The Lost Enclave

by Fredric Shernoff

  “Let’s go,” Sims said as he opened his door and exited the van.

  “What about Nate?” Lilli asked.

  Sims pointed to the other end of the garage. A team of medics was approaching with a stretcher.

  “Well there’s something positive, for a change,” Goldman said. “You guys couldn’t have brought the docs instead of the guys with the guns?”

  “You weren’t very clear with your report,” Sims said. “We had no idea what we were extracting you from.”

  “Whatever. I’m not going to argue. Just get him help. Somebody’s gotta reset his neck and let him heal.”

  “It’s amazing he’s still alive,” Sims said.

  “Not if you’ve seen him in action,” Lilli said. “Like we’ve been telling you, he’s not exactly human.”

  “Right. Well, I guess we’ll let the professionals have the final say on that.”

  The medics moved to put Nathaniel on the stretcher. They fiddled to restrain his neck, but the angle of the break made it impossible. Just looking at Nathaniel with his head askew like that made Goldman nauseated. Even the most powerful person he could imagine would have been dead from that kind of injury. Somehow, Nate’s body had done its usual thing, shutting down as it tried to heal. But it couldn’t move the broken bones back into place. That would require surgery, and Goldman wondered if there was a limit to the abuse a Great One could take.

  “What do you think?” Lilli asked as the doctors rolled the stretcher away.

  “I think he’s pretty well and truly fucked,” Goldman said. “And, God, I wish that wasn’t the case. For his sake and all of ours.” He felt Lilli’s hand slide into his and he squeezed it. “For now, we go with Agent Sims and see what the hell we can do to help them take down Weber. We fix all of this.”

  “You really think we can?” she asked.

  “We have no choice.”

  They followed the black swarm of agents through the garage and into a security checkpoint. Goldman kept holding Lilli’s hand as they walked. Whatever there was between them remained an as-of-yet unspoken thing, but it was a thing that would keep him moving forward instead of sitting in a sobbing ball on the floor.

  They were scanned and screened by giant metal detector-looking machines, operated by more of the agents in black. On the other side of the checkpoint, they passed through glass double doors and into a sparse and sanitized white lobby.

  “Nice place,” Goldman said to Sims. “It’s almost cheerful, for a place that’s buried underground.”

  “Yeah. It’s the best we could do. This way.”

  Sims led them down a series of hallways lined with doors. It reminded Goldman in a way of the police station in Ethos, though this hidden outpost was bigger. Sims brought them into a small office, and directed them to a couch in one corner. “Sit here. Relax. Can I get you water?” Goldman and Lilli nodded and Sims walked over to a water cooler. He took out paper cone-shaped cups and began filling them. “I’m going to have you give me a more detailed report on what you shared earlier.”

  “I thought you didn’t think we were in our right minds?” Lilli asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. I want to get it on the record. And then we will see what President Rowan thinks about all of it.”

  “We need to take out Weber,” Goldman said.

  “Well, yes. That is the point of all of this.” Sims handed them their water cups.

  “No,” Goldman said. “That’s not what I mean. It’s not just about defeating him. I think that’s what actually leads to Nathaniel’s world.”

  “Come again?”

  “Weber does something. Maybe nukes or something like that. And I think he does it because things get to a breaking point where he’s afraid he might lose. But he survives whatever you do and whatever he does in response to that. He survives forever.”

  “Riiiight. And attacked your friend in the future.”

  “Goddamn it!” Goldman said. “Just listen to what I’m saying! If you try to overthrow his government, he will destroy everything! You need to take him out. Not his government. Anybody else you can deal with after, but Weber has to die.”

  Sims sat in a nearby chair and sighed. “Ben, I’m not in the business of speaking for President Rowan, but I can tell you he will never go for that. There have been times in our nation’s history when a president has had to authorize an assassination. But in this case, the country needs the closure of a fair and honest trial, revealing to the public everything Weber was up to and showing everyone that the United States stands for fairness and justice.”

  “I think you’re underestimating him,” Goldman said.

  “How do you figure?” Sims asked.

  “For one thing, you’re assuming you’ll be able to hold him for a trial, and for another, you’re dismissing executing him as if it was something you could just do on a whim. My friend who you’re taking care of right now has survived being burned alive, and falling off a hundred-foot-tall wall, and being shot, and now having his neck broken. And newsflash—he’s ancient and dying. Weber is full-powered. And he might be more than that. If he was able to suppress the other Great Ones, he did it with extra help.”

  Sims rubbed his eyes. “It’s been a long day, son. We can catch up on all of this at a different time, but right now I think you’re not making a whole lot of sense.”

  “I thought you wanted a detailed report?” Lilli asked.

  “I did. And I do. But there’s nothing actionable here. There’s honestly nothing that won’t get the president worried that I’m losing my mind. So for now, I’m going to leave you two alone, and we’ll try again in a little bit.”

  “You’re just going to leave us here?” Goldman asked.

  “No. We’ve got a room for you to stay in. You look like people who’ve been on the go for quite some time and you could use some rest. And we can get you some normal clothes.”

  With that, Sims left the room. A couple other agents escorted Goldman and Lilli down the hall to a sparse bedroom. When the door was closed behind them, Lilli sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. Goldman sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he said.

  “Is it? This ‘shadow government’ doesn’t believe us. And if they don’t understand what they’re up against…well, fuck. They don’t understand. They never do. That’s how Nate’s world comes to be. Right?”

  “I really don’t know. You’re assuming that nothing we do makes a difference, right? That all of this happened already?”

  “Maybe. It’s fucking time travel, Ben! I have no idea how I’m supposed to come at it.”

  “I get that. I’ve had a few more hops through the portals than you and it’s still not making any sense. There’s another version of us out there right now, I guess, going through the motions that brought us here. That’s a mindfuck that I can’t handle.”

  “We need to stop trying to handle it,” Lilli said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we need to stop trying to figure out these impossible things. We’re in a game of governments, and armies, and fucking superheroes. And who are we?”

  “Well, I wrote the magic book,” he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

  “Well that’s just great,” she said, pulling away and flopping back on the bed. “So it’s really just me who’s out of her element.”

  “Nah, Lilli, I shouldn’t have said that. My mouth just sometimes gets going before my brain knows what’s happening. I’m sorry. I’m as clueless as you are. All I did was write a story about the second Civil War, which is absolutely nothing that you don’t already know. I have no clue how or why my words ended up in these amped up journals, and I don’t know why there’s a supernatural deity or something that speaks to me with my own face and in my own voice. I’m tied to this somehow, maybe, but I don’t know anything more about it than you do, and I’m just as scared.”

  “I can’t stop th
inking about Nate,” she said. “I keep picturing him lying there twisted and broken for trying to defend our lives. And then I think back to when I met him, and how quickly I dismissed him as a crazy person. I was afraid of him. But he was telling the truth, and he was honest and heroic.”

  “He’s been through a lot,” Goldman said. “I guess that’s the understatement of the millennium. But look at it this way—he’s been alone, or mostly alone, for damn near forever. We’ve given him friendship. That means something. We’ve done something good for him too.”

  She sat up and looked at him, and a single tear formed in the corner of her left eye. He wiped it away, then put his hand behind her neck and gently pulled her to him. They kissed, and then their hands wandered over each other’s bodies, tearing away the clothes of a bizarre future world.

  It was the very best sex Goldman had ever experienced. When it was over, Lilli curled up in his arms, and he listened to her breathing gradually slow. “I want you to know I don’t do this with every girl I meet in a dystopian nightmare,” he said.

  She laughed. “You’re honestly weirder than just about anything else I’ve seen recently.”

  “I take that as a compliment,” he whispered. He stroked her hair. “We’re gonna get through this, Lilli. Us and Nate.”

  “And what if what we do unmakes him?” she asked. “What if he never exists and we never meet? Or what if we just destroy the whole universe?”

  “If it helps, the mystical being who looked like me said the whole multiverse is falling apart anyway.”

  “That really doesn’t help at all.”

  “Yeah…I didn’t think it would. I guess the thing is, if there’s nothing we can really do to deal with things that are way above our level, we just have to enjoy every moment and make the most of everything we’re given. I don’t think there’s any real meaning to life. We’re here, so we make the best of it. That’s what we have to do.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s make the best of it.” With that, she kissed him again.

  21

  Time seemed to have very little meaning in the secure bunker. After more sex, Goldman and Lilli slept for some time, only to be woken by polite knocking at the door from someone with clothes for them. Then they were showering, and changing into the new outfits, which were just sweatpants and t-shirts. Shortly after that, they were brought to another room, where they ate Rice Krispies cereal.

  “Is it morning?” Goldman asked the person who brought their bowls.

  “Just about,” the man said. He looked at his watch. “A few minutes after four. Sun isn’t quite up yet.”

  “Where’s Sims?” Goldman asked.

  “He’ll be with you in a couple of hours. We’ve got some cartoons running on a local circuit if you want to watch TV.”

  They watched the man walk away. “I feel kinda like a child,” Lilli said. “Cereal and cartoons. Although in my house it was usually Life, not Rice Krispies.”

  “My mom loved this stuff,” Goldman said.

  “You said you were adopted, right?” Lilli asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you…you know…meet your birth parents?”

  Goldman shook his head. “Nah. Nobody knows who they are. Story is that someone found me in the middle of the road somewhere. A few days old, just left on my back in the fucking road. And the cops got me and I was in the hospital for tests. And then my dad, he’d had a minor heart attack. So he was in getting treatment, and my mom heard conversations about this baby who’d been brought in. And she somehow finagled her way into the PICU. I don’t really know the details but within a couple of weeks they had brought me home. And I was formally adopted a short while later, and became a part of the tribe.” He stopped, noticing Lilli staring at him with her lips trembling. “What?”

  “I just…that’s so horrible…I’m so sorry! Who the fuck could do that to a baby?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lilli. That was just my first couple of days. Almost all of my life has been a lot better than that. My parents weren’t always easy on me. But maybe I should have appreciated them a little more. You know, when you’re a kid you don’t have great perspective. I hope I’ll be able to go home and see them before long.”

  “I hope so.”

  “What about you? Any interesting family stories?”

  “Not really. Just normal country folk. There was a pretty big family divide when Weber came into power. I mean almost everybody in the Ethos area swung to the right, but I guess it became a decision between right of center and far, far right. And eventually that sorta became you worshipped Weber or you were the enemy. That caused some rifts. But I managed to avoid most of it and stay close enough to my people. Shit, I really miss them. And they don’t even know I’m gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a Lilli who is still in Ethos, about to have her life turned upside down. Right? Nothing we’ve experienced together has happened yet.”

  “Wow. Yeah. I guess that’s true. God, this is all such a mess.”

  A little more than an hour later, Howard Sims met with Goldman and Lilli. Sims didn’t look well-rested, and Goldman took that to be a good thing. Maybe some of what they’d said had made an impact.

  “I take it you two are ready to talk for real?” Sims said.

  “We’ve been honest with you this entire time,” Lilli said.

  “How’s Nathaniel?” Goldman asked.

  Sims rubbed at his temples. “He is resilient. The surgery was successful, but he hasn’t woken up yet. The doctors honestly have no idea how he’s still breathing, considering the damage to his spinal cord. They’ve taken all the pressure off and set the bones where they belong. He’s something unusual, I’ll give you that. But I don’t want you to have false hopes about his ability to survive this.”

  “Being here is not good for him,” Lilli said. “Something about going through the portal hurts him.”

  “Yes, about that,” Sims said. “We sent some people to investigate the spot you claimed to have emerged from. There’s no portal there.”

  “There wouldn’t be,” Goldman said. “You can only see it if you make contact with someone who came through…and that was before, anyway. I don’t know what the rules are now. The portal only opened for us. I’m sure that Weber tried to get through after we left.”

  “By which you mean the Weber of the future,” Sims said.

  “Yes. Look, you don’t have to believe this shit. You really don’t. You took care of Nathaniel, and that’s all we needed. And once he’s better, we can head to Montana and take Weber out of the equation.”

  Sims shook his head. “You’re a hell of a lot more difficult than I thought you’d be when I recruited you. You know that?”

  “I’m not the same person I was then.”

  “Yeah. That’s apparent.” Sims picked up a remote and aimed it at a screen that covered most of the far wall. Goldman saw the image of Henry Rowan, and he heard Lilli gasp.

  “Is that…” she started.

  “Henry Rowan,” the man in the image said. “President of the United States of America. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Mr. President,” Sims said, “Ben and Lilli have a rather unusual tale of their exploits. As you’ve been briefed, the Ben Goldman we were tracking is still in Ethos. And our spies have picked up this young lady as well, likewise still in Ethos.”

  “And would you like to explain to me how the hell that’s possible?” Rowan asked.

  “Sir, I wish I knew. I wouldn’t believe a word these two are saying if we hadn’t found that evidence.”

  “You two say you visited the future?” Rowan asked. “And in that world, Weber was still in charge? Still alive?”

  “Yes, sir,” Goldman said. “They revere him there as a prophet. Very few people have ever actually seen him. That world is a mess, but it grew out of this one. I know this sounds crazy.”

  “It does,” Rowan agreed. “And your recommendatio
n to Mr. Sims was that we go after Weber now? Assassinate him?”

  “I don’t honestly know, sir,” Goldman said. “Listen, I knew by the time you guys recruited me that there was some weird supernatural stuff happening. I heard the stories of the battles during the war. So I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you all know a hell of a lot more about all of that than I did. I know there are plenty of things you aren’t telling, and that’s fine. But I also know that on some level you’re gonna believe me when I tell you that Wolfgang Weber is one of those superpeople. And he’s not going to be easy to kill, even if you can get past his security.”

  Rowan nodded. He wasn’t coming right out and admitting Goldman was correct, but he wasn’t denying it either, and that was something. “Our military capabilities are nearly non-existent,” Rowan mused, as if thinking aloud. “And we are better suited to surgical strikes. We would struggle coming up against strong resistance. So what would you suggest, Mr. Goldman?”

  Goldman and Lilli looked at each other. “What do you think, Ben?” she asked.

  Goldman scratched his head. “I’m no expert, and I’m not expecting you to listen to me, but here’s what I know—in the world we saw…the future world, Weber had done something to box in the superhumans. What they called the Great Ones. He treated them sort of like celebrities, so eventually after thousands and thousands of years, they didn’t even know they were his enemy. But here in this time, they are his enemy. At least many of them. Or else why would he have done that to them?”

  “So you’re saying we need to rally these super-powered people to assist us in taking out Weber?” Rowan said.

  “Sir,” Sims said, “I’m not sure we should discuss this any further right now—”

  “Howard,” said the president, “if we aren’t open and candid now, we may lose everything. Mr. Goldman, we are well aware of the ‘superheroes’ in our midst. Well aware. And maybe you’re on to something.”

  “I knew it!” Goldman said. “You know about the Great Ones! What exactly do you know about them?”