The Last President (20 page)

2 HOURS LATER. PUEBLO. 11:30 AM MOUNTAIN TIME. MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2026.

“Hey, Leo, your prom date's here,” MaryBeth Abrams said, sticking her head out the door of the delivery room.

“He seems unimpressed,” Heather said, looking down at her sleeping son. “Is this your unique Doctor MaryBeth way to say it's a girl?”

“She is. Very fast delivery, one of those that would make the case for natural childbirth, back before. Beth's fine but exhausted and sore, Jason is ecstatic and will probably come out as soon as you won't see him crying, and Heather Ysabel Nemarec came out with a big gasp before I could even start her breathing, like she'd been holding her breath in there all that time, and is staring at the world like she's totally mad freaked to be here. Don't worry, that terrifying feeling that the world is way too weird usually wears off around a thousand months.”

Instinctively, Heather and Ysabel glanced sideways at Debbie Mensche. “Eighty-three years and four months,” Deb said. “And I didn't just calculate it now, MaryBeth asked me this morning.”

MaryBeth grinned broadly. “I'm just a simple country doctor, and out here in Simple Country, we need a never-ending stock of corny jokes. Anyway, I'll be back in a couple minutes and then you can come in; just want to make sure everything is fine before I let the civilians in.” She pulled up her mask and ducked inside.

“Guess she wants to make sure she gets
all
the tentacles snipped off,” Debbie said.

Ysabel said, “You are an awful person and we really need to spend more time together.”

Debbie nodded, accepting the compliment. “So I'm a little surprised you let them name the kid Ysabel instead of Isabel or Izzy. Aren't you worried about being outed anymore?”

“Well, it's a middle name, and the cover story is that they always liked the Spanish version more than the English.”

“I just keep thinking we're lucky it wasn't a boy,” Debbie said. “Poor kid would've been the only Larry of his generation. Dad would've been impossible, too, practically made the boy a grandson.”

“Too late on the only Larry of his generation,” Heather said. “Something Chris was telling me about. Baby names come in waves, like plant names for girls—I was in the same generation with a lot of Jasmines, Willows, Aspens, and Roses, and I knew a couple Daisies and an Amaryllis—or Bible names for boys which is why half the boys my age have names ending in –iah. And apparently we were due for a wave giving boys the names of famous people. Thanks to the buildup Chris gave some of my agents in the
Post-Times
, there's a big crop of Freddies and Larrys this year, Chris says, like the late 1800s when there were all those Lincolns, Darwins, Lees, Grants, and Deweys.”

“All I can say,” Debbie said, “is how grateful I am that at least the Reverend Abner Peet turned out to be a traitor.”

4 HOURS LATER. TACOMA DOME, TACOMA, WASHINGTON. 3:00 PM PACIFIC TIME. MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2026.

“I just said that your comment seemed a little
ungracious
,” Graham said. “Maybe I should've said
pushy
or
ungentlemanly
. There were two big stories today, two big events, and both on schedules it would not have been easy to change, and Chris Manckiewicz could only be at one of them, so he sent Cassie to cover the other one. And frankly it makes sense for a tough old bird without any family like Chris to go cover a war, and a young woman—hell, a girl, did you know she's only seventeen?—to cover a political party convention. For the love of god, Allie, it's legitimately a big day for Grayson, he's taking his Army of the Wabash out to end the threat of the tribals, I mean, that really is news.”

“So is the first political convention in at least seventy-five years where the delegates are actually real live voting representatives with decisions to make,” Allie pointed out. “And I can't help resenting that we loaned General Grayson's little circus the only regiment we have that's worth crap, Graham. Plus a bunch of our getting-up-to-decent militia. We put a big part of our own war with our own tribals on hold.” Allie was tugging his collar, straightening his tie, fixing him up.
I guess every younger wife of an older man does this all the time, trying to keep your slightly-deteriorated husband from turning into an old wreck while you're still young. Wonder if Jenny Grayson has to make Jeff shine his shoes, or if it's easier with military guys?
Reflexively, she glanced around, hoping no camera would catch him like this.

On Daybreak day the Tacoma Dome had been configured for a touring motivational speaker, which was how it had become the site for the Democratic convention: it was already arranged to accommodate a large meeting in front of a podium and rostrum, requiring no mechanical power to change it to anything else.

Of course, even with mirrors hung to reflect light from the windows down onto the stage, they still could meet only in daylight, still needed candles and lamps, and still only filled the first twenty rows at best, including spectators, demonstrators, and plain old bums. Though their fifteenth-row raised box gave her the best view there was of the whole convention, all that did was allow her to see how small it all was, as if the whole convention was huddled around its few flames at the center of a cave.

It looks so shabby,
Allie thought, angrily. Aloud, she said, “
This
is the place where the re-founding of the Republic is really happening. Not that social-parasite-cleanup in the Midwest.”

“Allie, something we, and Grayson, and Phat, and a lot of us all agree on is that it's all one country, and it's all one war, and the main threats are the big forces in the Lost Quarter, and the pockets like Hells Canyon and the Ouachitas have to come after. The Lost Quarter is the only place where there are enough of them to break out and do real damage all by themselves. So we have to take that away from them this summer, before they can, so that the next president can go on the offensive and finish the war. That'll be true no matter who the president is. It's Hillel's old saying about if not now, when, and if not us, who? So no more bad-mouthing the Army or the press. Some asshole reporter might hear you and make trouble for us with both, okay?”

“The
only
reporter here is over there.” She nodded at Cassie's working table, in the corner seats off to the side of the rostrum. “And really, she looks like such a
kid
. Another note for the first real Weisbrod Administration, we've got to get the child labor laws back in place.”

“Don't be so sure about that either, Allie. Seventeen was adult for most of human history, really, for that matter, thirteen or fourteen was adult, more often than not. The child labor laws came in when there wasn't enough work for grown men supporting families, and for the next generation at least what we have is a labor shortage. We
need
everybody who's willing to do something useful—even if they do look like they ran away from cheerleading tryouts.”

“
Middle school
cheerleading tryouts. I just don't think someone should be a national media leader till she can prove she's made it through puberty.”

“Allie,” Graham said, “you are perilously close to judging a person's qualifications for a job by the size of her boobs.”

She couldn't help it; that made her laugh at herself. “All right. Fair enough. Maybe I'll even give her an interview and try to get to know her, since she's going to be around.” She had long ago given up trying to get Graham to consider a licensed or regulated media for the Restored Republic anyway, despite all the obvious damage that irresponsible private media had done during the Old Republic; there were times when he didn't just seem twentieth-century to her, but maybe nineteenth or eighteenth. Still, Americans wanted their old country back, that was for sure, and maybe Graham was right, maybe that included irresponsible media without any public information policy or regulations. Maybe a compromise? Could they launch something like BBC or NPR with special—

A sudden coalescence of attention spread outward from the podium. Bright quadrilaterals of light swept across the stage as stagehands at the upper windows repositioned the mirrors to bring the reflected light back to the rostrum; the sun had wandered a long way during the three hours of lunch. The reflected sunlight settled around the podium, shimmering vibration slowing as the mirrors were screwed down. Perkins, the chair, mounted the rostrum, waving his gavel in one hand and a sheaf of paper in the other, over his head.

“We will now commence our roll call of the states!” Perkins's unamplified shout did not so much reach the back of the crowd as it started a wave of shushing sounds and the palm-press-down gesture that blanketed the hall in quiet.

He was an older man, close to seventy, with strong-tea-colored skin and wavy black hair. He had said he had an ancestry slightly more mixed than Tiger Woods's. Allie had had to ask Graham who that was, and sure enough it was an old-guy reference; without Goo-22, or even Internet, she'd had to get used to not having heard of things.

Perkins began again. “We will now commence our roll call of the states. Is there a representative here from the great state of Alabama?”

No hands. No one spoke.

“We know,” Perkins said, “that this year, Alabama is probably not going to vote for our party, and we realize that they have aligned with the Temporary National Government in Athens. We wish them well and we look forward to joining as one nation with them again in January. We know that some day they will have a strong and vibrant Restored National Democratic Party of their own. Is there anyone here from Alaska?”

Another silence.

“We recognize that the great state of Alaska has exercised its commonlaw right to secede during the Constitutional interregnum, and is no longer a member of the Union. Of course we hope they'll reconsider and rejoin our Union, but we respect their right to choose their destiny.” He hurried on, as if afraid that a second of silence might escalate. “We call on the great state of Arizona!”

The elderly man who rose in response stood erect in a way that proclaimed “ex-military,” but he looked as if he might cry. “Arizona was assigned twelve votes. The four votes I've been instructed to vote are from the remainder of Arizona after the secession of four areas. The County of Trans-Mojave has been assigned two votes and will vote those as part of the Duchy of California, to which its Earl and Countess have pledged fealty. The Grand Canyon Temporary Reconstruction Coalition will petition to affiliate with the State of Nevada as soon as possible, and will cast its three votes with Nevada. Apachéria plans to seek admission to the Union as a New State, and asks to cast its one vote independently for Graham Weisbrod. Naabeehó Bináhásdzo intends to seek sovereign international independence and will not cast its two votes.”

Naabeehó Bináhásdzo is the Navajo Nation,
Allie reminded herself.

Perkins waited a long breath and said, “And how are you voting those four votes?”

“Sorry, Pete. Forgot to say. We're abstaining on this ballot.”

Allie was beginning to wonder why she had not brought a book. Arkansas, like Alabama, had sent no one, and would participate in the election entirely through the TNG. Perkins then called upon, “The great state of California!”

A tall, handsome woman, perhaps sixty years old, rose, and said, “The
Duchy
of California, home for more than twenty-five years of Graham Weisbrod, the last President of the Old Republic, soon to be the first President of the Restored Republic, proudly casts all forty-one—sorry, Arizona, I mean forty-
four
—of its votes for Graham Weisbrod!”

Even people who were supporting other candidates jumped up and cheered.
One tiny step toward restoring America in people's imaginations,
Allie thought.
Maybe a bigger deal than I realize.

Colorado went nine for Weisbrod, four for McIntyre, and one maverick, though yelled at by the rest of his delegation, cast his vote for Lyndon Phat. But then there was, as Graham muttered to Allie, “a real string of bummers.” Connecticut and Delaware were swallowed up in the chaos of the Lost Quarter. Florida and Georgia were both TNG-only. Hawaii, embroiled in a many-sided struggle between warlords, bandits, assorted rebels, military units trying to impose martial law, and tribals, was represented by a single observer from a coalition of towns on the Big Island. She had been instructed not to vote.

At last, Idaho broke the chain of bad news with eight for Graham, one for Norm. Indiana and Illinois, the delegates were reminded, would be voted later, as parts of the New State of Wabash.

Iowa went all for Weisbrod and Kansas all for McIntyre, but then there was a ten-state streak of states that had lined up with the TNG, been totally lost to the tribes, or were being reorganized into New States. Perkins tried to hurry through them but there was no missing the sigh of relief throughout the convention when at last Montana, Nebraska, and Nevada were all present and voting. There were more long runs of lost, defected, and reorganized states, until finally they wound down through the Virgin Islands, Wabash, and Washington. When Perkins asked, pro forma, if there were any delegates from West Virginia, the room was pleasantly surprised: three men and a woman stood up.

“We're going to take a little explaining,” the oldest man in the group said, nervously taking off the UMW strap-cap repaired with twine he wore, and twisting it in his hands. “There's people in the hall who can vouch for us if you need'em to. We're a bunch of counties in southern West Virginia and western Virginia that have all been holding out, just barely but we're holding, against the tribals, with our militia, and we retook Wise and Dickinson counties from the tribes last month, which gives us a road open over to Kentucky and down to North Carolina. We're here to announce that we've got a Restored Democrat party, which is hoping to have some members real soon—” Laughter rolled through the convention; grinning, the man explained, “There was about twenty of us that wanted to organize it. Our people back home should've signed up some membership lists while we were traveling, but we've been on the road a month, ain't had communication, so we don't
know
for sure they did.