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Clyde was rugged without the handsome: oily reddish-grey hair that was sparse on top of his head, but long and stringy everywhere else; eyes set too far apart, giving him a wall-eyed look; a pitted face with a nose that snorted a long draw of mucus every few minutes.
“Morning!” he bellowed, in a deep voice that begged to be cleared of phlegm.
The sanctuary returned the greeting with a deadpan chant-like chorus of “Morning.”
“You don’t get Internet, and you get limited TV – just what the old rabbit ears pick up. You rely on us to keep you informed. That’s why it’s so important that all of you be here. Now I’ll turn it over to Paul Tracy.”
Paul was a man of frat-boy good looks. He was tall and lean, with thick wavy brown hair and perfect teeth – a refreshing contrast from Clyde. People were always surprised when they learned that the two men were brothers.
“Thank you for your faithfulness, and a warm welcome to the newcomers. Consider this your welcome wagon. You got your packet, and should have your new names.” Paul paused while the tell-tale rustle of papers indicated that people were opening their envelopes to look.
Serena turned to Tom, “Only our last names, right? We figured that we would have to. We don’t have to change our first names too, do we?”
Tom opened the packet. “They strongly suggested we change our names completely, but agreed to let us do only our last names.”
“Good! What is our new last name?
“Meadows.”
“Meadows?”
“You like it?”
“I guess so. Did you pick it, or did he?”
“He had a list. I thought it was the best one.”
“Okay, I don’t care. We’ll get used to it.”
“Right, that’s what I thought.”
“What else did he say?”
“We can’t communicate with people who knew us when we were the Bridge family. I said okay, but I know we’re not going to let our family and friends think we’re dead forever.”
“What does it matter, now that Mom is gone?”
Tom looked at her with his most sincere expression of sympathy and squeezed her hand. “She’s not the only person who cared about you.”
Serena didn’t answer. The grief was only six months old. She was still struggling to hold herself together. Being her mother’s caretaker had given her too many intimate moments with her. It would take time to heal, which was what she told herself whenever she felt like the rain would fall forever.
“As soon as things happen, we’ll contact everybody, but in the meantime, I think we should do whatever the off-grid people want us to do.”
“Exactly, I agree. What if we did all this and there was no reason to do it, and we’re stuck in hiding because we burnt down our own house? How many laws have we broken now? I feel like such a criminal.”
“I don’t think anything else was illegal, just the arson.”
Tom and Serena stared at each other and laughed at the absurdity, and the shock from a word like “arson” being owned by either of them.
“You should be used to it. You had to have straddled some legal lines when I met you,” said Tom.
“Serena Wilcox, private detective? It’s been so long since I’ve been that person. I’m Serena Bridges now. No, I take that back. Serena Meadows.” Serena looked like she had tasted something sour.
“Maybe it’s time you found her again.”
“My ‘mom’ and ‘wife’ self doesn’t measure up?”
“I just mean we could use a detective. We didn’t learn much about this Paul guy, except that he’s operating out of Minneapolis.” He studied his wife’s face and added, “Getting your old spunk back wouldn’t hurt.”
The crowd settled down and they directed their eyes obediently toward the pulpit, where Paul was gearing up for a sermon. His voice was smooth and steady, hypnotic in delivery. His eyes locked personally into each and every pair of eyes staring back at him. His audience was as captive as a warren of rabbits listening to a coyote sounding off in the distance.
They say we need the Identity Chip. What is this chip but a high-tech horror? It was the first thing I thought of when there was talk about inserting tracking chips under babies’ skin so that we can solve our missing children problems. Everyone would be assigned a unique computer code – a number. You get it on the forehead or the hand. It assigns you a number, a number! Doesn’t that sound familiar? Isn’t that just like the Bible foretold would happen? Is this not the number of The Beast?
The chip is like a bar code. Everyone’s ID will be on it, including bank routing info. No more credit cards, cash, etc. All is instant transfer. Everything digital, no need for hardcopy IDs, no more checkbooks or credit cards – just scan the forehead or back of hand. They are already doing it. Remember that story about the rich people who were too lazy to bother getting out a credit card at their favorite club, so they got a chip in their hand that the bartender scans while they sit there enjoying their drinks? Buying and selling will be through this number. Anyone read the book of Revelations? It’s all right there. This is prophesy, people!
Hard to believe anyone would get the number? Think that even people who aren’t religious would be a little spooked by this? Well it’s also hard to believe that the government would be focusing on this chip when we’ve just been bombed by nuclear warheads! No one’s going to want to have a tracking device inside them, but they’ll do it. People will rush to do anything if they think they’ll be safe. And people believe in their government.
These are like pet locator chips, but for people, so the government can track us like animals. Or, as they put it, anyone on the terrorist watch list. And missing people or criminals. They give it a good sell. How to identify bodies and missing persons is always one of the first things a government does when there is a disaster. Think of earthquakes. Special interest groups who want that chip bill passed can slide it under the radar during this emergency.
Think it sounds far-fetched? Think that the President wouldn’t be getting some obscure bill passed after we just go bombed? Think again. It’s happening people. You know it is. And that’s why you’re all here.
Senator Birmingham has urged the President to immediately sign the Identity Chip bill as an emergency measure to handle the overwhelming task of identifying missing persons. Says our senator, “While the measure will not aid in the recovery efforts now underway, the measure could benefit any future national crises.”
Think, people. The ‘Beast’ from the Bible is a computer, not a person. The chip, the number, will soon be the only way to pay for things, and it tracks every purchase you make. That’s how they can keep track of people buying things that are a red flag for terrorism and other criminal intentions, and it’s how they can track you! Us!
Economists say there will be no more problems with insufficient funds – important when the economy falls out. It all sounds logical, logical enough that a lot of people will line up voluntarily to get the chip. I am thinking that after today, it will be like the McCarthy era, and everyone will be paranoid about who everyone is. Our citizenship and other basic info, arrest record, anything, can be added to that chip. People will want this. They will think that they are protecting themselves.
And I mention ‘the President’ so casually. We are under the regime of not one, but two presidents, who want this chip. If you disagree with President John Williams and hope to jump a couple states over to the West to live under President Kinji, whatever farce her liberal administration is, well, you’ve got a rude awakening. They both want the chip. In fact, she wants it more than Williams does. This chip is the beginning of communism.
The weight of hearing Paul’s right-winged speech of paranoid delusion was starting to press down upon them and both were suddenly very tired, so very tired. What was the most fatiguing of all was the fact that Tom and Serena shared this man’s delusion. For it was the fear of getting this Identity Chip, this fear mos
t of all of allowing such a chip to be inserted into their precious children, was the catalyst for their fiery exodus from life as normal upstanding citizens and into this land of crazy people. But these were crazy times.
During the next break between speeches, Serena said to Tom, “Five years since the bombings. And it’s been two since the restructuring. I still can’t get used to Chicago being the nation’s capital. And with Minneapolis the new ‘wall street’, it’s like the whole country has moved over to the left.”
“The left?”
“To the left of the map, like if you were looking at it.”
“You mean ‘West’?”
“Okay, then, West.”
“And East – we are moved in on both sides.”
“With California gone, we have Denver as the ‘new Hollywood’. It’s hard to believe all of this has happened. Just a few years ago, life was normal, despite recessionary times.”
“It’s surprising so few actors died. Not too many were in California when they got hit.”
“Makes you wonder if the rich and famous got a heads-up that the rest of the population didn’t.”
“It’s possible.”
“Our government knew. Politicians were out of D.C. and government buildings and military installations were evacuated.”
“Nothing’s been proven about that,” Tom cautioned. He feared that they were becoming as crazy as the off-grid people.
“No, but it’s not like we can’t figure it out. How else did so many people get out in time? We didn’t lose any senators, and no Generals.”
“True.”
“It’s hard to accept that a senator’s life is worth more than an ordinary American citizen’s. How can that be right? Millions died, while the political people and the celebrities got a heads-up and lived.”
“We lived,” Tom reminded her.
Serena was quiet for a few seconds. “But we were lucky -- blessed. Why couldn’t the government warn people? They would have had hard intelligence from satellites or something. Were they afraid of mass panic and then no one could get out?”
“Maybe. I saw a new map at the library. It was sad seeing the United States smaller, and divided. California, Virginia, Pennsylvania and part of New York were grayed out. Oregon, New Jersey and part of Michigan were filled in with a dot pattern for ‘uninhabitable’.”
“And now we are split in two, with two presidents. Nothing feels real anymore.”
The break was over and Paul had returned to the pulpit. He took a sip of bottled water and revved himself up into his closing rant.
People, listen. It’s coming fast. They are putting chips in all new babies born on or after January 1. In three weeks. And by April 1, every citizen is required to have the chip. They are already putting the chips in prisoners and anyone who comes in to renew a driver’s license.
Cameras they have now can scan license plates and alert the police if there’s anything going on with your vehicle – unpaid parking tickets, crime committed, or stolen vehicle. We’ve had this awhile. But now they’ll be using it to catch those who don’t have the chip.
We at OGG, off-grid-ghost, we are officially urging people to get the chips.
Paul waited for his words to register with the crowd. He was not disappointed by their reaction of gasps, followed by shocked silence.
Seriously, we do. It’s the only way to protect ourselves. We get the chip, and then come in to OGG. We’ll set you up with a code that we’ll add to the chip that blocks the data. It is like a virus blocker, like a firewall for when you’re on the Internet and someone’s trying to steal your identity. When anyone scans the chip, it will give them limited data: whatever the off-grid programmers put in. It won’t track your real transactions. But it will protect you. It will satisfy the government that you have the chip.
And we control the number, so that no one here ends up with 666 embedded under their skin.
Paul laughed, and the audience responded in kind. Tom and Serena exchanged looks of horror, not mirth.
Paul continued.
I’m not sure that the Beast is a computer, or that the numbers are about the Identity Chip. But do we want to take a chance? Of course we don’t! The Identity Chip is required to get a driver’s license, and banks will use it for all transactions. Stores will use it for all transactions. What will we do for money? How will we get around? If you don’t have the chip, you can be arrested.
Let us help you. What we are offering you is software to add to the chip, our mark. The software is called “Angels Mark”, and we strongly suggest you get the chip, come directly to OGG, and get Angels Mark installed. Do this by April 1. It gives you three months. We want all of our members protected by then. And from that point onward, only those with the Angels Mark will be able to scan to get into the OGG campus. We are doing this for all of us. Outsiders will find us eventually, but we don’t want to make it easy for them to get in. So get the chip. Then come to us. We’ll help you hide. We’ll protect you.
Paul ended his final speech with a confident nod to the crowd. They responded with strong applause and a few scattered Amens. Everyone quickly dispersed, with many making a beeline toward Paul and his staff. Tom and Serena dodged the beaten path and bolted for the nearest exit.
Serena barely waited until the van door was shut behind her before saying, “They won’t know we don’t have the Angels Mark unless we try to get on the off-grid campus. If we use these three months to stock up on food and supplies, we could stay here for a lot longer than three months without anyone knowing we don’t have it.”
“We stock up. After April 1, we stop going to the off-grid campus.”
“How long can we live without going to the store? We won’t be able to go shopping anywhere.”
“We can get chickens.”
“We’d need a chicken coop.”
“I can build one.”
“We can grow our own food. This is going to be an adventure.”
“It will be fun, besides, what choice do we have?”