Flavius Archives – Matthew Cross Writes

Civil unrest grows, leaving new power up for grabs

By Shanel Wilson April 15, 2022 April 17, 2022 Sci Fi Stories, The Globe Folio

A Matter of Details

BY MATTHEW CROSS

The Right Honorable Flavius, Mayor of Whitehall, Protector of the Gates and Keeper of the Seals, picked his nose thoughtfully. Ever since tramping outside the walls to that godforsaken Polity lander in the savagelands, his allergies had been acting up. He had a headache, his sinuses were clogged, and he was in an overall foul temper. As Whitehallers say, no good comes from leaving the gates of the First City.

And the protests did not help. A mob of protestors– an actual mob in Whitehall!–gathered every morning and ranted and raved outside Central Tower until very late at night. Flavius never had to see them in person, of course. He lived in the Mayor’s Mansion in Central Tower and took the elevator down to the Mayor’s Office in Central Tower. But even so, the news vids ran nonstop footage of the protests.

Flavius flicked the large gob of phlegm at the trash bin. The booger stretched and twisted as it flew and splatted on the trash bin lid. The bin’s automatic sensors should have detected the booger’s flight and opened smoothly to catch the offending gob.

Flavius sighed. He flipped the tiny lever for his desk chair to roll him to the trash bin. From his lace-filled sleeve, he flourished a large, white handkerchief and leaned forward to wipe up the mess. As he bent, he noted the silvery, blinking light from the corner of his eye. He sat up and leaned back in his chair to watch what would happen.

The silvery light cascaded across its surface, expanding in concentric rings from the center.
Photo by Nicolas Picard

In the topmost corner of the coffered ceiling of his spacious office was a spider’s web. The silvery light cascaded across its surface, expanding in concentric rings from the center. Flavius had installed the lights as a notification system. It was unnecessary, of course, because the web also sent a signal to the comp on his desk, but he liked the little touches on his works of art. Details matter. The mechanical spider was already making its way silently down the wall to check out the top of the trash bin.

The spider was his own invention, of course. The web was actually a radio dish that monitored the room, and the spider was a hunter-seeker of bugs. It found spying threats and destroyed them. Not that Flavius was overly worried about microbot spies. After all, he was still the leading microbot scientist in Whitehall. Despite his mayoral duties, he retained an iron grip on the small Microbot Department. If not for him, there would probably be no microbot program in Whitehall Academy.

Microbots had fallen out of favor just as Flavius had managed to ruthlessly climb his way to the top of the Microbot Department. The Energy Department had determined that microbots did not use energy as efficiently as the walking automatons or specialized machinery. He still regarded the Energy Department with great suspicion, but it was one of the Academy’s most powerful departments. As a politician, you cannot hold grudges or make enemies of anyone you cannot swiftly and decisively crush. And despite himself, he liked Leonardo, who now headed the Energy Department. Leonardo was not a politician but a true man of science.

Flavius used his considerable power to keep the Microbot Department alive, focusing its efforts on military applications. The Defense Department was small but very well funded. And he kept a handful of nanobot researchers on staff as well, even though the materials on the Globe were oddly deficient for making truly effective nanobots. And something in the Globe’s air made them deteriorate quickly. Because he was the mayor, Octavius had given him a special dispensation to consult the archive records of the generation ship Shakespeare. Flavius learned that on other planets, his nanobot designs should last for years. On the Globe, where they deteriorated quickly in open air, nanobots were used mostly in one-time medical procedures.

His head ached. Even though his office was dozens of stories above the protests and even though it was sound proofed, he felt like he could dimly hear their harsh cries. His assistant, Menenius, assured Flavius it was his imagination. The malfunctioning trash bin lid was just one more irritant. It should have worked. Menenius would have to call the Central Tower technicians. Flavius had a mind to fire one of them over this. The problem was the Central Tower authority would hire the technician right back and just assign them to another government building. The technicians that kept the government offices running were getting older, but none of the young people these days wanted technician jobs. Everybody wanted to be a game designer, a video producer, or a data systems scientist.

But he might still fire a technician today. Even if the technician was rehired, he’d lose his pension, if Flavius insisted.

The door signal chimed. Flavius wiped up the gob of phlegm and raced his chair back behind his ponderous desk. He punched the blinking light on his screen and allowed Menenius to enter.

“Mr. Mayor,” Menenius said briskly, “I have some budget requests for you to approve. And, also, Captain Ward is waiting in the Mayor’s Lobby.”

“Captain Ward?” Flavius asked, alarmed. “How long have you kept her waiting? It better not be long, Menenius, or I’ll have your head.”

“No, she just arrived, Your Honor,” Menenius said. Menenius only used the honorific “Your Honor” when he thought Flavius was being peevish.

“Stop handling me, Menenius, and help me with my coat.”

Menenius brought Flavius’s crushed velvet coat and helped the round man climb into the coat and arrange the sleeves. Menenius fanned Flavius with the papers he carried and then used a small brush from his pocket to arrange Flavius’s thinning, white hair. Menenius was a talented microbot designer, but he had insisted on serving as Flavius’s Chief of Staff and learning all the campaigning and politicking that came with the job. Sometimes Flavius thought it was a waste of a brilliant scientific mind. But then, the fact that Flavius had had to leave the hard sciences and enter politics himself was the waste of a brilliant scientific mind.

Menenius continued to fan Flavius’s face. Flavius closed his eyes and calmed himself. He imagined the inner workings of his spider hunter-seeker, remembering how he had arranged the hardware to fit just so inside the sleek metal body. The details mattered. The mental exercise centered him. He reopened his eyes. “Thank you, Menenius. I have a dreadful headache today.”

“Still, Mr. Mayor?” Menenius asked, his voice full of earnest sympathy. Menenius saved his sarcasm for outsiders, never using it against Flavius. “Shall I call the chemist and have them send up something stronger?”

Flavius sat up in his chair. “No, no, Menenius. Thank you. You always take such good care of me. I’m sorry I’ve been temperamental today. But that won’t be necessary. We must soldier on. Please show Captain Ward in, would you, and have Volumnia bring some refreshments.”

Menenius gave a small bow and swept out. In a moment, Captain Ward filled the doorway. She was tall for a woman, taller than Flavius himself by half a head, and as tall as Governor Octavius. But there was more to it than that. Even when standing completely still, she radiated a strong energy, as if she were barely containing a maelstrom of violence. She smiled and strolled across Flavius’s large office, her movements like that of a prowling catterwaul.

Flavius stood up and smiled broadly, rubbing his hands nervously in front of him. He gave a small bow.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Flavius asked the delicate question.

“How are you faring in your visits with the other cities?” He wanted to know, but he also wanted to draw her attention away from the protests in Whitehall.

She grimaced. “Not well,” she said. “In Belmont, some madman has declared himself king and replaced the council. He killed two of my Marines, but before it’s over I think it will get worse. Can you tell me more than that?”

“No,” Flavius said, shaking his head. He had heard as much himself from his chief of police. And Gov. Octavius had been spreading word of the disaster publicly, blaming Capt. Ward and the Polity all the while that Ward had been gone from the city. He only seemed to quieten down after Ward returned to Whitehall. “I’m afraid Belmont is a closed book to the rest of the Globe. We have no diplomats and not even any sp– . . . er, men on the inside, as it were.”

Belmont had never proved to be a problem before. Flavius hardly even thought of Belmont as a city. It was merely a distant place where steel was made. He knew that every year the governor made a trek to the mountain to negotiate the terms of trade. The Belmontians should have come to Whitehall, of course, but none of them ever left the mountain, so the governor demeaned himself and went to Belmont. Distasteful, but Whitehall needed steel.

And it was a good arrangement. The same deal was struck every year. The price of steel never changed. Whitehall guaranteed all of Belmont’s supplies from the other cities, and Belmont promised to provide the same volume of steel. The Belmontians must have excellent population control inside that mountain. They always delivered on time and never needed more nor less from the other cities. But if the Council had been violently overthrown, what would happen? His head pounded.

Flavius knew it was impossible, but he swore he could hear the mob below chanting.
Photo by Amir Arabshahi

Flavius knew it was impossible, but he swore he could hear the mob below chanting. If unchanging Belmont could suffer a coup, what could happen in his beloved Whitehall? Out of habit, his hand drifted toward a button that would summon the chief of police, but he drew his hand back and rubbed his hands together. Octavius was the rabble rouser. Once Flavius took care of Octavius, the mob would disappear like a handful of nanobot dust.

The captain brought him back to the present. “The Governor won’t meet with me,” she said. “If I understand Whitehall’s government structure, you govern here in the city and he handles relations with the other cities. And I was counting on his guidance with the leaders of the other cities.”

Once upon a time, the governor of Whitehall did more than handle the relations with the other cities. He governed the other cities as colonies. Over the years, the other cities grew in power and developed their own governments–actually a treasonous act–and the Governor of Whitehall, Protector of the Globe, Unifier of the People, waned in power. But those who know their history remember when Whitehall truly governed the entire Globe.

“What can you do to help?” Ward asked.

Flavius smiled and rubbed his hands nervously. “I wish that I could. I’ve appealed to Octavius numerous times, but he won’t speak even with me.”

Menenius had taken the elevator the ten stories up to the Governor’s office every day, but even the Governor’s staff would not meet with him. Flavius himself had even made the pilgrimage up the elevator once, and returned shamed-faced to his own offices after being turned away. Secretly, he had taken the elevator from his own residence near the top of Central Tower to the very top floor, called the Governor’s Mansion, where Octavius lived. Flavius went late in the evening when he knew Octavius was home and would still be awake. Octavius would not answer his door.

**The Governor had an excellent selection of liquors that exceeded even Flavius’s own impressive home bar.** Photo by Nick Rickert.

Octavius had refused to speak with Flavius ever since that night. The night they had returned from their first meeting with Captain Ward. The night that people were calling Kite Night. Shaken, Octavius and Flavius had returned to the Governor’s Mansion. They had stayed up late talking and drinking. As usual, Octavius did most of the talking and the drinking. He had an excellent selection of liquors that exceeded even Flavius’s own impressive home bar.

Octavius had raged and railed against the Polity, against the Polity Navy ship in orbit and against Captain Ward, whom Octavius simply called “that insufferable shrew.” The arguments were nothing new. Everyone on the Globe had learned since their first history classes as urchins that the Polity was trouble; that the Globers’ ancestors had fled the Polity aboard a generation ship, the Shakespeare, and settled the Globe far outside Polity space to be free of the Polity and its constant territorial wars.

Captain Elizabeth–the first Captain Elizabeth of the Shakespeare–had warned them. Flavius silently intoned the words drilled into him since the first days of school. “This is why we can never return to the Polity, why we must remain vigilant to resist their false promises, why we must not look back, but fix our eyes on what lies ahead. The peace of our people depends upon it.”

And, yet, their ancestors had done nothing to protect the Globe from an invading force. Had done nothing to secure the space around the Globe. And that night, Capt. Ward had made sure all of the Globe understood the power of the Polity Navy. The UPS Pacifica’s lasers had destroyed hundreds of Whitehall’s drones in a “celebration.” Yes, Capt. Ward had bought up all the drones from Whitehall’s citizens beforehand and recruited the city’s children to pilot them. But then the Pacifica had destroyed them all in a barbaric show of raw, military power.

And the people had cheered! Flavius could distinctly remember standing next to Octavius on the grassy dunes, looking back at the glowing towers of Whitehall. The acrid smoke from the exploded drones filled the air and stung his nose. And then the people, his citizens, had raised a cheer that could be heard for hundreds of metes. Those fools had cheered!

And that night, for the first time, Flavius and Octavius could not reach agreement on how to govern the Globe together. Octavius raged and swore he would kill Captain Ward and her Marines and pull the Pacifica from the sky and throw it into the Southern Sea. And from the look in Octavius’s eyes, it was clear Octavius truly thought he could snatch the Pacifica from orbit with his bare hands and complete the act himself.

But Flavius knew that the might of the Polity, the Pacifica specifically, was too great for Whitehall to match. Long ago, the Globe had turned away from space and had lost the technology to even fly into the upper atmosphere. There was no choice but to capitulate. But Octavius would not hear it. And when Flavius would not agree to Octavius’s wild plans to overthrow the Polity, Octavius had actually cast Flavius out of the Governor’s Mansion.

Flavius smiled at his enemy across his desk. All he could do was bargain with Capt. Ward. And, on behalf of his people, he would bargain hard. But so far, she had been willing to pay for all her own expenses and to keep the Polity’s tax at 10 percent, as originally promised. And Whitehall could afford that, especially when most of the costs could be passed to the other cities. And even a full 10 percent was a fraction of the cost of a war.

“I’ll have to figure out something there,” Ward said, speaking of Octavius. Thankfully, she said nothing of the fact that Octavius was actually holding rallies throughout the city and drumming up the protests against the Polity. The idiot! That huge bombard of sack!

Something had to be done. Never in the history of Whitehall had the people protested the government. Never!

Flavius knew he had to stop Octavius. Now was the time to broach the subject with Capt. Ward. But it had to be done delicately. As they say, “In a major matter, no details are small.”

“You know,” Flavius said, “at one time, the Governor of the Globe and the Mayor of Whitehall were the same person. Some political scientists have gone so far as to say Whitehall would be stronger and better governed with a single, strong leader.”

**Ward looked around the red-curtained room.**
Photo by Avinash Kumar

Ward looked around the red-curtained room. Her eyes rested a moment on the spider web high in the coffered ceiling. She seemed distracted.

But Capt. Ward was a sly one. As if reading his mind, Capt. Ward said, “I don’t want to get involved in your internal politics.”

“So, you want me to take care of the problem, then?” Flavius asked, carefully.

“Yes, that would be best,” she said in an absent-minded voice. She was clearly pretending disinterest, distancing herself from an unpleasant matter.

“And . . . you would trust me to use whatever methods I think best?” he asked slowly.

“Yes, of course,” Ward said. “You’re the Mayor.”

Flavius nodded. Capt. Ward was an occupier, but at least she had the propriety to respect the local leaders. He smiled but quickly suppressed the smile. This was a serious matter. He nodded again and rubbed his hands nervously together.

“Very well, then. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Flavius changed the subject. They discussed the progress of the giant landing pad and warehouse complex Ward had asked to be built in the grassy dunes near the site of her ship’s landing. Ward did not seem to respect the dangers of the savagelands, but he was grateful she was building the complex outside the walls. She said she did not want the constant sound of rockets disturbing the peace in Whitehall. And space within Whitehall’s walls was always tight.

Even better, Ward was paying Whitehall’s engineers and construction crews to build the complex. So Whitehall had a chance to earn back the tax the Polity collected.

Capt. Ward left the Mayor’s Office in a better mood than she had arrived. Despite Gov. Octavius’s public threats to overthrow the Polity, the city was mostly peaceful. Mayor Flavius kept the city running smoothly and construction had already begun on the space port so the taxed resources could be lifted to the Pacifica when it returned to orbit. No one on the Globe knew it, but the Pacifica had left orbit around the Globe to explore the rest of the system for resources valuable to the Polity. That left Ward and her Marines alone on the planet, but only she and the Marines knew that. For all the Globers knew, the Pacifica was right overhead with lasers and missiles at the ready.

Things in Whitehall were going so smoothly that her mind kept wandering back to the disaster in Belmont. A mad usurper king on a throne and two of her Marines dead! And, yet, try as she might, she could not think how she should have handled things differently. She had only introduced herself and the madman had beheaded two of her Marines! A diplomatic rule of first contact is that no one wanted war, at least, not before having a chance to size up the other side. But when dealing with a madman, you had to throw diplomatic rules out the hatch.

Riding the elevator alone to her own quarters in Central Tower, Ward paused and thought back on the conversation with the mayor. She did not want to make any diplomatic mistakes here. She tried to recount the conversation. She realized she had been distracted and lost focus. But everything she could recall seemed in order. Flavius was a nervous man and he clearly feared her. That could be dangerous if he felt cornered, but their interactions were always cordial. She had promised not to interfere with local politics and he would talk to Octavius. If she could just sit down with the governor and pick his brain about the other cities, perhaps she could avoid another disastrous first contact.

As for Flavius, she would let him handle the details.

If you enjoyed my story, feel free to leave comments below. If you would like to read more about Whitehall, read “The Towers of Whitehall” which kicked off the Whitehall stories in the Globe Folio series.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

P.S. Now you can enjoy the Globe Folio from the beginning:

Act 1: Night of the Rocket

Act 2: Nights of Revelation

Now you’re all caught up. But don’t worry, we have more stories from the Globe on the way soon!

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

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The winds of change tear asunder an old alliance

By Matthew Cross October 15, 2021 March 27, 2022 Sci Fi Stories, The Globe Folio

A Matter of Principle

by Frasier Armitage

Octavius brushed his quivering hand across the pad to the Governor’s residence, and the doors swept open. He walked straight to his drinks cabinet and struggled to pour a goblet of wine from his decanter. His hands steadied as he downed the syrupy liquid.

From behind, Flavius tapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’ve got another glass lying around?”

In all the commotion on his trip back to his penthouse, Octavius had forgotten Flavius was there. “Of course. Forgive me, Flavius. It’s just, with everything we’ve seen tonight, I needed something to clear my head.”

The shrill clink of Westminster glass rang as Octavius tipped another goblet from his decanter and handed it to the Mayor.

**The shrill clink of Westminster glass rang as Octavius tipped another goblet from his decanter.** Photo by Charl Folscher.

Mayor Flavius swilled the liquid with a steady hand and sipped. “Don’t tell me. Bottled 410 AL. Am I right?”

“What?”

“The wine. It’s a nice vintage.” Flavius swallowed with a resounding ahhh and cast a jealous glance at the Governor.

Octavius studied the decanter. He had absent-mindedly opened a 410 AL vintage as if it were a regular occurrence. This kind of liquor was a perk of being the most powerful man in Whitehall. The most powerful until tonight, that is.

“How can you talk of wine at a time like this, Flavius?” Octavius passed the decanter to the Mayor and shuffled across the lavish apartment to the window. Below, lights twinkled across the city as celebrations drifted upwards. The whole city was alive. So why did it feel as if those lights were a stranglehold around Octavius’s neck?

The Mayor sidled towards the window to join the Governor of Whitehall. “What ails you, Octavius? We’ve been gifted an amazing opportunity. And you seem to be treating it as a death sentence.”

**Why did it feel as if those lights were a stranglehold around Octavius’s neck?** Photo by Nathan Dumlao.

Octavius’s shoulders slumped. “Didn’t you see what the Polity did tonight? What they intend to do?”

Flavius shrugged. “I saw some lasers blast a few drones out of the sky. The closest thing to fireworks we’ve had since the half-millennium.”

“Exactly. You were there. You saw the look on the face of that insufferable shrew. Captain Ward, or whatever her name was. With a flick of her fingers, she can rain down fire from the sky. That ship up there. It’s a weapon they can use to strike at any time, and we’re the ones with a target on our foreheads.”

“Target? What are you talking about, my friend?”

Octavius paced back to his cabinet and snatched another decanter. Something stronger than wine. “Why summon us to that summit tonight?”

Flavius stroked his chin, but he didn’t answer.

There were times when Octavius valued the Mayor’s stoic deliberations, but he could be far too calculating for his own good sometimes. Where Octavius used his gift for rhetoric, the Mayor used silence. In the past, it had made them an effective team. Octavius, as the superior in both position and oratorical ability, handled the public appearances. Flavius knew his place was to stand silently by the Governor’s side. Never before had Octavius doubted that that silence meant agreement and loyalty.

“Because,” Octavius continued, “they wanted to discover who to dispose of in order to take control of the Globe. Know your enemy. That’s what they’ve made us. The enemy. It’s just like what was written in the ancient texts. The writings of Elizabeth Hathaway. She knew it. And she was right.”

**It’s just like what was written in the ancient texts.** Photo by Kiwihug.

Flavius waved his hand in a calming, friendly gesture. “We all know the writings. Every child does. I’ve been reciting Hathaway’s warnings since my school days. But we’re not children, Octavius. And the Polity knows it.”

“Hathaway’s words are more than just a children’s story, Flavius. This is why we can never return to the Polity, she wrote. Why we must remain vigilant to resist their false promises, why we must not look back, but fix our eyes on what lies ahead. The peace of our people depends upon it.”

“Yes, yes. But that was generations ago.” Flavius shook his head. “It’s been over five hundred cycles since the Shakespeare brought our people to the Globe. Do you really think the Polity hasn’t changed in all that time?”

Octavius paced on the spot. “You remember why Hathaway captained that ship? Why our people became refugees across the stars? It was because the Polity landed on our ancestors’ home planet and forced us into their squabbles and wars. Our ancestors fled their world. That’s why they people built the Shakespeare and travelled for five generations until they found the Globe. And now the Polity have followed us here. Do you see any difference in that little display of theirs tonight? What do you think will happen to our peace, Flavius? To us?”

Octavius cast a look that communicated his fears better than any rhetoric.

Flavius just sipped his wine.

“Look at the two of us,” Octavius continued. “How many other Globers are as—peaceable—as us? We are at the top of Central Tower. Enjoying wine bottled in 410 AL. With the whole Globe beneath us and none above us. And we are at peace.”

It can erase us from existence at a whisper.

“But surely you don’t mean that the Polity would be a threat to our powe. . . I mean, our peace. Do you?”

“Can you not see it? The only thing above us on all the Globe is that ship with its lasers. It can erase us from existence at a whisper, and hovers unseen, out of reach. Do you really think they’ll let us keep our . . . how should I put it—keep hold of what we have—when they hold us at gunpoint?”

Flavius stroked his chin. “But Octavius, don’t you also see that the Polity could help us to maintain peace, as you put it, across the entire Globe? Not just in Whitehall.”

Octavius stopped pacing and regarded Flavius as though he’d grown a second head. “How much wine have you drunk?”

“Listen to me, my friend. You are Governor. And I am Mayor. And together, we are stronger than we would be alone. How much stronger could we be with the Polity at our side?”

The Governor’s eyes bulged. His cape billowed as he stormed through the room. “You’re a fool, Flavius! Trust the Polity? That’s a death sentence.”

“Is it foolish to dream of a peace that extends beyond our people?” Flavius cocked an eyebrow and puffed out his chest. “Or do you think so small, you cannot see beyond this Globe?”

“Small? Small! Your chosen field is microbots, and you have the nerve to call me small-minded! Tell me, as a scientist, of all the microbots you’ve invented, how many of them do you consider as equals? You are their master, Flavius. They are your servants. And you would make us microbots to the Polity! We should have been spending our time reengineering the engines that carried our people to the sky. In building satellites to protect the Globe. Not funding research for your useless trinkets!”

**And you would make us microbots to the Polity.** Photo by Yuyeung Lau.

Flavius turned as red as his wine. “You’re mad. The blueprints for the Shakespeare’s engines are lost to history. Lost when the first Central Computer was flooded in the First Alignment. We might be able to hover a ship twenty metes above the surface–maybe 30. But sending a ship into space? Impossible. That kind of technology died with Elizabeth Hathaway.”

“Impossible? You of all people know that the engine of the Shakespeare still circles the Globe, too big to land. The technology it holds could put an end to the Polity so that they never cast their shadow upon us ever again.”

“And how do you expect to use it?” The Mayor threw his arms about. The wild motion startled Octavius, who was famous for his flamboyance as well as his clever rhetoric. Something about the quiet, mild Mayor encroaching on Octavius’s signature style rubbed Octavius the wrong way. “The Shakespeare is just as unreachable as the stars. Is it not better to bend a power like the Polity to suit your will, than to antagonize them against us?”

Octavius trudged to the other end of the long window, putting distance between them.

The normally attentive Flavius missed the cue and continued. “Leonardo will be accompanying the Captain on her tour of the cities. He’s no fool. I am certain he can persuade her of our value. Of the superiority of our principles. If they have made us their enemies, then should we not make them our friends?”

“You think they can be programmed like machines? Talk sensibly, or not at all.”

The Mayor scolded Octavius with a look. “I speak for the people. You saw how they cheered. Cheered when those drones exploded in a shower of fireworks tonight.”

Octavius shook the words away, but he’d heard the cries as loud as any. “The people do not see yet. But their eyes can be opened.”

**They cheered when those drones exploded in a shower of fireworks tonight.** Photo by Designecologist.

Flavius laughed. “You believe you can sway the Globers. I believe I can sway the Polity. We make a fine pair.” Flavius reached to place his hand on Octavius’s shoulder, but the Governor shrugged him off.

Octavius would not look at the Mayor. He tossed a gobletful of hard liquor down his throat, and it burned him. But not as much as Flavius’s foolishness.

“The arrogance of scientists is believing they’re in control,” Octavius boomed. “But this is no experiment. This is life. Our lives. And the Polity would rob us of them. Well, not if I take theirs first.”

“Take their lives!” The Mayor’s eyes bulged. “What madness are you proposing?”

Octavius peered through the window, beyond the lights of the city and out to the black splodge where the Polity’s lander marred the landscape—a giant bacillus ready to spread its shadow across the entire surface of the world.

“I swear upon the Central Tower in which we stand,” Octavius whispered, “I shall kill Captain Ward and her Marines, wrench the Pacifica from the sky and throw it into the Southern Sea.” Octavius could see a dim reflection of himself in the window. Death filled his eyes.

A plot swirled around his head, providing him the clarity he sought better than any drink. He looked at his hands as though he could snatch the Pacifica from orbit himself. The Governor straightened up, becoming as tall as Central Tower. As if he dwarfed the whole Globe.

“This is a war for the people,” he said. “And I will not lose.”

Flavius chuckled. He dared chuckle at Whitehall’s Governor. “You need rest, my friend,” Flavius said. “You think the Polity seek to control us, but the opposite is true. A little rest will help you see the solution to this mess. With the right programming, the Polity will be as malleable to us as microbots.”

“Get out, Flavius.”

“What?”

Octavius regarded him with venom. “Leave. Now.”

“But Octavi—”

“If you align yourself with the Polity, you set yourself against me. Here, I draw the line. Whitehall will not stand for it.”

“Be reasonable.”

“I assure you, I have spent long enough reasoning this out. If we sacrifice our principles, we sacrifice ourselves. Peace at all costs. If that means I have to eviscerate the Polity from the heavens, then so be it.”

“I—”

“Did you not hear me, Flavius? You would betray Whitehall. And I shall not tolerate a traitor in my midst. Get out! Now!”

Octavius rampaged across the room towards the Mayor and rammed him with both hands, pushing him back so he staggered at first.

Flavius capitulated, as he did in all things, and fled down the hall, to the elevator and to the tower’s lower floors.

Octavius watched the Mayor shrink and disappear as he formulated a plan. He would force that shrew, who would make herself queen of the Globe, to see the might of the people. Revolt in Whitehall would be enough to distract her from his true strike, his blow across the heavens. Yes, he could see it now. As if his eyes were opened for the first time.

Peace at all costs.

He sent a message to an aide to give no one access to his quarters at any time and left. If he was going to start a mutiny, then he couldn’t do it alone. And he knew just where to start.

If you enjoyed Frasier’s story, please make sure and share some kind comments below. We will be seeing more of Governor Octavius and Mayor Flavius in future installments of “Nights of Revelation.” These once staunch allies will wage a war of stunning proportions that will not end until one is dead and a city lies in flames. But next Friday week we’ll have another two-part story by Frasier Armitage and Shanel Wilson, “Eyes Up the River,” set in the river-delta city of Newlondon. In this fast-paced tale, the brave Solanio confronts his betrayer, appears before the corrupt Guild of Newlondon, and receives a cryptic message from a mysterious benefactor.

If you would like to prepare for “Eyes Up the River,” you can read “The Beast Below” by Frasier and Shanel and meet the brave Solanio, the faithful Bianca, and the nefarious Solanio in seaside Newlondon.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

P.S. Now you can enjoy the Globe Folio from the beginning:

Act 1: Night of the Rocket

Act 2: Nights of Revelation

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross