Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

“It’s dark out there,” he says.

“I heard them shoot. They’ve shot Freddie,” Sal says. He sits down despondently on one of the lower bunks. “I heard it. I heard the shot. It’s the end of my life!” He’s hugging himself, swaying the upper part of his body from side to side.

“Oh, I’m sure they haven’t,” says Lonnie. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they’re animals!” Sal almost shouts. “They should all be in cages! They should all be fucking dead!”

“Instead of being indulged with literacy programs,” says Tony in his cool voice. “For instance.”

“They could have been shooting someone else,” says Lonnie. “Or just, well, shooting. I think we should look on the bright side. Until we know for sure.”

“Why?” says Sal. “There is no bright side! I’ve lost Freddie! I’ve lost my boy!” He buries his head in his hands. There are muffled noises that might be sobs.

“What happens next?” Sebert says to Tony in a low voice.

“We wait,” says Tony. “Not that we have much choice.”

“He better pull himself together. This is embarrassing,” says Sebert. “Let’s hope the proper authorities get here soon.” He leans against the wall, examines his fingers.

“Whoever they are,” says Tony. He’s pacing the room, ten steps one way, ten steps the other. “If they’ve really shot his kid, heads will roll.”

“Cheer up, Minister O’Nally,” says Lonnie to Sal. “It could be worse! We’re uninjured, we’re in a nice warm room, we—”

“He’s going to go on like that for hours,” says Tony to Sebert, sotto voce . “He’ll bore us to death, as usual.”

“If I were redesigning the prison system,” Lonnie continues, “I’d try giving the inmates more freedom, not less. They could vote on things, they could make their own decisions. Design their own menus, for instance; that could be a useful skill they could develop.”

“Dream on,” says Tony. “They’d poison the soup, first chance.”

“Please,” says Sal. “At a time like this! No more talking!”

“I was just trying to take your mind off it,” says Lonnie, aggrieved.

“I’m tired,” says Sal. His voice is thick, muzzy. He stretches out on the bunk.

“Funny thing,” says Lonnie. “I’m drowsy too. Might as well get some rest while there’s time.” He lies down on the other bottom bunk. Now the two of them are fast asleep.

“Something odd about this,” says Sebert. “I’m not tired at all.”

“Nor I,” says Tony. He checks the two sleepers. “Out cold. That being the case”—he lowers his voice—“how do you see your leadership prospects? As of now?”

“Sal’s ahead in the polls,” says Sebert. “Not sure how I can even the odds.”

“You know I’m backing you,” says Tony.

“Yeah. Thanks,” says Sebert. “Appreciate it.”

“And if Sal weren’t in the race, it would be you, right?”

“Right. What’s your point?”

“When someone gets in my way,” says Tony, “I just remove them. That’s how I got my own leg up. I kicked Felix Phillips out of my path, back when I was at the Makeshiweg Festival. That was the first solid rung on my ladder.”

“Okay, I get that,” says Sebert. “But I can’t just remove Sal. There’s nothing on him, no secret scandals, no leverage. Believe me, I’ve turned over the stones, I’ve looked everywhere. Nothing that can be proven, anyway. And now, if his son’s been killed in this riot — think of the sympathy vote!”

“That’s a key word,” says Tony. “Riot.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What happens in riots? People die, who knows how?”

“I don’t grasp — are you saying—” Sebert is fiddling with his tiny earlobe, twisting it this way and that.

“Let me spell it out,” says Tony. “A couple of hundred years ago we would take advantage of the chaos and dispose of Sal, and blame it on the rioters. Oh, and we’d have to dispose of Lonnie too: no witnesses. But today, character assassination will double the effect.”

“Such as?”

“What do you want in a leader?” says Tony. “Leadership. We can describe — reluctantly, of course — how Sal went all to jelly in a crisis. Before he died. They drowned him in the toilet. A tough-on-crime Minister of Justice, at their mercy. Kind of thing they’d do.”

“But he didn’t,” says Sebert. “Go all to jelly. Or not entirely. And they didn’t drown him in the toilet.”

“Suppose we were the only survivors,” says Tony. “Who would know?”

“You’re not honestly suggesting this?” says Sebert, alarmed.

“Consider it as a theory,” says Tony, fixing Sebert with a direct stare. “A thought experiment.”

“Okay, I get it, a thought experiment,” says Sebert. “In the thought experiment, what about Lonnie?” He’s wavering. “We can’t just—”

“In the thought experiment, Lonnie would have a heart attack,” says Tony. “He’s overdue for one. We could use, for instance, this thought-experiment pillow. Any questions about smothering, we’d say the rioters did it. Shame, but what can you expect, considering who they are? They’re impulsive, they’ve got no anger-management skills. It’s their nature to do things like that.”

“That’s some thought experiment,” says Sebert.

“Did we record all of that?” says Felix behind the main-room folding screen. “It’s much better than I could have hoped for!” Tony’s running true to course. He must have been pondering such a betrayal for some time, and now chance has handed him an opening. This might turn fatal.

“Clear as a bell,” says 8Handz. “Video and audio both.”

“Excellent,” says Felix. “Time to move it along before they snuff old Lonnie with the pillow. Hit the button, play the wakeup call. What’ve you chosen?” He’s left the choice of magic-island music up to 8Handz, as Prospero seems to have done with Ariel, though he’s supplied the requested selection of MP3s.

“Metallica. ‘Ride the Lightning.’ It’s really loud.”

“That’s my tricksy spirit!” says Felix.

“My God!” says Sal, sitting bolt upright, wide awake. “What’s that infernal racket?”

“What’s going on?” says Lonnie, rubbing his eyes.

“I heard a roaring,” says Tony. “The rioters — they must be on the rampage again! Stand ready! Grab a pillow, hold it in front of you in case they shoot!”

“My head feels funny,” says Sal. “Like, a hangover. I didn’t hear a thing.”

“I only heard a kind of buzzing,” says Lonnie.

The door swings open. The lights in the corridor outside go on.

“Now what?” says Tony.

“It’s a trap,” says Sal.

Lonnie goes cautiously to the doorway, peers out. “Nobody there,” he says.

“Now for the solemn music,” says Felix to 8Handz. “Beaming from the Green Room. Is the fruit bowl still in there, with the grapes?”

“Should be. Checking,” says 8Handz, peering at the screen. “Yup, I see it.”

“Well done, Goblins,” says Felix. “I hope the trapdoor under it is in working order.”

“We double-checked it. So, for this I picked a Leonard Cohen tune,” says 8Handz. “ ‘Bird on a Wire.’ Slowed to half-time. I recorded it myself on the keyboard.”

“Highly appropriate,” says Felix.

“I used the cello, with a sort of Theremin backup,” says 8Handz. “The woo woo sound.”