The Washington TV stations barely had time to announce that seven of Washington D.C.'s finest were killed when the terrorist Dr. Julian Sloan exploded his car in a suicide bomb attack when they switched to the White House.
The President sat behind his desk in the Oval Office. This wouldn't be his best written or prepared speech, he knew. They had barely drafted it. He had his glasses on so he could read it as he gave it. But he knew it would be the single most important speech he would ever make. As soon as the camera light was on, he started speaking. "My fellow Americans. As you all know, something mysterious has happened around the world. You have questions and you deserve answers. I will give you all the information we have."
"The changes on Earth are from a signal sent by an alien probe from Outer space. We have definitely and positively been visited by a civilization from another world. Six months ago, the crew of a merchant marine ship named the Bighorn had the signal sent to them by the alien ship. Since then, we set up an agency we code named Threshold to understand the infection and to contain those who had been infected. When people who had been infected sent the signal over TV broadcasts around the world, the world became infected. I am infected. Most of the people in the United States are infected."
"People who have been infected call the infection being 'improved.' You feel great. You're stronger and healthier and can think faster than before, if you aren't one of the unlucky people who die from the infection. I haven't felt this good in thirty years. We estimate about eighteen million people or six percent of the adult population in the United States died, including Vice President Cheney, one member of the Supreme Court, four Senators and 26 Congressmen. This is the single largest disaster in the history of this country."
"Comparing our death numbers to the rest of the world, we were pretty lucky. Few countries had a verified death rate lower than 5. The worst hit area was Sub-Saharan Africa. The adult population in many countries has almost been wiped out. The experts from Threshold guess that about half a billion people died world wide."
"So, what happens when you get improved? Dr. Nigel Fenway from Threshold has begun preparing scientific explanations and you'll have those at the end of my speech. Anyone has been improved has learned real fast that you eat like a horse. The body is changing a lot and these new bodies burn a lot more fuel."
"The next question is why. Why did the aliens zap us with these signals? We don't know for sure. We have been told by infected people who are in contact with them. They say that in six years, Earth will be bathed in neutron radiation by a star named Eta Carinae. They say that in six years that any living thing on Earth that isn't 'improved' will die. We don't know that's true for sure, but that is what they tell us. They say the aliens are those strange black things you saw in your dreams in that forest of glass. They say those aliens will now leave us alone and go save the next intelligent civilization that will be destroyed by the neutron radiation."
"Is this true? We don't know. But with what little we have to go on we are going to assume for now it is true."
"What do we do? We stop the panic. Tomorrow, I want this Congress to pass and put two bills on my desk. The first bill is to make it a felony civil rights violation punishable by ten years in jail per conviction for improving someone against their will unless you're their legal guardian. The second bill is to add to all civil rights laws that it is illegal to discriminate on whether someone is improved or not. Not in hiring, not in service, not in school, not anywhere. Improved and unimproved people must work together to re-build America. I don't want any partisan claptrap. I want those bills ready to sign before dinner time tomorrow."
"After that, Congress should draft and pass legislation to approve reservations for unimproved people who don't want to be improved and don't even want to be around improved people. This isn't for hate or malice. It's insurance. What if there is some horrible side effect of improvement we don't know of? The unimproved should stand ready to replenish America."
"As I said, the improved eat like horses. The world does not have the agricultural capacity to feed the improved. The world has to change, and it has to change right now. I've painfully seen hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives get flushed down the toilet in Iraq and Afghanistan. That stops right now. As Commander in Chief, I am calling for an immediate cease fire in Iraq and Afghanistan. As soon as we have the cease fire, we will begin an immediate withdrawal of all out troops from those countries and from support bases in nearby countries. We'll help you with your agriculture when you can achieve peace and stability on your own. In the mean time, we will help those who can be helped. The same thing goes with the rest of the Mideast. I call for an immediate halt to all foreign aid, civilian or military, by all countries until the country shows that they are living in peace. When Israel makes peace with Palestine and the Arab countries make peace with Israel and Israel makes peace with its Arab neighbors then we will return with agricultural aid."
"I call upon all nations in the world now. We do not have the resources to waste fighting wars. Wars between nations must end today. I ask all nations to immediately and unconditionally enter into a simple treaty. If the weapons of the armed forces of a country are fired on a country that is a member of this treaty, all nations who are a member of this treaty must immediately declare war on that offending nation and prosecute war until that nation withdraws and ceases all hostilities."
"The United States is the world's largest arms exporter. By dollar amount, we sell almost twice as much as the next country, Russia. Between the two of us we sell the world $60 billion dollars of death a year. Between the twenty top countries, we sell the world $140 billion dollars of death a year. This must stop. I am calling for an immediate halt to arms exports for anything except bullet for exact bullet, gun for gun replacements. The world does not have the time or money to waste billions on guns when we have to start feeding people."
"Some may say it is unrealistic to dismember the military-industrial complex. They'll talk about the damage to their economy. They'll talk about worries about national defense. The alternative is for the world to starve to death, and if you want to see world wide war you wait for that."
"Now, I am not saying to muster out the world's armies. Far from it. The United States intends to use our troops to help build infrastructure to survive when the radiation hits. The world's young men and women in uniform have a lot they can do here and there's none finer than those in the American armed forces. But there is something I want to propose to the world's leaders who sign the treaty I spoke of. We all start exchanging troops. It will make the world's defense departments a whole lot less nervous if they know that they have people inside the armies of their neighbors and know what's going on there. Perhaps more importantly, the longer we spend learning about each other the faster we're going to break down the walls of fear and ignorance. Right now, we've only got six years to do it in."
"This is a world with many cultures, languages and Gods. But we're all one people, human. Tonight I ask all the world's people to petition their governments to drop the years of hostility and prejudice before it's too late. We have six years to completely change the world. If we succeed, we will make a paradise on Earth full of peace and true universal brotherhood. If we do not succeed, it will surely be a Hell. Good night."