Chapter 10

Tuesday 24 May 2022

They met Joe and Layna out the front of the hotel a few minutes before 6am, and headed off towards the National Mall. When they got there, they ran to the Washington Monument. “Wow, it’s really tall,” Layna said. After taking photos, Larissa put her phone back on her arm, and they ran down to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Once they were there, Layna and Joe stopped and held each other tight, looking along the monument.

Larissa let them have a couple of minutes, and then said, “Wow. This is a very moving memorial, even for a war memorial. It really conveys the sadness. Joe and Layna, it has special meaning for you?”

Joe nodded. “Layna’s grandpa had a brother who served in Vietnam. He got wounded, never walked properly again. But the real wound was when he got home, and his family didn’t understand him, society hated on him, and the government didn’t care about him.”

Larissa nodded. Her grandpa had told her about two of his friends who went to Vietnam. One died, and the other came home badly wounded in his soul. Larissa had met him when she was a younger girl.

“He committed suicide when I was ten,” Layna said. “I’ve never talked about before other than with my parents. And I hadn’t thought about it until Joe mentioned the monument when you asked me about going for a run last night. There’s nothing like this in Australia.”

“I thought we had Vietnam memorials?” Julian said.

“We do, but they’re not like this. Well, I guess I should visit one, really. I just feel my grandpa’s brother’s presence here.”

Larissa smiled at her, and kissed them both. “If you’re happy to, I’d like to take a photo of you two kissing in front of the wall.”

Once she’d taken the photo, Julian said, “If you two want a few more minutes, why don’t Larissa and I head off around Lincoln Memorial, and we’ll meet you back at the ellipse?”

Joe and Layna agreed, so they headed off at full steam, around the back of the Lincoln Memorial and then along the iconic path to the World War Memorial. From there, they headed up towards the capitol, but Julian was keeping a close eye on time so they turned around out the front of one of the big museums. By the time they made it back to the ellipse, they could see Joe and Layna, and they caught up to them and then slowed to run up past the White House area and then up to the Mayflower again. Larissa checked her watch when they arrived back - not long before 7am. Good, that left them enough time for showers and then back to the hotel entrance again.

At 7:30am, they were at the entrance again. Madeline met them, and guided them to a van waiting out the front. After a short trip, they were dropped off out the front of a nondescript building, and Madeline led them inside to what proved to be a fashion consultancy. Julian and Joe were led off to one room, and Layna and Larissa were led off to the other where they were undressed and given dresses to try on.

They each had two seamstresses who carefully assisted them. They helped Larissa into a classy black sheath dress that stopped a fair bit above her knees, though not so short that she would worry about showing too much, given how tight it was. It was really a short version of her dress from the other night, but even tighter fitting, and like that dress, there was nothing over her arms. Her seamstresses pulled and tugged at their dresses, and adjusted the seams, some of which were just held by pins. Larissa’s seemed fine to her, but they frowned and adjusted it several times till they finally declared that they were happy. Then they quickly styled her hair, and gave her a very quick one minute make up. Finally, she was given some black stay-up stockings, a pair of medium high heel shoes, and led off to get the approval of the woman in charge of this operation. She approved of their work, and then asked Larissa about jewellery - what did she want?

“I don’t know, I like simplicity.” And this dress was - Jo had obviously conveyed that idea to them. In fact, it was damned impressive given the process that lead to this; this crew knew what they were doing.

The woman went to a cupboard and came back and produced a necklace that took Larissa’s breath away. A simple gold band with a big red ruby or something embedded in it. In fact, it was more of a golden collar than a necklace. Stunning. She placed it around Larissa’s neck, and smiled. “This works well, and matches your rings. We’ll go with this, if you’re happy?”

If Larissa was happy? This necklace had to be the single most expensive thing she’d ever wear by an order of magnitude, or more. They’d hardly started on her, and she knew that she looked just as good as she did for the woman’s dinner.

“Umm, I can’t afford something like this!”

“Oh no, you won’t keep the jewellery - we’ll come get it later.” Then she saw the question in Larissa’s face. “But you keep the rest.”

“How much?”

“Oh no, all sorted already.”

Larissa shook her head. “Thanks.” She’d talk to Layna about it later.

Then it was Layna’s turn, and Larissa knew once again that Layna was impossible to beat. They’d followed the same pattern, and Layna was once again intricate and beautiful. She was wearing a dress quite like hers, that closely followed her form. It was about the same length as Larissa’s but it had a belt that accentuated Layna’s waist. The top had a suit jacket kind of collar that opened to below Layna’s breasts. The dress was dark navy blue a slightly lighter blue pattern etched into it, and with power red trimmings. Layna had her hair up with a fancy diamond tiara. On her legs, she had matching dark navy stockings and a pair of heels. Wow, Layna really looked that part, both glamorous and powerful.

The woman approved of Layna’s look too, and produced an even more ornate golden band to go around Layna’s neck with a row of diamonds around it. Larissa gasped; her own necklace was shockingly expensive, but she’d bet Layna’s necklace was worth much more than hers again. She really looked like a true heiress wearing it.

Layna just smiled and said, “Thanks. Wearing this is definitely a once in a lifetime experience.”

The woman pronounced herself happy with the outfits, and said, “OK. You can change back. We’ll finish the dresses up, and then we’ll bring everything to the hotel in a couple of hours, and dress you properly.”

In the van, Larissa gave Layna a look. “What the hell is with the necklaces?” she asked Layna.

Layna shook her head, and said, “Madeline, aren’t the necklaces a bit over the top?”

Madeline smiled. “The boss wanted to make a big statement. He’s a fan of the movie Pretty Woman.” Larissa didn’t know it, hadn’t watched it, but she could see Layna wasn’t thrilled about it. A question for later, then.

Back at the hotel they had time to get dressed ready for their meeting, and grab a quick bite to eat for breakfast at the hotel restaurant. They’d talked about this meeting, and all of them bar Larissa had decided to wear jeans and plain polos. Larissa had decided to wear jeans and her work shirt, with the vet rescue insignia on it. They stood in a huddle after a breakfast and took a deep breath: game on.

There were twelve people sitting around the table in the meeting room. Larissa had expected more, but she knew Layna was happy about a smaller group. They started with introductions, going around the table. Niall, then his assistant for the day, who was a guy with venture capital background. Then a senior climate scientist from NOAA, a lawyer with lots of experience in Washington, a senior manager from the Department of Energy, then Julian and Larissa, a Professor of climate science from a very respected University, another Lawyer with lots of experience around Washington, another venture capital guy, and finally, Joe and Layna. Also, Madeline was sitting in the corner, but she didn’t get any introduction.

Larissa simply introduced herself as Julian’s wife, a veterinary student. Layna gave her a stare, but she really wanted to hide herself, and not attract attention. If she decided she wanted to say something, she would. Joe followed her lead. They had their computers up, running a chat, and Julian explained that the two lawyers were actually Democrat and Republican insiders, with very solid connections to the leadership of their parties.

Niall then thanked everyone for coming, and asked Layna to explain who she was, and why she did what she did. She explained how they’d started the videos as a uni project, about a year ago, but they chose that subject because all of them believed that was the one subject that they could really commit to, and had to. She described how the project had taken off, and showed a few key moments from the videos over the last year, and pointed out that one reason that they’d been such a big deal was because of the intransigence of the Australian government around coal. Then she explained who was in the project, showed a photo of each of them, and she included Joe and Larissa, explaining how they underpinned the project so solidly. Larissa smiled at her, she couldn’t argue with that. Questions, Niall asked. Both the lawyers wanted to talk about her comments about the Australian government and she said that was a subject for later. The scientists said that they completely agreed with the Dean of Science in the video she showed, which was his comments on the Peter Nutter thing, that at first they’d both dismissed Layna’s project as just a pretty face, but no, she ran some of the best content they’d found, and she was a popular watch in both their departments - congratulations. Sweet. If it was true, but it was something they’d say anyway, as Layna noted in their chat. But then one of them commented about a couple of videos she hadn’t shown, so they were at least watching a bit.

The next subject on the agenda was a review of the science, and the current expectations for climate change in the next two decades. Niall asked Julian to lead that, and he gave a survey of the IPCC report and other relevant science, and then reviewed the current range of forecasts and their probabilities. Then he pointed out that it was easy to forecast the overall energy load, but much harder to forecast what the consequences would be for civilisation, but that so far they’d been at the worse end of the forecasts. Questions for Julian? The science professor engaged Julian with some other forecasts he hadn’t considered, and they quickly reviewed the raw science and Julian agreed that maybe his forecasts were actually a bit optimistic. Other comments? The NOAA scientist said he had, and presented some data that hadn’t been published yet, that showed that once again, the actual warming was at the top end of the forecasts. Both Julian and the climate scientist grimaced and revised their predictions on the spot. Just guessing, they said, but if the NOAA data was correct ... ouch.

Then the republican operative piped up, and played all the standard republican defence in depth: the data isn’t reliable, the interpretation isn’t reliable, it’s all politicised, it’s too late, we can’t survive without burning carbon, the world will be better when it’s hot. All of these were carefully and thoroughly skewered by Julian or one of the scientists. Finally, he said that none of the solutions proposed will make any difference, they’d just destroy the economy. “Right,” Julian said, “I have to agree that most of them won’t, and they might destroy the economy, yes. But the thing that will be worst for the economy is doing nothing, like the Australian government has been doing.”

That got their attention, so Niall said they could go there at this point. Layna described how the government had played all the standard reasons they’d just heard to not do anything about climate change. And they’d pushed for more coal power, even though coal power was now more expensive than renewables with storage. Instead of building the right infrastructure for that, and pushing it along, they’d ‘left it to the market’ while interfering when the market tried to invest in renewables. The result of that was that Australia was one winter storm, or one more coal boiler disaster, away from not having enough power. And that was absolutely a key cause for the fact that the government just got tossed out in a landslide election a few days before - Julian talked about the electorate data that demonstrated that, and then Layna showed the video they’d released two days before the election. The democrat operative was all over that, asking leading questions to demonstrate how wrong the republicans were. Layna and Julian weren’t going to fall for that, and didn’t let themselves get drawn on that subject.

So far, so good, and Layna and Julian were happy with how it was going on the chat. But this was the easy part, going to script, Larissa was sure. No one was surprised, and even the republican operative was clearly going through the motions for the sake of party purity, not because he particularly believed in them himself.

At this point, Madeline signalled to Niall, and he said it was time for a break - Layna and Julian were off to get changed ready for lunch, and when when they came back they’d get back into the subject. Once they’d gone to get changed, and everyone had got coffee from the side of the room, Niall said, “Hey, Larissa, while we wait for them to come back, why don’t you show us your famous video. I’m guessing the others haven’t seen it?” No, they said they hadn’t, so Larissa shrugged, hooked the projector up to her computer, and showed them the raw video, and gave them her commentary.

Julian came back while she was doing that, and didn’t her man look great - wow! Just business pants, a t-shirt, and a suit, but they’d just got everything right, and he too looked like a Hollywood actor at this best. They’d done his hair just so, too. Julian wasn’t so good at managing his hair. She’d have to get a photo for sure, because he looked great. Good enough to eat. He indicated for Joe to go off and get dressed.

They were just slowing down asking her questions about what happened, and how she was working as a rescue vet so young, when Layna came back.

Right. Wow. She’d been sure that Layna would look unbelievable, but seeing it was still more impactful than imagining it. Layna with that dress, the heels, her hair up with the glittering diamonds in it, and the diamond encrusted neck-band: she was sure delivering on the White House request for glamour, but she also looked like she belonged in the corridors of power, not just some model. Well, Larissa’s turn now. As she walked about, Joe came in, and he was a good match for Julian. She grinned at him. He wasn’t much to look at, huh? If only Lisa’s brothers could see him now.

Madeline led her to a room round the corner, and she walked in to find the woman from the morning, along with three assistants, ready to transform her. They called her over to a stool and she sat on it.

“Larissa, darling,” she said, strong emphasis on the second word, “What a pleasure to see you again. Before we get started, are you an olympian?”

“No,” Larissa said, surprised. “Why?”

“Oh, darling, you walk like a Leopard does, all this crackling energy, as if you’re ready to explode. Your Jo was so right about how you need to dress, simple, so not to get in the way of the power. And Layna says that you don’t know how beautiful you are.”

Larissa shrugged. “Well, I’m not as good looking as her, I don’t know anyone who is. But I’ve had to accept that I can scrub up pretty good when I have help.”

The woman smiled at her for that. “You’re right about Layna. I’ve dressed some beautiful women, including many Hollywood starlets, but most of them are not close to you, let alone her. If she wanted ... but no, what she’s doing with her life is wonderful. What about you, darling, what are you doing with your life?”

While Larissa explained, and told them some funny stories from her work, they changed her, and prettied her up - makeup and hair. They even put makeup on her arms, to hide her freckles and tan line. She worried - they were spending a long time on her face, putting a lot on, but she had to trust them. Finally, they were done, and the woman slipped the golden collar on.

“Right, you’re ready. Stand up, and you can have a look.” One of her assistants produced a full length mirror, and she looked at what they’d made of her. Wow, what a transformation. She looked at herself, shaking her head. What Jo, Layna and Ella had done to her the other night was no accident. And the make up ... it was subtle, just what she would’ve done for herself if she had the skill. Yet it wasn’t subtle, at the same time. It had reshaped her face just so, and it was still her, but somehow perfect. Maybe there was a reason other girls paid so much attention to make up! And her hair ... perfect. They’d left it down, but styled away from her face by a thin golden circlet with ruby highlights. Simple, just how she liked, but unexpectedly glamourous. And the golden collar ... maybe one day she’d buy a simpler version of it, because it really completed the outfit and she looked genuinely remarkable.

“I don’t know what to say. I look like me, but somehow not like me. Just wow. Thank you very much, I would never have believed I can look like this. But I feel that I’ll make a mess of it.”

“I’m told that you’ll be eating before your photo op. So you need to be very careful. Your men have napkins that are suitable for your dresses in their pockets, if you’re not happy with what the White House provides.” Larissa smiled her thanks for that. “Other than that ... you’ll just have to be careful for a few hours, though they do have emergency makeup repair kits for you as well.” Larissa nodded. “OK, photo, for our archives.”

When that was done, Madeline led Larissa back to the meeting room. As she walked in, she saw the amazement in all their faces. No doubt Layna had got the same response, but it was still nice. When she sat down, she got some messages on their chat:

✉ Julian: Wow. Just wow! You spectacular thing. How lucky am I?
✉ Layna: Right. Wow! You are a beautiful woman, and we know that it’s so much more than skin deep
✉ Joe: Yes. Both of you, astonishing. Those people really know what they’re doing, but you both have it
✉ Larissa: Thanks. Of course, both you guys look good enough to eat. What’s that about Joe not looking good? Heart throb! And Layna ... you have it all, very special indeed. And I have no idea how I’m not going to take my man to bed immediately!
✉ Layna: Thanks and I agree about the guys. And that team - very good at what they do
✉ Layna: Larissa, Julian says you think that you’re acceptably pretty. Do you still think that?
✉ Larissa: I have to change my opinion now. It’s just so ... weird ... after what they all said in high school
✉ Layna: You got a hard time? They didn’t think you were beautiful?
✉ Larissa: As if. Poor family, second hand clothes, no budget for cosmetics. And the other girls rubbed it in: not pretty
✉ Layna: I can imagine. Jealous that you had the raw product in abundance, and wouldn’t admit it. Isabella too?
✉ Layna: No, she wasn’t in my year, never noticed me. But she probably would have back then
✉ Layna: Y. Well, I hope they’ve noticed now. Imagine how they felt when they saw you in the magazine this week
✉ Larissa: That is a nice thought, but they probably haven’t seen it. Why would they?
✉ Layna: I think you might find that every single person in Traralgon has looked at it!
✉ Larissa: Maybe you’re right. Isabella is probably hunting the few that haven’t down
✉ Julian: LOL. Your number one fan now!

While that thread was happening, they were all paying attention to the conference too. The subject they’d been talking about while she was out of the room was the big deal consequences of climate change to human civilisation. All this was obviously going somewhere, but so far all they had done was lay a solid foundation - had to like that. They’d been collecting a list on the projector, logical consequences, and the spread of their likelihoods and severities. And it was a pretty scary list too - why climate change was such a big deal: fires, hurricanes, famines, immigration crises, riots, war. When they were finishing up, Larissa looked at the list, and realised that they hadn’t added something she thought they should.

“Hang on,” she said, “I think you should consider putting antimicrobial resistance on the list.”

“Why?” the professor said to her in surprise. “I mean, it’s a problem I know about, but what’s it got to do with climate change?”

“I was looking into it last week,” Larissa said. Thanks to her lecturer, who was going to love this. “It is a problem in its own right, but climate change is driving us to use more monoculture, and also to hotter farming conditions, and both of those are increasing the dependence of farming on preventative antimicrobials. I was looking at a chicken farm in Maryland here on Sunday, and they put antibiotics in their feed all the time, when they didn’t use to. Stupid stupid stupid, but all the other farmers do it, so they have no choice. And widespread use makes resistance both more likely to occur, and more catastrophic if it does. It’s kind of under-considered as a climate problem, because it’s a chance to not be a problem at all, but as we found out with covid, if it does happen, it can be a really big deal indeed.”

The other scientists were nodding, and Julian gave her a well done on their chat. While Julian was adding that to the list on the project, Niall wanted to know what that was all about, so the professor explained what the underlying problem was. Niall was gobsmacked by the explanation, such a massive risk to civilisation, so he asked, “Who’s working on this problem?”

“Pretty much no one,” the professor said. “I mean, there’s plenty of research about how it’s going to be a disaster sooner or later, but no one is doing anything about politically. The Obama White House had a program, but it got shut down, and that just left the WHO, and they’ve pretty much put it aside once covid happened. I was talking to a colleague about it last week.”

“Umm,” Niall said, “I don’t understand. Why are we worried about climate change then?” He thought about what he’d just said. “No, I mean, how can we not be taking this problem as seriously as climate change? It’s actually worse, right?”

The scientists around the table were nodding. It was just as serious, but hardly anyone was taking it seriously. Niall looked at the two political operatives. “I’m expecting both of you to let me know where it is on your party’s agendas, OK?”

They dutifully nodded, and agreed that they’d find out.

That was the first solid action of the day, and Larissa felt good about that. Then Niall turned to Layna. “You haven’t done a show about that, then?”

“No,” Layna grimaced. “We haven’t. But yes, we’ll definitely do at least one show on it now.” Julian was nodding firmly. They sure were going to now.

Niall nodded, and turned back to the operatives. “I’m looking for both of you to produce someone Layna can talk to about where this stands on your political agenda.” More dutiful nodding from them, and open grimaces on both their parts this time.

“OK,” Niall said, “We’ve got forty-five minutes until we leave for lunch. I want to spend the rest of the time until then considering what we could do. Let’s make a list, all the things that we could do, and we can go back after lunch and work through whether they’re a good idea.”

They did what he asked, though he had to keep disciplining them all, because every one of them kept wanting to go off on a tangent and talk about why a particular idea was a disastrous one for some reason or other. Eventually, he got them all to the point where they laughed when someone yet again tried to get into the details. But finally, they were done: they had their list.

“OK. Lunch time. Those of you that we couldn’t get into the White House, I’m sorry about that. You probably get better food here though, and you can go through this list while we’re gone and start thinking how we’re going to go through it again when we get back - we need to get into the details, but also, we need to time box the whole discussion to about ninety minutes. And you can leave all your gear here while we’re gone, security will be watching it. Layna and Larissa, let’s go!”

Larissa had expected to walk to the White House - it was only about ten minutes. But she found that wasn’t on the agenda. Madeline explained that Niall probably wasn’t up for that and being his best at the white house, they wanted no chance of them getting dirty, and then there was the security issue, for both Niall and their necklaces. Their necklaces? Larissa decided she didn’t want to know just how much they cost.

But she had looked up the Pretty Woman movie, and she’d figured out why Layna had been disturbed about that. It was ... distasteful ... to be treated like the woman in that movie, but they’d chatted about it and decided that they’d let it slide. But it did give his current relationship with his wife an additional meaning. No wonder Alison didn’t like that one.

There was only six people going to the lunch - Niall, the democratic operative, and the four of them. And Madeline too, though she wasn’t going into the White House - she’d stay at the gate coordinating everything. Their limousines drove them right to the secret service entry point to the White House precinct on State Place. Once Julian had helped her out, she looked around in astonishment; there were people everywhere. In front of her, she could see the silver door of the Secret Service entry point, and behind that, the White House. Behind her, there were tourists and protesters mingling together on the other side of a big fence. They were already inside the outer perimeter, so those people weren’t close.

A secret service member led them to the check in counter, and one by one they checked in, entered through the big silver door, and went through security. Larissa, like the other Australians, was given a lanyard with a big red dot right over her heart; this marked her as a foreign national, and she wasn’t to go anywhere at all without being accompanied by a staff member. Once through security, she stood with the others waiting for the democrat guy who’d gone last, in case anyone had trouble. Did he count as staff? No, he didn’t either, some young gopher was assigned to bring them to their lunch room.

As they walked up the car park to the side door of the West Wing, Larissa could hardly believe it. She was looking around in wonder; there were so many people here. And Marines, with machine guns. And it was the White House right in front of them. There was also a big building to their left that she didn’t know - the Eisenhower Executive building, the gopher told her. She was so amazed she almost forgot to take photos, but she remembered in time.

Then they were at the side door to the west wing - a simple double door with glass panels. It kind of felt like a let down, really. So ... normal. Inside there was a rack of lockers to their left, and they had to deposit all their electronics in one of those lockers. To her amazement, no one checked that they actually had - there was no scanner or anything. Strange. Of course, she had nothing other than her phone and nowhere to hide anything on her body - the dress really was very form fitting, as was Layna’s. But the guys did - they had plenty of pockets; Larissa had put some stuff in Julian’s pockets. Of course, they weren’t taking any chances, and they left all their phones and Joe’s watch in the locker. Then they were inside the West Wing, in a kind of lobby, which was full of people - very crowded indeed. The gopher guided them around a couple of corners and into the Navy Mess. Larissa shivered, she knew that they were right next to the situation room, and right below the Oval Office, the real seats of power. She shook herself - this was as closer than she ever wanted to come to this kind of place. What was a veterinary student from a small country town doing in a place like this?

Julian had her hand, and he pumped it. She glanced at him, and he gave her a meaningful look and a smile. She pumped back - she’d be ok, and he’d be feeling the same as she was. Someone had told her that in situations like this, she should imagine the audience naked, but she had a better idea: what if the four of them got naked, and their guys did them over the back of the chair in front of her? She grinned at Julian, and she knew she’d be fine. Whatever was going to happen in here, she’d have her friends, her family, and her man, and that was more than enough for her.

But wait, something was weird. She’d looked up the navy mess room that morning, and they weren’t in that room ... where were they? Well, wherever they were, they were being shown to their seats. Larissa sat where her name badge put her. Once they were all seated, a few more people came in, and then she was handed a menu. She scanned it quickly, and was relieved to see that it was food she understood; she’d been worried it would be fancy stuff and she wouldn’t know what to get. She quickly chose the smallest, driest option - least chance of messing her dress up.

Once that was done, the meeting got into order, and introductions happened. At the head of the table, a woman who identified herself as the National Climate advisor. Next to her, her deputy, and then the deputy director of the Department of Energy, a democratic leader with a long history of climate change policy leadership, and one of his assistants. Beside him, a deputy director of the EPA, and then the director of the National Resources Defense Council, then the director of the National Economic Council. And another billionaire that Larissa didn’t know, though she figured Julian did. Then the four of them, Niall, and then the democratic operative. And one empty seat that no one commented on, weird.