November 2078. Austin, Texas. The United Nations of America

Victor Slate took a moment to bask in his accomplishments. He wouldn’t usually entertain such shallow emotion—those were for lesser minds with lesser ambitions. However, Hugo Guerrera had called to give his concession, and Victor felt triumphant after a well-fought and fairly won political battle. Well, fair by Victor’s standards, of course.

Out of respect for Hugo—or, at least, for the positive media coverage—Victor allowed Hugo to share the news with his supporters before Victor addressed his own in Austin, Texas. It wasn’t often that one ascended to the presidency of the United Nations of America, and the citizenry expected small mercies from the victorious.

The President-elect was just out of sight behind an unassuming press partition situated in front of the capitol building steps. With eyes closed and fingers laced behind his head, Victor waited patiently in the fold-up chair his staff had provided. A content smile formed on his face, a far cry from the typical painted-on megawatt grin his public image consultants recommended. However, neither expression was his preferred Cheshire cat grin of malicious glee.

Victor could hear the crowd’s energy swell mere yards away as they watched Guerrera’s concession speech on their various mobile devices as news vans reported live updates and cameramen and women desperately tried to catch sight of the politician.

The President-Elect allowed the mass’ murmuring to increase in pitch and intensity, guiding and manipulating the energy like a maestro in front of an orchestra. A magic moment arrived in the instinctual transition between throng and mob, and Victor opened his eyes. He could feel the golden time drawing near.

He was about to ascend to the highest office in the world. A normal person would be satisfied, but the feeling was fleeting for Victor. So close to the stage, he was craving the knife edge between victory and defeat. He already missed the backroom deals with the Nationalist Party, the under-the-table creds from billionaire donors, and little acts of political espionage that cleared his way to the top.

Of course, Victor knew there would be more challenges to overcome. Becoming the President only meant that he would advance to a different stage. The People’s Republic of Asia was threatening their interests in Hawaii, the Russians were bearing down on Europe, bringing more states into their growing empire, and the UNA had lost Puerto Rico to an upstart company calling itself the Apex Order. They were all problems that Victor would need to address, and he relished the opportunity.

He glanced up as his supporter’s cheers rose another octave. His black eyes fixed upon one of his campaign staff members, who involuntarily shuddered underneath his gaze.

“Rebecca, is it time?” His voice was calm and measured with rich undertones that caused even his most ardent detractors to relax. Of course, he knew it was time—the horde had settled to a dull roar, and the energy in the air was just right. Asking the question was a formality designed to make his staff feel important. They performed most optimally when given a sense of ownership.

Rebecca glanced at her phone before stuttering, “Yes, Vic—?I mean…” She paused as the full import of the moment hit her. “Yes, Mr. President-Elect,” she corrected with a shy smile.

Victor returned her smile with a roguish one of his own, like two thieves sharing their plunder. He was in an excellent mood. “Well, we mustn’t keep the people waiting.”

He stood up with poise while straightening his tie, readying himself to address the anticipatory supporters. His staff followed suit behind him, like orbiting celestial bodies around the sun. In some ways, he was the center of their universe, a power he reveled in.

Victor glanced behind him, noting their excited and satisfied expressions. There wasn’t a note of discord among them, and that had been by his design. After the first few weeks of campaigning, he had found where his people’s loyalties lay. He rooted out the spies and saboteurs that plagued every political campaign and dealt with them swiftly.

He expected betrayal—it was natural for people’s ambitions to override their sense of fealty, and he was no Caesar to be wooed by Brutus to the slaughter. No, he was Caligula. He smothered the opposition while they slept.

Before striding into view, Victor patted his hair and ensured nothing was in his teeth—a disastrous accident for any politician. He knew he cut an impressive figure. He was tall, like most presidents, and broad-shouldered. His posture was unbent by the age or sickness that plagued the octogenarian political class in America. Victor still carried the swagger of a military officer, and it showed on the dias.

The crowd cheered at the sight of him, erupting with a cacophony of yelling, clapping, and whistling while the UNA flag's red, green, and blue waved above them. Victor was used to this response after many speeches on the campaign trail. He took it in stride as he reached the podium and placed his hands on either side.

This is it, he thought. This is the natural way of things. This is how my life was meant to be lived—how it was always meant to be.

The universe had validated Victor’s actions. He believed that ascending to the presidency was proof positive of the righteousness of his cause and the moral certainty of his actions. Any damage he left in his wake was merely the cost of doing business.

Victor dwarfed the small rostrum, appearing larger than life in comparison. On the surface, it seemed to be a coincidence, but in truth, a team of political psychologists had carefully cultivated the image to elevate the grandeur of his speech.

The President-elect waited patiently for the supporters to calm themselves. He waved presidentially—according to etiquette—switching hands appropriately to sustain practiced attention to particular parts of the crowd.

One hand always remained grasping the podium. It made Victor look stable, confident, and dependable. Victor ensured he met participants' eyes in different parts of the gathering, occasionally conjuring a surprised expression as if he genuinely recognized individuals within the sea of unfamiliar faces. It was a tried and true tactic of the carefully crafted show.

The individuals assembled before him were unconsciously mirroring his body language, enchanted by the spell he had over them. They responded to even the slightest of Victor’s movements with unbridled enthusiasm.

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He appeared to accept their worship with grace. He paused and took a visible breath as if he was overwhelmed. That was his modest touch, and that endeared him to the crowd. Another round of cheers, clapping, and whistling descended upon him. In that moment, Victor felt what Caesar must have when he rode into Rome after his victory over Pompey. Or how Alexander the Great felt when he told Darius to fuck off. It was the feeling of absolute power.

He focused on the section that held his family. He shared a calculated grin with his wife and daughter. It was a mummer’s show, an actor playing a devoted husband and doting father. It was a lie he practiced in the mirror until he almost believed it himself. That was the trick to playing a role, Victor knew. He needed to embody the fiction until the character became indistinguishable from his typical personality.

When it became appropriate, his gaze shifted to the part of the crowd that held the most prominent financiers of his campaign. They were the men and women who would become his ambassadors and minor cabinet positions. Victor appreciated them in particular because of the simplicity of their bargains. They knew the price of things and never asked for more or less than they were worth. They gave him money, and he gave them power and prestige. Known quantities were easier to control.

Thank god for nepotism, Victor thought as he grinned at the financiers. Some denser ones waved back and smiled, while the more intelligent remained stone-faced and calm. They knew who this farce was for. It reminded the President-elect of one of his favorite quotes of Macbeth.

“Away and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what false heart doth know.”

What was politics but a series of false faces? The representatives themselves rarely knew the specificities of the policies they proposed. The chairmen and chairwomen of the nationalist party handled those. The invisible hand of the party simply needed visible avatars to communicate with the common people. The voters chose their representatives based on their feelings about the nominee rather than their policies.

Victor had taken advantage of the political reality. He engineered the fastest way to the top by stoking division around the annexation of Mexico, heightening fears over Chinese and Russian aggression, and pointing out the weaknesses in the nationalist party. Victor had engineered that desperation personally over fifteen years. He had manifested their ire and their fear, causing them to naturally flock to the man who had driven their anxiety in the first place. Fear makes faithful of the weak, and chaos breeds ambition in the competent.

In short, he didn’t wait for the perfect moment. He crafted it. Regarding the presidency, losers didn’t get to try twice, and Victor was no loser. He reveled in their steadfast loyalty and partisan vitriol. In a growing, increasingly divided nation, the people made political parties their tribes and politicians their heroes. Of course, their freedom of choice was as much a sham as his speech. There were no parties, only the nationalist party under various pseudonyms.

Finally, the tumultuous noise died down to an excited hush. Knowing the precise moment to pause and speak was a lesson Victor had inscribed onto his heart. “Good evening, my fellow Americans,” he said smoothly, and the crowd fell into an entranced silence.

“I am thankful for the time and energy that brings you here tonight, allowing me the pleasure—and honor—of speaking to my dear friends and distinguished guests this evening. After all, what brought us together is the culmination of a hard-fought journey that consumed much of the American discourse for over a year.” A tactful pause followed. It was a necessary verbal technique designed to draw the listener closer and overcome their short attention spans.

“My opponent, Senator Guerrera, waged an honorable campaign with poise and professionalism we haven’t seen in nearly three decades. Before this election, candidates fought political campaigns using vitriolic, bombastic, and divisive speech.”

Victor paused and smiled at the crowd. “I am proud to have joined the Senator in a pledge to speak only of the issues we face as a nation as we let the people decide upon our character. This election was close, and I can empathize with Senator Guerrera and his family on the difficulty of this moment.”

The words weren’t close to the truth, but Victor carefully selected them to make himself appear approachable to the average voter. The American people wanted their leaders to show grace in victory and defeat. In Victor's opinion, it was a useless concept as there was no such thing as grace in defeat.

In the term ahead, I look forward to working together again as colleagues and friends...” Victor paused and looked into the cameras as if to address Senator Guerrera directly, supposing that the defeated often looked on to the victorious and the bold he was. While on the surface, their campaigns appeared nothing short of honorable, the cutthroat politicking they were each guilty of behind the scenes had ruled out any possibility of ever being friends.

Though they were both active in the Nationalist Party, in Victor’s opinion, the man had become a sworn enemy as soon as he had decided to run in opposition—a comrade who had turned coat for the throne at the last moment. Guerrera was the Mark Anthony to his Octavian after Caesar's demise. It was a reality of the political system, yet Victor couldn’t help but feel slighted.

“…and now, I want to express my thanks to—” A deadly rose bloomed on Victor’s chest. A second later, the sound of a gunshot cracked through the state capital, cutting off whatever the President-elect was about to say.

The sound reverberated across the marble buildings of the plaza as if it were emanating from everywhere and nowhere at once. It wasn’t until a blood-curdling scream came from a member of the crowd that panic ensued. Like ants from a disturbed anthill, people swarmed in every direction, illogically and simultaneously, convinced they were the following targets of the mysterious shooter.

Victor couldn’t help his annoyance at their antics despite the blood pooling on his chest. It was the perfect exemplar of an individual’s tendency toward over-inflated self-importance. There wasn’t a single person in that crowd who was a more valuable target than the President-elect himself, yet the desire for self-preservation overrode collective common sense. It was this level of animalistic behavior that Victor found highly irritating in the rest of humanity. Most days, he didn’t feel like he was of the same species as them.

Despite the crowd’s hysteria, it was apparent the assassin would have but one target here. The Secret Service agents assigned to Victor knew this, and they shoved passersby out of the way to rush to their charge. The pain in Victor’s chest had yet to fully set in before agents had tackled the President-elect to the ground.

Acting quickly, the agents shuttled the President-elect into an ambulance on standby and set off to Austin Heart Hospital less than a minute after the round had struck Victor. Though, he was already unconscious from the loss of blood and trauma.

President-elect Victor Slate died en route to the hospital at the age of 53. He was a devout Christian—or so he told people—Yale Law School alumnus, Marine Corps veteran, Governor of Texas, husband to his wife of twenty-five years, and father to a single daughter.

His life had been an endless parade of false faces. They were the masks he wore to convince the rest of the world that he was just like them. In truth, he had never been like them. He had craved prestige and power to the exclusion of everything else. His dark ambitions had been in the pursuit of true freedom. Wealth, position, and power granted only one thing denied to the poor and insignificant: choices.

In the end, despite the self-important vision Victor Slate held for himself, he was just a man on the wrong side of a bullet—neither as important nor as significant as he believed himself to be.

In his passing, the world kept turning, the machinery of politics kept working, and he quickly became forgotten as a footnote in the history books. Had Victor known that all his effort and suffering were worth so little in the end, the knowledge would’ve galled him more than dying.