by Jim Wurst
“Sunrise.”
CHAPTER 81
Bizarrely the only person meditating in the Cranston home was George Sr. The house was brimming with aides and nervous energy. Everyone had at least two computers. They were in constant contact with the party in every state and even some congressional district. Data and more data. Did voting machines lose power? Did a station close early? Did the toll machines at certain vital locations stop working? Were any of the journalists reliable? Everything ultimately went to Maggie and Sean, who distilled the numbers, called the lawyers, flagged the inconsistencies before giving the candidate the essentials. Some campaign aides were even in the kitchen, constantly cooking whatever meal anyone’s body clock dictated, which explained why there was a huge pan of scrambled eggs ready while a pot of bison stew simmered nearby.
Cranston and his core team, Maggie, Mei, and Sean were nervous, angry, hopeful. They were a mass of energy, repulsing any tiny emotions that might get in their way. The entire townhouse was throbbing. Except this room. George Sr. sat quietly in his book-lined study. This room was a full, comfortable room, obviously aged to perfection by the sole occupant. Only one computer screen was on. A platter with a pot of coffee and a bagel sat next to his chair. He was reading nothing.
It was three in the afternoon. The first polls wouldn’t close for another three hours. But all the early electronic ballots had been cast and were stored. Legally, they would not be tabulated until the first polls closed. Legally. Mei was collecting reports from around the country on lines at polling stations, strategic power outages and shortage of ballots, concerned citizens at obviously random routes leading to polling stations. Any official recourse would be futile, but the data would be useful in planning a defense for next time.
George Sr. responded to the knock on the door. “Come in.” It was Mei. “Anything yet?” he asked her.
“No, everything is still tentative. Sean is compiling some preliminary data he should be transmitting it to you shortly.”
Normally, the instinctive reaction would be to look at the screen to see if anything new was there. But the old man didn’t take his eyes off of whatever it was he was looking at somewhere beyond. “After all these years, I still can’t get used to it.” So, the somewhere beyond was in the past.
“Used to what?”
“Doing nothing on Election Day. When I was a boy, during the campaign we would go door-to-door encouraging people to vote for us of course and come Election Day, we would fan out across the country to monitor the vote, making sure that ‘concerned citizens’ didn’t keep our voters from the polls. My dad even got his hand broken by some guys who had a special definition of freedom of assembly. And now it’s nearly all computerized. No more, broken hands, just erased files. Who do we thank for that?”
“From what I read, counting votes by hand was not exactly the peak of democratic perfection.”
“Nothing is wrong with the system, just the people running it. It’s like religion there’s nothing wrong with God, just the people who think they speak for Him.”
“Have you ever not campaigned?”
“Never, there was always something worth fighting for. Do you know what apartheid was?” Mei left the non sequitur hanging. “There was a great novel from that bitter time. One character tells the story: ‘When we go before Him, God will ask, “Where are your wounds?” And we will say, “I have no wounds.” And God will ask, “Was there nothing worth fighting for?”’
“Even when there was no one worth the effort, there was always a reason, a cause, greater than the runts of the moment. And now, well, now, political perfection. Yet here I sit.”
“Hardly idle. Even George Cranston needs someone like you, or in this case, you. You raised him right he’s a good man who knows the world isn’t good. He doesn’t believe that honesty will be met with honesty. He’s gotten this far because of you. Without you, he would either be a gentleman who gets stabbed in the back every day or another cynic. You will make him president. He needs a strong, honest, son-of-a-bitch behind him and that’s you.”
“Thank you. Please remember to engrave that on my urn.” Something of a smile crossed his face. He had an impish sense of humor. Mei had none.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“May I be frank?”
“When are you not?
“Nostalgia is fine, but please don’t go sentimental on us.”
“You run, don’t you?” Another non sequitur. Mei was beginning to worry. This is how crazy starts. But someone who thinks only in straight lines can’t recognize a curve.
“Yes.”
“Ever get that feeling as you approach the top of the hill that your entire body is just shutting down, that there’s no way to make that last push? So, you start to slow down, but then you see the summit and your mind and body snap to attention, and you fly to the top? Well, I’m catching my breath, because I can see the summit.”
CHAPTER 82
Someone else was looking towards the summit. President Ailes, General Hayden, their wives and the Chief were all sitting in the White House’s private quarters. A few aides were standing discreetly in the background. Everyone was watching several monitors, but only one screen had sound at a time. Ailes held the control. The Chief was tapping away at his pad, making calculation, or was talking to some very nervous person on the phone. Hayden imagined what art he would hang on these walls.
The nervous person on the phone became exponentially more nervous when the Chief did the worse thing possible, he handed the phone to the President.
“I told you, I don’t need details, you have a building of technicians and lawyers for that. I just want you to guarantee that the system is running.”
Changing tone, he spoke to his guests. “Excellent news all around.”
“Can’t the vote come in any faster?” asked the future president.
“Relax, speed can lead to sloppy mistakes. Our people are very good at this, but there’s no reason to force the pace and make a mistake. You’ve waited four years. You can wait another couple of hours.”
“Mr. President, another 14 districts have been sanitized. No problems anywhere.”
“See? I told you we were good at this. The polls are open for another three hours and we already have half the country settled.”
Three hours later, the study in the Cranston house was on overdrive. It was as if Iks had been mainlined into the walls. Junior aides were terrified of the place. They wanted to be at the center of things but were afraid of getting burned by the sun. They didn’t know if they wanted to be invited in. A few decided to invite themselves in. A very bad decision. Sean had pulled in a few junior 360s. He needed more eyes. But Cranston and Maggie in particular had no need for extra bodies. Extra bodies were either energy suckers or lunch. George Sr. had now repositioned himself in the nerve center. Sean was at the main computer. Mei and Worth were deep into calculations that no one dared asked about. Nancy was acting as the go-between for the Senator and the world beyond that door. And Maggie. Maggie’s presence was so overwhelming that people forgot she had left the house an hour ago.
Nancy caught an image on one of the screens.
“Everyone, wait! It’s Maggie.” Sean checked the side screen and put Maggie center. She was badly lit. Dark shadows showed under her eyes, giving the impression of someone nervous and sleepless. She was neither. No matter how her mouth moved, it looked like a Halloween mask. Cranston marveled at the skill needed to make such a beautiful woman look so bad.
“We’re extremely optimistic,” she told the interviewer. “The events of the past few weeks demonstrate clearly that the Doctrinists have lost control of virtually everything and are flailing around, hitting at anything that moves. They’ve thrown every trick at us. Muddying the waters with the SID nonsense…”
“I thought we were ignoring SID,” Worth said.
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“I’ve been arguing all along that we can’t ignore SID,” said Mei, “Hayden keeps implying we have something to do with SID. Our innuendo has as much validity as their innuendo.”
“We should have done that weeks ago,” George Sr. grunted.
Maggie continued. “… This absolute scandal with the Roosevelt. People get it. We are clearly picking up support in numerous congressional districts that we lost in 2048…”
The interviewer interjected. “On the other hand, there are reports that the vast majority of off-Earth voters are going for the Doctrinists.”
“I don’t doubt that many transmissions can get garbled getting back to Earth.”
“Is that an implication that the President is interfering with the vote?”
“Of course not.” One beat while everyone in the study stared at each other. “He’s not interfering with the voting. He’s interfering with the counting. He…”
That was as far as she got. The scene switched to the anchor desk where the reporter breathlessly reported. “We interrupt our interview with George Cranston’s aide for a news bulletin. By our calculations, the entire state of Kentucky has gone into the Doctrinist column.”
“Definitely breaking news, that’s only been the case for the last four elections.” It was Mei’s turn to grumble.
“Is Goldstein getting any airtime?” Cranston asked, having little faith that even a positive answer would be of any use.
Sean told him, “He breaks through occasionally, but there are strong signals on either side of him. One or the other crowds him out. Besides, I doubt he has any useful independent sources anymore.”
“And SID?”
“You want to hear from SID?” Mei asked.
“Do you want to know you have a tumor or do you prefer ignorance?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Nancy, “Where’s Lilly?”
“She’s with Maggie. I imagine they’re finished with interviews now.” She checked her tablet. “Yes, they’re on their way over.”
CHAPTER 83
And in the White House, everyone was calm and jovial, as if they had just finished a magnificent banquet.
“Like clockwork. How soon before we can call it?” Hayden asked.
The President leaned back. “Polls close on the West Coast in an hour. Just in an hour and ten minutes.” A huge smile that said “job well done” crossed his face. “Congratulations, Mr. President.”
On the big screen, Sean was trying to make the numbers work. Maggie, Lilly and Elena had joined the party.
“Same pattern as ‘48 and ‘44. We get reports of healthy turns outs from the camps around the Gulf, but the final numbers are depressed. Florida, Mississippi, Texas. All of them, we carry a few by a fraction, but they carry just three or four more to stay ahead. The percentage of votes reporting from New York, Chicago, Seattle, all the big cities on our side pretty much matches the final announced tallies. Too many people watching. They can’t sanitize the numbers in Washington without someone being able to back check from the original reports. Rural, poor districts, not so much. We’ve got people at some district centers, but somehow, they get locked out of the room. We’ve got reports that one of our guys in Oregon was even arrested for disturbing the peace…”
George Sr.’s eyes brightened at this and he cast a side glance at Mei, who refused to give him the satisfaction.
“… Conveniently timed power drops in Hawaii, Vermont, and southern California. Unofficial tallies have us down by ten.”
“Remarkable restraint,” mumbled Maggie, “They aren’t stealing as big this year.”
“No incumbent, there have to be more undecided,” Cranston noted.
They studied the map where most of the congressional districts east of the Plains were colored either green or purple. Most of the rest were white unreported. As Sean and Maggie had predicted, there were a few hopeful green spots in the heartland. The eastern Gulf Coast districts despite the polls having closed already were still white. Suddenly the presidential seal took over the screen. The first thought was that Ailes was going to declare victory, but that would be too crude, he’d let the Election Commission go through the motions. Instead of Ailes, a stream of data flew across the screen, too fast for any human eye to comprehend.
Sean answered before anyone asked. “I didn’t do that.”
“What are we seeing?” asked George Sr., who had been watching people, not the screen.
“It’s impossible to read. It’s being transmitted too quickly, probably to prevent any interruption or tracking.”
“Did you capture it?”
“Yes, sir. I’m decompressing it now. It is not really that much data.”
“That was the presidential seal, though, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Right after the seal, a set of numbers did linger. Could have been an authorization code. Got it.” He tapped his keypad, and the seal reappeared, followed by a series of numbers and letter. “It does look like an authorization code.”
“Can we find out if that is a legitimate security code?” his boss asked.
“No. It looks real, but we can’t verify it.”
The data stream continued and showed a series of names in alphabetical order followed by a series of numbers after each name: Allen, Axworthy, Chou, Cranston…
No one in that room needed an interpretation. “It’s the United States Senate,” George Sr. said.
The senator added, “With Social Security numbers, tax ID codes, private Senate inscription codes, personal security protocols. Those are my bank accounts, private access codes and phone numbers. Everything.”
With a mixture of awe and anger, Mei said, “Ailes is spying on the US Senate.”
“Ok, I know I’m getting old, but Ailes isn’t doing this. This is SID, right?” George Sr. asked.
“Has to be,” Sean said, “No way Ailes’ people would release this by accident.”
Elena asked, “Is this going out to the entire country or has someone directing this to us? Is everyone seeing this or just us?”
“Easy enough to find out,” a clearly fuming Cranston said. He took out his phone and hit a button. Suddenly the embattled politician was replaced by a slap-on-the-back good fellow. “Senator Cranston for Senator Fineman... Harry, George here. Watching TV? Of course, aren’t we all? Did your people catch that data stream? Yeah, us too. Yeah, that’s what it looks like to me. Look, Harry, sorry to pry, but it looks like my data is correct, yours too? That looks like an official White House code to you? You talked to Katie and Paul? Both confirmed? No, I haven’t talked to anyone else yet. Yeah, yeah, there are going to be a lot of pissed off Senators tonight.” He disconnected and stared at the inert phone. “It’s all true. The entire country is seeing this. Not everyone will be decoding it immediately. But it’s all out there.”
“Nice of them to share this, but couldn’t SID have timed the release a little better? Like before, polls closed,” Maggie said.
“Maybe the idea is not to influence the election. Maybe it’s a warning,” Sean said.
“What kind of warning?” Lilly was still trying to grasp what she was seeing. Spying on the Senate needed more time.
“SID is warning Ailes that they have hacked his most secret databases.”
“And why now?”
“Well, what else would he like to keep secret? What’s his most important secret?”
“The actual election returns.” Cranston’s words were like a chisel to a stone.
“Exactly. We have always thought that the White House channeled all district results through their own system to be adjusted before entering the official record. This is how our voters disappear. It’s easier and more secure to steal the votes in a central location than in each district. SID is telling Ailes that whatever he steals, SID can steal back.”
Mei the pessimist grumb
led. “Great, so now we can be robbed by Ailes and SID.”
“Or saved by SID,” Sean countered, “Maybe SID will play Robin Hood and steal data from the rich and give it to the poor.”
“We don’t know who or what SID is! How can we put our fate in the hands of something like that?”
Cranston sat quietly, mentally moving his chess pieces. “I don’t recall being asked.”
CHAPTER 84
“Is this stuff fake?” Hayden asked.
Ailes was also looking at his chess pieces. “No, it’s the real thing. SID has hacked the White House.”
“SID? Why not Cranston? This clearly helps him.”
“They hacked the White House. How could one person break through the most secure system in the world? Besides, if it’s Cranston, then why not release this yesterday, so that the last day of the campaign would be 100 screeching senators? It’s SID, they have some motive other than winning the election.”
“What could be more important than winning the election?”
“Seeing that we don’t know exactly who they are, it’s a bit hard to gauge their motives, except that they want to stick a knife in my back.”
The Chief broke in. “Mr. President, something else is happening.”
“What?” He spat the question as he turned from Hayden to the screen. It was still showing the official result piling up, but the narration disappeared. A computer voice from past decades came through the screen. Voice recognition was so advanced that it was difficult to distinguish human speech from a computer’s voice. But this voice was clearly computer-generated. A stilted, unnatural cadence like something out of a very old science fiction movie.
“Shut It Down. Shut It Down. Shut It Down.”
“Shut it… S-I-D. It’s SID. SID is ‘shut it down’!” Hayden said.
But what’s “it”? an aide dared ask.
Ailes growled, “’It’ is me.”
