Summary: Bob tries to settle into the PIN, and is almost able to forget he's in a panopticon... until 9/11 and Diwali happen.
Word Count: 3290
Notes: 9/11 xenophobia ahoy!
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The Un-American Festivities Committee

 

For a shady government agency dealing with interdimensional migration, the PIN buildings didn’t look special or important. They were just another cluster of boxy beige buildings in their own strip mall on the outskirts of town. Health and Medical on one side of the parking lot, Communications and Operations on the other. Comm-Ops wasn’t any more exciting on the inside, except for the gigantic painting on the wall.

 

There were others, but they were mostly what you’d expect: old white guys in suits and executives’ chairs. Except one, which according to the plaque depicted “Cora Johnson: Founder, Neurophysics and Communications.” She was a middle-aged black woman with impeccable hair and a distant expression; the window behind her showed a starry sky. Her right hand rested on a model spaceship, and instead of a fancy chair, she sat on a big boxy contraption that looked like the grandmother of Harmonius’s box. Worn padding and straps suggested that the thing could be carried—and had been, for a long time.

“That’s Johnson. She invented the boxes… and made this place somewhere I’m willing to work.”

I turned to see a small wiry woman with salt-and-pepper hair. Like me, she wore a blue Comm sweater, though hers had gold rings. Strong handshake.

“I’m Darlene, first shift Comm captain. We’ll see a lot of each other. So, Diaz tells me you’re a piranha.”

In my bouncing around the PIN, I’d learned not to mention that forced labor conditions made me snappy; nobody understood my attitude. “I didn’t like Diaz, and I hadn’t had my coffee. You get me when I’m civilized.” Mostly. All the coffee in the world couldn’t fix first shift, which started at 6 AM.

“Give Diaz a break; she’s the one stuck finding places for everyone who pissed off Ops that the fizzies don’t want to wash. She must’ve been desperate if she put you on first shift; we’re usually old horses.”

Lucky me. “Yeah, I’m working with Grey.”

“So I heard. Comboyed for him a few years. Quiet guy, kind of intense. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Nobody who came in would’ve thought this place was devoted to dealing with interdimensional entities. All the computers were outdated, the printers dot matrix, and according to Darlene, most records had yet to be digitized. (“You’ll have to dig in the basement.”) My systems must’ve taken ten minutes to boot—there were four, because apparently local, federal, and “peripheral” systems didn’t place nice with each other. The peripheral databases barely ran at all, so just about every damn thing I did also needed to be replicated on paper and put into massive color-coded binders.

Compared to Smithson West, it was culture shock. Any minute, I expected Darlene to open a cabinet and show me the magical semaphore flags that could contact UFOs, but only after prayers, incense, and offerings. (She didn’t, but she did show me the ancient, all-hating fax machine that peripheral documents came through. Behold, the 21st century.)

Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to deal with the fax machine. It was Darlene’s problem. My job was to do what she told me and clear the paperwork path for Ops guys like Grey who handled the face-to-face asskicking.

“It’s not as exciting as they act,” Darlene assured me. “Mostly, we deal with customs violators, folks trying to sell nonsense to the locals—perpetual motion, cold fusion, religion, crap like that.”

The floor plan was a product of the open office craze, with everyone’s desks clustered together in a big room, overseen by Darlene up on the bridge. If you wanted to talk to a coworker, you stood up and shouted. Seeing as everyone in Comm was constantly on the phone or radio, the noise pollution was awful, and out of desperation, chest-high cubicle walls had been erected, with people’s heads popping up like prairie dogs. As though determined to prevent privacy, nobody got a cube to themselves; I shared mine with Jenny St. Rivers, who comboyed for Specialist MacIntire and was, according to Darlene, “the best hot-spotter on first.” She was young, pretty, black, and had a button on her messenger bag that read EATEN BY GRUES.

“Hark, adventurer,” I greeted, and that broke the ice.

Jenny proved to be smart and capable; good, since she did the bulk of my day-to-day training. Thanks to my previous failed positions in the PIN revolving door, I wasn’t completely at sea, but she spared me a lot of headaches.

“No, no, that means it’s crashed.”

“No, don’t try to fix it, they’ll blame it on you. Call Herman and Dylan; they’re IT, they might get to it today, and until then, go hit the basement.”

“It’s not downstairs? Maybe someone pulled it—hey Randall! Do you got the Claudia file?”

 Thanks to her, I made it through my first day, and when she saw me digging through my bus schedules, she offered me a ride home.

“You have money,” she said. “Why ride the bus?”

I tried to explain that I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon line, in a city with extant public transit and roads like spaghetti, but I could tell she still thought I was crazy. On the ride home, she declared herself my carpool buddy and explained what hot-spotting was.

“It’s reading a map to guess where someone’ll come through peripheral space. It’s like… if you were driving to Phoenix, you’d take I10, right?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’d have to, unless you wanted to get really scenic… or lost. It’s the same through peripherals. You only have so much fuel, so much time, so many roads—well, unless you have a ripper car, but they’re pricey. My specialty is predicting the roads and exits and making sure we’re there to meet them.”

Most of this wasn’t computerized. Jenny made do with a database that barely ran, a heavily annotated old tome held together with masking tape and rubber bands, paper maps, and a drawing compass. I got to see her do it the next day, and it was fascinating to watch. We intercepted the stuffed animal trader the moment he touched ground.

Orwellian or not, bureaucratic or not, at least the work was interesting, in a strangely mundane kind of way. There were the black marketers trying to buy plushies in bulk and resell at heavy markup. There were the missionaries obsessed with the idea that the multiverse was a six-dimensional torus, which should be reflected in family structure and corporate leadership. There were copper hoarders and con artists and snake oil salesmen, and a surprising number of ordinary people (not necessarily human) wanting to start a new life.

“Another country, sure,” I said, “but why would anyone want to move to another universe? And why here?” The impression I’d gotten was that most other peripherals saw us as barbarians needing the six-dimensional torus.

“Well…” Jenny said. “You know about Johnson?”

“The one who invented the fizzy boxes?”

“Oh, she didn’t just invent them. She was there at first contact. But this wasn’t a diplomatic first contact, or a military one either; it was an accident, a Dellan bio-construct ripping through to escape her owners.”

“Bio-construct?”

“I think it’s like clone meat? All sorts of constructs around, and as far as I can tell, the only thing they have in common is they’re slaves. Anyway, the Dellans wanted theirs back, and Johnson told them to take a hike. She got the bio-construct asylum, reverse-engineered the fizzy box from their technology, and when the PIN got formed, she made sure we’d have a place here.”

A noble sentiment, but even if the long-dead Johnson was the saint people claimed, I wasn’t about to be proud of an integrated panopticon. (For given values of integrated; I was the only South Asian there.) The fizzies weren’t there just for xenopsychology (and in-house counseling, which floored me). They were there for us. I could only enjoy my work as long as I forgot that.

Despite the cognitive dissonance, I got along fine on a day-to-day basis with most of my coworkers… except Grey, who I think hated me, what with the unblinking eagle stare, the unchanging expression of a serial killer mug shot, and the tendency to loom rather than speak. I maybe got a paragraph a day, less once he discovered I knew Morse and obsolete ten-code, and he seemed impervious to sarcasm, irony, or humor. Untrollable. Either he was stupid or thought I was, and he’d apparently pissed off HR even more than I had; I was stuck with him.

Jenny was happy to hate him with me. “Don’t take it personal, Bob; one day that guy is going to snap and kill us all. I heard he’s a robot from the Cold War.”

Randall rolled his chair out. “Old Ironass? I heard he was some super-soldier project gone horribly wrong.”

“And I heard you don’t have enough work to do,” Darlene said, dumping paper on our desks. “Get moving, gossips.”

Just then, Agatha burst onto the Comm floor, shouting to turn on the TV. No one had ever seen her run or emote before, so we obeyed, and that’s how we found out about the towers. It was September 11th.

I spent the rest of the day in a panicked fog, calling my family, making sure everyone was safe. None of my immediate relatives were in New York, but Ravi Jijaji was, on business. When everyone turned up in one piece, I thought the worst was over, but that was just the beginning.

Once the shock wore off, people started looking for someone to blame, and they weren’t picky about who. A Hindu temple got fire-bombed in Jersey; some poor Sikh bastard got gunned down in Mesa, way too close to Vago for comfort. It was surreal—I was American for Chrissakes, my people were from a different country, I was not buddies with bin Laden—but I was a wash hire, new in town, and people started looking at me funny. Darlene and Jenny never wavered (and Grey kept acting like a poorly programmed chatbot), but I wasn’t so sure about the rest of my coworkers. I couldn’t tell if they were pulling away from me or if I was pulling away from them, but paranoia seemed only sensible.

Then the new guys started showing up.

Thanks to Johnson, the PIN had a lot of black women on staff. Whether that was a side effect or a cause of the lack of oversight (and budget), it made the weisswurst brigade all the more noticeable as they descended, especially on Ops and Management. Nobody would say what they were doing or why. One day, Darlene was late, stormed in fuming but wouldn’t say why. I suspected someone had tried to push her out.

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I recognized the sinking ship feeling. I’d felt it at my last job, but this one, I couldn’t quit—not in sound mind anyway. (And once the Patriot Act passed and my memories became free wiretapping, I really didn’t dare run.)

And Diwali was coming up.

I’d requested the time off earlier, in exchange for working Thanksgiving, but September 11th had up-ended everything. When they did get to it, I found myself in the office of some new spook manager with crocodile eyes; he was clearly unimpressed with the new wash hire and this un-American holiday he’d never heard of and gave me the thumbs down: I’d be working both holidays. New or not, condescending or not, he gave me the creeps, and I left shaken and angry at both him and myself.

To top it all off, when I left his office, I found Grey outside, waiting.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you want Diwali off too.”

Grey just stared at me.

“Maybe you’ll get luckier than me.” Even to me, my voice sounded nasty, but Grey was someone I could lay into without worrying I’d get washed or shot. “He seems like your type.”

Then I stomped off to call my sister and tell her the bad news.

Su tried to make the best of it. “It’s okay, Babu, it won’t be the same but we can do the meals and gifts during the kids’ Thanksgiving break…”

“No, we can’t.” Despite myself, I felt on the verge of tears. “Got the rejection in person and everything. It’s a ‘seniority’ thing, apparently.”

“That sounds like bullshit.”

“Damn right it’s bullshit, but this place has lost its goddamned mind since September 11th, and I—” Too late, I remembered the things about this job I couldn’t tell her, how insecure this line might be, that the government could apparently wiretap anyone they wanted these days without a warrant, and that I was on the verge of a meltdown. I caught myself, took some breaths, tried to calm down, “—and I can’t get away. I’m sorry, Su. I’m so sorry.”

Su did her best to salvage the situation. She banged out a plan for phone calls and instant messenger so I could be there by proxy; she even swore she’d videotape the whole thing. It wasn’t the same, and we both knew it, but she kept me talking and focused on the practicalities enough that I didn’t break down until I got home.

Diwali was about family. It was about my parents, my sister, her kids and in-laws, up a thousand miles away in Connecticut and calling everyone across the pond. It was about starting a new year, eating food and giving gifts and putting up lights to push back the darkness of the night.

But I had a feeling that there was no pushing back what was coming.

I didn’t dare complain to my coworkers. All I could do was shut my mouth and feel the noose tighten around my neck. It was a twitchy few weeks.

On the first day of Diwali, I found a box of sweets on my desk, pink peppercorn elderberry balls that spice-crackled pleasantly in my mouth. A sticky note was stuck to the box: Happy Diwali, in big block print.

Jenny stole a piece. “Wow, this is good! Who’s it from?”

“No idea,” I lied, crumpling the note in my pocket before she saw it. I’d only mentioned Diwali to two coworkers, and I’d spent enough time passing paper back and forth with Grey to recognize the handwriting.

But Grey was the same old Specialist Ironass, said nothing of it and didn’t seem to notice my scrutiny. After scratching my head all shift, I clocked out, shouldered my bag, told Jenny to wait up for me, and beelined for Grey’s office.

Most of the Ops guys didn’t have their own offices any more than we did, but Grey had apparently amassed enough holy seniority to earn a hellish little alcove created by the erection of “temporary” walls that would never come down as long as filing cabinets could hold them up. Grey never left on time and today was no exception; I could see hunched shoulders through the door glass.

I banged on the door: dah dit dah.

Without looking up, Grey waved me in. I did and shut the door behind me, since there was no way to ask this comfortably.

“Did you get me candy?” I asked, holding up the box.

Grey glanced up, went back to working. “Yes.”

I blinked. I’d expected denial. “Why?”

Grey put the pen down and started cranking one shoulder like it was stiff. “Candy holiday. Isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but…” but how do you know that, I didn’t ask. “…Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” Back to the paperwork. “Is that all?”

For a moment there, I’d almost started liking Grey, but now I came closer and rapped on the desk to pull those laser eyes up again. “No. I’ve been an ass to you this whole time. You don’t like me. Why would you…?”

Grey just stared at me.

I sighed. “What kind of candy do you like?”

Shrug.

“Are you seriously this boring?”

Shrug.

I gave up. “Fine.”

Jenny tried to lure me into conversation on the ride home, but I was distracted and didn’t say much. I’d met some weird people over the years, but Grey was the first so boring as to come out the other side.

When Jenny dropped me off and I checked my mailbox, I found a box of candy from Su—orange drops, my favorite when we were kids. It cheered me to see it, and I called her as I unlocked my door.

“Hey nerd! Happy Diwali!” she said upon answering. “Your sweets haven’t arrived yet; you’re the worst brother. How’s the job going?”

I groaned. “Lousy. I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me what’s going on with you guys.”

All the States side of the family was with her. While I kicked my shoes off and unwound, Su passed the phone around and I got to hear from everyone, even my niece, who only had eyes for her new boyfriend (who my mother disapprovingly informed me was a liberal arts major). My nephew was having trouble with some high school coding project; together, we found the missed semicolon. Su’s youngest lectured me on the evils of “the gender binary,” whatever that was, and its cosmic importance. My parents told me about all the intrigues going on with the family across the pond—adultery, embezzlement, kissing up to Bapuji who seemed determined to outlive them all, the usual. They were all making rangoli together; Su promised me pics.

I missed them, all of them, so badly.

“You okay, Babu?” Su asked when she came back. “Because you sound awful. Maybe this job wasn’t such a good idea.”

It’d never been a good idea. But all Su knew was that I was in a crummy government job involving national security that I couldn’t discuss and which paid a third of my old Smithson West salary. She probably thought I’d gone altruist in my midlife crisis.

“It’s just been a long day. I’ll be okay, I’m home now.” I tossed the box of pink peppercorn candy on the table with Su’s orange drops. “It wasn’t a total loss; one of my coworkers gave me sweets.”

“Oh? They Hindu?”

“Nah, Christian. It was the damnedest thing.”

“Oho,” she said. “Are they… available?”

I snorted as I poured myself a drink. “Available, I’m sure. Eligible, no.”

“You sure? I heard they just repealed the sodomy laws over there; they must’ve heard you’d moved in.”

“Hurrah, progress.” I toasted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. “Trust me, no eye candy is worth that personality. It’s fine, I’m roping me a cowgirl named Patty Mae; we’ll have lots of good Christian babies together.”

“Good. Ride ‘em, cowboy. We’ll tell all the worst stories about you over dinner; it’ll be like you’re here.”

I laughed and saluted her with my wine. “Gain ten pounds for me.”

“Way ahead of you, nerd.”

And that’s how I got through the first day of Diwali. I cleaned my apartment, put up lights, pulled my own feast out of the slow-cooker and microwave, and ate with my family from afar. It wasn’t as awful as it could’ve been, and once I got off the horn with them, I pulled out some cashews to grind for kaju katli. I’d already made one big batch for my family, had ingredients left over, and since Grey hadn’t expressed an opinion, that was what I’d make. I could’ve just bought something, but I wanted to keep myself busy. It let things feel more normal.

Even if I was spending the holiday alone.

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