“Come on,” Bryce scoffed. “I can see where it might reduce some of the checks and balances set up by the Constitution, but it’s not that different from what we have now.”
He stopped and looked at Bryce. “It is very much different than what you have now. But it’s more than just that. There are evil people at work now. People who seek for power. People who clearly understand that the Constitution stands in their way. This new amendment is enough to give them the bridgehead they need to completely overthrow it.”
“Then why not zap some of those people over here? Just leave me alone.”
“I told you before,” Gorham answered evenly, “don’t underestimate yourself. By some strange combination of circumstances, Bryce Sherwood has become a pivotal player in events—not only the current events, but in the shape of things yet to come. He serves as a catalyst for much of what is to happen.”
“Well,” Bryce snapped, “so much for your policy of not directly interfering in the lives of others.”
“Because of the gravity of the situation, the council received a special dispensation to remove you from the scene. Whether that will turn the tide remains to be seen, but with you in, there was little question of what would happen.”
“I am truly flattered,” Bryce said with soft bitterness. He sat back, letting it all sink in, one part of him on the verge of laughing wildly at the whole insane situation, another part of him chilled by the finality of Gorham’s words. Finally he looked up. “So where am I?”
Gorham turned and sat back down on the orange crate. “It is very difficult to explain. Perhaps an analogy will help. What do you call it in your railroads, when two tracks split off from one another?”
Bryce gave him a baffled look.
“You know, where the two tracks come together and can be changed.”
“You mean a switch?”
“Yes, that’s it. A switch. It is a very small thing, yes? Just a fraction of an inch between the switch and the other track.”
“Yes.”
“People on the train go over a switch and don’t even realize they have changed tracks.”
Again Bryce nodded.
“And yet, they can end up hundreds of miles away because of that little switch.”
“I understand all that. What has it got to do with where I am now?”
“The train is the same. Even the people on the train are the same, but because of that little switch, the train is now in a very different place.”
He took a deep breath. “Think of the United States as the train, and the year 1787 as the switch. Suppose that after we met at Philadelphia and drafted the Constitution in 1787…“ His voice trailed off, and his eyes took on a faraway look. Finally, he pulled back, looking at Bryce. “Suppose that the Constitution was never ratified.”
Bryce leaped up. “But it was ratified!”
Gorham shook his head. “Not here it wasn’t. In this world, the Constitution was never ratified.”
Bryce just stared, his jaw slack. “It can’t be!” he whispered.
“Well,” Gorham said slowly, “it is! You are now in an America that has never had the Constitution.”
For the next few minutes, Bryce sat with his head in his hands, listening as Gorham described the history of this new America.
When ratification failed, the colonies broke up into several factions. The three Southern colonies formed a monarchy. They tried to persuade George Washington to be their king, but he adamantly refused and died in 1799, broken-hearted to see all for which he had fought so hard unraveling at every seam.
The New England colonies formed their own confederation using a loose constitutional monarchy. Under Thomas Jefferson’s direction, the remaining states formed a small nation they called the Atlantic States Alliance. Using the Constitution as the basis for government, for a time they did quite well. To the north, Canada formed its own confederation of small states.
But the three little nations in America were too small. Expansion became critical, and by the early 1800s all three countries were locked in battle over the western territories. Then in 1833, the generals in the Atlantic States Alliance overthrew the democratic government and set up a military dictatorship. They quickly overran the southern monarchy and consolidated their power base.
Bryce lifted his head to watch Gorham. He was far away now, staring off at nothing as he droned on in a dull monotone, as though even the very speaking of it caused him pain.
Battling Canada and the New England Confederation to a standstill, the generals finally signed the Treaty of 1836, which formed the Confederation of North American States—CONAS— a commonwealth of three socialistic, totalitarian states.
In the meantime, the peoples of the West used the paralyzing war in the East as an opportunity to form their own free nations. Western Canada broke off from the Confederation of Canadian States and created the Republic of Canada, or Free Canada, as it was more popularly known. The heavy Spanish population in the southern part of the country formed the Republic of Latin American States, which included what should have been California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Between these two nations were the twenty-seven states of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains.
The pioneers had carried the now defunct Constitution with them and used it as the basis for governing themselves. They chose the name proposed by the Constitution, and the twentyseven states became the United States of America.
“There was a map at the motel,” Bryce interrupted for the first time. “Now I understand what I saw.”
“Yes. So now you have two groups of nations—three totalitarian states in the East, three free republics in the West.”
“And that explains the demilitarized zone I saw on the map.”
Gorham nodded. “CONAS doesn’t like having a free nation on their borders, beckoning to their citizens. So you have the Mississippi Demilitarized Zone—a twenty-mile-wide stretch of machine guns, electric fences, barbed wire, dogs, and land mines. Dozens are killed every year trying to cross it.”
“What about my family?” Bryce asked softly. “Are they here?”
Gorham nodded. “I told you, it is the same train with the same people. It’s just on a different track.”
“Where are they?”
“Well, fortunately, they never left California. Who wanted to emigrate to the New England Confederation under the circumstances? Your family are all healthy and safe and doing fine.”
Bryce looked at his hands, then finally back to Gorham. “Okay, I’ve learned my lesson.”
The older man searched his face, but didn’t answer.
“I said I’ve learned my lesson!” Bryce exploded. “You’ve made your point! I was wrong about the Constitution. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you sooner. I’m ready to go back to reality now.”
“This is reality now.”
Bryce rocked back. “You know what I mean.”
“Didn’t you listen to anything I’ve been saying?” Gorham shot back. “This is it! There is no other reality for you. It is not possible for me to take you back.”
Bryce leaped to his feet and gave the cot a vicious kick, sending it crashing against the wall of the cellar. “You make it possible!” he yelled. “You’re the one who got me into this.”
Gorham just shook his head stubbornly in the face of Bryce’s fury. “I tried to warn you, but you refused to listen. Now I can do nothing.”
Bryce felt his fingernails digging into his palms. “You’ve got to, Gorham!” he pleaded. “You’ve got to get me out of this nightmare!”
Gorham’s patience ran out. “And what if I could? Would I? Should I? Oh, sure, mentally you’re deeply shaken, but has anything else really changed? If I could take you back this instant, are you ready to tell Mannington the deal is off?”
That caught Bryce totally off guard. “I…Well, yes, I guess I would—”
“Are you ready to go to work and fight as hard to see that the amendment isn’t ratified as you did to get it passe
d?”
Again Bryce hesitated. He had been consumed with thoughts of getting back. What he would do if he made it there hadn’t yet received much consideration.
“I rest my case,” Gorham said soberly. “Little has changed. Not in the heart, where it really matters.” He swung around abruptly. “And now I must go. I have stayed longer than I was supposed to already.”
“So there is nothing you can do?” Bryce whispered.
He shook his head sadly.
Bryce leaned against the wall, shattered. Gorham’s face softened. “Is there nothing you would know from me?” he asked softly.
Bryce looked up. “What?”
“You asked about your family. Is there no one else?”
Bryce’s head came up slowly, the blue eyes suddenly wide. “Leslie! Is she here?”
“I told you. Same train, same people.”
“She is here! Where?”
“I am only allowed to say this much. Her family still lives near Arlington, Virginia.” He stopped, sighed. “Find her, Bryce. Before, you needed her. Now, she needs you.” He shrugged and instantly began to fade. “You must be very careful, Bryce,” his voice echoed ethereally. “As you learned in the motel, this is not just some dreamscape you are passing through. It is real. The people are real. The bullets are real. And you are a stranger in a difficult land.”
Jessie and her son arrived shortly after dark. As they shut the door to the root cellar behind them, Bryce took more careful stock of the young man who had saved his life. He was in his early twenties, lean as a split-ash rail and dressed in simple overalls and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. He still carried the rifle in his hand. His eyes were those of his mother, the mouth too.
Bryce stuck out his hand. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday. If you hadn’t come when you did…”
He took Bryce’s hand, pumped it once, then dropped it, obviously embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, Bryce,” Jessie broke in. “I forgot you haven’t been formally introduced. This is my son, Neal.”
Bryce smiled. “I would never have guessed.”
Suddenly Jessie was all business. “We’ve got the papers,” she said, her voice low with excitement. She handed him a passport and some other papers.
Bryce examined them closely. His picture looked sick—unruly hair, thick stubble. But it would be hard to identify him later from the photograph alone. “Are you ready to go?” Neal asked.
Bryce had been thinking about nothing else for the last four hours. “I am.”
“We’ve decided that the easiest way will be to cross into the Canadian Confederation, then head west until—”
He stopped. Bryce was shaking his head slowly.
“What?” Jessie demanded.
“I’m ready to take you to the United States,” he said evenly, looking to each one of them. “But not north.”
Neal shot his mother a quick look. She ignored it, watching Bryce steadily. “They know you came from the south,” she said. “They’ll be watching the southern border very closely.”
“I’ve got to go to Virginia,” Bryce said stubbornly. “Then I’ll see that you get to the United States. I owe you that, for saving my life. But first, I’m going to Virginia.”
Chapter 17
They drove south for two hours, keeping to the back roads, then slept fitfully in the truck until dawn. Leaving the old pickup hidden deep in a clump of underbrush, they walked into a small village on the main highway and joined a ragtag group of people waiting outside a small general store.
This had been Neal’s idea, once he saw that Bryce was not going to back down from his determination to go south. Starting in July and August, the ASA imported itinerant farm workers from all over CONAS to help with the tobacco and cotton harvests in the South. There was always a shortage of laborers, and getting included was not that much of a challenge. At seven o’clock, an overweight, slovenly constable came to the store and began writing out travel permits. In their shabby clothes and unshaven condition, the three newcomers blended in and received their permits without a hitch.
Two hours later and a mile or two from the border, the rickety bus pulled to a stop in a long line of traffic. Bryce felt Neal tense alongside him. “This isn’t normal?” Bryce asked, low and under his breath.
Neal shook his head as Jessie, sitting across the aisle from them, flashed a warning look. Bryce leaned back, feeling his heart suddenly pick up its tempo as he sensed the sudden fear and tension on the bus. If the others were nervous, where did that leave him and the Lamberts as they traveled on forged papers? In addition, Jessie had the Declaration of Independence sewn into the side of her suitcase. Bryce had balked at taking it, remembering the penalty for being caught in possession of it, but Jessie was absolutely adamant. It was not to be left behind.
There were nearly thirty people on the bus. Though Anglos dominated the group, there were half a dozen blacks, two or three Orientals, and a couple of Latin extraction. There were only three other women, and that worried Bryce a little. Jessie was not dressed conspicuously different than them, but he wasn’t sure she could ever feign the air of forlorn, broken-spirited hopelessness that the others carried like a burden. There was a fierce streak of independence in her that radiated like the inner core of a nuclear reactor. Jessie was a fighter and a proud woman. And thank the Lord for that, he thought fervently.
It took nearly half an hour for the bus to creep forward until it approached the heavy, fortress-like building of the border checkpoint. When Bryce saw the high barbed-wire fence with its V-shaped barrier on the top stretching off in both directions, he shook his head in disbelief. Two days ago, he had driven across this border between New York and Connecticut at about sixtyfive miles an hour with hardly a second thought.
The low murmurs that had filled the bus since they had entered the long line of traffic suddenly dropped off to silence. Bryce craned his neck and saw two uniformed soldiers approaching the bus, submachine guns hanging over their shoulders, pistol butts jutting from holsters around their waists.
Neal leaned slightly toward Bryce. “Don’t look at them until they come to you. Just look submissive.”
The bus driver swung open the door, and the two men came aboard. “Identity papers, passports, and travel permits!” barked the first. Suddenly Bryce’s heart was pounding in his throat. This is not some dreamscape you’re passing through, Gorham had reminded him. These are real people and real bullets.
He leaned back, pulling the dirty baseball cap lower over his eyes, then reached for his papers, forcing his mind into a numbing blankness.
Bryce jumped as there was a sharp rap on his shoulders. “Papers!”
He looked up into the hard coldness of the soldier’s face and handed him the documents. He jumped again as his hat was ripped off his head and dumped in his lap. It took every ounce of willpower to hold his head up, eyes steady, as the man looked at him, then at the passport photo, then back at him. Then the eyes went to the identity card, then the travel permit. The man dropped them back into his lap. “Papers!” the man demanded, and Neal Lambert handed his across.
The burst of relief and wild exhilaration that hit Bryce was the most intoxicating thing he had ever experienced. He had jumped the abyss, he had come up from the blackness! He was alive!
Neal passed muster and so did Jessie. A look of triumph flashed between the three of them as the soldier moved on past them toward the back of the bus. Bryce put his hat back on, slouched low again and closed his eyes.
“Where did you get this permit?”
Bryce opened his eyes a crack. The first border guard was about six rows from the front, standing next to where two of the women sat. He had papers in his hand and was glaring down at the woman in the aisle seat. Even from where he was, Bryce could see the terror in her eyes. He sat up straighter, and Neal’s hand shot across to grab his arm. He gave a quick shake of his head. Bryce dropped his eyes.
“I asked you where you got your travel perm
it?” the soldier shouted.
“At…at Norwalk.” Her voice was high pitched, quavering.
In spite of himself, Bryce lifted his eyes. She was the youngest of the three other women, probably in her mid twenties. Bryce had watched them board at Norwalk, and had absently noted that in spite of the shabby dress and furtive air, this one was passably attractive.
The guard laughed, an ugly, rasping sound. “Of course. Norwalk,” he said amiably. Then suddenly his voice hardened. “From the underground, right?”
“Oh, no! From the government offices.” She clutched at his jacket. “Please. They told me everything was in order.”
The woman next to her started to rise, but the guard straightarmed her back down. “You! Stay out of this!” Then to the first. “Stand up!”
The second guard laughed loudly behind Bryce and moved swiftly back up the aisle, weapon high, daring the crowd to interfere with his partner’s little drama. Bryce turned his head quickly and stared out the window. Something outside had suddenly caught the interest of everyone else on the bus as well.
He heard a soft gasp and couldn’t help himself. He turned his head enough to see. The girl’s arms were up high, and the first guard was searching her for weapons, his hands moving slowly as they followed the lines of her body. She was rigid, eyes locked on a spot on the ceiling.
Again Bryce felt Neal stir in warning, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away.
The first guard grabbed the woman’s arm and yanked her roughly out into the aisle. “Off the bus!”
“Oh, no. Please!” She was near hysteria now, sobbing, pleading.
The other woman leaped to her feet and grabbed at his arm. “Please, let her go.”
Now the second guard stepped forward and hit the older woman full across the face with the back of his hand. Her head snapped back and cracked sharply against the bus window. “Sit down!” he roared.