He turned his head again, scanning right to left, taking in everyone he could. “Let me say what all of us should be willing to say. I trust the intentions of every American, until and unless they prove differently. I trust that we all want a better life for ourselves, our neighbors, our children.”

He raised a hand, took in the crowd gathered here. “I trust that every member of Congress wants what’s best for this nation as a whole. We may differ on what best means. We may differ on how to get there.” He paused. “But I trust that you come to this place with the most sincere convictions, as I do.”

“In the first hundred days of my next administration, I’m going to do everything in my power to increase our mutual trust. I’m going to do everything in my power to explain to you, America, the roots of my convictions. I’m going to do that by being more transparent with you than ever before. We’ve faced grave threats over the last decade and more. Many of them Americans and the world don’t know about, or don’t know the full details of. We’re going to share those details.”

Stockton scanned again, looking, making eye contact with the men and women here, letting the cameras fend for themselves. “When you see those details, when you see that evidence, when you see the things we faced down, and beat, sometimes by the skin of our teeth, then I think you’ll reach many of the conclusions that I reached. You’ll share many of the convictions that I have. And you’ll see that the hard decisions that we’ve made, and that we have to continue to make, are made with the best of intentions for this nation, for our neighbors, for our loved ones…”

His eyes found Cindy in the front row.

“For our children.”

And there was Julie next to Cindy, beaming up at him.

“For our grandchildren,” he said, and Liam was looking up at him, standing up in Julie’s lap, his eyes wide open, his mouth hanging open.

Stockton smiled, and looked back up at the crowd.

“And for all the generations to come!”

He took a breath. Time to move on to jobs and taxes.

In a secure room beneath the warren of tunnels that connected the buildings of Capitol Hill, behind a door that proclaimed FIRE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT – AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY, a piece of code came alive.

Dozens of electronic sensors suddenly lit up with digital inputs of heat and smoke.

There was a fire.

It must be suppressed.

Fire suppression systems went live.

Electronically-controlled solenoids moved. Valves turned.

Banks of man-tall, high-pressure tanks released their contents into specially designed pipes. Electronic valve control routed the liquid, rapidly expanding into gas, to fire suppression nozzles at the location of the fire.

The United States Capitol Building, House Chamber.