The Hawthorne Room had been a lobbyist’s bar for sixty years, and it still smelled like it: old leather, lemon oil, and favors that never made it into the minutes.

Marcus Hale took the corner stool, the one with a view of both the door and the window, and ordered a vodka tonic. He watched the ice settle.

Four years ago, it had been a clever idea. Everyone agreed on the problem: half the country stayed home every November. So Congress made the default vote, the one cast by not voting, go to the Administrator, an executive intelligence that did one thing, which was execute the law as written. No agenda, no executive orders, no favorites. Americans, offered a choice between showing up and handing the White House to a machine, would surely show up.