by Gary Lovisi
He had to get himself out.
They’d declared themselves an independent prisoner’s government. They voiced all kinds of outrageous demands through the ass-kissing media. The media being only too happy for the story, waiting for the blood to flow, anticipating it and the high ratings as they decried all violence, but too thought-policed and politically correct to ever admit it. Or to report the truth. So the cons demanded money, cars, total immunity from prosecution and repercussion. They wanted reparations from the State. Their records cleared. Apologies from the Governor. New idents. Women. Pizza and beer. All the drugs they could do.
Of course the Governor refused it all, but he did say he would be willing to negotiate.
The cons threatened.
The Governor said he’d talk to their leader.
One man, the leader.
That was fine by Ryan.
He was their leader.
This was his exit move and he was ready for it.
Ryan said good. It’s a first step, he told his troops. Not to worry, we’ll all get what we want. Eventually. Just be cool. He left with the Secretary of State and Secretary of War for a ride to the Governor’s Mansion to discuss the problems with the big man himself. So they could come to some sort of agreement. The Cons thought it was cool. Just a matter of time.
It was.
Time that was running out.
On them.
A limo picked them up at the prison main gate. The limo had their flag waving from two tiny antennae on each front fender. Like some damn diplomat’s car. Which it kind-of was. It was a nice detail the cons all noticed and ate up. It looked real impressive on the news vids. Ryan knew the troops back inside the joint would get a real kick out of it. They’d be talking about it all day. It would help keep them in check.
A National Police Trooper opened the limousine door for Ryan like he was a visiting dignitary from an actual government. Like he really was the president of some stupid made-up prison country. Ryan knew what he was doing, though. It had all been agreed, planned, that this play at formality, however ludicrous, must be strictly adhered to. This was, after all, a play in one act. It had to look and feel exactly right.
The two bozos with Ryan were suitably impressed. Neither of them were big brains, of course. Ryan didn’t want guys like that too close to him. These were violent offenders. Murderers. They’d gotten life from soft-bellied judges so far removed from reality that they couldn’t even tell the difference between a person being “sick” or being “evil.”
Do you know that difference?
Well, Ryan knew the difference and his guys were just plain evil.
That’s one reason why it was all so easy for him back then. He could never have played out this game with citizens, like some of the other DOC agents do now, but these criminal boyos had made their beds many years before he ever met them. They deserved what they got. It didn’t bother Ryan at all. It was a job to him like any other, and not as bad as most.
When they reached the Governor’s Mansion Ryan had his escort get out of the car first. Then he picked up the gun from under the seat where he knew it would be waiting for him. Ryan called out to the two cons, and when they turned around he shot them both stone cold dead. They never expected it.
Ryan sauntered up to the Governor’s Mansion and rang the front bell.
A liveried butler met him there instantly. He was a very young man and smiled at Ryan in recognition, “Mr. Robinson,” he called Ryan by the name he knew him by. “It is good to see you again, sir.”
“Hello, Jenkins,” Ryan said to the butler, smiling, holstering his weapon. Everyone on this operation knew him as Blake Robinson.
“The Governor is waiting for you in the study. Please follow me.”
Governor Leland Jackson sat watching the reports on six large screens in a comfortable book-lined study. Ryan hadn’t seen real books in years. Actual, hard copy books. These were all paperbacks of course, and they all looked new. Ryan figured they had to be many decades old. They had been very collectable antiques even then. Many were actually forbidden. There were even a few old-time hard cover books from before LastCen. All were priceless collectors’ items. LastCen they had been so common. Like everything else in Old America had been.
Like freedom had also been.
The Governor got up, he came over and shook Ryan’s hand, happy to see him again.
“Dammit, Blake, it’s good to see you. And look at the mess you’ve made for me there. Now we’ll just have to go in and clean it all up, I guess.” Governor Jackson smiled knowingly, then laughed heartily, “Good job, my man! Good job!”
“Well, it looks like a real bad prison riot, sir. May be one of the worst this year,” Ryan said, sitting down in the big chair he was offered. He took the drink the Governor handed him and one of those great Cuban cigars he foisted on his most important guests. It was the only thing left of that island since it had been nuked back in 2015.
Ryan said, “Well, Lee, I did it. They’ve declared themselves independent of the old US of A—and of the worldwide Authority—which of course is far worse. They are in direct rebellion against the Eastern District Security Government and by the way, actively advocating and fighting for its overthrow.”
“Yes, it’s a marvelous situation, Blake. Much worse than the typical bellyaching for porno and conjugal visits. This is armed open rebellion against our nation. Or what’s left of it. A department of The Authority is behind it all, of course, but no one knows that. Nevertheless, we can’t countenance a violent overthrow of government. Can’t have that, now can we? Of course not. That can not be tolerated. It must be put down with max-force according to the law. It’s a great day for law enforcement—or justice, Blake.”
“I imagine not one of them will survive,” Ryan added.
“I’m sure,” the Governor replied with a knowing smile. “In fact, I think I can guarantee it.”
They watched with interest the close-up of the final images of tanks, ‘copters and heavily armed and armored shock troops mowing down the prisoners.
The prisoners had some small caliber guns—a small amount Ryan had smuggled into the prison to lend credence to his authority among them, and to make their revolt seem legit. They didn’t have enough firepower to do more than annoy the hundreds of trained officers in bulletproof body-armor pouring into the prison after them. Ryan and the Governor watched with interest as the cons were easily mowed down. Slaughtered. No quarter. No surrender. Just as had been planned at DOC headquarters by the Director.
It was over quickly. It did not bother either of them afterwards. The cons were finally getting what they deserved, and truthfully, it was all a lot more merciful than what many of them had done to their innocent victims. Each one of them had taken part in terrorizing a docile citizenry for decades. Now was payment day. It was a massacre for sure—but this time it was right back at them. And they deserved it!
The politicals that had caused so much trouble—now were lumped in with common criminals and shared their fate. These were libertarians and small-government democracy lovers, so-called independents and patriots who fought against the world-wide government Authority. Free speech types with big mouths and cried out about things like the old U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the end, they’d been lost in the mix—which had been Ryan’s actual mission in the first place. A shadow political eradication job, typical of the DOC.
The Governor said it best to the media in his touching victory speech: “My friends, a society that can not protect itself and deal with its most violent and chaotic criminal element doesn’t deserve to survive. And it won’t. Not for long. This tiny seven percent minority of monsters are responsible for over two-thirds of all violent crimes and many far worse political crimes. Their eradication lifts the heavy tax burden off the people of my Security Sector, and gives back some measure of justice to people who have been made victims for the rest of their lives.”
Ryan watched as the prison was consum
ed by flames and the buildings began to fall in upon themselves. Some of the inmates were still inside. Their revolt had ended. Every once and a while a burning inmate would run out toward the government troops and ask for mercy. He’d be shot down dead while the media panned their camera angles with close ups for the evening news. Not one of those convicts had ever shown their victims a shred of mercy. So not one convict would survive the final devastation. The fire also helped to get rid of a substantial amount of evidence. Soon this group of cons would be just a bad memory—and all the politicals with them forgotten as well.
“Good riddance to bad garbage,” The Governor said. He switched off the vid screen, then switched on an old video. It was an old VCR tape. Ryan was surprised his ultra modern system was also equipped with such obsolete media devices. He watched as opening credits appeared on the screen. Ryan smiled, he knew what it was. He had seen it before. It was that old Outer Limits episode, “The Zanti Misfits.”
“A very good show,” Governor Jackson said. “Far ahead of its time. It’s one of Warden Wilson’s favorites.”
Ryan just nodded, “One of my favorites too, Governor.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
That’s basically how it started.
The Eastern Security District used Direct Action Groups, or Rapid Response Teams, that paved the way for them to mold society. They initiated events via undercover specialists, agitators and provocateurs—like Ryan. Or Blake Robinson. Or was it Robinson Blake? It didn’t matter. Ryan can’t even remember much of it now. They’ve done so much to him over the years. It began innocently enough. He even had pride, once, at being an agent for them. Then The DOC came in and changed everything. The DOC, The Department of Control. From out of the chaos, came...control on Earth—and a hellish future.
Now Ryan was locked away in a metal can of a cell who-the-hell-knew-where. Naked. Nothing in the cell but four empty gray steel walls, a high gray ceiling, a cold gray steel floor. No bed, no commode, no sink, no window, no slit in the door. No ventilation system he could see. It seemed like he was breathing the same old stale air but it couldn’t be.
They’d thrown him in here some time ago. He didn’t remember when. Or why. He didn’t remember much at all. He just woke up in “here.” Nude and cold. Confused and scared. Alone except for an old paperback book he found on the floor beside him. He didn’t know why it was there. He didn’t know anything about it. It looked like some kind of old-time science fiction novel. A paperback with no cover. The title page said, Mars Needs Books, and it was by some obscure one-shot writer from LastCen named Philip K. Dickson.
Sometimes memory does come back. There were other agents doing other things. All kinds of things. Most were bad things. A lot worse than what he did. Ryan just killed killers and politicals. He knew the others killed innocents. He couldn’t remember why or for what reason, though. Most of these agents did all kinds of bad stuff for The DOC. All of it was for The DOC now that he thought of it. Now that he thought of it, he probably worked for The DOC too. Somehow, through some complicated mix of various cover corporations or government agencies. It was hard to tell. It’s hard to tell anything from back then.
Even before any of them knew there was a DOC running things, Ryan knew something had to be up. There seemed to be a plan. Somewhere, someone had a plan, and it was working. For them. But not for everyone else in the country or the world. It was working against citizens. Against the country. Against freedom and justice. But no one knew it for sure, there was just no evidence and no one knew how to identify it and stop it.
It hadn’t only gone on in the old United States either; it affected or infected countries throughout the entire world. There was sabotage, bombings, sensationalistic murders, riots, terrorism, chaos, all set up to destabilize. Terrorism became an all-out war after 9/11. It was going on in every country in the world. Terror was used to destabilize the world. Or at least the industrialized world. The various financial panics were worse. The Third World and the Developing World really didn’t matter much. They were hardly even players and certainly never stable. In this drama, they were the booty. The plunder. Their crap was all under control. They weren’t going nowhere they weren’t told to go.
The industrial world was something different. But even the nations of that world were all becoming unglued. Ryan just wondered who would be there to pick up all the pieces and glue the entire mess back together again into some semblance of order—and what that order might look like.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JUST ANOTHER SUICIDE
He was locked away. Under their control now. Whoever they were.
He was thinking about things again.
Thinking too damn much.
The dirty bomb used in the Chicago bombing had killed over five thousand people. Much worse than Oklahoma City or even the terror of 9/11. But the tactical nuke that was detonated in a shipping container at the docks in Red Hook, in Brooklyn was the worst of all. It took out half of New York City. Four million dead and the country’s economy in ruins. After that, the United States effectively ceased to exist, even though the fiction was maintained for another dozen years or so. In the end, it dissolved almost as fast as its old Cold War nemesis, the Soviet Union had. He remembered it in a flash of memory now, coming back to him. It was scary. Real. Serious. Bad. A guy named Ryan had been involved in it somehow.
The guy they got for it was a guy he knew. But it wasn’t that Ryan guy, it was another guy. This other guy had been an agent also, and he had been into a lot of nasty business. However, Ryan didn’t think that guy was capable of mass murder, and he didn’t think his string-pullers, Americans like him, would be capable of ordering something like the mass murder of millions of their fellow Americans. But anything was possible when there was a point to be made, a political career to be enhanced, or a cause to be advocated. No matter how crazy. Or how evil. So the bomb blew, the people died, and Macky was set-up as the fall guy.
Maybe he really was responsible? Who knew for sure?
Ryan remembered that for two weeks before he died the vids and media reported how depressed Macky had been, how despondent and shameful—full of guilt for his horrible dirty deed. Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap for sure. Of course no one ever spoke to him other than the federal cops, no one ever interviewed him, you never saw him on any vid or program actually say he was depressed, shameful, or especially guilty. You never saw or heard him at all. Macky never said a word. That was kind of unlike Macky.
Something was going on.
So his suicide wasn’t totally unexpected.
They cut him down in his cell. The twenty-four hour suicide watch had been lifted for the Christmas holidays. Nice touch, that one. The media played it up big and Citizens saw it as a Christmas present from the Big Man himself to citizens everywhere.
Ryan wasn’t buying any of it.
Thing was, Macky was a sharpy. He may have been set up, but he wasn’t taking the rap. He wasn’t no patsy. Even in death he spoke loud and clear.
After the doctors and ghoul-squad cut him down, they immediately determined that—for sure—it really was suicide. What a surprise! Then they had the body taken away for autopsy. Purely standard stuff, cut-and-dried to back up the official determination of suicide. Nice touch, smoothly done, except Macky wouldn’t keep his mouth shut even in death. Though no one noticed it, Macky had something to say even as his fully clothed body hung there in his cell right before Ryan. When he was cut down before the corpse was sent to autopsy, Ryan made sure he was there when Macky’s body was stripped of its clothing.
Ryan saw the message. It had probably been cut with a razor, cut right into his skin before he died. The resulting scabs formed words—words written upon his stomach and chest that were quite easy to read. They said,
“No Shame. No Guilt. NO SUICIDE, EITHER!”
More words were cut into the side of his abdomen. They read,
“Innocent. DOC did me! DOC did IT!”
> After seeing that, Ryan knew he had to get away. He had to get as far away as he could, some place where the long arm of The DOC could not reach him. Off-planet maybe. As far as possible. Ryan had to get somewhere they could not touch him. Fast. Maybe Mars? He had seen something he was not supposed to see. Those words were his death sentence. The same for the doctors who performed the autopsy. You should have seen their faces. They knew the score. They knew they’d get a visit soon—their families too—just in cased they’d blabbed. No one would find any bodies, people just disappeared like that all the time now. They say there are a lot of serial killers, but Ryan didn’t think so. If there were, they were working for the government! It happens too much now. Like in old Argentina in the 1970s, like Russia in the 1950s, like Germany in the 1930s. They disappear—gone forever!
It went fast. The doctors just disappeared. The autopsy photos? Well, it seems that none had ever been taken. So they could not possibly exist either. Ryan knew different. He’d taken some of the photos himself. His copies disappeared as well.
Macky?
Just another suicide.
Ryan?
When he woke up he was here.
Wherever here might be.
Solitary confinement. Lost. Forgotten. Alone. He wished he could escape, get to Mars. At least those were what he thought were his own thoughts in his head. But they can play with your mind here, program you into whoever they want you to be. Did he really want to go to Mars? That’s what he thought he wanted to do, but he was not even sure of that anymore. Maybe it’s just stuff he’d read in that old paperback?
