by Paul Briggs
“And, you know, in some ways, it is like a war. Not only did more Americans die in the Monsoon than died at Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, or even Anchorage, but the physical damage was comparable to a war fought on American soil. That’s not my opinion—that’s the Red Cross, and they have some experience there.
“I’m not the one to tell you what it’s been like. I’m from Denver, and Denver got off easy. A lot of you are from places that were hit. You’ve seen in person what people do, right? You’ve seen how they react to emergencies. They don’t lean out the window and yell ‘WOOHOO! TOTAL MINARCHY!’ They should, but they don’t. They do whatever they can to survive, and to help their friends and neighbors survive, but when—not if, when—that turns out not to be enough, that’s when they start calling for help from the outside world. That’s when you can say ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you’ and all you’ll hear is ‘What kept you?’”
“And that’s why the government loves, loves, loves a good state of emergency. They’d like nothing better than to declare a state of emergency that lasts for the rest of our lives. And thanks to climate change, that’s pretty much what we’ve got.”
* * *
His speech went on for another twenty minutes. He emphasized that he wasn’t here to spread gloom and despair, but to encourage everyone to pay attention to what else was said here for the next few nights. The other speakers would outline the party’s strategies for keeping the little campfire of freedom burning through the coming storm. His job was to let them know what kind of storm was coming.
After his speech, Walt would have liked to go back to his hotel room, but he had a seat on the stage and leaving would have been rude. Which was too bad, because the next speech was so depressing it made his sound downright bubbly. It was by a state party chair and economics professor. “The last couple of years, the kids I teach have gone crazy,” he said. “All they want to talk about is externalities. ‘How does this reduce carbon emissions?’ ‘How does this lower the albedo?’ ‘If we can’t make it happen through private incentives, don’t we need to get the government involved?’ I’m trying to teach them how the economy works, and they just want to learn how to make the planet work no matter what happens to the economy.”
Walt didn’t get to go back to his hotel room until after eleven. Normally he’d be hitting the bars and seeing if any girls were interested, but tonight he wasn’t in the mood. He picked up his tablet, set it to State News: California and started reading. He didn’t spend a lot of time in California, but since he was here, he might as well learn what was going on.
It didn’t make him any happier. A lot of Walt’s viewers thought of California as a socialist hellhole—especially the ones who couldn’t afford a home in it. Once upon a time, decades ago, it had been a happy state full of tax revolts and political paralysis, the land of Nixon and Reagan. When libertarians and conservatives talked about it now, they made it sound like a lost homeland that had sunk into the ocean or been conquered by an enemy.
Actually getting a good look at the place was worse. For as long as Walt could remember, people had been predicting the imminent collapse of California due to earthquakes or immigrants or wildfires or welfare or mudslides or… something. And it kept not collapsing. Unless you listened to TKB or something similar, of course, in which case it was a no-go zone.
And the more you listened to the people here, the more you realized they liked their state just the way it was. They thought of the old days as a time of smog, budget crises, and racist cops. They didn’t miss any of that. They were proud of their power grid, which used sun, wind, and tides to bring electricity to forty-two million people, twenty desalination plants and close to a third of the nation’s electric cars with a minimum of carbon emissions. They were proud of themselves for replacing their green lawns with xeriscaping and finding drought-adapted crops to grow in the Central Valley. They didn’t complain about the taxes or the regulations—not much, anyway. They weren’t even complaining about water rationing in L.A. In fact, a lot of them were saying the city should double down on desalination and leave the water in Owens Valley where it was.
It made Walt feel like… he supposed, like a feminist in a room full of contented housewives. He kept wanting to scream why are you all okay with this? Don’t you see what you’re giving up? If you’re happy, then you’re happy, but don’t you realize that people will see your well-oiled machine of a state as a good example? Does it even bother you that someone might use your happiness as a weapon against mine?
Just by existing, this whole state was a kind of threat. It said this is what the world looks like without you, and it is beautiful.
* * *
As Carrie left the Capitol, she saw a group of young men and women—probably pages—out on the steps. She thought one of them looked familiar, but his back was turned and impeccably dressed young white men of slender build were not exactly in short supply on Capitol Hill.
Then the young man spoke up. Not only was his voice recognizable, but… “Yeah, watching Congress in action is like watching pandas fuck,” he said. “You wait forever for them to do something and then they do it wrong.” Yep. That was Jerome Ross. She immediately went up to say hi. She could practically see him start to glow at having a famous politician greet him by name in front of his peers.
A few minutes later, they were in a coffee shop, waiting for their coffee to arrive. It was close to lunchtime, but Carrie wasn’t going to be having lunch today. Over the course of the last fifteen months, she’d lost ninety pounds. She was finally down to her target weight. She would have lost even more weight, but she didn’t want to lapse into anorexia. (And, yes, she was worried that if she lost too much weight, she’d lose her “earth mother” image along with it.)
In any case, Carrie could fit into her old outfits again, her knees didn’t hurt any more, and all she had to do now was exercise, keep her calories low, and watch her weight for… the rest of her life, basically. Because those ninety pounds she’d lost were still out there somewhere, building alliances, plotting to reconquer their old homeland, holding secret meetings, and toasting each other with next year in Carrie Camberg’s caboose. All of which meant that she couldn’t really meet people for lunch anymore. She could meet them for water, or black coffee, but not lunch.
Carrie started by talking about her work. “Right now I’m on leave from the foundation so I can advocate for the Norfolk Plan,” she said. “Before that, I spent a couple months in sub-Saharan Africa looking over soil-renewal plans… winged beans, terra preta, that sort of thing.”
Rome nodded. “Are you going to stay in town till it passes?”
“I like your optimism, but no. I’m going to Korea to see if there’s any big projects we can help them with. Then I’m going to Israel, and this time I’m bringing the family.”
“Vacation?”
“Sort of a working vacation. Also, now that we’ve got Thel speaking Mandarin like a strange-looking native, I think it’s time she learned a little more about her own heritage.”
Rome, as usual, needed no prompting to start talking about his work. “I’m working with the DSCC,” he said. “It occurred to me that all these people getting moved around by the Monsoon and FEMA has opened up some new possibilities this year—places that would normally be hopeless suddenly look a lot more competitive.” Carrie knew for a fact that Rome was far from alone in having this insight, but she just smiled and listened.
“So I’m going to be heading out west in a couple weeks. Setting up campaign offices in the camps. There’s gotta be some tarpies with political experience.”
“Some what?”
“Tarpies. Short for ‘people in emergency camps.’ Okay, not really short for, but they use a lot of tarps.”
“How do they feel about the name ‘tarpies’?”
“Well, they call each other that, but… yeah, I better check before I call ’em that where they can hear it.”
“Good idea. How�
�s your family?”
“Clint’s in trouble again,” he said. “There’s a new runesnapping program he says he wasn’t involved in writing. Hasn’t gone to trial yet, so I don’t know what the evidence looks like, but I really thought he was gonna go straight after the last time.”
“You think he’s guilty?”
“One day he was hitting me up for money and three weeks later he was paying me back and throwing in a bottle of Tanqueray No. 10 to get laid with. I gotta wonder.” He shook his head. “I hope to God he’s not guilty. See, there’s this place called Otterholt Lake where they send cybercriminals—repeat offenders, the kind they’ve given up on trying to reform. Hackers joke about lots of shit, but you never hear ’em joke about the Lake.” He bit his lip, then looked up. “How’s your folks doing?”
“Thel’s back from China,” said Carrie. “Filling the house with the siren sounds of Chinese pop music and… what’s it called? Rusty?”
“Rhust. R-H-U-S-T. How’d she like it?”
“Oh, she’s got lots of stories.”
Rome nodded. “I saw those videos she did over there with her classmates.” Of course you did, thought Carrie. I posted the link every two weeks. “Seemed like she was having a good time.”
“She was. At least until she got back and found out Ethan was seeing somebody else.”
“That was her boyfriend?”
“Was, yes,” said Carrie. “I don’t know… it’s not that I want her to die an old maid, it’s just when I try to picture a male I’d be comfortable with her seeing, I can’t. I just remind myself of how exasperating my own mother got when I started dating.”
“Yeah, every time I try to bring a girl home to Mom, she always says ‘That girl isn’t good enough for you!’ She said the same thing to Clint before he got married.”
“I knew it couldn’t be just Jewish mothers.”
“Yeah, but you gotta be some kind of dumbass to cheat on a governor’s daughter. Or even an ex-governor’s.”
“Oh, if he’d turned out to be abusive in any way, I’d have brought the wrath of God down on his head—Roger and me both. But he was just unfaithful. To a girl he hadn’t seen in almost a year. Part of me still wants to have him publicly flogged for that, of course, but not a part I listen to.”
“All the same—and don’t take this as any kind of indecent interest—if I had a woman who looked anything like her, I’d wait.”
Carrie nodded. “Don’t take this as any kind of intrusion into your personal life,” she said, “but you’ve had several women who looked pretty darn good. And then you lost them because you were so wrapped up in work you didn’t pay them enough attention. I’m guessing something similar has happened with Sheilynn?”
“That is a totally unfounded and unwarranted assumption,” said Rome, “which happens to be true, but I’m not giving you any points for it. How’s Roger?”
“Doing all right. Teaching at George Mason. Still not trying for tenure, though. I have the suspicion he really wants to get back in the field.”
“The field meaning…”
“Antarctica. Or Greenland. Or someplace up in the mountains where there are still glaciers, if he can find any. I’ve told him—no risking your life until Thel is in college.” What she had actually meant, as both of them knew very well, was no risking your life until I’m out of the White House. And not even then, really. Carrie’s own father had been an explorer—of rich food, booze, and cigars—and she’d lost him to an aneurysm before he was sixty. There was no need for her daughter to go through that.
“And Mike’s on my case about the Norfolk Plan,” she said, changing the subject. “He bought up a lot of land on the coast cheap and now he’s worried he’ll have to sell it even cheaper. See, you’re not the only one with a brother who makes terrible life choices.”
“I take it you’re not letting that slow you down?”
Carrie shook her head. “What’s slowing me down is that I’ve got a bill with one version of the Plan in front of the House, and another one in front of the Senate… and the Senate one is being held up while the House one keeps getting changed.”
“Changed how?”
“They’re moving the seawalls.” Carrie shook her head. In retrospect, she should have taken it as a warning when the bill was called the SUSTAIN Act, or Safeguarding United States Territory And Improving Navigation, a highly strained acronym that could have meant anything.
“It started out as little things,” she said. “Somebody with a lot of clout wanted a specific house or their end of a street protected, so they called their congressman and made it happen. Then they had to make more changes, and more changes, and at this point it’s turned into exactly the sort of giant-seawalls-on-the-beach project that we already determined wouldn’t work. And now people are adding on all kinds of projects that have nothing to do with it. One of the worst is Radcliffe from Norfolk—I really thought he’d come around. Sometimes it seems like the only one besides me who wants to see the real Plan pass is Congressman Darling.”
“Darling, huh? I’ve heard a lot about him.”
“Anything interesting?”
“He might be having a tough re-election fight. District got hit hard by the Monsoon. A lot of his constituents are still in camps, and the ones who stayed behind got their own problems. More than he can help them with.” Rome paused. “He doesn’t play golf.”
“Come again?”
“He doesn’t… play… golf.” Rome glanced around for a moment, then sighed. “There’s never a horror movie soundtrack around when you need one. Trust me, if you were in Congress, and especially if you were a man, you’d have crapped your trousers hearing that. A man who is physically capable of golfing and chooses not to do so. That’s like… it’s like a young dude saying no to sex. Even if it’s the right call, you gotta wonder why he’s making it.”
“Do you golf?”
“Only socially.”
“Heard anything interesting on the golf course?”
Rome paused for a moment.
“A lot of Democrats aren’t sure you’re serious,” he said.
“Serious about what?”
“About passing the Plan this year. Or at all.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“For one thing, we all know you want to be president, and you want it two years from now, not six. And whatever you think of Pratt’s domestic policy, or lack thereof, he’s still the guy who kicked North Korea’s ass. Your main selling point, as a candidate, is the Norfolk Plan. So if that plan passes in anything close to its original form and the president signs it…” Rome let his voice trail off, which was not something he normally did.
“Then what am I needed for?”
“Well, I didn’t want to say it, but yeah.” Rome, possibly for the first time since elementary school, looked sheepish. “Don’t get me wrong. Out of all the politicians in this country, I don’t know anyone I’d rather see in the Oval Office than you. Not even Morgan. Don’t tell her I said that.”
* * *
Lobbying mostly wasn’t done in lobbies. For that you went to a congressperson’s office in one of the buildings near the Capitol. Depending on your status, you might get to talk with the senator or representative, or you might just get an audience with the legislative correspondent.
Tom Lazebnick represented New York’s First District, the eastern half of Long Island, a district Pratt had carried pretty handily in the last election. He was in his mid-thirties, with a slight widow’s peak and a cynical smile.
“I’ll level with you,” he said. “My constituents don’t have any particular need of the Plan. They’re building their own seawalls.” Left unspoken was that any of his constituents who didn’t live in the Hamptons and couldn’t pay for their own seawalls weren’t really his constituents. “Morgan lets them do it, as long as they don’t interfere with the Plan elsewhere.”
“Morgan lets them,” said Carrie.
“Yes,” said Lazebnick. “She lets
them. You heard what happened to Group 77’s lawyers? Or the ones fighting the offshore wind farms? Officially, of course, it’s just a gang of hackers and they have nothing to do with her, but… Look, to get back on track, my constituents are already paying to save the state. They’d rather not have to pay to save the country. Especially the way this bill is growing.”
“That’s sort of why I came to you,” said Carrie. “Your constituents don’t have a lot of needs, beyond the basic need for a functioning society and guaranteed future. I was hoping you’d help steer the SUSTAIN Act back toward something closer to what it’s supposed to be. Like the Senate version.”
“I could try to do that,” said Lazebnick in don’t-get-your-hopes-up tones. “Truth is, though, the minute they opened the door to changing the Plan, everybody sort of went crazy. Why protect one extra street when you can protect two? If you’re going to save a whole town, why not this area just outside of town?
“As for the Senate version, if you want to know who’s holding that up besides the usual suspects, it’s Ramos. He’s convinced we can protect every last inch of soil if we just put our backs into it. He introduced a bill to outlaw bluelining last year.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“You wouldn’t have. Bank lobbyists shut it down pretty fast. That was one of the few times Morgan ever told me how to vote on something.”
Carrie nodded. Note to self—get Morgan on my side.
* * *
On her way back from the meeting, Carrie found a spot to park herself out of the way of everyone else and pulled out her phone. There was a hearing in town that she wanted to catch at least some of.
It was already going on. Agriculture Secretary Kyria Hammond was testifying in front of the House Committee on Agriculture. She’d spent the spring doing the same thing for agricultural policy that Carrie had tried to do for sea level rise.