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pameladlloydI was practically staggering by the time I left the IRB yesterday. Standing around like that is grueling, especially when you're not used to being on your feet so much. Plus, I hadn't had anything to eat all day, except for some toast and a banana before I left the house.
This time, at least I knew what to expect, so I could plan for it. I stuffed a backpack with a small afghan, in the event I didn't make it through today's melee and needed to camp out, leaving room at the top for food. I also dug around and found plenty of foodstuffs: cheese, crackers, fruit, even a jar of peanut butter--whatever was portable and sustaining--and stuck it all in an old plastic grocery bag in the 'fridge, ready to go in the backpack in the morning. Then I went to bed early and set the alarm for three a.m.
I was up, dressed, and out of the house by three-thirty, and at the IRB by four. There were knots of people who'd just camped where they were. Most of them were asleep or groggy, but here and there were some who stood glaring around, as if they were certain those around them were some kind of danger. I did my best to wind through the crowds without intruding into anyone's space and joined the crowd already standing on the steps to the building. I think there were perhaps two hundred in that bunch. There was a difference I noticed, between those on the steps and those on the street, hard to describe, but you could tell just by the way we stood that we had a purpose, while those below had already given up hope. I realized very quickly that what separated us was the possession of a single sheet of paper, giving us entry into the building. Frankly, I'm surprised none of us was mugged on our way through the undocumented crowds.
When the IRB doors were opened (promptly at the normal nine a.m. time), uniformed soldiers, not just the civilian guards of the day before, marched out and spread across the entrance way, forcing us back. Once they were in place, the man in the gray suit came forward and started examining papers. Having already been through this before, most of us had our paperwork ready, so with very few exceptions we were allowed in. We had to walk between the guards and in addition to the normal procedure of passing our belongings through the x-ray machine and walking through the metal detector, we were all subjected to a thorough and very professional pat-down search.
There were fewer people in front of me, so I made it to one of the windows shortly after eleven a.m. The clerk, a bored young woman wearing the requisite tan uniform blouse and knotted brown scarf, also had a tiny hole just under her bottom lip and her hair was cut in one of those angular styles, with one side very short and the other falling along the side of her face almost to her chin. Silly to notice such trivialities, but I was certain that her normal attire was far more interesting and that she often sported a lip ring.
I handed over my paperwork and she took it desultorily and ran it through a reader of some sort. Then her eyes, focused on the screen, lost their sleepy look and she started typing really fast. Her hand, when she handed me back my paper along with another one she pulled from the printer, was shaking, making the bangles on her extremely non-regulation crystal bracelet clatter. She used the same hand to point to a door over on the west side of the room; the opposite side, I will note, from that the other applicants were being directed to. The whole transaction had taken place without a word, although I could hear the murmur of questions and answers from those at the other windows.
Feeling very uncertain, now, I hurried over to the indicated door, which opened just as I arrived. Stepping through, I followed one of the two soldiers crowded into the narrow hallway down and to the right, into a tiny office which held nothing more than a bare desk and two hard plastic chairs. I was told to sit, then my guide left me, closing the door behind him. The door was locked; I got up and checked.
I didn't have a watch and they'd taken my cell phone for safe keeping at the door, so I don't know how long I waited before anyone showed up. At least I was sitting, although my behind was definitely complaining about the hard slab I was sitting on by the time the IRB representative showed up. Then he spent a long time grilling me about my life. I couldn't tell him much; it's not like I've lived an extraordinary life, or anything, since leaving Faerie. Marriage, kids, divorce, re-marriage, step-kids. I'm not exactly the stuff that stories are made of. And, as I've said before, I've never deliberately migrated, so I couldn't tell him when I left my dimension of origin and wound up in the one I left my husband and family in. He even seemed to have the idea I'd been to multiple dimensions, but all could do is keep telling him that if I had been to multiple dimensions, I didn't know about it.
Finally, frustrated by my bland answers, the guy stood up and marched out, once more locking me in the room. I woke with a start sometime later when the door opened. A woman entered. She was about three inches taller than I. (I'm five-four.) Like the clerk behind the window, she was also wearing the IRB uniform, but the only glitter on her was the silver bars on her sleeve and collars that marked her as some kind of officer. She led me down the hall to a utilitarian office and pointed to a hard plastic chair before walking around the desk to sit. This office at least looked used, and it had a window. When she held out her hand, I handed her the papers, then sat there, feeling more and more miserable as she spent the next fifteen minutes examining them. Finally, she spoke. Her voice had exactly the crisp, no-nonsense tone you'd expect, but it was about an octave lower than I'd expected. Very sultry, if she weren't working very hard not to be, I imagine.
"Well, Ms. Lloyd. You've certainly handed us quite a problem."
"What? Why? What makes me any different from any one else, out there?" I was trying to be polite, but this whole mess was leaving me more and more confused and frustrated.
"Oh, don't play the fool. We know who you are and who you work for and we have no intention of falling for your poor-little-innocent-me performance."
Nothing I could say would shake her from her insistence that I was someone or something other than what I seem. She kept asking the same questions over and over again, sometimes wording them one way, then another, trying to get me to agree that I was, well, whatever it is they think I am. It was pretty surreal, as she was careful to phrase her questions in such a way that I couldn't figure out what she was trying to get me to agree I'd done.
During the entire time, I was watching the sun get lower and lower. It was almost dark before she finished and by that time I didn't think they'd ever let me out. Obviously, I'm going to get nowhere through the official channels.
I'm too tired to even think, now. I'm going to shoot off a few emails and maybe make a phone call or two, then drop back in case any of you has any ideas. After that, I'm going to head straight to bed.
Update: I managed to get through to Karl this evening, thanks to Skype, since the only way to make interdimensional calls is online. He's been frantic. He was watching his movie in the family room, and I was in my study. He didn't even know I'd made a phone call. He got up during a commercial to tell me something and I was gone. Of course, the police wouldn't take his report for twenty-four hours. Then, once they understood who was missing, they got all weird on him and stopped being soothing and started being all snarky. At least he knows I'm all right, now.
This time, at least I knew what to expect, so I could plan for it. I stuffed a backpack with a small afghan, in the event I didn't make it through today's melee and needed to camp out, leaving room at the top for food. I also dug around and found plenty of foodstuffs: cheese, crackers, fruit, even a jar of peanut butter--whatever was portable and sustaining--and stuck it all in an old plastic grocery bag in the 'fridge, ready to go in the backpack in the morning. Then I went to bed early and set the alarm for three a.m.
I was up, dressed, and out of the house by three-thirty, and at the IRB by four. There were knots of people who'd just camped where they were. Most of them were asleep or groggy, but here and there were some who stood glaring around, as if they were certain those around them were some kind of danger. I did my best to wind through the crowds without intruding into anyone's space and joined the crowd already standing on the steps to the building. I think there were perhaps two hundred in that bunch. There was a difference I noticed, between those on the steps and those on the street, hard to describe, but you could tell just by the way we stood that we had a purpose, while those below had already given up hope. I realized very quickly that what separated us was the possession of a single sheet of paper, giving us entry into the building. Frankly, I'm surprised none of us was mugged on our way through the undocumented crowds.
When the IRB doors were opened (promptly at the normal nine a.m. time), uniformed soldiers, not just the civilian guards of the day before, marched out and spread across the entrance way, forcing us back. Once they were in place, the man in the gray suit came forward and started examining papers. Having already been through this before, most of us had our paperwork ready, so with very few exceptions we were allowed in. We had to walk between the guards and in addition to the normal procedure of passing our belongings through the x-ray machine and walking through the metal detector, we were all subjected to a thorough and very professional pat-down search.
There were fewer people in front of me, so I made it to one of the windows shortly after eleven a.m. The clerk, a bored young woman wearing the requisite tan uniform blouse and knotted brown scarf, also had a tiny hole just under her bottom lip and her hair was cut in one of those angular styles, with one side very short and the other falling along the side of her face almost to her chin. Silly to notice such trivialities, but I was certain that her normal attire was far more interesting and that she often sported a lip ring.
I handed over my paperwork and she took it desultorily and ran it through a reader of some sort. Then her eyes, focused on the screen, lost their sleepy look and she started typing really fast. Her hand, when she handed me back my paper along with another one she pulled from the printer, was shaking, making the bangles on her extremely non-regulation crystal bracelet clatter. She used the same hand to point to a door over on the west side of the room; the opposite side, I will note, from that the other applicants were being directed to. The whole transaction had taken place without a word, although I could hear the murmur of questions and answers from those at the other windows.
Feeling very uncertain, now, I hurried over to the indicated door, which opened just as I arrived. Stepping through, I followed one of the two soldiers crowded into the narrow hallway down and to the right, into a tiny office which held nothing more than a bare desk and two hard plastic chairs. I was told to sit, then my guide left me, closing the door behind him. The door was locked; I got up and checked.
I didn't have a watch and they'd taken my cell phone for safe keeping at the door, so I don't know how long I waited before anyone showed up. At least I was sitting, although my behind was definitely complaining about the hard slab I was sitting on by the time the IRB representative showed up. Then he spent a long time grilling me about my life. I couldn't tell him much; it's not like I've lived an extraordinary life, or anything, since leaving Faerie. Marriage, kids, divorce, re-marriage, step-kids. I'm not exactly the stuff that stories are made of. And, as I've said before, I've never deliberately migrated, so I couldn't tell him when I left my dimension of origin and wound up in the one I left my husband and family in. He even seemed to have the idea I'd been to multiple dimensions, but all could do is keep telling him that if I had been to multiple dimensions, I didn't know about it.
Finally, frustrated by my bland answers, the guy stood up and marched out, once more locking me in the room. I woke with a start sometime later when the door opened. A woman entered. She was about three inches taller than I. (I'm five-four.) Like the clerk behind the window, she was also wearing the IRB uniform, but the only glitter on her was the silver bars on her sleeve and collars that marked her as some kind of officer. She led me down the hall to a utilitarian office and pointed to a hard plastic chair before walking around the desk to sit. This office at least looked used, and it had a window. When she held out her hand, I handed her the papers, then sat there, feeling more and more miserable as she spent the next fifteen minutes examining them. Finally, she spoke. Her voice had exactly the crisp, no-nonsense tone you'd expect, but it was about an octave lower than I'd expected. Very sultry, if she weren't working very hard not to be, I imagine.
"Well, Ms. Lloyd. You've certainly handed us quite a problem."
"What? Why? What makes me any different from any one else, out there?" I was trying to be polite, but this whole mess was leaving me more and more confused and frustrated.
"Oh, don't play the fool. We know who you are and who you work for and we have no intention of falling for your poor-little-innocent-me performance."
Nothing I could say would shake her from her insistence that I was someone or something other than what I seem. She kept asking the same questions over and over again, sometimes wording them one way, then another, trying to get me to agree that I was, well, whatever it is they think I am. It was pretty surreal, as she was careful to phrase her questions in such a way that I couldn't figure out what she was trying to get me to agree I'd done.
During the entire time, I was watching the sun get lower and lower. It was almost dark before she finished and by that time I didn't think they'd ever let me out. Obviously, I'm going to get nowhere through the official channels.
I'm too tired to even think, now. I'm going to shoot off a few emails and maybe make a phone call or two, then drop back in case any of you has any ideas. After that, I'm going to head straight to bed.
Update: I managed to get through to Karl this evening, thanks to Skype, since the only way to make interdimensional calls is online. He's been frantic. He was watching his movie in the family room, and I was in my study. He didn't even know I'd made a phone call. He got up during a commercial to tell me something and I was gone. Of course, the police wouldn't take his report for twenty-four hours. Then, once they understood who was missing, they got all weird on him and stopped being soothing and started being all snarky. At least he knows I'm all right, now.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 11:33 am (UTC)But since you mention communicating online...I'm not sure which dimension I'm in, and which you're in, and if they'd let us see each other. This isn't something I've had to think about. Gah. Wish I could help...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 06:34 pm (UTC)Thanks for your good wishes. Even if you can't help me physically, just knowing there are people out there who know what's going on (or, at least, as much as it's possible to know), and who care about me, means a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 03:28 pm (UTC)If another you is the person whom they're looking for, it might be a good idea to try to find her, though how you'll do that is beyond me.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 06:50 pm (UTC)I've thought of that, and I'll keep my eyes open. I just wish I thought it were that easy. But, WR's reaction this morning (see my latest post), suggests otherwise.
As for the R-B school, their analogues here declared martial law after 9-11 and the country is still under military rule. The newscasters on TV this morning were a lot more careful about what they say than commentators were where I'd been living, but about half of the commercials had been replaced with public service announcements reminding young people (men and women!) that the draft was in effect and that it was their patriotic duty to register and to serve, if called. From what I can tell, we're at war with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, with many of the other countries in the Middle East wavering between falling on their neighbors and taking no prisoners, or joining them in their fight against their American oppressors. The UN has turned into a morass of shouting and accusations, with the major powers split over whether to support us. But none of them are really willing to directly oppose the US.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 08:28 pm (UTC)Fingers crossed for you!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-01 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 03:30 pm (UTC)And in your case, they didn't wave you through. *shiver*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-30 06:52 pm (UTC)At least I still have my freedom. I wasn't sure last night, that I'd get out of the I** offices, until they actually let me go.