Prelude

The Citizen Project

 

       Darren.  Jacob Darren.  It just didn’t have the same ring to it.  But the possibility was there.  After all, no one was famous overnight.  

     The rain thudded reality back to Darren as it bounced harshly off of his Honda’s rooftop.  The windows were smearing like they do in the rain.  And his breath was already clouding two of them.  A half-eaten ham sandwich lie next to the unopened can of Mountain Dew.

     Darren was staring at the glove box, his head on its side as his body was contorted in some weird manner so that he could be lying down on the seat.  He wasn’t comfortable �" but he didn’t want to move.  He just watched as the rain thudded all over the car, and the keys dangled gently in the steering column.

     His child hero never found himself here.  But then again �" a secretary wouldn’t have found herself here either.  Passing the time in boredom and counting down until certain events.  It was almost as tragic as your whole life flashing before eyes �" except it took longer.  So much longer.  He had time to piece together the events of the world and even imagine a few in between.  Where did it all start?  Where would it all end?  And what was really going on.

     Some parts he knew all too well, but lying uncomfortably on the worn car seat �" he wondered just how much he knew and how much he would have to imagine.  He could picture things in his mind.  Images, playing like old movies, rolling ceaselessly in his mind.  Eternity would come before he saw the end of them all.

     Maybe he should start at the beginning �" but no one would understand the beginning �" so he might have to start in the middle.  Trace backwards and then skip forward again.  Eventually he decided that he could start nowhere but the important places.  And he would trace around them.  It was the only way to see the world for what it was.

     The most important event, of course, was only one he could imagine.  He heard details firsthand, but even as that event came to a close �" with the man behind it �" it turned out that no one knew the truth �" and no one ever would.  Worlds and wars were meant to end in such ways.  Darren supposed he should leave his conjecture behind him, for now.  He needed something more substantial.  There was his academy and also his best friend �" but those were just boring details.  He also could revisit the evening that led up to his pensive boredom of lying on a car seat watching car keys dangle.  But like he noted before �" mundane details.  So Darren resolved himself to the beginning.  To the past.  Part fact, part conjecture, part imagination �" but all true.

     It had been said and it was someone’s motto �" that the Truth shall set you free.  But Darren could think of better lies to tell children.  Even children knew that if you stole something and told someone you did it �" that wasn’t called ‘The Truth”.  It was called “Bragging” �" and it never set you free �" it often got you into more trouble.  But this was one of those rare times when the truth was a necessity.  In fact, Darren could almost feel the dreary car being replaced with surroundings he had never known.  He was the man outside the car, standing in the rain, dreading what he had to do.  Before that he was the mark, who was drinking himself to an inevitable grave.  Prior to the drunk, he was in a room full of friends �" who were now enemies.  Beyond that he was a woman, helping someone she didn’t trust.  But even before that he was a misguided leader �" turning the world into chaos.  And before that he was the first incident, a falling man from a bell tower.  Or was he the shooter?  But before he could fall to the pavement he was someone else that he had never known or never even been.  Maybe it was irony that Darren could literally only imagine how this whole damn thing started.  But, nonetheless, his imagination carried him away into that realm of truth he sought.

 

*-*-*

 

     “STOP STEALING OUR MONEY!” “WE DON’T JUST PAY YOU �" YOU EARN IT!” “WE ARE YOUR CITIZENS �" NOT YOUR SLAVES!”

     Colleen Brackett walked past the protestors, without shedding a second glance.  It had been two whole weeks that they had been out there.  When would they get a life? �" besides taking their time to cause problems for others?  But Colleen couldn’t blame them.  The new taxes were pushing people over the edge.  Unemployment had never been higher �" but somehow �" neither had the economy.  Oh wait �" there were just so many more people now than there ever was.  This is what happens when people keep trying to live forever.  They don’t want to die �" and they keep reproducing.

     But people had no forethought.  It was just like it was in real estate.  That’s what Colleen did �" she was a real estate broker.  The majority of her sales came from properties inside the city, but her largest sale was outside the city in a very country-esque community.  But she was side-tracked.  Forethought.  People didn’t have any.  This was what had caused this whole topsy-turvy economy of chaos to begin with.  Get rich quick with real estate.  People didn’t know what they were doing.  They made a set level of income and then went house-broke as they purchased the most they could possibly afford on two incomes and a 3 year adjustable rate mortgage �" which even then �" they couldn’t possibly afford.  Then, to avoid bankruptcy they sold the dream home for a vast rape of prophet from an equally unprepared buyer.  Life was good for about twenty years.  People made loads of money off of real estate.  But they didn’t know when to quit.  Colleen continued past another row of the protestors and headed to the largest building that was right off of the courtyard of protestors.

     Well �" they did quit �" they’re jobs.  And most people simply made livings selling properties for more than they purchased them �" taking advantage of the adjustable rates to make payments until the property rocketed in value.  But they had no forethought.  The houses soon were worth more than even three incomes could provide for.  Even worse was that inflation couldn’t keep up �" and neither could the land.  So the government had to step in before the global economy plummeted and fell into massive depression.  Colleen swiped her fingerprint and entered the building not even looking over her shoulder as curses and insults followed her inside.

     Real estate could only be traded on the home market as supply and demand saw fit.  Home owners could not sell or purchase their homes without a federal authorization that came from a recommendation from a trusted, certified, licensed, and authorized real estate agent.  Enter Colleen.  It was a much more demanding job than it used to be and it took more than a 2 hour test to sell houses now-a-days.  In order to be a licensed agent, Colleen had to have an approved degree, several years of interning, a stock broker license �" which in itself had its own regulations to abide by, and she had to have an extensive background investigation.  Agents were only approved if they passed every requirement perfectly.  There was no room for a corrupt agent.  There was no room in the main lobby’s elevator either.  When she had passed the guard a few moments before, Colleen could see the hall was crowded �" but it looked like even worse up close.  She’d have to take the stairs.  Morning rush was always the worst.

     It was really just a game of numbers.  Her mind wandered back to the reason behind her life.  1 corrupt agent could easily distort the figures for 100 buyers, and 100 sellers.  Since the market was trimmed down, even the largest city codes only had 2 or 3 agents.  If just one agent was corrupt �" the entire market for that city code could be swayed in only a matter of days or weeks.  Which could, in turn, sway an entire city’s market.  Which could sway an entire state’s, which would then sway the entire federal market.  And the world would crumble from its precarious towers of economic stability once more.

     Colleen rested her mind from the problem while she entered her floor through the stairwell door.  She walked quietly to her seventeenth floor corner office �" bypassing the many cubicles on the way, unlocked the smoked glass door, and closed it abruptly behind her.  Like dropping a fifty pound weight, Colleen set her things down on the desk and slumped into her chair.  As she relaxed, her window blinds flung randomly open and she saw the protestors below.  So the government had to get careful.  These people caused it all.  It was the probability of world market chaos that drove those new tax laws into effect.

     Because it wasn’t a flawless system.  It had happened.  Just one agent was corrupt.   It was a small area.  Small enough for him to have his own town and some outlying property.  He even picked his own team �" which included no one at all.  Hence, he got away with robbing and falsely driving the town’s market into oblivion.  It was almost cataclysmic.  But fortunately, someone caught on to him, and he was tried in court.  Unfortunately, though, since the depression was still very hot in everyone’s minds �" the jury’s recommended punishment fell on the extreme side and he was publicly hung.

     New policies went into effect and the new tax laws were proposed to support those policies.  While it was inconvenient for Colleen to have sixteen assistants and a couple of interns monitoring her work and reviewing everything �" the new government policy required that many people for her city code to prevent any corruption within the system. And then it also required just as many people to assign those people their jobs, and to monitor their payroll and a million other administrative tasks �" all from the tax payer’s wallet.  Hence the problem with the tax laws.  The cities were always growing and the jobs were expanding.  So, naturally the real estate support was growing with the cities, and so were the already unbearable taxes to support that effort.

     But Colleen couldn’t help thinking as she watched the protestors below �" it all came back to them.  It was all their fault.  People just had no forethought and it was killing them.  People used no common sense and �" in the end �" they voted for the approval of the tax laws.  They had to, in order to escape the depression, but they still voted for them.

    Yet, for all of her piety to the system, Colleen was not a devoted loyalist.  She did her job day in and day out.  It wasn’t anything she was ever tempted to be corrupted with �" it was just a job.  It was not a way to manipulate the system.  At least not yet.

     She had one weakness though, as all people have their weaknesses. But Colleen’s was exceptionally clear to anyone who knew her.  She was 27, attractive, single, and lonely.  And she wanted a relationship.  She needed a relationship.  She didn’t want to be alone for her entire life.  It was a weakness that she knew she shouldn’t have.  That night, just like every other night, she would walk back to the rail system and take the rail to her home.  She would pace herself slowly those two blocks between the rail stop and her dreary apartment.  She always hoped she’d have someone waiting there for her.  Someone as reliable as those vigilant protestors she had to walk past everyday �" except maybe someone who cared about her �" and not about her ultimate demise or the fall of the system.

Author's Note

The prologue - let me know if its interesting enough...

Reviews

[PhoeniX]

wow written like a pro. your words flowed so well that it kept me reading through out the whole thing. a story about a city's depression/suspense thriller, something that id never thought id be reading, but the way you write, its like you've been writing these kind of stories for ever. off to the 1st chapter i go.

thank you for sharing!