We the People: Paul Decker assignments, #8

By Jeffry Weiss

It has been six years since the constitution was suspended.  People are required to have chips implanted in their arms in order to make any legal purchases.  Cameras and listening devices are hard wired into homes and apartments.  The jails, run by private contractors, are in every major city.  Always full, new facilities continually under construction.

 

All copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been burned, deleted, or shredded.  It is illegal to possess or speak the words of those documents.  Any person or persons found to be in violation of this order are deemed to be subversives who may be shot on sight.

 

A small group of partisans led by Paul Decker, and dependent upon the skills of a young boy, is all that stands in the way of a totalitarian government fulfilling the Nazi promise of the thousand year reign.

 

The time for rhetoric is long past.  Armed revolution is at hand.

 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffry Weiss
• Release date: Jan 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524278342

Jeffry Weiss

I have been a political scientist (since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with an MA in International Affairs), a political activist (who consults with Noam Chomsky on a regular basis) and an Investigative Journalist for the past 40 years. I have written position papers for three presidents: Carter, Clinton and Obama, and I worked with the Elizabeth Warren Campaign until she dropped out of the race. My work on social issues has received recognition directly from the desk of the president of Mexico. During that time I have written 16 geo-political thrillers, four modern-day versions of old classics, seven nonfiction books, four screenplays and one stage play.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

America.  2028

Circulating copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been confiscated, burned, deleted, or shredded.  It is illegal to possess or to speak the words of those documents.  Any person or persons found to be in violation of the order are deemed to be subversives who face indefinite detention.

The United States of America.  2029

Three members of a family in Florida became the first people to receive the biochip implant.  The silicon chip is a small radio transmitter about the size of a piece of rice that is injected under a person's skin.  It transmits a unique personal ID number whenever it is within a few feet of a special receiver unit.  From that small, slow beginning, almost every citizen in America now has a chip implant.  Only outlaws and malcontents have avoided compliance and fan the flames of anarchy.

The United Federated Territories of America.  2031

It has been four years since the Constitution was suspended.  Cameras and listening devices are hard wired into every home and apartment.  Camps, run by the government, are in every major city, housing criminals, subversives, malcontents, malingerers, loafers: the unproductive and the unredeemable.

The United Federated Territories of America.  2033

Drones fill the skies like an infestation of locusts.  Some hover at busy street corners.  Others circle over large venues like baseball, football, soccer stadiums and concerts.  They are ubiquitous, redundant, eternal.  They never get tired, never rest, and never discriminate.  They spy on everyone, regardless of position, and report everything.  The information collected by machines is analyzed by computers to eliminate human emotions.  The computers, themselves, are programmed by other computers, found to be far more efficient than humans. 

The drones had been conceived in the 1990s, became combat weapons in 2000, then, in the blink of an eye, turned into weapons of domestic surveillance in the second decade of the 21st century.  Now, in the third decade of the 21st century, complete control has been gained over a population of five hundred million people chipped, herded into cities where density is an advantage to the authorities, managed 24/7: at work, leisure, and even at sleep with subliminal messaging since that has been perfected.

There is no escape.  And after so many years the public has become accustomed to the intrusion, to the point of numbness.  People are given their toys: electronic devices: cell phones, iPads, laptops, smart glasses, and 4D televisions.  They are content, in the way a mouse in a cage with its toys is.  They are accepting in the way a dog is with a bedroom slipper to chew on.  They are happy in the manner of the recently lobotomized.

It will take an asteroid, an atomic bomb, to wake people up, to remind them of what freedom tasted like.  A polestar event...or a new George Washington, to make them risk their perceived freedoms for a chance to live the life the founding fathers fought and died for.

Federated Territories of America.  2034

The roundups started in earnest in 2020.  The Islamists, Gypsies, the Greeks, Communists, protestors, picketers, then the students not paying their loans, people who went bankrupt, people on food stamps, people convicted of crimes and out on parole, people who ran abortion clinics, tax avoiders.  There was an endless well of people.  All the government needed to do was create an incident that they could link to a group, get every TV, radio station and newspaper to cover the event and incite the people to demand retribution.  And Gideon Harper, Chairman of the Federated Territories of America, Ruler of the Guardians, was there to fulfill their wishes, which of course were just the wishes he imposed on the masses.

Federated Territory of America.  2034

The country was divided into six territories.  One, encompassing the northwest coast and presided over by San Francisco.  Two, southwest presided over by Phoenix.  Three, north central presided over by Chicago.  Four, southeast presided over by Miami.  Five, south central presided over by St. Louis  and six, northeast, presided over by Washington, D.C. and first among equals, where policy was set.  There were six million people in the internment camps, one million in each federated territory

The government had it down to a science.  A hundred thousand people in each of six hundred facilities bored to paralysis, eating the cheapest food available, with no medical care.  The camps were a model of efficiency.  And Gideon Harper sat on the throne like a maestro, overseeing millions of prisoners with only thousands of troops.  He didn’t worry about escape, and he didn’t need to watch their bodies...because he all ready controlled their minds.

CHAPTER ONE

Camp 22.  Washington, DC.  Federated Territory of America.  2036

Railroad tracks ran through each facility, separated from the pens by one-way, electronically controlled turnstiles.  They were roach hotels: people went in, nobody got out.  Enormous facilities under the jurisdiction of the FHD, Federated Homeland Defense, controlled by computers and overseen by humans.  Twelve-foot high, double-fenced walls of wire mesh with concertina wire at the top - electrified, pressure-sensitive, trip-activated explosives and tear gas sprays - made even the thought of escape a fairy tale, like Jack and the Beanstalk.

Sixteen watchtowers with roving searchlights kept vigil over the placid inmates subjected to the constant reminder: behave and eat, foment unrest and starve.  In fact, food and TV were the only things the inmates had to look forward to and the only sources of shared camaraderie.  Most were too busy counting the hours until their next meal, or the next episode of The Voice or Dancing with the Stars, to plan an escape or organize resistance.

For those who posed a risk, separate detention areas were set up where such men...or women could be sequestered from other inmates and subjected to re-orientation procedures which included sensory deprivation, and other forms of behavior modification such as the use of heat and cold, noise, and videos of everything they desired but didn’t have: contact with nature, scenes of love, family interaction.  That always being the most painful.

In the center of each camp, the most recalcitrant, incorrigible detainees were housed.  The worst of the worst criminals who posed a threat to national and international security. 

There was one more step, a level below the prison proper...below the water table.  Inmates who incited riots were placed in cells, cages, really, that flooded each day when the waste from the prison flushed into the municipal sewer system.  Thousands of gallons of excrement, urine and vomit raced through the cells which passed directly through the punishment cells, flooding them with not only the waste, but with rats as big as cats.  Prisoners had to jump up and cling to the bars for an hour while the waste water ran through.  The stench was unbearable.  A foot of mud filled the cell while one bite from a rat could lead to infection, disease, even death. 

Paul Decker, prisoner number 31303-CZ, threw up each time the waste came through even though he had nothing in his stomach.

The first time he experienced it, he thought he was going to drown.  Luckily, the waste only came up to his stomach.  He had so much to be thankful for.  In between the tides...eleven hours, he thought of all the ways he would kill the people who put him there.  But whatever he considered, there weren’t enough ways, or enough pain to make up for the humiliation and degradation he had, and was, undergoing.

He asked himself if it was worth it...to stand up on a table and yell out the words from the Constitution...to people who didn’t even know what they meant, people who laughed at him rather than join in, people who only cared about what the movie that night would be.

Paul had been in that hell for twenty-eight days surviving on one piece of bread and a cup of tea each day.  He could feel every one of his ribs; the stubble on his face was heavy, his hair matted with sweat and mud.  He wondered what he looked like but was afraid to ask for a mirror lest it take away any strength he had left.

The head of the prison had personally escorted Paul to his new home to teach him a lesson.  No insubordination would be tolerated.  The order and regimentation in the prison would be kept precisely as it had been for the ten years it had been open.

But in sentencing Paul to that hell hole, they had made a mistake.  One that would lay the foundation for a new beginning and an end to the old.

On day twenty-nine, Paul was escorted out of the underground chamber and into the light of day: the first light he had seen in a month.  The sun burned his eyes and forced him to keep his gaze on the ground one foot ahead of him.

And now he was back in with the regular prison population.  Still a jail, but a thousand times better than the place he had come from.

He told himself who he was, what he had been: Paul Decker, once the most trusted operative of three presidents, now prisoner number 31303-CZ.  He was serving an indefinite sentence for violation of the sedition act; specifically, attempting to overthrow the duly appointed leadership of America.

According to FHD records, he’d already been incarcerated for six years.  Something he himself was not aware of due to lack of contact with the outside world: not a news-paper, or live TV program or visitor.  There were no calendars in the camps.  Time passed at different rates for different people.  Only when a new man, or woman, came in did they even know what year it was. 

Closed circuit television - showing old movies, sitcoms, cartoons, but never any news - was the only pastime.  Bored to tears, inmates sat, stood, and laid down watching the tube five, ten, fifteen hours a day: mindless dribble coursing through their synapses.  What most knew, but didn’t care, was that the televisions were two-way devices.  The programming going out was suffused with subliminal messages authorized by the Guardians.  The messaging turned their minds into mush, took away their motivation and focus, and replaced that with confusion and fear.  After a few months the prisoners had a hard time navigating their way to the lunch room. 

The FHD first took their freedom, then their sense of purpose, and whatever was left coalesced into a ponderous boredom.  Even the inmates who were aware of the invasion couldn’t help themselves.  There was nothing else to do, no other way to occupy their time, time that crawled by at a glacial pace.

Yet Paul still saw himself as virile and vital.  Yes, the previously rugged face was now somewhat haggard - before assertive now apprehensive.  Once deep hazel eyes, now red around pale green pupils, the results of too much drinking and not enough exercise. 

It took only a few days: time spent shaving, washing and eating to return Paul to a semblance of his old self.  The square jaw and sharp cheek bones gave the illusion of a younger man.  The body, too, had, suffered.  Walking the yard a few hundred meters each day, and lifting a bottle of Bourbon to his lips for whatever amount of times it took to finish a fifth, didn’t really count as exercise.

What Paul did have was his mind, even if others believed differently.  They tried, with drugs and their torture techniques, to erase not just his memory, but the past itself. 

Every day he would walk around the yard, mumbling the words of the Declaration of Independence.  Other inmates laughed at him, ridiculed him, but it never stopped his daily routine.

He shuffled his feet, kicking up dust.  Some thought he’d been lobotomized.  But they didn’t know the words and they didn’t see the contribution he was making to the soil.  They, the guards and the inmates, had underestimated him, dismissed him as trivial, written him off as a has-been: an old man living in a new world with yesterday’s mind.

And each day he watched those watching him.  He knew what they were thinking: Decker was once important. Rumors had it that he was a man who held the ear of three presidents, a man who was entrusted with a nation’s secrets, a calculating man who overcame long odds more times than one could count.  Maybe he still knew something of value – something that could be traded for a privilege.  A man to keep an eye on. 

He just needed them to keep thinking he had been dociled for a little while longer and then, when he didn’t show up one day, they’d scratch their heads and wonder why, how.

He thought of himself as dead.  That made it easier to take the risks.  He had already made the decisive steps in his mind.  And what the mind could realize, the body could complete.

When he saw the hopelessness on the faces of the other inmates, it did not cause him to despair.  Rather it focused Paul, reminded him that the task had fallen on him and he would, as a good solider, carry the burden.

He was a lonely man, a Gilgamesh, the eternal man, muttering the lines, the truth, that nobody in the camps would ever hear. 

At times, it was harder for him to recall the words, but then he would use pain as a way to focus.  He would take a nail out of the heel of his shoe and stab himself repeatedly in the leg or chest: parts of the body not exposed.  Then the phrases came back to him. 

But as long as he uttered the words, the continuity was not broken.  He was not important; he was a conduit – carrying the message to the next generation.

He said them, barely above a whisper.  Certainly not loud enough to attract the guards...We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...

A young woman, standing nearby watched Paul intently...as she had for the past several days, ever since being transferred into the maximum-security section of the prison, ever since Paul had returned to the prison population.

But today was different.  Today she would do more than watch Paul.  She walked over and said in the same low voice...When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

She looked Paul squarely in the eyes and went on...We hold these truths to be self-evident.  She stopped and repeated...We hold these truths to be self evident, until Paul joined in..."that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government."

Paul looked the woman over.  Late twenties, early thirties, fit, very fit, five feet, eight inches tall, one hundred ten, one hundred twenty pounds, intelligent looking, the sharp, darting look of a predator.  Butch-cut blonde hair, large, cobalt blue eyes, wide, thin lips on a chiseled face, and a body that, as far as he could see, didn’t have an ounce of fat, in spite of the fact that the meals were all you could eat.  In all she registered somewhere between cute and dyke on his built-in assessment meter.

He was curious, but knew not to trust anyone in the camp.  That’s how he survived.  The guards used snitches to sniff out escape plans, and to learn about possible riots.  She could just as easily be a plant as the real deal, Paul though to himself.

He stared at her for a moment, then started walking away.

Moving faster toward him than he was away from her, she entered his space.  Paul Decker, she said more than asked.

Maybe.  What’s it to you?

Jenny Ocean.

Nice name.

Thanks.

Well, now that we’ve met...goodbye, Paul said, then turned to go.

She reached out and grabbed his arm hard, digging her nails into him.  He gripped her fingers and bent them back, hard.  It hurt, but she smiled, unwilling to give him the satisfaction.  Paul wasn’t going to break her fingers and she wasn’t going to give in.

That the best you’ve got, Decker? she said through gritted teeth.

I don’t like strangers touching me.  I’m a hypochondriac.

You don’t look the type, she said.

Yeah, I get told that all the time.  I’m just sensitive.

Missions in Nigeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Indonesia, China?  Doing missionary work?

Funny girl.  What’s your point?

I want out.

A prisoner wandered over.  Morning, Decker, he said, a smirk on his face.  He was a big man: taller than Paul who was a few inches over six feet himself and outweighed Paul by thirty pounds, maybe more.  His didn’t paint a very pretty picture with his pock-marked face, chin scar, and facial sneer.

He kicked dirt on Paul’s shoes.  You’re movin’ pretty fast today...for a retard.  He followed the compliment with a laugh.

Let’s take a walk, Paul said to Jenny, never taking his eyes off the other man.  The air here just got polluted.

Paul turned to leave.

The inmate gabbed Paul’s arm.  Nobody talks to me that—.

Paul spun his hand around, reversing who had who, pulled him in, and smashed him in his face with an open palm.  Blood burst from Mr. Pain-in-the-ass’s nose; he dropped to his knees.  Paul kicked him in the chest, forcing him onto dirt.  He leaned over the fallen man.  If you ever touch me again, Victor, I will kill you so fast no one will remember you were ever alive.

Victor staunched the flow of blood with one hand and said, It ain’t over, Decker.

Okay, Paul responded, encouraging Victor.  He grabbed the man’s other hand and started to pull him up.  Here, let me help you.  We can continue this right now.

Victor flipped Paul’s hand off.  Not now.  It’ll be at a time and place I choose.  And it’ll be at the worst possible time for you.

Paul raised his fist.  The man used his feet to scuttled back far enough to be out of range.

Well, that’s something I’ll have to look forward to.  Thanks.

Paul turned back to Jenny.  Ready?

Yeah...sure, she replied.

Jenny looked at Paul, realizing she had badly misjudged him.  Thought the regulation had gotten to him, broke him and took away his testicles.

The two started walking.

When she began speaking, he shook his head.

Jenny nodded.

Paul guided their walk around the perimeter of the yard, staying as far away as possible from the cameras that read lips and the speakers that picked up regular conversations. 

When they were out of earshot, he asked in a barely audible voice, Where were we?  As pleasant as if the altercation had never happened.

I was saying I want out of here.

Take a number, stand in line.  Everybody here wants out.

They continued their walk around the periphery, always mindful of the surveillance.

A few inmates subtly came over and began walking behind Paul and Jenny, moving just a little closer with each step.  Paul turned around and scared them off with just a sneer.

But nobody’s going to do anything about it except you...and me, Jenny said.

Why would I leave here?  Three meals a day, a bed, guards to watch me in case sleep walkers try to stab me.

Quite the sense of humor for somebody who’s been in here for what...a million years?

You seem to know a lot about me.  I’d ask about you but I really don’t give a shit.

I guess you didn’t do well with online dating, Jenny chided.

Funny.

She put a hand out, stopping Paul.  I’ll tell you what’s not funny.

Yeah?

You turning into a zombie, walking around the yard, mumbling words you don’t even care about any more.  Waiting for the Starship Enterprise to beam you up.

The loud speaker came alive.  Keep walking, it blurted out loud enough to startle Jenny.  They complied.

You haven’t got a clue as to what I’m thinking or planning, Paul shot back.  But he gave something away by raised eye brows and standing up straighter.

You stop them from getting control of your mind by repeating the words of the Constitution over and over again.

I never spoke those words.  They’re illegal unless I’m mistake.  Maybe the law’s changed while I’ve been in here and I didn’t get the e-mail.

I read lips.  And I also know sign language.  Would you like me to tell you you’re full of shit with my hands?

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure.

Jenny gave Paul the middle finger.

That’s cheating, he said.

We’re in prison, in case you forget.  I don’t think there are any rules in here, Touché.  All right, Paul said.  Temporary truce.  I’m listening.

You mumble the Constitution a hundred times a day.  That doesn’t seem like someone who’s planning to stay around indefinitely.

I already know what I know; tell me something new.

First, I got a question for you.

I’m not saying I’ll answer it.

How come a guy like you, a government operative, tough guy, balls to the walls on every mission, is still here?  I’ve been in for nine months and I’m ready to either get out or die trying.

More than likely you’d die trying.  Anyone you want me to give a last message to?

Look, Decker, let’s cut to the chase.  Why haven’t you tried to escape?

It seems I lack motivation these days.  When he said it, it almost made him puke.  A lame, bullshit excuse from a guy who would never accept that from someone else.  There was a war going on just outside the gates.  He needed to be part of that.  To gather fighters and encourage them to risk their lives, but he couldn’t even stay sober for twenty-four hours.

Yeah, I can smell the lack of motivation all over you.  Bourbon is it?

The guards are nice to me.  They bring me a bottle every day.

That’s to anesthetize you.  But you don’t need me to tell you that.  It’s what they do to everybody in maximum.  They find out their weakness and provide it in abundance: drugs, alcohol, porn, books. 

A baseball rolled over close to them.  Paul picked it up and threw it back to an inmate fifty yards away, a perfect strike into the guy’s glove.

Paul turned his attention back to Jenny.  And what did you do to get in here? he asked, still not convinced of her honesty or motivation.  You don’t look like much of a threat to me.

I punched a guard, she replied clinically.

Is that a big deal now?

I punched him until he was almost dead.

Hum, Paul responded, surprised.

I hit him so I could get transferred in here and talk to you.

So what are you...a therapist?

Look, Decker, I’m getting the fuck out of here.

Have a nice trip.

I can’t do it alone.

And you want a drunk to help you?  You must be desperate.

You were the best there was...once.  Maybe you can regain your form.

Sure.  Just give me a few years and I’ll be able to touch my toes again.

If your skills are still as good as your sense of humor, it’s going to be a piece of cake, Jenny argued.

You said you want out, yet you went out of your way to get transferred to maximum.  That doesn’t make sense, Paul said, his suspicions raised.

Two reasons.  One, a guard I’ve been cultivating got transferred to max and two, because you’re here.

Of course.  Why didn’t I see that? Paul asked, not satisfied with the explanation.

Ten days, Decker.

Ten days?

Right, Jenny confirmed.  We go in ten days.  That’s enough time for you to do ten thousand sit-ups and push-ups, spill the booze down the drain, and help me overpower the guards.

Unless I’m mistaken, there are two walls of electrified fences topped with concertina wire between us and the outside.

Yeah, but you can’t fuck with the fence in-between.

So you’re going to screw your way out?

That only gets me so far.  Someone’s got to overpower the guards after I use my feminine charms to get them to lower their defenses.

And their pants, Paul added.

Funny man, Jenny said, a snide remark.  Glad you haven’t lost that sense of humor.

There are a lot of tough guys in here that could handle that assignment.

And what happens when we get beyond the fences? Jenny suggested.  Those men wouldn’t last ten minutes.  They’re morons: bikers, thieves, high school drop outs.  They’d be back in here before breakfast is served.

You’d have a better chance on your own.  You look like you can handle yourself.

When I came in here I was typical white-collar working woman with twenty-six percent body fat.  I’ve been doing pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups eighteen hours a day.  I was trying to set an example for you, make you remember who and what you were, but you wouldn’t even look over.  Figured you turned gay in here.

You’re full of compliments, aren’t you?

You don’t get it, do you? Jenny asked.

Get what?

This isn’t just about you and me.

No?

No.  It’s about the country...the one that used to be ours; the one the government and the banksters took away.  I’m going to restore the Bill of Rights.  Make it so people can speak the words of the Constitution out loud.  The words you keep repeating every day...without the fear they might be taken away in middle of the night.  We’ve got to bring down the Chairman of the Federated Territories and reestablish democracy.

The two of us?

It’s a start.  Ten minutes ago, there was only me.

CHAPTER TWO

The Capital.  Federated Territory of Washington, D.C.  July, 2036

The black boots clacked on the ground with precision as the troops paraded past the stands holding the Guardian of the Federated Territories, Gideon X. Harper, and other dignitaries. The wooden platform stood ten feet high, so that Harper could look down on his people as would a Greek God inn ancient time.

In terms of precision, uniformity and dress, the parade was a thing of beauty.  But what it represented was terribly dark.  The United States had slipped from a Democracy to a Totalitarian state in just fifty years.  The same amount of time it took the Soviet Union to emerge from a dictatorship to a relatively free society.  It required only three presidents to make the transition: Gregory V. Rush, Sam Hossan, and Gideon X. Harper.

There were, at first, what seemed like justifications for the changes: the war on drugs, then it was the war on terrorism.  After that it slid downhill quickly.  The war on immigrants, the war on dissenters, the war on homosexuals, the war on abortion, the laws against congregation and speech considered to be inflammatory...as judged by the most strict standards.

In the bright sun, the boots gleamed.  The soldiers: young, strong, singularly focused, were the front line in the movement’s effort to control the masses.  There were now five hundred million people in America.  They were frustrated, trapped, and saw no way out.  And so they acquiesced to each new law, each new program...hoping that the next vendetta didn’t include them.

By now, most didn’t even remember when there had been freedom of speech, freedom to congregate, travel, protest.  Gone were the opportunities to lift oneself up by one’s bootstraps and become successful, elevate oneself out of poverty and away from crime, build a better future for their children than they had themselves. 

All the important jobs had been computerized and robotisized.  All that was left was menial, physical labor, low-end service, poor-paying jobs in the fast-food industry, and Walmart.

Taxes had slowly, subtly increased as fewer people had to support an ever-growing military/industrial complex, now that corporations were exempt from all levies.

The legs of the marchers moved in perfect timing: high-stepping, feet hitting the concrete in unison.  If one were privy to the old films: those of the Nazi parades in Berlin, with their knee-high boots and crisp uniforms, maybe something could have been done before the