Friday
September 2, 2101 A.D.

The Seventh Bush

“Where the heck is she?” yelled the president of the United States, as he studied the desert horizon in the distance through high-powered field glasses. His anger growing, he repeated, screaming down into the tank, “Beem, where the hell is she?” Immediately, looking skyward, Bush muttered under his breath, “Forgive me, Jesus, for using a swear-word.”
The glistening, beady, dark brown eyes of President Negon R. Bush, the 60th president of the American nation, continued to scan the sand dunes through the binoculars. He was searching for signs of Nitra Khan, queen of the six-million-strong, woman-warrior race known as She-Huns.
Bush stood on the hull of an Abrams M10-A10 battle tank. Inside the tank sat Beem Cheney, Bush’s vice president and the general of the army. The two Americans had travelled 230 miles from the underground city of Las Vegas, the capital city of the nation, to attend this top-secret meeting with the twenty-five year old She-Hun leader.
“Calm down, Negon. I’m sure she’ll come soon,” the forty-four year old Cheney climbed halfway out of the tank and stood in the hatch. The meeting with Khan was going to be the most important one of both of their political lives – and she was already one hour late. “Here,” he said, extending his arm and offering Bush his solid platinum, oversized hip flask filled with Kentucky bourbon, “Have a drink, Negon.”
“No, thanks.”
Amid small, swirling dust devils, the tank waited at the base of Mount Ryan in southeastern California. Bush, forty-two years old and athletic, shared the uncanny facial family resemblance of all of his notorious ancestors. The only difference was that Negon Bush’s nose was elongated and more pointed; liberal tongues joked that this was due to his overdeveloped tendency to lie. The president leaned toward the open hatch and ordered, “Get that radar fixed. Now!”
Huge, black, nimbocumulus storm clouds loomed 80,000 feet high in the sky as far as the eye could see; a torrential rain was imminent. Bush felt a hefty gust of wind run through his short, well kempt, very-blond hair, whose color was the result of Scandinavian blood having entered his gene pool a few generations earlier. He wore the insignia of commander in chief on the shoulder of his combat fatigues, as six other Bush presidents had before him. Crouching down to weather the ninety mile per hour winds, now a common phenomenon across the United States and all across the world, he leaned against the turret and raised the binoculars up to his eyes once again. Squinting, he looked through the eye pieces but was unable to see anything. The wind physically swayed his body, and he sat down in the wind shadow of the turret to avoid losing his balance.
The president surveyed the line of the foothills of Ryan Mountain and the wide plains of the southern Mojave Semi-Desert beyond. Millions of pink-colored, five-foot high avocactus plants carpeted the desert floor; in some places, no sand showed through them at all. This plant, which bore cantaloupe-sized, pink fruits covered in black spines, was a genetic crossbreed of the Euphorbia cactus and the Mexican avocado tree. The avocactus plant, engineered and harvested by the She-Huns, grew prolifically in this part of the country; it had overrun completely the local natural flora, such as the Joshua tree, the Yucca plant and the Creosote bush, during the previous fifty years.
Bush continued to scan the desert horizon but saw nothing of Khan. “Nitra,” he yelled into the midday wind storm, just as large raindrops began to pound against his face, “where the heck are you! You better show up for this meeting!” The seventh president of the Bush familial political dynasty had never been so anxious in all of his ten years in office.