John Barnes - The Last President

“ Naturally he was telling you that you had to hang him; it was the same thing as the suicide pills any spy carries. Executing him looked like the stupidest piece of melodrama in the world, just a show for the mob in the street because our big dumb sloppy public still hasn’t recovered from being raised on movies and comic books and they had this fixation that they needed to see ‘justice’ done. Justice? Emotional satisfaction because it makes a tidy story. Nothing to do with what works or what matters. Just melodramatic ‘justice,’ one more way people made themselves stupid, so stupid they couldn’t keep civilization going when the first bunch of dipshits came along and wanted to take it down. And I just wanted to apologize to you.”

“You? You apologize to me? For what ?”

“I really thought you were that dumb. I thought you were so infatuated that you felt like you had to be loyal when it didn’t make any sense, and I thought… well, it was something I felt for a long time. Maybe ever since we became friends, ever since you got that crush.” She was looking down, now, embarrassed herself. “I had the impression that you thought I was a little bit dumb, myself, I mean, nice and articulate and all, but not really capable of thinking and deciding like a mature person, and your life was built around pleasing me even though you thought I was silly and dumb. Like, patronizing self-sacrifice, you know? Doing what you thought I wanted because you didn’t think I was smart enough to see what was right. So when you hanged Arnie Yang, or staged the hanging, anyway, I thought you did it for me because you thought I was stupid enough to want it and demand it.”

The carriage rolled another couple of blocks before James ventured to say, “And now you’re thinking… or feeling… differently?”

“You used the staged execution to convince Daybreak we didn’t have that intel source,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, actually. At least that got some mileage out of that silly piece of theatre.”

“Well, I think that bit was brilliant, and pretty damned cool, and I’m proud of you.” The hand moved from his arm to caress his cheek; startled, he looked straight into her eyes, as he rarely dared to do for fear of revealing his feelings.

She smiled and winked. “Maybe we should have some long talks, later. Meanwhile, let’s go see if we can get anything more out of that little asshole.”

James had invited the whole “senior interrogation team,” which meant Jason, Beth, and Izzy. It was rare that they all worked together, so they knew something was up even before he showed up with Leslie, Bambi, and Heather. “So today’s the day we come clean?” Jason asked. He was grinning like a child at Christmas.

“It just might be the end of everything,” James said. “Or the beginning.” He looked around the group. “Now, everyone be ready. And if you’re carrying any concealed weapons as a backup, now is the time to leave them behind. He’s got literally inhuman abilities to detect them and he can move faster than you’d believe—I don’t know if that’s Daybreak, insanity, or that he spent so many years in martial arts. If you have a knife on you somewhere, he’ll take it from you and use it on all of us before you know it.”

“No shit,” Beth said. “I used to carry a little blackjack for just in case. Arnie was talking reasonable as could be this one time, just like the small talk before we started, and holy fuck, Jason slapped my blackjack out of Arnie’s hand and put him into a half-nelson strangle, or I’d’ve been dead, and the first I knew that my blackjack wasn’t in my coat pocket was when I saw it flying across the room.”

Heather and Bambi exchanged glances; Bambi pulled out a steel spring whip from somewhere, and Heather a short set of nunchaku.

“You can pick’em up on your way out,” James said, locking them into the box by the front door.

When James slid the door panel open, he stood well back, then looked through carefully. Arnie Yang sat on a single-piece poured concrete bench, big enough to be his bed as well as his seat, at the center of the floor in a windowless room. “Coming in, Arnie. Big group.”

“Good, it’s been lonely.”

When Arnie saw all of them, he said, “Something has happened since we talked last. Did Pale Bluff fall?”

“Yes,” James said.

“I had thought that sometime soon, there would be a bigger group to see me. It makes me happy to see you again, Heather, Bambi. Leslie, you probably won’t believe me, or accept it ever, but I really want to say I’m sorry about everything.”

“Actually I do believe you,” Leslie said. “That you want to say that, and even that you mean it. You know I’ll probably never accept it?”

“I know. I just wanted you to know I offered my apology, sincerely.” He paused a long time. “So Pale Bluff has been destroyed. I was rather thinking you would have brought along General Phat.”

“He died in Pale Bluff,” James said, very quietly. “And nobody is here to gape at you. We want to ask your advice, just as I have regularly asked it. Could you say one of the phrases, please, while we watch you?”

“‘Daybreak is a mind virus,’” Arnie recited. “‘Daybreak exists only for its own purpose. Daybreak’s purpose is to degrade and destroy the human race, everyone I love, and me. Daybreak is entirely evil. The world must be rid of Daybreak so that it can resume the development of technological civilization, whose benefits are the birthright of the whole human race.’ Hey, no seizure, today is a special day.”

“Or Daybreak doesn’t want you to have that clear period like you get after a seizure,” Beth said. “You know it could be either, and we don’t know any more than you do if it’s got you right now. But you’re right all the same, it’s a good sign.”

“Well, then,” James said. “Here’s the situation. Pale Bluff is burned, orchards and all, and will probably never be rebuilt. The Army of the Wabash is so far behind Lord Robert’s horde that there’s really no likelihood that they’ll ever catch them; they just can’t move as fast and there’s still more than a hundred miles. They can loot their way down the south bank of the Ohio and arrive at Paducah in better shape than they are now. Then they can bypass Paducah or overwhelm it, and that’s the last thing between them and the really good looting on the other side of the Mississippi. So if you were right that this is basically one last giant suicide raid to try to crash what’s left of civilization on this continent, well, we’ve probably lost our last chance to stop them before the blizzards start on the Great Plains next fall, and it’s only May.

“Every competent person we could have elected president was killed in the last week.”

“Have you thought about Quattro—” Arnie saw it in Bambi’s face, and said, “Oh, god, no, I’m so sorry.”

“You may trust me, no one with the charisma, ability, and national reputation we need is left. Nobody. We played a little fast and loose with the succession rules, so Heather is now the President, officially, but as far as any of us can think, we don’t see any way to turn that to our advantage. So the current plan is that we’re going to give up here. Heather is going to join Bambi in the Duchy of California, the rest of us will fold up shop, and the middle of the country will do whatever it can in the face of the Great Raid. Maybe their death rate will be higher, sooner, and their raid will be less effective, than they are thinking, and they’ll empty out the Lost Quarter enough so that Manbrookstat or the Christian States of America—”

“Wait, has that been declared?”