Hank breathed a sigh of relief as the audience cheered in response, and Rollins looked on blankly. It was in the final shot of Wes Johnson’s face, just before the camera moved on, that Hank could have sworn he saw the senator’s eyes shimmer with tears that he couldn’t afford to release on television.
And that’s when Hank realized that he and Wes Johnson must share the same fate.
Hank quickly lost interest in the rest of the broadcast, picking up his phone and turning instead to people’s reactions online. While many were supportive of Johnson’s stance, Rollins had ignited . . . something. Tweets and blog posts were emerging from all corners of the country calling for candidates to reveal their strings, arguing that a short-stringer couldn’t be trusted with the nation’s most important job. Short-stringers are too distracted, they said. Too anxious, too depressed, too volatile.
It didn’t take long for the conversation to move past the presidency. Maybe all political offices should require a string disclosure? they asked. And what about the CEOs of major companies? Any thoughts on medical residents? Why would a hospital want to spend time training someone who couldn’t return its investment?
Hank threw his phone across the couch.
The next morning, June 10, around 9 a.m., approximately three months after the boxes first appeared, a short-stringer detonated a homemade bomb just outside the Capitol, killing multiple bystanders. And Hank knew that somewhere, in some bland hotel room in some midwestern state, Anthony Rollins must be pleased.
Summer
Anthony
The suspect in the June 10 bombing was killed in the blast—taking several other short-stringers along with him—but he left a message for the authorities to find upon searching his apartment later: The people suffer and die while our leaders do nothing.
An elite emergency task force, convened by the president to deal with the fallout, agreed rather quickly that there was nothing the government could do to stop short-stringers from suffering and dying. What the committee did decide was that something needed to be done to keep rogue short-stringers from causing any additional damage.
A week after the bombing, Anthony Rollins flew home to D.C., leaving his wife to sip cups of Earl Grey and eat cranberry-walnut scones at an afternoon tea with prominent donors in Charleston.
The next day, the president’s emergency task force prepared to welcome its newest member.
The team already comprised three senior senators, two top officials from both the FBI and the DHS, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We know it’s a bit unprecedented to bring in a representative on something this high-profile, and especially a primary candidate,” Anthony was informed by the chairman. “But these are unprecedented times. And the president won’t hold office for much longer. He needs to think about the long game, who’s going to hold the nation’s hand through the next four years of this nightmare. Apparently your performance at the debate really lit a fire in some segments of the party.”
“And I’m sure you’ve seen that my numbers are spiking fast,” Anthony added. He knew that some pundits had already dubbed him a fad, predicting his imminent burnout, but this assignment could cement his rise. “It seems that the whole country is listening to me.”
By the afternoon, the task force was listening, too.
The following morning, the nine members of the committee gathered in the Oval Office to offer their thoughts on the so-called “short-stringer situation” to the president himself.
String disclosures should be required for high-ranking government posts, they argued. It should be treated the same as a background check or a physical fitness exam. If you’re going to hold a position of power, you need to prove that you’re committed, that you’re physically and mentally capable. Frankly, a short-stringer is a liability, they claimed. You never know if they’re going to snap, like the bomber and the shooters before him.
Agent Breslin of the FBI was the only woman in the room, and for most of the meeting, she stayed quiet, letting the men continue to think aloud while she processed her thoughts internally.
“There’s something else that we haven’t thought of yet,” she finally interjected. “If we can check the strings of every applicant for field agent positions or active military duty, and only send those with longer strings into the field or into combat, then we can effectively eliminate all risk of death. They’re guaranteed to survive.”
The agent looked around the room of men, who were nodding in bewildered agreement, and she smiled.