Beast Machine (49 page)

“
Thank you for your
cooperation,” said Chelsey with a digital smile. “You were most
hopeful.” She stood close to an electrical outlet and placed her
finger inside. Her body disappeared into the outlet.

Chapter 41
Lion Becomes Lamb

Chairman Obelis stood in
front of a mirror.

He did not speak but he
mimicked hand movements that he would make during a speech. His
hands rose to his head. His eyes peered around waiting for a
reaction from the nonexistent crowd. He cleared his throat and
adjusted his tie.

“
Damn thing is so tight,”
said Chairman Obelis. The black tie was loosened and he returned to
mimicking a speech into his mirror.

A faint knock came from
behind him.
Ka-tunk
. Chairman Obelis didn’t budge from his spot in front of the
mirror.

“
Sir,” said Jeffrey
quietly. “Are you ready to head to the women’s shelter to make your
victory speech?”

“
It’s not really a true
victory speech,” said Chairman Obelis. He turned around to face
Jeffrey. “Though, I’d have slaughtered both of them.” He smirked
and playfully walked over to Jeffrey. They embraced. “I apologize
for how harsh I’ve been during this process.” He leaned in and
kissed Jeffrey softly. “When we make the run for president I’ll do
my best to not be harsh toward you. But that’ll be a whole new
world of anxiety.”

Jeffrey’s pants tightened
and he blushed, “Thank you, sir. I’d appreciate that.” He gulped
quickly. “When will you be ready?”

“
In a few minutes,
Jeffrey,” said Chairman Obelis. He smiled at Jeffrey, straightened
his tie, and returned to the mirror.

“
Sounds good,” said
Jeffrey. “When will we be dealing with that bear Thane captured a
few nights ago?” Jeffrey leaned against the doorframe. “What about
the woman that killed Silva? What will we do about her?”

Still facing the mirror,
Chairman Obelis said, “We should send her a gift basket – she took
out Silva for us.” Jeffrey laughed awkwardly. “Now we don’t have
that blood on our hands, technically. Though, I would’ve just had
Thane do it anyway. He never liked Silva.”

“
So what do you think of it
all?”

“
All of what?”

“
This woman invading the
mine,” said Jeffrey. He paused. “She clearly wanted something in
there. Does she know about the Carda Implant? Is she working for
The Flagship?”

Chairman Obelis left his
position in front of the mirror again and came to Jeffrey’s side.
He placed his hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder. “We have nothing to worry
about with this woman and her little miscreants. She was
way
too sloppy to be part
of The Flagship.” He leaned against the other side of the
doorframe. “I have no idea where she came from and what she wanted
– other than to obviously kill Silva. She’s going to want her furry
friend back, that’s a guarantee.” He looked up to see a spider web
in the corner of the doorframe. He swatted the web down gently. The
web stayed intact despite being removed from its corner. Chairman
Obelis dropped the web on the floor. “Thane did mention to me over
the phone that the bear is more man than bear, but I’m not sure
what he means by that. I’ll just have to check for myself after I
make this speech.”

“
Sure,” said Jeffrey. “What
about McCarthy?”

“
Just make sure he’s at
ease before we leave,” said Chairman Obelis. “I’m going to put my
full suit on now. I’ll meet you at the car.”

“
Okay,” said Jeffrey
leaving the room.

“
Oh, and
Jeffrey.”

“
Yes?”

“
Lock McCarthy’s door after
you check up on him. We don’t need him wandering around the house
all by his lonesome. There’s still much… he doesn’t need to know
that we know.”

“
Understood,” said Jeffrey.
“Oh, sir.” Jeffrey returned to the doorway. “I nearly forgot to
give you this letter sent from Washington.” He pulled a letter from
a pocket in his suit jacket.

Chairman Obelis grabbed the
letter from Jeffrey, and the two parted. The letter was tossed in a
ceramic bowl full of letters that Chairman Obelis had received from
Washington since he announced his campaign. He felt no need to open
a single one.

Chairman Obelis stepped
toward his mirror once again. He began to put his suit on – the
same suit and tie combination he wore during the Bella Vista
debacle. He quite liked it. The jacket was just so perfect fitting
and the pants had this special fabric that warded off nearly any
sort of substance that could cause a stain. Throw in the flashy
purple tie and it was a snazzy outfit.

Before placing his purple
tie around his collar, an object on a nearby chair caught his eye.
It was the notebook his father had given him many years ago. “What
is this doing out?” he said. He approached the notebook, opened it,
and sat down in a chair. His fingers flipped through the first
initial pages, all of which held lengthy descriptions of all known
permanent members of The Flagship, sans Malthus.

Malthus was hard to be
found by nearly anyone it seemed, or he only was found when he
wanted to be found. Chairman Obelis’ father only wrote
‘
Dangerous, cunning and the key to end all
of this
,’ on Malthus’ description page.
Chairman Obelis scoffed at the description.

Chairman Obelis kept
flipping slowly through the pages. There were pages full of
conspiracy theories with flimsy evidence tying back to the
existence of The Flagship, pages dissecting the suspected
population control ideology of The Flagship, pages guessing the
preferred diets of each member, and other nonsensical information
that was useless to Chairman Obelis since there was scant
information to back up the claims.

The first several
chapters
of the notebook
were merely confirmation that his father had lost his mind
obsessing over this group. He finally came to the latter half of
the notebook where the data was more pertinent. The page was titled
‘Master Plan’ and held several bullet points. A check mark of blue
or red ink was found at the end of more than a third of the bullet
pointed statements. His eyes wandered down to the bottom of the
page.

The fifth to last bullet
point read ‘
Reach a position of political
power
.’ Chairman Obelis pulled a red pen
out of his pocket and marked a sloppy checkmark at the end. He read
the next bullet statement aloud: “Slowly readjust the power
structure; force all loathsome creatures out of the
shadows.”

-----

Chairman Obelis stood in
front of a sizable crowd on a warm but strangely humid day in
Little Rock. He was ready to declare himself the winner of the
Arkansas gubernatorial race. Both Southwyck and Steenburgen had
bowed out of the race, albeit for different reasons.

Southwyck was told to give
up by his donors after all of those same donors pulled their funds
from his campaign. “We cannot morally support a moronic drunkard
that does not have the best interests of the state of Arkansas in
mind. We regret even giving Ryan Southwyck a chance to run for the
honorable Republican Party,” wrote the group callously in a short
memo sent across all Arkansan airwaves.

Steenburgen had to drop out
of the race because of health issues. Her diabetes had become so
fierce that she had to lose her left foot. She swore she would try
to run again when the opportunity arose but everyone knew she
wouldn’t be running anywhere any time soon.

With no one stepping up to
the plate to face Chairman Obelis, he would be winning the race by
default. He would have won the race regardless, with help from the
Carda Implant and his populist ideals, but it sat well with
Chairman Obelis knowing he won months before the scheduled
election.

Chairman Obelis stepped up
to the lectern to begin his speech. There were twelve different
microphones situated in front of him to record his every sound. He
scanned the crowd quickly. The crowd was growing larger by the
second and everyone wore a purple shirt with
Huxley Obelis
across the chest. There
were many children with purple hats that read
Huxley Obelis
and a handful of elderly
citizens with
Huxley Obelis
signs on the back of their wheelchairs.

“
Hello!” said Chairman
Obelis. The crowd cheered wildly and then clapped in unison for a
solid twenty seconds. It was almost a robotic applause. “I want to
thank you all for being here today. I wouldn’t be in this position
today if you all weren’t overwhelmingly in support of me and the
great things I have in store for Arkansas!” The crowd cheered again
and devolved into the robotic applause for a few
seconds.

“
Before I begin my victory
speech, I just want to say that, despite me running away with this
election, Ryan Southwyck and Felicia Steenburgen gave one helluva
an effort during their short-lived campaigns. Neither of them were
quite ready for something like this, this important public servant
task that I so dearly desire, but I want to honor their effort and
determination by donating a large sum of my personal wealth to a
charity of their choice, as well as the Women’s Center of Little
Rock right behind me!” The crowd didn’t cheer wildly but clapped
robotically for a few seconds again. “I must say, however, it will
be good to no longer be forced to be around those two ever again.
Goodbye Ryan Southwyck and goodbye Felicia Steenburgen! No more
poorly structured debates!” It was out of character for Chairman
Obelis to act so arrogantly in public but it helped him blow off
some steam after being thrown into poorly organized debates against
two dolts for several weeks.

The crowd snapped out of
their strange trance and began to laugh. They cheered wildly once
more, this time with no robotic applause.

“
From here on out, my
mission will be to make Arkansas as prosperous, healthy, and ideal
for every single Arkansan. It won’t be an overnight fix or even a
single year fix – it’s going to be tough – but we, Arkansans, are a
tough bunch. We can handle struggle and delay gratification for an
even better Arkansas!” The crowd returned to clapping robotically
in sync. “I don’t want to just strengthen one demographic or one
social class or one town over the other. I want to strengthen the
pockets, lungs, and minds of every single one of you. There is
nothing I want more than to see us set the example across this
entire continent and eventually the world.”

Robotic clapping ensued.
Chairman Obelis had paid no mind to the clapping, but Jeffrey found
it peculiar. Not peculiar enough to worry him, however.

“
These will not be hollow
words, my friends – no, my family. I promise you we will all be
much better off a year from now than we are today, and then a year
from a year from now we will be
even
better off and so forth and so on because we, as
humans, are the strongest beings that have ever graced this Earth.
We must sacrifice certain things to help provide necessary services
to those that cannot afford or attain them. We must sacrifice
certain things to provide proper education for our young Arkansans.
We must sacrifice certain things to make sure our roads, railways,
highways, bridges, and water systems are top notch. We must
sacrifice our very personal ideals and personal goals to make
Arkansas a better place – the best place to live.” The crowd
cheered wildly and clapped robotically. “I want to thank you for
being here today and I cannot wait until I am officially your
governor.” Chairman Obelis waved at the crowd, smiled, and then
entered the women’s shelter. The applause lasted for several
minutes, but Chairman Obelis and Jeffrey had slid out the backdoor
of the women’s shelter. They left in their black SUV.

Nothing was said on the
ride home. Chairman Obelis sat in the backseat of the SUV and
leaned the seat back. Eyes closed. Mind swirling.

-----

The pair arrived back at
the house. Chairman Obelis slowly walked into his personal quarters
and yawned. “I will be going to sleep early, Jeffrey,” said
Chairman Obelis.”

“
Sir, it’s only 5:30,”
replied Jeffrey. “Are you not feeling well? Should I call the
doctor? Do you need tea or soup?”

Chairman Obelis smiled and
waved Jeffrey’s offers off, “No thank you, Jeffrey. I appreciate
it, but I just want to be alone right now. It was a historic day
for me and I want to relish in the moment alone.”

“
Okay,” said Jeffrey. “Good
night, sir.” Chairman Obelis nodded at Jeffrey as Jeffrey shut the
door.

Chairman Obelis let out
another yawn. He stretched out his body and neck to relieve any
tension or strain. During the stretching he bumped the nearby table
causing the table to rock. The latest letter in the ceramic bowl
slid off the top of the pile and down to Chairman Obelis’
feet.

He stared at the letter. It
was addressed to one of his many PO boxes across the state. The
letter was from ‘The Interior of Secrets.’ A sector of the
government he had never heard of before. He grabbed another letter
from the ceramic bowl. He ripped it open and looked at the address
it was sent form. It was from ‘The Pentagon’ asking to support an
initiative regarding terrorist cells in Haiti.