She Was There

After a week of self-directed anger for letting this peach of a girl slip away, Brad resigned himself to his loss and returned to earnest work, finding his way through the new layers of added responsibility.

He arrived in Korea four days ago. Problems with their upgraded avionics in T-50 jet trainers taxed both Brad and his two local engineers to their limits; now the damn system crashed. After failed attempts to revive it, they began rebuilding the network from scratch. The repetitive work bored them shitless.

"Guys, quit griping, we're in this together. Sooner we get this sorted, the earlier we'll go home."

Brad leaned over Lee's shoulder to check why the backup server didn't show up on his machine when it fell on him like a brick. Lee assigned fixed IP's using MAC addresses. The log file from Tala's computer crash

must

include her MAC.

"Excuse me guys, need to confirm something."

He lugged his laptop from its case. Ten lines down—a tiny, tantalizing piece of Tala; a thread to pull. Somewhere in Manila, an old beige PC used this MAC address and behind its keyboard, a girl he still wanted so much.

Brad left a message at Andersen Air Force Base for a return call.

"Schulz, you son-of-a-gun, howzit." Brad said. He didn't like Schulz because he moaned. Engineer Never-happy. If you doubled his salary, he'd ask for it in Euros one month and Pesos the next. And his politics stank. Brad worked with him for a year out of Houston on a skunk works project that became known as 'seventy-two virgins'. By the end, he'd seen enough Schultz for a lifetime.

"Could be better, my friend. Hey, but I read the memo—congratulations," he said, "overdue if you ask me."

Brad asked. "You still working the 72V, yeah?"

"We don't use that these days, Brad," he said, disappointed, "we caught too much shit. Now we call it 'ABDIL'."

"Doesn't seem like a heap of difference to me."

They spoke of the program the company the Pentagon referred to as AirBorne Delivery Into Location.

"So you're in deployment now?"

"Yes, and no. When it works, ABDIL's awesome, but I guess you heard about the school bus in Helmand Province."

"Fuck, that was you?"

"We're one set of wheels away from cancellation, Brad."

"What went wrong?"

"Fuckin' code duplication. It's what happens when you outsource critical stuff to monkeys. If Trump doesn't come through this year and we get them commies back, ABDIL and me are dead in the water."

72V worked on the simplest premise. Everything that connected, or would ever connect to the internet, needed a MAC address. If you kept that matched with an IP of a few thousand people 'of interest', you owned their location. With enough satellites and a powerful computer, you get information. Which wife your target slept with, and when he'd last taken a dump, all becomes yours. ABDIL made targeting accurate to a yard.

Brad needed to bait the hook. "I got a ton of staffing issues over here. If ABDIL goes pear-shaped, you call. You get me, Schulz?"

"Loud and clear. Jesus, I need some fresh pussy before I go mad on here."

Guam hosted Schulz for a year already; the guy that disparaged the natives whilst his tongue hung out for their women. He never made a secret of which uniform his grandfather wore in 1939, or that he marched in Charlottesville.

"So you're back to dry deployment, right?"

"Missions running now."

"If I gave you a MAC address, you could give me the information?"

"Sure but we're only authorized to use it on missions. The upside is I get to fly in the B-2—fucking awesome. Thursday, I'm over those islands the Chinese built."

"Write this down and message me when you're back, okay?"

Brad dictated the address, his one last shot for Tala. Schulz might be a despicable person, but dependable—he'd come through for an old buddy.

Thursday afternoon, Brad drove back to the hotel through clogged Seoul streets, the job done. With luck, he'd get a transport Friday, latest Saturday. By three, he ran intervals in a park amongst bemused Korean mothers and their strollers.

Fifty-thousand feet over the Pacific, in the world's most scary killing machine, Schulz activated ABDIL. First, he requested satellite links, waited for handshaking and selected a preliminary payload. Like a kid in a candy store, he might choose between a JDAM smart bomb, a bunker buster or an AGM-154 air-to-ground missile. If he wanted to annihilate an entire city—several of sixteen 83B nuclear bombs in their rotary launcher.

Schulz entered Brad's address and tapped 'initiate'.

A computer in Idaho processed the input at eight-hundred trillion floating-point operations per second. In less than a minute he could press 'engage' and wait for confirmation of target and payload from a room in the Pentagon. Instead, he scribbled on the back of a Wendy's receipt and stuffed it in a pocket. Kids everywhere arrived home safe that night.

Saturday dawned cloudy in Manila, perfect for a stroll in the park. The road steamed after showers as Brad drove across the city. He parked off Pedro Gil street, paid a kid to watch the car, walked round the corner and gazed up at the new residential block that rose, with thousands of others, to whet the aspirations of twenty-million Filipinos.

Brad thumbed his phone. ABDIL's coordinates appeared sound. The target altitude showed one-hundred fifty feet. That placed a smart bomb through the window of the fifteenth floor on the east side.

Brad saluted the security guy, who grinned through gapped teeth, slid into the throng around the elevator, punched fifteen and rode up in a Filipino cacophony. The weak signal inside the common area fooled the phone and its compass swung uselessly, showing Tala's place as having a heap of plastic ride-on toys. He walked the five other apartments, found age-appropriate shoes, took a deep breath and pressed.

If a girl looks good answering a door in day clothes, she's likely stunning.

Tala's washed out T-shirt clung to her braless body, a size too small, her shorts faded with a tear in one seam. Unbrushed hair fell round her shoulders in a tangle, yet Brad saw only beauty.

Tala's mouth dropped open, her brown eyes wild with surprise.

"Brad!" she exhaled, reaching out for the door frame.

"Hi, Tala."

"How did you... Oh god, I thought mother'd lost her keys."

"You look good."

Tala's hands jerked to cover her breasts, and she spun. Even from the back, he wanted her.

"She's on her way home. You can't be here."

"I'm not diseased, Tala. I just want to talk."

"It's... you don't understand. I can't, not here."

"If you don't want to see me Tala, I'll leave."

"No!" she snapped, "Only... Okay, there's a seven-eleven, two blocks down. Wait for me."

Through the smudged glass, Brad studied the organism called Metro Manila. How did one city squeeze so much into these streets? Yet if you drove ten miles—nothing changed.

Iced coffee numbing his fingers, Brad revisited their meeting. Tala's mother carried an obvious issue. Maybe she disliked foreigners or, more likely Americans, if she voted for the present government. Fixing that depended on Tala. This afternoon, Brad discovered a shocked but pleased girl. At least, he hoped so.

Brad spotted her fifty yards away, weaving and dodging through the throng of people. Tala glimpsed him and swung through the door, her black pleated skirt swishing. Taller than he remembered. Or did her shoes do that? He swiveled the stool, rose, and she smiled. All Filipinas smile, but not like this.

Brad moved his backpack, and Tala sat, smoothing her skirt.

"How did you do that? It's impossible."

"Call it determination, Tala. If I told you, you wouldn't buy it. Anyway, it's classified."

Tala rushed. "I'm not all about what happened at your place, Brad. You must understand I'm not like that; I got carried away."

"If you were, I wouldn't be here."

"You went away—a long time. You didn't ask for my number, or FB. Nothing."

"I got angry and anger makes mistakes."

"Okay, you wanted to talk."

"First, I'd like your number and maybe we can talk about your mother?"

Tala smiled. "Brad, it feels like you're chasing me. Why?"

"You're different," he said, "you're fun and funny, you're beautiful, you don't think the same and... Jesus," Brad waved his hand at the street, "some things you can't explain with words; it's intuition and... I missed you." His hand returned to the chipped lunch shelf, touching hers.

Tala gazed across the bustle. "So many pretty Pinay here and you choose a Tisoy."

Brad became familiar with the pigeonholes Filipinos created for themselves within months of landing here, but this explained so much.

"How old was she, Tala?"

"Sixteen. Way too young."

"Heck, she's not even forty?"

"Math is your strong point."

"You told her and that's why you moved."

Pinoys share everything—no secrets.

"She guessed, Brad. Sorry, I tried, but you kissed me...," she protested, nervous eyes flitting around her.

"Does she hate us that much?" Tala's eyes dropped. Brad moved his hand over hers, and they sat absorbing reality.

"You have time for a walk?"

Tala nodded and flicked a smile, her eyes moist.

Brad bought bottled water, and they sauntered toward Paraiso ng Batang Maynila Park, careful to be alongside each other but not too close. They exhausted the attractions of the tiny park inside fifteen minutes, making small talk. A cooling breeze ruffling her hair, Tala toyed with the bottle, turning it over.

"I'm not military, Tala."

"I guessed not, but she won't appreciate the difference."

"Soon, we won't be here. The word is that Duterte is cozy with China and wants us gone. No idea where I'll be—Okinawa, or Korea, I guess. Taiwan long-term unless their politics change back. Tala, they need me back stateside more, now that I got promoted."

Tala understood. "I'll give you my number."

"Don't do that. Too risky," he said, standing, "come on, we passed a shop back there."

Ten minutes later, Tala carried one more phone in her bag. An unsaid commitment that they needed to seal.

Tala refused him to ride the elevator with its menacing, bulbous, camera. Instead, she ducked into the stairwell and, amongst the illegal boxes dumped in the fire escape, she threw her arms round his neck, letting go her bottled emotion.

Brad drove home, the taste of Tala on his lips once more and a shit-eating grin that made him appear demented, in the mirror. Together, they must change her mother's mind. How, though?

They fell into a routine, an hour of texting and calls each evening, furtive whisperings and giggles behind Tala's closed door. She withdrew from her mother, and when the printout of calls from Tala's phone arrived, the suspicion only multiplied. Sunday afternoons, when Tala wore those nice new clothes she couldn't afford, revealed more than a flowering, pretty daughter.

"You have a boy, Tala. Tell me."

"I'm nineteen, mum. I might have several. Men find me attractive."

"Stop it, daughter. I demand you bring him home. I want to meet him."

"When I'm ready."

The demands got repeated with different words, over and over, Tala always drawing her fire.

Saturday, the argument escalated. Her mother was determined to disrupt Tala's plans for Sunday, to meet a cousin in town. Tala exploded, yelling at the top of her voice. A door slammed, and her mother stormed out. Tala, sullen and defensive, lay face-down on her bed, fists balled, screaming defiance and frustration.

Brad made no such demands. They took in movies at the dingy theater, ate together, shopped and when unseen, they kissed. More often they talked. Brad found Tala thoughtful and intelligent, she espoused a view on everything, using her now near-perfect English. When she mentioned girls, though, his reticence puzzled her. Until she figured it out.

"Was she pretty?"

"Huh?"

"The girl you loved, the one that hurt you."

"Yes. Yes she was," he said, swallowing, "the pain lasted years. I found her in bed with my best buddy. We'd gotten engaged a month before."

"You dodged a divorce from a slut."

"I know that now, Tala."

"Are you over her, I mean forever?"

"I love someone else, now. Someone special, even prettier and cleverer."

Tala recalled that evening now, as anger with her mother passed. Traditional, that's all—she's trying to be a mother.

A week before, Tala made plans to move; she might only afford something old and small, but she'd be free from these incessant demands.

The intercom buzzed. Hah! Mother did forget her keys again. Tala could play her.

"Hello, Sino po Sila?"

"It's Analyn, Tala."

Analyn Santos, a friend of her mother and the reason they moved here, stood at the door, eyes wild with fright..

"Tala, come quick, there's been an accident. They took away your mother."

"How? What happened? Where is she?"

Filipinos create their own chaos, and times like these raise it to an art form. Tala grabbed her bag, a jacket to cover her chest, then joined Analyn running along the street, dodging traffic. Two fat policemen climbed back into their cruiser, but Tala held its door.

"Where did they take her?"

"PGH, I guess. Call Transcare Ambulance, this is their number." He held a card through the window for Tala to snap.

Analyn told Tala she could visit later and stepped into traffic to hail an illegal motorcycle taxi.

"Drive slow, you got me? If you have an accident, I'll grind your balls in my mincer and feed them to you." she told the cowering driver.

Relatives and walk-ins crowded the hospital reception.

"We don't have anyone by that name."

"An accident, at five, please check again," Tala insisted.

Thirty minutes passed before she found her mother, a mess of blood-soaked dressings, parked in a corridor.

Without hustle, yelling and pushing, nothing happens in Manila. But Tala rose to the challenge.

"Why no X-ray," she screamed at the hapless A and E clerk, "get it done, now!"

After ten, when her mother got admitted, sedated and plugged into a drip, she lay oblivious in the dimmed light of a crowded, sleeping ward. Tala dragged a fold-away visitor bed from another ward, scraping and bumping it over the tiles to curses from the other sleeping relatives, and prepared for an uncomfortable night. She messaged Brad at eleven but forbade his visit until the morning.

Brad arrived crazy early, Tala still rubbing her eyes. At six, the ward rounds began, and she wandered to the nurse station to file paperwork.

"The hell is this?" she complained, "you even got her name wrong."

The print cartridge ran dry and with the network down until IT came in, they took the file to another floor. After they found the second thumb drive—the uncorrupted one.

Brad leaned against a wall, flicking overnight messages on his phone until the nurses passed through, their checks completed and drugs administered. He balanced on Tala's still-warm makeshift bed, daydreaming about holding her once more, naked against his skin, when the patient behind him starting beeping. The frequency increased, an arm sounded, and a nurse dashed in, followed by someone senior in white. Soon a crowd and the sharp corners of equipment invaded their curtain. The commotion disturbed his temporary custodian, and she woke, stared with glassy eyes at her surroundings, tried to move, winced with pain, then noticed him.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Brad."

"You're American," she managed, her voice cracked and struggling after twenty years. It sounded like an accusation.

"Unfortunately, I am."

"Why are you here?"

"Waiting for Tala. She's filing paperwork, I understand."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a postgraduate engineer specialized in advanced airborne systems and... a friend of Tala's," he said, "The Pentagon calls me a scientist, I manage electronics engineers in East Asia," he added for good measure, nodding to himself.

"You're not an airman?"

"No, I'm not brave or stupid enough. May I know your name?"

"I'm Jocelyn."

"Pleased to meet you, Jocelyn" he said, as a teacher to a student, "your English is exceptional." Jocelyn tried to smile, but she hurt.

"You got hurt in an accident, Jocelyn. I believe you have a broken leg."

"No kidding," she said, getting back into her stride.

"It will relieve Tala to see you. She stayed here all night."

"Is that so?"

He sounded pompous, he knew, but the ice in her shattered more with her every sentence. He relaxed; they played a game now. And he enjoyed it too much.

"What is your age?"

"I'm twenty-eight, Jocelyn."

"So old. Wow," she teased.

"I prefer 'mature and responsible', Jocelyn." Target acquired and neutralized.

Analyn thrust her way through the curtain in a hail of Tagalog, made a fuss throwing her handbag, paper bags of fruit and packets of dried snacks over the bed, touched Jocelyn's face, took one look at Brad then crossed herself, looking skyward.

"This is Brad," Jocelyn announced in English. "He's a scientist."

Brad liked Analyn from the get go. Scatterbrain friends—heaven sent.

"Hi," Brad said, looking her in the eye, his voice edged with syrup, "you must be Analyn." He held out a hand and raised himself from the chair. "I heard so much about you."

Is that what it took, he later asked himself?

Tala returned, talking to a nurse outside their curtain. She backed in carrying more fruit and her boyfriends's favorite coffee. Brad and his new friends, discussing motorcycle taxis and whether they were still too dangerous or the ride-hailing apps made them safer, ignored her.

From the corner of his eye, Brad's wordless girlfriend moving in slow motion, arranging fruit and uncapping his coffee, was a memory he cherished for the rest his life.

"Tala, honey," Brad began, Analyn's eye catching her friend's with a wink, "A friend checked on bone reconstruction surgeons, in case Jocelyn needs it. Isn't this close by?" He passed her his phone.

"Mmmh, yeah," she whispered, covered her eyes and sniffed. Analyn reached out a comforting hand.

Jocelyn discharged herself after a week. All the wheelchairs were in use so Brad walked beside her as she struggled to his car on crutches, then drove to the bone specialist's clinic, lifted her back onto crutches and crossed the street from the parking, holding up honking traffic.

Jocelyn watched her daughter pay the bill with a swipe of a credit card Tala didn't own, collected the report in a huge envelope with X-ray images that she later kept under her bed.

Two weeks after the accident, as her mother bumbled around the apartment on sticks and crutches, she asked after Brad. Jocelyn now referred to him as a fixture in their lives.

"He's working Sunday, mum. Brad's real busy right now. If you want, we can go shop, though."

"Go to him, Tala. Keep him warm at night."

"Mum!"

"A good man is a rare treasure. If you find one, never let go. I never found one."

Brad dropped Tala's bag and closed his door, leaning back. Tala fell into his arms, relieved; she needed to call her mother before her patience expired and wrecked their evening. She would ask if they made love.

"I can never trust you," she said to his chest with his now familiar scent, "you realize that, don't you?"

"Who, me?" Brad protested, his shoulders shrugging innocence.

"You have her eating right out of your hands, you evil man. She sees a halo around you, so be aware I'm watching you two."

"Hey, let's eat before it's cold," he said.

"I'm not hungry. You go ahead, I'll take a shower. Oh, and switch off your damn phone."

Brad's robe drowned Tala. She dragged it over the tiles, tripping and giggling. He lifted her across his lap and she sat facing him, smelling of shower and promise, arms draped over his shoulders.

Brad knew she loved him, that he would be her first, that she would be nervous, that she now took birth control, that she masturbated, and how. All of that, she told him. Those evenings apart when they professed love then teased each other until one slid a hand between their legs or around their dick and described it to the other.