DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 34

"Madam President, that is never going to work!" Ridley caught the King's tenor from down the corridor that afternoon, raised in a way she had never heard before. It sounded a lot less alluring when he was shouting at someone.

Reb sauntered past her down the hallway to the King's half-open door. "Everything okay in here, Your Highness?"

Ridley ducked into the living room, straining her ears to hear. "Fine, Reb. The President and I were just having a small battle of wills." Ridley couldn't hear any reply to that, but if it was the president she suspected it was, no doubt the Mannazian leader would be nonplussed at that. The King must be frustrated, indeed.

She heard Reb murmur, "I'm in the living room if you need me, Your Highness." Ridley sped into the coat closet down the hall and closed the door. When Reb's footsteps passed her and turned left, she cracked the door open, checked to see that the hall was empty, and crept toward the King's room. The odor of varnish got stronger and stronger the farther down the hall she went.

Reb hadn't closed the door. Peering inside, Ridley saw the King hunched toward his viewscreen.

"Your Highness," came the reply. "You want an antitrust law. Mannaz wants an antitrust law. I suspect the rest of the earth's nation-states would be grateful for one as well. You're not going to have any better chance than this."
"If I don't end up arrested, that is," said the King. His back was to Ridley; she couldn't see his face. Quickly she ducked behind the door again, anxious lest the Mannazian President notice they had an audience. "I agree this will give me some bargaining power, but it's going to be short-lived. Both our names will be mud in the Confederation after this. Plus, if we break up the Guild, that leaves Zaibatsu and the Koalition unopposed. And I don't think any of their member nation-states have anywhere near the influence over them that we're about to get over the Guild."

Ridley heard a sigh blown through the King's speakers. "I get that," she said. "It's just, we'll finally get some leverage, and—"

"I know," said the King. "It's my fault. If I'd accepted the throne when I could have, I'd have legal custody and legal rights. I might not even have to resort to this."

"But," said the President, "if we could take one down here, we show others how to take them down overseas."
"Not going to happen, Madam President. You're not likely to even get reelected after this little caper."

"But is it worth it? If there's some way to break up the Guild, it's worth it."

"That's the question," said Chi. "What are we going to do to make this stick? If three years down the road, we're rotting under the jail, and the Guild passes the Repeal anyway ... we've accomplished nothing."

The King sneezed. He sneezed again and said, "Excuse me," and then she heard him say, "Who's out there?"

Ridley looked down. The light in the hallway cast her shadow past the door.

"Reb?"

She'd been caught. She inched the door further open, her heart in her throat. The King had turned in his chair, his hand in a desk drawer. He came up with a tissue and wiped his nose. "Ridley. I thought you were Reb. Reb has clearance for this; you don't."

Ridley dropped into a low curtsy. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."

The King motioned her in. "Madam President, Ridley Faircloth. My partner in crime."

On his viewscreen, the face of Mannazian President Benita Loquil, an older woman who could have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty-five, with snapping blue eyes and short blonde hair, frowned at first the King, then Ridley. "Miss Faircloth. Thank you for your service to your country and ours. I hope your mission goes well."
Ridley made another quick half-curtsy, cutting it short in the middle when she remembered that you curtsied to royalty but not to elected presidents and prime ministers. Her face flamed.