by Travis Knoll
"OK, every country that is on board will be waiting at his point," Alex stated.
March 24, 2035
New York, New York
Central Park
10:45
In 1637, at the height of tulip mania, some tulip bulbs sold for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled Dutch crafts worker. This effect from history was titled “tulip mania.” Lifers were in the streets going crazy over the tulip bulb. The beautiful colors with the rarity of the bulbs—people had to have it, and were doing anything to garner them.
The question was how did the mania start? From the top. The introduction of the tulip bulb could be attributed to Ogier de Busbecq, the Ambassador of Ferdinand I, of the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor to the Sultan of Turkey, who sent the first tulip bulbs and seeds to Vienna in 1554 from the Ottoman Empire.
After the seeds were cultivated and able to withstand the harsher conditions of some of the countries in the area, it was different from any other flower in Europe at the time. The tulip was revered as a status symbol from the elite that were in charge, and the masses soon followed and gave rise to the Dutch independence in the trade fortunes, as they no longer had to rely on the Spaniards. The Dutch opened up a trade route to the rest of the east and would garner over 400% profit margins.
In February 1637, at the peak of the perceived bubble, as the Bubonic Plague was introduced to the area of Europe during this period, the tulip bulb prices collapsed and the antiquated futures and margins buying market that was created left people in dire need.
Rabbits chased carrots, dogs sat for bones, a moth went to the flame, fish were lured by worms, and Lifers killed for cash... They took all of the Lifers’ thoughts.
Who profited? At this time the Bank of Amsterdam showed exorbitant amounts of increase in both lending and saving. Who owned the Bank of Amsterdam? What was insolvency?
I put down my phone from researching the information on the tulip bulb and thought to myself, perhaps my father was right and they completely dominated our thoughts. I walked through the park alone, wearing a typical Lifer suit and tie to blend in with the rest of the Lifers that were walking through the park, as camouflage with day walkers. I came across a pond that had a continual flow of spring water moving into it, and noticed a single tulip by a large boulder.
It took a lot of planning to play both sides. The tulip bulb case was planned out for years in order to garner money. If you invested in debt and were owed by that person or country for this matter, the individual in question owed you until a certain date that was later specified, or if you looked at the law of reciprocity that individuals or businesses would be owed until paid back, and this was a natural law.
I felt a hand being placed on my right shoulder, and instantly I turned to lock eyes with Stephanie's mesmerizing smile. We were both quiet. The perfume that she wore resonated through my senses as she pointed to the seat next to me on the bench and I nodded for her to take a seat.
"What the hell are you doing? Where are your FBI agents to take me away?" I demanded.
"I deserve that, I suppose, but I saw you on the news from atop the Empire State Building, and knew that I had to come to say I'm sorry," Stephanie said.
My heart wanted to hug her, but my mind knew that this evil woman was trying to deceive me.
"I'm leaving, you screwed me over," I said as I got up from the bench.
"Wait, please, you have no idea what they put me through. They've monitored my mark and IDd me from birth. I had no choice," she said. I always perceived that she was marked from birth to be a drone.
"Why the hell are you here?"
"I want to get rid of my mark for you and join the Uprising. I believe in you."
I had conflicting thoughts as my eyes rolled in the back of my head. My mind wanted to tell her to fuck off, but my heart wanted to hug her and tell her that it was going to be OK. I had to bite my lip from telling her I wished her wrists would be incised for a slow bleed, and she would be hung by her toenails at a full moonlight, as the wolves came by licking her dripping blood off the ground and waiting for her evil body to fall.
I thought someone was watching, one of her crones perhaps. It was strange, however, that my heart still did feel for her, and that consumed my thoughts for us to be together. Across the park there were signs that stated that a bounty for people of the Uprising had been raised to find the whereabouts of a certain TaxMan killer. The signs showed relevant pictures of what I would perceivably look like as a Lifer. I peered at them as some of the people leered at me suspiciously.
"Let's just get out of here, and go to your place to talk. I promise it will be OK," she said. She placed her hand on mine, making me think of the warmth that we shared together. She glanced at the signs from the President, which made me snap back to my senses.
"Right, bitch, you'll never get rid of your mark," I said, and ran from her sitting at the bench. She stood up and yelled at the top of her lungs.
"That's him, the TaxMan!" she yelled, and pointed at me. She was trying to set me up again for money, which was the only way her thoughts were directed, as that was all she ever cared about. Her thoughts were controlled easily by the fake paper demons. I was callous at that point, and I felt unable to love, as I was onto something bigger than myself.
Talks and Signs walked up to meet me on the edge of the park.
"We need to hurry. The President has raised the bounty on the Uprising once again," Talks said. People around the park were accumulating at the noise coming from Stephanie. I stared back at her by the bench next to the tulip bulb. I watched the wind move the small flower, void of her voice, or her hateful yelling. At one time in this world that flower was valued enough for a person to trade their property for, and here it was, sitting in the park in front of me without anyone caring.
"We are causing more harm than good," I said.
"What? You fukah, let's go," Talks said.
"Humans are causing all of these problems and nature is trying to fix them, so we need to get back to nature," I said.
"You've been out here too long, pal. You're talking like a fake Buddha, and we need to hurry. There's a bounty on all of our heads," Talks said, and Signs grabbed me.
Around the park some of the Lifers peered at the three of us from Stephanie's malicious yelling. Our faces were being put on billboards and different transient points around the city. The President had instructed the police to put up photos of the Lifes that were presumed to be associated with the Uprising, and the bounty was now double what it was.
"My father was right, they created the Uprising in an effort to control the masses and take our freedoms from our mind, as a scapegoat for the Lifers," I said.
This made me think of when I first heard of the Uprising. There was propaganda that would state “don't be like an Uprising,” or “the Uprising is killing the economy for hard-working Lifers.” It fell into place for me as they really wanted the Uprising.
"You need to stop this. I am sorry for your loss, pal, but your father was on their side," Talks said.
"Perhaps he was playing both sides," I said.
The Bank of Amsterdam claimed insolvency, thus meaning that they owed more than they were worth by helping to create a banking empire. They subsequently changed their name to the Dutch East Indian trading company with none other then the same people that introduced the tulip bulb mania in the first place: the Ottoman Empire. And how was it started? They took money -Lifers’ thoughts-from them, then Lifers financed their prospective new company. These things had never changed, and they played both sides in order to ensure victory...
March 24, 2035
New York, New York.
Underground Uprising Command Area
11:45
The underground encampment was combat ready after having funds meticulously disbursed into Alex's account and transferred into her decentralized crypto currencies. Unlifes were gaining Life and were cooking food in the kitc
hen and dining facilities. A lot of the food and different remnants of things that they'd made were from where the day walkers bred. They'd been combined with other items that had been scavenged in order to make things work. In a closed-off room they'd started growing vegetables in the back with fluorescent lights, and had purified the water that dripped into the underground encampment. The whole system was set up to be self-contained so they didn’t have to go above for an extended period of time.
I came into the underground and was greeted immediately by Alex. She brought Smith, the once military veteran with experience in covert communications, and garnered a top-secret security clearance with his time in the service. He started the instapress, a supposed real news press that was released in secret to Lifes that were a part of the Uprising. They monitored who could become a member of their group of news to report. It was exclusive, and he ran his organization well. What turned Smith to the Uprising was his girlfriend was a Lifer. He got her pregnant with a fake ID he garnered from his clearance in the military. Marked Lifers weren't allowed to procreate with Half-Lifes, like he was at the time. When her parents found out, he decided to take his family and turn to the underground and sought a home in the Uprising. The instapress helped to spread his message, as a means for survival and to eviscerate his now wife's mark.
"We're here for you, sir, and ready for your orders," Smith stated in an exorbitantly confident tone to his voice.
"Very well, then set everything up. I have something to go over," I said.
"We also have the instapress on standby for further instruction if needed, sir," Smith said.
We shook hands and he nodded his head, going back to the control center. Smith conducted his people like a military ranked drill sergeant, and he had our respect.
Smith pushed a button that was nested in the command center, and the projection screen lowered from the center of the command staging area.
Lifes eliminating their marks with newfound hope smiled and looked at me without saying a word. I could feel the hope that had filled people’s hearts and had lifted their spirits simply by a shared compassion within their eyes. As I walked through the underground facility, everyone admired me, looking at me like some sort of angelic figure, but in my heart I felt like I hadn’t done anything, and these newfound Lifes had no idea what was going to befall them.
The projection screen was set up, and I humbly walked to the center point of the command center Uprising area. The projector outlined the process as I talked of what we planned on doing. I was handed a laser pointer from Smith and pointed out the outlined areas on the map of the world that we were going to conduct the operation in a matter of an hour.
"First, as you can see, we're going to hit the larger power sources and then we will use the Uprising’s allies’ resources in other corners of the Earth to hit other power outlets, taking everything down with us. As you can see here, once there is no power, it's only a matter of time. The food supply will diminish for the day walkers," I said. I pointed the laser to different places around the map and people in the underground encampments looked on intently.
"This is the leverage that we will have, and they will be forced to meet our demands," I continued.
A TV tube broadcast from the live link broke in and interrupted my speech, portraying an important alert from President Johnson sitting in the Oval Office. The President stated that the Uprising was a serious problem, and had now caused even more harm to our civil liberties by killing an innocent man. The TV tube showed a picture of my father dead in the street. The President continued to state that it left him no choice but to raise the bounty to one million dollars. Moreover, this bounty was to be awarded to anyone that could bring information to his cabinet that would lead to the whereabouts of the night walkers that were involved with this Uprising. The broadcast turned off and some of the people peered at me with a heavy heart as I cleared my throat.
"You could turn me in and be forced to slavery for the rest of your life," I said, and the Lifes remained quiet throughout. I could tell that they didn't want to be batteries to this Lifer system, they wanted to fight.
"We will have an hour to take everything down. There is no turning back now," I said.
With military precision and synchronicity Smith put the people in order. He aligned them around the command center at laid-out areas in front of computers, and some were mapping out coordinates, tracking numbers and handing notes, while others brought in food and water from the dining facility. Some were on smaller screens of older-model laptop computers, and some were working together on newer-model top-of-the-line equipment. They were ready and trained, like a well-oiled machine. Lifes had communicated to different areas of the world, which showed in the cyber world activity in different regions around the globe.
They broke into the central power grid easily. Smith glanced at me with a look of confusion that was reciprocated by the rest of the people in the command center of how easy it actually was. The power switch was turned off, and everyone was elated, as the other countries followed suit with informational relays from the instapress to move forward. A blacked-out area of lights going out was shown on the power grids. The streets lights that usually shone through the storm drain from above were turned off, and the underground encampment went dark. The auxiliary power came on and the generator started backup power to bring the place back online.
"Nothing is ever that easy to get into, is it?" Talks said, saddened.
"It is if they want you to get in," I said, as he walked to the center of the command stage. A live link broadcast was set up to be linked to the government officials, and the broadcast started.
"As you can tell, the power is off, and without power you will soon be without food and the Lifers won't be able to work. This won't allow your Lifers to pay your precious taxes," I said.
Through the projection screen, the government officials and Lifers in charge of the government officials watched without responding.
"Everything will be forced to start all over again if we can't meet on terms of Life freedom," I said.
The broadcast stopped, and I got off the stage and walked to Talks.
"You saw how easy that was, right?" I said. Talks and Signs tried to now understand what I was trying to suggest to them.
"The cops are going to be coming to our location. They once again will raise the bounty and they're going to blame it on us to evoke fear and raise more controlling tax revisions, and it will all be pinned on us," I said.
"So we must continue to fight!" Alex said. I admired her enthusiasm, but fighting was what they wanted, as there was no winner in this fight.
"No, we must give the government what it is that they want," I stated.
"What are you talking about, pal?" Talks asked.
I bent down and petted Odysseus and pulled the flash drive from his collar. I had the only leverage that we had left in my hand, holding it in front of my friends as our only hope.
"I have to show this to the masses, and then let them decide. It's the only way," I said.
I took the flash drive with the CIA files copied to it. I gave Signs the flash drive to copy some of the files so that Smith could post to the instapress at a desired time later.
"If anything happens to me, put the rest of the money into Alex's offshore account, and start again," I said.
"Wait," Alex said with a compassionate tone in her voice.
"It's the only chance we have, and you know that," I said. We shared a glance into each other’s eyes of respect, but also of what felt like warmth in my heart, as everything else was silent. I ignored the feelings, but started to realize why she came.
March 24, 2035
New York, New York
Underground Uprising Command Area
12:57
The underground encampment was lit by the flickering lights of the halogen bulbs being generated by the continuous flow of the generator. The power had gone down across all sectors of the gl
obe and it appeared to be quiet.
"I have to change," I said.
I left the command center to a backroom changing area, and put on more formal day walker attire. I was held back by Talks, who stared deeply into my eyes.
"Where are you going?" Talks asked.
"I have to release this information, or it will only get worse for all of us, and you know that," I said, and Talks nodded. I could tell he finally understood.
"Make sure that Smith takes a copy and blasts it out through the instapress at the desired time," I said.
"What's your plan here, pal?" Talks asked.
"We're going to send out an alert and warning to all Life at a given time.
"If this is sent out as an alert from inside the CIA building, then the people will believe where it came from. Now is the only opportunity, as power is out in the city, and they can only run on backup power for so long."
I finished changing my attire to emulate a Lifer day walker to fit in with what the people at the CIA were currently wearing. I took the flash drive and placed it inside of my tie pouch, concealing it.
"Don't follow this time, but when the alert goes off, be sure to send that message and to have Smith send it to the instapress so the people will know," I said, and they all quietly nodded their heads. I quickly left the underground encampment.
The propaganda LED billboards were flickering their remains of power, making Pastor Michael emulate a broken record, continually stating dough-nation repeatedly. Running through the darkened streets of the financial district of New York, I thought to myself once the sun went down, Lifers would be reacting in a chaotic state. Some of the Lifers were already visually frustrated, blaming a presumed hacker for turning the power off, and now they couldn’t work and felt handicapped. Instead of their thoughts being dictated, they were having to deal with them in solitude, like a wrestling match within their minds. The rest of the Lifers would be leveled off, going back to the same as that of the Unlifes. Everyone was going to go back to an even state of being.
