First Chapters from Unpublished Novels - Page Two.
My second novel - part one of an Epic Space Opera taking place on the Planet at the Center of the known Universe.
The origins for my first science-fiction/space opera novel can be traced all the way back to 1989 while I was still an undergraduate student. Reading one of those free publications circulated on various college campuses, I stumbled onto an expose regarding the secrets behind the cult-like Mormon Church (I feel justified in labeling it that after having grown up with a Mormon father who later distanced himself from the church, initially for getting screwed by church politics and later discovering the errors of that doctrine). There, I first saw the name kolob (a planet where Mormons believe God originated) and other references to freemasonic rites and other things practiced in their secret temple ceremonies. After reading that, but some years before my own acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal savior, I began wondering about how God might be viewed by another sentient race in the universe, but obviously far from Earth, might think about and possibly even worship Him. Now far more skeptical about alien life in the vast universe, but then believing such intelligence existed it would have to be very similar to us withing any God-centered/created cosmos. From those humble idea seeds carried for about twelve years, I began writing about an inhabited planet larger than Earth where intelligent life was created predating the Biblical calendar of around 6,000 or so years (neither accepting nor believing in the THEORY of Evolution) by around 100,000 Earth years, the planet at the (approximate) center of the (known) universe - Goram. Writing the first volume and revising it during 2001, I met repeated failure attempting to sell it - admittedly since it was not ready to be marketed (a lesson I also learned painfully in 2000 with my first novel The Nightmare of Aarontown), and any proposed multi-volume novel series is a hard sell for unknown writers (unless you are J. K. Rowling, Christopher Paolini or Stephanie Meyer apparently). In 2002, I finished rough drafts for the second and third volumes in the series, mainly to see if I could write a novel's sequel and just continued on into the third volume with abandon, until starting the fourth and deciding some later chapters of book three needed major changes affecting the flow of book four and stopped there (maybe that's why publishers don't trust book series to novices) until I could go back and make those changes. I have outlined books four and five and have scenes from them locked away in memory until I can market the first book successfully somewhere. As for book one of Goram - The First World (The Prophecy of Kolab and the book's original main title The Planet at the Center of the Universe), the main human character's background and storyline before he disappears from 2026 Solar City, Arizona and seemingly dies at the end of chapter three has been changed more than once - from a laid-off telemarketer, to US Federal Police Force officer and finally confused teenager on summer break from his year-round school calendar - but always starting on July 3, 2026. Another item I should explain is the name Kolab. Here, Kolab Ja'kraa is the Moses/David/Mohammed-like figure of Goram's history, the greatest Goramite prophet and priest/king who brought nations of its main continent Ursve together in One Religion under God after living about 1,000 years on that planet's calendar. Ending this long introduction, please enjoy the opening chapter of GORAM - THE FIRST WORLD: THE PROPHECY OF KOLAB.
NOTE: This chapter contains some objectionable language which may not be suitable for younger readers.
NOTE: This chapter contains some objectionable language which may not be suitable for younger readers.
Goram - The First World: The Prophecy of Kolab. "Chapter One: The Police State of America 2026." © 2001, 2011 by John X. Grey - All Rights Reserved.
I wonder why I was born, sometimes wish I hadn’t been, newly-promoted high school senior Alan Benedict Dillon sat at one round white wooden table beneath its faded (formerly red and green-striped) sun awning. The 17-year-old stared toward his one-liter water bottle, clad in that gray T-shirt (with its black McCain High ground attack fighter silhouette), ragged tan denim shorts with baseball logos on those pockets, knee-high tube socks and Velcro-sealed high-top red-and-white sneakers. The sun-lightened brown hair, tousled by a slight hot northwestern breeze to this 112-degree day, cut in its cropped style for the summer, this youth blinked blue-gray to remove some perspiration while realizing, God knows my first years were hell on Earth.
“Hey, are you zipped out from baking here?” Jack David Wells was seated on another white plastic chair a few feet to his left and shook Dillon’s nearest shoulder, that sandy-blonde mullet-wearing fellow high school senior’s green bug-eyed stare studying his male dining companion. Wells picked at half a tortilla pizza beside his Zuna citrus water bottle, noting Alan’s chili dog had not been touched in minutes on its paper plate. “We should’ve cruised somewhere with the working air con, if those didn’t charge anyone two extra Ameros just to come eat inside.”
“Just thinking where I might be in September of ’27,” Alan explained, jabbing at his friend’s netted orange basketball T-shirt with white trim, noting that boy’s shining green vertical slashed knee-length shorts, ankle socks and silver velcro track shoes, “my fake parents want the best for me, both teaching at the New Solar University. I still don’t have a plan after graduation.”
“Well, we’re here,” the blonde-streaked redheaded Torrie McKenzie faced both boys at this table from a third seat, clad in that red Screech’s Pizza T-shirt (with its white-lettered black name tag) - a ‘twisty’ bra underneath making her B-cup breasts erect and pointed, tight red shorts with yellow racing stripes on the sides and black flat slippers, the girl’s white ‘bucket-style’ purse now beside her remaining Thai-chicken burrito and Suise citrus soda, “and I go on the clock in a half-hour from now, so keep the self-searching short, Bud.”
The three McCain High students were halfway through a six-week summer break, the longest one in their school’s year-round calendar, having finished the junior year by early June. Manuel Sarjento’s Greasy Bowl Cantina on Progress Street had been Alan’s idea, he and Jack finishing their morning community service (part of a graduation requirement) at the (Dillon family’s) East Solar Methodist Church, moving and stacking canned food inside the church’s food bank pantry. Torrie volunteered at a local Hospice, her grandmother having died there in 2020.
“Yeah,” J.D. (Jack David’s short nickname) leaned over and kissed his steady girlfriend of seven months, playing with her pinned back-bun hair (for work) between bites of tortilla pizza, Torrie flinching in case he got any grease on those locks, the boy checking his metal bracelet digital watch, “we’ve got a whole afternoon ahead to kill. Don’t sweat about ’27.”
“Just be there to give me a scoot home,” she insisted to him, “when I get off at nine.”
“Dad wants me in a work-study college, with my B r-cards,” Alan spoke as he chewed another bite, looking from J.D. to Torrie as the third wheel here, “and Mom’s already persuaded Kate at a social work career, maybe even attending her department’s program at New Solar U.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” J.D.’s smile conveyed sarcasm, then shrugged to confirm Alan’s impression after one Zuna sip, “no really, you’ve got two college professional parents looking out for your backside. Mom flew the coup seven years ago, leaving Dad so fast he’s still stunned by the speed of it, married herself a solar corp. exec. and started another family. I don’t want to go home and see the old man half-wasted on ripple or thunderbird, but the SVR hookup she got me for my last birthday is humming there.”
“Why won’t you let me set up Caryn for our couples’ date?” Torrie still did not understand Alan’s brooding persona, almost the dark to J.D.’s lighter, fun-loving devil-may-care attitude. “I mean, you never seem to have anyone at school functions, Dillon.”
I still pine for Kate, Alan’s unspoken answer was followed by other disturbing thoughts of his recent embarrassing mishap involving his oldest similar-aged jet-black brunette foster sister, but after I saw her stripping in the main bathroom for a shower that afternoon . . .
“I’m still looking for just the right girl,” he was often bothered by J.D. and Torrie’s insinuated active sex life together, staring at his own black leather thick-band wristwatch, “but shouldn’t we roll you over to Screech’s?”
“Oh, bull-shark,” Torrie wiped at her mouth with the back of a right hand after the last Thai-chicken bite off that paper plate, getting her purse and a debit card for settling their bills, taking all three plastic receipts from the table, “let’s scoot, Guys. I’ll cover the cost today.”
“Love that apple-hard hinder,” J.D. smirked at her buttocks in those tight shorts walking over to the cashier’s station just inside the doorway, this outdoor patio with dozens of other patrons at other tables under umbrellas was surrounded by a wooden gate (containing its electronic alarms to warn of customers skipping the bill), “I’m spanking my wand on it tonight at her apartment’s roof under the stars - can’t wait.”
“Thanks,” Alan called to Torrie as an afterthought, knowing neither he nor J.D. had any spare Ameros (the North American Union’s common fiat currency since 2013), neither one employed for the summer like her, “I’ll owe you it at another time.” Dillon then noticed a few other eaters remarking about Wells’ future intercourse plans. “So, what are you doing after next June, Pal? Wait for the Feds to rope you into a job training program, go overseas for better opportunities in China-land, ’Nam or the Philippines?”
Jack David’s optimistic exterior turned harsh at Alan’s mentioning the US Government’s full employment policies, staring around to see if anyone else was noticing him here now.
“Don’t joke about that F.E.A.R. bunkum. My old man’s staring at the 30-day end of his last chance to accept placement assistance. He’s expecting the paper sometime today. Those Labor Department dicks deliver it in person, so you can’t claim the notice was lost in the mail.”
Yeah, Dillon knew that free speech was a limited commodity, even at 17, that pamphlet I saw in a trash can read (about the dreaded Federal Employment Adjustment Retraining Act of 2016) ‘the only thing we have to fear is F.E.A.R. itself.’
“Okay, fellas,” Torrie leaned across the table to give Alan and J.D. a good view of her bosom, “I settled our account. Time to serve the unwashed masses who are asses at Screech’s.”
The single teenager managed to keep his eyes upon her round, freckled, slightly-pimpled face, as he stood with Wells from their table after a few final nibbles, all collecting their plates and bottles from there when strolling toward a green plastic 4' barrel at the gate’s exit.
Her hazel eyes are cute, but Kate’s clear blue ones can’t be beat as cuter.
The barrel had a warning with its recycling symbol: ‘RECYCLE OR ELSE - This collector is provided courtesy of the US Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.’
J.D.’s only 5' 8", I’m 6' 2" and Torrie’s about 5' 7". What does she see in him?
“So, Babe,” J.D. put his left arm across Torrie’s average shoulders as they strolled ahead of Alan toward that boy’s used ’19 model black Ford Escape Hybrid parked two blocks away, “will you wrangle me another order of breadst-?”
The youth’s request on this semi-crowded sidewalk was interrupted by one bright red, flame-detailed Fiat solar cell hybrid sped past the curb headed west, its speakers blaring that ‘Nuevo Latino’ (a fusion of Latin pop and hip-hop Rap music styles) hit “Ho Funky Monkey.”
“Goddamned noisy Hisps!” Wells cried out at them with his right middle finger extended, before moving Torrie to the right further from the adjacent street, knowing those young men had made lewd comments about her waitress’ uniform in Spanish. “That’s shit for music.”
“Forget it, Jack,” Alan patted his sweat-stained middle back, silently thankful those students from Esteban Morales High on Solar City’s northwest ‘minority’ neighborhoods did not reverse direction to continue that conversation, “millions of Beaners can’t be wrong for listening to that, and you’re lucky some cop didn’t hear ‘hisp’ and write out a hate crime citation.”
“They’re the US’s largest minority group,” Torrie recited, as they continued onward.
“I don’t give a lizard’s pile,” J.D. remained defiant before they reached Alan’s car, “and I’m moving to Alaska next year, where they still drill oil for China and Japan. At least I can vote the Reform Party’s candidates in that state.”
Dillon was always amazed how political his family and friends were, being indifferent toward America’s 21st Century rigged election process. Professors Walter and Katherine Stern, his foster parents since 2016, always voted the super-majority Democratic Socialist (even after changing its name from Democratic in ’16), but still complained when Washington failed at combating social evils for the sake of power politics. Jack David Wells had been a libertine maverick since Alan met him four years ago at Calamity Jane Junior High after the Sterns moved here, voicing favor toward any minor party (Republican Freedom, Reform, Libertarian, etc.).
“So,” Alan changed their subject back to a more trivial choice regarding J.D.’s super virtual reality game system, “Alien Harvester or Milky Way War Zone, which do we play first?”
“Either choice is good,” Wells shrugged, sharing the back seat with Torrie as Alan started the Ford for her 10-minute trip to Screech’s Pizza, “since my Dad’s apartment’s air conned.”
***
Solar City, Arizona was a ‘bedroom community’ for those driving 25 miles southeast to jobs in Phoenix until it became the unofficial capital of America’s solar power industry a decade ago. In 2026 the city’s population is 55,125, 65% speaking Spanish as a first or second language, and it is the nation’s 35th largest unincorporated urban region. The Albert Gore III Housing Project was Alan and J.D.’s final destination, the second boy’s rent-controlled apartment in the federal project’s Bahia Terraza building, near the Hispanic Tierra del Sol neighborhood.
By 12:30 P.M. (Mountain Standard Time), Alan and J.D. were standing in the latter boy’s cramped bedroom, decorated with cream paint or striped wallpaper and containing holographic posters of Death Road racers among other modern sports figures. The single bed was unmade as both teens sat on its lower end, finishing putting on the virtual reality net gloves, visors and boots (all neon green and black), those rigs hooked by wireless sensors to the slim silver game console below the oval deactivated 32" flat-panel plasma TV (not needed for this system).
“Ready to save the Sagittarius Arm from Andromeda’s shock troops?” J.D. winked with the left eye before lowering his visor, knowing Dillon was still getting used to initial disorientation at entering the game. “I know I’ll be.”
“Sure, why not?” The brown-haired youth looked around at the scattering of clothing across the green-carpeted floor not in the closet, few paperback books on one cheap low bookcase, and a second-hand laptop computer folded on the battered desk under the room’s one single window. “I’m ready for anything, after lunch - I think.”
The youths then activated the visor systems and were transported to a total immersion virtual reality environment aboard the Imperial Earth Dreadnought Concordat, J.D. as commander and Alan as chief gunner, working as a team with or against other pairs of players across America and in other nations.
“Watch the rotoscopic detectors, Gunner,” J.D. was getting involved with this game, as they engaged the imaginary enemies of humankind, “or we’re not lasting five minutes in this firefight and I hate losing to those gray-skinned bastards. This game is 3-D perspective.”
Crap it, an Andromedan cloaked raider slipped under our defense perimeter.
Alan Dillon was unable to concentrate fully on this mock battle near the Coal Sack Nebula, thinking of how his parents disapproved of this technology for mindless entertainment, wishing he could program one of the female crew members to look like Kate Stern’s icy brunette goddess of his fantasies. His sister was actually sweet and understanding, acting more this similar-aged foster brother’s friend than a potential girlfriend (preferring smart aleck jocks in junior high, but drawn to more serious college-aged men since turning 16).
“They’re bringing another squadron of Razor Fighters on our port quarter,” Alan heard J.D. scream in this environment and inside his bedroom (that seeming like a distant echo), “fire the plasma missiles, even if it’s point blank range and not recommended!”
Their imaginary ship wrecked and burning in space, the two teens removed the headgear long enough to hear a loud pounding at the apartment’s front door. Jack David’s older sister Wendy no longer lived here, since moving to Seattle for an IT job after graduating a local tech school in December, and his unemployed father John slept off another drunken late night.
“I’d better get that,” Wells removed his SVR system gear, seeming embarrassed at the loud, persistent knocking, “if Dad’s loaded, he can sleep through an apocalypse.”
Alan disconnected his helmet, gloves and boots, listening while the other youth answered at Apartment #324's front door. The woman outside it sounded ‘official’ in tone, and Dillon heard her mention the ‘Labor Department.’
“What’s the crisis?” The visiting teen emerged from that bedroom after J.D. stopped talking and his recovering father spoke with the woman, the son coming closer and urging Alan to keep that voice down. “I wondered if you were coming back.”
“Dad’s getting his F.E.A.R. papers,” Wells ushered Dillon into the efficiency kitchen painted a yellow in contrast to the living room’s tan walls, “he’s given until next Monday to report for a retraining classification, unless finding a job in the meantime. That’s a lot of hot gas.”
Unfamiliar with the American regime’s more draconian social engineering projects, Alan then asked for more information where John Wells could not overhear him.
“They send most slobs to do shit work for the Labor Department’s Bureau of Unemployment Services, toxic cleanup, urban reclamation or waste management slots across the country. Dad’s always telling me to make higher grades than C’s or I’ll end up like him now.”
Alan glimpsed around the kitchen’s doorway toward the square, sparsely-furnished living area beyond, noticing the Labor Department lady was an attractive tanned brunette Hispanic, flanked by two tan-uniformed female federal police officers with tall caps and PAK-25 automatic pistol side arms. The teens waited until elder Wells stumbled back to his separate bedroom’s oblivion, then crept in stocking feet out the apartment’s front exit after the three federal visitors had moved onward around the building’s third floor or onto other levels.
“Why don’t you join them?” Alan had an inspiration as they stopped in one poorly lit hallway to replace their shoes. “All cops are federal workers, since the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 2015 our second President Clinton signed into law. You get benefits and job secur-”
“No flying way I work for them,” Wells was adamant after securing his shoes’ Velcro straps, “they’d stick me in Mojave’s Main Highway Patrol, at the Death Valley Hilton prison, or martial law duty facing Alaskan secession IEDs and snipers. But I could vote Reform there.”
The two teens continued to the nearest elevator when Alan ran into someone else.
“Hey, man,” a short Hispanic teen stumbled backward from his small collision with Dillon, “I live here, and don’t take merde from Anglos. It’s bad enough our southwestern ‘plantation’ had no lights frying out here with power drains and a water-rationed summer.”
The brown-eyed youth was clad in a red and black Fidel Castro T-shirt, black beret, a pair of tan shorts and red ankle-length sneakers decorated with U.S. and Mexican flags. He also sported a scruffy beard and moustache on a light-brown pimple-dotted face. His Caucasian friend, with shaggy bright dyed red hair and ice-blue eyes (contact lenses), seemed unearthly in a bright green parachute fabric sleeveless shirt, red-tan striped pants and knee-high plastic green boots.
Why do Hisps still love that dead Cuban shit heel and his buddy Che?
Alan had absorbed some extra knowledge living around a foster father that taught 20th Century historical subjects.
“Hold it, Perez, I do live here.” Wells had fists balled prepared for trouble, getting between Alan and the other teens. “You and vanilla flash can keep breezing out into the burnt.”
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” One federal cop’s stern voice halted any confrontation between these youths, as she, her partner (both in short-sleeved tan jumpsuit uniforms with black gun/utility belts) and the Hispanic social worker appeared around another corner.
Alan, J.D., Leon and the other boy stayed where they were, before facing the officers and their attractive companion, in a tangerine tropical-print shirtdress with its tan waist-cinching belt, red wedge-heeled sandals and dark hair bound by its big silver clasp. The civilian lady examined and recognized one boy here.
“Hola, Leon,” she greeted the Hispanic teen, “is your father on his feet yet?”
“You give my old man a paper, Skank-orita? You’re a ‘Real American’ now?”
Dillon saw the bureaucrat’s irritation at ‘Leon’ labeling her a sellout, as the tall tanned blonde female cop (Alan thought her deep-voiced for a woman) took charge of this situation.
“Let’s see some ID gentlemen. From the looks of your ages and attire, it’ll be from McCain or Morales High, I assume.”
Alan and the other youths were largely conditioned at being submissive to authority, even old J.D. despite his bravado, each taking out laminated cards from schools that had metal detectors, locker sweeps, omnipresent cameras, and (in extreme cases) body cavity searches as their regular features. The second red hair-dyed African-American female officer of average height inspected each, as the social worker engaged Leon Perez in conversation.
“Your dad’s on SSI disability after a construction site accident, not a Labor Department case. Being on break from Morales High, why don’t you help him in the apartment, instead of swirling with this boy, street performing and shooting your truant wad?”
The redheaded youth volunteered: “I’m Tyler ‘Mars’ Larson, not ‘this boy,’ Espanola, and I manage my street poet. He speaks the ‘sparks’ 18+ crones like you three don’t feel.”
“You’re all too old to have the M.A.R.K. chip implants,” the blonde lady, whose shirt pocket above the bronze eagle badge read Sgt. Coffman, noted inspecting the four teenagers’ right palms for the telltale red mark (where a Microchip Assistance for Recovering Kids device was regularly implanted in every newborn since 2021 instituted to prevent children becoming kidnaped).
“Don’t disappear,” her sweet-voiced partner warned them, “or we’ll never find you.”
I’ve heard ‘patriots,’ Alan recalled, call them the ‘MARK of the Beast.’
“Leon ‘Ripple’ Perez is the voice of La Rasa for este mundo, Miz Ortiz,” Leon knelt to retie his retro red shoelaces, “I got a new tell tale and I calls it ‘Trashy World.’”
Tyler Larson broke into a simulated record scratch sound, one Dillon thought sounded like an old Herbie Hancock song as he noticed Teresa’s bared, tanned and toned thighs, before Leon then stood, moved his limbs to the rhythm, and began the song’s first verse.
“Look at that pile of burning tires, sitting next to that old car. They tell us in D.C. things are turning around, but I ain’t got a vote to get at those clowns. Trashy world - that’s what they’re giving me. Trashy world - the shit is hittin’ the fan. Trashy world and trashy people - save me from the future, please.”
Receiving their student ID cards back, Alan and J.D. continued past the other boys and into an elevator at the hall’s far end, as ‘Teresa Ortiz,’ ‘Sargent Coffman’ and ‘Officer Jackson’ bantered with those other kids a few minutes longer.
“What do we do now?” Dillon finally asked as the doors closed, delayed by poor operation in the hot weather, as Wells pushed the ground floor’s button. “Why’d we leave your pit?”
“My old man’s no fun to be around when he gets deep dark news,” J.D. patted his friend’s right shoulder, suggesting as they exited the car minutes later, “so let’s go to your place across town. Maybe we’ll even get soaked in your family’s pool on a day like this.”
Sounds like a plan, since we’re both low on Ameros. Alan shrugged in getting his keys out for that Ford, then added another suggestion. “Maybe I can bum cash off someone there.”
Seeing the car had enough charge for their trip across town before needing a one-eighth tank of gas left, Dillon put the Escape into reverse and backed out of its visitor’s space.
***
Having spent two hours at the Stern’s swimming pool, playing with Alan’s younger sisters, Tabatha age 14 (auburn-haired and short) and Samantha age 12 (skinny with mousy brown hair), the boy thankful Kate was not around in one of her two-piece swimsuits chaperoning those other girls, the boys went to his room for watching one laser micro-disc the parents had rented for the upcoming weekend. Alan and J.D. were pleased that turned out to be a film called Divine Wind (a 2022 Chinese import with historical and romantic elements about the failed Mongol invasion of Japan).
“The thing even had martial art action,” J.D. was suitably impressed as they adjourned for a snack in the kitchen, “despite that four-hour run time.”
Alan’s parents had left instructions to the two younger children’s babysitter, the blonde Jenny Jackson (one of Dr. Walter Stern’s favorite honor students). He also then learned Kate was out of town visiting mother Katherine’s maiden aunt in Barstow.
Mom and Dad text-flashed us they’re staying late for a special meeting on campus.
By 8:25 P.M., his old Ford’s batteries had recharged at a garage’s power outlet terminal, Alan was ready to take J.D. for meeting with Torrie across town, even though there were official news reports about higher alerts in many US cities with the upcoming Independence Day holiday used as a focus of radical discontent and potential homegrown terrorist activities. Dillon had heard the stories about dire events in 2023, partially by two kids at high school from Dallas, where food shortages were so bad that autumn hundreds resorted to cannibalism, and recalled martial law in Maricopa County as radicals tried its seceding with 31 other southwestern US counties.
Things gets worse, I hear my parents say, in terms of security versus freedom every year.
“Well,” Jack David was thankful this Ford still had working AC, “it must be down to 95 out there in the shade. I hope Torrie gets leftover bread sticks, ’cause I want a nibble.”
Alan soon entered the slower traffic of downtown Solar City, before reaching Screech’s Pizza Restaurant on the corner of 12th and Adam Streets. The teen saw ostentatious neon signs along Federal Street’s strip similar to ones on Sol and Adam Streets next, youth strolling on sidewalks, or zipping along in alternative-fuel or hybrid cars. The dominant clothing styles here were skin-tight body suits, prisoner chic and slash-cut items, despite a sweltering July night.
“I hope there’s enough charge and gas for the rest of this week,” Dillon muttered at the wheel, “since fuel’s 15 Ameros per gallon and synth fuels this heap can’t use are 9 Ams.”
“Forget that new funny money they rammed on us in ’17,” J.D. stared out the right window, “check those sluts in tightage body suits, might as well be naked. Man, I wish Torrie worked at The Impact Crater. At least their waitresses ‘shave’ pubes to wear red-orange tightys.”
I won’t tell Torrie you scope other tails, but, wow, that one babe’s ass is -
“Whoa,” Wells grabbed the steering wheel to urge Dillon off 12th Street into a vacant diagonal parking space in front of Screech’s after their half-hour drive, “we’re here. Piloting and watching tail is a learned skill, you need practice mastering it.”
The two boys met Torrie minutes later as she exited the employees’ side door on the Adam Street side wall of the red, white and green-painted neon-lit square building. She looked tired in removing the green plastic waist apron, tossing it back inside at a drink refill station.
“Got the sticks,” the redhead embraced J.D., holding the greasy sack up for him.
Alan looked away from the lovers kissing toward the 12th and Adam Street intersection, when a line of six black-painted armored personnel carriers and two light tanks rolled into view, and a Black Hawk helicopter hovered above that show of force. The ground vehicles soon positioned themselves as a barricade on Adam Street facing northwest toward the waning sunset. From the APCs dozens of body-armored black-clad policemen emerged with automatic rifles, riot shields and helmets, their boots audible above the car traffic they diverted to clear the street ahead. J.D. and Torrie soon joined Alan and hundreds of other bystanders in watching this cordon operation the government showed on TV as part of a pro-police campaign since 2023.
“Why are they doing this?” Miss McKenzie tried to pull free from Wells’ embrace, noting his watch showed it was 9:04 P.M. now. “Let’s go back to my place for fun. I need it.”
“What should a democracy do,” one thoughtful-looking older man in a Hawaiian shirt and golfing slacks rubbed at his full head of silver hair standing to Alan’s left, opposite the teenage couple, “when a majority of its people no longer value it?”
“ATTENTION, ALL CITIZENS! A CURFEW IS IN EFFECT AT SUNDOWN BY ORDER OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND HOMELAND SECURITY! CLEAR THE AREA AND RETURN TO YOUR HOMES OR WE WILL USE DEADLY FORCE AGAINST UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES! YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO COMPLY!”
The loudspeaker from that assault helicopter sounded dire, but the bystanders mostly did not heed it, with even more citizens on other street corners gathering to watch this cop spectacle as if some form of unscripted entertainment. Alan could only think of one quote by Roman Historian Tacitus his father favored, something about a ‘corrupt society’ having ‘many laws.’
We should leave, but I can’t make myself walk away, and don’t know why.
“I heard on one cop’s radio,” the 20-something blonde (cropped short) woman in a spandex, yellow, red and green swirl-patterned body suit with laced-silver sandals behind J.D. and Torrie said where Alan could hear, “the marchers heading here are mostly from the La Guarda, Tierra del Sol, and Yucatan Suarez neighborhoods - stirred up by those Sons of Atzlan.”
The federal police had formed six columns three men deep at the intersection, the front ranks taking position with 4' high riot shields (Kevlar-reinforced steel with the top glass viewing slits) and kneeling to draw PAK-25 pistols as standing troops raised M-29 assault rifles.
“They’re playing for keeps now,” Alan heard one bystander a few feet directly behind him in all the jumbled commentary now, before another person to his rearward left wondered, “will the Amnesty International bleeding heart types get this on hidden micro-cam phones?”
The air was filled with dry heat, beneath this purple twilight sky above the city’s neon lights. Alan could see the approaching several hundreds (or a few thousand) of marchers now carrying their homemade protest signs. Dillon read some of the English signs, having taken Latin instead of Spanish in high school and not knowing enough of the latter language to read others.
Police State of America - Land of the Weak and Home of the Slaves!
Return the stolen Mexican Cession to the real people of the Americas!
Two more combat helicopters now glided into position above this intersection, with the earlier air vehicle on the scene now 50' higher from the impending ground level confrontation.
“CLEAR THE AREA,” the loudspeaker from there gave a final warning, “OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSSIBLE ARREST AND INJURY BY MISTAKE.”
The angered approaching crowd, numbering between 1,000 and 2,000 Alan estimated, halted 20' from the police cordon, then some among them hurled Molotov cocktails ignited by cigarette lighters. The missiles ignited among some policemen, just a few hitting bystanders by accident, to turn random officers and others into human torches requiring aid to be put out, as some senior official inside the ranks ordered the next response.
“All units - fire at will! Support squads, move into blocking positions now!”
Alan finally had the urge to run just as dozens of other panicked people did likewise, losing track of J.D. and Torrie somewhere to his right before turning toward his parked Ford just 15' away now. Screams of burning cops and civilians were soon joined by wounded protesters on the opposite side as they had surged forward within 10' of the cordon. Alan Dillon was unable to press through the fleeing hundreds surging past the pizza store’s front, jostled and shoved nearer toward the rioters, until pressed against that store’s wall facing Adam Street. The frightened teen then glimpsed two familiar faces within the retreating protesters - Walter and Katherine Stern - as those rebels gave way to superior firepower from rifles, tanks and helicopter rockets.
“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?” Is this what their meeting tonight was about?
The youth lost sight of them both as tear gas canisters were released into that street, followed by rubber pellets (Alan felt one nick his left temple) to disable other rioters. He stumbled along that sidewalk to find them again, until an artillery shell detonated one parked diesel pickup truck. Alan then spotted the Sterns disappear within that explosion, knocked flat onto his back from the blast’s force standing across the street.
Oh, dear God, no, Mom, Dad, this isn’t happening, not in America!
Alan crawled on hands and knees until stumbling across a familiar-looking dead protester, and turning the face-down body over to see Leon Perez, half the boy’s face and chest blasted away on the pavement, beneath which was a sign proclaiming: ‘The End is Near.’
“Hey, Dillon,” the youth then was grabbed by his T-shirt by strong hands and dragged into the next alley at his right, recognizing the voice as an acquaintance from high school, “come with me if you wanna live through this hell!”
Breaking free of those two clutching hands once inside the alley, Alan saw Kenny Kidder, one of the jocks Kate had dated as a freshman, the green-eyed youth’s hair dyed brighter orange-red for high school. Kenny wore green short-sleeved hospital scrubs under his tan linen overcoat, as he smiled at Dillon in this semi-darkened alley.
“Hey, I just saved your ass out there, Alan B. You wanna show proper gratitude? I’ll even let you join the Skank Branding Patrol here and now. Come on.”
Allowing no argument, the tall lean strong Kidder dragged Dillon further inside this alley for some unknown reason. This stunned youth knew about the ‘Skank Branding Patrol’ from John McCain High by reputation - gang raping various female students, but never arrested.
“Kenny, I just saw - saw - my parents get -,” Alan could not finish that sentence conveying his lingering horror at two foster guardians of almost a decade possibly blown to bits.
The teen nicknamed ‘Nutcracker’ at school had no sympathy for this occasional prank victim, shoving Alan to his knees before the prone boy stared up at a semicircle of others from that gang - Terry ‘Toolkit’ White, Arnold ‘Discriminator’ Cole, Ray ‘Spooky Shank’ Stark, and Brad ‘Supercock’ Scott. Behind them was one whimpering figure still in the shadows.
“We think it’s time you joined us, Dillon,” wearing large large sunglasses above the rainbow slashed prison-issue jumpsuit covered by a blue and silver McCain High letterman’s jacket, dark-haired Terry White held one M-29 rifle taken off some cop (blood spilled across it), “became part of a better team.”
Alan could smell acrid odors off each other boy’s clothes, implying they had probably taken illegal performance enhancement substance like Meteor Gold or Pixie Lightning. These McCain Jets team members allegedly cut corners and fooled drug testing to get ahead. Terry’s sunglasses were probably concealing enlarged pupils from the drugs.
Brown-haired hulking Arnold Cole weighed 295 pounds and wore tight red sweat clothes, his big left foot holding one woman in torn, tattered clothing against the brick wall behind him. He invited Alan: “You get the first prick of our latest flash rape. This time she’s an 18+.”
The (dyed) silver-hair, blue-eyed, wiry Ray Stark had on a sleeveless letterman’s jacket with his dark rugged T-shirt, pants and boots, helping Alan in standing and moving closer to the lady they had as a prisoner. Stark held a second M-29 on the dark-haired Hispanic female.
“Come on, we’ve heard you’re still a virgin, like that sister of yours Kenny said.”
The gang’s handsome leader Brad Scott had bleached blonde hair, those cold blue eyes staring upon Alan, as he opened his white overcoat to show the red parachute fabric sleeveless shirt and flowing pants above white sneakers, two PAK-25 pistols (stolen off cops) stuck in the waistband. He said something that gave Alan a chill down the spine.
“Do the Hisp slut now, or we’ll give your three sisters the patrol’s special ‘brand.’”
Dillon could now see the victim was that social worker from the apartment building.
What was her name - Teresa something - Ortega, Orlando? No, Ortiz - that’s it.
“Alan,” the young trembling man, surrounded by those juvenile thugs now, heard J.D.’s voice calling to him racing down this alley, “we’ve gotta scoot! I’ve got Torrie! Let’s take your ride, Man, and slide away over to her—!”
Stark brought the rifle around with a twitching trigger finger and fired a rapid burst that cut down Jack David Wells and Torrie McKenzie as they approached this horrible scene, the girl making one shrill scream before she and her boyfriend fell across the brick-paved alley.
“Psych-ass,” Scott pistol-whipped Stark with one of the two stolen handguns, something fewer Americans were allowed to own now, 2015's Omnibus Crime Control Act also forming a United States Federal Police Force from every local, county, state and federal officer nationwide, “we’d use that redhead as seconds later. I’ve heard in the locker room she already puts out.”
His anger building about the helpless woman he was expected to rape, seeing a best friend and another girl gunned down in cold blood, not to mention parents being slaughtered Alan Dillon snapped, decking heavy Arnold Cole’s glass jaw, then tackling Terry White to wrestle for that M-29 across the ground. He was soon sliced by Kenny Kidder’s hunting knife across the mid-back, struck across the skull with Ray Stark’s rifle stock, and beaten down from Brad Scott’s two pistol barrels. Those five youths then commenced beating and kicking their prone classmate, the frenzy lasting about one minute (it felt longer to Alan).
“Drop those weapons or I’ll grease the pavement with your blood!”
Alan glimpsed the shadowed policeman raising a shotgun off Petrie Street behind the gang. Terry White faced him with faster reflexes, chaotic sounds echoing from nearby blocks.
“Great, another Africoid cop of the multi cultural quilt from Affirmative-A!” Ray Stark aimed his rifle like Terry at that man. “You’re dead, Spook, from my ‘Spooky’ gun.”
“Walk away,” Arnold Cole had no respect for the law, “or we plant you in cement!”
“I’m Officer Orpheus,” the middle-aged black man spoke again with a firm baritone voice, “drop ‘em or you motherfuckers’ll wish you’d been aborted!”
One cop has no juice against five of them, Alan was too weakened from injuries to move, save yourself while you still can, Officer. I’m already dead.
The battered youth now glimpsed Teresa Ortiz, recalling her last name finally. The lady had drawn knees against the chest, wearing silver sandals and a tattered sparkling purple mini-dress. Hazel eyes wide in shock; she sat shivering and rocking slightly from being beaten.
Orpheus and the teens fired simultaneously. The cop’s buckshot struck Cole’s scrotum and briefly brought that burly teenager down in agony; his own left shoulder dislocated by Stark’s bullet despite the uniform’s body armor padding. White and Scott’s first bullets grazed the black lawman’s helmet and left knee. Kidder lunged to stab the new opponent, but tripped on Cole’s left leg, and Orpheus shot through his right palm, disarming that teen. Scott, Stark and White then unloaded more rounds at the lone cop with drug-enhanced reflexes as he grabbed Kenny Kidder for a human shield. Orpheus then fired three more shells with the automatic pump action, wounding White’s left shin, Stark’s pelvis and abdomen. Scott hit Kidder’s head and the cop’s helmet twice each before the alley was bathed beneath a helicopter’s spotlight.
“THIS IS THE POLICE - PLACE HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS AND DO NOT MOVE! YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST FOR ASSAULT AND CURFEW VIOLATIONS!”
The Skank Branding Patrol heard booted footsteps coming from Adam Street, knowing all the fun was over tonight, as Orpheus dropped the dead Kenny Kidder when Brad Scott rammed them with his shoulder leading a retreat. Ignoring bleeding and pain from various bullet wounds due to enhancement drugs still in their systems, Arnold Cole, Ray Stark and Terry White followed their leader toward Petrie Street as Officer Orpheus was pinned beneath their dead friend. The Black Hawk helicopter fired a machine gun burst that cut down Scott and Stark across the torsos, and shattered White’s other leg, with groin-wounded Cole collapsing on the far sidewalk.
“Drop the weapons, put your hands over your head, palms up, and hug the ground!”
The two teens had no doubts these half-dozen black-armored new cops, closing in with their leveled M-29 rifles, would murder twice more if given the slightest provocation now.
“Thanks, guys,” Orpheus crawled from beneath Kenny’s corpse, wincing in pain at his leg and shoulder wound as his colleagues surrounded the suspects, “but I’ve been hurt worse.”
“This is Six-Tango-Four, responding to unauthorized civilians in an alley between Adam and Petrie Streets. We need a paramedic unit PDQ. We’ve got five bodies here, two suspects, two civs and an officer down. Blackbird Three, we’re secure here, over and out.”
Alan Dillon was unable to move much from his assault’s pains, not wanting it compounded by further police beatings. He could hear Ortiz’s sobbing as the wounded Orpheus checked his and her for injuries, but before other cops present could offer assistance, a bright light filled the alley around that trio. The local sounds and smells disappeared as Alan felt himself lifted off the pavement into the air but not by any human hands. His body soon floated in weightlessness as the surrounding light shifted to a soft violet.
What’s happening? Was that light from another helicopter, or am I dying now?
Dillon’s body felt paralyzed, remaining weightless inside hazy purple light. Drifting around the area, the high school student noticed he was not alone, seeing Teresa Ortiz in tattered clothes, and that wounded federal police officer ‘Orpheus’ for the first time after the alley (an African-American man in the black body-armor uniform and helmet), both equally helpless.
Toto, Alan Dillon paraphrased an old movie; I don’t think we’re in Arizona anymore.
“Hey, are you zipped out from baking here?” Jack David Wells was seated on another white plastic chair a few feet to his left and shook Dillon’s nearest shoulder, that sandy-blonde mullet-wearing fellow high school senior’s green bug-eyed stare studying his male dining companion. Wells picked at half a tortilla pizza beside his Zuna citrus water bottle, noting Alan’s chili dog had not been touched in minutes on its paper plate. “We should’ve cruised somewhere with the working air con, if those didn’t charge anyone two extra Ameros just to come eat inside.”
“Just thinking where I might be in September of ’27,” Alan explained, jabbing at his friend’s netted orange basketball T-shirt with white trim, noting that boy’s shining green vertical slashed knee-length shorts, ankle socks and silver velcro track shoes, “my fake parents want the best for me, both teaching at the New Solar University. I still don’t have a plan after graduation.”
“Well, we’re here,” the blonde-streaked redheaded Torrie McKenzie faced both boys at this table from a third seat, clad in that red Screech’s Pizza T-shirt (with its white-lettered black name tag) - a ‘twisty’ bra underneath making her B-cup breasts erect and pointed, tight red shorts with yellow racing stripes on the sides and black flat slippers, the girl’s white ‘bucket-style’ purse now beside her remaining Thai-chicken burrito and Suise citrus soda, “and I go on the clock in a half-hour from now, so keep the self-searching short, Bud.”
The three McCain High students were halfway through a six-week summer break, the longest one in their school’s year-round calendar, having finished the junior year by early June. Manuel Sarjento’s Greasy Bowl Cantina on Progress Street had been Alan’s idea, he and Jack finishing their morning community service (part of a graduation requirement) at the (Dillon family’s) East Solar Methodist Church, moving and stacking canned food inside the church’s food bank pantry. Torrie volunteered at a local Hospice, her grandmother having died there in 2020.
“Yeah,” J.D. (Jack David’s short nickname) leaned over and kissed his steady girlfriend of seven months, playing with her pinned back-bun hair (for work) between bites of tortilla pizza, Torrie flinching in case he got any grease on those locks, the boy checking his metal bracelet digital watch, “we’ve got a whole afternoon ahead to kill. Don’t sweat about ’27.”
“Just be there to give me a scoot home,” she insisted to him, “when I get off at nine.”
“Dad wants me in a work-study college, with my B r-cards,” Alan spoke as he chewed another bite, looking from J.D. to Torrie as the third wheel here, “and Mom’s already persuaded Kate at a social work career, maybe even attending her department’s program at New Solar U.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” J.D.’s smile conveyed sarcasm, then shrugged to confirm Alan’s impression after one Zuna sip, “no really, you’ve got two college professional parents looking out for your backside. Mom flew the coup seven years ago, leaving Dad so fast he’s still stunned by the speed of it, married herself a solar corp. exec. and started another family. I don’t want to go home and see the old man half-wasted on ripple or thunderbird, but the SVR hookup she got me for my last birthday is humming there.”
“Why won’t you let me set up Caryn for our couples’ date?” Torrie still did not understand Alan’s brooding persona, almost the dark to J.D.’s lighter, fun-loving devil-may-care attitude. “I mean, you never seem to have anyone at school functions, Dillon.”
I still pine for Kate, Alan’s unspoken answer was followed by other disturbing thoughts of his recent embarrassing mishap involving his oldest similar-aged jet-black brunette foster sister, but after I saw her stripping in the main bathroom for a shower that afternoon . . .
“I’m still looking for just the right girl,” he was often bothered by J.D. and Torrie’s insinuated active sex life together, staring at his own black leather thick-band wristwatch, “but shouldn’t we roll you over to Screech’s?”
“Oh, bull-shark,” Torrie wiped at her mouth with the back of a right hand after the last Thai-chicken bite off that paper plate, getting her purse and a debit card for settling their bills, taking all three plastic receipts from the table, “let’s scoot, Guys. I’ll cover the cost today.”
“Love that apple-hard hinder,” J.D. smirked at her buttocks in those tight shorts walking over to the cashier’s station just inside the doorway, this outdoor patio with dozens of other patrons at other tables under umbrellas was surrounded by a wooden gate (containing its electronic alarms to warn of customers skipping the bill), “I’m spanking my wand on it tonight at her apartment’s roof under the stars - can’t wait.”
“Thanks,” Alan called to Torrie as an afterthought, knowing neither he nor J.D. had any spare Ameros (the North American Union’s common fiat currency since 2013), neither one employed for the summer like her, “I’ll owe you it at another time.” Dillon then noticed a few other eaters remarking about Wells’ future intercourse plans. “So, what are you doing after next June, Pal? Wait for the Feds to rope you into a job training program, go overseas for better opportunities in China-land, ’Nam or the Philippines?”
Jack David’s optimistic exterior turned harsh at Alan’s mentioning the US Government’s full employment policies, staring around to see if anyone else was noticing him here now.
“Don’t joke about that F.E.A.R. bunkum. My old man’s staring at the 30-day end of his last chance to accept placement assistance. He’s expecting the paper sometime today. Those Labor Department dicks deliver it in person, so you can’t claim the notice was lost in the mail.”
Yeah, Dillon knew that free speech was a limited commodity, even at 17, that pamphlet I saw in a trash can read (about the dreaded Federal Employment Adjustment Retraining Act of 2016) ‘the only thing we have to fear is F.E.A.R. itself.’
“Okay, fellas,” Torrie leaned across the table to give Alan and J.D. a good view of her bosom, “I settled our account. Time to serve the unwashed masses who are asses at Screech’s.”
The single teenager managed to keep his eyes upon her round, freckled, slightly-pimpled face, as he stood with Wells from their table after a few final nibbles, all collecting their plates and bottles from there when strolling toward a green plastic 4' barrel at the gate’s exit.
Her hazel eyes are cute, but Kate’s clear blue ones can’t be beat as cuter.
The barrel had a warning with its recycling symbol: ‘RECYCLE OR ELSE - This collector is provided courtesy of the US Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.’
J.D.’s only 5' 8", I’m 6' 2" and Torrie’s about 5' 7". What does she see in him?
“So, Babe,” J.D. put his left arm across Torrie’s average shoulders as they strolled ahead of Alan toward that boy’s used ’19 model black Ford Escape Hybrid parked two blocks away, “will you wrangle me another order of breadst-?”
The youth’s request on this semi-crowded sidewalk was interrupted by one bright red, flame-detailed Fiat solar cell hybrid sped past the curb headed west, its speakers blaring that ‘Nuevo Latino’ (a fusion of Latin pop and hip-hop Rap music styles) hit “Ho Funky Monkey.”
“Goddamned noisy Hisps!” Wells cried out at them with his right middle finger extended, before moving Torrie to the right further from the adjacent street, knowing those young men had made lewd comments about her waitress’ uniform in Spanish. “That’s shit for music.”
“Forget it, Jack,” Alan patted his sweat-stained middle back, silently thankful those students from Esteban Morales High on Solar City’s northwest ‘minority’ neighborhoods did not reverse direction to continue that conversation, “millions of Beaners can’t be wrong for listening to that, and you’re lucky some cop didn’t hear ‘hisp’ and write out a hate crime citation.”
“They’re the US’s largest minority group,” Torrie recited, as they continued onward.
“I don’t give a lizard’s pile,” J.D. remained defiant before they reached Alan’s car, “and I’m moving to Alaska next year, where they still drill oil for China and Japan. At least I can vote the Reform Party’s candidates in that state.”
Dillon was always amazed how political his family and friends were, being indifferent toward America’s 21st Century rigged election process. Professors Walter and Katherine Stern, his foster parents since 2016, always voted the super-majority Democratic Socialist (even after changing its name from Democratic in ’16), but still complained when Washington failed at combating social evils for the sake of power politics. Jack David Wells had been a libertine maverick since Alan met him four years ago at Calamity Jane Junior High after the Sterns moved here, voicing favor toward any minor party (Republican Freedom, Reform, Libertarian, etc.).
“So,” Alan changed their subject back to a more trivial choice regarding J.D.’s super virtual reality game system, “Alien Harvester or Milky Way War Zone, which do we play first?”
“Either choice is good,” Wells shrugged, sharing the back seat with Torrie as Alan started the Ford for her 10-minute trip to Screech’s Pizza, “since my Dad’s apartment’s air conned.”
***
Solar City, Arizona was a ‘bedroom community’ for those driving 25 miles southeast to jobs in Phoenix until it became the unofficial capital of America’s solar power industry a decade ago. In 2026 the city’s population is 55,125, 65% speaking Spanish as a first or second language, and it is the nation’s 35th largest unincorporated urban region. The Albert Gore III Housing Project was Alan and J.D.’s final destination, the second boy’s rent-controlled apartment in the federal project’s Bahia Terraza building, near the Hispanic Tierra del Sol neighborhood.
By 12:30 P.M. (Mountain Standard Time), Alan and J.D. were standing in the latter boy’s cramped bedroom, decorated with cream paint or striped wallpaper and containing holographic posters of Death Road racers among other modern sports figures. The single bed was unmade as both teens sat on its lower end, finishing putting on the virtual reality net gloves, visors and boots (all neon green and black), those rigs hooked by wireless sensors to the slim silver game console below the oval deactivated 32" flat-panel plasma TV (not needed for this system).
“Ready to save the Sagittarius Arm from Andromeda’s shock troops?” J.D. winked with the left eye before lowering his visor, knowing Dillon was still getting used to initial disorientation at entering the game. “I know I’ll be.”
“Sure, why not?” The brown-haired youth looked around at the scattering of clothing across the green-carpeted floor not in the closet, few paperback books on one cheap low bookcase, and a second-hand laptop computer folded on the battered desk under the room’s one single window. “I’m ready for anything, after lunch - I think.”
The youths then activated the visor systems and were transported to a total immersion virtual reality environment aboard the Imperial Earth Dreadnought Concordat, J.D. as commander and Alan as chief gunner, working as a team with or against other pairs of players across America and in other nations.
“Watch the rotoscopic detectors, Gunner,” J.D. was getting involved with this game, as they engaged the imaginary enemies of humankind, “or we’re not lasting five minutes in this firefight and I hate losing to those gray-skinned bastards. This game is 3-D perspective.”
Crap it, an Andromedan cloaked raider slipped under our defense perimeter.
Alan Dillon was unable to concentrate fully on this mock battle near the Coal Sack Nebula, thinking of how his parents disapproved of this technology for mindless entertainment, wishing he could program one of the female crew members to look like Kate Stern’s icy brunette goddess of his fantasies. His sister was actually sweet and understanding, acting more this similar-aged foster brother’s friend than a potential girlfriend (preferring smart aleck jocks in junior high, but drawn to more serious college-aged men since turning 16).
“They’re bringing another squadron of Razor Fighters on our port quarter,” Alan heard J.D. scream in this environment and inside his bedroom (that seeming like a distant echo), “fire the plasma missiles, even if it’s point blank range and not recommended!”
Their imaginary ship wrecked and burning in space, the two teens removed the headgear long enough to hear a loud pounding at the apartment’s front door. Jack David’s older sister Wendy no longer lived here, since moving to Seattle for an IT job after graduating a local tech school in December, and his unemployed father John slept off another drunken late night.
“I’d better get that,” Wells removed his SVR system gear, seeming embarrassed at the loud, persistent knocking, “if Dad’s loaded, he can sleep through an apocalypse.”
Alan disconnected his helmet, gloves and boots, listening while the other youth answered at Apartment #324's front door. The woman outside it sounded ‘official’ in tone, and Dillon heard her mention the ‘Labor Department.’
“What’s the crisis?” The visiting teen emerged from that bedroom after J.D. stopped talking and his recovering father spoke with the woman, the son coming closer and urging Alan to keep that voice down. “I wondered if you were coming back.”
“Dad’s getting his F.E.A.R. papers,” Wells ushered Dillon into the efficiency kitchen painted a yellow in contrast to the living room’s tan walls, “he’s given until next Monday to report for a retraining classification, unless finding a job in the meantime. That’s a lot of hot gas.”
Unfamiliar with the American regime’s more draconian social engineering projects, Alan then asked for more information where John Wells could not overhear him.
“They send most slobs to do shit work for the Labor Department’s Bureau of Unemployment Services, toxic cleanup, urban reclamation or waste management slots across the country. Dad’s always telling me to make higher grades than C’s or I’ll end up like him now.”
Alan glimpsed around the kitchen’s doorway toward the square, sparsely-furnished living area beyond, noticing the Labor Department lady was an attractive tanned brunette Hispanic, flanked by two tan-uniformed female federal police officers with tall caps and PAK-25 automatic pistol side arms. The teens waited until elder Wells stumbled back to his separate bedroom’s oblivion, then crept in stocking feet out the apartment’s front exit after the three federal visitors had moved onward around the building’s third floor or onto other levels.
“Why don’t you join them?” Alan had an inspiration as they stopped in one poorly lit hallway to replace their shoes. “All cops are federal workers, since the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 2015 our second President Clinton signed into law. You get benefits and job secur-”
“No flying way I work for them,” Wells was adamant after securing his shoes’ Velcro straps, “they’d stick me in Mojave’s Main Highway Patrol, at the Death Valley Hilton prison, or martial law duty facing Alaskan secession IEDs and snipers. But I could vote Reform there.”
The two teens continued to the nearest elevator when Alan ran into someone else.
“Hey, man,” a short Hispanic teen stumbled backward from his small collision with Dillon, “I live here, and don’t take merde from Anglos. It’s bad enough our southwestern ‘plantation’ had no lights frying out here with power drains and a water-rationed summer.”
The brown-eyed youth was clad in a red and black Fidel Castro T-shirt, black beret, a pair of tan shorts and red ankle-length sneakers decorated with U.S. and Mexican flags. He also sported a scruffy beard and moustache on a light-brown pimple-dotted face. His Caucasian friend, with shaggy bright dyed red hair and ice-blue eyes (contact lenses), seemed unearthly in a bright green parachute fabric sleeveless shirt, red-tan striped pants and knee-high plastic green boots.
Why do Hisps still love that dead Cuban shit heel and his buddy Che?
Alan had absorbed some extra knowledge living around a foster father that taught 20th Century historical subjects.
“Hold it, Perez, I do live here.” Wells had fists balled prepared for trouble, getting between Alan and the other teens. “You and vanilla flash can keep breezing out into the burnt.”
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” One federal cop’s stern voice halted any confrontation between these youths, as she, her partner (both in short-sleeved tan jumpsuit uniforms with black gun/utility belts) and the Hispanic social worker appeared around another corner.
Alan, J.D., Leon and the other boy stayed where they were, before facing the officers and their attractive companion, in a tangerine tropical-print shirtdress with its tan waist-cinching belt, red wedge-heeled sandals and dark hair bound by its big silver clasp. The civilian lady examined and recognized one boy here.
“Hola, Leon,” she greeted the Hispanic teen, “is your father on his feet yet?”
“You give my old man a paper, Skank-orita? You’re a ‘Real American’ now?”
Dillon saw the bureaucrat’s irritation at ‘Leon’ labeling her a sellout, as the tall tanned blonde female cop (Alan thought her deep-voiced for a woman) took charge of this situation.
“Let’s see some ID gentlemen. From the looks of your ages and attire, it’ll be from McCain or Morales High, I assume.”
Alan and the other youths were largely conditioned at being submissive to authority, even old J.D. despite his bravado, each taking out laminated cards from schools that had metal detectors, locker sweeps, omnipresent cameras, and (in extreme cases) body cavity searches as their regular features. The second red hair-dyed African-American female officer of average height inspected each, as the social worker engaged Leon Perez in conversation.
“Your dad’s on SSI disability after a construction site accident, not a Labor Department case. Being on break from Morales High, why don’t you help him in the apartment, instead of swirling with this boy, street performing and shooting your truant wad?”
The redheaded youth volunteered: “I’m Tyler ‘Mars’ Larson, not ‘this boy,’ Espanola, and I manage my street poet. He speaks the ‘sparks’ 18+ crones like you three don’t feel.”
“You’re all too old to have the M.A.R.K. chip implants,” the blonde lady, whose shirt pocket above the bronze eagle badge read Sgt. Coffman, noted inspecting the four teenagers’ right palms for the telltale red mark (where a Microchip Assistance for Recovering Kids device was regularly implanted in every newborn since 2021 instituted to prevent children becoming kidnaped).
“Don’t disappear,” her sweet-voiced partner warned them, “or we’ll never find you.”
I’ve heard ‘patriots,’ Alan recalled, call them the ‘MARK of the Beast.’
“Leon ‘Ripple’ Perez is the voice of La Rasa for este mundo, Miz Ortiz,” Leon knelt to retie his retro red shoelaces, “I got a new tell tale and I calls it ‘Trashy World.’”
Tyler Larson broke into a simulated record scratch sound, one Dillon thought sounded like an old Herbie Hancock song as he noticed Teresa’s bared, tanned and toned thighs, before Leon then stood, moved his limbs to the rhythm, and began the song’s first verse.
“Look at that pile of burning tires, sitting next to that old car. They tell us in D.C. things are turning around, but I ain’t got a vote to get at those clowns. Trashy world - that’s what they’re giving me. Trashy world - the shit is hittin’ the fan. Trashy world and trashy people - save me from the future, please.”
Receiving their student ID cards back, Alan and J.D. continued past the other boys and into an elevator at the hall’s far end, as ‘Teresa Ortiz,’ ‘Sargent Coffman’ and ‘Officer Jackson’ bantered with those other kids a few minutes longer.
“What do we do now?” Dillon finally asked as the doors closed, delayed by poor operation in the hot weather, as Wells pushed the ground floor’s button. “Why’d we leave your pit?”
“My old man’s no fun to be around when he gets deep dark news,” J.D. patted his friend’s right shoulder, suggesting as they exited the car minutes later, “so let’s go to your place across town. Maybe we’ll even get soaked in your family’s pool on a day like this.”
Sounds like a plan, since we’re both low on Ameros. Alan shrugged in getting his keys out for that Ford, then added another suggestion. “Maybe I can bum cash off someone there.”
Seeing the car had enough charge for their trip across town before needing a one-eighth tank of gas left, Dillon put the Escape into reverse and backed out of its visitor’s space.
***
Having spent two hours at the Stern’s swimming pool, playing with Alan’s younger sisters, Tabatha age 14 (auburn-haired and short) and Samantha age 12 (skinny with mousy brown hair), the boy thankful Kate was not around in one of her two-piece swimsuits chaperoning those other girls, the boys went to his room for watching one laser micro-disc the parents had rented for the upcoming weekend. Alan and J.D. were pleased that turned out to be a film called Divine Wind (a 2022 Chinese import with historical and romantic elements about the failed Mongol invasion of Japan).
“The thing even had martial art action,” J.D. was suitably impressed as they adjourned for a snack in the kitchen, “despite that four-hour run time.”
Alan’s parents had left instructions to the two younger children’s babysitter, the blonde Jenny Jackson (one of Dr. Walter Stern’s favorite honor students). He also then learned Kate was out of town visiting mother Katherine’s maiden aunt in Barstow.
Mom and Dad text-flashed us they’re staying late for a special meeting on campus.
By 8:25 P.M., his old Ford’s batteries had recharged at a garage’s power outlet terminal, Alan was ready to take J.D. for meeting with Torrie across town, even though there were official news reports about higher alerts in many US cities with the upcoming Independence Day holiday used as a focus of radical discontent and potential homegrown terrorist activities. Dillon had heard the stories about dire events in 2023, partially by two kids at high school from Dallas, where food shortages were so bad that autumn hundreds resorted to cannibalism, and recalled martial law in Maricopa County as radicals tried its seceding with 31 other southwestern US counties.
Things gets worse, I hear my parents say, in terms of security versus freedom every year.
“Well,” Jack David was thankful this Ford still had working AC, “it must be down to 95 out there in the shade. I hope Torrie gets leftover bread sticks, ’cause I want a nibble.”
Alan soon entered the slower traffic of downtown Solar City, before reaching Screech’s Pizza Restaurant on the corner of 12th and Adam Streets. The teen saw ostentatious neon signs along Federal Street’s strip similar to ones on Sol and Adam Streets next, youth strolling on sidewalks, or zipping along in alternative-fuel or hybrid cars. The dominant clothing styles here were skin-tight body suits, prisoner chic and slash-cut items, despite a sweltering July night.
“I hope there’s enough charge and gas for the rest of this week,” Dillon muttered at the wheel, “since fuel’s 15 Ameros per gallon and synth fuels this heap can’t use are 9 Ams.”
“Forget that new funny money they rammed on us in ’17,” J.D. stared out the right window, “check those sluts in tightage body suits, might as well be naked. Man, I wish Torrie worked at The Impact Crater. At least their waitresses ‘shave’ pubes to wear red-orange tightys.”
I won’t tell Torrie you scope other tails, but, wow, that one babe’s ass is -
“Whoa,” Wells grabbed the steering wheel to urge Dillon off 12th Street into a vacant diagonal parking space in front of Screech’s after their half-hour drive, “we’re here. Piloting and watching tail is a learned skill, you need practice mastering it.”
The two boys met Torrie minutes later as she exited the employees’ side door on the Adam Street side wall of the red, white and green-painted neon-lit square building. She looked tired in removing the green plastic waist apron, tossing it back inside at a drink refill station.
“Got the sticks,” the redhead embraced J.D., holding the greasy sack up for him.
Alan looked away from the lovers kissing toward the 12th and Adam Street intersection, when a line of six black-painted armored personnel carriers and two light tanks rolled into view, and a Black Hawk helicopter hovered above that show of force. The ground vehicles soon positioned themselves as a barricade on Adam Street facing northwest toward the waning sunset. From the APCs dozens of body-armored black-clad policemen emerged with automatic rifles, riot shields and helmets, their boots audible above the car traffic they diverted to clear the street ahead. J.D. and Torrie soon joined Alan and hundreds of other bystanders in watching this cordon operation the government showed on TV as part of a pro-police campaign since 2023.
“Why are they doing this?” Miss McKenzie tried to pull free from Wells’ embrace, noting his watch showed it was 9:04 P.M. now. “Let’s go back to my place for fun. I need it.”
“What should a democracy do,” one thoughtful-looking older man in a Hawaiian shirt and golfing slacks rubbed at his full head of silver hair standing to Alan’s left, opposite the teenage couple, “when a majority of its people no longer value it?”
“ATTENTION, ALL CITIZENS! A CURFEW IS IN EFFECT AT SUNDOWN BY ORDER OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND HOMELAND SECURITY! CLEAR THE AREA AND RETURN TO YOUR HOMES OR WE WILL USE DEADLY FORCE AGAINST UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES! YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO COMPLY!”
The loudspeaker from that assault helicopter sounded dire, but the bystanders mostly did not heed it, with even more citizens on other street corners gathering to watch this cop spectacle as if some form of unscripted entertainment. Alan could only think of one quote by Roman Historian Tacitus his father favored, something about a ‘corrupt society’ having ‘many laws.’
We should leave, but I can’t make myself walk away, and don’t know why.
“I heard on one cop’s radio,” the 20-something blonde (cropped short) woman in a spandex, yellow, red and green swirl-patterned body suit with laced-silver sandals behind J.D. and Torrie said where Alan could hear, “the marchers heading here are mostly from the La Guarda, Tierra del Sol, and Yucatan Suarez neighborhoods - stirred up by those Sons of Atzlan.”
The federal police had formed six columns three men deep at the intersection, the front ranks taking position with 4' high riot shields (Kevlar-reinforced steel with the top glass viewing slits) and kneeling to draw PAK-25 pistols as standing troops raised M-29 assault rifles.
“They’re playing for keeps now,” Alan heard one bystander a few feet directly behind him in all the jumbled commentary now, before another person to his rearward left wondered, “will the Amnesty International bleeding heart types get this on hidden micro-cam phones?”
The air was filled with dry heat, beneath this purple twilight sky above the city’s neon lights. Alan could see the approaching several hundreds (or a few thousand) of marchers now carrying their homemade protest signs. Dillon read some of the English signs, having taken Latin instead of Spanish in high school and not knowing enough of the latter language to read others.
Police State of America - Land of the Weak and Home of the Slaves!
Return the stolen Mexican Cession to the real people of the Americas!
Two more combat helicopters now glided into position above this intersection, with the earlier air vehicle on the scene now 50' higher from the impending ground level confrontation.
“CLEAR THE AREA,” the loudspeaker from there gave a final warning, “OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSSIBLE ARREST AND INJURY BY MISTAKE.”
The angered approaching crowd, numbering between 1,000 and 2,000 Alan estimated, halted 20' from the police cordon, then some among them hurled Molotov cocktails ignited by cigarette lighters. The missiles ignited among some policemen, just a few hitting bystanders by accident, to turn random officers and others into human torches requiring aid to be put out, as some senior official inside the ranks ordered the next response.
“All units - fire at will! Support squads, move into blocking positions now!”
Alan finally had the urge to run just as dozens of other panicked people did likewise, losing track of J.D. and Torrie somewhere to his right before turning toward his parked Ford just 15' away now. Screams of burning cops and civilians were soon joined by wounded protesters on the opposite side as they had surged forward within 10' of the cordon. Alan Dillon was unable to press through the fleeing hundreds surging past the pizza store’s front, jostled and shoved nearer toward the rioters, until pressed against that store’s wall facing Adam Street. The frightened teen then glimpsed two familiar faces within the retreating protesters - Walter and Katherine Stern - as those rebels gave way to superior firepower from rifles, tanks and helicopter rockets.
“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?” Is this what their meeting tonight was about?
The youth lost sight of them both as tear gas canisters were released into that street, followed by rubber pellets (Alan felt one nick his left temple) to disable other rioters. He stumbled along that sidewalk to find them again, until an artillery shell detonated one parked diesel pickup truck. Alan then spotted the Sterns disappear within that explosion, knocked flat onto his back from the blast’s force standing across the street.
Oh, dear God, no, Mom, Dad, this isn’t happening, not in America!
Alan crawled on hands and knees until stumbling across a familiar-looking dead protester, and turning the face-down body over to see Leon Perez, half the boy’s face and chest blasted away on the pavement, beneath which was a sign proclaiming: ‘The End is Near.’
“Hey, Dillon,” the youth then was grabbed by his T-shirt by strong hands and dragged into the next alley at his right, recognizing the voice as an acquaintance from high school, “come with me if you wanna live through this hell!”
Breaking free of those two clutching hands once inside the alley, Alan saw Kenny Kidder, one of the jocks Kate had dated as a freshman, the green-eyed youth’s hair dyed brighter orange-red for high school. Kenny wore green short-sleeved hospital scrubs under his tan linen overcoat, as he smiled at Dillon in this semi-darkened alley.
“Hey, I just saved your ass out there, Alan B. You wanna show proper gratitude? I’ll even let you join the Skank Branding Patrol here and now. Come on.”
Allowing no argument, the tall lean strong Kidder dragged Dillon further inside this alley for some unknown reason. This stunned youth knew about the ‘Skank Branding Patrol’ from John McCain High by reputation - gang raping various female students, but never arrested.
“Kenny, I just saw - saw - my parents get -,” Alan could not finish that sentence conveying his lingering horror at two foster guardians of almost a decade possibly blown to bits.
The teen nicknamed ‘Nutcracker’ at school had no sympathy for this occasional prank victim, shoving Alan to his knees before the prone boy stared up at a semicircle of others from that gang - Terry ‘Toolkit’ White, Arnold ‘Discriminator’ Cole, Ray ‘Spooky Shank’ Stark, and Brad ‘Supercock’ Scott. Behind them was one whimpering figure still in the shadows.
“We think it’s time you joined us, Dillon,” wearing large large sunglasses above the rainbow slashed prison-issue jumpsuit covered by a blue and silver McCain High letterman’s jacket, dark-haired Terry White held one M-29 rifle taken off some cop (blood spilled across it), “became part of a better team.”
Alan could smell acrid odors off each other boy’s clothes, implying they had probably taken illegal performance enhancement substance like Meteor Gold or Pixie Lightning. These McCain Jets team members allegedly cut corners and fooled drug testing to get ahead. Terry’s sunglasses were probably concealing enlarged pupils from the drugs.
Brown-haired hulking Arnold Cole weighed 295 pounds and wore tight red sweat clothes, his big left foot holding one woman in torn, tattered clothing against the brick wall behind him. He invited Alan: “You get the first prick of our latest flash rape. This time she’s an 18+.”
The (dyed) silver-hair, blue-eyed, wiry Ray Stark had on a sleeveless letterman’s jacket with his dark rugged T-shirt, pants and boots, helping Alan in standing and moving closer to the lady they had as a prisoner. Stark held a second M-29 on the dark-haired Hispanic female.
“Come on, we’ve heard you’re still a virgin, like that sister of yours Kenny said.”
The gang’s handsome leader Brad Scott had bleached blonde hair, those cold blue eyes staring upon Alan, as he opened his white overcoat to show the red parachute fabric sleeveless shirt and flowing pants above white sneakers, two PAK-25 pistols (stolen off cops) stuck in the waistband. He said something that gave Alan a chill down the spine.
“Do the Hisp slut now, or we’ll give your three sisters the patrol’s special ‘brand.’”
Dillon could now see the victim was that social worker from the apartment building.
What was her name - Teresa something - Ortega, Orlando? No, Ortiz - that’s it.
“Alan,” the young trembling man, surrounded by those juvenile thugs now, heard J.D.’s voice calling to him racing down this alley, “we’ve gotta scoot! I’ve got Torrie! Let’s take your ride, Man, and slide away over to her—!”
Stark brought the rifle around with a twitching trigger finger and fired a rapid burst that cut down Jack David Wells and Torrie McKenzie as they approached this horrible scene, the girl making one shrill scream before she and her boyfriend fell across the brick-paved alley.
“Psych-ass,” Scott pistol-whipped Stark with one of the two stolen handguns, something fewer Americans were allowed to own now, 2015's Omnibus Crime Control Act also forming a United States Federal Police Force from every local, county, state and federal officer nationwide, “we’d use that redhead as seconds later. I’ve heard in the locker room she already puts out.”
His anger building about the helpless woman he was expected to rape, seeing a best friend and another girl gunned down in cold blood, not to mention parents being slaughtered Alan Dillon snapped, decking heavy Arnold Cole’s glass jaw, then tackling Terry White to wrestle for that M-29 across the ground. He was soon sliced by Kenny Kidder’s hunting knife across the mid-back, struck across the skull with Ray Stark’s rifle stock, and beaten down from Brad Scott’s two pistol barrels. Those five youths then commenced beating and kicking their prone classmate, the frenzy lasting about one minute (it felt longer to Alan).
“Drop those weapons or I’ll grease the pavement with your blood!”
Alan glimpsed the shadowed policeman raising a shotgun off Petrie Street behind the gang. Terry White faced him with faster reflexes, chaotic sounds echoing from nearby blocks.
“Great, another Africoid cop of the multi cultural quilt from Affirmative-A!” Ray Stark aimed his rifle like Terry at that man. “You’re dead, Spook, from my ‘Spooky’ gun.”
“Walk away,” Arnold Cole had no respect for the law, “or we plant you in cement!”
“I’m Officer Orpheus,” the middle-aged black man spoke again with a firm baritone voice, “drop ‘em or you motherfuckers’ll wish you’d been aborted!”
One cop has no juice against five of them, Alan was too weakened from injuries to move, save yourself while you still can, Officer. I’m already dead.
The battered youth now glimpsed Teresa Ortiz, recalling her last name finally. The lady had drawn knees against the chest, wearing silver sandals and a tattered sparkling purple mini-dress. Hazel eyes wide in shock; she sat shivering and rocking slightly from being beaten.
Orpheus and the teens fired simultaneously. The cop’s buckshot struck Cole’s scrotum and briefly brought that burly teenager down in agony; his own left shoulder dislocated by Stark’s bullet despite the uniform’s body armor padding. White and Scott’s first bullets grazed the black lawman’s helmet and left knee. Kidder lunged to stab the new opponent, but tripped on Cole’s left leg, and Orpheus shot through his right palm, disarming that teen. Scott, Stark and White then unloaded more rounds at the lone cop with drug-enhanced reflexes as he grabbed Kenny Kidder for a human shield. Orpheus then fired three more shells with the automatic pump action, wounding White’s left shin, Stark’s pelvis and abdomen. Scott hit Kidder’s head and the cop’s helmet twice each before the alley was bathed beneath a helicopter’s spotlight.
“THIS IS THE POLICE - PLACE HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS AND DO NOT MOVE! YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST FOR ASSAULT AND CURFEW VIOLATIONS!”
The Skank Branding Patrol heard booted footsteps coming from Adam Street, knowing all the fun was over tonight, as Orpheus dropped the dead Kenny Kidder when Brad Scott rammed them with his shoulder leading a retreat. Ignoring bleeding and pain from various bullet wounds due to enhancement drugs still in their systems, Arnold Cole, Ray Stark and Terry White followed their leader toward Petrie Street as Officer Orpheus was pinned beneath their dead friend. The Black Hawk helicopter fired a machine gun burst that cut down Scott and Stark across the torsos, and shattered White’s other leg, with groin-wounded Cole collapsing on the far sidewalk.
“Drop the weapons, put your hands over your head, palms up, and hug the ground!”
The two teens had no doubts these half-dozen black-armored new cops, closing in with their leveled M-29 rifles, would murder twice more if given the slightest provocation now.
“Thanks, guys,” Orpheus crawled from beneath Kenny’s corpse, wincing in pain at his leg and shoulder wound as his colleagues surrounded the suspects, “but I’ve been hurt worse.”
“This is Six-Tango-Four, responding to unauthorized civilians in an alley between Adam and Petrie Streets. We need a paramedic unit PDQ. We’ve got five bodies here, two suspects, two civs and an officer down. Blackbird Three, we’re secure here, over and out.”
Alan Dillon was unable to move much from his assault’s pains, not wanting it compounded by further police beatings. He could hear Ortiz’s sobbing as the wounded Orpheus checked his and her for injuries, but before other cops present could offer assistance, a bright light filled the alley around that trio. The local sounds and smells disappeared as Alan felt himself lifted off the pavement into the air but not by any human hands. His body soon floated in weightlessness as the surrounding light shifted to a soft violet.
What’s happening? Was that light from another helicopter, or am I dying now?
Dillon’s body felt paralyzed, remaining weightless inside hazy purple light. Drifting around the area, the high school student noticed he was not alone, seeing Teresa Ortiz in tattered clothes, and that wounded federal police officer ‘Orpheus’ for the first time after the alley (an African-American man in the black body-armor uniform and helmet), both equally helpless.
Toto, Alan Dillon paraphrased an old movie; I don’t think we’re in Arizona anymore.