Faster on my Own: Chapter 27
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After Ben’s untimely accident, as Steven had begun thinking about it shortly after he completed the murder, Steven found the administrative burden Ben had worked under to be unbearable. Four different assistants burnt out in the course of two years. Reasoning that if he kept cycling through them at that rate, he’d definitely end up hiring an assassin, Steven reluctantly separated the job into four parts. Though his office ran smoothly, Steven missed the pleasure of a confidant, someone he could tell, selectively, the horrible things that he was forced to do and consider without them recoiling in horror. None of his new assistants fit the bill, and for two years he kept a journal in which he scrawled all of his torments, then burned upon completion.
Then he met Sam. Her cheekbones and jawline both looked as though they’d been sharpened, and her deep black eyes suggested that she might have done it herself. She entered his office as a liaison between Steven and the generals, none of whom wanted to develop a personal relationship with Steven after the fate that befell the first Chairman. Sam detailed the operations, and Steven noticed a hint of a smile, much like the Mona Lisa’s, as she described flushing a pocket of resistance out of Richmond, Virginia. Then he noticed the flushed cheeks or a breath just too heavy whenever she confirmed it: revolutionary cell found, attacked, no survivors. Within a month, he started asking her advice on strategy, and soon after suggested that she have a permanent office in the White House.
A year later, she was at his right hand whenever he made a decision. Steven found his thoughts developed better when he passed them through conversation with Sam, and she seemed to enjoy being part of the process. Now, she did not deliver messages from the generals, but to them. When the time came to plan the destruction of a small rebellion— it was a far-right group which intended to restore “the original Constitution” including, Steven deduced, slavery— he left the entire plan to her. All he had to do was tell her to take care of them, and two weeks later she reported their destruction.
So when she brought him information about a small left-wing cell, Steven expected to hear about their arrest immediately after. But instead, she said, “Two police dead, the rest conspicuously out of position as the terrorists escaped. When I questioned the squad, they directed me to the chief, who told me it was a miscommunication. It’s possible that he’s telling the truth. But only possible. If he’s compromised in any way, I’ll find out eventually.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Good work.” Steven leaned back in his chair, a wider one than the leather roller he originally brought with him into the office. Some days he thought a rocking chair would be nice, but knew it would send the wrong message. Even as dictator, especially as dictator, he needed to project an image of total control, not a fattening middle-aged man who can’t stay awake.
Sam laid pictures on his desk. “These are the known members of the cell. Arnold Wallace. Juan, last name unknown. Charlotte Corday, but I believe that’s an alias. Thomas Gershwin, Roddy Smith.” Pointing a finger at Wallace, she said, “He appears to be the leader.” “I see.” Steven couldn’t tear his eyes away from the picture of Charlotte. How did she manage to keep popping up? “Any chance there’s an Ashwin Shethi involved?”
“No one with that name yet, but I can look deeper.”
“Thank you. What are their goals? Is it a black liberation thing, or maybe some sort of states rights play?” There was no way Charlotte could hurt him now. The last five years had been so full of slander that nothing she could say about him would be believed.
“Left-wing. Communists, I believe. Looking to generally dissolve the state, unclear if they’re part of a network. The police flushed them out of their base in the back of some restaurant, but they didn’t have anyone around the front of the building. I’ve instructed some more capable men to track them down.” Her wrist twitched toward her face in the blink of an eye. “It’s five, sir. Time for your speech.”
“Ah, of course.” Steven arose from his desk and walked down the hall, with Sam one step behind him. He could hear her thighs rubbing purposefully together. Precision was its own reward, he supposed. The walls, colored a white just barely tinted orange, disgusted Steven. They had from the moment he arrived. He was so focused on his job, then, that he hadn’t even paid attention to his surroundings. Now, Steven chuckled when he thought how naive he’d been, to think that the revolution might come as soon as he won the job. Spontaneous uprisings are too unpredictable, too easily diffused, to expect one to just arise. And no promising left-wing cells seemed to be incubating, though Steven was intrigued to have Charlotte’s name come up again. He had decided to just forget she existed after that night, much like when he started The Plan. It’d been a while since he referred to it as The Plan in his thoughts. After a while, it became less a goal or set of steps and more the air he breathed, the water he drank.
When Steven entered the speech room, formerly the briefing room where press secretaries and reporters would engage in the dullest battle of wits the world had ever seen, he took a deep breath. Even without a crowd, these speeches took a lot out of him. He hadn’t foreseen the energy it required to be a dictator, to bear the entirety of a government’s legitimacy without any help from storied institutions. Steven stepped through the entrance of the prop balcony and said, “What a crowd here today. Thank you, all of you, for your patriotism. It’s thanks to you that our nation has never been stronger.” He gestured to the cameras, though viewers would believe he was waving to a hundred thousand people.
The rest of the speech was boilerplate. Glory of the nation, strength, enemies within, and so on. No one gained much of anything from the speeches, but Steven had to keep the people worked up. Soon the speeches would cease to assure people that he was making them strong, or whatever it was they thought they wanted, and recognize them as the empty words of a man bleeding their country dry. Maybe then, they would rise up.