The Bulwer-Lytton Resolution

Pens and swords, words and guns. Entry for Rhythms & Writing (July 2015).

It was a beautiful day for a coronation. The sun was shining, the morning air was crisp, and there was a mild breeze coming in from the west. Attendants and laborers put the finishing touches on decorations around the steps of the capitol, enough flowers and ribbon and frilly adornments to satisfy a hundred bridezillas. It all seemed like a terrible waste to The Ghost, but maybe that was because she knew the prince wouldn’t live out the day. Or maybe she just couldn’t appreciate the intricate little details through the viewfinder on her rifle scope.

Admittedly, the Barrett M82 she had selected for this particular job wasn’t the most elegant. The .50 BMG ammunition, typically reserved for buildings and vehicles rather than individual targets, wouldn’t leave much of the crown prince to identify after the impact. But that tends to happen when your bullets are six inches long and travel at twice the speed of sound. The real appeal of the M82 wasn’t the mess; it was the fact that she could shoot it from 1,500 meters away. That was safely outside the five hundred meter distances most law enforcement snipers train from, and even well outside the thousand meters that most military snipers are able to handle. That meant she was safely outside the security perimeter the prince’s protection detail had arranged for the occasion. The distance came with challenges of its own, though, as the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge - more than fifteen football fields lined up end-to-end - lay between The Ghost and her target. It would take a full two seconds for the bullet to travel to its target, during which the slightest change in wind speed, air pressure, or the target’s location could send her shot wide.

She wasn’t especially enthused about this assignment, but there was precious little work out there for ex-soldiers these days, particularly those with deadly specialties like long distance marksmanship. General infantry and special forces often found work as security consultants or as part of some VIP’s protection detail, but the civilized world didn’t have much occasion to hire someone to shoot a target from a mile away. Except, of course, for the occasional terrorist cell, morally corrupt world leader, or deranged and disgruntled ex of some kind. So when these kinds of jobs came along, The Ghost tried not to make judgement calls so as long as the money got deposited into her bank account as agreed.

Over the years, The Ghost had developed quite a reputation in the mercenary world. She’d never been photographed, never been seen, and never failed an assignment. She was quickly becoming a legend and with the increased demand for her services, she supposed this wouldn’t be the only time she’d be expected to do something unsavory. Hopefully the targets wouldn’t all be teenage princes.

Her back was starting to ache from laying on the asphalt roofing for so long. The morning air was still cool and offered some alleviation from the quickly warming sun, but if they took any longer to get this coronation underway, it was going to become uncomfortably hot on her little rooftop. At least the guests were starting to find their seats. Why was it official ceremonies never started on time?

                   

Prince Khalifa really didn’t want to be King. He could barely keep a handle on his political science studies at university and now they expected him to run an entire country? A country which, by the way, his father hadn’t left in very good shape. Both foreign and domestic relationships had been heavily damaged thanks to his father’s waning years of paranoia and impulsive behavior, and the advisers he retained who seemed more concerned with their own social advancement than that of the country. He tried to remain in power as long as possible so that his son could mature and come of age, but the disease finally got the better of him last year and Khalifa was now poised to inherit the kingdom, whether he was ready or not. Whether he’d rather party and chase co-eds instead or not.

“Are you sure it will be safe?” he asked his valet as he dressed for the ceremony. “My father was not a popular man and I think some might be upset that his son is assuming his role.”

“It will be fine, my prince,” the valet reassured him. “We have our best soldiers providing security, using weapons and tactics taught to us by the Americans. If they can keep their President safe, we can keep our king safe as well.”

Khalifa finished getting dressed just as the sounds of music filtered through the air. The percussion instruments and woodwinds started the brisk number that signaled the beginning of the coronation. The prince felt a sudden uncertainty clutch at the pit of his stomach.

“Do you think I’ll be a good king?” he asked his valet.

“I think you can be whatever king you want to be, Your Highness.”

Khalifa thought that over as the valet ushered him out onto the terrace.

                   

A few faint musical notes wafted through the air to her position, but it was enough to let The Ghost know the coronation had begun. She had strict instructions not to pull the trigger until the end of the ceremony, once Prince Khalifa had been crowned and addressed the nation. Her employer thought it would be more impactful after he had a chance to address the nation. She watched through her rifle scope as the ceremony proceeded and Khalifa took the stage.

He looked so young up there. And scared. Here was a kid not even old enough to buy his own booze and he was now expected to lead a country through the twenty-first century. While his peers worried about midterms and girlfriends and how they were going to pay off their student loans, he’d be worry about paying off the national debt and foreign relations with their militant neighbors and how to bring a borderline third-world country into the industrialized world. Not to mention the fact that he had to repair his own country; it had gotten bad enough that opposing interests hired her to get rid of him altogether than risk the country’s civil unrest worsening.

It was time for Khalifa’s speech. She was too far away to hear the speech over the loudspeakers, so she tuned the radio she had brought along until she found a station carrying the speech.

                   

Newly coronated King Khalifa approached the podium and cleared his throat. He looked over the speech pages his senior government officials had written for him, and thought about what it meant to now be responsible for the well-being of an entire country.

“Countrymen,” Khalifa began, clearing his throat and wincing at the feedback of the sound system as he did so, “Today I stand before you as your new king.”

He paused for a moment, as if considering something, and then held up the pages of his speech.

“My father’s advisers wrote a speech for me today, but I do not think it’s an accurate reflection of what I want to say, or what you need to hear. For too long, this country - and my father in particular - listened to the advice of men who do not have the best interests of our nation at heart. And I mean our whole nation, not just the interests of the wealthy.”

He glanced sideways at the advisers, who couldn’t have been more uncomfortable if they were sitting on beds of hot coals. He glanced out at the crowd of people, his people, and saw uncertainty.

“I’m only nineteen and I know I don’t have all the answers yet. But I do know that this was once a great, proud country, and it can be that way again. I inherited this role whether any of us, myself included, like it or not, but I will promise you right now that I will do everything in my power to act in the best interests of every one of my citizens. And in order to do that, to make sure that every citizen is heard and that my decisions are guided by the will of the people, I will establish a legislature that draws members from all cities and villages in our nation. Our laws will be a reflection of everyone’s voices rather than just those at the top. Eventually, it is my hope that we can transition to a representative government where my role as your King will be ceremonial and secondary to the will of the people.”

Murmuring and a smattering of applause spread through the crowd; shock spread through the advisers.

“In conclusion,” Khalifa said, gaining momentum, “I’d like to welcome you to the beginning of a new era in our country’s history. An era of self-governance where every citizen can be heard and their voices recognized. It won’t be easy and it won’t be fast, but it will be the direction I will take us in.”

                   

The Ghost let out the breath she was holding and took her finger off the trigger of the M82. Her shot had been all lined up, just waiting for that final moment, when ... had he just promised to turn the country into a representative democracy? She lay there for a long time, mulling over the implications of the young king’s speech. Taking a deep breath, she sighed and started breaking down her weapon into it’s carrying duffel. She cleaned up her nest and quickly headed out, taking out her smartphone as she descended the stairs.

She just closed out of her banking app when the phone rang. The Ghost cringed.

“Hello?” she said, answering. “No, I didn’t. And I just finished wiring the money back into your account.”

She exited the building and onto the street, where she got into an old car she parked nearby. Tossing the weapon in the trunk, she climbed behind the wheel and started the car, her employer still on the other end of the line.

“I didn’t take the shot because I didn’t need to. You said you wanted a revolution and you got one, without a single shot fired. Spraying the kid’s brain matter all over the capitol steps couldn’t have accomplished your goal any better than he did on his own. So you get your money back, you get your revolution, and I get to go home without the death of a teenage kid on my hands. Everybody wins.”

The Ghost knew she would take some heat for this, maybe even lose out on some future work, but it was the right decision to make. If her life behind the scope of a rifle had taught her anything, it was that bullets rarely solved anything. If Edward Bulwer-Lytton was right when he wrote that the pen is mightier than the sword, how much mightier were the words of a young, idealistic king over the muzzle velocity of her M82?

She sped off, car disappearing into the flow of traffic.



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(1,862 words)

Entry for "Rhythms & Writing: Official WDC Contest"