by James Ryke
Rick sat down hard in one of the chairs, its wheels squealing in protest. As he dragged the mouse across the mouse pad, the screen saver disappeared, revealing a nearly finished Microsoft Word document. He had almost completely forgotten about the document, but now, as he studied it, a wry, tight smile slowly appeared on his face. The article had been destined for his survival blog, but after steadily working on it for a week, he suddenly lost interest. With the recent text from Jacks, the relevance of the article came rushing back. He put his phone down on the desk, Jacks’ text momentarily forgotten.
The article was entitled, “The Top Twelve Recent Events that Destroyed the US.” Rick hated making top twelve lists because it often meant cutting out important information in order to keep it quick and punchy. Ironically, however, it was these routinely published lists that moved his webpage out of obscurity and into the limelight. Readers did not care for long informative articles. They wanted quick and easy facts that they could read while multi-tasking on some other trivial matter. Despite his curiosity of Jacks’ text, he found himself rereading the article:
The Top Twelve Recent Events that Destroyed the US
12. August 15, 1971: President Richard Nixon Abandons the Gold Standard—The world transitioned from the Gold standard to a global fiat currency. Since the US dollar was highly circulated, the world leaders selected the United States dollar as the World Reserve Currency, and the value of every currency was pegged to the dollar. This not only destabilized everyone’s currency, but it also linked economies together.
11. Education Within The United States Deteriorates—I can’t quite pinpoint the dates, but there has been a long and steady trend to “dumb down” our children to protect them from the cruelty of being incorrect. Elementary, middle, and high schools have become impotent since their curriculum was based on the pace of the slowest student. College education was marginalized for the sake of being politically correct. Morals were weaned out of school because of the fear of mixing church and state. America has gradually drifted from a country that was full of ambitious, hardworking individuals to a place where people expect special treatment for sub-standard work.
10. Stock Markets Disconnect Themselves from Real Value—There are lots of examples I could use, but I like to use the collapse of The Lehman Brothers. By itself, it is not an important event, but it shows how disconnected stocks are from reality. It was a fortune five hundred company, but it disappeared in five short days. Five short days. Businesses have failed before, lending institutions have collapsed, but this event was different. Almost all of the information that brought on the collapse was based on rumor—not fact. And right before the company’s demise, several anonymous bets were placed that Lehman Brothers would crumble. The result: billions of dollars were lost by thousands in the public, while millions of dollars were made by a private few. Greed and fear became the basis for investor decisions—not ingenuity and production.
9. Borrowing into Prosperity: The Years of Stimulus—Politician’s solution to fix the recession was to inject the US economy with money. It was a band-aid that would eventually become our noose. We traded trillions of dollars of debt to revive an imprudent banking system—amongst other questionable investments. It was the American taxpayers who—like the last car in the parade—were left to clean up the crap that was dropped behind by the bankers and politicians.
8. Inflation: Printing Money Until We Are Out of Debt—Instead of treating the problems of the economy, politicians offered a cure that would later turn into a cancer: quantitative easing, or printing money. By the year 2026, the money supply was twenty times what it was in 1980. Inflation was slow in coming because the dollar was still the World Reserve Currency, but as soon as countries started using Special Drawing Rights instead of the dollar, the US debt became unstable. Inflation skyrocketed. Interest rates on treasury notes surged. The Federal Government was forced to make massive cuts.
7. Gridlock in Washington—Ever since 2008, as the economy continued to spiral out of control, politicians spent more energy on shifting the blame than they did in looking for solutions. Each successive year brought a more significant divide between the political parties. As a result, even the politicians with the best intentions were incapable of making any difference. News stations did, and still do, compare the current political climate to the American Civil War. By the year 2026, a person’s political party had more bearing on where they lived than anything else.
6. Politicians Steal Money from Private Bank Accounts to Pay for Public Debt—Way back in 2012 when Greece partially defaulted on its debt, the island of Cyprus was hit particularly hard. Cyprus requested a bailout, as many of the EU countries had done in the past, but in exchange, they were ordered to do something unprecedented. Cyprus was forced to seize money from private bank accounts to partly fund the bailout. Some people lost as much as 60% of their wealth in a single day. This became the model for all other bailouts in the future, including the ones that later occurred in the United States. The European bailouts slowed the worsening conditions, but they could not stop them. As things continued to deteriorate, more EU countries asked for bailouts, such as Hungary, Malta, and Austria. Soon even the most stalwart countries such as Spain, Italy, and France needed some form of bailout, and each time, the citizens were required to take on a more substantial portion of the debt. Consequently, confidence in the banking system vanished. Every EU country’s credit was downgraded to junk status, driving the price of their bonds astronomically high. European countries could not afford to borrow money to run their own governments. The EU crumbled, creating bitter political divisions between rival nations.
5. The Decade of the Defaulting States—The US economy, already reeling from the dramatic Federal Government spending cuts and by the effects of Corona Virus shutdowns, suffered even more at the loss of the dollar as the World Reserve Currency. By the year 2030, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Washington, Florida, and New York filed for bankruptcy. After a divisive debate in DC, the United States’ Government bailed out each state in turn, on the condition they underwent severe budget cuts and transferred much of their debt onto taxpayers. This created a division between the states that were bailed out, or “Quitters” as they were called, and those states that did not request help. The national debt eclipsed a ratio of 200% debt to GDP. Entitlement services were scaled down, which was then eating 80% of the budget. Massive cuts were made to food stamps, assisted living, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In reaction, mobs hit the streets and formed a new movement called “Individualists.” The civil unrest changed nothing and ended up increasing taxes so that more cops could be hired.
4. People No Longer Wanted Kids—Arguably, the most damning thing to our world economy was something that I don’t think even the most forward thinker could have predicted: People no longer wanted the responsibility of having children. When the birth rate in the US dropped below 2.1%, a rate that was not sustainable, and immigrants stopped coming into the country because of the lack of work, the retired baby boomers became too big for the working class to support. Essentially, there was not a large enough tax base to support the aging majority. Another trend that was just as damning was that those parents who had children did not spend much time raising them. More and more, children were raised by grandparents or through third party arrangements that did not care if a child learned moral principles or not.
3. Peak Oil—Ironically, this was the first major problem that people recognized, but it was the last problem politicians wanted to address. It actually happened in 2023, but fracking proved a temporary Band-Aid that made up the difference. But, radical environmental laws regulated gas and oil industry, sending the U.S. economy crashing. Peak oil meant that half of the oil in the world had been used, and at that point, prices would begin to rise, marginally at first, but then exponentially when people realized the finite nature of oil. In response to increasing gasoline prices, the oil fields in Alaska were opened
up and, for a time, the US enjoyed a much-needed boost. But, as oil was becoming increasingly more valuable, the price of fuel continued to rise—along with everything else that was dependent upon it: transportation, manufacturing, and energy. It soon became very costly to produce even plastics or fertilizer. Farmlands decreased in production, which in turn raised food prices.
2. Social Media Divides the Nation—Social media changed the political landscape in ways that no one could have predicted. Using complicated Artificial Intelligence algorithms, social media applications, such as Facebook and Twitter, were able to find and provide the greatest preferred content to the end users. This constantly reinforced individuals’ opinions about the world around them. Soon, the conservative right and the liberal left became so divided, all common ground disappeared.
1….
Rick had finished everything in the article except for the number one event that led to the downfall of America. There were a lot of things he could put there—such as the surge of terrorist attacks in the US, the Corona Virus of 2019 and 2020, the LA Earthquake—which costs the lives of over 400,000 Americans in a single week—or the nuclear proliferation of many of the countries that were known to support terrorism, but it did not quite fit with the rest of the article. Those things had changed the world dynamics, but not nearly as much as one would think—at least not yet. His indecision had given way to apathy, and before long, the article had been forgotten.
Whatever Jacks wants to tell me, Rick thought, will be sure to fit snuggly into the number one slot. He walked over to his computer and plugged a cord into his phone. Within seconds, the computer chimed, and a small icon appeared at the bottom of the screen. Rick clicked on the icon and entered a password. It took a few seconds for the encryption program to work, but when it chimed again, the text message was decoded. “Critical. Must meet in three days. 6pm 39°59'21.14"N, 79° 9'46.84"W.”
Rick snorted. He hated GPS coordinates. He double-clicked a sophisticated map program and then drummed his fingers on his desk impatiently. After the program pulled up, he entered in the GPS coordinates. The map blurred and faded, rotating slightly as it zoomed out of one part of the United States and zoomed in again at another location.
“What?” Rick said. “A crappy restaurant?” He furrowed his brow and cursed under his breath. He wants me to drive all the way up there for that? If I’m going to get a meal paid for by the government, I want it to be a steak or at least some half-decent BBQ. He grabbed his phone and looked at it, unsure of what he should do. He half considered shutting the phone off and forgetting all about it. But even as he considered it, he knew he could not. He’s pulled my butt out of the fire on plenty of occasions. Of course, I’ve pulled his butt out of the fire twice as much. What do you want with me now, Jacks? My Intel is five years shy of current, and I did not have any pending cases when I left. Maybe he’s just looking for a friendly chat? No, not Jacks. He never wasted a second of the Federal Government’s time for personal matters. This has to be official business.
Rick looked around, taking in the room. This is it. This has to be it. I better have everything ready. He turned his attention back to his computer and opened a file marked “Home Improvement.” Moments later, after entering yet another password, an interactive security program pulled up on four of the eight screens. The main screen displayed a basic outline of his home. From several spots on the interactive display, a circular object made a pulsing arc. Rick ran his finger over the image of the front door. In the distance, he could hear a massive metal door sliding into position. The sound apexed as four large bars locked into place and reverberated through the walls. He studied the diagnostic report for his home: The perimeter of his yard was equipped with 3D imaging seismic sensors. If they were tripped, a sound wave would pulse out and, milliseconds later, come back, bringing with it a crisp image of who or what had set it off. Beyond the seismic sensors were a series of cameras equipped with infrared and night vision. If the sensors detected something, the cameras would automatically pan towards the intruder and use face recognition technology to identify whether the individual was friend or foe. The cameras were also equipped with 5.56 mm rifles that could be set to fire automatically or manually.
The walls of his home were concrete and were two feet thick. Windows could be sealed off automatically by large three-inch steel plates that could drop down and lock into place at the touch of a button. There were half a dozen sniper roosts and murder holes, where defenders could conceal themselves in case attackers overran the outer perimeter. Throughout the entire structure was a ventilation system designed to keep radioactive debris out while pumping fresh air in. It was a masterpiece, one that took Rick ten years to design and another six years to build. The structure cost a fortune. Even with steady paychecks from his government retirement, his salary fell dramatically short. It was not until his blog took off before he had enough capital to complete the project.
The large man sighed as he scanned the room. It was cluttered with half-used notebooks, scraps of paper, empty cups, and mismatched dishes. He was not a messy person by nature, but the trash all around him suggested otherwise. He suddenly felt disgusted.
Not the control room, Rick thought. I can’t let the control room get so trashy that it makes it ineffective. How did this place become so dirty? It was as if he was seeing the mess for the first time and, in an odd sense, he was. Everything is changing, and I let my house turn to shit. Get moving. Rick stood and grabbed an empty box. He ran the box parallel to his desk and let the notebooks, used paper, and dishes fall in, a few of them breaking on impact. He then went to the other side of his desk, where a mound of oil-soaked gun cleaning rags greeted him. He once had been very careful to separate gun cleaning rags into yellow, hazardous-waste bins that he would properly dispose of once a month. Now the rags went in with everything else. He ran upstairs, the heavy box in hand. His final destination was the trashcan just outside the house, but he only made it to the garage before his phone vibrated.
He quickly set the box down next to the water heater and pulled out the phone. It was Jacks. “Need to meet earlier. Same location. Tomorrow at 6 AM.”
Rick stared at the text. Unencrypted? That’s not like Jacks. What are you playing at, Jacks? He left the garage, the box forgotten, and returned to his room. Within five minutes, he had packed his laptop, a few extra pistol magazines, and a bag of survival essentials.
He stopped at the front door, which was still sealed by a thick metal plate. He punched some numbers into a keypad that was next to the door, and the metal plate went shooting upwards, shaking the whole house as it locked into place.
“This better be worth the trip, Jacks.”
FOUR
Marcus McKeet was a tall man topped with white hair that shined silver in the sun. He was a remarkably handsome specimen, from his sharp chin down to his athletic build. He was older, but age only seemed to flush out his attractiveness, as he often remarked to himself. His smile was warm, genuine, and practiced. His smile was almost too perfect, in fact, as his opponents often mentioned, like the “glistening teeth of a serpent.” He rather liked that metaphor and, although in public he condemned it, he smiled every time he heard it.
He had broad shoulders and thick hands, evidence of his ancestors’ dirty past as cattle ranchers. He had distanced himself from dirt and cows; he had distanced himself from long sweaty days in the summer and cold, hungry nights in the winter. The farm he grew up on was one of the last family-owned and operated cattle ranches in the country. This was a mark of pride for everyone in his family—everyone except for Marcus. By the time he was ten, he had firmly decided he would do whatever he had needed to do to get off the ranch. They were ignorant. They were poor. They were religious.
Ironically, later in life, the thing that he tried so hard to distance himself from became the reason his political campaigns ended in such dramatic victory. His campaign slogan was, “A Working Man from a Working Family.” In the a
dvertisements he used during his political campaigns, he would always tout this phrase while showing pictures of him working on the farm, his face lined with dirt and dripping with sweat. Never mind that the photos he usually used were taken out of context and manipulated; never mind that he had not returned to the farm since his eighteenth birthday. That is who the people of America wanted to be in congress—not millionaire businessmen—and that is what the people that voted for him found in Marcus, at least initially.
On paper, he was not a wealthy man, but such was his genius. He had several investments that, coupled together, made him by far one of the wealthiest individuals in the nation, but none of them could be clearly traced back to him. Hiding wealth had become somewhat of his specialty, and so when he began to run for congress, he gladly touted his tax returns—all of which showed that he made little, but accomplished a lot.
In college, he studied history, which to him, was like a gateway into the glorious realms of the past. He had never known it before, but something was different about the way he absorbed information. As his peers struggled with retaining information after reading an assigned book, Marcus could recall complete phrases, pictures, and even whole chapters with perfect accuracy. He read one history book after another, eager to devour the psyches of the great leaders, eager to discover the keys behind their success. Since his memory was like a steel trap, with each additional historical figure he studied, he was able to add their voice to the constant dialogue that streamed through his head. All of the Greats had something to offer, despite whatever labels modern historians assigned them.
