Angels Mark (The Serena Wilcox Mysteries Dystopian Thriller Trilogy)

by Natalie Buske Thomas

  “I don’t think anything else was illegal, just the arson.”

  Tom and Serena stared at each other and laughed at the absurdity, and the shock from a word like “arson” being owned by either of them.

  “You should be used to it. You had to have straddled some legal lines when I met you,” said Tom.

  “Serena Wilcox, private detective? It’s been so long since I’ve been that person. I’m Serena Bridges now. No, I take that back. Serena Meadows.” Serena looked like she had tasted something sour.

  “Maybe it’s time you found her again.”

  “My ‘mom’ and ‘wife’ self doesn’t measure up?”

  “I just mean we could use a detective. We didn’t learn much about this Paul guy, except that he’s operating out of Minneapolis.” He studied his wife’s face and added, “Getting your old spunk back wouldn’t hurt.”

  The crowd settled down and they directed their eyes obediently toward the pulpit, where Paul was gearing up for a sermon. His voice was smooth and steady, hypnotic in delivery. His eyes locked personally into each and every pair of eyes staring back at him. His audience was as captive as a warren of rabbits listening to a coyote sounding off in the distance.

  They say we need the Identity Chip. What is this chip but a high-tech horror? It was the first thing I thought of when there was talk about inserting tracking chips under babies’ skin so that we can solve our missing children problems. Everyone would be assigned a unique computer code – a number. You get it on the forehead or the hand. It assigns you a number, a number! Doesn’t that sound familiar? Isn’t that just like the Bible foretold would happen? Is this not the number of The Beast?

  The chip is like a bar code. Everyone’s ID will be on it, including bank routing info. No more credit cards, cash, etc. All is instant transfer. Everything digital, no need for hardcopy IDs, no more checkbooks or credit cards – just scan the forehead or back of hand. They are already doing it. Remember that story about the rich people who were too lazy to bother getting out a credit card at their favorite club, so they got a chip in their hand that the bartender scans while they sit there enjoying their drinks? Buying and selling will be through this number. Anyone read the book of Revelations? It’s all right there. This is prophesy, people!

  Hard to believe anyone would get the number? Think that even people who aren’t religious would be a little spooked by this? Well it’s also hard to believe that the government would be focusing on this chip when we’ve just been bombed by nuclear warheads! No one’s going to want to have a tracking device inside them, but they’ll do it. People will rush to do anything if they think they’ll be safe. And people believe in their government.

  These are like pet locator chips, but for people, so the government can track us like animals. Or, as they put it, anyone on the terrorist watch list. And missing people or criminals. They give it a good sell. How to identify bodies and missing persons is always one of the first things a government does when there is a disaster. Think of earthquakes. Special interest groups who want that chip bill passed can slide it under the radar during this emergency.

  Think it sounds far-fetched? Think that the President wouldn’t be getting some obscure bill passed after we just go bombed? Think again. It’s happening people. You know it is. And that’s why you’re all here.

  Senator Birmingham has urged the President to immediately sign the Identity Chip bill as an emergency measure to handle the overwhelming task of identifying missing persons. Says our senator, “While the measure will not aid in the recovery efforts now underway, the measure could benefit any future national crises.”

  Think, people. The ‘Beast’ from the Bible is a computer, not a person. The chip, the number, will soon be the only way to pay for things, and it tracks every purchase you make. That’s how they can keep track of people buying things that are a red flag for terrorism and other criminal intentions, and it’s how they can track you! Us!

  Economists say there will be no more problems with insufficient funds – important when the economy falls out. It all sounds logical, logical enough that a lot of people will line up voluntarily to get the chip. I am thinking that after today, it will be like the McCarthy era, and everyone will be paranoid about who everyone is. Our citizenship and other basic info, arrest record, anything, can be added to that chip. People will want this. They will think that they are protecting themselves.

  And I mention ‘the President’ so casually. We are under the regime of not one, but two presidents, who want this chip. If you disagree with President John Williams and hope to jump a couple states over to the West to live under President Kinji, whatever farce her liberal administration is, well, you’ve got a rude awakening. They both want the chip. In fact, she wants it more than Williams does. This chip is the beginning of communism.

  The weight of hearing Paul’s right-winged speech of paranoid delusion was starting to press down upon them and both were suddenly very tired, so very tired. What was the most fatiguing of all was the fact that Tom and Serena shared this man’s delusion. For it was the fear of getting this Identity Chip, this fear most of all of allowing such a chip to be inserted into their precious children, was the catalyst for their fiery exodus from life as normal upstanding citizens and into this land of crazy people. But these were crazy times.

  During the next break between speeches, Serena said to Tom, “Five years since the bombings. And it’s been two since the restructuring. I still can’t get used to Chicago being the nation’s capital. And with Minneapolis the new ‘wall street’, it’s like the whole country has moved over to the left.”

  “The left?”

  “To the left of the map, like if you were looking at it.”

  “You mean ‘West’?”

  “Okay, then, West.”

  “And East – we are moved in on both sides.”

  “With California gone, we have Denver as the ‘new Hollywood’. It’s hard to believe all of this has happened. Just a few years ago, life was normal, despite recessionary times.”

  “It’s surprising so few actors died. Not too many were in California when they got hit.”

  “Makes you wonder if the rich and famous got a heads-up that the rest of the population didn’t.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Our government knew. Politicians were out of D.C. and government buildings and military installations were evacuated.”

  “Nothing’s been proven about that,” Tom cautioned. He feared that they were becoming as crazy as the off-grid people.

  “No, but it’s not like we can’t figure it out. How else did so many people get out in time? We didn’t lose any senators, and no Generals.”

  “True.”

  “It’s hard to accept that a senator’s life is worth more than an ordinary American citizen’s. How can that be right? Millions died, while the political people and the celebrities got a heads-up and lived.”

  “We lived,” Tom reminded her.

  Serena was quiet for a few seconds. “But we were lucky -- blessed. Why couldn’t the government warn people? They would have had hard intelligence from satellites or something. Were they afraid of mass panic and then no one could get out?”

  “Maybe. I saw a new map at the library. It was sad seeing the United States smaller, and divided. California, Virginia, Pennsylvania and part of New York were grayed out. Oregon, New Jersey and part of Michigan were filled in with a dot pattern for ‘uninhabitable’.”

  “And now we are split in two, with two presidents. Nothing feels real anymore.”

  The break was over and Paul had returned to the pulpit. He took a sip of bottled water and revved himself up into his closing rant.

  People, listen. It’s coming fast. They are putting chips in all new babies born on or after January 1. In three weeks. And by April 1, every citizen is required to have the chip. They are already putting the chips in prisoners and anyone who comes in to renew a driver’s license.

  Cameras they have no
w can scan license plates and alert the police if there’s anything going on with your vehicle – unpaid parking tickets, crime committed, or stolen vehicle. We’ve had this awhile. But now they’ll be using it to catch those who don’t have the chip.

  We at OGG, off-grid-ghost, we are officially urging people to get the chips.

  Paul waited for his words to register with the crowd. He was not disappointed by their reaction of gasps, followed by shocked silence.

  Seriously, we do. It’s the only way to protect ourselves. We get the chip, and then come in to OGG. We’ll set you up with a code that we’ll add to the chip that blocks the data. It is like a virus blocker, like a firewall for when you’re on the Internet and someone’s trying to steal your identity. When anyone scans the chip, it will give them limited data: whatever the off-grid programmers put in. It won’t track your real transactions. But it will protect you. It will satisfy the government that you have the chip.

  And we control the number, so that no one here ends up with 666 embedded under their skin.

  Paul laughed, and the audience responded in kind. Tom and Serena exchanged looks of horror, not mirth.

  Paul continued.

  I’m not sure that the Beast is a computer, or that the numbers are about the Identity Chip. But do we want to take a chance? Of course we don’t! The Identity Chip is required to get a driver’s license, and banks will use it for all transactions. Stores will use it for all transactions. What will we do for money? How will we get around? If you don’t have the chip, you can be arrested.

  Let us help you. What we are offering you is software to add to the chip, our mark. The software is called “Angels Mark”, and we strongly suggest you get the chip, come directly to OGG, and get Angels Mark installed. Do this by April 1. It gives you three months. We want all of our members protected by then. And from that point onward, only those with the Angels Mark will be able to scan to get into the OGG campus. We are doing this for all of us. Outsiders will find us eventually, but we don’t want to make it easy for them to get in. So get the chip. Then come to us. We’ll help you hide. We’ll protect you.

  Paul ended his final speech with a confident nod to the crowd. They responded with strong applause and a few scattered Amens. Everyone quickly dispersed, with many making a beeline toward Paul and his staff. Tom and Serena dodged the beaten path and bolted for the nearest exit.

  Serena barely waited until the van door was shut behind her before saying, “They won’t know we don’t have the Angels Mark unless we try to get on the off-grid campus. If we use these three months to stock up on food and supplies, we could stay here for a lot longer than three months without anyone knowing we don’t have it.”

  “We stock up. After April 1, we stop going to the off-grid campus.”

  “How long can we live without going to the store? We won’t be able to go shopping anywhere.”

  “We can get chickens.”

  “We’d need a chicken coop.”

  “I can build one.”

  “We can grow our own food. This is going to be an adventure.”

  “It will be fun, besides, what choice do we have?”

  5

  Paul Tracy left the seminar feeling as if he’d just sold his last vacuum cleaner of the day, in other words: victorious and vindicated. Funny how those old feelings resurfaced after so many years. It seemed like another lifetime ago that Paul had been a vacuum cleaner salesman, a job for which he had a natural gift. He outsold everyone, despite never getting a good client list. Most of his sales went to people who couldn’t afford them, and virtually all of his sales went to people who had no intention of buying a vacuum cleaner that day, not until Paul showed up on their door step.

  He was initially motivated to hard-sell to impress his boss, to prove that he was not too young to hold down a job, but Paul was quickly bitten by the bug; he craved the gambler’s high that selling gave him. The rush, lasting for a few glorious moments, sometimes hours, was what drove him toward making the next sale. He became a master at conning homeowners and renters alike with his slick tricks to demonstrate how dirty their floors were from using their current sweeper, and then dazzling them with how clean the new sweeper got their floors.

  Paul polished off his act until he had a fail-proof, show-stopping, demonstration and a one-in-three sales track record. Not bad for a kid fresh out of high school. Eventually, the job he viewed as a perfectly-legal con game was effortless. Paul was Salesman of the Month every month without fail, for the entire four years he worked for Morris Handley.

  Morris was a weasel of a man. He even looked like a weasel: He had a slight build that couldn’t accommodate his extra pounds, giving him a small-animal-with-a-pouchy-belly physique. Add his oval head with wide-set eyes and pointy ears, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him as anthropomorphic vermin.

  Paul, who enjoyed his own reflection in the mirror, noticed all of Morris’ shortcomings, especially the receding hairline that was poorly, and absurdly, masked by a cosmetic spray that looked suspiciously like black spray paint. And if the physical appearance wasn’t eye candy enough, Morris gave something special to the ears as well. He had a voice that defied explanation. It was both nasal and a low baritone; it was both gritty and strong. The rise in pitch went up two octaves when he was yelling at his salesmen, but would fall sharply and unexpectedly into the throaty bear growl of a mobster.

  Saving the best attribute for last, Morris had an overbearing wife who called the office incessantly with her constant carping. When Morris was especially beleaguered by the steady barrage of nagging and barbs from his wife, he would vent his pent-up frustrations at Paul and the other young salesmen. All of the young men, and one unfortunate young lady who was perpetually the victim of sexual harassment by pretty much everyone (she only lasted two months at Handley Sweep & Repair), were reduced to putty when Morris bellowed, all but Paul.

  Paul always took the abuse cheerfully and then set out to out-sell everyone else. Before long, he was the apple of Morris’ eye. Day after day, Paul set out with his vacuum kit until that fateful day that he landed at the front door of Miss Donna. Miss Donna was known in the area, and avoided. But Paul had never heard of her, or her conquests, of which there had been many.

  Miss Donna, home all day without a job, was leery of a stranger showing up unannounced, but after looking Paul over, she ushered him inside. She was lonely with the kids all grown up all off to their fancy schools. Why they needed college, she’d never understand. Her kids would be in debt for the rest of the lives and for what? Did they think they were too good for a real job? Didn’t her daughter get it by now, that husbands leave or die? Why bother with more school when it won’t pay the rent? Don’t get her started on her son, he was a closed subject. And if the subject was opened, well, Donna had a lot to say.

  Then along came Paul, who was the same age as Miss Donna’s own son. Paul was good looking, better looking than her son. Paul looked like he played sports and his skin was tan from sun – not like her son, who was pasty white and couldn’t catch a ball. Her son would rather stay inside and read a book all summer than join the team. Paul had a real job. She admired Paul’s full head of hair. He looked so young and virile. Before she was fully aware of what she was doing, Miss Donna had reached out to touch Paul’s hair.

  Paul flinched, but he didn’t pull away. He only stood there, blinking his eyes in surprise. He let his box of supplies slip to the floor, making a soft thump on the carpet. Miss Donna’s cool blue eyes sized him up in an instant and she lunged at him, clutching both sides of his face with her dry thin hands and long stained fingernails. She pressed her lips onto his, so hard that Paul felt pain. She wriggled her tiny body like a hairless cat while working with her lips to open Paul’s unresponsive mouth.

  Paul was slow to react, but his brain finally spoke to his hands. He pushed Miss Donna away with more force than he intended. She looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth: horror. Then her eyes and mouth relaxed into a ma
sk of tragedy: humiliation. Last, her eyes narrowed into catlike slits and fixed on him with a vengeance: hatred. Paul knew those three H’s well: horror, humiliation, and hatred. He’d seen them before, and he knew he was in trouble.

  By the time he reached Handley Sweep & Repair, he had rehearsed his story dozens of times. It would be her word against his, and he guessed, correctly, that she had picked up the phone the moment he walked out the door. She would make a complaint about Paul before he could make a complaint about her, of that he was certain. The question was, who did she call? Did she ring Morris, or had she gone straight to the police?

  Much to Paul’s relief, the complaint had been made to Morris only, no police. But Morris was irate. All of the repressed anger he felt day after day in his shabby little life with his carpy wife boiled over. He let loose like a short fat bull throwing a tantrum. Paul was reminded of a cartoon character, the Disney-fied Danny DeVito in Hercules. He almost started laughing, almost.

  “What did you think you were doing!”

  “Sir, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know you didn’t!”

  “I don’t know what she told you, but I didn’t do anything.”

  “I should fire you right now.”

  “But you won’t.” Paul said calmly. Cool as a cucumber, he coached himself. He knew he was the best that Morris had, and Morris wouldn’t let him go based on one complaint from Miss Donna. He tried to push the image of the animated Danny DeVito character out of his head.

  “You are my best salesman, but don’t think I won’t fire you if you don’t make this right.”

  “I’ll be on guard in the future.”

  “What? No you won’t. You’ll go right back to Donna’s and make sure she’s a satisfied customer.”

  Paul blinked hard, finally catching on to what Morris was saying. “What do you mean, sir? She didn’t order anything.”

  “You know what I mean. Donna only complains when she doesn’t get what she wants. You’re young, you’re her type. Don’t think I don’t know what happened.”