“There’s no more Washington. There’s a lake where it was.”
“You know what I mean. And you can bet that if we do carry out our plan and get a Federal government going again, ‘Springfield’ will mean pretty much what ‘Washington’ used to, well within our lifetimes. We’d have some people losing things they’ve worked for, and many people remembering things they didn’t like. So some of them are catching on, right now, that the Restored Republic of the United States is a nice idea but it’s not necessarily the best thing for them.”
“But, James, who?”
“How many people with a spending problem sleep better at night because their debt is gone, with no one to extend more credit to them and nothing to buy with it? Why would they want to bring back the world of consolidation, bankruptcy, and foreclosure, especially if they have to work at it? How many people played dead, and got a fresh start, by just walking away from lovers or families in the chaos? How many people were in jobs they hated back then and have lucked into jobs they like, now?”
“Oh, there are some like that, I’m sure, but come on, James, what about an ex-desk jockey who’s shoveling mud? Won’t he—”
“Everybody doesn’t have to be better off for there to be a movement. Think how many big causes in history turned out to benefit nobody. And the benefits of the new world are not illusory, Heather. Re-creating the Federal government is going to be a net cost to a lot of people who won’t want to pay that bill.”
“Then should we just give up? Are we too late already?”
“I think we’re still in time, but only just. Right now, I think most people haven’t yet admitted how much they have to lose if the United States comes back.
“But if we give them a year or two, they’ll see all kinds of practical reasons to put off the Restored Republic for another year, or another decade, or their grandchildren’s generation. My advice as your consigliere is now.” He stirred the pot, the red glow bathing his bald spot and sagging cheeks, making him look a thousand years old. “All in the timing. Like the moment for this bisque, and the moment to just enjoy Christmas with company, and every other moment that matters. Hold out your bowl and no more gloomy talk till we’ve finished.”
TWO:
WE ALL FEED OFF THE WRECKAGE
2 WEEKS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 2:30 PM EASTERN TIME. THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2026.
Jenny Whilmire Grayson thanked the crowd and left the rostrum on the steps of the First National Church (the former University of Georgia chapel) knowing that she had given one of her best speeches, ever: just Christian enough so that her father’s disciples would not feel deserted; heavy on Army, patriotism, and honor for Jeff’s home crowd; enough quotes about restoring the Constitution for the Provi audience that would read the speech in the Pueblo Post-Times next week. And she’d written some good catchy phrases, and delivered them well.
Her father’s expression brought her up short. “Honey, I’m proud of you, of course—”
“But… ?”
“As we move deeper into the Tribulation, we also move the saving remnant of America toward its union with the Lord, and—”
“Daddy, I can tell you’re not speaking as my father, you’re intoning as the Chief Bishop of the Post Raptural Church—”
“Jenny, I am your father. You were always my smart, beautiful daughter, and I love you, but if you are going to be our First Lady, you have to be more than smart and beautiful.”
“What else did you have in mind?”
“America needs a First Lady who is a model Christian woman, because the President and First Lady, in a very important symbolic way, are the national mother and father—”
“Daddy, Jeff has had a vasectomy and nowadays there’s no way to reverse it.” Sorry about lying to Daddy, Jesus, but we will just have to wait for the ten-year shot that Mama got me when I went off to college to wear off, because there’s no counter-shot anymore. I guess once it does wear off we’ll say we’d been praying and the Lord saw fit to reload Jeff’s musket.
“I don’t mean literally, physically parents, I mean that you represent motherhood and fatherhood, in the same way that the President himself represents not just fatherhood but our Father in heaven, too. Ever since Kennedy, America has responded to filth in the White House like the boy who saw his father with a prostitute—”
“And you think I’m behaving like a prostitute around the National Daddy?”
It was a calculated tantrum; before he could gather himself to protest that he hadn’t meant that, she had pushed past him, and the guards had waved her into her husband’s inner office.
Jeffrey Grayson looked up. “Well. Your speech was brilliant, and you look unhappy, so I guess you talked to your father.”
Her chuckle was humorless. “Do you want me to be more of a good National Mommy?”
He shook his head. “I want you around. And in love with me. That’s first and second. Third, I want to know I’ve done my duty as an officer. And then, way down the list, but still on it, I want to be president.”
“And you think all that might conflict?”
“I think you’re already angry and I didn’t cause it.”
“True. But do you think I should go bake cookies like what’s-her-name?”
“Hillary Clinton? She got in trouble for saying that people expected her to. I’ll win with you the way you are. Or if I don’t, keeping your love is what matters to me anyway. Everything else is just what I do for a living.” He drew a breath and was watching her intently when he added, “Okay?”
He wants my approval. She smiled, and relished the relief in his eyes.
5 HOURS LATER. MANBROOKSTAT (FORMERLY THE AREAS SURROUNDING NEW YORK HARBOR). 8:30 PM EASTERN TIME. THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2026.
The shiny cylinders and dull spheres resembled heavy children’s toys or mathematical demonstrations, but Jamayu Rollings felt like he was spreading out diamonds on the black velvet drape that covered the folding table.
Like the pale-skinned, smiling men facing him, Rollings wore a tuxedo. Beside him, the Commandant and his two Special Assistants were in dress uniform. The Special Assistants wore their shoulder holsters ostentatiously, as if to deter the Galway trade negotiators from lunging across the table and grabbing the ferromolybdenum, tungsten, and palladium. “We hope to have use for all these materials, soon, ourselves,” Rollings said, “but for the moment, truthfully, our labs and factories aren’t ready.
“These were all found in a specialty metals workshop just a bit up the river from Albany, undisturbed in their containers, with full paperwork. I don’t need to tell you that for the next ten years at least, no one on Earth will be able to refine any more, and if, let’s say, you have any people working on hydrogen-based energy tech, there’s no substitute for palladium.
“Gold, silver, or special barter are acceptable, but I won’t give credit. I’ll await your offer with interest, gentlemen. Anything else you’d like me to be looking out for?”
Dr. O’Ryan, who had spoken little till now, said, “We have a very acute interest in titanium, especially in sheets, but any piece larger than five kilograms. If you should happen to find anything like that on any future salvage expedition, you can notify the trade mission and have them send a message to my attention at the Recovered Technology Project in Galway.”