Election 2048

She’s Young, middle class, and female. Mixed-race parents. Life touched by tragedy. Cares for a disabled brother. Lives in a swing state. The perfect swing voter, really. The perfect Presidential Elector.

Amanda Walker is no stranger to traumatic events, having lost her mother to a debilitating stroke and her father to an unexplained death in prison, but her life is thrown into chaos when the Non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates randomly selects her to be one of the thirteen Electors, the chosen few who will pick the next president. As one of the rare undecided voters remaining in a hyper-partisan country where every voter’s mood, intentions, tastes, and preferences are measured and exploited by ubiquitous “smart eyeglasses”, Amanda soon discovers that the job of an Elector means far more than she imagined. Instead of choosing the next president she soon finds herself dodging bullets and subjected to threats; threats aimed at her beloved impaired brother, Jonah. The Don’t rock the boat. Just choose between Red Party candidate Mitch Fowler, or Blue Party Candidate Jack Dryden, and above all just stick to the issues; the ones we tell you are important.

To keep her brother safe she has to play along. Stay in line. Behave. But her dead father’s idealism begins to take root and compel her to Are we really free? Does my opinion really matter?

And she will soon discover that with freedom of thought come consequences. Deadly consequences.

Election 2048 is the first novella in a three part series.