Terminal (Terminal trilogy #1)

26: Higher beings

Alexander Phineus Scott had come to power about a cycle ago. He did not look twenty-five, let alone forty as he claimed. He'd taken over after the previous CEO's death, but in truth had been more or less running Hell for the last hundred and eighty-five years.

He had a good run at first, taking power after Naomi Sato. He was still a dictator, but he tried his best to keep things fair. He was also in his mid twenties, and a complete idiot. He had no idea what he was doing.

The Few had been his idea. It had started entirely with the zodiac theme, since he liked the idea of Hell's leaders all being vaguely occult. Plus he thought it was a really cool way to govern people. The opportunities were endless for things like merchandising, designing, and themed parties. None of those things ever happened, but Alexander always thought the possibility was there.

The name had come later, actually, after ages of planning. F.E.W.- Finances, Etc., and War. Fucking amazing. The zodiac part of it was more important anyways.

When the first cycle change happened, Alexander had been very surprised, and more nervous. He'd aged during his first reign as dictator, even after the cycles had started and the Earth had reset- he, like me, had been in his late thirties when the second cycle change had started, and now he was stuck in the scrawny body of a twenty-one year old.

Not like he hadn't been scrawny before.

As uncomfortable as he was with his sudden age change, it did make it slightly easier to live in Hell. He often pretended to be a bastard child of himself, before he took to just getting a haircut and changing his name every couple years.

Nineteen years ago he decided to come out of the shadows and make a proper run at ruling again. The job of the Ophiuchus, the ruler and CEO of Hell, always went to a member of The Few, and Alexander had only joined a month previous.

He was once again pretending to be some distant relative of himself, Alexander Scott the fifteenth or whatever, and he'd reentered Hell as a soldier with a pretty good knack for killing angels.

The members of The Few were about the same back then- it was only nineteen years- though of course, Aquarius was just Scorpio at the time, and Sydney had yet to join. In her place was Alexander, the Aries.

Alexander, as the newest member, had little chance of scavenging votes from the others. Military members always came and went too fast to be considered viable- though voting would be done quickly, Alexander was still on active duty. There was a good chance, had he not been immortal, he would be killed before proper election.

Lucky for him, no one was else was really a viable candidate. Stacy was interested, but unelectable, and Kelsey was apathetically taking charge, if only because no one else would.

Alexander had nothing really going for him but his guile. He was young, weak, and shorter than his platformed shoes would lead you to believe.

He told me he did some fucked up shit to get where he was, but I didn't believe him. When I pressed him, he admitted all it'd really had been were a couple of threats. He sent someone after Kell, Kelsey's best friend, and for a while after that Kelsey had been bitter and uninterested.

Alexander had somehow won. I'd told him my thoughts on this- that Kell was a paranoid guy who probably thought the attack had been homophobic in nature, and Alex had probably just ruined Kelsey's decades long relationship.

Alexander told me he hadn't known Kell was bi. If he had, he assured me, he would have asked his hit man to incorporate that. Not in a homophobic way, as he was quick to correct, just that he'd absolutely pay someone to be homophobic towards Kell. If that made sense? Just to really secure this job.