Molly and Nigel watched the President's speech from the cabinet room. She had been grazing on anything left over from the cabinet meeting. Protein bars and protein shakes. She even sampled the Presidential beef jerky.

After the speech, Molly pulled out her Blackberry and phoned the Mercy jail. Hogan was furious. "What do you mean you're making it illegal to improve people?"

"Only illegal to improve people against their wishes."

"They'll die. Being unimproved is a death sentence."

"So be it. Most of the country is improved. It's now up to you to convince the rest of the country that they should want to be improved."

"The news from Phoenix had pictures of the mass graves of those that rejected or underimproved. Back hoes digging huge holes. Bodies were burned without ceremony and covered over like trash."

"You should have thought of that before you forcibly improved most of the country all at once. What else could they do with all the corpses? How many people died in Phoenix?"

Nigel quickly looked up the statistics. "The last count was over 107,000 and rising."

Hogan didn't answer.

"Dr. Fenway says over 100,000. What else are you going to do with a hundred thousand dead bodies? It's a public health risk. You've got to take care of them or you'll have a disease outbreak.

" Those pictures were like the Nazi death camps. They make us look like mass murderers."

"But you are murderers. Eighteen million Americans are dead today who would have been alive if you hadn't sent out that signal."

"But we were trying to save lives. The whole country, the whole planet would have died in six years if we hadn't."

"According to the law of the land, that's still eighteen million counts of murder."

"How do we get the rest of the country to get improved if you start Nuremberg trials?"

Molly knew the trials had to come, and Sean's brother would be on trial. But she could not argue that with him now. "You need to start waging a public relations campaign. How will football and baseball teams of improved players do against teams of unimproved players? With their strength, endurance and hand eye coordination they'll slaughter them. Every kid with a basketball will want to be improved. The improved are going to blow out the curve on college entrance exams. The unimproved are going to get shut out. Think how you can show being improved as the fountain of youth. Senior citizens crippled by osteoporosis will suddenly be strong and pain free, if they are just willing to take the chance."

"Maybe. I don't know."

"You can do it. The important thing for you is that the President has come clean and it's now all out in the open. No more hiding. No more whole towns being hidden away in Guantanamo."

"Let's talk about Allenville. When do you bring them home?"

"They're going to have to work out some way so the government can't be sued. That takes lawyers and legal wrap. But it will happen."

"What about the ones in the hole in West Virginia?"

"That's harder. They committed serious crimes. You're going to have to get the ACLU to file petitions with the court for them to be granted fair and speedy trials. Libby Drennan has the best chance. She obviously committed a crime of passion without a weapon and can argue diminished capacity or temporary insanity due to the mental strain during improvement. The worst they can prosecute her for is manslaughter and resisting arrest. Now how is Sean doing?"

"Slowly improving."

"Let me talk to him."

She could feel her voice soften and her pitch go up when Sean was there. It was that warm, involuntary, smiling tone of love. "Hi, Honey. How are you?"

"Alive."

"This is good. Did you see the President?"

"I heard it. They turned the TV up."

"So what do you think?"

"I don't know. Is it all over?"

"The war is over and Threshold lost it. Now we have to go on."

"What will happen to us?"

"As soon as you're strong enough, I'll have you med-evac'd to Washington and into Walter Reed. They say in a few days you'll be good as new."

"How about you come back here. There's an opening in the Sheriff's department."

She could feel it. A little house like the Teller's. Him a local police officer and her a simple schoolteacher. Her sitting in a rocking chair and nursing their little girl. Sean coming home at night and them kissing and having dinner. Them being parents to their daughter. "I want to go back. Everything inside me cries that I want you and my daughter, but right now the country needs us here. The world needs us here."

"I don't know what the world needs any more. What do I believe in? I spent six months fighting and now what, am I supposed to just join?"

"Is your brother there?"

"Yes."

"Don't think of the world right now. Don't think sides of a war. Think of your family. Think of your brother. Think of me, and think of our daughter. I promise you, as soon as we stabilize things a little in Washington we're leaving for good. So you get well for that Sheriff's job."

"Washington will just suck you in again. Another crisis and another crisis."

"Our baby is not being born in Washington. I promise you that."

"Do you promise?"

"I really promise. If you want it to be by your family farm in Illinois, that is where we will go. If you want us to settle in Mercy, then I will resign and move before our baby is born."

"I love you."

"I love you too. I'll call in the morning. You get yourself well. Bye."

As she put down the phone, she noticed Nigel was closing his cell phone. He turned to her. "There is one bit of justice in all of this. Do you remember Paula, my third ex wife?"

"The one who hired the private investigator?"

"She's on the confirmed dead list."