July 8th 2001

Washington DC President Powell

"So, what are the chinese up to?"

My advisors looked at their notes, my vice president had a look of concentration on his face, I noticed a crayon and tried to ignore it. I'm pretty sure his father felt the same way about Dan, as long as he kept silent, I honestly didn't care what he did.

"They fought Leviathan."

"And why did they want to do that alone?"

I was shown the results of the attack on a screen, I was going to miss the spy satellites when they went away. I watched as a multitude of lasers, missiles and other weapons were used. Planes, submarines, ships. The chinese were going for the kill and they were doing quite a bit of damage. I watched as Lung appeared...and then leap into the ocean and promptly swam away... That was the problem with conscripts, especially ones not from your country. Eventally Leviathan was driven off, a victory for the chinese but not a kill.

"Lots of reasons, it looks like they wanted to test out all of their new toys."

"Casualties?"

"Unknown, but they're asking to send their wounded to Seattle."

I stared at him.

"Naturally, in the spirit of international cooperation we offered to send Ironwood directly to China, he's on an aircraft carrier as we speak."

I nodded that was good, we didn't want China probing the Zone's security network.

"The chinese response?"

"They agreed, but smart money is that a lot of their wounded capes who got hurt prior to Shanghai are going to be there."

I shrugged.

"So be it, it's simply the price of doing business."

"But they're commies?"

I looked up, goddamn it now he pays attention.

"We're at war with actual aliens, we allied with Stalin to take out the nazis, we can heal a few capes to keep them in the war with the Endbringers."

That and the UN demanded it.

"So speaking of the recent election, the democrats have a new budget prepared for us."

I sighed, we got slaughtered in the election, I barely won a second term. The democrats brought up all the times we defunded PBS, brought up Gingrich stating that PBS wasn't going to stop an Endbringer. Ironwood's defection gave the democrats something they hadn't had for 20 years, an actual way to hurt us.

Now they controlled both the House and the Senate, and they wanted things.

"How bad is it?"

"Higher taxes on the wealthy, more money into social programs, of course PBS is going to get a grant."

I shrugged as I looked it over.

"Lets do some horse trading here, here and here, and remind them what happened the last time they tried gun control."

Good years for us.

"And PBS?"

I shrugged.

"They got us Ironwood, and that got us some actual information, the equivelent to a tinkertech hospital and our first actual Endbringer kill. As far as I'm concerned they earned every penny."

I looked at the budget.

"So how are things on the streets?"

"With our vets back on the streets the PRT is getting more arrests, we're also able to put the money we're saving on medical costs into more tinkertech, which is giving us a qualitative edge."

I nodded.

"So the next question, Ironwood's plants."

"The anti gravity plant works pretty damned well, NASA's launch costs are down 99%, it's easy to use, simple to grow, cheap, affordable anti-gravity. The bio algae works well, it grows fast and is easy to refine. You can get 5 barrels a week with a pool the size of a jacuzzi."

I blinked.

"Have the Thinkers crunched the numbers?"

"Energy independence is possible within 5 years, one of the reasons why the economy's been so bad is because the middle east spends half of it's time on fire."

"The oil companies?"

"Fighting it tooth and nail, but the all the farm lobbies are fighting back. The Thinkers and Tinkers have said that it's safe."

"Release it to the farmers and put in some regulations, just in case, speaking of that hows the defector doing?"

"About as well as any new parent, reading lots of books about childcare, babyproofing his residence, being a little bit overprotective of his wife."

"And how exactly did that happen? I thought that the PRT's security would be more stringent."

The man shrugged.

"Ironwood's an Endbringer, to a large degree if he doesn't want to cooperate we really can't do anything. We kind of have to adjust our strategy to his psychology."

He passed the updated files and I cringed.

"And this is what Endbringers think of as a noncombatant? God help us all."

"Yeah, that's the update on his capabilities after Ellisburg."

I shook my head at that disaster, the only brightside is that we were able to save some of them and kill that Nilbog asshole.

"This is terrifying."

"It is, which is why we allowed the Icy situation to develope, honey pots are a useful tool."

I blinked.

"You put a girl up to that?"

"No, we found someone with the right psychological profile, let her transfer and then let nature take it's course. It was a longshot that worked out, turns out they're pretty cute together. Like I said, we have to adjust and roll with the punches. It's give and take, Ironwood's willing to work with us, he can be reasoned with, but he didn't have a lot of connections with the human race and we don't have a lot of sticks."

"And?"

"And now we have his wife, soon we will have his children, that gives us leverage."

"Public opinion?"

"Mostly neutral, the wedding and Behemoth has the public reluctantly on board with the defection. Not a lot of support, but not a lot of negativity, the public had a year to get used to the idea of having him on our side. He's a monster, but by god he's our monster."

I nodded and looked over my notes, Hamas had won the Palestinain authority elections in a complete blowout, that was bound to be another disaster.

"So onto international relations..."