by Travis Knoll
Detective Slate and the feds opened up the rooftop door. They watched as Cowboy and I slid on a pulley to the top of an adjoining building and cut the line. We paused, sharing an ambiguous glare with Detective Slate, and the morning fog continued to conceal us from the city of San Francisco.
"You can't run forever. What you're doing is wrong!" the detective yelled.
Detective Slate glanced at the receipt from the coffee shop; he furrowed his brow at the sight of the word tax circled with a smiley face underneath.
"What’s the status of the suspect Detective?" the captain blared from the radio.
"He got away," the detective said. He tried to catch his breath and peered at the coffee stain that was left on his shoe.
March 8, 2035
San Francisco, CA
TaxMan's -- Underground
12:15
I glanced at the picture of my girlfriend on my desk. She was next to my high-end computer equipment. Both saved me, and I loved them equally in different ways. In the picture, her brown hair was blowing in some sort of tranquil breeze. Her smile, which brought out her dimples, and dark, honest, loving brown eyes brought joy to my heart.
My place was lit brightly to emulate the feel of Christmas all year long. The light shone around the old and forgotten BART subway car I had made my home, after I had blackened the windows for security purposes. The BART car was nestled beneath the San Francisco streets in a condemned and abandoned tunnel. After the Uprising started and the revolt purged the people, a lot of the Lifes had to seek refuge underground. It was a deserted tunnel after the revolution and left for the Lifes to remain off the grid. There were designated tunnels and routes that were still open for the Lifers, but minimized public transit restrictions due to the lack of tax funding and the ability to herd the Lifers in the desired predetermined directions.
My home had famous paintings from the likes of Albrecht Dürer, like his Praying Hands, and also his woodcut carvings of the apocalypse. I also had Rene Magritte's famous painting, Son of Man, which I garnered at the height of The Uprising. They fought, I collected. As the saying stated-when there was blood in the streets, buy property. I acquired because I didn't want to be a part of the Uprising.
I also collected passages from books like George Orwell’s 1984, stating “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.” A quote from Thoreau painted on canvas was hanging on the wall in black calligraphy: "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." Under the word truth, I added the word FREEDUMB in capital letters. It hung next to a woodcut etching of a quote from Hamlet: "To thine own self be true."
An underground map outlining the abandoned and condemned tunnel system beneath the San Francisco streets was displayed prominently on a wall. It was needed, as Lifers weren't allowed to go below where the night walkers were, because GPS satellites couldn't track location underground, so it gave a bit of a refuge. The map was constructed by the Uprising to be able to survive. If they needed a new path, I heard rumors that someone would covertly create one and then have an updated map made for only a select few to ensure anonymity. It hung next to a painting from my girl that is a black and white painting of a man standing in an apparent emulation of Christ's crucifixion, overlooking some sort of ambiguous city's skyline.
...I didn't trust anyone and no one was allowed at my place, but...
"What is this supposed to be again, bud?" Cowboy asked as he looked at the painting from my girlfriend. Cowboy had a Southern drawl that drew out even further when he was speaking from the heart.
"It's art and it's one of Stephanie's best paintings," I said.
"I reckon that I never understood that artsy fartsy crap," Cowboy said, scratching his head as he raised his shoulders.
"You want a buddy?" Cowboy continued as he grabbed himself, like he often did when referring to a beer, and I nodded.
I was a minimalist and never really wanted anything until I fell in love with Stephanie. I decided to only have one of what I needed, as the economy wasn’t going to get better for the masses, and it was bad for people that weren't marked to stand out in the crowd. If we were stopped in public or missed curfew, the police would pick the people that were standing out first. You had to blend in and keep your mouth shut. A traditional minimalist belief defined most of my possessions except the only extravagant expenditure of my computer setup, and the equipment and the tools that accompanied it. Everything until Cowboy started drinking was always in pristine order, cleaned and proper, almost militaristic, as everything had a place and that brought order to my home. I treated my place and mind like a computer, partition this for that, I thought.
The desk was metal that was painted and textured in a faux finish designed to emulate an oak woodgrain. After the revolution, a lot of things were burned, and it wasn't easy to garner something of value, or an antique for that matter.
I unlocked one of the bottom drawers, and then unlocked a metal petty cash box. The euphoric smell of cash resonated to percolate my senses deeply; it was like fresh, sinful air clearing my sinuses. I grabbed a stack of over $25,000 cash and continued to count it in obsession. This amount would be enough to garner me an automatic three strikes in the day walker society. They couldn't trace the cash as easily, and I used an offshore account to transition my funds from cryptos to the local CashBase and then paid taxes later through a third-party offshore account.
The partition door of the BART car slid open. It was connected to other smaller regions of the car, which emulated rooms. Cowboy walked back into the living room. He adjusted his cowboy hat that now had sweat stains embedded into the band. I always wanted to ask how long he had that thing on his head, or perhaps it was donned at his cowboy bar mitzvah. He tossed me a beer, forcing me to drop the money and lose count.
"There ya go, mang," Cowboy said, with a Texas twang in his voice.
Thanks, I thought as I opened the beer and picked up the cash.
Cowboy sat adjacent to the desk at my small bed, sipping his beer. He tipped up his cowboy hat and looked at the picture of Stephanie.
"I'm telling ya that damn girl ain't no good for ya mang."
"You're just jealous because you're flying Han Solo." I laughed and emulated with my hand flying a mock Millennium Falcon.
Cowboy walked away from the desk, lowering his cowboy hat just above his brow.
"I could get me a girl, if I ought to," Cowboy said.
I picked up the cash and continued to count as Cowboy paced in front of me.
"You going to Greece to visit your folks?" I asked.
"I reckon my ma would like that. I haven't seen ‘em in a while," Cowboy said.
Cowboy laundered money from his endeavors with me to Greece to an offshore account with his parents. He moved them there after the Uprising grew, and the revolt started, to show his support for them and protect his money. They were a true fish out of water, if you can imagine a Texas family with a thicker accent then Cowboy's on the small island of Paros in the Aegean Sea, not knowing a single word of Greek, and thinking for some reason everyone should be speaking Texas proper speak and eating a two-inch-thick T-Bone at 16:00 every day.
"You're lucky to have a family, and we have to lay low for a while anyway," I said.
"You headed out to visit your ma?" Cowboy asked.
"Yeah, and my girl. She has an art show now at her spot," I said, nodding my head.
"Mang, you should come with me to Greece. You won't believe the women there."
"I'm getting out of the business, settling down and buying a Labrador or something..."
"You're funny, T. You know she's been marked from birth. You can't be with her, and there's no getting out of this business," Cowboy said.
"Marks aren't just for Lifers," I said, but I knew the truth. Only Lifers were marked.
"I like ya, bud, but ya know ya can't have a fake marked ID and have sex with a Lifer," Cowboy said.
The system allowed pe
ople to have sex only for procreation, and you had to be a Lifer that scanned their ID. The Lifers were constantly tracked and had to scan IDs before they consummated the relationship. This was because of overpopulation, and they were trying to weed the not productive, untaxable Unlifes out of the system. Moreover, the Lifers’ habits were tracked—point to point–with the marked ID, and this was why they wanted only the strong Lifers to procreate; it was their compulsory way of saying they wanted eugenics without enforcing it in full effect.
Cowboy stood with his beer in his right hand and with his other insinuated roping a calf and making a whipping noise, presumably mocking me for being whipped. All I could do was muster a confused look, as I never made it to Texas, but Cowboy was a sterling example of a true blue friend.
I folded some cash in half, gave Cowboy some for later expenses, and stuffed the rest in my pocket. Cowboy tipped his hat while counting the money.
"Why would you want to go back to living in that oppressed society? We don't exist there anymore," Cowboy muttered in a somber tone. I knew he was right but the heart wanted what the heart wanted.
The throwback R2D2 timer on the corner of my desk went off. I stood and placed the Unlife’s trench coat in the laundry and walked to my closet, which was also painted in an oak faux finish on the outside. The interior decor resembled that of a light green metal bomb shelter, securing my vast wardrobe of predominately hooded sweaters and a veritable smorgasbord of communications equipment.
"Ya should just give me your money. I mean if you're gonna waste it on that marked girl..."
I rolled my eyes, but part of me knew that Cowboy was right, and the other part tried to rationalize a way for me to garner my own mark and become a Lifer. I peered at my closet full of hoodies of assorted colors, one for every occasion, and one nice jean Levi brand long-sleeved shirt. I put it on and it was accompanied by a laugh from Cowboy. I glanced at myself in the mirror, putting some cologne on.
"I have to get her some flowers. Lock up if you leave, Han Solo," I said with a smile.
"Yes, daddy..."
"Oh hey, make sure to check the instapress. There's supposed to be an alert on who the Mithra Man is," I said.
I opened the makeshift metal latch on the BART car and walked out. I was perpetually concealed through a storm drain that echoed faintly with the sound of droplets of water that dripped through the dark tunnel of the abandoned sewer system.
It was an election year, and I walked the streets of San Francisco with the rest of the Lifers day-walking through life. There were presidential banners hanging almost everywhere. If you turned left, you saw the President with a thumbs up, and if you turned right you saw the President’s overly obnoxious grin stating lower taxes emblazoned in bold Arial font underneath his expression. It was to state propaganda that President Johnson's agenda was going to eliminate the Uprising, and restore hope back to the Lifers by lowering the taxes. This was mocked throughout the city predominately in a satirical fashion with graffiti sprayed to mimic the President and his agenda that was asking for donations for change.
Just above me to the right was an LED billboard that flashed the phrase “vote for your Johnson.” After the voting propaganda, the President ended with stating that Pastor Michael would like to say a couple words. Pastor Michael was a marked-from-birth TV tube televangelist that was a leader of the only religion allowed, HQ, whose goal was to take over the Godhead. He would get on and talk of prosperity and oneness with the world and ended by asking for a tax-deductible donation in the Lord’s name. I always tried to avoid the signs, but the LED billboards flashed continually during Lifer day-walking hours.
March 8, 2035
San Francisco, CA
Sage Brook Assisted Living -- Geary Blvd.
13:19
I walked into the Sage Brook Assisted Living residence holding a bouquet of azaleas and an apprehensive smile. The on-duty nurse behind the reception desk glanced at me with a cordial smile. The overweight security guard, whose elastic belt was enveloped by his not-yet-Christmas, Santa Claus pot belly, was trying to stay awake to put food on his family’s table by checking me in an elder folks home. He stood and examined my possessions.
"Hi, here to see Iris?" the nurse asked with an endearing gesture. She placed the sign-in sheet on the counter as I wrote that I was here to see Iris. She scanned my fake ID, the QR code card, which when scanned identified me as Jake Norris. I liked Chuck Norris for some reason as a child, and the fake ID put me in a upper middle class Lifer tax bracket with a karate-chopping attitude. I would tell people that asked that my mother took her maiden name after my father left.
To obtain the fakes, Cowboy would hack into the mainframe of the morgues in different parts of the country, and peeled away their social security numbers. He found a glitch in the system where the computer database would continually track their numbers, as if they were still alive. The solution was that we just changed their names and refreshed a new Lifer that was in the President’s system. It worked most of the time until they tried to look for my actual mark that was supposed to be tattooed on my wrist or neck, which I was covering up with my personal avant-garde long-sleeve hoodies.
"Yes I am, ma'am, and here, this one is for you. How's her memory?" I asked, handing a single azalea to the nurse.
"Aren't you a sweetie pie." The nurse took the azalea and inhaled the fresh scent. "Her short-term memory is still good, but you should try to come by more often so that it builds up the long-term memory."
"Routine check, pal. You know the rules, no contraband and no hoarding cash," the guard stated as he patted me down.
"What, you're not going to buy me a drink first?" I asked. That only lifted the brow of the overworked security guard.
"How are her finances?" I procured of the nurse.
"Everything is paid through the year," the nurse stated. She gave me a document stating an alias that was paying for her bills. The document’s alias stated that her finances were being paid for by a third party in the name of Steponme. I took the document for later consideration, as Steponme was my own third-party offshore account that I created.
"All clear, boss. I'll walk you to your mother’s place," the guard said. He escorted me down the hall to my mother’s room.
My mother, Iris, was seventy-four years old. She lay on that bed dazed, staring at the flat-screen TV tube that hung on the corner of the room’s ceiling. The TV tube was perpetually playing an aged rerun of the Wheel of Fortune, looking for the answer of who was the poet that wrote “The Road Not Taken.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both...” the show’s host recited. This was one of the rerun shows that was allowed in the Lifer system, but had certain age restrictions. Pat Sajak was essentially yelling at us with the volume turned to eardrum-rupturing levels.
I walked in and immediately felt the warm rush of hot air from the temperature turned to broil. The room felt like a sauna, and not in a good way. I kissed my mother on the cheek and turned the TV tube down about one hundred decibels.
She looked at me in a confused manner and furrowed her brow, searching for answers for what was going on, or perhaps who I was, or even why did this person just kissed her on the cheek and turned her TV tube down, was usually my thought.
"I was watching that," she said, confused, pointing her finger at the TV tube.
"Ma, the answer is Robert Frost, and it's me, your son," I said, and there was an awkward hesitation. She placed the tip of her aging index finger on her bottom lip, pondering a thought.
"You seem kinda nice, a bit rude to mess with my program, but I don't believe I have a son. But a dog, Buttons, yes, Buttons..." she said, delighted.
I thought to myself that she remembered the dog, and who the hell was Buttons? Why would we name our dog Buttons? I did remember Ralphie, mainly because he garnered his name from his propensity to poop, eat it and then throw up, on a seemingly continual basis.
<
br /> "Buttons did the darnedest things, always pooping in the middle of the front doorway. When people came in the house they would step in it." My mother laughed impulsively, holding her stomach. I would always laugh along with her, every time I heard that story.
I kissed her again with a tortoise-like tear settling in my eye, and handed her some flowers. I peered around the corner and there was no guard. My mother smiled at the purple bouquet, her favorite color.
"Would you close that door? You’re letting all the heat out," she said, and pulled the thick, fuzzy, lime-green blanket closer to her chin, making her forehead wrinkle, as if she had just sipped some tart vinegar and the taste pushed her eyebrows in a V-shape.
I closed the door and pulled some cash out of the bottom of the bouquet of flowers and climbed on her night stand. I pushed up the ceiling tiles and glanced at my mother as she smiled at the purple azaleas.
"Jesus's favorite color was purple; did you know that?" she asked.
I wondered how her mind was able to recollect information about Jesus that predated myself and everything in this hospital, for that matter. I stood on the night stand. There was a mound of cash piled up in a couple of different bags, concealed nicely. I placed the cash that I brought with me in one of the bags and folded it back up, and watched my mother smell the azaleas. In case anything happened, I left a stash here, as I knew that she wouldn't talk...
March 8, 2035
San Francisco, CA
High-Rise Art Studio Apartment -- Soma
14:19
The elevator chimed and I opened the double-gated elevator to enter the studio apartment. The tune of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was playing throughout the large studio complex. I was greeted by a security guard entrenched in a black overcoat concealing a stun gun on his hip and sporting subdued limo tinted aviator sunglasses. He was checking IDs at the entrance. He stopped me and put out a scanner for me to place my ID on. I placed the Jake Norris confidential on it and he waved me into the room. They usually scanned IDs because Lifers were marked and didn't mix with the Unlifes, and anyone that was a part of the Uprising wasn't allowed. My ID kept me off the grid completely, but I wasn't marked. The marks were being programmed during the day and their schedules were already set for them.