Yagüe waved a dismissive hand. “Fine. You all go then. It’s clear to me now that the children’s era is the most abominable in all of human history!”
Huahua said, “Mr. Secretary General, the world has indeed changed. You can’t solve any problems by applying the mentality of the adults’ era. We need to adjust to this new world.”
Smiling, Mitchell said to him, “You don’t appreciate the secretary general’s ambition. He once had the notion that the children’s world would eliminate all national governments and be unified under the direct leadership of the UN, in which case the secretary general would naturally become the head of Earth—”
“Shut up!” Yagüe said, thrusting a finger at Mitchell. “Wanton slander!” But Huahua recalled that he had indeed voiced such an idea not long after the start of the Supernova Era.
“You go adjust to the new world,” Yagüe said. “I’ll remain here and see the United Nations through to the end.” Then, cradling his head, he turned and walked back into the dark, smoking building.
The motorcade moved on to the outskirts of the city where helicopters were waiting for them, and they took off toward Washington with New York’s sea of lights blazing below them in the night.
Huahua asked Du Bin, “Are you aware of our domestic situation?,” and seeing Du Bin nod, he asked, “Do you see any similarities between their Candytown period and ours?”
Du Bin shook his head. “I only see how they’re different.”
“Look down there. New York remains brilliant even through the storm of bullets. Look at the roads, and all those cars and buses driving along like normal.”
“True, that’s a point of similarity. Even in these conditions, the systems of their society are still functioning normally.”
Huahua nodded. “It’s a phenomenon unique to the children’s world, unimaginable in the adults’ time. Back then, if social conditions deteriorated half as much, the country would have collapsed.”
“But I wonder how long things will remain normal. The American military apparatus is in a precarious state. American children have in their hands the greatest weapons systems in the world, and it burns them up that they can’t play with them. On the other hand, the biggest political transformation in America since the start of the Supernova Era is the ascent of the military to the political stage, and its expanding control over the country. To placate the military, the US government has staged exercise over pointless exercise. But drills will never satisfy the American child.”
“The key question now is how are the American children going to play?”
“They probably won’t just play among themselves. It’s different with light weapons, but when they bring out the big guns there’s no way to do it alone…. I’m not sure I should go on.”
Night now completely covered the North American continent. The only illumination was from the navigation lights on the other aircraft. They seemed to be hanging stationary in the night sky.
“The situation is grim…” Huahua murmured, clearly aware of what Du Bin was thinking.
“Exactly. We should prepare for the worst,” replied Du Bin in a shaky voice.
WORLD GAMES
The world leaders continued their meeting in the East Room. The American president started into his opening remarks.
“Boys and girls in charge of the countries of the world, welcome to America!
“First of all, I’d like to express my apologies for having had to receive you in Washington, D.C., I would have preferred to hold this banquet on the top floor of the New World Trade Center in New York. I dislike Washington. This city in no way represents the United States. On a new continent covered in skyscrapers, the city we’re in seems like a retreat to medieval Europe. This White House—I mean, it’s just a country manor. I wouldn’t blame any of you for wondering whether there are stables out back.” Laughter from the crowd. “The adults located the beating heart of America here for continuity with the past, not just to L’Enfant’s past, but even farther back, for continuity to your homelands,” and he gestured to the cluster of European leaders.
“This neatly describes the awkward situation in which we now find ourselves. We’re a world of children, but we’re still living the lives of adults. Think back to the final days of the Common Era, to our vision of what the coming new world would bring. That vision to an extent mitigated our sorrow at the adults’ misfortune, because we were convinced that at the cost of their leaving we had obtained a wonderful new world. But to look at it now, the world remains as dull and boring as ever. Is this the new world we wanted? No, absolutely not! We are seeing disappointment at the new world envelop the globe. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
After a round of applause, Davey went on, “We are gathered here today to establish a new order for the children’s world. What is the foundation of the new order, you might ask? Not the ideology of the Yalta System, nor the economic development of the post–Cold War period. There can be only one foundation: games! Games are to our era what religion was to the Middle Ages, what exploration was to the Age of Discovery, what ideology was to the Cold War, and economics to the late Common Era. These things served as a basis for existence, a starting point and a destination for the world. Now, in this new world, the dreams of our time ought to become reality!
“Luckily the world’s children have more or less realized this and have already begun to play. The purpose of this meeting is to begin games on a global scale, and to turn our entire world into a world of fun!
“Naturally there are an infinite number of possible ways to play, but the games we’re going to start here must satisfy two conditions: They must be played between countries, and they must be thrilling. And there’s only one kind of game that can satisfy both conditions: a war game!”
Davey held his hands out palms down to calm the applause, and remained in that pose for quite some time, as if the whole world were cheering him on. But in fact there was no applause, just a spell of silence as the world leaders stared blankly at him.
“The war games that American children are playing right now?” asked one kid.
“The very same. But we’re going to do it on a national scale to let the whole world play.”
“I object!” Huahua shouted, and then leapt up to the dais and said to the children below, “This game is just a disguised world war.”
The children flipped their translators to Chinese, and when they finished listening to his words, Russian president Ilyukhin jumped up on the dais and said, “Well said! It’ll turn the children’s world into hell!”
The other children echoed these sentiments:
“Right. We don’t want a world war.”
“We’re not going to fight! We won’t play this game!”
“That’s right. Let the American kids play by themselves.”
Davey remained composed and smiling, as if he expected this development. Standing between Huahua and Ilyukhin, he clapped his arms good-naturedly about their shoulders, and then leaned toward Huahua and said, “Don’t get carried away. It’s just a big game. We’ll adopt the format of the Olympics. It’ll be the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era. The war games will be played entirely according to the rules of sports competitions. Every country will compete fairly at a prearranged location, with heats and finals, and gold, silver, and bronze medals. In what way is that a war?” Then he turned to Ilyukhin. “How’s a world of fun going to go to hell?”
“A bloodbath Olympics?” Huahua retorted furiously.