by Ramez Naam
He looked to the side, and there in the front row was Cindy. She was smiling at him, her eyes full of love. She was smiling and crying, crying just as hard as she had the first time he was inaugurated. And next to her was Julie, his gorgeous daughter, his grandson Liam on her lap, her husband at her side.
Julie grinned widely at him, flashed him a covert thumbs up.
And then Stockton smiled, and knew everything was going to be OK.
Aaron Klein spoke.
“Mr President, please repeat after me.”
John Stockton looked the Chief Justice in the eye, and repeated the words of the Presidential Oath of Office, written into the Constitution two and a half centuries ago.
“I, John Harrison Stockton,” he said. “Do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.”
Stockton took a breath, and repeated the next line. “…And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Aaron Klein stopped.
Stockton looked the Chief justice in the eye and added the words not in the oath, not in the Constitution. “So help me God.”
The Chief Justice smiled at him.
Applause rose from the crammed-in House Chamber.
Miles Jameson stared down from the gallery as John Stockton was sworn in.
I made this man, Jameson thought to himself. And now he betrays me.
Good luck, John, he thought bitterly.
Jameson reached into a pocket, and pulled out a tiny pill case. He held it in his lap, shielded from view by both hands, and opened it as quietly as he could.
His fingers felt for the right pill. There.
He looked down to be sure he had it.
Yes. The green one.
Jameson brought it to his mouth, swallowed it dry.
Good luck, Johnny boy.
“Missed,” the Nigerian said. “Got the wrong guy.”
“Damn it,” Breece cursed.
“Doesn’t matter,” the Nigerian said. “T-minus five minutes.”
Kate looked at the clock. 12.01pm. Four minutes.
On the wallscreen, John Stockton was talking, giving his post-Inauguration address.
She had to time this just right. But there were so many unknowns.
Kate typed another message out to this insider.
[ERD_SECRETS: China isn’t behind what’s about to happen inside the Capitol either.]
12.02pm.
SEND.
“DC rapid response team is en route, Dr Pryce,” the DHS response desk said over Pryce’s headset, plugged into the Pentagon terminal. “The lead looks strong, ma’am.”
“It could be a trap,” Pryce said. “Be careful.”
She looked up, was keenly aware of eyes on her, watching her here in the Pentagon Situation Room as she touched this issue well outside her nominal remit.
“We know, Dr,” the response desk replied. “They’re ready.”
“Keep me informed,” Pryce said. “I need to know right away when you get there if this is legit or not.”
“Yes, Dr.”
Her personal phone buzzed again, the three sharp buzz pattern. It was sitting atop the table. She looked at it and saw the message.
Pryce’s heart dropped.
She whirled. There, against a far wall of the Situation Room, her new Secret Service detail, the one she’d resisted for so long, were standing, waiting for her.
They saw her turn, saw her look at them, and she saw something coil up inside them.
“The Capitol!” she yelled across the room. “The President! Something’s about to happen!”
She saw fingers go to ear buds, lips start moving as they hit the radio to their command, the fastest way to reach the President’s detail.
Then she was turning, looking for the screen showing the Inauguration. There. There was John Stockton, at the bottom of the House Chamber, talking, passion on his face.
A bogus threat, Pryce thought. Just a bogus threat. Come on. Come on.
John Stockton took the podium to address the assembled audience.
To address America.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he started. “Abraham Lincoln said those words. They’re as true now as they were then.”
His eyes searched the crowd. Some Democrats had chosen not to be here today. He had to accept that. He had to reach out to the whole country, regardless.
“A nation divided is a weakened nation. In America, we’ve been divided. Our trust has been undermined, dividing us.”
He lingered on those members of the opposing party who had come, today, rather than boycott his inauguration. He met their eyes as he spoke.
“This isn’t an accident. We’ve been attacked. Our trust has been intentionally weakened. It’s been undermined by those who want to divide us and conquer us. That attack has been successful. And if we remain so divided as we are now,” Stockton shook his head. “We cannot stand.”
He turned his head again, scanning right to left, taking in everyone he could. “Let me say what all of us should be willing to say. I trust the intentions of every American, until and unless they prove differently. I trust that we all want a better life for ourselves, our neighbors, our children.”
He raised a hand, took in the crowd gathered here. “I trust that every member of Congress wants what’s best for this nation as a whole. We may differ on what best means. We may differ on how to get there.” He paused. “But I trust that you come to this place with the most sincere convictions, as I do.”
“In the first hundred days of my next administration, I’m going to do everything in my power to increase our mutual trust. I’m going to do everything in my power to explain to you, America, the roots of my convictions. I’m going to do that by being more transparent with you than ever before. We’ve faced grave threats over the last decade and more. Many of them Americans and the world don’t know about, or don’t know the full details of. We’re going to share those details.”
Stockton scanned again, looking, making eye contact with the men and women here, letting the cameras fend for themselves. “When you see those details, when you see that evidence, when you see the things we faced down, and beat, sometimes by the skin of our teeth, then I think you’ll reach many of the conclusions that I reached. You’ll share many of the convictions that I have. And you’ll see that the hard decisions that we’ve made, and that we have to continue to make, are made with the best of intentions for this nation, for our neighbors, for our loved ones…”
His eyes found Cindy in the front row.
“For our children.”
And there was Julie next to Cindy, beaming up at him.
“For our grandchildren,” he said, and Liam was looking up at him, standing up in Julie’s lap, his eyes wide open, his mouth hanging open.
Stockton smiled, and looked back up at the crowd.
“And for all the generations to come!”
He took a breath. Time to move on to jobs and taxes.
In a secure room beneath the warren of tunnels that connected the buildings of Capitol Hill, behind a door that proclaimed FIRE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT – AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY, a piece of code came alive.
Dozens of electronic sensors suddenly lit up with digital inputs of heat and smoke.
There was a fire.
It must be suppressed.
Fire suppression systems went live.
Electronically-controlled solenoids moved. Valves turned.
Banks of man-tall, high-pressure tanks released their contents into specially designed pipes. Electronic valve control routed the liquid, rapidly expanding into gas, to fire suppression nozzles at the location of the fire.
The United States Capitol Building, House Chamber.
Time to move on to jobs and taxes, John Stockton thought.
Then a storm hit. A hurricane blasted him in the face, full of stinging rain. There was a roaring in his ears, a
high pitched whistle somewhere above it. The air went cloudy, roiled by incredible turbulence. He’d closed his eyes reflexively, without even knowing it, flinching back from whatever was happening. Those eyes were burning now. There was a taste of metal in his mouth. More burning in his lungs.
Alarms were going off. Fire alarms.
“MR PRESIDENT!” Someone had his arm. Secret Service. “THIS WAY!”
“My family!” he yelled.
“WE’VE GOT THEM!”
“Dad!” It was Julie’s voice. He tried to open his eyes but he couldn’t see. He reached out and found his daughter, grabbed her hand. He heard crying. Liam’s cries.
“WE’VE GOT TO RUN!” the Secret Service man said.
Stockton held on to his daughter and ran.
“Incident at the Capitol! Fire detected!”
“Christ,” the Secretary of Defense said.
Pryce looked over at the screen, her heart pounding. She couldn’t see anything, just distortion, just clouds of moving air.
“That’s the fire suppression gas,” an analyst said from one of the scores of consoles, tension in her voice. “It should clear shortly.”
“Massive network event in China!” NSA yelled. “We have something off-the-scales going on. Origin Shanghai. Network requests saturating all the pipes in and out. Exabyte bombardment of our systems. NAES firewall is crumbling.”
“That’s it,” Secretary Stevens said. “This is a Chinese attack. Set DEFCON 2. Prepare to take out those missile launchers.”
“Wait!” Pryce said. “We don’t know that! That could have been PLF!” She held her phone up towards them.
“Gas is clearing, sirs,” a voice said.
Pryce looked at the screen, prepared to see fire, dead men and women, horror like that day in DC…
She saw a mob, alive, on their feet, pressing for the too few exits.
No fire.
No bodies.
What the hell?
She turned her phone back to her, and typed a message out frantically.
[What the hell was that?]
124
Ultimate Recourse
Monday 2041.01.20
Zhi Li screamed as the explosion hurled her through the air. Then she was down. Then she looked over and saw Yuguo.
She screamed again, louder.
“Lu Song!” she yelled. She reached out for his mind. “Lu Song!”
“Zhi!” he yelled.
Yuguo was screaming now, screaming with his lungs, with his mind.
“Help me, Lu Song!” Zhi yelled. “We have to get him inside!”
She pushed up to her feet, grabbed one arm. Lu Song was there, and he grabbed the other, and they started dragging, dragging Yuguo towards the Computer Science Building.
What was left of him.
Yuguo’s legs were gone below the knees.
Yuguo screamed, and she pulled faster. There were explosions up above, aircraft fighting aircraft. There were explosions down here. The sounds of machine gun fire. Of rockets or shells. She saw Confucian Fist moving, barely perceived blurs. She saw soldiers in armor – heavy looking, insectile armor – fighting back.
Not dying.
Aaah!
Then they were at the building.
They were inside. For all the good it did them.
“Yuguo!” someone screamed.
A girl ran up to them. Then other people were there, first aid kits, tourniquets. Someone brought a needle full of some fluid.
He was screaming, screaming. There was so much blood.
She stepped back, out of the way. “Dear gods.”
Lu Song put his arms around her. “They can save him,” he said. “They can save him.”
It sounded more like a prayer than a statement.
More gunfire sounded from outside.
Zhi heard more screams, someone out there crying, plaintively, asking for help.
She looked up at Lu Song. “We have to help.”
Lu stared down at her, fear plain in his eyes.
She put her arms around him, buried her head in his chest. “I’m so frightened, lover,” she said.
He wrapped his arms around her. “I know. I am too.”
She felt it. Felt his fear. Felt his courage. Felt his immense love for her.
She’d never felt so close to him as now. To have him in her mind. To be in his.
What a gift. The gift of love, in the middle of hell.
She wanted stay like this, in his arms, forever.
But she couldn’t.
Zhi pushed back, looked up at her lover. “We have to help.”
Lu nodded down at her. She felt his courage and his love for her overwhelm his fear.
Her heart was so full right now.
Zhi turned, headed to the door, the love of her life at her back, towards the sound of whoever was out there on the battlefield, injured, needing help.
Then she heard the sound of gunfire again, horribly close.
Something punched through her. Her body shuddered. She felt her midsection go cold, like ice. She gasped.
Then the pain hit her, pushing aside all else.
Lu watched as Zhi turned and walked for the door.
His heart was on fire. His feet were paralyzed by fear.
She took one step. Two. Three.
Walk, he commanded himself. Then he was moving, following this woman who amazed him, who was so much smarter, more courageous, more giving than he could possibly be.
Then she screamed at the doorway. Horror shot through his mind as he felt her agony. He saw blood blossom, saw bits of her expelled through the back of her blouse. She fell towards the cold tile of the floor and he was falling too, to catch her.
She was in his arms, bleeding, in agony, her chest, her belly, a mess of blood.
She coughed, and blood came up.
Her eyes were frantic, searching his.
She opened her mouth wider, tried to speak, coughed up more blood.
Her mind touched his, with pain, with fear, with love. So much love.
I’ve never loved you so much, she sent him. And she was weeping in her thoughts. She was crying. She was terrified, but so full of love, so full of passion, so determined. Finish this, lover. Please.
“You’re not going to die!” he yelled at her, tears falling from his face, horror coming out from his mind. “You’re not!”
He rose with her in his arm. He turned, back towards the people inside the building. They could help!
“HELP ME!” he yelled. “HELP ME!”
HELP ME!
Her blood soaked into his shirt, spilled onto the floor. People stumbled towards him, in shock. He saw phones held up, and hated them.
love you… Zhi sent.
He looked down at her. I love you! You’re not going to die! You’re not!
Lu Song looked up again, at the people all around. “HELP ME!” he yelled.
And then her mind was fading, jumbling, melting into confusion, confusion of pain, of love, of fear, of hope.
Lu Song…
Zhi! He cried, looking down at her.
Of nothing.
Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing.
Lu Song sobbed, shaking, holding her in his arms.
And then he fell to his knees, his lover’s body clenched to his chest, and wept as the sobs wracked him.
General Ouyang Fan, Minister of National Defense, walked back into the Standing Committee meeting room, his face grim.
They looked up at him.
“Our assault on Jiao Tong is stalling,” Ouyang said. “It may fail entirely. We’re being fought off by airpower from Dachang, in addition to the clones.” He watched as their faces paled, and kept on. “We’ve also confirmed that a facility storing one of the data cubes was attacked yesterday. Plundered. Su-Yong Shu may well be back, and she has control of one of our air bases.”
“Try harder.” Bo Jintao said. “Use every resource!”
“More units are mobilizing,�
� Ouyang said. “Time is the issue. She has taken control of an air base. Do you not see the seriousness of that? What if she can take control of more?”
“What do you propose?” President Bao Zhuang asked, his face ashen.
Ouyang took a deep breath.
I will go down in history as a monster or a savior, he realized.
“The ultimate recourse,” Ouyang said. “Nuclear attack.”
In Beijing, in Tiananmen square, Pan Luli falls to her knees, screaming. Her mind is in Shanghai, in horror.
Lu Song stands before her, covered in blood, shaking, his body wracked in sobs, tears flowing down his face.
Zhi Li in his arms.
Zhi Li is dead.
Zhi Li is dead!
“They’ve killed Zhi Li!” she yells. Around her there is shock, grief, hundreds of thousands of minds, screaming in horror at what they’ve done, huge numbers of them tuning in to the same few streams, some seeing the scene from the perspective of those watching Lu Song, some feeling Lu Song’s thoughts as they spill into the mind of mindstreamers near him.
Some replaying Zhi Li’s last few seconds over and over.
A giant angry scream goes up all around Pan Luli, the scream of half a million men and women who loved Zhi Li!
And then, more than a thousand kilometers away, Pan Luli sees through another woman’s eyes, hears through another woman’s ears, as Lu Song looks up to the sky, and screams himself, in rage that eclipses any he’s ever shown on the screen.
“BO JINTAO!” he roars, like an animal, like a creature in such pain it’s been driven mad. Veins bulge in his neck. His eyes are tinged in red.