The Machine

Merendia is a democracy divided. One side fears disorder. The other fears oppression. Each believes the greatest danger to the country is what will happen if the other side takes power. Then a bomb in Carth Square kills 117 people. A new law promises security. A surveillance provision stops the next attack. An emergency directive restores order. Each measure solves a real problem. Each comes with safeguards. And each is inherited by the next government. Over thirty years and four presidents from rival parties, Merendians fight over who should control those powers. Meanwhile a hardware-store owner, his sister who teaches civics, a newspaper reporter, a judge and a young lawyer struggle over what freedom is worth, and how much of it they are willing to give up to feel safe. Professor Arthur Silberstein keeps asking one question no one wants to answer: Would you give this power to you worst enemy? By the time Merendia learns the answer, its elections have been postponed, its parties dissolved, and the presidents who built the system are gone. The system remains. The Machine is a sweeping political thriller about fear, power, polarization, and how a free people can build, one reasonable law at a time, the very government none of them ever wanted.