Conner didn't know what was worse—speaking in front of a zombie audience, or speaking in front of a zombie audience dressed in suits and wielding crucial power. The chambers of the House of Representatives casted an odd and an even more eerie setting to the notion of a zombie apocalypse, where the zombies aren't simply reanimated corpses, but underdeveloped brains that are being eaten away by some unknown viral infection causing the decay of the brain while maintaining the overall tone of the human body. It was most severe when a person couldn't tell whether or not one was a zombie. Dress the person up in a suit and tie and give them a seat of power, and we have ourselves a dangerous creature.

Conner sighed in his seat as the Speaker of the House was just about to point to Conner to stand up and address the chamber. Conner had requested repeatedly that he'd be allowed to speak about the impeachment outside the small amount of time they allotted to each and every individual congress member. It was a drag to hear over 300 Republicans decry the President as a terrorist and wanting his head on a spike. The amount of noise the Republicans made had even had an effect on the minority Democrats in the House—half of whom were leaning towards voting for impeachment.

Conner felt it was his duty to talk some sense into these zombies. However, it would be a nearly impossible task. Talking to such powerful zombies like these was like talking to plants—they're technically alive, but no matter how much you tell it to move, it won't budge. Even if you push the plants, they find a way to return back to their original position. As much as Conner would love to yank these plants from the ground and call it a day, it wouldn't do him any good.

"Mr. Knox, the floor is yours. You have five minutes."

Five minutes, Conner thought. Too short of a time, but I have to do this. I can't be the lone survivor of the zombie apocalypse in this chamber. There must be more survivors. I just have to find them, or let them come to me, at the risk of attracting the heat from the greater zombie population. But in order to do this, I have to keep this short and to the point.

When Conner was in the center of the chamber, with all eyes on him, he made his stand. "We all love to be first—first in a competition, first on line to purchase merchandise, and even first to do something new. This call for impeachment has been done in the past, but no one has actually fired a sitting president—whether it be Congress taking a stand and putting a stop to it, or the President himself ending the discussion by resigning. Although it is great to be in the history books, we all want to be in the history books for the right reason. Let us not be alongside the Confederates who betrayed the sanctity of a united America for their own personal sake of keeping the forced enslavement of a specific race of Americans. Let us not be amongst the President who signed an executive order to wrongfully imprison Japanese Americans because of a inkling that they were in contact with the enemy. [19] Let us not be alongside the red scare where a member of our past Congress imprisoned and spread fear amongst the country over Communism. [20] Let us not be in the history books for all the wrong reasons."

Already he could tell his speech was falling on deaf ears. People were twirling their thumbs, doodling in their books, and even whispering to each other. Addressing Congress was no different than a teacher addressing a classroom of uninterested students. In the end, for them, it's all about getting paid to sit in those fancy leather seats.

But Conner strove onward. "I know it sounds great to be the first Congress to take a stand against the executive branch, and show the world the founding fathers' core principle that the legislature should be the most powerful branch of government. But this is not the way to make history. To impeach a president with little to no evidence of wrongdoing is an abuse of legislative power. We are better than that. We are to set an example for this country. Men and women elect us to present America as a stable country with a designated path towards righteousness. But my fellow congress members, this vote to impeach our president is not a sign of stability, but a sign of instability and chaos. This is the show that the enemy wants. They want our great country to crumble down to its foundations. They want us to make changes, because changes made, mean that the enemy is important enough to effect such change."

A couple of congressmen and congresswomen rolled their eyes at his last remark. He knew they thought Conner was underestimating the enemy. In fact, Conner was not underestimating them. He feared that the enemy was winning and that the United States was playing right into their hands. He had to shake the United States loose from this trajectory of humiliation and defeat.

"In politics there are four ways you can vote as a representative in congress. There's the delegate model, in which legislators should adhere to the will of their constituents. Then there's the trustee model in which legislators may consider the will of the people, but normally act in ways that they believe are best for the long-term interest of the nation. Then there's the politico model, which is an in-between model that places itself as an intermediate between the delegate way of voting and the trustee way of voting. This usually runs along the lines that the legislators follow their own judgment until the people voice their concern over a particular issue, in which the congress member follows the will of the public. However, there is a fourth and sometimes forgotten model: the conscience model. This model calls for the congress members to vote against the will of the public in order to truly act in the best interests of the nation. Now, normally a conscientious voter would vote along the lines of the will of the masses, but on really crucial issues, where the masses cannot see the greater picture, they go against the public's will for the good of the country."

Conner extended his hand forward and pointed at almost every single member of Congress to make sure his last point hit home. "Today, I ask each and everyone of you to be a conscientious voter. Impeachment is not a way to simply vote a president out of office whom you disagree with—it is a tool for disposing a treasonous and corrupt leader who thinks himself or herself above the law. Ignore the media, ignore the constituents who think they know what they want, and step out of the moment and into reality. Look at the situation and calculate what effects this decision will have on our future. Do you wish to be remembered alongside Joseph McCarthy or alongside Daniel Webster? [21] The decision is yours, I only hope you make the correct one."

Conner managed to finish with about thirty seconds to spare. He received few applause, if any, but that was not a bad sign. The good sign was that he didn't receive any boos, or hisses, or sucking teeth. That meant that they had heard what he said, and were allowing it to digest in their brains—a process that hadn't been done in many of their heads for decades. Conner took his seat, seeing hope, while another member of Congress took to the floor: Congresswoman Alberta Finch.

Conner's hope was nearly shattered when he saw her take to the floor. Alberta was one of the most vocal voices among the Republicans in the House besides the Speaker himself. Alberta was about as unpredictable as the weather. One moment she'd come up to the stage hot and fiery against one issue; the next day she'd cool down and take the opposite stance. For example, on one occasion she exclaimed that the murder of a innocent child in the womb should not be allowed in this country. She'd make all these long-winded arguments about how we recognize bacteria as being life on Mars, but a beating heart in the womb of a woman was not considered alive. Then, one week later, she flip-flopped and exclaimed that women have a right to decide what they want to do with their bodies. She exclaimed that if men were capable of being impregnated, then abortion would be a sacrament of some kind. Conner was pretty sure he heard that quote from another woman, but he couldn't pin the person down. [22]

Either way, Alberta was like a sophist, arguing any side just to show she was capable of doing so. Sometimes, her arguments didn't add up, but she commanded the stage when she was speaking, which meant that she could say anything, and it would sound right at first. Many people allow the things she said to go over their head.

Today she took the stage immediately right after Conner, which was not a good sign. Conner knew Alberta was not likely to agree with Conner, even though technically they were a part of the same political party.

All Conner needed to hear was one minute of Alberta's speech, and one minute of her speech was all Alberta needed to convince the audience to impeach the president: "I am a mother of three children. I have a 20 year old off in college, a 14 year old in tenth grade, and a five-year-old just staring Pre-K. When I think about whether or not to impeach the president I think about my children. I wonder if this country is safe with that man in office. Then I look and see the attacks in Chicago and Pennsylvania, and the international attacks in London and Madrid—and the answer is quite clear. This president has not kept us safe. It's funny how the rest of the country is trying to prevent these attacks from happening, yet they still seem to happen. Either these terrorists are that good, or we have some corruption going on from within—a corruption that is allowing these terrorists to do damage without being stopped. Considering the nature of our current president, even with his denial of being affiliated with Islam, we cannot trust a man who is placed on the chopping block to speak the truth—rather he will say whatever he needs to in order to be set free. So I say to you my friends and my adversaries on the other side of the aisle, make the right decision today, and keep in mind our future—a future where are children do not live in fear that one day they too will meet the tragic consequences of another terrorist attack."

Long story short, the Republicans in Congress managed to get enough votes to impeach the President from his office, on the grounds that he had committed treason by aligning himself with the enemy and was putting the nation at risk of utter annihilation. For the first time in history an impeachment was successful. Now the trial would move onto the senate, presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Donald Franklin.

The fear is getting out of control.

Footnotes:

[19] It's interesting to note that Conner is referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has repeatedly been looked up to as a true American leader—for having led America through the Second World War. He may be hinting at the fact that even the greatest heroes have dark demons buried within them.

[20] Here he is referencing Senator Joseph McCarthy from the state of Wisconsin, who spread a panic that Communism had infiltrated the country.

[21] Daniel Webster was a leading American conservative House of Representative member, senator and secretary of state in the early to mid 1800s, who was responsible for the definition of the American border between the U.S. and Canada among other accomplishments. Conner seems to draw upon Webster as a famous politician who happened to be a conservative and did not become president—something many of the people in the chamber would also not achieve.

[22] The quote Conner was thinking about was attributed to Florynce Kennedy: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."