Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

So maybe there is one problem that lacks a solution. Maybe human beings are just Not That Nice. They are selfish, venal, they have no gratitude. I did so much for the human race; but what has it ever done for me?

Why, for instance, do I find it so hard to make female friends? And why do the men who are my lovers betray and patronise me? And why is it I keep having to fake orgasms? And how come no one ever laughs at my jokes?

What the hell is wrong with me?

She brought her death upon herself.

Though I can’t deny I was wrong to do what I did.

But how can it be, in a life lived so long, with so many good deeds to my credit, after so many years of self-restraint and self-denial and altruistic commitment, that a single trail of wrongdoing can be traced and tracked and used to destroy me?

I admit my sin: I bribed officials to cover up my son’s rape of a young woman. And later, despite other rape investigations, I used my official position to quash any police allegations into his conduct. I pulled strings, and falsified records, and eventually got my son sent out into space where, I hoped, his wicked streak would burn out.

And Congresswoman Cavendish, the scourge of liberals, made it her life’s work to find me out. She began with the assumption that I must be guilty, of something. She didn’t care what. She was a religious fanatic, a bigot, a hater of people of colour, a Muslimophobe. And for most of the last thirty years of my long tenure in power she attempted to destroy me with one fraudulent accusation after another. I found myself wearying of her lies, her black propaganda. And I could not think of an adequate solution to this, my own particular and painful problem. Her hatred of me was visceral, intense, and it kept her alive. Without the aid of rejuvenation therapies, which she disapproved of, Cavendish reached the age of eighty-eight with her energies undimmed, her hatred of me unslaked.

And finally, she found a smoking gun. She found out all about Peter and my continuing role in concealing his criminality. The scandal broke, and I was disbarred from office.

I can remember vividly the moment when it all ended for me. It was a Thursday. Or a Wednesday? No matter. It was morning. I’d just finished a cup of strong coffee. I opened up my emails, and found one that had the subject line: You have been impeached. I rose, stunned, from my desk and walked numbly out of my office… and Cavendish was there in the corridor to greet me. With an army of officials. Gloating. Gloating!

At Cavendish’s insistence, I was formally censured in front of my colleagues by the Arbiter. My papers of office were ceremonially ripped up. It was all done by the book, in accordance with hallowed traditions. Except I knew it was all bullshit. I was the first person to hold this particular office. We had no traditions.

But Cavendish had her way. I was humiliated. And, in the months that followed, as I read the press coverage, I realised that piece by piece my reputation was being stolen. A new President of Humankind was elected, and the impression was created that mine had been a caretaker administration. I had been not much more than a glorified civil servant; now a real politician was in charge.

To combat this torrent of lies, I leaked stories, I briefed journalists, I called in every favour I was owed. But every time I thought I had a handle on how the game was played, the game tilted and I was utterly humiliated once again. I read entire books that argued that the triumph of the planet Hope was a victory of plucky settlers fighting against the meddling interference of jumped-up civil servants back on Earth – namely, me. I read that my principles and protocols of office were created by the person who succeeded me – a nonentity called Luigi Scarpio, who combined astonishing charisma with utter ignorance of science and was devoid of morality and common sense. Every achievement or insight or policy advance I had ever made was credited to someone else; every mistake or fiasco or instance of corruption which had occurred during my tenure was blamed on me.

The people loved Scarpio. He was homespun, funny, a bit tubby, he liked to mock his own fondness for pasta and Italian women. Scarpio became a legend. Whereas I… I became a footnote.

Cavendish had won; I had lost. And so, I admit, I lost control of myself. My rage was intense. I tried suing her for libel, I tried tarnishing her own reputation. And then, eventually, in the full knowledge that she had a terminal illness that would end her life in less than nine months, I obtained an illegal gun and I went to her house, intent on murder.

I stood outside the house, whipped by cold winds, trying to control my breathing, for six long hours.

Then I smashed in the back door and went in. The burglar alarm was blaring. I was handling this all wrong, I could have been so much cleverer. A poison dart, a sabotaged car, a hitman.

I blundered onwards. Here I was, the former most powerful woman in the world, seized by an irrational rage. How could she do this to me! How could she do this!

I spent ten minutes playing “Sardines”, hunting for an old lady hiding in a big old mock twenty-first-century mansion. I discovered her eventually in the linen closet. When she saw me, her face uncrinkled in relief. “They’ve gone now,” I whispered. “You’re safe, come with me.”

She held out her hand to me.

And I shot her, repeatedly, in the body, till I was deafened by her screams. Then I blew her brains out. The explosion was awful. I was spattered with Cavendish. The sheer horror of the moment filled me with a childish glee.

I heard sounds at the back door. The police had arrived.

I wiped my prints off the gun, scratched my face on the side of the linen cupboard door, and concocted my cover story, involving masked gunmen and an heroic struggle on my part to save the old lady.

It was a laughably bad cover story. The police charged me with murder. My own lawyer openly mocked my story of having arrived to offer Cavendish my forgiveness and friendship, only to find the aforementioned armed burglars on the premises. She urged me to plead insanity, in the hope of being offered a course of forcible therapy. Instead, I entered a plea of “Justifiable Homicide”.

My lawyer, without my permission, changed the plea to temporary insanity, on the grounds I was totally raving mad and shouldn’t be listened to. She had a point. But the court ignored all our bickering, and I was found guilty of murder in the first degree. Fortunately, however, my lawyer managed to prevent the State from seizing my assets.

I was sentenced to be brain-fried for two days.

I knew exactly what to expect. I had studied this subject intensively, since I had of course introduced this particular punishment into the penal system. Electrodes in the pain centres and imagination centres of the cortex fire electrical currents for between twenty and a hundred consecutive hours. It is intended to be the nearest thing in life to being in Hell.

But I think the night before was worse. Every nerve ending jangled. My skin prickled and itched and I felt as if I was being devoured by insects. I was in the hotel wing of the prison complex, I was well fed, my bed was soft and comfortable. But to know that in the morning you will be tortured is a torture in itself.

My room was pastel pink. It had strange whorly patterns in the wallpaper. Ambient music played, that grated and scratched at my soul. I think it was meant to be relaxing, but for me, it was part of the torment. For years after, I was unable to travel in lifts in case muzak played and I started ripping out throats.

Then dawn came. I was led into another room with equally comforting wallpaper. I was sat down in a chair. A helmet was placed on my head. My hands were restrained. A catheter was hooked into my arm to prevent me dehydrating. I realised I had urinated upon myself, but a nurse came and wiped me down. The “Play” button on the brain-modification helmet was pressed.