“What?”
“Does your world end not with a bang, but with a whimper?”
Derryman didn’t reply for awhile. He stared at the floor. Then he adjusted his glasses and said, “The cafeteria. I’m going. I suggest you come along, because the guards won’t let you stay up here without me.” He went to the door, opened it, and waited until they obeyed him like good little mindless soldiers.
Thirty-One.
The peacekeeper had discovered something he thought he might miss, when all was said and done. It was called ‘coffee’. As soon as he tasted his first sip, he decided this was quite a drink. It was hot and black, a little bitter, and it made him feel energized, if that was the right term. He imagined he could feel the power of this liquid thrumming through the veins of his appropriated body, and sitting at a table in the cafeteria with Dave, Jefferson, and Olivia, he thought he needed the jolt.
Olivia had joined them after a short stay in the infirmary. The doctor, a no-nonsense military man with close-cropped hair like grains of dark sand covering his scalp, had appraised her, taken her blood pressure, checked her heart and lungs, asked her to follow a moving light by keeping her head motionless, and in the end had given her a Valium and told her she could rest in one of the rooms. He had promptly gone off to give care to his many other patients who’d either been brought in or who had staggered in after the attack. Olivia had taken to a bed for about thirty minutes but had decided she was feeling calmer thanks to the Valium, and she was ready to leave. Before she’d left she had checked on both Nikki and Hannah, who also occupied beds in rooms there. Nikki was coming around, feeling better though she wanted to stay right where she was. Hannah was sleeping, looking now in repose like a very old, thin, and tired woman, and Olivia had asked one of the nurses for a notecard and written on it Hannah, I’ll check on you later. Rest while you can and don’t worry about anything. Have faith. Love you, Olivia.
The cafeteria was brightly lit and bore on its pale blue-painted walls framed photographs of American scenes: Times Square aglow with neon and crowded with people, the Golden Gate catching rays of sunlight that pierced through San Francisco fog, giant redwoods and vivid green moss-covered earth in the John Muir Woods, Boston Harbor on the day of a parade of various red-white-and-blue-decorated boats, a Kansas wheatfield that stretched as far as one could see under the blazing blue sky of summer, massive oaks lining the gravel roadway that led to a restored plantation house somewhere in the South, and other pictures of what used to be. Ethan regarded them in silence and wondered how those could possibly help the morale of the officials and soldiers who had been forced to take refuge here. This was the last stop, he thought. The last station of the line, the place to hunker down after some terrible war or disaster had claimed not only this country, but the entire earth.
There were a couple of dozen other people in the cafeteria, soldiers and civilians alike. They kept their distance from the new arrivals. The food today was chicken noodle soup in a small plastic cup, one yeast roll, and a little orange juice in a second plastic cup. There was a bin for the recycling of the cups. Dave got up for a second helping and was told by a surly cook that he couldn’t have any more, so that was that.
However, there was plenty of coffee. Dave had a plastic cup of it and wondered if there were drugs in it. He couldn’t figure how anybody here could get through a day, much less a week, or a month, without some kind of either stimulant or antidepressant. Without windows, the place felt like a prison; the men and the women here moved slowly and deliberately, and their expressions were mostly blank. They had all lost family members, friends, homes, and the security of their own lives. They had received their death sentence, and they were waiting for the execution.
How much longer they thought they could hold out here, he didn’t know. The alien attack must’ve driven home the futility of this place. It was going to take one hell of a lot of effort to get that garage cleaned up, and he doubted the entranceway could be sealed again. Maybe that was how they got along from day to day, Dave thought. They just concentrated on the task right in front of them and did it, eight-hour shift after eight-hour shift.
The group ate in silence. Ethan heard their thoughts but gave no comment, not wanting to intrude. Olivia was still wan-looking and sometimes sat staring at nothing, her mind freighted with the death of John Douglas and the reality of their seemingly hopeless situation. She was fooling herself that she was doing better; she was really ready to crawl into a corner and pull the walls around her as protection. Ethan saw that two pictures played over and over in her brain: the young Secret Service agent lying in the corridor with his skull horribly crushed, and the headless monster in the garage with smoke rising from its burning chest.
She was nearly at the bitter end of her rope. Ethan didn’t know what he could say to her that would give her some comfort. In fact there was nothing he could say, so he remained silent.
“Look who’s coming to visit,” said Jefferson.
Vance Derryman was approaching. He stopped at another table to talk briefly with a man in a gray-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up. During the conversation, Derryman motioned toward the table of new arrivals, and the man nodded and looked at them, his face gaunt and hard and revealing absolutely nothing. Then Derryman continued on his path, and when he reached them he took a white handkerchief from within his suit jacket and polished the lenses of his glasses.
“He wants to see us,” said Ethan.
“That’s right.”
“What does he want to see us about?” Dave asked.
“Not all of us,” Ethan explained. “Only Jefferson and me.”
“Right again.” Derryman put his glasses back on. “Of course I’ll be with you.”
“Don’t mind us,” said Dave, with a shrug. “We’ll just stay here with the peons.” The cafeteria was on Level Two but further back in the mountain from the garage. Ethan and Jefferson followed Derryman out to a second stairwell. On Level Four, they were entering the President’s living area from another direction. The Marine Sergeant Akers was waiting there with his automatic rifle to escort them.
They went along the corridor a short distance to the double doors that Jefferson had seen previously. “Thank you, Sergeant,” Derryman said, as dismissal to the Marine. Then Derryman pressed the white button of a doorbell on the wall, and a simple, single chime sounded from within.
“I was expecting ‘Hail To The Chief’,” Jefferson said with a nervous laugh, but Derryman did not respond.
One of the doors was opened almost as soon as the chime ended. Amanda Beale stood there, bleary-eyed but a little more stable than she’d been at the taping an hour ago. She was wearing the same clothes, a pair of brown slacks and a white blouse that was beginning to yellow from a few too many washings. “In,” she said, and turned away from them, her job done.
With Derryman going first, they crossed the threshold into a homey apartment with a dark blue throw rug on the hardwood floor, plenty of solid-looking American-crafted furniture and on the walls pieces of framed nature-themed artwork that Jefferson Jericho figured could be bought by the yard at any Pottery Barn. He couldn’t help but watch the roll of Amanda Beale’s hips as she walked away and wonder if she still shagged the top guy or if they played musical beds around here when they weren’t thinking about aliens and the end of the world. He wouldn’t mind giving that a shot, so to speak.
Then he felt the silver eyes upon him, and he ducked his head a little bit.
“Good afternoon,” said the President as he came through a hallway in dramatic fashion. He was smiling, but it was a terrible thing to see because there was so much pain in his eyes. He wore the pleated trousers of his suit, and his white shirt was open at the neck. He stopped well short of them and did not offer his hand. “Thank you for coming up. Let’s go in the study.”