Congress had always had the last word. But in previous administrations, the president still had the power of persuasion. Now the majority of Congress was elected with the promise of taking that power back. Successfully blaming past administrations for continuing to run America into the red, people running for the House or Senate convinced their constituencies that the White House was too powerful. That that was the cause of the problem. It was all bullshit, of course, but it led to a new era in gridlock. It was as if every member of Congress ran for his or her own presidency. Candidates never aligned themselves with the White House anymore, or even with their own party. They ran as individuals, on the notion of returning America to the people. What it really did was introduce a new kind of motionless government. Nothing got done. Denying new spending provided the House and Senate with the illusion of expressing the people’s voice. But the people didn’t want their lives and the nation’s infrastructure to rust away. What they really wanted was somebody to make tough choices, really tough choices, which took a leader. And the one thing the legislative branch could never be was a leader. That was the president’s job, and that was why Matthew Bernstein ran. And even if it was getting impossible to change things, he still wanted to try.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first time it happened, no one thought anything more about it than they did about the random acts of violence that always occurred. In January of 2026, someone boarded a bus on its way to an Indian casino near Palm Desert, California, and shot twelve people, killing nine and injuring three. The odd thing was that the bus had thirty people on board, and anyone who appeared to be under forty was left untouched.
The shooter was a young man, twenty-six years old, and he was killed by the driver, so no one could ever talk to him to find out what was in his mind. His family and friends were interviewed and they came out with the usual stuff: “He seemed so quiet.” “He was such a nice guy, a great neighbor.” The couple who owned the Korean bakery even said they thought of him like a son. But upon further questioning it became clear they meant he was the size of their son, they weren’t referring to how they felt about him.
Violence in 2026 was really the same as it had always been. There were gangs and murders and domestic disputes and robberies, all the stuff that never changes. The one group that did seem to grow in stature was the neo-Nazi gangs, the skinheads. These people hated everything America had become. And where blacks and Jews had always been number one and two on their list, the newly legalized Hispanics made them even more nuts. The “last of the true white people,” as they called themselves, they realized they were never going to get America back, and all they could hope for was to make it really unpleasant for everyone else to live there.
But the bus massacre had nothing to do with that group. The shooter was white, but not a skinhead. Educated, with at least two years of college, he’d never been in trouble before. Everything ever written on his mobile devices was analyzed immediately.
In the new world, actually going to someone’s home and seizing property was done last, since every single bit of communication lived forever, and all that was needed was a judge’s order and it was all downloaded and scrutinized in the blink of an eye. People knew this, of course, and if they really wanted to communicate and have it never be known, they would do what their great-grandparents had done and write a letter, or meet in person, or just not tell anyone anything. But even if they didn’t write down their intentions, the software used to analyze their communications was getting ultra-sophisticated. And where years ago someone who was going to murder his spouse might put the word “chloroform” into a search engine and have that as evidence in court, now programs were designed to come up with that same kind of incriminating evidence from everything you ever looked at.
If you committed a crime, every piece of reading material, every store you ever went to—either real or virtual—and everything you ever bought was analyzed at such lightning speed that law enforcement would have three really good theories before they ever went to your home. In the case of the bus murderer it was easier than most, as he wrote angry letters to his congressman complaining about the outrageous taxes he had to pay for health care even though he was never sick a day in his life. They also found old-fashioned letters to his mother saying that he could no longer give money to help with Grandma, as he had been demoted and his pay had been cut. That, along with his obsessive interest in everything Peter Pan, helped the computers come to a conclusion: This guy hated everything old.
* * *
Brad Miller hit the ball straight down the fairway. It went almost three hundred yards. Herb had just hit into the trees and was sixteen over par by the fifteenth hole. “I shouldn’t have bet,” Herb said.
“Don’t worry, there’s three holes to go. You want to press?”
“You’re seven strokes ahead. You would actually need a real stroke for me to win.” He took out fifty dollars. “Here, let’s stop. I lose.”
“Come on, finish the game,” Brad said, taking the money. Brad pressed the button and the sixteenth hole lay before them. This hole was always windy, with a dogleg on the right and a huge sand trap on the left of the green. Brad addressed the ball.
“Wait,” Herb said. “Let’s not play with the wind today.”
“Okay with me.” Brad went to the control wall and turned off the breeze.
The Golf Depots, as they were called, were springing up everywhere. Invented in Japan, where space was always at a premium, they were open-air golf centers that consisted of one 350-yard hole. Every time someone completed it, he turned around and started the next. The putting green on hole one would become the tee on hole two. Scenery would change, wind would increase or die down, sand traps would emerge in different places, and you would get the exercise walking back and forth on the same hole. The centers, which took up approximately three square acres, could let ten foursomes play at the same time, all playing from the center outward.
The cost was minuscule compared to real golf, and what was also great was that it was safe. There had been some incidents in the past few years on public courses. Younger people hassling the “olds” for taking too much time or, in some cases, for even showing up at all. The Golf Depots had great security, welcomed an older clientele, and were a bargain compared to actually joining a club, which not only had prohibitive costs but didn’t much like members over fifty.
When the game was finished they got into Brad’s car. Brad had always liked to buy American, although that had become impossible. Even with the Ford-GM merger that took place years earlier, so many parts in those cars were made overseas that they were American in name only. Still, Brad felt good about driving his electric vehicle with the familiar two logos from the car companies he grew up knowing.
As he slid into the seat, which was molded to his body, the belts retracted, and a pleasant female voice asked him where he wanted to go. “Do you want to get something to eat?” he asked Herb.
“Sure, I could go for a pastrami sandwich.”
Brad knew of one place somewhere toward downtown that had great pastrami, but he wasn’t sure of the name or where it was. That’s where Susie came in. That’s what he called the voice of his car. “Susie, what’s the name of the delicatessen somewhere off the Ten freeway near downtown?” Susie dutifully named off three delicatessens but none of them sounded familiar. “That’s not it.” Then Susie named another place that rang a bell. “That sounds familiar. Call them.”
A voice came on the line, Hispanic sounding, but then again, every voice on the phone sounded Hispanic to Brad. “Is this the place with the great pastrami?”
“I can’t hear you,” the man said.
“Forget it.” Brad hung up. “That’s the right place. I recognize the accent. Take me there, honey.” And Susie displayed the route, traffic conditions, alternate routes, time to destination, average speed, weather, and three rest stops along the way, something the dealer programmed in thinking Brad would need, which he really didn
’t.
“That’s amazing,” Herb said. “How did she figure out the restaurant?”
“She’ll take all the restaurants in the area, look at their menus, check for reviews, and if pastrami comes up a lot, she’ll tell me.”
“Can you fuck her?”
“You actually can, but that was another four grand. And you have to stick your dick in the lighter.”
About fifteen minutes later Brad’s car pulled into a parking lot next to Amigos, a beat-up-looking diner, crowded to the gills, with a line snaking out the door. “This is the place?” Herb asked, a little reticent.
“This place has the best pastrami in town. Trust me, it’s gotten raves. That’s why there’s a line.”
“There’s a line at the doctor’s office, but no one’s raving about that.”
“Do you not want to go in?”
“No, I do. Come on.”
They got out of the car and stood in line. They seemed to be the only ones over fifty. Certainly no one in that diner was anywhere near eighty years old. People made no eye contact with them, and as the line moved slowly toward the counter, Herb wondered if they should go elsewhere, but he didn’t say anything. After thirty minutes they were facing the menu board, about to be served. “What are you gonna have?” Brad asked.
“Tuna fish.”
“What?”
“What the hell do you think I’m gonna have? You think I stood in line for an hour for peas?”
They both placed their orders, two large pastrami sandwiches with cole slaw, pickles, and a dipping bowl of beef juice that would make the sandwiches fall apart in their mouths. They were told to go to a table and the food would be brought to them. They found a small table near the window and sat down, and at that moment two Hispanic men in their early twenties walked over. One of them said to Brad, “Get the fuck out of here, old man, this is my seat.”
“No one was sitting here,” Brad said.
Herb stood up. He was not in the mood to argue. “Maybe it was their seat.”
“It wasn’t. The table was empty.”
“Get the fuck out of here, did you not hear me?”
A waitress appeared with the sandwiches and put them down, oblivious to what was going on. One of the young men picked up a sandwich and took a bite. “What the hell are you doing?” Brad was getting angry. “That’s mine!”
“I don’t think so, man. This is our table and it’s our sandwich.”
“I’m calling the manager.”
“You fucking do that, Grandpa. Good idea. And when you’re through we’ll talk about it outside.”
“Brad, let them have the sandwiches. I’ve lost my appetite.”
“They’re not having my sandwich. I paid for it, it’s mine.”
Brad went to find someone. Herb just wanted to disappear. He stood there not saying a word as Brad brought back a heavyset man, also Hispanic. Brad showed him the receipt. “We paid for these; these are ours.”
The man looked at it and said something in Spanish to the young men. The three of them laughed and the two men decided to leave. “Eat your sandwiches, you old fuck,” one of them said. “We’ll see you later.” They walked out of the diner. Herb was panicking.
“They’re going to wait for us outside.”
“Just eat,” Brad said. “There’s a lot of people here, they can’t do anything.”
“What are you, crazy? There are a lot of Mexican people here. They can do anything they want. I knew we shouldn’t have come.”
“Bullshit. It was your idea.”
“It was my idea to get pastrami. Your goddamn car sent us to a prison.”
Brad bit into his sandwich. He was worried about his safety but didn’t show it. “Wow, this is good.”
“It better be. It’s our last meal.”
They ate in silence, staring at the car through the window. They couldn’t see the men; they were hoping they had left. This wasn’t the first time Brad had felt picked on because of his age, but it was becoming more frequent. Herb, meanwhile, made up his mind never to try a new restaurant again. Better to have the same old thing and not be stabbed.
* * *
At ten o’clock at night, Stewart Bernard saw an alarm light go off that told him someone was breaking into the school gymnasium. The cameras confirmed it. It looked as if six boys were forcing the door open; one of them had a basketball in his hand. Stewart thought how silly this was. It was dark in there; how did they think they could play without lights?
He got on the Shuffle, the three-wheeled cart he took on his patrols, and headed down to the gym. When he arrived the door was open, and he heard the sound of a basketball and saw some dim lights. The boys had brought electric lanterns with them. Stewart stood there and smiled. This was harmless. They weren’t stealing or disturbing the peace; they were just playing basketball. But he had a job to do, so he threw on the switch and the overheads lit up. The boys stopped and looked up to where Stewart was standing. “The gym is closed, boys. You’re not allowed in here.”
“We’re just playing basketball,” one of them yelled.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Stewart felt it before he heard it. A sharp pain in his collarbone. As he reached for his chest, he heard the explosion ricochet throughout the building. The kids were running up the stairs to the exit. Stewart dropped to the floor, feeling as though he was going to faint.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” he heard one of the boys say to another as they ran by him. Stewart really wanted to hear the answer but he blacked out. He lay there in a pool of blood until one of the robot vehicles sensed there was a door open and came to take a look. The next time he opened his eyes, he was in an operating room.
Kathy was home when her reading device blinked red. She knew what that was, but had never seen it before. All handheld devices had an emergency chip that could either send or receive an urgent message. The device displayed the words “Contact St. Peter’s Hospital. Your father is hurt.”
She was hoping against hope that maybe it was a prank, but hacking into an emergency chip had severe penalties and she didn’t know anyone who would do that, anyway. She was frantic. She called Brian. They were both at the hospital within fifteen minutes.
Kathy looked pale and scared. Brian didn’t know what to do other than support her. He hated hospitals—the smell literally made him sick. When Brian was five years old, he fell off a scooter and skinned his arm so badly he needed stitches. The doctor did it poorly and it became infected, and he had to spend a week in the hospital, sharing a room with a teenager who had broken his neck skiing. The infection wasn’t what spooked him; it was seeing a boy in the bed next to him wearing a full body cast. It left an impression that hospitals were to be avoided at all costs. Better to just die.
When they opened the door to the emergency room they could not believe the number of people waiting. It was more crowded than the Department of Motor Vehicles. Probably three hundred people at least. There was so much sneezing and coughing that if someone walked into the room healthy, by the time he got to the front of the line he would need medical attention. Those who could walk were lined up in one of those S-shaped rope lines. Kathy had always thought that was one of the great inventions in all of human history: a way to keep people lined up in a small space while giving them the illusion that they were getting closer. Who thought of that?
People were slowly moving toward two very haggard-looking nurses sitting behind a glass partition. There was also an S-shaped wheelchair line. Fifteen people who couldn’t even walk wheeling around their own ropes. Kathy kept looking at the crowd to see if she could find her father. “I don’t think we’re in the right place,” she said.
“Did they say he was here?”
“They said he was in the hospital.”
“I don’t think we have to wait in this line. Let’s go to admissions.”
They went into the main entrance and there was a line there, too, but a much smaller
one. When they got up to the admissions desk, Kathy told a woman who she was and the woman repeated the information into her headset. She waited for the answer on the screen below her. After a moment she said, “Are you the next of kin?” Kathy was panicked. That sounded devastating.
“Yes.”
“He’s in surgery.”
“What?! Why?”
“I can’t give you that information. Please sit over there and someone will come and talk to you.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t have that information. Someone will come and talk to you.”
Brian lost it. “Jesus Christ, what are you good for? How much do they fucking pay you?”
Fortunately for Brian, the woman behind the desk did not respond. Someone newer might have had him arrested. Behavior that could get you thrown off planes decades earlier now got you thrown out of every public building in America. People just didn’t take outbursts. They would call security at the slightest hint of anger. There was so little human-to-human contact now that people were just not used to a display of actual emotions; it all came across as hostile.
“Come on,” Kathy said, taking his arm, “let’s sit down.”
She and Brian waited for what seemed to be thirty minutes before a woman in a business suit came out of the elevator and walked over to them. “Are you Miss Bernard?”
“Yes.” Kathy was scared.
“Is this your husband?”
“No, my friend. He drove me.”
“I’m Sue Norgen. I’m with the hospital administration. Normally I just talk to family members.”
“Why? Is he dead?”
“No, he is just out of surgery. He will be okay.”
“Thank God,” Kathy said. She reached for Brian’s hand and squeezed it so tight he thought she would break it.
“We need to discuss some issues,” Sue told her. “If you’ll follow me, we can go to my office.”
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