Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

"Now?"

"Right now."

Vickers stroked his chin. He needed a shave.

"You expect me to undress in front of all these people? I don't get to retain any dignity?"

"You're in something of a unique situation."

Vickers' eyes were bleak.

"I am indeed."

Vickers put the cold Coke bottle against his forehead. He couldn't remember when he'd last slept. He still hadn't shaved. What they called the "debriefing" seemed to have been going on for years, years of people asking him questions and shining lights in his face. The current one was a major in Army Intelligence. He varied the routine slightly. Others had bullied or threatened, this one had a mildly amused smile and the ma

"Why don't you go through the basic story just once more."

The major also liked things repeated over and over. It was starting to make Vickers belligerent.

"Do I have to? I'm exhausted."

"Just once more, please. I'd like to feel that I have it straight."

A dull anger burned up inside Vickers.

"Straight? Nothing about this whole set-up is straight. Eighteen months ago I'm down below, in the bunker. We're told the Soviets have started World War III. Fucking President himself tells us and we believe him. The bunker is sealed and for a year and a half we sit around going crazy thinking that we may be the only surviving remnant of humanity."

The ordeal had started in the tent with the dozen or more officers gawking at him. That hadn't lasted, however; there'd been another quick chopper flight to a more permanent command post that had been set up in a run-down, presumably commandeered motel. A weathered neon sign beside a cracked and disused two-lane blacktop proclaimed it to be the Desert I

"So after a year and a half, by combination of ingenuity, courage and idiot luck, I finally get out and I'm dragged in here and everyone's telling me that there never was a war and we've been squatting in a hole in the ground with our thumbs up our collective ass under the illusion it was Armageddon time."

"It's very unfortunate but…"

"Unfortunate, shit!" Vickers thought about hitting the major in the face with his Coke bottle. It was tempting but he was too tired. "Tell you what, why don't you go through it some of it again so I can get it straight?"

"What do you want to know?"

"What happened to our war?"

There was something very trying about the major's patience.

"It didn't happen. There was a marked deterioration in the international situation around the time that the bunker was sealed. For a week or so it really looked as though the Soviet Union was disintegrating. Then Podgorny and the revisionists staged their coup and took control of most of the Red Army in the west. Within days they were talking with the corporations and the Western governments. The grainlift was underway inside of two weeks and we were moving troops in to restore order while they cleared up the mess. Well, to be accurate, it wasn't strictly us; the troops were nominally neutral: Greeks, Cubans, Canadians, Swedes and what have you. Just so long as no one looked like either an American or a German. The Russians wouldn't have stood for that, too many long-standing prejudices."

Vickers finished the Coke and put the bottle down on the standard motel plastic coffee table. This one was a chipped but still garish metalflake blue.

"What about the President? We heard him giving the kiss-off speech. Too bad folks, the bombs are on their way but we are shooting back."

"Anyone can fake the President. Damn it, third-rate comics do him in their acts. You said yourself that he was supposed to be talking from a satellite donut and that it was extremely distorted."

Vickers pushed his hands through his hair. He wanted to take a hot shower and sleep for a week.

"And what about Herbie Mossman. Are you trying to tell me that he was a simulation too, or what?"

The major sighed.

"I've told you already. I can't comment about Mossman. You'll have to talk to your Contec people about that."

Vickers closed his eyes.

"I don't know."

"Why are you having such difficulty accepting all this?"

Vickers opened them angrily.

"Why? I've already told you why. If I accept what you're telling me, I have to admit that I've been taken for an incomparable fool. I've wasted eighteen months in a hole in the ground. Christ, man! I've been sitting there trying to come to terms with the idea that the whole world had been destroyed and now I find the world large as life and laughing in my face. People died in that bunker for fuck's sake, others went insane."

The Major stood up and turned on the motel room TV.

"How many times do I have to show you?"

He spun around the dail. There was porno, reruns, Penal Colony, Wildest Dreams, Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners, soccer from Japan, jai alai from Los Angeles, an in-depth news show that was going on about some scandal inside Agrimex. A number of stations were off the air. It was exactly what you'd expect, considering that it was almost dawn. Vickers still wasn't quite prepared to lay down for it.

"You could have put this together to fool me. It wouldn't be hard to rig the TV and a bunch of tapes."

"Why would we do that?"

"Because there was a war and you're a well organized group of survivors who've been camped out here waiting for a crack to appear in the bunker's defenses. I'm the first crack and you want to use me to get inside."

The major was almost sympathetic.

"Isn't that a little farfetched? It flies in the face of all the available facts."

"All the available facts have come from your people."

"It's hardly plausible."

"Neither is the idea that I've been incarcerated in a fucking great hole in the ground because some lunatic decided that he wanted to fake the third world war. Why would anyone do that?"

The Major leaned back in his chair and regarded the ceiling.

"A lot of thought has been given to that question ever since the bunker was sealed."

"And?"

"You said yourself that Lloyd-Ransom and Lutesinger were both crazy, that in the early days they seemed almost eager for a war to start. You told me that they had this destiny fixation and that they went to a great deal of trouble to convince all of you in the bunker to share it."

Vickers was grudging.

"Yes, but…"

"There was a crisis in Russia and it looked, for about a week, as though the Soviets might drag the rest of the world down in flames. I've already told you this."

"So?"

"So Lloyd-Ransom jumped the gun. To ensure his complete control of the bunker he sealed it before the crunch came. He had the special effects standing by to convince all of you that the war had actually started. When there was no crunch, Lloyd-Ransom must have been faced with the dilemma of his life. The loss of face obviously proved more than he could take. He let the bunker remain sealed and left all of you in less than blissful ignorance. He must have been sitting down there praying that the world would come to an end anyway and justify his actions. It's little wonder that he developed an opium habit."

Vickers didn't say anything. He just sat and stared. Later, a slow burning fury would start, but right at that moment there was nothing but confusion. Deep down he knew that the major was telling the truth. It was just so hard to let go of all the months that he'd spent below ground. The major seemed to sense this.