Memory of a Thing that Never Was by Jerry Seeger
Jerry Seeger says he spent his adult life as a software engineer. But after creating educational software for fifteen years, he retired both from software and from being an adult. The resulting kid sold his house and hit the road. These days he can usually be found in a caf in Prague. When he's not working on a novel or designing his own word processing program, he blogs on the proper way to fry eggs. This story (his first published work of fiction) is a stylish bit of intergalactic intrigue. 
The End
It's easy, from this distance of time, safely protected by the years, to look back on those days with fondness. The scars have faded; they are hardly noticeable anymore unless you look for them. I even shave sometimes now, and I don't have to worry about people staring. Still, most of the time I wear a beard. Old habits die hard.
The scars, faded to almost nothing, are the only evidence left that anything happened at all. Fickle memory, merciful in its selectivity, no longer haunts me; I no longer see the faces of my friends when I look at strangers. Even the dreams have stopped, almost. Each day I walk down to the caf, sit at my little table on the sidewalk, read my paper and drink my coffee. It is a small life, lacking any significance or ambition. It does not crave excitement or fulfillment. It is enough for me, now.
Meeting I
"May I join you?"
I looked up from my newspaper in surprise to see an older man standing by my table. I took him in with a well-trained glance--tallish, slender, dark suit, long coat, black umbrella, black leather gloves, a neatly folded copy of Le Monde tucked under his arm. The enemy. So intent had I been in my search for evidence any of them might yet be alive, he had been able to walk right up to me. I didn't have a gun. The Other did, I was sure. "Sure, pull up a seat," I said. I gathered my New York Times, now irrelevant, and folded it neatly.
"Thank you." He pulled a chair over from the next table and I moved a bit so he could sit next to me, with his back to the caf window, watching the traffic.
Bernard emerged from the caf and hesitated for a moment. I had never had company at my table before. "Vin rouge," my guest ordered. Bernard retreated.
"My name is ... Smith." He had debated telling me his real name, but decided against it. It didn't matter; I wouldn't have been able to pronounce it anyway. "How long have you been coming here?" Smith asked.
"A few years, I guess. My name's Nash."
Smith nodded. "I thought so. We accounted for all the rest."
"I thought we got all of you."
Smith looked at my newspaper. "But you weren't sure."
"No."
We watched from under the awning as people hurried past in the light rain. We were the only two who had chosen to occupy a table outside on such a dreary day; the other caf patrons were crowded within, sharing warmth and oxygen, but when I arrived that morning the rserv sign was perched with precision atop the two-day-old newspaper, as it had been every day for the past six years. They understood, here.
A truck rumbled up the street, over the cobblestones, leaving behind the scent of diesel. "There were no survivors," Smith said, "on either side."
The Beginning
When telling a story it is traditional, I suppose, to start at the beginning. I do not know when the war began, perhaps a week before I answered the help wanted ad in the Times classifieds, perhaps a thousand years. I can only begin where the story begins for me, with my Honorable Discharge from the military. I had done well there, but somewhere along the way I was branded "not a team player"--an entirely fair assessment. After ten years of service which included several awards, medals, and other worthless trinkets, the military and I had had enough of each other. A handshake, a slap on the back, and I was a civilian.
Back then I was even less well-equipped to be a civilian than I was to be a soldier. I tried a few odd jobs--security guard, bouncer, and the like--and washed out of the police academy for many of the same reasons I was not in the military anymore. Not a team player. Attitude problem, they called it when they didn't have to write it down.
The ad had my name on it. Not literally, of course, but it might as well have. It might even have been written especially for me to read. The ad carried the logo of the FBI and was looking for ex-military with specialized skills and the ability to work independently, with little or no supervision. Pension calculated based on date first joined the military. Equal opportunity employer, and so on. I called the number, gave my name, was given a time to appear for the interview.
"Can we make it earlier? I have to work then." Work, if I recall correctly, was on a construction site.
"No." The woman's voice was cold and firm.
"How about later?"
"No." I imagined her pay was docked for each word she spoke.
"Well, I guess I'll have to quit my job then, to come to your friggin' interview."
"All right," she said, unaffected by my anger. She gave the address once and cut the connection. I looked at the ad again. It looked promising, but already they were giving me the runaround.
Of course, I did quit my job, and I did go to the interview. The building was a nondescript and soulless office building on the outskirts of downtown, and there was no indication that the FBI was anywhere inside. I found the appropriate suite on the fifth floor and gave my name to the receptionist. "Please be seated," was all she said.
I sat on a vinyl-clad couch that looked like it had been salvaged from the 1970s. On the wall behind my head was a poster proclaiming the virtues of patience. On the wall facing me its sibling showed a dramatic photo of a whale breaching, and in fancy script beneath explained that success went to those who dared to break barriers. On a low table in front of me were well-worn financial magazines from last month and today's Times. At each end of the couch potted palm trees concealed security cameras, in addition to those in the ceiling. I occupied my time pretending to thumb through Forbes while spotting the cameras I wasn't supposed to be able to find. While doing that I listened to the activity of the receptionist. She moved with ruthless efficiency and spoke on the phone with the same economy of words as the woman I had first called, but her voice was not the same.
Her phone purred softly. She picked up the receiver, said nothing and set it down again. "Through that door," she said in my direction, then returned to her other duties. I stood, opened the only other door I was supposed to know about, and found myself in a long hallway with closed doors on either side. More runaround. I walked down the middle of the hall, waiting for someone to stop me. If no one did, I'd just turn around and go home. It was spring; there were more construction jobs out there.
Near the end of the hall one of the doors was partially open, and as I approached a voice came from within, "Come in, Mr. Nash." The voice was dusty and stained by cigarettes.
I pushed open the door and took one step inside. The office was small and gray, washed of color by the dingy light coming through the window. A small man, withered and even grayer, stood up behind his desk as I entered. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Nash. My name is Cain." He offered his hand. His skin was dry and cold. I wasn't sure if Cain was his first or last name, or perhaps just a name he found convenient for the occasion. "Please have a seat." I did as I was told, taking in the room as I stepped forward. Nothing on the desk but a simple gooseneck lamp, which was not turned on. Not even plugged in, I saw. The bookshelf had only a few dusty volumes, the chalkboard had never been used. I could not see any cameras. I parked on the hard wooden chair in front of the desk. Cain's battered office chair squeaked loudly as he sat also.
He picked up a piece of paper and pretended to read it for a moment. "Why did you use the stairs when you came up here?"
Not the way I expected the interview to start. "I like to stay in shape," I said. I did not mention that as I approached the elevator there had been two men I did not like the look of. I was in a nice office building, not the sort of place you would expect trouble, but an elevator is no place to discover that you have been too trusting of your fellow man.
"I see. And you knew the door on this floor would be locked on the stairwell side?"
"Most are, these days, but I worked making deliveries for a while. If you knock, generally someone will open the door for you."
"And if no one did?"
I decided to take a chance. Either they wanted me for my skills, or I didn't belong. "That was not a challenging lock."
Cain nodded with satisfaction. "The men at the elevator were in my employ. What would you have done if I'd had men on the stairs as well?"
"Gone home."
"You would give up so easily?"
"You have to weigh the objective against the risk."
"You find this objective to be that unimportant?"
"Hell, it's a job, right? Not even a job, an interview. I've got no problem with risk, but not just for a shot at a paycheck."
"What would you take a risk for?"
"For my country, for my mission, for the people reporting to me, and for the people I report to. In that order."
"You've thought about that before."
"Yes."
"You missed the camera in the table leg, but you got the one in the receptionist's barrette. That was good. What can you tell me about European market forces?"
"I spent most of my time on Yet Another Article About The Price of Silver."
"What is the receptionist's name?"
"Rachel." There had been no indication of her name anywhere in the office, but I take care of my body, ears included. I had heard her name over the line when she answered her phone.
"How many toes do I have?"
"If I had to guess, I'd go with ten." I hesitated and added, "But since you asked, that reduces my confidence."
"Is there anything important to you in your apartment?"
"No."
"All right then. There are a couple of formalities, and then I can give you a full briefing."
"I have a question first."
"I will answer if I can."
"When did you decide to hire me?"
Cain smiled, the deep creases casting shadows in his colorless face. "When you said 'I have a question first.'"
Meeting II
Other. What a simple name for them. Back then, I wondered what they called us. It had seemed important while we danced with knives at each other's throats. Now it was only with effort that I could remember what we had called ourselves. Special Defense Force. A meaningless name made even less significant when reduced to initials: SDF. By the end of our little war only the initials made any sense at all; none of the words in the name applied any longer. We were not a force, not defensive, and most certainly not special.
Smith's wine arrived; he sipped it tentatively and nodded. "The benefits of civilization," he said, setting down his glass.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"You don't remember? To enslave your race." He chuckled and shook his head sadly.
"Not that. How did you find me?"
"You found me."
I shot the Other a skeptical glance. "I was just sitting here."
"They say that there are certain places in the world where, if you stay still long enough, you will see everyone. You taught us that much of hunting is remaining still, Mr. Nash, and you have been staying still a very long time."
"I'm just too tired to move."
Smith sighed. "Yes. I am weary also. Enslaving your race will have to wait for another day."
Introduction
I will, as they say, dispense with the formalities. In this case Cain's "formalities" were intrusive and uncomfortable, as they searched for any physical weakness or dependency that would undermine my ability to perform. The physical probing was followed by a series of tests and interviews designed to find similar flaws in my mind. I put up with the transparent questions, and even managed not to tell the practitioners what I really thought of them. Everything you need to know about my head is in my record. Efficient. Skilled. Not a team player.
These shrinks are the same guys who were sticking leeches on people to cure their diseases only two hundred years ago. They don't understand the brain, so they have invented a "mind" that lives inside it, like the bad humors in one's blood that caused disease. A decent carnival fortune teller could do better than these guys. It's too bad, in retrospect, that they didn't hire one. But that wouldn't have been Scientific.
And so I came out the other end of this series of indignities intact and employed. That evening I was on a plane, bound for Colorado, and all I knew was that I did not work for the FBI. I had not received the promised debriefing. More runaround. I'll admit it, though, I was curious and not just a little proud that I was to be part of something so secret and elite.
I flipped through the newspaper Cain had given me. "Most of it is rubbish," he had said. "But mixed in with the rubbish are things that only look like rubbish, but are in fact important pieces of information disguised as rubbish. Look for larger patterns, things not said as well as what is said. Those are the things we will use to track the enemy."
"That seems pretty subjective."
"For the inexperienced, it is. Once you have had training and practice, you will see their motions clearly. These are the clues that will lead you to them, and they are the sorts of clues you must do your best not to leave about your own movements. You will not communicate with your team in any conventional manner; the enemy will intercept and decipher anything we have the technology to send."
"Who are they? Israelis? Japanese? The Russians can't match our stuff."
"You will learn more when you are in a more secure place. Good-bye, Mr. Nash. It is likely we will not meet again until the battle is concluded." He was wrong about that, of course.
Meeting III
The rain started falling harder. People rushed past, huddled under umbrellas, eyes cast downward. "Things have changed since you first got here," I said.
"Yes. You still have the power of self-extinction, but you have forgotten the fear. Rather, your fear has been diverted to smaller things."
Illumination
There comes a time in any story when the truth is revealed.
"Oh, for crap's sake," I said.
Commander Hightower was watching my eyes intently. "Skeptic" was probably in my record somewhere, and he knew damn good and well that I was not going to swallow any kind of little-green-men malarkey. I was disappointed. The training had been the most intense--and the most fun--I had ever recieved, and I could feel my skills increase every day, every hour. There was little they could teach me about combat; in fact, I was often teaching others those skills. However, that was only a small part of the curriculum and in many ways the least important.
We learned how to get where we didn't belong. We learned computers--not computers like they have today, nothing close, but at the time we were on the cutting edge of what is now called "cracking." Above all, we learned to analyze a cloud of data and find the one relevant fact. Needles in haystacks became child's play for us.
We. Us. There were four of us training together. Otis, Roger, Darryl, and me. No last names. Otis in particular could skim over a pile of information and come up with the unexpected. As time went on, he grew pensive.
"What's up?" I asked him one afternoon as we were walking to the mess hall.
"Something's wrong," he said. "There's a hole."
Now that he mentioned it, I knew just what he meant. "Our objective."
"Search and destroy, certainly, but who is the enemy?"
"And why have we not been taught anything about recent technology?" I agreed. "I've heard about some pretty amazing stuff."
Perhaps it was the question planted by Otis, but I hesitated before I dismissed what Hightower told me. We had been taught to assimilate disparate information and draw conclusions, and to trust our instincts. Now I stood, and knew why Otis had been so disturbed. He had already known. And now the little green men were here, and I was supposed to stop them.
Hightower relaxed. "That went better than I expected," he said.
"I should have figured it out already."
"It's a big jump."
"Otis got it, didn't he?"
"That guy spooks me. I think he can see about five minutes into the future." We shared a chuckle of admiration, then the commander spoke again. "Right now he is our most valuable asset. You'll be watching his back, and when he digs something up, you'll act on it."
"What if I can't do both?"
"That will be entirely your call. You once said you were loyal to country, mission, subordinates, and superiors, in that order, and you have demonstrated that you understand that all are intertwined. You can weigh relative risks against the larger objective. That is why you are here."
"Not my devilish good looks?"
"Ah, no."
"I'll do my best, sir."
Hightower put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you will." It felt like good-bye.
And off I went to fight the Others, Otis at my side.
Suspicion
"Someone's selling us out," Otis said, reading the report of Darryl's death. Our comrades were falling one by one. "Darryl was almost as paranoid as you are."
"Maybe he was on a hunt." That was the time of greatest risk, when an agent would have to move, creating ripples the Others could use to track him.
"Maybe." Otis didn't sound convinced.
Meeting IV
The little finger of each of Smith's gloves was curled inward somewhat and did not move. There was no finger inside. They had convincing prosthetics, but obviously Smith didn't feel the need to bother anymore. Eight fingers, eight toes, eyes that could not see red. To them, we all bled black.
"We knew, when we came here, that there would be no going back. It will be many years, yet, before those back home learn what became of us, that proud group of colonists, carrying the beacon of civilization to another backward race."
I had another coffee, Smith another wine. "It doesn't affect me as much as it does you," he said, "but it still produces a pleasant sensation."
"Do you have wine, where you come from?"
"No. We have something much like yeast, so we have alcohol." He smiled. "I don't think intelligent life could exist without it. But we don't have wine." He swirled the deep red liquid in his glass, looking through it at the gray street beyond, the bloody image reversed. I wondered what he saw. He smiled wistfully. "It makes living here possible."
Possible, not bearable. He finished his wine quickly and had another. "I'm glad you found me," he said. "There's no one else on this planet who understands. We are warriors, but we shall not have the honor to fall to a worthy adversary. We will simply be forgotten, soldiers in a war that never happened."
Knowledge
"Uh, oh," Otis whispered. Something in his voice caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I looked up from cleaning my Browning; he was staring woodenly ahead, his face gray, the newspaper in front of him forgotten.
"What is it?" I asked.
I don't think he heard me. He put his hands up to his eyes and slumped forward, letting out his breath heavily. "Oh, man, oh, man," he moaned. "Shoulda seen it sooner."
"What?"
He looked at me with haunted eyes. "Did Cain ever ask you how many toes he had?"
As usual, when Otis said it, it became obvious. Cain was one of them. I saw the future then, just for a moment. The life of our boss would not come without cost. It was up to me to determine whose life would be given in exchange.
Otis was beyond competent, he was far more dangerous than almost anyone on the planet. I was more dangerous yet, but we each had a back. Two people working together are four times as deadly as one man alone. I didn't want to bring Otis, but Cain was one of them, and Cain knew everything. "Sounds like we have a job to do," I said.
Otis took a deep breath. "Yeah. Else we're screwed."
"We're probably screwed anyway."
"Sucks to be us, I guess. I'll cover you."
"Otis. We have to do this, but don't take any chances you don't have to. The first priority is to get Cain. The second priority is to get you out safe."
He looked at me, angry. "Up yours, man. We're partners."
Meeting V
Smith rocked back, leaning on the windowsill behind him. "I have sent my final report," he said.
I took a sip of coffee to cover my silence.
"All it said was, 'Good-bye.'"
"And then you found me."
"No, I sent it while we were talking. It will be many years before they receive it." He stood. "Farewell, Mr. Nash. Thank you for the company." He laid a generous amount of money on the table. "Please let me pay for your coffee. It is the least I can do, if today we can end our war." He turned and slowly walked up the street.
I stood also, and felt the weight in my coat pocket that had not been there before. I knew even before I touched it that it was a pistol, probably a Walther, favored by James Bond and alien invaders alike. Light, compact, and very effective at short range. I left the money where it was and walked up the street in the direction Smith had gone.