The Supernova Era

by Cixin Liu

  *

  The presidential Lincoln limousine drove along a quiet avenue. Davey was in the driver’s seat; he had stopped the boy who served as driver and Secret Service special agent from coming along with him. He and Vaughn remained silent on the road, but when they reached the Lincoln Memorial, Vaughn gestured and Davey brought the car to a stop. Immediately he regretted doing so: I’m the president, he thought. Why should I follow his signals? But he had to admit that the boy possessed a power beyond him.

  Lincoln’s pale seated form loomed indistinctly above them in the night, and the young president looked up at the sculpture’s head, wishing that Lincoln could see him, too, but the great man did not move his gaze from the low horizon, where the Washington Monument pierced the night sky in the Reflecting Pool, and beyond it the Capitol at the end of the Mall.

  Davey said, not at all naturally, “When he died, Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war, said, ‘Now he belongs to the ages.’ I believe that when we die, someone will say that about us.”

  Rather than responding directly, Vaughn said only, “Davey.”

  “Hmm?” Davey was surprised to hear Vaughn utter his name, since until now he had only called him “Mr. President.”

  Vaughn smiled, something Davey had never imagined he would do. Then he asked a question that the president was utterly unprepared to answer: “What is America?”

  From anyone else, the question would have irritated Davey, but Vaughn’s question set his mind going. Yes, what was America? America was Disneyland, America was supermarkets and McDonald’s, America was thousands of flavors of ice cream and a thousand and one hot dogs and hamburgers, cowboy jackets and pistols, moon rockets and spaceships, football and break dancing, the skyscraper jungle of Manhattan and the weird formations in the Texas desert, and presidential candidates debating on TV under the donkey and elephant insignias . . . ​but ultimately, Davey discovered that the America in his mind was a shattered piece of stained glass, a riot of scattered color, and he stared blankly back at Vaughn.

  “And any impressions from your childhood?” Vaughn asked, changing the topic, with a mind that few children could keep up with. “Before the age of four, what was your home like, in your eyes? Was the refrigerator a refrigerator? Was the television a television? The car a car? The lawn a lawn? And the lawn mower—what did it look like?”

  Davey’s mind spun to catch up, but he still had to respond with a blank, “Do you mean . . .”

  “I don’t mean anything. Come with me,” Vaughn said, and headed toward a side chamber. He could admit that the president had a sharp mind, but that was just by comparison to ordinary people. By his own standard the kid was insufferably dense.

  “Why don’t you tell me what America is!” called Davey after him.

  “America is a giant toy.”

  Vaughn’s voice wasn’t loud, but it seemed to produce a larger echo in the hall than Davey’s question had, and it stopped the young president in his tracks near the back of Lincoln’s statue. It took him a few seconds to recover, and although he didn’t entirely get what Vaughn meant, he was a clever child and could sense that it was something profound. He said, “Even now children are treating America like a country. The fact that the country is running as smoothly as it did under the adults is proof of that.”

  “But that inertia is fading. Children are emerging from the hypnotic spell the adults put them under, and when they look at the world with their own eyes, they’ll discover to their delight that it’s a toy.”

  “Then what? They’ll play? Play with America?” Davey asked, somewhat surprised at his own question.

  “What else can they do?” Vaughn said with a slight shrug.

  “How will they play? Football in the streets? All-night gaming sessions?”

  They were nearing the memorial’s southern chamber. Vaughn shook his head. “Mr. President, you have a lamentable imagination.” Then he motioned for Davey to enter.

  Davey stepped gingerly past the columns into the darkness. Behind him, Vaughn switched on the lights. Once his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he found to his astonishment that he was in a toy world. He remembered that the south wall of the chamber had been covered in a mural done by Jules Guérin, an allegorical portrayal of Emancipation, paired with a depiction of Unity on the north wall of the opposite chamber, but toys were now piled from floor to ceiling, blocking off the wall entirely. More than he could count—dolls, blocks, cars, balloons, skateboards, and more. It was as if he were at the floor of a colorful valley of toys. Vaughn’s voice echoed behind him: “America. This is America. Look around you. Maybe you’ll find some inspiration.”

  Davey scanned the mountain of toys, and suddenly one object caught his eye. It lay inconspicuous off to one side, half buried in a gaudy pile of dolls, and from a distance looked like nothing more than a black tree branch. He went over and freed it from the dolls, and a grin broke out on his face. It was a light machine gun. Not a toy.

  Vaughn explained, “That’s an FN Minimi, Belgian made. We call it an M249. It’s one of the US Army’s standard-issue light machine guns. Small caliber, uses a 5.56-millimeter cartridge, compact and lightweight, but with a decent rate of fire. Up to a thousand rounds per minute.”

  Davey hefted the black barrel, whose metal physicality somehow felt more appropriate than the flimsy toys surrounding him, in a way he couldn’t put into words.

  “Like it?” Vaughn asked.

  Davey nodded, fondling the smooth cool barrel.

  “Then keep it as a memento. A gift from me.” Then he turned and headed back to the central chamber.

  “Thanks. I’ve never received a nicer gift,” Davey said, cradling the gun and following after him.

  “Mr. President, if my gift has inspired you in the way it should, then I am pleased as well,” Vaughn said lightly. Just behind him, Davey looked up from the gun at his retreating back. He made no sound as he walked, and passed through the shadows of the hall like a wraith.

  “You mean . . . ​that out of that mountain of toys, I noticed this one first?”

  Vaughn nodded. “In that little toy America, you noticed a machine gun before anything else.”

  Now they were outside, at the top of the steps. A cool breeze brought Davey to his senses, and he realized the implication behind Vaughn’s words, and shivered involuntarily. Vaughn reached over to take the gun from him, and Davey wondered at how it seemed light as a stick in his withered, seemingly weak arms. Vaughn lifted the gun to his eyes and inspected it in the starlight.

  “They are the most impressive works of art humanity has ever produced,” he said. “Embodiments of the animal’s most primitive instincts and desires. Their beauty is irreplaceable. A cold beauty. A sharp beauty. One that grips the soul of every man. They are humanity’s everlasting toys.”

  Vaughn pulled back the bolt with a practiced hand and fired three six-round bursts, shattering the silence in the capital, and the chain of shrill explosions made Davey’s skin crawl. Three even tongues of flame issued from the muzzle, the light flickering against the surrounding darkened buildings. Bullets screamed through the night sky as they raced madly over the city, and eighteen casings fell with a pleasing tinkle to the marble steps, the last bars of the whole melody.

  “Listen, Mr. President, to the song of the human soul,” Vaughn said, his eyes half closed in reverie.

  “Wow—” Davey gasped. Then he grabbed the gun from Vaughn’s hands and stroked its warm barrel in wonder.

  A police car came racing round from behind the memorial and screeched to a halt in front of the steps. Three child police officers got out and shone their flashlights upward to the president and secretary of state. Then they exchanged a few words with each other before getting back in the car and driving off.

  Then Davey remembered what Vaughn had said. “But that inspiration is . . . ​terrifying.”

  Vaughn said, “History doesn’t care whether or not it’s terrifying. The fact that it exists is enough. History is
for the politician what oil paints are to a painter. There is no good or evil, all that matters is how you control it. There is no bad history, only bad politicians. Now, Mr. President, do you understand your own purpose?”

  “Mr. Vaughn, I’m not used to the tone you use, like a teacher addressing a student, but I do appreciate the sense of what you’ve said. As for a purpose, is it any different from the adults’ purpose?”

  “Mr. President, I wonder whether or not you understand how the adults made America great.”

  “They built a fleet of aircraft carriers!”

  “No.”

  “They sent a rocket to the moon!”

  “No.”

  “They built American science, technology, industry, finance . . .”

  “Those are important, but they’re not it either.”

  “Then what is it? What makes America great?”

  “Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.”

  Davey thought in silence.

  Vaughn went on, “In self-righteous Europe, in insular Asia, in impoverished Africa, in every corner of the world, in places unreachable by aircraft carriers, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck can be found.”

  “You mean American culture permeates the globe?”

  Vaughn nodded. “The world of play is dawning. Children of other countries and nationalities will play in different ways. Mr. President, what you need to do is to make the children of the world play according to America’s rules!”

  Davey took another long moment to think about this, and then he said, “You really have the makings of a teacher.”

  “These are just the basics, and yet you feel ashamed already. As you should, Mr. President.” When he finished speaking, Vaughn walked down the steps without looking back and vanished silently into the night.

  *

  Davey spent the night in the Queens’ Bedroom, the most comfortable room in the White House, where Queen Elizabeth I, Queens Wilhelmina and Juliana, Winston Churchill, Leonid Brezhnev, and Vyacheslav Molotov stayed during their visits to the United States. Previously he had slept well on the canopy bed formerly belonging to Andrew Jackson, but tonight he lay awake. He got up and paced the room, stopping at times at the window to look out northward at Lafayette Square, stained blue by the Rose Nebula, and then going to the fireplace, above which hung a floral painting and mirror in a gilded frame (a gift from Princess Elizabeth on behalf of her father King George VI in 1951), to stare at his perplexed face.

  He sat down in exhaustion in a mahogany chair and began the longest period of contemplation in his life.

  Just before daybreak, the young president stood up and went to a corner of the Queens’ Bedroom where a large video-game machine had been set up. The device paired oddly with the room’s classical décor. He set the machine humming and clanging in an interstellar battle, getting more into it the longer he played, until the sun was high in the sky and his former self-confidence had returned.

  *

  The band at the White House banquet played the final notes of “America the Beautiful” and immediately struck up “Hail to the Chief.” President Davey went into action and began shaking hands with his young guests.

  The first to shake were President Jean Pierre of France and Prime Minister Nelson Green of the UK, the former a ruddy, enthusiastic chubby fellow, and the latter a beanpole. In solemn expressions and formal evening dress with handsome bow ties around high white collars, they looked every inch the gentlemen, as if they had come to show off the traditional style of European adults.

  President Davey had reached one end of the table and was ready to make an address. Behind him was the fulll-ength portrait of George Washington, rescued from destruction by Dolly Madison, who took it from its frame before occupying British troops burned the White House in the War of 1812. Now the sight of Davey dressed in a smart tweed suit, with that storied painting as a backdrop, impressed Pierre enough for him to whisper to Green, “My god, look at how handsome he is! In a powdered wig, he’d be Washington. In a beard, Lincoln. In fatigues, Eisenhower. If he was in a wheelchair and a black overcoat, he’d be Roosevelt. He’s America, and America is him!”

  The prime minister was not impressed with Pierre’s superficiality, and replied, without turning his head, “In history, great individuals are ordinary in appearance. Like your Napoleon, a hundred and sixty-five centimeters tall. A short man. They use their internal power to attract people. The pretty ones are mostly just embroidered pillows.”

  The children expected the president to begin, but he waited, mouth closed, his eyes searching the crowd. Then he turned to the chief of staff and said, “Where’s China?”

  “We just received a call. They’re on their way, and will be here any minute. Carelessness meant that countries beginning with C got notified late.”

  “Are you stupid? Don’t you know that the Cs include a country with a fifth of the world’s population, and two with an area larger than ours?”

  Benes protested, “It was a problem with the email system. How is that my fault?”

  Davey said, “Without the Chinese children, we can’t discuss anything. We’ll wait a bit more. Have something to eat and drink, everyone.”

  But just as the children were surging toward the table, Davey shouted, “Wait!,” and, surveying the sumptuous feast, turned to Benes and said, “Did you arrange for this slop?”

  Benes opened her eyes wide. “Is something wrong? This is exactly how the adults did it.”

  Davey said loudly, “How many times have I told you, stop talking about the adults. Don’t keep showing off how closely you can follow their stupid rules. This is the children’s world. Bring out the ice cream!”

  “Ice cream at a state banquet?” Benes stammered, but nevertheless sent someone to fetch it.

  “That’s not enough!” Davey said upon seeing the place settings of ice cream. “Not those little packages. I want big plates piled high with scoops!”

  “How tasteful,” Benes muttered. But she carried out his request all the same, and had servers bring in ten trays of ice cream. The trays were so big they needed two kids to carry them, and once all ten were spread out on the banquet table, even at a distance you could feel the chill. Davey picked up a goblet and dipped it into the creamy mountain, and then pried it out by the stem, full of ice cream. Then he held it up and in a few bites swallowed its entire contents, quick enough that the watching children felt their own gag reflex triggered, but Davey smacked his lips in satisfaction, as if he had only taken a sip of coffee.

  “So everyone, we’re going to have an ice-cream-eating contest. Whoever eats the most, their country is the most interesting. Whoever eats the least, their country is the most boring.” Then he scooped up another gobletful of ice cream and took a bite.

  Despite the questionable nature of the standard, one by one the heads of state came forward to dip their goblets as Davey had and defend their national reputation. Davey downed ten glasses in succession, and it didn’t faze him one bit; to prove their countries weren’t boring, the other children took huge bites, as a gaggle of excited reporters snapped photos of the competition. By the end, Davey took top honors with fifteen goblets, while the other leaders turned their stomachs to freezers and more than a few had to race off in search of a White House bathroom.

  After the ice cream, they warmed their insides with alcohol, sipping glasses of whiskey or brandy and chatting in small groups. The mix of lively native languages and rigid machine translations into English drew peals of laughter from a few groups. Davey moved among them holding his glass, a large translator hanging around his neck, and at times he interjected his own lengthy opinions. The banquet proceeded in this spirit of pleasant merriment. Servers shuttled back and forth, but no sooner had they put food on the table than it was snatched up. Fortunately the White House had ample supplies. A pile of empty bottles grew next to the piano as the children grew tipsy. Then came something rather unpleasant.

  Prime Minister Green and President Pierre, along with t
he heads of some northern European countries, were engrossed in a discussion of a topic of interest to them when Davey came over holding a large glass of whiskey. Pierre was speaking, with expansive gestures and facial expressions, and Davey tuned his translator to French, and heard the following in his earpiece:

  “. . . at any rate, as far as I am aware, there is no legitimate claimant to the British throne.”

  “That’s right,” Green said, nodding. “It’s a worry for us.”

  “There’s absolutely no reason for that! Why not follow France and establish a republic? Yes, the Federated Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It’s entirely justifiable, since the king died on his own, and wasn’t sent to the guillotine like ours was.”

  Green shook his head slowly, and then in the manner of an adult, said, “No, my dear Pierre, that would be unthinkable, both today and in the past. Our feelings about the monarchy are different from yours. It’s a spiritual support for the British people.”

  “You’re too conservative. That’s the reason why the sun eventually set on the British Empire.”

  “You’re too eager for change. The sun set on France, too, and on Europe. Could Napoleon and Wellington have imagined a world congress like this held not in London, Paris, or Vienna, but in the crude, rude country of cowboys? Forget it, let’s not talk history, Pierre,” Green said, shaking his head sadly when he saw Davey.

  “But reality is just as hard. Where will you find a queen?”

  “We’re going to elect one.”

  “What?” Pierre gave an ungraceful yelp, attracting the attention of more people. Their conversation had circle become the largest at the banquet.

  “We’re going to get the prettiest, most adorable girl to be queen.”

  “And her family and lineage?”

  “None of that matters. Simply being English qualifies. But the key is that she’s got to be the prettiest and most charming.”