Dominion (12 page)

“Even when they kidnap you out of your bed? Did they interrogate you? What did they do?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Madeline—”

“I don’t want to talk to you, either.” She sat back against the headboard and drew the blankets around her. “I need to ask my counselor at church about this. I think it would be best if you slept in the guest room for now.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

She just stared at him, her mouth a hard flat line. Ruppert stood and walked to the bedroom down to the hall, where he lay on top of the coverlet and throw pillows, but didn’t feel like sleeping. After a few minutes, it occurred to him that Madeline had been dressed in a bright, flowered blouse and a long grass skirt.



He awoke on his side, his right arm numb, daylight boring into his eyes from the guest room window. For a moment he thought it was a dream, that he would wake up again in the frigid Terror cell, and then he remembered how and why they’d brought him home.

He sat up, turned away from the window, and asked, “Time?”

“Six minutes until eleven A.M.,” the house’s voice said in its always-cheerful tone.

“Uh…what day?”

“Saturday, June 23, 2036.”

“Thanks.” He stood and stretched. His right arm was a rubbery dead weight. “Is Madeline here?”

“She is not. Her schedule indicates that she is attending her FaithCrafts group at church. Would you like to contact her?”

“No, that’s okay. Can you make coffee?”

“I would be happy to, Mr. Ruppert, but the coffee maker has not been prepared.”

“Forget it.”

Ruppert took a hot shower, scrubbing days and nights of his own filth off his body. He even used some of Madeline’s scented soaps and an exfoliant full of grape seeds to try and scrape his skin clean.

Afterward, he drifted from room to room in the house, not sure what to do. He figured out he’d only been gone for nine days, though it felt more like a year. The familiar walls and furniture of his home looked alien to him. He’d thought of his house as a safe place, barricaded by walls and digital security systems, but now he saw that any feeling of security was an illusion. The most dangerous people could get to him at any time. They might as well live out in the open, as Sully had.

Normally he would go out for a game of golf, but he wasn’t scheduled for anything this afternoon. He did not particularly want to leave the house, either. The world seemed full of danger. He wondered how Madeline had managed the drive over to church, if that was where she’d gone.

He took his wallet from the ridiculous Bermuda shorts. Everything had been replaced; he thought there might even be more cash than before. He slid out the plastic card Sully had given him, looked over the meaningless numbers and letters. Sully had said the person on the other end was a very close friend, somebody he cared about a great deal. If Ruppert contacted him, it would draw the attention of Terror. Of course, both he and the person on the other end clearly had Terror’s attention, anyway.

He remembered what Sully had promised him: “what you always wanted.” He still couldn’t guess what Sully might have meant by that.

He spent most of the afternoon laid out on the couch in the living room, conjuring up music and movies on the screen. He avoided the news altogether—it only offered confusion and lies.

Madeline arrived home in the evening, her makeup smudged and blotted. There was a dullness in her normally bright eyes that he hadn’t seen before. She sat in a recliner across the room.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m…” Madeline’s voice was soft. She cleared her throat, then began to speak in careful, businesslike tones, as if dictating to a stenographer. “I met with my life counselor and told her about our problems.”

“You told her everything?”

“Of course not. Everyone seems to think we were on vacation somewhere, so I’m going along with that. I meant about the…the other woman.”

Ruppert wanted to protest again that there had not been another woman, but the hard, determined look on Madeline’s face warned him not to try.

“She pointed out that divorce is still a sin, and that a woman’s duty is to hold a marriage together. I don’t know if I’ll ever trust you again, Daniel, but we have to keep going.”

Daniel felt relief, but also a tinge of disappointment. Some little part of him had apparently been hoping she would leave him, but she would never do anything so strongly discouraged by the church.

“So what do you want to do?” he asked.

“She told me that the best way to heal a damaged marriage is to go back to the purpose of marriage, and that’s to create life.”

“You want to have a baby?”

“I want four.”

“What?”

“It’s not natural for people to put off children as long as we have, Daniel. I’m almost thirty. It’s our duty to have children, and anyway I’m tired of getting sneered at by the young mothers in my groups. I want to have so many children that nobody can question us. If we time it right, we can have at least four. She told me that I’d be so busy as a mother that I wouldn’t have time to be so self-centered and worried about my own feelings. So that’s what we’ll do, Daniel. I’m going to the doctor on Monday to get a schedule, and I expect you to make me pregnant.”

“Do I get any say in this?”

“You had your say when we got married.”

Ruppert didn’t feel at all excited about the idea, with Terror watching them so closely now. Children would make them even more vulnerable. Children would force them to be obedient citizens. He supposed that was the idea.

“Madeline, I really don’t think a child is going to solve our problems.”

“I’m not interested in your opinion. It is your duty to God to sire children, and mine to bear them.”

They sat in silence for a minute, and then Ruppert asked in a quiet voice, “What did they do to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’ll tell you what they did to me. They threatened to drown me. They electrocuted me. They nearly beat me to death. They kept me in a freezing cell—”

“I don’t want to know!” she screamed. She bolted from the chair to her feet. “Maybe they were punishing you for your sins. Did you ever think of that? Did you ever think maybe you deserved it?”

“No, I never thought that.”

“They said you were a sexual deviant. They had proof. They made me swear again and again I would make sure you lived a clean and moral life. That’s what I’m going to do. From now on, we’re going to be a normal family.” She stalked out of the room. Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floor of the foyer as she crossed to the stairs.

Ruppert stared at the blank video wall, which he’d turned off, leaving it like a slab of polished obsidian in the middle of the room. He could see his own dark reflection looking back at him.

It wasn’t just the constant surveillance and the secret laws and the powerful agencies, he thought. It wasn’t just the state church, or the crushing weight of propaganda generated through every available medium, though all these were important tools. Ultimately their power was to colonize individual relationships, to use ideology to isolate those who questioned the state of the world from their own families and friends. If you wanted any kind of intimacy or any kind of success in life, you had to play along. If you pretended to believe a thing long enough, eventually it just became easier to go ahead and believe the thing was true, especially when every mechanism of social and economic reward depended on you adhering to the prescribed beliefs.

“You guys really know what you’re doing, don’t you?” he said to his dark reflection. The reflection stared back at him, unblinking, and said nothing.

THIRTEEN

At the GlobeNet studio on Monday, a makeup girl painted over the bruises on Ruppert’s face and the injuries to his hands, then sprayed on a fake tan. One of the producers hung a plastic lei around Ruppert’s neck and told him they were going to “ad-lib” some chatter about Ruppert’s recent vacation. Ad-libbing meant they would read some scripted informal chatter, the type that reassured the audience that GlobeNet reporters were just regular folks like them.

When he’d settled in between Amanda Greene and the new, younger, hipper sports reporter, he waited for the theme music to pass and then read: “Good evening and welcome to GlobeNet-L.A.’s nightly news. I’m Daniel Ruppert, returning from a fantastic week on St. Lucia.” This confused him—wasn’t the lei associated with Hawaii rather than the Caribbean? Would the audience bother to notice?

“Looks like somebody wishes they were still on vacation.” Amanda delivered the line as if it were perfectly spontaneous. Following the stage direction floating before him in giant holographic letters, Ruppert pretended to notice he was wearing the lei.

“Oops!” Ruppert said, holding up the plastic flowers with a finger. “I guess I had such a good time I forgot I was coming back to work!”

“I think we all feel that way on Mondays, Daniel,” Amanda said.

“That’s right, Amanda.” Ruppert forced his charming newsguy smile. “Well, big news from the mayor’s office: This year’s Fourth of July parade is going to be bigger than ever, including tanks driven by the brave men and women at Fort Irwin and a spectacular air display courtesy of the fine boys at Los Angeles Air Force Base. Ten thousand flags will hang along Sunset Boulevard to celebrate.” Video of workers hanging flags and bunting played as he spoke. “Police are promising to sweep up the homeless and the drug addicts to make the parade safe for good citizens…”

After the taping, a notice appeared on the green desk in front of Ruppert summoning him to George Baldwin’s office. He trudged down the wide corridor, keeping his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. The Terror agent’s office was at the end of the hall, walled with black glass where most offices had clear windows. His body seemed to grow heavier with each step. Could they be displeased with him already?

As Ruppert drew near the closed glass door, a glowing female face emerged from the black glass as if swimming up from deep waters—Baldwin’s digital assistant.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Ruppert,” she said.

“I had a notice to see George,” he told her.

“One moment please.” The beautiful face sank back into the darkness, then returned a few seconds later. “Please come in. Mr. Baldwin is ready for you.” The glass door slid aside.

From inside Baldwin’s office, you could see the hallway clearly through the black glass. The remainder of Baldwin’s walls were video panels. Images of paintings floated on them now—Baldwin appeared to have a strong affinity for the work of Hieronymus Bosch. The Department of Terror seal dominated the entire wall behind Baldwin’s desk, and its soaring silver eagle appeared six feet tall. Ruppert shivered at the sight of it.

Baldwin stood, all smiles, and shook Ruppert’s hand, grasping it just a little too hard. Ruppert tried not to look at the silver skull pin on the lapel of Baldwin’s black coat, remembering how the gleaming skulls had snapped at him in cyberspace. Baldwin was an imposing presence, taller and broader and no doubt stronger than Ruppert.

“Daniel!” Baldwin said, with a cheerful tone that implied they were old water-cooler buddies, though they’d rarely spoken. “Great to have you back. Have a seat.”

Ruppert did as he was told, facing the Terror man across a broad expanse of black desk.

“Can I order you anything?” Baldwin asked. “Water? Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Ruppert’s knees were trembling. The wounds in his hands, now invisible under concealer, started to ache.

“I was so happy to hear from my director that you’re working with us now. I know there were some suspicions—you have to be suspicious, in a time of war—but I told them, no, not Daniel Ruppert. He’s a good, state-fearing man, a real patriot. He’ll be happy to help out. I said I’ve worked with this guy, I’ve
studied
him, and I think he will do anything his country asks.” Baldwin’s large hand slapped the glossy black desktop at the word “studied,” and Ruppert jumped a little in his seat.

“I appreciate it, Mr. Baldwin—”

“George.”

“George,” Ruppert said. “We all have to do our part to support our brave men and women in uniform.”

“That’s absolutely right. We live in dangerous times, Daniel. Enemies without and enemies within. The role of my organization is, as you know, to search out the enemies within. Now you have your part to play. I want you to know I’m here if you need any support on this.”

“Thank you…George. I appreciate it. I’m not entirely sure why I was chosen for this task—though of course I’m happy to help my country in any way I can.”

“Well, we didn’t do the choosing—I’d rather have kept you out of it, naturally, so you could focus on your work and family like a regular citizen. But they chose you, so now we have to play along.”

“Who are you saying chose me?”

“They. Them.” Baldwin waved a dismissive hand. “The enemies of the state.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s why you’re perfect for this, Daniel. You’re not meant to know very much about the situation, and you don’t. You’ll be able to play your role with great honesty.”

“You mean capturing the neo-Nazi guy.”

“Exactly right.” The graying, age-progressed image of Hollis Westerly appeared on one wall. The man had the glazed eyes of a corpse.

“I have to tell you,” Baldwin said, “This is a dangerous job. You’ll be exposed to all kinds of enemy propaganda. I’m sure you can hold up, but I want you to be warned.”

“I would like to know a little more about who this guy is, why you need me to—”

“No need for that. The op requires you to be unaware. You’ll act much more naturally that way.”

“Okay.”

“I know it’s difficult to understand. You just play along with whatever they offer you, and you’ll be fine. Now, have you attempted to make contact yet?”

“Not exactly. I was still recovering from—from my vacation, over the weekend.”

“Probably a smart choice. We need you at the top of your game. I’d suggest you wait another day or two, in fact, but no longer than that. We need to move while this is hot.”