American Dreams | Book 2 | The Ascent

by Parker, Brian

  He stopped and took a long pull from his drink as he stared into Beth’s back yard. I was almost at the point of asking him about Rowan when he began talking again. “I’m sorry about your brother, Haskins. It’s been a couple of days since he died, and I owed you an explanation before this.”

  Rogan recounted what happened that day in the police station. How he’d wanted Rowan to stay with the truck that they were going to load the weapons into, and that my brother had flat-out refused. He wanted to be a part of the action and was trying to prove that he was an asset to the Revolution. He’d silhouetted himself in the doorway to shoot down the row of desks at the officers defending themselves against the attack. He didn’t even know what hit him. The story was sad, but it was comforting to know that he didn’t suffer, laying there bleeding out. It was what I needed to hear and what I wanted to hear.

  That’s why I think he was lying to me about it.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Just so you know, I don’t agree with your plan. You know that, right?”

  I stopped brushing my teeth and looked at my wife’s reflection in the mirror. She was removing the decorative pillows from Beth’s guest bed and placing them on the couch. It was an annoying nightly ritual that I usually got stuck doing. Why did people have so many damned decorative pillows on a bed? It just didn’t make any sense.

  “What do you mean?” I asked around the toothbrush. I spit a mouthful of foam into the sink and turned on the faucet to rinse it away before resuming.

  “To kidnap Goodman,” Cassandra clarified. “I think it’s a bad idea. Kill her, beat her up, whatever, but kidnapping creates a lot of problems.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, for starters, where do you take her?”

  “I hadn’t—”

  “Yeah. I know you hadn’t thought of that part. Beth sure as hell can’t keep her. This place already has four adults living in it and she’s supposed to be here alone. To be honest, I’m surprised the Rationing Board hasn’t paid a visit yet.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that part. It was true. Between Beth and Patricia, and Cassandra and me, the house was full. It wasn’t that big to begin with, and one entire bedroom was taken up by darkroom supplies, so bringing the captive director of Austin’s CEA branch to Beth’s house was not an option.

  “You are not bringing a prisoner into Beth’s home—our home for right now. No way.”

  “I’m not going to do that. I’m not stupid,” I added.

  “And how do we know that she’s not chipped?” She held the last pillow, staring at me in the mirror.

  “She’s not. I heard her say that she’d rather lose her other leg than be chipped.”

  Maybe a month before I got arrested, we’d had a meeting concerning the agency’s plan to implant mandatory GPS tracking chips into all of the field agents. As you’d expect, most of us had been violently opposed to it, but the interservice transfers were the most vocal about it. They’d volunteered to leave their branches on loan to the CEA as it was getting established, so most of them refused the idea outright. The rest of us, compulsory service agents like myself, didn’t like the idea of our every movement being tracked twenty-four-seven, but we didn’t have the pull that the transfers did. As far as I knew the initiative died and they didn’t move forward with chipping—at least not while Rogan and Chris Plummer were still there. After they went AWOL, it might have regained momentum.

  “Having a hostage will galvanize the CEA and the FBI to come after you even more. Right now, they’re reacting to all the mayhem that the Resistance is causing, all the body punches that you guys are throwing on the edges, but going after the head might make them much more proactive.”

  I rinsed my mouth out and set the toothbrush aside before turning around to face my wife. “I don’t get it. When Rogan was here, you were listing the benefits of doing it.”

  “I was trying to support you, babe.” She tossed the last pillow onto the couch. “Don’t get me wrong, I do think that the concept of taking out a senior leader who’s important to one of the architects of the NAR is a solid idea, but I don’t think keeping her alive is the best plan. It seems like she could escape, be tracked, be rescued—you get the point. There’s a whole lot of things that could go wrong.”

  “Hmpf,” I grunted, sitting down on the bed. “I understand what you’re saying. I just disagree with you. I bet Goodman has got all sorts of information about the CEA and the NAR that we could use to our advantage. Given how connected she is, I’d be willing to bet that she has the details on who was in on this from the start and who was just along for the ride after the fact so they didn’t lose favor with their party. The NAR is a cancer that needs to be cut away from our country.”

  She sighed, picking up the television remote off the nightstand. “Just think about it, okay? Keeping a hostage always works out badly. How many times did we hear about that during the War on Terror? Someone would get kidnapped and we’d go full-bore trying to find them. Everybody would shift their focus and consolidate efforts until the person was recovered.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk it over with Rogan,” I acquiesced.

  “Thank you.” She depressed the power button and the room illuminated with the bright colors from the LED screen.

  “…That’s right,” an anchorwoman I hadn’t seen before said as the television powered on. “We have another major development, this time coming to us from Portland where local anarchists have won what some are calling a victory against NAR forces. Our action reporter, Andrew Longmere, is on site. Andrew?”

  I pointed at the television screen as the picture cut from the studio to Andrew Longmere standing in front of a burning pile of tires and other makeshift barriers. “When does that dude sleep?” I asked.

  “I know, right?” Cassandra agreed. We’d seen him on broadcasts at all different times of day. It seemed like he was always on assignment for Fox News.

  “Thank you, Iliana,” Longmere said, speaking into a handheld microphone. “I’m coming to you live from Portland, Oregon where Resistance fighters say they have dealt a major blow to federal law enforcement officials. As you can see behind me, the mood is joyous here. Residents feel that they have finally ejected the federal troops from their city.

  “Portland has seen nearly a decade of violence as the state and local governments have teamed up with protestors against what they call ‘federal overreach.’ Four weeks ago, the daily clashes with NAR officers reached a new level of violence when the shocking truth about the H5N8 was revealed to the world. Since that time, several local organizations have been in open conflict against the federal presence in the city, many claiming to have aligned themselves with the Resistance, led by a man known as Every American, whom we now know to be thirty-six year old Christian Plummer, a former Civic Enforcement Agency special agent.

  “I have personally witnessed the horrific numbers of casualties resulting from those clashes. Earlier today, I was at the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, one of only two Level I trauma centers in the state of Oregon, to observe the truth behind the propaganda. Doctors at the hospital are overwhelmed with the number of patients as lightly-armed protestors and so-called ‘freedom fighters’ have fought against federal troops with automatic weapons and body armor.” The scene on the television switched to the inside of a hospital, what I could only assume was the one in Portland that the reporter mentioned. There were patients everywhere, most of them bloodied in some way. The emergency room looked like a scene from a movie, not real life. “Non-emergency patients are being directed away from the hospital and told to stay home.

  “About a week ago, we began receiving reports that officers here in Portland were no longer using non-lethal weapons. Instead, they have switched to traditional bullets—weapons that you would expect to see on a battlefield, not in a suburban neighborhood on American soil. As you can see in the video footage we took this morning, the most common injuries are gunshot wounds, broken bones, and smoke inhalation from the te
ar gas used to disperse the crowds. Police and NAR agents are in full force at the hospital, arresting patients as soon as they are released.”

  The video cut back to the reporter standing in front of the barricades. Shadowy figures in the background cheered, jumping up and down in celebration. Many of them held rifles and various other types of weapons. “This evening, the Resistance here in Portland was finally able to overwhelm the police line. They’d been kept at bay, for the most part, the clashes occurring in isolated areas. One freedom fighter told us that the crowd was able to get in between two groups of police officers and then sheer numbers overwhelmed the government officials. We have obtained cell phone footage of the battle and the aftermath of the violence, however, the Fox News network has chosen not to air the footage. Casualties amongst the federal officers at the protest are estimated to be between ninety and one hundred percent. It was a horrific scene of violence as years of frustration was released upon the unfortunate officers when they were caught unawares.

  “The Resistance here in Portland has benefited from the lack of a military presence due to the federalization of the National Guard to defend against the active duty troops stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, just a hundred and forty miles away. What we all want to know is what will today’s victory cost the citizens who aren’t part of the Resistance, and of course the larger American population? Will these small regional conflicts spiral out of control beyond the federal government’s ability to contain? Will the federal response focus only against the instigators of the violence or will the population at large suffer? Only time will tell. I’m Andrew Longmere signing off from Portland. Back to you in the studio, Iliana.”

  Cassandra clicked off the television. “Well? What does that mean?”

  “It means that the feds are gonna hit Portland hard.” I pointed at the TV. “That shit isn’t what the Revolution is about. We don’t go out and indiscriminately murder police officers who have surrendered. No wonder Plummer and Rogan want to keep us separated from the loonies in the northwest.”

  “So, are there two revolutions?”

  I grunted. “It’s always kind of been that way. The Pacific Northwest guys are out of control, southern California too. They’re taking advantage of the fact that we’re helping to spread the federal troops thin. This will probably be the turning point where Plummer comes out and publicly announces that our two groups aren’t affiliated.”

  “Good,” she said. “I don’t like the thought of you being lumped in with those people.”

  “Me either,” I agreed. “We want to fix America and return it to a democratic system of government. They want anarchy up there.”

  “So, if the NAR is going to send a bunch of troops up to Portland…”

  I picked up on what she was thinking. “That means we’re probably going to ramp up our operations here in Austin while they’re distracted up there.”

  “Great,” she groaned. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  NINETEEN

  Smoke. Burning. Itching. Oh my God.

  I clawed at my face. I knew that I should keep my fingers away from my eyes, but it was almost im-fucking-possible. They burned, the gas seemed like it was glass shards grinding into them. Snot poured from my nose and I retched violently, attempting to keep my lunch down in between the involuntary reactions. My lungs burned and I hated every time that my body forced me to breathe from the lack of oxygen. I tried to add another layer of fabric over my bandana by bringing my shirt up over my mouth and nose. The CS gas flowed through the material as if it wasn’t even there.

  So much for masks that would prevent the spread of anything. If the gas particles were getting through the fabric, you know damn well that the little creepy-crawly virus buggies would get through. I dropped my shirt and lifted the bottom of the bandana, spitting a dense wad of mucus onto the pavement. I had to use my other hand to sever the thick string of saliva dangling from my mouth that reached almost to the ground.

  All around me, men and women locked arms as best as they could through their gagging and coughing. They were defiant against the riot police who faced off against them. They knew from experience that either the water cannons or the baton-wielding psychopaths in riot gear would be next. It was the feds’ M.O. these days. They would show the media and the world that they tried to use non-lethal means like CS gas and rubber bullets, then when that inevitably didn’t work, they would up the ante and blast into the crowd, targeting individuals. The media ate it up, running stories about the NAR’s restraint against the anarchists and revolutionaries. I linked arms with some skinny little white dude beside me who would probably get his arm ripped out of its socket from the force of the water cannon.

  When I was a kid, I’d practically cheered when the president deployed federal law enforcement officers to the socialist protests before the election. I’d watched internet videos of the officers beating the thugs into submission, arresting them by the hundreds in what the media termed “snatch-and-grab” operations. The officers protected federal property and helped to turn the tide against the unruly mobs who had the support of state and local leaders. Now that I was an adult and on the opposite side of the federal troops, I finally understood a little bit of what those protesters had gone through. The officers facing off against the crowd weren’t the so-called “oath keepers”; they were just assholes who enjoyed beating the shit out of people under the mantra that they were just following orders.

  For some reason, we’d worked our way steadily through the chanting crowd to the front lines. Rogan didn’t tell me why, just said that I was to keep moving forward, using my size to push my way through the press of bodies. He’d tucked in behind me and followed along until we were all the way at the very front. Now that we were here, we could see the line of officers as they pumped round after round of CS into the crowd.

  “Why…are we…doing this…again?” I gasped, choking on the thick cloud of gas smoke lingering in the air. I looked away from the line of feds fifty feet in front of us to Rogan, who seemed unfazed by the gas. What the hell is it with this guy? I thought.

  He wore a pair of reflective swimmer’s goggles and a bandana like mine, which gave him a comical appearance of some low-budget movie villain. “I just wanted to experience the protests, man.” Even though I had the hippie parents who named me after a tree that Buddha supposedly sat under, Rogan was much more of the laid back surfer type than I was. He absolutely deserved to have my name while I got something more common like Greg or Joe.

  “Really?” I shouted over the chanting. That was dumb. Rogan almost never did anything without a purpose behind his actions. “No, really. Why are we out here with this group getting the shit gassed out of us?”

  This group was at the state capitol protesting the use of force—and they were being met by force. It would have been funny if I didn’t know what was coming next.

  Rogan grunted and reached down to his waist. He pulled two small devices out of the fanny pack he wore. I’d wondered why the hell he had that thing on. The devices resembled miniature helicopters, each about the size of an orange. They were much larger than other types of micro drones that I’d seen in use in the field. He tossed them over the barricade in front of us.

  “Time to go, muchacho.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re leaving—unless you want to get some bullshit beat down from a bunch of ’roided-out loyalists looking to score a bonus ration for a good night’s work.”

  “What were those?” I shouted, letting go of the guy beside me and then pushing my way toward the back of the crowd, away from the Capitol. All around me, people booed and hissed, calling us names because we appeared to be retreating from the CS gas.

  Rogan put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in as we shuffled through the close-pressed throng. “Micro drones,” he shouted back over the roar of the crowd. “They have a—” His words were drowned out by the sounds of the crowd as we pushed through them.

  There was
a perceptible shift in the group after we’d gone about twenty or thirty feet. It was as if they were bracing themselves for something from the front that I could no longer see. People cursed as I pushed my way through their linked arms. Then the screaming began as the water cannon was deployed against the front lines. I was propelled forward when the heavy stream hit my back. Even so far away, I could feel the immense power in the cannon. I risked a quick glance over my shoulder to ensure Rogan was still there since his hand had fallen away.

  He was there, worming his way through the press of bodies. My height gave me a slight advantage over most of the crowd and I could see that several rows of protesters were off their feet, thrown into the rows behind them. They’d feel that in the morning.

  I paused, allowing Rogan to catch up to me, then he yelled, “Go, Haskins! Go! We did what we needed to do.”

  What the hell did we do? I wondered. The micro drones were over the barriers, only a few feet from all the federal officers, was that why we’d gone almost a half a mile through the throng of protestors? Was our mission to get the drones as close to the officers as possible?

  I hated all the secrecy in the Resistance. I understood that each person needed to know only what they were doing personally in case they got arrested, but Rogan seemed to be dragging me along on all sorts of little side quests to the main storyline without telling me a damn thing until after the fact. It was another thing I needed to talk to him about when I could find the time.

  We finally made it through the masses about the time that the feds began shooting beanbags and rubber bullets point-blank into the crowd, who’d deployed their own strange brand of makeshift shields and body armor in defense against the superior weaponry. We ducked behind a corner and Rogan pointed at a camera.