by Joseph Storm
Striker went back to work. He thought back on the long four years since he entered the town of Potomac. It was close enough to the center of the nation’s capitol, but far enough away to keep out of the Government’s eye.
Joe, Becky, and Gunner made their way through the forest, fighting their way towards civilization. Luckily for them, Commander Xavier didn’t think outside the box, continuing the chase deep into the woods. The long search would prove unfruitful, as he would not find them there.
The group of three eventually stumbled upon the rich, beautiful town, entering as the exact opposite as its wealthy inhabitants. They had no shelter, no money, no assets, and in desperate need of protection.
Since charity was the theme of the times, they decided to take a chance, posing as homeless wanders. Their path led them to a small, but beautiful church. It was adorned in the deepest stained glass, floors, walls and beams of shellacked cherrywood, and a stone cross altar, accompanied by one-hundred wood carved angels. A stone bench was carved at the foot of the cross. When lifted back, it revealed the entrance to an old, cavernous crypt, which housed the skeletal remains of the church’s founders.
The age-old church was built by the hands of skilled immigrants, who once fled persecution at the hands of dictating kings. They spent day and night, dedicating this “gift” to the country that gave them sanctuary. The group of three needy souls entered the creaking doors, needing that gift to keep on giving.
As they entered the unknown place, the musty odor of history hit their noses. The glowing flickers of candlelight danced upon the walls, warming the scene to quiet comforts of home. As they treaded the path between the dusty, wooden pews, it was the first moment of peace that the three had felt in many hours.
Father Francis Tyme, an old, gray haired, bearded priest of 69 years, turned from lighting candles. He welcomed the group with open arms. “I am Father Francis Tyme...how may I help you, my friends?”
“We’re lost,” Joe Striker said.
“That is an interesting statement, Mr.?”
“Striker, Joe Striker. This is Becky Fox, and Gunner Shoman. What’s so interesting abut being lost?”
“Well, we all find ourselves lost at some point in our lives...it’s how we find our way, which matters the most. You say you’re lost. Are you lost in the spiritual sense...or the directional one?”
“Directional...Father Time,” Gunner said in a wiseass manor. “Did you misplace your hourglass, old man?”
“As you might imagine, son, I’ve heard that one before,” Father Tyme quipped back, followed by a friendly smile. “The Lord granted us all originality...try to use it.”
“Actually, we’re both types of lost,” Becky piped in, realizing a chance to make their plea for help.
“Well, I can’t say this is the best stop for directions...but you definitely came to the right place for spiritual guidance.”
“We lost everything...in a fire,” Striker said. “All we have left are the shirts on our backs.”
Father Francis Tyme smiled, laughed gently.
“What’s so funny?” Gunner asked defensively.
“Oh, just that...well, you have much more than the shirt on your back. You just don’t realize it yet.”
“Can we stay here for a few days, until we can establish ourselves, get back on our feet?” Becky Fox wondered. “We won’t impose at all, I promise.”
“We are not a big parish...as the flock doesn’t come to feed as much as they used to. And we have even less these days...since we no longer have a tax exempt status. However...what little I have, I will gladly offer.”
“Thank you,” Becky said with a warm smile.
“I must admit, a little company would do me good. There is a spare room in the back...a few cots that were donated to us. I’ll get some clean sheets.”
“That will be appreciated,” Striker said.
“I’ll give you the quick tour,” he said. Father Tyme showed them around, pointing out the historical aspects of the church, ending at the hidden, underground crypt. A serious look came across his face, as he tilted back the stone bench at the foot of the cross. The act revealed the endless hole in the floor that led to the darkness. “This is where I put the sinners,” he said in a disturbed, whispered tone. Everyone got quiet. “You people need to lighten up...laugh a bit...priests can tell jokes too, you know.”
The tension broke, as they released smiles. “There haven’t been too many reasons to laugh lately,” Becky said.
“Well...it’s never too late to start,” he said with a smile. “Anyway, this is the crypt.” The church lights flooded the hole, revealing a floor pooled with water and small wooden bunks of skeletal bodies at rest.
“Like an underground spa...for the skinless,” Gunner said.
“Complete with a rabies-ridden family of rats...or so they say. An adjacent sewer-line was added years ago, the connecting walls eroded with time. It floods at times of high rain...thanks to a shoddy street manhole cover that lets in a sea of water, feces, and rats. Frankly, we don’t collect enough tidings to keep this church taken care of...not to mention fixing city manhole covers. When the river is high...it nearly floods this old building,” he said, returning the stone bench back into place, re-covering the hole to the crypt. “But enough about my problems.”
They entered the spare room, seeing the springy, used cots. “I think the crypt looked more comfortable,” Gunner said, as Becky quickly interjected.
“This will be great. Thank you, father.”
Father Francis handed them sheets, and they applied them to the bed. Striker bent over, revealing the large gun, which protruded from the back of his pants.
Father Francis Tyme looked on it with alarm. “Let me get you some food,” he said with fear in his voice. He quickly exited the room.
“Time for some boozin’, I guess,” Gunner said in his wiseass way.
Striker realized that something was wrong, suddenly, discovering what it was. “He saw my weapon,” he said, hurrying from the room.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Becky begged, as Joe exited through the door.
“Father,” Joe called out, interrupting the priest in process of making a phone call.
“Take out food?” Father Francis Tyme asked unconvincingly.
Joe removed the gun from his pants. “I know you saw this...and I know that phone call is not for food. The question is...what we do about it?”
“As I told you before...I have little, this church has little...but feel free to take it all. Ask yourself, son...is it worthy of taking life?”
“All we want...is safety. Security. The things that were taken from us...that’s all.”
“You won’t find safety with that gun.”
“Maybe not, but I sure won’t find safety without it.”
“Who are you running from, son? The law?”
“We’re running from the type of people that see this as the enemy,” he said, holding up his weapon. “Not because it can take a life...but because...it can save one.”
“You speak of something much bigger than yourself. A newly elected government, perhaps?”
“I do. They took something from me...something I can never get back.”
“Something or someone?”
“Both. They murdered my wife, took my son, and stole my country. I can’t get most of it back...but I’ll gladly die trying to restore what I can.”
“I am truly sorry to hear about such loss.”
“I was a congressman...in the way of their plans. They murdered everyone.”
Father Francis closed his eyes in pain. “I didn’t realize...”
“No one did...how could they? As uncivil as politics got in the past...it never went there. That was always some other country...some other government. People must know who they’re worshiping these days.”
“I’ve seen too many of those governments in my day.”
“You? Were you born in another country?”
“I’m as American as a Twinkie...but I did plenty of mission work in my day. It doesn’t matter what nationality, race, or language...religion is always the enemy of such rule. At the end of the day...it’s the strongest threat dominance. There’s only room for one God...and their God is the state. Once they take your religion...it’s just a matter of time before they take...”
“Our freedom,” Becky said, as she and Gunner entered the conversation behind Joe Striker.
“Remember, son, they can take our worldly possessions, our loved ones, our dignity...they can never take our souls.”
“My soul...and my protection,” he said, holding up his gun again.
“You know...come to think of it...I believe they think the same thing about him,” he said, pointing to the sky.
“God?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see the connection?”
“They want him gone...not because he can take a life...but because he can save one,” he said, making eye contact with Striker, letting him know that they were not far apart in their beliefs. Father Francis put his phone away, as Striker handed him the gun.
“As an act of faith,” Joe said.
Father Francis pushed it back towards him. “Save a life...there is no bigger act of faith than that. Stay as long as you like, but be careful. The church may have once been a place of sanctuary...but I get the feeling that in the coming years...it will be no longer.”
“Water!” the mercenary yelled out, causing Striker to break from his thoughts, returning to the present. Cold sweat poured from his head. He dropped the sledge hammer, making his way over to a line of tired men.
After twenty minutes of waiting, he arrived at a table, where a woman scooped a ladle full of dirty water into a small tin cup. Joe took it from her hands. He picked a floating gnat from it. His thirst caused him to override the sight, though before he could take a drink, the cup was knocked from his hand with a lead nightstick.
“No hold line!” the mercenary yelled. The long line of men, shouted for him to move out of the way.
A desperate Striker dropped to his knees. He picked up the remaining sip of water, further soiled from the dirt. It didn’t matter, as he sucked it down, letting the brownish concoction sail down his throat. Joe hoped it would be enough to get him to the next break.
Next, he entered the piss line, which was a narrow and short trench dug into the ground. There were enough spots for about five people per use. He squeezed his way into line, fighting for a spot to lose precious liquid that he hated to part with. The smell from the trench was rancid, as he hurried quickly, escaping the putrid scent.
“Work!” the mercenary yelled, motivating each man to return to their collective duty.
Striker found the strength to continue the fence. It caused him to ask himself, how did it get to this point?
The question was more rhetorical than realtime, as he had watched the physical answers quietly unfold during his four year refuge in Potomac. He watched centuries of American ideals decay, unraveling as quickly as a spilled slinky.
To blend in with society, Father Francis Tyme used the waning power of the church to get false ID cards for the three fugitives. Each of them received cover in a new identity and number. Upon doing so, Father Tyme prayed out loud, “Forgive me, Lord...but sometimes...to do your ultimate will on earth...one must improvise.”
Knowing that three sitting ducks in a small pond was dangerous, Striker and Gunner went out on their own. They got separate, small apartments, located in different buildings. There was no furniture, no television, and only meals of the canned nature, but keeping their distance was crucial to staying safe. They planned to meet again when the time was right.
Joe and Gunner found work through friends of the church, doing odd jobs for public companies while they were still in existence. Becky Fox had chosen to stay undercover in the church.
From the safety of the shadows, they watched the utopian ideals of The Government Party trickle into the national conscience. Early on, they delivered as promised. Bribe payments to the ex-members of the police and military arrived on time. In fact, the government nationalized every bank in America, completely revolutionizing the way they operated. The days of tellers were replaced with national systems of electronic credits, which computers kept track of. The monetary system of the dollar-bill was abolished all together, each person using their national ID card to make a transaction.
In what seemed like a fair trade, the government seized all monetary accounts, on and off shore. They assured the public that their every need would be met, anything else was excess. “Do your patriotic duty, and spread the wealth,” Leader Judas said. Everyone had the exact amount, and everyone was the same. Classes of upper, middle, and poor disappeared, as each person received what they needed to survive. Days of hard work for little pay was a distant memory, as people became reliant on their handouts on the 15th and 30th of each month.
While the people were lured to this new system, little by little, their freedoms were lifted from them. The first bill signed into law was the fairness act. All deeds to property ownership were terminated. There were no more property bills to pay, alleviating the “burden” on people, as the government took ownership of all land assets.
The way of life that Americans had always known, vanished in front of their eyes. Why was there no fight? Simply because the new ways of life were too appealing for the staunchest critic to turn down. The government acquired all farms, gasoline companies, hospital-doctor practices, and insurance companies. They provided each of those services free of charge, at least for two blissful, lazy years.
All phone satellites were owned by the government. Select phone-numbers were assigned to each citizen. The public was made aware that all calls would be monitored for the quality of content. Unfortunately, the administration never defined their definition of “quality.” Their reason for doing this was to “Protect foolish Americans from themselves.” Needless to say, conversation was “self-edited” by the average American from that point on.
Guns were next on the chopping block, as the administration convinced the public that they had done more harm than good. They pointed out plights of inner-city gangs, tragic tales of children & their parents’ firearms, and criminals having an easy edge against unarmed citizens. The help of the media aided in focusing only on the bad, missing the point of why the forefathers chose the right to bare arms as the second amendment of the constitution. They did it to protect citizens from a government that could become those criminals.
The next to go were all the flags of red, white, and blue. Each one of them was deemed illegal by the new administration. Leader Judas said, “Why would you want to fly a flag which represents old ideas...ones of slavery! When instead...you can fly your new flag...of one star, one united people, one purpose.”
The history books followed, as texts were quietly changed. Any mention of revolution, capitalism, and individuality were deleted. Heroes from the past were either erased from existence, or made to look like villains. President Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb. President Washington was now a power-hungry emperor, overthrowing a just system of governing, and President Reagan was a thief, stealing money from the mouths of the poor to build death machines.
Children were also required to ditch the old pledge of allegiance every morning at school. They replaced it with “I pledge allegiance to the government, my keeper, protecter, and provider. One nation, under our leader, a just, and kind man.” They faced a map of the new America, one free of state lines, boundaries, and names. The map was just a shape, as empty as the people who were currently controlling it.
Joe Striker watched life move on happily, though he knew that the cost of promising everything to everyone couldn’t sustain itself forever. His belief would prove itself correct in just two years time. He remembered so clearly the vision of Leader Judas burning the constitution of the United States in front of the television cameras.
; The original, old, brittle document went up in smoke. He proclaimed, “The past is no more. The fair, just document I promised you is completed. It will be handed out to everyone, everywhere...assuring that you will know your place in our new society.” Copies of the new document were handed out on every street corner, school building, and even pushed from planes by airdrops.
People ran from their homes, eager to see what the new world would look like. It didn’t take long to see that their free-ride utopia had come to a quick end. The words labor camps were in bold letters, requiring each person to “payback” society and do their part. Mining, farming, and building, was assigned to benefit the collective. Their pay would be the same 100 credits, as there were no raises to be given.
All ownership and revenue of businesses now belonged to the government. Since they already owned the land and homes, residents would be escorted from them in time. It would be a slow process, starting in the cities and eventually moving into the suburbs. Rows of project buildings were added, as only politicians, minders, spies, and mercenaries would soon be awarded with lavish homes in the second phase. “Rats,” or people who turned in their neighbor’s insubordination would also be rewarded in a smaller way.
Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, Temples, and any form of religion would eventually be abolished from society, though slowly phased out with time. Anyone caught practicing self-worship or private services would be put to death. God provided something to turn to for help, hope, and relief; something that the government would now fill the void.
In the new constitution, free speech was outlawed. Any ill-words against the government were punishable by death. The final straw for most people was that the new and final constitution claimed that elections would cease to exist. This new “just” system would introduce a birthright clause. It claimed that the leaders offspring would, take power upon Judas’s death, and so on. Of course, it would all be up to Mika Sorka’s approval.
The public was outraged, though they had given up so much of their control over two years that they didn’t have the ammunition to fight back. The new security force existed of the feared elite Authoritarian Guard, which spoke better English, possessed greater skill, and had far less patience than their mercenary brethren. They hadn’t been unleashed yet, though rumors of a brutal nature permeated through society as quickly as head lice.