Mysterium

The Two Rivers Crier, a weekly newspaper, had not seen an issue since the crisis in June. That autumn, it published a new edition.

The Crier had been edited from an office on Grange Street, but the presses were in Kirkland, sixty miles away; since June, much farther than that. Where the town of Kirkland had been, today there was pine forest and an icy creek.

The new Crier, a single folded sheet of rag pulp, was a collaboration between a past editor and a committee of Bureau surveillants. The text consisted of announcements from the military and the Proctors. Power failures in the east end were sporadic and would be repaired before the end of the month; a new food depot had been opened at the corner of Pritchard and Knight. There was also a ringing editorial in which the reappearance of the paper was said to augur better times for Two Rivers, “carried as if by stormy gusts into a strange ocean and sailing under the calm winds of cooperation toward safe harbor.”

Prominent on the back page was a column announcing a program under which single men between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five were permitted to request relocation and job training elsewhere in the Republic, a living wage to be paid until such time as the men were established in their new lives. It was open to “White Men, Jews, Apostates, Negros, Mulattos, and Others—All Welcome.” It attracted considerable attention in town.

There were only a few volunteers. Many were transients who had been passing through when the accident happened and saw no reason to stay. Some were young men chafing at the friction of martial law. All were accepted for relocation.

The first convoy left town November 3 with a cargo of twenty-five civilians.

Some had families. Some waved at sisters or parents as the transport truck banged south from the A P parking lot in a gusty, cold rain.

Some were smiling. Some were weeping. All of them promised to write. No letters were ever received.

?

Clifford Stockton often thought about his father, especially when the soldier was visiting his mom.

His father was a commodities broker living in Chicago (or who had lived in Chicago, before everything changed), and he never visited. “A good thing, too,” his mother used to say when Clifford pressed her on the subject. “He has his own family there. His own children.”

He never visited and he never wrote. But twice a year—at Christmas and on his birthday—Clifford would get a package in the mail.

There was always a card with Clifford’s name on it and the appropriate sentiment: Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday. Nothing unusual there.

But the present—the present itself—was always great.

One year his father sent him a Nintendo game machine and an armload of cartridges. Another time, UPS delivered a radio-controlled scale model P-51 Mustang. The least exciting gift had been a fully equipped chemistry set, confiscated after two weeks when Clifford dropped a test tube and stained the living room shag beyond repair. The most exciting present had come last May: a two-hundred-channel programmable scanner that could eavesdrop on police, fire, and emergency frequencies—as well as on cellular telephones, though hardly anyone in Two Rivers had possessed one.

Clifford had not thought much about the scanner since June. Since the invasion, there had been no power to plug it into; it languished in the closet in his room, on the shelf above the coat hangers … ignored, but not entirely forgotten.

Tonight Luke was visiting. Which meant Clifford was confined to his room after nine o’clock. Which left him with not much to do.

He could read. The library was closed permanently, a fact Clifford still had trouble grasping, but the cashier at the Silverwood Mall Brentano’s, a friend of his mother, had gone to the store with her key last summer and “borrowed” a bag full of science fiction paperbacks for him. Clifford was working his way through Dune, and he spent an hour or so on the intrigues of that desert planet.

But he wasn’t in a reading mood, and when the downstairs television fell silent (his mother had been showing Luke her videotape of On Golden Pond), Clifford rummaged in the closet for his Game Boy. He found it; but the AC adapter was lost and the batteries, he discovered, were long dead.

The scanner, neglected on the upper shelf, caught his eye. Clifford decided he ought to brush the dust off, if nothing else. He stood on a chair and lifted the metal case down.

He put it on his desk. He liked the way it looked there, the liquid crystal display glittering in the lamplight. He extended the antenna and plugged the cord into the wall.

He hit the scan button and let the internal logic search the airwaves. He didn’t expect much. One of the Two Rivers Police Department patrol cars was still allowed to roam around town, so there might be a little police chatter; or something from the fire department, under new management since Chief Haldane died. But both channels were silent.

Idly, he tuned to what should have been the marine band—and suddenly the room was full of voices.

Voices announcing street corners, voices acknowledging the announcements. Clifford was instantly fascinated. It had to be the militia, he thought. Patrol cars making their rounds, calling out checkpoints. Oak and Beacon, all silent. Camden and Pine, all quiet here. Clifford punched the monitor button and settled down to listen.

The talk went on. Mostly, the militiamen sounded bored. Periodically, they complained about the cold.

Check-point, Third and Duke. We’re almost frozen out here.

Noted. Beware ice, James. The streets are slick in Babylon tonight.

Babylon was what the soldiers called Two Rivers. Luke had told him that.

No signs of life along the highway. Nico, is it true they’re serving pot roast in the commissary tomorrow night?

That’s the rumor. Supply truck hasn’t been in today, though.

Samael’s pants. I was looking forward to a hot meal.

You’ll be looking forward to an obscenity demerit if you’re not careful. Philip? Your callout is late.

But now his mother’s voice came down the hallway and through the door of his room: “Cliffy? Have you got the TV on?”

“Shit,” Clifford said, startling himself a little. He reached for the volume control on the scanner. In his panic, he jerked it the wrong way.

The speaker screamed, “FOURTH AND MAIN! FOURTH AND MAIN! ALL QUIET AT FOURTH AND MAIN!”

Clifford hit the off switch and yanked the power cord out of the wall socket. The scanner was important. He understood that without thinking about it. The scanner was important and he had to hide it, or it would be taken away from him.

He heard his mother’s bedroom door swing open.

“Cliffy!”

He looked at the high shelf of his closet. Too far away. He lifted the scanner and bent to slip the heavy case into the dusty darkness under his bed. It fit, but only just. The cord trailed behind. He kicked it under the hem of the bedspread.

The door to his room sprang open. His mother stood in the doorway clutching a pink nightgown at her neck and frowning hugely.

“Cliffy, what the hell is all that noise?”

“Playing with the Game Boy,” he said—lamely, but his mother wouldn’t understand the limitations of a hand-held game machine. She had a name for every electronic device Clifford owned: they were all “Fucking Noisy Boxes.”

“Yeah?” She glanced at the bed, suspiciously. The Game Boy was lying there. The battery cover was off and the battery well was empty, but his mother wouldn’t notice, Clifford thought. Probably. “Well… keep it down, okay?