Brightstone

“All right, men,” Winnie said, looking around the table. “We need ideas, and we need them yesterday. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is quite possibly the most important meeting any of us will ever attend. The fate of the entire world may very well depend on what we come up with right here and right now. Maybe. I dunno. Major Williams, whatcha got?”

The elderly man frowned at her, his jowls dangling like thin drapes from the sides of his face. He might have been rough around the edges, but Winnie knew that Major Williams secretly had a heart of gold. He also possessed the greatest military mind of at least the past three generations. Maybe four. He was really, really old.

“Madame President—”

“Doctor Madame President,” Winnie corrected with considerable irritation. She didn’t spend all those sleepless nights working on her PhD in Clarinet Anthropology to be dismissed so crassly.

“Erm, yes… Doctor Madame President,” Major Williams said, his face impassive. Sturdy as an oak, that one was. One of her best “It is of my opinion that the task you’ve given us is impossible.”

Winnie stared at him. That was not the answer she'd wanted. Silly old man. She never liked the fool anyway. “Are you sure, Major?”

“Yes, Doctor Madame President.”

“Did you consult anybody else?”

“Yes, Doctor Madame President.”

“Did you talk to every strategic mind from every nation in the world?”

“Yes, Doctor Madame President.”

“Even the small nations?”

“Yes, Doctor—”

“Even Liechtenstein?”

Winnie felt a small fluttering in her chest. She ignored it.

Major Williams opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He glanced away.

“That’s what I thought,” Winnie muttered, disgusted. She was a very busy woman, none too keen at having her precious time wasted. “DAWSON!” she barked suddenly. “HEEL!”

From the foggy, white void that had always concealed the edges of the Situation Room, her loyal aide emerged, clacking and gliding along on his trademark roller skates. He skidded to a stop beside her.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Dawson, show some respect,” Winnie commanded. She noted the tuxedo he wore with approval.

“Yeah, ma’am?” he amended.

“Get me some coffee.”

Dawson rolled his eyes. “Ugh, fine” he groaned.

“What was that?”

“Ugh, fine, ma’am.” He skated away until he was once again consumed by the blinding nothingness that surrounded them. That’s where they were all headed eventually, after all. She was comforted by the thought.

Winnie targeted the next poor soul sitting at the table and cleared her throat. Mr. Evan McNeally. Their resident weapons and poisons expert. He was also useful to have at the bar on trivia night, on account of his impressive and slightly unsettling knowledge of obscure musical theatre facts. “Status report?”

Mr. McNeally smiled and winked at her in a way that made her intestines flutter. She prayed that the serious men in this room failed to notice the fresh color in her cheeks.

Evan took a deep breath. Then he proceeded to speak what Winnie could only describe as an uninterrupted torrent of complete and utter gibberish.

“By Jeeves, he’s gone mad!” Winnie gasped, taking a step backward. “Dawson! Fetch my rifle!”

“Doctor Madame President!” cried one of her experts, jumping to his feet. It was Sir Henry Piddlebottom, a certified genius with one of the most unfortunate last names Winnie had ever heard. “That isn’t gibberish! It’s German!”

Winnie glanced uncertainly at Evan, who continued to recite his strange soliloquy without a care in the world, then back at Sir Henry. “German?”

“Yes, ma’am, German,” Sir Henry stated matter-of-factly, talking loudly over Evan’s rambling. “More specifically Alemannic, a Swiss-German dialect that is spoken in parts of Liechtenstein. Which reminds me of a particular anecdote I once heard while traversing the treacherous jungles of…”

Blah blah blah, does this guy ever shut up, Winnie thought irritably. Something about Sir Henry really made her want to punch him in his face. Maybe it was his extremely punchable face.

“Sir Henry,” Winnie interrupted.

“Yes, Doctor Madame President?”

“Shut up.”

Sir Henry pursed his lips and sat down. Blessedly, Mr. McNealy also stopped talking.

Winnie rubbed her temples. She felt as though her head were a balloon filled with too much air. Where was Dawson with that coffee?

“I’m like, right here, ma’am.”

Winnie jumped. “Dawson! What, how did…” She collected herself. Her manservant was standing beside her, offering a steaming mug. His upper body was completely exposed, glistening with droplets of what looked and smelled to also be coffee. “What happened to your shirt? And are you sweating…coffee?”

Dawson simply rolled his eyes as Winnie accepted the mug. It had the number 160, the shape of a square, and the letters “km” written on its side. But she didn’t have time to worry about whatever the heck that meant.

She let Dawson’s insolence slide this time as she took a look sip from her mug. The coffee burned her mouth. She liked the pain. She hated the coffee.

She spat her mouthful of coffee out all over Major Williams. “DAWSON!” she bellowed.

“Still here, ma’am,” he said with a practiced air of nonchalance.

“This coffee is terrible!”

Dawson shrugged. Then added, “Ma’am.”

“Where on Earth did you get this crap?”

Dawson shrugged again. “Somewhere near the eastern border of Switzerland and the western border of Austria. Get off my back, ma’am.”

Winnie nodded absentmindedly. She felt as though she were going mad. Something clawed at the screen door in back of her mind; she was missing something important. She just needed answers. No, an answer. But what was it?

The edges of the room grew brighter. She squinted at her collection of seventy-four experts seated around the table. She tried to focus on their faces. A few she knew—Major Williams, Sir Henry, Grover Cleveland, Evan. But most of them looked blurred, as if she almost recognized them from the corner of her eye, but they became increasingly distorted the harder she tried to focus.

Who were these people?

She needed someone she could trust. Someone who always had her back, her best friend in all the world. The only normal one here.

“Keith,” she whispered, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Give me something. Anything.”

The large grizzly bear looked startled at being addressed directly while in the presence of so many important people. He glanced around nervously with his beady eyes, then cleared his throat.

“Um…I have a bit of a confession to make,” he said carefully. “It’s kind of embarrassing, I didn’t want to bring it up in front everyone. But, um, what are we—”

“Hold on,” Winnie said. She stared at her friend intently. Keith looked uncomfortable, his round ears quivering on the top of his large head. “Something’s different about you,” she said finally.

Keith’s black lips curled into a forced smile, revealing his sharp teeth. “I can’t imagine what you mean,” he chuckled. “I mean, I haven’t changed since we ate lunch yesterday.”

Winnie continued to stare him down.

“It’s me,” Keith said with growing anxiety. “We’ve been friends for years! Since second grade! Remember Mrs. Vaduz’s class? We used to cause such a ruckus!”

Winnie sized him up a moment more. Then she sighed. “I remember. I’m sorry, it’s just…I have lot going on right now. What was it you were saying?”

Keith visibly relaxed. “I was just wondering, what question are we all trying to answer anyway?”

Snap.

The question! That was it! There was an important question she was trying to figure out, but what was it? She looked directly into white, blistering void, her eyes watering against its brilliant light. It was all connected, somehow. The clues were all here. The glyphs on the mug, the coffee’s origin, Mr. McNeally’s spontaneous fluency in a specific German dialect. It all had to do with…with…

She gasped.

Luxembourg!

Wait…that wasn’t right.

She gasped again.

“Liechtenstein!” she exclaimed, turning to the table. What she saw made her want to spit out more than just coffee.

Keith stood atop the table on all fours like some kind of animal. He was gnawing on what moments ago had been Major Williams’s head, gnashing his jaws together in pure bliss as tendrils of gore splattered against every nearby surface like handfuls of warm slugs. To their credit, the few experts she could focus on appeared sufficiently perturbed as well.

“Keith!” she screamed. “What are you doing! Get off the table! You’re going to get it all dirty!”

The large bear looked at her with emotionless black eyes, strands of bloodied hair dangling from his soaked muzzle. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “He just looked too tasty.”

Winnie addressed the room. “Liechtenstein!” she said loudly. “This all has to do with Liechtenstein!”

The was a moment’s silence. A few people clapped politely.

“Ich liebe dich mehr als Pfannkuchen!” Evan cried.

Major Williams’s decapitated body gave a thumbs up as his torso slid to the ground.

“Cool,” Sir Henry said.

Winnie shot him a cold stare. She still didn’t want him talking.

“But the question remains,” she continued. “What about Liechtenstein am I supposed to know? Anyone?”

More silence. The light was almost unbearable now.

Keith groaned in despair. “I wish Mrs. Vaduz were here. She’d know what to do.” He looked up at her. “Also, I’m going to eat you now, okay?”

Winnie nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”

Then it clicked.

Vaduz!

The capital of Liechtenstein is Vaduz!

The brightness engulfed the room as her vision was filled by Keith’s snarling face—

Winnie jolted awake. She blinked groggily, then glanced around to make sure no one had noticed her doze off.

“Eyes on your own paper,” Mrs. Rogers said lazily from her desk at the front of the classroom.

Right. Her geography test. She remembered. She was stuck on a question…what is the capital of…

Excitement swelled within her. Her dream! That bear, whatever his name was, had given her the answer!

Man, what the hell is going on in my brain?

Whatever. That didn’t matter right now. She was going to ace this exam.

Beaming with pride, she looked at the paper before her and read the next question:

What is the capital city of Luxembourg?

Her excitement disintegrated into a puff of smoke and was replaced with an overwhelming sensation of hollowness.

Luxembourg? LUXEMBOURG? She didn’t know the capital city of Luxembourg! She didn’t know any city in Luxembourg, much less the name of the main Luxembourg city! It was an impossible question, completely unanswerable.

She sighed and wrote Vaduz in the blank anyway.

It was the wrong answer.

She made a B on the test.