Part 2: The Long Road to Bedlam

Chapter 1: The Chariot of Mediocrity

We departed the city in a vehicle that can only be described as a testament to American decline. Frankie called it a “beater.” I called it a rolling coffin. It was a rusted 2006 sedan, the color of bruised eggplant, smelling faintly of stale tobacco and something synthetic, like melted plastic. The suspension groaned with every pothole, of which there were many.

“Where is the infrastructure?” I asked, gripping the handle above the door as we hit a particularly violent bump. “The roads are the arteries of a nation, Frankie. If the arteries are clogged and broken, the heart stops.”

Frankie laughed, tapping the steering wheel to a rhythm only he could hear. “Relax, Artie. This is character. We’re seeing the real America. The flyover states. The rust belt. That’s where the content is.”

Content. He used that word incessantly. Everything was content. A sunset was content. A homeless man screaming at a pigeon was content. My very existence, apparently, was premium content.

He had lent me a change of clothes—a pair of denim trousers that were too tight in the crotch and a flannel shirt that made me look like a lumberjack who had lost his axe. I refused to wear the baseball cap he offered. I would not cover my head with the symbol of a sports team I did not command. I kept my coat. It was hot, stiflingly so, but a leader does not complain about the weather. A leader conquers it.

We drove for hours, leaving the glass towers behind. The landscape flattened out. Endless fields of corn and wheat, punctuated by decaying barns and towns that looked like they had surrendered decades ago.

“Stop here,” I commanded.

We pulled into a roadside motel. It was a wretched place with neon lights buzzing like trapped flies. Inside the room, the carpet was sticky. But there was a device that caught my attention immediately. A flat, black mirror mounted on the wall.

“The television,” I muttered. “Show me what the people watch, Frankie. Show me the propaganda of this era.”

Frankie flopped onto the bed and tossed me the remote. “Knock yourself out, man. It’s mostly garbage.”

He was understating it. It was not garbage; it was sewage.

I sat in a plastic chair for six hours, mesmerized by the horror. I watched a program where women with inflated lips and screeching voices threw wine at each other in a restaurant. I watched a show where people competed to see who could bake the best cake while a clock ticked down, inducing artificial panic. I watched a news channel that spoke in headlines so fast, so loud, and so devoid of substance that it felt like a psychological attack.

“They are asleep,” I whispered to the room. “The masses. They are being fed sugar and noise so they do not hear the wolves scratching at the door.”

Frankie didn’t hear me. He was editing a video on his phone, chuckling to himself. “Dude, the clip of you yelling at the vending machine is already at 500 views. We’re gonna be stars.”

Chapter 2: The Voice of the Forgotten

The next morning, I told Frankie my plan.

“We do not just drive,” I said, slicing my rubbery eggs at the diner next door. “We investigate. If I am to lead—or rather, if I am to understand this ‘content’—I must speak to the Volk. The common man.”

“You wanna interview people?” Frankie asked, chewing with his mouth open. “Like a reporter?”

“Like a statesman,” I corrected. “Set up your camera.”

And so began our campaign. We stopped in small towns, the places the highway bypassed. I walked up to strangers with a microphone Frankie had scrounged up. It wasn’t plugged into anything, but the prop was necessary for authority.

My first subject was a man named Earl, sitting on the porch of a closed-down hardware store. He looked tired, his hands stained with grease.

“Sir,” I began, looking him in the eye. “The factories are closed. The youth are leaving. Who is to blame?”

Earl blinked, surprised by my directness. He looked at the camera, then back at me. “The big companies, I guess. They shipped the jobs overseas. Cheaper labor.”

“Correct,” I said, leaning in. “They betrayed you for a fraction of a cent. And what does the government do? Do they build a wall of tariffs to protect your labor? No. They give you… what was it I saw on the television? Dancing with the Stars?”

Earl chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Yeah. Something like that. Nobody cares about us out here.”

“I care,” I said, and I meant it. “I see the rot. You are the backbone, and they have broken you.”

We interviewed a student who was drowning in debt for a degree that gave him no skills. We interviewed a mother who was terrified of the crime in her neighborhood.

In every interaction, I did not act. I did not play a character. I simply listened, and then I amplified their anger. I gave their shapeless frustration a form. I gave it a target.

“You’re good at this,” Frankie said later, reviewing the footage. “It’s like… improv, but scary real. You get them to say stuff they usually keep bottled up.”

“It is not improv, Frankie,” I said, staring out the window at the passing telephone poles. “It is sediment. I am merely stirring the water so the mud rises to the top.”

Chapter 3: Blood on the Farm

It was on the third day that the incident occurred. The event that nearly ended our journey before it truly began.

We were in a rural area, miles from the nearest town. I wanted to speak to a farmer about the land. We found a property that looked struggling—fences leaning, paint peeling. The owner was a man named Silas, suspicious and grim.

He agreed to talk only because Frankie offered him fifty dollars.

“The soil is good,” Silas said, spitting on the ground. “But the regulations… they’re killing me. Can’t grow this, can’t spray that. And the taxes.”

“The state creates chains,” I nodded, walking along the perimeter of his barn. “They wish to control the food supply. If they control the bread, they control the man.”

I was getting into a rhythm, my voice rising, my hand gesturing toward the horizon. “We must reclaim the—”

I never finished.

From the shadows of the barn, a blur of fur and muscle launched itself at me. It was a dog—a German Shepherd, ironically. But this beast had no loyalty to the fatherland. It was feral, poorly trained, and vicious.

It latched onto my forearm. The pain was sharp and immediate.

“Hey!” Silas shouted, but he moved too slowly.

The beast snarled, shaking its head, trying to tear the fabric of my coat and the flesh beneath. I could feel its teeth scraping against my bone.

Panic is for the weak. I did not panic. I felt a surge of cold, white-hot rage. This animal dared to touch me?

“Release me!” I commanded, striking it on the snout with my free hand. It did not let go. It bit harder.

Frankie was screaming, dropping the camera. “Oh my god! Artie!”

I reached into the waistband of my trousers. I still carried the small pistol I had taken from the bunker—or perhaps I had found it here? My memory was a blur, but the weight of the steel was real.

I drew the weapon.

Bang.

The sound was deafening in the open air. The dog went limp instantly, dropping from my arm like a sack of wet sand.

Silence descended on the farm.

Silas stared at the dog, then at me. His face turned a shade of purple I had never seen before. “You… you just k*lled my dog!”

“It attacked a superior officer,” I said, holstering the weapon and clutching my bleeding arm. “It was undisciplined.”

“Run!” Frankie yelled. He was already sprinting toward the car.

Silas turned and ran toward his house, presumably to fetch a shotgun.

I did not run. I walked briskly, maintaining my dignity, though my arm throbbed with agony. I slid into the passenger seat just as Frankie gunned the engine. Gravel sprayed everywhere as we peeled out of the driveway, the image of the farmer emerging with a rifle fading in the rearview mirror.

“Are you insane?” Frankie screamed, hitting the steering wheel. “You shot a dog! You can’t do that! People love dogs more than humans in this country!”

“It bit me,” I said calmly, examining the wound. It was deep, but not fatal. “Wrap this. We need alcohol and bandages.”

“We need a lawyer! We need to hide!” Frankie was hyperventilating. “If that footage gets out… wait, did I record that?”

He looked at the camera sitting on the backseat. The red light was off.

“Thank God,” he breathed. “Okay. Okay. We just… we don’t mention this. Ever.”

But I knew. The universe has a way of remembering.

Chapter 4: The Starving Artists

We drove until the fuel gauge hovered near empty. We were in a town called Lubbock. Or maybe it was Lincoln. They all looked the same now.

We had a problem. Frankie’s credit cards were declined. The fifty dollars to the farmer was our last cash. We were hungry, low on gas, and I was nursing a bandaged arm that throbbed with the rhythm of my heartbeat.

“We’re screwed,” Frankie said, leaning his head against the steering wheel. “Game over. I can’t upload without Wi-Fi, we can’t eat, we can’t drive.”

I looked out at the town square. People were walking by, eating ice cream, buying trinkets. Consumers. Sheep.

“Do not despair,” I said. “I have a talent.”

“What? You gonna conquer a Poland?” Frankie snapped.

“I am an artist,” I said stiffly. “I was an artist before I was a politician. Architecture. Landscapes. Portraits.”

Frankie looked at me skeptically. “You can draw?”

“Give me paper. And charcoal. Or a pen.”

Frankie managed to beg a few sheets of poster board and a thick marker from a local shop. We set up a makeshift station on a park bench. Frankie made a sign: CARICATURES – $10.

I sat there, waiting.

A couple approached. They were obese, wearing matching shirts that said “I’m with Stupid.”

“Can you draw us?” the woman asked, giggling.

“Sit,” I commanded.

I looked at them. I did not see love. I saw gluttony. I saw sloth. I put the marker to the paper. I did not draw them as cartoons. I drew them as I saw them. I exaggerated their chins, the emptiness in their eyes, the sheer waste of space they occupied. It was brutal. It was grotesque.

I finished and handed it to them.

I expected anger. I expected them to demand their money back.

The woman looked at the drawing. Her eyes went wide. Then, she threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh my god, look at this!” she shrieked. “It’s so mean! I love it! Honey, look, he drew your double chin perfectly!”

The man laughed too. “This guy is savage! Here’s twenty bucks, keep the change.”

They walked away, showing the drawing to everyone they passed.

“What is wrong with these people?” I muttered. “I insult them, and they pay me tribute.”

“It’s irony, Artie!” Frankie whispered, eyes wide. “They think you’re doing a bit. Like, the ‘Angry European Artist’ character. Keep doing it!”

A line formed.

For three hours, I sat on that bench and eviscerated the American public with a permanent marker. I drew a teenager glued to his phone as a zombie with no eyes. I drew a businessman as a vulture in a suit. I drew a woman with too much makeup as a clown melting in the sun.

And they loved it. They took photos of the drawings. They took photos with me.

“Look at me, I’m getting roasted by the angry old guy!” one girl said, snapping a selfie while I scowled at her lens.

By sunset, we had three hundred dollars.

“We’re back in business, baby!” Frankie cheered, counting the cash. “And I got so much footage of you drawing. This is gold. The ‘Dictator of Art’ angle. The internet is gonna lose its mind.”

I looked at my hands, stained with ink. I had wanted to paint grand capitols, monuments to eternity. Instead, I was drawing cartoons for tourists to buy a tank of gas. But as I looked at the cash in Frankie’s hand, I realized something.

They were paying for my vision. They were paying to see themselves through my eyes. They didn’t realize that the ugliness I drew was not a joke. It was a diagnosis.

Chapter 5: The Viral Spark

That night, in another cheap motel, Frankie worked on his laptop. He had found a free Wi-Fi connection from the coffee shop next door.

“Okay,” he said, his face illuminated by the screen. “I’ve put it all together. The rant at the vending machine. The interviews where you talk about the ‘rot of the nation.’ The caricature session. I put some funny music behind it, some quick cuts.”

“You are making a mockery of my message,” I said, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“No, I’m making it consumable,” Frankie corrected. “Trust me. I’m titling it: ‘Grandpa Goes Rogue: The Most Savage Man in America.'”

He hit upload.

We went to sleep. Or rather, Frankie slept. I lay awake, listening to the sirens in the distance. I thought about the dog. I thought about the gun. I thought about the laughter of the people as I drew their flaws.

When we woke up, the world had shifted.

Frankie checked his phone and dropped it on the floor.

“Holy…”

“What?” I sat up.

“Two million,” he whispered. “Two million views. In eight hours.”

He scrambled to pick up the phone. “Read the comments, Artie! Look!”

I took the device. The text scrolled by so fast I could barely read it.

• User_USA_Freedom: “Omg who is this guy? He’s saying what we’re all thinking!”

• L0L_Cats: “The way he roasted those tourists 💀💀💀 I’m dying.”

• Patriot_Bill: “Finally someone with a backbone. This guy for President!”

• Sarah_J: “Is this satire? He stays in character so well. It’s like Borat but angry.”

• History_Buff_99: “Wait, does he look familiar to anyone else?”

“They think I am a comedian,” I said, scrolling. “They think I am a ‘character’.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Frankie was jumping on the bed. “We’re viral! We’re trending! Look, I have emails. The Morning Show wants a Skype interview. A podcast wants you on. A talent agent in LA just DM’d me.”

He grabbed my shoulders. “We’re going to Hollywood, Artie. We’re actually going to Hollywood.”

I stood up and walked to the mirror. I looked at my reflection. The grey hair, the intense eyes, the cheap flannel shirt.

They were laughing now. They thought it was a performance. A joke.

But I remembered the rally grounds. I remembered how the laughter stopped when the drums began.

“Very well,” I said to my reflection. “Let us go to Hollywood. Let us use their cameras. Let us use their screens.”

I turned to Frankie, a smile playing on my lips—not a smile of joy, but of a wolf seeing the gate to the sheep pen left open.

“Pack the bags, Frankie. The crusade has begun.”

Part 3: The Empire of the Airwaves

Chapter 1: The City of Glass and Smog

Los Angeles did not smell like freedom. It smelled of exhaust, burning brake pads, and the faint, sickly-sweet scent of rotting jasmine. As Frankie and I descended into the basin in our rental car—an upgrade paid for by the ad revenue from our viral videos—I looked out at the sprawl. It was endless. A concrete carpet laid over the desert, pulsating with red taillights.

“This is it, Artie,” Frankie said, his voice trembling with a mix of caffeine and adrenaline. He was wearing sunglasses indoors now, a affectation I found deeply irritating. ” The belly of the beast. Hollywood.”

“It looks like a encampment,” I observed, pointing to a row of tents under an overpass, right next to a billboard advertising a watch that cost more than the average soldier’s yearly wage. “Decadence alongside destitution. A classic sign of a failing state.”

“Yeah, yeah, social commentary, love it,” Frankie said, checking his phone. “Keep that energy for the meeting. Amanda Bell is no joke. She runs UBN. If she likes you, you’re not just a meme anymore. You’re a monument.”

We pulled up to the Universal Broadcasting Network tower. It was a monolith of black glass, reflecting the harsh sun. Security guards with earpieces stopped us, but when they saw me—the man from the “Angry Grandpa” videos—they waved us through with smirks.

“Give ’em hell, General,” one guard chuckled.

I did not smile back. I adjusted my collar. I was wearing a new suit, purchased by Frankie. It was grey, sharp, and cut in a style that mimicked the uniforms of my past without violating any modern laws. It was distinct. It was authoritative.

We took the elevator to the 44th floor. The air conditioning was set to a temperature that would freeze meat. We walked past rows of assistants who didn’t look up from their screens, their souls seemingly sucked into the digital abyss.

Chapter 2: The Architect of Noise

Amanda Bell’s office was larger than the bunker I had spent my final days in. One wall was entirely glass, overlooking the smog-choked city. She sat behind a desk made of something that looked like marble but was likely synthetic. She was a woman of indeterminate age, her face pulled tight by surgery, her eyes sharp and predatory.

She didn’t stand up when we entered. She simply pointed a manicured finger at the chair opposite her.

“Arthur Sterling,” she said. Her voice was like grinding gravel. “And the… handler. Frankie, right?”

“That’s me,” Frankie said, extending a hand that she ignored. “Big fan, Ms. Bell.”

“Cut the crap,” she said, her eyes locked on me. “I’ve seen the metrics. You’re pulling numbers that beat the networks in the 18-34 demographic. That’s impossible. Usually, that demographic is too busy watching teenagers dance on TikTok or overdosing on fentanyl to watch political commentary.”

“I do not provide commentary,” I said coldly, sitting down with a straight back. “I provide perspective.”

She leaned forward. “I don’t care what you call it. I care that it sticks. You have ‘stickiness,’ Arthur. You’re angry. People love anger. It makes them feel like they’re doing something without actually leaving their couch.”

She slid a contract across the desk. It was thick.

“We want to put you on The Jaxson Miller Show tonight. Prime time. Live. If you kill it—and by kill it, I mean you don’t drop a racial slur that gets us sued by the FCC—we give you a segment. A weekly slot. ‘The Sterling Standard.’ Or something catchy.”

I looked at the paper. It was a deal with the devil, but in this era, the devil owned the printing press.

“I have conditions,” I said.

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “You’re a viral video star, honey. You don’t have conditions. You have opportunities.”

“I will not read a script,” I stated. “I will not wear makeup. I will not be censored. If I speak, I speak my mind. If you try to silence me, I walk.”

Frankie looked terrified. “Artie, maybe we should—”

Amanda held up a hand to silence him. She stared at me for a long moment. A slow, shark-like smile spread across her face.

“Unscripted,” she mused. “Dangerous. I like dangerous. Dangerous sells ads. Dangerous gets retweets.”

She pulled a gold pen from her desk. “Sign the paper, Arthur. Welcome to the circus.”

Chapter 3: The Green Room

The studio was a hive of chaotic energy. Technicians ran cables, producers shouted into headsets, and the audience—hundreds of them—were being corralled into their seats like cattle.

I sat in the Green Room, a small holding cell stocked with fruit platters and sparkling water. Frankie was pacing, sweating through his shirt.

“Okay, Jaxson Miller,” Frankie stammered. “He’s… he’s a comedian. He’s gonna try to make fun of you. He’s gonna ask about the outfit, the road trip. Just… play along. Be the ‘Grumpy Uncle.’ Laugh it off. Don’t be too… you know… you.”

I stood up and walked to the mirror. I adjusted my tie.

“Frankie,” I said softly. “You still do not understand. I am not playing a role. I never was.”

“Right, right, Method acting,” Frankie nodded nervously. “Just don’t get us cancelled before the first commercial break.”

A production assistant poked her head in. “Mr. Sterling? Five minutes. You’re on after the pop star… ‘Lil’ Z’?”

I followed her down the hallway. The noise of the studio grew louder. I could hear the band playing—a loud, rhythmic thumping that lacked melody or soul.

I stood in the wings, hidden by a black curtain. On stage, Jaxson Miller—a man with teeth so white they looked radioactive—was sitting at his desk.

“Alright folks!” Jaxson shouted, his voice amplified to a boom. “Our next guest has taken the internet by storm. You’ve seen him yelling at vending machines. You’ve seen him roasting tourists. He’s the man who hates everything about the 21st century. Please welcome… Arthur Sterling!”

The sign above the audience flashed APPLAUSE. They obeyed. They clapped. They cheered.

I walked out.

I did not wave. I did not smile. I walked to the chair, sat down, and crossed my hands in my lap.

The music faded. Jaxson leaned over his desk, grinning.

“Arthur! Welcome to Hollywood! Wow, look at that suit. Is that wool? You must be sweating like a sinner in church under these lights!”

The audience laughed. A laugh track button was pressed somewhere.

I stared at him. “The heat is irrelevant. Discipline ignores discomfort.”

Jaxson blinked. He wasn’t used to a straight man who didn’t giggle. “Right! Discipline! I love it. So, tell us, Arthur. You’ve been driving across America with your buddy Frankie. What’s the verdict? Is America everything you dreamed of?”

This was the moment. The “bit.” The setup for a joke about fast food or bad drivers.

I leaned into the microphone.

“No,” I said.

The audience tittered nervously.

“No?” Jaxson chuckled. “What, not enough Disneyland for you?”

“I see no land of dreams,” I said, my voice low but projecting to the back of the room. “I see a land of ghosts. I drove three thousand miles. I saw factories that are empty, their windows broken like the eyes of a skull. I saw men, strong men, sitting on porches with nothing to do but inject poison into their veins because you have taken their purpose.”

The smile on Jaxson’s face faltered. “Well, that’s a bit heavy for a Tuesday, Artie…”

I did not let him interrupt. I stood up.

“Sit down, Arthur,” a producer hissed into my earpiece (which I had refused to wear, but I could hear the frantic whispering from the side stage).

I turned to the audience. I looked them in the eye. The camera zoomed in on my face.

“You laugh,” I said. “You clap because the sign tells you to clap. You are trained animals. You are fed slop—this ‘entertainment’—to keep you docile. You look at your phones for six hours a day to avoid looking at the reality of your lives. You are lonely. You are scared. And you should be.”

The studio was dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. Jaxson looked at his producer, panic in his eyes. Cut to commercial? he mouthed.

Amanda Bell, watching from the control booth, shook her head. Keep rolling.

“You have no leaders,” I continued, my voice rising. “You have managers. You have celebrities. You have clowns like this man…” I pointed at Jaxson, who recoiled. “…who dance for you while the world burns. You crave order. You crave direction. You crave someone who will tell you the truth, even if it is ugly.”

I walked to the edge of the stage.

“I am not a comedian. I am the mirror you are afraid to look into. Look at me! I am the past you have forgotten, and I am the future you deserve if you do not wake up!”

I stopped. I was breathing hard. The silence stretched for five seconds. Ten.

Then, a single person in the back row started clapping.

Then another.

Then, the entire room erupted. Not polite applause. Raucous, screaming approval. They were standing up. They were cheering.

“He’s right!” someone shouted. “Tell ’em, Artie!”

Jaxson Miller, realizing he had lost control of his own show, did the only thing a survivalist in Hollywood could do. He stood up and started clapping too.

“Arthur Sterling, everybody!” Jaxson yelled, sweating. “Unbelievable! We’ll be right back!”

Chapter 4: The Cult of Personality

We did not go back to the hotel. We couldn’t. By the time I stepped off the stage, the sidewalk outside the studio was swarmed.

“Sterling! Sterling! Sterling!” they chanted.

Frankie was scrolling through his phone in the limo, his face pale. “You… you broke Twitter, Artie. You’re the number one trend worldwide. #WakeUpAmerica. #SterlingTruth. People are quoting you. They’re making remixes of your speech with techno music.”

“They listened,” I said, looking out the tinted window at the faces pressed against the glass. They looked hungry. “They finally listened.”

“They think it’s a bit,” Frankie muttered, mostly to himself. “They think it’s the greatest performance art piece since Andy Kaufman. They think you’re playing a character who is a fascist to show how bad fascism is.”

“Let them think what they wish,” I said. “As long as they follow.”

The next week was a blur. I was given the weekly show. The Sterling Hour. We filmed it in a warehouse that we converted into a stark, brutalist set. No colors. Just concrete, a desk, and a flag—not the American flag, but a stylized flag Frankie designed. It was blue and gold, with a geometric eagle. It looked patriotic enough to pass, but distinct enough to be a brand.

I spoke about infrastructure. I spoke about “cleansing the art.” I spoke about the need for “national fortitude.”

The merchandise sold out in minutes. T-shirts with my scowling face. Hats that said ORDER & DISCIPLINE.

I was invited to galas. I met politicians—senators who shook my hand and whispered that they “loved my fresh approach.” They didn’t realize I was measuring their skulls with my eyes, assessing their utility.

But amidst the adoration, there was a shadow growing.

Chapter 5: The Hunter

Marcus Cole sat in a dark editing bay in Burbank, staring at a screen. Marcus was old school. He had been an investigative journalist for the Times before the clickbait wars killed real reporting. Now, he produced documentaries for a streaming service that mostly aired alien conspiracy theories.

But Marcus had a nose for rot. And Arthur Sterling smelled like formaldehyde.

“Who are you?” Marcus whispered, pausing the video of Arthur’s speech.

He had run the background checks. Nothing. Arthur Sterling did not exist before October 2024. No birth record in any state. No Social Security number. No credit history. No high school yearbook photos.

“It’s a ghost,” his assistant, a young woman named Sarah, said from the doorway. “Maybe he’s an immigrant? Changed his name?”

“No,” Marcus said, lighting a cigarette (a habit he couldn’t kick, even though it was illegal indoors). “He speaks with a specific dialect. Austro-Bavarian accent, hidden under a learned American cadence. And the vocabulary… ‘Fortitude.’ ‘Degeneracy.’ ‘Volk.’ Who talks like that?”

“A method actor?” Sarah suggested. “Daniel Day-Lewis on steroids?”

“Even Daniel Day-Lewis has a driver’s license,” Marcus snapped. “This guy just appeared out of thin air in a park.”

Marcus pulled up a map on his other monitor. “The road trip. They documented the whole thing. They left trails.”

He traced the route. From the city, through the Midwest.

“They stopped here,” Marcus pointed to a dot. “A farm outside of nowhere. There was a gap in the upload schedule. Frankie posted a video of a diner, then nothing for 12 hours, then the caricature video.”

“Maybe they slept?”

“Or maybe something happened.”

Marcus picked up his phone. He dialed a number he had found in the property tax records for that county.

“Hello? Is this Silas Vance?”

The voice on the other end was gruff. “Who’s asking?”

“My name is Marcus Cole. I’m doing a story on Arthur Sterling. The man who visited your farm a few weeks ago.”

There was a long silence. Then, a heavy breath.

“That maniac,” Silas spat. “He’s on TV now. I seen him. Everyone thinks he’s funny. He ain’t funny.”

“What did he do, Silas?” Marcus asked, his pen hovering over his notepad.

“He shot my dog,” Silas said. “Shot him dead. Cold. Like it was nothing.”

Marcus froze. “Did you report it?”

“Sheriff said without proof it’s my word against his. And they were gone before the deputies got there.”

“You have no proof?” Marcus felt his heart sink. Without proof, it was just a rumor.

“I got security cams,” Silas said. “Put ’em up to watch for coyotes. It caught the whole thing. The audio too.”

Marcus closed his eyes. This was it. The silver bullet.

“Silas,” Marcus said, his voice trembling slightly. “Do you still have the footage?”

“I saved it. Was gonna put it on Facebook, but my daughter said I’d get sued.”

“Don’t put it on Facebook,” Marcus commanded. “Send it to me. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you five thousand dollars right now.”

Chapter 6: The Summit

While Marcus was hunting, I was being crowned.

Amanda Bell organized a “Town Hall” event. It was to be held at a massive stadium. Tickets sold out in ten minutes.

Frankie was in the dressing room, adjusting my tie. He looked different now. He wore expensive suits. He had a haircut that cost three hundred dollars. He had forgotten the fear. He was drinking the Kool-Aid, as the Americans say.

“Tonight is the big one, Artie,” Frankie said. “We have the Governor in the front row. We have movie stars. This is… this is power.”

“It is responsibility,” I corrected him. I looked in the mirror. I looked older. The stress of the crusade was wearing on me. But the fire in my eyes was undimmed.

“Frankie,” I asked. “Do you remember the dog?”

Frankie froze. He dropped the lint roller. “What? Why bring that up now?”

“Because,” I said, turning to him. “A leader must know his vulnerabilities. Is the footage gone?”

“I didn’t record it!” Frankie insisted, his eyes darting around. “I told you! The camera was off!”

“Good,” I said. “Because if that image were to be seen… the Americans, they tolerate war. They tolerate poverty. But they do not tolerate cruelty to pets. It is their strange morality.”

“It’s fine, Artie. Forget it. You’re untouchable.”

I walked out of the tunnel and into the stadium. The roar was physical. It hit me like a shockwave. Thirty thousand people, screaming my name.

I stood at the podium. I raised my hand. Silence fell.

“My fellow countrymen,” I began.

And for the next hour, I held them in the palm of my hand. I told them that their unhappiness was not their fault. I told them they had been betrayed by elites. I told them that I alone could fix it.

It was the same speech I had given in a beer hall a lifetime ago. Only the language was different. The rhythm was the same. The hate was the same.

And they loved it.

Chapter 7: The Leak

Marcus Cole sat in his office. It was 2:00 AM.

On his screen, the grainy black-and-white footage played.

It showed Arthur Sterling—the man currently trending as the “Savior of the West”—arguing with a farmer. A dog runs out. It bites Arthur.

And then, the moment of truth. Arthur doesn’t panic. He doesn’t scream. He calmly draws a Luger—a Luger, Marcus noted with a chill—and executes the animal with a single shot to the head. Then he looks at the farmer with eyes that are completely dead, completely void of empathy.

“Jesus Christ,” Marcus whispered.

It wasn’t just the killing. It was the manner of it. It was the mechanical efficiency of a man who has seen death a million times.

Marcus opened his email. He attached the file.

Subject: The Truth About Sterling.

Recipient: TMZ, The New York Times, CNN, Fox News.

He hovered his finger over the ‘Send’ button. He knew this would destroy Arthur. But he also knew, watching the live feed of the stadium rally on his other screen, that he might be too late.

“Better a dog killer than a dictator,” Marcus muttered.

He clicked Send.

Chapter 8: The Morning After

I woke up in a penthouse suite. The sun was shining. I felt victorious. The rally had been a triumph.

I walked into the living room. Frankie was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands. The TV was on.

Every channel was showing the same thing. The grainy footage. The muzzle flash. The dog falling.

The headline on the screen read: MONSTER? Viral Star Arthur Sterling Caught Executing Family Pet.

I looked at Frankie. He looked up at me, tears streaming down his face.

“It’s over, Artie,” he sobbed. “It’s all over. They’re cancelling the show. The Governor put out a statement condemning you. Twitter is… it’s a bloodbath.”

I walked to the window. I looked down at the city. I could see the protestors gathering already. They were burning the merchandise they had bought yesterday.

“They are fickle,” I said quietly. “They love you one moment, they crucify you the next.”

“We have to leave,” Frankie said. “Amanda called. She said don’t come to the building. She said security won’t let us in.”

I turned away from the window. I did not feel fear. I felt a strange sense of familiarity. The bunker. The betrayal. The end.

“No, Frankie,” I said, smoothing my hair. “This is not the end. This is merely the second act.”

“How can you say that?” Frankie screamed. “You shot a dog! In 4K! You’re done!”

“I am a villain now,” I said. “And the world loves a villain almost as much as it loves a hero. Get my laptop. I have a book to write.”

“A book?” Frankie looked at me like I was insane. “Who’s going to read a book by a dog killer?”

“Everyone,” I smiled. “Because they will want to know why.”

The phone in Frankie’s pocket started ringing. He didn’t answer it.

“We go underground,” I commanded. “We let the heat die down. We let them miss me. And while they scream, I will write. I will tell them my struggle. My real struggle.”

I walked to the door.

“Come, Frankie. The road calls again.”

Part 4: The Unstoppable Cycle

Chapter 1: The Silence of the Hills

Six months had passed since the gunshot on the farm. Six months since the digital world screamed for my head, and then, finding I would not give it to them, grew bored and moved on to the next tragedy.

I sat on the terrace of a glass house in the Hollywood Hills. It was a fortress of solitude, paid for by the very people who claimed to hate me. The cancellation had been absolute, violent, and utterly profitable. I had been banned from the networks, stripped of my show, and exiled from the polite society of the coastal elites.

And in doing so, they had made me a god.

To the common man, I was no longer just a loudmouth on television. I was a martyr. I was the man the “system” tried to silence. The dog incident? It had been recontextualized. On the deep forums, on the encrypted channels, they said it was self-defense. They said the video was deep-faked. They said I did what a strong man had to do.

I took a sip of herbal tea, looking out over the smog-choked basin of Los Angeles. It was a beautiful, terrible view. A city of ten million souls, all desperate for meaning, all starving for order.

“Sir?”

I turned. It was my new assistant, a young man named Elias. He was dressed sharply, his hair parted with military precision. He was not like Frankie. Frankie was a chaotic puppy, eager for treats. Elias was a wolf in training.

” The final draft of the manuscript,” Elias said, placing a thick stack of paper on the glass table. “The publisher is ready to print. They have pre-orders in the millions.”

I ran my hand over the title page.

My Struggle Against the Modern World.

It was a simple title. Direct.

“Good,” I said. “And the reception?”

“The critics have already leaked the review copies,” Elias said, a small, cold smile playing on his lips. “The New York Times calls it ‘dangerous incoherence.’ The Washington Post calls it ‘a manifesto for the disenfranchised and the deranged.’ They are doing exactly what you predicted.”

“They are marketing it for us,” I nodded. “Every insult is an endorsement. Every warning is an invitation.”

I picked up a pen. I did not need to read it. I had lived it. I had written it in a fever state over the last three months. It was a collection of my observations, my philosophies, and my condemnation of this soft, rotting century. I wrote about the weakness of democracy, the beauty of strength, the necessity of a singular will.

I did not mention the bunkers. I did not mention the tanks. I did not need to. The ideas were eternal. They did not need the baggage of the past to take root in the future.

“Prepare the car, Elias,” I said, standing up. “We have a meeting at Paramount. apparently, my life is ‘cinematic enough’ for the silver screen.”

Chapter 2: The Dream Factory

The studio lot was bustling. Golf carts zipped by carrying men in superhero costumes and women in period dresses. It was a factory of lies, and I was its newest raw material.

We walked into a conference room that smelled of expensive coffee and fear. A dozen executives sat around a table. At the head was a director named Julian, a man known for gritty, realistic biopics.

“Arthur!” Julian stood up, extending a hand. He wore a scarf indoors. “So good to see you. You look… rested. The exile suits you.”

“It is quiet,” I said, taking a seat. “Quiet allows for thinking.”

“Right, right,” Julian nodded enthusiastically. “So, we’ve been workshopping the script for The Sterling Standard. We want to capture the raw energy of the road trip. The connection you have with the people. But we need to handle the… ending… carefully.”

“The dog,” I said flatly.

The room tensed.

“Well, yes,” Julian said, shifting in his chair. “It’s a difficult beat. Audiences love dogs, Arthur. We were thinking… maybe in the movie, the dog is rabid? Or maybe it’s a wolf? Just to… soften the blow. Make you more sympathetic.”

I looked at them. These men, with their millions of dollars and their soft hands, were terrified of reality. They wanted to sell rebellion, but they wanted it packaged in a way that wouldn’t upset the sponsors.

“You may do what you wish,” I said, leaning back. “History is always rewritten by the victors. And in the box office, you are the victors.”

“Excellent,” Julian beamed. “And we have a great actor lined up to play you. He’s method. He’s going to live as you for six months. He wants to understand your… pain.”

“My pain is not for sale,” I said. “But my image is. Make the movie, Julian. Make me a hero. Make me a villain. It does not matter. As long as they watch.”

As I left the meeting, I saw a poster for a superhero movie. A man in a cape saving the world.

They did not understand. The world did not want to be saved by a man in a cape. It wanted to be commanded by a man in a uniform.

Chapter 3: The Celluloid Ghost

While I was conquering the box office, Frankie was losing his mind.

He was holed up in a small apartment in Van Nuys, surrounded by hard drives. He had been tasked with editing the “definitive documentary” of our journey. It was supposed to be his redemption. If he could cut a film that explained me, that humanized me, maybe he could get his career back.

But Frankie was not editing. He was hunting.

He sat in the dark, the glow of three monitors illuminating his unshaven face. His eyes were red-rimmed. Empty cans of energy drinks littered the floor.

On the center screen was the footage from the very first day. The park.

“Come on,” Frankie whispered, his voice cracking. “I know I saw it.”

He rewound the clip.

Timecode: 00:00:14.

I was lying in the grass. The camera—Frankie’s phone—was shaky. I stood up. I looked at the lens.

Frankie zoomed in. 400%. 800%.

The pixels blurred, but the image was clear enough.

“The ear,” Frankie muttered. “Look at the ear.”

He dragged a jpeg onto the screen. It was a black and white photo from 1943. A historical archive photo of the Führer at a military parade.

He overlaid the images.

The curve of the helix. The lobe. The way the cartilage caught the light.

It was a perfect match.

“That’s impossible,” Frankie said, trembling. “Ears are like fingerprints. They don’t… they don’t match unless…”

He pulled up another video. The day at the diner. I was holding a fork.

He zoomed in on my hand. The left hand. The way it shook slightly when I was agitated. A specific tremor.

He pulled up a medical report from the OSS archives, declassified in 2010. Subject suffers from intermittent tremors in the left extremity, likely Parkinsonian in origin.

Frankie felt like he was going to vomit.

He wasn’t looking at an actor. He wasn’t looking at a brilliant satirist.

He rewound the footage to the very beginning. The frame before I appeared.

Usually, video captures reality. But in that single frame, there was a distortion. A ripple in the air. A sudden shift in light that the camera’s sensor couldn’t quite process, resulting in a burst of digital noise.

Frankie ran the audio through a spectral analyzer.

Beneath the sound of the wind and the traffic, there was a sound. A low-frequency hum. And a voice. Not English. Not German. A sound like the tearing of the fabric of the universe.

“He didn’t walk into the frame,” Frankie whispered, tears streaming down his face. “He fell into it.”

He looked at the wall, covered in printouts. Timelines. Quotes. The way I spoke. The things I knew about history that weren’t in the books. The way I handled the gun.

“He’s not a copy,” Frankie sobbed, realizing the enormity of his sin. “He’s the original.”

Chapter 4: The Confrontation

It was a storming night when Frankie came to the glass house. The rain lashed against the windows, blurring the lights of the city below.

I was in the library, reading the first edition of my book. It was beautiful. The font was sharp. The binding was tight.

The security system buzzed.

“Mr. Sterling,” Elias said over the intercom. “Frankie is here. He says it’s urgent. He says he has the ‘final cut’.”

“Let him in,” I said.

Frankie burst into the room a moment later. He looked like a drowned rat. His clothes were soaked. His eyes were wild. He was holding a hard drive in one hand and something else in his pocket.

“Frankie,” I said, not standing up. “You look terrible. Have you not been sleeping?”

“I know,” Frankie said. His voice was a rasp. “I know who you are.”

“You know who I am,” I said calmly. “I am Arthur Sterling. The author. The icon.”

“No!” Frankie screamed. He threw the hard drive onto the floor. It shattered. “I saw the footage! I matched the biometrics! The ear! The tremor! The scar on your neck! You’re him! You’re Him!”

He pulled the gun from his pocket. It was my Luger. He must have stolen it from the evidence locker, or perhaps he never turned it in.

“You’re the monster,” Frankie wept, pointing the shaking barrel at my chest. “You’re the one who killed millions. You’re the one who destroyed the world. And I… I made you a star.”

I looked at the gun. Then I looked at Frankie. I did not feel fear. I felt a profound sense of disappointment.

“Frankie,” I said softly. “Put the toy away.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Frankie yelled. “I’m going to end it! I’m going to save the future! I’m going to send you back to hell!”

I stood up slowly. I walked toward him.

“Stay back!” Frankie warned, his finger tightening on the trigger.

“You think killing me will change anything?” I asked. I stopped three feet from him. I could smell his sweat and his fear.

“It has to,” Frankie said. “If you’re gone, the spell breaks.”

“You are a fool, Frankie,” I said. “Look at the window.”

I gestured to the city below.

“I did not build this world,” I said. “I woke up in it. And what did I find? Did I find a paradise of peace and tolerance? Did I find a humanity that had learned from my mistakes?”

I took a step closer.

“No. I found a world that was waiting for me. I found a world addicted to hate. You have devices in your pockets that let you access all the knowledge of mankind, and you use them to argue with strangers and watch cats fall off tables. You have dissolved your families. You have abandoned your gods. You are empty vessels.”

Frankie was crying harder now, the gun lowering slightly.

“I did not hypnotize them, Frankie,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I just sang the song they already knew the words to. I am not an invader. I am a mirror. You look at me and you see the monster, but the monster is you. The monster is the comment section. The monster is the algorithm that promotes anger because anger sells ads.”

“You’re lying,” Frankie whispered. “You’re evil.”

“I am necessary,” I said. “Because without a villain, you have no heroes. And you Americans… you love your sequels.”

I reached out and gently took the gun from his hand. He didn’t resist. He collapsed onto his knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

“I helped you,” Frankie wailed. “I helped you do it again.”

“Yes,” I said, wiping the rain from the barrel of the gun. “And you did a magnificent job. The lighting was excellent.”

Chapter 5: The Straitjacket

The police arrived ten minutes later. Elias had called them the moment Frankie entered.

They found Frankie on the floor, screaming about time travel and wormholes and biometrics. He sounded raving mad. He sounded like every other lunatic in Los Angeles who had lost their grip on reality.

“He tried to kill Mr. Sterling,” Elias told the officers. “He’s been unstable for months. Obsessed with conspiracy theories.”

I stood by the fireplace, the picture of the concerned friend.

“He needs help,” I told the sergeant. “Please. Be gentle with him. He was a good boy, once.”

As they dragged Frankie out, he locked eyes with me.

“They’ll know!” he screamed. “History will know!”

“History is a story we tell ourselves to sleep at night,” I said, though he couldn’t hear me over his own screaming.

They put him in the back of the cruiser. The lights flashed—red and blue, red and blue—illuminating the wet pavement.

Chapter 6: The Premiere

Three months later.

The premiere of The Sterling Standard was the event of the decade. The red carpet stretched for three blocks.

I wore a tuxedo. Not a uniform. Just a tuxedo. But on my lapel, I wore a small pin. The geometric eagle.

The flashbulbs were blinding. Thousands of cameras. Millions of eyes.

“Arthur! Arthur! Over here!”

“Mr. Sterling! Is it true you’re running for Governor?”

“Arthur, look at the camera!”

I walked down the carpet, waving. I saw the faces of the fans. Young men with my haircut. Women wearing shirts with my slogans. They were not afraid. They were adoring.

I stopped for an interview with a beautiful young reporter from the very network that had banned me a year ago.

“Mr. Sterling,” she asked, breathless. “Your book is number one for the twentieth week. The movie is projected to break records. How does it feel to be the most talked-about man in America?”

I looked into the lens. I knew that somewhere, in a padded room with soft walls, Frankie was watching this on a television he couldn’t turn off. I knew he was screaming at the screen.

I smiled. It was a genuine smile.

“It feels,” I said, “like coming home.”

The reporter laughed, delighted. “And what’s next for Arthur Sterling?”

I looked past her, at the crowd. At the flags waving in the night air. At the police officers standing guard, looking at me with respect. At the chaos of the modern world, finally organizing itself around a single point of gravity.

“Next?” I said. “We have only just finished the prologue, my dear. Now… the real work begins.”

I turned and walked toward the theater entrance. The doors opened. The darkness inside was inviting.

I got into the waiting convertible that would take me to the after-party. As the car pulled away, I turned back to the camera one last time.

The frame froze.

My eyes, usually blue, seemed to darken in the light of the streetlamps. They were old eyes. Ancient eyes. Eyes that had seen Europe burn and were ready to strike the match again.

The car disappeared into the Los Angeles night, leaving only the sound of applause echoing in the empty street.

[END OF PART ]