He said, "look, when she's older, you won't be there to 
force her to toughen up. Do you want to coddle your 
daughter all your life, or let her build character?" 


Half an hour of smiling and nodding later, | took a photo 
out of my wallet. Said it was of Penny at her baptism. 


The photo was a of NARCISSUS-class visual 
cognitohazard that had just been decommissioned. 
Seeing the foam come from his mouth was one of the 
finer points of my life as a father, and well worth the 
reprimand from the O5 council. 


Mr. Glassman's still healthy, of course. Only difference 
is, he believes that if Penny ever cries, a seven-foot-tall 
eel-man lurking outside his peripheral vision will eat his 
eyeballs. 


6:00 PM. Penny and | watched a movie that introduced 
her to swear words. She laughed hard enough to start 
wheezing. 


8:00 PM. Penny's in bed early, contented. 


8:30 PM. Pretty sure | can't go into detail ona 
Foundation email server, but Rosa's still got it after ten 
years. My pelvis still hurts thinking about it. God Bless 
America. 


You want happy endings? 
Fuck you. 

You want sad endings? 
Again, fuck you. 


There are only endings. If 15 years of service to a 
shadow fascist organization bent on locking up all our 
demons in boxes has taught me anything, it's that "good" 
and "bad" are completely subjective. One man's ZK- 


class reality failure is another man's orgasm. 


So. 


Why bother? 


Because sometimes, temporarily, everything goes right. 


Whatever your situation, however bad things get - As 
long as you're alive, there can always be a great day. 


You got this, Lisle. You're making Penny and Rosa 
proud, and Dr. Henderson too, wherever he is. 


Don't let the nihilists and quitters seduce you. There will 
be more May 12th, 2016's if you can keep the bastards 
locked up. 


And if you can help it, don't detonate the on-site nuke 
until you've finished the Tom Baker episodes. 


Love, 
Dr. Lisle Naismith 
Site Director, Foundation Site-59 


Major Tom 


FoldUnfold 
Table of Contents 


Dream Sequence: 


1 


In the rolling hills of Nebraska, among barbed wire and thistle, the 
approaching moon watches a young boy on horseback wander 
through irrigation ditches flooded with water from rusting iron pipes 
and sweeping swathes of prairie grass. His young brother- 
unaccustomed to horseback riding and insecure of the dark that 
surrounds them, the cows, everything unilluminated by his brother's 
headlamp- finds himself clutching the back of the older’s shirt 
silently, not willing to admit defeat but willing to admit the obvious: 


“We're lost.” The words squeak out in a prepubescent squeal. He’s 
dark haired, with light olive skin- he is no outdoorsmen by any 
stretch- and is clearly focused on the dreary situation, intelligent 


eyes flickering in LED light and cloudy moon glow. 


The older is clearly more used to the saddle. He grips the reigns 
tightly, moves quickly. A good decision maker, but not an inherent 
problem solver, the red headed boy in cowboy boots and a farmer's 
tan presses forward in a random, unchosen direction. The property 
is new to him in many ways, large and all encompassing in all he 
has ever desired in his short life, but he’s young, a child of the 
prairie, and prone to mistakes. He stays silent. Stubbornness runs in 
the family. 


“We are lost, aren't we?” 

“No, | Know exactly where we are.” 
“No you don't.” 

“Yes | do.” 


The younger directs his gaze towards the grass. It’s a long way 
down. He knows he could make it if he fell, but isn’t about to try 
falling off a horse. Despite his aversion, he clutches his older brother 
a little tighter, trusting in his confidence. 


They stay silent in his manner for a while, the older directing the 
horse over hills and through trees. It’s not until the moon is full over 
their heads and the crickets are in full song that the younger breaks 
from his usual contemplative trance to speak. 


“Do you think mom had her baby yet?” Although this was the most 
interesting event taking place in the duo’s plain, in-elaborate lives, 
there are mixed feelings in the younger’s voice. A sister. The three 
of them- the youngest left with Jamie, the ranch owner, at the 
farmhouse- were overall neutral to this announcement. Three was 
enough. Three was a lot. Three was having to share a room and 
waking up with someone crawling on you and playing with your stuff. 
Four, however, was another story, as they had discussed in late 
night conversations over the past nine months. Four, and you’re 
halfway to your own soccer team. And a girl, too. 


To prepare for a sister, the three pooled their knowledge of what 


girls liked. Dolls. Pink things. The oldest had a girl in his class that 
liked guns, so they added that to the list, just to be safe. They had 
mutually decided that dolls and pink things were not something they 
were into, but guns were pretty cool, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad, 
after all. They debated whether the new baby would be allowed in 
their fort, which yielded that it was too soon to see where loyalties lie 
and the vote would have to be postponed to a later date. They 
considered, briefly, where the baby would sleep, to which they 
decided that it would be in their parent's bedroom for now, or it 
would just sleep with the youngest in his bed. As it neared that date, 
and their parents became more excited about the new arrival, the 
three shrank away to some extent, experiencing a strange form of 
melancholy that occurred with the prospect of sharing their lives with 
a complete stranger. 


And now the night was here. 


Their mother had arranged for the three of them to spend the night 
at Jamie’s ranch, which the older frequently worked at. The younger- 
not accustomed to the outdoors and less accustomed to farm work 
he knew would follow- was less excited at this proposal, but decided 
to tag along with his brother to heard the cows in on horseback as 
an alternative to playing Monopoly with the Jamie and youngest. 
Although the dark haired boy was unfamiliar with manual labor, he 
would rather work than die of boredom. 


And here they were, lost, at night. It was an underestimate to call the 
current middle child bitter. 


“| don’t know.” Scoffed the oldest. “What did mom tell you?” 
“Ten.” He replied. “Do you know what time it is?” 
“How the hell would | know that?” 


The middle child shrugged. Usually, the older knew things like that, 
like how to tell the time with the sun. The horse trekked over another 
hill, out of the small grove of trees they had transversed. 


Suddenly, the older pulled back on the reigns, and the horse 
stopped abruptly. 


“Jack.” Mumbled the older. “Look at this.” 


The younger boy sat up tall, gripping onto his brother for support, 
and peered over the older’s left shoulder. 


Moonlight poured over the expanse in front of them, mixing with the 
sickening artificial light strapped to his older brother's forehead. 
Grazing in the dark, grass swishing softly on their ankles, stood the 
herd of cows they had been sent out to heard in. They stood, head 
to tail, in a singular ring that stretched out of the beam of the 
headlamp into indistinct dark shapes spreading over half a mile; 
silent, strange, a heard of 65 in a pristine circular line. No crickets 
chirped. No frogs sang. 


Jack takes in breath, and many miles away in a back country 
hospital, Claire breathes for the first time, too. 


2 


It takes the wound a moment to bleed. 


There’s a moment, as Jack Bright looks out onto the front lawn from 
behind the dining room table, that everything remains in suspense. 
Mikell on the pavement, ladder on the roof still. TJ moves his head 
towards the outside and the world works in slow motion in response 
to the sound of bone cracking on cement. The body settles. The sun 
shines. 


Mikell on the pavement. 


Jack jumps up, but TJ is already on the porch, calling for him 
halfway outside, old wooden door closing with a thwack. Mikell is 
still, sleeping, the blood starts coming and fills in the little rivets in 
the pavement, covers the little rocks and stones like water ina 
stream with the sun glinting and the summer heat and Tu’s red hair 
shimmering, freckles shining, Mikell on the pavement. The old 
screen door slams and TJ grabs Mikell’s arm and screams. 


It takes the wound a moment to bleed. 


There’s a moment, as Jack Bright, 17, looks out onto the front lawn 
in front of him, that everything remains in suspense. Mikell on the 
pavement, ladder on the roof still. TJ moves his head towards the 
grass, recoiling in pain and confusion. 


The early spring sun beats down on the pavement, and strikes the 
dark blood matting itself in orange hair and soft brown freckles. 


Mikell coming around, face an expression of grogginess, then 
confusion, then alarm. TJ’s blood makes the grass sticky, 
staggering, falling into the grass. The clouds drift by in a slow, cotton 
ball haze through a sea of pristine blue, and youngest bright son 
lays still, still, still as the world as he feels his brother’s pain. 


3 


“This phone number has been disconnected.” Standing in the 
hospital phone booth, Jack fumbles in his pocket for the crumpled 
piece of paper, glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and 
punched in the code. 


“Please hang up and try again.” 
4-5-3-3-8-4-7-4-4-4-5-1-0 


The prerecorded telephone message cuts off into the long, 
undisturbed electronic beep of a phone left off the hook. Jack 
counted the seconds and looked around again- a car pulls up to the 
front door, and he watches as a mother and her new baby get in, 
father in tow. The heat of the day fogs up the scratched plastic of the 
tiny booth, creeps up under his shirt, makes him sweat. Mikell 
usually did this. The fear of somehow messing up wells up inside 
him. Jack checks his father’s ballpoint pen cursive, yes, it really 
does say 128 seconds. Has it been that long yet? Maybe he should 
try agai- 


“Please recite your connection code.” It’s the same woman that told 
him to try again. The grey Toyota minivan drives up the faded rural 
hospital parking lot and disappears over the hill. 


“Um, yeah, uh- Travis, Elder, Fourty-two, sixty-six-oh-eight, 
Secretary. Red case condition.” 


There’s a moment that Jack Bright holds his breath, waiting for 
confirmation, knowing that there wouldn't be one. To his delight, the 
phone-off-the-hook beeping doesn’t continue. He checks his father’s 
cursive again, under the title Call in case of emergency. The corn in 
the neighboring field rustles softly in the hot, stagnant wind. 


“Operation, please give your request and connection type.” 


“A-Adam Bright, level 4, family connection, emergency code six-ten- 
oh-five? It’s Jack.” 


“Oh, kid, um-“ It's a woman’s voice, which doesn’t come as a 
surprise—Jack has never spoken to his father at work, only ever a 
spiraling array of female assistants. He had suspicions about this, as 
all three of the brothers did; they didn’t have the heart to tell Claire, 
at six, that their father was most likely not returning home to his only 
four children. “-Look, he’s busy. Can | take a message?” 


“Yeah, um. Tell him that TU’s in the hospital-“ The phone starts 
crackling wildly, and Jack squeezes shut his eyes in desperation as 
he hears the sounds of the line being crossed with fuzziness. 


“Ja-“ The line drops back into the sound of the phone off the hook, 
and he knows this time that it won't pick back up. The man in the 
booth slams the phone back into the cradle and takes a moment to 
wipe the gathering sweat from the nape of his neck before pulling 
out the second quarter, the one that he’d taken from Claire’s piggy 
bank 45 minutes ago for this exact purpose, and sticking it into the 
iron slot. Dad hadn’t paid the bill for the landline; at this point they 
didn’t complain, just improvised. Most of Jack and Mikell’s time 
when their parents were away was spent like this: improvising. 


Jack dutifully punches in the 10 digit phone number and selects the 
correct connection code for the black void his parents dissipated into 
so often. Mom didn’t always pick up, either, but what his Evelyn 
Bright lost in correspondence she made up for in afterthought; the 
hospital bill would be miraculously paid, maybe, or there would be a 
hastily written letter pushed into Mikell’s hand while getting gas. An 


afterthought was better than nothing. 
“Operation, please give your request and connection type.” 


“Evelyn Bright, level 4, family connection, emergency code five-oh- 
oh-seven.” 


“Hold please.” 


Jack opened his mouth to reply before realizing that there was 
nothing to reply to. Birds chirp and sing in distant trees, contradicting 
his own mounting anxiety. 


His parents told them that they would be gone for about two weeks 
on business. 


Two weeks passed, then three. 


Months passed. Halloween and Christmas passed. Mikell started 
paying their bills with the money he earned at work, wherever that 
was. Keep the government from finding out they’d been alone for 
nearly eight months now. Mikell was skilled at calling their work 
because he did it each Wednesday night at the phone booth at the 
rickety gas station two blocks away. Mikell rode his bike back every 
Wednesday night as Jack and TJ started putting Claire to bed. 
Mikell walked in the door every Wednesday night saying no, they 
didn’t pick up, not this time, and Mikell would then take his father’s 
revolver from on top of the fridge and check that there was a bullet 
in each chamber, click, click, click, click, click, click, spin it in a circle 
like a child’s toy with his finger on the trigger, Jack sits in the living 
room and thinks that one Wednesday night he'll just shoot it right in 
the kitchen, just right into the tile or at the window or into the roof of 
his mouth, the click of playing with death to the tune of crickets 
chirping in the soybean fields outside— 


“I’m sorry, can | take a message?” It’s the man on the other end 
again. Jack jerks back from his thoughts. 


“Yeah! Yeah. Um, just tell her-” Jack fell back on the story that he 
and Mikell had discussed. “-that TJ fell off the roof while helping 
Mikell shingle, and got hurt. We’re at the hospital right now, they’re 


saying he'll be okay but he needs stitches and they’re keeping him 
overnight. Mikell’s up with him right now, and Claire’s here with us 
just to be safe.” 


There was more that Jack wanted to tell his mother. Maybe 
something about wanting her to come home, or at least speak to 
them at all. About everything that’s been going on at home. About 
Claire or Mikell. Anything. Just to hear her voice at all. 


But Jack kept his mouth shut when the secretary asked him if there 
was anything else, then thanked her and said goodbye and put the 
phone back on the hook and the paper back in his pocket and his 
heart back in his chest and walked through the dusty revolving door 
back inside. 


“Jack.” 


Jack comes around slowly from his place in the stiff wooden hospital 
chair to the sound of crickets outside and a six year old child tugging 
at his dirty Walmart t-shirt. 


“Claire...” Jack rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye, sleepily 
looking at the digital clock at TJ’s bedside. 3:46 AM. “...Shit. What is 
it?” 

“| gotta pee.” 

Jack groaned. 

“Why can’t you ask Mikell to take you?” 


“He’s not here.” 


“...What? He’s...” Jack squinted through the darkened hospital room 


the shadow of a member of a SWAT team.