First Shift - Legacy (Part 6 of the Silo Series) (Wool) (2 page)

Donald reached out a hand as he passed one of the desks, brushing the wood with his fingertips. Mahogany. The aides here had desks nicer than his own. And the decor: the plush carpet, the broad and ancient crown molding, the antique tile ceiling, the dangling light fixtures that may have been actual crystal. Everything was noticeably more opulent in the Dirksen Senate building. It was the House of Lords compared to Rayburn across the street, Donald’s own House of Commons.

At the end of the buzzing and bleeping room, a paneled door opened and disgorged Congressman Mick Webb, just finished with his meeting. Mick didn’t notice Donald, was too absorbed by the open manila folder he held in front of him.

Donald stopped and waited for his colleague and old college acquaintance to approach. “So,” he asked Mick. “How did it go?”

Mick looked up and snapped the folder shut. He tucked it under his arm and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. It went great.” He smiled. “Sorry if we ran long. The old man couldn’t get enough of me.”

Donald laughed. “No problem.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I was making new friends.”

Mick smiled. “I bet.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see you back at Rayburn.”

“Sure thing.” Mick slapped him on the arm with the folder and headed for the exit. Donald caught the impatient glare from the Senator’s receptionist and hurried over. She waved him through the old door and into the dimly lit office before shutting it tight against the bleeping phones.

“Congressman Keene.”

Senator Paul Thurman stood from behind his desk and stretched out a hand. He flashed a familiar smile, one Donald had come to recognize as much from photos and TV as from his childhood. Despite Thurman’s age—he had to be pushing seventy if he wasn’t already there—the Senator was trim and fit. His oxford shirt hugged a military frame; a thick neck bulged out of his knotted tie; his white hair remained as crisp and orderly as an enlisted man’s.

Donald crossed the dark room and accepted the hand that had clasped that of so many presidents.

“Good to see you, sir.”

As his fist was pumped up and down, he imagined flash bulbs popping and expensive cameras clicking wildly. He almost turned to the side and adopted a frozen and smiling pose, thinking the Senator would get the joke at once. Fortunately, the urge passed. Donald reminded himself that he wasn’t there to date the Senator’s daughter but to serve alongside him.

“Please, sit.” Thurman released Donald’s hand and gestured to one of the chairs across from his desk. Donald turned and lowered himself into the bright red leather, the gold grommets along the arm like sturdy rivets in a steel beam.

“How’s Helen?”

“Helen?” Donald straightened his tie. “She’s great. She’s back in Savannah. She really enjoyed seeing you at the reception.”

“She’s a beautiful woman, your wife.”

“Thank you, sir.” Donald fought to relax, which didn’t help. The office had the pall of dusk, even with the overhead lights on. The clouds outside had turned nasty—low and dark. If it rained, he would have to take the tunnel back to his office. He hated the tunnel. They could carpet it and hang those little chandeliers at intervals, but he could still tell he was below ground. The tunnels in Washington made him feel like a rat scurrying through a sewer. It always seemed like the roof was about to cave in.

“How’s the job treating you so far?”

Donald shifted his gaze away from the clouds. “The job’s good,” he said. “It’s busy, but good.”

He started to ask the Senator how Anna was doing, but the door behind him opened before he could. The discordant cries of the busy phones disturbed the quiet as the thin receptionist entered and delivered two bottles of water. Donald thanked her, twisted the cap off, and saw that it had been pre-opened. Just like at that fancy steakhouse the lobbyist from the PAGW had taken him to.

“I hope you’re not too busy to work on something for me.” Senator Thurman raised an eyebrow. Donald took a sip of water and wondered if that was a skill one could master, that eyebrow lift. It was effective as hell. It made him want to jump to attention and salute.

“Oh, I can make the time,” he said. “After all the stumping you did for me? I doubt I would’ve made it past the primaries.” He held the water bottle in his lap. When he crossed his legs, he became self-conscious of his brown socks and black pants. He lowered his foot back to the ground and wished Helen had stayed in D.C. longer.

“You and Mick Webb go back, right? Both Bulldogs.”

It took Donald a moment to realize the Senator was referring to their college mascot. He hadn’t spent a lot of time at Georgia following sports. “Yessir. Go Dawgs.”

He hoped that was right.

The Senator smiled. He leaned forward so that his face caught the soft light raining down on his desk. Donald watched as shadows caught in wrinkles otherwise easy to miss. Thurman’s lean face and square chin made him look younger straight-on than he probably did from the side. Here was a man who got places by approaching others directly rather than in ambush.

“You studied architecture at Georgia.”

Donald nodded. It was easy to forget that he knew Thurman better than the Senator knew him. One of them grabbed far more newspaper headlines than the other.

“That’s right. For my undergrad. I went into planning for my master’s. I figured I could do more good governing people than I could drawing boxes to put them in.”

He winced to hear himself deliver the line. It was a pat phrase from grad school, something he should’ve left behind with crushing beer cans on his forehead and ogling asses in skirts. He wondered for the dozenth time why he and the other congressional newcomers had been summoned. When he first got the invite, he figured it was a social visit. Then Mick bragged about his own appointment, and Donald figured it was some kind of formality or tradition. But now he wondered if this was a power play, a chance to butter up the Reps from Georgia for those times when Thurman would need a particular vote in the lower and
lesser
house.

“Tell me, Donny—” The Senator reached for his bottle of water, glanced up. “How good are you at keeping secrets?”

Donald’s blood ran cold. He forced himself to laugh off the sudden flush of nerves.

“I got elected, didn’t I?”

Senator Thurman smiled. “And so you probably learned the best lesson there is about secrets.” He raised his plastic bottle in salute. “
Denial
.”

Donald nodded and took a sip of his own water. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he already felt uneasy. He sensed some of the backroom dealings coming on that he’d promised his constituents he’d root out if elected.

The Senator leaned back in his chair.

“Denial is the secret sauce in this town,” he said. “It’s the flavor that holds all the other ingredients together. Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out—it always does—but it’s gonna blend in with all the
lies
.” The Senator twirled a hand in the air. “You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public
for
you.”

“Uh, yessir.” Donald didn’t know what else to say. This seemed like a strange conversation to be having. He took another gulp of water.

The Senator lifted an eyebrow again. He remained frozen for a pause, and then asked, out of nowhere: "Do you believe in aliens, Donny?”

Donald nearly lost the water out of his nose. He covered his mouth with his hand, coughed, had to wipe his chin. The Senator didn’t budge.

“Aliens?” Donald shook his head and wiped his wet palm on his thigh. “Nossir. I mean, not the abducting kind. Why?”

He wondered if this was some kind of debriefing. Why had the Senator asked him if he could keep a secret? Was this a security initiation? The Senator remained silent.

“They’re not real,” Donald finally said. He watched for any twitch or hint. “Are they?”

The old man cracked a smile. “That’s the thing,” he said. “If they are or they aren’t, the chatter out there would be the exact same. Would you be surprised if I told you they’re very much real?”

“Hell, yeah, I’d be surprised.”

“Good.” The Senator slid a folder across the desk. Donald eyed it and held up a hand.

“Wait. Are they real or aren’t they? What’re you trying to tell me?”

Senator Thurman laughed. “Of course they’re not real. Are you kidding?” He took his hand off the folder and propped his elbows on the desk. “Have you seen how much NASA wants from us so they can fly to Mars and back? No way we’re getting to another star. Ever. And no one’s coming here. Hell, why would they?”

Donald didn’t know
what
to think, which was a far cry from how he’d felt less than a minute ago. He saw what the Senator meant, how truth and lies seemed black and white, but mixed together, they made everything gray and confusing. He glanced down at the folder. It looked similar to the one Mick had been carrying and reminded him of the government’s fondness for all things outdated.

“This is denial, right?” He studied the Senator. “That’s what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to throw me off.”

“No. This is me telling you to stop watching so many science fiction flicks. In fact, why do you think those eggheads are always dreaming of colonizing some other planet? You have any idea what would be involved? It’s ludicrous. Not cost-effective.”

Donald shrugged. He didn’t think it was ludicrous. He twisted the cap back onto his water. “It’s in our nature to dream of open space,” he said. “To find room to spread out in. Isn’t that how we ended up here?”

“Here? In America?” The Senator laughed. “We didn’t come here and find open space. We got a bunch of people sick, killed them, and
made
space.” Thurman pointed at the folder. “Which brings me to this. I’ve got something I’d like you to work on.”

Donald leaned forward and placed his bottle on the leather inlay of the formidable desk. He took the folder.

“Is this something coming through committee?”

He tried to temper his hopes. It was alluring to think of co-authoring a bill his first year in office. He opened the folder and tilted it toward the window, where storms were gathering.

“No, nothing like that. This is about CAD-FAC.”

Donald nodded.
Of course
. The preamble about secrets and conspiracies suddenly made perfect sense, as did the gathering of Georgia congressmen outside. This was about the Containment and Disposal Facility at the heart of the Senator’s new energy bill, the complex that would one day house most of the world’s spent nuclear fuel. Or, according to the websites Thurman had alluded to, it was going to be the next Area 51, or the site where a new-and-improved superbomb was being built, or a place where mad scientists would tunnel to the center of the earth to prevent the core from melting down, or a secure holding facility for Libertarians who had purchased one too many guns at Walmart. Take your pick. There was enough noise out there to hide
any
truth.

“Yeah,” Donald said, deflated. “I’ve been getting some entertaining calls from my district.” He didn’t dare mention the one about the Lizard People, or the one that had to do with magnetic poles flipping. “I want you to know, sir, that privately I’m behind the facility one hundred percent.” He looked up at the Senator. “I’m glad I didn’t have to vote on it publicly, of course, but it was about time
someone
offered up their backyard, right?”

“Precisely. For the common good.” Senator Thurman took a long pull from his water, and Donald noticed for the first time that his office didn’t reek of old cigar smoke, wasn’t infused with the stench of pipe tobacco, aged leather, expensive whiskey, and the other deal-making scents he constantly nosed back at Rayburn. Hell, despite Helen’s aromatic electric candles, his own office still stank like the eight-term Representative he’d ousted in the primaries—the one who
had
voted on the energy bill.

Thurman leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat. “You’re a sharp young man, Donny. Not everyone sees what a boon to our state this’ll be. A real life-saver.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, you
are
still going by Donny, right? Or is it Donald, now?”

“Either’s fine,” Donald lied. He no longer enjoyed being called Donny, but changing names in the middle of one’s life was practically impossible. He returned to the folder and flipped the cover letter over. There was a drawing underneath, a drawing that struck him as being out of place. It was...too familiar. Familiar, and yet it didn’t belong there—it was from another life. It was as if he’d woken up and found in his bed some object he’d clutched in a dream.