Louis stumbled out of the elevator from the bunker and reached into his jacket for his cigarettes. His fingers trembled as he fumbled one out of his silver case and lit it. Taking a long drag, he looked combatively back over his shoulder at the two guards on either side of the door.
Over the years the President-for-Life had made only small changes to the uniforms of his Presidential Guard. The black suits and sunglasses were now standard issue, and a single line of golden thread had been added along the lapels – just enough to look ridiculous. Despite their size and bulk, the two men looked for all the world like bellhops standing outside the elevator. They stared impassively past Louis as he smoked.
Louis smoked half the cigarette quickly, letting the nicotine calm his nerves before he turned around. “Isn’t this a non-smoking area?” he demanded of the Presidential Guards.
They looked at each other. “We don’t see anything,” one of them said after a moment.
“And even if we did,” the other continued. “It’s obviously the wish of the President-for-Life that His family be free to smoke wherever they want.”
“And besides,” the first chimed in, “the President-for-Life, and his family, clearly want the world to know that nobody has done more to support our great nation’s tobacco industry and the benefits it brings to our…”
“Okay, okay!” Louis snapped, taking another hard pull on his cigarette. “Fine. Thank you.” He smoked in silence for another few minutes, his head cocked to the side as he tried to listen for anything happening outside the building. “You guys hear anything?” he asked eventually.
They hesitated. “No, sir.”
Louis grunted and tossed his cigarette butt onto the ground, grinding it into the carpet with his heel. He started to leave, then stopped. “You both have your sidearms on you, right?” he asked.
They nodded. Louis pulled out his wallet and started counting out the bills inside. “I’ll give you…$700 for one of your pistols.”
The guards looked at each other again. Louis dove back into his wallet. “40…60…okay, 780 dollars. 785.”
The guards shifted uneasily. “Sir, is the President-for-Life okay?” one of them asked timidly.
“He’s…resting. Look, are you gonna take the money or not?”
The guards looked at each other again. “Throw in your watch and I’ll do it,” said one.
Louis glanced at his watch, then took it off, stuffing his wallet back in his pocket. “Fine. Here.”
The guard reached into his suit and pulled out a large pistol. He grasped it by the barrel and handed it to Louis, who handed over the money and the watch in return. The two guards stepped toward each other and counted the money, muttering quietly. Then they turned and booked it past Louis, down the hall.
Louis watched them go, reaching for another cigarette.
*
The hallways were deserted and eerily quiet as Louis stalked through them, burning through his stock of cigarettes. Occasionally he glanced at the gun held loosely in his hand, the heavy barrel drooping toward the floor. Eventually he heard voices muttering, and turned the corner to find the Directors of Economic Prosperity and Communications staring at a painting, bulging laptop bags slung over their shoulders.
“Hey, Benny,” called Louis, causing the Director of Communications to jump and drop one of the bags. “Hey, Francis.”
“Hi Louis,” the Director of Economic Prosperity replied evenly, sizing up Louis as he approached. “Whatcha up to today?”
“I’m, uh, not sure,” said Louis, finishing his cigarette and grinding it into the carpet. “They don’t really need me in the bunker anymore, so I guess I’m just out for a walk.”
“With a gun?”
“Huh?” Louis looked down at his hand. “Oh. Yeah, I guess.”
“Any news from the President-for-Life?” Benny demanded, struggling with the dropped bag. “Any orders?”
Louis shook his head. “No. He’s, uh…not giving any orders anymore.”
“Ah. My condolences to the family. And you.” Francis turned back to the painting with a curt nod.
“Condolences to the nation!” Benny intoned, giving up on the bag and slipping into his radio voice. “Nobody has done more for our country than the President-for-Life. Without his steady hand on the helm-“
“Shut the fuck up, Benny,” Francis snapped. He stepped forward and lifted the painting off the wall, setting it down on the floor. Louis circled around to look at it.
The painting was of the President-for-Life, one of many that adorned the walls of the Executive Offices. Against a stormy backdrop, surrounded by an elaborate golden frame, he squinted heroically into the distance, hair swept back by an invisible wind. All three men stared at it for a moment.
“What do you need with a painting of the President-for-Life?” Louis asked eventually.
“A genuine painting of the President-for-Life that hung in his offices? It’s a priceless work of art!” said Benny plaintively.
“I’m not going for the painting,” Francis growled. He pulled out a hunting knife and worked it behind the frame, popping off the golden moulding. “Benny, you got room?”
Benny knelt down and unzipped the bag he’d dropped, revealing a hoard of silverware and other valuables. “Maybe? I’m pretty full up.”
Louis squinted into the bag. “Hey, isn’t that the picture frame from my desk?”
Benny stared at him goggle-eyed. Francis shrugged, not looking up from his evisceration of the picture frame. “Yeah, we went through your office. You want it back?”
“Yes!” Louis growled, snatching it from the bag. “That’s a family photo!”
“Never forget how you got here, huh?”
“That’s not…you know what? I’m leaving.”
“Okay.” Francis peeled off a piece of moulding and tossed it to Benny. “Good luck out there.”
*
There was a clatter through the open door of the Director of Immigration Control’s office as Louis passed. He stopped and looked inside.
The Director of Immigration Control was a slender man with short-cropped, almost shaved hair. He was prowling around his office, rifling through cabinets and putting things quietly but urgently into a banker’s box on his desk.
“What’s up, Henry?” Louis asked, sauntering in.
Henry lunged towards his desk, but stopped short. “Oh, it’s you. Hello Louis.”
“Got any cigarettes?”
“No.” He turned back to the cabinet he had been searching.
Louis leaned against the door. Henry ignored him. For a few minutes the room was quiet. “That’s probably a good idea,” Louis said eventually. “It’s really not the best for you. I’ve been trying to quit for years, but I just keep coming back to it…”
Henry stopped again and pivoted to face Louis. “Louis. Can I help you with something?”
“Well, uh…” He fidgeted under Henry’s piercing stare. “Didn’t see you in the bunker.”
“I didn’t want to get in the President-for-Life’s way, in this crucial moment.” His eyes narrowed. “How is the President-for-Life?”
Louis gaped wordlessly at Henry for a moment.
“Ah.” He spun back to the cabinet with a renewed energy, pulling open a new drawer with a bang. “And his daughter?”
“My wife is with him in the bunker. Were you, uh, planning to visit him there?”
“My mission is too important,” said Henry, tossing a folder into the banker’s box. “The President-for-Life’s death is an unfortunate setback, but we can still reclaim this nation for the higher races. We were so close…” He glanced over his shoulder at Louis. “Why do you have a gun, by the way?”
Louis looked down at it. “I dunno,” he said bemusedly. “Seemed like it’d come in handy. Got anything to drink?”
Henry waved his hand vaguely toward the liquor cabinet. “Help yourself.”
Louis wandered over to the cabinet and selected a bottle of bourbon and a glass. “You always buy such shit booze,” he moaned as he made his way to the chairs in front of Henry’s desk.
“So many brands are owned by foreigners,” Henry replied evenly as Louis poured himself a generous glass. “They come into our country, buy our heritage, dilute it with their inferior culture…maybe we could have undone the damage if we’d managed to establish the thousand-year realm, but, well…” He stopped. “You were just in the bunker. What’s the state of the defences? Have they encircled the capital yet?”
Louis looked up from his drink. “Henry, what are you talking about? It’s over. The President-for-Life just died in his sleep, we can’t-“
“The President-for-Life is not the movement,” Henry snapped, opening another drawer. “The President-for-Life was but a servant of the movement. The President-for-Life got us so close…” he glared at Louis. “…but bogged us down at the crucial moments with his incompetence and nepotism, and why can’t I find that damn book?!“
He slammed the drawer shut. Louis watched quietly as he crawled under his desk, reappearing with his computer tower in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. The former he heaved into the banker’s box and the latter he slung across his back.
“Where are you going?” Louis asked.
“The movement continues,” Henry intoned, picking up the banker’s box with some difficulty and stumbling towards the door. “I just need to escape the siege and get into the backwoods. The militias there need leadership. We can still retake this country!” He disappeared into the hall.
Louis stared into his drink for a second, then drained it. As he was reaching for the bottle again, Henry reappeared, leaning in through the doorway.
“By the way,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve always hated you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I think you’re a useless, incompetent piece of spoiled shit that got into this government through his wife’s cunt, you fucking k—shit!” He lost his balance suddenly and fell over, spilling papers all over the hallway floor. Louis watched bemusedly as he scrambled to regain his balance and sweep everything back into the box.
Finally Henry stood up again, face flushed, box in his hands. “Fuck you, Louis,” he growled.
Louis waved. “Bye, Henry.”
Henry left again. Louis stared at the bottle and the gun in front of him. Off in the distance, he could hear a low rumble.
Picking up the bottle and the gun, he crawled under the desk and lit a cigarette.
Harmon Moon 