Chapter Fifty-Five: The Week the Earth Stood Still

With global warming threatening much of the world in the early twenty-first century, a conglomeration of companies formed the Antarctica Growth and Economic Development Corporation. The AGED Corporation believed that, as the continent warmed, Antarctica would be the next great frontier. With investors flocking to get in on the ground floor of “The Next Big Thing,” cities popped up all over the icy continent.

Esperanza, located at Hope Bay in the Trinity Peninsula, just south of South America, became the largest city and the capital of Antarctica. It grew out of three bases: Esperanza Base, founded by Argentina in 1975; Marambio Base, also founded by Argentina in 1969 on Seymour-Marambio Island; and Bernardo O’Higgins Base, founded by Chile in 1948.

At its peak in the mid-2040’s, Esperanza was a thriving city of 20,000. Soon it would become “The Great Faux Pas of the Modern World.”

The nuclear wars of 2045 kicked huge amounts of dust into the atmosphere, causing a temporary cooling of Earth. This set AGED back several years, but by itself did not deliver the knockout blow. The nuclear wars had the side effect of giving scientists huge amounts of data on the effects on global climate by atmospheric particles. One of the first acts of the newly-formed world government in 2050 was the Sulphur Atmospheric Dust project. Putting sulphur dust (SO2) into the atmosphere to block sunlight, as well as iron particles into the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide, brought global warming to a standstill.

It also destroyed the AGED Corporation. The companies that made up AGED pulled their financial backing. Finding themselves living in the middle of the Antarctic icebox, with global warming and continental changes no longer in the future, and with their lifeblood of corporate funding gone, the mass exodus began. Soon Antarctica was a ghost continent littered with ghost towns, of which Esperanza was the largest.

Antarctica retained one major business. Early on, looking for ways to finance the growing colonies, AGED negotiated a 100-year agreement as the recipient of the world’s radioactive waste. Incoming waste was packed away in doubly-secure containers and buried as far from civilization as possible, near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. When USE began the process of fighting global warming, AGED protested, and threatened to nullify the agreement. In partial compensation for their losses, USE agreed to fund the relocation of anyone on Antarctica who wished to leave, as well as to grandfather Antarctica in as a USE voting country, despite a population far less than the required one million.

Nobody seriously thought its single electoral vote would ever make a difference.

Due to seasonal residents who came in only during the relatively mild summer season, strict rules were put in place for Antarctica citizenship: one had to be born in Antarctica, or reside there nearly continuously for a period of ten years.

By 2100, five citizens in Esperanza were the only eligible voters left in the frozen ghost towns of the Antarctic.

* * *

While Bruce and the rest of his campaign staff spent the next few days creating detailed psychological profiles of the five citizens of Antarctica, Toby went home on Wednesday, October 27. It would be the first time in nearly a year that he, Olivia, Lara, and Tyler would all be home together at the same time.

The candidates and their staffs were invited to an informal dinner at the Esperanza City Hall on the night before the election, Monday, November 1, 2100. That’s when the two campaigns would try to convince the Antarctica electorate—all five of them—of the merits of their candidate. Until then, Toby was free.

He’d soon get the full report on the five voters, but he already knew the most important info: Three of the five were Donkeys, while the other two were Roosters. Since it was unlikely a Donkey would choose Dubois over Toby, his election seemed assured. But there was no certainty—you never know how a voter votes until he votes.

Not too surprisingly, one of the Antarctica Five was Melissa Smith. This alone made news all over the world, not that it helped them here.

On Sunday, October 31—Halloween—Tyler dressed as Joseph Wang, the famed cartoon character from the Joseph Wang Show. Toby and Olivia dressed as the dopey parents. Lara dressed as the unnamed “brilliantly evil and suspicious little sister.” Tyler felt he was too old to trick or treat, and didn’t want the disruption of the Gray Guard swarming over every house they went to, so they went to a masquerade party instead.

When Bruce called him late that night, Toby mentioned their outfits. “You’re kidding me!” Toby had no idea what Bruce thought was so funny. “I’m calling you because of Joseph Wang.”

“Why would you call me about a cartoon character?”

“I think it’s time I fill you in on the Antarctica Five,” Bruce said. “Or perhaps Six.”

“Six?” That was news. “There are only five, right?”

Being the irritating type, Bruce gave all the background info before he got to the point.

The three members of the Liberal Party were 17-year-old Melissa Smith and her parents Matthew and Melinda. “Based on extensive psychological analysis and personality profiles,” Bruce said, “they would jump into the jaws of a great white shark before they would vote for Dubois. You can lock in those three votes.”

Ronald Scooter Wang, Jr. and his wife Tyra were the two conservatives. “When someone has ‘Scooter’ as part of their name, or marries someone with that moniker, we don’t need any more analysis,” Bruce said. “You can lock in those two votes for Dubois.”

“There’s a very loud ‘however’ coming, isn’t there?” Toby asked. “Involving Joseph Wang? Can underage cartoon characters vote in Antarctica?”

“You’re close. The Wangs have a fifteen-year-old son. His full name is Ronald Joseph Wang, III; he goes by Joseph. We checked; he’s the third generation named after Ronald Reagan. And he really is named for the cartoon character Joseph Wang.”

Toby began to laugh, but noticed Bruce was not. “He’s fifteen, right? You have to be sixteen to vote.”

“That’s what I’ve been arguing about all morning with Phil Farley. You know he’s running Dubois’s campaign now, since Lara resigned? Joseph turns sixteen on Wednesday, the day after the election. On Tuesday night, Farley’s going to move him to the abandoned city of Dakshin, east of the international dateline. They claim that since it’ll be Wednesday there, Joseph will be sixteen, and he can still TC in his vote to Esperanza, where it’ll still be Tuesday night and the election still open.”

Toby took the deepest breath of his life. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope. It’s all gone to the Antarctica Supreme Court, which is meeting as we speak.” Now Bruce was smiling.

“Antarctica has a Supreme Court?”

“Yep. By law, it’s made up of the nine oldest citizens age sixteen or older. Since there are only five citizens currently aged sixteen or older, the ‘Antarctica Supreme Court’ is made up of those five. They’ll vote 3-2 that Joseph isn’t eligible. Then Dubois will make an emergency appeal to the World Supreme Court, and they’ll rule on it.”

“What are the chances there?”

“Five of the nine were appointed by conservative presidents, two of them by Dubois. And if they do allow Joseph to vote, and Antarctica is a 3-3 tie, then nobody gets any electoral votes here. Then the entire election is a 666-666 tie, and it goes to the USE Congress.”

Bruce didn’t need to elaborate on that. With a conservative majority, and five years of shelling out pork projects and earmarks, Dubois would win for certain.

* * *

Bruce called again shortly after midnight. As expected, the Antarctic Supreme Court had voted 3-2 that Joseph wasn’t eligible to vote. Dubois had already made his appeal, and the case had gone to an emergency meeting of the World Supreme Court, which would meet Monday morning.

“We have two hundred lawyers on the case,” Bruce said.

“How about Dubois?”

“About three hundred.”

* * *

Toby and Lara flew to Esperanza very early Monday morning on a Gray Guard floater, since the Rocinante was in Antarctica with Bruce and Feodora. Due to the unique size of the Antarctica electorate, candidates were not required to spend the entire week there. Twenty-two didn’t want to take the attention away from the election, so she took a few days off to visit Ajala.

Toby and Lara regaled each other with stories of the campaign, most of them at Dubois’s expense. She also told him about the ever-growing split between Dubois and Persson. Toby was tempted to tell her about the video of Dubois and Farley, but he’d promised to keep it a secret. Then Lara shared some important news.

“Dad, I need your help next year. I’m running for the World Congress, from the Maryland district.”

For the rest of the trip they planned out her campaign. Poor Bruce had no idea that after running a historic worldwide campaign for president, he was about to move down in the ranks and run a mere congressional race. Toby had always held out hope that, somehow, the two would get back together.

They took the “scenic” route before landing. The shores of Antarctica were beautiful, as blue water met pristine shores. Once they moved inland, it became an overwhelmingly bright and brighter white that went on forever. When they approached Esperanza, a speck in the ocean of white, it reminded Toby of a picture he’d seen of a polar bear hidden in snow on the other pole; all white with a bit of black where the nose was.

* * *

The Supreme Court ruling came out shortly after noon. Based on the wording of the law, and in contradiction to what most claimed made common sense, the vote was 5-4 that Joseph Wang could vote. Toby watched the breaking news on his TC.

“You’d think they’d have agreed on one time zone for Antarctica,” Bruce said, shaking his head in disgust after Toby arrived. There’d been a move to do so long ago by the AGED Corporation, but the effort had been dropped when they pulled out. The various regions of Antarctica went by whatever time zone their longitude put them at, although unofficially most went by the time zone of their home country. Esperanza, nearly due south of the U.S. east coast, went by U.S. Eastern Time.

“That’s it, then,” Toby said. “It’ll be 3-3, and congress will put Dubois in as president. Are there any more appeals or anything we can do?”

Bruce shook his head. “The Supreme Court has spoken. The next president of Earth will be chosen by a teenager named after a cartoon character.”