Page 9 of Devotion

“Sure. Get whatever you want. As long as there’s less cleavage.”

I have to hide an amused smile as I go check my hair and makeup and change my shoes, and I’m still smiling as I leave the palace.

Leave it to me to get the one administrator who wants to see less of his partner’s body.

But at least he’s noticed it. Enough that it’s distracted him from his work.

I honestly wasn’t sure anything in the world could do that.

3

On my fifthday as Gabriel’s partner, he attends his first weekly council meeting.

All the administrators meet with the president every Monday morning at ten to go over news, updates, revised policy, and upcoming initiatives. It’s held in the main conference room in the palace, which means it’s not private and I get to attend.

Maybe a three- or four-hour meeting on a Monday morning doesn’t sound exciting to most people, but I’m thrilled. It’s better than amusing myself while Gabriel works, and I’m interested in getting a sense of President Vincent and the other administrators and hearing about what’s going on in the Central Cities.

Gabriel wakes up early as always and swims for two hours before showering and dressing. Then he works at his desk for a while before we leave. We walk up several stories of the administrative tower—the tallest structure in the entire Capital—and find the conference room.

It’s bigger than I imagined. Large polished tables are arranged in a rectangle with fancy chairs for the sixty-some palace administrators. The table at the head of the rectangle ishigher than the others and only has one seat. That’s obviously where the president sits, although he hasn’t arrived yet.

Gabriel and I get to the room two minutes before ten, so most of the others are already there. There are nameplates identifying each seat, so I follow Gabriel around the room until he finds his assigned seat in the middle of the right-hand side.

Behind the chairs are large, plush lounge cushions on the floor against the walls. I immediately understand their purpose and step over and lower myself to the empty one behind Gabriel’s seat.

Other partners are already in position on their cushions. Most of them I don’t know since they were partnered up before I entered the selection group, but I give Kyra a little wave from across the room and a smile to Benji, who got chosen by the administrator hired just before Gabriel and is seated right beside me.

Gabriel has taken his seat, but he gives a couple of quick glances over his shoulder as if my presence is making him uncomfortable. It’s probably not me. It’s the whole setup. He undoubtedly believes the position of the partners on their cushions on the floor is somehow demeaning or trashy.

He hasn’t even been in the Capital a whole week. Surely he’ll get used to it eventually.

I’m pleased when the older woman seated beside him starts to chat with him. I check out her nameplate and discover she’s the Director of Farms. She’s the administrator who chose Benji as a partner, so she’s fairly new to the palace herself.

I can still see a faint aura of impatience in Gabriel’s manner, but he responds to the woman in a polite, intelligent way, so at least he’s not completely devoid of courtesy and diplomacy.

I want people to like and respect him, so he needs to step it up a bit from his normal brusque professionalism.

The butler hits the floor with his staff three times to indicate the arrival of the president. Administrators all stand. Their partners don’t.

I’m watching wide-eyed as President Vincent walks in and casually waves everyone back into their seats. He’s an attractive man in his mid-fifties with dark hair, a full beard, and an appealing smile.

He has three partners—two women and a man—and they take their seat on the fancy cushions behind him.

Forty-five years ago, the world collapsed into chaos and violence after the Fall. Back then, the Capital was just another broken city, but a military leader eventually took control, restoring order, providing food and safety, rebuilding infrastructure, and using a growing army to enforce obedience. He eventually unified all the cities in this region under his government, establishing the Central Cities as one state.

That leader was President Patterson. He did a lot of good for a lot of people, but life under him was bleak and barren. Oppressive. He set up a system of indentured servitude for those who had nothing else to offer to society, and that system led to all kinds of abuses. I only lived six years under President Patterson, so I don’t remember much, but everyone testifies to how hard life was before. My dad and my grandfather were both indentured servants. Neither one will talk about it even now.

But fifteen years ago, Vincent led a military research team that created a highly efficient solar-charge battery. The technology was so sophisticated and had uses so wide-ranging that it immediately obliterated our reliance on whatever fossil fuels remained after the Fall. One small battery can power a vehicle. A larger one can power an entire home. It changed life in the Central Cities overnight, and a year later President Vincent had taken control of the military and challenged Patterson for the presidency.

There was an election, which President Vincent won by a landslide, and because Vincent had the military on his side, Patterson had no platform for disputing the results. He died of a stroke a few weeks later anyway.

Ever since, life in the Central Cities has been transformed. Pleasure and entertainment have returned. Indentured servitude was abolished. Laborers get one day off a week. Everything is better and softer and safer, and the palace’s partner system is an important symbol of that transformation.

Surely Gabriel will see that soon.

The meeting begins with some remarks from the president. Then each administrator gives a report with updates from their department for the week. Gabriel introduces himself when it’s his turn and gives a few sentences about the project he’s been given.

It’s the first time I actually learn what he’s working on. He’s been tasked with putting a plan together to redo the entire banking and identification system in the Central Cities, and he has a year to complete it. I had no idea his role was so huge.

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