Weapon - Reflection
#6 of Weapon
"Don't you dare stop this feed until she is done." I heard Lieutenant Howard say.
I took another few seconds to compose myself before looking back at the camera.
"People of America, I apologise for my display, but..."
I paused a bit more, getting myself grounded and, ready to continue, lifted my head.
"At the push of that button, we have amputated a section of the world.
At three oh two pm, this day, we have launched enough nuclear warheads to neutralise the middle east. The countries of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are no more. But now, neither is the middle eastern terrorist threat.
The other major nations were notified in advance, to avoid any accidents.
As a soldier, I am only trained to fight a war to its conclusion.
Good day."
The camera shut off. "Howard, I will be in my office, prioritise calls, I only want to speak to heads of state or anything of ours with a star on his uniform."
"Sir!"
-
".. the whole world has looked on with shock at what the acting President, General Walters has done today, each person must ask in their heart, is the freedom from fear worth such a price?"
-
"... we go live to a press conference with Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin-"
Translated, "Whilst I cannot condone any nation taking an aggressive nuclear stance, General Walters has responded to the nuclear threat that had not only been levelled against their country, but carried out at least once. I cannot however sp-"
-
"The executive office of the peoples republic of China has issued a press release damning the strike on humanitarian grounds but has itself not levelled any charges against them in regards to the weapons used."
-
"... saying, 'The United Kingdom will never condone such actions'. Word from Windsor however is that the royal family may have other thoughts..."
-
"Now that this action has been taken it will be interesting to see the outcome of next weeks election, although one thing will be certain, whoever wins will be thankful that the countries biggest threat has been dealt with in such a final manner."
-
I switched off the news reports, flicking through the stations trying to find one that had a weather report proved impossible and more than a little depressing.
It was less than a week till the fated election, I would be happy to hand over control and just go and live out the rest of my days in a quiet corner. Although some press would have me in the chair for what I had done, others heralded me as a hero. Both made me sick.
"Sir?" Howard came over the intercom.
"Go ahead." I told him.
"Well Sir, there's... there's a card here, you might want to come out and look at it." I sighed.
I got up and left my office, in the outer area that was Howard's domain, I saw a half dozen women holding a large card. I wasn't sure what was going on, but trusted my aide to not throw me in the deep end.
"Uh, Ma'am." One of them said. "We would like to give you this card, its-" She started to have trouble with the speech.
"Its from all of us Ma'am. All the families of the soldiers who were over there before you called them all back." Finished another, they handed me the card.
It was a pair of large A3 sheets of cardboard, a 'Thank you' printed on the front. Then the two women opened it, in tiny hand writing, there were thousands of signatures.
"Everyone who had their partner come home and a lot of people that will never have theirs come home, but know their children will never have to go there." One explained. They were tearing up.
I took the card, and pulled up a seat, opening it.
"Ma'am?" One woman asked. "What..."
"You may have heard I can remember everything I read" I smiled, "Its not an exaggeration. And I can think of no better thing to read and commit to memory than these names" I returned to my task.
The women pulled up some of the remaining chairs, as someone would notice a name they recognised as my finger was running over, they would stop me and tell me that persons story.
"...lost both her sons..."
"...his wife came back missing a leg..."
"...has been helping widows with supplies from his store..."
-
"We are in the final hour of counting for this election, no results have been leaked yet, there seems to be some problems..."
The reporter was saying but cut off as two electoral officials stepped out of the counting room, up to the podium and waited for quiet.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem, whilst there is a clear winner so for this election, they got through with less than eleven percent of the vote. Over eighty percent of the votes are, at this time, uncountable. We can't, in all conscience state that they are the person the voters wan-" The man was halfway through saying when the reporter cut into the audio.
"Apologies viewers for cutting short the speech, but senior Electoral officials have made known the election will be considered void and that a second election will be held in one weeks time, and I understand the reason for this is that the unheard of number of informal votes. Although leaked information suggests the reason for the decision is..." At that time someone jumped up in front of the camera with a mask on and threw a handful of what looked like ballot papers into the air, then held up one close to the camera.
Where the mark should have been made for either of the two candidates was written, "General Walters".
I sat in shock, "That can't be right, what that implies..." I began.
"What it implies, Sir, is that had your name been on that ballot you would have had nearly a four to one majority vote." The Lieutenant said.
-
The week went slowly, every day I was being hounded for media interviews, at Lieutenant Howards insistence I agreed to some.
I thought they would be all over me for policy information, wanting to know what I would bring to the executive office but all they wanted was the 'scoop on the hero'. Grudgingly, I obliged them to an extent.
That isn't to say I wasn't working on policies and plans for the future, but I had to settle on what ministers I wanted advising me, quietly tapping a few people on the shoulder, sounding them out.
The evening the votes were being counted I was almost shaking, surely the people couldn't want this, surely they had seen what I am, what my thinking leads to, surely...
The electoral officers had decided to keep it all quiet again, waiting for the last moment. Coming out to stand before the pedestal, one of the men cleared his voice quietly and murmured into the mic, "General Heather Walters with eighty six percent of the vote."
The margin was higher than the informal ballots had indicated, I was past numb, I was running on pure adrenaline.
Silence descended as I took the podium, shaking hands with the electoral officers and the other two candidates.
"People of America, I have been nothing but honest with you, I have attempted to maintain a transparency as to my person since taking command.
You have voted for me, your will has been done. I will continue on my plan to make the next leaders job that little bit easier than mine.
But one thing I will not have is a hidden agenda, I am a straight forward person, both as a soldier and a human being and I intend to remain so as your President.
My aim, for the duration of my presidency to come, as has been my aim before, will be to make this world a better place for all of you.
Thank you for your confidence, I will continue to earn it."
Not anywhere near over yet, not by half. So don't panic :)