Mysterium

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-cha

Clifford had not thought much about the sca

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 sca

He put it on his desk. He liked the way it looked there, the liquid crystal display glittering in the lamplight. He extended the ante

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 cha

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

Voices a

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 sca

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 sca

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 sca

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? You could have woke up the whole neighborhood!”

He said, “I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

“It’s after ten. Spare a thought for somebody else for once in your life.”

“Okay. All right.” She turned away.

Luke was’ behind her. He wore his uniform. The shirt was unbuttoned to the waist. His chest was a mass of dark, curly hair; his eyes were bright and curious.

He took a step inside Clifford’s room and said, “Who is the Game Boy?”

“It’s not a who. It’s an it. A machine. A game machine.”

“Like Nintendo?”

“Yeah, like Nintendo.” Please, Clifford thought, don’t ask to see it. “Cliffy,” Luke said. “You must show it to me sometime.”

“Sure.”

“It sounds like a radio, you know.” Clifford shrugged.

The soldier looked hard at him. “You’re not playing tricks on me, are you?”

“No.”

“Est-que vous etes un petit criminel? Un terroriste? Eh, Cliffy?”

“I don’t understand,” Clifford said, quite truthfully.

“See that you don’t.”

“Luke!” His mother, from down the hall. “Come on!” The soldier winked at Clifford and left the room.

Since September, classes at John F. Ke

His afternoons were free. He had spent the last two afternoons reading Li