Power to the People
The Mayor leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on a table behind his desk. He smiled as he looked out of the window. ‘This is going to a great day,’ he thought. ‘Finally, after all this time, it will be over.’
He had so many plans, so many ambitions. Yet at every turn, it seemed that some element was out to thwart him. They thought they could keep him the mere mayor of this backwoods Oregon town. They had rigged the election four years ago so that he lost the race for the state Senate. They found a way to halt his ascent to Congress two Novembers ago. And he knew, he just knew, that they were trying to wrest him from even this lowly position during the upcoming election. What other possible explanation could there be for being behind in the polls by twenty points to a lowly security corporation executive like Shawn Berger? Government agents were putting out false polling numbers to drive those loyal to the Mayor towards the other camp. They feared him. They feared his visions of the future. He tried to explain this to the media and was dismissed as having "gone over the edge." He desperately clung to power and valiantly tried to retain it, but it looked as though those who feared him would prevail.
Then the Autobots came.
The Autobots were brutal and efficient. He had heard rumors of the destruction of several cities around the world at the hands of this alien race. His citizens cringed at the severity these giant robots rifled through humans as if they were nothing. They clamored for the federal government to "do something," as if this plea alone would conjure up ways of dealing with these metal monsters. The Mayor became a forgotten man.
'But not anymore,' he thought as his smile broadened.
Instead of rampant carnage, he saw an opportunity. Those who were trying to stop his natural progression to a seat of greater power were distracted. He made several speeches spouting the usual nonsense about how the will of the citizenry of Central City, Oregon would never be crushed. He discussed with any that would listen, preferably in the media, vague plans for protecting the fine people of this town and how they would never back down. Eventually a small article in the editorial section of the Seattle paper appeared detailing the fall of a small town mayor into harsh reality of mental illness. The Mayor knew that the Autobots would see past the moronic pettiness in the article and see him as a threat.
The Mayor stood and paced in front of the window, staring intently at a single large glass-covered building with the words “Berger, Inc.” emblazoned upon it. Faster and faster, he walked past the large window. All the times that the fool had escaped his grasp rushed to the front of his mind. All the times Shawn Berger tried to thwart him, even after he aligned himself with the Autobots. ‘Why?’ he thought frantically. ‘Why did you continue to force my hand like this? Make me stoop to these levels to get rid of you and save you from driving my city into nonexistence?’
He turned to walk past the window again and bumped his left knee against his desk. The Mayor shouted in surprise and fell to the ground. He remained there for a moment as a frustrated sob escaped his body.
“Damn you, Berger!” he shouted at the floor. “This is all your fault!”
He stopped and closed his eyes, calming himself. After another moment, he lifted himself up and dusted himself off. He had to remain calm. His enemies wanted him to lose his concentration. They were trying to drive him mad. But that would never work. The Mayor was far too sly for that. No matter how many times he killed Berger and how many times he came back, he would never succumb to madness. The Mayor had the Autobots on his side, after all.
He remembered the day the Autobots arrived at Central City like it was yesterday. Everybody else was in a state of panic. Even Berger’s vaunted security force. Everybody, that was, except for the Mayor. He was expecting the Autobot forces to converge on the town to assess what danger it posed. He knew the Autobots were probably expecting a fight or a trap or something similar. What they didn’t expect was a deal. He talked to the leader of the unit and struck a deal where the town would be spared and a place for the Mayor in a seat of power once the Autobots were finished with the planet. All it cost was a few thousand of the citizens for the Autobots to study. Naturally, Shawn Berger and a few like-minded fools put up a fight. Half of Central City was lost as a result, reverted to piles of ash and rubble. Did those fighting against this not see that this sort of cooperation and sacrifice was the only way to assure their survival? Even now, some of these same rebellious forces were trying to thwart the Mayor’s grand plans for bringing this world back to the glory it knew in the past. Had they no vision?
Of course, that was not the case. It was all the doing of Shawn Berger and his allies. It was their vain attempt of driving the Mayor from power. They wanted all of this for themselves. They were being selfish. They could never lead the Earth back to glory. They would never defeat him. Never.
“Never!” the Mayor shouted at the ceiling.
He took another deep breath and sat again in his chair, propping his feet on the windowsill again.
Yet they were trying, however futile the gesture. For the longest time, the Mayor could not devise where they were finding the strength and power to hold out for this long. Several months ago, he made an important discovery. The Autobots were helping them.
Not all of the Autobots. Certainly not the leader of the Autobots, who still was in contact eager to continue their mutual relationship. He had explained to the Mayor that the Autobots loyal to him were not involved in the attack on his city’s government. Only a small offshoot of the more foolish Autobots in their own play for power. The leader of the Autobots explained that he was trying to contain it, but if the opportunity arose, the Mayor should not be afraid to use force of his own to dissuade the Autobots from breaking with their agenda.
‘Power,’ the mayor thought as he gazed out the window. It seemed that the Autobots understood little else. They did not seem to understand guile and cunning. Quiet assaults by way of the intelligence community had nearly demoralized the rebellious forces within the city. And that same intelligence gathered information of a secret meeting between Shawn Berger and the Autobot forces under his wing. The Mayor could not help but smile.
“Stealth and cunning,” he mused idly. “In politics, that was where the true power lies.”
Suddenly an explosion lit the early morning sky. The accompanying roar of fire and crashing metal soon followed, rattling the windows of the Mayor’s office. Picture frames fell from the walls. It felt as though the entire city was about to be sucked into a very planet that he so wanted to bring back to its former glory.
“Of course brute strength has its place as well,” he added with a laugh.
The Mayor shielded his eyes from the catastrophe that he had set in motion. It saddened him to have to watch any part of his city crumble, even abandoned buildings like “Berger, Inc.,” even to rid himself of the menace strangling this fine city’s soul. The Mayor nodded thoughtfully and reached for a pen. ‘That’s good,’ he thought. ‘I’ll have to add that to the speech celebrating this victory.’
After jotting down a couple of other thoughts that would inspire his citizens, he rose from his chair and stretched, feeling content with his victory. Fire continued to rise up, shooting from the top of the building. Smoke reached higher, intermingling with the clouds that had been building in all day over the city. Undoubtedly any Autobot that survived that blast would think twice about aligning himself against the Mayor. And, after so many attempts, so many failures, Shawn Berger was finally and fatally gone.
The Mayor turned and began to walk out of the office, when the phone on his desk rang. The Mayor stopped, frozen in his tracks. The shrill ring from his phone filled the office again. The Mayor closed his eyes and slowly turned back towards his desk. He reached his hand out and grasped the receiver. After a deep breath, he picked it up.
“Yes,” was all he said.
“Hello, Mr. Mayor,” a quiet, almost sinister voice replied.
The Mayor nearly dropped the phone in surprise. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘it isn’t possible.’
“You’re dead,” he whispered aloud.
“Oh, come now,” the voice of Shawn Berger said, a smile in his voice. “You should know by now that it will take more than this to finish me off.”
The Mayor dropped the phone back into the cradle and backed away from the desk. He jumped as the phone rang again. He continued to retreat from his desk, his eyes riveted to the phone. He shook his head and mouthed “No” over and over again. The Mayor bumped against the wall and slowly started to drop to the floor. The phone continued to ring. The Mayor covered his ears and laid on the floor on his side.
“No no no no no,” he said quietly. Suddenly he sat up. “How many times?” he screamed. “It’s all your fault, Berger. It’s your fault I am not in Washington right now. It’s your fault that I was losing the election this fall. It’s your fault that Autobots came here. You probably called them to Earth. You’re afraid of me. I’m not afraid of you. Can’t you see that I’m trying to kill you for the good of the people of Earth? Why won’t you die? Huh? How many times do I have to kill you before you’ll just STAY DEAD?” He slammed his fist into the ground and collapsed, sobbing.
“It’s all your fault, Berger,” he said hoarsely. “It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault…”
* * *
“…It’s all your fault…”
Perceptor continued to monitor the patient in Cell 33B with increasing curiosity. He had been the leader of a small town near to where the Autobots crashed. The Autobots were alerted to the town only in that this leader claimed it could defend itself. Several humans were captured, this leader among them, and brought to Perceptor for experimentation. The leader, it turned out, was insane.
The human continued to sob, softer now. He had ceased his chanting of blame for all his woes on another human. Every couple of days it was the same thing. He would have imaginary conversations with aides. He would sit on the floor and punched commands on an imaginary computer. He would open imaginary doors and drive in imaginary vehicles. He set up various traps from simple to complex to capture and kill a human named Shawn Berger. Ultimately, that plan would fail and the human’s adversary would still be alive. Then it begins anew. Most interestingly, the Autobots had a very prominent role in these fantasies.
Perceptor noted several items in the log and turned away, even as the Mayor rose and began settling back into work, finding ways of eliminating the human that continued to haunt him.
“Interesting,” Perceptor stated as he walked slowly down the long corridor, gazing idly at the other human experiments along either side the hall. After several minutes, he reached the door to the main laboratory. He looked back into the dark corridor.
“Most interesting.”
The End.
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