xp_logs | Farouk and the Kingmaker.

Two old spies meet and discuss the future of the universe.

The humid air of the dying summer was beating down in a steady thrumming pressure on Washington, driving its resigned citizens toward the comforting safety of central air or, at least, some semblance of shade. The solitary man sitting on the steps of Lincoln's Memorial dipped the plastic spoon in for another scoop of his Cherry Garcia and smiled contentedly. Even the tie was still fastened perfectly, the black suit seemingly impervious to the heat.

Farouk sat down heavily next to Langstrom and sighed. "Reminds me of Beirut, this weather. "

"Korea. Ever been to North Korea? You get wonderfully cool summers in Pinyong-yong this time of year. There's something about that place. A couple of good snipers and it would be a great place to retire to." Langstrom took a sip from his coke and leaned back.

"Ugh." Farouk shuddered. "Bahaus-socialist architecture... Spare me."

"I thought we were talking about climate." David said dryly, wondering whether or not to wander over and get some fries to go with his soda. He wasn't due at the Capitol Building for a couple of hours yet. "You've lost some weight since Jerusalem."

"Well, I've been getting a lot of exercise lately." Farouk shrugged. "Running around the Middle East, Cuba and Pakistan. A lot of excitement lately." He sipped his colada with visible pleasure. "A new player on the board, it looks like."

"In my experience, there aren't any new players. Just the same old ones time and time again." Langstrom smiled thinly. "You remember Chester Whalen, right? Ran the op in Tehran in '79, two into Iraq in '81. The gas surprised him too. Just goes to show."

Farouk's eyebrow quirked in quiet amusement. "Yes, some people do seem to have paid attention to the old maxim of - if at first you don't succeed, try and try again." Amahl glanced at the flock of pigeons that fluttered out of the trees, spooked by the sudden noise of a motorcycle. "Still… Kingmaker? Really? Sort of ostentatious, isn't it?"

Langstrom shrugged and took another swig from the bottle. "You'd be amazed how many people are impressed by a title. I mean, Alamut? There's weight to the past."

Farouk laughed out softly, a tinge of embarrassment entering his voice. "Touche."
He tapped the plastic cap against his fingernail meditatively. "Do you know - as time goes on I’m becoming more and more a devotee of one law that seems to defy entropy." Amahl glanced at Lagstrom, the black eyes suddenly opaque, "Unintended consequences are forever there to remind us that we, none of us are gods. It pays to remember that, I find."

"The key, in my consideration, is that the situation should help you no matter whether or not someone succeeds." Langstrom shrugged. "Five hundred thousand Indians is a tragedy. Five hundred thousand Americans is a failure."

"Life's an unfair." Farouk agreed placidly, "And cheap. Of course the American lives are beginning to add up steadily these days, their shiny blue helmets providing surprising little protection on the streets of Peshawar and Karachi." The Arab smiled crookedly. "On the other hand, it's nice to see the New Rome looking outside their backyard again and taking an interest in something besides an overdressed drag queen in a purple helmet."

"Foreign policy." The CIA man made a gesture with his hand, almost dismissive. "The State department is responsible for that, although I do have it on the highest authority that the Secretary of State hates leaving Ohio. The President is very dedicated to domestic issues. Very focused. We at the Company really try and keep things in perspective for him."

"Somebody certainly should." Farouk agreed, his voce not quite sotto. "It is a dangerous word out there. And the American holiday of the last eight years has not made it safer. I think Mr. McKenna could benefit from sound advice that there are places in the world now, where he should tread with a softer touch than an imprint of the Marine Corps issue combat boot."

Farouk shrugged artlessly. "All too many people seem to conveniently forget that left to fend for itself, the world did. And if good old Uncle Sugar is bestirring himself again, there are some places where his assistance is not required."

"President McKenna." Langstrom said, his voice stony. "He is President McKenna, not Mr. McKenna. And you seem to believe that this is about assistance. It's about America's safety in the next century. A Marine Corps issue boot fits into anarchy better than an imam's robe, and creates real stability."

He tossed his empty plastic bottle into the nearest garbage can. There was a fifty dollar fine for littering on the Mall, and the local police enforced it rigidly. "What if you had the chance to expand your operations? Reach mutants across the Middle East? What would it be worth to you?"
"I've read Faust, Mr. Langstrom." Farouk replied. "Sorbonne provided a good grounding in classic literature all around."

Amahl crumpled the cup in his fist and juggled the remnants slowly between his hands. "I am not a young man, and I have long since learned the limits of my ambitions. I find myself content with the extent of my little bailiwick, and find the prospect of its enlargement almost as tiring as a idea of someone trespassing there."

"Shame. Nations decide for other nations, and the little people, well--" Langstrom paused for a moment. He would get some fries, and maybe another drink. He had time, and the majority leader wouldn't mind. After all, he was from Las Vegas, and enjoyed his cholesterol.

"Little people wait for someone to make them great; a Kingmaker. Overblown, sure, but not ineffective. Best of all, no matter what their ambitions are, they always benefit the United States, whether or not they succeed."

"Nationalism," Amahl squinted at the midday son. "A quaint emotion in the age where the genetics is God. Some would be wary as not to find themselves the last legionary on the abandoned ramparts of a crumbling empire of the mind." He nodded at the jogger, whose gaudy Mohawk of white feathers bobbed gently over the purple-skinned face. "I wonder if he thinks of himself as an American. Or as a mutant. What is the God that claims his soul."

"In thirty years, identifying yourself as a mutant will be common enough to be unremarkable. Nutjobs like Magneto are right about one thing; their war is now, while being a mutant is unique and believed to be something worth fighting for." Langstrom said dismissively. "Alamut exists because there is a limited resource ripe for exploitation. In the end, there will still be the United States, because a nation is something forged. It's fought for, and mutants will be responsible as much for protecting it as anything else."

Langstrom leaned back on the bench. "Frankly Professor, airy post-human futurism bores the living fuck out of me. Put an Israeli telepath and a Palestinian telepath in the same room, and you're not going to get any kind of greater understand or brotherhood between them from their powers or their genetic stature. They're going to try and fuck each other up with tire irons because one's a Jew and the other thinks his great grandfather got his land stolen by the other. Patriots, Farouk. You can laugh and sneer at them, but the next man will Magneto-like powers might be coming out of Ohio, an Eagle Scout, played full back and signs up for the Marines excited that his powers will let him help his country more. We're looking for them, we're finding them, and we're going to make heroes out of them. Mutants are just the next group for the melting pot. So yes, I bet most of them think of themselves as Americans, and the war we're fighting is to prevent others from making 'Mutant' it's own nation."

Farouk shrugged, his eyes following as the jogger rounded the corner. "Optimistic. It appears you share something with your President, after all…”

Langstrom’s lips thinned, as Farouk stressed the words your President, but the Arab went on, smoothly.

“And I do hope you are right. Yet, so far most of these heroes seem to prefer accomplishing their heroic feats under the anonymity of a mask. And not many of them do so in Palestine at all. The stonings, you see..."

Farouk sighed and stretched slightly. "Tell me Mr. Langstrom, does the name Kabaka mean anything to you?"

The American frowned. "The Chairman of New Orleans' chapter of Amnesty International?"

"Not exactly, no. In the 1880's he was the Big Chief, the God-King of Buganda. A compact little empire in Central Africa."

"Ah." Langstrom's eyes narrowed minutely, as he waited for the point.

"Yes. They were doing rather well. Then the missionaries arrived, with their airy post-Kabaka futurist ideas. Muslims, Anglicans and Catholics... New era, new time, new ways of ordering the world. Within ten years, Kabaka had been overthrown, and a four-cornered civil war was underway. The Anglicans won eventually, mostly due to a British gentleman adventurer and a Maxim machine gun. And the new Gods of course."

Farouk tugged on his mustache absently. "I do wonder if Kabaka too thought the universe over which he ruled would endure forever as it should, as it always has... I am a very arrogant man, Mr. Langstrom, yet there's nothing in the world I wish more than to be wrong. But the vision of the future that haunts my dreams and fuels Alamut is blood and chaos, the great Turning of the world which will chew up entire nations. Because this time the Maxim guns can think. And fly."

The insistent ring of the cell phone split the air, but the Langstrom ignored it, intent on the other man.

Farouk turned, the dark eyes meeting American's careful regard. "I do wish you luck, as hard as you may find it to believe. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, Mr. Langstrom, and your country has been taking a siesta. Perhaps you have woken up in time. But I suspect that none of us can stop what's coming. Against Fate, after all, even the Gods do not fight."

Langstrom's phone sounded again, and Farouk smiled a chilly expression that did not reach his eyes. "And I assure of this - the cost of the new world or of purchasing the stability of the old will not be paid by my people alone."

"My people are Americans, Farouk. Not black, not mutant, not Jews; Americans. My job is to buy them the time to be ready, and we will. There is one flaw in your story though. Kabaka was isolated, prey to new foreign ideas." Langstrom smiled. "Mutant isn't foreign yet. It's not even against anyone yet, which is why people like Magneto are trying to make it so, and why people like yourself are so desperate to build an identity around it. The melting pot, Farouk. All of the ideas that go in eventually come out as American one way or another. You find your mutants who believe in genetic fate and a new world based around your powers. I'll find mine, who believe in their country, their families and their fellow Americans, and we'll see which one has more to fight for."

Langstrom stood up to leave, and paused briefly. "Alloys, Professor Farouk. You'd do well to consider them." He said, and stalked off towards the Capitol building.