Chapter Fifty-Four: Bruce’s Call
Bruce knew who to send the video to. And yet, he hesitated. Toby would be furious when the effects of the Eth wore off, but he’d get over it. He always did.
“Bruce.” Toby had joined him up front. “We need to go over some of the things in this speech.”
“What’s the problem?” Bruce asked.
“We’re in Afghanistan, right?”
“Yes.”
“An Islam country, right?”
“Right.”
“A conservative country, right?”
“Of course.” Bruce didn’t like the way this sounded.
“So, how come in Afghanistan, a conservative, Islam country, where we’re about to expose the president of the planet as being gay, there’s not a word about it in our speech?”
“What’s the point? The video speaks for itself. If you go out there and let them know you are for equal rights for gays, or yags as they prefer, that just offsets the video. They may even vote for a gay person who’s against gay rights, over a non-gay person who’s for gay rights.”
Toby was shaking his head. “I don’t want to just beat Dubois. I want to crush him. We’re switching sides. The huge majority of people in Islam Nation do not believe in yag rights, so neither do we. We’re not just going to win, we’re going to destroy Dubois so people like him and Ajala think twice before challenging us in five years.”
This was the man he wanted to put in office? It was like Dubois at his worst. Bruce stared in horrified fascination as Toby reworked the speech.
The real Toby would be back soon. But not soon enough.
“Looks great,” he told Toby of the latest addition to the stump speech. “I’ll be up front—I need to take care of some stuff while you work on this.”
“Of course,” Toby said. “Come back when you’re done.”
He called ahead to let the advance team know that Toby was sick, and they’d have to miss the first appearance in Kandahar. He wasn’t letting Toby off the Rocinante until the Eth effects were gone.
* * *
There was no rush to get to Antarctica, with its small population. So they spent Tuesday night in Muscat, Oman, awaiting results.
“We could have won the whole thing, just like that,” Bruce said on Wednesday morning. He had the look of someone who’d won the lottery but missed the deadline and got nothing.
“I’d have ordered your execution as my first act as president,” Toby said. “Still, it was tempting. Why didn’t you send the video out?”
“If I’d sent that out, you wouldn’t have been president,” Bruce said. “Some doppelganger who looks like you and sometimes acts like you would have taken the office, but the Toby I want as president would have been dead.”
“And after my doppelganger had you executed, we’d both be dead. So you just did the logical thing and saved both our lives.”
“Yup.” Bruce grabbed another of his endless supply of ping-pong balls and put it in his prosthetic hand, where he now held nine. He rotated the hand about to show that all of the balls were held, not just balanced on top. “I can do eleven with my normal hand.”
“Once the Eth wore off, I would have been back to normal.”
“If you’d won the election from the Dubois sex video, you’d have fired me. Then you’d have nobody around you could trust to both know the truth and tell the truth.”
“So…you are the only one I can trust?”
“Yup.” He stuck another ball in the prosthetic hand, and they all fell to the ground in a bouncing clatter. “Damn!” Stupid came racing over, batting at the balls with his front legs.
Toby wasn’t so sure about trusting Bruce in all things, not after the promises he’d made to Vasquez and the advice he’d given to Tyler. He’d also heard rumors about him and the Indian underworld. However, he did need him, even if he had to keep him on a short chain, about two inches long. When the Eth first wore off, he’d threatened to cook and feed Bruce to the Australians. And yet, after he finished screaming at him, Bruce pointed out that he’d followed Toby’s original, pre-Eth wishes. At the key moment, Bruce did the right thing and didn’t release the video. He hadn’t dropped the ball.
Maybe Bruce and Lara should get back together. They shared the same “trick Toby into taking Eth” hobby.
The most interesting thing about the whole situation were the actions of Rajan Persson. Toby remembered how Dubois treated him, and it must have been obvious to Persson that Dubois wasn’t going to back him for president in five years. So Persson had taken matters into his own hands, and tried to knock Dubois out of the race. If Dubois won, he would pretty much name his successor. If he lost, then he’d be out of the picture, and Persson would be the Conservative front runner for 2105.
Bruce looked up from fighting Stupid for possession of ping-pong balls. “Results are coming in.”
A moment later, he had a silly grin on his face.
“We won?” Toby said incredulously. “I’m president?”
“Nope.”
Toby’s whole body drooped. It was over. “How bad did we lose?”
“You didn’t. In fact, you clinched the worldwide popular vote.”
“Bruce, I can still have you executed if you don’t talk straight. You said I didn’t win?”
“It’s much better than winning. You won Pakistan and Afghanistan, but lost Oman and the rest. It’s a tie.”
Bruce still had the silly grin on his face. “How is that better than winning?” Toby asked.
“It’s the Satan Scenario,” Bruce said. “I can’t wait to explain that to Twenty-two! You won 67 electoral votes, he won 144, and so it’s all tied up, 666 to 666!”
So it would all be decided by the single electoral vote in Antarctica. He’d have to call Olivia and Tyler and let them know it’d be another week before he could come home.
| Islam Nation | Electoral Votes | Dubois | Platt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | 18 | 49% | 51% |
| Algeria | 7 | 64% | 36% |
| Bahrain | 1 | 67% | 33% |
| Burkina Faso | 8 | 72% | 28% |
| Chad | 4 | 62% | 38% |
| Cyprus | 1 | 65% | 35% |
| Djibouti | 1 | 63% | 37% |
| Egypt | 18 | 71% | 29% |
| Gambia | 1 | 64% | 36% |
| Guinea | 5 | 59% | 41% |
| Iran | 14 | 74% | 26% |
| United Iraq | 11 | 73% | 27% |
| Jordan | 2 | 70% | 30% |
| Kuwait | 1 | 65% | 35% |
| Lebanon | 1 | 62% | 38% |
| Libya | 2 | 74% | 26% |
| Mali | 8 | 59% | 41% |
| Mauritania | 1 | 66% | 34% |
| Morocco | 6 | 61% | 39% |
| Oman | 1 | 51% | 49% |
| Pakistan | 49 | 48% | 52% |
| Palestine | 1 | 70% | 30% |
| Qatar | 1 | 71% | 29% |
| Saudi Arabia | 8 | 77% | 23% |
| Senegal | 5 | 69% | 31% |
| Somalia | 5 | 63% | 37% |
| Syria | 6 | 69% | 31% |
| Tunisia | 2 | 59% | 41% |
| Turkey | 11 | 55% | 45% |
| Un. Arab Emir. | 1 | 64% | 36% |
| Yemen | 11 | 66% | 34% |
| TOTAL | 211 | 144 | 67 |