Alabaster Candidate

This is another very long short story, but it's pretty boring compared to the other one. I thought I'd take a shot at this genre, but apparently I failed. :(

The boy sat alone on the sidewalk, playing with his toy tractor. His parents were standing at the doorway, worried faces turned toward their beautiful child. He would make them proud some day, but at the moment, thoughts of their little boy weighed heavily on their hearts.

His name was Leopold, as his parents had high hopes for his future. From the time he could talk, the Mathers' knew he would be a grand public speaker. His face was very handsome and charismatic, even as a small child. He could cheer up any of his parents' friends with his smile alone. His parents probably loved him more than normal because they never had to wake up earlier in the morning to get a pacifier, since he never cried. It is said he even came out of the womb laughing and smiling.

There would seem to be no reason for the couple to be so worried, and then the door opened from behind them and three men dressed in black left the house....

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Time passed by and soon he was in school. He wasn't the best of students, but of course he passed with flying colors, because the teachers loved him so much. This made the other kids hate Leopold, but they, too, could not help but fall in love with his charm.

He wooed many of his female classmates and impressed his young male friends numerous times before entering junior high. This move brought about a major change in his life; an audience. Before, he had just told stories in front of a few friends at a time, or courted one young lady and then left her for another. Now he could wow dozens of children(and even adults) at one time. There is no amount of joy ever felt upon the Earth that could rival the feeling he had upon realizing this.

The years went on with Leopold enchanting new audiences and reminding those from the past of all his false endeavours and fantastic dreams. He could wander by a classroom on his way to the office and there would be no less than three requests for a chance to hear a tale of honor and pride, or treachery and shame. His repertoire had become so large that not one person had the same favorite Leopold story as another.

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One sunny morning, a young man sat down next to his father and watched the news channel report on a close political race and how each party had their own particular goals and methods of achieving them. This teenager had never thought such a thing would strike him as interesting, but when the announcer discussed the ways nominees would talk in public, he was all ears. They showed video clips of successful politicians while a different announcer pointed out the ways the person spoke and moved their body. Sitting in a trance-like state, the boy soaked every bit of it in.

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Leopold's senior year of high school came along and he was holding the office of class president. Throughout the year, he had attended youth conferences and been a part of the debate team, each time proving to the audience how persuasive a speaker he was. No challenger could ever hope to match him in persuasion and charm.

On graduation day, Leopold had the honor of giving a speech to his fellow students and to their parents and other relatives. He spoke about peer pressure, the strive for excellence, classmates' future lives and even about the past year. It wasn't one of his most exciting speeches, but a prestigious man in affiliation with one of the major parties pulled him aside and invited him to a conference two few weeks from then.

The newly-graduated Mr. Mathers went to the conference and sat amongst the aged politicians. The man who invited him was the host of the event and he would periodically throw out rhetorical questions for the other men to answer and debate. Leopold listened to the different men stand up and deliver their opinions on certain topics for a while before deciding to stand up himself.

A beautiful debate was given and every person stared at this perfect young man for what seemed like several minutes after he finished speaking. No one had anything else to say. Leopold had finished and ended a discussion at the same time. At first, the politicians were in shock due to the boldness and surity with which the speaker haddelivered his viewpoint, but when a few of them regained their senses and thought about responding to him, they realized they couldn't do anything but agree with him.

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Jobs were given and some were taken from him, but eventually he found himself to be the governor of his home state. He had earned it from all the good he did for his community and because of his persuasive speeches. He worked hard to help his people out.

After a few years of service, Leopold found that many important figures around the country had been expressing their desires to have him as their president. He was dumbfounded, but at the same time he was ecstatic, thinking that his dream might finally be realized.

It was a tough campaign, but eventually he beat out his opponent and was inaugurated into the presidential office. Not all of his programs were successful, but he did his best and the nation loved him for it. He served the most well-receieved term in the history of the United States. His ratings never fell below 93%, even after it was announced that his plan for income tax was to increase it and that he hadn't found a replacement for social security.

Even after he stepped down from eight years of leading the nation, the public couldn't get enough of Leopold Mathers. The news flocked around any event he went to. They donated money to any charity that held an event he even came near.
The current president didn't even get as much press coverage as he did.

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One day, while attending a fair in Virginia, near Washington D.C., Leopold was asked to follow several men dressed in black suits. He did and they led him to a restaurant that regularly served the most respected names in politics. He wondered why these men needed to talk with him, but he figured it wasn't very urgent since they were also enjoying a meal instead of watching him like they normally do in movies. He was wrong.

As soon as he finished eating and the bill was paid, the men took him to a stretch limo and he sat next to a very shapely young lady. While examining the skimpy "uniform" she wore, Leopold realized she was speaking to him.

"....so they found you at the fair. Sir? SIR? My body belongs to another man right now, so please keep yourself calm for the moment."
He blushed when he realized how noticable his erection was. He adjusted himself and
looked into her eyes for the first time.
"Thank you. Now, the reason I need to talk with you is very important, and as you may have guessed, it concerns your time as the president of the United States of America. This may come as a surprise to you, but the people I worked for knew that you would be the president before you even began grade school."
An old memory flashed in his mind for a second, filling him with shock and confusion.
"Not only that, but they planned it. You were being watched and directed throughout your entire life. You see, the company I work for is a genetics research lab. We tested a very large sample of the population to see who had the best form of a certain gene we were looking for. We also examined the histories of these subjects and their family photos. After months of surveying and compiling our data, your parents were chosen to be the top contenders for the experiment we were planning on conducting."
With a blood-red face he yelled, "You mean I didn't win all those elections? I didn't really capture the audiences I spoke to?!? I haven't earned anything in my entire life?!?!?"
"NO! No, not at all!", she said in a soothing voice. "You did earn everything. You did honestly win the elections and everyone you've persuaded, you did so on your own. The only thing we did was to ensure you spoke at the right times, to the right people and about the right things. We knew you would be a good speaker, because it was one of the things we were looking for. We needed you to be president, however, so we needed to make it absolutely certain that you would win."
"So, what exactly was this gene you found in me and why was it so important that I become president?"
"It was.... it was.... the... ummmmm...", she stammered.
"Well? What was it?", he pleaded.
"The gene we found in you was one that kept your hair its natural color for longer than normal."
"What?"
"It's the one that didn't let your father's hair turn grey until he was well into his seventies," she explained. "It makes sure the cells at the roots of the follicles don't die out until the aging process is almost as far as it will go."
"Why.. What... Who could.... What would you need to know that for?"
"We were testing the effects of stress on the aging process and we were trying to find out whether or not being the president would force enough stress on the human mind to turn normal hair grey. I am sorry you had to hear this, but our lab is going bankrupt and in order to keep the lawsuits down, we need to inform all of our subjects on the testing we did to them."
His hair was what you would call salt-and-pepper and he was still only fifty-two.
"I don't know why anyone would need to know that or why you would spend so much money on me throughout my life, but I thank you for telling me about this and I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier," Leopold finally said.

The limo driver dropped him off at his house a few moments later and he walked inside to sit on his recliner. How could someone have done something like this? Who could afford to monitor a person for this long? What type of company did she work for?

All these thoughts ran through Mr. Mathers' mind as he sat in his living room, watching a news report on the fair he was at earlier that day. His wife came in and sat on his lap. She kissed him and asked what worried him, but he didn't answer her.

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The ambulance slowly pulled into the driveway and the EMTs ran out of it into the mansion. Two minutes later, one of the most famous men in the world lie dead on the stretcher. The doctor who performed the autopsy attributed the death to an aneurism, but the true cause was shrapnel from a tiny explosion within his skull, cutting through nerves at the base of the spine and destroying the grey matter everywhere within his skull.

The scientists told them not to, but when the genetics lab was shut down, every single computer was shut down as well. The tiny chip in Leopold Mathers brain was set to explode if its connection to the lab was severed.

The End