The Book Liberators: The White Warrior
By Marilyn Donnellan
©2018, TXu2-066-370
ISBN 978-1-5323-5325-3
ISBN 13: 978-1986342971 Create Space
ISBN 10: 198634972 Create Space
Cover art by Robin E. Vuchnich
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.
The Book Liberators Series
The Book Liberators: The White Warrior
The Book Liberators: The Slave Warrior
The Book Liberators: The Mother Warrior
The Book Liberators: The Daughter Warrior
Acknowledgements
As with any book, writing and editing this series was not without a lot of help. My incredible husband, Stephen, proofread every word and provided invaluable input and encouragement. You are incredible, my love.
Commander Frederick E. Boesch, Jr., USN Retired, was a great help with military terminologies and strategies. Thank you, Fred.
And a big thank-you to all my friends and clients who were enthusiastic about my branching out in my writing to an entirely new genre: science fiction.
Prologue
The young, beautiful university student leads a peaceful protest movement of the Book Liberators against the American Empire’s banning of her beloved books, eventually leading to all-out rebel war. When her beloved partner, Bryan, is murdered by the emperor’s consort, and she is violently raped and tortured, she becomes the mysterious and vengeful White Warrior, determined to stop the insidious destruction of books and personal freedoms
To Stephen, David, Jason and Karene
For whom I fight
The Warrior
By Marilyn L. Donnellan
This life is a battle
With weapons so few
Yet still I will fight
Regardless the view
I am a warrior
A warrior at heart
I am a warrior
A warrior at heart
Chapter One
February 2118
When she got up that morning, she had no intention of starting a war. But before the day was over, the beautiful and brilliant university student, Brogan Finlay, would be the spark to set the American Empire aflame.
Her day followed the same routine as most with classes and a constant flurry of student comradery. She had only one more thing to do: a protest meeting. Before she left for the meeting, Brogan sat on the floor of her dorm room, her long legs stretched out in front of her, taking one last look at the book given to her by her beloved grandmother, its fragile pages dog-eared from frequent reading.
It was the only book she managed to save before yesterday’s raid by university security police. The empire’s ban on books was a reality. The security police took the rest of her books to the campus incinerator. The raid was one way to make sure neither she, nor any other student, broke the new law.
It was almost time to leave for a Book Liberator’s protest meeting and she needed to tuck the book away into its hiding place. Before each meeting, she looked at the banned book to remind herself what they were trying to do.
It made no sense why any book, let alone a book by an ancient writer like Ralph Waldo Emerson should be banned. But who understood the mind of fickle Prime Minister Altero? Although she knew the hand-written inscription by heart, she whispered it to herself as she read the loving words, her emerald green eyes glistening with tears:
May you never forget the joys and wonders of reading and writing, Grandma Finlay.
Just reading those words strengthened her resolve to fight the empire’s ban on books and writing. Each time she went to a protest meeting, she knew the lives of everyone who attended were in danger. So far, they’d been lucky; no arrests and no trooper raids on their clandestine meetings and protests. She tucked the precious book back into a tiny space behind the food synthesizer, slung her backpack across her shoulder and left her dorm room.
When she arrived at the university two years earlier, she thought she would have a hard time fitting in with the students from urban areas. But her natural leadership skills and outgoing personality quickly dissolved any insecurities.
After a short walk on the University of Texas Austin City campus, she slipped into a side door of an old warehouse behind Cowboy Joe’s BBQ, pulling on her mask. The owner and BL sympathizer, Joe Hawkins, let the protesters use the warehouse for free.
Students sprawled on the dusty floor or stood wherever they could find a spot to plant themselves on an array of empty wooden boxes or broken crates. Everyone wore head-covering, light-weight, black security masks to protect their identities. People received invitations to meetings only if they were serious about saving books and protesting Statute 648, already in the process of being implemented after its approval by the House of Lords. The statute banned all printed subversive books and all forms of writing.
Brogan easily recognized the other four members of the BL Council in attendance by how they moved. Each council member was busy checking for T-chips or greeting attendees.
Bryan Douglass was the organizer and deep thinker and along with Brogan was one of the three original founders of BL. Brogan found herself thinking about him a lot more than she probably should.
Marco Anton, the other founder, served on the council as the marketing guru. He just graduated from university and took a job on the prime minister’s communication staff. He was absent from today’s meeting. His job in Boston put him in a great position to keep the rebels informed on where the prime minister might be going with implementing the new statute.
The fourth council member, Allison Simpson, 23, was a medical residency student. She figured out how to remove and re-implant T-chips to prevent security forces from identifying attendees at meetings.
Another council member, Juan Veracruz, 33, was a martial arts expert and part-time university security guard. He was Hispanic, and the only member bonded. He and his partner, Lolita, had a son Mateo, age 6. Juan ran a martial arts studio. His 6’1” wiry build hid a lethal powerhouse of muscles. Although quiet and intense, his corny sense of humor added just the right touch whenever things became stressful at council meetings. His father, Max, was a veteran of World War III.
Janice Wu, 37, oldest member of the council, was a professor at UTA, a naturalist, survivalist, and geologist, also trained in martial arts. An intense, quiet person, her thoughtful input was highly valuable to the group, especially her information on the university’s security system and underground caves for clandestine book storage.
Brogan did a rough count and guessed there were over a hundred students anonymously streaming into the warehouse while other students noisily moved into nearby Texas Memorial stadium for a soccer game.
Chilly February winds blew through cracks in walls of the old cavernous wooden warehouse, while strips of sunlight highlighted dancing dust mites. Students huddled together for warmth, even though they wore their temperature adjusting UTA jumpsuits.
“We are going to need to find a larger meeting place,” Brogan said to Bryan as he walked over to her.
“Yeah,” he replied, “Either that or we’re going to need to break into smaller groups.”
The first Book Liberators meeting a year ago was organized by Brogan, Bryan and Marco. They became fast friends, each contributing valuable skills to a movement they started to protest the empire’s edict.
“Book Liberators,” was the name chosen, not only to clearly state their mission but to emphasize an increasingly necessary radical tone to their work. Members included passionate book lovers like Cowboy Joe who were not students. BL’s next step would be stashing banned books in underground caves wherever they could find them.
Their decision to start a peaceful protest movement was jump-started last year because of the empire’s increasing rhetoric in a propaganda campaign advocating for complete destruction of subversive books. The empire’s definition of subversive seemed murky and encompassed any material Prime Minister Altero’s regime chose.
A student rumor mill mentioned a Professor O’Malley at UT Dallas whose partner spoke out publicly at a Rotary meeting last year against the proposed statute, still making its way at the time through the House of Commons in each province. Both he and his partner disappeared, any mention of them expunged from all electronic records.
Protest rallies on various UT campuses by BL occurred with increasing regularity, thanks to expanding membership. Protests were timed to occur simultaneously with other student gatherings. At lacrosse games, as students gathered, BL members used portables to flash holograms above crowds showing masked individuals shouting BL slogans: “Save the books! Save our history! Save our future!” BL members merged easily with crowds, slipping masks on and off to avoid face-recognition software and security forces. More and more students spontaneously joined the chanting, even non-members.
UT had been surprisingly tolerant of protesters, so far. Evidently, they were relying on the empire’s propaganda machine to eventually convince students of the law’s rationale. UT administration broadcasted daily propaganda holo messages, appearing at the start of every class.
As Brogan watched people trickle in for the meeting, trying to get her nervous butterflies to fly in formation, her eidetic memory wandered back to a political science class last year, so clear an example of the propaganda UT spouted. She recalled word for word the interaction in class.
Professor Jim Easton was talking about the history of chip implants when something he said shook her to her core and led to the beginning of the BL movement. Normally his classes were a bit boring.
“Implanted T-chips are rather ingenious,” he said, stroking his thinning and obviously dyed goatee. “Not only do we use them for financial transactions, but the province’s transportation division can use the chips to track movements of everyone in Austin City at any given moment, rerouting traffic to avoid congestion, for example.
“T-chips can notify police if too many people congregate in one area and can even alert you with a pulse on your hand-held reader, or on your augmented eye implant, if there is a back-up at your favorite restaurant.
“T-chips can also let the health department know if an individual has one of those rare contagious illnesses. If you have an accident or serious medical problem your location is passed along so they can send emergency assistance.”
Marco was sitting behind Brogan, third row up in the cavernous lecture hall. He asked, “But what if I don’t want anyone to know where I am?”
Sprawled across his chair, his short but muscular frame was emphasized by a tight UTA lacrosse team jumpsuit. His handsome, Italian looks, and his position as star attack player, not only guaranteed him an invitation to any campus party but made him quite popular with female students.
Professor Easton looked puzzled, “Why would you not want someone to know where you are?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I had a fight with my girlfriend and didn’t want to be found.”
Two-hundred plus students scattered across the auditorium laughed, since Marco, a notorious womanizer, changed girlfriends faster than a vid-phone solar charged. Marco turned and grinned at fellow students, enjoying the attention.
Brogan laughed, too, but her hand shot up as she thought of some questions. “Professor Easton.”
Professor Easton stopped in mid-sentence, looked through his augmented eye implant at a seating chart, and his AI identified Brogan by her T-chip.
“Yes, Brogan, what is your question?”
“Suppose someone disagreed with a specific policy of a province or the empire. As an example, let’s consider the law scheduled for implementation next year to ban subversive books. Could the empire or provincial authorities use T-chips to identify individuals who protest?”
Professor Easton’s brow wrinkled even more than usual as he pondered her question. “I suppose, theoretically, authorities know exactly who attends any protest rally. But I doubt they will do anything with such information.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“It is conceivable but remember, the purpose of T-chips and intelligence chips is the greater good of everyone. The law you are talking about, for example, is environmentally and logically sound. Billions of trees were destroyed over centuries to print paper. Consider how much better off we are now everything is on electronic chips. No trees are killed, and we can store every book ever written on tiny chips.
“We will not need to heat and cool huge edifices housing libraries, another environmental savings. Besides, reading and writing are becoming archaic so why do we need libraries? Artificial intelligence machines can recall verbally every book ever written, so why read books? Do we really want people reading books subversive to our way of life? All it will do is stir up unnecessary and potentially violent uprisings. We have evolved beyond such juvenile behavior.”
“I understand the principle, sir,” Brogan said with a worried frown, “But I don’t understand why current books should be destroyed or why writing should be banned.”
“It is an environmental issue and a practical issue, pure and simple,” the professor continued in an exasperated tone. “Cursive ended in the last century and now any type of writing is eliminated with expansion of voice recognition software.
“Let me give you another example of why writing is unnecessary. I planned what I wanted to say for this course without writing down a single thing. I used holograms, videos, audios and pictures related to subject matter without having to tediously come up with descriptive written words. Preparing for class I simply used voice recognition software to tell my vid-AI what I wanted to include in each lesson plan.
“Signatures are unnecessary for anything, since your T-chip can be read anywhere, anytime. Eventual elimination of all written words and books is just a next step in our evolution. And, soon schools and universities will become unnecessary since you will learn everything with an I-chip.”
“But you’d be out of a job, right, professor?” Marco asked with an innocent look on his face.
As students laughed again, Professor Easton’s pale face turned a frustrated bright red.
“Well, huh, yes, I guess you are right. However, I do not see it happening soon. Now, let’s move back to our discussion, shall we?” He shot a frown in Marco’s direction, causing the wisp of mustache under his nose to quiver in indignation.
“Do not forget, introduction of social media in the last century forever changed how we communicate. Texting and tweeting reduced writing to a series of greatly shortened words, leading to vid-phones totally based on verbal and visual input. Elimination of hand-held books and writing are just our next steps.”
He began to pace as he moved into the rhythm of his lecture, his pink skull reflecting overhead solar lights through his buzz cut. Short and stocky, he seemed to march rather than walk as he moved across the room. His habitual outfit included an old-fashioned dark, military-style tunic, beige slacks and jackboots probably meant to make him look taller. His large head seemed to sink into the upright collar of his tunic.
“I-chips and T-chips profoundly changed our country during the past century, and helped us to win World War III,” he continued with his staccato speech, flashing holograms with just a wave of his hand over the palm reader.
As he said, “World War III,” a holo of a nuclear explosion filled the air in front of him. The sound shoo
k the auditorium, startling dozing students awake. Professor Easton adjusted the volume verbally.
“Optional chip implants began in 2080, just before World War III. We were losing the war. Terrorists were running rampant in our country, arriving across Mexico’s border by the thousands and killing our citizens with impunity. Millions of people died when Iran and their allies invaded and tried to implement Sharia law, dropping nuclear bombs on New York City and Washington DC in the east and Los Angeles and San Francisco in the west. There were 51 separate feuding states who seldom agreed on anything. Our military was forced to use outdated equipment; a seemingly hopeless scenario for our country.
“But President Joseph Altero used an executive order to dissolve Congress, appoint himself prime minister and consolidate states into four provinces, establishing a governmental system like the old British Empire. Alaska seceded. Hawaii was destroyed by a nuclear bomb and nearby islands sank into the Pacific Ocean from the resulting massive earthquakes and volcanic action. We assimilated Mexico and Central America after destroying all drug cartels and terrorist nests. We cut off sea access on both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico with giant laser fences and destroyed the Panama Canal to prevent access to the west coast from the Atlantic.
“Smashing all resistance, Altero mandated not only T-chips, but enhanced I-chips for military personnel and for individuals in his new cabinet. Within months His Excellency’s team developed an electronic driven war machine using solar and laser power to destroy our enemy and their electronics, including their satellites. As far as we know, electronics do not work anywhere else in the world but in our American Empire. After the war, he reduced our military force to a minimum protective and security force of elite marines.
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