Ramez Naam - Apex

She’d hoped perhaps Miles Jameson would be here, that she could have a word with the ex-President. But the man who’d chosen John Stockton as his VP and effectively handed Stockton his first term as President wasn’t in attendance. And his people weren’t responding to any of her messages.

At least the election was going well. Texas put them over the top. Really, it could have been any of the dozen states whose polls closed at 9pm eastern, but the President chose to call it Texas.

They were here, after all. John Stockton had told his campaign to rejigger everything, to move his election night party to Houston, to be here in solidarity with the city. Pryce imagined the expense was ruinous, that Miami felt snubbed by the abrupt move. But then again, Stockton had steamrolled to victory, and he wasn’t ever planning to run for office again.

“That’s it!” his campaign manager Larry Cline said. “Three hundred and fifty-eight electoral votes! And the whole West Coast isn’t even in yet. It’s a landslide!”

There were cheers among the select staff and family in the private room backstage.

Pryce watched from across the room as the President hugged and kissed his wife; his daughter; his son-in-law, Steve, an Air Force Captain whose career she’d been quietly watching. Even his grandson, Liam, was still awake, and to the small crowd’s apparent approval, the President lifted the one year-old into the sky, and both grandparent and grandchild seemed to take great delight in the many airplane-like flights the President gave the boy through the room.

Pryce asked the waiter for another glass of Perrier.

Protocol dictated that the loser call to concede. Yet pride and the need to make one’s supporters feel that it had been a close race – even if it hadn’t been – meant that the call would usually come well after the outcome was clear.

So they waited. Pryce watched, studied the President as the hours wore on. The west coast results came in. California went for Stockton. Washington went for Stockton. It was officially a landslide. Every network, every blog, every analyst, every expert system, every machine learning system, and every idiot who could count agreed.

And Stan Kim didn’t call.

Stockton’s grandson fell asleep. The President himself mixed with his staff, thanking them, making jokes, smiling, giving hugs and high fives, ticking through his mental list of people who deserved special thanks once the dust settled.

Finally Pryce noticed Larry Cline working his way towards the President, a grin on the Campaign Manager’s face, but that unmistakable look of you have work to do buried beneath it.

He said something to the President, and Stockton nodded. She knew what that meant. If Kim wouldn’t call to concede, eventually the President would have to call him.

The two men walked off. And Pryce slipped in behind them.

Stockton made the call from an adjoining room of the suite. His campaign manager Cline, his VP Ben Fuhrman, his Press Secretary Greg Chase, and half a dozen others were watching from an adjoining room. He imagined it was the same on the other side.

Stan Kim’s people kept him waiting, purely as posturing, he was sure. Stockton waited, and waited, and waited.

Then the wall screen suddenly came alive, and Stan Kim was there, in black suit and blue tie, an American Flag pin at his lapel. Not looking the slightest bit fatigued, despite the late hour.

“Senator Kim,” Stockton said.

“Mr President,” Kim replied.

They both knew this was being recorded. That this would ultimately go down in history.

“Senator Kim, our campaign’s numbers, as well as those of every major network and independent analyst, show that I’ve won an overwhelming majority of both the electoral and popular vote. I’m calling to commend you for an excellent race, to tell you that I look forward to working with you in your capacity as the senior senator from the great state of California over the next four years, and to ask you to publicly concede the race for President. Will you do that, Senator?”

Stan Kim stared back at him. Then the man said the words Stockton had dreaded.

“Mr President, I do not concede. America wants me as its President. My campaign has filed suit in thirty-seven states on behalf of voters who were illegally and unconstitutionally prevented from voting with the benefit of the most up-to-date knowledge about your true character and criminal, perhaps even treasonous , actions. I understand that a number of independent suits have been filed, contesting your fitness for the presidency. I do not concede, Mr President. And on Inauguration Day, I’m fully confident that I’ll be the one entering the White House.”

Stockton kept his face calm. Thirty-seven states? His fitness for the presidency?

He felt his face going hot.

They’re baiting me, he told himself. Ignore it.

“Senator,” he said, his voice under tight control, keeping to the script they’d prepared. “Let’s not tear America apart. I’m sure if we work together, we can find some way–”

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Kim said.

The screen went dead.

“Asshole!” Stockton yelled. His fist crashed into the wall screen.

He went on stage twenty minutes later, after the local anesthetic had time to numb his bruised and maybe broken hand. He wore his biggest grin. The crowd erupted into cheers of “Four more years!”

“Today!” he began, “In the great city of Houston, in the greatest country on Earth!”

Stan Kim stepped out onto his own stage at the Moscone center in San Francisco, to equally thunderous applause, his hands outstretched.

He waited, and waited, and waited for them to stop, these people who’d stuck with him through thick and thin, who’d supported him when he’d taken unpopular positions, when he’d stood up for a restoration of civil rights, even when a frightened populace was ready to constrict them even further, when he’d fought for an America that looked to the future instead of being mired in the past.

They thought they were cheering him for a noble effort. For the old college try. They thought they were buoying his spirits in the face of defeat.

He loved them for it.

He waited until the crowd quieted, and then he trumpeted out three words, his voice amplified across the space.

“WE. FIGHT. ON.”

The crowd cheered their approval, whistling, waving their banners, hooting and hollering, most of them still not really understanding.

He bellowed out across the crowd, his hands held out to them.

“We fight for a land where every woman and man among us can choose our own fates for our own minds and bodies!”

The crowd roared its approval.

“We fight for a nation that is founded on the freedom of individuals as its fundamental, bedrock principle.”

The crowd cheered uproariously.

“We fight for a country where lying to the citizens, manipulating them, torturing them, and murdering them is a crime !”

The crowd roared.

“Where no matter how high and mighty they may be, the perpetrators of those crimes are brought to justice !”

“Jus-tice!” The crowd started chanting. “Jus-tice! Jus-tice!”

“We fight for a land where the government is more frightened of its citizens than its citizens are of the government!”

The crowd roared. Pumped up now.

“WE. FIGHT. ON.”

Flashbulbs burst across the space. The confetti and balloons stored above were set free, raining down on the thousands assembled there. The giant screens behind him came alive,

ELECTORAL MAP – INCLUDING UPDATED VOTES