The Changing Earth Series (Book 3): The Walls of Freedom

by Hathaway, Sara F.

  “This next question will be directed at Mathew Tweed. During this time you began applying for the position you occupy now is that correct, Mr. Tweed?” Nicholas asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Mathew responded.

  “I understand that your rescue squads were analyzed and the names of the missing landowners were matched with the name of your rescue squad members at this time. Is that correct?” Nicholas pressed.

  “Yes, sir,” Mathew agreed.

  “Mr. Tweed, why were these individuals not immediately told and removed from their post?” Nicholas wondered.

  Erika smirked as he squirmed in his seat. He looked at her, his beady eyes calculating her reaction. He looked to Nicholas and said, “Sir, as rescue team squad members their team was already scheduled for a mission whose budget was already allocated. After the mission was completed they were scheduled for return to Minnesota,” Mathew explained.

  “Is it correct that these landowners were then arrested?” Nicholas asked.

  Oh, they got him now! Erika reveled in the moment as the crowd debated reasons amongst themselves.

  “Why was this action taken?” Nicholas asked

  “Sir, I received word of a planned revolt that was going to take place. Then Master Sergeant Bennet came to me and told me the Moores had an escape plan. Given their past track record, I am confident that they helped to plan the revolt that was scheduled to occur so I had them arrested. Even as landowners, this is the protocol for protesters. You know the law, sir,” Mathew attested confidently.

  Erika’s heart sank. He was blaming the revolt the night they escaped on them. There was no way to prove they weren’t involved. She shifted nervously and Vince grabbed her hand. The crowd erupted in conversation. Nicholas settled the crowd.

  “The riot that I was informed of did happen the next night. Five soldiers were killed and we lost eight prisoners that night, five of which belong to the Moore family.” Mathew relished in his superior position.

  “Erika Moore, your husband admits that you two were involved in organizing a revolt in the past; conveniently, your family escapes during a riot. Were you involved in the organizing of this revolt?” Nicholas asked.

  “No, sir,” Erika answered

  “If you were not involved then why did you escape and not turn yourselves in? How can you explain this, ma’am?” Nicholas pressed.

  “I can’t,” Erika said.

  The crowd mumbled fiercely.

  Erika stood up, grabbing the microphone off the table. “I can’t explain why the Great Quake happened. I can’t explain why I was the only one to survive the devastation that took the capital city of California. I can’t explain why I have been tied up so many times I now have permanent scars around my wrists or beat up so many times I can’t even stand before you today without bruises,” she declared, showing off her damage. The camera focused in on her and broadcast it across the arena.

  “And I can’t tell you why the government closed the boarders of California and left all those people to die. I can’t even tell you why the soldiers rounded us up like cattle and housed us in conditions where we ate rats to survive. I can’t tell you why our names were lost, why my children were mutilated. But I can tell you what it was like to look at a future with no possibility of freedom in sight. And I can tell you this, sir...I had nothing to do with the revolt the night we escaped.”

  The stadium boomed like thunder clapping as the people cheered. The refugees screamed for freedom and a return to constitutional law. The landowners sat stunned in their chairs, the truth hitting them like a frying pan across the face.

  “Sit her down, Master Sergeant!” General Mays commanded.

  Master Sergeant Bennet reached forward and touched her shoulder gently, urging her to sit but there was something it the way he did it. Erika knew he was proud.

  The counsel whispered amongst themselves while the crowd roared.

  “We will take a fifteen-minute recess,” Nicholas declared.

  The delegates filed out and the people roared on. It began to quiet a little as some left for refreshments, but the halls were alight with people talking of ideas that had not been spoken of for a long time.

  “Can you believe the nerve of that fucking jerk? Blaming all that stuff on us?” Vince questioned.

  “I really don’t know what will happen, Vince. He was awfully convincing,” Erika worried.

  Master Sergeant Bennet stood there, dutifully quiet. Erika knew there was a lot he wasn’t telling her, but this was not the time or the place. She thought of Cole telling her the less you know the better. He was right; if she had connected the dots before and realized that Master Sergeant Bennet had helped plan the revolt to get her out, she would have had to lie and she was a horrible liar.

  After the allotted time the delegates filed back in, this time without the introduction.

  “We will now bring to vote the matter of the Moore Family. A yea vote will maintain their landowner status and sentence them to two years of probation, a nay vote will strip their landowner status and place them into a prison camp for a year, after which they can reenter the refugee system,” Nicholas explained.

  The crowd chattered softly and then quieted to hear the votes of the delegates. Erika’s heart pounded so loudly in her chest she thought the whole stadium could hear it. Her palms began to sweat and her leg wanted to tap like a roto hammer with nervousness.

  “We start with the Northern Region.” Nicholas looked to Greyson Webb.

  “Nay,” he replied.

  Erika’s eyes opened wide in horror.

  “Yea,” Elena Porter answered.

  Thank you, God, Erika thought.

  “Appalachian Region,” Nicholas directed.

  Both Barret Salazar and Foster Jacobson responded with a “yea” vote.

  The crowd cheered. All right! Erika thought squeezing Vince’s hand.

  “Southern Region?” Nicholas looked their way.

  “Yea,” Ashton Kelley replied.

  “Nay,” Kaden Johnson replied in a smug way. He glanced at Mathew.

  “That’s four yeas and two nays. Western region?” Nicholas asked.

  Two more “yeas” came from Paxton Turner and Isiah Haynes.

  Erika’s heart leapt for joy and she saw Mathew shift in his chair.

  “Central Region?” Nicholas instructed.

  Two “nay” votes from Phillip Cannon and Callum England.

  Erika watched a small smile form on Mathew’s face.

  “Now the FEMA managers will vote. I’ll start with a nay. Mr. Carver?” Nicholas was smooth as silk.

  “Yea,” Edison Carver replied.

  “Mr. Foster?” Nicholas asked.

  Erika recognized the last name and hoped he wasn’t related to the Private Jacob Foster she had a run-in with at the refugee camp.

  “Nay,” he replied spitefully, glaring at Erika.

  “Mr. Tweed?” Nicholas asked.

  “Nay,” he seethed.

  “That’s five yeas to five nays.” Nicholas shifted in his seat.

  The crowd erupted. To Erika’s delight most people were chanting for Yea, but she still feared a possible Nay.

  “Mrs. Tillman, it all comes down to you,” Nicholas replied.

  “Yea!” she replied, smiling at Erika gently. “This family has been though enough.”

  The crowd erupted, cheering. Mathew glared fiercely at the two he had let get away. The two that had blemished his record. The two that created all these people screaming for their freedom. He burned with hatred in a stare-down with Erika.

  Master Sergeant Bennet pulled at them from behind. Erika and Vince turned and kissed one another passionately before acquiescing to the Master Sergeant’s directions.

  “We’ve got to get you guys out of here,” the Master Sergeant urged.

  She noticed that the government guards had been pulled off them and had been replaced with four mercenary soldiers.

  “General Mays pulled his team and gave General
McClintock full jurisdiction over your sentencing. Basically the feds don’t care if you live or die at this point.” Master Sergeant Bennet was on high alert as they traversed the tunnel.

  Climbing the steps, they opened the door into a city erupting with unrest. People were rioting in the streets as soldiers pushed them back.

  “There they are!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  Erika’s heart pounded as the crowd rushed in around them. She hated large groups of people. Most were cheering but a few rushed through the throng violently, ready to attack them to maintain their way of life. The team worked their way to the back door and exited onto the railway that was flooded with people chanting, fighting and running into and out of the different city sections.

  The noise of the crowd chanting echoed in Erika’s ears as they continued along the railway. Suddenly, the crowd peeled back as the sound of a helicopter drowned them out. It landed on the railway and Master Sergeant Bennet loaded Erika and Vince up. Putting on flight helmets as they entered, the helicopter began to rise above the city.

  Erika watched the chaos unfold below her. The tops of the bowl began to close as the city went into lockdown. The dissidents would be rounded up and shipped off to who knows where if they managed to survive that long. She was already watching the firing squads eliminate people below her.

  They were flown to the central region gate and hovered over the top to the train station. Vince and Erika had to put on hoods pulled tight over their faces so they would not be recognized. By now the broadcasts had reached the entire country.

  Chapter 43

  “If you touch me with that, I’m going to break your freaking arm, Dr. Castanza!” Erika insisted as she stood in front of the doctor. He had a tracker chip inserter in his hand.

  “Now, Erika, just calm down. This is a condition of your probation,” Dr. Castanza declared.

  “No,” Erika insisted, leaving the room and heading for the waiting room where Vince was.

  He saw her hustle in with the doctor hot on her heels.

  “Vince, talk some sense to your wife. You both have to have trackers installed as conditions of your probation,” he commanded Vince.

  “Oh, hell no!” Vince agreed with Erika.

  They raised their voices hotly debating the issue.

  Major Virgis appeared in the doorway. “What is the problem in here?” he wondered.

  “Cole, there is no way you are putting one of those things back into me,” Erika argued.

  Master Sergeant Bennet had now joined the conversation as well.

  “Yes, you are, Erika! It is a direct order from the General,” Major Virgis explained.

  “I don’t really care about orders,” Erika protested.

  “Well, you better, because you are on Federal probation, Erika. You’re just lucky General Mays gave up jurisdiction to General McClintock,” Major Virgis explained.

  “One slip up, cupcake and you’re headed to the prison camp,” Master Sergeant Bennet added.

  “Oh really? How did that rebellion start the same day you conveniently got me out?” Erika questioned him.

  “It’s like Major Virgis said, you’re just lucky I guess,” he replied. “I got more good news for you, cupcake.”

  Oh no, Erika thought. “What’s that?” she questioned slowly.

  “General McClintock has ordered your pod moved on base! So we get to stay here! Isn’t that great, hopscotch?” Master Sergeant Bennet teased.

  “Wonderful,” she winced while Dr. Castanza shot the microchip into her arm during Master Sergeant Bennet’s distraction.

  “Ow, dammit!” she cursed.

  Vince readied himself for the pinch. Master Sergeant Bennet was right. Erika found her pod amongst the others in the residential area of the base. Vince and Daniel would take the transport to the farm during the day and after two years their pod could be moved back. Vince’s parents hated losing them again, but it was a much better outcome than a prison camp.

  Living at the base gave her more time to pick Brad’s brains. She showed an interest in the tracker insertion machine and Brad taught her all about it. She tucked the knowledge away for later and studied other things with him. There was a lot that Brad tried to teach her that went right over her head because he talked fluidly in acronyms.

  She also spent many more days in the weight room, passing time. One day while she was working out with Master Sergeant Bennet, Major Virgis came in explaining how two more chairs had turned to Constitutional Party Representatives. It was cause for celebration, and Master Sergeant Bennet cut his workout short to go and discuss the implications of the chair turns with Major Virgis in his office.

  Erika finished her workout and took a shower, dressing quickly to join in the celebration the news was causing. She poked her head into Brad’s office on the way to see Bennet and Cole. Brad looked dreadfully concerned about something, and it was not the mood she expected to find him in.

  “What’s up, Brad?” she was curious.

  “I’m getting married!” he declared.

  “Isn’t that normally good news and cause for more celebration?” Erika was really curious now.

  “Of course, but she lives in Tucson, Arizona. I’ve been trying to get her a cross-region residential pass, but the application process has been delayed. I have to get her out before...” he was thinking out loud and realized he had said too much.

  “Before what, Brad?” Erika asked.

  “Before the next wave hits,” he blurted out.

  “What are you talking about?” Erika insisted.

  “You know how the quakes suddenly stopped?” he asked.

  “Yeah...” she said slowly.

  “It’s my opinion that the plates are locked, building energy. When the next one hits it will take down what remains of the ice caps and we may see additional volcanic activity. That means another rise in ocean level. The coasts will be devastated, again,” he explained quietly.

  “What about east Texas and Las Vegas?” she wondered insistently.

  He shrugged his arms.

  “My mom is down there, and all those people at the Las Vegas camp, my friends. No one is going to warn them?” Erika fumed.

  “Nope, the plan is to mobilize to handle the aftermath. No one has any idea what to do with more refugees,” he whispered.

  “Do Master Sergeant Bennet and Major Virgis know this?” she asked.

  “Yes, and you have to promise me you won’t tell them I told you. Master Sergeant Bennet said you would freak out,” Brad pleaded with her.

  “Yeah, well, he was right,” she fumed.

  “Promise me you won’t tell them, Erika. He’ll be so mad. Have you seen Master Sergeant Bennet angry?” Brad had fear in his eyes.

  “Brad, I have seen Master Sergeant Bennet quite a few levels past pissed off on too many occasions,” she chuckled. “I promise I won’t tell him.”

  The next week Sean’s band was scheduled to play at the base. Spirits were high, their hope being fueled by the Federal Governing Board changes. The base prepared for a celebration. Extra food was brought in from the surrounding farms and kegs lined up like soldiers. Sean’s band opened up the night with a lively rendition of “Welcome To The Jungle” by Guns and Roses. Erika danced her way to the beer line where she found Star.

  As they waited in line Star boasted to Erika about her band management skills. She had secured cross-region passes for the band and crew. They would travel on a boat to the Southern Region down the Mississippi Sea and play nightly gigs on the paddleboat while they traveled. She raved on about the gigantic boats and how beautiful they were in the setting sun. Star left to go and mingle with the stagehands and Erika went to go find Vince.

  She ran into Dexter instead. He had just gotten back to the base but wanted to see her before he went to get dressed for the concert. Johnny was with him. The two young men had formed a strong bond and were almost inseparable. Laughing about their adventures in the badlands, he explained that they were sch
eduled to head back out the next day. He left to go change, promising to find her before the night was done.

  She found Vince drinking beer and playing liar’s dice with a group of farmers. Hugging him from behind, she told him that she was going to go dance. Slamming her beer down, she went to find a partner to dance with. She found Master Sergeant Bennet in a drunken state, tapping to the beat.

  “Come on, Sergeant, let’s dance,” she urged him.

  “Oh no, cupcake,” he slurred at her, “I don’t dance.”

  “You’re dancing right now,” she argued. “Get your shit together, Sergeant! Let’s go,” she commanded, dragging him into the throng of people.

  They danced together to the upbeat paced music, mingling with the other dancers and smiling widely. When Sean began so sing a slow song, they went to go get another beer and made small talk while they waited in line.

  “Sergeant Bennet, do you think the worst is over?” Erika mused innocently.

  “What are you talking about now, hopscotch?” Bennet slurred.

  “I mean,” Erika tried to explain without telling him what Brad had told her. “The Earth has settled down a lot since the Great Quake. Do you think that we’ll see another quake like the big one?”

  They stepped forward and grabbed two cups of beer. Some spilled on Erika’s hand as they sat down to rest for a moment.

  “Hell, woman, I don’t know. I’m a soldier not a scientist,” Bennet teased, slugging down his beer. “Time for another.”

  They headed back to the line.

  “Come on, cupcake. What’s wrong can’t hold your liquor,” he sputtered.

  Erika drank down the beer at his urging.

  “It just worries me because my mom’s on the coast and all my friends in Las Vegas would be in jeopardy if anything like that were to happen again,” Erika pressed.

  “Erika?” he stated.

  “What?” she wondered.

  “I order you to stop being so serious and start having some fun! It’s a celebration, not a speculation party,” he laughed at his own pun.

  “Yes, sir,” Erika answered him affectionately and let the issue drop.

  Vince joined them in the beer line, explaining how he had almost won the game. They spent the night enjoying the music. Star and Dexter danced with Daniel, while Erika and Vince sat laughing at their wild moves. It was the celebration Erika had been anticipating since their return to society and she took the time to appreciate every moment of it.