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Scott interjected, “We can add a ship-to-shore game, like landing versus land defense.”

“That’s also incredibly hard to organize and administer. And it’ll take an awfully long time. And it might not be any fun. I say forget it,” Marshal Zavyalova said. Yagüe and the other children followed with similar sentiments, and the game did not pass.

“This one ought to work: Missile versus missile!” Davey suggested, undaunted.

Ilyukhin nodded approvingly. “Great. An excellent game. You can subdivide it into close and midrange guided missiles, and ICBMs.”

“Ooh, ICBMs!” exclaimed Davey, waving his hands wildly. “This is the best game so far!”

“But no using TMD or NMD,” Ilyukhin said coolly.

“What? Of course we need to use NMD and TMD!” Scott shouted.

“But most of the permanent member countries don’t have them, so it doesn’t fit the package principle.”

“Who cares! We’re going to use them. We support this a hundred and twenty percent! Otherwise, we’re pulling out of the games,” Davey shouted while his arms flailed about uncontrollably.

“Fine. Use them if you want,” Lü Gang said with a dismissive wave.

“NMD? They can’t even get Aegis going.” Zavyalova punctuated her criticism with a snort of contempt.

Davey let out a long breath. “Good. Now let’s move on.” Then he sat down and looked smugly at the other children.

Huahua raised a hand. “Land mines!”

“Interesting. How do you play?” asked the children.

“Opposing teams set up two minefields over an area to be determined by the task force. In the center of each field is the team flag. The first to clear a path to the opposing team’s flag is the winner.”

Davey curled his lips and said sarcastically, “Fine, give the kindergartners something to play. Write it down, Mr. Chairman.”

Now a head of state from an island in the Pacific stood up. “Some of the smaller countries want me to say a few words for them. You’ve got to give us at least a few chances to play.”

“Can’t you play with the rest of us in those traditional events, the ones the Chinese kids proposed?” Davey asked.

“You’re not getting it, Mr. President. Take my country, for example. Right now we have just one company on Antarctica, fewer than two hundred troops, and even in the simplest infantry game, I estimate we’ll lose combat effectiveness after just one round.”

“You all can propose other games.”

“I’ve got one,” said Lê Sâm Lâm, the prime minister of Vietnam. “Guerrilla war!”

“Wicked! How do you play?”

“The two opposing teams attack each other’s base using a small guerrilla force. The specific rules are as follows—”

“Shut up!” Davey shouted, leaping up and banging the table. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for proposing such a vile idea!”

“That’s right. You should be ashamed!” Green joined in.

“It’s… it’s going to be a little disruptive,” Yagüe said to Lê Sâm Lâm. “Back at the meeting in Washington, we reached a consensus that country’s bases are sacrosanct. Your proposal disturbs the very foundation of the games.”

The event was vetoed.

“Antarctica has turned into a private club for major powers. What’s the point of us even being here?” Lê Sâm Lâm grumbled.

Yagüe ignored him and said to everyone else, “Our meeting has already achieved some stunning results. Do any other countries have suggestions for new games?” His gaze halted on Ōnishi, far off at the other end of the table, and he called over to him, “Prime Minister Ōnishi, you’ve been silent throughout the proceedings. I recall that at the first UN session, you conveyed Japan’s intense desire to gain the right to speak at the UN, but now that Japan is a permanent member state of the World Games, you’ve gone silent.”

Ōnishi made a slight bow, and then said slowly, “I’ll propose a game none of you have thought of yet.”

“Let’s hear it,” Davey said, and everyone looked expectantly at the Japanese prime minister.

“Cold weapons.”

The children all looked at each other. Someone asked, “Cold weapons? What are those?”

“Swords.” He said nothing beyond that terse reply, but sat there motionless as a statue.

“Swords? None of us have any,” Scott said, somewhat confused.

“I do,” the Japanese kid said, and then from beneath the table took out a long military sword and eased it out of its scabbard. The children gasped at its icy glint. The sword was so thin that its cutting edge seemed almost threadlike. Ōnishi stroked the surface gently with a finger. “It’s crafted from the finest carbon alloy, and is sharper than anything.” Then he blew across the blade, and the children heard a sustained buzz from the sword. “This is a two-layered blade; when one edge gets dull, the other is exposed, so it remains sharp forever without honing.” He placed the sword gently onto the table, where it dazzled the children with its cool light and sent chill wind down their spines. “We can provide ten thousand of these for the games.”

“That’s a little too… barbaric,” said Davey timidly, and the other children nodded along.

Ōnishi didn’t bat an eyelid. “Mr. President, and the rest of you, you all should be ashamed of your weak nerves,” he said, brandishing the weapon. “It’s the foundation of all of the games you all have already suggested, the soul of war. Humanity’s very first toy.”

“Very well. Include a cold-weapons event,” Ilyukhin said.

“Except this kind of military sword… isn’t really necessary, is it?” Davey asked, averting his gaze from the sword on the table, as if the glare hurt his eyes.

“Then rifle bayonets,” Marshal Zavyalova said.

The children’s enthusiasm had vanished. They all stared at the sword in silence, as if they had just awakened from sleepwalking and were trying to figure out what they were in the process of doing.

“Anyone else have a suggestion?” Yagüe asked.

No one answered. There was no sound in the hall, as if the sword had taken away their very souls.

“Okay then. We should get ready to start the games.”

* * *

One week later, the opening ceremony of the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era was held on the broad plain of Marie Byrd Land.

More than three hundred thousand children took part in the opening ceremony, standing in a huge dense crowd. In the distance, the low-hanging sun of this half of the year was mostly below the horizon now, with only a tiny arc shedding a ruddy glow across the mottled monochrome landscape, glinting off the packed mass of helmets. In the dark blue of the sky a few silver stars had begun to twinkle.

The ceremony itself was simple. First there was a flag-raising, in which all of the participating countries dispatched representative soldiers to carry the five-ring Olympic flag around the venue, and then that symbol of peace was run up a tall flagpole over the Supernova Era battlefield. Child soldiers fired into the air in a salute that rippled across the crowd, gunfire trailing off in one area only to be picked up in another, like the rise and fall of ocean waves. On a platform beneath the flagpole, IOC president Yagüe stood waving for what seemed like ages until the shots finally quieted down and he could make his speech. As he opened up his notes, a kid next to him passed him a helmet. He did not immediately understand why, and shoved it aside in annoyance without noticing that the world leaders and other besuited VIPs on the platform were wearing helmets. He pressed on with his speech.

“Children of the new world, welcome to the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era—”

Just then he heard a burst of rat-a-tat noises, like a shower of hailstones, and after a moment of confusion, he realized it was the sound of bullets hitting helmets and the ground, celebratory gunfire returning to earth. Now he grasped the helmet’s purpose, but before he had sense enough to reach for it, he received a sharp crack on the noggin. A bullet in free fall raised a welt on a scar from a previous head injury, one due to falling glass at the UN Secretariat a few months before. It probably was only a 5.56 × 45 mm NATO round, since if it had been a 7.62 × 39 mm round from one of the Chinese or Russian children’s older AK-47s, it might have knocked him out. Amid laughter, he put on his helmet, fighting back the pain, and reached a hand inside to massage his head. As bullets rained down, he said in a loud voice: