Takeover

“We’re running out of time Owen,” I said over the burner phone. “We need to get out of here now! There are less safe passages across the border every day, and I speak, our people are staking out more of them!” I barely finished the sentence before my boss, Derek Morgan, strode around the corner. I reacted immediately, jamming the burner phone into my breast pocket. “Oh Derek, I didn’t see you there!” Derek remained stone faced. “You alright, Mrs. Bronson?” Derek asked kindly enough, although I knew he was probing my expression and body language even as he said it. Those skills would’ve been mandatory for a CIA director, even in the old days. After the world went to shit however, they had become absolutely demanded of not just the director but the staff as well, especially the enforcers. Fortunately, the bright side of being a shark is that you know how to deal with other sharks.

“Yes, I am fine,” I replied, careful to keep my voice even. It was one of many skills I’d been forced to master since the takeover. Derek stayed silent for a minute. I held my breath. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he seemed satisfied. “Alright, well we need you in the situation room. Briefing in 5.” “Yes, sir,” I responded quickly. Too quickly. Derek walked away without comment, but I could read the suspicion in his eyes. “Alright people” said CIA director Derek Morgan we took our places in the situation room. “We have a crisis at the border, and the president wants it dealt with quickly.” “President” I thought sourly. “Call Crayfish what he is, a dictator.” At one time, when he’d first come into office, Jack Crayfish had been the president of the United States. The U.S had been a democracy then, everyone had money then, people were free to come and go as they pleased. Crayfish had got into office by pitching himself as a moderate who listened to the concerns of the average American voter. Instead, shortly after he’d taken office, Jack Crayfish had initiated what became known by the citizens of the United States as “the takeover.” 

It started with the “disinformation task force” being formed as a part of DHS. It was the closest thing America had ever had to the KGB of the former Soviet Union. Thousands of Americans were arrested without warning and held in prison indefinitely for online activities, phone calls, and even private conversations that “posed a threat to democracy” as Crayfish put it. Then, in just a few short months, his administration rewrote the entire tax code, which raised corporate and individual tax rates to 75% each. People were forced to leave their homes, small businesses shut their doors, the economy collapsed. Then came the welfare expansion, banning of fossil fuels for any use, and the shutting of the Canadian border. The final breaking point however, was the ending of elections. The White House press secretary had declared on the news one day that the man who had turned America into a socialist dictatorship and the politicians who supported him would remain in power until the day they died. I shook herself from my thoughts. Director Morgan was now identifying several red dots on a digital map. “We’ve identified these two homes and this Canadian train station as potential human smuggling operations. Although they deny it, we believe the Canadian government is using these operations to help smuggle our citizens across the border.” As I was concentrating on the map, I suddenly felt as though I’d been cracked over the head with a brick. The train station Director Morgan had identified was in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Known as “The Omega Junction”, it was one of the last operating train stations in America. It was also the one that me and my husband, Owen, were going to be using to escape the country tomorrow. 

I hurriedly threw her things in her bag, and practically ran to the elevator. Once inside, she pulled her burner phone from her hidden pocket, and called. “Avery? What’s going on?” “Owen, we have a problem. They found the Omega junction, and they’re going to shut it down tomorrow!” Owen was completely silent. The silence unnerved her more than anything he could’ve said. Ever since I had met Owen over a decade ago, he’d been my rock, untouchable, unbreakable. He could overcome any challenge life threw at him with sheer force of will. He’d become a decorated Colonel in the army before he’d even reached the age of 35, and perhaps most impressively, despite his hatred for “president” Crayfish, he’d managed to maintain his position in the army after the takeover. That was no mean feat, considering the lengths Crayfish had gone to to root out any and all opposition from positions of power. But now for the first time, I worried that he’d finally met his match.

“All right, look. Here’s what we’re gonna do” he said finally, and I felt a little relieved when I heard the assuredness in his voice. “It’s a ten hour drive to Chicago. I’m at the DOD headquarters now. We have a meeting in forty-five minutes with General Hinburn. I’m gonna walk out of here right now, and drive home. The second you get the chance, you do the same, I’ll meet you at home, and we’ll go. By the time anyone notices we’re gone, we’ll be over the state line.” I silently thanked the lord for Owen. “Alright, I’m leaving the building right now. I’ll be home in 10 minutes." I hurried out of the building to my car. I was so distracted, I almost got run over by a passing sedan in the parking lot, which stopped just in time. It was Owen. I don’t think I’d ever been happier to see him. 

Despite the fact that we arrived at the station at approximately two in the morning, the station was jam-packed with people and families, waiting on the benches, fighting through the crowd towards the ticket windows, holding small children by the hand, cradling tiny babies, searching through the few belongings they’d brought with them. I took Owen’s hand so I wouldn’t lose him in the crowd, and we joined the surge towards the ticket windows. “Why do they bother with tickets?” I asked Owen. “Can’t they just let people on the train considering they’re smuggling them out anyway?” “That’s a great idea in theory,” Owen replied. “But with the government monitoring everyone’s finances so closely, they have to make it look like they’re selling tickets to avoid suspicion. You’ll see.” And as we made it to the front of the crowd, I did. “Hi,” Owen said to the frazzled young African-American girl standing in the ticket booth. “Two for Polar, Wisconsin.” “Alright, will you be wanting the sleeper car?” she asked. “Yes, we will”. Owen replied. After we’d left the counter, Owen started explaining to me that the train went as far as Polar, and the Canadian border patrol would ferry us the rest of the way on foot, and “sleeper car” was the code used to request this route across the border. But I wasn’t listening. I was watching a man who had just entered the building.

Something wasn’t right. He was walking straight towards us. He was wearing all camo, dark sunglasses, and he had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Owen suddenly stopped talking. “What?” He followed my gaze just as the man was reaching for his rifle. “Move!” I heard him scream, and I felt him shove me off the bench as the soldier opened fire. Had he reacted a second later, we would have both been dead. All around us, people began to scream and take cover as a battalion of soldiers descended on the station, spraying lead in every direction. People ran in every direction trying to escape, only to fall as they were gunned down by the soldiers. “Well babe, looks like we’ve met our match” Owen said, managing a grin. “Yeah” I replied. “But if I’m gonna go out, I want to at least go out swinging.” “Agreed” Owen said. “Avery.” I looked at him, suddenly realizing in that moment just how much I loved him. “I love you” he said, and kissed me. I embraced him tightly, knowing that if I died right there with him, I’d be happy. We broke apart, drew our weapons, and charged into the hail of bullets, prepared to die fighting. I charged at a pair of soldiers that had a family pinned down behind a group of benches. They noticed me too late, and I landed two clean headshots. Another soldier turned in my direction, and I charged him, screaming like a banshee. He had enough time to get a shot off, but he froze, stunned by my complete lack of fear. I put two bullets in his chest, and he went down like a ragdoll. 

A bullet flew past my head, missing me by an inch. I turned to face a young woman in a dark one-piece suit. An enforcer. I raised my weapon, but stopped suddenly. The woman was slowly lowering her weapon. My brain screamed at me to shoot her, but something held me back. “Avery?” she said so softly I barely heard her. I lowered my weapon as I recognized her voice. “Joan?” I said. “Stop, stop, hold your fire! Hold your fire!” she screamed suddenly. The soldiers immediately obeyed, turning towards Joan Mackreides in surprise. She turned towards me. “Avery, what the hell are you doing here?” I found myself unable to reply to the woman who I hadn’t seen in over 3 years, who I’d met in college and spent countless nights laughing and partying with, who’d hung out with me and Owen at our apartment almost every night for over a year, who’d been the maid of honor when I married Owen, who I had spent years training and working beside in the field, who had taken the same Oath as I had to defend her country, but was now actively working to destroy it. “I might ask you the same thing” I finally managed after a moment. “Protecting my country from traitors like you” she snapped back, but she refused to look at me as she said it. “Doesn’t look like you’re protecting much of anything” I replied, looking around the room. Dozens of people lying dead on the floor. Others hiding behind benches, cradling dying loved ones. A mother wailing, holding her dead child in her arms. 

She said nothing. “You took an Oath, the same as I did when we completed field training. We promised to protect this country from any threats it might face, internal or external” I continued. “I don’t think unarmed citizens qualify as a threat.” “They’re traitors,” she replied sharply. “They betrayed their country, and now they, like you, will pay the price for it” she said, raising her pistol to my forehead level. “Joan, you know me,” I pleaded. She paused with her finger on the trigger. “I am a patriot, just like you. I love my country, and you do too. But this is not the country we swore to defend.” “It doesn’t matter,” she replied quickly, but her finger had removed itself from inside the trigger guard. “We swore to support our government in all their fights, no matter who the enemy is.” “The enemy” I said incredulously. “Are you even hearing yourself? These children your men killed today, are they the enemy too?” Joan glanced over at the mother still holding on to her dead child, and I saw a flash of emotions very briefly cross her face. I knew Joan had had a stillborn child. “Do you know why Crayfish calls these people traitors?” I asked Joan. She didn’t respond. “Because for him, and other politicians like him, it’s all about power. They don’t care about America, they don’t care about people, all they care about is themselves and their power. That’s why the president had to change America, so that no one could oppose the politicians. It started out with small things, like the disinformation board and shutting down all the pipelines, but they always had bigger goals in mind, politicians always do.” Joan wouldn’t look at me, but I could see tears forming in her eyes.

“These people the politicians are ordering you to kill, they aren’t traitors, they’re the resistors. So the president is stamping them out because in order to create a dictatorship, you can’t have any resistance.” I could see the soldiers looking at each other, unsure of what to do. A few of them had holstered their rifles. “Joan, we are still fighters. The politicians don’t care about you, they are only using you to get what they want. Because they know you’re a fighter, they know how dangerous you are, and that they need you on their side. So stop fighting for these bastards, and start fighting to take back our country!” I looked around at the soldiers. “All of you!” I shouted. “You’re all fighters, so start fighting for this country that you swore to defend!” Then Owen stepped forward. “I am a soldier,” he said. “Just like all of you. We all swore to defend our country, but our country has been lost. And to get it back, we all have to do our part, we all have to join the fight against tyranny. Who’s with me?” Slowly, the remaining soldiers holstered their weapons. Then, simultaneously, they saluted my husband. Owen smiled, and saluted back to them. I looked back at Joan. She had dropped her gun, and she was looking at me, her face streaked with tears. I held out my arms, and she ran to me, embracing me hard enough to knock the wind out of me. We stood there for a moment, holding on to each other. Finally, we broke apart. Joan wiped the tears from her face. 

“You’re right, this isn’t America. Not anymore. But we can get it back, if we all work together. We need to get your message out to everyone, all the soldiers, all the citizens, anyone who can help. The president has asked me to speak tomorrow about the capture of the Omega Junction. You up for a speech?” I nodded. We went to Joan’s home in Crystal Lake, and I spent the entire night preparing the speech. I wrote about how we’d lost America, but how if we fought, we could win it back. How the politicians had taken it from us, and why. I addressed the soldiers and the enforcers, telling them how the government was using them for their own gain, and how they were fighting on the wrong side of things. I wrote about how fragile a democracy is, and that we often take it for granted until it’s too late. Now it’s noon the next day. Joan is giving her opening right now. I’m going on in a few minutes. I don’t know what will happen when I step on that stage. If I will be arrested, shot, if the feed will be cut, none of those things. If people will hear me, if they will listen, how they will react if they do. All I know is that whatever happens, I am prepared to fight for this once great nation until my last breath. Wish me luck.