Chapter 9

By the time the motorcade had arrived at the South Portico of the White House, it had started to rain. As the limo stopped under the extended roof, two Marines in dress blues opened the back doors on the car. Two more Marines held the doors to the building open. Standing inside the doors was William Donahue, the President's Chief of Staff.

"Doctors, if you'd come with me please?" he said. The group of five walked around the detectors and down a corridor. "Which one of you is Sarah Wilson?"

"I am." Sarah piped up from the back of the group. She was busy keeping Addison moving because Dr. Jones' assistant wanted to stop and look at everything. Sarah had been to the White House before; Addison had not.

"Both the Speaker and the President were impressed with your report, but I hear that you have a few updates to the initial report, correct?" They turned a corner and walked into a medium sized office.

"Yes, Sir." Sarah said feeling her laptop bag dig into her shoulder as if the reports were trying to escape. "There are also some verbal updates to the updated report that I haven't had time to get in the report yet."

"Do we need to make copies?" William asked, looking at an older lady sitting at a desk. She looked like she was ready to spring up and hand copy the report if needed.

"No sir, I have thirty copies of the original report and the proposal." Sarah said.

"Ok." William said, before turning to the older lady at the desk. "Is he ready for us?"

"Yes, go on in." Cynthia Fisher, the President's secretary said. William walked over to a door on the wall and knocked.

"Come in." President David Whiteside said, standing up from the chair he sat in. When he stood the other seven people in the room stood. It was common knowledge that when the President stood, no one sat.

"Mr. President, I have Doctor Robertson, her associate Dr. Jones and their assistants Miss Wilson and Miss Walton." William Donahue said. The President walked over to Cassie and gave her a hug, shook Dr. Jones' hand, Shook Addison's hand before giving the top of it a kiss, and then hugged Sarah.

"You guys know Vice President Sophie Williams, Chief of Staff Donahue and Senator Gordon. Let me introduce Deputy Chief of Staff Robert Millhouse, National Security Advisor Whitney O'Leary, Communication Director Tony Seawell, Spokesman Samuel Ignally, and Speaker of the House Joe Halladay. Everyone shook hands and when President Whiteside sat, everyone else sat as well. The only better place for this meeting would have been the cabinet room with the large table.

Sarah and Addison stood outside the Oval Office holding stacks of paper. Sarah had taken over the desk of John Reynolds and revised the proposal with the new information they had received on the plane. Sarah printed the document and pulled it off the printer. An aide was standing next to the desk and Sarah handed the document to him.

"How many copies, Ma'am?" He asked. Sarah wasn't accustomed to being called Ma'am by someone older than her.

"Enough for the congressional membership, cabinet, and anyone else that you can think of that would need a copy." Sarah said, standing. The aide nodded and left the room. Sarah knocked on the door to the Oval Office.

"Come in," A voice that sounded like President Whiteside's said. Sarah and Addison entered the Oval Office.

"Well, Sarah was thinking that we needed the protection for females aged twelve and up," Cassie was saying.

"Sarah, was that some arbitrary number, or was there some method to it?" National Security Advisor O'Leary asked.

"I figured that twelve would be right on the start for child bearing and that seemed like a good place to start." Sarah said, sitting on the sofa in the middle of the room. Addison sat next to her.

"I saw nothing about exemptions in the proposal, This is going to be in effect from age twelve all the way to death, right?" Spokesman Ignally asked. He was thinking like a reporter.

"That's correct," Sarah said, somewhat quietly. She would have never planned to live out the rest of her life like this, but sometimes things happened. "In order for this to work, we need to protect the females of child bearing age; I suppose that we could set an upper age limit..." Sarah was thinking out loud.

"Yeah, but both the age of when a female begins to menstruate and when she stops are different depending on the female." Addison said. "I'm sure that we've got the age of the oldest person to have a child, but that doesn't mean that age will ever happen again or will be surpassed by someone older."

"I think the idea of no upper limit is a good one," Dr. Jones said.

"Why?" Spokesman Ignally asked, He was in full on litigation mode.

"Well," Dr. Jones started, pausing to put his thoughts in order. "Do we really want a bunch of guys to rape an eighty year old grandmother?"