Faster on My Own: Chapter 41
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Steven asked if it was everything she thought it would be, and hoped to see shock, anger, even irritation, but Sam's face remained, as ever, neutral even as he gloated about how wrong she was, about how she’d sparked a civil war for nothing but the desire to challenge his indomitable will and still she didn’t say anything in response, so he walked around the desk and told Sam to tell him exactly what she thinks she’s done, if she believes she helped America rather than destroy the whole damn project, and when she didn’t answer he held a pistol in his good hand and pressed it to her temple and once again demanded a reply, demanded that she speak for what she’s done and show remorse for betraying her country, but instead she turned her head slow and creaky like a haunted doll until the gun rested in the direct center of her forehead; when Steven hoped to find fear in her eyes, he saw smoldering and in them he could see endless violence raining down upon his body, bones cracking, teeth plucked from his mouth, flames all around him, consuming him bit by bit, and he flinched and pulled the trigger to remove those eyes from him, and with a final bang, Sam’s body slumped onto the Resolute Desk, after which Steven dragged her out of the chair chair and tossed her out of the ground, since her rebellion had already delayed him long enough and he wasn’t going to let any misguided respect for her corpse slow him down further, plus he needed to be in the chair when the generals entered the room so he could bark his orders to round up the remaining enemy, that anyone beneath a lieutenant general would be given amnesty if they surrender, and to find him his doctor and his barber, since he had reason to believe his diet in captivity had given him scurvy and it had certainly ruined his hairstyle, but he had to settle for a new doctor and a new barber: both were among the first people Sam had killed once she took control, so he demanded new ones be found immediately, as he needed to look good to assure the public he once again had his hand on the wheel, and once the generals scattered to the wind–Steven did not bother to ask after his other staff members, now reasonably sure of their fate– someone came in with a white cloth to sop up the puddle of Sam’s blood from the desk, but when he was done, the section where it had spread shimmered with a read hue, and no amount of vigorous cleaning could ever remove that malicious shine from the desk.
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“I think we need to figure out our next steps,” Steven said to a circular wall of eyes, each pushing into another’s area with every blink. He tried to read the expression of the eyes, making contact with large and small as he spoke. “Obviously that whole coup was a problem. And it’s my fault, I admit. I consolidated a lot of power in Ms. Palmer’s hands. I thought she was equal to the ask, but she wasn’t.”
Some of the eyes rolled and others glared but none of them seemed pleased with Steven. That was okay. Being the leader meant taking the hits. “The good news is that the biggest revolution we’re likely to see for a while has been beaten. If we keep our house in order, here, I think we’ll be able to handle whatever other rebellion pops up.”The lights in the room dimmed to blood red. Steven could hardly see the pupils pointed toward him, or anything outside the circle of light that ended just outside of his feet. This room had been dormant once— the floor a pedestal, from which he could direct an endless supply of hands to carry out his will. In his time away, the ceiling had grown taller and the hands had disappeared. He was sure he could regain mastery over it with time. “I know, I know. All of our intelligence ran through Sam. So we’re operating blind for a while until we get our feelers out. But the Midwest is pacified, the East coast is pretty secure. I’ve gotten commitments from Prime Minister whoever-the-fuck up north to help us rebuild our Air Force. Our window of danger is about six months.”
Steven was lying, of course. He knew, and the eyes knew, that their army was a third of what it used to be with no prospect of new recruits. If another city declared itself independent and simply dug in, rather than piling their entire army into a convoy out in the open, they wouldn’t have the ground troops necessary to take back the city. And once one pops up, others would be sure to follow. Perhaps that was the reason the eyes’ gaze drilled so relentlessly into Steven. It had been too long since he had to pacify a room of angry subordinates, and he just hadn’t taken the right approach.
“Okay. We’re in a bad spot. That’s true. You know that as well as I do.” The eyes were looking more at each other than him now. A good sign or bad? Steven now imagined all of the soldiers sitting around with nothing to do. It had been easy enough to convince many soldiers to betray him the first time. Yes, maybe it was good to get them out in the field rather than hanging around DC, waiting to be intrigued upon. But would sending them away be too much for any remnants of the revolution to handle? Like deer standing up for the first time, any new cadres were unlikely to be able to endure an assault. But maybe they were the problem. The entire method of organization was flawed, and the only true revolution would have to be spontaneous and wild, the beautiful manifestation of an entire class’s anger and desire for justice. Yes, this was his chance.
“We do have another option. Personally, I think we should hang back, lick our wounds. But you like action. I understand that. So we could, and I’m stressing could here, send the troops out to crush the rest of the ULF. Clean sweep of everyone who might be involved.” But the eyes just looked bored now. Something was wrong. They should be engaged, or excited, or even angry, but they looked past Steven. Was he not the relevant speaker at that moment? Shouldn’t they have been hanging on his word, or at least expressing discontent? The looks the eyes exchanged earlier must have meant something. “Excuse me for a moment. There are some health effects of my captivity that I haven’t gotten over yet. I need to deal with them.”
Steven rushed out of the door. He needed to get things moving now. The generals were against him now, he was certain. He’d have to bypass them.