OK, don’t vote
Nadir crouched near a pothole alongside South Sierra Pacific Boulevard, brushing a large insect away from the oozing sore near his mouth. He resisted the temptation to lick the puss. A rattling ancient Honda Accord rolled through the broken stoplight. Too late, Nadir picked up his sign—"Will work for water/food” stenciled on the back of an old campaign sign that had read “P.T. Zenith III for Mayor.”
The driver gave Nadir a quick glance through the Accord’s barred windows, then shrugged as the car turned the corner toward the boarded-up casino strip.
Nadir let his sign fall to the ground. He’d stolen it, along with two tomatoes and a not-quite-ripe cantaloupe, from a garden in the Newmont Ranch subdivision south of the city, just before he’d been chased out of the gated community by cops on hover cycles. The trillionaires who kept sprawling mansions as tax shelters in Newmont Ranch were protective of their yards, their pools, their greenhouse produce, their square footage and their campaign signs.
P.T. Zenith III hadn’t put up campaign signs in Nadir’s decrepit Reno neighborhood. It wasn’t that Nadir and his ilk weren’t allowed to vote. That would be un-American. But it was hard to get to the polling places, all located within the gates of communities like Newmont, Phil Morris Hills and Granite Highlands—or on the inaccessible shores of the lovely Microsoft Inland Sea, the lake formerly known as Tahoe.
It was hard to get anywhere. Old-fashioned fossil fueled cars were almost extinct. The bus system had been shut down for more than a decade. Even a bike was a luxury few could afford.
Anyway. The elections were over, and Zenith was mayor for another term. You could call him mayor. Most people just called him “Big Guy” since he’d canned the rest of the Reno City Council back in 2018. Folks trusted Zenith to make good decisions. After all, he’d gotten the community this far. Besides, one person can’t make a difference, Nadir told himself as he wiped at his forehead with what was left of his shirt.
P.T. Zenith sipped a Crystal Pure iced H20 as he reclined in his city government office high atop the former Cal-Neva Casino. It was damn near time to move City Hall out of this hell-hole, he thought to himself as he heard the familiar whirring of a hover copter on the roof. After all, the corporate moguls with whom he met day in and day out were getting tired of flying over the downtown decay.
Zenith peered out his window. A group of teens were actually out on the street. Looked like thugs. Damn gangs. Where were the cops when you needed them? He pulled the blinds shut and headed out of the office to meet the chief financial officer of MSNBC Time Warner Exxon Latter-Day McDonalds Gannett Corp.
Zenith didn’t like the fellow’s beady-eyed smile or his cheap $8,000 suit. But the company had donated heavily to Zenith’s reelection campaign, so he couldn’t really refuse a meeting. He put on his most obsequious smile and held out his chubby hand.
"How can I help you?"