CHAPTER TWENTY
No, Jeanell silently insisted, I won’t be a victim any longer! I won’t let them treat me this way! She’d been grabbed and dragged and tossed around and she was not going to have any more of it, even at the expense of her own life. So instead of trying to pull herself away, Jeanell snapped her head back, ramming the chancellor's face. Chancellor Kana took the blow with a wet, crackling thud. It was enough to shock the chancellor more than anything else, but a momentary distraction was all Jeanell needed. She wrenched her body froward, spinning herself out of the chancellor's grip once and for all. Jeanell ducked out of the way and crouched down low, dizziness from the torture staggering her gate. But she knew she had to get out of the way and as quickly as possible. She knew what Ric would do once the opportunity was open to him.
Ratta-tat-tat-tat!
The window behind the chancellor shattered as Kana herself ducked down amid the chaos. But it ended as quickly as it had begun, changing everything in the blink of an eye. Cold wind blew in from that incredible height, gusts of wind blowing shards of glass into the office from the crippled window.
Jeanell looked over to see Ric looking at the results of his assault. The chancellor was on her knees, trying to push herself up. She slowly rose to nearly her full height, but her posture was bent forward, cramped, her knees quivering. Jeanell knew at once that she’d been struck, perhaps lethally. She looked at Ric, empty handed, eyebrows cramped, bloodied lips quivering.
“W-w-w-why couldn’t you ever love me? I was your mother, I gave you life!” Ric had no answer, so she went on, “I loved you, Ric, I loved you so much … ”
Ric slowly shook his head. “You don’t know how to love, you never did. You never will.”
Chancellor Kana looked down at the growing wet stain in the belly of her uniform. “I don’t think I’ll have the chance now.” She spat out a terrible chuckle, blood flecking out onto her chin as she turned to Jeanell. “And you … I’m gonna kill you; one way or the other, I swear it. I’m going to feast on your guts and gnaw on your skull, you little bitch! In this life or the next, I swear it!”
Jeanell was just pushing herself to her feet, dizzy but quickly recovering her senses. “Right now then,” was all she could think to say. “Bring it on.”
But the chancellor steadied herself, dizzy but capable as she pulled a smartphone from her pocket. “Next time, my dear,” was all she said before turning to throw herself out of the shattered window. It broke before her and her body disappearing over the edge, another big gust of wind pushing Jeanell and Ric back. But both rushed to the window to peer down to see Chancellor Kana holding the phone with one hand, swiping the screen with the other as she neared the ground.
Jeanell’s instincts were to clamp here eyes shut, to spare herself the gruesome spectacle of the woman’s body hitting the ground seventy stories below. But she had to know, she and Ric both.
But what they saw was not what they expected. The chancellor's body was consumed by a flash of light. Nothing remained to hit the sidewalk; no body, no gore, no disturbed crowd of pedestrians.
Jeanell and Ric pulled back into the office, falling quickly into each other’s arms. Tears of relief streamed down Jeanell’s cheeks, Ric’s arms wrapping strong around her. She buried her face in his chest.
“Ric, I didn't think you’d come.”
“I didn’t think I’d make it.”
They looked at the window. Jeanell said, “I … I had no idea … about you two.”
“Few people do.”
Jeanell looked up at him to ask, “But … some people do?”
“Oh yeah, it’s well known who I am, what our … relationship was.”
“Was,” Jeanell repeated. “You know she’s still out there somewhere, bloodied but not bowed.”
Ric nodded. “I suppose I couldn’t bring myself to deliver a kill shot, much as I felt it might have been … necessary. Even so, there’s no being certain that she’ll arrive at her destination alive at all, with enough blood to see her through, or who she’ll come across where ever that is. I don’t think she’s going to be an immediate threat. We’ll probably never see or hear from her again.”
Jeanell nodded and looked around the shot-up office, the dead bodies, the terrible stillness of the office. “What now?”
Ric said, “Let’s liberate whosever survived. Then we do what human beings have always done; clean up and rebuild.”
Jeanell fell into his arms and they kissed, lips pressing against each other as neither thought would ever happen again. But they’d been reunited through mutual resolve and courage, clinging to hope and faith and ready to sacrifice all for the greater good. Now that good would be in their hands, to wield the power for the true benefit of the people and not to the greater wealth and power of their leaders. But they’d come through, found each other and won each other, earned each other and loved each other. That was a prize worth facing death for, and worth traversing the very fabric of time to discover and to embrace and to hold tight to for the rest of their lives.
It didn’t take long for Ric to take power, and when he did the rest of the government followed in lockstep. He was the only surviving son of Chancellor Kana herself, and Federal law since 2024 had been for fraternal succession.
Nobody opposed him or his new bride or their two adopted twins, Honestly and Truly or their caretaker, Geoffrey.
Ric instituted great reforms, restricting the use of drones, deconstructing the chancellor's tower and selling the diamond chandeliers and golden fixtures and building suitable housing for those still straggling underground. Clemency was offered to enemies of the state virtually across the board.
Ric also eliminated the office of Chancellor, replacing it with the traditional office of President. He also reinstated the congress, the senate, and the supreme court, all eliminated at various points over the previous sixty years.
Jeanell took a position leading a government program further regulating the use of black holes, ensuring that no time holes were ever successfully created. She also discovered the secret to the so-called kill hole, which could eliminate thousands at a time, and ratified the technology to prevent any travel hole from becoming too big. No more than a family of five could travel together, and precautions were taken so that only the person generating the hole could ever use it. A synthetic black hole could never again be used on somebody without their knowledge. The use of the technology as a weapon of terror or of war was eradicated.
Ric’s first term began pleasantly enough, with accolades and a nearly universal respect from other world leaders. He moved the First Family back into the White House in Washington and restored that as the nation’s capital.
It seemed as if all would be well after just a few short years.