Interface Read Free Page B

Congress, and to the American people, the Declaration of Fiscal Independence.
    (applause)
    In short, my fellow Americans, I propose as a first step to place a cap on the percentage of our budget that can go toward paying interest on the national debt. The exact level of this cap, and the details of its implementation, are subject to discussion and agreement between my staff and Congress - and I'm sure that we can look forward to many lively discussion on the issue.
    (laughter)
     
    But regardless of the details, the message is the same. Great sins demand great forgiveness. Let us now forgive ourselves, so that we may go forth into the brave new world of the third millennium with a clean slate and a clear conscience.
    (thunderous applause and cheers)
    Let the message go forth to the world that the country of the third millennium will be the United States of America and that its opening breaths of life were sounded in this noble hall on this great evening.
    (ten-minute standing ovation)
    It was an outrage, pure and simple.
    Having failed over his entire term in office to do anything about the budget deficit, the President was now going to patch it up by allowing America to weasel out of its financial obligations.
    Which was bad enough in and of itself; but he was also trying to portray this measure as an act of Lincolnian fortitude on his part.
    Cozzano felt an atavistic desire to fly to Washington, climb up on that podium, and slap the President across the face. It was the same brute, animalistic impulse that came into his head when he imagined someone hurting his daughter. His heart thumped powerfully a few times. He realized that he was being primitive and stupid, and tried to calm himself down. There was no point in thinking these things.
    Still Cozzano did not sign the letter on his desk - a thank-you note to the Prime Minister of Japan for his hospitality during Cozzano's visit last week. His powerful fingers gripped the smooth inlaid barrel of the pen. The rhodium alloy nib, charged with just the correct amount of French ink, was poised a few millimeters above the grainy surface of the buttery cotton-fiber stationery that Cozzano used for personal correspondence. But when Cozzano moved the pen - that is, when he did the thing in his mind that, ever since he had been inside his mother's womb, had caused his fingers and his hand to move - nothing happened. His eyes tracked
    across the paper, anticipating the pen's course. Nothing. The President spoke on and on, stopping every few sentences to bask in adulation.
    Cozzano's hand sweated. After a while, then pen fell out of his fingers. The nib dove into the paper and slid straight across it like a plow skidding across hard prairie. It left a comet-shaped streak of blue-black on the page, whacked down flat, and rocked side to side for a few moments, making a gentle diminishing noise.
    He cursed under his breath and a strange sound came out of his mouth, a garbled word he'd never heard before. It sounded so unfamiliar that he tried to look up, thinking that someone else might be in the room. But no one was here; he had spoken the word himself.
    When he moved his head it threw him off balance and pulled him toward the left. His left arm had gone completely limp. He saw it slide off the desk, but he didn't quite believe it, because he didn't feel it move. The cufflink, a cheap hand-me-down from his father, popped against the sharp edge of the tabletop. Then his arm was swinging at his side, eased to a halt by the slight mechanical friction of his elbow and shoulder joints.
    He slumped back into the chair's comfortable, Cozzano-shaped recesses. His right arm slid off the desk as he did so and he found that he could move it. He was sitting comfortably in his chair now, sagging leftward. He saw his intercom and knew that he could punch the button and call Marsha. But it was not clear what he should say to her.
    His eyes drooped half shut, the sound of the roaring, stomping, howling,