PrologueChapter 12345, 6, 7

“Madame President?” She heard the voice distantly, but kept staring at the screen. She had watched, even urged on, protests and riots in the past, on television and on Twitter… but this was different. Because unless she was losing her mind, on the screen Harmon Kendrick’s body was swinging from a lamppost in an intersection in the Northeast section of the District.

She just kept staring at the television.

Sure enough, scrolling across the bottom was a line about “disturbing footage” and there was his name, Harmon Kendrick, longtime DNC fundraiser and current White House Chief of Staff, his body mangled and strung from a lamppost, had been murdered.

He sure fucking was, she thought. That’s the only thing that came to her mind. His hands were missing, and what remained from his elbows to his…stumps was flapping the same way that his legs were from the shin down, like an understuffed scarecrow, dancing in the wind. His arms were out away from his sides and a banner was fastened across a piece of wood, so it almost looked like he was holding the banner, except that he had no hands: “Sic Semper” and three blobs was painted in a deep, crimson-brown. As she squinted at the screen, she could see that the banner and wood were held in place with spikes nailed to Kendrick’s forearms.

“Madame President?”

“O fucking what!?” She finally snapped.

“Ma’am,” the older gentleman’s face softened, “we think it’s time to move you to another location. We’re coordinating to have Air Force One meet us at Andrews. As your head of security-”

“This is nothing!” Her voice cracked as it rose in pitch. “The National Guard has the District under control.” She lowered her voice again.

“Ma’am,” the older gentleman began, “Mister Kendrick is hanging from a light-pole.” He looked back at the television. “His security detail is missing and his car is on fire. We saw some black man being chased into a closed Metro station and… The Speaker of the House isn’t answering-”

“-I’m declaring martial law.” She blurted it out and wasn’t sure she heard herself correctly. “I’m not fleeing. I will not fucking run.” She spoke more firmly. “I’m declaring martial law.”

“I’m the President of the U-ni- of the… fucking PSA. Do it!”

Around her people stared at each other and looked around for someone to say something to know where to start.

“Starting today there will be an eight pm nationwide curfew.” She bellowed. “You.” She pointed at a young woman in uniform, “Megan-”

The auburn-haired woman with two-stars on each of the shoulders of her blue blouse looked around beside her.

“Me?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s your fucking name, isn’t it!?”

“No, ma’am. My name is Margaret-”

“O, fucking whatever! Get the Secretary of Defense on the line for me right now! I’m invoking the Insurrection Act. Astrid,” she whirled on a lithesome young woman with a blond page-boy haircut, “round up the media flacks. I’m going to have a press conference – live – in 15 minutes. Let’s go!” The President snapped her fingers in the air. “Let’s go, people. Lincoln did this, too!”

Slowly, people began to move in response to her voice, less from a sense of urgency it seemed than from a sense to do something, anything beyond stand still and watch the chaos on the television. She didn’t care.

Martial law it will be, she whispered through gritted teeth.

I will not be remembered for… this.