loved who loved her back.
The time for argument passed, so did the time for protests; she lacked the energy to continue fighting.
Outside, the last rays of sunset faded like a dying fire. A vehicle motor revved as it traveled the driveway. The sound of scattered voices-handlers commanding K9s and sentries conversing-seeped through the front windows as muffled background noise.
“I’m sorry,” he said for what might have been the fiftieth time that evening, but this time the apology encompassed a greater wrong. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”
“Me-me too,” she sobbed. “What happened? How come the old world seems like a faded dream? I don’t even know if it’s real any more. Was it real? Any of it?”
For the first time in a long while he slipped an arm around Ashley’s shoulder and pulled her close.
“It was real. But I know what you mean about it seeming a dream. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what my folks looked like. That bothers me.”
“Do you remember-you remember making the plans for the wedding? I thought it was important.”
He chuckled and told her, “I remember. And it was important. Back then. I guess our definition of ‘important’ has changed a bit.”
“I kept moving those seating charts around. It must’ve drove you nuts.”
“No, no,” he did not sound convincing. “I was right there with you.”
“Oh, you liar.” She actually flashed a brief smile.
“Say, you remember that time we went on a picnic up to Francis Slocum State Park?”
Ashley nodded. “How could I forget? That was Memorial Day.”
“Perfect day, it seemed. Then that storm rolled in and we didn’t even notice. Next thing you know-”
She picked up, “We were too busy staring into each other’s eyes,” she used the right mix of melodrama in her tone, “to notice that everyone else at the park went running for their cars. By time we did the rain was coming down in sheets. Oh, geez, that was horrible!”
“Nah, it was fun. Something to remember, right?”
“Well you know me, I had to have everything perfect. Best plans, you know?”
“I know.”
“I changed,” she admitted. “I’ve gotten used to the idea that things don’t go as planned.”
He sighed and, after a silence of several seconds, spoke to Ashley in a whisper, “I’m sorry, Ashley. I’m sorry we didn’t get that wedding. I’m sorry we didn’t get that house and the picket fence your dad would’ve built for half-price.”
She snickered at that and cuddled a little closer.
He went on, “I never asked for any of this. Never wanted it.”
“I know. I mean, when I really think about all that has happened I don’t really blame you. You’ve done the best you could. Better than my dad ever would have thought, right?”
This time he snickered.
“You too,” he told her honestly. “You were dealt a bad hand, Ashley, but you rose up. I don’t say this a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever said it. But Ashley, I’m proud of you. I admire you, too. You deserve better. I’m sorry I was never able to give that to you.”
She quietly told him, “And now you’re going to take away the only thing that matters to me.” But no argument remained in her voice; she merely spoke the truth.
Ashley gently pulled free of his hug, sat straight on the couch, and studied him for several long seconds. He returned her gaze and for a moment he saw beautiful Ashley Trump of a decade ago whom he had somehow convinced to fall in love with him. She had been his dream. In return, he had put her through a nightmare.
She spoke without any acid in her tone, but with strength.
“I know you wouldn’t do this unless you thought it would work. Whether it does work or doesn’t, either way the end is coming soon, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
Ashley told him, “I won’t be here when you get back. It doesn’t matter, not really. The TV cameras are pretty much gone. I don’t think appearances are important anymore. So you don’t need me by your side. It’s all in your hands now, Trevor. You, your Generals, and I guess our son, too. If he’s not here, there’s no reason for me to be.”
Trevor bowed his head and accepted her words.
Ashley finished, “Point is, there’s a life out there somewhere; my life. I need to find it, in what little time I have left.”
6. Intelligence
Ashley stood at the bottom of what used to be the stairs to a small cottage on the rim of the lake. A wooden ramp covered those stairs now, offering a gentle slope from the quaint porch to the blacktop driveway alongside the small, one-story home.
In her hand she held a bound, blue booklet that bore the logo of an open hand with an eye at the center. The title printed below the symbol offered a cryptic clue as to the contents: Imperial Intelligence Summary Report: Voggoth Prime.
Ashley knew from her tear-filled discussions with Trevor that the report detailed the location of The Order’s primary base of operations on Earth, half a world away.
She took her eyes from the report and looked at the cottage entrance again. Behind her a car drove around the lake perimeter road causing a small breeze of wind to offer slight relief from the humid morning air.
Ashley grunted with resolve and climbed the ramp. She knocked on the metal-framed screen door. A few seconds later the heavier white-wood interior door opened and an older gentleman in casual dress greeted her. She noticed that one of the man’s hands had been replaced by a plastic prosthetic, no doubt a wound suffered while in service to Intelligence.
“I’m here to see Gordon.”
“He is not taking any visitors,” the man answered in a voice lacking any emotion, any concern. He could have been a robot.
She held the booklet up and said, “It’s about the report he sent over. Tell him there is a big problem with it.”
The man’s eyes widened as if Ashley had just insulted his mother.
“Wait here,” the man closed the door.
If any other servant in The Empire had tried to dismiss Ashley so casually, she probably would have exploded. But she knew that the man served Gordon Knox.
The door opened again, this time all the way. Ashley walked in.
A hallway ran the length of the cottage from the front to a rear kitchen. Wide archways to either side of the hall opened to other rooms, all coated with hardwood floors. She saw very little furniture and no mirrors. The air smelled stale.
“He’s in his study,” the servant directed and Ashley found her way.
She came upon Gordon in one of the rooms at the back of the house. A big, sliding glass door offered access to a wood deck overlooking a yard surrounded by tall pine trees. Inside, computers and printers, video screens and a HAM radio with a glitzy LCD display, formed a ring around the center of the room. A simple ceiling fan revolved slowly above it all.
Gordon Knox sat in his wheelchair near the sliding glass door his eyes staring outside.
Ashley paused.
“May I come in?”
Without turning Gordon replied, “Yes. Of course. What will we be reading today?”
Ashley said, “Tomorrow is our reading day, remember? And besides,” she walked to his side, “you know we haven’t finished Heart of Darkness yet.”
“Ah, yes, we haven’t even met Kurtz, yet, have we?”
