“We managed to rebuild the garden of Eden just to risk losing it again but this time forever.”
Chapter 28
Charles entered the replica of the Oval Office at eleven in the morning. He found Skip sitting at the President’s desk.
“You look pretty comfortable in the seat of the big boss, Skip. Is this part of the Vice President’s perks? To use his chair when he is not in? Hope it doesn’t cause you a bad impression….”
Skip laughed,
“On the contrary, Charles. Ken wants me to sit here when we meet Congress members like you. He prefers sharing the couch with the guests. He says that makes him easier to empathize with the delegation. He has some delay today, the morning briefing with the Pentagon and the Department of the Environment and Health is taking longer than usual.”
“I see,” Charles replied, “How is he finding life in Kansas? Does he miss Washington, D.C?”
“Kansas somehow reminds him of his native Texas, but he did not want to leave the Capital to avoid being hit by last year’s pest swarms. Let me brief you before he arrives, so we can make the most of his time. We would like to pass through a constitutional amendment to allow him a third mandate in 2049, but we need Congress to support us. You have been the head of the Republican majority for two years, do you think we can bring the Democrats onboard?”
“That’s difficult to say,” Charles replied immediately. “LaHood is winning America’s Second Civil War, so if he shows up again, the Democrats would probably miss out. On the other hand, they risk losing out also against any Republican front-runner, who might be….well, you or I, for example. So it might make sense for them to play the national unity card, share into the victory of LaHood, and hope that he does bad in his third mandate. The only thing is….the sense of national urgency is decreasing, now that we are regaining military control and that the environmental risks are outweighing the political ones. The rebels are losing ground, and secessionist states are joining the Union one way or another, but pests and flu epidemics keep getting more and more serious. You cannot blame the rebels for that. Then there is all this apocalyptic propaganda that is pouring in from Europe and Asia, as if we were responsible for their mess. It is dead clear that no one in this country wants to rent out our space bases to the Russians or the Chinese. That would be the perfect recipe for losing the election.”
The door opened and Ken LaHood entered the room.
“Hello Charles, I beg your pardon, but you do not need to recap. I went through your conversation through the double-speed replay as I walked down the corridor. I understood Charles could bring the Senate minority on our side to pass the amendment, is it?”
“I do not think so, Mr. President,” Charles replied immediately, “as I said, the sense of urgency of the war is kind of fading away and the environmental and health emergency has no immediate culprit, so..”
“It has had no culprit so far, Charles,” Skip chimed in, “at least, according to the information that the CIA and the FBI are collecting points in a different direction.”
“What do you mean?” Charles replied wryly. He had learned to recognize when Skip was about to unveil his plots.
“Just look at this,” Skip handed over a paper document over to Charles, “The file started spreading from rebel-controlled dark websites, but our people in Langley confirmed it is true. It is a bombshell, that’s why we use only the good old printed copies to share it, but sooner or later it will leak out.”
Charles read through the document and stopped at the end.
“Skip, do you really believe this trash? It’s basically blaming the Mossad and the American Jews for deliberately spreading the pandemic, just like the Nazi propaganda of the last century.”
“I would just call it crappy rebel propaganda, but I have more trouble not believing the intelligence reports that to some extent confirm the rebel sources. Let’s face it, Israel has some good reasons to resent our special protection policy for the American Jewish minority, and they were the ones who invented those shitty flies after all. Then they made the deal with Turkey over Cyprus, so that they might feel completely independent from us now, on their fortress island.”
“It’s plainly nonsense, Skip,” Charles erupted, “They are also suffering from the pandemic. They had to evacuate Israel and move most of the population to Cyprus. Here in America, they live like prisoners in their protected neighborhoods. Why would they bother plotting against us? I mean, what would you call for? Open up concentration camps, here in America? Just one last thing, do not even dare think I am telling you this because of Sally.”
“Hang on, Charles,” Ken LaHood waited for him to stop blustering, “let’s go back to square one. The point is all about rebuilding some sense of national urgency to pass the amendment in Congress. This looks good enough, and we will be careful not to target Jews as a whole and even less American Jews, but instead we’ll focus on specific institutions like the Mossad or the Israeli government. We just need a few months of indignation to unite Congress, secure my third mandate, win the war and start rebuilding the country, at last.”
Charles mumbled, then snapped back at Skip, deliberately ignoring the President.
“Then why not just blame any other foreign power like Russia or China?”
“China has never stopped financing us over the last twenty years, throughout our civil war and despite of their own proxy war with Russia,” Ken La Hood replied, trying to grab Charles attention again, “we owe them far more than a pound of flesh.”
“Russia has two problems,” Skip completed, “first, they still have huge nuclear stockpiles so we could blame them up to a certain point. Second, even more importantly, the average American does not really feel they threaten us. We need an enemy from within to reunite the community; credible enough to be a threat, yet weak enough that you can target him without risking too much. Believe me, we will make sure direct damage is kept to a minimum. Rest assured nothing will happen to...”
“This time I am not in, Skip,” Charles replied, without letting Skip finish his sentence, and stood up from the couch, “Mr. President, you will have my resignation as Senate majority speaker tomorrow.”
“Holy shit, Charles, don’t be emotional and sit down!” Skip erupted, “You want to know one last thing? Israel is with us. You think we would embark on such a game without first checking with their new prime minister?”
Charles stopped and sat back, stunned.
“Are you talking about Eyal Podhoretz, the former head of Mossad?”
“Exactly, Eyal,” Ken La Hood confirmed. “He would actually welcome some more immigration from the United States. They need people to consolidate their new homeland in Cyprus, and continue presiding the strongholds in Israel. Over time, the dust will settle down. Just ask Sally, if you do not believe us.”
“Sally has not been passing on information to Mossad for years, you should know that very well, Skip.” Charles hissed.
“Oh, sure we know,” Skip chirped, “but such connections are forever, they may fade a bit, but you can easily rekindle them. Unlike true love….”
Charles stood silent, his eyes moving from Skip to La Hood, who kept his eyes fixed on him.
“I need to think about it,” he finally said, “I’ll let you know in two days.”
He walked away, without bothering to say goodbye.
Ken La Hood waited a few seconds, then asked Skip,
“What do you think he will do?”
Skip looked at his watch and tapped a few commands on the screen.
“He is talking to Sally right now. He is on board. Reluctantly, but on board.”
Chapter 29
Dorian rushed through the hospital entrance, upset for the delay caused by traffic jams along the tangenziale of Milan, Italy. Traffic was still the same despite the intelligence of the self-driving cars. The security system recognized his biometric data and sent him the directions to the intensive care ward through his electronic contact lenses.
He ran through the corridors and eventually stopped in front of the ward’s door. His father was sitting next to the entrance, waiting for him, and staring into the room.
Dorian sat next to him, took a deep breath and eventually asked, softly.
“How bad is she?”
“Bad.” Louis repeated bleakly. Dorian noticed that his father was wearing his data helmet, so he activated his own and connected to it. The medical data files of Dora appeared in his thought, after a few tries he decided to stay with the default 3D view of the immune system activity.
Dorian skimmed through the data for several minutes, then he asked Louis.
“Why didn’t you try the new beta-hexalamine antigenes? They have been proven effective to fight many variants of the pandemic.”
“You still have some homework to do before you can earn your Ph.D. in Pharmacology, Dorian,” Louis replied softly and slightly annoyed, “They would interfere with the synthetic blood she is taking to stabilize the circulation. Hexalamine would start an antigenic reaction that would fry her in her own blood.”
“You mean that…she has to fight the fever alone?” Dorian commented in disbelief.
“Yes, just like the average person on the planet. She caught a very severe form. You and I have been very lucky to get a mild one. But Helena and Tarek also suffered badly.”
Dorian looked at his watch and said, to no one in particular,
“Let me go drop my stuff off at the hotel. I’ll be right back.” He started moving towards the exit.
“I hope you followed my advice and booked at the ‘Adler’ on the East side of Greater Milan, in the German sector.”
“Yes, I did. It’s amazing how Milan has changed in the last twenty years. It used to be a medium-sized European city and now it turned into a megalopolis of more than twenty million people.”
“Just like Marseille, Rome and Barcelona,” Louis commented to himself, “climate, war and environmental disasters pushed Africans and Northern Europeans alike to the shores of the Mediterranean, and..”
The intensive ward door opened and a doctor dressed like an astronaut stepped into the waiting room. Louis stopped talking and Dorian turned back. Louis did not wait for the doctor to remove his white coat and addressed him immediately.
“How is she doing, Lorenzo?”
“Not very well at all, but she is conscious and should be able to make it past the night. We keep her hydrated and target infections with specific antibiotics. She had a pneumonia outbreak in the right lung yesterday, but we have been able to block it.”
Lorenzo ended the sentence by looking at Dorian, whom he had never seen.
“You must be Dorian,” the doctor said, removing the right glove and extending his arm the shake his hand. “Your mother asked to see you. Tomorrow we will see if we can bring her temperature back under control. If we manage you might be able visit her. That would help her for sure.”
“What are the chances of survival, Doctor?” Dorian snapped back bluntly.
“Slightly above fifty percent,” Lorenzo replied immediately, “She just cannot afford another major infection. She must avoid it in the next couple of days. I have seen several cases like hers, among them my parents, whom I lost in the last two years to the various pandemic waves. The aging population of Europe has just been ravaged, you know.”
A small green icon blinked on the doctor’s smartwatch, Lorenzo looked at it and moved toward the window, as he picked the call up excusing himself from Louis and Dorian.
“Hi Emanuele, is it urgent? I am with two people right now…very important ones..”
Louis and Dorian did not hear the rest of the conversation, that lasted a few seconds.
Lorenzo turned immediately back to Dorian and Louis,
“I beg your pardon, it was my younger brother Emanuele,” he said apologetically, “He is in Cairo, Egypt. He works there for BayerHoechst Chemicals.”
“He is there to help contain the mice swarm crisis, isn’t he?” Dorian was quick to connect the dots, “I also travel there frequently to supervise the construction of the Red Sea solar cities, it would be a pity to leave them to be overtaken by the pests. I hope he is not in danger. When the swarms move they are nearly unstoppable.”
“He just called me to see if I knew that the US has a new President,” Lorenzo answered.
Dorian tuned his lenses to the newsfeed. Just five months into his third mandate, Ken LaHood had died, seemingly from a stroke. The Vice President, Skip Ross, had already been sworn into office and he would be addressing Congress shortly.
“Shit,” Dorian muttered as he switched the channel off. “they will continue building the third, useless orbital elevator instead of diverting effort for the space refinery, and we are running out of time..”
Dorian looked at Louis, and he realized that his father was staring at the ward room door, unaffected by the news.
“So in the next few days you will tell us if Dora can make it, right, doctor? I think I will spend the night here in the guest room, if that’s ok with you, Lorenzo.”
“Of course, Mr. Picard,” the doctor confirmed, and then sent an enquiring look at Dorian, who promptly said,
“Thanks, I was about to go to my hotel. I have quite a lot of work to do and I do not want to bother your personnel or the other patients. I will be back tomorrow morning.”
It didn’t go as planned. Dorian was woken up at 3 AM by his father. He had to rush back to the hospital, new infections had developed and no one really knew how much time was left for Dora.
Dorian hung up and rushed down to the hotel lobby, asking for the quickest way to get back to the Niguarda Hospital. The concierge looked at him slightly puzzled. The fastest way required crossing the Northeastern side of Milan, where there were neighborhoods of Nigerians and Ukrainians. Was Dorian willing to pay for armed escort drivers?
Dorian handed over his platinum card from the United Swiss and Russian Bank, and commented sarcastically,
“You can tell the escort agency I can pay in the new energy-linked Euroruble currency, if it gets things done faster.”
Half an hour later, he was entering the intensive care ward, for the second time in less than twelve hours. He looked at his father face, and realized that now there was no need for a medical data review. Louis was already wearing the sterile suit and pointed to the one laying on the waiting room’s table, for Dorian to wear.
When they reached Dora’s bed, Lorenzo, who was monitoring the vital parameters on the machines humming next to her, stood up, patted Louis on his shoulders and moved out of the way.
Dora immediately recognized Dorian, and tried to open her eyes, that had been just tiny slits for the last few days. She only partially managed to do it, but she did manage to smile at her son. Louis took off the sterile suit helmet and took her right hand into his. Dorian inched to her left side, waiting for Dora to grab his right arm with the little strength she had left.
“Come on Dora, you have to resist,” Louis implored her, “Lorenzo has just injected the drug. Your liver should be back under control in a few hours, then the fever should go down and..”
Dora looked at him with a faint smile, then looked at Dorian and back at Louis.
“You know it’s not true, Louis,” she whispered back, “and I know it’s not true.”
She paused, then continued.
“Do you remember what I told you a long time ago? No lies. It’s time for me to go, but I want you to know two things before I am gone.”
Dorian started to look at the instruments, desperately looking for a sign that her mother was wrong.
“The first one is that I am grateful for the life you gave me, Louis. Don’t let regret overcome you when I am gone. And the second one…”
Louis drew closer, as Dora’s voice faded. Dorian couldn’t help but let tears fall. He stepped aside to let Louis spend the last minutes with her alone, and Louis gripped her left hand tight, to let her know he was there.
Dora
body contracted one last time and then passed away. Louis quietly cried, with his face on her hands and stayed in that position for what seemed like ten minutes before standing up.
Three hours later, Louis and Dorian were busy returning calls and organizing the funeral. Being public celebrities, Louis and Dorian also had newsbriefs to set up, which just added to the confusion. Dorian was right in the middle of a call with his media agent when he muted the phone and asked his father,
“Dad, what was the second thing mom wanted you to know? Did you get it?”
Louis looked at Dorian, then his eyes slowly went down to the floor, and told him plainly,
“She told me she was actually curious to die.”
Dorian looked at him, stunned.
“Yes, that’s what she said,” Louis confirmed softly. “For some reason, it helps me bear the grief. But it’s time to move on, we have not yet decided where to bury her.”
Chapter 30
Charles stared at the empty bottle. The House Speaker was not supposed to drown his grief in vodka, but that’s all that was left to him the week after the burial of Sally, and he could only thank his bioengineers for the drug he was using to quickly get rid of the hangover. Skip was also moving away from empathy and back to business as usual. When he saw the incoming call from India, he took it as a welcome change in his bleak routine. His surprise grew when his assistant informed him that the caller was Dinesh Kheradpir.
“Hello, Dinesh, it must have been about ten years since we have talked to each other. Are you speaking as the Chief Executive of the biggest Indian biotechnology corporation or as the top scientific advisor to the Indian Prime Minister?”
“Hi Charles, I’m not calling as either one. I wanted to present my condolences for the loss of Sally. Her death was so unfortunate.”
“It was not unfortunate. She was deliberately killed in the middle of an attack to her congregation, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Along with thirty other people, for the record,” Charles replied coldly.
The Last Enemy - A history of the present future - 1934-2084 Page 35
