“Just married, huh?” the bartender said to the friend who was buying a fresh round of drinks.
“Yeah,” she shouted, her voice hoarse. “We said—we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to like, get married, or do it, or anything like that, in that other place, so we’re all getting married this week.” She pushed her bangs away from her eyes. “We’re taking turns. They just did it today. Tomorrow it’s me and Pete.”
I pulled out my mister and enforced them all.
After that, the bar was much quieter. The frumpy white guy spit on me and walked out. I sipped my drink and watched the door, waiting for Sara Grace.
Sara Grace was a nursing student at Columbia. She’d been raised in the suburbs of some sleepy Minnesota town. She hated New York.
We’d been assigned to each other randomly, like everyone else. It was part of the deaclass="underline" all enforcers had a partner. That way, if anyone got squeamish, there was always someone to do the deed.
Sara Grace was dressed in a pink cardigan, khaki slacks, and kitten heels. Her blonde hair was tied away from her face with a silk polka-dotted scarf. Her mister hung at her waist.
“May I have a Cosmopolitan, please?” she asked the bartender. “Easy on the vodka, and could I have an extra slice of lime, if you wouldn’t mind?”
She sat beside me and we went over our numbers for the day.
“I just enforced an entire family,” she said, sipping her Cosmo. “The husband was buying a bunch of those suicide kits out the back of a van on Flatbush. They were planning to do it all together. Mom, dad, two girls, a little boy, even the dog and cat! Like, hold hands, pray, and die.”
“So what happened?”
“Oh, I followed him home. Then I enforced them all. Even the dog and cat. I wish I knew what happens to dogs on Judgment Day.”
“I wish you would stop calling it that.”
“Sorry, just a reflex from Bible school. We’re due for a meeting at headquarters, you know,” she said, checking her slender watch and suggestively eyeing my full drink.
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’m chugging.”
I chugged.
Headquarters was set up inside a warehouse in Red Hook. Twenty thousand square feet of concrete floors, and the ceilings yawned high overhead so the acoustics were terrible. The Brooklyn Division Enforcement Team gathered here to report our numbers and receive feedback on our performance. Our managers gave us little pep talks about how essential our efforts were toward ensuring a smooth and pleasant transition toward the end of the world.
On one wall was a whiteboard scribbled with encouraging messages and enforcement data. On the opposite wall was a countdown clock.
There were several thousand team members in our division. We filled the room to the brim with breathing and sweat and chatter and stink. We divided our attention between the stage at the front and the countdown clock, which was a handy measure of how late we were getting started.
Finally the meeting was called to order.
“Your numbers are down,” the boss shouted at us. He had reason to be nervous; managers with poorly performing teams tended to find themselves on the wrong end of the ray gun. “You’re down compared to Manhattan; you’re down compared to Queens. Shall I go on?”
There was a muttered undercurrent of rebellion.
“I don’t care, I don’t care, from now on I don’t want to hear any excuses,” he bellowed into the microphone. “We’re almost there. Three days from now—we’re in paradise. Seven virgins, clouds and harps, free beer, gold-plated toilet seats—whatever floats your boat. Just keep your goddamn numbers up.”
From now on, we’d be reporting every hour. Checking in, every hour, on the hour, and if we hadn’t enforced anyone, there would be some explaining to do.
“Just three more days,” he said. “Just three more days and this will all be over. Now go home, get some rest, and I want to hear from everyone at 9 a.m. sharp.”
Sara Grace and I walked to the subway together. “Wanna come over for a nightcap?” I asked. “I bet you need one. I sure as hell do.”
“Thank you,” she sighed. “I really shouldn’t. I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. No problem. See you then.”
That night I lay awake thinking about her. It had been a long time since I’d let myself fall for anyone. Now I had it bad. And I didn’t have much time left.
The Aliens: most people called them The Travelers, but I thought of them as The Mickey Mouse Club, because of the human mouthpieces they’d chosen. They were all washed-up child actors and stars of reality TV shows. They all had those bland good looks, and none of them had ever said anything remotely interesting on their own terms, so they were the perfect avatars to relay the message.
Apparently, the aliens’ physical manifestations were repulsive to human sensibilities; I’d never seen one in the flesh, but I’d heard stories. These long-lived rumors started and spread with a twisty life of their own. From what I’d gathered, the aliens resembled something like scaly seahorses or obese horned toads.
But no one ever saw these bodies, at least not on TV. It was spectacle; it was all smoke and mirrors. They had technology we couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The universal translator, the ray gun, the spaceship, the empathetic mind links. So they hung back and spoke through their human avatars, and even if those actors were lost without their laugh tracks, they looked just like what you’d expect.
Of course, the government’s dormant propaganda wing swung into full gear. There was no time for Victory Gardens, but citizen safety patrols were in business.
And enforcers, of course.
The next morning I woke with dark circles under my eyes. I’d stayed awake too long, obsessing about Sara Grace and imagining a way out of all this. As far as I could tell, there was none.
I showered, made myself presentable, and headed to the nearby diner where Sara Grace and I met for breakfast every morning. The local clientele was pretty depleted, so service was fast, and we always got our waffles for free.
Sara Grace was late. Maybe she’d had a rough night too.
I was sitting there sipping my coffee when a guy I’d never seen before strolled in. He was tall and craggy, wearing tight blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket that had seen better days. He obviously hadn’t encountered the inside of a barbershop in some time. He slid into a booth and ordered the number five.
My first check-in was in thirty-two minutes, and I hadn’t enforced anyone yet, so I went over to see what was up. “You mind?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he boomed, and I slid into the booth across from him. He stank of cigarettes and the open road.
“So what brings you to the neighborhood?” I asked idly, taking one of his sugar packets and dumping it into my own coffee.
He laughed, a big laugh that filled the diner. The other patrons glanced over, then quickly averted their eyes. “I stick out that much, do I?” he said. “Like a sore thumb, I bet.”
I shrugged in a noncommittal way. “Hey,” I said. “I’m sure I’d stick out in your hometown, too.”