Experience

by Brandt Legg

  “Wow, maybe Oliver Stone should make a movie about your presidency and bringing down the REMies. He sure seems to understand what’s going on with his ‘it’s a system.’”

  Hudson smiled. “Wouldn’t that be great? Hope I live to see it.”

  He and Schueller stared at each other for a moment, then continued listening to Stone’s speech.

  “But we continue to create such chaos and wars. No need to go through the victims, but we know we’ve intervened in more than one hundred countries with invasion, regime change, economic chaos. Or hired war. It’s war of some kind. In the end, it’s become a system leading to the death of this planet and the extinction of us all.”

  “Smart man,” Hudson said.

  “So are you,” Schueller said.

  “We’ll see.” Hudson looked back at Crane’s data. “If I can stop the REMies without spiraling the world economy into rubble while avoiding World War III at the same time, and not get myself killed.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Gouge looked at the lines crisscrossing his father's face. His old man had lived a hard life. Born in poverty, he became a father at seventeen. Four kids later, Gouge came along, then two more after him. A lot of drinking, tough physical work, bar fights, and scrapes with the law were all etched into his tan, rugged face. Gouge studied the man he’d detested and idolized. He looked older than seventy, a lot older.

  “What the hell you lookin’ at, boy?” his father barked. The old man now knew his son had been there that night when Rochelle and her brother . . . That's why they were “livin’ like trash,” hiding out in the woods in a broken-down trailer. But he hadn't known all those years. If he had, there would probably have been even more wrinkles.

  They still hadn't spoken about it, but sitting there in that dilapidated trailer, with not much to keep them company other than a radio and some old magazines, Gouge couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

  “Dad, I want to know about that night.”

  His father looked at him with an angry, bitter expression. “We ain’t goin’ to talk about that.”

  “Yes, we are,” Gouge said, his voice rising. “We have to. I've been paying for your crime every day of my life for the last three decades.”

  “Don’t you blame me for your screwups, boy. I gave you a good life. I did right by you.” He spat some tobacco into a can.

  “Some of that's true, but all of it was erased that night when those terrible things happened. Why’d you do it, Dad? Why’d you kill that man and rape Rochelle? She was just a girl.”

  “I said we’re not talkin’ about this, now shut your damned mouth!”

  “And I say we’re going to talk,” Gouge said, standing up, towering over his father. His arm hit a box of cornflakes, sending it spilling off the table. “You’re going to tell me how you could do such a thing, and how you could stay silent about it all those years.”

  “Like hell I am.”

  “You start talking, Dad, or I swear, so help me, I'll tell Sissy and June everything.”

  His father looked as if he’d been smacked. The thought of Gouge telling his precious daughters about the horrors of that night were unbearable to him.

  “Damn you, boy! I should have whupped your ass more, didn’t teach you no respect. Damn you!”

  “What happened?”

  “It was Corbett,” his father said, resignation in his words. He stared at his son, eyes burdened with a hated look back into the greasy, grit days of Southeastern Ohio three decades earlier. “Those Corbett’s ran that town, they ran everything. The whole bad lot of them, used to doin’ whatever they wanted. Oh, that night Tanny Corbett looked at that poor girl, figured she was just another thing he could have, do what he wanted with her. That’s what he was like. He didn’t care, just was gonna use her, then crumple her up and throw her away. Didn’t care . . . Corbett’s didn’t care,” he kept mumbling.

  “Why didn’t you say no?” Gouge asked.

  “Ain’t no one said no to the Corbett’s. I know you may think I was a rich king with my own tire shop, but most of my business came from the Corbett’s. They could’ve shut me down anytime.”

  Gouge had never known his father’s business was that fragile. “Back to Rochelle.”

  “See, Corbett and his buddies, they couldn’t stand to be questioned by that black boy. He come in there all high-and-mighty-like. Damn, he was askin’ for trouble.”

  “He was looking for his sister. He knew y’all had her.”

  “Yeah, well, he should’ve had more respect. They weren’t gonna take guff from that boy. He just made it all worse.” His father shook his head over and over.

  “But you raped her, too, Dad. You raped Rochelle before her brother got there. Did Corbett make you rape her?”

  “Careful of your tone, boy. You remember who you’s talkin’ to.” He looked at Gouge as if he was considering taking a shot at him. “See, that was in those days. You may not recall, but I did some drinkin’ then.”

  “I remember all right,” Gouge said. “I remember the beatings.”

  “Good, see?” His dad pointed a gnarled finger at him. “Just didn’t teach you enough, though, did I?”

  “You taught me plenty,” Gouge said, looking down at the tattoo across his knuckles.”

  “Poor baby,” his father sneered. “Well, I was drunk that night, you can’t doubt that. I don’t even remember the girl much, but I didn’t know from which was right. I just went along with everybody.”

  “That's too easy, Dad,” Gouge said, appalled that after all these years, that was all he was going to get. “Did you sober up when you killed her brother?”

  “Now, wait a minute,” his father said, standing up, his bloodshot eyes fiery with rage. “I’m not the one who killed that damned boy.”

  Gouge stared down into his father’s face, only inches away. “You killed him, same as everyone who—”

  The door of the trailer suddenly smashed into the tight space, and before Gouge or his father could react, four men dressed in black and armed with FN F2000 Assault Rifles and stun guns filled the dank room. Gouge and his father never saw the fifth man.

  Gouge woke up coughing. Everything was burning; black smoke and heat, so incredibly hot. He tried to stand, but there was already too much smoke in his lungs. He began to crawl, but didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know anything. He kept crawling anyway, trying to get away from the flames that surrounded him. At the same time, he saw a rack of tires burning, and heard his father scream.

  Before it fully registered that he was in the old tire shop, he saw his father, on fire, stumbling through the inferno. Gouge tried again to get up, but there wasn’t enough strength in his body. He struggled to pull himself in the direction of his father, but the heat was too much; his skin was already blistering.

  Gouge watched helplessly as his father collapsed, melting into part of the hellish blaze. He coughed violently, dizzy with pain. Blindly trying to see a way out of the toxic furnace, he took one last look at where his father was, but nothing was left. He’d vanished into the raging flames. A thought flickered into his brain, his last before losing consciousness.

  This is the perfect place, and a fitting way for us both to die. A fine welcome to Hell.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Hudson reset the SonicBlock and took the call near the fountain on the South Lawn. The Washington summer made it easy to understand why the city was called “the swamp”. It was more than the humid weather, the tangle of bureaucrats, “leaches,” “snakes,” other “reptiles,” and mud . . .

  Hudson stopped his spiraling thoughts. Even at seven-thirty a.m., the sun glared, and the humidity, at ninety-one percent, was winning its daily race with the temperature. Later in the day, it would be a meteorological draw, as both would be in the upper nineties. Still, it was already hot and sticky enough that he congratulated himself once again for giving up neckties.

  “How are you? Where are you?” the president asked Fonda as s
oon as he was out of earshot of the closest Secret Service agent.

  “The first answer is too long to bore you with,” Fonda said, “and the second is better if you don’t know.”

  “But Covington is gone.”

  “There are plenty more where he came from. He has a lot of friends, and not just REMies. I bet two-thirds of the Congress has criticized you for firing him.”

  “Congress acts as if they’re so important, but they’re just REMie employees. ‘Keep Covington! Declare war!’ It’s so frustrating. Even the so-called liberals join in.”

  “We’ve had this talk about Republicrats and Democans.”

  “I don't understand how I, the president, have term limits, and yet we've got congressmen and senators who serve for decades. These ‘professional politicians’ are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. They’ve proven to be ineffective. Most are only interested in seeking their own fame, power, and riches on the backs of working Americans. I think we’d get a lot more done and see far less partisan bickering if senators and congressmen were limited to two terms, just as the president is. I wouldn’t be opposed to a single term limit for all of us.”

  “It'll never fly,” Fonda said.

  “Why can’t I just go on TV and tell the American people the truth?”

  “They aren’t ready for the truth.”

  “You sound like Vonner or Bastendorff, deciding what’s best for the people, what they need or don’t need.”

  “You have to remember,” Fonda explained, “the population has been lied to, manipulated, and brainwashed for more than a hundred years. They don’t even know how to believe the truth anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t try.”

  “Do you really think you’re the first president to attempt that. Let me read you something that I keep with me so that I don’t forget: We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence—on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.”

  “John Kennedy,” Hudson said, recognizing the speech.

  “That’s right. Some say he was talking about the communists, but he was warning us about the REMies.”

  “Knowing what I know now, it sure seems that way.”

  “And what about President Eisenhower?” Fonda added. “I’m sure you recall his farewell address. His deep concern was quite apparent when he warned us: We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence . . . by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together . . . We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

  “I know those words, too,” Hudson said. “So, I’m in good company.”

  “Maybe, but before you go out there calling for term limits, remember one of those presidents only uttered that warning on his way out of office, and the other didn’t live to see the end of his term.”

  Hudson returned to the Oval Office and asked Fitz to come in. Fonda may have been trying to discourage him, but instead she made him more determined to speak to the American people about government corruption and to build support for term limits.

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, I think that’s a bit ambitious,” Fitz said after the president told him about his term limits proposal. “You’re not popular enough to drum up support for anything more than a tax cut.”

  “I was going to do that, too,” Hudson said. “It’s time. I’m planning to officially propose term limits, campaign finance reform, new banking regulations, military cutbacks, tax reform—”

  “May I speak frankly?” Fitz interrupted, taking a sip of his Coke. “I may need a little rum for this. I mean, Mr. President, that’s crazy talk. Do you really need more enemies? That many?”

  “Between Congress trying to usurp me, and all the leaks trying to undermine me, it's incredible the American people haven't noticed there's a slow coup going on.”

  “Mr. President, did you ever wonder if maybe you’re on the wrong side of these issues, especially war?” Fitz asked. “It’s worth considering that if everyone else is ‘wrong,’ then maybe it’s flipped around. Perhaps you are the one who is wrong, and everyone else is actually right.”

  “Fitz, I appreciate that you’re always willing to confront me on my ideas, but it’s interesting that we rarely seem to agree these days. In fact, I'm not sure there were many days we ever did agree. I wonder if some of those leaks aren’t coming from you, or at least have been sanctioned by you—”

  “Wait a minute, Mr. President.” He set his drink down on an end table. “I serve you and your agenda with full loyalty.”

  “Loyalty to whom? Vonner?”

  “Vonner is not your enemy, Mr. President.” He stared Hudson in the eye. “If you want my resignation, just say the word. However, think carefully about the timing with Congress debating the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and about to vote on declaring war without you. The country never more divided, NorthBridge running unabated, Covington just fired . . . is now really when you want more disruption?”

  Hudson couldn’t afford to let Fitz go yet. He didn’t trust him, but he didn’t trust anyone outside his family, so that didn’t count against his chief of staff. Fitz was right, though. Congress was about to declare war; not just against China, but against his presidency. He needed Fitz to help him navigate that unprecedented storm.

  The main thing was stopping the war with the Chinese. He believed Linh, the mysterious leader of the Inner Movement, when she said that: “If we don’t stop this war, it will end civilization.”

  That evening, Hudson was trying to get to bed early. He’d issued a statement calling for term limits, and would have to spend the following day on the phone with dozens of senators and members of congress. In the morning, he also planned on calling for other governmental reforms. The media was already whipping up a firestorm, with most commentators saying that the ballot box was the only term limit needed. However, there were early indications that a majority of the public supported his call for mandatory limits. This was stage one of Cherry Tree. His idea was to keep the momentum going for a few more days until Crane had enough so they could go to stage two and publicly release the REMie data.

  Melissa, surprised to see him before midnight, smiled when he came in, but before he could join her in bed, an urgent signal sounded on his laptop. The Wizard needed a call.

  He looked back at his wife. It wasn’t the CIA or Pentagon, so it wasn’t a matter of national security. Maybe he could ignore it.

  Then Hudson recalled the two other times the Wizard had contacted him in the past two years, and knew it must be a real crisis.

  After the SonicBlock flash matrix ended, the Wizard came through, already in mid-sentence.

  “There were two victims, and I haven’t been able to reach Gouge!” the Wizard said breathlessly.

  “Victims of what?”

  “The fire! The whole tire shop was leveled!”

  “How? Gouge wouldn’t be there,” Hudson said. Melissa sat up in bed and looked over at him when she heard his upset tone.

  “I checked with the hospital, but since I’m not a relative, they wouldn’t confirm anything except that two victims of the fire had been brought in. One was a fatality, and the other is cri
tical.”

  “But they wouldn’t have been there,” Hudson repeated.

  “I hacked into the hospital’s computer network. The deceased is still unidentified—they’ve got him listed as a John Doe—but the one in the ICU, with burns on over eighty-five percent of his body, is listed as Thomas Gouge.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “But as you know Tommy’s dad is also Thomas, so I don’t know which one it is. But even if it is Gouge, I’m not sure I want it to be. He might be better off dead.”

  Hudson put his hand to his mouth. “What were they doing at the tire shop?”

  “I keep asking myself that same thing.”

  “I’m a relative. I can call the hospital and find out if it’s Gouge or his dad in the ICU. They’ll tell me how he is.”

  “You may be related, but you’re also POTUS. I don’t think you should call.”

  “I’m going to call.”

  “Have Ace or Jenna call,” Melissa suggested. Hudson agreed it would be the wiser course to let his brother or sister call. After all, they were just as related to Gouge. Melissa texted Ace.

  The Wizard and Hudson continued to speculate on why Gouge and his dad would have come out of hiding to go to the tire shop. A few minutes later, Melissa interrupted to say that the hospital had confirmed the man in the ICU was Tommy Gouge.

  “The nurse told Ace that the burns are so severe and that, combined with the smoke inhalation, his chances of survival are minimal,” Melissa said loud enough that both Hudson and the Wizard could hear. “They’re hoping to stabilize Gouge enough to airlift him to Cleveland sometime tomorrow. Ace promised to go to the hospital first thing in the morning.”

  Hudson took a deep breath.

  The Wizard’s eyes filled. “It’s down to just you and me, Dawg. Everyone else is dead.” Then he looked down and muttered almost silently, “Matter cannot be created or destroyed . . . that’s a law of the universe . . . it just is.”