Atlas Drugged

by Stephen L. Goldstein

  “I think my left hand is broken,” she answers. “I don’t have any strength in it. And the airbag burned my face when it popped. Otherwise, I think I’m okay.”

  “Stay still, and don’t try to move,” the redhead instructs her.

  “I haven’t been able to. I’ve just been lying here waiting for someone to find me, I don’t know for how long. What took you so long? Has it been long? How long has it been?”

  “Save your energy, Ms. Hinton,” the redhead says. “We’ll get you out of here in just a few minutes. Officer Wales, who came with us, is coordinating everything with Chief Porter. But, for your own safety, we can’t move you until the police rescue helicopter gets here. It’s on its way.”

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 10 A.M.: BAXTER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, WASHINGTON, D.C. Smiling for the first time in almost four days, a jubilant Randall Griffin emerges from the left side of the hospital auditorium and makes his way to the podium. “Thank you all for being here,” he says to the overflow crowd of media in the hospital auditorium. “And thank you for sticking with us since Tuesday. I know that many of you spent cold nights in vans parked outside our campaign headquarters, waiting for breaking news. As you all learned yesterday, as soon as we could confirm it, Cary Hinton is alive and—I am thrilled to report—well.

  “Except for some facial burns from the airbag, a broken arm and sprained wrist, her doctors say she’s in great shape. She was a little dehydrated and very hungry, as you can imagine. She always carries a water bottle with her. So that really came in handy! She’s had a thing or two to say to those of us who kid her about needing to have her bottle. In fact, in a couple of minutes, she’ll be joining us. The doctors want her to stay in the hospital and rest for another day. But they’ve done every test imaginable, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. Her arm is in a cast and the sprain is bandaged. Otherwise, she’s back to her old self. And speaking of the devil who gave us the scare of our lives, here’s Cary, now.”

  As a smiling Hinton walks confidently to the podium from behind the stage, the entire audience stands and applauds.

  “How sweet it is to be here—and see all of you!” she proclaims, shaking the sling on her left hand and raising her right hand over her head in a triumphal fist. “Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please sit. I don’t know where to begin, except to say that I’m sorry I caused everybody so much trouble. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to drive home after the debate, not cause an international incident. And I still want to go home! I’m really a good driver.

  “Of course, all of you want to know what actually happened to me. So, let me tell you the little that I can remember. Monday evening, at about 10:30, I left the Convention Center after the debate in one of the two cars the campaign rented. I was alone. The rest of our team stayed behind to tie up some loose ends—like talking to the press, some of you, in fact. You all know how that goes,” she adds, rolling her eyes and laughing. “I had no idea that it had already started snowing heavily, but I didn’t think anything of it when I drove out of the garage. I’ve driven in blizzards, and I didn’t have very far to go.

  “I started out on 14th Street, crossed into Virginia, got onto the George Washington Parkway, exited onto North Washington Street, turned left onto Cameron, and then I thought I saw the right turn Randall always takes, a shortcut through a new residential development. It winds up just a couple of blocks from our motel. But, by then, it was snowing very hard and the road was slippery. I suddenly lost control of the car. The next thing I knew, I guessed that it was morning because there was light coming through the snow covering the windows. But it could have been afternoon. I had no idea what time it was, though. I never wear a watch and I couldn’t start the car to check the clock. The air bag was in my face.

  “I had absolutely no idea where I was. I couldn’t see out because the windows were covered with snow. The car was on an angle. I was still in my seat belt, which I undid, of course. The only pain I felt was when I tried to move my left arm or hand. I had no feeling in my left wrist. I counted the time by the light and dark coming through the snow on the windows. After what I guessed were two days, it began to melt, so I could see out. But that didn’t do me much good, because all I saw were trees. I always have a bottle of water with me—everybody laughs at me for it—but that was all the nourishment I had for (what I’ve been told was) almost two-and-a-half days. Those sips never tasted so good. Lucky for me, I had two bottles with me and I know how to pace myself. That’s where I was until I was rescued yesterday. And it’s all I know about what happened. I’ll be happy to answer a few questions.”

  “Welcome back, Cary,” a smiling young woman reporter says. “It’s great to see you doing so well! Please comment on the charge by the Moreland Administration that you and your campaign staged your disappearance to get publicity and voter sympathy.”

  “Take a look at me. Do I look like something staged? All I can say is, poor Bill. That tells you everything you need to know about Moreland and how unfit he is to be president. It’s just another outrageous, illogical, bizarre statement to come out of the White House. It’s what I expected from Ham Cooper, but hoped Moreland wouldn’t stoop to. His campaign is doomed—and he knows it. So, he’ll say anything and everything to smear me. I won the debate Monday night. Why would I intentionally go into hiding?”

  “Do you feel that foul play might have been involved in your accident?” a second reporter asks. “Were you being followed? Did you feel any force being applied to push your car off the road, say from another vehicle?”

  “I’m sorry, but I really can’t say. It all happened so fast. I think they call it hydroplaning. I felt as though my car suddenly picked itself up, slid off the ground and barreled ahead. I felt as though something was pushing me from behind, but I can’t say for sure. It all happened so fast,I didn’t have time to look in the rear view mirror.”

  Griffin steps forward: “Sorry to interrupt, Cary, but I’ve just had a text message from Alexandria Police Chief Porter. Since the police towed the car Cary was driving to their forensics lab, they’ve been going over it looking for clues. At the moment, they can’t rule anything out— or in—as a cause of the accident. But they are assessing what appears to be damage to the back bumper to determine if any force that could have caused hydroplaning might have been applied there. We’ve got time for one more question. As you can see, Cary’s doing great. But the doctors want her to rest today.”

  “What’s next, Cary?” an older, gray haired man calls out.

  “Starting bright and early tomorrow, we hit the campaign trail. There’s nothing holding us back! We’re gonna win this election. We’re gonna take this country back. But expect the Moreland camp to get downright dirty until Election Day. As the expression goes, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’ But let me assure you, we’re ready for them.”

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 10:30 P.M.: ELECTION DAY. By all accounts, war broke out in the days after the rescue of Cary Hinton, as almost every political pundit predicted. Two hours after she was found, Moreland addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Desperate because of his declining poll numbers after their debate, he denied that he or anyone in his campaign had anything to do with Hinton’s disappearance and accused her “peeple” (as he called them) of “malicious, unfounded, mealymouthed” slander and keeping that rumor alive. “Why didn’t she want security,” he said, “unless it was so she could get away with staging her own disappearance?” When asked if he seriously thought her plan would have included driving into a ditch and having her car buried in snow, breaking her arm, spraining her wrist, and lying helplessly in a cold car for days, he answered that Hinton was a “snake,” and he wouldn’t put anything past her.

  Meanwhile, day after day, reports of dirty tricks from the Moreland campaign—all of them denied—grabbed the headlines. Routinely, likely Hinton voters who requested absentee ballots were sent return envelopes that went to bogus addresses—and were promptly th
rown in the trash. Voters were warned not to vote online because there were reports that systems had been hacked so all Hinton votes were switched to Moreland or automatically canceled, without voters’ being sent an error message. There were death threats against Hinton organizers and Hinton herself.

  Moreland volunteers passing themselves off as members of nonpartisan get-out-the-vote organizations canvassed neighborhoods. They identified likely Hinton voters and signed them up for rides to the polls, but no one ever showed up on Election Day. Phones to polling places and election offices were jammed, so people having ballot problems or difficulty proving they were eligible to vote were never able to get their issues resolved.

  In a relentless barrage of negative TV ads, Moreland threw the book at Hinton. Each one opened with blaring trumpets, a picture of John Galt with a dollar sign superimposed on it, and a stentorian voice declaring, “Keep John Galt Alive. Don’t let the Hinton hoax destroy Free-for-All economics!” After that, each one heaped a different set of smears on her. One alleged that she was born a man, Conrad Heppenstahl, in East Germany, but underwent a sex change operation ten years ago, and so, being foreign-born, is disqualified from being president. As Heppenstahl, a committed communist and socialist for most of his/her life, Hinton was said to have made routine visits to Cuba to plan deals with powerful comrades before infiltrating the CSA as the woman he/she is today. The ad also alleges that Heppenstahl/Hinton’s parents were Nazis, an obvious explanation for Moreland’s claim that Hinton is antiSemitic and antiIsrael.

  Other ads picture Hinton in black face, lip-syncing Al Jolson singing “Mammy,” and accusing her of making assorted, subliminal, “coded,” racist remarks. Yet another says she will propose legislation to limit families to no more than two children and require forced abortions, vasectomies, tubal ligations, and sterilizations to achieve population goals determined by the state. Yet another accuses Hinton of wanting Spanish and Chinese declared the official language of the country, so, in the words of the voiceover, “all them furners can take over the CSofA.”

  Hinton runs a single ad. As the music of “This Land Is Your Land” plays in the background, she stands in front of a panorama that dissolves into pictures of Americans of both sexes, differing ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds, which alternate with scenes from across the country—from the Statue of Liberty to the skyline of Chicago, the Mississippi River, midWest wheat fields, the bayous of Louisiana, the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She simply says, “I am Cary Hinton. I am running for president of this great country. I pledge to be president of all of you and for all of you. Please vote for me on Tuesday, November 8th. Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

  On the ground, for weeks, the Prometheus Project launched a nationwide mobilization of the residents of Coopervilles. Volunteers fanned out to register voters. Today, at 4 a.m. local time across the country, tens of thousands of men and women poured out of the camps and scoured neighborhoods urging people to vote and helping them get to the polls. A special contingency trained in the martial arts surrounded polling places to keep voters from being intimidated by thugs hired by the Moreland campaign. Others saw to it that voters whose registrations were frivolously challenged were able to vote.

  Minutes ago, at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with the polls already closed for thirty minutes or more on the West Coast, all TV networks called the election for Cary Hinton by a margin of twenty-five percent, one of the biggest landslides in history. At the Washington Convention Center, where Hinton supporters are gathered, Randall Griffin walks to the podium and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, President-elect Cary Hinton.”

  To thunderous applause, she emerges from stage left and walks to the podium.

  “Thank you, all of you,” she says, putting both hands to her lips and blowing kisses to the audience. “As of this moment, President Moreland refuses to concede…” She is interrupted by boos. “No, no, even if he never man-ups, his fire has gone out. Together, we have accomplished what looked to many like the impossible. We have sent a message around this great nation and throughout the world that a government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ will never die, as long as there is a spark of life in even one person that can light the fire of freedom in others. It is now up to all of us to preserve, protect, and defend our hard-won victory. It will not be easy. We shall face resistance from those who may continue to see us as their opponents. But I want everyone to know that I pledge to work for a strong, just, and prosperous nation—for all. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Thank you, and good night!”

  TWELVE

  Reclaim, Rename, Proclaim

  SATURDAY, JUNE 2.: NEW PROMETHEUS (FORMERLY NEW ATLANTIS), WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK. In the post-election euphoria, just for the fun of it, some people call themselves Hintians or Caryites. Others prefer Prometheans. But they really treat it like an inside joke. Publicly, they proudly proclaim themselves only Americans, pure and simple. At her inauguration in January, Cary Hinton said, “Test my sincerity. We need to light the fire of unity and carry the torch of bipartisanship throughout the land. I will work with anyone who will work with me. We must restore balance in the country. In our light, others will see the light. We hold the flame, pass the fire, so others will thrive and be inspired. Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

  On this, the first Saturday of June, seven months after Moreland and his crew and sixty-seven years of Free-for-All economics went down to defeat, Hinton supporters in droves are making a pilgrimage to the dedication of New Prometheus, the former New Atlantis. The sky is a blue-blue, dotted with cotton-ball clouds; the air crisp and refreshing, odd for late spring; there is a gentle breeze. A line of motley vehicles is backed up for at least three miles on the highway south of the main entrance. Spilling from the sidewalk onto the road, three abreast, throngs are arriving on foot. The first car waiting to turn in is a late model van with a Kansas license plate. Behind it is a motor home with “Cooperville Express” painted on its side. Next is a bright yellow school bus. Above the entrance, over the massive iron gates, are the words “Of the people, by the people, for the people.”

  Hinton immediately went for the jugular when she set out to create New Prometheus. “The people need a visual symbol that times have really changed,” she told her advisers. So, she made it a top priority to reclaim and rename the disgraced, bankrupt New Atlantis in the image of the United People of America and turn it into a legitimate think-tank for the honest, wholesome exchange of ideas. “If anyone wants to debate the plusses and minuses of Free-for-All economics, socialism, capitalism, the barter system, whatever, they may do so freely, openly, and without prejudice or recrimination at New Prometheus,” she insisted.

  Hinton had all the money and support she needed for the development of New Prometheus from the Countess Isabella de Horsch, her biggest campaign contributor, who’s back to being Idabelle Sue Raft—and loving it. The now-disgraced Count Henry thought he rid himself of her for good when he threw her out of his limousine, penniless (he thought), on Fifth Avenue, like a used Kleenex. But she’s rolling in dough (his!) and has the last laugh. The “airhead,” who he thought didn’t know how to add, had siphoned millions from his accounts without his suspecting a thing and made copies of incriminating business records that “mysteriously” found their way to the media and the IRS. “Every woman better know how to sock her own secret stash away, any way she can, or she’s a damn fool,” she told her friend LuAnn Buford. “Men are not to be trusted—at least not the men I’ve known.” She contacted Cary Hinton through her campaign and became one of her closest and most valued advisors.

  As visitors make their way into New Prometheus up “Main Street” (formerly Taggart Drive), strategically placed monuments remind everyone of why and how the Galtian Restoration died. At the first turn on the left, stretched proudly across two giant oaks, is the first “John Galt Is Dead” banner that flew over New Atlantis a year ago. At the next right is the “Taj Mahal” from the Manhattan Cooper
ville, which Billy Buford built for the love of his life, LuAnn. The one-room shack was transported and reassembled, piece by piece—corrugated tin roof, the door that Billy insisted on painting red for good luck, the Chinese wind chime—as though it were a Michelangelo sculpture. Even the cowbell was refastened next to the front door. Next to the Taj is a black marble gravestone engraved in gold with the words “R.I.P. Billy Buford.” Idabelle posted a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Billy’s murderer, but to date no one has come forward or been found.

  At the next left, sits a ten foot tall, wire-mesh basket filled with empty bottles of Atlas Energy Drink and a smashed Titan WholeBody Harmony Machine. Strewn around them are fifty naked manikins in various exercise postures and nameless grave-markers. At the next turn is the bronze statue of the frail, innocent, young victim Adam, helplessly lying on the ground, a horse poised above him, on the verge of trampling him to death. Behind “Do Not Cross—US” tape is an unbroken picket line made up of fifty life-size sculptures—men, women, and children holding hands—that stretches about 120 feet along the road. At the end of the line, at the crest of the road, is a mob of fifty people huddled together around a flagpole, at the top of which is a flag with the words The United People of America.

  Below, a vast, open expanse of manicured lawn stretches in a gentle decline to the walls of the People’s Pavilion (formerly d’Anconia Pavilion). The octagon-shaped, flying-saucer-like building continues to dominate the landscape. In the island in front of it, a flame burns from a massive torch, in front of which, on a marble slab are the words “Fire: The Gift of Prometheus.” The massive, gold dollar sign that used to dominate the gleaming, copper roof has been replaced by a sculpted metal flame emerging from a torch, an exact replica of the live flame below.