and the various indie netrag dilettantes that rode their coattails.
He was uncomfortable and it wasn’t just the heat. He hadn’t worked Presidential Security since the Jameson administration and wouldn’t have ever considered working it again if President O’Keefe hadn’t personally requested him… and personally explained why. He’d spent the duration of the Protectorate invasion in a secret shelter with then-Senator O’Keefe along with his daughter and her fiance, as well as Shannon Stark. He’d been wounded in the attack when the Protectorate forces had seized President Jameson and slaughtered most of the sitting Senators, and Shannon Stark and the others had saved his life, so he had reluctantly said yes when Stark and the President had told him about the threat and asked him to take charge of security.
“The meeting is over,” Amelia Moriarty reported from inside the gleaming, white-faced corporate temple that was the Executive Council Headquarters, looming over the square like impending death. “They’re all coming out.”
“Got it,” Klesko responded into the microphone of his ‘link, then pulled his tablet out of his coat pocket and called up the visual feed from the interior security cameras. President O’Keefe and his financial advisors were leading a party of multicorps CEOs through the halls of the palatial building, heading for the front entrance and the spacious courtyard there. “Team Two,” Klesko transmitted softly, “prepare for handoff to exterior security.”
“Preparing for handoff,” came the reply from Brian Wing, the agent in charge of the exterior team. “All units in position. Air and ground surveillance reports clear.”
Klesko checked the time and the progress of the presidential party on his tablet, then tucked it into his pocket again. “This is One-Alpha, moving to secondary position. One-Bravo, you’re in command until I get back; I need to check something.”
“One-Bravo is in command,” Sandra Keiser confirmed from just outside the headquarters office.
Klesko moved quickly across the square, trying hard not to look as nervous as he felt.
Daniel O’Keefe watched the faces around him with concealed amusement as he strode casually through the well-appointed halls of the Council offices. Svetlana Zakharova was trying hard to keep up a neutral, professional demeanor and failing miserably: she was outraged by the thought of compromising on this issue and only iron self- control prevented her from saying so every time they were alone. Kevin Fourcade was just as frustrated, though for different reasons, and also doing a poor job of hiding it: he looked like a man who’d been slathered with honey and tied down next to an ant hill, and now was just waiting to feel the first bite.
Brendan Riordan… now he was a different story. Riordan was a fireplug of a man, barely a meter-seven and broad across the shoulders and chest, with a mane of red hair that gave the impression of being a wild mass but was actually carefully styled. Every detail of the man was carefully controlled and always had been. O’Keefe had known him for years, which was the only reason he could tell that the Director’s perfect Buddha calm was underlain by a rage so fierce he could almost feel it radiating off of him. He knew he was being used and it infuriated him, even though he didn’t know the why of it.
The President followed his Media Advisor out the front entrance of the offices, thinking not for the first time that the Council headquarters was decorated as lavishly as some of the ancient palaces of Europe that he’d toured. That had been Riordan’s doing, he knew. The Director had the manner and style of royalty and O’Keefe still wasn’t quite sure if it was an affectation or just the way the man was. Of course, if you pretended to be something long enough…
Passing through the exit and out of the climate conditioning, O’Keefe felt as if he’d stepped into a broiler; he began sweating almost immediately and had to restrain an impulse to wipe his forehead. You couldn’t look nervous in front of the cameras. The press was out in force for the announcement, and he’d known they would be: he’d had the news of his support for the biomech bill leaked to assure it. Republic HoloNet was there, of course, but he’d also made sure the independents were present for this as well: the more sources that reported on this, the less likely it would be swept under the rug.
The party ascended the marble platform at the edge of Commerce Square, looking down on the assembled reporters in every sense of the phrase. Leslie Arbocus, his Media Advisor, stepped to the front, affixing his most sincere smile to his plastic face.
“Thank you all for coming this afternoon,” he said in his perfectly modulated voice, seemingly genetically engineered for public speaking. “Before the President speaks, I’d like to allow Brendan Riordan, the Director of the Executive Council of the Multilateral Corporate Interests, to say a few words.”
“Thank you, Mr. Arbocus,” Riordan rumbled. The networks would have to re-modulate his voice before they broadcasted it or it would sound almost unintelligible. “This is an historic occasion for the Republic. We are on the verge of taking what was a nightmare for us, a weapon used against us in horrific fashion only a few short years ago, and turning it into one of the greatest technological boons in the history of humanity. This technology will not only be an aid to the agricultural and mining concerns, but will also create significant economic benefits for transportation and energy. Jobs that used to require risk to the life and limb of untrained human labor at low pay will now be filled by biomechs. Tasks that are now performed by robotic machinery that is expensive to produce, transport and maintain will instead be done by biomechs, which are fairly cheap to make and are easily replaceable.”
He turned to smile ingratiatingly at O’Keefe. “I know that President O’Keefe had some personal reservations about utilizing this technology, that he feared it would be abused, but I feel that in partnership with the Republic government, we can create safeguards that will prevent such abuses. I would like to thank my good friend, President Daniel O’Keefe, on putting the needs of the Republic above his own personal feelings and agreeing to support this bill.”
He turned and offered his hand to O’Keefe, who smiled and shook it with all the fake sincerity he could muster.
“Thanks very much, Brendan,” O’Keefe said, taking center stage from the executive. “This is indeed a momentous day for the Republic… and not to hijack this ceremony, but also for me personally. I’m sure there isn’t anyone watching today who doesn’t know about the disappearance of my daughter Valerie, and how much it has weighed on my mind lately. Well, I am happy to announce that my own personal nightmare has ended. My daughter, your Senator, Valerie O’Keefe-Mulrooney, has returned to me.”
There was a shocked murmur among the gathered press, corporate executives and even his own staff as Agent Klesko walked Valerie up the platform. She was dressed in a casual blouse and skirt, as if she had just returned from a day trip to the museum, with her hair tied into a conservative bun. She smiled beatifically as she hugged her father, then turned to the press.
“Good afternoon. I don’t mean to minimize the announcement of the President’s support for the Biomech Bill, but we both felt that it was important that the news that I was safe and had returned be broadcast as soon as possible, to put my constituents at ease.”
“Where were you?” The question came from the RHN reporter, a major departure from protocol for this type of event; but then, so was Valerie’s sudden appearance.
“I was forced to go into hiding because the same people who assassinated my husband, Glen Mulrooney, tried to kill me as well.”
That statement caused a storm of questions from all the assembled press and a buzz of disbelieving noise from the various onlookers as well as the President’s staff and some of the corporate executives gathered on the platform. Not from Fourcade or Riordan though, O’Keefe noted.
“Please, if you all would just settle down a moment,” O’Keefe said with a raised voice, waving his hands in a calming fashion, “I will explain what has been happening. I’ve had a special investigation running of the murder of my son-in-law, Glen Mulrooney, and that investigation led to the story that Mr. Oscar Fuentes was working on at the time, for which Glen was a source. Mr. Fuentes, in conjunction with Glen, had discovered that there were subversive elements at work among certain elements of the governments of many states in the Southbloc that was attempting to foment a mutiny among the Colonial Guard forces both here and in the colonies as a protest of the emigration reforms that my administration has instituted.
“Valerie was meeting with a journalist colleague of the late Mr. Fuentes, trying to find out how high this plot went, when the same assassin tried to kill them both. Fortunately, she was being watched over by Colonel Shannon Stark and a team of military bodyguards and they managed to kill the man, a mercenary who had been discharged
