Greensboro, North Carolina, Thursday
From: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov
To: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov
Re: MinCol
Mr. Flandres:
The position of Hegemon is not and never was vacant. Peter Wiggin continues to hold that office. Therefore your dismissal of the Hon. Hyrum Graff as Minister of Colonization is void. Graff continues to exercise all previous authority in regard to MinCol affairs off the surface of Earth.
Furthermore, IFCom will regard any interference with his operations on Earth, or with his person as he carries out his duties, as obstruction of a vital operation of the International Fleet, and we will take all appropriate steps.
From: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov
To: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov
Re: MinCol
Admiral Chamrajnagar, sir:
I cannot imagine why you would write to me about this matter.
I am not acting Hegemon, I am Assistant Hegemon. I have forwarded your letter to General Suriyawong, and I hope all future correspondence about such matters will be directed to him.
Your humble servant,
Achilles Flandres
From: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov
To: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov
Re: MinCol
Forward my letters wherever you like. I know the game you are playing. I am playing a different one. In my game, I hold all the cards. Your game, on the other hand, will only last until people notice that you have no actual cards at all.
Peter did not want to get out of bed. This had never happened to him before in his life.
No, not strictly true. He had often wanted not to get out of bed, but he had always gone ahead and gotten out of bed anyway. What was different today was that he was still in bed at nine-thirty in the morning, even though he had a press conference scheduled for less than half an hour from now in a conference room in the O. Henry Hotel in his home town of Greensboro, North Carolina.
He could not plead jet lag. There was only an hour's time difference between Ribeirao Preto and Greensboro. It would be a great embarrassment if he did not get up. So he would get up. Very soon now.
Not that it would make any difference. He might, for the moment, still have the title of Hegemon, but there were people in many countries with titles like "king" and "duke" and "marquis," who nevertheless cooked or took pictures or fixed automobiles for a living. Perhaps he could go back to college under another name and train himself for a career like his father's, a quiet one working for a company somewhere.
Or he could go into the bathroom and fill the tub with water and lie down in it and breathe the water in. A few moments of panic and flailing around, and then the whole problem would go away. In fact, if he hit himself very hard in various places on his body, it might look as though he struggled with an assailant and was murdered. He might even be considered a martyr. At least people might think that he was important enough to have an enemy who thought he was worth killing.
Any minute now, thought Peter, I will get up and shower so I don't look so bedraggled to the media.
I ought to prepare a statement, he thought. Something to the effect of, "Why I am not as pathetic and stupid as my recent actions prove me to be." Or perhaps the direct approach: "Why I am even more pathetic and stupid than my recent actions might indicate."
Given his recent track record, he would probably be saved from the bathtub, given CPR, and then someone would notice the bruises on his body and the lack of an assailant and the story would get out about his pathetic effort to make his suicide attempt look like a brutal murder, thus making his life even more worthless than it already was.
Another knock on the door. Couldn't the maid read the do-not-disturb sign? It was written in four languages. Could she possibly be illiterate in all four of them? No doubt she was also illiterate in a fifth.
Twenty-five minutes until the press conference. Did I doze off? That would be nice. Just... doze... off. Sorry, I overslept. I've been so very busy. It's exhausting work to turn over to a megalomaniac killer everything I built up through my entire life.
Knock knock knock. It's a good thing I didn't kill myself all this knocking would have ruined my concentration and entirely spoiled my death scene. I should die like Seneca, with fine last speeches. Or Socrates, though that would be harder, since I don't have hemlock but I do have a bathtub. No razor blades, though. I don't grow enough of a beard to need any. Just another sign that I'm only a stupid kid who should never have been permitted to take a role in the grownup world.
The door to his room opened and jammed against the locking bar.
How outrageous! Who dare to use a passkey on his room?
And not just a passkey! Someone had the tool that opened the locking bar and now his door was wide open.
Assassins! Well, let them kill me here in the bed, facing them, not cowering in a corner begging them not to shoot.
[[ references to suicidal thoughts under the cut. also peter being a drama queen. i have not changed a single line; i love this scene more than i love anything on the planet. from osc's shadow puppets for some npcs and the girl, please. ]]