David Shafer - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Leila saw then that it wasn’t a rifle but a sort of a telescope. Where there should have been a muzzle, there was a tiny ceramic parabolic antenna.

Constance made a finger-to-lips be-quiet sign at Leila. Leila stopped where she was.

“Wait for it,” Trip said without looking at the people behind him. He trained the rifle telescope low over the far horizon. “Okay. Keyhole access in three seconds. Two. One. Established.” Leila could see he was concentrating keenly on his aim.

“Go,” said Constance to Mark.

Mark pressed a button on his Node. Leila heard the bubbly ring of the call he was making.

“Hello?” said a voice from the PC.

Mark spoke at his phone. “James. It’s me. Mark.”

“Mark? That’s not what the screen says. Why are you calling cloaked? Parker says that’s for emergencies only.”

“I know, James. It’s just that it’s Parker I’d rather not talk to right now. I was afraid he might intercept the call. He seems rather upset with me.”

“He is upset with you, Mark. We all are. I heard about your performance at Nike. You know I’ve really done a lot for you, Mark.”

“I know, James. I know. And the thing at Nike, that was bad shellfish I had the night previous. I’m mortified, I assure you.”

Silence from Straw.

“But the thing is, James, I’m not sure Parker understands us. I’m not sure he is able to appreciate the…nature of the connection between us. Maybe even I have wanted to turn away from it at times, you know? Because I was afraid, because I have been afraid…of accepting the closeness that you’ve offered me.”

“Closeness?” said Straw. The line a bit crackly.

Mark shut his eyes and continued. “Our minds, James. The way our minds have become close. If I could just talk to you again, about this job you want me to do.”

“You’re accepting the job?”

“Oh, yes, James, yes. But I want to accept it in person, with you. Maybe by the pool. I’m sorry I was seasick that last time. I want you to show me more. I want to learn from you now. I want you to teach me .”

“This is wonderful news, Mark. I hoped you would come to see it this way.”

“When can I come back to you, James? Can it be soon? Where are you? I’m still in Portland.” Mark really did manage to sound ardent.

“Nils!” they could hear Straw shout at someone on his end. “Nils!” Then an inaudible reply. “Where are we?” Then a hard-to-understand response from Nils. “An auspicious stroke, Mark,” said Straw. “We’re gleaning the transpacific cable-five network.” More crackly static. “We’re nearby.” He conferred again with Nils in the background.

In the corner by the window, Trip made a wrap it up gesture by spinning an index finger above his head. He was still aiming keenly.

“Can you get to the coast by tomorrow evening?” came the old man’s voice through the computer. “Can you get to these coordinates?” He read out a GPS point.

Mark looked quickly at Constance, who looked at Roman, who thought for a sec and nodded once.

“Of course, James,” he said. “But, listen. Can we keep Mr. Pope out of this for now? He and his people are such brutes. I do see why we need men like him, but he’s taken against me, and I’m not even certain he wants the same things you want from New Alexandria. We should speak before anything else happens. Just you and me.”

“Very well, Mark. I’ll send a Zodiac to collect you. What shall we dine on tomorrow? Bucatini al vongole? Melon balls and a crisp Riesling? I’ll speak to Chef.”

“Sounds delicious, James. Until tomorrow, then.” Mark hung up.

In the corner, Trip relaxed his rifle. “I didn’t like that at all,” he said. “That was one hundred and ten seconds. That’s a long time to keyhole-connect.”

“It was worth it. Mark will be on board in less than twenty-four hours,” said Roman.

Leila could tell that Trip still didn’t like it. “Let’s hope the Committee won’t notice two minutes of anomalous satellite cross-feeds over southwest Oregon,” he said.

Leila looked at Mark. “You okay?” she asked him. “Nice work with Straw. I was getting a little steamed up there.”

Mark smiled. “I read some Oscar Wilde at Harvard.”

In the blue dark of the little loft, Leo could make out potted ferns and begonias running up the eaved walls toward the skylight. Mark was slack-jawed asleep on a sort of chaise or fainting couch. His socked feet stuck out like two spokes of a ship’s wheel.

Leo and Leila made their beds on the floor, quickly and quietly, like soldiers.

“’Night, Leo,” said Leila, and turned herself away from him.

He figured she was steamed at him for not calling her back when she walked out of the barn. “Good night, Leila,” he said.

He still wasn’t really tired. How could these two just sack out? Big day, he thought. Definitely should journal about this one. He slowed his breathing, counted the begonia leaves backlit by the night sky.

But his sleeping bag was made for a little girl. It was printed with the image of a cartoon heroine, and only about three quarters of him fit into it, so he appeared to be emerging from it, as if interrupted between pupa and imago. Leila was in a man-size green sleeping bag. But she was asleep already. Was she really asleep? He felt such a charge between them, her shoulders maybe eighteen inches from his sternum. She was a shell and he was the sea.

“Leila,” he whispered at the back of her neck, which he saw now was downy. Maybe her shoulder stirred. There was a catch in her breath. Leo, his nervous system in a sort of flare, was aware of all of it. But after a minute, she had not responded. Outside, a night bug skritch-skreek ed at intervals. He didn’t say her name again. If she was really asleep, he did not want to wake her. So he just lay there, half out of his sleeping bag, like a banana begun.

He fell into a sleep, and dreamed that he and Leila were trying to replace a lightbulb together, climbing two sides of the same ladder. The higher they climbed, the closer they came to each other. But the light they had to reach kept receding, until, just to keep from falling, they had to hold each other. They fumbled tools between them. At one point, Leila was wearing only a tool belt. But then he was alone at the top of the ladder, standing on a step that bore the warning THIS IS NOT A STEP and he felt that he would fall at any moment. He tipped forward and woke from the hypnagogic jolt. His sleeping bag had ridden down and now was more just a sack around his lower half. He felt, beneath the sleeping pad and the gritty carpet, a crude transition in floorboards that his ribs were straddling. He was cold.

“Leila,” he whispered. “Leila.”

She made a sound with n’ s and h’ s.

“Leila, can we switch sleeping bags?”

Nothing.

“Leila,” he whispered again. “You awake?”

She sat upright in her bag like a woken zombie. “Yeah. Sure.” Then she slipped from her sleeping bag, all waist and hips and static cling. She was by far the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on, and the whole thing was pretty much in slow motion. But Leila was just as quickly asleep in the smaller bag. No buzz came off her body as it was coming off his. He was pulled toward her; he was the sea and she the moon. He remembered that a high-school physics teacher once told him that the moon was always falling. That’s what orbit is, after all.

Leo tried to tip himself back into sleep. But he was distracted by a tiny orange light playing on the cabin window below him. He looked closer and made out the shapes of Constance and Trip and Roman. They were out on the porch, in a sort of conclave. The orange light was the embered tip of Trip’s cigarette. Their voices were indistinct and night-muffled, but the tempo and the interruption rate made Leo know that they were worried. He hoped they had this all in hand. Constance had said there would be scones for breakfast.