John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

An Angel almost stole third; Heather and MaryBeth enjoyed agreeing that the ump had robbed him.

“You think we’re in for even more of a baby boom?” Heather asked. “Why?”

“Remember all the uproar about estrogen-mimicking compounds in plastics? Lots of doctors were convinced that was what was behind the ‘infertility epidemic,’ that it wasn’t just late childbearing and prevalent chlamydia. I think maybe the Daybreak biotes have been purging the planet of the mock estrogens, along with tires, gasoline, condoms, and Barbies. I mean, in the last decade 1:20 was a normal babies-to-boinks ratio—”

“I don’t think Arnie has shown me that statistic yet.”

“Okay, in med school they call it the conception ratio, but then I would have had to explain what it is. Anyway, 1:20 means on the average, last ten years, boink twenty times, make one baby. But back in the 1930s, before they started making estrogen-mimicking stuff, 1:11 was normal. Estrogen-mimicking compounds seem to me like something the biotes would scarf right down, so what’s in the environment is being destroyed really fast, and since the plastic factories aren’t running, we’ve stopped making more. So sperm counts ought to be rebounding in all species, and fertility of eggs increasing, and sterility rates dropping, and so on. All that adds up to a real crowd of babies.”

“Wow,” Heather said. “More revolutions coming.”

“To everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn,” MaryBeth said, “and the world didn’t stop turning just because America decided to break apart, or you fell in love and ended up a mom. It’s amazing, the number of things the world keeps right on turning through.”

The last inning was quick and dull. MaryBeth asked, “Want to get a beer at Dell’s Brew?”

Heather checked the time. “I don’t have time before meeting the trains. We’re going to make the Provis and Tempers sit down and listen to sense, so that by the time all those babies you’re promising show up, we’ll have a country for them.”

“At least it’s a nice day to watch them come in,” Heather remarked. The two steam trains each flew American flags from the locomotive and the caboose; between, there were two big steam locomotives, coal car, a sleeper for the VIPs, a passenger car outfitted as an office, and the “fort car,” a boxcar armored with steel plates bolted to its inner walls, loopholed for the guns of the guards. “But with fifty-eight working full-gauge locomotives on the continent, should two of them be hauling politicians? We really need coal. They’re pretty well certain this is going to be a cold, early winter.”

“Maybe we could burn politicians,” Leslie suggested.

“Too wet to burn well.”

“Let’s burn them anyway,” Leslie said, taking a step forward. She turned to the officer beside her and said, “May I borrow your field glasses?” Leslie gazed at the distant locomotives; for Heather, they were just two tiny three-car trains in the sea of sagebrush, crawling along the track that shone in the afternoon sun, trailing their big plumes of gray-blue smoke.

“What are you seeing, Leslie?”

“Oh, man. You’re going to want to burn them both, Heather. Remember how much time we put into making sure they’d fly the real American flag from their locomotives?”

“Yeah, you mean they’re not?”

“Oh, they are. That’s what I was trying to make out. It’s what they’re flying from their cabooses.”

“Damn. I better look for myself.”

Heather peered through the antique field glasses, thinking, oddly, that when these were made, they might have been tested on that locomotive—both were well over a hundred years old.

The lead train, from Athens, flew the fifty-star, thirteen-stripe flag from the locomotive, but from the caboose, it flew the same design with a blotch on the stripes—the Army eagle, superimposed on a cross. The train behind it, from Olympia, flew the correct American flag from its locomotive—but the nineteen-star, double circle flag waved from its caboose.

“You know, if you’d put one’s stripes with the other’s stars, it would all be fine,” Leslie said.

“Do you suppose they both decided to be offensive, independently, or that one of them started it?” Heather asked.

Positioning both the office-cars directly behind equally placed podiums took a long time. Leo began fussing, so Leslie held him and soothed him, since Heather needed a hand free to shake with. Peering at Heather over Leslie’s shoulder, he looked immensely weary and irritated. “Yeah, I know, kid,” Heather whispered. “I’m not thrilled with either of my old friends, either.”

But when Cameron Nguyen-Peters and Graham Weisbrod emerged from their trains, they appeared not to see each other’s offensive flags at all; rather, they shook hands cordially enough, introduced their grimacing, stone-faced staffs, and then both insisted on visiting with Leo and looking Heather over to tell her she was doing well. For a few minutes, she let herself remember that the Temper Natcon and the Provi President had both been pretty good guys, and even friends with each other.

I just hope they remember, because I think their staffs are here to make them forget.

Afterward, walking back, Leslie said, “I did a little mixing with their staffs. Learned some things. It was General Grayson’s wife, and her loony father the reverend, that broke out the Temper flag and had them put it on the caboose; I don’t know if Cam even knew they’d done it, it was just the last few miles. Allie Sok Banh was the one who decided to retaliate with the Provi flag. Everyone’s mad at their own people, but they all keep saying it’s their own affair and they’re not about to apologize to the other side.”

Leo, back in Heather’s papoose pack, belched and fussed; Heather ran a finger down his soft little cheek. “You were right, Leslie. We ought to be testing whether they’re really too wet to burn.”

Heather had deliberately been the last to enter; letting the Provi and Temper delegations settle in first, with just her staff to guide them to their chairs and the coffee, might give them a chance to mix informally. No such thing had happened.

Well, thanks to paranoia and a good staff, Heather had plans out to Z and beyond; time for B. “Just to remind everyone,” she said, “this is the first session of the first day and the real purpose is to make sure your chairs are comfy and that we take some photographs of Graham and Cam smiling at each other. Anything beyond that is gravy.” Hunh. No smiles. Allie is making a point of not looking at me, the generals are looking at each other like gunfighters waiting to draw, and Reverend Whilmire could be a mannequin if he had enough expression. “But in the interests of saving time, and not creating barriers, let’s just see if we can agree on this: We will hold a national election on the first Tuesday in November of 2026, to put the United States entirely back in the hands of a regularly elected, fully Constitutional government. In January 2027, we’ll swear in the new government, no matter who or what it is, at some location that is not Olympia and not Athens, and both sides will turn over all authority to it.

“I’ll need to confer with staff,” Weisbrod said, and Cam added, “So will I.”

Not only no smiles. Anger, too, I think, from the staffs; and Graham and Cam looked—embarrassed. That’s it. Embarrassed.