Most Revolutionary — Chapter Thirty-One
Allies Converge
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President to ransom a better world.
Previously: An all-out struggle for power and control in the Perez farmhouse in remote Iowa — Secret Service Director William Kingsley and new FBI Director Priama Steiner clash with Sabia Perez and her allies Jenna, Jasmine, Roca, Roane, Gabe, and Avery. Meanwhile, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez delivers a revolutionary speech to reorder and heal the country and world. Tucker Gere, President Silver, Ellen Lin, and fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan find no way out from captivity in the underground home and coal mine survival bunker beneath the Perez farmhouse.
Chapter Thirty-One — Allies Converge
Seated about halfway back in the White House Press Room, a journalist more calm and independent than most catches the eye of Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez who stands strong at the lectern.
In the course of their work, this distinguished reporter also writes exacting books about the rise to power of Alecta and her allies, showing the principles and talents of progressive populists like Alecta — revealing her and the others to be potent political figures too often slighted, dismissed, and distorted by establishment commentators and other tools of Empire.
Independent journalists, like partisan politicians, try to meet the moment by focusing on salient problems of the time, both chronic and acute. Just so the esteemed journalist reports on a daily basis. Won’t stop, can’t stop, they try to catch Alecta’s eye and succeed.
“Ryan Ball,” says Alecta.
“Madame President. Civil war and pipedreams — establishment criticism of your progressive President Orders falls into two main camps. The monied establishment and their think-alikes say that you are attempting to implement unworkable pipedreams doomed to fail, on the one hand, and somewhat counterintuitively on the other hand, they claim that your Presidential directives will lead to civil war. These hostile views function as a united front of the plutocracy and conventional thinking that opposes progressive transformation. There does seem to be some contradiction there — how could Presidential directives so supposedly ineffective be simultaneously so offensive to big money, to the billionaire class that passes judgment upon society. If your policies don’t work, then policy can be reset. But it seems more likely that big wealth in America is far more concerned that your policies will work — decisively on a vast scale to improve the lives of people, while simultaneously cutting far back on the profiteering and pillaging of the plutocracy, and thereby showing everyone their predation and gross neglect that people suffer under today. So these hostile and elite monied interests threaten war by all means necessary against your leadership of the public. How do you respond to these two claims? Is civil war inevitable? Are your progressive and even socialist public directives pipedreams that can never work? Is what you are directing somehow both ineffective and aggressive, unworkable and offensive, incompetent and unlawful?”
Alecta smiles. She likes Ryan Ball. Not that she needs to be entirely open about it. It’s not for her to inflate the egos of the darlings of progressive media or anyone else. Anyway, the most prominent indie journalists don’t need her encouragement. They have large daily international followings, thanks to their urgent and vital work for the People’s need to know. They are a power unto themselves. They ought to own it more than they do, Alecta thinks. She is always hoping that indie media, like partisan politicians, will achieve more than they seem to. She includes herself in that effort, of course. Why can’t they get more done, given the inherent appeal and popularity of their positions? The opposition — big money, big culture — is so powerful and omnipresent. Surely though, by their combined might the independents and the left can create much stronger organizations and partisan political figures than even herself, moving farther left into even more democracy and human rights, thereby helping clear the way for the desperately needed changes she tries to enact — sometimes almost alone, it can feel.
It’s so us versus them in this world. While indie media on behalf of the public illuminates public affairs — the vital issues, figures, and institutions of society — establishment reporters write what their big money bosses want everyone to believe, true or not — not what needs to be known by the public for their own well-being. No, the establishment press blabbers, less as public interest writers and more as stenographers to plutocracy, as they are paid to be, scribblers and mouthpieces for wealth and their followers, heaping up piles of disinformation, misinformation, and irrelevance purposefully fed to people to make them powerless, confused, and crazy — the better to keep them from seeing and understanding let alone overthrowing the masters who rule and who wreck society and the planet to stupendous elite profit.
Independent writers go another way, working in the public interest, constantly fighting the chaos and the crazy, fighting the fakery and resource deprivation, fighting the verbal and institutional and physical assaults against them. This is true of every social, cultural, and political arena, wherever the plutocracy has a stake in maintaining the status quo that is so opulent to their wallets and so oppressive and depriving and destructive to the public.
The establishment is said to be nothing as corrosive and predatory as this by the ruling class, quite the opposite. The officials for money flaunt their religion or their military service or their polished wives or their own big bucks or their so-called family values or their ostensible humanitarian ideals. Some bullshit story to mask the masters they really serve, themselves included. Then they build more bombs and guns and kill more people, imprison more people, unhouse more people, sicken more people, drug more people, and lie day and night about how this is the best of all possible worlds that everyone should be grateful to be allowed to live in it. They are sanctimonious shits and devious thugs — so often, so pervasively, in power.
Meanwhile, genocide. Meanwhile, climate collapse. Meanwhile, corporate-state engineered pandemics. Meanwhile, poverty and misery, illness, insanity, violence, and death. The best of all possible worlds, given the day and age, is how the scribes for plutocracy reframe the catastrophe that is endless and bottomless scandal and horror when seen by the independent eyes of the People, and any unbrainwashed mind.
These are the real seas we swim in, the polluted gulf of any sick society, no matter your place and position, whether you deny it or not, whether you allow yourself to know it or admit it in the first place. It takes what it takes to see the world and society as it really is.
What Alecta would not give for a strong public leader to rise from the grassroots farther to her left, the better and quicker to revolutionize the country and world from every single one of its terminal cliff edges — whether climate collapse and nuclear obliteration or daily poverty and illness and cultural misery or death by policing and myriad other problems. What Alecta wouldn’t give for independent media and independent social movements and cultural creations that give rise to much farther left popular figures and forces than herself and her existing allies.
“What an astute question,” says the Acting President to journalist Ryan Ball. “I’m so glad that you refer to the enemies of the people as elite monied interests, the plutocracy, since that is exactly what they are. Yes, it is in fact the plutocracy that pillages and preys and profiteers off the people — that’s how you get rich in the first place, that’s how you create grotesque inequality — by exploiting, damaging, and impoverishing the People, and destroying so many lives and the planet, pretending to think you are the savior of the world rather than the new kings and merciless conquerors in high-tech and high-finance and big money. Look — we need to do more. And we can. And so we must. And that’s what my Presidential Directives and Orders are all about.”
Alecta continues her great speech—
—We can have civil war or we can have a social revolution.
We can have civil war in this country and all across this planet, or we can have a progressive populist revolution that unifies the People. These are the real options.
Here in America, and in most countries, we are in the midst of a violent and simmering civil war now and have been for a long time. The only way out of this civil war is by way of a social revolution that unites the People.
To think otherwise is the real pipedream. It’s the plutocracy that offers pipedreams in one hand and the hammer of exploitation and neglect in the other. My actions put an end to that on behalf of the people, as opposed to on behalf of the coffers of the billionaires.
This country, this world faces the existential threats of climate collapse, and nuclear war, and other virulent terrors. Not to mention poverty and disease as policy, bigotry as policy, police and military state thuggery as policy.
It’s time to be real for the People and not fake for the Plutocrats. The history of the American Empire — the so called United States — is not pretty. The history of America is founded on genocide of the Natives and built by kidnapped African slaves and wage-slave European migrants. The people who survive America and who build America are manipulated into despising each other based on their so-called identities — for one purpose only — to prevent them all from uniting and throwing off the plutocratic masters and tyrants and thugs who pillage and profiteer and prey on those with little comparative power. This is obvious, it should be, but is often denied.
Power comes by principle — guaranteeing human rights amid real world conditions and consequences — and by pooling resources and efforts, the People’s power, and this is the basis of each Presidential directive that I issue today. On this day, we revolutionize the order and operations of society to create a great revolution in conditions of life — great financial, educational, physical, mental, and material uplift of the people — a revolution in spirit and resources.
This is all long, long overdue. For far too long, we the People have been crushed by the profiteering pipedreams and the predatory civil war against the people. For no good reason, we the People have been smashed in the face by the pillaging pipedreams and the splintering weaponized lies of the financial tyrants who take the People’s money and resources for themselves, stealing the People’s time, health, and labor to profiteer, smashing the planet, exterminating the creatures, and creating vast realms of brutal pain and suffering — all to lift the few, the blood-sucking financial and thug elite.
We can be real about this. We’re adults. There’s a lot of confusion and totally mistaken ideas and views spread by the prejudiced and money-gouging pipedreams of the plutocracy. There is a lot of ill will and dim sight and fake news created by the financial tyrants to fool the people away from the source of the real exploitation in the world.
It’s financial tyranny that genocides the Peoples.
It’s financial tyranny that guts democracy and human rights and strips people of their power to intellectually and emotionally and physically defend themselves.
It’s financial tyranny that mocks People’s power as pipedreams.
It’s financial tyranny that creates and fans the flames of civil war to make people fight each other rather than throw off the tyrants and thieves of their time, labor, resources, and wallets.
I have a dream that the People will be free at last.
Free at last to make their own lives on behalf of their own families and not for the oligarchy — the few, the controlling, the endlessly wealthy elite.
I have a dream that the People will be free at last, healthy at last.
Free at last to create their own lives by way of economic democracy and human rights.
I have a dream that the People will be lifted up and not pushed down by their country, by the financial thug tyranny that has the country and world by the throat.
I have a dream that humane conditions of guaranteed basic income, housing, advanced education, quality work, lively and prosperous and self-secure communities will exist everywhere all the time rather than here and there depending on the decade.
I have a dream that the People will be free at last to stop the profiteering, to stop the pillaging, to stop the predation, the exploitation, and the thuggery of money and guns over human brains, hearts, and guts.
Free at last! I have a dream!
And this dream is no pipedream. And this dream is not of civil war. This is the dream of the People’s social revolution that ends the class war of the plutocracy. This is the dream that defuses the civil war that the plutocracy has created among the people.
It is the plutocracy that imposes their pipedreams and their wars upon the people. And so naturally it is the classic psychological reaction to pretend that No! No! they protest — we — the thug rich — are not the pipedreamers! We — the thug rich — are not the war makers! Hell yes you are! It is not the People who are the pipedreamers and warmongers! It is the thug rich — that’s how they get rich and stay rich in their militarized and bloody economy!
Lies! The thug plutocracy lies! They tell epic fake stories about themselves and against those they bash and bleed dry.
And so we must tell our own true epic stories in return. We must create our humane epic stories for the People, for all Peoples.
And we must know it’s true. The People must know it to be true. We must see reality for what it is and act accordingly.
We must move together, united, as best we can, and remake our world, remake our lives, remake our country to be free at last!
Otherwise we will continue to be forced to smoke the pillaging, profiteering, predatory pipedreams of the plutocrats and their thug money.
It’s our country, our world, not theirs. It’s our money not theirs. It’s us not them. Let the plutocrats be humbled and human like everyone else and be no longer armed to the teeth with dollars and guns like the modern day monsters that they are.
Let us, the People, be free at last. These are worthy dreams, not pipedreams. This is the way to civil society, not civil war.
Does that answer your question, Ryan Ball? Fuck the plutocrats and their lethal pipedreams and their wars on the People. That’s the dream I have. The dream of a great society. Free at last. With democracy and human rights for all.
The White House Press Room explodes. People are cheering, stamping, and cursing. Some are clutching their heads and covering their ears. Other are typing madly or wildly scratching pens across paper. Some sit in stunned silence as if their brains have been pulped and are invisibly dribbling out of their ears.
Ryan Ball leans back and thinks, Shit, what did I just ask?
And what kind of awesome answer is that? Fuck the plutocracy!
Alecta winks at the journalist, as if to say, Well, you asked.
And she answered.
Alecta raises her arms and calms the room. Then she continues—
This is the job of the leader of the People — to advocate, direct, and help implement the many answers and solutions that exist, to help heal the People and to break up the plutocracy, to help those badly hurt and to fix the intolerable conditions of society and culture and politics, to attend to the many problems of the public, to actually solve the real problems of the public. The People need money — point blank. They need housing — point blank. They need good work — point blank. They need free time — point blank. They need safety and security from guns and financial exploitation — point blank. They need health care — point blank. They need a healthy and green environment — point blank. They need all kinds of human rights — point blank. They need a livable planet — point blank.
They need the thugocracy of financial tyranny like they need a hole in the head.
We should despise what we are conditioned and taught not to despise, what we are conditioned and taught to worship — the tyranny of guns and money that creates war and shits pillaging pipedreams on everyone.
Fuck the plutocracy. Who needs them. The People and the People’s government have the legal and moral power to administer credit to guarantee everyone’s retirement security and basic income and housing and health and environmental and security needs.
It’s a new day. Free at last. Big dreams. Real answers. Civil clarity. Civic can-do. Civic courage. Popular action to lively and convivial consequence.
People stop hating each other when they get the help they need in place of the lies and the lunacy, the threats and the bullying that drives them mad.
Illness and insanity and violence come from a destroyed world and deceitful culture.
People start being more honest and helpful and hopeful when things change for the better. In this way the social revolution is spiritual — all but intangible but totally understandable. The Revolution is spiritual as well as material, mental as well as physical, visceral as well as conceptual, ethical as well as imperative. The People’s Revolution is the way and the end.
We are gathered here today at long last to tell everyone all about it and to lead far along the popular path, the badly needed revolutionary path, to lift up the People’s voices crying for change, demanding change — lifting up the People’s ideas and the People’s energy and the People’s will that grows, builds, and crests, bursting forth as the new day.
Somebody needs to say it. Here in official circles and beyond. And act upon it. The Revolution did not begin with us, and it will not end with us, but it will accelerate now and come into full effect as never before by way of what we do today and how well we make the new day going forward.
Sabia Perez looks in the bathroom mirror, in the Perez farmhouse bathroom upstairs, where she and Jasmine try to make sense of the day, not far above the hostage standoff downstairs.
Sabia dabs tears from her face one final time.
“Roca's alive,” says Jasmine. “I'm so happy for you, Sabia.”
“He was never anywhere near President Silver’s bus, Ground Force One, not when it was bombed, not ever. You can write that in your memoir of the Revolution, Jasmine, because I don’t think I’ll survive.”
“Sabia, don’t talk like this. Don’t think it.”
Sabia shrugs. “I've been wanting to write, you know, a big manifesto, before I go. What do you think for a title — something like — My Life Goes Bang! Ever read that great little novel? Actually it’s My Career Goes Bung by Stella “Miles” Franklin? She was raised in the Australian outback, then worked as a feminist and activist for workers in America a century ago, before returning to Australia. Her second novel was censored from publication for more than four decades because it offended the sensibilities of the literary establishment in Australia, and in the world I guess. The great Stella Franklin. My Career Goes Bung, her best book — maybe because she had four decades to revise it, I don’t know. I’m not going to get four decades to write my book, Jasmine. Maybe not even the two decades I’m two years away from reaching now.”
“Sabia, listen. We’re going back downstairs, and we’re going to make peace with the officials we need to—”
“Impossible. We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill us all.”
“Sabia. Be strong.”
Sabia grows increasingly reflective.
“My mamá turned me on to some great books before lack of health care killed her.”
“I take your word for it.” Jasmine knows she needs to get Sabia back into the sweep of her homemade Revolution. Sabia needs to stop this fixation on her own death.
“Banjo was Claude McKay's best book, and Hadji Murad was Tolstoy's best book. But who talks about these classics that challenge Empire, Jasmine? Nobody. Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower gets more notice, a good thing, but Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow? No. And they’re all dead now.”
“Sabia, come on. Let’s go.” Jasmine tugs on Sabia’s shoulders. Sabia holds the sink and seems obsessed with the mirror before her. She presses one hand to her lips to keep from puking like she did downstairs.
“It would be a good book, Jasmine. My manifesto. I did some real things.”
“You and me both, Girl. We’ll write that book together — how ‘bout it? And we’re going to do a lot more. You’ll have plenty of time to come up with a great title for a big book of your own. Your manifesto of revolution.”
“The People's Kidnapper,” says Sabia.
“Okay,” says Jasmine.
“Revolution on the Prairie.”
“That could sell. It should.”
“Death by America.”
“Too dark.”
“I kind of like it.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“The Revolutionary Girl.”
“You’re no girl, Sabia.”
“The Revolutionary Woman. The Revolutionaries. The Saga of Sabia Perez.”
“Wait — what were you voted by your high school class on Senior Day? Remember? You told me. ‘The Revolutionary’?”
“Most Revolutionary.”
“Bingo.”
“Maybe I’ll just create a book of great titles, Jasmine. Did you ever think instead of destroying fossil fuel pipelines and blowing up bulldozers and excavators, we should have done something less with our lives — and been better off? You and me and Jenna.”
“We still can, Girl. We can do very much less with our lives. There’s still time.”
“Once a revolutionary, always a revolutionary.”
“Not always, Girl.”
“For some it’s a calling.”
“Fuck, yeah,” says Jasmine. “We’ve got lots left to do.”
“We're not going to prison, Jasmine. You understand? Alecta will give me and all of us full pardons.”
“You sure about that, Champ?”
“Alecta loves me. And if I keep saying that she loves me, then maybe it will prove true in the way we need it to.”
“That’s not how it works, Sab.”
“We gave Alecta all the power she needed. We are Alecta’s power. And she is ours.”
Jasmine stares at Sabia’s reflection in the mirror. Who wouldn’t love Sabia Perez — Revolutionary? Who shouldn’t? But love only goes so far sometimes — and no farther.
“Maybe you can swap the hostages for pardons, Sabia. That's the only way.”
“We need to keep our leverage. The People’s leverage.”
“You can’t. You must give them up. And they will want you to be sorry, Sabia. They will want you to admit defeat.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“I know.”
“And I won. We all did. The People won, for once, and for all. We’re winning everything we need. As we should. And we must.”
“Maybe we’re close.”
“We’re there, Jasmine. We’re right there. We can’t give up now. The demands need to be fully met. And we need to go way beyond those demands. The country needs to be fully transformed. And the world.”
“Alecta’s speech. You should’ve heard—”
“I was in handcuffs.”
“You're busted now, Sabia. It's not just you and me. Roca and Jenna are both hiding from the law. And what about your classmates? They’re downstairs waiting on your next move. You need at least four pardons. Maybe more.”
“We've got six hostages.”
“If we can hold them.”
“Do you know that one of the greatest indicators of civility, Jasmine, of a strong and genuine civilization, is how well a host treats their guests — the ancient guest-host relationship. By that standard, I’m the most civilized person on the planet. But a lot of people will think I'm the worst,” says Sabia.
“Yeah, okay,” says Jasmine. “Let's save it for book club, Sab. Think now — how do we do this? How do we get out of this impossible knot we're tied up in?”
“I'm serious, Jasmine. I'm literally the most civilized host in the history of the world. Except they will call me a terrorist. The real terrorists will call me that. Basic human self preservation psychology. Invert reality to condemn others and save yourself.”
“That’s what Alecta said today about the plutocracy.”
“That’s the truth. We need to say the truth over and over and over again. Otherwise, people believe the lies. The Evil lies.”
“I take your point,” says Jasmine. “Now we need to work the problem. Our story won’t stop for truth and lies, Sabia. Our story needs to confront the reality of the day.”
“We need to go beyond that, Jasmine.”
Jasmine checks Sabia's forehead with the back of her hand. “You feel okay, Girl?”
“I'm gonna sleep soon.”
Jasmine feels the clock ticking, time slipping, the stability of her sense of the situation beginning to wash away. No telling if Roca and Jenna and the others can hold the house below. And for how long.
“Fucking Grace Lamont figured it out. With the glove,” says Sabia. “The DNA. That sneak Kingsley must've stole it from my truck. Fuckin' corporate-state thief. Kingsley is chasing Castelan to save his job. That's all he thinks about. And Castelan — he hunted me to turn me into a bargaining chip to save himself too, his life. Everyone is predator and prey in capitalism, Jasmine. What people do for their jobs, it’s straight up murder. I think we should outlaw all jobs and guarantee everyone’s good survival, then organize into half-week work collectives from there on. Don’t you think that would be good?”
“Sure, Sab.”
“You can't tell anyone anything when they're fucking you over for their job. Their fascist job. I refused to give President Silver to Castelan — so he went apeshit. And then Roca shot him. Now Castelan is tied up in the bunker at the mercy of Silver and Lin, his intended targets. It’s so fitting, Jasmine, I mean we really did it, me and Jenna and Roca and you. I'm proud to own it, and it's not my fault.”
“That’s okay, Sabia. You're okay. You done good, Girl.”
“Never better.”
Jasmine and Sabia hold hands. “I'm so sorry, Sabia.”
“Me too.”
Sabia faces herself in the mirror again, above the long blade of the carving knife that Jasmine brought up from the kitchen and stashed behind the faucets.
Sabia’s face looks so plain, so nowhere, absent her tears and smiles and laughter and pain. The strain though. The strain takes its toll.
Sabia considers the knife. There’s something so lovely about a knife. A good knife. So strong. So effective.
“We have a lot of guests to take care of, Jasmine,” says Sabia. “And a lot of demands to meet. The People’s demands.”
“You know it, Girl. Let’s go meet them. It’s all waiting for us downstairs. You should've heard Alecta's speech today, I’m telling you, Sabia. She was the American Liberation Alliance all in one person. A revolutionary — Alecta is a revolutionary when she wants to be, when she can be. When we make her be. When she gets the space you give her, Girl. The People’s space.”
“The American Liberation Alliance is an Army now, Jasmine, it needs to be. The People’s Army,” says Sabia. “It's possible. I mean, the State has a monopoly on violence. They could nuke us tonight. But you and me, Jasmine, when everyone gets out in the streets, on strike, in action, mobilized, when we get everyone out and acting altogether all the time — we can't be stopped. Because the People have the real power over themselves and their world if they want it, a monopoly of their own power, if they can clear their brains and hearts and guts of all the damage and get their shit together.”
“It's time to move now, Sabia. It's always time. But now it really is.”
“I say we keep the hostages. All of them.”
“We can't.”
“We must. The Empire holds everyone else hostage. The whole country. The whole world.”
“You're a true believer, Sabia. I love you, Girl.”
“I have faith in nothing, Jasmine. I’m a true thinker.”
“I know, I know.”
“A true doer.”
“Okay. You are.”
“I'm not perfect.”
“I know. You’re complex.”
“We all are, Jasmine.”
“You're the most complex, Sabia. You carry the People’s whole complexity in your being — your fiery being. But I think you need to rest now.” Jasmine kisses Sabia on the forehead and on both cheeks. Then on the lips. Does it relax her? It must. “When will there be time enough for love, Sabia? I don’t know. Maybe not today. They've got their guards and guns, spies and comms outside. And they'll bust in before long. There are no friends out there in the snow and the cold. We need to make time enough for love — okay — but not today. Today we need to give in. Make a trade, Sabia.”
“Fuck love, Jasmine. I want something else, first.”
Sabia holds Jasmine with her eyes.
“It’s only one more person we need,” says Sabia.
“No,” says Jasmine.
“Yes,” says Sabia. “Says ‘yes’ to life, Jasmine.”
“It’s not me. I can’t do it.”
“Just one more person.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s not you, Jasmine. You’ve done enough already. As much as you can.”
“Then who, Sabia? Who else do we know who could— who would—”
“Fucking Alecta.” Sabia stares through Jasmine. “Alecta the Awesome. We need to bring her here.”
“No — no, no, no, no,” says Jasmine.
“Get your knife,” says Sabia.
Roane, Gabe, and Avery stand in disbelief by the farmhouse front door watching FBI Director Priama Steiner and Secret Service Director William Kingsley in the living room where they sit on the couch zip-tied at the wrists and duct-taped at the ankles. The officials lean against each other, they are so close.
Jenna inventories and arranges the new weapons on the kitchen counter, while Roca monitors the windows, peering between the curtains and through the blinds.
“I offered her a deal,” says Director Steiner to Director Kingsley. “Stay at home, avoid prison, give up the goods. She should have taken it.”
“Sabia doesn't deal,” says Kingsley. “Not like you and I do. Not in my experience.”
“She's a lot like you and me,” says Steiner. “Way more than she wants to admit.”
“I don't see it,” says Kingsley.
“She's a player.”
“She’s a power broker, if she’s anything.”
“Same difference. She may think she’s not a player, but she is. That’s what her Youtube channel is. That’s what every Youtube channel is. You watch,” says Steiner. “Sabia thinks she worked her whole life to get to this barbaric point. And now she will try to cash in every last chip she thinks she holds — everything she thinks she’s owed.”
“You’re calling Sabia ‘barbaric’ and a gambler? And you think that’s like us? You’re a bureaucrat with a gun.” Kingsley watches Steiner as she shifts and bends to try to favor her wounded ribs. “Now a bureaucrat without a gun.”
“I'm saying Sabia is interested in the same things we are. Power, control, results, success. It's just that she goes about it in her own primitive way, whereas we do it high tech and completely legal. Or, you know, mostly.”
“Legally questionable at best. That’s how you were with Sabia today, Director. Primitive. You know that.”
“I’m a realist, Bill. And so are you. I'm the law around here. And you know that.”
“We see where your view of the law got us today, Director.” Kingsley strains against the zip ties and duct tape. “Into bondage.”
“Come on, Gabe.” Roane nods to the towels and cloths on the kitchen counter. “Let's clean up the puke.”
Sabia’s classmates work in the kitchen where Sabia vomited. Roane scrubs the floor. Gabe dries it.
Roca and Jenna patrol the farmhouse. They look and listen for any sounds from outside and from the bathroom upstairs.
“All I wanted was pizza after Alecta's amazing talk,” says Gabe.
“We got the next best thing, I guess,” says Roane. “Big excitement. Too big.”
“What do we do with these towels of puke?” says Gabe.
“Washer's in the basement,” Roca tells them. “Thanks, guys.”
“That's where you and Jenna were hiding,” says Roane.
“We all saw what we saw,” says Roca.
Roane and Gabe wonder what more they might see, as they go down the stairs together to do laundry.
“You tried to arrest a snow angel. A literal angel in the snow. Who does that? She was playing. Having fun.” Director Kingsley stares at Director Steiner. “Alecta will fire me for what you did. You put handcuffs on Sabia for no reason. She was making an angel in the snow.”
“Sabia brainwashed you,” says Director Steiner. “And something more. A story as old as time. It must be genetic.”
“You know nothing,” says Kingsley.
“Oh, okay. You got with the sole witness. The prime suspect. I’m sure Alecta will be thrilled to hear it.”
“Sabia was no suspect. Not officially. Not until today really.”
“Sabia was always a suspect. And she admitted guilt today. Thanks to me.”
“And here we are. Hostage to the prime suspect.”
“She’s a kidnapper. I told you. Sabia and Jenna and Roca. And probably Jasmine.”
“He’s eighty years old. Roca did not kidnap anybody,” says Kingsley. “And the kids are innocent too.” Kingsley nods at Avery and toward the basement where Roane and Gabe disappeared.
“Nobody is innocent,” says Director Steiner. “Certainly not in this house.”
Kingsley looks upstairs. “When Sabia comes down, don't say anything to set her off, Priama. Be reasonable. She must know she needs to negotiate now. I think. I hope.”
“She better,” says Director Steiner. “She knows who she's really dealing with here.” Steiner strains at her bindings. “Me, goddamn it.”
Avery moves to Roca’s side. “I'm glad you're alive,” he says.
“It's good to see you, son.”
“Were you near Ground Force One when it blew up?”
Roca stares through the front door and into the past. “If I was, I wouldn't be here today, with all these guns and these fine folks. I guard my home, Avery, that's all. Me and Sabia.”
“I can understand that,” says Avery. “But that’s not the full story.”
Roca looks away. “I suppose not.”
“Is Sabia gonna be okay?”
“She’s a survivor. I think you know how tough she is.”
“She’s not as tough as she acts. She can’t fool me,” says Avery.
Roca studies the teen. “Is that a fact?”
Avery blushes suddenly and so completely through his ultra pale skin that he looks like he suffers an allergic reaction.
“It’s okay, Kid. Sabia can be tough to know sometimes. She can be tough to read.”
Roca and Avery look to the stairs and wait.
“I need to piss,” says Jasmine.
“Me too,” says Sabia.
They take turns in the cramped space, then wash and dry their hands and brush their hair as nervous release. Sabia sets the brush on the sink. Jasmine picks up the long knife from behind the faucets.
Then Sabia and Jasmine walk down the stairs, Jasmine behind Sabia, Jasmine holding the knife low, point down, by her leg. There’s a blitzed look to Jasmine's eyes. Sabia’s face is ragged.
“What's wrong, Sabia?” says Roca.
Sabia shakes her head. “Things are perfect, Roca.”
Sabia leads Jasmine into the living room where she stands in front of Director Kingsley and Director Steiner bound before her on the couch.
“All I wanted to do today was get some fresh air out in the snow, Directors. You know, really give myself over to the weather near the end of this long dark winter. Take a breather. Chill out. Literally. Get healthy. Make a snow angel. Before Alecta’s big talk. And then you two come along with your badges and your guns and your pomposity and your chains and you fuck up my day. I told you both: 'You can't cuff an angel'. And what do you do?”
“It's over, Sabia,” says Director Steiner. “Take us to President Silver and Ellen Lin and whoever else—”
The doorbell rings.
“Agent!” shouts Steiner.
Jasmine throws down the knife and tackles Steiner, knocking her flat into the cushions, covering her mouth with both hands. “Shut the fuck up!” she hisses.
Roane and Gabe come back up from the basement amid the new commotion. “We got the wash going,” says Roane.
“What's happening?” says Gabe.
Billy “The Moto Kid” Yonkin bangs on the front door of the Perez farmhouse. Classmate of Sabia, Roane, and Gabe — and Avery’s older brother. “Sabia! Sabia! It's me, Billy! Don't call the cops! I want to apologize! Sabia!”
“Oh, fuck me,” says Kingsley.
“Sabia!” Billy hollers on the porch.
“Don’t let him in,” says Avery. “Billy flew his camera drone over your farm today, Sabia. Don't believe him.”
Sabia turns to Jenna. “Is the door unlocked?”
Roane says, “I locked it.”
Jenna moves to the door. She checks the lock. “It’s locked.”
“Let him in,” says Sabia quietly.
“What?” says Avery. “Why?”
“You can't,” says Jenna.
“Get him in here and take his phone,” says Sabia. “Then lock the door again. Everyone else seems to be here. Why should Billy be left out? Bring the fucker inside. Lock the door, hold a gun to his ass. We could use another witness, I think. We need the whole world as witness. Even Billy the fucking Moto Kid. Today is the day of our global triumph.”
Jenna looks at Jasmine kneeling on top of Director Steiner on the couch. “Jasmine? Is Sabia okay?”
“I don’t know. Maybe no one is today.” Jasmine shoves Steiner's face deeper into a cushion. “Do what she says, Jenna. Let the kid in. I’ll help.”
Jenna looks through the blinds. “He’s a man. He’s big.”
“Everybody, let’s do this together,” says Sabia.
Jasmine looks down at Director Steiner. “Lesson learned,” she says. She climbs off Director Steiner who struggles to sit up, bent awkwardly, her ribs still on fire from smashing the kitchen counter when she tried to stop Jasmine from grabbing the knife.
Jasmine picks up the knife and waves it again at Director Steiner. “Keep your mouth shut.” Jasmine goes to the front door. She unlocks it. “Let's greet this fucker,” she says. “We're the American Liberation Army. Or so I'm told.”
“That's exactly right,” says Sabia. She takes a knife of her own from the block on the kitchen counter.
“Billy!” says Sabia, as Jenna opens the door from one side, while Jasmine stands on the other side, with Gabe.
From behind, Jasmine, Gabe, and Jenna trip and tackle Billy who falls to the floor, shouting, face-first.
Sabia kneels on his head and holds the knife blade to the bridge of his nose. “Don't move, Billy.”
Billy stares at the blade and wonders why it's not cutting through his skin. Then he realizes — Sabia has the blade backwards. On purpose or not, he doesn’t know.
Roane comes over and with Jasmine and Gabe presses down on Billy while Jenna zip ties Billy's hands behind his back. Avery stands and watches.
“Get his phone,” says Sabia, and Jasmine finds it in his pants pocket. She hands it to Sabia.
Jenna duct tapes Billy’s ankles in a figure eight so he can hobble slightly.
“Get up, Billy,” says Sabia. “Sit in the goddamn chair.” Sabia points her knife at a chair in the living room at an angle from Kingsley and Steiner. “You came to spy on me again, didn’t you, Billy.”
Billy stands. He flexes against the ties. He is stunned to see Secret Service Director Kingsley bound on the couch. And another official.
“Do what she says, Billy,” says Director Kingsley. “This will all be over soon.”
“What’s happening?” says Billy.
Gabe and Roane return to the front door. Avery joins them. No one in, no one out.
“Avery,” says Billy. “What the fuck?”
Avery shrugs. “Sabia got tired of all your spying, I guess.”
“Sorry, Billy,” says Sabia. “We can't trust anyone right now. Especially not you.”
Billy examines the array of weapons on the kitchen table and counter: a rifle, three handguns, and the stun gun. Roca holds the shotgun. He waves it at Billy. Jasmine and Sabia hold large knives.
“What the fuck,” says Billy. “Roca you're supposed to be dead.”
“Sit down, Billy,” says Sabia, moving toward him with her knife.
Billy sits down.
Sabia waves his phone in his face. “You'll be in scribecash heaven soon, Moto Kid, don't worry. We may need you to make a few videos here.”
“This is such bullshit,” says Director Steiner.
“Shut up, Steiner,” says Sabia.
Billy looks again at Director Kingsley. Then at Director Steiner. “What's going on?”
“It's a revolution, Billy, get used to it. The American Liberation Army is in town. In the countryside. In the city. Everywhere.”
“I thought it was a Liberation Alliance, not an Army,” says Billy.
Sabia gestures to the weapons on the kitchen table. “It's an Army now. With weapons galore. And why not? This is America, right? Gun nuts and guns everywhere. What a history. What a day. The worst possible country for civil war. Armed to the teeth. With too many people who believe in too much violence. Gun nuts gonna massacre. It’s not about their rights. Gotta keep all those black and brown folks down. Here and around the world. Am I right? Yes, I am. Gotta keep me in my place. Oh, well, too late for that. So — we’ll keep collecting these stupid, bloody guns from you and the police state, Billy.” Sabia looks at the big carving knife in her hand that matches the one held by Jasmine. “Hopefully this is all we need here today.”
“You’re crazy Sabia,” says Billy. “You’ll be locked up for life.”
“I'm hosting. I'm the host here in the farmhouse. And you're all my guests. I take good care of my guests. Why shouldn’t I? Can you imagine it, Billy? Can you believe your eyes?”
“What kind of host takes their guests prisoner?” says Billy.
“I admire your use of the pronoun, Billy. Plural. Good job. But I’m a host here far more civilized than you can possibly comprehend.”
Sabia goes to the couch and prods her knife into Director Kingsley's chest.
“Bring me Kingsley's phone,” she says. “We need to force a call.”
Jenna grabs the stun gun and delivers the phone, while Jasmine holds her knife on Billy.
“Get the President,” Sabia tells Kingsley.
“Sabia,” says Director Kingsley.
Sabia jabs him with the knife. “Do it, Bill.”
Direct Kingsley makes the call. Why not? The Acting President told him to report directly to her about his pursuit of fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan. Kingsley is put on hold.
Then he is told that the President is unavailable. “No, I understand she just gave an important speech. Listen, tell the President this is the Secret Service Director, William Kingsley, and I'm — uh — standing here with the Director of the FBI. Priama Steiner.” Kingsley and Steiner exchange a look. “This is a national emergency. Both Director Steiner and I need to speak with President O'Roura-Chavez immediately. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear to me,” says Sabia. “Never more clear.” She feels that she might vomit all over the floor again.
Finally Alecta’s Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier gets connected. “Director Kingsley? This is Shakeeta Glazier. What can I do for you.”
“We found the President,” says Kingsley.
Sabia snatches the phone out of Kingsley's hand. She powers it off. Then she slaps Kingsley across the face. She points a finger at him. “I talk. You fucking listen.” Sabia throws the phone at Kingsley. “Get her back.”
Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori hurry into a small meeting room. Shakeeta is distressed, Tisha confused.
“Tisha! Lock that door!”
Tisha does so, then turns to Shakeeta. “What is it?”
“They found President Silver. I think. Director Kingsley said so.”
“No shit.”
“I know, right. Nothing good can happen now.”
Shakeeta is again connected to Kingsley. She puts the phone on speaker, lays it on the table, leans over. “This is Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier. President O'Roura-Chavez will be here momentarily.”
No one responds.
“Hello? Director Kingsley?” says Shakeeta.
“Hello Shakeeta Glazier,” says a female voice. “This is Sabia Perez.”
“Sabia!”
What the fuck?
Sabia puts the phone on speaker. “I need to talk with Alecta. Right now, Shakeeta.”
“Sabia, why do you have Director Kingsley's phone?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that. Surely Grace Lamont told you — the orange thief.”
Shakeeta and Tisha share a look. Tisha shakes her head.
“Been a busy day here, Sabia. Why do you have Director Kingsley’s phone?”
Sabia glances around the room. “Because I'm hosting. We're having a small get-together. Almost a party.”
Tisha leans toward the phone.
“Sabia. Dear. This is Tisha Noori. What's going on?”
“Hello, Tish. When do I get to talk with President Alecta?”
“She's with reporters, Sabia. She knows to be here as soon as possible. Okay? Where's Director Kingsley?”
“Immediately. It’s very necessary. Get her here now.”
“Sure thing, Sabia. She’s coming.”
Sabia points her knife at Kingsley.
“Director Kingsley is right where he needs to be. He's a guest here in my home, Tisha. I'm hosting him and Director Steiner both, I'm telling you. I need to speak with Alecta. Face to face. She needs to come to Iowa. Right now. To my farmhouse. Nowhere else.”
“Sabia,” says Shakeeta. “The President is not going anywhere. Anyway — the day is almost over.”
“It most certainly is, Shakeeta,” says Sabia. “The day is almost over. And who will save the day?” Sabia flicks her knife at Kingsley. “People don't respect me. No one listens to me.” Sabia hands the phone back to Kingsley and jabs the knife at him. “Be convincing.”
“Shakeeta, this is Director Kingsley.” Kingsley angles the phone to Director Steiner beside him. “Priama, say hello.”
Steiner leans toward the phone. “Shakeeta, this is FBI Director Priama Steiner. I need you to listen very carefully to Secret Service Director Kingsley and do exactly what he asks you to do. And what he is going to tell you to do, Shakeeta, under both his authority and my own, is to move the President, move her now, and move her out here to Iowa. Plane, ‘copter, whatever. Get her here — now. When that happens and only when that happens, we will have a confession as to who took President Silver. And Lin. And where. This is the deal we — well — this is the deal we arrived at. This will solve the emergency. Do you understand? Only this.” Director Steiner leans back. She looks at Sabia. “Happy?”
Sabia’s eyes are ice.
“Ecstatic,” says Sabia.
“Good,” says Steiner.
“Get Grace Lamont too, the orange thief,” says Sabia. “Tell them. We need her here with the rest of us. She’s doesn’t get out of this shit.”
Why? Director Steiner watches Sabia and decides not to question.
“Shakeeta,” says Director Steiner. “Make sure Secret Service Deputy Director Grace Lamont accompanies the Acting President to the Perez farmhouse — immediately.”
“Shakeeta,” says Director Kingsley, “I'll talk with Grace directly to make sure she understands — no one is to approach or enter the Perez farmhouse except for herself and the Acting President. No one.”
Director Kingsley confers wordlessly with Director Steiner. Then with Sabia.
He continues: “Shakeeta, listen. Director Steiner and I both searched and secured the farmhouse and grounds, including the roadway, the drive, the fields, and all outbuildings. We will meet Agent Lamont, first. Okay? On the porch at the front door. And that — and only that — is how it will happen. Once Lamont confirms the situation is secure, then the Acting President will also meet us at the front door. There are no hostiles in the house or anywhere in the vicinity. Do you understand? Our agents are nearby, on hand, and you will bring your own team. The perimeter is secure. We will meet on the Perez farmhouse porch and then inside the farmhouse itself.”
“Give me that.” Sabia mutes the call.
“One of you two will go to the door,” says Sabia. “Not the other. And we need four signed full pardons — names blank — for me Jenna, Jasmine, and Roca, or no deal. In advance. In writing. No names, not yet.” Sabia hands the phone back to Kingsley. “Make it clear.”
Kingsley considers. Then he unmutes the phone and explains further, emphasizing the pardons — four signed individual blanket pardons. Kingsley looks around the room. “Names to be filled in when we see and hold those pardons. Keep everything out of the press. Okay? Look, we do it this way and no other. These conditions are the limiting factors.”
Because Sabia is the unlimited factor, Kingsley thinks.
We must challenge the basis of all things, Sabia thinks. All savage things. She looks to Jenna. “Is this going to work, Jenna?”
Jenna considers. Then she shrugs.
“Probably not,” Sabia agrees.
“What the Hell is going on?” says Billy.
“That’s exactly right, Moto Kid,” says Sabia. “You’ll be the last to know. You and Steiner here — the dude with the camera and the head of intelligence will be the last to know what’s going on in the world.”
“Okay. I think I have a pretty good grasp of it all,” says Director Steiner. She strains at the ties around her wrists and ankles until the pain in her ribs forces her to stop.
Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier rocks back from the phone and wonders if her hearing and mind are failing her. But Tisha is witness too. Shakeeta refocuses.
“Director Kingsley, hold on one minute.”
Shakeeta mutes the phone.
“Is fucking Kingsley in on this?” says Shakeeta. “Is one of the pardons for him? One of the pardons for sure must be Sabia. This is all going down in her own home.”
“We’re being jerked around by a teenager,” says Tisha.
“Sabia played us.”
“Can she really know where President Silver is? She must, right? Or what are the pardons for?”
Shakeeta almost laughs. It kind of makes sense. Who better than the crazy girl from Iowa to be involved in the kidnapping and social ransom demands for President Silver? But move Alecta to the farmhouse? Tonight? “Alecta has done more than enough for one day, Tisha.”
“Maybe,” says Tisha.
“It's never enough,” says Shakeeta.
Shakeeta unmutes the phone. “Directors Steiner and Kingsley, can you hold?”
“Yes, we can fucking hold,” says Director Steiner.
