 
### Last Word

By Carl Meier

Copyright 2013 Carl Meier

Smashwords Edition.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded, scanned, or

distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

For Sam and the fish

Table of Contents

Title Page and Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of Contents

7:10 a.m.

7:17 a.m.

7:23 a.m.

7:25 a.m.

7:30 a.m.

7:35 a.m.

7:37 a.m.

7:39 a.m.

8:07 a.m.

8:09 a.m.

8:15 a.m.

8:44 a.m.

9:07 a.m.

9:14 a.m.

9:35 a.m.

9:42 a.m.

9:51 a.m.

10:07 a.m.

10:17 a.m.

10:22 a.m.

10:39 a.m.

10:45 a.m.

10:51 a.m.

11:00 a.m.

11:30 a.m.

11:50 a.m.

12:55 p.m.

1:25 p.m.

2:40 p.m.

5:00 p.m.

5:26 p.m.

5:41 p.m.

6:00 p.m.

6:16 p.m.

6:20 p.m.

6:27 p.m.

6:33 p.m.

6:35 p.m.

6:48 p.m.

6:52 p.m.

7:06 p.m.

7:07 p.m.

Author's Note

### 7:10 a.m.

My name is Irwin Michael Anthony Lemming III. No, I'm not shitting you. My father was I. M. A. Lemming, Jr., and his father was I. M. A. Lemming, the first. I was oblivious until freshman year in high school when my religion teacher, Father Marlow, ten years younger, then, than I am today and the duck's nuts in that tiny pond, made fun of may name and then made fun of me because I didn't know what a lemming was. That prompted the first of his many lectures on the importance of independent thinking, being a leader not a follower, and so forth. The irony of that sermon by a priest in the third-tier Order of the Clerics of Saint Viator in an all-boys Catholic school, where neither the students, the teachers, nor the administrators were free to do anything their respective superiors didn't like, all the way up the divinely-instituted, hierarchical chain to Holy Father Infallible himself, didn't strike me until several years later.

It's shortly after 7 a.m. EST, about 7:10 god time, on a Monday in December. I work for the NSA; that's the National Security Agency. My job is to record all communications made by the President of the United States while he is in the White House—in person, phone, computer, or whatever new gadget Apple has just come up with—24/7. I refer to the President as MP. I used to refer to him as PUS, short for President of the United States. Jerry suggested that I might want to think about changing the acronym. I took his point and went with MP, short for Mr. President.

This is unusual duty for the NSA. Our charter is supposed to be only gathering foreign communications and signals intelligence and protecting U.S. communications and IS—that's information systems—from foreign information gatherers. Of course, there has been a little data collecting and mining on U.S. citizens inside the U.S.; all perfectly legal, of course. Wink. Wink. Hell, I was on the team that developed PRISM and a dozen other internal surveillance programs that haven't yet been leaked. But spying on the President kicks it up several notches, so there is no other job like mine in the agency. The work is easy, but I'm paid a lot because of the long hours and what I do is about as secret as it gets. My co-workers are Chuck and Steve. We each work 12-hour shifts in rotation, two on and one off. Like today I'm working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.—actually today I started at 6 because Chuck needed to leave early—I've got tomorrow off, and then I'll work from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on Wednesday, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe. I guess it depends on how this god thing shakes out. When we get vacation or someone is sick, our supervisor, Jerry, fills in.

The White House is bugged. My mikes automatically activate when they detect MP's voice in any room or on a telephone. If MP's user name and password are entered into any device, the communication is automatically recorded. Also, certain rooms are activated at the sound of any voice, such as the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and hallway immediately outside, MP's private study and dining room, and his secretary's office. The mikes send an encrypted, wireless radio signal to my computers at our off-site location. Because of our security clearance, we get access to any place in the White House, any time we need, to repair or replace. Amazing. Nobody ever questions who we are or what we are doing. The first couple of times I was there, I kept expecting one of those pea-brained, steroid-sucking, Secret Service Neanderthals to ask what the fuck I was doing, but no one ever did. My NSA badge says it all. When I'm not over there, I sit in my little broom closet watching monitors, playing with my keyboard, and eavesdropping on MP to be sure that we clearly hear and record everything. For what purpose exactly? I've asked Jerry and Chuck and Steve why we're doing this, but I never get an answer.

Recording these conversations is legal if everyone knows you are doing it. But who is going to say anything interesting if they know that the whole world will see the transcript? They say Nixon stopped all recording of his communications when his tapes became public during the Watergate scandal. Watergate investigators demanded the tapes, and the Administration tried to keep them private by going to court, claiming executive privilege because of national security. The Supreme Court eventually handed Nixon his lunch and required that the tapes be made public. The textbooks tell you that was the end of secret taping in the White House. Plus, in 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, making records generated by any later presidents and their staffs publicly owned—meaning if you've got any, it's illegal to keep them secret.

I've just had this job since the current MP came into office, but Chuck's on his third president and Steve's on his second. Chuck says, "legal schmegal, I talked to the guys who were here when I came, and these recordings have been made for every administration as far back as anyone can remember, but nobody will ever admit it." So since everyone involved has to lie about their nonexistence, very people know what's going on. When my supervisor, Jerry, recruited me, he told me that, in addition to the three communication specialists, only him and his boss and a couple of very highly-placed people in the Administration know about it. None of the other federal agencies know. Members of Congress and the Supreme Court don't know. If the Attorney General knows, he would never admit it. Hell, even MP, himself, doesn't know—the old plausible deniability.

When I was recruited, I had to take a test. It wasn't technical. The agency already knew I was good at the technical stuff. It was a psych test. They never told me what it was for, but my guess is they wanted to see if (1) I gave a rat's ass about whether what I do is against the law, and (2) I would keep my mouth shut when I was inevitably hauled before Congress and grand juries. I passed with flying colors.

I had double majors, undergraduate, computer science and philosophy. It was a Catholic school, so I also had a lot of theology thrown in. My wife says no wonder I'm so screwed up. I tell her I was screwed up at birth, but 17 years of Catholic education just taught me how to enjoy it. Hell, I can do anything I want, whisper a bless-me-father, do three Hail Marys, and I'm good to go.

Speaking of confessions, a digression: beneath my carefully-crafted, autonomous-appearing veneer, I fear rejection. Given the prevalence of child—predominantly male—sexual abuse, covered up to save the Roman Church's ass, I sometimes wonder why I—being frequently alone with many different members of the clergy over many years—wasn't a victim. As far as I can recall, I was never even hit on. Not even a gentle touch or come-hither stare. I mean, I'm glad I wasn't and all, but . . . . Was it chance: I just happened to luck-out and only run across the good guys? Or was it something about me in particular? Did you ever wonder why priests mostly prefer boys and nuns prefer girls? My theory is if you intentionally choose what is supposed to be a celibate life, the opposite sex has never been your thing from the get-go, so how convenient for the Roman Church to provide a well-respected vocational option perfectly suited to your orientation.

While I'm on the subject, do you remember the Penn State scandal? They were more concerned with protecting their football program than they were with protecting boys from one, popular, very sick football coach. The NCAA imposed sanctions, which depending on your point of view were either overreaching or not stringent enough, but at least a regulator took a moral stand and heads at the top rolled, alive and dead. For its part, for years the Catholic Church knowingly and intentionally covered up the abuse of thousands of children by hundreds of pedophile priests, doing nothing to warn and precious little to prevent. It's a mortal sin to use contraception or to abort, so bring as many kids into the world as you can so they can be buggered by their local clergy. Who is mighty enough to regulate The Church? No one of this Earth. No sanctions, no heads rolled at the top. There was no divine intervention or even a hint from the holy ghost to stop it: you know, a little sign like having the Pope's pecker petrify and mysteriously fall off and get rammed up his papal posterior. Makes you wonder what 12-year-old JC was up to when he gave his folks the slip and spent three days alone with the priests in the temple. Gives a whole new meaning to his love-thy-neighbor and do-unto-others lessons. As for god the father, que sera, sera. Kids injured physically and mentally. Lives ruined. No biggie, as long as all concerned confess their sins and worship me on Sunday.

Anyway, in college, during our many and varied discussions on ethics, my classmates always seemed to know where the line was and when they crossed it, bright as day. I had a hard time ever spotting a line, so crossing it was problematic. I was always good at guessing what the right answer was supposed to be, however, so my classmates and teachers always thought I was just like them. Jerry says I was born for this job.

The big "No-No" in my job is: under no circumstances am I to rerecord, or take written or verbal notes of, or, of course, tell anyone about, what I hear or see. No problem, except today.

This is a recording of my comments about this god affair.

Our work area is a sound-proof, secured office with one ergonomically-engineered chair facing a big multi-tiered desk and a ton of computer equipment, a refrigerator, microwave, and the Maserati of coffee makers. We also have a tiny bathroom with a wireless laptop, so we don't miss a beat. Except for the changeover, there is only one of us here at a time, so the room has all we need. I've got my feet up on the desk, and I'm talking into a microphone attached to my headset.

The next 12 hours are going to be interesting and scary as hell, and I intend to keep a running commentary. I'm burying my comments and one copy of the President's communications in my version of The Cloud so deep that Chuck, Steve, and Jerry will never find them. And, if they can't find them, believe me, no one can. We are the best the U.S. spooks have to offer, and I am the best of the best. I'm really good at the technical stuff. And someday—god willing—I intend to retire and, like every good former civil servant, make my fortune by publishing a tell-all memoir. Guess what the book will be about?

God's message hit my head about 7:07:00 a.m. according to the clock above my desk, 12:07:00 a.m., tomorrow, UTC—that's Coordinated Universal Time. I know because I had just looked at the clock when I heard the voice, and the clock still said 7:07:00 when the voice stopped. No elapsed time. Chuck had already left, so I'm here alone. My clock is supposed to be automatically set at UTC. I got the impression that god thought he was speaking at the top of the hour, however, so his clock must be slightly different than ours. Under the circumstances—including the start of the 12-hour doomsday waiting period—I'm going to throw in with his, so I just moved mine back seven minutes. I figure when you are talking about a time limit on the end of the world, or rather the end of human life, it's good to know what time it is.

Since the message, MP has been asking everyone what the hell is going on. No one knows, but with his strong encouragement, everyone is sure as shit trying to find out. He has a Cabinet meeting already scheduled for 7:30. He wants a full briefing then: problems and detailed options for solutions, as usual. This MP likes early morning meetings since he can roll out of bed and come downstairs, sometimes in his robe and slippers, and maybe only his robe and slippers, tousled bed–hair and all, and inconvenience the crap out of everyone else. I once overheard MP's Press Secretary ask MP's Chief of Staff if she thought he had anything on under that robe. She said it gave her nightmares just thinking about it. Then Press Secretary dared her to pretend to drop her pen next time and take a peek under the table. No thanks, she said, I'm afraid what I'd see, to quote Thomas Hobbes in a different context, would be nasty, brutish, and short, and knowing herself she'd probably laugh out loud, and she wanted to keep her job a while longer. True story. I'm betting MP'll be running late today because of all the commotion. They'll be lucky if they get it going by 8.

### 7:17 a.m.

While there is a lull, I call my wife on my cell phone. Both—using my personal cell phone and talking to anyone other than the guys when on duty—are also big No-No's, but this is a special day, and they knew my ethics were situational when they hired me. Sarah and I compare recollections, and, as best we can tell, we heard substantially the same thing except for the "humans are highly complex" part where, in her message, god referred to the loud obnoxious jerk in her book club and left out the part about her brother, Marty. Our golden retriever made both messages. Oh, and god called her Sarah, of course. The voice I heard sounded like a Midwestern non-accent. She was raised in Charleston and thought she heard a familiar drawl.

Sarah believes the message. I agree. After several years of trial and error—we met in one of my classes; she went to one of those heathen, state universities but came over to audit theology courses; how can you help but love that?—neither one of us really believes in a traditional god, so that part wasn't an issue. In fact, we both found that part rather satisfying in a strange sort of way. No problem with his "Golden Rule," either—I mean what's not to like except the shear impossibility of the whole thing—but she is scared because she doesn't think that 12 hours is enough time to get anything done, even if people wanted to, plus she doesn't trust any political leaders, particularly ours. I remind her that the messenger differentiated government from politics, and she says on that point that the messenger was clearly not in touch with our Earthly reality. She uses the term "out to lunch." Anyway, she thinks MP is worthless and will find a way to screw it up, let alone the yahoos running the rest of the world. She belongs to the opposite political party; that means MP can do nothing right. You know, if you consistently vote either red or blue, the odds are good that sooner or later you'll pick a winner. I think of myself as an independent; that means I am free to consistently vote for the wrong guy. My Nikes are firmly planted on what was once considered the dead center of the political spectrum. The last time I was right wing was freshman year on the top line of the St. Al JV; after that I always played center. I know. My sense of humor sometimes needs a little adjusting to. But in today's hyperbolic climate, where the center has been bullied to the right, MP's base supporters would brand me—likely with white-hot pokers if they had their way—as a flaming liberal if not a socialist. Basically, I'm for what's in my and my family's best interest. My favorite philosopher is Bernard Williams. He didn't believe in universal moral truth. Selfish partiality to yourself and to the people you are deeply attached to is what counts. But since I firmly feel that my best economic and social interest generally coincides with that of most of my fellow Americans, we being the hoi polloi, as it turns out, I am also interested in the welfare of others. And because in my humble opinion their best interest, whether they realize it or not, and mine has a better chance for success with what today is considered the political left, I disagree with MP on just about every issue. It looked for a while that the country's political mood might be moving at least a little more towards the middle, but that irresistible twenty-first century combo of business, religious conservatives, and all-around nut cases came roaring back like a NASCAR winner through the checkered flag. I don't like MP at all as a human being, but because he doesn't let little things like ethics and inconvenient laws get in the way, we have a few things in common, and he can be highly effective. If anyone can get it done, it's him, so he's the QB on my fantasy team for what might be the final drive of this game. But I'm afraid Sarah's right about the outcome. We're toast. I'm scared, too, but I try to say reassuring things like I know more about MP than she does, and he isn't totally worthless.

We have two kids, girls, Sarah Junior—they both hate it when I call her that—three, and Natalie, 10 months. Sarah and Sarah Junior are so much alike it almost breaks my heart, but neither will ever admit it. I tell Sarah Junior that she is her mom's mini-doppelganger. She has no idea what it means, but she loves the sound and laughs and laughs every time I say it. Sarah Junior heard the voice. As best Sarah could tell, Natalie did too. There didn't seem to be any change in Natalie's behavior. Sarah Junior talked about the voice but didn't seem to be frightened by it: probably too small to fully understand, or so we hope. Anyway, it's good that the kids don't seem to know what's going on. Sarah is going to keep them occupied and away from all communication devices. She is temporarily a stay-at-home mom—her highly-classified, Navy contractor, program analyst job got outsourced to Pakistan. Pakistan? Highly classified security clearances for Pakistanis making three bucks an hour? Might as well hand your secrets directly to the Muslim News —so that makes things easier today.

She says this means that we'll never get to have that dream house on the shore she's always wanted or the pied-à-terre in Paris, and I say that on the bright side, between the hurricanes and the rats, she wouldn't have liked them, anyway. And besides, I tell her, under the circumstances, I think she has lost sight of the big picture. Then we get into a big argument because she wants me to come home and be with the family.

I tell her I think it is important that I stay here and do my job. I tell her that I'm sure everything is going to be fine, I will call her later, and I love her and the kids.

She says I always was and continue to be a selfish, irresponsible asshole.

Speaking of which, I ask her if she is going to call her mother.

Eventually, she says, but it will just be the usual "poor me": the pain from her various physical problems is unbearable, although she's never done anything about it except complain; she is alone and helpless, and none of her children ever does anything to support her, although she's chosen to live 2500 miles from the nearest of them; and, therefore, she will be mad because Sarah won't drop everything and fly out there, even though it would be impossible today of all days, even if she wanted to.

See, I say, we can't just drop everything and come home, even when our loved ones beg us to.

She calls me a shit, tells me to phone my father, and hangs up.

### 7:23 a.m.

My father's phone is busy. He's probably talking to my sister, Chipper. Since I never call him when I'm at work and he can't reach me, I'm not surprised. But he would rather talk to Chipper, anyway. My father doesn't believe in answering machines, so I can't leave a message. I like my father. He's got the little pony tail and ear ring, calls himself an old hippie, and loves to talk about when he was part of the counter-culture when he was young. From what I learned from his two sisters, that means he smoked weed once, thought about marching in an anti-war demonstration, and missed daily Mass a few times. He joined the Air Force and spent his war as a communications specialist in Okinawa and Hawaii. My dad has always been in sales. He is game to sell anything, including that his life wasn't over the instant my Mom died of cancer two years ago. He hasn't gone to Mass since. I'll try to call him later.

### 7:25 a.m.

MP is estranged from his wife and children. They don't spend much time at the White House, and this morning he doesn't try to initiate any communication with any of them. I can't tell from here if they are trying to reach him. Even though his career moved him around a lot in the U.S., she stayed in the same house since they got married. They don't like each other, and the kids have sided with her. You should hear what Mr. and Mrs. MP say to each other. I've heard the whole story so often I feel like I was there. Every time they fight, she brings the whole thing up again, pretty much word for word. It seems they got married right out of high school, before either knew who they were getting. His life has been his political ambition. Her life has been home and the kids. She graduated from college but never worked outside the home. Apparently, this was as much MP's decision as hers. He thinks she's an imbecile and inept at just about everything that matters and would have embarrassed him in any other role. He says she has been a continuous drag on his career. He and his staff have had to work overtime to neutralize her as a political liability. But his base constituency has always been obsessed with the sanctity of marriage—between members of the opposite sex, of course—and traditional family values, so divorce was never an option. He told her once at a particularly ugly moment that he had considered hiring a hit man to put her out of her misery. I kept waiting for him to say he was kidding, but that never happened. Now he says that after putting up with this shit for 30 plus years, since he is nearing the end of his second term as President, he doesn't really give a fuck what she does any more. But then something really interesting happened. More about that in a minute.

For her part, she is very religious, and home and family come first. He is not considered family. That was apparently her mother's view even before the wedding. She doesn't want any part of his life. She says that the person she married died when he tasted his first political blood. He was elected to the state legislature when he was still in law school and was appointed a state court judge when he was just 25—all because he sold his soul to the party. Politics is the only thing he has ever loved, et cetera, et cetera. So why has she stayed with him? For most of the time it was simply security and status. Nothing interesting or unusual there, but wait 'til you hear this. She is blackmailing him. It seems one day last year, during one of his rare visits home, he got down on his knees and tearfully confessed—no, not that he had an affair. That's not worth getting dog hair on your knees over. I mean, name me a politician who hasn't had an affair. They are like rock stars. After snatch has been waived in your face often enough, sooner or later you say what the hell. I'm guessing, of course; not speaking from personal experience. Stray snatch is not a problem I currently have to contend with. The first few years I was married, I had plenty of opportunities and always passed. Now, I'd be happy if a pretty girl smiled at me, especially Janey down the hall. I wrote a poem about Janey; do you want to hear it?

I watched her strutting down the aisle

I stunned her with my steely stare

I charmed her with my sexy smile

She walked past like I wasn't there.

Actually, when I see Janey, she always makes that totally-disgusted face like I just tried to peek down her blouse, which I did. I mean, her boobs are always hanging out for all to see, and then she acts like she's pissed because I noticed. It's like I would be shocked if I'm waltzing around with my dick swinging in the breeze and some girls looked. Come on, I'd be really ticked if they didn't, which is exactly how Janey would feel, but we'll never know, 'cause I'll always look. Anyway, would I turn Janey down? Let me think. No!—No, the tearful confession was not an affair. MP told her that he had lost his faith in god and asked for her help and forgiveness. She laughed at him and called him a hypocrite, among other things. She said that she was going to rat him out—my words, not hers, of course. This is my summary of the highlights. After he begged for a while, she thought better of it and offered him a deal. She would keep their little secret, stay married to him in the bargain, and try hard not to screw up the rest of his term or his political afterlife, if he paid. Paid what? Paid how much and whenever and wherever she directed. Apparently, he thought that if the truth got out, he would be handing out carts at Wal-Mart, so he agreed. Ever since, the unhappy pair have been the biggest philanthropists on record. They've made Bill and Melinda look like pikers. They give to every charity she can think of, but mostly they give to fundamentalist religious organizations, the more right-wing the merrier. So far she hasn't shown much charity towards abortion rights, gay rights, stem cell research, environmentalists, and non-evangelical-Christian religious groups, particularly Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Catholics. She hasn't been too keen on the problems of the third world or the poor, anywhere, either, for that matter.

Where does all the money come from? Except for the one stint as an appointed judge, he's held political office his entire working life. Salaries for public servants don't look that huge on paper. Yet, no matter how much she spends this year, like a mountain creek after the spring snowmelt, next year the banks will be full again. Makes a person at my pay grade wonder. The answer probably is John Mahoney. Mahoney is the CEO of Feldman Mahoney, the small but mighty Wall Street investment firm. I've read that Feldman Mahoney is one of the most successful on The Street because its employees are all the children of blue collar families, who didn't go to the best schools or belong to the best clubs. They just happen to be exceptionally smart, hardworking, unprincipled, and driven to win. They keep score by how much money they make, not how well they follow the rules. They like nothing better than beating up on the fat-cat firms of privilege. "Beating up" reminds me: they claim Mahoney worked his way through NYU as a bodyguard and enforcer for some Mafioso-types. His wife is Italian from New Jersey, and you might say that he married into the Family. To this day, he is prone to settle disagreements by taking a poke at the other guy, including his own employees. Mahoney and MP talk at least once a day. Mahoney looks after MP's investments, and MP looks after Mahoney. While the privileged Wall Street firms are deciding our nation's economic policy for this Administration, just as they have for every Administration back, at least, to Nixon, for his personal wealth, MP goes with Mahoney.

I read that it isn't a lack of technology, or infrastructure, or education that keeps undeveloped countries from catching up: its corruption. I bet old MP could teach them a thing or two. My guess is it would take more than three Hail Marys to get his sins absolved, even if his confessor is on the take. I wonder if god isn't more than a little naïve if he really thinks this guy can pull this off. Sarah may well be right.

Anyway, MP and wife keep their dislike for each other to themselves, and the media treats them like they are all one, big, happy family, to the extent they mention her and the kids at all. No sex, no alcohol or other drug addiction, no titillation of any sort, so the family is off the radar screen. I don't get that, either. Kudos, maybe, to MP's PR people, for good management, but the credit should probably really go to the American people who aren't interested in news unless it is on Entertainment Tonight. Right now MP is talking to his valet about the Washington Redskins not making the playoffs again, as if nothing more important is happening.

### 7:30 a.m.

MP has a confab with his Chief of Staff and Press Secretary. Press Secretary, straining to think outside the box like always, wonders if they can simply deny that anything happened and act like business as usual. Chief of Staff says that Press Secretary has been hanging around politicians way too long. Trying to cover up something everyone else in the world apparently heard for themselves doesn't sound very doable to her. MP says he assumes Press Secretary was joking. Press Secretary says of course he was, but if I were MP, I would tell Press Secretary to put a lid on that box and nail it shut.

Even though they don't have a clue right now what's going on, they agree he needs to (1) look presidential in front of the American people; (2) be the dominant stallion in the herd of world leaders—he loves that analogy; and (3) manage the media. Press Secretary will brief the media at 9, and MP will have a press conference at noon. Tentatively, his press conference will not be held at the White House but at a local church TBD or, better yet, at the Washington office of the National Council of Churches. That way they will appear sectarian-neutral and bag all 225-odd U.S. church bodies with one shot. Press Secretary will immediately issue a press statement saying that, at this early stage, MP cannot comment about the origin or meaning of this morning's highly unusual occurrence, but he wants to assure the American public that he is on top of it and everything possible is being done. Press Secretary will arrange for supplemental statements, and leaks will be made as appropriate. Chief of Staff will set up calls for MP with England, Germany, France, Russia, China, and India at 10 minute intervals starting as soon as they can get their act together but no later than 9. The Secretary of State—State—will start with the Vatican, then Israel, and then she and her senior staff will hit the Muslim-majority countries. State's remaining staff will divide up and call the remaining 154 countries, give or take. The idea is to talk with the leader and try to reach agreement that authority will be given to work through a special session of the United Nations. No talk about substance, only process, since nobody knows where this is going. MP tells Chief of Staff to have our U.N. ambassador start trying to arrange a meeting at the General Assembly beginning at 10 a.m., New York time. Other calls and participants TBD, on the fly.

MP has already received dozens of calls and hundreds of emails. Chief of Staff's and Press Secretary's staffs will coordinate to screen and prioritize. As much help as necessary will be pulled in from other White House and Cabinet staffs. Specifically regarding communications he's gotten from the loyal opposition, don't return any calls or emails. Stonewall them. They'll find out what's going on when everyone else does. Preempt their complaints by issuing a statement saying MP is extending his hand to work side by side with his partners in the other party: this is a time when we must put partisan politics aside, put the national interest first, and act like American patriots, blah, blah, blah. What about the Congressional members of his own party? Stonewall them, too. MP says he's really tired of Congress acting like they own the place. They'll have their usual overblown and dysfunctional part to play, he says, if and when we make it past 7 tonight. He'll talk to them then.

### 7:35 a.m.

My sister's name is Nicole, but I call her Chipper because she is always so morose. Chipper is four years younger than me. She was always my parents' favorite. I may have had a little something to do with that since I've always been somewhat independent. I didn't need Father Marlow's sermon. Chipper has never approved of me. No problem for me, but she doesn't give Sarah or my kids the time of day, either, and that pisses me off. Don't take it out on my family. Sarah could care less. She says why should she give a crap about what a 28-year-old, sixth-year "performance" major at a semi-accredited "school for the arts" in central North Dakota thinks? Chipper and I speak at Christmas. She asks me how many innocent babies my employer has butchered since last Christmas, and I ask her how many tuning pegs are on a twelve-string guitar? Sarah develops a killer migraine that keeps her bedridden right before each Christmas visit with my family. Sarah Junior already sort of gets the concept of the social lie—pretty darn brilliant for an offspring of mine—and asks if she can play the "my grain game" next Christmas and stay home with mommy. Sarah and I have been joking that maybe next year we'll have to come up with a last minute, child-appropriate, debilitating illness for Sarah Junior, so neither devoted parent will be able to tear themselves away from her death bed. Then she pops up good as new Christmas morn—kind of a cross between the Nativity and the Resurrection. No longer funny, if it ever was. If we're still around, I'll give Chipper a ring tonight.

### 7:37 a.m.

Jerry calls to ask me how it's going. The computer tells me the call is from Jerry, so I answer—another rule violation, but he seems glad I picked up. Jerry works in another building across town. Normally, if he wants something, protocol has him sending me an encrypted email. Everything is fine. He asks if I need any help today. Nope, everything is under control. He says to call him if I need anything. Okay. He'll call back in a few hours. Okay. Good, he says, and hangs up. Never said a thing about the god message.

7:39 a.m.

Do I sense someone saying that you have no idea what I'm talking about, you know, the god-message thing? If you are hearing or reading a transcript of this, and you've come this far but don't know what I'm talking about, (1) you haven't yet been born, (2) you must be capable of understanding what I'm saying, and (3) somehow if this recording survived and you are out there, maybe things turned out okay after all.

I didn't mention before that if I concentrate, I can accurately remember what I hear, word for word. It's like having a photographic memory, only rather than remembering what I see, I can completely recall what I hear. I call it my phonographic memory. I know. It is a kick-ass skill to have if you use it judiciously, and it is an invaluable asset for this job, but since most people don't listen to what they themselves are saying, let alone anyone else, and I like to show off, I end up getting into a lot of arguments. Anyway, I'll take a break from my narrative to catch you up. Following is exactly what I heard at 7:00 this morning, god-time—me and everyone else. Prepare to be blown away. I'm at my desk with a cup of coffee, easing into the day, when out of the blue I hear this voice saying, _"Michael, my friend, please listen very carefully to me."_

This was an imperative statement, friendly enough and barely above a whisper—like a storyteller reeling the audience in—but clearly in charge. The pitch was in the upper middle range of the human voice. The speaker could have been an alto or a tenor.

" _Every human—no matter your age, intelligence, physical or mental health, economic or social status, religion, location; no matter anything—is hearing me speaking clearly and precisely in your every-day language; using your every-day accent, style, vocabulary and jargon; using examples from your own experience, in particular, your religio-philosophical bent; calling you by your own preferred name. All hear me and all understand—not only hear but also understand—what I am saying to you, even those who never seem to understand anything._

" _Again, please pay close attention. This is important, more than important, critical: life or death stuff. I'm talking to 12-odd billion of you simultaneously, so there will be no opportunity for personal questions or clarifications. As I will elaborate on later, I am not in the habit of listening or speaking to humans at all, not collectively and certainly not individually. However, during the course of my message, if you pay attention, your questions will be answered._

" _When I say "I," it means I am the voice of a complex entity that is completely foreign to your experience and beyond your ability to comprehend, but using "we" would be even further from the truth. For those of you who are thinking, "I know, just like the Holy Trinity," or "I know, just like the 330 million Hindu gods," no, I am not anything at all like those pieces of superstitious nonsense._

" _Following is the agenda: (1) Earth and life on Earth; (2) who I am and who I am not; and (3) why I am contacting all of you, now._

" _Point 1. Earth and life on Earth. Earth happened through cosmological forces, not through design. Life on Earth, including Homo sapiens—you—happened through chemical and evolutionary forces, not through design. Natural selection pretty well has it right, although pure chance by way of fortuitous errors has not been given enough credit because error must occur before selection can proceed. How do I know? Because I was there at the beginning: the creation of this universe. The Earth naturally followed. I like the term 'mother nature.' It much better suits the nature of things than the term 'god,' particularly because of all of the baggage that 'god' brings with it. More about that later. I may have been involved in pushing the first domino, but I have been strictly hands-off ever since. Let me underline that point. I did not create Earth, and I have not interfered with Earth or its inhabitants in any way at any time._

" _You don't understand? Of course you don't. It is not your fault. The human brain is at a very rudimentary stage of development. Let's just say that even though the best of your scientists, for those of you who believe in science, are only now just beginning to appreciate the complexity of the planet Earth, let alone your universe, there is much beyond. The "god particle"? Really? You are a laughably long way from putting your finger on the theory of everything—if, of course, there is one. To paraphrase Mr. Shakespeare, there are more things in heaven, earth, this universe, and elsewhere, my human friends, than are dreamt of in your philosophies or your hypotheses or your religions. For those among you who don't acknowledge science and, remarkably, persist in believing, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that the Earth is the center of your universe, perhaps it is too bad that someone hasn't come up with the idea of a reverse Inquisition. As too few of you know, nearly 400 years ago, the Catholic Church hierarchy was smart enough to recognize that if Mr. Galilei was right, their premise that the Earth alone was the focus of creation, the fall, salvation, the second coming, and so forth, made no sense. They didn't want that word to get out, however, so the Inquisition was a convenient vehicle for attempting to silence him and other independent thinkers, some already many centuries dead. Religious and political intolerance and censorship are as old as the species. Now, since many humans finally accept the fact that the universe does not revolve around them, maybe the stimulation of a new Inquisition might change the minds of those still stuck in the 16th century. I use the Catholic Church as an example because today it is not only this world's largest Church but also the only one to have its own country, at least the only one having a seat at the U.N. But this is just one example, of course. Followers of all human religions, and most nonbelievers, for that matter, are just as ridiculous in their own way and could stand to have a fire lit under them. I'm not serious. Don't any of you even think about going out and burning someone because a voice in your head told you to._

" _Point 2. Who I am, and who I am not. Most of you would probably call me god. Don't! I am not what any of you believe I am. Everything you think, everything you believe, everything you have been taught about god by people whom you trusted is wrong. Everything you have heard, everything you have read, was produced by men who described their ideas about what a god is, or isn't, or should be. God fiction is far and away the most successful genre in human communication. Since most humans aren't capable of having an original thought, we must give these creators of the god-myths credit for having wonderfully vivid imaginations—of course, some were mentally ill. Nonetheless, we shouldn't be surprised that they gave their divine subjects anthropomorphic traits familiar to them from their own experience, plus traits known to be superior to those any humans possessed, such as all-knowing, omnipresent, and so forth. But since humans are unique to planet Earth, any description of god based on human experience has to be wildly off-base, doesn't it?_

" _Most of the god-myth creators claimed their ideas came from god or multiple gods either directly by dictation, sometimes called 'divine revelation,' or indirectly through surrogates such as angels or men who claimed to be god, or children of god, or representatives of god, such as prophets or holy men. Wake up and pay particularly close attention here. You must understand that you have been fed a pack of lies. Until this instant, I have never communicated either directly or indirectly with any human on Earth. I don't have surrogates. Angels don't exist. Neither do devils. I do not have multiple personalities, parts, or counterparts. I do not have siblings or offspring, as you would think of them. I have no rivals. As far as Earth is concerned, there is only one of me. I'm not only supreme; I'm it._

" _What about those feelings of presence, fulfillment, contentment, even bliss, which many of you ascribe to your relationship with god or as coming from god? They originate within you. This is one of the marvelous attributes of humans: you all have the potential to feel precisely the way you want to feel. Which makes it quite easy, if that's what you want, to deny reality and make your own. So don't praise god for feeling good and don't blame the devil for your darkest thoughts and most despicable actions. Credit or debit yourself. Listen. You don't need a god or religion to feel good about yourself and the world. No god worth his salt would be that much of a control freak. So rejoice and be glad, as they say, without doubt, guilt, or fear. Your choice. Your. Choice._

" _But without god and religion how can you explain the world or your place in it? Easy. Open your eyes and look around and decide for yourself. It is exactly what it is, no more, no less. Don't read anything into or out of what you observe, and don't form a fixed opinion because tomorrow when you look around, things will have changed. If you want to dig deeper and know more about the what or the how or the why of things, become a scientist or an engineer, but keep a watchful eye on your objectivity, and don't take yourself seriously--as I said before, human science has a very long way to go, and it is the truth of the science, not your ego or ambition, that is important._

" _What about faith? This one really gets me. Faith is the last refuge of all religious con men. They can't prove anything they say. There can be no proof because it simply isn't true. So some enterprising, prehistoric priest, who was a psychological genius, came up with the penultimate theological scam whereby you never need proof for any pronouncement, no matter how ludicrous, you just tell the suckers that they simply need to believe something is true and it is so. And then tell them that this belief is the slam dunk path to heaven and they are doomed without it. And then, as a brilliant piece of circular reasoning, tell them that—although this belief makes no sense whatsoever—all is well because god said so. And as the final, inspired twist, tell them that if they don't have this belief, there must be something wrong with them. If you are a non-believer, you are the one to be ridiculed. He called this magical swindle "faith." It has been adopted in some shape or form ever since by every purveyor and keeper of religion—they have hundreds of titles across all religious variations and time periods, but for ease let's call them all priests—and, amazingly, people have continuously bought their act. Granted, not all priests are grifters, most are dupes as well._

" _So what's in it for these priests? Doing god's work is a full-time job. In exchange for providing religious instruction and performing rituals, priests have always sought and received very generous support from their constituents, and the occupation has usually ranked high on the power and influence ladder. Despite other nominations for the honor, religion sales and service is the world's oldest profession._

" _I know this may appear overwhelming because, for many of you, your view of life and your reason for being has been shaped by these lies. So let me repeat: I am the closest thing to your idea of god that there is, and, until this instant, I have never communicated either directly or indirectly with any human on Earth._

" _Surely some of you who are familiar with the teachings of the myriad religions and religious-based philosophies have wondered which one is right. They all claim to be the one, true religion, but if there is only one, true religion, all the others must be wrong. What surprises me is how few of you have seriously asked this question with a skeptical, empirical eye. How easily you have swallowed the nonsense you've been told. How many of you belong to the religion or subset you do because of a perceived obligation to or pressure from your parents or peers, your ethnic origin, or your geographic region? I'm from the Middle East, so I must be Muslim. My family has always been Lutheran, so I must be Lutheran. And so forth. Or, even worse, you chose a religion or subset based on which one seemed to best meet_ _your_ _criteria at the time for what a god or a church should be. You picked the one that makes_ _you_ _feel the best, makes_ _you_ _the most comfortable, makes the most sense to_ _you_ _. When the previous pope resigned, a survey was taken of practicing Catholics. A vast majority said they wanted the next pope to make the Church's teachings more liberal, very strongly agreeing with the statement: "You don't need to change everything the Church stands for, but it needs to evolve with the times if it wants to be a viable religion." I see. For most humans, god is like a hamburger. Some prefer McDonald's; some like Wendy's. If you get tired of those, you can try dozens of others, including Burger King, where you can have it your way. And if you're a snob, only the one at the Club is good enough. But that's no big deal because it's still a hamburger, right? Morons! The creators of human gods did not intend for them to be generic; they come as a package. They each have well-defined characteristics and back stories, and they each are supposed to have dictated specific rules and regulations to be followed. They are top-down, not bottom-up types, and from my understanding, none has ever suggested that they see themselves as fungible or as just one of many candidates in a democratically elected, popularity contest, or that they are willing to share the power and the glory. But that's how many humans treat their gods, and there don't appear to be any Earthly consequences, other than the followers of the various gods periodically attempt to destroy each other, while the gods themselves seem to get along without incident. And new prophets and priests arrive on the scene all the time, regularly adding new gods and rules and regulations to the mix. There is only one rational explanation: it is all bullshit!_

" _If_ _I_ _were going to command the establishment of one, true religion, am_ _I_ _really going to care what_ _you_ _think? But no matter, since it is the wrong question, anyway. The question should be: is there any true religion on Earth? And the answer is NO! They are all the product of the imaginations of men—god fiction._

" _Have any of you also wondered why, according to the stories, with very few exceptions, god only chose to talk directly or through his divine surrogates to a single individual rather than to a group: rather than to everyone at the same time? Does that fit your normal experience? If someone in charge has something important to say to a huge audience, does he only talk to one person and rely on that individual to accurately and completely broadcast the message to everyone else without filtering it to serve that person's agenda? Wouldn't the truth of the message be better believed if it were delivered to many witnesses? Wouldn't it be better to make sure that the message was correctly understood, without the need for endless debate, interpretation, protestations, schisms, and wars, if everyone heard it for themselves the first time? But, you say, they didn't have means of mass communication back in the day: no radio, TV, email, or websites. True. They didn't. I have been around since before the beginning, and no one on Earth has developed a way to communicate to everyone the way I am now. Look, if I had ever before wanted to talk to any individual at any time in the past, I could have. But I am not stupid. The only efficient way to effectively get the accurate message across is for me to communicate to everyone simultaneously. And the idea that god would single you out, above all others, for personal revelation, inspiration, advice, and favors in order to give you, as it were, a competitive advantage, would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. You are special? You? Come on, look at yourself. Of course the same is true for every person who has ever claimed to be on direct speaking terms with the almighty. It didn't happen._

" _Unfortunately, even though I am spelling this out for each and every one of you, god knows that there will be more than enough confusion and misunderstanding. I am really quite fond of humans, but most of you are clueless._

" _Look, why would I want the mess that exists today and has been stumbling along for thousands of years since the first prehistoric shaman saw god in the clouds and the neighboring tribe's shaman saw god in the waters? If I had intended to command the formation of one, true religion, why would I tell so many conflicting things to so many different people over such large expanses of time? If I had wanted to interfere in human lives, presumably for the better, would I sit idly by while millions of people were murdered, starved, mutilated, tortured, raped, imprisoned, and enslaved in my name? And hide behind the incredible excuse that this is all part of my mysterious plan? Or maybe I intentionally created all of this bedlam just for the entertainment value. Am I considered to be so much of a sadistic asshole that I wouldn't have tried to straighten things out? Most of you believe that I am omniscient. If I knew in advance that all of this would happen, why would I persist in individual communications, knowing they would be non-starters, over and over and over again? Think for once. Most of you worship a 'supreme being' who is both all-knowing and incredibly dense, as well as being a technologically-challenged, sadistic asshole. What does that make you?_

" _You are not listening. Instead of paying attention to what I am saying, most of you are in denial; still asking inane questions. The top three: (1) what about life after death, (2) what is the meaning of life, and (3) why do bad things happen to good people?_

" _(1) What about life after death? Dust to dust: your remains contribute to the ongoing life of the Earth and the universe. No atom is wasted, but there is no life after death in the sense that you or your soul go someplace or get reborn in someone or something. No ifs, ands, or buts. No life after death. Period. You are an animal, after all, and despite your lofty opinion of your place in the world, you don't get to fare any better than the rest. Sorry if I am shocking some of you, but there is no dog heaven either._

" _(2) What is the meaning of life? You are born, you live, and you die. All other living things are born, live to serve the reproductive cycle, and die. Basically, reproduction is the meaning of life for everything else. All the rest of life is too busy living to give a moment's thought, even if they could, to whether there is a god or an afterlife or to wonder 'why am I here?' But reproduction is not paramount for most humans. It is optional or, at best, secondary. Being freed from that slavery, rather than simply being content with living, strangely it is human nature to wonder 'what's the catch?' The catch is: there is no catch. There is no external meaning. Saying it another way, the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be: what you put into and take out of your life that you care about, as banal or grandiose, as virtuous or wicked, as you care to make it. The wonderful George Burns, playing me, said: "The meaning of life is what we choose to make of it...." If a Hollywood screenwriter gets it, it's just not that hard. In a while, I will tell you what I think I would want the meaning of life to be if I were a human._

" _But first, here is my perspective on the meaning of "meaning." To my amazement, humans have always been hung up on the meaning of things, keeping countless philosophers, theologians, psychologists, social scientists, poets, authors, and the like fully employed. Even more to my amazement, humans believe what these people say! Let me tell you a story._

" _Once upon a time, a child, who had never heard of Jackson Pollock, wandered into her mother's boyfriend's artist studio where she found many cans of different colored paints and seven blank canvases. She was home from school, sick, and since the boyfriend insisted she was old enough to be left alone, her mom and he went out for a few beers. She opened all of the cans and arranged them around the canvases, which she had placed catawampus on the floor. She was going to paint pictures of her house and school and family and friends and her dog, Serendipity, each on a different canvas, using a little bit of every color. She knew the boyfriend would be angry but hoped her mom would like the pictures so much it would make up for it. She accidentally spilled some paint on one of the canvasses and had just gotten the idea that it would be faster and more fun just to walk around spilling paint as she went, when Serendipity nosed open the door, bounded in, and jumped on the child knocking all the cans over, with paint splashing and pouring in all directions and the child and her dog thrashing wildly in the midst._

" _Art critics called the patterns and color combinations new, and exciting, and innovative, and imaginative, and inspiring, and transcendent, and a religious experience. The boyfriend, whose signature now appeared at the corners of each canvas, was hailed as a creative genius, and dozens of pundits fought about the meaning they clearly saw in the collective masterpiece. One was awed at the referential journey of light and texture from panel to panel, amazed at how the artist's painterly sensibility had evolved over time but had remained consistent within the context of the piece, showing adherence to an unmistakable though mysterious plan. Another gushed that the artist's capturing of the very essence of life and the universe, from creation through redemption, must have been divinely inspired because it transported visual art to the level of sacred scripture._

" _Obviously, the boyfriend was a one-hit wonder painting-wise, but that didn't keep him from becoming rich and famous, gathering an entourage that traveled with him as he went on lecture tours around the country. Every word he uttered was taken as gospel and recorded by his biographers. The dates of his birth and death were celebrated by his worshipers. Although, the latter date remained somewhat of a mystery because he was alleged to have been sold out by a disgruntled associate and murdered at the behest of a group of envious, rival, drip painters, but when his agent came to the morgue the next morning to identify the remains, the body was gone and never seen again except in the dreams of his faithful, who spread his word around the world and made him, for a Warhol moment, the most influential painter of the time._

" _Of course the mother and boyfriend had had a big argument and split up when the mess was discovered, but in exchange for her signing a confidentiality agreement, she received a modest check for her trouble._

" _And the child? Let's call her Jane. At 21 Jane was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement of her own. Being both realistic and practical, after a little hard-nosed negotiation, she and her mother became beneficiaries of a very generous, fully funded, trust. She became a science writer renowned for making highly complex technical subjects easily understandable and appreciated by both adults and children. Since Jane had more money than she would ever need and she needed very little, she created a foundation, called The 4th R—Reading, Riting, Rithmetic, and Rt—dedicated to making local arts and culture a prominent part of every child's education._

" _Then one day an up-and-coming young art critic, who had read Hans Cristian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes," wrote a devastating article pointing out the obvious, and overnight the deceased boyfriend's stock plummeted, most of his groupies quickly backed another horse, and the museum curators and private collectors who had spent a large fortune on, and were now stuck with, their respective panels, were left to attempt damage control on the value of their "art" and reputations._

" _Jane had a good laugh any time anyone claimed to find the meaning in anything. Life gave her the opportunity to laugh a lot, and she lived happily ever after._

" _(3) Why do bad things happen to good people? In other words, why is there evil in the world? Life on Earth is perilous. Consider your distant cousin the small mammal living in a swamp. It had better keep its head on a swivel and sleep with one eye open if it wants to survive. Bad things lurk behind every bush. It has had a good day if it is still alive to eat and copulate tomorrow. Circumstances for most humans are better, but only relatively. Shit happens, as they say. It has nothing to do with whether you are good or bad, however you define the terms. Most things are totally outside of your control. You are simply in the right or wrong place at the wrong or right time. But you can be a so-called good person and increase the odds for a bad result by making terrible choices, like buying your dream palace through an ARM at the height of the bubble—sound familiar Michael?—or investing in a Ponzi scheme, or smoking, or driving drunk, or building on a flood plain, or denying your child a life-saving medical procedure because you believe god will heal her. Or ignoring warnings. And, therefore, obviously, the terms good and evil are meaningless. Just as it in the nature of bees to sting or shifts in tectonic plates to cause earthquakes, part of human nature is to pursue and endeavor to satisfy whatever floats your boat. Some humans emphasize that part more than others, with potentially unwelcome, unpleasant, and often disastrous results for everyone else. I'm not saying you should like it. I'm saying that's the way it is._

" _Back to the agenda. Don't feel smug, those who consider yourselves nonbelievers, you also got it wrong. The fact that I am speaking to you now suggests that you missed it by a mile. Those of you who went with god as 'first cause' came closest, but you are not at all close. An example: people calling themselves Deists think in terms of god's intent to make the world but not to intervene thereafter. Human scientists know that many new creations result from the search for something else altogether. You might say that your universe was an unintended consequence of an elegant and totally unrelated experiment gone awry. Like working on a cure for human dementia and discovering Viagra. Anyway, I have yet to find any human who has a clue about much of anything. Yes, that includes you. If that doesn't shake your self-confidence a tad, you are destined for senior management or high political office. If you really don't know, admit to not knowing, and don't give a damn either way, you are my kind of human._

" _I am disappointed but not surprised by your extreme confusion and anguish. If you think about it, you should be exhilarated. For the first time in your lives, you should feel completely free to think for yourselves. Think about abandoning your prejudices and biases. Think about getting your facts straight before you form an opinion. Welcome being politically incorrect, because if the thought police are after you, as they say, chances are good you may be on to something. And if you are just too lazy to think for yourself, don't continue to repeat what someone else says. Shut the fuck up!_

" _Point 3. Why am I contacting all of you, now? It has been fascinating to watch Earth and its inhabitants develop. Though initially unintended, I thought it would be interesting to let it continue and monitor until I lost interest. As I said before, you are unique. But I have also taken a hard, critical look from time to time in what might be called periodic performance reviews. While I've generally been satisfied with everything else, and I've developed a certain fondness for humans, like you have for your smelly, hairy, but lovable old golden retriever, I have to say that I have not been impressed with the development of Homo sapiens. Like watching a soap opera, my curiosity has gotten the better of me, and I have been giving the human race interminable, additional, open-ended chances to get it together. But I am finally fed up with the way things are going, and I'm considering letting it end. Your species is not too big to fail. You see, I am not omniscient after all. I had no idea how things would turn out. That wasn't the purpose. Surprisingly, I discovered that I care about what happens. No matter how hooked you are in the beginning, if the soap opera is not done well, sooner or later you turn it off._

" _The bottom line: in 12 hours all humans will die unless you can demonstrate to my satisfaction that you can get it together._

" _Good. I finally have your full attention. What do you need to do to save yourselves? What does 'get it together' mean to me? Allow me a digression. I understand that being human is highly complex and impossible for any individual to comprehend, although that hasn't kept political and religious leaders, philosophers, scientists, pundits, critics, college professors, authors, comedians, and a host of others, including the loud, obnoxious jerk at the local tavern and your brother-in-law, Marty, from thinking that they know._

" _The fundamental principles are very simple. The great human religious and philosophical leaders—not the myriad crackpots mind you but the truly great ones—have understood and communicated a consistent message to their followers. It seems to be part of human nature, however, never to think that simple is good. So the followers have always had to add their own little twists and complexities, and their followers had to do the same, and so forth, to the point where these simple, quite powerful in my view, messages have uniformly achieved the state of FUBAR, as the well- deserved, military-derived acronym goes: 'fucked up beyond all recognition.'_

" _The message: human's core vices are power and greed—also sex: who can forget the metaphor of the phallic snake in the Garden of Eden as the source of all evil—but that is a subject for another time. Power and greed are hard-wired in as a remnant of the evolutionary process, but that doesn't make them acceptable today. The saving grace, if you will, is a type of unconditional humility and generosity best summed up in a variation of the Golden Rule. The problem with the standard 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' is that there are a lot of whackos out there who do their worst with the full understanding and acceptance that the worst may well be done to them in return. It is the way they play the game, and it is worth the risk. That is not the kind of ethical principle I am proposing here. So let's add the word 'good.' By 'good' I mean unconditional humility and generosity. You want to do good unto others as they would do good unto you. But that doesn't completely solve the problem of eliminating your bias towards satisfying your own selfishness, so let's add the words 'as a totally fair, independent, and selfless judge would make the call.' That is My Golden Rule._

" _I know that every time My Golden Rule runs up against power and greed, My Golden Rule loses. Power and greed reward individuals. My Golden Rule rewards everyone. Humans have learned that their best interests are served by directly or indirectly harming everyone else—the Selfishness Rule. The Selfishness Rule has ruled since long before you split from the chimpanzees._

" _Relatively recently, some men and other animals discovered that there was merit to cooperation and working collectively toward a common goal. But there is always a pecking order. Someone always determines the policy and process for the others to follow and metes out the punishments, which are always believ_ ed _to be necessary, to keep the overly ambitious, the independent thinkers, or the noncompliant in line. The power hungry and greedy like the view from the top, so they do what is necessary to stay there. They understand, however, that the have-nots much prefer to follow leaders who hold out the carrot of equality and fairness inherent in My Golden Rule. So the leaders, being the most cynical of hypocrites, tell them what they want to hear. But the worst are those leaders—secular and religious—who have bought their own act. They believe they are making the world a better place. Therefore, since they know what's best for everyone else, the implementation of My Golden Rule for those few of the masses who deserve it, as determined by the leader, may have to wait for a while until things get sorted out. Millions of people may have to die, be starved, mutilated, tortured, raped, imprisoned, or enslaved. They may have to lose everything. A pity, but life is hard and the leaders have to do what they have to do to achieve their vision. In the meantime, making the world a better place is hard work, so the leader and his leadership team need to be rewarded by living a great deal higher on the hog than the lower classes. And while some might think it inconsistent with the proposed eventual goal, it will be necessary for the leader to 'temporarily' suspend or co-opt hindrances to efficiency such as impartial laws, and courts, and any other potential avenues to giving people a fair shake. And those who might think it inconsistent—such as honest lawyers and judges and teachers and writers, and, you know, educated people who think—will have to be taken out of the picture so that they can't confuse or disrupt._

" _But you humans aren't content to just screw over your fellow men, you love to manipulate other animal species. You are curious about their behavior. You are fascinated, charmed, and repulsed. You create and visit zoos and aquariums. You go out into the wild to observe, study, and kill. You experiment in laboratories. You compare and contrast their behavior with yours. Humans consider themselves dominant: the other species serve at man's pleasure. It is human to desire the modification of the other species, or their behavior, to suit you. You use them every way you can conceive of to serve you and care less about consequences. So species become extinct. Where's the problem? Of course, it is also the makeup of some humans to desire the modification of other humans, or their behavior, to suit._

" _Likewise, never willing to let good enough alone, humans have seen it as their prerogative and have done whatever they could to manage nature to serve themselves: dig up a mountain, poison a lake, destroy the forests, pollute the atmosphere and your own drinking water supply, you must modify the environment, or its behavior, to suit. But, you protest, man hasn't caused any significant environmental issues. A particularly short-sighted example: there is no such thing as climate change, you say, but even if there is, you say, it is caused by volcanic eruptions and sun spot-induced weather cycles. It is all the universe's fault. This, by the way, is a view that is primarily limited to the political right in the United States. No matter that the rest of the world disagrees. For the rest, the question is not whether man-made greenhouse gases have and will affect climate—it has and will; the question is: how much? Deniers of global climate change can even find support for their position in that compendium of factual accuracy, the Bible. Why? Because they are concerned that government regulation of the amounts and types of pollutants that are put into the environment will interfere with the ability of American corporations to be profitable in the short term. So rather than publicly agreeing with what everyone else knows to be a fact, they believe they can only save capitalism by denying that man-made climate change exists. Just a thought: Why not simply admit that there is a serious problem facing the planet and shift your time, effort, and resources into determining the size, scope, and impact, and then finding a solution you and everyone else can live with?_

" _Where's the problem? Most of you don't see a problem with any of this, I know. From where I sit, the fact that you don't see a problem may be the biggest problem of all._

" _But what if you could put aside your humanness for a moment and consider your species more or less objectively? What, if anything, would you change?_

" _Look, I didn't make the world the way it is. It happened. While I have had only a passing interest in the Earth and no say in how it has developed to date, I have now decided to reverse my position and get directly involved. I can see some real potential in people if a few important things get straightened out. The little thought someone in my position has to give to the situation leads me to conclude that the genetic hard-wiring for power and greed that was necessary for survival until relatively recently is not the best model for the happiness of mankind and the betterment of Earth going forward. Yes, happiness. I really like the idea of happiness for everyone and everything. If I were a human, my answer to the question of the purpose of life would be—drum roll—to be happy, without care, no worries mate. There you have it. And I really like the principle summed up in My Golden Rule as being the primary means to that end._

" _My understanding is that the purpose for inventing a heaven is to have a place where people can go to leave the cares and woes of Earthy life and be eternally happy. Since I know that a heaven does not exist, if happiness is the desired goal, there is no place like home._

" _What does it mean to be happy? Philosophers, theologians, psychologists, social scientists, poets, authors, and even Bhutanese kings have debated the topic forever, and they can't even agree on whether happiness is a mental or emotional state or an action. There has likewise been considerable divergence of opinion about what causes humans to feel happy. Scientists would say that it results from a neurochemical process, but what kicks that neurochemical process into gear? Attributed causes run the spectrum from being stoned on drugs to being in the presence of god. From your reaction, it is clear that my presence isn't doing it for most of you, and I guarantee from my observations that drugs aren't the answer, long term. Consistent, long term happiness is the desired result. While interesting that something as important as happiness is so difficult to define, all of this confusion isn't helpful to your understanding of what I am saying to you, however, so for our purposes, I will define human happiness as being contented or having peace of mind. Most of you understand what I mean although you may have never experienced it. And the cause? I will get to cause in a minute._

" _Why is all this important? I contend that happiness should be the meaning of human life and that it is every person's obligation to see to it that everyone else is happy. From my perspective, humans have been endowed by their creator with nothing whatsoever, but they should endow themselves with the inalienable right to happiness. Not the pursuit of happiness, but the attainment. So prudent leaders—more about that in a moment—need to start figuring out what causes happiness and how to achieve it for all. Universal. Women, slaves, lepers, untouchables, gays, all colors, all ethnicities, all economic and social levels of society, and all previously held--one can only now hope--religious beliefs. Everyone. Win- win only. I can hear the arguments already about why it is impossible to achieve. My response is: get over it. I know the idea of making everybody happy is complex and difficult for you because it is novel and seems to violate individuals' first law of self-interest and society's first law of class superiority; because so many human desires provide pleasure through intentionally doing harm to others--cruelty, malevolence, and corruption head my list; and because the disease that causes the mental illness of religion will be virulently persistent and hard to irradicate. I understand that you don't want to change if the status quo is good for you or even good enough, compared to others, but you don't have a sane choice under these circumstances because of evolution's first law of survival: adapt or die. This would be a really good time for you to wise up._

" _Where do you start? I don't really know any more about how a human feels than you do about fairy flies. Well, maybe a little more. But if I did, I might develop a model baseline of universal human happiness—maybe similar in approach to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, particularly the physiological and safety aspects—work on understanding what impedes happiness, and then develop a plan for eliminating those impediments one by one. But that is just me. How my demand is met is completely up to you. I expect it will take quite a while to get it right, maybe multiple generations. No problem for me, I have all the time in the world and the patience of a saint, so long as but only so long as all things are moving in the right direction. I don't think you are up to it, but I will be happy if you prove me wrong. And won't that be a much better use of humanity's time than wars and politics and religions and developing the next incomprehensible product for the derivatives market?_

" _Get it? No, most of you still don't. In fact, I'm hearing an annoyingly large number of you thinking, "Whatever, hurry up, get to the point, I'm bored." Trust me, the last thing I need from you right now is attitude. I don't know which is greater: your arrogance or your stupidity. It is really too bad that you will never understand how ridiculous you are. In fact, the amazing degree of your stupidity should embarrass the life out of you, but you are apparently too stupid to be embarrassed. You are not the poster children for the success of natural selection. Rather, if I had a say, many of you would be at the top of my list for weeding out. Not you this time, Michael. You've got your own problems, but this one doesn't apply to you._

" _Okay, I'm almost back to what needs to be done to save mankind. But, first, although it should be obvious, let me specifically point out to those of you who are completely, myopically, human-centric, that an important reason for my giving you the opportunity to save mankind is that it may also be the opportunity to save Earth. I will talk more specifically about the fate of the Earth later, but for the moment consider that no other species or type of this world's animate or inanimate occupants has the ability to consciously and intentionally decide its own fate and the fate of everything else. Everything else is dependent on you. For those of you who don't care about anyone or anything else, give that fact some thought as you listen to what you have to do._

" _I will now give you three suggestions and one commandment._

" _Following are my three suggestions. Take them or leave them, but consider them carefully._

1. Face up to the fact that there is no personal god the way you understand it. Get over it. You will make no progress until you get that bullshit behind you, forever. One more time for those who are still catching up: there is no personal god.

2. Please, don't compound your stupidity by worshiping or praying to me! I'm not interested, and other than perhaps letting you survive, I'm not going to do anything for you.

3. You and only you are responsible for what you think and how you act. One, last, exasperating time, no one of significance is judging you except you. If what anyone else thinks is important to you, that is your problem. And the standards against which you judge yourself are completely yours, man-made. Deal with it. It is not and never has been someone else's fault.

" _Now, I'm working my way up to the commandment. The only way for you to achieve heaven here and now—and it's all you've got—is for everyone and everything else to be happy. You will be happy only by making others happy; thus, My Golden Rule._

" _In order to get there, changes must be made in three critical areas of human society. When I say must, I mean do it. Or else._

" _The first area is so-called 'big government': that entity or entities—at the country level—which exercises regulatory and military control over you._

" _The second is so-called 'big business': those global entities which provide goods, services, and the means by which many of you put bread on the table or whose actions determine your economic well-being, and whose executives—in the capitalist-model economies—buy your administrators and legislators so the laws favor their businesses, so those businesses can make huge profits, so their shareholders are happy, so they can get enormous salaries and bonuses. Under some political systems big government takes on the role of big business and vice versa; there are various mixtures in others._

" _The third area is you. We've seen that you and only you are responsible for what you think and how you act, but there are forces outside of your control, primarily among them big government and big business, which can interfere with, if not prohibit, your ability to do what you want, the way you want. Frankly, while there is much that individuals can do to make their heaven on earth, unless big government and big business buy-in and cooperate, individuals will always fight an up-hill battle. Therefore, if and when big government and big business get on track, we will work on individual action. Don't wait, however, to heed my suggestions._

" _I understand that big government and big business, at least at Earth's current stage of development, cannot operate on their own. They are institutions composed of people. So some of you will say I am putting the cart before the horse. I should first be requiring a change in individual thinking and behavior, and the rest will follow. That is true to a point, but in my view—and my view is the only one that counts right now—this unlikely undertaking will be impossible if we try to get everyone to change at once. If the so called leaders will change their thinking and behavior, then we might have a shot at everyone else._

" _So we will divide this elephant into chunks, and the first chunk will be targeted at the leaders who run the country-level governments of the Earth—governmental leaders. Notice I said government not politics. Politics is the last thing you need right now. Politics is the means through which individual interests trump the common good. You will need an apolitical government, one that is solely in the business of helping to create, foster, and preserve the common good. Excuse me anarchists of the world, but from my vantage point universal happiness will depend on government to set and enforce favorable rules. And a leaderless human society of any sort, particularly one where something needs to be accomplished, is a pipe dream._

" _The commandment: First, government leaders. Stop making decisions out of power and greed and stop thinking you alone know how to make the world a better place. You won't create heaven for yourselves or the citizens of your country, regions, states, cities, ethnic or religious groups, and so forth, if the inhabitants of the rest of the world aren't happy. Nationalism, regionalism, parochialism of any sort, doesn't make sense in the quest for heaven. The old first, second, and third world ways of thinking are meaningless. Face up to it and deal with it. Various forms of democracy could work as could a truly benevolent dictator. As you might expect, I have a soft spot in my heart for the benevolent dictator approach. These forms, or something else altogether that no human has yet thought of, could work. The point is the goal, not how you achieve it. But the starting point must be an agreement among the leaders of all countries guaranteeing you will do everything in your power to achieve happiness for all people, everywhere._

" _Ridiculous—you are thinking—naïve, sophomoric, short-sighted, even moronic. If you know-it-all gurus didn't have the idea first, it is ridiculous. If it doesn't fit neatly within your theological, philosophical, intellectual, political, economic, or social world-view, it is moronic. You have done such a good job with bettering mankind, do I really care what you think? Guess what? You are not the smartest guy in the room. Fuck you. I am._

" _So, government leaders, get to work. You have 12 hours to show me that you finally do get it. With such a seemingly impossibly-complex task, why only 12 hours? From my observation, the best humans work best under extreme pressure. Giving more time would provide only more opportunity to delay critical thinking, decision making, and action._

" _But the more pressing reason is that there is a small but extremely powerful international group of elitists, composed of military, business, government, science, and religious leaders—you and I know who you are—who have been plotting for years to destroy the human race so that their hand-picked clique, to the exclusion of the unfit remainder of the rest of all mankind, will get immediately shipped to heaven without having to go through the usual channels. They are all men, of course; a limited number of the most deserving wives and mistresses and children to be admitted by invitation only._

" _Like just about every science fiction plot in your last 50 years, they possess a 'doomsday device'—did you ever see Dr. Strangelove? Great movie!—except this one is nonfiction. Quite novel and ingenious by your standards, it will be deployed in exactly 12 hours. They have committed to it irrevocably. The button has been pushed, so to speak, and no one can speed it up, slow it down, or turn it off. No one, that is, except me._

" _Although I really don't expect that mankind is capable of doing it, if the government leaders can show me that they have made a serious effort towards getting their act together by 12 hours from now, I will turn off the device and provide the details of this conspiracy. Since it is in the nature of humans to always fuck things up, however, I know that certain of the conspirators will never be brought to justice because of their status, or their bribes, or simply through government's standard incompetence. Of those who are arrested, most will never see their punishment fit their crime because of (a) can't-refuse-type lobbying by those to whom calculating people pay attention or (b)compassionate sentencing that will favor age, health, wealth, and position and will not permit—god forbid—the death penalty. Given their history, it is not good for Earth's future to keep these folks around. So as a gesture of my good will, I will kill every conspirator and all who would aid them. In case I am going too fast for you, government leaders, hopefully it is obvious that it will not be in the conspirators' best interest for you to show me that you can make a serious effort toward pulling this off. Watch your back._

" _Let's go out on a limb and assume that the government leaders do jump the first hurdle. What then? I will let things go for a little while, subject to continuous reviews to be sure there is no backsliding. Then it will be up to the business leaders. I realize that developing and implementing an economic model that will be consistent with My Golden Rule will not be easy for you. None of the models to date—slavery, feudalism, industrialism, capitalism, socialism, communism, et cetera—have worked, either because they were intended to benefit only the privileged few, who determined the rules, or in practice it turned out that way. I have some ideas that just might work, however. I've given them the working title: MGRism. More about that then, if the time comes._

" _For those of you who care about the rest of the planet, since I am not omniscient, I don't know the precise result if you squander your chance and let the doomsday device go off. From my understanding of how it works, I think you can safely assume that all humans and a substantial part of all plant and animal life will die immediately. It can then be expected that the Earth's systems will be materially affected. I have a pretty good idea of what will happen next, but I won't speculate. And, no, I will not intervene. I will surmise, however, that for man's eulogy, everything remaining, animate and inanimate—take note, those who believe there is no life in mountains and water and this planet itself—will sound a collective cheer of good riddance._

" _One last reminder: none of the usual posturing, spinning, doubletalk, and outright lies will be tolerated. When you have no qualms about lying in the furtherance of your objectives, you really can fool all of the people, at least for a while, and for some reason I can't explain, some of your followers will defend you to their deaths, anyway. I am not human, but I know you better than you know yourselves, and I know what you are thinking. For most of you, transparency has been only a word, and you will not be able to function when you have to be truthful. My Golden Rule is a nice platitude, but you will not be able to suppress your self-interest. Focusing on world-wide happiness and governing well in the face of having to be truthful must be the most highly-prized criteria for selecting leaders. And if your constituents don't hold you accountable, remember, I will. As Bill Cosby used to say, "I brought you in this world, and I can take you out!"_

" _Last item. I have taken great pains to fully explain everything you need to know. You don't need faith. You don't need to believe in anything. You have heard it directly from the horse's mouth. Now it's time for you to understand. As I stated at the beginning, there will be no further clarification. There will be no dialog. This is not a debate or a negotiation. Save the impassioned entreaties. It is not a good time to go out of your way to piss me off. I will speak to you again in 12 hours, if only to say, 'Sayonara.' "_

Wow, huh? That's one heck of a way to jump-start your day. And, double wow, can you believe I just recited that whole thing from memory? Sometimes I even amaze myself. Anyway, you are now up to speed.

### 8:07 a.m.

It's 8:00, god-time. Most of MP's Cabinet members have been huddled together since 7:30, since no one will have cared to inform them that MP is running late. Except "huddle" suggests a team, and these are long distance runners.

You don't ever want to be late with this President. You should hear him. He kicks ass and takes names, as my father used to say. He still says that. Why am I using the past tense? Anyway, MP'll eat you alive if you're late, but he'll leave you cooling your heels until he's good and ready.

I dread these meetings. They all talk at once. All these guys—two women, but they're more macho than most of the men—are egomaniacs and super ambitious. I guess that's how they got to where they are. But even though not all of them are the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, none are shy about competing for MP's attention and persuading by force of personality—whether or not they have anything worthwhile to say—by (a) talking louder and faster than everyone else and (b) ridiculing those who don't agree with them. One guy has a coughing fit every time certain people try to make a point. You can bank on it. Another guy snorts. Can you believe it? You are trying to make a serious comment, and the guy next to you is snorting at every word while the guy across the table has a coughing fit so loud it drounds you out. It seems like they all went to the same seminar on winning through intimidation. But when they all let loose at the same time, it creates havoc for me when I'm trying to record what's going on. I can control mikes and enhance voices, like a sound guy at a rock concert—only my stuff is a zillion times better: the best the intelligence services have to offer—but it is a mess when everyone coughs, and snorts, and barks at once. Fortunately, MP went to the same seminar, and he has a highly-refined nose for bullshit, so he is pretty good at calling on the people who know something and telling everyone else to shut up.

We don't employ cameras—I mean there has to be some limits—so I can't see who's talking, but after a while you get to know the voices.

### 8:09 a.m.

The phone rings. The computer tells me it's Chuck. Sorry Chuck, but we have rules. Maybe I'll call you later.

I'm thinking I'll be my own broadcasting team. Irwin will be the news anchor and on-the-ground reporter and will handle the play-by-play; Michael is the analyst, pundit, and color guy. Maybe Anthony will occasionally have a quirky but pithy commentary, like the late, great Andy Rooney. But—I hear you saying—I don't like to be told. I want to be shown all sides. I want to figure it out for myself. Sure you do. That's why bunkums of analysts, pundits, color guys, and judges inhabit every news, sports, talk, and talent show, interpreting and explaining everything from their narrow perspective. Of course you would never watch cable "news" shows or listen to "talk" radio, but if you did, you would want all sides fairly aired, with a team of independent auditors from Pricewaterhouse Coopers providing instantaneous fact-checking. You have zero interest in what anyone else thinks. Really? You always ignore texts, tweets, editorials, and blogs and every other expression of someone else's viewpoint— unless, of course, they come from people that happen to agree with you. Ah, therein, as they say, lies the rub. Anyway, a potentially offensive content warning; listener discretion advised. I have no idea what Irwin, Michael, or Anthony are going to say, but whatever it is, it is only their opinion, intended to be provided for entertainment value only, which means it may not really be their opinion. But since it may not be to your liking, feel free to disregard or disagree. Please! But there I go again, telling you what to do. So don't feel free to disregard or disagree. Oh what the hell, do whatever you want, unless of course you don't want to.

[Michael?

[Yes, Irwin?

[While we wait for the kickoff, what can you tell all the dumb fucks at home about the Cabinet?

[I'm glad you asked, Irwin. For those of you who slept through high school civics, the Cabinet is composed of the most senior, appointed officers of the 15 executive branch departments of the federal government of the United States. Except for the Attorney General, they each have the title "Secretary." Cabinet officers are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

[Wow, Michael, that's great, what else can you tell us?

[Well, Irwin, in order of succession, they are: the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. The Attorney General fits between Defense and Interior. Six other jobs also have cabinet-level rank, which means these people can attend Cabinet meetings without being secretaries of executive departments: the VP, White House Chief of Staff, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Director of National Drug Control Policy, and the United States Trade Representative. I'll bet you a quarter, Irwin, that 99% of our listeners would never pick the last two on a multiple choice test.

[Impressive, Michael, you are a veritable fount of information.

[Luckily, our audience can only hear our voices, Irwin, so they can't see that I'm giving you the finger as we speak, while reading practically verbatim from Wikipedia.

[Good work, Michael, you are indeed deserving of your position as a clandestine operative, but we still have a couple of seconds to fill.

[Got it, Irwin. In recent years, the Cabinet has declined in relevance as a policy-making body. The trend has been for Presidents to by-pass the Cabinet and work through their inner circle. Traditionally, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have been the most important Cabinet advisors. Recently, the Secretary of Homeland Security has joined the club, and non-Cabinet officials such as the VP, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and National Security Advisor, have become as or more powerful than some Cabinet officials.

[They are running real late. Stretch it, Michael.

[Uh, thanks, Irwin, now reading word-for-word from Wikipedia: during a meeting of the President's Cabinet, members are seated according to the order of precedence, with higher ranking officers sitting closer to the center of the table. Hence, the President and Vice President sit directly across from each other at the middle of the oval shaped table. Then, the Secretaries of State and Defense are seated directly to the right and left, respectively, of the President, and the Secretary of Treasury and the Attorney General sit to right and left, respectively, of the Vice President. This alternation continues according to rank, with Cabinet-rank members, the Vice President excluded, sitting at the very ends, farthest away from the President and Vice President.

[Can I ask a question, guys?

[Hey, Anthony, welcome aboard.

[Thanks. My question is this: can you really trust what you read on Wikipedia? Since anyone can mess with it whenever they want, even if it gets corrected later, as of any point in time, what you are reading could be totally biased and completely wrong.

[I think you need to dial back a little on the quirkiness and pithiness, Anthony. Don't call us, we'll call you.]

### 8:15 a.m.

Enough, already. I take a quick trip to the head because it's almost show time. Grandpa Lemming used to say that if your morning starts with a great cup of coffee and a great bowel movement, it doesn't get any better than that. You have to get to a certain age before you can really appreciate the wisdom of your forbears. Anyway, the animals, trainers, trapeze artists, high-wire walkers, and clowns are ready for the ring master to snap his whip. At 8:15 EST MP enters, all mikes are live. And . . . we're off. MP's late again, but nobody, especially me, is going to mention it.

MP asks if anyone can tell him what the fuck is going on. He never swears outside of one-on-ones. This is huge. I knew it. Everybody is yelling at once. MP gives a lecture about this being a very unusual meeting because of the very unusual subject, and he's not going to tolerate the usual bullshit. Rather than the normal free-for-all, he's going to go 'round the table, starting to his left. If they can't handle it, he will shorten his guest list.

Never willing to leave dead air, not a beat passes after MP is done and Agriculture pipes up.

[I can't see them, but I have a mental seating chart. Defense should be first up, and Agriculture is a long way down the table. This will be an early test for MP. Back to you Irwin.]

MP interrupts Agriculture in mid-sentence and tells him to leave and don't come back. Dead silence. After about a minute, you can hear the shuffling of papers, a chair squeaks, and a few seconds later a door opens and closes. After another pause, MP asks if there is anyone else who is hard of hearing. Silence.

[Well, Michael?

[MP has made his point. I'm not sure what the sound of being scared shitless is, but we may have just heard it, Irwin. That was an easy one for MP since no one cares what Agriculture has to say on any subject. If he wasn't the brother-in-law of the state party chairwoman, he'd still be running his little feed and grain store in Pahrump.]

Next, Defense says he is going to pass the first time around. He is waiting for some briefing papers from his staff, and they are late as usual. He apologizes for them and says he's going to chew them new assholes right after the meeting, so this won't happen again.

[Wow, that's a surprise, Irwin says sarcastically.

[Since MP is in a bad mood, Defense is not going to open his trap, now, until he hears what State, Homeland Security, and National Security Advisor have to say, but he needs an excuse, so he blames it on his staff. Back to you, Irwin]

MP tells Defense that is no problem, but since this is not a good day to be just taking up space, he is also excused from the rest of the meeting. And, by the way, Defense shouldn't blame his incompetence on his staff. If it weren't for their good work, MP says, there would have been an opening on the Cabinet a long time ago.

[Damn this is great stuff, Michael. I wouldn't have missed this for anything.

[Agreed, Irwin, and Sarah wanted us to come home.]

Just then I hear the voice of the Chief of Staff. It's a long way from her turn under MP's new rules, and she's a little far from the closest mike, so I zero in. She asks MP for a very quick side bar.

After a few seconds, a door closes. The mike goes live in the Oval Office. MP says this better be really good.

Chief of Staff excuses herself for speaking out of turn and says she hopes MP knows she would not be going against his express wishes if it wasn't really important. She is not defending Defense or Agriculture. She knows that he isn't wont to suffer fools gladly under the best of circumstances, and god knows Agriculture and Defense are both fools, but she thinks MP may have been a bit hasty in removing them so quickly. She knows this is a highly unusual and unimaginably stressful time for MP. He is the head of the most important and powerful nation in the world and, therefore, the person responsible for taking the leadership role with the heads of the other countries in response to this potential crisis. While he is to be commended for wanting to get directly to the heart of the matter and run the meeting as efficiently and effectively as possible, with respect, in her opinion, he is over-reacting and needs to consider conducting himself like the intelligent, cool, rationale, patient man she has always known him to be.

MP tells her to cut the crap and get on with it.

Everyone in the room will be afraid to say anything, now, she says, even if they had something worthwhile to add. She suggests that he adjourn the meeting until a later unspecified time and tell them that, in the meantime, they will be contacted individually, as needed. Then, convene a working group composed of the usual suspects. Lastly, she says that if we take this thing seriously, and she isn't sure she does, by her watch they have just totally wasted ten minutes out of a 12-hour window. If we do take it seriously, again, with respect, she says, we can't afford to fuck this thing up.

[Holy Crow, Michael, she has bigger balls than Paul Bunyan.

[MP wouldn't take that from any other living soul, Irwin, not even his biggest contributor. Are they getting it on or what?

[She's 60-something and looks like Danny DeVito after a rough night.

[I think you're being too kind, Irwin. Anyway, she's not going to carry the day. MP needs to show some balls of his own. He'll ignore her now and deal with her later.]

A door opens in the Cabinet meeting room. Following the shuffling of chairs, MP says he's sorry for the interruption, but Chief of Staff had the good grace to wait to tell him in private what an ass he was making of himself. Apologies to Defense and Agriculture. Someone tell them all is forgiven. He says Chief of Staff also reminded him that he has wasted a lot of potentially precious time, so he is going to change the plan. The Cabinet meeting will be adjourned, now, to be reconvened at a later time to be determined. VP, State, Attorney General, Homeland Security, and Chief of Staff are to stay. Someone go get his National Security Advisor and Press Secretary in here. In the meantime, he may be contacting the rest for their input. If anyone has anything they feel is particularly important for him to hear, tell Chief of Staff, or one of her staff, and she will get the information to him.

[Holy Crow, again, Michael, he did exactly what she said. You missed it by a mile. You couldn't have been more wrong. You . . .

[Thanks a lot for pointing that out, Irwin. Most of our audience isn't sharp enough to remember what I said. If you'd said I nailed it, they would have gone: okay, right, you go girl!

[I hate that phrase, Michael. Besides, if you haven't noticed, you're neither inner city nor female, and I'll bet you a watermelon slice that only idiot white folks use it any more.

[There you go again, nitpicking my every word. I'm a professional analyst and pundit, Irwin, what do you expect? If I knew anything, I'd be doing real work.

[I can't disagree, Michael, but don't beat yourself up. Introspection and humility are serious faults in your line.

[I haven't heard an apology, Irwin.

[Hey, I am truly sorry, Michael. Really. To help you get your groove back, here's a softball: MP didn't say anything about why he decided to switch to a smaller group, and then he tells the ones left out that they need to run everything through Chief of Staff.

[Apology reluctantly accepted, Irwin. Dad thinks I'm doing a great job. I only hope he isn't listening to this or you'll be hearing from him.

[The softball, Michael?

[I didn't hear a question, Irwin.

[Don't push it you little prick. When MP kicked most of his Cabinet members out, he didn't tell them why he decided to switch to the smaller group. Any thoughts you care to share with us on that? Any thoughts on how they feel about having to run everything through Chief of Staff? Do you ever have any thoughts?

[Real funny, asshole. It's just business as usual, Irwin. No need for MP to publicly rub the second team's noses in it. As for Chief of Staff being the gatekeeper, they all know where they stand.]

### 8:44 a.m.

National Security Advisor and Press Secretary must have been waiting right outside, because, as the commotion of the departure of the dismissed starts to subside, the voices of National Security Advisor and Press Secretary are heard wishing everyone a good morning. There is also a new voice that I don't recognize.

[It's going on 8:45, Michael, and no one has yet to say anything substantive.

[I think they are procrastinating because they have no idea what this is about, where it's going, or how they will get there. And there is a concern that no one is going to like anything about it, particularly the ending.]

Okay, now that we have a group that will get something done, let's get going, MP says and asks Chief of Staff to brief them on what we know.

Chief of Staff says that while she has been spending her time trying to keep MP in line, her chief of staff, John, has been busting his butt coordinating the gathering of information and putting this briefing together. Since it is his work product, and it will be excellent she can assure everyone, she would like him to present it, unless anyone has an objection.

MP says that's fine with him, particularly since everyone in the room knows that John is smarter than Chief of Staff.

Chief of Staff says John is the smartest guy in the room.

[I'd give 50 bucks to have seen the expressions on their faces when she said that, Irwin.]

John wishes all a good morning and says that he will talk about form, substance, and reaction. First, form. They've checked from Afghanistan to Zanzibar, and it appears that (1) everyone on Earth heard essentially the same message at the same time, roughly 7:07 am, EST. By "essentially," he means that there appeared to be slight differences associated with the particular language, dialect, idiom, etc., and at some points the message was clearly tailored to the specifics of the hearer's own life, including age, location, walk of life, religious preference, etc. Otherwise, the message was substantively identical. (2) No one has a recording, obviously, but he is passing out a transcript of the message put together from information from various U.S. and trustworthy non-U.S. operatives known to have excellent memories. With the exception of the types of differences he earlier described, the recollections agreed. (3) Reading the message at a normal pace takes roughly 15 minutes, but no time appeared to actually elapse. The message began and ended at 7:07 EST. (4) A quick poll of various U.S. and trustworthy non-U.S. scientists indicates there is no known (a) communication technology or (b) paranormal activity, such as thought transference, that could explain this occurrence. The consensus is it is not possible. That is, if they hadn't heard it for themselves, they would say it could not have happened. Any questions on form?

Attorney General thinks this is some kind of terrorist plot. What could be more effective in bringing the whole world to its knees than having people believe that some mad man is going to kill everyone on Earth in 12 hours. This makes 9/11 look like child's play. All our concern about terrorists exploding a nuclear weapon that would kill or injure maybe several thousand people, and this guy talks about destroying the whole human race.

John tries to interrupt.

Attorney General continues: it doesn't make any difference that it doesn't happen, people will be scared shitless about the possibility not only for 12 hours but for generations to come.

John tries to interrupt.

Homeland Security thinks it is more than just terrorism for terrorisms' sake. He expects that we will be getting a ransom-type message shortly, looking for money, the release of political prisoners, agreement not to cut down old- growth trees on the Berkley campus, or something similar.

John tries to interrupt, again.

State says she agrees in general that it is a ploy both to terrorize and to extort, but she suspects a rival government is behind it. Russia would be her number one suspect; then Iran or North Korea. But, then, again, who has better technology than Japan. This could be Pearl Harbor II. And speaking of sucker punches, let's not rule out China. We know they are our rival for world leadership sooner rather than later. This could be their ploy to take command by trumping up a world-wide crisis and then putting together a coalition of every country that hates our guts—which is most of the world—to elbow us out of the way.

John says that he would really like to be permitted to say something.

State asks what the fuck John wants?

John reminds the group that his briefing had three parts, and so far he had only dealt with the form of the message. This discussion is jumping the gun. Did anyone have any comments or questions about form?

[Can you believe the hoots, catcalls, and insults, Michael. This poor slob is about to be eaten alive.

[I bet if most kids behaved like that in school, Irwin, they would get some sort of negative consequence for being disrespectful and bullying. But the withering personal attack—the nastier the better—is not only tolerated but encouraged when you're an adult, even at, or should I say especially at, the highest levels.]

Chief of Staff says John is right, and she, State, Homeland Security, and Attorney General get into a big fight.

Then we hear VP's voice for the first time. He says that he likes conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but if what John is saying is true, which terrorist organizations, which countries, would have the capability of pulling something like this off, even if they wanted to?

John says he wants to be certain that there is no misunderstanding. The issue under discussion at the moment, he says, is the technical ability to make the communication, not whether there is a group of conspirators who have activated a doomsday device.

After a prolonged, confusing exchange indicating that there was considerable misunderstanding, there is finally agreement that they will defer the discussion about the substance of the communication and focus on the communication itself.

John then repeats himself about the consensus of the scientists being that no one has the capability—no terrorist groups, no countries, nobody—to make this type of simultaneous, generally uniform but personally-tailored communication. John then fields a lot of questions about how good his information is, particularly since it was put together so fast: who gathered it, how was it gathered, exactly who was talked to and who wasn't and why, who dissented and what did they say, and so forth.

Homeland Security gets particularly hostile when John says there were no dissenters.

Finally, MP tells John to go back, do it again, and make sure. Somebody must know something you're missing.

John responds by calling his number two guy right in front of everyone. I'm able to pick up the cell phone conversation: he summarizes the issues and tells the person on the other end, Steve, that MP wants them to do it all over again "to make sure."

Steve grumbles about getting spanked rather than praised for being able to do a world-class job so quickly. We busted our ass. When we joined this Administration, we had anticipated that there would be some type of scientific crisis at some point, and we had the people in place ready to respond at a moment's notice. Talking about capability, no one else could have pulled off what we just did, he says. Then he asks if those jerk-offs want the truth or only what they want to hear?

John hangs up without answering. "Done," John says.

State says this is no time for the usual poor staff work.

Homeland Security says he'd feel a lot more comfortable if they'd use outside, private consultants rather than trying to do it in-house. State concurs. If Chief of Staff's staff were any good, they'd be in the real world making real money.

[Michael, he's missing the irony. He works for the government, too.

[They don't find any irony, Irwin. The way they see it, they are at a level where the rules applying to normal human beings don't apply to them. They aren't public servants. They are servants of the President. They serve at his pleasure, only, so they are beholden only to him—and to themselves. And we all know that the folks who work for the President are supposed to be the best and the brightest.

[But the President doesn't pay their salaries, we do.

[Big whoop, Irwin. Besides, State has a large financial interest in a private contractor that would be pleased to get the job if John and Chief of Staff's staff are discredited. And she gets to take a piece out of Chief of Staff to boot.]

State says this has got to be the work of one of our enemies—what other explanation is there?—so John's people are obviously missing the boat. John hasn't proved that our enemies aren't behind this; only that his staff isn't competent enough to identify how they are doing it.

John says he has a couple of things he wants to say before they move on.

Over objection, Chief of Staff tells him to go ahead.

First, he reminds them that the message wasn't addressed only to the U.S., it was delivered to every person in all countries, everywhere. Maybe we should think about this as a global threat, not just one directed at us. Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be.

State says John isn't being paid to think.

[Actually, given his job, Irwin, I really hope he is.]

John says the only other thing he wanted to say was with regard to the unfortunate staff-bashing. State, and Homeland Security, and National Security Advisor may be surprised to learn that their staffs heavily contributed to this work product and are in complete agreement with the conclusions he presented. He is very proud of the accomplishments made by all of the first-rate, hardworking people who participated. He was going to wait until the end to personally acknowledge and praise them, but, in view of the remarks made, he thought he had better move it up on the agenda.

[Well, Michael, I can almost hear Chief of Staff smiling.

[Michael? . . . Michael?

[This may be a familiar theme over the course of the day, Irwin, but sometimes the stupidity of our leaders leaves me speechless.]

MP says okay, John, what's next?

John says he will spend a short time on the substance of the message. He says he's given each of them a transcript of the message and asks if they want to take a moment to read it.

Homeland Security says that they are more than capable of reading and listening at the same time, assuming John says something worth hearing.

John continues and suggests that it doesn't make sense to spend time on the theological aspects of the message—by the way, as mentioned before, it appears certain that the message was tailored to each listener's religion or philosophy. As an example, John says he understands that if you are a Scientologist, the messenger took a shot at Xenu and Teegeeack—other than to say that the speaker claims that, while he or she is the messenger for the entity that created, or rather was in on the beginning of, the universe and is the closest thing there is to god as we understand it, humans are a product of evolution, not design, and he/she has never before communicated with any human. What we think we know about god, heaven, angels, devils, prophets, sons of god, and so forth, comes solely from man's imagination.

The sound rises to an uncomprehendable level and continues for several minutes.

[I don't think they agree with the messages' message, Michael.

[Sounds like the crowd reaction to a bad call against the home team, Irwin.

[Guys, can I put my two cents in here?

[Sure, Anthony, we almost forgot about you.

[Look, there are things going on here at a couple of levels. These folks all claim to be true believers. Keeping their job depends on it. Don't forget, VP is even an ordained minister. Regardless of how they feel in their heart of hearts, they can't let anyone else in the room get away with being holier than they. For those who are true believers—I mean they really are sincere in closing every speech by asking god to bless America—what if god doesn't give a shit about America? Wow! What a punch to the gut. That's like declaring a ban on football. This is a theocracy, after all: our Pledge of Allegiance declares we are "One Nation, under God," and "In God We Trust" is our National Motto. They are not going to roll over and take it without a fight.

[Who are they going to fight, Anthony?

[That's why they need to believe America's—and, therefore, god's—enemies are behind this.]

### 9: 07 a.m.

While there is a break in the action, I call my Dad again. No answer, so I take a deep breath and call Chipper.

She responds to my call with her usual warmth and asks what the hell I want.

I ask her if she knows where Dad is.

She asks why.

I say I would like to talk to him, he doesn't answer his home phone, and he doesn't have a cell phone or an answering machine.

She asks what I want to talk about.

I ask what the hell she thinks I want to talk about.

She says that voice in her head is wigging her out and asks me what I know.

I tell her I don't know anything, and I couldn't tell her even if I did.

She calls me a shit.

I ask her if she's talked to Sarah recently.

She says she would rather, like, talk to me or her worst enemy, and, come to think of it, we are both the same person.

I say that she and Sarah have a lot more in common than she thinks since they've both called me a shit this morning.

She says, like, that's no big thing since everyone who knows me thinks I'm a shit.

I tell her that her English vocabulary and usage haven't matured since high school.

She says, what do I know about English? I'm a computer geek and a federal government employee, so English isn't even my second language.

I remind her that I got the English medal my senior year in high school.

She reminds me that I went to a prep school for jocks and the English teacher was the hockey coach who based his grades on who had the best plus-minus stats. She also reminds me that he was fired the summer after I graduated for taking naked showers with the team.

I tell her that I will call later if I know anything but not to take it as a good sign if I'm suddenly nice to her.

She says, like, whatever, and maybe she'll tell Dad I called.

### 9:14 a.m.

Someone, probably MP, glass-clinks the table to order, with a final comment—"complete and utter bullshit; excuse my French"—coming from Homeland Security.

Chief of Staff is asked to summarize the discussion so far. She says the bottom line is, regardless of the fact that as of this moment staff can't tell us who originated the message, the consensus of this group is that it has to have come from one of our enemies. Some think that the substance of the message could only mean a godless entity, which makes China, Russia, and North Korea the prime suspects and would rule out god-fearing entities such as Muslim countries and even, therefore, most terrorist groups. But others think the message may be intended to send us on a wild-goose chase. Allah would condone a little blasphemous-sounding misdirection as a means to jihad. As State says, all's fair in love and holy war. Then, she says, John started to talk about the theological aspects of the message when the discussion fell apart once again because . . . .

VP interrupts to say that there was not a complete consensus, if that isn't redundant. As hard as it is for even him to believe, being the only card-carrying preacher in the group and all, he is open to John's position that the message not only didn't come from one of our traditional enemies but didn't come from anyone on Earth. And, therefore, maybe they should take the message at face value.

State asks for clarification: you mean you think it came from extraterrestrials, maybe Martians throwing us off track prior to the invasion?

VP has to talk louder over the laughter. He says he doesn't believe in Martians any more than Homeland Security believes in civil rights, but there was something in that message that rang true to him. He can't be any more specific than a strong feeling, but maybe it would be a good idea for all to take the message seriously, reserve judgment, and talk a little bit about the substance of the third part of the message: what does anyone know about this international conspiracy?

[I guess if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, Michael.

[Did you know that Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley coined the original of that stupid phrase, Irwin? I thought it was a relatively modern entry in the insider bullshit, jargon du jour, but he died in 1916. Recall Bill Maher's response? "Just because you shit in the woods doesn't mean you're a bear."]

Let me ask again, says VP. What does anyone know about this international conspiracy?

[There is no reaction, Michael.

[Sounds to me, Irwin, that VP is the only one who has his head on straight this morning. The rest are still wrapped-up in their own agendas.]

John tries to speak.

MP asks him what he wants.

Only, he says, to tell everyone that we have gone back and triple checked, and the team agrees that our prior conclusions were correct. So . . .

MP shuts him off and says to National Security Advisor that he has been uncharacteristically quiet.

National Security Advisor responds that he was simply waiting until everyone else had their say before he pointed out, with all due respect, that everyone else has missed the point. After he heard the message, he was sorrowful and afraid. He got down on his knees and prayed to the one, true god for enlightenment. And god answered him. God told him to arise and find the truth in the word revealed in the scriptures. National Security Advisor says that he opened the Epistles of John and read from Chapters One and Two. And then he apparently quotes the following from his memory—of course, I can repeat exactly what he said:

This is Antichrist, of whom you heard he comes. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is Christ? This is Antichrist who denies the father and the son.

Then National Security Advisor says that John—the Apostle, not John the Chief of Staff's staffer—said the coming of the Antichrist would be at "the last hour."

[The room is so quiet you could hear a bee sneeze, Michael.

[Your fifth grade writing teacher would be proud of that metaphor, Irwin.]

National Security Advisor continues that he then opened Chapter Two of Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and he saw that Paul uses the term "man of sin" to describe the Antichrist and says this "man of sin" will oppose himself against anything that is worshiped, substitute himself for Christ, claim divine authority, work false miracles and signs, and do all manner of evil. And Paul says the "man of sin" will be destroyed on the "last day."

Then National Security Advisor says he opened "Revelations" and understood that the Antichrist was the awful "Beast" described in Chapters 11 and 12.

After a pause, Chief of Staff says that apparently National Security Advisor believes that the voice is the Antichrist.

He doesn't believe it, says National Security Advisor, he knows it, as does any other right-thinking, god-fearing American in the room.

Chief of Staff says she doesn't have his knowledge of the scriptures, but let's assume for the sake of argument that it is the Antichrist, what does National Security Advisor suggest they do about the voice and the message?

Rejoice! says National Security Advisor, this is the beginning of the time we have been waiting for.

I hear a lot of commotion, and MP demands to know where National Security Advisor is going.

Home, says National Security Advisor, to hunker down for the next seven years. I've been sitting here thinking about what is transpiring, and it suddenly occurred to me that it makes no sense to stay here any longer.

MP says that he needs National Security Advisor's help because the future of the world is in MP's hands.

It is in god's hands, National Security Advisor says in a trying-hard-to-be-patient tone.

Of course, MP says, but National Security Advisor can't just get up and leave.

Why not, says National Security Advisor, you don't need a National Security Advisor any more. In fact, after today, there will be no need for a President of the United States, nor will there be a need for a United States, for that matter.

MP says he is confused and asks if that means National Security Advisor thinks the voice will destroy the world in 12 hours.

The world will be just fine for those who have taken Jesus as their savior, National Security Advisor shouts, and then in a stage whisper he asks VP to tell these fake Christians what he means after he leaves. A few seconds later a door opens and closes. National Security Advisor has taken his bible and gone home.

The reign of the Beast, Armageddon, and all the rest of that clap trap, says VP, followed by the sound of off-the-scale turmoil in the meeting room.

MP demands that VP explain himself.

Since he is the ordained minister, VP says, it looks like National Security Advisor feels that VP is the only one, besides himself, of course, who is qualified to talk about this. As usual, VP says, he couldn't disagree with National Security Advisor more, on all counts. But since both MP and National Security Advisor asked, he will provide his view, although he doesn't think National Security Advisor would approve if he knew what VP was going to say.

This sounds like something you are going to want to hear without my editing, so I'm inputting it into this recording. Although I could repeat it word for word if I wanted, the next voice you hear is VP's:

"As you all know, practitioners of many religions, Evangelical Christians not the least, believe that their scriptures are the word of god—what god actually said—so that word must be taken literally. The problem is that most of the meaning of these words is incomprehensible, at worst, and subject to individual, subjective interpretation, at best. And those words selected for interpretation are only a small percentage of all the words the particular piece of scripture provides. For example, a hypothetical chapter of the Bible contains 15 verses; each verse contains 25 sentences, on average; and each sentence contains seven words, on average. A hypothetical interpretation of a chapter may focus on only four sentences in only one of the verses—less than one percent of the total. All of the rest—the remaining 99 plus percent of god's word—is apparently so inconsequential as to deserve no mention whatsoever. Somehow, the interpreter is able to accurately separate the wheat from the chaff, and, to no one's amazement, this interpretation is generally accepted without challenge. But even more astonishing, the interpreter proves the correctness of his interpretation by citing his own interpretations of other verses of other chapters of other New and Old Testament writings, thereby weaving a supposedly irrefutable argument out of whole cloth.

"The story National Security Advisor talked about is based on an interpretation of certain phrases from the Bible, King James version, of course, Book 66, entitled Revelation—no "s"—Chapters 4 to 22. The word "revelation" is a translation of a Greek word Anglicized as "apocalypse," which is why some people refer to the events in the Book of Revelation as the Apocalypse. You should also be aware that the term "apocalypse" was used by the Jews and early Christians to mean a prophesy from god about the future. I know some people associate "apocalypse" with the end of the world, mass destruction, the second coming, and so forth, but the word just means something revealed by god.

"Now, Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. Because of its incredible subject matter and cryptic wording, it has been quite controversial from the time it was discovered and the subject of myriad interpretations, theories, and criticisms. The author is not known, but some have attributed it to a man named John, so it is sometimes called "the Revelation of John." Many, like National Security Advisor, attempt to understand it as a literal prophesy. Others view it in a symbolic or metaphorical sense, for example, as an allegory depicting the triumph of good over evil.

"Okay, in a nutshell, according to the story, a man will show up out of nowhere, who will appear to save the world from its economic, political, and military problems by bringing peace and stability. He negotiates a world-wide peace agreement, and he is selected, by general acclaim, to rule the whole world. All of the world's governments acknowledge him as their leader. This man is the Beast, or the Antichrist, who is a disciple of the Dragon, or the Devil. Although the Beast will be initially regarded as the world's savior, three-and-a-half years after his rise to power, he will revoke the peace agreement, outlaw all religions, and proclaim himself to be god. The Antichrist will stay in power for three-and-a-half more years, a time of ruthless persecution of believers in the true god. It is at this point that the Antichrist requires everyone to use one world-wide credit system called 666."

[What the hell is that 666 about, Michael?

[The exact evil in a world-wide credit system is not at all clear to me, Irwin. It sounds like something that MP's party would support as long as it was privately run, the risks were appropriately bounded by some sort of credit default swap, and they got a piece of the action. But you gotta admit that that mysterious "666" name really sounds demonic. I mean, I hear "666" and I think of blood-curdling satanic rituals. It's really a downer to learn that it is only the security verification number on the back of a glorified Visa card.]

Sorry, listeners. VP continues:

"Then, Jesus will come for the second time, and all of the believers in the true god, and, after Jesus' death, those who took Jesus as their savior, who have died will be resurrected in new supernatural bodies. Those followers of Jesus still alive on Earth will also be given new supernatural bodies. They will join with the former dead to escape from the clutches of the Antichrist and ascend to meet Jesus in Heaven—sometimes referred to as the "Rapture"—for a great victory celebration called the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb." Then led by Jesus, all of the supernatural inhabitants of Heaven, angels included, will return to earth to rendezvous at Armageddon. Armageddon is the location where a colossal battle then takes place between the followers of Jesus and those of the Beast. Armageddon is a Hebrew word that means Mount of Megiddo, which is a hill not too far from Haifa in modern Israel. So the battle will supposedly take place in the vicinity of Megiddo, which, by the way, has been a popular location for countless important battles. Among them, if memory serves, that's the very spot where the British beat the Turks in 1918 and the Egyptians beat the Syrians some three-and-a-half-thousand years earlier. In the Armageddon battle in question, Jesus wins, of course, the Beast and his followers are destroyed, and Jesus rules the world—a time of peace and great prosperity—for one thousand years. Revelation doesn't say what is supposed to happen after that. A thousand years probably sounded like a hell of a long time back when it was written.

"Obviously, National Security Advisor thinks this morning's voice is the opening shot by the Antichrist to become the ruler of the world, so that in three-and-a-half-odd years this Beast can proclaim himself to be god and outlaw all religions, et cetera. That suits National Security Advisor just fine because in seven-odd years he sees himself being outfitted in a brand-new Marvel Comics super-body and flown, all expenses paid, to heaven to attend the buffet voted best of all time. We all know that National Security Advisor could stand a new body and how much he enjoys his food and liquor, especially when it's free, but there are several holes in National Security Advisor's thinking, even if you believe that interpretation of Revelation, which I don't. For example, if you believe in the literal meaning of the Bible, you need to be consistent: it has to go down the way the Bible says it will. The voice skipped way ahead in saying he was god and, in effect, doing away with all religions. Also, he made it pretty clear that he doesn't have any interest in or designs on being our political ruler. And also it would be very clever of the Antichrist to use both his preemptory god-claim and the excuse of the conspirators' desire to immediately get to Heaven through technology, as a means to get us to take our eye off the prophesy. And, of course, the Revelation prophesy doesn't prophesy any of this. Maybe the Antichrist is just suckering us and the writer of Revelation in, and we all fell for it, except for National Security Advisor and his ilk."

Anyone else in here want to join National Security Advisor and leave to prepare for the Beast? asks MP.

National Security Advisor isn't alone, says State.

MP says he doesn't see her packing her stuff.

State says she is in this with MP for as long as he wants or the next 10 or so hours, whichever occurs last, but this issue isn't going away.

Okay, says MP, let's get back to what VP was saying earlier. Can we take the message seriously, and if so, what do we do about it?

State is right, says Chief of Staff. National Security Advisor likely represents the view of most of your staunchest and wealthiest supporters. And they aren't going to want you to do a damn thing.

So, says MP, is he supposed to pretend that nothing happened while his counterparts in the rest of the world are out there doing whatever?

Chief of Staff says that for the moment the other world leaders don't have any better idea of what's going on than we do and she is in favor of pursuing the possibility that the message is real. Then she asks John, her Chief of Staff, to leave the room but be available in case she needs him for something. After the door closes she continues: But with respect, the evangelicals are going to make a big stink about this, and, admittedly at her urging, MP has rolled over on cue in the past regarding less important issues. The fundamentalist shit is going to hit the fan, and we don't have time, this time, she says, to do a 180 based on threatening phone calls or opinion polls. When we decide what the strategy is, this time we absolutely have to stick to it. We need to get it right—not just politically convenient, expedient, or correct.

[Wow, Michael, that's the second time she's gone after him this hour, and in public to boot.]

MP sounds pissed. He corrects her and points out that he is the President, he decides what to do, when, where, why, and how, and says she might just be getting a little too big for her pantyhose. Next time he wants her opinion he will ask for it, he says, and asks VP to lead the discussion on the message.

[No coup d'é tat this morning, Irwin, MP is back in the saddle again. But on second thought, she is a very smart cookie, as Granddad Lemming used to say, maybe that is exactly how she planned it.]

### 9:35 a.m.

My cell phone rings. It's my dad. I tell him I've been trying to reach him and I'm glad he called, and I ask him how he's doing.

How do you think I'm doing? he says. That pious, asshole, next-door neighbor of mine, Tom, just blew all his snow on my driveway.

I say that isn't news. Tom always blows his leaves on your grass every fall and his snow on your driveway every winter.

And he goes to church every Sunday morning and to bible study every Thursday night, dad says. Apparently, Tom thinks blowing his snow on my driveway is what Jesus would do.

I say I agree that it doesn't sound very Christian.

Dad says he can't figure out what Tom is. Tom belongs to the Cornerstone Foursquare Fountainhead Wings Beneath My Feet Community Fellowship of the Immaculate Tattoo, or something like that. But at least he isn't one of those moz lums. How would you like to have a camel jockey for a neighbor? he says. You'd have more blowin' to worry about than a little snow. One day out of the blue he'd come over and blow himself and you to kingdom come just because his koh run says to.

You know that isn't true, I tell him.

Do I? How do you know, he says—sounding more than a little testy—have you ever read the Koran? This time he pronounces it right.

It's on my list, I say, but I'm told it can't be interpreted to call for martyrdom by the suicide bombing of innocent people.

Yeah, it's on my list, too, he says, right after I learn Arabic so I can read it in the original. And I'm told it damn well can be interpreted to call for martyrdom by the suicide bombing of innocent people.

Well, I guess it depends on who is doing the interpreting, I say. It's hard to know who to believe sometimes.

You got that right, he says, but as long as American-haters are doing the interpreting, we had better damn well be on our toes. You know what, he says, we've been tossing around the idea down at the post that we should give those sons a' bitches a taste of their own medicine. Go over there and set some bombs off and send a little terror their direction. We don't mean the U.S. government; we mean us—bunch of old, patriotic farts lighting 'em up. If they can figure out how to make bombs from the internet so can we, and Swede was a munitions expert back in Nam. Right now we're debating where to go. Problem is they're not all camel jockeys. Did you know there are 49 counties where moz lums are the majority of the population? So where do you start? In the obvious places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, blowing each other up is the national sport, so no one would even notice another bombing or two. But did you know there are more moz lums in Indonesia, for Chris' sakes, than any other place in the world? Fucking Indonesia? What's wrong with those people? I think we should go to Indonesia. As best I can tell, no Indos have blown anybody up in the U.S. so far, so I think it's high time for a preemptive strike. Make them think twice about coming over here. But Mitch wants to go to Saudi Arabia. He stopped there once on a world cruise with Mary and thinks he knows his way around. I think Mitch is losing it. Now, where was I? dad says. Oh, yes. We're shooting for next fall. We were thinking about setting off our fireworks on the Fourth of July, but irregardless of whether it's Indonesia or Saudi Arabia, the majority agreed it'll be too damn hot there in the summer, and Smitty's having hip replacement surgery at Mayo in the spring.

There is a pause. I can't wait to get old. I don't have anything to say in response to dad's war-on-terrorism plan, so I ask him about this morning's message.

He says this is the damnedest thing he's ever heard and asks me what I know.

I tell him I really shouldn't tell him anything and then try to summarize the little that has transpired substantively, leaving out the personalities. I ask him again what he thinks.

He doesn't know how they did it, but he thinks it's part of a plot by the commies and socialists in the U.S. Congress to promote their agenda.

I say I don't get it.

He says they are going to use his hard-earned tax money to provide more welfare for the lazy ne'er-do-wells and illegals.

I say I still don't get it.

He says he's talking about all this pinko crap about the Golden Rule and doing good unto others and world peace and happiness. He says Marx and Mao and Castro and Jane Fonda couldn't have said it better themselves.

I remind him that he is living on Social Security, he gets his free healthcare from the Veteran's Administration, and he hasn't paid any income tax for years.

He says he earned every penny of it and no one has given him a goddamned thing, like some people he could name.

I say you mean like Chipper?

Nicole is doing just fine, he says. He means me.

I tell him I appreciate everything he has done for me.

And your mother, he says, god rest her soul, she would roll over in her grave if she knew this was going on.

I tell him I'm happy everything is the just the same as always and promise to call him when I hear anything more about a proletariat takeover.

I'm a little dismayed to hear that he isn't at least a tiny bit concerned about the possibility that the end of the human race might be near. My dad isn't a dumb or uneducated man. I wonder how many people, like him, disregarded the point of the message and made up their own story. Apparently the same message was delivered to everyone, but I wonder how many heard it through the distorted amplifier of their own opinions. I thought the message was absolutely clear and unambiguous, but so far this morning I've listened to bright people attribute the message to our external political enemies and economic rivals, to the Antichrist, and to our own home-grown socialists. How many other cockamamie reactions were there? So far only VP has suggested that the message meant what it said, and I normally wonder if VP has ever expressed an idea that didn't come from his speech writers. The messenger anticipated this when he suggested that his message was an opportunity for people to lay aside their biases and think for themselves. Although, come to think of it, those Nips and commies and Beasts and camel jockeys are a clever lot. Maybe this was only a crude attempt at reverse psychology. No, John the staffer's briefing persuaded me. If the people who know what they are talking about say that no one on Earth has the technical capability to produce the message, I, for one, am narrowing the field to god, Martians, or, of course, National Security Advisor's personal favorite, the guy with the goatee, horns, and pitchfork. But what about the technical capability to develop a doomsday device? That just might be humanly possible.

Anyway what do I know? I'm only the tech guy who MP and his advisors wouldn't let join their clubs or marry their daughters or—if they were honest—vote, for that matter. I've heard them say more than once, in words or effect, that the biggest impediment to having the U.S. be a truly great country is democracy. Surely they weren't serious? Don't put your life savings into voting machine stock.

I have a couple of thoughts about the American aristocrats' perspective on democracy. First, they own more of the wealth than they would like you to think. The top 1% own 35% of all privately held wealth. The next 19% own 50%. This means that the top 20% own 85% of this country's wealth, leaving only 15% for the bottom 80% of the people, like me and most of you. Elections come and go, but that disparity doesn't change. If anything, the rich keep getting richer. Regardless of who votes and who we little guys vote for, the wealthy will continue to maintain enough political clout through campaign contributions and other means of coercion to do just fine, thank you. They needn't worry, but they do.

Second, for those who know what's best for everyone else, a democracy is inconvenient because your guys have to keep getting elected and, worse, in order to have free reign, including packing the Supreme Court, your party not only needs to keep winning a large majority in both Houses but also the goddamned Presidency. Each side must constantly work on stacking the deck so that eligible voters are defined as those who will vote for you. Therefore, the way our democracy is contrived, it doesn't necessarily mean I get to vote. Not fair? Too bad!

On the other hand, when I hear the incredibly asinine ideas coming out of the mouths of most of the hoi polloi—including, sometimes, yours truly—maybe the aristocrats do have a good point. I mean, really, some people shouldn't be allowed to vote for community dog catcher. Then, after all the bullshit talk, there are just a whole bunch of reasons why folks who are eligible to vote can't quite seem to get around to it. Sixty percent is an above-average voter turnout for a U.S. presidential election. And those who do show up keep voting-in these incredibly asinine people who are supposed to be representing us. Maybe we should have our voting privileges suspended until we can pass some sort political sanity and interest test, but then the people who make up the tests would be told which way to bias the questions to favor the party of the administration then in power, and, besides, the test makers would be just as nuts as the rest of us.

Come to think of it, the messenger didn't think democracy was essential or even necessarily important: "Various forms of democracy could work as could a truly benevolent dictator. As you might expect, I have a soft spot in my heart for the benevolent dictator approach. These forms, or something else altogether that no human has yet thought of, could work."

When you get down to it, do I need democracy to be happy? With dictators, the problem is the benevolent part. I've been enamored with the idea of the philosopher king since first year poly sci, but, left to our own devices, it's not practical—if for no other reason than there will always be someone less benevolent waiting in the wings to putsch, if you excuse the pun, the incumbent into early retirement. But what's brilliant about the messenger's concept is that he is going to be judging the action, ready to blow his whistle and send the rule violators to the penalty box. If there is no messenger, sorry plutocrats, I want democracy, as imperfect as it may be. Messenger in place, it really doesn't matter, does it? How can we lose?

I guess most of us lose if the international group of elitists is successful in destroying the human race, save them. And everyone loses if the elitists got it wrong about their god and their heaven.

### 9:42 a.m.

MP's cell phone rings. The ring tone is that Frank Sinatra song "My Way." There is a karaoke machine in MP's private quarters, and after tossing back a few McAllens at the end of a particularly combative day, MP is known to occasionally belt out a slurred but pugnacious "My Way" before turning in. It is rare for him to have his cell on during or even bring it with him to meetings. Most calls come through the White House landline system and are screened 15 ways from Sunday before MP is even asked if he wants to take a call, which almost never happens. His cell number is a national secret and is given out only by him to only a highly important few: those folks for whom access cannot wait—three people, that's it. Of course MP's cell calls are absolutely secure. I did the work myself. If anyone else's phone ever rang in MP's presence, they would get a strong rebuke or tossed out, usually both. Even rarer, unique in fact, today he answered his phone in the middle of a meeting.

The call is from John Mahoney, the CEO of Feldman Mahoney and MP's angel. I mentioned him before.

[Aren't you a little bit taken aback at the brazenness of this call, Michael? Isn't MP even a little concerned that his relationship with Mahoney will become public?

[Three points, Irwin. One, the only people who will ever know what is said on these calls are MP and Mahoney—and us. Two, no whistle blower, no reporter, no one has the balls to bring this to light, even if they knew.

[Why is that, Michael?

[Sometimes you are really obtuse, Irwin. Nobody, I mean nobody, wants to take on Mahoney. He is connected in every meaning of the word. You know the saying you can run, but you can't hide? After all of your assets suddenly disappeared, you and your family and everyone you ever cared about would get a late night visit from Guido. And the last point is that even if an insanely-brave whistleblower took it to the SEC, and even if the SEC had ethical and competent investigators, those investigators would never believe and, more important, could never prove that insider trading could be taken to this level of reciprocal back-scratching.]

MP calls for a 10 minute break. He is silent until he gets back into the Oval Office. He tells Mahoney that he just interrupted a meeting with his staff regarding what to do about the message everyone got his morning, so the call better be really damn important.

Mahoney says he figured that, which is why he called. His spies tell him that none of the financial markets know what to do about the message, so he plans on giving them a little shove. If he plays his cards right—which he always does with a little help from his friends—he and MP will make a killing, no, a massacre, today.

MP says that is a poor choice of words and apparently Mahoney doesn't believe that human life is about to end.

Mahoney says that the words were quite intentional and the way he looks at it, if the world ends today for us, nothing makes any difference anyway. But if it doesn't, he and MP will be rich enough by the end of the day to buy it—the world, that is.

MP asks Mahoney what he is going to do.

Mahoney tells MP to leave that to him, but he needs to know everything MP knows.

MP summarizes all of the information and discussions and says he has to get back: he needs to develop a plan, discuss it with other world leaders, and communicate it at a press conference at noon.

Mahoney asks MP what he thinks the plan will be.

Just then MP's cell phone beeps, indicating someone else is calling. It's Robert Z. Cramer, senior Senator from Nevada. MP tells Mahoney to hold on for a minute and switches to Cramer. He tells Cramer he's on another call and will get right back to him.

Cramer tells MP to damn well make it snappy because, as far as MP and his future are concerned, there is no more important call than Cramer's.

MP apologizes to Mahoney and says the call was from Zeke Cramer.

Mahoney tells MP that he has more important things to do than listen to that old blowhard, tells him to keep his eye on the right ball, and asks again what the plan will be.

MP says that there is still a lot of discussion before any decisions are made, but he expects the result will be that the message needs to be taken seriously and he will be working with all of the other world leaders to take the steps necessary to assure the messenger of their intention to work towards the universal application of the Golden Rule, or whatever.

Mahoney says that is exactly right since he agrees it is safer to proceed as if the message is real. He says he hasn't believed the standard religious bullshit since he, as an 11-year-old altar boy, found old Father Klemp fucking the shit out of the president of the Saint Theresa's woman's auxiliary, using a condom no less—is nothing sacred? Plus he thinks it is absolutely wonderful that some disinterested deity—literally the god father—would lay in wait for millions of years to give every person on the planet an offer they can't refuse. However, while he agrees with the plan, he doesn't want MP to make it public until the press conference at noon. In the interim, all communications, statements, briefings, and leaks are to say that the matter is being carefully studied and no decisions have yet been made. They will also say that all options are still on the table, including taking no action. And when asked about the rumor that National Security Advisor has quit to go home to prepare for the second coming, the response is to neither confirm nor deny.

MP asks Mahoney how the word about National Security Advisor is going to get out.

Simple, Mahoney says, his folks are going to leak it along with a great number of other destabilizing rumors. He wants the talking heads on the financial cable channels to go ape-shit. He wants every person on the planet who owns a share of stock to believe that the fat lady is singing and nobody is doing anything about it. Of course if we are all going to die today, he says, what difference does it make if you are holding stocks or gold or baseball cards? But the psychology will be to unload your stock positions literally at any cost, and the shares will be selling like hotcakes at prices the depth of which no one—except him—could ever have imagined. He will just be waiting to scoop them up, and they will thank him for it. And when, says Mahoney, MP saves the world or it turns out that this was just a big hoax, the two of them will be sitting goddamn fucking pretty. All of the exchanges will be closed until this is over, he says, but he will be able to handle it through his usual informal channels. Mahoney then says that he is going to be placing a colossal bet based on MP following the script, so MP better damn well follow through, or long before the end of our world, MP is not going to have a pot to piss in.

[Michael, this is big time insider information. Maybe we can use it to be gazillionaires, too.

[I've had a shit-load of opportunities in the past but never did anything about them. I really don't know why, although I've ruined many nights' sleep thinking about it. Maybe I'm afraid of getting caught, maybe I'm not a thief, or maybe I'd just screw it up 'cause I don't know what I'm doing. Short answer: no.]

After some bantering caused by the need for MP to sound presidential, MP agrees to do what Mahoney says. Then, as an apparent after thought, MP asks Mahoney if he knows anything about a conspiracy to blow up the world.

Of course, Mahoney says, it's been in the works for ages. He never believed it would ever actually happen, but he did believe the plan would eventually be made public, causing a world-wide panic, and that's why he's been preparing for this day and is ready to move. Who knows whether this is some kind of hoax or hold up, but if the fucking machine does detonate or whatever the hell it does, all the money in the world isn't going to do either one of them any good, so if this is the day for the big bang, MP better get his ass in gear and do whatever is necessary to turn off the fucking switch.

### 9:51 a.m.

After Mahoney hangs up, MP calls Cramer. Cramer tells MP to hold on while he hooks in Bob Bancroft.

[First things first, Michael. Why does one of the big three phone cronies—the powerful, self-interested bad guy—have to be a U.S. senator? I mean, how trite; how dull; how... silly. If this were a book of fiction, my review would give the author zero points for originality on this character.

[I know, Irwin, but this is life, which is mostly predictable and dull and silly. Senators are frequently powerful, self-interested, bad guys. Humans have a knack for putting people like Cramer into important political positions. We are terrible judges of both competence and character.

[But Cramer is an imbicile.

[I know, Irwin. But you don't have to have a clue to be a powerful U.S. senator. You just have to be doggedly single-minded and focused, not care in the least about anyone or anything else, and express your feelings at the top of your lungs until you get what you want—like a hungry new-born.

[Come to think of it, with that bald head; fat cheeks; scowling, red face; and irritating sucking motion with his mouth before he talks, Cramer even looks like one.

[The difference, guys, being that new borns are completely honest.

[Right you are, Anthony. We've all had enough of Cramer, who's Bancroft?

[Bancroft is CEO and Chairman of Humcon International, Irwin. It's a humongous conglomerate that is into just about everything a company can do: commercial, industrial, and consumer products, chemicals, metals, oil and gas, financials, electronics, computer hard and software, you name it. It makes GE look like mom and pop. It's not well known to the average guy, however, because it's a privately-owned company and all of its products appear under trade names. You'd be hard pressed to find Humcon anywhere on labels or in the literature because they intentionally try to keep under everyone's radar. Important people know who Humcon and Bancroft are, however. Bancroft is in the same financial league as Buffet and Gates. Bancroft talks to MP pretty regularly but doesn't have MP's private number. I guarantee you if he wanted it, he'd have it.]

MP and Bancroft exchange pleasantries. Bancroft calls MP by his first name: no need to be bogged down by the formality of "Mr. President."

Bancroft tells MP to speak up; he sounds a little stuffed up. Actually, Bancroft says MP sounds like he's whispering in a tunnel.

Cramer says that MP always sounds like that.

Yeah, perpetual sinus infection issues, says MP. But he'd appreciate it if that was kept under wraps. Matter of national security. Might hurt his reputation for being perfect in every way. Presidents aren't supposed to get sick.

Taking anything for it? asks Bancroft.

A new prescription drug called something like Nasturtium. MP's doctor says it's the latest and greatest.

You mean Nostrotil, says Bancroft, and adds that he has it on good authority that MP should stay far away from that stuff: really nasty side effects.

What's your good authority?

It's ours, says Bancroft. One of my companies developed it, pushed it through the FDA, and is pitching it hard to doctors.

Mine must have caught your pitch, says MP, but he didn't mention anything about side effects.

Most doctors don't have the time to read the literature behind our marketing materials, says Bancroft, and wouldn't find anything negative if they did. Our people did the studies, wrote them up in—how should I put it?—a favorable light, and ghost wrote peer reviews. And the labels are the standard cover-your-ass, legal-eagle boilerplate. Trust me on this, though, says Bancroft, really nasty side effects. But keep that under wraps. We also have a spotless rep to protect. If every new drug didn't cause at least as many problems as it solved, nothing would ever make it to market. But drug companies aren't supposed to sell anything that isn't pure as the driven snow.

[Holy crap, Michael, can you believe that?

[What's a few extra deaths per thousand compared to a healthy company's bottom line, Irwin? Consider all the many thousands of folks whose livelihoods depend on Bancroft's success: investors, creditors, employees, retirees, suppliers, contractors, accountants, lawyers, ad agencies, headhunters, to name a few, and all the secondary beneficiaries like the interior decorator for Bancroft's eight homes and all the health care professionals and businesses for whom those nasty side effects provide a lot of additional work.

[You're joking, right?

[Bancroft's not, Irwin. He's deadly serious.]

Cramer says he really hates to interrupt all this fascinating chit-chat and inquires about what's going on with the message. MP responds by summarizing all of the information and discussions of the morning and saying he needs to get back to his meeting to develop a plan, discuss it with other world leaders, and communicate it at a press conference at noon—almost word for word what he told Mahoney. And responding to Cramer's follow up, MP says that there is still a lot of discussion before any decisions are made, but he expects the result will be that the message needs to be taken seriously and he will be working with all of the other world leaders to take the steps necessary, et cetera, et cetera—this time word for word what he told Mahoney.

[Well, Michael, what do you make of all this?

[I'd say that when MP likes the way he tells a story, he sticks with it, Irwin. It would take too much effort to come up with something different.

[That's not what I meant, Michael.

[I know that, Irwin.]

Cramer tells MP that his plan is bullshit. MP is playing right into the hands of the political left. What is all this crap about the good of all mankind and the Golden Rule but an ill-disguised program for socialism, pure and simple? No right thinking American will ever stand for that. He reminds MP that MP was elected on the platform of individual rights and miniscule government interference. We need to put everything in the hands of the free market and keep government out of the bedroom, the boardroom, and every other goddam room in this U.S. of A. We don't want our hard-earned tax money going to finance the good of all mankind. What legitimate purpose would that serve? And what was all that nonsense about animals and the environment. Hell, the economy never has and never will be able to afford a penny more to be spent on that stuff, unless it's for more oil drilling, natural gas fracking, and bigger feedlots. Look, he tells MP, the American people don't want you to be talking to the Russians or Chinese or those other commie countries like Denmark, or those socialist countries like the U.K. and France, about some new world order that will fuck over our Constitution. Hell, the message even called for an international ban on hand guns and assault weapons. On that note, since MP is not answering their calls, the NRA told Cramer to give MP a firm kick in his posterior.

MP tells Cramer that the message didn't say anything about banning guns. He didn't hear it, and there was nothing like that in the consensus transcript his staff put together.

Cramer says he heard it plain as day and asks Bancroft.

Plain as day, says Bancroft.

[The message didn't say that, did it, Michael?

[Jesus Christ, Irwin, of course it didn't. These guys make this stuff up all the time. You know they are full of shit, but they can even get you to doubt yourself.]

Bancroft's tells MP that he understands why Cramer is very disturbed by this event and he and Cramer agree about the desired outcome. Bancroft says he wants MP to focus on the ideology behind the message. He says that it was such a concise argument for the leftist social position that it could not be a coincidence. He has talked with his counterparts in industry, and they are all in agreement. Right now no one knows the source, but, he tells MP, all of the considerable resources of private enterprise have been turned loose on smoking this out, and he is willing to bet MP a quarter that at the end of the day this will turn out to be a scheme perpetrated by the left. They see this as a battle between good and evil. It's all-out class warfare. He wouldn't be surprised if Michael Moore didn't produce the message as the basis for his next schlockumentary. He says that no one he talked to believes there is a right-wing conspiracy or that anyone has or could develop a doomsday device. So the last thing MP should do is blink. Bancroft tells MP to call their bluff. He doesn't suggest it to MP, he tells him.

Cramer piles on, demanding that MP develop some backbone. And the line goes dead.

[Sounds like Cramer, Bancroft, and our father, I.M.A. II, are reading the same blogs, Michael.

[I'm sorry to have to agree with you, Irwin. It just goes to show you how thoroughly screwed up people are at all levels of our great society, but I'm particularly distressed about the people at dad's level. The Cramers and Bancrofts of this world have more money than sense, so it's at least understandable that they have no empathy for the rabble. But the dads of this world have no empathy either. Maybe it is just human nature's need to feel superior. Or, conversely, maybe it is human nature's need to be blind to the fact that most folks are only one false step or two away from being the ones in trouble. Anyway, I have less patience for the dads.]

As far as I can tell there is no one else in the room, so apparently MP tells himself out loud that Bancroft and Cramer can take their fucking orders and shove them sideways up their fucking asses. They act like they invented capitalism, he says. They are each so worried that some undeserving, underclass bastard, who can't afford a ticket through his own merits, is going to steal their brass rings that they can't enjoy the fact that they are riding the best horses on the carousel. Then he adds that he has to be real careful with these jerk-offs and needs to develop some way of doing what he wants while making it sound like it's their idea, which will be the hardest thing he has to do all day.

[Anything else to say about Cramer and Bancroft, Michael?

[Thanks, Irwin, don't mind if I do. This is Cramer's fifth term, so he's been in the U.S. Senate for over half of his adult life. That means he gets a really good government-paid paycheck, really good government-paid expenses, and really good government-paid health care, and he will get a really good government-paid pension. And it is all guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which means we taxpayers foot the bill for everything. All he needs to do to keep his personal social welfare program going is whatever is necessary to keep the right number of the right voters sending him back. So he has been doing really well by our hard-earned tax money, but god forbid it should be used for the benefit of anyone else, particularly the good of all mankind or the environment. After all, there is only so much taxpayer money to go around, even when the opposition is in power, and even though he may occasionally propose legislation calling for a pay cut for senators or a decrease in their benefits, he can do that with cynical impunity because he knows it will never pass.

[The reason he loves the free market? Pretty much every Fortune 500 company gives him, through fair means or foul, whopping campaign contributions—guaranteeing them and their lobbyists an open door, 24/7 —undisclosed graft, undisclosed investment opportunities, and undisclosed promises of a job when his public service is done. And speaking of insider information, when you look at his investment performance on Wall Street, either he is a genius who puts Buffet to shame, or he is putting all of those nonpublic insights he's getting in committee meetings and in the venerable halls of Congress to excellent use. All so long as he plays ball, within ethical and legal confines, of course. No member of Congress ever wants to get caught doing anything unethical or illegal, so to the extent possible, they decide the rules. Is it illegal for Cramer to benefit from his insider information? Of course not. Every time legislation is proposed that would make it illegal, for some reason it never passes. Do the best interests of the individual taxpayers and the politicians/corporations coincide? No, of course they don't. And one of the many sad things about this sad situation is that most of those taxpayers, who have a burning desire for minimal governmental interference, have no idea how important government is in their lives and what would happen if government were not involved. Cramer, however, understands it all very well, which is why he is more than happy to be on the dole of that great socialist club called the U.S. Senate.

[Bancroft is a different story. The last thing he wants is to be dependent on anyone or anything. Personal freedom is his politics, at any cost to anyone or anything else. He has absolute confidence in himself: no one is smarter than he is, and no one has better judgment. That means that when his company is successful, it is because of him; when it is having problems, it is because of factors beyond his control. He keeps score by how much money—or equivalents like stock options—he makes. The reason for the company's existence is to make him wealthy. He doesn't give a shit about the company or the shareholders. He will manipulate both however he can for as long as he can. If he gets fired, he'll take his multi-million dollar severance package and be handed an even more lucrative CEO job somewhere else. He doesn't give a shit about any of the company's employees, either. They are all tools. Some tools are more expensive and need to be taken better care of than others, but all are fungible, except, of course, for him. He thinks the fact that he makes 550 times more than his average employee is a crime: he believes it should be 1000 times. So the warfare he talks about is between himself and everyone else. Anyone who would take a buck away from him is his enemy, and since unfettered capitalism is what allows him to do what he does, anyone who would interfere with him in any way is anti-free market and a socialist. My guess is that he can't believe that anything significant could happen without his knowing about it—or if he didn't think of it, first—and that he cannot control. So it is not surprising that he would dismiss the message as being yet another example of the handiwork of his economic and political opponents.

[Is that any reason to demonize Bancroft, Michael? He's probably no worse than any of his peers.

[Maybe not. Most senior corporate managers are probably just like him. But your comment is like saying we shouldn't demonize Hitler because he wasn't any worse than any other mass murderer.

[How do you know so much about Bancroft, Michael?

[I'm a good listener. When he talks to MP he likes to brag, Irwin, and he likes to preach his world view. Did you notice his voice, Irwin—arrogant and cold, very cold. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, Irwin, but though I've never actually seen Bancroft, I know he has none. That is not the voice of a man with a soul.

[I'd like to add one more point to what Michael says, guys. This issue really gets my goat. The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is abuse. No matter the human endeavor, some humans always have and always will abuse it to benefit their own self-interest. It is a highly unbecoming part of our human nature. That's why at some point, I'm sure long before King Ur-Nammu of Ur had his legal code written down, humans discovered that the solution to preventing individuals from doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, for their sole benefit and, therefore, to the detriment of everyone else, was . . . anyone? . . . anyone? Jeez, guys—laws. This idea has been around for at least four thousand years, so it drives me nuts when I hear all this talk today about personal freedom and the need for government to stay out of people's lives. Whether they couch their arguments in misinterpretations of Constitutional amendments or claims that regulation will stifle creativity, destroy the economy, further add to a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy, steal their money through taxation, start down the slippery slope to communism, or whatever, what they really mean is: I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, regardless, without interference from anyone—particularly government, which by the way is the only entity powerful enough to make me do what I don't want to do—because I am a selfish, greedy bastard and don't give a flying fuck about anyone or anything else.

[Fine, Anthony, but what is really wrong with looking out for number one?

[Leaving altruism and the brotherhood of man aside, the problem is that 99.999 plus percent of us are not and never will be number one. Someone will always be bigger, stronger, smarter, wealthier, more connected, more driven, more unscrupulous, and downright nastier than you. So the odds of your ever being king of the hill are pretty damn low. Under the circumstances, concepts like fairness, and equal rights, and liberty and justice for all, protected by a government that truly does look after the best interests of all of its citizens, should have a great deal of appeal to that 99 plus percent. But people don't ever seem to get it. They don't mind having the rules favor the elite, because in their heart of hearts they still think they are better than everyone else and will be one of the chosen few someday. Idiots.

[What about the Ten Commandments, Anthony?

[What? What do you mean: what about them?

[You mentioned some written code, but weren't the Ten Commandments the first written laws?

[As usual, Irwin, you missed my entire point. But since there is a break in the action, I might as well try to straighten out that misconception, as well. The Bible says that Moses received the Ten Commandments from god on stone tablets shortly after the Jew's Exodus from Egypt. As you know, I've been tutoring a disadvantaged 10th grader this year, so I just happen to know from our preparation for his history-of-the-ancient-world test that the approximate date of the Exodus was 1513 B.C. Unfortunately, those tablets didn't survive. According to the Bible, god got pissed off at the Israelites and smashed the shit out of them. However, based on the discovery and reconstruction of clay tablets found in that part of present-day Iraq where ancient Sumeria was once located, the experts think that the Code of Ur-Nammu—allegedly dictated to the Sumerians by their numerous gods (60 times 60, that's 3600 fricken gods , Irwin) and considerably more comprehensive at 57 laws—was written somewhere between 2100 to 2050 B.C. So even assuming the Ten Commandment tablets existed, the Code of Ur-Nammu appeared at least five centuries before.

[Ouch! Score one for polytheism. I wonder if the Jewish god had sneaked a peek at Ur-Nammu's Code and tailored it to fit his pet peeves, his eighth law notwithstanding.

[Bingo, Irwin. Original thoughts are rare, so plagiarism can be a problem for even the most supreme of us.

[Thanks for the unusual kind word, Anthony. Do you like tutoring?

[What? Again? I'm enlightening your pea-sized brain with all this great shit, and that's all you can think of to ask? Last tangent, Irwin. I think teaching would be a very rewarding profession except for the part where you have to deal with kids. So, anyway, the point I was trying to make about laws was . . . . Oh, forget it.

[Thanks, Anthony, I already have. Looks like MP can finally go back to his meeting, Michael, now that he has received his diametrically opposed marching orders, unless he's got more calls coming.

[As far as I know, Irwin, MP's only given his cell phone number to three people, and he's just heard from two of them.

[Who's the third, Michael?

[I'll keep you in suspense a little while longer, 'cause I know that person will feel the need to get on MP's case shortly and 'cause I just love surprises.]

### 10:07 a.m.

It's after 10 o'clock. MP goes back to the meeting and calls it to order, which takes a while. Chief of Staff tells him that since he was gone so long, the participants wandered away. Chief of Staff tries to ask him who he was talking with, and MP's response is to say nothing.

[It would be nice every now and then to have video, Irwin. I have to guess at the meaning of silence when I can't see facial expressions or body language—the difference between giving her a wink or the finger.]

Staffer John has been invited back. I can hear him talking briefing- points for Chief of Staff to use, but MP asks John, not Chief of Staff, to update everyone on anything new since the meeting broke.

John says that the calls have now been arranged with the various world leaders, and so far none of them have tried to call MP.

That reminds me, says MP, we are way behind the schedule that some of us talked about earlier. What time are the calls with the other world leaders?

John says this problem is so complex that he figured they wouldn't be able to meet the 8:30 a.m. target, so, with Chief of Staff's concurrence, he took the liberty of scheduling the calls to begin at 11:00, which gives them a little less than an hour to prepare.

Good, says MP. We had talked about having Press Secretary brief the media at 9:00, and we've blown way past that, too.

The press room is packed like a can of oily sardines, says Press Secretary, but they can wait as long as MP wants; they're used to it.

Okay, says MP, go down there now and tell them that the matter is being carefully studied and no decisions have yet been made. You can also say that all options are still on the table, including taking no action. Tell them that I will hold a press conference at noon. Don't take any questions. If you are pressured about the rumor—there is bound to be a leak—that National Security Advisor quit to go home to prepare for the second coming, the response is to neither confirm nor deny.

Shouldn't Press Secretary start with some preliminary comments, something soothing or comforting or reassuring or something? asks Chief of Staff. The world will be watching to see our take on all of this.

Press Secretary can handle that, says MP, which is why he is where he is and you are not. The world can hold on until noon. Then MP tells Press Secretary to go down and sound reassuring. [A door opens and closes] Now, earlier, MP says, we had talked about having Ambassador Martin try to arrange a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly beginning at 10 a.m. The thinking was that since the messenger said "all," there is no other forum for quickly getting most representatives from most countries together at the same time. Depending on how the calls go with the other world leaders, if there is some general feeling that working through the Zoo makes sense, it would be swell if the meeting was already arranged and the delegates were in their seats waiting for instruction. [MP usually refers to the U.N. General Assembly as the Zoo.] Even if it can be arranged, he says, it will probably be totally ineffective, but it seems less insane than trying to get several hundred countries together on a conference call, and we are kind of grasping at straws here.

Martin's working on that, says State, but it looks like the earliest that could be arranged is one o'clock, if at all. The Secretary-General is uncomfortable with moving on it until he hears from the other countries on the Security Council.

My press conference is at noon. So tell Martin to keep trying to get the Zoo to assemble at one o'clock. That will give all the delegates a chance to check in with their folks back home after everyone has heard what I have to say. Tell him he won't have to disembowel himself, however, if he can't get the meeting arranged then. The Secretary-General is always uncomfortable with moving on any subject at any speed faster than glacial because he doesn't want to piss any country off—except us, of course.

Why should he give a shit about us? says State. We are normally the only country that ever wants the U.N. to do anything, so he can't go wrong with doing nothing. He knows that we'll be the U.N.'s sugar daddy, regardless, because we will spare no amount of American lives or taxpayer money to save the world for democracy. That's the kind of folks we are, and we just can't help ourselves.

MP says he wishes he could disagree. Anything else on the scheduling? Okay, sorry about that John, he says, please continue.

John says things are strangely quiet on the diplomatic front. He says that goes for the usual chatter from official and unofficial sources. Among the world government leaders, only the Pope has issued a public statement. Not surprising given the content of the voice's message—which makes the Catholic religion and all others irrelevant, not to mention the fact that the Church of Rome was the only one to take a direct shot from the messenger in everybody's message—the Pope has denounced the message as the work of the devil. He has demanded that all Catholics, and has called upon people of all faiths to, completely and totally ignore what the message said. He tells people to not attempt to confront the devil, which would only increase his power, but to simply ignore him as a sign that he has no power. He reminds everyone how different the world would be if Eve had only had the courage and fortitude to ignore the serpent in the Garden of Eden. He admonishes everyone to never forget that the message is a sign of the great extent of evil in the world. And he closes with a call for the remainder of the 12 hours to be spent in prayer to be followed by 12 hours of celebration when the deadline in the message has passed without incident and good has once again triumphed over the forces of darkness. Answering MP's inquiry, John says that religious organizations of just about every persuasion have since issued similar statements. This is apparently one issue on which even the Sunni and the Shia clerics can agree. It seems that every religion incorporates one or more satan-like bad guys as a foil, so the messenger is suspect. Their message is to ignore the messenger and his message.

In contrast, says John, as expected, a number of evangelical organizations issued statements along the lines of what National Security Advisor said: welcoming the message as the fulfillment of the Book of Revelation prophesy.

In addition, John says, he had a couple of quick calls with Jewish scholars, and many Jews are interpreting the message as the start of the fulfillment of their own apocalyptic prophesies, where—he didn't know this—the "chosen people" finally get back on top through god's complete overthrow of the existing order, and the day of Israel's triumph will be the day of judgment on the Gentiles. Since we Gentiles compose most of the world's human population, however, for obvious reasons, the Jews are hedging their bets and keeping their cheering to themselves.

Only the Dalai Lama and the King of Bhutan have said that they agree with the ethical tenor of the message and have asked governments to heed it.

So Buddhists notwithstanding, religious organizations are pretty well unanimous in having government do nothing. Great, says MP, it looks like we'll have hell to pay no matter what we do.

[I was just going to say that, Irwin.

[Whatever, Michael.]

Regarding U.S. politics, John continues, everyone has a strong opinion. As usual, the loyal opposition is vehemently attacking MP for a lack of leadership and direction, without saying what their position is or what they would do differently. At least they have one, consistent position: if MP says it, they don't like it. Members of MP's own party are pretty much divided into three camps: they either follow National Security Advisor's approach that this is the beginning of the end—which for them is a good thing; or they see it as some sort of left wing or atheist conspiracy to change the world social or religious order; or they believe that the source is one of our many foreign enemies. No one seems to be taking the message at face value. That pretty well also summarizes the pronouncements from the various media pundits and religious opinion makers and the initial responses to a public radio opinion poll. The poll numbers: 11% of the public believe there are elitist conspiracies, but, of those, less than 1% believe any of them plan to destroy the world; 34% believe that someone, somewhere, has a doomsday device, but, of those, only 6% believe that it would be deployed today; 16% believe that the message came from any god of any religion; 9% believe that it came from the hands-off god exactly as he described himself; and only 3%--within the margin of error—believe the entire message, exactly as delivered. Oh, and nearly 25% thought the message came from aliens, not counting god as an alien, of course. And as a rather bizarre . . .

MP interrupts and says that after the earlier mention of Martians, he had totally forgotten about aliens—he assumes John means extraterrestrial aliens, not the ones slipping across from Nogales. Once again the intelligence of the American public astounds him. He asks John to add aliens to the list. [I think he is kidding.]

Ever vigilant to score points and wildly misunderstanding MP's comment—I certainly hope—State asks John if there is any reason to conclude that we have been contacted by aliens.

No, says John. No aliens.

What were you saying, John, about a bizarre something? says MP.

On the subject of the intelligence of our fellow Americans, the opinion poll tossed in a final question, apparently as some sort of control to gage the public state of mind, and you will be discouraged to learn that 31% of those polled believe that the sun revolves around the earth.

No response, so John presses on. All of the world stock markets are closed. Otherwise, on the surface, world business seems to be treating today as business as usual. However, there are rumors that there is some substantial selling going on behind the scenes, worldwide, not quite at the panic level, yet, but substantial nonetheless. MP casually asks John to continue to monitor and report on that subject along with everything else.

There are scattered reports of civil unrest—riots, looting, etc.—in various third world countries, John says.

Pretty much the reaction you'd expect from them, Homeland Security chimes in. The higher the socio-economic level, the higher the educational level, the less likely a country's people will react emotionally.

[Yeah right, Irwin. Can you believe that elitist bullshit? Let's see what happens in those third world places called Los Angeles and Detroit and New Orleans. And let's see what happens in the rest of our superior country as the doomsday hour approaches. Although, you do have to wonder, with his world about to end, what the guy stealing the TV set is thinking.]

John says there is one last thing he wanted to mention. He asks if anyone has given any thought to the time of the message.

Today is the day the doomsday device is supposed to go off, says State.

Yes, says John, at 7 p.m. EST, but what about the actual time of the message? Why not 7 last night, midnight, or 2 or 3 a.m. this morning?

He . . . it . . . wanted to give 12-hours' notice, says Homeland Security.

Why 12?

We don't know, John, says MP, you tell us.

The time of the message was directed at us, the heart of the U.S. government, that is. Seven a.m. is at the start of our day on the East Coast of the U.S. The 12-hour-notice period isn't a particularly convenient time for the rest of the world or anywhere else in the U.S., for that matter. Seven to seven could not be better for us here in D.C. It couldn't be a coincidence.

Well, says MP, if you are right, I hope the courtesy is well placed. Let's try hard not to disappoint him.

Press Secretary comes back in the room and reports that the briefing went well. All claimed to be annoyed that Press Secretary didn't say anything of substance, but they are used to that. They are now focused on speculating about what MP will say at noon. There was one question about National Security Advisor, and Press Secretary said what MP told him to say.

MP thanks Press Secretary and then notes that when the meeting previously adjourned they were at the point where VP was going to make the case for taking the message seriously. He asks whether anything that happened in the interim, including John's update, has caused anyone to change their perspective.

### 10:17 a.m.

There is much discussion, principally between State, Homeland Security, and Press Secretary. I take this lull in the action to hit the head again and pour myself another cup of fabulous coffee. Among the other perks of this job, if you will excuse the pun, is they provide—actually I buy and Jerry has no apparent qualms about reimbursing me for—really good, $25 dollar-a-bag, grind-your-own coffee beans and a really expensive—I am embarrassed to tell the taxpayers how much—Italian espresso/cappuccino/coffee machine. I ordered the machine, but Jerry signed the req. I caught him with a hangover early one Sunday morning. Timing, as they say, is everything.

With my wireless headset I can use the facilities, get a cup, et cetera, without missing a beat. In fact, most days, when nothing of interest is happening, I only monitor the conversations periodically to be sure that the equipment is working properly. In fact, I don't really even need to do that since my computers give me the real-time status. I listen as necessary because that is what the protocol requires, and my computers will rat me out to my boss if I don't do exactly what the protocol requires. I haven't figured out how to trick those ungrateful little bastards, but I am working on it.

So usually when I'm not listening to MP, I'm listening to my MP3. And when I'm not monitoring my computers, I'm reading everything I can get my hands on and daydreaming about Janie. I'm telling you, is this a great job or what? And then of course there is Sarah, Sarah Junior, and Natalie. It will be real disappointing if it all ends today.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. Does anyone remember those old Lone Ranger jokes? Meanwhile back at the ranch, Tonto, not knowing that the Lone Ranger was disguised as a pool table, racked his balls. Or my favorite: meanwhile back at the ranch, the Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by hostile Indians. "Looks like we are done for," says the Lone Ranger. "What you mean 'we' white eyes," says Tonto.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I haven't been listening. I took my headset off to give my ears a break. Why don't I just switch to the speakers? Because the protocol requires me to use headphones. I think the protocol was written by some tight-assed, paranoid, myopic, oblivious, computer nerd—probably someone very much like myself. Since I'm not exactly following the protocol to the letter today, why not throw caution to the wind and turn on the speakers? We don't have speakers—the protocol.

### 10:22 a.m.

When I put the headphones back on, State, Homeland Security, and Press Secretary are still at it. Finally, Chief of Staff asks MP if she can comment. He says yes, and she says that so far the debate has only consisted of all the political pros and cons regarding whether to ignore the message, which gave that subject a full airing but totally missed the point. If the message is true and the world is going to blow up in a few hours, how the President and his administration will be viewed politically tomorrow is irrelevant.

State, Homeland Security, and Press Secretary object, of course, because Chief of Staff has just said they are idiots, but MP asks VP what he thinks.

VP says he is the wrong person to ask since he believes and has already stated that the prudent position is to seriously consider the message on its face, nothing in the interim has changed his view, and that critical discussion keeps getting sidetracked, much to his frustration.

State starts to say something and then stops mid-sentence.

[I wish I was a fly on the wall so I could see what happened to shut State up, Michael.

[Talk about over-used, moronic clichés mouthed by dunces to sound hip, Irwin. Makes "you go girl" pale by comparison.

[Jerk.

[Loser.

[Why do you guys always have to sound like middle school morons?

[Because, Anthony, effective communicators speak to their audience in words and concepts that their average listener can understand and identify with.]

MP tells VP that he has the floor.

VP says that after listening to John's earlier briefing and giving it a little more thought, he is open to the idea that the message not only didn't come from one of our traditional enemies but didn't come from anyone on Earth. And after listening to the positions from the various religious quarters, he is also open to the idea that the message didn't come from the devil. And since he doesn't have any reason to believe we have been contacted by aliens, therefore, maybe we should consider taking the message seriously, reserving judgment, and talking about the substance of the third part of the message. What does anyone know about an international conspiracy?

Homeland Security says that there has been a long-time, persistent rumor that there is yet another secret society, on top of all of the other secret societies, only this one—he stops and says he'll quote from the transcript of this morning's message because the message pretty well summed up all of the intel he's seen—is a, quote, small but extremely powerful international group of elitists, composed of military, business, government, science, and religious leaders, close quote, quote, who have been plotting for years to destroy the human race so that their hand-picked clique, to the exclusion of the unfit remainder of all mankind, will get immediately shipped to heaven without having to go through the usual channels, close quote. Homeland Security says the, quote, immediately shipped part, close quote, isn't clear to anyone he's talked to, other than it sounds like some sort of martyrdom concept: you take one for the team and you go immediately to the awards ceremony. He says that his intel has mentioned the possibility of a, quote, doomsday device, close quote, but there never have been any specifics about the group, the members, or the device. Given today's military information technology emphasis, there has been some speculation that the device was actually some sort of cyber worm that would infect critical computers, launching nuclear missiles, exploding nuclear power plants, et cetera. He says that both the FBI and the CIA have files on the subject, but with the exception of two unusual incidents, the files are meager. After a pause he adds that, as usual, FBI and CIA never compared notes.

The unusual incidents? A few years ago, the FBI got a tip from an anonymous source about this alleged high-roller conspiracy, code named, quote, Endgame, close quote. An agent here in D.C. was assigned to follow up on the tip. The agent subsequently told his superior that he had received some new information and asked for authority to try to put an undercover informant in place. As you know, Homeland Security says, the FBI routinely manages informants in hundreds of organizations alleged to be dangerous to the internal security of the United States. So this was a routine request that was routinely granted. Then, a few weeks later, a high-level political appointee in the Bureau, let's call him Sid, received a visit at his house from a, quote, big shot civilian, close quote, who asked about this case. In due course, the file was retrieved, and against all the rules and in violation of law, Sid and the civilian read the file together on Sid's computer over cognacs in Sid's study. Homeland Security says he understands it sounds like a movie starring Denzel Washington, but it gets better. We know all this because, later, when an attempt was made to reconstruct the file, Sid, who apparently was too dumb to know any better—he was apparently an old drinking buddy of the President then in office whose personal injury law practice in Crawford, Texas had fallen on hard times and he needed a job—wrote a hand written note summarizing the meeting. Hold on, Homeland Security says, he's getting to why the file needed to be reconstructed. A few days later, the FBI agent working the Endgame case vanished, as they say, without a trace, and many of his working files, including Endgame, vanished with him—paper and electronic. He's a busy guy, working a lot of cases, most of them involving potentially big-time criminal matters; any one of which could have caused him to disappear. Endgame does not even make the top 10. We never find him or the files, and we never learn what happened. However, there is now an embarrassing gap to fill, and files are reconstructed. Since the Endgame conspiracy is at the bottom of the list, it gets short shrift, so we don't know the specific content of the initial tip or the substance of any additional information discovered, for example, whether an informant was successfully placed, with whom, and what happened. If there ever was an undercover informant, he never turned up. The agent's boss barely remembered the matter, and Sid, who is now dead—a car accident the day he wrote the summary—failed to mention the name of his visitor in his note. Homeland Security says that there is no reason to believe that the two incidents are linked; he has mentioned them at the same time only because they are the only two matters of interest in the FBI investigation. Homeland Security says he knows it sounds like a Ludlum novel, but people would be surprised at the number of actual cases that sound like a contrived conspiracy plot. If you are a conspiracy theorist, he says, you have a lot of real-life material to work with.

Homeland Security then says that he has heard from his counterparts in other countries that there have been numerous, unconfirmed rumors of a high-level conspiracy, but that's it. Rumors. Unconfirmed. He has also heard from his contact at the D.C. police that they have been deluged with calls since the message, and a fair number are from people claiming to have information about the conspiracy. He has formed a joint FBI/D.C. police task force to follow up, and agents throughout the U.S. have been ordered to contact and work with their local law enforcement.

One last thing, Homeland Security says: another plot for another novel. His D.C. police contact recalls talking with a guy last year who claimed he had information about some religious group composed of very high-level people—he remembers the guy referring to them as the crème de la crème—who were plotting to destroy the world. My contact blew him off and never heard from him again, but he remembered that the guy had left a whole bunch of documentation that he never looked at. He put it in a file jacket and sent it to records. He tried to find it this morning, and the file is missing. The file was logged in on July 28, the day they met, and—here we go again, Homeland Security says—my contact ran a computer search and learned that this guy died in an apparent mugging late evening July 28. No reason to believe the meeting and the guy's death are related, but even if you don't believe in conspiracies, we are starting to see a lot of coincidences. We've assigned ten members of the joint task force to investigate the guy and his story, but this is a job for weeks or months, not hours.

John says everything he's learned agrees with what Homeland Security said: lots of rumors; no evidence.

MP asks Homeland Security what he thinks.

Homeland Security says that he has been in one type of law enforcement or another for 35 years, and his gut tells him where there's smoke, there's fire.

MP asks Homeland Security what that means.

Homeland Security says if someone put a gun to his head and he had to bet, he would put his money on the truth of this conspiracy. Why? This kind of information is usually like the old telephone game, no matter the original story, by the time it makes the rounds, what gets reported is inconsistent if not unrecognizable. As far as he can tell, he says, the basic, quote, facts, close quote, in all the rumors regarding this highly-placed conspiracy are consistent among themselves and with this morning's message. Far from conclusive, I know, he says, but now that he thinks about it, it is the best explanation he's heard so far today.

MP asks Homeland Security what that means.

It means, he says, that he believes this is a credible threat to our national security, and while he is reserving judgment about the messenger and most of the message, he agrees with VP that they should take the conspiracy part of the message seriously enough to follow up on it.

MP asks Homeland Security, in view of what he just said, why in god's name he didn't bring all of this up before?

Because, says Homeland Security, while I believe there is a credible threat to our national security, I don't think it is immediate. I don't believe the 12-hour bullshit.

That was not your call, Frank, says MP. From now on you don't take a piss without telling me first. Got it?

Silence.

Got it Frank?

Got it Mr. President.

Okay, says MP, he has heard enough. He is not willing to bet the fate of the human race on the proposition that the messenger is bluffing. He asks if anyone disagrees. No one says anything, and MP asks where they go from here.

VP says that as agonizing and time-wasting as it was, jumping the previous hurdle was really the easy part: the hard part is figuring out what to do about it.

MP asks for options.

VP says he sees only two, and neither of them have a high likelihood of success. One, we locate the doomsday machine and turn it off, ourselves, before the deadline, or prove that there never was one. Two, we satisfy the messenger of our good intentions.

Homeland Security says that finding the conspirators and the doomsday machine, or proving they don't exist, is his highest priority and he will do everything he can to make it the highest priority of all of his counterparts throughout the world. But it ain't going to happen by the deadline. Hell, he says, chuckling, even Jack Bauer needed 24 hours. No reaction.

Press Secretary asks if they should get the military involved.

Homeland Security laughs and asks Press Secretary what planet he comes from. First, he says, we are involved in two wars, three police actions, and a couple of dozen peace-keeping missions throughout the world, so from just which campaign should the military be reassigned? Second, even if the specific units and jobs were already identified, which, of course, they are not, our Commander and Chief, here, could issue the order this second, and it would still take a minimum of a month to get anyone deployed.

And third, says VP, this type of mission isn't exactly within the military's area of expertise. If we want bungled intelligence outside of the U.S., we should really rely on the CIA and its contractors; they have much more experience at it.

Press Secretary says he was just trying to do a little brainstorming.

Homeland Security, regaining his manhood by biting the runt, tells Press Secretary that, first, Press Secretary needs to have a working brain.

[I'm surprised MP let that go, Michael.

[After Press Secretary's earlier let's-pretend-it-never-happened suggestion, MP is probably with Homeland Security on that one.]

Okay, says MP, I think we all agree that it would be more than a miracle for us to stop this on our own. So we are left with the second option.

Right, says VP, we need to satisfy the messenger of our good intentions. So what do we need to do and how do we do it? There is not a lot of direction here, he says. Then he quotes some passages from the transcript of the message.

The only way for you to achieve heaven here and now . . . is for everyone and everything else to be happy. You will be happy only by making others happy. Thus: my Golden Rule. Therefore—here's the commandment—three things shall be changed. The first is so called government. . . . The starting point must be an agreement among the leaders of all countries guaranteeing you will do everything in your power to achieve world peace and happiness for their citizens. . . . If the government leaders can show me that they have made a serious effort toward getting their act together by 12 hours from now, I will turn off the device and provide the details of this conspiracy. . . . One last reminder: none of the usual posturing, spinning, doubletalk, and outright lies will be tolerated. . . . I am not human. I know you better than you know yourselves, and I know what you are thinking.

Yeah right, says MP, to paraphrase Homeland Security, that ain't going to happen either. I knew that when I heard the message, and I've been thinking about it all morning, hoping we had some other alternatives. Let's face it, if the eye in the sky means what he says about requiring a universal agreement guaranteeing world peace . . .

And happiness for everyone, Press Secretary chimes in.

. . . and he reads minds, then we are fucked. We might as well pack it in right now.

He's got to know it's impossible, says State. We can't get the world governments to agree on what should be on the menu at the U.N. cafeteria.

Of course he knows it, says Homeland Security. The sadistic bastard is playing with us. The whole notion is preposterous. I doubt that the various theocracies and dictatorships will even acknowledge that anything has happened. And what about those coup-of-the-month countries where we don't even know who is in charge today? Worse, they don't know, either.

Stop being so politically correct, says State. When you say theocracy, you mean Arab.

Actually, says Homeland Security, he is in the habit of saying exactly what he intends. Besides, you mean Muslim, not Arab, since not all Muslim countries are Arab.

State says she knows that and her point is that there are no other countries where god is in charge.

[Don't forget where you're at, sweetheart.]

John says he can think of one, near and dear to their hearts, where for eight years, not so very long ago, its president took orders directly from his own personal god.

[In your face! I'm getting to really like this guy.]

MP tells John that he is not a knight at this round table, but I think I hear a wink in his voice. Then in a very serious tone he tells the group to stop fucking around and stay on track. They are running out of time.

MP's cell phone has received three calls in the last five minutes from the mysterious third person—no voice mail but a screaming text message: "CALL ME NOW!!!" MP's buzzer works just fine, I can hear it from here, but he's ignoring it, so he'll have to excuse himself shortly to find out that he's been yelled at.

[Time to reveal who's behind door number three, Michael?

[All in good time, Irwin. Hold on, I want to hear this.]

Chief of Staff just asked for permission to say something.

Oh for Christ sake, Elizabeth, says MP, stop pussy-footing around. I got over being mad at you a half hour ago.

At the risk of sounding like the gender-typical cheerleader, here, says Chief of Staff, it's pretty clear to me that we can either feel sorry for ourselves, sit on our fat—speaking only for herself, of course—asses, and shake our fists at the sky, or we can buckle up or down or whatever and try to do something about it. We are all here because we are problem solvers, and this will be the biggest motherfucking problem we will ever face, so let's lock and load and get it done. It's fourth down, with one second on the clock and 60 yards to go, so we'll toss up a Hail Mary. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Don't give up the ship. All we have to fear is fear itself. It's always darkest before the dawn. This is a team effort. We've got to dig down deep, get back to the fundamentals, take it one play at a time, and give it 110%. Look, she says, I'm all out of happy-ass clichés, will one of you assholes help me out, here?

Loud laughter.

Elizabeth's right as usual, says MP. Every now and then that Hail Mary works. All we can do is put ourselves in the best position we can and hope for the miracle. But what's the position and what's the miracle?

I just had a thought, says Press Secretary—someone snorts and someone says "not again." But Press Secretary didn't get where he is today, as the communications lead for this President, by being cowed by a hostile audience or embarrassed by a stupid remark. He says if there's one thing he knows about it is understanding the signals and intention behind words. After all, sending messages is what he does for a living. We've been concentrating on the apparent impossibility of the final result: world peace, happiness, yada yada, says Press Secretary. But the messenger has left us a big fricken opening. Listen while I read what he said: quote, if the government leaders can show me that they have made a serious effort towards getting their act together by 12 hours from now, I will turn off the device and provide the details of this conspiracy, close quote. A serious effort towards getting their act together, says Press Secretary. Serious effort. There's enough wiggle room there to float a battleship through.

Okay, says State, let's take a real world look at this. We have to overcome national pride and self-interest issues—and religious hostility—everywhere. But let's say for the sake of discussion we can make an arguably serious effort towards moving in that direction, particularly with the democratic countries, what do we do with those governments that frankly aren't interested in world peace and the happiness of their citizens? What would a serious effort towards getting our act together require? I personally don't think that talking until we're blue in the face will do it. Press Secretary is an expert at playing with words. I'm an expert at talking 'til I'm blue in the face to totally self-interested, egomaniacal heads of state.

Is that what diplomacy means? says Homeland Security. I always wondered what you do. Seriously, he says, it has always been a matter of talking softly and carrying a big stick. When the diplomatic option doesn't work, the only option left is war.

Or the serious threat of war, says State.

And that is something our military is very good at, says Homeland Security, at least until we get to the occupation phase.

Let me see if I get this straight, says Chief of Staff. I think I like it, but first let me be sure I understand it. The concept is that if we and the other countries that agree with us are willing to go to war to force the bad actors, or I should say our hand-picked successors to the bad actors, to embrace the messenger's Golden Rule, we think that might satisfy the messenger.

Maybe to get over the hurdle of the initial deadline, but I suspect he wouldn't give us a lot of additional time to follow through, says Press Secretary. We would have to mean business.

So, says Homeland Security, we would have the first truly world-wide war, or threat thereof—every country in the world is either with us or against us—in order to save mankind and have world peace.

Unfortunately it's not really a new idea, is it, says VP. It was part of the rhetoric if not the reason behind our involvement in WWs I and II and every war since if you substitute "democratic rule" for "mankind." But, he says, as usual I think we are jumping the gun. What is it going to take to get other countries to climb on board with us?

Well, says Chief of Staff, they need to reach the same conclusion we have: they need to either believe the message or decide that the most prudent course is to act as if the message is true. If they don't buy it, then, as Madam Secretary says, we are wasting our breath.

I hate to be cynical about it, says Press Secretary, but the proof is in the pudding. What's the harm if the leader of every country does what the messenger says until 7 p.m. EST.? If it turns out that the message is true, it was a smart bet. If nothing happens, they can all say never mind and go back to being the self-centered jerkoffs—present company excepted, of course, Mr. President—they've always been.

I think that's our best argument, says MP. And we can mention the possibility of the military option to our friends and keep that in our back pocket for later for those who don't initially see it our way.

Press Secretary says that he just had another thought. This time nobody objects. Maybe if the good guys could convince the messenger of our sincerity, including our willingness to go to war, maybe we could also convince him to take care of that part for us. He claims he's never interfered before, but in for a penny, in for a pound. I mean, Press Secretary says, I imagine it would be no big deal for him to smite the bad guys. It would be much faster, more efficient, more cost effective and less . . . messy all around.

State says she can tell that the pressures of today's events are getting to her when what Press Secretary says starts to make sense.

I think it is critical that we continue to remind everyone, including ourselves, says VP, that to pull this off, all of us need to believe that the message is true to the degree that we are credible, not only among ourselves, but particularly to the messenger.

Okay, says MP, with that admonition, we are all going to be giving a pep talk to the rest of the world, shortly, and we need to be on the same page, so I want you to delineate exactly what we are going to say. Then he says he needs to go back to his office and asks State to lead the discussion and Press Secretary to prepare talking points and a script to be distributed to everyone who'll be lobbying their foreign counterparts.

John says they've only got a few minutes.

Press Secretary says fear not, my son, I've already written 99% of it on my pad as we speak.

In the hallway Chief of Staff asks if there is something she can do to help MP.

MP says the best thing she can do to help him is to stay with the group and work on developing the talking points. As a wise person recently told him, we can't afford to fuck this up.

### 10:39 a.m.

Back in the Oval Office, MP sits quietly for five minutes.

[What's up with that, Michael? MP doesn't seem to be in any hurry to respond to "CALL ME NOW!!!".

[Probably oppositional defiance, Irwin. Anyway, are you ready for the unveiling? Drum roll. Sig Sigurdson.

[Excuse me?

[The mysterious third caller is Sig Sigurdson.

[Never heard of him.

[Not surprising. He would be very disappointed if you had. You can Google him 'till the cows come home, and you will never find him. Like someone else we know, he is also in the business of sending messages and telling people what to do, but the absolute last thing he wants is for anyone to know it. He owns hundreds of shell companies that own thousands of shell companies that own TV and radio networks, TV and radio stations, newspaper, magazine, and book publishers, and myriad web-based companies. He has on his payroll—he calls it subsidizing—hundreds of newscasters, reporters, talking heads, analysts, pundits, evangelists, and business tycoons who supposedly work for independent news, entertainment, and religious organizations, educational and research institutions, and think tanks. For the old school he subsidizes print authors and ghost writers and opinion and letter-to-the-editor writers; for the new school he subsidizes thousands of bloggers, tweeters, texters, Facebookers, emailers, and whatever "ers" are the most recent flavor of the month. He subsidizes people in the right places in the right federal, state, and local administrations and agencies around the world, but particularly in the U.S., not to mention the right people in Congress and federal and state legislatures, at home and abroad.

[He operates through a pyramid of thousands of people who only know the people they work for directly above them. Only a handful knows who he is, and very few have ever talked to him face to face, or even seen him. He uses the telephone—encrypted of course—and, just recently, texting. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that no one has ever gotten very far trying to work through the maze to find him. Those who've tried kept running into dead ends constructed by subsidees. And what is the purpose of this network of networks you ask? To get his message across to the U.S. public, primarily, but also to the people of the rest of the world.

[And what is that message, Michael?

[Religious fundamentalism, family values, capitalism, individualism, self-reliance without any government interference—pretty much the survival of the fittest, although he thinks that evolution is a crock—anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-environment, and basic distrust of and hatred for anyone who doesn't agree with him.

[Well, it seems to be working, Michael. I mean, I certainly see and hear that message all the time, but I always thought it was coming from a whole lot of like-minded individuals.

[Like-minded individuals only to the extent that they have been nudged—and sometimes pushed—in that direction by being handed talking points and a script, which are usually heavy on emotional and, frequently, inflammatory language, light on the facts, and unconcerned about the truth. Most of what these folks say makes no sense whatsoever, but they are so worked up that they and their listeners don't care.

[It never occurred to me that it was coordinated; that just one person could be . . .

[Composing, orchestrating, and directing it, like Mahler conducting the orchestra that is playing his music? And Sigurdson has been doing this for a long time. He claims to have subsidized five U.S. Presidents, seven Vice Presidents, a shit-load—his word—of MP and VP candidates, a dozen or so Supreme Court Justices, and even three Federal Reserve Chairmen. He once told MP that the first book he subsidized was published in 1957. He also told MP that he initially developed the concept for his network as an enraged reaction to the left-wing muckraking by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, directed at Republicans in general and Richard Nixon in particular. These guys were way before my time, so I Googled them. Respectively, they were the preeminent investigative reporters of their day—the 40s, 50s, and 60s—and their agenda was definitely on the political left. Sigurdson said that what he learned from them was that nobody cares about the truth. You win your arguments and bring your opponents to their knees through innuendo, insinuation, and blatant lies. So he decided to build a propaganda machine that would dominate the left, then, now, and forever more. He is quite pleased with how it turned out.

[So we can safely assume, Michael, that MP is one of his subsidees?

[I have never heard the nature of their relationship or the subject of money ever discussed, Irwin. Sigurdson talks to MP at least once a day, usually around 11 p.m. He tells MP a lot of things, things a very secretive man would expect to be kept secret, things you might only tell your best friend. I've never heard him tell MP to do anything. Usually MP just listens, but I've never heard him disagree with Sigurdson. And, I've never heard him mention Sigurdson to anyone in any way, even out loud to himself when he delivers one of his soliloquies. Maybe their philosophies simply match. Maybe they are just like-minded people. Excuse me, Irwin—gotta take this.]

Jerry calls asking how I'm doing.

Fine.

He asks if I need anything.

No, I'm good, all the equipment is working fine, and everything is under control. Are you or one of the other guys coming in before my shift is over?

He says no, no need. Besides, he says, he got a call from his boss a little while ago saying this was such a critical time it would be better if everyone stayed out of Michael's way and let him run with it. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Strange. From what you've mentioned before, Jerry, I didn't think your boss had a clue who I am.

Frankly, Michael, I didn't really think he did. Anyway, when he says "it would be better if," that means "do it," so you're on your own 'till Chuck relieves you at 7.

Better tell Chuck to shoot for 7:30, I say. No sense for him to leave the bar early if he is just going to be exterminated on the way.

### 10:45 a.m.

While I'm talking to Jerry, MP calls Sigurdson back. Sigurdson sounds annoyed and says he's disappointed that MP hadn't called him earlier.

MP, sounding equally annoyed, says that he's been a little busy and, besides, he was waiting until he had a better understanding of the situation.

Sigurdson, who has a habit of calling MP "my boy," says that since he thought they had developed a close, personal relationship, he had expected MP to call, like MP was a member of the family, if only to see how "Old Sig" was doing and exchange thoughts. He says, now sounding a little drunk, that today's events have given him some reason to reflect on life and what is important. He says that he never expected to be telling MP this: he never had any children, but if he had had a son, he would be about MP's age. And it would have made him real proud to call MP his son.

MP apologizes and says he's honored and flattered, but as long as Sigurdson is being so open with him, Sigurdson needs to know that MP's father was a miserable excuse for a human being and that, as a result, he has always had a strong aversion to male authority figures. He says that if he hadn't been concerned that it would have destroyed his political career, he probably would have spent years in psychotherapy trying to get rid of the old man. He says that's probably the reason he never wanted to have anything to do with the Boy Scouts or organized sports or the military. The last thing he needed was another macho asshole telling him how to run his life. And that is why, by choice, he was always a party outsider and stubbornly independent. He was lucky to be running for office at a time when being an outsider and independent were politically in vogue, so against all odds, he winds up as President of the United States, where everyone thinks they own him and can tell him what to do. However, he says, if in the future, after hearing all that, Sigurdson still wants him to be part of his family, he would be pleased and proud. Then he adds, if we have one: a future, that is.

There is a pause. Then Sigurdson says that he can't remember the last time anyone referred to him as a macho asshole, even indirectly. Also, he hopes that he has never given the impression that he thought he owned MP and was telling him what to do.

Present company excepted, of course, MP tells Sigurdson, but if he didn't call to tell MP what to do, Sigurdson would be the first person today.

Well, says Sigurdson, actually he did have a couple of thoughts he wanted to share with MP. Sigurdson's voice is now warm, friendly, and full of good humor. Did I mention that Sigurdson sounds a lot like what Jack Nicholson would sound like if he was ever warm and friendly?

MP laughs and suggests they start again. He fills Sigurdson in on what was happening at his end. He says they have decided to act as if the message is true, and he summarizes the discussions with his staff and the approach they are going to take with the other countries.

Sigurdson says that sounds like a plan.

MP asks if Sigurdson had anything more specific to add.

Sigurdson says that in his humble opinion, whatever MP does will not make any difference, anyway. The important thing is that MP is leading the charge. Besides, this is a great day, the greatest day in the history of this world since the lord god said, "Let there be light."

And why is that? asks MP.

Well, says Sigurdson, he thought that was obvious.

Not completely, no, says MP, he has been discussing possibilities all morning, and one of them is that the world could end today, at least as far as humans are concerned. Then, after a pause he says, you aren't one of those elitist conspirators, are you?

Interesting you should ask me that, Sigurdson says in a reflective tone of voice, he's been ruminating about that all morning.

Whether you are a conspirator? asks MP.

Sigurdson says that he has actually been ruminating about three different subjects.

First, he says, one thing is apparent from this morning's message: the U.S. of A— and, therefore, its President— will be the most important player in today's events. Pop political thought to the contrary, the U.S. may be in decline, but the voice still thinks we've got it. Then he does an impression of Jack Nicholson singing a few bars of "I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy." Did I mention that Sigurdson often underscores a point by singing to MP?

Second, Sigurdson says he's devoted most of his adult life and most of his money to figuring out the most effective ways to communicate his strongly held beliefs, and this morning this voice in his head trumps everything he has tried to do in one fell swoop. And to make matters worse, Sigurdson says, while he's only been successful in bringing over a relative handful of people to his way of thinking, this voice gets the world's attention literally in no time. Admirable and annoying, he says. He would kill for that technology, and if it existed on this planet, he would have known about it. Therefore, he says, this voice isn't from around these parts.

Third, he says, but none of this really makes any difference because if there is this conspiracy—he's not saying there is, but if there is—the conspirators can't lose. It's a win/win.

Keep talking, says MP.

The way I look at it, says Sigurdson, their goal is to die for their faith because they believe that is their direct ticket to heaven: Boom! their work is done here, and Boom! they are in heaven. If there is a doomsday device and it goes off, they win. But even if MP somehow pulls it off and manages to satisfy the voice, and the voice takes them out, they are still martyrs, they still go directly to heaven, and they still win.

But Sig, says MP, if the voice is right, that must mean that there is no god, no religion, for them to die for. They've done it for nothing.

Sigurdson says that MP's problem is using logic when this is the time and the place for faith. Believe me, Sigurdson says, that voice is not god. I know the true god and what he has in store for his true believers.

MP says he's sorry, but he can't agree. This is exactly the time for logic, and reason, and objectivity; the fate of mankind can't depend on faith.

Sigurdson asks if MP really means that.

MP says he's also been doing a lot of thinking, and yes, he's sorry, but he's come to the conclusion that he is going to do everything in his power to see to it that no one is going to heaven today.

Sigurdson says he's sorry, too. He'd hoped that MP would see it his way. He says it looks like MP won't be invited to the family reunion after all, so he has a couple of quick calls to make.

MP starts to respond, but the line goes dead. He dials Sigurdson's number, but there is no answer. He tries again, and his cell phone's digital attempt at a female voice says this number is not in service.

[Wow, Michael, that got nasty in a hurry. What do you make of it?

[I frankly don't know, Irwin. I'm being paid these big bucks to do inane commentary, and I frankly have no idea. All I can say is stay tuned.

[That was helpful, Michael. I'm sure our audience is overwhelmed by your insight.

[Shove it, Irwin.]

### 10:51 a.m.

MP is talking to himself again. No, he's talking to the messenger. If you are real and your message is real, and you are sincere about your Golden Rule and saving mankind, and you did choose the timing to favor the United States and you want us to be successful, help me. I'm not asking for any favors. I'm not asking for a miracle. I'm not praying to you. I'm asking you to help me. You know our plan. Pitiful as it is, it is the best we have been able to develop. Unless something happens, there is no chance that it will work. I can't let myself believe that you would contact us and challenge us if you thought that you were asking the impossible. I want to pull this off. You know me, so you understand that I am lucky to be where I am and have done precious little to deserve it. I'm not a particularly good man. I have been a terrible husband and father. Despite my independent marketing, my real achievement has been to be the most successful panderer to my constituents. This is my chance to do something really worthwhile for the first time in my life. I don't care about myself or what happens to me. I'm asking you as if you were a man, man to man, help me. I will do the work. Help me understand what to do. At the end of the day, if you are satisfied, I will do whatever you want. I will resign. I will quit politics. I will go around the world preaching your Golden Rule. Or kill me, or I will kill myself. Do it now if that's what you want. Name it. If I had a soul to sell, it's yours. This is the most important task of my life, and I refuse to fail. If you don't help me, you know it won't happen, so this has been a set up from the start. Show some of that compassion you're complaining we lack. Knock off that hands-off bullshit and stop blaming us; the blood of all mankind will be on your hands.

[Comment, Michael, Anthony?

[I am trying to remain hopeful, Irwin, but that was the sound of gut-wrenching despair. I think we should honor MP by shutting our traps.]

[Amen, brother Anthony.]

### 11: 00 a.m.

After a minute of silence, Press Secretary comes into the oval office and gives MP the script and talking points for his review. MP says Press Secretary should stay while he looks at it, and MP asks Press Secretary several questions as he reads. Then he says it is good work, with one exception. He says that there are a few critical aspects that have not been adequately emphasized. Then MP tells Press Secretary that he wants to make a short recording to be played at the start of every call that MP will not personally be on. It will hopefully highlight how critical he feels this situation is and how strongly he feels about it. Press Secretary expresses some misgivings, but MP tells him to do it. Within 10 minutes, MP recorded the following, first take, without rehearsal, without Press Secretary knowing the substance in advance, and, in fact, apparently off the top of his head:

My friends in the international community: I apologize for not being able to speak to each one of you personally, but, unfortunately, I do not have the messenger's knack for individual communication, and I know you understand the practical limitations and the need for speed. I want to make five quick points, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues to speak directly with you.

First, I strongly believe that we must all acknowledge the possibility that the message is real, and we must act accordingly. This is a very difficult leap for all of us to take for many reasons, but we in the American government can find no factual basis for concluding that the message is anything other than what it purports to be. So, we are taking it seriously, and we urge you to, as well. Therefore, we are appealing to you to work with us to meet the messenger's demand.

Second, rather than looking at this occurrence as a calamity, we urge you to view this as an opportunity, without precedent, to change the world for the better; for the good of everyone. I do not pretend to know what the final result will look like or how we will get there, but I am very excited and optimistic about the possibilities.

Third, if it were not for the messenger telling us what we must do, reminding us what will happen if we don't, and enforcing compliance, this change would never happen; not now, not ever. When have you ever, as the leader of your country or personally, been able to take an action without concern about whether some other country or person is going to win at your cost? With the messenger's oversight, we can focus on getting it right.

Fourth, it is crystal clear that everyone, underscore, everyone, needs to be on board. This is not a matter of big versus little, developed versus non-developed, rich versus poor, Muslim versus Christian, socialist or communist versus capitalist, and so forth. This truly needs to be the undertaking of united nations. Each country is equal to the others and necessary to the success of the whole. And in order to achieve that success, each country—and in particular each leader—will need to forgo individual interests in favor of the interests of the whole.

Fifth, while implicit in the others, it is clear that there is no time for the usual games. The messenger has said that he won't stand for them, and when the future of the world's human population is at risk, the remaining countries cannot allow any country or countries to bring, and must do everything possible, including the use of extreme measures, to prevent, any country or countries from bringing the whole thing crashing down.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing that we are together on this effort at this critical juncture in the history of our world.

Press Secretary reminds MP that, in their earlier discussion, MP talked about keeping the military option in our back pocket.

MP says that he has decided that we should be out front with the possibility of war since we really don't have time to fuck around with the usual bullshit. Then he asks Press Secretary if there is any other problem with what he said.

Press Secretary says that not everyone on MP's staff is going to agree with it.

MP doesn't respond but sends Press Secretary back to figure out how to make sure that his recording will be played at the beginning of every call. He also says that since it is already after 11, he wants Press Secretary to tell the others to push everything back an hour: calls at noon, press conference at one, and so forth. The world leaders will be really pissed, but they will take our calls.

### 11:30 a.m.

After another half hour or so of silence, interrupted only by the intermittent clicking of computer keys and Chief of Staff asking if she can do anything for MP and being told no, Homeland Security asks to speak with MP.

Homeland Security says he has just received an anonymous, detailed email from a potentially important source regarding the alleged conspiracy. Homeland Security asks MP if he has ever heard of someone named Sig Sigurdson.

MP asks why.

According to the source, says Homeland Security, there is a conspiracy to destroy mankind just as the messenger said, and the head guy in that conspiracy is Sigurdson.

MP, in a voice cool as a cucumber, asks if the source suggested in any way that MP knew Sigurdson or was aware of Sigurdson's connection.

No, says Homeland Security.

Then why did Homeland Security ask if he has ever heard of someone named Sig Sigurdson?

Do you know Sigurdson? asks Homeland Security.

No, says MP.

Then it's not important. The point is we have a potential lead and I want your authorization to follow up.

MP asks why Homeland Security needs his authorization: Homeland Security has his full confidence.

According to the source, says Homeland Security, this guy is extremely wealthy and extremely well connected with people MP does know, world-wide, but particularly in the U.S., and we can anticipate that he will react quite negatively to being investigated. If the source knows what he's talking about, MP will soon hear about it from all angles and will be told, quite strongly, to drop it. If MP doesn't want Sigurdson investigated, now is the time to say so. Besides, says Homeland Security, I was recently told to not take a piss without your consent.

MP asks if Homeland Security believes the source is credible.

Homeland Security says that the quantity and quality of the initial information provided is highly impressive.

Is that a yes? says MP.

Yes. With MP's permission, says Homeland Security, he plans to divert most of his current resources towards investigating Sigurdson.

MP says okay, make this his highest priority, and use all of the resources at his disposal, but he wants Homeland Security to keep this quiet outside of his taskforce and to report only to MP. If this guy is the mega-big shot Homeland Security believes, we need to keep this operation secret as long as possible. If you even suspect that someone is leaking this or passing on information, shoot him.

[I assume MP was speaking metaphorically.

[I certainly hope so, since for MP to order the killing of someone just for leaking information, might be illegal depending on how the situation is characterized. Lawyers would spend years arguing over that one. I mean this is not exactly Osama Bin Laden territory.

[Anyway, the plot thickens, Michael.

[So it seems, Irwin. We don't know for sure that Sigurdson is the chief bad guy, but wouldn't it be interesting if law enforcement could actually locate the doomsday device in time for James Bond to hit the off switch? That would throw a sizeable wrench in the messenger's plan, not to mention the conspirators'. On the other hand, despite their apparent tiff, what better way for MP to aid and abet Sigurdson than to know everything Homeland Security is doing and divert Homeland Security's entire investigation towards a target whose web is as impenetrable as the best masterminds and worst evil doers can make it. Or, on the third hand, if Homeland Security can discover solid evidence of the conspiracy and the doomsday device, the truth of the message can be proved to the world leaders. Once they believe the message, all but the most cynical should fall in line. This just might be the answer to a president's prayer.

[Realistically, how likely is it that Homeland Security is going to be able to do anything worthwhile in the little time remaining?

[Maybe the messenger works in mysterious ways.

[Who's your pick for the anonymous source?

[Who knows? But he is obviously brilliant and a prince among men.]

### 11:50 a.m.

It's almost time for the calls. MP and the group, minus Homeland Security, assemble and briefly discuss MP's recording, Press Secretary's scripted communication, and who is going to do what.

VP says that he thinks that MP may have come on a little strong with his all-nations-are-equal pitch.

MP says that he doesn't plan on changing it.

VP says that he absolutely disagrees with MP. He can understand why MP felt it was necessary to take that tack, but it must always be U.S. policy to be first among equals.

Apparently ignoring VP, MP asks Chief of Staff for an update.

Chief of Staff says that everything is going pretty well according to plan, except some of the leaders—most prominently, France, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and the Vatican—have objected to the delays and have threatened not to participate.

MP says that he plans to stick to his schedule and tells everyone to stick to theirs. If someone refuses their call, move on and we'll deal with them later. Then MP asks his people to give him continuous feedback through Chief of Staff and wishes them good luck.

As he is walking back to his office, Chief of Staff asks MP where Homeland Security is.

MP says that he's asked Homeland Security to work 100% on the conspiracy investigation and to report directly to MP, only. That means leave Homeland Security alone. MP tells Chief of Staff that if she gets tempted to bother Homeland Security, she should be sure and let MP know, since she obviously doesn't have enough to do.

### 12:55 p.m.

I'm not going to waste my time and yours by giving you a blow by blow account of the calls. I never cease to be amazed at how inarticulate and apparently slow on the uptake alpha politicians can be. Also they are terrible listeners. My guess is that they are all so hell-bent on making their own point that they can't be troubled to understand what the other guy is trying to say. I'd blame it on the translators, except most of the calls are in English. The current British PM was raised in Scotland. I wish to hell he used a translator, 'cause I have no idea what that man is saying.

Besides, speaking of not listening, I have to confess that I'm a little like the pot calling the kettle black. I was multi-tasking—watching live streaming of the riots and looting in the poorest areas of this great country, as I predicted, and all over the rest of the world and of the impromptu, progressively more violent, protests springing up everywhere by everyone who has an ax to grind on any subject—and didn't catch every word.

Anyway, following is my summary of what I heard directly on MP's calls and from feedback relayed to MP by Chief of Staff about the others.

1. All were highly suspicious about the source of and intent behind the message, but there was no suggestion that it was anything but human, maliciously motivated, and not in their personal or country's best interest. One uncharacteristically undiplomatic diplomat called the whole thing a load of crap.

2. With only one exception, no one, not even the Islamic republics or Israel, even mentioned god or religion. Our folks didn't either—we referred to the messenger and the message—but it makes you wonder whether the rest of the world is as obsessed with that aspect as we seem to be. The exception, no surprise, was the Vatican.

3. About a quarter said that, while they were interested in what MP and others had to say, they had not developed a position. Most of those said they were willing to work through the United Nations and would be willing to participate in a joint session this afternoon.

4. The stated position of most of the remainder was generally to ignore the message. Of those, about a quarter said they were willing to work through the United Nations and would be willing to participate in a joint session this afternoon. The rest said they would sit in on a joint session to protect their interests but otherwise didn't plan on participating.

5. A large majority indicated in one way or another that, except for taking its turn in U.N. debates, they really didn't care to hear any more today or ever again about what the U.S. thinks. In fact, this morning's message seemed to be a tipping point, galvanizing the collective attitude of the world community that they were up to here with being lectured to and bullied by big brother—probably partly because they suspected that Uncle Sam was behind this whole thing—and they were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. The English pronunciation by the Chinese interpreter was a little garbled, but at one point it sounded like he said "fuck yourselves." So, to that extent at least, the message may have precipitated a change in the world order, although not the outcome desired by MP—or maybe god, for that matter.

A digression. Most of the calls were same-old, same-old. There were only two worth mentioning in some detail.

First. The Grand Prize winner: Russia. I did listen fairly carefully to the call with the Russians, interrupted only by the breaking news that protestors of various stripes were descending on Washington and Army troops were being dispatched. The Russian prime minister all but accused the U.S. of being behind the message as a distraction to mask an offensive move against Russia by NATO and its allies. He said that all of Russia's military forces, including all defensive weapons at their disposal, had been put on full alert and certain preventative measures were being taken. My attention was briefly interrupted again by breaking news that Russian military forces were reportedly massing along the borders with several of the former members of the U.S.S.R. amid rumors that there was about to be a massive invasion. MP basically responded that everything the Russian just said was bullshit and warned against using the message as a pretense for attempting to regain their lost glory. He said that NATO and its allies, who now included most of the countries in the former soviet bloc, were prepared to meet and destroy any offensive move by Russia—by conventional means, of course.

[That was great, Michael! MP said everything but "We will bury you."

[I agree, Irwin. He certainly didn't take any shit. I've kinda missed all that Cold War trash talk.]

Anyway, the Russian eventually said that they would take no military action at this time, but they were prepared to defend themselves at all cost. They would participate in U.N. discussions, but their current position was to ignore the words in the message and look for who sent it and the western imperialist reasons behind it.

Our military was already on full alert, but following this call, the word went out to all of our friends that the Russians were at it again.

Second. Honorable Mention goes to: Iran. As reported by Chief of Staff to MP, State's call to Iran resulted in a showing of extreme paranoia similar to the Russians. The Iranian President claimed that the message was sponsored by the U.S. as a smokescreen to hide the mounting of an invasion of his country by America, Israel, and other arrogant powers. He said his countrymen were prepared to use their nuclear weapons—the very ones they consistently denied ever having—in self-defense. State reportedly told him that since the U.S. believed that the message was real, both countries had more important matters to contend with today, but she thanked him for sharing that significant information as a first step towards mutual cooperation and suggested that permitting an immediate inspection of his nuclear weapon-related facilities by the IAEA would be a great second step. According to State, he said something delightfully profane in Persian and hung up.

6. Only England and Canada seemed to agree with the U.S. to take the message at face value. I understood England's response from MP's reaction: I have no idea what the Scot said. No surprise, here, because England and Canada always agree with us. Whatever you say, big guy.

7. So, for the most part—big possible exception below—the concept of giving the messenger what he wants and developing a Golden Rule-based new world order seemed to fall on deaf ears. Who knows what these guys really think. They could all prosper on the Texas holdem circuit.

8. Most said they had not heard of an international conspiracy and the idea was ridiculous and not worth pursuing. We know from Homeland Security that he is working with his counterparts in many of those same countries, so it is not only an American phenomenon that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.

9. Besides the calls with Russia and Iran, the most interesting development was John reporting through Chief of Staff that the G-77 and G-24 are claiming to be speaking as one voice demanding that the big countries satisfy an ultimatum—more about that later—in return for agreeing to participate in satisfying the messenger. Who knows whether they really bought the messenger's act or they are just being opportunistic.

[What's this G stuff, Michael?

[The G-77 is a pressure group, initially composed of 77 of the so-called developing countries, now numbering plus or minus 130, which are the Davids against the Goliaths, the so-called wealthy countries of which the U.S. is the worst in their view. The G-24 is a small sub group of the G-77, which deals solely with development-related economic and finance issues. The Gs are currently speaking through representatives from Sri Lanka and Cuba, but China—an ex officio member of both—is probably pulling the strings.]

10. There really ought to be ten points to make it even, but I can only think of nine.

Anyway, following the calls, MP held a debriefing meeting. He said, leaving the Russians and Iranians—they just can't help being themselves, and today neither their barks nor their bites are of concern—and the Chinese—fawk mee? No, fuck you, you slant-eyed piece of shit—aside, he was not only disappointed but very angry at the general reaction. As for the false bravado, they will all come crawling to us again, hat in hand, when they need something from us, as they surely will. And as for the message, they can't all be that stupid. All we can hope is, now that the ritual posturing is out of the way, we can finally get to problem-solving. At least there was some potential for progress with the G-24 and G-77. What exactly do they want? MP asked John.

John says their demands are: (1) that a revamped U.N. will be the supreme governing body of the new world order; (2) that the developing countries will play a much stronger, basically an equal, role in this new world order, primarily by (a) doing away with the U.N. Security Council and giving every country an equal vote on every matter that comes before the U.N. and (b) requiring that if any country wants to take certain types of actions to be prescribed on a list to be determined, that country must first receive the approval of either (i) a simple majority of all of the U.N. countries for certain listed matters or (ii) a 2/3 majority for other listed matters; and last but not least (3) that the wealth of the world will be fairly redistributed among all countries, primarily through an annual payment by the fortunate countries to the less fortunate, based on a formula to be determined. They are busily putting together their wish lists.

So if we don't give in, says State, they won't participate, and they don't care if everyone dies.

At this point at least, says John, they are talking about meeting the messenger's demand. No one other than England and Canada is even acknowledging the possibility.

State says again that if we don't give in, the Gs say they won't participate, so everyone dies.

That's what they say.

It's worth it to them?

That's what they say. My guess, says John, is that most don't believe there is a credible risk that mankind is going away any time soon. But they think we are serious about it, so they are being opportunistic. [Just like I said.] This is their chance to literally get even, so it is worth the risk. It would be a huge gamble, but the payoff would be enormous.

Press Secretary asks if we shouldn't learn more about their demands, specifically what would be on those lists, before making any decisions. If you step back and think about it, he says, and try to picture what the political and economic world might look like under the messenger's scheme, the demands do sort of seem to fit. We haven't really talked at all about what will happen afterwards, assuming we can satisfy the messenger.

We're smart enough to figure that out if and when the time comes, State says, but first we need to get there. And we aren't going to get there if we even acknowledge that we have paid any attention to the Gs. Once the word got out that we were negotiating with this group, a hundred other special interest groups will form with their own idea of what the new world should look like, and the whole process will come to a screeching halt. We need to get real, here; we don't have time to figure all of that out now. The most we could do is agree that those issues will be on the table for discussion, and I'm not sure that we should even be willing to go that far.

Absolutely right, says VP. Besides, these assholes are bluffing. They think since we believe we have so few hours to put this together that we will cave. They are going to use brinksmanship to play with our future. We should not only call their bluff, says VP, but we should tell them in no uncertain terms to stick it up their collective asses. Trust me. They will come around. Then VP apologizes to the group and says that he is temporarily letting off some steam. He is just tired of dealing with stupid people.

MP tells VP that he feels his passion, but what Press Secretary just said makes a lot of sense. In fact, MP says he's been thinking a lot about what kind of political and economic structure would need to be in place going forward. Keeping the status quo is a nonstarter. But he also fully appreciates that we have no time to get bogged down in detail. So he tells State to talk with the G representatives, include China, and tell them that we understand their concerns, but because of the obvious time constraints, we are willing to agree that the issues they raised will be on the table once the immediate crisis is averted and we will commit to making every reasonable effort to reach agreement on substantive issues thereafter. Remind them that getting past this deadline is only the first step, so everything is going to have to be worked out to everyone's satisfaction, long term, including the messenger's, in order for this to work. If they ask what happens if this turns out to be a hoax, tell them that the U.S. remains committed to negotiating with them on these issues.

Hold on, says VP. You've got to be joking. No! We aren't going to do anything of the kind. With all due respect, Paul, says VP . . .

[This will be good, Irwin. Whenever anyone begins a sentence "with all due respect," the emphasis is on the "due," which means "that's the single most asinine thing I have ever heard." And even better, no one calls a U.S. President by his first name in public.

[So, that was the double whammy of disrespect, Michael?

[Bingo!]

Look, VP continues, I hope you all understand that no one wants to get this safely resolved any more than I do. But. We will never give up our sovereignty, especially to hand over control to a bunch of self-interested amateurs who can't even manage their own countries. Let's face it, most of those places are not poor because of historical accident or forces outside of their control. They are where they are because of greed and corruption, religious, racial, or ethnic intolerance, wrong-headed political theories, and general economic ineptness and mismanagement.

MP asks VP if he can speak to him in private.

VP says no, he wants everyone to hear this.

Then MP thanks VP for his perspective and tells State to call the G countries and tell them what he said.

VP tells MP that he would like to make a couple of additional points.

MP tells VP that his decision has been made. If VP can't live with it and is unwilling to participate as a part of the team, he is free to leave.

VP doesn't respond.

Good, MP says. Now, with the exception of State working the G countries directly, he wants the focus of our diplomatic efforts to appear to shift to the U.N. He will give his policy speech at one. Looks like we're going to be a little late on that, too, he says. Just one of those days. In the meantime, buttonhole anyone who will talk to you and try to convince them that they are playing with the lives of all humanity and it is just too big of a risk to take.

What team? VP says to the remaining people in the room after MP leaves. MP is doing only what he wants despite the advice of the rest of us, but you are all too chicken-shit to say so. Christ, VP says to State, you were the one who had a problem with this in the first place. Besides, I was the original vote for taking the message seriously. Paul agreed and ran with it, but the rest of you just waited until you saw which way Paul was leaning and then you jumped on. Now the rest of the world is apparently of the opposite view, and I'm not so sure myself any more. What do you really think? Silence. VP then calls for anyone in the room to have the balls to honestly tell VP that they disagree with him. No one does. No one says anything. Chicken-shits, VP says, and I hear the door slam. Then a door opens and closes again.

Out in the hall Chief of Staff asks VP if she can speak to him for a minute in his office. We don't have VP's office wired, so your guess is as good as mine.

### 1:25 p.m.

The press conference is postponed until 2 p.m. MP ignores repeated calls from Mahoney and Cramer. He is in the library working on his speech when Chief of Staff comes in and asks if she can interrupt him about something very important. I hear his grunt, which apparently signifies approval. She says that in about 30 seconds his wife is going to call him on his cell phone.

His phone buzzes, and he connects and says what do you want, Dorothy? Elizabeth is standing here with me. She said you were going to call. How are you and the kids holding up?

Mrs. MP thanks him for his genuine lack of concern and for not finding a minute to call them sometime since the message this morning.

He says that he has been a little busy and, maybe if he is successful, she will be alive another day to try her best to make his life even more miserable.

She says that she would rather trust the saving of their lives and those of the rest of mankind to someone who is better suited for the job.

He asks her what it is exactly that she wants.

She says the good news is that since time is short she will refrain from listing for him all the reasons why she detests him and get right to the point. If he does not resign and turn the reigns over to VP within the next 15 minutes, she will tell the world, and in particular his religious supporters, what a hypocrite he is. To that end, at 1:45 she will explain at a news conference of her own, in detail, that he is and has always been an atheist—or more precisely that he has no god but his own ambition—and has been shamelessly using the religious right and abusing the trust of all the American people for his own political and financial ends. She says that she will also explain, in detail, how he has been giving John Mahoney critical, confidential inside information for years about what he and the government were going to do and when, so that Mahoney could use that information to make them both billionaires. And that even today, in the face of this worldwide crisis, he passed secret information to Mahoney. However, if he quits, she will cancel her news conference, say nothing at his, and pretend to support him. The children, she says, and many, many others are queued-up, prepared to say whatever is necessary to guarantee that he bows out, gracefully or otherwise. She says she hopes he puts up a struggle because she would like nothing better than to personally ruin him.

He says she's crazy. He knows nothing about a news conference scheduled for her. He'll get the news conference cancelled, if there is one, or make sure no one shows up. Besides, no one would ever believe her anyway.

She says he now has about 12 minutes and hangs up.

MP tells Chief of Staff that she won't believe what Mrs. MP just said to him.

Chief of Staff says she already knows and strongly recommends that he does exactly what Mrs. MP told him to. Over MP's sputtering, Chief of Staff says that his letter of resignation is prepared and on his desk. She, VP, and the Chief Justice will be in the Oval Office in five minutes to witness his signature and swear VP in. Then, at the 2 o'clock news conference he will make a short farewell speech with no Qs and As. MP keeps trying to interrupt, but Chief of Staff keeps right on telling him how things are. I hear the rustling of papers as she says she's handing him his resignation speech. She tells him that they are going to let him save face with his supporters. She tells him that basically he is going to say that there is substantial evidence that there is an international conspiracy to destroy the world, and that, while there are many persuasive arguments on all sides, he believes that we have to work from the assumption that the deadline in the message is real and that the only way to avoid the destruction is for the leaders of the world to agree to do what the messenger said. However, he will say that he took Jesus as his savior as a young man and cannot accept that there is no personal god of whom Jesus is his son. So while, after much prayer, he believes that the best course for all of the people of the U.S. and the world is to work toward satisfying the messenger, as a devout Christian, he cannot in good conscience be the person to represent the U.S. to that end. If the message is real and the messenger can read his mind, his disbelief would shine through. Then, if he wants to add a little additional excitement, he can call the messenger a terrorist—what else: the world will be destroyed unless the demands are met—and say that the world leaders would be giving in to terrorism, which he could never in good conscience bring himself to do, no matter how potentially devastating the consequences. Therefore, with a heavy heart he is resigning, turning the job over to VP who can better represent everyone in this time of crisis, and asking all of his fellow Americans to give the new President their full support. Then as a parting gesture to his constituency, he can call for the one, true god to intervene before it is too late and close his speech with a tear in his voice croaking out "god bless you, and may god bless America." Blah, blah, blah, and so forth.

### 2:40 p.m.

And that is the way it played out, mostly. MP resigned, VP was sworn in as the new MP, and Mrs. MP held her peace. MP read the prepared speech at the news conference, but he stopped after the part that said that we have to work from the assumption that the deadline in the message is real and that the only way to avoid the destruction is for the leaders of the world to agree to do what the messenger said. Then after a long pause, he added the following surprise, unscripted twist:

I am resigning today because of threats made by powerful people that they would make certain information public that would call into question my fitness to be the President of the United States. I will tell you that under any other circumstances I would not have resigned. I would have stood my ground and told these people to do their worst because, when all the truth finally came out, you would know that, while I am far from perfect, my major sin has been to always side with the American people against the special interests. Now it is important to these special interests that your attention and the attention of the world are diverted from the critical task at hand. Therefore, I am resigning so that I am not part of the equation; so you can focus on what is important. No matter what is said about me today, it is not important today. Focus on the message and demand that your new President do everything necessary to lead the world in satisfying the messenger; do everything necessary to bring about a new world dedicated to the pursuit of happiness for all mankind. It is ironic that these people would think that I would be concerned about my political future when the future of our world is at stake and there may be no tomorrow. If we survive, judge me tomorrow.

[Well, Michael, Anthony?

[Noble. Inspirational. Stupid. Misguided. I don't know. I believe him. I think it was the right thing to do. It won't work, though. The short attention span and prurient interest of the U.S. media will certainly shift the breaking news to focus on the former MP, and unless something really awful happens in the meantime to shift it back, the messenger has been moved to the back burner.

[Thanks, Anthony. Michael, I wonder how Mrs. MP found about the calls to Mahoney.

[My guess, Irwin, is that Chief of Staff told her.

[But how did Chief of Staff find out?

[My guess is that she got a long, anonymous, detailed email from someone who has been listening to MP's calls.

[Uh, okay. So what happens to MP, or should I say FMP—former MP—now, Michael?

[Cramer and Bancroft and their kind despise him. That gutless pansy can't control events when he is on the outside looking in. The American public will think exactly what Sigurdson's subsidees tell them to think. And not only did FMP not stick to Mahoney's script, he didn't even have an opportunity to call Mahoney and warn him. Mahoney was blindsided. We don't know how much damage this has done to Mahoney. Maybe it will help drive even more panic selling. My guess, however, is that FMP is no longer going to be a principal shareholder in the Own the World Corporation. And it won't make any difference how Cramer and Bancroft and the American public feel: Guido will shortly be paying FMP a visit, and they will find his missing balls inserted half way down his throat.

[Do you really think Mahoney is going to have FMP killed, Michael?

[Actually, I have no idea, Irwin. I read somewhere that Mahoney was connected—probably in the headlines of one of those sensationalist tabloids in the checkout aisle at Wal-Mart—and I made the whole Guido thing up.

[Well, Michael, I'm a little nonplussed. Is there anything else you told us that wasn't true?

[No. That's it. Well maybe I exaggerated just a little the stories about MP's wife blackmailing him for money and his threatening to have her killed. Actually, I exaggerated that having-her-killed part quite a lot. Maybe that didn't even happen. But that's it—I think—as far as I can recall.

[Wait, I'm trying to get my head around this. You've been lying to us?

[Jesus H. Christ, Irwin, what does "get my head around" mean? Someone says something nonsensical and someone else says, hey that sounds pretty cool and repeats it, and pretty soon the whole fucking planet is talking nonsense. I bet the Central Siberian in-crowd has a version in Ket. How about "wait, I'm trying to understand what you just said"?

[Fine. The point is I can't believe you've been lying to us, Michael.

[And I can't believe that you can't believe it. Lying to ourselves is how most of us tolerate living with ourselves and the world. I read the results of a recent study that said that over 90% of those tested freely admit to telling lies at least occasionally. And most of those acknowledged that they lie to themselves at least as often as to others.

[Unbelievable.

[You're right. I just made that up.]

Following FMP's speech at the press conference, new MP had a short one of his own:

My fellow Americans and my fellow citizens of the world: I'm coming in off the bench in the fourth quarter with time running out and need to engineer a touchdown to win, so I will make this very brief. First, I can't tell you what an awesome responsibility this is and how seriously I take it. Second, I want to thank my predecessor for his long and distinguished service to his country. Third, we have had very constructive and productive conversations with the leaders of the world's great countries, and I want to assure them and you that, although we have had a change in leadership, there is no change in our policy or approach to taking advantage of this historic opportunity to make a better future for all men. I also want to assure you that we are committed to serving as partners with each and every nation, and we are working hard to see to it that everything will work out just fine in the end. So don't worry! There is no need for concern! This is a time for great optimism! The best thing you can do is to go on with your lives in preparation for a better and brighter tomorrow. It will be. I guarantee it! Thank you. No. We just don't have time for any questions. We have too much to do. Sorry. I'm sure you understand.

[A guarantee? A guarantee, Michael?

[I, for one, am more anxious now than I was before I heard his speech. This is no time for the usual happy talk. I know the American people are simple, but I don't think the standard pat-on-the-head and go-back-and-play-nice strategy is going to work. Maybe he does know something we don't. Anyway, we should learn more shortly. NMP is now our main man, and I've made all the technical changes necessary to make sure that we will read his every electronic communication and hear his every word.

[What about FMP?

[Do you mean: can we still listen to him? I suspect he is of little further interest to this story, but truth is, since he left the White House, unless he uses his cell phone, he's on his own.]

### 5:00 p.m.

There's not a great deal more to report at this hour from my end. That's not to say that there hasn't been a lot of action in the rest of the world, but the White House is pretty quiet. NMP spends most of the rest of the day, silently, in the Oval Office [what the fuck is he doing?]. He leaves the White House building several times but doesn't take his bugged cell phone with him. If he talks to anyone, you couldn't prove it by me. Remember, I don't do video, and try as I may, I haven't been able to hack into the White House CCTV system. It's almost like the bastard knows he's being monitored. We don't have a single eavesdropping device on the grounds. Whoda thought we would ever need one? Typical bureaucratic lack of imagination.

Chief of Staff comes in every hour or so to report on lack of progress at the U.N. NMP doesn't countermand FMP's direction to State to try to work something out with the G countries. He doesn't need to. They get all wrapped around the axel arguing among themselves about what each country's share of the spoils will be and don't have any time for State. The critical "discussion" on the Assembly floor turns into a series of jingoistic speeches, filled with accusations, recriminations, and backbiting—pretty much business as usual at that office. By 4 p.m., England and Canada abandon ship, and America is the only country continuing to advocate for satisfying the messenger's demands, although from all accounts our representatives' hearts are no longer in it. It seems like the longer the passage of time, the less believable and critical the message appears.

### 5:26 p.m.

Since NMP is quiet, I spend most of my time glued to the internet, watching how well the family of man handles the crisis. Everyone is worked up to a fever pitch, and Sigurdson's subsidees aid and abet to the best of their ability. In the morning, U.S.-time, demonstrators all over the world had filled the streets demanding that their governments do whatever they needed to do to save the human race and make a better world. More than a million people of all ages, races, colors, and creeds were reported to blanket the area around U.N. Plaza in New York. Everyone interviewed expressed a mood of optimism and belief that the people now have the power to shape their future. As time passes and it becomes apparent that no action will be taken to change the political status quo—and Oprah declares that she is pessimistic about the future—the mood is said to turn to bitterness and rage, and the Rule of Law takes the afternoon off. Violent protests and rioting occur all over the map. Looting, beating, raping, and murdering—bombings, suicide and otherwise, are so commonplace that the media loses interest—become the international pastime, to settle ancient or recent scores or just for the pure hell of it. No doubt innumerable good deeds are being done everywhere, but I'll be damned if I can find any reported instances. At 3:30 p.m., NMP declares nation-wide martial law. The governors of seven Southern and four Western states secede from the Union, and by the time I have had enough at around 5:15 p.m., federal troops are in a pitched battle with the Utah National Guard on Mormon Square.

[While I've been sitting here, listening, I composed a little doggerel verse for the occasion. Do you want to hear it?

People hear what they want to hear

and see what they want to see.

Evidence and facts won't interfere;

the truth won't set them free.

People do what they want to do.

It's human vanity.

Self-interest is the rule for you;

too bad if that hurts me.

People believe what they want to believe.

I demur, and I have sinned.

But closed-thinking deceives what the fool can achieve:

like chasing after the wind.

People destroy what they want to destroy.

The end is drawing near.

The run has stopped for this sad boy.

For Mother Earth I'll wipe a tear,

and say goodbye to our final year,

by cracking open another beer

and whistling the Ode To Joy.

[Touching, Michael. But you can't whistle, and where'd the beer come from? Our listeners know that the protocol would never permit alcohol on the premises.

[Ever hear of artistic license, Irwin? But, actually, you are wrong about the protocol. Jerry's addendum, among other things, calls for a six pack of Westvleteren 12 in the fridge for special occasions, like New Years, and childbirths—and funerals.

[Don't you ever take anything seriously, Michael?

[Lighten up, Irwin. Consider this. No one really knows how many animal and plant species ever existed, but the number must be somewhere in the multiple millions. Some scientists estimate that 99.9% of all species are now extinct and that—not counting whatever happens today—up to half of all presently-existing species may become extinct by the year 2100. I just remembered what the voice said: "So where's the problem?" I finally get it. While we can't take credit for most of the past extinctions, we have cheerfully and carelessly done our part, including doing in all our archaic human competition. So what's another extinct species more or less in the grand scheme of things? Only, this time we are doing it to ourselves. And then he says that for our eulogy, "everything remaining... will sound a collective cheer of good riddance." Don't you see any humor in that? Oh and by the way, humans, thanks for nothing and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

[You are one, sick son of a bitch, Michael.

[Thanks, Irwin, I appreciate that. Look, I realize my opinion on this or any subject isn't worth squat, but at least it's mine. What's really sick is that, even today, most people have been reacting to what "they" are supposed to have said or done instead of figuring out and acting on what's in those people's own best interest. In view of our impending demise, I don't know why this continues to aggravate the crap out of me, but it does. Why can't we all for once just act like grownups and not subordinate our lives to those of the rich and famous? And who are "they"? You know, "they," the ones who are supposed to know. The ones who are such big shots that they just gotta have the inside scoop. The ones whose opinion trumps yours even though "they" don't know you from Adam and have zero interest whatsoever in your little life and affairs other than the smug satisfaction "they" may get out of knowing "they" have power over you, all the while lamenting the burden of their celebrity.

People do what they are told.

Idol-herding makes me mad.

But the herd's idol-worship will always grow cold.

Who was that Okra, granddad?]

### 5:41 p.m.

Off and on this afternoon I was thinking about posting a happy-trails- to-you sign off on ImaJer for my old friends. What's ImaJer? It's like Facebook but way cooler, and it doesn't have all the crap. Jer and I developed it a few years ago as our own social network for friends. Now friends of friends of friends are picking it up. You can use whatever type of written communication you want. Many of us still like sentences and paragraphs, with an attempt at punctuation. Old school, I know, but I did get the English medal senior year at St. Al Prep, something not every cyberpunk can claim. Anyway, after several false starts, I had so much to say to each person that it was coming out in a long jumble of thoughts that were about as interesting and personal as a Christmas message—you know, the yearly photocopied family autobiography with bad pictures that your parents used to fold and stuff in their xmas cards with the preprinted signatures back in the day, which tried to make it sound like our lives were so much better and holier than the recipients—so I gave up on that idea and decided to compose one post to all, like a Christmas message, but, you know, much more personal. I was feeling a lot of different emotions, and I wanted the words to be poignant and profound and funny. And it ended up sounding just like a Christmas message. Since I intended it to be something my friends would actually read and appreciate, I gave up on the sentences and punctuation and settled on using text. Now, how was I going to cram everything I wanted to say in a line or three? After giving it a lot of thought, I was disappointed to discover that the best I could come up with was—corny, I know, and with apologies to Bob Hope, but half of them never heard of Bob Hope, anyway: THX 4T MEMORIES FTBOMH TCOY." "Thanks for the memories. From the bottom of my heart. Take care of yourself."

Jer was the guy I was thinking about most when I was trying to compose my message. We've known each other since first grade, and a whole bunch of those memories, good and bad, included him. But I had genuine feelings for all the rest, as well, and I was laughing and crying when I hit send. I haven't received any response from most. While I had hoped for something a little more, you know, personal, the response I got from Jer pretty well summed it up for the rest: "U2."

### 6:00 p.m.

Homeland Security briefs NMP on the conspiracy investigation, focusing on Sigurdson. He had provided snippets during the course of the afternoon, but this is supposed to be the meeting where he explains how the intelligence services are going to pull our fat out of the fire. Homeland Security says that they've done everything they possibly can, but they've run out of time. They keep smacking into roadblocks, not the least of which is that their computers have been down pretty much continuously since about 1 p.m., and no one can figure out how to fix the problem. [Strange, my stuff has been working just fine.] Homeland Security apologizes. He says that his gut tells him Sigurdson is the guy and they'll stay at it, but NMP needs to know that, as painful as it is for him to admit, it doesn't look like there will be any last-second miracles from Homeland Security's folks today. Unfortunately, he says, as far as they are aware, the author of this script hasn't written in a superhero to save the world for all mankind—American or otherwise. If there is one, anyway, he is not currently on Homeland Security's radar screen. On the other hand, says Homeland Security, this is definitely a thriller, and in a thriller, you never know until the last page.

Following Homeland Security's briefing, all communications from the U.S. government—which NMP had directed Press Secretary to have ready to go long before Homeland Security had said a word—are very positive and pointed: (1) there is no elitist conspiracy and no doomsday device, and (2) the messenger is not a god, but quite human, and everything in the message was false. The messenger's identity is known. He is an international terrorist with links to Al Qaeda. While he hasn't yet been found, he is believed to be located in the tribal area in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. A multi-country military force is being readied to storm the area, and our Pakistani partners are fully on board. We will shortly be able to declare: "Mission Accomplished."

The primary communications objective: don't worry, be happy. According to reports made to NMP, most countries were saying pretty much the same, although, with the exception of the few allies with whom NMP had ginned up the story, the bit about the international terrorist with links to Al Qaeda was news to them, particularly the countries with links to Al Qaeda. According to Al Jazeera, Al Qaeda itself would neither confirm nor deny. Some countries said nothing. No country has chosen to tell its people that the party's over.

### 6:16 p.m.

One last check of the internet. Just weather this time. I've had enough news for one day, and all the sporting events have been disorganized. Only the NHL still plans on playing tonight.

Oddly, Mother Nature is apparently sitting this one out. There are no reports of hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, wild fires, mud slides, floods, earthquakes, storms of any kind or magnitude, high winds, snow, or even rain—not a sprinkle. All catastrophes today are human. It's a beautiful day for an extinction.

### 6:20 p.m.

I've tried all afternoon to reach my dad. After probably 20 voicemail messages, Chipper finally calls. She's at the house. He's locked himself in the basement with his arsenal in the bomb shelter. He told her that he would go down fighting and they won't take him alive. She's not sure who "they" are.

I didn't know he had an arsenal. I didn't even know he owned a gun. I never believed for a second his tall tale about blowing up Muslims. Turns out my dad must have become one of those survivalist nuts I was always joking with him about. As far as I know, dad had never hunted or, except when he was in the service, even fired a gun. He told me he was such a crappy shot on the firing range that to insure the safety of himself and the other military personnel on his side, he was never in danger of being assigned to a job that involved firearms. When I was growing up he was always disdainful of the "latter-day shootists." He said that the NRA ranked up there with the Ku Klux Klan in terms of defining the worst of America. "America at its best, Michael, is about vision and innovation, not clinging to an imagined and idealized past; taking positive action, not negative; creating things, not destroying them." That's what I remember about him, anyway, growing up. Somewhere along the line he changed. Who knows why? Maybe he said something to me about it. Maybe I just never listened. So now he's locked himself and his arsenal in the bomb shelter his dad built in the 50's. Makes me wonder what my contribution would have been to the family curse?

I plead with Chipper to get him on the phone. She's gone for a while, and when she comes back she says he doesn't want to talk to me. He says that I am one of them and I am trying to kill him. I tell her I'm not one of them and I'm certainly not trying to kill anyone, particularly dad. I ask her to tell dad that I don't want anyone to die today, but I don't have a say, and neither do most of the rest of us.

She says she knows I don't have anything to do with it because the thought of my being part of some international conspiracy is, like, fucking hilarious! Like, really? I'm just a dumb-ass, peon, government bureaucrat who is only hot shit in my dreams. Then she asks if I've heard that a lot of really smart people have been predicting for ages and ages that the world would end today at seven p.m., sharp. Somebody from, like, Mesopotamia or someplace, and it's even in the bible. It's been all over the internet, she says.

Before I can stop myself I tell her that just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's a fact, and, besides, it's probably real hard for her to see the computer screen clearly through the weed-smoke haze.

Since it's our karma to all die today, anyway, she figured she might as well just chill out. And, yes, she may have enjoyed a blunt or three of her own homegrown on top of a few Captain and Cokes. But the really great thing about all this is she won't have to listen to big brother's bullshit lectures any more.

The thing I don't get is why you hate me so much? I say. What have I ever done to you?

You really don't know? she says. I don't say anything. Un-fucking-believable, she says. Remember that year you came home from college for Christmas vacation and you brought your roommate, Patrick O'Neil, with you? He was so good looking, and smart, and funny, and nice. He bought me that stuffed penguin, remember, because I told him I liked penguins. While you were off being a big shot somewhere, we had a couple of nice talks. He asked me all about myself. He thought it was cool that I wanted to be a singer. I played him some of the songs I'd written, and he said he was impressed. He asked me what I thought about things. He said he liked me. He was way the coolest guy I had ever met. He made me happy. I loved him.

The night before you were going back to school, I listened to you two talking in your room. He told you I was a great kid. I wasn't too wild about the "kid" part, but then you laughed your full-of-yourself laugh and said he couldn't be serious. He said he was serious. You said that, first of all, I was dumber than a stump and had the motivation of a slug; it would be a miracle if I graduated from high school; I was destined to get pregnant and marry some red neck, blue-collar asshole who would leave me for a waitress at Denneys; and my parents would wind up having to take care of my kids. Patrick said something about your being too hard on me, and you said that, second of all, I had the reputation for being the biggest slut in the tri-county metro area. Patrick laughed and said something like "now you tell me." Then you both laughed at me, and that was that. I went over to Jennie's and cried my eyes out all night long, and when I came back to the house in the morning, you were already gone. I sent him several letters and even tried to call him a couple of times. He never responded. He was way the coolest guy I will ever know, and I loved him, and you fucked me over for no good reason. You broke my heart.

Jeez, Nicole, I say, I didn't know. I didn't realize.

What: that you really hurt my feelings, bad; or that your dumb-as-a-stump sister could even have feelings; or that I might be capable of having a worthwhile life of my own? I am happy with my life. Was, anyway. What you never realized is: I am not you, and I have always had zero interest in being like you or your stuck-up, condescending, bitchy wife. I mean, think about it, she thinks she's so cool, and you are the best she could do? And I'm not sorry to burst your bubble, but your kids aren't cute or special or interesting; they have your wife's pissy little attitude; and they are totally out of control. When you come here to visit, dad can't wait for you to leave before you even show up. He calls your family the "brat pack." I could go on and on, but that's the gist. I mean, like, wow, that was totally amazing! I've been holding all that in, like, fucking forever. Talk about your cathartic fucking experience, Chipper says, and hangs up.

She doesn't pick up again, so I leave her and dad a long, convoluted, surprisingly-heartfelt message of attempted reconciliation, but she doesn't respond. Looks like this is not my day for warm fuzzies from parent, sibling, or friends. Someone who didn't know me better might question my capacity to build meaningful relationships.

### 6:27 p.m.

I've had this tight feeling in the pit of my stomach for the last hour or so. It's like I'm in danger. Seriously. I know the world is probably going to blow up and all that, but this is like you're walking alone in a dark alley in a bad part of town and you sense movement in the shadows behind you. I'm a little bit frightened. Fuck it, I'm scared shitless! I keep checking the camera monitors in the hall, but there's nothing out of the ordinary. I'm uncomfortable enough that I call Jerry and leave the message the protocol dictates when we have a possible situation: coffee break. When he doesn't call back right away, I call Chuck and Steve. When they don't answer, I leave "coffee break" on their voicemail. I also text their cells: COFFEE BREAK!!! Nothing. What the hell is up? Probably no big deal. Probably.

### 6:33p.m.

Breaking news! FMP is dead! What with the looming deadline and all, there is a lot of confusion , and the reporting is inconsistent at best, but apparently he somehow gave the slip to his Secret Service detail—how improbable is that?—and shot himself in a public men's room at the Hay Adams. NMP tells Press Secretary to neither confirm nor deny and that he doesn't want to hear any more on that subject from anyone.

### 6:35 p.m.

Someone's knocking at my door. I jump three feet. I switch to my camera three in the hallway, and, by god, it's Janie. I check the rest of the hall and don't see anyone else. Protocol requires that I not unlock the door for anyone except the boys. Good idea, especially at this moment . . . but.

Hi, Janie, what's up?

She calls me Michael—I didn't even know she knew my name—and asks if she can come in. She's been crying. I've never been this close to her before, and she looks even more beautiful than from a distance; the opposite of just about everyone else in the world, including me. I let her in and think about how I will erase this from the hard drive without it being detected. She says she knows I'm some sort of spy and I know what's going on, and she asks me if we are all going to die.

Sure, Janie, sooner or later.

She calls me an asshole and says I know exactly what she means.

Every woman I know has said that about me today, Janie, the asshole part that is. I just have a way with women.

She's looking at me with those enormous green eyes against a watery-red background, with mascara-colored tears running down her cheeks. Her lovely mouth is an open O, not an I-want-to-be-kissed O, but an I-really-hope-you-have-something-intelligent-to-say-because-I'm-afraid-you-may-be-an-idiot O.

I'm really sorry to disappoint you, Janie, but I really don't know any more than you do.

Resignation dulls those eyes. She says that her friend Marcie said that I didn't know anything and I was probably as inconsequential as I looked, and, as usual, Marcie is right. Then as if she is just noticing for the first time, she asks me who I'm talking to on my headset.

I'm recording today for posterity. Would you like a Kleenex?

She blows her nose, opens the door, and leaves.

Well, as they say, I really handled that well.

Another knock on the door. Janie. Jerry and the rest of the team are still MIA, and I'm getting really suspicious. So at first I'm a little skeptical about Janie suddenly showing up again. Though she does look totally grief-stricken and helpless. This time when I let her in she wraps herself around me: not an it's-good-to-see-you hug, or an I-want-a-brief-moment-of-comforting hug, but an I-want-to-fuck-your-lights-out hug. She tells me to take the headset off, so I guess posterity is just going to have to use its imagination.

I'm back, Janie is gone. I feel like I've just put in two hours at the gym and Big Bad John was pounding the heavy bag. I'm serious. Words cannot begin to express.

You know in all those old James Bond movies where, following coitus, the seductress, who works for the bad guys, always pulls out of nowhere some lethal instrument for securing Bond's demise? So I thoroughly checked Janie out, and believe me, there was no weapon to be found anywhere on her person, unless her assignment was to screw me to death.

Janie was probably just really scared. And I'm thinking that if I had to do it all over again, I would study to become a grief counselor. I don't know if I would have made any money, but if Janie is any indication, I would have had all the incredible sex I could ever possibly handle. Unethical and illegal I know, but it's my fantasy, not yours.

### 6:48 p.m.

Still no word from Jerry or the guys. I keep thinking I hear something outside my door, but the camera says no. Maybe they tapped into my system, and I'm looking at a closed-loop video recording of an empty hall—like in all the Mission Impossible flicks—while they are poised to break down the door, assault weapons at the ready. Come to think of it, maybe they're listening to me right now.

To take my mind off my paranoia, I call Sarah for the umpteenth time and tell her again that I can't tell her the details but I know everything is going to be fine.

She says nobody believes all that things-couldn't-be-better bullshit coming out of the White House. She pleads with me to level with her.

Please don't worry, I say, and don't pay any attention to all the doom and gloom on the TV. I know what's happening, and I know that she and the girls and I are all going to pull through this, if anything, better than before. I'm almost done here, I say. It's been quite a day for all of us. But it's one we will all remember as a pivotal day for us and for the human race. I'll be with you and the kids soon. We'll have a pizza party and watch one of their DVDs or play that stupid card game Sarah Junior always wants to play. Oops. Gotta go. One last thing to do before I leave. Love you. Let me see the girls again. Look, I'm blowing them and you a kiss. I'll see them and you very soon. Promise.

She tells me that no one believes all that things-couldn't-be-better bullshit coming out of me, either. I hear her sobbing. She says, " Michael, you will always be a shit, but the girls and I love you, too."

I'm a little misty-eyed myself.

### 6:52 p.m.

Sigurdson calls NMP and congratulates him.

And special thanks to you, Michael, NMP says. I know you are listening. We couldn't have pulled this off today without you. Sig, say hello to Michael.

Nice to speak with you young man, Sigurdson says. We appreciate your good work.

I push my voice activation button. Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Sigurdson, I mean . . .

That's okay, Michael, says NMP, I've known Sig for more than 20 years, but I've never actually seen him, either.

Well that is about to be rectified in about 30 seconds, says Sigurdson. I look forward to meeting you and yours in heaven. The line goes dead.

[They still don't realize they're seven minutes off, Irwin. Sigurdson and the chosen ones will be going batshit trying to figure out why the device didn't trigger on cue.

[Why didn't you warn them when you had the chance, Michael?

[I kinda like the idea of them going batshit. This may be the only good laugh I have all day.

[I hope you know what you are doing, Michael.

[As usual, Irwin, I don't have a fucking clue.

[That pretty well sums it up for everyone else, doesn't it?

[We didn't really have a choice, guys. They promised us they'd make sure that Sarah and the kids were included in the deal. We couldn't take the chance. It's a zillion-to-one long shot that we're ever going to see them, heaven, or anything else again, I know, but how can we die without hope?

[While we're waiting, any final thought for posterity, Anthony?

[I suppose there should be a moral to this story. Moral warning: on the slim chance that we ever have an audience for this little recording, for those of you out in listener land who want to draw your own conclusions or simply aren't interested, turn the sound off for the next minute or so. If you're still there, through inertia or otherwise, the take-aways are pretty obvious.

1) For those political, social, economic, and religious elite whose decisions affect everyone below them in the chain: Be completely open to sudden change and make the most of it. The past is of no consequence. You may have always known better than everyone else, but the fact that this new event doesn't fit what you know doesn't mean it's not real and potentially catastrophic and everything will be just fine if you force it to fit or ignore it. When the lifeboat is casting off, your firm belief in the indestructibility of the Titanic is as useless as all of your other baggage. I remember a quote from Martin Luther King: "There are all too many people who, in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution." Or, I might add, to dismiss a heads-up on your own demise—particularly when you're going down for the last time and dragging your dependency chain down with you. And, for god's sake, when someone gives you the answer, pay attention! A word to the wise is sufficient they say, but wisdom seems to be in short supply, particularly among our leaders. If it were ever studied, I bet there is an inverse relationship between testosterone levels and whatever triggers wisdom. I mean the messenger didn't just give us a word; he gave us the whole friggin' owner's manual. But there is something in our genetic makeup that causes us to ignore words that don't sit well with us or are perceived to be too good, too bad, or too simple to be true. And we ignore them not only when following them would seem to be clearly to our benefit but also when ignoring them would seem to be clearly to our detriment. With our hands mentally over our ears we internally chant: "La, la, la, I can't hear you" and pretend nothing happened. Too bad for us.

2) For the conspirators: We'll find out shortly, but if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. See what I mean?

3) And for everybody else: Life is hard and then you die. Robert Frost said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." Sorry, Bob, not today; not for humans anyway.

### 7:06 p.m.

In a minute I'm going to hear the voice and try to simultaneously repeat what I hear. I hope it works. I hope this whole recording thing works and somebody is listening to me. Just in case I'm not going to be living the perpetual dream in Sigurdson's heaven with Sarah and the kids, it's my only shot at immortality. Maybe the messenger will like the idea of leaving a little case study for posterity.

### 7:07 p.m.

" _Great idea, Michael, but your recording days are over. I've decided, however, to preserve this record and include my final judgment in it. One day, some other species, in this world or another, may find it useful listening as a matter of historical or scientific interest and, perhaps, even learn from it._

" _But as for Homo sapiens, I predicted that your leaders would not even seriously consider trying to turn things around, even if I cut them enormous slack, which I was prepared to do. My hypothesis has been that there are fatal flaws in the human character which simply can never be overcome, no matter how much time, no matter how many opportunities. And my educated guess about the future was that, if left alone, evolution of the species through natural genetic mutation or through intentional human interference—achievement of the scientist's desired genetic characteristics or his professional hubris for being the first—would not only not correct these faults but would exacerbate them, making humans even less inclined to favor the collective good of universal happiness._

" _I've been observing this experiment unfold for what would seem an eternity to you, but I needed to satisfy myself with one last test, and today the doomsday conspirators provided the ideal conditions. You were unique, and your like will never be seen again. Fascinating, but this is the end."_

###

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