by Doug Felton
Raisa nodded and said, “Let’s stop the bleeding first. Then we can figure out how to close the wound.”
Holloway said, “You said we needed to do two things. How do we change public opinion? If people hate immortals, they will never accept us.”
“We need to make the Ten Thousand personal, likable,” Ekua said. “Right now, they are just a nameless, faceless mob.”
“People know Raisa,” Elliot said.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t count. She’s the one who’s been covering up the Ten Thousand and lying to the public.” The rest of the women raised their eyebrows at the comment. Ekua held up her hands. “Hey, that’s that story that’s out there. Unless we can put a fresh face on this, we won’t win the PR battle. And right now, that’s the war.”
Penly shot a sideways glance at Raisa, her eyes wide, sending her an unspoken message.
“Of course,” Raisa said. “How stupid. I know the perfect person to do the job; Zeke Wellington.” Raisa grimaced as she got to her feet. “He’s one of us. He’s an immortal.” She watched Elliot’s face as she delivered the news. Outside of Penly, none of them should have known about Zeke. But, unlike the others who registered surprise, Elliot’s expression never changed.
What do you know, girl?
“That’s why he went to Pittsburgh with you?” Holloway asked.
Raisa nodded. “And right now I don’t know of anybody more popular than he is. He’s the perfect candidate for the face of the Ten Thousand, don’t you think.”
“Yeah, but where are you going?” Penly asked as Raisa made her way across the lawn.
Raisa pointed with her chin to the Palace. “To talk to Zeke.”
“He’s here?” Ekua asked.
“I invited him to stay at the Palace. He would have been detained if he had stayed in Pittsburgh.”
The ladies jumped to their feet.
“What are you doing?” Raisa asked.
“What do you think we’re doing?” Holloway said, “We’re coming with you.”
Chapter Ten
Song had included several guest suites in the Palace remodeling to house visiting dignitaries and other guests. They were underground suites, using just over a quarter of the 580,000 square feet that had once held the Capitol Building’s Visitor Center. At the moment, Zeke was the only guest staying in the Palace, so he had the guest wing to himself. Except he didn’t. When you are a guest of the queen, you are subject to her whims and desires. Raisa knew that and planned to take advantage of it.
With the five other ladies standing behind her, she gave three short, firm knocks on the door to his suite. Raisa could have called for him to come to her, but she didn’t want to wait. After the second round of knocks, they heard a faint, “Yeah, hang on.”
The door opened to reveal a shirtless Zeke rubbing his eyes. “What is it?” he said. By his repeated blinking, it was obvious his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light. When they did, he added, “Uh...Your Majesty?” Next, he noticed the five women standing behind her in their running gear, and the Wellington charm came online. He flashed his smile and said, “And I thought I was having a nice dream before I woke up.” He stepped aside. “Please come in.”
After putting on a robe and turning on the lights, Zeke joined the others in the living room of the suite. He casually moved a bottle of red wine and two glasses to the kitchen. Raisa wondered if they had been left there from the night before. She shifted her gaze to Elliot, whose expression was unreadable.
Sitting Zeke said, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Raisa said, “In Pittsburgh, you told me you’d be willing to help with the Ten Thousand any way you can. Well, I know how; you can be the face of the Ten Thousand.”
Zeke studied Raisa for a moment, seamlessly shifting from charming playboy to serious thinker.
Finally, he said, “You have a PR problem.”
“Yes. And the longer this goes on, the bigger the problem will be unless we can change the narrative.”
“I’m not exactly your average Joe,” Zeke said. “You sure you want me?”
“I do. You’re well known, and people admire you. If they know you’re an immortal, it might change public perception. And I’ve seen you in interviews, you’re personable and funny and disarming.” Raisa paused, gathering her thoughts. “The only way I stopped a war between the New World and the CRA was face to face. It’s got to get personal.”
“I did say that I would help any way I can, but if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. I can’t represent the Ten Thousand sitting in the Palace, no one’s gonna buy that. And I can’t expect to be treated differently than everyone else if I go home. I’ve got to be arrested, just like the rest.”
“Detained,” Raisa said. “Let’s not say arrested.”
“And when you’re taken into custody,” Ekua said, “let’s make sure it’s covered by the media. That should generate sympathy.”
“I like the way you think,” Zeke said. “Here’s the other thing. We’ve got to get these people together in one place. We can’t afford to have them saying and doing things that will make our job harder. If they’re all together, we can coach them on the best way to influence public opinion.”
For the first time in a couple of days, Raisa felt as if she were ahead of the problem instead of behind it. Zeke’s willingness to help lifted her spirits from the dark pit where they had been. We can fix this, she said to herself. Since her success brokering peace with the CRA, Raisa couldn’t see how she was making any difference. She thought about the shanty towns filled with poverty and neglect that still existed in the New World, regions where recovery from the virus never took hold. Instead of moving forward, people in those regions gave up. Raisa had heard about the towns, as people called them, all her life, but they had never been her responsibility. Now they were, and she didn’t know how to help them. The experts told her why her ideas wouldn’t work, but they offered no solutions. Closer to home, she hadn’t been able to save her father or her brother. But this, this she could fix. She could save the Ten Thousand.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. A soldier announced Alora.
“You’re here early, again,” Raisa said.
“I’m sorry to intrude, but I didn’t think this could wait until you got to the office. Last night there was an incident in Pittsburgh between authorities and two people they were attempting to detain per the government’s orders. They resisted and were killed, along with an officer.”
Raisa’s heart plummeted. If it was her destiny to usher in a new era of mortals and immortals living together, she had to get ahold of this. But now two people were dead, and she couldn’t help but wonder, how many more will die before this is over?
Zeke broke the silence and said what she was thinking. “Looks like the PR battle just got a whole lot more intense.”
Raisa waited in her office for President Tate to arrive, her right arm in a sling, still healing from the injury that morning. She missed the days when she was the presumptive queen, and everybody worked together in the Pentagon. Back then, she could walk down the hall to Creighton Ashwill’s office any time she needed. Now, after eighteen months as queen, Raisa had come to expect the hurry-up-and-wait pace of government life, but it still irritated her. Everything took twice as long as it should. Everything except issuing the order to detain ten thousand citizens who had done nothing wrong.
At two minutes to eleven, Alora opened her door and informed her that President Tate had arrived. Punctual as always. Tate stepped into her office, looking as distinguished as ever. He looked more like someone who should be sitting on a throne than she did. His broad shoulders and piercing eyes gave him a presence that demanded attention. His perfect posture didn’t hurt either.
“Your Majesty, it is good to see you safe and sound.”
This was their first face-to-face meeting since she returned from Pittsburgh. They could have met via a video link, but Raisa wanted to make a point by calling him
to the Palace.
He eyed her arm and said, “I was not aware you had been injured.”
“I wasn’t. At least not in Pittsburgh.”
“Ah, another sparring match with Lieutenant Elliot?”
“Something like that,” Raisa said with a smile, wanting to move along the conversation. “Won’t you have a seat?”
They sat in two chairs angled toward one another in front of her father’s desk.
“I guess you heard about what happened last night,” Tate said.
“I did, and about the dozens of other less serious conflicts that occurred.” Before talking with Tate, Raisa got the latest update from Alora. In the first twenty-four hours since the order was given, police had detained nearly half of the Ten Thousand. Naturally, some of them resisted, leading to violence, and now two of them were dead.
“I am not pleased that you issued an order in my name that I did not give. But it is done, and we cannot undo it.” Two years earlier, Raisa would have had to clasp her hands together to keep them from shaking. Not anymore. She held them steady as she held Tate’s gaze.
He blinked at the rebuke. “I understand, Your Majesty, but given the circumstances, your husband and I, along with most of the Council, felt that it was the right move to make.”
“And this morning, three people are dead,” Raisa said.
“That is unfortunate, but hardly avoidable due to the scope of the operation. Your Majesty, you can’t save everyone.”
Raisa held her tongue, letting her first impulse pass before speaking. “That may be true, but the Ten Thousand will be treated as citizens of the New World and not as intruders.”
Tate said, “Of course.”
“And we will start by getting them out of local jails and into a facility that can house them until we get this figured out.”
“The only facility big enough is Raven Rock, but that’s for government use, in case of an emergency.”
“Not anymore,” Raisa said. “We’re converting it to house the Ten Thousand for the time being.”
Built in the 1940s to house government employees in the case of a nuclear attack, Raven Rock had updated and expanded four decades earlier, making it the best option to meet their needs. Located in the mountains of southern Pennsylvania, the facility had been operational twenty-four hours a day since 1961. It solved one of the many problems Raisa faced. “I want your office to coordinate the transfer to Raven Rock, at once.”
“Of course.”
“And Mr. President, it is of the utmost importance that this information remains confidential. We can’t have any more leaks.” Raisa stood, ending the meeting.
“Everything that comes through my office is completely confidential,” he said, also standing.
“Good, because at this moment, besides you and me, no one knows about sending the Ten Thousand to Raven Rock. I intend to make sure no one finds out who doesn’t need to know.”
“As do I.”
Raisa jolted upright in bed, thrust out of a deep sleep by a nightmare. Her breath came in desperate gulps as if she’d just finished a run that was a kilometer too long. She took control of her breathing and slowed her pounding heart as adrenaline ebbed from her body. It had been four days since Raisa gave the order to move the Ten Thousand. Today she’d go to Raven Rock and meet them. Watching Alexander’s rhythmic breathing, she thought about her dream and what her subconscious was trying to tell her.
She was in the ocean at night, with thousands of other people bobbing on the swells. And then some of the people began to glow, faintly but enough to stand out in the moonless night. At first, Raisa didn’t know who they were, but as she watched, she recognized them; the Ten Thousand.
The rest of the people who weren’t glowing became nervous and began to swim away from them. This made Raisa uneasy. “Come back,” she called. “We need each other. We can work this out.” But they didn’t listen, and soon the Ten Thousand huddled together, surrounded by a mass of people, everyone treading water.
And then, one by one, people began to sink as if an unseen watery force were pulling them down. But not the Ten Thousand, only the others. Men and women screamed as the person on their left and right were sucked under.
Those who remained realized the glowing figures in the water weren’t being taken. Moving as a single organism, the mortals surged forward, encircling them and grabbing them as if they were life preservers. The immortals had six or eight people each, clinging to them. At first, it worked; everyone was safe. But as the unseen hand pulled with a renewed intensity, the helpless mortals slipped beneath the surface, taking the Ten Thousand with them, one at a time.
Raisa put a hand over her mouth, gasping at the scene unfolding before her. As each one disappeared below the black surface of the water, the night grew darker until there was only one left. It was Zeke. He looked at Raisa with desperate eyes as men and women clawed at him, trying to save themselves. She wanted to swim to him and save him, but she couldn’t. No matter how much she kicked against the water or thrust her hands beneath the surface, she didn’t move. Finally, Zeke succumbed to the weight and slipped into a watery grave, his outstretched glowing hand the last thing Raisa saw before he vanished.
Raisa shivered as the images replayed in her mind. Normally she would have wakened Alexander for comfort after a nightmare, but they had barely talked to each other over the last couple of days. She’d hoped tensions might thaw, but then Alexander learned that Raisa had kept the move to Raven Rock from him.
“I’m your husband.”
“You’re also on my staff, and no one on my staff needed to know until it was done. We’ve got a leak, and until we figure it out, information is on a need-to-know basis.”
“And you think I’m the leak?”
Raisa pushed a sigh of frustration from her lungs. “No. And I don’t think Alora is either, but I didn’t tell her. The fewer people who know, the fewer conversations, and the fewer chances information gets into the wrong hands.”
That argument the night before was the exasperating end of two stressful days for Raisa. Like Alexander, the rest of her staff was irritated by being kept in the dark. Penly was the only one who said, “No worries. I get it,” when she was told about the move to Raven Rock. Her secrecy had hurt everyone, but none more than Alexander.
Instead of fighting with her husband, Raisa needed to talk with Zeke. Since that night on the terrace, she’d wanted to question him about his . . . what should she call them? Superpowers? Whatever they were, she wanted to know more, but she hadn’t found the right moment. She couldn’t tell if it was coincidental or if Zeke was avoiding the subject. After they decided that he would join the Ten Thousand at Raven Rock, events moved quickly, and Raisa knew it would have to wait. The authorities took him into custody at his home, which was live-streamed, thanks to the New World Media Group. Zeke cooperated with the authorities, even signing an autograph for one officer. He was the picture of peace, responding to a reporter’s questions with, “I’m sure this is for the best. I look forward to working with the government to get this straightened out.”
In addition to Zeke’s successful arrest three days earlier, Raisa got word the day before the Ten Thousand were moved to Raven Rock without incident. With everything in place, she directed her staff to arrange for a visit.
Raisa looked at her bedside clock. Four forty-five. I’ve got to stop making a habit of this. Her visit to Raven Rock wasn’t scheduled until later that afternoon, but there was no way she’d go back to sleep. She slipped from her bed and went to the bathroom. The person staring back at her in the mirror looked tired. Rings had formed under her eyes, and her skin, which had always been fair, looked pale. Even her hair looked listless. Girl, you need help.
Raisa chose to work out in the gym instead of taking an early-morning run. Her collarbone had healed well enough for a workout if she took it easy. She changed into her PT gear and took the stairs down two floors. Light spilled out of the doorway to the gym, as did t
he sounds of someone in the middle of a workout routine. From the familiar grunts she heard, she knew it was Elliot. Does she ever sleep? Raisa laughed to herself. Look who’s talking.
As she approached the double doors to the gym, Raisa paused. Something was off. She didn’t hear the familiar thud of the punching bag or thwack of a jump rope against the floor. What was she up to? The sound she heard seemed as if Elliott were all over the gym.
Raisa moved to the quarter-window in the door and looked inside. The gym was empty. She saw no one on the mat, or at the bag, or at any of the weight stations. Then, movement on the ceiling caught her attention. Lieutenant Elliot hung by her legs from the beams twenty feet above the floor.
How in the world . . . ?
Elliot let her hands hang down, swinging casually. She looked like a kid who had climbed a tree and was hanging off a branch. Without warning, she slipped off the beam and fell toward the floor. Raisa sucked in an involuntary breath, but before she could call out, Elliot landed in a crouch, her two feet and left hand on the floor balancing her. From the crouch, she ran full speed at the wall on the far end of the gym. Reaching it, she used her momentum to run about halfway up before throwing herself backward off the wall and landing gracefully on her feet. Elliot threw her two fists in the air and yelled, “Yes!” before leaping from a standing position to the ceiling beam where Raisa had first seen her.
The words of Zeke Wellington on the dome terrace the night of the state dinner came back to her, “This is what’s possible. For all of us.”
Chapter Eleven
Raisa backed away from the gym doors, dizzied by what she’d just seen. She needed to move; it was how she processed. A run would do the trick, but security liked her to have an escort when on the grounds, and it would take too long to get one this time of the morning. Close to where she stood was an old industrial-looking door that the Palace renovations never touched. Behind the door were 365 steps leading to the top of the Palace dome. Raisa hadn’t been to the top of the dome since the night Creighton Ashwill had died, but running the stairs would give her the cardio boost that she needed to get her mind working.
