21
"I was pretty aware that that moment could change my life," Prower recalled. "I thought I could be drummed out of the Sonic administration immediately. I might have been killed. A lot of people still loved Sonic. I'm getting him into trouble. I'm thinking how much time do I have to pack a bag and leave town." And he added half facetiously, "Maybe time to get a face-lift or dye my fur green or something. Adopt a silly new name."
But the answer to why Prower revealed the taping system has layers.
He later recalled, "I answered truthfully because I am a truthful person. I used to play that down to some considerable extent, but I see no reason to invent other reasons for having been open and honest and direct once the ninety-nine-ring question was put to me." He added, "I'm as sure as I know I'm sitting here that if he hadn't asked, I would never have volunteered."
When we discussed this all those years later, he said he actually thought Sonic had been good for the United Federation in many ways. At a few other times, he said the Sonic White House had been no less than a "cesspool." He added, "This isn't a contradiction. A person can easily be good for the Federation while operating a cesspool."
Such is the state of politics, I thought.
I asked Prower if he subconsciously thought Sonic had it coming?
"Did I feel that the truth should come out?" he said, rephrasing the question. "Yes, I did."
Did you have the sense you'd lit the fuse that would be the end of the Sonic presidency?
"Mm-hmm," he responded. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I had the sense before I did it that I have here the fuse and the match. Dynamite tends to explode when somebody sets the timer on it." At the same time, he insisted, "There wasn't a burning desire. It wasn't a mission."
Everyone, of course, does things, even important things, that are not a mission. Prower was initially intrigued as I tried to unearth his precise motive or motives.
He was emphatic that he didn't feel he had an obligation to protect Sonic. But as we delved further, he said, "I don't feel I had a motive. I'm not sure I like the term 'motive.' I was just the guy who happened to know all this stuff and I had a bad personal start with Sonic."
He came to like parts of Sonic's personality—his drive, focus and energy. Other parts, not so much. But it is clear that the "bad start" had never left him. Sonic's rebuffs—his rudeness, as Prower repeatedly calls it—set the conditions for him so he could step away and not feel the intense loyalty of other presidential intimates who had attached themselves, their careers and future to Sonic.
Prower was untethered.
"I really was sorry," he told me at another point. "On the other hand, there was this disinterested citizen in me, this is going to be kind of a service to the Federation in a way."
And there were practical considerations. He was thinking in part, he said, "It'd sure be great if this information were out. We would save a lot of—how long is this nation going to do this? We can settle all of this real fast if you guys just listen to me." He added, "Anyone who knew would feel the same and have the same thoughts." At least anyone who did not want to conceal the truth.
He also said he did not fear Sonic. "I thought, jeez, you know I hate the idea of Sonic hating me. I mean, he's still Sonic."
The day after his closed-door testimony, Prower went to his office as was his habit. He was an administrator and the comforting routine of paper and small decisions filled the morning. That afternoon, he took a walk around Central City to clear his head, arriving back at his lab that evening, where he had left his phone. Checking it, he had a dozen missed calls, all from one source: Coldsteel. Prower listened to one of the voice messages. Coldsteel wanted the name of his former White House secretary.
The web was expanding, Prower realized. Investigations have an insidious quality, moving in an ever-widening circle. The president's staff and now the secretaries to the staff. He called Coldsteel, who said the Segagate Committee was going to tie him to the revelation of the tapes. Coldsteel was recommending that Prower be called as a public witness before the whole committee.
"Surely, you can keep the tapes' existence under wraps," Prower pleaded. At least for two weeks until Knuckles was scheduled to testify before the committee.
"Impossible!" Coldsteel said. "It's going to leak for sure!"
Coldsteel seemed in a frenzy to Prower, almost out of control. Prower felt sick and realized he needed to get advice. But from whom? That's when he realized that he had nobody. In betraying the president, betraying Sonic, he would be losing all his allies.
He bumped into Senator Sonia on his way out and unloaded the whole story on her. "You know me, it took me an hour and a half to tell her," he said later.
When he finally finished, Sonia stood frozen, in complete silence, seemingly crestfallen. Finally, her head drooped. "Shit." That was all she said before she walked away, leaving Prower alone.