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Chairman Markis asked, “Millie, could you put this away, and bring Rick up with you?” “This” was an old-fashioned laptop without any capability to transmit or transfer data. It was inconvenient, but very secure.
Cassandra Johnstone waited until her daughter had left with the laptop before speaking. “Bringing me here is bad tradecraft, DJ.”
“I know, but I wanted to talk to all three of you personally before I went ahead with the proposal.”
“You already know what I think.”
“You think I shouldn’t risk it; but there has to be some attempt to re-open normal relations with the Big Three, especially with the North Americans. The EP started in North America in the popular mind, even if it was a Soviet creation. The United Governments of North America is still the largest superpower.”
“These dinosaurs will eventually collapse under their own weight, just like the Soviets.”
“Even if I was certain of that – hell, look how long North Korea’s lasted – I’m not willing to wait. We have to make some kind of peace.”
“Once the nuclear threshold was breached, they got to use the big stick on whoever didn’t have one. How are you going to get them to give that up for good?”
“The Nuclear Concord has held. They haven’t risked an atomic strike in over a year. Even their own people were getting tired of the images of horror we broadcast past their censorship. Their consciences might not be EP-enhanced, but the common people have them, and they are getting sick of the oppression and brutality of their own government. Americans especially are not the type to accept this kind of tyranny for long.”
There came a knock at the door.
“Come in Rick, Millie, sit down. How is the cyber attack going?”
Rick smiled and took a seat, his sister next to him. “Quite well, I think. We’ve managed to crash a number of their servers, and we shut down some sites. They will think they headed off a tremendous threat to their arsenal.”
“Did we pinpoint the leak, Cassie?”
“Yes we did. It was in Farnsworth’s office, as we suspected. A Psycho, well trained. We’ll have to update and refine the psych tests and polygraphs; this one counterfeited the ones we gave.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes. Funny thing about narcissists – they won’t usually kill themselves to protect their masters. So the Aussies get another one.” Her tone was disapproving.
“They can have them for all I care.”
Cassandra frowned. She considered this one of Markis’ blind spots; he had blossomed as a leader and politician, but he still tended to stick his head in the sand when it came to certain problems, or at least to grasp at simplistic solutions. So when the Australians had volunteered to take all the Psychos in Free Communities off their hands, to be held in special prisons far, far into the Outback, he had agreed immediately.
Over her objections.
Something about the arrangement made her profoundly uneasy. She told herself that Australia was a Free Community with Edens in charge, and that they were fundamentally incapable of perpetrating atrocities. But she also knew that human beings had an amazing ability to fool themselves, lying to themselves, convincing themselves of the most outlandish things, and truly believing them. And true belief could always threaten a conscience, no matter how robust. If you truly believed infidels were condemned by your god, or your enemies were subhuman, then killing them wasn’t very hard, especially if you didn’t have to do it personally.
She reminded herself that she had to get with Shawna Nightingale and discuss the widely dispersed, almost unsupervised research programs.
Some were relatively innocuous, such as the many nonlethal weapons they had come up with. Some were deeply disturbing to Edens, and had been suspended or closely scrutinized; most of these had come from the fertile and immature minds of children and teenagers, for whom death and immorality were often just abstract concepts. Things like artificial intelligences to control robot weapons, to do the killing that Edens couldn’t; use of artillery-sown mines, pushing the killing into merely “possible” and “potential”; chips in Eden soldiers’ brains that would override their consciences; recruiting uninfected humans to trigger smart weapons or to authorize automatic killing systems.
Each of these ideas made her guts roil. It seemed like bolstering the consciences of mankind had just spurred greater ingenuities to perform secondhand evil. Not for the first time she wondered if the evils in humanity were stubbornly immune to external force like the Eden Plague. She considered it part of her duty to moderate the Chairman’s Pollyannaish vision when she could. Still, a leader with a virtuous vision was a precious thing...as long as she could keep him grounded.
Cassandra dragged her mind back to the present, right now a discussion of the Chairman’s meeting proposal.
Rick asked, “Do you really think they will agree?”
“Publicly or privately?”
“Either one.”
Millicent Johnstone, the Chairman’s personal assistant and often his political sounding board, frowned in concentration. “I think they will want to meet clandestinely, perhaps send an undersecretary from State first.”
“But Defense makes the real decisions,” Rick objected.
“They will have a commissar along, but the public face will still be State.”
Markis stirred from his silent listening. “I’m not going to meet with some undersecretary. It has to be the Secretary himself, or someone at a higher level – SecDef, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of the Vice Presidents.”
“So if we can’t get someone that high, you don’t go. We send a Council member and work our way up,” Cassandra said.
Daniel stood up, pacing. “I want a bold stroke. Things are settling in to this ugly stalemate. We have to break it all open or we’ll have another fifty years of cold war. Millions of people are dying in the Big Three of curable diseases every year. Thousands of their own citizens who contract the Eden Plague are sent to concentrations camps to be interned and worked to death. Millions of FC citizens have been murdered by Big Three nuclear weapons. The Union of Neutral States plays both sides against the middle and is getting richer than either by exploiting their own Edens for the benefit of their uninfected ruling classes.”
“Maybe that’s the lesser of the evils, sir,” Rick broke in. “If we can settle the use of nuclear weapons completely – if the Concord holds and the world can get used to not using nuclear weapons again – then eventually the Big Three will crumble. And eventually we will make the EP into an airborne virus, a truly virulent strain, and there will be nowhere to hide. Sir, we really don’t have to hurry.”
Markis rounded on Rick, throttling his fury, forcing himself to speak evenly. He pointed his finger toward the world outside the window. “That’s a very realistic and coldblooded assessment, and it’s absolutely true – if you ignore the people out there dying!”
He clenched his right fist, slamming it into his thigh, turning around to stare out the window. His whispered words were barely audible. “I’ve dedicated myself to life, to human life – an end to unnecessary suffering and death. I can’t just let the world muddle on toward some hopeful future, no matter how inevitable it seems.” He seemed to deflate, to sag. Spreading fingertips against the plate glass, he pressed his forehead to the cool window.
Rick and Millie looked at each other in mute concern and embarrassment, then at their mother.
Cassandra stood to put a hand on Markis’ neck. “DJ...you saved many more than they killed. You saved millions. Billions maybe. And those people will live long and productive lives. They will make a better world.”
“Tell that to those dying right now. Now leave me alone, please. I’m not fit company at the moment.”
The siblings glanced at each other, then at Cassandra. She patted Daniel gently then withdrew her touch, motioning to the others with her eyes. They left, meeting in the break room down the hall.
“He’s so focused on what he can’t do that he misses what he can!” grumbled Rick.
Millie responded roughly, almost viciously, in that derisive tone only siblings employ. “When you have as much responsibility as he does, we’ll see how you do, Ricky.”
“That’s enough, you two,” their mother cut in. “He’s the Chairman so he gets to struggle with policy. He feels like the job’s not finished, and it hurts him. We have to help him. Together.”
“Yes mother,” they responded in unison, then looked at each other sheepishly. For an instant it all felt like ten years ago, just two confused tweens and a grieving widow buried deep inside the Bunker.
***
Markis put out his diplomatic feelers, seeking backdoor contact through the Neutral States embassies and political systems. The United Governments and the Unionist Party had maintained a stubborn refusal to officially open relations with the Free Communities, rather as the US had for many years refused to deal with Maoist China, or Cuba under Fidel.
On the morning of the third day Millicent knocked and then entered without waiting for an invitation. Her young face – genuinely young, rather than the slightly artificial youthfulness of the rejuvenated – glowed with the good news.
“Mister Chairman, Geneva is a go. They’re sending the Canadian Prime Minister. He’s going openly to address the Neutral States Assembly, but he will meet with you secretly afterward under the auspices of the Swiss.”
Markis stood up, throwing his stylus down. “That’s excellent news. Set it all up, and I’ll leave tonight, as soon as the jet is ready.”
