Red Walker

by Scott Allen

  Dana risked a question, “Didn’t they used to own Texas?”

  “Yes, and California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and the Oklahoma panhandle. We got them because of the Texas revolution and the Mexican-American war over two centuries ago, when they were weak. Now, we are weak, and they see an opportunity to take them back. What I’m trying to tell you, Dana, is that you may have an opportunity to get free of this man-hating so-called republic.” She paused to see his reaction.

  Dana was not sure how far to trust her. He did not want to be too eager. He tried to keep his face impassive. “How do you mean?”

  “Either Mexico will conquer territory up this far, or you can escape down to where their forces hold territory. They are about 200 kilometers south of us right now. If they come this far north, you could find a safe place to hide while they overrun the town. Or, if they stop before they get here, you could find your way south to them. I could help you with maps and suggestions and supplies, and maybe with transport. I’ve been all over the area to the south of us. What you would need to do is wait for a time when things are in chaos, and then make your way here. I would hide you until the next step.”

  Dana stared, not sure what to say next. He had never imagined anything like this. “Um, how long do you think it will be?”

  “At the rate they are moving they will reach the Red River – the border between Texas and Oklahoma – sometime in about two or three weeks. If they come further north, it might take them another week or two to get here. Our army is already completely engaged, and we are losing soldiers, aircraft, and equipment by the hour. Maybe faster.”

  Dana said, “This is a lot to think about. Why are you putting yourself in danger like this? It’s treason, isn’t it?”

  Marjorie took a deep breath. “Yes. Well, here’s where I tell you my story. When I was in college, women were starting to take over. Even in elementary school, girls were favored over boys, and given special attention. All the teachers were female. Boys were told to sit down and be quiet. Boys that didn’t were drugged. They weren’t allowed to engage in rough and tumble play, and they had to play games with girls during recess. Girl games. Boys had to be very careful what they said to girls, because anything that hurt their feelings would be punished. The ridiculous figures on video shows were all men. Women were presented as the sensible, responsible ones who had to fix the messes made by men.”

  “I wondered about that,” said Dana. “Of course, I had no contact with girls at all.”

  “When I reached college, I discovered that nearly all my instructors were also women there. If a male instructor said anything that could be construed as hostile to women, even if it was a provable fact, he was removed. I had three male professors removed in the middle of semesters for making comments that women complained about, like ‘on the average men have more upper body strength.’ There weren’t many male college students, either. They got expelled for just looking at women a few seconds too long, or if a woman overheard them tell a story that she claimed was offensive to women. Almost anything a man said could be considered offensive to women. If a woman said the same thing, of course, there were no consequences. We all had something called smartphones that could record video, and a lot of women just recorded everything secretly, and got men expelled.

  Once in a while, a teacher would say something like, ‘There is no objective truth. Everyone sees the world differently, and all views are equally valid. But, since men are the oppressors, male opinions don’t count.’ This point of view even infected science and engineering, so you can see why things don’t work very well any more.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Dana. “Almost every appliance I touch is badly designed in some way.”

  Marjorie nodded. “You never went to college, Dana, but in my time, men did. And, first thing freshman year, we all had classes in sexual harassment and misconduct. Men were told they had to ask to kiss you, ask to touch you, and you practically had to sign a notarized contract to have sex. Even then, if a woman decided that she regretted it, she could just file charges against the man, and he would be expelled, and no other college would admit him. So, men tended to avoid us. And the number of men kept going down, as universities began to declare that no department could have a majority of male faculty or students, because it created a hostile environment for women. Eventually, women controlled everything. Young men were depressed and afraid.

  “Except for Bob. Oh, Bob.” She sighed and smiled. Her eyes seemed to look far away. “I fell in love with him my junior year. He was funny, and sweet, and smart. He treated me so well. I felt safe and protected in his arms. He was so romantic. He never pushed me, but I wanted to give myself to him. I loved everything about him. I loved his smile, his strength, and his physicality, his wit, even the way he smelled. He and some of his braver friends would play flag football in a park off campus, even though sometimes some of the college women would show up with signs deploring toxic masculinity. I loved to watch him run with the ball, and he loved it, too. Several times, women faculty noticed us holding hands and asked me if I was being harassed, but I always said absolutely not. They weren’t happy to see it, but technically, there was nothing they could do. He didn’t care for anyone’s opinion, and he taught me not to. We got married after he graduated. Not many people got married, but we did. We had to go through counseling that was designed to make you second-guess yourself about marriage, but it didn’t work. Bob went to work as finance director for a small company and did very well.”

  Dana asked, “If men were second-class citizens, how did he get hired for a responsible job like that?”

  “Small companies had more freedom in hiring, and Bob was just very good. Even though he was prohibited from being valedictorian because the honors had to go to women, he was still first in his class. It was a coup for that little company to get him, and he improved their business dramatically. But, he always knew he had a target on his back, and the only thing that kept him employed was that he was too valuable to let go,” replied Marjorie. “But, the best part of his life wasn’t his work, anyway.”

  “We had kids. Two girls, and then two boys. Back then, a woman could still conceive children the old-fashioned way. Having children was a way for a woman to gain honor and respect, just like now. I got a lot of benefits for it. But the best part was raising them with Bob. I never realized quite how happy we were. I hated what the schools did to my sons, and we tried to reverse some of the programming, but we showed them how to be careful. They loved to play football and catch with their Dad, although they had to stay out of sight in the back yard.

  “We had to teach the boys how and when to talk, how to sit on a bench, how to keep their eyes from lingering on women, how to stay out of large groups of men, so many things.”

  “It almost sound like the Rules!” said Dana.

  “It was the informal early version of them, enforced by the schools,” said Marjorie. “While things got worse for men, opportunities kept opening up for women. I got very worried about the way things were going, and I joined the Womyn’s Party and went into politics. I tried to moderate the treatment of men and boys while giving lip service to modern feminism. I always condemned patriarchy, but argued that matriarchy would not be better – we needed equality and cooperation. We needed to recognize that men and women are biologically different, but that did not need to limit opportunity for either sex. Some of the more extreme women hated me, but I could get elected. I got good-sized donations from people who were also worried. Eventually, I got myself elected a US Senator from Oklahoma.

  “In Washington, I discovered how bad things really were. There were bills being introduced to take the vote away from men, to force them out of their jobs, to put men on reservations. About half of Congress was still male, although many of them were very feminist. They had absorbed a lot of self-hatred from the dominant culture. But, there were still some women like myself that loved men. So, those bills were narrowly defeated. As t
ime went on, things kept getting more one-sided. In the state legislatures and in the Congress, women were getting elected by pretending to be moderate. The Womyn’s Party dominated every legislature. Then, behind closed doors, they would vote for the most radical stuff. I always wondered why the men didn’t speak up more forcefully. Any man who didn’t toe the extreme feminist line could expect to be the target of feminist hatred in every way, and defeated. Not to mention being the target of accusations of sexual assault. I had to conclude that the educational and legal systems had done their work of turning most men into weaklings who would not stand up for themselves. Some of the men even argued that since the world had been controlled by men since the beginning of the human race, and there had always been lots of war and crime perpetuated by men, it was time for women to have all the power – exactly what some classes taught at the universities. Useful idiots, they were.

  “The radical stuff didn’t go away, it got worse. When one tactic failed, they tried another one. Bit by bit, the rights of men were eroded, and the procedures in the legislatures and elections were changed to force female majorities and suppress dissent. The top generals and admirals in the military were soon all female, then the officer corps, and most military men quit in disgust or were victims of trumped-up charges. Eventually, enough of the state legislatures and the Congress were controlled by radical feminists to change the American Constitution. At that point, most of the life that you have lived, and the life my sons were forced to live, was put into place. Men on reservations, like your dorm, under supervision, with no vote, not allowed to hold office, not allowed to touch weapons, not allowed to drive vehicles, not allowed to do jobs that have any big effect or require muscles, all the Rules you have been born into. Plus, no sex. That has been a radical feminist idea for over a hundred years. Penetration is rape. So, all babies are born by artificial insemination.”

  “Yeah,” said Dana, making a sour face. “I have to make donations once a month.”

  “Dana, I am so sorry, so sorry for this,” said Marjorie, obviously saddened almost to the point of tears. “I know they did the same to my sons.”

  She continued, “The early feminists wanted a just society, but they got power, and power corrupts. When I remember all the men who fell victim to this, some of the poor fools actually agreeing with it! I just can’t stand to think of it.”

  “You may not know that there was one set of the Rules that was never made public. That was the plan to reduce the male population down to a small number and selectively breed them to produce the kind of male that would not be a threat to women. First, they determined they had to get rid of all the men whose genes were unsuitable. So, Male Control was established, and started selectively eliminating men. Powerful men, men over 50 years old, large men. It was all carefully planned and carried out over a period of ten years. Men would be arrested in the night and taken to a police station, which was really Male Control. Their whole lives had been reviewed, and they could always find some woman who could claim a grievance against them. Charges would be filed, a quick trial held, and the man would be sentenced to a remote reservation. That’s where he would die. Tens of thousands of men a day, all over the country, just disappeared. Bob would come home from work every day and mention that some man he knew had not shown up that day, and I noticed the number of men I would see every day seemed to decrease.

  “When I realized what was happening, I spoke against it, and I lost my next election. I was ejected from the Party. The amount of hate that they poured on me in every possible way was flabbergasting. On the viewscreen, in electronic conversations, in opinion forums, in college classrooms, they made me the enemy of women everywhere. I got trounced by a woman who had more anti-male views. I had been very worried for Bob and my sons, but there was nothing I could do. I spoke to other women who were sympathetic to my point of view and asked them to speak out, but they were afraid of drawing attention to themselves. They would lose their jobs if they showed a hint of unorthodox opinions.

  “Some men bought the whole patriarchy-must-be-destroyed line, and actually served the government as Male Control officers, early on. They thought it would exempt them from all the things that were happening to other men. It did, for a while. After the number of men had been reduced down to a manageable size, they got sent to reservations and killed, too. More useful idiots. Other men turned to drugs, or viewscreen games, adopted feminine mannerisms, or even committed suicide.

  “Eventually, they came for Bob. He had been fired from his job a month before, and we were worried. He knew who was at the door, and he told me not to fight it. Women who tried were often killed on the spot. He walked out into the night with them, and I never saw him again. That was thirty years ago. Bob was fifty-three, and he had gotten lucky for three years. The children didn’t even get to say goodbye. By then, my girls were working in other cities, and my boys had been confined to male dorms.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t know that men are killed when they hit fifty.” Dana shook his head. “Well, my older son is already dead, and my younger son, wherever he is, will be killed when he hits fifty next week. He might be dead already, if they didn’t think he was right for the breeding program.” By now, her voice was trembling. “I couldn’t help them!” she was suddenly choking back sobs and holding her head in her hands.

  Dana was stunned and saddened by everything she said. He didn’t know what to say that would help with her grief, but he tried. “I’m so sorry, Marjorie,” he said as she continued to sob. “This is so unbelievably horrible for you. I wish there was something I could say or do,” he said.

  She continued to sob for several minutes. Dana sat quietly, not knowing what else to say. Finally, she raised her head, with tears streaming down.

  “You could escape,” she said. “My son can’t, but you might. It would help balance the scales a little.”

  So,” he said. “You want to strike a blow. For your husband and your sons.”

  “If I could bring down this awful government, I would. And I’m not the only woman who wants to. I made hundreds of contacts with women who agreed with me during my time in Congress, and ever since. Women who love men the way they were, and who taught their daughters the truth, secretly. Some of them are in moderately important positions. But, they are a minority, and they’re not in the top positions of power. They can’t openly fight the matriarchy.

  “Most younger women just go along with whatever happens. They hate having their sons taken away when they are twelve, but they know it’s coming. They have no idea what it is like to love a real man like Bob, to share your life with him, to laugh together, to be held, to feel feminine. The best they can do is form relationships with masculinized women. It can’t possibly be the same,” said Marjorie. “So, normal life for most women just means that men are some sort of dangerous beasts in cages made out of their hardware. They don’t have any way to know anything different.” She paused, then went on. “You should get out of this awful world, Dana. You should be free. Let me help you.”

  Dana head was spinning. So many things had happened so quickly. There were so many dangerous problems to be solved if he chose to run. He was frightened by the choice before him. He started out with the idea that was uppermost in his mind. “Marjorie, what about my hardware? They can track me everywhere I go. They can electrocute me if they find me.”

  “I know. That’s a tough nut to crack. Trust me – if you can get here in the middle of chaos, I will find one of those tools. I have enough friends that someone will be able to get one. If there is fighting near the city, or there is some other breakdown, they won’t be trying to track anyone. If you’re game, I’ll start trying to track down a removal tool.”

  Dana nodded. “I’m game.” He wasn’t sure he meant that, but it seemed like the right thing to say. He would have no choice but to trust her if he ran. “What are my chances of getting down to the border with Texas without being caught, if that’s the way I have to go?”

  �
�That’s another tough nut,” Marjorie said. “I hope it won’t come to that. I hope the Mexican army waltzes all the way to Washington DC, and frees every man between here and there. But, if they stop at the border, we can try driving down there in my car, with you hidden in the trunk. I could let you out close enough to the border. If there are patrols searching cars, then you’ll have to make your way across country at night. I have a lot of friends between here and there, places you could stay and get fed. Sometimes in towns, sometimes out in the countryside. Not every woman thinks this is a just society. We’ve kept in touch.”

  “OK, I can take that risk if I have to. Once I’ve run from the dorm, I’m dead anyway, if I don’t make it to the Mexican army. How far is it?” asked Dana.

  “It’s about 120 kilometers if you go straight down the old highway. But, that will be patrolled, most likely. You’ll have to do some zigging and zagging across country. I hate to think of you dodging everyone you see. It might take you a week to get to the Mexican Army. It would be really dangerous. But, you’d be safe when you made it.”

  Dana asked, “One of the other guys in my dorm is a friend. Any chance I could bring him?”

  Marjorie looked concerned. “That would depend on what method we had to use to get you to the border. There’s only room for one person curled up in the trunk of my little vehicle. It’s good that you’re short. If your friend came, I could help him get out of his hardware, but I couldn’t get him to the border with you. I’d have to make a separate trip with him, and a second trip might be noticed. But, if it turned out that you couldn’t use my vehicle, then it might be better to have two of you. You could run south together, if you’re careful. It’s just something we’ll have to decide when the time comes. I would hate to have to tell your friend that he has to run south without you, but that may be how it turns out.”

  Dana said, “Marjorie, you are taking your life in your hands to help me.”