1 Day Later. August 18th, 2267. 09:45 Albright Highrise – Dale’s Office
Elias walked into Dale’s office and shook the candidate’s hand. Dale was both excited and eager to meet his mysterious backer. Elias on the other hand was much more reserved and cautious about this meeting. Not necessarily about Dale himself, but rather about the circumstances that forced him to this office.
“Mr. Rosberg, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Elias said, “My name is Elias Mendicate.”
“Elias, it is a pleasant surprise to finally meet you,” Dale said as he shook Elias’ hand, “So, what brings you here?”
“Concerns about future personal attacks on you and this penultimate debate.”
Dale waived off the concerns, “William won’t stoop so low to do that.”
“It isn’t William that I’m worried about,” Elias said, “While I have no proof to suggest otherwise, I believe it is possible that a Naval Intelligence operative, or possibly from the Central Bureau, is running an operation here.”
Dale nodded and then leaned back in his chair, “If you had evidence of such an operation, we could utilize that. That’d get us five to ten percent of his votes overnight.”
“Alas, that evidence doesn’t exist. Wherever the orders for this operation, presuming of course there is one, have been quite hidden well from us.”
“Then we must continue forward as planned, but if you do find evidence of an operation by all means send that information to me.”
Elias nodded, “Of course. It’s a gut feeling at this point, though I wish I could confirm that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I am also here to hand you this.”
Elias then slid a data slate across Dale’s large desk. The candidate picked up the data slate like a greedy child. Dale opened it and skimmed through the planned questions. There, like the previous debates, were no plans for audience questions.
“You my friend are a lifesaver!” Dale said.
“I also am here to share some good news. Your purchase plan of the two square blocks in the blighted district appears to have had a stronger impact than William’s amongst undecided voters. You picked up an estimated three percent of the voters, with about a quarter of that gain coming from William’s camp.”
Dale grinned as he looked up, “The report I read was that our plans for what we were going to put in place were more desirable than Williams.”
“I found it interesting though, your new constructions won’t work without its infrastructure. The population seems to have overlooked that,” Elias said, “For you to succeed in this you need his success too.”
“We didn’t do a good job of using that in any marketing, but we plan on changing that in the near future. We were wondering what kind of impact to the votes would occur if we announced that before the election.”
“Our estimates were a nominal impact. It may make sense to bring that up and be the voice to push for his success. That may play on some voter’s heartstrings.”
Dale was taking notes, “That’s fucking brilliant. Yes yes, I will have my team work on that for the renovation questions.”
“Dale, have you or anyone on your team noticed any suspicious activity here or out on the campaign trail?” Elias asked, “Or more specifically, do you recognize this man?”
Elias held out his tablet and shared a picture of John on it. Dale leaned in and looked at the picture but shook his head. He paused for a moment to think about the campaign.
“Never see that man before. As for issues on the campaign, none that I’d considered strange or unexpected. We’ve had some extreme responses to our presence, but we were near some die-hard loyalists to William,” Dale smirked, “Nothing more than some heated words were said though.”
Elias nodded, “Couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“You think he is your special agent?”
“It’s doubtful but he’s the person I trust least on this planet.”
“I’ll share his picture with my team, but I can safely say I’ve never seen him,” Dale then looked up at Elias, “Where is he from?”
“Earth, but he lives out on a homestead a couple hours’ drive from the colony.”
“Those people are either farmers or want to keep to themselves. They have their own reasons for living out there. We’ve found that if we don’t bother them, they in turn will do the same for us,” Dale said, “If he is anything like his peers, then I doubt that they want anything to do with us and this campaign.”
“I wish I could believe that I really do,” Elias said as he stood up, “We’ll be in touch, but I appreciate your assistance thus far.”
Elias stood up and shook Dale’s hand once more. Dale escorted him out of his office. Elias then left the building and went on about his day. The would-be governor then asked for the chief of security to enter the office.
“Nick, have you ever seen this guy?”
“Military,” Nicholas said as he looked at the image, “Why is that face familiar?”
“Look into it. I can’t put a finger on it, but I swear I’ve seen that face somewhere.”
“Consider it done.”
19:50 Elias’ Office
Dinner had come and went for Elias. He was focused on the debate. As he sent a large document to Dale to review, one that contained numerous data points for each question, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
In twenty-four hours, the penultimate debate would start. Elias was genuinely worried about it. He looked over at the right display and saw the current polling figures. Dale held forty-seven percent of the vote while William held forty-four percent. The remaining nine percent was the effective margin for error. The undecided voters were rarely a factor in most elections, but not this one.
That was a sign of Dale’s weakness. An argument could be made for William being a weak candidate, but the argument for that was less than for Dale. Elias wanted to think the majority of those voters would go for Dale, but Elias was concerned. There were rumors that the undecided would largely swing towards William’s camp. If true, the election would swing away from them.
“What can we do to drive them towards Dale?” Elias said as he leaned on his hands as he stared at the screen.
A knock at the door could be heard before it was flung open. Heva and Draco walked into the room. Both were holding what looked like newspapers, the printed kind. Elias thought that was quaint until both copies were thrown on his desk rather unceremoniously.
“We’ve got problems,” Heva said.
“Huge fucking problems,” Draco said as he pointed at the headline on his.
Elias looked down and realized these weren’t newspapers but tabloids. They rarely had accurate articles and over-sensationalized every headline. Except these headlines were much more succinct. ‘Cheater Cheater Cheater’ was on one where the other simply said ‘Political Candidates Behaving Badly.’
“What is this?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Alberic then walked into his office and spoke up, “Tabloid trash. The problem is they are reporting accurate things. We have that picture of him cheating on his wife. They conveniently left out that this happened twelve years ago with his first wife, who was cheating on him at the time.”
“This one is more recent, but still six years ago. Dale has been quiet about the bid fixing scandal he was connected to,” Alberic shook his head, “He paid one of his top lieutenants to take the fall for him and lessen his reputational blow. This article doesn’t get into the weeds, but this is the first time it’s been suggested that he knew more about the case than before.”
“Draco, contact our candidate and advise him to not respond to either of these. We need to work with him on crafting a communication that deflects these as much as possible without him admitting anything to it,” Elias said, “Alberic, get Viviana and Katherina and begin working on the statement.”
“I’ve already notified Constantine of this, he’s going to have the rest of us look into who the source of this story is and how they got this information,” Heva said.
“It’s going to be a late-night folks, I’m sorry but I need all hands on this,” Elias said as he typed away on his terminal.
Ten minutes later Daphne arrived in his office. Elias didn’t notice this, but her face looked a bit flushed. Nevertheless, she got to work looking into the financial transactions of both tabloids. Their control over the colony’s communication systems was crucial in extracting this information.
Elias fielded no less than six calls from Dale’s team over the next two hours. They wanted to know if they should go on the attack, but Elias was adamant they would not do anything toward William at this time. For starters, it was far too early to determine if it was William’s camp, and two didn’t quite understand the impact, if any, that could come from such garbage-level publications.
That was sage council, just after he got off the phone for the third time with Dale’s team Draco ran into the office. He was waving a data slate like a madman as he tried to take control of the holographic projector. A feat that was made difficult by his eagerness to show whatever it was to Elias.
“Sorry, this is more difficult to control than I thought.”
“Draco, take a moment and slow down,” Elias said, “What do you have?”
The projector then activated and began displaying an old man’s face and a map, “This is Sherman Townsend, sixty-five years old and all-around pain in the ass to the authorities. He’s considered an old ‘kook’ by the locals; big into conspiracy theories and hugely right-winged in his political beliefs,” Draco paused to take a deep breath, “We’ve tracked a call and several messages back to him.”
“Any known connection to William?” Elias asked.
Katherina then walked in, “His connection is actually to Dale, not William. He was a small store owner who got bought out by Dale’s conglomerate, the terms of the contract weren’t adhered to by Dale and company, and they forced him out of his business a month early, without proper pay. That grudge has festered for seven years.”
“Sherman sued and the court sided with him, he ended up getting the maximum allowable damages plus treble plus the totality of lost sales for a month,” Draco said, “In effect, he was made more than whole.”
“Still, he took away his business then screwed him over. That doesn’t answer how he got access to either set of pictures,” Elias said.
“The behaving badly article didn’t come from him, we believe they got their information in person or through encrypted channels,” Katherina said, “Sherman used that image of Dale cheating during the negotiations to purchase his business. He, unlike the other business and shop owners on the street, held out for a better deal.”
“Dale was said to have lost his cool on more than one occasion,” Draco then began playing back a video, “As you can see, the kook appears to be quite rational, and our candidate is downright unhinged.”
As the video played out Elias watched an adult throw a tantrum that a toddler would be proud of. A chair was thrown literally through a window, in Sherman’s shop. That caused the modern-day redneck of an owner to jump across the table and try to strangle Dale. If it wasn’t so alarming, it’d be comical.
“Wonderful,” Elias said, “That video better be…”
“Already ahead of you,” Draco smiled, “It’s been scrubbed from their server, but if any local or backup copies have been made offline, we can’t do anything to those.”
“That’s a five-point swing if that video ever appears,” Elias paused, “Why wasn’t this shared?”
Katherina shrugged slightly, “We don’t really know. That video came from a server in Sherman’s store. Which became Dale’s property. The server’s structure was mirrored in the new corporation and the originals cleared and destroyed.”
“Look into Dale’s records, I want to know who accessed that,” Elias said, “We’ll start that in the morning first thing. The other article, anything at all on that?”
“There isn’t a peep written anywhere that we could see. It was written entirely behind an encrypted wall or was done through face-to-face contact. We’ve got a scan running to see who the reporter met and where they’ve been. But it’s going to be several days for that to finish,” Draco said.
“I’d like a status update in the morning,” Elias said as he stood up, “All of you please retire for the night, we need to be ready and alert in the morning.”
With that update, Elias closed shop for the evening. There was so much work to do, but working his team into the ground was not going to solve any problems. And they still had time to dig into the tabloid articles. At the very least one article could be talked away by a bitter old man that ultimately got the better of Dale. The other article was more difficult, and while the behaviors contained within aren’t career-ending, they are a bad look.
Elias hoped that the proper media wasn’t going to pick up these articles. But William’s camp condemning the articles earlier in the evening all but guaranteed a deeper look into both candidates’ past. When he went to bed that evening, the last question he remembered was why do this and why now?
August 19th, 2267. 18:55 New Xenuvian Headquarters – Second Floor Living Room
Elias was at the table staring at his console. The day had been an unmitigated failure. However, that wasn’t entirely his team’s fault.
Sherman very nearly killed Aella when she confronted him on his property. She caught him both by surprise and when he was in a particular mood of his. Thankfully her quick response allowed her to literally dodge the old man’s attack. She ran away when he cursed at her as he headed back toward his home to get a shotgun.
Needless to say, any efforts to understand if the leaks came from him were over before they started. Despite their best efforts, there were no leads of any kind in identifying where the other story came from. Not helping matters, the individual in the tagline was not only not an employee of the tabloid but was an elderly man in a nursing home. The author was using a realistic pseudonym.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Dale’s response to the mainstream media commenting on the articles ignored most of the advice they had shared. He should have been more conciliatory and not attack the message or the person relaying the message. Dale did neither.
The only bright spite of the day was the debate. His opening statement was a bit shaky, but after that, he’d been killing it. The real-time polls proved that fifty-eight percent of the viewers were saying he was winning the debate. Despite that the overall polls were little changed, though they expected a one-to-two-point swing to William’s side because of the controversy.
“He’s doing better than I expected,” Draco said from the couch as he was staring at a data slate, “The downside is this debate has done little to influence people one way or the other.”
“I’m not finding anything about the undecided and the tabloid headlines,” Katherina said, “It’s almost like the polling companies are avoiding asking the question.”
“His reactions to his self-created crisis are only going to end poorly for him,” Elias looked up, “Castor, reach out to your contacts in the polling companies.”
“Will do,” Castor said, “I wouldn’t expect anything until tomorrow though.”
The conversation paused when the debate’s moderator spoke, “Finally a bonus question, other worlds are seemingly okay with, or effectively need negative ad campaigns to operate. Do you believe that those types of ads should be allowed here? William, your response please.”
William nodded, “Well first, those types of ads are allowable under our constitution. So to say that they shouldn’t be allowed isn’t necessarily the question I’d ask. Those who have had a desire to run for office in our great world have come to an informal agreement to run on the issues and only the issues. Personal problems only come up when a candidate makes an issue or brings up their past but lies about something. I do believe the status quo of campaigns focusing on the issues and not sully themselves by going low and attacking one another.”
“And Dale, yourself?”
“As someone who has made mistakes in the past, I feel like I’m not exactly the right person to answer the question, but I agree with my opponent. The previous generations of politicians have focused on the people and the issues. We all make mistakes, my candidate certainly has, our moderator has, and every single citizen here has. Some mistakes are greater than others, sure, but lapses in judgment occur. How we handle them shows our true character.”
Elias shook his head as Dale ended his response, “What a terrible response.”
“Yeah, the people didn’t like it, he lost a point on the overall win though,” Katherina said, “That could have been worse.”
“Where is Daphne?” Elias asked.
“Oh, she’s with Constantine. They went to get food and supplies,” Castor said as he was buried in a data slate.
“He could have gone by himself to do that.”
Katherina began to giggle, “The girls and I needed feminine products. He did not like the request…”
“Well, it’s him, but I’ll have a chat with him regarding her leaving the facility,” Elias said, “I want reports on my desk in the morning regarding feedback from the debate.”
Elias stood up and stretched. He was going to go to his office and continue digging into his research work. Which felt like grasping at straws at this stage of the game, but he was convinced the election could be won. Even despite the setbacks they’ve suffered.
“Boss, I know you don’t want any more bad news,” Castor said, “But it looks like two smaller, but very reputable news stations are looking into the background of both candidates.”
“Who are they?” Elias asked as he stopped moving.
“The Republican and the Freemason’s Daily,” Castor sighed, “It’s not going to take much to dig up anything on Dale, if I’m being honest.”
Elias paused, “Look into the editorial offices of both. Do we or Dale have any connections there?”
The team shrugged but took the order and began looking into it. Elias shook his head as he headed upstairs to his office. It was two steps forward today, but at the last minute, they gave up a step. Elias shrugged as he thought, “par for the course.”