Rise of the Liberators (Terrafide Book 1)

by Ryan Hyatt

  “Too bad,” Joe G. said, gazing at the screens above. “You were never in it for the money, were you? It was always about Siza, wasn’t it? Just because your wife thought you’re too soft on national defense and dumped you, doesn’t mean you’re entitled to mine!”

  “I give up,” Chuck said, and he sprawled himself on the chaise lounge, naked and resigned to whatever weird show was to be displayed on the screen.

  Dali, an albino Chihuahua, sprang into Chuck’s arms and licked him.

  Joe G. commanded the video to play. The two men watched as the Telenet revealed black and white footage taken from the perspective of the bed headboard through the open French doors, down the long hallway to the studio and the very spot where Joe G. sat. A time signature indicated the footage was recorded at three in the morning. Joe G.’s head was facedown on the table, unconscious, as was Chuck, faceup and drooling against the headboard, his mug just in view of the camera.

  There was the sound of someone climbing the steps of the stairwell in high heels, and Siza entered the bedroom. She tossed her jangling jewelry, earrings and bracelets into a bowl next to a Buddha figurine. Next, she took off her high heels and blouse and unzipped her skirt.

  Joe G. coughed and commanded the Telenet to fast forward. When the video resumed, Siza slipped under the covers into the bed and said, “Lights out.”

  The lights turned off, and in the darkness she was heard rubbing Chuck’s back, sucking on his ear.

  “I’m home, baby,” she said. “Come on, fuck me. I missed you.”

  Not getting a response, she resorted to begging.

  “Please, just a little …”

  Siza continued to grope Chuck, who she thought was her husband until she realized the mistake.

  “Lights on!” she said suddenly.

  The lights turned on, and Siza pulled the covers over herself, terrified by the unconscious body sprawled next to her.

  She raised Chuck’s head, eyes closed, snoring, momentarily seen up close in the camera.

  “Oh, my god!” Siza said, and she ran from the bed, picked up her clothes and heels, and slammed the French doors. “What games are you playing now?”

  From that point, she was heard pounding Joe G.’s body at his desk.

  “Why do you do this to me?” Siza said in a disgusted Portuguese accent. “You don’t think I can tell the difference between you and…an impostor?”

  The rattling of a prescription bottle was heard, followed by the sound of Siza washing down pills with a glass of water, which she pounded on the desk. Then came the slamming of her wedding ring, before she briefly appeared storming down the hallway and stomping down the stairs and shutting the door of the house, gone.

  Joe G. turned off the Telenet and turned to Chuck. He held the wedding ring his wife left him in his palm.

  “I thought she was ashamed of what she had done,” he said. “Now I see I’m the one who ought to be ashamed for what I did, for assuming the two of you betrayed me. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Of course,” Chuck said, perhaps too loyal to his friend, and he stood from the chaise lounge and proceeded to put on his pants, which were lying in a pile on the floor. “Now let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  There was no further mention of Joe G. drugging himself and Chuck, his paranoia or deception. Business, as usual, it was.

  The doorbell rang, and both men stumbled downstairs, Dali barking incessantly alongside them.

  It was Jason, one of Joe G.’s handlers. He was carrying Siza.

  “I found her in the front yard next to the rose bushes,” he said. “I think she took some of these.”

  He opened his left hand: more pills.

  Joe G. slapped his wife, and seeing she was responding, however slowly, he said to Jason, “She’ll be fine. Put her to bed.”

  Jason nodded and carried Siza into the house.

  Joe G. and Chuck took seats on the porch. The clouds began to sprinkle. Chuck waited until Jason was out of earshot before he spoke.

  “Siza won’t be fine until you get a grip on yourself,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  “I thought you wanted to talk business, so do me a favor and mind yours, and I’ll do the same and mind mine,” Joe G. said.

  “Fine.”

  Joe G. rang a bell on the porch and Greg, the house manager, arrived.

  “What can I do for you?” he said.

  “I’ll have a vodka and lemonade,” Joe G. said. “How about you, Chuck?”

  “Coffee,” Chuck said.

  “Don’t be a pussy,” Joe G. said. “We’ve got a lot to discuss. “Today we’re dropping by a fundraiser. I want you to meet Roberta Sanchez, an Eco-Socialist candidate for mayor. She’s running on the Party ticket. Then tomorrow, there’s the expo of course.”

  “Okay, fine,” Chuck said. “I’ll have the house wine.”

  The only gatherings Chuck hated more than expos were political rallies. All he wanted was to be left alone in Jerome and watch his daughter grow and maybe settle down with a woman who cared more about people than patriotism, unlike his ex. Chuck’s livelihood, however, seemed to require he be everywhere except where he wanted to be. Thus, he made a game of counting his days to retirement. Finally rebounding from the Greatest Depression, his golden years were set to begin at the current rate on his seventieth birthday. That was only twenty-two years away, and the older Chuck became, the faster time went, and so he tried to imagine that twenty-two years didn’t seem like a long wait. Chuck quickly did the math in his head, and he realized he only had eight thousand days of sweating a paycheck until victory. He hoped Joe G. had a plan to shorten that time frame. It was a good enough reason to celebrate, and so Chuck joined Joe G. in a toast when their drinks arrived.

  They each took a deep breath and beheld the stormy sky.

  “To success,” Joe G. said.

  Clank.

  They toasted to success many more times over the course of that Sunday. Joe G. had a way of making everything seem rosier than it was, and alcohol helped, for the fact remained as morning turned to afternoon and afternoon to night, Chuck met many associates tied to Unitus Productions and Eco-Socialism, but by Monday he still had no idea what he was expected to say at the expo.

  CHAPTER 3

  On Monday Chuck woke, not in Joe G.’s bed, but facedown on his friend’s office desk, having lost consciousness the night before examining endless product descriptions, spreadsheets and sales figures for items he believed he was to address with expertise at the Exponential.

  Siza, having slept soundly with Joe G. in their bedroom, roused Chuck to consciousness with a mug of steaming coffee pressed against his ear.

  “You’re wasting your time,” she said. “There’s no reason to worry. You’ll see. This is going to be the biggest day of your lousy career.”

  “Ouch!” Chuck said, accepting the coffee, but neither the slight nor scald. He tried to think of a politically correct response to the wife of his employer. “How can you be sure? I don’t know what Joe wants of me.”

  “He just wants you to be yourself,” Siza said, and she winked at him in her lingerie and walked away.

  Joe G. came next.

  “Shit, shower and shave and do everything else I tell you to do, and maybe by the end of the day you’ll have risen above a disgruntled laughingstock of the tech industry.”

  “Great,” Chuck said, glad that Dali, the third annoying animal within the household, was nowhere to be seen. “How much will you be paying me, by the way, to make a fool of myself on your behalf today?”

  Joe G. wore a red velvet robe and a pair of sunglasses with big, round lenses that occupied much of his face. He regarded Chuck intently.

  Too intently, for Chuck’s taste.

  “You’re a perfect fit,” he said. “I can’t believe the little ways we’re so much alike.”

  “Excuse me?” Chuck said.

  “Never mind,” Joe G. said. “You’ll soon see yourself.”

&
nbsp; “See what?”

  “If you see this job through, you’ll have enough money in your pockets to retire in a year, I swear.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Chuck said.

  “Why shouldn’t you?” Joe G. said, backing toward the stairs, gazing at Chuck through the shades. “I always paid you in the past.”

  Joe G. had a point. Maybe it was his only point, Chuck thought, as his friend walked away, out of sight.

  Feeling about as low as a dwarf digging to China, Chuck sipped his coffee, thought about how far his life had strayed from his passion, and then he did exactly what his boss asked him to do. He shat, showered and shaved. Waiting on the bathroom doorknob when Chuck finished was a glistening white suit and shiny black shoes.

  Joe G. was right. The getup fit perfectly, but how did he know with his eyes alone? Chuck began to suspect there might have been more to the shades his employer was wearing than he had been told.

  Chuck met the couple on the porch. A Cadillac limo waited on the street. Joe G. was clean and green in a forest-colored sport coat and slacks, and he still wore the sunglasses. Siza wore a flowered dress which, unlike her husband’s outfit, had nothing to do with autumn. She held Dali. The weather was cool and unclear.

  Joe G. snapped his fingers, and all three of his bystanders, including the pooch, sprang forth from the porch, down the steps to the street.

  The limo driver was new, so their first stop was for gas. They had to wait half an hour to fill the tank, and at nearly fifteen dollars per gallon, highest in the nation, the cost for such frustration wasn’t cheap. The long lines and outrageous prices were common since Saudi and other crude oil disruptions, ongoing terror-related events, began to jar worldwide production years prior.

  “It’s hard to imagine us getting this country working again, when we can’t even figure out an easy and inexpensive way to get us to work,” Joe G. said. “Of course, the Eco-Socialists plan to change that.”

  To fill the time, the CEO for Unitus Productions spoke extemporaneously about the recent business climate bringing Chuck and him together. He mentioned a new venture with a corporate conglomerate, Rocket & Gamble, which had subsidiaries in military manufacturing and show biz.

  “They’ve got this new device, you see, which I believe will revolutionize the way products are sold in this country forever, or at least for however long this country lasts,” Joe G. said. “They agreed to loan it to me on a trial basis, and I plan on showing them how retailers might use these sunglasses to expand into every consumer market. We’re talking clothing, food, appliances, transportation, you name it. Life will never be the same by the time Rocket & Gamble and I are through.”

  Chuck was so curious about the sunglasses Joe G. was wearing that he almost forgot to respond.

  “Sounds like good old capitalism to me,” he said. “I’m surprised to hear that from a guy like you. I thought these days you were more interested in saving the world than turning a buck.”

  “Of course I am,” Joe G. said, leaning toward him. “I’m talking about a new kind of capitalism, the way it was meant to be.”

  “Yeah, and which way is that?”

  “Haven’t you read Tierra Firma?” Joe G. said, returning his seat to a fully upright position.

  “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “What kind of man of change are you, if you haven’t even read one of the most important books of this century?”

  “The kind of man that has no change,” Chuck said. “That’s why I’m working for you, remember? I need money.”

  “Very funny,” Joe G. said, and as he chuckled, his amused expression transformed into one of profound seriousness. “It’s a simple idea, really. In the old days, individual and public interests were often adversarial. Everyone worked to take care of him or herself, a competitive orientation which helped everyone as a whole improve their standard of living. Meanwhile, other issues outside one’s own immediate domain often fell short or were neglected altogether, such as the environment. The automotive industry is a great example. We burn fossil fuels because they are the cheapest and most effective form of energy transportation as a whole, when each of us knows there must be a better way of getting around that isn’t so costly to the environment, and ultimately, to each of us. But no one will insist on doing things differently until maybe it’s too late. The result is the world which capitalism has created for us today. It is a world of plenty in every sense of the word, including plenty of waste. We’ve reached a crisis point where natural resources are being consumed on a global scale much faster than they are being replenished, and there is a great need to become more efficient and thoughtful in the way we live, if we are to keep living at all. These problems affect all of us, and yet no nation seems equipped or willing to do anything about it, because they’re too dependent on the system as it is to change it, even if change is critical for the survival of all of us. Are you following me? Does that make sense?”

  “Strangely, yes,” Chuck said, and he nodded his head half-heartedly. “The aspect of our economy that needs the most work such as our environment, is being neglected because addressing the issue is not profitable, no matter how critical.”

  At this point the limo left the gas station, sputtering slowly through freeway traffic toward its destination, and Siza, having heard Joe G.’s speeches many times herself, tuned out by playing a hand-held video game.

  “Exactly, and this is where visionaries like you and me come into the picture,” Joe G. said. “All of this fruitless competition and war waging, this history of pitting nation against nation, man against man, that’s not what we’re working for anymore. We can’t, because if we stay on the current course, we’re going to kill each other, either directly or indirectly, from our greed and arrogance. Our way of life is not sustainable, and the key to changing ourselves is changing our system. Capitalism as we know it needs to adapt. It needs to save our world, not cause its demise.”

  “How do you intend to change capitalism?” Chuck said. “It seems like a mighty task, even for you.”

  “We need to make the idea of a sustainable economy more appealing,” Joe G. said. “To do that, we must show how it can be profitable and desirable for both producers and consumers at the same time. To do that, we need a new approach to marketing that wins over the hearts and minds of all people.”

  “What will your approach be?”

  “I’ve created a new way of doing business that serves the individual and common good,” Joe G. said. “Why go with the gas guzzler when you can go electric? Why go electric when you can go solar? Why go solar when you can go fusion? Why wait for the next generation of technology to find its way inexpensively into the marketplace, when you can take that technology directly to people’s doorsteps and make it immediately available and affordable to them, and beneficial to all parties involved? Why wait for paradise to fall on Earth when, with a little tweaking of the current capitalistic system, we can make Earth a paradise right now?”

  “Is Rocket & Gamble aware of your grandiose plans?” Chuck said. “They don’t strike me as company that’s in it for the same noble reasons you are.”

  “I admit, I’ve left them in the dark regarding some of the details of my plan,” Joe G. said. “They’ve not been briefed on the full scope of the project, shall we say, but what they don’t know won’t kill them, and they’ll be getting on board whether they like it or not, because everyone will be better off because of it, and they will have no choice but to concede. We’re at a tipping point in history, Chuck. We’re about to enter a bold new epoch of conscious capitalism in which only those who are willing to evolve will continue to thrive. The losers will be anyone who refuses to abide by the new rules and they will be left by the wayside.”

  Despite his apocalyptically optimistic tone, Chuck knew Joe G. had a point. His own life was illustrative of the fact. Chuck already bought into a new way of doing things, changing careers, trading passion for a paycheck.

  With that pe
rsonal acknowledgement, Chuck sighed and slouched in his seat. He wondered why things needed to mutate so dramatically in his lifetime, so much so he sometimes wished he was born in a previous century. Chuck hated change. He missed his daughter. He felt more defeated and deflated than ever.

  Joe G. smiled, his eyes shielded by his shades. His toothy grin struck Chuck as more condescending than usual, and he wondered what the crazy Polack was not telling him. It was as if his old friend could read him like an open book. He was powerless, impotent, even among those with whom he was closest.

  Whatever Joe G. knew, Chuck was tired of his games and didn’t want to be left wondering about him or his lunacy anymore. He turned his attention beyond the limo’s tinted windows to the many lanes of traffic filled with BMWs and Priuses and diesel trucks. The limo made headway, passing them one by one, until it was forced to stop. Then, the other vehicles passed the limo until they were forced to stop, at which point the limo passed them again, and back and forth they went, inching forward but never ahead of each other for long, until finally the limo disembarked the freeway and gave up the game altogether.

  It was a decent analogy of how Chuck felt. Life had become a game of catching up and never really getting ahead, and few were fortunate enough in the throes of the Greatest Depression to distinguish their lot from the rest. The rat race wasn’t just financial in nature; it had come to encompass all aspects of existence. Those who were better off materially were also better off spiritually because of it, and they left everyone else in the dust. Chuck wondered if Joe G.’s grandiose plans accounted for the staggering, widespread feeling of loss that life had come to represent for most people.

  They arrived at the convention center, a big dome situated near San Jose Community College. Joe G. ordered the driver to take them around back to the VIP station.

  “This is it,” Joe G. said. “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s do it,” Chuck said, clapping and rubbing his hands together like a sinister court jester, sweat pouring from head and pits.