“I’ve been wearing dresses my whole life, Madam President. It’s no problem. And I’ve got thirty-six years of catch up to do.”
Cadence held up her hands defensively. “Okay. No problem. I have a spare one in my room. We’re about the same size in the shoulders. You’re taller, but—”
Hanah was surprised. “Madam President! I couldn’t take yours!”
“I’m not that stuffy. Consider it a welcoming present. Hanah is your new name?”
Hanah nodded.
Cadence smiled yet pressed, “Why did you keep this a secret?”
“I had a security clearance, which I might lose, and I wanted so much to be your bodyguard, and—” She shook her head. “I was so ashamed.”
“Now, we’ll have none of that,” Gina said, wrapping an arm around Hanah’s shoulders.
“It’s okay,” Cadence hugged Hanah right around Gina’s arm. We’re liberal here. The Republicans don’t have the White House this term. They’d probably have shot you on site, or most of them.” Cadence put her hand over her heart. “But I don’t care. I’ve thought about having one of those, myself.”
Gina broke into a smile and shook her head.
“Really?” Hanah asked.
“I’d probably get more respect out of congress, if I did.”
CHAPTER
15
The whole group stood together on the White House 2nd floor balcony overlooking the South Lawn. Cadence was in the same suit she had on an hour earlier. Lori wore her standard slacks and blouse. Gina wore a pantsuit with a fluffy tie at the neck. Cory wore the suit he bought at Nordstrom. Gadin stood next to Marie with his arm around her shoulders. Marie wore a smile. Major Wood was in his Army uniform, sporting new eagles, eyeing Hanah. And Hanah—serious in her continuing role as head of the President’s protection detail—had her long blond hair pulled back into a tight pony tail, and wore large, dark RayBans over a white, sleeveless, mini-dress with flowers on it, zipped up the back, which made her look stunning, yet with a pair of Nikes on her feet which made her look fast.
A crowd of at least three thousand covered the lawn to the south: people, voters, businessmen and women, military, news reporters, securitiy personnel.
Hanah’s face was fixed, steady, even stern. Her head moved slightly from side to side as she scannd the area—while a tear crept slowly down her cheek.
Lori reached out and touched Hanah’s hand, gave it a squeeze.
Cadence noticed.
Hanah leaned her head to touch Lori’s, then she back to work.
Cadence stepped forward.
The crowd below began to applaud. Cadence turned her head to the right, revealing a capital T. Camera crews zoomed in on Cadence’s face, and the applause from below turned into cheers. The few who booed were drowned out by the overwhelming number of people in favor.
Cadence spoke quietly to the seven with her. “Will you all step forward and join me?”
They did.
Cadence waited until the cheers from the crowd began to die down before she addressed them.
“Good morning, everyone: fellow Americans, ladies and gentlemen, people who don’t want to fit old fashioned binary norms—” There were a few chuckles from below, drowned out by many more cheers. “People of the world, those born here, and those who immigrated: It is with great pleasure we’re here, today, to greet each other in this, the dawning of a new age in the history of the world.” People began to cheer again. “GOOD MORNING,” Cadence said to them, inviting a response.
“Good morning!” the crowd said in unison below.
“I stand here today with friends—and that means all of you.”
The crowd laughed and responded in kind.
“And also these good people who are sharing with me here on this balcony. I’ve been given permission to share, so I will: Full Colonel Wood, who just got promoted a few minutes ago, who has been in charge of Lori Faraday’s protection, and who’s done a fine job.”
Applause.
Colonel Wood gave the assemblage below a stiff smile and waved a little.
Cadence smiled. “He really ought to loosen up a little.”
Laughter.
“From the looks of it, Hanah might help him.”
Hanah looked around, nervous.
“Hanah Hamilton, Chief of my security detail, Secret Service.”
Hanah smiled a little and waved at the crowd.
“It’s okay?” Cadence asked Hanah.
Hanah nodded.
“Okay,” Cadence told her, then to the crowd. “Hanah was Harry, until about an hour ago—remember him? He was always here: stern, brown-haired guy?—and it turns out she’s a woman.”
The crowd applauded Hanah pleasantly.
“Who’d have thought, the way things were?” She turned to indicate Cory. “Cory Peck, who you’ve all seen on T.V. several times.”
Cory smiled and waved. “Cory doesn’t look quite like himself, because it turns out he was F.T.M. transgender, living stealth, and now he’s been through the transmuter, so he butched up a little.”
The crowd chuckled.
“My God, it’s like reincarnation!” Cory said to the crowd, eliciting a few whoops.
“Georgina Wells, Secretary of State, whom you all recognize. She hasn’t been through the transmuter yet, um,” Cadence turned toward Gina. “Are you wanting to?”
“I think I will, after the bustle dies down,” Gina said.
“Gadin Malhotra, Ph.D., from Stanford. Computer Science,” Cadence said to the crowd. “Friend of Cory’s—well, all of us, now.”
Gadin waved.
“And who has been making eyes at Marie over there. Marie, could you come over here?”
Marie looked embarrassed but walked to the President’s side.
“And Lori,” Cadence indicated her.
Lori walked to Marie’s side.
The crowd went wild, cheering for Lori.
“Lori!”
“Wooooo-hoo!”
“Thank you, Lori!”
“My dad’s alive because of you!”
“Lori!”
Cadence waited until the noise passed before she spoke some more. “And with this, let me share with you something new.”
The crowd quieted.
“Marie, would you like to greet everyone?”
Marie looked shy but offered a quiet, “Hello, everyone.”
“Marie, you know the world’s been in flux for the last three months since your mom, Lori, gave transmuters to us. Do you have anything you’d like to say?”
Marie turned and hugged Lori, shedding tears on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Lori said to her. “It’ll be okay.”
Marie nodded. “Okay.”
The large screen below and to the right carried a closeup of the three: the President, Lori, and Marie.
“She’s just being a little shy,” Lori said to everyone. “She’s always been bashful, when she wasn’t bouncy.”
Cadence asked Marie. “Marie, do you remember your father? John Michael Faraday?”
Marie nodded.
“Can you tell me about him?”
“He loved me very much. We used to jog together at the beach, sit together and watch T.V. sometimes. We would go places in the car. I got to go to work with him at Westech a few times, that was nice. And when he died, three months ago, I know it hurt my mom so very much.”
“And you remember seeing him? Loving him? You remember things he would say to you?”
Marie nodded. “Yes.”
“Thank you. Let me come back to that in a second?” Cadence asked.
Marie nodded.
Cadence addressed the crowd below.
The crowd murmured.
Cadence held up he hand. “Let me share in a moment. I know it’s unusual for me to ask someone the kind of questions I just asked Marie, as she’s obviously about twenty years old.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I need to touch on the major adjustm
ent we’ve been going through here on Earth these last three months since Lori gave us the transmuter. We all know about it. Many of us have been able to go through it, and the death rate has plummeted.
“We have a lot of adjustment still to make. I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that there are several groups of people who take objection to rejuvenation, living longer. There are many religious people who feel it’s against God’s natural law to interfere with death, and with respect, I think most of them are speaking without the benefit of dying themselves. I think it’s one thing to believe that death is natural, and it’s another to actually die— Yet, if someone prefers not to use a transmuter and let nature take its course, then that is a choice we will respect.”
Cadence looked more thoughtful and raised her hands as if to ask the cosmos a question, then proceded with her speech.
“Everything is changing, because of advancements in medicine, technology, with our ability to live longer, now—but also with more than that: with the continuing evolution of our cultures around the globe.
“I beg you to hear me: Even as much as many people fear change or fear advancement, or believe life should be as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago, or believe that religious texts should guide our current belief in what is right or wrong, the fact is that knowledge and cultures advance. There is no way around it. I don’t mean to agree with every new idea that comes along, but fighting them—and by that I mean hurting people, vandalism, killing people, creating terror or war. Fighting the evolution of ourselves as human beings, fighting evolutions in our culture, like that, only creates heartache and pain along the way. The culture will still evolve along the lines of who we are inside as human beings.
“The internal nature of us as humans will guide us along our path. Things will always change.
“How we can cure this, or make that better. How we may engage in space travel, colonize the Moon or Mars. The answer is: how we may as people.”
Cadence turned slightly to look at Lori, then others on the balcony with her, then back to the assemblage.
“Look at trans people. They’ve always been with societies in one way or another, working with laws, culture and science to be what they can be. And as science and culture move foreward, we see more and more people express their need or interest in being somewhere else in a spectrum, to transit.
“Many people disdain that, saying it’s wrong. Each person has his own reasons. But it’s here, and here to stay.
“We argue in Congress, in the press, in our living rooms about the pros and cons of allowing other people into the country? Immigration? About whether or not Caitlyn Jenner or some other celebrity should be a new gender? About whether or not an Army can function if gays or trans are among them? We worry that if one nation attacks us, then other people from that country might be spies? Remember we incarcerated American citizens in WW-II who were Japanese—”
Cadence looked at everyone.
Gravitas.
She held up her hands in front of herself.
“We need all that to just stop.
“We need to stop trying to make others in our own image.
“Anthropologists teach us that when we were a younger species, struggling to survive, day to day, with no formal education we’d recognize today, that being suspicious of things that were different was a survival mechanism—that new food, that new pond of water, that other tribe, that thing that was different. Things that were different could be good, but they could also be dangerous. When something worked, doing only that meant survival. Doing something different could kill.
“Yet, when things in the world change, doing that same old thing as before could become the problem—something that no longer worked.
“So what happened? People who couldn’t change struggled. People who took a chance succeeded.
“They didn’t know. They had no science, no internet, no mass communication. They just struggled with it.
“But as we continue to grow as a species, as we’ve developed great universities around the world, as we’ve learned we’ve seen the value of immigration,” she looked strongly at Lori, “—of learning through cultural exchange, of creative ideas that come from diversity—we need to grow as a species through an earlier, suspicious time in our physical and cultural evolution to a place where we can utilize what we’re learning.
“This is vital to our survival as a species. In a nuclear age, in a weaponized viral age, in an internet age, this ability to use our forebrain over our midbrain is vital to our survival.
“In short, we need to evolve from the earliest man who threw a bone in the air, as in the beginning of ‘2001: A Space Oddyssey,’ to the Star Trek universe.”
Many people in on the lawn murmured their agreement.
“We need to quit fearing the false safety of everything-must-be-as-I-say and instead embrace the creativity of difference!”
More people cheered.
“Though death is now greatly diminished, itself, we need to realize that the problems we face in the world, today, will only be solved by embracing new ideas, which will come from diversity in thought.”
The whole crowd below cheered their support.
“Our immigrants from other countries—or planets.”
She smiled at Lori and waited for a second for laughter and applause to die down.
“Our cultural exchange with other cultures around the globe—and planets, if more come.”
She smiled through more response from the audience.
“Our growing awareness of diversity among us—must all be a part of who we are now becoming, lest we fail to rise to the occasion, lest we fail to meet new challenges with success. Lest we fail to solve our new problems, together, as a civilized society—”
People began to clap and cheer.
Cadence spoke louder, to be heard.
“—valuing each and every person, no matter how they may choose to live— Come here,” Cadence said to Hanah and Cory. They moved closer to her and stood on Cadence’s other side. Cadence wrapped her arms around all four of them. “No matter who they love— Come here, Colonel. He stood closer to her, beside Hanah, and reached over to hold her hand.
Cadence noticed and smiled. “No Matter where they come from. No matter who they are!”
Cadence held Marie’s hand in one hand and Hanah’s in another, and raised them all in salute to America.
Smiles were all around. Hanah cried.
Wood stared at Hanah.
Lori clapped.
When the cheering died down some, Cadence continued.
“So you think we can do that? Can we begin to move into a Star Trek age?”
The crowd affirmed her loudly.
Cadence nodded.
“Good. I agree completely.
“And we have already begun that Trek to the Stars!”
The crowd screamed its affirmative.
“Because— Well, frankly, Lori put it in our hands.”
Cadence smiled at Lori.
The crowd laughed with Cadence.
“I mean, really, it’s just the way to go. We’re going to live longer, we’ve always had a need to explore the galaxy—”
The crowd cheered her some more.
“—we feel as well the need to have children, we have the need for more natural resources, so—naturally—scientists are already working on plans to develop space stations, the moon, and Mars—”
Cadence was shouting over cheers from the crowd at this point. Without the aid of her microphones, there would have been no way for the press to pick up her words.
“—we’re developing realistic ways to begin to slowly terraform the planet somewhat, but to also begin colonization of Mars—all of this beginning as of last week with NASA, SpaceX and others—and with international coorperation from other countries around the globe!”
It took quite a while for the crowd to settle down, but when they did, Cadence set a softer tone.
?
??Which brings me back to Marie, here.”
Cadence put her arm around Marie, who put her arm around Cadence’s waist.
“What is your relationship to Lori,” Cadence asked Marie.
“She’s my mom.”
“But you were born where?”
“Well, Kansas, the first time,” Marie said.
“So you’re not Ahleth?”
Marie shook her head. “Well, partly.”
Cadence turned back to the people.
“In a spirit of acceptance and understanding of diversity, with the realization this is only our first year of the Star Trek age—Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations—”
The crowd’s exuberance was infectious.
“Let me share that Marie is the result of Lori’s Research and Development, as it were. The same need—Lori’s hatred of death—in losing her husband, John, that prompted her to give us the transmuters, also moved her to develop Marie.
“Marie was Lori and John’s dog, an English Springer Spaniel, three months ago. Aging, on her last legs, as it were. And Lori helped her evolve into the real—genuine—human being you see here with us today.”
The crowd murmured and cheered at the same time. It was chaos in response.
“Right?” Cadence asked Marie.
Marie nodded. “That’s right.”
“I mention all this for a reason,” Cadence said to the gathering. “Together,” she indicated everyone, “we’ve been growing accustomed to working with transmuters to rejuvenate, but with this R&D, from Lori, we’re learning we can also use them to cure or repair genetic issues for those who are interested from simpler things such as color blindness, to major issues such as muscular dystrophy, haemophilia, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle-cell disease, Down Syndrome—”
The crowd below was applauding. Some were crying.
“—because, apparently, transmuters can be used to re-design someone on a genetic level through sampling and extrapolation—”
“A monster?” someone heckler below yelled.
Cadence shook her head. “No. It determine’s a healthy gene sequence for you, works with you on the outcome, pictures it for you, etc., and then if you agree, it makes that for you.
“This is similar to what was done for Professor Hawking, when the machine not only repaired him, made him as 20 again, but it also went into his brain and actually cured his A.L.S.”
The crowd below loudly murmured their agreement.
A healthy, 20-year-old Mel paced the floor and waited for his friend to exit the “T-room,” as it was being called: the room within which the transmuter was housed, the room where people changed.