Progtopia: Book 1 of The Progtopia Trilogy (7 page)

Ten

The Year: 2172

Thatcher exited the Ball with her parents, while Jonathan and his girlfriend left separately. Once they were settled in the car, her father, angry, asked, “What on earth were you thinking? Do you even have a comprehension of what your actions have unleashed tonight? I cannot believe you!” His voice was starting to rise, and Muriel put her hand on his knee. “Honey, she just took that nice young boy to the Ball.”

“Nice young boy! Nice young boy! Muriel, are you absolutely clueless? She took someone from the Elite Recipient Class to the Giving Class Ball! Did the Benefactor’s speech go right over your head? I think he made it pretty clear what his feelings were on this. Nothing like giving permission for a lower class to approach one of us. Nothing like giving the impression that anyone can have what we have. They have what we give them! It’s plain and simple—nothing more, nothing less!”

He turned back to Thatcher. “Thatcher, do you understand what this does to my position? Do you understand what this could do to your future? Marco should go to a reeducation camp for this. Now, I have major damage control to deal with tomorrow!”

Thatcher knew better than to open her mouth. She just listened to him scream. The sad thing was that her father was right. Marco should go to the camps for what he did—according to the current laws, which she did not support. She didn’t really believe much of what her father thought. No one knew that, but Nikolai. She kept all of it to herself, formulating her own opinions over the years. Being her father’s daughter and having access to so many books that were banned and unknown to the world, she consumed everything from the moment she could read. She suspected her father knew she carried some doubts about the current political and economic systems, otherwise he would not meet with her on a daily basis to review what she may or may not say in class. She was smart enough, however, to keep her opinions to herself. Sure, she would ask him things that might be challenging just to see what the State’s response was to some of her questions, but she never let on that she herself believed some of the things she was asking. Her stunt at the Ball was not intended to be any type of political, economic, or social commentary. It was personal. She disliked Cassandra Williams. She thought she was manipulative, and like so many in the media, empty. She would carry water for anyone who could advance her career and keep her popular.

The Judge’s voice startled Thatcher from her thoughts. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“No father. I really wasn’t thinking.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute, Thatcher. You, not thinking? You’ll be thinking a lot tomorrow if I’m out of a job, you are kicked out of school, and we are all sent to reeducation camps. I know what all those things are like—I run them! My own daughter! My own daughter!”

“Father, I really wouldn’t worry about it. Do what you always do—create a scandal for tomorrow and today’s will be forgotten.”

That was a good idea
, the Judge thought.

Eleven

The Year: 2172

Judge Kelleher, still brooding over the events of the evening, paced in his study. Angry with Thatcher over falling for Marco’s stunt, he suspected the fine hand of Cassandra Williams was in the thick of it. He knew he had to deflect attention from this, and he had to work fast. Thatcher was right—he needed a scandal. Although she meant it sarcastically, he knew there was truth to it. As he slowly sipped his brandy, trying to come up with something salacious enough to overshadow what happened at the Giving Class Ball, he wondered,
Who could be a scapegoat? Who could I vilify to divert the public’s attention from my family, from me?
He needed something big.

It had to be a person everyone loved—someone who crossed all generations. It had to be juicy, and he had to make sure it ended in force sending a clear message. His thoughts were interrupted by the barking of his Jack Russell. “What an annoying animal,” he muttered to himself. He walked down the hallway as the barking became louder. The dog was scratching the door to the tailor’s room trying to get in. He couldn’t figure out what had Rusty so excited until he opened the door. The dog darted across the room over to the chair where Nikolai had been sitting the evening before. A few treats must’ve fallen from his pocket, which Rusty scarfed up immediately. With that, the satisfied dog left the room. The Judge took another sip of his brandy, and as he was looking around the room, a smile—a sinister smile—crossed his face. He had a plan.

Twelve

The Year: 2032

“Nice shot, Camille!”

“I know.”

“Hey kid, you’re good, but not as good as me—yet,” he said with amusement.

Camille lowered her pistol, placing it in her holster. She walked through the thick brush to reach her target.

“Bull’s-eye,” Camille said as she admired her work. “Every bullet hit the center, Mr. Franklin.”

Camille liked shooting. It required skill, attention, and athleticism. It allowed her to forget the rest of the turmoil in her life. Her accuracy impressed Franklin. If she were in the military, he knew she would be fast-tracked to the elite sniper program.

It had been over three months since she found out her parents had been executed for treason, and Franklin and Barbara had tried to shelter her from the news of the outside world. Camille was difficult for them. Wanting her old life back, she resented them for keeping her there, but she knew her old life was gone. After reloading a clip for her 9 mm pistol, she aimed at a bottle hanging from a tree. Pulling the trigger, the sound of shattering glass pierced the forest’s silence.

“Camille, why are you giving Barbara such a hard time?”

She was getting ready to shoot a more distant bottle sitting on top of a rock, but she lowered her pistol and turned to Franklin. “Because I don’t care about what she talks about. You guys think I need to learn that stupid stuff, but where does it get anyone? Where did it get my parents? Or you?” She glared at Franklin. “Oh yeah, I forgot, it has always been your dream to live on a farm running from the law. You’re a real winner.”

Franklin was about to speak, but Camille was on a roll. “I really don’t care about the Constitution, or if Congress doesn’t do what we want. It doesn’t really affect me.” She raised her pistol and shot the bottle off the rock.

“Yeah, I guess at thirteen I didn’t care much about those things. At that age, my focus was video games, girls, and playing shortstop. In fact, I wanted to be a professional baseball player.” He took another shot with his handgun and pierced the bull’s-eye on one of the distant targets.

“A baseball player? Really?”

“Yep. Believe me, at thirteen, I never would have imagined I would be where I am today. Things just happen, and you have to go with it.”

“You’ve never told me how you ended up here with Barbara.”

“Nope, I never did.”

“Well, you think this may be a good time?”

Franklin stood there contemplating her question. He knew Camille thought of him as one of the good guys, even though she resented him for keeping her on the farm. Afraid the truth would make her think differently of him, he never told her about his true background. At some point, he reasoned, she would hear it, maybe from someone else. He realized it would be better to come from him.

So, he started his story back during his time in special ops. He was well known for getting reliable information from prisoners by any means necessary. The secrets he pulled from the enemy had saved the lives of soldiers and Americans. Because of his innate ability to extract vital intelligence from terrorists, the CIA recruited him and developed this raw skill. Over time, he became one of the best interrogators in the agency. His reputation grew until he was finally known only as “the priest” because everyone he interrogated always confessed to him.

He recounted a time when a high-profile enemy was being questioned for weeks. They were trying to get the details of an imminent terrorist attack. Desperation grew within the CIA because they couldn’t break the suspect. These cases were Franklin’s specialty. He had learned that every human being had a weakness that would make them talk. For some, it was death and pain, but for others, it was something else. Before Franklin ever met his suspect, he would find out what “thing” would make them see things
his
way.

In this particular instance, he showed up on scene as he always did, with nothing more than a briefcase in hand, wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit with a red tie. He rarely talked, unless there was something very important to say. Even those at the CIA were afraid of him. He entered the interrogation room and completely ignored the prisoner. Placing his briefcase on a small table in front of the man, he stood there momentarily then unlatched its hinges. Using a device he pulled from the case, he scanned the room for cameras and listening devices, destroying them when they were discovered. His interrogations were never recorded.

Once he debugged the room, he got down to business. The Middle Eastern man was sweaty with a swollen eye and a cut above his brow. He was standing with his arms chained above his head and his feet to the floor, glaring at Franklin with a steely defiance that Franklin expected.
There was no doubt about it
, Franklin thought to himself,
this man’s weak spot was not pain.

Removing two pictures from his briefcase, Franklin held them up for the prisoner to examine. He tried to hide his emotion as he looked at his wife and daughter, but Franklin already knew their significance to him.

“I know these two are important to you,” Franklin said coldly, “and their fate is in your hands.”

The man stared Franklin down then spit on his suit. Franklin took out a handkerchief, wiping away the man’s saliva.

“Very well, have it your way.” He walked to the table and placed the photos back into his briefcase. Removing a small computer, he logged into a secure site then said to the man, “I will give you one chance to reconsider or your wife will pay the price.”

He turned the computer screen to face the prisoner who remained emotionless. There was a gun to his wife’s head. When Franklin turned off the mute, the woman’s voice pierced the quiet of the interrogation room. Even though Franklin was rusty on his Arabic, he knew she was begging for her husband to comply with their demands. Her screams were filled with fear, trepidation, and desperation.

Franklin let the man watch his wife plead for her life. He demanded the man give up the information to save her. Staring at Franklin, he didn’t move. Franklin picked up his phone, telling the prisoner he would give the kill order to his contact on the other end of the line. He could stop it. He just had to reveal the details of the attack. Franklin, hearing the woman screaming as he dialed the phone, saw a flicker in the prisoner’s eye. He might break. The person on the other line picked up. Franklin looked to the prisoner, imploring him for the sake of his wife, to tell them where the next terrorist attack was to take place. The prisoner spit in Franklin’s face.

Franklin calmly wiped the saliva from his face while staring at the man with a deadly, cold expression.

“Very well, have it your way.” He put the computer screen in the Middle Eastern man’s face, giving the command to kill her. The man looked in horror as his wife’s captor slit one side of her throat, blood pouring from the neck, splattering all over the camera. The man screamed, “No! No! No!” Franklin commanded the person on the other end of the line to stop. On Franklin’s cue, the man on the screen took a large bandage, applying compression to her neck to stop the bleeding.

“Again, the decision is all yours. If you give me the information, your wife’s life will be saved. And if you do not, we will make you watch her bleed to death. This is your last chance.” The prisoner didn’t move. “You need to understand, we won’t stop with her. Once she’s dead, your daughter will be next. She won’t get the easy way out like your wife. We will make sure to torture her before we slit her throat.” Franklin came close to the Middle Eastern man, saying in a slow, icy tone, “And we will make you watch every last minute.”

“Okay, okay. I will give you anything you need! Anything you want!”

After hearing the story, Camille sat there in silence. She couldn’t believe Franklin was capable of such horrific things! It didn’t seem possible. He was nice, kind, and caring. That man’s daughter was probably her age. Could he have actually done to her what he threatened? Camille finally spoke. “What if he didn’t talk? Would you have hurt his daughter?”

Franklin pondered her question and answered her as honestly as he could. “I probably would have. The information we got that day saved at least twenty thousand lives, and although I am not proud of being part of murder and torture, I did my job. My mission was to save American lives at any cost. Many of our enemies have no regard for life or freedom. The same man who gave us information for threatening to torture his daughter would himself stone her to death if she dishonored his family. It is screwed-up thinking. If I had to go through with it—hurt her—it would have kept me up at night, and I thank God it never came to that. The turning point for me, the thing that brought me and Barbara together, was when I received the assignment. It ended that phase of my life, and started this one.”

He told Camille about the government detainment camps that were used during the Middle Eastern War for Americans who were considered to be a threat to the success of the War. The government clamped down on any citizen or anyone in the media who criticized the government—all in the name of national security. They rounded up television, radio, and internet personalities, as well as private citizens with blogs or websites. Frankly, anyone who questioned the administration was detained in these camps until the end of the war. Because the prisoners were treated well, no one protested their internment.

With the arrest of all the government dissenters, people were essentially silenced from questioning anything the government did because they were fearful that they too would be arrested. Most people were so focused on the war, they didn’t protest the infringement on free speech.

He explained to Camille this was not the first time in American history this was done. FDR, who was considered a man of the people, rounded up American citizens who were Japanese and placed them in camps during World War II.

Once the Middle Eastern War was over, release was conditioned upon limiting critique of government policies. Many, who desperately wanted to be free, gave in and signed the agreement with the government.

“That is where the assignment came in,” said Franklin. “Vice President Burton summoned me and my old partner, Benson, to the Oval Office. President Timmons was there for the beginning of the meeting. He thanked us for our military service and left before any details of the mission were discussed. Plausible deniability, I guess. Anyway, Burton was concerned that many of the detainees had actually formed a network while behind the detention center’s walls and were making contacts with people in the federal government to overthrow the progressive agenda.”

Camille rolled her eyes. “Are you going to get into another rant about history? Just give me the Cliffs’ Notes version of the Progressives,” Camille said with a bit of sarcasm mixed with laughter.

“I promise I will not go on and on about it. In a nutshell, Progressives think the government can create the perfect world and a perfect society. They know how to live your life better than you do. They believe government is the answer to everything and should control everything. They are the government, not you. Progressive is just one word used to describe this type of thought, but there are variations on the theme—such as Communism, Socialism, and even Fascism. To me, they are all similar. The main concept unifying them is the underlying theme of disregarding the individual in the name of the collective—the group. I call them Progs.”

“I still don’t understand how they could arrest Americans for speech.”

“Ah, the fatal mistake that all of us made—we are told we are free, but are we really? They have been controlling us for years, and we let them. You think those detained during the war were criminals? No, they were exercising their free speech, but the government thought they were dangerous, so they were rounded up. A typical Prog move. FDR did it, and then Timmons did.”

“So what did the Vice President want you to do?”

“Like I said, he thought there may be a network of government officials working with several people in the media who may expose some of the Prog agenda. As you will see, he couldn’t let that happen. He was targeting Richard Tyler, a media personality, who railed on the administration’s Prog agenda every day. The disturbing thing to the Vice President was he discussed information only government insiders with high security clearances had access to. The Vice President, along with other world leaders, was working together on what I call the
Master Prog Plan
, and he could not have it revealed. It would have been political suicide. Tyler made him nervous, and he had to silence him. He had to be careful, though. It was peace time, and he could not detain him. Tyler was too popular, and he had the Constitution behind him. He had every right to critique the administration, and the Vice President knew it. He had to find another way to stop his assault on him and the President. That is where we came in. If we discovered his sources and stopped them, then Tyler would have nothing to talk about. He spent an hour with us describing the severe breaches in national security that put the country at risk, and it was our duty as Americans to protect the country. I bought it hook, line, and sinker.”

He recounted to Camille the evening that changed his life. Tyler’s wife picked the kids up from school, and Benson kidnapped them between school and home. Once Franklin knew they were secure, he followed Tyler from his studio to his home. It was easy to capture him, almost too easy, Franklin thought at the time. Once he had him bound and gagged in his home office, he started in on him. Franklin knew that nothing meant more to this man than his family, and he would crumble at any threat to them. Franklin demanded Tyler reveal his government sources or he would kill his wife. Tyler offered no resistance to Franklin and directed him to a flash drive that was in his safe. He had him load it into his home office laptop. There were choices for five videos that came up, and he directed Franklin to play the first one.

It was obvious from the video it was taken without anyone in the room knowing they were being recorded. It was a group of several world leaders, including President Timmons, discussing the Prog agenda for the world. As Franklin watched the conversation unfold on the computer, he actually sat down and became totally engrossed in the events on the screen. They were talking about their purposeful manipulation of the dollar by printing billions and infusing it into the system with the ultimate goal of collapsing it, and with that, the world economy. They laughed as they recalled how their progressive brothers and sisters let the United States be flooded with illegal immigrants overwhelming the schools, hospitals, prisons, and social programs. Billions of dollars were diverted from American citizens to get more votes to keep the Progressives in power. Franklin could not believe what he was witnessing. His very own President was working to destroy the economy and with it, the United States government! They were laughing about the chaos that would ensue with the collapse, and how they would step in as a unified world government to save the day! They would have government control over everything. The Progs on steroids!