2030

by Albert Brooks

  “How did it go?”

  “We love her. She’s in.”

  “I’m proud it was you who picked the first woman. It’s important.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll see you later.” Bernstein got up from his desk and walked over to the bowl of M&M’s. “You mark my words, John, this country is going to fall in love with this woman. She’ll be like a mother figure that you trust. I want a global currency to be part of my legacy. She’s going to help me with that.”

  “I believe she will. But most important, maybe she’ll have some ideas about Los Angeles that no one’s thought of yet.”

  “Jesus Christ. Los Angeles. I can’t go five minutes without hearing the name of that city. I don’t even think they voted for me. What’s going on this morning?”

  “Every day is worse; it just gets worse.”

  “We need to go back out. Two times isn’t enough.”

  “I agree,” Van Dyke said. “Let’s get her sworn in and we can take her with us. Pray God she can help.”

  The President smiled. “Maybe she can pay for it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Brad Miller, along with two thousand others in the Pasadena tent, was slowly giving up. There had been two suicides over the last week; one was a gentleman Brad had become friends with.

  One morning, on the news, Brad saw that the President had just appointed a new secretary of the Treasury and they were both going to come and tour Southern California. There were also going to be several video town halls where people could ask the President questions in an orderly fashion. Brad went to one of the attendants and inquired if they were going to have a camera placed in the tent so he could ask a question himself. The attendant knew nothing about it but said he would find out and let Brad know. People always said that here. They readily admitted—almost boasting—that they knew nothing, as if that was some sort of badge of honor.

  As Air Force One made its way across the United States, the President was in his flying office along with Susanna Colbert (who had been approved overwhelmingly by the Senate); John Van Dyke; and the secretary of the Interior, Franklin Little. They discussed what this trip might accomplish.

  “Obviously we have no definitive answers on how to proceed,” the President said. “So we’ll take advantage of Susanna being new in office and say we want them to meet her, how brilliant she is, and how we will now lead a new charge in figuring out a financial solution to the biggest problem the country has ever faced.”

  “Should I answer questions directly?” Susanna asked.

  “I don’t see why not, do you, John?”

  “I think if her answers are too specific it will hurt us at this point, especially since we can’t deliver. So if you say that you’ve been working on this problem since the moment you’ve come into office and it’s your top priority, I think that will be sufficient. But you can feel free to charm them.”

  As the presidential helicopter toured the city, Susanna was not prepared for the devastation. She had seen all the pictures and newsreels and immersed herself in this disaster, trying to come up with any possible ideas, but seeing it in person was overwhelming. “My God,” she said. “It’s as if a nuclear weapon went off.”

  “Not really,” Van Dyke said. “A neutron bomb would have at least left the buildings. A lot of dead people, but a functioning infrastructure. Here, we have nothing.”

  The helicopter landed at one of the larger triage units. The presidential party greeted the sick and wounded and hopeless, and a press conference was held. Questions came in directly from various remote sites, but they were screened, as the President did not want this to be an event where he was just responding to furious people; he wanted real questions that he could give some reasonable answers to. The moderator began.

  “The first question, Mr. President, is from Sally Maelstrom.” An older woman appeared on the screen. She looked as if she’d had her hair done for the occasion.

  “Mr. President, the condominium I owned is no longer livable. I have been relocated, they tell me temporarily, but what is your plan? Will my home be rebuilt? My entire investment is gone.”

  Brad Miller, watching the press conference in the Pasadena tent, leaped up from his chair. “That was my question!” he yelled. “That’s the answer I want! Let’s see what he says!”

  “Sally,” the President answered, “thank you for asking that. The property question is one of the issues that is foremost on our agenda. As you know, insurance companies that would normally handle this in a prompt manner have been so overwhelmed that they are not responding as they should. We are in talks with all major insurers and we are also looking into other sources of revenue, as the cost is so great, the government cannot handle this alone.”

  More bullshit, Brad thought.

  “Sally, I want you to meet the new, and I might add, first woman secretary of the Treasury, Susanna Colbert. I have brought on Secretary Colbert because of her brilliant business mind, and as soon as we get back to Washington, this will be her first priority, rebuilding Los Angeles into the great city that it is.”

  Brad mumbled to himself, You son of a bitch. That’s the same answer the attendant gives me. Why don’t you just hand out the goddamn money?!

  The rest of the press conference went pretty much the same way. Obvious questions with no real answers. But there was one moment toward the end that was unscripted, when a question was directed to Susanna. It was from a forty-five-year-old man. “Ms. Secretary, where is the money going to come from? The country doesn’t have it, the insurance companies don’t have it, do we just print it? Won’t it be worth nothing if we do that? Where does it come from?” Van Dyke looked down at his screen. This question was not there. Susanna was on her own. And she answered without hesitation.

  “We can’t just print it, you’re right,” she said. “To print that much money would devalue our currency beyond repair. The time may be near to ask other countries for monetary help. It’s up to the President, of course, but that may be what is necessary at this point in time.”

  Susanna glanced to her right, and both the President and John Van Dyke were not smiling. They had not formally introduced other countries into the mix, but now it was done. Susanna quickly added, hoping to repair any damage she might have caused, “I stress this is something the President has not decided on, but he has always put every option on the table and I’m sure he will make the right decision.”

  Before Air Force One even left the ground the headlines from the trip were everywhere and they were all essentially the same:

  PRESIDENT TO ASK FOR FOREIGN AID

  Susanna sat alone on the return trip. After an hour someone came to her seat and asked her to come to the President’s office. She thought she was going to be the record holder for the shortest time in a cabinet position. She walked in and the President was smiling. “Sit down.”

  “I feel terrible,” she said. “I seem to have put you in an uncomfortable position.”

  “Quite the contrary. You spoke what we have known from the beginning but were hesitant to say. The cat’s out of the bag and it’s about time. When we get back to Washington we’ll put our heads together and figure out a way to borrow these unfathomable sums with the least amount of pain. My feeling is that, if possible, we can spread it around the world so no country holds that much more of our debt. The number is so great already that I don’t really know how to borrow another twenty trillion, but that’s why you’re here now.”

  Susanna felt somewhat relieved. “Let me work on it. And I’m sorry if I caused headlines on something you weren’t ready to deal with.”

  “I would never have been ready. So, in that regard, thank you. But Susanna?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t do it again. Don’t give answers to questions that I don’t know about in advance. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Susanna went back to her seat still not knowing if she was in trouble. What she did know was that
she was numb. Twenty trillion dollars, what does that number even mean? The debt the country was currently paying off was already so large; how could it take this much more? She took a pill and ordered a whisky sour. She was going to either sleep or enjoy the flight. Susanna had learned a long time ago to use air travel as the one place to relax. If she crashed, what a waste of time worrying would be. About anything. And as she looked around she had to pinch herself; everyone did the first few times they flew on Air Force One.

  * * *

  Robert Golden was in a meeting when he heard the loud explosion. He thought a terrible accident had occurred outside his office window. Alarms sounded and a security official appeared on every screen. “Please evacuate the building through the emergency exits immediately. Do not panic. Everything is under control.” Paul Prescott came running in.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.”

  As people filed into the street they could see a gaping hole in the side of the front entrance to AARP headquarters. It didn’t look like a car had crashed, and there was no car there anyway. Apparently it was a homemade bomb: plastic, small, but it did a lot of damage.

  After two hours the police determined it was safe to return to the offices, although most people chose to take the rest of the day off. Golden immediately ordered an internal investigation to see who had been fired recently, who’d been reprimanded, who was disgruntled, anything they could gather to put together a suspects list.

  The first person Paul Prescott called was his new friend at Justice.

  “Are you all right?” Jack Willman asked him. “Are you hurt?”

  “You heard, huh?”

  “I’m watching it right now. I was going to call you.”

  “What’s going on?

  “I don’t know. This was a surprise.”

  “Is this related to the bus shootings?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Christ, somebody is angry. That’s a big hole out there.”

  “Maybe one of your members thought the dues were too high.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Sorry. So you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay. So how are you?”

  “I’m fine. At least my building doesn’t have a hole in it.”

  “Keep making fun,” Paul said. “Seriously, let me know if you find anything out.”

  “You know I will. Have you been back to the club?”

  “No. Not since you.”

  “Well, I enjoyed that night. It was fun talking.”

  “I agree. We’ll do it again.”

  Paul walked back into Golden’s office and found four people there. Two were from the FBI and two from the Secret Service. “Folks, this is Paul Prescott; he’s my number one here.” Golden then handed Paul a sheet of paper. It was the note left by the bomber:

  WARNING—GIVE BACK. ALL YOU DO IS TAKE. YOU HAVE HAD YOUR FUN NOW IT’S TIME TO LET OTHERS HAVE THEIRS. WE WILL NOT STOP. THIS IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT YOU WILL SEE IF YOU DON’T SHARE YOUR COMFORT AND YOUR WEALTH. WE HAVE NOTHING, YOU HAVE IT ALL.

  And it was signed, YOUTH FOR EQUALITY.

  Prescott sat down, not knowing what to say. He asked one of the FBI agents if they knew who that group was. They didn’t. “So what happens now?” he asked. An FBI agent said they were aware of these kinds of groups but not this specific one. They were going to increase security around the building but do it in a way so as not to attract attention.

  “How can you do that without attracting attention?” Golden wanted to know. “And maybe we should attract attention. Maybe we should let these people know they can’t just attack us like this.”

  “There’s a way to go about this, Mr. Golden. Let us do our job, and if we feel you or your people are at further risk, we’ll step things up. The one thing we don’t want to do is to act scared. That’s what they look for and that will give them encouragement for more attacks. If it looks like it caused some commotion, but things promptly went back to normal, it will make them plan more aggressively, which is the best way to catch them.”

  “What if we don’t catch them?”

  “We will.”

  Paul asked a good question. “Did this note go everywhere? Does the news have it?”

  “Yes,” one of the Secret Service men told him. “It was sent everywhere.”

  “So how do we deal with that?”

  “We will help you craft a statement that will be out within an hour, and you will do your best to avoid answering questions directly. If you are forced to do so, you will say you don’t know anything, which is true, since you don’t.”

  “And you think it’s safe to work in this building?” Golden asked. The Secret Service agent gave him the best answer.

  “Mr. Golden, my sister works here and I would tell her to show up as usual.”

  “Who’s your sister?”

  “Janice Eaton.” Golden thought a moment and then went to his screen to check on the name.

  “Oh, sure. She’s wonderful. In accounting.”

  “She was in accounting; she was transferred to event planning.”

  “That’s great,” Robert said. “She is a valuable employee.”

  “She hates event planning. Any chance she could get her old job back?”

  “Done. Tell her she’s back in accounting.” As if Golden was going to piss off the Secret Service.

  * * *

  When Max Leonard saw the news of the bombing and then read the note, he felt as though his life was coming together. At times he thought he was the only one who was passionate about this, even though he knew others were out there. But when he saw someone brave enough to make a big statement like this one, he knew he was on the right track.

  Max was almost jealous. All he had done was to have meetings and talk about it, but here was someone who put those words into action. When he saw Kathy that night he was so excited. “I have to find out who this group is. Maybe we can join.”

  Kathy seemed excited, too, but she really hadn’t thought it through like Max and she wasn’t sure if bombing buildings was the best way to accomplish what they were trying to do. She expressed those feelings and Max listened, but he gave her such great answers that she started to see it his way.

  “Baby, nothing is going to change without this. In every important revolution, shit happens and that’s the way it is. The olds have to be shaken out of their stupor and realize that they share this planet with everyone else.” Max then used the money she owed for her medical loan as part of his argument, and each time he brought it up, it worked. “Do you know how long you’re going to be paying off that money? Forever. And the only reason you had to take out that loan is that there isn’t enough to go around. The olds are getting it all. Do you think that’s fair?”

  “No,” Kathy said. And she meant it.

  “Goddamn right, no. They have the votes and they have the power and they’re not going to give up a fucking penny without something being done. Everything important in human history needs a push, and sometimes the push is hard and people get hurt.” Max wasn’t sure that was completely true, but it sounded right and Kathy certainly bought it.

  “You’re a genius,” she said. “You’re like a true revolutionary.”

  “I wish. The guy who blew up that building is the revolutionary. Right now, I’m all talk.”

  “That’s not true. You’re just figuring it out. You’ll figure out what the best idea is. Are you going to have another meeting?”

  “I don’t know. I was starting to think the meetings were a waste of time. But maybe now, with this news all over the place, we should try again. See if people are more committed.”

  * * *

  President Bernstein was not surprised when he was informed of the bombing. He knew the hostility was out there. It was always just under the surface, and in the last decade it had been getting worse. A new generation was finding its voice.

  In the late 1960s, the government act
ed upset when young people took drugs, but acid was a bureaucrat’s dream. No one blew things up on acid or pot or Ecstasy. The officials had to act outraged, but they were grateful for any substance that kept the youth stoned and passive and with any kind of luck kept the older folks in their jobs longer because the young people were too loaded to take over. And once the military draft was ended, no politician ever wanted it back. It took away the main reason that caused kids to take to the streets. They didn’t want to die in wars they disagreed with.

  But the President never understood why the newer generations had waited this long to get angry about their issue. Debt. It’s why he brought up the subject of living too long in his campaign, and it’s why he was not happy that his mother was a vegetable, kept alive now at government expense.

  Bernstein tried not to mention his mother’s lingering condition, but occasionally, in a press conference, he was asked how she was doing. He would turn sad and say, “Not well. We hope for the best, but it looks very bad.” He was always worried that the next question would be, “How can you spend so much of the taxpayers’ money when she has no chance of recovery? Aren’t there better uses for those funds?” But that question never came. Still, he wished his mother had left instructions on when to pull the plug. He thought it was so selfish that she hadn’t.

  And that was one more reason why he was drawn to Susanna Colbert. As rich as Colbert was, she wasn’t selfish, not like his mother. As a matter of fact, Susanna was one of the least selfish people he’d ever met. Most ultra-rich were intolerable, spending all of their energy on their business, with little time for anything else. Susanna was nothing like that. At her swearing in, when Bernstein met her children, he was beyond impressed. Right from central casting, he thought. Smart, humble, a good sense of humor, an obvious great love for their mother. How did this woman do that and still make so much money? He was glad she was secretary of the Treasury. Maybe, just maybe, some of that magic would rub off on America.