American Insurgent

by Phil Rabalais

The Game has Changed

  Twenty-four hours passed while agents of the federal government’s regulatory arm worked feverishly to remove the “libelous” statements that had blanketed social media platforms that afternoon. The pirate AM/FM stations ceased their transmissions once they realized the airwaves were being blanketed with radio static to the effect of drowning out their own signals. The Minutemen ceased their operation once they had drawn the intended response from the state, once they had provoked such a severe overreaction that the people had to take notice. The Minutemen were playing chess against a bureaucracy with near unlimited power that still wanted to play checkers.

  The political fallout of that day was immediate and severe. Every international human rights organization condemned the house-to-house searches and holding of citizens without trial they had been assured was not happening. They saw with fresh eyes that the surrender of firearms was not universal, nor peaceful. And the rest of the world reacted with unrestrained alarm that the United States, once the bastion of free speech, had actually instituted and used a mechanism to shut down the internet in its own country that only totalitarian regimes had used prior. The most conservative elements within the House and Senate made quite a contest of who could lambast the presidential administration using the most creative language. Centrists and members of the president’s own party were under such incredible pressure to publicly and officially sanction the president, they were unsure how to avoid such actions and stay in office.

  Almost worse than the political embarassment was the sudden and severe impact on the United States' economy as a whole. The silencing of the internet ground bank transactions, large and small businesses transactions, personal and professional communications, indeed whole industries within North America to a sudden and obvious hault. The further trickledown effect had upon local power grids, utility services, even law enforcements' networked information systems hardly went unnoticed by the American public as a whole. The response from the American public was immediate, harsh, and very unhappy.

  The full weight of public opinion had shifted, abruptly and irreversibly, in that afternoon, and the effects were only just becoming understood. Where before, the agency charged with regulation of social media had operated in near anonymity, now free-speech advocates and groups were calling for the agency to be shuttered and its leadership jailed for open violations of various privacy laws. The door-to-door searches ceased immediately. Not only were their communications severely impinged by the tsunami of radio static and transmissions crossing all bandwidths, but the information release had chilled relations between agents of the government and the citizenry. Rocks were being thrown; profanities issued. One search team had arrived at a residence to find the front door heavily barricaded and a note promising violence should the door be breached.

  The game had changed.

  “Give me a situation report. What are you doing to quell this insurrection?” the voice on the phone demanded.

  Gary Shorts, station chief of the New Orleans detention camp, sat uncomfortably in his chair as he surveyed the reports in front of him. The four murdered officers were his men, this insurrection obviously began under his watch, and he was feeling the full brunt of indignation from his superiors. Fortunately, not being an elected official, he was much more difficult to fire than his bosses. The fat cats make the money, but he was safe from reprisal. Such was the nature of working for the government.

  “Sir, we are currently combing the local area, talking to the subjects’ family, friends and neighbors. We’re trying to pick up their trail. So far all we know is they abandoned their home shortly after the murder of our agents and have not returned. They have not gone anywhere a networked security camera would have observed them; otherwise another agency would have reported back to us. They have not attempted to access their banks. They have turned into ghosts,” Shorts answered.

  “Well, you damned well had better find them and squash this. My boss is breathing fire, and even the president is getting heat from all of the information releases. Good God, man, you authorized your officers to knock people’s doors down and drag them out? I said quiet search, weapons seizures, detain and prosecute. I did not direct you to reenact Nazi Germany, for Heaven’s sake!”

  Shorts bristled but held his tongue. He knew this was being said for the benefit of anyone who might be listening. He recalled his orders and the authority granted his agency under guidance from the Executive Branch: secure all illegal weapons, detain offenders until trial may be arranged, use all methods necessary. Period.

  “Sir, I will handle this. And I will let you know if I need any assistance from further up the chain.” Shorts briskly laid the phone on its receiver. “Agent Johns,” Shorts called. In walked his second-in-command. “When will we have comms back up?”

  “They’re supposed to flip the internet back on tomorrow at 0800, same time they should stop jamming our radios. I get they had to stop these terrorists’ propaganda, but it really shut down our operation in the process,” Agent Johns groused.

  Shorts replied, “Then tomorrow at 0800, start up the searches again. Same protocol as before, knock the doors down and drag people out. Anyone looks armed or puts up a fight, shoot on sight. Apparently these people aren’t getting the message that we are in charge, not them.”

  Agent Johns grinned, and Shorts wondered not for the first time if he enjoyed his job a little too much.

  It might have been easy for the casual observer to simply write off Gary Shorts as just another bureaucrat, but deep down he deeply believed in the work he and his men were doing. He had grown up the only son of two university professors, and hence had grown up in the ultraliberal environment only academia can foster. Gun control was an often discussed and fiercely defended idea, one his peers insisted must be instituted to stop the senseless slaughter of the citizens. All the more troubling was that racial minorities seemed to be the victim of gun violence far too often, which incensed Shorts and his parents. His convictions led him to this agency in an administrative role, then eventually to the post he currently held, and imbued him with the personality of a religious zealot.

  That evening the target lists for the next seventy-two hours circulated. One agent, using a special app loaded onto his smartphone, sent an encrypted message relating the details of that list. He then finished his cigarette, crushed it out, and walked back inside to join his fellow agents. He was deeply conflicted, as he had always been, knowing that by staying in the agency and smuggling information out, he was helping the citizens on those target lists, but also endangering the officers he had come to know as friends. He often wondered how many friends of his, not shielded from these searches and detainments by their position working for the government, had ended up in detainment camps for standing by their beliefs. He wondered how many might be killed because they would not surrender.

  Miles away the next morning, Mark, John, Kevin, and Rachel sat and discussed the past and future.

  “So you two met while he was in Iraq. And you were literally sitting on your laptop chatting with her over Yahoo Messenger, a mortar strike would hit, and you’d have to haul butt to the shelter, and you’d come back and pick up the conversation like nothing happened? Does anything scare you?” Mark asked incredulously.

  John shook his head. “Oh, don’t misunderstand. I was scared shitless most days. I mean, you don’t take a twenty-one-year-old kid out of a life of chasing skirt at college, ship him around the world, and shoot mortars at him every day, and it doesn’t scare him. I just couldn’t let it stop me. Every day, I’d have to wake up, shave, get my DCUs on, and go do my job right, or some poor bastards flying that Black Hawk would wind up dead because I screwed up. That’s what kept driving me. I just didn’t want someone to go on without their wife, husband, parent or child because I screwed up.”

  Rachel just nodded her head quietly; that was just her husband.

  “But surely it got to you eventually. The stress, not knowing, being away from hom
e,” Kevin pushed.

  “It gets to everyone in their own way. I had to spend my own time in counselling afterwards to decompress everything,” John answered evenly. He had spent more than six months in counselling with a civilian psychologist after his enlistment. His symptoms were, in the words of his psychologist, severe but subclinical. In layman’s terms, he needed help but did not need to be hospitalized. He exhibited severe anxiety, survivor guilt, mild depression, night terrors, and severe difficulty in sleeping. Rachel had stood by her boyfriend, now her husband, and encouraged him to get help. She had not abandoned him when he needed her, and for that, his loyalty to his wife was absolute.

  “Onto other subjects.” John shifted the conversation. “This morning it looked like everything came back online. Radio static cleared, which means our secure comms work again. Internet is back up, though I suspect the next time we try to bombard social media, they’ll pull the plug a lot faster. We may have made a lot of progress, but we have to shift our tactics quickly or they’ll catch up.”

  “You want to hit them directly,” Mark stated. John had made little secret of his desire over the last few days. He saw the people held in detainment as prisoners of war, and his military mind demanded a rescue operation be mounted. He also saw this as a way to turn the tide of this battle they had entered into. More gun owners out of jails would rally those not rounded up, and these people would see clearly they had no option but to fight and defend themselves. The support for the Minutemen’s operation would grow exponentially. But the cost in blood worried Mark.

  “John, hear me out…” Mark watched as a cloud hung over John’s face. Jesus, it’s like he changes into another person when he’s angry.

  “Mark, I agreed to throw in with your group here. You knew who you took in when you agreed to shelter us. You knew I wasn’t going to sit here on my heels and send snarky emails to government officials until they have a change of heart. Those people could be living in squalor; they could be beaten and abused, maybe outright exterminated. The media isn’t watching them, and you can’t get any access via drone or you would have already gotten that information out. I can’t agree to leave them there to rot,” John replied coldly.

  “John, I’m not saying we let them rot. I’m just saying assaulting a detention camp with our small force is a suicide mission.”

  “Then what about your intel of intended targets? Why not use that and assist them preemptively? I’ll take a volunteer team out and secure people on that list, bring them back.”

  Mark shook his head. “I send a warning, the agents can assume they got tipped off. Too many of them vacate their homes before agents even show up, they’ll know we have a mole in their agency and we’ll lose our source.”

  “Then I take a team and hit them on sight. Dead men tell no tales,” John shot back, irritated. “What do you want to do, sit here and play computer nerd and let this continue to go on? When are you going to get some skin in the game, Mark?!” John stood and walked out of the room.

  Mark’s head dipped. He was deeply conflicted about how to proceed. John was expressing what several of his men had expressed, while others were not in favor of a paramilitary campaign. The divide threatened to split his cell in two, and to attempt to appease both parties threatened to appease neither.

  “On some level, you have to admit he’s right,” Rachel offered.

  Mark looked up to regard John’s wife. She had gentle eyes, green with a ring of brown, curly brown hair, and a natural beauty that took no makeup and little effort. Rachel had demonstrated over the last few days to be a natural manager and negotiator. Mark had garnered his cell together because of complementary personalities. With the addition of John, a turbulent force had been introduced, an aggressive type A personality that demanded action. Rachel was the glue that bound the disparate elements of this new cell together, able to mediate between all of them without being manipulative. She simply exuded calm and always sought balance and peace.

  “It’s not that I don’t agree with him. I want those people out of there. I just don’t know if his approach is the right one,” Mark answered.

  “What would you suggest?” Genuine question, not reprisal, no sarcasm, inquisitive. Rachel patiently waited for Mark to marshal his thoughts together.

  “I think what we need to do is keep working the public perception. Eventually that will apply enough political pressure to change their—”

  “And has that worked thus far?” She did cut him off, but even then it was gentle. Not to silence him, just to cut through to the truth.

  “No. No, it has not,” Mark admitted.

  “Hear him out, Mark. You and my husband are committed to the same end result. Your methods may differ. The difference is John has little to no regard for the consequences of his actions if he feels they are justified. He wants those people freed, and he doesn’t see your method yielding that result. Because of that, he has drawn the conclusion that direct action is the only course of action, and he will not let the possible consequences cloud his judgment. That’s just the way he is.”

  “Even if that consequence is his death? Or he brings trouble back here and you and your child are killed? I mean, does he even think that far ahead?” Kevin sputtered, his patience run out. He was normally cool and collected, but this talk of assaulting a camp had him on edge.

  “Let me redirect the question: do you think you can secure this camp against an attack without John?” Rachel asked. Mark heard something in her voice.

  “We managed just fine before you and your husband showed up, trying to lead us into a firefight,” Kevin retorted.

  “Look down,” she demanded. And Kevin and Mark saw it.

  During the conversation, with two sets of eyes on her, Rachel had quietly drawn her Smith and Wesson Shield 9 mm, and it was currently pointed at Kevin. Her finger was off the trigger, and it was obvious she did not intend to shoot. No, this was a demonstration, not a threat.

  “You two sat there and let me draw a handgun from my holster and never even saw it. You mean to tell me you are equipped to secure this cell from attack? I think you need to be honest with yourselves. John isn’t here to lead you to your demise; he’s a valuable member of this team. His methods are rough, that’s just him, but in this case he isn’t wrong. Politicking and phone calls aren’t working. Your information release was a step in the right direction, but sooner or later someone has to set an example for these people to follow to resist their own capture and disarmament. My husband set that example; that’s why we’re here.” Rachel reholstered her gun.

  “You carry that everywhere?” Kevin asked.

  “Yes, I do. So does John. Why?” Rachel replied.

  Kevin started, “I just don’t think it’s necessary—”

  “Neither did most of the citizens of your home state, where they pioneered disarming their citizens,” Rachel chastised. “They were wrong then, and you are wrong now. NEED and NECESSARY are not the standard by which we judge our rights. Let’s not slip back into old habits.” Her tone began sharp but eased by the end of her making her point.

  “Kevin, in light of the developing situation, I think it may be wise to have those members who feel inclined to arm themselves while here on the grounds,” Mark replied, indicating the issue was settled.

  Kevin nodded his head, still feeling the stinging reprisal from Rachel. She was right. In his home state of California, he had largely agreed with the more liberal aspects of the legislative gun-control agenda. However, he noticed the trend that further disarmament seemed to have little to no effect on violent crime. Gangbangers had no trouble finding weapons, and police seemed far more enthusiastic about denying firearm carry permits than they did about allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. The problem worsened until it provoked Kevin to quit his job and move home. That day, everything changed…

  'Almost home, just got to grab a change of clothes and a shower, then out with my friends.' Kevin lived in San Francisco and seemed to have
figured life out at the age of twenty-five. He had an excellent job with one of the dozens of tech companies headquartered in California, had a nice studio apartment not far from work, he had friends, and he got dates often enough to keep him content. His daily routine was one of a bike ride to work, eight hours in the office, CrossFit after work, and an evening of leisure. Tonight, he was on his way to see some friends and a young woman he had recently met.

  He had come a long way from rural Mississippi. He had left home when he was seventeen, graduated his small-town high school a year early, and accepted a scholarship in California. Over the course of his undergrad studies in information technology and computer science, he had been peppered with the politics and opinions of his liberal professors and classmates. He didn’t realize it at the time, but the longer he spent in that environment, the more his ideals changed, and the more often he found himself arguing with family back home. Part and parcel to that was his constant disagreements about the right to keep and bear arms. His parents worried about him in the big city and encouraged him to have a firearm to protect himself. He thought the idea ludicrous.

  “If I bought a gun, I’d just be a danger to myself,” Kevin insisted.

  “But, Kevin, you grew up around guns. Hell, you were shooting by age eight. I don’t git where this is coming from,” Kevin’s father replied, exasperated. Maybe all them liberals rubbed off on my boy, he thought, not for the first time.

  That evening, Kevin did not notice that when he turned the dead bolt on his front door, it didn’t feel as though it were locked. He didn’t notice the tool marks around the doorjamb. He did notice the two men inside his home holding guns and looking through his things. He froze and put his hands up. “Look, take whatever you want. Just please don’t—” and a gunshot rang out.

  He reflected later in the hospital, before and after his parents had arrived from Mississippi, that he had not resisted or threatened the criminals in any way. He hadn’t acted aggressively. He had calmly offered to give up his property to prevent any confrontation. He had done everything his friends and professors and politicians had suggested to deescalate the confrontation…and he got shot. He would later reflect on how ineffectual the offered advice had been when his parents came to visit.