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  Lucas looked thoughtful. “You just might convince me on that one, Poppy. You make some interesting arguments.”

  “You see?” I asked earnestly. “All this government control nonsense is just taking the facts out of context and not understanding the rationale behind them.”

  “Mmm-hmm. I have just one more question, and it’s one that I think will be dear to your politically-minded heart. How do you feel about free elections?”

  I gave him the look that i had practiced endlessly in a mirror in order to achieve the perfect effect of polite skepticism. “Obviously, the right of the populace to elect its own leaders is central to a democratic nation. That’s why the revised Constitution eliminated the electoral college model in favor of the current ‘every vote counts’ model.”

  “And if the populace only thinks that their votes count?” he asked.

  I narrowed my eyes and demanded, “Don’t beat around the bush. Sharra mentioned this once already, so I know a little about your suspicions. Now I want to know exactly what you think is happening with the elections. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that we’ve monitored the last several general elections. And we’ve found that every vote disappears. The data servers that collect the online votes aren’t connected to anything else. They don’t even store the voting data. It just drops into a big black hole in cyberspace. The election results that are announced have nothing to do with any votes that are cast.”

  The room was utterly silent. Not a single word came to my mind, let alone my mouth. I just sat there, unable to process this massive betrayal of the entire democratic philosophy. As the silence stretched uncomfortably long, Sharra offered, “If it helps, the data we saved shows that your father would have won his elections anyway. They didn’t need to fake those results.”

  My voice was hoarse with strain as I asked, “Did he know? Did my father know how the voting worked?”

  “I’m sorry, Poppy,” Sharra said gently. “Our information says that he did know.”

  My whole body felt cold and numb. This had to be a mistake. My father would never be a part of something like this. He wouldn’t; I was sure of it. But now that the seed of doubt had been planted, I needed to know for myself. I raised my head to look Lucas in the eyes. “I need to see the proof,” I said simply.

  He looked sympathetic and nodded quietly. “I’ll take you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Lucas and I climbed a lot of stairs. I lost track of how many flights, mostly because I wasn’t paying attention. Eventually we left the stairs through a rusty gray fire door and entered another corridor with many rooms branching away. We walked down the hall until we reached a room with a faded plaque marked 1723. Lucas turned the knob and ushered me inside a darkened cave of a room, lit only by the computer monitors lining tables around the room.

  Curiosity broke through my emotionless shock. “Where are you getting the electricity for the computers? Solaris-Web doesn’t produce enough power to run computers.”

  “We scavenged undamaged solar panels from various places around the city and set them up on the highest intact floor so they could catch the light. Once we wired the panels into the existing electrical system, we were able to get enough power to run the machines. We don’t have a lot of panels though, so we pretty much save the electricity for running the computers. We get our Internet access the same way; a scavenged satellite receiver tied into the existing systems lets us siphon a cyber-signal from some official sources,” Lucas explained absently while he sat at the computer nearest the window and began sliding his big fingers through the holo interface to access the files he was looking for.

  After a moment he stood and motioned for me to take his place. “This is all the data we’ve compiled on the elections,” he told me. “Voting data we retrieved, comparisons of that data to the announced results, texts and mails that we intercepted, that sort of thing. I’ll give you some time to look through it and come back to check on you in a while. Don’t leave here without me please. The higher floors of the building have some dangerous areas; I wouldn’t want you to wander into them.”

  He looked at the two men sitting at other computers in the room as he added the last part, and we all understood that they were under orders to keep me from leaving the room. Whatever. I didn’t care about that right now. I turned my back on Lucas and opened the first file. I needed to see this proof with my own eyes. I vaguely noticed that Lucas returned to check on me occasionally during the long night I spent sifting through the data I’d been given. I didn’t interrupt my reading though. I wanted to see every byte in these files with my own eyes.

  The sun was beginning to show through the large windows across the room when Lucas came into the room again and stood beside me, waiting for my attention. I was staring silently at the display, deep in thought. There was a lot of proof that everything Sharra and Lucas had told me was true. While I wanted to declare that it was all faked, it just didn’t add up that way. There were hundreds of communications going back more than five years. Surely if they had wanted to create false evidence, just a few incriminating documents would have done the job. And wouldn’t phony evidence point more directly at the accused? Instead, I’d had to read through bytes and bytes of data, sifting subtle clues from the words and subtext to realize what was going on. The writers of the various texts and mails had gone to some lengths to hide their own identities and named no names in their correspondence. Again, it seemed that false evidence would include names in order to better to point the finger at someone.

  Finally, there was the fact that no outsider could have known all of these players well enough to flawlessly mimic the tone and style of each of these writers. When they went to such lengths to hide their identities, they could never have known that someday I would be reading the messages. I knew these people. I recognized habitual turns of phrase and patterns of speech. As my father’s trusted assistant, I read his mails and messages every day. I messaged back and forth with people almost constantly either as myself or on behalf of my father. I had corresponded with every one of these anonymous writers.

  From what I saw in the e trails, Cruz was actually just a figurehead. He obviously tried to give the impression that he was in charge, but the subtext of the messages made it clear that he was not the leader. The orders he received were phrased as suggestions, but Cruz caved every time, even when he seemed to be in disagreement.

  It was interesting to see that those giving the orders were people I’d always considered to be involved but largely unimportant political supporters. They were wealthy and well-connected enough to be invited to all the right events, but I’d never seen them express a strong opinion on any specific issues or policies.

  I touched one of the files on the display to open another message. This one was from Luis Gutierrez. He was a friend of my father, a frequent visitor to the White House, and the head of SolarSource Energy. The energy company was based out of the old states of New Mexico and Arizona. That area got so much steady sunshine that the company had been able to practically carpet the land with the solar cells needed to produce enough energy to power the entire NAA. SolarSource was currently the only solar energy company doing business in the NAA, and Luis had been making money hand-over-fist since the end of the war. As might be expected, he was rabidly against any attempt to diversify energy providers. I suspected that Luis got involved in all this to ensure that he kept a strangle-hold on the energy market and block any potential competition.

  I opened another message and thought about Madelaine and Antoine Carlson. Madelaine was Antoine’s second wife. Antoine was a ridiculously wealthy real-estate magnate in the Canadian States. Most people in town tended to write Madelaine off as just a trophy wife; there was quite a scandal when Antoine left his wife of thirty years to take up with a woman almost forty years younger than he. But I had worked with Madelaine on a number of different charity projects over the years and knew that she shouldn’t be underestimated. She wa
s smart and manipulative and always determined to make things work out to her own advantage. The messages made it look like Antoine was giving the orders; but I was familiar with Madelaine’s scheming, and I was sure that she was quietly in charge behind the scenes.

  Raymond Nexen was next on the list. At eighty-something years old, he’d always struck me as a bit of a harmless old coot. If someone had asked me to describe him yesterday, I’d have said that he was a little bit cranky, often a touch confused about current events, and enjoyed cornering people at parties to drone on about the good old days of his youth. However, his messages showed him to be a lot more observant and domineering than he let on. As a hostess I’d always done my best to ensure no guest was stuck talking to Raymond for too long; as a result I’d spoken with him frequently. It was hard to reconcile my picture of him as a slightly senile old man with the scathing tyrant revealed in his mails. Still, I was familiar enough with his speech patterns and personal history to be certain it was him based on the content of the mails.

  The final member of this shadow government was the most astonishing. I pulled up the last group of messages one more time. There was no doubt. The messages were written by Louisa, my eternally disapproving personal secretary.

  Louisa had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. When I was younger she had efficiently arranged my schedule to include my schooling, hobbies, and the various personal appearances I was making even as a child. After my father asked me to take on the responsibilities of the First Lady, Louisa had smoothly stepped in to assist me. She and I had never been friendly, but her calm competence had been a valuable asset. I had been genuinely relieved to see her in the background at Cruz’s press conference and know that she had survived the attack.

  I didn’t know how Louisa had come to be a part of this group. She wasn’t wealthy or well-connected like the others, but it was obvious that she was more than just a spy reporting back to them. In many of the messages she was more likely to give orders than to take them. In fact, Louisa was the first person to suggest removing President Walker. She made contact with Cruz to discuss the change in leadership. And worst of all, she was the one who arranged to have my father, the territorial governors, and me in the library at precisely the right time for the invaders to find us. She specifically suggested that I be eliminated along with my father so they could “make a clean start.” It was another harsh blow, but I forced myself to shrug it off. At this point I had been through too many shocks to be staggered by the betrayal of someone who had never truly been my friend. Indeed, from the venomous tone in a few of her texts, she had disliked me intensely. It was a testament to her acting skills that I had seen only benign disapproval in her attitude.

  Lucas cleared his throat to remind me of his presence then lowered himself to sit back on his heels beside my chair, elbows resting on his thighs and hands hanging loosely between his knees. With him crouched so low and me seated in the chair, our heads were at the same height. He looked at me questioningly and waited silently for me to speak.

  “I found these files particularly interesting,” I told him quietly, not yet meeting his eyes. I used my index finger to circle a group of icons I had moved to the center of the display. He looked closely at the file names as the selected icons glowed, seemingly in emphasis.

  “Yes,” he said solemnly. “I thought those would be the most significant right now.”

  Now I looked at him. I knew my face was wet with tears and didn’t care. “He was a good man,” I told Lucas, silently begging him to believe me. “He thought he was doing what he had to do to hold everything together. He never intended for things to go so far down this road. He was good.”

  “He was,” Lucas agreed. “From the conversations you can see that he was pushing back hard against totalitarian measures; he said that what made sense in a time of war and unrest was no longer viable in a time of freedom.”

  “He wanted to go back to honest elections,” I said raggedly. “He still believed in the things he taught me. He just took a few wrong turns.”

  Lucas nodded silently.

  “He was trying to turn around,” I pointed out. “He kept telling them that changes had to be made. That he was willing to tell the nation everything if that’s what had to be done.” I circled another group of files and set them aglow. “That appears to be when they decided to kill him.”

  Lucas nodded again, his eyes steady on mine. “It looks like they approached Cruz about eighteen months ago and spent some time convincing him to go along with their plan.”

  “Cha,” I muttered disgustedly. “He didn’t need any convincing. You can read it in the subtext of the messages. He was on board from the beginning; he just wanted them to woo him.”

  Lucas looked down at his hands, unsure of what he should say. The other two men in the room continued to desperately pretend they were invisible. It was obvious they wished to be anywhere but here and equally obvious that they thought drawing attention to themselves by leaving would make things even more awkward. Not in the mood to be charitable, I didn’t bother letting them off the hook by telling them to leave.

  “You knew this was going down. I presume that’s why Sharra believed me so readily when I told her my sad little story?”

  “She didn’t recognize you at first,” Lucas rumbled. “Not when she was helping you escape from the alley. She didn’t know it was you until you told her your name. When you told her what had happened, she knew it had to be true. It fit with all the bits and pieces we had gathered. You’ve read the files. You know we didn’t have enough details to predict what, where, and when. We only knew that something was in the works. That’s the whole reason Sharra went to Goodland. She was going to nose around a little and pass the information we did have to a contact in the city.” He sighed deeply. “We thought Walker was someone we could work with. We were trying to find a way to approach him. I’m sorry we didn’t learn enough to save him.”

  His remorse seemed genuine. I had seen for myself that they had only pieces of information; only in hindsight did it all tie together to show what had been planned. I gave a short nod acknowledging his condolences and moved on before I could tear up again. “How did you get all these bytes?” I asked him.

  “We have some excellent hackers,” he told me, jerking his chin to indicate the two guys hunched at their computers. “Anything in an electronic form leaves traces even when you think it’s been deleted. These guys are good enough to find the traces and put them back together.”

  “Not as good as Cruz though,” one of them commented. “That man has some marvi skills with the e. We haven’t been able to revive any of his docs.”

  “It was probably never e to begin with,” I said absently, flipping through the files I’d been working with to find the ones I wanted. “Cruz knows very well that anything e can never really disappear. When he’s worried about security he writes it down with a pen and paper then uses a courier to send handwritten notes instead of messaging an e version.”

  The hackers stared at me, astonished. The second man asked, “He uses a pen and paper? Cha, where do you even find those anymore?”

  “He was able to arm an entire strike force with weapons that were supposed to have been destroyed decades ago,” I pointed out dryly. “I don’t imagine some stationery would be much of a challenge. I get the impression that he tried to get his compatriots to avoid e communications as well, but they thought he was being paranoid.”

  Lucas chuckled a little and stood. “Guess he knew what he was talking about,” he said. “Gentlemen, that could give you a new line to tug. Check out courier deliveries from Cruz that correspond with communications he received.”

  The hackers nodded and immediately turned back to the computers, their hands flying through the air as they started looking through the web for new information. Lucas pulled a spare chair over to my terminal and sat. He gestured at the files I had open on the display. “I assume there’s something you want to tell me about the
se files?”

  “Do you know all the players here?” I asked. “Because I do.”

  I could see the excitement kindle in his dark eyes, though he tried to conceal it with a calm expression. “It would be helpful if you could confirm our ideas,” he agreed coolly. “Who did you recognize?”

  “Everyone. I recognize everyone. And now that I have this information, I know how to take them down. So, what do you think? Want to overthrow the government with me?”

  Don’t miss the conclusion of the story in Into Light, as Poppy takes the fight back to Goodland to confront Cruz and the corrupt shadow government.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  After writing stories in her head for the last 30+ years, Tara finally decided to take a stab at writing them down to share them with others.

  Tara has a husband, 4 kids, and 4 cats to care for along with a full-time job, so finding time to write is the biggest challenge. Since her most productive hours are from 12-5 a.m. anyway, Tara often gives up sleep for the sake of a good story.

  For updates on new books, follow Tara on Facebook, visit her website (http://taradon.wix.com/tdshields) or email Tara at [email protected].