W: The Planner, The Chosen (29 page)

Chapter 4

A
s soon as Keith was outside, he plopped down on a rusty metal lawn chair that sat in the shade cast by the trailer’s shadow and went to sleep.  By the time he awakened to the drone of an approaching motorcycle engine, it was dark and Michael was long gone. He stretched and peered down the road where he saw the single headlight growing larger.

Keith checked his watched and muttered, “Here’s Jessie, only five hours late.” He remained seated until the motorcycle came to a stop in the stretch of sand that served as the front yard.

Kris had heard the motorcycle and had cautiously opened the trailer door and stepped onto the rickety wooden steps. Her first impulse had been to hide, but she could not leave Keith outside with an unidentified person.

Keith was shaking hands with two men when he spotted her. “Hey, Kris, come over here and meet Jessie and Kyle. Jessie’s my buddy from way back. He runs the greatest website ever. When it comes to outing lies and conspiracies, he’s the man. Kyle’s his nephew.”

Kris shook hands with both. She had heard stories about Jessie for months, and he was exactly what she had pictured—forty-something with thick curly shoulder-length red hair streaked with gray. His grizzly red beard was mostly gray and badly in need of a trim. Jessie was about five feet ten and at least one hundred pounds overweight. His threadbare jeans and tee shirt should have been thrown away years ago.

Kyle was over six feet tall and skinny; he looked twelve but was probably closer to twenty-five. He had the same curly red hair as his uncle, but it was cut short, which emphasized his thin pale face with its hawkish nose and receding chin. Kyle extended a bony freckled hand with long fingers that felt cold and slightly damp when Kris shook his hand. She knew why Keith had called Jessie, but she could not imagine what Kyle was supposed to bring to the table. What they were doing was extremely dangerous, and they had agreed that the fewer people who knew about their work the better.

Keith saw the expression on Kris’ face and quickly said, “Kyle is the ultimate hacking machine. He can hack anything, anywhere, anytime.”

Kyle grinned broadly, which made him look even more like an overgrown child. “I hacked into the Pentagon’s website when I was twelve and spent a year in Juvie,” Kyle announced proudly. At this Keith looked knowingly at Kris. “When I was sixteen, I dropped out of school and got a fake ID. Then I went to work for G and stayed there nine years.”

“G?” Kris asked.

“Yeah. You know. The world’s largest search engine. I don’t let anyone speak their name in my presence. I left last year over, uh—irreconcilable differences.”

Kris stared at him. Kyle seemed to think that this explanation was sufficient, but when she failed to nod in agreement, he went on, “I don’t think that any person has the right to tell another person what to do. Besides, they stole my thoughts.”

“Stole your thoughts? How?” Kris waited to hear Kyle tell her that G had invaded his mind and sucked the thoughts right out of his brain.

“G steals all of its employees’ thoughts,” Kyle continued. “They have a rule that employees can work on anything they want for a certain number of hours each week, but then they sell the stuff they think of. When I found out they were selling the stuff I thought up, I went to my supervisor and told her that when they sell the stuff I think of they’re stealing my thoughts. She accused me of trying to get G to fire me so that I could collect unemployment, but I wouldn’t back down. Finally, G gave me five thousand dollars in exchange for signing a form saying that I had left voluntarily and was not eligible for unemployment. But they stole millions of dollars worth of my thoughts; that’s why I’m here. I’m going to take back what’s mine.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet both of you,” Kris said. “Thank you for coming. Keith, can I talk to you inside for a minute?”

When they had entered the trailer and shut the door behind them, Kris turned and faced Keith. “Seriously?” she asked.

“What? I told you; he can hack anything, anywhere, anytime. This is our guy. Besides, I agree with him; I don’t think any person has the right to tell another person what to do either, unless, of course, I’m the one doing the telling. In that case I think I should be able to tell everybody what to do.” Keith smiled that little half smile with his lips tightly shut that she had seen her whole life when he was terribly amused, and then he turned and opened the door. Poking his head out, he called, “Okay, guys; it’s time to blow a hole in the universe!”

Kyle took the chair in front of the computer while the others sat in the remaining seats around the table. “Time for my briefing,” Kyle said as he alternately rubbed his hands together and wiggled his fingers as if he were a concert pianist preparing to play.

Kris breathed a silent prayer and began telling Kyle and Jessie what they needed to know. “A little over a year ago I was hired as a Level I Planner for the Federal Municipal Planning Division. When I accepted the job, I was told that I would act as the liaison for Division I of Section W of the new Smart Seniors Community in Phoenix. It was the first such community in the United States, and part of my job was to contact a specially selected group of seniors and explain to them the benefits of signing over to the federal government their homes, their automobiles, their bank accounts—literally everything they owned—in exchange for a life lease in the Smart Seniors Community.

“I was also responsible for ensuring a smooth transition for the residents and making certain that they followed the rules. Because it was a condition of my employment to live in a smart community for FMPD employees, I knew first hand that moving from a large, comfortable, single family residence to a tiny apartment with no cooking facilities, no air conditioning, and a sofa sleeper for a bed would be a big adjustment for the seniors, but I believed that, ultimately, the move would be good for them. I actually bought into the whole ‘worry free living with the retirement you deserve’ thing, and I even persuaded my own parents to move into the division I monitored.”

Tears were now streaming down Kris’ cheeks and dripping off her chin. Jessie and Kyle looked uncomfortable; Keith looked unmoved. “Anyway,” she continued, “within a few days of the last of my residents’ property being transferred and deeded to the federal government, all communications to my division went down. I tried repeatedly to get a cell phone call or an email through to my parents, but the servers were down. At first I didn’t think much about it because W.net, the government contracted internet service provider that serves the smart communities, is frequently down, and it’s not unusual for an email to take a day or two to go through. After a couple of days, however, I suspected that something more than the usual federal incompetence was going on. I called Keith so that he and I could drive over to check on them. While I was waiting for him, an email that our mother had sent several days earlier came through. I’m going to read only a small part of it to you, but I think it’s enough:

“‘…Your dad and I are going to die here—we both know that now. I want you to know that we do not blame you for what has happened. We know that you didn’t have any idea what this place was. I love you and Keith so much....Do something good with the years you have left—don’t throw them away. Find people who know about freedom—who believe in freedom. There are millions of Americans who still remember freedom—start finding them and working to get this country turned around. Don’t let what has happened to us happen to anyone else….’

“Keith and I reached their division less than an hour after I received Mom’s message, but we were too late; everyone was gone. In the space of three days two thousand seniors had vanished into thin air.”

Kris looked at Keith. “You fill them in on the rest.”

“All of us here know that the Feds invented that big lie about the oil spill poisoning the residents in the Gulf States, and when Jessie rescued the doc from the prison camp, he confirmed that all of the doctors who treated the victims are being exterminated. The FMPD doctor who served Kris’ community had parents living in a different Smart Seniors’ community from ours, but his parents were exterminated the same week that they took our mom and dad.

“We don’t know exactly how many people the Feds have eliminated to date, but we do know that the numbers are in the tens of thousands. So far we’ve been able to rescue only one hundred thirty-three people who were selected for extermination; that’s a pretty pathetic commentary on our efforts. Our goal is to warn all American citizens who are in these smart communities so that they can escape before it’s too late. We know that most of them won’t believe us until the guys with the machine guns load them into trucks and transport them to mass graves, but that isn’t the point. We’re going to warn them; the rest is up to them. 

“Kris tells me that all smart community computers are connected to W.net. What we want you to do is hack into their system and tell the residents what’s happening. My question is, ‘Can you do it without W.net being able to trace it back to us?’”

Keith’s question brought another goofy smile to Kyle’s face. “Piece…of…Cake!” Kyle responded, deliberately emphasizing each word. “The thing about the Feds is that they write regulations about secure systems for all privately-owned businesses, but they don’t play by the rules themselves. Not that it would make any difference if they did; I could bust through their firewalls no matter what. But they know that the only thing old people know about computers is how to turn them on. Trust me, W.net has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.” With that, Kyle began typing furiously.

Chapter 5

“
M
arx was wrong, you know,” Candice Peters said as she looked into the eyes of the man sitting across the desk in the oval office.

“How so?” responded President Tom Quincy. Vice President Peters had been slouched in the tufted leather wingback across from him for more than thirty minutes. As she talked she occasionally ran her fingers through her dirty blonde hair with the inch of gray-streaked roots showing. Quincy wondered why the Vice President of the United States would insist on being such a slob.

“Religion is not the opiate of the people,” Peters continued. “The opiate of the people is welfare.” Having made what she considered to be a profound observation, the Vice President tightened her lips into a smug half-smile.

“How’s Bubba?” President Quincy responded. He wanted Candice Peters to leave his office, and he knew what a sore spot her husband was with her. Robert Peters had been a two-term governor of Louisiana who was well-liked by almost everyone except his wife. Even those who hated his politics agreed that Bubba Peters had a winning, good-old-boy attitude that made people feel comfortable. He slapped men on the back and laughed uproariously at their jokes, and he flirted outrageously with nearly every female who came within fifty-feet of him. He was an immoral pig who cared only about himself, but his pretense of being interested in the masses endeared him to them.

Quincy’s strategy was successful. Candice stiffened and wiped the smirk off her face. “We need to talk about the U.N. Small Arms Treaty that’s coming up for a vote in the Senate,” she said coldly.

“The Majority Leader assured me that we have the sixty-seven votes we need for ratification,” Quincy responded.

“Maybe, maybe not. The Tea Party is fighting us on this. They’re all over the internet spreading their propaganda. They’ve got some gun rights group putting out videos saying that the treaty is ‘disguised’ as an international arms control treaty to fight against terrorism and crime syndicates but that it’s, actually, just a gun control scheme. They’ve posted their bullet points on one of their videos; wait a minute; I have them written down.”

The Vice President searched in the pocket of her rumpled black pant suit that had become almost a uniform for her days spent in Washington D.C. “Here it is. They say that the treaty will require the U.S. to do the following:

“‘Register, ban and confiscate arms owned by private citizens.

“Force us to enact tougher licensing requirements.

“Confiscate and destroy all unauthorized civilian firearms owned by private citizens.

“Ban the trade, sale, and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons.

“Create an international gun registry which will set the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.’”

“Well, apparently, the Tea Party doesn’t know as much as it thinks it does,” the President countered, and for the first time he smiled.

“When the Reinvest in America bill becomes law next month, Mr. and Mrs. Tea will discover that buried among its thirty-seven hundred pages of legal speak is the Gun Safety Law that will set entirely new guidelines for all guns manufactured in the United States. In addition to putting massive restrictions on what kinds of guns can be manufactured in this country and setting safety standards that will quadruple the price of all guns, the law will make the possession of any firearm manufactured prior to the implementation of the new guidelines a felony punishable by a fifty thousand dollar fine and ten years in prison.

“After we complete our media blitz telling the American people why these new laws are necessary, most people will support ‘safe’ guns that keep children from being the victims of accidental gun deaths and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. I mean, it’s pretty hard to argue against laws that make our society safer. A few of the extreme right-wingers will hide their weapons, but most will turn them over with the expectation that they will replace them with the new legal guns. They won’t have a clue that the new safety standards outlined in the Gun Safety Law of 2015 are a moot point because effective January 1, 2016 no more guns will be manufactured in or imported to this country for sale to private citizens.

“Candice, I want you to stop sweating the small stuff and start promoting Agenda 21 as the vehicle that will ensure world peace and make Americans safe. Every beauty pageant contestant since 1950 has stated that her goal, if she should win the crown, is to promote world peace. This is an easy sell. You’re the freakin’ Vice President! Start doing your job!”

The Vice President’s eyes flashed. She hated President Quincy as much as he hated her. She was well aware that he would never have chosen her as his running mate if the party leaders had not forced him to put her on the ticket. Quincy was a New Englander, and he had needed someone to bring in the southern vote. He would have preferred her husband as his VP, but Bubba’s reputation as a serial adulterer made him unacceptable. By having Candice as the candidate, however, Quincy could appeal to the women who wanted to see a female on the ticket and take advantage of Bubba’s considerable skills as a campaigner.

Candice was the perfect running mate because she held a law degree from Harvard and had spent her entire career representing “the poor and downtrodden” who would otherwise not have been able to take their cases to court. The People’s Justice Foundation had been Bubba’s brainchild, and he had married Candice right out of law school and set it up as a non-profit with her as its head. Together they had funneled tens of millions of dollars in donations through the foundation and managed to siphon off the lion’s share into their personal accounts.

Bubba had always had his eye on the governor’s mansion, but he knew that in order to have a successful political career he needed a wife. Candice was a perfect fit. Men had no interest in her, and she had no interest in them. Yet, she was smart enough to realize that she needed a man to help her achieve her goals. She possessed neither the political savvy nor the business connections to make the foundation a success, but Bubba had both. She despised Bubba, and he was indifferent to her, but they needed each other. Touting Candice as “The People’s Defender”, Bubba created the mystique of a woman so dedicated to helping the poor that she was willing to spend her life working for little or no pay.

Without meaning to, Bubba had set Candice up as the perfect female for the VP slot. “I’ve been married to Candy for a lot of years,” he would say as he looked into the camera with that naughty little boy expression, “and I can tell you that I’ve never seen anybody more dedicated and hardworking. She loves people, and she just won’t give up till they get justice.” That line had worked in bringing the foundation to national attention, and it had worked in campaigning for the Quincy/Peters ticket.

The day that she was sworn in Candice was elated. Bubba had been governor of Louisiana, but she was the Vice President, and, if she played her cards right, when Quincy’s term ended, she would be elected President. When she had achieved that goal, she would get revenge on Bubba for all the times he had used her and humiliated her. She would be in the driver’s seat, and there would be absolutely nothing that he could do about it.

“What are we going to do about the NDAA?” Candice asked.

The President answered her question with one of his own. “Do you know what’s wrong with this country?”

“Do you really expect me to narrow it down to just one thing?” the Vice President responded.

“I do.”

The Vice President was still smarting from President Quincy’s earlier remarks, and as she sat frantically trying to come up with a response that would satisfy him, Quincy answered his own question. “The middle class is what’s wrong with this country.”

Candice Peters looked surprised, but she remained silent.

“Most people think that the welfare crowd is what’s wrong with the country,” President Quincy continued. “But they’re not our problem; they’re our greatest ally. They’re afraid of freedom because they don’t want the responsibility that goes with it. They want someone to take care of them, and they don’t ask for much—a filthy little hovel to live in, food stamps, free medical care.  We give them just enough to keep them poor, and, as far as they’re concerned, that’s enough—just as long as they don’t have to go to work. Of course, you find the occasional rebel who is receiving temporary public assistance because of something unexpected such as the loss of a job or a health issue, and there is always the kid who looks around and says, ‘I can do better than this’ and pulls himself up by his bootstraps to become a member of the middle class. Those people will eventually escape the system, but the rest are ours. They keep us in power.

“The middle class is the problem. They are the ones who live what they refer to as ‘The American Dream’. They are the professional people and the small business people. They get their educations and then set up their medical practices or law firms. They start their businesses, and open their stores, and work long days so that they can get ahead, and somewhere along the way they decide that they are our equals!”

President Quincy was now visibly angry. He continued, “They have the notion that we work for them, and they actually have the audacity to threaten to ‘fire’ us and ‘send us home’ if we don’t do their bidding. They think that they’re entitled to their houses in the suburbs and their SUVs. They think that they have earned the right to their restaurant dinners and vacations at the beach. They boast that they worked hard for everything they have, and they actually believe that they should be able to keep their money. I’ll tell you something, Candice; if I hear one more person use the expression ‘hard workin’ Americans’, I’m going to throw up!”

The President continued, “But to answer your question, I’m going to use the NDAA to eliminate what’s wrong with this country. Using the authority granted to me under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, I’m going to begin arresting those who are speaking against our Administration, and I’m going to have them executed as terrorists.  We’ll start with the biggest trouble makers and keep going until we have rid ourselves of the entire middle class.”

“Mr. President, I don’t see how you can do that. When NDAA first became law, there was a lot of debate about whether it allowed a President to arrest and execute American citizens without trial. A lot of people believe that this authority can be used only against non-citizens. I think if we begin arresting and executing Americans without benefit of a trial, we’ll get a lot of push back.”

“I’m the President, and I’ll decide how much authority I have!” Quincy shouted.

This was a side of President Quincy that Candice Peters had never seen before, and she realized that she had misjudged him. For the first time she felt a twinge of respect for this man who had such a clear grasp of the obstacles they were facing and knew exactly what needed to be done to remedy the situation. Quincy saw the flicker of admiration in her eyes, and from that day forward, they enjoyed a more amicable relationship.