The Trade of Queens

Epilogue

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“My fellow Americans, good evening.

“It is two months since the cowardly and evil attack on our great nation. Two months since the murder of the president along with eighteen thousand more of our fellow citizens. Two months since my predecessor and friend stood here with tears in his eyes and iron determination in his soul, to promise you that we would bring prompt and utter annihilation to the enemies who struck at us without warning.

“Many of you doubted WARBUCKS’s word when he spoke of other worlds. He spoke of things that have been unknown—indeed, of unknown unknowns—threats to the very existence of our nation that we knew absolutely nothing of, threats so serious that the instability of the Middle East, or the bellicosity of Russia, dwindle into insignificance in comparison. The horrific tragedy that unfolded between India and Pakistan last month—and our hearts go out to all the survivors of that extraordinary spasm of international madness—demonstrates what is at stake here; as long as hostile powers exist in other timelines that overlap our geographical borders, we face the gravest of existential threats.

“But I am speaking to you tonight to tell you that one such existential threat has been removed: WARBUCKS’s promise has been carried out, and we shall all sleep safer in our beds tonight.

“At half past two this afternoon, aircraft of the Fifth Bomb Wing overflew the land of the enemy who attacked us so savagely on July the sixteenth. And I assure you that our enemies have just reaped the crop that they sowed that day. Those that attacked us with stolen nuclear weapons have received, in return, a just and proportional measure of retribution. And they have learned what happens to assassins and murderers who attack this great nation. Gruinmarkt, the nest of world-walking thieves and narcoterrorists, is home to them no longer. We have taken the brand of cleansing fire and cauterized this lesion within our geographic borders. And they will not attack us again.

“This does not mean that the threat is over. We have learned that there exists a multiplicity of worlds in parallel to our own. Most of them are harmless, uninhabited and resource-rich. Some of them are inhabited; of these, a few may threaten our security. I have today issued an executive order to put in place institutions to seek out and monitor other worlds, to assess them for usefulness and threat—and to insure that never again does an unseen enemy take us by surprise in this way. Over the coming weeks and months, I will work with Congress to establish funding for these agencies and to create a legislative framework to defend us from these threats.

“Good night, and God bless America.”

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