by Huskyteer
“It has become apparent that it was a mistake to have engaged you. I’m sorry for leading you on.”
“Just like a politician. You’ve voiced your regrets clearly, thank you,” Alex spat, his eyes fixed on the table. He wouldn’t look up. “I kind of assumed…wrongly, I think…that you might not take the crony tack and instead be a decent person, a realist where it’s needed, but forceful too.”
“I am being realistic. And forceful. You putting me in this awkward position is pretty selfish.” But hadn’t David put himself in this position on that September night, seemingly so long ago?
“You’re one to talk, David. ‘I can’t have you ruining my run for the presidency just because we slept together.’”
“I didn’t say anything like that—”
“But that’s what it is, isn’t it?” Alex’s pasta was getting cold, and the lion had the insane thought to mention it. He had a lot on his mind. Words swirled around, trying to form coherent thoughts, but nothing came to David that could possibly make this end well. He realized his future was in the hands of this one man.
“Are you going to expose me?” asked the lion. “Just please, be honest with me so I know to expect it. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But I really would prefer to try to lead this country to something better than it has.”
Alex sat there and thought. He thought for a good long while, his face working, his tears falling from time to time. David had seen pictures of the White House Situation Room, and he thought he could approximate the level of stress that must exist in moments of silence like these.
“I should,” Alex said, and pounded the table with his fist. “I could, too. It would be easy. But…” He looked up, his misty blue eyes brimming. “But I love you, David. Or I love something about you, I don’t know. You wanna know something I realized just now?”
“What.” David forced himself to look back. It took all he had to keep his lips steady. He allowed it was relief, but he knew it was more than that.
“I lost a lot of friends when I joined the Morphic Education Fund. I told myself I was being true to what I believed in, and losing my so-called ‘friends’ was collateral damage on the way to doing good by my cause. I told them it was in the best interest of the greater good.”
David nodded slowly. He swallowed. “That was very noble of you.”
“That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Please tell me that’s what you’re doing.”
Swallowing again, the lion squared his shoulders. “Alex. I never thought I would get this far. Now that it has…now that there’s a chance…I want, more than ever, to make this world a better place. I want that addendum to the Equal Marriage Act. I want you to find that someone, whatever species he is, and live your life to the fullest. I want that for every American.” He was slipping into platitudes, but they were true no matter how rote they sounded. “It’s my best interest, for my greater good. I don’t know how else to say it, since you already did.”
“It all sounds so nice, on the surface,” Alex said. “But, it’s what’s between the lines that counts. I can’t believe you, right now, even though I want to. And I can’t guarantee you won’t hear from me again. But don’t be surprised if I show up down the line, whether I congratulate you or sell my story to the highest bidder.”
“I work for the country now,” David interjected, but the man took no heed.
“You do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same.” Alex wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “If you make it, I hope you think it was worth it.”
Before David could say anything more (I’ll show you it’s worth it, just give me time to prove it), Alex stood and walked stiffly through the curtain separating the room from the restaurant proper.
The lion had done what he’d set out to do, but he still didn’t have an answer.
* * * *
Crack.
It sounds like a firecracker in the crowd, one single sharp sound and nothing more. One moment David is walking confidently to the podium, and the next he’s on his knees, paws over his head. As if they can shield him from the maniac who managed to sneak a weapon past the screeners.
David knows the codes and takes immediate cover, but when he kneels like he remembers from his training, he realizes how pointless it all is in a situation like this. Sure, he’s wearing body armor, but anyone with a fair bit of aim can still shoot him, exposed as he is, well before the Secret Service can rush in to do their jobs.
Most continue cheering while a few utter surprised screams at the sound, and as people notice the lion’s posture it dies down to silence. David feels as if he’s moving in slow motion, swiveling on the balls of his feet while keeping his head at least partially obscured. He sees people at the back of the crowd walking or running toward the exits, possibly fearing something worse. Closer to the podium, where it’s difficult to move, people are calmer. Their faces watch him, some horrified and some curious as he turns to look rearward.
Alex stands on the catwalk fifteen feet behind David, his right hand over his left shoulder. He’s wearing slacks and a gold tie over a shirt that used to be purple before his blood turned it a sticky black. Grimacing, he weakly lifts his head to look at the lion with tired, wondering eyes. Surely he must have known better than to pull a stupid trick like this. How did he get this close in the first place?
Did he do it on purpose?
His eyes focused on Alex, his ears tune out the sounds around him. Distant shouting. Scuffling footsteps. But in this moment it’s just the lion and the innocent—if passionate—man who struck up a conversation one brisk September night with someone whom he thought shared his passion. The man with whom he’d shared his body. The man he’d thought understood when David had told him there might be four hundred million people counting on him.
Alex drops his right hand and goes for his pants pocket, leaving a smear of blood on the pressed khakis. His trembling fingers make it to the edge of the material and crack, it happens again. No new hole, no squib-like puff of the shirt. Just Alex’s vacant expression as he falls forward like a ragdoll. David feels the thud of the man’s skull landing nose-first. Crimson trickles down the otherwise spotless white catwalk toward the back of the stage in a single meandering stream.
“No,” David begins before four agents surround him, one of whom turns inward, shooting questions.
“Sir, are you hurt?” His hand never leaves his earpiece.
“No, I—”
“No pain anywhere?”
“No.”
“We have the situation under control. We’ll get you out of here.”
“Let me speak, damn you!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you do that.”
You can’t let me do that? David thinks. This is my show! You just killed a man! Straining to see through the agent’s legs, the lion can’t even make out if Alex is still alive. They won’t let him move—but he knows a way.
He lifts his head to the night sky and roars.
The agent facing him backs away, his arms windmilling. The rest of them turn, surprised but still diligently aware of their surroundings. They all give him room. Even more agents have suddenly appeared through the curtains to drag Alex’s lifeless body out of sight. The scent of blood is nauseating. David fights back a retch by roaring again, the sting of fresh tears in his eyes. Any humans watching these events would think it a roar of anger, only because they can’t tell it from anguish.
Alone at the end of the catwalk with a huddle of agents behind him, David looks around at the people who gathered to hear him speak, not to bear witness a shooting on Election Night. They didn’t deserve this. And Alex definitely didn’t deserve it, no matter his motives.
“Get the fuck off the stage!” hisses Emmett’s voice in his ear. “This whole thing is FUBAR. We need you protected.”
David feels a morbid chuckle rise up and die in his chest. “No,” he says. “I’m taking charge, starting now. I’m not some precious vase on a goddamn shelf.�
�� Emmett starts to disagree, but the lion rips the earpiece off and throws it down. The people need to hear what he has to say, and there will never be a better time than right now. He has their undivided attention.
Most have stopped moving. Those at the back gather in a bit closer, enthralled by their future leader’s poise under pressure. As macabre as it must seem, David has a speech to deliver.
Placing his paws on the podium, he becomes aware of how hard he’s trembling. He’s not nervous, not anymore, but he can sense anxiety from the countless bodies around him, can smell the fear they exude. He owes each and every one of these people to put a stop to this before it gets any further out of hand.
They look up at him as he speaks. “My fellow Americans, this…unfortunate spectacle…is something I would never have wished on anyone. Not you, not…the gentleman, not on myself. It is a sad, sad side effect of the times in which we live.” David’s booming voice echoes across the water and back.
“I had a speech, but it seems inappropriate in light of what just happened.” He swallows to fight the cloying ferrous stench behind him, and to steady his wavering tone. “You all have shown me great support these past weeks and months.” David feels it wanting to catch, wanting to choke just a single word with emotion. It won’t make him seem weak, but it won’t do much good either.
“Tonight was supposed to be a night of celebration. Of coming together, of seeing past our differences as a nation to work toward a common goal. I going to talk about how the people were able to look beyond themselves and elect the outsider. Idyllic, yes, but no less important.
“You, my friends, you were the ones who spoke up at the polls and said, ‘I dare to be different. I dare to dream.’ And you listened to both sides of the aisle, and made your decision. And there is no way I could possibly repay you for the opportunity you’ve given me.”
David looks out on the faces tilted expectantly toward him. Working men, housewives, children of all ages and species hoisted upon a parent’s shoulders or hopping to get a better look. But for the blood on the stage, it’s as if nothing had happened.
“I can’t do this,” he says, looking down. “I can’t play this game anymore.” From somewhere behind the curtains David hears Emmett swearing up a storm, and he realizes it might be possible Alex’s death wasn’t an accident. The Secret Service could have easily known everything Emmett and Julia knew. They wanted him out after Iowa, and Alex showed himself the door. Until tonight. Alex might have served himself up on a platter, but David doubted he would ever know for sure. It wouldn’t bring the man back to life.
Looking back he can see Emmett’s head peeking out from between the folds of purple velour, out of sight of cameras. If he hadn’t thrown his headset down he would likely be getting an earful. The teleprompter scrolls his now seemingly vapid speech, the words unspoken and unheard. But the lion has something to say, and damn the consequences.
“Before I go further—before we go further as a country—I have something to say, and I hope you will bear with me.” Gone is his steady, strong voice; gone are the practiced cadence and emphases of a man on the trail. His emotions bare, his soul broken, he knows what he needs to do.
“I’m not who you think I am. You want me to take on Washington. You want transparency and efficiency and thrift. And you voted for a man who is as true to himself as he is to his country. I am not that man.”
Emmett whisper-screams David’s name as loud as he dares, but the lion holds his ground. Emmett will just have to deal with what he has to say. History will judge him by what he does in this moment; never before in his life has he had so much control over his own destiny. Fighting a cottony mouth and a gut full of roiling adrenaline, he pushes forth.
“I…” So many faces, looking up at him. Waiting. Hanging on every word.
“I…am just a man.” He swallows. His life is not, in fact, over. Emmett’s relief is palpable even out here. “And for the next four years I’ll be your man. I don’t just want to be an ideal. I will be a public servant and a leader in equal measure, and it will be my job to make good on my promises.” More platitudes, but isn’t this the way he was supposed to talk? Wasn’t this the David Kibber people wanted to see?
It wasn’t what Alex would have wanted to see. David ignored this last thought and raised his head to the lights.
“What do you say?”
For three solid seconds everyone gathered on that little piece of park (and, presumably, most of the country if not the world) stands silently, sharing one singular moment of unity. Then, from off to David’s right someone shouts, “Fuck yeah!” David imagines hundreds of sound engineers scrambling to delay buttons across the planet and grins toothily, confidently, knowing it’s what the people want to see.
The roar is deafening, rising up and filling the air with such jubilation and excitement that the killing of a man on the catwalk just five minutes prior seems nothing more than a footnote. David Kibber could have called off the speech, but he went on to address his country as if it were business as usual. Because, essentially, it is.
Even as he raises his arms in a victory sign and watches his constituents celebrating in the field—the world, still turning—the lion wonders where they took Alex’s body. The soft features and deep, intelligent eyes float before David’s vision like the billboard before Gatsby.
He lets out another earth-shattering, soulful roar into the night, and only the morphs in the crowd will wonder later on if they really did hear grief in that moment.
It will all be worth it. It has to be worth it, and the lion has at least four years to prove it to himself, to his country, and maybe even to Alex. Maybe especially to Alex.
But behind his politician’s smile, David wonders what Alex was reaching for. He’s not entirely sure he wants to know.
CLEARANCE PAPERS, by by Fred Patten
The docks were unusually quiet.
Normally this area of the spaceport was almost deafening with the clamor of cargo ships loading and unloading cargo; the shouting and hissing of crewmen human and otherwise as they hauled their bulky loads into and out of gaping holds onto the grav-floats to shift them to the dockside areas where they would either be inspected and approved as incoming raw materials or finished goods for this capital city, or elsewhere on the busiest world of what was grandiosely called by humans “the New Empire”; or as outgoing cargo meant for one of the myriad worlds of known space. Until today, the noise level was a known annoyance that the multi-species spacers were used to, and barely noticed. But today, the area was quiet. Everyone had gone somewhere else.
Almost everyone.
“Put ’em over here!” the non-human ch’rr’pt called to four of the port’s AI-controlled labor units in Dock 8-GH, one of the smaller of the commercial areas of the huge spaceport. The ch’rr’pt, who resembled a bipedal, human-sized Earth mammal similar to a North American sea otter or a Southeast Asian binturong, spoke in his own language since the spaceport’s mechanical staff was programmed to understand all interstellar languages. Akkk’rrchk, the first mate of the ch’rr’pt merchant trader whose name translated as Victory of Dobleth, was supervising as the final cargo was loaded and lashed down on board. He nodded approvingly as it was secured to his satisfaction, and scribbled an acceptance on the human supervisor’s electronic manifest. The latter flashed a grin as he prepared to leave with his labor units. “That’s it,” the dock supervisor said in human speech. “I was afraid you were gonna take so long that I’d be late for the festivities,” he said. “Have a safe voyage home.”
Victory of Dobleth was one of the smaller and older of the cargo ships that plied interstellar space. It was a ch’rr’pt ship, owned and crewed by one of the merchant clans of that shaggy and bearded non-human species. Despite their fiercely piratical look, dressed in little more than a vest and harness to hold pockets, writing implements, and the other small necessities of civilization, the captain, officers, and small crew were all peaceful merchants—well, the offi
cers and crew, anyway. Captain Brr’ttcheerpt, better known as “Bucky” to his human trading partners despite his annoyance, was notably short-tempered. But on this trip, everything had gone smoothly despite the humans’ increasing distraction as their big celebration approached. Bucky was in a good mood.
Akkk’rrchk, in the cargo hold, spoke into a paw-held communicator.
“Just finishing loading, Captain!”
* * * *
In the control room, Captain Brr’ttcheerpt (whom we will call Bucky to avoid having to write Brr’ttcheerpt all the time) grunted an acknowledgement. “Thank the Gods! Whoever heard of a whole planet closing down for a holiday? Get ready to break dock as soon as you’re finished.”
A few moments later, Akkk’rrchk joined him in the control room and handed over an electronic tablet with what was still called their latest “paperwork”. Bucky connected their comscreen to the Port Master’s office, commenting, “These humans aren’t bad, but thank the Gods we don’t run into a celebration like this every time we come here. I’ll be glad to get back to ch’rr’pt space!”
However the Port Master’s office, where a secretary usually answered promptly, showed only a “Closed For The Holiday” notice on the comscreen. Bucky frowned and continued to hold down the “connect” button. Eventually the lone bureaucrat left to man the Port Master’s office came on the comscreen.
“Sorry. We’re closed for the big celebrations.”
“I’m Captain Brr’ttcheerpt of the Victory of Dobleth at Dock 8-GH. We’ve just finished loading, and we’re ready to leave from your New Empire to return to ch’rr’pt space.”
The human frowned. “I thought that all the ships that were scheduled to land or leave here during the next week had already done so. Unfortunately, we’ve just closed for the special occasion, and we won’t open again until next week. You’ll just have to wait until then.”
