Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (2 page)

Hakim
finished his second beer and tossed the empty can over his shoulder to rattle
on the floor.  He wiped the froth from his jet black mustache.  For a second,
he considered shaving it.  The Imam demanded facial hair.  That was what he had
always been taught Allah wanted as well.  But now...a plan was forming in his
mind.  He would need to change, to adopt the ways of America a little more.  He
began writing down more notes.  An idea was forming in his head.

Over the
next few days, Hakim watched the news almost every minute he was awake.  He listened
to the reports: which plant went down when and how that had caused the next
plant in the grid to shut down.  Before long, the whole interconnected, tangled
monstrosity strangled itself and shut down.  He got on the internet at the
local internet café rather than use his own computer.  He looked at the poster
on the wall.  It had four words on it in simple, government block letters: See
Something.  Say Something.

That was
enough of a warning for him to work harder at blending in.  He could not risk an
investigation.  From the café, he conducted further research as carefully as he
could, using multiple accounts and a trick he learned in Iran on how to bounce
his IP address off different servers to confuse anyone trying to trace him.  If
he was lucky, all his effort was just paranoid.  If not, it may save him and
his cause. 

Power had
by now been returned to most of the affected areas.  It was therefore
relatively easy for him to find out what happened in Detroit and Cleveland. 
People were all too willing to go online and vent their frustrations at the
public utilities over slow response times.  He sifted through complaints in New
York City how thinly spread the police forces had been and took note of the
fact that most of the time the cops were driving around with their lights on to
reassure the public. 

Hakim wrote
everything down on a yellow legal pad.  He didn’t chance printing materials
from the café computer—that could be traced, he figured.  Handwritten notes
could not be traced by anyone unless they had the original. 

He was
disappointed that there wasn’t large scale looting and rioting, but comforted
by the fact that everyone feared that possibility and most commentators were
even surprised when it did not occur.  He had cursed often over the previous
few days as the power was restored, bit by bit.  He had noted with some small
satisfaction, however, that many so-called experts were genuinely worried that
if the power had been out only a little longer, rioting and looting would have
erupted like a volcano in the bigger cities.

Fifty
million Americans without power all because one power plant, located in Canada,
New York or Ohio was overloaded.  That was the general consensus three days
later.  No one was sure what started it, but those three regions were the prime
suspects.  Terrorism was ruled out almost from the start, and rather smugly at
that, Hakim thought.   He found it amusing that even now, so long after the
attack Americans were still jittery at the memories of 9-11.  

A real
nation would have learned an important lesson and made itself stronger.  A
brave nation would have used the images of that day to redouble its resolve.
 
You
people are weak.  Soft.  You try to avoid remembering what happened so you can
sleep better at night.  You had already forgotten, until three days ago. 
Fools.
   He flashed a contemptuous smirk at the screen and continued
reading articles
.

Yet even
while the officials confirmed it wasn’t terrorism, they admitted they didn’t
know the cause.  Hakim found that
very
amusing.  If they didn’t know
what caused the Great Blackout, how could they rule out terrorism so fast? 
Everything was geared to keeping the populace calm and unworried.  It all went
back to the fear or rioting and general unrest, he figured.

Terrorism,
indeed.
 
Hakim smiled and looked at his stack of yellow legal pads.  His was a
righteous
cause, a crusade, a
jihad
—not mere terrorism.  But if the Americans
wanted terrorism, he’d give it to them.  Hakim picked up his pre-paid cell
phone and made a short call.

“Hey, Bob! 
How ya doin’?”  He asked cheerfully.  His mid-west accent was flawless.

“Great,
John!  What’s up?”  The voice on the other end could easily have been in any
suburb in the nation.  Just a regular guy, relaxing in a hammock in the back
yard with a glass of iced tea.

“Got some
good news for you,” said Hakim, glancing at his notes.

“Great! 
You going to the game tonight after all?”

“Wouldn’t
miss it for the world,” said Hakim before hanging up.  He laughed out loud at
the ease of it all.  So, one part of his plan was set in motion. 

Now, to
start the inroads of a truce.  We will need allies
, he thought.  It all
balanced on whether or not he could get help in his fight.  He felt they were
ripe for the picking, yet needed a little more convincing.  He got up and
closed the browser, then walked out of the cafe with a smile for the girl
behind the counter.  Outside, he blinked in the sunlight and casually dropped
his cell phone in the first trash can he found on the way home.

Hakim
headed down street towards his just-above-slum-level apartment building.  With
a three day growth of beard and half a cigarette in his mouth, ratty jeans and
a plain white tank top undershirt on, he rounded the corner into the steamy
Chicago summer sun.  He tucked the notepad as carelessly as he could under his
arm and tried to affect the air of one who had no cares at all.  He looked just
like anyone else in this depressing neighborhood of inequity and sin.  Just as
he had expected, only a few blocks away, he found his dealer.

“Hakim, my
man!” said the young black youth by way of greeting.  Hakim figured him at no
more than 16 or 17 years of age.  They slapped hands and shared cigarettes.

“What is
happening, my friend?” asked Hakim, forcing his Middle Eastern accent for the
amusement of the young drug dealer.  Americans always thought it sounded funny
and innocent .   “You have the smack-down, yes?”

“No, man,
it’s just smack,” laughed the drug dealer.  He casually reached into the paper
bag sitting on the steps to the row house he was in front of and handed over a
small dime bag to his Arab friend.  "You goin' to school?" he asked
with a grin. 

Hakim
started to nod and explain but Tahru pulled out a fancy cell phone and began to
type a text.  Hakim frown.  The rudeness of American youth was stunning.  In
Iran, the boy would be beaten halfway to death for insulting an elder thus.  It
was clear that to Hakim that Tahru didn’t give a rat’s ass about the ignorant
Arab immigrant he saw.  Hakim babbled on about taking a class in English as a
second language.   He paid well and was friendly enough, so Tahru was lulled
into thinking of him as harmless. 
Ah, what was the word?  Rube?  Yes.  The
boy thinks I am a rube
. 

Hakim
finished speaking and took a long, slow drag on his cigarette.  He looked up
the street and pretended he didn't care that Tahru was reading a message and
not paying attention him.  If he wanted to ignore the man who didn't seem to
notice that the poison Tahru sold him was only 50-50 and not worth a quarter
what he charged, that was fine by Hakim.  He fantasized about showing the young
thug Allah's mercy at the point of a scimitar. 
That
would get his
attention. 

This has to
be delicate…
thought Hakim, taking the drugs and handing over his cash. 
Hakim despised drugs on principle and would merely toss what he purchased in a
trash can after getting what he wanted from Tahru.  He once again marveled that
such a transaction occurred in broad daylight in America. 
Truly this place
deserves the name Great Satan.  And to be sold these filthy drugs by a child!

The Arab
casually glanced around the street, making small talk with Tahru.  Hakim
noticed that Tahru had his customary comb sticking out of his mop of tangled
greasy hair the boy called his ‘fro’.  He forced his mind to not criticize the
foolish American.  After all, Hakim was there to recruit, not alienate.

“My friend,
Tahru…I am wondered…:” he paused as Tahru laughed.  “I see this man.  A black
man…a great black man on the television.”  Tahru was gyrating gently to his own
internal music, seeming  to not pay any attention to his customer. 
No doubt
he is high on something,
observed Hakim silently. 

“Yeah?”
asked the kid, eyeing the street for Pigs and competitors.

“His name,
I cannot say—Frakahan…Frankenhan…he say he hate the white man—“

“Oh, you
mean dat fool Calypso Louie. 
Shit
…” said Tahru, shrugging and gesturing
with his hands.  Hakim always had a hard time following his drug dealer when
the young man slipped into slang speech like that.  “You axe my brotha Malcolm
‘bout dat fool.  I ain’t know shit ‘bout him.”

Hakim
already knew this but acted confused.  “But my friend, you only have a
one-brother, Jamal?”

Tahru made
a clicking sound of derision with his mouth and tongue.  “Tsst!  Man, why you
be trippin’?  You know…
Malcolm
…oh—snap!” Tahru laughed.  “Dassright…he
done converted before you came ‘round last time.  Say he all up in dat Islam
bulls—“

“Praise be
to Allah!” Hakim said before the insolent fool in front of him could blaspheme
the Faith, inadvertently or not.

Tahru
grabbed his 40oz beer and swilled away.  “See?  Dat’s the same thing he be
sayin’ all the time!  Always with his
Allah this
and
Allah that
.
Shoot…crazy motherf—“

“Ah, thank
you my friend!  Thank you,” said Hakim, interrupting again.  The foul mouthed
American would face Allah’s wrath for speaking such.  “I did not know your
brother was a true believer?”  He masked his face in surprise though he knew
very well of the older brother's recent conversion.  It was part of his plan to
recruit new converts like this Malcolm nee Jamal.

Tahru,
pacified by the beer, leaned confidently against the rusty handrail and plucked
at his own soiled ‘wife beater’ tank top.  His dark skin glistened with sweat
in the summer heat.  He pulled his flashy sunglasses down a bit over his nose
to see Hakim clearly.  “Man, you
gots
to meet Jamal—" he clucked
his teeth in mock irritation.  He put his hands together as if in humility and
prayer before saying, "I mean his Holiness Malcolm Abdul Rashid.”  Tahru
laughed at his serious sounding voice and over enunciated words.  "Jamal
done gone off an' found religion," he laughed again. 

“May I meet
Jam—I mean, Malcolm?  I wish to discuss the teachings of—“

“Yeah,
yeah, whatever man.  Just go on in—hey, watch the smack man, don’t step on
that."  Tahru hastily gathered his wares and shifted postiion on the
step.  He waved a hand over his shoulder as a local girl came into view. 
"Momma in the kitchen, she tell you where to go.”  Tahru absently waved
Hakim past him, eyes on the girl.  Almost as an after-thought, he called over
his shoulder, “Momma!  Man here to see Jamal!”  He smiled at the girl, drowning
in gold chains, who blew him a kiss.

From inside
the dark and stagnant row house Hakim heard a deep female voice call out, “Tah-
ruuu
! 
Don’t you be sendin’ no mo’ o’ yo’ crackheads in my house!  And yo’ brother
name
Malcolm
!”

"How
you doin', baby?" asked Tahru.  He looked up at Hakim and hissed,
"Man, go on in...you makin' me look bad!"

Hakim
paused for a second, his hand on the rusty doorknob to the screen door. 
Allah
protect me from these barbarians!  Your will be done…
 

For his
plan to succeed there had to be an expansion of the alliance.  Here was his
first try at diplomacy.  Everything depended on this moment.  Hakim entered the
row house with a smile on his face.

Present Day...

ERIK  LOOKED  AT the
list in his hands.  Everything in his bug-out-bag was listed and numbered.  The
first aid supplies: tapes, bandages, gauzes, antibiotics, iodine tinctures,
band aids, tissues, safety scissors, ibuprofen, Tylenol and decongestants were
all listed with expiration dates. 

The next
category was tools, then everything non-food/first aid related.  The trash bags
for making impromptu shelters or ponchos.  There were the plastic ties, good
for securing just about anything.  Work gloves—the leather kind, not too
expensive, but just enough to protect hands in a rough environment.  The
aftermath of a tornado or a hurricane can be a nasty place. 

He had
flashlights, batteries, rubber bands and safety pins.  There were playing cards
and a pocket Bible.  He had sets of clothes to change into, two full sets of
toiletries, and his favorite, the old surplus USMC K-Bar with a mini-survival
kit crammed full of fishing line, sinkers, hooks and other small implements of
destruction, all secured and lashed on the sheath in parachute cord. 

As far as
weapons were concerned, he had more knives and swords than he had fingers and
toes and Brin rolled her eyes every time she saw them.   Try as she might to
save space, Erik would not part with them.  As a history buff and teacher, Erik
was especially fascinated by the Dark Ages in Europe.  He also loved Japanese
History and had even studied in Japan for a year in college, traveling with his
Japanese History Professor and the rest of the class.  Swords were a natural
outreach of that fascination with history.  They were tools of the time,
relics, collector's items.  Swords were pieces of history.

This was a
large part of the reason that Brin’s protective family had accepted him so
readily.  Brin’s father, Tom Hideyo, an electrical engineer, was a second
generation Japanese-American, the son of Japanese emigrants who fled the Land
of the Rising Sun shortly after World War II.  Brin’s mother, Allison Stewart,
was a card-carrying California girl who thrived on beaches and tanning oil.  It
was an eclectic mix, the scientist and the beach bunny, but they had produced a
stunning young woman in Brin. 

She had the
smallness and grace of her Japanese ancestors, yet retained the hardiness and
strength of mother’s Colonial English forbearers.  Through some mystery of
gene-sequencing, Brin was a 5’4”, light skinned, dark haired,
blue eyed
beauty with the alluring slightly almond shaped eyes that many
Japanese-Americans enjoyed.   She looked remarkably similar to her grandmother.

Erik smiled
as he remembered the early days of their courtship.  He had bonded with Brin’s
grandparents almost from the start.  Erik had impressed them by demonstrating
his knowledge of Japanese culture when he removed his shoes before entering
their house.  He had shown the proper respect to his elders in the form of bows
and a dose of stoicism.  Erik shocked them even more with his rudimentary
knowledge of the Japanese language, which he had picked up on that trip with
his professor. 

Even his
passion for swords was impressive to her family.  Brin’s paternal grandfather,
Hatori Hideyo hailed from a family long known to be the caretakers of their
master’s Samurai’s swords.  The family tradition, in western terms, would be
that of the hereditary squire.  Not merely a lowly position for a serf, but one
of honor in the East.  From that first meeting, when Brin and Erik had barely
started dating, as far as the grandparents were concerned, the fair skinned and
red haired giant was to be considered a son.  Erik had been grateful to learn
that old Hatori and his wife Sachiko had put considerable pressure on  Brin’s parents
to give their blessing to Brin’s marriage to Erik.

One of the
best memories Erik had of that trip had been watching his girlfriend, her
father, and her grandfather all performing a slow karate
kata,
a
practice routine in the Japanese martial arts.  Brin’s grandfather had served
in the Japanese Army in World War II in a minor capacity and had been trained
in the martial arts by his father long before.  When he was old enough, Brin’s
father had been taught the ways of karate and later his daughter as well.  Erik
had dabbled in Karate and joined a
dojo
in college, but had never
advanced beyond a mere initiate.  Quickly he found Brin a willing teacher and
soon her father became his
sensei
.  While Brin easily outpaced Erik in
skills and grace, Erik would usually win their sparring contests just from his
sheer strength. 

He had
mentioned on more than one occasion that should he ever be in a bar fight, he
wanted his girlfriend at his back, to the amusement and disbelief of his
friends.  Each time Brin and Erik would make the trip to California to visit
her grandparents, they would marvel at the young couple’s budding love and
smile at their partnered
katas
.  Her grandfather then began to instruct
Erik in the art of
iaito
, the way of the sword.

Now that
they were in Florida, he had finally started towards his PhD in Japanese
Studies.  Once he had finally landed a job at the local high school as a
history teacher, he devoted all his spare time to his thesis.  In spare
moments, Erik would promise himself that as soon as he and Brin got a house and
he got a room to himself—a library or office or study—he’d start to seriously
collect and display his swords. 
         

Having a
shotgun around would be a lot better
, he admitted to
himself.  The creative part of his mind still clung to the vision of him
charging towards an burglar in the middle of the night,
katana
glistening in the moonlight to defend his house and family.   There was just
something...
uncivilized
about a gun.  Any brute could fire a gun.  It
took a trained
warrior
to wield a sword.  That was a
man's
weapon.  Up close and personal. 

Brin's
grandfather had many times told him, "If you aim to take a life, have the
honor to do it yourself.  That is the way of the
samurai. 
Do not let a
bullet do so for you from a distance.  There is no honor in that.  Just death. 
That is the way of the barbarian.  Easy and impersonal.  There is no challenge,
no combat, no honor."

He glanced
up at the poster on his wall, a picture of a Navy SEAL emerging from a patch of
dark water in the moonlight.  There was no big rifle,  just a camouflaged man
rising from the water in the black of night with a knife in his hand and a look
of terrible resolve on his face.   A fearsome sight for an enemy to see,
probably the last thing said enemy
would
see.  The caption read in bold
letters:

The gun is
just a tool. 
I
am the weapon.

United
States Navy S.E.A.L.s

Erik
brought himself back to the task at hand and checked off the other odds and
ends.  He had to remind himself that he was deep in his semi-annual task to
make sure nothing was expired in his emergency kit. 

He looked
over the US Coast Guard rations and other non-perishable foods he had stored in
the large duffle bag.  A camping utensil set, emergency stove, some candles,
water…

Everything
looked in order.  Erik picked up the bag and winced—it felt like it weighed
over thirty pounds. 
Still
.  He had been trying to lighten the load
lately after the idea formed in his head that maybe he and Brin might not be
able to ‘hunker’ down at home.  If they had to leave, the bug-out-bag would be
a chore to carry for any length of time, even for him. 

Erik
guesstimated they had about a three week to a month supply of canned foods,
soups, beans and rice, not to mention the SPAM and Vienna sausages and
crackers.   Maybe they wouldn't need to use the bag anyway.  They could just
stay put during an emergency.

It had been
a few years now since the Great Blackout and even longer since September 11
^th
,
but the preparedness bug that had bitten Erik after the Twin Towers fell was
back with a vengeance.  They were in the second half of another Hurricane
season and he was determined to be ready for anything.  The weather service
claimed this year would be well above average, storm-wise, despite the fact
that so far, all was well. 

After that
brutal season where three hurricanes hit their apartment in a matter of weeks,
Erik no longer felt so confident in his preps.  Later that year, in the
horrific aftermath of Hurricane Joyce, he realized that he and Brin were
extremely lucky to have come through the season unscathed.   Joyce made Katrina
look like an afternoon thunderstorm.  That had been the single most costly
natural disaster in American history.  Even if the aftermath hadn't lived up to
the infamous New Orleans storm, Joyce made Erik sit up and pay attention.

Erik’s top
priority was to get a house and move Brin away from apartment living,
preferably not in the state of Florida.  They both wanted mountains and forests
and
seasons
.  Not just ‘summer’ and ‘not-so-hot’.  As much as they liked
the coast and the attraction of the ocean, the snow-capped mountains always
held the young couple in complete awe.  No, they wanted to move west.  Maybe
Colorado.  Maybe Wyoming.  Hell, maybe even Montana.

Then he
could really stockpile.  There just wasn’t space in an apartment for two people
and all their stuff, plus the cache of emergency items.  All in all though,
Erik was proud of his little cache of supplies.  Whatever happened, he felt
confident that he and his wife would survive, or at least have a much better
chance at survival than average sheeple.  Erik shook his head, thinking of
those citizens who cried and bleated and refused to think anything bad could
happen to
them
.  At worst, they believed someone would come to help, the
police, the National Guard, the Government.  Even Katrina and Joyce hadn’t
changed their minds.  The Government was
not
all-powerful.  But it was
good enough for them.

The
internet groups and forums he visited frequently had given him all kinds of
advice and tips on what to get, why, how to use it, and if it’s really
important.  Erik checked up on the sites every day or so, even the ones that
sometimes tended to lean towards the more radical
The-End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It scenarios.  Erik wasn’t sure anything like
TEOTWAKI was in the immediate future, but he found the advice invaluable.  The
guys online were preparing for Armageddon, but those tactics and skills were
easily transferrable to surviving everyday disasters such as hurricanes,
earthquakes and floods.  So Erik read, absorbed, and adapted the information to
suit his needs.

If he had
the money and they had to stay in Florida, he’d buy a sailboat and prep it for
use in an evacuation or other emergency.  A sailboat would be ideal.  On a
family vacation once to the Bahamas, he had rented one of the little two-man
boats and had a local who worked at the resort take him out for a day and teach
him to sail.  Not the fancy yacht sailing that the rich people enjoyed, but the
hands on, practical kind of sailing that got you out and back alive every
time.  He had read a few books on the principles of sailing and had gone on a
few day cruises with friends of the family.  His parents eventually acquired
one for their house on Lake Champlain, so he knew how to sail.  He just needed
a boat.  Erik jotted that down on his big list of things to buy or acquire when
he had more money or space. 

Money. 
There was a cruel joke.  His salary as a teacher was...small.  Brin made more
than double what he made in her sales job.  She was one of the best reps in the
company.  They knew it and paid her well.  He didn't mind that he wasn't the
breadwinner.  His time years ago as house commander had disillusioned him of
what gender roles ought to be in modern America.  Keeping house was no easy
matter—he shuddered to think how much work his mom had done, raising two kids
and maintaining an orderly household.

If we move,
it'll have to be to a place where both of us can work.  Brin's job is more
important so that means it'll probably be closer to a big city than out at the
base of a mountain.  He sighed.  They both knew the dream of living on a ranch
near mountains with a cold creek nearby was just that: a dream.  More likely
they would end up in Dallas or St. Louis, maybe even Chicago.  Those were the
big hubs for her company.  She was a rising star and her co-workers pegged her
for taking the plunge and moving up to corporate soon.

He hated
big cities and all the extra worries that came with them, but he had to admit,
more money might be involved.  That meant a house, a basement, land.  Storage. 
He could finally have a study, a place for his swords.  A workshop.  A garage. 
He shook his head and tried to focus back on the task at hand.  Daydreams would
accomplish nothing.  A house was just another item on his wish list.  For now.

Deep down,
Erik knew he needed some of the things on his wish list
immediately
…he
had a feeling
something
would happen and soon.  The Blackout   a few
years back had exposed too many weaknesses in the American infrastructure.  The
more time went by, the more he was amazed that no one else seemed to remember. 
He had a vivid imagination and could foresee all kinds of trouble ahead.  Of
course Brin just smiled and went about her business.  After all, she had a
high-paying, fast paced job and didn’t have time to worry about stuff like
that, while Erik was just a teacher working on his thesis.