The Rift by Walter Jon Williams

skates and armor, and locked them in the trunk of her car. On Monday, she said, she would take them to work and leave them there, at the greenhouse, until Jason “demonstrated a more responsible behavioral system.”
    Then she went up to his room, took down all his skating posters, and threw them in the trash.
    After which she paused for a moment, trying to think of another privilege she could revoke. It was difficult, because Jason didn’t drive, had no friends here, and never went out.
    “No Internet till the end of the month,” she decided. A satisfied smile touched her lips when she saw his stricken look.
    “I need to get my bike,” he said.
    “Walk,” she said, and left his room in triumph, closing the door behind her, so that he couldn’t even have the satisfaction of slamming it.
    *
    Major General J.C. Frazetta rose at dawn to the sound of mockingbirds chattering outside the window, and had a hard time resisting the impulse to head for work early. It was the general’s first day on the job, not counting the ceremony the day before, in which command was officially transferred by the outgoing commander. Frazetta was too full of nervous energy to go back to sleep.
    So Frazetta prepared herbal tea, fried some boudin that had been purchased while driving through Louisiana to Vicksburg a couple days earlier, and prepared a soufflé cockaigne, with Parmesan and Gruyere cheese. It was too aggravating to merely wait for the soufflé to rise, so the general sautéed some Italian squash, fried some leftover boiled potatoes with onions and green pepper, and threw some popovers in the oven along with the soufflé. Made coffee for Pat, the spouse, and sniffed at it longingly as it bubbled from the Braun coffeemaker. And thought about making coffee bread, because excess energy could be usefully employed in punching down the dough as it rose.
    The general looked at the clock. No, not enough time.
    Pat, who was not a morning person and who generally ate nothing before 11:00 A.M., was nevertheless sensitive to Frazetta’s moods and ate a full share of the preposterous meal.
    The only comment offered by Pat on all this activity was to retire to the workshop and pluck out “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” on his fiddle.
    Which was all, General Jessica Costanza Frazetta had to conclude, that she deserved.
    Exactly on time, to the minute, 0900 hours exactly, General Frazetta greeted her secretary. Her driver, the experienced Sergeant Zook, seemed to know to the second how long it would take to deliver her to her new headquarters.
    “Good morning.”
    “Good morning, General Frazetta.” The secretary smiled. “Can I get you some coffee?”
    “Not exactly.” The general opened her briefcase, produced a box of tea bags, Celestial Seasonings Caribbean Kiwi Peach. She handed the box to her secretary. “Would you mind bringing me a cup of this?”
    “Not at all, General.”
    Major General Jessica C. Frazetta, U.S. Army, closed her briefcase, thanked her secretary, and walked into her office. Closed the door behind her.
    And grinned like a chipmunk. She walked to the map of the Mississippi Valley that hung on one wall.
    Her domain. She had just been appointed to command of the Mississippi Valley Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The President had appointed her to the presidency of the Mississippi River Commission, the outfit that with the MVD ran all federal projects on the river, but that would wait on the approval of Congress.
    It was a great job. She was, for all intents and purposes, in charge of the entire Mississippi River and its 250 tributaries. The drainage basin included all or part of thirty-one of the lower forty-eight states— and also a part of Canada, which was a bit outside of her jurisdiction. All of the federal works on the river— the cutoffs, levees, dikes, revetments, spillways, and reservoirs were in her charge. All the dredges, the dams, the floodwalls, and locks.
    All the