Most Revolutionary - Chapter Four
A Desperate Act
Previously: Sabia threatens to kidnap President Kristen Silver to ransom a better world. Sabia tries to enlist her abuelo Roca in the wild plan.
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
President Silver's mind splinters – all activity, no focus. She leans on the oak kitchen counter in the Perez family survival bunker and touches her fingers to her forehead.
Her staff is dead, except for her campaign manager Ellen Lin beside her now.
She can only take Roca's word for the catastrophe in the blizzard. She can think of no reason not to believe him. She’s not sure what it means. An assassination attempt? An accident? Or is it all a hallucination?
Governing wasn’t supposed to be like this. You get elected, you gain the authority to go where you want, do what you want, be who you want to be. You worked hard for it. You’re supposed to rule people, not be hounded by them. Tracked down. Chased. Attacked. Had the nation always been so uncivil?
Of course the history of the country was drenched in blood, but could not the past ever be the past. When? Should the past not always be kept there? Why keep dragging the Civil War into the present moment?
Not to be dismissive about it but to President Kristen Silver, throwing the bloody past at the promising new present was so uncivil, not to mention inconsiderate and inconvenient. Of course she could never tell anyone her true feelings, or her personal view of history, but she was no martyr, no hero. Hell, she wasn’t even much of a problem solver. She just wanted to live a good life calling the shots. Because why anyone else? Who more capable than her? Why not Kristen Silver? How could leading a country be all that complicated, especially one as powerfully and globally dominant as the US, especially when she had all the help in the world to do so, more help then she could possibly ever get to know or even personally use?
Well now her security detail is dead. And her close staff. Each and every one but one, or they would be with her now helping her.
Her campaign is stopped cold, in the middle of miserable Iowa, in the middle of this God-forsaken country, whereas before the campaign had merely flailed because her staff kept making mistakes. That’s all beside the point now. Her world is entirely blown up. How can it be fixed from a hidden bunker?
Worse - the nation is being run in the moment of her near oblivion by that panderer to the people, that sneaky menace of a Vice President, Alecta O'Roura-Chavez.
If Alecta were not already sworn in, she soon would be, usurping President Silver’s position, the top job in the world. Silver always knew in her very blood and bones that it was a mistake to pick O’Roura-Chavez for VP. Or for anything. But the things you do to get elected.
Silver’s husband, Trent Dandeen – well, except for the purposes of the campaign and the flourishes of Office, Kristen and Trent, former college lovers, they’re now estranged, living together in jarring isolation. Any bombing and near assassination attempt would be unlikely to affect that relationship in the slightest.
So, there’s that certainty. She can remain in control of her personal life. She always could do that. Mostly by not having one. And now in a batshit crazy coal mine bunker. A survivalist nut job hole in the ground. Deep down beneath nowhere.
That’s where President Kristen Silver finds herself now. Leader of the world. Chief ruler. Top of the heap.
She stares at the natural grain pine cabinets and the unvarnished pine knobs above the old oak kitchen counter.
“I need to get out of here,” she says to the cabinets.
She wanders through the kitchen, examines its dowdy rustic surfaces. She runs her fingers along the old scarred refrigerator. She's thirsty. She opens the door to the refrigerator and finds it empty. It smells funky – stale, synthetic.
“Should we plug it in?” she says to her campaign manager Ellen Lin.
“I don’t see why,” says Lin. “We won't be here long.”
“Sabia’s playhouse. That Sabia-”
“She’s different.”
“Scary,” says Silver.
“She’s young and passionate. She’s had no professional training. She's no … professional.” Lin remembers her colleagues. “Our poor staff. Honestly, Kristen, it feels like nothing is headed anywhere good these days.”
“We’re paid to say otherwise, Ellen. And you know it. Appearances count. More than reality. Appearances are reality. Even if unreal.”
“It's so wrong.”
“The donors, Ellen. It’s their world. Bought and sold. We’re just living in it.”
“Some of us.”
President Silver opens the refrigerator door, again, stares inside. It’s empty. She uses two hands to slam it closed.
Lin walks to the bunker door, tries the handle. The door doesn’t budge. She tries again. She hesitates, then turns to Silver.
“Are we locked in?”
Silver stares.
Lin wrestles with the handle, can't budge the door.
“We fucking are.”
Flat on his back on the stone floor where Sabia has thrown him, Roca holds up his hands to try to calm his nieta. She stares down at him unrelenting.
“Sabia, Sabia, if you really want to do such a thing … if you think this is what you can live with forever … or die with at any moment … if you really want to go all in … then you need to imprison yourself too. It’s only fair. Get in the bunker and be trapped like the President herself. If you’re willing to lock anyone down then you should be willing to lock yourself down too.”
“How do I know you won’t give me up to the cops when the blizzard clears?”
“Because you’ll kill my plants and trees, my decades of growth, my inventory, experiments, my treasures. You’re like your mother. You throw flames with your mouth, then with your hands. Okay, I’m old. My work here is all but done. You’re 18, an adult. How can I protect you from making wrong decisions? Think though. What are you doing? At what cost?”
“You’ll lock the bunker on me and the President, and you’ll tell no one anything?”
“Will you give up your freedom? You can chew on Silver 24/7 in the mine. Hold her accountable.”
“And you can tell the FBI I went out to the bus and died in the explosion. I’ll figure out a way to deliver an anonymous ransom demand. Can I trust you on this?”
“I’ll give you what you want, Sabia. And we’ll both live or die with the consequences.”
“Let’s go then. Come on, Abuelo. I'm sorry.”
Sabia helps Roca up off the floor.
They return down the hall to the bunker. Sabia opens the door. She hugs Roca.
“I'm so sorry, Abuelo.”
Sabia spins Roca and throws him inside the bunker with Silver and Lin.
They're all stunned.
Sabia slams the door, locks the bunker again from the outside, drawing a bar across the door.
Sabia stares at the locked door.
“The fuck am I doing?”
Sabia turns away from the door.
“The fuck am I going?”
Sabia stares up the hallway.
“You’re on the road to Hell, Son,” Sabia says to herself.
She nods.
“So be it. I’ll have lots of company there. Some good company too.”
Ailing Vice President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez sits up painfully in bed and grabs her buzzing phone. “Alecta,” she says.
Secret Service Director William Kingsley calls from his living room where he stands in the middle of the couches and chairs facing a blank big screen TV. “This is Secret Service Director William Kingsley, Ms. Vice President, we’ve got a problem-”
“I've been waiting for a call, Director. Did the President hit a cow?”
“A cow would be manageable, Ma'am. I'm afraid there's no confirmation on that. Or anything else.”
“Poor cow,” says Alecta. “President Silver and I were discussing strategy on the phone, then I heard screaming, then Kristen got back on the phone and guessed a cow. Then we got cut off. I couldn't reach her again.”
“It could be a cow.”
“You don't believe it.”
“There are reports of an earthquake in the vicinity.”
“A what?”
“The seismographic readings are clear.”
“What would that do to Ground Force One?”
“We're looking at all contingencies. We need to. We've lost contact for too long.”
“I was supposed to be on that bus.”
“There's procedure to follow. We need to swear you in, Ma’am. As Acting President. We've got your hotel and hallway blanketed with additional agents, Ma'am.”
Alecta looks to the window, and the storm.
“No, Director. This is too much. There’s no presidential decisions to be made in the middle of the night. President Silver would flip out if she knew.”
“It's not necessarily tonight we're worried about, Ma'am. This whiteout – no one expected the severity, this situation-”
“Bring the President safely into Des Moines and I’m sure that Kristen Silver's first post-storm decision will be to retain you as Director, Director Kingsley.”
“You’re very gracious, Ma’am. In the meantime, Ms. Vice President, we need to swear you in. It can’t wait.”
Alecta looks again to the storm.
Sabia returns to the great room after locking down President Silver, Ellen Lin, and her abuelo Roca.
She gathers the pieces of Roca’s broken phone and collects his winter wear – coat, boots, gloves.
She carries the items onto the porch.
From there, she staggers against the wind and snow of the blizzard.
Fuel-soaked fragments of Ground Force One continue to burn.
Sabia throws Roca’s gear and phone on flames and molten metal. She returns to the farmhouse as the blizzard buries all.
Focused. Sabia moves quickly in the underground home. She strips, washes her clothes, uses extra detergent. She calls 911, to no effect.
Sabia showers. She rubs soap vigorously everywhere on her body as if she were scrubbing the most stubborn patches of the bathroom floor. Then more sentimentally, she washes the tattoos of power fists on both shoulders, her back, glutes, and left calf. She's a picture. A picture of resistance. On the palm of her left hand where she can see it all the time is Sabia's most painful tattoo, a colorful power fist at which she often looks.
Other revolutionary and socialist tattoos adorn her body: belly, thighs, ribs. Her left breast is a bursting sun because it makes her feel not only powerful but happy.
She towels off and throws her towel in with her newly cleaned clothes and rewashes everything. She sterilizes her phone and laptop with hydrogen peroxide.
“Fucking scent dogs,” she says. “I see you.”
Sabia almost forgets. The storm won’t knockout the landline forever. She disconnects the landline to the phone in the great room, which also cuts the bunker phone.
Sabia then goes through the mud room door and enters the farmhouse through the disguised basement door. She strips again, throws her clothes in the farmhouse washer, and showers once more.
“Fucking scent dogs, coming for you, girl. Fucking White Empire.”
Afterward, Sabia mops the floors.
Sabia remembers a day on the lawn behind the school a couple years ago: a male classmate menaces her and her eco friends as they work on signs for a demonstration. He leans into Sabia, shoving her away from her sign. Sabia pushes back, moving him off her, then circles away, as he pursues.
Sabia holds up the tattooed power fist on the open palm of her left hand, and waves it as if she's taunting him or going to slap. When the bully looks at her small hand and colorful tattoo and begins to laugh, she punches him on the nose with her right fist, straightening her arm and extending her whole body into the punch, leaping forward from her torso, legs, and toes.
Blood everywhere. The bully reaches for his nose. Sabia hits him then with her left fist, knocking him down, where he screams and stays.
Sabia prepares hot herbal tea in the farmhouse kitchen.
Fucking assholes. Bigoted Bros who punk around, and worse, while the world burns.
Sabia tries 911 again. No communication. Any emergency responders might as well be dead. Authorities. They so often don't come when needed. Or don't exist in the first place. Blizzard or no blizzard. And yet the ones who do parade about tout how great they are.
Sabia dials 911 for the fuck of it. Wiped off the face of the Earth. When the cops bust in on her tomorrow, she can say she constantly tried to raise the dead who could not be raised. And she can say a lot of things beside.
Sabia sits at the table to wait out the night. She watches the storm through a window with blinds open, listens to the blizzard scream and whine, the old house creak.
She sips tea.
She thinks forward and outward to the dawn, forget the bunker. What's past is past. And buried.
The future is coming, hard, and will need to be dealt with when it does.
Fifty feet of sandstone, silt-stone, and hard cold shale directly beneath Sabia sit President Silver, Ellen Lin, and Roca Perez.
Silver shakes her head. Lin clasps her hands to her face. Roca looks depressed.
“Jesus Christ, Roca. What the fuck?” says President Silver.
“She had a bad draw in life,” says Roca. “Lack of universal health care probably killed Sabia’s mother, my daughter. She blames politics for that.”
“Who will she blame when the cops shoot her in the head for kidnapping the President?”
“Can we dig our way out?” says Lin.
President Silver searches, finds a metal ladle in a drawer. She bangs on a pipe that runs down from the sink.
“The pipes drain into the mine, down not up,” says Roca. “No one can hear us, or feel anything.”
“Let’s find out.”
“You might hear a gunshot miles away in the air. You won’t hear or feel a thing through 50 feet of stone.”
“We’re buried alive,” says Lin.
“What if we set something on fire?” says Silver.
“Death,” Roca says. “No one would know. Sound-dampened vents go into the hallway, which itself is soundproof. The hallway vents to the root cellar below the underground house. And that vents into the crawl space beneath the tool shed. By the time even a trace of smoke got outside, if it ever did, we would all be dead. So, unless you want to assassinate yourself….”
“There must be some way out,” says Lin.
“We’re in a bunkered coal mine. Understand. It’s not on any map. On the bright side, we're entirely safe and secure.”
President Silver throws the ladle onto the kitchen counter. “Sabia is going to pay for this.”
Vice President O’Roura-Chavez relaxes in bed in sweats, scrolls through her tablet. A notification buzzes on her phone.
“This can’t be.” She slips out of bed, opens the door. “Agent Aquino. Come in.”
Secret Service Agent Ernesto Aquino steps inside far enough to allow the door to close behind him. “Ma'am. Your Chief of Staff and Press Secretary will be here soon. The judge too.”
“How long has it been, Ernesto?”
“Last contact with Ground Force One and President Silver was more than two hours ago.”
“This crazy stormfront. Terrible whiteout.”
Knock on the door.
Agent Aquino admits additional secret service agents and Alecta's Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori along with other staff and guards. All professionally dressed. Shakeeta Glazier holds a folder.
“You've got more color in your face now, Alecta. You look better,” Shakeeta says. Then she glances at Alecta's sweats. “Poor choice of clothes.”
“My dear Chief of Staff, Shakeeta, why don't you tell me what you really think,” says Alecta.
Alecta takes the hands of Shakeeta and Tisha.
“Beware the salsa,” says Tisha. “I told you.”
“If I had only listened.”
Another knock on the door that Agent Aquino answers. A state police officer gestures to the woman beside him. “State of Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice, Melanie Lockhart.”
All business, the Chief Justice doesn't hesitate to enter.
Alecta and Lockhart shake hands. Lockhart seems stern, weary, and vaguely hostile but courteous.
“Sorry to bring you out into the storm,” says Alecta.
“That was no sleigh ride through the city. I can’t imagine being stuck in the countryside tonight like President Silver.”
“Chief Justice Lockhart, meet my Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori.”
“Chief Justice,” says Shakeeta.
“Your Honor,” says Tisha.
Lockhart remains courteous and remote while shaking hands. “Our prairie storms are no joke. President Silver is finding out the hard way.”
“I'm sure she'll get through soon,” says Alecta. “I can’t imagine that any of this is really necessary.”
Agent Aquino offers his phone to the Vice President. “Director Kingsley goes by the book, Ma’am. Would you like to speak with him again?”
“It's fine, Agent, thank you.”
Shakeeta hands Alecta the folder she has been holding. “The Oath of Office.”
“I’ll sign in front of everyone, and we’re done. A pen.”
Shakeeta hands Alecta a pen. Alecta signs the oath, closes the folder, hands the pen and folder back to Shakeeta. No one moves. An awkward silence.
Chief Justice Lockhart: “Ma’am, legally, you must orally recite the oath to become President – Acting President in your case. You cannot simply sign off on it. That’s Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the US Constitution: 'Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation….'”
“That's ridiculous,” says Alecta. “The President's bus will be plowed out any time now. The storm will break.”
“Yes, well, until then, you will be President,” says Lockhart, “I hauled myself out of bed in the middle of a Midwestern blizzard for one reason and one reason only, to make you the Acting President of the United States of America. We need to do it, get it, make it legal.”
“I’m not dressed for this. I’m sick.” Alecta increasingly feels the enormity of the situation. “No pictures.”
“Alecta.” says Shakeeta. “We can take time for you to dress. People want to see power perform the way it is legally bound to perform. However temporary, this moment is historic.”
Tisha Noori steps forward and puts a hand on Alecta's shoulder. “It's bigger than you,” says Tisha. “And, you know, Press Secretary to the Acting President of the United States of America sounds plenty good to me.”
Alecta grabs her stomach. “Oh, Hell.”
She sits on the edge off the bed. She leans forward and vomits.
Agent Aquino directs three Secret Service agents to tend to Alecta. One agent wipes Alecta's mouth with his handkerchief. Another shuttles soap, towels, and tissues from the bathroom. The third uses the towels to clean the floor.
Chief Justice Lockhart removes her heavy winter coat and then unwraps her colorful crochet shawl.
“Stand her up,” says Lockhart. “Come on.”
A couple agents help Alecta from the bed.
Chief Justice Lockhart wraps her shawl around Alecta's sweatshirt.
“Video of the shawl and up only,” says Tisha. A videographer adjusts accordingly. Tisha hands Alecta a glass of water and an empty glass. Alecta swishes water in her mouth and spits into the glass. Shakeeta is somewhat appalled. Tisha relays the cups away.
Chief Justice Lockhart: “Does this room have a Bible?”
“I’ve got something better,” says Shakeeta.
Shakeeta takes Alecta's tablet from the bed and holds it high.
“Not a tablet,” says Lockhart.
“Name your text,” says Shakeeta.
“You know what I want,” says Alecta.
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” says Tisha.
“You got it,” says Shakeeta.
Shakeeta opens the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and then she and Tisha hold the tablet in front of Alecta who puts her left palm on it.
“When in Rome,” says Chief Justice Lockhart, disapprovingly. Then Lockhart recites: “'I do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States-'”
“'I do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States-'”
“'-and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'”
“'-and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'”
Shakeeta and Tisha lower the tablet.
“How does it feel to be Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez?” says Lockhart.
Alecta throws her head back suddenly, eyes wide.
“Oh, shit,” says Shakeeta.
“Great,” says Alecta. She holds out her arms for balance. “Help me now.”
Alecta drops to the bed, leans forward, throws up again, splattering vomit on the shawl.
Chief Justice Lockhart is horrified.
In the Perez farmhouse kitchen, Sabia sits at the table cupping hot tea. She powers on a battery radio, hunches over it, tries to hear static-filled reports.
Sabia of course can't know know it, but she happens to be wearing sweats reminiscent of Alecta's oath-affirmation garb in the Kansas City hotel.
For a moment the signal strengthens, and Sabia holds the radio to her ear:
“It’s as if President Silver and her campaign bus Ground Force One have been swallowed whole. Rescue plows have yet to push through the blizzard. Massive snow drifts block all attempts to reach the President's last known location. Meanwhile, the reports of an earthquake in the vicinity have been confirmed with significant Richter scale readings. Construction and military grade heavy machinery are moving in. The National Guard is mobilized. It’s simply astounding that weather can make such an impact in this day and age. It's as if the weather is shaking the Earth itself.”
“Climate collapse, anyone?” says Sabia. “They have no idea. A total shit-storm.”
Sabia turns off the radio.
She lies down on a couch in the living room near the kitchen to try to sleep.
She stares at the colorful power fist on her left palm. She clenches it and thinks of her Mamá. She falls asleep.
Director Kingsley watches reports of the missing President and Ground Force One on TV. His phone rings. He answers while muting the TV.
“Grace, tell me the good news.”
“None of that, Sir.”
“What are the odds the bus drove into an earthquake?”
“Still unknown, Sir.”
“Really.”
“Slim to none, likely.”
“Grace, we need to be in Des Moines at dawn. Even if by snowmobile or sled dog.”
“Yes, Sir.” Lamont hesitates. “It may come to that, Sir.”
Kingsley ends the call. “Shit.”
He considers his next move very carefully. There are some people, some officials, some offices, some positions you should avoid, always avoid, if at all possible.
Christ. Doing so, now, feels no longer possible. So he phones FBI Director Maxmilian Castelan.
“FBI, as it were,” Castelan answers. “Director Kingsley. Awful late, isn’t it?”
“Max. Is there anything I should know?”
“You should know where the President is, Director.” Castelan sounds haughty and domineering at an inappropriate time but he is often like that so Kingsley ignores it.
“Is it an earthquake or a bomb?” says Kingsley.
“How in Hell can I know. Or anyone, at this point.”
“I thought you might have an idea.”
For a long while, FBI Director Castelan says nothing.
“We’ll know soon enough, Director Kingsley, all about the President.”
Kingsley stares at the phone. He hangs up.
He knows. Something. Kingsley mutters to himself. “Shit.” Whatever there is to know. He knows.
Kingsley turns away from the TV.
It's not the first time that FBI Director Castelan has caused Secret Service Director Kingsley's guts to implode. He’s certain it won’t be the last.
