Einstoll

"Hello, you must be ambassador, Hylem Asher?" she asked with a stiff voice.

"Yes, and I take it that you're Madam President, Fiona Grange."

Their hands met with a single shake and quickly parted. She took in his gray suit and long tan peacoat, quite opposite to her maroon pantsuit.

With her guide, he followed her down a golden hall lined with paintings taking up the entire space of the curved walls. Hylem's eyes grazed the colorful shapes, and he stopped in his tracks looking at a young man standing beside a bulky computer with a large smile and a thumbs up.

"The invention of the computer that changed the world," President Grange stated. "Before we became Einstoll, the country had many accomplishments. We wish to remember the greatest achievements in the history of the land."

Behind him, he saw the same man holding a small phone in his hands. The time of cell phones felt so ancient despite being only a hundred years old. Holograms were much more efficient.

The calming tapping of her heels on the marble tile led them further down the hall sharply curving left.

"Here," she faced the painting with a blank stare, "was the beginning of Einstoll."

Teeth bared, fists in the air, heads nearly touching like bulls ready to charge. Despite the stillness of the painting, Hylem could hear the screaming and the knuckles connecting to jaws and the cracking of teeth.

"These were the riots?"

Fiona nodded. "Which led to the civil war." She showed the opposite wall of bodies piled over each other, lying over city steps in front of the then crumbled capital building. The barely living climbing on the heads of the dead.

How could a beautiful new capital want to display this gore as an artistic piece of history?

Before the ambassador could step foot into the President's office, he caught sight of the final painting. An older woman with a straight face standing in the center holding a medal, surrounded by others in white coats except for the final row on either side all in black suits.

He scrunched his eyebrows, eyeing the woman. "She looks familiar."

Fiona clasped her hands together facing the painted woman who looked like her with a sharp nose and cleft chin yet surprisingly soft expression. "This is my grandmother; she was part of the Grenlandic government research team seeking ways to lessen the crime rate. Unfortunately, she fell ill and had to leave the research behind."

"You're Grenlandic?"

"Indeed," the President nodded. "That is why I am very open to an alliance. Grenlan will always be home."

Hylem glanced at her expression. Blank. Yet, her calling Grenlan home had the most inflection he heard from her monotone voice even though it was barely an inflection.

From the painting, she gestured him to the half domed window behind her desk. The golden city of skyscrapers layered around streets in different patterns of swirls. Being on the highest peak of the city, the edges of the city were seen. Two ends curving into each other and the opposite end coming to a point. A heart?

"I'm glad to hear you were able to follow her lead and desire the best for your people by lowering the crime rate. Sadly, somewhere around this time," Hylem pointed to the painting of the woman holding her medal, "we were robbed and killed over our research. Grenlan strives again to become what you achieved."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope we can offer something." Fiona turned to her desk and took a seat, the ambassador across her.

As they leaned to sit, a shine caught Hylem's eye. Before him, a golden heart locket swayed over the President's blazer. His gaze trailed from her locket to the city behind her and the hall of paintings.

"That's a beautiful necklace, Madam President."

"Thank you."

"Important?"

"I suppose it is," she said, nodding to the security entering from the hall. Their back them.

"Well it's enough to model your capital after it," Hylem observed.

"No, that's just for aesthetics, to showcase the beauty of the nation." She pulled from her desk a sort of tablet and pressed a button, turning the screen blue. Voice recording.

He shifted in his soft seat watching her gaze from the button to him. "I must applaud you for your bravery in taking the position of leadership over a dying country. What made you think a civil war could be saved?"

She straightened her back against her larger cushioning white chair. "One must know what the root of the problem is to find its solution."

"And what was the root?"

"Humans," she said, tilting her head.

"Humans?" Hylem leaned back, crossing his legs. He looked into her brown eyes. So empty. Used for sight and no more or less.

"Passion, fear, anger, sadness, envy...emotions are human, and emotions can cause such trouble. So much was felt that brother turned on brother, and it no longer mattered if they were gonna survive a war or the collapse of their nation which would have a domino effect into their provinces, cities, and homes. They'd rather see their mother fear for her life than having a mattress to sleep on somewhere." She shook her head and sighed heavily. She reached into a drawer and pulled out an inhaler of some sort, breathing in, then setting it back on her desk. Within moments she returned to her stale self.

"And how was there a solution when you run a nation of humans?"

Again, she reached into her desk, but she pulled out a petri dish filled with translucent powder and a small bag of chips, and she pulled her inhaler beside the chips. "I'm sure you have heard crushing pills into the elderly's food and drinks if they are no longer able to swallow their medication. This is essentially the same idea, but it is medicine that helps with the hormones of human emotion in that it simply regulates its release to nearly nothing. Now, science isn't always perfect due to individual bodies, so sometimes emotions arises out of people, to which we provide a complementary inhaler that is a spot treatment."

The President opened the crinkly bag of chips and leaned it in front of the ambassador. The cheesy, junky scent itched him. Hylem cleared his throat. "Sounds an awful lot like Ryan Widgery's research with Grenlen."

"That is my father."

She's a Widgery. They traced her. "Who's the necklace from?"

"My grandmother from the painting," she said, rolling the locket between her fingers.

"Ellet Widgery."

A ringing in their ears and a blur of sight. Before Hylem dropped to the floor, he saw from the corner of his eye, Grenlan's spy, acting as her security, shoot the bullet into her chest. The ambassador stepped around the desk, sliding the petri dish and inhaler into his hand. He took in her dead expression. No emotion before or after death. Just as she wanted.

Snatching the cold metal locket dotted with blood, Hylem stared at the keyhole, now clearly knowing where they were in the scale of the city. "Thanks for the research, Madam President."