Mayor Bob Thompson, now armed with a new and functional pen, beamed at the crowd and the news cameras, soaking in the applause from his successful vote. He held up a hand for quiet, a gesture of a magnanimous victor.
He leaned into the microphone, his voice a smooth, confident purr that was designed to sound both powerful and reassuring. He looked directly into the lens of the main local news camera, savoring the moment, delivering a smug remark for the history books.
"And now," he declared, his voice filled with a self-important gravity, "let us sign Buckhannon into a new era of prosperity. A new gateway to the future, built on a foundation of progress and a commitment to the hard-working people of this town."
Okay, this is it, Chris thought, his own heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck. The cursed item is equipped. Please work. Please don't just be a fancy pen now. Don't let there be a saving throw. Please, no saving throws.
With a grand, theatrical flourish, a movement he had clearly practiced in front of a mirror for this exact moment of triumph, Mayor Bob Thompson put the [Pen of Unwavering Honesty] to the signature line on the official contract. This was his moment, the culmination of all his scheming, the final, legal consecration of his victory.
The moment the pen's golden nib touched the thick, creamy paper, a faint golden light, a soft glow visible only to Chris, pulsed once from the pen, like a silent heartbeat.
Mayor Thompson's hand froze.
His confident, sweeping motion stopped dead, the nib hovering a millimeter above the paper. A look of mild confusion crossed his face. He tried to move his hand, to begin his looping, arrogant signature, but his muscles would not obey. He stared at his own hand as if it were a foreign object, a rebellious appendage that had suddenly decided to go on strike. Chris, watching from the back, quickly triggered his [INSPECT] ability.
[Name: Robert "Bob" Thompson]
[Status: Panicked, Loss of Motor Control]
[Dominant Thought: "What's happening? Why can't I move my hand? Is this a stroke? On live television?"]
Then, his hand began to move. It moved with a steady, deliberate purpose that was completely alien to his panicked mind. He was not controlling it. He was a passenger in his own body, a horrified spectator watching his own betrayal unfold.
The pen glided across the paper, smooth and certain. It was not forming his signature. It was writing. It was writing in a clear, precise block script, the kind of neat, legible handwriting he hadn't used since elementary school. The Mayor's eyes widened in abject horror as he was forced to watch his own hand betray him, writing his own confession, word by agonizing word.
I, ROBERT THOMPSON, APPROVE THIS CONTRACT, WHICH WILL DIVERT $1.2 MILLION IN TAXPAYER FUNDS TO MY PRIVATE ACCOUNT (VIA VERIDIAN DEVELOPMENTS) AS A KICKBACK FOR THE DEMOLITION PERMITS.
The pen stopped. Mayor Thompson stared at his own written confession in stunned, horrified silence. His face, which had been a healthy, confident pink a moment before, was now white.
The council chairman, Ralph Hardwick, annoyed at the dramatic and unexplained delay, leaned over. "Bob, is there a problem?" he started to ask, his voice an impatient whisper. "Let's get this show on the road." The words died in his throat. The chairman's face went pale. He looked from the document, to the Mayor's horrified expression, and back to the document. He stumbled back an involuntary step, his hand flying to his mouth.
A local news cameraman, a young, ambitious man who could smell a story like a shark smells blood in the water, saw the chairman's reaction. He knew this was the moment. He broke from the designated press area, moving quickly and quietly around the side of the stage, his professional instincts overriding all decorum. He zoomed his lens in tightly on the document, the incriminating text filling the frame, the letters sharp and clear.
And then, it was broadcast live on the large projector screen that had been set up in the meeting room for the audience to see the PowerPoint presentation.
For a long, silent moment, the crowd just stared, their brains struggling to process the unbelievable sentence that was now displayed, ten feet high, for all to see.
An audible gasp was heard from Brenda Gruber in the front row. It was a shocked sound that cut through the silence like a knife.
And then, the ripple started. A murmur spread like wildfire through the crowd as people read the confession, their eyes going from the screen, to their neighbors, and back to the screen. They pointed. They whispered. They pulled out their own phones, all of them taking pictures of the broadcast, a hundred digital copies of the Mayor's career suicide note.
From the back of the room, Chris Day watched, a feeling of ecstatic triumph washing over him. Oh my god, he thought, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in his chest that he had to physically swallow. It actually worked.
From the side of the stage, out of the Mayor's line of sight, Jessica Lange allowed a small satisfied smile to grace her lips.
The murmur of the crowd exploded into a deafening roar. The dam of polite, civic decorum had burst, and a flash flood of righteous outrage was now pouring through the room.
Shouts of "What?" and "Thief!" and "Resign!" echoed through the hall. Gary Lake, the man whose pothole complaint had started this all, was on his feet, his face purple with rage, yelling, "I KNEW IT! MY TAX DOLLARS!"
The flashes from the news cameras, which had been a steady, professional rhythm, became a frantic, blinding strobe, a barrage of light and fury that turned the scene into a series of jerky still frames. People were standing up, pointing at the stage, their faces a mixture of shock, anger, and strangely, excitement.
Mayor Bob Thompson looked up from the document, from his own written confession, his face a picture of panic. He saw the crowd of angry faces, the pointing fingers, the blinding flashes of the cameras. He saw his entire political world, his life's work of careful deception and self-serving ambition, collapsing around him in a storm of his own making.