Although early indications were that the American people were in a state of elated awe, Tiernan knew that things were not going as peaceably for his fellow conspirators. Moments before he’d stepped into the press office, he’d word from his father that there were riots and talks of military intervention in both Bulgaria and Romania. It was of little consequence to Tiernan. He knew that once the full impact of the day’s events had an opportunity to reverberate around the world, there would be such a tide of emotion that nothing would be able to stop him.
Tiernan scanned the crowded room and picked out the camera of one of the major networks, allowing himself a genial smile straight into the lens. But he waited. The applause died down and he waited. Men and women shuffled papers, recording equipment, clothes against seat backs, and still Tiernan waited. He touched his palm against the top corner of the podium, gazing at his fingernails which curled thereunder. Then the room was silent.
“No parent should live to watch their children die. No parent should live to see the scorched and ruined skies of their ambitions choke the very air that their children breath. No parent should live to see their children scurry and pick through the ruined corpses of cities lain bare by the wanton selfish hedonism of their forebears. No parent should be made to watch, hands tied behind their backs by bureaucrats as their children’s souls are crushed under the weight of jobless, hopeless, helpless lives. No child should live to see their future sold for a song, futures stolen from the hands that built them, torn from the hands of parents that toiled their whole lives under false promises as politicians and bankers grow fat and bloated on the milk of the land.”
There was a quiet babble from around the room, reporters moving their mouths almost silently as each of their commentaries were recorded by vocal chord and lip-synch transmission.
Tiernan waited for the silence to blanket the room again before he spoke, “The system doesn’t work. We all know it. Politicians on the take know it ... Parents working sixty plus hour weeks to put food on the table know it. Mom and pop store owners have been feeling it for years. Factory workers the whole world over sweating blood so we can all have our televisions, our phones, our computers, our clothes … they sure as heck know it. Millions of children around the world, dying of dysentery, malaria, starvation and every form of depredation known to humankind … They know it, and they feel the effects of the world’s inequity before they draw their first breath.”
“I stood before you on March 10th of this year, with fifteen leaders of the free world, prepared to take this country forward in a commitment to political reform and a radical re-evaluation of the global economy. I experienced something on that day which may take years to fully explain; a spiritual metamorphosis which was shared with those world leaders. I have learned something from that experience, something vital and urgent. I have an understanding now that those reforms which had been previously proposed, fell far short of what is necessary to take this world into the twenty-second century of the modern era.”
Tiernan worked the room as he spoke, making sure he gave each news network an occasional glance, a nod of the head or a wagging finger of emphasis. He didn’t look down at all, he had no notes to work from and no TelePrompter. He’d known for years now what he would say and he’d rehearsed these moments down to every lick of the lips, every blink of his eyes.
“We have limped through the last two hundred years with a system which was fundamentally flawed from its inception and which was itself founded on a network of inequities, immoral practices and loopholes. The ownership of land, the distribution of wealth …” He thumped his fist down on the podium, “All the while, the promise that the meek shall inherit the earth, uttered as if it will be a permanent salve to centuries of hurt, or better still, a barrier between the meek and those whose needs they service.”
“All about you, there are politic men and women, saying the right words, campaigning on lies, kissing your hands and then returning to their old ways. It’s such a common thing that it’s really a profound absurdity that any of you put up with it. It’s an abusive relationship; one partner wishing that the abuse would end, wishing they could believe their partner’s words this time. Every four years they tell you that things will change this time … this time it will be better. None of us presume that you don’t know the wool that has been pulled over your eyes. You have spent your entire lives carding, pulling twining and weaving the very fabric of that wool.”
He stopped again, listening to the growing hubbub.
“I believe that there is an intrinsic value to all things. Supply and demand has become part of that value, but it is an illusory and manipulative mechanic. When faced with the reality of supply and demand, none of us really mature beyond infancy. If we are told that we can have something, but not quite yet, not until we have saved, not until the next paycheck, not until it’s ready to hit the market, not until the supply chain has caught up; when we are told those things, we want it now, whatever it is. I’m not just talking about you, the citizens, I’m referring to we the people. The governments of the world have acted like spoiled children, hording things they can’t truly claim to own, craving things that they have no right to, demanding things they can’t wait for.”
“Let me ask you a question … I know that this isn’t a gathering of the world’s greatest minds, but these are things we all think upon from time to time. If I know that there is only five grams of gold left in the world, what value should I put on those five grams? How much money would be enough money? How would I quantify that?”
The question was greeted with stunned faces and silence, but Tiernan waited patiently. “I understand why you would think that’s a rhetorical question. Believe me it’s not … Any volunteers.”
A female reporter, young, spectacled, short hair, raised a shaking hand and as a microphone boom was lowered towards her, she offered, “It should go in a museum.”
Tiernan nodded, “Possibly. Certainly I would say if we don’t know what to do with it, we should not squander it. No price should be high enough. Do we agree?” he dominated the cameras again, eyes darting deliberately from one to the next, “Why then, once we understood that the worlds resources were finite, why did no one step forwards and shout ‘stop the madness?’” Many of the people closest to the podium started as Tiernan shouted the words. “We’ve got enough oil to last a good while, but it’s finite. In terms of the lifetime of mankind, we’ve got the equivalent of that five grams of gold. Really, it’s all we’ve ever had. Conservatively, mankind reached modernity about two hundred thousand years ago. We really started, I mean started earnestly using oil to power even the most unnecessary venture or flight of fancy in the past couple of centuries and boy have we used a lot of it.”
Tiernan lowered his head and stared at his hands as he spread his fingers out on the podium. His father’s warning played over in his mind briefly and he tried to push it to a dark corner. He was sure, he’d always been sure that he was on the correct course.
“Our sense of urgency is inextricably linked to that ominous chant we hear in the back of our minds, ‘four score years and ten’. Each of us has a desire to achieve everything we can, experience everything there is to experience in that short span of time we are alloted on this earth. I’m standing here today to tell each of you that there is more. We can not continue as a species to act as if we have an inexhaustible stockpile of resources. Not while we still call Earth our only home… Humanity may walk the earth for another four million years if we are lucky, but we will not walk with our heads held high if we continue to crave and consume and waste.”
He lifted his head and gazed about the room, making eye contact with reporters and camera operators, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and risk sounding crazy. I was elected on a campaign promise of capital reform, and that was a commitment that was to be held up and honored the whole world over, led by the sixteen nations of the Economic Unification Council. Today, here and in those fellow nations; Russia, Ger
many, France, England, Palestine, China, Japan, Israel, Poland, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Iran and Iraq, we, the chosen leaders of the EUC are united in our message that we were wrong.” He thumped the desk and shook his head slowly. “Income caps are not enough. Reduced military spending is not enough. Tightening the purse strings, balancing the books, leveling the playing field, debt forgiveness.. It’s all very catchy, but it all falls far short of what is right and what is necessary.”
The room was almost silent, no clothes rustled, no lips moved, all eyes were on Tiernan as he held out his hand and pointed his index finger, sweeping from camera lens to camera lens. From somewhere in the huddle of reporters, someone muttered the word that was perhaps on everyone’s lips, “Communist.”
Tiernan shrugged it off, “You want it all, and you aren’t to be blamed; we …” he swept his hand back to indicate the handful of politicians who stood to the sides of the podium and around the room, “We gain from your insatiable greed. You’ve been brought up greedy, you’ve been brought up impatient and I’m not going to tell you that you’re to blame.” He glanced down at the podium again, and lowered his hand to rest on the cool wood, “But I’m not going to enable you either.”
Stanwick turned off the radio and batted away Cobb’s hand as he reached instinctively to turn it back on.
“Jesus, I was listening to that. This might be one of the biggest…”
“Blah, blah. Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you right now. I won’t even pull over to do it, I’ll just keep driving and choke you to death in your seat.”
Cobb turned to look at her and immediately thought better of firing back a response.
“Honestly Brad, you’re going to be sick to the back teeth of hearing that shit by the time they get through analyzing everything the self serving dick has to say.”
He muttered something under his breath and scuffed his feet on the floor of the foot well, drumming his fingers on the Pontiac’s door paneling.
“Brad, you’ll have to speak up, I’m a little hard of patience” Stanwick took her right hand off the steering wheel and backhanded the side of his head to add emphasis to the word ‘patience’.
Cobb gritted his teeth and stared at the miles of arrow straight road which lay ahead of them. “I said, you don’t even know what that self serving dick has to say.”
Looking up into the rear view mirror, Stanwick could see David following closely, his eyes watching the Pontiac attentively. He was struggling to get to grips with West’s retro-fitted Chevelle, throwing the rear end out whenever he attempted to overtake. She glanced at Cobb and smiled inwardly. He looked so uncomfortable in David Beach’s clothes, but they couldn’t very well have him running about in his uniform, so they had made do with a quick change in the back seat of Beach’s Toyota while David had cleared out his glove box.
“You’re wrong, FYI.” Stanwick’s words were calm and quiet.
Cobb chanced a glimpse of her eyes through their reflection in the rear view, and he was only now, breathtakingly aware of how stunning her eyes were. If he’d been in a more tranquil situation, Cobb would have allowed himself the admission that Stanwick Thrass was the most beautiful woman he’d met in real life. The situation wasn’t tranquil. He clenched his teeth and told himself repeatedly that she was as ugly as her personality; evil, bitchy, snarky and another dose of evil.
“What am I wrong about?” the words came out with a touch more sarcasm than he had intended and he flinched at the sound of his own voice, convinced that his words would be followed by another smack upside the head.
Stanwick licked her lips, then bit them, apparently holding back a torrent of frustration. She was no slave to her emotions, her shows, tells, facial ticks and shifts of posture were calculated to elicit a response and control the emotions of those around her. She enjoyed those verbal and postural games, because they kept her rooted her in her humanity.
She loved watching Cobb, a grown man, a trained killer, shifting awkwardly simply because she’d licked her lips. Of course, there was more to it than that. She knew that. She knew Cobb had been in that apartment and had probably seen what she was capable of in the heat of combat. She knew that his sense of emasculation must have been profound. He was her bitch and it made her smile inwardly. Outwardly, she glared at him through the mirror.
“You’re wrong about the speech, I know exactly what Tiernan was about to say. I’ve heard it a thousand times.”
Cobb didn’t want to give her the satisfaction that would surely come with his curiosity. He suspected she would elaborate anyway; he’d only spent an hour in her company and so far, unbidden, she’d told him about the bit jobs she’d worked for various broadsheets, following Tiernan on his campaign trail, she’d told him about her distrust of the government agencies, and she had threatened to talk over Tiernan’s speech to chit chat about her cars (plural). He leaned forward and reached into the foot well, taking a bag of beef jerky from the plastic bag they had picked up from the gas station before getting onto I-78. He took a piece before proffering the bag to Stanwick who took a handful, dropping the pieces onto her lap, “Thanks Brad.” She smiled, “Keep me fed and you might survive.”
They were a couple of miles further down the road when Cobb gave in to his curiosity. He’d stole the occasional glance of Stanwick as she’d chewed and gnawed her way through most of the jerky in her lap. He had eventually come to the conclusion that she cared more about eating than about the political turmoil or the dire situation she was apparently involved in.
“So … Miss Thrass..”
“Stanwick, or Stan, whatever. Definitely not Miss Thrass.”
Cobb smirked, “Okay, Stanwick it is. What about Tiernan’s speech?”
“Oh God, really? We’ve got eight hours to kill and you want to get into that right away?”
“I just missed the punchline of the most important presidential address in my lifetime because apparently you’ve already heard it … You’ve got to give me something here.”
Stanwick turned to look at him for a moment, confident that the straight road wasn’t about to throw her any surprises, “Okay Brad, but then I want something from you in return.”
She looked back at the road and grinned, trying to think of something shocking to demand of him. Cobb nodded, “Fair enough.”
Stanwick rolled down the window and spat a piece of gristle into the wind before starting, “There’s a prophecy …”
Cobb laughed, “Cut the shit.”
“I swear to God boy, I’m out of jerky and you’re going to question the very first thing I say?”
“Sorry, sorry … Jesus!” Cobb reached down and picked out a fresh bag of teriyaki jerky, quickly tearing into it and pouring some into Stanwick’s lap. She had to turn her head to look out of the window in order to hide her smile which was broad, warm and genuine.
“Many years ago, and I mean that in the geological sense … many, many years ago, a prophetic vision was recorded on a device which allowed the vision to be viewed by many. The device was the product of a civilization which had reached a pinnacle of technological advancement which has only been bettered by modern civilization during the past century, and even then, we are talking about a very marginal lead.”
Cobb rested his head back and closed his eyes, trying to block out the image of Stanwick smashing his colleague’s head against the wall of the apartment. He had hoped, briefly, that these people had saved him from something. Perhaps, he had reasoned, he had thrown in with the right crowd. What went down at the apartment, it was clear that his colleagues were not what they appeared to be. So okay, none of these people were in a straight cut situation, but he was particularly unsettled by that deceit. This was really something else. Whatever cult Stanwick was involved in, it was obvious that he’d made a mistake. Some powerful shit they were selling Cobb thought; that a woman this strong could be brainwashed into believing this crap. He already understood that these people were dangerous, but he was starting to t
hink that they might be more than merely dangerous; they might also be mentally unstable.
“There was an almost immediate realization that the vision accurately predicted the events that were happening in that country.”
Cobb nodded calmly.
Stanwick pursed her lips, watching Cobb’s hands fidgeting in his lap. “To cut a long story short, Tiernan’s speech today forms part of the final days predicted by that prophetic vision. Okay?”
Cobb opened his eyes sharply, aware that Stanwick’s last words were spoken in a caustic tone.
She shook her head, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I know there’s no point in going over all of this with you right now. You’re not going to get it, it’s going to freak you out and you’re going to spend eight hours wondering how the hell you get away from these nut jobs …”
Cobb laughed awkwardly, “No …” he sighed, “Yes, possibly.”
Stanwick picked a couple of pieces of jerky from her lap and crammed them into her mouth, chewing them down before continuing, “You will get your answers, it will make sense to you, but that’s not going to happen right now. If you really want something to give you a grounding in the reality you’re in, open the glove box.”
Cobb followed her suggestion.
“Okay, see in there, there’s a zip-lock with a book in it? Get that out.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 29