All within the Kingdom were equipped with a Safechip. Fatherland Security explained that this was a necessary precaution, to ensure terrorists hiding among the people couldn’t gain access to homes and public buildings. They were multi-purpose, as the Safechip was required to enter one’s residence, purchase goods and services, obtain employment, prove one’s identity, get married or buried, locate anyone who went missing, and look up information on the Spider-Web, or Kingdom Intranet. Some even whispered that the Safechip recorded thoughts. Rachel once scoffed at the rumor, but wondered now if that were not actually the case. After all, how else could the Saints separate the wheat from the chaff in the Kingdom?
II.
Rachel Wright left Enduring Freedom Apartments and briskly strode down the sidewalk. The fronts of the buildings were the same- dark red brick flat veneers with black wrought iron railings leading up five steps to a pair of stately oak entry doors, guarded by Securipad. Every few feet one of the brick facades bore a poster depicting an image of the Profit, his intense gaze fixed straight ahead yet always seeming to follow wherever one walked.
As the worldly spokesman for the King, the Profit’s image was plastered prominently on each building, in each alley; his voice heard daily on the Spider-screens. Rachel tried to think back to the first mention of the Profit in history lessons, but couldn’t come up with anything. The Profit, it seemed, had been around since the advent of the Kingdom- perhaps longer. After 9-11, the first wave of attacks in the Terror Tribulation, the Saints began working towards establishing the King’s reign to prepare the way for his imminent return. It was during these “Birth Pangs of the Kingdom” that the “War Between Red and Blue” happened. “The Red” were the Elect and the Saints, the color representing the blood shed that all men might be brought into the Kingdom of God. “The Blue” were the minions of the Adversary, willing or unwitting, their color representing the sadness that comes with not having faith, or the “right” kind of faith, in the King. The Press and the Alt-Left were members of the Blue. There was much persecution of the faithful by the agents of the Adversary, but in the end, true faith in the King and his anointed holy Profit won out. There was no official date on record for the beginning of the Kingdom, nor was there any mention of what nation it had replaced. The official history merely reported that it had been a nation of Godless, faithless savages who committed the most abominable, unspeakable atrocities against God and man, and the Profit had saved them with the coming of the Kingdom, a change known as “the Glorious Revolution”. It was simultaneously taught that the Profit had restored the nation to what it originally had been, preserving it against those who would rebel against the exceptional “Manifest Destiny” of that nation. Rachel decided it had to be sometime around the Mass Destruction of 2017, since she didn’t remember anyone ever mentioning “the Profit” to her before she went to finishing school.
Rain began to fall in thick, wet drops from the heavens, speedily drenching Rachel’s hair and clothes. Glancing up at the purple sky, Rachel ducked into the small coffee shop at the corner. Grabbing some napkins, she wiped her wild ringlets with them. She looked at the service boy. He kept his dark eyes down, diligently seeing to his task of sweeping the floor, never meeting the gaze of one of the Elect, as was their custom. A hairnet covered his dark, wavy hair, and his dark skin was a stark contrast to the paleness of the Elect. His name tag illustrated a bar code that could be recorded by the Safechip for the processing of service complaints. She slid closer to him. The green tiled counter separated them. Rachel had never closely examined one of the Convicted. She had seen them in the shops daily. But she had never really noticed them, they had been there to serve her.
No one really noticed them. One had to look no further than the Trampling to find evidence of that. Long ago, a large group of the Elect awaited the opening of the doors of a prominent shopping facility on what was now a national holiday: Corporate Profit Day. One of the Convicted finally came to open the doors. Those gathered were so excited at the prospect of patriotically stimulating the economy, by decree of the Profit, that they raced into the shopping venue, trampling the service boy underfoot. There were some among the Alt-Left of the time that decried the Trampling and called for further persecution of the righteous, godly corporations, but fortunately the courts had the good sense to side with the Elect and the shopping facility in the case. After the Glorious Revolution, the Trampling became a tradition in which on the anniversary of the original event, a Convicted selected by lottery would have to open the doors of the chosen venue, and struggle to stay alive as the Elect race into the store once again. Although Rachel didn’t take part in the annual event, others around her always felt great anticipatory excitement at its approach. Something about the event never sat right with Rachel, though she couldn’t find the words to explain why that would be, and she certainly never spoke to anyone else about how she felt.
The coffee shop service boy reminded her of herself, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Excuse me,” she began, “what’s your name?”
The boy seemed nervous. His eyes became wide with fear, and his breathing became heavier. “Ma’am, can I get you anything? We- we have wonderful specials today, particularly on...”
Just then, a group of Rachel’s co-workers entered seeking shelter from the rain. She noted they’d had the good sense to bring their umbrellas along. With the skies changing as part of a natural cycle that would eventually right itself without human interference, one could never be sure of what the weather would bring. Rachel was always forgetting her umbrella. They fell quiet when they noticed Rachel.
One of them approached the counter. He was six feet tall, with long, sandy hair, a nice build, and deep blue eyes. Most men made the uniform of the Elect look boring and sterile, but he made it look well-put-together and mysterious. Rachel blushed and took a muffin from the case. She kept taking in the man out of the corner of her eye. She’d never seen him at work before and decided he must be a new transfer. Her heart sank. New transfers were rumored to usually be clandestine operatives of the Department of Fatherland Security Internal Adversaries Disruption Division, otherwise known as “spies”. She sighed, seating herself at the counter and nibbling on the muffin.
‘Well,’ she thought, ‘I didn’t want to be married again anyway.’
“Boy,” the tall man said, “we’ll take four espressos, make sure they’re not too hot. We want extra napkins and some cream on the side. The whole order is to go.”
“Yes sir.” The boy replied, never meeting the man’s gaze. The boy worked quickly and deftly, and for his trouble, the man added a small tip to the total. The boy scanned the man’s wrist to collect the balance. “Thank you very, very much sir!” The boy said with great enthusiasm.
“See,” the man told his co-workers, “hard toil does indeed pay off. Now, if only the rest of the wretched Convicted were as industrious as this lad, they might have something resembling a future, and might actually deserve it too.”
“Indeed, Mr. Christian,” one replied, nodding and chuckling, “I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments.”
Mr. Christian handed out espressos as the group left the shop. They headed to the Department of Communications, or “DOC”. Rachel paid the service boy for the muffin and gave him a tip, too.
She was about to exit, umbrella-less, into the torrential downpour, but the boy halted her. He grinned for a moment and opened an old, slightly shoddy umbrella over her head. “Bartholomew,” he whispered, placing her hand around the handle. As quickly as he had come to her aid, he was gone, having disappeared into the bakery area at the rear of the shop. Rachel smiled, then stepped out into the rain.
As she walked through the archway of the DOC, she spied the words of one of the National Truths engraved on it. It read, “He who shall not work shall not eat. Toil makes you free.” Rachel thought back to Mr. Christian’s statement about the fate of the Convicted, and understood how his words matched this Truth perfectly.
And yet, Rachel entertained thoughts that she hesitantly had to admit to herself were ‘doubts’. She hated having these doubts, since doubt was a lack of faith, and a lack of faith was akin to Heresy. What if someone became ill or disabled and could not toil? Would that person eat? What if a person could work, but work became scarce? What if a wife lost her husband and had many small children to feed and raise, but could not leave them alone to toil for bread? If this National Truth were absolute, why did it seem wrong to Rachel that those who could not work should not eat? Since from a young age the Convicted toiled most of their lives away, for a wage that barely kept them alive, how did toil make them free?
She would never state these doubts openly. In fact, she was grateful to have her calling among the Elect. To have a calling was to have the privilege of service to the King and his Kingdom. She wasn’t sure why the toil of the Convicted was considered lesser service, but she knew that it was.
After her husband’s death, Rachel worried she would be forced to find a husband to support her. Women among the Elect were expected to marry, obey their husbands in all things, keep house, and produce children who would serve the King. This was their duty to the Kingdom. Yet, Rachel had failed to produce children from her twelve-year marriage to John Wright. He died when she was 28 years old. At the age of 28, she was getting closer to the end of her childbearing years, and was thought to be sterile. This assumption, which Rachel also believed to be true about herself, spared her the fate of a second marriage. However, it placed on her the burden of her own support, with few available options left open.
The bell sounded throughout the building, alerting the employees it was time to gather in their designated areas for the morning devotion. Rachel made her way down the long corridor, past a row of Spider-screens, and down the stairs into the chilly, sparsely furnished basement. In the basement were several areas sectioned off by cubicle wall dividers. Each section had a different color carpet, corresponding to a different team within the DOC.
Those who worked in the Language Corrections Division met in the Yellow room. They continuously updated the Intranet Dictionary, known as the “Word Wide Web”. As the way words were used in conversation changed, so too did the Word Wide Web’s definitions. Rachel inwardly referred to these distillers of meaning as the “Dics”. The Dics had an irritating habit of constantly correcting one’s word usage, making it ironically difficult to talk to them.
Those Toilers who produced banners, fliers, streamers, art, and decor were the Central Beautification Committee. The CBC resented being housed in the same building with their rivals, the Censors. The Censors “corrected” any images or writings, public or private, that contained “sinful” content. The Censors couldn’t be too vigilant, as even the most devout among the Elect may fall unknowingly under the Adversary’s power, and subconsciously inject into their work something of unholy design. Strangely, the two groups shared the Orange room each morning.
Rachel was a Web Analyst, or “Weaver” as they were nicknamed, the most numerous group in the DOC. They were divided into teams, with each team handling a different aspect of the Web. Some handled correcting and editing pages dealing with “older” history. Other teams corrected pages involving science, math, literature, the arts, and so on. Rachel’s team corrected current and recent events communications. She was a News Weaver. Despite being divided into teams, all Weavers met for the morning devotion in the largest of the basement sections, the Red room.
Everyone nodded to each other silently as they took their seats in the shiny black fold-out chairs. Rachel was always one of the last ones to arrive, taking her seat right as the devotion began. She felt tired. The constant work at home and the DOC, along with the required prayer meetings and patriotism rallies, kept her energy level low. An introspective, shy person by nature, Rachel noted that there was barely time to reflect during one’s structured day. Nevertheless, she found herself lost in her private thoughts more frequently, often to the detriment of whatever task she was working at. This was a bad thing, for productivity was extremely important. The more productive a worker was, the stronger the community. The stronger the community, the more material blessings the Almighty would shower it with. Looking around, she realized that everyone appeared to be straining to keep up with the pace of life. Did they all have dark circles under their eyes?
The enormous Spider-screen at the front of the room suddenly lit up, and the overhead lights automatically dimmed. The devotion was beginning. An image of the Profit, larger than life against a heavenly illuminated backdrop, appeared on the screen. At the bottom of the screen, words appeared that they were all to say in unison, as one body of believers.
“Praise our King, for he is the Lord of War, a militant Ruler, Lord of Hosts, Lord of Armies. May our Kingdom Soldiers be blessed with victory over the Islamic and Alt-Left Terrorists, over the Socialists, over the Communists, and over all those who have been swayed by the Adversary into accepting the Heresy of Secular Humanism. Win the war for us, our King. Allow us to bring knowledge of you into every part of the earth, and take dominion over it, as you intended prior to man’s disobedience. We shall establish a kingdom for your return, that obeys every word your Profit utters and errs not.” Rachel mumbled along with the assembled crowd., barely paying attention to the oft repeated liturgy they were required to speak each day. An action oft repeated eventually bears little meaning.
“We believe that nations across the globe can be redeemed, brought to salvation, and can enter into the Kingdom of God on earth. As above, so below; on earth as it is in heaven. Then will you return to reign over us with the Profit at your side, then shall the Terror Tribulation end once and for all. Until that day, we are obligated to fight in the way of the King, to pre-emptively protect our nation from those who would rise to destroy it. We shall win the world with the power of the Divine Word. We must never settle for anything less. We must fill their governments, their businesses, their land, their hearts, their minds, with the love of the King and his Profit, for the Kingdom. Then shall the world be at peace as in the primordial garden and the word of the Profit fulfilled.”
Then the group began chanting with increasing fervor, the first of the National Truths, “War abroad means peace at home! War abroad means peace at home! War abroad means peace at home! WAR ABROAD MEANS PEACE AT HOME!”
Images flashed on the screen before them of Kingdom Soldiers, halos of purity surrounding them as they slaughtered the terrorist foes; alternating with images of safe, smiling children of the Elect. The chanting bordered on mass frenzy, raised to a fever pitch, as images manifested on the screen of terrorists in turbans with long beards waving their rifles at images of the smiling, innocent Kingdom children. Soon, they were no longer repeating the words of the National Slogan, but were randomly screaming at the images, calling out for death to the unfaithful, death to the enemies of the King and his Profit. Balling up their fists, people gnashed their teeth and wailed at the thought of these alien monsters attacking their kids. Rachel found herself filled with an unnamable anger, a desperate outrage demanding release. It found its release here, now, chanting and yelling alongside the others. Each day it was the same. Each day they automatically reacted as one would expect them to. And each day, Rachel was the last to succumb to the frenzy of the group. But once she gave in to the frustration that lay beneath the surface, she reacted with as much passion as the next Weaver.
They began to calm down as the images slowed, transforming into pictures of happy Kingdom children with their parents at their side, vigilantly guarded by Kingdom Soldiers. The words disappeared from the bottom of the screen for a few moments, giving them a respite from the verbal component of the devotion. No sooner had the group caught its breath and calmed itself than the images began picking up pace again. Next there was an image of the worst traitor in Kingdom history, Hillary. The Weavers cried out at her image, in fear and loathing. Rachel did not cry out. She examined her image more closely, fascinated by the single great
est threat to the stability of the Kingdom. She held her head high and proud, her neck stiff and unbending to any authority. Standing, she leaned forward onto the desk in front of her, her hands bracing him. Her eyes grew dark; filled with an irrational zeal. An apple sat at the corner of her desk. On the wall behind her was a picture of a woman wrapped in a snake, and her head was surrounded by a black and purple halo, giving her a sinister bent. She appeared distinguished and learned, as she was surrounded by books. Books were associated with forbidden knowledge that would lead one astray from the Kingdom and with the Alt-Left intellectuals who had subverted truth through their indoctrination of the young. Rachel did not have any books, since books had all been burned after the Glorious Revolution. Only those books deemed acceptable and moral had been transposed onto the Literature Web by the first generation of Weavers. Due to the lack of Censors necessary to monitor morality in an item so easily created and distributed as books, books had been temporarily outlawed until further notice. Anyone finding a book was required to turn it in to the DOC immediately. Books were so rarely discovered in 2042, Rachel had never seen one save in these images. Although the sight of the books filled Rachel with a heightened sense of danger, she simultaneously felt drawn to whatever eye-opening mysteries they contained.
“Boo! Boo!” came the cries of the crowd against the great traitor. “Lock her up! Death to Hillary! Death to the Illuminated! Death to all enemies of the King and his Profit! Boo!” The words of the devotion began anew, and the crowd fell into line, speaking in unison.
“All other ways but the holy way of the King are an abomination, a heresy. There are those who still may in their hearts hold the Adversary and his ways above the King and the way of holiness. Each of us must examine our hearts and root out this evil from among ourselves and our great nation. For unholy thoughts lead to unholy acts against God and man. Unholy acts defile the land and make it impure, they destroy the holiness of the land which is needed for the King to return. We must root out from our midst all those who engage in witchcraft. All those who engage in homosexual acts. All women who engage in harlotry, promiscuity, and adultery. All murderers, thieves, blasphemers, astrologers, apostates, those who strike their parents, and disobedient children. May they be put to death. May the executioner never be held liable for the spilling of their evil blood. May their deaths renew holiness in the Kingdom.”
2042: An American 1984-Dystopian Thriller Page 2