THE SYSTEM Chapter 1

First Serialized Chapter of The System, Out June 6th

Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 here. Chapter 3 here. Chapter 5 here.

Preorder in digital today; digital, trade paperback, and audiobook (narrated by yours truly) out June 6th!

* * * * *

It’s a big club—and you ain’t in it.

—George Carlin

Chapter 1

The object of power is power.

—George Orwell

The restaurant was small, and the packed crowd was cheering with such abandon that Valeria couldn’t hear the reporter’s question—even though the woman had yelled it only inches from her ear.

“I’m sorry?” Valeria shouted, her own words barely audible over the din.

The reporter leaned closer, taking care to keep her microphone between them. “How does it feel?” she hollered, louder this time. “Can you describe what you’re feeling right now?”

The cheering cohered into a chant—the campaign slogan, magnified by hundreds. Let’s do this! Let’s do this! Let’s do this!

Valeria glanced at the television monitor set up on the bar. The CNN chyron read, Valeria Velez Stuns Fillian Dunne, Will Represent California’s 27^th District as Youngest Woman in Congress.

The networks were calling the election.

It shouldn’t have been a complete shock—Preston had been saying for a week that it wasn’t even close anymore, but that if cable news acknowledged it was already over, their viewers would drift away like fans before the fourth quarter of a lopsided football game.

Still, it didn’t seem real.

The crowd was stomping now in time with the chant. The floor shook. LET’S DO THIS! LET’S DO THIS! LET’S DO THIS!

“I’m just—” Valeria started to say, but it was no good, her people were too loud, and besides, she didn’t know what she was feeling right then, let alone how to describe it.

And suddenly the stomping and chanting were dying down. Valeria looked over and saw why: Preston, ever sensitive to an opportunity to cultivate the press, had jumped on a chair and was lowering his extended arms like a conductor signaling the orchestra to ease off the fortissimo. He grinned at Valeria and shook his head: Can you believe this?

No, she thought. I can’t.

But his smile gave her confidence, the way it always did.

“I’m sorry,” Valeria said. “Can you tell me your name again? So much going on.”

“Jocelyn. Jocelyn Slater. Gamut News.”

“Jocelyn,” Valeria said, leaning closer to the woman’s microphone. “Right. Well, I feel encouraged. Because if a little campaign like mine can do this, then America can do anything.”

Don’t let them make it about us, Preston liked to remind her. It’s always about your constituents. The people. The country. They want to talk personalities. We talk principles.

“Even overcome racism and misogyny?” Slater said.

From the beginning, the press had tried to frame the contest as young Latina versus old white guy. Valeria wasn’t going to take the bait.

“I based my campaign on economic policies,” Valeria said. “Class policies. I promised voters I would fight for those policies, and now that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Slater gave an almost imperceptible worth a try shrug, then turned to her cameraman and pulled the microphone close to her own mouth. “And there you have it. Valeria Velez, the unknown thirty-year-old bartender from Pacoima, defeats Fillian Dunne, ten-term incumbent, favorite of Santa Clarita business interests, and until tonight the likely next Speaker of the House. A David and Goliath story if ever there was one. Valeria—or should I call you Congresswoman—what kind of stones were you throwing from your sling?”

Valeria almost offered up the rote campaign answer—the determination to be a voice for the voiceless; to make the American Dream available for everyone; to take back government of, by, and for the people. All of which was true, of course, but suddenly she felt inspired by something different.

“You really want to know?” she said, stealing a quick look at the camera lens, giving herself an extra moment to consider.

Slater leaned closer as though they were sharing a secret. “If you’re willing to tell.”

“It’s this: Today is a good day to die.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s a saying,” Valeria went on, feeling a little rush at the risk of improvising, at knowing there was no taking it back now. “Attributed to Oglala Lakota leader Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was talking about war. But we’re in a battle, too, and what the expression means here is that I’m not afraid to lose. For me politics is nothing more than a means of improving the lives of millions of ordinary Americans. Power is only potential. It’s what you do with it that counts.”

“You’re saying politics isn’t worthwhile?”

Never just bob and weave, Preston always told her. No matter what you say, staying on defense makes you look weak. Be a counterpuncher. Hit ’em back. He knew she liked boxing references. Her father, Héctor, had been a California Golden Gloves state champion and had coached Valeria and her brother Mateo when they were teenagers trying to follow in his footsteps.

“Of course it’s worthwhile—for the few, who use politics to profit at the expense of the many. For the rich and powerful of this country, politics is a fantastic racket. The question is whether we can change this country’s politics, to provide a decent life for the many rather than further fattening the very few.”

Preston was a terrific tactician. But the alliteration was all hers—and always had been, starting with the name her parents had given her.

“Many people believe your signature policy proposal—the universal basic income—is a utopian fantasy.”

Valeria leaned closer to the mic. “They said the same about abolishing slavery. About women’s suffrage, too. You don’t think those are utopian fantasies, Jocelyn, do you?”

Some in the crowd who were close enough to hear laughed.

Slater shook her head quickly, maybe at the discomfort of having the Q&A script flipped. “But do you really expect to be able to follow through on a UBI now that you’ve won the election?”

“Look, artificial intelligence isn’t just the future anymore. It’s here now and getting more powerful every day, and its impact is only beginning to be felt. In long-haul trucking alone, we’re talking over two million Americans, ninety percent of whom are men with a median age of forty-six, all of whom are going to be instantly out of work the moment AI starts driving trucks for no salary and without ever needing to sleep. That’s a literal army of unemployed. So what’s utopian—discarding two million men and hoping for the best, or making sure they have something to fall back on as our entire society adjusts to the massive technological shift of AI?”

“So you’re in the camp that views AI as an existential threat?”

“It doesn’t matter how I view it. What matters is its impact. The collision we’re about to have with AI is going to be like nothing society has experienced since the Industrial Revolution. We need a UBI airbag to cushion the crash.”

“Any comments on the rumors about you and your campaign manager, Preston Jante?”

Valeria wasn’t surprised—she was used to reporters fleeing from substance in favor of gossip. And she understood that anytime two attractive people worked closely together, rumors were inevitable. Of course, in this case the rumors were true.

“I’ve addressed those stories more times than I can—”

“But now you’re a congresswoman. Don’t you owe the people an answer?”

And then Preston appeared next to them, as though he’d sensed the question and levitated over to interrupt it.

“It’s Dunne,” he said, holding out a cellphone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Valeria looked at the phone. For a surreal instant, she was a kid again, back on the Viper roller coaster at Magic Mountain, where Héctor had taken her for the first time when she was eight. The clack clack clack of the gears as the train car climbed the mechanical lift, the split second of stillness at the top . . . and then the whoosh of air in her face and the sickening clench in her belly as gravity disappeared and the car plunged from two hundred feet in the air.

“He’s . . . conceding?”

Preston shook his head as though in wonder or disbelief. “All he said was, ‘I’d like to speak with Valeria.’”

She smiled, feeling a little nauseous, and took the phone.

“This is Valeria.”

“Congratulations, Congresswoman Velez. I hope I’m the first person to call you that, because it would be an honor.”

For a second, she wanted to apologize for every charge she’d ever leveled at him—corporatist, militarist, bought-and-paid-for. Yes, it was all true, and yes, he’d thrown plenty of shade, too, but he was beaten now. And being so gracious in defeat.

“A reporter just called me Congresswoman. But . . . not Congresswoman Velez.”

Dunne laughed. “I guess it’s a night of second places for me. But I’m glad the fight is over. Maybe now we can be friends.”

“I’d like that,” she heard herself say. Did she mean it? She thought she did, but maybe that was just some kind of victor’s guilt.

“I need to address the troops,” he said. “They already know from the networks, but they won’t accept it until they hear from me.”

“I know how they feel, Congressman.”

He laughed again. “I won’t be a congressman for much longer. And my friends call me Fillian.”

For a second, she was actually touched. Without thinking, she said, “My friends call me Valeria.”

“Well . . . maybe when it’s just us talking. But when people are around, I’ll use the title. You earned it. Cheers, Valeria.”

He clicked off before she could even say goodbye. She looked at Preston, shaking her head wordlessly, and handed him back the phone.

Everyone had gone quiet. They were all watching her.

“Well?” Slater said.

Valeria cleared her throat. “Someone bring me a chair.”

Instantly the whole room was in motion. Within seconds, a half dozen chairs had been laid out before her. She stepped onto one in the center and Preston handed her a microphone.

She started to smile and was surprised to feel her free hand rising toward her mouth. Her childhood teeth had been crooked, and as a teen, concealing them had been a habit. But she’d earned enough bartending in college to afford braces, which had given her a beautiful smile and ended the self-conscious reflex—or at least suppressed it. She managed to grab the mic with both hands, hoping the gesture would look natural and not like something redirected, and unleashed a huge, unabashed grin. A few campaign workers clutched each other’s shoulders, probably afraid to believe this could be real.

“That was Congressman Dunne,” she said. “Calling to concede—”

Everyone went wild, whooping, applauding, stomping. Valeria waited until the commotion began to drop off.

“—to concede the election. And to congratulate everyone in this room on our against-all-odds victory!”

The room erupted again, and again Valeria waited.

“I have so many of you to thank,” she went on. “For now, I’m going to mention only two, or I’ll go on all night.”

She cleared her throat once more. “First, Preston Jante, the best campaign manager in the history of campaigns—”

The applause amped up again, and again she waited until it died down.

“Preston was the one who suggested I do this crazy thing—not just run for Congress, but against Fillian Dunne, who was considered by anyone not certifiably mad to be unbeatable!”

Laughter. Applause. Scattered cries of We’re all mad here! and They sure got that wrong!

“It’s good Preston and I both tend bar at Dennis’s restaurants,” Valeria said. “Because if it hadn’t been after hours and if I hadn’t been drinking, I probably wouldn’t have listened to him.”

More laughter. She gestured to Dennis, who was hanging back, smiling.

“Which brings me to the other person I want to thank. Dennis Kelly, the force behind Protégé, Lancaster’s first Michelin-starred restaurant. Dennis gave me a job when I needed one, a campaign headquarters when I didn’t have one, and a place for this party better than anything we could have bought even with all the money in the world!”

Which we don’t have! someone called out, to ripples of laughter and a response of, Who needs money, we’ve got the love!

“Every one of us worked so hard on this,” Valeria said when the laughter and cheers had died down. “And tonight, every one of us has so many reasons to be joyous and proud. But tomorrow the hard part begins. The part where we stop stuffing the maw of the military machine, where we take those wasted trillions and make them part of a universal basic income, where we build a society that runs on hope rather than fear and that works not just for the richest one percent, but for all Americans, not just for the few of them but for all of us!”

The crowd went berserk at the last three words, which were another campaign slogan, turning them into a deafening chant. All of us! All of us! All of us!

It went on for a long time. When it finally began to ebb, Valeria said, “But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, let’s party!”

That detonated a fresh outpouring of laughter and applause. She looked at Preston, wanting to share the moment with him, but he was focused on his phone, frowning.

She stepped off the chair and walked over, pausing to accept handshakes and hugs from delirious members of the campaign. Preston, ordinarily attuned to her movements and needs, kept staring at his phone. He didn’t even notice when she reached him.

She touched his shoulder. “What is it?”

He looked up. “They’re moving the NGAD fighter.”

“What? From Palmdale?”

He nodded. “Air Force Plant 4. Nancy Byer. Texas’s 12^th District.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? It’s a message. ‘You want to stop stuffing the military maw, Congresswoman? Fine. We’ll move the Next Generation Air Dominance contract out of your district and have Lockheed Martin build billions of dollars’ worth of next-generation fighter jets in Fort Worth, instead. Where we have a representative who knows her place.’”

She was suddenly scared. “That’s five thousand jobs.”

“Yeah, that’s clearly their point.”

She didn’t answer. Two minutes of joy, and then this.

Come on, Valeria. Did you think this was going to be easy? That they weren’t going to hit back?

Preston’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it. “It’s Dunne again.”

She felt an irrational pang of fear. “What, is he taking back his concession?”

He shook his head, obviously as perplexed as she was. “I don’t know.”

She pushed away the feeling that everything was already crumbling—that somehow her victory, which she hadn’t yet even fully accepted as real, was about to be snatched away—and took the phone.

“Fillian,” she said, projecting much more calm than she felt. “It’s been too long.”

“I assume you saw the news?”

“What news?”

“Hah, playing dumb. You’re getting the hang of it already. Listen, I know you just got handed your first major dilemma. Maybe I can help.”

All the warm feelings his graciousness had prompted earlier were suddenly gone, replaced by suspicion.

“Why would you want to help me?”

“The people who work at Plant 42 have been my constituents for twenty years, Valeria. The workers and their families. I know we have different priorities. But if there’s a way to save those jobs, shouldn’t you and I try to find it?”

How could anyone argue with that? But the question made her wary. It reminded her of her mother, Josie, who had always asked similarly irrefutable questions: Don’t you want the teacher to know how smart you are? Don’t you want to get asked to the dance? Don’t you want to know why your father really left us?

“What do you have in mind?”

“I have a few ideas. But to start with, there’s a guy you should know. He’s a bit . . . different. But you’ll appreciate how his messaging acumen can help you spin the tires when you think you’re stuck.”

“What do you mean, ‘different’?”

“His name is Montgomery Cranston. He’s helped me wriggle through plenty of tight spots. If he likes you, he might help you, too. You interested?”

Was the Pentagon moving NGAD out of Palmdale a tight spot? It actually felt much worse than that. Worse than her misgivings about Dunne.

She glanced at Preston and nodded. “I’m interested,” she said.

* * * * *

Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 here. Chapter 3 here. Chapter 5 here.

Endnotes to each chapter are here.

Preorder in digital today; digital, trade paperback, and audiobook (narrated by yours truly) out June 6th!

And if you’re in the Bay Area, I’ll be launching the book at Kepler’s Friday, June 6th, at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there!