Climate Wars: A Fictional Approach to Climate Communication

Item

Title

Eng Climate Wars: A Fictional Approach to Climate Communication

Date

2017

Creator

Eng Clumpner, Graham

Subject

Eng Environmental Studies

extracted text

CLIMATE WARS:
A FICTIONAL APPROACH TO CLIMATE COMMUNICATION

By Graham Clumpner

A Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
August, 2017

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Copyright  2017 by Graham Clumpner. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other
noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact
yeahneil@gmail.com.

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Abstract

Climate Wars:
A fictional approach to climate communication
By Graham Clumpner

Climate wars is a book that attempts to bridge the gap between those who speak
the language of science, and those who don’t. It is a linear collection of different
stories to illuminate the existing and future climate crisis. It is cited based on the most
relevant research from an inter-disciplinary field study to include: Climatology,
Sociology, Social Ecology.

This book is intended to be accessible by readers from all backgrounds and serve
as a launchpoint into climate science. It also serves as a primer for those with science
backgrounds into how social movements struggle to change the world. These two
communities need to talk to each other more if we seek an ecologically-just world.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to all the MES staff who supported me and took a risk on this project.

To my parents who always trusted I knew what I was doing, even if they never fully
grasped the implications.

To Donald Trump, for making the building of a climate resistance movement that
much easier.

To the climate movement for inspiration.

To the Mosquito Fleet, for resistance

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Table of Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Asia .......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Middle east......................................................................................................................................... 10
European union ............................................................................................................................... 11
Central/South America ................................................................................................................. 11
Africa .................................................................................................................................................... 12
The Poles ............................................................................................................................................ 12
North America .................................................................................................................................. 13
Leyla 2030 .............................................................................................................................................. 13
Greg 2018 ................................................................................................................................................ 22
Fox News January 2019 ..................................................................................................................... 31
PFJ 2019 May 1st ................................................................................................................................... 37
Dr. Carter James 2018 ........................................................................................................................ 38
Dahlia (Lummi tribe Northwest Washington) 2019 .............................................................. 44
Introduction to Syria .......................................................................................................................... 61
Ar Raqqa, Syria...................................................................................................................................... 63
Amy ........................................................................................................................................................... 84
FIFA 2022................................................................................................................................................ 88
Pakistan December, 2022 ................................................................................................................. 93
Khost, Afghanistan.............................................................................................................................112
Kazakhstan ...........................................................................................................................................114
Maggie NFL Child 2023 ....................................................................................................................117
Olivera 2023 ........................................................................................................................................126
Port Townsend....................................................................................................................................130
Aida (Hacker) Utah-Vancouver 2023 .........................................................................................139
Michael Haystock 2023....................................................................................................................154
Weekly Standard 2024 ....................................................................................................................162
Salia Mason Interview 2024 ..........................................................................................................167
Ben and the tar sands, 2024 ..........................................................................................................176
Math Teacher Evergreen State College......................................................................................201
Koch Brothers......................................................................................................................................208
Chicago 2024 .......................................................................................................................................218
Monsanto Niria ...................................................................................................................................228
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Lorena Fusilado ..................................................................................................................................243
Unknown Veterans Journal Recovered at protests during 2025 ....................................250
Z (Danae) 2024 ...................................................................................................................................262
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................268
Citations Climate Wars ....................................................................................................................270

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Introduction
Everything changed after Trump. It was such an impossibility. Until it was
inevitable. Many don’t remember it now, but the idea that a showman, a carnival barker,
could become the most powerful man in the world, without some military coup or corrupt
back-door deal, seemed less likely than hell freezing over. But the American people were
sick and tired of being talked down too. They hated the elite. They could see that things
were not alright, that America was changing rapidly and no politician was willing to tell
them the truth. Then along came a member of the elite who didn’t hide the hideousness of
power. He embraced it. Used it like a lightsaber to strike down his foes. And fall they did.
Dynasties that had survived so much turmoil were finally undone. And everything
changed.

Asia
The North Koreans finally get the ability to hit back. Sometime around the end of
Obama and the beginning of Trump, the regime perfected the Nodong 5 intercontinental ballistic missile. It had a range of 15,000 miles and could reach the West
Coast between Los Angeles up to Vancouver BC. China was forced into a political
situation upended by decades of support for the reclusive dictatorship of Kim Jong
Un. While liberals in the Democratic party decried the US military pullback from the
Korean peninsula during the early years of the Trump administration, North Korea
never seemed to care which political party was in charge of “Imperialist America”.
The showdown with Japan has left lasting effects to this day. The world is lucky that
we didn’t come to a nuclear war. As it was hundreds of thousands died and the

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regime is still alive and well, albeit having lost much more territory to the Chinese.
Many of the northern prison camps, when Chinese troops “liberated” them, removed
significant physical labor sources the government had used for years.

Long ago North Korea had made a decision to maintain political control within
the workers party by force of arms. They saw conflict on the horizon, just as the
world was exiting the cold war. They knew resource scarcity and had developed a
brutal system to survive what would later be called “climate shocks” (the economic
fallout after climate chaos). Their solution? Disconnect themselves from the global
economy, keep everything within the regimes control and inside the state boundaries.
No one allowed to leave. No outside media. A steady flow of propaganda and an
externalized enemy. That’s how they survived the initial waves of economic global
crisis that hit during the Trump presidency.
From the end of the cold war, certain forces within the United States struggled to find
a replacement for the Soviet Union. A worthy adversary was necessary to sustain the
military and scientific spending patterns that built the middle class following the end
of hostilities with Japan and Germany. Without an enemy, what would be the purpose
of all those weapon systems? While the west celebrated the “end of history” upon the
dead carcass of state socialism, a greater struggle within the halls of capitalism
foreshadowed a future no one was ready for. The binary thinking of the cold war led
many in the defense analysis industry to believe China would become this new
adversary. By the close of the twentieth century it had all the markings of a new
superpower: growing birthrates, a major domestic production and consumption

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market, increasing weapons expenditure’s and stable political transitions. Most of all,
the Chinese view of the world was a long one. Chinese civilization had survived since
the time of the Roman Empire, passing down lessons and leadership as the rest of the
world struggled through the dark ages. China was a logical competitor for the United
States and every corner of the US defense industry viewed them as such. But that is
not what happened. While China did experience some years of ten percent economic
growth, their military prowess left much to be desired. With 9/11 in the United States,
the military focus resettled on “terrorism” and the disjointed attacks led by
decentralized religious extremists.

With Trump, the US brought its focus to bear upon China. His entire election
campaign focused on the threat of China and its desire to steal American jobs.
The Chinese, for all their faults possessed an ace in the hole. Their centralized
government allowed them to change course rapidly when an outside threat was
identified. While wary of the United States military adventures abroad by the middle
of the Obama administration, China recognized the very real domestic threat of
climate change. They had the twin problem of attempting to lift millions of their own
people out of poverty, while avoiding the worst effects of climate catastrophe.
Geographically the Chinese nation state was at severe risk of drought and pollution.
The 2008 Olympics were a perfect example of this as Beijing shut down carbon
outputs from cars and factories months before the opening ceremonies just to have a
breathable space (CITATION 1).

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Middle east
Increasingly dry conditions lead to mass starvation and conflict. Drought levels of
unprecedented length caused Syria and Iraq to tear themselves apart sending millions
of refugees streaming across borders. This migration pattern strains the European
union and leads to further intervention from the United States and Russia. In a twist
of fate, the relations between these two former super-powers improve during the
trump years affording Russia the ability to build up its bases in the region and secure
new routes for its pipeline dominated economy (CITATION 3).
Iraq has deteriorated into chaos following the collapse of the Mosul dam. It wasn’t
that Islamic state seized the Dam, although they did. The dam was never structurally
sound. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, long the heartbeat of civilization in the desert,
were dammed in the 1950’s in order to bring more predictability to water flows
(CITATION 4). But the dam was never the highest priority. Saddam invaded Iran,
and then Kuwait, draining much needed infrastructure money and equipment from the
dam and into the war effort. Following the end of the first gulf war, the international
community imposed sanctions upon Iraq and its infrastructure began to crumble.
When the American’s came back in 2003 they spent billions to repair Iraq. But the
dam was unfixable. At best more cement could be jammed into the base of gypsum
that rapidly eroded. It was a time bomb waiting to happen.
When the dam failed the Iraqi’s blamed the Americans. It didn’t matter that the State
Department had been warning about this since the invasion and no one in Iraq wanted
to hear it (CITATION 5).
A sixty-foot wave hit the city of Mosul, carrying people, unexploded ordinance,

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livestock and buildings in its wake. Over one million people were killed in the first
day. Scores of others suffered polluted water, destroyed livelihoods and spacial
displacement. It destroyed the nation-state of Iraq. What was only dreamt of for
generations became reality as Iran moved in. Bringing aid on military vehicles the
neighboring Shia country was the quickest to react to the crisis, providing a caretaker
role for the former Iraqi government. Fleeing officials in Baghdad were not
welcomed back and the Trump administration refused to send more soldiers to help
with the crisis. This effectively led to the Islamic union between Iran and Iraq.

European union
Under strain from climate refugees, technological innovation leading to job loss
and the ossification of post-World War II political structures, the EU begins to come
apart. Right wing populist governments sweep to success during the later parts of the
twenty-teens led by France and Germany. Without any central leadership the
Schengen agreement (open borders) becomes a symbol of what was lost from the
imaginary golden years of the past (CITATION 6). Spain, Portugal and Greece never
recover from the post-2008 economic banking crash and are abandoned by more
stable political forces across the continent. The European Union comes apart amid an
identity crisis of epic proportion.

Central/South America
What seemed like a rejection of dictators and strongmen and a rise of Bolivarian
resistance comes crashing down after the death of Fidel Castro and the twin coups
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overthrowing Evo Morales in Bolivia and Nicolas Madeiro in Venezuela. Powerful
banking and tech/media industry leaders fuel and fund right wing resistance to what is
perceived to be leftist anti-capitalist regimes throughout the continent. Storms and
flooding sweep across Guatemala and Nicaragua with deforested regions hit
especially hard. Mexico is hit with wave after wave of drought and crop loss
increasing immigration attempts north towards the United States. Gang violence
increases throughout the entire region as centralized state actors lose control over
their populations.

Africa
With China buying up whatever oil reserves remained on the sub-continent,
already scarce resources were plunged into a crisis (CITATION 7). Water wars
spread from the horn southward collapsing governments that barely represented the
people. Military dictatorships resume control and vast armies are raised to fight over
the scraps. America’s erstwhile military operations shrink and eventually are
abandoned. European aid, once a sustaining force, dries up as columns of climate
refugees reach Greek soil. Africa was once again on its own.

The Poles
The last summer with Arctic ice was in 2019. This passed with little fanfare
among a global population continuously battered with bad news. It arrived seventy
years ahead of prediction levels. Corporations threw silent board room parties as
ships were able to make the Northwest passage crossing for the first time, cutting
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millions of dollars off their bottom line. Polar bears slipped into oblivion along with
the melting ice. The fresh water added to the ocean led to the first pulse, which
greeted coastal communities with drastic sea level rise.

North America
The Trudeau experiment in Canada couldn’t survive long by sitting on both sides
of the fence. While they put a reasonable face on social issues, legalizing marijuana
(effectively irrelevant in many places) and gay marriage, the economy was
significantly run off of fossil fuels, primarily the tar sands of Alberta (CITATION 2).
On his fourth day in office Trump used his executive pen to re-authorize the Keystone
XL pipeline and the Dakota access pipeline. Environmentalists were demoralized.
Having spent the previous eight years fighting these two projects and finally winning,
they watched it all slip away with the stroke of a pen. Radicals who had claimed
moral equivalency between the two major parties were shocked to their core and a
scramble to identify the best way forward began. The liberals fell into depression.
The radicals chose to fight. The right began to rise.

Leyla 2030
If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
-African proverb

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Reality is what finally got them. In their arrogance they brought about the fall. It
had all seemed so fast. The way the economy ground to a halt. How quickly the glaciers
melted. The green had been so vast. The blue so full of life.

She started school with philosophy. Living on the west coast of Canada at the turn
of the dead century. She thought education could lead to something. Not much need for
that now. You can philosophize all you want and you are still living on a dead planet. She
sat upon a rock overlooking Lake Garibaldi, what used to be a lake, and gazed through
the mist. In this spot, if she positioned herself just right, she couldn’t see the cooking
fires from the refugee camp. Whistler had once been a home for rich vacationers hitting
the slopes. Now only the tops of the twin peaks had any snow left. Water miners dotted
the hills as ski lifts slowly collapsed into the rock.

She picked some nuts from her pack. Munching slowly she scanned the horizon looking
for movement. There had been lights the night before and she had scaled the rocks to see
what if any signs had been left. Scavengers would have moved through the area during
the early morning. Picking up scraps. They always moved fast before the sun crested so
you had to be alert. The sun was low on the horizon and the hazy smoke filled
stratosphere was reflecting the last rays of today.

It had been so easy in retrospect. University had consisted of abstractly analyzing other
people. Weighing decisions others had made in the past, judging them. Some scientists
had spoken of this new world. Warned the industries and governments that things were

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rapidly collapsing. That this world was unsustainable. Armageddon, they called it from
their graves. But here she was, living it. There hadn’t been a new radio contact for seven
months. Not after that chopper landed and the camp tore them apart.

She'd heard stories from her dad, about the war, about how close humans were to chaos.
Most people didn’t have 1,000 bucks in their bank account. How could they have handled
what happened? No money once the banks closed on a Friday and failed to open Monday.
How could they have rationally navigated the future? What’s a good decision look like if
no one will join you?

It took three months for a local currency to emerge. It wasn’t so much a barter system as
redistribution. The rich got it the worst. Finally. They thought they could buy protection.
Up until then, their money could buy them anything. They were on top of the world, and
science didn’t stand a chance against their wealth. Bailouts for banks and the fossil fuel
industry had taught them they were safe. There was a belief someone was looking out for
them. They were finally just like the rest of us: Alone.

Leyla stretched her feet out over the rock and began to put her socks on. Her big toe was
working on a hole that could let her whole foot through. She had been slender, once.
Rucksacks and daily fifteen-kilometer hikes had bent her body frame. Wiry and muscletoned, she maneuvered her body with a purpose. She had no vices. Except tobacco. They
could still grow that. She grinned as she shifted the homegrown chew in her lip. Spitting
a big gooey gob that flew down the cliff-side and dropped into the lake. Better get

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moving, she thought. Dinner was waiting.

Leyla had been from one of those rich families. Her gated community hadn’t stopped a
mob from climbing over their pseudo-French designed walls. The water shortages had
made everyone angry. At eleven years old, she watched her neighbor Stewart sink his
teeth into a crowbar wielded by someone in a Wal-Mart t-shirt. She'd only seen blood on
the flex-tel before. Even after eleven years of blood that first image of violence was
seared into her brain. It was early morning, the drought was in its seventh year and
mandatory government water restrictions had proven heavily unpopular. A mob of
people, remaining mysterious to this day, had gathered outside the compound demanding
access to their private water reserve. Stewart, who had worked years for Monsanto before
joining the compound movement, had been holding the hose over his grass lawn. Stewart
hadn’t seen the connection between their well-manicured gardens and starvation outside
their walls. The Wal-Mart creep probably hadn’t seen non-toxic water in months. The
crowbar in his hands spewed Stewart’s teeth across his front yard, fertilizing his rose
bushes.

After the first major economic shocks many well-off families tried to buy security.
Private military contractors were employed after they returned from the never ending
War on Terror. She remembered how they used vicious dogs on protestors at a moments
notice. The compounds featured concrete barriers with multiple checkpoints before entry.
Vehicles were searched with high tech security scanners. Peace of mind purchased at the
barrel of a gun. History had taught the rich that they could always buy protection and

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retreat behind bigger walls. But people build ladders. And something different happened
when the ATM's stopped spitting out money. For Stewart, who had always been a quiet
American, that something “special” was a crowbar.

She was picking up speed now moving with a side to front hop-skip through the
underbrush. She modeled her steps off the deer that used to roam this area. She moved
fast through the woods for two hundred meters and then crouched down to a knee
listening for signs of life. Venison had been one of her favorite meals when her father
rarely cooked. Most of the deer had been wiped out by hunting in the final years of the
economic crash. For a time at University she had been a Vegan. There weren’t vegans
around anymore. Mono-cultured soy had been utterly demolished by a virus in Brazil
that spread across the globe causing mass starvation for diets that had shifted to soy
products. With the rash of gluten allergies among the camps most people lived off a diet
of greens, legumes and whatever meat could be hunted. She had changed her diet to one
based on local foods and meat found a place for her. The amount of energy she felt after
the switch surprised her. After the initial supermarket rush took all that was left, the
entire Cascadia region feasted on the last generation of white tail deer. Now, Leyla was
the closest thing left in these woods.

The mob didn’t stop with killing Stewart. They weren’t prepared for the opulence of the
compound. Her neighbors had prided themselves on not giving up the imagery of wealth.
This served to only provoke the worst possible behavior from those who stormed their
walls. Moving from house to house they looted, stole and burned everything they came

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across. If they couldn’t live like kings than no one would be allowed to. Leyla barely
made it out before her front door was busted in.

There were ten of them. Mercenaries. Kitted up in various gear they had stolen on their
journey. Five shotguns and two rifles plus a couple knives. No telling how much ammo.
Eight of the Mercenaries’ were around the fire. The other two were patrolling the
perimeter. These men were new to the area. No women. Not from the refugee camp down
the riverbed near what used to be Vancouver. They wore red kefiyah’s around their necks
with no distinguishing marks. There was no chance of survival if they saw her. Probably
take her equipment and kill her. Or worse. She felt her heartbeat climbing up her throat
and she muffled the urge to vomit. The merc’s were hugging the dried-up streambed that
used to flood the lake. They were talking in low voices. Leyla knew she must backtrack
around the ridgeline. Another five kilometers would be added to her journey. And she
didn’t know that area very well. Or she could go through the brush but that would be too
loud for sure. Slowly she reversed her steps until she was far enough away to begin
gliding again. The ground was soft and made for good running. She covered the four
miles in 20 minutes. Thoughts of dinner took over her mind until the smell of turkey
wafted through her nostrils. The smell of bird soon became cordite and burnt hair. She
gagged as she rounded a large Douglas fir.

The helicopter was in two primary pieces, spread thirty meters apart. Supplies and
equipment were lodged into the mud creating a sense of rupture with the landscape. Dark
shapes protruded from the soil. The shadows of the last sun’s rays rose like a nightmare

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from her childhood. She knelt and flipped her bag around to the front, digging for her
night-vision glasses. The green translucent screen flooded the area eerie green. Some of
the shapes had recently been alive. She began to check the bodies for signs of life. The
pilot was missing his legs. The helicopters rotors had clipped the ground during the crash
and ripped the aircraft in half. The Co-pilot didn’t have external wounds except for his
crushed legs. He had probably sustained internal injuries and bled to death. The crew
chief’s body had been thrown from the bird and had a broken neck. Another two lay
dead, their eyes open and searching. A fifth man was dressed not in military garb but in a
corporate suit. No one had been through the crash site yet. This must have been the light
she had seen the previous night. How had the scav's missed this? Didn’t they have
thermal heat sensors to find this stuff? Time was now itching up her spine like the first
colors of an acid trip gone bad. She couldn’t carry everything. She began to strip the
bodies of anything worth keeping. There was no way of knowing if any of it would
remain if she returned to the site in the morning. Triaging equipment, she threw
magazines and ammo into a satchel that the crew chief wouldn’t mind giving up. She
counted as she went: Five Night Vision Goggles. Twenty-two 5.56 magazine's. LRRP
rations and trauma packs. It was dark now. Even through the night vision, the moons
ebbing provided little light for her eyes. She was about to leave but something pulled at
her. Something was in the back of the aircraft. She needed to leave but it drew her steps
toward the ruptured craft. The bottom of the copter hung along two large branches barely
above her head. Grabbing twisted metal, she hauled herself up into the storage section.
Bottles of water and paper were strewn about the cabin, sticky with blood and hydraulic
fluid. A voice in her head guided her towards the flip-down medevac seat. That’s where

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she found it. Found what would change everything.

Dad had always left old military equipment around. Memories flooded back as she rifled
through files that looked classified. Fuck classified, this stuff is radioactive, she thought.
Only some of it was in English, the rest was in multiple languages and digital code. How
had no one come here yet? Wouldn’t those who lost the helicopter come looking for it?
How long did she have before “company” came crashing down like a bad uncle’s visit
during thanksgiving? Her internal clock was ticking. She had to get as far away from this
scene of death as she could. She stuffed what looked like documents on “safe zones” and
“detention camps” into a duffel she cinched tight over her shoulder. Buzzing with
excitement she dropped into the darkness and landed in a crouch. Her experienced ears
opened for the expected sound of boots and shouting and bright lights bearing down on
her. She heard nothing but the beating in her chest as she sprinted into the woods.

Four hours later
A council meeting had been called. These were not rare but they didn't happen every
week either. Part of it was to talk about the helicopter. More of it was the red kefiyahs she
had seen on her way back. Smoke from cooking fires permeated the air. To protect from
seeing the camp from far away, the smoke was redirected back under the foundation of
the living structures. This helped to keep homes warm but left everyone’s clothing
smelling like last nights dinner. Roast turkey thrust itself into her nostrils as she moved
among the structures towards the fire. The wind was whipping the fire and flames licked
at the sky out of the pit. A major change from yesterday. They had all become more

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accustomed to these sudden weather changes. Temperature swings of fifty degrees within
a day were now normal. Each house was circular and more or less a collective living
structure. Children decorated the walls with chalk, which warped the images after it
rained. Smiley faces became sinister. But change was a part of life, and the murals helped
everyone remember that. There was a sharpness to the air, as if the earth was shifting.
The community spoke less. Looked into each other's eyes more. There were 100 or so
members of this community. They were warriors. They knew what it meant to be both
soldier and refugee. To have traversed many borders, real and imagined. Though partially
a para-military force there was no cohesion in dress. A boy might wear a dress, a girl
could be found in children's shirts or tailored suit coat. The thing most held in common
was pockets. Everyone had multiple pockets sewn into their pants or tops with various
tools attached. Some of the younger twenty-something’s, the primary foot soldiers and
protectors of the community, wore military style webbing with pistol ammo. Most of
them had once been Americans. Once. Before the fall. Now The United States, for all
intents and purposes, was dead. It still “existed” in the form of the former colonial
southern states as far north as Virginia. Everything north and west of that had split off
into bioregions. Or had become massive devastation zones like the former city of
Chicago. British Columbia was a mesh of small bands and the remnants of fossil fuel and
logging infrastructure. Little centralized control had left the poor to fend for themselves
and those with power attempt to increase it. Leyla raised the drumstick to her mouth and
took the final bite, wiping her hands on her rough re-sewn pant legs. The meeting was
starting.

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The great fire swelled and sparks climbed towards the darkness. The stars looked as if
they were straining to hear the impending conversation. Small talk was exchanged,
everyone avoiding the reason they gathered together tonight. Information traveled
quickly. At one time there had to be a firewall between the underground radicals and
above ground organizers. That was less important now. They didn’t live in urban
areas and state repression had taken different forms. The struggle had become much
more localized. Their survival was based on protecting what was left. Any species not
wiped out had a chance to thrive one day again. All they needed was a chance. There
were no more prayers to ethereal beings. Every survivor had seen what God had done
to America. All discussions of this magnitude began with recognition of those who
had gone before. Those who had suffered and struggled. Those who were real.
Mistakes and weaknesses and all. They did not want martyrs or heroes. Only to
remember. One person would be named and a story told. The words would be quietly
repeated through the gathering like a wave rippling along the rocks ashore. The
council of elders, all six of them, approached the fire. They began to speak. She
strained forward, their energy drawing her close like a yoyo returning to its home.
The world as she knew it came to an end.

Greg 2018
A starving man does not plant crops, anymore than a drowning woman builds a raft.
-Unknown

Greg stood on the floor of the mobile stock exchange and watched his life come
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to an end. It had been so easy not to think about. Earth, a finite ball of oxygen and life.
All of it, intricately tied together, dependent on each other. Capitalism, a system of
economics centered on the consumption of products and commodifying everything.
Trees, plants, the air and even human genomes. At the Chicago school of Economics he
had learned the Greek root for Eco. It meant home. Economics was the management of
home. And now over two hundred years of mismanagement was playing out before him.
The Nikkei, Japans stock exchange, had closed down ten percent. The earthquake in
northern China had destroyed the city of Shenshing a week ago. A city with no people
living in it (CITATION 1). The earthquake had laid bare how ridiculous it all was. After
the great recession of 2008, China was able to continue economic growth only by playing
the same old game with their housing construction. No jobs for work? Build cities. No
people can afford them? No problem. Until the beauty that is Father-market got a major
lesson from mother-earth. Investors immediately pulled stocks from all main Chinese
construction firms. This fear ran through proposed construction projects like electricity in
an execution chair. The Dow had lost 4,000 points in the last hour. Other traders had
already left, most just sat at their computer consoles. Heads in hands and disbelief in their
faces. How did they not see this coming?

He hadn't wanted this life. His sister had thrown a fit at graduation when he told
her he would be going to Wall Street. She had held out hope he would join the racial
justice movement and move out to San Francisco with her. He had avoided that
conversation till the last minute. “Most likely to save Africa” announced his University
graduation award. As if Africa needed more western “saviors”. He had taken a job at a

23

smaller firm, not Goldman Sachs or anything! But sis would have none of it. If he went
home for the holidays she wouldn’t be there, “Just for a couple years” he had said. “I can
pay off some of the family bills and help people out”. His sister had cried. He hadn’t seen
her since graduation. The job was great the first year. Until he didn’t wear a condom that
one night. Eliza, he learned the morning of the pregnancy test, was Catholic. Not that it
mattered. After Roe V. Wade was overturned by the new Supreme Court the government
forced them to keep the baby. His parents, also Catholic, insisted that he help to raise it
and try to make the marriage work. That had lasted a few months. So he kept the job. It
kept him up at night. A steady diet of sleeping pills and Vicodin helped him through the
weekends when he couldn't bury himself in work. They bought a house in Brooklyn that
was protected by the new flood barriers. They bought a baby carriage.

The Dow Jones had reached a 5,000-point drop. President Trump hadn't said a
word publicly since visiting the troops in Syria last week. Congress was out of session,
not that they did much when they were in Washington. Lobbyists wrote all the bills these
days anyway. Politicians had become actors reciting lines written by the directors and
puppet masters of Wall Street.

Last night the lights had been on in the top levels of all the corporate firms in
New York. He had stayed in the city. Waiting for the ball to drop. Had they been
destroying evidence? Did the American people know what they did on a daily basis?
Nestle had just announced insolvency. They had water-supply contracts for those new
Chinese “cities” from the Selenga River in Mongolia(CITATION 2). Reports were

24

coming in that none of the contracts had been legitimate with Nestle taking the money
and making a huge profit. They had been starving the people of Mongolia and screwing
the Chinese government of its promised water supply. Reports were coming in of bombs
and gunfire in Ulaanbaatar as rebels united against the dam projects rose up. Within
forty-eight hours of the earthquake rebel forces had stormed the Nestle headquarters in
the capital and began shooting people. Gunmen stalked floor to floor pumping rounds
into corporate leaders. In the process of creating the dams, nestle had pushed the
Mongolian government to close access to fresh water to over a million people. Multiple
cities were shuttered and refugees forced away from the land as the water dried up.
Clearly the rebels disagreed with this decision. Mongolian police forces were slow to
respond and chaos seemed to be the common thread. Financially, any stock associated
with Nestle was dropping like a meteor through the atmosphere.

Greg stood silently staring at the numbers as they ticked away like time on the
scoreboard of a football game he was about to lose. He needed to get out of there. He had
to wipe his hard drive. Someone would want access to the trades he did.

Karen had worked for him since the first year. They had been hired at the same
time and partnered together when credit default swaps became acceptable again.
Goldman had a bad history with credit default swaps dating to the middle Bush
administration circa 2005. So, they created a subsidiary for Excessive Spending ReAcquisition or ESR. At twenty-three Greg was its lead “operator”. But they had told me it
wouldn’t happen again! There was supposed to be oversight! He had trusted his boss and

25

the research committee when they presented the ESR plans. How was that his fault? His
palms were sweating and he knew he had to get Karen out of there along with himself.
Get off the ship. He stepped onto the second floor and turned down the hallway towards
his office. Something was wrong. His door was closed. Karen never closed the door. He
knocked. She kept a change of clothes in the office; maybe she just needed to change
quickly. No response. His hands clenched the handle and sweatily slid off. Staff were
rushing up and down the hallway. Paper littered the floor. The door was locked. That’s
when he began acting strange. Hungrily searching around for something his eyes landed
on a fire extinguisher. Every action movie he had seen coursed through his neurons as he
smashed the glass with his elbow. Rushing back he could only act. Raising the
extinguisher he brought it down on the handle separating it from the door. The door
creaked and opened. Something was blocking it. He used his shoulder like a battering
ram. Why would she lock the door?

“Karen!” he cried out. What the fuck was behind this door? Bruising his shoulder
he was able to open it enough to slip his head through the crack. Karen’s body was
blocking it from opening further. There was dried blood around her hands and pooled
across the floor as if she had spilled something. He slipped on something and fell
backwards. His breathing was rapid and he was sputtering words with no meaning. He let
out a whine that sounded like a question and a cry at the same time. Fuck. Fuck me! Why
me? Why does this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? His hands and
pants were covered in blood. A warm and wet sensation grew in his crotch and began
running down his leg.

26

Maybe it was the crisis currently cascading through the country. Maybe it was
because he wasn’t on the tenth floor and couldn’t jump. Or maybe it was the slow decay
of American culture that had commodified everything including love. Everyone was too
wrapped up in their own world to notice his crying. He was trying to wipe the tears from
his face but only smudging blood onto his cheeks. They were too concerned with
themselves. Karen had loved her job. She had used it to support a deadbeat husband and
their two kids from his previous marriage. She lived for her job. She had known it was all
over. Jail. Or worse. Probably worse, he thought as he picked himself up from the floor
and pushed the door closed. I’m not going to jail. Especially not in China. I have to get
out of here!

The shock hadn’t settled into the rest of the ship. The liberty ship had multiple
vessels ranging from helicopters to high-speed boats. He was almost running down the
side stairwell towards the internal docking section. He brushed past some unusually
amped up security contractors and showed his pass before entering the sealed hanger.
Reaching for the keys he jumped into a vintage Sea Ray and aimed it towards the Macao
mainland. If he could just make it to the airport he would be ok.

The storm surge barriers newly installed with the increased flooding flew by as he
topped his speed out at 40 knots. His slicked back hair flowed behind him and bounced
with the waves. There was a dock near the airport and he knew he could leave the boat
there. He rounded the curve of fisherman's wharf and slowed towards the dock still

27

causing a large wake to precede his vessel. As soon as he was close he leapt from the port
side onto the dock throwing a line to the nearest Chinese looking man he could find.
They were yelling at him, probably about the wake, he hadn't even shut off engine, but he
ignored them and raced up the dock. Flagging a cab he jumped in showing a large roll of
cash to the drive. "Get me to the airport in five minutes and you get this!" The car shot
forward and Greg lurched for the seatbelt. He pulled out his phone to get an update on the
market. The Nikkei was crashing. This could take down the whole economy, he thought.
He closed his eyes and took a deep, husky breath. I just have to make it through security
and I will be safe". Casinos sped by the window.

In the late 1500s the Portuguese empire began using Macao as a trading base of
operations for its larger imperial plans. They quickly maneuvered themselves into the
sole possessors of the territory and forced the regional government to hand over
administration to them. It remained this way until the final year of the twentieth century.
When the Portuguese flag was finally taken down it had flown for over four hundred
years. It was the last European colony to fall in Asia (CITATION 5).

Following provisional independence Macao maintained its capitalistic approach,
building casinos and becoming the "Las Vegas" of China. It served as a beachhead for
capitalism on the mainland and served as a getaway for the new Chinese urban elite. It
also became a major trading center for business entrepreneurs from around the world.
The liberty ship came to its water's in 2018 in order to take advantage of lax corporate tax
structure. As long as the ship was ten miles from the Macao coastline, it paid no taxes.

28

Any trades done through the ship's mega-computer essentially took place in international
water's. This is how Greg was able to create his algorithm that was taking down
economies throughout Asia without any government oversight.

The airport was packed like sardines in a can. Throngs of people were having the
same idea as Greg. He tossed the wad of cash over the driver's seat and jumped out, his
passport in one hand, laptop bag in the other. Cars were being abandoned. The airport sat
on reclaimed land made of garbage and waste jutting out into the ocean. The main
entrance was two levels with arrivals on the bottom and departures on top. He made a
quick choice, seeing the seething crowd in front of him, to make a stab at the arrivals
gate. No one was trying to get into Macao at the moment. The police were nowhere to be
seen on this level. Garbage and abandoned luggage strewn about the front gates as he
raced towards the escalator. Running up the steps his Franceshetti shoe tip tripped on the
final step and his computer bag went flying forward and skittered away from the escalator
as he hit the floor. Bruised knees and ego, he hauled himself to his feet, looked around to
see the Macao airlines booth line exceed both the turnstiles and the building itself,
snaking out to the traffic lines of new refugees. He didn't even have a ticket. Pulling for
his phone he tried to sign in on the airline website. It was crashed. Probably too many
people attempting to leave. Eyeing the people in line he had an idea, maybe he could
bribe his way out. Reaching into his bag he pulled out an envelope with cash and picked
out a business man who had just checked his bag. Walking briskly towards him, Greg
forced a smile to his face.
'Excuse me sir, I need to be on that plane and I am willing to pay you triple what that

29

cost' Greg said with barely restrained anxiety.
The man turned and looking him up and down asked, 'Where is it you think I am flying
too?'
'Doesn't matter I just need to get out of Macao, can we exchange tickets? Its very
important that I get on that plane.'
The man sighed and looked back at the line, his checked bag ready to be put on the
conveyor belt. 'Make it five thousand and I will do it'.

Greg made it through security with his special screening ID. The guards were
wary of him but he was now in the lounge, awaiting the plane. It departed in thirty
minutes. Taiwan. It wasn't his ideal location but at least he would get out of Macao.
Screens of television banks covered the walls and were replaying horrifying numbers
with graphs of lines falling off of cliffs. He nervously fidgeted with his computer strap.
He was stuck in the middle of the word day, and for the first time in as long as he could
remember, he had nothing to do. No algorithms to write, no money to be made. As he
looked around the room, everyone was staring at him. A woman with a small child was
clothing him close but her eyes bore into his head. He blinked and looked away; a bald
man of Chinese descent was also watching his movements. That’s when he saw it. His
face. On every single television. He was surrounded by it. Images of him on vacation, in
New York at the financial district, on his yacht. And then there it was. The algorithm. Or
a cheap imitation of it. There was a large man coming towards him. He
Couldn’t hear the television, his head was pounding.
'Aren't you the man on the Vid screens?' asked the large white man. 'Yea, yea you are that

30

son of a bitch, you took everything! You're the reason I have to leave!'
The man swung a small handbag and hit Greg in the jaw with enough force to throw him
from his seat. He reached for his face but the man's shoe caught him in the neck. Greg
choked as his larynx ceased to function. He tried to get to his feet. Another man was
there. He began to kick him. Greg was surrounded. More and more travelers were ringing
him, refugees trying to escape the damage he had done to their lives. Blow after blow,
from fists and feet, someone stepped hard on his ankle, breaking it. He saw the airport
police through glassy eyes turn around and walk through the entry doors, leaving him to
his fate. He was bleeding, coughing to breathe and before he died, he thought of his
sister, of how things could have been different.

Fox News January 2019
In the fall of 2018 the Supreme Court heard a case that came to be known as State
of Alabama versus Sam Harris. It concerned blasphemy laws made by the noted author
Sam Harris about certain elected officials in Alabama and their potential violation of
religious restrictions in state institutions. The elected legislature and Governor’s office
had continued to direct funds towards public education programs that taught Christian
Science in the classroom. This led to the “theory of evolution” as well as “climate
change” being removed from textbooks. Despite a public outcry the Trump
administration, under the leadership of Vice President Pence, gave covert support to this
process. Sam Harris, during a speaking tour in Alabama to promote his new book,
sharply criticized the state for its refusal to accept what he claimed was “settled science”.
The state of Alabama then sued him. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court.
31

The court, found once again that the First Amendment protects critique of public
officials.

“Welcome to The Sting! with Max Peters!” (applause) “News is grim tonight with
the violent deaths of ten people in Washington DC including the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court John Roberts and associate justice Anthony Kennedy.
(Introduction to the show as) The American flag flaps back and forth with different
images of conflict flow across the screen. Americans shooting at Syrians. Anti-American
protests in Saudi Arabia. Massive storm surges of water off some unknown coastline. Out
of the chaos is the calm face of Max Peter’s sitting at his desk.

Max- Welcome to The Sting. As most of you know the first successful attempt on
the life of a Supreme Court Justice has been carried out.. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a
noted liberal, and Chief Justice John Roberts were killed in a heinous attack. A bomb, it
looks like Syria here”
The screen shifts to initial distant view of smoke on a crowded street of Washington DC.
Max- now you can see the smoke there from about a mile away, thanks to our fox-cam
brought to you by Starbucks. Our people were there on the ground, combat style, to bring
you this new front in the culture war. I don’t want to say it, but this is the failure of the
Obama Administration. They could have appointed more American justices while he was
President. Kagan and Sotomayor, those lesbians, could have avoided this. Whoever the
terrorists are, either Muslim fundamentalists or environmental crazies, the court could
have supported the foundations of this country and taken the smirk off that leftist Sam

32

Harris's face. I’m not excusing violence. I deplore it. I’m just raising the fact that actions
have consequences, you let these crazies get their way, whether the enviro-fascists, femnazi's or anarchists and this is the world you get. This is what happens. Ok, now if you
have children in the room, this is the time to take them out. We have exclusive video
from the scene of the bombing.

Max begins to get more intense as the video moves to full screen. It was a home
video of an apartment. Sounds of rain coming down on the top floor. Max’s voice in the
background- “As you can see its an apartment of some sort and reports said that gunfire
preceded the bomb..” POP! POP! POP! He was interrupted by automatic gunfire and the
video began to jerk around. The sound of a man’s heavy breathing and the camera
refocused out the window and down the street. A convoy of vehicles was speeding
towards the screen; the video was clearly taken from a balcony window.

Improvised explosive devices or IED’s are a military acronym for a homemade bomb, not
“legitimately” manufactured by Lockheed Martin or General Electric. Generally you
have 3 main parts: The bomb, which is a standard dumb bomb ranging from 100-2000
pounds is coupled with a trigger which receives the go-signal from a transmitter, a car
alarm, cell phone, garage door opener. Originating in the Irish resistance to British
control, they were popularized by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The world came to fear
them when they were used in Iraq to psychologically devastate the American occupation.
By 2017 they had accounted for over 60% of American deaths (CITATION). They are
usually buried next to roads in sabotage cans or bags of garbage for concealment. When

33

the enemy target is 5-7 meters away from your roadside marker you push the button and
get the hell out of there. The signal activates a detonation device and the Semtex explodes
providing the larger bomb its fuel.

There are several things that can kill you from an IED. As the bomb explodes a
shockwave knocks out windows, blows out eardrums and throws anything close into the
air. Then shrapnel flies outward penetrating flesh and ripping it apart shortly followed by
a fireball that can burn up to 5,000 degrees. (CITATION) Very deadly. Anyone can
download an army field manual to learn how to make one themselves. Evidently someone
did.

The screen was dark. Max- “Oh god”. A bright flash had eclipsed the street just as
the middle car had reached the bottom of the screen. Max- “Ladies and gentlemen, this is
a despicable act of terror. We have only just begun to heal from the Obama tragedy and
get back to traditional American values. Today the Trump administration is faced with
terror as its number one priority. After pulling the pressure off of Muslim fundamentalists
in the Middle East thanks to comrade Obama, this is what we face”.

His face was getting red showing an increasing rage. The fleshy part of his throat
waddled like a turkey. The Camera panned back to reveal guests on the show.

Max-Joining us for analysis and reactions is Bruce Dickerson, distinguished author of
more than three books including Empire and its heroes, where he showed us that colonial

34

governments did lots of good for their subjects. Thank you for being here.

Bruce- Great to be back Max.

Max- ..and next to me now is Elaine Bolter, a ferocious culture warrior, and author of
numerous books including Just kill yourself now: liberals and their desire to make
pansies of us all. Good to have you here Elaine.

Anne- Great. Just really great to be here Max (Her voice was eager, like a velociraptor
that can smell blood).

Max- What do you think of all this? Now obviously, we don’t have all the facts, and even
if we did we haven’t talked with many people on the ground (he was rushing through
preliminaries) but..

Bruce- Well. You can see the utter hatred towards the freedom and benevolence of the
United States. This is a democracy, and thus should respect the rule of law. If I were a
terrorist I would pick a better target than the Supreme Court. With President Trump, it’s
just going to bring in new Justices who are tougher on terror. This was a stupid move,
plain and simple. This is a last gasp of terror from the war in Syria, nothing more.

Elaine- this is what the liberals want!! Obama cut the defense of this nation and now we
are under attack again. Democrats should be tried for crimes against America. Obama

35

was so concerned with men being able to sleep with other men that he didn’t care at all
about terror.

The temperature in the room had dramatically risen. Bruce was leaning back in his chair
and letting the politicos handle this one.

Max- now lets be fair here. Obama did order the Bin Laden mission and put lots of
money into defense spending. And Donald Trump has been in office now for some time

Elaine- Yea, most of that went into letting the fags marry and trying to take our guns. He
pulled out of Iraq and look at it now! The country is basically another mullah run IslamoFascist regime. Talk about creating enemies!

Her anger spilled over the room through the video screens across America.

Max- and what about you Mr. Ferguson?

He looked calm in the midst as though he was mediating a crisis of lesser beings.

Just as Max was about to go into a special segment the sounds of yelling could be heard
in the background. Max turns his head and the camera pans back. His face turns ashen
and his big eyes grow even larger. His hands fly up as a hail of bullets hit his midsection
sending blood spurting out his back and onto the green screen. The camera swivels to the

36

left as Elaine and Bruce shoot from their chairs. Elaine tries to make a run for it and just
before she reaches the edge of the camera she is cut down, her body jerking with each
round’s impact into her sclerotic frame. Bruce is on his knees with his hands slightly
raised; his body shaking and the high definition cameras capture the sweat and tears
streaming from his face. There is yelling, a voice and then into the screen walks a man
dressed in black military gear and an assault rifle. His face is clothed in a balaclava.
Bruce is heard pleading, the man walks to him slowly, deliberately and raises the rifle to
his face, pulls the trigger and a single round drives straight through Bruce’s brain
throwing him backward into the desk. His face explodes brains across the mahogany desk
that has served as a pulpit for Max Peter’s shortened career. The balaclava man turns,
walks toward the camera, reaches into his pocket and produces a single piece of paper.
He begins to read.

PFJ 2019 May 1st
Email

To: CNN, MSNBC, FOX, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times,
Dallas Morning News
From: Paladins for Justice
Today God has spoken. Our Father is proud. Today the Lords word has been done. Brave
soldiers from Gods own army, Paladins for Justice, have struck a major blow against the
enemies of faith. Believers, rejoice! The time is at hand to fight for your God.

37

You will recall the recent Supreme Court decision, State of Alabama versus Sam Harris.
The blasphemous Sam Harris refused to teach Gods law and the ACLU sued the
Christian government of Alabama. God gives us the free will to hang ourselves. He also
teaches us to take justice into our own hands. Today we have done this. Chief justice
John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy are dead. The rest of the court has learned that God
watches their decisions. America has learned a great lesson about defying Gods word.
Robert's, who until this morning considered himself a Christian, manipulated you with
his goals of power and legacy over his obligation to God. Anthony Kennedy has long
deserved a bullet. Today after leaving the courtroom, several of our dedicated brothers
brought our crusade to American “justice”. The video you have now all seen shows their
car being hit with a bomb. We can operate anywhere and can strike anytime. This country
will be subservient to God or it will not exist. We have done this after the inauguration to
show our power. God’s justice is infinite. We have carried out his word. Let this be the
first salvo in a global cleansing of non-believers and heretics. All of you who deny the
glory of a Christian God REPENT! Muslims, Gays, Hindus and especially those who
twist the word of God under the guise of Christianity. You all will feel our wrath.

PFJ

Dr. Carter James 2018
Santa Fe New Mexico Los Alamos National laboratory for space and earth science

Dr. Carter James sits in his hermetically sealed work-study and plays with the end of his
38

mustache. He has worked on climate change his entire life. He came to the work out of
accident. His childhood was full of hiking outdoors, kayaking the ocean and generally
enjoying the beauty the world had to offer. It wasn't political at first. Even Exxon did
some of the first climate research (Citation 1). Until their threatened profits made it
political. They made science a partisan issue. Those who believed in math, and those who
didn't. No one ever disputed gravity when they got on their private planes created from
the massive mineral wealth they accumulated from drilling. Dr. James was a pragmatist.
He never dealt in utopias. According to Thomas Moore who invented the term in 1516,
Utopia referred to “no place” that is, not an actual or possible place that does or could
ever exist. It wasn't real. James was interested in what worked. Compromise. Messy-ness.
If it took people being stretched beyond their level of comfort he was very interested.
Science to him was a process of working out problems with others. Someone came up
with a theory. They put it into action and it was tested in the real world. The first time it
fails, then you know it isn't true. Science, to him, was a religion that followed through on
its predictions. And was honest when they were wrong. In the scientific method you must
put all your information into the public eye so that others can examine it. To try and find
flaws in the theory. This is how we trust a hulk of metal and a human to get us from
Seattle to Nashville in three hours and minimal jet lag. This is how we have number two
pencils and fighter jets, plush chairs and walking boxes. He kept things very simple. His
office had only what he needed in it. Only what was necessary.
The computer screen in front of him showed the latest public attacks against his
credibility. The first line was an order to appear for a grand jury sent to him by his
lawyer. He clicked on it.

39

Dear Mr. Hastings

I hope this email finds you well. As you know on the 4th of next month you are to appear
in the district court of Virginia pending a grand jury. We have no further information on
the subject aside from what has been speculated in the news. During your appearance you
will be alone in a room with the Judge, prosecutor and jury. I will not be present. If you
wish to have my council you will have to leave the room and go to the atrium where I
will be waiting. You may ask me the question and I will give you feedback. You may
then return to the Grand Jury room and answer the prosecutor or judge's question.
Remember, you have the right to not incriminate yourself. You have the right to remain
silent and request contact with your lawyer at any time. The judge has the right to refuse
these requests. The judge can also hold you in contempt for failing to answer the
questions. If you are held in contempt than you may be placed in prison for a length not
to exceed eighteen months. Please direct any questions you have until our next in-person
meeting on the third of next month.
Sincerely,
Jenine

Dr. Carter James

Dr. James snorted at the email. Contempt?! To hold science in contempt for helping an
investigation into corporate cover-ups? He knew it was serious this time. It was one thing

40

back in the Bush years for climate denial to be an opinion that people had. Now the legal
system was being used by the Trump administration to punish scientists for doing their
jobs. They wanted the science community to take their stethoscope off the heart of the
earth. Watch it die in front of them and do nothing. Well, he wasn't going to put up with
this. If they were going to take him down then he would not go quietly.

He switched screens and pulled up his YOUTUBE account. He reached his hand forward
to adjust the desktop microphone and noticed it was shaking with fear. A voice inside his
head, if you do this its over. No deniability. Obstruction of justice. He waved away the
thoughts and turned on the mic. A camera in the computer turned on and his face
suddenly filled the screen. Clicking on the recorder he made the decision to tell the story.

He realized early on that there was a disconnect between what scientists were saying and
what the public came to believe. He began speaking to high schools and business
roundtables, hawking his ideas about climate change to the community. On-the-ground
education. Personalize it. Make it real for humans. He found that people would worry
about the climate but the spectrum of worries: War, jobs, food, housing were often more
prevalent and in their faces. He had to find a way to make climate change something that
people worked at every day. A true revolution of the mind that would have far lasting
implications if enacted. If the world failed to implement this revolution, they were
looking at extinction. His motto was “we can’t stop the weather, but at least we can
prepare for it”.

41

"Good morning everyone. This may be the last time I speak to you for some time. I want
to tell you how we got here. How a published scientist like myself could be brought to the
brink of financial ruin by this administration." He can see in his reflection that he is
nervous. He glances away, clears his throat, adjusts his glasses and looks back into the
camera.
"I received a final notice today for my appearance at a grand jury trial. This trial is a
sham. It is intended to intimidate and harass members of the science community for
telling the truth about the Exxon-Mobil Corporation. Sometime in the 1960s Exxon
began studying carbon concentrations in the ocean's and atmosphere. What they found
was surprising. What they did with it was not."
He reaches to his desk and for a moment his head slides out of the camera frame. As he
returns he is holding a file with papers on it. He slides it open and pulls out the top paper.
Emblazoned along the top is the Exxon logo.

"In the 1980s Exxon scientists confirmed the scientific consensus that greenhouse gases
or CO2 emitted by human civilization was warming the atmosphere and the oceans. They
also confirmed that if massive reductions were not undertaken, disastrous effects to the
climate system and ultimately the human economy of life would result. In short, either we
stop emitting or we destroy life as we know it on this planet."

His eyes are getting narrower as he gets angrier.

"They then made a business decision. Hide the evidence. Deny a consensus. And any

42

chance you get tell people there is "uncertainty". It was straight out of the big tobacco
playbook ladies and gentlemen. In fact, they actually hired the same lawyers and experts
who told us cigarettes didn't cause cancer (CITATION 3).
For over ten thousand years we have had a relatively stable climate. This has led to the
flourishing of human civilization. The annual temperature fluctuations have remained
within one degree Celsius. If that changes, everything we call 'normal' will fly out the
window. We are changing the temperature of the planet and we already see mass dieoffs, civil wars, refugees and floods. It's happening now folks. And these companies,
Exxon in particular, have been lying to us and hiding the evidence."
His hands were moving fast and he was leaning in to the television.
"Now you might say, 'we didn't know we were causing these problems' but we have the
papers. We have the documents written by the employees of Exxon, talking about how to
pull the wool over our eyes. If anyone is directly responsible for the greatest single threat
in human history to our society, it is them."

He leans back, slowly raises his left hand to his glasses, removes them as if to clean them
but returns them to his face. He speaks slowly into the screen.

"We are not the first species on this planet to change the climate. Cyanobacteria led to
one of the mass extinctions (Citation 2). The difference, the uniqueness of this change is
our self-awareness. Our very knowledge of the problem is the same thing that created the
problem. Earth is in our hands and we don’t know what we are doing. I understand the
desire to bury our heads in the sand. I wish more than anything this were not our problem

43

to solve. Our domain of influence is wider than our domain of agency. This is our world
war now. This is our moonshot. Scientists must speak out and I call on you today, the
students of science, those who put us upon the moon, who gave us penicillin, who taught
us our limits and then went on to break them. I call on all who wish to build a better
world. We must first rescue this one."

As he clicked off the recording, there was a pang in his chest. Not painful, but the kind
you get when emotion overflows from your brain like a fractured dam. The kind you only
get when you exhausted everything and come through the other side. For the first time in
many years, Dr. Carter James smiled.

There was no knock on the door. There were splinters of wood flying through his living
room. There was his dog, Ruddy, barking until she stopped. There were car alarms and
rough men's voices. Pots of flowers and plants went smashing to the floor, the dirt mixing
with tear gas and smoke. Lights up and down the well-to-do street blinked on at this early
hour and sirens performed the rooster's role. There was confusion and fear, thick as oil
spilling through the air. There was an old man, a scientist, rocking in his chair, his heart
no longer beating. There was a call for an ambulance, then a coroner. And then as the
beating sun drenched the hills of Santa Fe, there was silence once again.

Dahlia (Lummi tribe Northwest Washington) 2019
Her hands were rough from years of pulling rope. Water squirted through her

44

fingers and scattered thousands of dimples into the ocean, shattering her tired reflection.
Dad used to do this before he gave me his boat 'sunshine'. Before he got cancer. He had
become a vegan after being shown some compelling documentaries a certain daughter
brought home from college. All he ate was soy. Processed, mono-cropped Cargillmanufactured soy (Citation 1). He had tried to fit in. He always listened to what she had
to say and supported her by joining up. Had he known that it was dangerous? Was he
doing it just for her? Was she responsible for his death?

The cancer had moved quickly. It’s all for the best, the doctor had said. Dad was
in too much pain. She had stood in the corner of the room, numb with guilt. One day he
was there and the next he was gone.

She could see it rising in the water now. Pulling a crab pot alone takes balance
and strength. A medium pot weighs about thirty pounds in the water plus whatever was in
it. The deck of the boat was wet so she spread her legs wide and leaned over the side.
Knees bent. Back straight. Boat wake makes you dance like a juggler. With a hiss as
though gasping for air the pot broke the surface. Dahlia swung her leg over the starboard
shoulder. Grabbing a handhold she leaned over till her ass was above her head. Like a
seesaw rocking she grabbed the pot on its side and hauled it into the boat. There were
three crabs. Three! Dad used to regale her with stories about pulling in fifty at a time
(Citation 2). That was in the 1970's. She'd never seen such things but three crabs, all
female so not to keep. Pathetic. The gas for her boat was barely affordable as is. At least
these beautiful sunsets were unchanged. Especially one without many people on the

45

ocean. Native fishing boats had been replaced with tankers pulling oil to China and gas
guzzling Carnival cruise ships going to Alaska. The tribes weren’t fishing much anymore
and that left individual's like her. They couldn't afford the fuel or licensing.

There was one boat on the horizon. It was hauling towards her general direction.
Fast. Her heart sank as lights began to flash. Her mind immediately went into panic mode
and she searched the boat mentally for anything illegal. Registration? Papers? Tabs?
Guns? She had one but it was buried deep in duffel. They would need a warrant. Or they
could just break their own laws. Her tribe had experienced white “respect” for their own
law.

“Turn your vessel off and move to the stern,” boomed the loudspeaker. They were
always so polite. Sarcasm had kept hope in her family for many generations since first
contact. She wasn’t about to stop now. This was a smaller Coast Guard vessel then she
was used to. Drug interdiction? Immigration? “Prepare to tie off” the tinny voice barely
traveled across the water. It was a RHIB-rigid hull inflatable boat. Her brother had served
on one of these during the initial invasion of Iraq. The second time. He had boarded oil
cruisers from Iran. Now these boats were protecting American oil tankers as they
exported the project to their former enemies. The war always came back home. A young
Chicano looking man threw a weighted rope onto the stern of her boat. She scrambled up
to it, her bare feet gripping the wood. Another rope was thrown to the bow and she
scrambled along the side to snatch it. Her eyes were looking down, following the side of
the boat but still noticing the Coast Guard wearing boots. Land boots. She hadn’t needed

46

soles on a boat since she was fifteen. A man wearing body-armor that didn’t suit the
humid weather began firing questions at her.

“What are you doing out here little lady? Isn’t it about your bedtime?” The Coast
Guard driver snarled at her through his dark sunglasses. The receding sunlight glinted off
his shades making his grin a bit less scary. She ignored his cockiness.

“No sir, just checking my crab pots. Nothing to report.” Her face was a mask. One
could get into a lot of trouble by being snarky with the likes of federal troops. She had
dealt with these guys before. On the horizon more coast guard vessels were rounding the
San Juan Islands, about four miles away and speeding towards the mainland.

“Whatcha doin out here all alone? Yer boyfriend leave you for a white girl?” The
Captain grinned, the corners of his mouth hairy with stubble. For a moment she imagined
pulling his Glock from the holster and blowing his dick off. The blood would cover the
nice orange and white coast guard vessel. Involuntarily she shook the thought from her
head, and then stopped, afraid it might send the wrong signal.

"I’m just checking my crab pots and enjoying the sunset. How can I help you?
(Eat a dick she thought). The Captain took a step forward; his paunchy extended stomach
came to rest on the edge of her boat. His head tipped to the side as if in confusion. He put
his hands in the air as if to surrender.

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“Wow wow, calm down little lady, don’t get your panties all wet.” The Captain
was losing control. “You from the tribe?" She nodded yes. Why are you rez bitches
always so uppity?” Her mind was racing. Be cool. Be cool. Do what he says. Show no
emotion.

“How can I help you sir? The words somehow escaped through her clenched jaw.
Her voice was more like a growl then any known language. The Captain looked over her
boat and then turned to look back towards the Canadian border. “You cant. Get your
sweet ass in to whatever land you come from. The bay is closed. There's been an
accident. Don't be goin north at all.” His tone had become bored with her. She wasn't who
they were looking for.

“What...happened?” Her voice trailed off and her eyes lurched northward. She
could see a flurry of other boats. Big boats. And they were moving fast. There was
smoke, and her worst fears began to take hold of her body.

“None of your damn business Indian. Get out of here! Chuck, grab those ropes off
her boat.” The Chicano man at the bow yanked the ropes back pulling a loose plank of
wood free from the top of Sunshine. Dahlia stumbled over to the keys and plugged them
into the ignition. Sunshine's seventy-five horsepower engine roared to life. The Coast
Guard boat turned towards Canada and accelerated. A man at the back of the boat was
rapidly jerking his hand near his crotch. Pretending to masturbate. Fucking pigs. She

48

turned the nose of the Sunshine towards Lummi Island, one of the last local fisheries still
catching salmon, and as the boat planed up to four degrees she ached to know what had
happened to the Salish Sea.

-Three hours laterThe meeting was close to chaos. Sharon was from Ferndale, a small farming
community north of Bellingham. It had been her turn to lead the Salish Sea cleanup
committee. Ten years of protecting the waterfront had created a strong bond among the
locals. They had cleaned up beaches, written letters and generally provided an alternative
to turning the county into an oil-export terminal. Meetings in the past had been uplifting,
the members finding ways to agree to action on a consensus basis. If you showed up to a
meeting then you could speak out. Now, the outside pressure of an environmental disaster
threatened that hard built trust. Sharon tried to open with introductions from everyone on
how they were doing and what they have been working on. The group wasn’t having it.
There was an emergency! Some of the men had interrupted Sharon and tried to steer the
conversation towards escalation. In 2018, after much controversy, MMP Marine, the
largest regional had begun an Oil shipment program to China (CITATION 3). Oil was
extracted from the earth in the Bakken shale of North Dakota and put on trains to the
west coast. New proposals sprang up across the country after Obama lifted the oil export
law in a bargain with the Republican's in 2016(CITATION 4). Ecologists fought tooth
and nail, using legal tools to slow the permitting process with every legal maneuver
possible. Multiple projects were abandoned due to environmental regulations but four
new terminals were permitted in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. The

49

terminal that was concerning their current meeting was at Cherry Point, ten miles from
the Canadian border. From there oil was loaded onto super-tankers and shipped through
the densely packed San Juan Islands towards open sea. Their final destination?
"Developing" economies in Asia.

Now, one of those boats had run aground and the entire shipment had spilled into
the bay. An emergency cordon had been placed on the area and no boats were allowed
into the ocean. The Salish Sea cleanup committee had organized against the oil terminal
for eight years. Now their greatest fears were realized. Once a diverse ecosystem with the
only salmon runs left in North America was now filling with oil. Dahlia watched as the
group split into three factions with years of unspoken anger coming to the surface. The
air was filled with tension, like invisible smoke from long extinguished cigars. The first
group, filled with the majority of men, felt it was time to escalate tactics against MMP
Marine. The second was exclusively concerned with the impact of the spill and access to
the ocean. In the middle was a third group of emotionally exhausted and traumatized
people. Those doing this work the longest, having given the most. After years of crying
wolf, the beast had finally come to feed on their community. And all they could do was
tear each other apart. Those who had been allies and friends just days before, now
pointed fingers and accused each other of poor tactics and direction. They were turning
on each other. Dahlia found herself in the third group. Consensus could be effective when
you were all willing to work with each other but they were losing that now.

That’s when Lindsey stepped in. With her smug, know-it all-attitude. Her body,

50

never one to exert energy without a reward, swayed up towards the front of the group.
There was power in her walk, the way she occupied space and commanded silence. It
wasn’t that she always had an answer that made sense, it’s that she inspired fear. She was
always lecturing, telling people what they were wrong about. She never had anything of
constructive value to offer, as far as Dahlia was concerned. Always tearing down other
people’s ideas. Their group had been knocked down with charges of patriarchy so many
times that they now listened to “powerful” women who spoke their mind. In the vacuum
that arose as men stepped back from running their mouths the space was filled with
acrimony. Dahlia wondered if it wasn’t a big game of "if you give a mouse a cookie." It
was clear that no one really knew what they wanted, the vision was uncertain. Instead
more angry, driven and vitriolic people filled the hole. Lindsey was at the front of that.
Her back turned to the group she slowly shifted her head around to face the room.

“Now everyone's excited and I understand why. But we need to speak nonviolently to one another. We can’t use the masters tools to dismantle the masters palace.”
Her eyes drove daggers towards the first group of antagonists.

Dahlia tried hard not to roll her eyes. Yes, lets just ask nicely and the company
will give in to us. She knew that Lindsey's background was working class. She was a
welder and raised a kid on her own. She checked the identitarian boxes and rose up the
inverted “non-hierarchy” hierarchy pyramid that wasn’t supposed to be there. Before you
said anything to her, you were wrong. Was this what we were fighting for? Dahlia raised
her hand to signal she wanted to speak next. Lindsey ignored her.

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“Now, of course all the men want to go and blow something up.” Lindsey said
with a sneer. There were grumbles in the room. Some women nodding their head.
She continued, “What we need is to reach out to the religious groups in the community.
I’ve been saying this for some time. We must ask them for help and guidance. They have
been through this before and have fought battles against injustice.”

And been one of the greatest forms of injustice, Dahlia thought.

“And we need to reach out to more people of color”, Dahlia’s hand was still quietly
raised, “if we don’t have people of color then all these white people in the room are
going to do the wrong thing, like they always have.” Somehow Lindsey had still not seen,
or chosen not to notice dahlia’s hand in the air so she dropped it and shrugged. “As we
have seen over and over with white people doing all the talking and none of the
listening.”

Dahlia’s brow was percolating sweat. Her left foot was tapping. She was being
driven towards action. She didn't want to be on the side of Lindsey, but there was more to
it than that. She needed to be around a functional group. People who were willing to take
some action into their theory. To have some reflection instead of reaction. People without
power take it out on those closest to them. Fighting over the scraps while the powerful sit
at the table for the main meal and dessert. It was time to stop settling for the scraps and
flip the damn table over. It was all becoming too much mental masturbation while

52

everything burned. They could find a way to have a meeting space where everyone spoke
the same three sentences and no one created any conflict. But wasn’t that where the
learning was to happen? With conflict? How can you change without conflict? She
realized that Lindsey was still talking. Scanning the faces of the room she could tell that
people wanted it to stop but felt powerless to do so. She had to make a decision.
“And if there was any chance, ANY CHANCE of us being successful then we need to go
about things non-violently. The state has all the power. They have all the guns. They have
all..

Lindsey finally made eye contact with Dahlia who was now standing in the center
of the room.

They don't have all the hubris and bullshit, that’s for sure.” The room burst into laughter
but was quickly stifled as Dahlia continued, “And they don’t have the hearts of the
people. The reason we keep losing is because we are always attacking people and treating
them like stupid children who cant think for themselves. We are abusive. No one wants to
be a part of that. Credit to all of you who remain here but we care more about our moral
purity than we do about a goddamn oil spill.”
A standoff had occurred. A point of conflict. The lines were drawn and years of
frustration and failure was now on the table. Lindsey tried to speak but was interrupted.

"How many times have we whipped ourselves? How many sub-groups have we
formed in order to study ourselves? Pre-figure the future?” Heads were nodding around

53

the room. “Men’s groups, Women's groups, class breakdowns, cultural differences? We
talk more about privilege then those with all the privilege. We talk about the things we
hate and want to destroy. This isn’t working. They don’t care about our analysis. They
just go on exploiting everything. They take and take until there is nothing left. We sit
here and meditate and hold hands. I want to talk about action. I want to focus on what we
love and what we will build. And I want to start right now.” The room exploded with
claps and Yahoo’s and laughter as people rose to their feet. Dahlia felt hands on her back,
warm hands of friends who had waited so long to hear those words. They had her back.
And she had theirs.

Dahlia felt at peace back on the water. The light waves slipped along her kayak
and her slight hips turned back and forth in tune, guiding her forward towards the spill.
The first rays of sun were rising against her back, scratching at the tips of the cascade
mountain range to the east. It was barely five in the morning and her heart was calm.
Despite the spill. She hadn’t slept the night before and it felt liberating to be doing
something. Anything. Her hands were bare and droplets of salt water ran up and down
her arms like conveyor belts each time she dipped her paddle. Her mouth open, she tasted
the cool humid air as it brushed her cheeks and softly coated her skin with moisture.

There were twenty of them. All in Kayaks. Each one was equipped with a boom
strapped behind the cockpit. Between her legs was a survival bag. Her body, to protect
from any oil, was covered in a dry suit loaned from a neighbor at the last minute. Her
arms were rolled up and her top was open but she would have to fully dress before they

54

reached the spill. It had been over twenty-four hours since the tanker ruptured and
spewed its load throughout the bay. They had been "lucky" that an easterly wind had
blown it towards shore instead of out to sea, completely preventing them from
responding. Lucky, she snorted. It’s all about degrees of bad to worse in this world.

They were part of four groups of five kayaks each. She was in bravo team. Each
team would secure an outer part of the spill and spread their booms out to block it. The
Coast Guard hadn't responded as quickly as expected. Budget cuts to pay for tax cuts.
How many of those tax cuts were benefitting Chevron? How many spills had they been
responsible for in the past? How often had they picked up their mess? Her team was
getting ahead of her, she could barely see the chemlight attached to the rear of her team
members. Dahlia shrugged off the feelings and shook her knees to keep the blood
flowing. Wedging them back against the hull her strokes increased in force and her kayak
picked up speed.

The crude oil ship had been loading Bakken fracked oil from North Dakota into
hoses when the primary seal broke. The hose ripped backward, the force of oil pressure
flinging it like a deflating balloon around the dock. Two Longhsore workers loading food
supplies for the journey to Singapore were immediately covered with the black stickiness
and slid into the water. The hose crashed against the dock as alarms sounded across the
refining facility. At the shoreline observation post, Jim Bagget jumped to his feet and
raced towards the emergency shutdown. He was a part-time worker now that all new
pipeline construction had been completed. The new oil export pipes and infrastructure

55

had promised many permanent, high paying jobs but only fifteen of those remained. And
they were all company men from other parts of the country. Locals were offered lower
wages and part-time work. Because he was part-time, they had only given him online
training for this type of emergency. Scrambling towards the main computer he hit the all
stop button and turned on the monitor. It refreshed and a sign-on screen greeted him.
Quickly typing his password, the sweat from his fingers missed a key and he had to begin
again. A loud crash that sounded like splitting wood stood his hairs on end. He glanced
back towards the terminal dock just in time to see the last bit of oil from the hose propel
it against the seal of the crude tanker, splitting a seam down towards the water. Oil began
to drain from the ship's hull as the color drained from his face.

There were three tankers at the oil terminal when the Chevron ship ruptured its
tank. They were all slated for departure within the 24-hour window, on their journey to
Asia. In the last year of the Obama administration, a Congressional deal was struck to
continue funding solar and wind subsidies that were previously committed to in exchange
for Democrats supporting the lifting of the oil export ban. The ban had been in place for
over forty years following the oil crisis of the 1970's. The decision to lift it was pushed
by domestic oil companies determined to sell their product across the planet for increased
profit. Few Democrats protested but some did question the hypocrisy of shipping oil out
of the United States while continuing the troublesome oil relationship with Saudi Arabia,
Venezuela and Nigeria. The two tankers that were scheduled to leave were put on
temporary hold while a recovery effort could be rendered.

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Dahlia could see the dock and the black sheen of oil now lapping at the shoreline.
They would have to modify their plan. The call came over the radio, Delta team needed
to dissolve equally into the other groups, except for the team lead who would now serve
as an intermediary with any Coast Guard vessels that tried to interfere. They could see a
few ships to the north of the dock but they were about two miles out. Why hadn’t anyone
responded to the spill yet? She muttered through gritted teeth and slid her kayak next to
her teammate. All five of her team members and their new delta team member were
"rafted up" side by side down a line. Alternating front and backwards facing so they
could all see each other. The radio squawked, "Detach booms and link up, over".

Dahlia leaned to the red kayak next to her and unhooked the bungee cords from
the boom that was coiled up high like a snake ready to strike. She took the end of the
boom and its waterproof carabiner, and slid it under the water of the red kayak, clicking it
in to the modified tow link under the stern of the watercraft. She then rotated her body to
the left and repeated the process with the green kayak next to her. Each boom would be
deployed by two kayaks due to their weight. Then they would be attached to the Alpha
and Charlie booms, which should encompass the entire spill. Then they would wait for
the media, and hope.

When she was done she quickly drank from her camelback and gave a thumbs-up
to the team leader. After all five kayaks were hooked in the radio call went back out
"Bravo team all go, over". The other teams reported in quickly and the action lead gave a
final check.

57

"All teams, all teams, all teams, at this time you are a go, repeat: you are a go,
clear"
On the count of three the raft separated with all teams pushing forward to separate the
booms from their craft like a wolves teeth bearing themselves for its prey. Dahlia felt an
immediate shock to the rear as the boom pulled against her but she rocked her hips to
stabilize and sunk her paddle deeper with each stroke, heading for the outermost point of
the spill. Her teeth were gritted and she could see the coast vessels off in the distance as
their red and blue lights began to spin, their engines roaring to life.

She had never actually done an action with the Mosquito Fleet. She didn't
understand their command structure but she made up for it with a lifetime of boat skills.
She had heard about them a few years before when they tried to block a tar-sands tanker
from the new Canadian pipeline. They had been arrested and all of them deported from
Canada. Permanently. But they had recruited her for some time and after the horrible
meeting the day before a few members in the crowd had approached her. They were part
of the fleet and were planning a response. In fact they had had this planned for some
time. A number of members had attended oil spill response training in preparation for just
this sort of thing happening. They had purchased the equipment and created plans for
every major oil export terminal on the west coast north of San Francisco. They could be
at a spill within eighteen hours.

The fleet had started as an ad hoc response to a Chinese drilling company trying

58

to dig up gravel from one of the most liberal islands in the Puget Sound. A group of
Kayakers from the island used their boats to block some of the drilling apparatuses and
the Mosquito Fleet was born. Harkening back to the early days of white settlement,
"mosquito fleets" were locally run supply ships, transportation ferries and fishing vessels
that served the remote outposts of the Pacific Northwest (CITATION 5). During
prohibition they were used to smuggle alcohol across the border from Canada. They were
even rumored to have helped refugees cross the border at various times. After the Vashon
fight however, the fleet lay dormant for six years. It wasn’t until the shell oil company bet
big on drilling for oil in the arctic that the return of the fleet was necessary (CITATION
6). The fleet fought Shell with swarm tactics on land and sea, drawing more people to the
fight and bringing a flexible host of pirate-like characters to the growing coalition against
Shell. After nine months of growing opposition and harassment wherever Shell went, and
significant corporate losses due to "unforeseen logistical hurdles….)(CITATION 7)
Shell quit Arctic drilling. Shortly thereafter, due to overwhelming political pressure, the
Obama campaign pulled the drilling contracts for the Arctic off the table effectively
blocking American waters from drilling (CITATION 8). After that victory the fleet
declared their "zero tolerance" policy against any new oil, coal or gas infrastructure on
the west coast. Now, Dahlia was a part of the fleet on her very first action in her ancestral
waters, not talking anymore but doing something about it.

"This is your final warning. You are in violation of the security perimeter. You
are risking federal arrest felony charges. If you do not move you will be detained. This is
your final warning". The Coast Guard man was standing on the bow of a large cruiser

59

with a megaphone. Even though they were 100 meters away the water carried his words
to Dahlia's ears as clear as the water was dirty. She had gotten to her position at the head
of the spill and connected her boom to Charlie team. They had surrounded the spill and
were all linked together. Reaching behind her she unhooked the small anchor and slid it
over her port side, the one facing shore. The anchor would hold her relatively in place
and provide another impediment to her likely arrest. The fleet was explicitly non-violent
in its tactical approach but that didn’t mean she needed to help the Coast Guard. Under
President Trump, the USCG had become much more conservative and focused around
protecting energy infrastructure. Fill in…Arrest detention, violence.

She sat in the hull of the Coast guard ship, her lip bleeding into her mouth. She
tried to roll onto her side to take the pressure off her hands, zip-tied behind her back.
Through the clear doorway she could see the officers pulling another member of Bravo
team onto the cruiser. They had tried to search her but the dry suit was difficult to
remove. Instead they had thrown her into the hold and not taken the small camera on her
lapel that was live-streaming the entire event. By now the other members of the fleet
onshore would be sharing that image with the rest of the world. It was about time the
drone was launched as well, to record the arrests from the air. She spit onto the floor and
a line of mucus and blood clung to her lower cheek. Even if the Coast Guard was able to
arrest everyone, and that was a big if, given their resources, each boom was now
connected with a floating lockbox, to prevent them from being detached. The Coast
Guard would need a skill saw to cut through it.

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Introduction to Syria
Syria was the worst thing to come out of the American invasion of Iraq. The second
time. The occupation served as a match that lit the underlying dynamite.
Modern Syria was born from empire. It would later be destroyed by it. Following the
end of hostilities in 1918, the victors of World War I split the Middle East between
France and Britain. France took control of the Syrian region in 1920, delegating control
of the day-to-day occupation to local magistrates.
Following a second world war, Syria gained its independence in 1946. Damascus, the
heart and political capital of the country is widely believed to be the oldest occupied city
in the world. Much of the rest of the country is desert.
After the formation of Israel, and the resulting invasion by Syria, the Middle East
entered a period of nominal stability. The Syrian government switched hands between
internal military coups until Hafez al Assad took control of the country from his perch
atop the Air Force.
The Assad family was Druze and thus a minority in a Shia dominated country. This
forced the ruling family to consolidate power among other minorities, centering much of
it within the military. By recruiting loyalists to fill many posts, Hafez secured a
generation of support.
By the 1980s other social pressures were bearing down on the regime. An uprising
began in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. Hafez sent in the military and wiped
out the entire camps leaving nothing but a smoldering pit. This quelled armed resistance.
But it would return.
In the 1970s the first signs of trouble with the climate began. Large state run

61

companies began privatizing small-localized farms. Conflicts over water with
neighboring Jordan almost led to war. The depletion of underground aquifer’s and the
closing of many rural farms led to millions of farmers moving to cities, which placed a
social burden on human services that the Assad regime refused to address.
By the 1990s Hafez’s health had deteriorated and plans for his son to take over were
put into affect. Upon his death, Bashar al Assad, the oldest son, took over. At first this
was hailed as a positive step by western governments. Western businesses flocked to
Damascus to cut deals and enhance their relationship with the new regime. Once 9/11
occurred however the relationship with Iran and the direct support the Syrian regime
provided to Hezbollah, put Syria into a camp it would never move out of.
The mega-drought began in 2007. It didn’t take long for farms all over the country to
dry up and close. Over a million refugees streamed into industrial centers looking for
work. Once the 2008 economic crash happened it effectively silenced any chance at
replacement jobs. Bashar put more money than ever into the military in order to secure its
loyalty. The American invasion of Iraq sent millions of Iraqi refugees across the southern
Syrian border and when a couple of youth spray painted anti-Assad messages in Daraa a
city of one hundred thousand. The fuse was lit.
Assad's henchmen rounded up the children and tortured them. The families found
their bodies in pieces, stuffed inside trash bags and sitting on their front doorstep.
At first the public gatherings were peaceful. They mirrored the large gatherings
colloquially known as the Arab spring that were sweeping across the Middle East in the
spring and summer of 2011. But they soon began to shoot back at government forces.
What began as a secular political resistance was quickly overcome by Islamic

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fundamentalist groups. Syrians had to rapidly pick a side of two bad options. Either you
were a government loyalist or a fundamentalist. The country ripped itself apart along
sectarian lines and a civil war stripped Assad of any legitimacy he once had. Islamic State
quickly declared itself a caliphate and capitalized upon the drought stricken nation. Its
central command consolidated power in Raqqah, the spiritual birthplace of its sinister
foundation.
Once the United States bombed Iraq and destabilized another Middle Eastern country
the desert regions between Ar Raqqah and Baghdad easily fell to IS.
The refugee crisis that followed directly led to the destabilization of Europe and the
disintegration of the European union. But something beautiful also happened. And it
all started with a former communist intellectual living in New York City until the
time of his death in 2006. His name was Murray Bookchin.

Ar Raqqa, Syria
January 2021

When Aziz was a child he had watched the Humvee’s burn in the street. The
smell of gasoline acrid in his throat. Even today, ten years later, the smell would seep
from his brain down through the lips and mouth, coating his teeth. Aziz would have to
stop, wherever he was, and cough to get the awful taste out. At the current moment his
coughing occurred while he was prostrated on the floor in mid prayer. Allah always hated
it when you did that. Daesh believed so at least. Did he believe it? Was Allah so vengeful
that he would have your hand cut off for smoking? Did Allah want all women to stay in
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the home, and be considered a prostitute if they left the house?

“Lā ilāha illā-Allāh” came from the Mu’adhan and the men around Aziz began to
rise to their feet. As quickly as they had arrived the two hundred men at the Al Unskar
mosque in Ar Raqqah disappeared. Coat hangers swung empty, rocking back and forth
ever so slightly. The only contact point was in the weapons center, formerly the section
for the women. They didn't go to mosque anymore. He couldn't remember when that
changed. As if it happened overnight. One day they were living in a modern country, the
next..the next was less clear. Chaos? Fundamentalism? Fascism? He had heard as much
before the fall. Between the time of the Americans and the fall of the Maliki government
a few short years later. (CITATION 1) Syria should never have been a country anyway.
The French just drew it on a map in 1920. Those were the days when empires could still
tinker with countries as if chess pieces on a board. To the French, the people of “Syria”
were no different then their most prized item: Algeria. If the British could divide Algeria
or Vietnam, thus conquering it as its people fought themselves, then Syria could be
governed in much the same way. For some time this remained true until the European
powers unleashed their Second World War. Within five years the world of empires
collapsed and what remained resembled little of the pre-war years. Colonized country
after oppressed nation rejected colonialism, rising up, sometimes violently to rid
themselves of outside control. As countries finally won their freedom, they found
themselves deeply in debt to the very same colonizers. This and the added burden of
governing a country where the institutions that did exist, which were few, were dedicated
to extracting local resources for the Europeans, left each region teetering on the brink.

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National health care or public education institutions barely existed and when they did
were primarily for training security and military personnel. Throughout the fifties a battle
of the minds was waged between the newly minted super powers, the United States and
the Soviet Union. Pressure rained down from both to choose sides, and no country in the
world was immune. Aziz'z father had worked at the University before the latest uprising
and had spoken of the missed opportunities of history. With the promise of development
aid in turn for loyalty many countries did side with one empire or the other. Thus a series
of proxy wars was waged throughout what had been known as “the third
world.”(CITATION 2) This term didn't refer to a third tier of poverty or development,
but a pool of countries that hadn't quite chosen sides. At times these proxy battles spilled
over into general warfare, in countries like Korea and Vietnam, both superpowers fought
each other through other forces. Never completely coming to American on Russian
combat but for all intents and purposes it was war.
“Insert map of Iraq here”

Aziz made a living by driving supplies through IS front lines to the Turkish border
and back. He would follow the Purattu River (Euphrates) as far north as possible and then
swing west to Tall al Abyad where he would pick up supplies. Tobacco, foodstuffs,
contraband he used to pay off the checkpoints. He had a run to make today. The route had
become more difficult in recent weeks. While the Russians and Americans had ceased
bombing months ago, the war on the ground continued to rage.

Iraq dodged some of the worst colonial bullets. Up until the First World War in

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1914, Iraq had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire (CITATION 3). This rule dated
back hundreds of years but Ottoman control had been slipping for some time. World War
I put the nail in the Ottoman coffin. The victors of that war, in 1918, divvied up the
conquered nations between themselves and set about continuing some of their past
exploitative behavior. The British and the French debated where new lines on the map
should be drawn, and after a few brandy's divide Iraq from Syria, thus the British came to
decide the future of the new state of Iraq (CITATION 4). From the beginning the
countries ecosystem and general population didn't mix. The Kurd's lost their hope for a
country and were scattered across eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and
eastern Syria. The Kurdish people became the largest human population without a
homeland (Citation 5).

Aziz stumbled out into the heat. It was barely morning and the dust was rising,
sticking to his sweat like gum under the school desks back in Primary. This summer was
the hottest Aziz could remember. The thermometer near the exit was climbing forty-seven
Celsius. His trips to the border were delayed more often by sand storms than checkpoints
and military conflict. He looked at the sky, considering the possibility of one happening
today. Between the drought and the Turkish military blockade of the Purattu River, his
home was parched for thirst. (CITATION 6) Air conditioners were a necessity in every
house but the constant drain on electricity sent the city into brownouts on most days.
Generators couldn't be filled fast enough, and since the Americans continued to bomb
whatever oil processing facilities were set up, heat exhaustion was almost as likely a
cause of death as beheading. They were surrounded by oil with no way to use it. Like a

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dehydrated body floating on the ocean. He lurched around the corner of the mosque and
located his truck, a 2001 Toyota Hilux, from before the war, manual transmission diesel.
The most reliable vehicle in the city. As a child Aziz obsessed over The Empire Strikes
Back and often imagined his truck as the Millennium Falcon, outrunning the Empire but
always one laser blast away from needing maintenance. He stepped up onto the running
panel and slid into his Hilux. He exhaled as the cool and dusty AC kicked on and slid into
first gear.

Aziz was Sunni and a native to northern Iraq. He had grown up on a small town at
the turn of the century near Mosul. The family farm was no more. It had been decimated
by the sanctions during the 1990s and then again by the American invasion forcing his
mother to move into the city and his father to join the military and work for the
Americans. The “new” Iraqi military was trained and funded almost exclusively by the
Americans. It was more about numbers then well-trained soldiers. His father had fought
the Iranians during the Iran/Iraq war during the eighties and had vowed to leave war
behind forever. Over a million deaths in brutal face-to-face fighting, the artillery shells
never stopped flying. When the family ran out of foodstuffs it was his father who again
had to turn to the military to pay the rent. On boot camp graduation day, a Shiite suicide
bomber attacked their formation. His father's body was never recovered. DNA tests
couldn't distinguish his flesh from any of the other twenty-two dead martyrs. After that
things got very difficult. Aziz's mother fell into a deep depression, never speaking, nor
preparing basic meals for the children. He would wake in the night hearing his mother
throw herself against the wall in her room, screaming to Allah to take her as well.

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Religion took on new meaning in their household. Prayer, which had never happened
under their modern minded father, was suddenly expected of all the children. Waking at
the rise of the sun for first prayer and continually interrupting whatever they were
working on to pray, at first seemed ridiculous to Aziz. He saw little evidence of a God,
and even less belief that this God was interested in what he was thinking or doing. His
father had been a good man, but Allah had allowed him to be struck down by infidels.
Where was the purpose in that?

The dust trailed his truck as he headed north, following the Puratto River trench
for as long as he could. The journey required him to navigate bomb-sized potholes, from
the Russians, the Americans, Assad’s government; it was difficult to tell anymore. No
longer were there goats flooding the roads, causing accidents and slowdowns of traffic. In
their place were drought stricken wadis, drained of water. He rounded a bend and was
greeted with charred Turkish pine trees as the road curved away from the drying riverbed.
He shifted into fifth gear and reached for a cigarette. He was now between checkpoints
and had another twenty kilometers to go before the final hurdle. Although he made this
trip weekly, he could never be sure which guards would be at a certain checkpoint. IS
changed them by moving recruits around, which kept the locals more "honest". Keeps us
all more angry and paranoid, he thought. With his left knee he held the wheel steady as
he lit the American lucky strike and inhaled one of the few things that made him happy.
He accelerated into the desert, churning a large dust cloud behind him.

As the American occupation of Iraq neared its fifth year, a civil war that had been

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bursting at the seems, finally broke out, tearing communities in half. Shia in Mosul were
forcibly removed from their living spaces and sent packing with only what they could
carry. The bombing of holy sites of both Shia and Sunni origin resulted in generational
neighbors turning on each other. Primary schools could no longer keep their doors open
and one year of traditional schooling was supplanted with studying the Koran at home
under the prying eyes of mother. She began taking her pain out on Aziz, beating him for
minor infractions. With no man in the house, she must "toughen him up," she said. He
had to be prepared for a world that was dangerous. Mother came from a more rural tribe
and had grown up with both Sunni traditional Islam as well as Sufi mysticism. She
believed in Jinn, or what the western movie industry called ‘genie’s’ that were evil and
always out to trick humans. When she married Aziz's father he forced her to give up on
some of the more ridiculous ideas, but it seemed the moment he died, the ideas came
back. If Aziz stayed at the market too long, she would accuse him of torturing her. Of
manipulating her into ups and downs of emotions. “Don't you care about the honor of this
family?” she would say. “Think of what your father would say," the irony wasn’t lost on
Aziz as father would have pushed him to stay outside. To explore the world and make
friends.

Things began changing as the American’s withdrew. The Iraqi flag came down.
The black caliphate flag replaced it. Aziz liked a girl back then. Her name was Samira.
They had grown up together, playing all the same games with the local kids. Kicking the
futbal around. One day Samira didn't show up to play. When Aziz went to her house and
knocked on the door, she answered with fear in her eyes.

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“Why are you at home? Are you sick?” asked Aziz.
“I can't go out anymore. Mother says I'm now a woman and must cover up. Playing with
boys is for children and it will hurt our honor” Samira said this as though she was
supposed to believe it. Aziz didn't understand and when he moved to enter the house,
Samira was replaced by the bulbous form of her mother, now veiled, bellowing for him to
get away and never come back.
“You swine! You leper on the people of Mosul. May you rot in hell you
treacherous little nymph.” She screamed and thrust the door into his face breaking his
nose. He cried all the way home, a very un-manlike behavior, and received abuse from
his mother once he got there. No attempt was made to explain the natural process of
menstruation that his friend, Samira, was now going through. Only abuse rained down
from his mother's lips and limbs. His nose was never set properly and never fully healed.

Aziz touches his nose as he nears the next checkpoint. The oppressive heat of
early afternoon is reflects off the black hood of his truck and he regrets breaking his
sunglasses the week before. His eyes are blue with a round, full appearance. His lips
drawn down into a half scowl that only living in a religious state can do to you. He
prepares himself, downshifting as he rolls towards two men in military fatigues and
Kalashnikovs. The checkpoint was once makeshift, but now concrete Hesco barriers ring
the roadside and signs alluding to landmines checker the left and right sides of his
vehicle. This is the last stop before entering no-man's land. It’s easier to get in to IS
territory then to get out. Reaching in to his dish-dasha he retrieves his IS stamped pass
and a roll of American bills, still the global currency, and slowly extends it towards the

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hard faced guard at his passenger window. The driver's side guard levels the assault rifle
directly at his head. The inspection guard looks at his pass, counts the money, glances
into the back of the truck, nods to the rifle guard and waves Aziz through. The bribes at
this checkpoint are always straightforward, half the money to IS, the other half to their
Turkish minders. Another twenty kilometers and he will be at his destination.

When the Maliki government fell from pressure on the streets and the US capitol,
IS seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was 2013. It would later become clear that much
of the leadership in the so-called Islamic State were not the pure Muslims they portrayed
themselves to be. Many had been Baathists in the Saddam government, former military
men with formidable skills. They saw which way the wind was blowing and retreated to
their homes when the American tanks rolled into Baghdad. Much of the Iraqi military
chose not to fight, believing the American's wanted only Saddam's top leadership. The
Iraqi Generals waited to be contacted by the American's to keep order once the invasion
was complete. The call never came. Instead the Bush administration declared all
Baathist’s "enemies of the state" and began a "de-Baathification" program to remove all
influence of the former regime. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, anyone who had any type of
job in the society prior to the invasion were considered to be Baathist. It would be like
invading a pet store and firing anyone who liked animals. Then, the Americans disbanded
the entire Iraqi army. Over one million men, with families, and military training, and guns
were let go on one Friday afternoon. Two weeks later the first suicide bombing occurred
(CITATION 7). That was the beginning of the end of Iraq. As the insurgency mounted,
the American's began arresting men of military age and stashing them in makeshift

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prisons. Hundreds of thousands flowed through these jails. Many were innocent. When
they entered. But, much like prisons the world over, they served as a virtual university for
terrorism. Many were tortured. Some of those who survived began to form cells and
when they were released or escaped from prison, they began the roots of what would
become Islamic State. Without the American invasion, there would not have been an
Islamic State (CITATION 8).

Aziz could see the small village off to his right surrounded by Quercus Calliprinos or
Palestine Oak. A tiny oasis in this forsaken country. The engine indicator light was on and
he knew the truck needed to cool off in a garage soon. The heat was fouling his AC and
his clothes were matted to his thin chest like wet cloth. The wheels turned off the
highway and began the bumpy ride into town. He could see the checkpoint at the
outskirts of town and he slowed to a stop twenty meters away. This was the more
dangerous part of his journey. This area wasn’t controlled by the militias and there was no
Islamic State or Turkish presence here. This was a different country. Well, not a country,
an autonomous area. Four guards approached the vehicle from two sides, their rifles
aiming at his chest. This time he used a different pass, one he kept strapped to his inner
thigh, in a plastic bag to protect against the sweat of the journey. Slowly he reached under
his dish-dasha and ripped off the tape. No money was required here. He extended his
hand out the driver's side window and handed it to the guard. After a close examination
the guard handed it back to him.
"Welcome to the third Canton of Rojava" she said. "Its nice to see you again,
Aziz". He smiled at the female guards and put the truck in gear. It was nice to be home.

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When IS took Mosul there had been a mass exodus. It was almost funny, Aziz
remembered, to think of the biblical exodus from Israel as an example of what was
happening to the city he was born in. They had appeared out of nowhere with their black
trucks and flags emblazoned with the words of the prophet. Young bearded men standing
in the backs with rifles veering around the city streets recklessly. In any western country
these men would be drinking on street corners, sneaking into bars, trying to pick up
women, or men. Here they were savages, brutal and heartless. They rounded up what
Shiites or Yazidi’s they could find and executed them. Anyone not a Sunni was targeted
and murdered. Aziz was Sunni and had the papers to prove it. Many could not find their
papers. Especially targeted were inter-ethnic marriages. For generations the different
sects had settled together, lived as neighbors. Iraq had been a modern state. In the old
days the saying went, the books are written in Syria, printed in Egypt and read in Iraq.
Universal health care and strong unions had defined Iraq before their bloody war with
Iran. But years of war and sanctions had decimated what had once been the crown jewel
of the Middle East.

They came for his mother after they captured the city of Mosul. Aziz had been at
the market, selling phone chargers and batteries. All he found upon returning home was a
ransacked house, the walls covered in Caliphate rhetoric. The neighbors wouldn’t say
anything, cowed with fear of possible retaliation. IS militants were stationed at every
street corner and fear was as thick as the heat index. Aziz was able to find his uncle and
together they canvassed quietly at night, searching for clues. All they found were rumors.

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Others were being round up. Loyalty pledges extracted. Owners of foreign books,
different religions, and sexual practices, all were killed by the new owners of Mosul. His
uncle had an escape plan, but when the day came only Aziz was able to make it across the
border to Syria. He had credentials for border crossing trade and was allowed through by
the Syrian State border guards. Days later those same guards withdrew under the
approaching onslaught of IS. The Syrian civil war was taking a new turn.

This room had been used as a sex trafficking jail before the YPG liberated it. The
iron rings that once held Yazidi women and girls still hung from the ceiling. Daesh would
take younger women from non-Sunni tribes and turn them into their personal sexual
slaves. They even forced them to take birth control to prevent pregnancy. This way the
women could continue to be raped without producing children the caliphate would have
to feed (CITATION 10). After finding the building the YPG commander left no prisoners
that day. Now it was to serve as the forward command post for the final assault on
Raqqah.

Across the floor lay a large carpet overflowing with food. Rice and lentils spilled
out of ceramic bowls, naan bread shaped like the waning moon lay piled high above large
glasses of water. Goat meat sizzled on the pan at the center of the feast and cigarette
smoke swirled in the air, driven by generator-powered fans. Spiced vegetables and
chickpeas were mixed in colorful arrangements and the hands around the carpet eagerly
dug in. A map on the wall showed IS and Turkish military emplacements around the
Raqqah area with color-coded zones to denote how dangerous each section was. Aziz was

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ravished and exhausted from his short journey to Kurdish held territory. He bit into the
goat and naan covered rice and juice trickled down his lips into his beard. His tongue
savored the rich traditional flavors and took another bite. Arrayed around his cross-legged
frame were key leaders from the Syrian Defense forces, Arab soldiers fighting alongside
the YPG/YPG peoples defense units of the Rojava revolution. In a full circle he counted
more than thirty women and men, all in various forms of digital camouflage, the official
uniform of Rojava. As his energy and hydration coursed through his body, Aziz
considered the moment at hand. They faced an intractable enemy. After years of fighting
IS and the Turkish military under President Erdogan, this was the moment they had been
waiting for. Uprisings had exploded across Turkey, pitting the authoritarian dictatorship
of Erdogan against the Turkish people. Bombings and occupations of public buildings,
raids on political prisoner jails and refusal to participate by opposition lawmakers had
driven the Turkish war machine to a standstill. In the beginning of the Syrian civil war,
Turkey had secretly supported the Islamic State viewing them as an ally against the
Kurdish people. As IS began to lose ground to the forces of Rojava however, turkey took
a more hostile role, directly bombing the Kurds to slow their advance against Daesh.
Despite airstrikes and killings of leftists across the region, Rojava was growing every
day. The direct democracy of decision making appealed to the people after generations
under military control. The people had had enough. And they were on the verge of
capturing the last stronghold of Turkey and IS in Syria, uniting the opposition forces and
truly creating an independent autonomous zone, where once there had been only death.

Aziz took a sip of his sweetened black tea and listened as the YPJ female

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commander outlined the assault. If successful they would capture a large amount of
Turkish military equipment, including anti-aircraft weaponry. The only open question,
what would the American’s do? The Turkish military still flew planes throughout Syria
but with the no-fly zone instituted by the Russian and American militaries, it was a risk to
the shaky peace accord. Signed without the YPG’s participation, the coalition from
Rojava had ignored it as long as President Trump was in power. With the election over
and that era of American influence undergoing rapid political change, the people of
Rojava hoped President Olivera would step in to prevent Turkish interference.

Aziz made the drive back to Raqqah that evening. The sun was still shedding light
over the northern hills when he found himself alone tracing the Euphrates River towards
the entrance of the city. The Hilux was jerking his hands off the wheel and he could tell
the transmission was about to go. All he had to do was make it back to the city. A gurgle
and popping sound greeted him as he turned the truck around an unusually large pothole.
The engine light blinked on and the truck shuddered like a spasmodic animal in its last
life throes. The truck came to a halt. Aziz shook his head. Why tonight of all nights?
Opening the door he stepped out into the latent heat and removed the tool-bag from the
back of his truck. The clock was ticking. He had to meet his contact within the hour to
disperse the plan and let all the fighters in Raqqah know the time was nigh. The engine
was overheating; coolant had sprayed all over the hood and was bubbling from the
pressure. Aziz sighed, pulled the phone from his tattered neck wallet and checked the
signal. Nothing. He couldn’t call for help. And he was stuck in the middle of the IS patrol
area. Everything could fall apart.

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The Turkish Air Force composed of over 60,000 personnel and 700 aircraft was
the most powerful in the Middle East save for Israel. The logistic trail connected directly
to the United States, sending new equipment every year to a close NATO ally. For over
forty years this military service had decimated first the PKK secessionist movement
within the borders of Turkey and then the PYG/PYJ movement in Syria (CITATION 9).
As Aziz was stuck in the desert outside the city of Raqqah, two F-35 Lighting fighterbombers streaked across the border towards the northern city of Tal Abyad, their target a
military gathering of Tev-dem militia leaders. The Turkish military had been searching
for this target for some time and the impending assault on Raqqah finally put them all in
one target rich environment. Onboard were four GBU-25 cluster bombs, delivering an
anti personnel destruction area which covered over 1000 square meters. They would end
the Tev-Dem leadership and thus the Rojava revolution with one strike.
United States Central Command picked them up as soon as they left Turkish air space.
Traditionally any over flight scenario was coordinated between Turkish and US officials,
but this flight was unplanned and not communicated. Cent-com commander scrambled
two F-22’s out of Manbij in northern Syria to intercept as she desperately tried to contact
higher ups at the Pentagon. They were minutes away from the target. The US had been
monitoring the potential advance on Raqqa by Tev-dem forces for some time though they
were unsure when it would happen. It was early morning on a Sunday in Washington, and
the Pentagon was lightly staffed as personnel were still adjusting to the Olivera
presidential transition away from the Trump era. The new National security director and
Defense secretary were yet to be confirmed so the Joint Chiefs of staff were holdovers

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from the previous administration.

The cold was washing over Aziz. The sun had gone down and he had only the
clothes on his back as he trudged towards the city. A noise behind him sent shudders
through his body as lights rose up and illuminated the desert road in front. He stepped to
the side of the road, not looking back, hoping the vehicle would pass him without
incident. He could hear voices yelling and he stopped, turned to see a pickup with men
dressed in black with assault rifles and a large black flag with Islamic writing in white
flowing behind the truck. It slowed to a stop and the men jumped out. Pointing their rifles
at him they challenged his presence “What are you doing out after curfew?” The man’s
face was covered by a kaffiyeh and his eyes were wide with suspicion. Aziz slowly raised
his hands into the air, he had no weapon, he was no threat to them. He spoke “As Salam
alaukum brother, my truck broke down on the way back to the city, I am walking home.”
The gunman strode forward lifting the rifle up to Aziz’s shoulder level and jabbed him in
the chest with the barrel, knocking him down to the rocky earth below. A sharp pain in his
back shot through him. A sick feeling in his stomach rose and Aziz vomited his lunch
onto the ground. The men laughed and the gunman motioned toward Aziz. Two men
moved quickly towards him, grabbing him by the arms and lifting him up. They dragged
him towards the truck and threw him in the back. The gunman stepped onto the running
board and thrust the butt of the rifle into Aziz’s temple blackening the stars above.

The Turkish jets were on their final approach, minutes away from their target
when the first radio call came through. The pilots were trained in the United States and

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spoke English, but when the US Air Force demanded they turn around, the pilots
remained silent. They understood perfectly well the stakes of their mission. One final
blow to the Kurdish resistance in Syria and perhaps the civil war in their own country
would come to an end. The orders they received before the flight were clear, no matter
what happened they must hit the targets. The Turkish pilots turned on their targeting
systems. They began the countdown, flicked the safeties off their triggers and prepared to
fire.

Decision-making at the pentagon was nonexistent. JCS wasn’t responding and
someone had to make a decision. The cent-com commander made the call. She would
deal with the fallout from Turkey, but the loss of the assault on Raqqa was not an option.
She gave the go order and the F-22’s were notified they were weapons free.

The Aim 120C AMRAAM or Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile was
first developed to provide a ‘fire and forget’ attack capability for the US Air Force. With a
range of up to 65 miles it can destroy a hostile aircraft before its radar signature even
picks up the weapon. Smart detection software within the missile itself allows it to
maneuver and adjust its trajectory mid-flight with no assistance from the launching
vehicle. Each F-22 Raptor was equipped with four missiles and when the American pilots
received fire clearance they unlinked the safeties, opened the guidance systems and at
twenty two miles away, let the missiles fly. Each missile cost over 500,000 dollars and
within seconds the eight missiles reached supersonic speeds. The Turkish jets had no
warning as four million dollars engulfed both F-35 jets just recently sold to the Turkish

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military in a massive ball of flame. The F-22’s did a final pass above the wreckage and
confirmed both bogeys down (CITATION 11).

The smell of piss clung to his clothes and his beard itched like a sunburn. Aziz
found himself in a dark room with fly’s buzzing around his matted head of hair. It was
nighttime and the flood of memories broke through the hazy dam, almost drowning him.
He had failed. Unable to get the word out the entire invasion could be jeopardized. If the
Asayish rebels within the city’s walls didn’t hear from him, they would be unprepared
and a brutal house-to-house assault of the city could take months, years. They must
capture the senior leaders of Daesh in one night or thousands of civilians would die.
Aziz shook his head to clear his thoughts. Taking a breath he tried to sense where
his body was in pain, his back, legs and a growing headache responded like fire. He tried
his legs and pushed himself from the sweat and feces soaked mud floor. A groan escaped
his lips. Limping towards the door of his cell, ears pressed to the cold warped metal he
listens for sounds of his captors. Nothing. Not a soul in the building. Trying the door the
handle catches but doesn’t open. Despair floods through him as the years of occupation,
abuse and fear take hold. He believed they might be able to finally end the brutality.
Then his thigh started to shake, to vibrate. For a moment he was dumbfounded,
and then it came to him. He pulled his dish-dasha up and ripped the packet taped to his
crotch. The guards must have been so high on Captagon they didn’t properly search him.
He had no weapon so they must have assumed he was no threat. Pulling the flip-phone
from its packet he called one of the two numbers in the directory. He let it ring five times
and then hung up. Within seconds he received a text back.

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You never showed. Are you safe? The asayish friend he was scheduled to meet that
weekend was somewhere in the city. Now Aziz needed to be rescued, to get word to the
militia’s.
Daesh found me outside the city after curfew. Aziz typed furiously, his fingers numb from
the abuse meted upon him over the last few hours. Must find me, am in a cell somewhere
in Raqqa, urgent tonight!
Aziz waited hoping there was some way his old friend could find him and get him out.
The next message took a long time to come through.
Our group is ready, send coordinates and wait for rescue. Aziz opened the settings tab
and pulled the satellite coordinates for the Asayish cell, texted it and sat back against the
wall breathing slowly. There was still a chance.

They couldn’t use a vehicle at night with the curfew in place, so the four-man cell
had to move amongst the trash strewn alleys as quietly as possible. Inside their minds was
a map, which houses were friendly and which ones would call the local IS commander.
The cell was fortunate with no moon on the horizon. It was dark and cold, with the last
vestiges of light long gone down the horizon. Each of them carried an assault rifle strung
to their backs and in their hands were small submachine guns, barrels sealed with
silencers for any Daesh members they run across. They could see the building now,
through a gate with high mud walls. The gate was sealed and the leader motioned for the
team members to climb the East entrance. They moved silently across the street and took
position by the lowest part of the wall. The first man falls to his knees and puts his hands
to the ground, another steps onto his back almost reaching the four-meter height of the

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wall. The next man climbs the two men’s bodies, careful to avoid the sound of metal
against hard mud. Once at the top of the wall the third man swings his leg to stabilize and
pulls the other men up one by one and they drop silently to the other side. A single guard
sits asleep in a chair by the front door. One of the Asayish moves quickly to him, drawing
a knife and jams it into his trachea sawing rapidly as blood spurts onto the concrete and
covers the limp and lifeless body. The Asayish rejoins the cell and they move to the back
of the building. They try the door and it is unlocked. Flicking on their tac-lights they
begin clearing the main floor of the one story building, searching for life.

Aziz awakens with a start. He can hear noise above him as his heart races.
Involuntarily he moves to the back of the jail room pressing his body against the cold
walls. A shout from upstairs calls his name. “Aziz! Where are you brother?” His mouth is
dry as he tries to make the words work. Finally he is able to mouth a guttural sound. A
door is kicked and lights splash the corner of the basement as foots pound down the
stairs. Four darkly dressed me come to the door and the sound of metal on metal fills the
room so loud the entire town must know something is up. The door to his jail clangs open
and an Asayish moves quickly forward lifting Aziz from his knees. “Come we must move
quickly!” The cell places Aziz in the middle and the leader hands him an AK-47. As they
move through the house he see’s bodies littering the main floor, most of them were still
sleeping when the cell burst in. Outside the darkness is as thick as the basement jail he
recently occupied. The Asayish leader breaks the lock of the main door and they escape
into the city.

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Aziz stood in the armory and placed the last charge of Semtex on a box by the
door. The liberation of Raqqa was almost complete. Explosions and sirens could be heard
across the city. Aziz feels nothing. He is exhausted from the war, from years of being
afraid and alone. In this moment, when he is on the verge of seeing the change he has
dreamed of for years, he only thinks of his mother. Of the woman who was dragged from
her house for believing in the wrong religion, and disappeared. Aziz will never know her
final moments before she was gone forever. He says a quiet prayer for her and lights the
fuse as he walks out of the armory. A minute later the final Islamic State bomb factory in
Raqqa explodes into blue and orange flame sending plumes of smoke billowing to the
heavens.

Four weeks later
The fires have been put out and the bodies buried but trash still floats in the air on
humid days. The drought has not lifted and Raqqa’s thirst is not quenched. Patrols of the
YPG/YPJ make daily trips to the Taqba Dam and bring water back to the city. Engineers
are working on repairing both the Dam and the pipes that once flowed directly to the city.
Fear is slowly giving way to exhaustion as refugees trickle back into an unrecognizable
home. Many of the buildings are demolished, the guts of homes spilling out into the
street. Ten years of war has left this portion of Syria a wreckage of its former self.
The Turkish military is in full retreat. Reports of clashes and violence are coming
in from across Turkey. The United States evacuated Incirlik air base and removed all
NATO nuclear munitions as the Turkish State fell into a civil war. Conflict had been
brewing for years but when the military refused retaliatory strikes on Kurdish positions in

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Raqqa the people rose up against the government. Key political leadership is in hiding
and street clashes happen in every major city of the great republic.
Wasting little time the liberators of Raqqa set up communal governing councils to
be quickly incorporated into the canton structure of Rojava. Each city block now meets
weekly to discuss water and food distribution, trash and toxic material removal and
taking the first steps towards universal education. The Red Crescent has visited the city
for the first time since 2013, administering medical aid and inoculations against many
seemingly eradicated diseases. Arab SDF forces have taken over primary day-to-day
security as the YPG/YPJ advance on Islamic State stragglers to the South. Aziz is with
them. He tried to stay in Raqqa but there was nothing left for him now. He believed that
upon liberation he would find peace, but nothing came to his broken heart. The
revolution, if it was to be successful, would be decided by how much land they could take
before a final peace deal. Before the Russians, Americans and all the others tried to carve
the country up again. He rides in the bed of a truck, looking out at the parched and dieing
landscape, thinking of rain, thinking of his mother and believing that someday he will
find a place to rest.

Amy
Dear Dad,

It is with a heavy heart that I write you this letter. I can no longer take your money for my
studies. I can no longer do my studies. Things in the world just aren't right. You raised
me to realize that. Now you fight the very idea. For three years you have payed for
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everything. My apartment I live in. The books and supplies I need. Even the education
you prized so highly in your own rise out of poverty. You have provided me the space I
needed to grow my mind. I have come of age and I have not done this without deep
resistance.

First, thank you for all your support and love. I could not have done this without you.
Since I left Billing’s to move to Missoula and attend University, I have had no greater
supporter than you. After mom died, you could have quit and walked away but you did
the opposite. You put even more love into me. You taught me to read books and trail
signs. You showed me how to shoot hoops and guns. When I could dance you gave me
away at high school despite your pride. Do you remember prom night? The rain was so
bad and we got in a car wreck on the way to the dance? You came and pulled us out of
the ditch and drove us to the dance, dropping us off a block away so no one would see. I
was so embarrassed but you saved me. You wanted me to stay nearer to home and go to
community college but when I decided to go to Missoula there wasn't any argument. You
just planned a weekend to explore the campus. In most ways important, you have stood
by my side through everything.

That’s what makes this process so hard. You remember the divestment campaign at the
university my first year there? The decision for me to get involved was the first major
argument we ever had. It was modeled off of a history of non-violent struggle. Boycotts
and divestments are tools that have been used from India under British rule to the civil
rights movement and apartheid in South Africa. Its been going on at universities against

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fossil fuels for years now. Montana has been an exception in northern states. Most
universities have come around but it wasn't until our campaign started that it happened
here.

Because you work for the Northwestern energy company you make your money from
Fracking. That night I came over and you threw my friends out of the house for speaking
their minds. You hung up on the phone. You stopped returning my letters. Then you
threatened to stop paying for my education. This shocked me. This made me truly
consider what I believe in.

As I grew up I observed every move you made. I listened to your words. I came to
understand how to interact with the world. To leave it a better place. To love and protect
nature. To enjoy a sunset. You gave me a passion for nature and the outdoors that burns
like a brushfire in my heart. You are a future thinker in so much but you wont do
anything about climate change. It ravages across our great state with fires of biblical
proportion. You ignore the signs. The snowmelt doesn't come like it used too. You move
up stream to where it hasn't run out yet. The beer you drink cant be made in Montana
anymore. You switch to more mainstream beers. Your wife and my mother died of
methane poisoning from a faulty frack well that burst. You buried her and moved on.
I cannot move on. Your life is receding and my life is just getting started but the future I
have inherited is not the past you lived. Your generation ripped this world apart and
wants to continue doing it, refusing to leave your positions of power. You tell us it’s our
turn to run the world yet you wont stop voting and funding a war machine that destroys

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poor cultures both overseas and here at home. We don't have much time. We don't have
time for people like me to live like hypocrites.

This letter is to convey what I truly believe in. I am leaving school and not finishing my
degree. I will not accept any inheritance. Spend it on a vacation for yourself. I am not
going to put this on you. I will take responsibility for my future and for my choices. I do
not want a college level job. There aren't any, anyway. I don't want to cover my ass in
education as if that will protect me. The glaciers are almost gone and the snowmelt that
gives us our rivers and our life is ending. Half our drinking water in Montana cannot be
drank anymore. I love this world so much and I want to at least fight for something that is
creative. Not destructive.

I have joined a group of people that will be trying to stop Fracking. To stop the very
thing that got me through life up to this point. I have learned, after three years of this
battle, that my ability as a spokesperson is not based on my ability to affect my family. It
is about how well I can represent my heart. In order to do this I have to cut ties with
anything that comes from the fossil fuel beast. I wish there was another way. But you
raised me to be the woman I have become. I am now taking your values out into the
world, even if you don't know it yet. I hope to someday see you on the front lines with me
dad. Until then, I love you. Know that I am exactly where I was born to be.
Love
Your Daughter,
Amy Hetherington

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FIFA 2022
Oscar was a soccer star at a young age. It came naturally to him and by his teenage
years he was recruited by the national team. His entire family survived off the financial
benefits of Oscar being a star. After the Qatari FIFA fiasco, he became an outspoken
critic of the regime and the sport in general. He now resides in an undisclosed location.
Interviewer-Oscar, can you tell us a little bit about where this story begins? How did
Brazil find itself in this situation?

Oscar-For years we had grown fast. Very fast. The American economic crash, the first
one back in 2008? That wasn't seen in Brazil. It didn't affect us. There were many
promises. Lula told us things would be different. We were patient. Most of us are poor,
working people. Only because I can kick the Futbol do I have a job that pays. More and
more people were becoming farther apart. When we were given the World Cup in 2008?
We were happy! Parades in the streets and we were all celebrating. They told us they
would improve everything. They said it would bring new roads and buses and
transportation. That was a lie.

Interviewer-That was during the confederations cup, yes?

Oscar-Yes. For FIFA, it was trial run. For Brazil it was embarrassment. For many people
the protests came out of nowhere. The government raised the bus fare by twenty cents
and the cities exploded. Over a million in the streets. It didn't help that the police had new
equipment. They like to test them out don't they? Yes, it was a beautiful sight. Of course I

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didn't see any of this. I was in the Maracana. The stadium. It was not yet done with the
renovations. We saw the increase of riot police as the game went on but we didn't know
what was going on. Then we began to smell the tear gas. It was floating up and over the
edge of the stadium. Some of the players, those of us who come from the favelas, we
knew the smell instantly. The evictions and drug raids all through our youth smelled that
way. Oppression smelled that way. We got a kick out of all those rich bastardos who
were able to afford tickets to the games choking on the gas. What we didn't know was the
police assault that was going on outside. They beat the people and shot them with rubber
bullets. This brought more people into the streets.

Interviewer-Why were the people in the streets?

Oscar meets my eyes for the first time. Only for a moment. His eyes are steely.

Oscar-Lula and his people promised us they would rebuild the areas around each stadium.
Sixteen stadiums meant sixteen cities that needed money. But they made a deal with
FIFA and we lost our democracy. Then it was all down hill. It wasn't just our
government. It was FIFA. They are so corrupt and they took us with them. They want
everything their way. "FIFA-quality" stadiums. Which means we had to tear down all our
stadiums and build new ones. We already had the best in the world. We breathe futbol.
We are the home of futbol. We invented the concept of the beautiful game. But this isn't
the way we wanted the World Cup. The construction of these stadiums displaced
hundreds of thousands of people (CITATION 1). The riot police killed our citizens. The

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more violence, the more people took to the streets.

Interviewer-Wasn’t Brazil finally becoming a democracy though? Weren't people being
lifted out of poverty by capitalism?

Oscar-Brazil did what it did on the pitch but the government and its corporate friends just
used the occasion to grab more power. It's only a few families that hold most of the
wealth in Brazil. They held even more of it after 2014. When the games were over, they
began to clean up everything even faster. The military never left the towns where they
were stationed. They just expanded their control. The Olympic games were two years
away and the world’s attention was no longer on the embattled Brazilian government.
The elections didn't matter; who we voted for didn't matter. We were told if we didn't cut
down the amazon for soy and beef we would collapse. We were told to grow or die. This
made people angry. We could still remember before the companies came. We could see
them trying to take everything from us. This became the rallying issue. We were all upset
about the gentrification, the police brutality, and the continuing poverty. But the legacy
and history of Brazil is one of respect and fear for the amazon. When the Portuguese
came here and brought their slaves, they only lived on the coasts. Going inland was to
risk annihilation. It was the indigenous people's power of the jungle that caused the fear.
Even the military dictatorships didn't go out into the jungle without support.

But when industrialization came, with it came the ability to literally tear down this
symbol. And make a lot of money doing it. Everyone, the corporations who profited, the

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people who planned it and the governments who condoned it, all of them passed the
responsibility on to someone else. They said, “No don't worry, it won’t affect us, there is
so much of it”. Then when their wasn't so much rain forest anymore, they said “We are
but poor Brazilians, we need to cut down these trees to get money to feed and house the
poor, to build our economy”. But this was just a farce. This never happened. The money
never went to the poor. It went to build more airports and walls to keep the people out.
By the time we only had ten percent left and the country was devastated, only then did
people, regular people, begin to see what they were doing to the land.
With the trees cut down, there was nothing to keep the air clean. Everything inside the
trees was taken away from the land and then we could taste the smoke from the factories.
The rain fell harder and flowed heavily over the land, wiping out whole villages that had
stood for over a century(CITATION 2). There was nothing to slow it down. Then we
started getting droughts. No rain. The indigenous people, well those who were once
indigenous people until the corporations came, they warned us this would happen. They
said if we defied nature, we would pay a special price. We didn't listen until it was too
late.

Interviewer-What finally changed it?

Oscar-It was the Yanno Mami. They were one of the last discovered tribes untouched by
civilization and human “progress”. They weren't afraid of our jails, they couldn't
comprehend them. They just began destroying equipment. First it was the cutting
equipment, then Fracking and transport trucks. Soon there was construction equipment

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burning all over the country. Some of those new whiz kids from Ecuador, you remember
the ones who shut down the Japanese stock exchange over illegal fishing in their waters.
Ya some of them came down to help with getting information out. They trained hundreds
of activists. Showed them how to re-purpose large websites as communication funnels
and get info out to the greater world while protecting people's identities. That was the
start of it. After that, people refused to sell their land. If it was taken from them, they
fought back for it. No longer did profit alone justify the destruction of the forests. Some
non-profits in the western world, they raised money to give villagers considering selling
their land, in order to offset their “potential” financial losses. This was the keystone. No
one had any excuse anymore to sell their land for burning it all.

Interviewer: Talk about the heat?

Oscar: Well, we never thought much about global warming till the cup. We had record
storms throughout, whether it was in the rainforest where the Americans played Spain, or
on the coasts with all the heat and water (CITATION 3). It was the first time that FIFA,
in all its wisdom, decided to have water breaks in a game (CITATION 4). To
acknowledge that from FIFA shows how serious it was. Temperatures regularly over 100
degrees. The games were able to go off without the fans seeing much, but the lasting
devastation from the floods, and their regularity is killing us all.

Interviewer-How did you organize against the games and why?

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Interviewer-Do you think the Brazil games were a success for the rich? For the country?

Oscar-They thought so before everything fell apart. When Brazil lost to Germany in
the knockout rounds, it destroyed any illusions that the games were a success. Its like
throwing a party and passing out before all the guests leave. It lifted the veil on the
country for the rest of the world. For the government, well they lost the next election
so we know what they think.

Pakistan December, 2022
It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.
-Robert E. Lee
The dirt was caked to the windows of the Land Rover like brown toothpaste
scum. The car careened around another corner, twenty kilometers over the suggested
local speed. Farmers had brought their goats and cows inside for the night. The flowers
were closed for the coming darkness. The man they called “Brian” sat in the back seat
with a laptop flipped open and ear buds in his ears, furiously plugging away at the keys.
He wore gray cargo pants with a pistol webbing hung low on his right side. His upper
clothes resembled a mismatching of various military and tech equipment. Ammo for
sidearm and primary weapon, grenades, pliers, maps, batteries and ethernet wire. He
mumbled about the satellite being out of range and pulled out a sat-phone to call back to
the staging area. There were over eight thousand soldiers involved in the assault across
the country at the moment, in various stages of deployment. The long-term security deal
with Afghanistan that had been signed in the summer of 2014 had provided a convenient
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foothold and launch pad for just such an operation. No one in the car believed it would
ever have come to this.

Pakistan had always been an unstable country. From its beginnings in 1947 as it
split from Hindu dominated India, killing two million in the mass exodus of people
across borders, it had participated in five wars with the Indian State (CITATION 1).
Everything from its support of the Taliban, Madrasa-minded education for tens of
millions of children, to the development of nuclear weapons was in preparation for a
future war with India. Long ostracized as a more ignorant Muslim country compared to
the middle-class minded states of Iraq, Syria and Egypt, and less rich then the oil infused
Saudis, Pakistan saw itself as the underdog. In 1998 in response to India's second atomic
weapons test, Pakistan detonated its first warheads five days later bringing the two
countries to the brink of war (CITATION 2). Talked down by the international
community both countries stepped back from the brink but the relationship would never
heal. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 altered the landscape and the United States came to
Pakistan with demands that carried a hefty price if refused. President Bush demanded the
opening of military bases to funnel supplies into Afghanistan for the war effort, at one
point almost ninety percent of war material flowed on trucks across the Hindu-Kush
Mountain range (CITATION 3). Pakistan overtly cooperated but never lost sight of the
real enemy, India. They continued to play all sides of the geo-political chess game. In the
1990s the Pakistani ISIS, or intelligence services had helped create the Taliban as a client
state government that, in the event of a war with India, would be an ally they could
retreat to (CITATION 4). This is part of the reason that Bin Laden was found to be

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hiding in Pakistan, the Pakistani military never viewed al Qaeda or its Taliban allies as
the major threat facing the Pakistani State. From time to time they would take military
action in the Northwest frontier province, the site of most western drone strikes for the
past 15 years. The Pakistani military would warn the locals they were coming, then do
house to house searches, where no young men were present and call it a day. Around the
end of the second Bush administration, satellite and drone coverage of Pakistan had
reached a peak with strikes of Taliban positions a weekly occurrence and spy over flights
of suspected nuclear locations became a major priority. This only made the Pakistani
State more paranoid and added a new threat to their thinking; the United States was
attempting to seize the existing arsenal of nuclear weapons in the event of a national
emergency. While terrorist groups may not have the technical capacity and knowhow to
build their own device, it was thought, they could more easily steal one and launch it at a
target of their choosing (CITATION 5).
JSOC or the Joint Special Operations Command has had a rotating task force in the
region since the outset of the American war in Afghanistan. The task force is made up of
Navy Seals and CAG for direct action missions and Army Rangers for seizing air force
facilities where the weapons might be stored. CIA officers on the ground have recruited a
large network of informants and operators who can grease the wheels of access in the
event of the need to seize the weapons. This is known as a “render-safe mission.”

The pit in my stomach was becoming larger as the driver went excessively faster. Hair
splitting turns were leading up a dirt valley road. The potholes could sink a buffalo in
them. It had not rained in four months and when the rains came the flooding had washed

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away the local crops. Thousands had fled the area with no way to afford the drought; they
ended up in regional refugee camps organized as Islamic Madrasas. Who knew where the
funding was coming from? The net result for this mission was very few witnesses.
Colonel Layton was overseeing Operation Black Widow officially but the real
commanders were the spooks on the ground for the last five years. The operation called
for fifteen locations to be seized in a twelve-hour period. The world would look very
different over the next moon cycle. The land rover hit a bump and everyone’s head hit the
ceiling. I could see the dusty camp ahead at the top of the bluff. The spook was closing
his laptop flicking his eyes at me. A glint of crazy flashed across his face and was gone,
the adrenaline fueling his system. I wanted to vomit. We turned the last corner and
arrived.

I never served in the military. I was supposed to be doing vaccinations for polio
and supposedly extinct diseases. As the region got warmer, long dead pathogens came
back with full force (CITATION 6). I was supposed to stay in Law School at William
and Mary, but when Obama was elected I felt a deeper calling to the world. I wanted to
be the change I wished to see. So in 2010 I found myself in Pakistan working on polio
eradication. Pakistan was only one of three countries to still have regular polio outbreaks
(CITATION 7). I got involved in a USAID program in order to payback my student
loans, in excess of 80K at that point. I thought I could do it for a year and get some
credentials, then skip back to the states to finish my degree. Everything was going
according to plan, till I fell in love. She was ten years older than me. She was a translator,
had been born in Kabul but had fled during the Soviet invasion. She was only six when

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her family made it to Hawaii. She was raised about as American as you can be. She spent
long hours at the library. Consuming information. By eight years old she spoke four
languages fluently: French, English, Pashto and Farsi. That would come in handy when
two planes smashed into two buildings twenty years later.

The meeting felt like a training run. Everything was going according to plan. Like
they had planned this. Well, they had been planning this hadn't they? For over ten years
equipment had been moved to the region. Maps had been drawn up, workers recruited,
enemies profiled. The whole thing had been war-gamed to death and war-gamed again.
Now it was the Super Bowl. All the training came down to this. This was the reason the
other men and women were in this room. Well, room was a charitable way of referring to
the walls that looked like a horse barn put through a few earthquakes and droughts. The
contrast with all the technology in the room was a mind-fuck. Spools of ethernet cable
stretched all over the floor like a snake pit. There was movement everywhere. No chairs
were in the room. Men and women moved with computers and assault rifles. Tables were
covered with gear of various uses. Satellite phones with microphone headsets and night
vision goggles. No specific weapon system proliferated; every soldier here had chosen
their own personal favorite. The task force had such an important mission they were
allowed to make their own choices about some things. This was the best of America,
purpose, humility, discipline and love. Love for their country, yes, but love most for one
another. They all in some way or another wanted to serve the world, to make it a better
place. Some had been in this fight for years, others, like myself were newcomers but
everyone was certain of one thing: if we fail...We can’t fail.

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I was amazed how many people we could fit in the sagging tent. Over two
hundred individuals, some never having met each other, were required to function as a
well-oiled team. A projector screen stood at the edge of the group forcing those in front
to take a knee. An overhead satellite map showed the layout of the Khushab nuclear
facility. It was a sprawling complex of research facilities and airport runways, barracks
and storage depots. The heart of the Pakistani nuclear program. The crown jewel. A
shiver ran up my spine. This was the ballgame; if we didn’t take this facility in total then
the entire operation would fail. Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists was an
unacceptable risk. This facility was locked down airtight. It was gonna be a massacre.
Around the time of the Bin Laden mission the Pakistanis realized their internal
security was not as good as they thought. Nuclear missiles that were stored in one place
made it more likely that a mission to secure them by the United States would be
successful. It was also more likely that a nuclear strike from India could knock out their
response capability. It didn't seem to matter to the Pakistanis that India had vowed to
never use nuclear weapons in a “first strike” attack unlike Pakistan who had continually
threatened to do so (CITATION 8).
I was part of a new generation of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team. Traditionally
they are the last line of defense against the use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the
world. Made up of engineers, technicians and scientists who specialize in fissile material
and its deconstruction, our history dates back as far as the 1960s when the fear of an
American nuclear plane going down in the continental United States raised fears of
contamination. In 1974 the FBI received a report that a nuclear bomb had been planted in
New York. The culprit demanded a ransom of 250,000 dollars in order to not set it off.

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The FBI scrambled experts to the area but their equipment was diverted to an airport in
another state. The threat never materialized to gain the money for the handover and it was
chalked up to a hoax. President Ford then created the NEST teams in order to avoid a
similar crisis in the future (CITATION 9). Now, our team was looking at its greatest
challenge in fifty years, nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

The briefing lasted two hours. It was strictly a tactical meeting. No politics, no
strategy, just where to point and shoot. I liked those more then the other kind. Black and
white rarely happened in real life, so I savor it when I can. Over four thousand military
personnel worked at Khushab. The mission was unprecedented. Sure, they all had
practice in responding to a meltdown back Stateside but working in a shooting
environment was totally different. The outline was simple; two ranger battalions would
parachute in near the facility and hike the five kilometers in with support from Delta.
When they had eyes-on facility, coordinated airstrikes would hit the towers, gates and
barracks to limit the response. Drones would provide constant over watch as the infantry
began to raid the complex. That’s where my team came in by helo. Working with the
Delta’s we would locate and secure the missile and artillery warheads. Once stable the
munitions were to be destroyed on site, or loaded for evacuation. Assuming the airstrip
wasn’t destroyed in the initial air strikes they could fly in C-17’s to load the munitions.
Evacuation vehicles would carry what couldn't be destroyed across the border into
eastern Afghanistan to the former military base outside Khost. There they would be
decommissioned by American and Russian nuclear experts on a slower and safer time
scale.

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That’s how it looked on paper. Reality was much different. Facing off with four
thousand well-paid Pakistani troops, many of whom had sympathies for Islamic State. As
I listened to the briefing wrap up I shook my head, wondering how I got to this point. I
had simply wanted to help kids and now I was involved in the largest nuclear raid in
world history. I looked at my watch; seeing that I had an hour before we spun up I
decided to check in on Basil Rhodes, an old friend and expert on the colonial and
political history of Pakistan. My gear was packed and prepped, and I could use some
elder advice. My preparations were done and all my equipment on the tarmac ready to lift
off. I trudged to a smaller tent with radio wires stretching through the roof. He was alone.

“Basil, my old friend, how are you?” I had kicked up dust upon entry and it now
filled the tent. The temperature was hovering at ninety degrees, though the sun had set
hours ago. The older man swiveled in his chair from a laptop that had multiple screens
open. He nodded at me. “Long night, tonight Mitch” he always called me by a shorter
incarnation of my real name. He knew I hated it, but did it anyway. I managed a mumble
as I took a seat on the cot that looked like it hadn't been used in days. It would have
another lonely night tonight, and by tomorrow none of us would ever be here, success or
failure. He was up now, moving quickly to a fridge in the corner, returning with two
glasses, filled with whiskey and a small piece of ice. I grasped it with both hands,
thanking him for my last drink. I took a sip; let the cool liquid go through its four stages
of taste. My tongue prickled and the back of my mouth seared at the sharpness. My throat
carried the warmth down into my stomach and begged for more. He looked much older
then when I met him in Syria all those years ago. That had been a much more simple

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campaign to destroy Sarin gas under the Assad regime (CITATION 10). He had aged
considerably. We all had I guess. Basil was pacing now and he began talking. He
explained everything.

Four months earlier
Signals intelligence had been picking up new threats as multiple fundamentalist
organizations went dark. Across northern Pakistan, message boards were dormant,
meeting-rooms empty and border crossings flat. Fearing this would herald an imminent
terror attack, the Pakistani military went on high alert and the United States put its forces
in the region on notice. Nothing happened. No attack, no noise, not even the traditional
community programs that the various groups used for recruitment. Then, two months
later, a joint press conference announcement. The 3 main anti-Pakistan organizations
were uniting into one powerful group. This included the Kashmiri separatists and the
remnants of the Taliban and the Baluchistan independence movement. These groups
didn't have the same social or religious backgrounds, but they had one thing in common,
a desire to topple the Pakistani State. Alarm bells went off in Moscow and Washington.
They had learned hard lessons in Chechnya, Iraq and Syria what happens when you
ignore the Islamists as they unify against you. Sensing a moment of action, jihadists from
all over the Arabian Peninsula, once again flocked to Pakistan to fight a holy war in the
name of Islam. Meanwhile the Pakistani government was crumbling from within. Years
of corruption and infighting among the elite left the education system in shambles;
infrastructure was falling apart with roads deteriorating and public transit limited to oilbased infrastructure. And then there was the drought. One quarter of the economy was

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based on agriculture and as the rains came less and less it forced farmers and their
families into the rapidly industrializing cities. There were no jobs here of course, and
people turned to crime to earn a scrape-by living. The police became more corrupt as
their salaries couldn't keep up with the bribes people were willing to pay. Power outages
began to reach Islamabad and Peshawar on a daily basis, while the ruling elite funneled
more and more money into their own private accounts. Losing credibility among the
people, the military had no choice but to use India as a scapegoat for all their problems.
The region was a tinderbox waiting for a match.
The spark came in the fifth year of a devastating drought. Both India and Pakistan
suffered but it was India that made the first move. Sensing weakness in Islamabad the
Indian military seized control of the Indus River in Kashmir, the largest source of fresh
snowmelt water from the Himalayas. Five dams run through the Kashmiri State, which is
claimed by both India and Pakistan as a central dispute since 1947(CITATION 11). In
1960 a treaty was signed creating a power sharing agreement over six rivers, three to
India, three to Pakistan. Two months ago, that agreement still held. Then Indian Special
Forces seized the dams and diverted the water triggering an international crisis.
Pakistan’s government had no initial response and nationalists were emboldened. Nearly
twenty percent of Pakistan’s water supply disappeared overnight throwing food prices
into an upward spiral. Within days, massive protests tore across the country. Foreigners
were targeted; government buildings and military bases became ground zero for anger.
The people wanted revenge. War seemed a distinct possibility and insurgent groups were
gaining popularity.
That was when the JSOC commander was called to the White House. President

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Olivera had gotten few military votes, her unwavering focus on climate change and
reducing the active military proved an impediment. She hadn't touched the JSOC
community however, viewing it like previous President’s as an important tool in
international “diplomacy”. The meeting had been longer than expected and worst-case
scenario plans for Pakistan seemed to be on the table. A US navy carrier was dispatched
to the Persian Gulf and the possibility of nukes falling into enemy hands was on
everyone’s mind. That’s when I got involved. NEST teams were traditionally a
reactionary force. Working with limited information in a short time frame we tried to
neutralize worst-case scenarios. Having two months to prep for a mission was like a
godsend and almost complicated things for us. We had too much time to think.
The old man paused; the history in his bones was the history of this region. Too
much time to think. The press were claiming that climate change could bring about the
first nuclear war. We had to prevent it.

There were fifteen simultaneous missions. Fifteen nuclear targets that needed to
be secured before dawn if there was any chance to avoid a war with India, China or
Pakistan itself. The American President was moved to a secure location, leaders of the
Senate intelligence committee were made aware of it only hours ago. All worldwide units
were at Defcon two, imminent nuclear war. The entire defense structure of the United
States was focused intensely on this country of 210 million people. JSOC was facing the
largest air assault since Normandy in World War II. The majority of the special
operations community would be on the ground in Pakistan for a ten-hour period. Every
trick in the book had been used to smuggle personnel into Pakistan over the preceding

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month. Aid programs and education visits, cross border trading vehicles and plain
tourism. Staging in the various regions where the nuclear sites were dispersed, they
checked on contacts, conducted reconnaissance of their locations and waited. Half of the
sites were located close to civilian populations which presented its own problems. The
isolated locations were built to survive aerial attack, not a direct assault. Getting to every
location without a missile launch was next to impossible but if they could take Khushab,
the nuclear command center, they could shut down the command and control procedures
for the other launch sites. Pakistan had over two hundred known nuclear warheads and a
quarter of these were primed for launch (CITATION 12). Those were priority number
one. More dangerous were the battlefield tactical weapons. It was thought some regional
commanders, especially near Kashmir, had been authorized to use them in the event of a
command and control breakdown. That was at best a guess and what was sticking in the
back of all our minds. If a regional commander decided to launch against India, it could
bring on a nuclear war between the former countrymen.
Indian military commanders had been briefed on the need to not show any
“hostile” actions towards Pakistan for fear they might trigger something unstoppable. The
Chinese were standing by in an unprecedented show of support with aid helicopters in the
event of catastrophe. Of course, their country bordered the conflict zone of Kashmir and
thus were probably at most risk of nuclear fallout should it all go to shit. There was also
the pesky issue of the Uighur Separatists fighting the Chinese government and having a
safe training haven across the border in Pakistan. They could launch military operations
against the Chinese State and retreat across the sovereign border to safety. The Russians
were a surprise participant in the raid. Providing air support against possible Pakistani

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military flights, they would secure all airspace over the targets Russia had provided
nuclear experts that were at the Khost military base waiting to disarm some of the devices
should they prove impossible for the NEST teams. I didn't expect to need them. If we got
to that point we were all in trouble.
Basil got up to get another drink, turned and looked at me with a bushy eyebrow
raised, I signaled I had consumed enough already. We had met in years following the Bin
Laden raid, when American’s were particularly unpopular, and struck up a friendship.
The man had few social skills but his analytical brain and penchant for good whiskey was
more than enough to build a relationship. I checked my watch. We had twenty minutes
before departure.
Basil had stopped pacing and was looking out through the tent flap. It was
unnervingly quiet. There was little movement, as if they floated into a mist, not knowing
what awaited on the other side. He took a deep breath and turned to me. His voice
conveyed his years of experience and it cracked as he explained how this was the last
time we would see this beautiful country. No matter how it went tonight, United States
personnel would never be permitted to step foot in this country again. The State
Department had advised all non-essential personnel to evacuate the country over the last
few months. We were all that was left.

The coup came from the same place they always do, the military. This time it was
the Army, those who had fought the Taliban and its incestuous cousins. There were
sympathizers within each military unit but the majority of support for Islamist militias lay
within the officer corps. The politicians had failed to make any decision regarding the

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Indus River incident, so when the twitter alerts from military handles began showing
politicians in the backs of trucks hogtied, the country celebrated. Quickly all operations
against the Islamic State were canceled and the Pakistani military was deployed to the
border regions with India. It was never clear how much communication took place
between the militia’s and the military, but the world held its breath.
Pleas for cooperation and calm streamed in from across the globe, even the Pope
weighed in, but Pakistan was ready for war. If they had to go out in a nuclear holocaust
they were going to take India with them. The United Nations was unable to come to any
resolution, and NATO wrung its hands about possible military action. The American
president began quiet conversations with a few key leaders around the world, and
activated the quiet professionals back home.

I took the last drink from the lowball whiskey glass and rose to my feet. Basil
extended his hand and I took it with mine. We said nothing and I nodded goodbye. My
feet began the brisk walk towards my gear outside the tent. I grabbed my assault pack just
as the first helicopter was spinning its engine up. Grabbing my sensor bag and my night
vision I slipped it over my padded helmet and hooked up with my team. Basil wouldn't be
going with us. He would be helping to run communications from the forward operating
base and then destroying the site. Once the mission was over he was on his own to find
his way across the border.
Our helicopters had Pakistani call signs and had been cleared for a training mission for
the evening; at least we wouldn't be shot down on our way to Khushab. There were no
guarantees after that.

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A brusque, audible voice rang out and we loaded onto the MH-47. I climbed into
the back and was met with the camouflaged and rugged faces of thirty rangers. The nest
teams were dispersed between various helicopters so if one went down there would be
others to finish the job. I didn’t want to do it all myself but if we had too I thought it was
possible. We just had to disable the warheads and then our airstrikes could finish the rest.
My stomach lurched as the help rose from the ground, swinging its tail back towards
Basil’s tent and slid forward to Khushab. I slid on my headphones to hear the pilot’s
communications. Forty minutes to target. A female ranger next to me was already asleep,
her head against my shoulder. How the heck could you sleep before something like this? I
spent the time staring out the window at the darkness. It was almost midnight, and I could
see very little. Four hours on location. The Ranger Captain complained this was an
unsafe amount of time on target. It couldn’t be helped. Disarming nuclear warheads
wasn’t easy, like shooting someone. That was straightforward; my job required a lot more
discernment.
Ten minutes to target. The rangers began to wake up. At the same moment they
racked their rifles loading a round into the chamber. Night vision goggles were switched
on. Equipment was checked. Bodies swiveled towards the one exit at the read and final
thoughts were pushed aside. One minute. The Chinook began to descend towards the
target. I could see lights from the city out the porthole. The base was running on auxiliary
power. This was it. I pulled my pistol and chambered a round. Grabbing my nuclear
sensor I switched on the frequency elevator. Everything was working properly. The
wheels hit the ground and the back door was already open. Like a stream of fish, the
rangers flowed out of the chopper, rifles up pointed at whoever would oppose them. I

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followed as the last of them left. It felt like minutes but probably lasted 15 seconds and I
found myself lying in the grass next to a ranger with a huge machine gun pointed toward
the gate. No lights were on in the city, the power had been cut and the diesel back up
generators hadn't come on line yet. I was attached to second squad, our bodies painted in
a pastel color only seen through night-vision so I knew who to follow. Someone grabbed
my body armor from the back and lifted me to my feet. A grinning ranger nodded for me
to follow and we took off in a run towards trench outside the main gate. My feet pounded
the pavement trying to get as close to the man in front of me as possible. Suddenly the
lights in the facility began to come on and search lights stabbed out into the darkness.
Everyone around me went prone and slid to the edge of the ditch, making it right before a
light panned across my previous position. My heart was pounding and I suddenly felt
extremely dehydrated. I fumbled for my camelbak and droplets of water spilled over my
lip down my chin as I sucked hard. Fear was pulsing through my body. I rolled onto my
stomach and reached for the pistol I had dropped. I grabbed it and peered over the edge.
There was movement inside the compound, what had happened to the airstrikes, I
thought. The ranger next to me was staring intensely through thermal goggles. Flashing
his hand he counted out twelve security forces he could see. Pulling down the goggles,
his hand moved to an earpiece and then he was motioning me down, deep into the earth.
That’s when the night lit up like so many Fourth of July fireworks. The guardposts exploded one after another, shrapnel thrown in every direction. Fire erupted
towards the sky from inside the base, and I could hear ammunition exploding from a
direct hit. The dull pop of sniper rounds lit up beside me as the security forces were taken
down one after another. Expended bullet shells, like a fireplace landed on my skin and

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burnt hot flesh. My headset keyed the ‘go order’ and we all rose as one to sprint towards
the gate. Two rangers were already prepping a detonation charge on the locks. We swung
around a pillar and the charges went off, blasting the door inward towards the now
burning towers. The rangers moved slowly into the compound, their rifles scanning back
and forth. Through my night vision I could see the PEC-4 lasers moving across the
courtyard. I knew from the mock-throughs that my building was on the left after the first
access point. Our squad moved to it and busted the door open. Two guards moving up the
windy stairs from below were executed with two rounds each and we proceeded down to
the bottom level. I was breathing heavily but it felt like my feet weren’t even touching the
floor. It was as if I was being carried. Reaching the ground floor we found a technician
being subdued by the lead gunner and a door with the international nuclear symbol on it.
I braced myself; behind those doors was our first target. A keypad was placed next to the
existing one and it began scanning for patterns of fingerprints left on the keys. The
technician’s keycard was slid into the slot and the door opened. A whoosh of air and we
were inside.
We could hear screaming and explosions up on the roof but nothing was left alive
down here except for us. My heart was pounding and sweat slicked my fingers like my
prom night. There was a control panel that our computer guy immediately jumped on and
connected his portable laptop to. Informing us we had communication with the other
facilities, I moved towards the warheads to manually disengage them. These missiles
were linked and thus armed. All they needed was a target. We had to shut them down
quickly.

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I was drenched in sweat. Even down below the earth, the heat was excruciating.
The generators had gone off line after the airstrikes on the towers. The warheads, about
the size of a kitchen table, were being loaded but we were unable to locate ten of the
tactical nuclear weapons. The artillery shells that were easy to move. They could have
been removed anytime over the last month, but it was anyone's guess as to where they
were. I stashed the rest of my equipment and looked around for my assigned ranger team.
The woman who had slept on my shoulder was in a crouched position behind a concrete
barrier meant to stop truck bombs. She was bleeding down the left side of her face. I
motioned to her and she rose, limped towards me.
“Where is the rest of the team?” I asked.
She shook her head, not meeting my eyes. They were gone. I looked at my watch; we
were scheduled to pull out in fifteen minutes. I could still hear small arms on the other
side of the facility. My adrenaline had left and a cold sickly feeling was flowing over me
like a river. I exhaled deeply and tried to concentrate, ten artillery rounds still missing.
The silos were all open and the missiles were being raised up to the surface. A perimeter
of rangers had encircled every one and began to attach linking cables to help mount them
to the Chinooks. It was still inky black and the only illumination was the chem-markers
laying around each silo for the coming hero’s. The warheads would be taken first then all
personnel would load out on the other black hawks and leave this country. I tried the satphone and got no response. Someone higher up needed to track the missing warheads.
Could we have been wrong about the inventory at Khushab? Were these warheads ever
really here? Pakistan was known for disinformation. During the second invasion of Iraq,
everyone believed Saddam was making nukes because he continued to state behind

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closed doors that this was true. We never thought he would bluff the world in order to
intimidate his regional allies (CITATION 13). We had been wrong. Very wrong, and
millions had died for that mistake. How many would die for this one?
We had lost most of the rangers in my squad and their bodies were laid out in
olive drab bags near our gear, awaiting their last flight. The thwop-thwop of our
deliverance could be heard over the incessant barking of dogs. Almost home. That’s
when the sky lit up in an orange haze of rocket fire.

RPG's and small arms with tracers struck out at the incoming helicopters and the
rangers around me swung their weapons towards the end of the compound. Pakistani
troops were pouring into the compound. They sprinted off towards the shooting and I
heard the radioman screaming to the helicopters to break off. One of them turned too late
and provided a fat juicy target for the unmanned rocket that slammed into its back rotor.
The Chinook quickly lost power to its rear engine and the back sagged downward pulling
it into a violent death spiral. Flesh and metal were sprayed outward as it came down on
the outskirts of the city, a giant flame ball licking up towards the sky. I was screaming to
my team to prep the rest of the warheads for destruction. If we couldn’t get them out then
they would be incinerated with this place. It would contaminate the entire area and could
have lasting effects on the city five kilometers down the road but that was orders. Don't
let them fall into the hands of anyone else. My team, with little military experience, and
much less in a combat role worked hard and fast. My nervousness was gone, replaced
with anger and determination. The firefight was withering and the call went out over our
radio’s to take cover. F-35’s were on station and would be taking out the stragglers. The

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NSA had sent a computer virus through the Pakistani air defense system the previous
evening and they were still trying to figure out what was a bird and what was an aircraft.
On top of that the Russian air force had mobilized a massive wave of air to ground
missile strikes to target radar and anti-aircraft installations.
The explosions ricocheted noise between the buildings and smoke billowed up
from what were the remnants of the Pakistani security forces. Rangers were sprinting
back to the warheads and the helos were called in for extraction. As the rotors buffeted
me like waves off the California coast, I reached up to grab the chains lowered to me.
Scrambling to strap them in I watched as twenty-ton nuclear warheads were hoisted up to
the protective beds designed specially for this mission. Waving them off we watched the
Chinooks rise into the night back toward the Afghan border just as the Blackhawks came
in to take us away. The bodies were loaded first. Too many to count but we couldn’t
leave anyone behind. I checked my NEST team, all accounted for, and stepped into the
last Blackhawk. The helo rose and its nose dipped forward towards the base in Khost.
The crew chief looked at me with relief and I just nodded my head back against the
bulkhead and passed out.

Khost, Afghanistan
The flight only took a few hours. We touched down on the runway and no one was there
to meet us. They had already had plenty of flights; we had one of the longest commutes
across the border. I hopped out and headed toward what looked like the command tent.
Injured rangers were being carried towards a medical hut that had been quickly set up. I
went to the TOC to report and see if we could tell what had happened to Basil. Did he get
out of there? What about the other teams? I needed information. I had slept the entire trip
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and felt like the mission had been days ago instead of hours. The sun was beginning to
come up over the mountains. The rangers had been reliable, but had lost a large amount
of men and women. The tactical operations center was filled with military personnel from
all branches and civilians as well. My boss saw me and waved me over. He was talking
excitedly, not even acknowledging the mission we had just completed. Thirteen of the
fifteen targets had been successfully hit. The last two were still in massive firefights and
extraction was looking less plausible. One of them was near Kashmir. I looked up at the
big board with all the colors denoting our forces and those suspected to be Pakistani or
civilian. We had gotten there too late. An Islamic State cell had arrived at the facility
before our operation and was moving the warheads when the raid started. I wanted to talk
about the missing tactical nukes at our facility but my boss wasn’t having it. There were
too many other things going on to focus on that right now. I just sat back and tried to stay
out of the way. My mission was over.

In the end it was the human penchant for revenge. An emotional response to
legitimate anger. America had been the bigger kid on the playground for as long as
anyone could remember. Pakistan was the nerdy weird kid with his brain stuck in a book.
Until that kid grew up and outsmarted the USA. Kashmir had been a flashpoint since
partition, giving a physical example of the enmity between two great nations. The Islamic
State seized upon this hatred when they raided the Kashmir nuclear facility. At first they
were fought off by the Pakistani military, but wave after wave of suicide attackers
breached the walls. The militants took the base but had no way to access weapons
systems. There was only one thing that could bring the militants and the beleaguered

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Pakistan military together. It was their hatred for the American’s. As the outskirts of the
facility burned, a small group of technicians, with the nuclear codes made a fateful
decision. The Shabab-7 intercontinental ballistic missile had a range of four thousand
miles. With the American strike force closing in on their underground compound, three
technicians programmed the missile for atmospheric detonation, turned the keys for
activation, and with bearded militants looking over their shoulder, they pressed the
button.

The American Delta teams had barely reached the second concrete ring of barricades
when they heard a deep roar like the shuddering of a giant machine. The missile exploded
out of its silo and streamed straight into the sky leaving a white trail behind. Back in
Khost, the computer screens all blinked rapidly, tracking the rogue missile. At the
pentagon alarm bells wailed and satellites began to track the missile as it left the
stratosphere and arched towards North America. Anti-missile systems launched their
rockets but it was too late. The missile reached the border of North America and all
satellite feeds at NORAD went dark.

Kazakhstan
The flags of all nine countries hung at equal height saying much about the power of
the agreement. For the first time in world history, all existing nuclear powers had agreed
on massive reductions in their genocidal stockpile. Standing in front of each flag on a
raised platform adorned with microphones, was the political leader of each nation. They
wore their best dresses and suits, stoic figures holding their breath for the future.

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The Russian president walked to the dais and placed his hands upon the podium. His
thinly opened eyes danced across the crowd, taking in a packed auditorium in the former
Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. The talks had begun the moment hostilities had ceased
within Pakistan. The nuclear explosion had wiped out the forward military post that had
served as a command hub for the joint Russian-American Operation Black Widow. The
Russians, being closest to the crisis in a physical sense, had also suffered the most.
Surprising everyone, the Russians had not only sent troops to the raid to seize nuclear
weapons from the extreme militants that formed the coup, but they had led the push to
abolish nuclear weapons. The President cleared his throat and began to speak in Russian
as the translators hopped to their role:

"Since the beginning of the so-called "Cold War" we Russians have never wanted to
possess these weapons. Nevertheless we felt so much fear for our own safety, we found it
necessary in order for survival that we built them. We built many and by this action,
contributed to our own economic crisis. Let it be clear, we are a country that has never
used these weapons against another nation of the world. With this agreement, we will
destroy a great many of these weapons and take the largest step towards never repeating
these mistakes again."

In attendance were survivors of the only three nuclear battlefield survivors still alive.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kazakhstan. Media from every imaginable source leaned in to
every word from the Russian leader. The world was slowly letting out its breath after six
months of nuclear poker.

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"With so much at stake, our nations cannot continue to invest so much energy
towards violence. These resources that have been diverted to keep the world at war must
now be diverted towards the greater threat, the dangerous storms and droughts gripping
our lands. These changes threaten us all, and only a planet-wide approach has any hope
of getting us through this dangerous time"

The room rose to its feet, cheers and yelps of hope rained down from the upper levels
of the large auditorium as if the heavens were opening for only a moment. Even the other
leaders standing behind the Russian president were smiling, clapping, many of them
never believing this was possible. Only a few years before this scene would have been
laughable. The American's and the Russian's agreeing on nuclear arms reductions, let
alone a global agreement to destroy existing stockpiles and ban future research. Along
with that a last minute deal to ban the weaponization of space had been inserted by the
French government after a multi-month occupation of the parliament by determined
citizens. Demanding the restriction of earths atmosphere as the barrier upon which
weapons could cross, these students and scientists, farmers and workers had opposed the
new weapons spending taken on by the conservative French government. This
government had fallen and a new coalition framed around protecting space for the
peaceful exploration of space.
The agreement would last twenty-five years and money saved from maintaining the
weapons would flow into a global pool to help remediate climate change. It was a far cry
from the negotiations of the 1980s when Reagan sat in the White House. It was a lasting

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agreement. And the best possible thing to follow such a disaster.

Maggie NFL Child 2023
“Why does no one like football anymore dad?” Her voice interrupted the
advertisements. Hugh Jacobs, father for 13 years, let out a sigh of frustration and
distraction.
“That’s a long story I don't think your generation has the patience for” he mused. They
sat on the leather green couch frayed and used, purchased before she was born. The
Green Bay Packers were having a particularly difficult time with the Monsanto Vikings
this frigid Sunday. The snow was falling in Minnesota. Being an indoor stadium was
supposed to prevent the “elements” from coming inside. However the generators had
tripped again, pausing the action and leading to an ever-increasing amount of
commercials. NFL games, which used to stretch into the three-hour range, were now
pushing four and the fan base had reacted by reliably decreases in viewership. Only two
days before the weather had been in the seventies and the clim-cast for Sunday had been
a bright sunny day. They had been wildly off the mark yet again. There was no
predictability for the weather anymore, Hugh thought.

“Please dad! I promise I’ll listen. You don’t even yell at the TV anymore. Do you
remember when your friends used to come over to watch?”
He did remember. Before all the rule changes. Back when things hadn't been so bad. Now
there was too much to distract people. It had gotten hot everywhere and the football
season, which traditionally had been fall weather became like summer more often. Then
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in the depths of the Christmas fairytale the weather swung to below freezing
temperatures. 70-degree shifts within hours made it impossible to predict a Twenty-four
hour cycle. More games were canceled. They had just opened up Tuesday Night
Football(TM) for games that were canceled on Sundays. Indoor stadiums had regulating
systems, but the few outdoor stadiums that were left; well they were for the crazy fans
that had nothing to lose. Two fans had already died of frostbite at a Packers game this
season. No one sold out their stadiums anymore. The television experience was just too
good, and football wasn’t worth dying for.

“Alright Magdalena” he said, rolling up the magazine. Might be a good chance to
bond with Maggie, since she was always at her mother's.
“Describe what you see on FLEX-TEL. What are the players wearing?”.
Maggie sat for a minute, not understanding the significance. She glanced over at their
new rollable smart TV that was plastered onto the wall. The wind whipped outside. The
droning sound of the announcers explaining a new product that the quarterback uses to be
great at his game. For years now corporate profit had taken over the sport.

“Well, I remember the last time the Packers won the Super bowl back in 2019 and
then the strike the next year. That seemed to be the start of things. I remember when they
used to wear those weird helmets...” her voice staggered off and was interrupted by her
father’s laughter.

“Ha ha ha, they wore those helmets for over 70 years and there wasn't a problem.

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That’s something your generation doesn't remember” The first smile grew on his lips in
some time. The whiskers of his mustache curled over his teeth. Maggie, not being used to
this, quietly urged him to go on. He rarely laughed or talked much, his breathing
apparatus got in the way of too much movement and exertion.
“Ok, so they had these helmets that worked, then they changed em, and the players went
on strike, and then football sucked?” Her voice was teeming with sarcasm. “Is that what
happened Hugh?”.

He sighed. She was using his name instead of “Dad”. This happened when she
was annoyed. He could never have referred to his father by his first name. He would have
gotten the belt. Times change. The power was still out at the stadium. Might as well try to
bond with his daughter. It was clear that she was trying. He didn’t have much time left.
Why was this so hard?

“Okay” he leaned forward. Staring into the wall, as if searching for a long lost
thought, he began:
“Long before you were born, way back in the 1990's, football was entering its golden
era.” He coughed hard into his arm and then resumed.
“It’s hard to imagine now but there weren’t many things a family like us was worried
about. Not like today.” He grimaced and breathed short fast jerky breaths. “Of course we
still had to work to get by and pay bills but it was a lot easier. I don't remember worrying
about much aside from when the next game was on. I’d look forward to it all week and
then settle down on the couch and cheer for the Pack or the Badgers. You had to have

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cable back then to see the games, NETFLIX hadn’t purchased the rights yet.”
She was making eye contact and had settled down for one of his longer stories. He
paused to sip his homemade moonwort beer The Halftime was topless women of every
color, the NFL's attempt to show its diversity. “FLEX-TEL OFF” he said and the
wallscape smart screen folded in on itself to conserve energy.

“Back then, everything seemed sky high. Like it could never end.” She had seen
videos saying as much. “The Internet had just been invented and people still didn’t have
cell phones. Getting together on the weekends provided a welcome distraction from
work. College players weren't even paid back then.” He gulped down a third of the beer,
pausing as if lost in thought. “The sunsets were not so ominous.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dad, they are still pretty, all pink and purple, and they last a
long time”.
“Well a lot of that has to do with the pollution my dear. But, you are missing the point.
To those of us who lived through the those days, they were better days”. She winced at
that slight at her future on the planet. And her generation. “Sorry”, he said. “I just miss
the old days”. She nodded and he continued.
“The first big thing was the concussions. It started when our quarterback, Brett Favre was
injured seriously after he played too long. Then other important players got injured and
the social pressure to hold players out of games for medical reasons took hold. It called
into question the fundamental safety of the game. If any particular hit could cause a
concussion and end a players career, then how could the excitement of the sport overrule

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the safety aspect?”
“But couldn't they just design different helmets? And why did those injuries just start in
the 1990's?”
“Well like I said, they had helmets that worked for over 70 years. It wasn't the equipment
that was the problem. The game changed. Instead of defensive games there were rule
changes that favored offenses. Faster. More points. That’s what the American people
wanted. Or that’s what the NFL told the American people they wanted.”
He rose slowly from the chair and moved to the refrigerator for another beer. “You want
something to drink honey?”
“No I'm fine thanks.” He was walking slowly and she tried to hide the concern on
her face as he shuffled back. “Are you feeling okay?” her voice almost broke at the end
of the words.
“Yeah I'm fine. Just getting old. Now where was I?” He wasn’t that old, he was
simply suffering from lung problems, everyone in the town was after Governor Walker
had opened another toxic waste dump just down the street.
“You were telling me about what the American people wanted.”
“Right, so the NFL changed all these rules which made the game quicker. There had
always been injuries in the game, but with the rule changes and the fact that players were
getting bigger than ever it made for a perfect poison. We didn't know it at the time but
most of the players were using steroids of some kind. Performance enhancing drugs, they
were called. You can’t really blame them. Millions of dollars on the line. Most players
only got two or three years to make money and then they were out of the league. Of
course, you had some playing until forty but that was rare.

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“Like Brett Favre?” She had never seen him play live but had seen all the
highlight tapes at Christmas when the family got together and sports highlights were the
only thing they could all agree upon.
“Yeah, like Brett. He's a good example of the pressure to succeed. All these
players now, they don't know how to do anything other than play football. When their
career is over their life is over. Sure, some of them can get a job announcing or
something like that but for most of ‘em, it’s being a bouncer at a strip club or talking
about their careers to anyone who will listen. It’s not like they have great financial advice
on how to save money. Most of ‘em spend it all before they leave the league.”
“So, when did the steroids become a problem?”
“Well” he said as he scratched his head, “Congress started investigating in 2018 and it
was only a matter of time before it took the whole thing apart. Football was more about
getting an edge or passing a physical then it was about becoming bigger. A lot of players
were already incredible athletes but they were pushed by 70,000 screaming fans to go to
their limits. When you start throwing three hundred pound players at high speeds against
each other it will cause damage. The human body isn't meant to have bones deal with that
kind of stress.” He coughed again, this time sounding like a dog spitting up garbage. He
wiped his mouth on his sleeve and continued. “People wanted to see it, needed something
violent to take their minds off their crappy wages, off the job cuts and the stupid wars.”
“But we still have wars going on dad” she had that smirk on her face again.
“Well, yes we do, but these are smaller, a bit more desperate now. But that’s not the
point. The point is that we were all looking for a distraction, sports provided that for
people, among other things, and steroids brought the end. Everyone was cheating on

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some level, that was the whole problem with all this technological development; we
started to know everything wrong that people were doing and our morality couldn't
evolve fast enough to deal with it. But with football, that was always something we could
count on, no matter how bad things were, even if you were a Cleveland Browns fan, you
could look forward to Sunday.
“Then they signed the corporate sponsorship deal and specific teams began
advertising for oil companies on their team logos. The play calling in the first quarter was
put up for auction and just like American Idol; people could vote in the plays that they
wanted to overrule the coach. When the best players were found to be cheating, and
Congress, which was eager to deflect attention away from all the natural disasters, began
investigating, it screwed up the whole sport. People began to walk away. It wasn't about
morality; it was about the rule changes and the betrayal. People felt truly betrayed by the
commissioners of the league and by the players themselves. Once that happened and
college players began to get paid, this was to keep them in college as long as possible, the
NFL just collapsed from the inside.”
He paused to sip his beer, lost in thought.
“It’s like everything else in this country, the trick is to convince everyone that we
can just keep growing, keep getting bigger, that there aren't any limits. So everyone
invests their money, time, energy and their emotions into the project and they find
themselves strung out, hung out to dry, if you will, and the whole bubble bursts. It blows
up and the working people are left to clean up the mess. Or drown in it.”
Magdalena was sitting crossed legged on the floor, leaning towards her father;
they hadn’t talked like this in years. Mom had told her she had better speak to her father

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more before the end came. Her mother was always so abrupt and awkward, Maggie hated
that. Her mind wandered as her father continued to speak.
“The whole thing was compounded by the sexual assault scandals. It wasn’t news that big
men who are trained in violence on the field might perpetrate it when they get off it. It
started with just a few players. The NFL had enjoyed immunity from prosecution; after
all, these guys were our real hero's, until one specific video from an elevator changed
everything (CITATION RAY RICE). With all the cameras and media it went viral very
quickly. Suddenly women who had been quiet for years came out of their silence and
began telling about physical and sexual abuse that had happened to them. This coincided
with greater scrutiny of the university education system and the military as well. Really
the NFL was the beginning of awareness on that issue. I didn’t realize it. I denied it for a
long time. Your mother knows about that”. He said this last sentence ruefully; Maggie
wasn’t quite sure how to take it.
“At one point the rates of abuse were something like fifty percent of women in
our society. It was such an overwhelming number and there were so many brave women
that stood up, there was nothing that could be done by the institutions but to agree to
radical changes. Counseling was enforced from the moment people were drafted into the
NFL. Military personnel were finally screened for domestic violence and entire
universities came to a standstill until those administrators and board members responsible
for dragging their feet were fired. For many people they just stopped watching the games.
Sponsors dropped out of the picture and revenue fell. When some NFL owners got caught
abusing women the whole thing blew up. In a league that was used to incredible growth
every year, this threw a wrench into the whole thing. The collective bargaining

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agreements that had governed the league for over twenty years were scrapped for a more
money making scheme. Before, all the teams had the same amount of money to spend on
players. The winner of the Super Bowl was always punished the next year, which led to
parity and the belief that on any given Sunday any team could come out victorious.
Certain wealthy owners argued that a privatized league could be more flexible during the
economic crisis of 2018. This led to certain teams always dominating. It’s also why there
was a player’s strike.”
“For all its nationalist hype, the NFL functioned as a socialist institution for over
twenty years and during that period it was the most successful business model in the
United States. They were even a 501-c3 non-profit until the crash. They could write off
billions of dollars in taxes. They also had a strong players union that held the corporate
execs accountable. Once the league started charging television money for every
individual game, many bars couldn't afford it. Programming blackouts occurred in places
like Green Bay, which had a sixty-year history of selling out all its games. The American
people aren't stupid and they knew they were getting hosed. There is only so much people
will take before they walk away.”
“But you still watch football” her eyes wouldn't leave his lips.
“Yes. Yes I do. Football still brings back memories of Dad. My dad, your Farfar
(Norwegian for grandpa). Watching it was the only thing that we could do together
without arguing. It was the way that we bonded and shared time together. It was our
family.”

She was still looking at him, but her face had changed from confrontation to sympathy.

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He had really found happiness in this retreat from chaos. Football wasn't just a game to
him and he was still loyal to it, even its current incarnation. She reached out her hand and
put it on his knee.
“I’m sorry dad, I wish I could have seen football the way it was when you grew
up” she squeezed his leg, showing the first compassion they had shared since she was a
toddler.
“Yep, it was something, it was something.” He sighed and layed back in the chair.
The FLEX-TEL had unrolled and turned itself on and the power in the stadium had
returned once again. The quarterback was at the line of scrimmage yelling out his
officially sanctioned cadences.
“BP OIL DRILL, BP OIL DRILL! Set HIKE!

PART II

Olivera 2023
The journey was political as much as it was personal. The President was
responding to yet another climate crisis in Colorado. This is the state that had put her
over the top in electoral votes. Now, the University of Colorado State was gone. Half of
the city of Fort Collins had burned to the ground. The firefighters, trying to protect some
of the wealthier suburbs unwittingly turned the fire back on the student’s structures.
Many young people lost their lives. Over a thousand now. The President was going to
announce new plans around rebuilding. Then after that she would take a trip up to the
mountains to look into cloud seeding at the ski resorts that were so popular. Vice

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President Bob Davis had been picked to balance the ticket, but was sidelined once in
office. While a climate denier before the campaign he had focused on Libertarian values
and avoided any major missteps. He had been a compromise for the ticket in order to
defeat the Trump phenomenon then sweeping the world. People wanted change and they
saw their institutions as the primary enemy. They were willing to choose anyone that
hated the elite, and that’s something the President and her unusual choice for VP had in
common. Neither came from the elite.

The headwind buffeted the VC-25 and the engines whined against the storm. Rain
slashed against the windshield as Lt. Colonel Sherry Lewis, today's pilot for Air Force
One, squinted into the clouds and shook her head. The jet-stream had changed so much in
the last few years that it took almost twice as much gas to get from Washington DC to
Denver now. A new Air force One was being designed but currently they had to refuel on
any flight that left the continental United States. It didn’t help that Boeing had reached a
financial meltdown during the Trump years. Today, they were just doing an overnight to
Denver. They would be back in DC the next morning. Trained by the United States Air
Force over two decades ago, she had been one of the last human pilots. Everything was
drones with the exception of troop transports now. However, there was no substitute for
human touch when it came to flying the President. Air Force One dated back to the early
days of World War II, when the first plane was used to shuttle President Roosevelt to
Morocco for a meeting with Churchill.

Under no circumstances was Sherry to leave the cockpit but she knew the President

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would be reviewing her speech in the room directly aft of the cabin. Sherry liked this
President. She didn’t assume she would at first. Her policies sounded so out there and
impossible in the polarized political atmosphere. No nonsense and driven as if the world
was on her shoulders. The speech was another new proposal. This marked a record for
the Presidency. Thus far Olivera had proposed and passed a record level of climate
legislation, some against the advice of her closest advisors. Instead of negotiating with
Congress she had gone straight to the American people. Every time there was a climate
event, she was there, speaking in her empathic way about why it happened and how we
can change the future. That we don't have to live this way. For Lt. Colonel Lewis, a
strong bond had developed with the President. The first woman elected, and the first
Latino, she had to go past Congress which was still packed full with old white men who
were out of touch with what the American people actually wanted. Olivera had chosen to
be a great one-term President and put everything on the table. Lewis respected that. In
fact President Olivera was the first non-republican she had ever voted for. Because the
President would propose a specific bill, and the leadership in the House and Senate
declared a voting date, she could spend her time directly appealing to the people, who in
turn stormed the offices of Congress all over the country. It was a wonder that no one had
ever tried this before. Due to the Supreme Court being stacked after the successful
assassinations, nothing that was passed by Congress and signed by the President ever
reached their hallowed halls. Because of this, momentum had built up, first the new CCC
which employed over five million Americans, many of them republicans. It changed so
many lives after the second financial crash. Then she was able to pass the first price on
carbon. But it was the combined efforts to end coal extraction completely and a

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moratorium on Fracking of natural gas that was really spinning the political wheels.

None of these ideas were Olivera’s to begin with; they had come from the people who
had been building a movement for years. By the time she had proposed most of her ideas,
many of the environmentalists were saying they were too small. That it was time for a
complete corporate shutdown. Of course this wasn't possible. This was still a country of
the haves and the have-nots after all.

Olivera had tried her best so far and it looked like the President had a decent shot at
reelection. The coalition of progressive democrats, libertarians, anarchist’s and socialist's
was holding against the statist members of the former Democratic Party and the corporate
Republicans. The Tea party was still eating itself alive. People could see the climate was
getting worse every day and the government jobs programs were all that was keeping a
faltering economy from flat lining. The question on everyone’s mind was: what will the
voters do this time?

Air Force One was coming in on the outskirts of Denver now and Lewis shook the
thoughts from her head as she focused on the task at hand. She radioed the tower and
confirmed landing in five minutes. She could see the Rocky Mountains with the last
rays of purple light shrinking behind them. Running through her checklist she was
interrupted with a shout and what sounded like shots in the cabin. Warning lights
appeared like stars after a hyperspace jump. An alarm was blasting through her
headset and the display covering her eyes was showing multiple breaches in the hull.

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Airlock two was red. It had been severed and was depressurizing the entire plane.
Lewis barely had time to glance over at her copilot who was staring out the window
at something. Hitting the emergency alert function she announced over the intercom
they were taking abrupt maneuvers. She reached for the controls to take the plane off
autopilot just as she saw the stinger missile flash into the right wing. Disintegrating
into thousands of small pieces the wing flung the plane into a violent spiral towards
the eastern suburbs of Denver. Alerts were screaming through the cabin as the pilot
radioed out the emergency as she desperately wrestled with the controls. The fireball
could be seen far away up the Rocky Mountains. The world held its breath.

Port Townsend
Hank O’Leary FBI

He was still working on his tradecraft. A couple months at the farm in Langley,
Virginia. Then a few more working in Turkey developing assets on the ground. He hadn't
spoken a lick of Arabic when he got there but the new translation earpieces that Google
had produced proved more then enough for survival. If he could make it in the heart of
the Middle East he could make it in America. Growing up in Boston had its perks for
toughness but he was out of place on the West Coast. He was the first federal officer in
his family but law enforcement went all the way back to the Civil War for the O’Leary
clan. Deals had been struck. Unofficial and unspoken but a deal nonetheless. As new
arriving immigrants the Irish were at the bottom of the white identity pyramid. In order to
move up a rung they were allowed to permeate the police force. With one caveat. Put the
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pressure on those below and protect those above. Blacks, Latino’s, Russians. The
Chinese. They were the new immigration threat and the Irish were tasked with keeping
them from joining the American dream (Citation 1). Hank wasn't one of those racist
types. Hell, his family had fought valiantly in the civil war for Christ's sake. On the side
of the Union!

His eyes strained through the binoculars. Wrapped in a wool blanket against the
unseasonably cold summer he stared out the back of a Ford Econo-line van. The tinted
windows worked both ways. He lay down the glasses and rubbed his freezing hands
together, wishing he had brought a hand warmer. It had occurred to him over the last
week with the fluctuations of the forecast; those weather people could never get it right,
that he should prepare more for the night. Tomorrow. Tomorrow ill change this he
thought. There was no predicting a hundred degree night that could drop eighty degrees
in a matter of hours (Citation 2).
His target was a collective of houses, well they could barely be called that, huts
were more apt, nestled on the outskirts of Port Townsend. Famous as an old Victorian art
community populated by old liberals it always voted blue. Not a place one would think to
find radicals in the Northwest although that had all changed. Now they were spreading,
breeding like rabbits. It was like the 1930s without a Roosevelt to give them hope.
Satellite imagery showed nothing out of the ordinary, pigs and goats and a few chickens.
Shapes of movement, coming and going. No one had been fingered yet but this was
prime drug area and members of the collective were known to violate the federal 2200
hours curfew.

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The radio blinked and vibrated on his tactical vest. “Liberty two this is liberty six over.”

His frozen hands clicked the talk button and he confirmed his attention.

“Liberty two we have a car full of drags headed in your direction. Be advised they are
moving fast and have left our coverage area. Over.”

“Drags” was their common term for those who didn't fit traditional gender norms i.e.
queer, gay and mostly transgender lefties looking to break any and every cultural rule no
matter what the consequences. The Farm had warned him about this.

“Roger, any change in behavior? Over.”

“Liberty two, continue surveillance but do not, repeat do not leave your vehicle. Clear.

He could see the vehicle moving down the dusty road kicking up a trail. They were
rolling hard. Way too fast for normal. He thought for a moment about getting back on his
radio. There was a knock on the front windshield and he snapped his head around to look.
Birds had been known to fly into it from time to time. The back window exploded with
shards of glass slicing into his cheek and chest. His head snapped back and connecting
with the recording equipment. Out of the darkness and through the broken window
emerged a black-gloved hand. It carefully avoided the glass and opened the door from

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within. Two female shapes stood facing him. Dressed in plaid and black. Hair tied to their
heads. One pointed an assault rifle at his chest. The other had a small device that looked
like a star trek phaser. Pointed at his dick.

“Hey piggy piggy its time for you to pay the piper” said the one with the Taser.

Hank had a split second before she jammed the Taser into his crotch finding the soft spot
between his balls and his Johnson and pumping 50,000 volts into his manhood. His body
convulsed into the fetal position and jolts of pain wracked his body.

“I didn't know big brother had such a small dick” the redheaded one laughed with
pleasure. “Take that you fascist fuck, thats for all your patriarchal oppression. You’ll
never see your family again”

He couldn’t move as he was pulled feet first out of the van. His head smacked the bumper
and warm liquid ran down his neck. The other woman, (he thought it was a woman)
tossed something into the van and a small fire began next to the driver’s side. On her way
back toward his body she kicked him in his hip making him roll over and spit deep purple
blood into the mud. He couldn’t think. His brain was swimming. Who were they? Where
did they come from? How did they know..?
Another kick to the head put him over the conscious limit and he slipped into oblivion.

Hank awoke with a horrible taste in his mouth. Blood and puke mixed together.

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Caustic stomach acid was caked to his teeth and wrapped around his kisser. Trying to spit
he realized he had bit through half his tongue. He had seen this from all the convicts he
had tazed in Boston. They always ended up biting their tongues. One had bitten straight
through it when two officers had tazed him to the point of seizure. Random traffic stop.
Shouldn't have been driving. At least Hank hadn't bitten completely through. His head
felt like a vodka night gone bad. He was on the floor in a small wooden paneled room.
Dirt below him and a broken fan above. His hands were zip tied together in the front and
he had shit himself. His sense of smell came back suddenly and he was overcome for a
tick. His legs were free. Could he stand? He had too. Rolling onto his stomach he pushed
up with his hands to a kneeling position. He wasn’t in perfect shape but much better then
most of those on his FBI task force. They had all gotten fat in the past years. The room
swirled around him and he took a moment to get his bearings. Nothing in the room.
Except a table. Rising slowly to his feet he waddled over to it. His balls were on fire. He
reached down to check. Still there. Both of em. On the table were three things. A folder
with his name, rank and home address. How had they gotten that? A butter plate with
what looked like tofu. And a pill with a note under it.

“If life gets too tough then you can quit anytime”

The soy could be poison but he was overcome with hunger at the site of the tasteless
white brick of bean paste from the former amazon. He shoveled it into his mouth.
Leaving the pill with its cynical note he picked up the folder and retreated to the corner.
Sliding down the wall for support he slumped onto his bruised ass. Opening the folder his

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breathing rapidly accelerated.

The first picture was of his house. His car was in the front next to that of his
mistress. They must have gotten it when his wife was on that trip to DC! A small note on
a pasty said “we know what you did last summer”. Had they been following him? Spying
on him? This was too much. He turned the page. It was every piece of personal
information about him. Birth weight, gender, taxes paid and unpaid, his dropout from
college, political donations (all republican and one tea party way back) and a list of every
legal infraction he ever had. Even the hit and run in high school that was supposed to be
expunged. What was this? Who the fuck had access to stuff like this? This was private!

He was so overcome with anger his pain had temporarily receded. The next page was his
wife. The color drained from his face. His heart beat like a broken alarm clock. They had
everything. What did they want? The last page slipped out of the jacket and floated to the
floor like a wounded butterfly. It was 8 x 11 white paper. In bold black letters the
message was as clear as his rapidly returning pain. He collapsed to the floor and just
before the black whole swallowed him he read:

NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS

He awoke from a nightmare he couldn't immediately remember. From one
nightmare into another. There was more soy on the table and a chair had been added. His
mouth felt like the deserts he had seen in southern Turkey. He grabbed at the bottled

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water, popped the top onto the floor and drained the whole thing. He hadn't had any
since...since when? How long had he been here? His mind wandered through his injuries.
Shoulder feels real sore. A wave of pain washed over him as he touched the back of his
head. Dried blood flaked off from the base of his short-cropped hair. He needed to
disinfect that soon or there would be trouble. He reached down to touch his member. Still
there. But bruised and purple. More than usual. He cringed at the thought of whether he
would ever get to use his prick again. As he felt sorry for his predicament thoughts of his
wife and the file flooded back. Tears of unfairness and betrayal stained his mud-streaked
face.

“It's not fair!" He yelled to no one in particular. “I did everything right! I never hurt
anyone, why are you doing this to me?"

He banged on the walls and wailed a guttural scream of desperation. He sounded like the
rabbit’s he used to hunt as a boy, their cries of pain before they exhaled their final life. He
was fading mentally, cracking under the isolation. His training had never incorporated
this. No one got abducted from the FBI. Where were his fellow G-men? How had they
not found him yet? When was the hostage rescue team going to burst in the door? He
whimpered in self-delusion.

The scratching sound of keys from the other side of the door woke him. A booming
muffled voice, asexual, called from the looking screen:
“Move to the corner of the room and kneel down. Put your hands on your head and do

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not speak.”

His body complied without thinking. His knees ached as he pulled himself on all fours
towards the center of the room. The door opened slowly behind him, the metal hinges
creaking in search of lubricant. Soft footsteps approached until he could sense a body
standing over him. The lights went out as a hood was thrust down upon his head. A hand
grabbed his right arm and jerked him roughly out of the room. He could sense a clear
change in temperature and pressure. Much colder out here. He stumbled for what seemed
an eternity down stairs and around corners. He met a few walls along the way. There was
no possibility of finding his way back to his cell. At last he was sat down on a stool and
the hood was taken off.

In front of him was a woman he hadn't seen before. He suddenly realized how bad he
smelled. He hadn’t been cleaned up since he was captured. He could feel the squishy
mess in his pants. The anonymous women in front of him didn't seem to notice.

“You are our prisoner” her words were matter of fact, devoid of emotion.

“Prisoner of who”?

“The Free Cascadia Army. You are no longer in what you call the “United States”. We
have taken you away from the state of Washington and you are now in northern
Cascadia.”

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That explained why it was so cold. Canada. They were in fucking Canada! How had they
crossed the border? The seriousness of all this suddenly hit him. His men wouldn’t find
him this far away from his operating region. He was on his own. She seemed to
understand where his thoughts had taken him.

“You are not alone. We have taken others as well. None of you are in the same place. If
you ever hope to get home your masters will have to value your life over their pride.”

“What do you want from me”?

“Nothing but the truth. You are just a soldier in a war beyond your own comprehension.
You are expendable and replaceable. We want your government to be abolished. We
want your values to burn. We want your culture to never hold sway over anyone for as
long as there is still life left. As long as your culture exists we are all doomed.”

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“Tomorrow you will begin an education program. We give everyone a chance to
acknowledge their mistakes and change their lives. The others don’t think you have a
chance but we will treat you in a way that we would never be treated were the roles
reversed. And be clear about that, every day the roles have been reversed. We have lived
under your tyranny for too long. For you that ends now.”

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A hand grabbed him from behind and the bag went back over his head. He heard the door
close behind him as he was dragged back to his cell. His new home.

Aida (Hacker) Utah-Vancouver 2023
The wind whips the rain into frenzy. It hits the windows with force. The weekly climate
storm claws up the eastern side of Deseret Peak. She is glad to be in a hotel room. She
stares at the computer screen. The video is fuzzy but she can make out a truck entering
the North end of the airport. The red carpet repair van goes slowly to the corner of the
screen and disappears. The tape ends there and another security camera picks up the van
fifteen-seconds later as it comes to a halt next to a shed. Two men get out of the vehicle
and immediately go into the shed. Its about twenty feet long and is used to store tools for
fence repair and emergency fires on the runway. The Denver International Airport
recently expanded with five more runways. Construction was still underway when the
assassination took place. Expansion of the airport was part of the massive migration west
to Denver from Indiana after the pipeline spill. The door of the storage shed opened and a
single man opened the van door and drove away.

Aida takes a drink of water and rewinds the tape. Again. There must be something
here. She shifts in her Carhardt cutoffs and hits the play button. The President had been
dead for five days. Not just the President but her whole advance team, two leaders of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army and Air Force Chiefs and the head of the EPA and

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Department of Energy. In total eighty-eight people were dead. En route to a statewide
funeral for yet another wildfire that claimed over a thousand lives and the city of Fort
Collins in Northern Colorado. That was old news now as all focus in the world was
centered on the first death of a President since 1963.

The only reason Aida was looking at this information was because of an old
friend. Jenine was her mole in the NSA who had slipped her the feeds. She had been one
of the good ones that stayed on during the Trump administration. That source had gone
dark but before they did there had been a suction of internal files that had been sent to
her. Aida had no idea where Jenine had gotten the information in the first place. She
hadn't slept much since then. There was too much information to process and she
couldn’t share this with anyone. The implications could change the world. There was a
vibration on her 'Flex-Arm' and she looked at the only device in the room connected to
the Internet. Opening the message her heart stopped.

GET OUT-BURN ALL

Like the de-thawing of skin after an ice storm, her body prickled. Never had she received
a message from the emergency alert system. How could they know where she was? She
had changed hotels twice in four days and had only used cash. Her phone had been used
twice to call ahead and arrange hotels on a stolen credit card. Her mind scrambled to
think. Grab the bag and get out! She shot to her feet and then tumbled to the floor as her
feet tangled with the chair. Pushing herself up she grabbed her go-bag that had been laid

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out days ago. Containing a full head beanie, full urban pants/shirt, neck scarf, face
makeup, duct tape, her .40 caliber Glock and four, thirteen round magazines. It also had
identification cards, cash, extra supplement pills if she couldn’t eat for a few days and a
water purifier. Slinging the diagonal pack over her shoulder she quickly disconnected her
laptop and slid it into its faraday protector and hit the lights by the door. She peered out
the window and saw two vehicles idling in the rain, steam smoking from the engines.
They weren't there the last time she checked. She scanned the room and swung the pack
back onto the bed. Unzipping the bag she grabbed her laptop, opening it and accessing
the police scanner. Pablo built a back channel and she smiled thinking of the first time he
brought up the idea at that college after-party.

They had just finished a dub-step concert that was too loud, fast and impulsive.
Discussing ayahuasca and its potential healing properties led them to pontificate how
different the world would be if everyone alive experimented with psychedelic drugs. The
debate raged, half on the side of forcing the issue, the other half wanting people to decide
for themselves saying “the experience wouldn't be genuine if you weren't open to it”.
Then Pablo asked the question: “What would it look like if we could invade the
governments mind?” A few people laughed. Some stared at him dumbly, most just waited
for the inevitable next sentence. Pablo smiled and finished sucking in smoke from the
roach that was well past finished. He leaned forward “Ive figured a way to tap into the
police radio and Internet programs. I can make it look like I’m posting or speaking from
any specific unit down to the officer on the street”. He leaned back into the bamboo wrap
chair. Blank stares. Everyone at the party was an activist of some sort. All had some

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understanding of white supremacy and opposed the police state. But actually fucking
with the police? That was pushing it. It was also a big violation of operational security. If
anyone were subpoenaed by a Grand Jury, well, they would have to lie or face jail time.
The silence in the room was so deafening that Jordy came out of the kitchen where he
was cooking to see what’s up.
“You guys all right”? Pablo looks at him and laughs. “Yea, I was just fucking
around with them”. The room echoed with nervous laughter.
“Well, food is ready, come in and help yourselves” Jordy said and he disappeared
through the Mayan beads hanging in the doorway.
Later when we were the only ones left, sharing a bottle of wine, I asked him what that
was all about. “A test” he said.
“What do you mean a test”? I said with exasperation. “You want to scare people don't
you?”

He looked at me as if was missing the point entirely. That’s not an impossible possibility.

“It's a test to ask a question, and to offer a challenge” he said. I looked at him with dumb
eyes.

“I want to know where people are at. I want them to think about possibilities. I want them
to know that not everyone is comfortable with consuming information and holding it so
they can smugly say I told you so.” I was no longer looking at him.

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“We have been doing the same thing, every day, for almost five years. Disseminating
information to various political groups, providing research so others can do the real work,
calling ourselves impartial observers. IT’S. NOT. WORKING.”

I had never heard him so forceful before. My eyes rose to his, they were intense, staring
through me.

“They are killing the world, and we are covering our own middle class asses by
pretending to be impartial. This isn't the first thing I have created that could actually help
people” He takes a breath. “This is the first time I’ve ever told the collective.”

He was serious, I thought. This is happening. Up to that point I hadn’t been forced to
make a choice. I had to make a choice.

“Tell me more,” I said.

The sirens are blaring outside now. She is typing fast. The keys pound out the
words to be uttered over the police radio. She hits the enter key and closes the laptop. She
pulls a micro-earpiece out of her pocket and puts it into her left ear. Then she clasps the
Glock and slides it into her belt-line where a holster holds it to the small of her back.

She moves to the bathroom and steps on the toilet to pull open the window. It's
barely large enough to fit her small frame. Smoke is pouring from the garbage can filled

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with any evidence of her presence. She had checked this before she had entered the hotel.
Her legs scooted out first and her lithe form slipped through and dropped eight feet to the
trash dumpster below. She slunk to the corner of the alley and peered out the side. There
were two new police vehicles along with the original two undercover vehicles. The radio
in her ear sprung to life.

She is a small woman. Maybe 5'2 if you give her an extra inch. Her hair is knotty
and cropped on the left. The longer lengths hang down her right side. She is in the back
of a semi-truck heading… where? She does not know. The road has been smooth up until
now. Her back has had trouble adjusting to the bumps she is now experiencing. They
must have turned off the main road. They are a ramshackle rescue crew. It is made up of
two auto mechanics and a girl who works at a pottery store. At least in their daytime jobs.
On the wall of the van is the symbol of the CLA(Cascadia Liberation Army). When she
had first stepped outside the world of Internet hacking she was shocked to find an entire
network across North America that was putting into practice the things that she had
blogged about for years. They had built self-help networks to barter and share products
on a sort of less-than-legal black market. They were people who didn't want the rat race.
They didn't want fifty-hour workweeks and credit card and student loan debt. They found
ways to break the rules. Break five rules a day she was told. They can be political, social
or legal but make sure you are challenging normality and yourself at the same time.
Never become comfortable no matter what you do.
Well, she was very uncomfortable at the moment. No internet, no ability to
communicate with the outside world or check on her own wanted level. It was clear that

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she was a threat to someone at this point. The question was who? If the police were
involved then that meant there were charges against her. Or maybe they were not really
cops? Why hadn't they just used Sandstone? They were already hunting CLA members
all over the PNW. They could easily cover the finances without reporting them to
Congress. A particularly deep rut in the road threw her body into the air and she came
down on her tailbone. She shivered next to frozen stalks of corn, destined for an ethanol
project (CITATION 1). It was a perfect cover for a group that opposed the concept of
biotech. She was alone. Lack of human contact had never been the definition of being
alone for her, only being disconnected. Now she was headed to someplace that was
supposed to be safe so she could reveal the evidence she had discovered. What evidence?
They sure thought she had figured out something but she didn't know what that was. She
had searched the feeds over a hundred times at this point and she couldn't find a pattern.
But deep down in her heart she knew that there was something there. That she had
discovered something. I need to figure this out or I go to jail for nothing.

The truck came to a stop and moments later the back door was flung open. “Time
to get out.” said a gruff voice from the darkness. She pulled herself to her feet and
grabbed her go-bag. It still held her supplies including her laptop that would be the only
tool that she could use against them. Whoever “them” was. The air was crisp as her black
boots sunk into the earthy ground. She took a deep breath. She had been traveling for
well over twelve hours. She tasted salt on her tongue. Ocean? Maybe. Which coast?
Looking around she saw no discerning marks. The man who had put her in the back was
nowhere to be seen. The gravelly voiced man pointed his hand towards a running Subaru

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wagon. She strode towards it and the right side passenger door swung open. She got in,
no questions asked.

Pakwan was a man of exactly the opposite qualities of Aida. He was gregarious,
and loud even when they were alone together. The Subaru bounced along down some
forlorn road. They were going somewhere she was sure of it. Or he could be driving her
out to kill her. But why go out of their way to hurt her? Why all the fuss just to bury her
in the middle of some field? Well, a field wasn't likely, they were surrounded by trees
and winding downhill. The smell of the ocean was getting stronger. She had asked him
where they were going initially but he had ignored the question. She had never actually
met anyone from the CLA. Only exchanged data and contacts. Saba had been the one to
connect them. Before she had disappeared in the initial roundups of undocumented
immigrants under Trump.
Pakwan was rambling about the trees in this region. How they didn't change even
with the winter and the rain was always falling. How climate change had added stresses
to the region but they were still able to gain enough snowmelt to fuel the rivers in the
spring. She knew where she was. Where she had never been before. The Northwest, she
thought as the sun crept below the tree line. It was beautiful. And then that thought was
blown out of her brain as they crested the hill and the entire ocean spread out before
them. She had only seen pictures of things like this! The sun splashed up off the waves
and glistened through the dirt stained windshield. It was like a splash of cold water after a
long sleep. Exhilarating. The car wound its way down a windy road to a house at the
bottom of the ocean. Next to the house was a small dock and a boat bobbed up and down

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with the waves. She stepped out of the car and without a word the Subaru drove away.

The sun was going down when they finally settled into reclining chairs on the
beach. The only clouds were on the horizon and the sound of birds finishing their rounds
was all she could hear aside from the slowly crashing waves. She felt strangely
comfortable for a girl from the Midwest. They didn't have sunsets like this in Iowa. The
purple and orange reflected off the water ever so slightly. Herons came in to land just
beyond the breakers and immediately went searching for herring. There were two of them
that had welcomed her. A man wearing an American flag bandana and a woman with
short brown-cropped hair. The woman pointed to the North and they could just make out
an oil tanker with a barge attached to its hull.
“Its been there for a week” the woman said. “We think its disabled. No idea what
happened to it but there’s no port within fifty miles so there has to be something wrong.
We haven't picked up any radio traffic so we know that no-ones coming. By now they
should have been able to ask for help”.
“Maybe it’s just waiting for orders,” Aida said, unconvincingly.
The man to her left said nothing. He had not spoken since she arrived. The driver had
given him a bag and then gotten back in his car and headed back up the windy road. Aida
felt like she had been left at summer camp by her parents and they weren't coming back.
The herons had gotten their fish and they took off with little fanfare, barely making a
ripple in the waves.
The woman introduced herself, “I’m Sandy and I run the search and rescue for the
southern British Columbia coastal region”. She smiled knowing that meant little to Aida.

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“I am friends with your contact at the Agency.” Aida's brain brought her back to the
moment. “S and R is my day job. At night I look through information and decide what
people need to make difficult decisions. We help people cross the border among other
things.” Sandy had been the one who met her with the small zodiac boat and had scurried
her over to the island that they were now on.
“Are we still in the United States?” Aida's voice broke just a little.
“Officially, yes. But we are about ten nautical miles from Vancouver Island and when we
think its safe we will get you across. Your data will go separately in case you are stopped.
We will go by Kayak sometime in the next week we hope.” Sandy said this with a matter
of fact statement that couldn't be questioned. Aida looked at her with questioning eyes.
“There was an oil spill some time ago and these areas ceased to have much traffic. The
Port Angeles dock was shut down along with most civilian traffic. It was an ecological
disaster and wiped out a number of animal populations (CITATION 3). The community
is very supportive of our movements and has sheltered us. Still, we have to be careful.
You will move when it is safe. You will be comfortable here while we wait.”
Comfortable was an understatement. She had barely had a chance to look around but
from the quick tour she had taken this place was wired up enough to support a Google
hub. Before Google went under, that is. There were gardens everywhere and minisatellite dishes clustered around every hut. This was a command center. You couldn't see
it from the sky as the Douglas firs covered everything from above. Aida could live here if
she had to.

The first meeting with what would become known as the BC-12 was in a shipping

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container buried underground on Vancouver Island. There were several different people,
all of them white. They were all under 40 and they looked like they hadn't slept in days.
Most of them hadn't. Each introduced themselves and Aida was sure they weren't using
real names. She used her alias as well. Partridge after the Partridge Pea native prairie
plant from back home. Some had been systems administrators, some journalists or
aspiring journalists and some were just plain organizers. But they were all from the
United States at one point or another. This was the team that would piece together the
events surrounding the Assassination of the President over two weeks before. Each of
them had evidence and each would present. It started faster. A short fat slightly balding
man spoke first and made it clear he had been the one to assemble everyone here. It
seemed a large amount of money had been stored in banks across the border by various
sympathizers over the years for just such an occasion, the evacuation of activist’s across
the border for the purposes of supporting a resistance.
“We do not have much time. We needed to gather everyone to speak in person and since
we lost our contact at the NSA, we had no choice but to make this effort. Many assets
have disappeared in the last two weeks.” The fat man spoke rapidly without blinking.
“We need you all to share the information that you have willingly and completely, then
we will make many copies and release them in a global event. Make no mistake, this will
be transformational. If what we believe is true then the information will lead to a
crackdown throughout the United States, but it might prevent a civil war, which is the
direction things look right now. Please be honest, succinct and listen to each other.”
He turned to leave the room but a younger man interjected before he reached the door.
“What about our safety? We don't even know where we are right now. How are we going

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to get home to our families?” He was nervous and the feeling spread like wildfire
throughout the rest of the room. Murmurs of agreement flared up.
The fat man turned. He took a deep breath, looking all twelve in the eyes.
“You will not be able to go home until this whole process is resolved. No matter what
you do here the United States government views you as a threat. From their perspective,
anarchists and CLA members attacked the President’s plane, shooting it down and killing
everyone. If you are arrested before you complete this task you will most likely be
disappeared. Until we have definitive proof that we weren't involved and can finger those
who did it, we will remain across the border in Canada.”
The fat man left the room and the door clanged loudly after him. The smell of sweat and
tension enveloped the room and the darkness came quickly.

We spent the next week hashing over everything we knew. The evidence was broken
down into two parts. It was the personal computer information of all those the
government was accusing of participating in the attempt, a group called the Cascadian
Liberation Army. They all used PGP encryption (CITATION 2) on their computers but
if they could be persuaded to turn over some of their records it could show that they had
nothing to do with nor did they participate in the assassination. It made no sense. Olivera
was the best president they could expect in the capitalist system. Radical reform was
better than nothing. People were suffering and climate change needed action, even if it
came from the White House.

Her arms felt like broken noodles. She had never kayaked before. It had taken longer to

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get the green light to cross but that time had been used wisely, and to no avail. Some of
the smartest people she ever met had been gathered together and now they were splashing
their way across the open channel to Canada. Despite their gathering, the codes at the
NSA surveillance program had been changed and they couldn’t access what they needed.
They were hitting a firewall and no amount of hacking could get them in. The search for
the alleged assassins was underway and borders had been locked down across America.
The new Davis administration had declared a national emergency and every National
Guard soldier had been activated. The Coast Guard was somewhere out here among the
oil-drenched waters, looking for them. Salt water stung her face and she was cold, despite
the wetsuit clinging to her body. Her kayak rose and fell with the waves and she could
just make out the landing sight over a mile away. Her partner was just ahead of her, with
a small chem-light attached to the tail. They hadn’t told her much about where she was
going but something had changed. The camp had suddenly closed down and members of
the CLA had arrived to pack up all the communications equipment. They didn’t share
where they were taking it, only that she and her new friends had to cross the border while
there was still a chance. She wedged her knees against the cockpit swung her body
forward, faster towards the unknown.
Her kayak crunched as it left the water and slid onto the rocky beach. They stowed their
kayaks in the woods and mounted bicycles to ride along the forest trail. The lights were
powered by pedaling which was particularly difficult with all the roots in the ground.
They arrived at a large longhouse with wood smoke rising from the chimney. Inside, they
removed their wetsuits and moved to a large communal shower area. Steam pored off her
as she rubbed salt water and dirt from her exhausted body. She thought nothing of

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standing naked next to what had so recently been strangers. Now they were collaborators.
With her head pressed against the wall, tears mixed with the dirt and sweat collecting
around the drain.

One week later.
They all sat together at a circular table, illuminated by the green glow of their
laptops. Most of the team had made it over the last week and had begun combining all the
data and evidence of the Presidential assassination. The new administration of Bob Davis
was tearing through what was left of the liberal environmental groups. Sierra Club.
Greenpeace. National Resources Defense Council. FBI agents had raided everyone at this
point. Armed National Guard soldiers were patrolling every major city from Salt Lake to
Seattle. The burnt remains of Air Force One had exposed the deep divide between East
and Western America and conflict seemed unavoidable. The shock to the nation wasn’t
wearing off which enabled the troops to take key positions with little pushback. The
traitors were getting closer to the truth but were hitting a wall with administration pass
codes. Aida really missed Jenine at the NSA. What had happened to her? They couldn’t
get past the firewalls to access internal links that would tell them who knew about the
course Air Force One would take into Denver. They needed someone on the inside. They
needed a snitch.

Aida was sitting in what looked like an interrogation room. There were stains on
the wood floor and it was sparsely decorated with a table and two chairs, one of which
she was sitting in. The door opened and a hooded man was brought through the opening

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towards her. He was helped to a seat and the hood was removed. Aida had been briefed
on who this was and what she needed from him. Login codes. They had to hope the codes
remained unchanged. The van this man had been taken from had been burned beyond all
recognition and a block of houses had gone up with it. No one had reported the Agent
taken, just killed in the fire. The missing persons were not a priority given the massive
investigation into the assassination now currently underway. He was a man without a
home and no one was looking for him.

Aida began, “We need something from you. If you cooperate you will be released and
your family unharmed” she tried to keep her face neutral. Her stomach knotted and
fought the question of whether this group would actually harm his family. His face was
bruised and his left eye was fused shut. Tortured?
"Ill do anything you want. But I don’t know how I can help. My codes have already been
changed. There is nothing I can do" The man tried to spit but it landed on his knee. Aida
leaned forward and dabbed it up with a napkin.
"You may not know it but your bio-metric makeup is part of the fusion center database.
In the event of an emergency we can use it to log into the system. We just need a blood
sample, an eye scan and the emergency vocal code you trained with."
The agent's face changed from ignorance to fear as he understood what was truly
happening. He had no way out. Hands grabbed his arms and lifted him up from the chair.
He was pulled towards a blood analysis machine and as the tubes filled with red his
secrets poured out of him.

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Michael Haystock 2023
Its strange, the way bagpipes sound on a rainy day. On this day, a great day for a
funeral, the rain was edging out the sunshine. The bagpipes weren't playing, no one from
the family would cover the cost, and so the casket make clunking sounds without the
supporting fire of history. The body, formerly Irish, now joined the irrelevance of the
dead. Countries mattered less when you no longer had a passport. This body should have
had more bodies with blood still coursing through the veins in attendance. Just ten days
before, an event like this would have heralded a procession of the rich and famous from
time magazine and its rich luminaries. Now, only two people stood over the grave. Being
seen here was toxic. And it scalded anyone it touched.

Michael Haystock worked his way up through all kinds of difficulties. He is a
recovering alcoholic who put all his energy into his work. He was a lover who
continually lost his partners to larger world events. One to a firefight in Afghanistan,
another to an overdose. Cutting his teeth through the war and betrayal of the Bush years,
he made a career out of being the smartest and the quietest in the room. He had a drinking
problem, one that was always worse when he wasn't drinking. He liked Scotch. And red
wine. Or whatever was free. He had a rule, when he was drinking, to not be drinking until
after 11 am. That’s when all the important meetings in the magazine business were over.
That’s when the “real” work began. He hated the office. The smell of styrofoam and
sterility. Lies auctioned off like they were the work of epic historical poets just waiting to
be discovered. Why had he chosen this work? Why had he become a reporter? History he
told himself. To be a part of history. To try and get it right, while it was happening

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instead of writing about it years down the road, detached with no personal stake. He
would rather be a blog post than a part of the Bible. Right in the thick of things he threw
himself. Born in Jersey, raised in New York, he always had to fight to get his foot in the
door. Then it was a battle to keep it there as everyone already inside tried desperately to
shove the door closed. The better to protect their careers he supposed.

It is three in the morning and Michael wipes his blood shot eyes. The fan is going.
The air conditioning is not. Its summer. Hot. Like the walls were bleeding sweat, hot. He
is thirty-four. He is writing the story of his life. He is days away from death. He knows
this. Not intellectually, but deep down inside himself on a biochemical level, he knows
this. His hair stands up. Skin prickles as the fingers fly across his keyboard. His back
hurts. He has been hunched over the computer, trying to get the words right. He lets out a
sigh and leans back in his chair, saving his work. The wheels under him roll with the
added wait. As the chair rotates he finds himself face to face with the only other human in
the office. Dolly. They had a fling over the Christmas break but that ended the moment
they came back to work. Her breasts are spilling over her undersized brassiere barely
encased in a tank top. He rises to use the bathroom. Their eyes meet briefly and quickly
dart back to reading the economic report currently providing a paycheck. The bathroom
smells of mold. You can’t see anything but its there. Slowly killing us all, he thinks as he
shakes hands with the wife's best friend. Looking at himself in the mirror he cant help but
notice how much older he is. The job has required seventy hours a week for the last five
years and his last vacation was to Syria. Spending his time between different sources of
trauma, war and the workplace, hopping back and forth as if to be always running toward,

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or away from something. Popping a mouth candy and dropping artificial tears he clears
his throat and exits. Dolly is no longer at her desk. She is sitting at his, scanning his work.
There is a sense of panic in him. He wants to cry out, to yell at her for violating his
privacy. Nothing comes to his lips. She is beautiful, with her back turned, black hair
curling around her neck, glasses drooping over her nose. She will be beautiful for a few
more years, till she gets knocked up to start a family and move to the suburbs. Now she is
typing furiously and then, she stops, slowly swivels to face him and a look of shame
creeps across her face. Or is it mischief? He takes a step forward.

The walls of his apartment are not well insulated. The neighbors are awake
tonight. Dolly has been making more noise than a gang fight on east 14th. There are two
condoms on the end of the bed, like dead snakes, coiled and leeching their life force. The
third one is currently deep inside dolly, creating a blistering friction between their
hardened bodies. He dealt in truth. And the truth was, he loved sex. Addicted to it even.
Every part of it. Before. During. After. Thinking about all the angles, the words said and
never uttered. That feeling of coming close to cumming. He was there now. He let out a
cry and filled the third condom with what little fluid was left inside of him. He
immediately went soft and dolly rolled off him. He began to say something. He passed
out.

Dolly was on his computer for an hour. She slipped a USB into the hard-drive,
Eight gigabytes, and left it there for over a minute. Then she ejected it. Sent some emails
to cover her tracks. Then she put her clothes back on and ambled out of the apartment.

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She wouldn't see him again until she was standing at his funeral.

The connections weren't apparent at first. The company names were subsidiary's
buried within subsidiaries. There was so much money and it was difficult to assess where
it originated. The financial companies were involved of course, but the real threat came
from fossil fuels. Ever since Obama had targeted coal as the primary CO2 causing agent,
the coal and natural gas industry had declared war back. Every politician either received
money or threats from the fossil fuel industry. So when he began to track down every
donation, every communication about the assassination, none of it really stood out. Until
he put it all together.
Michael is standing in the rain. He is looking upwards. The rain is splashing his
face. He should be afraid. He is not afraid. He feels a deep sense of calm. He squints and
tries to see the top of Trump tower. The low clouds and heavy rain make it difficult. The
south part of Manhattan is flooding again. Up to 15th street. The businesses are all
basically closed during hurricane season. There is no point when the floods rise and fall
with the weekly changes. Michael used to frequent Barney’s pub. He enjoyed the
overpriced drinks and the Wall Street stories. That was back before he worked for the
Telegraph. Before the Trump crash. Before the planet really turned on humanity. He is
soaking wet. Another casualty of the war, planet earth waged daily against them all.
Michael allowed himself a smile at that. As if humans were somehow separate from
humanity. Those types of assumptions had given them Trump. Had assassinated a
president. Had set human’s back just when they found the ability to control their destiny.
Michael’s hand rose to the sky, an electric Subaru swung to the curb, its lights fracturing

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the solar road as it filled with rain. The driver is instructed to go uptown. He complies.

Michael remembers the way it rarely rained in Syria. He could see the cracked and salted
earth breaking apart like a calving iceberg. There was a field, one could imagine a
historical field, and outside the small shack he spent time in during his second journalist
tour near Homs. Michael has a friend who would sit with him, in that shack, looking at
that field, and share his drink. The friend is a soldier. Michael is not. He is so far from
not. War interests him but to be a trigger-puller? This was never a future for Michael. He
says this, out loud to his friend. His friend nods. They will go on to very different careers,
Michael to win the Pulitzer (posthumously) and his friend to found a climate escort
company. The company would become the most elite of the Military Security Contractors
that proliferated after 9/11. The company is the first non-military force to bring private
policing to America. The company would make millions. The company would come to
be indicted. The company would be torn apart. But none of that is relevant to the sweaty,
hot men, sipping cheap vodka stolen from dead Russians as they stare at an evaporated
field. They toast the future. The concept of possibly having a future. They drink.

Michael is still in the rain outside the friend’s apartment. He is pressing the bell.
His friend told him to meet there. His friend has apartments in all the major cities. Dubai
(during the three livable months), St. Petersburg (despite the dictatorship there was still
property rights), New Sydney (the rising tides hadn’t yet reached it) and Vancouver (he
was one of the last white billionaires in that city). The door screen lights up and asks
Michael for a retina scan. He obliges. He passes. The door slides sideways and he is

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inside a vacuum-sealed elevator. A smaller window opens and mini-bottles of Scotch
greet Michael. He remembers, as the Scotch burns his throat, how his friend had been so
impressed with Middle Eastern opulence. They had once entered a former Assad family
home near Damascus, after Bashar was found hanging from the barrel of a tank outside,
and the gold inlaid floorboards had caught his friend’s attention. For weeks afterwards his
friend would speak about them, how they gave a ‘don’t give a fuck attitude’ to the whole
place. His friend was always planning the house he would build once they got back from
the sandbox.
Michael is finishing his second bottle of Scotch when the tube arrives. His friend
is leaning against the wall, a loose tie and brooks brothers top. His friend is not smiling.
He waives for Michael to enter a dark room. There are Flex-tels wrapping the room and
his friend pulls one off the wall, resizes it to hold comfortably in one hand giving it to
Michael. The screen flashes then a shaky video image comes forward. He can see peoples
dress pants and slacks, more money than his yearly paycheck. A boardroom? The sounds
are muffled. Except one.

Michael is in the rain again. He stands at the edge of his life, looking out over the
roiling storm. The winds buffet his face, like a sail flapping, soon to break free. He is
thinking about throwing himself over the railing, letting the sea claim his body. He takes
a step. Hesitates. He shouldn’t do this. Michael often has arguments inside his head. He is
thinking about Dolly. Wondering if she would answer a call this late at night. He pulls
out his phone. Tries her. Straight to voicemail. He can’t go back to the office. Not after
what he has learned. He tries another number. Amber usually has coke. He wants

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something to lift the weight of action he feels weighing down on him, spilling over his
shoulders with the rain. She picks up.

It took all night and much of the next day but its finished. A manifesto, of sorts.
The pieces almost making a complete puzzle. The images shoot from the page like a
snake released from a shoebox. Michael is a traitor. His writing is treason. The topic is
treason. Everything about Michael in this moment is dangerous. Blurring the lines he laid
out for himself as a journalist. As an American. Michael is unsure of what to do with this
information. Michael knows everything is about to change. He knows his life, such as it
is, will never remain in his control again. Michael knows who killed the president. And
next, the whole world would know.

Michael is sending an encrypted message to an old hacker friend. He is sure she
can figure out the rest. He has the details of who was behind the coup. He doesn’t know
how they did it. If she can open the documents before they were intercepted then they
would be home free. Michael is hitting send. Michael lets out a deep breath.

Michael’s friend is on the news. It is not good news. Michael’s friend is laying
face first on the pavement. Blood is strewn about like a thousand rotten tomatoes no one
has bothered to pick up. Suicide. Suicide? It had only been a few days since they last
spoke. Michael is angry. Michael is afraid. Michael closes his laptop and heads for his
electric motorcycle in the basement. It’s the only signature free technology he has.
Michael has a protocol for things like this. Well, the theoretical things like this. Dump

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your phone. Change your clothes. Grab the go-bag. His friend had always had a protocol.
His friend was dead. Michael started the silent battery and swooped out of the apartment
for the last time.

Michael got to the north of the city fairly quickly. He encountered none of the
military patrols that constantly plagued north Manhattan. He is squeezing his legs into the
bike, accelerating towards the forest. What little is left. Every twenty miles he reaches
into his breast pocket and retrieves a small powdered stick. Michael needs something to
keep his energy level up as he rides into a third night without sleep. First the President.
Then his friend. He has to get out of the city. There are headlights. He swerves. Michael
can feel himself leaving the road. His front tire is catching. His body rises. A tree is in the
way. There is a crunch. There is darkness and silence.
Dolly stood above his grave. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was
responsible. She had shown the documents to her boss. She had stolen documents from
Michael for years. Who had her boss told? A man she didn't know stood closer to the tree
near the gravesite. He was watching her. She averted her eyes. Walking to the car she
could feel his eyes following her. She hit the unlock button. Sliding in she breathed a sigh
of relief. She pulled out in her fourth generation Prius. It was so quiet; she barely
registered the red and blue lights in her rearview. Pulling to the side of the road, the black
Explorer slid in behind her. Suddenly, a grey van pulled up beside her driver’s door.
Sliding open three silhouettes spilled out like a broken jar of jam. Dolly was struck across
the face and her body went limp as she was dragged into the van. One of the men injected
her with something and her eyes rolled back in her head.

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Michael's boss didn't make it to the funeral. A gas leak in his new home had met
with his morning cigarette in a brilliant fluorescent dance of explosions. The sound
reverberated down the block of his north Manhattan villa. Neighbors would say he was
such a nice man. Quiet. Kept to himself. What a horrible event to befall such a man.

Weekly Standard 2024
After the assassination of President Olivera, Vice President Bob Davis assumed the
office. One of his first non-Cabinet appointments was the newly created department of
Freedom and Justice. Carlton Jeffries, a former World Bank executive and systems
administrator for the NSA took on this new position with zeal. Broadly mandated to use
JSOC to begin operating against separatists and terrorists within the Homeland, his
position has been controversial from the beginning. Charges of ignoring “Posse
Comitates” have rung out, especially throughout the Northwest.

We sat down with Mr. Jeffries on the eve of President Davis’s first State of the Union. He
is under a lot of stress with the recent assassination and the elections only months away.
Rumors are swirling about the location of the Vice President as well as a delay in
elections.

Interviewer-Thank you for sitting down with me during this difficult time, Mr. Jeffries.

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Mr. Jeffries- Um hum.

Interviewer-Most people don’t know much about you or the agency you now lead. Could
you tell us a bit about the project and how you are adjusting to this new job?

Mr. Jeffries-Well I come from the military, see. I was a bad kid. Got in lots of trouble
with the parents when my dad was away. Never could focus much in school and just
wanted to get out and do something with my life. By 1988, when I finished high school,
all I could think about was President Reagan and his heroic victory over the Evil Empire.
I wanted to be a part of that, ya know? So after I went to law school I joined the Army,
yea? And I didn’t want to be a lawyer in the Army. I wanted to see the action. To prove
myself against an enemy force. So I became an infantry officer. And just when I was
about to deploy to the first Gulf, the war was over. Just over a month. Those were the
days, ya know? When we really just kicked ass and showed the world American strength.
That’s what we are trying to do here, bring back American strength into the world.

Interviewer-President Olivera brought our current President onto the ticket in 2020 to
balance out the platform and appeal to more American’s. Is your administration making
an effort to reach out to those Americans who voted for President Olivera?

Mr. Jeffries-This is a whole new world. With the assassination of the President by leftist
extremist Muslim sympathizers, you can’t expect us to worry about a bunch of treehugging America haters who want us to be more like Europe. You can see the Union

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collapsing over there. Do you want us to be more like them? I hope not, see?

Interviewer-Well, Mr. Jeffries, we don’t quite know who assassinated the President, are
you saying that you have information the American people haven’t seen yet?
Mr. Jeffries-Believe you me, you people have no idea how dangerous these terrorists in
the Northwest are. Every day our brave police are overwhelmed. This is why the
president is finally stepping up and sending in the big boys. Our military, they are so
brave aren’t they? They are going to find these terrorists and make them pay. We need
them in our streets to protect real America.

Interviewer-What are the new platform ideas you will be unveiling in the State of the
Union and what will the Office of Justice and Peace be responsible for?

Mr. Jeffries-I am not going to speak for the President, but I can say our office is taking
the gloves off. No more of these anarchist protestors and socialist agitators hiding behind
the First Amendment. This country is designed for reasonable people working together,
not for extremist entities using intimidation to scare the rest of us into doing their
bidding. They have had their governments and they have all failed. Clinton, Obama,
Olivera, all of them took advantage of the American people, made us feel guilty about
ourselves, about who we are. They told us men should be allowed in our daughter’s
bathrooms, that we shouldn’t love and respect the troops. I can make one promise, ya
see? That ends with the Davis administration.

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Interviewer-I hate to pry but I am hoping you could tell us a little about the office you are
now leading? There are reports of mass arrests and people being questioned
everywhere…

Mr. Jeffries-We live in a time of crisis. We are going to do everything in our power to
stamp out the left in this country. It has done nothing but stab us in the back. My office
will oversee the integration of the United States military into domestic policing
operations, to root out these terrorists and find the killers behind the assassination. You
can see it in the Northwest now but soon we will subdue these insurrectionists and bring
stability and peace back to America.

Interviewer- And you believe that the assassins came from some anarchist or socialist
backgrounds? They seem to have appreciated what President Olivera was up to with all
her climate work and jobs programs.

Mr. Jeffries-Olivera made successful Americans an unfair target. She went after our
corporate community leaders and made them pariahs. Friends who couldn’t even leave
the house were calling me, telling me their businesses were being targeted. Military
members complained their funding was cut and they weren’t able to fight terrorism
properly. America has had enough of being weak. We are going to go after the terrorist
funding at the Universities, from these liberal think tanks that pretend to sit on the
sidelines. If you support these people financially, politically or any other way we are
going to find you and bury you. This is a war for the soul of America. A new civil war,

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and we intend to win this time.

Interviewer-Now I have to bring up a controversial topic. Clearly the weather has been
acting strange over the last few years. We are experiencing more and more heat waves
and drought including the super storms that continue to hit the East Coast. Washington
DC, where you are now working, has been hit multiple times in the last year alone. Your
predecessor in President Olivera, talked a lot about climate change, but we haven’t heard
that from your administration. What would you say to that?

Mr. Jeffries-No one denies the climate is changing. It’s clearly not human beings that are
doing it. You can see this written in revelation, through the books and such. This is God
telling us that we have used up our time on this earth and must prepare for the second
coming. Our job is to really just manage this, make sure the right people are elevated and
the wrong people are punished, you see? Our country has tolerated the intolerant for too
long. Those on the so-called left who tell us good Christians that we can’t believe in
truth. Can’t speak about reality. Well, they have brought us to the brink of disaster. God’s
hand can be seen all over this great land and HE is telling us to stop our wicked ways.
The good book tells us that a struggle will take place at the end of days and those who are
righteous will be borne of fruit that will grow and those who are evil will be buried
amongst the bones and discarded.

Interviewer-Mr. Jeffries, thank you for your time. For all our sakes I will pray for you
and us all.

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Salia Mason Interview 2024
Salia Mason does not show much emotion. She is wearing a worn sports coat over an untucked and low-buttoned street shirt. Her eyes don't meet mine. She has never given an
interview about the catastrophe, or the years after. She served as chief of staff for
President Olivera the entire three years. The Davis administration, which followed the
catastrophe, removed Ms. Mason from the White House and eliminated any input she had
on policy. She shifts back and forth on the fold out chair and brushes the black bangs
away from her eyes.

Interviewer-Why don't you start at the beginning?

Salia- The beginning? You mean the beginning of corporate takeover of politics? Or do
you mean the Cold War and the creation of nuclear weapons and the security state? Or
maybe you are talking about industrial civilization and the formation of the nation-state,
but then that would miss the whole creation of agriculture thing and that would be
missing the point wouldn't it?

Her eyes shift slowly around the dirt floor and refuse to meet mine.

Interviewer- I was thinking maybe the first campaign?

Salia- The only campaign. She was killed, remember?

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She fumbles in her pocket and pulls out rolling papers and tobacco. Her hands flutter to
the work and I am surprised to see this from a former full-time political strategist.

Salia- We met during the first Obama campaign. Late 2007. Everyone was going nuts for
this weird sounding guy who did or didn't come from Kenya, but when I met Lola I was
star-struck. She was the first to say that Obama wasn't a progressive. Everyone wanted to
believe in Obama. We had just finished what felt like a century of George W. Bush and
now were trying to recover. Obama was the best we could hope for. Lola was twentyeight years old but experienced beyond her years. She had been a cultural advisor in
Afghanistan. You remember those provincial reconstruction teams? Meant to merge the
US military with the civilian population? Yeah, well she spent three years over there. Had
been a true believer in the beginning. By the time she came back she had changed her
entire political philosophy.

Interviewer-And this was because of the war?

She snorts, a kind of half laugh, half sadness.

Salia- The war, the military, the Afghans, the entire fucking thing. By the time the war
started in the 1970's most of the millions of trees in the country had been cut down to dig
for minerals that weren't there. Rivers had been diverted, the heat lasted longer and the
rains became more severe. They washed away crops that were already hard to grow. The
Soviets destroyed what infrastructure existed for agriculture, the Afghan civil war

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destroyed the cities and we destroyed everything that was left. Oh, I don't doubt that there
were good things we did, built orphanages, schools, dug wells and built roads. All of that
doesn't matter when you destroy the only crop that grows in a climate ravaged dirt-poor
country: Poppy.

Interviewer-This is of course before full legalization in the United States?

She glares at me as if I’ve brought up a dead relative.

Salia- Lola…., President Olivera had the Justice Department declassify all schedule 1
and 2 drugs. This essentially made it legal. It opened everything to research and allowed
states to regulate it based on their needs. It effectively neutralized the opium trade
coming to the US from Afghanistan. It didn’t end the war; nothing could with the climate
changes there. Afghanistan was an environmental sacrifice zone before the Soviets
invaded. We couldn't change that. We never tried to change that. There was a desire to
kill the people who attacked us and it couldn't hurt to have a regional hub to buffer Iran
and Pakistan, we've seen how dangerous those states can be. That’s all it ever was. No
one in a position of power ever really cared about the women. If they did they would
have done something about Saudi Arabia.

Interviewer- You are referring to the coup and twenty day nuclear scare?

Salia-Yes. We dodged a bullet there. That was the only military excursion that President

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Olivera authorized. They got in; the spec-ops people, and out quickly. It was a zero sum
mission. We thought we had a twenty percent chance of success. Even if we secured the
weapons there was still a question about what kind of government would emerge and
how it would be managed. As it was we were able to secure the weapons sights in range
of Laashkar e Taiba soldiers and evacuate them to be dismantled in Uzbekistan and then
later in Germany. This was all part of the security deal with Russia that reduced our
nuclear weapons down to 200 each. That was a coup of its own.

Interviewer- The campaign was never about any of this?

Salia- No. It was still all about the economy. Jobs jobs jobs. It was clear that the climate
was getting more volatile every day. It was clear that the US was no longer the uni-polar
power in the world. Lola ran on a campaign of action. Call it socialism, progressivism,
whatever. It was a campaign to enlist the people in a struggle. Call it a populist
presidency. She was the first to connect our technological growth with our dieing planet.
At least as politicians go. That resonated with the people. They had been waiting to hear
that. Enough with FEMA planning to fix problems after they happened. She wanted to
challenge the foundational elements that were causing this pain. She formed, essentially,
a new political party. She brought anarchists and statists together around the need to
protect the earth. That none of our problems could be separated from each other.
Challenging individualism was her greatest strength. She questioned everything. But it
was never about her; it was just a way to give the American people a voice. After the
utter failure of the Obama administration to empower the American people they had lost

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faith in the system. Olivera had her own questions about the functionality of capitalism
by that point as well. She channeled the outright hatred of the Trump administration into
a people powered movement.

Interviewer- How did she come to run for President?

Salia- Well, she was barely old enough. 35 in 2019 so that made her just old enough to
run. There were only 3 other viable candidates. One drugged themselves too much during
a debate and that ruined them. One was for nuclear power as a plant melted down and the
last one lost head to head in multiple debates. He claimed that she was too young and he
thought America would agree. They didn’t.

Interviewer- How much did the extreme elements of the right wing help her?

Salia- The Republican Party by that time was a dead dog. The tea party took the religious
freaks into the 14th century and became a breeding ground for separatists and racists.
Economic conservatives abandoned the social issues of the last fifty years and tried to
save capitalism. The Libertarians had enough of both and formed their own local groups
or tied in with anarchist elements of our campaign. That made it an interesting race from
the perspective of the media. When the Supreme Court assassination happened during the
May primary battle the right essentially lost the election.

Interviewer- You have drawn parallels to the mass shooting in Norway with Anders

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Brevik?

Salia- Yes. After 9/11 Americans still believed in retribution and revenge. Fifteen years
of war changed that. When Brevik shot up the people on that island many believed that
Norway would respond by increasing its police and military surveillance state. They
didn't. They responded with more openness. More love. Questions about how they could
be better. I think the Supreme Court killings did that. Our country was ready for a small-r
revolution. President Trump was a lame duck and couldn't get anything done. They
weren't interested in taking risks. Our candidate promised to re-think everything. She
won in a landslide.

Interviewer- So, walk us through the policy battles and approach as you came into office.

Salia- Well, the Supreme Court was the most pressing issue. There had never been new
appointments. Congress had rejected everything Trump had put forward. It was the first
time in American history that the court had missed its fall sessions. No reviews had been
done in almost a year. We put up a number of good folks, and with our super majority we
were able to push through two younger women onto the court. For the first time it was
dominated 5-4 by women.

Interviewer- Took long enough.

Salia's lips curl up in a half smile, like Han Solo before he's frozen into carbonite.

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Salia- We did so much in three years. It wasn't enough. It never could have been, I see
that now. But we believed. If only we had come to power twenty years before, maybe we
could have held off the corporations. Maybe we could have led the world in addressing
climate change.

Interviewer- Instead of being the lead contributor?

Salia- Aren't you supposed to be the impartial journalist? No. By the time we came into
office we were right on the edge and we didn't know it. Didn't want to know it. We had
all the numbers, statistics, but when you have been living this way for so long how are
you supposed to change? No one ever explained it to the American people. At least from
the White House. Sure they made comments about it. Empty promises. We tried to
deliver. We shut down Fracking in all states. We canceled pipelines that had been years
in the making. President Olivera believed in getting the backs of environmentalists. They
had been shit on for years. We made the new CCC for Christ's sake.

Interviewer- That’s something I’m really interested in. It was the first major attempt at
national service not based on war. Can you talk...

Salia- It was a war! Just not the traditional kind. Our culture was the enemy. Our
consumption the attacking force. We had to reduce everything without destroying our
economy in the process. How is that possible with a system, capitalism, that requires

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infinite growth on a finite planet?

She stops suddenly, stares at the floor. Takes a deep breath as if she's been holding this
for years. Finally lights the cigarette she has been twirling in her fingers.

Salia- The Climate Change Corps came from a coalition of environmental and veterans
organizations. It was the combination of a need for service and a problem in need of
service. You wouldn't think that these groups would get along but they worked together
beautifully. When Olivera joined with them during the campaign it created the biggest
coalition outside of the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's. All the anti-war, antiglobalization work of the 90's and 00's combined into a movement that prioritized healing
the planet and thus, ourselves. The idea was simple. Stimulate the economy by hiring
millions of unemployed and underemployed workers to fix our damage.
It was modeled after the conservation corps of the 1930s under President Roosevelt.
More people served in that then did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Did you know that?
Anyway, we hired over five million people. Put them to work outside Chicago and
Atlanta, Los Angeles and Boston. Decommissioning buildings that were condemned.
They cleaned up rivers, putting nutrients into the water that had been sapped from
farming. Taking down dams in the northwest and returning the salmon. Making every
day earth-day. Every state could put forward suggestions of projects to be worked on.
We had projects in every state except Mississippi and Arizona. Louisiana was the worst.
So many pipeline spills. That’s where all the tar sands was shipped out of when the
Keystone pipeline was canceled.

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Interviewer- What was the political climate like?


 Salia- Well, the election was a split decision as far as the Presidency went. We won the
house just barely but took a ten-vote lead in the senate. More importantly we took back
many state houses. This was huge because whoever won that election won the right to redistricting. But even the Democrats who were elected, most of them didn't share our
radical view of governing. The environment still wasn't sexy, but we were able to make
the case around investment in jobs to clean up the country. We had no more surplus in
physical labor jobs. The housing market had crashed again after all that crazy Chinese
investment, so we were looking at 15% unemployment and people were willing to try
anything. Sure the CCC was called a “make work” project, derided as socialism, but that
was old news and no one was listening to that shit anymore. People just wanted dignity
and a chance to dig themselves out of the mess we were in. And you know what? People
enjoyed the work. They learned valuable skills and got to put their hands in the dirt.
There is something special about having a stake in your community, seeing it improved
in front of your very own eyes. You saw the polls, before Bob Davis took over. New
CCC members had a higher respectability level then American soldiers!

Interviewer- President Olivera looked poised to win a second term and continue her fight
for system change...

Salia- Then she was assassinated. Yes. That was the end of reasonable discourse and

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solutions based on debate. After that, well, it was a civil war between people and
corporate profits.

Ben and the tar sands, 2024
He couldn’t shake the nightmare. It woke him in the darkest of night. 0300. The
same time he used to interrupt Syrian’s sleep during the war. Ten years behind him, no
amount of alcohol could get the helpless feeling out of his mind. His dreams were
nothing like the movies. They started something missing. On patrol, scanning his sector,
platoon mates in front and behind him, nothing abnormal. He would reach for his
camelbak, nothing. Throat began to parch. Desperately looking around he realizes he
doesn't know the men around him. They have blank faces. A truck rounds the corner
ninety meters to the front. He raises his rifle and sights the driver in the chest. Stance.
Breathing. Trigger squeeze. Nothing. Jam? He desperately slaps the magazine, pulls the
charging handle ejecting a hot round. Raises the rifle. Trigger pull. Nothing. The truck is
twenty meters away gaining steam. His platoon is firing everything. His heart stops.
He always woke up as the vehicle exploded and felt the shrapnel ripping through
his body. His body drenched like a swamp. Still didn’t help his back. Thirty-three
airborne jumps had destroyed that and his knees. He stumbled into the kitchen and
searched for coffee. Still cant shit without it. His squad leader had made sure all of them
make a bowel movement before every patrol. Said he didn't want to smell like shit when
he carried our dead asses to the helicopter.
The walls of his house were empty, save for a few individual pictures of a world long
gone. A world in the summer of 2001 before everything changed. He had been planning
for a career in writing. Something kinda dangerous and far away from bosses. Indiana
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Jones with a laptop. Seventeen years old sitting in college prep, that’s when the teacher
got a call. In retrospect you could see all of this happening. The dominoes falling in
succession. The changes to come. That it was all downhill from that moment sitting in
high school history class. Her face changed from rosy to ashen. Her trembling hand
replaced the phone as she explained that a plane had crashed into a building. Shortly after
we learned new words. Homeland Security. Terrorism. Climate chaos. Torture. War
crimes. Fascism. Words never spoken in La Crosse, Wisconsin. After that day, even a
small farming community like La Crosse, Wisconsin couldn’t escape those words. And
we took the world down with us.

Benjamin lay awake in bed, debating the value of rising from the sheets. He
wanted to do something. Somehow shake this feeling of helplessness. He glanced at the
inside of his arm; the Garmin watch told him he had an hour until sunrise. The stress in
his shoulders and back ached to be cleared out. He shifted to his feet. In the kitchen he
found the coffee in the freezer, pulled a cup and dropped the grounds into a grinder. A
pot on the stove served as his only cooking utensil and as the water boiled he trudged into
the basement to find another bottle of whisky. The downstairs was still full of boxes left
from his parent’s death. He didn't know if he should throw them out or leave them. So he
did nothing. In the back, behind a particularly scary plastic stuffed Santa Claus his
mother had always put out on Christmas Eve, was a box of bourbon, bought wholesale in
Illinois before the road's closed. Before the plague. He pulled it out with his good hand
and reached in to see what was left. A bottle. A single fucking bottle. He would have to
get more later today. He stomped back up the stairs to mix the whiskey in his coffee and

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begin the day.

It sounded like a robot cat. Incessantly purring the same monotone
“mmmmrrrgghhh”. Over and over, for an hour now. He hadn’t hung up the phone. Just
sat there waiting for a human voice. Ben was simply attempting to speak to a mental
health counselor. He had lost himself in thought staring out the window. He had nothing
else to do. Nowhere to go. He had heard that there might be counselors available for him.
But with the privatization of the Veterans Administration he had seen little evidence. He
had been part of the initial fight in Syria and had come home to dreams he couldn't awake
from. Part of a special forces scouting team he had found locations to drop bombs and
done battle-damage assessments afterwards. He could remember the children especially.
The sound of the ringing put him into a trance.

He was running through the desert. Trying to get there before....Something.
Something was supposed to happen and he had to stop it. His mind was cloudy. He could
see a vehicle in front of him. A minivan. There was a family eating lunch. His boots
struck the sand faster and faster, spraying particles aside. His muscles straining against
the pain. Sweat poured down his face. And then he heard it, like a screech and then
silence. The van exploded outwards and vaporized the family. Bloody chunks of flesh
pelted him and kicked up dust around his now floating body. He slammed backwards into
a rock and his back flared with pain.

“We apologize for the delay. Your call is important to us. If you are thinking about

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harming yourself, please hang up the phone and dial 911.”

He glanced at his watch, seventy-two minutes. He always kept time of everything.
Fuck this. He pressed end. The sounds of silence flooded back to him and he began to
focus on his breathing. Visualizing each breath as a wave crashing upon the beach. He
had enough of this. This was the fourth time he had tried this week. He couldn’t drive
down there, too many cars on the road, he wouldn't make it. Sitting on the phone was the
extent of his options. Fuck the VA. He jolted up from the chair, almost knocking it over.

They had promised him health care when he joined. He could never afford it
before. His parents died early on so he couldn't be on their plan. He had been denied
social security multiple times. Joining the Army was a way to get a steady paycheck in a
shoddy economy. He thought he had been making a good choice for his future. His hands
rolled a joint as he stared out the window. Muscle memory over the last few years had
changed his perspective on marijuana. Before the war he thought weed was for idiots.
Alcohol and cocaine was where it was at. Marijuana made you lazy and slow. Cant do
that and survive. When the nightmares started, sleeping lost all its pleasure. He would
dream even when he was awake. Weed stopped the shakes. It slowed his mind to be able
to deal with one thing at a time. It allowed him to close his eyes and not see little children
blown to bits. He could go to a bar or do his shopping without thinking someone was
following him. It allowed him to admit that he had a problem. He had a lot of problems.
His masculinity told him to keep everything to himself. When he was still in the Army he
at least had a support structure despite the harassment. Even the women who entered after

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Obama changed the rules on gender discrimination. They were the worst. Women trying
to prove they were tougher then men. Hilary Clinton's with machine guns. Nothing
scared the Muslims more than that, he laughed to himself.

And then Trump started targeted raids against states that had legalized it.
Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California were the first. Not surprising they were
also states that had voted against him. It looked like a vendetta. But nothing could stop
them from growing and selling weed. Sure they could send out raids and kill people and
hire more cops, but it would still come back to the question of power and control. The
government could never control it. Prohibition never worked. He was proud to roll his
joint in his own house with a pistol on his belt for any DEA agent stupid enough to visit.
He rose from the chair and walked to the stubby wooden door. He placed the
marijuana cigarette behind his ear as he pulled on a black hoodie with his military unit
insignia on it. Pulling a match from his pocket he savored the first sweet drag off of
Guava-Nova, a splice blend of weed from a farmer outside La Crosse. His brain
chemicals began a happy dance and sent signals to the rest of his body that allowed his
muscles to relax. The smoke curled over his lips like a boiling cauldron to join the
polluted air above. Leaks from the tar sands plant just down the road had changed the air
around his house. The front yard, once populated with flowers and native grasses when
his parents were alive, had all withered and died from the belching of methane and
noxious gasses. Many of the locals had moved away before land prices plummeted.
Now, what to do with the rest of the day? Hit the bar. Two choices between the
hen house and upstairs. Upstairs was a hollowed out old mill turned brewery during the

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rise of the hops craze. The hen house was a cheap strip club. Cheap booze and low
lighting. He decided on the darker, cheaper option. It was three miles down a winding
wooded road with no sidewalk so his jeans were soaked with water eight inches up by the
time he got there. Twenty minutes on foot. He liked walking everywhere. Even though
the weather was so chaotic lately he preferred the freedom of being on foot to stuck in a
car or an airplane. He had jumped out of enough perfectly good aircraft for a lifetime.

The rain was shooting down like fallen stars by the time he reached the waterfront
bar. It was an old building, used to be a dirty pictures place back in the nineties but this
old couple had bought it and turned it into a pub for cheap beer and perch from the lake.
By 2020 the perch were too contaminated to eat so they switched to just beer. It was on
the verge of falling into the lake or being closed by the state. Probably the former because
the state had bigger fish to fry. On the top level was a low-key strip joint that serviced the
fishing industry, what was left of it. Prices were higher here though as they had to
provide health insurance to any sex work in the state of Wisconsin. He had never seen
Democrats so split over an issue. On the one hand wanting to support women who chose
to work and on the other not wanting women to choose that kind of work. Their morality
was still all bundled up in Christianity same as the republicans, he thought. He snorted,
tossing the joint towards the rain soaked concrete and ambled up the steps. He could skip
the fish tonight.

It was a low-key vibe inside with the music turned to a six on the dial. “Please
please me” by the Beatles was coming through the speakers. As he entered he moved to

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the side of the door and let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Scanning from one corner
across the room he counted sixteen people. Five dancers and eleven consumers. He
moved to the bar and took a seat with his back against the wall. This way he could see all
the entry-ways. Multiple colored lights adorned the stage. Ben sat under a single sixtywatt bulb and a lava lamp at the cash register. It was a Tuesday so there was no cover at
the door. The Beatles were over and something that sounded like the underwater
Caribbean music scene picked up the pace. The bar shook with each bump and two
Latina women entered from behind a curtain. Movement out of the corner of his eye and
he switched to the bartender. An upraised eyebrow.

Bartender: “Same?”

Veteran: “As always.”

The bartender pulled the Makers Mark from the shelf, snagged a single ice cube
and dropped it into a lowball glass. Tipping the bottle he filled it to the brim and slid the
glass over to the veteran. He turned and tipped the tap of India Pale Ale which flowed
into a curved glass leaving just enough head for flavor. Not too much or the beer went
bad fast. Not too little or it wouldn’t have its best taste. The bartender signaled twenty
dollars for both. Fuck, Ben thought, prices have gone nuts, he could barely afford to treat
his PTSD. Beer was still cheaper than therapy, though. He slugged back half the glass of
whiskey and took a sip of the beer. He nodded thankfully to the bartender. Turning his
attention back to the stage he could feel himself settling in to the moment and not being a

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thousand miles away. The weed focused his thoughts onto the moment and the alcohol
calmed his nerves. The two girls were kissing each other and grinding their hips together.
He had always been attracted to girls. In the Army, young men with years of pent up
aggression took it out on each other with homoerotic behavior. He heard it had been
worse before they had accepted women into all jobs. They were actually better on longrange missions he admitted silently. They had more endurance.
The girl’s bikini-tops were laying on the stage now and they had separated to do
cartwheels towards customers in for a closer look. He never sat at the stage. He didn’t
want to talk with anyone, just to look. The girl on the left seemed strangely like a girl he
had seen before. He couldn’t place the face but he was sure he had seen her naked before,
with that tattoo on her left thigh. Like a spiraling helix that broke off and formed its own
way. He scratched at his week-old beard and searched his memory. Too foggy right now.
The girls escaped to backstage as noiselessly as they had entered and Eminem began
blaring through the speakers. He drained the rest of the whiskey.
“Lets hear it for the Sorenson twins” blared the speaker at the stage. He hadn’t thought
they looked like twins at all. Marketing. Why the fuck cant they leave things alone to be
what they are. His beer was half full and he was steadily downing it. He ordered another
whiskey.

Bartender: “You a veteran?”

The veteran nods. The bartender nods back. Turns around and hands the whiskey glass to
him.

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Bartender: “This ones on me. Welcome home."

Ben didn’t think this place qualified to be called “home” but he nodded his thanks
and sipped the glass. Less ice in it this time. The bartender moved away from him and
walked out from behind the horseshoe ring. Ben lazily kept an eye on him, wondering
where he was going. The boy on stage didn’t interest him much. He had nothing against
guys; he had his life because a gay kid named Sal had jumped on a grenade. It had flown
over the top of the mud wall they were leaning against. No time for thought, just reaction
and Sal had thrown his body onto it. His guts were ripped open and the whole squad was
covered in human waste. But Sal had saved their lives. Sal got a purple heart and an
Army commendation medal for that. The Lieutenant in charge got a silver star for calling
in a Blackhawk for his lifeless corpse. So it goes.

The boy on stage was wearing a cop uniform. Ben didn’t know who that was
intended to turn on but maybe that was a fetish for some people. This bar always featured
straight men and women as well as the occasional trans dancer. Most people just came to
watch like children at a zoo. Sick, really. But what was he doing here judging? He could
see the bartender behind a half curtain talking to someone. Talking intensely. Ben had
been here before and never seen the bartender utter more than a sentence at a time. Now
he was talking, pausing, turning his head as if the other speaker was quiet, then he threw
his hands up in the air and walked back to the bar. He refused to make eye contact and
began wiping down the opposite bar with his back to Ben.

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That’s when she appeared. Wearing a thin black jacket with white lines down the
sides and black spandex with a short skirt. Her t-shirt hid the breasts that had been bared
onstage only moments before. The things people can do when the stage lights are on, he
thought. She was headed right for him. Her heavy black boots made no sound as she slid
onto the stool next to him. She made an effort to smile. He made an effort not to touch
her.

Ben: “What...whats your name?” he stammered.

Dancer: “No names tonight.” She put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Welcome
home”.

His head was pounding. All the sheets were wrapped together like a knot at the
base of his bed. Nightmares again. What day was it? Friday? Sunday? Sitting up he was
aware that he wasn’t alone in the apartment. His left hand shot to the bedside table and
reached into the drawer. Wrapping his fingers around the Glock it felt light. Someone had
taken the magazine. Fuck. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! How did he let this happen? He slowly
slid off the bed and moved silently to the door. Opening it he smelled smoke. Food
cooking. He stepped into the living room and there she stood. Thoughts flooded back to
him. After she had sat down at the bar with him and bought another drink they had
spoken about his service. She had led him back to the alley where she asked if she could
go home with him. She had a diesel Toyota Hilux and had driven the stick to perfection

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the four miles back to his place. Once there she had rolled a joint from his personal stash
and had smoked through it fast. That’s when the clothes came off. Slowly. Starting at his
feet she pulled each sock and massaged each foot like she knew where his pain was.
Moving to his lower back she hit pressure points that released yelps of pain and pleasure
from him. He had never been touched like this before. It felt so familiar, as if her body
and his were in rhythm without any movement. She rolled him over and pinched the
inside of his shoulder blades working out a knot that had been with him for years. That’s
when he first tasted her lips. They were hot and soft. Smoky as a grilled oyster. They
didn't part at first, exploring the texture and tenderness she pulled away to look into his
eyes. Hers were green like an Egyptian cat, natural he would learn later. They plunged his
depths with a kindness and curiosity for more. She was kneeling over him, her skirt hiked
up to her hips and her cunt pressed against his jeans. The tightness of his pants pressed
against him, his mind eager to tear away his belt. She slid his shirt over his head and
kissed his neck down to his stomach, hovering over a shrapnel wound as if she was
studying it. Her hands worked their way to his belt and pulled the restraints away.

There was no time for talking. No words that would fit the moment. The lights
dim with a flicker of cars passing by every few minutes. The shadow of their bodies
moved across the ceiling as if they were gravity-less beings rolling across the sky. She on
top at first didn’t bother with her tight black shirt. Pulling her stockings off her hips she
grasped his shaft and pulled him inside of her. She let out a squeal and he gasped
breathlessly. She was incredibly wet from rocking on top of him and he stiff as a tent
pole. They fit each other like a broken eggshell put back together. The condom she had

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put on him with her mouth tasted of strawberries and had ribs in it that massaged her
insides. Breathing faster, shorter breaths it was quick to bring herself to the edge,
hovering there as if balancing on a bowling ball till she hit the pins and they both came
together.

“Good morning” she said.

He couldn't remember her name. Had she told him? She was wearing the skirt with
nothing underneath. The black t-shirt hung around her shoulders as if it had been
stretched and ripped. Her eyes were still wearing traces of black and red mascara, what
had made it through their marathon all-nighter. He thinks they had sex at least three
times. He was gonna need to get more condoms.

“And how is your back this morning?” She asked, a wry smile spreading across her face.
“Mmmnnnnhh. Better, I think? How did you know?” He moved towards the chair,
thought about sitting down, decided against it. She spoke.

“I’m a trained kinesiologist and I do a lot of body work. I can tell by the way you move
that you have back problems. Infantry?” He nodded yes. How did she know so much
about him? “I was a medic for four years" she mused. "Joined the 75th Ranger regiment.
You look like someone from JSOC.”

Her eyes were studying him from across the kitchen. JSOC was the Joint Special

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Operations Command. It included the Army's Delta Force, Green Berets and Rangers, the
Navy's Seals and the 160th Special operations aviation regiment among other assorted
“dark” groups. People in JSOC usually had bad backs. Lots of jumping out of perfectly
good aircraft and hiking around perfectly horrible mountains and deserts. Evidently she
had been one of the first women to integrate the combat elements of the special
operations community. Maybe that’s where he had seen her before. Somewhere in
passing. An airport in Manas, somewhere in Pakistan or Yemen?

“Were you in Syria?” He hesitated to ask but had too. She nodded. “Did you know me
there?” She shook her head no. This was all happening too fast. Too weird. He realized
he was standing there holding an empty pistol with no clothes but his boxers in the living
room with a stripper who just blew his mind all night long. She saw the look on his face.

“Why don’t you take a shower, get yourself comfortable and we can answer some
questions?”. She nodded towards the bathroom as if giving an order. “Ill make us some
coffee and see what we can do about some food”. She turned her back signaling the
conversation was over.

In the bathroom he opened up his medical bag. Fumbling through the orange bottles he
found the Hydro-codeine for his back and plopped three down his throat. A couple bvitamins for the hangover. Paxil for the anxiety. He would smoke a joint after he washed
up. He flossed, brushed his teeth and swished some mouthwash around and stepped into
the shower.

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After the shower he felt much clearer as he slipped cargo pants over his scratched up
legs. He remembers her dragging nails up his inner thigh to tease him before round three.
A black t-shirt rounded out his wardrobe and he walked bare-foot back to the living
room. There were eggs, sunny-side up the way he liked them. Bread with a small bit of
butter and a large steaming cup of coffee on the table. He sat down and she joined him.

“How do you know so much about me?” he asked. She arched an eyebrow as if to say,
What? No foreplay?
“How did you sleep last night?” she had changed the equation. What to do? He shrugged
as if to say it was neither good nor bad.

“Maybe we should start with names. I’m Marisol”. She said it like the r was a d. He had
never been able to roll his R's in Spanish class.

“Thats an interesting name...” He said. The unsaid part of that was the fact that a white
girl shouldn't have a Spanish name. “I changed it when my dad died. I wanted to be a
new person.” His face automatically went into a mechanical change that displayed some
version of empathy he had seen on TV. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. How did he die?” Did
he really want to get this deep? He had just met this girl. Ben began to feel uneasy.

“He died of cancer. Never smoked. Lived next to one of the tar sands pipelines up north
near the border. The cancer rates are through the roof near any of that toxic shit. He was

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thirty-eight. Died when I was thirteen. I had no other family. I joined the Army to just to
get away.” Ben smiled for the first time and asked, "To meet interesting people?"
"Yes. And then to kill them". She smiled turning her back to him and went on cutting
onions on the cutting board. He brought the subject back to her father.
“Did the doctors say the cancer came from the pipeline?” Her back tightened and she
stopped cutting.
“They couldn’t say anything. They were scared for their own jobs and stability. No one
stood up to stop it before it was too late (CITATION 2). Have you seen photos of where
they mine that stuff in Canada?” Ben had not. In fact he had avoided just this kind of
focusing on the worlds collapse intentionally. It made all his symptoms worse.

They spent the next night together. She showed him the tailing ponds where waste was
dumped into perfectly good streams of river. The hundreds of thousands of acres of land
destroyed to begin mining. The freshwater reserves that were being depleted. The
growing cancer rates at each part of the pipeline. He was horrified. The oil that was
extracted didn’t even come to the United States. It got sent overseas. It brought back all
the memories of Halliburton and KBR making money off his friend’s deaths. The soldiers
would protect the oil facilities so Exxon and Total and Shell could make their profits. It
was selfish rich assholes screwing everyone else. He felt the anger coursing through him.
Emotions that had been dormant arose within him. Feelings he had long buried were
overtaking him. As Marisol told her life story and how the drive for oil had led her to join
the military, Ben began to cry.

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Marisol left to check in at work but was back before bar-close. She told the club
she was sick. They gathered their things together quietly and slipped out the door at three
am. A car was parked a half mile away and they found the keys on the back tire. In the
trunk was a new set of ID's for both of them. She took out two packages and unwrapped
them once they were seated in the car. One had file information on where they were to go
to pick up the next drop. They both read the information, memorized it, then lit it on fire.
Rain pelted the hood and fogged the windows. The second package contained four
packaged MRE’s (meals ready to eat) and two chicken sandwiches that seemed fresh.
They chowed down and he opened what looked like a large glasses case. In it was a penlike device and a large amount of ground marijuana. He looked up at her. She smiled.
“No more smoking joints until we get there” she said. “We need our lungs and we don’t
need attention”.
He knew it would be a long drive as she pulled onto I-90 and headed west. The southern
border with Illinois was still closed after the MERS outbreak but Minnesota was wide
open. They would take the northern route through North Dakota and Montana then swing
south to Wyoming before getting their next instructions. There they would switch cars
and head to their final destination. Their new lives.

During the drive Marisol explained more of her story. She had been angry when
she got out. Depressed. She had explored the bottom of every bottle she could find. As
the war's got worse and the American people became more complacent, more ignorant,
she began to look for some other way to serve. She had found it in a growing anti-war
movement. It started with rallies and marches but soon escalated to organizing soldiers to

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refuse unlawful orders. But when the economy crashed there were more than enough
people willing to take shitty jobs for health care. The movement died under Obama.
Liberals didn't have a problem with a Democrat dropping drone strikes on wedding
parties. She had been at a park when the team first approached her. It was a small group
of former JSOC personnel. Well-trained, angry veterans who were sick and tired of
seeing their friends die for energy companies. All they were doing, it seemed was
providing stability for them in unstable areas. And that’s when she first learned about
climate change. About how the Syrian civil war was heavily influenced by drought
(CITATION 3). How the Nigerian genocide started from heat waves and collapse of
stable Eco-systems (CITATION 4). The unit was going to do something about that.
They had all sworn an oath, against enemies foreign and domestic. And there was nothing
conscionable about profiteering off of war like Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP did every day
as American soldiers bled and died for their profits. The unit would bring the war home
and make the true enemies of America feel the same fear as those people the unit once
occupied in desert sands five thousand miles away.
They recruited Marisol, not only because of her anti-war political work but the death of
her father. The Tar Sands were the greatest carbon bomb on the planet and it had ended
his life, changing hers irrevocably (CITATION 5). She signed up after the first meeting.

One month later
Saskatchewan, Canada
The training was difficult. They were all veterans of one war or another. After
9/11 there were so many conflicts and small wars in which to train. After they came

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home there wasn't much for them. No jobs. Limited health care. When they went to claim
their disability and receive financial support for their injuries, they had to make their case
to a government appointed doctor who tried everything to prove that they were liars. This
left hundreds of thousands in the lurch without health care or a way to buy food and
housing. Those who didn’t turn to alcohol and drug use chose between suicide or illegal
activities. Many began growing marijuana to sell as multiple states made it legal. Crosscountry trips from Colorado, California and Washington brought marijuana to prohibition
states like Mississippi and Florida. Many of the soldiers surrounding him on the hill after
a long run had found ways to cheat the system that had cheated them. Now they were
training to actively overthrow it.

Each training day required a different leader to command them. This was an
effective way of teaching everyone how difficult it is to lead. Everyone would learn the
difficulties of command. No one had rank here. They had to learn to overcome their
socialized hierarchies. Many veterans didn’t like being told what to do by people
perceived as less competent then themselves. There was an ongoing attempt to cross train
skills with medical and weapons training at the top. They were encouraged to read in
their spare time and the camp had a library larger then the mess hall. Real books along
with electronic hard drives compiled everything from Dostoyevsky and counterinsurgency, to Adam Smith and Emma Goldman. Understanding culture and history
became paramount to any armed rebellion being successful. If they were going to attack
the fossil fuel industry they had to address what would come after. They had to provide
an alternative.

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Ben stood, bent over at the crest of the hill. Hands on his hips, breathing hard.
This was his first day as team lead. He had pushed the group of twelve hard up the hill.
He had pushed himself. Sweat was streaming down his newly shaved head. It tasted like
salt water. He hadn't had a drink of alcohol in a month. Straightening his back he
breathed out the pain and pulled some scraps of paper for the briefing he was about to
give. Every week each member of the squad was required to give a research presentation
on a possible target. At the end of training they would all con-sense to where their efforts
were most needed. Today for him was the history of the Canadian Tar Sands. Many of
the veterans had gone to some college after their tours, but learned little in the way of
research and public speaking. They had the passion inside them; they just needed to learn
to hone it. To point the gun at the right motherfucker. He had practiced his talk alone
many times and was ready. He removed his boots and socks to let them dry in the warm
Saskatchewan sun. According to locals it was warmer than usual. The rest of the squad
did the same. He began to stretch as he dropped the rucksack from his back and unfolded
a yoga mat. Everyone mirrored him noiselessly. Unlike their training in the military, this
involved no yelling, no berating and striking down others. They worked as a unit. A
family. They inspected each other’s feet for injuries. It had been an eight-mile run mostly
uphill. They loved each other, even after only a month. Each group was split along
gender lines with six men and six women. This allowed each group to split apart if the
mission should need. Each person had been extensively recruited, some going back years.
Many people had served together at one time or another. They all had combat experience.
After stretching enough to feel loose he closed his feet in a lotus and opened the
notes. This signaled his readiness to begin. “All right men, I mean folks, I’m going to

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brief you on the Tar Sands.” They waited. He went on “Ok, so you will have some info
packets with citations on your beds when we get back home but right now I’m just gonna
give you some background to think about as we walk back.” They would take a more
treacherous route back to camp that ended up being twenty miles long but was good for
endurance and scenery. “Here goes.” He cleared his throat and spit, remnants of his
former life still releasing from his body.

“What I want to talk about today is the largest industrial project on earth. The
main deposits of what the Canadian government calls “oil sands” lies about four hours
north of Edmonton in the province of Alberta. The deposits were first discovered in 1900,
but didn’t receive much attention until the 1970s. The process of extraction is the dirtiest
and most expensive of any type of oil on the planet. It requires intense amounts of fresh
water to be pumped through the oil in order to remove sand and other filaments. The
transportation of the bitumen through pipelines is destructive to the pipes themselves.
Like sandpaper being dragged along the inside, it deteriorates the stability of the pipes
and leads to more spills.”
Ben stopped and looked around the circle. This was not a group of people who
lost focus. They sat on his every word, rapt attention that met the gravity of the topic. It
was understood this information would be key to their training, and ultimately their work
together. Ben took a breath, feeling the tightness in his chest, and continued speaking.
“To top all this off, most of the product is never used in domestic markets. It’s for
foreign consumption. They ship it overseas to make a profit, mostly for corporations like
Exxon, BP and Conoco Phillips, not the taxpayers who pay for the whole operation.”

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The size of this destruction is larger than the state of Florida. It covers boreal
forests, rivers older than the tribes who subsist upon them. Tailing ponds of waste, just
piles of toxic shit, fill up over eighty square kilometers. Birds have been known to land
on them and disintegrate (CITATION 6). Many of the local mega-fauna, animals like
deer and elk have become carriers of poison. When they are hunted or fished they then
transmit that cancer to the humans who eat them. The many nations of the Cree tribe who
have hunted and lived upon these lands for countless generations, have cancer rates that
rival Fallujah (CITATION 6).”
Some of the men in the group had served in Fallujah. The house to house fighting,
munitions and unexploded ordinance, burn-pits. That was the worst because everyone
was exposed. They burnt everything from plastic MRE boxes and computer parts, to
metal ammo casings and depleted uranium. Many veterans, when they got home began
diving of cancer. It was nothing compared to those who had to remain in Fallujah
(CITATION 7).
“When white Englishmen first appeared, treaties were signed. Promises made to
avoid war. Central to this was the ability of the Cree nation to retain their natural hunting
and fishing grounds. Enshrined within the Canadian constitution was the promise that the
Cree would always live their natural existence. But the Supreme Court of Canada failed
to uphold these rights. The tribes sued, and lost. Petitions failed to make a difference and
every party that took political power failed to address the carbon bomb that is the Alberta
Tar Sands.”
The wind was picking up now and a chill was sticking to their sweat drenched
layers. Looking over the rolling hills as the sun fell to the West, the conversation was

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coming to a close. Ben cleared his throat and rose to the climax.
“I believe this is the greatest threat to the climate and our future. We can focus on
pipelines; export terminals or the consumers themselves. But, if we target the heart of the
entire infrastructure project, it could inspire resistance all up and down the chain. Instead
of cutting off the limbs and watching them grow back, let’s go to the roots of this
problem. Native people have been fighting this for years and the corporations have rolled
over them at every step. They have done everything right. They have been non-violent
and asked nicely but still they are ignored and shit on. As veterans we have a special
responsibility to step in when people are oppressed. We saw what happens when you let
corporations run a country. Iraq. Afghanistan. Syria. Many more we can’t even fully
know. They are unelected and unaccountable. Someone needs to say so and do something
about this. Native communities are being murdered. It’s time for us to get their backs.”

Ben finished reading and paused, the enormity of the obstacle’s in front of them
hanging in the air. Some were nodding their heads. Some looked at the ground, while
others met his gaze. Everyone had a determined look in their eyes. “Fucking right” said
Elyiana.
She was sitting to his left and put her hand on his shoulder. He exhaled slowly.
“Thank you for listening to my message to share” he said looking over their heads
towards the border. “Thank you for sharing” a few of them echoed. He let the silence
envelop them. Ben looked to Alberta; over the rolling pastures he could imagine the
massive destruction of land going on near Fort McMurray. Nothing had changed over the
years, despite protests and evidence, lawsuits and blockades. And it was all for foreign

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consumption. Nothing for America. Or Canada for that matter. That was all about to
change. This small group of people would alter the course of history.

The hike back to camp was quiet. Intensity rose from their shoulders with the steam from
their sweat. A fast moving thunderstorm came and went, leaving them drenched and
refreshed. As they walked into their ten-acre farmhouse camp, Ben went to get the cited
research papers to hand out. Elyiana stopped him.
“Before we break bread together tonight, I want to call for a vote. We have been here for
some time. We have heard all the different threats to our existence. I believe what ben
shared with us today is the greatest, and is begging for action. Let us go around and tell
us your vote.”
Ben couldn’t believe it. This was breaking protocol. But as the circle came together and
thumb after thumb pointed to the atmosphere they were trying to protect, it became clear.
He was home. And they now had a target.

One week later
Fort McMurray
They were now deployed in Alberta. Calgary was by no means a one-horse town
but after the Chinese financial crash it had greatly shrunk. They were on the south side of
the city, a former shopping district that took over from a former rodeo facility. Ben was
not the team lead for the operation. The twelve sappers from Charlie would sit this one
out. Bravo was in Alberta, readying the final heavy equipment. Ben sad on a bar stool, his
legs lazily curled around the base, sipping a Molson in this tiny townie bar. He debated

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whether to play another game of pool, inevitably losing to Sadie.
“What’s going on in that head of yours”? Sadie, the unquestioned computer
genius and language extraordinaire asked.
“I don’t know, my head is kinda hitting a stuck point”.
“You mean like how our war PTSD can all be traced back to one single event?” she
smiled wryly. “Don’t get so worked up about it. We are all trained well. We know what
we are doing. No one is going into it blind. It’s been six months. The military didn’t even
train us this well”.

She was right of course. Basic training lasted two months and that was mostly repetitive
tasks. Learning how to march and structure a unit. Advanced training could take longer
depending on your skill set but everyone here had been infantry. Because the military had
changed its policy on allowing women to serve openly in combat around 2013, they
could structure the teams to be equally female and male.
“Come on” said Sadie. “Ill grab this pitcher and we can play for the next one”. She turned
in her used Calgary flames sweatshirt; the flaming C faded just like the former team, and
marched to the bar. The TV was on in the corner, turned to local news and as he rubbed
blue chalk on the end of the warped pool cue he began to pay attention. The announcer
had a squeaky voice and thin wire rimmed glasses.
“The train derailment near Glasgow, North Dakota has sent thousands of gallons
of crude oil into the Yellowstone River and a mandatory evacuation is in place.” Ben shot
a look at the bartender who was busy getting their drinks and turned up the volume on the
TV. “Activists have begun arriving in the town and plan a vigil tonight for the victims of

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the spill.”
That was three spills this week. Between all the new pipelines and increased rail
traffic, plus truckers doing twenty hour drives now that health inspections no longer
mattered, he was surprised it was only three. He scoffed at the vigil. They needed a
cleanup plan, not a prayer service. The announcer was still speaking. “Protesters allege
we should not be shipping oil within the United States, but where do they want it to come
from? The Middle East? Do they want to buy it from the war zones of Nigeria and
Venezuela?” Ben shook his head, more in resignation than anger. His entire life, these
had been the same arguments used against doing something. Anything. These people had
no imagination.
“That shit should stay in the ground” Sadie’s voice brought him back to the bar as
she set down the pitcher of Kokanee. Then she placed two shot glasses of Canadian Club
whiskey on the bar next to him. “You know that whiskey should never be blended
right?” Ben stated without expectation of a response. “Just drink it,” said Sadie. “Ill
break”. He swallowed the poison and turned off the TV. “Well, at least someone's gonna
do something about it” he said. She met his eyes, briefly, then sent the ball cracking into
the triangle.

That night, Ben was able to be with Marisol again. It had been some time since
they all slipped across the border separately. Due to the Chicago MERS outbreak, border
crossing was as difficult as ever, and they had to use the tunnels built during the Trump
immigration fiasco. She entered the small bedroom at the back of the farm house quietly,
her footsteps silent against the creaking floorboards. The wind had settled down along the

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prairie, and the spare heaters were on their last solar power from the hot water heaters.
Dropping the cargo pants they all wore now, she lifted the deerskin blankets and slipped
into bed.
“I missed you honey” Ben mumbled from the purgatory of sleepy wakefulness.
They kissed, the taste of beer still on his lips, hungry for her. Her legs unshaven, she let
them caress his thighs. Now the fear of losing each other drove their passionate intensity.
As he slipped inside her, they made no attempt to quiet their animalistic desperation.
Ben’s hands found her long, braided hair, pulling hard as Marisol’s hips thrust upward
taking all of him. The night closed around them. A brief moment before the final
darkness.

Math Teacher Evergreen State College
Al Westerfield stood at his desk and his hands dug into the cheap wood. They
were at it again he thought. Those damn kids care more about protesting than getting an
education. Sorry lot to hand the world over too. No one had showed up for his
Introduction to Statistics with an emphasis on political economy. He began picking up the
folders so neatly laid out on the table. Sliding them into his bag he plucked his trusty
laser pointer from its perch near the NET board and stuffed it into his breast pocket. As
he closed the briefcase he glanced one last time out the LEED certified climate friendly
window. Over two hundred of them now. Milling about a fire in red square near the
library. Why didn’t the campus police stop them his mind raged. He thought back to his
time in school in the 1970s. Now that was when they knew how to crack skulls. Get

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things in order. Under Governor Reagan, he had put a stop to that nonsense. Schools were
a place for learning about the world. Not changing it. What could these teenagers know
about governing society? He grunted, lifting the suitcase and stomping out the door
towards his car.

The engine wouldn’t start. He got out of the car. Popped the hood. Looked inside.
Nothing. These damn new cars, couldn’t fix the motor if I even knew what was
happening. Something crunched behind him and Doctor (PHD) Al Westerfield, whirled
around almost losing his balance. A young girl, couldn’t be more than twenty years of
age, stood before him, her head cocked sideways. A strange smell, she hadn’t washed in
days he thought, wafted past his nose.

“You can’t leave,” she said with a cheerful voice. She just stood there after that. Al’s face
twisted downward to make his already present scowl stronger. “What did you say my
dear”? She just looked at him deeply, as if there were secrets behind the childish eyes.
Her hair wrapped into itself and fell around one shoulder making its way down her chest.
The thin flowery dress that stopped at her knees lifted and fell with the strong breeze. It
was going to be another stormy night. Al studied the girl, not knowing why he was
considering her at all. Friday night. Late. Campus police probably busy with protest or
some other disorder. Buses no longer running due to budget cuts…He abruptly sensed the
two of them were not alone. Another woman, older, and a young man were now standing
next to him. “You had better come with us” said the woman. She gripped his outer arm.
His legs were weak, spongy, he felt himself sinking towards the concrete. Greta had

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always told him his anxiety was his worst feature, till she left him. He fell to the grass.
The trees above seemed to cave in on him. The silence echoed through his skull.

Simba was putting the ashes of the fire out. It was no longer necessary to
demonstrate resistance in such an artistic way. There are many things that need burning
but we are not there yet she thought. The old man from the parking lot had been the last
of them. Only four police on duty tonight, it had been easier than anyone had planned.
They took the first one in the office, so no backup would be called. After years of
students fighting the police to keep weapons off campus the police, naturally, had won
the battle after the University of Washington shooting that killed the provost and a police
officer. Killing police always made them multiply faster than rabbits. They were worse
than the military. They beat their own people for fucks sake! Her hands trembled as she
held the water filled gas can washing away any embers. They had done it! Taken the
school away from the administrators. The moments that had led to this one were tinged in
tragedy. Closing down the ecology department under pressure from the marine oilshipping corporation, which owned half of Olympia, the nearby capitol of Washington.
They had their slick fingers on everything, from transportation to who sat on the local
school board. Or the Board of Regents at the Evergreen State College. It had not taken
the corp long to realize Evergreen was nothing if not a radical political training center,
spewing out minds of resistance into the wider world. Closing the school itself proved
difficult, but with some moving around of donations and funding, there were budgets to
cut everywhere, they were able to attack different disciplines of study.
Simba looked at her hands, covered in grime and spit. She rubbed them together then

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wiped them on her dress. Her hands were always dirty. If anyone ever needed to find her
they could trace the thousands of black fingerprints over the pages of books at her small
house. To make organizing a lifestyle she fixed bicycles for people. Or more accurately
she taught them to fix their own bicycles. Initially she was derided for having such a
“horrible business model” that constantly reduced her “customer base”. She snorted. As if
all the members of the community she had met were “customers”. Not only did she make
enough money to pay the maintenance on her home, but she was able to spend three days
a week working on building a new society. Or that’s how she thought of it. Her eyes
lifted to the third floor of the library building. The center of their defense of this sacred
land. She could see figures moving rapidly, windows being covered with single direction
shades. They could see out but no one could see in. The theater department, or rather its
radical students, had supplied that extra protection. The principles for success had
galvanized the student body bringing together groups that had never thought of anything
but their own needs. Now the students were all in this together. Almost four thousand.
Simba still had work to do before she could join the others in the Council of Temporary
Leaders (COTEL). Her hands reached for the tool-bag sitting on the nearby bench. The
dedication plaque plastered to the plastic wood leaped out at her as she shouldered the
bag.

DEDICATED JAN 20 2020
“Towards a better tomorrow”
MARINE OIL SHIPPING COMPANY

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Her lips curled into a smile then with her teeth showing she arched her head to the sky
and let out a howl like that of the wolf. The moon was full.

The old man became aware that he was alive. He was laying vertically on
something…felt like a bed of some sort. He lifted his head, looked around. His heart was
pattering at a vastly exponential rate. Numbers swirled around his brain. How long had he
been sleeping? Sleeping. That’s what he was doing was it? The room looked like a cheap
medical clinic. He became aware slowly that he was lying in the student medical center.
Signs of venereal disease and abortions littered the walls. He rose to an upright position.
He felt disgust. A headache suddenly demanded all his attention. Unsteadily at first, his
old shaky arms lifted off the semi bed and his feet found the floor. He was only wearing
the socks he had put on that very morning, Kashmir, from before the war when you could
still find it. Slowly he moved to the sink and commenced drinking straight from the
faucet. Uncouth of him to do this but the circumstances warranted it he thought. His
headache slightly subsided and the empty space in his brain was filled with anxiety. He
remembered everything, suddenly as if the water had washed over him like a wave. There
was a knock at the door. It opened and a man in glasses, Asian perhaps? Stepped into the
room and help out a tray with vegetables on it. “They are fresh, I assure you” the man
said. He wasn’t a man, al thought shaking his head. Just a boy. Looking down the old
man realized he had already taken the tray and begun eating. “When you finished, you
will come with me,” said the man-boy. The old man stared at him with questions
swirling. He continued to eat. Slowly.

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Simba was in the Bravo parking lot at the local power control for lights and
security onto the campus. They had already taken the first guard gate that allowed
primary access to the campus. They closed the gates and then burned the control panel,
sealing them all inside the campus, and the police on the outside. None had showed up
yet, but it wouldn’t be long. She clipped the wire for the lights and the parking lot went
dark. Time for the sentries to turn on their night goggles she thought. She wouldn’t need
them, not yet. Years of living off the grid, aside from saving her money, had honed her
ability to move through the darkness like a second nature. She did night walks, listening
to the critters around her in the capitol forest. The area was large enough to get lost in it,
providing you didn’t run into rural cats shooting off their guns. Lack of police sometimes
had its drawbacks. She cringed at that thought and almost spat out-loud. That’s only
because we have an individual community. If everyone were more interconnected they
would see that their behavior affects others. Take care of their needs and people become
more receptive. Her mind was wandering. If they were successful tonight then they might
be successful tomorrow. One day at a time. We can only control the end by making a
choice at each step. She had made her choice. Once again she grabbed her bag and
headed to her final assignment before unity with her tribe.

The library was four stories and the headquarters of this higher education coup de
tat was on the top floor. Antennas and mini re-creations of local prairie land dominated
the outside of the fourth floor. The inside was draped with maps and political slogans.
Political action is cognitive therapy for society” and “if your life’s work can be
accomplished in your lifetime than you aren’t thinking big enough”. The maps were

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local. The greater Olympia area. Certain locations were marked with red or yellow
stickers marking targets that needed attention. As Simba entered through the glass doors
she was met by a third security culture appointee. Well, she thought, “Its good that we
finally found a role in the movement for the paranoid conspiracy theorists. Put them to
work checking peoples identity. She reached inside her Carhardt jacket, it had gotten
cold outside as the storm entered the area, and retrieved her passkey. The SC passed her
onward. Students were moving everywhere. Standing at the gate of a different world,
Simba looked over her comrades once more. She was proud, happy even. In many ways,
they had already won. The first successful seizure of a college campus since Columbia in
the 1960s. Back then it had been about only one war. Now it was about all of them. And
they weren’t done yet. She walked to the security table to check in. Seeing her security
card, Andy the dry humored swim team captain turned and checked off the final name on
the wall sheet. Everyone had reported in safely. All their cell watches were rigged
securely to a network that should provide them communication outside of NSA
wiretapping. For a time. It would eventually crack, but by that time they would be done
with the plan. The briefing would be soon. Simba then grabbed some locally ground
coffee and took a seat in the roundtable discussion area. The lights dimmed, students
began to move towards the seating area. 24 chairs ringed an oak table setup for collages
and repurposed for revolution tonight. Each person was a consensus agreed upon
organizer of their respective group. Security, Food, Communication, Political
development, Direct Action, Weapons, Medical etc. This would be the final meeting
before operations kicked in. First to speak was Propaganda. For this role they had chosen
Joseph Papono who looked more American than Ronald Reagan. He would be there to

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speak with the press and issue statements. Negotiate from a position of power if that
became necessary.
Joseph looked around the table and began to speak. “Working with the existing
computer arrays around campus we have rigged our own “extranet” to work around the
Internet blocking the police will use soon. We have a small amount of time before we are
raided. If we can hold out for another few hours, we can make our mark and end shipping
through the port forever. You all know what you need to do.”

Koch Brothers
Caity Knowles was a legend in the journalism business. She had cut her teeth on
the NSA spying revelations of the early 2010's. Following a government crackdown and
fearing for her own safety, she fled to Argentina. One of the new breed of journalists
following the collapse of the mainstream media, she chose to report with a clear bias
towards human rights and libertarian views. Her writing has influenced academics and
social movements with her analysis and criticism. She believed the individual was the
key component to a healthy society. She created a following that was defiantly supportive
of her. Her “enemies” list stretches from corporate America all the way to the White
House. I reached her by flying to Argentina.

Interviewer-I’m particularly interested in some of the “money in politics” pieces that you
did after all the NSA releases. You were one of the first to doggedly pursue connections

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between the big money donors and the “climate denial” industry.

Lisa-Well it was no secret, the first thing to do when you are a journalist is to follow the
money. We learned that from Nixon. And the money was going from all these megacorporations that were profiting off the oil and gas booms into politics. Exxon was at the
head of it all. In the 1960s they were at the head of climate research and came to the
conclusion that rising carbon in the atmosphere would lead to drastic climactic changes.
They made a tactical choice to hide this information (CITATION 1). It started to affect
all the races, even in places where the politics were decidedly one side or another.
Nothing was taken for granted. The House of Representatives was stuck in the
Republican column for a decade due to the redistricting process and..

Interviewer-Can you explain that? Because I think that goes a long way to..

Lisa-Sure. So, every ten years in the United States there is a census. The Constitution
calls for it. Basically, we try to count all the people, race, sex, religion, job, where they
live.. It helps with planning everything from our tax and revenue streams to public school
funding. Then that information is taken by the state legislature’s and used to update all
the Congressional districts, you know, to “more accurately” represent the people of a
region. So whichever political party controls the state legislatures at the time of the
election, say in 2020 or 2030, controls the new “re-districting”(Citation 2). So in the
election of 2010 the tea party exploded onto the scene and took over state houses across
America. This meant that they controlled the demographics of each district. They then set

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out to create districts that favored the Republican Party. So all the people of color were
thrown into one section, and then the white areas were more spread out, thus making it
possible to continually have the House of Representatives be in the Republican majority.
This then, affected everything national from health care, to immigration reform, to
climate change and the military. Because the house controls the purse strings of Congress
you couldn't de-militarize any parts of the armed forces. A plane is made in many
different states, a tank broken into multiple pieces that covers across all boundaries
(Citation 3). If you try to cancel a project you have different members of the house
crying foul. So basically our country was stuck in neutral. Once in a while the President
or the Senate would try to rev the engine but it didn't go anywhere.

Interviewer-Doesn't sound like the system that the founders envisioned?
Lisa takes out a cigarette and lights it with a match, almost absently.

Lisa-Well that depends on your perspective of which founders. Everyone wants to claim
that the founders of the United States had THEIR ideology in mind. That’s preposterous.
They were mostly rich white men but that didn't mean that they held the same views.
Some owned slaves, some didn't. Some believed in a Christian god and some were deists.
Hell, Thomas Paine was an atheist, although that word hadn't been invented yet. There
were people who believed in big government and some wanted a monarchy. They
definitely didn’t believe in democracy. The rule of the ignorant non-property owning
masses? That was chaos! (Citation 5), The only thing uniting the founders was the
opposition to the King in England. Even that was difficult cuz people like Alexander

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Hamilton wanted to replace him with an American king, but mostly there was a desire to
limit the powers of the executive. To retard the power of the executive branch so that it
couldn't act like a despot with no restraints. In that aspect our existing congress is very
effective. Not only have they restricted the power of the executive to do anything, they
have also neutered congress. Of course the founders didn't plan on computers or nuclear
weapons either, so it’s difficult to say what they would have thought.

Interviewer-There is also the problem of Congress not restricting war. Can you talk about
that?

Lisa-The history of war in this country is both straightforward and complicated. Congress
is the body that was supposed to declare war. The executive branch was intended to put
civilian control over the military. The legislative branch, specifically the Supreme Court
could rule upon the legality of a declaration of war and the hope was these relationships
would prevent most conflict from occurring. Originally fears of war were directed at reinvasion by Britain or other European powers. It wasn’t until the 1898 war with Spain
that the United States became an Empire…
Lisa holds up her hand to stop me from interjecting.

Lisa-I know, we don’t like to use that word: Empire. But an empire is simply an
extensive group of nations or people ruled over by a single unified authority. The United
States uses different tools than the British or French empires to control large swaths of
the planet but they control it nonetheless. We have sold our war debt to the rest of the

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planet for protection, stability and military support since the end of the American
revolutionary war. It’s why there is a central banking institution. It’s why America will
always be in debt. It’s why we can’t stop building a military infrastructure. It’s why our
primary export is guns and ammo. (Citation 5)

Interviewer-So how does all of this connect to the “Koch brothers” and climate denial?

Lisa-Well the same people who directly benefitted from the redistricting of Congress
were intertwined with the founding of the tea party. They bankrolled it and had direct
interest in an extreme agenda. They aren’t conservatives in the traditional sense.
Conservative means to protect the status quo, lift up existing institutions and protect the
way things have been. The Koch brothers sought to dislodge the existing structure and
destroy regulation and oversight of their profit making empire (Citation 6). They wanted
to make money and have no one tell them what to do. They were libertarians after all.

Interviewer-Can you explain how this affected climate change in any specific way? I
mean this seems more about economics and elections.

Lisa-Elections matter. Yes, the politicians can be bought and sold. They generally are.
But it’s not black and white like either you are with us or against us. As long as votes still
determine who sits in the office, there will still be some power within the electoral
process. I’m not saying its even approaching enough. I’m saying its just another wrench
in the toolbox. We need to throw everything at those in power. Everything around

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climate was framed through economic reform. If you wanted to improve the environment,
well it couldn't cost us any money. You want to stop pumping coal ash into the rivers?
That’s jobs up river that you are trying to ruin. That goes against our principles, that we
have the right to pollute or kill or do anything we want to the Earth. We were given
dominion over it in the Bible, remember? Now all of that is only what we could argue
about when we were actually able to agree that climate change was happening. And
caused by humans. And could be averted. Like a child with memory problems, the
climate denial segment of Congress would jump from one excuse to another. These are
people with tons of coal, oil and natural gas money in their election coffers. With the
Citizens United ruling followed by McCllean four years later the entire campaign
financing system was eviscerated (Citation 6). Money became free speech. This meant
that the corporations, excuse me, people, who had all the money were able to continue to
protect their money, whether it was through tax cuts or extending their nineteenth century
energy companies past any reasonable deadline for closure. They were able to stay open
and continue lobbying Congress, read paying people money to do their bidding, up until
the current day. Of course it’s a bit different now with all the violence, even some of the
richest of them have been affected by mother earths revenge. So basically the decisions
by the Supreme Court were able to allow so much money into congress that even as the
American people began to see the very real effects of the climate around them, and public
opinion swerved sharply into the column of wanting to do something about it, their socalled representatives did nothing (Citation 7).

Interviewer-Why couldn't grass roots organizing do something? Or individual acts? By

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the time of these Supreme Court decisions you had a “strong democrat” in Barack Obama
and people were trying to reduce their personal use of fossil fuels. I remember all the
light bulbs and new technology coming out at the time?

Lisa-Okay that’s the problem. Where to start...
She is tapping her foot faster on the floor now and I can tell I have annoyed her.

Lisa-First off, Obama was never a democrat. At best he was a nineteen fifties Eisenhower
Republican. He was an utter failure at such a critical juncture in our most pressing
moment in history, and he didn't just drop the ball, he never picked it up. He is the reason
that Trump was elected. It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't gotten our hopes up so
much. I mean how good did he need to be after King George the second? All he had to do
was complete his sentences. But that’s been talked about at length and that’s not why you
are here for this interview.

She lights another cigarette before the previous one goes out. Takes a drag and exhales,
the green smoke blows into the camera as her eyes re-focus.

Lisa-Grass roots organizing requires a theory of change. You develop an idea of how
change happens in society. Theory. You then go apply it in the world. Action. Then you
spend some time thinking about whether or not that works. Reflection. That process is
called praxis. It’s the foundation of critical thinking and grassroots analysis. In a crisis
it’s hard not to constantly be reactionary. If you don't follow this process then you are

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bound to repeat your failures. I can’t tell you how many times movements or THE
movement has failed to apply these lessons. It’s why they keep trying the same tactics
that didn’t work in 1968, expecting the power structure to bend to it. Let me be clear: the
United States government knows more about social movements then we do. It has studied
them with think tanks and dropped billions into analyzing how change happens. Then
they prepare so that it can’t have an effect. They buy off politicians or particularly
effective organizers. They negotiate with key leaders and create a shared story of
nationalism. And when this fails they send out the police. What really challenges them is
when things happen “spontaneously”. Of course nothing happens in a vacuum, it takes
years of work to move people from passivity to action, but if you aren't paying attention it
can catch you by surprise. So that’s not to say grass roots can't or doesn't work, but it
does take patience, bravery and discipline to execute campaigns effectively. Organizers
need to pick a target that you identify as being able to give you what you want. This can
be a head of a corporation or a boss of a company all the way up to the President. But,
your goal should be the lowest person on the chain who can give you what you want.
Then if they push responsibility up the power chain you can redirect pressure on the next
person. But again, this requires the target to be willing or able to give in. With the
Supreme Court, the American peoples ability to have any leverage through the ballot or
through movement organizing was reduced to almost zero. Both of these avenues
highlight the two choices for political involvement: Individual and Collective. Collective
is always better because it means you have more power, it is also more difficult because
different people have divergent perspectives and views. Individual is what the power
structure wants us to do. Individuals can be neutralized, ignored or placated.

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Individualism is the foundation or our property rights owning society (Citation 9). The
cold war was essentially a battle over whether society should be organized by collective
(Soviet Union) or individual (United States). Individual is more efficient in terms of
bureaucracy. Organized groups of people are more difficult to oppress. What I am trying
to say is that damage from organizing is the same as damage from corporations. The
more people you have the more power you have. If you changed every light bulb in your
house, or everyone in your group of friends, or even if you became carbon neutral it
would have little to no effect. The real reasons we have climate change is not because of
your personal choices in your house. Or your job. Its corporations slashing down every
last tree in our rain forests. It’s the military fighting wars over oil and water, wasting
massive amounts of both in the process. It’s about our transportation infrastructure. It’s
about meat production and how much grain and oil you have to pump into cows, chickens
and pigs to provide meat for every meal. It’s about systems. Individual change never had
a chance to effect climate change. The other reason was that individuals drive the market.
The market is what the power structure wanted us to employ and as long as every
American, Australian and Canadian house needed its own lawnmower, hot tub and SUV
then we could never address the real issues. It’s no surprise all these countries adopted a
very individualistic perspective when it came to these problems. That way systemic
change could be funneled back into the marketplace.

Interviewer-you sound very pessimistic about the future.

Lisa-Well when I was young I believed the primary problem with our world was that

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people didn't have accurate information from their media. If only they could have access
to unbiased information then they could make choices based on rationality. This was a
big mistake. I thought people acted rationally when they received information. But you
have to train for that. Most people’s initial response is based on emotion. If I told you that
you would die next week, it’s highly unlikely you would immediately move to a position
of rational thought. David Hume talked about this a long time ago. We are emotional
beings who try to justify it after the fact with rationality (CITATION 10). So that’s what
I did with my career, I tried to provide people with the truth. But they don't want the
truth, at least in America. They are so accustomed to having access to all the resources,
never dealing with crisis aside from all their “first world problems”. It was a mistake to
think that meaningful change could come from the heart of the empire. I’m just sorry it
took me so long to figure it all out. Information and education don’t automatically lead to
action. You need alternatives to offer when you challenge the existing order. Then you
need a story.

Interviewer-Can you tell us a story then?

Lisa smiles for the first time and her shoulders roll back. She turns around and looks at
her bookshelf, which is just out of shot with the camera lens.

Lisa- Let me tell you about Niria.

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Chicago 2024
The American's travel only lasted a few hours. He never expected to leave the
airport but when his contact failed to materialize at the meeting point, a guard had been
sent in the man’s place. His contact was sick, the guard said. The American decided to
attend the meeting at the contact’s hotel room. Their meet up in Dubai could not have
come at a better time for the American's company. They had lost their domestic contract
with the US government and were bleeding funds. President Olivera, had gone after the
contracting community with a vengeance and any sign of misused taxpayers funds or
illegal activities was enough to shut down even the most powerful companies. The
American had been in the business since the second Iraq war. There was just too much
money for a man who hadn't finished high school. He came in on the ground floor. Hard
work. Unlike all those liberals who wanted to give everything away for free, to help those
who wont help themselves, he had earned every penny. He rose through the ranks at
Triple Canopy. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Russia. Unofficially. After losing a
leg in Chechnya he had to take a more managerial position. Thanks to DARPA research,
he was able to get a joint replacement for his knee that was close to good as new
(CITATION 1). It had ached once he got off the plane, whenever it was hot, he was in
pain.

The meeting had been quick. His contact wasn't able to get to his feet, he was so
sick. They had been friends for some time. Where they had first met had been long
forgotten.

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Biological warfare hasn't always been intentional. Its first known use was during
the crusades when forces sacking a castle would catapult dead, plague filled corpses over
the walls into the structures they wished to take over (CITATION 2). The British, in an
effort to force Native American's to sign unfair treaties, handed blankets infused with
small pox to the native population. In two documented cases, the population was reduced
by 400,000 people (CITATION 3). Over fifteen million were eventually killed. Its most
famous and destructive use was in World War I. All the major countries used it. Mustard,
Cyanide, Phosgene. Its use was a small percentage of total deaths, but their indiscriminate
violence and the fact that you couldn't always know you were being attacked, caused
participant countries to sign the 1972 biological weapons ban. Indeed this, and the
personal experience of Hitler in the First World War made the Nazis refuse its use a
quarter century later. Ebola was the most feared of the “organic” types of biological
weapons. Killing 40% of those it infected and having no cure, it was scary, but its short
incubation time made it difficult to become a mass pandemic. SARS and the avian flu
changed the game. While it had a low death rate (10%) it could spread rapidly by cough
or touch. The bug lived for longer periods. It was just a matter of time.

The American landed in Chicago after a long flight home from Dubai. He had
taken Quaaludes secretly labeled as anti-depressants before the flight took off. It had been
an adventure staying awake. The pills were developed as a sleeping pill but people
learned that if you stayed awake long enough it could be an illuminating experience.
Touching down at the packed airport he barely noticed all the Flex-tel screens showing
news footage of the latest bug in the Middle East. Some kind of Chinese pig strain or

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something. Killed off a whole elementary school of girls in Saudi Arabia. Very virulent.
Over a thousand dead throughout five countries. Then a commercial lost his attention as
he rode the horizontal elevator. He grabbed his checked bags from the automated kiosk
and walked out to the waiting hybrid taxi. He shook hands with the driver as he got in the
cab. “Take me home” said the American.

One week later
There was a fire outside the Americans home. He could see it through the
window. The flames were licking up the side of the plaster and were visible through the
glass. His portable grill was taking the worst of it. The American couldn't move. He had
thrown up for a week. Near the end he began pissing in an old orange juice jug. His
muscles ached badly. Headaches and throat parchment were made worse by an inability
to move. He had gotten pneumonia the night before. Hot and cold the temperature had
fluctuated wildly. He took his last breath as the windowsill began to catch fire. Patient
zero was dead.

The first thing to go was the grocery stores. Just like every horror movie you have
ever seen, the smart people rushed to grab everything they could. The isolated individual
nature of Chicagoans made it less likely that people had community networks to rely on.
The disease didn't discriminate from rich and poor. In fact it had a higher likelihood of
spreading through the rich because of where patient zero had returned to. Working in the
defense industry he had first-class everything. When he had finally gone to a hospital and
sought care, he had infected everyone in it. Not before he infected his staff and his maid.

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It took a week from patient zero landing at Chicago O’Hare to the CDC recognizing that
it was the same virus as that in Saudi Arabia and the United Islamic Republic (formerly
Iran and Iraq). No vaccine existed at that point. There were 456 cases in Chicago after
seven days. The first press conference went horribly as a panic spread throughout the
city. A run on all the pharmacy stores had led to fighting and assaults. Women by
themselves were severely beaten and a death had been reported. The police stayed on the
sidelines. When they were truly needed they were nowhere to be seen. The mayor, a
political insider from a well-connected family, wasn't even in the city when it all hit the
fan. He was vacationing on Hawaii during the non-storm part of the year. Because of the
severe heat waves buffeting Chicago, he generally left town at this time. It had taken his
political team a few days but the damage had been done. Literally. He arrived in a leer jet
to riots with burning tires and barricades, smashed windows and broken camera's. The
black areas had been hit lightly compared to the more affluent suburbs, but the care had
been poor to nonexistent. All available doctors had been called out to the rich areas to
stem the proverbial bleeding. City hall had to call in private military contractors to
supplement their police forces, many who were becoming sick themselves. When the
Governor declared a state of emergency and asked for help from Wisconsin and Indiana
he was surprised to find their state legislatures moving to close the border. Missouri and
Iowa were closed a week after. Only Kentucky was unable to agree as their own
Governor was facing indictment charges on embezzlement and was unavailable to make
the decision.

The President cancelled a trip to Chicago for a fundraiser and the Department of

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Health and Human Services could no longer ignore the issue. They issued a travel ban to
Illinois and began a quarantine effort with mitigation cases for the surrounding states.
Trains going through Chicago were immediately stopped. Amtrak, having only one
southern train route had to shut off shipping service between the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts. Trucks were called up to duty to take on the crisis. The Coast Guard occupied
Lake Michigan to prevent people crossing the lake. National guard troops set up at
multiple state border checkpoints to prevent escape. Chicago was on its own.

Because of the virus's spread throughout the Middle Eastern region it had now
found a foothold in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, UAE, Jordan and Syria. Those
countries that were oil-producing states immediately slowed production driving a barrel
of oil well over three hundred dollars. The price of food skyrocketed with the
transportation industry thrown into chaos. The Canadian government began plans to shut
down the border. The greatest fear was a wave of infected refugees making it across the
border. The CDC didn't know what the virus was and the State Department was saying
that it was working on a cure. The United Nations Security Council held an emergency
session but few of the affected countries came. Only adjuncts could show up. Things
were spinning out of control.

What saved everyone wasn't a cure. It was isolation. Like a fire that needs to burn
itself out, Chicago was left to its own devices with little support aside from airdrops of
food. No medicine could fix the bug and people weren't being allowed out of the area.
There were a few instances of National Guard members shooting civilians at the border to

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prevent escape. Calls for the Governor and later the President to resign rang throughout
the legislatures. When the junior Senator from Illinois, a blue dog democrat, died of the
disease there was a national mourning in the Federal Capitol building. Most of the
country paid little attention to this, as by that time over 300,000 cases were reported and
110,000 approximate deaths had happened. Not all from the bug but, at least passively
from its existence. Law and order had broken down.

Roberto grabbed his chemical suit as the alarm bells sounded through the fire hall.
Sliding down the pole he landed awkwardly and an arm grabbed his full 6'4 frame. He
nodded thanks and reached for his gear. The engine was already running on the fire truck.
He stepped upon the side platform and the truck roared out of the garage towards city
hall. The streets were littered with trash, the garbage collector union was on strike, and
some of it was large enough to damage even a vehicle this size. Swerving back and forth
the driver told everyone to hold on. Reports were coming in over the radio. There was a
fire near city hall. A protest had escalated to Molotov throwing and when contractors had
fired into the crowd, members of the crowd fired back. The contractors abandoned their
post. The fires had started. No one at the site had reported the breadth of the fire yet.
They were racing in blind. The truck hit something that sounded like a large animal. The
truck kept moving. This wasn't how Roberto had envisioned things in this job. Being a
firefighter was supposed to be safe and respected work. Work he could raise a family on
and bring his parents north from Mexico. The family had crossed under the first Bush
administration when he was a child. His parents were deported under Obama. His salary
had supported them ever since. He had tried to get them visas but with no immigration

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reform, hope was becoming less of a commodity. The last few years had provided lots of
stable work for Roberto but since the virus things were degenerating. It was horrible to be
in the middle of a city tearing itself apart while the rest of the world watched on the
internet.

Through the truck's windshield they could see the smoke before they ever saw the
buildings. It was deep black, roiling over itself like a mushroom cloud. They turned the
corner and there it was, the old city hall building that had stood over a hundred years,
belching flames like a vomiting drunk. There was no way to save it. The surrounding
buildings were engulfed as well. Hopping from the back seat, Roberto sprinted with the
advance team toward the edge of the fire. They had a helicopter on the way to help fight
the blaze and give them an idea as to how big it was. That’s when the call came round
over the radio. The Mayor was still in the building.

The season before, Roberto had tried out for the smoke jumpers. They were
adding more members every year as the fires in the west of the country began to spin out
of control. It was a private company that filled in the gaps in Federal spending, but
charged three times the cost (CITATION 4). The fires were growing closer to the
prairies and pushing west towards all the settlements on the ocean. Montana had been hit
particularly hard that year. Roberto wanted to get away from Chicago; after all he had
never been raised on concrete, coming from a small farming village near the coast of
Belize. It had not served as a vacation. Indeed he had almost died. Caught up on a spur
one forgettable weekday, the fire they had been tracking had switched directions rushing

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back towards their position. He was with fourteen other men and women as the whistle's
went off, alerting them that they had to duck and cover. Literally dig into the ground, pull
out fire retardant blankets and cover themselves hoping the fire would sweep over them
and no one would be harmed. He had laid there, praying to the Virgin Mary, hoping
against all hope he would make it as the fire swept over their position. It burned and
licked and sucked at the covering but he had secured it, so he lived. Thirteen fire jumpers
died that day. All of them veterans of many fires before. Only him, on his first days out in
the woods, survived. He had laid awake for what seemed like days, struggling with heat
exhaustion, waiting for someone to find him. The rescue teams had been overwhelmed by
the ferocity of the fires and how quickly they were spreading. On the brink of delusion,
he had felt the sting of air circling around him as a rescue chopper hovered above his
position. Once picked up he had stayed in isolation until the doctors could clear him. He
had little physical damage but the nightmares would never abate. That fire killed over a
hundred people including twenty-two firefighters. A decade before it would have been
unheard of. Now it was routine. Every summer, firefighters would unwillingly give their
lives to protect other people, mostly just other people’s property. The New York Times,
writing a week long expository on the subject, had explained that the droughts were
making it hard to moisten the soil, which led to erosion, which led to more fires starting.
The pine beetles, surviving the warmer winters ate out the heart of the trees and killed
them off, placing kindling in the middle of once majestic forests (CITATION 5). The
building of houses in the forests far away from city centers kept the fire departments at
work constantly stopping any fires that started. This led the fires to be even bigger and
hotter in duration when they did happen. Of course no one wanted to say it. They wanted

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to go on believing that everything was separate. That humans could control everything.
The rugged individualist had a God-given right to build a house wherever he damned
well pleased. Roberto knew better. The only one in control was God. And he was
punishing the people of Earth. The time of judgment was coming.

They had to try a rescue despite not having the equipment for it. Roberto sealed his
headset and mask, checking his respirator was working properly. A nervousness was
crawling up his windpipe from his stomach, the taste of fear and history. He took a step
towards the firefighters in front of him and his feet took him towards the open door of an
adjacent building. The smoke billowed out and as they entered their automatic lights
clicked on illuminating a deteriorating situation. New equipment was one of the benefits
of working for a private company. They only responded to those who pay for the
services.

“Roberto, this is base, do you read me” the radio in his ear was fuzzy but he could make
out the liaison at the PMC headquarters.
“Go ahead base”. Roberto was moving through the bottom floor of the city hall staff
building, looking for a stable entrance. The ‘heads up display’ on his mask screen showed
a steadily increasing temperature gauge. Soon it would be too hot for their Darpadesigned suits. They had a few minutes to get the mayor out or they would all perish.
“Roberto, we have a cancellation order on your permit for this fire. Records report recent
default on payments from City Hall. You are to stand down and remove all PMC
personnel from the area.”

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Despite the tight fitting mask his jaw dropped in shock. “Base, we have possible lives on
the line here, are you saying we should let them die?”
“Roberto, remove all PMC personnel from the fire area, and return to headquarters. Do
not attempt any further assistance, as this will be a violation of contract.
Roberto looked around the room at the other members of his fire department. They were
all on the same radio net. They had heard the entire conversation. A few members began
to move back towards the entrance.
“Wait” said Roberto; “we have people inside there! We have to try!” No one stepped
forward.

The PMC’s unwillingness to address the fire at city hall led to severe challenges. The
mayor and his staff perished, first of smoke inhalation, finally as fires melted their flesh
into the concrete. The fire spread with no one to put it out. Jumping from block to block,
it ultimately ravished the entire rejuvenated downtown Chicago core. Gentrification met
privatization as those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t pay private fire fees, watched their
investments succumb to the indifferent blaze. The Federal government, primarily
concerned with the spread of the MERS outbreak, simply secured the borders of the
Illinois, watching the literal fire destroy the second largest city in the United States. As
the fire burned, the first cases of MERS began to show up in Kentucky, the only state
unable to close its borders.

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Monsanto Niria
1970s to present

I’m sick of the fear. I’ve been living with it since I was a child. It started with
nuclear drills. 'Get under your desk children. This is a simulated nuclear attack.' As if the
desk would save us. At first it was a sort of game. The teachers didn't like that so we
started getting detention if we laughed. Then someone started crying. They got detention
too. I grew up in Missouri. Not like there was much reason for a nuclear strike on the
cornfields. But there I was, a small girl huddled under my shoddy plastic and wooden
desk, waiting for Armageddon. The adults eventually acted like this was normal. It never
felt normal to me. As I got older fear of the bomb was eclipsed by fear of graduating. The
more successful in school the more fear to achieve. What if I don't get into the right
school? Fear of my parent’s disappointment. Fear of my father’s anger at his own
failures. My failures.

Then I got into the right school and that wasn't enough. Then the fear turned to Billy. He
was my first love. Holding hands on the lake during summers. Dances with all the other
teens at the local grange. For the first time I felt free. Felt loved and appreciated for who I
was. Then, when we turned eighteen, a new fear: What if Billy gets drafted? We were
from different sides of the track. My Father was a farm worker, mother was a secretary
with the ford motor company but when she got pregnant they fired her. She never forgot
that pain and took it out on us with anxiety and high expectations.

Billy was poor. His family was chronically underemployed. They couldn't survive on one

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salary like my parents. His mother was always working and dad had to work three jobs,
before that was normal, just to keep food on the table. Billy was never going to college.
My mother went to great pains to explain this to me. First it was forbidding me to see
him. Then, through her network of Catholic gossiper friends it was to bring over more
“appropriate” suitors. I didn't like any of them. Then, the universe made a decision for
me. Billy got drafted.
I got four letters from Billy. Then they stopped altogether. It was another month before
another letter, this one from my mother telling me it was time to move on. MOVE ON?
She spent the letter talking about their new garden they were working on back home.
There was a new boy who had moved in up the street. He was a lawyer and he was
looking for a wife. Wouldn't it be nice if I moved back there and got to know him? Oh,
and Billy was dead. There was a parade for him down Main Street; it was so nice to see
the flags, weren't they pretty?

Mother was never interested in what I wanted. It was always about the family, her image
of the family and how I could not fuck it up. She didn't care about Billy, she didn't care
about what I was doing at college, why didn't I find a man who could support me and I
wouldn't have to wiggle my brain about anything else? All of her fears about her own life
were being brought out on me.

Billy died not as a hero in some grand battle. He died doing what he did at home in a
matter of speaking. Billy was a part of Operation Ranch Hand. He died from exposure to
DIOXIN in a nifty little invention called Agent Orange (CITATION 1). It was like DDT

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but worse.

I cried for a month. In the middle of class I would break down and sob and have to leave.
At night I would be thrown awake from nightmares, my muscles wracked by spasms, my
bed sheets wet with sweat. Then, the cries abruptly stopped. I wandered around as if in a
dream. I felt as if there was nothing left to lose.
I picked myself up, numbly, and completed my schooling. I cut off contact with my
parents and didn't date anyone for the rest of college. I took a class my senior year on the
history of women. It changed everything. I left college with a deep appreciation for how
powerful women could be. That they could shape the world around them instead of just
being shaped by it. I read vociferously: Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Virginia Woolf.
I started spending time with women of my own age and found similarities that I thought
only I was feeling. The loneliness, the fear of being rejected, of not doing the right thing.
I got a small job in a publishing house that was starting a women's newspaper: to 'deal
with the real' as we called it. Only eight pages to begin with it involved three other
women in their late twenties. There was urgency to our writing in the Seventies. The left
that had been united in the Sixties around the Vietnam War fractured along ideological,
sexual and tactical lines birthing the Environmentalist, Feminist and Gay rights
movements. Everyone trying to reinvent the wheel on their own. Cooperation was
deemed to be collaboration and the best efforts of leaders to bring us all together were
thwarted with calls of hierarchy and sexism. To be sure elitism abounded and our
movement of women was primarily a movement of privilege. We didn't have poor
working women come to our meetings or buying our newspaper. They couldn't afford it,

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either with time or their money. By the time Reagan was elected our paper had run its
course and we couldn't make enough to continue doing what we loved. Some of us
drifted into families, others into suicide and depression. I moved to San Francisco. I fell
in love.

Her name was Esmerelda or Essy for short. I met her at the market, picking up
dinner for another night alone with my cat. The moment I saw her my jaw dropped and so
did my groceries. I babbled an apology as oranges rolled to her feet and came to a stop.
She grinned and bent down to pick them up. The clerk was ranting about how I had to
buy them now because they were bruised but my eyes were locked on her golden brown
skin. She was dressed in a long overcoat, open, with a flowing flower dress inside. She
introduced herself and said she had just come from the theater in the park, and wouldn't I
like to join her for the next show?

As we sat together on the grass, watching the jazz music flow through the willow
trees of the mission district, it all suddenly made sense. When a certain song came on, we
both looked at each other and her hand found mine. She squeezed it and looking into my
eyes said “Very nice to have met you this evening”. The wine flowed faster than the
conversation and I was falling deeper down the rabbit hole. No words came to me but I
was in love.

Two months later we were moving in with each other. I had never been with a
woman. Never even dreamed of the idea, but there I was living with the new love of my

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life. Essy, had a job in the mission district working with new immigrants to the area,
specifically women who came from Asia and needed access to language skills, health
care and access to employment. She especially focused on abusive husbands and fathers.
The physical abuse was staggering. Maybe it was the stress of being in a foreign country,
or maybe the cultural tolerances but when I raised the issue to Essy she got angry with
me for the first time. She said it had nothing to do with people being from China or Sri
Lanka, that our culture, here, in the ‘good ol USA’ was just as bad if not worse but you
would never see that on television. At least these foreign communities had someone to
lean on, at least they had a family or community that they could go to share their
problems. That didn't exist for most American families as they were expected to have
their own house, with a yard and all your own supplies. You should be self-contained,
able to handle everything without being vulnerable. Don't look weak and don't ask for
help, she said. That’s what’s expected of you in America.

Living in San Francisco felt like going through a black hole to another universe
from Eureka, Missouri. There was public transportation; the BART train even went under
the ocean! The food was fresh, from salmon and mussels to oranges and fruit of all kinds.
Rolling hills produced forests that was the exact opposite topography of the flat corn state
in which I was raised. Something dawned on me during this time, the idea that your
physical space determines a lot about who you are and the way you live your life
(CITATION 2). It seems obvious, but it was as if, being near the ocean opened people’s
minds. I couldn't explain it until later in life but the fact that it didn't matter where I was
from; just that I treated others with respect was so revolutionary. My love for Essy

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wouldn't have been tolerated in Missouri, especially by my own family, but out west, my
love could shine as brightly as the golden gate bridge. Or so I thought.

Tuesday, September of 82 I came home late from work. I had been getting two
days a week in at the San Francisco Chronicle, writing about Reagan's not so secret war
in Nicaragua. The paper was unwilling to go on the record with its reputation even
though we had proof that members of the administration had sold missiles to Iran,
through its enemy Israel, to release hostages in Lebanon and fund the contra's in
Nicaragua (CITATION 3). The paper thought it was too confusing for Americans to
understand, better to let Congress deal with it they said. I wanted to puke up all the times
I had to hold my tongue at the office and I couldn't wait to vent to Essy. But when I found
the door unlocked and someone else's shoes by the door, I stopped, not knowing what to
do.

He came at me from the kitchen and hit me in the side of the face. He was big,
broad shoulders and a mustache. He hit me again throwing me into the wall and I
crumpled to the floor. He was screaming at me, telling me I was a dirty carpet licker.
That I had stolen her from him and now no one would ever have her again. He kicked me
in the stomach. I tasted blood. He told me to go back to Kansas. He grabbed me by the
hair and pulled me into the bedroom. I kicked and screamed when he hauled me onto the
bed. I began choking when he stuffed bed sheets into my mouth. My dress was thrown up
above my waist and his groping hands ripped off my underwear. As he entered me, all the
fear came rushing back like a broken water main. It hit me hard like his fist against my

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face as he held me down, choking me. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, all I could feel
was this incredible force of hatred and fear coursing through my limbs, urging me to run,
to fight, to do anything at all. But I didn't. I just lay there. And then it was over. He was
gone. I was crying. Rolled into a ball, violated at the foot of my own bed of my own
apartment. Raped by someone I had never met, but who seemed to know me quite well. I
had almost choked on the bed sheets. When I reached down to feel myself my hand came
back with blood. After what seemed a lifetime, I stood up and staggered to the bathroom.
The pain was unbearable. There, in the bathtub, lay Esmeralda; her hands slit vertically, a
pair of steel scissors lying on the floor, her skin white as snow.

The police ruled it a suicide. They said I must have been lying about a man in the
apartment and that the forensic evidence showed Essy cut her own wrists. As for me, I
was dressing a certain way for a reason wasn't I? Where was I from? Maybe I should go
back to Kansas. Who was I living with? Lesbians shouldn't be living together, that’s how
people get aids. I didn't know where to turn. I cried for days. I couldn't go back to the
apartment, the site of all my newfound fears and nightmares. I didn't sleep. My eyes took
on a hardened view of everything. I had lost the one person who understood me. Who had
cared to love me just the way I was.

I took the money we had saved and went north, along Highway 101 and found a cabin
being rented for one hundred dollars a week. It was small and on the ocean, the waves
crashing at all hours of the day. At first I couldn't write. I just stared out at the sea. Day
after day I waded into the surf, the tips of cresting waves impacting against my bare

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chest. As the sand suckled my toes and receded I imagined myself being drowned in the
waves, my body disappeared with all of my pain. Each day I made the long climb back
up the cliff to the cabin, ashamed at being alive, ashamed at thinking of death.

I had left my job without telling anyone. I didn't think I would go back. Then,
suddenly, it all came to me. Furiously I pumped out page after page, questions about my
childhood. Why god could create such a fucked up world. Why does everyone I love
need to be taken from me when I'm starting to figure life out? How am I supposed to trust
anyone? Why was there no justice?
I wrote and I wrote with my pen, only stopping to get new ink. I filled up notebooks I had
collected for some years and finally ran out of them. I hadn't been eating for days. My
hands were calloused. I was dehydrated and needed a break. Walking to the only
convenience store nearby I found some frozen dinners; Essy was always the better cook,
and a large bottle of gin. I threw down twenty dollars and went back to writing. I didn't
know where the thoughts were going but after I had thrown down all the emotions I
began answering my own questions. Why is the world so fucked up? Because not enough
people stand up and say so. Why did Essy get killed? Because no one had told that fucker
it was wrong to call a girl a slut when he was thirteen. And no one had stopped him from
groping girls at eighteen. And no one had said anything when he locked that girl in her
room with him at twenty-one. Every step of the way, there were no repercussions from
society. “That’s just how boys are” had been a common refrain during my childhood.
How many other women had suffered at the hands of that phrasee? How many had died?
I had experienced oppression all my life, but this was the first time it had exploded like a

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nuclear bomb in my world. How alone was I? How many other people was this
happening to?

The next few weeks I pondered that question. The small local library didn't have
much in the way of history but the librarian was able to help me track down graduate
papers on the concept of rape. I knew what I was good at, finding answers to the world’s
largest problems. Now I trained my thoughts towards my own experience. I looked at the
romans, and Greeks, who were more worried about property being, damaged then real
effects on the individual (CITATION 4). The Christians all out denied it unless it was
witnessed by others then it became a woman's fault for asking for it (CITATION 5). The
Muslims, well let’s just say they still are dealing with major issues (CITATION 6).

I found a trail that walked along the ocean; it provided me the time I needed to
mourn. To ask the questions I had been running from my whole life. I had always
assumed there was something wrong with me, that I had done something to deserve my
mother’s hatred. That I had caused Billy's death. That my relationship with Esmeralda
provoked her ex-boyfriend and because of that I was raped. The ocean and its vastness
allowed these questions to be asked without need of an answer. They could float out there
swirling in the wind and waves. I didn't want to be afraid anymore.

I stayed at the cabin for some months. Waking in the morning I would turn my
attention to the stone fireplace. Trudging up the path from the woodshed, I shook out the
soreness in my back and body. Tending the fire and then turning to my own nutrition

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caused me to learn to cook for myself. Everything was much more simple. Wake, Heat,
Food, Write. Then I would collapse in bed at the end of the day, giving in to the
nightmares. They would haunt me for the rest of my life; much of my days would be
attempts to escape sleep at all costs. My pain produced good work and when I was ready
to reenter the world I had written an expose on sexual assault and rape that could cover
multiple issues of the chronicle if they were willing to take it. I was not healed, but I was
ready to fight again. I closed up the windows, cleaned the whole cabin and thanked the
owners. I was going back to civilization.

I walked into the old apartment complex and asked for my mail. They hadn't held
it for me because I hadn't returned their calls. Angrily I left and went to the post office.
They only had a few bills and a letter from my sister. I tossed the bills and waited till I
was in my Volkswagen rabbit to open the letter from my sister. It was short, poorly
written and to the point as always. My dad was dead and my mother was sick. I was
needed at home. I placed a call from the pay phone to the house and only got the voice of
my father on the answering machine. I began to tear up so I quickly hung up the phone. I
had enough money for a flight back to St. Louis which was only about twenty miles from
my parents place. First I had to finish up with the Chronicle. I headed downtown and
found a place to park quite quickly. I ran up the stairs and when I got to Joe's office he
looked surprised to see me. He said he hadn't expected to see me again what with the
death of Essy and all the “drama” as he put it. I let that slide over my shoulders and sat
down on the poofy out-of-style 1970s red chair.

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“I have an in-depth report for you. It can cover five days of paper. It’s around
20,000 words.” I was trying not to seem eager. I really needed this to cover expenses
while I was gone.
“Well this is rather unorthodox. You don't call, or respond to runners we sent to
your apartment. I had to find out about your “friend” from some of our reporters who
were digging around. That was three months ago. Now you drop by my office and
demand that we print something we never asked you to report?” He was looking down at
some newspapers on his desk and not even making eye contact with me. I stood up and
put both my hands on the desk, my eyes searing into him.
“My girlfriend was killed. I was attacked. My father is dead. Forgive me if I'm
having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the situation. You have published everything else I
have ever written and you have constantly praised me about my resourcefulness and my
accuracy. I put all my resources over the last three months into writing this. I have to go
home to tend to my father so you can print this or you can fire me.” With that I turned on
my heel and stormed out of the office, taking the stairs so I didn't have to wait for the oftbroken elevator. By the time I got to the bottom floor I was focused on Missouri. Time to
go home.

The flight was bumpy so they never served food. It was all for the best as I needed to be
drunk for my arrival. I hadn't spoken with anyone in the family since college with the
exception of my sister Mary. Mary had stayed close to home, working in St. Louis for the
local chemical company as the only saleswoman. She had married a local farmer and they
lived on the outskirts of the city. Mary had been even less a favorite than me, which was

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surprising because she had tried to do everything the way our parents wanted it. You
always want what you can’t have I suppose. I took another swig of the warm white wine
from the mini bottles I had grabbed on the way to the airport. The alcohol only served to
make me more anxious of what was to come. The guilt of not talking to my dad was
trumped by the fear of my mother holding it against me. My father was a quiet man.
Worked for a farming company that did research on seeds and had retired a few years
back. I still didn't know how he died. I wanted to leave San Francisco as soon as I could
and not think about it till I got on the ground. The pilot came on and told us we were
coming in to St. Louis. I finished the bottle of wine and put my shoes back on. You don't
want to be in a plane crash with your shoes off.

The plane landed without incident. I found my sister and we drove the twenty minutes to
the outskirts of the house. We sat in the car, me not wanting to go inside and Mary
feeling she needed to console me. I couldn't cry. There had been too much of that in the
last three months. Hell, my life had been about crying and waiting to cry. I did the only
thing I knew how to do well, I started asking questions.
“What happened to Dad?” I asked the most obvious question there was.
“He fell in the river. We think he drowned. It was last week. They's still doing the
autopsy and we ain't got a report back yet” she said in her “aw shucks” voice she brought
out when she wanted to be sensitive and not cause alarm.
“What river? What was he doing swimming in a river? He's supposed to be
retired.” This was all I could think of. He wasn't supposed to be there. What had
happened? Mary wouldn't look me in the eye. She just stared out the front of the

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windshield. “We better go in and see Mom” Mary sounded unconvinced. “She knows we
were sposed to be here ten minutes ago. You know how she is, always keepin time and
such.” I nodded my head in resignation. There was no use in putting it off any longer. I
grabbed my backpack, the only bit of luggage I had, and opened up the car door. The
house was red as she remembered, but the American flag was hanging low and touching
the ground. Dad would never have let that happen. A World War II veteran, he prided
himself on taking the flag in at night and putting it out in the morning. It was the clearest
sign of all that my father was dead.

Two weeks later
It was clear from the beginning that something was wrong. Mom said that she
didn't know anything about where Dad had been going for the past two months and he
never brought it up. Not hearing anything from the editor at the San Francisco Chronicle,
I assumed I had been fired. I wouldn't be going back to the bay anytime soon. The folks
at the local bar remembered me so I spent a few nights hanging around the pool table and
shooting the shit. I learned that Dad had been doing some work on the side, Mom wanted
a new kitchen, over in Times Beach Missouri. There had been some cattle and horse dieoffs that no one could explain. On one occasion almost sixty horses were killed overnight
(CITATION 7). So dad had gone over to help haul away the carcasses and clean up
some of the barns, the owners were pretty well off and didn't want to touch it themselves.
People were keeping their mouths shut about why those animals were dieing, however. I
decided to go on over and have a look for myself. I took Mary's car. Told her I was just in
need of some time away. She had moved in with Mom to help calm the crazy out of her

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now that Dad was gone. I didn't see why she wasted the time. Mom was just using this as
an excuse to get sympathy from everyone. She had gone door to door telling everyone
that her husband had died and she just wanted them to know about it. When they told her
they would help in any way they could she told them that they were in debt (they weren't)
and that she needed to raise money to get out of it. A potlatch was being planned at the
local bandstand. It made me sick to think of the way she just used people, but Mary
reminded me that is the way she was raised, to try and get ahead as best she could
climbing on the shoulders of others. Grandma was even crazier than our own mother.

I parked down the road and walked through the trees to the back of the horse
ranch. There was police tape on the doors of the barn and I ducked under them. The
carcasses had been removed but the stench hadn't gone anywhere. I poked around a bit
but there wasn't much to see. I looked in a few cabinets, being careful to use a glove so as
not to leave prints. No medication, nothing that could have poisoned the animals. I came
upon a checklist for the portable toilet cleaning and hay delivery. At the back of the
sheets there was a winter spraying notice, for when the roads froze. Growing up I knew
they sprayed the roads with oil round here to melt the ice. But that had never killed horses
before. As I walked back to the car I couldn't wrap my head around it. I looked at my
watch, seeing I had at least another hour to kill before my sister had to go to work. I
headed for the library to ask some questions.

I was sleeping when the brick came through the window. I jolted out of a dream
and frantically tried to get my senses. I yelled for my mothers voice but got no answer.

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My room was on the second floor so I scampered down the stairs and into the living room
where my feet found glass. I toppled to the floor and let out a yelp of pain as my right
foot was pierced. There was a brick with twine wrapped around it holding a note in the
center of the living room. Glass was embedded in the springy 70's carpet. I hadn't been
there a moment when my mother came into the room asking about the noise. There she
stood, over me like I was a little child again with the shocked look of an elderly woman.
“What...What's happened?” Her eyes were climbing backwards into her head,
trying to get away from this moment.
I pulled the glass out of my foot and it immediately started poring all over the carpet. I
ripped the arm off my sleeping t-shirt; it didn't fit me anyway, and wrapped it around my
disabled foot.
“Mom! Go get the first aid kit. And get dad's gun. Do it now!” It was rare for me
to yell at her so without thinking she just began to move. I was pinned against the wall
next to the broken window now and was trying to collect my thoughts. Who would have
done this?
A tire squealed outside and lights dashed like fireflies across the ceiling. Mother came
back with bandages, her hands shaking.
“What happened? Who were those people?” She was wondering across the living
room, pacing back and forth. I couldn't deal with this right now. I wrapped my foot.
Limped to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of tequila I had left for just such an
emergency. Well, maybe not just this such emergency. Taking a swig, I looked down at
the 30-30 action rifle on the kitchen table.

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Lorena Fusilado
2025

The hot sun beat down in the land of her birth. Lorena Fusilado had lived in
Phoenix almost her entire life. Her parents had been born across the border and come up
during the Clinton years. After NAFTA. They had been a fishing family. Fishing licenses
became too expensive, the boats too inefficient. The big corps bought everyone out.
Americans with massive dragnets came down to harvest the rest. For generations corn
grew everywhere. Now it came by train from Iowa. The family had no choice. They
dreamed of finding something better for themselves to the North. To live and breathe
somewhere free. NAFTA was the final straw but it hadn't been the first. They paid a
coyote to bring them across. A whole week it took going from safe houses to the actual
border and then crossing by foot into Arizona. They had been so scared. She had been
young but remembered her father being very serious; telling everyone to listen closely to
the coyote about everything. One day they awoke and the coyote was gone. He took their
money, and their water. Lorena remembered her parched throat. The sweat poring off her
with no replacement. Just when she could walk no more, a group of white people found
them. Her family was taken to a camp. There was water, and beds. A fresh stream from
the best mountains one could ever expect. The camp existed; she was told, to provide
support for those crossing the border, to keep people alive. They had a tennis relationship
with the border patrol. Until Trump won. Then they saw the camp raided. Patients
deported, activists arrested. But they came back, these young people only interested in

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helping to support other humans. Such is the world. Some destroy, and the rest of us pick
up the pieces.
They had come to Phoenix in hope of work. They had found plenty of it, none
ever enough to pay the bills. Dishwashing and food making, they missed the sea and its
bounty. They found public schools that taught them of American history. They learned
the language, assimilated to the culture. She was a hard working student, kept to herself.
She loved sports and played football. The real football, not that ridiculous American
brand. They hardly even used their feet. Starting in goal throughout high school and into
her first years at Arizona State she excelled. It paid for college. That was until the heat
waves began. Phoenix had always dealt with temperatures in the 90-100 degree level for
much of the year. When the La Nina spread across the ocean that summer of 2024
temperatures rose up to 130 degrees. The Colorado River dried to a trickle. Emergency
water was shipped in from around the country but the problem wasn't just Phoenix. It was
the entire American southwest. It was apocalyptic. Edward Abbey would have called it
revenge. She read his work that summer as the bodies were piling up. The blackouts hit
on day three and when that happened it caused most of the deaths. Five thousand on the
first day. Thirty thousand over the next several. And it got much worse. With no water
and the air conditioning off there was nothing to protect the elderly. They died in droves.
The city of Phoenix began to resemble a war zone. Every bottle of water in the town was
commandeered by the Police if it wasn't already stolen. The MERS outbreak had
ratcheted gas prices through the roof so those that couldn’t leave were likely to be most
vulnerable. Violence increased with the heat (CITATION 1). The National Guard, in a
fit of irony had been sent to Montana and Wyoming to fight forest fires still raging. Thus

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riot control was left to the police. And the police didn't have the training or the
temperament for what was needed. They just used live bullets. Lots of them.

Lorena sat holding her mother's hand. The old woman's chest rose and fell to the
beat of a very slow clock. A tear fell down her cheek and Lorena wiped it away with a
handkerchief. Mother was at the end now. The heat would take her this night. There
wouldn't be energy for a funeral dance and the family was scattered. An ambulance siren
sounded in the distance. Lorena sighed and rose to her feet.
“Mother I need to make a phone call” she expected no response and despite her hopes,
her mother didn't move.
Lorena left the bedroom and upon meeting the kitchen stretched her arms up high. Sweat
rolling down her arms slowed to a stop, and reversed themselves towards her shoulders. It
felt unreal. All of the death, the city falling apart. It had seemed gradual at first but was
now approaching a precipice. Her mind was swimming. She sank to the ground and
began to sob. First the tears flowed from her eyes, but as she bent her back and knelt
forward her body began to convulse. Every dream she had, evaporating, like the Colorado
River. The University had closed due to the heat and power issues. Her parents were
dieing or dead. Her scholarship had disappeared with the newest round of budget cuts.
The weight of the world pressed her body into the floor and she let out a shriek before she
could think twice. There was no sound from the bedroom.
Gathering herself together she stumbled to her feet. She grabbed her bag and reapplied
her Flex-pad. Her mother never had liked Lorena's acceptance of technology. Her
mother's death was permeating the walls with its ripe taste. She made sure to lock the

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door upon leaving. Never to return.

Over the next three months Lorena moved north. The city of Phoenix was no
longer a city. It was only a substandard refugee camp. Word was the government had
resettlement plans for some citizens, but no one was holding their breath. Many tried to
flee north. Colorado still had snowpack. Utah as well. Nevada was facing a drought
similar to Arizona, albeit with somewhat lower temperatures. Some had fled north. Most
of the towns had no available housing. The state legislature had commandeered all
foreclosed homes and used them as shelter for the initial waves of climate refugees, as
they were now called. She stayed on the outskirts of Grand Junction for a month trying to
find work to pay transit farther towards the mountains. The only options were toxic waste
cleanup, stripping and sex work. Plus she was told that her brown skin was not in demand
what with all the supply and she should expect less than the white girls. As quick as she
could she found a ride out of town.

When she finally crossed the Idaho border she began to see the presence of
federal troops decrease. She had heard it was dangerous for them near the new borders.
The flags changed as well. Instead of the red white and blue she saw more trees of blue,
green and black. Her ride was shuttling fuel and precious metals up to Sandpoint, Idaho.
This had at one time been a resort town, most famous for its abusive childhood
“emotional growth” schools. This, she learned, was where well off white families sent
their ignored, socially awkward, drug addicted, culturally inept children to be reformed,
sans religion, into well adjusted capitalists, with a leftward social tinge. The town was

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beautiful, nestled in a forested valley along an immense lake.
Leaving Sandpoint was a conscious decision. She was heading into a war zone. The
federal government had declared the former states of Washington and Oregon: hostile
actors that had terrorists in their places of government. Currently it was a standoff but
Lorena was conscious that at any time things could change. She had heard of the new
regional laws, anti-corporate and equity based housing and employment laws. How under
Trump Latino’s and other undocumented communities flocked to the ocean states for
salvation. There were rumors that people of color could live safely in the Northwest, that
they were being treated equally. If she could just get across the border, past the feds and
their militia lackeys.

As she sat on hay bales in the back of an old 2002 Toyota Tundra, she could see
the lights of Spokane, Washington in the distance. It was the last major city before she
got to the mountain borders of what people were calling Cascadia. During the drought,
these farms had been hit hard. Although the Snake still flowed from Wyoming it was a
shell of its former self. Although the struggle to remove the dams did reap some success,
the salmon never fully returned (CITATION 2). Without salmon, the trees couldn’t grow
and the forest ceased to hold its bounty. The city of Spokane was struggling. The farmer
she had hitched a ride with had been nice enough, asking no questions. She was eager to
get somewhere, she didn't know what that was, but soon. After leaving her dead mother
she had tried to contact some of the family but the phones had been down again.
Amazing that a city of 5 million could be made out of the desert with no one asking if it
could meet everyone’s needs. They just kept building. Well, at least it hadn't been

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Mexico City. She had seen how that turned out. Food rationing, water issues. Rioting.
They hadn't had consistent contact for months. The Mexican government had been
usurped by the military and now people on the ground were fighting. For what, she didn't
know. She was just glad to get away. Anywhere.
The truck stopped outside the city at a farmhouse. Music was coming from the barn. She
hopped out and stretched her legs. The driver shut the door and pointed to the barn.
“That’s where you'll be stayin, I imagine the riffraff will have some beans cookin” And
with that he walked toward the farmhouse. Lorena grabbed her bag and trudged over to
the barn. Knocking on the door it swung open to reveal an elderly woman. Behind her a
number of younger people of various colors sat on hay bales around a lantern-playing
guitar, singing and laughing. The old woman looked her up and down and then stepped
out of the way to let Lorena enter.

They played music all night, finishing off a bottle of whiskey which she
reluctantly took sips of. Her family was full of alcoholics. There were twelve in total. All
refugees from various parts of the us. All looking to get away. She felt like she was home
for the first time in a long time. They all planned to cross the border, into Cascadia, the
next day. They would take two vehicles and load with extra gasoline; the gas stations
along the i90 corridor had all but closed. They would get to the old ranger station near the
crest of the mountains and stay the night. There was a forecast of tornadoes near Yakima,
an old army installation abandoned because of the climate. They would have a window
and had to make it in time to be accepted across the border. It seemed more daunting and
filled with unproven rumors but in the company of these others she felt ready to take it

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on.

The border to Cascadia was experiencing some problems so the trip was delayed
for a few days. Finally their guide decided to take a more northerly route to get over the
mountains. Highway 20 would take them through the cascades but along an older
trucking road that swung through mostly dead towns that used to be tourist destinations.
They made the drive through Winthrop, stopping for one of the last eastern breweries that
were left in Cascadia. The snowmelt had been primarily diverted towards the West and
thus the amount of beer had diminished and was expensive. She sipped on the warm lager
as they traversed the mountains that continued to rise. The Cascade Mountains are so vast
that they encompass multiple elevations and many different ecosystems. In a ten-minute
span of driving you roll through 3 different soil types. The back of the truck was covered
but it was open in the rear so they could see the mountains climbing around them. It was
cold. They sped past multiple checkpoints of militia soldiers milling about. The scanner
in the truck alerted the patrols that there was a vehicle that checked out on its way. They
had come a long way from traffic jams and shootouts at checkpoints. If you drove past
without a pass, claymore mines would rip apart the vehicle. Not without multiple
warnings of course. By the time they reached the peak camp she had fallen asleep against
another woman's leg.

Dawn was both the sun rising and woman next to her in the sleeping bag. As her
eyes fluttered open, memories with jagged edges entered her brain. The hand on her head
she had awoken too. How soft and comforting it had felt. The lack of bedding that girl

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had not brought. The conversation by the driver about how cold it would be. The words
coming out of her mouth before she could think. How good it had felt to be naked with
another human. Hands fluttering over each other. Exploring crevices and curves.
Judgment slipped away in the cold mountain air. Soft grunting as their bodies ground
against each other. Her muffled cries of orgasm as she buried her face into dawn's breast.
Now she was awake and no other sounds were stirring. The sun was barely cresting the
mountains.

The militia’s rode into camp with the rising sun. A firefight began between border
guards and Christian soldiers. Caught in the crossfire were the refugees. Neither side of
the antagonists seemed to notice. Blood filled the former fields of wheat and those
looking for shelter found their final resting place. Lorena’s body found its place curled
together with Dawn, a single bullet taking both of their lives. They died miles from the
border, the last safe haven from the rise of Christian militancy. They died seeking
freedom.

Unknown Veterans Journal Recovered at protests during 2025
INTRODUCTION
By 2025 budget cuts had destroyed the VA as a health care system. Disabled
veterans were homeless all over the United States. When protests began to erupt, police
repression was immediate and police and National Guard quickly surrounded the camps.
We are Veterans from many different American wars flocked to the camp. Some as far

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back as Vietnam converged as their benefits were cut. The Veterans Administration
reached its pinnacle in the pre-crash years of the twenty teens. Responding out of
obligation to nationalist tendencies, the American people supported health care for all
returning veterans from the various post 9/11 occupations. The costs of taking care of one
veteran with PTSD for their shortened lifespan eventually exceeded two million dollars
per person (CITATION 1) Constant cost overruns and massive public scandals shamed
the government into providing limited homeless assistance and temp jobs to put on a
good face. The suicide rates among veterans skyrocketed to over fifty a day by 2020.

May 29th Memorial Day

All I ever heard when I came home was “get on with your life”. I was told that the World
War II generation won the war and came home and moved forward. Wasn’t that war
tougher then these ones? I still wonder this. Every generation it seems the suicide rates go
up. The more war we have the more national trauma we carry. Those World War II
veterans came home and beat their wives and children. They continued a cycle of
violence that is now standing around this camp with Billie clubs and tear gas waiting to
crack our skulls. No one in America seems interested in asking why our veterans are so
traumatized. They assume it must be just about health care. No one challenged the
inherent contradictions of a war without trauma. This shit is ridiculous. Only 70% of
those who served qualified for benefits (CITATION 2). The rest were discharged
because of infractions ranging from drug use, failure to follow orders, physical/sexual
assault. The camp is full of people who got fucked on their discharge. “Failure to follow

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orders” is a famous one. Once Syria really got going, those were a dime a dozen. I guess
America was pretty happy about the discharges though. It spared the taxpayers trillions of
dollars. These guys didn’t have shit for benefits to adjust back into civilian life. Many
found themselves homeless, unable to work and fighting depression and anxiety on a
daily basis. Separating civilians and veterans from each other makes the possibility of
stopping these wars impossible. I know it was intentional.

May 30th

I came to this encampment because I had nowhere else to go. I saw my fellow servicemembers crying out for help and no one was actually listening. The only thing I know
how to do is fight. So I’m here to fight.

May 31st
This is the culmination of 10,000 years of military trial and error. Millions of deaths spilt
the ink that wrote military training manuals. No one is born to kill. You must be trained
to de-humanize other people. Or never consider them human to begin with. Military
training understands this and at the turn of the Nineteenth century there was no country
better at this then the United States of America.

June 1st
I had a conversation with another veteran today about why we are here. His story brought
back my own memories from when I joined. Immediately upon arrival to boot camp my

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name is re-appropriated. I became a number. My clothes were taken and I was given a
uniform. Uniformity. My hair was cut. My language was corrected and reshaped to fit
with everyone else. My individuality was taken away. No longer human I become a
pussy, shit-bag or a commie-faggot. Iraqis, Afghans and Syrians, became goat-ropers,
camel jockeys and sand niggers. The targets I learned to shoot at were dark silhouettes of
human form. “What makes the grass grow green?” shouted my infantry drill sergeant.
“Blood! Blood! Bright red blood!!” scream nineteen-year-old boots, as they jab bayonets
into haystacks. You name your rifle. You sleep with it. Solutions to problems come to be
viewed through the barrel of a gun. Literally.

June 2nd

I had nightmares last night. The hard concrete we sleep upon provides little shelter from
the heat. The heat that is increasing with every day, that creates drought. The heat that is
making more wars and refugees and fucking up everything. I can’t stop thinking about it.
No army is ever at peace. Much like the old idiom. You break it you buy it. If you make
it you use it. Being in an environment where you are constantly training to kill takes a toll
on everyone, regardless if you deploy or not. I read about a DOD report after World War
II to find out why high percentages of soldiers either broke down during long periods of
combat or refused to engage the enemy at all. The study found that fifty days was the
threshold for psychological breakdown (CITATION 3). Given sustained contact with the
enemy, ninety-eight percent of the troops shut down. What they needed was a training
regimen that allowed soldiers to stay in the field. With a healthy dose of airpower and

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more alienation from what they were actually doing, this became the policy of the future.

June 3rd
Veterans were always a hard group to unite. Organizations directed at them, ranged all
over the place in terms of membership and issues. Some were made up of all women,
women who deployed, men who didn't, sexual assault, or combat, declared wars or not,
they were put together haphazardly and solidified around their own identity. Ironically
this made them unlikely to expand, they were untrusting of civilians and others who
didn't fit their exact specifications. But when the benefits began to get cut and the wars
that had needed their service so badly came to an end they were tossed aside. Everyone
assumed they would just be the drunken homeless vagrants, easily ignorable and able to
forget. America was wrong. We have come for our promises.

June 4th
They fired tear gas for the first time today. We got it all on 3d cameras. Blasted out to the
world. We drove them back with numbers. I feel we can stay here till we win.

June 5th
At first it was peaceful. We occupied public space in Washington DC just like the bonus
army of the 1930s. The National Mall. The Washington Monument. Back then the
protests were based on a simple financial promise that had been made to returning World
War I veterans about getting a bonus. When the Great Depression smashed the American
economy, these veterans, many who couldn't work, demanded they be paid their bonus

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early. President Hoover refused. When he was defeated by Franklin Roosevelt the same
policy was adopted by the new White House. A young General Macarthur was ordered to
clear the camps and he attacked the veterans with impunity and relish, killing many and
driving the rest away from the Capitol. When Congress finally approved the bonuses,
FDR vetoed the bill, only to be overruled by a Congressional majority (CITATION 4).
Thus the legal framework for veteran’s benefits was created. Veterans have always had to
fight multiple wars, the ones overseas and then the ones when we come home.
June 5th
Our new occupation isn't about bonuses; it’s about war itself. First and foremost it’s
about who goes to war and how they are taken care of when they come home. In the past
it was based around who was poor enough to not avoid war. But with the advent of
intelligent weapons systems like drone soldiers, there was no need for stupid working
class kids to join up. Now they could use Ivy League graduates to sit in air conditioned
rooms and control the robots doing the killing for the American people. Robots don’t get
traumatized. Robots don't need health care. And robots, unlike American boys and girls,
weren't accountable for war crimes. The advent of drone warfare actually made war more
likely because the American people cared even less about foreign people executed by
killer robots. This new technology greased the gears of war and increased the public’s
detachment towards it.

June 6
Today in American history marks the date of the American invasion of Normandy. Our
finest hour. In recognition of that history we have created our own D-Day. Demands Day.

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Here is a list of our demands:
• The return of “citizen soldiers”. If we are going to fight a war then there needs to be
humans making the decision to pull the trigger.
• Full health care for the rest of our lives no matter what job we did or what type of
discharge from the military we received. Many service-members receive “other
than honorable” discharges and this prevents us from receiving health care as we
deteriorate.
• Full reconciliation with our former enemies to include reparations for the innocent
people we damage in our conflicts overseas.
• War crimes tribunals for all the leaders who sent us to war if they violated international
law.
• Any future wars require a unified America that votes on the decision to go to war
directly, not through our “representatives”.
• Reconciliation with the American people. No more “Thank your for your service” and
using veterans to sell your product but not listen to what they have to say. We
need a national conversation about trauma and the true physical and psychological
effects of war.

June 7th

The protest camp is structured like our military units were. I sit under a disheveled tree
and all around me are tents. Things are constantly moving. Supplies to here, food to
there. There is a central location with a library around DuPont circle. Vets shut down the

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streets and even enlisted the help of shop owners to provide shelter. The corporate area
tried to kick us out. That was expected. Anything that gets in the way of them making
money. They couldn’t care less about us. The sun is behind the clouds today and it’s
almost bearable. We should have done this in the “winter” whatever that means anymore.
As to decisions, everyone is treated equally despite rank from the past. We have
temporary team leaders who take on tasks every day. No one gives orders. It's refreshing.
I am worried about decision-making though, we take a lot of time to decide things.

June 8th
Today we set up a verification system so we know who are veterans and who aren’t. We
are getting a lot of civilian support at least here in DC. The new Internet laws are
blocking our websites but we have something up on the dark net. I don’t know much
about that shit. We are hearing reports of other camps around the country. It’s like
Occupy but for veterans. We could take the controls of this country if we tried.

June 9th
We are having problems with government agents or reactionaries screwing things up.
These guys are used to punks and liberals, they don’t know how to take on their own
kind. Most of us interacted with FBI or CIA d-bags overseas. We can smell a fed a
hundred meters away. Our meeting this morning debated whether to allow families or
civilian friends to join us. It would swell our numbers but it makes us less safe, I think.
We need to verify who people are. During the bonus army, families moved into the
camps with the veterans, they had nowhere else to go. It made them less flexible and

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when the invasion took place, they were sitting ducks. We have gotten calls from
different movement groups asking to “support” and participate. We met to discuss this.
Where were these people when we came home? Why do they suddenly care about our
situation? I am hoping we reject their “help”. We have to fight this battle ourselves. The
reason they haven’t invaded yet is because it would look bad. If we invite the hippies
than we are no longer protected. We have always been on our own, how is this any
different? None of these liberals had supported us when we came home. It may not be
strategic but fuck it. We survived a war, we can survive this.

June 10th
We named our encampment “camp liberty”. Its funny cuz some of the guys were
stationed at Camp Liberty in Iraq. The second time. Irony is powerful I guess, but I doubt
most Americans understand it. They sent new police today to talk with us. Well, talk is a
nice way of putting it. They threatened to raid us, charge us with felonies and put us away
for a long time. We told them to go fuck themselves. They backed off. Johnny was there
with me. He and I never got along in the service. He was a tree hugger. But we get along
on this. Both of us never got our GI Bill in time and had to drop out of college. He got
cancer that he's been fighting but the military lost his paperwork and then said he had it
before he joined so he lost what little medical care he had left. I’ve been homeless nine
months now. Had to pawn my dad's rifle for food. All I got is my pistol left. Ill put it in
my mouth before I give it to a pawnshop.

June 11th

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President Bob Davis isn’t happy with us. There is enough drama around the assassination
and I guess a bunch of pissed off veterans isn’t fun for him. Not the time to be demanding
things. Too bad. Its never a good time to be demanding. Everyone is telling us to adopt a
single demand. As if that’s what is keeping us from winning. Lack of clarity. And then
when we get that demand should we just go back to our alleys, under our bridges? Go
back to what? I am trying to leave my past behind, not return to it. Our lives were stolen
in places like Somalia and Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, Afghanistan and North Korea. We
have nowhere to go and nothing left to lose. I refuse to believe the National Guard that
got called out today, will shoot us. They are us. If they keep pushing us, god forbid what
happens.

June 12th
We faced off against the police today. They came dressed in riot gear. They had some of
the new mobile drones that are as small as a paper airplane from grade school. Bearcat
mini-tanks were placed at all the entrances except one, they intended to use a show of
force to push us out of the area. We all stood in formation in our groups. I’m in group
three. The cops shot some teargas but we had our gas masks and the order went out to fix
them in place. All of us had been gassed before and it was actually the cops who
retreated. Evidently they didn’t know how to put on their masks properly. A few of those
in group nine got arrested or beat up and the liberals didn’t show up with their cameras
like we expected. The new cell phone jamming equipment is being used here because
none of us can turn on our phones. We have to use old school camera's to get any footage
and we can’t track the news so who knows what is getting out in the world. The cops sent

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an emissary later in the evening to talk with us but we saw them using it as a distraction
to move forces closer to us. We have set up makeshift barricades around the circle and
they should hold a dismounted assault. Tomorrow will be a new day. We have runners
who reported three other occupations, even one at the Jefferson memorial. He would be
proud if he were here today. I sleep another night tonight with my sisters and brothers. I
am proud of my service for the very first time.

June 13th
They came in the morning. The same time I used to kick in doors during Syria. They used
overwhelming force. Just police, no National Guard. We got reports that military units
activated, refused to participate in the raid. I was thrown on a school bus commandeered
for the arrests. I am still here, squatting between seats near the back. We have been
driving for hours. No idea where to. They didn’t search us well. I was able to keep my
journal and some spare cash. I don’t know why we weren’t sent to the local jails but they
are taking us somewhere else. Somewhere south.

June 16th
They are torturing us. I was stuffed in a hole. I think we are somewhere in Georgia. I was
blindfolded when they loaded us off the buses and was put in a large open-air fenced
area. There are people here I don’t know, other veterans. They weren’t in the DC camp.
We aren’t allowed to talk to each other. There are guards patrolling the outside and we
each have dog collars that shock us when we act up. I was removed after a day and
interrogated. A man in a suit and a foreigner asked me a bunch of questions about who

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planned the protests. They seem to have no fucking clue what is going on. I told them so.
They stuck me in a hole. I don’t have much paper left to write on. And I am afraid they
are going to take it from me. They beat me with a rubber hose yesterday. They don’t
seem to care about leaving marks.

June 20th
People have started disappearing. They aren’t in camp, camp is pretty small. They are
leaving us outside in the direct sunlight. With no water. Guys are collapsing. There is no
relief. I am so dehydrated I’m only urinating once a day. It hasn’t rained in a long time.
The guards beat us if we ask for water. My tongue feels like a dry saltshaker. I don’t
know how I am going to get out of here.

Afterward
This journal was recovered after the Georgia internment camp was shut down. It details a
period when veterans around the country were rounded up as possible participants in the
assassination of President Olivera. They were viewed as capable of killing the president
and being a part of the conspiracy. The author of this journal was removed from the camp
after the last entry and no government documents show where he was taken too. His body
has not been recovered. During the summer of detention, catastrophic heat waves covered
the United States in crisis, tens of thousands died. It was the largest natural disaster since
Hurricane Katrina. Within the detention camp a mass grave was discovered containing
the bodies of one hundred and seventeen veterans. Many of the veterans are thought to
have died of heat exhaustion. Investigations are ongoing.

261

Z (Danae) 2024
Moab

The warm air curled up the river canyon like a cats tail. Jagged clouds shot fast
across the sky. The air pressure was rising as a great storm descended on the Colorado
River. Orange rocks turned black as rain poured over the ancient cliffs.

They were squatting in a hole carved in the last ice age. No fire tonight. An old
native blanket was wrapped tightly around the woman’s torso. Droplets of water trickled
down the opening of the cave. Pools were forming in the thousand year ruts that lined the
floor. Partial fish fossils were exposed from the years of erosion, their ancient eyes taking
in these scrawny travelers. Fifteen thousand years before the entire area was covered with
an ice age and then thawed to create this valley. During the twentieth century it had been
a vacationers dream. River rafting and mountain biking. Recreation. The only people on
the river now were survivors. If the river wasn’t too low. You had to move by night most
months of the year. One hundred and ten degrees was a good day. Most of the elderly and
weak had moved or died. Now it was just locals. No one came to visit. Until last week.

Moab had always been different than Utah's other cities. Primarily dominated by
Mormons intolerant of new ideas Moab had a sizable effect on the Utah legal system.
Oppression always inspires resistance. Thus after the post 2020 market crash, Moab
became a place for queer folks to gather.

Soon word got out through the underground. Trans people began going to it as a safe

262

haven. Moab was isolated enough and it required you to have working vehicles and
gasoline, or some sort of electric equivalent. Vehicles were in high demand. The
mountainous terrain was relatively defensible. The trans-community built a tiny Harlem
renaissance for anyone challenging the gender binary. After the purges that swept the
southern portion of the United States, Moab became a safe zone. Soon, the growing
numbers of outcasts began a radical re-design of living units. Underground. Much like
Minneapolis in reverse. Houses were dug out of rock faces and connected with depleted
aquifers. One could walk kilometers between storage sheds of food and community. One
happy result of the turmoil was eco-terrorists dynamiting dams further up the Colorado
River. Their prophesies of the Colorado reaching the Pacific Ocean again provided a real
life ecological benefit. Water. Tons of it. Despite the melting glaciers in Colorado, there
was still plenty of snowmelt during the summer. The underground lifestyle flourished.
With shielded greenhouses along the ravine just north of the former city of Moab, they
grew avocados, tomatoes and peppers of all kinds. Because of the bee die-offs, hand
pollination was required for anything to grow. They dreamt of a day when the bees would
return. Ten thousand people, give or take, inhabited the hills and tenements and lived a
rather collective, loving lifestyle.

The woman was shivering, her hands losing their grip on the crusted, old blanket.
It was rough and made of some unknown fiber but could protect against the moisture
surrounding the group. Danae, the lead perimeter sweeper, rubbed their hands inches
from the small fire set with twigs stored at the back of the cave. Danae had been here as
long as they could remember, before the migration even took place. The hands were

263

curled, from years of use, the fingers gently touching the palms. The hands spoke through
the smoke “You had better come closer to this fire, Ma’am, it’s going to get colder before
we can move you”. The woman stiffened. Relaxed. She scooted forward in jerky motions
raising dust from the ancient cave. The other scout behind her took a step forward, still
not trusting what he had heard and who this woman was. Danae, cracking their fingers,
leaned back against the sitting rock and crossed their arms. “So you said that you have
been on the run for days now?”
The woman sighed, dropped her head as if to nod and said nothing. 
 “And you said that
these…what did you call them? Christian missionaries? Were following you from
Telluride?”
Danae glanced over at the other scout, “What do you think that is Trailor, about two
hundred and twenty kilometers? The scout named Trailor nodded spoke in clipped
sentences “Two-twenty at most.”
The freezing woman nodded. Her hair slowly lulled forward as droplets of sweat fell off
her brow. Her face was scraped with closed wounds, some more recent than others.
The new information hung in the air like an approaching storm over the desert. Without
vehicles that was a couple-week trip for a determined group. The roads were iffy at best
but there were many go a rounds in this sparsely populated region. This woman was all
that was left of whatever group she had started with. The rest hadn’t made it.
“So, what happened to the rest of you?” Trailor’s voice was impatient and edgy. He didn't
trust strangers.
Danae waved him back with a flick of her fingers. Outside the cave, lights flashed by the
opening and the radio crackled to life.

264

“Scout one this is home stretch, we got a pickup, over”. Danae rose to their feet and
motioned for the other two to rise from the fire. Trailor grabbed the deer sack full of
water and poured it over the shallow fire, then reached to help the stranger to her feet.
“Time to go home”.

In the tunnels it was a balance of uniformity and order warped by artists into a
working, always shifting cornucopia of ideas. While primarily anarchist in theory they
accepted democratic structure in practice. A four hour limited workday came from a
desire to fight economic institutions that had led to so much division and destruction.
Team building and character development were encouraged through sport and play. To
be human....again. Meetings to decide everything from water use to food storage to what
would be the motto of a sports team. It mirrored the early days of the last America, with
participation in direct democracy, but this time everyone participated. And looking
nothing like the “founding fathers”. Theirs was a community structured on consensus and
listening. Every voice was to be heard thus people didn’t feel the need to always talk.
This took time to adjust into but was valued as a core of the new community. New voting
processes allowed every issue to be weighed in on before discussion took place.

Before the crash, the home they all knew had been a military base. Built during
the Obama administration it was a secret training location for JSOC personnel in the
ever-expanding war on terror. Helipads were the only way in to the base and even these
were difficult to see unless you knew what you were looking for. The base was far
enough from Moab that locals didn’t run into it during their tourist outings, and military

265

personnel were prevented from going into town. There were no roads or personal vehicles
to take them in any case. The base was self-contained, with water wells tapped deep into
the prehistoric watersheds deep beneath the surface. There was a movie theater, public
computer room, library, multiple kitchens and a massive recreation and weight lifting
center. Danae had been one of the first refugees to come here. They had run into a small
patrol of heavily armed mercenaries and thought it was the end. It turned out the
mercenaries were actual soldiers, left behind during the final war with Pakistan. They had
kept the base running as best they could but needed additional help and had begun
hunting for survivors from the crash. Federal authority was focused on the East and West
coasts and when orders didn’t come from military command, the soldiers just closed and
locked the doors.

Electrical power was not a problem for Fort Moab. They had plenty of sun and the
military, seeing climate change as a national security threat as early as 2007, had installed
a massive two kilometer wide solar updraft tower (Citation 4). Like an inverted ice
cream cone, the base of the tower was covered in massive glass panels that absorbed
sunlight into a buffered greenhouse. The flooring was recirculated water pipes that
continued to hold heat when the night fell. Giant fans at the base of the tower fed into an
electrical battery storage grid to store energy generated when the trapped solar heat rose,
looking for a chimney to escape through. As it did the passive heat traveled through
multiple fans turning them into the light Danae was now using to power their satellite
tracking system. Danae was beginning to feel real fear for the first time since the
Supreme Court assassinations. Now only twenty-five kilometers away, was a massive

266

encampment of vehicles. Tents had sprung up into a makeshift camp. It must be the
Paladins, Danae thought. They are after the woman we found in the caves.

Two days later
The alarm was blaring and lights flashing throughout the cavern. Emergency
lighting on the floors showed the way to exits but there was chaos throughout the
catacombs. Practice drills don’t prepare you for crisis no matter how much you practice.
Danae was running to the weapons locker before the invaders could enter the facility.
They had lost contact with two of their frontier outposts over an hour ago. A search and
response team of eight had been sent to verify it wasn’t just the storm interfering with the
radios. That had happened before but never to both checkpoints at once. That search team
never came back. Then the mortars had erased all doubt of the weather. It was an
invasion. Danae had been in the interrogation/introduction chamber, where they brought
all refugees before allowing them full access to the community, when the explosions first
landed. There was a limited military command structure with a few people who had
experienced combat during the Pakistan crisis but most of the community eschewed
violence. They survived more from being not seen or heard, then by any defense tools
they utilized. They were sitting ducks.

The mortars lasted no more than fifteen minutes but there were over a hundred
explosions. The first ones had knocked out the satellite towers still connected to what was
left of communication satellites. This kept them aware of the rest of the world’s struggles.
Now they were literally in the dark. Some of their solar array had taken a direct hit.

267

Danae faced a decision: evacuate or shelter in place. She chose the latter. They had
planned for this. If they left the safety of the caves there was no telling who or what was
out there. Without adequate training and very few firearms it could be a bloodbath. Danae
ordered the different sectors to lockdown their blast doors.

Conclusion
The helicopter contained the proof, long disputed of the direct connection between
corporate America and the assassination of the last elected American President. The final
battle over who owned that property took place not far from their mountain refugee
camp. Having stolen the top secret documents, private contractors had infiltrated the CLA
camp and executed the hacking collective just as they broke the codes. But the sacrifice
of those men and women was not in vain as the same type of missile that killed the
president was used to down the contractors in the BC forests. As Leyla stood near the
secure hard drives and waited for the details to be uploaded to the cloud, she grimaced at
all they had overcome to this point. Millions of deaths, a civil war for the soul of North
America and the acceleration of climate change to unprecedented levels. She wondered if
all those deaths were worth it. The war was finally turning. These documents would lead
those on the fence to side with the rebellion. What began as “extremist” attacks by the
Cascadia Liberation Army, would now be seen as the revolutionary steps necessary to a
new world. Their call for complete de-carbonization of the world economy, of the
complete re-structuring of transportation, agriculture and housing would be met with
cries of support across the nation. Science would become central once again. The sand of

268

the climate hour-glass was close to running out. Only a complete transition in record time
would give the people of the world a chance to survive and build a new world.

As the evidence was transferred to every corner of the world, statues of every kind would
be torn down. The old leaders had failed and only a collective effort would overcome the
chaos. There were battles to still fight and those of the old, stagnant world views would
not go quietly into the dumpster-fire of history, but they had given themselves a chance.
Its all they ever really wanted.

269

Citations Climate Wars
1. Pollution during 2008 olympics
Wu, Jisong, and Yongjie Zhang. "Olympic Games promote the reduction in emissions of
greenhouse gases in Beijing." Energy Policy 36.9 (2008): 3422-3426.
2. Canada Tar Sands and the Canadian economy
Clarke, T. (2009). Tar sands showdown : Canada and the new politics of oil in an age of
climate change. Canada: James Lorimer and Co Ltd Publishers.
3. Russia and Pipelines
Enerdata, 47 avenue Alsace Lorraine, 38000 Grenoble (France) (Apr 2016). Global
Energy Scenarios to 2040 Understanding our energy future - 2016 Edition (INIS-FR--170308). France
4. Mosul Dam
Al-Ansari, Nadhir, et al. "Mystery of Mosul Dam the Most Dangerous Dam in the World:
Dam Failure and its Consequences." Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical
Engineering 5.3 (2015): 95-111.
5. State Department and Mosul Dam
Al-Ansari, Nadhir, Mohammad Ezz-Aldeen, and Sven Knutsson. "Application of SWAT
model to estimate the sediment load from the left bank of Mosul Dam." Journal of
Advanced Science and Engineering Research 3.1 (2013): 47-61.

6. Shengen Agreement
Davis, Dane, and Thomas Gift. "The positive effects of the Schengen Agreement on
European trade." The World Economy 37.11 (2014): 1541-1557.
7. China buys up oil in Africa
Klare, Michael, and Daniel Volman. "America, China & the scramble for Africa's
oil." Review of African political economy 33.108 (2006): 297-309.

Leyla 2030
NONE
Greg (Liberty Ship)2018
1.Ghost cities
Shepard, Wade. Ghost cities of China: the story of cities without people in the world's

270

most populated country. Zed Books Ltd., 2015.

2. Selena River Mongolia
Törnqvist, Rebecka, et al. "Evolution of the hydro-climate system in the Lake Baikal
basin." Journal of hydrology 519 (2014): 1953-1962.

3. (Mongolia climate change)
Clyde E. Goulden and Laura Fox https://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/climate-change-in-mongolia/?_r=0
4. Portugal and Macau history
Yee, Herbert. Macau in transition: from colony to autonomous region. Springer, 2001.

Dr. Carter James 2018
1. Exxon climate research/inside climate news
Supran, Geoffrey, and Naomi Oreskes. "Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change
communications (1977–2014)." (2017).
2. Cyanobacteria and mass extinction
Baresel, Björn, et al. "Timing of global regression and microbial bloom linked with the
Permian-Triassic boundary mass extinction: implications for driving
mechanisms." Scientific Reports 7 (2017).
3. Naomi Oreskes Merchants of Doubt.
Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. "Merchants of doubt." (2010).
Fox News 2019 May 1
NONE
PFJ 2019 May 1
NONE
Dahlia 2019
2. Dungeons crabs
Toft, J. E., et al. "From mountains to sound: modelling the sensitivity of Dungeness crab
and Pacific oyster to land–sea interactions in Hood Canal, WA." ICES Journal of Marine
Science: Journal du Conseil (2013): fst072.

3. Oil shipments to china
271

“An Oil Pipeline Expansion in Washington?” Sightline Institute,
www.sightline.org/2017/06/05/an-oil-pipeline-expansion-in-washington/. Accessed 24
Aug. 2017.
4. Oil export ban lifted
Henry, Devin. “Spending deal to lift oil export ban.” TheHill, 1 Feb. 2016,
thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/263371-spending-and-tax-deal-ends-crude-oilexport-ban-extends-renewable. Accessed 24 Aug. 2017.
5. Old timey Mosquito Fleets
Findlay, Jean Cammon, and Robin Paterson. Mosquito Fleet of South Puget Sound.
Arcadia Publishing, 2008.
6. ShellNO
Norman, Emma S. "Standing Up for Inherent Rights: The Role of Indigenous-Led
Activism in Protecting Sacred Waters and Ways of Life." Society & Natural Resources
30.4 (2017): 537-553.
7. Shell's pullout of arctic letter
Francis, David. “Shell Admits Defeat in the Arctic.” Foreign Policy, 28 Sept. 2015,
foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/28/shell-admits-defeat-in-the-arctic/. Accessed 24 Aug. 2017.
8. Obama/Trump executive orders on arctic drilling stoppage
Eilperin, Juliet. “Trump signs executive order to expand drilling off America’s coasts:
'We're opening it up.'.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Apr. 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/28/trump-signsexecutive-order-to-expand-offshore-drilling-and-analyze-marine-sanctuaries-oil-and-gaspotential/?utm_term=.bb32256ef8a2. Accessed 24 Aug. 2017.
Janine Lawyer 2020
Unfinished
Miranda sole 2021
Unfinished
Aziz/Syria 2021
Unfinished
Letter to Dad 2022
NONE

272

FIFA 2022
1. Police violence near Maracana
Ahnen, Ronald E. "The politics of police violence in democratic Brazil." Latin American
Politics and Society 49.1 (2007): 141-164.
2. Flooding from the removal of the amazon
Fearnside, Philip M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: history, rates, and
consequences." Conservation biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688.
3. Climate during the world cup
da Motta, Ronaldo Seroa, et al. "CLIMATE CHANGE IN BRAZIL." (2011).
4. FIFA water breaks during the cup
“World Cup Cooling Breaks: Rules, Who Calls for Official Water Breaks at World Cup
2014?” The Epoch Times, 4 July 2014, www.theepochtimes.com/n3/775819-world-cupcooling-breaks-rules-how-to-call-for-water-breaks-at-world-cup-2014/. Accessed 6 Sept.
2017.
Pakistan 2022
1. 1947 partition
Khan, Yasmin. The great partition: The making of India and Pakistan. Yale University
Press, 2017.Pakistani+wars+and+conflicts&stype=videos
2. Nuclear weapons and detonation in 1998
Wallace, Terry C. "The May 1998 India and Pakistan Nuclear Tests." Seismological
Research Letters 69.5 (1998): 386-393.
Singh, Jaswant. "Against nuclear apartheid." Foreign Affairs (1998): 41-52.
3. Bush/Musharraf agreement and military equipment to afghanistan
Hathaway, Robert M. "Leverage and largesse: Pakistan's post-9/11 partnership with
America." Contemporary South Asia 16.1 (2008): 11-24.
4. Pakistan helps create Taliban as client state/help with war against India.
Rashid, Ahmed. "The Taliban: exporting extremism." Foreign Affairs (1999): 22-35.
Rubin, Barnett R., and Ahmed Rashid. "From Great Game to Grand Bargain-Ending
Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Foreign Aff. 87 (2008): 30.

273

5. Possible seizure of pakistani nukes by extremist muslims
Ganguly, Sumit. "Nuclear Stability in South Asia." International Security 33.2 (2008):
45-70.
6. Climate warming leads to new pathogens/old ones coming back
Altizer, Sonia, et al. "Climate change and infectious diseases: from evidence to a
predictive framework." science 341.6145 (2013): 514-519.
7. Pakistan and Polio returning
Roberts, Leslie. "Fighting polio in Pakistan." Science 337.6094 (2012): 517-521.
8. India commits to no “first use” nuclear policy
Singh, Jaswant. "Against nuclear apartheid." Foreign Affairs (1998): 41-52.
9. NEST team history/foundation
Crichton, M. T., and R. Flin. "Identifying and training non-technical skills of nuclear
emergency response teams." Annals of Nuclear Energy 31.12 (2004): 1317-1330.
10. Destruction of Sarin nerve gas under Assad
Crook, John R. "United States Threatens Military Strikes Against Syria, Then Joins in
Diplomatic Efforts to Control Syrian Chemical Weapons." American Journal of
International Law 107.4 (2013): 899-951.
11. Conflict over dams/indus river
Alam, Undala Z. "Questioning the water wars rationale: a case study of the Indus Waters
Treaty." The Geographical Journal 168.4 (2002): 341-353.
12. Pakistan Nuclear Arsenal
Ganguly, Sumit, and Devin T. Hagerty. Fearful symmetry: India-Pakistan crises in the
shadow of nuclear weapons. University of Washington Press, 2012.
13. Saddam bluffs on Nuke’s to intimidate Iran
Risen, James. State of war: The secret history of the CIA and the Bush administration.
Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Nuclear abolition 2022
Maggie NFL Child 2023
NONE
Olivera assassination 2023
NONE

274

Port Townsend 2023 post ass
1.Irish assimilation into American society through the police force
Monkkonen, Eric H. Police in urban America, 1860-1920. Cambridge University Press,
2004.
Roediger, David R. The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American
working class. Verso, 1999.
Roediger, David R. Working toward whiteness: How America's immigrants became
white: The strange journey from Ellis Island to the suburbs. Basic Books, 2006.
2. Climate/weather daily extreme fluctuations
Easterling, David R., et al. "Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts."
science 289.5487 (2000): 2068-2074.
Aida hacker 2023
1. Ethanol history/product
Pimentel, David, and Tad W. Patzek. "Ethanol production using corn, switchgrass, and
wood; biodiesel production using soybean and sunflower." Natural resources
research 14.1 (2005): 65-76.
2. PGP encryption
Bacard, AndrGe. Computer Privacy Handbook: A Practical Guide to E-Mail Encryption,
Data Protection, and PGP Privacy Software. Peachpit press, 1995.
3. Oil spill in the Salish Sea/Effects
Logan, Kate A., et al. "Potential Effects on Fraser River Salmon from an Oil Spill by the
Trans Mountain Expansion Project." Report prepared for the National Energy Board
(NEB) hearings reviewing Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain Expansion
project. Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Sidney, BC (2015).
Michael Haystock 2023
NONE
Weekly standard 2024
NONE
Salia Mason 2024
NONE
Ben/tar sands 2024
1. Tar sands cancer
Wong, Otto, and Gerhard K. Raabe. "A critical review of cancer epidemiology in the
275

petroleum industry, with a meta-analysis of a combined database of more than 350,000
workers." Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 32.1 (2000): 78-98.
2.Doctors and retribution
Edwards, Jocelyn. "Oil and medicine: Alberta MDs gain support." (2014): E347-E348.
3. Syria Climate change/drought
Gleick, Peter H. "Water, drought, climate change, and conflict in Syria." Weather,
Climate, and Society 6.3 (2014): 331-340.
Kelley, Colin P., et al. "Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the
recent Syrian drought." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.11 (2015):
3241-3246.
4. Nigeria climate effects
Sayne, Aaron. Climate change adaptation and conflict in Nigeria. US Institute of Peace,
2011.
5. Tar sands biggest climate bomb in North america
Hansen, James. "Game over for the climate." New York Times 10 (2012): A29.
6. Native cancer rates Cree nation
Huseman, Jennifer, and Damien Short. "‘A slow industrial genocide’: tar sands and the
indigenous peoples of northern Alberta." The International Journal of Human Rights 16.1
(2012): 216-237.
7. Fallujah cancer rates
Busby, Chris, Malak Hamdan, and Entesar Ariabi. "Cancer, infant mortality and birth
sex-ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009." International journal of environmental research
and public health 7.7 (2010): 2828-2837.
Alaani, Samira, et al. "Uranium and other contaminants in hair from the parents of
children with congenital anomalies in Fallujah, Iraq." Conflict and Health 5.1 (2011): 15.
Koch Brothers Lisa 2024
1. Inside climate news and LA times
Banerjee, Neela, Lisa Song, and David Hasemyer. "Exxon's Own Research Confirmed
Fossil Fuels' Role in Global Warming Decades Ago." Inside Climate News 16 (2015).
2. Redistricting and control of congress
Jeong, Dahyeon, and Ajay Shenoy. "How Do Elites Capture a Democracy? Evidence
276

from the Struggle to Control Congressional Redistricting." (2016).
3. Distribution of military spending contracts
Carsey, Thomas M., and Barry Rundquist. "Party and committee in distributive politics:
Evidence from defense spending." The Journal of Politics61.4 (1999): 1156-1169.
4. David Graeber “democracy”
Graeber, David. The democracy project: A history, a crisis, a movement. Spiegel & Grau,
2013.
5. David Graeber “Debt: first 5000 years)
Graeber, David. Debt: the first five thousand years. Eurozine, 2009.
6. Jane Mayer “Dark Money”
Mayer, Jane. Dark money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the
radical right. Anchor, 2016.
7. Citizens United and McClellan
Kang, Michael S. "After Citizens United." Ind. L. Rev. 44 (2010): 243.
8. Yale climate study new polling 2017
Leiserowitz, Anthony, et al. "Global warming’s six Americas, May 2011." Yale
University and George Mason University (2011).
9. Property rights in America
Ely Jr, James W. The guardian of every other right: A constitutional history of property
rights. Oxford University Press, 2007.
10. David hume “rationality”
Smith, Norman Kemp. The philosophy of David Hume: With a new introduction by Don
Garrett. Springer, 2005.
Chicago 2024
1. Darpa leg regrowing limbs
Satoh, Akira, Michelle A. James, and David M. Gardiner. "The role of nerve signaling in
limb genesis and agenesis during axolotl limb regeneration." JBJS 91.Supplement_4
(2009): 90-98.
2. Origins of biological warfare
Szinicz, Ladislaus. "History of chemical and biological warfare
agents." Toxicology 214.3 (2005): 167-181.
3. Small pox blankets
Churchill, Ward. "An American holocaust? The structure of denial." Socialism and
Democracy 17.1 (2003): 25-75.
277

4. Private fire departments grow in face of climate
“Private firefighting.” WildfireX, www.wildfirex.com/private-firefighting/. Accessed 6
Sept. 2017.
5. Bark beetles and climate fires
Bentz, Barbara J., et al. "Climate change and bark beetles of the western United States
and Canada: direct and indirect effects." BioScience 60.8 (2010): 602-613.
Monsanto Niria 1970’s/2024
Lorena phoenix 2024
1. Heat increases violence.
Weick, Mario, et al. "Stuck in the heat or stuck in the hierarchy? Power relations explain
regional variations in violence." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40 (2017).
2.Dam removal in the PNW
Oliver, Marie, and Gordon Grant. "Liberated rivers: lessons from 40 years of dam
removal." (2017).
Unknown vets journal 2025
Z Danae 2025
1. Climate change and public health
Sundwall, David N. Climate change and public health in Utah. Utah Department of
Health, 2016,
health.utah.gov/enviroepi/publications/Climate%20Change%20Booklet%20WEB%20co
mpressed.pdf.
2. Utah climate affects
EPA. “What climate change means for Utah.” United States Environmental Protection
Agency, Epa.org, Aug. 2016, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/201609/documents/climate-change-ut.pdf.
3. Solar updraft towers
Wolf, Malima Isabelle. “Solar Updraft Towers: Their Role in Remote On-Site
Generation.” Public Solar, 29 Apr. 2008,
web.mit.edu/miwolf/Public/Solar%20Updraft%20Towers.pdf.
LEYLA CONCLUSION

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Media

Graham Clumpner_MES Thesis 2017.pdf