The Last Mayor Box Set 3

by Michael John Grist

  Lara went to the door, camouflaged in the wall, and knocked.

  Crow opened it, smiling kindly. "You see," he said earnestly. "Lara, you see?"

  She did. She felt calmer inside. For the first time in a long time, she knew what she had to do. Renouncing Amo would be easy. It was the right thing to do.

  "A pen," she said quietly. "Paper. Witzgenstein said so."

  "Witzgenstein said so," Crow answered, like a mantra. "Come."

  8. ANNULMENT

  That clarity faded.

  "It's the Lincoln Bedroom," Crow said, as he deposited her in a large square room on the second floor of the White House. The walls were a golden geometric pattern, the curtains hung in golden billows, the floor was a rich red and green tapestry, but for all that she was still a prisoner. "For the President's most honored guests."

  Lara stood where he left her.

  "President," she said dully.

  "She's not so bad," Crow protested gently. "Lara. I know you can see it."

  He moved round to face her. He was the same Crow, but different, just like she was the same Lara, but different. Something was changing that she didn't understand. Something was slipping inside her like a worm, gumming at her thoughts insidiously, changing things.

  "Not so bad? She crushed us, Crow. She didn't have to do that, but she did. She was destroying supply cairns, hurting all of us, just to make us surrender." She paused, almost too weary to go on. Outrage was beyond her. Crow already knew this. "On the stage in LA she wanted me dead. You all watched, and what was my crime? Being married to Amo. Amo was just trying to protect us. But she would have cheered as Drake killed me."

  Crow shook his head. "You've got it all mixed up, Lara. No. Amo was the one. He hurt us all. Witzgenstein was even trying to save him. She never would have let Drake hurt you. And what has she done to you, Lara, really? Given you food. Taken care of you when you needed it. Given you a suite of honor." He gestured round at the golden walls. "We were on our knees, and she had mercy. She's a good person, really. Amo just covered it up."

  Lara barely managed a sigh. She felt so tired.

  "She put us on our knees. What's happened to you, Crow?" His face was the same proud, dark oval, like the carved figurehead on a mighty ship, but his eyes weren't the same. He looked like a ghost, haunting himself. "It's only been three days."

  He shrugged, smiled. "We were on our knees, and she had mercy. That's what I remember. We were tired and hungry and beaten. Then she came, and Lara, things have been better since then." He beamed. "I'm working with the children, and they adore her. They light up when she's near. She's kind."

  "She's not kind," Lara said, her voice sounding as if from very far away. "I haven't seen my children."

  Crow's face turned sad. The emotion was too simple. "I know. That was hard on her, I think."

  "It was hard on me."

  Crow took her hand.

  "You're doing so well, Lara. Just listen." He squeezed her fingers. "Listen to your heart. This is a good place. Try to see past the lies Amo built for you, and see this new world. And if it's hard, if it seems cruel, that's only because she wants you to get better. Medicine doesn't taste good, does it? But we need it, so we can live a better life."

  He smiled at her eagerly, like she was a child. Arguing with him felt like holding back the ocean. "It's lies," she said quietly.

  "What are lies?" Crow asked. "She likes you, that's real, despite everything you've done. You should be grateful. I know I am. I feel at home here."

  Lara looked at him, feeling shattered. The fear from before was gone, replaced with a sullen deadness inside. "You feel at home. Here. With her."

  He nodded. "I know how it looks. She has me stand at her side, her 'red man' for all to see. You'll be her 'black woman', I understand, but what is so wrong with that? It's what we are. There's no shame."

  Lara felt tired. She swayed, and Crow guided her into a chair, at a desk. He set her pen and paper before her.

  "Take your medicine," he said, with a hint of concern in his voice. "Make her proud. Don't upset her."

  Lara snorted. "Or she'll banish me?"

  "She has your children, Lara," Crow said softly, then paused. "We have them."

  Lara looked up into his eyes. They no longer seemed so kind. The strength she saw there was rallied against her, now, not on her side. "We," she repeated.

  "We," he said again, seemingly finding strength in the word. "Some prices are worth paying. We're building something great here. You'll be a part of it. I want you to be."

  She slumped away from him. Her hands settled on the desk.

  "I'll leave you to your thoughts," Crow said, and padded quietly away over the fine carpet.

  "Wait," Lara called, as he opened the door.

  "Yes?"

  "Amo said not to stop. I know you remember that. The other bunkers may shoot us down, just like they did New LA. Another nuclear bomb, Crow."

  Crow smiled widely. "You don't need to worry about that. Amo was a liar, manufacturing fear to maintain control. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't set that explosion himself. Anyway, now we have Witzgenstein to protect us. However you look at it, that explosion was really God's judgment, wasn't it, raining down hell as a warning to us. Don't you see? Now that Amo is gone, we're free! If the bunkers even exist, which there's no proof of, then they'll have no reason to see us as their enemy. They will know Janine never did anything but reach out to them with God's loving hand."

  Lara swayed. Every word felt like a punch, dizzying her, throwing her off balance. "You don't even believe in God."

  "People change," he said. Then he gave a little nod, like he was approving his own answer, and ducked out, closing the door and locking it behind him.

  Lara turned forward, to where the pen and paper rested on the red leather top of the pedestal desk. The Lincoln Bedroom. She stroked the leather surface, like the cover of her Bible in her convoy prison. It was warm and supple. Had President Abraham Lincoln sat at this very desk, she wondered, once upon a time? Had he signed the Emancipation Proclamation here, freeing her ancestors from slavery? Now what kind of proclamation would she write, signing herself into a new kind of slavery?

  Lies.

  Hell.

  The Antichrist.

  A missile would come. She knew that for certain, even if the rest was starting to dissolve into mush. Amo had said so, but it was getting harder to keep a grip on what he'd said, and what was true. He'd also promised he'd come back to her, but he hadn't. He wasn't here now, and she was alone. Witzgenstein's words echoed in the emptiness inside.

  She wanted to see her children. They were an ache in her chest, wearing her down. She wanted her baby to be safe. There were so many things she wanted, and was doing this so hard really, as the price to get them?

  With one hand on her belly she picked up the pen, set it to the paper, and began to write.

  * * *

  Crow brought her speech back three times, each time with large sections scratched out in red ink and replaced with short, sharp sentences.

  I annul my relationship with Amo.

  Each time her speech grew shorter, and sharper.

  I annul my relationship with the place once known as New LA.

  She accepted that New LA was gone. She accepted her responsibility.

  I annul my relationship with my children, and with the infant I am now carrying.

  The last round of changes stopped her. She looked up at Crow.

  "I can't say this," she said.

  His expression didn't change. No sympathetic smile. He was growing harder. "You have to, Lara. It doesn't mean you'll never see them. It just means they need time to recover. They need stability, peace, and when they see you, that peace is broken. They'll just see you screaming like yesterday. They'll see Amo with Drake's blood on his hands. You're unstable, and we want to protect them."

  Though she was numb, the tears still came. "Protect them from me?"

  Crow remained unsw
ayed. "Look at how they fared under you, Lara. They were starving. They were refugees. They were alone, because you were too busy driving and planning against Janine. You've been a poor mother, and we can't allow that to continue." He tapped the speech. "This is it, now. No changes. Deliver it well."

  He left her gasping.

  A bad mother.

  Unstable.

  Annulled.

  Food was pushed through her door, the same as before. A wet towel was pushed through her door. They gave her a bucket and tissue paper. She sat at the window and looked out over the wild White House lawns, more broken than she'd ever thought possible. There was always something more to lose.

  It didn't matter that she'd been fleeing a nuclear bomb. It didn't matter that Witzgenstein had been destroying supply caches. She had been a bad mother to her children. She hadn't made time. She hadn't been strong enough.

  She sat and dreamed of another time.

  She and Amo were strolling through the tall corn crops of Chino Hills, way back at their first harvest. She was only moments away from telling him, for the very first time, that she was pregnant, and the anticipation of it was making her sick. She'd been so excited, and it felt like every thing he said to her was a confession that yes, he already knew, he'd noticed, sorry to spoil the surprise.

  But it had been a surprise. When she told him he'd been floored. He'd laughed, then cried a little, then hugged her too hard and let go bashfully, then ate a piece of unripe corn and spat it out, and kissed her, and capered like an idiot and lifted her up then put her down, and perhaps it was one of her happiest moments ever.

  Annulled.

  Birds flickered across the greenery out there, like sprites in one of Amo's video games. He'd always tried to get her to play. Once she'd gone into the 'Darkness' with him and Cerulean and accepted the 'tour' they took her on, all three of them walking abreast down digital alleyways, collecting whatever their clicking little diviners popped up.

  "I don't get it," she'd said.

  "There's nothing to get," Amo had said. Cerulean had been laughing in the real world; she could hear him sitting next to her. "It's relaxing."

  "It's boring."

  "Boredom is a bandage," Cerulean said, through his warm chuckles. "Look, Blucy!"

  There was a girl with blue hair, but she wasn't doing anything special. She was just standing there. Lara strolled with them until even Amo was laughing too.

  "OK, yes, it's dull to a normal person," he admitted.

  "So this is what you guys do together all the time," she'd muttered, taking off the VR goggles. "I'd rather watch gray fuzz on the TV."

  Cerulean found that really funny. As she left the room, she heard him muttering quietly to Amo, "I used to watch the gray screen all the time."

  Another time.

  She ran her brittle fingers down her speech, so heavily rewritten by Witzgenstein. Every now and then she looked at it, but didn't really read it, just like the Bible.

  My name is Lara, and for thirteen years I have led you astray. I did this with the help of a demon named Amo. But that demon is now gone, and we are all free.

  I annul my relationship with Amo, the self-styled Last Mayor of America.

  For all that time, I believed that what I was doing was right. I now accept that everything we did only led us to the place we are now, with our home destroyed in an act of holy retribution.

  I annul my relationship with the place once known as New LA.

  In all these thirteen years, I have attempted to be a good mother, but I see that I have failed. In my very mother's milk I passed along the sickness of my possession, and there is only one way now to recover.

  I annul my relationship with my children, and with the infant I am now carrying.

  I hope one day to serve as an example to you all. I hope one day to be trusted amongst you all. Until then, I pledge my allegiance to the New United States of America, and to President Witzgenstein, and to you.

  I beg you. Please. Forgive me.

  They were just words. They were a way, and through them, if she showed how stable she could be, maybe she would see her children again. She stroked the paper, and held it close, and felt the insidious worm chewing its way into her. Distantly, in a faint and meaningless way, she could feel changes working on the hydrogen line all around her.

  Ever since the explosion on Drake's stage in New LA, things had been changing. The line had felt heightened somehow, charged with possibility, like the air before a storm. There had been changes in her to match, pieces of her mind shifting into new positions, but she'd been too occupied with her constant escape to consider them.

  Now she felt Witzgenstein's thoughts touching her. From a distance the smothering touch of her righteousness coated her like a kind of bridle, so that no matter how much she scrubbed with the damp towel, she couldn't get it off.

  It explained Crow. It explained this fog she felt.

  She found herself standing naked in front of the dark windows, long after dusk fell, looking at herself in the reflective glass. She had no memory of taking her clothes off, of the sun sinking, but none of that mattered. The feel of Witzgenstein was thick in the air, musky and cruel. In the glass she appreciated her own figure; a beautiful woman, still, if wasted by weeks of near starvation. Her hair was lush. Her breasts were full. Her swelling belly had a beauty of its own.

  She stroked her hands over her stomach, then down to the scratchy warmth between her legs, then up to cup her breasts. Her reflection mirrored her perfectly, a perfect twin. She ran her fingers through her hair, and gasped as the Lara in the mirror did the same.

  In all this, she felt scarcely more than a passenger. She watched from within as her body seethed in the dark. A viper, a snake in the grass, a dark delight. This was like reading from her speech, and accepting her hair being stroked, and becoming a stable person beneath Janine Witzgenstein's rule.

  When the door opened quietly, and Janine herself slipped into the room, Lara felt a strange kind of inevitability. Of course, this was where the world had led her. This made sense. After all the rest it was a natural culmination.

  Janine came over shyly. Her blue eyes shone with guilt and excitement. Her blond hair, usually tied so stiffly back in a braided ponytail, hung down around her shoulders. She came closer until she stood behind Lara, so the reflection of her body was covered in the dark glass by Lara's naked frame. She shivered, and reached out her hands to hover an inch above Lara's upper arms. Lara felt the tingle of her promised touch on her bare skin. Witzgenstein slid her fingers through the air over her shoulders, stroking the idea of Lara, never daring to touch skin, until her hands came to tangle in her hair, and tug.

  "Oh my," Witzgenstein whispered, her voice thick. "You have possessed me."

  Lara felt her own hands cup her breasts. Behind her Witzgenstein's breath raced, leaning in so close that her lips almost touched the nape of Lara's neck, burrowing through her hair. Lara hadn't been able to wash it properly for weeks, but the smoky, oily scent only drove Janine wilder. She breathed in deep lungfuls of it like it was a drug. Her hands strayed closer, circling tentatively round toward Lara's breasts, until-

  The slap came not in the real world, but in Lara's mind. Still she reeled with shock and pain. Now she was on her knees, and Witzgenstein stood above her, trembling with passion and rage.

  "Harlot," Janine whispered, relishing the word. "Dark whore."

  Lara gasped, and her thoughts stung, and she began to understand.

  "Temptress," Witzgenstein whispered, growing feverish, "sordid seed of the devil."

  Lara bowed her head. This, then, was the truth. This was stability. If she did this, and played her role well, then perhaps she would see her children.

  She nodded, accepting the insults and the guilt, accepting what had to be done. The desire there was plain, sweating off Witzgenstein and steaming into her. There was no choice now, and perhaps there never had been. There was only forward. She reached down to the hot place be
tween her own legs, and began to gently work her hands, and began to moan. Witzgenstein gasped and took a step backward.

  "Foul deceiver," she muttered hungrily, "spirit of Satan, halt!"

  Lara looked up now, meeting those sparkling blue eyes, and saw the control in them gutter in confusion, in lust restrained for a decade, perhaps a lifetime. Yes, there it was.

  Lara moaned as loud as she dared, rolling her shoulders back, spreading her thighs, and Witzgenstein backed further away, muttering and hissing, making signs of the cross and calling her a witch, a bitch, a gypsy, until finally she bolted out through the door, leaving Lara alone.

  Kneeling there naked in the Lincoln Bedroom, her hands on her knees, beaten down and humiliated, Lara began to cry, and then to laugh. Wild laughter burned a fresh trail of madness in her mind, starting off quietly but growing louder, as she saw that this was her path to emancipation. She laughed so loud that Witzgenstein would certainly hear, ripe with mockery and madness, and she was glad of it, because this was a power too.

  For the first time in weeks her head cleared of the fog that had filled it. All that time Witzgenstein's influence had been growing, creeping up in her like a cancer, making her weak-willed and uncertain. Now she saw what had to be done. She was the handmaiden, now, but every scrap of power she had, she would use.

  The bridle was there still, sputtering away in Lara's head where the line touched her, but now she saw it and studied it like a bug on a sample board, pinned in position with the memory of that hot lust in Witzgenstein's eyes. A lifetime of hunger, waiting to be tapped.

  She was equal to this.

  The apathy fell from her, and she saw a new way forward. It was not what she ever would have expected, nor what she could be proud of, but it was what she had. She leaned back and laughed loud, letting the rich sound chase Witzgenstein back down the hall to her lonely bedroom, in her lonely chambers at the far end of the White House, wrapped in her own secret sense of shame.

  Lara was going to get it all back. She would save her children and her people from this mad dictator, would take them away from Washington before a second missile could fall, and this was how.