Somewhere down the line, those two unrelated bits of random speculation coalesced into this story.
***
It was awkward.
He had campaigned on a cost-cutting platform, pledging to reduce spending and staff, and now with the White House employees all assembled before him, he wanted to remain impassive, impartial, detached.
But he could not. These were real people before him. Real people with real jobs and real bills to pay. On the campaign trail, they'd been merely a faceless statistic, a theoretical conceit. But now as Adam stared out at the faces of these workers, many of whom had been employed here for longer than he'd been alive, he felt embarrassed and ashamed. He realized, perhaps for the first time, that his decisions for the next four years would have human consequences, would take their toll on individual lives—not an earth-shattering conclusion by any means, but one which he now understood emotionally as well as intellectually.
He was not going to go back on his promises, though. As hard as it was, as painful as it might be, he was going to stick to the specifics of his campaign platform. There would be none of the waffling and indecision and half measures that had so afflicted his predecessors.
Hell, that's what he had criticized and run against in his bid for the presidency.
It was why he had been elected.
He'd been intending to announce the layoffs here and now, to do the firings en masse and get them over with, but he could not. Instead, he smiled out at his domestic staff and gave a generic "We're-All-In-This-Together, Let's-Put-Our-Petty-Differences-Aside-For-The-Good-Of-The-Country" speech. It had worked well in Dallas and Tampa, had knocked 'em dead in a longer variation at the nominating convention and after the general election, and it sufficed here in a more specific, more intimate incarnation.
He smiled and waved at the applauding workers, walked away, and turned toward Tom Simons, his chief of staff, as he headed down the hall to the Oval Office. "I want a list of all employees, their job positions, and their years of service. Also get me that cost-cutting analysis we put together."
"You got it."
"I'll speak to the groups individually, by job classification, explain the situation."
Simons nodded. "You want to do it in the Oval Office?"
"Yeah."
"I'll get right on it."
They parted halfway down the corridor and Adam continued on to the Oval Office alone. He was struck each time he entered the room by how small it was. All the rooms in the White House were smaller than he'd imagined them to be. The building had been designed and constructed a long time ago, of course, but he'd expected the rooms to be bigger than those in his Palm Springs house, and the fact that they weren't left him feeling disappointed and a little uneasy.
He walked over to his desk, sat down, swiveled his chair I, around to look out the window. He was filled with a strange I lethargy, a desire to just sit here and do nothing. For the first I time in his life, he had no real boss, no one standing over I him, and if he chose to unplug his phone and spend the afternoon staring out at the lawn, he could do so.
Power.
There would be demands on his time, of course. Obligations and commitments. A lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility. But the federal government ran itself for the most part. He didn't need to micromanage everything. And if he wanted to, he could simply let it all slide.
No. He had to stop thinking that way. He had gone after this job for a reason. He had ideas. He had an agenda. And I he planned to go down in history as an effective activist, as a competent administrator and visionary leader, not as the first slacker president.
Simons led in the first group of employees—butlers and maids—sometime later, and Adam stood, smiling blandly, wanting to appear friendly and personable but not wanting to instill a false sense of security. "I'm sure Mr. Simons told you why I've asked you here to the Oval Office." He nodded toward the chief of staff. "As I'm sure you're well aware, we have a fairly serious budget crisis facing us this year, and as I'm sure you're also aware, I promised the American people that I would cut government spending by a third and that I would not exempt myself from this edict. I will receive no special privileges but will sacrifice along with everyone else. This means, I'm afraid, that we will be eliminating some White House staff positions. We've looked at this from every angle, and while we've considered cutting the total number of employees by doing away with certain departments, we have decided that it is fairer to simply cut each department by a third."
A balding elderly man in a butler's uniform stepped forward. "Excuse me, sir?"
Adam held up his hand. "Don't worry. The layoffs will be by seniority—"
"There aren't going to be any layoffs, sir. You can't make any cuts in staff."
Adam smiled sympathetically. "Mr.—?"
"Crowther, sir."
"Mr. Crowther, I understand your concern, and believe me I sympathize."
"I don't think you do understand, sir. I'm sorry, but you can't fire any of us."
"Can't fire you?"
"We report directly to Buckingham Palace."
Adam looked over at Simons, who shrugged, equally confused.
"We're not under you. We work for you, but we're not employed by you. Sir."
Adam shook his head. "Hold on here."
"We report to Buckingham Palace."
He was growing annoyed. "What does Buckingham Palace have to do with anything?"
"Ahh." The butler nodded. "I understand now. Nobody told you. No one explained to you."
"Explained what?"
"You are not the head of the United States government."
"Of course I am! I'm ... I'm the president!"
"Well, you are the president, but the presidency is a fiction, a powerless position created by the Palace. The president is a figurehead. Someone to make speeches and television appearances, to keep the masses happy."
"The president is the leader of the Free World."
"I'm afraid, sir, that that distinction belongs to the Queen of England."
Crowther was still as calm and unruffled as ever, and there was something unnerving about that. It was understandable that the butler would try to save his job or the jobs of his friends, it was even conceivable that he would lie in order to accomplish that goal, but this was so bizarre, so far out of left field, that it made no sense. If this was a lie, it was a damn creative one.
If this was a lie?
Adam looked into the butler's eyes.
Yes. If.
He licked his lips, cleared his throat, tried to project a confidence he did not really feel. "We fought and won a war of independence over two hundred years ago," he said. "The Declaration of Independence is our seminal national document."
"Independence?" The butler laughed. "America's not independent. That was a PR stunt to placate the natives."
The rest of the hired help was nodding in agreement.
Adam felt cold. There was nothing to indicate that this was a joke, and the casual, almost nonchalant way in which the butlers and maids were reacting to the whole situation gave everything a boost of verisimilitude. He looked over at Simons for help, but his chief of staff was staring blankly back at him, obviously shaken.
Did Simons believe it?
Yes, he thought. And he did, too. He did not know why, but he knew that Crowther was telling the truth, and as he stared out at the faces of the domestic staff, he felt like the stupidest kid in class, the one who did not catch on to concepts until well after everyone else.
His entire worldview and take on history had been instantly changed by a meeting with a group of servants he'd intended to fire.
He took a deep breath. "You're saying we're ... still a colony?"