeks: a particularly futile form of xenophobia, given the millions of foreign cars in the country.

  They went up the driveway to the backyard and entered through the kitchen door. Olivia Wigner looked up from her cutting board and smiled.

  “Here he is!” He enjoyed a floury hug and the familiar sweet scent of her hair. She was smaller and fairer than Woody, with the same sprinkling of freckles across her forehead that her son had.

  They spent an agreeable hour before lunch sitting in the patio, drinking home-brewed beer. The yard, like Madison Street, still kept its trees; Woody’s compost heap was piled high with leaves. Woody gossiped a bit about old acquaintances, while Olivia probed delicately to learn whether Eric was serious about any particular girl.

  “We were concerned when you left the Agency,” his father said after the second beer.

  “Well, Dad, you know Semiotronics is a proprietary.”

  “Indeed I do. But it’s not the same as working for RSD.”

  “It’s better. My boss leaves me alone to do my job, and he’s not scared of Trainables.”

  His father chuckled. “Then he’s a dummy. When are you going to take over his job?”

  “I have my eye on a couple of career prospects.”

  “Back with the Agency?”

  “In a way.”

  “Some day,” said Woody, “when you’re well and truly retired, I’d love to hear what they’ve got you doing.”

  “I’ll tell it all, and you’ll be bored rigid.”

  “Not a chance. Listen, what is happening with all this time travel? When are they going to start seriously exploring? You going to get into that?”

  “Be exciting, wouldn’t it? I just hope nobody screws it up. Can you imagine what could happen if everybody started going downtime? They’d ruin everything.”

  “Eric, we have to go downtime. With Doomsday coming, we’ll have to move to Beulah or Eden or — ”

  “Sure, Dad, but it’s got to be organized. What if the Russians decided to colonize North America on Eden or Ahania? Or some damn cult tried to send missionaries to convert the natives? We’ve got to have some kind of control.”

  “Oh, I don’t argue with that. But even if it doesn’t work out that way, it doesn’t matter. We’ll have all those worlds to settle, time to figure out Doomsday, a whole renaissance. God, it’ll be better than going into space.” He coughed, wincing. “I’ve been telling everyone who’ll listen that we need to stake our claims fast.”

  Wigner smiled vaguely and opened another beer.

  Lunch was a thick vegetable soup and fried chicken from a neighbour’s flock.

  “We’re not secure enough to keep our own chickens here,” Olivia lamented. “If it’s not people, it’s dogs. The Laffertys are really set up, though, so we trade them fruit and vegetables for eggs and chickens.”

  “Life in the Third World,” Woody sighed.

  “Speaking of Third World, what do you think about the Iffers?” Eric asked. “I hear Portugal’s about to join now.”

  “Well, we never will,” said his father. “This country is pretty screwed up, but I can’t believe we’d ever give up our sovereignty to some jumped-up UN. Least of all while the present government’s in power.”

  “Bill 402’s coming to a vote any day now, isn’t it?”

  “ExComm’s friends in Congress are stalling it. And if it does come to a vote, ExComm will buy enough votes to make sure it fails.”

  “Aw, Dad, come on. ExComm’s in enough trouble without that.”

  His father grinned lopsidedly at him. “After a certain point, Eric, scandal and outrage become political anaesthetics. We’ve heard so much lately, it’s stopped bothering people. And never underestimate the effrontery of the Civil Emergency Administration and ExComm. Do you seriously think they’ll end the Emergency and hold real elections? Just because some leftover political hacks ask them to? If the bill did pass, ExComm would just dissolve Congress. Six months later, who’d care?”

  “Your father is a bitter and twisted man.” Olivia laughed. “He never got over his crush on Jimmy Carter.”

  “I think the bill will pass,” said Wigner. “And I think ExComm will hand power over to a provisional government.”

  “Only with a gun to their head,” his father snorted. “Probably.”

  Woody’s eyes flashed at him. “Are you hinting at something? A coup?”

  “Dad, come on! All I mean is, the people behind Bill 402 are damn serious.”

  “Not as serious as they’ll be when ExComm puts them in Harper’s Ferry.”

  “The concentration camp?”

  His father looked mildly surprised. “That’s not exactly what I’d call it, but that’s its purpose, I guess. Not many people know about it.”

  “I know it’s been built but not occupied. There are six others as well.”

  “It figures.”

  Olivia looked alarmed. “You don’t think they’d actually put elected people in there?”

  Woody looked at her and shrugged. “The ones who don’t just disappear.”

  “My God,” said Olivia. “At least Eric’s keeping his nose clean.”

  “I sure hope so,” said his father. “These guys play rough, and they — ” He paused. “They play for keeps.” Wigner knew what his father had intended to say: They don’t like Trainables.

  “My nose is immaculate,” he said. “How are chances for another beer?”

  The afternoon went on in casual conversation, interrupted by a few chores with Wigner helping out. Without making a fuss about it, he installed Flatfoot Fujii’s defence program in his parents’ computer, along with a few other software items. Around three, Wigner made his farewells and hurried to catch the shuttle bus back into the city; he did not want to be stranded in the suburbs overnight.

  On the bus, looking out through the anti-grenade mesh covering the windows, Wigner felt a stab of sorrow. His father was dying of lung cancer and had told no one, not even Olivia. Especially not Olivia. A casual check of his father’s medical records had revealed the facts only a few days earlier.

  Wigner was angry with himself for knowing so much, yet not knowing what to say.

  Pierce was about to leave work for the day when his
Polly waved at him and chirped: “Message for you, Jerry!”

  He keyed his bulletin board.

  Dear Jerry, I’m an old buddy of Eric’s. He’s told me a lot about you. Would you like to meet me for dinner this evening? I think we’d find we have a lot in common. My code is JJ-125E5290. Sincerely, Jaz Jones.

  CHAPTER XV

  Indian summer was gone, and a chilly wind blew down the streets of New York under a cloudy sky. Pierce, in brown wool slacks and a tan anorak, left Semiotronics and walked briskly up Lexington to 55th Street. The day was darkening, and not many street lights were on. People leaving work were hurrying to catch the afternoon subways; no more would run until late in the evening. Surprisingly few police were around because of the big Iffer rally in Central Park, reportedly the biggest yet. Pierce hoped the Iffers’ enemies would stay away; a riot now, with Congress on the verge of passing Bill 402, could endanger everything.

  He turned into the dark doorway of a restaurant and knocked. A speaker in the wall crackled at him; he identified himself by sliding his ID into a slot. The door opened and a smiling man in an evening jacket greeted him.

  “Ms. Jones is already here, Mr. Pierce. Please follow me.”

  This was a privileged place, with clean carpeting and crisp linen on the table. Candles burned, throwing a pleasant glow across the wall hangings. Only a few tables were occupied, by well-dressed couples with observant eyes.

  Jasmin Jones was at a table in a far comer. She greeted him with a dazzling smile and a firm, friendly handshake.

  “Jerry. Please sit down. I’m so glad you could make it.”

  He sat across from her, his eyes adjusting to the dimness until he could see just how beautiful she was. “How’s life on East 52nd?” he asked.

  “Dull. Semiotronics?”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’ll bet. Is Eric still getting rich?”

  “Very.”

  “That’s not all he’s doing, is it?”

  Pierce’s expression didn’t change. “He’s down in Washington today, doing some consulting.”