Juneteenth, 2025...

 

Today, our nation commemorates the end of slavery in America.

A thing to treasure, freedom.  A thing Americans claim to value above all else, yet often take for granted.  Particularly perhaps those Americans whose ancestors didn't reach these shores chained in slave ships.

A commitment to freedom means, among other things, a commitment to remember the lessons of the past, however painful, and to build on them.

But, can we do this as a nation when we live under a presidential administration which condemns as communist or divisive any effort to remember or address those past failings, condemning those efforts as "woke" - the new universal right-wing pejorative.  Those from historically oppressed minority groups who recognize those injustices, past and present and call for justice are condemned and whenever possible silenced by our present administration.  An administration which goes so far as to use the military to repress dissent of any kind in our cities.

The unprecedented military occupation of American cities over immigration battles may be only the first step in an on-going attack on democracy.

On this Juneteenth, it warrants mentioning that an administration that frowns upon immigration from "sh*t-hole" (meaning black)  countries opens our doors invitingly to white immigrants from South Africa, under blatantly false claims of anti-white genocide.  The real genocide  attempted against the indigenous populations of this continent would probably be banned from history altogether if it were left up to our present administration.

The racist element of the current president's agenda is increasingly evident.  So, once military occupation, emergency powers and blatant abuse of executive authority combine in eradicating anything resembling constitutional law in America...what meaning will Juneteenth have?  Will we as a nation even be allowed to commemorate it?

This short story presents one answer.

****************************************

LIBERATION DAY

Walter Klein started as the sound of artillery shook the building.  He looked up in the dim light of the musty office, his nose wrinkling at the smell of aging paper, dust rising as old volumes fell from the bookshelves, the overhead lamp swaying, the weak bulb flickering.

His breathing steadying, he groaned as he began gathering up the scatter of old history texts strewn across the floor.  He flipped through the pages of one volume of American history after another.  He hadn’t gotten to these yet.  His wrinkled fingers brushed across the yellowed pages.  He adjusted his glasses, squinting over the faded text in the poor light.

The A.I. scan would save the relevant, ‘useful’ passages.  Any of the ‘inappropriate’ references to systemic patterns of racial discrimination or inequity…slavery, etc…anything that could breed ‘unacceptable attitudes’ among the next generation…would end up deleted from the online texts, the books themselves of course consigned to the incinerators.

As he ran the pages through the scanner, his heart skipped a beat every time the sub-program he’d slipped in paused the scan, making the interruption look like a circuitry glitch.  Just long enough to store any forbidden bit of history on a micro-drive.  A reference to names almost lost to future generations.  A few precious snatches of forbidden history stashed away in old, pre-cyber books of paper the censors hadn’t gotten around to burning yet.  Names like Harriet Tubman.  Frederick Douglas.  Medgar Evers.  The Underground paid him for those recordings.  He’d do it for free, though.  He’d been an historian his whole life.  Now, little more than a glorified librarian.  But, if he could save even a bit of history…his insignificant life would not entirely be in vain.

 He coughed, cursing under his breath, realizing the pain in his chest was getting steadily worse.  He took a pill, washing it down with water from the cooler.  He rattled the last few pills inside the bottle, realizing that since the last budget cut, he probably wouldn’t be able to fill his prescription in time.  Since the regime had outlawed anything even remotely resembling socialized medicine, his life expectancy had grown increasingly short.  That gave him a certain freedom, knowing he wouldn’t live long enough to see the inside of a government torture chamber.

Still, he couldn’t help now and again nervously glancing over his shoulder.  A habit he’d retained from the early days of the occupation.  He’d been in his early 30’s when the federal tanks had rolled into New York City.  From then on, literary clerks like him had always had government ‘minders’ looking over their shoulders.  Since the insurgency had grown and skirmishes in the streets had escalated into all-out war, most of the security bureaucrats had retreated to a safe distance outside the city.

He winced as the scratchy P.A. speaker blared the usual grating martial music, celebrating Liberation Day.  The day the justices of the Supreme Court…an institution now forbidden to mention…were stood up against the wall and shot as communist ideologues.  The beginning of a new age in which the universities and news offices had gone up in flames.  Segregation had come back after that.  Followed by mass deportations of blacks.  Where they were deported to remained a mystery.  And, no mystery at all, Walter thought with a cold chill each time he brushed a dusting of ashes off the sleeve of his coat as he walked home at night.

Walter looked down as something wedged between the pages of one of the old volumes fell to the floor and bounced off the tip of one of his worn, battered shoes.  He groaned, his back aching as he picked it up.  Damn.  An old floppy disk.  He smiled as he held it up to the light.  Maybe the last one left.  He wondered if he could possibly get any data off it.  Blowing a layer of dust off an old, obsolete drive, he plugged it in, hopping it wouldn’t fry the computer’s circuits.  Slipping in the old disk, he started the scan.  Largely corrupted and useless, of course.  But, his curiosity aroused, he linked in the latest recovery program and brought up every salvageable bit of data.

His eyebrows arched as the red signal flashed across the screen.  His heart raced.  This was major poison, as far as the regime was concerned.  Whatever it was, it was hot.  Possessing something this hot was practically a death sentence.  He boosted the restoration level, the A.I. extrapolating data fillers for the gaps as a complete vid record formed.  Walter squinted at the image on the screen.  A black man addressing a vast multitude in what he recognized from the history texts as Washington D.C…. apparently long before the terrorist nukes went off.

“I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  Walter was startled by those words, and listened intently.  “I have a dream today…” the man said.  “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”  Walter was fascinated.  There was something in the man’s voice that was charismatic… captivating.  “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.…”  Shaking off his momentary numbness, Walter hurriedly ran the speech back to the beginning and  recorded it onto the micro-drive.  “…let freedom ring. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the mighty Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!”

Walter started as more artillery bursts shook the building.  Booted feet stormed through the corridor and a pounding came at the door.  “Clear out!” a harsh male voice shouted.  “We’re evacuating!”

Walter continued the recording.

 “Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!”

“Hurry up!”  another voice in the corridor shouted.  “We’re under attack!  All staff evacuate!”

Walter’s heart raced as he impatiently continued the recording.

“Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!  But not only there; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia!”

“Clear out in there!” another voice called out.  “Last warning!”

Walter clenched his fist, the words throbbing through his mind.

“Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee!  Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi.  From every mountainside, let freedom ring.  And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!”

He finished the recording, his hands trembling as he slipped the micro-drive into his pocket and ran for the door.  He could feel the building collapsing around him as he ran for the exit, his heart throbbing.

#

The streets of New York exploded around him.  European and Chinese migs were roaring down on the city, their air-to-ground missiles destroying regime tanks as they fired on the planes, interceptor rockets going off all around him, smoke pouring out of the buildings…crowds of terrified civilians screaming as they ran for the shelters.

His heart gave out, his legs collapsing under him as invading rebel troops gunned down the regime soldiers around him.  His vision pitched, the burning skyline swaying before his eyes as he fell, clutching his heart.  He knew this was it.  Please, God, if you’re still listening…don’t let the secret die with me.

A rebel soldier bent over him.  He looked up into the reb’s face.  A young black woman.  He pulled the micro-drive from his pocket and handed it to her.  “The past,” he whispered with labored breath.  “For the future.”  A puzzled look crossed her face, but she clutched the drive tightly as his vision dimmed.

Free at last, he thought as his heart stopped.

Memorial Day, 2025...

 

On this Memorial Day, we honor the American soldiers who gave their lives in the performance of their duty to defend this country.

We do so under a commander-in-chief who seems to care more about ideology and politics than he does about the armed forces or national security.  Certainly more than justice or fairness in honoring the soldiers who have devoted their lives to the service.

Our current president has seen fit to fire dedicated ranking officers from command positions, replacing them with far less qualified individuals, solely because the established commanders, though having served with honor, did not conform to his ideological agenda.  An agenda of white supremacism and reactionary social policy.

Most notably, General CQ Brown Jr. Air Force chief of staff in 2020, a man President Donald Trump once praised as a “Patriot and Great Leader” was later fired as the Joint Chief of Staff by Trump, simply because Brown dared speak out about his personal experiences as an African American in the wake of George Floyd’s tragic death.

Trump insists on staffing the military command with underqualified individuals solely because of their loyalty to him personally, and their open contempt for social progress, equality, inclusion and diversity. 

 More broadly, this president has banned from military service anyone classified as transsexual, regardless of the quality of their service records or dedication to duty.  (This from a president who never served a day of his life in the military and has openly disrespected courageous veterans like John McCain.)  The anti-trans service ban was “justified” by a completely meritless claim that trans people are incapable of meeting the military’s accession requirements, and lack the “selflessness and humility” required for military service.  (Selflessness and humility?  ‘Can’t see Trump passing that test.)

If a president can arbitrarily ban entire segments of the population under any contrived justification that suits his ideological purposes, which group is next?  Under a presidency that is cutting off federal funds to universities who will not take “undesirable” books from their shelves, how long before antiquated pseudo-scientific theories of white superiority creep back into the public mindset?  How long before ethnic and racial groups can be banned from military service?  Or, certain religions (three guesses which one will be the first to go.)

Transsexuals are being distinctly targeted first because they’re the most vulnerable target.  Unfounded theories denying their very existence are being promoted by a president with open contempt for science.  The goal of the Trump administration and all it represents is to erase trans people from existence as trans.  Selectively withholding federal funds in denying them not only access to services and activities and basic facilities, but denying them the medical care to which they are entitled, not only as minors, but at all ages.  And, in a country where the blind loyalty of the military now takes precedent over all else, in which judges are condemned as “radical activists” for ruling against right-wing extremism and threatened with impeachment…how long before transsexuals…and, anyone else declared incompatible with society simply disappear from the face of the earth and all mention of them is declared treasonous?

The short story which follows envisions one such all-too-possible future…

*******

SHIELD OF HONOR

 

Cassie smiled as she slid the blade across the jugular and carotid artery of David Carson, the current Minister of Internal Security.  Carson’s eyes flared, the scream of shock strangled in his throat as he reflexively strained against the manacles binding him to his bed.

A swifter end than the bastard deserved, Cassie reflected as she wiped the blade on the bedspread, a deep red stain spreading across the pillow case.  She looked at his face, frozen in that stupid expression of shock.  The butcher responsible for the deportation of thousands like her to the camps.  As she photographed and uploaded the spectacle of Carson spread-eagled in chains across the bed, she remembered the camp from which she’d escaped after the military had condemned her when she was 19.  It still made her tremble.  The shocks.  The drugs.  The tortures.  She shook it off, supplanting the pain with hatred, as she’d trained herself to do.

Pinning her long red hair back and dressing herself in a black security uniform she’d stashed in the hidden compartment in her suitcase, she accessed the PC on Carson’s desk.   Uploading the tactical worm, she put on her infra-red goggles as the lights went down.

She heard the voices of security patrols mobilizing in the compound below as she swung out the window, lowering herself towards the ground five floors below on a motorized tether.  She could hear the guards pounding on the door of Carson’s room on the way down. “Minister Carson!  Are you all right, sir?”    She heard them breaking in the door.  Reaching the ground, she slipped behind a tree to avoid a searchlight from a passing security drone.  She sheltered in the tree’s shadow, covering her ears as half the sixth floor went up in a fiery explosion.

Sirens wailed as the security staff swarmed towards the burning building.  She knew where Carson’s limo was parked and ran to it.  Using his remote, she tripped the lock and entered his personal code.  The car’s navcomp engaged automatically, taking her through the main gate.  She’d already transmitted his security code ordering the sentries to let the car through.

She exhaled as she switched to manual and hit the gas hard, roaring out onto the dark highway.

She smiled.  One more down.

#

She woke from the usual nightmare, the scream stifled in her throat.  She swore, wiping the cold sweat from her face, trembling as a shimmer of morning light peeked through the window.  She still thought she could feel the sting of those long-healed welts across her back.  Her father had beaten her when he’d found out.  “The army’ll beat that out of you, you little fagot!”  She still heard him screaming that every night.  “If you ever tell anyone what you told me…I’ll kill you!”

She threw cold water on her face, running her hands through her hair.  Her eyes stung by the bathroom light, she examined the delicate work of plastic surgery done on her face at the clinic in Canada after she’d escaped.  The memory still grated across her nerves.  Crossing the Canadian minefield along the 49^th parallel, the American artillery shells exploding around her…She started at the sound of sirens in the street below.  More dissidents, probably, she told herself, her muscles relaxing.  Her gun was hidden close by, as always.

Bringing up her PC, she accessed the news.  As expected, Minister Carson’s death had been attributed to a rebel bomb.  As she’d expected, the uploaded vid of his last noble moments had been deleted by the News Ministry.  But, the underground web had spread it far and wide, she knew.

She chuckled.

#

It was night by the time the sonic tram had gotten her to the east coast.  New name, new identity.  The rebel network was efficient, she had to admit.  She made her way round the edge of the government rally, books burning in raging bonfires.  One of the black-uniformed guards was illuminated in the firelight. He turned and grinned at her as she passed, patting his crotch.  She fingered the knife in her purse, wishing she had the time.

#

The digital TV in the bar was conveying the usual war news…the drone raids over Montreal.  Followed by the local stuff… more transies publicly executed after the camp ‘therapists’ judged them ‘incorrigible.’  The patrons laughed over their beers.  She hid her disgust with practiced skill.  She met her handler, Mike Sanders at the bar.  Her short skirt and heels leaving no doubt as to their business, he paid his bar tab and accompanied her out, heading to the nearby motel.  She heard snickers coming from the barroom as they left.

#

“Your gun will be waiting for you in his quarters,” Sanders said, glancing nervously out his hotel room window.  “The usual bomb to cover the evidence, of course.  The food cart will get you as far as the laundry shoot.  The laundry truck gets you out.  Any questions?”

“None,” she said, lighting a cigarette.  “Why are you so nervous?”

He sighed.  “Because I’m wondering why you requested this assignment.  It’s risky, and the pay’s low.”

“Someone has to do it,” she said, not looking at him as she blew out a stream of smoke, looking at herself in the mirror and checking her make-up.  “The pig arranged experiments on trans kids from Arkansas to Tennessee.  A lot of them died slowly and painfully before being disposed of in the incinerators.  I’m tired of opportunities wasted and excuses about more strategic targets.  I want that bastard dead.”  She tried to keep herself from trembling.

He passed his hand pensively over his face.  “You know our policy on this sort of thing.  If this is personal…”

“Do you want my help or not?”

He stared at the ceiling.  “It would be a good propaganda victory.  And, likely to get us more recruits.  Okay.  You can have him.”

#

Healthcare Minister Walter Colhagen sipped his gin and tonic, licking his lips as she slipped out of her dress, revealing the skimpy black lingerie beneath.

“Nice,” he muttered, taking off his jacket.  “Worth every penny.” He laid the money on the bedside table and began to strip.

She found the gun in the bureau drawer where the housemaid had left it.  She hid it behind her back as he turned towards her, smiling a cold smile.

“You have any kids?” she asked.

The smile dropped off his face.  “What’s that to you?”

“I heard you had a son.  Kenneth was his name, wasn’t it?”

“He died,” he muttered, turning away.  “I don’t talk about him.  And, neither will you.”

“Remember that kayaking trip you took him on when he was 12?  Those rapids?”

He spun, his eyes wide and blazing.  “How the hell did you…” He froze, the blood draining from his face as he saw the gun in her hand.

She treasured the look of anguish on his face as she pumped a slug into his stomach.  Two more into his crotch.  He looked up at her as she pointed the barrel at his head.  “So long, Dad.”

She pulled the trigger.

 

The Face of Tyranny

 

Will we know fascism when we see it?  Do we see it now?  What are the distinguishing characteristics of fascism?

When a head of state commits himself to a philosophy of complete autocracy - when he threatens to cut off vital funding to any state or institution that refuses to capitulate to his extremist ideological agenda, effectively dictating to colleges what they can and can't teach and to private  companies whom they can and can't hire - when he proudly deports millions of needy refugees in direct defiance of court orders - when he threatens to impeach any judge who rules against  him - when he cuts funding to law firms that have worked against his agenda - when he terminates the employment of law enforcement officials who have investigated him - when he accuses anyone who has spoken against him of treason - when he jeopardizes the security of the nation by terminating experienced and qualified military commanders and replaces them with incompetent political cronies - when he brazenly and indiscriminately pardons scores of thugs who treasonously rioted and attacked the nation's capital, injuring and killing police officers, simply because they supported him - when he installs himself at the head of artistic institutions, effectively dictating what art forms are acceptable and which aren't - and when he threatens military invasions against our own allies in the interest of empire-building...

Well, that sounds like fascism to me. 

The question is - when a president of a supposedly pluralistic and law-abiding nation places himself completely above the law - how far does it go?

Do deportations become mass executions?   Do threats of impeachment become state-sanctioned murder?  When politics eclipse the law, then where is the barrier separating democracy from fascism?

And, when the law ceases to be a recourse and political opposition is suppressed - under a leader whose fanatical obsession with isolationist nationalism takes precedent over the economic well-being of the people...

What follows?

This short story tries to answer that question.

********************

THE THREE RULES

 

Harvey Schlemmer reflexively dove to the floor, John Gorman’s office window exploding inward. 

Harvey gasped, the ringing in his ears fading just enough to discern the sound of gun fire.  Screams and shouts came from the factory floor below.  Harvey could discern only a few words clearly, blaring though a bullhorn.  “Federal Agents – this is a raid!”

Harvey choked, stinking smoke from the broken window flooding the office.

“Schlemmer, you bastard!” Gorman shouted into his handkerchief.  “You told me those Chinese circuits couldn’t be traced!”

Harvey glanced out the broken window, seeing the black smoke gushing out of the ruined machinery below, fire spreading.  Apparently, the foreman had detonated the self-destruct charges to conceal evidence.  “Could we discuss this later, John?” Harvey asked, wetting a handkerchief at the water cooler and covering his face.  “Do you have an escape route?”  He gasped as Gorman pulled a gun from his desk drawer.

“Yeah, I do,” Gorman said, pointing the gun at Harvey.  “And, I’ll be taking it without you.  You sold me out, you sonovabitch!”

The crack and blinding flash of a rocket-propelled grenade startled Gorman for a second.  Just long enough for Harvey to grab his wrist and wrench the gun away from him.  “I don’t have time to argue,” Harvey said, pointing the gun at Gorman’s head.  “Get us out of here, now!”

They both kept low as Gorman led him to a hidden elevator which took them to an underground parking garage.  “For the record, John, old buddy…I didn’t sell you out,” Harvey said as Gorman led him to his car.  “You really think I’d be dumb enough to be with you in your office if I had?  Or, that I’d sell out my own buyer?  My own suppliers’d kill me if I did that, you jerk!  You have a traitor in your company, John.  There’s no other way the feds could have found out.”

  “S-sure, Harv,” Gorman stammered, trembling as he unlocked the car, the remote beeping.  “You’re right, of course.  I just panicked, that’s all.”

“Save it,” Harvey said, climbing into the back seat, the gun to the back of Gorman’s head as he took the wheel.  “Just drive.”

Gorman brought up the A.I., raising the garage door.  The tires screeched as they drove up the ramp through the hidden door, sunlight streaming down.  Harvey’s heart started to settle to a gentle throbbing, sweat covering his body.  He lurched as the brakes automatically engaged, shadows surrounding the car.  Harvey started, machine gun fire ripping through the car.  He dropped to the floor as the windshield shattered.  He heard the soft thumping of bullets going through the driver’s seat, blood splattering across his jacket.  He heard multiple pairs of booted feet running towards the car.  As the driver’s door was ripped open and John Gorman’s dead body was pulled out, Harvey’s life…every deal, every narrow escape…raced through his mind.  What to do?  Shoot it out with the feds…or, take the easy way out and put the gun to his own head?  He was dead either way.  And, surrender wasn’t an option.  Smuggling foreign imports was an automatic death sentence.  And, he sure as hell wouldn’t snitch under torture.

He remembered the three rules of business his old man had taught him.  The first two in particular:  never snitch and never hurt anybody unless you have to.  He winced, forcing back the tears.  Go out like a man, at least, he shouted at himself.  He thought of Linda as he put the gun to his head.  The passenger door flew open.  His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Schlemmer, don’t!” a distorted voice said through the microphone of a grotesque gas mask as the riot-armored fed grabbed the barrel of the gun, pulling it away from Harvey’s head.  Harvey struggled for the gun, images of torture racing through his mind.  “Calm down, you idiot,” the fed said as he removed his mask.  “It’s me.”

“Carlson,” Harvey muttered in relief as he slumped back on the seat, relinquishing the gun.

“We got a hostage here,” Carlson shouted to his fellow agents.  “I got it.  Secure the area.”  Carlson sighed as the other feds disbursed.  “You didn’t have to make a dash for it, Schlem,” Carlson whispered, pulling Harvey to a seated position and brushing him off.  “We weren’t here for you.  That explosion in the factory tells me you sold Gorman some foreign imports…Chinese circuit boards’d be my guess.  But, we’re here ‘cause his loyal workers told us he had some illegal migrants workin’ for him.  ‘Guess the bounty was better than what they’re getting paid these days.”  The sound of gunshots rang out in the distance.  “That’ll be the migrants getting ‘deported on site.’”  He chuckled.  “Well, two birds with one stone.”

Harvey felt like throwing up.  “So…” Harvey wiped the sweat off his face.  “What now?”

“Nothing.  Your protection’s paid up for this month.  See you next month.”  He smiled and pointed his finger at Harvey, winking as he took off.

Harvey lay back on the seat and sighed.  His luck sometimes led him to wonder if God was saving something damn’ horrible for him.

#

Harvey sighed, sitting up in bed as Linda got dressed.  He looked her over, licking his lips.  She had a way of making him feel…human again.  However dirty his business got.

“What are you looking at?” she asked with amusement, buttoning her shirt.

“Just you, babe,” he said softly.  He didn’t know why she bothered with him.  A distraction from her damned war, maybe.  Probably nothing more.  Whatever the reason, he was just damned glad she was in his life.

“Get dressed,” she said, tossing him his pants and shirt.  “We have business to conclude.”

#

“Landing rights confirmed for that cargo plane into Dallas,” she said, tapping away at her PC, hacking into the air traffic control net.  “Authorization code has been accepted.  As far as state air security is concerned, that’s a fuel shipment intended for the state militia.”

He smiled, lighting a cigarette.  He never ceased to be amazed by her talent.  “What’d you do this time?  Steal the regional governor’s personal authorization code?”

“Not that hard.  They’re cutting back on everything, even air security.  Have you handled it?”

“Of course.  Never doubt my professionalism.  The medical supplies were smuggled out of Denmark by sub and stashed on that U.S. cargo ship making the return run from occupied Greenland.  Transferred to the cargo plane at Logan, inside the empty fuel containers.  No slip-ups.”

“There better not be.  Those vaccines are badly needed in Texas.  The epidemic’s totally out of control.”  She looked up at him. “You do realize trafficking in those vaccines carries a death sentence.”

“Of course I know, sweetheart,” he said with a smile.  “That’s the business I’m in.  Now, how ‘bout that food shipment out of Mexico?”

“Authorization codes confirmed.  And, bribes have been conveyed into the offshore account of a certain customs official we’ve recruited.  The phony military convoy carrying the food will definitely not be searched.  Just make sure the food’s safe.  A lot of hungry kids in Texas and Oklahoma are counting on those shipments. ”

 “Have I ever let you down?”

“Not in any way,” she said with a smirk, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and taking a drag.  “Mmmm…these are illegal, of course?”

“Of course,” he said, taking back the weed.  “Turkish.  I make a fortune smuggling them in.  I just hope you came through on those authorization codes.  I’ve got a lot invested in those shipments.”

She sighed, walking away from him.    “Don’t worry, Harv.  You’ll get your money.”  She got a beer out of the mini-fridge and opened it.

“Can I have one?”

She tossed him a can.  “The money’s all you care about, isn’t it?”

He sighed.  “Not now, okay?  Operators like me are what make your little errands of mercy possible.  Don’t forget that.”  He took a swig of the illegally imported German brew.  “Nice.  Still cold, too.”  He glanced at the wiring into the fridge, noting the illegal solar tech was still working.

“You could make a lot more money if you wanted to,” she said, turning the PC screen towards him and hacking into a military drone feed.

He watched as a military helicarrier exploded over New York Harbor.  Linda smiled, thrusting a fist triumphantly into the air.  He took another swig of beer to kill his disgust.  “You actually enjoy it, don’t you?  The killing, I mean.”

She sneered at him.  “The general on that carrier was tried in absentia at the ICC and convicted as a war criminal.  He commanded  death squads that rounded up and butchered close to a million people.”

“Illegal aliens.”

“Refugees!  Most of them fleeing the military puppet regime our beloved government set up in occupied Panama.  Their cities have been bombed, their homes destroyed, their lands ruined, their resources stolen, their kids sold either to the slave mines or into sex trafficking.”

“And, this helps?”

“It’s a start.  We took out that hellicarrier with a Japanese micro-drone.  They’re damned hard to come by these days.  But, with your connections…”

“Forget it!”  He finished off the beer and crushed the can.  “We’ve had this conversation.  I’m not an arms trader.  Food, med supplies and industrial parts, sure.  But, no weapons.”  He remembered the third and last rule his dad had taught him.  Never take sides.  Always follow those three rules, son, and you’ll live to count your money.  His father had been killed in the crossfire when the insurgency started, after the government started burning colleges and standing lawyers and judges against the wall.  Harv had been about 14 when his dad bought it.  But, Pop had left him advice that had kept him alive since.

Linda crushed her own beer can and tossed it past him.  Her face was flushed, her eyes wide.  “Can’t you see what’s happening all around you?  Those bastards in D.C. are ruining this country.  Not simply out of sheer stupidity as some of their predecessors did.  They’re selling us out to Russia.”

He crushed out his cigarette.  “You don’t know that.”

“Have you any idea how many Russian arms shipments we’ve intercepted coming into the states?  Why do you think so many American military units are defecting to our side?  War is coming, Harv.  Sooner or later, you’ll have to pick a side.”

He looked away from her.  She also had a damned way of making him feel guilty.  “I don’t want to kill anybody, okay?  I just don’t freaking want to kill anybody!  I have seen too damned much killing.  I’m tired of holding guns.  I’m damned tired of having blood on my clothes!”

“All right!  All right…”  Her voice softened a bit as she walked towards him.  “You don’t want to smuggle weapons, okay.  So, how about helping save some lives?”

“I thought I was.”

“I’m talking about a group of refugees out of Panama.  Mostly women and children.  Running from slavery and rape.  I can cover the shipping records and docking permits, but we need you to score a boat for us.  One that can’t be traced.  So we can get them to San Diego.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” she said tight-lipped.  “We’d need you on the docks to pose as the corporate buyer, sign the paperwork and supervise the transfer of the cargo to the transport trucks.  Can you help us?”

He rolled his eyes at the ceiling.  “You realize that’s the ultimate crime – smuggling in illegal immigrants.  That’s death by slow torture.”

She stroked his face.  “That’s the business you’re in, sweetheart.  And, you’d be very well paid.  You’d also have my personal gratitude.”  She kissed him.  “Well?”

He tried to say ‘no.’  But, he kept hearing the gunfire at the factory.  He looked into her eyes.  “Okay.”

#

“There she is,” the rebel operative Hanson said, indicating the tub The Maria Sanchez, the dilapidated old freighter Harvey had borrowed from some business associates in Brazil.  Now, falsely registered to an American corporation buying from the American cartel in control of the conquered Panamanian territory.

Harvey was sweating like a pig as he glanced over the phony cargo manifests and purchase orders.  He’d be damned glad when this was over.

“Loosen up,” Hanson whispered to him.  “Looking nervous can be fatal.  You’re supposed to be a corporate buyer.  Look arrogant and self-assured.”

“Yeah, yeah…”  His blood turned to ice as alarms sounded, armored feds charging onto the docks with guns drawn.

“This is a federal raid,” a voice blared through a bullhorn.  “Maria Sanchez…stand by to be boarded!”

“Damn!” Hanson shouted, running towards his parked car.

“What are you doing?” Harvey demanded.  His heart froze solid as he saw Hanson pull a radio detonator from under the dashboard.  “No!” He grabbed Hanson’s wrist, struggling for the device.  He would not be responsible for the deaths of women and children, damn it!

“We can’t do a damn thing for them now!” Hanson growled through clenched teeth.  “If the feds board that ship, they’ll butcher every last man, woman and child aboard and send their heads home to their families as examples!  And, if they torture information out of them first, which they will… we’re dead too!  We can’t help them by dying with them!”

Harvey realized he was right as Hanson pulled his hand away and triggered the detonator.

Harvey turned away, covering his ears against the thundering explosion as the Maria Sanchez went up in a soaring geyser of fire and steel.  He turned, staggering away, feeling he was in a nightmare.

“Come on!” Hanson shouted, grabbing his arm.

Harvey pulled away and walked on.  He didn’t know why in hell.  He just couldn’t leave.  The searing heat off the burning ship drifted across the bay, washing over him like a summer breeze.  He thought of the innocent dead lying in ashes at the bottom of the bay.  In a strange and horrible way, he found himself seeking comfort in the thought that the federal thugs who’d meant to kill them had died with them.  He was breaking a basic rule…he was taking sides.  And, he didn’t care.

“Schlemmer.”  He started at a familiar voice.

“Carlson,” he said, turning towards the voice and seeing his business associate walking towards him, in full body armor.

“What brings you here?” Carlson asked, his face stern, his eyes cold.  “I better not find out you had anything to do with that smuggler ship out of Panama.”  He drew closer, his stinking breath spilling over Harv.  “That’s not included in our deal.”  He slid his hand over his automatic weapon.

“You know I only deal in contraband,” Harvey said, forcing himself to keep his eyes level with the other man’s, his breath steady.  “I had some Chinese hardware on that tub.  Would you like to tell me who cut into my profits and yours?”

“That’s need to know, buddy.  Next time, pick your transportation more carefully.  It don’t pay to mix with coyotes.”  Another fed walked up, dragging a little girl along.  Maybe 10, soaking wet.  A pretty little Latina.

“Fished this one out of the bay, Sarge,” the man holding the girl said.

Harvey winced as he looked into her large, dark eyes.  She was trembling, her small face twisted in fear.  His fists clenched.

“Well…” Carlson said with a cold smile, drawing his gun.  “’Don’t suppose the little chica can tell us much.  May as well send her home to her mama y papa.”  He smiled broadly as he cocked the hammer.

Harvey’s stomach caught fire.  “No need for me to watch this, is there?” he asked.

“Nah…take off if you’re queasy.  Now, me?  I kind of enjoy it.”  He chuckled as he pointed the gun at the girl’s head.  She screamed.

Harvey moved, pulling the gun Linda had given him from the back of his belt and putting it to Carlson’s throat.  He didn’t hesitate.  He didn’t even feel it as he squeezed the trigger, Carlson’s throat exploding as he fell dead.  The girl screamed again as the goon holding her swung his machine gun towards Harv.  Harv pumped two slugs through the pig’s head before he could get the safety off.

The girl fainted as Harv caught her and lowered her gently to the dock.  He searched Carlson’s body, finding his phone.  He picked the girl up. 

She was limp in his arms as he ran.  But, she was alive.  She’d stay that way if it killed him.

#

He handed the girl to a rebel woman as he rendezvoused with Hanson and his people at an abandoned shipyard.  “Here,” he said, handing Hanson Carlson’s phone.  “The saved texts name a guy in your network who sold you out.”

“Thanks,” Carlson said, cold and stiff.  “We’ll mail him to D.C. in pieces.”  He grit his teeth.  “I just wish we’d found him sooner.”

Harvey’s blood ran cold as he looked into the hollow stare of Hanson’s eyes.  “Linda?”

“Dead.  Our cell was raided.  She killed three of the bastards before they got her.  We tripped the charges and killed the rest of the scum.”

Harvey breathed deeply, clenching his teeth.  He didn’t want to cry.  He wanted to do something else.  He wanted revenge.  He wanted to kill.  When he could find his voice again, he looked at Hanson.  “Linda said you needed weapons.  Japanese micro-drones.  Chinese RPG’s.  Smart bombs out of the European Enclave.  Just ask…I can get whatever you need.”

Hanson nodded.  “We’ll be in touch.”  He left with his people.

Harvey looked out over the sea.

Sorry, Pop.  The rules just changed.

 

Dare we still dream?

         

Another Martin Luther King Day is upon us.  And, with it, a new president.  One we know quite well.

Dr. King dared to dream of a day when the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners could join hands and sit at the table of brotherhood.  Free at last from the darkness of the past.

Dare we Americans as a people to still dream that dream?

What, I wonder, would Dr. King make of the leader the American people have chosen?

A leader who, in his first campaign, said that blacks were responsible for the overwhelming majority of criminal violence against white people in this country.  Who once instructed his staff:  "Don't worry about getting the Hispanic vote.  Like the blacks, they're too stupid to vote for me."  Who called the Black Lives Matter movement a hate group out to destroy our culture and history.  A president who has vowed the greatest mass deportation in U.S. history.  Who vows to send troops to our southern border, to uproot millions of families from these shores, including many children born here.  A president who has not only denied but encouraged police brutality.  A president who has proudly stated that he loves war and who now promises imperial expansion into Greenland, Panama and Canada.

The dream of peace, of brotherhood and of love certainly played no part in the electoral victory of this president.  Did racism and/or sexism play decisive roles?  We'll never know for sure.

What we do know is that most voters claimed their fear of a failing economy was their primary concern.

But, it was more than just that.  It was a growing alienation between the government and the working classes.  Donald Trump energized a previously apathetic working class by pretending to be their standard bearer.  The Democratic Party, long praising itself as the party of the worker was increasingly perceived in the eyes of the industrial workers and the rural poor as the party of liberal elitism.  The working class is increasingly eager to blame minority groups for their financial woes, to tear down the Statue of Liberty and replace her with a "Keep Out" sign.  They don't trust the existing political system,  nor do they trust science.  They refuse to accept the "inconvenient truth" of pollution-fueled climate change, even as fire and storm devastate great cities.

They cling to a new dream.  Or rather, an old one.  Make America Great Again.  The idealized age of the past.  When white men ruled, when opportunity was infinite and when the whole world was looked upon as a frontier waiting to be conquered, drilled, exploited.  Raped.  No fear of ecological collapse and no empathy for the downtrodden abroad, of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Just us.  America First.  Last and always.  The devil with everyone else.

Dreams of integration and diversity are spoken of now only in hushed whispers, it seems.  The devil with diversity.  The devil with sensitivity and understanding.  The devil with progress.  We want to go backward into the American dream of old.  The white man's dream.  Anything else scares the hell out of us.  God knows we won't put the racist brutalities of past generations in our history books.  Our kids might actually read it!

The saddest and most disheartening fact of all isn't even that more blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump this time, but that so many young people did.  The upcoming generation has accepted the message of hate and fear and hopelessness; they're looking back to the past, not ahead to the future.

So...Is the dream truly dead?

Only time with tell.  Perhaps we have to hit rock bottom before we start to rise again as a nation of hope, not despair.  Idealism, not cynicism.  A nation that embraces love, not hate.  Truth, not falsehood.

The question now is...can we survive what is to come?

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