Stars Rise

VII. Potestas Senior and I

Ilan Potestas dominated the balcony, where he could see that everyone entertained themselves. Alone, the way he liked it.

Most of the guests thought the man was old even though he didn't have a single wrinkle, and never would. His earth brown hair didn't have a single gray. He hadn't aged a day in decades. And like an old man, they expected him to be formidable. Grouchy. He laughed behind retreating backs every time one of them got close to approaching him and then lost their nerve.

Hiding his mirth behind his rocks glass, he watched one company executive, Ignatius Varian, dart toward him and back two times. Ilan took a drink.

Next to him a bar floated midair. When he put the whisky colored glass of cask cocktail down, the liquid swayed back and forth as if it were on a ship in a storm, and it happened to dance to the same rhythm as the performing jazz fusion quartet. Amused by this, the "old" boss man waved his fingers like a conductor with two batons and the rocking of the liquor continued to evade equilibrium for a minute. At the music's crescendo, sustained and repetitive in the contemporary style, Ilan's drink kept swaying perfectly in time like a dancer in the arms of her lover. The song stopped suddenly, but Ilan had seen the sudden end coming and instantaneously the rocking liquid fell still at the final note.

He wasn't feeling grouchy at all. He was, in fact, in a good mood.

I, his son Stephen, wasn't. The point of the masquerade was to give Invernali residents the chance to bring their complaints to the boss of the Constellation branch in the city. They could petition him behind hidden identities while he doesn't get to wear a mask.

But everyone was afraid to take a single step closer to him. He scared them all away.

An empty rocks glass in hand, I was surrounded.

They came to me instead. These weren't the Invernali residents who needed real grievances dealt with. Instead, needy old millionaires multiplied in my field of view until I couldn't count them. Were there six or twelve? Was I hallucinating? Seeing double? And I know they don't look old, but they treat me like a child, and in return I picture them as hunched old women with crackly newspaper skin and tiny men with long white beards.

So there I was with a dozen old rich people spitting and pushing over each other to speak to me and not a drop to drink. My glass was empty and had been for a while.

Ten more seconds and I couldn't take it anymore. I had no interest in their power struggles and I wasn't paying attention to a thing they were saying. I wasn't even paying attention to what I said in return. It was the boss they should have been squabbling at, not me, but they hid from him. The masks didn't hide who anyone was, for reasons I didn't understand. Didn't they come out tonight to have their voices heard? Instead they petitioned me, as if I could do anything for any of them.

That was it. I needed to get to the bar. I tore myself away with a lie about needing water.

Water. I would consider it.

I broke free. Arms reached and hands grabbed behind my back in my mind's eye. I ran, in a comical jog, across the roof, and in seconds I made it to the other side, where my friend Franco managed to hide in the corner behind a tall privet plant. Not that anyone was looking for him.

"You got away," Franco said, raising his half-full glass to me. I could only return his toast with my empty. Another crowd closed in between me and the ancient plutocrats.

I wished they would get on with getting old and dying already.

Every resident of Invernali was invited, but only the wealthy ever came, for some reason. Something about old habits. Nothing dies.

I tore my eyes away from the microcosm in party form of the societal hierarchy that was supposed to be dead. I didn't like the smile on Franco's face.

"Something funny?" I said.

"It looked as if you were having fun," said Franco.

"I'm a good actor," I said. That wasn't true.

"Is running away part of the game? I never understood the rules."

A tray of drinks came by, and I stepped in front of the server carrying it so I could take a glass. She moved on before I could ask what the drink was. And a second after, I realized I was still holding my empty glass. Unbelievable. It was my rooftop, and for a second I considered dropping the glass over the side. Maybe it would smash down on someone indescribably wealthy. Ten points if I induce a coma, fifty points if I encourage an immortal damn aristocrat to shuffle off this mortal coil and let the next generation have their inheritance.

I set the empty down next to the nearest flat surface — the soil of the potted privet in the shape of a shooting star — and took a sip of the fresh beverage. Whisky. Would have been nice to know the variety and region. My guess was malted barley from Suditrolo, but I would never, ever know.

"Nice of your dad to let you practice for when you become director. Sometime in the next century. If he doesn't appoint someone else." He was right. If Ilan was ever going to die or retire, he had little reason to give me the job.

"I downright oppose the perpetuation of hereditary executive board positions," I said.

"Those are big words, none of which will prevent you from turning down your inheritance should it give you the chance to take over company leadership."

I nodded. "I would take advantage of the current unfairness of the system to elect Sunyin Aura president of Constellation, and she would end the tradition of hereditary appointments."

"That seems a bit unfair, considering there might be someone much better to take over for your father in the first place."

The better candidate strode by just as we were both thinking about her. Aurelian Nova. Nova Dasilva. The boss's surrogate successor broke into the crowd I had just left and succeeded where I had failed, like she always did, within seconds. The voices stopped and she was able to speak to them. They looked as if they were listening. I couldn't hear what she said.

"Now there's a boss in the making," said Franco. "Near starvation did wonders for her figure."

Near starvation. Asshole. "The Dasilva family wasn't starving. Broke, yes, but if I remember correctly, there was, in fact, food on the plates around the dinner table when they were killed. Twelve full dinner plates. Cause of death was twelve bullet wounds, not inanition."

"But the surviving Dasilva doesn't have two tartes flambees to rub together, except whatever appetizers she can get out of the boss." He clapped me on the back as if he were cheering me up and said, "Don't worry about it. She's too good for you anyway." I found myself laughing.

"Obviously she's after his money," I said, joking back.

"Isn't the boss's money your money?"

I sighed and all humor left me. "Not if nothing ever changes." I downed the last three sips of my whisky in one, not savoring the variety at all. Either my tastebuds were off, or it wasn't a four decade old Suditrolo after all. And it tasted like straw, not malted barley.

If you had a good time, please leave me a star. Enjoy the forty year old Suditrolo. Whiskey not to your taste? There's plenty of vino nero, cheers!