Chapter Twenty-Five

Marc stared into the mundane window display of Simon Hardware in Duluth, Minnesota, finding it hard to believe he was standing at the gateway to freedom. Perhaps the sheer ordinariness of the setting accounted for its suitability. He faced stacks of paint cans; bags of fertilizer and birdseed; an array of ladders, shovels and rakes; durable tools; and special sales on lightbulbs, grills and propane tanks. A handcrafted sign also promised the presence of a locksmith. However, there was no banner promoting human smuggling across the border.

Marc took one last look around, continuously paranoid of being watched, especially after his adventure in Gary. He saw a perfectly normal downtown strip of commerce, with its mixture of shuttered and surviving storefronts and a few unassuming northerners strolling in no particular hurry on the sidewalk.

His heart pounded from the knowledge of a big secret. He took a deep breath and opened the door. It jingled.

Marc pretended to browse the tool section for a bit. Then he approached the tall man at the cash register, maybe thirty years old with a full head of dark hair, a minor mustache and dark, attentive eyes.

“Hello,” Marc said.

“Hello,” said the clerk.

“I’m looking for a drill bit.”

The clerk nodded, leaning forward to hear more.

“Um…it’s a specific drill bit. I have the code. Um…6XB427.”

The clerk stared at Marc. “Would you mind repeating that?”

Marc did.

“Okay. That’s a special part. I need to take you to our staff expert.”

“Sure.”

The clerk glanced up into a large circular mirror that reflected the activity in the aisles. He saw no other customers and said, “Follow me.”

The clerk led Marc past a selection of lawnmowers and snow blowers to a private door in the back, marked Employees Only.

The clerk knocked four times in a specific rhythm.

After a moment, the door opened halfway.

“In you go,” said the clerk.

Marc advanced into a back room crowded with supply shelves and a long counter for small repairs. A man and a woman faced him. The man had a gray and black beard and black-rimmed glasses; the woman had curly, flowing blonde hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She spoke first: “Stand right where you are.”

Marc stood very still, and she closed the door behind him. The bearded man approached with a hand-held scanning device similar in size to a metal detector security wand, but definitely with a different intent.

The bearded man brought it to the back of Marc’s neck. The device remained silent.

“If you had the chip, it would have started beeping,” the man explained, dropping his arm. “Welcome to our office. My name is Thomas. This is Heidi.”

“Welcome,” Heidi said.

“Thanks,” said Marc.

They showed him to a wooden stool, and Marc sat down. Thomas and Heidi settled in folding chairs on either side of him.

“We start the process with an interview,” Thomas said. “What brought you here. How you’ve managed to avoid the chip this long. Your intentions. Your character.”

“Whatever you want to know,” Marc said. “And let me tell you one thing upfront, because I know it will cause some concern. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I am one hundred percent independent and removed from my professional past.”

Thomas and Heidi listened carefully as Marc told them about his prior life as head of marketing for Dynamica.

He could see them tense up at first and then gradually relax as he talked through his story: leaving the company, escaping from government agents, staying off the radar under a false identity.

He chose not to tell them that he possessed a special device that could hack into the chips of other people. That was a power he possessed that no one else needed to know about, aside from Brandyn Handley, the man who gave it to him.

Once Marc had completed his life narrative and secured the confidence of his hosts, they filled him in on their mission and the process.

Thomas stated, “We believe strongly in freedom from the chip, the right to remain independent without surrendering access to our thoughts and feelings. We don’t care if it’s big government or big business, we stand firm against the use of technology to influence our minds, interfere with our physical sensations and re-interpret our experiences. Enforcement of the chip is the ultimate violation of human rights. We believe in the individual, not a manufactured collective mindset.”

Heidi said, “This coalition is dedicated to helping as many people as possible escape from this corrupt environment to lead lives of their own choosing. We’ve been doing this for six months now. Seventy people a day. That’s more than twelve thousand prisoners freed. They’ve escaped prosecution and can now live a natural, organic life without fear. We’re part of a much bigger team that helps move refugees through various checkpoints. There are seven interview locations like this in northern Minnesota. After the interview, subjects stay in one of five holding stations, where they’re eventually tapped in small groups to go to Ely and enter the Boundary Waters by canoe. We have a special route to Canada – not an easy one. There’s a lot of portaging between bodies of water. It takes you through forests and islands where you won’t be detected. We travel only at night. You’ll need to paddle and carry your belongings.”

“There’s a heavy restriction on the volume of what you can bring,” Thomas said. “Everyone brings too much. You just need a few days worth of clothing, some food and water, then a couple of valuables or mementos – like jewelry or a photo album.”

“That’s no problem,” said Marc. He was already traveling light. His only valuable was the controlling device. And his stash of cash.

“Good,” Thomas said. “Now we will give you directions to your holding station. It’s about thirty minutes from here. It’s a mattress store.”

Marc’s eyebrows lifted. “A mattress store?”

“It’s closed down. It’s a good space. You’ll see.”

Marc had to ask, “What’s – what’s the cost for all this? How much do you want?”

“We don’t take money,” Heidi said.

“We do this – everyone in this network runs this escape route – because we believe in it, deeply,” said Thomas. “If you make it safe to the other side, that’s our reward. It’s our purpose and our passion.”

“Wow,” said Marc quietly. “I didn’t know people like you still existed.”

“It’s easy,” Thomas said. “We don’t have the chip to tell us otherwise.”

* * *

Later that day, Marc arrived with a bag of personal belongings to the boarded-up entrance of SLUMBE MATTRESSES. The first ‘R’ had fallen off the sign. The windows were covered with ‘Lost Our Lease’ posters. Marc could not see in. He simply stood in the designated spot at the designated time and waited.

Finally a heavyset, rugged man with a curly beard and wool hat approached on the sidewalk. He stopped and stared at Marc. Then he stared at a photo on his cell phone – a profile picture taken by Thomas and Heidi at the hardware store.

“You’re Marc?” asked the big man.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m Willard. Come with me. We’re going to enter from the back.”

Marc followed Willard to the gravel alley behind the store. They entered a service entrance and walked into a rear storage room.

Willard closed the door behind them and turned to Marc. “Give me your key.”

“Excuse me?”

“Car key. You’re done with the car. We’ll dispose of it so no one can trace you here.”

Marc nodded, nervous to surrender his transportation but trusting in the process. He handed over his car key.

Marc and Willard advanced to the main showroom: a dimly lit sprawl of dozens of bare-mattress beds. Most were filled with people sitting or sleeping.

“Welcome to your hotel room,” Willard said with a stab of sarcasm. He brought Marc to an empty bed with a sticker on the frame to identify it: number 22. “Settle in, get a good day’s sleep. I can’t give you an exact time of when you’ll be tapped, but we take people in shifts after nightfall, every hour. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

Marc nodded and placed his small carrying bag of cash and clothes on the bed. The room did not smell good – it was obvious there was no shower on the premises. The other refugees looked up at him for a moment or two, revealing tired and fearful faces, and then went back to their reading or dozing.

“No going online,” Willard said. “No phone calls. No doing anything stupid. If you get bored, in the corner over there, we have a television. We keep it on a news channel.”

“All right.”

“We have classes, several times a day, to go through the canoe trip logistics. Basics, orientation. We’ll have maps and instructions on who you will meet at the other end. Oh – and if there’s a raid, it’s every man for himself.” He glanced around the room at the diversity of occupants and corrected himself. “I’m sorry – every man, woman and child.”

Willard left, and Marc sat on the edge of his designated bed. He was too wired to sleep but well aware he needed rest, especially if he was going to be paddling a canoe for miles and miles in the middle of the night.

He noticed a young couple entangled on the bed next to him. They shared a Queen mattress, lying down together but very much awake. They studied him with alert eyes.

“Hi,” Marc said with a short wave.

“Hey,” said the male.

“How’s your mattress?” the female asked.

“Firm,” Marc said.

“We’ve got memory foam,” said the female with flat enthusiasm.

Marc smiled. Then he introduced himself to the couple, “I’m Marc.”

“Hi, Marc, I’m Aaron.”

The female introduced herself without rising. “I’m Clarissa.”

“Hi, Aaron. Hi, Clarissa. So how far did you travel?”

“We’re from L.A.,” said Aaron. “It’s been a long, strange journey.”

“I’m from New York,” Marc said. “Same.”

“I’m Max!” said a grizzled voice from a nearby mattress.

Marc turned to look at him. A dirty, weathered old man with heavy wrinkles sat up. “I’m with them,” he said, jabbing a thumb toward Aaron and Clarissa.

“Yeah, he’s our stray dog,” Clarissa murmured, face still half-pressed into the mattress.

“Where’d you say you were from? New York?” Max asked.

“That’s right,” said Marc.

“I was in New York once, back in the seventies.”

Marc wanted to say, “Not much has changed,” but refrained.

“Did you hear about the bombing of the Santa Barbara Library?” Max asked.

Marc said, “Sure, the thing that sparked all those protests? It went viral all over the place.”

“We were there!” Max said proudly.

Now Aaron sat up on his bed, rubbing his face. “Yes. Yes, we were. It was one of fifty times we were nearly killed.”

Marc nodded in sympathy. “Yeah, well, did you hear about these new Work Zones where they’re using the chip to send people into factories as slave labor? I almost got stuck working in a steel mill that’s been brought back from the dead. They swept me in for new employee orientation without asking.”

“No shit,” said Clarissa.

Over the next two hours, Marc and his three new acquaintances shared their stories.

Aaron and Clarissa spoke of their journey from California to Minnesota, stopping at various sanctuaries along the way, finding some of them open and others emptied out and destroyed after being raided. They described several close calls with regulation police, including an episode where they lost a member of their group. Max talked about his girlfriend, Gertrude, who was captured in Idaho and injected with the chip.

“It was a big shootout,” said Max. “I got several of them. And then – then I had to shoot her. They stuck her with the chip. They would have gotten her to turn on us. She had all the information about the escape route. I had to do it.” Max’s eyes welled with tears as he told the story. “She always told me, ‘If they catch me, put me down. I don’t want the chip. I don’t want to live like that.’ So I did what she wanted…but it still hurts. Damn, it hurts something awful.”

Marc tried to console him. Aaron and Clarissa said nothing; they were clearly familiar with his grief and simply frowned in silence.

“You need a gun?” Max asked Marc, brightening. “We got guns.”

“No, but thanks. I have something better.”

Max looked at him quizzically, but Marc declined to elaborate. The controller device remained in his pocket, ready for quick action if needed.

* * *

Marc, Aaron, Clarissa and Max joined several others in a far corner of the mattress store, seated along the edges of a King bed, watching the news on a loosely mounted flat-screen television.

President Sheridan was speaking to his chip-captive audience, seated in his wheelchair in the Oval Office.

“The Work Zone initiative is a big success,” he declared. “We will open twelve more Work Zones in the next few weeks, revitalizing the U.S. economy and ending the long slump in manufacturing. America’s factories will struggle no more!”

Marc thought about the Gary steel mill pulling in thousands of obedient workers each day, like a giant magnet. The country had gone from government-sponsored laziness to forced productivity, a societal whiplash.

“I can’t believe I trusted this turkey, that he would abolish the chip,” Marc said.

“Me too,” said Aaron. “I supported him. I thought he would turn things around for the better. But he’s using the chip to push his own agenda, and it’s getting crazier every day.”

“He’s just picking up where others have left off. It’s the same old story, using technology to spread influence. But now it’s way more dangerous. People barely know they’re being manipulated.”

Clarissa said, “Why did we think he would be any better? Once they seize power, it messes with their minds.”

After touting the success of his Work Zones initiative, President Sheridan delved into his next priority: ramping up America’s military.

“Through the power of the chip, I have delivered on every one of my promises, and this one will be no different,” he said. “I am tripling the size of our military forces. I can stand here now before you to guarantee that every one of our new and veteran soldiers will be one hundred percent committed and fearless. With the ability to unite behind a single, collective mindset, we will be unbeatable. We will fight to the death in every battle. We will confront our enemies aggressively. As a united front, we will not stand by silently as our enemies take advantage of a history of softness and tolerance.

“The first threat we will abolish is the new satellite created in partnership between Russia, China and North Korea. We have all heard the denials, that there is no partnership, that the satellite is used for one country’s domestic security, not international spying. That is a lie. I am absolutely positive the purpose of this satellite is to hack into our systems and hijack our chip technology to steal control of American minds. Make no mistake, this is the biggest threat our country has ever faced. This evil alliance has three days to dismantle the satellite, or we will destroy it. We will blast it out of the sky. We are locked and loaded, with our military leaders on full alert. We have the missiles prepared, and we have complete alignment in the Pentagon, in Congress, and with the American people. We are a true United States of America. So this is my final warning. All it takes is the press of a button. If the satellite does not come down, we will take it down. We will go to war. That is my promise. And I have yet to break a promise.”

As Marc watched President Sheridan deliver his remarks, he felt nauseous.

The news subsequently reported on the response from the countries identified in the president’s accusations. All three denied any alliance or intention to hack into the U.S. chip signals to influence the American people. All three also promised dire consequences if the satellite was destroyed, issuing a joint statement: “You will experience a war to end all wars.”

“Fabulous,” muttered Clarissa. “World War III is just around the corner.”

“Probably a good time to leave the country, before we all get nuked,” Aaron said.

“How did things get out of control so fast?” Marc asked. The whole scenario made him dizzy. Sadly, he knew the answer. He had witnessed firsthand the fast rise of Dynamica. He had contributed to its dominant presence. He had successfully promoted its product across the country until it became the most popular brand in American history. He had deployed maximum-strength advertising, marketing and public relations to spread the technology like a blanket across society until it became deeply embedded in the daily lifestyle.

Marc felt a lump in his throat. I did this.

No one goes to work thinking that what they do might one day create a worldwide crisis and kill innocent lives. We just do our jobs.

At that moment, Willard stepped over to the group and tapped a young African-American couple for the next ride to the Boundary Waters.

“Time to go,” he said simply.

The young couple, looking very fatigued and anxious, broke out into excited tears. They quickly began to gather their belongings.

Aaron watched them go, and Clarissa took his hand in a rare display of affection. “Don’t worry. Our turn is coming.”