She stood just left of the stage, taking a few deep breaths. “Why am I so nervous?” she whispered to herself. No matter how many times she spoke at campaign rallies, hackathons, Guild town halls, or trans-national company headquarters meetings - she always got the jitters. The nausea would appear 30 seconds before stepping up to the podium.
This was the big moment though.
I ran a helluva campaign she thought to herself. Yesterday, during the vote I thought I’d lost it for a few moments there. One hour before voting closed the Creators Guild had decided en masse to go for her opponent, their votes came through in a massive wave on the blockchain and for that moment her opponent had edged her out.
She had put on a face of calm confidence for the digital feeds, thankfully only a few of her advisors and her partner were in the actual room with her and could see her real face, tense with dread. Everyone else in the Metaverse version of the room, or just simply watching on screens, only saw her avatar, which she’d modified with some emotion regulating hacks to make her appear more calm than she was.
Maybe that’s why she got so jittery speaking in public in front of live crowds, no emotion regulation hacks.
In the last hours before the close of the election, only 12 hours ago, the Hackers Guild and Toyota came through for her, their wave of votes gave her a decisive victory. She knew the Hackers Guild was on her side, afterall she’d risen through their ranks, at one point rising to the level of Master God-Tier Hacker before she’d dedicated herself to public service and ran for President of the greatest, largest country on Earth.
She knew she had the Hacker’s Guild in the bag, but those bastards decided to make her sweat and hold off voting until the last hour. It was Toyota that clinched it for her. Over the years they not only stayed relevant, but had risen to being the 3rd largest and most valuable company in the known galaxy. In an increasingly automated, technical, and robotic world Toyota produced the best robots. The best bang for your buck.
As she stood waiting to go onstage she quietly rehearsed her speech in her mind. Her campaign had been focused almost exclusively on engineering and ecology, she’d gone all in on the Hackers Guild, Builders Guild, and the Growers Guild.
The Growers were an odd bunch. Dedicated to plants, water, the earth itself. Not only did they grow all the planet’s food but also focused on the natural beauty.
The Builder’s in turn were engineers, designers, and architects focused on building the very infrastructure of the planet and great marvels of engineering like the space elevator. Towards the end of the dark days in the 2030’s and 2040’s it had been the combined efforts of the Engineer’s Guild and Grower’s Guild that had crushed climate change and pushed back the global temperatures. In fact, where she was standing right now would be under-water if it weren’t for them. Their combined efforts were massively progressive for human-kind and she knew this.
But not everyone was so focused on building and growing things. Life was good for most people and so most folks spent their time in pursuit of leisure and creativity. Her competitor had run a great campaign focused on the arts and creativity. He had the full backing of the Creators Guild and many smaller factions like FIFA and the SBA - long ago they were the NBA when they played only within the former United States, but now they governed basketball on Earth, Mars, the Moon, and even the small colony on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto, so were rebranded the Solar Basketball Association.
She’d never been much into sports, but she loved diems - digital interactive entertainment media - when she was younger. The Creators Guild was the primary developer of diems, but the Hackers Guild made them too, it was in the Metaverse where those two guilds had their synergy.
As she rehearsed her speech in her mind, she reminded herself to tell the people that she heard them. Many of them had voted for her opponent and his platform of creativity and leisure. As a Hacker herself she’d broker deeper partnerships between the Creators and Hackers Guild.
“It’s time”
“Now?” She said?
“Yes!” called the assistant.
As she stepped onto the platform, she locked eyes with the Solar Arbiter, the top Arbiter in the Arbiters Guild and a kind of figurehead for the solar system. He would be swearing her in. He didn’t swear in all the presidents of all the city states in the system, that would be absurd. There were over 700 city-state countries on Earth alone, but this country was the largest, most powerful, and most influential in the solar system, so the Solar Arbiter was here to swear her in.
As she stepped into the light he turned to the crowd and announced,
“I now present the next president of the greatest country on Earth, Los Angeles”