“… And anytime you are in debt, to anyone, they own you…and that’s essentially what slavery is…”
When Harris looked out the window again, his mind’s eye showed him an image of two young men walking toward him.
“And that’s why we gotta do…what we gotta do…”
The young men walked slowly out of Harris’ fantasy and into the bright, shining sunlight. One of the young men was an Ailanian, and the other one, was human. One boy had bronze skin, while the other boy was of fair complexion and had long, blonde hair. They both had innocent faces, yet their eyes glowed with mean and aggressive stares.
Harris could hear the Ailanian youth whispering, “This is a great hovercar, Iki…let’s take it.”
He heard the human replying to his friend in a frightened voice, “I dunno, man…we might get caught…”
“Don’t be stupid, Iki…the moment is now. What’s to stop us?”
“I dunno, man…we might get caught…what would they do to us if we got caught?”
His heart started pounding faster as he heard the angry, Ailanian youth whispering, “Ya know what? I don’t really care, Iki. We have spent our whole lives following THEIR rules, and their orders…and just look at where it got us. Has saying ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ gotten us what we want and deserve in this life? Have you ever wondered if the lives that they want us to live are just another extension of their plans to keep us licking their boots?”
“Who said that? Fats? Did Fats say that?”
The voice, which was swimming up from the depths of these repressed memories, was cool and refreshing. The voice was like jazz music, as it said, “And now, my brothers and sisters walk around with their faces down and their shoulders slumped. My brothers and sisters went to work for corporations that didn’t even have customers and made their money by exploiting their employees and borrowing money from the government. They went to work for the government, which couldn’t afford to pay them since it kept borrowing money from the corporations, who were in turn, borrowing money from the government. When the corporations laid them off, their crushing credit card debts forced my brothers and sisters turn to the government for help. The government told them they could have jobs with the Unions, and when the Unions took union dues from their paychecks, which were much smaller than the small paychecks they received from the corporations, they didn’t have any money left at the end of month. My brothers and sisters had no money left when the Unions couldn’t protect them from the government laying them off…and then the government put them on welfare and moved them into The Government Housing Projects. The government gave my brothers and sisters Meals Ready to Digest, which The Hydroplantations sold the government at a reduced rate. My brothers and sisters found themselves, having to vote, year after year, for the Conservative Moralists, who gave them their welfare checks and Meals Ready to Digest…they found themselves having to listen to speech after speech about how the government needed to keep loaning the banks and corporations more and more money and how it was so important for the corporations to have their taxes lowered and lowered some more, because the rich deserved the money they earned, and taxation is theft…my brothers and sisters listened to speeches about how one should be autonomous and not use their fellow man as a means to an end…and they bought that shit. Yet, while my brothers and sisters suffered, the corporations and the government were climbing higher and higher…because they were stepping on the backs of my brothers and sisters…and my people became like Atlas…they became like a man, with an impossible weight upon his shoulders…they became like a man…who wished day after day of his miserable existence…that he could just shrug that weight off…yet he holds onto that weight out of a sense of duty…out of a sense of patriotism…and that, my friend, is the worst kind of slavery imaginable…”
Harris closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth as he remembered how the cool voice has said, “My enslaved brothers and sisters are Ailanians of all the different tribes and races…my brothers and sisters are Ailanian-born humans of every creed and skin color…my brothers and sisters have been fooled into believing in something they called the Ailanian dream…and their lives…have become nightmares from which they cannot wake…”
Harris grabbed the sides of his head. His legs shook while he whispered, “And that’s why we do…what we have to do…”
In the fanciful memory, he recalled how the defiant, Kupano boy had said, “Think about it, Iki…does our government want us to become winners, or do they simply want us to spend our lives patiently waiting for that carrot, which they dangle from the end of that stick, to just miraculously fall to the ground? Well guess what, Iki? I believe that both you and I are too smart to fall for their line of bullshit. We now have the power to change everything. Think of it this way, instead of breaking the rules, we are making the rules…we can finally reach out and get what we want from this life. We shouldn’t ever have to ask permission to live our lives the way we want to…”
“I, myself, never want to ask permission, for anything…ever…again.”
Harris closed his eyes and felt his breathing become almost frantic as he remembered how he said, “I dunno, man…are you sure ya wanna go through with this…what could happen if we got caught.”
The epiphany took place when he heard, “just think of what could happen if we didn’t.”
The cool voice spoke calmly one more time as the memories of cigar smoke and jazz music played through his mind, “And now, the government and the corporations have gotten so big…that they simply cannot fail. The owners of the banks and corporations have their mansions and droves of loyal employees, who are more than willing to work so much harder, for so much less, because they know that the government has their Social Programs, their Housing Projects, their Bureaus of Morality, which allow the Immorals to reform themselves willingly…those that don’t come crawling to the government on their own free will, they get caught by the Morality Squads, the police and the CIA. Those who are deemed Immoral by our government go to the jails, the prisons and this new place that they are calling…The Penitentiary…only the gods know what they do to those poor people in that place.”
Harris remembered how the voice had an honest quality as the cigar smoking man said, “My story, that I have been telling you, Iki…it’s all about what happened to my generation. It’s about how our parents and grandparents saw those enormous spaceships land on our planet and how they embraced the ideology of The War Machine. This story, which I am telling you, is also about that period of time, in Ailanian history, when my generation got old enough to think like our parents once did…back in those days some of us, well, a lot of us simply thought that those huge cities, corporate farms, polluting factories and over-bearing government policies, which came about because of The Moralist Revolution, were just a normal fact of life. My parents and grandparents saw the war come to an end…my generation…we saw our world come to an end…we saw the societal mechanism snap shut like a trap…and after we licked our wounds…we found ourselves helpless, and unwilling to do anything about the slavery we so whole-hearteningly agreed to…all because of the promise of the Ailanian Dream…”
The Kupano boy’s voice was deafening. “But guess what, Iki…this story is about our generation, and how we rose up to show those bastards that they can’t keep us down!”
In its own time and space, the mind seems to take an eternity to make a life changing decision.
“I said let’s take it already! LET’S DO IT, HARRIS! Let’s do it!”
Harris clenched his fists and gashed his teeth as he snapped back into reality.
He gasped as he looked at the keys to Audrey’s hovercar.
He nervously bit his lower lip as he made mental notes as to how they were placed in the ignition, just how she had left them. He began to breathe faster and faster as his palms began to sweat.
“What’s stopping you?”
As he stared at the keys in the ignition, Harris recalled what she had asked him at lunch while they had been drinking beer. He remembered how his replies had been given as if he were reciting lines from a script, “Yeah…I guess we knew each other in High School. Yeah…we were on sports teams together. His parents were rich…mine were poor…but I guess we still hung out together in the same circle of friends. Yeah, he got better grades than I did…yeah, he was smarter than me…better looking than me…the girls seemed to favor him more…he had himself a nice girlfriend when he was in High School…I was one of those unpopular guys…his family was well off…my family…they were Immorals…I’m glad I left Ailana to go to Earth…The Military made me the man I am today…Moke was a good kid, he made the right choices in life…I didn’t…and yeah, I’d say that we both got what we deserved in this life.”
Harris suddenly felt his teeth grinding as his mind burned with anger and resentment.
The voices in the back of his mind cried out to him, “Do it! Do it! DO IT!”
Harris made a fist and pounded on the dashboard as he cried out in anger and frustration,
“LEAVE ME ALONE!”
He took a deep breath and looked out the window; she was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell,” He said softly as the wicked smiled curled upon his lips. He closed his eyes and held his shaking head in his hands as he thought, “hopefully, ya only live once…and this might be the only chance I’ve have, to make sure that I will not be forced to live this miserable life much longer. I’m sorry, Captain Kalapana…but I didn’t come here to make amends. I came here to make things right!”
Location: Hana Paloi Federal Building.
Ailanian Standard Time: 1800 Hours.
The man’s voice was soft and polite, “Captain Kalapana, may I join you?”
Moke sighed as he closed his eyes and took a second to bask in the sunset that illuminated the large, stone balcony. He then opened his eyes and smiled before he turned around to address the person, who had just approached him. In the glow of the sunset, Moke saw a handsome Aurorian man, who was wearing a blue tunic. The golden sun made the man’s smile seem brighter as he stood in the doorway that led from the hallway to the balcony.
Moke smiled when he saw him.
The slender Aurorian smiled back.
“Please,” Moke said as he motioned for the Aurorian to stand next to him.
The Aurorian kept his hands behind his back as he walked over.
Moke extended his hand, as a friendly gesture, “How are you doing this evening, Ambassador Banka?”
The Aurorian extended his creamy white hand. His white hair fluttered a bit in the wind as shook the Ailanian’s hand gently. The Aurorians voice was angelic as he said, “Everything is quite all right, Captain, I assure you.”
The Aurorian released Moke’s hand and turned around slowly so that he might gaze at the city. He smiled as he took in the site of beautiful, chrome buildings that were bathed in the pink and orange sunset. “Having the chance to look at this beautiful sight…has made my day perfect.”
“I know the feeling of which you speak,” Moke said. “This has always been my favorite time of the day…all the colors imaginable can be seen in our sky before the sun sets.”
Ambassador Banka said, “I suppose I should congratulate you, Captain. I know what it is like to survive an attempted political assassination. I am constantly reminded how some people like to play dirty whenever I chair one of those committees.”
Moke looked confident. “I don’t hold any ill regard towards High Senator Wram Karamotzain. His people have a goal to achieve…and part of that goal includes getting this planet back on its feet again. However, Wram and I simply have a difference of opinion as to how that goal should be accomplished.”
“I can see that with you, humility comes before personal gain,” Chezui Banka said as he smiled. “I can tell that you are a good man, Captain…and that is why I would like for you to be an advisor for my council.”
Moke tried to remain stoic as he replied, “you mean the council that is deciding how the Economic Revampment Program will commence?”
“Yes sir. I need someone who knows how the money that we will be giving to the Ailanian government could be wasted by the greedy ambitions of men like High Senator Glik or the incompetence of Government Bureaus, such as the ones that High Senator Semnor created and oversaw.”
“Wouldn’t that create a conflict of interests?”
“What conflict of interest would there be, Captain?” Chezui Banka asked calmly. “We are talking about the interests of the Ailanian people. I believe that it is the Ailanian people, and not just the Ailanian politicians that are supposed to be deriving the benefits of this economic revampment program. Certainly, Captain, a man of your character, would like to see that the stimulus money, which my planet’s government is about to give out gets into the right hands. High Senator Keiki Karatau is onboard…he recommended you.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Moke said. “But I will have to discuss it with some other members of the government first…particularly, our Attorney General.”
“Of course, Captain, and in the meantime I simply wish to explore this beautiful, tropical paradise where you have been so blessed to live.” Banka said as he turned away from the city. “I also understand that you are quite good at an Ailanian marital art known as Hakaka…or is that just a rumor as well?”
Moke smiled and said, “It is an Ailanian style of fighting that I learned as a boy…every Royal child and the immediate members of the court were required to take it back when my Grandfather was a king on this world. Times have changed, the ancient martial arts are now simply forms of recreational competition…but I have kept my training up. However, I am by no means a champion. But in my line of work, it pays to know hand to hand combat.”
“Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the martial arts…I admire the beauty in them.”
Moke felt so relaxed as the Aurorian man clasped his hands together as he said, “And sir, if it would not be too much trouble…I if actually needed some advice from you, during the course of these politically charged hearings…could you show me around the war relics room in the Hana Paloi Museum of Natural History?”
Moke smiled as he said, “Yes sir, I understand that you will need a tour guide while you are here. I would be honored to show you around this wonderful planet.”
“I love museums, especially museums that display the weapons of war from the various ages of antiquity. You could advise me about the scoundrels that thrive here, and then show me the weapons the ancient Ailanians used to settle their differences, before these malicious methods of modern day politics were established here.”
“I wouldn’t see any harm in doing that,” Moke said with a smile. “Give me a call, I can free up my schedule for, fields trips, such a museum visit…or maybe a trip to the beach.”
“Thank you, Captain, have a pleasant evening.”
“Thank you sir,” Moke watched how Banka walked with a smooth grace as he left. Within just a few quite moments, the Aurorian diplomat was soon out of sight.
“Oh thank the gods…” Moke sighed as he felt a feeling of calm wash over him. Suddenly, the sky never looked so beautiful, and the stars that were beginning to twinkle in the twilight, never looked so bright.
Moke took a deep, calming breath, and closed his eyes with a bit of disappointment when his com began ringing, ruining the first moment of peace he had had in what seemed forever.
He answered it with a slow voice.“Kalapana here.”
“MOKE!”
He almost panicked and said, “Audrey?”
She screamed in his ear, “He’s gone!”
“What?” He asked with an amazed tone to his voice.
“He stole the car and took off!” Audrey shouted frantically. “I was in the bathroo
m…I must have left the keys in the ignition…and he just took off without me!”
“My plan…” Moke’s thoughts became of selfishness and self-preservation, “How is this goddamn mistake on her part going to affect my plan?”
Audrey’s voice squeaked, “Sir?”
Moke gashed his teeth as he suddenly took a quick breath and said, “Where are you?”
“On the Eisenworth Platform, just off of New Hamakua Highway….”
Moke blinked his eyes a couple of times. “It’s worse than I envisioned…what Pete told me must be true. Have those suppressed memories, of our reckless youth…has the trauma, of what he experienced on this planet, as a young man…did it actually cause him to go mad?” He remained quiet for a few more moments, lost in a perpetual thought.
“Moke?”
“Ah, yes…Audrey,” Moke said with a stammer. He knew that he would have to keep lying to her, so he remained confident in his speech as he said, “he called me…we spoke for a while, and he asked me if it would be all right if he could just, well…have some time to himself…”
“What?”
“It’s nothing personal, Audrey…he just that he wants to go surfing early in the morning…he didn’t want you to feel like you were being dragged along…he wanted to sleep on the beach tonight…the best waves are always going to occur right as the sun comes up…that way the wind wouldn’t be messing up the surf…it’s a surfer thing. I’m sorry. I should have told you…will you please forgive the inconvenience?”
She seemed shocked. “What?”
“And I guess I agree with him, you would have probably just gotten a horrible sunburn anyway, and ruined the trip…at any rate…sorry for the inconvenience…I’ll have a driver come pick you up.”
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