Most Revolutionary — Chapter Thirty-Two
Pardon Or Die
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 remain captive to Sabia Perez and her allies Jenna, Jasmine, Roca, Avery, Roane, and Gabe. Avery’s older brother Billy “The Moto Kid” spies on Sabia and the Perez farmhouse for his Youtube channel and is taken hostage by Sabia. Meanwhile in the White House, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez delivers a revolutionary speech to heal and reorder the country and world. Tucker Gere, President Silver, Ellen Lin, and fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan endure captivity in the underground home and coal mine survival bunker beneath the Perez farmhouse.
Chapter Thirty-Two —Pardon Or Die
Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez is in a mood in the White House Press Room. She faces off against an Empire of Lies. Full revolutionary speech. Heal the country, save the world, end civil war, end all war and social misery by social revolution — cultural and political, spiritual and material, ethical and imperative.
Fuck Plutocracy! Get your money back! Fuck the Kings! Get your money back!
Alecta commands the room at the lectern—
Today you have heard the call and demands on behalf of the People, for a People’s revolution against the merciless systems that deprive and abuse. We can, we must, and we will effect great change to improve People’s lives today.
We must meet the vast terminal threats of our time that threaten to wipe out all progress, all civilization, all life forever. Climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, genocide, pandemics — all must end. No more and never again.
How the human species can be so callously genocidal is beyond me. How the human species can be so willing to risk the final collapse of Earth’s ecology is beyond me. How the human species can be so willing to risk nuclear destruction of the Earth and all its species is beyond me.
One insanity leads to another. One irrationality breeds a thousand crazies and endless madness.
America must no longer be genocidal. America must no longer be nuclear terminal. America must be no longer ecocidal.
We must and we will abolish nuclear weapons globally.
We must end genocide! No more slaughter of Palestinians! No more ravaging of Africa, Asia, and the Americas!
We must and we will reform and revolutionize our societies to prevent climate collapse by nationalizing and greening our agriculture and energy systems, as well as much of transportation, industry, tech, and construction.
We must and we will reform and revolutionize ourselves, our country, and our impact upon the world, beginning with these new Presidential Directives and Orders that cast off plutocracy, that grow democracy, and that obtain human rights for all.
“You have no right!” screams a reporter from Wolfe News, the leading corporate TV station. “You will impoverish the nation! You will create civil war! None of this can work!”
Alecta is all but amused. She replies—
—The dying screams of the plutocracy. The desperate screams of those who in their militarized madness have brought the world point blank to nuclear destruction. These are the dying screams of those who have turned Earth into an inferno, a Hell even worse than that of any religion or imagination. These are the dying screams of the plutocracy that has cursed the world with one genocide after another, with massacre after massacre and the bloodiest most gruesome of predatory pillaging and profiteering.
The People are owed life, liberty, equality, and full spectrums of human rights. The People have a duty to save themselves and their world. No more genocide. No more slaughter in western Asia or anywhere. The American-Israeli butchery of the Palestinians is one of the most barbaric and deranged acts in history. It is the second coming of the holocaust. America must pay reparations for the rest of its existence — and not only America, but this is our country and we are responsible for what we do.
Failure to intervene in the day by public power results in a brainwashed, gutless, and debased culture and society complicit in the day’s most horrific attacks.
This has never been more true than with the depraved American-Israeli starvation and slaughter of Palestinians, which is humanity at its worst, broadcast live and in exhaustive detail online, onscreen, around the clock. Power — public power must be used to stop genocide and to end Empire, not perpetrate it.
Popular resistance and revolution for human rights should be recorded and broadcast, narrated and canonized, celebrated — not the stories of Empire, the brutal, heartless killings. The plutocratic world is mad, upside-down. Public power should fight this insanity head-on. It must.
The slaughter in Palestine has been even worse than the Nakba, the catastrophe. This new terroristic and torturous genocide is pointedly sadistic and wholly deranged — a genocide ordered, funded, and armed by the leading officials of the plutocracy in America and Israel. No secret gas chambers for the Palestinians. They are to be exterminated in plain sight. And the lesson broadcast globally. The Palestinians are to be made a hellacious example by the plutocracy to the entire planet — Don’t you dare resist your brutal oppression.
Well, we dare resist! We the People have the power to end the merciless marauding of the plutocracy, and we must!
Never again! Never again may Palestinians or anyone else be slaughtered in open air on dead-eye screens world-wide — like a reality horror show and endless movie — the people starved, bombed, and bulleted out of existence.
Behind the gunpowder and explosions and fires, unspeakable and unthinkable yet existing, the root weapons of Empire are political and psychological mass terror, economic and cultural conquest, and the psychotic deprivations and threats that create genocide. It’s this social and personal battlefield where revolutionary public action must engage directly as well as on the martial battlefield.
The open-air genocide of Palestinians is a purposeful show of power and insanity, depravity and brutality by design, by the militant capitalist Empire that terrorizes the world into submission. Recorded for all time.
No getting around it. The plutarchy and the oligarchs want there to be no getting around it. So you get the American-Israeli forced-march starvation and slaughter on endless repeat — drones, missiles, guns, tanks, and bulldozers — Made in the USA! — chasing after homeless Palestinians who flee on foot from the psychotic and sadistic American-Israeli aggression.
It’s a Genocide Show from the bottomless pits of the perpetrators’ own idea of Hell — a Hell for others, a Heaven for themselves. Truly a Biblical genocide, ripped from the pages of one of the most genocidal books in the canon. Ask the Amalekites! In this way, this Hell is the officials own homemade spiritual and martial invention. It’s a Wild West genocide of Palestinians that can make the trains-to-death-camps semi-secret industrial slaughter of Jews and others by the German Nazis look civilized by comparison.
It’s all the same project for the militaries and the weaponized economies of the American-led capitalist empire and its conquest of the world. We the public ought to have something to say about it. We ought to have a lot to say. We must act politically, analytically, emotionally, socially, culturally.
By now, long since, the public ought to be obsessed with ending genocide and stopping pillaging predatory empire wherever and whenever it assaults the human species. We must break the deadly engines of Empire and grow vibrant forests of freedom. Or what is life for? What else can it possibly mean to be fully human, than to resist Empire and end it once and for all?
A sane and caring human species would find a way to abolish bombs and bullets, starvation and economic conquest. It would imagine and create the many ways forward. We must be explicit and direct in word and motion, action and intent. We must be visceral and spiritual against the carnage of the day and for the civil possibilities of our time, of all time.
We must throw out the worst of official society. We must demand better, demand humanity at its best.
We must imagine and understand and push forth basic and necessary demands and actions that bring about a convivial livable future.
We must use our words and movements, our expressions of life itself, to counter official depravity, and to end horrible insanity for a sanity that is capacious with human rights for all. It is long since time to end supremacist oppression and to realize our human rights!
We must find and demand revolutionary new ways forward in this mad and Orwellian era of vast calamity.
We must move decisively against Empire through a liberatory revolution in the ways people conceive of themselves and the world and act within it.
To the revolutionary question, What is to be done? — we answer that we should reveal the truth to people when and where it matters — the bad and the good, the existing and the potential. And we as a humane public must act upon what we know and can imagine and create for a better world.
Let us not be grotesque, inhuman. Let us be revolutionary, fully human. And let us do whatever it takes to provide for all and to end plutocracy. As creators of a new public of human rights, we can delight and instruct, inspire and move, challenge and confront, and act together to change the world — ancient tasks never more urgent.
People think and remember, know and move often in aesthetic ways, artful ways, which are complementary to the analytic. So let our resistance and revolutions in analysis and expression, communication and action partner with the aesthetic, with art, and the art of culture.
Culture is deeply aesthetic, and full of art. To gut life and art of the liberatory revolutionary is to shatter consciousness, to deceive and condition people to accept the intolerable, including the genocidal, and by now the wholesale ecocide of Earth. We must imagine ourselves free, and free our imaginations to act.
Here in America, authoritarian regime or not, we suppress so much in ourselves, in our society and expression, in our culture and politics. We too often are falsely convinced and clueless, or fearful — lobotomizing our lives of the badly needed revolutionary, stripping ourselves of our ability to think and conceive, feel and imagine, act and express.
The plutocracy devours people’s minds and then bodies — bodies and then minds — whole societies. The battles for and against Empire, for and against Revolution, are waged on many fronts. We must engage wherever the important battles are won or lost. That is — everywhere.
Popular activist communications and action groups and other social, political, cultural organizations can and must meet these challenges. Otherwise we as a people will remain a shell of what we could be and should be and, in some cases in previous times, once were. We must lead ourselves to the new day.
And so I hereby issue and enact these Executive Orders for a just and free society of equals with human and ecological rights for all.
History can no longer be what is once was, or there will be no history at all, no future to record. The People’s revolution is now. Now or never. We must act to free ourselves of those who oppress and destroy by money and guns, bombs and disease, deprivation and lies. We must defeat the predatory plutocracy. All of us in the public must pull together and act toward a new day, and I for one say that we will.
America has a long and troubling history to overcome — one that was lied about for centuries and continues to be lied about. We fight not only the plutocracy but equally an Empire of Lies against we the People, against all People.
In fact, America was founded as a genocidal, imperialist state and has continued as such throughout its 250 year history, bulwarked by its dominant religion based on a genocidal text, as many have pointed out. America was built upon the bones and blood and the eradication of Native Americans, followed by the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans, and then the needless fire-bombings and nukings of Europe and Japan, and the insane and brutal nuclear cold war against Russia and the world — plus the endlessly bloody conquests and slaughters in the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Indochina, Central America, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran and elsewhere in western Asia and across the globe. Empire! An Empire of Money. So-called Capital. A Plutocratic Polity of planetary assaults and devastation.
The vast majority of Peoples and countries did nothing to us, they do nothing to us to justify the plutocratic militarization and monetization of the entire planet with endless Imperial conquests. Instead, we attack the vulnerable believing that might makes right while pretending justice and freedom. No wonder China feels threatened, as it is, by capitalist Empire. And that is what must stop. The pillaging must be internally constrained in all states and in all Empires or we will bring upon ourselves external and eternal warfare and terminal suffering and death and ecocide sooner rather than later.
All of my progressive populist Executive Orders must be implemented, effective immediately. The money-grabbing profiteers will no longer call the shots. We the People call the shots — now. And to this end, I, Alecta O’Roura-Chavez as Acting President and Commander in Chief of the United States military, including the Army National Guard — I have ordered the timely closure of 750 US military bases in 80 countries. Each and every soldier and staff person will return and be retrained as necessary and be redeployed on home ground as a Civilian Community Corps that will help rebuild and restore the country and the world to a green and thriving future. The vast bulk of weapons and weapon systems will be decommissioned in simultaneous accord with those of the other powers of the world. We will exchange the bloody lunacy of menacing and lethal swords for the cooperative acts of survival, prosperity, and peace.
And we will nationalize the banks. We will nationalize and green the industries of energy and agriculture and others. We will nationalize the health care system to make it free and available to all.
We will lower your costs and increase your income. We will and we are. We will make life affordable. We will make life increasingly convivial and hospitable. We must and now we do. There must be dignity and peace for all. And you will get your money back.
We will double the payment of Social Security and lower the retirement age. And we will provide monthly universal basic income. Or we will fail utterly in our potential. It’s time to get your money back — from the robber barons, from the lethal industrial giants, from the plutocrats and technocrats, from the plutarchy, from the weapons dealers, and from the billionaires who don’t give a damn!
We will make our lives and planet and society new. And we will make society civil for the first time. There will be real care now. And you will get your money back!
Alecta pumps her left fist at those gathered before her — and at the cameras and world.
The People must overcome. We shall overcome. I have a dream. We all must dream — as we do. The People’s dream. Freedom at last. Equality at last. Justice at last. Human rights at long last.
So let’s pull together now, People, all People everywhere, and let’s make it work.
In the Perez farmhouse living room, FBI Director Priama Steiner tugs at the bonds on her ankles and wrists, where she is tied on the couch beside Secret Service Director William Kingsley.
“When's the last time you ate?” Sabia says.
“What do you care?”
“I don’t really. But I can’t have you fainting before you free me and defend me against the world, for a change, Steiner. You know that’s what you need to do, right? Once I’m pardoned by Alecta. Everyone needs help in this world, Director. Even you. Let it be a lesson.”
“I don’t see it happening.” Director Steiner gazes flatly at Sabia. “I last ate yesterday.”
“Me too,” says Gabe. “I skipped breakfast. And I never eat school lunch.”
“So you arrested me on an empty stomach? No wonder,” says Sabia. “There ought to be a law against that.”
“There should be all kinds of laws against you, Sabia. In fact, there are. Big ones that will put you in prison.”
“More dreams of throwing me in your police state dungeon, Director. What pathetic and oppressive dreams you cherish. What a fucking enforcer you are.”
“Can we order pizza now?” says Gabe. “We're in charge, right?”
“See? Gabe gets it. The People want pizza,” says Sabia. “So give the People pizza. It’s theirs by right. Not to mention they fucking earn it. They make the damn pizza themselves.”
“That’s the People’s truth,” says Jenna.
“The Law of Pizza. The right to food,” says Jasmine.
“I can get behind that law,” says Gabe. “The pizza law. What do you say? Do we order in or takeout?”
“Let’s ask the Top Cop of Pizza herself,” says Sabia. “What do you stay, Director Steiner? Any preference? Pickup or delivery?”
In the small meeting room near the White House Press Room, Alecta’s Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Nouri try to work the problem posed by Sabia and the Directors of the FBI and Secret Service in the Perez farmhouse halfway across the country, in Iowa.
“Sabia is involved,” says Tisha. “Like — way involved.”
“Or she's trolling,” says Shakeeta.
“How? The FBI and Secret Service Directors are right there. That would be the biggest troll ever.”
“I wouldn't put it past her.”
There’s a knock on the meeting room door. Tisha unlocks and opens it. Presidential Aide Malcolm Xavier escorts in Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez.
“Thank you, Malcolm,” says Alecta.
“My pleasure,” says Malcolm. “Great speech.”
“One of many more to come,” says Alecta.
“I'm sure,” says Malcolm. Tisha locks the door behind him.
“I literally just stepped off the floor of the Press Room after a talk of a lifetime, Shakeeta. What on Earth is so urgent? I’m trying to shake the world to its brutal foundations, and suddenly something is more dire? Who died? The Vice President? We don’t even have one yet. Am I dying? Are there new great threats against us already?”
Alecta is wound up from her big talk. She can hardly figure out how to unwind in the moment. She holds her hands out before her, fingers wide. She wants answers.
“You need to appoint a Vice President, Ma’am. You never did.”
“Yes, I realize that, Shakeeta. It's stupid, dangerous, and reckless to go with no Vice President, especially with that killer House Secretary Barry Bombarill lurking to succeed me, take over, but I can't bring myself to do it. Goddamn it — I’m both Acting President and Vice President, and I’m very much alive, and I intend to stay that way. And the fucking House would never approve anyone I want to appoint anyhow, we all know that.”
“You should do it though, immediately. You said we will fight them in court, as we must.”
“I know, I know. I will.” Alecta throws up her hands. “I could use a break now, before I collapse.”
“It may not matter anyway,” says Shakeeta. “You yourself may soon become Vice President again. Very soon, Ma'am. Sabia is giving up Silver.”
Alecta steps back from the table. She gawks at Tisha and Shakeeta. “What?” Alecta throws apart her arms. “Why?”
“What do you mean — 'Why'?” Shakeeta cocks her head. “Do you know something we don’t know about Sabia knowing where President Silver is?”
Alecta drops her arms. Shit. She’s exhausted. She forgets what everyone knows and doesn’t know — or thinks they know about any of this — including herself.
“I mean, Sabia — the Sabia that we know,” says Alecta. “She would never, you know, be involved — never kidnap anyone—”
“Right,” says Tisha. “I mean, who does that? How could she possibly manage such a thing — our good friend Sabia. But someone did — right there in Iowa.” Tisha watches Alecta closely.
“Fuck if I know,” says Alecta. Which, come to think of it, is the truth — mostly.
“We don't know — yet — what Sabia did of did not do. And does it matter?” says Shakeeta. “Sometimes people get involved in things they don’t intend to. Okay? Maybe we don’t want to know. Somehow Sabia has information on where President Silver is. She claims. And you — Madame President — do you know something too? ‘Cause I got Directors Kingsley and Steiner on the phone with Sabia right now.” Shakeeta holds up the phone.
Alecta sighs. She glances around the nearly empty room. There’s nothing here that can help her — or the Revolution. “I just got done talking — what do I know. What’s going on, Shakeeta?”
Shakeeta sets down the phone. “Sometime during your speech, Sabia told Steiner and Kingsley that she knows where President Silver is. And Ellen Lin. That’s all we know.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Excuse me?”
“During my speech? She wasn’t watching my speech?”
“Ma’am. Who knows? Okay? This is all happening fast at Sabia’s farmhouse.”
Christ — the Perez farmhouse. What is it with that place? The FBI and Secret Service were all over it. What did they miss?
“Maybe Steiner and Kingsley watched your speech with Sabia together,” says Tisha.
“Like with chips and drinks? That’s not Sabia,” says Alecta.
“Let’s focus here,” says Shakeeta. “Sabia called you on Kingsley’s phone from her farmhouse. The call got through to me and—”
“Sabia is on Kingsley’s phone? What the Hell?”
“She will talk only to you, Ma’am. Face to face. About Silver. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise Sabia takes her secrets to prison,” says Tisha. “Or — in exchange for knowledge of President Silver’s whereabouts — Sabia demands blanket pardons in advance. Four total. That must include one for herself, we think,” says Tisha.
This can’t be happening. Alecta paces in the small room. How could Sabia give up all of a sudden. All their leverage — gone. What did Director Steiner do to her? What did she find out?
“You need to deal with this face to face with Sabia tonight, Ma’am. In Iowa,” says Shakeeta.
“Can we delay it?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Shakeeta goes hands to hips. “No. You cannot. I mean you can but—”
“Why?”
“Because we would all be impeached, convicted, and thrown into prison if you had a chance to free President Silver and you said instead, ‘Nah, fuck it. Fuck her’.”
“Okay — shit.”
“Yes. It is. Director Kingsley says to keep it all from the press — but how? They’re climbing all over us.” Shakeeta points at the phone. “They're on speaker, Ma’am — Directors Steiner and Kingsley, and Sabia. Maybe others. Right now. Waiting for you.”
Alecta pushes as much air as possible out of her lungs. She continues to try to separate her mind from the Press Room and the Revolution. What part of revolution is this imminent surrender — and restoration of President Silver. Fuck.
Alecta holds her breath and considers how long she might last without breathing. A surprisingly long time. But then it comes to a sudden and decisive end. “I should sit down for this,” she says.
“We all should,” says Shakeeta.
“Fucking Sabia,” says Alecta.
No one sits.
Republican House Speaker Barry Bombarill stands in his office behind his desk shouting at his aides gathered haplessly before him.
“This speech by O'Roura-Fucking-Chavez was complete blasphemy! How did we get to this treasonous point in our nation’s history! Goddamn it all!”
“Sir, the Courts—”
“I know the courts will block 90 percent of it! Maybe 99! They better! But Alecta fucking said everything, in public, for the whole world to hear. Once you hear it, you're gonna keep hearing it! And some fuckers will act on it. Some in the courts, some in Congress, some on the streets, some of the governors, the city fucking councils, who knows what crazy people will do, and Alecta O'Roura-Chavez herself, as President! She will keep pushing things through! She wants all power to herself. And she wants me to have none.”
“It won't be easy, Sir. Even as President, Alecta can only do so much,” says Kenneth Mencken, Speaker Bombarill's Chief of Staff.
“Ain’t it pretty to think so, Kenneth! Alecta is the President! We’ve all seen what Presidents can do of late. They say Presidents can’t do anything except bomb other countries. Bullshit! Wait till I become President, Goddamn it! We need to stop Alecta before she gets started!”
“I think that horse is already far out of the barn, Sir.”
Bombarill leans over his desk. “You get that fucking horse, and you get that barn, and you put the fucking thing back in it!”
Chief of Staff Mencken steps back. “I’ll make some calls, Sir. We still have plenty of powerful well-placed friends in the Navy.”
“Don’t tell me anything! Just fucking do it! Yesterday!”
Alecta’s Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier unmutes the phone on the table.
Alecta leans forward. “This is Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez. Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with this fine day?”
“Madame President, Director Steiner here. And Director Kingsley. And Sabia. And — friends. We have a confession we can extract about the location of President Silver, given your presence on the ground here in Iowa, Ma’am.”
“Hi, Sabia,” says Alecta.
“Alecta!” says Sabia. “Steiner wants me arrested and thrown into her police state dungeons. The thugocracy never sleeps!”
“Okay, Sabia.”
“You need to get here, Alecta, and pardon everyone for crimes we did not commit. We’re being held hostage. I can explain it all. But only to you — and only with the pardons.”
“You’re ‘hostage’, Sabia? Really? You?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Fucking hostages everywhere. Believe me.”
Believe her. Sure. Who could not believe Sabia by this point?
Alecta glances at Tisha and Shakeeta. They’re listening, trying to hear everything, most of all, that goes unsaid.
“You’ve been a strong ally, Sabia.”
“Yes, Ma’am. The strongest.”
No small truth. She’s a truthteller, that Sabia. Sometimes.
“So if you get the pardons, Sabia, then I get an explanation,” says Alecta. “And President Silver — I get President Silver and Ellen Lin. And what will you explain to me, and to everyone?”
“I can’t tell you now, Alecta. Only if you get here.”
Only if.
Or only when?
Alecta glances again at Tisha and Shakeeta. It’s not their decision, even if they both know what needs to be done. Even if they think they do.
Alecta mutes the phone. “Maybe Sabia doesn’t really know where President Silver is, after all.”
“Only one way to find out,” says Shakeeta.
The bitter truth there.
Finding out could make the way forward infinitely harder. The restoration of Silver. Old Silver.
Fuck. Older people in this country, who are the most brainwashed people, the most craven people, or both, they are killing the country, and world. The bitter truth. Grandma and grandpa are killing their grandkids. They’re living and acting in a world they don’t remotely comprehend. Or don’t want to. They were lied to their entire lives, and they don’t know enough to know better anymore. Most of them, not all.
But maybe Sabia doesn’t know where Silver is in reality. Or maybe she won’t tell, after all. Maybe she is bluffing, again.
Maybe Alecta can pardon Sabia and not learn the truth.
Probably not. But maybe.
Alecta is desperate for some way to block the return to power of the plutocracy by President Silver.
If only she could campaign against Silver and not for her.
Too late now.
Alecta unmutes the phone.
“Damn, Priama, that was fast,” she says. “I guess I appointed you for a reason. What’s really going on there in Iowa, Director?”
“Ma’am, you need to be on the ground here tonight. Sabia wants pardons for every crime imaginable — even though she claims she committed none. All crimes pardoned — for her and for three other people — Sabia won’t say who — though as of today Director Kingsley and I can easily — we know who.” Steiner looks at Roca, Jenna, and Jasmine.
“Four blanket pardons,” says Alecta.
“Correct. If no pardons, Sabia says she goes to prison for life, and President Silver remains captive. Your call, Ma’am. The pardons must be presented face to face, Sabia says. In Iowa. Tonight.”
So much for the day of revolutionary triumph. What a cluster.
“Tonight only?” says Alecta.
“Five minutes ago, Ma’am.” Director Steiner eyes Sabia and her knife. She shifts against her bonds. “It’s Sabia, Ma’am. Maybe you can imagine. She wants it her way or no way. We’re working under a deadline here. Sabia claims she can give us President Silver, but only in her own way. And Ellen Lin. We have a chance to free them, if we act immediately.”
Alecta takes a breath. “Priama, please hold.” She mutes the phone.
Jesus fucking Christ. Director Steiner drops the phone on the couch.
Sabia turns to her friends and her abuelo, Roca. They are posted throughout the kitchen and living room — Roca, Jenna, Jasmine, Avery, Roane, and Gabe. “I'm glad you're all here,” says Sabia wearily. “We should get together like this more often.”
No one even smiles. “Does that include me too?” says Billy. He sits in the living room chair where he is bound ankles and wrists, like the Directors on the couch.
“Maybe if you weren’t always spying on Sabia with your drone and your camera,” says Avery.
Billy considers the pitiful plight of the powerful Directors tied on the couch. “Looks like someone should have done something more than monitor the situation. Somebody should have intervened a while back,” says Billy.
“Shut up, Billy,” says Sabia.
Avery wonders how long the new power dynamic can hold. He worries that his older brother might burst out of the zip ties and come after him. Avery crosses the kitchen and stands between Gabe and Roane.
It’s like the fucking Civil War. Brothers against brothers. Has it always been? Why?
In the little White House meeting room, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez faces her Press Secretary Tisha Nouri and Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier. “Is this really happening?” she says. “President Silver found today? The day of the People’s great Revolution?”
“These are your investigators, Madame President. There’s no getting away from it,” says Tisha.
“Go to Iowa, follow Sabia to Silver, then cut a deal with Silver before she takes office again,” says Shakeeta. “You could try that.”
Alecta scoffs. “Silver is all about the donors. The brute power of big money. You know this!”
“What choice do we have,” says Tisha.
“And do we really want one?” says Shakeeta.
Hell on Earth.
Alecta reviews the options and finds them only bad. “Yes we want a choice — always. But right now I need food. A nap. A drink. And a flight to the Perez farmhouse in Iowa.”
“For real?”
“Let’s go.”
“You got it,” says Shakeeta.
“Where's Malcolm when we need him?” says Tisha.
“We locked him out,” says Shakeeta.
“Great,” says Alecta. “Maybe we should lock ourselves out.” Alecta holds her hands to her head. “Out of our own minds.”
“We need X in here now. We’re doing this,” says Shakeeta. “Air Force One, Marine One. Food, drink, a bed. And maybe something more—”
“Medication?” says Tisha.
“—for the media,” says Shakeeta.
“We need better intelligence on this,” says Alecta.
“Or divine Intervention,” says Tisha.
“Goddess.” Alecta looks up at the ceiling as if she might find answers there. “No Gods, no Masters. No drugs either. At least, not today. We do this our own way, under our own full powers.”
“What about Sabia?”
“What about her?”
“What happens to Sabia if this shit is real?” says Shakeeta. “Can you actually pardon someone who kidnapped the President. I mean, how will people react? What will Silver do?”
“Fuck Silver,” says Tisha. “Like you say — we don’t know how guilty Sabia is. And maybe we never will. Maybe she had nothing to do with anything.”
“Maybe she did,” says Alecta. “But to Hell with it. I’m President. What I say goes. For now. For the People, I act in their interests. If Sabia wants a pardon, Sabia gets a pardon. I would say she has more than earned it.” Alecta holds Shakeeta and Tisha with a long gaze. “None of these sentiments leaves this room, unless I say so.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“We all need to pull together now. Each one of us,” says Alecta. “Or this shit show will keep getting worse.”
“Onward,” says Shakeeta. “Into the future.”
“Why do I feel like this is all going to blow up in our faces.”
“Don’t say that,” says Tisha.
“The way of the world,” says Shakeeta. “What do you think a day in the life of a Chief of Staff actually is?”
“We need things to go another way today,” says Alecta. “Sabia’s way.”
Alecta points to the phone. Shakeeta unmutes it.
“Priama,” says Alecta. “You’re certain Sabia will talk to me, tell me the truth about the whereabouts of President Silver?”
“Absolutely not. I have no control over Sabia’s mouth, let alone—” Sabia jabs the long carving knife into Director Steiner’s chest, pushing her back into the couch. “No matter what, Madame President — we must end this right now.”
“Logistically, we can do that, Priama,” says Alecta.
“Absolutely, Ma’am. Director Kingsley will coordinate with Air Force One to bring you to Des Moines, and from there Marine One can land you here, at the farm. I will talk to my people, and Kingsley will talk to his. You should have no difficulty meeting with Sabia. The problem will be with the results of that meeting, Ma’am, which—” Sabia jabs again with the knife. “Let's do this, Madame President. Let’s get President Silver back safe and secure and into office. I know it’s what we all want.”
“No higher priority, Priama.” The words sting Alecta’s tongue and tear at her teeth on their way out.
“The pardons,” says Sabia.
“Alecta, remember the pardons,” says Director Steiner. “Bring those blanket pardons.”
“Of course, Priama. See you soon — you and Sabia. Good work.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” says Director Steiner. She glares at Sabia on the other end of the knife.
“It was good work,” says Sabia. “Because I’m the one who did all of it. Me and my allies.” Sabia keeps the knife pressed against Steiner’s chest. “Feel me now, Director.”
Slowly, Director Steiner hands the phone past the knife to Sabia.
Sabia takes it with her free hand and powers it off.
“One of us did good work around here, Steiner. Between you and me, Director,” says Sabia. “Only one.”
There's a loud knock on the front door of the farmhouse.
“Moretti’s!”
Everyone pivots and looks toward the door, except the youngest, Avery, who steps back.
Jenna pushes aside the weapons on the kitchen table, clears space. Only she seems relaxed. “That's for me,” she says. “I used Director Steiner's personal credit card to order food after I took it from her.” Jenna goes to the door.
“That’s my girl, Jenna,” says Sabia.
Jasmine stops Jenna at the door. “You're still on the run, Jenna. I need to do this.”
Director Steiner turns on Director Kingsley. “I’ll find a way to get your agency to reimburse me for those expenses,” she says.
“Go for it,” says Director Kingsley.
“Shut up!” Sabia hisses. She flashes the knife.
Jasmine cracks open the door and slips onto the porch, smacking face-first into the winter wind and cold. She closes the door quickly behind her. FBI agents stand in an arc around the farmhouse, on the road, in the drive, and in the yard. Another agent is posted on gravel and ice and leans against the barn door. They watch Jasmine and the farmhouse closely.
“Is Sabia having an after-speech party?” says the deliveryman. He stands on the porch next to a stack of pizza boxes while holding fat bags of salad.
“You could call it that,” says Jasmine. “One big party.” She takes Steiner’s bills from her pocket and gives them to the worker.
“You already tipped on the card. A lot.”
“This is yours,” says Jasmine. “You came a long way to deliver this food.”
“We’d go twice as far for Sabia,” says the worker.
“I’ll tell her. She’ll appreciate that. Meanwhile, spread this money around where you work. It’s for the People today. For our new day of independence.”
“Right on. Alecta really came through! We all watched her talk at the shop. She really knifed those reporters good. I mean finally someone in a position to do something actually doing something — in a big way. Like — why wasn’t this done a hundred years ago?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” says Jasmine. She could but she gets that the worker knows already.
“She talks sense. She’s so real.”
“The realest,” says Jasmine.
Children are taught to compete so much and work alone and cooperate only a little when young, and mainly they are taught to obey. And then when old — as adults — for their jobs, they are forced to keep competing and obeying and too often ravage and kill or waste away, all time lost. With money and guns they savage the world in so many toxic jobs and cutthroat careers — and that’s if they’re lucky enough not to be themselves chewed up by the system themselves.
Things have been so insane for so long. As children, if you have any perceptivity at all, you grow up wondering why everything is so crazy. It can take work to figure it out, and how. The People are flat conquered.
Jasmine knows. This worker knows. It seems a miracle they’ve arrived at this day of Alecta and the revolution. Now if only it can last. Jasmine looks into the bitter cold, the brutal weather.
“We’ve got Alecta now,” says the worker.
“We sure do,” says Jasmine. Maybe for a while. “She’s got real brains and muscle and a big heart. She’s got guts. But will it be enough? And how can it last? Alecta and the Revolution.”
“We’ll make it last,” says the worker.
“It’s up to us now, isn’t it? It always was.”
“It is,” says the worker. “What’s with all the guns?”
For a moment, Jasmine wonders if the worker saw the arsenal that Sabia collected inside the farmhouse. Then the worker glances around at the FBI guards.
“Those,” says Jasmine. “Some of Sabia’s fine neighbors harassed her for how outspoken she is. But Sabia has friends in high places, ever since the bombing right here of Ground Force One. The highest places.”
“High as Alecta?”
“High as Alecta.”
“No shit. Alecta — she’s the bomb. In a good way. A great way.”
“You know it. She is.”
“She’s like no one we’ve seen. She has my vote for life. And not only mine.”
“Mine too.”
“You want help with these?”
Jasmine considers the stack of cardboard boxes and paper bags. “Load me up. I got it.”
“You sure?” The worker lifts and stacks all the boxes and bags into Jasmine's arms. He opens the door for her, gets a peek inside, and is disappointed not to see Sabia or anyone else. “Take care now,” he says. “Say 'hi' to Sabia from everyone at the shop.”
“Will do.” Jasmine shuts the door with her foot, and the worker helps it latch.
Then the worker glances at the bills in his hands. “Fucking Alecta,” he says. He waves the bills at the FBI guards as he walks to his car — he doesn’t know quite why but feels the impulse and acts on it. Fucking Alecta. Then he gets back in his car and goes past the cops and returns through the snow and the cold to work.
Inside the farmhouse, Jenna steps out from behind the door and locks it.
Jasmine sets the haul on the kitchen table.
Standing by Jasmine and Jenna, Sabia holds up Director Steiner's wallet and shows it to everyone. “See how easy it is, People? Who says the government can’t afford to cover everyone’s basic needs?”
“Let's eat!” says Gabe.
Jenna flips open a box and hands out fully loaded slices of veggie pizza, having done everything she could to get her money’s worth on Director Steiner’s credit. Why not? Direct spending is great for the economy, the people, the community. And the government is easily good for it. When forced. That’s how shit works.
“My apologies to any and all vegans here,” says Jenna. “Lots of cheese. But a couple of these pizzas are truly vegan — veggies and sauce only, with olive oil. Plus salad!”
Once everyone has been served who is not bound, including Sabia herself — she takes a quick bite — Sabia makes sure that her allies are close to the weapons and the front door. Then she plays the good host and addresses her special guests — Directors Steiner and Kingsley, and Billy. “I'm going to bribe you with pizza,” she tells them. She sets down her own slice. “Billy, you bone-brain, you first.” Sabia cuts his wrists free from behind his back with her long knife. Billy rubs his wrists. Then Sabia zip ties his wrists again in front.
Billy stands and shuffles immediately to the pizza where he serves himself. “No meat,” he says.
“Some of us are gentle people, Billy. In a way that you may never be.”
“Where’s the gentleness in that knife, Sabia? Or in your shotgun — like when you shot down my drone. You’re a bully.” He takes a bite.
“What an idiot,” says Jasmine.
“You were spying on her in her home, Billy,” says Jenna. “Sabia, is the most gentle creature in the world. When the world allows her to be.”
“I can’t remember when that last was,” says Sabia.
“Me neither,” says Jasmine.
Sabia nods at the feast on the table. “Here’s to The Last Supper,” she says.
“No — The First,” says Jenna. “The First Supper of the Revolution. Let freedom ring. For real and finally.”
“Oh, freedom. That’s funny,” says Director Steiner. “All of you spending my money off my credit card.”
“It’s not your money, Steiner,” says Sabia. “The moment you barged into my life and chained me like a mad brute, it became my money. And all of our money. The People’s money. It was always our money, anyway. We made it. We control it. We own it. By law and by Law. And the government owes the people far more than money. You know why? Because we own the government.”
“The government doesn’t owe you shit, Sabia,” says Director Steiner.
“Your actual shit I could do without, thanks. Don’t be so brainwashed, Director. It’s our money, not yours. Get used to it. You and your kind can’t keep everything to yourselves anymore. The secret’s out.”
“It's time we treated everyone like decent human beings for a change,” says Jenna.
“I don’t see it happening,” says Steiner.
“Well if you hadn’t forced us to miss Alecta’s great speech this afternoon, maybe you would have,” says Sabia.
“She’s blind,” says Jasmine. “The Director sees no good, hears no good. She doesn’t want to. Did she ever?”
“Apparently not,” says Sabia. “That’s how she got the police state job she has today. Maybe I won’t offer you pizza after all, Director Steiner. Good host that I am.”
Director Steiner shakes her head. Sabia flicks her knife.
In the coal mine survival bunker deep in the Earth beneath the Perez farmhouse, President Kristen Silver, her re-election Campaign Manager Ellen Lin, and fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan are now shocked by a colossal burst of news, after first being stunned by Alecta’s revolutionary speech.
Silver and Lin stand in front of the cable TV hung like magic on the deep wall of the Earth. They hold hands.
“Simply astounding,” says the news moderator. “Breaking as we speak: Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez is at this moment flying to Des Moines, Iowa, reportedly to enter into direct negotiations for the release of President Silver and Ellen Lin. Apparently authorities are close to learning the location of the hostages. The kidnappers are requesting pardons. No word yet on the source of this breakthrough or whether or not the Acting President will agree to these demands. We will soon know more.”
“What the fuck is Sabia doing?” says President Silver. “Doesn't she know I have an election to win!”
“Excuse you?” says Director Castelan.
“Kristen's under a lot of stress, Max. She doesn't always mean what she says.”
But she said it. Director Castelan can hardly believe his ears. “You want to remain hostage!”
Castelan points at President Silver. He would stand up and confront her but he remains bound to a wooden chair.
“Or are you truly hostage now, President Silver? Is this all a fucking act? Did you extort Sabia? Is this whole thing your idea? Your fault? Are you blackmailing Sabia? This is all your responsibility, isn’t it!”
“Watch your mouth, Director,” says Ellen Lin. “Blackmail and extortion — that’s your game. Brute force — that’s you, not us. Not the President.”
“That’s you too, and you know it,” says Castelan.
“It’s not what she meant. It’s not what she said,” says Lin. “It’s not — that’s not what she means. Right, Kristen?”
President Silver seems dazed. “It's too early,” she says. “We can't be guaranteed to win a close election if I get out of here this far in advance.”
“Well, I guess you better hide then — deeper in the mine,” says Castelan. “Must be Sabia got a better deal from someone else.”
“You fucking monster, you hide,” says Lin. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. It's your ass that's going to fry. Not ours.”
Sabia is relieved that nothing about the pizza makes her want to puke. At least not yet. She considers what to do with Steiner and Kingsley.
She crosses the room to the Directors.
“First you put me in chains. Now look at you. Peas of a pod. Can I trust you both with pizza?”
“I wouldn’t trust them with anything,” says Jasmine.
Sabia goes back for another slice.
Avery moves to her side. “Sabia, did the FBI and Secret Service come to arrest you?”
“Not now, Avery.”
Avery grabs Sabia's arm. Sabia throws him off.
“Don't ever — don't you ever, put a hand on me, Avery. Not like that.”
Avery stands silent.
“You want me to apologize?” he says.
“You think?”
“I think maybe somebody around here needs to stand up to you, Sabia.”
“Oh, Jesus,” says Jasmine. “Avery, now is not the time. Come over here and talk to me.”
“What's going on, Sabia?” says Avery.
“Avery,” says Jenna. “Listen. You heard the phone conversation with President Alecta. We all did. You know what’s going on. Now you do.”
“Something Bad Ass,” says Gabe. “Sabia's done it before. And we've done it with her. Not like this though.”
“We're not in school anymore,” says Roane. “Feels we graduated early.”
“I want to go home,” says Avery.
“You can't,” says Sabia. “Not yet.”
“Who's gonna stop me,” says Avery.
Roca blocks the door.
“Let the little bastard go home if he wants,” says Billy. “I'm staying for the pizza. And the fireworks.”
Jenna and Jasmine surround Avery, backed by Roane and Gabe.
“Avery, Son. Relax,” says Roca.
“Good pizza, Man,” says Billy, helping himself. “Would be better with meat.” He’s eating twice as much as everyone else.
“I'm sorry you're caught in the middle of this, Avery,” says Sabia. “We’re gonna work it out.”
“No, you’re not,” says Director Steiner.
“See that. I warned you,” says Billy, through a mouthful. “Sabia’s no good. She's trouble. Everywhere she goes. Everything she does. She thinks she can get away with anything she wants. A pretty little smart girl who thinks she can do anything at all. But she can't. Not now, not anymore.”
“Shut up, Billy,” say Sabia. “Your brain is so deformed it hurts the minds of everyone around you.”
“Say what you like, Sabia. You're on the wrong side of everything. You always are.” Billy grabs another slice of pizza and goes into the living room and sits on the couch — one cushion removed from Directors Steiner and Kingsley. He leans back against the couch and chews on the pizza. “Thank you for this,” he says to Director Steiner. “Do you want a slice? It's yours after all.”
“Go ahead then and get her a slice, Billy,” Sabia says. “Let's all stand around and watch Director Steiner eat the People’s pizza. Kingsley too. Let’s see if they appreciate the People’s good work.”
Sabia munches her own slice of pizza. She’s hungrier than she would have thought. More hungry than she remembers being in a while.
Billy gets a couple more slices. He offers one to Director Steiner. She shakes her head. So he offers it to Director Kingsley.
“Who will switch my hands to the front?” says Kingsley.
Jasmine cuts the tie off Kingsley's hands behind his back, then reties his hands in front. Director Kingsley accepts the pizza from Billy and awkwardly eats with both bound hands.
“Priama, you should eat too,” says Kingsley. “This could be a long night.”
Director Steiner’s bashed ribs hurt too much to contemplate food, even now. Her ribs and her pride, both — badly beaten. By her own recklessness — she could almost admit but won’t. She did what she thought she needed to do. No one can tell her she’s wrong. She’s not. She’s a force for good in the world, and fuck anyone who doesn’t believe it.
“Jasmine, do her too,” says Sabia. Jasmine adjusts Steiner's hands into the same position as Kingsley's. But Steiner refuses again the other slice of pizza from Billy. So, he eats it.
“If you pass out, I’m not picking you up off the floor, Steiner,” says Sabia.
“You’re the last person I want to worry about me, Sabia.”
“No problem then.” Sabia looks at Billy. “Speaking of problems. It’s socialist pizza you’re eating right now, Billy.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Paid for and made by the People. Collectivized for the People. How does it taste?”
Billy shrugs. “Not bad. Needs meat.”
“It warms my heart to see you enjoying socialized pizza, Billy. It really does. A real vision of the future. A good one.”
“I wouldn't count on it,” says Jasmine. “Not with him. Some people won’t be socialized.”
“You never know,” says Jenna. “He’s eating the pizza, isn’t he? Let him. It doesn’t matter. His problem is his problem, really.”
“Until it becomes ours,” says Jasmine.
Sabia walks over to Avery. “If you really want to know what happened, Avery, I’ll tell you, though I think you know. FBI Director Steiner came to arrest me, because she's the gung-ho careerist sort, and that's all she knows. Secret Service Director Kingsley wanted to arrest me too, but Steiner got me first, because Kingsley fucked up, like he does everything. He’s the one who lost Silver in the first place. And he can’t find her no matter how much shit he pulls.”
Sabia and Kingsley share a look.
Jenna and Jasmine watch closely.
“Blizzard Bill,” says Jasmine. “A smooth operator.”
Sabia points at the Directors. “We need one of these two authorities to welcome Secret Service Deputy Director Grace Lamont and President Alecta to the farmhouse tonight — and to assure all the officials soon to arrive outside that everything is okay in here. The authorities will arrive in force long before Alecta lands. Am I correct, Director Kingsley?”
“Entirely,” he says.
“Entirely,” says Sabia. “Thank you. We all know it’s true.”
“No, we don’t,” says Billy.
“Shut up, Billy,” says Sabia. “No more reactionary slop from you. You’re here to listen and learn. You’re here to pick up your brains off the ground where they fall every time you open your mouth.”
“You’re so conceited, Sabia. That’s your whole problem. You think you know everything, and you don’t. A lot of people don’t think like you and never will.”
“Never say ‘never’, Billy. Listen to Jenna.”
“You say ‘never’ all the time, Sabia. You refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer about anything.”
“True, Billy. But that’s because I know what I’m talking about. And you don’t. I know what I’m doing, Billy. And you don’t. Even though you think you do.”
“I mean it, Sabia. You act like everyone is wrong but you. Most people know better than you, Sabia. You think you know the truth, but it’s just words, not reality.” Billy turns toward Director Kingsley. “Isn’t that right, Director? Isn’t Sabia full of shit. Her and Alecta both.”
“She’s full of something,” says Director Steiner.
Director Kingsley looks away, toward the porch.
“Butt-hurt much, Billy?” says Sabia.
Director Kingsley recruited Billy to spy on Sabia, which no one knows, not even Steiner. He doesn’t regret doing so, though it came to nothing really. And it doesn’t make him friends with Billy. Far from it, no matter how alike they may or may not be. “Sabia’s in control here, Billy. Better her than you, I’d say. By a long shot.”
“You would say that,” says Director Steiner.
Billy thinks Director Kingsley is playing good cop to Director Steiner’s bad cop. “Okay, Boss, whatever,” says Billy. “Sabia is doomed now. Everyone can see that.”
“Can they, Billy?” Sabia picks up her knife and points it directly at him. Then she slides it back into the block on the kitchen counter. She crosses her arms on her chest. “When Alecta gets here, we’ll see who’s really in charge, Billy. And then if you’re lucky, we’ll let you go home. And good riddance.”
“Fuck you, Sabia.”
“No, fuck you, Billy.”
That seems to be the theme of the day — the entire day. Sabia doesn’t mind the invective. She minds the lies. She looks to the porch. She can’t wait for Alecta to arrive. She feels ready. She’s so ready to walk free of this absolute shit.
