“ ’Bout time. You’ve been putting it off long enough.”
“Like the kids say,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Abide to Thrive.”
Dorsett didn’t respond, rising from the couch with a groan. Only now did Sebastian realize how tired the agent looked, his face wan and his eyes bloodshot, stubble splaying across his face. He asked his handler if he was doing okay.
“Long week,” Dorsett said. “Longer month. Now I get to crash.” Then he was gone, forgetting to close the door behind him.
* * *
Sebastian’s conference call went well, which meant he made his presence known by using terms like “omni-channel” and “granular” and “messaging optics.” He’d never get promoted but he’d never get fired, either, especially now that he’d been on TV. That had capital at Homeland Authority. Sebastian intended on using it for more working from home.
“You’re famous now!” his colleagues said to him. It wasn’t totally true, he knew. But it wasn’t totally untrue, either. He played the ironic aw-shucks routine, which conveyed to them, as intended, he was anything but.
Sebastian felt accomplished, so he put on the new episode of Utopia. The first debate with Nixon had gone poorly for Bobby. He’d been caught off guard by the older man’s stagecraft; the Nixon who’d failed to play to the television audience in 1960 had adapted. The line about Bobby not serving abroad in World War II had been cheap. Contrasting it with Nixon’s own service and dead John’s too had been even cheaper.
LBJ called Bobby in the episode. “Son,” he drawled through the receiver, confounding Bobby and Sebastian alike, “I hate you and you hate me. But we both hate Nixon more. It’s time to take off the gloves. It’s time to do what needs to be done. For the sake of the republic.”
And then, in the alternate world of Utopia, LBJ told Bobby Kennedy about Nixon’s secret plan with China.
Sebastian was riveted. He didn’t care that the show’s isolationist undertones were starting to become isolationist overtones. Ultras aren’t wrong about everything, he thought.
The rest of the day was his. He considered his options. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment through Dorsett had been a step forward. Both because of Tripoli and because he’d read an article about brain aneurysms and he had questions. Sebastian decided to chase more clarity. He picked up his phone and texted the missing Volunteer.
They met at a dive bar in the eastern reaches of the Village, where punk nostalgia met bohemian chic. The bar was mostly empty and dark as a cave. It smelled of mop water and bleach. Britt Swenson and her bandmates were onstage, tuning guitars and going through lyrics of a new song. “Hello, Sebastian Rios,” she half-sung into the microphone. “We see you.”
Grady Flowers brought over two bottles of beer. Sebastian tried to demur but the other man insisted. “Hair of the dog,” he explained. “It’s the only way back.”
They clinked bottles and Sebastian said it looked like Flowers had been spending some time in the sun. Flowers smiled wide with blocky, gapped teeth.
“Vacay, hostage,” he said. “Had more sex last week than my entire life. Combined.”
“Ahh. Well. Good for you.” Sebastian felt more than a little envious. He too aspired to have sex again, whether with an attractive bohemian singer with a raspy voice or otherwise. But he hadn’t come here for another man’s carnal tales.
“There’s no way to bring this up naturally,” he said, “so I’m just gonna say it. Tripoli, man. It’s been bugging me. I’m trying to figure out why.”
Flowers blinked once and sipped from the neck of his beer.
“Pete told me the cythrax vaccine was a dud. I never understood why I survived but the vaccine explained why you all did. Now? Nothing adds up.”
Sebastian left out how he’d gotten that information. It seemed superfluous.
“Did he now.” Flowers swished around the mouthful of beer before swallowing it down. “Well. That’s his opinion.” Flowers set down his bottle and cracked his neck.
Sebastian stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back in his chair, trying to appear as unprying as possible. “You disagree?”
“I didn’t say that.” Pulling out the small notepad in his pocket where he’d scrawled some questions seemed a bad idea to Sebastian. He tried again.
“Not trying to be a pain. Whatever you’re willing to share, I’d be grateful. I’m just trying to piece together my life. That’s all.”
That relaxed Flowers some, putting the burden of focus elsewhere. He returned to his beer.
“Vaccine wasn’t a dud,” he said. “Not for me. Not for Dash. Not for that female pilot. Not for Pete, neither. I wish he’d stop saying that.”
“Did anyone ever tell you—anyone ever say why? Why it worked for you all, but not for anyone else?”
Flowers shook his head. “We’ve asked. Trust me, we’ve fucking asked.”
“You were in the same helicopter as Mia, right? On the gun?” Flowers nodded. “What happened there?”
“RPG clipped the tail.” Flowers whacked the table with his palm. “Boom. We’re all tangled up, trying to figure out what is up, what is down, who’s bleeding from where. My gut feels like I’ve been punched by Cassius Clay or some shit. Still got my headset on, listening to Higher scream for a sitrep. That’s when the bomb hit.”
Sebastian looked up. Flowers had been on the radio. “Who ordered it?” he asked. “Who called for the cythrax bomb?”
The contours of Flowers’s face seemed swallowed up by the void of the bar.
“No one.” Words from the dim while loose guitar strums echoed around them. “I was on both nets, platoon and command. No one on the ground called for the fucking thing.”
Sebastian silently counted to twelve before exhaling through his nose. “You’re sure?”
“Sure as eggs. Not something you miss.”
Just that morning, Sebastian had stood in his shower and chided himself for not retaining enough from college. He searched there, starting with the history courses, but nothing in history offered guidance for superpowered warfighters. Then he tried literature, but neither highbrow epic poems nor grand Victorian novels dealt with the dark, messy labyrinth of the Mediterranean Wars. What the hell else did I take? Sebastian thought, trying to remember.
Bio hadn’t covered cythrax vaccines, whether they worked, whether they didn’t. He never took chemistry. He had taken philosophy. Freshman year, with Mia. He could almost hear her in the Dupont library, quick and dismissive, like she couldn’t believe he didn’t know the answer to such a basic study question.
“Occam’s razor, See-Bee. Come on, now.”
Occam’s razor. The simplest solution tended to be the correct one. Which would mean what here?
He looked up at Flowers, finding him through the darkness. His eyes were opaque, and a little distrusting, too. Sebastian felt something snap together inside him as he formed a cohesive idea from disorder and uncertainty.
“They dropped it on purpose, dude.”
“Shut the fuck up, hostage.”