SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

I watched him struggle to push air through his lips, puffing and blowing, as if it was the only way he knew to get the words flowing. Finally he gave up, shook his head and smiled wanly. I sighed. And to think that this man had been one of the NSA’s more powerful Cerberus agents.

I followed Gomer into the living room and approached the old woman. She glanced at me, irritated, then looked back at her black and white telenovela. I stood patiently until a commercial came on, then asked politely, “Ms. Cruz, my name is David Madsen. I worked with your husband. Can I ask you a question?”

She turned to me, olive pit eyes regarding me from the wrinkled pouches of her face. “He’s not my husband anymore,” she finally said.

I turned to Gomer who shook his head.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He is a stranger, that one.” She cocked her head.

“Has he had any visitors, ma’am?” Gomer asked, bowing slightly as he spoke.

She looked at him curiously. “People like you, they always come.”

So he did have a visitor. “Who was it?” I pressed. “Can you describe them?”

The jingle from the soap commercial faded into silence and the program returned. She turned to it, totally immersed in a world where she wasn’t an old woman on the edge of senility, living in her daughter’s house, her entire universe an electronic box that told lies.

I gently touched her shoulder. “Mrs. Cruz, please. We need to know.”

She turned back to me like I was about to steal something from her, which I was I suppose — time. Her eyes narrowed, her entire being ensorcelled by the novella. “You all look alike,” she hissed. “All of you. The same.” Then she gestured at Gomer like she held a knife and wanted to stab him. “Except this one. I don’t know what he looks like.”

Gomer bowed. “I’m Chinese,” he said.

Her laugh came out as a bark. “So you say.” Then she turned back to the television and was lost to us.

I stuck my head in the kitchen. “If your father’s condition changes, please call me.” I held up a card, then seeing her hands covered in dough, put the card on the refrigerator behind a magnet. I nodded goodbye, then left.

SAN FRANCISCO

July 7, 1970

Late Afternoon

Our offices were on the third floor of Transamerica Corporation, in a triangular building on the corner of Columbus and Montgomery. My corner office view was filled with the construction of what promised to be a two hundred and sixty-meter pyramid. As unpopular as it was to the local populace, who feared a repetition of the giant forest of skyscrapers in New York City, the Transamerica Pyramid was important to the defense of America. In addition to protecting against Soviet agents stealing American technology, Special Unit 77 was also charged with the protection and facilitation of the pyramid’s construction. In fact, without it, we’d have no way to defend against the onslaught of supernatural attacks that both the Chinese and the Soviets were preparing. Even now the plan was to have the Transamerican Shield in place by 1972. I just hoped it wasn’t going to be too late.

Gunnery Sergeant Chan sat in one chair. Air Force Major Skip Harold sat in the other. I stared at the major over the tops of my fingers. I was a nicknamer, meaning I rarely called people by their actual names. Part of the reason was because I tended to forget them. It was like I was missing something in my brain which caused me to constantly forget. So I nicknamed. Chan’s predecessor had been dubbed Nancy Drew, because of his unfathomable ability to get to the bottom of things. When asked why not one of the Hardy Boys, I remember telling him that only Nancy Drew solved cases on her own. It had seemed to mollify him somewhat, even if I’d called him by the name of a famous fictional girl detective. His replacement had been dubbed Gomer Pyle, and for good reason. Raised in southern Georgia, he was the only Chinese man I’d ever heard with a southern accent. Add to that an endearing wide-eyed appraisal of the world that matched his fictional namesake and his frequent use of southern colloquialisms, it just seemed the appropriate nom de guerre and something I was unlikely to forget. Then, of course, there was this man right in front of me. Blond, blue-eyed and handsome, this fighter jock had probably been the president of his senior class, the quarterback everyone adored, and the one voted most likely to succeed in his yearbook. I didn’t like him. I was still searching for a suitable nickname when he spoke again.

“Are we clear on this?” he asked with a smile.

“Colonel,” I said, softly.

He blinked, shook his head, then replied, “I’m a major.”

I glanced at Gomer, who couldn’t help smiling as he drawled, “No, Major Harold, Colonel Madsen is a colonel, isn’t that right… Colonel?”