by Jason Letts
“Another word, if I may,” the boyish, official-looking man said. His courteous phrasing did little to hide the authoritative root of the statement. Taylor had no choice but to obey, and he glanced over at Aggart, who must’ve known he was under suspicion. The chancellor waved him off.
“I’ll be just fine,” he said to Taylor.
“Come with me,” Toggler insisted, leading Taylor away from his post, outside the chancellor’s suite, and down the Spiral about halfway to the offices of the Private Oversight Committee. Toggler flipped a light on when they entered, revealing vacant desks with papers strewn about. It took a moment to register that, like most government agencies other than the Guard, everyone here had been purged except for the one man personally connected to the chancellor. Now Toggler was the only one in a position to police the police.
Together they crossed the office space and came to a plain gray door, which Toggler unlocked with a key. Inside Taylor found a plain chair next to a steel table with some chained manacles attached.
“Now have a seat right here and let me slip these on,” Toggler ordered, giving Taylor’s back a push. Their previous conversation had been in a conference room upstairs about what he’d been doing before the accident, which Taylor thought had gone well, but this time there wasn’t going to be a way to squeak past the truth.
“No.”
There was too much on the line, and even if he’d been caught there was no way he’d go down without a fight, not while there was still time before it was all lost.
“Excuse me? I don’t think you understand the position you’re in. OK, you have to know what kind of position you’re in,” he said, erupting in immediate frustration. He reached for the gas gun at his side, but Taylor delivered a chop to his wrist that sent the gun clattering to the floor.
“Don’t pick it up,” Taylor said. He had a clear size advantage and more combat training, as well. All Toggler had to defend him were rules, but the chancellor had made it perfectly clear that those only mattered when the situation warranted it. Toggler didn’t back down.
“Did you think nobody would catch on to you, Roark Cardan?” he asked, his voice crackling with indignation. “Where are you from? What’s your mother’s name? What school did you go to? Answer me! No, don’t answer me. I don’t want to hear any pointless lies. You can’t show up, waltz onto the personal guard, and then start sabotaging vehicles carrying the freaking chancellor of Cumeria without anyone poking around for obvious gaps in your background!”
Taylor stared hard into his baby blue eyes for some sign of recognition about what he’d done to himself.
“You made a big mistake,” Taylor muttered.
“What’s that?” Shelman crossed his arms and raised his chin.
“You got involved in a scheme to take down the Bracken family and then put yourself in a room alone with one of them,” he said. It was bubbling within him, waiting for an excuse to boil over and get loose.
“That buffoon had it coming.”
Shelman Toggler’s last words led to sputtering gasps when Taylor’s hand latched on to the collar of his shirt and lifted him against the wall. Feeling completely unbound, he put his other hand on the side of Toggler’s head and watched as it took on a vibrant shade of blue. Fidgeting, the chief inspector forced his eyes to the side so hard Taylor though they’d roll back in his head. Whether it was the bacteria Aggart described that could easily overwhelm an unprepared host or unbridled energy with the power to disrupt the body’s impulses, Taylor couldn’t be sure, but soon enough his victim’s filled with a bluish pus that seeped out of his tear ducts and nostrils.
Once Taylor had watched enough of the twitching and oozing to get a firm sense that life had departed the body, he dropped it and left the office, but not without grabbing the keys and locking the door behind him. Whether it took hours or cycles for others to notice Toggler was missing didn’t matter; it would be more than enough time to make a final, all-or-nothing attempt to take down the chancellor.
When he reached the bottom of the Spiral, he traversed the streets aimlessly amongst the very last flock of voters. The keys found a new home buried in a bush blocks away, near an outdoor market with a functioning TV playing news coverage of the election. Racking his mind for a way to defeat the stronger, wiser, and brutally merciless chancellor, Taylor wandered over behind a small group gathered around the screen.
After some shots of people casting ballots under the watchful eye of Guard members, the news show ran a montage of the campaign season, starting with the flustered chancellor agreeing to hold the election. Then there were the awkward, inflammatory answers he gave in the OrePlains. Over and over, the chancellor displayed unmistakable flashes of anger. It wasn’t until the final image of Aggart destroying the video camera that Taylor finally recognized the man’s weakness.
There was something about being recorded that flummoxed him, whether it was a subtle fear of being judged or some inner insecurity about how he came across. If Taylor could only exploit that, he might be able to benefit from another mistake, take the offensive long enough to do what no one else could, and complete the task his father had set out for him.
“I knew there was no way of getting rid of this asshole,” a man in the crowd said, looking back and taking on a shocked expression when he found Taylor in his Guard uniform standing there. The others noticed and immediately started to back away. Taylor had to find his brother, but it would be too conspicuous if he did so with what he currently had on.
“Give me your coat,” Taylor ordered, staring the man down. If this unfortunate resident had said as much about the chancellor to another Guard member, he might’ve found himself with broken limbs because of it. In this case, the citizen considered the loss of his long brown trench coat to be a bargain.
Taking it and walking away, Taylor tied the waist strap tight after he put it on and continued toward the city’s main battery of voting booths, where he knew he’d be able to find someone still there from Randall’s campaign. In his mind, Taylor twisted himself into knots over how it would play out, whether he’d be throwing away his half-brother’s life in addition to his, but the confrontation was unavoidable and there was only one opportunity to gain an advantage.
Hunting down someone working for Randall proved harder than Taylor imagined it would be, and scouting out the polls, some nearby intersections, and the area around the Spiral produced nothing. It was possible they’d all figured it was over and any additional effort was wasted, but the people still trickling in to vote had to be coming from somewhere.
Heading deeper into the city’s residential area, Taylor finally found a young woman knocking on doors who was openly sporting a button in favor of his brother.
“Do you know how to contact Randall Bracken? I have to reach him,” he said, startling the girl, who seemed to freeze up for a moment.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can—”
Taylor got in closer and said something into her ear, afraid someone would hear and find a way to get word back to the chancellor. The woman blinked and nodded, reaching for a phone that she used to call her superiors. After getting transferred once and then twice, she finally handed it over to Taylor.
“Randall? It’s me. Listen, you have to concede the race…in person. Just trust me. Make sure your cameraman comes and films the entire thing, too. You have to do it. We’re running out of time!” he said, shouting down every one of Randall’s objections. Yes, there were votes yet to be counted, but Randall understood what the main objective had always been.
Taylor found himself breathing heavily on the way back to the Spiral. The future of the Bracken family rested on the outcome of the next hour. Whether they mounted a comeback or faded into oblivion depended on his strength, speed, agility, and wits. He discarded the trench coat, needing once again to reap what benefits from his position he could until his traitorous actions were discovered.
The polls had just closed, and a crowd had begun to gather in
Triton Kniviscent Square awaiting the results from below the great balcony of the chancellor’s office. Most of the Guard had assembled to manage people and keep them calm, which kept them too busy to give Taylor more than a quick look as he began his ascent. At the top, another member of the personal guard gave Taylor a wary nod but allowed him to enter.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and prepared for the fight of his life.
Inside, he found that the secretary was missing from her desk. Most of the chancellor’s civilian staff members were responsible for counting ballots, amounting to another fraudulent circumstance that tilted the odds in favor of the incumbent. Taylor knocked on the door to the chancellor’s office and entered when he heard the command.
“Roark, I’m pleased you’ve returned. It looks like you sorted out your business,” the chancellor said with a wry smile before casting a quick glance to the guard on duty by the door. “Take your leave.”
Whether the chancellor had any inkling of what had transpired between Taylor and Chief Inspector Toggler was impossible to know, but he rose from his desk appearing relaxed and comfortable. Taylor stated his pretext for coming that he hadn’t finished putting in the time for his shift, but the chancellor ignored it and continue to approach.
“There’s something we need to discuss. The fury we share gives us a bond that sets us apart from everyone else here. We’re different, and that difference gives us a unique perspective. Wouldn’t you say because of how we’re alike that we should trust each other?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course,” Taylor agreed, knowing he’d have to go along with anything until Randall arrived. What was taking him so long?
“Then why have you been trying to kill me?” Aggart asked. Taylor froze, but the chancellor waited for an answer.
“I had to,” he said, barely getting the words out before booming laughter erupted from the chancellor’s lungs.
“I know exactly what you mean. You didn’t have a choice. The need arose within you to disrupt the current order and take control. That’s exactly what pushed me to wipe out the Grand Council and seize power. But your attempts were pathetic and blunt, and you telegraphed them from a mile away. Even now I can see the guilt on your face. But imagine if you were properly trained and guided, shown how to implement better plans with precision for devastating effect. Wouldn’t it be better if there were someone you could trust?”
The sound of the front doors opening in the room behind Taylor brought a rush of relief. Randall was arguing with the front guard, telling him to keep his hands to himself, but had made it into the suite. Aggart had a surly grimace on his face as he looked at the door.
“I do have someone I can trust,” Taylor answered, bringing a subtle smile to the chancellor’s face.
“Why don’t you start by telling me your real name?” Aggart asked before a knock came at the door. Taylor turned the knob and pushed it open, revealing Randall and the cameraman, who was already filming.
“My name is Taylor Bracken, and you ordered my enemy to kill my father.”
Chancellor Aggart’s narrowing eyes signaled the uproar that was coming, and Taylor had mere moments to take advantage of the surprise. He grabbed Aggart’s arms, pulled them down, and kneed him in the chin. The tight hold Taylor had on the chancellor’s burly, bluish arms met with increasing resistance as he struggled to get free. Any moment he’d have no choice but to let them loose and prepare for an unrelenting assault.
Taylor kept his eyes fixed on Aggart’s, preoccupying him while Randall came around to their side. A knife slid straight through the chancellor’s neck, causing his mouth to drop open and his struggles to weaken.
“Under cover of the Vendetta Clause, I ordered your enemy to kill you,” Taylor said as the lifeblood spurted out of Aggart’s neck. The blue in his hands and veins faded away, and soon the large man toppled back onto the floor.
“That went quicker than I thought it would,” Taylor said, breathing heavily. Randall nodded and the bearded cameraman put away his equipment. They stood gawking at the body on the floor while they gathered themselves.
The front door burst open, and Taylor expected it to be an irate guard who had heard the commotion, but instead it was Qi Ptock, whose mouth proved faster than his eyes.
“Sir, we’ve won the vote! Good news!” he said, his cheers turning to a look of dread. He scrambled back out of the door. That triggered the guard to run in, but seeing the slain chancellor drained the fight out of him.
Outside, rabble from the crowd in Triton Kniviscent square reached a fever pitch.
“What now?” Taylor asked his brother, whose hand and arm were blotted with blood. Randall pursed his lips.
“We were too late. The election is over, but the winner is dead. What remains is a vacuum of power in a lawless state, where no one has a legitimate claim to the chancellorship. Someone will have to tell the people out there what has happened, and then the struggle for supremacy will begin anew.”
Though it hadn’t nearly gone according to plan, Lowell Bracken’s black contract had reached its grisly conclusion, and the only question left was what it would beget.
The End
THE CYCLES OF POWER
PROLOGUE
Ralph Fiori had a debt to pay to a lost friend.
Sitting in a stolen Ristle jalopy outside the entrance to the Wozniak compound, he stared at the headlights reflecting against the floating haze as he sobered up and subdued his nerves. It made for a hellacious drive being half a bottle deep at the wheel while motoring in the dark along the OrePlain’s narrow roads beside countless strip mines and pits, but even that wasn’t as bad as the guilt he felt over setting Lowell Bracken on the path to his demise.
A figure emerged in the haze, and Ralph knew his time for dithering had come to an end. He needed to display the kind of invincible confidence he had in the courtroom, but when he opened the car door the bottle of booze spilled out and smashed against the crushed stone road. Embarrassing.
Before rushing out to meet the man, Ralph grabbed a briefcase and flicked off the headlights, hoping the darkness would conceal his shabby appearance. His suit had been washed, but it still had stains and stank of alcohol. He’d lost weight, but he was heavy by any measure. And he’d shaved and cut his hair recently, but he looked like a man who had lost everything and was living as a vagrant. What good was being a lawyer when there were no longer any courts?
“You there, step over here and state your business,” said a doorman with a deep voice standing in the mist. Ralph approached him slowly but forcefully.
“I’ve got important matters to discuss with Mr. Wozniak. If you’ll—”
“Chairman Wozniak is entertaining visitors and won’t be available to grant your request for a meeting.”
The impertinence of cutting him off was all it took to fill his lungs with some of the old bluster.
“I know damn well what Velo is doing up there with Portia Illiam and Arnold Keize, and if he knew you made him wait for one moment to find out what was in this briefcase, he’d dip your balls in boiling oil. I’m not some shmuck who wandered in off the street neither. You should know you’re speaking to one of the Wozniak Conglomerate’s closest litigation advisers. I’m fucking Ralph Fiori!”
“That must be uncomfortable,” the doorman said, but he turned and led Ralph away from the vehicle and to the compound’s main entrance, where he used a lever to open the great steel doors reflecting firelight from nearby sconces.
After crossing the courtyard and entering the steel mansion, Ralph lumbered along and looked at pictures on the wall of the Wozniak clan while wondering if these were the last things Lowell saw before his death. It’d been quite a long time since Ralph left his friend out in the cold, refusing to help him fend off his investigation when his then-wife Melody Hockley drained his bank account. That moment put him on the path to becoming a gunshot victim on a stage in a public execution broadcast all across Cumeria, and Ralph couldn
’t dismiss the feeling he was responsible for it.
“This way,” the doorman said, leading him up a tall staircase that should’ve come with an oxygen mask. He clutched the railing post when he came to the top and gasped for breath. Ralph felt weak in a way he never had before, but giving in wasn’t acceptable when his one chance for redemption was at hand.
The doorman knocked once on a door featuring ornate carvings, put his ear close, and twisted the handle. Ralph straightened up and followed him into a comfortable looking room.
“Pardon the interruption, Mr. Chairman.”
“I know this man. Mr. Fiori,” said the slender Velo Wozniak in his typical silver suit from a tall, plush chair. “You might be here looking for work after your last client…went cold. I’m afraid I have nothing to offer.”
Portia Illiam, a stunning blonde in an elegant and low-cut sequin dress, sat up on the couch and smirked.
“Velo, have a little more sympathy for a dead man’s lawyer than that. He looks a shadow of his former self and must be starving. Have the dogs produced any morsels he can eat?”
Steaming from the jabs, Ralph noticed Arnold Keize standing by the fireplace with his hands in his pockets. He merely watched until something on the ground caught his attention, which turned out to be a very young girl playing with a serrated knife and a carrot. Ralph cleared his throat and addressed Velo.
“I’ve come about another matter,” Ralph announced. If he appeared to accept the insults, it was all for the better. With any luck he’d be the one laughing soon enough.
“So be it. Get him a chair and return to your post,” Velo ordered the doorman, who did as he was instructed and shut the door behind him. Arnold Keize, a burly man with short black hair, lifted the girl and put her on his lap as he took a seat opposite Velo. Ralph took careful glances at the three of them while shuffling through the papers in the briefcase and making them wait.
