Do Cylons Dream of Chrome Sheep?, Part VI
Office of the President or not, people stood when Jed Bartlet entered a room. The power of his personality was so strong that sometimes they stood even after he told them to sit. Still, it was commonly assumed that the president, or the ex-president in this case, was still the same to his family. A dad was still a dad, and a husband was still a husband, not someone to stand at their every whim or wait to speak until spoken too. This was true of Liz and Zoey Bartlet, women of not insignificant personal charisma of their own, but as with most things, Ellie Bartlet was the exception to the rule.
To the young doctor, her father had been emperor of the world and the closest thing to God come to earth since she was ten years old. He was a giant who walked the earth, whose footprints were so deep that one could get lost in them, not to mention the length of his shadow.
And the thing was, Ellie never understood how to find her father in the bluster, in the clout that was the president. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her father, or that she didn’t relate to him. It was that she had to choose her moments carefully, like a strategically weaker chess player who knows that over the long term she can not win unless she picks exactly the right move at the right moment.
She was better at that than she used to be; usually, she just avoided him. It was an admission of weakness she hated. She hated that she didn’t have the strength of character to stand toe to toe with him on any subject. Part of her thought she’d rather enjoy that. If she wasn’t terrified of the idea.
So she hid, she found another world of medicine and science, as far away from his as she could. She tried to carefully regulate when and where she handled her father. She tried to handle him on her own terms.
But sometimes the giant breaks its chains, and sometimes you have to face the things that you are unprepared for.
And it was Ellie who was still standing, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her overcoat after her father entered the room. “What the hell were you thinking, Ellie?”
“Dad…” She spoke so softly that he didn’t stop, and in fact increased his volume.
“I know, you thought, medical school was such a waste. What I really want out of life is to be a stunt driver?!”
“Dad, it wasn’t like that!”
“Wasn’t like what? Do you mean to say that you weren’t pulled from an SUV and handcuffed face down on the pavement by a couple of Michigan State Troopers? Did your sister get that part of the story wrong? It was just a Sunday drive …”
“Actually, they were Colonial Security, not Michigan Troopers. I haven’t been charged with anything.”
“Yet!” he bellowed, pacing the room like a lion whose dinner was having the nerve to argue with him.
“Dad…”
“You went to college for eight years, Ellie, have you forgotten how to articulate in complete sentences?”
“I could if you let me get to the punctuation!”
That seemed to put a temporary brake on his tirade.
“A friend of mine asked me for help. He told me that someone’s life was in danger.”
“And you’d jump off a bridge if a friend asked you too?”
“Yes. If they told me that it would save a life.” He’d provoked her own sleeping lion, the part of her that was his daughter, and he never could keep eye contact with her when she was angry. Or when she was right. Especially not when she was both. “Karl came to me and asked me for my help. I’m sorry the police officers were killed. I didn’t know she had a gun.”
“I don’t think I like this boyfriend of yours. It’s usually Zoey’s boyfriends who get her in trouble.”
Ellie wasn’t about to touch the subject of her little sister’s ex-boyfriends, one of whom got her kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists by slipping ecstasy in her drink. “For the last time, Dad, he's not my boyfriend, but I can't get him to pick up his cell phone and I'm worried. It says he's out of area.”
“It’s entirely possible he’s taken off again in his flying saucer…”
“Dad…”
“Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have been in? The only reason you still aren’t in jail is because the jurisdiction is murky and your sister has pulled some strings. People died, Eleanor.”
“I know, Dad.” This time it was her turn to be sobered. In truth she was angry herself. Livid at Karl. If she wasn’t afraid for him she’d kill him herself. “I haven’t been able to reach him, Dad.”
Her father sat down while she remained standing, and she looked into his eyes and she knew in that instant that she won. She always won when she chose to fight rather than be steamrolled. She just wasn’t sure that was because she picked her battles carefully, or if she was stronger than she thought. “I’ll see what I can find out. President Santos hasn’t gotten very far in finding out exactly what happened. The governor and Roslin are presenting a united front. Or rather Roslin, pulled the governor out of her pocket long enough to present a united front.”
“Governor Tillinghouse is just doing what she thinks she has to, Dad. The colonials are responsible for revitalizing the state economy. She can’t afford to not go along when they are reasonable.”
“Or unreasonable. I did a lot for the economy here…”
“Dad, Michigan might as well have been a third world country within the United States before the settlement. They were just waiting for the last three residents of the state to kill each other in a gang war, freeze to death because they couldn’t afford to pay for heating in the winter, or just turn off the lights as the last person to leave Detroit. Roslin and her people have done more to revitalize this state than anyone since Henry Ford. Even you should be able to grant her that.”
He made a grunting noise. He hated to admit when he was wrong, so he generally didn’t.
“Besides, you have never liked Michigan on principle.”
“It wasn’t the state that I didn’t like. It’s Michiganders I never had much taste for. They chose the wrong side in the French and Indian War.”
~~**~~**~~**~~**~~
Karl Agathon straightened his uniform once before knocking on the door to the President’s outer office. For all of his bluster about her, he still found the office intimidating. Not to mention the woman holding it. And perhaps even a small part of him liked Laura Roslin… though on most days he couldn’t tell you which part of him that was.
The secretary motioned him in and he could hear Roslin’s voice coming from the inner office. The door was open and the President’s voice carried. She was talking to Tory, “And what’s this post-it note on my media schedule?”
“Which one, Madam President?”
“The one about Capital Beat.”
“Amy Gardner says she thinks we might have some trouble from a University of Michigan Law School professor who is going to be on Capital Beat this morning.”
“Amy is the one who looks like the living dead?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“She worries about everything. That’s what we pay her for.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Roslin stopped talking when she saw Helo standing at the door, and she glanced over at her aide, who quickly shuffled out the other door. “Come in, Captain. There are a few minutes before I’m supposed to turn on the TV to see who’s calling me names this week. We hire an American political consultant at about three times what my salary was as Secretary of Education and all she seems to do is to act like a particularly bizarre version of TV guide.”
Roslin gestured for him to sit in one of the big leather chairs by the fireplace and she sat opposite.
“I understand that you are going to be my military aide for a few weeks.”
“Those are my orders from the admiral.”
She smiled a little. “He has a twisted sense of humor at times.”
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
“Never mind. Captain, I know we’ve had our differences in the past…”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And letting me finish my sentences would be a good thing.” He nodded and she continued, “You’ve certainly opened a big can of worms. A diplomatic incident between the State of Michigan, the Federal government, and us, along with an ex-president in the mix-when you want my attention you don’t screw around.”
“Ma’am, I am not …”
“Of course you are trying to get my attention. You scream at the wind until you can’t stand screaming anymore and then you put a gun to my head so I have no other choice to pay attention to you. So here you are, sitting in my office, and we’re having a conversation. You wanted to get my attention.”
“I was afraid for Sharon…”
“The Cylon.”
“I was afraid for Sharon. She’s been in jail for years and we haven’t had contact with the Cylons in years. I was afraid that she’d be locked up for the rest of her life. A prisoner of war should be released when the war ends.”
“She’s not a prisoner of war, she’s a Cylon.”
“She’s a person.”
“You don’t get paid enough to get to decide who is and isn’t a person, Captain.”
“Ma’am, you don’t have to be president to be able to decide that. You just have to be a human being.”
“You believe you have a monopoly on humanity, do you? I hope you have brought your dress uniform, Captain. Tomorrow I’m attending the funeral of those two state troopers your Cylon killed. Perhaps that should give you a little perspective...”
He wanted to continue the fight. To say she was wrong, to find some flaw in her assessments of his character, but she had skillfully taken the legs out from his argument. She had taken the high ground while he was distracted, and he wanted to hate her for that-if he could get over hating himself for it.
“Madam President…” Tory came rushing in. “You need to see this.”
“What, Tory?” Roslin got up from her chair and Helo followed her by instinct.
“Capital Beat, the U. Mich law school professor Amy thought was going to tear into you…”
On the screen was a stunningly attractive blond woman with glasses in a dark blue suit speaking about civil rights within the Colonial Zone of old Detroit. The legend on the screen identified her as ‘Natalie Riesumi, Professor of Civil Rights Law’.
And she was a Cylon.