by Travis Knoll
"Very well, thank you for your service," the TSA agent said. Signs put his hands together, the epitome of saintliness.
Detective Slate placed his hands on people with hoods, pushing through the dense line, examining the wanted poster at the same time, checking them all thoroughly and going onto the next one. My heart raced like a hummingbird drinking sugar water, to the point where I could hear it beat. I noticed another security guard pass by. He grabbed the shoulder of a stocky Lifer in front of me, and the man belted out in a baritone voice with his right brow raised, asking, "Can I help you?"
The detective furrowed his brow and was silent. He looked around lost as I continued to walk through the line with a smooth smile on my face. Detective Slate rapidly peered around the crowd and radioed to ask if anyone has seen the criminals anywhere.
"Negative, partner. All I see is everyone wearing hoods today," Detective Hall stated.
I walked though the security line and was stopped by a guard at the TSA desk. He examined my manifested Lifer passport and everything appeared to be copacetic. Lifers were the only ones allowed to travel out of the country, so they checked marks on passports; this forced us to travel off the grid and maintain fake passports.
"Why are you wearing sneakers with a dress shirt?" the guard asked, confused. I cleared my throat and wiped the perspiration from my head.
"It's more comfortable, sir, plain and simple," I said with an apprehensive smile.
The attention was turned to Detective Slate moving people through the line and people getting mad.
"OK, have a nice trip. I have to take care of this yahoo," the agent said. He handed my passport back to me and turned his attention towards Detective Slate.
Detective Slate radioed to keep checking people with hoods on, as the criminals must be here somewhere. He looked confused around at the people in hoods pass by him in droves.
The Revolution
To whom it my concern,
My name is Alex, I am a freedom fighter. I was born in the Ukraine before the time of the revolt in my country. I flew to Washington D.C., before the tax revolt started, and I am sometimes credited with sparking the protests that helped to create the Uprising, and to propagate Life for people. But no one person can claim credit for starting this Uprising. It was a true Lifes movement, fueled by citizens of the world's economies depression for a better government.
Many factors contributed to the Uprising that started with brave souls interlocking their arms together around the White House, in a statement of protest. It was a peaceful protest until the final straw came when the still governing President first passed a law that he was able to do unlimited five-year terms, but there was still an election. Then he refused to lower taxes for families and subsequently instead doubled their taxes, going against what he had stated in his original election campaign.
I stood there with these free citizens, proud, for days, feeling a sense of compassion and camaraderie that I had never felt. The morning it happened, I was staring at what I thought was an iconic symbol of freedom, which was the White House. President Johnson came out to announce the news of doubling taxes and killing small business. Hearts dropped, tears shed, and hope was lost in all freedom as he lied. People questioned why they voted in the first place. This was the thought that he wanted. The people thought that he was holding out for money for a trade embargo with Europe and South America, but instead he decided to create division and divide the people. Some maintained hope, but soon it was evident that their freedoms were being taken. They lost faith and hope in their nation, realizing their voices didn't matter.
The outrage needed an outlet. We continued to protest and some faded, but around 20:00, I posted on social media: “If you really want freedom, don't just like this post. Write that you're ready and willing to fight for what's yours.” Within an hour there were more than one thousand comments. So I posted again, to come to the Capitol Building and everyone should meet. We raced over to the Capitol Building and maybe one hundred people had gathered. Soon the crowd amassed to over two thousand.
Three acts rightly unfolded before all of our eyes on the Capitol Building steps. First the police came to protect the citizens as we protested. Then we wouldn't leave and this created a brutal governmental crackdown, with police in riot gear corralling us and forcing us to certain areas like cows obtusely walking to their impending slather, but we weren't cows. The third and final act was encompassed by the police killing an innocent man, by the name of Adam, in front of the Capitol Building, which I later called "Capital Punishment." At that point the people had the innocent man’s blood embedded into their brains. It had become obvious that the people were in need of a new movement. It was the beginning and the end of a lot of our lives.
I was an outsider then, so it felt like Americans looked at their leaders as some sort of revered Olympic gods; that they knew what was best and what to do and they would just follow. But over the years since, they had realized that was not true. Politicians were being paid and were no better than the rest of us. People wanted control of their thoughts now and this pushed the Uprising forward. This started the underground toward the Uprising for personal freedom and this was our movement...
March 11, 2035
Kiev, Ukraine
KBR Airport
16:32
What if the moon was really someone peering down on us like when we opened our eyes to peer through a telescope to look up at the moon, and they were monitoring us, just as we were being monitored? If you stood and looked at the sunrise on one end of the world, and saw the departure of the same sunrise from the other end of the world, it changed our perception of time drastically. Did time exist in the first place?
I opened my eyes to the sun that warmed us, as it filtered its way through the large glass windows in the airport. They were right, the new media was what told us that this was a forbidden zone. I could tell that the people didn't find anything wrong with me, and I am sure that they wanted the same things as all of us did, and that was simple freedoms...
Signs grabbed Odysseus from the baggage area, and opened the cage for him, petting him with an empathic smile seemingly on both of their faces. Odysseus would do anything for him and for us.
"Freedom," I said as I stretched out from the long days of travel.
"There is no freedom, pal, and don't get cocky, they're still trying to locate us," Talks stated.
We hopped in the back of a metallic silver pristinely crafted Mercedes Benz E Class taxicab. The driver tried to pet Odysseus, and he reluctantly snarled at him, raising his top right lip to insinuate that he would put one of his canine incisors into him if he messed with us. Signs patted him on the head, and it calmed him down.
"Куди," the driver asked.
"Перед річкою Дніпро від вул. Гоголівської, fourteen," Talks said in Ukrainian. He spoke the native tongue rather impressively, stating where we wanted to be dropped off.
The signs in the area changed drastically as we were welcomed by the bright blue clean sky, and the chilling crisp air that cleansed the cityscape and made the dense city air dissipate.
I saw a plethora of monasteries and the golden-domed cathedrals of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra from the Orthodox churches that sparkled from the radiant reflection of the sun’s rays. The Lavra adjoined with the skyline by the Motherland Monument entrenched just south of it. This was an amazing statement of the Ukrainian freedoms and the wars that they'd fought throughout history. It was a majestic woman standing with a sword and a shield, over two hundred feet tall, and impaled my thoughts of the importance of freedom even more.
"Who are we going to meet?" I asked. The engine of the Mercedes revved around the city streets and moved along the Dniper River. Signs put his finger in front of his lips to insinuate to be quiet and I would see.
The cab driver weaved around traffic as he continued to ask in broken English where we were from. He would imitate, or rather
--imme-diate-- in his speech as the words sounded. The driver asked about some America movies that were vastly out of date. He imitated Terminator and The Matrix amongst others. He would state his favorite lines from the movies to him that were timeless, but to us long lost by the spectrum of the Lifer society, as we were only allowed to view certain films per our ID tax class, but it was interesting that he didn't speak much English, but English films were here and they were allowed.
On the streets there was the same style of graffiti in Latin that was in San Francisco of Cave Adsum, but had a different number in the bottom corner of it. Their President was painted in a satirical likeness. He had fire coming out of his eyes and mouth with a necktie noose wrapped around his neck, forcing his tongue out like a lizard.
"Why does the Uprising use that sign?" I asked. I pointed to the Cave Adsum marker that was adorned on the top of a building we were passing by.
"It's to signify the first death of the Adam that started the Uprising. It's also the mapping system for the underground, and means in Latin, ‘Beware, I am here.’ Lifes use it to show that the Uprising is still around. If they painted over it, a faithful soldier of the movement would paint it back up, like a lighthouse to guide the faithful and the newcomers, but they weeded most out," Talks said.
Signs pointed to an opulent high-rise building up ahead of вул. Гоголівської.
"We're almost to Alex's place now," Talks said.
"Who's Alex?" I asked.
"You're going to like Alex," Talks said.
The cab parked in front of the luxurious high-rise building on the cobblestone roundabout that had large statues of lions on both sides of the entranceway. It was easily one of the most magnificent buildings to live at in the entire city. On вул. Гоголівської overlooking the Dniper River, the driver placed the car into park and looked at me with a large grin.
"You going to meet a pretty big-boobed Ukrainian girl?" the cab driver asked, with an ear-to-ear grin on his face.
"Nah, some dude," I stated, depressed.
Talks spoke in Ukrainian, telling the cab driver to keep the change as he paid him in decentralized cryptos, and we walked into the building where a doorman opened up the gold-lined handles and silver-plated doors with a luggage rack to assist us in carrying our things.
We smiled with our possessions that we had, as we entered a magnificent lobby area. It was predominantly pearl white, glistening with gold-tipped lining on the countertops and signs labeling where and what direction to go both in Ukrainian and Russian.
The bellhop, wearing a navy blue uniform with gold buttons and matching hat, pressed up on the elevator with his white gloves. The door opened, and he cordially smiled with a gesture, calling us sir and thanking us in his native tongue.
"What kind of guy is this Alex?" I asked as the elevator chimed at every floor, progressing toward the penthouse suite.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the penthouse suite. I walked out to the main open penthouse floor. It was a sublime room with sunlight glistening through the large majestic windows overlooking the city of Kiev. A crystal chandelier hung above of what resembled a statue of Buddha, as the center focal point transformed the sun’s rays into rainbow-colored prisms throughout the room.
An amazing and equally divine woman turned from peering over the city of Kiev like its dictator, smoking an e-cig. She blew out the vapor and looked at us with a grin.
"Gentlemen," she said. She accentuated the vowels, dragging them and making them seem luxuriously more important.
March 11, 2035
Kiev, Ukraine
Alex's -- Penthouse
17:35
Art adorned the wall. There was a picture of the famed Ukrainian writer Michail Bulgakov, along with the cover of his book, The Master and Margarita. There were also local artists’ paintings, including a baroque-style picture of Tatyana Markus, a hero of the revolt against the Germans in WWII. A Buddha statue served as the main focal point, with a halo of light resting above his head from the chandelier, sparkling a mystical light upon his crown. The statue was staring at scripture of spiritual texts around the suite that were illuminated precisely at this time each day from the sun’s daily departure dance. The penthouse was an art deco motif with modern leather plush seating, all of which was immaculately clean.
Signs bowed and said a personal prayer before Buddha, and little did I know that Signs was always praying predominantly for others. I was in awe of the surroundings as I stepped down into the sunken living room that resonated opulence.
The woman was tightly dressed in a smooth black leather mink top that partially covered her dark silken hair. She turned, and her silken hair feathered, to look at us with her mesmerizing green eyes as we entered her penthouse. She confidently walked directly toward me, and shook my hand with an endearing seductive smile.
"Alexandra," she said luxuriously.
"Oh, Alex," I muttered under my breath. I cleared my throat in acknowledgement of her beauty, and glanced at the others with a jovial smirk. I tried to introduce myself and she cut me off.
"TaxMan, I know who you are... You look confused, hun. You thought I was a guy?" Alex stated with a large smile. She had a proper dialect and confident demeanor that was very seductive, which could rival that of any French woman. Alex acquired her wealth originally after her mother left a prominent Russian oligarch. Her mother was said to be a divine beauty and was the wealthy Russian's mistress. When the Russian economy turned, she was smart, and started laundering money in Alex's name. Alex did the smartest thing she could and used her computer skills to hide it all in crypto currencies that they created for the underground. Some were traceable, but hers were decentralized... She ended up giving a lot of the money away and now took care of her mother, but the prominent Russian oligarch had to keep his mouth shut or he would lose his wife. She was bred in the game from day one and she was good at it.
The authorities were never able to put together that this beautiful and smart woman was doubling as an underground agent of the Uprising as Alex. They looked for him and it was a her all along. I briefly thought of changing my name to Princess Susan...
Alex hugged Talks and Signs and petted Odysseus. The dog seemed to have a fondness towards her.
"When was the last time, boys?" Alex asked as she kissed them on both of their cheeks as a cordial greeting.
"The last job was when the Uprising was stronger years ago in Russia," Talks said.
"Please make yourself comfortable," Alex said as we walked into the plush penthouse suit.
"How was your travels?" Alex asked.
"Wicked pissa," Talks said as he looked at me. "Alex is a legend in the Uprising circles. She helped to start the movement," Talks continued.
"So to what do I owe this pleasure then, gentlemen?" Alex asked.
She looked at me and then the others with a sense of confusion without saying anything.
"I pictured him much stronger and not so naive," Alex said. She looked at Talks and Signs. I was confused and wanted to know what she was talking about.
"You realize that there isn't a government or races, and borders are created, not forged. The media is complete garbage that they're forcing you to watch. It's all to control people and this is why the Uprising started. We need to take back our freedoms, and without us, the world will be entirely manipulated," Alex stated, passionately flailing her arms as she spoke. She paced back and forth in front of us like a runway model on stage, drawing our attention, but not swaying her focus.
"Dividing and conquering, let the masses kill themselves," Alex stated, "let them think that they give us freedom, or better yet let them fight our wars for us in the name of freedom. Meanwhile every freedom choice that he allowed they peeled off the top of it, by raising our taxes and now look, it's a one-world system and no one even realizes it. They control everything and eventually take all of your freedoms away because it’s all a facade taking up
space in your mind," Alex continued.
“The only news source that we can remotely trust is the instapress," Alex said as she stood by the Buddha statue, insinuating an illusion, and she waved her fingers in front of us.
"The goal, you see, is to keep us in jail," Alex said.
"Jail is now in people’s minds," she continued, pointing to her head. She walked closer to me with a seductive smile.
"I'm not in jail," I said, and they all laughed at me.
"Did you bring the backup software?" Alex asked. She ran her fingers through my hair while the others smiled.
"You're just so innocent, boy," she said. She got closer to me. Her perfume smelled like Stephanie's; it wafted deep into my senses and hypnotized me.
"Who are they, and what do they want?" I asked, as I tried not to give her much attention.
"It's him." Alex pointed up, raising her voice at the same time. Odysseus let out a soft whimper, and she walked over to him to console him.
"Oh... You know I love you," Alex said. She petted Odysseus and turned her attention back to me.
"Did you build a backdoor into the application?" Alex asked as she raised her right brow at me, hypnotizing me with her alluring green eyes, and pushing her red luscious lips out together, insinuating she was going to kiss me.
"Who the hell is he or him in the first place. I want answers!" I raised my voice, and I was finally tired of all of this him or he talk.
