After America

by John Birmingham

  It was the loudest noise in the city.

  Kip shook his head and turned back.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep going.”

  At the corner of the JP Morgan Building they encountered the weather-worn façade of the New York Stock Exchange. A large soiled and tattered American flag hung loosely from the Roman columns of the neoclassical structure, held in place by creeping vines as much as by nylon ropes. Kipper had never been to Wall Street, or New York City for that matter, and photographs of the Street always made it appear larger than life. Now, here, in the presence of what had been the most powerful engine of capitalism on the planet, it felt small and almost claustrophobic.

  Down at the end of the street he could see a church of some sort, dwarfed by the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan. Kipper wasn’t a religious man, but the sight of the steeple deepened his melancholy, driving it toward the deeper blue depths. More than a few nut jobs had proclaimed their own end of days interpretations of the Wave. For his part, he still believed that there had to be a rational explanation.

  But what that explanation was, nobody knew.

  He indulged himself in a melancholy sigh.

  The party was small for a presidential caravan: just Kipper, Jed Culver—Karen Milliner, and half a dozen security men in dark coveralls and heavy combat rigs. There was no getting rid of them. An army of looters was currently denuding the eastern seaboard of everything from sports cars and heavy equipment to computer game systems and jewelry. Kip often found himself contemplating the lot of Native Americans when whitey turned up. An entire continent was ripe for the taking, and nobody seemed to care that a small number of locals already had a claim on the place.

  The irony, or tragedy he supposed, was that most of the Native American population had been wiped out by the Wave. He wasn’t sure how many remained. Next year’s census would, he hoped, shed some light on that. There simply hadn’t been time to organize a full survey of the population since the Wave. There was too much to do just keeping their heads above water. For one thing, the East Coast was overrun with raiders and pirates. Many were part of big criminal syndicates out of Europe and South America, some of them operating with tacit state backing—where states still existed to give that backing—and the balance was a swarm of smaller private operators mostly based in the Caribbean but sometimes hailing from as far away as Africa and Eastern Europe. From the briefings he’d had back home in Seattle, he knew you really didn’t want to tangle with those guys. Half of them were whacked off their heads on weird-ass cocktails of jungle drugs. They came for the luxury cars and high-end goods. They came for the salvage potential of so much copper, iron, and steel. They came for the jewels, gold, and art, leaving MOMA and a dozen other museums stripped bare, their treasures scattered to the four winds.

  And some came specifically to kill any American they could get in their sights.

  According to Jed, on any given day there could be up to eight or nine thousand freebooters in New York, and unlike the army or the militia, they were not hemmed in by rules and law. “You ever work here, Jed?” Kip asked.

  “On the Street, you mean, Mister President? No. I did a stint in New York about eight years back. Worked in-house with Arthur Andersen. But never on the Street, no.”

  The president craned his head upward, looking for the Marine Corps sniper teams that had slotted themselves into the buildings above his intended route. He couldn’t see them and had to suppress a shiver. There was just something wrong about this place. Vegetation had come back much more quickly than anyone had imagined, probably helped by the flooding and storms of the last few years, and the entire city reminded him of a weed-choked cemetery—a cemetery that was also a battleground.

  It had taken one of the U.S. Army’s remaining brigade combat teams, augmented by militia units, to clear just the southern end of the island for his visit. And even that clearance was less than perfect, leaving porous gaps through which everyone and anyone could slip. It took an additional force of marines, special forces, and private contractors to secure a solid wedge from the World Trade Center down to Battery Park and across to the ferry terminal for his visit—and once secured, a battalion of Governor Schimmel’s Manhattan Militia irregulars threw up a cordon none could pass without lethal consequences.

  Karen Milliner stepped up to his elbow and spoke quietly.

  “The media are on site, Mister President. We’d best a get a move on.”

  He wasn’t sure why she felt the need to keep her voice down. He had specifically said he wanted to make this part of his inspection alone, just himself and his chief of staff. Karen came along simply because of the media events that bracketed his stroll through the dead city.

  Kip turned away from the NYSE only to pause and stare at the grand Doric columns of Federal Hall. Washington’s statue still stood on a plinth in front of the building, which had gotten through the last few years in much better shape than some of the larger, more modern buildings around it. A cleanup crew had swept away any debris and vegetation from the stone staircase, and the first president’s statue gleamed as though freshly scrubbed.

  “Just gimme a minute,” he said.

  Kipper crossed the street, prompting his security cordon to follow him, with Culver huffing and puffing to keep up. At the steps of the building he gazed into the upturned eyes of George Washington before reading the inscription at the base of the statue.

  ON THIS SITE IN FEDERAL HALL

  APRIL 30, 1789

  GEORGE WASHINGTON

  TOOK THE OATH AS THE FIRST PRESIDENT

  OF THE UNITED STATES

  OF AMERICA

  “Mister President?” Culver tugged at his arm.

  Kipper frowned at his chief of staff. He’d labored manfully to get Culver to call him Kip or even Jimmy—ordered him to more than once, in fact—but the former attorney insisted on the formalities. Kip suspected he enjoyed them. Jed’s considerable bulk was constrained in a dark blue three-piece suit, which must have been a terrible inconvenience; the president wore jeans, tan Carhartt work boots, and a ballistic vest over an old L.L. Bean shirt. Even that modest outfit was uncomfortable in the heat and humidity. The damn weather, it was still all over the goddamn place.

  “Just one more minute, Jed.”

  Looking at the statue, Kipper wondered what truly had gone through Washington’s mind on that day. He was the leader of a newborn nation on the brink of a vast wilderness surrounded by both real and potential enemies. He had given up command of the army against the advice of many officers who’d argued against the move. Faith in the system he was helping to establish—that was the lesson Kipper took from Washington.

  Reading presidential biographies was a self-imposed requirement for a job he felt poorly qualified to do, yet they never truly got to the heart of the men who were his predecessors. Of them all, Kipper really identified only with Truman, who felt as if the barn had fallen in on him when Roosevelt died.

  At least he knew it was coming, Kipper thought ruefully. He marveled at the path he had traveled: from being an anonymous city engineer in Seattle to provisional president and ultimately elected to a full four-year term as president of the much reduced United States in January 2004, not long before the Wave finally lifted. A hell of a trip.

  “Okay, I’ve probably seen enough,” he conceded. “Just thought it was important, you know, to have a look for myself.”

  “That’s why people like you, sir.” Culver smiled. “You like to get your hands dirty. Come on, shall we get back to the convoy? This place gives me the creeps.”

  They retraced their steps along Wall Street, carefully picking their way around the occasional pile of rags that had not been blown or washed away. There weren’t many left after so long. Jed and Kip both swerved to avoid a rusted three-wheeled baby stroller that had tipped on its side. They studiously avoided looking too closely at its contents. At one point a shaft of light between two burned-out buildings illuminated a small galaxy of twinkling s
tars on the footpath. Some of the smaller, more desperate freebooters did nothing but sweep the streets clear of rings, watches, bracelets, and other smaller bejeweled trinkets left behind when their owners died. There was a mountain of such stuff still lying around. As Kip sidestepped an pricey-looking silver watch, the thud of faraway gunfire reached them. His detail chief spoke briefly into a radio, but even Kip knew the small battle was too far off to concern them.

  The convoy was waiting back at the intersection with William Street, four black Secret Service Humvees and three Strykers bristling with machine guns and grenade launchers. More security men hurried toward his walking party as they approached.

  “Trouble?” Jed asked.

  “Nothing we can’t handle, sir,” replied the agent in charge. “Just a little flare-up over on Canal. It won’t bother us, but we should get moving anyway.”

  Kipper distinctly heard the crump of multiple explosions somewhere far off in the city. The muffled thrum of helicopters grew louder but faded away before he could see them. At least they’re ours, he thought. You couldn’t always be sure these days. The detail hurried him over to his vehicle and almost pushed him inside. Jed climbed right in after him, followed by Karen Milliner. The young woman’s expensive-looking black silk slacks were covered in dust and grime. She pulled herself into the cabin and seated herself directly in front of Kipper.

  “Sorry, sir, but I’ve just been talking to the Service, and I’m afraid I probably have to advise against going on with this. There’s been three big-ass firefights across the island this morning and more over in Brooklyn. A real humdinger near JFK with air force security forces.”

  Kip enjoyed Karen’s totally ingenuous use of words like “humdinger.”

  “Karen, there are gunfights all over this city every day and night,” he said. “Mostly freebooters and pirates fighting among themselves. There’s never going to be a time when you get the nice quiet background vision you want. Just roll with it.”

  Doors slammed up and down the convoy, and the engine turned over in their vehicle, a heavily armored SUV.

  “And while we’re on the topic, sir, respectfully and all, you really should have let me assign a camera crew to at least shoot some pool vision of your little walk around back there. I mean, what is the point of all that meetin’ and greetin’ if we don’t get any good coverage out of it?”

  Kip smiled and shrugged as the vehicle lurched forward. “The point? To meet and greet folks?”

  Karen opened her mouth to protest, but Jed cut her off.

  “Give it, up, darlin’. You’ll never win. I’ve been trying to get him to dress like a grown-up ever since I took this job, and he still looks like he’s about to go and boss a crew of ditchdiggers somewhere.”

  Kipper waved his hands back in the general direction of the salvage workers they had just met.

  “Well, mostly that’s what I do, Jed. This job is not what it used to be. Matter of fact, it’s not far removed from my old job for the city, and I’m just fine with that. The country doesn’t need a commander in chief nearly as much as it needs a chief engineer, if you ask me. Just look at the work that needs doing in this city if it’s gonna be our main eastern settlement again.”

  Jed gazed morosely out the windows as the convoy slowly rumbled down Broad Street. The fire-blackened shell of Goldman Sachs loomed just ahead.

  “But Mister President, we cannot do that work without securing the ground first. Those people we just met back there—they could not be doing what they’re doing unless that part of the city had been cleared of raiders and pirates. And now that we have cleared them, that is, killed them all and cordoned off that part of Manhattan, we’ll need to hold the area, which will mean sustaining militia forces and at least a brigade of regulars, and securing JFK, the bridges and roads between here and—”

  Kipper held up his hands to cut Jed off.

  “I know all that, Jed. You don’t have to remind me. Some days I feel like I’m living in some weird-ass History Channel show and we’re trying to settle, or resettle, the Wild East. I got hostile powers to three points of the compass, a weakened military, massive debt, feuding state and federal governments, and an economy that pretty much ceased to exist four years ago. None of this is news to me, buddy. But when I agreed to do this job, I agreed on one condition: that it was to be about rebuilding. And yes, I know that retaking ground and fighting off all comers is part of that. But it’s not the main game. Not for me. Restoration, reconstruction, and renewal are my three R’s. Otherwise I just walk away.”

  He shook his head and folded his arms to emphasize the point. Nobody would ever doubt that James Kipper meant what he said. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to run in the next election, and he had been entirely open about that, a level of honesty that drove his handlers to distraction most days.

  Culver threw up his hands in mock surrender. “You’re the boss.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Kip. “It says so on all my underwear.”

  2

  Texas, the Federal Mandate

  An icy morning crust crunched and melted beneath Miguel Pieraro’s boots as he knelt down to grab a fistful of cold, damp soil. He sniffed the richness of the East Texas earth, worked the black gritty loam between his fingers, and marveled at the sea of emerald that spread before him under a heavy gray sky. His horse, Flossie, tied to a fence post, dipped her head and pulled at the grass, tearing great clods and mouthfuls of feed from the ground with a hard, ripping sound while his oldest daughter patted and stroked the chestnut mare’s twitching flanks. A warning rose in his throat, but he stifled it. Sofia was still a teen, a young teen, but she had an easy confidence around horses born of a lifetime’s experience.

  Miguel turned back to surveying his domain. One thousand acres of land. Government land for the moment, but it would be his in a few years. As would the livestock and all the capital, the homestead, the barns and equipment, everything. And something else, too, something even more precious. Citizenship. Belonging. For now, however, he and his family worked for Presidente Kipper, and he was a happy man for the chance to do so. As he watched, a dozen Bedak Whitetails wandered over the next ridgeline, big four-legged beef factories imported from Australia. Heads down, tails swishing, they methodically mowed through the dense carpet of feed at their hooves. Here and there the grass cover was thicker and appreciably more lush. Miguel had learned early on that such dense clumps of verdant growth often signaled the final resting place of a previous occupant of the ranch, usually a longhorn, but not always. Although many animals had survived the initial appearance of the Wave, many more had perished during the ecological collapse afterward.

  “Sofia,” he called out. “It is time to saddle up and check the back ninety.”

  He spoke in English to his daughter, as he insisted on speaking to all of his clan these days. English was the language of their new home, and they would settle in here with much greater ease if they all spoke it well. He did not ban Spanish or Portuguese, the two crib languages of the Pieraro household, but he did not encourage them, either. In Miguel’s mind, his family members, all of his extended family, were not simply farmers. They were settlers, making a new history for this country, and he wanted his children especially to be able to play as full a part in that new story as possible. They, too, would probably work this ranch, but their children might one day go to one of the universities in the Northwest or even, God willing, in the East, once the bandits and criminals were driven away and the cities were reclaimed for respectable people.

  His daughter led both horses over: his own and her smaller gray pony.

  “Dad, is it lunchtime yet?” she asked with just a slight trace of an Australian accent, a legacy of eighteen months in the refugee camp outside Sydney that had given all his children a flat, nasal way of speaking that sounded harsh and alien to his ears. He did not bother to correct them, however, certain that within a few short years they would have adapted to the local Texan drawl. Of course that was just as fo
reign to Miguel, but at least it was familiar.

  Not that he had anything against Australia. Life had not been so bad there, he had to admit. Certainly not as hazardous as it had been on Miss Julianne’s boat. His family had shelter and food, and the children were schooled properly while the adults worked six days a week on government projects. Agricultural work mostly but also some rail construction for the army in the last couple of months. But as the world had slowly, painfully returned to … well, not to normal … as the world had settled, say, after the madness of the Disappearance, Miguel and his wife had finally begun to look beyond the end of each day, to think about the future as something more than a food handout and a cot in a refugee camp.

  “Papa? Lunch?”

  “Lunchtime will come and go without us noticing on this trip, biggest sister,” he quipped, but the classical reference was lost on her. Sofia probably had no idea who John Wayne was. For Miguel, he was still the vaquero’s vaquero.

  She pulled a face at him and produced an apple from her saddlebag, crunching into it, then dramatically rolling her eyes as the pony implored her to share the good times. Miguel unhitched his mount and swung up into the saddle, taking a moment to enjoy the view across his land. Or what would be his land. There was a powerful difference, he had to admit, between laboring for a bossman and pouring your sweat into soil that you could call your own. Acres of greensward swayed in a gentle breeze, rippling downslope to fields of genetically modified spinach and silverbeet and durum wheat in the back ninety, the new strains growing at a greatly accelerated rate and for longer each year, increasing the yield of his holdings at least threefold. They could handle the harsh cold and heat of Texas far better than the pre-Wave crops could. And if there were any problems with them, Miguel had not noticed yet.