The Remaining: Trust: A Novella by D. J. Molles

harbor democracy again. And right now, it is not.” He leaned forward slightly. “So until it is, the people who speak out against me, the people who undermine my position as president, my right to hold this office…they have to be dealt with harshly. They cannot be allowed to continue speaking out. And the tools with which I can affect them are very limited.”
    “So they starve,” Abe said quietly.
    The president’s lips pursed slightly. “They’re deprived of the benefits of being a part of the Greeley Green Zone. If they refuse to be a cooperative member.”
    Abe wanted to tell him that those “benefits” were not meant to be controlled by the president as leverage for cooperation. The “benefits” were not meant to feed the military and be rationed out to civilians only if they shared the same political views. Those “benefits” were food and water and medicine that had come from Abe’s bunkers and the bunkers of other Coordinators, and they were meant to help people survive. Not to keep them in line or to consolidate power.
    But why would he say these things? Why would he alienate himself?
    He had now dug himself into a hole from which there were very few options of escape. And shouting and cursing the man at the top of the hole, who was his only way out, was not the way to do it. It benefitted no one to continue this argument. Save for his own conscience.
    “Do you understand why I had to keep this from you?” the president asked him.
    The president.
    The acting president .
    But Abe only nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    Briggs looked pained. “Do you trust me?” he asked. “Are we still friends?”
    Friends? Abe thought. Still friends?
    As though they had ever been friends to begin with? What did a man like Briggs know of friendship? What did any politician know about friendship? It was not something that could be bought. It did not pledge allegiance or devotion. It was not an arrangement of convenience. It was not something that was given or taken away based upon mutual beliefs.
    Abe had never called an acquaintance a friend. He’d been friendly with many people, but only a spare few he had ever considered friends . And Briggs was not one of them. Lucas Wright was a friend. Tyler Bowden was a friend. Lee Harden was a friend.
    But again, why would Abe say these things?
    So he just nodded slowly. “I trust you.”
    *  *  *
    The next few days were strange for Abe Darabie.
    He went through the motions. He woke up and he brushed his teeth with baking soda and he got coffee from the mess hall, and on the second day he actually took some eggs as well. Rehydrated eggs. An odd, almost grainy texture, though he barely noticed.
    President Briggs did not request his usual morning brief. At least not from Abe, though a few times Abe saw Mr. Daniels and Colonel Lineberger heading up to the top floor, chatting together like old chums. Abe resented it. He resented it to his core, though he had a hard time explaining to himself why he felt that way. He only knew that he was beginning to hate this place. He was beginning to hate what he had become.
    Just an armchair commando.
    A slot machine for his superiors— pull the handle and hope Major Darabie comes up with some goodies for us.
    The day of his…enlightening conversation with Briggs, he’d sincerely tried to stomach it all. He’d tried to submit himself to it. To accept it. By the morning after that, it had all coagulated in his mind and left a bad taste in his mouth. Over the course of that second day, he’d picked through his feelings and discovered he did not have much warmth left in him for President Briggs.
    And by the day after that, he felt that he hated the man.
    On that day, Abe skipped his breakfast once again. After his usual morning meeting with Lucas—a lackluster three-minute conversation about how it was very quiet in the Greeley Green Zone—Abe went back to his room. He riffled through a dresser and found some old civilian clothes. A pair of