Ruins Greater Than Troy
November 18, 2003
Shady Acres, Ohio, United States of America
Calvin went to the window with the nonchalant air of someone who has completely forgotten that something utterly terrible and, naturally, potentionally disastorious is about to happen. He helped Hobbes Calvington crawl through the small window, he looked briefly around the room as he searched with penetrating eyes for signs of a possible trap or black operative.
True, it was a ludicrious possibility, but after the Fourth War? Nobody had a right to dismiss something as absurd.
He yanked out his hand laser rifle and pointed it slowly around the room, first at a sweating Calvin, and than at a stuffed tiger. Slowly, finally, Hobbes Calvington put down the laser-arm.
W-who are you? Calvin asked, somewhat shakenly.
Calvington looked down on the blond-haired child, looking into the young steely gaze of the man who had issued the Decree of Abolition, written the New Constitution, and been the Confederacy's President for twenty-two years.
The question isn't who I am, Calvington answered softly, It is who you are...will be. I am from the future, from the year 2127, Calvin rolled his eyes and gave his tiger a decided What a nut! look, Calvington chose to ignore this, In my future, you Calvin Watterson, you, saved the peoples of the Abolished Union following the Third World War. You formed the great nation that became the Cal-American Confederacy, he rambled on, And now...Quentyn screwed it all up. Launched our antimatter stockpile at London and Byzantium...
He looked into the disbelieving eyes of the future President. You seized command of the United States Armed Forces in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster. You lead the GROSS Army on Washington. Your men and women who fought for the salvation of the US secured the ruins of the once-great cities of America. Then you set up a new democracy, the GROSS Assembly, wrote the Decree of Abolition, forever ceasing the operations of the United States and nationalizing all resources; you moved the capital here, to Shady Acres...the Athens of the post-apocalyptic world...
Calvin Watterson's eyes still held that innocence, not the hardened gaze of the holoportraits of the first Cal-American President. Those eyes flicked around and finally settled on his stuffed tiger. Calvington was annoyed, here he was trying to stave the world from a future nuclear/antimatter holocaust, and the future commander-in-chief of his great nation was looking at a stuffed animal.
Calvin said while staring at the tiger, and Calvington's head immediately moved to look at Calvin, Why do you believe this nut?
There was a silence, and then Calvin spoke again, It's Skynet all over again...this nut has seen to many movies. Imagine, Hobbes, me...a great re-known leader....but this is crazy!
As the silence deepened, Calvington began to remember something, something he had learned in the history e-texts while he went to Watterson High in Shady Acres. The national symbol of the Confederacy was a tiger, because President Watterson had a good-luck charm' of sorts that was a raggedy stuffed version of the national animal. He had always had this tiger, since he was born, his teacher, Mrs. Adams, had droned on, and seemed to believe it was real, probably a physcological flaw from the aftereffects of the Third World War. Apparently he often told his Cabinet that if you see the world my way, you'd see him.
Hobbes was also the name of a suburb of Shady Acres, where Calvington had recieved his Christian name, but he also remembered something else. That Hobbes had been the name of the tiger...he looked over to the chair, and to his surpressed disbelief, a live tiger sat there, chatting amibly.
-expect a raving lunatic to know where you live? You've never seen the man before have you?
Shock swept through the limbs of Hobbes Calvington, and his knees shook. He slowly looked from Calvin to the tiger, whose tail twitched almost conversationally. He was delusional. He rubbed his eyes, and looked back and forth again.
Calvington stared at Hobbes,
Hobbes declared, That proves it! He knows I'm real, so therefore he must be from a future were he learned about me...because I knew you!
That wasn't nesseceraily true, but he did make Calvin skrunch up his forehead and nod, still skeptically, but conceding the point.
Calvington heaved out his laser hand-rifle, You won't find one of these anywhere in the year 2003.
Finally, Calvin sighed and nodded, giving in. Then, all of a sudden, he brightened. You mean I become an extremely powerful political leader? Cool!
Calvington leaned against the desk and pocketed his laser hand-rifle. Where to begin? At 2027, the Third War? Or 2127, the Fourth War? He sighed and just allowed his tongue to lead his word were they should go.
In 2024, the people of the United States, in their infinite wisdom, elected Ohio Senator Morris Chase the President, Calvington noticed Calvin's eyes grow wide with a mixture of horror and curiosity, President Chase spend most of his time saber-rattling, fighting a small ground war in Korea with US troops that always threatened to boil over into a nuclear exchange between China, North Korea, and the United States. The South Koreans has US missle silos in their territory, and for the first two years of the war there was really no advancement on either side of the De-Militarized Zone set up by President Truman after the Korean War of the early 1950's.
In 2027, five hundred thousand Chinese soldiers were sent to fight for the North Koreans. The new servicemen added enough of a push that the North managed to break past South Korean and US lines and march to Seoul. Secretly, the Chinese managed to gain a military pact between themselves and the Russian Federation, simply stating that if China was bombed the Americans, the Russians would attack the United States.
President Chase bungled his way through this, fired his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. He asked for, and recieved, the resignation of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Vice-Chairman had a stroke while dealing with the crisis. Chase then ordered a nuclear strike on Beijing. It wasn't too long before the United States was devastated. Every major city had been destoryed, LA, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Richmond, Washington, Seattle, Charleston, Atlanta... Calvington's voice trailed off slowly, then he continued,
Our of the ruins of the world, there emerged leaders, nominally military, who managed to seize portions of territory, or entire countries. In our case, it was Lieutenant General Calvin Jonathan Watterson, who lived in this city, a suburb of the ruined Cleveland. Within a year, Watterson, you Calvington reminded the six-year old, perhaps unnessacarily, Had formed the Cal-American Confederacy, and rebuilt what was left of the United States.
In other parts of the world, democracy was shunned, General Hisham al-Jabari unified the Mideast and formed the People's Empire of Byzantium. Former Communists created the Neomarxist Republic of London in the British Isles. Russia and China divided into countless numbers of different nations. New Zealan invaded and took over Australia...
By the year 2100, most nations were moving towards republicanism, the Cal-American Confederacy, despite having a number of inept presidents, stood strong among the world. But, the first hours of the Twenty-Second Century only a year later brought forth a much worse blight upon our planet. The invention of antimatter weaponry by Admiral Cicero Thompson and the Cal-American Navy Research Department spawned a new age of terror. These weapons could destroy entire regions of land, sinking it into the ocean, or wipe out people, places, and things. Not a noun left in the area.
In 2127, President Sam Quentyn used these weapons against Japan, London, and Byzantium, nuclear strikes were done in retaliation. Our nation, our world, was again destroyed. But this time another hope came, not via a great leader, but through Operation Wells, a time travelling device we gleans from the journals of former President Watterson, journals he wrote when he was six and seven years old.
At this point Calvin looked over haughtily at Hobbes, I told you they'd be valuble!
Calvington just raised an eyebrow and charged his story forward, Here I am, I came here, and I don't know why. It was a prayer of sorts...that perhaps, per chance, you could help me out.
Hobbes just looked blankly at the other Hobbes and blinked, You didn't happen to say the President who launched nukes at the Chinese was a Morris Chase did you?
Calvington nodded, A horrible man, who did a horrible deed. Oh, maybe it was justified, but-
Hobbes cut him off with a wave of his paw, And you said he came from Ohio, didn't you?
Calvington nodded, not knowing how to respond.
Hobbes simply stared Calvington in the eyes, deeply, as if wanting to look through his pupils and into his mind, read the information there and decide if he was trustworthy. At length, Hobbes nodded affirming whatever he was about to say, He lives on this street.