Divided We Fall

by Adam Bender

Eve chose pizza for her last meal. The warden seemed to think she was kidding.

  “We can get you anything you want,” the fat man said. “It’s the only perk our law gives you.”

  Eve shook her head. “No, all I want is a few slices with meatball and onions, and please, some red pepper on the side.”

  “You’re certain?”

  She raised her eyebrows with perturb.

  The warden let out one final frustrated sigh and held up his arms in defeat.

  An hour later, a Guard brought Eve to a plushy dining room. An entire fourteen-inch pie was waiting. The smell was intoxicating.

  “Do you mind if I put the TV on?” the Guard asked. “Majority Leader Randall is supposed to speak soon.”

  “Please,” said Eve, reorienting herself toward the flat panel on the wall. She had to admit she was curious what he would say.

  The Guard walked to the screen and slapped it on. Instantly, applause filled the room. “Thank you,” said Randall. “Thank you.”

  He looked old but stood with the conviction of a hardened policeman. “We were all encouraged last night to learn that the tyrant William Drake has resigned from the presidency,” said Randall. “His reign of terror, I am proud to say, is over!”

  There was an ocean roar of cheers.

  “Now we are faced with the question of succession,” he said. “Our nation was founded on the principle of democracy, and in that spirit I believe it is only right that we have a fair vote. This is not a process that will happen overnight, but given the ongoing war with the Enemy, we in the government would like to run as expeditious a transition as possible. I am announcing today that we will have a general election in exactly sixty days. That should provide sufficient time for interested candidates to mount a campaign and make their case for reforming our nation.

  “In the meantime, we must have an interim president to ensure our interests are promoted at home and abroad, and to protect us from the ever-present threat of war. According to our country’s rules of succession, the role of presidency falls to the majority leader of the Congress.”

  Randall winked at the camera.

  The crowd laughed and a million flashbulbs burst.

  “I am honored to accept this job, and am proud to announce that I have already taken the oath of office. I am your interim president.”

  More wild applause.

  “I promise to begin turning things around in this country, but remind you that the real work will begin after the election. Thank you, and God bless our fair nation.”

  He began to walk off stage but one of his aides stopped him and whispered something in his ear. Randall turned back to the podium. “Are there any questions from the reporters?” he asked as an afterthought.

  The press contingent buzzed to life. Eventually one of the older looking reporters won out by shouting his question the loudest and refusing to back down. Eve could only make out the end of the question: “…the Enemy really gone for good?”

  “As you know, about a week ago the Guard successfully drove the Enemy away from the Luna Coast. There are sea battles ongoing many miles off the coast, but we have the Enemy on the run. Soon, we will dispatch a surge of troops to Enemy territory. We will show them that our country does not roll over so easily, and that there are consequences to attacking us in our homes. Meanwhile, we have repealed the evacuation order for the Capital, and are urging all citizens who left their homes to return as soon as they feel ready.”

  “What about the Watched?” another reporter yelled.

  “My predecessor made a terrible mistake in trying to block the evacuation of citizens on the Watched list,” said Randall. “The government formally apologizes for the stress and hardship of the last two months, and I urge them to come out from hiding and rejoin us. We shortly will be combing through the Watched list and reevaluating who should and who should not be on the list.”

  “Does the Headmaster approve of your interim Presidency and the election in sixty days?” asked another reporter.

  Randall grimaced. “I would not dare speak for the high priest, but I will tell you that the Headmaster has raised no objections.”

  “Has anyone come forward yet to run in the election, and will you be endorsing anyone?”

  The interim president regained his composure. “Daniel Alexander Young, Jr., the man who made all of this possible, told me this morning that he plans to run for the presidency. I believe that his patriotism combined with his family’s long legacy providing jobs and important services for our people makes him an excellent candidate. I believe he would be a dramatic symbol of change for our fair nation.”

  Eve looked down at her slice and discovered she’d layered it with way too much red pepper. It reminded her of Jon and she started to cry.

  Eve’s legs went stiff at the entrance to the death chamber. The two soldiers escorting her had to drag her arm-in-arm the rest of the way to the center of the room.

  She wobbled inside a black circle marked with an X in duct tape. A priest was mumbling some kind of prayer and making strange gestures at her.

  A soldier holding a thick rope noose advanced. He tossed it over her neck and then dropped a black fabric bag over her head.

  In the bleak darkness all Eve could see was Jon’s face. For the past month she had avoided thinking about him, convinced herself that he was dead and never coming back. But he wasn’t dead, not really. And he wouldn’t be waiting for her in Heaven or Hell or wherever she was going.

  “Please, God,” she heard herself saying. “Oh, God, please…”

  She had watched Heretics dropped before. She knew what would happen next; the trapdoor would open and she would fall away forever.

  The room went silent and Eve wondered if it had happened.

  Then she heard frantic whispering. Every now and then she could make out a word, but it was difficult to make sense of anything.

  “Now…my orders…Randall…I know…yes.”

  She heard footsteps.

  “What’s going on?” she asked the void.

  The shroud lifted and she was blinded by the chamber’s fluorescent lights. Eventually her eyes adjusted and the chubby face of the warden came into focus.

  “Agent Eve Parker,” he said. “I’m pleased to inform you that you’ve just been pardoned by Interim President Randall.”

  From his eighth floor Capitol Tower office, Agent Jonathan Wyle reviewed the activities of Joanna Phelps. Using the Blue Wall program, he had logged into her computer and could see that his Watched was composing a blog post for the paper. In an hour all she had written was one cryptic sentence. She had revised it several times, adding a word here, subtracting one there. Currently, it read:

  He has an army.

  Wyle tapped his pen thoughtfully against the desk. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and Joanna’s newspaper required her to file an editorial for the blog every day at five. Joanna never missed a deadline.

  Jon clicked open the main menu of Blue Wall and selected a button called History that opened a click-by-click summary of Joanna’s activities. Ten minutes ago the sentence had read,

  The Headmaster has Saints.

  Twenty minutes before that it had been differently phrased as,

  The church has soldiers.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of it. The Church didn’t have soldiers. Unless, he considered, she was referring to the Guard. There was a popular urban myth that the Guard worked for the Church.

  Wyle tapped a key and up popped a live video feed from Joanna’s webcam. She appeared to be in a state of deep thought, sitting perfectly still with one hand covering her mouth. After a minute she took a deep breath and ran a hand through her brown bangs.

  Jon’s mind wandered to Eve. His lips were still sore from their rendezvous last night in the park. He remembered the feel of her blue jeans and the soft cotton pressure of her chest against his.

  Suddenly, Blue Wall’s keylogger came to life. Joanna was typing.

  He has an
army. He teaches unwavering faith in his leadership. And President Drake is his puppet.

  “Shit,” muttered Jon.

  Joanna had kept her views relatively private before, but now she was on the cusp of airing them publicly. Wyle didn’t trust Joanna’s editor to stop her. She was an experienced writer who usually demonstrated good judgment, and lately her editor had gotten lazy about checking her copy.

  Joanna continued to type, and the article was only getting more controversial. Cursing again, Jon picked up his desk phone and dialed his boss.

  The phone rang twice, followed by the sound of someone clearing mucus from his throat.

  “Captain?” said Jon.

  “Oh, hello, Agent Wyle,” the old man said at last. “What’s the good word?”

  “We’ve got a problem. Watched #55078 is about to publish heresy in the National News blog.”

  The captain clicked his tongue. “Oh, that’s a shame. Quite a shame indeed. You’re certain the target plans to go through with it?”

  “She looks pretty dead set, sir.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Her deadline is in less than an hour. What do you want to do, sir?”

  “I suppose we have only one option,” the captain returned. “Freeze her system and I’ll order the arrest. Good work as usual, Agent Wyle.”

  Jon placed the handset gently on the desk and let out a deep sigh. He reopened the Blue Wall menu and selected an option marked Disable Destination Computer.

  The webcam showed Joanna shaking her mouse vigorously. “C’mon, you goddamned machine!” she yelled at the PC. Futilely, she tried hitting various combinations of buttons on her keyboard. After a minute of further profanity, a tall man in a midnight blue uniform appeared in the background. He tapped on the green-carpeted wall at the entrance of Joanna’s cubicle.

  “Sorry, it’s just my crap computer. It froze,” said Joanna, turning to the visitor. When she saw it was a Guard she turned frantically back to the monitor and tried to shut it off. Her face went white when she couldn’t.

  Jon felt obligated to watch the executions of people on his Watched list. He didn’t have to, and he knew some other Elites who didn’t watch. But for Jon Wyle it didn’t seem right not to see things through to the end. It lent a sense of completion to the whole affair.

  Eve had been weird about this particular execution. Jon suspected it was because of the whole Joanna-Shaan dynamic. Eve had seen a lot of that romance. The fact that this execution meant the end of it seemed to bother her.

  Jon smiled. She’s so cute, he thought.

  A highly made up woman in a pantsuit strolled onto the TV screen. Jon leaned back into his leather sofa and turned off the mute.

  “Welcome to the lower basement of the Capitol Tower!” the TV lady exclaimed. “Next to be dropped this morning is Joanna Phelps. Phelps was a journalist with the National News, and she had some funny views about the Church. Turns out she was plotting to use the paper as a vehicle to spread heresy!”

  The camera zoomed in on Joanna. She was standing on a black metal stand with a noose around her neck. There was a yellow circle around her feet.

  Jon knew the routine. In a minute, the circle would open up and this particular Heretic could be scratched off his Watched list forever.

  A rock ‘n roll number started up. It took a few seconds for Jon to realize it was coming from his cellphone on the desk. He picked up the device and saw that it was Eve calling. Indecisively, he looked at the TV and then back at the phone. Finally he pressed the receive button on the handset. “Hey, baby, can I call you back in a minute?”

  “Are you watching?” she asked.

  He loved how breathy her voice sounded.

  “Yeah.”

  “I turned it off,” she said. “I don’t think I can watch this time.”

  On the television a priest with a Bible read Joanna her last rites. She started bawling.

  “Uh huh,” said Jon. “Hey, they’re about to start. I’ll call you back.”

  He put the phone down, hunched forward and licked his chops.

  The priest stepped away from Joanna. A soldier walked up and threw a black bag over her head. The camera zoomed out to the pretty TV announcer. She began to count from ten, and the numbers flashed on the screen as she said them. “Three, two, one…”

  Jonathan Wyle smiled as the floor fell away and Joanna dropped.

  Seven’s eyes snapped open. He was sweating and breathing hard.

  It was still dark and had begun to rain. The radio alarm clock on the bedside table glared 3:48 a.m. in crimson digits. Sighing, he realized it was too early to get up; he’d have to risk another nightmare.

  For a few seconds he considered the shape under the covers next to him. He touched the girl’s light brown skin, felt its warmth.

  Talia groaned and rolled away.

  He fell on his back and listened to the rush of rain hitting against the window. The room seemed to darken and then grow bright.

  Jon stared vacantly out the window at the apartment building across the street. The rain was coming down in sheets, beating against the glass like it wanted to be let in. The Elite looked at his watch and took a first sip of the red wine he’d poured for two almost an hour ago.

  A light but steady tap–different from the rain–stirred Jon from his trance on the sofa. He put the wine down on the coffee table and took to the foyer like a man on a mission.

  Eve stood pathetically in the doorway with matted hair. Her gray coat was so drenched it looked black. She dabbed at her eyes. “I forgot my umbrella,” she moaned.

  He took her coat and left it dripping in the closet. Eyes to the floor, Eve trudged toward the couch and collapsed.

  “Have some wine and dry off,” Jon called from the kitchen. “We can head over to the restaurant in fifteen minutes.”

  Eve eyed the wine glasses on the coffee table. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” she whimpered.

  Jon brought in a plate of bread and dipping oil. He looked up and Eve was crying.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s Shaan…he’s dead,” she managed.

  “What?!” he exclaimed, sitting beside her.

  She nodded sadly. “H-he took his motorcycle to the Luna Coast. And he just jumped it, right into the ocean! You know how high those cliffs are. I had no idea he was going to…I was monitoring him from my apartment, and I couldn’t get to him in time. I…I couldn’t…”

  He put an arm around her. “Maybe we should stay in tonight. I’ll order some food.”

  She nodded and ran a pale hand through her hair. She stared wide-eyed at the blank TV screen while he dialed. Occasionally she shook her head in disbelief.

  Jon dropped the cell phone on the table and pulled her closer.

  “I let myself get too close,” she explained. “I saw so much of his life; it was almost like we were friends…or something. I mean, I guess ‘friends’ isn’t a good word for it–we never really talked or anything. But I felt like I knew him.”

  Jon nodded. He’d heard of this happening to Elite Guard before. It was why he always tried to separate himself as much as possible from the people he watched.

  “And yet I didn’t know him,” she continued. “I never determined one way or the other whether he was really a Heretic. And I definitely didn’t know he was depressed enough to…to…”

  “Right,” he said, putting his arm around her. For a while they said nothing, and together looked out at the falling rain.

  Jon exhaled. “You think it’s because of what happened with Joanna?”

  Eve leaned into her hands. “Well, he certainly didn’t take that well,” she answered. “But…you shouldn’t blame yourself. You were just doing your job. She was a Heretic.”

  Jon said nothing. He was perplexed as to why Eve would think he would blame himself. He shrugged it off as stress on her part. Or maybe, he thought with a frown, she was on her period again. When had they last had sex?

  “I don’t
know…I guess it’s just that I’d been watching him so long, and he was really a likable guy. I mean, you know, for a suspected Heretic. After a while I kind of…I guess I kind of forgot why I was watching him in the first place.”

  Jon nodded. “Well, you know, not all Heretics act like Heretics.”

  “That’s it exactly. And I think the other thing…”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s dumb.”

  He squeezed her. “Tell me.”

  Eve bit her lip. “Well, Shaan and Joanna…they were in love, you know? It’s just such a tragedy. I mean, what does that say? Why can’t God let two people that make each other so happy be together? If those two weren’t destined to be together, is anyone?”

  He felt frozen under her gaze. Finally, he broke free and pulled her close. “I love you,” he said, kissing her hard on the mouth. He began to peel off her wet shirt, revealing soft pink skin and an ivory bra.

  The couple considered the open elevator door, but neither made a move.

  “Maybe you should go up first,” offered Talia.

  “What, and you’ll wait down here?” asked Seven. “For how long? Won’t they wonder why we didn’t run into each other if we arrive only minutes apart?”

  “We’ll brush it off as coincidence.”

  Seven rubbed his temples in exasperation. “Then we might as well just go up together, right? And call that a coincidence?”

  “Maybe…”

  “They probably won’t even ask.”

  “Hmm…”

  The polished silver doors began to slide shut. For the third time, Seven stopped it with his arm. The elevator opened on reflex and beeped in horror. “Please stand clear of the doors!” exclaimed an automated voice.

  “You’re right, this is stupid,” said Talia. “Let’s just go.”

  As they entered the chamber, Seven wondered why relationships had to be so complicated. That is, if this fling with Talia could be called a relationship. He supposed that, whatever this was, it was at least less painful on a minute-to-minute basis as whatever the hell had happened with Eve. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and the recent rush of happy memories had made that whole situation even more confusing. At least, before the operation, he could brush Eve off as a stranger, or at least a one-time date that didn’t quite work out. But now when he thought of her he felt the crushing force of love gone cold. It wasn’t that he wanted Eve back, but it was harder now to pretend nothing had happened. Even if he could distract himself during the day, he couldn’t prevent his subconscious from conjuring images of the girl in his dreams.