Complicit
The knock came in the middle of the night. The door smashed in, and Maria was grabbed by the armed militia. That really happened, here? Now?
It was chaos. An armed swat team shouting, the teenage kids screamed and her father speechless with fury, Maria was hauled from the couch. The video game on the massive wall screen froze, Maria’s baggy t-shirt flapped as she was dragged across the floor and out into the huge steel truck.
“What the Hell is this?” Maria’s father bellowed at the swiftly departing men. He gestured at an angel icon flashing on side of the army truck, its light casting eerily across the small front lawn of their home. Maria was bundled inside, and the truck screeched away leaving a dark stain across the road.
Maria’s younger, twin sisters stood arguing in the devastated room, surrounded by broken tables and ruined floors.
“I told you she would get caught!”
“You did not, you told her to keep at it!”
“You’re a liar.”
“No you’re the liar. How could you!”
Maria’s father, Emilio, stared at his daughters, Con and Lily, 18 year old twins. “Why are you shouting at each other, don’t you know what’s just happened?!”
“Oh we know, don’t we Con?” Lily pushed her sister out of the way and ran out to the kitchen.
“Con? Do you know what’s happened to Maria?” Emilio tried to maintain his poise but his neck bulged and he was close to exploding with frustration.
“Of course I do Dad.” Con glared back, her fists balled by her side. “You’re the only council member in this house, you’re the one who sat back and gave the police access to the data on our phones, the powers to storm into our houses and take people away without just cause, and ––“
Emilio stepped forward and tried to slap his daughter. “How dare you disrespect me in my own house. I worked hard for this family, to get elected to that goddamned council. It ain’t easy to get stuff done, sometimes you have to lose some votes to win the bigger victory.”
Con had ducked under her father’s heavy lunge, and stepped back. “Bigger victory! There can’t be a bigger victory if all protests are banned, elections are suspended, free movement and free press all gone. You are complicit.” She spat the words. “You allowed this to happen. You and your fellow council members have given powers to the State Militia you won’t get back!”
“That’s garbage. You’re too young to know what you’re talking about.” Emilio’s red neck seemed to grow ever bigger.
“Too young to be stopped in the street, too young to be beaten by the militia, too young to thrown into a truck, like Maria?” Con shouted back, noting her sister Lily had crept back to the room, holding a small black box in her hand, idly rubbing it against her sweatpants.
“Yes, yes, all of that!” Emilio anger was tipping into something else.
“Well what are we still doing here? Since Mom left, now Maria, everything is much worse. And you’re not doing anything about it? You can’t can you? And you helped make it happen!”
“I know.” Emilio’s face crumpled. The bulge of his red neck subsided, and he let his hands drop to his side. “There’s nothing I can do. I’ve tried.”
“Dad.” Lily came back into the room. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing. That’s the trouble. Nothing we can do, we don’t know what’s happening, and we’ere locked out of files. We’ve completely lost our voice.” He found it difficult to be open with his daughters.
“Who has?” Con folded her arms.
“All of us.” He whispered.
“Are we being monitored?” Lily looked around the house, at the lamp stands, at the walls.
“Of course.” Emilio stammered, tears brimming his eyes.
“We know that.” Con looked at Lily. “All our devices. The tags in our clothes. Watched everywhere we go.”
Lily grimaced. “That’s what Maria was talking about online,”
“Oh God.” Emilio’s hands pressed his forehead. “I told her to stop.”
“But it’s wrong dad, you know that.” Con’s voice was cold. “She can’t stop, because if no-one talks about it, everyone condone’s it.”
“But the drugs have stopped here, haven’t they?” Emilio’s red-rimmed eyes looked up, appealing to some higher authority.
“Yeah, but so has everything else. And if you don’t fit, or act differently, or if you question anything, and I mean anything, then these trucks come and take you away.”
Emilio nodded. He’d heard, of course, but tried to ignore the stories.
“You could have stopped it. Your generation could have stopped it.”
“What?”
“You elected someone who didn’t agree with democracy, someone who didn’t like being asked questions, someone who lied so much that lying became normal. And now there are no elections. And you don’t object, you just allow those who talk about it, to be picked up and discarded, battered and killed, yes, killed dad! You made that happen.”
“But he seemed like the best one, standing up for right-thinking people, for order and decency, the others were much worse.”
“That’s what they told us. So many lies piled up – facts and truth don’t exist now except in the moment.” Con looked at her sister who nodded. “Now it’s just convenient truth, whatever is said by the government, is the truth. They’ve shut down most of the indie websites, and the school history programs are so thin they’re a joke. The next generation is already being indoctrinated.”
Emilio winced at his daughters’ clarity.
“You know it. Everyone knows it.” Lily spoke up more hesitantly than her sister. “That’s the trouble. You are complicit.”
“Yes, but, if you have kids, you have to look out for them, not cause trouble, do the right thing, stay in the background and be accepted, especially if you come from another place.” Emilio found himself pleading with his daughters, in the wreckage of his own home.
“Everyone has come from another place, and it’s not like anyone in this town has lived here for hundreds of years.”
“You don’t know how hard it is. If you have everything to lose, you toe the line, you’re cautious.” Emilio’ head was in his hands.
“Well, we aren’t. And there are others like us.”
Emilio stared at Con, through his fingers, shaking his head furiously, panic leaking from his eyes.
“It’s ok dad, we’ve blocked the tracking devices, put loops in place too.” Con looked at Lily.
“That’s what I went to do earlier.” Lily gave a half smile and raised the black box in her palm.
Emilio couldn’t find his voice.
“Look at the screen.” Con gestured with her head towards the wall where the game had frozen when the Swat team had burst in. “See?”
Emilio’s eyes widened.
“We use the encrypted channel in the game to communicate.” Lily pressed an elaborate sequence of buttons on the console.
On the screen a face appeared, surrounded by armed militia, their helmets removed to reveal scruffy, youthful faces, and a truck with its angel sign obliterated by graffiti,
Con spoke again, “Say hi to Maria Dad.”
“Don’t worry, no-one else can hear us.” Lily smiled.
Maria’s voice crackled through the speakers. “Hey Dad, I’m off-grid now, and there are others here too. It won’t be tomorrow, or next week; it’ll take some time, but things are going to change.”
[ends]Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher and more. Also on this blog, These Fantastic Worlds.
Text, image, audio © 2020 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam and Elise Wells, Logic ProX, Sound Studio, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.
More Tales
There are many other great stories in this series, including:
- Corn Field
- Age
- Crossroads Hotel
- Cosmic Hall
- Righteous
- Lost Voice
- Break Out
- Daily Mask
- The Big Man
- Bewildered
- Two Faces
- Shaman
- The Three Laws
- Ophelia A.I.
- Henge
And a carousel of 10 audio stories from the podcast with information about submissions.
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts.