THE SYSTEM Chapter 3
Third 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!
* * * * *
Chapter 3
Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.
—Frank Zappa
Valeria was flopped on her back on the living room couch, so exhausted she was almost paralyzed. Preston lay parallel on the floor, holding her hand. It was two in the morning and the party had still been going strong when they’d left. Valeria didn’t want to seem ungrateful by heading home early, but at some point she realized no one was going anywhere before she did.
“Oh my God,” she managed to say.
Preston chuckled. “Shit got real.”
“A little too real. Pentagon pricks couldn’t give us one night to celebrate?”
“Look at it this way. If they weren’t lashing out, it would mean they’re not afraid of you. If they weren’t afraid of you, it would mean we’re doing something wrong.”
She supposed that was true. It was a high-profile upset—certainly the biggest in this election, maybe among the biggest ever. The press was going nuts over it. And she’d received so many congratulatory texts she’d given up on even trying to skim through them, let alone responding. She had managed to talk briefly with her mother and brother. Both had been effusive. But as was often the case, Josie’s glee at Valeria’s successes didn’t feel only like vicarious pride, but also like some instrument of proxy revenge against Héctor’s ghost. And Mateo was also true to form. He’d made some of his usual cracks, the humor of which was never enough to completely conceal an underlying tinge of envy or resentment.
Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, she thought. But she pushed the family shit away. Tonight was hers and Preston’s.
“Pres,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “When you convinced me to do this . . . did you really believe we could win?”
“One hundred percent. Didn’t I say so?”
“Well, you said, but . . .”
“What about you?”
“Maybe . . . one percent.”
He laughed. “If you’d really thought only one percent, we never would have made it. I think you believe in yourself more than you realize, Val.”
She squeezed his hand. “You make me believe.”
She remembered how he’d first suggested it, at Gamble in Santa Monica, Dennis’s first restaurant. Their romance had kindled over a common passion for politics, but their activism was limited to volunteering for a few local candidates and a single fizzled presidential campaign. Dennis wanted to open a new restaurant in Antelope Valley, where real estate was cheap and the local food scene less competitive. One night, unwinding over a drink at the bar after closing time, Preston told Valeria they should move to Lancaster and she should run for Fillian Dunne’s seat.
She’d laughed at the absurdity. Everyone knew Fillian Dunne was unbeatable. In the last three elections, he’d been returned to office with something like eighty percent of the vote. He had a campaign budget bigger than the GDP of small nations, and ruled California’s 27th District like a king from an impregnable castle.
“That’s exactly what makes him vulnerable,” Preston had said. “It’s not just everyone else who thinks he’s unbeatable. He thinks so, too. He’s like a champion who hasn’t been challenged, hasn’t had a real fight, in years. He’s complacent. Out of shape.”
She’d laughed again, but he wouldn’t let it go. “He won’t take you seriously,” he said. “He’ll look at you and see a nobody from Pacoima, barely dry behind the ears. A bartender, for God’s sake. Yeah, he’s got a war chest, but he won’t touch it. He won’t think he needs to, and besides he wants to save it, because if he becomes Speaker of the House as everyone expects, he’ll need the money to run for president against Whetter. Conventional armies have lost to guerillas plenty of times, Val. You could beat him.”
Like Dunne, Ben Whetter was another ten-term corporatist, and as devoted a servant of the Pentagon as could be found in Congress. Widely considered to be another possibility for Speaker, he was also expected to be one of Dunne’s primary opponents in the next presidential election.
She thought he must be drunk. “Why don’t you run?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I don’t have star power.”
“Please. Like I do.”
“Don’t say that. That’s the only thing holding you back. You don’t see the way customers look at you. And it’s not just because you’re beautiful—”
“You don’t have to butter me up, Pres. You know when we get home I’m going to do you anyway.”
He laughed. “I’m not trying to butter you up. You don’t get the way people respond to you. You’re smart and passionate and fast on your feet. People are going to see you, and they’ll be attracted to you because you’re a beautiful woman but also a beautiful person. And they’ll want to be in your orbit, and they’ll want to follow you. And when they respond to you that way, it’ll increase your confidence, and . . . you’ll grow into what they see. And they’ll love you more and you’ll become more worthy of their love. It’ll be a virtuous cycle.”
For whatever reason, the flattery—or whatever it was—had made her nervous. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “I’m definitely not letting you drive home in this condition.”
“I’m totally serious, Val. I don’t have your charisma. Even you don’t have it, not yet, not all of it. But I see things you don’t. About you. About Dunne. I’d be a good advisor. And campaign manager. We’d be such a good team.”
“Why not just stay here in Santa Monica and run against Luiz? It would still be hard, but not as impossible as against Dunne.”
“No, that’s the whole point. Hard is impossible. Impossible is opportunity.”
She laughed. “My campaign manager, Yoda.”
“Luiz doesn’t think he’s invulnerable. He’s wary. He thinks like a junkyard dog guarding his territory. Dunne thinks like a king. His eye is on other realms, not his own provinces.”
“Well, you come at the king, you best not miss.”
During the campaign, it had become a refrain for the two of them. Will this approach work? How devastating will it be? Could it backfire? Because if you come at the king, you best not miss.
Well, they hadn’t missed. But the Pentagon seemed intent on making her wish they had.
* * * * *
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!
