Eternity's War

Book 1: Chapter 22

Skye placed his fingers on the tablet and navigated through a few different screens before stopping on the front page of a recent electronic newspaper. It showed Archibald raising his hands in front of a cheering crowd.

"Archibald Denning," Skye's speech began. "The newly elected ninth president of the Athenian republic. He formerly worked with a man named Paul Winterton. Have you ever heard of him?"

Roman shook his head innocently.

"I didn't think so," Skye said. "Few Athenians would ever know who he was. He and Archie were the two behind the riots last year, but I don't suppose you heard about those either?"

Roman sat thoughtfully. "I remember something happened. The people were acting very strange around that time."

Skye scoffed. "Strange is an understatement. Well, that's all thanks to Paul and Archibald. It eventually culminated in a large riot in the city, in which a lot of people lost their lives. Of course, it didn't make the news. Officially, it never happened, but a lot of the citizens know. This country has never been the same since."

"You think that maybe the media purposely didn't report it?"

"We don't think; we know," Skye corrected. "It's not hard to do when there aren't any privately owned media outlets in Athenia."

"That's right," Roman said, agreeing with him. "We discussed that in my economics class. Athenia doesn't really have any anti-monopolisation laws like other countries do."

"Correct, and the media here is state owned, which is a really great way to stop false information or rumours from being spread. But if corrupt people are in power—such as Archie—it can be a nightmare. The biggest problem Athenia faces is that this country is a democratic autocracy; the president alone can impose new laws without approval from any other chamber of government."

"But why wouldn't Archie want the riots to make the news?"

Skye shrugged. "We assume that it was in his best interest to contain it. And perhaps in this instance I actually agree with it. It's for the best that the rest of the country, and the world, doesn't know what happened on that day. People sometimes have a tendency to get needlessly angry about issues they know nothing about, which causes them to take sides, and quite often just causes more problems. In this instance, the lack of media coverage gives us a chance to fix everything. Or at least attempt to."

"But on the other hand," Roman said, "the people have a right to know what's happening. Where do you draw the line?"

"Exactly," Skye said with a smile. "It's a fine line. I agree with the laws, but I don't agree with having Archie in power. Even before he won the election he had a lot of power in Government House."

"I'm starting to regret voting for him," Roman admitted. He looked down at the photo of the cheerful old man. "You really think he's capable of causing those riots?"

"Absolutely," Skye said without a single doubt. "To this day, I don't know what Archibald was trying to achieve. I don't know whether it was his or Paul's idea."

Roman sat and took in the information. It began to make sense to him. He often wondered what had actually taken place in Shangwu the year before, but no one ever really knew. "What were the people rioting against?"

"The Federation ... Alexans ... I'll have to save that story for later. It's too long to explain right now, and even I don't know all of the details. You'd have to ask Archie."

"The Federation?" Roman repeated, but didn't pry any further into the subject. "What about the other man though?" he asked. "Is he still out there too?"