“Babe,” the man said with a choked sob. “I know you’d rather die than become an impy. I know what happened to your family in the war... but I can’t do this by myself. I need you.” He clenched her blanket in his fists, then used it to wipe his tears. On some level, he knew it could cause more problems, but a man drowning in an ocean of tears wouldn’t fear the rain.
“It isn’t just me, either. Our son, our son!” He sniffled back the snot that was about to drip out of his nose. “I can’t do it alone! You need to live, not just for me, but for our son. He needs a mother, not a stepmother or a nanny. And you promised me forever!
“What happened, happened, but you can’t punish our son for the mistakes of others. Your pride is punishing us, and for what? What did we ever do? Is it fair to punish us just so you can keep your pride? Is it fair to make us feel the pain of losing you? The people you’re angry at don’t even know who you are! You’re just a number to them... but you’re everything to us!”
He broke down in silent sobs again, doing his best to choke them back to avoid disturbing the premie in the room.
After a few minutes of silent sobbing and sniffling, he continued, “Why did you have to create a beautiful life with me if your pride would just force you to punish me and your son? He never asked for any of this. He didn’t ask to be brought into this world only for you to leave it out of spite and your misplaced pride!”
There was another long pause, as if the man was struggling to come up with a way to say the words he needed to speak. Minutes passed like that before he turned to his son. He gazed at the boy that had been born ten weeks too early when his wife’s health made it too risky to keep the pregnancy, but too late to terminate it without making everything worse. His eyes were filled with love and pity as he gazed at the too-small infant in the incubator.
A sense of resolve came over him then, and his shuddering stopped as he turned to his dying wife. “I’ve done everything I can to honor your wishes, my love.” He caressed her forehead with a gloved hand, grasping one of hers with his other hand. “But the Sun has made its decision. If I don’t do anything now, you’ll die... and I can’t let that happen.
“So for once, I’m going to be selfish. For me and for our son.”
After he said that, he took one last long look at his wife and son, then stood and walked out of the room. He passed through the airlock and took off his sterile outer clothing, revealing the t-shirt and jeans he was wearing under them. Then he opened the locker next to the airlock door, took out his phone, and, as if he had granted himself permission, dialed 000.
The line only rang once before it was picked up. “Imperial immigration agency, how may I help you?” the voice on the other end asked.
With trembling hands, the phone to his ear and took a deep breath. “My name is Sunday Khan, and I officially request imperial citizenship for me and my family.”
The phone call continued for a few minutes as Mr. Khan provided all the details the imperial immigration agency required.
“Mr. Khan, I’ve dispatched a recovery team for your family and am in the process of notifying the hospital to expect their arrival. Please stand by for our team, the expected arrival time is in... approximately eighteen minutes. Do you have any other questions, concerns, or needs?” the immigration agent asked.
“No, as long as my family can live a healthy life, I’ll be satisfied, thank you.”
“Excellent. We look forward to having you as imperial citizens,” the agent said, then fell silent as it was only his third day on the job and he didn’t quite know what to say in this particular situation. “Well, uhh... goodbye then, and good luck!”
With that, the agent ended the call.
Sunday closed his eyes and clasped his phone between his hands. He raised it to his forehead, as if in prayer, and said, “Whatever happens when you wake up, whatever you want, I’ll accept. Even if you want to divorce me, I’ll accept it. At least you’ll be alive to hate me.” He closed his eyes, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
A few minutes later and a whole lot lighter, he opened his eyes and looked at the television screen in the waiting room that was still tuned to the coverage of the incoming disaster. The timer on the bottom corner of the screen still showed six hours to the end. “So this is what they were after...” he muttered to himself, then slumped in the chair he was sitting in and laughed at his own powerlessness.
Similar scenes were playing out all over the world, or at least in the non-imperial areas of the world, anyway. The more fear people felt, the more firm their decisions to join the empire became. Some even threatened to abandon their more stubborn relatives who were steadfast in not joining the empire under any circumstances, even the impending death and destruction they were sure to face.
......
Imperial palace, three hours before the event.
“How’s the situation coming?” Minister Rogers asked.
[As expected, Minister Rogers. Millions of noncitizens have already requested citizenship, and millions more are rushing to do so. We’ve had to activate the VI system to process all of them, and we expect that as we come closer to the shockwave, the numbers will grow exponentially. Other than neo-luddites and people with firm religious beliefs, we expect that the majority of pre-imperial remnants will request citizenship before the CME impacts Earth.
[The only ones who’ll still refuse will be hardliners, and we’ll require alternative methods of dealing with them. I have some ideas and will put it on the agenda for the next council meeting. But for now, things are progressing according to plan,] Gaia reported.
“Excellent. For a unified Earth,” Jeremy said, wishing he wore glasses so he could push them up the bridge of his nose like his favorite anime schemers.
Time inexorably ticked on, and soon the countdown timer on every screen in the world reached zero.
There was no Earth-shattering kaboom, no mushroom cloud of devastation, no blast radius, nothing. In fact, it was rather beautiful as an aurora spread from Earth’s magnetic poles that could be seen as far as the equator. On the dark side of the planet, night became day, and on the day side of the planet, the day became just a little bit more gorgeous as the aurora spread to the backdrop of transformers fizzling out and electrical appliances that hadn’t been unplugged shorting.
Almost every electrical appliance outside the empire fizzled out into uselessness as Earth suffered a planetwide EMP.
