Authors: Phoenix Williams
Haley Flynn spoke
through a megaphone. The woman stood on a makeshift stage that had
been pieced together from wooden crates and nailed together with
haste. The streets in front of Union Station had been blocked from
all traffic and instead filled with people. Protestors had been
assembled to the place by a network of cell phones and emails that
Haley and activists like her set up in response to the Standstill.
Most of them wore dirty, shabby clothing from camping on the
sidewalks, away from the comfort of their homes. For the past two
weeks they had been staying in downtown Denver, protesting the Decree
occupation. All of them now faced the stage. All of them, Haley
thought to herself, were Americans.
“I didn't
gather all of you here so I could speak your ears off, so I want to
open up a discussion now,” Haley said, her voice soft for its
volume through the megaphone. “Would anyone like to go first?”
A young man with a
TV on the Radio t shirt raised his hand and was passed the megaphone.
Those around him stepped back, bracing for the volume. “We need
to be more than a loose collective,” he said, clearing his
throat. “There should be another political party formed so that
we can get our own representatives in office. If the Tea Party can do
it, Majority can, too.”
He handed the
megaphone back to Haley, who passed it off to a woman with cropped
blond hair.
“Would you
run for office?” she asked, which was followed by a wave of
applause and cheers.
Haley took the
megaphone back with blushing cheeks. “I wouldn't know if I'd be
right for that,” she answered, her normal color flushing back
into her expression. “I believe it'd be impossible to achieve
much without a handful of talented and imaginative leaders. People
like us, whose voice speaks with the same tone as ours. It cannot be
tackled alone. We need to plant our agents and uphold our community
image. We can't hold a deaf ear to the opposing discussion.”
“How will
that get anything done in time?” a guy called out from the
middle of the crowd. People separated to turn and look at him.
“True, the
system is a slow and frustrating one,” Haley started, “but
we can get the ball rolling. We wouldn't have to sit around idly and
suffer in the meantime. We can rally populations to change things in
local governments. Maybe even states.”
“We could
change things faster if we didn't play by their rules,” the
same man retorted.
“You're
talking about breaking the law?” Haley asked. “What good
will vigilantism do us when it'll only tarnish our movement's image
to the people that can help us make a difference.”
Haley stopped
speaking when she heard a phrase spoken from within the audience.
“Merc-cops.”
There were dozens
of them. Men who wore a light orange uniform, protected by kevlar
vests and helmets. They wore the Decree emblem on their shoulders.
Each and every one of them carried a military-grade assault weapon.
One of the
mercenaries stepped forward and addressed the crowd. “Everyone
needs to disperse. Leave the area immediately and go home,” he
ordered in a loud, booming voice.
“Leave?”
someone asked.
“Why do we
need to leave?” another person interrogated.
“It is
illegal for people to gather in sizes like this in public areas for
prolonged periods of time,” the leader of the merc-cops
replied.
“What law
states that?” Haley asked through the megaphone.
This seemed to
upset the mercenary. He scowled. “The Decree Anti-Vagrancy
Bill. It was passed earlier this afternoon,” he replied.
“I never
voted for that!” a man cried out.
“When was
this bill on the ballot?” Haley asked.
The paramilitary
officer did not answer her question. “You must all leave
immediately or you will be under arrest,” he stated.
In uniform, four
officers of the former Denver Police Department stepped in between
the crowd and the private police. They too had protective garments
strapped on and their own set of riot control gear.
The oldest officer
spoke. “You're going to have to go through us to arrest our
citizens,” he said, resting his thumbs on his belt buckle.
Silence fell over
Union Station while the leader of the merc-cops stared fiercely at
the men and women before him. His gaze shifted to the other members
of the DPD who were stepping into line with their comrades. Something
about the look of sheer disobedience and pride on their faces
challenged the mercenary.
“Very well,”
he said before turning to his fellow mercenaries. He waved a gesture
back at them and with a sudden wave of motion that rippled through
all of their arms, pepper spray discharged into the crowd.
People stumbled
around each other as they tried to make their way away from the
assailants. They fell and cried out, clutching at their mouths and
eyes. The officers pushed back against the paramilitaries using large
plastic riot shields. Stun guns replaced pepper spray as the
merc-cops began the process of detaining the protestors. People
dropped to their knees in the street before having their hands bound
with wire and dragged off toward the Decree vehicles. Police officers
were being arrested by the men in the orange fatigues.
One officer broke
his hand free while getting detained and swung it around into the
arresting mercenary's head. The merc-cop stumbled back for a moment
before drawing his firearm and shooting the cop to death.
Everyone heard the
gunshots and panicked. Civilians tried to run through and climb over
each other, fleeing. Fearful noises emanated from them as the rest of
the merc-cops, believing that they were being shot at, opened fire on
the crowd.
It was a blur of
motion as people rushed away from the mercenaries. Tear gas had been
thrown out into the sea of protestors as the armed men advanced. They
shot and arrested people as they fled past. Someone pushed Haley
along, got her to climb off of the stage. She watched everything with
wide and horrified eyes. Fear made her freeze to the spot.
“Come on!”
the man pushing her cried. “You have to move!”
Haley turned and
ran away from the scene, trying to follow the voice. Moving around
people, she kept her face down and tried not to watch. She could hear
everything clear enough as it was. She didn't want to see.
Strong arms had
grabbed her by the shoulders before she knew what happened. Merc-cops
bound her hands together at the wrist and shoved her into a van with
two other protestors. The door slammed shut and the sun was blocked
out.
-Chapter Twenty-Four-
The
Decree Anti-Vagrancy Bill
Homer read the
words through grinning teeth. “I would not, could not, with a
goat!” his gentle, weathered voice spoke. The little black boy
listened carefully to every rhyme. “Would you, could you, on a
boat? I could not, would not, on a boat. I will not, will not, with a
goat. I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them on a
train. Not in the dark! Not in a tree! Not in a car! You let me be!”
The child's mother smiled as her son chuckled.
“I do not
like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I will not eat
them in a house. I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them
here or there. I do not like them anywhere!” Homer heard an
engine pull up somewhere in the distance. He looked over his shoulder
to try to find the source. “Where do you like to eat your green
eggs and ham?” the man asked the boy.
The boy giggled in
response. “I don't eat that!” he declared.
“What?”
Homer replied in mock surprise. “You've never tried green eggs
and ham? It's yummy! Good for your skin.”
He could hear the
engine cut off.
“Thank you,”
the mother said, her eyes smiling the same as her lips.
“Keep this so
you can read it to him,” Homer said, passing her the book. He
turned to the boy. “We didn't get to the good part yet.”
He stood up from
the sidewalk, saying his pardons the two of them as he turned and
walked toward the commotion.
People were not
calm like he had known them to be. All of the homeless men and women
who previously had little if anything to say were barking in each
other's faces. There were three of them, two men and a woman. The
older of the men, with a rim of long, thin hair encircling his bald
scalp had punched in the window to a family owned liquor store.
Although he had tied his shirt around his fist, blood still dripped
down on the cloth and past to the street. The man cared little as he
and the woman knocked the rest of the glass away and climbed into the
shop.
Homer smelled pot
being smoked nearby and chuckled a little bit. He coughed when the
odor ran sweet with crystal.
The store owners
had fled the city in order to be protected by the federal government.
We don't have that luxury,
Homer mused.
It makes us
stronger to learn to live without.
He continued to stay positive
as he stepped over broken car parts that littered the street.
We've
always had nothing,
he thought.
We're probably going to be the
most comfortable when this crazy world shows its ugly.
It's
everyone else that Homer worried about. He was sympathetic to the
shock that all the rich men of the city must have received when it
dawned on them that they were not in control. There is a freedom in
having nothing to control.
A fist fight broke
out in front of a bakery. The large baker who owned the place was
attacked by two guys who came from the street. He decked one straight
to the ground with his heavy, meaty fist while the other tried to
tackle him to the ground. Homer flinched at the sight of the violence
and looked away as he continued walking. Orange vans had been parked
just outside of the community, eight of them on a hill. Men climbed
out of them and walked toward some vagrants encircling a burning
trash bin. One of them tossed his bottle of whiskey to the other side
of the streets when he saw the merc-cops. An addict chased it.
“We need
everybody here to disperse,” a mercenary with a thick black
mustache hollered. A handful of faces turned to the armed men, but a
majority of the people ignored them and continued about their drunken
business.
A gunshot rang out
as a tubby merc-cop standing beside the mustachioed one discharged
his shotgun into the sky.
All of the faces
turned to the men, and a hush settled over the crowd.
“Everybody
has to leave!” the first one yelled again. “The Decree
Ant-Vagrancy Bill does not permit you to assemble in public areas for
any longer than one hour. Everybody has to go home or this situation
will be handled as if it were a riot.”
“But,
mister,” a teenage girl with a southern hue in her voice said,
“these people don't have homes to go to.”
“There are
homeless shelters dotted around the city,” the mercenary
replied. “Go to one of them.”
“Man, ain't
no one funding those things anymore,” a thin black man said in
a scratchy voice.
“Yeah, the
government's cut them off,” a white woman with entwined snakes
tattooed on her collarbone explained. “There's no food or
heat.”
“That's not
my problem,” the merc-cop stated. “It's out of the
streets, which you cannot stay on. Everybody, leave!” He turned
around as he yelled this and started to walk back to his vans. The
chubby one did the same, but before he did so, he said to the crowd,
“You have five minutes to comply.”
The merc-cops
climbed back into their vans. No engines started and none of them
moved. They just sat in their vehicles and waited.
Every other person
dashed about, running in different directions out of sheer panic.
Some ran in actual circles as they sweated about which way to flee.
Families gathered for hushed conversations before all agreeing to
leave in a particular manner. Others, however, stood their ground.
“What the
hell are they going to do, anyway?” a tweaked out white guy
with a graying five-o'clock shadow asked.
“They'll
arrest us, man!” his Guatemalan friend replied.
“Shit, they
can't arrest ALL of us,” the first guy said.
That's when Homer
realized it. What was going to happen next. It hit him.
“No, he's
right,” Homer declared loudly, addressing everyone as a whole
rather than just the two junkies. “Everybody has to leave, now!
Run for your lives!”