The Brave New World

The doctors were a team that were kept on standby to help delegates that felt unwell. Usually, their time was spent treating people who had overindulged in food, drink, and various other forms of entertainment. They welcomed the chance to do something more interesting, even though their work was hampered by the lack of electrical power.

There had been an attempt to start up the building"s emergency electric generators. It resulted in a small fire and a greater panic. Fortunately, the fire was quickly put out with extinguishers.

John Knox, the doctor who headed the medical team, removed the earpieces of his stethoscope from his ears, straightened up, and gave Olaf Troll a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"You can b.u.t.ton up your shirt now," he said. "Everything appears to be fine."

"It should," said Olaf Troll. "I feel fine. Never felt better. I could eat something, though. I hope those locusts left something."

"There is plenty of food left in the buffet room," Knox rea.s.sured him. "However, let me ask you once more: are you absolutely sure you put the implant behind your right ear?"

"Yes."

"Amazing. I couldn"t see a trace of anything there. No broken skin, bruise, nothing at all."

"No glowing blue spot? Someone who was standing close by me told me they saw a glowing spot behind my ear."

"No, no spot. If it was there, it"s gone now."

"Hmmm. Interesting."

The door to the examination room of the clinic opened and an aide to Nelson Odongo - a young African woman - looked in.

"Excuse me," she said. "The secretary general would like to know if Mr Troll is all right."

"He"s fine," Knox told her.

"In that case, Mr Troll, could you come with me to the general a.s.sembly chamber? An important vote will be taking place soon."

"What, another one? They"ll vote themselves to death in there."

The aide smiled sweetly.

"There is a lot of decisions to be made," she said.

"No doubt, no doubt. Where is my tie?"

"Here," said a junior doctor, holding out Troll"s green tie.

The genius of economics did not thank him, He took the tie and began tying it round his neck as he followed the young woman out of the clinic. He insisted on pa.s.sing through the candlelit buffet room, where he grabbed a couple of chicken drumsticks, some bread, and a bottle of wine. The young woman started to protest when she saw Olaf Troll reaching for the wine, but he silenced her with a single look.

Such was the personal charisma of this remarkable man.

They entered the general a.s.sembly chamber just as Nelson Odongo was taking the stage for a final address before the vote. Olaf Troll was happy to see that many delegates were eating and drinking; in fact, when he entered the delegate closest to the entrance was in the process of lifting a sandwich to his mouth. His other, sandwich-free hand was holding the doc.u.mentation scroll from the cube, and he was peering at it intently.

"May I have your attention please!" Nelson Odongo boomed. The buzz that filled the general a.s.sembly chamber died down.

"First of all, let me bring everyone up to date with the latest news and developments," said Nelson Odongo. He allowed himself a dramatic pause, frowning at his audience.

"A team of engineers is working hard to restore power," he began. "Unfortunately, so far they haven"t been successful. The news we have had from the city indicate a widespread, perhaps even global power outage. All communications have been cut, so we cannot be sure what is happening in the world. This is a dangerous time, a very dangerous time. We must act."

The heads of state from all around the world nodded in agreement. It was indeed a very dangerous time. They all had rivals back home, rivals who would be sure to exploit the absence of the current leaders, and grab the chance to seize power with both hands. In many cases, that could mean prison or even death for the current heads of state. Action, decisive action was needed! Otherwise, heads would begin to roll.

Nelson Odongo continued:

"We have established contact with the chief of the New York Police Department. Police patrols on horseback are already on the way to establish contact with local governments. We will have an overview of the situation in the city by tomorrow morning. Also, our courier company had pledged to send out at least a hundred bicycle couriers to nearby towns by midday tomorrow.

"Of course, there is a chance power will be at least partially restored by then. But we must prepare for the worst. I have sent out messengers on foot to every bicycle courier company in New York. And president Carlton Brock has graciously offered to put every steam and sailing ship in the United States of America at our immediate disposal. We must make every effort to re-establish communications by any available means, no matter how odd it may look."

The delegates, the heads of state from around the world couldn"t agree more. There was a hubbub of excited voices, and some hand-clapping that quickly turned into widespread applause. A couple of presidents who were major recipients of American aid started chanting: "Carlton Brock! Carlton Brock!" But it didn"t catch on, and they fell silent.

Nelson Odongo beamed at his newly enthusiastic audience. He already knew what the result of the vote was going to be. He hadn"t yet told his audience what they would be voting on, but he knew what the result would be anyway. That was why he was such an accomplished politician.

He said:

"May I have your attention please."

He had it instantly; everyone fell quiet. He was sure there wouldn"t be even a single dissenting vote. He said:

"We are dealing with an enormous catastrophe. But there is a silver lining. Yes, there is something good in our present situation."

He had them completely now; they were eating out of his hand. Even the habitually grim and taciturn president of the Russian Federation, Ruslan Grot, leaned forward expectantly.

"All the heads of state in the world are right here in this chamber. In effect, what we have present here is the government of the world. Therefore, I would like to put forward the motion that we establish a new world order. A single government for the entire world: a parliament const.i.tuted of the current heads of state. Once we"ve agreed on this, we can proceed to elect the executive from among the members of the new world parliament."

There was a short, stunned silence: many heads of state needed a couple of seconds to understand that this was the best possible solution. They were being granted seats in a body that was superior to the old national governments. If any rivals seized power back home in the meantime, they would find themselves under the rule of a new world government anyway.

And it was only logical that this new government"s commissioner for the affected country would be someone who came from that country, someone who knew it well. In other words - the current head of government.

"All in favor of the motion - please raise your hands," said Nelson Odongo.

There was no reason for conducting a count, other than for the record.

A forest of hands had shot up instantly.

Only one man hesitated briefly: Carlton Brock. He was the only head of state present in his home country. But then he remembered what his deputy, the vice-president was like.

They had been bitter rivals during the fight for the party nomination. Eventually, they were forced to form a team so that their party would win the national election. But this didn"t turn them into friends.

Both remembered only too well what the other had said during the nomination fight. And both had said plenty, at the time. Even if what they had said about each other was only half true, the U.S. was presently run by a brain-dead hunk of meat and a neurotic masturbator with a small d.i.c.k.

They always smiled for the cameras when they were together, with Carlton Brock often placing his arm around the shoulders of his deputy. He knew that the vice-president really hated that.

Their private conversations still sounded just like the debates they"d had during the nomination fight. And Carlton Brock recalled very clearly what the vice-president had said right before the last, annual Christmas party at the White House - just over a week earlier.

The vice-president had said:

"It"s coming, Carlton. The day is close when I"ll f.u.c.k you so bad you"ll be crying for mommy. So have a merry Christmas, moron. Enjoy your last party at the White House."

Carlton Brock glanced around him and saw that everyone was already holding their hand up.

He raised his hand.

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