The Media Candidate – politics and power in 2048

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Denouement

  Elliott sat in the pickup in his driveway. The shadows suspended over him reminded him of the lateness of the afternoon. His mind churned out options, many of which featured him as the leader of a voter rebellion against the contempt of the major parties. He was sure there must be millions of people who care, people who would gladly embrace the freedom to vote for real candidates rather than the media packages. He couldn’t be as alone as Sherwood said. He could start with a local newspaper and get grass-roots support with his revelations of the insidious nature of the present system. Once the story got into the media, COPE wouldn’t dare try to kill him or Susie. They could only hope that he would fail to attract enough voters and finally just burn himself out.

  But he wouldn’t fail. He would attract young people to the truth, young people who could spread the truth much better than he could. He’d make Guinda understand that she could be a key element in this reawakening. He knew she couldn’t accept the lies, threats, and intimidation of the Party as she now understood it. Knowing the truth about Professor Halvorsen would ultimately dissuade her from serving the sinister forces responsible for her death.

  “I know I can count on Guinda in the long run,” he whispered. “I know I can.”

  He picked up the box on the front seat containing the paper and the optical disk copies of the Halvorsen files. He painfully walked to the front door and let himself in. His ears were greeted with a conversation as he approached the TV room. Martha was seated there talking with Jan and Joel.

  “You know, Marty,” said Joel, “that new Democratic candidate for senator, José Maria Yamaguchi, really looks like the right person for the job. He’s so multi-cultural; he’ll be able to represent a lot of different interests. And now being multi-sexual, she’s a really strong supporter of women’s rights, too.”

  Martha, sitting on the edge of her chair, interrupted. “I saw her on “Sex and Society” last night. She knew the answers to questions that you just wouldn’t believe. They asked her, ‘How frequently does Senator Leslie Dykes fake it with her SO, Georgina Fore?’ Without skipping a beat, she answered that Dykes hasn’t had an orgasm with Fore in over two years.”

  “That’s right,” Jan said. “Then they asked, ‘What aphrodisiac drug holds the record for … ‘"

  Elliott studied the floor at his feet. He bit his lower lip, but the pain could not divert his attention. A collage of today’s events rushed upon him. He reached out and found a wall to steady him. His eyes closed. His body swayed.

  When his eyes reopened, Jan and Joel still endured, their lips alive, their faces blazing smiles. Earnest smiles. Textbook smiles. Their voices couldn’t reach him because his own mind was churning out such chaos—the tortured echoes of the last two days. The death rattles of his republic. This ground his mind to a standstill, much like sand slays a precision bearing, but not before extorting a brutal tax.

  Elliott dragged himself upstairs to his bedroom, undressed, and was soon engulfed in a steamy shower. Guinda gushed from the streaming water to stimulate and please. And to torture. She massaged with stinging fingers, smothered with scorching lips, stole into every pore, and chafed every muscle. She exploited every sense but sound. Her voice lay dormant. Though he tried to resurrect it, he was denied the warmth of yesterday. And was thus spared today’s icy rebuff. That tradeoff was good.

  He sat on the edge of his bed searching the Oriental carpet for answers, the same carpet that had inspired him toward politics just a few days ago. But this time, strawberry blond hair flowed from the filigreed fields. An honorable mention ribbon rose between raging beasts. He rubbed his eyes as they began to glaze over and then winced as a spider swelled from a distant corner of the carpet.

  “Sherwood,” he muttered. “Sherwood is real. And he’s right. It’s not a game.”

  Then a meerschaum pipe emerged from the carpet confusion. The menace was irrefutable. He closed his eyes to forget. But how could he?

  I barely escaped two hit robots today, he thought. But men sent them after me. Mindless bureaucrats made the decision to kill me. A week ago that would have been science fiction, but now … now a computer can do that to Susie … a computer can order her to be murdered. Last week I would have laughed at that … but now it’s reality.

  As he dressed, his mind ran back to “Sex and Society” and to the Joel and Jan hard sell. He sat beside his copy of the Halvorsen files running his hand over the smooth sheets of paper. He picked up the optical disk and stared at it for a long time. Just then, the TV sound came to the front. “The Debating Game” had just started, and the cheers bit into him. The MC stirred his audience with a titanic benediction, but it was soon lost to the sea of apostles eager for the rite to commence.

  He picked up the box of the Halvorsen files and walked downstairs to the kitchen. He opened the disposal door, dropped both copies inside, closed the door, and pushed INCINERATE. He opened a bottle of Pete’s and walked into the TV room. Sitting beside Martha, he picked up a remote, multi-media controller. She looked at him with a question—then with a smirk.

  “Would you show me how to pick a candidate with this thing—please?”

  The end.