by Trevor Wyatt
“Oh, sure he does. That’s why so many news outlets have been forced to close already, right?” Lynda didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of her tone.
The doorway darkened as Ed Burkleigh, the producer of Pak News bustled in, empty coffee cup in hand. He looked at them over his half-moon glasses, which were as usual halfway down his nose. “Oh, you two have time to sit down? Maybe I’d better give you some more work,” he said.
The two women were about to stand, but Ed gestured for them to stay seated. He filled his cup with more coffee and sat on the couch in front of them.
“Ketra, I have to be honest. Our views have declined recently. I’m starting to think our content have become, well, inefficient. We even released a scoop with a supposedly different angle yesterday. The story basically had the same angles.”
“Sir, I’m really doing my best to find different angles over the same news scoops.”
“Are you? I mean you’re supposed to make sure our stories are compelling as possible in order to attract viewers,” he said. “You know how to get the story, but I’m still not convinced you know how to control which goes out and which doesn’t.”
Her face burned at the dressing down, particularly in front of Lynda Orlando. “Yes sir, thanks, I’ll do better,” Ketra said, edging out of the break room.
“Hmmm. Well, get to it, then.”
Ketra sat down at her little desk, uncomfortably aware that everyone in the newsroom must have heard him talking to her. Lynda cast her a sympathetic glance, but said nothing.
Then, as if on cue, Mia came in the newsroom and hurried toward Ketra. When she arrived at Ketra’s desk, Mia carefully set down a pile of paper in front of her.
“We…we need to get this out. I have reliable sources on this,” Mia said, panting.
After reading a few words, Ketra sat bolt upright. She smiled at Mia. “Good job, Mia. You’ll break this news.”
Mia shook her head slowly. “I can’t. I’m on field duty and I need to report at the venue...” Mia looked at her watch then gasped. “In 10 minutes! Oh God. Ketra. It has to be you. Please. This could be the start of us finally doing our jobs.”
Ketra took Mia’s hand and squeezed it. “Very well, then. I got this. Now, run!”
Mia gave her a thumbs up and hurried away to the door.
Ketra stood up with her head held high and walked to the set of Pak News. Ed was arguing with the director when he saw Ketra.
“Where the hell is Mia? We’re going live in a few minutes!” he said, his face turning red.
“Sir, Mia is on field duty. I’ll be the one breaking news today,” Ketra said, smiling.
“What? No. Let’s have Lynda,” Ed said, his brow arched.
“Sir, Lynda just left for field duties tonight, too,” the director joined in.
“Then let’s have someone else!” Ed blurted out.
“Sir, you have me—”
“No. Go back and do your job,” Ed interrupted.
“I am, sir. This is my job. To let people know what they need to know. Besides, you want a compelling story, right?” Ketra snapped back.
Ed stared at her for a few seconds before saying, “Fine. The seat is all yours. Now bring us back our viewers.”
Ketra cringed a little to that. This man’s all about the views, eh?
Nevertheless, she nodded and the make-up department started to prep her up.
When she sat down on the anchor’s seat, Ketra’s heart started beating fast.
Cassius Ojun had let her down since he started closing down news outlets that reported and pointed out stories involving him.
Ketra and her whole team had been keeping their heads down low for Pak News to survive, but this could finally be their chance to make a change.
The director called her attention. “Ready?”
Ketra sighed and smiled. “As ever.”
“In 3,2,1!”
“I’m Ketra Wolakken for Pak News,” she said in a somber tone. “For our breaking news: Sources now confirm that Chancellor Duvid Greenberg has died from a suspected TRF biological attack. Tribune Cassius Ojun is now Chancellor of the Human Confederation. I repeat, Tribune Cassius Ojun has taken the post of Chancellor of the Human Confederation. Stay tuned as more details come in.”
as more details come in.”
Chapter 27
Cassius
The day was gray and foggy. Cassius went through the papers in his briefcase while his car threaded through the city streets. It bounced into and out of a pothole, causing him to drop the document he held, and he muttered a curse.
One of the many unglamorous things on his agenda was to deal with Fairdale’s crumbling infrastructure. Under his predecessor’s corrupt regime, plenty of money had been earmarked for such work, but it all had been funneled into the pockets of contactors who set up barriers and warning signs but did nothing else.
Meanwhile the potholes, especially in Mansionland, got worse and buildings grew seedier. Garbage lay in piles, uncollected, attracting rats and other vermin.
The car came to a halt, and Cassius looked up. They were nowhere near his office.
“What’s the problem?” he asked the car, but even before it replied, he saw that the façade of a former shopping mall had collapsed across the road.
“I will have to take a detour,” the car AI said in its monotone voice. “I am sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Alright. Just go,” Cassius said. He sighed. After having taken over as Chancellor from Duvid Greenberg, he had found to his dismay that a big part of the job involved dealing with paperwork. It was endless, and most of it could not be delegated to underlings.
The car backed up and turned down the last side street it had passed. Rain pelted down on the vehicle’s transparent canopy.
Cassius sipped coffee from his travel cup. He always had a hard time getting started on days like this. He wouldn’t be fully awake for another hour or so, and there was no sense in trying to deal with the paperwork until his brain was fully in gear.
He switched on the car’s screen and turned to Pak News Stream.
He blinked when he saw the newscaster: Ketra.
Her red hair with its distinctive cut—long on one side, cropped close to her skull on the other—made her instantly recognizable.
Why is she back on air? He thought.
“Now that the dust has settled and the people’s Chancellor, Cassius Ojun, is unequivocally in charge, questions are arising about how well he will deal with our domestic problems. While it’s certainly true that terrorist attacks continue with the Terran Reunification Front claiming responsibility, closer to home there are food shortages and general unrest,” Ketra reported.
Cassius growled at her. “You try keeping this mess in check,” he said.
“Emergency powers have been granted to Chancellor Ojun,” Ketra continued, “which has resulted in the swift and decisive quelling of the TRF threat—for now, at least. Unfortunately, in the chaos of the recent weeks there have been many casualties, including key members of the four most powerful families and corporations in the Human Confederation.”
He glowered at the screen. “That wasn’t my fault. Don’t you think they might possibly have other enemies from before I showed up?”
Cassius hadn’t granted any interviews since he had taken over as Chancellor, and didn’t mean to. His desire was to keep as low a profile as a high-profile position would allow. He’d told his staff that he simply wasn’t interested in publicity; but the main reason, which he hadn’t shared with anyone, was that he feared for the safety of his daughters.
He had adopted Peyton, daughter of his late Elbanian friend Craig as his own, along with his own biological child, Sienna.
The two girls were close, which Cassius was thankful for. He got along well with Peyton; better, in fact, than he did with Sienna.
It galled him no end that Sienna was turning out to be an entitled little princess. Lyla, he knew, would be appalled.
Saddened at the thought of his late wife, he gazed out of the car’s canopy at the poverty around him.
It was because of this, and the danger to them that his position as Chancellor could mean, that Cassius had sent both girls to a secure boarding school halfway around the planet where they would be safe from kidnapping attempts. The school was specially set up for influential politicians and other celebrities.
The fact that he could afford to do this had opened him up to charges of elitism, but he didn’t care. The girls’ safety and well-being was paramount. In the main, there are too many more pressing issues for the citizenry to deal with, so the girls’ schooling didn’t get much attraction.
As far as threats to himself were concerned, he was publicly contemptuous. He was consistent in saying from the outset that he refused to be intimidated by such things. He showed his disregard for them by ostensibly going out without a bodyguard unless he was making a public appearance.
Not being a fool, however, Cassius instructed his guards to keep their distance if there was a chance they might be noticed.
This morning, for example, his car was followed at a discreet distance by another whose passenger, a specialist in Cassius’s employ, was very well armed. The car bumped into another pothole, eliciting another curse from Cassius.
“Listen,” he said to the vehicle, “where the hell are we, anyway?”
To his surprise, the car made no reply.
This isn’t right, he said to himself. Glancing back, he saw that the car trailing him was still there.
He relaxed a little. He turned his attention to the road ahead and saw it had become little more than an alley—and, worse, it stopped at a stone wall.
Immediately, he reached into his pocket and placed his hand on his needler. He didn’t have to use the thing in many months, but he cleaned it regularly and kept up with his target practice.
His car came to a stop several yards from the wall. Cassius made no attempt to speak to it; instead, he disengaged the door lock and got out to the rain.
The guard’s car halted just close enough to tap his car. Fully alert now, Cassius walked over to it in time to see the man inside, a crag-faced fellow in his thirties named Tallman, draw his own weapon.
The car’s gull-wing door rose, and the guard stepped out—with the gun leveled at Cassius’s midriff.
“Drop the needler,” Tallman said.
Behind him, at the alley’s entrance, three men swiftly pushed a sturdy barricade across the opening. Cassius was trapped.
He let the needler fall to the ground.
Hacked into my car’s computer to divert it and bribed my bodyguard, he thought. So we know what the game is.
He slowly raised his hands as Tallman grinned.
“Sorry, boss,” Tallman said.
“Yeah, I bet you are, Paulie,” Cassius said, using the nickname Tallman hated.
Tallman scowled.
“Fuck you,” he said. “Now you just be a good boy and you might live to see your daughter again,”
The other men were hurrying toward them now, guns at the ready. None of them looked like needlers, which were expensive.
So just regular bullets. I wonder if these morons are good shots, any of them? He thought as he observed the goons.
“What the hell?” Cassius said, gesturing toward the newcomers with his chin.
Tallman made a fatal mistake: he glanced at his comrades.
That moment was enough. He moved fast, thrusting his hand into his jacket and took out his second needler. Before Tallman swivelled his gaze back to Cassius, he’d been shot with two rounds of tiny drug-laden darts. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Cassius flung himself to one side as the other goons opened fire on him. As he suspected, they weren’t very good shots. He dispatched two of them within the first five seconds. The other two sought cover among the boxes and barrels lining the seedy alley way, but Cassius noted their positions and simply fired into the debris.
Moments later, he found himself alone in the rain. After taking a few moments to make sure his would-be kidnappers were dead, Cassius walked back to his car and retrieved his briefcase.
He went to the opening of the alley, clambered over the barricade they’d shoved into place there, and stepped down onto the sidewalk.
He didn’t see anyone around. This wasn’t a neighborhood for pedestrians.
The rain, he knew, would ruin his suit. He heaved a deep sigh, and set out to look for a cab.
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Chapter 28
Thomas
“Well, son, you look remarkably chipper for a man who survived an assassination attempt just two days ago,” Governor Thomas Alver said as he shook Cassius’s hand.
Cassius made a wry face as he motioned Thomas to a seat into which the old man sank gratefully. His back pain was bothering him, as it tended to do in rainy weather, and it had been raining since the day before yesterday.
“I was lucky,” Cassius said. He took up a cut glass decanter from the side of his desk and raised it in Thomas’ direction.
The governor declined the liquor with a smile. “You’re the sort of man who makes his own luck, from what I’ve seen,” he said. “I’ll take a glass of water if you have any.”
A faint smile crossed Cassius’s face. “I think we can score some up.”
He picked up his comm and asked Isaac for some water. While he was talking, Thomas gazed narrowly at him. Cassius looked tired, careworn. It was no surprise.
Heavy hangs the head of state, as the old saying goes, Thomas said to himself. He’s being ground down. But not fast enough, I fear.
Cassius was the sort of leader who inspired either blind loyalty or equally blind hatred. Thomas had come to realize where he himself fell on that spectrum.
Cassius’ authoritarian turn as Chancellor had certainly done some good. He’d allocated funds for infrastructure improvement—and had increased the amount by one point seven billion after nearly being killed in a litter-strewn alley.
But thanks to Ketra Wolakken and the evidence she had turned up in her investigation of Cassius’ clandestine dealings, Thomas also knew that some of the corrupt officials from the last administration who still held their posts had not relinquished control of their activities as they had sworn to do.
It galled Thomas and had led him, reluctantly, to a decision.
“So what brings you to see me?” Cassius said easily. “Though I’m always glad to make time for you, Thomas.”
“And I appreciate it, son, I truly do.”
He pursed his lips. He thought of Cassius as his friend, which made what he had come to do more difficult. Still, the future of Centralia was at stake here. Cassius was at bottom a strong man, and that wasn’t what Centralia needed.
The data he had received from the reporter made that clear to him. Ketra told Thomas that she could no longer trust the free press to broadcast her findings.
“I can’t say one damn thing about him without his approval,” she had said in the privacy of Thomas’s office, which, he felt reasonably sure, was not bugged.
“You have a good reputation, Governor,” Ketra went on. “That’s why I’m coming to you. I don’t know what to do with what I’ve learned. In the old days, I would’ve had it broadcasted as breaking news—but these days that’s a great way to get the Pak News shut down and all of us thrown into jail.”
She shook her head and continued. “Sir, believe me, I’m trying as much as possible to let people know what they need to know, but I also need to take care of my team. Although they’re more than willing to do everything they can for Pak News…most of them have families.”
Thomas stared at the young woman for a long moment. “And so you come to me, an old man, out of power now…and you think they’ll deal better with me?”
He scoffed.
“Sir, you’ve forgotten more about anti-corruption advocacy than I’ll ever learn. All I’m doing is giving you what I’ve uncovere
d.” She pushed a datastick across the polished desktop. “It’s all here. Do what you can, or will, with it—is all I ask.”
After she left, Thomas sat for a long time staring down at the harmless-looking little device before sliding it into his tablet.
Reviewing the documents took him the rest of the day and into the evening.
As a man no longer in the mainstream of the world’s political flow, Thomas knew he wouldn’t be interrupted. He only came into the office every day because his late wife, Grace, had forbidden him to bring any work home.
Even now, he acquiesced to her wishes. When he was done reading what Ketra had given him, Thomas poured himself a stiff shot of bourbon, which was much against the advice he had received from his doctor, and downed it in a gulp. He reached for the bottle again, but knowing what a second glass was likely to do to him, he refrained.
Then he went home to his quiet little apartment. To his surprise, he was able to fall asleep without any trouble.
Upon waking up the next morning, he knew what he had to do.
He had his usual breakfast—toast and coffee, with orange juice—and dressed in his usual conservatively cut suit.
He paused on his way out the door, and picked up a small framed photograph of Grace from the end table. It was a good picture of her. He missed her. The pain of her death from cancer seven years previously had receded, but was never completely gone. His memories of her before the swift onset of the sickness that took her from him remained a comfort.
Thomas liked to think he’d see her again. With that thought in mind, he put the photo in his pocket along with a plastic needler. No scanner would notice it, and in any case, he knew that Cassius trusted him and wouldn’t subject him to a search.
Soon, he sat in a comfortable chair in front of Cassius’ desk. To his surprise, he wasn’t afraid now that he was on the point of dying. In fact, he realized, he felt an eagerness to get on with it.
Grace was waiting. He believed that. The belief made it easier for him to carry on. He savored the passing moments. He’d shoot Cassius and then turn the gun on himself. And then all this worldly care would be gone, and he’d be with his beloved once more.