Neal Stephenson - Interface

The light changed and all of them crossed Seventeenth Street together. The Old Executive Office Building was on their right, the White House a stone's throw away.

"Good morning. How are you today?" Cozzano said.

"Just fine, sir, and you?"

"I'm great, thank you," Cozzano said.

"How's your head?" the man asked, as they reached the east side of Seventeenth Street. They stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change. Across Pennsylvania, in front of the White House gates, was a mob of cops and Secret Service. One of them noticed the Cozzanos. Binoculars swiveled in their direction. A Secret Service detail broke from the gates and ran toward them, plunging directly into traffic.

Cozzano looked at the man quizzically. "My head's fine," he said, "why do you ask?"

"I need to know if they're controlling your brain with radio waves," the man said, as the WALK light came on. "It's very important for me to know this."

Mary Catherine's and James's faces fell into expressionless masks. Crossing the street, they got between Cozzano and the man in the trench coat, and stared at the man coldly. But Cozzano laughed indulgently. "You know, there was a movie that I saw, at the Tuscola Main Street Theater, when I was a kid, about mind control. Some mad scientist had taken over people's brains and turned them into zombies ..."

"Don't tell me another anecdote!" the man said. "I don't want to hear any of your stupid anecdotes!"

"I'm just trying to answer your question," Cozzano said cheerfully.

"Ever since they started controlling your brain, you can't think any more - all you do is tell those heart-warming stories!" the man in the trench coat said.

They were approaching the south side of Pennsylvania. James pulled up close to the man and stared at him coldly. "You're out of line," he said.

The man in the trench coat stared back at James, not intimidated in the slightest. "I'm out of line, huh?" he said. His total lack of fear unnerved James a little bit. James almost tripped over the curb.

Suddenly, the Cozzanos were surrounded by men in suits and trench coats. Mary Catherine was startled for a moment before she realized that they were Secret Service men.

Then she looked back at the strange man. But he was gone. "That was weird," she said. "That man didn't show any of the external symptoms of an active psychotic. But he sure talked like one."

The presidential motorcade pulled out of the White House gates on to Pennsylvania Avenue at 11:30 a.m., hung a right and headed for the Capitol. Inside, distributed among several cars, were the outgoing President, his wife, the outgoing Vice President and his wife, Cozzano, Mary Catherine, James, Eleanor Richmond, and her two children Clarice and Harmon, Jr. Eleanor's mother was already in her place at the Capitol, attended by a couple of nurses.

The outgoing and incoming presidents sat across from each other in the back of the presidential limousine and made small talk. The motorcade wound around a couple of corners, getting past the Treasury and Western Plaza, and finally pulled on to the long uninterrupted stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that ran straight to the Capitol. William A. Cozzano bent down and peered through the window, across the front seat, through the windshield, and down to the Capitol, where the temporary podium was clearly visible. Federal Triangle was on the right; half a bloc ahead rose the towering spire of the Old Post Office.

Cozzano reached across his body with his left hand, grabbed the limousine's door handle and popped the door open.

"What are you doing?" the outgoing President said.

"Quite frankly, I have no idea," Cozzano said. He jumped out of the limousine, which was traveling at a slow jogger's pace. The driver, seeing what was happening, braked the limousine to a stop.

"But-"

Cozzano leaned into the open door. "Don't worry," he said, "I think everything's going to be okay." Then he slammed the door and strode southward across the intersection.

By now the entire motorcade had come to a halt. Mary Catherine and James had jumped out of their limousine and run forward to join Cozzano, who plunged directly into the crowd lining the parade route. He was followed by a number of Secret Service agents; but although the crowd opened wide to accept the Cozzanos, it closed ranks behind them, forming a dense wall of bodies.

Large bodies. It seemed that this entire section of the parade route was lined with men no shorter than six foot six, and no lighter than two hundred and seventy-five pounds. The Secret Service men tried to elbow their way through, but elbows had no effect on these guys.

Eventually they got through by drawing guns. By that time, the Cozzanos had disappeared. Again.

The Federal Triangle Metro station was half a block away on Twelfth Street. Like all of the stations in the D.C. Metro system, it included an elevator for wheelchair users. Rufus Bell was standing in that elevator, leaning against the door to keep it from closing, and he had an empty wheelchair with him.

The Cozzanos arrived at a dead sprint, pursued only by a few autograph seekers. James and Mary Catherine got on first, then Cozzano followed, spinning around as he came through the door and slamming down ass-first into the wheelchair. Bell let the door slide closed and then the elevator began to drop.

Mary Catherine was standing to the left of the wheelchair, a heavy purse slung over her shoulder. She unclasped it and opened it up.

"Here goes nothing," Cozzano said.

His left hand reached into Mary Catherine's purse, rummaged around, and pulled out a black box with four metal prongs on the end. He squeezed the trigger once, testing it, and a purple lightning bolt snapped between the prongs.

"I already tested it, Dad," Mary Catherine said affectionately, her voice already getting thick with emotion.

"I know you did, peanut," Cozzano said.

Then he shoved the prongs into the side of his head and pulled the trigger.

His body convulsed so violently that it threw him half out of the wheelchair. James and Mary Catherine stood well away until the high-voltage current had stopped blasting through Cozzano's body. His arm snapped out into a stiff-arm position, as though fending off a linebacker from Arcola or Rantoul, and the stun gun flew across the elevator car, bounced off the wall, and clattered to the floor. Rufus Bell picked it up and shoved it back into Mary Catherine's purse.

Mary Catherine had gone into an unemotional, doctorly mode. She grabbed one of her father's arms and got James to take the other one, and they righted his limp body in the wheelchair, then buckled the lap belt.

The elevator doors opened; they were on the platform of the Metro station. A Blue Line train bound for Addison Road was sitting on the tracks, waiting for them; the doors had been physically blocked open by more members of the Cozzano crew, and the D.C. Chief of Police himself, still resplendent in his full dress uniform, was standing at the head of the train, talking to the conductor.

Bell wheeled Cozzano out of the elevator, across the platform, and on to the train. The doors closed behind them and the train began to move. They had a whole car to themselves; sheets of newsprint had already been taped up along the insides of the windows so that none of the shocked tourists on the platform could capture an image of the unconscious President-elect in film or video.

Mary Catherine pulled a stethoscope out of her purse, stuck it in her ears, and held it up to her father's chest. "He's got a normal rhythm," she said. "It sounds good."

Cozzano was not unconscious, just dazed. Mary Catherine pulled a small white tube out of her pocket, snapped it in half, and held it up under Cozzano's nose. Cozzano's brow furrowed, his eyes rolled around in their sockets, and he snapped his head away from the smell.