The Vice President's Choice
2253 Words
The frozen lake reflected nothing but gray sky.
Marcus stood on the porch of the Alaska cabin, watching Claire pack her bag. She moved methodically. Passport. Cash. A pistol small enough to hide. Kay waited by the door, her laptop already in its case.
“You don’t have to do this,” Marcus said.
“Yes, I do.” Claire zipped the bag. “The vice president won’t meet with you. Your face is on every screen. But she’ll meet with me. I’m just a librarian who got her memory back.”
“You’re not just anything.”
She walked to him and put her hands on his chest. “I know. That’s why I’m going.”
Marcus kissed her forehead. “Stay in contact. Every hour.”
“Every hour.”
She walked to the plane.
Kay followed.
The Gulfstream’s engines roared. The plane lifted off the ice runway and disappeared into the clouds.
Marcus watched until he couldn’t see it anymore.
Damian came up beside him. “She’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No one knows anything. But she’s survived worse.”
Marcus turned back to the cabin. The sleepers were inside, drinking hot chocolate. Lena was reading to a young woman who had just remembered her name. Mira was working on a cure for the last few.
This was what they were fighting for.
He just hoped Claire would come back to enjoy it.
---
The flight to Washington took six hours.
Claire slept for two of them. Kay worked on her laptop, monitoring news feeds. The president had given a speech that morning—calling for unity, for patience, for trust in the system. No mention of Marcus. No mention of the Lazarus Account.
“She’s pretending nothing happened,” Kay said.
“That’s what guilty people do.”
Claire looked out the window. The cities below were tiny grids of light. Somewhere down there was the White House. The vice president’s residence. Her target.
“Ashworth arranged the meeting?”
“Through a back channel. The vice president’s chief of staff. Someone who owes him a favor.”
“And the vice president knows what we’re going to tell her?”
“She knows it’s about the president. She doesn’t know the details.”
Claire checked her pistol. “Let’s keep it that way until we’re in the room.”
---
The plane landed at a private airfield outside Baltimore.
A car was waiting—black sedan, tinted windows. The driver didn’t speak. He just drove.
The vice president’s residence was on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Security was tight. Claire and Kay were searched twice. Their phones were taken. Their weapons were confiscated.
“You’ll get them back when you leave,” a Secret Service agent said.
Claire nodded.
They were led to a small study. Bookshelves. A fireplace. A desk.
The vice president was waiting.
She was in her early sixties, with grey hair and a face that had seen too many compromises. Her name was Margaret Chen—no relation to David. She had been a governor, a senator, a compromise choice for the ticket. Now she was a heartbeat away from the presidency.
“Mrs. Chen,” Claire said.
“Call me Margaret.” The vice president gestured to chairs. “You have something to tell me.”
Claire sat. Kay sat beside her.
“The president is not who she appears to be.”
“I know. She’s a politician.”
“She’s a client of the Lazarus Account. She paid for a new body ten years ago. The woman you see today is not the woman who was elected. She’s a replacement.”
Margaret’s face didn’t change. But her hands tightened on the armrest.
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“I have proof. Medical records. DNA tests. Brain scans. Everything.”
“Where is this proof?”
“In a safe place. If anything happens to me or my team, it goes public.”
Margaret stood up. She walked to the fireplace.
“I’ve suspected something was wrong for years. The way she speaks. The way she moves. The things she knows—or doesn’t know. But I never had evidence.”
“Now you do.”
“And what do you want me to do with it?”
Claire stood. “I want you to start the impeachment process. I want you to remove her from office. And I want you to make sure everyone involved in the Lazarus Account is brought to justice.”
Margaret turned. “That will tear the country apart.”
“The country is already torn apart. This will heal it.”
The vice president was silent for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
“I’ll need to see the evidence. Firsthand.”
“You will. But not here. Not now. Too many eyes.”
“Then where?”
Claire pulled out a piece of paper. An address. “Tomorrow. 2:00 PM. This location. Come alone.”
Margaret took the paper. “If this is a trap—”
“It’s not. We’re on the same side.”
---
Claire and Kay left the residence.
The Secret Service returned their weapons. Their phones.
Kay checked for trackers. None.
“That went better than I expected,” Kay said.
“She’s scared. Scared people are easy to convince.”
“Or easy to betray.”
Claire looked at the White House in the distance. The lights were on. The president was inside.
“We’ll find out tomorrow.”
---
The plane flew back to Alaska that night.
Claire watched the stars. Kay fell asleep in the seat across from her.
Marcus’s voice came through the earpiece. “How did it go?”
“She wants to see the evidence. Tomorrow.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Everything is dangerous.”
Marcus was quiet for a moment. “I’ll have Damian meet you. He’ll be nearby. In case.”
“Marcus—”
“No arguments. You’re not doing this alone.”
Claire smiled. “Fine.”
---
Alaska was cold and dark when they landed.
Marcus was waiting on the ice runway. He pulled Claire into a hug.
“You’re freezing,” she said.
“I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.”
They walked to the cabin. The sleepers were asleep. Lena was dozing in a chair. Damian was on watch.
Marcus poured Claire a cup of coffee.
“Tell me everything.”
She did. The vice president. The meeting. The address.
“You’re meeting her at a warehouse?” Marcus asked.
“Abandoned. Ashworth’s choice. No cameras. No witnesses.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. You just have to trust me.”
Marcus looked at her. “I do.”
---
The next day, Claire flew back to Baltimore.
Damian went with her. He stayed in the car a block from the warehouse. Kay monitored from a van two blocks away.
Claire walked into the warehouse alone.
The vice president was already there. No staff. No security. Just her.
“You came,” Claire said.
“You have evidence.”
Claire pulled out a tablet. The medical records. The DNA tests. The brain scans.
Margaret scrolled through them. Her face grew pale.
“This is her. Before and after.”
“Yes.”
“The transformation was done at Camp David.”
“In a bunker. I can show you.”
Margaret set the tablet down. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Then you’ll act?”
“I’ll need to bring others into the fold. Congressional leaders. The cabinet. People I trust.”
“How long?”
“A week. Maybe less.”
Claire nodded. “Then we have a week.”
---
She walked out of the warehouse.
Damian was waiting. “She bought it?”
“She bought it.”
“Now we wait.”
“Now we wait.”
---
The week was the longest of Marcus’s life.
He paced the cabin. He checked the news. He watched the snow fall.
Claire worked with Lena to cure more sleepers. Damian taught some of the volunteers to shoot. Kay built a backup of the evidence—hundreds of copies, stored in encrypted servers around the world.
Ashworth called every day.
“The vice president is moving. She’s meeting with senators. The speaker of the House. The attorney general.”
“Is it enough?”
“It’s enough to start the process. Whether it’s enough to remove her—that depends on the evidence.”
“The evidence is solid.”
“Evidence doesn’t matter if people are afraid.”
Marcus hung up.
Claire found him on the porch. “You’re brooding.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Same thing.”
She sat beside him. “What happens after? After she’s gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
---
On the seventh day, the news broke.
The vice president had called for an emergency session of Congress. She had presented the evidence. She had requested the president’s immediate resignation.
The president refused.
The House began impeachment proceedings.
The country erupted.
Marcus watched from the cabin. Claire was beside him.
“She’s not going quietly,” Claire said.
“She never was.”
“What happens if she fights?”
“Then we fight back.”
---
The president’s counterattack came at 8:00 PM.
She addressed the nation. She called the impeachment “a coup.” She named Marcus as the source of the “forged evidence.” She ordered his arrest.
“This is not about justice,” she said. “This is about power. And I will not surrender this office to liars and traitors.”
Marcus turned off the television.
Claire was pale. “She’s going to war.”
“She already did. Now we finish it.”
---
Marcus called Ashworth.
“The president just declared war on us.”
“I saw.”
“We need to release the evidence. Not just to Congress. To the world.”
“That will make her more desperate.”
“She’s already desperate.”
Ashworth was silent. “I’ll make the arrangements. But Marcus—once we do this, there’s no turning back.”
“There never was.”
---
At 10:00 PM, the evidence went public.
Every news outlet. Every social media platform. The medical records. The DNA tests. The proof that the president was not the woman she claimed to be.
The world reacted with shock.
Protests erupted in every major city. The president’s own party turned on her. The cabinet began to resign.
At 11:00 PM, the president fled the White House.
No one knew where she went.
Marcus’s phone buzzed. Ashworth.
“She’s heading to Camp David. The bunker. She’s going to destroy the evidence.”
Marcus typed back: “There’s no evidence left. We have it all.”
“She doesn’t know that. She’s going to try to disappear. To assume a new identity. To start over.”
“Where?”
“The bunker has a secondary exit. A tunnel. Leads to a helicopter pad. If she reaches it—”
“She won’t.”
Marcus stood up.
Claire grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”
“To Camp David. To end this.”
“I’m coming.”
“No. You stay here. Protect the sleepers.”
“Marcus—”
“Claire. Please.”
She looked into his eyes. Then she nodded.
“Come back.”
“I will.”
---
Damian drove.
The roads were empty. The snow was falling. The clock was midnight.
They reached Camp David at 1:00 AM.
The gate was unguarded. The guards had fled.
Marcus and Damian walked through the service entrance. The same tunnel Chen had shown them. The same elevator.
Level three.
The transformation chamber was dark.
But the secondary exit was open.
They ran through the tunnel. Cold. Dark. Long.
The helicopter pad was outside. The blades were already spinning.
The president was climbing aboard.
Marcus ran onto the pad.
“Stop!”
She turned. Her face was haggard. Her eyes were wild.
“You.”
“It’s over.”
“It’s never over.”
She pulled a pistol.
Marcus didn’t have his. He had left it in the car.
Damian fired.
The president fell.
Not dead. Wounded. Her shoulder.
Marcus walked to her. He knelt.
“You’re under arrest.”
She laughed. “You have no authority.”
“I have the truth.”
The helicopter pilot raised his hands. “I’m not part of this.”
Marcus helped the president to her feet.
They walked back through the tunnel.
---
The FBI was waiting at the gate.
Agent Reyes took the president into custody.
“You did it,” Reyes said.
“We did it.”
“The vice president will be sworn in tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Reyes looked at Marcus. “You’re still a wanted man.”
“I know.”
“But I have a feeling that’s about to change.”
She walked away.
Marcus watched the convoy leave.
Damian was beside him. “It’s over.”
“It’s over.”
“Now what?”
Marcus looked at the stars.
“Now we go home.”
- Writer
