V-Day

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “I can, now I’ve spoken with Collins.”

  Nick hesitated. “President Collins?” Then he smiled and shook his head. “Go on. Can you tell me?”

  “For crissake, Nick, you deserve to know more than anyone.”

  Nick gave a tiny shrug. “I’m nobody, Duardo. I’m the brother of the former President. I’m not even military. I know my place.”

  Duardo shook his head. “You may fool the general public with that. I know different.” He hesitated. “You won’t like this,” he added.

  “About the bomb? I haven’t liked anything about it so far.”

  “Serrano played a huge game of bluff…and it worked.” Duardo lowered his voice, because the partition was only a heavy-duty plastic and anyone standing on the other side of it would hear him as clearly as Nick. “Captain Graves and her team really did destroy the dirty bomb. They dropped several hundred thousand tons of rock on it, which left Serrano with no leverage over the United States. He had to keep them out of the war in any way he could.”

  “So he rigged the drone to make it look radioactive?”

  “It was radioactive,” Duardo said. “There was plenty of toxic dirt around the caves at the north end of the island, when the dust settled. They scooped up a few buckets of it and dumped it in the drone. Then they connected the original missile back onto it and flew it toward Washington. The dirt gave out all the radiation, which scared everyone into freezing on the spot.” He scowled. “The missile was experimental, too. The most powerful warhead in the world that isn’t nuclear.”

  “How did they figure this out?” Nick asked.

  “As soon as the drone dropped its bomb on the Palace, it reverted back to basic programming. The pilots at Los Alamitos in California flew it home, parked it on a lonely airstrip in the desert and investigated.” Duardo straightened. “Collins over-explained. I think he’s feeling guilty. That might be useful, by and by.”

  Nick grinned. “It will pay to remind him of it every now and again.”

  Nick and Calli were released two days later. Less than eight hours after, Nick commandeered a Jeep, and he and Calli drove north.

  “You have this under control,” Nick told Duardo. “You don’t need me.”

  “I do need you,” Duardo replied. “That isn’t the point, though. You’re a hero, Nick. People need to see you.”

  Nick shook his head. “I only took on the presidency because there was no one else. I don’t like the public eye. That’s not how I work. When you really do need me, you know where to find me. In the meantime, I’m taking my wife back home for a honeymoon we never got. You can have your Chief of Staff back in two weeks. By then, you’ll have a staff which needs leading.”

  Eight hours after Nick and Calli had been brought in, Duardo was informed by the Vistarian Captain he pressed into service as his temporary aide that a Captain Graves of the US Army Rangers requested a moment of his time.

  Captain Graves, like every military person Duardo had seen in the last few hours, was in dress uniform, her cap under her elbow. Duardo could spot the evidence of a hasty wardrobe change and fold lines in her jacket from being flat packed. “You’ve just come in from the field, Captain?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Graves said. “I brought some people with me who I thought you might like to see.”

  “Is that so?”

  She stepped to one side and gave a little whistle.

  The flap of the tent Duardo was using as HQ was pulled aside by the corporal who was checking passes and IDs.

  The tall man who stepped under the flap straightened up with a sideways grin.

  “Cristián…” Duardo breathed, stunned. He tore his gaze away from his little brother to look at the other person. “Chloe,” he added, as she smiled.

  Captain Graves grinned. “I found them in the mountains. It’s been an adventure sir. Without Cristián and Chloe, this war would have ended very differently.”

  Duardo lurched to his feet and crossed the room to face Chloe. “It was you who sent out that countdown, wasn’t it?”

  Chloe swallowed. “Yes.”

  He hugged her, unable to think of anything adequate to say.

  Cristián rested his hand on Duardo’s shoulder. “She has a way of leaving you speechless quite often,” he said in a warning tone.

  Duardo turned and hugged him, too.

  Cristián stiffened for a moment—he had always hated hugging. Then he relaxed and tightened his arms.

  “Duardo, I heard there was a Ranger Captain—” Adán Caballero limped into the tent and came to a halt, his eyes going to Captain Graves.

  “Sorry, sir! He wouldn’t stop!” the corporal called through the flap.

  “Just stop anyone new,” Duardo told him. “It’s getting crowded in here.” He turned back to Adán. “You’re looking for a Ranger Captain?” he asked, puzzled.

  “I found her,” Adán said, his voice distant. He was staring at Graves.

  Graves cleared her throat. “Sir, do you mind if I drop out of formality for a moment?” she asked Duardo.

  “I’m missing something here,” Duardo said. “Go ahead, Captain.”

  She put her cap on the folding table Duardo was using as a desk, then threw herself at Adán, almost knocking him off his precarious balance. He dropped the cane and held her, smoothing her hair from her face, his eyes warm.

  “The bit you’re missing, Duardo,” Adán told him, his gaze not shifting from Captain Graves, “is that this is my wife. Parris.” He kissed her.

  Duardo sat down again. Heavily.

  Then he noticed that Cristián and Chloe were holding hands as they watched Adán and Parris.

  “Get out of my freaking way or I’ll move you out of the way!” a woman said, just outside the tent.

  “But ma’am…” the corporal said.

  “That’s my brother in there, you idiot!”

  There was a grunt and the tent wall pushed in. Then the flap was flung aside and Téra strode in. She was dirty and had been crying, for the dried tears had made track marks through the dirt on her face. “Duardo!” She almost leapt across the tent and threw her arms around him.

  Duardo hugged her, his heart doing creaky things. Then he put her to one side so he could see her face. “Minnie. Where is she?”

  “Right here,” Minnie said softly, at the tent entrance.

  Duardo didn’t remember pushing through the many people in the tent. He found himself beside her. He picked her up and held her, his heart running way too fast.

  Minnie laughed and kissed him, then wiped his cheeks with her fingers. “I’m the one who is supposed to do that,” she whispered.

  “Whatever you say, my beloved.”

  *

  NICK TURNED OFF THE ENGINE and let the peace settle over them.

  Calli studied the glass and concrete house tucked away in the trees. “It looks exactly the same,” she said softly. “Completely untouched.”

  “I was expecting a ruin, too,” Nick admitted. “The Insurrectos were petulant at the best of times. If they couldn’t reach me, they could always destroy my house instead.” He picked up Calli’s hand and kissed the knuckles. “Home, my love. For now, anyway. I don’t think either of us will be able to stand the silence for more than a week or two at a stretch.”

  “It will be very good to come back to, though,” Calli admitted. “The first time I came here seems so long ago, now, yet it’s been less than a year.”

  Nick climbed out of the Jeep and moved around to her side of it and opened the door. “Come, Señora Escobedo.”

  She smiled as she got out. “That sounds good.”

  Nick kissed her. “Very good,” he murmured against her lips.

  *

  CHLOE FOUND CRISTIÁN SITTING ON an old wooden picnic bench high up the side of the valley. It had been a picnic and barbecue area long before the remnants of the war had taken over the valley. Now it was one of the few areas not staked out by the thousands of refugees from the city who were cam
ped around the military down below.

  The view from up here was why the picnic ground had been located here, although the walk up the slope to reach it was taxing.

  Cristián was sitting on the table, his legs crossed. He wasn’t working on his phone or his tablet. Neither were in sight. He was just sitting and watching the thousands of people in the valley below go about their business.

  “Hey,” Chloe said cautiously.

  It was getting close to sunset and Cristián was in deep shadow, making it hard to analyze what he was thinking.

  He rolled his eyes. “Tracker on my cellphone?” he asked.

  “I can take it off, if you really want to get away,” she offered.

  “It’s part of the Cloak?”

  “It is.”

  “I like being completely invisible online, so I guess I can put up with you knowing exactly what I’m doing.” His tone was light.

  “It’s weird,” she said, moving closer to the table. “I didn’t know it when I built the app, only the Cloak makes me feel as though I’m connected with, well, everyone who has it. A super-sized, extended family I can reach out and touch whenever I want, even though I can’t see a single one of them.”

  “I suspect everyone with the Cloak feels the same way.” Cristián laughed. “Which is a bizarre effect for a piece of software designed to keep everyone hidden from each other. The psychologists will have a theory for it.”

  “I think it’s the countdown which did that,” Chloe said. “Do you know I have strangers coming up to me and kissing and hugging me, now? They thank me for the timer, for warning them.”

  Cristián smiled. “That’s nice.”

  “It is,” Chloe admitted.

  “And Babylon didn’t break out in hives, now everyone knows who she is?”

  “Babylon doesn’t exist anymore,” Chloe said softly. “She died, about three weeks ago, when Chloe first spoke to Cristián.”

  Cristián didn’t answer. She saw his chest rise and fall, as he drew in a deep breath.

  “What are you doing up here?” she asked. “Alone time?” That was something she understood only too well.

  “Thinking,” he said. He lifted his chin, to indicate the busy valley. “I was thinking that I want to write a book.”

  “About the war?” she guessed. “I saw your brain kick up a gear when Parris talked about the right people explaining things to the next generation.”

  “A book about the war, yes. Maybe a second one, about how power works. How it intimidates and corrupts.”

  “And here I thought Duardo was the new politician,” Chloe said lightly.

  “I think I was wrong about that,” Cristián said. “When I heard he was President—”

  “Pro tem,” Chloe added.

  “He’s running Vistaria,” Cristián said. “Regardless of the title. Duardo was always the shining one, the poster child of a perfect Vistarian son. He could never do anything wrong, so when I heard he was President, it felt…inevitable. Only, I sat in his tent this afternoon and watched him dealing with people and he’s just Duardo. He hasn’t changed, Chloe. He didn’t flip a switch when he talked to me in between other people.” He hesitated. “I think even he is intimidated by the job.” He sounded a little awed.

  Her heart thudding, Chloe moved an inch closer to the table. “I wrote a list.”

  “Groceries? Servers to hack?”

  She smiled. “I’ll give you the items. You can tell me what the list is for.”

  Cristián nodded.

  Chloe checked off the items on her fingers. “You have an IQ of 170. You grew up alone inside a big family and you’re still sane.”

  “Sometimes,” Cristián added.

  “You found others like you out in the world and drew them into a group in a way they could deal with. The Group saved lives, Cristián. It saved mine. You saved me. You made me whole again. Then the war came along and you took on a high-risk job coordinating communications for the Loyalists, right under the noses of the Insurrectos. You saved the town, Cristián. Everyone. Then you found the drone control room for the Americans. And then you saved me. Again.”

  Cristián didn’t move. A squirrel in a nearby tree chattered angrily at the disturbances, making her jump.

  “You tell me what the list is for,” Cristián said at last.

  “It’s everything which makes you good enough, Cristián. It’s everything your brother never did and could never do. It’s everything that makes you such a…a worthy person.”

  Cristián leaned and picked up her hand and drew her all the way to the table. Then he gripped her waist and lifted her up and settled her in his lap. “You forgot the most critical item on your list,” he said, stroking her cheek.

  Chloe shivered. “And that is?”

  “Chloe Masters, woman genius, loves me.” He shook his head. “Me. If someone like you can love me, then I can’t be a complete waste of space.”

  Chloe linked her hands behind his neck. “Have you figured out the rest, yet?”

  “That I love you? I learned that when I saw you standing in front of two Insurrectos with your hands up while they brought their machine guns up to fire.” He let out a heavy gust of air. “I think I died a little, in that moment.” He touched his lips to hers. “I’ve always loved you, Chloe. Even when you were Babylon, and I didn’t know a single thing about you. I loved you anyway. I would lie awake at night, thinking of you. If you ended up being a man, it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have figured it out. It sometimes feels as if I have always loved you. Only, when you found me, when you stood in front of me, I suddenly had to face reality. While you were just on a screen, I didn’t have to worry that you would be disappointed in me. When you stepped out of the screen, then…well, you were there. You saw how I handled that.”

  Chloe tightened her arms and rested her cheek against his and sighed. “I wasn’t wrong,” she breathed. “You were worth the risk.”

  “You lost everything,” Cristián reminded her. “You gave it away.”

  She shook her head. “I got you in return. It’s a fair trade.”

  Cristián slid his hand along her torso, swooping up toward her breast. “I’m the same value as a mobile app? Hmm…I see I’m going to have to demonstrate my intrinsic value.” He kissed her, his hands roaming her body, making her squirm and making her forget the chill of the coming night.

  20.

  SEPTEMBER CAME AND WENT. NO one on Vistaria noticed. They were too busy cleaning up and reorganizing.

  Neither did anyone have time to worry about democratic elections. The Vistarian Army only had one general right then. By default, Duardo was President until the election was held.

  As there was no Palace, Duardo shrugged and moved the microscopic seeds of the new government to the office in his house in Pascuallita. Nick and Calli already had a house in the area. Calli drove down to Pascuallita every day to work at the desk on the other side of his office. She interviewed and hired staff and discussed the structure of the new government with him, in between.

  Duardo had almost forgotten the suggestion he had made to Minnie about the needs of a new government in the early days. Shortly after they had returned to the house in Pascuallita, Minnie presented Duardo with the plans she had built in the last days of the war, when she couldn’t sleep.

  “There was so much to do, so many unbelievable problems I had to fix…I don’t ever want Calli’s job for real.” Minnie glanced at Calli, who just smiled. “Only, all the problems, all the issues…they told me what we’d need now.”

  “Like what, Minnie?” Duardo asked, staring at the organizational chart on her computer screen.

  “We ran out of petty cash to buy coffee, right at the end,” Minnie said. “Which made me think, where are we going to get the money to rebuild after the war?” She spread her hands. “Taxes, of course, which means we need a tax department.” She turned her head. “You need to talk to Rubén about that, Calli. He’s a lawyer, did you know?”

&
nbsp; “I did, but thank you for the reminder,” Calli said, writing it down.

  “That is why the tax department is at the top of your list, here?” Duardo asked.

  “You can’t do anything else without money, and Nick is drained dry,” Minnie said. “I know—I’ve been writing cheques against his bank account. Then there’s the medical system.”

  “Garrett might have some input into that,” Calli said. “He has very interesting ideas about holistic healing mixed with conventional medicine. You should talk to him, Duardo.”

  “When I have time,” Duardo said, for there was never enough time these days.

  They adopted most of Minnie’s suggestions unchanged, because they needed structure more than they needed perfect plans.

  Maria Roldán, who insisted she was still the Mexican Ambassador to Vistaria, rented a house in Pascuallita. Soon afterwards, President Collins sent an American Ambassador, who rented the house beside Maria Roldán’s. His kids played with Maria’s in the yard behind their houses.

  Gradually, the key people Duardo needed moved to Pascuallita. The Loyalists reclaimed the base, which became the center of military affairs of the new Vistaria.

  Astra Corp returned to reclaim their mine and within two months had it operational once more. The first smelted ton of silver was donated to the Vistarian government as a thank you for recovering the mine from the Insurrectos.

  Six weeks after the war ended, Duardo used Chloe’s new communications equipment to air and live-stream an announcement that in two weeks’ time there would be a general election. The people of Vistaria were to choose among Duardo and the three newly minted generals of the Vistarian Army who they wanted for their President.

  No one but Duardo was even slightly shocked when Duardo won by a landslide seventy-three percent.

  *

  Constitution Day, October 20th. Five years later.