The Long Road Home (From the Desk of Col. Garrett Ross)

1- I Launched Myself Off The Landing Like A Mortar…Twice

Sometime in the future…

Look at what your daddy got you from Munich sweetheart, my mother said, and held up a little red bow. It glittered from jewels strung in a tasteful stripe down the center.

Ooh, I said, but rolled my eyes. I’d had a little bow collection from each of my daddy’s trips abroad. Little bows, little clips, little hair bands, about two hundred strong. The thrill of getting a new one had long since flown away.

Your father loves you very much, you know that. Besides, next year we’ll get your ears pierced and I’ll talk to him about getting you earrings instead of bows and hair bands.

This got my nine-year-old attention, but suspicion took the place of glee immediately. My eyes narrowed, and I suppose it looked humorous to my mother, who grimaced to keep from laughing at me.

Why can’t he just come home? He missed my recital.

He knows, but we sent him the video on the Matrix, remember?

I know I know, I said, And he sent a video back. From Seoul, or had it been Sydney? I couldn’t keep track, and I couldn’t hug videos either. I didn’t want videos anymore than I wanted candy from strangers, I wanted my daddy.

When my daddy told me his job was part of the bomb squad, I was terrified. I pictured him in a helmet, and armor, with some kind of cutters in his hands. They had robots for that stuff, I thought, and when I heard my parents laughing, my confused horror turned to confused embarrassment.

Honey, there are situations when people can’t understand each other, and they get very angry with one another. Then it can be like a bomb. They can fight with each other over words. Sometimes they kill each other.

So…

Like a real bomb, only words.

So you help them understand.

Right. Everybody wants to be happy all the time, but they know they can’t be. It makes them pretty angry.

But you can just meet in the Matrix, I said. You don’t have to go.

Pumpkin, part of what makes people misunderstand is distance. They can trust you if they can shake your hand, and eat the same food as you.

My mother laughed. The confusion reared its ugly head again, and I looked between them for answers. I can’t remember how old I was at the time, maybe six, seven tops.

What? I asked.

Daddy smiled. Oh…it’s nothing.

Tell her about the desserts, Michael.

He leaned in and whispered, like there might be dessert spies lurking nearby. Well Pumpkin, I’ll tell you a trade secret. Every time we have a dinner, I recommend a dessert. But, see, the thing is, I’ve already asked the chefs to make it taste horrible. Then I ask my bomb guys to follow me into the kitchen, where I complain so loudly they fire the dessert chef.

Daddy!

They don’t really fire him, sweetheart. It’s a part of the act. I say ‘This is nowhere near Susan Green standards! We’ve paid top dollar and I won’t have these fine associates of mine eating pig slop. I demand to see your manager!’ with my finger up in the air, and the bomb is just about diffused by then. Once you have something to laugh about together, you can usually overcome whatever problem they were having.

The picture of my father with his finger in the air was so funny to me that I laughed and laughed. It was always so wonderful to see my daddy that every time he came home, I was waiting to pounce on the landing. The last time was the best. When he came in the door, and his features lit up with excitement just to see me, that was when my heart just ached.

Pumpkin!

Daddy! I shouted, and launched myself off the landing and into his arms. I knew my mother always had a heart attack at this, but once daddy caught me in his bus-sized arms, her heart started right up again. I, of course, was laughing in delight.

I give it another year before you’re too big for that, he said.

No way! I squealed delightfully. No matter how many times he was gone, I always got all giddy when daddy came home.

Oh, okay, he laughed. You get my present?

Um, I’m wearing it.

Would you look at that.

I raced away. I’m going to get my tutu and show you the dance we did at the recital.

Hold up there, Pumpkin, he said. Daddy needs to talk to your mother. Can you give us about twenty minutes?

Can I go down to the end of the road? That meant the toy store in our little walled-in community.

He winked and smiled. No candy from strangers. He always said that. There were no strangers in the walled-in community, because nobody came in without a pass card and retinal ID, unless they were with somebody with both of those let them in. There were armed guards at the entrance, and I’d never been past them.

And don’t cross any busy streets! I yelled, on my way down the stairs to the garage.

I was a bright girl, and I was aware of what had happened as soon as I pedaled back home, dashed up the stairs, and saw their faces. When I got back, I found a pair of scarlet shoes sitting on the counter of the kitchen. The suspicion was back. They had that familiar ‘we’re guilty and can’t get away with it, so here’s a confession’ look on their faces. They explained about the Florida Keys for about thirty seconds before I cut them off.

You’re both leaving? Without me?

Well…yes. We’re inviting Mrs. Wu over to watch you for a few days, and we’ll be online every day.

I don’t want you to go! I screamed.

Honey, mommy’s missed daddy too. Once we’re back, we won’t be-

But I had already stormed off.

And, of course, the adults always did whatever they wanted.

They were maybe fifty meters off the ground when an attack helicopter appeared from behind a clump of trees, outside airport boundaries by an inch. It fired a clump of scatter rockets, most of which smashed against the passenger cabin. One, however, crushed into the fuel compartment, which turned the jet liner into a volcanic fireball. Me, the nine-year-old girl, with no living relatives and my father’s material wealth taken by his corporation, became the ward of a foster home. By special request of my father’s corporation, I became a student of the Clements Academy. I inherited nothing but shock, terror and the certainty that adults would do nothing but lie to me. I was already jaded at nine years old.

And that was just the beginning of my story. Two years later I would be on the Yellow Brick Road, ten thousand miles long, every minute of it wishing I could go back home. There was no place like home.

***

Before Clements, before the orphanage, before the alien men with their forbidding sunglasses and suits showed up to take everything away, good fortune allowed a phone call alerted Mrs. Wu. If you could call it fortune. It might have been a little hiccup in the collapse of my life.

Mrs.Wu was an antique, older than anything I had ever seen, since the little city I lived in was only about twenty years old. Even the houses and buildings were newer than she was. She had lines crisscrossing every which way over her ancient face, and they all crinkled together like tinfoil whenever she smiled or laughed, which was often. She was really a kind-hearted lady, and I knew she cared for me, but I never let her get close.

Not until my parents were blown up anyway.

She entered the room without a whisper. I didn’t understand how she could move through the house without even making the air move, but it was something I had been working on for the last two years. I even snuck up on her once.

Alexis, she said, but it still sounded like Arexis.

Hmm? I asked. I was in the middle of a very important book about a very particular princess who was on a quest to destroy an evil fairy who was turning all the people, including her handsome prince, into mindless llamas. The prince did not look very nice with a two foot neck or downy fur covering his body.

There was accident.

What? I asked.

But she couldn’t say anything else. She grabbed both of my hands in her own and began crying. For half an hour, I didn’t understand anything. Then, when the two black Ford Wendigos pulled into the driveway, an awful dread stole over me. I tore away from Mrs. Wu with a great scream. My mother had been dreading the black dressed men in the black Ford Wendigos since I could remember.

I bolted up the stairs.

My father had always kept a great deal of video of his jobs, but I’d never been allowed to see any of them. Well, now that he wasn’t here anymore, there wouldn’t be anyone to tell me not to stand on chairs. Nobody to tell me not to drag the chair over the carpet.

Tears rolled down my face in a silent procession.

I got the shoebox down from the top shelf, where daddy kept his gun. He thought I didn’t know, and the thought of that brought fresh tears up. I sobbed with hopelessness, as I took the videos out and tried to make out the titles that swam before me.

Miss? a voice called me from the hallway. Miss Delemere?

I stuffed some of the videos in my shirt and put the shoebox back up on the shelf, not exactly sure why I’d done it. Still, I felt like they shouldn’t know. They were the enemy. They were the people who took my daddy out away from home every week, they were the ones who put him on assignments, earned him enemies. They killed him.

Miss?

I dashed out of my parents’ room, to the hallway, and down to the landing. Just like hours before, I launched myself off it like a mortar.

Only now, the two people in the entryway weren't my parents. They were two men in trenchcoats, and if they had arms for catching little girls, they didn't open them in welcome. Instead they watched as I fell hard, rolled and screamed. My wrist was broken, just like the rest of my world.

One of the men laughed.

2- I Saw Dead People, Including My Father

I spent the rest of the year in the protective custory of the United States of America, in one of their fine establishments: an orphanage nothing like what I’d been used to previously. The women there had too much work to do, too many mouths to feed, and too much teaching to do to help me with my grief.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

My eyes blurred with tears. Before us, in school, Dorothy and her troupe of brainless, heartless and spineless companions swam through my vision, blurring through my heartache that welled up in my eyes. In a minute Dorothy would wake up back in Kansas and laugh about the whole enslavement-by-the-wicked-witch ordeal. The movie would end with a happily-ever-after. I knew by that point that there was no home to go back to, to hope to fall asleep to. No convenient end to the story. The orphanage had been as flooded as my eyes were, but with children rather than tears.

It was a horrid place, dark and cold, and always damp because they were constantly having us clean everything. It wasn’t fair. I told everybody how unfair it was, over and over again, until everyone was telling me to shut up and scrub.

One night after scrubbing until my fingers were numb with cold and pruny, I snuck out of bed down the hall to the classroom. There was a video player in there, and I picked one of them. I knew I would probably get caught, so I only chose the one. The others I stashed away in the wall, in a place where the boards were rotten and the wood was flaking off.

The little chip in, I put on the headphones, now with no foam after thousands of uses, and one of them broken, and sat down.

On- my father’s voice said, as the camera clicked on. I had no idea how you could have a cybernetic eye and have a video camera in there at the same time. I’d touched the little scar behind his ear once, and Daddy had explained that he downloaded all the data wirelessly to our computer after he came home from his jobs.

In a minute I’m going to go negotiate a contract with Dale. I don’t want this to come back to bite me in the butt, though, so I’ll record this and keep it to show our legal department if things go bad. They shouldn’t. So far the company’s acted in good faith about everything, but my wife says to cover your bases. Hi Alicia. Hope you never have to watch this! Love you both, and here goes.

He was standing in front of a mirror, and I was hit first by how young he looked.

And hi Alexis, you’re still in your mom’s tummy right now. Hopefully you’ll never have to watch this either.

Silent tears were making their way down my face.

He turned from the mirror, and the video took on a jerky quality as he made his way out of the executive bathroom and into a small office. A man with an enormous smile was standing there, teeth white and gleaming.

Brett, come on in, sit down! Sit down buddy! Care for a cigar? Scotch?

Water would be fine, my Daddy said.

A young lady I hadn’t seen before disappeared from the room, and came back with water and a steaming cup for Dale.

I prefer tea myself, especially so early in the morning.

Thanks.

I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Dale...

Dale laughed through his teeth as he munched on the end of a cigar and pulled out his lighter. You’d be surprised how much free time I have at this job, Brett, but we are going to skip straight to business because I know you’ve got some follow-ups to write. What brings you in today?

Well, Alicia and I are...um, it’s a girl.

Great, great news! Here, have one of these cigars my boy!

I shouldn’t.

I insist! Dale seemed to be one of those people who always talked in exclamations. Here, I’ll light you up. Congratulations!

Daddy puffed and coughed a little bit, then waved the smoke away.

You must be excited!

Worried actually. Alicia’s got her reservations about the schools on the compound, and the safety situation here. She’s not so worried about herself, mind you, but the baby...

Say no more. I understand completely. Lots of folks see the security issues here. I see them every day. We intercepted a team just a week ago, I don’t mind telling you.

I hadn’t heard, now Daddy sounded a bit shaken.

Caught it in the planning stages, sent them a polite letter to back off or we’d set the dogs on ‘em. So tell me about the housing situation. I have to assume you’ve been house hunting.

Yes sir, we have. There’s a place in Upstate New York... He passed Dale a flier. The smile widened until it was almost blinding.

A gated community, oh yeah, that does look nice. Onsite hospital, onsite educational and police facilities, gold membership for everything, Olympic swimming pool and gym. And would you look at that, smart house, self-cleaning carpeting, one-touch shopping with delivery service. Whoowee Brett, that is pretty sweet!

Unfortunately the price tag is something I can’t handle on my salary, even on the off-chance I end up getting promoted-

With your record? Course you will, buddy! But you’re right, this bad boy’s gonna cost you.

One of the guys in counter-intel told me in the Mess hall he worked out something with you guys, some sort of contract alteration.

Did he now? Was that Myrcynski? Bet it was.

Yes sir.

Oh, dispense with the ‘sir’ shit, Brett. We’re buddies. Let me see what I can do about that contract. I’m going to call up financial, and I’m going to call up the legal department, and between the forty-six of us, we’re gonna hash something out, hear me? You’re gonna be picking out swatches and matching dishes and whatnot before the week’s out, got me?

It was then that Sister Gertrude slammed the door open and started bellowing at me.

I got ‘admonished’ for stealing, being out past bedtime, disobeying rules, being a rude and thankless child, and sent to take manners classes for the rest of my stay at that horrible place.

My house, with its little white porch and toy box with her toys, was somebody else’s property. I had only a small album filled with real paper pictures, and the videos I’d taken out of my father’s collection. Everything on the Matrix was the property, and under the password protection of my mother.

The sheets on the bed, when I went back to her dorm room, were almost too tight to pull back. I felt like a knife slicing into the cold covers, wriggling and squirming into my bed. The room was too big, and made to feel bigger by the complete lack of stuff. There was a computer at a big desk, with a series of books overtop. They read ‘Curriculum’ on the spines. I had never felt as tiny as I did in that little room, because it was small, but I wasn’t even the size of a speck of dust compared to it.

The second day,