Life: A Life Trilogy

by Travis Knoll

  The words Cave Adsum were graffitied and tagged everywhere in an effort to help. Unlifes were holding signs walking through traffic, speaking of the tax situation and oppression of the people walking through the streets. An LED billboard stated the continual propaganda with the President’s forged grin, and was followed by the prosperous TV tube televangelist Pastor Michael, in a fancy multicolored tie-dyed fashionable Lifer pressed suit asking for a tax-deductible donation.

  The wind gusted and blew some of the substantial trash on the streets. Cowboy, with his blue hood donned over his head, stopped a brown paper bag with his foot and blew out the vapor from his e-cig. He picked up the bag and peered around the area, making sure that he was in the right location with the cross streets and the Coronado Motel across the street directly in front of him.

  He glanced at the reflection of himself in the motel’s glass across the street, placed the flash drive inside of a brown bag, and then in the trash can in front of the Coronado Motel.

  Instantly, a Black Lincoln town car with tinted windows pulled up. A man in a black suit, masked to conceal his face, with thick dark sunglasses, got out of the car, grabbed the bag from the trash, and examined the contents. Stephanie, who was blindfolded, was thrown out of the back seat of the car, and the tires squealed as the car sped away.

  She hugged Cowboy, and he removed the blindfold, revealing tears falling from her eyes, as the car pulled out of sight. She pulled back from hugging him, and looked deeply into his eyes. A black SUV with tinted windows pulled up behind them, rolled the back window down, pointed a silenced pistol at Cowboy, and shot him in the back three times. The tires squealed as they pulled away.

  "Oh my God! Help!!" Stephanie yelled. Unlifes in the area barely moved, and continued to pursue their manipulated thoughts, callous to these type of things happening in this part of town.

  March 8, 2035

  San Francisco, CA

  Coronado Motel -- Tenderloin

  12:07

  Tears fell from Stephanie's face in terror. She stared into Cowboy's fading eyes as he fell to the ground, lifeless. His eyes were bloodstained and bloodshot. As fear overwhelmed and enraged him, he tried to talk. Stephanie peered at her hands that were covered in Cowboy's blood from his back.

  An elderly woman on the street with a shawl on and aged drab, weathered clothing pointed to the graffitied picture of the President and Congressmen on the building. She persisted in yelling, "Uprising, Uprising!" with a rasp in her voice reminiscent to a person that smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.

  Stephanie grabbed the phone from Cowboy's hand as he was trying to dial TaxMan. His eyes faded in and out with his last breath of air. She took the phone and ran down the soulless streets. Her heart raced as she fled the scene. She quickly texted me with Cowboy's phone.

  Where are you? she texted.

  Stephanie got a response back from me, as I thought it was Cowboy.

  What do you mean? Is everything OK? How did it go?

  Cowboy's dead, they shot him, Stephanie texted back.

  Stephanie called me, frantic, in a complete hysterical state as she ran through the streets.

  "I'm scared, where are you?" Stephanie asked.

  "Steph, are you OK? What the hell happened?" I asked in a calming tone.

  "No, everything is not OK! They just shot Cowboy," she said, crying. "I need to see you. Where are you?"

  "Go behind the City Lights Bookstore. I will meet you there."

  "OK, I will be there shortly. I love you," Stephanie said. I could hear her wiping the tears from her face through the phone.

  "I love you too. Make sure that no one follows you. We can't trust anyone right now."

  "Ok, I will see you shortly."

  The phone hung up.

  March 8, 2035

  San Francisco, CA

  TaxMan’s -- Underground

  12:37

  I stood outside the City Lights Bookstore and glanced at the Jack Kerouac street sign next to the bookstore as I concealed myself in the alley. I puffed some vapor to calm my nerves and glanced around the area to make sure that no one was monitoring me.

  Stephanie ran up to me and into my arms. We immediately kissed, and it felt like she was always here with me. I held her in my arms tightly, peering in her loving eyes, checking her body to make sure that she was OK. I wiped the tears from her face that had smeared the rest of the makeup that she had on. We hugged and kissed passionately as she continued to cry. Her voice and thoughts raced in a sporadic manner as she started to talk about Cowboy. I tried to console her and wanted to know exactly what happened to my friend.

  "They shot Cowboy. He's dead," Stephanie said as tears fell from the corner of her eyes and dampened her white shirt.

  "Who shot him? What happened exactly?" I asked. I tried to calm her down, but the adrenaline from the traumatic episode caused shivering all over her body.

  "I was blindfolded the whole time. It was horrible."

  I glanced around the corner and everything was clear, so I took her underground to my place. I continued to ask about Cowboy as I took her to my humble abode for the first time, but she didn't know anything. This wasn’t how I imagined it, either. I had a whole thing planned out where I was going to sweep her off her feet, let her know the real me, and discuss getting a mark, but oh well -- que será será...

  "Should I take my shoes off?" Stephanie asked. I nodded, and both of us took our shoes off and placed them by the sliding BART car door.

  She browsed around the place, examining my abode as I turned the lights from green to an illuminated yellow that radiated a golden texture over the place. She noticed the picture that she gave me of the silhouette of Christ standing over the city.

  "You know where I got the idea for that painting? You..." Stephanie said.

  I was elated and leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled back from me. She cleared the tears from her eyes and strangely changed her overall persona. It was like a switch was flipped inside her.

  "What is it, hun? Is everything OK?" I asked.

  Stephanie took a couple of steps away from me. I heard the sewer cover opening, feet hitting the puddles, and the feds entered my place, flooding the BART car. They were so quick, I barely had time to think. I shook my head in disbelief. There was no way I knew her for so long, I thought.

  "What are you doing?!" I exclaimed as I looked for answers.

  The FBI agents with guns drawn surrounded me in my place. I was frozen and didn't know what to do. Stephanie had a smirk on her face as the FBI agents pointed their guns at me.

  "No!?! Why would you do this?" I yelled. The FBI immediately grabbed my hands and forced them behind my back, cuffing me.

  All I could do was watch as Stephanie pulled out a compact mirror and fixed her makeup and hair as my old pal Detective Slate proceeded to handcuff me with an obnoxious grin.

  "You have no idea who you're dealing with, my dear. There is no freedom anymore..." Stephanie said.

  I yelled at the top of my lungs as the feds finished handcuffing me. I wasn't mad because of the freedoms that were going to be taken from me, at the prospect of losing my Life, or even the thought of being pushed back onto the grid and forced to become a Lifer, but because of the love that I lost. She never loved me in the first place. I tried to put up a fight, struggling with them. Detective Slate smiled and told me that it was pointless to resist as he pulled out the charges.

  The laundry list of charges being pinned on me were: tax hacking on the California bag system to peel off the bag charge, and the new charge of hacking into the IRS database. I was shocked at this, as the job was barely completed. He finished reading the charges by stating that I killed my dear friend Cowboy as well. It was an even bigger shock when they said his real name was Bartholomew. I always pictured him as a Tim or a Justin. I was in total disbelief and didn't know what to say as I glanced at Stephanie, who was finishing putting her makeup on.

 
"You're just going to stand there and give me to them after all we've been through?" I pleaded with Stephanie. She took a step toward me with a wicked grin.

  "I know you're not marked, you're not even allowed to have sex with your fake ID. I'm not even an artist. I had someone do that painting for you because all you ever talked about was freedom," Stephanie said.

  The feds pushed me toward the BART car doors and I started to fight as I saw my sneakers by the sliding glass doors.

  "Let me put my shoes on at least," I said.

  Everyone eyed Detective Slate, who nodded that it was OK that, much to my chagrin, one of the detectives put my smelly sneakers on.

  The police came from behind everyone and searched through the documents in the room, taking files, paperwork, and all the cash. As everything was taken away, so was I...

  March 8, 2035

  San Francisco, CA

  City Lights Bookstore

  13:35

  A Sisyphean tale was always how I pictured life. In Greek mythology, he was sentenced supposedly by God to push a large boulder up a hill, and when he reached the top of the hill, the massive boulder would roll down. This gave way for poor Sisyphus to eternally push the boulder up the hill for the things that he had previously done in life. When someone asked Sisyphus why God disliked him so much, he remarked by saying that the Lord has given him something to Lord over, as many others only labored over their lives in their heads.

  Outside, near the City Lights Bookstore, the reflection in the glass showed Detective Slate putting me in the unmarked police vehicle. He was reading me my supposed rights as the people on the streets all sneered and yelled at the cops to leave me alone.

  Detective Slate and his partner, Detective Hall, got into the car. They placed their seat belts on, and Detective Slate peered in the rearview mirror at me, glancing at the secret compartment in my shoe.

  "We were going to get you sometime, bud," the detective stated.

  "What did you do with Stephanie?" I asked. I thought deep down that she actually loved me, and if I could just talk to her I could make it better.

  They both smirked at me as I watched in slow motion Detective Slate mouth the words that I had a right to a lawyer. He said it with a smile, as the lawyers were paid corruptors, and protected by the system to keep it this way. The lawyers were by far more corrupt in the Lifer system then the police. They would take any source of capital regardless of cause for any reason to push the Lifer, a perpetual day walker, and his agenda forward. Money had no face to them. I hated that grin as he glowed with confidence that he got his big fish, as he pulled the police vehicle away.

  The car started to move in the traffic. I peered at the phone number and email address that was by a picture of Detective Slate's QR scanned ID. I ran over his email and phone number constantly in my mind, memorizing it like it was a pretty girl’s number, but I didn't have any paper or pen to write with, and I wasn't going to forget that number.

  Detective Slate glared at me as I sat in the back memorizing his phone number and email with my eyes closed, placing them in the hard drive of my memory.

  "What are you doing, punk?" the detective said.

  "You're going to be my first call..." I said with a gentle, confident smile. He didn't understand because night walkers were only allowed to call a lawyer. Night walkers were considered lost, as the government couldn't mark us as a Lifer or label us as an Unlife because we were off the grid.

  The police were heavily monitored to bring in more criminals, as it represented their production value to the Lifer system. This was a way to be monitored and to reciprocate productive taxes back to the Lifers and in turn keep their jobs.

  Traffic compounded, and every car in the street was in gridlock. The police vehicle took a right to avoid further traffic as they slowly pulled down the road. The detectives continued to brag with enthusiasm. They joked and laughed ,thinking that it was Lifes like me that raised the tax rate, but I first broke into the California tax system to give the ambivalent 10 cent per bag charge back to the people, and pay for my mother’s assisted living.

  A large white cargo van backed out of a small alleyway on the west side of Chinatown, blocking the street and making the police car stop. The detectives peered in the rearview mirror. They were blocked by traffic, and in front they were blocked by the cargo van. Detective Hall got on the speaker and told the cargo van to move the vehicle immediately.

  "Are you kidding me? I need to move back to the Midwest," Detective Hall said as he pointed at the gridlocked traffic, frustrated.

  Signs and Talks, with their faces covered and drab hoods adorned, got out of a black van in front of the white one and pointed semi-automatic weapons at the detectives. Signs pulled out a lock pick and picked the backdoor lock, like an illusionist performing his magic in front of an audience, getting me out of the vehicle in seconds.

  "If you take him, you can say bye to your freedom, buddy," Detective Slate yelled.

  "There's no freedom anyway, so just stay in ya cruiser, boys," Talks said. His attention was fixated on the detectives as he closed the door. Signs immediately zip-tied the front and back doors together, locking the men in.

  I smiled back at Detective Slate, the same overly obnoxious smirk that he had expressed toward me with a wink. The three of us hopped in the black van with Odysseus in front of the parked white one and rode off through back streets. We raced through alleyways that were cleared miraculously by their connections through the Uprising. They knew Lifes, and had their ears to the streets. A Life would move things for them at the snap of a finger, or a nudge of the van’s horn. They were all working together in different parts of the Uprising’s underground puzzle that they were trying to put it back together. The Lifes never gave up hope in the cause, but conserved their energy and built faith.

  "I told you not to trust anyone, pal!" Talks said. He glared at me from the driver’s seat while Signs took the handcuffs off me.

  March 8, 2035

  San Francisco, CA

  Talks and Signs -- Cavern

  14:22

  We arrived at Signs and Talks’s place, and I fell on the corduroy La-Z-Boy, exhausted emotionally, as my head plunged into my hands. It was my Sisyphean tale and I was going to have to start all over again, and for what, I thought, as there was no point.

  "Ya, stinking Barney, do ya realize what you've done?" Talks said, almost spitting on me as he displayed his Bostonian temperament.

  Signs fed Odysseus and took the phones, placing them in the microwave.

  "So what the hell is really going on?" I asked, trying to restrain tears from falling down my face. Signs paced back and forth in frustration. He motioned sign language phrases that I didn't understand, but they continually got faster.

  "After the Uprising started, they took control over everything that the bank could do, and they funneled everything through the most powerful ones. They tried to take the Internet by only allowing certain larger companies to run their websites. This was their thought, to slowly put a noose around our freedoms. This made the Uprising diminish in number as most couldn't eat in order to fight, but we're still here," Talks said.

  "So what do they want? Money?" I asked, completely naive.

  "At this point, they couldn’t care less about money. That is a part of the illusion. They want control and to own your mind, as that is their battlefield," Talks continued as Signs persisted to pace in frustration.

  "In the fifties and sixties, the CIA had MKUltra that tried and succeeded to manipulate and control the population. The goal stated was that they were worried that the population was getting out of control so they decided to control it. These tests were the early stages after World War II, that gave information from poking and prodding humans to learn how to manipulate mind control. Their first hire was Dr. Mengele, none other then one of the originators of the human tests in Nazi concentration camps. They put the same information everywhere and into everything.
Ever wonder why you eat popcorn in the movie theater, or ice cream in the winter?" Talks continued.

  "Are they still doing this?" I asked.

  "Once some Lifes caught wind of this, they had to make some changes, but they grew to a larger scale and called it Project Monarch. They created puppets out of celebrities, from the likes of the Disney rat pack, bringing them up from birth with NLP hypnotic devices, and their music was used to blast to the masses. Think about why some people have all the luck..? Why is the intercom for the curfew alarm the same damn opera singer every fuken' day. The words are the trigger placed in the Lifers from birth... They consume your thoughts and then direct them with triggers." Both of us looked at Signs signaling.

  "Yeah, like my friend here said. Why is the President running for office unopposed after he changed it to a five-year term? The elections are rigged to take your freedoms and make marked Lifers. They even did this with the birth control pill. They created the pill essentially to allow women into the workforce in order to increase tax revenue," Talks said.

  Signs turned on the TV tube and a news anchor was already talking about how an alleged TaxMan was on the loose and was now one of America’s most wanted. The reporter stated that I was behind the taxes being raised in the country and this assailant had malicious intentions, as he was a notorious hacker. A reward was being placed on his head by the President, to the tune of five million dollars, as he hacked into the IRS and was stealing your hardworking money. The woman reporter paused and looked back at the camera and stated that this alleged criminal was also wanted for murder.

  "There's the wool. See what you've done now? They've already implemented the software and now they've pinned everything on ya," Talks said.