The Revisionists (2 page)

Some of these stories I already read as part of my training. Studying up on the beat, immersing myself in their ugly mind-set. It almost attains a certain logic, the more time I spend here. Which is why I need to get out. I worry that if I’m here too long, I’ll learn to enjoy it, like some deranged visitor to the zoo suddenly climbing the fence to commune with the beautiful tigers, running to his doom.

The road slices between museums and monuments, then merges with a highway to rise above a river that glimmers coldly in the moonlight. I turn south, skirting the river, toward the launching point of the jets that scream above me.

I park in the airport deck and walk not toward the terminal but to a narrow asphalt path flanking the road. The trail is used by cyclists and joggers during the day, but no one walks it at night. Once I put the airport behind me, I leave the path and cut around a fenced-off lot of tankers and luggage trucks. Soon I reach the small park, now empty, where families bring lunches so their kids can marvel at the size and sound of the outgoing planes whose tailfins nearly scrape their picnic blankets. By the water are a few trees; I walk to the one closest to the water and position myself behind it, the river at my back.

The sky is so much clearer than I’m used to, a black sheet punctured with a few holes for the stars to stare through. We don’t see the stars anymore—our atmosphere too opaque—though we’re working on it. Some people don’t believe stars were ever visible, think it’s a folktale, some slice of fabricated history that’s managed to circulate through the collective subconscious. But I stare up at them and wonder, like these ancestors of mine must, at the vastness of things, and the smallness.

The empty lot tells me that Mr. Chaudhry’s source has not yet arrived. My GeneScan tells me the hags are close, though I still can’t tell quite how many there are. I also don’t know how exactly they plan to disrupt the Event, but they tend not to be terribly imaginative. I picture a lone gunman crouching in the weeds, his heart pounding as he struggles to claim his space on history’s as-yet-unwritten page. Lone gunmen are always the easiest.

The data pertaining to this Event is somewhat fuzzy, as it usually is. The people in Veracity do their best with the limited information they cull from the old files, the burned paper, the half-deleted records. I know that Mr. Chaudhry is on his way to this lot, but the exact time of his source’s arrival is wrapped in mystery.

Mr. Chaudhry’s meeting with the source will boost his career beyond his wildest imaginings, but not in the way he’d like.

Each plane roars like some massive beast exhaling. Amazing that Mr. Chaudhry thinks he can have a conversation with someone out here. But that’s part of what intrigues him. The odd locale, the darkness, the paths crossing in the heavens above him and along the highway to his side. Even I’m excited. I love these moments, these tiny fulcrums of history, the gears turning before my eyes.

And there are the two hags, crossing the highway on foot. They’re so stupid, it’s a wonder they even get this far. They’re nearly run over and someone honks at them—I hear tires squeal—but they make it to the other side. They must have parked in another lot, not wanting their car to reveal their presence. One of them is carrying a large duffel bag.

They hurry to a thick tree twenty yards in front of me. One opens the bag, the zipper shivering, and pulls out a rifle. The other leans against the tree, watching the parking lot. I cautiously advance toward them, keeping low, the sound of my approach lost in the next jet’s sonic boom. I watch the parking lot too, and there we all see Mr. Chaudhry, hands in his pockets, bag slung over his shoulder, strolling down that lonely bike path, making his soon-to-be-famed appearance.

After nine days of waiting for the hags to show up, of sitting in my terrible motel room and venturing out only at night to learn the city, watch Chaudhry, and scout the locales without leaving a trace, I finally allowed myself to roam about by day that afternoon. The Department would not have condoned it, as I was supposed to limit my appearances to errands of strict necessity, but I was bored, and I figured that by wandering the National Mall I could be just another tourist cloaked in anonymity.

During my first gig, the details were what had stunned me, the tangibility. I had expected it to feel like being inside a video, like walking upon a two-dimensional image—had expected to look at people who would not look back at me, to touch objects that would not tease my fingertips with their warmth. The sounds and smells, too, the three-dimensionality, took me aback; the irrefutable fact that this place existed, that I was here. But at the same time, the insanity of it all, the wrongness. It was like waking to find myself in a different hemisphere: a sudden shifting of the seasons, the air all wrong, the constant surprise from seeing the skewed angle of the light playing tricks with how ordinary objects appeared. A shine to everything. I was in a new, old world, and it was real and it had weight.

At the Mall this afternoon, the tourists around me snapped pictures and struck poses in front of their inflated tributes to former presidents and judges and warriors. I tried to enjoy this unprecedented ability to tour an ancient time, to take in wonders that would soon cease to exist. The white limestone gleaming in the afternoon sun, the awestruck comments in countless languages, the yawning buses and bored taxis, the sweaty office workers squeezing in lunch-break jogs. Silver jets seemed to hang in the blue sky as they dipped their wings seconds after lifting off from across the river. Government-crested helicopters passed at low altitudes, buzzing our chests.

Walking along a reflecting pool at the base of the Capitol building, I saw a young woman carrying her toddler, a little black girl in a pink sweater, her hair braided with white beads. Residue from cotton candy encrusted the girl’s lips, and I thought to myself,
She’s two, maybe three
. I wanted to know her name, look her up in my databases, see if by any chance she would be one of the survivors. It was incredibly important to me. I followed them for a block, then another, trying to concoct an excuse to start a conversation with the mother or at least get close enough to take a sample or a savable image. The girl smiled at me and waved. Her mother never noticed, never turned around, and after they reached an intersection I made myself stop.
It doesn’t make any difference,
I told myself.
She’ll likely die, or, if she’s lucky, she won’t—
yes, if she’s “lucky” she’ll get to grow up in one of the most violent periods the world has ever known.

I waved back, as helpless as she was.

Fifty yards away from me, a Metro train worms itself from the earth, emerging from its tunnel and heading toward the airport. The hags are still crouched at the tree, the only true cover to hide behind while staking out Chaudhry. Beyond them the ground slopes downward, slowly, toward the river, and I’m about twenty yards back. The Potomac at low ebb smells of fuel and the rotten dankness of things that should have stayed buried. I can see Chaudhry in the distance, standing forlorn in the parking lot, lit up by the one streetlight, an actor alone onstage. He’s looking around nervously, afraid some Homeland Security agent is going to ask him why he’s loitering outside an airport at night. Don’t worry, Mr. Chaudhry, I know the schedule of the DHS agents’ routes; they won’t be here until later.

In my right hand I hold the pistol that the Engineers designed to look, sound, and function like an early-21st-century nine-millimeter automatic. Attached to it is a silencer, though the thing is still too loud. We have more efficient methods in my time, but the Department limits the amount of technological advances I’m allowed to bring back, in case they’re discovered by a contemp. At least I was granted a Stunner, which I clutch with my left hand.

Each time a plane takes off, the ground vibrates and I inch closer. I keep low so Chaudhry can’t see my outline against the bright backdrop of the city, though I’m probably too far away for him to see me, as he has bad eyesight and is always squinting through his thick glasses. (It’s embarrassing how much I know about him.)

One of the hags checks the rifle’s stock; the other peers through binoculars. The low rumble of a plane accelerating on the tarmac is my cue. I aim my pistol at the hag with the rifle. He’s still fiddling with it; they probably don’t quite understand how the antique device works, though I’m impressed they found a way to procure one. They’re getting better at this.

A black car loops off the exit ramp to the parking lot, slowing as it approaches Chaudhry. Then I see the plane, and I almost cower instinctively as it rises up like some predator, shiny steel breast exposed. Chaudhry has turned away from us to face the car, so he won’t see the flash from my gun.

The jet’s roar is at its peak when I pull the trigger. The hag was facing away from me and I get him in the back of the head—it looks like he simply nods, agreeing with something unspoken, and then he drops.

I shoot his partner low in the back. That may give me a chance to ask him a few questions afterward. I scramble toward him and tag him with the Stunner, mainly to keep him from screaming. His body is leaning into the tree and I pull him to the ground.

I lie beside the bodies and watch Chaudhry, now standing in the lot with two other men. One is bald; the other has dark hair with a streak of white above each ear, like he made a wig from a skunk’s pelt. A third is behind the wheel of the black car, whose lights are off. These men are good at what they do—they stand at either side of the shorter, thinner reporter, boxing him in against the car. I’m only surprised they didn’t find some way to break the streetlight before they did this. (The bubble of a security camera is perched beneath that light, but later reports will reveal that the camera malfunctioned on this night.) I hear a raised voice, two disjointed syllables, and then there’s a quick motion and Chaudhry doubles over. One of the men opens the back door, and they push him inside. Again he is surrounded; the doors are closed. They hit him a few more times as the car drives toward the on-ramp.

Chaudhry’s appearance at this parking lot will not be known for a few days, not until a concerned coworker taps into his e-mail account and finds a message sent from someone—exactly who, no one will know, as the mystery person’s account traversed many complicated networks and domains and secret portals—asking that Chaudhry meet him here tonight. Despite much investigative effort by police, his outraged employer, his stunned colleagues, and his grieving family, this is the farthest Chaudhry’s path in life will ever be traced.

The car drives onto the highway—heading south, in case any students of history are curious—although even I don’t know where they’re taking him from there.

I reverse the Stunner on the hag who isn’t quite dead yet. What an awakening, to be revived to this state, a bullet in one of his kidneys. I hate myself for doing this; I should have just shot him in the head, like I did his partner. He gasps, confused, possibly numb from the waist down, and starts to cough blood.

“Where are the others?” I ask him.

Cough, cackle, spit.

“How many did you take with you? Tell me. This is your one chance to make right—you probably have about ten seconds.”

He bashes me in the side of the head with something that can’t possibly be a fist. My stomach turns and I go dizzy, catching myself with my hands before I hit the ground. He’s about to hit me again—he’s holding a rock—but I manage to block his arm, then roll onto him. I wrestle him for a moment; he has much more life in him than I thought, though he’s losing it fast. Then I hold him down and hit him once, square in the face. I stand up, and as I hover over him, his eyes go wide, and then he’s gone.

I stare at the mess I’ve made.
No, it’s their mess—they’re the ones causing the problems that I need to fix
. As if rationalizations can make shooting two people any easier.

I breathe deeply and try to get my stomach under control. The dizziness is gone already—it was a short, sudden burst—but it’s being replaced by a worse pain, just behind my left ear and radiating out.

I have about ten minutes before a DHS agent or Coast Guard boat or some other security personnel patrols the area. I reach into the hags’ pockets and remove their wallets, complete with fake IDs—again, I’m impressed. They’re learning. They don’t have any other weapons or hotel keys, nothing that tells me where they’re based. I scrape them for genetic samples so I can record exactly whom I’ve dispatched. The Department prefers it if we dispose of the bodies, and I do have a few Flashers with me. They’d eliminate the corpses, as well as everything else within a radius of a few feet, but they’re too bright and would attract attention. So I grab the hags’ legs and drag them to the riverbank. As the planes continue to scream overhead I toss a body into the river, then another, then their rifle. The confluence of the Potomac and the Anacostia should get the bodies far enough from the airport that the police won’t connect them with Mr. Chaudhry, but I’m not really worried about it. Their fingerprints will turn up no matches, their dental health will be meaningless, and their DNA will be rather puzzling to whoever analyzes it. The corpses will constitute quite a mystery, but this is Washington, and the assassination of two nameless men will likely be assumed to be the tip of some iceberg best given a wide berth. Local cops will quietly ask the federal police, who might ask the creepy and suspicious denizens of the clandestine forces’ many branches, none of whom will betray any interest whatsoever with their glazed and nocturnal eyes and all of whom will assume one of the others is to blame. The discovery of the bodies will be shielded from the newspapers and TV reporters, the citizenry will not be alarmed, and my superiors will be impressed once again by my ability to perform complex duties while leaving no trace.

I try to run another check on the GeneScan, in case more hags are coming late—such incompetence is hardly beyond them. But nothing happens. The GeneScan is supposed to look like a series of dots and images superimposed on what my eyes perceive in front of me or spread out radar-like over my internal GPS. But the GeneScan isn’t working. Hopefully it’s just the headache from that blow with the rock interfering, and this is only temporary.