Notes: Sorry there's nothing quirky or funny today, I have huge vertigo and need to be lying down, lol.
Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two
***
Chapter Twenty-Four,
Part Two
The problem, Elanus reflected two days later on his way to
see ex-President Moreno, was that he really shouldn’t be given time to think
about things. The more time he took to think about things, the more emphatically
he tended to respond. The old Kieron would have said he was “dramatic,” but the
new Kieron didn’t because he didn’t remember enough to know that.
That was the memory that pushed Elanus over the edge when it
came to the meeting. Kieron is fucked up because of this man. Because Moreno
took it upon himself to assassinate his Vice President, who took it upon xirself
to find the most foolproof protection out there. And it worked, for xir.
And it almost ruined things forever.
Elanus had taken his revenge on Restaria for that. It was
over and done with—too late for regrets, and who would listen anyhow if he
wanted to bitch about it? Saying more to Kieron would only burden him, and the
girls were too sensitive about it to handle a discussion without getting
distracted. Maybe he should design a new ship that had more adult
sensibilities, who he could talk these things through with…
Or maybe that would lead to the dissolution of all law and
order in this part of the galaxy. It was fifty-fifty as far as Elanus was
concerned.
No, he should make do with what he had. But that meant he
needed to keep himself in check. He had to rely on his own better instincts
to keep from torturing Moreno just because he could, because it was what he
deserved after everything that happened with Kieron. So, fine. No torture, but
that didn’t mean Elanus wasn’t going to make things hard on him.
He was just going to do that by giving Moreno everything he
wanted.
The protests concerning the fallen idol were approaching a
fever pitch, with counter-protestors making their presence known at the rallies
that were still going on around the capitol building. Caria was calling for
peace, promising that while Moreno was in a cell, he was being treated humanely
and was attended to by his lawyers. His lawyers, meanwhile, did their best to
fan the flames by decrying the lengths that Caria and the rest of the
government had gone to to isolate Moreno, calling his treatment “inhumane”
while defending his continuation of the centuries-old Elfshot program as “a
regrettable oversight.”
As if he hadn’t benefitted directly from seeing the best and
brightest taken down in their prime. As if he hadn’t had lengthy discussions
with politicians, business leaders, Deysan, about how he could “guarantee”
the status quo remained intact as long as he was president. How he would
protect them from the innovator, the creative, from anyone who might topple
them from their pedestals.
Catie had even found record of a conversation that Elanus
himself had been the subject of—“an outlier, the sort of person we need to look
at as an opportunity instead of a threat. After all, how could they ever say we
weren’t doing everything we could for them when he’s right there, reaching the
pinnacle of society despite his…disadvantages?” Restaria was looked at the same
way; useful as long as xe was being obedient, a perfect shill for the message
that Moreno cared, he really cared.
He didn’t care, not about anyone but himself. He’d had two
of his ex-wives assassinated—successfully, not even just threats of
death, he’d flat-out tried to kill them until it worked because he was afraid
of what they’d say. Two of his three children were also dead, and the third one
had left Gania several decades ago. His third wife was fifty years younger than
he was, uninterested in children, politics, or any work beyond what it took to
keep up appearances, and currently on a luxury cruise around the Central System—paid
for by Ganians—that was ostensibly for diplomatic reasons but was mostly a
chance for her to have fun with her lovers without flaunting them. She’d been
on Moreno’s list as well, once she returned.
The point was, the protests were getting violent,
misinformation was everywhere, and without a statement directly from Moreno,
nothing was going to get better. Moreno himself refused to give any such thing,
content to fan the flames.
Well, fuck that.
“You understand what you’ve got to do?” Elanus asked as he
checked in with Fritz an hour before they were due to begin.
“Of course I do,” Fritz said, rolling his brilliant eyes—he’d
redone them in gold, they were shockingly visible even across a crowded room
now. “You’re talking to someone who got his first degree in theater; I
know how to do this. I’m just surprised you got Caria to agree; she’s far more
straightlaced than I ever thought before I really got to know her.”
“She’s doing what she needs to do,” Elanus said. “She’s got
to present a contrast to Moreno, and the best way to do that is to be a little
bit serious.”
“It’s not inspiring, though.”
“No, it isn’t,” Elanus agreed. “Which is why we’re going to
perform our little play.”
Fritz arched an eyebrow. “And what does your man think of
that?”
“He’s fine with it.”
Kieron, in fact, was not fine with it. He was pretty upset
about it, actually, and more upset at the fact that Elanus was keeping him
completely away from the entire operation rather than letting him take a role.
It wasn’t, Elanus had told him, that he didn’t want Kieron there. It was that “I
need you to be safe for this.”
“How would I not be safe?” Kieron demanded. “The only person
putting himself in an unsafe position is you, I’d be perfectly safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t need to! I—”
“I need you to be safe!” Elanus had shouted. “That
means you here, with the girls, in a place where no one can reach you!”
Kieron had stared at him for a long moment before saying, “I’ll
stay. This time. But you can’t keep me locked up forever.”
And Elanus wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. But that was an
issue for another day.
Today, the issue was getting Moreno to incriminate himself
in a way even a fucking idiot could understand. And that, Elanus could see to
himself…with a little bit of help from his friends.