Autumn (Four Seasons Book 1)

by Robert Sullivan

  Ed made a hasty retreat to the house behind Kevin and Russell. Both of the boys were struggling with the deepening snow drifts, so it took them some time to get inside the house.

  Once they were inside though, Anne turned to Georgia and Rebecca and said, “I’m getting cold. Why don’t we go inside and get warmed up now?”

  Rebecca nodded fervently, as the temperature had dropped another few degrees even in the short time they had been outside. The three girls trudged through the snow and made it to the house. They stood briefly in the entryway, letting the warmth of the building wash over them and warm their bodies from the bitter cold. Once they felt they had warmed sufficiently, they stripped off their soaked outer garments and went towards the kitchen in their regular clothes to find that Ed and Kathleen were making hot chocolate.

  “Would you girls like some hot chocolate as well?” Kathleen asked.

  “Yes, we would please,” Georgia said. “It’s really cold out there.”

  “It’s gotten down into the teens,” Ed explained as he helped make the hot chocolate. “This snow is supposed to stop in the evening and the sky will clear out. It’ll probably get below zero because of it.”

  Ed gave hot chocolate to the two boys first. As he was returning to help make more of the warm drink he asked Rebecca and Anne a question. “Have you been able to stay warm in that tower, girls? I know that it can be exposed to the cold more than anywhere else in the house, so I was wondering if you had found it comfortable.”

  “It’s been fine,” Anne said. “I sleep okay in there. Rebecca doesn’t though.”

  Rebecca shot a look at her as she explained, “I don’t need that much sleep anyway. Besides, I’ve been using that extra time to read.”

  “You’ve already gone through a lot of books, Bec,” Ed told her. “Why don’t you give a normal amount of sleep a try?”

  “I really don’t need eight hours of sleep,” Rebecca protested. “I’ve never needed that much sleep for as long as I can remember.”

  “I’m sure that she knows what she is doing, Ed,” Kathleen said as she gave hot chocolate to the girls.

  “I really don’t need that much sleep, I promise,” Rebecca said reassuringly, as Ed still looked doubtful.

  “Alright,” Ed replied after a while. “But if you need any help trying to get to sleep, just let Kathleen or I know. We can get some sleep aids for you.”

  “Thank you, Ed,” Rebecca replied. She did not spare any more words though, as it was finally time to dive into the hot chocolate.

  “Let’s see what’s on the news,” Ed said as he turned on the TV that he had in the dining room.

  Rebecca and Anne both glowered, knowing that the news would almost exclusively be about the ongoing attacks in New York City. They were not surprised when the news started with exactly that with the reporter saying, “More attacks have occurred in Queens and Brooklyn over the past hour. The NYPD is beginning to get stretched thin as these attacks continue. Earlier today, Globalist Presidential candidate Liam Hensen had this to say on the campaign trail in California:”

  A man holding a press briefing broke onto the screen as he said, “The attacks in New York are completely unacceptable. The people of the city have been let down by Task Force NYC and the local government. We need to find a solution that will bring an end to this violence and I will do everything that I can to achieve peace in this great nation.”

  “What attacks are they talking about?” Kathleen asked.

  “You missed it while you were at church, but apparently there have been a lot of arsons and shootings in New York since last night,” Rebecca explained. “It’s been widespread chaos from what we could tell.”

  Ed and Kathleen looked stunned as the reporter moved back onto the screen. “New York Mayor Greta Jones has instituted a curfew to go into effect at 6 pm tonight. The tunnels and bridges have been closed except for official traffic and Wall Street will not open tomorrow. Overseas markets were down sharply at this news, with Asian markets losing heavily in the early trading.”

  “This is bad,” Ed finally said. “I’m going to have to go in early tomorrow.”

  “Go in where?” Rebecca asked, confused.

  “I was going to go to a city council meeting and beg for more aid for the homeless, but I need to change tactics,” Ed explained. “I’m going to have to talk them up about the security threat.”

  “But nothing has happened here, has it?” Rebecca said.

  “Not anything like New York, but I have heard rumors that the gangs in Wyandotte County have gotten really agitated lately. I don’t know if you knew this, but there was a huge gang fight back in October up there and it hasn’t really calmed down since then.”

  Anne and Rebecca looked at each other uncomfortably as Ed continued, “A lot of people have been turned out of their homes because of the increased level of gang activity up there. The resources that the Archdiocese has are stretched too far as it is and it would be better for everyone if there weren’t any more refugees being generated up there. I’m going to a meeting with the city council tomorrow. The Archbishop and I are going to ask for more refugee aid.”

  Ed left the kitchen. Rebecca glanced at Anne and asked, “Kathleen, do you mind if we take this up to our room?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “Just don’t leave your mugs up there.”

  Anne and Rebecca left the table, carrying their mugs carefully so as to not let them spill. They made their way across the living room and towards the stairs that led to their tower. They ascended up there, still taking care not to spill their drink. Once they got to their bedroom, they closed the door and sat down on their respective beds.

  For a moment, neither of them said anything. Anne spoke up first after this silence, saying, “We started that fight.”

  Rebecca only nodded. She still occasionally had nightmares about running from those bloodthirsty gangs. She had not known that she had unleashed a living nightmare on the people who lived up there. “How could we have known? We didn’t know anything about the gangs until they nearly killed us,” she said. “We can’t do anything about it now either.”

  “Maybe we can,” Anne said thoughtfully.

  “What do you mean?” Rebecca asked.

  “We help Ed try to get the city back under control,” Anne explained simply.

  Rebecca was surprised; this was most unlike Anne. “What do you think we can do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But we can try,” Anne insisted.

  Rebecca only hesitated for a brief moment. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Six

  On the Trail

  As January reached its end, the candidates from three of the five major parties descended on Iowa to extol their people into packing caucus sites in their name. Despite the fracturing of the parties, Iowa still held caucuses first out of any state, followed shortly by New Hampshire and its primary. As the Republicans and Democrats had mostly fractured into the Conservative, Center, and Progressives parties, those three had carried on the tradition of holding primaries and caucuses. The Evangelicals had elected just to choose their own candidate and the Globalists, being a new party, had not yet advanced far enough to hold their own primaries.

  In only their second Presidential election, the Globalist leadership, as skeletal as it was, had already chosen a candidate. Liam Hensen, a man in his forties with experience as an independent member of the House of Representatives, had been chosen by the party to be their Presidential candidate. Their official convention nominating him would not be until the summer during the thick of convention season, but since they did not have to worry about a bruising primary schedule, the Globalists were already focused on the general election.

  Liam had not desired to run for President before being asked to by the party. He had been in Congress for only four years during the middle of the past decade, just at the time when the Globalist party was getting started. He was immediately attracted to the party’s pursuit of peace and j
oined in immediately. Before long, he had resigned from his spot in the House so he could spend more time outside of Washington working to build the party up. The success that the Globalists had in the 2038 midterm elections had been due to a herculean effort on his part to get out of the vote. It had worked in the Northeast, advancing the Globalist cause and bringing them relevance in the political world. In mid-2039, realizing their best chance at the White House was through their best salesman, the party had asked him to headline their 2040 ticket. He accepted, though with some reservations.

  Liam was a mild-mannered man, preferring to be rational about a problem so as to find a pragmatic solution. He could be gentle and reassuring, or be hard and unforgiving, just depending on what the situation called for. He was not the most handsome person, but his even, deep voice was where he got his power from. Most of the time he did not use a microphone when speaking, as his voice had enough power on its own to fill a room. His endearing attitude had won him some early support in the Globalist base of the Northeast, but there were not enough electoral votes up there to steal the election, or even force a runoff in the House.

  As the other parties were descending on Iowa like moths to a light, Liam found himself in California, trying to win votes in the Golden State and more importantly, money. Though the general election was still nine months away, the Globalists were trying to build up their cash reserves so they would not have to worry about financing the campaign in the waning stages of the election. That time was to spent winning votes instead.

  Liam had been up and down the state over the past three days, making stops in Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Diego to name a few. On the penultimate day of January, he found himself in Hollywood, trying to shore up some donations from the celebrities of Tinsel Town.

  The candidate was to have a meeting with some of the biggest donors from Hollywood in a little while. At the moment, however, he was reviewing his notes for a speech he would make later that evening. He was working with one of his speech writers to update it to include stronger language about the ongoing attacks in New York City. They had started the day before, leading Liam to speak out against them strongly the day before. However, they had failed to abate and seemed to be intensifying as the day dragged on.

  “I'm not sure how much stronger you can make your language about the rioting,” his speechwriter, who was a middle-aged woman named Abby, said. “Unless you want to call for martial law.”

  “I can't do that,” Liam said. “People would see it as a military occupation. Hell, they don't even like the curfew and that's being reasonable about the situation. Still though, we can emphasize the need for more security and get our points up that way.”

  There was a knock at the door and his campaign manager Ryan Waters entered the room. “There's a bunch of new polls out,” he said hurriedly.

  “What kind of polls? Iowa? New Hampshire?” Liam asked, disinterested.

  “General election,” Ryan replied.

  Liam leaped up from his seat and said, “What are we looking at?”

  “Quinnipiac did a number of potential nominees vs other potential nominees vs us,” Ryan explained. “We were generally around fifteen to twenty in most of them.”

  Liam breathed a sigh of relief. Those were good numbers given the extremely crowded field. More importantly, they were above the threshold needed to get into the general election debates that fall, although it was way too early to be thinking about that too much. Given that he had been in the single digits for most of the previous year, it would appear that his message of security was starting to gain traction.

  “We've got a long way to go,” Liam said, “But that is a good start. Are there any individual states?”

  “Not for the general election, but there were primary polls for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina today. Sanchez is still way ahead in the Progressive party, Thompson, Anderson, and Green are pretty much all tied up for the Center and it's really only Felicia Hall and Robert Lopez for the Conservatives at this point.”

  “Is Mitchell going to drop out then?” Liam asked.

  “He'll probably wait until after Iowa is over with tomorrow night, but probably,” Ryan said.

  Liam looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, “Where did Roger Ward end up?”

  Ryan looked through the poll numbers on his phone quickly and said, “The Evangelicals are right around 5%.”

  “He probably won't be a factor in this race,” Abby said.

  “We can't know that this far out. A few points is a huge difference in a wide-open race like this,” Ryan countered.

  “It's not likely he will get more than five points, but we need to make sure that we get far enough ahead that was can survive losing those points,” Liam said. “Doing well today will do a lot for that.”

  “How's your speech coming?” Ryan asked.

  “It's coming,” Liam said dully. “There's only so many different ways you can say, 'These attacks have to stop.'”.

  “These Hollywood types aren't really worried about that so much anyway,” Ryan said. “You need to emphasize your foreign policy more. Their bottom line has been hurt by the unrest overseas because most of the money these people earned over the past few decades were from overseas returns.”

  “I can do both,” Liam said. “Achieving peace here will let us become stronger and be able to advocate for peace overseas more.”

  “If that's how you want to frame it,” Ryan said.

  “Our first concern is getting the country strong again,” Liam said, for what seemed like the millionth time. “The world benefits from a strong America.”

  “Yes, yes, you've made that abundantly clear,” Ryan said dismissively. “The message is not what concerns me. My problem is getting that message out.”

  “You seem to be doing fine so far,” Liam said. “We're in the double digits now.”

  “That's a start, but there are nine months to go and we may get drowned out by the primaries,” Ryan countered. “We need to make the most of our time in the Northeast later this week, since everyone else will be up in New Hampshire after tomorrow night,”

  How soon can we go to New York?” Liam asked.

  “Depends on these attacks,” Ryan said.

  “I want to go make a speech there as soon as possible,” Liam explained.

  Ryan looked thoughtful and said, “It would be effective in the wake of these attacks to be on the ground there while everyone else was in New Hampshire. I'll get it worked in.”

  “Thanks,” Liam said. “What time are we leaving tonight?”

  “As soon as your fundraiser tonight is over,” Ryan said. “We have to beat the weather to Detroit.”

  “Okay. We should probably get this speech done then,” Liam said, sitting back down next to Abby.

  Later that evening, Liam was on his way to the fundraiser at the home of Natalia Ivanov, an actress whose career stretched back three decades and whose name carried the most weight among Hollywood celebrities these days. Liam could barely remember a time when nobody knew who Natalia was and recognized how important this was. Getting Ms. Ivanov to donate to him would resound throughout Hollywood and go a long way to boosting his campaign's war chest for the long haul.

  That is, of course, if she was up for donating at all. Hollywood had lost a large chunk of their revenue over the past decade due to the collapse of the overseas markets. Movies had taken the hit too as the majority of them had vastly reduced budgets to work with. Some directors had been innovative about it and still made good flicks, but too many films were dead on arrival because studios were having a hard time adapting to less money. Actors had seen their huge paychecks shrink accordingly and, though they were still far better off than the majority of Americans, they were starting to feel the pinch. Liam was going to have to pull off a small miracle to get their support.

  His limousine slowly made its way through the neighborhoods where the celebrities lived. Liam had been left alone with his notes for
his speech and his thoughts. Hollywood was not the only people who had to work with a smaller revenue stream. In a time where campaigns were often won by who had more money to get their message out more, election campaigns had been hurting for money as well. His campaign would be lucky to get to one hundred million dollars; in the past, it was not uncommon to see campaigns pull in five times that number. His only consolation was that the other parties were strapped for cash as well, meaning his campaign was not that far behind.

  After a while, Liam finally pulled up in front of the house and could see there were a good number of celebrities already there. Some he recognized from his youth; others were newer stars that he had not seen much of. He was not overly nervous about meeting so many famous people at once; he had rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in politics over the past decade, including several meetings with the President. In his mind, there were not many people whom it would be more exciting for him to meet than the President and certainly no one here. He stepped out of his limousine and strode confidently towards the house.

  Many of the celebrities seemed confused about who he was, but he ignored it. He was confident by the end of the evening that they would know who he was and receive their support. Liam walked into the house and began looking around for the hostess, whom he had been told would show him to the speaking area. Within a minute, he espied Natalia and walked over to her, catching her eye and seeing that she at least recognized him.

  “Will you excuse me for a minute?” she said.

  “Ms. Ivanov,” Liam said, extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” she replied. “Thank you for coming out, I know you must be busy these days.”

  Liam chuckled and said, “More than you know. I’m glad you were able to host this.”

  “It was no trouble,” Natalia explained. “We haven’t been able to do anything in a while and we probably won’t again until the Oscars.”