Лю Цысинь - Supernova Era

Davey put away the gun. “Of course outputs should exceed inputs!”

“But that’s not the way to make history.”

“I’m not making history anymore. I’m tired of it!” Davey said, and bounded to the door, where he took one last look around the Oval Office, where so many of his dreams remained. Then he ran out alone.

Carrying a motorcycle helmet, Davey exited the White House by the back door. He found the Lincoln Town Car he had parked there and got inside. He put on the helmet, and then found a pair of sunglasses in the car and put those on. Then he started the engine and headed off. Just outside the White House a hundred children were gathered, looking to settle their score with him, but his car didn’t attract their attention and they let him pass.

He glanced out at the crowd as he did so and saw they had hung a banner:

Davey drove aimlessly around the capital. Very little of D.C.’s population was left, since the majority of children had moved in search of work to larger cities with denser concentrations of industry, so apart from the government it was practically a ghost town. It was past nine in the morning, but the city showed no signs of waking up. His surroundings were as silent as the dead of night, which only heightened the impression he had of the city: It was a tomb. He thought fondly of bustling New York. That’s where he came from, and that’s where he’d return.

The Lincoln was too flashy, he thought, and such a high-end thing no longer suited him. He parked it in a secluded spot by the Potomac River and from the trunk retrieved the FN Minimi light machine gun that Vaughn had given him. He checked the translucent plastic magazine; it was almost half full. He hefted the gun level and aimed it at the Lincoln a few meters away, and then ratatatat let fly a burst. The muzzle spurted flame three times, and the recoil dropped him back on his ass. He sat there staring at the car for a moment, and when nothing else happened, pulled himself up by the barrel, adjusted the gas valve to the fastest rate of fire, and again leveled the swaying gun. Again he fired at the car, the rapid reports echoing across the river, and again he fell back onto the ground. There was no reaction from the car. He stood up again, two round dirt stains on the butt of his jeans, and sprayed the car again, emptying the magazine. With a boom the Lincoln burst into flames and started smoking, and Davey crowed “Woohoo!” and bounded away, carrying the gun with him.

Benes finished clipping her nails and turned to plucking her eyebrows, using tweezers and a small mirror. Vaughn pointed to two buttons on the presidential desk, and said, “Lots of people are very curious about those buttons. The media has even speculated that they are tied to the fate of the nation, and if the president presses one, it will immediately contact all NATO countries. Press the other, and a nationwide war alert is issued, scrambling bombers and dispatching nuclear bombs from their silos… things like that.”

But in fact, one button called for coffee, and the other alerted housekeeping to clean the room. During the time she had spent with Vaughn, Benes had discovered that he was sometimes quite eager to talk to her. He proved a good conversationalist, although he held forth only on insignificant and nonessential topics, and deflected serious matters with practiced evasion.

She said to him, “I know my own strengths, and I don’t share the outside world’s misapprehensions about those two buttons. I’m not too clever, I know that, but I’m better than Davey’s reverse cleverness, at least.”

Vaughn nodded. “You’re certainly clever about that.”

“I’m riding on this horse of history but I’m not holding the reins. It can trot wherever it pleases. Not like Davey, clutching the reins and forcing it to the edge of a precipice.”

Vaughn nodded again. “That’s very wise.”

Benes set down her mirror and looked at Vaughn for a moment. “You’re clever. You can create history. But you need to give me most of the credit.”

“Not a problem,” Vaughn said. “I don’t have any interest in having my name in the history books.”

Benes gave him a playful smile. “I’ve noticed that. Otherwise you’d have been president already. But you still ought to say something to me when you want to make history, so I’m able to speak to Congress and the press.”

“That’s what I’m going to tell you now.”

“I’m listening,” Benes said with another smile, setting down her tweezers and mirror and commencing to paint her nails.

“The world will enter a period of brutal struggle for control. A redivision of land and resources. There’s no returning to the adults’ model of the world. The children’s world will operate on an entirely new concept, a new model that no one can foresee. But one thing is certain: If America wants to command the same position it did in the Common Era, or even if it wishes to survive at all, it must awaken its slumbering might!”

“That’s right. Strength is ours!” Benes said, shaking a fist.

“So, Madam President, do you know the source of America’s strength?”

“You mean it’s not aircraft carriers and spaceships?”

“No—” Here Vaughn shook his head meaningfully. “Those things are extraneous. Our strength took shape earlier, during the opening up of the West.”

“Oh, yeah! Those cowboys were so handsome!”

“They lived lives far less romantic than in the movies. In the Wild West they faced a constant threat of hunger and disease, and their lives were always in danger from attacking wildfires, wolf packs, and Native Americans. With just a horse and a revolver, they rode off smiling into a cruel world to forge the American miracle, pen the American epic, their strength drawn from a desire for hegemony over the new world.

“Those knights of the West were the true Americans; theirs was the true American spirit. That is where our strength derives. But where are those riders now? Before the supernova, our fathers and mothers hid themselves inside the hard shells of skyscrapers, under the impression that they had the world in their pocket. Ever since the purchase of Alaska and Hawaii, they no longer expanded into new territory, no longer dreamed of new conquests, but turned slow and lazy, and the fat on their bellies and necks grew thick. They turned numb, became fragile and sentimental, trembled uncontrollably at the slightest casualty in war, and wailed and agitated disgracefully outside the White House. Later, when a new generation saw the world as nothing more than a scrap of toilet paper, hippies and punks became the new symbols of America. Now in the new era, children have lost their way and anesthetize themselves through violent games in the streets.”

Benes asked soberly, “But how can America’s strength be awakened?”

“We need a new game.”

“What kind of game?”

Vaughn then uttered a sentence Benes had never heard him say before: “I don’t know.”

“No!” the girl president exclaimed. “You do know. You know everything! You’ve got to tell me!”

“I’ll think of it, but I need time. Right now I’m only certain of one thing: The new game will be, and can only be, the most imaginative and dangerous game in history, so I hope that you won’t be overly surprised when you hear what it is.”

“I won’t. Come on, think up something soon!”

“Leave me alone here for a while, and don’t let anyone come in. Including you,” Vaughn said, and waved her away.

The president made a silent exit. She headed straight for the basement, to the White House security control center crammed with monitors of all sizes, one of which had a direct view of the Oval Office. No president liked being under surveillance, so the system was only operable in special circumstances with the president’s express permission. The old equipment hadn’t been used in years, and it took the young special agents on duty in the basement quite a while to bring an image up on the screen. Vaughn was standing motionless in front of the huge world map in the office, lost in thought. In the cramped basement room, under the curious gaze of the other children, President Benes stared unblinking at the screen, like a child waiting long into the night on Christmas Eve for Santa to arrive with a sack of toys. One hour passed, then another… all through the afternoon, Vaughn stood there like a statue. Finally losing her patience, Benes turned to the kids on duty and ordered them to notify her immediately if Vaughn made any movements.