The Cruel

By J.E. Santa Maria

                It's the year 2297 and The Main Land Party had come to collect on the former Old Republic's debts. Out maneuvering and corrupting through spies and bad actors The Party has subjugated almost all of the North American continent and things are dark and less than bleak for The Subjugated and non-Party members. After 40 years of occupation, a series of swift, severe, and mysterious recent attacks on Party facilities world-over and now on the North American Continent threatens to bring the World at war, again. The Great Leader is livid that Facility 66 has put out a distress call. Time is of the essence as Facility 66 is The Party's Premier Medical Research Hospital and is currently housing The Party's most secreted Program and most valuable doctor. Fabian BeCabdardi, a newly appointed Head of Decryption FXX Director, is tasked by The Party Chair to get some answers on the whereabouts of the VIP and gain insight on what is going on at Facility 66. Read through a VIP's ThoughtTexts and Notes they tried sending to their "Mommy".

 

                The story revolves around the VIP's self-reflection and their experiences of the grisly events going on while being held captive with a few others in a large security room. Despite the threat of death and being severely injured, The VIP is dead set on coming to the aid of the patients and is desperate to conduct The Party mandated medical operations. Tempers run high and confusion permeates as the survivors are all are brought to the brink of insanity after the madmen dressed in the red robes grow increasingly violent and are relentless at psychologically torturing, terrorizing, and brutally killing the group of survivors one at a time the longer the group takes. What exactly does the Scarlet Scourge want? Can the group secretly call for help and summon the most elite military forces on the planet to deal with this dangerous threat? Will the incident cause another World War by revealing The Party's instability? Will the VIP survives this encounter and get to the patients and conduct the Gift of Life operations on the 700 women in the Free Women's Ward? Find out by getting your copy of The Cruel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.E. Santa Maria
• Release date: Jun 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201342326

Book preview

I dedicate this story to my brother Big Ryan – He wants u 2 Malachi!

I dedicate this story to my little sister Sami – Dead people don’t write letters.

I dedicate this story to the Unborn Voices – You will sing.

Special Thanks to

Mom Cynthia Gonzales

Fox Tomas Salas

One Thing

How would you like it if it were done to you?

Chapter 1

Fabian’s Task

Fabian BeCandardi stumbled into his office. He offered a shaky salute to the giant portrait of the Great Leader and Spiritual Highness of The Party. Reciting the Subjugated’s Pledge the sweaty man stuttered,

The Party is our benevolent Empress and the Earth is her Mistress. He hunched over and locked the door behind him. He gingerly held out the package in his pudgy jaundice-ridden trembling hand. It was a large genuine Manilla paper envelope. Paper was a rare commodity these days with all of the trees exported to The Mainland at the behest of The Party. But, old technology such as paper was preferred by The Party at times such as these. Paper could be stolen if mishandled sure but it could not be hacked, unlike the human mind. The bold red symbols on the document were Mandarin. So, naturally, Fabian ThoughtProcessed.

<<<Activate AG Vision Translation App>>>

He never learned Chinese. He never had to. Despite always bragging that he was multilingual. The extent of his Chinese was one word—a phrase really.

How much? He’d say leaning out of the window of his hover unit.

He’d used it too many times to count when prowling the slums. Despite everyone in the department knowing that he was full of crap. No one ever called Fabian out on it, not the perversion because everyone in the Bureau lurked around the slums, too. It was one of their biggest open secrets. No, they would not challenge him based on his status and credentials. Not to mention that he had friends in high places and even more in low ones. He knew how to work over people and even more—the system. All subjugated non-Party Members underneath his rank were conditioned. Conditioned to submit to the sight of a shiny bronze hammer lapel on his collar signifying his rank. But, he secretly knew that if the subjugated or his subordinates—even the sickly ones—ever broke op conditioning that he would need to call for a Peacekeeper. That or pray to the Spiritual Highness he would not have to actually do any fighting. If so, he’d be severely injured.

One time, Fabian had been beaten senseless by an immigrant who did not go through Party brainwashing. The immigrant was a protective father. A father who was within earshot of his two prepubescent twin kids when Fabian slowed his hover car to a stop, rolled down his window, and asked,

How much? His turkey neck jiggling.

Fabian got a week of paid medical leave. The father, a non-Party Member, got a lethal chemical dart that ripped through his cheek and lodged itself into the hard palate on the roof of his mouth. Lucky for Fabian BeCandardi, a Peacekeeper happened to be nearby. Unlucky for the father the Peacekeeper claimed to,

Not be a hero and was just doing my job for The Party to kill bigots and Nazis.

As a Party Member, all Fabian had to do was take the stand and say,

I ID as age fluid. At the moment, I spoke to the little boy and girl, I transitioned to my 9-year-old self. I was a minor at the time. Like I am now. Fabian said in a baby voice.

The Peacekeeper was coached to say,

He resisted. I shot the perp to protect Party Property and to uphold equality for all.

The Party-appointed judges declared it was an open and shut decision. Not a protective father but a deplorable intolerant Nazi died attacking the protected class. Case closed. Pass Go. Collect your 200 victimhood points. Jury? What jury? There’s no jury in The New Socialist States! The Party does whatever it wants to—they have all the railguns and you have none. Don’t you dare complain. You voted for it!

The mother and kids never did get to immigrate to the country known as The Lone Star Nation-State, the last of the Old Republic—where they would have been able to file a lawsuit. The mother did her best to cope but was diagnosed by her employer with, PTSD when she missed work for two days after crying in her room. The single mother cleaned herself up as best as she could and went to work. She came home to find that her two kids were confiscated as a ‘concerned’ neighbor flagged her as unstable and abusive—for crying too loudly at night.

You think that’s messed up? Well, you voted for it, too! It was a bylaw shoehorned in with the latest Green Newer Better Deal one that would truly work this time according to the googly-eyed politician,

The other 14 New Deals didn’t work because they weren’t truly practiced by true Marxists!.

Unlike the old days, The Party did away with pesky public defenders, juries, the right to counsel, and all of the red tape the due process creates. So, the mother was not given a translator and did not understand what was being said in court. The result, her twins are in brainwashing camps now learning to speak the New Official Language and live out the Party Virtues. As for the mother—deported. However, now Fabian could understand all the known languages in the World as needed in real-time.

When he looked at the document, Fabian wholly relied on his newly grandfathered translator. The one that came with his promotion. It was a visual augmentation translation download from his predecessor. It amazed him. The moment the light bounced off of the red ink it passed through his pupils. The light touched his retinas. That trigged the powdered nanotech that he snorted which entered his bloodstream, made its way to his brain, and implanted itself in his frontal cortex. The implant scanned the photons on his retinas, translated the characters, and changed them into English letters before his eyes. It was dizzying at first. He read,

To acting Director of Agency FXX of Former Joint Superior Mainland China and Subordinate New Socialist States. Rank Director of Decryption. All information enclosed is SUPER TOP SECRET.

No magic was needed to translate anything via old-tech microphone and earpiece devices. It was science. It was progress. And when he just progressed into a Subjugated Director and Party Member. He could now understand not only Mandarin characters just by looking at them but any written language or spoken language known to man for that matter. He had real-time translation directly into his brain from now on. No need to read. No need to think. The Party was particularly strict on thinking. As The Party slogan goes, We control your thoughts, so you don’t have to. As for now, when talking to his superiors, he heard Mandarin but his brain interpreted the words into English. He would grin and thank them for the insulting code name they gave him. After all, his implant gave him a euphoric feeling at being insulted by his superiors. However, he didn’t feel euphoric right now.

He fell into his ancient plastic lawn chair at his synthetic wooden desk. Just like the trees, The Party confiscated all wooden furniture and repurposed them for The Mainland agents. He would have repurposed any one of his agent’s body parts if The Party asked him to—never his own though. It was part of the treaty of Firm but Friendly Occupation, as was changing the nation’s name to The New Socialist States. BeCandardi’s gut hung heavily over his lap and itched from his chronic fungal rashes. The skin under his man-tits already sweating caused him to debate whether to thought process a credit over to the desk fan to turn it on. He looked across the room to where his old desk was. No. He had to focus. No time for this. He was on thin ice as it was already. He thought,

Get to work. I might already be on The Chair’s hit list.

And, unbeknownst to him—he was. Everyone knew that it is a very bad thing to piss off a power-drunk and dopamine-addicted sociopath. The Chair was second in power only to the Great Party Leader and Spiritual Highness. BeCandardi’s former boss and fake-best friend found out the hard way not more than 13 minutes ago. The Great Leader was embarrassed by the lack of progress that The Bureau was making. They were supposed to be under the guidance of The Chair and held to Mainland tactics—poor results reflect poor leadership—The Socialist Leaders of The Mainland could never be poor in anything! The Great Leader always swore this was true. And, of course, it was always true. Why? Because he always said it was true of course!

As these sorts of things have always gone on under communist regimes, especially the CCCP, the game of dictator dominoes began. Stack ‘em up and watch them fall. The Great Lead acted under the Spiritual Highness’s advice so they could not be blamed. The blame fell onto The Mainland Chair. The Mainland Chair could not possibly be blamed. So, the blame fell upon the Party Chair of the Subjugated Socialist States. But, of course, he felt he was way too important to suffer blame. At last, when the last tile fell it fell onto one of the foreigners. With the tiles stacked neatly in a row, the cascade began and they all fell down much quicker than it took to stack them up.

The Subjugated under The Chair had been making too little progress investigating the recent attacks and uprisings, coupled with the riotous mobs protesting around Party Facilities as of late—not to mention the mysterious attacks that shut down several Facilities. The Chair looked for someone to blame other than himself. He would not die for his incompetence and insolence—he had The Subjugated for that. So, like any senior Party Member, he found a scapegoat. He thought,

I’ll execute self-hating sheeple, better make it a subjugated head of the New Socialist States. Yes, he would be the perfect pawn.

The Chair invoked a clause in the Firm part of the treaty The Bureau made prior to selling out the Rebel Patriots. The treaty deemed that all FXX Agents were wholly subject to The Party’s Laws as Property of The Party, to be used or discarded as seen fit in exchange for a chance to live—as well as chemical castration. To save face The Chair blamed the head of the Subjugated Officers which meant desired results. Failure to produce said desired results meant public execution. Fabian shuddered as he looked at the pop-up in his augmented vision, still lingering in the left corner of his eye.

<<< BeCandardi, this comes from the top. It’s too late for me. Make it happen. Find out what happened to the patients. Locate the VIP! Please. Take care of Sharon for me. You were always a good friend to me. >>>

This was the last message from the former Director, as he flicked it over to him via the last secret secure data connection from the Old Republic’s DOD. Moments later, Director Tim knelt before the Hammer and Sickle shrine. Dozens of Media Drones whirled about keeping the mandate of staying exactly 3 feet apart to stop the spread of computer viruses as they streamed the event all over the CyberWeb. Then a Peacekeeper from The Mainland Police Foreign Division walked up behind Tim. The well-built man sent a miniature tungsten rail dart through the back of Tim’s skull.

Fabian’s mentor’s head vaporized into pink mist and small bits of bone pink flesh that resembled meatloaf. Fabian’s stomach knotted up as he remembered the sight of Tim’s body slumping forward and twisting as it fell. With hands and legs bound behind its back, the body landed on its side and bent backward into a U-shape. Then the spasms happened. The torso spasmed as the legs that were bound together dolphin kicked downward thrice. At the end of the third kick, the bile and undigested food shot out from the gaping hole at the neck. Long thick white and pale green streams jetted out of the hole in the next. He could stomach the sight of blood and vomit just fine—televised executions were almost a daily event. Life was cheap in a Communist commonwealth and public killings almost passed as a pastime like ritualistic human sacrifices to the Aztecs, beheadings to the Jihadists, and Portland Curb Stomps to the Antifa supposedly ‘non-existent terrorists—‘non-existent terrorists who attacked in swarms and left free-thinkers bludgeoned and bloodied at college campuses, family businesses burnt to the ground, and left their victims laser-blind, financially broke, and dare cried victim when arrested. The sight of the execution was tough to watch, but that godawful sound.

First, there was this sort of barking and bellowing sound like a catfish as Tim’s lungs spasmed. Then, there were the gurgles and sprays of blood. First in bright red spouts, then deeper red streams, and finally a trickle of crimson leaked out in tandem with weakening heartbeats. The flow seemed to almost die off, as soon as the heart monitor affixed to Tim’s finger detected that his heart finally stopped,

Date and time of death are year 2297, month 5, day 11 at 11:03 AM, the yawning Peacekeeper called out in a heavy Cantonese accent.

He shook the morbid memory out of his mind. Fabian looked down at his hefty package which was starting to get moist between his palms. Not more than 10 minutes after the execution, Fabian stood there in front of his old boss’s desk. There he stood, shaking like a kicked Chihuahua, with the report that could have saved his fake best friend’s life the weight of it started to cause cramps in his pudgy hands. He finally got his dream position as a full Party Member Head Director. Ironically, the mix-up that led to his former boss’s demise was a direct result of the policies Director Tim created in the first place. Most of the compartmentalization was old-school technocratic and communist-styled policies which Tim was adamant about grandfathering into the new Bureau; once a sell-out always one. Within the office, no agents besides Party Members and Elites were allowed to have translator apps installed.

Keep the help dumb and conflicting keeps us in power and alive, his mentor would say.

He knew Tim’s number was up next as soon as the facilities had been attacked. Fabian just didn’t expect to witness the actual execution. Fabian thought he’d hear about it from his handler and be given the position.

How naïve.

He weighed the envelope in his hands, it was considerably heavy and thick.

The envelope contained the only surviving evidence about what happened at Facility 66. Subjugated FBOT hackers were finally able to hack into the Spy Fruit Cloud and find The VIP’s data. The key information therein would determine the whereabouts of The VIP and the status of the secret Infinite Lazarus Program. There could be leads about The Scarlet Scourge. As well as what in the general hell has been going on at Party Facilities all The Mainland and now the North American Continent. He slid the records onto the desk. He made a pile of papers. He pushed them outwards, slowly. He didn’t like doing this but could not figure out why. This was his first time pushing papers like this. He looked over the first page. It was not what he had been expecting. He skimmed over the second and the third. He said out loud,

Heh? What the hell?

All that the papers contained were hundreds and hundreds of ThinkPad Thought-Text messages from The VIP to someone called, Mommy.

Texts to someone’s mother? Is this some sick joke?

Fabian ran a quick scan via his internal ID scan application on the ID number. The QL code indicated that they belonged to one of the Subjugated Junior Party Directors. He bit and chewed on the canker sore on his tongue while musing.

So, how could they be a VIP? Any subjugated except a select few, namely Full-on Party Directors, were cannon fodder for Party causes.

He looked back at the first page. A note was affixed. The translation wasn’t perfect. But, more or less, the note indicated that,

The VIP was still attempting to upload to the cloud. The VIP member was to be found ASAP.

Okay. Well... The VIP is still alive I know that much."

He made an audible.

Hmm...

He got to reading. Well, he tried. He thought of how little there was to go off of and let out an exasperated,

"Woosh" sound as he blew out a mouth of air.

The tungsten projectile made a similar sound as it "whooshed" through the air and into the back of Tim’s head.

Still racked with nerves from the execution he had forgotten to activate his Safe Space implant. An image of the yellow fat between the skin and muscles in Tim’s neck and the vomit shooting out flashed in Fabian’s mind. I went for his trash can. Too late. Fabian’s stomach lurched repeatedly and his lunch spilled out all over the floor in heavy splats.

White snot hung from his nose, his chest heaved, and his blurry vision slowly returned to normal. The processed cricket legs, millipede chitin, and tumbleweed bark tea rations on the floor next to his desk came into focus. He wiped his mouth and stared at the puke and was about to call for the old cleaning woman. As soon as he could see straight, Fabian could see that the hybrid ant roaches were already making their way out from the cracks of the office walls and floorboards toward their banquet.

He stomped at them. That made things worse as they began to fly and swarm in the air. He gave up as the insects really never bothered him anyway. If he were honest, he actually liked when they would land on him and tickle his skin while they crawled and weaved through the thick hair on his arms and legs.

Fabian thought about the speech the Chair gave at the execution,

As Leftists, we promise the executions are necessary for peace, prosperity, and equity for all. There was one more execution under The Party which means one more step closer to inclusion!

Even after 40 years, however, nothing has changed. Fabian considered the half a dozen insects navigating through this arm’s hair, then flying off, and landing in the vomit.

Even the bugs are starving here.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a small noise. A rickety cleaning bot made its way out from the wall chute. It short-circuited a little and stopped. It then started up again and began automated cleaning mode.

Oh, crap! No. Deactivate. Deactivate! He screamed at the little robot.

He saw an alert in the corner of his eye. He thought-activated messages. In translucent computer green, the following text flashed into his vision,

<<>>.

Muttering curses BeCandardi pounded his desk.

Damn. That hurt!

Scowling, hand throbbing, and a nervous wreck, he wanted a vice. Fabian Thought-Activated the illicit Qwick-Fix app hidden in his gastric implant. He Thought-Processed the command prompt. The script box appeared in his vision in opaque indigo. The reticle, blinking awaiting to type out his thoughts, moved as he thought commands,

Activate old internet dark. Access Encrypto Wallet. Use 10 tunnels and 15 relays to transfer 5 credits to dealer Devil’s Child, activate cocaine high".

An encrypted message appeared in his incognito Augmented-Vision app.

<<<$$$ received. Enjoy your high. Devil’s Child out. >>>

He felt excited, and invigorated, as the app stimulated his VTA giving him a synthetic cocaine high. His nerves settled. His hand, not so quickly.

He ThoughtProcessed,

<<<Seclusion Mode>>>

The following was what he read.

Chapter 2

Memory Note Entry 1

[Message to Party Property: Former USA Province: Property Serial Number QL 200200]

It’s been 72 hours. That’s 4320 minutes. 259200 seconds. That is if my Internal CycberCycle Clock App isn’t fried. Mommy! I have been trapped in the main Security Room the whole time. If it weren’t for my Time-Display I would not know the day or time. I can’t say the same about my Endocrine Emotion regulator. I have never before felt this amount of fight or flight before. Mommy, I’m trying to be brave and keep it together.

I did a Multi-Metasearch and cross-search of 10 ten coping methods on our local network. You know, methods prior to when implants controlled and manipulated the hypothalamus and the many subsystems since discovered—like the ones in the small and large intestines. The most popular form of coping mechanism that kept popping up in my searches was journaling. So, it seems that the only thing I can do to keep