The Kingfish and the Tunguska Machine
by Bill Kte'pi

"Good night, ladies," President Long called after the pastel-dressed representatives of the Young Ladies of Acadiana for the Preservation of Tradition, as they left the air-conditioned porch which served as his office while he vacationed in Louisiana, "good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night." He leaned back in his throne-like chair, its deep-red leather so shiny it glistened like marble, and lit a cigar before impatiently beckoning Elliott in from the other door.

"Sterns, right?" Long asked. His face was seven years older than in the photograph, the famous photograph, from which Elliott knew it best: the 1936 inauguration of President Benjamin Nathan, and his assassination by an Amherst College professor of Romance languages, who said later he'd felt the need to save the nation from a Jewish president. In the photo, Vice President Long stood stunned and bolt-stiff as the President toppled out of frame; there were flecks of black on his white shirt, but not a trace of fear on his face. It had run in a special issue of Life magazine, with a warning on the otherwise plain black cover.

In the years since, Long had put on weight, and his face had become jowly, his posture more slouched. He was the good ol' boy president, the man of the people, Constitution in one hand and Dixie beer in the other. "Er, yes, sir, Mr President," Elliott said. He had met famous people before, heads of state and entertainers both, but Long was almost as much myth as man, like the stories Yelizaveta had told him about Rasputin.

Long nodded, and pointed to a couch that had been pushed against the wall to face his chair. "Have a seat, Sterns. And call me Huey. It's not a Cabinet meeting." When Elliott had sat down, Long added, "Tell me again why you're here."

Elliott nodded politely. This, he was used to. Politicians -- men of the people and men of the throne both -- always did that, asked you to explain things you'd explained to the underlings who had already spoken to them. It was just how things were done. Early on in his diplomatic career, a bright young Frenchman had told him it reminded him of school -- answering the same questions over and over again just to make sure you hadn't forgotten the answers, and because there was nothing else to ask. Once it had been put that way, it'd stopped bothering him.

"Elliott Sterns, Mr President." You never addressed a man of power informally until he asked you to do so for the third time in the conversation. "Junior ambassador to the Russian Council of the American Protectorate of Austria-Hungary. My sources there tell me the Italian nationalists in the southeast region of the protectorate have developed a Tunguska machine, or think they have."

"Hurm," Long said. He took a long drag off of the cigar and blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth, saying nothing else.

"They have demanded they be allowed to secede from the protectorate and join Communist Italy, or they'll destroy both an American city and a Russian one."

"They say which one?"

Elliott presumed he meant which American one. There were fewer Russian options, and Long wasn't known for his warmth towards the Romanovs or any of the European dynasties. "No, Mr President."

Long tapped his cigar against a deep ashtray decorated with the seal of the Oval Office. Elliott wasn't sure those were supposed to leave the actual Oval Office, but Long was as iconoclastic a president as the country had had since Andrew Jackson. His "vacations" in his home state tended to last for months, and certainly exceeded the length of his stays in Washington. It was no real secret that he continued to run the state of Louisiana, as he had first as governor and later as senator. And he was the first to admit that he never would have attained the office if Nathan hadn't been killed -- although he had never seemed surprised at his decisive, if not quite landslide, re-election.

Elliott felt out of sorts. He had taken three planes to get here, and then a car from New Orleans. He had spent most of the last day in transit, and slept little and poorly. The whole time, he'd been possessed by a mixture of feelings, the most dominant of which was a pressing urgency that President Long didn't appear to share. He actually had to ask himself whether he was making too much out of it -- but Don had been just as alarmed as he was, and had called the President directly even as he sent Elliott to the airport.

Certainly Yelizaveta had been panicked, and why wouldn't she be? The Tunguska machines were the most powerful killing devices ever invented. Woodrow Wilson's use of one in the Austro-Hungarian War had destroyed the city of Caporetto, and put the capstone on the year-long demonstration of American military superiority, without which the war could have spread to all of Europe. It wasn't the most brilliant of Professor Tesla's innovations -- radiant energy, broadcast power, had swiftly revolutionized the world, whereas Tunguska only frightened it -- but it was the most deadly.

"You studied with Tesla, didn't you, Sterns?" Long asked, as though reading his mind.

"Not exactly 'with,' Mr President. I attended the Free School while Professor Tesla was still alive and teaching there. I took his introductory courses, and went to many of his lectures, like everyone else -- but my major was Russian history." The Free School was really the Federal University of the United States of America, an experimental five-year dual-degree institution with free tuition, room, and board. The saying among alumni was that the only thing harder than getting into the Free was finding something to do with what you learned there. Most wound up with government jobs, clerks and go-betweens.

Long grunted, and took in another breath of smoke. "Even so. You know more about it than I do, I'd wager. Are you sure you can trust your source?"

Elliott took in a deep breath. He had specifically not asked his source if she wanted to remain anonymous, so that he would not have to deny his President. "My source is Yelizaveta Romanov, Mr President, daughter of Empress Anastasia and princess of the Austro-Hungarian protectorate. The nationalists approached her first as a would-be ally, knowing how much the younger Russian royals --" He stopped and clamped his mouth shut, realizing who he was talking to.

"Go on," Long said, amused. "Boy, this is Louisiana. I know you been out of the country, but I'm not much of an easily offended type."

"They know how much the younger Russian royals resent babysitting for us, sir. Mr President. We may not call it vassalage --"

"The United States is not a feudal nation, Sterns. We have no vassals."

"And yet we have hired the Russians to govern Austria-Hungary for us, because Joe Public thinks it's a waste of our time to have troops in Europe, but we can't afford to leave them to their own devices anymore, either."

Long started to say something, and Elliott, to his belated surprise, interrupted him, standing up to gesture the way he did in heated arguments at the Embassy.

"Did Wilson not foresee this when he authored the Treaty of Montenegro? He split the royal family up and married half of them into the Habsburgs to give them a claim to Austria-Hungary -- all the while talking about the need to abandon hereditary rule! A generation of the family has been raised in the protectorate now -- socially, they're Austro-Hungarian, Yelizaveta's younger brothers can barely speak Russian, and it won't be long before they begin to wonder why they continue to represent us in the effort to keep the protectorate docile. Their cousins rule in Russia, while they act as surrogate governors for us in a land of broken eggshell. Why should they accept that?"

"Because we are a ridiculously superior military power," Long said simply. "Because we are the sole provider of radiant energy, and can take their licenses away. And because we are too young to care about their musty old palaces and antiquities, and our tanks will plow through them as regretlessly as they do the schnitzelhausen."

"Yes," Elliott said. "And if the other side has a Tunguska machine, Mr President? We would still have the radio tanks and the robos --"

"And radiant energy," Long said. "You're young, Sterns. You don't remember steam engine locomotives or gasoline-burning automobiles. Don't underestimate the advantage of vehicles that never run out of fuel. Or of the threat of cutting off the enemy's access to the electricity we license 'em. Why do you think we spent so much money developing the locked frequency broadcast?"

"And sir -- Mr President --" Elliott realized again where he was -- damn it, these informal settings made it hard to keep his bearings -- and sat down quickly, "With all respect, don't underestimate the willingness of revolutionaries to resort to drastic measures."

"Oh, I can promise you I'll never do that. No, I take the threat seriously -- if in fact they have a Tunguska and know how to use it. But Sterns, we need to play this close to the vest. Who have you told?"

"Don Daigle, the senior Ambassador. Yelizaveta --"

Long raised an eyebrow.

"Er, the Princess Yelizaveta, of course, knows," Elliott finished lamely. "No one else, not from me."

"Good. Good. Keep it that way, with a few exceptions. I'll put you in touch with Bob --"

"Sir?"

"Bob Pendleton, the Secretary of War. Talk to his people, tell them whatever you know that'll help 'em figure it out. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to have a working Tunguska but us. If some pissed-off dagos have one, we're gonna have bigger problems down the line."

"Yes, Mr President."

"All right, I'll have that arranged for tomorrow. I want answers in two days. When was the last time you slept, Sterns?"

"Last night, sir -- well, this morning -- there's the time difference."

Long grunted, and poured two shots of what looked and smelled like bourbon, from a glass decanter on his desk. "Have a drink with your president, and then ask a page to see you to one of the guest rooms."

"Sir, that's very generous --" Elliott accepted the glass as it was handed to him, and President Long snorted.

"It ain't any such thing. You're a security risk, Mr Junior Ambassador. I'm not letting you run off to some hotel where any old filthy European spy could get ahold of you."

He seemed to spend the next day being escorted from office to office by the Secret Service -- all of whom were local Louisiana boys, thick-accented and thick-armed -- as he explained everything he knew over and over again, to undersecretary after undersecretary. He was grilled on his opinions of the ethnic Italian situation in the protectorate -- they had always chafed under Austrian rule, but much moreso since Italy itself had gone Communist -- and teleconferenced with Don to assure the undersecretaries and other officials that his opinions were expert ones. His thesis had been on Russian-Italian relations, and Austria as mediator thereof, which is what had landed him the job with the Embassy; Don oversold his competence, he thought, but he said nothing he wouldn't stand by.

The State Department spoke to him, too, and the Department of the Interior that technically governed semi-dependent states, protectorates, and other American territories. It was an undersecretary of the Interior, Delilah Rochambeau, who actually let something slip.

"The timing seems fishy," she said, "are the Italians really this organized?"

He blinked at her uncomprehendingly, and watched a flush bloom on her cheeks as something registered.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, shit. That wasn't part of your briefing."

"What wasn't?" he asked. She shook her head. "Look, Miss Rochambeau, I'm being asked for a lot of very specific takes on things. If I'm not being given all the data, I can't vouch for the accuracy of those opinions anymore. Do you want me to go back to the State and War departments and rescind everything I've said today?"

She sighed, and shook her head. "I haven't been told not to tell you. Okay. Okay. You know how the Tunguska machines work?"

"Only what they do -- unleash a huge amount of concussive force remotely, with some heat shedding."

"Not what I mean. I mean -- how they're operated?"

He nodded. "Something like a mortar, as far as setting the coordinates. It's very operator-friendly."

"And inside? What goes on once the operator has set up his controls?"

"No idea."

"Yeah," she said, and the linguist in him marveled at how strongly her accent -- a mixture of Deep South and Brooklyn unique to Louisiana -- came through in that one syllable. "No one does. No one understands it at all. At least as far as we know."

"That can't be -- Professor Tesla worked for the government for thirty years before he died, did he not keep notes? Did he not instruct his assistants?"

"Of course he did. But he was terrible at explaining this sort of thing. Look, it's like this -- clasp your hands together, at a forty-five degree angle." He did so. "Now press your palms together, trap the air and squeeze it out." He did, and a vaguely fart-like noise came out. "Good job, Sterns. Now explain to me the physiology behind what you just did. Identify the muscles and ligaments involved, and the process by which your brain transformed verbal instructions into motion."

"I -- what?"

She sighed. "Tesla was okay at teaching procedure. He was hopeless at theory, and his procedures are very ... extrapolation-resistant. We know how to operate the Tunguska machines. We have no idea how to build one except by copying what we see inside the original -- which is like tracing a Rembrandt. And the only people who knew how to fix them -- three repairmen trained by Tesla personally -- are dead."

"What?" Elliott asked. "When?"

"Eight days ago," President Long said as he entered the office. "I wasn't going to tell him that yet, Delilah. I didn't want his opinions tainted by it."

"Sorry, Mr President." The woman colored, but she didn't seem especially intimidated by the Kingfish.

"It's okay. I'm sure the boy's talked out. May as well give him new information to chew over. It's true, Sterns. The only Tunguska machine we're sure works is the one we used in the Austro-Hungarian War. The other ones, Tesla didn't build -- we cobbled them together based on what his assistants said he had done. Without knowing what the parts are s'posed to do -- well, fuck knows if we got it right."

"You're not just trying to find out if the Italians would use a Tunguska," Elliott said. "You want to know if it's even possible for them to have built one."

Long touched his finger to his nose and pointed it at Elliott. "Bingo. Any thoughts?" He set his glass of bourbon on the desk, between the junior ambassador and the undersecretary of the interior.

"The repairmen are all dead? Did they not write anything down?"

"They were instructed not to, exactly so we could avoid this dilemma. It was some State Department idea after the last Mexican War, when the War Department was preparing for the possibility of using the Tunguska. Keep the Tunguska in the realm of oral tradition, State said. Pay the repairmen well and keep them all but sequestered. Give them no reason to fuck us over. Have them train their replacements."

"Did they?"

"It was too soon. They hadn't gotten to it yet. Tesla handled all this shit himself when he was alive, remember. These fellas were in their thirties, we had reckoned on another twenty years before they passed on the trade lore." Long snorted. "Christ, it's the fucking Masons all over again." He knocked back the bourbon, and eyed the glass. "Anyone else need another drink?"

"Yes please, Mr President," Delilah and Elliott said in unison.

By midnight of that day, a not-quite-Cabinet meeting had been called in Long's dining room. Secretaries Pendleton from War and Hull from State; undersecretaries Rochambeau, Jackson, and Edwards from Interior; General Talbot from the Army, the official overseer of the Tunguska project; President Long; and Elliott.

"Mr President," Talbot said. "I suggest the Italians in the protectorate have stronger allies -- sponsors, even. Our enemies abroad would love nothing more than to compromise the Tunguska project. We've reigned for nearly thirty years as the supreme military power -- the Tunguska is our Spanish Armada, any contender must first sink it before mounting a serious opposition to us."

"Yeah," Long said, "but it's only been used three times, two of 'em tests. You think maybe they're losing the fear? It's a whole new generation now."

"Caporetto is still in ruins, Mr President. They have not forgotten."

Long grunted, and cast his eyes across the rest of the table.

"This is why something like the League of Nations needs to be in place," Hull said. "If the Italians have stolen the Tunguska -- either those in Austria-Hungary, or the Commies themselves -- what then? What authority governs them?"

"Might," Pendleton said. "Superior might. We still have the tanks. I can have them in southeast A-H by nightfall local time. We've made a number of improvements over the phosgene gas we used last time. If we destroy their base of power --"

"There is no base of power," Jackson insisted. "With all due respect, Secretary, we have no idea where these nationalists congregate. It would be like attacking all of Massachusetts because you don't know how to get to Boston."

For a long time, no one said anything. Finally, Long asked a question. "Occam's razor. Assume they have a Tunguska machine. How?"

"The Serbs," Elliott said, before he realized he'd spoken. He covered his mouth. It was something he and Yelizaveta had talked about -- but he hadn't intended to be the one to broach the possibility.

Everyone turned and looked at him. Pendleton and Hull seemed to focus on him for the first time.

"Do elaborate, Ambassador Sterns," Long said, sounding both tired and amused.

"Sirs -- Mr President. The first Tunguska was built by Tesla. The rest, his assistants oversaw their production, based on guesswork. I hadn't realized that before, but -- sirs, you understand that two of Tesla's assistants and six of their students were Serbs who have since returned to Serbia?"

"The Serbs have publicly supported secessionist movements in the A-H ever since we gave them their independence," Talbot said, and Elliott nodded to him.

"Exactly, General. The Italian nationalists would be no exception."

"But Serbia isn't communist," Long objected. "This isn't simply a nationalist movement, it's a communist nationalist movement."

"We're not a monarchy, Mr President, but we still ally ourselves with Russia."

Hull moved to stand. "Mr President, with your permission, I'll get in touch with the Embassy in Serbia, and my people there. It's morning there -- we should be able to find something out by our morning, if there's anything to find out."

Long nodded. "Get on it, Cord. Let me know the minute you know anything. The minute you suspect anything."

Hull left the room, and the others took that as a signal to disperse. Long murmured to several of the other people in private, and Elliott found himself with Secret Service at his side, discreetly prepared to escort him back to his room.

Once in his room, he dialed the house operator and gave his diplomatic ID number in order to get a secure line to Yelizaveta. Like the Secretary of State said, it was morning on the other side of the world.

A series of clicks and drawn-out, rhythmic static intoned across the line and eventually it began to ring a continent and a half away. "Hello?" Yelizaveta asked sleepily. She had that accent he found so arrogant in her brothers, but so alluring in her: a combination of the Russian of her mother, the German of her father, and the British pronunciations of her English language tutors.

"It's Elliott, Bethie," he said. "I'm in Louisiana, in the President's manor."

"Of course, darling," she said. "How could you not be? Do you have good news? Can I help any? Do they wish me to inform my mother of anything?"

"No," he said. "No, let's leave the Empress out of this for the moment. We're still -- collecting information." He briefly summed up the high points: that the US was uncertain whether its own Tunguska machines worked, which made it difficult to assess the likelihood of their replication abroad. "I suspect Talbot or Pendleton will oversee a check of our military equipment -- the Tunguskas, perhaps, and certainly the radio tanks and robos in Europe -- while Hull gathers information. The rest of us are supposed to sleep until that pans out -- there's nothing we can do for now -- but I feel wide awake. How could I not be? You've seen Caporetto. Fanatics with a Tunguska -- they could wipe out the world." He didn't know if that were true -- he had no idea whether the Tunguska machines could use radiant energy or not, and if not, what fuel they required. But he didn't know it wasn't true. "This could start the war we've avoided for so long -- Italy would support the Italians in your protectorate, China would surely support its fellow Communists, and much of Europe lies between the two."

"Sweet Elliott, you worry too much. I agree, it is a grave matter, but it is one experts are now handling, yes? Tragedies may be reduced even when they may not be avoided. My own family almost came to an end in my grandmother's time, but compromises were reached, and the alliance with the Americans helped show the Romanov commitment to fair rule."

"Yes," he said. "Yes. Okay. Let's speak of other things."

And they did, for the better part of the night, the princess distracting him with talk of palace affairs, the play he was missing because of his emergency trip, and their lovemaking. Neither of them had had phone sex before, but on a secured line, with no operators listening in, it was a sweet luxury they indulged in briefly. When they finished, Elliott fell quickly to sleep, for the brief span of hours before the Secret Service woke him up for an emergency quasi-Cabinet meeting.

"Neither of Tesla's Serb assistants can be accounted for," Hull said. "The same is true for one of their students. On paper, they're all assigned to various posts, jobs in government or probable fronts. But we can't find anyone who actually knows them through those jobs -- nor any neighbors, spouses, and so on."

"So whatever they're doing, it's something the Serbian government doesn't want people to know about," Jackson said. "It's not a smoking gun, but it's definitely shaped like a warm revolver."

Long turned to Talbot and Pendleton. "Gentlemen?"

Pendleton looked a little reluctant, certainly moreso than Talbot, but nodded after a moment. "I agree. No matter how we play this, it's a risk without much payoff and serious consequences for being wrong. But I think we need to err on the side of caution, and damn the politics."

"Amen to that," Long said, but Hull looked disgusted. So did the undersecretaries, but Elliott didn't think they knew what was going on any more than he did.

"Mr President -- sirs -- what -- ?" he started to ask, but a glance from Long shut him down.

"Mr President," Delilah said. "I'm sorry, but please -- if you're thinking of giving the nationalists what they want, I must express my strong disagreement and request that you allow the Secretary of the Interior to consult with you. Setting a precedent like that --"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Lila," Long said, sounding genuinely surprised. "We never even considered granting their request. At some point, certainly, we might have reapportioned the protectorate -- the Italian region could have proven a useful trade in negotiations with Communist Italy. But respond to a threat? Nonsense. We're --"

Hull stood up abruptly, and didn't meet anyone's eyes. "They're going to use the Tunguskas," he said. "They're going to use the fucking Tunguskas." He left the room, pushing a Secret Service agent out of the way. "Sir," Elliott said. "Mr President, please let me consult with Princess Yelizaveta, or another representative of --"

"That won't be necessary, boy," Long said. "Now, we'll need everyone but the General and Secretary Pendleton to find other things to occupy themselves. It wouldn't be appropriate to include you in a war council at present."

The Secret Service escorted them all out of the room, and no one spoke to each other, no one met each other's eyes. Delilah and Elliott walked outside, eventually finding seats on the veranda, where a butler brought them a decanter of bourbon and bitters, but they didn't speak.

It was nearly dark again when the Secret Service suddenly converged on the veranda, discreetly hustling Delilah away while making it clear that Elliott should remain put. "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm -- more than a little drunk, to be honest. What do you need?"

"Just stay here please, sir."

Oh God, he thought. Oh God. It's the Italians, they've set the Tunguska on us. Have they targeted Louisiana? How would we know? Did they hit Washington? New York? Mom and Dad in St Louis?

They made him sit there wondering for half an hour, and finally Yelizaveta strode in -- not walked, but strode. She looked nothing like the shy but intelligent princess he'd fallen in love with, and everything like the powerful, ambitious Romanov he'd known she was at heart. "Elliott," she said, and smiled.

"Bethie!" he said, standing up to embrace her before he stilled the impulse. With the Secret Service there -- even though she was too late-born to have any hope for the throne, it was inappropriate for them to be involved. "Your Highness. I had no idea you'd be arriving."

"Mm," she said, nodding. "I wanted to thank you, dear. That is all. You have done a great service for two countries. Perhaps more."

"That he has," Long said, entering behind her. He lit a cigar, and fixed an eye on Elliott, looking him over. "Sterns. I believe you know my fiancee."

Elliott was naive enough that he actually looked around, expecting another woman to enter the room. When he looked back to Yelizaveta, her expression was perfectly neutral. "I -- I don't understand."

"I don't begrudge you your time with her, boy. It's a political marriage. The Romanovs can always use another boost, not to mention a son born a U.S. citizen and eligible to run for President in forty years, and it's high time America married into the rest of the world, instead of fiddling around outside it. We've had our share of great presidents -- but we're overdue for a dynasty."

"A -- sir?"

"Tonight was an important night, young man. An important night for me, an important night for the world, and maybe an important night for you."

"You used the Tunguskas, didn't you?"

It was Yelizaveta who nodded. "Someone has, certainly. Several small villages in the Italian region of the protectorate have been decimated. As have the outskirts of Prague, an island off the coast of the Italian peninsula, and a remote part of North Dakota."

"North Dakota?"

"It seems," Long said, "that our adversary is not very good at using the machine. There is, naturally, no other explanation why they would strike an area that did so little damage to us."

"So we were attacked," Elliott said. "The United States was attacked by the Italian nationalists." Neither of them said anything, although Yelizaveta looked like she was debating something with herself. "Oh, Christ," Elliott said, and sat back down so hard he almost missed the chair. Long calmly handed him a glass of bourbon. "There were no Italian nationalists."

"Elliott," Yelizaveta said, with a laugh in her throat. "I'm sure there are Italian nationalists. Somewhere."

"Oh God."

He had been set up. Yelizaveta had fed him false information to provide the bureaucratic trail and justifiable excuse for Long to use the Tunguskas. Why? "To test them?" Elliott asked. "All this, just to see if they worked? Is that it?"

"We were not the only ones wondering," Long said. "There have been hints, especially in this last term, from the ministers of several other countries. After all, the machine takes its name from the decimation of a Siberian village years before the Austro-Hungarian War, one hardly anyone knew about at the time. It was a complete accident -- everyone, unfortunately, knows that; Wilson made it clear later that it was the accident that caused Tesla to stumble upon the military applications of the machine. He wanted to reassure the Russians that we had taken no deliberate action against them."

"But that's why we tested it in New Mexico, before using it in the war."

"Yes, a test only Americans and Serbs witnessed. I have actually heard it suggested that the destruction of Caporetto was accomplished with an improved gunpowder -- clever, certainly, and absolutely useful, but hardly the awe-inspiring might of the Tunguska."

"But now they know, don't they," Elliott said.

"They certainly do," said Yelizaveta. "There can be no doubt now. Under Russian rule, Vienna is an extraordinary cosmopolis -- I would estimate some hundred thousand visiting foreigners from over a dozen civilized nations witnessed the explosion. Books will be written about it. Songs sung. Motion pictures filmed."

"Jesus Christ," Elliott said, holding his head in his hands. "I can't believe this is happening."

Long patted his back. "Calm down, boy. Very few people were injured, all things considered, and far fewer than in any armed incursion, I absolutely assure you. American casualties were in the single digits, volunteers in Dakota. The world needs us to be strong. They need to know we're strong. Wars are like when children test their parents' limits, to assure themselves that authority and discipline protect them. We will make our peace on the strength of our nation. I'm depending on you to continue to help with that."

"I'm sorry for any hurt feelings, Elliott," Yelizaveta said, with just a faint note of regret in her voice. "But you knew it was temporary with us. And now -- we all benefit."

Elliott knocked back the drink, thinking of Vienna, of Italian islands, of suicide volunteers in North Dakota. Would he be one of them, in the next "incident"? Is that the kind of continued help they wanted? "They wouldn't all go along with it," he said. "There's no way. All those people -- they couldn't have known --"

"Some suspected," Long said. "Hull has tendered his resignation. That's where I was hoping you could help me out, boy. Next year's an election year. This country needs me. I aim to win. But ain't nobody gonna elect this po' Looziana boy with a busted cabinet."

Elliott shook his head, uncomprehendingly, and couldn't think of a question to form.

Long nodded curtly at Yelizaveta, who turned and left the room, recognizing dismissal with all the acuity of a born princess. "It's real simple, kid," Long said. "You've got the education, you've got the experience, and another electoral vote from Missouri wouldn't hurt me any. Benjy tagged me for his running mate because I brought the South to the table, but I've always been weakest in the Middle West. All you've gotta do is say 'You got it, Huey.' None of this 'Mr President' shit. You say that, I know you're not really hearing me. All right?"

"All right."

"So what do you say?"

Elliott sighed, looking out on the oak-lined lawn of the manor, thinking that the basic dilemma of politics was exactly this: deciding whether it was better to believe that people had died in a brief but intense skirmish between rival nations, or to know that they had died in a hoax as political currency. He had attended Tesla's lectures despite being a history student, because he could. He had grown infatuated with Yelizaveta, abandoning his girlfriend back in D.C., because of the novelty of her and her accented English. It wasn't in him to leave Pandora's box closed. "You got it, Huey."

Huey Long grinned widely, and lifted his glass in a mock toast. "You're gonna go places, kid. Starting with the State Department. I'll have you on a plane for Washington in the morning, to butter up the Senate so they feel good and warm and proud of confirming your appointment."

"I don't have any idea how to butter up a Senate," Elliott said dully. The bourbon had made his tongue thick and his eyes feel smooth and hard like pearls.

Long laughed. "You'll learn. Have another drink. Welcome to the brand-new American Empire, Secretary Sterns."

The End

Story copyright Bill Kte'pi, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com