“Uh, yeah, sure, Den. About two?”
“Two it is, my man.”
Gene walked into his dark home; now darker than ever. The nights were getting colder and it had begun to snow. I should put my car in the garage. Ugh, Catherine’s car. I’m going to have to do something with it. He turned on the television for a little while, and then turned it off again. He took a bottle of wine from the fridge, poured himself a glass, and then collapsed into his favorite chair. He relaxed, and then he reached for his phone and called Professor Zinney.
“Hello, Gene. I was just thinking about you. How are you managing?”
Gene filled Zinney in on what’d been happening to him, and Gene asked him for his thoughts.
“Wow, Gene. You’ve sure got a lot of things on your plate. First off, I can’t believe Catherine is dead. She was a wonderful lady. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to her funeral, but I was still out of the country.”
“I know, Professor. I still miss her a lot, but I’ve got to concentrate on the immediate things going on around me. What about the promotion? You know the type of work I do.”
“I understand your trepidation about taking the job. You’re being offered a promotion—the very thing you’ve worked for—knowing you’d be contributing to… well, let’s say to nothing good. It’s a difficult decision, but there are few easy decisions presented to any of us nowadays. I’m forbidden to talk about a world I’m passionate about, and you are asked to be a part of something you don’t believe in. Yet, I do as they tell me, and my guess is you’ll take the promotion. We do it because the alternatives are worse.”
“Professor, I know the academic answer to my question, but I guess I just can’t get my head wrapped around why things are so bad. Why don’t we have any charismatic leaders anymore? Why do so many people just accept the conditions?”
“Because they’re powerless, Gene; like us. We do what we wished we didn’t have to do, but we’re powerless to do anything differently. Now, let’s discuss something you do have more control over. How well do you know Dennis?”
“I’ve known him all my life.”
“But there was a long gap in your friendship. Do you still feel like he’s your friend?”
“He rescued me from Joliet. I met his wife.”
“So you said. What concerns me is his connection with Jaydan Casimir. If Casimir caused Catherine’s death, then why is Dennis associated with him?”
“He claims he doesn’t work for him; that he’s just a squad leader.”
“So how does a simple squad leader just march right into the Commandant’s office and convince him to free you—when he shouldn’t even know that you were arrested in the first place?”
“Well, he claims that Casimir asked him to keep an eye out for me when he found out we were childhood friends.”
“Gene, he’s supposed to be a simple squad leader. Why wouldn’t Casimir take it down the chain of command? Why would he have approached him directly?”
“You’re right. I never thought about that.”
“That’s because you’re too close to the problem. You did the right thing in calling me.”
“Wait! I just thought of something else. I was talking to him about Fernando and the camp he was talking about. I don’t know why it didn’t register before, but I never mentioned what went on there before Dennis started laughing. And yet, he seemed to know that there was a machine they hook you up to, and how they could make you think and believe whatever they want. I never said any of those things, and Fernando never mentioned anything about a machine to me.”
Gene waited for the professor to respond, but there was a pause before he continued. “If I were you, Gene, I’d stay as far away from Dennis as possible.”
“I’m supposed to go over to his house on Saturday.”
“Make up some excuse, Gene. Going to his lair is not a good idea.”
“What about Fernando? Do you believe there’s any truth to what he said?”
“There’s a lot of truth to what he said, and that’s why you need to stay away from Dennis.”
“You’re the third person to tell me that. In fact, you almost sound like Catherine. Those were almost her last words to me. Then Cassandra starts popping up from the floor of the back seat and tells me to stay away from Dennis. I know that she and Ray, her husband, want me to lead some revolution, but I don’t know what either of them expect me to do—not that I want to do anything.”
“I know Ray,” Zinney said. “He wants me to lead a revolution with you in New America. He’s nuts, and I told him so. You don’t start a revolution. If a revolution is going to occur it happens when the elements are right. Redd Piper never started any revolution. He just wanted the freedom to create his idea without interference from the government. His ambition was simply to get rich, but once he made it possible for the average guy to not only get a job, but become an owner, then no one was going to take that away without a backlash; and a backlash is exactly what the government got.
“Gene, you see when people are fed up enough you can’t stop them; you can’t take anything away from them; and then, if there is a charismatic leader, you get a revolution. What’s important to understand, Gene, is that the right elements have to be there in the first place. Now, they’re mostly in place here, but there’s one thing missing—something to fight for. You have to have something to fight for, Gene. It’s not enough to fight against something. That’s the mistake these guys always seem to make. They assume that if things are bad enough, people will revolt. Now, sometimes they do, but they’re usually crushed. When people fight for something they feel sure will make their lives better, they won’t be crushed because they’ll never give up. They’ll fight for their vision of the American dream. They’ll keep fighting forever if necessary. Their sons and daughters will do the same. That’s why the cooperatives never died. You can blow them up, but they still exist in New America. You’d think that they could never stand up to the likes of the full muscle and power of the armed forces of the United States, but they did, and they won.
“It was like that during the Revolutionary War: An American economy with little money and a ragtag army taking on the greatest power in the world at that time—and winning. Even if we lost that war we’d win independence eventually, because our founding fathers had a taste of freedom, and they’d give their lives to keep it.”
“But, professor, there’s still something that isn’t clear to me. You said that the New World was created because people had something to fight for—the cooperatives. Ray and Cassandra want to bring them back as well as the original Lightning Squad. It’s their dream. Even if they’re crushed, you said that dream will never die.”
“You’re right, Gene, but here’s the problem. The dream did die. Ray, Cassandra, you and I, and a few others know about them; but not the people. No one talks about them. There’s no news about them. Those who still remember the Rust Belt Wars don’t want to talk about it; and most people grew up in a world where this was unknown to them. All they know about the new country is that it’s a bad place, ruled by bad people. You know the truth, I know the truth, but until the rest of the country does there’s no dream to fight for.”
Eugene sighed. “That’s what you mean when you say they can’t win. Still, I’m sympathetic to their effort. I just don’t want to be used by them.”
“Good! I’m glad to hear you say that or you’d be in even bigger trouble.”
“Professor, if the dream of a better world is dead, what should they be doing?”