Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

Page 77

"A good reason to make you stay outside your computer games for at least fifteen minutes a day."

It took about one minute to find Cecily's cellphone. It was off, and when Aunt Margaret turned it on, it demanded a password.

"Well, there you are. It needs a password and I don't know it."

"Rube," said Nick.

"What?"

"The password. It's Dad's nickname, what the guys on his team called him. Rube. R-U-B-E."

"Oh, so you do notice things," said Aunt Margaret. Sure enough, the password got the phone working. "Speed dial," she said. But the first number got her nowhere. "Can you believe it?" Aunt Margaret asked them, pressing end. "The President is not the first number on her speed dial!"

"Who is?" asked Lettie.

"Your school," said Aunt Margaret.

It wasn't until the seventh speed dial number that Aunt Margaret finally smiled and nodded.

Chinma looked at her in awe. She was a woman. She was telephoning the President of the United States without permission. And instead of looking frightened or even respectful, she was triumphant.

"Mr. President, I am Margaret Diklich, Cecily's aunt, and I am tending her children, and you can arrest me later for using this telephone number but there's something Cecily desperately needs, though she doesn't know she needs it, and you're the only one who can get it for her."

Chinma watched in awe. This woman talked to the President as if he were a slightly naughty little boy.

"What she needs is a certain political refugee that is living in this house with her children. Apparently the law says if he returns to Nigeria he loses his asylum here, but I suspect that if anyone can get an exception to that rule, it's you."

Again she listened.

"Isn't it obvious? Chinma is the world's most qualified expert on the course of the nictoviral disease and what treatments are effective. And he's completely immune to the infection. Those meddling Christians haven't been decently briefed on anything, it is the most completely screwed-up operation in history, and I'm including Gallipoli, Fredericksburg, and the occupation of Iraq when I say that."

Now they could all hear laughter from the cellphone. The President was actually enjoying this conversation.

"I believe Chinma should be sent straight to Cecily, yes, and furthermore, from what he's told me I believe they will need hundreds of thousands of doses of stool softener and just as many doses of loperamide—that's the generic name of Imodium—and ibuprofen,

plus a million bottles of clean water."

The President's question was audible to them all. "Why?"

"Because from what Chinma told me, it seems that the people who die without getting to the bleeding stage of the disease are actually dying of dehydration caused by constipation, which causes them to resist eating and drinking, followed by devastating dysentery, which drains them of whatever fluids they do have."

The President said something, but rather softly.

Aunt Margaret laughed. "Yes, those are very much like Chinma's own words. They shit themselves to death, Mr. President, and not one person seems to have bothered to tell anyone in this expedition that the main treatment for these poor victims is to keep them hydrated."