By Steve Orr
"Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?"
Kahlil Gibran, 'The Voice of the Poet'
Nils was hurrying down the middle of the street. Fear gripped him. It was night, yet he could see everything clearly. There were no vehicles, no people. All he could hear was the sound of his own footfalls. Nothing else moved.
To his right was the
He wondered why he was here. He hadn't lived in Adams Morgan since before The Strike. Doubly mysterious because he should not have been outside, at all. He had not been outside in over fifteen years.
This was not his world. There were no empty, darkened streets in his life. His world consisted of his subterranean apartment, his chambers in the
His social interactions rarely extended beyond his clerk, his fellow justices, and the two Secret Service agents assigned to protect him. The agents, though never very far away, didn't live with him. He shared his home, such as it was, with one very hardy, leafy green plant and a few fish in an oversized aquarium. It was a comfortable, predictable, and, of greatest importance to Nils, safe life.
Suddenly, he was no longer on the street; he was walking up a narrow stairwell. Then he was walking through an apartment door. Across the dimly lit room, her back to him, was a tall, nicely shaped woman. She held aside a thick, dark, curtain and was peering out the window. He tried to turn away before she realized he was there, but his fear immobilized him. She released the curtain and turned toward him, her face shifting from worry into relief. It was Maggie.
****
He woke drenched in perspiration; a pungent, almost sickly, odor coming off his body. His skin was hot. Fear washed through him in waves. His eyes darted about the darkened room seeking something familiar. Where was he? What was this place? Who was he? He couldn't remember who he was!
Inside his head a calm voice (not his own voice, but who's he couldn't say) spoke from his memory, "You are Nils Jorgenson, Supreme Court Justice. This is your home." Just like that, everything clicked into place. He was home.
As calm began to seep in around the edges, the thought came to him that he might have cried out. He supposed he would know for sure if one of his guardians showed up.
It was the dream. Again. The weird, powerless dream, followed by the frightening disorientation. How many times had it happened in the past couple of months? Four? Six times?
Sitting on the side of the bed, he did a slow count to ten, giving his low blood pressure a chance to catch up. It was not yet three AM, but he knew he would not be able to go back to sleep. He said, "Lights," and stood up as the room began to incrementally adjust its illumination levels toward his pre-selected preference: "
He sat back down, immediately, feeling very light headed, and wondered if he might have to start counting to fifteen. He didn't want anyone to see him this way, not even one of the agents. After a few more seconds he stood again and, on steadier legs, headed directly to the bathroom.
A long, hot shower later, he wrapped himself in an oversized terry-cloth robe and stepped into the kitchen. He found Philip waiting for him. Philip nodded toward a cup sitting on the bar. A wisp of steam rose from it, followed by the unmistakable fragrance of Irish Breakfast tea.
****
It was not the best of ways to start a day, especially not this particular day. The dream haunted him, continued to nag at him well into the afternoon. That he had dreamed about something he had been considering doing -- going outside -- made him nervous. He found it difficult enough to contemplate when he was awake, when he could exercise control over the terrors his mind conjured up.
The dream frightened him.
He lived his life insulated by the law and pillowed by memories. He liked his life, its simplicity and its safety. The thought that he might lose it all loomed menacingly, an unspoken threat.
The presence of a stranger in his chambers did nothing to dispel the lingering malaise.
Nils looked up from the contract and into the expectant eyes of the salesman. "That's it?" he asked.
"That's it," said the salesman.
"I'm surprised. It sounds a bit . . . unprotected, maybe even dangerous."
"Well, Your Honor, we designed it that way; 'unprotected', I mean."
"But, doesn't that put your clients at risk?"
"At risk? Well, yes sir, of course. But in danger? Not really. Yes, there's a quality of openness about the entire experience. But that is exactly what most of our clients are seeking. How else could they achieve their goals? And, sir, no disrespect intended, but do you know a better way to accomplish it?"
Nils didn't respond.
The salesman stopped talking.
In the lengthening silence, Nils got the idea the salesman suspected he had said too much, maybe queered the deal. Had he queered the deal? Nils was unsure. He leaned back, and the chair protested with a squeaky twanging of its springs.
Despite the fact that he had initiated this meeting, Nils found himself unwilling to engage. He kept drifting away from the discussion, looking at the items all about him, indulging the memories they triggered. It was a room filled with memories. Cherished law books were ensconced behind the glass doors of five bookcases. His personal copy of the Holy Scriptures lay to the left of the blotter, within easy reach. The brief for Willis v. Abilene, Texas Independent School District lay pinned to the mahogany desk by an oversized gavel. It was the thirty-seventh gavel he had received since becoming a judge. The rest were at home in a box. He couldn't bring himself to throw any of them out.
The photo of dear, sweet Maggie hung in its place of honor, its silver frame smudged with his fingerprints. Her great-grandmother's brocaded loveseat filled in the corner farthest from the door, velvet ropes blocking it from potentially devastating derrieres. Generations earlier, it was the sole place to sit in the small room where Maggie's great-grandmother allowed Maggie's great-grandfather to smoke his cigars. Nils knew that if he were to get up and walk over to it, he would be able to smell the faint but distinct aroma of
Each thing was its familiar self, in its proper place, but, in that moment, all of it looked foreign and strange.
He swiveled the chair, setting its back to the room and to the salesman. He faced the window, the newest version of the bulletproofed Lex-a-wall material. It had been replaced five times since he had first occupied the office, each version stronger and safer than its predecessor. Its presence gave Nils a feeling of comfort. It allowed him to view some of the outside world without fear.
He peered out it at a
Snow in May. Almost twenty years and I'm still not used to it. I miss Spring. I miss the Cherry Blossoms popping out in early April. I miss March coming 'in like a lion'. I miss . . . .
A memory flooded in: old Mr. Acker, the de facto 'keeper' of himself and two dozen other law clerks at Hirae & Dunleavy, LP. It was a memory from early in his career and early in the new millennium. They were in a ground-floor room they called 'the dungeon', though not in front of the partners. Mr. Acker was perched on his corner platform -- two steps up from the rest of the floor with barely enough room for the desk. It was really just a landing at the tail end of the back stairs, not a platform at all. Legend had it that Mr. Acker had been sent down to the dungeon when he had steadfastly ignored all hints that he should retire.
Whatever the truth, he had commandeered the only high ground available and had used the slight elevation to great advantage, intimidating his charges at every opportunity. In Nils' memory, Mr. Acker was leaning back in his swivel chair and gazing out the two windows that met in his corner. It was the same every March. The old guy would sit for hours, his back to the rest of the room, watching as passersby fought with the blustery winds that crossed swords at the corner of 'G' and 17th Street, NW. Mr. Acker gave special attention to the females who, mostly, lost the battle, their dignity blown skyward along with their skirts. Nils' desk was near enough to hear the old gentlemen chuckle from time to time, saying, "I love dress up day."
Forcing his thoughts back to the present, Nils reflected that just about every day, now, would qualify for one of Mr. Acker's 'dress up' days. Of course, few women wore dresses outside anymore. Even July, while much warmer than March, was still fairly breezy. And now here he was in May, giving serious consideration to walking the streets of DC, himself. While the wind would certainly be a consideration, and the cold even more so, Nils' greatest concerns lay not with what he would encounter outside, weather or otherwise. No. He could prepare for the 'whats'. <>
This made him think of Maggie and, as he had almost every day since it happened, The Strike. Almost twenty years ago, thousands of meteorites, ranging in size from pebble to boulder, had tagged the Earth. Fear and frustration mounted with each passing hour, as the rock swarm moved inexorably closer to planetfall. Believing themselves doomed, millions of people across the globe had rampaged, visiting death and destruction on everything and everyone they came into contact with. For a while, insanity reigned on the Earth. In the midst of all that, Maggie's death was insignificant to all but Nils.
The Strike was not the extinction level event everyone had feared. Even though a few cities lay directly in the path of some larger stones, more people died in the anarchy than did as a direct result of individual meteorites. What followed soonest -- high levels of particulate in the air, the colder weather -- was only the beginning of the changes visited upon the Earth by The Strike.
The change in Nils, however, was immediate and dramatic. Nothing could ever replace Maggie in his heart, but the law replaced her in his life. He could not do anything about death from the sky, but he knew what to do about anarchy. In his grief, he went from liberal to archconservative, championing law and order above all else. A federal judge is in a unique position to impose his philosophies on the populace. It didn't take long for like-minded political leaders to take notice. After that, his rise on the bench was rapid.
Many changes could be traced back to that long night almost two decades ago. And now, more changes were in the offing, changes in the law. Maybe they weren't as physically devastating as those brought on by The Strike, but the effects might be just as bad. A part of him felt a great urgency. Another part of him was afraid. His critics claimed his decisions as a federal judge had increased government control at the expense of individual freedoms. Nils thought that too simplistic, but also recognized the essential truth in the claim.
****
Philip paced up and down a short side corridor near Nils' office. Andrew remained still.
"He's an old man. It was probably just indigestion," said Andrew.
"No. There's something not right about this. I checked the log. I went last week on the same day and at the same ungodly hour."
"So, he eats the same thing the night before, then it takes a few hours to hit. I still think it's just a bad dream brought on by indigestion."
"I told you I checked the log. I know you went the same day and hour the week before that. I also noted that you only entered the date and time. Come on, Andrew, spill. How many times has he done this?"
Andrew sighed, giving up. "All right. He did the same thing the week before that. But, that's it. Today makes four." Looking away, he mumbled, "I still think it's just a coincidence."
"I heard that. Sometimes I wonder if you really listen to me. I checked the log, Andrew. I checked his meals, his medications, what he watched on holovision before retiring, and how many times he urinated before finally going to sleep. He must have a bladder the size of a pea."
Andrew laughed at that, saying, "Hey! Get it? Pea? You made a pun."
Philip said nothing. He did narrow his eyes, though, and that's what tipped Andrew to just how serious he was. When Philip narrowed his eyes, he meant business.
"All right, all right. I see your point. What do we need to do?"
****
He decided he wasn't ready. He needed more time.
Swinging back around, the sleeves of his robe making a quiet flapping sound, Nils fixed the salesman with his most intimidating look, one he had learned from Mr. Acker. "I'm not satisfied with these arrangements." He gestured at the contract that lay between them on the massive desk.
"There will have to be several significant changes before I will even consider hiring your firm."
The salesman was unfazed. "All right. What changes would you like to make?"
All right, yourself. I'll nip this in the bud.
"The security arrangements are entirely insufficient; too much risk for me. First, I want double the number of proposed field personnel shadowing me. I cannot be irresponsible, no matter how much I want to do this. . . tour. Second, I want some kind of distress signal device in case I need to abort. And don't tell me any fairy tales about signals being jammed by particulate in the air.
"Third, I've changed my mind about starting from here; too easy for someone to figure out what I'm up to. If I'm going to do this, properly, I will have to find a way to do it without Secret Service coverage. I don't want media attention, either.
"Fourth, no electronic monitoring; no record of any kind, or this entire exercise could turn out to be a waste. That's it. Get back to me with . . ."
"Done," said the salesman.
Nils was shocked. Much work, and not a little haggling, had gone into producing the original contract. He figured the deal would collapse with his 'eleventh hour' demands; that he would, at the very least, get a reprieve; the decision point forestalled. He had thought to send the man away.
"I'm not willing to spend more money. The proposed fee has to remain as is."
There. That ought to bring a halt to things.
The salesman was the epitome of calm. "No problem."
Now Nils was beginning to feel trapped. "How can you say that? How can you blithely agree to my demands? You can't have that kind of authority." Picking up the contract, Nils squinted at the signature line. The scrawl was unreadable. "You would need to confer with the owner; that's whose name appears on this contract."
The salesman smiled. It was a nice smile. "Your Honor, I am the owner."
"What?!"
"Sir, again with respect, I don't usually involve myself in the day-to-day activities of my companies. But no one of your . . . stature has ever contacted Revels for a mask. Once I knew a Supreme Court Justice had called for a fitting . . . well, that alone would have gotten my attention."
Nils interrupted. "How could you have known? I never told anyone at Revels that I was a Supreme Court Justice. I'm not the only Nils Jorgenson. I happen to know there are several."
"That's true, sir. But you're the only Nils Jorgenson who would be calling from a government number in
Nils blinked. That confirmed something he had suspected from the beginning; he wasn't really very good at Cloak & Dagger.
The man continued. "Your specifications were a little different from our normal trade, but not without precedence. Most of our products are designed to be disposable; party masks, really. The technologies involved are a bit complex, but I doubt you care about that, anyway. Generally, our masks are used for a few hours and then discarded. The deposit is substantial enough that most people return the hardware for a refund. But, even if they don't, we almost always get them back. There are even a couple of street people who have made a little cottage industry out of redeeming our masks for the deposit. There's always someone out there who wants that money.
"What I doubt you know is that we've done maskings for CEOs, Board Chairs, business owners and the like. A person wakes up one morning and decides he or she wants to know what's really going on out at the manufacturing plant. We can give them the means to disguise themselves as one of their own workers. It can be a very effective management tool."
"Wouldn't that be an illegal use of technology," asked Nils?
"I suppose it would seem that way." He paused, leaning closer, making certain he had Nils' eyes, " You know," the man confided, "my troops were concerned you might be running some sort of sting on them, trying to catch them breaking the law."
He continued to look at Nils as if expecting a reaction. Finally, he leaned back. "A careful examination would reveal that the laws allow the owners of a business to audit their holdings, to conduct an analysis of security, to ensure their protection from criminals, whether from without or from within. When they use one of our masks to disguise themselves, they're only using it on themselves. It's legal -- well, except in
"But you know all that, don't you, sir? I doubt there's anything I could tell you about the technology laws you don't already know. You wrote the majority opinion making them all constitutional."
Silence hung between them. Nils looked away.
After a time, the man resumed. "Initially, your requests looked something like one of our executive packages. So, at first, I remained in the background. I flagged the account so I would receive updates as my Revels staff clarified your needs.
"But when you specified the mask had to be 'fully functional in current meteorological conditions,' I began to wonder just what it was you were up to. Looking back over the discussions you had with my staff, I thought I saw a pattern emerging. You told them you were going to 'tour', but you wouldn't say where the mask was to be used. Then, you wanted shadows available for your 'tour', still without giving details as to dates, locations, etc. You insisted that your 'tour' must begin from this building. Then, you capped all that with the 'meteorological conditions' requirement.
"After that, I set blocks on your account, forcing all your calls to my personal communicator. The last three conversations you had with Revels were actually with me. So, don't be so surprised to find the owner of Revels sitting here in your office. You see, I know what you're going to do, sir."
Nils stared at the man, fear gripping him, one thought pounding away inside his head.
If this man has figured it out, who else has?
****
30 minutes later:
The salesman strode confidently down the pedestrian tunnel. To anyone that took the time to look, he appeared to be a man who had closed an important sale. Entering the parking chamber, he moved through a cluster of vehicles parked near the door, then headed toward one parked all by itself on the far side.
When he reached it, he pulled his keys from his pocket and, with apparent chagrin, dropped several coins in the process. Reaching under the vehicle as if to retrieve some of the errant currency, he, instead, left something the size and shape of a green pea. He stood up, looking around for the other coins. These had traveled to various spots, the nearest no closer than a dozen feet. He picked up two of them, and was stooping for the third, when there was a soundless flash of light from beneath his own conveyance. The light was so pale as to be unnoticeable unless someone was looking directly at it. Or, watching for the brief shadows it cast. He appeared to pay no attention to it, continuing to move away, searching for and retrieving coins for the better part of five minutes.
Finally, coins back where they belonged, he returned to his conveyance and climbed in. Pulling his vehicle's chips from the thickly leaded compartment beneath the passenger seat, he inserted them into their respective slots. If anyone had bugged the car . . . he just hoped the mini-pulse had done its job. He certainly didn't want anyone overhearing this conversation. If it worked the way he'd been told, it would have destroyed the capability of any surveillance devices within a six-foot radius.
He programmed his destination into the console, again hoping that things had gone as promised in the briefing. He didn't really know if the leaded compartment had protected the chips from the pulse until he felt the faint vibration of the electric engine starting. He was somewhat of a cynic when it came to tech, and more so with this particular tech. He was happy to be proved wrong. As the car drove itself away from the Supreme Court Building and into the main tunnel, he activated his personal communicator.
"Hello?" asked the disembodied voice.
"Hey. It's me."
"How did it go?"
"You were right about his fear level. I had to tell him I knew what he was planning. Oh! And I had to tell him I was you."
He paused to see if there was any comment. But there was only silence from the other end.
"I went over everything with him, just like you laid it out."
"Do you think he will come?"
"I wish I could tell you that I knew for sure. He's hard to read. I just don't know."
"If we don't get him this way, I'm not sure what we can do. We really need him to come. So much hinges on him."
"I know. It's a shame I couldn't just tell him."
"Too risky. Well, come on in. Everything else is in place, ready to activate. All we can do now is wait. And, hope."
Eight days later:
The hydrogen-powered vehicle glided smoothly along the floor of the tunnel. Though alone in the back seat, with an abundance of room, Nils could not seem to find a comfortable position. To make matters worse, the physical discomfort was interfering with his attempts to distract himself.
He worried that the two Secret Service agents in the front seats would pick up on his fear. He had known them for over ten years. They had been assigned to him as a team and had remained so. Once he got over the idea of having bodyguards, he had come to enjoy their company, to even like them. But he always kept in mind something Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Secret Service, had said; 'The end justifies the means, if the end is justice.' Pinkerton's imprint had never left the Secret Service, and these two men epitomized that philosophy. Nils knew they would take him right back to his apartment, or somewhere much worse, if they even suspected what he was doing.
The realization spurred him. He would have to tell the lie. Nils hated lies, and, understandably, had a very low opinion of liars. To think that he would have to count himself among them was almost more than he could take. But he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep his agitated state hidden much longer.
His first attempt to distract himself, people-watching, had failed. Nils hadn't seen a single pedestrian. In his anxiety, he had forgotten that the National Sunday Law required all businesses be closed on the first day of the week. It was highly unlikely he would see anyone walking through this section of the tunnels.
After that, he tried to occupy his thoughts elsewhere, anywhere. Finally, he decided to think about the tunnels. This one, with its two stories of shops and businesses, and the occasional walkway arching overhead, had always reminded Nils of the shopping malls of his youth. Except, of course, for the two main differences; this one had five drive lanes running down the middle of it, and it was completely sealed off from the outside. Even the lighting was artificial.
"Say, fellows, do you know the history of these tunnels?" Without waiting for a reply, Nils plowed ahead. He thought his voice sounded strained, but couldn't stop himself.
"Legend has it that the first 'official' tunnel constructed in the nation's capitol, then just plain
"Each successive President was briefed on the tunnel's existence; some used it and some didn't. Eventually, Nixon used it to give the Secret Service the slip one evening when he decided to visit with a group of students who were protesting the Vietnam War on the Mall. Using the Service's own tunnel to sneak away from them! Now, that is irony, isn't it?
"Wait. Let me back up a bit. More tunnels were constructed in World War II.
"Until then, though, the new tunnels were off limits. FDR felt, rightly so in my own opinion, that the very use of the tunnels would be enough to reveal their existence to the enemy.
"That all changed after FDR's death. Such secrecy lost its importance upon the arrival of the atomic age. Who wouldn't have underground tunnels in the face of potential nuclear attack? Suddenly, what really mattered was depth. The tunnel system was extended well beyond the confines of the
Nils could see the two agents making eye contact with each other via sidelong glances. He knew he should stop chattering on like he this, but seemed unable to bring himself under control.
"For all of that, though, it was just luck that preserved DC during The Strike. A few degrees to the east, a few degrees to the north, and the Balcones Fault Strike could just as easily have been the Potomac Strike. Then it would have been DC under water instead of
"After The Strike, while everyone was still under martial law, the Army Corps of Engineers designed and built today's mega-tunnels. These massive underground thoroughfares connected all of the existing tunnels, the Metro System, and the underground complexes into one enormous subterranean city."
"You probably already know all this, don't you? Did you know that, unofficially, everyone who worked in DC was encouraged to live in DC? The thinking went something like this: working people lived inside; only the homeless, criminals, and those on welfare lived outside. Exits from the tunnel system came to be treated, eventually, like border checkpoints."
Why was he talking about the outside? Why couldn't he just make himself shut up? It only mattered if you were going outside, and by the time the checkpoints went up, Nils had decided that, without Maggie, the outside held nothing for him. When had that logical decision changed over to fear?
Abruptly, Nils stopped talking and started counting the banks of mercury lamps recessed into the tunnel ceiling. He only counted the lit ones, which, on a Sunday, meant about every third bank.
Unfortunately, light-counting wasn't much more effective than people-watching. He usually lost count somewhere around nine. And that's when the panic would rise up and almost overwhelm him.
After losing count the third time, he just quit trying. He would have to tell the lie Mr. Duval had given him.
"Philip? Andrew? There's something I need to tell you."
The two agents looked at each other. Neither looked at him. Philip keyed a series of commands into the console. The vehicle pulled obediently into the far right lane and rolled smoothly to a stop. The right front edge aligned itself perfectly with a NO PARKING sign.
"Perimeter on?" asked Andrew.
"Perimeter on," confirmed Philip.
They swiveled their seats to face him.
"Okay, Your Honor," said Andrew, "Let's have it. We can only sit like this for a few minutes before central command calls to ask why we've stopped."
Nils recognized this as a courtesy, and it confirmed his suspicions. They had seen through his attempts at subterfuge. But they were going to give him a chance to explain before doing anything about it. Their years of being together were worth something, but perhaps not too much. Nils had thought it sheer fantasy when Mr. Duval had suggested this very situation might arise. It was beginning to look like the man had thought of everything.
Hating himself for doing it, he told them the lie.
"You have probably noticed that I am a bit . . . umm, that is . . . umm, well, not myself." Neither spoke, but he could see the affirmation in their eyes.
"I told you that I was going to visit an old friend, today. Well, that's not exactly the truth."
At this the two agents exchanged a glance. Nils had no doubts about what was communicated in that look. Andrew half turned back toward the front, his right hand drifting toward the console.
Nils hurried on, knowing he was almost out of time.
"This friend, she's, well . . . umm, BTS, she was . . . What I'm trying to say . . . Oh! I'm just no good at this."
Philip placed his left hand on Nils' knee. It was a gesture of kindness, and it almost undid him.
He took a deep breath and blurted it out.
"Before The Strike, she and I were . . . we had a . . . thing."
If Nils hadn't already been filled with fear, their reactions would have been comical. From a state of near granite, their faces slowly morphed into astonishment, eyes rounded, mouths open. Then, to Nils' utter amazement both men started laughing. And they kept on laughing for several minutes.
Nils found himself growing cross. It didn't seem so funny to him. Why, it could be true. Just how old did they think he was?
Finally, the two of them were able to bring themselves back under control. Both of them, however, retained their grins. Philip looked at him and said, kindly, "You'll be fine, Your Honor. Don't worry. It's just like falling off a bicycle -- you never forget how."
Andrew had already faced forward and was disengaging the perimeter guard. Still, Nils could hear him mutter, "You dawg!"
Philip patted his knee one more time before turning his own seat back to face forward. Soon, they were on their way, again. Nils was amazed! It had worked far better than he had imagined.
Not another word was spoken until, having traveled down a side tunnel for about 15 minutes, the vehicle once again came to a stop.
Nils looked about, puzzled. The tunnel dead-ended just beyond their conveyance. An unmarked door was set into the wall there.
Philip looked back over his shoulder and saw the uncertainty in Nil's face. "We're here, Your Honor. Welcome to the Watergate Hotel."
#############
Nils had never been in the Watergate Hotel. He was a child when Nixon’s ‘plumbers’ were caught burgling the Democrats there, too young to ever have any personal remembrance of those events. What he did know came from his own research after the salesman had left his office eleven days ago. Understanding that, somehow, Mr. Duval planned to use this place as a cover, Nils had checked it out.
Surprisingly, there was very little information available. He learned that it was a resident hotel for people with plenty of money. There was no ‘rent control’ space available in the Watergate. Just that one piece of information gave Nils a certain increased confidence. These people had to have money or they couldn’t have afforded to lease space here.
The door before them opened directly into an elevator; they entered and rode up.
Emerging onto the 11th floor, they walked along the hallway with Andrew taking the lead and Philip trailing behind Nils. Stopping at the apartment number Nils had had been given, Philip knocked twice. From inside, Nils heard a woman's voice, muffled by the thickness of the door, say, "Come in."
Philip took up a position just to the right of the door while Andrew stepped between the door and Nils. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, slowly. For a few seconds, he just filled the doorway, surveying the room that lay beyond. Once satisfied, he entered the room and stepped to the right.
When Andrew stepped aside, Nils was surprised to realize the room looked familiar. But, that wasn’t possible.
Looking across the room, he saw a woman standing at the window, her back to them.
It was the dream!
She turned and looked at them, concern clearly etched on her face. Seams and fissures appeared in the air before him. In no time at all, the scene looked just like one of the puzzles Nils had worked on as a child. Little pieces of the puzzle fell away, slowly at first, a blank whiteness showing through where they had been. More and more of them fell away, until Nils felt his knees buckle. Then he, too, was, falling away with all those little puzzle pieces, following them into the all-consuming white.
####
In the dream, he was on a bed, but not his own. He knew this because his head was on a down pillow. He also knew this because he could see some of the room. It wasn't his. Finally, if none of that had been convincing, he would have known because, from the corner of his vision, he could see a window with daylight streaming through the translucent curtains. There were no windows in his private quarters. That window would have worried him, normally, but the dream gave him no time for that. Before he could begin to think about it, things started happening. First, Philip and Andrew stepped into view. They both looked concerned. Together, they turned and spoke to someone else.
"Phone?" they asked in unison.
He heard a woman say, "In the kitchen." Nils couldn't think that voice could belong to anyone but his beloved Maggie. He thought, this is a cruel dream.
Andrew and Philip turned back to look at him. They appeared to be unable to decide what to do. Finally, the woman (Maggie!) said, "Go on, the both of you. There's nothing you can do for him. Make you calls. I'll watch him until you can get someone to come take a look at him."
Neither of the agents moved. For a few seconds, the dream was silent. Then Andrew said too Philip, "Go. I'll stay." Relief flooded Philip's face. In fact, everyone looked so relieved that Nils wanted to reach out and pat them, tell them everything would be all right. But the dream wouldn't let him move or talk.
Philip turned and left his field of view. As strange as the dream had been, it got even stranger after Philip departed. Seconds after he left, Nils saw the young woman (Maggie?) step to the window and draw another curtain across it. After that, the only light in the room came from the open doorway.
The room then darkened even more. As he heard the sound of the door shutting, the last of the light left.
Shortly -- or so it seemed; dream time is so different -- light reappeared, but from a different source. At first Nils thought a lamp had been turned on, but quickly abandoned the thought. A portion of an inside wall, the wall that formed the other piece of the corner near the window, was moving. Light flooded in around its edges. Nils was amazed to see it. The bar of light at the top of the wall grew larger faster than on the sides. It was as if the entire wall was hinged at the bottom. As it came fully open, Nils caught a glimpse of another room beyond. It seemed to be a hospital room.
Before he could ruminate on this, the opening filled with people, military looking people. There were half a dozen of them and, to Nils' untrained eye, they appeared to be heavily armed. One of them, a woman, used hand signals to direct the others. Nils thought of the poem where Santa Claus is discovered near the Christmas tree; "Without a word, he went right to work" or something like that. Nils almost laughed out loud, but found the dream wouldn't let him.
And the dream wasn't through with him, yet. Once the . . . soldiers? . . . had stationed themselves in a semi-circle around the opening, someone else stepped through.
It was him.
But before he could wonder why he was watching himself in the dream, his other self stepped over to the bed and looked down at Nils. A smile appeared on the other Nils' face. Nils felt there was a considerable affection for him in that expression. As if to underscore this thought, the other Nils placed his hand on Nil's face and said, "Thank you. Thank you so much! You've made all the difference."
This new Nils began to take off his clothes. At the same time, Nils realized his own clothing was being removed. Soon, he watched the new Nils, with the help of Andrew, dress in his own clothes. Nils shivered. He couldn't decide if it was from being naked or from the bizarre scene before him.
While Andrew, Maggie, the soldiers, and of course Nils, looked on, the other Nils, now looking exactly like Nils right down to the shoes, moved to the closed door, opened it, stepped through and closed it behind him. At that, the dream began to loose its hold on Nils. He was slipping back into the darkness when he felt himself being lifted off the bed.
#######
Voices woke him.
He hadn't wanted to wake. In fact, he felt most comfortable just lying there with his eyes closed. He was a little perturbed at the voices for waking him, so he decided he would just lay there. Maybe if they didn't know he was awake, they would go away.
"You have a question, Colonel?"
"Doc, I'm full of questions. Was the surgery successful? Are you sure you removed all the tech from his skull? Will he remember who he is? Is he going to be all right?"
"I think you mean to ask, 'Will there be any damaging evidence left?'; 'When can I interrogate him?' and 'Can I redeploy him?'"
"Now, Doc, there's no reason to be cynical. Sure, I want to know all those things. And more. But I care about the guy, too."
"If you really cared about him, you would never have agreed to this."
He started drifting away again. The one called “Colonel” said something in response to the one called “doc,” but he just couldn’t hold on to what they were saying. His last thought was to wonder at how much the Colonel sounded like Maggie.
#######
He woke again. When he tried to sit up, he discovered he could not. Above him he could see a ceiling, but it seemed very far away. There was a sort of square grate set into a portion of the ceiling, and he thought it might cover a light fixture; but if so, then the light was not switched on. From the corners of his eyes, he could see tubular metal rails fencing him in from both sides.
A hospital bed?
He felt, without really knowing, that he must be in a hospital or medical facility of some kind. If only he could raise his head. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with an unassailable certainty that he was paralyzed. Panic surged through him and he commanded his body … Flee! Run! Go! But, it just lay there. He was starting to really lose it when, in amongst all the chaos clamoring in his brain, he realized the back of his left hand was touching something.
Can you feel things if you’re paralyzed?
He tried to move just that hand. Had the feeling changed a bit? He tried again. This time he was sure; he was putting increased pressure on the object. He was moving his hand. He felt a wave of relief pass through him.
But the energy needed to do even this minor a task was more than he could sustain, and he found he could not muster the strength to keep his eyes open. He began to drift again. He heard what was surely the sounds of a door opening, followed by soft footfalls. Someone was very near him, but he could not speak or move; the herculean efforts of a few moments ago had drained him. He heard a second person walk into the room.
“Doc?”
“Nothing to worry about. He just needs some adjustment in the sedative level, which is not unexpected. With this kind of surgery, following what was already done to him (Nils was sure he heard disapproval in that phrase), we are severely limited in the drugs we can use. The stronger ones are contra-indicated. Still, it may be a good sign.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he is trying to fight the sedative, it is a signal of mental effort, maybe some returning strength; in other words, he may be exerting his will. And that … that would be good news indeed.”
There was more. The other person, the one that sounded like Maggie, said something and the “doc” person responded, but he could not follow what they were saying. They said words; he recognized them as words, but could assign no meaning to them; could just not make the words arrange themselves in any sensible pattern. Then the darkness took him.
# # # # # #
He was sitting in a meadow, grasses and wildflowers stretching out in every direction, broken only by a small grove of trees a short distance away. Far off to his left, at the horizon, he could see the barest hint of a mountain range. More of a thin smudge between earth and sky, but he thought it must be mountains. It was a bright day, but no sun was visible; and no clouds, just blue sky. In a way, it was familiar to him, but not like he had been here before; more like something he had once seen on a postcard, or in a book, or maybe in a travel video.
He sat for a few moments, looking, listening. Nothing moved; and, except that of a slight breeze riffling through the trees, grasses, and flowers, nothing made a sound. He was at peace.
There was no way to measure time, but it seemed he sat like that for a long while.
Then, from far off to his right, he heard a sound; he could not decide what the sound was, but noted that it didn’t stop. But when he looked in the direction of the sound, he could see nothing but the endless meadow. And while he continued to look, he formed the impression that the sound was growing louder, though that wasn’t the right word for the sound. How do you describe a sound that is almost silent and then becomes less almost silent? Still, the longer he listened, the more certain he was the sound was increasing in volume.
He peered into the distance; surely he would see something. But there was nothing but the sound. Yes, it definitely was growing louder. Finally, he decided the sound was like a buzz. He wondered if it might the sound of some insect. With that thought, he refocused his vision to the nearground, thinking that if it was an insect, then it would be close by; because, now, the sound was definitely sounding not just louder, but closer as well.
He stood up. And in doing so, he was surprised to realize he was wearing his robes of office. How odd. But even that was little distraction from his concentration on the sound. It was sounding less like a buzz and more like a … what? More like a …
And then he saw movement. Way off. He could see only the tiniest of motions, but knew with a certainty that something, the something making the sound, was moving toward him. Fast.
Suddenly, he was afraid. Remembering the trees, he trotted over to them, marveling in one corner of this thoughts at how spry he felt; how energized. It was almost like he was 20 years younger. All of the aches and pains of his aging were gone. He felt strong. All of this passing quickly through his mind as he went from trotting to out right running, knowing somehow that he must reach the grove before the – whatever it was – reached him.
As he entered the shade of the grove, he realized the tenor of the sound had changed, or maybe just being closer had made it so he could now recognize it. The sound was a yell; a coarse, ragged, sustained shout of anger, or maybe of madness. He looked about for something to use as a weapon.
Picking up a branch, like a baseball bat at its thickest, he stripped away the small twigs until he had a good place to hold it. Then he turned toward the sound and waited. The sound was much closer now, and what had been an unidentifiable motion was now clearly a person running right for his location. He could see the person was dressed in … what was the word? … Camouflage … Camo … pants, shirt, and cap. There was no doubt; this was some sort of soldier. And, if the mode of dress was not sufficient, the gun (rifle?) firmly grasped before him in both hands was enough to convince Nils. Him; it was a him; and he looked familiar.
Nils stepped deeper into the grove. With some curiosity about how he knew it, he realized he needed to find some way to hide himself; that stealth would be the way he could overcome this adversary. And that was another thing; he realized this man running toward him was an adversary; that he intended harm to Nils; that he would, in fact, take Nils’ life if he could. Moving behind a large tree trunk, Nils was only mildly surprised to look down and see his robes change from their usual black to a Camo pattern similar to that of the other man; sensing, but not understanding just how, that thinking “stealth” was enough to cause the transformation. More new thoughts came to him, unbidden; he must do something about that gun. The man could just shoot him. Unless he could …what was the phrase? … “level the playing field,” he had no chance of surviving what he knew was to be a fight to the death.
All of this time, however long or short that time had been, Nils had heard the sound, the yell. Suddenly, when it sounded as if it were almost upon him, it stopped. Its absence was shocking to Nils. The silence that followed seemed odd, as if the yell had always been a part of his life. He had the distinct impression that the sound had been there, beating at his thoughts, for all eternity, a constant assault on his mind; or, at least, been there for a very long time. He didn’t know what to make of that thought, but sensed he could not pursue it now, that now he must win his life from his nemesis.
Peering around the tree, Nils saw the back of the man. He was standing very close to the other side of the tree … and he was turning toward Nils. Realizing this might be his only chance, Nils stepped from the protection of the tree and, with a mighty upward swing of his makeshift bat, slammed the body of the man’s weapon, knocking it out of his hands and into a long, flat arc deeper into the grove. Following it with his eyes, Nils saw if fall into thick undergrowth some distance away.
And then he was knocked to the ground. The man struggled to pin him, as if in a wrestling match. Nils moved quickly, employing one counter measure after another, blocking several attempts by the man to subdue him. A small portion of his thoughts was still a little surprised that he knew how to do these things, but he concluded he was pleased to know how and could wonder about his newly acquired skills at some later point … after he survived … if he survived. For now, it was enough that these survival skills came quickly, responding to, and in some case, anticipating the attacks of the man.
How long they fought, Nils could not have said. But after a while he felt himself begin to flag a bit. He needed some way to get the man off of him, some way to buy a few moments so he could get to his feet, find a better defensive position. That’s when he remembered the tree limb. Had it been there all along? Why had he not used it? What had he been thinking? He had a weapon and the other man did not. Had he wanted to lose? There was no time for this kind of introspection. Tightening his grip, Nils swung the limb up toward the man’s head with all his strength.
He felt the limb strike the man, and then it was gone. When he looked, he saw that, instead of harming the man, he had done far worse. The man had simply grabbed to limb as it came toward him and had torn it from Nil’s hands. Now, he stood over Nils, limb held high above his head ready to strike. If this were not shocking enough, Nils could now see the man’s face … his own.
How could that be? He had no twin. How could this soldier look like him; just exactly like him? Then it happened.
Switch.
One second he was lying on the ground, tangled in his now-black-again robes, looking up into his own face. The next, he was the soldier, looking down at the black-robed figure cowering on the ground. And he knew exactly what he must do.
He swung the limb down with all his might.
# # # # # #
This time was different. When he woke this time he remembered everything. It came rolling back to him in waves, one memory triggering another. He felt as though he had been released from a kind of prison. He felt relief. He felt like … himself. And he was, finally, himself. He wanted some time to cherish that idea for a bit, so he didn’t move. Probably one of these sensors was instructed to call someone, regardless. So, while he could, he lay there in his hospital bed, in the pleasant grayness of the semi-darkened room (no, not a room, at least not a hospital room … a lab), and thought about all that had gone before.
The briefing had been thorough. The Colonel had told him a Supreme Court Judge, the Chief Justice actually, had been persuaded to come out of his self-imposed (but government enforced) isolation. Here might be their only chance to make a difference. If he could get outside, unhindered by his minders, they might be able to show him enough of the real world to convince him to lead the Court in a different direction; away from endorsing the overreaching (however well intentioned) powers of the Executive Branch, and toward restoring some much needed civil liberties. The heavy-handedness of the government may have served a real purpose in the years following the Strike, but here and now, almost 20 years later, there was no more rioting in the streets, no more rampant chaos in anticipation of a possible extinction-level event. Who knew what served as the motivations for maintaining near martial law all these years? Here was their chance to swing things back the other way.
The Doc had shown him the finger-tipped size piece of tech they wanted to put in his brain. Well, she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to put it in his brain. Every step of the way she kept reminding him that he didn’t have to volunteer for the mission, that it was dangerous not even counting the tech, and that the tech could, probably would, have side effects … some they knew of and some they could only speculate about. And, of course, there was always the possibility something could happen that they had never imagined.
He asked her, “If this is so dangerous, then why am I being asked to volunteer?” He got the answer he expected.
With a grimace the Doc said, “You’re the best match we have. No one else could even tolerate the insertion of the device; much less make use of it.”
He settled the matter by asking, “So what is this thing? And how does putting it in my brain help us get the judge where we need him?”
After a pause (She was really angry with him for ignoring her warnings), she explained. “This device is not the first of its kind. We’ve been using some version of it since the late 1960’s; and we possessed a version of it for a couple decades before that. We don’t know the original intent for the device, only that it allows people to become someone else. Through some means not entirely clear to us (she threw a very pointed look at the Colonel), the device can, when the subject is properly prepared (another look), bring about both mental and physiological changes in the subject.”
“Doc?” he said. “Can you give me the executive summary? This is interesting, but, well, do I really need to know all of this?”
She said something under her breath, angry; he thought she might have said, “Heroes.” In any case, she continued, “OK. Here it is, Major. I’ll bottom-line it for you. With the good Judge’s cooperation, we can feed you enough information about him and his life for you to, in theory, fool everyone about you into believing you are him. We can put this device in you and make you look, sound, act … actually, just about be Nils Jorgenson … at least for a while; hopefully, for long enough. You are close in height; some special shoes can provide the necessary adjustment.”
The Colonel, having held back for a while out of deference to the doctor, took over at this point, telling him, “In essence, you’ll be going undercover, just not quite the way most people would understand the term. You would need to maintain the cover for about two weeks, possibly less. We have a way to insert and extract you that won’t arouse suspicion. We have a person on the inside who can facilitate the switch.”
And that’s how he came to join “Operation Mask.” He was little unnerved to learn there was a full operation in place, an operation that had been in place for quite some time, to temporarily replace people with operatives pretending, pretty successfully it seemed, to be them. He was introduced to the cover company, “Revels,” and to their staff. He learned there was an active list of clientele who regularly called on Revels to facilitate their need to be someone else from time to time.
After that, it was a bit of a whirlwind. Digis to watch, voice to practice, walk to practice, schedules to learn; tons and tons of information to read and memorize. A very intense course in becoming Nils Jorgenson, Chief Supreme Court Justice.
And then the time came for the surgery.
“OK, Doc. Here’s your chance. Before I go under the knife, give me the full disclosure. What can go wrong?”
“What’s the point? You’ve made it clear you intend to do this no matter what I say.”
“The point, Doc, is that this is a military operation. I need the intel, all of it, before I go into the field. I need to know, as much as is practicable, what to expect.”
She eyed him for a few seconds, then said, “The potential problems are limitless, but there’s no need for me to speculate. What we know could go wrong is enough. Firstly your body may not revert after the end of the mission. It’s happened before. We think we’ve fixed it, but nothing about this tech is really sure. It wasn’t designed for humans; well, not exactly. Anyway, that’s a concern. Though, as much as you might not like it, your overall health would not be impacted, so it’s a minimal threat. Another, more serious concern lies with sublimation. You could slip into a state where you come to believe you actually are Nils Jorgenson. That kind of problem has also happened before. While your health would not impacted, your quality of life would change radically. We can’t just let two of someone wander around, both claiming to be that person. We have had some recoveries in these cases, partial ones for the most part. Some though, some have had to be … umm, restricted for their own good. It is among the worst possibilities. But that is not the worst. There is the possibility the device may break down. Human bodies are not particularly fond of foreign objects, and our bodies have found all sorts of inventive ways to reject them. In that case, the result, at least in the past, has been sublimation, followed by amnesia, followed by radiation poisoning, and then death. In one case, deformity preceded the amnesia. That one was especially horrible.”
“Well,” he said, “I guessed it would be something like that … not in that detail, of course, but I could see how someone could get lost. Fiddling with memory would just about have to be sketchy. Thanks, Doc, for being straight with me. One more question: why the special shoes? Can’t the device just adjust my height while it’s making all the other physiological changes?”
Her eyes took on a haunted look. “There were some very bad results, some changes that were … monstrous. We just could not control that aspect of the device. It took a long time, but we finally, mercifully, managed to turn that part off. What’s left is bad enough.”
He couldn’t help himself. He had to know. “Doc, if you feel so strongly about this, why do you stay?”
A slight smile came to her face. “Do you know, I think about that question every day? And so far, every day, I’ve concluded things are better with me here than with me on the outside. At least being here I can exercise some mitigating effect, be a voice for caution in the face of very seductive technologies.”
And, of course, something had gone wrong. He had gotten lost, had stopped being a mask for Nils Jorgenson and had ended up believing he was Nils Jorgenson. That must have really freaked them out. Thank God their ploy had worked. He was pretty sure he would have died if they hadn’t been able to lure him out with the idea of getting a mask from Revels.
He could hear the unmistakable sound of many footsteps approaching his location. Reflection time was over. He had time for one last thought before the herd of medicos descended on him. He didn’t know if it was a holdover from his masking experience or if he was just allowing himself to come to grips with something that was long overdue. His moments of reflection had brought one thing to the surface he would have to act on.
Jorgenson’s late wife did resemble the Colonel a bit, but it had never been Maggie’s face he saw in his thoughts all those weeks; it was that of Colonel Susan O’Brien. How he (they) would overcome the differences in rank, among other obstacles, was not clear to him just then.
But, what they heck, he liked a challenge.
