Technombie 6: The Results Are In

As usual, Senjina couldn’t wait to get home and check her stats. She was always too busy at work to review them. Today had been exceptionally chaotic. The mayoral election ended tonight.

This election, Senjina voted for the first time. She felt invested in the results. Once home, she spread her expandable ScreenSpace on the kitchen table. Immediately the screen filled with graphs and charts. Lines and colors spiking, dropping, and jumping all over the place. As suspected, the extra chaos had been stressful. She knew she had to get the stress levels down in the next couple days. Otherwise she could expect a bump, however slight, in her insurance premiums going forward.

Pushing aside the stats, Senjina eagerly searched for election results. Nothing definitive yet. Mayor Peebles faced a touch race. This, despite his self-admission to smoking crack and all kinds of other non-traditional mayor behaviors. Somehow people still seemed to love him, defend him even, against his most egregious actions.

However, results would not, could not, be confirmed before the nightly infoozian. Senjina sighed resignedly, sorely wishing she didn’t have to do the infoozians. Why were these things mandatory, anyway?

She knew if she didn’t submit to one, performance would start to fail on her feed and ScreenSpace. Even so, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling she always got before a compulsory infoozian. And on the night of an election? Something was definitely up. If only Senjina could remember the same things before and after the infoozian. Sitting through one, she felt as though a fog descended on her brain. When it cleared, something had dissipated with it. But she could never be certain of what was gone.

She wistfully reviewed the results one last time. Mayor Peebles, strong in a few districts was trailing overall, with over 90% of the votes counted. Senjina felt confident he would be on his way out. This was a good thing. She worked in City Hall and looked forward to a new administration.

Senjina settled into her special infoozian chair, hearing and feeling the familiar hiss of air leaving the cushions adjusting to her body. Her head oozed into the headrest, already starting to loll to one side.

The familiar drone started. Always about Mayor Peebles. She drifted.

She awakened suddenly from the infoozian to a series of high-pitched alerts.

Mayor Peebles had won again!

Senjina frowned. How was this possible?

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