Dawn of Tears - 24. The Time Between

Note to Readers: A lot, and very little happened between the end of the Utah Crisis and the great Mid-East Crisis.I'm not going to be bother with a day-by-day account of those two years. Instead I'll just let you know what happened in a summary.

March of that year passed far too slowly for me to ever have appreciated what really was a beautiful city at the beginning of spring. It only took a week for the country to be convinced of the evil nature of the 'Prophet' and while there were many comments from people 'concerned' about how I must be having nightmares, no one called me a murderer after that incident. I also found that being caught in the middle between two sides who are very passionate about their ideas, despite only being separated by the thinnest of lines was not fun at all.

A team of four officers arrived to investigate the 'Prophets' use of drugs and children, and revealed at the end of three days that his program had been completely destroyed. It was also revealed that they had kidnapped children to use against American governments in future operations and had been attempting to brainwash them. They even revealed my 'rescue' of these children.

Brian and the other former guards were officially placed in protective custody lest some remaining followers of the Prophet sought revenge against them, and of course for their safety they were allowed to stay with me where they would receive the same protection I did. This also kept them from being interviewed by reporters. They were adjusting to life within my circle, all eagerly receiving tattoos like the others once they saw them and started begging for their own.

How they would be handled long-term was something we weren't sure of, but it was something constantly in the back of my circle's minds.

Henry arrived the day the announcements about the 'children' were made. He brought with him a team of psychologists and scientists from various fields that would help not only the children recover from what they had been through but also scientifically study our abilities. All of them had extremely high security clearances and Admiral Fullard was absolutely certain they'd never reveal the things they were to learn. After spending a day with them, which included me using my abilities to really test their commitment to secrecy, I not only had a better understanding that they really were the right people to work on this and that they would not reveal our secret, but I also learned how little I understood about the experiments I had been conducting. When Henry left, he took the five rescued kids, Tim and Sandy, and Jeremy with him.

Tim, Sandy, and Jeremy were our safety team. They had earned even dad's trust and so were going to stay at the facility in Missouri where the studies would be made. They also would contribute to the study, but they were there to make sure the other kids didn't take matters into their own hands. Henry and I would visit since there was a good cover story in place in the area for us to be seen there. Our visits would be to participate in select short-term studies as well as to make sure the children weren't being mistreated (by our standards, not the scientists).
(Jeremy was just added and is already trusted by Dad? See next note.)
I didn't want Jeremy to leave. What I had thought would be my first regular relationship though, had been hampered by Jeremy watching me kill those people. He said he loved being around me, talking to me (when he got a chance), but he kept on having nightmares and thought maybe the psychologists would be able to help him too. He was also needed, badly since the security for the people working with the kids required that someone trusted be in the room at all times, and so far the only people with our gifts that were trusted at all were Henry, Tim, Jeremy, and I. Both guys had proved themselves here and after Henry met them, he too decided they could be trusted fully.

Bob Baker was fired from NBS after fielding a report from Brian and Neil's uncle claiming that Brian and Neil were kidnapped, brainwashed, and being used by members of my security detail. General Dillard sent a team of officers to investigate and after speaking with both of them separately, spent a day conducting further investigations. When the regular police arrested Brian and Neil's uncle the day after, they invited other reporters to come in and view the collection of pictures they'd seized from the uncle's home. From pictures of the uncle having sex with underage girls, as well as several other men who would soon be arrested, to pictures of the uncle standing over the dead body of Brian's older brother Michael, plus the nearly two hundred pounds of high explosives in his basement with sketches of the daily routes driven between the government offices and my plane at the airport.

Don't worry about Bob, he got a job as a news anchor on the second national network just starting up, or rather re-starting, from the old CNN studios. Their new name Coast-to-Coast News was a play on the old name, while trying to represent themselves as a new company. Many Americans lacked faith in the old mega-companies from before the Great Oil Crisis and companies were frantically trying out new names. Bob had a big beef with how the economic recovery was handled. A lot of people had lost fortunes, and there was one problem that no one had really answered before it was too late, and that was retirement accounts and those approaching an age where they could no longer work well and whatever extra savings they had were now gone. From that issue, CCN had grown increasingly critical of everything the government did, even raising the point of were we still a democracy and were we still free.

During the time I spent in Utah, I learned a lot about how government is run on a day-to-day basis. I'd really expected it to be like Idaho where people came up with ideas, then ran them by each other and all I ever did was nod in agreement, offer the occasional suggestion or question, and wave for the cameras. I found out the very first day that I was absolutely wrong. I had people with very passionate beliefs on every issue coming to me and trying to convince me they were right. The military staff I had with me were overwhelmed with little details, and I ended up turning to the Professors who were supposed to be teaching me coursework.

They still taught me regular lessons, mostly at night and in the early morning, but they also played a bigger role for me in the day. Professors Sheffield and Higgs were in most meetings, sitting in the corner, ostensibly grading one of my papers, but really listening to whatever I was hearing as well. Then, after the meeting was over and I had said 'I'll be thinking about this' we would debate everything some more, between us. Then I'd reach a decision from there.

That kept me from making a lot of mistakes when my opinion was being swayed on the basis of how well someone argued instead of what they were saying. A lot of lessons I'd learned before, and even had firsthand knowledge of in action, congealed . I really didn't spend more than one or two days a week doing anything military related. Still, the skills they'd already instilled, and I had used, stayed sharp with even that occasional reminder.

No 'permanent' Federal Mediator was ever assigned to Utah. By the end of the thirty days that I was there, a new state constitution was in place. It had been the work of the Provisional Council (that had grown to ten people plus me by the end of the first week), and we all signed it. I tried to back out of signing it, but was all but dragged to the table and told to sign it first, since I'd broken the tie votes on most of the items included in it, or not included as the case may be. I still remember the most memorable comment from the event, from none other than Bob Baker: "Now Dylan Jacobs is the first signer of the new Utah Constitution, even though he's not yet old enough to sign his name on a legal contract or drive a car."

The man hated me with a passion, and I guess I had earned that.

On March 21st, the people of Utah voted the new Constitution into place with an approval rating of 86%. Margaret Millard became the new governor by 51% of the vote and my duties were done. She wanted to have a parade, but I refused so adamantly that she let me go the day after her inauguration without a parade.

On April 14th, the people of the United States voted on a national Constitution for the first time in their history. As I remarked in several speeches, in more cities than I care to remember, it was the first time the people themselves had actually voted on the Constitution. When the first one was approved, it was by the state legislatures. Every time it was amended, it was voted on by congress and the state legislatures. Yes, it was approved by the elected representatives of the people, but the people themselves had never spoken directly on the document upon which their nation was founded. I'd made that observation late one night while meeting with Knight about the next day's schedule, as the plane was flying across several states to get me there. He'd liked it, talked about it with Martha Ellington, and the two of them had it written into my speech the next morning as the final sentence.

"Now, for the first time in our history, this nation will be based upon a document that was created for the people and approved by the people."

It became the new campaign slogan for the approval of the re-written document. Approval polls had shown it slipping to 70%, far below the 80% the document itself had been written to require, or to be amended. It had been attacked from the very first broadcast of the CCN network, and they had had an affect. The votes weren't completely tallied until April 18th, and when it did there was a huge party in Huntsville, Alabama.

94% of Americans had voted to approve the re-written document.

In May, elections were held by every state for the first time since the Great Oil Crisis had begun. Nearly every city in the U.S., and most rural regions, now had power again and life was returning to normal at an ever increasing pace. There were still two political parties, but neither were Democrat or Republican. Rather, there was now the Traditionalist Party headed by what I called the 'disgruntled elite' and the Reformist Party that had all but begged dad to join. They wanted him to run it as well, but he stayed out of it except for signing his name to their charter.

Senator Crawley was their first Chair.

The entire family stayed out of the state elections, but the Reformist party won super-majorities in every state legislature, and they won all but one of the forty-nine governorships, and almost every state-wide office. Most of the Reformist candidates were heroes of one form or another from the Crisis. Military, civilian, and religious leaders that had been praised for the way they had led their areas through that Crisis.

After this election, it was announced that the site of Huntsville was no longer able to handle the needs of a federal government, and a permanent capitol was needed before national elections were established. Two weeks later, after twenty cities submitted their names, the Continental Congress announced a list of five finalists and requested that they vote to approve the application of the city, and to cede all rights to claims on that land, and allow the creation of a Capitol District.

Two states approved that request, but three more declined. When Washington D.C. had been built, it had been built on empty swampland. We didn't have the time or the desire to do that, so it came down to which of the finalists had either unused land, or lightly used land that could be built or converted to use as a seat for the federal government. Both cities prepared and submitted proposals complete with artists rendering of various building designs within their city boundaries.

Austin, Texas, that state's capitol already, submitted designs that included renovating several skyscrapers in their downtown district to government use. It was nice, and a complete break from the past architecture of the capitol (again a recurring theme in the America of that time). But it lacked anything that set it apart from any other city, and most people that were there (including both Henry and I on behalf of dad) were left wanting something more.

San Francisco, the other finalist, took everyone's breath away. Since the worst days of the city nearly deserted, the people there had struggled hard to recover. Once considered among the dirtiest cities in California with tons of homeless people, trash all over, and also the most radical city in America, San Francisco had changed itself almost overnight.
Most people in the city hadn't bothered replacing cars (and had announced a plan to use the hulks of most of the cars remaining in the city as reefs. They'd even collected them in sites around the city, just waiting for the resources to construct the reefs.). The streets were filled with bicycles, electric mopeds, and pedestrians streaming to work in the new businesses that were forming the backbone of the economy. It's position as a shipping port was even more important now as refineries in the local area now produced a large portion of the fuel for California.

All these things made it a bright, bustling city whose fortunes were on the increase as America recovered. What made it even better though, was the site they proposed: The old Presidio Army Base. It was a heavily wooded area with red brick buildings that, with the landscaping, made it look beautiful. It had been closed as a base and opened for commercial enterprises long before the Crisis, but was now empty. It had two things that really sold it though: Current facilities from which to operate were available with only minor renovations, but there was more than enough room to build new buildings and a new capitol building instead of forever being kept in existing buildings. It was close to every major transportation system, easily accessible but at the same time, set far enough away from the city to allow the security staff to sigh with relief. What's more, I remembered from one time that I'd been there how the style of the buildings amidst the landscape, and the quiet away from the bustle of the city, had given the area a peaceful, tranquil feeling.

Naturally, the issue of earthquakes was raised and the city representatives laughed, reminding the questioner that the location's buildings were quite resistant to earthquakes. His joke about government always needing a little shaking up on occasion got some more laughs as well. The issue of the city's weather was also brought up, especially the dense fog and how that would affect air traffic, but they were prepared and had a demonstration model of how the airport was fully equipped for the inclement weather with automated systems, and how there were three fields within forty minutes by train of the city itself, all capable of handling major traffic. Then they went on about a new set of hangars at the airport that could handle all five of the "presidential family" planes in a secure area, and how helicopter traffic to and from the Presidio wouldn't interfere with standard flight patterns of the airport. Added to that, the numerous active and inactive Air Force fields in close proximity meant that defense of the area was easy to maintain and wouldn't strain the military resources as much as the other site.

They capped their presentation with a picture of the USS Gettysburg returning to port after shooting down an inbound nuclear warhead. The chief presenter smiled and reminded the audience of just how lucky a city San Francisco is; after all it was the only American city to have successfully been defended from nuclear attack.

On June 10th, San Francisco was selected as the next capitol of the United States, and work on preparing the Presidio for its role as the heart of the nation began.

On July 4th, the first national elections since the Crisis were held. The date was chosen for its symbolic nature, after all, what could be a better celebration of America than the first national election following the greatest test of our nation? The Reformist Party was the big winner again, and once again we did not campaign. 285 of the 320 House seats were claimed by the Reformers. 84 of the 100 Senate seats were also won by the Reformers. The new Congress was sworn in on July 21st, in the new capitol, San Francisco, C.D. Their first act was to vote a Joint Resolution praising James Jacobs for his leadership of the Nation since the nuclear attack on Thanksgiving Day.

On August 30th, the new Congress approved the first budget of the new nation. They also voted upon the President's request to declare the National State of Emergency over. The last part was passed unanimously, and the country was returned fully to civilian governance. National Guard units stood down for the first time since September 12th of the year before, and everyone let out one final sigh of relief. Henry and I, whose military status had been downplayed over the summer, were officially transferred to the US Army Reserves.

I completed flight training on September 2nd, earning my pilot's rating for the Blackhawk and two other types of helicopters. Professor Higgs left my staff around that time and went back to teaching and wrote a book about Idaho and Utah that stayed on the best seller list for a very long time. Another book he wrote on what it was like teaching me included a lot of my sarcastic comments and, with my permission, several excepts of essays I'd written since he'd been with me, which actually helped improve my image as more than dad's 'hit man'.

On September 12th I flew an army helicopter to Modesto. We were escorted by four more helicopters, with TV crews on both mine and two other choppers. The advanced planes had flown in the day before and when I landed, I was surprised at how much things had changed. Everything seemed much brighter, despite the dark day that it was an anniversary of. I knew better than to expect privacy as I visited the graves of my first family, and I knew the tears on my face would be on a close-up of that evening's news. Then, I gave a speech on the spot where my birth father had died that managed to gather better reviews than dad's speech. Mom had flown to Seattle, Henry to Houston, and Dad to Orlando, Fl. (the new Hollywood of the entertainment industry) for their speeches.

September 13th, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they turned on their light switches after waking up and their lights turned on.

Dad formally announced his candidacy for President that day as well; from the steps of the half-finished building that would become the Red House (red brick façade would decorate the new home and office of the President). Two weeks later the Reformist Party held their first convention and mom gave the speech that nominated and introduced dad as the Reformist candidate. It was my first exposure to a political convention and I was struck by how everything worked, and struck by the number of speeches, meetings, and dinners I was scheduled for with party people from all over the nation.

That was also the week that my military guards were officially decommissioned. They no longer wore military uniforms, but now instead wore the dark suits of the Secret Service. The military officers that comprised my staff all also returned to civilian life. Martha Ellington stayed on as my civilian Chief of Staff, as did Nadine Grass. Of course all the bonded people who had performed enlisted military functions were hired on for similar positions as civilian staff. My plane crew and the enlisted crew members remained assigned to me, and had quarters very near mine on the Presidio government complex.

The biggest controversy during the election (Dad was opposed by a Traditionalist named George LaVerne) actually focused on Henry and I. The old bald man that questioned us during the meeting of the financial restructuring committee had passed away in mid-October. He had done quite well for himself, becoming the first of many new millionaires within the first eight months of the nation's recovery. He died without children, and unbeknownst to us he'd willed his newest fortune to us.

LaVerne's supporters had filed a lawsuit challenging our ability to inherit based on our age, and our role on the committee (never mind that most of the committee members had gone on to profit greatly from their work - it was us who weren't allowed to profit). The case lasted all of three days before the judge threw it out, citing numerous situations where we'd already been legally recognized as functioning adults, and of course that we'd never participated in more than the one deliberation of the committee and we'd never directly tried to profit from the work we did on the public's behalf. After that, there were several more attacks on us until they realized their numbers weren't going up at all (they had been getting 18%) and actually dropped (to 12%).

Dad won the election on November 8th, with no problem. The new constitution provided for a direct election, by popular vote. Ninety-six percent of eligible voters went to the poll, and dad received 89.6% of those votes. It was actually a fun day, as we relaxed after last-minute cross-country flights we'd made. It had been obvious for the past two weeks that dad had no real chance of losing, but he wanted as high of a turnout as he could get. That night, his speech wasn't about his win (although he did mention it) but the victory of the American people as they showed the highest turnout in recorded history.

Thankfully, the Thanksgiving holiday and the one-year anniversary did not coincide this year. For Thanksgiving, we returned to Modesto where dad gave a special sermon at the old church. I did not go near the pulpit despite the teasing Henry was giving me. On the day of the actual nuclear anniversary, we each visited different sites that had been blasted as part of a national day of mourning. Christmas passed quietly and was a family affair, both with the Jacobs as a whole, and within my circle.

In January, Henry and I flew to actually attend our universities and we stayed there for the entire semester. It was our last semester of college, having completed all the other work we needed except for a semester's worth of courses that they required we take on campus. It wasn't easy, since most of the professors seemed to think we were some form of fraud, but they eventually realized we did know what we were about. I attended a few parties around campus, but spent most of my time with my circle. Those that hadn't finished high school still had private tutors that helped them either complete or work towards completing a high school degree.

While in our schools, our lives settled into the closest thing to normalcy either of us remembered in a long while. For Spring Break, we did fly back to San Francisco and then to Hawaii for three days. There wasn't the least bit of scandal from that though. When we were in classes, we weren't bothered by the growing number of reporters, we didn't have people following us everywhere, studying our actions, didn't have people trying to kill us, and the fate of the world, or at least a state or country didn't come anywhere near our shoulders.

We graduated with honors, perfect grade point averages, and mom and dad had to choose whose graduation to attend. Dad attended mine, and mom attended Henry's. Neither of us was upset by it, since those were the parents we also felt the closest to as well. Over the last year, I'd grown a bit closer to dad while Henry had grown closer to his mother.

As a family, we spent a day together in Orlando. It was a fun day, then we kissed our parents goodbye and took off on a working vacation. We started together, landing in England and spending a week there (longer than we did in any other place). It was Henry's seventh trip overseas, and my first.

To the great surprise of many Americans, the Monarchy had enjoyed a huge amount of popularity for their role in seeing their country through the Oil Crisis, and when their elected government re-formed, it was with the King as Head of Government. He now had powers much like the US President, while the Parliament (based in Manchester) worked as a legislature. Henry was greeted as an old friend and while I got along with them as well, it was nothing like the reception Henry got from them and from the British people in general.

Henry was more popular overseas than I was, while I enjoyed slightly more popularity at home.

Henry went on to France, Germany, Poland, and St. Petersburg, while I traveled to Lisbon, Rome, Greece, Israel, India, and Australia. Then, we both crossed over to South America, which was a continent that was quickly becoming a bigger economic powerhouse than they'd ever been before thanks to several oil reserves that, until the Crisis, just hadn't been worth the economic investment, but now were pumping oil into all the countries in the area. We hit every country on the continent and then swung through the Central American states, except for Mexico.

Mexico was a very sticky situation for the government still. The US had never pulled out of their oil platforms and coastal cities responsible for most of Mexico's oil business. No other country but Mexico had even complained and we had no plans to pull out either. The "government" in Mexico had been through four coups and two collapses in the last year and the entire place was slipping into chaos, except the areas we were controlling.

In those areas, dad had instituted a policy of treating the locals like they were American citizens, and they were now on a par with most of America when it came to living conditions, education, and work. Every time a rumor would get started that we were leaving them and letting Mexico take over again, there were instant demonstrations by thousands of locals demanding we stay. The three cities that were under our direct control had sent four delegations to Congress begging the US to declare them a protected territory, and just as California had once experienced massive immigration, these cities also experienced massive numbers of people fleeing to them in hopes of work and food.

Henry and I returned to San Francisco on September 3rd of that year. We were fifteen years old, both holding college degrees from two of the most prestigious universities in America (mine in Political Science with a specialization of Public Policy, Henry's also in Political Science with a specialization in Foreign Relations), and after our performances in the public eye during the Great Crisis period, it was generally accepted that we would work in the President's administration in some capacity.

After our return, Henry and I spent a week giving testimony before the House and Senate Foreign Relations committees. Most of it was televised, and while most people didn't watch all of the testimony, or even more than a few minutes here and there, several polls conducted rated us as being "Extremely" or "Very" competent. At dad's request, the Senate approved 84-16 (party line vote between Reformist and Traditionalist Parties) our appointment as "Ambassadors-at-large" and as "Special Assistants to the President".

The other purpose of our trip, and one that we spoke to no one about except dad, Senator Crawley and Admiral Fullard, was that we had shaken hands with the leaders of most of the world's important countries and as many of their government leaders as could get close enough to shake our hands. Gentle probes during each of those encounters, and throughout our trip had revealed that no world leaders were under the control of someone with our abilities, and we had detected no trace of any such abilities whatsoever outside of the United States. That was something that made all of us sleep a little better at night, and gave us hope we'd gotten control of that situation and potential problem.

A search of the company's records had revealed that all information on the subjects of the fertility experiments, the drug's chemical structure, and really any information about the whole subject no longer existed. That had made us very concerned, but as the number of kids at our special school grew to twenty, we became more and more confident that there was no other group that had found out about the abilities and sought to use them to control the world or even their own little areas.

The 'school' we'd founded for 'Very Gifted Children' was actually becoming public knowledge. Where better to hide a secret than in the open? It was acclaimed as a school to teach advanced children like Henry and I who were very intelligent but still wanted to experience a somewhat 'normal' environment. Through visits to the school by children and parents interested in sending their kids, we found ten of the other children who had our special abilities and they had been enrolled. Another three had been identified through lucky accidents between members of our circles and those children, and they had also been enrolled. While the school focused some of the most respected educators in the country, its real focus was the exploration, study, and training of our abilities. Heavy emphasis was placed on teaching the 'students' a strong code of ethics about their gifts before they were allowed to bond anyone the way Henry and I had. Tim had already bonded Sandy long ago, before we'd met him, and no effort was made to separate them.

Henry and I had visited the school often once it had been established. Part of this was to make sure the kids were being treated well and also to allow experiments between us and those we'd bonded into our circles. It also gave us a chance to get to know the others who shared our gifts and for them to get to know us. We all spent some time touching each other, sharing some memories (a use of our abilities that had become our equivalent of 'getting to know each other'), and becoming familiar with the 'scent' each of us left when we used our abilities. While Tim and Jeremy, the two people most of them had known as 'leaders', were popular, it was Henry and I who were active in the real world that they often looked up to as role models for what they would be when they finally left the school. Most of them looked forward to graduating at eighteen and being allowed to work in government one way or another and I knew that dad and the others were struggling to find a way to use them that could keep the abilities a secret and wouldn't violate the code of ethics we were trying to instill in them.

That was the struggle we all knew and worried about most, the ethical use of our abilities. The only alternative to an ethical use was to kill them all, and while I'd thought about it on occasion, I couldn't justify doing that when none of these students had shown a desire to misuse their abilities. It would also be far too easy for us to use them however we wanted, or needed, but to do so would present the concept that maybe ethics weren't important, and then we'd risk them going rogue and causing even more problems.

The Prophet in Utah and Jefferson in Idaho had sought to use our abilities for their own purposes and, in the end, had their 'tools' bite them back. That was the problem with unrestricted use of our abilities on the enemy. Those of us gifted remained unbound by anything but our own thoughts and desires. It was all too easy for one of us to turn on those who used us when the slightest opportunity presented itself. Therefore, if we were to do anything besides kill these others, or keep them locked up in isolated chambers with no human contact, we had to instill into them a dedication to a code of ethics and never encourage or allow them to act outside of that code. If any of them did, they could be eliminated, and those that stayed by the code would not be alarmed, but rather reminded to stick to the code instead of betraying it, and us.

The second anniversary of the Great Oil Crisis approached with only mild apprehension on the part of most of the world. While not every country, or every region within different countries, had recovered to their pre-Crisis levels, the world was once more humming along quite well. Except for the occasional civil war or coup in Africa, conflicts between nations were rarer than they had been pre-Crisis. While people looked at the calendar and the approaching day cautiously, no one expected another major catastrophe to occur on that day.

When the day itself arrived, though, it was as far from calm as we'd hoped it would be. Just as events occurred on that day two years before that changed the world, so now, two years later, events would occur that would change the world even more. Although the effects of that day weren't as apparent as those two years earlier, they would be even more far-sweeping than those that had come before because of one overriding effect.

Despite the dire threats they posed, no one panicked, countries did not strike out at each other to get valuable oil, and the lights stayed turned on, the electric and alternative fuel buses and mass transit systems still ran. Those citizens who had chosen to buy hybrid or electric cars instead of using mass transit still had fuel or power for their vehicles, and citizens all over the world came home, cooked dinner, and watched the television as President Jacobs sent his two Ambassadors-at-large to handle the crises that had erupted.

Everyone went to sleep that night as two huge 787 aircraft lifted off from San Francisco International Airport and headed to two different locations. People turned off their televisions and went to bed, or in different countries around the world, to work, and waited for the news that the two "wonder boys" of the American President would solve the problems and they could continue on with their lives without worrying about black-outs, looting, and seeking food in the dark, dirty interiors of abandoned grocery stores.

They didn't realize that by placing such faith in us, they were walking right down the path dad and his friends wanted. They had no idea what their faith in the strength of the new leadership would bring. But Henry and I knew and we also realized that, as smart as we were, dad and his friends had wisdom and experience on their side, which trumped our intelligence, hedging both of us down a path neither of us had decided we really wanted.

The only question that remained for both of us was: Is it too late for us to change our minds about supporting dad's vision of a future America?

Only time would tell.