Leaning against a door, arms folded, was the woman he had heard speak a moment ago. For several seconds he stared directly into her face.
He had seen her before—carrying a camera in the desert outside the Opwatch base.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling at him. “We were a little hard on you. But you know we can’t take any chances.”
The way she said the words you know disturbed him. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Spencer broke in again.
“It’s a good thing I came down here.” He emitted a quick, barking laugh. “They were talking about how to get rid of your corpse.”
“Great,” muttered Ralph. He carefully shook his aching head from side to side, but nothing became any clearer. “This may sound stupid,” he said at last, “but what’s going on around here? Who are you people, anyway?”
No one spoke for a moment. “Hey,” said Spencer, glancing back at the others, “maybe you hit him too hard. It’s affected his memory.”
Scowling, the man with the army boots brushed Spencer aside and stood in front of Ralph. “Maybe,” he said darkly, “this dude’s diddling around with us.” He pursed his lips and spat.
Ralph looked at the gob of spittle dead-centered between his feet, then back up as the man brought his hand close to Ralph’s face. A slight metallic whisper and a knife with a long blade flashed across his vision.
He stared at the distorted reflection of his face in the shiny blade, until an understanding of its macabre purpose swept like a hot electric wire into his mind. The cot slid into the knife-wielder’s knees as Ralph scrambled backwards across it. He flattened himself against the wall. “Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Get him away from me!”
“Come on,” coaxed the short man, tugging at the other’s arm. “Put it away, Gunther. Not now.” The big man looked sullen but with another small noise, the blade disappeared. “He gets nervous,” the short man said, turning to Ralph.
“Just keep him away from me.” Ralph braced his shoulders against the wall to stop their trembling. He stood there, working at breathing for a few moments before he spoke again. “I don’t know who you people think I am, but I wish you’d let me in on it, too.”
The woman and the three other men exchanged glances. I’ve blown it, thought Ralph, watching them. They’re probably mulling over the corpse-disposal problem again.
“Aren’t you Ralph Metric?” said Spencer, looking puzzled. He held up a wallet that Ralph recognized as his own. “You’ve got a California driver’s license and an Operation Dreamwatch ID that says you are.”
He nodded without speaking.
“Well, then you can relax.” Spencer shrugged and spread his hands open. “This is it. I mean, we’re the Alpha Fraction.”
“The what?” Ralph was beginning to wonder if something had been knocked loose when they had hit him. Every new piece of information seemed to make things even more confused.
“The Alpha Fraction. Didn’t my brother tell you to come find us?”
“You know, don’t you,” said Ralph slowly, “that your brother’s dead.”
He watched the other’s face.
“We’ve assumed that.” Spencer’s voice remained level and calm. “But he wrote us about you in his last letter.” He pulled a dirt-creased envelope from his hip pocket, unfolded it and extracted a photograph.
Ralph took it from the outstretched hand. It was a black-and-white shot of himself, taken sometime without his knowledge on the Opwatch base: a colorless, two-dimensional Ralph Metric frozen in front of one of the buildings out in the middle of the desert. Probably just wandering around, he thought, studying the photo. As usual.
He turned the picture over. On the back were several lines in the late Michael Stimmitz’s precise handwriting. Spence— Possible recruit, name of Ralph Metric. Should be able to trust him: Will be filling him in gradually, & send him on to L.A. if nothing turns up here. M.
“So that’s what it was all about,” murmured Ralph. He tapped the picture with his forefinger.
“What’s that?” said Spencer.
“All that stuff your brother talked about. Just before . . . what happened to him. Universes, and stuff. He was trying to recruit me, but he didn’t have time to tell me everything before he was killed. That’s what he was trying to do.”
“He didn’t say anything about the Alpha Fraction?” asked the short man.
“No,” said Ralph. “Nothing.”
The man sighed. “Let’s go upstairs and see if there’s any coffee left. This is going to take a while.”
Ralph pushed himself away from the wall and stepped around the cot.
He held out the photograph to Spencer, who didn’t appear to see it.
“Do you know how Mike died?” said Spencer.
“I was there. I saw it.” He watched as Spencer nodded and turned away, expressionless. Someone touched his arm. He turned and saw beside himself the woman he had first seen in the desert, now making a small gesture with her hand.
“He’ll be okay,” she whispered, glancing at Spencer’s back disappearing through the room’s doorway. “He was still hoping, is all. About his brother.”
The relief Ralph had felt at the small light penetrating the accumulated mysteries was muted. He followed the woman out of the room and up an unlit stairway.
Interlude:
Somewhere in a Corridor of Power
Although the city roared ceaselessly below, it was quiet aboard the jetliner. The carpet was like an ankle-deep sea, temporarily calm. Seamed with age, Senator Aaron Muehlenfeldt’s face was reflected in the circular window as he looked down upon the scattered four a.m. traffic on the freeways. Pinpoints of red and white light were wandering among the great L.A. buildings.
“It’s ready, sir.”
The senator swivelled his high-backed leather chair around to face a young man on the other side of the oval desk, his face as fixed and emotionless as the shoulder-patch on his sleeve. He rested his hand upon the controls of the tape recorder. Muehlenfeldt waited for him to speak again.
With brisk efficiency, the young man opened a manila clasp envelope and laid its contents out on the desk. “This was recorded,” he said, “about an hour ago, using one of our devices planted at the Revolutionary Worker’s Party headquarters. Through voice-print analysis we’ve identified the voices of the members of the group called ‘the Alpha Fraction.’ ” He slid a large black-and-white photo across the desk.
Muehlenfeldt picked it up, carefully holding it by the tips of his brown-spotted fingers. It snowed a short man waiting in line at a hamburger stand. All the features in the shot were foreshortened, compressed together by the telephoto lens that had been used.
“That’s Mendel Koss,” said the young man. “He’s been acting as head of the group since the elimination of their colleague Michael Stimmitz last week.” He slid another photo cross the desk. “That’s Spencer Stimmitz, the younger brother of the late Michael.”
The senator glanced at the pictures, then picked up the next one that came towards him.
“That’s the woman called Sarah.” The young man hesitated. “We haven’t been able to ascertain a last name for her yet. There’s only one other member of the group, a man by the name of Gunther Ortiz, but his voice isn’t on the tape. So he was either not present or remained silent.”