Down the long corridor the suited man strode, ignoring the looming Corinthian pillars and Renaissance paintings dotting the capacious hall. A man dressed in a hood stepped out from a wall close behind the suit. As his hand tensed around his raised short-barreled pistol, a steel, spiked pole shot out from a nearby wall and slammed into the assassin, splashing bright-red blood and shiny organs across the floor and pulling the torn corpse back into the dark space. 

A tiny, cylindrical robot ejected from the opposite wall and wiped up the mess, squeaking once it was done. The suited man stopped and held out his hand. The robot rolled over to him, waiting expectantly, and the man petted its top before picking his stride back up. The gun was left in the middle of the hallway floor.

Column III: All citizens of the state have the right to carry arms.

The man tilted his head up and glanced briefly at the tapestries that captured scenes from stories from various Western religions––Greek, Christian, Jewish…

They stared down at the barren tiled floor, no furniture tainting the grand spaciousness and gilded walls. He quite liked this space; it had a certain poise with which he resonated greatly. The man could see his glass clones all walking––slowly but intentionally––toward one destination at the very end of the hallway: a pair of double gates. On them were etched a depiction of an old myth. Decades of experience had cemented in the man’s mind the story of the blessed King Midas, who had been given the insidious touch of gold.

The man himself was a work of art; it was as if he had been constructed with the perfect measurements. His hair, chin, eyes––they were all perfect. Yet his tongue draped over the roof of his mouth hid the steadily growing colony of bubbling, leaking cysts––a lone, oozing mistake in the grand, live sculpture.

Cradled in his arm was a thin leather book titled “The Columns”, and as the man walked, he held out the book. He unlocked the outermost lock, punched in a ten-digit code into the book’s spine, untied the constrictor knot, and opened the book up and began to read.

A few yards from the double-doors, the man walked over a mosaic on the floor. The perfectly masoned tiles formed a replica of the Parthenon. Suddenly, he stopped and peered at his watch; then, his head down, he raised his hand and flicked his fingers down. The man resumed his brisk pace. The hooded form with a twisted knife creeping behind him then dropped through the ground. The tiles making up the base of the Parthenon had receded to make a hole, allowing a long, guttural scream slip into the silent hallway before the din was cut off by a crack of bone against stone. The tiles slid back into the Parthenon––clean floor, clean tiles, clean image.

Reaching the doors, the man pushed them open and entered his office. For a second, he just stood in the commodious room. Then, turning his back to the depiction of King Midas standing high above his people etched on the other side of the double-doors, the man walked to his desk and took a sniff of the fresh, familiar narcissus flowers lying in a vase there. He sighed, laid the book on his desk, and then said, “Begin.” A woman dressed in a suit stepped out from a concealed door to the man’s right. Without looking at her, he asked bluntly, “News?”

Her voice monotone and lackluster, the woman said, “The people are protesting––”

The man interrupted, “Still a little bit asleep there, hmm, Susan?”

Susan started to reply, but the man flicked his fingers to the right and a claw reached out from the concealed room, dragging the silent Susan by the hair back into the darkness. The man muttered wearily, “Let’s try that again, why don’t we?” Out of the dark room stepped an identical suited woman. The man sighed and said, “Now, Susan, you were saying? And don’t forget the ‘Sir’ this time, got it?” He gave her a wide, toothy grin.

Speaking brighter and lighter, almost too brightly and lightly, Susan shouted, “Sir, the people are protesting Column XXXIV. They are demanding that their children not be taught military tactics in elementary school.”

While she was talking, the man had already picked up the leather book, flipped to the back, and crossed something out with his pen. He then wrote something on the delicate paper and closed the book. “Done, now it’ll be middle school students.”

Susan smiled wide and said, “But sir, you know that that will not––”

Tsk, tsk, tsk, and Susan stopped talking. He motioned for her to sit on his lap, and she did as he ordered. Smiling, the man ran his hands gently up and down Susan’s back.

“Trust me, this is the right decision,” he cooed, his fingers sliding through her short-cut, brown hair. “Also, don’t argue with me again, okay Susan?” and then grabbing the vase, he slammed it into the back of her head. She fell to the ground, and the man rammed his foot through her face. The bright smile and shining eyes crunched and crackled into wet, bent metal and sputtering circuitry, and the man yelled, “Steven, I told you to fix the water problem!” The secret door opened partway, hesitated, and almost opened fully, but the man growled, “Not another Susan.” Glancing at the hand holding the flower, he brushed off some random, tiny, white grains. He walked over to the window, which displayed a view of a seemingly endless forest of luscious, bright-green trees. He knew that behind the image, projected from another one of Steven’s imperfect machines, thousands of stampeding protestors sullying his workplace with every second. He had never really cared; the forest had been his decision. His eyes glazed over as he gazed at the leaves’ veins, bulging and tortuous, the brightness of the foliage revealed by the gentle sunlight, and the elevated field of prickly emerald and olive-green. Yet he still muttered under his breath, “Insolent, ungrateful, impudent, imbecilic…”

The man stared at the forest, sniffing the flower again and again. After a few seconds, he sighed and whispered to himself, “Goddammit,” and he collapsed to the floor, his brain mush and his heart still.