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The alarm wakes Lewis Strauss up from a deep, restful slumber. His wife, Alice, continues to sleep soundly next to him in bed. Despite the early hour, Lewis is up and at 'em after a hot shower and a clean shave. He dresses and stands in the kitchen, drinking his first cup of coffee of the day, watching the beginning of a beautiful Washington DC winter sunrise creep up through the trees and over the roofs of the other houses around the Strauss home.
In the back of the car to his office, Lewis would normally be reviewing his papers, going over his agenda documents and preparing for the day ahead. Today, he still does, but occasionally he look out the half-tinted window at the rush of cars going past, all heading towards the Beltway for the day. Few things are as dependable as the traffic patterns of DC employees in the morning, and Lewis takes a small comfort in knowing he is but one of a stream of cars moving in the same direction, working in the interest of God and country.
Over the sounds of traffic, Lewis hears his driver's car radio playing from the front seat. The signal is not very strong, but it sounds something like classical music, maybe even opera judging from the occasional vocalizations he manages to catch when he is paying attention.
Lewis gives the divider between him and the driver a short knock. "Can you turn that down?"
The driver silently nods and reaches for the volume nod. As the radio gradually turns from a distinct sound to a non-distinct hum mixing in with the thrum of the wheels of the other cars, Lewis catches a radio announcer say that the program is in fact opera - an operatic interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, to be exact.
Swallowing hard, Lewis turns his attention back to his papers, memorizing the day's meetings while ignoring the queasiness growing in his guts. He blames it on eating breakfast too fast, a moment of indigestion.
The walk from the front steps of the Capital building to his office is an uneventful one. He draws his coat up around him as he walks through the cold and wind, all the while saying good morning to his colleagues that he sees as he goes in for work. Lewis smiles and waves and occasionally shakes the hands of the more consequential colleagues, especially those who input he needs in his favor for future bills. Everything is a calculated move, even small talk.
In the lobby, he passes through the morning sea of people like a shark slicing through water, effortlessly, efficiently, still continuing his daily nicety campaign. And then he stops.
There is a man sitting in one of the lobby chairs not far from his own office door, face buried in a book. The cover reads, in big letters, The Open Mind by J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Lewis pauses on his way through his office door, hand resting on the knob. He makes eye contact with the man in the chair.
"Are you waiting for me?"
The man shifts in his seat. "Not exactly, no."
Lewis huffs. "Then why are you spending your morning outside of my office door?"
"Just to remind you." The man's big blue eyes stare into Lewis', unblinkingly. "Of what you did."
It takes every cell in Lewis' body not to strike out in some way. "Well, sir, the day has only just begun, and I haven't done anything yet. But once I go inside here, I will, because that is what people with jobs do. Good day."
"Good day, Lewis," Oppenheimer says.
Lewis blinks, and the man in the chair who is definitely not Oppenheimer blinks back. "Sir?" He is holding a book by Hemingway.
"Nothing," Lewis says through gritted teeth. He wrenches the door open without looking. "Have a good morning."
The door shuts behind Lewis with a halfhearted slam, shaking the letters on the glass that read LEWIS STRAUSS, U.S. SECRETARY OF COMMERCE.
Lewis sits in his desk chair and for a moment listens to the dull roar of people's voices and moving bodies from outside the walls of his office. In the darkness of the room—he walked in without even turning on the lights—he can hear his heart start to flutter frantically against his rib cage, a panic attack coming on.
He frowns. No. He hasn't had a panic attack in years, in decades. Not since he was an undergraduate, facing abandoning his love of physics for supporting his family. Not since he had to abandon his dreams.
Before he could latch onto that thought, the phone rings. The shill sound launches him from his seat and he manages to turn on the lights before answering the phone.
"Is this Lewis Strauss' office?"
Lewis clears his throat. "Yes, and this is he."
The phone line crackles sharply, loud enough that he wrenches the receiver away from his ear for a few seconds. When he returns it back to his ear, the voice continues. "And you are the secretary of commerce?"
"Yes, I was confirmed as such." Lewis frowns. He impatiently taps the desk with his fingertips. "What is the purpose of his call?"
A few seconds of silence, followed by: "Your father must be so proud of you. The lowly show salesman. His son in the halls of power."
Lewis turns cold. He recognizes the voice. "Oppie."
"You don't get to call me that, Mr. Strauss."
Lewis swallows. "Robert, please."
"Would you like me to show you a level of mercy you have never shown me, Mr. Strauss?"
"Now wait a minute, Robert." A memory hits Lewis, staggers him with the weight of something he should have never forgotten. "Besides, I thought—after the trial—I had heard you had taken ill. There was a letter from Kitty. How are you calling me when you should be on death's door?"
A dry, bone-deep cough from the other end rattles the phone in his hand. "Oh, really? Is that what you remember?"
Lewis head is swimming. He presses the heel of his hand against his head. "Robert, please, I don't understand."
The phone in his hand vibrates more. "Is this the life you always wanted? You, successful, and your enemies defeated, dying at your feet?"
The lights above are so overwhelming. It feels like Lewis is sitting in the scope of several spotlights, beaming hot and bright on him. "What will it take for you to leave me alone? What will it take for us to be right?"
He can practically hear Oppenheimer's face twist into a smirk. "Oh, anything will do. Even a beer bottle could do it."
Before he can stop himself, Lewis throws the phone and it smashes against the window, which doesn't break but does crack as the phone falls to the floor.
"Oh god, this isn't real," he breathes. Sweat flows freely down his neck. "This doesn't feel right."
He looks over and sees faces starring at him through the window, looking concerned but not doing anything about it.
Lewis makes eye contact with one of the Capital employees standing outside and in a blink of an eye they change into Frank Oppenheimer. He stays silent among the crowd, but simply shakes his head in disapproval.
"Am I dreaming?" Lewis backs up, bumps into the corner of his desk, and yelps, but he doesn't feel anything. "Am I awake?"
He feels a set of lips brush against his ears. He hears a man whisper, the same man that was on the phone. "Go ahead and wake up, Lewis."
The alarm wakes Lewis Strauss up from a sweat-soaked set of sheets, face flushed from yet another stress-induced dream. His wife, Alice, shifts next to him in bed, and he waits to see if she will wake up before he gets out of bed himself. He takes a short, hot shower to wash the sweat off and manages a quick shave before making breakfast.
The smell of coffee percolating doesn't do much to shake the exhaustion resting deep in his bones. Lewis knows there's not enough sleep to be had these days that can do that. He watches the sun creep up into the Virginia winter sky and thinks about J. Robert Oppenheimer looking at the same sunrise from somewhere in New Jersey.
He sits at the kitchen window and takes his time with his coffee. It's not like he has anywhere urgent to be this morning. Someone else is in the Secretary of Commerce's office. Someone else is running the Atomic Energy Commission. Someone else has everything he has ever wanted, and someone else is sleeping soundly having taken it all away from him.
"Fucking Oppie," Lewis mutters heavily with a scowl, and takes another drink.