American Geocracy
It's 2044. The American people have elected a rock as President of the United States, and the Establishment is all too eager to play along.
I
“They voted for the rock,” Roberts said. He was sinking slowly into the daffodil sofa, the remote control loose and comfortable in his grip. “They actually voted for the rock,” he said again, shaking his head and laughing. “Can you believe it?” He rolled his head toward me, smiling dumbly, as if hearing a dirty old joke for the first time in years. I waved my hand up for more volume.
“It appears that the rock has managed to pull ahead of our two candidates in several swing states,” the commentator said. “It’s leading in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania.”
The television screen panned over a small hotel ballroom packed with a jubilant crowd. Children were romping around and waving at the camera. Couples were pressing their cheeks together and holding hands. Middle-aged men in plaid work shirts and jeans were patting each other on the back. Old-timers quietly looked on from their seats, hands resting gently on their laps. The caption below the footage read: “Campaign Headquarters of the Rock.”
Instinctively, I reached for the phone on my desk just as it started to ring. “Yes, I’m seeing this. No, I don’t believe it.” The calls kept coming. I watched Roberts walk over to the office cabinet and pull out a crystal decanter. Scrunching the phone in between my head and neck, I snapped my fingers at him before he could sit back down. He poured out a third glass of cognac and brought it over. “No, I don’t believe it,” I said to another caller. I closed my eyes and leaned forward over my desk, rubbing my eyes.
“Alright, this is hilarious,” Matthews said. “But why are we permitting this? Where is SCOTUS? Where is the FEC?”
Roberts shrugged, said: “Don’t worry. The Supreme Court will take this up after the results are in. They will rule it unconstitutional and throw it out, and whoever’s left with the most electoral votes will win. My money’s on Gabriella. We’ve been blue for too long. People will start to suspect something,” he snickered. Matthews nodded, assured. They sat quietly for a moment, sipping cognac.
After the eleventh phone call, I dropped the handset onto the receiver and cleared my throat. “There will be no involvement by SCOTUS,” I said bluntly. “Too much threat of unrest. No, I’m afraid we are going to have to make this work.” Roberts and Matthews looked at each other and frowned. “But surely the FEC...?” Matthews asked, completely dumbstruck. It didn’t surprise me. These matters were scarcely discussed by the media in much depth, leaving most people blindsided by extraordinary events. In truth, I was frustrated by this custom of polite society, which prompted too many questions and complicated my work in government. So, rather than answer, I said nothing: I just reclined back in my seat and allowed reality, as it so often did, to speak for itself.
The TV switched back to the panel of news anchors monitoring the election results. One of them, a handsome man with his hair slicked back and tie loose around his collar, cleared his throat. “The rock has now overtaken Padfield and Gabriella in 27 states and counting. I… can’t believe I’m saying this, but if this keeps up we... we will be making a historic announcement very shortly.”
Roberts and Matthews chuckled nervously to themselves. I quietly watched as the broadcast flipped back to the ballroom, which had erupted in streams of confetti. There, above the crowd, on a small stage flanked by two American flags, pressing deeply into a velvet, gold-tasseled pillow on top of a plastic Roman pedestal, was a rock about the size of a fist. “The rock has just been duly elected President of the United States,” the commentator said.
Air Force One landed at Lubbock airport around 1 o’clock the next afternoon. Waiting for me on the tarmac was my security detail and a fleet of black SUVs. A young Secret Service agent, startled by my pace, fumbled the door open just in time for me to climb in. The woman in black sliding in beside me was Cynthia Stein, one of my closest advisors. Already sitting across from us was Rod Clarkson, White House Counsel, and Barry Roberts, my personal aide. He handed me a folded copy of the local newspaper. I already knew what it said, but I jerked it open all the same. ROCK BEATS LIZARDS, the headline read. TOP CANDIDATES CRUSHED IN BIGGEST UPSET IN US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN HISTORY. The sad faces of Senator William Padfield and former Vice-President Rita Gabriella were spliced next to a close-up of the rock, triumphant upon its pedestal. I dropped the paper on the seat. As the motorcade sped from the runway, a soft chuckle escaped my lips. I clenched my teeth and looked out at Air Force One shrinking behind us, trying desperately to hold it in. It was no use. I was soon roaring fully, tears spilling down my eyes. Clarkson shot coffee from his nose, waving at me to stop. Roberts broke up next. Stein’s mouth twitched into a teenager’s wry grin. Even the driver was howling and pounding the wheel.
All smiles had vanished by the time we rolled into Lubbock, though. The city was in total bumper-to-bumper gridlock. Up and down, the sidewalks were flooded with ugly, loud-mouthed rock supporters, waving their ridiculous flags (a rock emblazoned over the Stars and Stripes), and singing the old national anthem. One little ragamuffin in a purple coat was sitting atop her father’s head and holding up a poster that read REVELATION 21:5 in rigid sharpie ink. For a second our eyes met, but she quickly turned away from her own reflection on her side of the tinted window. I nudged Stein and said: “How disgraceful for a child.” She made a noise with her throat, her eyes fixed on her phone. “To be raised into backward beliefs and traditions we left behind years ago,” I continued, shaking my head.
Stein looked up and out my window, then turned to me and said: “Probably hate speech. We can have them picked up.”
I frowned. It was a bad habit of mine to make conversation with staff. “No, that’s alright,” I said softly. She had already returned to her phone, her suggestion quickly forgotten.
The stop-and-go traffic eventually gave way to the humdrum of suburbia. It was the fourth of November, but already the homes were draped with plastic Santas and nativity scenes. (This was a peculiar sight, as the White House didn’t assemble its Winter Tree until late in December, with its magnificent rows of red and blue lights for the winged Lady Liberty to bask in, from her perch at the top). And if the homes weren’t draped in old Christmas decor, they were covered up by boards or clear plastic sheeting, their grassy lawns so thick as to barely twitch in the wind. Abandoned.
Ogallala, I recalled. After the great aquifer had surrendered the last of its precious groundwater a few years ago, most of the local farmland went with it, gutting the agricultural economies of the Texas panhandle and several Midwestern states. Rural families had left in droves. Those who remained would qualify for the federal government’s ambitious Rediscovery Benefit, which paid to retrain many thousands of jobless men and women in burgeoning fields like investments and financial planning, service and hospitality, green energy, you name it. Only it didn’t take, and more people than anyone wanted to admit, who had crowded into the cities with their Rediscovery funding and their hope for the future, had gone bankrupt within five years. I remembered an infamous cartoon circulating at the time. A young man clutching wads of cash is sliding down a burning grain elevator. At the bottom is an infinite line of people veering off into the horizon. “This way to Texas A&M!” the caption had read.
“We’re almost there Mr. President,” Roberts said. The motorcade had rolled to a stop. I could see the perimeter that had already been established this morning. Four square blocks of neighborhood cordoned off and manned by Secret Service and local law enforcement. No local traffic would be permitted to pass through the checkpoints without security clearance, which meant the residents, who were all vetted and background checked, were effectively under house arrest, at least until our business was concluded. After a long minute, the special officer at our checkpoint received confirmation into his earpiece and waved us through, and we continued alongside a row of heavily-armed officers standing at the ready along the sidewalk, while the low and heavy whoop-whoop of police helicopters followed us from above. I looked at the homes and watched as curious faces poked their heads around the curtains in the windows, giant smiles stamped all over them. Some waved and pointed proudly at their gold-lettered ROCK 2044 campaign signs sticking up in the grass.
I looked with some disdain as we pulled into the driveway and followed the cracked asphalt up to a modest two-story home. What was once clearly a charming property was now swollen with disrepair. The shingles were peeling up, the shutters flaking old paint. At its side, a long, single strip of vinyl siding had wiggled loose, baring the dark exterior wall. What a junk heap, I thought, as the door of the armored SUV swung open, and a hulking bodyguard helped me out and guided me to the front steps. A gust of wind rattled the gate to the backyard, shaking some old wind chimes to life above the front porch. This didn’t alarm the Secret Service, but it brought to life the neighborhood dogs, who began to bark and bay from somewhere nearby. Anxious to get this over with, I rushed behind my security team through the front door.
Inside was dark and dingy. The living room would have been accommodating if it weren’t for the stacks and stacks of papers and pamphlets on the floor, some as high as my head. They rose up around the sofas, the coffee table, the TV cabinet, the coat rack in the corner, and they lined the walls all the way into other rooms. I licked thumb and forefinger and plucked a paper from a nearby pile, holding it up the way a crime scene investigator inspects a freshly developed photograph. It was a simple info sheet. Under a ROCK 2044 letterhead was a blurb about the campaign, and then a bulleted list of grievances against the US government. There was a complaint about the homeschooling ban, which alleged that public schools were teaching children a distorted version of history and science. There was the suggestion that a network of satellites, code-named HORIZON, were targeting our brains with memory-killing microwaves. Finally, there was, of course, the charge that the US.-led invasion of Turkish-occupied Syria in 2029 (and subsequent 2029-2039 Levantine Wars) was based on a series of bogus reports by the intelligence community, who had indicated that the terrorist group al-Hayij had come into possession of one of Turkey’s tactical nukes.
“Sir, you really mustn’t touch anything,” a bodyguard whispered in my ear. I shrugged and handed him the sheet. Stein peered over his shoulder and laughed in single syllables. “Vile propaganda!” she said as he crumpled it up. “What maniacs.” I raised a Shh-ingfinger to my lips, nodding at the other rooms. She rolled her eyes and retreated into her smartphone. An agent sporting a modded assault rifle appeared at the end of the living room hallway. “OK, all clear sir, he’s ready for you.”
We filled into the kitchen. I was about to take a seat across from the old man at the kitchen table, but some family members came forward nervously to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you Mr. President,” a woman in her late thirties said. “It’s a real honor, sir,” added a beer-bellied man in his forties. “Please, can we offer you anything? A cup of coffee? Hell, a beer?” I took a step back. “That’s OK, thanks,” I said. “Can I take your coat at least?” the woman asked. I looked down at my long Brooks Brothers overcoat and over at her plain white blouse and faded dress pants. I noticed her little boy peeping out from behind her leg, his bottom lip visibly quivering. My stomach knotted. The security detail. My God. He must be scared sick. I smiled at him. It was a pained, self-conscious smile, like I had forgotten how my face worked. He didn’t smile back, he only spied something on my wrist. The shine off my watch, I decided. I looked back at his mother. “Oh no, that’s alright, thanks,” I said. “This won’t take long.”
I sat down at the table. Clarkson took the seat beside, dropping a stack of calfskin binders in front of him. I was gazing intently at the old man. I knew from his file that he was around my age, but in person, he looked far older—into his late seventies, at least, with liver spots around a balding head, sunken eyes, thick glasses, some rosacea around the cheeks and nose, and not a whisker in sight on a smoothly shaven face. “So, you are the extraordinary person who has accomplished so much,” I said, my voice low with genuine respect. I jerked a sideways thumb at the living room. “Your message. How long did all that take?” The old man straightened up in his seat and glanced up at the ceiling, thinking carefully. His lips, the texture of ancient stones, soon parted. “Two hundred and forty-one straight days of campaigning. That’s what’s left of it. We printed them here and went door to door. Other chapters made their own. Every Tom Dick and Sally got one. Or two, I suspec’. Guess it weren’t worse than toilet paper,” he said with a light chuckle. I smiled reflexively, but it vanished in an instant. “Let’s get to the point. Is it true that if you, Mr. Aaron Rock, were elected President, you would form no executive office, nor issue any executive command?”
Aaron Rock nodded. “So long as you people uphold your end of the bargain,” he added. Clarkson flipped open a binder and slid it, along with a decorative pen, across the table. “Are you prepared to honor this arrangement you repeatedly discussed with us during the campaign, which I have here in writing?” Without hesitation, Rock picked up the pen and left a swirling, elegant signature on the first line of the first page. “Uh, pages nine, ten, and twelve, as well,” Clarkson noted. I watched with childlike fascination as he, this ‘Aaron Rock,’ the first person to win a presidential election in hundreds of years who was not a nominee of the two leading parties, signed the secret legal documents that would place his executive authority in the custody of the current administration. It was beautifully odd: We had always dreamed of a clean end to the twenty-second amendment. Here it finally was, and delivered to us by the very people who had the most to lose by it.
Rock, licking his fingers, flipped through binder after binder, mumbling the legalese softly to himself before signing on each dotted line. His children watched on with a tense, tired satisfaction, as if spectators to a treaty signing after a long and brutal war. I looked around at them, the kid drawings on the fridge, the dust-laden ceiling fan wobbling above us, and the heap of flyers and magazines sitting on the microwave, cut up and torn from the search for coupons. “Why are you doing this?” I asked point-blank. He finished the last page of signatures and dropped the pen. Without hesitation, he said: “Mr. President. What choice did we ever have?” His voice was quick and ready, as someone who understood the world intimately. It was a voice I rarely heard, though Schweitzberger came to mind.
“But you still won. Why not try?” I asked him. Somehow, for reasons that were incomprehensible to me, promoting the rock for President had been a viable political strategy that had rallied voters from across the political spectrum. But, in truth, Aaron Rock had been elected President. It’s true: we would have made his life a living hell. Blocked every appointment, challenged every order. But he still could have held office in principle. Do people actually believe they elected a rock?
“Will that be all?” Rock said. Clarkson nodded and gathered up the binder. As we got up, his arm automatically shot across the table, expecting to shake Rock’s hand. Embarrassed, I softly cleared my throat. And, from the corner of my eye, I could make out Stein watching impatiently from the living room. Every force in the universe was tugging me in her direction. Time to go. But here was Ron Clarkson, stuck inside a small eternity, waiting for a handshake from a man whose greatest accomplishment in life had just been smothered in the cradle. Yet, to my secret amazement, Rock took the outreached hand. His face was grim and set, and his eyes listless and watery, but he shook. “Good luck,” he said. Great. I reached over to his family, nodding and shaking their hands goodbye.
The little boy was still shriveled up behind his mother’s legs, digging into her clothes like a koala cub on its mother’s back. Smiling, I stooped down and unclasped my Rolex from my wrist. “You had your eyes on this earlier, didn’t you?” It glistened under the cheap kitchen light. He nodded, trying to control a trembling lip. “Here. It’s yours.” I held it up to him. He looked up first at his parents. A shadow of horror passed over their faces, as if a scorpion were dangling from my hand, but they said nothing. Deciding it was okay, the boy took it and held it up to his face, gazing intently at the gold hands of the clock. I tousled his hair and got up. OK, really, time to go.
As the motorcade hurried out of the checkpoint, Stein brought me up to speed. “We’ve got ‘em. All remaining members of the al-Hayij leadership.” She scrolled through a series of grainy photos on her tablet, showing me. In the heart of a mountainous desert landscape, some bearded Middle-Easterners were spilling out of a military installation and into the backs of dusty white cars. “Looks like one of Burakgazi’s compounds,” I said. “Good. Let’s move quick. Arrange an emergency security briefing. Tonight, if possible.”
Stein nodded, then, almost not sure if it was worth asking, added: “How does it feel? Remaining in charge?”
I shrugged, looking out the window at all the ROCK 2044 lawn signs whipping past. “Perfectly natural,” I admitted. Clarkson and Roberts nodded in agreement.
“And that stunt with the watch. What was that about?”
To this, I sank back in my seat, frowning. To remind myself I’m a good person, I thought. “What can I say. I like kids,” I said. They all looked dully at me for a moment, then returned to work. It was a silent ride back to the plane.
II
The inauguration of the rock took place on January 21, 2044, to the joyous millions who had amassed on the National Mall at the US Capitol Building. The grey hunk of minerals was carried out on a velvet cushion by a pair of stoic Marines in their dress blue uniforms. The President’s handlers marched down the length of red and blue carpet to the inaugural platform, holding the cushion at chest level. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stepped forward, and the white-gloved Marines gently touched the rock to the inaugural bible. (It was the first inauguration in history in which the incoming President was physically unable to recite the oath of office, so Congress had to pass an accessibility provision to the Constitution’s Article II, which allowed for nonverbal affirmations of the oath).
As the Chief Justice read out the oath, I looked around at the who’s who in the rows of seats around and above me: the congresspeople, celebrities, judges, senators, vice-presidents, and my predecessors. Only five other Presidents were still alive. Of those five, two had made it to the ceremony: President Mirabelle Williams and President Harris MacAskill, both in their seventies. As the media would have it, Williams was a living legend: the most beloved and eulogized President in recent memory. She had overseen the most ambitious prison reform project in US history, pouring $10 trillion into rehabilitation programs and mental health hospitals after shutting down dozens of old twentieth-century prisons. A famous photo was taken of her out front of Auburn Correctional Facility in New York, blowing it a goodbye kiss on its final day of operation. Later, when she had stumbled into the Levantine Wars late in her presidency, she developed a reputation for indecisiveness and was harshly upbraided in public by the outspoken Harris MacAskill, the former general who had promised the American people a swift end to the war. “American Blitzkrieg,” was the slogan he had pushed, though he would later regret it during my campaign. The memory caused me to smirk.
I nodded at them, and they nodded back. There were no real differences between us, ultimately. Certainly not here. We were all tiny figures under the colossal American flags hanging down in front of the Capitol dome, the rippling of their heavy fabric like waves crashing violently over a stony shore, reverberating down the walls and pillars of the Capitol building, and blanketing those of us in the bleachers near the inaugural stage. Despite minor differences of policy and the airs we put on for our constituents, we were all servants of the same god. E Pluribus Unum was as apt of a motto now as it had been for the founding fathers. That’s what so puzzled me about the rock supporters. What had this absurd election done to unsettle the system? As far as I could tell, it was carte blanche to continue running the country exactly as we’d had, exactly as we liked.
Back in December, the leadership of the two parties had met in secret to arrange the appointments of the incoming administration. For obvious reasons, my administration could not be permitted to continue in any official capacity. Too many eyes. So, because Republican nominee Rita Gabriella had been poised to win, the initial idea was to proceed with her planned administration. But Schweitzberger was growing impatient, so he persuaded Gabriella to settle for a bipartisan government that retained me and several members of my cabinet in our executive positions. “For simplicity’s sake, my dear,” he had said. The only catch was that I had to pretend not to exist, which was uncomfortably liberating. As far as rock supporters would be concerned, it was their own President that would stick with the familiar faces, as perhaps a token of goodwill for a new era of American politics.
“Congratulations, Mr. President!” The Chief Justice said. The Marines lifted the velvet cushion up over their heads for the crowd and cameras. Trumpets sounded in the orchestral pit below, and cannon fire boomed over the Capitol building lawn. The roaring, flag-waving crowd began chanting “USA! USA! USA!” Then the Marines gracefully returned the cushion to chest level and marched back up the red and blue carpet to the Capitol doors. Decrepit statespeople began to rise from their seats, their faces long and placid. Just like that, the ceremony had concluded. No mighty speech. No uplifting gesture. The efficiency that all these truncated ceremonies were going to afford us was another gift we could be glad of.
We settled into the swing of things easily. I made my office out of the VP’s old residence at the Naval Observatory and kept a low profile, while the rock was carefully placed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office or moved from room to room in the White House by the Marines, depending on its schedule. If I had to sign an executive order, the rock was photographed beside a copy of the same order ten minutes later. If I had to meet with staff or state leaders, I met with them here in private, while the rock was photographed with them after. If I had to host a round table with our nations’ best and brightest, I sent proxies. If I had someplace in public to be, I sent proxies. If we had to speak to the press, our press secretaries took care of it. I missed the openness, but I felt at home.
I awoke in the early morning on a Tuesday to a knocking at my bedroom door. My eyelids were heavy as dumbells. I struggled to heave them up, squinting at the harsh glow of the alarm clock at my bedside. Neon-green numbers glowed 6:57. Energized by shock, I shot up and got dressed. In the meantime, more knocking. “Yes, who is it? Why is it so late?” Most of the time, my alarm was set for 6:30. Most of the time, I was already awake, watching the morning news. But on the rare occasion when I wasn’t, I was nevertheless accustomed to a 6:30 wake-up call. “Roberts, sir,” came the timid voice behind the door. “There’s a problem.”
I pulled the door open with one hand and shimmied into my suit jacket with the other, glowering sternly at Roberts. “Well?” I shot for the kitchen and Roberts trailed along. “It’s the IMF—they’ve declared the digital yuan the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is in free fall. The NYSE is already reporting massive losses across the board. It doesn’t look good…” As Roberts went on, I looked suspiciously around the kitchen. Some unfamiliar kitchen staff were busy preparing breakfast. One pulled away from chopping peppers and handed me a coffee. It tasted sweet. I didn’t take sugar. I dropped it onto the counter in distaste, scratching my head. “Sir?” Roberts touched my shoulder, said, “We need to get on this sir, before it all—”
“Why didn’t that young woman know my coffee?” I asked.
“—snowballs. I don’t know, Mr. President. Maybe she’s new.”
“Why am I only informed of this now? Where was my wake-up call?” As the questions spun off my tongue rapid-fire, I flew around the house, noting in each room the sparse presence of staff. In the sprawling parlor, a few Secret Service were sitting around watching the news. “...so begins a currency war that will send the price of imports through the roof...” the news anchor reported. Flustered, I shot upstairs to my office. Roberts followed close behind, closing the door shut behind him.
I sat at the desk and dialed Stein on my smartphone, massaging my temples as it rang. “Yes, Mr. President?” she answered. I was briefly speechless as my sense of urgency collided with her casual tone. Energetic chatter fizzled in the background.
“Stein...” I finally managed, “where are you? What’s happening?”
“We’re at the White House, sir. The emergency meeting with the CEA is about to begin.”
My Council of Economic Advisers. I could feel cold ice shooting through my bloodstream. “Emergency meeting? Jesus Stein. I can’t believe I have to say this, but what in the hell are you talking about? Why aren’t I there? I mean, why aren’t we here?”
Stein cleared her throat. “We needed to act fast. Don’t worry, everything’s under control.”
“I don’t know that!” I yelled, banging my fist on the table. “Put me through to the room now. If this happens again, you’re out. Understand?”
“Loud and clear, Mr. President. You’re on now.”
A soft click routed me into the meeting. I heard the depressive voice of Donovan Kasper, the Council Chair. “At this stage, it’s no use trying to compete with the yuan,” he said slowly, chewing each word. “But we can skirt the crippling exchange rate by doing what we should have a long time ago: converting fully to cryptocurrency...” I listened for nearly two hours as the Council analyzed the situation and debated the various paths forward. To my private consternation, I found I had little to say.
“Much appreciated, everyone. Let’s get to work.” I hung up and stared at Roberts. “What time is it in Switzerland?” I asked him. He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Not too late.” I punched a 9-digit code into the keypad of my desk drawer. A soft click sounded as the lock released. There, all by itself, sat a simple blue flip phone. I flipped it on and selected a name from a shortlist of contacts. “Need talk S now,” I wrote, typing with the old T9 method. “What now, Mr. President?” Roberts asked. As if in answer, heavy footfalls creaked up the stairwell, and a pounding set in at the door. “You’re needed downstairs, sir,” It was the relaxed, testosterone-soaked voice of a Secret Service agent on the other side. I slid the phone into an inside jacket pocket and nodded at Roberts to open the door.
I was led down into the parlor. Unlike the kitchen or the offices, the parlor was one of many rooms in the antique home to still show its age, with velvet green drapes cloaking large boxy windows, blue floral patterns in the chairs and couches and porcelain lamps, and impressionist artwork ensconced in heavy baroque picture frames on the wall. It always felt like I was trespassing in rooms like these. Not trespassing in the sense of the room as some sacred place, but as the old home of one long deceased, who had wished his things left undisturbed. It was true in a way. There had been far more years of dead statesmen meeting in this room by now than living. I sometimes imagined the heft of their memory lingering over the room, resting on my shoulders like so many reassuring hands. But in reality, I only ever felt the opposite: light and plastic on old springy floorboards, like I was standing on thin air.
The Secret Service member cranked the volume on the TV. We watched with concern, arms crossed, as a news bulletin cut from gas station to gas station, holding an angle on the vast stretch of cars and trucks waiting to pull through, blocking the streets and highways. Many drivers were simply abandoning their vehicles and either swarming the stations or filling into city streets, joining the swarms of people carrying bricks, tire irons, chains, guns, and other weapons. The camera cut to bands of angry people throwing rocks at storefront windows. Stealthy figures in black combat gear winded through the crowds, helping people rock cars and vans and set fire to shops and bus shelters. “Public to Protest Gas Price,” the news ticker flashed. The camera cut to a close-up of a gas station’s signpost. The price per gallon was $17 and climbing with no end in sight. “Here we go again,” the Secret Service member said. “This one will be bad,” Matthews whispered. I ignored them both and pulled out my smartphone and dialed Stein. No answer. I swore under my breath and instead dialed the Defense Secretary. She picked up.
“How bad is it?” I asked. Rita Gabriella’s voice was crackly and strained, as if from weeks of disuse. “For some reason, I’m still waiting on a number of reports,” she admitted. “But I’d say we’re looking at the start of widespread anarchy in a dozen or more states. It’s going to make the ‘37 Leroy Hutch Protests look like a ticker-tape parade. If I were you, I’d...” she trailed off, sighing. For a second, I thought the call had dropped, but then I remembered who this was. “Rita. Don’t be upset with me. You’ll have another shot at President in a couple of years...”
She interrupted me with exhausted, sardonic laughter. “If I were you, I’d have ordered in the National Guard yesterday,” she continued, ignoring my remark. “It will take some time for them to be redeployed from their posts in flyover country, and the Pentagon will want to review regional troop levels, so expect them to be delayed further.”
I looked back at the TV screen. Police in heavy riot gear stormed down the streets and clashed with the rioters head-on, dousing them in pepper spray and drumming them over the head with batons. Rioters held their ground, donning gas masks and driving the police back with hammers and chains. One hurled a Molotov cocktail that exploded above the police line in a blood-orange fireball of light.
“Make it happen. Yesterday,” I said firmly.
I returned the phone to my pocket and was about to leave when the screen switched to a familiar scene: the Oval Office. The luster of the Resolute desk gleamed as morning daylight poured in through the bay windows behind, forming an angelic tableau of desk, window, and American flags. The caption on the screen read: “President to Address the Nation.” I could sense Roberts, Matthews, and my Secret Service stealing glances at me, perhaps searching for signs of some personal embarrassment. Little of that they would find, I thought. What I could not conceal though was my obvious alarm at the sight of another major White House event taking place without my knowledge or approval, as well as my limited ability to conceive of exactly what it was we were about to witness.
“And now, the President of the United States.” A solitary Marine entered the frame, lowered the velvet pillow of the rock gently onto the Resolute desk, and promptly departed. The camera pulled in on the rock. In 8K resolution, its natural features were as striking as the rough-hewn surface of the moon. “My fellow Americans.” It was a voice-over speaking, a male with a deep radio voice. “As you must now be painfully aware, the removal of our beloved dollar from the list of world reserve currencies has severely disadvantaged our participation in the global economy, driving up the cost of imports, making obsolete fuel sources, like petroleum, next to impossible for Americans to afford...” The rock and the Oval Office began to blur, and the speech text began to scroll up over the blurred image. The voice-over continued. “...The IMF’s perplexing decision has blindsided all of us. Your fears, your doubts, your frustrations, your anxieties, are ours also. We understand your desire to lash out. Yet, in order to protect our great nation, our patriotic friends in the National Guard have been sent to sites of civil unrest, and will be enforcing a nationwide curfew of 7:00 pm, effective immediately...”
For a moment, I was struck with the same urge to laugh as I had before meeting Aaron Rock. But the joke had long lost its charm. “Roberts, call for Marine One. Time to get airborne.”
Within minutes, the green and white helicopter touched down on the front lawn. I jogged up to the fold-out staircase, saluted the Marine, and dipped into the cabin, the powerful blades cleaving the air overhead. I snapped the seat belt on, gave the pilot directions, and settled into my seat alongside Roberts and Matthews. Watching from the window as the grass fell away, I started shaking my head. Oh, Rita. So incensed by the outcome of the election that you would usurp me and give the order early. It was all making sense now. “Put me through to the Joint Chiefs,” I motioned to Roberts. He pulled a special laptop out of a compartment in an overhead hatch, set it on the table, and began punching in a series of complicated keyboard commands.
The meeting concluded, and I found myself flying high over Washington DC, supervising the deployment of troops into the city, while listening to the panicked cackle of commanders, operators, and police captains over several radio channels as they clashed with protesters. Matthews tapped his window. “Down there,” he said, pointing. Plumes of fire rocketed up from a gas station, the sounds of bursting tanks and shattering glass ripping into the air. The smoke joined the thick black clouds rising up from other conflagrations and blanketed the whole city block. As the pilot steered clear of the volcanic cityscape, I spotted a convoy of armored personnel carriers speeding into the city from the northeast corridor. “Alright. Put them down, General,” I said into my helmet radio. The APCs pushed right up to the masses of protesters and opened fire, spraying the mob down with plastic bullets from their roof-mounted machine guns, while soldiers hurried out of the rear compartments and joined the firefight. At the same time, ominous black drones flew low over the crowd, bombing them with canisters of tear gas and jets of pepper spray. The deafening rata-tat-tat of machine-gun fire was matched only by the screams of American citizens blinded and inflamed by the chemicals.
Satisfied, I turned away from the chaos and checked my flip phone. Still no word from Schweitzberger. This came as no surprise, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling vexed by the man’s detachment from these affairs. It bordered on negligence, frankly. Here we were, in the middle of an economic meltdown and mass unrest, and he was nowhere to be found.
My mind turned back to one of the few meetings I had ever had with the man several years ago. We were sitting in the living room of his spectacular cabin retreat somewhere in the Alps. A fire in the hearth warmed the cabin. Polar bear skins lined the timber walls and floor, trapping in the heat. Hunched and stooped over, Schweitzberger stood (as best he could) at the window, gazing down at the ravine of snow-topped pines, his hands folded behind his back. “You will make a good candidate, yes,” he had said in his faded German accent. “The rabble are weary of MacAskill’s war. One must occasionally pause to tie one’s shoelaces before sprinting across the finish line, I suppose.” The shrewd investor turned toward me, wrinkling his ancient face into a stern look of grave judgment, as if I were sitting before Zeus. “Just remember,” he continued, “that you must do whatever is necessary to keep things under control.”
“You have my word,” I muttered. “What’s that, Mr. President?” Matthews asked, shooting me a quizzical look. I glanced sharply at him and then at the helicopter interior. Reality rushed back in. “Nothing. Something I once said to Schweitzberger,” I said, a bit surprised at my own candor. Matthews flashed a cocky grin. “Funny that you should mention him. Look at this.” He held his phone up to my eye level. Schweitzberger Capital Short Sold USD, Earned Billions, the screen glowed. “They say several other Wall Street firms did too,” he said. “Clever SOBs. My investments are over the moon,” he added, sharing a cheeky grin with Roberts. I struggled to feign an approving smile at these shallow accomplishments.
I spent the rest of the afternoon working out of my office, following the efforts of the National Guard as they quashed uprisings around the nation. Gabriella was right: despite the brute force of the military, they were spread out over the country, slow to deploy, and fewer in number, leaving many targets open for an angry citizenry, who were sowing their mayhem across dense city centers and suburban neighborhoods, smashing police stations, raiding department stores, and blowing up homes and small businesses. The television networks mostly focused on the message: the nonviolent groups chanting “We’re still here! We’re still here! We’re still here!” while holding up poster boards that variously read Eat the Rich! or You Killed the Dollar, But Your Wallets Grew Larger. Meanwhile, the networks were careful not to show the trashed low-income residences, the deadly shootouts between fathers in their living rooms and attackers on the street, or the mothers torn from their cars in gridlock and kicked to death. It would only instigate more violence, I thought.
By evening, I was laying in the bath, massaging my forehead, and breathing deeply as the hot water drained the stress and tension from my aching muscles. After a moment, I scooped my phone from the tub ledge. One last order of business. “Stein,” I breathed. “Get everyone in on the call. Please.” And I spent the next half hour tearing hunks of flesh out of my Cabinet for leaving me cold that morning, and, without naming names, bled staunch assurances from each and every one of them that it wasn’t going to happen again. After we went over the next day’s schedule, I went to bed.
III
I woke up cold and shivering, having kicked the comforter off sometime during the night. In the dark room, the only light source, the neon-green clock display, burned too brightly for my unadjusted eyes to read, but I could tell by the fuzzy outlines of the numbers that it was somewhere in the 6:40s. Cursing, I dragged my stiff body from the bed, clicked a light switch, and threw on a suit and tie. Then I recovered my phone from the night table. No blinking, no missed calls or messages. I dug into the inside of my jacket and checked my flip phone. Nothing from Schweitzberger’s contact, either. Am I missing something? I could feel anger welling up inside, the hot lump in the back of the throat. But it was contorted by a profound sense of confusion and self-doubt. Is this an operation? Did something happen? Have I been shut out for my own safety? It was plausible given the long leash afforded to government agencies these days, though unprecedented as far as I could recall. But this was quickly overshadowed by a darker, more human possibility, as if from the pages of a Shakespearean play. Or is this a conspiracy? I thought.
Knocking at the door. “Mr. President? It’s Matthews.” I pulled it open carefully, training a 9MM Sig Sauer at head level. Matthews threw his hands up and backed away. “Whoa, put that down. Who do you think is getting past security in this place?” I returned the gun to my back holster and nodded. “Matthews, eight-five-two?” I asked. Are we compromised? “No, sir, eight-zero-zero. But you’re not going to like this.” He explained to me that another emergency meeting of top officials was taking place at the White House, and that he’d been denied the details of the meeting and requests to delay it. No passcode for that, I thought. “By who?” I asked as we walked the hallway toward the front of the house. “Todd Simmons, sir. The President’s Chief of Staff.” Simmons was one of Gabriella’s. Defections to the new administration, I mused. We stepped out onto the front lawn, the dawn light stretching out over the green manicured grounds of the old colonial mansion. The Marine One pilot was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the helicopter’s body. I made a whirl in the air with my forefinger and he nodded; some Marines and Secret Service promptly ran out and began departure preparations. Smiling, I turned to Matthews. “Let’s go see what we’re missing.”
We landed on the south lawn of the White House some moments later. In previous years, I would’ve been prodded by a long bouquet of microphones and a crowd of reporters vying for a minute of my time. Now, no one was here waiting, save for some groundskeepers. The press knew of course that there was no reason to be here; a trip to and from Number One Observatory Circle was not on the President’s schedule. Looking at the open field, I realized I had been missing them, missing the real Presidency. Their questions were tedious and predictable (“Is President Burakgazi a threat Mr. President? Has Turkey been a safe-haven for al-Hayij?”), but at least I had had a connection to the public and the national conversation. Now, I wasn’t sure there was one at all.
As we crossed the rose garden, I spotted someone in a white tuxedo jumpsuit leaving the Oval Office and rushing onto the west colonnade. “Rita,” I called, catching up. She stopped and, for a split second, looked at me with relief, which surprised me, but then she buried the relief in a scowl, which was closer to what I expected. “Matthews. Mr. President,” she said, hands outstretched in surprise. “I thought there was no reason for you to be here?” While formulating an answer, I looked at the statuesque Marines guarding the entrance to the executive residence. They didn’t seem alarmed by my presence at all. Above, however, a Secret Service lookout was leaning casually over the Truman balcony, holding a finger to his earpiece.
“Oh no. Let’s start with you,” I said, pointing close in her face. “Where are you going in such a hurry? To the emergency meeting?” She shook her head, confused. “It’s been cute, your little coup,” I went on. “But we all have our parts to play, and you’re overstepping yours because of a petty election grudge. It needs to end now, or I’ll toss you from my Cabinet, and you’ll be subject to a grueling battery of hearings and investigative committees from now until the sun dies out.” Rita closed her eyes and clutched her head in her hand, sighing. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asked, opening her eyes slowly. “You don’t actually see what’s going on?” I shrugged involuntarily. “Well what? I’ll let you humor me.” She gracefully motioned to the south portico. “If you would, sir.”
I followed her through the south portico passageway and into the center hall of the White House, its walls white as fresh paper, its carpet red under brilliant suspended lights. Deafening all around was the nothingness; the absence of phones ringing, of the echos of chatter, of the march of feet. A solitary Marine roamed the long corridor, his M1 Carbine pressed into his shoulder. Rita stopped in front of the diplomatic meeting room and gestured at our surroundings flamboyantly, the way a game-show host might unveil an expensive prize. “Ta-da! Here’s your coup. Everyone’s missing. I began to lose control of my office months ago. Many of us have.” She opened the door to the meeting room. Several senior officials sat at the long oval table, scrolling through their phones. They weren’t all Gabriella’s appointees to the secret administration we brokered—I recognized those who had served positions in my former Cabinet. That pokes a hole in my conspiracy theory, I thought. I knew Grant Howard, now the Chair of the Domestic Policy Council. And there was Emmanuel Martinez, my former Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. They each looked up at me with the same sour resignation.
Rita leaned back against the table and folded her arms. “My staff are routinely AWOL. Calls go unanswered, emails go unread. But, when we do finally make contact, we find that our directives have already been carried out.” She read the confusion on my face and decided to spell it out for me. “The moment the people who really run things realized we no longer held any power was the moment we became obsolete. The whole apparatus of the state shifted accordingly. Emergency meeting?” she scoffed, “I don’t know about it. Neither do they.” She jerked a thumb at the senior staff. “Why should we? We’ve been pushed out.” I stared blankly at the Secretary of Defense, my skepticism slowly melting away, replaced by the rage of humiliation and betrayal, which boiled up inside like a vat of noxious chemicals. Saying nothing, I slowly smoothed down my tie, then turned on my heels and bounded down the center hall to the West Wing. “Sir, they won’t let you in,” Rita called after me. “I’ve tried.”
But seeing me striding full speed must have meant something, because, by the time I whipped around the first corner, they had all fallen in place behind me, fighting to match my gait. They were seeing their President, the one who had led the effort to restore New Florida to the Union; the one who had negotiated the ceasefire with al-Hayij during the Battle of Zighrin; the one who had signed into law the Sharing of Advantages, Merits, and Excellences Act, which brought additional taxes and regulations on America’s inheritors and overachievers. They were seeing their President, and we stormed past empty offices and briefing rooms with the resolute single-mindedness of a buffalo herd barrelling down a great plain.
Posted outside the Situation Room, a guard spotted us and ran up, waving his arms. “No—I’m sorry, sir, this is not the time—”
I blew past him and stormed into the room, throwing the door back and causing a thunderous crack as it bashed up against the doorjamb.
Seated at the long oval table before me were every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the Chairman, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of the Air Force, the Chief of the Army. Leaning against the wall with his suit jacket folded in his arms was the Director of the CIA. On the other side was the Director of National Intelligence. Scattered among them were a few unfamiliar faces: a young man with his sleeves rolled up, a young woman behind a shiny laptop. Others. New blood, I thought. They looked like college sophomores, with friendly, enthusiastic faces that oozed servility. Exactly who you’d recruit to happily toe the line.
And there, at the head of the table, was the rock. Its battered grey surface contrasted starkly with the smooth velvet cushion beneath. Several reports and binders were strewn before it, as if it had just been briefed. In a sharp black pantsuit, Cynthia Stein sat at its side, texting rapidly on her phone. At the end of the room, the large TV screen on the wall was showing a topographical map of Turkey, with military strike points marked along the coastline, and green arrows rising toward them from the Mediterranean Sea. It looked like plans for a full-scale invasion.
“I don’t understand,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “We neutralized al-Hayij. We bought off Burakgazi, and he gave them up. This looks catastrophic! I didn’t order this! Who ordered this?” Stein rose from her seat and looked at me as one who slowly recognizes an old acquaintance in a crowded shopping mall.
“The President did,” she said, almost inaudibly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The President, sir,” she said a bit louder.
“The President?”
“President Rock,” she said firmly, gritting her teeth.
“The rock,” I repeated. I looked down on it slowly, watching it zoom away, feeling the whole universe dissolving into a mystifying puddle around me. “How?”
Stein stole a glance at the CIA director. He nodded.
“Once informed of the high probability that Burakgazi was planning a deadly preemptive strike on our allies, the decision was made. We all agreed,” she said, shrugging.
Before anyone could react, I snatched the rock from the velvet pillow and hurled it at the TV screen with the precise ferocity of the first pitch on opening day. It splintered the glass and split in half on its way to the floor, landing with a couple of dull thuds on the carpet. Clunk clunk.
“It’s just a goddamn rock!” I shouted.
Mouths dropped open in horror. The young man flung himself over the table and bent down, clutching hopelessly at the broken pieces. He got up and pointed at me with furious amazement.
“Assassin!” he cried.
I felt strong arms interlock around my neck. Matthews tried to block it, but he was restrained by another guard. My wrists were dragged behind my back and placed into plastic handcuffs. I looked around wildly, incredulously, not sure whether to laugh or protest. In the end, it was neither, as when the guards spun me around and led me out, I saw that Rita Gabriella and my old Cabinet had fled.
I was awakened sometime later by the harsh tangerine beams of evening sunlight resting on my face, and the dull humming of flight. I was seated aboard a private jet, my wrists bound by zip-cuffs to the armrests. I pulled reflexively at my restraints, jerking my head around. It was no use. I was strapped in tight, accompanied only by the world of bitter questions blooming in my head. A lifelong civil servant, I thought. A law clerk. A Senator. A President. This is how it ends? After all I’d done? I thought about Roberts and Matthews and the millions they made off Wall Street. I had my millions too: hundreds of millions in crypto, single-stock futures, oil and gas, shell companies, everything. But money was easy. Over the years it had fallen in my lap, a steady stream through contacts and channels. All it took was a deal, a promise, a partnership. But I never cared so much about the money. Just a means to an end: the cost of entry into the elite spheres, I thought. What I cared about was the Office. Decisions with global ramifications. My name on the press’s lips. My name in the history books. Running the shadow government, I naively believed that none of that had changed. All that mattered was that the grown-ups knew the real truth of the situation, which wasn’t so different from before.
A news broadcast drifted in from the front of the plane. It was faint, but I could hear the news anchor describing an accident that had happened at the White House. She reassured viewers that President Rock would make a full recovery. The broadcast cut out, and the door to the aft compartment slid open. The guard who had apprehended me in the Situation Room strolled out and approached me, switchblade in hand. “OK sir, here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, cutting the zip-ties. He handed me a computer tablet. “You’re returning to your life as former President, who lost to the rock in 2043. This is what you’ve been up to since then.” He flicked through a series of screens, showing me dates and photos. There I was giving a speech at a DNC convention in March ‘44; there I was playing golf later that summer; there I was at the Baker Institute that fall. I wasn’t sure who I was seeing exactly: a computer-generated image for media use or a real body double. Did they ever need me at all?
“First order of business is a meeting with the board of your nonprofit.” He pulled up another screen with directions and laid the tablet on my lap. “Stein will be in touch with the particulars,” he continued. “She’s going to be something of a handler from now on.” Stein. My gut pinched into a knot of cold hatred. At least it was amusing: being on the other side of the curtain with a clearer view of Schweitzberger’s pets.
The guard snapped his fingers at me. “Wake up, Mr. President. You’re on thin ice. If you break from this itinerary at all—to run to the press, to flee the country, to do anything you shouldn’t do—hell, to fly a kite naked in the middle of downtown New York—you’re gone. Got it?” I just blinked and nodded. I had nothing to say. Totally defeated, like the other senior staff.
We touched down at JFK airport that night, passing briskly through a private VIP checkpoint and out to the Van Wyck Expressway. We passed through the last gate and stepped out onto the pavement, and I looked with trepidation at the black SUV waiting for us in the drop-off area. Its engine revved to life, and its headlights cast two bright overlapping ovals onto the asphalt. No. No no no. I became dimly aware of a horrible end, like a hog stepping onto the killing floor. Even if that wasn’t in store, the thought of simply rolling over for my betters and resuming private life, with no explanation for the turnover, with no appreciation for my work as President, with no justice for the betrayal, stung my heart deeply.
A sleek blue car pulled up right behind the SUV. I could tell by the driver’s wave to the businessman walking beside us that it was an Uber picking up a client. If I’m going to run, I need to act now. When we got within ten yards, I sprang madly for the Uber, adrenaline racing. Secret Service tried to get hold of me but I shoved the businessman between us and yanked open the backseat door handle with five thumbs, crashing onto the backseat. “Floor it!” I shouted, slapping a credit card against the glass divider. The driver punched the gas pedal and we flew out onto the Expressway, merging with the flow of traffic. My heart was racing, and I knew I only had about four and a half minutes before a crack cybersecurity team took control of the car. I sat back with my eye on the clock.
The Secret Service team scrambled into the SUV. They sped onto the Expressway in pursuit, the powerful V8 engine closing the distance with gentle ease. Mr. Switchblade in the passenger seat reached in his pocket for his mobile phone. He had the dial screen up and was ready to call the local authorities—set up roadblocks, close bridges. But a new mood settled over him, and he chucked the phone into the console. “You know what? Screw this. I liked that one.” They all looked at him with concerned surprise. But the driver shrugged and lifted his boot off the gas.
I watched as my former entourage dropped away in the passenger-side mirror, overtaken by dozens of speeding cars and trucks. I snapped back at the Uber driver in amazement. “Don’t be so surprised,” he said, grinning. “I’m a pro. This happens more than you’d think.” He was a mahogany-skinned man in his mid-to-late fifties, with a light salt-and-pepper beard and a black tangle of hair.
“Kanshi Kumar,” he said, adding: “And you’re the President of the United States. The old one. Either I grabbed the wrong meds this morning or God is truly a nutter.”
“No point getting to know each other,” I said, leaning forward. “You’re letting me out soon. We’ve only got about four minutes until the CIA switches off the engine remotely.”
“Haha. You lucky fool,” he interrupted, still grinning. “This is Kanshi Kumar’s New York City Uber service.” He drummed his hands on the wheel, savoring his chance to impress me. “You know who I drive? Lawyers. Mobsters. Mayors. Conmen.” He pointed at the LED screen in the center console. “Hackers can’t crack this. Black market Japanese firmware. Very expensive, but I’m off the grid.”
“Mr. Kumar—”
“Please. It’s Kanshi.”
“Kanshi. No one is off the grid.”
He simply smiled. “This one is. Now, where does a President who flees his own security want to go?”
“Out of town,” I automatically replied. I knew at least that much, though I wasn’t yet sure where.
“Out of town where?”
I shrugged stupidly, letting out a small, exasperated laugh. A transport truck thundered along beside us, and a blue-orange dusk was settling in the sky overhead, backgrounding a bright trail of highway lights. “I don’t know,” I said. “Lubbock Texas.”
Without a second thought, Kanshi keyed the destination into his center console and started the GPS. “Approximate time until arrival: twenty-seven hours and thirty-six minutes,” a computer voice chimed.
“What? Are you sure?”
“I’m at your service.” He raised his hand up at me and rubbed his fingers over the bottom of his thumb, the hand sign for money. “But not without this!”
I smiled anxiously, apologetically, not sure whether he could be trusted, or if he even grasped the situation. But somehow, he swayed me. It was easy, actually, given the sort of people I had trusted before. Or maybe it was just his relaxed, mischievous look and enthusiasm for superb customer service. So, I sank back into the seat, loosened my tie, and counted the seconds. One more minute passed. Then two. Three. We were well beyond the four-minute mark now. $450 billion a year to the Intelligence community bested by a tech-savvy Uber driver.
In the day and a half we spent driving, I got to know Kanshi. He was as nakedly forthcoming about his life as a barfly on a Sunday afternoon. “My mother and father came over from India in ‘81,” he said, the Pittsburgh skyline whizzing by. “Scraped everything they had into a little laundromat in Queens. That was a rough racket, let me tell you. Lot of smash-and-grab in those times. And junkies. Well, things haven’t changed much.” He chuckled darkly, then made an inch with his thumb and forefinger. “All for a measly chunk of change. Enough to get us by, mind you. But father was a go-getter, you know. He worked odd jobs on the side—window washer, delivery driver, cashier. Saved up enough to send me and my brothers to college.”
I looked at him fondly. “Good. It’s nice being reminded that people really lived those stories; that they aren’t just useful props trotted out in political speeches.”
The gleam in Kanshi’s eye faded. “Doesn’t it surprise you then that I’m an Uber driver?”
My eyebrows curled downward. “I’m sure the mobsters and conmen pay well?”
He laughed. “Sometimes. No, Mr. President. I went to Caltech; I was a software engineer. I used to make six figures working for tech firms all over the west coast.”
“What happened?” I sincerely asked him.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously, not sure how I could have asked that question. “Two things mostly. Ageism: the older you become, the less value these companies think you have. Crunch-time is harder, and you’re just not as up with the latest advancements and design trends as the young ones. That was me: pushed out slowly by ‘restructuring’ policies and then one day given the boot.
“Then there’s the cutthroat competition. It’s a slaughterhouse! There are thousands of me. Hundreds of thousands of me, with the same background or better, fighting for these jobs. I was in an impossible situation when I lost my job almost ten years ago. I can’t imagine what it’s like today.”
I cleared my throat. “But you could’ve upgraded, or started over and switched careers. There are programs—”
“Programs.” Kanshi snorted. “I’m a smart guy OK? But I lost my job at forty-six. Time hits different at forty-six. That’s not a good time to gamble the years away on upgrades and training, just to compete in some other cutthroat world. No—I took what I could get, so I could make it day-to-day. That’s the most people like me can hope for.” Feeling like that was inadequate, he added: “Your programs might be good for what’s in here,” he said, tapping the side of his forehead. “But they don’t change the landscape out there.” He gestured at Pittsburgh falling away behind us in the night.
We fell silent for a while. I fell asleep, and in the morning we switched places so he could sleep. That afternoon, St. Louis and the Gateway Arch rose up on the horizon, and we pulled through a service station and ordered burgers and french fries.
“You haven’t told me what you’re running from,” Kanshi said between crunchy bites of fries.
I choked on my cheeseburger and coughed into a napkin. I was about to say “It’s a personal matter,” or “You wouldn’t understand,” but my lifelong impulse to deflect a direct question wasn’t there. I opened up about everything: The secret agreement with Aaron Rock, the shadow government, our exile at the hands of the deep state. Coming clean was gratifying.
“Wow, I don’t believe it,” he said, not seeming the least bit surprised as he downed the last of his soda. “You must have some plan to restore order, right?”
I shook my head. “No. I think it’s too late for that.”
Kanshi waited for the sound of police sirens to die out, then turned to me with that mischievous glint in his eye. “I’m just going to be honest with you sir. I voted for the rock.”
I crumpled my wrapper and tossed it into the takeout bag and, unable to conceal my lack of surprise, made a pitying, disappointed face. “And I’ll be honest with you, Kanshi. I’ll never understand rock voters. It had no platform, no policies. It was a totally wasted vote just to spite the system. Some good it did. Now it’s not even clear who runs this country.”
Kanshi seemed to expect an answer like this. He drew in a deep breath. “I’ll tell you a story. In India, my family were Dalits—the ‘Untouchables’ who lived in the slums, getting rid of rotting carcasses and clearing shit off the road. They were the scum of the village; that was their role in the fiercely enforced caste system, and every day they suffered insult and injury at the hands of the upper classes, who spat on them and scorned them.
“One day, my grandfather was crossing the road. He was on his way home from the market in the hot afternoon, pulling a wagon of cabbages behind him. This was too slow for a city official—a Rajanya—who was waiting for grandfather to cross. He got out of his car and beat my grandfather off the road, leaving him bloody and bruised in a pile of dirt. Then he drove past.
“So, my grandfather had to find a new way home every day. But, every once and awhile, he would go back to the same spot, at the same time of day, slowly cross, receive a beating, and come home with black eyes and a bloody nose. Most people who hear that story, they think: ‘What a nutter! What’s the point?’ Well, do you know why he did it?”
“To defy the official,” I answered.
Kanshi looked pleased. “Yes, although it’s more than that, I would say. See, when people are powerless in society, there’s not much they can do. If they protest, they are squashed. If they fight, they are beaten. If they flee, they are found. But at least they can make their presence felt. And if this makes the lives of their rulers just a little more painful, just a little more difficult, then they have done something. And, over time, who knows.”
He then folded his arms and rested his head against the window. I watched him thoughtfully for a moment, letting his story sink in, and then returned my attention to the endless highway ahead of us.
After another cycle of sleeper and driver, we came into Lubbock late the next night, using the back roads to skirt the heavy police presence. In the areas that we passed through, it was plain that the city was in rougher shape than before. Vacant buildings and strip malls were covered in graffiti. Trash blanketed the ground. Vehicles were left abandoned in the streets. Long lines of tired, desperate people waited at the pumps, the convenience stores, the ATM machines. Helicopters thundered overhead, their spotlights sweeping down over the city. Police and armed militias eyed each other warily from opposite street corners. I imagined something like this was playing out in almost every major city in America by now.
“This it?” Kanshi asked, touching my shoulder. My eyelids fluttered open and I looked out upon Aaron Rock’s dark, uninhabited home, the blackness of the unshuttered windows ominous under the street lamps. “Don’t think anybody’s home,” he observed.
“We’ll see,” I said. I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Thank you Kanshi. You’re a good man. Good luck to you.” As I opened the passenger door, he gently grabbed my wrist. “You’re forgetting something, my friend.” Confused, I looked around, but then a small wave of embarrassment rippled through me as he tapped the payment processor hanging up beside the center console. I handed him a credit card. He put it flat to the screen. “Declined,” it read. Flushed, I handed him a second card. “Declined,” it read again.
“I’m...I’m so sorry,” I said, scratching my head. “I think they may have frozen my accounts.”
“Bitcoin. Just give me Bitcoin.” Kanshi said, his voice gruff and impatient.
“Bitcoin? Yes, I suppose that’s an option. But my accountant handles that stuff,” I admitted dumbly.
Kanshi took a pen from the console and scribbled a long series of letters and numbers out on the back of our fast food receipt. “Here, take this.” He folded it and placed it in my hand. “It’s my wallet key. Get in touch with your accountant and send me the total. If you don’t, I’ll report you. President or not,” he said, winking.
“Alright. I will.” I said, getting out. Stepping onto the sidewalk, I waved politely to him as he sped off, and then climbed up Aaron Rock’s porch and knocked on the door. Kanshi was right: the place was deserted. A deep sense of frustration and uncertainty crept up my spine and neck. The street was deathly quiet; there were no wind chimes this time to upset the neighbor’s dogs. I pressed against the door and cupped my hands around my eyes, trying to peer in through the door’s frosted windows. All I could make out was a shadowy gloom.
“Open up Rock!” I yelled, banging at the door. “Come on. You were right, you son of a bitch,” I seethed, yanking desperately at the door handle. “You were right. The system is broken.” I banged with both fists. No answer. I leaned against the door, catching my breath. “Congratulations!” I sputtered. “You proved your point. And all it did was destroy one life. Mine.” I slid down to the porch floor, my back against the door, my face wet with cold tears. “It changes nothing,” I breathed.
I heard the creak of a screen door opening. It was the side door of the neighbor’s house. The small grey head of a little old lady poked out at me.
“Who’s there making all that racket?” she croaked.
I stood up, dusted the dirt off my pant legs, and refastened my tie. “Nobody ma’am. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“You lookin’ for Aaron, I heard you say?”
“Yes. What happened to him?”
“He’s long gone,” she said. “Foreclosure. Think he’s a few counties over now with the rest of his family. Crazy old coot, he was. He refinanced his house to run for Prez. He had it bought and paid for a long time ago. Big mistake, y’ask me. Anyway, you best get a move on. Nobody likes strangers creepin’ around at night ‘round here. Even ones in nice suits.”
I heard the unmistakable click of someone uncocking a pistol, and the old lady disappeared inside and closed the door.
As I stepped down from the porch and back onto the sidewalk, I watched with total resignation as a black SUV turned onto the street. Well—this is it. I straightened out my back, stuffed my hands into my pockets, and waited for a silenced bullet to slam into my chest.
The rear door swung open and—It was Rita Gabriella. “Quick. Get in,” the Defense Secretary said.
“We thought we might find you here.” I was crammed in the backseat with the bulk of my former Cabinet. We all looked like crap: tangled hair, crumpled dress clothes, and tired, worn-out expressions.
“I had a feeling the meeting in the Situation Room was going to go badly,” Gabriella said. “We had to get out. Sorry. No sense all of us getting detained.”
I grunted. “What’s next?” I asked, looking over all their wrinkled faces. “Is this the dream team that coups are made of?”
Gabriella smirked. “Well, at least your sarcasm is intact. No, obviously not. But we don’t want to go quietly. Neither do you, I think, if your display back at the White House was any indication.”
“But what can we do? Anything we tell the public will be immediately discredited by the media. They’re preparing hit pieces and disavowals as we speak,” I warned.
Gabriella shrugged. “It will be an uphill battle, no question. But we’ve some strengths on our side.”
“Like what?” I prodded. Emmanuel Martinez produced a thumb drive. “First, there’s evidence,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of documents: private correspondence, records, classified intel, you name it. It’s not totally damning, but there’s enough here to expose the takeover, especially as it includes our own involvement in the secret arrangement with Aaron Rock.”
I laughed, waving it off. “All useless when we’re discredited as conspiracy theorists. No one is going to believe that the rock is not the President.”
“That’s where you come in,” Rita said, touching my knee. “You were the President. Not only that, but a Democrat. Mirabelle Williams’ successor, in fact. A golden boy in the eyes of the liberal elite. You’re the perfect person to come forward with this information. They will have a very hard time managing public opinion if it all comes from you.”
I sighed, folding my arms. Glancing out the window, I saw we were headed out to the country, the street lamps fewer and farther between. “No reputable news outlet in the world would take this story on,” I insisted stubbornly. “It’s a lost cause.”
Rita Gabriella lit a cigarette. “That’s why we’re not going to the press.”
My head jolted back at her. “What then?”
She took a long drag, then exhaled politely in the direction of the open window. “We’re going to use the Emergency Alert System. Just drop it all straight into the public’s lap.”
I studied her thoughtfully. The former Vice-President was a lovely woman—skin the shade of caramel, pink-violet eyeshadow, beauty mark below her right eye, tuxedo jumpsuit fitting snug against her breasts and abdomen. Her plan was certainly something. And I’ve got nothing to lose.
Keeping a low profile, Rita drove us out to the Office of Emergency Management in Carson County. It was a small, plain building, possibly an old jailhouse. Offices like these were part of a larger network of Alerting Authorities under FEMA, and were equipped to quickly send any kind of message to anywhere in the country, in the event of natural disaster or public danger.
We pulled around back and piled out of the SUV. A county sheriff greeted us at the back door, and we filed into a bright fluorescent office stuffed with maps, computers, and audio-visual equipment.
“Get us ready for a live broadcast to the nation,” Rita told the sheriff. He nodded and he and his staff began clearing a desk and setting up camera equipment. She then turned to me and handed me a typed script.
“OK, it’s all here. How are you feeling? Are you ready?”
I looked around at the sheriffs, admiring their loyalty. I turned back to Rita and nodded.
“Good. Speak quickly and clearly. You won’t have much time before the broadcast gets cut. I have some contacts who will try to delay that, but, well, no guarantees.”
“Understood. Rita?”
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“What’s next?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
I nodded again, and then sank dutifully into the squeaky office chair, looking ahead at a cheap camera on a tripod. The bland Carson County office faded away, and I was in the Oval Office again, sitting at the Resolute desk. To my left, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hanging on the wall. Before me, a teleprompter and a big studio camera, and my close staff and aides. A producer’s hand silently counted me down from three, two, one...
I was live to the nation, and I began to speak.
“Grandpa, something scary just happened to the TV,” the boy said. “Come quick. It’s a big emergency or something.” A high-pitched electronic humming filled the room, almost that of an old dial tone. The TV screen had gone black and was flashing EMERGENCY ALERT in bold white text.
Old Aaron Rock returned from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn and a can of soda, which he handed to the boy. Rock plopped down into his armchair and put his feet up. The screen cut away to static, and then the former President appeared, gaunt and pale in a bunker somewhere.
The boy turned around, wide-eyed. “Grandpa! It’s the man who came to our house! It’s the President!” He began fiddling with the Rolex around his wrist.
“Yes it is, Donny. Let’s hear what the man has to say,” he said.
And he turned up the volume.