by John Bromley
“If that goes around a corner, you got yourself a perfect hiding place,” Jim noted.
“You want me to go in and take a look?” Mike asked, although his lack of enthusiasm for that plan was plainly evident.
“You really want to?”
“Actually… no,” Mike confessed.
“All right… give me the light, and I’ll go.” He took the flashlight, but before starting in, said, “Cover me from out here. Nobody but me goes in, or out.”
“You think there’s somebody in there?”
“That door didn’t open itself. I saw the shot come from here, but never saw the shooter leave… unless there’s another door in this thing.”
He went in slowly, flashlight in one hand, pistol in the other. When he got about ten feet into the structure, he shined the light at the apparent end of the tunnel, then came back out to where Mike was standing.
“It heads off to the left only. Now, I’ll go see where that goes.”
He walked back in, to within a foot of the bend in the tunnel, then shined the light down the corridor and quickly withdrew it, hoping that the momentary brightness might startle a hidden assassin into firing. It didn’t.
Jim shined the light down the tunnel again, and this time looked to see what was revealed. This section of the pathway was very much like the one he was standing in; about seven feet high, but quite a bit longer. There was one other fortunate similarity—it contained no people.
He put the light on himself so Mike could see him, and gave the “all-clear” signal. Then he started down the tunnel. His light revealed dry walls, unlike the moist stone walls of underground caves. Looks relatively new, he thought, probably less than—
“Lights out!” said a voice from behind him.
Instinctively, he turned around with the light. Nothing.
He was now facing east, and at that moment a bullet went past his head from behind him and impacted the concrete wall in front of him, yet he didn’t hear the sound of the weapon. Silencer, he knew.
Now he heard the sound of running feet. Mike, coming to his aid.
“He comes in here, he dies,” said the voice.
“Stay where you are, Mike!” Jim called out. Immediately, the sound of footfalls ceased.
“I said, lose the light.”
Jim shut the flashlight off, but kept his pistol in his right hand. As soon as the light went out, he turned around to face west again, hoping to catch his foe off-guard—
He felt the barrel of a gun press into his back. How did he do that? He couldn’t help wondering in the split-second before the voice spoke again.
“Honor thy Father,” it said.
“And thy Mother,” Jim replied. He held his breath, hoping that his nearly-automatic response was the correct one.
The gun in his back… was gone.
CHAPTER 21
“Good evening, Colonel Parker,” said the voice, much less menacingly this time.
“How do you know my name?” Jim asked into the darkness.
“No one else would have known how to respond to that phrase.”
“And if I had responded differently?”
“You’d be dead, of course” said the voice calmly.
“What do you want from me?” Jim asked with some anxiety.
“Eventually, a great deal, Colonel, but for now, I directed you into here to give you this.” Jim felt something being pressed into his stomach. He holstered his pistol, since it was of no use in this situation, and took the item. It felt very much like another computer memory stick.
“You’re the guy who’s been sending us the coordinates for the last week, aren’t you?”
“Us?” A measure of menace had returned to the voice. “Ah yes… I assume Running Feet out there is with you in this adventure.”
“He is—and he’s also seen all of these… stories.”
“Can he be trusted?” the voice inquired.
“That’s a strange question coming from a faceless voice in the dark.”
“Touché, Colonel. Now, this is the last one of these you will get from me. If you need more information after this, you will have to find other ways to get it, though I may be able to help with that, too. While you watch this, I will watch your backs, and I believe I’ve already shown how… effective I can be at that task.”
“Who are you?” Jim asked desperately.
“All in good time, Parker. Now, turn and walk. Do not turn the light on, or I will shoot it out of your hand, and you might need it later.”
Parker was tempted to ask, need what—the light or my hand, but sensed that this guy wouldn’t appreciate the humor. Instead, he asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“Partly for revenge, partly because I was asked to.”
“OK, but why me?”
“Good night, Colonel. Go watch your video. And rest assured—there is nothing ‘fictional’ about this story…unfortunately.”
“How do you know?” Jim asked, but got no answer. He turned, as instructed, and walked forward until he came to the bend in the tunnel, then he turned right. A few feet further forward, he bumped into Mike.
“What was all that about?” Mike whispered.
“Let’s get out of here first,” Jim said, leading the way to the door.
Once out into the open air, they both realized how claustrophobic the tunnel had been. They took deep breaths of the cool night air and, while doing that, sensed a breeze behind them. When they turned around, they saw that the door had closed. Jim shined the light on it, but they couldn’t see the outline of the door. The Wall appeared completely unbroken, even from less than five feet away.
“You were right, Mike,” Jim explained as they walked back to their camp, “our geo-caching friend is here, and he and I just had a nice little chat. He gave me this,” showing Mike the computer memory, “but said this was the last one we’d get from him; more information would have to come from ‘somewhere else’. He also said he’d ‘watch our backs’ while we’re checking this thing out.”
“That’s a good thing, I guess,” Mike allowed.
“Considering what he did to that thug in the bushes earlier—perfect shot, in the dark—that is indeed a very good thing.”
“Do you know who he is? Is he one of the guys from the antique store, like you thought?”
“He doesn’t sound exactly like either of those guys—which makes me wonder, who else knows about me and this Bible—but his voice does sound strangely familiar.”
They reached their campsite and Mike picked up his computer and prepared to insert the memory stick. Jim added, “One other interesting thing—he didn’t know about you. I caught him off-guard when I mentioned ‘us’ viewing these things instead of ‘me’.”
“So, he’s clever and a marksman, but he’s not all-knowing,” Mike said. “I’m glad—people who know too much get on my nerves. I think I might like this guy.”
“He also asked if you could be trusted.”
Mike chuckled. “If he wasn’t such a good shot, I’d challenge him to a duel for questioning my honor.” He began the video playback. “No doubt about it—this is a new file.”
The two men examined the video closely. In the beginning, it consisted mostly of documents, every one confirming some portion of the females’ tale. There was the law giving Thompson his dictatorial powers. Here on the screen was a copy of the decree making it illegal for women to work, another declaring that their involuntary reaction to the virus was now a capital crime, the one outlawing marriage—all signed with Kenneth Thompson’s distinctive signature, which both men had seen many times in history books. Mike whistled softly.
“This is either the greatest forgery job in history,” said Jim as he waded through the data, “or else... everything they told us is the truth. And, our marksman friend did vouch for the authenticity of this stuff.”
“I know I didn’t sound like I believed these women at first,” Mike responded, “but after seeing this, I don’t think this i
s any forgery, either. I think we might be witnessing the death of a saint—the late, not-so-great ‘Saint’ Kenneth Thompson.” He sounded like he was surprised to hear himself make this admission.
Mike opened another file, and then a third. More executive orders, more documents. They saw the order from the dictator for all citizens of the designated Canadian territories to abandon their homes, the “work relief” project which was in reality the construction of the Walls, and much later...
“Here’s an interesting one,” Mike said to Jim, who was making sandwiches from some of their remaining groceries. He turned, two large roast beef sandwiches and two bottles of beer in hand, and looked over Mike’s shoulder.
“It’s a proclamation by Thompson.” Mike began to read aloud. “‘Whereas the world has been caught in the jaws of an unspeakable horror, and whereas this nation and its heroic leader—”
“He does like to take his share of the credit, doesn’t he?” Jim said sarcastically, around a mouthful of sandwich.
“And then some—I’m surprised that he remembered to mention the rest of the nation,” Mike countered. He took a pull on his beer and continued reading, “‘— heroic leader have blazed a trail through treacherous and uncharted waters toward the unquenchable twin beacons of liberty and justice—”
“I can’t stand it,” Jim scoffed. “If even half of this story is true, then you have to wonder: what did this man know of liberty and justice?”
“—and whereas other nations have gallantly and steadfastly followed our inspired leadership, and have achieved unsurpassed successes of their own—”
“I’m sure those ‘other countries’ didn’t just ‘happen’ to come up with the same idea that Thompson did,” Jim interrupted again. “If people in North America heard from someone overseas that that country had handled the crisis differently, Thompson’s actions might have been called into question, and of course he couldn’t have that. He probably threatened invasion or something if they didn’t fall into line.”
“—therefore do I, Kenneth Thompson, declare that the threat of uncontrolled womanhood has been eradicated for men everywhere, and thus I proclaim that this day, May 18th, 2047, shall be set apart to celebrate this achievement, and decree further that every third Monday in the month of May henceforth and forevermore, shall be known as Freedom Day.’“
“Are you kidding? That’s the origin of Freedom Day? The day when they finished confining all the women behind the Wall? Some ‘freedom’,” Jim snorted. “I wonder how the women of the world celebrate that holiday.”
Jim continued, “You know, when I was in school, all the history books said it was the day we liberated Hong Kong from India, but they never gave too many details.”
“India? I heard it was Australia. I used to wonder why they were so vague about that holiday. Now I know.”
“Now that I think about it, there are a lot of things in our lives that aren’t explained very well. For instance, I’ve been told since childhood that Kenneth Thompson was such a hero, but no one ever said why. What do they think he did that was so great?” Jim wondered, subconsciously using the word “they” to distance himself from the rest of humanity.
Mike began entering commands into the computer. “Let’s see if we can find out what the ‘rest of the story’ is, that your friend alluded to.”
They soon found it...
CHAPTER 22
The male population of the nation—indeed, the world—was euphoric. They were free, no longer condemned to a life of anxiety, constantly worried that in the next minute they might be knifed, shot or beaten to a pulp. The women had been confined behind impenetrable Walls and mine fields; they were completely cut off from the world of men. Parades and celebrations continued for more than a month.
President Thompson, despite his advancing age, was also jubilant. The great Disaster had taken over twenty years to resolve, but it had been resolved. The Isolation behind the Walls was at last finished, though the great Plan was not yet complete. No matter—he could now die a happy and fulfilled man (which he did a few weeks later), knowing that his hand-picked successor, his son David, had been exhaustively trained in the details of the Plan.
During his lifetime, Kenneth Thompson had abolished the Constitution, which meant that the Congress had no power and the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction. The law was exactly what the President said it was, no more and no less. In addition, borrowing another tactic from Adolf Hitler, he had had the Army and the police forces swear an oath of loyalty to him, not the country. When David eagerly assumed his ready-made throne, that oath was reaffirmed to the new President.
Eventually, the celebrations ended, and life had to go on. For most men it did, with very little change to their daily routine, except for a lower level of anxiety. Yet there were some who, despite the ever-present danger and the nuisance of having to care for them like pets, actually missed having women around, especially if they had been married when it was legal. And among that sizable minority was a smaller, but very vocal group who, unfortunately, did not seem to understand the political climate of their day. They believed that with the elder Thompson gone and the crisis passed, the restraints on personal freedoms, like speech, would be loosened. They were sadly mistaken, and most paid for their error of judgment with their lives.
These men had the nerve to question the President’s handling of the female issue. They agreed that the nature of the problem made it impossible to ignore, but they were concerned with the morality of the solution. They did not think it was in anyone’s best interest to have females completely cut off from males. It was unnatural, they said, for men who had been husbands to be apart from the women to whom they had been happily married, and with whom they had had children. It was unnatural for little boys to be unable to play with little girls.
It was even more so for brothers to be isolated from sisters.
Most of all, for sons to be separated from their mothers.
Unnatural.
The late President Thompson had anticipated these objections, and the son immediately set the rest of his father’s Plan in motion. One of his first actions in office was to create a new Cabinet department to handle this problem. Indeed, visitors to Washington had noticed for some time a monumental structure being erected on the site of the now-unneeded Supreme Court building. It was very quickly staffed and ready to go.
Well, that’s just great, said the cynics. Yet another example of the typical government response to a problem—throw money at it, and hope it goes away. The new President was not amused. Instead, it was the cynics who went away—permanently.
On a lighter note, the President said he was tempted to name the new department in honor of an idol of his, the English author George Orwell. He wanted to call it the Ministry of Truth, after the giant propaganda-dispensing organization in Orwell’s novel, 1984. He thought that would be funny.
Who said the Administration had no sense of humor? No one—at least, not out loud.
So what would the new Department do? The answer came on the very first anniversary of Freedom Day, in the most momentous speech of the young President’s reign.
It had long since become the habit of both Thompsons to refer to the global disaster as the “Female Problem”, since the earlier names (the “Viral Accident”, the “CBW Crisis”) did not focus the world’s attention, and anger, where they wanted it.
The Female Problem was unique in the history of mankind, the President said to the press. It had required a unique solution.
Granted, the solution was unique, the press responded, but was it effective?
Absolutely, said Thompson.
And was it, as some had claimed, Unnatural?
Absolutely, said the President.
But only because we have been taught that it is Unnatural.
Fortunately, he said to a stunned audience, anything that has been learned can be un-learned. This would be the function of the new Department of Re-education (later it replaced the existi
ng Department of Education). It would be charged with gradually reshaping the male society, to remove the “unhealthy dependencies” of the male on the female.
This was true, as far as it went. In reality, its purpose was to make certain that men completely forgot that such things as females existed.
The Department was frighteningly efficient, and had unprecedented access to the President. This was not surprising, since it was headed by one Steven Thompson—the President’s brother. Almost every day it recommended, and without exception the President enacted, new laws to control the way men were allowed to think of women.
Very shortly, it reached a point that a man could not say that he had ever been married; could not tell his sons what had happened to their mother or their sisters; could not speak a word which referred in any way to a female relative, such as “wife” or “mother”, in the presence of anyone, especially a child; could not even use the word “she” in reference to an inanimate object, like a car or plane. Any infraction of these rules was, of course, punishable by death—without trial. People were encouraged, with promise of reward and threat of punishment, to report any criminal act to the authorities, and they did, since the reward (and the punishment) was substantial.
Whether he realized it or not, David Thompson had created his own version of Orwell’s “Thought Police”.
Now that the Walls were built, it was illegal to even touch them, let alone try to get over or around them. But in this case, the Thompsons didn’t think that a law alone was enough. They wanted men to fear the Walls, to regard the one they could see, superstitiously if possible, as a place of great horror, for reasons that had nothing to do with the women imprisoned behind them. To satisfy this “need”, the “Cult of the Evil Wall” came into existence, seemingly out of nowhere, and was constantly reporting strange phenomena taking place in the vicinity of the Wall; accidental deaths, mutilations, deaths from strange illnesses, even an “alien attack” or two. It was never generally known that the Cult was a creation of the Department of Re-education. The fatalities reported were real enough, but they also were staged—and caused—by the government. This was all done to perpetuate the notion that the Wall itself was an accursed structure, an “unlucky” place.
