John Barnes - Directive 51

“Pbbt. You are walking proof that the world is going to go on, and the human race isn’t beat yet, and that’s how I’m going to look at it. Listen, I’ve been seeing a nice guy named Everett, he’s a civilian contractor guy, used to be part of base security, and him and me just got quarters together—we were thinking of throwing a housewarming—can we throw you a little party? Just something to celebrate, because there’s something to celebrate? Here it is two weeks before Christmas; why don’t we let a little happiness into the world? Say yes or I’ll keep talking till you do.”

Heather said yes. On the way back to her office, she noticed that Benning was kind of pretty, this time of year, when the sun was shining.

“Car bearings work okay with corn oil, especially if you never go faster’n twenty,” the driver explained, “and it turned out that the historical-re-creation guys had a guy who knew wheelwrighting. So he put the wheels on this old school bus—’scuse me—” He reached up with the long pole and lifted the grapple off the tow rope; momentum carried the old school bus forward, and he set the grapple down on the next eastbound cable. “And took off the cab roof so I could use this here pole, and the only steering we need to do is to not hit the posts and not hit the other buggies. And the old thing rolls along like a kid’s quacky duck.”

Heather watched idly as the operator kept the cable buggy moving; he’d become good at a craft that hadn’t existed two months ago and wouldn’t have existed if an engineer who volunteered at a museum hadn’t happened to be the main restorer on an old steam thresher, and realized it had an engine big enough to drive the cable system. Allie and Arnie were chattering away, talking and pointing at things, in the seat behind her; at least it looked like they were happy with each other again. Could be the problem was all in Arnie’s mind.

I feel pretty good myself. Their first trip out of the DRET compound since getting here, and it was for a party.

The party itself was pleasantly, predictably dull; everyone congratulated Heather and looked for a nice way to say that it was a shame Lenny couldn’t be here for this. She was asked if she was hoping to have a boy or a girl (“Yes,” she would say, “it would be so much easier than having a monkey or a platypus”); if she had thought about names (“Leonardo if it’s a boy—that was Lenny’s full name—and Riley if it’s a girl—that was my mother’s name”), and if she felt well (“Strong as a moose, let’s not start pretending I’m a blushing flower now!”)

Most of the conversation, though, was about the upcoming move to Athens. The state of Georgia was donating the new TNG District, and the campus of the University of Georgia would be the capital buildings for the foreseeable future. The move was already under way now that the Corps of Engineers, under the hasty tutelage of Georgia’s dozens of old railroad buffs, had pieced together a viable pathway for the three operating steam locomotives that they’d managed to find. Conveniently, the line that hauled coal to the U of Georgia power plant was still in business, so there would be access directly to the campus/government buildings.

They were using the lines through Atlanta, because they needed only minor repairs for the moment. Given that Atlanta might not be re-inhabited for generations, the Corps was planning to rehab the connection from Bishop to Madison, because rail traffic between Benning and Athens, a major military base and the new national capital, with a war on, was anticipated to be very heavy.

There were two other good reasons for doing the project, according to one pleasantly drunk young engineer that Heather found herself talking to—it cut a hundred or so miles out of the trip, and whereas Atlanta was dead and couldn’t possibly do any legislators any favors to get the rail traffic, Macon was functioning pretty well.

Everett’s bread and hummus were delicious, and a French chiropractor did talk Heather into the single glass of red wine “for the iron, to be sure, it’s just for the iron, and you don’t have to enjoy it even one little bit, if you are too American for that!”

She’s probably right, but how will I ever explain it to Lenny if I give birth to a Frenchman?

Much of the time she felt like she was trying to remember the whole party so she could tell Lenny about it afterward, but it felt good rather than sad. Lenny, I am going to bore our child stiff with reminiscences about you, guy.

On her way back from the outhouse, Arnie took her arm and guided her into the darkness of the side yard. “Allie’s bringing Everett around to here. You know what his security company guards?”

“I don’t know, nukes?”

“Some of those. Mostly, though, for some years they’ve had the contract to run and guard the special facility where they keep the politically awkward cases.”

“Which are what?”

“Well, originally… School of the Americas was here—the place where America trained right-wing dictators and their secret police, and sometimes helped them plan coups. There was also a research arm, where DIA and some other agencies interrogated Soviet or Cuban agents that we knew the coms wouldn’t want back. And now and then, the facility held American radicals, usually ones who had been ‘disappeared’ while overseas. Basically the Department of Never Seen Again.”

She shuddered. “I thought those days were over, but since there’s a war on—”

Arnie held up a finger. Allie and Everett joined them in the dark. Sherry’s boyfriend was a very dark-skinned African-American, tall and fit, with close-cropped hair and beard. He didn’t bother with formalities. “Okay, you didn’t hear this from me. But it’s true. The secret holding facility has a couple new guests—one of them is General McIntyre, who used to be the base commander. He’s there because he wouldn’t arrest and hold the other one—”

“Graham Weisbrod,” Heather breathed. “Is he all right?”

“Except that he’s rightfully the President of the United States, and he’s in jail, he’s just fine.” Everett glanced around them. “Look, I don’t know what it’s about, and I ain’t a lawyer, but I don’t think the Continuity Coordinator gets to pick the president, or decide when the Constitution applies. That sounds all backward to me. And I took an oath back when I was in the service myself, to support and defend the Constitution—not to work for any old guy who said he might give us our Constitution back sometime. You understand? I just… it’s not right. So here’s the other thing you didn’t hear from me. General Phat, I guess, doesn’t want to have McIntyre and Weisbrod in his secret stockade, so they’re going to move them up to someplace outside Athens. Seems to me that what with passing through a lot of empty country…” He shrugged.

“If we wanted to do something, would you help us?” Heather asked.

“I’d sure want to be a guy that you could ask.”

“We’re asking,” Allie said.

“Then I guess I’ll try to help. Enough for tonight, see you in a day or so when I have an excuse to bump into one of you. I’ll let you know through Sherry.” He vanished into the crowd; Heather went the other way. Arnie and Allie were about to have a quarrel, she could tell, and she preferred to be well away from them before it started. Well, I suppose Arnie has a point. Being volunteered for a coup, or a countercoup, without being asked first, is outside the usual boyfriendly duties.