And we danced to the music of the spheres. Our fates entwined. Our fears forgotten. Our hearts luminous.
~ from the Song of the Radiant Lover poet unknown I4–2061
Monday October 27, 2064
District of Columbia
United States of America
Iteration 2 (probably)
The taxi rolled up in front of a brick building with part of the roof missing and several windows missing on the second floor.
“This is the right address?” Sam asked, looking at Mac in bewilderment. Six hundred dollars, nineteen hours, thirty-seven minutes, and three buses had hauled them northward to dump them in front of a dump.
“Home sweet home.”
She looked at the domicile in despair. “You should not be allowed to pick housing. Why . . . just . . . WHY? I thought the place in Alabama was bad.” The apartments had been so bad, the owner tried to set them on fire. How had Mac found something worse?
“That’ll be sixty dollars, seventeen cents,” the cabby said.
Mac handed him a green bill and opened the door for Sam. “Come on.”
“Mac, there’s no roof. This can’t be the right place.”
“It blew off in a storm during the summer. The landlord swears it’ll get fixed soon.” He hesitated. “This is a good sign.”
“Is it?” Sam demanded, as the cab pulled away leaving them stranded in the slum. “Saints and angels, protect me.” She closed her eyes. “We’re going to die of tetanus poisoning.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Yes it is!”
He walked up to a door and kicked the faded welcome mat to the side. “No key.”
“Great. So we can’t even break in.” Sam tried counting to ten, but that didn’t work. “Let’s call the cab back, go find a hotel, and figure out what we’re doing from there.”
“We can’t get our names in the system,” Mac said. “We need to avoid cameras and public places. We need to lie low. Right now, I’m considered a risk to public safety.”
“You?” She stared at him in bafflement. When she met him she’d have doubted Mac’s ability to win a fight against a cockroach. He was a danger to himself, not anyone else.
He raised an eyebrow. “A soldier fresh from the war zone with training and no support network? Didn’t you watch horror movies when you were a teen? I’m the bogeyman of this era.”
A car rolled up behind them, and Mac stepped in front of her.
“Captain MacKenzie?” a man’s voice shouted from the car.
“See?” he said. “Even the house is being watched.” Mac turned around and stiffened.
“Captain?” the man in the car repeated.
“Yes?” Mac sounded like he wanted to say no. He hadn’t sounded that hesitant even when they’d first met. Sam leaned to the side, trying to peer around him.
“I’m Sergeant Gillam, sir. I’m here to drive you to the service.”
Sam tapped Mac’s shoulder. “What service?” Mac froze under her hand.
“We have an hour before we need to leave, sir,” the sergeant said.
Mac’s hand found hers and squeezed hard.
“What service is he talking about?”
“The funeral,” Mac whispered. She could hear the pain. “It’s the funeral I missed.”
Sam hugged him quickly and squeezed his hand back, than she stepped around him. “Sergeant, we still need to get dressed. I just flew in, and my luggage went missing. Would it be a problem if we met you there?”
The sergeant looked from her to MacKenzie. “You sure, ma’am? I can wait.”
She gave her sunniest smile and prayed it would work. “I really don’t want to inconvenience you. And”—she looked at her abused running shoes and pretended to blush before looking back up—“we haven’t seen each other in a long time.” She drew out the word long. He was staring at her, and Sam wondered how obtuse a soldier could be. Time to draw him a nice verbal map. “I’d really like to reconnect with my boyfriend. Alone. Without an audience.”
Understanding widened the sergeant’s eyes. “Of course, ma’am. I’ll see you two at the service.”
“We’ll see you there!” Sam waved cheerfully and turned back to Mac. “I need a dress.”
“We?” Mac looked at her. “We’re going?”
“Yes, and we have a whole hour to break into the apartment, find me a dress, and get there.”
He shook his head. “We don’t need to go.”
The pain in his eyes nearly broke her. She’d do anything to take it away. “We don’t, but you do. You need a chance to say good-bye. Please?” She could tell it was the please that got him.
“Fine.”
The door swung open. A filthy man wobbled on his feet. “Who’re you?”
“You,” MacKenzie said as the man toppled forward, unconscious. “I smell foul.”
“Mac!” Sam shook her head. There were so many things wrong with this.
“Get his feet,” Mac said. “We’ll put him in the bedroom.”
Grabbing the younger MacKenzie’s feet, she waited for Mac to grab his shoulders, and they carried him into the house. He was heavier than she expected, not yet lost to the prescription pills but certainly well on his way. She guided them through the filthy apartment, which smelled of rancid meat and stale sorrows. “Why did you live here?”
“Because I thought I deserved it.” Mac tossed his younger self on the bed.
“Don’t break him!”
“It’s too late for that.” He crossed his arms. “We have nothing to wear to a funeral.”
Sam walked to the closet and opened it. As she’d suspected, his dress uniform was hanging there in a dry-cleaning bag. “Some things never change.” She saw his frown and smiled. “You had one in the closet in Alabama. If you were dragging it around then, there’s no reason you wouldn’t have it now.”
“And what are you wearing?”
“The first black dress I find at the nearest shopping mall. Hurry up. We have less than an hour.” She surveyed the disaster. “Where do you keep your trash bags?”
“Under the sink,” Mac said, as he reached for the uniform. “Why?”
She smiled. “I’m going to do a little spring cleaning while you get changed.”
“I don’t even know if this will fit.”
She gave him her tough-senior-bureau-agent look. “It will fit. We will go. It’s time for a proper good-bye.” She walked over to a tall dresser and shifted through the debris to find something that had caught her eye. A set of golden captain’s bars waiting to be put on the dress uniform. Sam held them out. “Do you want me to pin them on?”
Bone-white headstones marked the final resting places of the dead. Row upon row, a sea of fallen soldiers resting beneath the parched earth. It was raining now. Dark, sullen clouds had rolled in before dawn and sat over the city like a dark blanket. Mac hesitated. Already, they could see the funeral party. Twenty freshly dug graves with the grieving families in front of them.
Sam’s hand touched the small of his back. “Are you okay?”
He took a step forward and a deep breath, then kept walking as Taps played. His old dress uniform felt uncomfortable, the starch and the pins and everything about it was wrong. This was why he hadn’t come the first time. Even now, six years removed from the original stabbing despair of loss, the pain was staggering. A week ago, all these men had been alive. Now he was the only one still breathing.
They approached the back of the crowd, and Mac started looking for familiar faces.
Alina Matthews, the single mother of the lieutenant about to make captain who led the fateful charge, sat in the front row in a black dress, hat, and veil. Beside her was the wife of Top Sergeant Abel, a woman who was herself a veteran of more funerals than Mac cared to count. Her two sons wore crisp navy uniforms. None of them had tears. Not here. Not yet. She’d told him once that army wives learned not to cry at funerals.
There were others crying, though.
Flags were taken off the coffins, folded, and handed to the families. One of the POWs must have been very young, his widow was holding an infant as a confused and crying toddler sat beside her.
He would have given anything to trade places with the man in the coffin. Done anything to bring the men back to their families. He closed his eyes and let the funeral end around him as tears ran down his cheeks, and his fingernails dug into his skin.
The scent of an overly floral perfume made him open his eyes. An elderly woman with an American-flag pin on the lapel of her black dress suit stood in front of him. “Captain MacKenzie?”
“Yes.” It was a shaky whisper, and he was aware of Sam’s moving closer, getting ready to intervene if need be.
“I’m Mrs. Hastings, one of the Arlington Ladies. I thought it would be appropriate to present you with a condolence card, too.” She held out a white envelope with beautiful calligraphy handwriting on the outside. “Thank you for your service to our great nation. You are an example to us all.”
He couldn’t move his arm.
Sam took the envelope with a small smile. “Thank you for your condolences. This has been a very difficult time, for both of us.”
Mrs. Hastings frowned politely at Sam. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Samantha Rose.”
“Of course. Thank you for supporting our soldier. Being an army wife isn’t the easiest job in the world. But, Lord, do they need us. You take good care of our captain here.” She patted Mac’s arm gently and walked away to fuss over someone else.
Sam tucked the envelope into her purse. “You okay?”
“Are you going to ask anything else?”
“I don’t know what to say. The only funeral I’ve ever been to is my father’s, and at that point we were so estranged, it was like being at the funeral of a stranger.” She leaned against him for a second and moved away. “What do you need?”
He shook his head. “To go back four more months and stop all this. It was an insane plan to start with. Jerry-rigged to hell. We couldn’t get negotiations to go through. Everything was stalled out. I wasn’t even supposed to be in the unit—I was on leave—but they needed a medic.” He shrugged.
It had been raining that day, too. A summer deluge was washing the streets out, and he’d remembered grinning as his truck dipped through potholes. The plan had been to stop in to see his old buddies at Benning. Maybe go out for dinner or hit the town. Drive up to Atlanta for a day. Then he was flying home to Idaho to finish out his R&R before reporting to the medical unit at Fort Carson. He’d walked into a planning session. Colonel Kawsay was trying to talk some sense into his troops. The mission was too dangerous, and they’d never get permission. Flying in without backup was risky. The army was being held together by duct tape and tradition as it was; one more good push, and they’d all be gone.
Then Mac opened his big, fat mouth. Said he’d go along. A medic to back up the six-man team. He had the training. He was a good battlefield surgeon with an amazing record. Kawsay had finally allowed it. A few favors were called in, a commercial jet took them to a friendly port in the Middle East. A navy helicopter had taken them to a no-fly zone to drop them under the radar. They’d hiked in, infiltrated the base, got their guys out, and almost been home.
Almost been safe.
“You’re shaking,” Sam said as she took his hand.
“We were almost home.”
“I know.” She gave his arm a tug. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”
He let her lead the way to the abandoned seats, still warm from the mourners who were leaving. “Sam . . .” He stood up. “I don’t belong here. I’m on the wrong side.” There should have been a grave for him.
She followed his gaze, understood the despair in his voice. “No, you aren’t.” Wrapping her arms around his she pulled in close. “You weren’t meant to die with them.”
He closed his eyes. It would have been so much easier to take the bullet there in Afghanistan. A moment of pain in exchange for a lifetime of anguish.
“Eric?” a quavering but familiar voice from his nightmares asked. Bring my baby home.
He turned, tears running down his face. “Mrs. Matthews, I am so sorry for the loss of your son.”
She launched herself at him, wrapping skinny arms around his chest and squeezing him tight. “I didn’t see you here. I thought you were angry with me.” She sobbed. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned back and reached up to pat his face. “All my babies.” She hugged him again. “I thank God every night you came back. I prayed for you all. I prayed for Daniel. Lit candles for him every day while you were gone. I was so selfish, praying only for my son.”
Mac shook his head. “No. That’s the right thing to do.” His family had prayed for him, he knew it. He hated knowing that only their prayers were answered. Hated God and himself for failing to bring his fellow soldiers home.
“I still pray for them. Every night I tell God to keep them. And I pray for you.” She patted his cheek again. “To survive all that? If this is what God chooses to train you with? What must God have in store for you?”
“I don’t know.” He looked to Sam, elegant in a simple black dress, black hair framing her face, and wondered if she was the reason. Prayer wasn’t something he’d wanted. Answers . . . he kept asking why he was alive, and there she was, smiling at him, caring for him, silently standing beside him at his worst. He reached for her.
Sam took his hand and stepped closer.
“Mrs. Matthews, this is Sam, she’s um . . .”
“His girlfriend,” Sam said.
Something like that. No—something much more than that. She was his lifeline. His heart and soul. The reason he woke up in the morning. “Sam, this is Dan Matthews’s mom.” He stumbled over his friend’s name, not sure if he’d ever mentioned Dan or the rest of the soldiers to her.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Sam said. “Mac has told me so much about your son. He was an amazing young man. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Of course she had the right words. Sam always did.
Alina Matthews reached out and patted Sam’s face. “Thank you.
Mac shook as she walked away. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Everyone was leaving. All but the dead. He leaned his head back, letting the rain wash away the tears. Sam wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her tight, needing the warmth. And then he rested his head on hers and cried.
Sam slid down the wall until her rump hit the faux hardwood of the floor. The only sound aside from the lashing rain were the snores and occasional whimpers of Li’l Eric MacKenzie sleeping in his bedroom.
Mac sat down beside her. “How you doing?”
“I could be worse.” He offered her a can of a soda—a brand she didn’t recognize. She opened it and tasted it gingerly. It was better than the tap water, but not by much. Was everything so sickeningly sweet back then?
“I realized today I’ve never been to a funeral that wasn’t related to a murder investigation. I don’t know what to do when I’m not looking for a killer. It’s a little surreal.”
“You did fine,” Mac said. He chugged his pop, then crushed the can. “You did . . . amazing.”
She blushed slightly. She’d been hearing things like that from him for so long, but she had never really let herself listen. Now, though . . . it filled her with warmth. Warmth she wanted to share. “How are you holding up?”
He did an odd, one-sided shoulder-to-ear shrug. “I’m empty. I know they say that funerals are for the living, one last chance to say good-bye, but I never really believed it. Most funerals I’ve been to have been celebrations. You don’t grieve someone who dies peacefully in their sleep at ninety surrounded by friends and family. You break out the old journals, read about their school-yard crushes, and tell stories. This felt like good-bye. Good-bye to my friends, good-bye to my life, good-bye army, good-bye everything. This is where it all fell apart.” He gestured vaguely at the molding walls. “I thought I’d die here.”
“Here in D.C.? Why?”
“That’s what all the alcohol was for. I thought it was a poison, I guess. The news always had stories about someone drinking too much and getting alcohol poisoning, so I bought all the liquor I could afford.
“I was trying to drown the pain. Not the injuries. There was something inside, stabbing me and smothering me. I felt trapped in my own body.” He looked at her. “Does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t have to, Mac. Don’t you get it: You didn’t kill yourself. All on your own—for whatever reason—you lived in order to meet me in Alabama. And look how far you came from that person. Do you feel better now?”
“Most days.”
“We’re getting you back to therapy once we figure out where we’re staying.” She took a deep breath as the enormity of the situation hit her. “We are going to find somewhere else to stay, aren’t we? Somewhere not here?”
Mac nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Oh, you have a plan?” She drank some more of the carbonated sugar water and hoped it kicked her brain in gear.
He grimaced. “Part of a plan?”
“You fill me with such hope.”
He scrambled to his feet, went into the bedroom, and brought back a large black duffel, shutting the door on the sleeping Eric as he passed. “On my way up to find you at Fort Benning, I stopped at a little pawnshop to see if I could find an unregistered gun.”
Sam covered her ears. “I’m not hearing this.”
Mac pulled her hands away from her face laughing. “Who broke into a government building and stole an ID card? That was you. Don’t give me a hard time. I paid for the gun.”
Mac unzipped the duffel to reveal faded green rectangles of United States currency. “My reup bonus. I took it out in cash because I thought it was better than a bank at the time.”
Sam held up a stack of twenty-dollar bills. “Your country had really ugly money.”
“Thanks, remind me to compliment Canada sometime. What was on them? An old woman and a crazy bird?”
She made a face and stuck out her tongue.
“Right now, this currency is good, but the exchange rate after the nationhood vote was ridiculous. Five thousand USD got you thirteen cents of Commonwealth cash. The United States dollar was dead, and everyone got a check to help them start over.”
“How far away is that?”
“The vote is on November 11, but the polls will close early when it’s obvious the overwhelming majority of the citizens want to join the Commonwealth.” Mac took the cash back. “The spring after we joined the Commonwealth, the online DIY sites were full of ways to use cash to decorate. People used them for wallpaper and covered lamps in them.”
Sam’s eyes went wide with horror. “That’s beyond tacky. Why didn’t I hear about it?”
“Eh, it was only in style for a minute or two, and it’s not like Canada had the same problems with the transition that we did.”
“Okay, so we have capital. It’s a good way to make a fresh start. The question is: Where Do We Go?”
Mac pulled a piece of glossy printed paper from his back pocket. He unfolded it and passed it to Sam.
She read it aloud, “ ‘Come visit beautiful Australia and find your new dream home’?”
“Australia lost nearly eighty percent of its population in the plague.”
“Only because they were trafficking sex slaves from all over Asia,” Sam said. “They shut down the ports in time, but they didn’t shut down the human traffickers.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Ancient history.”
“Nineteen years ago isn’t ancient history.”
“Listen, right now, Australia is taking skilled immigrants and offering them a move-in bonus, a job-signing bonus, and housing. There are houses sitting empty, and we can have one.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s the catch?”
“The offer is going to expire in four days, when several major politicians come out in favor of the nationhood vote.”
“And?”
“And I can’t fly right now. The airports are using fingerprint scanners, and I’m on the no-fly list because of my combat status. The soonest I can leave the country is when we hit the transition period between the vote and the Commonwealth government’s actually taking over. All the airports will lose security, but the airlines will do big business for a few weeks while people try to escape. Europe is the most popular destination, but there will be flights to Australia.”
“If nothing changes.”
“If nothing changes,” Mac agreed.
“That’s a really big IF.”
He shrugged. “It’s a way out. And you don’t have to wait: With a few bribes, we can get you on a plane by tomorrow night. You go to Australia, and you’ll have a house and job before the end of the month. You’ll be safe.”