by R. P. Wolff
“Sure, but what about my daughter?”
“We’ll talk about that and other things.”
“All right, I’ll be there in a little bit.”
Lance wolfed down his food and entered the cubicle that was Victor’s office. He closed the door and sat in the chair opposite General Cook, who was sitting behind a modest, worn out desk.
Lance began, “General Cook, thank you for saving my life and helping me.”
The General replied, “Sure, no problem, but we have to be clear on one thing. You keep mentioning that you want to turn yourself in to save your daughter. I understand that you want to save your daughter, but I can’t have that. We have something especially important to do here. We not only want to save your daughter but everyone. But we need you on board before I start telling you anything.”
Lance exhaled. “I’m on board,” Lance said. He realized that he had no choice and that he had to put his faith in General Cook. Lance continued, “I’m encouraged that you think there is a chance that you can get my daughter out, but how would we get her and everyone else for that matter?”
Victor chuckled. “We’re getting ready to start a fucking war. Zelda’s in Dallas, but she’s only going to be here for a short time. We must strike within the next day or two. That’s how soon this is going to happen. We’ve got to hit her hard. We must hit the schools hard. We’re going to hit them in many directions, they won’t know what hit them.”
“Really,” Lance said.
“Yes, and we need you to be the person, the political leader, to communicate to the people that things are good and that we’re going back to the old government way. You’re going to be the temporary governor, and then we will have legitimate elections like we normally do.”
“I don’t really want to be the governor,” Lance said. Once was enough, he thought.
“There you go again. We need your support. Just go along with the plan, okay?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be glad to be governor,” Lance conceded.
The General smiled.
Lance wanted to find out so much more about the Establishment. “General Cook, you had mentioned yesterday that you had secrets about Max Tillman and Zelda and that Zelda is not a virgin but a whore.” Lance chuckled. “Can you explain that?”
Victor laughed, and said, “Oh, I got some dirt on them. I was Max’s head of security before he became president, and I became his lead Secret Service agent while he was president. I honestly enjoyed the power that I had and the money that I made, but I have since seen the light.” General Cook paused and looked around the room. He lowered his voice, “Okay, only a few people know what I’m about to tell you. I guess you’re going to be one of them.” He paused again. “There was a videotape of the Awakening.”
“No!” Lance exclaimed.
“I kept it and told no one. I bullshitted Max Tillman and told him there was no video. I kept it secret all these years. I know everything about the Awakening.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Lance asked.
Victor shrugged. “I held it for leverage, and now I can use the leverage.”
“Well, what did the video show?”
“The video shows that Zelda did not come from the heavens. Someone planted her there—a woman, presumably the mother. And I know who she is. I’ve known who she is all these years, and I have secretly been following her.”
“What’s her name?”
Victor squinted his eyes and shook his head. “I’m putting so much trust in you.” He exhaled. “At the time of the Awakening, her name was Maria Valadez, but she has since been married and her new last name is Garcia. She had two kids after Zelda and kept them with her new husband. I was considering recruiting her as a spy, but she’s a devoted Mater and regularly active in Materism. I don’t think there is any way to convert her.”
Lance interjected, “Victor, how could you keep this a secret so long. You have had this leverage for over thirty years. You allowed Materism to take over the country. My daughter wouldn’t be in a prison right now.”
“Do you want to go back on the streets?” General Cook snapped back. “I can have you dropped at the Farmers Branch station if you want.”
Lance stared back and wasn’t about to kiss his ass anymore. They needed him and weren’t going to turn him loose to potentially reveal the Establishment, but he would never do that. Even though he didn’t trust Victor after hearing that he withheld this valuable information for so long, the Establishment was his only hope to bring down the evil Zelda and get his daughter and his wife back.
Victor broke the silence, “You didn’t think she came from the heavens, did you?”
“No, I didn’t think she came from the heavens, but I had no idea of how she got here. Tell me about the other stuff.” Lance couldn’t wait to hear.
General Cook sighed and smiled. “She’s no fucking virgin. She’s a slut like you wouldn’t believe. She’ll sleep with anyone she can if no one detects her. She wears disguises.”
“But what about her three sons, the Gods of the Sun, Land, and the Sea?”
General Cook chuckled again. “They went through artificial insemination. They tried many times with various donors. Although she got pregnant several times, they pregnancies weren’t triplets at first. As a result, she had many abortions, which you know is against the Mater religion. Come to think of it, aren’t all religions against abortion?”
“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Lance responded.
General Cook held both his hands up facing Lance, and said, “But what she does have is this power against men. She can exert extreme pain to men. I’ve never been a victim of it. I tried to stay away from her. But I have talked to people who have, and it’s extremely painful. It’s been described as someone sticking a thick needle up your penis.”
Lance cringed. “Ouch.”
The General continued, “It hurts so bad, and she has this power. But it has its limits that I have witnessed. It doesn’t apply to women. Shit, you can just look at the Awakening tape, and you can see that Joanne Tillman is not in any pain at all.”
Lance said, “I did not realize that. Can I see the video?”
“Later,” Victor said. “We’re probably going to show the video to the entire nation here in the next day or two but let me continue.”
Lance nodded.
“I think she has to be in the presence of the male. I don’t think she can do it over the phone. So her powers have their limitations, but it is still powerful. She can exert pain on multiple men at once as shown in the Awakening. We must be careful on how we kill her. We can’t corner her in a room. She’ll have all men at their knees.”
Lance asked what he considered the obvious solution, “Why don’t women attack her, then, if she can’t exert pain on women? Hell, Martha the woman that hid me in her house, she’s a warrior. She’s already killed one guard.”
General Cook replied, “It’s a great suggestion, and we have already thought of that. Our strategy is to try to have no men get near her, but we only have a limited number of women who can fight effectively.”
Lance asked, “So how are you going to use all this information that you have on Zelda?”
“We’re going to embarrass her. Our goal is to get these stupid Maters to stop believing in Materism.”
“That will never happen,” Lance interrupted. “They’re going to believe in Materism no matter what.”
“You’re probably right, but we have to try. When we attack her, we’re going to show the video to everyone.”
“How are you going to that?” Lance asked. “You don’t have connections to the TVs.”
The General smiled again. “Yes, we can. We have some of the best hackers out there. And guess who is going to introduce and explain the video?”
Lance shook his head. “Not me, I hope,” Lance said.
“Yes, that’s why we need you. You’re the missing piece in our puzzle. You can give us credibility. But we are going to do a m
ajor full-blown attack. There will be no looking back. As I said before, we must move quickly, because she might be planning an attack on us. We don’t know.” The General paused. “Oh, by the way, tell me about the rumors about your powers with bees. What’s up with that?”
Lance ignored the question, and asked, “So in the next couple of days, I might be able to see my daughter?”
General Cook snorted and shook his head.
Before he could respond, there was a soft knock on the door and a person in army fatigues rushed into the office and whispered to Victor.
Victor jerked. “Shit,” he said.
Lance figured it wasn’t good news. Lance asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Well, Lance, all the people that helped you which includes the guard on the train, Daniel, and Martha Slate, the woman who hid you, are being interrogated as we speak. No doubt they’re being torture.”
“Oh no,” Lance replied.
“Where are they being held?” Victor asked the army fatigue guy.
“At that mansion in Highland Park where Zelda’s been staying. It’s heavily guarded now with about a hundred guards surrounding the place. They blocked off the street too. They kicked out all the Mater worshipers that were congregating outside the house, and they kicked out all the neighbors out of their mansions too. The block is sealed off.”
“Sounds like a fortress,” General Cook commented.
“What are we going to do, General?” the army fatigue guy asked.
Victor pressed his palms on his head, gazing at the ceiling, thinking. He exhaled. “Well, they are probably torturing them right now as we speak. Normally, I would think our spies wouldn’t talk. We’ve trained them to give them false information. You know, give them names of loyal Maters and say that they’re spies. Stall for time and maybe get some asshole Mater followers in trouble. But with the evil Zelda around, who knows what her powers are capable of extracting.”
“Shit,” the army fatigue guy said.
General Cook said, “Corporal Vernon, contact Lieutenant Hector Gonzalez and everyone else and issue a Code 5 for tomorrow.”
“What’s a Code 5?” Lance asked.
“War.”
Chapter 30
Allan Anderson shivered as he sat in a chair in a mansion in Highland Park, handcuffed, in an empty room, with no other furniture other than the chair and a TV mounted to a wall, expecting people to interrogate him. Mater guards brought him there. They suspected that he helped the former Governor, Lance Hampton, escape from the DART train where he worked as a guard. Of course, they were correct, and Allan feared for his life.
Allan was in his early twenties. His parents were devoted Maters and had forced him to attend Wednesday services his whole life. After he became an adult, he started missing most of the Wednesday services. He worked at Best Buy in the cellphone department but didn’t make enough to live on his own comfortably, so he stilled lived at home. Not the best situation to pick up girls—living with his mommy and daddy. His parents threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn’t start going back to the Mater services. So he went and even became an usher to please his parents.
This turned out to be a good decision because after the Conversion, the Maters needed more guards, so he applied and landed the cushy guard job on the DART trains. He was sure his parents, being devoted Maters, assisted behind the scenes in getting him the job. It was a grade nine job, and he made more than what he had made at Best Buy.
Allan shortly discovered a secret network of people at the Mater services that complained about how Materism was taking over the country and taking away citizens’ religious freedom. Allan became a born-again atheist, as they called themselves, and grew to not only disbelieve in Materism but in all religions. He went along with Materism because it was dangerous not to.
Just before the Conversion, Allan met Martha and Daniel Slate, who were also secret born-again atheists. They would converse long after the services about their lack of religious beliefs, but they were careful that no one heard them. The friendship grew and he would visit them at the Slate’s house in Farmers Branch.
They stayed connected after the Conversion. The Slates approached him one day after the Conversion and cautiously informed him that there was a resistance and wondered if he was interested in joining. This was a dangerous question they asked. If he was a true Mater, he would be bound to turn them in. Allan asked questions of what he had to do to join. They informed him that he had to provide information, help infidels escape, and to eventually serve in the resistance army to fight the Maters.
Allan was hesitant because of the risk to his parents, but he eventually agreed. He couldn’t pretend to be happy with Materism with all the cruel things they were doing to people. He hated them, and he hated what they made him do on the trains with checking passengers’ Freedom Chips and instilling fear in them. He knew it was dangerous to be associated with the resistance, and the Mater police would certainly torture and kill him if caught.
And that was the unfortunate predicament that he now faced. He worried that the Maters would suspect his parents and harm them. He worried that they would uncover Martha and Daniel in the plot. He knew the Slates were supposed to hide the former governor in their house. But the Establishment trained him to deflect and stall while being tortured. Nevertheless, he knew the next moments were going to be painful.
The door opened and in came the evil Zelda Mater, the mother of all the Gods, by herself, dressed in her usual white, loosely fit, cotton dress, which lay shortly below her knees. Her black hair stretched well below her shoulders. She walked towards him and stopped about five feet from him and faced him. She smiled.
Allan shuddered.
Zelda began, “Well, well, Mr. Allan Anderson, I understand that you’ve been spying for the resistance. Now, now, not so good for you. You know who I am of course?”
Allan nodded.
“I’m Zelda Mater, mother of all the Gods. Today, is going the be the worst day of your life for being a traitor.”
Oh shit, Allan thought. He figured that this was just an introduction, and the guards would be coming in shortly to apply the real pain on him.
Zelda continued, “Okay, I know you’re going to play the silent act and that’s okay, but I need some information from you. Now we can do it one of two ways. We can do it the easy way, where you just tell me, or the hard way, where I’m going to make your life a living hell. Which way do you choose?”
“Easy way. I’ll tell you whatever you need.” Allan immediately replied, using his Establishment training to pretend to cooperate by giving false information. The false information would buy him time.
“Oh, really that easy,” Zelda said sarcastically. “I didn’t even have to slap you or anything.” Zelda paused. “So did you spy for the resistance?”
“No, I did not spy for any resistance. I didn’t know there was any resistance.” Allan had to put up somewhat of a defense; otherwise, she wouldn’t believe him.
Zelda sighed and smiled. “Well, let me show you some video. I bet you didn’t realize it, but we had hidden cameras in all the DART trains.” She pulled a remote out of her dress pocket and clicked on the TV.
Oh no, Allan thought. He didn’t realize that the cars had hidden cameras in every train. He knew some of them did, but not all of them and not certainly the one that he was on when the former governor escaped.
Allan glanced up and saw himself walking into the conductor’s station. Fortunately, the camera angle couldn’t show him putting the note under the mat inside the conductor station, but it was suspicious that he was in there. Then, the video showed him whispering something to the Governor before the Governor entered the conductor’s station. As the video advanced, most importantly, it showed Allan at the far end of the car looking in the opposite direction when the Governor escaped. He didn’t start chasing after the Governor for what seemed like a long time.
Zelda commented, “You went into the conductor’s station
, who knows what you did in there. You whispered some secret code to Lance Hampton. You conveniently went to the back when the train stopped and took your sweet time chasing after him. So you’re a fucking spy.”
Allan braced for the worse.
Zelda shook her head. “I asked you whether you wanted to do it the easy way or the hard way, and you chose the hard way.” Zelda clinched her fists.
“Aaaah!” Allan yelled, as it felt like someone stuck a stick up his penis. “Whoa, whoa, ouch, ouch, please, please stop! Please stop!”
“Are you going to tell me what you know?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you … I’ll tell you … I’ll tell you. Please!”
“Okay, okay, good,” Zelda said. “So you’ll stop with this bullshit?”
“Yes, please.”
The pain suddenly stopped as quickly as it started. Allan was slumped to the side of the chair, drool slid down the side of his mouth, and he slowly rebalanced himself. He exhaled. He had heard the rumors about her powers, but now he knew—that the powers were real and extremely painful.
Zelda gritted her teeth and asked, “Tell me. Are you a spy for the resistance?”
Allan hesitated.
Zelda raised her eyebrows. “Do you want me to do that again?”
“No, I don’t. Yes, I’m a spy for the resistance.” Allan could not go through that torture again. Plus, the video recording clearly showed he was a spy, so there was no use denying it.
“You filthy infidel. You are a disgrace! How dare you call yourself a Mater. You are a piece of shit.” Zelda paused and strolled around Allan. “So what is the resistance called?”
“It’s called Frontiers,” Allan lied figuring that she couldn’t verify the name.
“Where are you hiding Lance Hampton?”
Allan wasn’t going to spoon feed the false information, as the Establishment trained him, but give it to her at once.
Allan replied, “I’m not actually sure where they are hiding him, but I have a good idea. I handed him off to Luis Cane.”