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"I guess I will get to the point of my presence here," she says, then clears her throat before continuing. "Myself and the cabinet members do not want this war. We also do not see the need for it, especially after what was said in the meeting today about the circumstances that brought about the murder of the three men at the institution. We were led to believe it was a senseless murder by a monster to be able to kidnap Miss Palmer. We doubted it from the beginning but had heard nothing to contradict that story until this meeting."
"Why didn't you believe your leader before?" my father asks. "He is, after all, elected, put in that position by your people. Why then have a leader you do not trust?"
"He was elected many years ago, as you know. He was not always who he is now. But I think we can all see quite clearly now that he is never going back to that man either. We didn't believe him because we personally questioned some of the other men who confined Miss Palmer to the institution. Instead of us finding inconsistencies in their stories, every one of them said the same exact thing, in almost the same exact way. It was rehearsed, too much like reading from a script instead of giving us an actual account of what happened. But without us being able to find the actual video of the incident, we had nothing else to go off of."
"And so now that you know he's the one who put your fellow human in danger, what will you do?"
She takes a deep breath, looking down. "He has to go." Then, she meets my father's eyes. "He has to die."
The silence in the room is thick and absolute. I don't think any of us expected her to say that. The only thing that makes me believe her in the least is because I can hear the shakiness in her voice, see the way her hands begin to fidget, but she notices and folds them in her lap. She's nervous, to be here, to say the words she has, to expose herself this way. Or is she nervous because she's tricking us all?
"So then kill him." my father states.
"I cannot. If I am caught, I will not be able to become president upon his death."
"Ah, so, this is not all quite to avoid a war then." My father arches a brow.
"I never said that was the only objective," she points out. "We all, both humans and monsters alike, benefit from his death. I would become president, appoint someone from the cabinet as my vice president and finally be able to make changes I have long wanted to in this quadrant. You would be safe, your people safe, and the terms of the treaty can be changed."
My eyes shoot to my brothers' across from me at that. There hasn't been a change to it since it was signed a century ago because the human leader will never agree to it and both parties need to for there to be any amendments. I see the same hope, and the same hesitancy to that hope, in their eyes. The Grounders around me share glances with each other too, but when I look back at my father, his narrowed eyes are only on Judith, accessing, questioning, and weighing her words.
"If you’ve long known the President is not a good leader, then why wait until now to act? Was the suffering of your own people not enough to rise up against him? You can't expect me to believe it is the safety of my people that has prompted you to take such a drastic action."
"When I became vice president eight years ago, I finally found out what the draft was truly about, and I asked the president why he didn't just tell everyone its true meaning. You know what he told me? That it kept them in line. I didn't quite know it then, but he used the draft as leverage, threatening men that if they didn't do what he wanted, he'd make sure their daughter's, granddaughter's names were drawn in the next draft. He used it to extort people, blackmail people. And when that wasn't enough, he'd have them thrown into prison, shown on television so others wouldn't dare. As I would come to find out, that was only the tip of an iceberg. He's used his power to make sure people close to him weren't found guilty of heinous crimes, used money meant to change the poorer areas for his own benefit. The cabinet and I were already sharing the doubts and fears about the President staying in power, but then..." She pauses, looks around the room. "But then last night, after the meeting, he showed us something that made it clear our time to stop him, eliminate him, had to be now."
My shoulders stiffen at her words. What could he have shown her that was so bad it was the final nail in his own coffin? Bad enough for her to risk coming down here alone, not knowing how we would receive her?
"What did he show you?" my father asks.
She looks up at him slowly. "How he plans to win this war."
My father's face becomes even more severe. "And how is that?"
"By killing you all. Monsters, human women, even the children." She shakes her head. "He's going to drop bombs into your village. The gas from those bombs will kill anyone who inhales in. And if anyone makes it out, there will be snipers in the forest, waiting to slaughter them."
"Do you think we have not prepared for something to come through that door?"
"Not just the door. He's placed some type of technology on the ground of the forest, that shows each and every exit from your village. It's how I knew where to find one. He had a map, showing where he will place snipers, everything. But from this map, this well thought out plan, it was clear he was planning this much longer than the night Miss Palmer was taken. He only needed an excuse to enact it all."
Fear, dread, rage, and so many more emotions rush through me. Every meeting has all been nothing but a ruse. Just something to buy time until he could put everything in order needed to annihilate us.
"Why did he show you the plan at all?" my father questions. "If he'd been planning it this long without any of you knowing, why now? Why wouldn't he just carry it out?"
"He needs our permission to do something of this scale. This is war, this is genocide, of not just monsters, but every human down here as well. If he were to drop those bombs without our written consent, he would be subject to execution. I am sure it's the only reason he showed us any of it. We've been very careful not to show him there's any dissention among us, but he trusts us less and less each day."
"And when does he plan to do this?"
"Three days," she says. "I can't be sure, but the law states he has to get our approval three days before any act of war can be carried out, so I would think this was the very last part of his plan."
"Did you and the cabinet members sign it?" my father inquires.
She hesitates for a second, loudly swallowing. "We did. We had no other choice."
"There's always a choice," my father grits out.
"Yes. And my choices were to not sign this document saying he would kill thousands of people and then have him possibly, probably, kill me instead and replace me with someone who would have no problem carrying out what he plans. Or I could sign it and have him believe I am on his side, so that I can leave the room alive and have a chance to come here and warn you. So, yes, I made a choice. Now, what will yours be?"
"What exactly are you asking of me? Put it in the simplest terms."
