Elliot Ackerman - 2034

In the third year, on one of his now-rare visits, the two had decided to take a stroll around her property before dinner. During a lull in their conversation, she finally asked, “Will you help me with something?”

“Anything,” he answered.

“I’m thinking about adopting.”

“Adopting what?” he replied, as if he were hoping she might say a cat or a dog.

They continued to walk in silence, until, eventually, Hendrickson muttered, “Whosoever destroys one life has destroyed the world entire, and whosoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world….”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Isn’t that why you want to adopt?”

“I never thought I’d hear you quote scripture.”

Hendrickson shrugged. “I heard Trent Wisecarver say it once. Though I don’t think he believed it. Do you?”

They had come to a portion of her fence that needed mending. Instead of answering, Hunt bent down and cradled one of the heavy joists in her arms. She lifted with all her strength, exhaling sharply as she jammed its end into an upright. It would hold, at least temporarily, until she could make a permanent fix. She did this again with the joist’s other end. Then she wiped her dirty hands on the front of her jeans. “I’ve already started the adoption process,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m not asking for your opinion. I’m only asking for your help. They require letters of reference. You’re a war hero; one from you might mean something.”

Hendrickson didn’t answer. They finished their walk, had their dinner, and the next morning he left. A week passed, a month, and then several more. She fixed the fence on her property. She remodeled the ranch house, turning her study into a nursery. Her application for adoption continued its slow, bureaucratic progress. She provided bank statements. She submitted herself to interviews, to home visits. She knew the odds were stacked against her. She was a single woman and over fifty years old—or “of an advanced age,” as phrased by the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department. But none of this would disqualify her. What would disqualify her, she feared, was what had happened on the open ocean three years before. Would her government entrust her to nurture a single life after entrusting her to end so many? She didn’t know.

Then, quite by surprise, a sealed letter arrived in the mail. She didn’t need to open it. Hunt understood what Hendrickson had done for her. She forwarded along this letter to the adoption authority. The process continued. Step by step she moved through it, transforming herself into a prospective mother and transforming her isolated ranch into a suitable home. The social worker assigned to her case, a no-nonsense official who seemed impervious to chitchat and who wore a modest gold crucifix outside her turtleneck, reminded Hunt of Commander Jane Morris, which reminded her of the John Paul Jones . Hunt was so haunted by the resemblance that on the home visit she’d chosen to sit alone in her living room as opposed to walking through the house with the social worker, a breach of manners that likely didn’t work to her advantage. When the social worker finished her hour-long inspection, she exited the nursery and commented, “You’d never know you’d been in the Navy walking around this house. You don’t have a single photo out.”

Hunt hadn’t had a response, or at least not one she felt prepared to give.

Before she left, the social worker told Hunt she would receive a phone call in the coming days as to her eligibility to become an adoptive parent. In the days that followed, Hunt hardly slept. Her dreams returned with a ferocity she hadn’t known since immediately after Shanghai.

The ships unload their cargo….

Panicked, she searches for her father, knowing she’ll never find him….

On and on the dream spirals, only increasing in intensity. Until, one morning, in the midst of her dream she is released from her familiar terror by a sound….

Her phone was ringing.

17:12 November 24, 2038 (GMT-6)

Kansas City, Missouri

The bedroom hadn’t changed in two decades. Posters of fighter jets, from the Corsair to the Phantom to the Hornet. A Super Bowl victory poster from 2017, the year Tom Brady became the GOAT. Varsity trophies littered the desk, a football player rushing, a batter hitting, their shoulders blanketed by a thickening layer of dust. History books were piled beside the trophies, including a dog-eared paperback of Baa Baa Black Sheep, an autobiography by Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington. In the center of the desk was a letter first opened four years before, the envelope yellowing with age at its corners. It had come back from the Enterprise with the rest of his personal effects. His father kept it there. When missing him became too much, his father would sit vigil at the desk and reread the letter.

Hey Dad,

You’ll probably hear from me on the phone before you get this letter. But in case it’s much longer than that before we talk, I wanted to put pen to paper. These past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about Pop-Pop. My first-ever memory is of him telling me stories from the Pacific. Later on came Pop’s stories about Vietnam. And, of course, your stories. (If you were here, I’d ask you to tell me the one about the camel spider and sheet cake again.) But more than my memory of all those stories is my memory of wanting a story of my own. One that I could tell you. And goddamn if I haven’t gathered a few out here.

We’ve been waiting to launch for days now (the weather’s been bad) and that’s given me time to think. I want you to know that I went into this clear-eyed. All I ever wanted was to hold my own in this family. And I feel like I’ve done that. But I suspect something else will soon be asked of me, something more than what you, Pop, or even Pop-Pop had to do. And if I have to do that thing, I want you to know I’m okay with it. If I’m the last in our family ever to fly, it makes sense that I’d have to give the most. When you build a chain, you cast the last link a little thicker than the rest because that’s the anchor point. The most punishment always falls on the anchor point.

That’s it—that’s all I’ve been thinking about.

Be sure to keep taking your heart meds.

And thanks for the carton of Marlboro Reds.

The old man finished reading. He gazed out the window, to the fields they used to play in. It was late autumn. The leaves were collected in great piles. He carefully refolded the letter and placed it in its envelope. He sat alone in the chair as the afternoon moved toward darkness. Occasionally, in the distance, he could hear the dull sound of a plane as it passed invisibly overhead.

07:40 April 16, 2039 (GMT+5:30)

New Delhi

Sandeep Chowdhury had a flight to catch. His taxi to the airport would arrive in a few minutes. The night before, he’d packed meticulously. This would be his first trip back to the United States since he’d left Washington as part of the peace delegation five years before. He brought an assortment of clothing, including a suit he would wear to formal meetings, but mostly he packed items to wear in the camps around Galveston and San Diego, which were filled with the internally displaced who had yet to resettle. It was strange for Chowdhury to wonder whether or not he should bring extra soap or toothpaste to an American city, where once you could buy anything. But no longer. At least that was what the security officer at UN headquarters in Mumbai had said.