Dominion (5 page)

As usual, the men eventually drifted inside to gather around Ruppert’s floor-to-ceiling wall screen and watch the Dodgers game. Like all men awkwardly drawn together by a convergence of their women, they spoke a little about sports and cars, drank what they could, and stayed grateful the game was there to fill the time between arrival and departure.

The Dodgers were up three to one against the Pirates at the top of the eighth, and Ruppert gave every appearance of watching the game. His eyes kept drifting towards the upper corner of the screen, where he’d always imagined the cameras were hidden, though he had no reason to believe this. More likely, the cameras were microscopic and scattered across the surface of the screen.

Everyone knew the cameras were there; it was obvious every time you made a video call, and the better screens also responded to hand gestures. The most expensive screens, like those at GlobeNet, actually followed your eyes, highlighting and enlarging anything on which you rested your gaze.

He’d heard rumors about the screens. They said the Department of Terror could track anything you did online, from phone calls to paying your bills to watching a show; Nicholas had no doubt about that, and it had never been kept secret. He’d also heard that Terror could silently activate your screens at any time to watch your activities at home, even if the screen was turned off.

The most chilling thing he’d heard, though, was that the cameras recorded everyone, all the time, and Terror stored every bit of it in giant data archives, somewhere deep underground in the desert, or extreme northern Alaska, or somewhere in the Appalachian mountains (depending on who it was that had too many drinks and dared to talk about it). If you became of interest to them, they could search back through your whole life for signs of insufficient patriotism or sympathy with the enemy, even perform keyword searches through your most intimate conversations.

Nobody knew what Terror could do, because Terror operated behind an absolute black shield of national security. There were only rumors and the occasional news report: “The Department of Terror has arrested a group of leftist terrorists in San Diego.” Leftist usually meant Latino. Jihadi, of course, always meant Middle Eastern, while imperialist always meant Chinese.

As the Dodgers took the mound, Ruppert’s doorbell rang. It sang out an instrumental of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” played on what sounded like wind chimes. Madeline refused to change the doorbell sound, even though she could choose from thousands at the touch of a button. After four years, Ruppert thought, even Jesus would be sick of that song.

Ruppert stepped into the front hall and saw Sullivan Stone through the window pane by his front door. Sullivan waved, just as enthusiastically as if he’d been an invited guest. Ruppert went to answer the door, puzzled, unable to think of a plausible reason for Sully to show up at his wife’s party.

Ruppert’s house identified Sully and announced in a melodic voice high above Ruppert’s head: “Sullivan Stone, and guest Brandiwynne Hope. Ms. Hope has not visited your home before. She is a nonfamous entertainer. Sullivan Stone is your co-worker at GlobeNet. Both are nonscheduled guests today.”

Ruppert paused long enough to roll his eyes before opening the door. He vaguely recognized the name Brandiwynne Hope, mainly because it was outlandish even for an entertainer. She would be the latest in Sully’s endless stream of model/singer/actresses that appeared and disappeared at his arm, each of them a seductive commercial for herself, Sully cool and indifferent as they came and went. The girls were of the type still drawn to Los Angeles for its faded mystique as the entertainment capital of the world, a position it had long ago yielded to Tokyo and Mumbai. Terror men controlled the dying film studios.

Speculation ran back and forth among the men at the office about Sully’s wild success at dating—dating, because no one would dare accuse another of premarital sex crimes without strong evidence. Privately, Ruppert doubted that Sully was ever interested in any of the beautiful ladies who accompanied him.

He opened the door.

“Daniel!” Sully thrust a brown-wrapped bottle into his hands as he swept into the front hall. After him followed the sort of person Ruppert expected—long blonde hair, wide eyes like blueberries, her mouth a bit redder than might be accepted at one of his wife’s church groups. She wore tight denim overalls tucked into thigh-high leather boots, a fashion unfamiliar to Ruppert, if it was a fashion.

Ruppert unwrapped the bottle—Signorello, a Napa wine, bottled in 2010.

“You brought wine?” Ruppert asked.

“Wine and Brandiwynne,” Sully said. “Have you met? She’s cutting a studio setlist with Haisako. A very big, breakout hit. Or it will be, next month.”

“Nice to meet you, uh, Brandy.”

“Brandywynne,” she corrected him. “Brandywynne. Brandywynne Hope.”

“Right. What kind of music do you play?”

“Rust.”

“Is that a…genre?”

“Hey!” she shrieked, pointing at Ruppert. He turned, half-expecting to see a feral rodent swooping down at his head. “You’re that news guy, right? The one that comes on before Sully?”

“That’s how I’m known to the greater Los Angeles area,” Ruppert said. “That guy before Sully.”

“Wow! So, yeah, what’s the news today?”

“I’m off today. The kids take our place on the weekends, at least until they’re trained up enough to take our jobs. You’d better come back and meet my wife.”

Ruppert led them through the living room, where a few heads turned towards Brandiwynne and quickly swiveled back to the screen. Ruppert cast a questioning look at Sully, who had only visited his house once before, at Ruppert and Madeline’s housewarming four years ago. Sully held up his index finger and raised his eyebrows. Ruppert had no idea what he meant by it.

The garden club women, who had broken into small, chattering groups, fell silent as Ruppert emerged with Sully and Brandiwynne. They eyed the pretty, unnamed younger girl with cold suspicion.

“Ladies, you all know Sullivan Stone—unless you avoid my newscasts as well as Madeline does.” This brought one or two laughs, which were instantly quashed by hard glares from the other women. “And this is…Brandiwynne Hope, a new rock star—”

“Rust star,” Brandiwynne interrupted.

“—anyway, a musical genius, from what I’ve heard people tell me recently.”

Madeline took Brandiwynne’s hand and smiled, but her eyes were like smoldering green coals when she glanced at Ruppert.

“So nice to meet you. I’m Madeline. We’re just in the middle of a private cheese party.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Ruppert,” Sully said. “We were just passing through Bel-Air when I remembered Ruppert mentioning you were having a party today, and I just really, honestly, needed to see the end.”

“The end?” Madeline asked.

“We’re up by two, but it’s just moving into the bottom of the eighth and the Pirates have that new pitcher, Marshall What’s-his—”

“Fine, fine,” Madeline said. “Men to the den. We can take care of Miss…Hope?”

“Brandiwynne. Brandiwynne. Brandiwynne Hope.”

“And what sort of music do you sing?”

As they walked toward the door, Sully whispered to Ruppert: “Is there a screen in your bedroom?”

“Yeah,” Ruppert whispered back.

“Where can we go?”

Ruppert thought of his house—the den, the guest bedrooms, the small screen set into the kitchen wall. “Follow me.”

Ruppert’s basement was mostly underground, the floors and walls lined with cold, flat stone. Probably faux-stone, but it felt real to the touch. He slid his hand along the smooth surface until he brushed the touchpad, bringing the ceiling bulbs to life. Sully closed the door before following him down the steps.

“What’s going on, Sully?”

“Are you sure we’re safe?”

“From who?” Ruppert asked.

Sully just looked at him.

“There’s no screens down here.”

“Any kind of media link?”

“Listen, Daniel,” Sully whispered. “I need your help, but first I need to know if you’ll keep a secret. A serious one.”

“Sully, what are you—”

“Just—please, all right?”

Ruppert saw that Sully was sweating hard now, his hands trembling. His eyes slashed back and forth between Ruppert and the basement door above.

“Okay, Sully, just calm down. It can’t be that bad.”

Sully breathed out something between a snort and a laugh. “That bad, that bad…Listen, Daniel, you’re probably right. We’ll say you’re right. Then help me out?”

“I’ll help, Sully, Jesus.”

“I can trust you? Swear to God and the flag?”

“I…yeah, Sully, I swear.” The childish expression unnerved Ruppert. He began glancing furtively at the door, too, though he’d done nothing wrong. Not yet.

“Okay. I thought so. Great.” Sully lifted a thin wafer of plastic from his pocket and held it out to him. A long chain of numbers and letters was stamped across it.

“This is…what?” Ruppert asked. “A data slide?”

“A contact code. Just type it into your web interface. I mean, not your interface. Not here. Do it from a café.”

“Why?”

“Don’t do it yet!” Sully glanced at the door again. His hair, matted with sweat, drooped into his eyes. “This is just in case.”

“I don’t understand, Sully.”

“In case it happens to me!” Sully yelled, then winced at his own voice. Whispering again, leaning in close to Ruppert, he said, “If they come for me. If I disappear. Then I want you to call. From a safe line. Voice only.”

“Nothing’s safe, Sully. I have a wife, Sully.”

“Don’t involve her.”

Ruppert looked at the digits—forty-three numbers and letters. It was a phone number, but nobody used the actual numbers anymore. You just told your screen who to call and it called.

“Who will this connect me to?”

“He’s a friend of mine. A really good friend, Daniel, and I don’t want anything to happen to him. If they come for me, call him. He can give you what you always wanted.”

“What?”

The basement door swung open, and a graying man in a beige sweater vest looked down on them.

“Oh,” the man said, taking in the sight of them huddled in the basement. “I was looking…for…the men’s room?”

“Second door on your right,” Ruppert said.

“Yes, thank you.” The man remained in place. “Should I close the door again, or…?”

Then Sully raced up the stairs and out of sight. Ruppert stood in his basement, puzzling over the slice of plastic.
What you always wanted.
What did Sully mean by that?

SIX

On Sunday, after a long church service and afternoon groups (Womanly Virtues and Duties for Madeline, Family Leadership for Ruppert), Ruppert suggested they eat their usual early Sunday dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant, the Laughing Dragon. Madeline bristled.

“Wouldn’t that be unpatriotic now?” she asked. “You heard Pastor John—the Chinese are making more threats.”

“The Hans aren’t Chinese agents,” Ruppert said as they turned east on Wilshire. “They’ve been there forever.”

“Maybe they’re a sleeper cell. Pastor John says sleeper cells are everywhere.”

“So they’ve been asleep for, what, five generations? Ten? You think the Chinese Communists planted the Han family in Los Angeles before Karl Marx was born?”

“I’m staying alert, Daniel. We all have to stay alert.”

“We can stay alert over tea and egg rolls. If it makes you feel better, we can watch our waiter for suspicious behavior.”

“Shut up.” She glared out the window.

“Watch for propaganda in your fortune cookie.”

“Fine, you win. But no more Chinese after this. I don’t want to be un-American.”

From two blocks away, Ruppert could see the giant red dragon crouching on the roof of the restaurant, his serpentine body a scarlet sine wave. Happy the Dragon, mascot and minor tourist attraction, had eyes that were squinted almost closed and jaws spread in a smiling howl, as if someone had just whispered the world’s funniest joke into his ear. Today, smoke curled out from the dragon’s nostrils, an effect the Hans created with dry ice on both Chinese and American holidays.

“What’s today?” Ruppert asked.

“Sunday.”

“No, I mean—”

“April eighth. Why?”

“Must be a Chinese holiday.”

Madeline looked at the smoke pouring from the dragon’s maw. Her lip curled. “We can’t eat Chinese on a Communist holiday.”

“It’s not necessarily Communist…” Daniel’s words trailed off. They had reached a red light a block from the Laughing Dragon, and he now saw there was something wrong. Happy the Dragon was not exhaling white plumes of evaporating dry ice, but dark, sooty clouds.

The light changed, and they pulled forward to see the actual restaurant underneath the dragon’s belly. The plate-glass picture windows were shattered, the ornate double doors had been ripped from their hinges and thrown aside, and flames engulfed the building.

“Oh, my God,” Madeline whispered. “Keep going, Daniel. Don’t stop here.”

“I’m trying,” Daniel said, but traffic and another red light locked them in place.

He recognized the three unmarked black vans parked in the Laughing Dragon’s lot, and he cringed. The Han family emerged from their burning restaurant, four generations of them, from the ninety-year-old matriarch Wen to her seven-year-old great-grandson, Gabriel. There were eighteen family members in all, their hands clasped behind their heads as their captors marched them out at gunpoint.

The captors wore black cloth masks with American flags stitched on the foreheads. They had to be one of the Freedom Brigades, the loose network of ultrapatriotic vigilantes that emerged nationwide in the wake of Columbus. They’d begun with mosque bombings and violent raids on Muslim community centers. Once the Department of Terror had purged most of the Muslims from America, sweeping them into the Emergency Penitentiaries, the Freedom Brigades had moved on to persecuting illegal Latino immigrants, and assorted others.