by Gene Brewer
“We all hoped you might evolve at some point, but now it appears that’s never going to happen. With your present mindset, you can’t even stop your climate from deteriorating. Unless someone intervenes, we’ve concluded that you will never end the killing. It is programmed into your DNA.”
“Lions kill!”
“Lions need to kill in order to survive. You don’t.”
It suddenly occurred to me that Walter wasn’t answering my questions with so much malice or contempt as he was earlier. But perhaps this merely reflected the actual Walter’s personality when he wasn’t occupying a corpse. Or the influence of the squirrel’s. It also occurred to me again that maybe I was, in fact, crazy, or at least daydreaming.
“No, you’re not dreaming, but we understand why you might think so.”
“I’m sure I will have many more questions for you, Walter, but I’m not prepared for that yet. When will I see you again?”
“Maybe never.”
“What? You’re leaving already? But you haven’t — ”
“Now that you understand that we can get into your mind, we won’t need to physically appear to you again.”
“Then why are you doing so now?”
“With your species it’s a step-by-step procedure. If we suddenly spoke to you from the inside, you would undoubtedly ‘freak out.’ Which wouldn’t help either of us. That’s why we first came to you as a human being.”
“I’m freaking out right now.”
“You’ll get used to it. The worst is over. From now on, we’ll be here whenever you need to ask something. Or if we need to tell you something even without your asking.”
“No matter where I am?”
“For the time being we’ll talk here. Otherwise you might freak out everyone else around you.”
I pondered that for a moment before asking a question I didn’t want to know the answer to. “So from now on you’ll be residing in my head?”
“No, doctor, but wherever you are, we’ll be nearby.”
“As a physical presence, you mean? Like a fly on the wall?”
“Let’s just say we will be there in spirit.”
Was that a joke? “So you’ll always know what I’m thinking, no matter where I am?”
“Only until we leave you seven days from now.”
Another unpleasant thought: “Do you know everything I have always thought? All my memories? Even things I can’t remember any more?”
“No. Only those you are remembering at the present time.”
“So you know a meeting with the UN Security Council has already been arranged.”
“Of course. We were there when it was discussed.”
“You were in the White House?”
“Yes.”
I felt violated. There would never again be any privacy. As long as the Bullocks were here, my mind would be an open book. Even the bedroom and the bathroom would be under surveillance.
“Don’t worry, doctor (he uttered this with the familiar disdain). We’re not interested in your pathetic sex life, or any of your other bodily functions. Except for the killing.”
Somehow this information wasn’t much comfort. I looked around and noticed that the agents hadn’t moved a muscle. They seemed to be completely ignoring us. I wondered whether their minds were temporarily turned off. Otherwise wouldn’t they notice that I was standing in the middle of the backyard talking to a squirrel while they patiently waited for me to go inside? Had their thoughts been jumbled?
“We’re wasting time, doctor. Let’s try to focus, shall we?”
“I am focusing. As you must know, I was merely wondering whether you can put things into our heads. And if that is true, you could be at the United Nations to tell me what to say, couldn’t you? And also, if you can read my mind, why don’t you know that’s what I’m thinking?”
“We can’t read your thoughts until you think them, doctor. And we can’t put them into your head. Why should we?”
“So if we’re talking like this, why aren’t the Secret Service guys paying any attention to us?”
“They can’t hear our thoughts, doctor.”
I shrugged and headed for the door. Walter, or the squirrel, immediately ran into the woods.
My wife was waiting for me in the kitchen. Another breakfast, identical to the previous one, was sitting on the table. “Did they find anything wrong with you?”
“They don’t have the results of the blood tests yet, but they think I’m physically capable of saving the world.”
“I’m happy to hear that. I just spoke to your granddaughters, and they asked me to tell you that they love you. Of course, they don’t know what’s — ” Suddenly she broke into sobs, which wasn’t like her. I found myself becoming angry with Walter, and the government, and anyone else who had put us in this situation. I put my arms around her, tried to comfort her. But how could I be of much help when I was in the same boat as she was? All we could do was hold each other for a while. I felt better, anyway, even if she didn’t. Her embraces have always done that for me.
Finally the sobs became sniffles. “You must be hungry,” she guessed correctly. “I have to admit I cheated. I already had some scrambled eggs.”
I chuckled a bit at that, and she did, too. “Let’s eat,” I suggested. And we did; we ate everything in front of us. Who knew when our final meal would be?
I decided not to tell her about my latest encounter with Walter, who was presumably nearby, listening to everything we said. I would tell her about them a little at a time. Otherwise she might freak out.
The rest of the morning was taken up with all kinds of psychological exams — memory and logic tests, hand-eye coordination, mirror drawings, and all the rest. I suppose I passed, though I certainly would have done better only a few years earlier. Then the psychiatrists came in. The head man was a Dr. Bernard Schultz. He reminded me of Klaus Villers, the late director of the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, and his associate, Dr. Feinstein (whose brother is the well-known entertainer, she informed me immediately), looked and sounded like Virginia Goldfarb, the current director of the institute where I was a staff member for most of my career. Both of my ad hoc shrinks were affiliated with New York University.
The details of these discussions are not particularly relevant to the issue at hand. Suffice it to say that they drew out everything they could from my past, some of which I had forgotten about myself. Finally, Schultz asked me, in a thick Austrian accent, whether there was anything else they needed to know. I took a deep breath and told them that Walter could read my mind, and that I could also hear their thoughts, at least the ones they wanted me to hear. I suspected that my examiners would think I was a complete nutcase, but they didn’t seem surprised to hear this. We ended up chatting amiably about my former practice and their current ones. Both had patients claiming to be from some distant planet or other. I commiserated.
As I was getting ready to leave, I asked them point blank: “Am I crazy or not?”
Schultz looked me in the eye and said, “You’re not crazy, doctor. Just unlucky. None of us envy you.” An expert on sleep, he asked me before I left whether I had been having any trouble “along those lines.” He seemed disappointed when I said I hadn’t. “Well, if that happens,” he advised me, “we have a lot of new medications for that.”
I told him I would let him know.
“Good luck and godspeed,” he said, with a certain finality. We all shook hands and I was free to go home again for a brief rest, and lunch if I wanted it, which I didn’t, not after the huge breakfast.
Karen wanted me to call my grandchildren, and also our old friends, the Siegels. Instead, I begged off, and Flower and I took a little nap. It was still early afternoon, but I was already exhausted.
The phone rang at 2:15. Mike, of course. “We’re all here, Gene. Whenever you’re ready.”
I patted Flower, kissed my wife, and hurried out. Though I was permanently distracted, I managed to note that it was a cool, gray day, the fall colors about as bright as dishwater.
Mike was waiting for me outside the Nerve Center. He shook my hand and smiled warmly, a fruitless attempt to cheer me up and bolster my confidence, I suppose. We went inside and turned in a different direction than we had that morning. “The results of your exams are excellent, so far. For a seventy-four-year-old man, you’re in pretty good shape, mentally and physically. If anyone can convince the Security Council to take the Bullocks seriously, you’re probably a pretty good choice.”
“At the risk of sounding flippant: Hallelujah!”
He snorted. “I think I’m finally getting used to your sense of humor, Dr. B.”
“Prot and fled didn’t think I had one.”
“From their point of view, maybe you don’t.”
“How’s this for a joke?” I described my meeting with Walter that morning. All he said was, “Yes, we suspected they could do that.”
“But doesn’t that blow your mind? That they can communicate this way? Telegraph their thoughts to me as well as read the ones I’m thinking? Even fled couldn’t do that, as far as I know.”
“Of course it does, Gene. But so does their being here in the first place, or have you forgotten who they are and why they’re here? All this does is confirm that we need to take them very seriously and try to comply with whatever demands they might make. We’ve probably only seen a tiny bit of what they can do!”
He tapped on a door to Room 4, and we went inside. It was almost like entering another Cabinet Room, though the walls were orange and there were no pictures hanging on them. It was less than half the size, but, like the original, a long table stood in the center of the room, and around it sat more than a dozen individuals, some of whom I had met the previous day in Washington.
Everyone stood up when we entered, and Mike re-introduced me to them as we proceeded around the table. I remembered some of the faces, if not the names: the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, the FBI director, and on the periphery, of course, more Secret Service agents. This time, the Vice-President was in attendance, as well as the Secretary of State, and a couple of United Nations officials. And, of course, sitting in a corner, the ever-present Dr. Greaney. But no military people, as far as I knew. Finally we took our seats on the opposite side of the table facing the door, the VP presiding, Mike and I sitting to his right and left, respectively. At its precise center stood a red telephone, presumably connected to one in the Oval Office.
The Vice-President began: “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. But before we begin — ” Suddenly he turned to me and asked, “Is Walter here with us?”
I concentrated, waiting for some signal that Walter had heard this, but I didn’t sense his presence in the room. “Mr. Vice-President, I honestly don’t know. Sometimes he’s nearby but chooses not to say anything for some reason.”
“Before you got here we were all wondering whether he would come in with you. If he were here it might make things simpler. But I suppose you’ll be filling him in later on. Now. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss a schedule for Dr. Brewer and, for that matter, the rest of us.” He nodded to a secretary, who passed around the tentative schedule. I glanced at it briefly, presuming I would have a chance to read it later. For the moment, I wanted to listen to everything that was said. But I was surprised to see a summary of the events of the previous day and this morning, the first headed by “DAY ONE,” the second by “DAY TWO.” I flipped ahead to the last page, “MESSAGE DAY (DAY EIGHT),” which contained only one entry: “DR. BREWER SPEAKS TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL.” I executed my usual shudder, which no one seemed to notice.
“If you will turn to DAY TWO,” he went on, “you will find that at the end of this meeting we will be breaking up into various task forces. Or sub-committees, if you prefer. Ten, to be exact. These are: 1) The Brewer Speech Task Force. This will be headed by the President’s speechwriters, along with a few university professors and others with a general knowledge of United Nations history and protocol, including our UN ambassador and the Secretary of State. Its mission will be to determine what approaches might be more effective than others in addressing the Security Council, which, as you know, is composed of five permanent members: The United States, China, Great Britain, Russia, and France, as well as ten elected member nations. There are a lot of subtleties involved in getting a consensus among this diverse group. Because the speech is the core of our mission, you might say that this is the most important task force of the ten.
“Directly related to this one is the subcommittee on preparing Dr. Brewer to make that speech, or the Coaching Task Force. It will be composed of psychologists, speech therapists, diction and projection coaches, and a couple of throat doctors in case any medical problems arise. We need to make sure that Dr. B is fully prepared for his awesome responsibility.” He focused his penetrating blue eyes on me and grinned. I had to admit that he had a way of making one feel at ease. “Incidentally, your physicians and psychologists will also be charged with the task of seeing that you are well-rested and properly nourished and hydrated. It’s like a football game: no matter how much talent and preparation you have, you need to be absolutely ready at game time.”
He turned back to the list. “The third group is designated the Research and Co-ordination Task Force. Its function will be to obtain information that any of the other subcommittees may require, and to distribute this information to whomever might need it. Its expertise will cover a broad range of subject matter and issues, and will be composed of experts in every imaginable field of human endeavor. As we proceed, questions will probably arise that we can’t even think of at this point. But if anyone needs the answer to a question of any kind, this will be the place to go. Or to the Overview Task Force, which I’ll get to in a minute.
“Now we come to the more technical aspects of our mission. The fourth subcommittee will cover logistics. That means determining the best means of handling Dr. Brewer’s daily activities, including his availability for all potential future meetings and events, as well as any travel arrangements or accommodations that Dr. B might require. Beyond that, it will be this task force’s responsibility to make the proper arrangements with the UN on when and where to make him available to the officials comprising its staff or that of any of the member nations involved. And also, of course, his travel to the UN and safe return to his home, as well as that of anyone else deemed to be necessary to accompany him on the trip. This will include the President, of course, and other officials who will need to be present at the time of the speech.
“Which brings us to page 5, the ‘Task Force on Security Issues.’ This, of course, is a can of worms because it encompasses so many possible risks and dangers. It will be headed jointly by the heads of the FBI, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are still in Washington at the moment. In fact, this subcommittee and most of the others will be directed from D.C.” The Vice-President swept his arm in a long arc and again produced his famous ear-to-ear smile. “There just isn’t room here for everyone! Anyway, we won’t be concerned with their duties for now; we’ll leave it up to them to make sure no crazy people, domestic or foreign, try to stop Dr. B from carrying out his mission a few days from now. For everyone’s information, though, I can tell you that a no-fly zone is already in place above us, as well as check points in a ten-mile circumference around the Brewer household. And, as you are fully aware, Gene, you’re being fully protected by the Secret Service as well. Currently, in fact, you have more protection than even the President.
“Any questions so far? Good. Okay, that leaves #6, the Task Force for Foreign Liaison, which, I suppose, speaks for itself. Its function will be to co-ordinate any input from the other heads of state, and vice versa: to keep them informed of our activities. We don’t have to worry much about this group
— they, too, will operate out of Washington, and we won’t hear from them unless difficulties arise. Their first duty, of course, will be to convince the world that Walter is really who he — excuse me — they say they are. After that, it should be smooth sailing. At least we hope it will be.
“The seventh group is the Task Force on Media Information, whose function, obviously, will be to co-ordinate any information that isn’t of a sensitive nature to the various media outlets. The President’s press secretary (the VP grinned and pointed to him — obviously they were on good terms) will be in charge of that one, and I leave it to him to take care of that. He will report to me and the President, of course, but he knows his job and we can be sure he’ll do it well.” The press secretary nodded a quick thank-you. “He will be working here for now, in a small office down the corridor. When everything is under control, he’ll be back in Washington for the duration. I should add that everything that’s said in this room will remain here. We want to keep the press and the people informed, but only through the Task Force on Media Information. That goes for Dr. Brewer as well as the rest of us. Otherwise we’re going to have a lot of misunderstanding around the country and the world. We don’t need that; this isn’t business as usual.”
“More misunderstanding,” interjected the Secretary of State. “There is always misunderstanding where communications are involved.”
The VP guffawed, as did the Secretary. There was obviously a long history between them as well. But he made no response to the comment. “The next two subcommittees will be working closely together. So far we don’t know much about what the aliens want us, as a world population, to do, exactly, but from what Dr. Brewer has told us so far, they seem to be primarily concerned with our violent behavior toward one another. Is that right, Gene?”
I had been sliding down farther and farther in my chair, half-asleep, assuming that the Vice-President, who obviously loved to hold forth, would just keep on talking. I popped completely awake and sat up straighter. “Yes, sir, they seem to be quite annoyed, maybe even angry, with our killing each other. And I would add that they don’t seem to care much for our behavior toward everything else on Earth, either. Any death seems to bother them a lot. They can somehow feel it, perhaps like an ant knows when another member of the colony has been killed or injured. In fact, he likened the Bullocks to a colony of ants or bees. They claim that all life in the universe is somehow connected. They want all the killing stopped. That’s really about all I know so far.”
