“It’s okay, Gene. Anyone would have done the same.”
“No. Ray and Cassandra wouldn’t have. Neither would Armstrong or his sharpshooters.” Then Eugene looked over to Pamela. “And you too. Why didn’t you go over there? You said you don’t really make much money taking people to New America, and you don’t need the money anyway. So why do you risk your life doing it?”
Pamela didn’t answer right away. She looked pensive, and then glanced at Eugene. “Because I have to.” Eugene was perplexed. “I have to, Gene.” She looked sad, and Eugene began to worry he had opened some old wound.
“Gene, my brother, Redd, whom you remember so fondly, died because of me.”
“What?”
“For what I did.” She looked so forlorn, but Gene wanted to hear the story.
“Tell me, Pamela.”
“I was married to the man who assassinated him. We were young and in love. Then he started drinking and got really jealous of my brother’s success. He hated Redd. The irony is that my brother cared about him. He wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t help himself. We ended up divorcing, but his obsession with my brother only intensified. He wanted him dead. One day he succeeded.”
Eugene felt sad for her. He’d heard the story of Redd Piper’s assassination, but never realized that man was Pamela’s ex-husband.
“So, rather than have a nice life in the New World, I had to do penance—wanted to. My brother sacrificed his life to make a better world. Now I want to continue his work by bringing people over. I do it, Eugene, because I feel it’s my duty.”
Eugene could understand, though he felt bad that he always looked to others to be the heroes, while he just wanted to be happy and comfortable. “I just wish things were….”
“Gene, I know how you feel about things. I know you want the world to be like you always remembered it, but it wouldn’t last, and I have to believe that deep down somewhere you know that to be true. Please understand that this country has no future. It little understands its past. Your company has no future. It is with this country today. We’re being consumed by all the rot of its voracious, all-consuming appetite for power and control. NOGOV is squeezing the life out of this country. You see it every day in your business. It used to be that companies looked to expand; then, when they couldn’t expand anymore, they focused on cutting expenses—conserving and protecting what they had. But they couldn’t. They tried to keep wages as low as possible, eliminating the minimum wage law some twenty years ago. They made unions illegal. It kept profits up, but not for long. People with little money to spend aren’t buying enough to keep the profit flow going. Now those same companies are using drugs, gambling, and prostitution to keep going. Your job is to help them into these areas, and to figure out how to find new markets and innovative ways to make it work. And you would have, because you are very talented. But when you’ve squeezed the last drop out of that market, what’s left? Slavery? You’d be laid off, and your company would cease to function. I don’t know when this will happen, but it will.”
“So you’re saying that even if none of this happened to me, I’d still lose out in the end?”
“Everything that I just said occurred, not because of bad choices, but because they had to happen. Once you can’t expand, you have to protect what profits you have. To do that, one creates the very conditions that lead to this dead world. There is no future here, Eugene. There isn’t one for your father. There isn’t one for your uncle, and there isn’t one for Bo. At some point you’d be looking to make this journey. You’d make it or be swallowed up by the stink of a rotting nation. Ray and Cassandra knew that.”
“So why doesn’t society erupt? Why do they put up with it? Why isn’t there some journalistic investigation? Christ, you don’t even get the conspiracy nuts talking about it. ‘The government uses a brain probe to change your politics’. ‘A secret organization takes over the government.’ I mean something like that; but nothing. That idiot on TV just takes the damn thing, and uses it on kids to make money off it.”
“I know Professor Zinney, too, Eugene. He was my brother’s best friend. I asked him many of those same questions. He told me people erupt all the time. They demonstrate. They once seized the capitol building. The news never covered it. The police did, however. They beat the hell out of them, arrested them, and charged them with terrorism. Many of the leaders are still in prison. How many more people do you think want to copy them?”
Eugene realized that everything Pamela was telling him was true. He was supposed to be the business expert, but he never saw the long-term picture. Pamela, Ray, Cassandra, and the others did. While he mourned over a dead world and a life he could never have again, they were risking their lives to change it. He watched people sacrifice everything he refused to sacrifice, and knew that maybe he needed to do something too, instead of just complaining.
But would I do something? I can’t help it. I want my comfort back. I want to sit in my overstuffed leather recliner, sip my wine, and listen to Bach while Catherine makes dinner. I want her back. I want her to share my jokes about the pundits, and reassure me that everything is fine. I know those days are gone forever. I’ve accepted that. I’m going to New America, but I miss my old life. Oh, this is nonsense. I’m dreaming again. Why do I feel such comfort in a world gone to crap?
Eugene began sobbing. He couldn’t think about Catherine without depression overwhelming him. She glanced over to him. Part of her wanted to pull over and give him a big motherly hug, but she said nothing. She had to find Chad and Sandy.
Pamela’s phone rang. She listened with glowing satisfaction. Eugene looked at her and saw her smile. “That was Foote. Armstrong just called him. They’re safe; just a little ways down the road.”
Ten minutes later they were all at the side of the road by a black Lincoln. Sandy was clearly agitated. “Christ, is this the way it’s going to be all the way to New America? First, the shootout at the motel, and now being kidnapped. I wish sometimes I never found out who I really was because I got to tell you guys, I don’t know if I can take this much longer.”
“I know how you feel, Sandy,” Gene said.
Ray walked up to them. “Okay, Chad, let’s hear the story.”
“They searched me, but missed the knife in my shoe. They didn’t bother to tie our hands together, but the guy in the passenger seat was supposed to keep an eye on us. He was waving his pistol while flirting with Sandy. With just enough distraction, I knew I could make my move.”
“I thought he was going to kill me. I just kept seeing the barrel of that gun aimed at my head. Then Chad grabbed the steering wheel and held a knife to the driver’s throat.”
“What did the guy with the gun do?” Eugene asked.
“I threatened to kill us all if he shot Sandy,” Chad said. “Just slit the driver’s throat and drive us off the road. I sized these guys up as amateurs. I knew the guy with the gun wouldn’t shoot. He looked like he never held a gun in his life. I made him hand over the gun to Sandy, then had them pull over right here.”
“What made you go with them in the first place?” Ray asked.
“This guy came to my car asking for help with their car. When I got there Sandy was there. They gave her another bullshit story. Look, more to the point. How in hell did these guys know about us? Did anything happen in the parking lot last night?”
Foote and Wrenn just looked at each other. “Yeah,” Foote said. Foote told Armstrong and the others what happened there. “There wasn’t anything we could do, but I should have told you about it.”