Chapter Five
31 December 2075
Dallas
Presidential Office Reception Area
The Lincoln Plaza section of the underground Capitol complex, which housed the presidential office suite, had once been a warren of little shops under downtown Dallas—a bodega, an Asian-run fruit market, a drugstore and a barber shop. What trappings from the old place that had survived the first sceeve attack on the White House in Washington D.C. had been relocated here, to the underground walkways that lay beneath the city—a system that had existed for over a century, a relic of pre-war days.
In the old days, people had used the tunnels to escape the summer heat, the Texas wind. Now reinforced from above with nano-infused steel a foot thick (equivalent to being a mile under rock, the engineers said), the tunnels were shelter from a different kind of storm. The Secretary of the Extry had his office here in the White House warrens, and Leher spent about half his work time there, acting as Xeno liaison to the SECEX, and the other half twenty miles north at the Xeno command’s offices in the New Pentagon.
After Leher and Coalbridge descended into the tunnels Leher had expertly guided Coalbridge through the crisscrossed system. It was amusing to watch the confusion grow on Coalbridge’s face as Leher led him deeper into the Capitol warren. Leher knew the labyrinth well, including all the shortcuts and half-hidden connecting passageways, but for a neophyte, as Leher well remembered, getting around the off-white walls and grayish linoleum floors could feel like trying to navigate the layers of hell.
Reception, located in what had once been a barbershop and not a huge room to begin with, was packed. Leher stood in a corner and glanced furtively around, then tugged on his beard, checking to see if it were time for a trim. His method was to rub thumb and forefinger together and if the beard hair curled instead of working itself free from his grasp, clippers would be coming out soon. This action was a constant ritual for Leher, engaged in at least once every thirty minutes or so, throughout his waking day. There were many other such repetitions that became apparent after an hour or so of being around him.
Leher was well-aware of his compulsive behavior. What was sometimes even more exasperating was that, when he was in another character, coming to work dressed as a Peepsie, say, or when he was completely immersed in his work persona of hot-shot linguistic analyst, the tics, the behavior patterns all but disappeared. What he couldn’t do was will them away during the lulls, the down-time. To try to make himself stop the beard tugging, the crack-worry, the postcard-writing, was all but impossible and usually thinking about it made it even worse.
The reception area smelled of coffee and anxiety. A few desultory Christmas decorations hung on the walls—and a small, sad looking banner that read “Happy New Year 2076.” Leher figured it was probably in preparation for another gathering scheduled this evening—New Years Eve—although he hadn’t been invited.
Above my pay grade by at least seven layers. Leher thought. Don’t need the hassle anyway.
But he was in dire need of coffee. Leher spotted a big urn on a table against the far wall and made his way through the suited and uniformed morning crowd to get to it.
And there, in the center of the room, was one of the reasons for the meeting this morning. Rear Admiral and Engineering and Design Mission Director Alan Tillich.
Tillich shot Leher a white-hot glare of hatred, then returned to the conversation he’d been having.
Oh, shit. So it was going to be that way, was it?
Leher reached the table the coffee urn was on. He turned, glanced back, and there was Tillich staring at him once again.
Great. High Command was not pleased. The queasiness began to settle into Leher’s stomach almost as a bad as it did in space. He was not made for these bureaucratic battles—especially against foes who had defeated U.S. presidents before. If the stakes hadn’t been so high—
But they were.
Still, Leher felt as if cracks were gathering all around him, waiting to spider forth. He felt the urge to laugh, long and loud. Fought it down.
Damn it. He needed to get some words down on a postcard. Put the postcard in the mail.
Express the anxiety away. You needed rituals to keep the world from continually falling apart. He needed them, at least.
Leher’s rational side knew he was reading too much meaning into Tillich’s glares. So Tillich hated him? Leher couldn’t return the feeling. He retained the same admiration he always had for the Extry legend. Tillich was the Extry in the minds of many. He’d built the first fleet after the service had broken away from the U.S. Navy and Air Force to form its own branch of the U.S. armed forces ten years ago.
Tillich literally put the “X” in Extry.
It had been Tillich who’d insisted that “Space Navy” sounded too Buck Rogers—and conceded too much to the blue water rub-a-dub-dubbers. What was needed was a new name, one that suggested extraterrestrial, experimental, new—and Tillich had come up with it.
Actually he’d called it the “Xtry,” thought Leher. And he’d never really agreed that his original formulation might be confusing to pronounce.
Eight years ago, Tillich had pushed for the name outside official channels using his friends in Congress, and eventually gotten it adopted, with the “e” added as a sop to the opposition.
Since the Extry was a baby that Tillich named himself, was it any wonder he thought he owned the child now, lock, stock and barrel?
Another sullen glance in Leher’s direction.
Jesus, had this guy mastered the quick, baleful glance. Leher touched his postcard pocket, felt the square of cardboard under the fabric. Hang on.
Tillich turned back to his small-talk. Leher saw he was chatting with the National Security Adviser and the SECEX, both his mortal bureacratic enemies, politicking till the end. Or what Leher hoped would be the end of the man’s influence.
Look who’s talking. You’re not exactly Mr. Naïve. You’ve been known to do a bit of maneuvering yourself.
Leher turned to the coffee urn. It sat on a folded cloth padding which shielded the reception room’s mahogany table. The table was gorgeous, a piece of furniture that had been brought down from the ruins of Washington. It had been through the firebombing, been lovingly refinished. Smoothed. Seamless. Good.
But the coffee cups were antiques as well, and had not been so lucky. Why had the staff put them out? They ought to be locked away.
Not only were they out, someone had stacked them two-high on a red, scraped plastic tray. China cups, dainty, thin porcelain. Set with the Presidential Seal. Priceless treasures now.
The very cup Leher reached for had jagged line running from brim and down, down the curve of its flowery shape, disappearing around the curve of the base.
A hairline crack. Suddenly, Leher was convinced that they cup would shatter in his hand. That another bit of history—of innocence—would be lost. Leher jerked his fingers back.
Not soon enough. He’d touched the cup. It clattered off the second tier or cups and onto the mahogany table.
It did not shatter, but landed on its side—and rolled over one turn before coming to rest against its own handle.
Leher let out a quiet exclamation, set his hands in palm up supplication to the cup to stop, please don’t fall off the table.
Shit.
The world, constantly on the verge of falling apart.
Into Leher’s mind flooded something he must, absolutely, write down. Something he needed to tell Neddie.
I will compose and write the postcard as soon as this meeting is over, Leher told himself. I promise I will do this. I will do it by this afternoon, the evening at the latest. I will mail it before the night is done.
Leher breathed deeply and stepped back from the table, away from the coffee cups. Damn, and he’d needed a cup of joe badly. But then he felt his left hand—his writing hand—reaching into his inner coat pocket for a pen.
How did the hand get there? He glanced down at it. It moved with its own autonomy.
The hand took out pen, then postcard.
Motion for continuance denied. He was going to write down his thought now. Leher put the postcard on the table, bent over it, and began to write in the tiny letters that his ex-wife had once said looked like “squashed bugs.”
Dear Neddie, people get the idea that just because they’ve managed not to get themselves killed in 30, 40, 50, 150 years, then that means they know something valuable. Nobody ever attributes it to luck. Truth is, luck usually turns out to be by far the best explanation for most examples of long-term survival. As always, wish you were here. D.
All right, there it was. He’d written the postcard.
Satisfied, self?
Now to find a mailbox, send it. He’d already stamped the cards in his pocket and printed their addresses on them.
P-mail would have never worked. Neddie was too young to have a p-mail account. Nope, postcards were the way to go.
Leher suddenly had another thought that he simply had to include on the postcard, even though even he was running out of room at the bottom. He squeezed his letters into a compact, infinitesimal marching line to finish.
P.S. Neddie, people say we make our own luck and it’s undeniable true some times. But mostly this comes about just by keeping at it, not by having the exact right plan. I want you to know that I’ll always try, for the two of us. I won’t give up.
Leher had the feeling he was being watched. He straightened up, slid the postcard into the outer pocket of his uniform jacket, glanced around to see if Tillich was trying once again to melt him with his eyes. Not at the moment. But someone was looking at him.
Her.
Samantha Guptha.
Of course she would be here.
Leher smiled at her and waved a finger. Sam immediately disengaged from the group and stepped over to join him.
“Hi, Griff.”
“Sam.”
She glanced down at the pocket into which he’d put the postcard, and over at the table where the cup he’d touched still lay on its side. She picked up the cracked cup and ran a fingernail along the hairline fissure.
“This set you off?”
Leher nodded.
“Let’s just be careful there—” He reached over and careful took the cup away from her, moved it back from the edge of the table and set it down.
Leher looked back at Sam, smiled slyly, shrugged—as if they were both in on a joke instead of a very weird…whatever it was.
Sam smiled, nodded. “So I read this analysis everyone’s buzzing about,” she said. “Kind of brilliant.”
“Thanks,” said Leher. “So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“What does the weapon do, Sam?”
“Ah,” said Sam. “Yeah, I have a few thoughts. If I could get my hands on that thing—” Her smile became a look of fascination. Even longing.
The look he’d fallen in love with, once upon a time.
“Why are you here, Sam? I thought the first rule of contracting was not to bring an engineer to a management fight,” Leher said. “Femtodynamics run out of brass?”
“I am brass these days, Griff. Vice President of Research,” Sam replied. “Been a year now. I assigned myself to this meeting.”
He should’ve known. Should’ve called. Sent her a card—a postcard, a postcard addressed to a real address—something. And he would have. But the past year of work had been so pressing. He’d practically disappeared into it. And what free-time he had was taken up with the rituals. With writing Neddie.
Leher shrugged, cocked his head. “Don’t I remember your once telling me: ‘any woman in a business suit is a guaranteed uptight bitch?’”
“Guess there was a dark mistress of bitchiness hiding in my closet. Now she’s out. Let me tell you, honey, the party never stops in Mordor.”
Sam’s ice-cream-smooth Northern Alabama accent was still capable of sending pleasant chills through Leher. And her Punjabi good looks still seemed to his mind incongruous when combined with the accent.
She’d grown up in Huntsville, the only child of two immigrant engineers from New Delhi who worked for the old ATK Space Systems. Leher had met her in college, become best friends while going out with one another’s roommates.
They’d kept in touch in grad school—Sam had leaned on him during her break-up with the boyfriend—but had grown apart as both went their separate ways into very different careers.
Then came the invasion and the PW66 project. Sam was working on the team that figured out how to transport a nuclear warhead using the first Q drive. Leher had been a JAG lawyer on the project, fending off Pentagon bureaucrats and making sure the ad hoc team had legal room to operate. The work was top secret. Leher was among the few who knew that Sam was one of the brains that had saved humanity from instant capitulation to the sceeve.
She was a goddamn hero. One day, Sam would be in the history books—if there were going to be any more history books. But for the moment, she was just another aerospace executive.
“Mordor? Pretty geeky way to describe being a corporate Nazi,” Leher said.
“That’s Queen Geek to you, sir.” Sam smiled. Her teeth were whiter than they really ought to be. And she no longer wore glasses. Lasik? Or probably the new acuity drops made of tiny nanotech lens crafters. He kind of missed the wire frames. “Anyway, it’s a running game against a passing game,” she said.
“Much better. That sounds exactly like something a corporate Nazi would say.”
“Uh huh. How you been, Griff?”
“Shoveling the coal of cultural linguistics into the firebox of the American war machine.”
Sam shook her head. “Goodness. Then you ought to have developed more muscles.”
“Touché.”
Sam selected one of the china cups next to the urn—all the cups bore the presidential seal—and clinked it onto a matching platter. “Guess that’s probably why you haven’t called in a year and a half.”
“No, I—”
She moved next to him and playfully shouldered him aside in order to reach the coffee urn’s spigot. He caught a trace of tobacco tang from her hair as she passed.
Oh man, she’s back to smoking.
Time to change the subject.
“So—you’re in on the war council,” he said.
Sam nodded, “Had to head-butt my way in, but yes.” Sam’s eyes were sparkling, predatory. It was a side of her he’d rarely seen before. “I signed on as technical support, and then made sure the marketing v.p. got a shit-his-britches call from Kylie late last night that sent him packing back to Huntsville.”
Kylie Jorgenson was the president of Femtodynamics, Sam’s company. Jorgenson had been Navy, the director on the PW66 project back in the day. Back then Sam had hated Jorgenson—who was originally from Boston and projected Yankee bluntness—but had simultaneously been fascinated by her. She had now obviously become some sort of protégé.
“So here you are, the face of Femtodynamics at our little get-together.”
Sam nodded. She took another sip of coffee, left pale choral lipstick on the china rim. Leher successfully resisted the urge to take the cup from her and wipe it clean with a napkin.
There was a rumble in the corner. Tillich was speaking heatedly to a woman in a suit who’d approached him. Sam nodded toward Tillich. “How does it feel to be the Old Man’s designated executioner? You made a pretty devastating case for taking the offense in your summer report.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Leher said. “I take no pleasure in going against the Admiral. And I’m far from sure we’ll win. Argosy is still on the table.”
“It’s going to be tricky. He’s got lots of friends,” Sam said. “Powerful ones in the Senate. I’ve gone up against him a few times, lost some battles. And you know he practically owns the space-serving Extry.”
“Never a truer word spoken,” said Leher. “Look at me. I’m right. I know I’m right and he’s wrong. But he still scares the hell out of me.”
“He can’t win this fight, Griff, or we’re toast. You know that. Better he’s taken out by somebody who respects him.”
Then a geist flickered into being in the reception room doorway. Leher recognized the glue-green projection as KWAME, the President’s Chief of Staff. He was a servant, an artificial intelligence. His geist had the features of a middle-aged black man, but was entirely monochrome in color, including his clothing.
“There’s KWAME,” Leher said.
“Where?” said Sam turning around and scanning the room. Then she shook her head, chuckled. “Stupid me, I left my salt charger back in Huntsville,” she said. “Now I’m low on battery and I can’t see a thing in the chroma.”
In fact, only half the people in the room were adequately salted or adequately charged up to see the projected image of the president’s a.i. chief of staff. You could tell who was by who had turned his or her face to the door. There was a murmured as those who could see in the chroma explained what was going on to those who could not. Leher joined in.
“KWAME’s standing by the doorway,” Leher said. “He’s giving us the cue that the president’s ready for us.”
“Better get back with my team, then,” Sam said. “I’ve got two of my best along with me. It’s going to be quite crowded in there. Suppose I’ll be rooting for you from across the room.”
“We can pass notes,” Leher said.
“Sure, dude.” Sam smiled. “It’s—” A small tear in Sam’s eye, which she flicked away with a lacquered nail. “It’s good to see you, Griff. Been too long.”
Leher took Sam’s hand, and pulled her into a quick hug, careful not to upset her coffee, then made his way through the waiting National Security luminaries. Leher turned a corner and headed for the president’s office.
And nearly tripped over his own feet.
Shit. The Lincoln Plaza linoleum markings. He’d forgotten about the linoleum. Black and white checkerboard. When he was here, he always stepped only on the black tiles. White was bad. Easily scuffed. But he’d never had a crowd of bigwigs pressing at his back before. Shit. He’d have to move fast and still be careful. This was going to be one of those trials by fire his OCD often handed him.
Leher felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned to see Coalbridge, the Extry captain he’d met before.
“Want to take point?” Coalbridge said quietly. “I’ll follow behind you on clean-up. I’ll make sure nobody gets pushy.
Leher considered. Could he trust Captain Courageous not to fuck with him? Leher tugged at his beard. Not ready for trim. Two more tugs. Always three in a row for full verification. Nope, no trim yet.
“Yeah, that would be great,” he said to Coalbridge. “Thanks.”
Coalbridge moved directly behind him, and Leher continued down the hall. With a sigh of relief, Leher took only the black tiles. Behind him, Coalbridge did as he promised and slowed the pace of the nervous group behind him. Nobody tried to push Leher along.
Then through the open door and onto the blue carpet of the president’s office. It had once been a fruit market, and sometimes was still referred to that way by Capitol staffers. Of course, it bore no resemblance to a store now. The original owner and all his employees had been killed by churn in the first sceeve attack.
After the entire gang of twenty or so officers, political aides, and contractor senior reps (including Sam) had trooped in and took seat around an enormous conference table, KWAME mimicked closing the door behind them all, although in reality he had actuated some sort of servo in the hinges that did the actual door swinging. He flickered out of existence, and then appeared again, standing at attention across the room.
And there beside him at the end of the table sat Taneesha Joelle Frost, the sixty-fifth President of the United States.
She looked worried. Very worried.
Leher didn’t blame her.
The sceeve were coming back.