While I celebrated, my campaign did an interview with Hris C’aze, the Conda Nah’gh host of SNN. Her show was already covering Axle’s mostly quiet campaign, so my entrance shook up their programming lineup. In normal electoral seasons, Axle’s team used the time and attention to reinforce their vision for the affiliate and lay out guideposts for the next two years. SNN served as the public’s view into how the affiliate was run.

All of my campaign manager’s interview was heavily dramatized and laced with substantive policy suggestions to sound officious, but the evening slot reached nearly eight hundred million people across Nu-Earth. During my party, Axle’s Knowle Leadership faction released a statement about my announcement, which was also aired. Their campaign acted like I wasn’t a serious candidate and pretended at nonchalance. A clear stalling tactic, absent of any policy discussion or sight toward the future of the race. Overall, it was a weak statement that did nothing to boost public confidence numbers.

One thing I had to thank Axle’s campaign for was the access to polling information. They paid for premium sourcing, and then shared the information freely via the press. Anytime a poll was announced that didn’t immediately get purchased by Axle’s campaign, the press paid for it themselves. The relationship between press, polling associates, and the campaigns was quite incestuous, but the information was solid. It all amounted to one conclusion. I was the hot new thing.

Immediately following my campaign manager’s interview, all the planet’s news networks began digging for old footage to display. My former triumphs that had been filmed and stored a century prior began making the rounds again, which only added to my public image.

By the morning after my announcement, my campaign office was fielding dozens of interview requests. My schedule began to fill, and I had to carefully calculate how to spend my time for the most exposure.

In the space of twenty four hours I did a rush of television appearances. First I did a morning show in Prescott, hitting Axle in his backyard. We discussed my initiative for dream-crime at length and I left the show with another immediate leap in my poll numbers. My favorability was going through the roof, and it was thanks to my bold stance on the problem.

I declared the for-profit media to blame for the issue, pointing out how dream-crime spiked in any region that had good ratings on an episode that sensationalized a break in. Well, a portal in, but that phrasing didn’t play on TV. The criminals selling themselves to fill specific nightmares would hit one person, that person and their story would be featured as dramatically as possible, and that night several more nightmares would come true.

It was a clear pattern. To avoid making an enemy of the press, I said that Silken Sands would provide guidance to all press to avoid further breakouts without trampling on their right to profit from the news. The story of any new break-ins, I argued, would be the primary concern of associate security. Not of the press. My plan was simple, they could report on the dream-crime cases as loudly and dramatically as they wanted to, after the crime was solved. Until that point, the story would remain the property of Silken Sands and BlueCleave constabulary. Putting the solution into the phraseology of ownership had polled well with our focus groups.

I added that mental health care would be a higher priority for the affiliate, as well as a return to the culture of meditation to control one’s dreams. That didn’t play as well as blaming the media though, so it was a minor sidenote to the policy proposal.

My campaign whipped up some projections for me, and I shared them with the press. According to me, the problem would be addressed almost immediately, without hurting any of the affiliates involved.

Of course, in reality it was police state overreach and press manipulation. Nobody called me out on it though, because my charismatic lies played well among the millionaire middle class in Arizona. A handful of voices spoke out against my plan, and accurately pointed out the flaws and oversteps within it, but those voices didn’t raise ratings as much as my florid nonsense did, so the press disproportionally carried my words instead.

I followed that up with a pro-worker rally in Australia. The continent held much of the planet’s manufacturing infrastructure and housed a massive population of laborers. All my campaign had to promise was a higher wage recommendation in the Silken Sands standards and practices, and we got a sizable crowd to show up and cheer for us. That footage went on to supplement the news stories about our campaign, which cyclically added to public enthusiasm.

People like to vote for a winner, and by the time I circled round to a late night comedy show in what used to be eastern China, I was starting to look like that winner. The host made jokes at my expense and soft-balled me questions about my time as the Warlord of BuyMort. By the end of that program, I had been thoroughly humanized, and my crimes against BuyMort had begun to be white-washed.

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My public image was starting to form, and people liked what they saw. I was the tough but sensible wartime leader they all knew from my history propos, with a funny side and an affinity for Cubes. My perceived ability to operate a non-profit without any personal income also scored me points. They thought it meant I was good at BuyMort, in a very simplistic sense. There was very little awareness among the upper echelon of BuyMort society surrounding the true nature of wealth management and its relationship to competence.

Once I was officially attached to both affiliates, Save the Cubes and my campaign, my credit rating began to rise. It was a real time representation of my ability to navigate BuyMort’s complexities. My primary goal in raising my credit rating was to get back in contact with MortMobile. He was still way out of my price range thanks to his shrunken, calcified customer base.

Instead of following the standard path of economic least resistance, he had become a rarity. My work, mostly, but how he had managed to maintain such exclusivity was something that baffled me. It had been a century, and his deal with BuyMort shouldn’t allow for his business model. I had to find out why it had.

But first I had to win back my affiliate. MortMobile, while he was on my mind, would have to wait.

Especially once Axle announced my first scandal to Nu-Earth. He did an interview himself and spent his biggest chip against me right up front.

“CEO Seeker, Allow me to say, I am just starstruck. You are, of course, a role model and personal hero of mine,” said Hris C’aze. Her scales were flushed vibrant purple, and she batted her massive eyes at the decrepit Knowle across from her.

Axle’s mechanical eyes flashed in the light of the cameras, and he smiled demurely. “That is good to hear, thank you. I’ve always strived to be a good example, I think anyone in a position like mine should be.”

A cut against me. I snarled while watching on my phone. I was on a flight. Our campaign had just purchased an in-atmo flier, which operated like a high atmosphere hovercraft. It had gravity drive tech, a low power version of the engine that helped manage the craft’s gravity within Nu-Earths natural well. I was on my way home, to spend a weekend with Shoshanna, and the interview almost certainly meant that weekend was going to get canceled.

“Wise words, thank you sir,” Hris simpered. It was gross, watching a member of the press gush over their love for power in such an overt manner. “Can I ask the main question right up front? Or would it be rude of me?” she asked.

Axle shook his head and gave that same small smile. On his features, it looked like a grimace, like he was intentionally baring his teeth. Knowing him the way I did, it was the latter.

“Oh, thank you! Alright, so our audience is just dying to know; what made you decide to do an interview this political season?” the Nah’gh woman asked.

“My opponent,” Axle said, matter of fact. “This electoral season is unusual, in that my opponent represents an existential threat to our way of life here on Nu-Earth. None of you know him like I know him.”

She flushed yellow at his words, a rich, dark urine complexion that appeared practiced. Molls had never had good control over her scales, but she had clearly become a therapist because of her own traumatic childhood and family dynamic. She didn’t have the ability to control her emotions as easily as this trained, practiced serpent in front of me on the screen.

A creature meant to be bait for me. To manipulate my emotions. My snarl stayed in place as I watched.

“None of us, no,” she agreed. Her scaled arm reached across the table to him, and he stared down at it instead of taking it as she clearly wished. She waggled fingers tipped in painted claws excitedly at him and retracted the limb. “Which is a major part of why I agree that it’s important to hear directly from you, CEO. So, what can you tell us?”

Axle shrugged. “Tyson Dawes is dangerous. Much more so than the history reels tell us. Regardless of his testimony at the Knowle Institute on Terna’s World, I was there. I heard his words, I lived through his actions, and I am telling you right now, he used this entire planet as bait to kill his enemies.”

“A serious accusation!” Hris gasped, hand to her chest as her yellow darkened again.

“I lived through almost two years of this man’s rule. He is a warlord, at his core, and thereby dangerous for a civilized society. In my experience and knowledge, the Knowle Institute has made a mistake on this ruling. Not their first, of course, but it is important to notate each occurrence to ensure their continued resolution to accuracy, and not personal interest,” Axle explained. “My campaign will be in touch with a list of the many times the Knowle Institute of History has made mistaken rulings in the past. For context, of course.”

“Oh of course!” Hris exclaimed. “Our shared dedication is to the people of BuyMort. To ensure they are informed, in an accurate and fair manner.”

“Tyson Dawes cannot be placed in a position of power over this affiliate, this precious and fragile system ever again,” Axle grumbled. “And my job as CEO is to protect the people of the BuyMort system from any and all threats. Including this one.”

“Oh, do please go on,” the host beamed.

“This will sound absurd but trust me when I tell you that it happened. Tyson Dawes once came to me and expressed a desire to kill BuyMort itself,” Axle said, leaning lightly on the table to emphasize how serious he was being. With those words he definitely canceled my weekend with Shoshanna. I made a mental note to increase her personal security to compensate.

There it was. I wanted to kill BuyMort. Axles first and best shot at my campaign. I turned off the interview and floated up front of the craft to instruct the pilot to change course. We were still going to Prescott, but my landing area had just changed to the SNN headquarters.