In War Times (50 page)

When he reached her, she looked at her watch. “I wish the caterer would show up. I’m getting nervous.”

“This really is a lovely spot.” He could see the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Mall, and glimmers of the Potomac smog-muted like an Impressionist painting.

“Did you find out what Wink is doing here?”

“Not really. The only thing I know is that it has something to do with Jill.”

“Jill! The hell it does.”

“That’s what I said to Wink. We followed Jill down to the Mall and sat on Constitution for hours. Lots of chanting. It was too loud to talk.”

“And hot.”

“Terribly. Jill gave me the Style section to sit on, and gave Wink Metro.” Betty looked at her watch. “Well, I baby-sat this crowd for the last few hours. This shindig starts at six. I think they’re all getting drunk at the hotel bar now.”

“As I should be.”

“As we
both
should be.”

The party, at least, was swinging. With food and plenty of liquor, the hardships of days of wearying tourism were forgotten. The boys of the war were re-emerging, not always to the delight of their wives.

Sam stayed for about an hour, until he was satisfied that there’d be no serious problems, or, at least, that they sufficiently inebriated so that if an alligator bit them on the ass they wouldn’t notice. He waved to Wink and they ducked from air-conditioned comfort into the hot summer night. Bette had taken a cab home earlier and left him the car.

“Roll down the windows,” said Sam as they got into the station wagon. “My a.c. doesn’t work.” The smell of cooling asphalt wafted through the car as Sam drove home through familiar intersections.

“So what’s the nexus?” asked Sam.

“Still not sure,” said Wink. “Got a cigarette?”

“Bette might have some in the glove compartment.”

Wink got out the pack and punched in the cigarette lighter. He smoked in short, nervous puffs.

“They’re starting to say that’s bad for you,” said Sam.

“It is. But it won’t bother me.”

“Something’s eating you. You sounded frantic on the phone.”

“Yeah,” he said, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I still am. Even more so. The reason I didn’t say much today is that I just didn’t know what to say. I’ve tried my best to get information about what’s happening—what might happen—and it’s all kind of twisted up. Of course, time is a perpetual event. But this…nexus is like a cancer, somewhere, in the body of time, that we have to find and eradicate.” He leaned back in the seat and rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry, Dance. I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t
know
any more. Maybe it was a false alarm. Bad information.”

“That would be great. It’s good to see you, anyway. We need to get together more often. I told you that Brian enlisted, didn’t I? The Navy.”

“Jill did. She’s pretty upset about it.”

“Did she tell you about her
Gypsy Myra
comics?”

“No.”

“She’s been working on this line of comics. It’s about this superheroine who looks just like Hadntz. The kids got hold of the HD 10. It was in the form of a game board.”

“A game board?”

“Full of all kinds of stories. Bette and I have been pretty upset about it. In fact, the last few months have been nothing but upsetting. Nixon is driving the country crazy with this war. Lots of student demonstrations, as you saw today. And some violence—knocked heads, and stuff. But you never know when it might get out of hand. Here we are.”

The lights were all on when he pulled up to the front of Halcyon House. When they got out of the car, Megan stuck her head out the screen door, then came out onto the wide porch. “They’re here!” she shouted.

His snowball bushes glowed like dim Chinese lanterns in the light thrown from the porch. On the screened-in portion at the side of the house, the lights were on. Winston rushed down the broad front steps, a whirlwind of greeting. Cicadas whirred, their sound burgeoning up from the creek. Bette’s ancient poetry seemed fresh as the moment; much of it featured cicadas.

Wink paused on the steps. “Wait a minute. Are we going to have to listen to rock music? Those horrible, pounding, repetitious drumbeats that smash right into my brain?”

Sam laughed, relieved to have light-hearted Wink back. “Our music is not democratically controlled. I’m in charge. I’ve put together some pretty nice reel-to-reels over the past few years. Monk, Coltrane, Miles Davis—all kinds of cool jazz.”

“Miles Davis?”

Sam stopped and looked at Wink as he opened the door. “No Miles? That’s a great loss.”

“It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

They stepped inside. The house was disorientingly neat and clean; Bette had had some of the wives over yesterday and had spent a week getting ready.

“You’ve done well, Dance,” said Wink.

“A color TV, even. The better to see the gore on the evening news. If they had our war on on television, people would have put a stop to it pretty quickly.”

“You’d think,” sighed Wink. “But people get inured to that stuff pretty quickly.”

“Hey!” Bette walked past them bearing a tray piled with snacks—Ding Dongs, Ho-Ho’s, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, and several sweating bottles of Tab.

“If we knock the kids off with this stuff we won’t have to pay for college,” said Sam.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt them,” said Bette. “Why don’t you show Wink around the house while we get set up.” Although her voice was light, her mouth was set in her most serious manner.

“Nice,” said Wink, examining Sam’s stereo setup. “Of course,
we
—”

“Enough!” said Sam, holding up his hands in mock protest. “I know it’s all wonderful.”

“But that’s what it’s all about. Isn’t it? Technological advances that cure diseases, enhance communications, create free universal education, boost economies, and allow us to emigrate into space.”

“Did I tell you that I’ve been inspecting the computer Internet the government has set up?”

“That’s a start, but because we haven’t spent all of our money on nuclear weapons, we have computers that are integrated into our clothing. Most people have a daily free scan that’s sent to a place that keeps a baseline and informs them if there’s a problem developing. Or you can just go to a screening kiosk and get scanned and immunized or medicated on the spot.”

“That doesn’t sound very private.”

“It’s all protected.”

“And people believe that? How do you deal with criminals? For instance, sounds like it would be easy for someone or something to custom-design something that would kill you pretty quickly.”

“It’s a several-pronged approach. First of all, there are various genetic propensities that are corrected with an immunization patch in infants.”

Bette came back with some beers. “Come on, let’s sit down in the living room. Did I hear correctly? Parents can’t say no?”

“Not that simple,” said Wink.

“That would be a pretty bad sign for me.”

“All kinds of developmental stages have been pinpointed and are enhanced. It’s been found that with this kind of emotional satisfaction available, with creativity enhanced, with education available, more people have much more of an opportunity to feel valuable to themselves and to others.”

“I’d want all parents to be licensed by me,” said Bette. “No kids without Bette Certification. I’ve been working on a training and testing program for parents for years.”

“That doesn’t sound very private,” said Wink.

“I never claimed that I’m consistent.”

“I like this music,” said Megan. She was sprawled on the couch, and nodded her head to a fast sax flight of Bird’s. “It makes me feel as if I’m traveling at a very high speed.”

Sam said, “Megan, we’re going to talk about some private things now.”

“Nice to meet you, Wink,” said Megan, and got up to leave. She ran into Jill, who came into the room, holding the game board.

“Where did you get that?” demanded Bette.

“Oh, please, Mom,” said Jill. “We have to play the game.”

“Why?” asked Sam.

“Because Wink is in it,” she said.

“What kind of game is this?” Wink asked.

“It’s not much of a game,” said Bette. “Your father and I tried to use it.”

“You didn’t know how. Sit down,” said Jill. “I’m sure it has something to show us. And if not, I’ll get some more episodes for
Gypsy Myra
.”

“Can I see that?” asked Wink.

He ran his hands across the surface of the board. “Where did you get this?”

“We think it’s the HD11,” said Sam.

“The what?” asked Megan.

“I think playing is a good idea,” said Wink.

Sam sighed. “I don’t. But I’ll try it. Let’s go out on the porch.”

The thunderstorm of the night was just over, and the post-storm coolness was delicious. When they were situated around the game table—Sam felt Brian’s absence every day, and especially now—Wink said, “How do we start?”

“The board tells us how to start,” said Megan. “Every game is different, because it’s an Infinite Game Board. Look, I’m not sure that I want to do this again.”

“Come on, Megan,” said Jill.

“All right. Just one more time. Go ahead and tell it, Jill.”

“We’re ready to play now, Myra,” said Jill.

Sam looked sharply at her.

“How would that do anything?” asked Bette.

“You’ll see.”

“It’s like the computers I was telling you about,” said Wink. “Voice-activated. Seems like maybe Jill has set the password. We’d probably all have different ones.”

The Infinite Game Board glowed deep blue on the table between them. Sam sipped his beer nervously and tossed some peanuts into his mouth.

The board lit with six green-glowing circles. Wink, Bette, and Sam all looked at one another.

“We each need to put a finger on a dot,” said Megan. “I guess there’s one for Brian, even though he’s not here. It probably remembers him, don’t you think?”

Sam touched the board with great trepidation.

“Remember when we had to calibrate the B-17’s?” asked Wink. “I think that now we’re going to calibrate time.”

They were in a plane. The times they flew through, the whens, were as permeable as great sheets of rain, gray and luminous. There were heart-wrenching drops, and Dr. Hadntz appeared during one of them, in a back row, asleep, with a raincoat drawn over her. Her hair was white and splayed across her strong face, now more aged but still just as beautiful, and just as determined, as before.

“Is this how you…change whens?” Sam asked Wink. They were sitting in the front row.

Wink shook his head. “I never really do. I just…go places and there I am. Turn a corner and I’m in othertime. It’s like…bebop. Remember when we played with Parker?”

“Yeah, thank God. Wouldn’t want to forget that.”

“There was nothing linear about what he was doing. And—think about this—the world didn’t know it happened.”

“You’re right. Not until after the musician’s strike was over.”

“It was a whole history being created that no one knew about. An alternate history that just suddenly appeared full-blown after the war. I think we’re involved in something like that.”

“Look,” said Brian. Surprised that Brian was here, Sam was going to say something, then saw what he was pointing at. Below them was a vast plain, and it was on fire.

Hadntz was standing behind them, unsteady in the turbulent air. A dry sob broke from her and she grabbed the seat in front of her.

“Sit down,” said Wink urgently, sitting her down and buckling her seat belt. “We all have to buckle our seat belts. I think we’re going to encounter some flak.”

Bette’s face was grim. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. We should have left the kids behind.” The door to the cockpit was open, slamming back and forth. Bette made her way to the front of the plane. Then she disappeared into the cockpit.

Sam followed her, and then everyone else was behind him, crowding into the cabin.

Bette, putting on her headphones, looked up at Sam. “It was on automatic pilot.”

“I’ll copilot,” said Brian.

“But where are we going?” asked Megan.

Sam realized, for the first time, that the children were older in this game. Megan was nineteen, as no-nonsense as her older sister Jill had been impetuous at the same age, and Sam knew that she was closing in on a theoretical physics degree. Midnight-black hair fell below her shoulders, framing a pale, freckled face. Brian looked to be about twenty-two, a strong young man whom Sam knew was in the military, studying aeronautic engineering. And Jill was frittering away her life as a comic-book artist and underground DJ, having still not graduated college.

Hadntz was there, behind them.

“We’re playing the game?” asked Megan.

“Not exactly,” Hadntz said. “We are in a war.”

“So now my entire family is in danger?” asked Sam.

“They are here willingly, Sam,” said Hadntz.

“That’s right,” said Brian. “We’ve been here before. Only you and Mom weren’t with us. Wink was, once or twice.”

“It’s a series in the board about changing history,” said Jill. “We’ve never gotten past this level.”

“The device has modified all of us,” said Bette. “I’m just guessing.”

“Yes,” said Hadntz. “Including me.”

“So do you know what’s happening?” asked Wink.

“Not exactly. Our consciousness is moving us,” said Hadntz. “Just as it always has. Our bodies, the world, and all of history is our mind’s environment. The main thing is that we are not alone. We carry a huge freight. I don’t know what will happen now. Maybe what I’ve done is terribly wrong.”

“I don’t think so,” said Wink. “We’ve seen several of the alternatives.”

“Centuries of them,” said Bette.

Megan said, “I’ve seen them. In the board.”

“We all have, Mom,” said Brian. “That’s why we’re here. We’ve chosen to be here.”

“I think we know more about it than you and Dad,” said Jill.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Sam.

“Well, we don’t have time to think about it anymore,” said Bette. “We’ve got to do something. Right now.”

Wink said, “We have to find the nexus. Unwind it. Relax it. Transform it. Inoculate it. Let it synch.”