Looking Glass

THERE WAS A BAD SMELL in the room, and that smell brought the President out of her stupor. She checked the infant in her arms, but the mite had not filled her diaper. Then she realised it must be the woman in the wheelchair. She had no wings now, but her gown was wet and stained. Michiru was using a towel to clean her. A hospital worker, a candy-striper, came in and asked, "What's wrong?"

"My colostomy bag broke again," said the woman in the wheelchair.

"Oh, great! Hey, I thought you were going--Ms. Keiou! What are you doing here?"

"That is a longer story than we have time for now. Alison, please find some more helpers we can trust," Michiru ordered.

"Wait, take Juli-chan with you. Give Ikuko to her, Madame President."

Before she realized what she was doing, she handed off the infant to the candy-striper.

Michiru said, "Nereid, go with Alison. Take Amphitrite."

"If anything happens, take them home!" said the woman in the wheelchair.

After the candy striper and the little girl who had flown(?) left the room with the babies, the President at last spoke. She asked, "What is going on?"

The woman in the wheelchair answered that question and the question in the back of the President's Mind. "Madame President, you are not going crazy. You are not in the White House now. You are in California. This is the hospital where my husband works. And this is my other daughter, Kimberly. She could not come with me."

The little girl with all the tubes in her croaked, "Hello, Madame President."

The woman in the wheelchair said something in Japanese, which was "Please don't talk, Kimi-chan, if you don't have to. Michiru, stay with the President and protect her." Then she switched back to English. "I am going to have to find someone to help me clean up now. Michiru will protect you. I wish you would stay here for awhile with Kimi until I get back. I will try to get someone to take you back to Washington as soon as I can." Then she wheeled out of the room. But she stopped in the doorway and said, "Please, don't tell anyone who you are. Maybe we can still fix this up. And if you tell anyone, they will think you are crazy and maybe lock you up with crazy people. It is not nice to be locked up with crazy people."

Michiru, world-famous violinist, got on her hands and knees, and began cleaning the filth from the floor.

Michiru's White House performance was carried live on PBS stations in America, on an official Japanese channel, on French TV, on the BBC . . . even in Russia, where viewers actually outnumbered American viewers. Because appreciation for classical music was higher overseas, many more non-Americans than Americans were aware of strange events in the White House in the first minutes of the crisis.

One of those, however, was Albert Ballin, who had precipitated it, though he had no idea he had. He was at the apartment of Rainbow Plath, enjoying the afterglow of lovemaking for the first time since long before his divorce. He was kissing her when the strange images were on the screen. They didn't notice something was amiss for several minutes. Rainbow was the one. "Oh, no, they've lost the feed!"

"What?"

"Listen, the concert isn't on."

"No . . . sounds like some sort of news flash or something."

Albert Ballin began assimilating the words of the commentator.

" . . . failure in the area around the White House. Here's another look at the last moments before we lost contact."

The picture changed to show the Drawing room. The camera was, naturally, following the President, this time from behind, as she said short words to people in the audience, especially those in the first row. That was when he recognized Minako Jones.

The camera continued to follow the President as she came up to Michiru to talk with her. And then he saw Sarah Uer, the half-sister who had brought the Chiba girl to Highland Hospital. And then--"

"Oh my God!" said Rainbow Plath.

Ballin moved to comfort Rainbow, but then he got his phone. After trying three normal numbers and getting busy signals--which meant that the switchboards were now overloaded, he used the direct number to the Chief that all his "new brooms" had to get around the interference from the resentful veterans.

"Chief! Did you see what happened at the White House? . . . Listen, the girl that was next to the President just before it happened was Sarah Ami Uer. That's the same one that's involved in the Chiba case. We need to get Highland Hospital covered now! I'm on my way over. And one more thing--did you see Minako Jones there? There might be a gang connection."

Rainbow said, "I want to come with you."

Ballin dialed again, then reached out to squeeze her hand. "Vic?" he said, as he heard the pickup.

"Who is calling?" It was a woman's voice, an unfamiliar one.

"This is Lt. Albert Ballin, of the Oakland, California, Police. I am trying to call my brother, Special Agent Victor Ballin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI."

"Just a moment, Lieutenant. Please, stay on the line."

Rainbow may have been the child of flower children, but she was clear-headed. She began gathering his clothes up, and her own. She was mostly dressed by the time someone picked up at the other end again.

"This is Charles Sumpter. I am the White House Security Chief. What is your name again?"

"Lt. Albert Ballin, B-A-L-L-I-N. From the Oakland, California, Police. Is my brother available? Special Agent Ballin?"

"No he is not, Lieutenant. Did you have special information for him?"

"Yes. Yes, I just saw the video. I identified two people involved with our department in it."

"Which individuals?"

"The girl with light red hair who was next to the President is Sarah Ami Uer, that's U-E-R. She is connected with an attempted homicide here. And I also identified Minako Aino Jones in the video. She has family connections to our largest drug gang. The Blues."

There was a moment of silence. "Thank you, Lieutenant. We're trying to locate your brother now. But would you stay on the line, please? We are having some trouble with our phones now, and we may need to talk to you again very soon."

"I was on my way--"

"Please, Lieutenant. Stay on the line."

"Yes, Chief." He handed his phone to Rainbow. "They want me to stay on the line. That's the White House. Tell me if they want me again."

Alison did find some people to help Usagi, but they weren't in on any of the secrets--very few were, and all the ones at the hospital that night were helping Mamoru in surgery, where he was trying to save Darnell Warburton, shot not in a gang fight, but because a 13-year-old with a gun thought Darnell had "dissed" him. Noticing the news about the President was beginning to come on the regular TV channels, Usagi ordered Alison to take the children home.

By that time, the President was alone in the room with Kimi. Michiru had gone off to check on Usagi--the President was not her president, but, whether Usagi wanted to be or not, she was the Moon Princess. And she could get into an amazing amount of trouble even if she didn't have Chibi-Usa on her hands.

They were playing the recorded video again, and the President had at last assimilated that she had not been hallucinating when she saw wings on the women and girls, because they were clearly visible in the last frames of the video from three cameras, and not only on Michiru and the woman in the wheelchair--"Mama," the little girl with all the tubes explained.

"I don't think you should talk," said the President. She put her hands gently on the child's shoulders.

"But I need to." The little girl grew wings, or started to, but they faded out. "I am a senshi like mama and Sarah. But I am not a very good fighter. That is why the bad man hurt me so much when I fought him to save Kayama-san. But I had to fight him or he would have killed her, I think. Hotaru was with me but she was slower. The bad man hurt me a lot before Hotaru caught up and killed him." Then her forehead glowed, and a third eye opened. "I can see things with my eye like no one else, and I can let other people see with it. I'll show you."

Suddenly the President could see through the wall, through all the walls, out of the hospital. Then her view shifted, out the window, and zoomed, showing an awkward-looking mansion house, and then going inside it, zooming in on people inside . . . and below, underground. Many of them were the winged women and girls she had seen in the video--and she recognized one of them in particular.

"That is Auntie Minako, Mama Venus. She is our leader after Mama. She looks very tired, doesn't she . . . Ishi-chan is asleep already. She is also my sister, but Venus is her mama. If you had especially good feelings tonight, Ishi-chan probably made you have them. She is very kind that way . . . oh, Sarah is asleep too. She must have used a lot of energy. I don't think she can take you back . . . I'm sorry, I'm getting tired."

The President's normal vision returned.

"I'm not supposed to use my eye here, but I watch my house a lot. I don't feel so lonely then."

The President watched the little girl close all her eyes, and fall asleep.

Now she began to consider GALATINE. Rostov had always presented these "creatures" as dangerous aliens or genetic constructs. But it wasn't a creature she felt under her hands, wings or extra eyes aside. This was a brave, suffering child.

The President also considered her own situation. She knew who she was, but she didn't have any identification. Nothing prevented her from walking out and asking for help, but the woman in the wheelchair was right. She was miles from where she should be, without any of her entourage, and it was very likely that if she insisted she was who she was, she would wind up in a mental ward. That would not be a great help to the nation.

She left the room and found a pay phone, but the line to the operator kept coming up "busy." Of course. Everyone is talking to everyone else now.

The woman in the wheelchair returned, with Michuru."Are you trying to call Washington?" asked Michiru.

"Yes."

"Come with us," said the woman in the wheelchair. "I think we can find a way to call."

The President followed them; they went back to the child's room. But when she entered, the President saw that one of the walls was no longer there. Instead, framed by a slight pinkish glow, there was a portal, and beyond was a very large room, with an enormous screen--which she remembered, from the vision the child had given her.

The child herself was still in her bed, but it was being wheeled through the portal by a group of men and women. Another woman, short, red-haired--one she remembered from the performance--was standing holding an enormous, glowing book. She shouted something in Japanese, and then something in English. "Hurry, I can't keep it open much longer!"

Rainbow Plath's apartment was only a few minutes from Highland Hospital. She was still holding Albert Ballin's cellphone for him when they went up with two uniformed officers to check on Kimberly Chiba. She saw it before it registered; they had already turned the corner into another corridor.

"Albert, that was Michiru! And the President! I think it was the President!"

"What?"

"Those women . . . I'm sure one of them was Michiru. And one was dressed just like the President."

"Come on." He broke into a run. The officers followed him, and Rainbow followed them. While she tried to catch up, the phone came to life. "What's going on?" shouted someone.

Somehow brought up the phone and said, "I think we just saw Michiru! And maybe the President!" while she ran around the corner. But she was not a fast runner, and no one was in sight. Already out of breath, she slowed, and began looking at the cards by the room doors.

"Where are you now?" asked the voice, a man's.

"We are at the hospital. Highland Hospital, in Oakland, California."

"Oh . . . that's interesting."

The man hung up.

"Rostov, you shouldn't have hung up!" said Sumpter, the Chief of White House Security. "That was just about the only line we have to California right now!"

"Sorry," said Walter Rostov, National Security Chief.

"Damn. What did they say?"

"Nothing important to us now. I need to make another secure call. But buzz me if you get any word on the Vice President."

"Yes, sir."

Rostov killed all the security cameras in his office, because they were good enough to read lips from. Then he made the call.

"Colonel Althorpe," said the voice on the other end.

"This is Walter. GALATINE is blown. The President has been sighted at the Oakland site with Michiru. She may know already."

"Is that certain?"

"We can't take the chance it isn't true. Is there a weapon available for the Kensington site?"

"Yes, but it won't take out Oakland. Not for sure."

"Wait until you hear the word from Washington. If you use your weapon first, I'm not sure I can manage the situation."

Rostov hung up, and then made another call. "This is Rostov. Is there a helicopter available? . . . Good. I need to get to the NSA center. I'll be right out."

Then he dialed a series of numbers. Once he was finished, he grabbed his favorite scissors from his drawer and dropped them into his overcoat pocket. His late wife had given those scissors to him.

Few men are so evil that they have no loving sentiments.

Rainbow Plath at last found the room where Kimberly Chiba was. Only she wasn't there. In fact, there wasn't even a bed there.

There was a cop there, though, one of the cops Albert had brought in. He was sitting on the floor, staring at the wall.

"What's wrong? Where's Albert? Where's Lt. Ballin?"

"They went through the wall," said the cop, without turning toward Rainbow. "They went through the wall."

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