“No, the safari in Tanzania can wait for another year. No animals left anyway.”
“Good. Since the next endangered species will be the American tourist. Otherwise, a good tranche of the portfolio is in Treasuries. The yield is piss-poor, and they’ll drop in value now that the rate’s gone up, but, worse comes to worst, one can always wait for maturity. Times like these, it’s the principal you most want to hold on to.”
“But you said buying American bonds was a sign of worldwide gullibility.”
“That’s right! So why should I be any different?”
They were rising to head to the dining room—if Carter didn’t get some food into him soon he’d be sick—when a knock rapped on the library door. “Mr. Mandible, sir?” The orderly who’d been minding Luella poked his head in. “The president is about to address the nation on TV. The desk was sure you’d want to know.”
• CHAPTER 4 •
GOOD EVENING, FELLOW AMERICANS
“Mom! Alvarado’s on in a minute!”
“That’s okay, sweetie!” his mother shouted from the kitchen. “I’ll watch it later.”
This was another of those where-were-you-then moments, and it was ominous when they bunched together. Back against Great Grand Man’s heavy wine-colored sofa, Willing nestled cross-legged on the floor, where he always felt safer, more deeply seated. The thrum of the announcer’s in a few moments… has made only one other address to the nation… rose up from the wooden parquet and trembled in his palms. For once he didn’t feel self-conscious about the blare intruding on Kurt in the basement. Alvarado was their tenant’s president also. Kurt should be paying attention: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. That was another sign that stuff was going roachbar. When they had to say it the long way—not only “the President” but “the President of the United States.” “The United States of America.” That was the worst.
Milo barked. Just once, before huddling into the protection of Willing’s thigh. Milo had never seemed too sure about Alvarado.
His mother was making a mistake. There were copies of everything. The duplicates seemed identical to the originals. Willing, too, could wait and listen to this speech later. On fleX or catch-up TV, the address would be indistinguishable from the image he was following now. But the copy would not be happening. He couldn’t explain it, but that made it completely different. Forever after, Willing will have watched this address when it was happening. Those sounds again, the artificially downward music of the announcers’ suppressed excitement, the forcing of their voices into darker, whispering tones when really they wanted to shout, assured him that later he would be glad and proud that he was watching this now and not after the fact.
Because big news got old fast. If you waited, somebody was bound to tell you about it before you learned it for yourself. They’d change the words around, too, and get everything in the wrong order. Willing hated being told what had happened. The telling people always seemed so smug and powerful, and they maintained their power by keeping their special knowledge to themselves for as long as possible. So they would feed you bits of information in sadistic dribs, like dog treats for Milo. You couldn’t trust the telling person either. Even if they claimed to hand over all that they knew, they only conveyed the part that they liked or especially hated. Being told—it was not the way to find anything out.
Buenas noches, mis compatriotas americanos. Daré instrucciones en español inmediatamente después de esta versión en inglés. Pero esta noche, y sólo esta noche, presionen uno para inglés.
Good evening, fellow Americans. At the beginning of this century, extra-national terrorists hijacked our own airplanes to rupture the Pentagon and destroy the World Trade Center. More recently, in 2024, our vital internet infrastructure was cataclysmically paralyzed by hostile foreign powers.
Modern warfare comes in many guises.
During this past week, our nation has once again been under attack. No towering skyscrapers have tumbled. Both the physical and digital systems on which we depend continue to function. Yet the attack we are currently sustaining is potentially no less devastating than nuclear missiles hurtling toward our cities.
What has been targeted is the very medium through which we trade with other nations and conduct commerce with one another—the medium through which our labors are rewarded, our debts are repaid, our tables are laid, and our children are secured medicines for their ailments.
What is at risk is no less than the almighty dollar itself.
Coordinating their chicanery, countries that wish this nation ill have played on the cowardly compliance of our allies. In the last ten days, a sequence of carefully timed financial dominoes were toppled—designed to raise the cost of financing our national debt, which would translate into you the American taxpayer keeping less of your hard-earned income. Our currency was also sabotaged on the international exchange markets. Most perfidiously of all, world leaders who resent the power, prestige, and success of our great nation have cobbled together the so-called “bancor”—an artificial, pretender currency with no history as legal tender.
Make no mistake. The bancor is not intended as a harmless alternative to the dollar. It is meant to replace the dollar. In a move every bit as threatening as raising a gun to our heads, we have been informed that the crops and raw materials on which we rely for our daily lives and livelihoods must now be traded internationally in bancors. A gesture of exceptionally high-handed insolence: the United States Department of the Treasury has also been apprised that American bonds held by foreign investors must henceforth be redeemed in bancors, at an unfavorable exchange rate capriciously chosen by an International Monetary Fund gone rogue. American bonds sold to foreign investors must henceforth be denominated in bancors—which is a challenge to our very sovereignty as a nation.
Ironically, the parties behind this organized fiscal coup immediately suffered from it. The American dollar is the lifeblood of international banking, and the backbone of financial markets around the world. That is why, as most of you know, we suspended trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week to prevent precipitous loss of wealth. But trading has also been halted in the wake of the same shock to the system in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Hong Kong, and every other major stock exchange across the globe. International finance is holding its breath. As with every other crisis for more than a hundred years, the world waits for America to act. And this brave country never sustains insult without reply.
Right before addressing you, the American people, this evening, I convened an emergency session of Congress. Almost unanimously, your representatives passed a bill deeming that, until further notice, for American citizens to hold bancors, either onshore or within the confines of our financial system, shall from this point onward be considered an act of treason. In the interest of preserving not only our present prosperity, but our future prosperity—in the interest of maintaining our integrity, our capacity to hold our heads high as a nation—Americans and American entities are also forbidden from trading in bancors abroad.