Madam President

Your grandmother used to call herself 'Mayor' but just over eight years ago there was a near revolution in the colony when a whole bunch of new people came in and started making waves, string up a nationalist kind of sentiment and this resulted in a referendum that the High Holt Colony should declare itself a city-state, and though reluctant to split with the USA your grandmother allowed things to go through and held 'national' elections which she overwhelmingly won. Though the new people were persuasive and active the entire colony turned out for the first election and the majority of it's were strongly in favor of retaining the woman who had done such a good leading them so far, so the agitators lost their bid to seize control and by the end of her 'first year in office' President Elisabeth Maurine Clearwater-Carpathian had neutralized this group of would be usurpers, either turning them around to her way of thinking or catching them out on various criminal charges such as 'sedition' and 'inciting a riot'.

As the new government set up she made sure it closely mirrored the old USA, part of which was that she was limited to two in office, which she didn't mind since she was an old woman and growing weak of body, though still sharp of mind: however you are not so sure if this was a good idea for you, because though you have recently won election as her successor now being Madam President Leslie Elsa Maurine Carpathian in your own right, the colony, unlike the old USA, is not large enough to a full 'Secret Service' to protect former presidents, and it would be all too easy for a future office holder to decide having a 'ruling family' around from the early days was a threat to their position or plans and move to 'eliminate the problem'...

It is in this dark mood that you sit in the 'Oblong Office' in what was formerly city hall, now converted into 'the government building' which includes the offices for all of the 'senators' as well as the 'supreme court' and your own office's and apartments awaiting your grandmother's call for her final words to you, which you are to relay to the colony. She is in very bad shape and Doctor Nichols has declared that it is unlikely she will live to see dawn tomorrow...

As you wait you reflect on your life thus far...