A lot of people refused to believe Petra's corrections to the broadcasts, but at least some of them were swayed by the most blatant propaganda being exposed, like doctored photos or substituted ones. More interesting was the shift in editorial decisions at the major networks; it turned out that news directors actually wanted to cover the news when they were allowed, and control over the direction was limited at the moment, as heirs squabbled and Boards of Directors were refilled.
Meanwhile, one of the social media platforms was taken offline entirely, angering millions of users, when the new owner refused to tolerate the "alien censorship" that he was unable to purge from its systems. "Better to shut it down than to let aliens spread their propaganda and distortions of the truth!" he angrily declared in interviews.
On another front, the assassinations of a lot of judges resulted in many cases moving forward faster, contrary to expectations. Prosecutors previously unable or unwilling to bring high-profile criminals to trial found most of the roadblocks removed. Many people were angered at the "activist, collaborator judges" who seized the opportunity to order rich people to actually sit in prison while awaiting trial. When publicly challenged, one such judge declared, "We've all see the new proposed Constitutional Amendments. Given recent events, I find it likely that those will be approved rapidly and become the law of the land. So really, I'm simply saving time."
The turnover in the seats of power accelerated, as a large number of corrupt government officials and high-level businessmen were resigning their positions. While many of those were presumed to be due to blackmail, a lot of them were simply trying to remove the risk of being killed for trying to move levers of power that the alien assassins didn't want pulled. It was all corrupt as hell, and extremely blatant, but the mechanisms to stop the process were no longer functioning.
It was an open secret that some Senators had been overtly bribed by the Visitors. While that was evidence of a lack of blackmail, it was itself a crime. However, a lot of people understood that the promise of decades more of life was hard to resist. Outrage in the population grew, however, that ordinary citizens would not have opportunities to increase their longevity.
The corrupt elite also were having a relatively hard time finding safe harbors as they fled extradition and prosecution. France surprised the rest of the world by sending the DGSE en masse to kidnap many of them in transit and bringing them into their territory to be charged. It was called an act of war by several countries whose sovereignty was violated, yet governments generally were busy with much higher-priority issues than rattling sabers at the French.
The stock markets had been wildly volatile ever since the Visitors arrived, and now they were crashing. A new Great Depression was speculated to be in the offing, but some pundits pointed out that the stock market had long since stopped being representative of the economy as a whole, being more of an indicator of how billionaires were doing. Experts were frantically studying the new Arrurran economics textbooks, looking for insights.
In short, nobody knew what was going to happen next, except possibly Captain Telnik, who wasn't even going to be back in the solar system for over a week.
When Nick tried to follow what was going on, he found it incomprehensible. Petra did her best, and she could parrot information, but a great deal of it was currently beyond her comprehension as well. She would happily answer any question Nick asked if it was specific enough, but figuring out the right questions to ask was beyond him.
One small thing Maggie suggested that Nick could do: he had Petra compile an incomplete list of rich and powerful people who were not targeted for assassination or blackmail, and publish it. Any small islands of certainty in the chaos would be welcome, and people who had done no wrong didn't deserve to be sweating bullets. He made sure to stress that the list was incomplete—many people who were not targeted were not on the list.
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Given the instability, all of the alien delegations declined to establish embassies on Earth. They apologized, and assured the human race that they were eager to discuss setting up peaceful relations as soon as the earthlings figured out who was going to be running things and under what rules.
In the middle of all this, Maggie was trying to plan the wedding, and more than once Nick had found her sobbing in despair. He didn't really understand the focus on making the wedding perfect, but he knew that it was extremely important to her. A few companies were still eager to donate materials, but most had distanced themselves from one of the greatest mass-murderers of modern times.
He went to Alyssa the secret agent and Jillian the influencer and asked them if they could help Maggie. Jillian grinned at him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Emperor Nick, I respect you for asking, but there's something you need to understand.
"Women are far more willing than men to ask others for help. Maggie came to both of us for advice almost immediately. But you definitely should get relationship points for thinking of it and trying to help."
After a lot of debate, Maggie decided on a remote wedding. They would not ship the Palmers, Patricia, and other guests up to orbit, due to security and logistical concerns. Nick and Maggie would say their vows in front of Father Mangiano on board, with an open channel to Holton Manor, where the ground-based members of the wedding would gather under top security. It wasn't hard to send down video equipment that expanded to fill an arbitrary space and cover a wall, so in the end, it would look as if the two rooms were joined. It was as close as they could get to having everyone there in person.
The wedding would happen after the Guranaki Melor returned, to ensure that security for the ground-based wedding party was the highest possible. Nick had even quietly had Petra produce was Captain Telnik called a "fission jammer." There wasn't time to build one big enough to cover the world, but covering Boston was entirely possible. He didn't tell anyone that he had done it, simply sent it down to Holton Manor as another piece of security equipment.
Someone would have to be truly crazy and mad with grief and rage to fire a nuke at Boston just to ruin my wedding. But just in case... Nick believed in being prepared. He'd already lost his father in one fluke. He wasn't willing to risk his sister, friends or in-laws in any way that wasn't completely necessary.
Nick silently instructed Petra to notify all the nuclear reactor sites, on the day of the wedding, that their output would be unusually low that day. He was very surprised to learn that there were eighty nuclear reactors in Boston. When he asked where they were, Petra gave him a list...and it included a lot of hospitals.
Nick's upgraded brain clicked into gear. Right. When they inject patients with radioactive stuff to run fancy scans, the stuff has to decay fast! Nobody would drink radioactive goop if it was going to keep spewing radiation while some of it stayed in the patient. And if it goes bad quick, you'd need to have your own supply ready-made. That's why hospitals have reactors.
Despite Maggie's promise to leave him out of wedding preparations, there were a few things they needed to discuss. They had a lot of fun arguing over last names. It was a welcome break for levity in a stressful time.
"You have to admit, Skywalker would fit us better than any other couple on Earth," Nick argued.
"No, no, have you heard the rumors about bad apples in that family? We don't want to start out hitching ourselves to that skeleton in the closet," Maggie pointed out with a grin.
They ran through a bunch of other names: Explorer, Carter, Burroughs, Starwalker, Earthling, Terran, Human...
"No, imagine going through Customs on a space station, and they ask 'Name', and I say 'Maggie Human', and then they ask 'Species' and I have to say 'Human' again. Let's not tempt the Gods of Bureacracy if we can help it."
"So the surname Dev-Null is out?" he joked.
"Definitely."
Nick looked at Maggie thoughtfully. "Are you sure you're okay with leaving the solar system? You don't want us to try hiding on Mars or something?"
Maggie shook her head. "I admit, 'Nick Carter of Mars' sounds cool, and I could use Thoris, but you know there's too much risk there. The Goldaskians could easily find us when they come to Earth looking for their missing cruiser."
"You're right, you're right."
"Are you all right with leaving Earth forever?" Maggie checked.
Nick sighed. "Yeah. I'd like to stop by for a visit in ten years or so, see how things shake out, but you were right the first time. I can't ever land on Earth again."
"If we can swing it, I'd...really like to say hi to my family someday."
"Well, with Petra's help, we might just be well-enough off to manage it eventually."
"That...would be nice."
"Yeah, it would." He comforted her with a hug, and they stood that way in silence for a bit.
"Nick Banzai."
"No."