Greg Bear - Mariposa

Now he was passing pretty thick traffic on the other side of the four-lane road. Everyone arriving, no one leaving. If he stayed in the left hand lane, near the oncoming limos, someone would have to be very confident in their targeting skills-or very stupid-to try to take him out.

The truck or its debris-a flying tire or chunk of cab, even a body, William could see that clearly enough-could easily vault the divide and go through the windshield of a visiting prince in exile.

The Tahoe was much quieter on the highway. The smooth ride was unnerving. William could imagine all sorts of noises.

He turned his head left and stiffened up like a rail. "Well, looky who's here," he said. The drone was less than twenty feet to his right, flaps down, swinging like a huge seagull to keep pace. "Cannon, 20 mil, front turret mount," he added, as if admiring the features of a good-looking sports car. "And-yep-two Hellfires." He was half drunk with fear. "What idiot sold these cowboys tactical weapons?"

The highway up ahead was almost empty.

A lag in the airport traffic.

The drone dropped back, long wings wagging as if in warning.

William hunched over. He knew what was coming. These guys were happy to put on a show. He saw a spark in his rearview mirror, braked the Tahoe hard, skidding and fishtailing on the road, then threw open his door and jumped out-at thirty miles an hour. He tried to roll like a pro but got caught up in a painful rubber tangle of arms and legs.

He ended up on his back.

The Tahoe cruised on for a hundred feet, driver's door swinging, and was swiftly intersected by a brilliant streak corkscrewing from the rear.

The truck flew up a column of fire like some awful flaming insect, then fell back spinning and burning, lighting up the highway and the west Texas landscape.

The White House

"The bullets killed me after all," the president said, motioning for Rebecca to take the chair beside her heavily blanketed bed. "Have you ever heard of something called a synthobe?"

"I have," Rebecca said.

"Do tell."

The chief of staff and Thalia Ripper stared in undisguised shock at their president. Alicia Kunsler, Daniel Haze, an Air Force colonel, and several others Rebecca did not know waited at the back of the bedroom like guilty children, unable to decide what to do with themselves, other than numbly watch.

"Little factories," Rebecca said. "They were used in the soft drink canisters that blew up the Los Angeles Convention Center. Like bacteria, only more efficient at doing one thing."

"Well, in me, they're efficient at making a poison," Larsen said. "Synthobes were in the bullets that didn't quite kill me. They're destroying my connective tissue, strand by strand. First I'll freeze up like I'm made of stone. My lungs will seize. Then my heart will stop. I've got a day, maybe two. My doctors tell me there's nothing they can do. I've listened to Quinn's confession-'Two-step assassination,' he calls it. He knew about it more than a year ago." She looked up, still hoping it was all a nightmare. "Is it really Eddie on the file, Thalia?"

"That's been confirmed, Madam President," Ripper said.

"He wanted to be president-but my God, what would there be left to be president of? First blow-shooting me-knocks the markets down a peg. Second blow-timed with a series of other strikes… my unexpected death, after an apparent recovery. Like clockwork. And then everything will go to hell. All at the same hour, in the same news cycle-with MSARC looking over the world's shoulder. Do you know what else Price has arranged for?"

"We're receiving that data now," Alicia Kunsler said. "Jane Rowland is in Texas sending it back to us."

"And where is she getting it?"

"From the blood of an agent, smuggled out in a snake," Kunsler said.

Larsen's barking laugh turned into a fit of coughing. "Give me the fairy-tale stuff slowly, please, and warn me when it's coming," she said, half strangled. The chief of staff handed her the first of the zip pages. She read it with jerky motions. "We do get clever," she said, her chest still heaving, then took a puff from an inhaler and looked around the room. "One guess who's behind all this."

Her eyes had difficulty tracking both the zip paper and the people around her. Her vision was going.

"No need to guess," Kunsler said, and touched her earpiece. "MSARC has definitely been compromised."

"Devil's bargain from the beginning," the chief of staff said.

The president weakly waved her hand as if shooing flies.

Kunsler synopsized. "Price will in effect throw a switch from his office-and instantly control more than a third of America, through his proxies: non-nationals, banks, hedge funds in other countries."

"Is that all it takes?" Larsen asked.

"MSARC's judgment will be triggered by assassination and sabotage," Kunsler continued. "Compromised security, military personnel and police officers-"

An aide entered the room with a portable display pad and placed it delicately on the president's lap. "She can read it for herself," she said in a reverent whisper.

"Talk normal. I'm not dead, for Christ's sake-not yet," Larsen growled, and held the display closer. "Price has stationed snipers around key stations on the power grid, with deep-steel penetrating rounds, ready to take out custom-made transformer components that will require months to replace… Total power collapse across North America."

The president handed the display to her Chief of Staff. He took up the report as if joining in the family reading of a last will and testament.

"We'll be back in the dark ages. Then-the coup de grâce. MSARC will declare the U.S. financial situation dire and call back all our loans, the flexible bonds, cancel contingent purchase of bonds… all of it, America insolvent, incapable of paying its bills internally or externally, triggering a massive retreat from American investment-whatever's left by then. He'll declare most of the south financially and politically independent-from Kentucky and Tennessee down to Louisiana and Florida-whether the states agree or not. He's stockpiled the components necessary to repair the power grid-on a state-by-state basis. States that opt in get back their power sooner-days, not months-and become part of Price's governing coalition."

She controlled another fit of coughing, then took a glass of water from Ripper. "Singapore, Amman, Beijing, Dubai, Qatar and the Saudis in exile will offer to extend financial aid and give Price the mandate to repair the situation. He'll have autonomy. And that will be the end of the United States of America. Pretty sweet, huh?"

The chief of staff balled his hands into fists. "They'll rejoice. They'll dance around a bonfire of civil rights and try Abe Lincoln for war crimes."

Rebecca listened in growing shock. The room seemed to be getting larger-more detail, harder to process. She blinked and wiped her eyes. Difficult to concentrate with so much to see. Her eyes hurt.

"My options are few and desperate," the president said, leaning forward. Ripper removed her pillows and plumped them. "We can't protect everything-we can't move that many troops fast enough, and in some states, the National Guard has already declared independence from federal rule. They answer only to sympathetic governors. Poor Governor Kinchley in Idaho-looks like she's first on their takedown list. The military will refuse to conduct any sort of preemptive strike within sovereign U.S. territory. Some of the Joint Chiefs sympathize with Price. All but one or two of the rest treat me with contempt. The generals know that a third of the troops would go over to Price. Maybe more. It doesn't help that we're months behind on payroll."

"What can we do, Madame President?" Kunsler asked.