by John Barnes
CITIZENS GREET “SATURDAY SUMMIT” ACCORD WITH JOY!
She used her ham set to relay the story to the Athens Weekly Insight. An hour later they called back to tell her that the story would be used and that she would be mailed fifty dollars of TNG scrip. At least I can use that to pay taxes. If they ever get their act together enough to collect them, out here.
THE NEXT DAY. ON THE TRAIN TO ATHENS. 10:30 AM CST. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2025.
Across the hill and prairie country of eastern Nebraska, the train sometimes sped up to fifty miles an hour, when the tracks were clear and in good shape, but it spent much of its time standing still since coal and water were still mostly loaded in by awkward jury-rigs. In 1880, anybody with money and reason could cross the country in about a week, Cam thought. I guess we’re at about 1870, when in a really urgent case we could get a train across the country, now and then, as a stunt. In the still, frosty hour after dawn, plumes of smoke rose everywhere, from thousands of stoves and fireplaces. With the big machines and the banks gone, refugees coached by Amish extension agents were reopening small farms.
Grayson’s drive up the Yough Valley was about our finest hour, Cam thought. I won’t even complain if it makes the son-of-a-bitch president. I’ve worked for worse presidents.
A thin blanket of snow covered the land in front of him; good for the winter wheat, and thank all the gods that WTRC and the Post-Times had screamed since May that winter would start early, go deep, and leave late, so that the winter wheat was already planted. This next year would still be tight, but by next fall they should be past the risk of famine. Jeez, a year ago the Ag Department guy had to explain winter wheat to me; I just knew I liked Wheat Thins with smoked gouda while I watched the Series.
At the knock on the compartment door, Cameron rose from his desk to shake Whilmire’s hand and join him at the table. A staffer carrying breakfast had followed the reverend in. While the two men ate silently, the sun pierced the overcast, sharpening the colors of the rolling brown land with its smears of snow and a few leaves still clinging to the trees.
“It might have looked this way a hundred fifty years ago,” Whilmire said, “with a big slow steam train crossing it. And on Sunday you hear church bells everywhere; we’ve got missions all over. Daybreak was hard, and we’ll miss all the good people that left in the Rapture, but it’s good to see a cleaner, more traditional world coming back.”
“With, I hope, a traditional United States re-established next year,” Cam said. “You said you wanted to talk about that at breakfast.”
“Last night I received a long message from Reverend Peet. We know you won’t come along with us on Biblical prophecy, of course, and you know, to the Church, that is very nearly as serious as that old Jewish professor not thinking we were in a war. So, frankly, Cameron, much as I like you personally, you and your administration will have to go in 2026. As far as we can tell you’re backing General Grayson, is that correct?”
“Just now he’s the most credible conservative candidate—”
“And my most credible son-in-law. I don’t know if he’s told you the offer we made him: we’ll back him if he promises you won’t be any part of his government.”
Poor Grayson. He was so embarrassed when he made himself sit down and tell me. “I was going to retire and start a second career anyway. I already have applications in to either pitch for the Angels or fly for NASA.”
“That’s funny.” Whilmire’s voice and expression were flat. “We need a government to fit our Bible-based culture, a strong military ready for Armageddon—which will be very soon—and because one big part of the country will be ex-Provi, we have to have someone who’s not afraid to say what Weisbrod really is.”
“Oh, is it official that Graham Weisbrod is the Antichrist?”
Whilmire shook his head. “Absolutely not. The preachers who have been pushing that are Bible-ignorant and don’t know crap about prophecy. Weisbrod doesn’t meet most of the criteria in Revelations. I meant we need to call him out as a secular humanist, socialist, anti-Christian—”
“He’s Jewish, for God’s—”
“Exactly. And he has an outspoken atheist in his cabinet. And General McIntyre.”
“Norman McIntyre is the highest-ranking surviving American officer and a decorated combat vet, and—”
“And he should never have been allowed to be either. The only reason he was allowed to defile an American uniform is that Obama allowed perverts—”
“Defile? So now the uniform is like the cross or the flag?” Cam’s tone apparently froze Whilmire. “This doesn’t sound conciliatory; it’s more like your manifesto before another armed uprising.”
“Armed uprising? Those were merely vigorous demonstrations. When there’s an armed uprising, you’ll know the difference.” Whilmire let that hang in the air before ostentatiously switching to a smooth, flattering tone. “You know why you can never be a real ally to us. But it doesn’t matter what you call the people’s protests, really it doesn’t, because Reverend Peet prayed on it, and we’re committed to a peaceful election—which we will win, no matter what it takes. Reverend Peet believes a peaceful, uncorrupt, trouble-free election is the only way to guarantee the special position for the Post Raptural Church. We have to have a legitimate Constitutional government in place to amend the Constitution.”
“So, you’ll back Grayson because you think he’ll play ball with you,” Cameron said. “I’ll back him because he’s conservative and after working with him I know he’ll do a decent job, maybe out of pure ambition, but he won’t let himself be a bad president. But what really matters is what the people think, and to give them their chance to think, and make this a real election with real debate, next week I’m going to void all orders against blasphemy, obscenity, sedition, and disrespect for the armed forces and the flag.”
“We want you to go ahead with that.” Whilmire leaned forward, his red scalp showing through his iron-gray curly hair. His finger stabbed at Cam like a feinting copperhead. “Of course we’ll protest, we can’t be seen endorsing it, but it’s what we want. Let Weisbrod run against God, and the flag, and the Bible, and the Army—and remind people about how things were before Daybreak and the Rapture. It will pull them together for the Tribulation, and clobber Weisbrod at the polls.” He grinned at Cam’s discomfiture. “Besides, Weisbrod has already given us the presidency, and you’ve ratified it. Before Daybreak, the United States had about twenty-five conservative states, about fifteen liberal states, and about ten toss-ups. Now out of thirty-two states that are still calling in, twenty-three are conservative. And Graham Weisbrod has combined three liberal states into the New State of Superior, and three toss-up states into the New State of Wabash.” He leaned forward, his face almost in Cam’s, relishing the moment. “So here’s the précis: You, out. Grayson, in. Reunification, on. New States, definitely. Your opinions, irrelevant.”
After the door closed behind Whilmire, Cam reached into his bag and dug out the paperback Thucydides that he’d started reading at Lyndon Phat’s suggestion, but he found he had no better ideas than Pericles had. After a while a soldier came in to tell him that they had received a report of tribal activity in the area, so they were shuttering the windows and manning the turrets.
3 DAYS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 2 PM EST. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025.
Lyndon Phat’s face was bent down into the chessboard to make it hard to read his lips, and he barely murmured, “So no more than a month at most. I’ll miss these chess games.”
“I’m hoping to come with you.”
“If we both make it out, we’ll both be busy. Neither history nor Heather will let us sit on the sidelines.” Phat sighed. “Yes, the answer to your question is yes. Find a way, and I’ll go along, and I’ll run for the office. I don’t see how I can possibly be the popular guy that you say I am, out there. Not considering how I screwed the pooch when I had the chance. But if I am, I’ll run, and if I win, I’ll do my damnedest.” He finally moved
his rook, still staring down at the board. “The minute you said Graham wasn’t fit to be president because he didn’t agree with us, I should have stuck to my oath like glue and said, like hell, he’s the only lawful successor.”
“That was my mistake. You just went along with it.”
“And Norm’s mistake too—he should’ve kept his job and made you do the right thing, not gone off to jail with Weisbrod. The only person whose mistake it wasn’t was Grayson. He doesn’t have either the brains or the balls to make a real mistake.”
“He did all right up in the Yough.”
“Grayson’ll do all right most of the time. Hell, nearly every time, he’ll do fine. He’s got talent, charisma, energy, and medium-good humility about his own limitations. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he’ll do a good-to-exceptional job. He knows that the best way to succeed is to help others succeed and he has the smarts to see how to help them. Many people who have served with him adore the man.”
“I hear a big hanging but waiting to crash down.”
Phat shrugged. “It’s the thing that there’s bad blood about, between us. It was a long time ago. I found out, back when we were both absolute nobodies, that Grayson’s only got two problems. One, his definition of ‘success’ is much too close to his definition of ‘what Grayson wants,’ regardless of whether it’s what it would be good for him to have. Two, although he knows what the best way to succeed is, and usually does it that way—which is why there are so many people who’ve had a good experience with him—well, he knows what the best way to succeed is, but if he can’t succeed the best way, he’s willing to succeed in ways that are… not the best. Which is why there’s also some human wreckage, here and there, near his trail.”
“You don’t want to tell me what it was, I guess.”
“I promised people I respected that I would not talk about it. I shouldn’t have. But not talking about it got to be a habit. I guess if I start to think he might make it to president, I’ll have to talk about it, because there’s a level where you can’t have a man with a…” His hand waved as if seeking the word in the air in front of his face. “Moral crack? Defect of the soul? Can you call it a character flaw if it only comes out a few times in decades, under the worst kind of pressure?” Giving up on the question, he said, “Well, whatever you call it, an officer shouldn’t have it and a president can’t. There’s a Buddhist proverb I like—or at least the guy I heard it from, when I was little, was Buddhist. ‘If you want something bad for you in the worst way, that’s exactly how you’ll get it.’”
“So… uh, if we’re talking flaws here, why should two guys like us, who already made huge mistakes—”
“A mistake is not what I’m talking about. Mistakes happen to everybody. And there’s no reason it shouldn’t be us; Graham has made about as many mistakes, about as big. The voters can decide which mistakes they like better. But Grayson has a rotten core to him, and the one thing a big job always finds is the core. And what he does when that happens won’t be a mistake; he’ll mean to do it, no matter what it does to everyone else, or even to himself. So here’s to honest blundering.” He raised his wineglass; Cam tapped his against it. “By the way, you’re in check.”
1 HOUR LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 4:30 PM EST. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025.
Crossing the lawn to Terrell Hall, Cam saw Billy Ray Salazar, and waved; the colonel waved back and came over, loudly saying, “Sir, just wanted to thank you for the weekend, I think it’s the best thing you’ve reinvented.”
Cameron said, “You’re welcome. Headed up to the lake for some fishing?”
By now his hand was in Salazar’s hand, and as they shook, without moving his lips, Salazar asked, “Anything to tell our mutual friend?” In a normal conversational tone he said, “Yeah, well, it’s protein. They’re biting. I have a smokehouse by the fishing cabin, too, so I’m laying in tons for the winter. You wait till January and you’ll wish you’d gone with me.”
“I already do,” Cameron said, adding softly, “the Red Queen is in,” before letting his volume come up for, “and I don’t even fish, but it must be great to be out in the quiet.”
“It is, and you don’t have to fish, sir. I’ve got a spare bed and you’re welcome anytime.” And softly, “I’ll communicate that. Are you taking advice?”
Murmuring at his shoes, as if too socially awkward to accept a friendly invitation (not a hard thing for him to fake), Cam said, “I already know it’s dangerous, if it fails everything will unravel, and the longer I delay the worse it’ll get.”
“That’s all the advice I had. I’ll be on the line to our friend early tomorrow,” Salazar said quietly. “Really. I wish you’d reconsider, and I’m inviting you because I like your company. Though if it means you’ll come, I promise to do some career-booster upsuckage too.”
Cam shook his head. “Not this time.”
“Well, have a good weekend in town then, sir.”
Walking away, Salazar noted that they’d managed to hit the center of a big open space, more than enough protection because the other side didn’t have any surviving long-range directional mikes.
As he saddled up, he thought, I could set up and transmit tonight, then sleep in tomorrow. I haven’t seen any reports that anyone has even noticed a sporadic beep-radio transmission from outside town yet, let alone put direction finding on it. But this would be a hell of a time for a first. Stay on the path, even when no one is watching.
5 DAYS LATER. SYLVAN BEACH, ON ONE IDA LAKE, NEW YORK. 10 AM EST. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2025.
The big cache of canned goods came to them at the end of a real run of good luck. They had paddled and poled for a few days, then spent three tiring days walking along the bank, two men each towing a canoe, the third man keeping the lines clear, pushing the canoes out from the bank with a pole, doing much of the observing, and staying alert against attack. They had not expected to be able to keep the canoes all the way to Oneida Lake; once they reached the western lake port of Brewerton, though, a makeshift sail on each canoe had been enough to carry them all the way across the lake to Sylvan Beach before 3 p.m., traveling farther in half a day than they had just done in three.
A big cache of canned goods in an empty, clean house with a woodstove was an opportunity to enjoy warmth and food, and a chance to mend, clean, and thoroughly dry everything; they decided to lay over for at least a day.
When they rose, at least half a foot of fresh snow covered the ground. More was still coming down—big, wet, soft flakes that stuck to everything and turned to slush at a breath. They had stashed the canoes under a pier and carried everything up into the house, and the previous occupants had left behind a large pile of firewood, some oil candles, and three big cans of olive oil that burned in a smudgy and dirty way in oil candles with cloth wicks.
Everything was clean and fixed up by early afternoon. They decided to eat another couple of big meals here and sleep warm for one more night, especially since the coming descent of the Mohawk was likely to be rough.
Larry had reports to write, Chris had his diary and his articles, but for Jason, the shelves held no paper books or magazines, no musical instruments, not even a Parcheesi set. One large cabinet drooled a brown jelly that had probably once contained millions of songs, movies, books, games, and so forth, but now it was too gooey even to make decent modeling clay.
Jason pulled on his coat and went to look for a bookstore or library somewhere. Snow was falling thick and fast; the gray half-light swallowed up the house behind him in less than two blocks. He turned right as he came into the business district, five blocks from the house by his careful count. Four blocks later, he found a senior center, and broke in at the back door.
The building was lighted only by high windows, but he could make out the mummified remains in chairs around the big tables, on cots along the walls, or on rotted blankets. Massive-dose radiation sickness is horrible but quick. Lumpy fans of crusted gunk lay by the mouths and anuses of most of the mumm
ies. No animals had survived to come in here, and the windows were unbroken, so the dead lay where they had died; only the first few had been lined up in a storage room, covered with sheets.
Two mummies in a corner were holding hands with a cup beside them; the sitting one must have been bringing water for the lying one. He hoped they’d both lost consciousness at the same time.
A back room with immense windows and the remains of several couches and armchairs contained shelves of military history; the old-fashioned kind of chick books, where it was always just the turn of the century, everybody hooked up constantly, and everyone was always about to have a great career; bios of forgotten actors, singers, and athletes; and some of the classics. Jason pocketed half a dozen paperbacks, figuring Chris and Larry might want to read and the added weight wouldn’t be much if they did manage to keep the canoes all the way down the Mohawk.
Shadows passed by the window. Silently Jason took one long step backwards into the arched doorway of an open bathroom, letting the darkness hide him. Huddled human forms, hugging themselves and stumbling, wrapped in blankets over multiple sweaters and hoodies, passed by the window in rows six abreast, with an armed guard every eighth row; the guards wore heavy red wool coats and earflap hats, and carried steel yardsticks, which they sometimes swung full force against the backs of the stumbling slaves. For more than twenty minutes, he watched an army of wraiths in rags go by, herded by these frightening parodies of hunters.
You come to me as hunters, but I will make you hunters of men, he misquoted to himself. It did not seem funny.
Counting rows, Jason guessed that about three thousand blanket-wrapped slaves and just over a hundred guards passed by, southward, along the edge of the lake, with no sound except when a guard cursed or hit a slave. After the slaves, a loose formation of about three hundred tribal soldiers passed by, followed by twenty rulers or chiefs or whatever they called themselves, another group of a hundred soldiers, and ten minutes later, a rearguard of about fifty soldiers, weapons at ready, moving as if they expected trouble.