for a new Treasury bureau that would be put in charge of the next wave of government bailouts for various failing corporations and industries.
This was the work of only a few seconds; Noah called it the Federal Resource Allocation & Underwriting Division. Nearly a truckload of boxes of letterhead and business cards had been printed before someone in production noticed the problem: The five-letter acronym for this new government bureau would be FRAUD.
They’d said they believed him when he told them it was an accident, but they’d also moved Noah to this more secure, probationary floor of the residence building just as a temporary precaution.
Once you know the truth, Molly had said, then you’ve got to live it. What she’d apparently neglected to add was that you’ll also tend to randomly tell it, whether it gets you into trouble or not.
Noah rearranged his pillows and lay down on his cot, not with an intention to sleep, but just to rest his eyes for a while and try to clear his head.
A thousand things were flying through his mind. It was a condition that his father referred to as a topical storm, a state in which so many conflicting thoughts are doing battle in your brain that you lose your ability to discern and to act on any of them. This state was regularly induced by PR experts to cloud and control issues in the public discourse, to keep thinking people depressed and apathetic on election days, and to discourage those who might be tempted to actually take a stand on a complex issue.
They’d given Noah a radio and a small TV, but he knew those wouldn’t help to clarify anything for him. On the contrary; the Emergency Alert System had kicked in shortly after the thwarted attack, and though some individual stations and networks were active again, the news still had the distinctive sameness of single-source coverage. While no real disaster had actually happened, the selected newspeople were breathlessly working 24/7 to puff up the disasters that might have happened, and what might still be looming ahead tomorrow. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt-the three most effective weapons in the arsenal of Arthur Gardner-were keeping the country in an uneasy state of tension and helplessness, much like his own.
“What can one person do?” That was the passive, rhetorical question that kept people silent and powerless in the face of things that seem too large and frightening to overcome. It was the question in Noah’s mind, as well. Now I see the truth, and yes, I want to live it, but what can I do?
He decided to sleep on that, because so far he’d been unable to come up with a good answer.
Noah brushed his teeth and washed as soon as the bathroom was free, left the sink and the shower and the commode a lot cleaner than he’d found them, dressed for bed, and turned in. He rolled over onto his side and saw his first filled calendar grid, with the second empty one beside it on the wall.
Where would he be a month from now?
That answer seemed depressingly certain. But then, where might Molly be? Asking that question had become a nightly ritual at the end of these dreary days, and it was still on his mind as he fell asleep a while later on.
There was no hard transition between consciousness and the beginning of his now-familiar dream.
Noah opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the small, warm family room of a rustic little cabin. Surrounding him were simple furnishings, hand-made quilts, and corner shelves of keepsakes and photographs. Unlike the mass-produced, impersonal flash of the world he’d left behind, the things here had been built and woven and carved and finished by skilled, loving hands, things made or given by friends and family, made to mean something, to be passed on, and to last through generations.
Snow fluttered down outside the wide windows, big flakes sticking and blowing past the frosted panes, an idyllic woodland scene framed in pleated curtains and knotty pine. He was sitting in front of a stone hearth. A pair of boots were drying there, with space for another, smaller pair beside. A fire was burning low, a black dutch oven suspended above the coals, the smell of some wonderful meal cooking inside. Two plates and silver settings were arranged on a nearby dining table.
A simple evening lay ahead. Though it might seem nearly identical to a hundred other nights he’d spent with her, he also knew it would be unlike any other, before or after. It always was; being with Molly, talking with her, listening to her, enjoying the quiet with her, feeling her close to him, thinking of the future with her. Every night was like a perfect first date, and every morning like the first exciting day of a whole new life together.
Like Molly had said, such a simple existence certainly wasn’t for everyone. But the freedom to choose one’s own pursuit of happiness- that’s what her country was founded on, and that’s what she was fighting for.
Noah heard a sound at the entrance, and he turned to welcome her home again.
But when he looked, it was a different room he saw around him. He blinked repeatedly, but the reality he’d woken up to wouldn’t disappear so easily. The man from the hall was looking through the window in the frame, beckoning Noah to the door.
He sighed, got up, walked over, and turned the lock. It was only a formality, of course; it wasn’t as though the guy outside didn’t have a key of his own.
After the usual pleasantries the man in the hall offered Noah a tray from the rolling cart beside him.
“Looks like I woke you up. Sorry about that.”
“That’s okay,” Noah said. “What’s for dinner?”
The man lifted the round stainless steel cover from the plate on the tray. “Sure looks like Thursday to me,” he replied.
“Ah, my favorite.”
The man had nearly returned to his cart, but he stopped and came nearer again. “Say, I see you here every day, and it occurred to me tonight, we’ve never been properly introduced.”
Noah put down his tray on the side table inside his door. “I’m Noah Gardner.”
The man nodded, and casually glanced left and then right down the hallway before he answered, quietly, “My friends call me Nathan. I’ve got a message for you,” he said. “Would you mind if I came in for just a moment?”
“Of course, come on in.”
He stepped aside and closed the door as the other man walked past him into the room. Noah watched as he unplugged the TV, ran his fin gers along the edges of the desk as though feeling for something hidden, and then clicked on the radio and turned it up loud enough to establish some covering background noise.
“What is this-?” Noah began, and before he could finish that question he found himself pushed hard against the wall with a forearm pressed against his neck and the other man’s face close to his.
“You want to know what this is?” Nathan hissed. “It’s a wake-up call. You’re in a valuable position, my friend, and we need for you to snap out of it and start doing the work we need done.” He adjusted his grip on Noah’s collar, and continued. “Now listen closely. Tomorrow, at your job, you sign into your computer right before you leave for the day, but you don’t sign out. Here’s a key.” Noah felt something shoved roughly into his pocket. “You’re going to leave it under the mouse pad on the desk two places down from yours, to your left. Got all that?”
Noah nodded, as best he could.
“I hope you do,” Nathan said. He took a step back, smiled and straightened his clothing as if the two of them had just been engaging in some mutual, spirited roughhousing. “To quote a good friend of mine,” he added, on his way to the door. “If they’re gonna call this treason anyway, we might as well make the most of it.”
“Wait,” Noah said.
“Enjoy your dinner,” Nathan said. “The meat loaf ain’t much, but I think you’ll like the dessert.” With that, he left the room and resumed his walk down the hall, pushing his meal cart.
Noah closed the door and stared at the tray of covered plates on the table in front of him. He went right to the smallest of them, lifted the lid and found exactly what he was looking for inside: a lukewarm square of runny peach cobbler. He took the knife, cut down the center, and, just as he’d hoped, felt it hit something solid.
He extracted the object from the gooey syrup, took it to the sink in the bathroom, locked the door to the adjoining room, and held it under the cold running water until it was washed clean.
It was Molly’s silver bracelet.
He held it close to his eyes; maybe the words engraved there were a little more worn than they’d been before, but he would have remembered them even if they’d been gone completely.
She was alive. Whatever other message he’d been hoping for, whatever guidance he’d been seeking, this was better. Not just a plan, because a plan can be defeated. This was a foundation.
As he returned to the bedroom he remembered the key he’d been given and he pulled it from his pocket. It was wrapped in paper, and, as he unfolded it, Noah saw the simple words written there, in Molly’s familiar handwriting.
“We’re everywhere. Stay with us; I’ll see you soon. The fight starts tomorrow.”
