TWENTY-TWO

 

 

DMITRI TSEPEN WAS drunk, again. Adriana Clief resisted the urge to slap his sagging face. The entire office smelled of beer, which meant he had spilled somewhere and the bots hadn’t found it yet. Or he had shut off the cleaning bots. He did that often, claiming they made too much noise.

Since they were programmed to be noiseless, she quite naturally didn’t believe him. But Dmitri Tsepen had excuses for everything, even though the excuses often didn’t make sense. If she were just a little more naïve, she would wonder how he ever became mayor of Glenn Station.

But she knew.

It was because of her.

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and studied him. His face was flushed, his head tilted back, his mouth open. He wasn’t quite snoring, but he would be soon. His reddish-blond hair was thinning and he hadn’t opted to enhance it, despite her nags. All his other enhancements were failing as well. The capillaries in his nose had broken, and if his eyes were open, they’d be red and rheumy.

The drink was overcoming everything, including the artificial means she had urged him to get to make sure no one else knew about his problem.

He was fifty years old, still young by any standard, and passed out like he was, he looked at least thirty years older.

She sighed. She could give him the stimulant booster, which would clear his head. She could then give him a special cleansing wash that would clear the beer stink from his mouth and pores. She could get him to wash his face, and put some whitener on his teeth, and she could remind him to smile.

But it wouldn’t do a lot of good.

Oh, he’d show up at the Anniversary Day luncheon speech he was already ten minutes late for, and he would give a rousing, inspiring rendition of his classic “No one can touch us! We’re the best people in the system!” speech, and everyone would cheer and applaud and he would wave to them, and for a moment, she would be buoyed, thinking he had finally heard them, finally understood how much his constituents loved him.

Then he would step out of the room, get into his limo, and look at her. He would say with a resigned sigh, They’ll applaud for any old crap, won’t they? and she would feel disappointed all over again.

Once upon a time, she had been a true believer. Once upon a time, she thought the right person in the right place could save the universe. Once upon a time, she had thought Dmitri Tsepen was the right person. She had believed in him so much she had given up a career-track job in public relations to manage him.

And he had been good back then. She had to believe that or she would think she had given up her life for nothing. She had gotten him elected, convinced him that he might want to run for governor-general the next time the job opened up, or maybe take a diplomatic post inside the Earth Alliance.

He had nodded at her, told her to plan it, told her she was the brains of the operation, told her he would listen to anything she presented.

And true to his word, he had listened.

He just hadn’t acted.

She sighed, staring at him. The room—his beloved inner sanctum—was dark, a book collection all around him. Expensive old books from Earth itself, rare and unusual and very valuable. Once he had told her he could spend the rest of his life in the dark, one light on his desk, a book beneath the light, a beer in his hand. Nothing more. Just a room, a desk, a light, a book, and a beer.

She had laughed, not realizing he was telling the truth.

She could wake him. It would be so simple. She could wake him and clean him up and send him to that damn speech.

Or she could let him sleep.

He would fail for the first time. He would probably fire her. He certainly wouldn’t listen to her entreaties to clean himself up, to go into a program, get a genetic manipulation, have one of those rehab enhancements that removed all cravings.

He liked his beer, or so he told her. And he really didn’t care about politics any more.

She did.

But she didn’t care about him.

Odd that she would realize it on a quiet day in the middle of the year. Nothing had tipped her over the edge, nothing had provoked her. She had just cleaned up his messes too many times.

She left his office, pulling the door closed behind her. Her office was across the hall in the City Building, and her office had windows, lots of light, and no old-fashioned collectibles at all. Her office smelled of flowers. Instead of pictures on the wall, she had screens, tuned to every news feed, constantly scanning for mentions of Tsepen or Glenn Station.

How long had she been the unofficial mayor?

Forever, it seemed. Maybe from the beginning. Certainly from the first time he looked at her, befuddled, asking her what he should do, asking if she could explain what the council meant, asking if she knew how to handle a situation.

She walked into her office, feeling shaken. Soon someone would contact her, wondering where he was. She wasn’t sure what she would say. That he was drunk? That he had passed out? That he had decided to blow off the speech?

Or maybe she would do what he always did, shut off her links and let events happen around her.

She sank into the comfortable chair behind her desk.

Then she looked up at the screens. They were all showing variations of the same image.

Something had happened in Armstrong. Again. On Anniversary Day.

She leaned forward and ordered the sound up on the nearest screen. Mayor Soseki was dead. The deputy mayor was assuring the city that everything was fine.

Clief felt cold.

Whenever Clief assured people that things were fine, they weren’t. They were worse than they had ever been. She was certain that Armstrong’s deputy mayor was doing the same.

Clief glanced at the closed door across the hall.

She should wake him and tell him the news.

She should.

But she wasn’t about to.

No matter what happened, she was done. She was completely, absolutely, and utterly done.