President Adrian Marek faces the final day of his second term. As the pageantry fades, he confronts the haunting truth: his decade in power was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated illusion.
The Final Morning
It was already bright when Adrian awoke, though the hands of the brass wall clock announced it was just past half past seven. The light that poured through the tall windows was harsh and white, the kind that flattened every object it touched. Somewhere outside, cicadas droned without rest, and the heavy limbs of the lime trees in the courtyard sagged under the weight of the August sun.
He sat up slowly in the vast state-appointed bed, slick with a thin film of sweat. The sheets, once stiff with formality, were now creased and damp. The air in the Presidential Residence was motionless, as if the building itself had paused — not in reverence, but indifference. The fan in the ceiling clicked softly, rhythmically, like the ticking of a mechanical heart running down.
There were no aides, no footsteps in the corridor, no ceremonial knock on the door. Today was the final day of his second term as president, and yet the apparatus that had, for a decade, manufactured the appearance of national leadership had already been dismantled.
He rose and crossed to the window. The city shimmered under the heat. Red roofs bled into one another. Flags drooped. The capital was not waiting for him. It did not look up, it did not remember. The streets seemed to curl in on themselves, avoiding the heat and the history alike.
He whispered aloud, to no one: “The last day.”
There was no reply. Not even the echo would humour him.
He dressed in silence, choosing a light grey suit he had worn during his first campaign — a symbol, perhaps, of how far he had not come. In the mirror, he saw a face softened by years of polite interviews, vacant declarations, and carefully modulated optimism. There was no triumph in it. No conviction. Only neutrality, practiced and perfected.
He stood there a moment too long, studying himself not with pride, but suspicion. His own face had grown unfamiliar. A construct — that was the word they used. A construct, calibrated to reflect back to the nation what it wished to see: fatherliness without weight, ambition without danger.
Breakfast had been placed in the adjoining room. Someone still performed these final rituals. A pot of weak coffee. Dry toast. A single nectarine, sweating in the heat. He touched the fruit but did not eat it. The coffee was lukewarm. The toast crumbled.
He remembered how, ten years earlier, his mornings had been the battleground of branding. The food had been photographed before he ate it. The curtains had been chosen to complement the colour of his tie. Every element of his day had been managed by Aurora Persona — the firm that had remade him from the inside out.
“You are not meant to be interesting,” they had told him. “You are meant to be inevitable.”
He had been inevitable. Twice.
He had won. Twice.
He had achieved — nothing.
Eventually, a knock. A junior staffer came to clear the breakfast tray. The boy was pale, sweating, and distracted. He nodded without looking Adrian in the eye. A man retiring into silence, unnoticed by a generation already preparing for the next avatar.
Adrian walked back into the main corridor. The chandeliers were unlit. Daylight poured through the high windows, bleaching the colours from the marble floor. Portraits of former presidents lined the walls. Each bore the same expression: solemn, forgettable. He paused before one — a man from the 1980s with a wide jaw and clenched smile — and imagined the painted eyes narrowing with pity.
He walked on, slower now, half-expecting to find something he had missed in his years here — a trace of substance, a sign that he had once been real. But the building offered nothing. No clue, no resistance. Only architecture designed to outlast the men who occupied it.
“I was president,” he said, softly, to the hallway.
The words dissolved in the heat.
The Hall of Mirrors
The corridor curved inward as he walked, or so it seemed. The residence was vast but poorly charted — a structure added to in pieces over decades, perhaps centuries, by architects who had never spoken to one another. Vaulted ceilings opened into narrow passageways. Grand doors led to broom closets. At times, Adrian suspected the building shifted itself at night, rearranging the halls as if to avoid being remembered.
He passed through a double doorway, heavy with ornate brass handles, and entered the Hall of Mirrors.
Here, state receptions had once been held. Deals had been nodded into being beneath chandeliers. Foreign dignitaries had smiled into the polished glass, watching their own gestures repeated back to them in diplomatic pantomime. The room was empty now. Vast, and empty.
The mirrors, tall as doors, lined both sides of the chamber, multiplying him endlessly. He stood still in the centre. Hundreds of Adrians stood with him. Not one spoke.
He moved toward the nearest reflection, slowly, as though approaching a stranger. The face stared back: mild, composed, featureless in the way that only someone who had practised looking real could manage. He raised a hand. His mirror did the same. The gesture looked rehearsed, campaign-ready.
How many times had he stood like this, adjusted like this, performed like this? The firm had once coached him on mirror work — literally. One consultant had spoken at length about “facial consistency” and “emotional predictability.” A furrow in the brow conveyed too much seriousness; too little, and one seemed distracted. Smile lines were valuable, but only if symmetrical. Even his blinking had been addressed.
“You must not look at the people,” she had said. “You must reflect them.”
He stared deeper into the glass. The face didn’t blink this time. It held its shape too long, like an actor missing a cue. A flicker of wrongness passed through him. For a moment he wasn’t certain the man in the mirror was moving at all.
He turned away. The reflections multiplied around him, more erratic now — each angle capturing a different, slightly off version of his posture, his expression, his stance. One stood straighter. Another drooped. One had a half-smile he didn’t remember giving.
A memory surfaced unbidden: his first television debate, a decade ago. He had been fitted with a discreet earpiece. Not for facts — those were irrelevant. He was coached live on tone, volume, pacing. The voice in his ear whispered, “Pause. Nod. Empathise.” The audience had applauded as if he had revealed something honest. That was the first time he had felt the vertigo of impersonation.
He had not been allowed to speak freely since.
Now, as he stood among the mirrors, the room began to feel claustrophobic. Not from physical enclosure, but from an overwhelming sense that he had been watched — not by others, but by versions of himself, carefully multiplied, and none of them real. Each reflection was a layer of varnish, applied and reapplied, until nothing beneath could breathe.
Was there, he wondered, a self untouched by Aurora Persona? A version of Adrian Marek not trimmed and shaped for appeal? He tried to summon a memory of himself before the presidency — his law practice, his lectures, his mother’s kitchen — but even those memories felt scripted now, overwritten by anecdotes inserted into speeches.
He ran his hand along the cool surface of the nearest mirror. His skin met the glass, but he felt nothing. The image stared back, calm and neutral.
“You were inevitable,” he whispered to the reflection.
The mouth moved, but the eyes betrayed nothing.
In the far end of the room, half-concealed behind a curtain, he noticed something odd — a freestanding cardboard figure, a life-size campaign cut-out of himself, smiling as he had in posters, posed with a confidence he never truly possessed. The cardboard had warped slightly in the heat; the face now buckled inward, the smile distorted into something like a grimace.
He stood before it and compared the replica to his mirrored self. He could not say which looked more real.
It occurred to him then, not with panic but with grim clarity: there had never been a version of him that the public met. Only this — the cut-out, the reflection, the safe fiction of a man. And if no real Adrian had ever ruled, what had ended today?
Not a presidency.
Not a term.
Only a performance.
Encounter with the Doppelgänger
He left the Hall of Mirrors not with haste but with a sense of quiet resignation, like a man exiting a theatre after realising the performance was never meant for him. The heat outside had begun to thicken; the high ceilings of the palace trapped it like breath inside a sealed box. Somewhere, a floorboard creaked behind a wall, but when Adrian turned, there was no one there.
He descended a half-spiral staircase and entered the Press Room — once a place of anticipation and orchestration, now dusty and dim. The blinds were closed, casting parallel lines of light across the faded red carpet. Rows of chairs faced a low dais with a pale blue backdrop bearing the national emblem. The seal looked faded, as if it had grown tired of association.
And there it was — near the podium, standing upright, waiting like a servant who had overstayed his post.
The cardboard figure again.
He had not expected to see it here, in this place, standing amidst the ruins of press briefings and declarations. But there it stood: a life-size cut-out of Adrian Marek, smiling the smile chosen by polling data — approachable, confident, utterly forgettable. The posture was exact: left foot slightly forward, arms gently relaxed, suit perfectly creased. The cardboard smile never reached the eyes.
He approached it slowly.
Face to face with it, he saw how the edges had worn, where fingers had gripped it during transport, how the ink had begun to fade at the collar. A crack ran diagonally across the forehead, as if lightning had struck an idea too fragile to bear it.
“Are you the one they voted for?” he asked aloud.
The room didn’t answer. The smile did not flicker. The cardboard stood still, more present than he felt.
He reached out and touched its hand. It was smooth, cold — too cold, as if it absorbed no heat at all. There was something revolting in its perfection.
He had never been perfect. Not even close. But the version of him created by the firm, sculpted in anonymity and tested in focus groups, had been. It was this figure that had attended the rallies. This figure that had shaken hands, kissed babies, promised reforms whose content was irrelevant. He, the man who now stood here, had only ever been its shadow.
“I wore your face,” he said softly. “And now you outlive me.”
Something inside him recoiled — not from the absurdity of speaking to a cut-out, but from the knowledge that it did not feel absurd at all.
In the far end of the room, a mirror — smaller than those in the Hall, hung crookedly behind the cameras — caught the image of the two Adrians side by side. Man and replica. Neither moved.
He sat down in the front row, suddenly exhausted. Heat pressed against his back. The room was silent save for the hum of the old ventilation system struggling in vain.
He stared at the cut-out for what felt like an hour. He began to imagine it stepping off its base. Not aggressively. Not even dramatically. Just turning slightly, then walking out of the room — calm, ready, presidential — to give a speech in his place. And no one would notice. Why would they? The difference had never mattered.
In his final campaign, a member of his team had accidentally uploaded a digitally rendered image of him instead of a real photograph. It had been used on multiple billboards before anyone noticed. When they did, the firm explained it away: “The public doesn’t respond to authenticity. They respond to recognisability.“
Now he understood. The man was only ever necessary to give the image legal standing.
He rubbed his temples, nausea rising.
A voice came, as if from the wall — but there was no one there.
It said, flatly, with the cadence of an instruction:
“Please return to your designated position.”
He stood.
There was no clear reason why — only the sense that something above him, beyond him, had issued a final request.
He took one last look at the cut-out.
“I don’t think I was ever meant to be real,” he murmured.
The figure, as always, said nothing.
Descent into the Archive
He found the entrance to the archive in the oldest part of the building — a hallway without windows, where the air felt older than the walls themselves. A small, unmarked door, paint flaking, frame warped by time and humidity. It was a door no longer visited, but also never locked. He opened it slowly. The hinges gave a low, metallic sigh, as if reluctant to perform their function for someone so belated.
A narrow stone staircase descended into shadow.
He hesitated. A single thought passed through his mind — clear, sharp, absurd: If I turn back now, I might never have existed.
He stepped down.
The temperature dropped with each step. The air was cool and dry and smelled faintly of dust, ink, and paper — a library of the dead. There were no guards. No cameras. Only silence, broken only by the echo of his own movements and the occasional drip of unseen water.
At the bottom, he was greeted not by an archivist but by a sign, hung by wire from a crooked nail:
“Presidential Records – Terminal Repository”
Below it, a wooden desk, unoccupied, and beside it, a bell. He pressed it.
After a time — a time long enough to question the logic of pressing bells in abandoned basements — a figure appeared. Elderly, hunched, clothed in a grey uniform with no insignia. Eyes pale, like old porcelain. The man did not smile, but inclined his head with bureaucratic courtesy.
“I would like to see the files on my presidency,” Adrian said.
The archivist looked him over, not with recognition but with measurement. A long silence followed.
“Name?” the old man asked.
Adrian blinked. “Marek. Adrian Marek. I am—was—the president.”
The archivist nodded, not with surprise but inevitability.
“Down that corridor. Section F. End shelf.”
He gestured with a hand too thin, too slow. The fingers moved like a puppet handled by someone weary of performance.
Adrian followed the corridor, flanked by endless shelves. The smell of old paper thickened. Boxes were stacked without labels. Folders bled their contents. The lighting was faint, the bulbs humming like flies trapped in glass.
He passed other sections — A, B, C — each filled with decaying documents, yellowing newspapers, photographs curling at the edges. In Section D, a box had spilled, and reports lay like shed skin across the floor. He did not stop to read them.
He reached Section F.
The shelf was labelled:
“MAREK, ADRIAN – TERM I & II”
There were only three folders.
He pulled the first one free. Inside: photographs. Dozens of them. Shaking hands, standing beside statues, smiling beside foreign ministers whose names he had forgotten. Each image perfectly framed, the same suit in different seasons. But there was no motion in them. No sound. They felt like snapshots of a wax figure.
The second folder contained printouts of speeches. The pages were marked not with edits but with approval stamps — “Suitable,” “Measured,” “Resonant.” The words themselves were familiar, but he could not remember speaking them. And then he realised: he hadn’t. Not fully. They had been composed by language teams at Aurora Persona. His job had only been to deliver them with “calculated warmth.”
He opened the final folder.
It was empty.
For a moment, he thought it must be an error. But no — on the inside cover, in small typed letters, was a single line:
“Legacy: No Determined Substance.”
He stood still, folder in hand.
That was all. No policies. No initiatives. No memoranda of consequence. No laws authored. No defining crisis met with defining action. A decade reduced to image, echo, dust.
Behind him, the archivist had appeared without sound.
“You were the most documented president we ever had,” the old man said.
His voice was not unkind. Merely final.
“And the least remembered.”
Adrian turned slowly.
“Is this where all presidencies go to die?”
The archivist tilted his head.
“No. Only the ones that never lived.”
The Black Book
He left the folder on the shelf, not out of carelessness, but as if returning an object that had never truly belonged to him. The archivist said nothing more. Adrian walked back down the corridor, the dim lights humming above him with the same dull insistence as before. The stairs awaited him like a riddle he had already solved too late.
But something pulled him off course. As he neared the base of the staircase, he noticed a door slightly ajar — heavy, steel-lined, and unlabelled. There was no sign indicating its purpose. It shouldn’t have drawn his attention, yet it did. A draft pushed against him, cool and stale, as though something on the other side had not been disturbed for a long time.
He pushed it open.
The room was small, windowless, lit by a single overhead bulb that flickered every few seconds. A metal desk stood in the centre, and on it: a single black book. Leather-bound, without title, its spine cracked and bruised. No dust — as though someone had been waiting for him.
He sat.
Opening the book felt transgressive, like trespassing in his own past.
There was no foreword, no salutation. Only a title, stamped at the top of the first page:
“ADRIAN MAREK: Construct and Lifecycle — Client #0823-A / Proprietary Profile”
Aurora Persona S.A., Division: National Figures
Status: Deactivation Phase Imminent
He turned the page.
The contents were clinical, analytical, precise. A report written not for a reader, but for a machine — or for those who lived among machines.
Phase I: Construction
“Candidate selected for emotional neutrality, facial adaptability, and low-risk background.
Narrative components: modest upbringing, childhood marked by procedural order, not neglect, but absence of warmth (fabricated); law career (real, but ideologically sterile); patriotism index: moderate, sufficient for flexible projection.
Emotional range: narrow, trainable.
Linguistic tone: measured, ideal for crisis simulation.”Candidate Profile Summary: MAREK, ADRIAN
Selection Justification:
Candidate selected based on composite compatibility across emotional neutrality, facial adaptability, and a risk-mitigated personal history. Subject’s baseline affect registers as low-variance; default expression tested favourably among focus groups for “calm,” “trustworthy,” and “non-threatening.” Absence of ideological past allowed for narrative flexibility across shifting electoral landscapes.Narrative Components (Curated/Fabricated):
- Modest upbringing constructed around regional origin and small-town familiarity; includes invented details such as
redacted.- Childhood atmosphere defined by procedural order — regular meals, quiet study, minimal conflict. Not neglectful, but emotionally undernourished. Testing revealed this shaped Marek’s temperament into one of self-sufficiency and detachment, ideal for role assumption.
- Myth of early political awareness introduced through staged anecdote. Narrative reinforced via staged bookshelf imagery and ceremonial donations to state archives.
Professional Background:
- Law career verified and unremarkable: no public cases, no activist ties, no academic publications. Described by former colleagues as “scrupulous,” “careful,” and “difficult to remember.”
- Judicial neutrality index: 91%. Ideological expression: statistically insignificant.
- Displayed high compliance in simulated ethical dilemma scenarios — preferred moral improvisation over procedural outcomes.
Emotional & Communicative Profile:
- Emotional range limited to three reliable public expressions: solemn empathy, restrained optimism, and mild concern.
- Anger and elation simulated poorly in early training; removed from repertoire.
- Highly trainable response curve: subject displayed no resistance to guided gestural reconditioning or voice modulation exercises.
- Linguistic tone: naturally measured, cadence adaptable to “reassurance” and “grave authority” registers. Focus groups described tone as “safe” and “credible during emergencies.”
- No history of rhetorical improvisation. Adheres to prepared text with >99.7% fidelity.
Public Sentiment Calibration:
- Patriotism index moderate (52.6%), ideal for multiple directional alignment — pro-EU, sovereignty-focused, heritage-embracing, or technocratic, depending on narrative need.
- Focus-tested favourability increased by +18% when placed beside flags, maps, or natural landscapes.
- Subject reacts favourably to symbolic objects but shows no personal attachment.
He turned the page.
Phase II: Implantation
“Public introduction via controlled media circuit. All unscripted interviews filtered post-broadcast.
Signature gestures introduced: open palms, three-second eye contact, brief pauses before ‘concerned’ statements.
Synthetic anecdotes successfully integrated: fishing with grandfather, rural holiday, early admiration for state constitution.
All fabricated. Public sentiment: 68% authenticity rating (target was 65%).”Media Circuit Strategy:
Subject was introduced through a tightly controlled rollout campaign across state-aligned and neutral outlets. Launch phase included:
– Pre-recorded interviews with edited emotional beats.
– Print profiles co-authored by staff writers under human-interest columns.
– One (1) live debate trial appearance with a supportive moderator and delayed broadcast.
All unscripted segments underwent post-production filtering for tonal consistency and removal of hesitations, contradictory phrasing, or verbal clutter. No real-time public Q&A events authorised during initial six-month media cycle.Gestural Programming:
Signature physical mannerisms were developed in collaboration with Aurora Persona’s Behavioural Design Unit and field-tested in advance of rollout:
– Open palms used in 72% of public appearances; associated with “transparency” and “approachability.”
– Three-second eye contact adopted during high-empathy statements (e.g. education, healthcare, national mourning).
– Micro-pauses inserted before delivering phrases coded as “concerned,” “firm,” or “reflective,” to create illusion of spontaneous sincerity.
Subject achieved consistent gestural execution with minimal need for correction after week 3 of conditioning.Narrative Integration (Synthetic Events):
Three anchor anecdotes were developed and distributed across interviews and speeches:
- Fishing with grandfather on misty lakeside mornings — reinforced themes of tradition, patience, and rural grounding.
- Childhood holidays in a small southern village — evoked familiarity with “ordinary life” and regional loyalty.
- Early admiration for the state’s first constitution, allegedly discovered at age eleven in a school library — used to validate his later legal career and implied idealism.
None of these events occurred. Subject accepted fabrication without resistance. Early hesitation noted during rehearsals was addressed with empathy-replacement scripts and repetition. Facial sincerity score improved by 31% following integration.
Public Sentiment Index:
Authenticity perception rated at 68% during controlled testing (national average across demographics aged 35–65).
Target threshold for plausibility was set at 65% — surplus attributed to “apolitical warmth” factor and consistent grooming tone.
Focus group participants described subject as “genuine,” “like someone I’ve met before,” and “predictable in a good way.”
Phase III: Maintenance
“Live performances reduced in favour of pre-recorded messages.
Approval of proposed spontaneity limited to 3%.
Cognitive engagement in policymaking minimal — redirected through handlers.
Reputational integrity preserved through algorithmic monitoring and daily emotional telemetry.
Real-time voter resonance optimised via biometric feedback from selected demographic panels.”Public Exposure Strategy:
Live appearances were gradually reduced in favour of pre-recorded messages scripted and staged under controlled emotional parameters. Background elements (bookshelves, flags, family photos) rotated to reflect polling-driven mood calibration.
Pre-recorded formats allowed post-production modulation of tone, rhythm, and microexpression.
Technical staff trained in subthreshold facial editing to align minor tics with voter expectation baselines.Spontaneity Protocol:
All proposals for unscripted interactions — including town hall events, unscreened interviews, and “surprise visits” — underwent scenario mapping.
Following simulation trials, spontaneous exposure approval rate was capped at 3% per term, applied under extreme reputational necessity only.
Subject’s natural improvisational ability assessed as “functional but imprecise,” posing elevated narrative risk.Cognitive Delegation in Governance:
Subject’s direct involvement in policymaking designated as “symbolic.”
Strategic briefings received via condensed bullet matrices; decisions issued via proxy through approved handlers.
Meetings with international dignitaries rehearsed using pre-dialogue scripting and interpersonal mimicry software (Veritas™).
Internal analysis concluded that high cognitive autonomy reduced predictability and diluted construct integrity.Reputational Surveillance:
Daily algorithmic scans monitored emotional telemetry across televised content, gesture synchronisation, and sentiment coherence.
Inconsistencies below public detection threshold (<4%) flagged and corrected within 12–24 hours.
Systemic “background integrity” maintained through continuous data harvesting from social media, news sentiment, and ambient polling triggers.Real-Time Voter Resonance:
Biometric feedback harvested from closed test groups equipped with wrist-worn resonance sensors during all major broadcasts.
Data tracked in real time: pulse rate, skin conductance, micro-fluctuations in ocular focus.
Aggregate voter response used to retroactively adjust future content for emotional convergence with target blocs (notably pensioners, suburban professionals, and first-generation urban voters).
Subject’s image was found to produce optimal resonance when paired with overcast lighting, minor patriotic music, and words like “steady,” “care,” and “heritage.”
Adrian’s hands trembled.
These were not notes. These were blueprints. He was not the subject of the book — he was its product.
Phase IV: Degradation
“Public fatigue measured at acceptable thresholds. Familiarity overtaking novelty.
Deactivation timeline advanced to coincide with end of Term II.
Legacy fabrication underway: emphasis on ‘stability,’ ‘predictability,’ and ‘modest reform.’
Replacement candidate profile: final phase of testing.
Subject awareness risk: low. If encountered, recommend passive disassociation and neutral disengagement.”Fatigue Index & Perceptual Decline:
Ongoing polling and sentiment analytics indicated that public fatigue had entered the acceptable threshold zone (41–47%) by the final quarter of Term II.
Focus groups reported a transition from emotional engagement to passive recognition. Responses included: “reliable, but dull,” “predictable,” and “probably fine.”
Novelty attrition confirmed: increased instances of automatic screen-skipping during digital ads and muted engagement with televised appearances.Lifecycle Termination Protocol:
In accordance with Construct Lifecycle Policy v4.3, deactivation was advanced to coincide with the natural expiry of electoral tenure.
No early termination deemed necessary due to the absence of scandal, instability, or cognitive slippage.
Subject remained compliant, unaware of project stage.Legacy Curation Measures:
Narrative reframing strategy initiated under project codename “Echo Stability.”
Official communications and retrospective coverage pivoted to focus on themes of:
– “Stability” (despite legislative inertia),
– “Predictability” (framed as virtue),
– “Modest reform” (supported by minor infrastructure announcements and symbolic education bills).
Public documentation scrubbed of inconsistencies; photographs curated for intergenerational appeal.Successor Profile – Finalisation Status:
Replacement construct prototype (Ref. ID: Nadema/0712) advanced to final testing phase.
Profile designed to preserve perceived ideological continuity while introducing controlled “human deviation” (see: minor scandals, public emotion, rhetorical variation).
Projected voter reception scored 9–14% higher in “realness” across all demographics under age 60.Awareness Risk Assessment:
Subject remained unaware of construct nature. No breach of illusion detected during final term.
Spontaneous introspective anomalies logged but classified as non-actionable drift.
If subject exhibits existential questioning during exit sequence, field operatives instructed to implement:
– Passive disassociation (non-responsiveness),
– Neutral disengagement (no correction, no confrontation).
No acknowledgment of constructed status is to be made under any circumstances.
Beneath the paragraph, a date had been stamped in red ink:
Scheduled Image Expiry: 6 August 2025
Today.
Today, the illusion was set to dissolve — not through scandal or crisis, but by bureaucratic conclusion. He had not been retired; he had been retired from circulation, like an expired model of software.
He closed the book.
Suddenly, he noticed his reflection in the metal surface of the desk — not a clear image, but warped, like something glimpsed in a bowl of mercury. His face flickered in and out of form, featureless, smooth, increasingly indistinct. A glitch.
A line from the book returned to him: “Subject awareness risk: low.”
They had miscalculated. He had become aware — too late, yes, but fully.
He stood, book still in hand. He would take it with him. He did not know what he meant to do with it — burn it, publish it, bury it — only that leaving it behind would mean admitting he had never existed at all.
As he stepped into the corridor again, he looked back once. The light in the room flickered once more, then went out.
The Exit Ceremony
The sun bore down on the courtyard like a silent accusation. The white canopy erected above the podium flapped in the hot wind, threatening to collapse under the weight of its own symbolism. Somewhere, a loudspeaker wheezed the national anthem — stretched thin and breathless, like an old man singing through gauze.
Rows of chairs stood in half-ceremonial formation, occupied only sparsely by minor officials and interim bureaucrats. Their jackets were soaked with sweat; their expressions bland with polite disinterest. The camera crew adjusted their lenses with the careful indifference of people who had done this too often, for too many indistinguishable men.
Adrian Marek stood in the archway, watching the scene unfold. It resembled a theatre set abandoned mid-rehearsal.
No one gestured for him to begin.
He stepped forward anyway, moved not by protocol but inertia. The podium had been lowered — subtly, but enough to require him to lean forward. The microphone blinked red. No sound issued from it.
He looked out at the courtyard, then began to speak. Quietly. Uselessly.
“I leave this office with humility,” he said.
Nothing.
“I entered this building ten years ago not to govern,” he continued, “but to maintain the appearance of governance. That was the job. Not leadership, but consistency. Not vision, but reassurance.”
The anthem crackled and died. Even the music seemed unsure it should continue.
He paused. A faint breeze stirred the edges of the podium. He could hear, distantly, a tram squealing through the city outside the walls.
Then came the footsteps.
Measured, deliberate, pre-ordained. Adrian turned toward the far archway.
A man emerged from the shadow — younger, but not boyish; confident, but not sculpted into artificial serenity. He had a presence that drew the eye, not because it was engineered, but because it contained something uncontrolled.
Ivan Nadema.
The name had been whispered for months, always behind closed doors. A former undersecretary. Once a student activist. Later, accused of minor embezzlement in a university budget — never charged. A brief affair with a staffer during his early ministry years, admitted in a press interview with a shrug. Known to drink too much at private receptions. And yet… authentic.
He was everything Adrian Marek had not been allowed to be. Flawed. Fallible. Textured.
Authentic — or rather, engineered to appear unengineered.
A construct not of steel and glass, but of soft flesh and strategic weakness. He was the next evolution: not beyond human, but comfortably human enough to be believed.
Adrian stared at him.
He was not a copy — not entirely. He was an upgrade.
Nadema approached the podium, smiling with just enough uncertainty to be endearing. The smile was crooked. The jaw slightly misaligned. The suit creased ever so faintly at the shoulder. A man designed not to look perfect, but possible.
He placed a hand on Adrian’s shoulder — firm, warm, rehearsed. But also real. Adrian could feel the weight of it. Not symbolic. Physical.
The loudspeakers erupted in applause. But no one in the audience moved. The sound was recorded. No one pretended otherwise.
Adrian stepped aside.
Nadema took the podium. The red light blinked. The microphone came to life without complaint.
He began to speak.
Adrian did not stay to listen. There was no need. He already knew the tone. Not smooth, but textured. Not reassuring, but resilient. Words crafted to admit error, show growth, inspire future. Human 2.0.
As Adrian descended the steps of the dais, he heard the crowd — or rather, the theatre of the crowd — responding with carefully placed chuckles and murmurs. A new story had begun. The cameras had pivoted. His presence was no longer needed. No one turned to watch him go.
He exited the courtyard and walked into the empty city.
At a newsstand, he paused. The vendor didn’t look up.
The headline read:
“Nadema Sworn In: A Braver, Realer Kind of President”
Beneath it, a photograph — his face, or near enough. But softened by life. Imperfect. Credible. Nadema had succeeded by being what Adrian never was allowed to become: flawed in public.
A man.
Oblivion
He wandered the city like a returning ghost — not feared, not noticed, merely unregistered. The capital had resumed its usual rhythm: trams clattering through tired streets, café chairs scraping against cobblestones, mothers tugging sunburned children through patches of shade. No posters bore his image. No one paused to recognise him. Even the pigeons at Republic Square did not scatter when he passed.
He walked without purpose or route. His shoes, polished for the ceremony, collected dust. His suit clung to him like a borrowed skin. The black book, now folded under his arm, seemed to pulse against his ribs, though it made no sound. He had thought once that this book would be evidence — but evidence to whom? Against what?
He passed a government building whose entrance he had once used daily. The guard booth was occupied by a young man reading a paperback novel. Adrian slowed as he approached, half-expecting a nod, or a salute, or at the very least a flicker of recognition. None came.
“Can I help you?” the guard asked, not unkindly, but with the detached professionalism of someone offering help in a language booth.
Adrian opened his mouth, but the words no longer formed with ease.
“No,” he said, finally. “I don’t think you can.”
He kept walking.
At a bridge overlooking the river, he paused. The water moved sluggishly, shimmering in the late sun. Boats passed, filled with tourists who waved lazily at the city. Adrian stared down at the reflection — the crumbling skyline, the fading flag on the parliament dome, the endless repetition of a city that had learned not to remember its leaders, only to replace them.
He set the black book down on the stone ledge.
He did not throw it into the water.
He simply left it there.
Someone might take it. Someone might read it. More likely, someone would assume it was a forgotten journal and hand it over to Lost Property. It would be catalogued, misplaced, pulped. That, too, would be a kind of justice.
As he turned to leave, he caught his own reflection in the water. For a moment, he did not recognise it — not because it had changed, but because it was his. Undistorted by cameras, unlit by studio lighting, unfiltered by algorithms.
Just a man.
Not a construct. Not a product. Not a narrative.
A man, walking alone, on the day his life ended — not in scandal, not in death, but in quiet conclusion.
He crossed the bridge and did not look back.
“In the end, Adrian Marek vanished not into disgrace or tragedy,
but into truth. And in a world managed by fiction,
truth was the most forgettable thing of all.”