Babylon and Utopia Ch. 1

Between Babylon and Utopia: Chapter 1

By: George Chijioke

 

            I remember those days. Just six years prior, the United States military had seized control of the country in a coup d’etat, they argued that “terrorists” had taken over the country. The deposed president, his entire family, and his entire cabinet were executed. My Dad and I were watching Traitor Watch, a TV program aired by the Regime every week in which they exposed their enemies. I was only fifteen. General Arn Collins, the Secretary of Information, gave a speech naming off various “traitors” and “enemies of the state.” That week, they were talking about Maurice Bradshaw, a former army commander who had defected to Liberty Underground and had become the organization’s supreme commander.

            “Maurice Bradshaw has been stripped of all military honors,” General Collins said. “You all know how we deal with the traitors. It’s nothing but the gun.”

He continued, “Such men don’t deserve to live.”

            “Death to the traitors!” The entire audience present shouted.

Liberty Underground was the primary organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Regime. They had taken over the entire Western part of the United States and created their own sovereign government.

            “I hope they catch that son of a b***h,” he said.

            “Yea,” I replied, “Me too.”

            My Dad was a fanatic supporter of the regime. Like so many of his narrow-minded countrymen, he believed that the regime was trying to “save” America from “the enemy.” The enemy could have been anything: Liberty Underground, some foreign country, anything.

            I, however, understood that there was something seriously wrong with our country. I noticed the “disappearances”; I noticed how the Regime ruled merely through fear and terror. I never expressed any of this around my Dad. I couldn’t trust him. I had heard stories about parents reporting even their own children to the FBI if they made any negative remark, and vice versa, if they said anything about the regime. When I was eighteen, a close friend of mine from school, when I was at his house, simply told his Mom that he wondered what life was like on the “other side.” I never saw him again. When I called his house, his mom told me that he had gone to live with his father, I knew it was bullshit. In fact, most young people who were old enough remember life before the Regime took over, weren’t comfortable with the regime.

The program continued, naming more traitors. Kevin Thorne, who was the leader and founder of Liberty Underground, was frequently named. He was probably on every single episode. He was a stocky, White man, with jet black hair and a scruffy beard. He wore an eye patch. He lost his left eye when the regime bombed his barracks. As far as the Regime was concerned, he was Satan himself, the face of evil. Whenever his name was mentioned, it was in disgust.

“Thorne and his forces have taken more territory,” the Collins said. “Such humiliation shall not be tolerated.”

Suddenly, there was a thunderous applause. There were shouts of “Yea!” and “That’s right!”

He continued, “The Leader has decreed that anyone who retreats from or surrenders to the enemy will be executed on the spot.”

 

            America was split into two countries: the areas owned by the Regime, which were the South and the East Coast; and the areas owned by Liberty Underground, everywhere else excluding Alaska, also known as ”the other side.” Very few people knew what life was like on the other side, since most people who escape there never return; either because they died trying to escape, or they made it and lost contact with their loved ones in the other half of the United States.

My Dad and I had lived in the area controlled by the Regime, so all I knew was life in the regime, and it was hell. Anyone who said or did anything that was perceived as a threat to the regime, just “disappeared”, just like my friend. I remember this one guy who lived down the street, and one winter he complained about the government taking too long to plow the streets after a bad snowstorm. He was having a conversation with another neighbor.

“Where the f**k are the plow trucks?” He asked. “How the hell are we supposed to go to work?”

I’m assuming the man he was talking to was a spy because by the next day, nobody on our street saw or heard from the guy again. That was when people began to realize that the government had spies in our neighborhood. Nobody said anything about it, but we were all conscious of it. You had to watch what you said. That was life in under the regime.

 

Finally, as I became more politically conscious by my late teens, while I was in college, I saw the Regime for what it was. We had become slaves, living in constant fear. The so-called enemy wasn’t some distant threat; the “enemy” was the regime. It was an enemy to free will, reason, morality, and rationality. I had grown tired of living within such a place, and a growing number of Americans felt the same I suppose; I’d heard through the grapevine that the resistance had secret cells within regime-held America.

I was coming back from a class one day, walking through campus, when I saw a guy in sunglasses and a camouflage jacket. He nodded at me, I nodded back. He was walking down the central walkway when he dropped something. I walked over to see what it was; it looked like some sort of tract. I called him.

“Hey!” I shouted. “You dropped something!”

The man kept on walking. I thought it was weird. I mean, he didn’t even acknowledge me, or the fact that he dropped the tract. “Forget it,” I thought to myself. I walked over to a trashcan to throw it away, but then, out of curiosity, I decided to see what it was about. On the front, it said “What We Must Do? Written By: LU Literary Committee.” I thought about it. “LU?” That could only stand for Liberty Underground. I had heard enough about them, and I hated the regime enough to want to know what they were really about. Whoever that guy was, he was taking a huge risk walking around with that kind of s**t. Even being caught with this kind of literature was grounds for disappearing.

I put the tract in my pocket, walked to where I had parked my car, and drove home. On my way home, I thought about the tract. I wondered what was in it. When I got home, I saw my Dad sitting on the couch. He was watching the news.

“Dave,” he said. “How was school?”

“Hey Dad,” I replied. “School was fine.”

I tried my best to keep the conversation short. I went right upstairs to my bedroom, laid down on my bed, and I read the tract. I opened it up, and I wasn’t ready for anything I was about to read. It answered questions that I had about how society should be run, what type of economy we should have, the types of social relationships people should have. It explained how the Regime had affected all of us. It had made us suspicious of each other.

Whereas once there was common brotherhood between all of us there was now hostility and mistrust. Husband against wife, parent against child, brother against brother, sister against sister, friend against friend; the Regime knew no limits, and it sought to spread its venomous tentacles all over society. Laws were written only to benefit the elite of society, whereas the poor were expected to stay in line and keep quiet. People had no participation in the political process, and they were basically told to just pay taxes and otherwise stay in line, or else. The country had become a massive, bureaucratic police state in which the state was a God-like entity with no oversight.

Liberty Underground advocated for a society in which humans lived in harmony with one another. No racism, sexism, sectarianism, or any form of division and hierarchy. They also wanted to get rid of money, and replace it with a concept of mutual aid, meaning that people did things for each other because it benefitted society as a whole, not out of financial gain. Liberty Underground was also anti-state. They believed that government was unnecessary, and that its only purpose was to “enslave and oppress.” These were all good ideas, but it sounded more like a utopia.

“This sounds like bullshit,” I thought to myself. “How the hell is a place like this ever going to exist?”

Then, once I had reached the last page, it told me to show up at a certain address.

I stared at the pamphlet for a little while longer before I heard my dad’s footsteps up the stairs. I quickly threw the pamphlet under the bed and rose up from my bed. Just then, he opens the door.

“Everything alright kiddo?” He asked.

“Yea,” I replied, “Everything’s fine. Just finishing some assignments.”

“Son,” he said. “I just want you to remember one thing.”

“Yea?” I asked, sheepishly.

“I love you, but most importantly, this country loves you.”

“Okay,” I simply replied. My dad said weird things like that. He was so brainwashed that he tied “the country” to everything he did and said. The guy scared the s**t out of me. Not only did his insane devotion to the regime scare me, but I was actually afraid of telling him how I really felt about the regime. Surviving this dreadful place was more important.

            He went to bed. As soon as he went to bed, I reached under my bed and continued reading the tract. When I got done, I checked out the address on the back.

            “100 Willow Ave…”

            I turned off my lights, locked my door, and grabbed the fire escape ladder in my closet. Hoping my Dad couldn’t hear me, I opened the window, hooked the ladder on the sill outside, closed the window from the outside, climbed down, and then I pressed the button to close the ladder.

            I got in my car. I turned on the GPS on my phone and I started heading to the meeting spot. It was in the city, as I was driving there, I had to pass a security checkpoint. Luckily, there was a lot of traffic ahead of me. There were two large armored trucks parked on each side, and in the middle were two big men in battle uniform holding M-16s. As I was approaching them, I remembered I had the tract on me.

            “F**k!” I thought to myself. I pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park. I began scurrying, trying to find it. I would frequently check the point to see if the guards were looking. Luckily, they didn’t notice me. I finally found it under the seat, and I tore it up and threw it in trash outside. I went back into my car, turned on the ignition, and rejoined traffic. As I approached the checkpoint, the two guards walked in front of my car. It took everything in me not to run them over and keep going. They approached me, one was short and stocky and the other one was tall and muscular. The stocky one knocked on my window.

            “Where you headed tonight kid?” He asked, in a condescending tone.

            “To a friend’s house.”

            “A friend’s house?” The tall one asked. “At this time of the night?”

            “Yea,” I said, “Is something wrong?”

            “Let me see some ID kid,” the stocky one said.

            As I was reaching in my pocket to show them my drivers’ license, they continued talking to me.

            “You workin’ with the traitors?” The tall one asked.

            “No,” I said, “Just going to my friends house.”

            “Sure you are,” the stocky one said, sarcastically. “Step out of the vehicle.”

            “For?”

            “This ain’t Jeopardy, boy,” he replied. “Step out of the vehicle, before we arrest you for insubordination!”

            I got out of the vehicle. They searched my car, opening my glove box, pulling back my seats, ransacking everything. This is what we had to deal with everyday. The police were pretty much allowed to do whatever they wanted. They could’ve arrested me right then and there, or worse. They don’t need any evidence, they have power. For any reason, any reason, they’d throw you in jail. Everyone, as far as they were concerned, was working with the “traitors.”

            “Kid’s clean,” the tall one said.

            “Yep,” the stocky one said, “Alright, kid. Go on out of here, stay out of trouble.”

            “A******s,” I thought to myself. I nodded at them, they nodded back. I started my car, and continued to go my way.

           

Once I arrived at the address, I parked my car in front of it. It was an old, abandoned single house. There was an SUV parked outside. I’d be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t scared shitless, it was in a really sketchy neighborhood too. I mean, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I gently knocked on the door. Suddenly, the door opened. I couldn’t see the face, but an arm reached out and grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me in.

I was thrown on the ground. The entire room was pitch dark. I struggled to break free but then several more people came out and held me down. I didn’t have a chance.

“That b*****d from school!” I thought, thinking about the man in the sunglasses, “He set me up! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him!” I thought these guys, including the guy from school, were crooks trying to rob or kill me. Or worse: agents of the Regime setting up and arresting would-be traitors. I thought I was about to disappear.

            “Hey,” I shouted at them, “What the f**k is this?”

            There was silence. Suddenly, I heard footsteps. I heard a man’s voice. It was a thick, Caribbean accent, probably Jamaican. He held his flashlight in my face, I could see his face as well, and he was a big man. He was wearing a ski mask, they all were.

            “What’s ya name, youth-man?” He asked.

            “Dave!” I replied, scared for my life.

            “Dee-ave?” He asked, in his thick accent. “Who sent you ‘ere?”

            “I don’t know,” I replied. “Guy in a camo jacket, sunglasses, I met him at my school.”

            I continued, “Look, I don’t work for the Regime. I want to�"“

            “Shut ya’ bumbaclaat tongue!” He shouted. “Ey you, come ‘ere! You, come ‘ere! Search him.”

            They began reaching into my pockets. They pulled out my wallet, my car keys, my phone, everything. I kind of wished I had had that tract to prove that I was for real.

“Guy in sunglasses?” He asked. “Which guy in sunglasses?

“I told you,” I said, “I didn’t know him!”

The Caribbean man took my phone and turned it on. He pulled out his pistol and put it to my head. Now I was really scared.

“What’s ya’ bloodclaat passcode, youth-man?”

“6652!”

He hands the phone to one of the men, who put in the code.

“Search him contacts, messages,” he said. “Everyting!”

            “Go ahead,” I replied, “I have nothing to hide! I swear!”

            “Listen ‘ere, Dee-ave,” He said. “If we find out ya’ lyin, I blow ya’ f****n’ head off! Ya understand!”

            I nodded my head.

            “Everything’s clean,” the man searching my phone said. “He’s not a spy. We didn’t find any wires on him either.”

            The Caribbean man simply nodded his head. He looked me in the eyes, and sighed. He stood up and turned off his flashlight.

            “Turn on the light,” he said.

            There was light. I saw that there were four men, including the Caribbean man, in the room.

            “The kid seems for real,” one of the men said.

            “No kiddin,” the Caribbean man said. “Gwaan, pick him up.”

            The men grabbed me and sat me down on the couch. It was an old, dirty couch with holes in it. The back rest was leaning back, as if it was about to snap.

            “Sorry ‘bout dat,” the Caribbean man said. “It’s a safety precaution we have to take. Babylon got spies all ova dis bloodclaat, we nevah know when we run into one.”

            “I understand,” I replied. Luckily, his Patois wasn’t too hard to understand.

            “Whoever sent you ‘ere,” he said, “Dey would’ve nevah given you the real address, so he sent you ‘ere to be searched.”

            He continued, “Places like this all ova da city.”

“That’s smart,” I replied. “So what happens after this?”

“We escort you dere ourselves,” he said.

“Sorry, can I get your names?” I asked.

            “Haha,” he laughed, “Call me Paul! Da rest don’t got no names.”

He continued, “So Dee-ave, he said, what brings you ‘ere? Tired of Babylon?”

            “Who’s Babylon?”

            “Haha,” Paul laughed, “That’s the bloodclaad Regime! We all hate dem. We call dem Babylon ‘cause dey’re corrupt, dey’re evil; dey oppressin’ da people!”

             I nodded right along with him. Paul seemed like a really nice guy and it helped me loosen up. Especially since he damn near wanted to kill me a few minutes before.

            “Yea,” I said. “I hate ‘em.”

            “We want to build a new society,” he replied. “Overthrow dis evil s**t-stem. You should know, dis life, vee-ery dangerous. You sure you ready?”

            “I’m ready.”

            “Den it’s done,” he said, “I drive you down dere meself. Da rest of you, stay ‘ere. We not takin anyone else, if anyone knock don’t answer.”

            They all nodded. Paul and I went outside to his SUV and we began driving to the meeting place. It was deep in the city, and he took a special route in order to avoid having to pass through any checkpoints. Neither of us spoke for the entire car ride. I was still kind of shaken up from the search, and I guess he understood that and didn’t want to say anything to me. We pull up to the meeting place. It appeared to be a restaurant, but the restaurant was really a front.

            “Dis is it,” Paul said. “I have to go back to da house. I can’t come back ‘ere so I’ll arrange another way for you to get back to da house.”

            “Thanks Paul,” I replied.

            “Oh yea Dee-ave,” he said. “Sorry ‘bout earlier. Like I said, it was a safety precaution.”

            “I completely understand.”

            “When you go in dere,” he said, “Tell dem you want to speak to da man in charge. It’s a code.”

            We nodded at each other. I stepped out of the SUV and Paul drove off. I went in through the main entrance, there were people eating food. One of the “associates” came up to me.

            “Hi sir,” he said, with a smile. “How are you doing?”

            “I wanted to speak to the man in charge.”

            His smile turned to a serious look. He nodded, and began smiling again.

            “Right this way please.”

            I followed him all the way to the back of the restaurant. He went to a door, put in a code, and opened it. There was a staircase.

            “He’s right down there!” He said, with a smile.

            “Thank you.”

            I began walking down the stairs. I took a deep breath and continued walking. I knocked on the door. It sounded like someone was giving a speech. Suddenly, the door opened. I walked in. The person giving the speech was the same guy I saw at school. You know, the guy in the sunglasses and camouflage jacket that dropped the tract on the floor. Except, of course, he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, he was wearing the jacket though. It was how I was able to recognize him.

            The usher, if I could call her that, was a tall, tan, brunette woman. She was very beautiful. I mean, she was gorgeous. She had these big, piercing, hazel eyes. She was very friendly too.

            “Welcome to the club,” she whispered, with a beautiful white smile. “Please, take a seat.

            “Thank you.”

            I went to the back and I sat down. The room in question was a small place, about the size of an average living room. There was junk all over the place. There were about five rows of chairs, and most of them were empty. Including the usher, the speaker, and myself, there were only about six people in the room. Maybe that’s how they preferred it. I don’t know. These guys seemed very cautious. Between the search, using the restaurant as a front, and keeping a low profile by keeping their membership small, I was impressed by their cleverness. The speaker was passionate. He was almost poetic in his delivery, and you could feel the rage coming from his heart with every word.

            “…And so,” he said, “We know what we have to do. Our brothers and sisters on the other side are doing their part, and now we have to do our part! Organize, strategize, infiltrate, and sabotage!”

            He continued, “We also need more recruits. We’ve taken some losses. Some of us have escaped to the other side, others have disappeared, and others were killed during our last raid on the police station.”

            “In fact,” he said, “It looks like we have a new recruit here tonight!”

            “Hey yo,” he said, pointing at me. “Why don’t you stand up so we can all see you.”

            I was kind of mad he put me on the spot like that but I couldn’t have complained. The atmosphere was very welcoming. I stood up and waved at everyone in the room before sitting back down.

            “Great!” he said. “We’ll have time after the meeting to get to know you. Anyway, so we need to organize…”

            He continued speaking for a few more hours, before the meeting finally ended at around 10:30pm. After we were done, the speaker came up to me and introduced me to everyone.

            “What’s your name?” He asked.

            “Dave,” I said, “My name’s Dave.”

            “What’s up Dave,” he said, “My name’s Freddy.” We shook hands.

            Freddy had a tan complexion, he looked biracial. He wasn’t too big or to small, he had an average build. He had a tattoo of an M-16 on the top of his hand. He walked me over to the woman who greeted me when I walked in.

            “This is Emma,” he said. “She’s our minister of intelligence. She’s in charge of screening new recruits, and also selecting our targets. Don’t let the smile fool you, she’ll snap your neck in a heartbeat!”

            All three of us laughed.

            “Don’t listen to him!” Emma said, “Unless you’re actually a spy.”

            “Definitely not a spy,” I said, chuckling. “Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t want to be either!”

            “Well Paul sent me a message through the Wave about you,” she said. “I’m sure you met him.”

            I thought that was weird, how did was Paul able to message her that fast?

            She continued, “He said they searched you and that you were all good. Paul works for me, if you were wondering.”

            “Word gets around fast here,” I said.

            “Thanks to the Wave system,” Freddy said. “It’s kind of like a wireless telegraph. We send a special code out to someone and they get it as a text message. It’s hacker-proof and completely encrypted. The Regime has no way of reading it.”

            He continued, “Emma here helped develop it when she was on the other side.”

            “You don’t get a device yet though,” Emma said. “You’re still new, and we still have to figure you out.

            “She’s right,” Freddy said. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”

            These guys didn’t f**k around. They were extremely cautious, everything seemed fool-proof.

            “I need to head back home,” I said. “Before my dad finds out that I’m gone.”

            “Understood,” Freddy said. “Emma can you take him home?”

            “Sure,” she said. “Follow me.”

            Emma and I both went upstairs. The “restaurant” had closed by this time. The “associates” were cleaning up. As we were walking out, no one said anything to us. Emma and I walked to her car and we got in. As she was driving, we began to talk.

            “Hey could you take me back to the safe house?” I asked. “That’s where I’m parked.”

            “That’s where we’re going,” she said, coldly.

            “Okay…”

            I realized that her friendliness was just her putting up a front. She was still a soldier, who had a job to do.

            “You’re a college student?” She asked.

            “How did you know?”

            “Freddie told me,” she said, “Before you even showed up.”

            I remained silent for a couple of minutes, then she asked more questions. She was becoming colder. It made me nervous. It scared me.

            “You have any family out here?” She asked.

            “Yea,” I said, “My Dad. My Mom died in a car accident, and the rest of my family, we lost contact with after the coup.”

            “Dad?” She asked. “He’s a sympathizer of the Regime, isn’t he?”

            “How did you�"“

            “Let’s just say that I do my job very well,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about how I found out. No one joins this club unless I know everything about them.”

            “That’s impressive.”

           

We both remained silent for a little bit. Afterwards, I started asking her some questions.

“So Emma,” I said, “Where you from?”

“That’s classified.”

“Ok,” I said. “Freddie said you were on the other side, what’s it like over there?”

“It’s classified!” She said, this time in a more defensive tone. “Look, Dave, whatever your name is. I can’t speak for Freddie, but I don’t trust you. Not one bit.”

She continued, “That Dad of yours, he worries me. You don’t worry me because everything about you came out clean, but the position you’re in worries me. You could compromise us, therefore I don’t trust you. So I ask the questions and you answer them. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, sarcastically.

“What’s your major?”

This question made me snicker a little bit. I thought it was funny that she felt that she could really sit there and cross-examine me, but I wasn’t allowed to ask any questions about her.

“It’s classified,” I said, with a smile.

“Wipe that smirk off your face kid,” she said. “I already know. You’re a Biology major.”

“You really do know everything about me.”

“I won’t ask you anymore questions,” she said. “The safe house is close by.”

It was weird. She was so nice to me at the club, but now, all of a sudden, she was cold and mean. All of a sudden, she couldn’t trust me. Neither of us spoke until we got to the safe house.

           

            When we got there, my car was still outside. She unlocked the door and gave me a cold stare. I stared back at her.

            “Well,” I said, “It was nice meeting you.”

            “I’m watching you, kid.”

            I simply nodded at her and got out. She sped off. Paul’s SUV wasn’t outside either. I went into my car and began heading home. Once I got on my street, I turned my headlights off so that I didn’t wake my Dad up. I pulled up in front of the house, put the car in park, and quietly got out. I didn’t get home until very late. I pulled the string on the fire escape that made the ladder come down. The ladder descended, and I started climbing up. I pushed the window open and pushed myself through, being careful not to either fall of the ladder or crash onto my bedroom floor, which would have made a lot of noise. I then pulled the fire escape up and put it in my closet. My dad was a really heavy sleeper. I was surprised he didn’t wake up.

            I dressed out of my clothes, put on my boxers, and went to bed. I found it hard to sleep, however. It had just hit me, what I was getting myself into. What I was doing was extremely dangerous. I knew that I could “disappear” for this, or worse. I didn’t even what to think about what would happen if my dad found out. Not only that, but Emma’s behavior in the car. She was so sweet when I met her, but she became like a viper as soon as we entered the car. I understand she had a job to do but it was scary. I was hoping I would get through this alive.