Chapter 19 – The Killer of a Thousand Men
Lieutenant Grey, whom Kaz had tried to shoot in the back of the head, waved to the security panel at the servant’s entrance of his father's stately home. The multi-winged domicile hadn’t been home to any sort of family during David’s lifetime, though he had grown up there.
He silently moved through the house, encountered no one and reached a small door in the basement. David unlocked the knob with a solitary key from his pocket and twisted it open. He entered the pitch-black room and closed the door again behind him, locking the dead bolt.
In the darkness, he made his way over to the edge of a cot and sat down. He didn't turn on the lights. He just sat there quietly in the dark. Years ago, in this makeshift childhood bunker, he and his closest friends had organized missions, planned recon ops and raids, and unanimously decided they would become soldiers.
David's father, a senator, spent most of his time away from his home state. After a bitter custody battle, his non-citizen mother returned to her homeland, somewhere in Europe. David was three, he never saw her again.
The senator had been married at least once before and a few times since. David suspected the man remembered his mother, Aurelia, more often and more fondly than his offspring by her.
David knew of three older brothers and sisters living in Connecticut, from his father's first marriage. He'd once met a brother from New York named Douglas, but didn't know if it was he or Douglas that were older.
David had learned of his siblings during a period of self-discovery when he found himself obsessed with hundreds of news stories about his father. After seeing the pictures of his father, with siblings he'd never met, David refused to be photographed with the man ever again.
Tutors and instructors had run David's early life. The estate employed housekeepers, grounds keepers, nannies and security staff; satisfying the relatively un-enforced legal requirements of supervision during his younger years.
Once he'd entered school, the teachers vaguely knew him as the senator's son. He seemed to be a generally well-adjusted boy, so the circumstances concerning his home life rarely came up. No one saw fit to make any suggestions. After all, he was a senator's son, and if it ain't broke, stay off the grass.
Years ago, David would occasionally wake to discover the estate overrun by his father's staff. He would slip through the halls, looking for a glimpse of the man he knew only from news photos. When encountering him, he was always struck by how much older he looked than when they'd last spoken.
In addition to the political ambitions of his father, David's grandfather had served as a senator and even held a term as chief executive. David presumed his father's childhood might have been similar to his own.
Participating in sports and other extracurricular activities, David gave the impression that his home life was perfectly comfortable and fulfilling. He saw no reason behave otherwise. He would not complain; he was a senator's son.
As he got older he avoided the staff and the senator as much as possible. When they arrived, he vanished. By ninth grade, David had mastered the art of stealth. He could go for days without encountering any of the estate staff.
On more than one occasion, the senator mistook David for one of his aides and directed him in some tedious task. David always agreed and nodded, only to immediately vanish again.
All through high school he had kept himself busy. He wondered what would happen when he graduated. He had thought it possible his father might forget him entirely. He might become a prisoner of the estate, unable to leave without a state issued citizenship identity card.
Considered temporary citizens during childhood, young adults of the republic must apply to have their citizenship ratified by the state upon reaching the age of eighteen.
As he neared his June birthday, the staff began delivering letters addressed to David from his father's office. The correspondence informed David that one of the senator's most-trusted constituents would handle his sponsorship. The summer session was in full swing and the senator couldn't leave Washington just now.
David was amazed by whichever secretary had remembered and scheduled the appointment. He waited at the application hall the entire day. The sponsor's secretary called late in the afternoon to reschedule for the next day.
The late afternoon rescheduling went on for an entire week. David suspected his father's relationship with this particular constituent might be a little strained. He could sympathize with that.
David himself showed up promptly at eight am every morning, as agreed. He sat on a bench across the street from the induction hall and watched his classmates enter.
The weather that week was rather pleasant.
David read books and ate at a nearby cafe.
Every other day, a street vendor who would show up around lunchtime; selling steaks and chicken hot and sizzling from his rolling grill, which beat the cafe's cakes and muffins by miles.
David watched the park personnel trim hedges and rake leaves.
He could wait.
David had mastered the art of waiting and considered this skill foremost among his unique talents. Most people grew hostile whenever forced to wait more than a few minutes. David could do nothing for hours.
One evening, as a young man of twelve or thirteen, he'd spent three hours behind a chair in his father's study, less than five feet away from the man. His father never knew and David told no one. He considered that evening his masterpiece. If he never spoke of it, it would remain flawless and perfect. He knew, if he ever bragged of it, if he told anyone, the magic feeling of those few hours would be dead to him.
He hadn't called his father's office to report the sponsor-citizen's absence. David knew politics was a game. In this circumstance, he knew he played the part of a pawn. If it bothered him, no one would ever hear about it. He just continued waiting.
While waiting he pondered many facets of the society he inhabited.
It seemed that everyone believed the Republic hovered on the verge of collapse, for well over a century now. People felt that anything could spell disaster, The End.
Mankind had eradicated disease, tamed fire and electricity, socialized labor and silenced dissent. If the world were collapsing, the only likely culprit was man himself.
David didn't see crisis.
He saw exploitation. The people lived in fear, very real fear, because their leadership insisted on robbing them blind and threatened all protestors with a charge of treason.
David happily watched society decay right before his eyes. He hoped to get an opportunity to give it a nudge or two toward the edge.
A pretty girl walked by and smiled at David. He smiled back.
His mind wandered and he let it go, fascinated by its sheer force of will to keep thinking useless thoughts.
A man tossed a plastic bottle in a recycling bin. David wondered if, say, a plastic toy, worn out and tossed in a recycling bin, ever became another object that the same person encountered again, later in another form, maybe as a bottle. The possibility fascinated him.
Eventually his mind returned to the citizen who'd consigned him to a park bench.
The third day he brought a notebook and a pen.
After an hour of waiting, he wrote.
Ten years later, in his father's basement, David reached up to the shelf of military command manuals. Without looking for it, he found the tattered notebook. He turned on a soft, dim lamp and opened the first page.
The Problem of Citizenship
An essay on our political system
By David Grey
June 17, 2300
I am eighteen. My father is a senator. I am sitting here waiting to become a citizen, which is something I am not even sure I want to be. I have nothing but contempt for this society and its citizens. What does the word even mean, citizenship?
They say only citizens are truly free.
Really?
Free to do what?
This is what I know, some of
it could be wrong, but here it is; my brief history of the Republic.
Fleeing from aristocratic tyrants in Europe, my ancestors inherited this land after infecting and decimating its native people with war, famine, pestilence, and death.
We farmed and built a nation on the backs of slave labor.
We had a civil war, a gold rush, an industrial revolution, two world wars, and a civil rights movement, (instead of another civil war), followed by three centuries of imperial dominance; including wars fought over drugs, oil and religious fanaticism.
However, our biggest winning front was the wars fought with lawyers and banks, for, by and with money. After all, business is war. Starvation is a sufficient non-violent weapon. As Sun Tzu said, the best generals win without firing a shot. They hold the entire world under siege.
In the late 2090's, the world population topped ten billion. Greed bred poverty and crime. Murder rates reached an all time high. There wasn't enough room, food or blankets to go around.
America choked on tired, poor, and hungry huddled masses, drowning in filth and on the brink of collapse. Riots and looting had become rampant; the police had been spread too thin for too long.
The democratic-republican government, driven by a capitalist economy, became unstable and unsustainable. If it continued, the country would have become a failed state.
They couldn't let that happen.
The legislature presented a solution. If the people wanted health care and other basic human rights and services, they would be required to give.
Citizenship Required Sacrifice, two years, in most cases. The seventy-third through the ninety-second amendments to the constitution, commonly known as 'The Citizen's Equality Act' inverted citizenship and recreated the country.
This one act of legislation, composed in three parts and over seventeen hundred pages, laid out the foundation for The Gates of Citizenship.
Amendment eighty-three pertained to the office of the President, declaring it an appointed, not elected, position. Eighty-eight and eighty-nine laid out new laws pertaining to registered churches and charitable foundations. Ninety through ninety-three created new federal restrictions to States powers.
But, first and foremost, the seventy-third amendment stated that birth on American soil did not guarantee citizenship. The equality act declared that the privilege and honor of citizenship must be earned.
First one must graduate childhood. Applicants for citizenship must be eighteen years of age. They must be healthy, educated and accompanied by an adult sponsor, an accredited Citizen of the Republic. If approved, after the tests and interviews, the applicant must choose a sacrifice to the state.
According to amendment seventy-four, the sacrifice, or Affirmation of Allegiance, could be made in one of three ways: land, currency, or service. That being, one acre of municipal land, its equivalent in currency, or two years public service. The suggested value of one municipal acre is around a million talents. No one could ever hope to earn that much doing two years of menial chores for the state.
Most applicants choose public service. The two years could be served in either the national defense forces or humanitarian social services. One could also opt for the officers, or executive courses, but the requirements were higher and the term of duty longer. In return for the extended service, the applicant is promised advancement through the gates of citizenship at an accelerated rate, providing he or she doesn’t washout somewhere along the way.
Each successive gate of citizenship requires further sacrifice, but also awards additional rights. As the propaganda so clearly explains; Citizenship Requires Sacrifice. I sit here staring up at the six-foot letters, carved in granite, hanging over the gates of Angel City induction hall in district one.
C I T I Z E N S H I P R E Q U I R E S S A C R I F I C E
Enlistment terms are broken up into two categories, national defense or social service. This is said to be the last real choice a citizen ever makes.
National defense, the military and law enforcement branches, guns and rockets of all sizes, jets, helicopters, tanks, long-range satellite guided roaming missile squadrons. The alternative is the social service, medical, health, convalescent care, veterinarians and dental technicians.
Most citizens serve their enlistment, graduate to second gate and attend university. The gates are a series of grades or levels. Each gate requires different sacrifices from the applicant and is awarded in the form of a key and an updated republic ID.
With each gate of citizenship, additional rights are earned. First gate citizens have the right to emergency health care, subsistence rations, secondary education and the right to a hearing in a court of law if accused of a crime.
A second gate citizen with decent high school grades and two years honorable service can pretty much get into any college they want. They can get married and can appeal a case decided against them in a court of law.
Third gate citizens can purchase land and serve on public committees.
Fourth gate citizens can go into business and run for office.
Fifth gates can form corporations, hold governorships, chair public committees and serve as municipal judges.
Sixth gates can hold senate and congressional seats, chair ambassadorships to other nations and sit on the bench at the state level. State governors can commission and develop new cities and districts, as well as reform or close existing ones down, a god-like power over entire metropolitan areas.
Seventh Gates often hold numerous chief executive positions and occasionally serve on the Supreme Court. Among the masses, seventh gates are the first men of the republic and are largely believed to be responsible for over two thirds of the worlds’ health, wealth and welfare.
The prerequisite for the eighth gate is that the citizen be nominated and inaugurated as the federal chief executive officer.
A government is chiefly concerned with its own survival. The Nation is a business, a monopoly on protecting the country. When one Chief Executive steps down, another is nominated to take his place.
There are only a handful of ninth gate citizens. Occasionally their names are tattooed to the flagstone of a new building.
Tenth Gate Citizens are unseen, unknown, a myth.
When I go inside to my induction ceremony, there will be five rituals to undergo. First, a six-question placement test, then the pledge, my choice of sacrifice, fourth, witnessing of a trial, and last, the practical exam.
The six questions as I've heard them are,
Do you believe in…
1), the freedom of speech?
2), the freedom of religion?
3), the right to bear arms?
4), the right to work and earn capital?
5), the right to own property
6), the right to self-defense and the defense of national security?
A No in response to any of the above questions disqualifies the applicant for citizenship.
Next, the loyalty pledge is straight forward enough.
Please raise your right hand.
Do you pledge and affirm by your oath, all fealty, loyalty, homage and obedience to the Democratic Republic of the United States of America?
The applicant, supplicant, (bitch), replies…
I do affirm, by my oath, all fealty, loyalty, homage and obedience to the Democratic Republic of the United States of America.
And that’s it. You are now officially a Citizen of these here United States. You can fuck off the whole next part. Your sponsor is out, his obligation is satisfied and you are now, from this moment forward, subject to the laws and hierarchy of the Republic.
Some people, do in fact, screw up every moment from that point forward. Their sponsor is off the hook. He’s only responsible for you while you are in the Republic’s building. He’s there for liability issues, literally. In case you should slip and crack your head open After you start the process, but Before you complete it. That is literally all he is there for. If you are a parent, this is the mo
ment you are legally no longer responsible for your child. As a citizen you are a voluntary adult ward of the court. And in this world on anti-gravity cables and cars that pilot magnetic currents in the sky, it would be appropriate to say, as I have often heard it said, All roads lead to court.
If you’re still with the program, and hey, let’s go if just for the ride…
The choice of sacrifice is the third step of the application process. If I choose to become a citizen, I must choose time in the military or the medical ward; inflicting wounds or dressing them. You don’t get to choose what unit you are assigned to. You just took an oath of obedience. The choice you are getting here is a convenience, where in consideration of those involved makes it easier for everyone.
Then comes the trial and the practical. All new citizens are required to participate in the legal process. They must deliver a verdict in a capital case and then commute or execute the sentence.
They must either personally execute a convicted criminal or reduce the sentence to life in a labor camp. This is the applicant's final test. It becomes a permanent part of their permanent record.
In the Social Services Department, the death penalty is frowned upon. Citizens who chose to execute a prisoner don't usually do well in the SSD.
Also, as one might expect, soldiers who pardon a traitor or murderer often find themselves isolated in their new environment as well.
The issue of the death penalty separates our society more than sex, affluence, religion or intellect. One could say it’s a test of intellect, in fact, many do. It is also a test of will and composure under pressure. Half of those who undergo the practical exam choose to execute a person they have never met, seen or even heard about.
At eighteen years old, the Democratic Republic of the United States, sets one half of itself at odds with the other half, in perpetuity, ad infinitum.
Fifty percent is divisive to say the least. Let’s not forget, the citizens who do execute a convicted criminal are awarded a thousand talent executioner's fee. If I choose to become a citizen, I must choose to grant someone a life of pain and suffering or end them forever.
It feels like such a trap. Society is like a casino. If you play, you play by their rules. Their rules say you are going to lose.
I don’t want to be cynical, but what kind of game is that?
But I have an idea. Wait till they get a load of me.
In the storage room, in the basement, David set down the notebook and recalled the day his sponsor, a fourth gate citizen, finally arrived, late in the afternoon on Friday. David didn't complain about the four previous days he'd spent waiting. He was sure the man's bold act of protest would end up hurting him more in the long run. You don’t keep a Senator’s son waiting for a week by accident.
David’s father was a powerful man and those who routinely insult their superiors eventually find someone willing to indulge their self-destructive desires.
David presented his application. He qualified for the officer candidates’ commitment and picked foreign military service as his preferred term of service.
The republic accepted his application and he was sworn in. His sponsor's work done, they silently shook hands and parted company. David watched the man go, feeling a deep sense of pity for him. So many seemed ill-suited for their destiny.
David and the other new citizens were ushered into a large orientation amphitheater. After a short speech, they were issued their new Republic ID's and corralled into the nearby judicial branch. There they participated in a capital case, served on a jury and delivered a verdict.
After that came the Practical Exam that everyone was so obsessed with. The summary courts building served as a massive storage and processing area between the courthouse and the designated prison, or just as likely, the morgue.
Eighteen and old enough to balance life and death, the practical exam could not be avoided, postponed or escaped, (short of physically fleeing the entire ritual, which was simple enough, several had done it. On the surface, the practical had been designed to illustrate the core principles of integrity, honor and self-determination. Interpretation of the results was what really mattered.
David suspected that in reality, it was the young citizen's composure that mattered most, regardless of the choice. The lives of the convicted meant nothing and applicants who crumbled under stress couldn't be counted on, not on the battlefield, nor in the emergency room.
At the reception counter, a battle-scarred veteran greeted David's group. He explained the finer points of handgun safety. He pointed out the weapon’s safety, trigger lock, and explained that the modern pistol would fire 1024 rounds of case-less ammunition on a single magazine.
"That's a lot of bad guys," he laughed, doing his best to keep the feeling light. David thought it just made him seem insensitive.
The basics explained, the vet grew serious as he issued weapons to the new citizens. He encouraged them vote their conscience and dispense justice or mercy, as they saw fit.
Restrained in large cylindrical one-man-prisons, the convicted waited patiently. Frosted panels revealed only the head and shoulders of the condemned, so they might be engaged in final arguments, their last chance to plea for mercy and their lives.
What the opaque fiber-weave tubes lack in dignity, they make up for in efficiency. Plugged into an intravenous chemical diet and strapped into a humiliating waste removal unit, the convicts wait. Their hands and legs immobilized, only their minds are free to wander. They wait and watch as their neighbors are either shot or sent to the labor farms.
Some new citizens offer polite cross examination, but most have their minds made up long before arriving at this point in time. The citizens serving the social service department immediately offer the first criminals encountered life sentence in a labor camp. The criminals thank them profusely.
When confronted by a young citizen bound for the military, all that is usually offered is a final moment for last words. The convicted may plead, some even struggle, but none have escaped the tube, except through clemency.
The odds are well known: fifty-fifty, an even split, life or death. The labor farms lay scattered across the mid-west. Some try their hand at escape and more than a couple make it. Mercy Is, after all.
That day, David Alexander Grey executed over a thousand condemned criminals. The weapon they issued him held one thousand seven rounds, seventeen having been fired since the weapon’s last reload and servicing.
David calmly shot one thousand, seven criminals in the face. He lost count early on. Once he started, he just kept moving until the gun failed. He didn’t get emotional. He just moved and fired, moved and fired. Some of the criminals freaked out. They screamed and yelled at him, he was murderer, worse than any of them.
David stepped up, slid his ID through the panel and pulled the trigger. Again, again, again. His composure remained flawless. He never winced, blinked or flinched. He didn’t smile or frown. He kept firing until the gun was empty, until it ran out of bullets. He didn’t enjoy it but neither was he terrified. His id displayed his growing account balance with each new execution. No one stopped him. Only the weapon betrayed him, in the end. He laughed at the irony.
Now David had a new ninja masterpiece. This eclipsed the secret hours of his life in so many ways. For one, it was not a secret. His hatred for the world had been exposed: to be judged and sentenced. Who would question him, arrest him? After all, he was now out of bullets.
David returned to the armory. The gun coach at the counter took the weapon from him. He didn’t offer to reload it; he simply took it and backed away. David turned from the counter and walked to the exit.
He’d discovered something else that was rather profound that day. He discovered he was free to be silent in public. This was different than remaining silent and unseen. This was just as powerful, but in an inverted sort of way. In most cases, some explanation of exposition was called for, but not always. As in the case of the prisoners; many of them had asked him que
stions, but he had not replied. He was not required to. Courtesy and obligation were different, but in both cases, everything depended on inner stillness.
While David was killing, people started talking about it. Before he returned the weapon, a small crowd had formed outside the hall. News reporters had been called and arrived, cameras rolling.
No one had ever done anything like this before
Just before David exited, a member of the reporter’s crew came out of the hall, "One thousand, seven! One thousand, seven! The most anyone has ever done was thirty-four, and that was in Jersey. It's a new record all right!”
A couple minutes later David stepped out to a sea of blank faces. They all just stared at him. A stunningly beautiful chestnut-haired reporter, just a few years older than himself, was at the front of the knot of live-stream journalists. They stared at him with shock and horror.
David looked down at his chest and arms. Light red spots had long ago given over to dark red stains and lighter, wet blood splattered atop it. The wind shifted and the stink of death washed from David and spread out over the crowd. They recoiled as if of one mind. The pretty reporter took two steps backward.
David caught his reflection in a nearby window. He smiled at himself, but refrained from the thumbs-up. The thought did make him chuckle, however, and that was every bit as damning as if he’d coming out chewing on a baby’s skull.
The reporter steeled herself and advanced.
The first thing David noticed were the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. She’d tried to cover them up with foundation. He wanted to ask her why, but the rose-pink of her lips distracted him and then she spoke.
"Sir, excuse me, Sir." Her voice rang of condescension, accusation and judgment, and to be fair, he was covered in gore.
"Yes," David answered.
“What's your name, citizen?" she asked.
"David Grey.”
"Mr. Grey, during your practical, did you… Did you… What did you do?”
“The food we eat should not be harvested by slaves, by prisoners.“
The reporter stalled.
“Also, I think it should be illegal for me to kill a thousand people in one day. Don’t you?" David smiled.
The reporter just stared at him, utterly befuddled, dumbfounded.
“Where are the authorities? Who will arrest me?
“No one?
“What will you do with me?
“Who will cast a stone? You should at least, try me for murder and put me in one of those tubes. No?
“No. They gave me a million talents instead. How’s that for irony?”
“What are you saying?” she asked, shocked. “Did you just kill a thousand people to make some kind of political statement?”
“Do you think anything will change?”
David turned and walked twenty feet to the nearby fountain. No one made any move to stop him. He rinsed the thickest red from his arms and face, but his shirt was a lost cause.
No one obstructed him in his next task either; visiting a nearby shopping center and replacing his soiled articles with clean and fresh pieces. His ride home on public transport drew horrified stares and terrified glances. His hair was still thick with red, his hairline especially. His skin still wet with blood, that became pink-wet as he sweat on the June evening, and ran off in butcher’s rivulets. His new clothes became stained before he got home.
He arrived after dark, naturally approaching from the back of the house, his unseen ninja path into the estate. The lordly manor was outfitted with the best surveillance system, but every system has holes. David was rarely picked up on any of the cameras if he could avoid it.
He arrived at the back door, opening to the anteroom between the vacant study and the second kitchen. Across the patio, the self-sustaining greenhouse reflected the night sky. David looked up at the stars for a moment.
The cosmos; dazzling in its brilliance, the great S shape of the twinkling suns, the Milky Way galaxy, winking at humanity over the vast ocean of space.
The fresh air, after his brisk walk, felt both relaxing and invigorating, cooling his face, neck and shoulders.
Then his gaze fell to his own reflection in the glass wall.
He was something to behold. For a moment, he did not recognize himself. His skin looked dead-white pale, under the crimson death-tint that had washed over him.
This time he did not smile.
He had been caught unaware, and for the first time, he knew, he had finally seen himself. This was his true visage. This is where his self-interest had led him.
Perhaps they would change the law, but that could never change who he was now, not in this lifetime. The blood might wash off, but not really, not ever.
David took a deep breath
Later, the shower ran red for almost ten minutes.
After he was finished with them, the towels had a deep pink shade.
The next morning new towels still came back pink, though he hadn’t detected any more red in the shower, as he’d left the lights off.
The weapon, having been returned, as they all were, went up on the wall over the instructor’s counter. The metal plate on the small plaque bore only one word, KILO.
The next day the senate drafted and passed legislation, restricting citizens to one executioner's fee period, not one per executed criminal. Grey’s performance assured copycat attempts. When the treasury was threatened, lawmakers were swift to act.
Years later, the pistol was tracked down by some colleagues and presented to David, a farewell gift from friends as he transferred units. It had been cleaned, oiled and officially registered as his personal sidearm. David was touched. Over the intervening years, he'd formed an attachment to the gun like nothing else in his life.
Now, on a temporary assignment between deployments, he'd handed the weapon over to some rioting high school student.
David set the notebook on the floor. If he was going to ask for help from anyone, he needed to retrieve his badge and weapon first.