Citizens Awake

by Robert Boren

  “I wouldn’t use the word stupid. We just didn’t understand each other. Like I said, we’ve got bad non-verbal communication.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So where do we go from here?” she asked.

  “We don’t have to change anything unless you want to,” Sparky said. “Just know this. I’ll never leave you, unless you want me to. Do you understand?”

  “What happens after the war?” she asked.

  “Hopefully we get married and make babies together,” he said. “What do you want?”

  “That,” she said. “I won’t leave you either. If I have an episode, it’s because of what was done to me, not because of what we’re doing. Having you there afterwards is crucial, though. You’ve been very good about that. Makes me love you even more.”

  “Want to go back?” he asked.

  “In a minute.” She got back into his arms, getting on her tiptoes to kiss him. It was passionate, both breathing hard when it was finally over.

  “Geez,” Sparky said. “I’m so much in love with you.”

  “I love you too, honey,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “For loving you?”

  She smiled at him. “For bringing this out in the open. I was afraid it would be the end if I brought it up.”

  “Oh,” Sparky said. “Sorry I was such a bonehead.”

  She giggled. “Let’s go to our room.”

  They hurried back to the house.

  ***

  Sam got a text back from Garrett, while sitting in Trevor and Kaylee’s rig, looking at the apps.

  “Garrett wants to get together. He’s coming over to the house. We should round up the others and meet him there.”

  “What others?” Trevor asked.

  “Ryan, Zac, and Ji-Ho, for starters,” Sam said.

  “I agree,” Sid said. “I want Yvonne there too.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll call Erica,” Sam said. “But really, I think anybody interested should be able to come.”

  “I’m gonna text Seth and Angel,” Trevor said. “I’ll tell them to bring Kaitlyn and Megan too.”

  “All right,” Tyler said. “Meet you guys there.” He left with James.

  Trevor unplugged his phone. “Got enough of a charge for now.” He looked over at Kaylee. “You okay?”

  “No,” Kaylee said. “They know we can see them, I suspect.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Black Crow probably told them. At the very least, they know we know about the chips, since we removed the one from Hasan.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Trevor said. “Hasan told us to remove it. They probably figured that out. They have no idea how much Hasan told us about them.”

  “We’d better give them more credit than that, or we’ll get caught with our pants down,” Kaylee said, picking up her phone. “Let’s go.”

  They left their coach, walking towards the house. Trevor texted Seth and Angel on the way.

  “There’s my uncle,” Kaylee said, pointing.

  “Hi,” Ji-Ho said. “Notice trickle of enemy fighters?”

  “Well, I saw a group of four heading south from Lake Barrett.”

  “More coming down from Descanso. Not bunching up. Staying under cover.”

  “Uh oh,” Kaylee said.

  “You don’t think they know we can see their RFID chips, do you?” Trevor asked.

  “No,” Ji-Ho said. “They act like they are seen from above. Maybe drone or satellite. Go out of way to stay in trees, except for the four that are the furthest out.”

  They climbed the steps of the veranda and went into the living room. Most of the people were already there. Seth and Angel rushed over, Kaitlyn and Megan with them.

  “Do you think they really have Ed?” Angel asked.

  “We have to allow for that possibility,” Trevor said.

  Garrett strode inside, his cowboy boots clopping on the hardwood floor. Anna rushed down the stairs and straight into his arms.

  “Wow, look at that,” Megan whispered to Kaitlyn, who shot her a worried glance.

  “Here comes Sam with Erica,” Seth said.

  Ji-Ho walked over to Trevor and held out his phone. “Look. Building up by highway entrance to trail area. They think they ambush us.” He grinned. “Maybe we ought to turn tables.”

  “Crap, you’re right,” Trevor said. “Look at this, honey.”

  Kaylee looked at it. “They’re setting up for our arrival.”

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” Garrett said. “We’ve been watching the apps too. Large concentration in Descanso, but not large enough to survive an assault from us. You guys see that?”

  “Yes, do,” Ji-Ho said. “You see group staying under cover, gathering around highway entrance to trail?”

  “No,” Garrett said, eyes wider. “Show me.” He walked over and looked at Ji-Ho’s phone, a smile washing over his face. “They think they’re going to ambush us, don’t they?”

  “Looks like to me,” Ji-Ho said.

  “Let’s see that,” Sam said, walking over. “Yep. They don’t know we can see their chips, but they obviously think we can see them from above. Otherwise they wouldn’t go out of their way to stay in these trees, here, and here.” His finger pointed to clumps on both sides of the trail, near the highway.

  “What about Ed?” Anna asked, her brow furrowed. “What if they have him?”

  “If they do, there’s not a lot we can do about it directly,” Seth said.

  “He’s probably being held by Black Crow,” Tyler said. “Somebody we could take down easy, but we’d need to get to him before those four marks make it there.”

  “We’re all over the place here,” Sam said. “We need to focus on what we know for sure and plan accordingly.”

  “We’re listening,” Garrett said.

  “We have to assume that Black Crow has Ed,” Sam said.

  “Why?” Tyler asked.

  “Because they’re setting up this ambush. They know we’ll try to get him back.”

  “Hey, Garrett, do you think you could beat those four icons to the trail on horseback?” Trevor asked.

  “Nope, but I could beat that larger group there, by the highway, assuming they’re coming that way.”

  “They won’t,” Sid said. “The four will bring Black Crow and Ed to them, I suspect.”

  “This isn’t going to be as hard as you guys think,” Garrett said. “When those four icons start heading north again, it’s better than an even shot that they’ve nabbed Ed and are heading back. We can intercept them before they get there if we leave in a hurry.”

  Ji-Ho was silently manipulating his phone, not interacting with the conversation. Trevor noticed it. “Ji-Ho, you’re seeing something, aren’t you?”

  “Same thing as you,” Ji-Ho said, looking up. “I’m planning what to do about it. I have suggestion.”

  “Let’s have it,” Garrett said, “but make it quick. I’ve got to get my men on the trail with our horses right away.”

  “Yes, agree,” Ji-Ho said. “In fact, you should text first group to leave now.”

  “Good idea,” Garrett said, pulling his phone out. He took a couple minutes to send the text. “Okay, go ahead.”

  “I suggest we screw them good. Send battle wagons and several hundred fighters to Descanso. Wipe them out. At same time, send large group of cowboys into wilderness to intercept the four with Black Crow and Ed.”

  “We don’t need a large group to do that,” Garrett said. “I could send a small group for the interception.”

  “You need large group to attack enemy by highway while we kill force in Descanso,” Ji-Ho said.

  Garrett was silent for a moment, thinking. Sam chuckled. Garrett flashed him a look. “What?”

  “This is beautiful. Your group gets to the four bad guys. If they’re careful about it, they can take them out before they can warn the enemy fighters along the highway. We drag the bodies towards them. They think it’s their folks… but it’s r
eally their dead folks and several hundred well-armed cowboys on horseback.”

  Garrett laughed. “I like it. Need to send another text. Got to get on the trail right away if this is gonna work. Talk to you guys later. We can keep in touch via texts.”

  He left, Anna rushing after him, kissing him as they stood on the veranda. Then Anna came back in.

  “Mom, you okay?” Kaitlyn asked, seeing the tears in her eyes.

  “My warrior is going into battle,” she said.

  “Oh, he’s your warrior now, huh?” Kaitlyn asked. “So quickly?”

  “How long did you know Seth before you felt that way?”

  She looked at her for a moment. “Okay, forget I said anything.”

  Anna smiled at her, then gave her a hug. “You’d best saddle up with your man. He’ll need you. We’re all going to need you.”

  “Let’s get into battle wagons and head out now,” Ji-Ho shouted. “We on strict timetable. Long drive.”

  “All of them?” Seth asked.

  “Two thirds,” Ji-Ho said. “That will leave enough to protect here. Garrett just texted. Two thousand cowboys will meet us at Descanso.”

  “Let’s go,” Sam said.

  Everybody left the house except Anna, who sat down on the stairs and wept.

  {2}

  Pronouns

  T ed was sitting in the coach with Brianna and Bryan, watching a local San Francisco public station on TV. There was a sleepy conversation going on about martial law and how to make the most of it, with an equally sleepy live studio audience there to watch and ask questions.

  “These people are brain-dead,” Brianna said. “I think I’m done.” She got off the couch. “Don’t be too long, honey.”

  “Okay,” Bryan said. He watched her walk into the bedroom. “Wow.”

  “You like her, don’t you?” Ted asked.

  “I love her,” he said. “She’s so far out of my league, though. Hope I don’t lose her once things settle down again. She’ll have more selection.”

  “Give her some credit, Bryan.”

  “You’re right. Where’s Haley?”

  “She’ll be along. Needed some time to think.”

  “You like her, don’t you?” Bryan asked, then paused. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Yes, I do like her,” Ted said. “Not sure that the feeling is mutual. I’m hoping.”

  “Good,” Bryan said. “Don’t give up.”

  “I won’t. Listen to these idiots.”

  The panel was two women and one man, sitting at a table on stage, with a moderator at the head, who was fielding questions from the studio audience, and asking some himself.

  “Kimberly, what is it about the new reality that is working best for you?” the moderator asked.

  “That’s hard to say, Chuck,” she said, moving her shiny brown hair away from her face, her unisex shirt and vest looking a little too warm for the studio lights. “If I had to pick just one thing, I’d say it’s my commute time.”

  “Commute time? How so?”

  “When they laid out the grids, my job was seven grids away from my apartment. After about a month, they got me moved to a different job which is walking distance from my home. It’s much more environmentally sound.”

  “What a moron,” Bryan said. He looked at Ted, and they both snickered.

  “We have a question from the front, there,” the moderator said, pointing to the man raising his hand in the audience. “Go ahead. Which pronoun would you like us to use?”

  “They would be fine. Thank you for asking.”

  “Sure, no problem,” the moderator said. “Go ahead, please.”

  “Hi, Kimberly. Is the job that you left the same as the new job they gave you? Oh, and do you like it as much?”

  “I like it about as much as my original job,” Kimberly said, “but it’s lower level. In the old patriarchy I would’ve lost money, but I’m still getting the standard livable wage now, just like everybody else.” She paused, looking at the moderator. “What was his other question?”

  There was murmuring from the audience.

  “Kimberly, please use they’s chosen pronoun.”

  “Oh, geez, I’m so sorry,” Kimberly said, her face turning red.

  “Not a problem,” the audience member said. “You basically already answered it, anyway. You said it was a lower-level job, so it’s not the same.”

  “Yes, they’s right,” Kimberley said.

  “Another question from the audience,” the moderator said. “This will be it, then we’ll need to move to one of the other panelists.”

  A woman stood up, wearing a yoga outfit. She had tattoos going up both sides of her neck and many piercings on her face. “I’m Smith Five. Please refer to me as they as well.”

  “That’s an unusual name,” the moderator said. “Does it have a meaning?”

  “I’m the fifth living person in my family, whose last name is Smith. We all changed to that model, to fight the patriarchy. It kept us from having a gender tag placed on us for life.”

  An older man in the audience laughed out loud. There was rustling around, and the man was dragged out of his seat by two large ushers.

  “Some people still don’t get it,” Smith Five said, rolling her eyes.

  “Are these idiots worth saving?” Bryan asked. Ted shot him a glance, shaking his head.

  “Your question, please?” The moderator asked.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. If you’d have wanted to stay in your original job, could you have? I’m asking because I’m in a job that I love, and I’m three grids away from home. I’m being told that I’ll be moved.”

  “I was told I had a choice, but when I talked to my boss, I found that wasn’t the case,” Kimberly said. “Not that I minded that much.”

  “Were you given a reason?” Smith Five asked.

  “We’ll have to cut this question short,” the moderator said.

  Somebody else in the audience stood up. “You folks need to read the fine print.”

  “Sit down, please,” the moderator said. “You haven’t been called on.”

  “Whatever,” the man said. “My name is Ben Dover. Oh, and I identify as he, since I have a penis. The employers pay a tax for any worker who lives outside of their grid. It goes up based on how many grids away the employee’s home is.”

  “That will be enough,” the moderator said.

  “It’s just the truth,” Ben Dover said.

  The audience broke into outrage. The man laughed, and tossed something on stage. It started to emit smoke, causing somebody in the audience to scream. People started to leave their seats in a panic. Two big men rushed Ben Dover and wailed on him with batons, dropping him to his knees. Then they dragged him out as blood flowed from his head. The screen went blank.

  “My God,” Ted said. “This is gonna be harder than we thought.”

  “Ben Dover is my hero,” Bryan said. He looked at Ted and they both cracked up.

  “Yeah, maybe we can recruit him, if he lives through this.”

  The door opened, Haley coming up the steps.

  “I think I’ll go to bed now,” Bryan said, getting up.

  “Don’t leave on my account,” Haley said.

  “The show’s over anyway. Ben Dover ended it with a bang.” Bryan chuckled and walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  “What was that all about?” she asked, sitting down next to Ted.

  “San Francisco local TV,” Ted said. “We’re gonna have our work cut out for us. Some of these folks are beyond help.”

  “What do you mean?” Haley asked.

  “We just watched a panel discussion on their local public station. They were talking about the benefits of martial law. It was a politically correct hot mess.”

  “What were the benefits of martial law?” she asked.

  “You know how they break the cities into grids and checkpoints?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Didn’t pay much attention to it befo
re I got nabbed by the UN.”

  “Down south they didn’t go as far before the people ended it,” Ted said. “They laid out the grids, and made the employers pay a tax for employees who didn’t live in the same grid as their job. I was getting ready to pay a tax on Bryan, since he lived a couple grids away. Robbie was in the restaurant’s grid, so there was no tax.”

  “That sounds pretty bad,” Haley said. “Are they doing that up here?”

  “They’re taking it a step further,” Ted said. “To be environmentally sound, they’re forcing people into jobs closer to their home.”

  “You’re kidding,” Haley said. Then she shook her head. “I don’t’ know why I said that. They made a sex slave out of me. If you’re willing to do that, you’d be okay with just about anything.”

  “We saw them beat up one person in the audience and drag another one away tonight,” Ted said. “I suspect the one they beat is in bad shape now. They hit him on the head repeatedly with their batons as they dragged him away.”

  “What did they do to deserve it?”

  Ted stretched, yawning. “The guy they took out first laughed at something in a way that wasn’t politically correct. The guy they beat up threw a smoke bomb, after making fools out of them.”

  “That must have been the one Bryan called Ben Dover.”

  Ted snickered. “Yep. He told the moderator that was his name.”

  “Geez,” Haley said.

  “They’ve gone full Marxist up here. Everybody is getting paid the same sustainable wage regardless of job. One of the panel members told the crowd that she’d been moved out of her original job because it was too far from home. She was put into a lower level job, but with the same money everybody else makes.”

  “Well, keep one thing in mind,” Haley said. “That mindset is probably not the mindset of the majority up here. It’s propaganda. Sounds like they were unable to keep at least two dissenters out of their audience.”

  “Good point,” Ted said.

  “You tired yet?”

  “Not really,” Ted said. “I was getting there, but the show fired me up a little.”

  “Good. Let’s go for a walk.”

  He looked at her, worry on his face. “You’ve been thinking about things.”