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Chapter or Story
The Pretender: The Administration
by Dash Nolan
Shibboleth
by Dash Nolan
Shibboleth
Jarod deftly stepped aside to allow to men talking amongst themselves to pass. Jarod had seen the tall Caucasian man and the shorter Asian man trekking the halls countless times since taking up his new position at the White House, but their purpose had always eluded him. He had spotted the pair at meetings pertaining to everything from the budget surplus to national security, but as far as he could tell, they had no specific offices or places-of-work. It was a curiosity.
The pretender walked at a speed that anyone not regularly within the hectic offices would call a decent cardio workout, finally ending on the outside of a partially-walled office. At the desk was a pretty young woman with long black hair and thin eyes. Jarod knocked on the near-by glass partition.
"Does she have a minute?"
The woman, Carol Fitzpatrick, looked up from a stack of yellow legal pads, and stared at him for a quick moment. Jarod realized she couldn't immediately recognize him. But then she smiled up at him, her fingers still firmly pressing a pen against one of the notepads.
"If you're going to wait for her to have a free moment," said Carol, "You're going to have to camp out here for the better part of five-and-a-half years."
Jarod's brows rose out lack of understanding. Then a wide, honest smile crossed the false Media Consultant's mouth and he laughed.
"Oh," he said, containing his laughter, "Because that will be at the end of the President's presumed second term. That's funny!"
Carol smiled uncomfortably at him, then appeared to push away a question forming in her mind and used the pen to signal at the office door behind her.
"Go on in, just make sure to knock first."
"Thank you."
Jarod moved the past the desk and lightly rapped against the door. A woman on the other side shouted "Come in," and he did so. The office was similar to many of the other executive advisers' offices: a couch and a couple of chairs, a desk covered in organized materials, and a tall bookshelf filled with binders and thick volumes. One unique touch Jarod immediately noticed was the goldfish doing casual laps within a bowl sitting atop the corner of the desk. There was a miniaturized rendition of the Press Secretary's podium in the middle of the bowl, complete with tiny Presidential Seal.
The woman behind the desk, C.J. Craig, typed away at the laptop in front of her. Jarod stood patiently next to one of the chairs. Finally C.J. looked up from the small screen to Jarod.
"Well?"
"Well...what?" Jarod asked.
"What do you need?"
"I wanted to speak with you about my current role. So far all I've been working on are response comments and recommendation on daily events. Congressional rumors, local news stories, polls and such."
C.J. sighed and smiled half-heartedly. "The DNC recommended you pretty highly, more-so even than the last person in your job, and we had picked her out ourselves. Toby and Josh wanted you working on the State of the Union when you walked in the door, but I saw that most of your experience had been commercial, so-"
"So you thought you would give me the press-room-floor stuff to get my feet wet? I appreciate the thought, but I came here to help craft the message."
"You know, some of the best things we've done came out of that "press-room-floor" material."
Jarod wanted so desperately to agree with her. He wanted to shoot from his chair and hug her, shouting his praise for the great works done everyday by townsfolk across the country that never got more than a half column below-the-fold. But he wasn't Jarod at that moment, he was Political Adviser in Media Consulting Jarod Sorkin.
"I'm sure that's true, but you guys didn't bring me in to tell you what to say in response to the "Fairfield County Annual Chili Cook-Off". The State of the Union is in a little over two months. Give me an issue you can't agree on."
The Press Secretary leaned forward and gently grasped her chin, smirking curiously. Jarod allowed his mind to slip completely into the Pretend, giving him the perfect balance of professionalism and confidence without crossing too far into arrogance. C.J. chuckled quietly and leaned back.
"Alright," she said, puling another yellow notepad from the chaos atop her desk. "We need one major issue that we can get bi-partisan support from the House and Senate on. It needs to be something that will take some wrangling, but not so much that it consumes every hour of the day. "Come together, right now, over me," you know what I mean?"
Jarod nodded. "Sure."
"Good. This is a list that Sam, Josh, Toby, and Leo put together of issues that they don't think would work for this purpose. You're welcome to start putting together proposals for anything else."
The pretender accepted the legal pad, scanned through the top three pages, then looked back up at C.J..
"This is every major political issue ever."
"Sure you don't want to go back to the chili cook-offs?"
"I'll figure something out."
"I have no doubt you will. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
Jarod redoubled his focus, understanding that this was the moment for which he had actually come.He had to be casual. He had to be relaxed. He had to appear nonchalant about what could become the most consequential moment in American history since November 22nd, 1963.
"When is the next major trip on the President's plate?"
"Why?"
"We're going to get the most done on the speech when the President isn't here."
"And where did you get this idea?" C.J. asked in a tone that didn't suggest he was wrong in the least.
"Becuase that's when Carter's advisers said they got the most work done in the book I picked up from the library," Jarod wanted to say. Instead, he rested against the back of his chair.
"When all you give your media consultant are local news clippings and young pollsters, he has the free time to ask some questions and get a lay of the land. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
C.J. sighed. "I underestimated you, Jarod. It won't happen again, so don't come complaining to me when you have to redefine a "good night's rest" as four hours of mild unconsciousness."
"Fair enough," Jarod said, laughing.
C.J. hit a few more keys on her laptop, then looked toward her open office door and calling for Carol. The secretary was almost immediately in the doorway, but her stance suggested she had casually sauntered over at her boss' call.
"When is the President's China trip?"
Carol stepped back to her desk, pulled a spiral notebook from within her desk, and was rustling through it pages when she returned to the office. She stopped at a page, hardly glancing at it before returning her attention to C.J..
"Next Thursday, wheels-up at oh-seven-thirty."
"Thanks," C.J. said, then turned to Jarod. "The President will be meeting with various leaders in Beijing as part of a closed-door summit on metals trade and supply in, like she said, ten days."
"Then I've got nine days to put together a report that will sell the "boys" on a Blue Ribbon Commission on...'" Jarod paused just long enough to steal a glance at the list. "Social Security reform."
"Good luck. Josh put that on the list. He's convinced the Republicans in the House will never be able to get over privatization."
"I'll talk to him," Jarod said, smirking.
C.J. seemed to share in Jarod's amusement, but for an entirely different reason. Josh Lyman was notorious for being the single most stubborn man in the building. For a commercial-bred P.R. newbie like Jarod Sorkin to walk in the door and claim to be ready to tell Josh what's-what, well, that was comedy gold.
Meanwhile, despite his smooth and disarming smile, Jarod was silently wondering if ten days was enough.
Centre simulations weren't cheap, and that was before you considered the cost in connections to find out what the Centre really made and how to contact the higher-ups. This meant that it was pretty easy to assume whoever acquired Sim One-six-seven was both well-funded and well-informed. Jarod had dealt with plenty of people with large amounts of cash, but little mental ability. Jarod had dealt with plenty of people with complex minds, but few resources. The pretender had even defeated several people with both funding and intelligence, but they had required an extensive knowledge of past motives and operations to bring down. Jarod had no idea who had acquired the simulation, much less the person or group's modus operandi.
Watching the little orange fish make its way around the podium, Jarod realized what it was like to be completely unable to stop something, to save someone, by himself. He needed the help of someone in the Centre, and it was entirely possible Sydney didn't even know who to speak to about executive-level data transfers, much less the name of the Tower executive that had sold the file. Jarod needed someone with direct ties to the top.
Jarod needed Parker.
