From: BEWalton17@aol.com Message-ID: Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 16:18:17 EST Subject: QL: The Enemy (Chapter 8) CHAPTER EIGHT Tina Martinez-O'Farrell stood in the control center, feeling more useless than she had felt since Ziggy had come on line. She wished desperately that the hybrid computer would cough up some routine malfunction, something she could actually *fix*, but Ziggy was either running flawlessly for the first time in her mechanical life or had, like everyone else at the Project, relegated her troubles to secondary status. The problem was, Tina felt like she herself had become secondary. On the job, she was pretty useless when Ziggy wasn't acting up; off the job, she couldn't think of any way to help Al get through this. She rarely thought twice about the age difference between herself and Al, but the truth was, he had lived an entire life before she was born (had, in fact, been declared legally dead two years before she'd taken her first breath), and when that life came back to haunt him, she was helpless to confront it. She closed her eyes, and listened to his voice floating in from Ziggy's speakers. He had objected to re-activating the monitoring system, which had been cheerfully unplugged after the first committee review. (Tina could no longer remember what it was they had suspected he was doing in the Imaging Chamber, although she clearly remembered sleeping with Weitzman to blackmail him into giving Al his job back, so whatever it was had been confirmed.) But Dr. Beeks had absolutely drawn the line at the idea of Al going into the Imaging Chamber and advising Sam about something that he was so obviously messed up about unless there was some way to know what advice he was giving, and stop him before he did anything stupid. Tina agreed. "When he first died," Al was saying, "I had nightmares. I was back in 'Nam, but Nate was with me... " That nightmare had come back last night; Al had woken up screaming in Vietnamese. Tina had tried to comfort him, but he had pushed her away. For a minute or two, he hadn't even seemed to recognize her. When he finally had, she'd tried to hold him and comfort him, but he'd gotten out of bed with a gruff excuse, and hadn't come back until morning. Tina hadn't been able to get back to sleep at all. She realized, of course, that, priority-wise, her feelings about this were somewhere down there with the score of the latest Bills-Patriots game. She felt like she had when her parents had gotten divorced -- she would have done anything at all to make things alright again, but there was nothing she could do. The family therapist had told her that it was a time to be a big girl and be strong because her parents were hurting so much. She was supposed to keep the Little Things to herself for awhile, and give her folks time to heal. So what about me? When do *I* get to heal? she remembered thinking, but she hadn't asked, because it had made her feel pretty selfish. So she had kept the Little Things to herself, and, sure enough, after awhile her folks had been happy as clams. The thought seemed even more selfish now, yet it insisted on coming back. What about me? She was losing Al. Most of the Project snickered at them behind their backs. Tina knew that, and she knew why. An older playboy and his buxom young girlfriend were always good fodder for jokes. They made comedies about it all the time. Usually the plot was about some kid whose older father had married some ditzy young thing. The kid's friends would usually make snide remarks like, "You remember when I asked her to the prom?" Tina, whose father had been one of those buffoons, had gone to those movies and laughed as loud as everyone else. Then she'd met Al, and it hadn't seemed so funny anymore. So he wasn't much on monogamy; she'd known that from the start. She'd cheated a couple of times herself, but it hadn't really caught on. So he was still in love with his first wife; that was even sort of endearing, in its own way. So he was a workaholic. So he didn't conform to the "sensitive man" ideal. So what? These things were all a part of Al, and Tina loved him despite them. There were a lot of reasons to love him, and none of them were what he assumed, but they all boiled down to one simple fact: Al let Tina be Tina. Other men she had dated had been too confused by the dichotomy in her. The jocks she'd dated had disdained her mind; the intellectuals had ignored her body. Tina was proud of both, and liked to show both off. Al was the first man she'd ever met who didn't draw a line between the two, and was equally pleased by both. Even Sam Beckett, an avowed Sensitive Man and a crusader for women's rights, had once suggested that her hemlines were too high for her I.Q. Al had raised his eyebrows and said, "She's got great legs, and she's smart enough to show 'em off. What's your problem, Beckett?" That had been two years before they'd started seeing each other on any regular basis, but it had been the day when Tina had first realized how lonely she'd felt, because suddenly, out of nowhere, she wasn't alone anymore. She'd had daydreams about being Wife Number Six, and even having little curly-haired babies (certainly the first time anything like *that* had appeared on her wish list); only her fear of divorce had kept her from proposing. But now, Wife Number Three and a curly-haired baby no one had known about were stealing him away, and no matter how much Tina hated herself for thinking of it in those terms, she couldn't seem to stop. Al's lamenting over Beth had ceased to hurt Tina years ago; she even found it sort of sweet. But Ruthie was a different matter. Ruthie loved Al, Al was crazy about her. She was the mother of the child he thought of as his own. If Sam succeeded in this Leap, not only would Nate survive, but the schism between Al and Ruthie would be erased, and Tina thought, no matter what Ziggy predicted, that they would find their way back to each other, and the space Al filled inside of her would be left empty again. If Sam failed in this Leap, Tina was certain it would kill Al. She did not think this metaphorically -- metaphor was alien to her -- nor was it hyperbolic. The emotional strain was wearing Al down physically, and Tina thought it more than possible that if he were to lose Nate again, his heart would simply stop beating. "Cut it out, dammit Sam!" the speakers blared in Al's voice, then, quietly, "I'm sorry, I... I'm sorry." There was a silence. Tina felt ashamed of her selfish feelings again, and wanted more than anything to go into the Imaging Chamber and hold him and tell him that everything would be alright, that she would *make* it alright somehow... But Verbeena Beeks was waiting beside the Door, and she was more qualified than Tina to handle this, so Tina just stood and waited, useless. Al emerged from the Chamber five minutes later; Beeks put an arm around his shoulder and led him out. Tina watched this quietly; it was for Al's good, so she wouldn't scream. Gushie looked up from the printouts he was reading: Ziggy's numbers on the more outlandish scenarios, the ones she gave ratings of less than one percent, or even less than point one percent. Had Al been reading these same printouts, he would have saved himself a great deal of self-blame; Ziggy had not bothered to remind him of the afternoon's liason with Ruthie because she predicted only a point-oh-four-six percent chance that it had been important enough to change anything. "You okay, T?" Gushie asked. Tina shrugged. She thought about telling him everything, but she'd shared a little too much (try, like, *way* too much) with Gushie over the years. "I'm fine," she said, and left. *** "Spill it," Verbeena said. They were sitting in the Project lounge. He had a cup of coffee; she was drinking a diet soda. All the lights were off except the ones in the vending machines, which gave off an eldritch glow. Al didn't want to be here. He liked Verbeena very much, but he had nothing to say to her. Nothing mattered right now, except getting Nate to stay with his mother. "What's to spill?" He leaned back in one of the Project's uncomfortable lounge chairs. "My son died; it hurts. That's all there is. Anything else is just... " "Just what?" "I don't know. Irrelevant, I guess." Verbeena leaned forward and touched his hand. "I don't think so." "I do, dammit." She pulled away, and an unusual, almost harsh, look settled on her face. "You forgot something today, didn't you?" "What are you talking about?" "I was monitoring you, remember? You told Sam to call home, then you said, 'Damn, it's too late. I forgot.' What did you forget, Al?" Al closed his eyes. "I forgot that Ruthie and I... that day we spent alone together... we... " He opened his eyes and gestured with his hands. "You made love?" Made love. Al had always hated that particular euphemism. A person couldn't *make* love; it was either there or it wasn't, and "love" wasn't a word he could use lightly. But for all Al's locker room storytelling, he was uncomfortable talking about sex in any meaningful way, and he had never come up with an idiom that he preferred for serious use. "Yes," he said. "How could you forget something like that?" "Because it wasn't -- " He broke off, realizing the verbal trap she'd set. He sighed and stepped into it. "It wasn't important. It was irrelevant. Or at least I thought it was." "And what made you remember it?" "Well, it was just before we -- " he made the same gesture he had used to indicate their activity before " -- that Ruthie told me I'd get bored. I remembered her saying it, then I remembered what happened afterward." "And what made you decide it wasn't irrelevant anymore?" Al rubbed one hand across his mouth, an almost unconscious habit he'd had for as long as he could remember. He couldn't think of any delicate way to put this. "I, uh... I think it might have had something to do with Ruthie's deciding to give Nate to me. I think I, uh, convinced her." "I see." "Dammit, Verbeena, will you please stop acting like a psychiatrist and say what you're thinking?" "What do you think I'm thinking?" It was another trap. She was trying to catch him projecting his own self-image onto what he perceived as her thoughts. "Verbeena, look, I know what you're trying to do," he said. "You want to know what I think about myself? Not a hell of a lot right now. You want me to open up a little more about what's relevant? Fine. You were right. That's important. But let's save the analysis for later." Verbeena nodded. "I'm worried about you, Al. Everyone is." "Tell everyone to stop." "They love you." Al looked away. "You use that word so cheaply. Love, I mean. Those people out there, they don't even know me." "I don't use it cheaply," she said. "They *do* love you. I do, Sam does, Gushie does. Donna thinks of you as her father-in- law. Tina *certainly* loves you. Sometimes I think even Ziggy does." "Ziggy's a computer," Al said gruffly. "Sometimes I think everyone around here forgets that." Verbeena smiled. "Including Ziggy." Verbeena ran her finger around the edge of her soda can. "Al, are you going to go see Sid in the Waiting Room?" "Why would I do that? Isn't Donna taking care of him this time?" "I just thought, that, since you know each other... " "I'm sleeping with his wife. Do you really think he wants to see me?" "Do you think he knows that?" Al shook his head. "I don't know. *I* know it." "I think you should talk to him, Al. So does Donna." "Why?" "I think *you* need to." "Sid Weiss is nobody to me, Beeks. He could've been anyone on the street." "Then why did you ask Sam what he was going to fix for him?" "Because Sam wasn't thinking straight. That's all." "Are you sure?" "Yeah... Look, Verbeena, I want to get some rest. Try and remember whatever else happened." "Alright. Would you like me to walk back with you?" "I can find my way." He was shorter with her than he'd meant to be, but there was no taking it back. He left. Tina was waiting in his quarters when he got back, and was at first afraid that she would also want to have a heart-to-heart. Instead, she just pointed to the small terminal on his desk. "I've been running more scenarios. Nothing for sure yet." A few moments before, he had rejected Verbeena Beeks' repeated assurances that he was loved. Now, Tina's simple action, her dedication to the task at hand, the sympathy in her voice, made him believe it. It terrified him. "Al? Honey?" He took her hand and kissed her fingers. "I want to be alone, Tina," he said. She looked at him suspiciously. "You're not going to, like, do anything stupid?" "I promise." She kissed his cheek and left without further protest. If Al had ever wondered why he was dating Tina instead of Beeks, that had answered the question. Tina knew when to let it be. He sat down at the desk, watched the numbers march, double- time, across the terminal screen, and tried to remember. *** Sid Weiss was also trying to remember. He'd recovered many things so far -- Ruthie's name, for instance, and most of their marriage -- but he still didn't know the extent of his memory loss. He would sometimes stumble across an odd memory, and realize he was missing the entire block of his life that it belonged to. A woman had been coming to talk to him, and she'd pressed him for whatever he could give her, and he had a feeling that the stakes of the questions were high. He didn't know just *how* high those stakes were, but he was sure they had something to do with Nate. He wasn't sure how he'd come by this knowledge, but it had been in his mind when he arrived, waiting to be discovered by his nervously wandering mind. The woman, Donna Eleyse, just nodded when he told her. "There are some strange side effects to coming here," she said. "We don't know all of them. But it's possible you're tuned into what's going on back there somehow." "Then why can't I remember any of it?" She laughed. "You remember more than most of our Visitors. You remembered Al right away, didn't you?" Sid shook his head. That knowledge had come like a lightning bolt; he hadn't really wanted that particular memory. "Yeah," he said. "I remembered my wife's ex-husband's name before I remembered hers." "Well, it was his last name you remembered. That was her last name when you met her, wasn't it?" "I don't know." Sid tried for the memory, but he couldn't find it. "I don't know *where* I met her. I think I've known her a long time, though." Donna pushed a thick sheaf of brown hair behind her ear. Sid thought she was beautiful, but there was something sad, almost wistful, about her manner. "I wish I could tell you, but I haven't got that on record. I *can* tell you that Al was probably part of her life one way or another." "One way or another," Sid repeated, looking at the edge of the small reflective pool across the room. He'd looked into it at some point last night, and screamed for the first time since the nightmares of his childhood. He looked back at Donna. "I have a feeling it's been more one way than another for a long time." Donna looked down and took a deep breath. "If you feel that, then why do stay with her?" "I love her," he said simply. "Did you ever love anyone so much that you were willing to forgive anything?" "Anything at all." She pointed at the pool. "The man in the mirror is my husband. He's been gone for four years." "And he hasn't spent all of it alone?" She shook her head sadly. "Of course not." It took a minute for that to sink in, but when it did, Sid realized the extent of what she was saying -- the man whose face he wore travelled from time to time, from persona to persona, and some of those personas were husbands, boyfriends, lovers... "Good Lord, how do you stand it?" "He doesn't remember me." "Ruthie remembers me," Sid said. What he didn't say was, And I remember her. He sensed that Donna knew this was a hole in her logic -- she had watched Sid struggle for memories that were important to him, so she knew it could be done -- but he didn't think it would be right to make her look through it. "At least I think she does." "You know, Sid," Donna said, "I think that, when all this is over, you and Ruthie are going to be okay." "We'll be okay no matter how this comes out." Donna gave him a false smile, and he grabbed her arm, needing to convince her of his intentions -- or maybe convince himself. "I love my wife. And she needs me. She needs to know there's someone she can count on. She's gotten burned, you know?" Donna nodded. "I know how Al is with most of the women in his life." "It's not just that. It's that... " Sid formed the words before saying them. "Ruthie believes every story she ever heard. She really believes that you can only love one person in your life." "You don't think that's true?" "No. God, I hope not." He laughed. "Although I guess I'm not a very good example. I've never really loved anyone except Ruthie. The thing is, she thinks she missed her shot." "With Al?" "With Al," Sid agreed. "Can you believe it? She's shutting down everything inside of her because she had one hell of a crush when she was ten years old." "It sounds like it was more than a crush." "I don't know. Stranger things have happened, I guess." Donna pulled herself onto the table beside him, and he let go of her arm. "You don't think much of Al, do you?" Sid shook his head. "The damnedest thing is, under any other circumstances, he's exactly the kind of guy I'd pick for a friend. He seems like a good guy." "He is." "And this work that you and he and your husband are doing... it's good work, isn't it?" "Yes." "What is it?" "We fix things that have gone wrong. We make them right again." "We call it _tikkun olam_," Sid said. "The reparation of the world. The Sages tell us that when God created the world, He didn't finish. That He left empty spaces for us to fill. Pockets of chaos to make order from." "Why?" "Because that's what it means to be human." He took a deep breath. "Ruthie's got a lot of chaos inside of her, Donna. She was born into chaos, World War Two. She didn't have a name. As far anyone knew, she was never even born. It was the only way her mother could keep her alive as a Jew in the Reich, making it so that she didn't really exist. But it left her... mixed up. Chaotic. Al helped her make order out of as much of it as he could, and I think she helped him, too. But no one can be everything. She needs to make a break." "Do you think she ever will?" Sid shook his head. "Barring a catastrophe, not a chance."