Deliver Us Huis

I stumbled home at two o’clock in the morning. I had been kept late with speeches, interviews, and debates with the other delegates. I had tried my best to seem smart enough to be a delegate, but not as smart as one would have to be to blow up a building, or take over the world.

I had kept an eye out for Caliban, watching him, and making sure he didn’t take more notice of me than anyone else. But I had only seen him briefly, and he had paid me no more attention than anyone else. I was hopeful that he passed me by as too young to be anything but a nuisance.

It didn’t matter what anyone thought now, they would see soon enough what I really was. Someone smart enough to rule them all.

While the delegates were fine enough, what had drained me the most was the questions from the crowd. I would just watch the masses, all of them bustling around, feeling important. I couldn’t help but feel repulsed.

They just seemed so, ordinary. And yet they all operated like they felt they were the center of the universe. It made me wonder, did they ever think of more than themselves and their own little worlds? Or were they just content with being… boring.

It irritated me that I could fall in with such a crowd and people wouldn’t know that I was different. That I was doing more.

But they would soon enough.

Patience, I told myself, All in good time.

I rode up the elevator to the top floor. Though it was late I wanted to check to see how many more Anthrolems had been added today.

The elevator’s doors slid open on the tenth floor of my apartments. I stepped out, only to see Petrus working at the table.

“Petrus?” I said, “What are you working on so late?”

He turned around, “Oh, you know, checking on the news reports of the day.”

He shuffled around the papers on the table and held up his pocket screen, where different news reports were displayed.

“Oh, ok.” I said. I walked over to the computer and checked the Anthrolem count. Still 50 Class As and 30 Class Bs.”

“Hey Petrus,” I said, “Didn’t you say you’d oversee Anthrolem production today?”

“Uh huh,” Petrus said distractedly.

“Could you explain to me why no Anthrolems have been made today?”

Petrus looked up from the papers he was shuffling through, “Of course, Nickolai spent today reprograming the Anthrolems so that we can up the production numbers.”

I shrugged, I guessed that made sense.

I flipped to my messages and went through, starting to delete the ones I no longer needed. I paused as I viewed a new message… from Caliban.

Strange, I thought. Having nothing else to do, I opened it:

Telyina Venderbare,

Tomorrow I hope to meet with you and unofficially discuss political business. I will show up at your apartments at noon. Feel no need to prepare for my presence as it shall just be a short conversation before I go to talk with the other candidates. If afraid this is mandatory, and is backed by the Planet Guard who support my cause. It will be nothing intrusive upon your rights, just a mandatory meeting. I do hope you will oblige willingly, and nothing shall be made uncomfortable. Til we meet again,

General Caliban

“Of all the pretentious nerve,” I gasped.

Petrus walked over, “What is it?”

“General Caliban is having a mandatory meeting with me tomorrow.”

Petrus looked at me quizzically, “Mandatory?”

I shook my head, “Somehow he’s got the Planet Guard’s backing to start interrogating the delegate candidates.”

Petrus sighed, “There’s no way we can resist without being seen as suspicious.”

“How are we going to keep him from getting suspicious? He’ll be here, just a floor below where Nickolai is making an army.”

“We’ll have Nickolai stop work, we’ll program the elevator to go no farther than the first floor, and we’ll lock the doors to the second floor. He won’t be able to make it past the first floor if he tries.”

“And you will?”

“Be on the tenth floor, watching security cameras, just in case he sends anyone else to snoop around.”

“Alright,” I said, “We should be fine, let’s just hope General Caliban is convinced from there that there is no reason to further investigate.”

“Even if he does, we can file complaints under invasions of privacy. By then the Planet Guard will hopefully be fed up with him, and his lack of results.”

“What do we need to do tonight?” I asked, “He’s given us very little notice.”

“You can go prep the first floor. Check to be sure there’s no stray papers or parts down there.”

“No one’s been down there in ages, I highly doubt it.” I said.

“Well,” Petrus’s shrugged, “I may have taken some time down there when I didn’t want to be too far from the lab…”

“In that case you clean up your mess,” I said.

He shrugged, “Do you know how to reboot the security cameras and hack into the elevator’s operating system to keep it from going any higher than the first floor?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Besides, down there needs quite a dusting, and you’ve always been better at that than me,” Petrus joked.

“I’m going,” I said, “You don’t have to rub it in.”

I stomped off towards the elevator.

“Don’t forget the duster!” Petrus called as the elevator doors slid shut.