Author's Note: This is one of the chapters I wrote more recently, and then had to rearrange a few things. Hopefully the story won't get too jumbled and confusing, but I think there are a couple of things here that were supposed to fit into a certain place in the story, but then wound up here instead.

Music Lover's Alert: "Too Hot" by Kool And The Gang and "Culture of Fear" by Thievery Corporation.

Chapter 27 Election Announcement

Bakura, Pegasus, and Jones stood before a mob of reporters. The two long-haired CEOS stood on either side of the much older CEO of Stellar Defense. Unlike the other two, whose hair had been colorless from birth, Gilbert Jones was rapidly losing the color in his brown hair. It contained several swaths of gray, and deep lines crossed his face, making him look at least five years older than he actually was. His posture stooped as if he was carrying the burdens of the other two men, who stood tall beside him.

"Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones!" the reporters yelled, clamoring for his attention. Most of them were from Global Communications, but Bakura had allowed a few reporters from smaller local networks to come as a gesture of good faith.

Cheryl Gardner stood at the front of the crowd with her chin-length bob of brown hair and azure eyes. She did not have her sister's graceful dancing limbs, but her tailored suit made her look exceptionally sharp. Gilbert Jones acknowledged the reporter with a nod of his graying head.

"Why has the government decided to hold elections?" Cheryl asked.

"It has always been our intention from the very beginning to have a safe, democratic society for everyone. Now that the world is stable and at peace, we can take the next step. In six weeks, we will hold our first mayoral elections."

"How much power will these mayors have?" another reporter asked.

Gilbert Jones's orange pietersite eyes drifted between the reporter and the main camera as he spoke his well-rehearsed response, "The mayors will be able to deal with local issues and enact any ordinances that do not conflict with government laws."

"Who will be allowed to vote in the election?" Cheryl asked.

"Anyone over the age of twenty will be allowed to vote with a valid government ID card."

"Will voting be compulsory?" someone else wondered.

"No."

"What if someone tries to vote more than once?" another Global Communications reporter asked.

Pegasus took a single step forward. His flamboyant pink suit contrasted sharply with Jones's drab one. "All votes will be recorded by Industrial Illusions voting machines. The machines will be able to communicate with each other through a secure network to ensure that every person votes only once."

"Mr. Pegasus, what happens if someone tried to hack into the network?" an independent reporter asked.

Bakura let out a short laugh of amusement. "Never going to happen. Industrial Illusions has the best computer security system on the planet. Even my people can't hack into them. That's why Global Enterprises relies on Industrial Illusions computers."

.o.O.o.

Back at Rakitan Industries

.o.O.o.

Tulip paused the video on his laptop and faced the other people in the room. His forest green eyes shone with worry beneath his crooked glasses. "He's right, you know. Pegasus has upgraded his firewalls since we first hacked into all the major corporations. My team has tried and failed to gather more information on these voting machines several times."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Pretty Pictures asked.

"No," Joan replied, "If the people don't know how Pegasus programmed the machines in the first place, he can see to it that Bakura's preferred candidates are selected as the winners of the mayoral elections. In addition, he will be able to find out who voted for whom and who did not vote at all."

Penguin clutched her blond head. "This is nuts! At least when we voted for old KK, we had paper ballots and real people counted our votes."

"And our votes were private," Sean added.

"Bakura might allow a rebel to run as a candidate with the intention of recording the names of those who voted for him and monitoring them," Joan speculated, "It's quite a clever trap, really."

Pretty Pictures gasped. "Does this mean we can't vote?"

Penguin's hazel eyes hardened. "I'm the only one here who can't vote. The rest of you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you don't vote, they'll record the fact that you didn't vote and try to trace me through you. That bastard has worked us into a corner. The only thing you can do is to vote for Bakura's candidate to draw suspicion away from here."

The room was silent for a moment until Jamie said, "I feel so… violated."

Penguin stuck out her chin resolutely. "Even if I could vote, I would not let them take away my dignity. Katie Sutton would vote, but Penguin would abstain, having no part in this atrocious scheme."

Her girlfriend chimed in, "Same here! Jessica Dennis will vote, but Pretty Pictures will abstain."

Tulip expressed his support of their plan as well.

"Wait a minute," Joan said, "That means I have to vote twice. Since Tulip made Kari Rakitan into a legal person, I have two ID cards."

"What about me?" Jamie whined, "I don't even have a code name at all."

"That can be arranged," Penguin offered.

"But I like my name the way it-"

"-Shut up and be grateful, bitch!"

Sean sat back in his seat with a little smirk on his ruggedly handsome face. He briefly considered giving Penguin a spanking, but then decided that it was up to Jamie to stand up for himself in this situation. Besides, Penguin's sassy attitude was not quite as annoying as Jamie's whining.

Joan coughed. "Moving on, we need to figure out what we can do about this situation."

"We'll assassinate the mayors," Penguin said matter-of-factly, "If Bakura wants to put his pawn in office, we'll take them out one-by-one."

Joan shook her head. "We already have a reputation as terrorists. Let's not make it any worse than it already is. Besides, I for one will not be involved in any deliberate killing. If that is where this organization is headed, I'm out."

"Same here," Sean agreed, "I've killed enough people already; it isn't a pretty sight. I wanted to join a peaceful group of protesters, not another army. If that is what we become, I'm going elsewhere."

"There has to be a way around this. I agree that killing people is probably a bad idea, especially because Bakura can just replace them at the drop of a hat. Why not humiliate them, though? I'm sure my team can think of a good way to do it," Pretty Pictures offered.

There were nods around the table.

"OK. You do that and report back to us tomorrow. Better yet, I'll join you and help you brainstorm," Joan said.

The team leaders concluded their meetings and went their separate ways. Joan followed Pretty Pictures to the creativity room, Sean went outside to train his troops, and the others worked on what they could.

….

Serenity, Mokuba, Janet, and Seto sat around the breakfast table in their mansion. Serenity carefully fed Janet gobs of mush while Mokuba awkwardly tried to draw Seto away from his laptop by engaging him in conversation.

"So… who are you going to vote for?" Mokuba asked.

Seto grumbled and replied, "I don't have time to vote, Mokuba. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter."

Mokuba looked at Serenity and saw a dull pain in her olivine eyes. He quickly looked back at Seto and said, "Of course it matters! It's your civic duty, Seto. You can't spend all your time working."

"Last time I checked, voting was not compulsory," Seto said stoically.

"That doesn't mean you should neglect it. For heaven's sake, pay attention, Seto! There's so much happening right now and you're missing it. Wake up!"

"Mokuba, I know exactly what is going on. I'm not going to vote because I already know the outcome of the election. Pegasus has rigged his machines to give Bakura's favorite mayor eighty plus or minus three percent of the vote in every city. The runner-up will get fifteen plus or minus three percent of the vote, and the rebel candidate will receive one half of one percent plus or minus zero point three percent. It doesn't matter how the people vote at all."

Serenity's hand trembled, and goop sloshed onto Janet's Blue Eyes White Dragon bib. "How do you know this?" the auburnette asked.

Seto shrugged. "Pegasus's computer security is not a tight as he would like to think. Certainly it can keep out most hackers, but since I know the snake and the games he plays, I like to keep a close eye on him."

Serenity and Mokuba exchanged glances. Seto was obviously paying more attention to Pegasus's actions than he was to his own family, or perhaps he simply trusted his family more.

"If Pegasus is really tricking people out of their votes, why don't you tell somebody?" Mokuba asked.

Seto snorted and gave Mokuba a you-should-know-better look. Then, he went back to working on his laptop.

Mokuba gulped and looked down at his plate. Of course he knew why Seto couldn't tell the world about the rigged machines. It was the same reason why he couldn't tell anyone about his love for Serenity. It could lead him into big trouble and destroy the family. His hands were tied. Both brothers' hands were tied.

"Seto, do you think that people would be able to handle the truth if it came out? That is, if you could tell them?" Serenity wondered.

Temporarily free from having food in her mouth, Janet echoed, "Tell them people!"

Hearing his daughter's voice, Seto smiled a little and looked up again. "All I can say with certainty is that different people will react in different ways. A reasonable man would find a way to change it if he could and learn to live with it if he could not. An unreasonable man would run out into the street with the mob and fall victim to Stellar Defense's satellites."

Serenity cringed. Nobody mentioned the orange beams of light that fried nearly a two billion people several years ago. It just didn't come up in polite conversation. The protesters who had died never saw it coming, and there was no way they could have expected it. Now that they knew what would happen to them it they tried to dissent publicly, they stayed indoors.

Janet tried out a few of the words that Seto had uttered on her own tongue, but nobody bothered to explain to her what they meant. She grew impatient at the lack of attention the adults were giving her and pounded her fist into her bowl of mush. It splattered all over Serenity's pink shirt.

"Janet! Look at the mess you made!" Serenity scolded.

"Look at the mess you made," Janet repeated.

Serenity's cheeks flushed at her daughter's words, but Seto was no longer looking at her. Get a grip! Serenity scolded herself. She then proceeded to explain to her daughter the proper usage of the pronouns "I" and "you."

Seto spent the rest of his meal glued to his laptop. When he had eaten his fill he packed up his things, gave Serenity a quick peck on the lips, and left. Then, Mokuba picked up the responsibility that he had assumed as Serenity's other husband.