Freedom Incorporated

By Cosmo Starlight

Freedom has become a labor camp. Cameras, cyber surveillance, and clandestine security contain truth as free-citizens engineer systems to restrict children inside a police state. Set in 2042, society’s day-wardens fight those managing the Corporation at night while super-wardens expand their government.

Prisoner Noodle Church doesn't mind working in Freedom Incorporated. Yet refusal to call it freedom lands Noodle in Freedom Inc.’s medium-security ward where day-wardens pressure him to reveal work at night. And when Noodle exercises his right to remain silent, because living in Freedom is easier that way, super-wardens take the hero for interrogation.

A beacon of freedom in day and night wardens’ bi-polar war for power, Noodle is moved to high-security but before getting locked-up in a super-max facility wardens offer a deal. Noodle can work in Freedom’s low-security ward if he pleads insanity then testifies clandestine security caught pursuing were a figment of his imagination.

Noodle refuses to call this freedom! Night-shift wardens try murdering him then day-shift wardens place Noodle in solitary confinement. From here his character writes the prisoners of Freedom Incorporated, asking for freedom to lead without bombs, bullets, powders, or policemen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Release date: Oct 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301329083

Cosmo Starlight

Cosmo Starlight is a humanist and a naturalist who began to write after conceiving Church, The Television Show. The original web series depicts Noodle Church leading up to the character’s incarceration and it’s still available free using any HTML reading device.Starlight’s debut novel Freedom Incorporated contrasts freedom versus power. The author’s lens is dichotomy of positive and negative; in all, themes of Starlight’s work that lens is applied to include economics, political organization, metaphysics, and alternate history. This author’s subjects are governments, markets, community networks, the people and more.Starlight’s sequel to Freedom Incorporated, also named freedom, Freedom Afrika is titled after that continent renowned for freedom and adventure plus their associated dangers. Freedom Afrika follows protagonist Noodle Church from his escape out of prison in “Freedom Incorporated” to independence.Author Cosmo Starlight strongly believes societies united in opposition to weaponized conflict shine as beacons of freedom that lead Earth and he suggests forging mechanisms that preserve justice in advance of discord into the bedrock society is built on. Cosmo Starlight resides in remote terrain but pops up once per year to publish. When idle, he relates basic human values to cultures of people predating centuries of Western history. This author’s objective is to discover universal truth. He hopes that truth will unite the world as one.

Book preview

Freedom Incorporated

By Cosmo Starlight

Copyright 2012, 2014 ▲Church Publishing

Cover Image Stars Over Freedom by María Florencia Veron

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Image copyrights 2012, 2013 Church Publishing

Smashwords Edition 6 published 03-2015

ISBN# 978 130 132 9083

All rights reserved.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for your support.

Novels written by author Cosmo Starlight can be viewed on the publisher’s website at www.church-publishing.com, or purchased through select online eBook retailers.

Chapters

1. Prison

2. Recruitment

3. The Mob

4. Government

5. Nightclub

6. The Party(s)

7. The Problem

8. Nightclub 2

9. Last Night in Freedom

10. Medium-Security

11. Escape to High-Security

12. High-Security

13. Maximum-Security

14. Super-Max

15. Freedom’s Solitary

The End

A1. About the Author

A2. "Freedom Afrika"

A3. Connect with Cosmo Starlight

A4. Original Freedom Inc. Cover

1. Prison

A decade of conflict ended after clandestine operations terminated the Terrorist’s life then captured his body. I don’t think of that phase or months leading-up to the calendar year; it’s as if none of this saga happened but Freedom Incorporated’s newspapers still print daily accounts of struggle and strife between societies punctuated by acts of terrorism and for thirty years I’ve read the same newspaper stories each day, over again.

Thirty one years later I’m alive in 2042, or so a date printed atop the newspaper says. I’m a sixty year-old man now; however a face staring back at me in the mirror looks nearer thirty. I don’t believe what I see, I know I’m thirty years older than thirty because I have television in prison and I have internet but beyond what those things tell me I have no knowledge of time passing here. Days are spent alone, in a state of solitary confinement, inside of Freedom Incorporated’s solitary confinement.

My name is Noodle Church. Nobody referenced that name except my second wife when I lived as a free man. I missed seeing her for thirty years; now I wonder if she existed at all. My name’s Noodle, I recall but don’t say that aloud. Nobody’s listening beside me and I don’t talk to myself.

I’m not writing of hope; helping got me locked-up here. But, if anyone out-there is reading, maybe you can help yourself avoid thirty years more of the same newspaper story. Freedom’s worse than when I was first imprisoned. Freedom’s worse than ever before.

‘There I go trying to help again. Note to self,’ I scribble below the newspaper heading. ‘Telling truth is prohibited. Saying anything too truthful can land you in prison for a day, for a week, for as much as a year. Don’t say what you think is true; say what you think people want to hear or exactly what the company tells you. Better yet don’t speak. And at all costs avoid reminding people what they’ve said in the past. They’ll deny it.’

Let’s be clear, nobody thinks I’m a prisoner. What’s so disturbing about Freedom Incorporated is I don’t carry a conviction, I’m not locked away in some state institution, nor was I tried by a court of my peers and I’ve never been arrested. I’m free to roam, although I can’t sit down - that would be considered suspicious behavior and could get me locked-in for vagrancy. Just yesterday two police cruisers arrived to investigate a man sitting on his backyard porch without his shirt on. He was witnessed opening a door by someone speeding down a street passing out front. That was me going inside my house to pour a glass of water.

Thirty years observing, Freedom’s worse now than ever. The whole first-world knows they’re in prison but can’t do anything about it; the people can’t be freed because they committed themselves here. Reason for the people’s confinement inside Freedom’s low-security ward is so complex I fear I won’t be able to reveal it all - this prison exists because freedom is inverse security, misdirected freedom and economic growth are directly correlated, and wardens constructed Freedom Incorporated for control. Wardens, people having power or authority, built a massive low-security prison complete with digital surveillance and behavior analytics for their safety, to organize society, and to manage economics.

It began after wardens started a war in order to set their own bricks atop these walls of this prison named Freedom all governments have had a hand in building. Complicated, best I may be able to do is recount how I became a prisoner condemned to the solitary confinement ward.

In Freedom, I was taught there’s no need for solitary confinement but I believe one exists and that scares strong men living in Freedom who cannot think freely while people they’re supporting reject novel ideas. I know there’s a solitary confinement because I’ve been living here thirty years, it’s only when I forget what happened in months leading to 2011 that I fail to see Freedom’s deception.

Nobody thinks I’m a prisoner because I don’t carry conviction. People perceive me as shackle-less, living in a house free of bars, walking down the street, and able to drive my neighbor’s car. But Freedom isn’t what it used to be; maybe you can help to make it free again.

I know I’m a prisoner because I can’t talk to anyone; rather, they’re not at liberty to disclose things to me. No one ordered these people to avoid speaking but when a lifetime’s worth of acquaintances all do the same things even for different reasons then the story becomes reality.

I know I’m in prison because I don’t have any property. I once had a home with a private office, bedroom complete with a walk-in closet, pictures, and memories of loved ones hanging on walls but those things were all taken from me. That stuff got stolen slowly over time. I know I’m in prison because I can’t purchase things. Others, helpers I like to call them, buy stuff like cigarettes, a bottle of wine every couple Saturdays, and coffee for me. You could get in serious trouble for aiding my position so that’s all it’s taken to keep my hands writing for freedom going thirty years.

I have clothes left over from my youth including a pair of jeans I haven’t taken-off for thirty years except to wash. I sleep in those things. I don’t sleep in jeans because there aren’t any sheets covering the mattress lying on my floor; I sleep in my jeans out of habit. That habit started when I lived on the run. I went on the run after telling the truth about what one prison warden was telling people.

I didn’t want to; I chose freedom from a man named Luke of Piso, not truth. While paying below the minimum-wage Mr. Piso encouraged employees in our low-security ward to sell drugs and take-out public welfare but campaigned against social-benefits. In exchange for protection Mr. Piso sent associates to gain the intelligence in order to take those proceeds back and funnel them into his organization. He was vocal in renouncing crime and addiction yet theatricated theft and embraced black-market trade so I left Luke of Piso’s low-security ward. But Instead of freedom and without Luke of Piso’s protection I found layers of surveillance and security that keep people locked in Freedom Incorporated’s massive low-security prison ward.

There’re lots of people angry on any given day because they’re in prison. Self-commitment in Freedom’s low-security ward is a requirement for existence here. Anyone who’s tried for escape ran right into the medium-security ward. Everyone’s done that once; trips to medium-security condition people to believe the best way away from higher security is to stay locked-in the low-security one all along. Still, at least once a week, someone wakes up asking why they’re stuck here. You’ve put yourselves in Freedom Incorporated.

I live in super-maximum security. Actually, I was relocated to the solitary confinement ward built beneath super-maximum security for trying to escape over the internet. I cut the cable open and although I knew my body wouldn’t fit through I thought I might get my mind free. That was a huge mistake!

I said I’d never try to get freedom again but once a week I birth the same great idea. That idea is named freedom after the low-security ward I was born into. I should’ve known a man can’t bear offspring once his wife is gone and it’s impossible to have a daughter named freedom on my own. Maybe that’s the reason big ideas never help. Nobody can see them, they can’t touch them, and Freedom’s government re-educates if you can’t see or touch something then it’s not really there.

Government proclaims I’m free. They must know this is a lie. Clear by frustration, individuals working inside government know they’re not free either. Super-wardens say they’re willing to pay for coffee, cigarettes, and wine. They’ll reimburse my rent and fund healthcare. The democratic government pays for illegitimate children- that’s called welfare- but when I told government I don’t want free goods I want good freedom I was removed from the low-security surveillance ward then relocated to Freedom’s medium-security one.

That was a huge mistake! A caveat, their quid pro quo, in accepting free goods made cheaply by exploiting Nations it freed not only is belief you are free required but you must declare everyone else is free also. To get the most stuff, maybe even everything you’ve dreamed, you should build bombs to cart around the world proclaiming you’re free and other Nations are not; since you’re from Freedom if they don’t submit to your rules they’ll be overwhelmed. Resistance is futile, you’ll let those Countries know- you have the biggest, fastest, most powerful bombs in the world floating up in space and hidden beneath the seas. The people will never see confrontation coming; Freedom’s competition will never know what hit it.

Bomb’m back to the stone age, is a popular warden’s explanation.

You can’t do that!

I’m free. I can do whatever I want, the man with everything he’d ever dreamed responds. I can do it precisely because I am free. Isn’t that fantastic! Isn’t it what you’ve always dreamed to be, free…just like me?

I shouldn’t say tyrants exist, not even from solitary confinement. Saying something like that could get me killed, I’m sure of it. But, wardens are talking and one says, I haven’t seen that prisoner. Isn’t he supposed to be telling people he’s free? What’s he doing in there, at home alone; to whom does he report instead of informing me?

Probably building bombs, the worst kind of warden seeds.

He’s too smart for that, the best warden replies. He’s plotting his escape from this prison we’ve built for our children. I’m not sure if he’s crafting a spaceship or something else but I know this type of person and he’ll find freedom then bring me.

The latter is the type of warden you should be electing but his counterpart steals the election, I don’t care if he’s building machines for world peace. The bottom line is if he’s not proclaiming Freedom Incorporated provides freedom to work, freedom to consume, or freedom to watch the sporting events I televise then he’s not doing the job I’ve assigned to him.

The date my computer, derived from data sent over internet, says I’m sixty. I remember being twenty-seven, how strong I was when I believed everything as simple as this date must be true. Only after losing my ignorance did I realized wardens send whatever they want through that little connection. Imagine if they sent the same information to everyone, people would start to believe any truth regardless of the data’s validity.

Wardens want you to think about whatever they’ve determined production is. Wardens won’t say produce love or security, nourishment or knowledge; the focus, if not for any reason other than it’s easy to count and skim from, is Freedom’s market-value. People should be productive but what they’ve produced is as important as how much gets made. Love, joy, and peace have more value than free goods but trouble is those things are difficult to measure and impossible to tax when people are consuming them.

Optimists said in 2011, mass manipulation can’t happen. Things won’t get that bad. People will realize deception and rise to stop misdirection. Guess what? Optimists were wrong and that wasn’t because people didn’t realize what was going on; brave men were willing to take a stand but the system had been corrupted. Wardens warrantlessly recording all communications secretly determined whispers of a word revolution were loud enough to have citizens deconstructed.

Ironically, freedom was birthed as the daughter of a man named Revolution but by 2042 that man’s name has been banned so that all these wardens taking pleasure in wealth or power can sleep. Prisoners themselves developed tactics to keep us locked-in. Those men rehearsed, rehashed, and retested contingency plans generation to generation perfecting techniques that prevent people from getting freedom.

It wasn’t this bad in 2011. I wish my words got repeated louder because together we could have stopped this construction. In 2011 corrupt versions of the truth misled people so when a hundred-thousand rose at a time they couldn’t change anything against brigades of guards armed with water cannons, rubber bullets, bean bags, tear gasses, horses, armor, tanks, and deafening sounds standing in opposition. Today, confrontations rarely get physical since 2042 pre-suppression includes chemicals in the water, chem-trails in the sky, and sleeping tablets in the prison feed. People are preemptively being forced into submission so they won’t march; everyone knows what super-wardens built yet there’s nothing a President, General, or member of the shadow government elite can do when important information remains classified, truth-telling is prohibited, and anyone caught leaking hard-evidence of a conspiracy to build Freedom Incorporated will be tried for conspiring against people. Isn’t that ironic!

Punishment for truth-telling hard-evidence results in death by physical deconstruction so prisoners, wardens, and even some foreign corporations resort to soft leaks. They’ve developed things like Cheeriness Survey to prove this prison’s precisely what forefathers fought for their freedom from. Still, old wardens pretend as if everything’s fine and our system’s ideal while markets crash, people get evicted, and wars break-out around the world.

There’s nothing systematically wrong with Freedom’s economy, one Official declared on national television after banks failed and unemployment skyrocketed to twenty percent. Freedom’s population is just a bunch of whiners!

Those people living in tents by street cried; wardens who came out with solutions proclaimed, ‘Tear their tents down!’ then like soldiers prisoners dressed in blue-uniforms destroyed temporary living spaces before burning books deposited in that community’s library.

A characteristic of Freedom began around nineteen-thirty-two as a social-engineering plan after wardens lost control of wealth and power. Suddenly freedom wasn’t working for the people so, over the next hundred years, super-wardens brainstormed strategies to build Freedom Incorporated. Thirty years after nineteen-thirty-two, in nineteen-sixty people began realizing Freedom Incorporated didn’t include freedoms guaranteed to them by their forefathers’ charter so leaders stood and read bold, eloquent speeches convincing the people they’d been misled. Brave men explained manipulation of freedom could stop when people stood together then refused to be divided by race or religion as one - but wardens realized they’d have to suppress the people’s awakening in order to hold onto wealth and power then resorted to prisoner