The Last President III: The Alligator

President Taryn sat at her impressively large and incredibly old desk and stared off into space.

For more than twenty years she had sat at this desk—the desk of former kings—and greeted the citizens of Ultima one by one as they aired their petty grievances.

In Ultima, citizens often lost their minds just thinking of the absurdity of their existence—the existence of a soul or spirit, or whether they were just a reflection of life, just a collection of memories.

She was already bored, and it was barely mid-morning. The citizen across from her droned on about some neighborhood squabble that failed to draw her interest, and she daydreamed of speeches before grand assemblies and declarations of war with other cities.

She counted how many times the citizen used the word alligator and wondered if they were talking about a dream they’d had. Alligators represented hidden fears and repressed emotions.

In her dreams, President Taryn was frequently the kind of leader who was always prepared for war. She would conquer her neighbors. She would invade cities and kidnap foreign leaders. Far from her real-life duties, where she sat at a desk and listened to the citizens complain about their neighbor’s alligator.

“Wait, what?” She was unsure whether those last words were hers or her 11:30.

“She feeds them to her alligator, Madam President,” the woman continued.

Taryn knew exactly who the woman—we’ll call her 11:30—was referring to. She had heard of the show coming from the rim. The president’s influence was great at the hub but diminished by degrees the closer one got to the outer rim. Even she didn’t go there.

There were patrols, of course, but there weren’t enough worker clones to maintain order. The rim was a wasteland—if you could call a community that grew its own fruits and vegetables a wasteland. It was a lawless area, if not for the vice-like grip of control maintained by the four gang leaders.

The Wild Woman, this woman’s neighbor—this dead woman’s neighbor—was the worst of them.

President Taryn’s expression moved from boredom to pity. What would possess this woman—11:30—oh my god, what was her real name? At some point she knew she would have to address the woman by name to make her feel like she mattered, and—was it Claire? She thought it was Claire—what would possess Claire to complain about someone so dangerous? Didn’t she know the cameras were on?

“You may want to refresh your back-up before heading back home to the rim,” she interrupted.

Claire seemed to recognize what that warning meant and froze in disbelief. “But…”

The door swung open and several worker clones stormed in with news. The president met Claire’s glance with a look that seemed to say, Men don’t knock. And then she said it aloud.

“Men don’t knock?” she questioned them, each word louder than the last.

“Madam President…” the first clone pleaded.

“Go back out and knock,” the president said slowly and forcefully.

The men stepped out of the office and closed the door. President Taryn smiled at her guest. She might be powerless to stop her from being eaten by an alligator, but she’d be damned if she let a bunch of clones storm into a meeting—even a boring one.

After a couple of seconds there was a sheepish knock on the door. President Taryn cleared her throat and yelled, “Okay,” as if they’d even done that wrong. The clones entered again.

The lead worker said one word. “The sun.”

“Well then, gentlemen,” she said, continuing in song. “Let’s taaake this to the observaaaation deck.”

Taryn finished her song, and as she was leaving, looked back at poor, soon-to-be-dead Claire.

“But, Madam President, couldn’t you order this monster put down?” Claire begged as the president leapt toward the door. “A muzzle? A cage?” she cried. “That thing’s a menace.”

“I’m so sorry, Claire,” Taryn answered, making sure to pronounce the woman’s name in a clear, happy tone. The citizens always liked it when she said their names in a happy tone. “I can send an extra patrol or two… uh… move you to the front of the line for a new back-up… or a place in the capital building. How’s your stamina? You like bikes?” The questions all seemed rhetorical. “Madge!” she yelled.

Madge appeared in the doorway as if she had been standing there the whole time and hadn’t just been summoned.

“Can you help poor Claire here? These gentlemen say they’ve seen the sun and I just have to go check it out.” She followed the clones through the doorway, saying something about “presidential duties…”

Madge walked over to a disappointed Claire and grabbed her hand with both of her own. “I’m so sorry. The president had to step away on urgent business. What did she promise you?”

“Patrols,” Claire said dejectedly. “Back-up.” She continued with very little emotion.

“How about relocation? Maybe we can find you a unit in the capital. Do you want to live in the hub?”

“Not really. No.”

It was common knowledge that the food supply was spiked. It was widely believed that the protein and vegetable matter supplied to all citizens was drugged, that the president herself controlled the dosage, and that the entire population was medicated—a mix of antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, and antipsychotics meant to help the population deal with the lack of sun and a life spent entirely indoors.

However, the people on the rim grew their own food. Their own vegetables—tomatoes, strawberries, cabbage, potatoes—and were not medicated. Not medicated by the government. On the rim there were other drugs: recreational drugs and performance-enhancing substances that, if the force-fed, drug-laced foods of the hub were meant to keep the population from chaos, had the opposite effect.

Claire sat in despair while Madge made every attempt to get her to leave the president’s office. “I voted for her,” Claire complained.

“We all did,” Madge replied, grabbing one of Claire’s elbows and coaxing her out of the chair and toward the door.

Claire was an older woman. She looked to be in her upper forties, which was old for Ultima. The women of Ultima were born in their twenties, and most of them were dead before the age of forty, only to be reborn again a spry twenty-year-old girl.

But without freedom or sunlight, even that was a source of depression.

Claire’s knees shook from fear. There was very little that was private in Ultima, and certainly her dangerous next-door neighbor knew she had tried to get her pet euthanized; surely the response would be swift and brutal and painful. Very, very painful. So she was in no hurry to get back home.

The office door swung open again, and the president strode through with a look of satisfaction on her face.

“They were right. It was the sun,” she exclaimed, stepping around the slow-moving women to her monumental desk of importance. “It was miles away. There was a break in the clouds, but it was beautiful. I sent the clones out to check it out. Maybe this is finally a break and things will heat up around here. Maybe the human race will finally catch a break.”

It was after she made this hopeful admonition that she realized she and First Lady Madge were not alone. Claire had not left. “Why is she still here?” she stage-whispered loudly enough for both of them to hear.

“Get out, Claire,” she stage-whispered again, this time right to Claire’s face.

“It’s Constance, actually,” the woman corrected her.

Madge shoved Claire-Constance-11:30 out the door and turned to give her wife a look of disapproval. Taryn pretended not to notice.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Taryn shouted at 11:30, whatever her name was.

“Give me like five minutes and then show the next one in,” she said, thinking only of the promise of sunlight and a little natural heat to replenish the generators. The bikes only generated so much.

“Send in the next one.”