The Rise of the Speaker

by Pete Driscoll

  Cynthia sat in stunned silence, watching the agony ripple across her husband’s handsome features. “I have known that man for 40 years,” he said, the pain in his voice easy to hear, “I thought I could temper the personality traits he inherited from his father, especially the one where he treats the US like his own personal fiefdom, but I was wrong, I knew what he was like. When I read those reports I felt sick; I was disgusted, I was horrified, I was angry… but I wasn’t surprised. This is exactly the sort of thing my friends on the Hill warned me about. But he was my friend… now he has gone out of his way to implicate me in all of this, I am caught up in that man’s personal war against someone who dared to say no to him and I can’t see a way out.”

  “What would happen if you do nothing?” Cynthia finally asked as she watched her husband’s hollow eyes stare at the fireplace between them.

  “Aside from that son-of-a-bitch thinking he is invincible and doing more shady shit like this, nothing… oh, except from our grandchildren being labelled as the offspring of traitors when this does finally come out.”

  The mention of her eagerly anticipated first grandchild and the damage this could do to them sent a shiver down Cynthia’s spine, they would be ruined, as would their children after them. The Cross name would be reviled in the same way as Benedict Arnold’s and - although the Turnbull name already came with a certain reputation - neither her nor her husband nor any other part of their family had their wealth; wealth that would be needed for the family name to weather the inevitable storm as the Turnbull’s had. The tears started to fill her eyes.

  “You need to leave me…” he finally said, her eyes shooting up to meet his. “… you and the kids, stay as far away from me as you can. This won’t take a century to come out, the press has almost pieced it together already, it could break tomorrow. If you and the boys are still around, you’ll get pulled into the mud with me, I can’t let that happen.” Cynthia tried to speak but her husband would have none of it. “I’m serious, this will ruin us! You say you found out but were bound by the Espionage Act and couldn’t disclose it… that’s why you left me. Tell them I disgust you, tell them you hate me, tell them that I am a liar, a cheat and now I’m a traitor… Just get our family away from me and my stupid mistakes. It’s the only way out I can see.”

  “Maybe I can help.” A voice came from the other side of the room. Both Cynthia and Phil shot to their feet and turned to face the intruder, Phil instinctively placing himself between his wife and the man by the office door. A small part of her smiled at his act of loving protection, the rest of her stared in fear at the dark-haired man before them.

  “Who are you? What are you doing in my house! And the hell how did you get past the Secret Service!” Her husband demanded as the man stepped further into the room.

  “Please, have a seat.” The man gestured at the now empty chairs, “My name is Marcus, but I think you have referred to me as ‘the researcher’.”

  **********************************************************************************

  The vice-President and his wife blinked a few times as my identity dawned on them. The face of the second lady contorted in fear, no doubt realising the violence I had exerted on the other men responsible for Maria’s death and the new knowledge that her husband had been implicated.

  “You have been something of an enigma to me, Mr Vice-President.” I said calmly as I crossed the room and sat in a vacant chair, gesturing to my captive audience to do the same. “You see, as you have already said, your name was on all of the orders and on all of the classified files, but nobody has ever mentioned you… Almost like you were just a walking, talking rubber stamp.”

  Neither Philip Cross nor his wife had moved so I kept talking, “Just to be sure, I had your office and house bugged… I just watched your entire conversation.”

  Two sets of nervous eyes started to dart around the room, looking for the tiny surveillance Nanites that could never possibly hope to find, even if they knew what they were looking for.

  “What do you want?” Mr Cross said, trying in vain to control the slight quiver in his voice.

  “I want you to sit down and I want to talk. Based on your conversation, I no longer believe you had any involvement in Maria’s death or the illegal actions against me. But you are right to be worried about how this looks, you are in pretty deep, Phil.”

  Cynthia Cross seemed to move toward her chair before her mind could stop her, the outright fear on her face fading to something resembling nervous, hopeful curiosity. “You said you could help?” she asked softly, her husband’s head shooting around to see – for the first time – that his wife had followed my instructions, allowing himself to do the same and resuming his place in his own chair.

  “I think I can.” I answered Cynthia with a reassuring smile before turning to address her husband, “You were right, the evidence against you is damming and what’s done is done… there is no changing the past. I can, however, have all suggestions that you were involved in the illegal acts completely removed from the files, even the idea that you were aware of the actions can be erased.”

  “How?” Phil asked, his confusion difficult to miss. “The files are sealed, they are all on the secure White House systems, there isn’t even a hard copy that can be doctored to replace the ones on the server.”

  “Don’t worry about that, I have my ways.” I replied, unable to stop the small smile curling my lips as the Vice-President confirmed the lack of hard copies of the orders, the only obstacle to Alice’s work.

  “and in return?” Cynthia asked, always the astute political observer.

  “There will come a time when President Turnbull is brought to Justice, either by impeachment or by… other means…” I let that statement hang in the air for a few seconds before continuing. “When that time comes, you will replace him as the new President of the United States.”

  “and then…” Philip asked, understanding that this wasn’t the end of my conditions.

  “At some point in the future, I will come to you to repay the favour. It won’t be anything illegal, or anything dishonourable… it might be something that is… shall we say… politically unpopular, but it will be reasonable, and I will provide you with all the leverage needed to make it happen.”

  “That is exactly the type of collusion that has dogged the White House since the President’s father was in office.” Philip Cross said warily.

  “Yes, except those accusations were based around illegal activities, mine will not be.”

  “and how can we know that?”

  “You can’t.” I answered plainly, “But if you think they are illegal, refuse. It would be your duty, all I ask is that you don’t dismiss my request out of hand, just because it came from me.” Man and wife looked at each other, neither saying anything, so I continued. “The President of the United States has gone to inordinate lengths to implicate you in his crime and I don’t know why. What I do know is that when he goes down, he is planning on taking you with him. I can stop that from happening, all I ask in return is that when I come to you, you simply consider my request.”

  “and what happens if I decide to refuse your request”

  “Mr Cross, I know what my reputation is within your government; I know I am portrayed as a treasonous murderer who is responsible for countless deaths, enemy number one! But you have seen the files, you know the truth. I could have massacred the federal taskforce and didn’t, I could march my soldiers into the White House, drag the President out kicking and screaming and execute him on the south lawn and there is nothing your men could do to stop me, but I am not the man they make me out to be. I have given you the benefit of the doubt in this entire affair, all I ask is that you do the same for me.”

  “Ok…” the Vice-President replied after a long silence, “If all these things come to pass, and your request is legal and reasonable, I will give it the same consideration I would for any other request, without all the negative connotations your reputation
would demand.”

  “That’s all I ask,” I said with a nod, “feel free to check the files again in the morning, you will find your name conspicuous in its absence. Thank you both, and I hope you have a pleasant evening.” With that, my holographic body exploded into the air and the Vice-President and his wife were left staring at each other.

  “Can we trust him?” Cynthia asked her husband.

  “I don’t see what other choice we have,” Phil answered, “but we’ll know for sure in the morning.” What Mr and Mrs Cross didn’t know was that Alice had already removed any notion of the vice-President’s involvement in any of the administration’s illegal activities. The classified files were now signed exclusively by David Turnbull Jr or members of his security committee, Philip Cross was a good man and shouldn’t be tainted by the actions of his boss, regardless of how he reacted to my conditions.

  “Just to be clear,” Cynthia said, raising her hand to affectionately stroke the side of her husband’s face, “I would never have left you, the fact that you would do that to save us… it reminded me why I fell in love with you. Til death do us part, remember?” Her husband smiled lovingly at her.

  “I remember.”

  Chapter 25

  A midsummer night’s dream

  It was a little disconcerting to watch the dimly lit room of the Cross-residence fade into the blinding tropical sunlight of our island as I removed the holographic control unit from my head. Alice was sat in one of the sun loungers on the deck of the house, I was sat in the other. No longer being confined to a single building as I had been at the cabin, I found I was interacting more and more with her body rather than her face on a screen. Of course, her screen was still set up inside the house, as were a number of others dotted around the catacombs, but her smiling face, her flowing red hair, her brilliant green eyes and her breezy white summer dress were infinitely more pleasant to interact with. Besides, her holographic presence made the island seem that much less deserted, despite there not being another actual human for thousands of miles in any direction.

  My thoughts were dragged back to the moment by the shrill squawks of birds flying overhead. “Ah, I was wondering when this would happen.” Alice smiled as she looked towards the sky.

  “When what would happen?”

  “Migratory birds and fish move from island to island in their seasonal migration,” Alice told me, still smiling at the sky as the large flock of birds flew into view from behind the house. “Before this island was built, this was the longest leg in that journey. Now that there is a new landmass, we can start expecting those birds and new species of marine life to stop here on their travels. I have already seen some bottlenose dolphins in the shallows, those are Mallard ducks” she nodded at the birds as they started landing in the water a few hundred yards off the coast, “Probably from Great Britain and Northern Europe, we should see all manner of wildlife over the next few weeks.”

  “Cool.” It was about as intelligent an answer as I could come up with as hundreds of birds descended on our quiet corner of the world.

  “Ah, right on cue.” Alice smiled, pointing out to sea. A large plume of steam rose up from the water beyond where our new guests were swimming happily, the single plume was gradually joined by several more as a series of black silhouettes crested the water and disappeared back beneath the waves. “Humpback Whales.” Alice smiled proudly as I watched the spectacle. “I was hoping they’d come.”

  “You knew this would happen?”

  “I didn’t know, no.” she replied, her eyes turning to me, “but it was a consideration when we picked this location. We didn’t want to damage or interfere with any natural habitats… but creating a new one always has… consequences. I’m just glad that this one paid off”

  I could only laugh at the brilliance of choosing this location, Alice really had thought of everything. “It makes me wonder,” she continued, her eyes still fixed on me, “what else could we attract here?”

  “what do you mean?” I asked, finally pulling my eyes away from the natural wonders playing out before me and looking at Alice.

  “Have you ever wondered how many other people think the same as you do?” she asked plainly, her head twisted to one side as those brilliant green eyes bore into me, “How many people out there are disillusioned with their government? How many people think that the world should be one way, but know that the powers-that-be won’t let the world change? Think about it, when America was a British colony, thousands flocked to there to escape the way that Britain worked; Gentrification, landowners, a government that didn’t represent the people. How is that different from now… with corporations, non-representative and corrupt governments and not just in the US; Europe is still dealing with the fallout from Brexit – a concept that most of the people didn’t vote for, what about China with their political oppression, or Africa with their abject poverty and warlords? How many of them would jump at the chance for a new beginning… if we build it for them?”

  “You’re talking about creating a new country.”

  “Eventually, maybe. For now, I was thinking of enlarging the island to create a safe haven for likeminded people, we can think of calling it a county if or when the population grows to a point that warrants that distinction.”

  Her eyes casually turned back to the sea, as if she hadn’t made anything more than a throw-away remark. I was about to list off a long number of reasons why her idea wouldn’t work, but each time an objection came into my mind, a solution would appear just as fast.

  Physically creating the island wouldn’t be difficult, it would only really be an extension of the support structure holding up this one. The soil displaced by that construction could simply be transported to the surface to cover the landscape, there was more than enough rock and stone being mined from the ground to make it geologically stable. We could build in landscape features such as mountains and rivers as we went and could populate the island with as many different animal and plant species as we needed – we could even make it a conservation project and bring in endangered species from all over the world.

  Once the general geography of the island was completed, adding in cities and infrastructure would be a relatively simple task for the Artisans, basic amenities could be produced in the manufacturing plant – at least until the local economy took off - and food crops could be planted anywhere on the island, or we could just expand the hydroponics system, we could even bring in livestock. Eventually, the population would reach a point of critical mass where jobs needed to maintain and provide for the island would be created and filled entirely by the population itself. The Spartans could act as the police force until a civilian one could be created; they would already be acting as the countries defence force anyway… The more I thought about it, the more intriguing the idea became.

  I turned to Alice; her soft features curled into a smirk as the concept percolated in my mind. “could it be done? I mean, do we have room? You said you didn’t want to damage natural habitats or interfere with ocean currents…”

  “We have plenty of room,” she answered casually, “we could drop an island the size of Alaska here and it wouldn’t make any difference to the ocean currents whatsoever, and that kind of landmass would develop its own ecosystem very quickly. I don’t think we’d have much trouble convincing other people to come here either.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The internet,” she answered with a shrug, “The message boards and chat pages are filled with people who are angry or dissatisfied with their governments, especially in America and Europe. Thousands of entries about how they would like to emigrate to a country that does things better, but they all concede that there are none out there, if we were to give them one…”

  “Then you think they’d come…” I finished for her.

  “I do.” She confirmed, turning back to look me in the eye. “You are not alone in this, Marcus. Between the press and the conspiracy theorists, large sections of the public are a
lready pretty close to figuring out what happened to you, what they did to Maria and what really went on in Harlan… and none of them are happy about it. Add in the fact that the federal authorities aren’t really trying that hard to find you and their already mistrustful attitude towards the government, and I think you have the makings of a mass migration.”

  “I don’t know,” I mused, “I guess I had never really thought of this island as much more than a refuge, as a place to escape to, certainly not as a home. But now I think about it…”

  “interesting idea, isn’t it.” She smiled.

  “and how long have you been working on this idea?” I asked with a grin, never ceasing to be amazed at how Alice’s ‘mind’ worked.

  “A few hours,” she smiled back, “Philip Cross said something about the press asking questions and I looked to see how bad the situation was, I saw all of those posts – all of them hating what their country had become – and they were from all over the world, There were thousands of complaints about different governments but they all had the same problems, not trusting the administration, not agreeing with the direction the country was moving in, tired of a two party system – neither of which representing what that person wanted. Then they changed, they started talking about what they would do differently if another option became available, what a new country would be like if it could be built from the ground up… So, I asked myself, why not give them a new option?”

  “I suppose it’s something to think about” I conceded as we both turned to watch the natural spectacle before us. The eastern sky had started to fade, the orange glow from the west silhouetting the birds on the surface of the water as they swam and dived and relaxed after their long flight. The Humpback Whales had moved on, meandering in the shallow water for a while before moving off to the West, I wondered how long the ducks would stay before continuing their own journey and if any other types of birds would replace them. It had only been a few hours since the birds had arrived, but already, they seemed almost part of the landscape, how much emptier would our little island be without their presence?