Watchers

Chapter 26: Fallout

The lights in the room begin to slowly turn on, unnoticeable at first and getting brighter and brighter until Sasha opens her eyes. It's a simulation of daybreak in a windowless room, and she lays still for a few minutes as she gets used to her surroundings again.

Daniel still has his arm around her and she's slept more peacefully tonight than she has in the past year. She feels intensely guilty about that fact, because as soon as she gets her bearings, her mind goes back to Melody.

"Hey," Daniel says, his eyes fluttering open beside her. He rolls onto his back, taking his arm away, and asks, "How did you sleep?"

"Better than I deserve," she answers.

"She-" he begins to say, but Sasha cuts him off.

"Don't," she says. She doesn't want to think about Melody, let alone talk about her, so she changes the subject. "Tell me about your past."

Daniel shifts uncomfortably and the mattress moves with him. "My political history?"

"Yes," Sasha says. "I'm sorry, but if we're going to keep being friends then I need to hear it."

"We're friends?" Daniel asks, trying to lighten the mood and possibly trying to dodge the question.

"I mean," Sasha says, "I guess so? Whatever you would call it in a situation like this. Allies?"

"I prefer friends," he says. "It has a nicer ring to it."

"Stop stalling," Sasha warns.

"Fine," he says, sitting up. She does, too, and they both lean against the wall that the bed is pushed up against. He takes a deep breath and says, "I became a politician because I wanted to make the world a better place."

Sasha snorts and Daniel puts up his hand.

"I know. Believe me, I've gotten that response about a thousand times," he says. "But I was raised by a senator. In my house, if you wanted to make a change, you did it through a democratic process. If I even wanted to change the color of my bedroom walls, we would put it to a vote. My dad bought into every part of the twenty-first-century American government, and he wanted the rest of us to follow suit.

"That's why I majored in political science when I went to college, and why I worked as a congressional aide under my father when I graduated. He made me think that was the only way I could make a difference the same way that the rest of the country has been brainwashed into thinking that dismantling the system is the only way."

"But it's so broken," Sasha says. "How could you not see it?"

"Of course I saw it," Daniel said. "I'm not naive, and neither is my father. We know what everyone thinks of the government - he knew even before the massacre. But he still thinks it's the only way to fix things."

"And you?"

"That's why I quit," Daniel says. "I realized that we were never going to make any progress if we kept fighting and pushing back against the people instead of working with them.

"When ninety percent of the population believes that democracy means a greedy government that taxes unfairly and undercuts the working class, it's an uphill battle to restore faith in the system. The people have made it clear again and again, as far back as the Trump administration, that unfettered capitalism is king - even after they all realized that the slobbering, money-hungry CEOs driving that change were just as greedy as the government they usurped.

"I spent most of my life in that reality, just like you. I only know what it feels like to live in the anarchy we've created, but my dad remembers what it was like before the one percent swooped in and convinced everyone that the country was better off putting their faith in them than in the government. He still wants to fix things, and I've come to realize that there's nothing left worth fixing."

In the pause between those words and the next, they hear the door latch open and both of them glance toward it. The door stays closed, but in the hall they can hear other contestants venturing out to begin their day. Neither of them moves and Sasha asks Daniel to continue his story.

"So that's when you quit?" she asks. "Is that why you can't go home?"

"Yeah," Daniel says. "I tried to tell him that we were getting nowhere by doing the same old things, and I told him my intention was to find a way to burn it all down and start over from scratch. I think that's the only way we're going to dig ourselves out of this mess and come out the other side, and he thinks words like that amount to treason. After a lot of months of arguing until we were both red in the face, I decided I couldn't live under his roof anymore, he decided I couldn't be his son anymore, he disowned me and thus began my own personal nightmare."

"The drugs?" Sasha asks gently, and Daniel nods.