FNBS

Raven Maddox: Did you vote today? Not an easy task for many Americans. It’s election night across the nation, and for many voters, getting to the polls has been a challenge—in some instances, dangerous.

The worst forest fires in over a hundred years continue to rage in Southern California, forcing the closure of polling booths in dozens of districts. This is in stark contrast to the Northwest, which is currently being slammed by a blizzard that is baffling meteorologists.

In the city of Portland, the polls didn’t open due to riots and a police force that has walked away from its duties. The flames you see on your screen are coming from Cedar Mill Community Library. Anti-fascist protesters set it on fire this morning.

And then there’s the Midwest. This video is out of Nebraska. It’s shaky because the person filming didn’t want to get caught. You can see the t-shirt on the people with the guns, part of the national group calling itself Pastor Tony’s Boys. They are filtering the crowd, letting those who are going to vote for the Security Party through and turning others away. And the cops? Well, there they are in the background, seemingly directing traffic and supporting this blatantly illegal activity.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter tonight because nobody doubts that when the votes are counted in California, the Golden State is going to go blue for President Knutson. Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, after the blizzard lifts, when their votes are counted, are all going red for the challenger, Jane Allgood of the Security Party. And just moments ago, Florida confirmed that the vast majority of precincts have been counted, and those votes, ladies and gentlemen, are indeed red. That means all fifteen of Florida’s electoral votes will be given to Allgood, bringing her count to 285 overall compared to President Knutson’s 227.

The Free State of Texas, of course, has continued its fifty-year tradition of abstaining from American elections.

Despite what you think about the problems facing America, the democratic process has, once again, in our country’s long history, chosen a new commander-in-chief. Tonight, that is President-elect Janet Lorena Allgood.

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ELECTION NIGHT

The television showed a Security News Channel live feed of the ballroom on the third floor, where the party was in full swing. Lights flashed, music blared, and the young politicos toasted the night. In another window, the Free News Broadcast Station provided a moment-by-moment commentary on her victory speech. A third window offered a sampling of influencer livestreams around the country, revealing celebrations in Security Party regions, and flaming cars on the streets of Los Angeles and Chicago.

In her private office at her campaign’s New York City headquarters on the seventy-eighth floor of Titan Tower, Jane Allgood switched off the television and gazed out the window. Evening twilight had given way to a dark night, and even though she had overcome the most bitter and divided election year in American history, she felt something other than the thrill of victory. It was a sensation she had never experienced, and she was having trouble defining this emotion. It wasn’t the battle wounds of politics; there had always been wounds. The Purple Heart on her desk and the limp in her stride served as reminders. It was more accurately the perception of the heaviness, the burden, the crushing gravity of what it meant to be commander-in-chief of a nation on the brink of economic and social collapse.

Below her, the city streets swarmed with cars ferrying their occupants safely home. Beyond, she saw the fires of the protest camps, where young men and women—disenchanted with the American dream—wore scramble paint and face masks to confuse the facial recognition cameras mounted on the drones that buzzed overhead, and black clothes as a symbol of their rebellion and to hide in the shadows from the police.

Anti-fascist, anti-cop, anarchist riot squads had hounded her since she announced her candidacy. As her popularity swelled over the last twelve months, so did their resistance and the tactics they deployed to derail her campaign. They were naive at best, and treasonous at worst. They occupied cities and torched businesses. It didn’t matter if the owners were Black or White, Asian or Latino, gay or straight—they burned them to the ground, and they danced in the ashes. Out of their ranks rose the terrorist group that had unleashed a chemical weapon at the Super Bowl two years prior. They preached freedom and justice, but she had personally visited ground zero and seen the bodies on the football field covered in white sheets that hid how some of the victims had slit into their own throats for oxygen. Where was the freedom and justice for those innocent men, women, and children? Tonight, their anger had risen to a frightening pitch, a mad fever for vengeance.

But democracy had chosen security over chaos. Any sympathy she once harbored for their positions had evaporated. They were enemies to the change America desperately needed.

At 2 PM that day, Election Day, a pipe bomb blew up a decommissioned subway station not far from her campaign headquarters. Surveillance footage revealed the perpetrators to be a trio of masked individuals clad in black. One carried a backpack that contained the bomb, a volatile concoction of household chemicals, garden fertilizer, and gunpowder loaded into a PVC pipe.

The explosion was powerful enough to shatter the windows of nearby businesses. A pedestrian was knocked off her feet, and a homeless man sleeping in the entrance sustained injuries of shrapnel and glass lodged into his back and buttocks, but no one died, thank God. The aim was not to kill; it was to disrupt, to instill fear in the hearts of the city dwellers and deter them from exercising their constitutional rights.

At 2:30 PM, the governor of New York—Sigmund Walsh, one of her most ardent East Coast supporters—declared a state of emergency, and with that, the deployment of National Guard checkpoints throughout the city. The protesters were pushed and confined into a small area near Central Park, which they were not allowed to enter. If they crossed their boundaries, they would face immediate arrest and detention until well after the election. So, they could choose: stay in their playpen and hurl anti-government and anti-Allgood slurs until their voices were hoarse, or go home and relax, pour a beer, fire up the barbecue, and watch the country come to her senses like reasonable Americans.

The phone on her desk buzzed softly. She let it go on for a moment, then pulled away from the window to answer, although she already knew.

“Yes?” said Jane Allgood.

She was answered by the bubbly voice of her personal secretary. “I’m sorry to disturb you, um, if you don’t mind, Madam President-elect. Congratulations!”

“Thank you, Jason,” Allgood said. “It was a team effort.”

“Yes ma’am. Ma’am, John Taylor is here to see you.”

“Send him in.”

She was nervous. She shouldn’t be. This moment was inevitable. It had been Taylor, with his connections and his money, who had supported her campaign. If he’d not been there to twist the arm of that fat charlatan, Pastor Tony, the religious right would have never supported her.

The heavy oak doors swung open to reveal John Taylor’s six foot-four-inch frame of solid muscle silhouetted against the bright foyer lights. Even in his mid-sixties, he cut an imposing figure. If she didn’t know him so well, all he had experienced, and all he had sacrificed for his country, she would have sworn he was twenty years younger. He was attired in a black suit and black tie with an American flag pin on his lapel. He held the posture of a soldier and still wore his chestnut brown hair in a signature military fade.

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“John,” said Allgood, striding into the middle of the floor to meet him.

“Madam President-elect, please tell me that I get the honor of being the first person to address you.”

Allgood laughed. “Jason beat you to the punch.”

“That little shit.” A dashing smile crossed his face.

“I want to set tradition early, John. I hope you just call me Jane.”

“I’ll try. Congratulations, Jane.” He extended his hand, his grip firm and encompassing. “It was a hard-fought victory. I’m proud to say that I’ve never felt better about the future of America.”

“This victory is as much yours as it is mine. I couldn’t have carried Nevada and New Mexico without your support.”

“Are you nervous?” Taylor asked.

She let out a long breath. “Christ, I’m fucking shitting myself.”

“Understandable. You’ll grow into it, but never get too comfortable. How’s the new First Lady? I haven’t seen her since the Arizona rally.”

“Clearly, you don’t follow social media,” said Allgood.

“It hasn’t escaped me. She seems to be more famous than God.”

“She’s out shopping, making her Secret Service detail earn their pay.”

“She knows you won, right?”

“We’ve been texting nonstop. She’s looking at new drapes for the Oval. She’s decided on white—for honesty and truth.”

“She’s going to make a great First Lady,” Taylor said.

“I know your constituency hates her,” said Allgood, “but Christy never doubted me, not for a second.”

“Neither did I. That day I walked into your lecture. I sat in the back and listened to your analysis of the Eastern Front. I knew America needed you.”

“We’re going to end this war, John. I want meetings. I want to talk to people.”

“You will. Patience. You don’t have the reins yet,” he said.

“Why don’t you sit? Would you like a drink?” she asked.

“There’ll be time enough for that. I have a meeting shortly.”

“How’s Amy? I’ve been praying for her.”

Taylor’s face clouded, and his brow furrowed. He shook his head. “She still hasn’t said a word. We got her to eat a little last night.”

“Thank God. I hope they lock that sonuvabitch away for a long time.”

“There’s been a development. You don’t know about it because I didn’t want you to worry. There was a jailbreak in Montana. Six deputies were murdered. The boy is gone along with his so-called shrink. One of the officers in the sheriff’s department seems to be involved.”

“Murdered? You could have told me!”

“This falls into the ‘Trust John’ folder that you probably shouldn’t open as a president.” He held out his hands, palms up. “These are your tools, Jane. Let me use them. Nothing here will affect America. It’s been… hidden. I’m keeping it out of the press at this point. The FBI is involved, but it won’t appear on the radar, at least not until I bring them in.”

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. CCTV was disabled. They were… You don’t need the gory details.”

“John, what happened?”

“They were decapitated.”

“Jesus, how?”

“We don’t know. A jagged instrument of some kind. It was a fucking bloodbath.”

“It almost sounds like terrorism.”

“And that’s how we’re treating it for now. Radical, left-wing, domestic terrorism.”

“That’s a huge leap. Do you have any evidence?”

“We have reason to believe there’s a cell, if not an organization. The shrink had some strange views in his Ph.D. dissertation. The cop’s father was part of the Highwaymen. He participated in the I-90 roadblocks. Died in custody. She could have been radicalized. It’s all very strange, but we have the best people working on it. As soon as I leave here, I’m going to talk with someone who might know more.”

“We’ll get them. You have the power of a president behind you now.”

“Thank you, Jane, I’m counting on it.”

“But you’re here for another reason, aren’t you?” she said.

“I am,” he said.

“Name your post. You know I would like you in the Defense Department, in the big desk.”

Taylor nodded in the enigmatic way he had developed over his years in politics. He went to the window. She could see his face in the reflection of the thick glass meant to stop a round from a sniper.

“Remember what I said that day after your lecture?” he said.

“I do.” She leaned on her desk and watched his back. It was wide and strong.

“I will start slow,” he said.“ Special Security Adviser to the president, if you don’t mind, Madam President.”

“It’s yours, Senator. It’s an interesting request, but it’s yours.” She moved beside him to look out on the shimmering city.

“It’s a broken country,” he said.

“But not beyond repair,” she added.

“You must meet them tomorrow.”

The hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. “And if I say no?”

“They will not allow you to say no.”

“I am president now—”

“They’re looking for one answer, Jane.” The tone in Taylor’s voice left no room for negotiation.

This was his left-field game that had been there from the very beginning. He had recruited her into politics with the caveat that there were several decisive moves she would not be able to understand, yet she must play them precisely and without fail, as if on faith. The Third Eye was one of them, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. And then this other thing—the thing he called Centurian—so vague yet so urgent; it had vanished with the seduction of power and her rise as a political superstar, but now here it was, looming even in the aura of her victory.

“I want them to know America always comes first.”

“Of course, but because your predecessor couldn’t stomach her part of the deal, we have a mess to clean up. I have decided that I will be your Hammer.”

The secret title was hard and archaic, so undiplomatic, so unlike America.

“That’s why you want to stay out of the limelight. You’re going to be doing this… this… other business.”

“They have people who can do the job. But I want it because I love this country. I will fight this scourge, Jane, and you will rebuild America.”

She watched the fires of the protest camps and felt their hot rage. “Then be my Hammer,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said.

“When will it happen?”

“They will come for you in the morning. Don’t ask questions. Just follow. Take the burden, and then I will bear it for you.”

“Captain, my captain.” She folded her arms. There was a chill in the room.

“This time, you’re the commander,” he said.

She wanted him to go. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

He added: “One last thing. We need to start preparing. I need you to get behind a quarantine mandate.”

“Quarantine? Why?”

“We’ve found the source of the M+ virus. We have an estimate. They need to be separated from healthy people.”

“There’s a source?”

“Thirty-five years ago, a chemist out of Southeast Asia developed a variant of Escape. It was only a small batch, a one-off, but it made it into circulation. Those who followed the spin up to L2 developed a unique condition. Most of them died, but some were pregnant and able to give birth. We suspect perinatal transmission of the infection.”

“How many?”

“Just in America, maybe five million vials made it into circulation. Half of that has been consumed. Half of it has been destroyed or is still locked away in someone’s stash somewhere.”

“You call them the Maji, isn’t that right?”

He nodded.

“It’s a beautiful word,” she said.

“It’s an existential threat. The name is death. Those who are native to M+, meaning their condition is a generational infection. They are cautious, to say the least. It’s these new kids who don’t know what’s happening to them. They can cause real damage. Around puberty, they start to show signatures, and the Den can track them. Neutralize them.”

“What you’re suggesting is…” She could not say the words.

“It’s the quickest, most efficient solution to an existential threat. And once Third Eye is installed and running, the process will be even more efficient. Tomorrow, when they show you, you’ll understand.”

“We’re America, John. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget what we stand for.”

He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Never, Madam President. We will do this right, and America will finally be able to bring herself back.”

Beyond them, the fires of protest grew ever brighter and ever hotter with the dark of night. And though her office was silent and secure, they both knew a fury was sounding through the streets of New York and the country at large.