Reconciliation

Reconciliation

I

For three days now, Theodore Malsch had been watching the ragged old man. He was always there, on the same corner, hugging a small cup of something hot, the pockets of his old brown coat bulging suggestively with some kind of contraband. He never spoke, but it was clear from the way he would look at Theodore that a conversation between them was imminent, wanting only the merest gesture of acknowledgment from Theodore to begin. And for three days, Theodore had not made that gesture. This was only natural, because Theodore was a sensible young man, and he understood that contraband was dangerous and unsanitary. But the bulges in those worn pockets were as intriguing as the old man's silence.

Today, Theodore was admitting to himself that he had been thinking about the situation from the very first day. At work, as he went through the motions of cleaning the machines, sanitizing them and setting them up with freshly autoclaved accessories, he thought about the bulges, imagining that they held fantastic drugs that would take him to pleasure palaces where he could be king for a while; or perhaps the old man had a supply of those QB emulators that everyone had heard about and talked about but that no one had actually seen. He'd love to get one of those. Course, it wouldn't be the same as the real QB; he knew that you couldn't run a Quantum Bit processor without a nuclear power supply. That's why only the Corporations had them. But the emulators were rumored to be almost as good. At least a thousand times more powerful than anything you were allowed to buy.

The more he thought about it, the more sure he was that the man had somehow obtained some QB emulators and was discreetly offering them for sale. Why else would he present himself so silently on the corner, and what else could he be selling? It had to be that. And today was the last day that Theodore would meet the old man on the corner. Tomorrow his shift would change and this once in a lifetime opportunity would be lost forever. In truth, he admitted to himself, he did not know for sure that the man was selling QB emulators, but what the hell, whatever it was, it had to be something good.

For all of his twenty-three years, Theodore Malsch had avoided dangerous situations and actions. In high school, he had watched his friends seduced by the military recruiter's promises of high good times, by glossy evocations of the thrill of victory as part of an invincible army, and the pleasures of the spoils of war. He watched as they were lured out of ninth grade and into the Service. But kill and be killed held no appeal for Theodore. He had stayed in school, and graduated into his job at the hospital. His work there was not unimportant; the machines he maintained were a vital part of the emergency care given to the sick and wounded people dragged in to the hospital. Not infrequently, he would be caught up in the routine drama of the ER.

So it was that Theodore Malsch had decided that he simply had to know what was contained in those bulging coat pockets. It seemed to him now that fate had sent him an opportunity and that the time had come to take a chance. He had been apprehensive about the acquisition, never having dealt with contraband before; he felt exposed and vulnerable, watched by a million eyes. In the final moments before contact was made, before the irrevocable step was taken, it occurred to him that the old man might be a watcher, a trap, there to ferret out resisters, the quiet outlaws who were the greatest threat to public order and the survival of the Homeland. Acquiring contraband was a crime and would cast him into that class of pariahs he had always looked at with fear and, yes, loathing. Yet here he was, gut churning, body tingling, every sense heightened, about to take the step that would launch him into the unknown.

The old man was there, as usual, in his customary place, clutching his cup of hot liquid. Before each sip, he would blow gently into the cup, raising a small mist of steam from the brew. His eyes met Theodore's over the rim of the steamy cup and there was, clearly, a question in them. Theodore's heart raced as he nodded to the man, a thing he had never done before. He hoped that the old man would recognize this. He slowed his pace, waiting for a response; he drew level and stopped. Now he was committed to the act of lawbreaking and ready for anything. He pointed to the old man's bulging pockets.

"How," he began hoarsely, overcome with some emotion he had never felt before. He wondered if he was afraid. He cleared his throat and started again. "How much?"

"What?"

"How much?" annoyed, jabbing fiercely with a pointing finger at the obvious bulges in the man's pockets.

"Dunno. You want one?"

"Yes," impatient, his hands signaling nervousness with small waving movements.

The man frowned, thoughtful. "Okay, five satoshi."

"Okay. Here, give me your code." He took out his quandroid and made the transfer. The old man removed one of the bulges from his coat and handed it to him. 

"Enjoy." He turned sharply and was gone before Theodore could reply.

Clever. The chip must be concealed in this book. The book was sealed in a thin plastic film, probably to protect it from the rigors of the man's marketing methods. Interesting title - 'Mother of God' - by someone named Paul Rosolie. Mother of God. Well at least somebody had a sense of humor here. He stuck the book into his pocket where it created a comfortable bulge. It could stay there until he got home. Then he'd unwrap his QB emulator and get something going.

It was gonna' be epic.

Theodore knew how to lose himself in his work, usually; he had learned to push his feelings into the back of his brain while he worked. Today was different. Excitement permeated him, spilling over into the humdrum workday routine, energizing everything he touched, touching everyone he met.

Calm down, he said to himself in an excited whisper.

But that's how it was, for the whole day, and towards the end he could barely contain himself. He forced himself to behave as was expected, to stay calm and perform. He tried to look as bored as he usually did but he didn't make a good job of it. The ward nurses noticed, and smiled at him.

"Okay Theo, who is she?" they asked.

He smiled back, kept his mouth shut.

This was way better than any she, he thought.

At home that evening he tried to be deliberate, to follow his routine but he was barely able to popbefore dinner into the microwave, before he grabbed a knife from the rack and sliced open the thin plastic that protected the book. Hands shaking, he opened it. He figured the pcb had to be in some kind of cutout, maybe inside the pages, or even in one of the covers. The inside flap of the dust jacket blurbed about the Amazon Rain Forest, the last truly wild place on the planet. He held the book covers open and flipped the pages rapidly with his thumb, looking for a cut-out. Nothing.

Mother of God, yeah. What the ...? Where's my chip? Oh yeah, the cover, hidden in the cover I'll bet.

The front, nothing, the back, more of the same.

The book? This is contraband? Well why not?

He had always heard that there were many books that were contraband. He had never wanted to read any of them; no one he knew ever read anything, much, on their own. But he had heard about these things.

He opened the book. This thing was written in the 21st Century. Damn. That was a long time ago. Wonder what it was like, back then. He sat down and began to read. About himself, he thought, after only three pages. This is a book about the life I could have. And so he read on, and on; there was no sleeping that night, not until his eyes were exhausted, his brain filled with images of a mythical place that could be real. He slept, and dreamt.

He woke late the next morning, but it was shift change day so it didn't matter. He wasn't due at the hospital until 8 p.m.. The Mother of God lay with him in the bed so he rolled over and once again immersed himself in her wonders. He had heard of a world like this, a world that had been, long long ago.

Oh my god, a jungle.

He read some more, allowing the words to take over his consciousness, to seep into his senses. He lay down on the river bank and slid his body into the cool water. Once, back in high school, he had played the 'Warfaring' video game with its reality sim on full power. That had been great, but this, this was way better. This was fantastic. No, beyond that. This was ... sublime. He felt like a God. He went back to sleep, to dream some more, waking hours later feeling refreshed. Slowly he rejoined the day and began to prepare his mind for its routine.

And now a strange thing began to happen to Theodore Malsch. The book had captured his soul. It coiled around him like an anaconda, its power enormous and irresistible. In its pages he found something new and vibrant, a life he had not even dared to wish for, or dream of. The first day he had it he had read the book in its entirety, from cover to cover. And in the days since, he had read it over and over, consuming it, and with each reading finding something new and fresh in it, and falling deeper and deeper under its exotic enchantment. Sometimes he could almost believe that it had all happened to him.

For a while, he was content with those feelings. But fantasy does not long satisfy the yearnings of a sensible young man, and Theodore Malsch was certainly that, so it was natural that he began to wonder about the present condition of the Amazon, and as had happened to the young hero of the book, the urge to get up and go began to burn fiercely in his heart. Before now, Theodore had never felt the need to go anywhere, to say nothing of going off to some foreign country where people spoke some strange language, some savage tongue that a civilized man could never master. But the world he encountered in the book put wonder in his dry heart. He found himself dreaming of the places he had read about in it, wild places, teeming with a kind of life that he had never encountered, had never even suspected might exist. Did they exist, still? He wondered, and doubted. Surely he would have heard of a place like that, if it were real. The book in his hand told that it had existed at least once, sometime. How could he not have known? How? What else did he not know?

II

The building that housed the Office of Homeland Security was located in a High Security Zone. There was no public transportation to its door; it sat in the middle of the Business District and you needed special permission (readily available from the Office of Homeland Security) to get past the armed guards at the district gates. There was a rigmarole you had to follow if you lacked the contacts inside Homeland Security, and Theodore Malsch was obliged to go that route to obtain his travel documents. First he had to get a letter from his employer, a character reference, putting in writing the blah-blah-blah of his daily existence. On time and regular was the key. People at work were curious about where he wanted to go, and why, but he lied copiously about that, offering the standard tourist destinations in a popular cruise package. Everyone had an opinion; everyone had advice. 

"Off-world, that's where I would go," said his shift-supervisor as she approved his Request for Documents.

"Yeah? I don't think I've got the stomach for that. I'd be too scared." Theodore looked at her and smiled his trademark self-deprecating smile.

"Well, think about it. You only live once, you know."

It was at the high school that there was the first hint of trouble. The document in his hand was only a pass to the school's Records Department - not that the school's Records Department needed a character reference, but School Security would not allow any unemployed person onto the school grounds. In the past, too many uncomfortable, even dangerous, situations had arisen when such persons were allowed to enter the buildings. In was in the school records that his claim to citizenship was warehoused.

Since the Civil Conflict of 2025, the old Federal records had fallen into disuse. As the Corporations, proclaiming the end of the Information Age and the start of the Age of Efficiency, assumed control of all the public agencies, separate systems of record keeping emerged, each controlled by whichever corporation held sway in that State. The Territorial Amendment to the Constitution had dissolved the United States of America and created The Homeland in its stead; the old Federal Government apparatus was dismantled but the Congressional politicians were left in place, as a figurehead institution, with just enough money to pay themselves handsome salaries. All administration was local, and in the hands of local Corporation offices. It was a matter of convenience that vital records were held in the mega schools they owned and operated in every locale.

On his day off, Theodore rode the bullet train to the school and presented his employment documents to the guards at the front gate. 

"Go straight in through the door on the right, and keep right all the way to the end. Can't miss it," said the burly guard with the big gun across his chest.

Theodore didn't need any instructions. He remembered, and nothing had changed in the years since his graduation. That had not been much of an event, with all his friends gone. In fact, he had been the only one from his class to graduate. He had expected the teachers to be impressed, but they all looked bored as they pronounced the platitudinous clichés and showed him the door. It had been disappointing and he had left that afternoon feeling guilty about something. They told him that his diploma would be in the mail, but it never came. That never bothered him as he was already working at the hospital as an engineering intern and his supervisor was very much aware of his situation at his high school. Upon graduation he was automatically transferred to the regular staff and placed on the payroll. The paperwork was expected to follow; nobody noticed when it never came.

The name tag on her white shirt read Melanie; Theodore thought that the name matched the gloom on her face.

"I'm sorry, but I can't find anything for you. I've got you up to the Ninth Grade, then it looks like you were shipped out with your class." She looked very concerned, but Theodore thought that her concern was misplaced. "Why didn't you ship with the rest of your class?" she said.

"Simple. No mystery. They went to the military and I didn't. I stayed to finish my education."

"Well, no. I'm sorry, but that's not what the records say. You were shipped with them. The entire class record was transferred to the military. And you should have gone with them."

"But that can't be right. I stayed right here and graduated from the Twelfth Grade."

"Well, I just can't find the paperwork. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to go to your military unit."

"But I don't have a military unit. What are you talking about?"

"Maybe you should have. Anyway, that's where your records must be. They're not here, I can tell you that. I'm really sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

Melanie watched him go, sadly. He seemed like such a nice young man. She really hated it that she would have to submit an incident report about his application, but it was required in cases like these. She sighed.

Melanie's report arrived in the Investigator's in-box the morning following Theodore's request at his high school. Because it involved a possible Anomaly, he sent it over to QB Processing for analysis. Since Corporate had commissioned the computer they all called 'the quarterback', there was no processing backlog, so he expected to see the full report back on his desk that afternoon. He hated Anomalies; they always demanded the Procedure, and more effort from him. Always left him with a bad feeling too, truth be told. But what had to be done had to be done and that was all that mattered. He did his job as thoroughly as he could.

The report arrived late in the afternoon, so he left in on top of the pile for the next day, but before he left his desk he managed to sneak a quick look at the file. This was definitely an Anomaly, with no records found anywhere, except at the Hospital, where the subject had been placed on the payroll five years ago, and where he had worked quietly ever since. Interesting. Why did he disturb such a good thing?  These spies and saboteurs were all fools.

He spent the night thinking about that one question and arrived at work the next morning determined to find the answer. Theodore's anomaly was the first thing he tackled. It was the most glaring Anomaly he had ever seen, one with no records anywhere, except the isolated payroll files from the Hospital where the subject worked. This didn't make any sense. He enumerated the possibilities in his mind. Someone in the school had helped him, planting false papers to see him through the system, and removing them once he was in, out of fear that the documents might be traceable to their source. Or he had exploited a breach in the Hospital security to get into the system, faking the whole high school student thing and ending up on the payroll, sans documents. But why risk everything with a passport application now? Where did he have to be so urgently that he would place himself under Homeland Security scrutiny? The Investigator reached for the phone on his desk.

"I have an Anomaly and I need a pick-up," he said to the young woman on the other end. He had always thought of the voice as young and female bit today it was thin and bored and the business was completed quickly. 

"You have an address?" asked the voice.

"Workplace, Atlantis Mercy Hospital."

"When?"

"Asap. I need this one now. There's an open door out there that must be locked, and this one is the key."

III

Theodore watched the SWAT team coming up the hallway; he had heard them stampeding up the stairwell, yelling as they came. Down the hallway, he saw his supervisor getting off the elevator; the clatter of an armed SWAT strike team charging through the hospital had also drawn the attention of curious workers who clustered in its wake.

He watched in amazement as the soldiers surrounded him. Now they were yelling at him, ordering him to kneel and surrender. His heart was pounding as he panicked. His head spun, his vision blurred to a flat image of fast moving figures, with guns. Two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and threw him to the ground. His head banged on the tile floor; he manged to turn his face off to the side before it hit the ground. A sharp pain exploded behind his eyes. He said nothing; did not cry out. What good would that have done? Somehow, they had found out about the book. It was inevitable; he supposed that he had known that from the start. He wondered what had happened to the old man.

They took him away in handcuffs, with a crowd of people watching as they walked him through the hospital hallways and down the stairs, from his maintenance room on the third floor to the basement parking lot. They bundled him into a closed black vehicle; he noticed that without an audience, the soldiers were gentler and more considerate. A soldier carefully chained his ankles to a large ring on the floor of the car.

They left Theodore sitting alone in a straight-backed metal chair in a windowless waiting room. His chair faced a door that appeared to lead to an inner office. There were the usual drab paintings on the wall, and chairs like Theodore's stood empty around the room. A clock on the wall told the wrong time; after a while Theodore realized that it was dead. It felt like he had been waiting for hours when a man entered. Under his white lab coat he wore a shirt and tie and in his hands he carried a clipboard and pencil. His hands were very clean, his nails carefully manicured. He approached Theodore and stood directly in front of him, pushing uncomfortably into his personal space. Theodore wanted to reach out and push the man away, not hostilely, but just to let him know that he was standing too close.

"Are you Theodore Malsch?"

"Yes, that's my name. I'm Theodore Malsch. But who are you?"

"I'm the Investigator," the man answered, leafing through documents on the clipboard. On hearing this, Theodore became alarmed and started to rise from his chair. The Investigator put a firm hand on Theodore’s shoulder to stop him. "Please remain seated. Why do you claim to be Theodore Malsch? Who are you actually?"

"What do you mean? I'm Theodore, that's me. Theodore Malsch."

"Where were you born? And please, look around you. Isn't this a nice room? Aren't you comfortable? There is no need for any more lies. The Q has discovered the anomaly. Let us please have the necessary confirmation so that we can perform the reconciliation. And you can be out of here." He smiled reassuringly.

"Where are we anyway? And why am I here?" Theodore didn't try to get out of the chair this time, but he slid to the edge of the seat. He wondered if getting angry would help his situation.

The Investigator looked at him with a wry smile. "That information is classified," he said. "If I told you, then I'd have to kill you."

"What? That's crazy. I am Theodore Malsch. That's my name. From ever."

"What's crazy is you trying to bluff your way out of this. You are not in the Q-base. You don't exist. Where did you come from? That is the answer we require."

"And it's the answer you already have. I'm an American, a citizen of the Federal Territories. I was born right here, eleven September, twenty-one fifty."

"I can't reconcile that response with the Q-base. It is not a valid response," the Investigator answered dryly.

Theodore took a deep breath and wished there was a window he could look out of right at this moment. But all he had were the paintings on the wall; one of them was attractive ... in a somewhat frightening way. It was a perspective painting of a lighted hallway, executed in rich browns. Interesting, the way it drew his eyes, sucking him into its depths.

"Excuse me a moment," said the Investigator. He turned, walked over to the opposing door and knocked once. Theodore saw a light go on behind the door and heard a heavy tread approaching. The door was opened a crack and the Investigator whispered something to whoever was there.

"Yes," said the voice behind the door, shutting it firmly, with a loud click. The Investigator walked slowly back to again face Theodore.

"You were making travel plans. Why did you come here? Where are your accomplices?" he said.

"I've done nothing wrong, have I? I just wanted to see ..." Theodore stopped, realizing that he had opened the door to a line of questioning that he didn't want, that he felt sure would end badly for him.

"Yes. See what?"

"The jungle. The Amazon."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He spoke, heard himself and wondered if he should say more. "It's just that ... I wondered ..." 

"Yes. You wondered ... "

"Is it still there?"

"Is what still there?"

"You know, the Amazon. The jungle. I've never seen anything like that, so I wonder if ... it could be."

"Could be what?"

"Nothing. Just be. Like me."

"Perhaps yes. Just like you indeed."

"What do you mean, why are you talking to me like that?"

"You know why."

"Okay, so I know why, maybe, so why don't you just come right out and say it? What's all this cat and mouse about?"

"Good. Finally you're beginning to understand. Then why don't you begin. Tell me about it."

Theodore hesitated on the brink of the abyss. Then he leaped into the dark.

"It's about the book, isn't it?"

The Investigator cocked his head to one side and maintained an expressionless silence. Theodore waited.

"Excuse me," said the Investigator, turning once more and walking to the office door. He knocked once, and as before, a light went on and a heavy tread approached the door. Again there was a whispered conversation that Theodore could not understand. Perhaps it was in another language, he thought. The Investigator returned to stand before him again.

"Why did you do it? Do you hate the Homeland? What have we done to you? Did you not find happiness here?"

"What? What are you talking about? I didn't know it was contraband. What happiness are you talking about? I'm Theodore Malsch, a citizen of the Federal Territories. Why would I hate my country?"

"So that's it then; you're a weapons smuggler. What did you bring here and who's your supplier?"

"Listen, I'm not a smuggler. I work at the hospital. I bought a book from a man on the street. I didn't know it was contraband."

"What's his name, your contact?"

"He's not my contact. I don't know him. He was just an old man in the street. I don't know where he came from. I don't know where he went. I paid him for a book; you know the title – Mother of God. That's all. It was a book about the Amazon, about how it was back then, more than a hundred years ago. I wanted to see if it was still there." Theodore began to sob softly.

"We don't care about all that. We will find your old man, your contact, mister whatever your name is. Theodore Malsch, the real Theodore Malsch, was a hero of the Homeland. With the rest of his high school class, he enlisted during a time of engagement, when his Homeland had to be defended. He gave his life for the Homeland."

"But," said Theodore through his tears, "I didn't go. It was ninth grade; they ... we ... were children. I saw ... I couldn't go."

The Investigator was suddenly enraged, the fire flying to his eyes, his body tightening as he moved an inch closer to Theodore.

"Do not speak of these things. You have no right. We see what you did. Somehow you stole his identity, but you could not alter the record. Of course you couldn't; the Q is unbreakable. It is over. The anomaly has been discovered. The record must be reconciled."

The Investigator returned to the office door and knocked; as before, the light went on and the heavy tread could be heard, approaching slowly. The door opened, and whispered words were again exchanged. But this time the door stayed open as the Investigator returned to Theodore.

"Get up," he said.

Theodore rose shakily.

"What happens now?" he asked, trying to stay calm but his hands were cold. He rubbed his palms together for some warmth.

"Nothing. Please go to the next station. Oh, and goodbye, Mister ... Malsch?"

"Yes, goodbye." Theodore turned to go, then stopped. "Wait," he said, "Is it there? Is the jungle still there?"

The Investigator turned around to face Theodore Malsch.

"Of course," he said, “like you,” and laughed at his own joke.