Emperor of the World
Chapter 4 of a fictionalized history of the future of a world very much like our own
Previous: Chapter Three - Chapter One
Chapter Four
From On the Ramparts: The Election of 20XX by Enequi Agomadi, Chapter 27: "Aftermath"
Historians studying the issue have concluded that between 15 and 20% of the votes cast were never counted. By various techniques, these scholars have theorized that over 85% of the uncounted ballots were from college campuses and working class Black and Latinx neighborhoods. These characteristics mirror the results from studies of the Blue Party nominating campaign, which saw widespread polling place closures, voting machine malfunctions, mail-in ballots uncollected from drop boxes until after primary day and discarded unopened, ballots invalidated, and other irregularities. Historian/journalist Manuel Ramirez painstakingly verified a random sampling of 250 examples from the primary and found a similar rate of 75-80% affecting the potential votes of those same populations - populations which voted overwhelmingly for Ilana Azteca Cortez.
When the same methods that ensured the victory of career Blue Party politician Barb Gimpel over labor leader Cortez were used to guarantee the landslide victory of Red Party incumbent Ronald Thedump over Gimpel, popular anger spilled out into the streets. Beginning the day before Election Day and continuing for two weeks afterward, mass demonstrations swept the country, shutting down the business cores of every major Merkan city and hundreds of minor cities and towns for a day or more. Ironically, it was the demonstrations called by organizations that had supported Cortez that escalated into violent clashes between protestors and police. The wave of arrests that followed the protests was concentrated on the participants in those protests and the leaders of those organizations, culminating in the arrest of Cortez herself. Despite the dismissal of all charges against Cortez three days late, she suffered a loss in popularity that never recovered.
A school of historians led by Julia Parent obtained archive footage from WolfNews, NMSBC, FreeNews and AltTV and studied the four accounts of 37 different demonstrations frame-by-frame and pixel-by-pixel. Twenty-two of those demonstrations had become violent and resulted in arrests. They found two different phenomena: 1) the WolfNews and NMSBC videos of the violent demonstrations came from the same source, consistently featured footage spliced in from either other times or other places and were riddled with anomalies; and 2) in 17 of the 22 violent demonstrations, they were able to identify and follow the individuals who were arrested later and the individuals who instigated and escalated the violence, and in 15 of those 17 incidents, these were not the same individuals. Most of the individuals triggering the violence quietly slipped out of the crowd and out of camera range shortly after one or two acts, while in four cases, these individuals were immobilized and disarmed by nearby protestors who were subsequently driven away and dispersed by police and the instigator then walked away. In every violent demonstration studied, the chaos followed an aggressively militant reaction by police forces to between one and four destructive or threatening actions from within the protest.
While the nation's attention was focused on "The Election Day Rebellion" as the wave of protests, arrests and trials came to be known, what would be perhaps the most consequential happening in the aftermath of the election took place almost unnoticed: The formation of The Rainbow Party. While Cortez and her legal team were fighting the charges against her and 173 other people in highly-publicized criminal justice proceedings, her former campaign organization was working with members of the House Progressive Caucus to establish the national, state and local party committees of the Rainbow Party. The effort was so well organized and executed that the Party had candidates qualified for 93% of House races and all of the Senate races in the ill-fated midterm election of 20XX. In state races over the four years following its formation, the Rainbow Party won seats in 44 states, over 20% of seats in 15 states, four governorships and legislative majorities in two states. Candidates with "progressive" leanings won mayoral races in 38 of the 50 largest Merkan cities over those same four years, including Periphery City, Dockton and Hellae, the three largest cities on the Pacific coast.
Periphery City
Five years ago, Empress Catherine and the then-mayor of Hellae had organized the First Annual Conference of Pacific Rim Mayors. The idea was to get the mayors of all the major cities from the coast of Asia to the Pacific Coast of Merka together once a year to discuss issues facing them all and to share ideas. The first conference had been small and completely informal, attended by nine mayors and three mayoral surrogates and hosted by the Hellae Hinton Grand Hotel.
Since then, the Conference had grown in attendance, ambition, and formality. The Fifth Annual Conference of Pacific Rim Mayors would be held at Thugz Mansion here in Periphery City next week, attended by 53 mayors, featuring five days of meetings and presentations from a plethora of experts, interest group leaders and other attendees. The Conference and most of its events were open to the press and to members of the public who purchased a ticket. Other than opening and closing nights, scheduled events ended at 5:00 PM, leaving the participants free for happy hour, dinner, and night time activities. At one of the leading vice tourism resorts in the world, the possibilities were endless.
And I had been asked to give a presentation! It's so exciting, something I've dreamed of for years, like my trip to the Vatican. Empress Catherine, of all people, remembered something I had said to Dash at a party a few months ago, and had the Conference organizers invite me to give a closed presentation about the role of megacities in the future of the world geopolitical system.
I had just come back from Roma and Talia had invited me to a party at Thugz Mansion as her date. Dash was there with a client. Talia and Dash's client were professional acquaintances of some kind and they were talking while Dash and I stood there pretending to be interested. Just making conversation, Dash asked me about my trip to Roma, so I started to tell him about it.
Talia overheard and stopped her acquaintance in mid-speech. "Sorry, you have to hear this," she said, then to me: "Vincent, tell him about your presentation to The Vatican."
"It wasn't a presentation. It was a five minute summary of research...."
"Right, to a council of bishops from all over the world. A presentation," Talia interrupted with a roll of her eyes. "Now tell him about it."
I chuckled. "Fine. My paper reviewed research from several different disciplines that showed that the nation-state system is poorly equipped for the post-industrial, global world. I argued that cities should form a global federation, and exercise as much independence as they can from the national governments. It is the city governments that care for the people. All the national governments do in the modern world is protect capital elites and create problems in the global system. We should bring the political system in line with the economic and ecological realities of a global community."
Dash's client seemed either completely uninterested or uncomprehending, but Dash was hanging on every word with a gleam in his eye. Last month, I received a comm from the organizers of the Conference inviting me to present my study in a closed session. I immediately accepted and when I asked where they had heard of me, she said that my invitation had been requested by the Mayor of Yang City. It took me a second to translate from that to "my friend Dash's client Empress Catherine." When I asked Dash about it, he confessed that he had told her what I had said because he knew she would be interested. Now, thanks to a chance encounter at a party, I was going to be addressing some of the most influential people in the world. Yes, it was exciting.
And now Talia was grinning at me, as if she had just listened to her kid brother gush about the latest sci fi movie. She had called me earlier today and told me she wanted to get together for happy hour, that she had something to tell me. When I got to Gino's she was already there. I slipped onto the stool next to hers, and she got me talking about the Conference because she knew how amped I was that it would be tomorrow. I think she just wanted to laugh at me and procrastinate telling me why she had called me. When she ordered another round of drinks, I knew I was right. We were still finishing the first round.
"So, what did you want to tell me?" I asked after the bartender walked away. "What couldn't wait until we see each other at the Conference tomorrow?"
She scowled and transitioned into a deep sigh, then chased that with the last dregs of her first drink. "I wanted you to be the first to know that tomorrow I will be announcing my candidacy for Mayor of Periphery City." She retreated into the drink the bartender had just put in front of her.
"Talia! That's wonderful! I'm so happy that you finally did it! God is so proud of you!" I exclaimed. I knew my reaction would embarrass her, but I didn't care. I knew even more that we needed her. "The timing is great. You should get a lot of attention doing it at the Conference with all the media around."
She nodded. "Yeah, and it will be supportive media." I had not thought of that. The way an event was presented to the public depended greatly on the orientation of the media reporting it. The corporate national media had never shown any interest in the Conference. Talia confirmed that none of the major national companies had requested credentials for the event. It would be local media from the Pacific Rim region, academic publications, and underground media. "Peripheral Vision already promised an endorsement." PV was the alternative newspaper in Periphery City.
"When are you announcing? How? Did you call a press conference?"
She laughed. "Compound question! Slow down! Yes, I called a press conference. I sent a notice to all the media with credentials to the Conference that I would be making a statement in the Tupac Room at noon. Darnell is providing a free buffet - guaranteeing full media coverage!" We both laughed.
"Tomorrow's a big day for both of us."
"It is. I am excited for you, Vincent. Your ideas need to be heard."
"Our ideas, Talia. We have been talking about these things since we were kids." She was always the bigger thinker, in truth. I was all code and details; she was all theory and big ideas. I wanted to burn it all down; she wanted to build great things. Seminary and the military irrevocably changed us. I learned philosophy, the arts and social sciences, how to recognize the patterns that surround us and understand how code could serve Right or Wrong. I saw how people inspired to be Good could build a better world.
Talia learned that the world is a broken place and stalked by Evil, and it broke something inside of her. She would not talk about what she experienced in the war, but she came back burning with conviction that the only Right thing to do was break the system apart.
"I want pizza," she said suddenly, breaking my reverie. I looked over at her. She was leaning in, smiling, an empty glass sitting in front of her. I looked down at my glass. Empty. "Let's get pizza and watch PrimeFlix." She was smiling, but the eyes gave her away.
"Sounds good. Dinardi delivery at the Rectory?" I suggested.
She shook her head. "My condo. Take me home." She paid the tab with a thought, and slid from the bar stool.
"Certainly, Councilor Li. Right this way." I held out my arm for her. While we walked to the elevator doors I used the Commprocessor clipped behind my ear to call an UberZip2Go and program in our destination. The app traced the route from the bar to her condo on a map.
She saw everything happening on the View projected in front of my face. She shook her head with a half-smile. "I still find it quaint that you refuse to get an onboard." She didn't give me too much time to get annoyed at her latest picking at the scab of my principled stand against implants. "Please stay," she said, pointing at her home on the map. "I've missed the hell out of you and I don't want to be alone in that house tonight."
"Of course, Tal. Always." I squeezed her shoulders and steered her across the Tower lobby to where the self-driving electric car was sliding silently to the curb. The rear passenger door slid open when we were a step away, and snicked shut as soon as we had settled back into the seat. Talia molded to my side with her head laying on top of my shoulder. She was afraid. She was going to have nightmares tonight.
* * * *
Talia Li and Vincent Biaggi had grown up in the same neighborhood. She was a year ahead of him in school, but they ran in the same crew on the streets. She was always comfortable with him. In high school they studied together until she graduated early and he dropped out. She had wanted him here tonight because she knew it was going to be bad. It was getting hot in here, stuffy, closed in. She shoved herself off the couch, stepped around the empty pizza box and liquor bottle, and stalked over to the window.
It was transposing things that she had seen then over what she was seeing now that was causing her problems. Things she had seen in combat over there, she saw them in her nightmares happening here in Periphery City. If only the nightmares would confine themselves to nighttime when she was trying to sleep, she wouldn't be afraid she was going crazy, that her time overseas had fractured something fundamental in her mind, but she had seen one this evening -- a shimmer behind Vincent in the bar -- and that meant she was going to see Him when she tried to close her eyes. She felt better, felt able to survive Him tonight, because Vincent would be in the room with her.
PTSD had been the diagnosis, an honorable discharge had been granted with medical disability and a treatment program. She had learned not to talk about it, but she never conceded that it wasn't real, that she hadn't seen it.
Now she had to convince herself she wasn't really seeing it now, because it seemed even more real than it had that day. She walked over to the window, flung it open, and stood there rubbing her bare arms. Feeling the cold wind on her skin, hearing the rhythmic susurrus of traffic far below her, seeing the ribbons and boxes of light marching away from her to the north, helped her to anchor herself to what she knew. Vincent was asleep behind her. They had sat under a drizzle of light and laughed about their adventures on the concrete surfaces of their neighborhood for the length of time it took to finish the last third of a 750 ml bottle of tequila, then he had fallen asleep against one arm of her couch while she lay against the other wide awake and staring at the ceiling. She knew she had to sleep, she knew she had to face Him, but she wanted to be more tired so she would pass out more quickly.
A cold breeze whisked her nipples to stiff peaks. She saw the heat signatures of all the people in the six apartments directly across the street from her. Most of them were sleeping, but one man was watching TV, a couple was having sex, and a person of indeterminate gender was staring at her. Talia wasn't sure if s/he could see her or was just staring at something on his/her wall in a direct line with Talia. She shifted to EMR view and saw that, yes, the person was watching TV, not her.
Off.
Plain old eyesight was far more relaxing. Sometimes she just wanted to dig it all out. She tried not to think about it. Tonight she just shut it off and rested wholly present in her own brain. She was able to feel the sting of cold on her nipples, and the heat that sensation inspired in her human center. So many days she felt so little, because she was thinking so much, that when she did catch herself feeling something pleasant, she tried to enjoy it to the fullest.
She wanted sex. It made her mad. She always had a crush on Vincent, had been so pissed when he told her he was going to become a priest. There he was asleep on her couch, looking as delicious as he always did when he was asleep, and she had all this energy and ... dammit. She needed to distract herself from it, and she thought about tomorrow night when she would get to play Swords again. She loved playing Swords, and she was damn good at it - except when she saw a Collateral she really wanted. "Then you get too reckless and get yourself Killed," Vincent had laughed at her. She had to admit he was drone accurate. She had been saving for three months to put together a good war chest for this weekend. A weekend Conference at Thugz Mansion was not to be missed. Brilliant minds and beautiful bodies, mind-blowing surroundings, top shelf intoxicants and high stakes Swords, with lodgings that were cocoons for your soul. And the sex....
So much for distraction. She felt herself blushing. Yes, blushing. The reward of winning at Swords could be an incredible night with a hot Collateral. She pictured one Collateral in particular: a slender, beautiful young man with white skin and black hair, blue eyes and laugh lines. Maybe not as young as he looked -- nobody knew how old Dash really was -- but the laugh lines made him look cute and younger. Twice she had made a Lunge to disarm his Player only to lose her Hold and drop her Sword. It had been humiliating and cost her two perfectly horrid dates.
She had seen him at the Tables only the two nights and had no idea if she would see him again. She sighed and turned away from the window.
But she had a friend who would bring him as Collateral, because her friend had been one of the Players who parried and disarmed her. And her friend was coming to the Conference. And when her friend was in Periphery City, she always hired Dash. She wished she could talk to Catherine right now, but she couldn't bother an Empress with her weakness any more than she could wake Vincent. She contented herself with calling up the image of her friend's flawless Asian face. She let her imagination dress Catherine in the type of elegant yet sexy gown she would wear for a Swords match at Thugz Mansion, gilded with jewels. Then she animated her, imagining the smile - Catherine smiled so much - and the laugh, the way she moved.
She welcomed the yawn that stretched her mouth wide. Maybe it meant she was exhausted enough to fall straight into a deep sleep and skip the whole dream state altogether. She looked over at the bedroom doorway, then at the couch where Vincent had stretched out, still sound asleep. She would be more comfortable in her bed and probably sleep better, but she didn't want to have so much distance and walls between her and Vincent.
She walked over to the couch and dropped onto the empty end. She lay her head back and shifted onto her side, curled up and snuggled in. She fell promptly asleep.
She was in full combat suit and plugged in. Her teammate was to her right, scanning the three blocks in that direction for bad guys. Little was known of what was going on. All they knew was that a building full of people had just been taken hostage in Baghdad and they were there to isolate the insurgents in the building from all outside support and lay down a sensor array. It looked an awful lot like the Pacific Rim Trade Tower between downtown and the waterfront.
She only saw it because she was doing a 6:00 counter-surveillance visual sweep - looking out behind - and noticed movement on a rooftop a few blocks away. She zoomed the camera in her ocular implants until she could clearly see a figure in full "Storm Trooper" suit sprinting across rooftops and leaping from building to building at motorcycle speed as if taking enormous strides. He ran and leapt until he was standing on the ledge of the building to Talia's left staring at the PRT Tower like an action hero from a bad sci fi action adventure flick thirty years ago. She was able to supplement the camera with ir, spectral and satellite readings, and plain sight. From the web of data she knew his suit was approximately 150% the size of an above average homo sapiens sapiens male.
He stood absolutely still. He watched the building, and she watched him, for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Out of the top of the suit behind his shoulders rose twin columns of spiraling pixels that resolved into mini-drones in ranks emerging from their "hangar." As she watched, the cloudy columns rose until their bottoms hovered five feet above the Storm Trooper, then darted toward the PRT Tower, and vanished.
He stood absolutely still. He watched the building, and she watched him, for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. What looked like a cloud of gnats materialized in the air above his head, spun itself into two ropes, and absorbed into his suit.
A person walked out the front door. A second. A third. Hostages streamed out all sides of the building. She watched in disbelief as the building emptied.
"Secure the building," came the command in her ear. Her team member flashed her a thumb's up. They sprinted across the street and to the front lobby. They checked every room of every floor. They found two dead insurgents on the first floor, three on the fifth floor, two on the 21st floor, and four in the penthouse. Each of them was in a heap on the floor as if he had suddenly just died where he stood without a clue that he was about to die. Nobody else was dead. Nobody else was hurt. There was no blood and very little damage.
She came out of the building, and the Storm Trooper was gone. Her partner had never seen him. Nobody saw anything. The hostages all just saw the terrorists fall down dead, then they started walking out of the building. He was never there. There was no Storm Trooper. She and her squad had mounted a lightning commando raid with expert deployment of droids. She had faced down a terrorist while he held a weapon on a pregnant hostage, did she not remember? The stress of it must have overcome her. She should rest, let them help her, treat her, hospitalize her.
She stopped talking crazy. She wasn't crazy. They let her go. She went home. She went to sleep. In fact, this was her now, sleeping from then. She woke up in the middle of the night, and the Storm Trooper stood over her, all black, and a cloud appeared around his head, formed into an arrow, and bolted at her face. She screamed
Socially inappropriate unconscious vocalization captured. Discard? She was awake, sitting up straight in her cloud chair. Calm. She was calm and mildly euphoric. Vincent was so beautiful asleep on her couch. It was unfair. Behind him was the exterior wall and the night-time cityscape of her City, his City. Seeing Vincent and the City, thinking about Vincent and about how much they both loved this City, she felt a rush of warmth, of belonging, of purpose. She arose from the cloud and padded across her carpet to the wall of transparent composite film. Her blood pressure receded, heart rate steadied. The shaking in her muscles smoothed out.
She hated the way the computer took over. She wanted to scream and have Vincent wake up. She didn't want the computer to flood her brain with sedative and euphoric hormones. She wanted Vincent to hug her and whisper that everything would be all right. She wanted to calm herself down, fall into quiet conversation with a best friend, and then float off to a normal sleep. She leaned against the window and took in the view she spent so much money for every month. It cost way more than she should be spending on housing, but she didn't care. This feeling right now was worth every dollar.
The episode was over. She would sleep now. She would wake up in the morning. She would be a little more fragile, feel a little more crazy, a little more reliant on this cyborg inside her to negotiate with the outside world for her. But deep down, she was ready to fight.