The Return of the Emperor

by Chris Bunch

  "What's your end?” she asked. “What did you tell Kenna you wanted?"

  "I didn't say,” Raschid answered.

  "That's wise,” Pavy said, nodding. “If you win you can probably get at least as much as he's giving me."

  Raschid figured she was right. In fact, Kenna had asked him the same question. What did Raschid want in return? He knew it disturbed Kenna to be told he would find out when it was over. Why had he done that? Raschid was not sure. All he knew was that the price would come at the proper time.

  Pavy asked him about other political battles he had been involved in, as one criminal to another, giving him the out of dodging anything that might be incriminating. But that was no problem. As far as Raschid could figure, this was the first election he had ever worked, so he lied. Political events came tumbling out of him, complete with victories and desperate setbacks and stunning reversals. Oddly enough, as he told the stories and she kept their glasses full, he realized that he was not lying at all.

  Finally, it was getting late. Time to go. Pavy's hand hovered over the button to call for her thugs to escort him out. Then she flashed him a most peculiar smile. It was glowing, and her lips were soft, her eyes wide and wanting.

  "You could stay longer if you liked,” she whispered very softly. Long nails brushing the microthin body suit. The rasping sound gave Raschid the shivers.

  He considered her request—because that was what it was. Why was this woman so suddenly attracted to him? He saw the reason. It was from being so close to power—real power. But he was just Raschid. Wasn't he? Where was the power? Then he knew it was there. Inside him. But not why. Nor who. Yet.

  Raschid stayed the night.

  * * * *

  The 45th Ward was one of Tyrenne Yelad's lesser bailiwicks. It had not always been so. The chief occupation of the sprawling neighborhood involved the plasfill contracts for the Tyrenne's massive public-works programs. Before the AM2 crunch, all of Dusable had been busy one way or another in these projects. Bridges were built duplicating perfectly good arcs a few klicks away. As were unnecessary roads. Or tall, gleaming public offices that were always in short supply. The reason for this was that each time the public payroll was padded, new offices were required for patronage. Departments continuously warred with other departments for more employees, thus increasing their power, and posh offices to house them in, thus increasing their prestige.

  So there was always a tremendous need for plasfill. The 45th had always prided itself on supplying the thinnest gruel at the highest price possible. These big profits made the world go around.

  Then came hard times. Yelad had to throw one of his wards off the plasfill sleigh—the 45th. Now people were beginning to hurt in the 45th. Long lines lined up daily before the ward captain's door. By day's end, the captain had barely whittled into the line.

  So when the official gravcar hummed into the neighborhood, it was greeted with quiet but keen interest. The windows were shut and darkened, but it was no mystery who was inside. The car flew the tiny flag of Tyrenne Yelad.

  It cruised slowly through the neighborhoods, as if inspecting the shuttered shops and “For Sale” signs on the businesses. The people of the 45th who were about that day—and there were many, since jobs were scarce-wondered about its purpose. Was the great Tyrenne Yelad there with some great surprise? A bonus contract for plasfill? A few shabby vehicles chose to follow at a discreet distance.

  The Tyrenne's car made the turn that led to the ward captain's house. Aha! Good news.

  Suddenly, the gravcar sped up. As if harsh orders had been given and the driver was heading back.

  At that moment, a small, tubby, darling child of a boy darted into the street after an errant ball. The gravcar sped on. The child looked up with wide, innocent, and oh, so frightened eyes, frozen. But there was still plenty of time for the car to stop. On it came. People screamed warnings. Mothers wailed in empathy. The child turned and half stumbled toward escape. Then the gravcar accelerated. Almost as if it had been done on purpose. The car clipped the child, and, to loud shrieks of horror, the boy was hurled into the air. He crashed to the ground, blood spurting. The gravcar came to a fast stop. A uniformed driver leapt out. People ran toward the accident. The driver drew a pistol and shouted for them to stay back. They did.

  Then he marched to the corpse of the boy and stood over it. He looked back at the gravcar. A window hissed open, and people thought they could see someone motioning an order. The driver scooped up the body and dumped it in the gravcar as if it were trash. Someone shouted a protest. The driver snarled an oath and waved the gun. But the crowd was furious. Beings started running for the gravcar. The driver leapt inside and sped away, leaving angry voters behind. Voters who now cursed the very name of Tyrenne Yelad—a being who scorned them so much that he killed their children.

  Inside the car Raschid flung the driver's cap into the back. Beside him, the corpse stirred, then sat up.

  "Gimme a clottin’ rag,” the boy's corpse said.

  "Pretty good first act,” Raschid said as he handed a cloth to the boy, who began wiping away the fake blood.

  One close look at the “boy” would reveal the lines in his face and the cynical twist around his eyes. He lit up a giant tabac, inhaled deeply, and blew out, filling the car with the cloud. This was a boy who had been in the acting business for fifty years or more.

  "Think you can do it again?” Raschid asked.

  "No problem,” the boy said. “I could do it three, maybe four more times before I get too tired. And careless, if you know what I mean."

  Raschid said he did.

  "How about a little drink break?” the boy asked.

  "Nope. The thirty-sixth first. Then you get that drink."

  The boy cursed, but Raschid did not mind. Raschid could tell the actor was very happy with the work.

  * * * *

  Lieutenant Skinner was one pissed off cop. It was collection day, and the first stop had put her in a foul mood.

  She always started her rounds with a tidy little joyshop. It was a private deal, so she didn't have to share the earner. She also had a cute little joyboy she had been diddling every collection day for the past few months. That morning, however, there was no earner—and no joyboy.

  The frightened and confused manager burbled out that the earner had already been picked up. He said a couple of real scary cop thugs had dropped by an hour before. They were there for the juice—said from now on Skinner was out. It had not taken much in the way of heavy leaning—the manager's face was bruised, and he walked with a limp—to make the message stick. They had also picked up the joyboy and said he would be working at another house.

  Skinner was damn sure the toady manager was not lying, especially after she administered a professional beating of her own. Afterward, she stormed out of the joyshop, vowing revenge. Then it sank in. It would not be that easy. Her captain didn't know about this little caper. Frustrated, pissed, and confused about who the cop interlopers might have been, Skinner continued her rounds. Each place she went, the story was the same. Skinner began to realize that the beat she had spent so much money in payoffs to acquire had been turned upside down.

  Steaming through her big beak like an ancient engine, Skinner headed for the cop shop to clue her captain in. An interdepartmental turf fight had just been launched.

  Skinner had one more large jolt awaiting her. It was no mere fight, nor was it over a single piece of turf. Somehow or other, outright war had been declared. But by whom, no one would know until it was too late.

  * * * *

  Kym was young and blond with innocent eyes and a not-so innocent body. She was also a wicked little number who haunted pickup spots outside her home ward. A Lolita lick of her lips, a hip thrown just so, a jut of milky breasts, and the mark was soon in her clutches—thanks to the knockout gas and sharp knife she kept tucked away in her skimpy costume.

  Kym was also the apple of her daddy's eye and a minor hero in her neighborhood. Well-
raised child that she was, Kym always brought all her loot home to Poppa. Since he was a sewer superintendent on Yelad's pad, that equaled large local clout.

  But there had been a wee misunderstanding one night. Kym got picked up by cops who were too stoned out on narcobeer to check her out, so they hauled her to the slammer and booked her. To everyone's dismay, there was no choice but for Kym to go on trial. Nobody liked that, even Tyrenne Yelad's enemies. After all, juice on Dusable had to stay universally sweet, or the whole jug would go sour.

  But such slips had been made before. The procedure was to have a little trial. The cops would get a minor scolding for busting somebody so obviously innocent, and Kym would be home again in her daddy's loving care and back out on the streets pursuing marks.

  That was not what happened. The judge convicted the child of all charges—and threw the book at her.

  In the howl of outrage that followed—picked up and played for all it was worth by Kenna's pet livie casters—the judge slipped out of town to retire to a life of newly wealthy ease, leaving Tyrenne Yelad holding the bag.

  Avri praised Raschid to the heavens for the inspired dirty work. “Stick around,” Raschid said. “I got a new twist on that new twist."

  * * * *

  The juice went so sour in a score of key wards that it consisted almost entirely of solid matter.

  Cops went after cops. The mobs went after everybody. Shops were bombed out, joyhouses raided, and gambling dens ripped off. Muscle banged muscle, and the innocent got in between—assuming that anyone on Dusable fit that description. The capper was the Mother's March for Kym.

  Two thousand angry women from her ward hit the streets. Huge banners bore the innocent profile of the dear child. There was wailing and weeping and much colorful tearing of hair. Kenna's livie crews were out in force to cover it for the home folks, running down the dreaded incident for the thousandth time for their viewers. There were lots of close shots of her stunned daddy, who wobbled along at the head of the parade. Pop looked great, blasted on narcobeer, with eyes red-rimmed from cavorting on the cuff at a joyshop Raschid's people had steered him to. He was the portrait of stunned sorrow.

  Screaming oaths, the women converged on the Tyrenne's headquarters, where a phalanx of cops waited. The lawbeings were in full riot drag—helmets and shields and clubs and gas and blister guns.

  The women drew up before the line of cops. There was more shouting and screaming. Livie crews recorded the standoff.

  Suddenly a big gravtruck burst out of a side street. Cops identically clad to the Tyrenne's guards boiled off, kicking and punching and flailing about with clubs. The women howled in agony as the stunned real cops gaped on. Who were those guys? The phony cops ducked out of sight as the women recovered and went for blood. The battle would go down in Dusable history. Hundreds of mothers were injured in a scene witnessed by the entire planet.

  Yelad's good name was quickly being reduced to a synonym for drakh.

  * * * *

  The Dummy performed like a champ.

  The best researchers and speech writers mordida could buy spilled out a tsunami of attacks on the privy council. Ad spots that would stop an overheated ox in its tracks were created. Raschid was all motion, ripping and tearing and putting the whole back together.

  Solon Walsh delivered. In spades.

  He started with a rather sad talk on the hardships of the beings of Dusable, leaving open the question of who was to blame for the troubles. But at his next appearance, he struck the pose of an outraged and betrayed citizen. He was aboil with facts that had just come to his attention. AM2 was being deliberately withheld from the Cairenes. Prize contracts had been wrested away. Solon Walsh bellowed for justice in speech after fiery speech. Dusable needed a strong hand now, he preached. One who owed nothing to those devil rulers on the privy council.

  Tyrenne Yelad reacted mildly at first. He was surprised at the slickness of Walsh's campaign. But Avri assured Yelad that it was all part of the plan to leech off reform support from Kenna. Since Yelad was personally handing over mordida for Walsh's campaign kitty, he was reassured. As for the attacks on the privy council, what did he care? Those exalted beings certainly didn't, since the attacks came from a noncandidate like Solon Walsh.

  Just to keep things square, however, he had his own speech writers make some minor course corrections. He delivered a few mild speeches defending the privy council.

  Raschid made sure that each and every one of them was exploded out of proportion. He turned Yelad's mild defense into gigantic ad spots in the skies, complete with thundering volume, which warped every word Yelad spoke.

  Then the other drakh started hitting the fan: The curdled juice. The internecine cop warfare. The mob attacks. Et cetera, et cetera. Yelad was so busy rushing about trying to plug the spurting leaks that he did not notice that Solon Kenna—his archenemy—was barely running a campaign at all.

  Three nights before the election, the Tyrenne called an emergency meeting. His confidence was shaken.

  Yelad looked like a ball top—skinny bottom and skinnier uppers, with a big round bulge in the middle. He chose his tailors so that those defects were emphasized rather than lessened. The clothes themselves were of materials just above middle class. Yelad lived in the same small ward home he had grown up in. He was nice to his mother, spoke well of his wife, and was understanding about the mishaps his brat children got themselves into. All of those artifices he had developed over many decades of campaigning. The message was: As a man of the people, Yelad possessed many of the people's flaws—but also many homespun strengths. It was one of the many reasons he had won term after term.

  Not counting his vast patronage, of course, or his giant, smooth machine. On that night, however, nothing was smooth. Yelad was half drunk, one of many bad habits he had slipped into after years of easy victories.

  "Whaddya mean, ya don't know what's behind it? What am I pay in’ ya clots for? Clottin’ lazy bastards, that's what ya all clottin’ are. Drakh under my feet."

  He stormed and raged, and his aides cowered, waiting for the awful storm to break. It didn't.

  "I'll tell ya what's goin’ on. It's that clottin’ Kenna. Pullin’ a sly one. Yeah, well ... we'll see what's what, we will. I'm pullin’ out all stops. Ya hear! Dumb clottin’ low-down piece of drakh bastards ... ‘s'what I got."

  Many, many yessirs later, he was soothed enough to grit out orders. With times so tight, he needed a mandate. A mandate of historic proportions.

  Teams of thugs and poll riders were doubled, the hired phony voters nearly tripled. Waiting in the wings were those grave vaults to be voted when the final count came in.

  Tyrenne Yelad had plenty of funds. What he lacked was organization. After so many years of constant victories, he required a far smaller team to administer the elections. Now he ordered heavies hired by the hundreds. They all hit the ground running—and instantly stumbled into each other and crashed to the ground. But the worst blow came before all that, on the night following the meeting. Less than forty-eight E-hours before the election.

  * * * *

  Raschid watched calmly from the sidelines as Kenna oiled onto the big outdoor platform. His eyes swept the audience, making sure his shills were at work, pricking up the vast crowd. Every news livie crew on Dusable was accounted for. Even Yelad's pets had come running when word was leaked a few hours before Kenna's regularly scheduled speech. The talk was that a stunner of a development was about to unfold. The news crews forgot their loyalties, overwhelmed by that headiest of all scents: political bloodshed.

  Kenna took up position. The ovation aroused by the shills was deafening. Solon Kenna bowed humbly and raised a weak hand, grinning and begging them to stop ... “Stop ... I really don't deserve all this outpouring of love."

  The shills hit the button again just as the crowd was starting to believe that they really ought to stop as urged. The ovation was louder than before. Raschid let it go for half an hour, then motioned to let it gradual
ly subside.

  Kenna laughed and thanked everyone for such a spontaneous show of support. Then composed his face into a portrait of somber wisdom. He briefly sketched his long career of public service, reminding one and all of the hard fights in their behalf. Then Kenna confessed that he had been overwhelmed by doubts in the course of this campaign. He was getting on in years, he said, and he realized that he might not be able to carry on the banner as Tyrenne.

  The crowd was hushed. Beings were beginning to get the drift. A few shouts of “No ... no...” could be heard. Raschid's magic was such that they were truly spontaneous, not the work of shills. Finally, Solon Kenna reached the end. There was a dramatic pause.

  "I have been listening most carefully to the views of my opponents,” he said at last. “And I have come to the conclusion that only one true voice speaks for us all. I therefore announce ... I am withdrawing from the race ... and—"

  The crowd erupted in fury, but Kenna commanded them to silence with his august presence.

  "And I throw my support to that most worthy of all beings on Dusable..."

  On cue, the Dummy walked out on stage to the amazement of the entire planet.

  Solon Walsh approached his colleague, tears streaming from his eyes—it had been Raschid who suggested to Avri the astringent in the kerchief.

  "I give you ... our new Tyrenne ... A being for the new ages ... Solon Walsh!"

  People went mad. Fights erupted. Livie crews smashed into each other trying to get tighter shots, or sprinting off for their standups.

  But in the middle of all the madness, the perfect picture was on the stage. As soon as the news crews realized it, they were back to work shooting the image, breaking heads and standing on fellow beings to get it.

  It made a grand, instant campaign poster. Solon Kenna and Solon Walsh, weeping in joy, their arms flung about one another in loving unity.