Chapter 17

Gav's congratulations, though genuine, were a bit reserved when Sophie returned to the government offices after the election results were made official. She couldn't blame him. In some ways, her victory was a repudiation of many of the things he had tried to accomplish.

"Thank you, Mr. President," she said, for the benefit of the onlookers. It was her first official visit to Government House, and there were, of course, reporters on hand to record the event for posterity. The greeting was for protocol, but after the reporting she had seen during the campaign, Sophie was mindful of how the media would attempt to analyze every nuance of their meeting.

Once the official handshake was concluded, she embraced her brother warmly, then said, for the sake of the onlookers, "I only hope I can do as good a job as President as you've done, big brother."

Grateful for the public affirmation from his sister and from his political rival, Gav smiled and answered graciously, "If you do this as well as you've done everything else in your life, you'll have no problems."

They posed for a few pictures, then Gav, still President for a few more weeks, dismissed the reporters and ushered his sister and successor inside to begin the process of handing over the reins of government.

Once out of sight and earshot of the media, Sophie smiled up at her brother and asked, "So, big brother, you got any tips for your little sister on how to handle this job?"

"From the way you handled your campaign," Gav answered, "you might have been able to give me some tips. Somehow, you managed to set just the right tone, even for people who didn't agree with you. If you can do that in office, you might very well accomplish great things."

"It's very nice of you to say, that Gav, but I have a favor to ask of you, and I'm not sure how you'll respond."

"I guess the only way to know is to ask, isn't it?"

"Okay, well, here goes: You know that since there were no other candidates from our party, Señor Sanchez will be my Vice President, if he accepts the office, by dint of the fact that he got more votes than any of my other opponents. I can work with him if he's not too much of an ideologue, but foreign policy is not going to be his strong suit, and if we continue to expand, I'll need someone I can trust to handle that. You and I disagree on some domestic issues, but we have never been at odds over our interactions with our neighbors. Will you be my Foreign Secretary?"

"Foreign Secretary? There's no such..." Gav stopped and looked at his sister, "You're creating that post?"

"Yes," she answered. "If there's one thing I learned in Memphis, it's that I can't do everything myself. Phoenicia now covers most of this American continent, and has begun sending expeditions across the oceans. I need someone who can handle relations with the peoples we meet in those explorations, and I can't think of anyone better for the job."

"You're not just doing this to appease me?"

"I thought long and hard about this, Gav," Sophie shook her head. "I went over everyone I knew who might fill the post, and I kept coming back to you. I looked for other solutions, because, frankly, I wasn't sure if you would agree to work for me. In the end, you're the best person for the job, and I hope you'll take it."

"How about Linda?"

"Linda's a great organizer and knows how to get things done, but while she knows my views on foreign policy, she's not the person to make decisions about it when she can't communicate with me. You, I can trust to do that and I can be pretty sure that your decisions will be in the best interest of Phoenicia. Linda, I think, now that the new baby's arrived, will be my Chief of Staff. How about it, bro? Can you take orders from your little sister?"

"Let me think about it, Soph," Gav answered. "That's a lot to digest all at once."

"Of course," Sophie said, looping her arm through his. "And while you're thinking about it, consider that it will mean a lot of travel outside Phoenicia. That might take you away from Scooter and the kids more than you want."

"You're not much of a salesperson, are you?" Gav laughed.

Sophie shrugged. "In my estimation, we'd all be better off if salespeople were required to tell us the bad things about what we want to buy, as well as the good."

"No disagreement from me on that one," Gav grinned.

"Maybe, if we get the higher priority stuff moving well, we can get a bill to that effect introduced. In fact, remembering what Dad told us about the way advertising was done before the sickness, maybe it's not that low on the priority list after all."

"So what are your top priorities, Soph?"

Sophie stopped walking and Gav had little choice but to do the same, as she turned to look at him.

"You know what my platform was, Gav," she said. "Do you really want to get into that discussion now?"

Their gazes locked for a moment before he answered, "I keep thinking you're still my little sister, but you haven't been for a long time, have you Sophie? I don't mean to imply that you're not my sister, but you've been grown up and thinking for yourself for all these years, while I've been trying to convince myself that you still need your big brother's guidance. I know you're going to try to reverse some of the things that were passed during my administration, and no, I guess we don't need to have that discussion now. Come on, let me finish giving you the tour."

"I will be your Vice President on one condition," Sr. Sanchez started to say, but Sophie didn't let him finish.

"No conditions, Sr. Sanchez. You are constitutionally entitled to the position, but make no mistake: This is my administration and its policies will be carried out in accordance with the will of the people who elected me to this office. I will consider your input and that of the members of my cabinet, but ultimately, the decisions are mine to make. Once made, it is your duty, as Vice President, to carry them out as if you were me."

"Calma te por favor, Señora," Sr. Sanchez replied, "I only wished to say that I would serve under the condition that you accept my promise to serve you as would one of your own party."

"I'm very happy to hear that, Señor," Sophie smiled, "but would like to offer a little clarification. First, you serve Phoenicia, not me. As a corollary to that, even one of my own party would be expected to speak his own mind when asked for an opinion. In a way, I am glad that my VP will not be from my party. The more people I have around me who disagree with me, the more likely I am to hear enough arguments to make good decisions. In public, we must present a united front, but in private, if you have an opinion different from mine, I want to hear it."

"'Stá bien!" Sr. Sanchez said, smiling and extending his right hand.

"Yes," Sophie replied, gripping the extended hand, "I think it is well."

She had, of course, researched her opponent's background early in the campaign, along with all of the others, long before the primaries had been decided. She could have done much worse for a Vice President. Sr. Ernesto Sanchez was the first son born to a couple in the former country of Mexico after the Sickness. Both his mother and father had come from poor farming stock and some years after the Sickness had drifted north seeking more fertile land in the former Estados Unidos, bringing Ernesto with them.

They had been hesitant, at first, on encountering the new nation of Phoenicia, but had soon discovered that its citizenry was comprised of as many who spoke Spanish as those who spoke English. As of the elections, they were still farming part of the rich San Joaquin valley, but Ernesto had come into Phoenix as a young man to learn a trade. In so doing, he had discovered that those who ran the companies were not always completely fair to those they employed. He had been instrumental in forming the first labor union in Phoenicia, and had leveraged his popularity from that effort to win the Wage Earners' nomination.

He was earnest and hardworking, and his only interest in the Presidency seemed to be to help out his working class brothers and sisters.

Sophie had decided on most of those that she wanted for her advisors long before the election was over, and though she was still waiting to hear Gav's decision about the Foreign Secretary post, she wasted no time in planning her first few weeks in office. After that, her activities would pretty much be decided by the outcomes of her initial actions, and though she had planned for as many of the possible outcomes as she could foresee, going into much detail beyond the first weeks in her planning would have been a waste of time.

Linda, with Kyle as her deputy, landed in Government House like an L9 paratrooper - loaded for bear and ready for action, and in short order, had filled every office allotted for the President's staff with solid, reliable people. Sophie, in the rare moments that she had between fighting fires and familiarizing herself with the operation and critical issues facing each department of the government, whether part of the Executive branch or not, began to flesh out the rhetoric from her campaign into actual policy for her administration.

Her inaugural speech, though brief and, to her mind, not all that memorable, had generated an acceptably warm response:

"Thirty years ago, a world died. From the ashes of one of its nations, a new nation was born, pledged to correct the failings of the old nation while preserving its successes. The original United States were formed from thirteen colonies founded under the despotic rule of an even older nation, resulting in a collection of states that insisted on sharing power with the federal government. Phoenicia began as a unified people, emerging from a single state, and thus has only one government. The United States, early in its history, had to deal with an internal struggle over the keeping of slaves. Phoenicia began as a polyglot of people from many different races of the old world. The United States engaged in a war of conquest over the original inhabitants of this land. Phoenicia began its life in partnership with those same people, and those People have now become an integral part of Phoenicia. The original nation, early in its history, tried to avoid keeping a large standing army, but found that untrained militias could not stand in battle against a trained fighting force and soon reverted to keeping a large standing military. Phoenicia has refined both of those concepts by keeping a small, highly trained standing military and requiring each of its citizens to be trained in the arts of war so that she can, if necessary, assemble the entire population as a trained and disciplined fighting force.

"Many changes occurred in the two and half centuries that the United States existed, among the worst of which was the elevation of huge commercial enterprises to political pre-eminence. The effects of this, by the time of the Sickness were disastrous for ordinary working people. The political system became less of a democracy and more of a corporatocracy, so unbalanced that common sense measures, such as affordable health care for all, reining in carbon and other toxic emissions to keep from destroying the planet and its atmosphere, and treating other nations with the respect they deserved, were all suborned to the need for these giant corporations to make greater and greater profits.

"In recent years, many people have begun pining for the 'way things were' before the sickness, forgetting just how dismal that epoch's future was. Most historians now believe that the Sickness - a disease created by man for the sole purpose of killing other men - was a direct result of the dysfunctional political situation that prevailed in the United States. Many of you, seeing the recent trend toward the old ways, clamored for a course correction - for leadership dedicated to the ideals put forth by our founder, Gavin Thompson. Now, thanks to you, Phoenicia has such a leader. We have won a political victory, but we must not forget or belittle the herculean efforts of my predecessor who, faced with the daunting task of leading a new government at its birth and forming this new nation, still managed to expand Phoenicia's borders to cover the entire northern continent and the isthmus once known as 'Central America'.