Jon took his hand but the handshake turned into a hug. When they released, Jon asked, “Jorgie?”
Trevor’s jubilation hesitated.
“He-he went away.”
“So we won,” Jon laid it out. “But paid a hell of a price.”
Something in the inflexion in his tone-Trevor’s heart thumped hard.
“Lori?”
Jon shook his head and repeated, “We paid a hell of a price.”
The crowd at the pier would not let the mood sour. A wave of cheers carried among the mob. Trevor let a smile-an unsure smile-flicker on his lips.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll remember the dead. Today, we celebrate life.”
29. The Fourth Gift
“I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have…”
Trevor stared out the closed sliding glass door on the second floor of the estate, watching a gaggle of geese float across the lake waters as midafternoon turned to late afternoon. He saw the dock where Jerry Shepherd used to fish during that first year, before he had moved south as the armies of liberation marched.
He spied Omar Nehru-rolls of blueprints under his arm and a cigarette between his lips-walking hurriedly to a waiting car. Trevor knew that Omar’s wife, Anita would never regain all of the sanity she lost in the bowels of Red Rock.
Nonetheless, the estate felt peaceful. Relaxed. And, admittedly, a little dull.
I could use a little dull for now.
Dull did not describe Trevor’s trip to Montreal the day before where he addressed the global congress of hundreds of representatives from around the world; the people who responded to his invitation to build a better future.
And what did they do?
They bickered. They argued. They demanded. They protested. Some proposed and some rejected. One big mob shouting and pointing at one another.
Trevor had felt certain that the relief of having survived the invasion would result in cooperation. He hoped for a communal spirit that would lead almost immediately to all kinds of treaties, a commitment to one world government perhaps based on a global federalism, and a format for electing representatives: a post-Armageddon constitutional congress that spoke for the entire world.
He had given a speech saying as much, detailing how the old world’s political in-fighting and an overbearing bureaucracy failed man’s nations when the invasion began. He spoke of our common bonds, the insignificance of superficial differences, and the need to reject the pre-Armageddon divides that had made civilization susceptible to outside attack.
They smiled. They nodded. They clapped at the right moments and in the end roared with a standing ovation. So moved were they that a vote to create a ceremonial position of ‘Emperor’ passed without a single objection.
And then the arguing began anew.
All the old ‘isms’ made the rounds: socialism, capitalism, communism, despotism, along with monarchy, oligarchy, and anarchy. Trevor heard them all. He sat in on the discussions for three hours until a headache forced his retreat to a transport. He left Jon Brewer behind.
Trevor had realized as he fled the convention center that he did not know how to handle the debate because debate had never been a part of his mission.
Evan Godfrey, where are you when we need you?
And there was the irony. If only Evan had been patient. This could have been his moment. His ability to inspire with speeches, to boil politics to their essence, to find common ground-it would have been something to behold and Trevor would have gladly handed the reins to him now, with the world safe.
Instead, chaos ruled in Montreal. The old lines of divide reared their ugly heads: nationalism, ethnicity, religion, tribal loyalties and a plethora of other excuses to divide groups into further divisions.
Trevor came to realize that the concept of one great world government providing peace and prosperity for a re-building planet would not arise from the conference. Still something would come of it. Something better than the old status quo. Something that would recognize the common interests of humanity.
It had to. It must.
Or we did not learn the lessons of Armageddon.
Trevor felt his fingers instinctively moving to pinch his nose and forced them away. He did not need to worry. These problems belonged to someone else. Perhaps Alexander would form a consensus. While not as political savvy as Godfrey, Alexander’s track record at Camelot proved he could bring disparate parties together.
Trevor’s problems had finally changed to a more personal nature. Humanity would need a new leader for this new age.
He lived in the estate by himself. Ashley’s things were long gone, her bags somewhere with Gordon Knox’s bags on a well-earned respite to someplace south. Probably Miami. Trevor had not asked. He had met with Ashley long enough to convey the events in Russia the previous year. She accepted his account without comment although her contempt for Trevor’s actions came across in the glare of her eyes. He could not blame her. She was a mother, and a mother would gladly let the world die instead of sacrificing her child because that’s what mothers do.
He could not hold any of that against her. She had played her part. Indeed, she may have suffered more than he. Now she reached for a life of her own. He wished her well.
Trevor eyed the view. How often had he gazed out that glass over the years? In the early days he had pulled the curtains shut at night to hide. He had stood on that balcony on one fateful morning and watched sunrise knowing his canine soldiers did his dirty work at New Winnabow. And he had returned from another Earth to the surprise of Evan Godfrey in that same room.
The old world might have been a dream. More than a decade past since he changed from Richard to Trevor yet-yet it felt like yesterday and like an eternity ago at the same time. A contradiction, but also a truth.
He heard the creak of a floorboard and turned his head expecting to see a courier bringing tidings from either the politicians in Montreal or the hunters on the frontier.
“Hello, Trevor.”
She stood there on the far side of the room in jeans and a casual black shirt, not the usual military uniform. Something else appeared amiss, but he could not tell exactly what.
Nonetheless, he hid his surprise and answered with his best, formal voice, “Oh, hello, it’s good to see you Captain-“
Trevor stopped as he realized what else seemed different about her. Instead of a ponytail, her hair lay to her shoulders.
He tried again, in a quieter voice.
“Hello, Nina.”
He watched her close; studied her blue eyes for signs of ice or warmth. Nina strolled slowly-drifted, nearly- around the desk and toward him with her eyes focused on the sights beyond the closed glass door.
Trevor’s skin erupted in goose bumps, a reaction to an energy that came into the room with her.
Nina stopped and eyed the sun sparkling off the lake waters.
“I remember. I remember standing here-watching the sun rise that last day. I remember being- feeling…” her lips pressed together tight to control the echo of an intense emotion. “I remember envying you because you would
