Reboot

President Mooney was sitting behind his desk staring at the ceiling. There was nothing to see there. It was a very plain ceiling, ’not like in the Oval Office’, he thought. ’This one is just plain steel. Temporary, lean, cold.’ Yet the absence of anything interesting attracted his eye. The emptiness was comforting. There were no windows since they were underground. He was leaning backwards, slowly rocking, pushing himself away from his desk with his foot. His hair was disheveled, wet; he hadn’t shaved in three days and one of his shoelaces was untied. Anderson was standing nearby as always.

Suddenly, the foot came off and Mooney fell forward and grabbed his head with both hands.

“I caused all this, Ian. It’s my fault.” He looked haggard. His eyes were red. “I have to fix this, how can I fix this.. I can’t fix this of course.. hahaha… idiot, how could I possibly fix this..”

Then he just started blubbering…“My God, what have I done…” Snot was seeping out of his nose onto his desk. His voice was gravelly.

“Not again,” Ian thought to himself, exasperated, he felt like he was charged with saving a drowning man, or rather a boy, but he had to hurry.

“Now, Sir, please, wait a minute, yes, we had a hand in this. We made a mistake, fine, but it would have happened anyway soon and we are now in a position to rebuild a strong country and we have to take up that challenge, right? It’s up to us now.”

He grabbed Mooney by the shoulders and shook him a little bit. Quite out of character, but he felt it was necessary. He bought his face very close to Mooney’s. The President’s breath stank.

“If not us, then who? Who would you trust to do it? It would have happened anyway right? Eventually? So the next person in charge of the world, you know, it might as well be President Mooney, right? Who else could we trust to rebuild. We’ll work together. I’ll help you as much as possible and we’ll make up for the mess. OK?” Anderson fought hard not to show the disdain he felt for this man.

Mooney looked at him, blinked off the tears and took a deep breath.

“Right! Of course, you’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ian.” He pulled his hair back very hard, pulling the skin of his face into a grimace.

“I understand, sir.” Ian exhaled deeply and slowly backed off, as if he’d just built a very large card castle and a tiny tremor could topple it.

Mooney stood up, turned around and shook himself up a bit. He ran his hands through his hair again and straightened his tie. Then after a few seconds he faced Anderson again.

“Ok…..What’s next, then?”

Anderson was careful. He spoke softly. He wanted to bring Mooney out of shock nice and slow, not push him over the edge.

“You’re meeting with the agricultural committee, the energy committee and Secretary Chin today. We have to decide how to proceed with food production, and how to get going with gas and oil as soon as possible. The secretary thinks that other countries will race to gain power by getting access to food supplies and oil production facilities.”

“Which countries?” He sighed, as if getting rid of a weight. “Who are we worried about?”

“Brazil, Canada, Nigeria... Possibly others especially in Central America, and some new groups that have formed.” Ian was exasperated. Mooney had been told all this before.

“Canada? What do you mean Canada? And I thought Africa was gone...” Ian looked worried again. Mooney’s mood was unstable. He seemed frightened.

“Nigeria was bombed heavily because of the resources there, but it’s the main attraction in Africa now because of the oil deposits. So the Africans are getting organized. And they know perfectly well how important the oil will be so they’re hurrying. Or so we think anyway. There’s talk of slave labor and people working in affected areas until they drop. Canada was hit in Alberta and the main cities mostly, but it’s so large that many people survived. They’re concentrating on food production. They’ll deal with us, but we need something to trade. Brazil is going all out on all fronts; they will be our fiercest competitor. Most others are concentrating on a niche market in order to trade successfully. We have to get in on it too, and soon before it’s too late.”

“Nothing in the Middle East?”

“No. Asia is gone. So is Europe. Only pockets remain and they are fighting each other for scraps. Countries like Cuba, New Zealand or even Bolivia and Chile are doing better than most. They closed their borders and are going it alone. Trust is gone. Understandably. But they’re keeping communication channels open, occasionally.”

“So Brazil then?”

“Yes. Venezuela too. The general has a plan to slow them down. We need to send a couple of shadow teams down there to create a little havoc, blame it on some terror group, the usual. We need to buy time to catch up. The new order must have the USA on top. There’s no other option. Right?”

“Of course. How do we catch up?”

“We’re working on that. We’ll have a report for you on various options within the week. The first step is obviously cooperation from the citizens. We need a solid communication system and a clear census. We need to know where people are. We need them organized and looking to us for leadership. Then we need money. Taxes.. etc. For now, people are hiding, staying put, but we’ve already started financial policy introduction and control systems.”

“How’s that going”?

“We don’t know yet. We’re sending out feelers, trying to make some contacts with leaders out there, sending out radio broadcasts regularly to inspire confidence and to make sure the populace knows we’re still here. Wouldn’t pay to have them get too happy to be alone. But we don’t have open channels yet. We’re working on that. We’ll send out people as soon as possible.”

“OK keep at it. I’m going to take a nap.” And he left Ian Anderson alone to ponder how to move forward with such an inept noodle at the helm.