The Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Five Characters:

Andrew Iberi

His daughter

Veronica Lewis

Nicholas Jenson

Andrew's commanding officer

Chapter One (His Daughter: POV of Andrew Iberi)

In the cold, dark rooms of the hospital, I can only see what’s become of my daughter by dim candlelight. I don’t want to think about what she would look like fully illuminated. Her chest still rises and falls to the beat of the bombs that drop around us, but barely. The power has been out for three days now in New Seattle, ever since the war began, since my predecessor Nicholas Jenson had mysteriously died, and everything went to hell even more than it already had. The thing about relying on a single nuclear plant instead of a dozen small ones, is that it only takes one wayward engineer. One determined saboteur and the whole system collapses. So here I am, faced with a decision no father should ever have to make. It’s an easier one for me than for most, though.

The backup generators had kicked in almost immediately, so the nurses were able to get her on life support. Her skin is covered in burns so dark they are nearly black, the rest of her as red as the blood that leaked from every orifice, staining the bandages. I suppose she was a necessary sacrifice, but I can’t help but wonder if this is what my predecessors felt, watching what they had done to Hiroshima and Nagisaki. If this is what a small firebombing campaign could do, I don’t want to know what could happen if another nuclear war broke out, how mottled the victims would look. But to know that I caused all of what my daughter and countless others had suffered is the worst pain imaginable. And I’ve known far more than my share of pain.

Of course, I’d seen the victims of firebombing before in my time in the service, but only in photos. And as realistic as the virtual reality was, it did little to prepare me for the stench of burning flesh, disturbingly similar to a barbecue. It might be enough for me to swear off meat for the rest of my life.

“Don’t you dare look away,” my commanding officer had said, with the tone of someone who was used to being listened to and obeyed. “If you can’t stand to watch, you have no business being an officer. How can you inflict suffering if you won’t even observe it?” And I had heeded his words, watching the destruction, hearing those screams without flinching. Did that make me a monster? Perhaps, but the evil that wormed its way inside me was made, not born. It had been trained into me since I was a child. If that makes me the villain, then so be it. There is no story if nobody plays that part. And I play it so well. It comes to me as naturally as altruism comes to better men than I.

I allow myself a moment to gently press her eyes closed, whispering a goodbye to my dead daughter that I know she can’t hear. And then I pull the plug, without hesitation or remorse, because there is no good that could come out of pointless suffering. Because for all the darkness that wraps around my heart, I am never one for pain without reason, without excuse. I feel content in the knowledge that nothing could ever hurt my daughter again. I watch her heart stutter to a stop, feeling almost nothing for the girl that I frankly never knew well enough to care for.

I was beginning to regret starting this war, though. Almost.

And just like that, I’m out of time to mourn. I’m whisked into dozens of back-to-back meetings. Strategy sessions, we like to call them. We stick pins into deerskin maps, like children playing some kind of twisted board game. It is a cold thing, representing hundreds of young men ready to throw their lives and their souls away with red dots. As red as their blood would be, sacrifices to the greater goal. It is easier to think of them this way, as pawns instead of people. Think too long about their faces and their families back home and you lose direction, lose focus. After the UN had collapsed, governments became free to use any manner of torture, chemical or biological weapons, or even nuclear weapons. Some use all four, which I think is rather crude. Asia doesn’t exist anymore, for all intents and purposes. It started with Taiwan and China, then India got involved. They all had nukes, let’s just say. And they don’t anymore.

Any and all treaties went out the window when life became about survival rather than living. Now that the polar ice caps had melted, swallowing entire islands, releasing plague after plague that we are just now managing to get under control through antibiotics and vaccines, life was chaos at best. Just as smallpox ravaged the Native Americans, our bodies are unprepared to fend off these ancient diseases. The worst of them is called Icarus-103, for the year it was released and for the way it seems to melt away your flesh. It was a grisly sight, eerily similar to what I saw happen to my daughter who got a little too close to a bomb.

If you’re reading this, feeling guilty that you couldn’t stop climate change, don’t be. Past 2040, it was already too late. There was truly nothing to be done.

New Seattle is at the edge of what is now the West Coast, a place that used to be mountainous and has gotten much closer to sea level. There is still protection offered by the mountains, and by the gnarled oaks and pines that now grow easily in the altered climate, but less. Much less. If we thought climate change would be bad, it is nothing compared to this. And so quickly, too. The human population has shrunk to a little over two billion, ravaged both by war and disease. But enough about the world, about war. Let’s discuss a more pleasant subject: Me.

After graduating with a political science degree and a minor in economics, I was a shoe-in for Yale. Law school was something, but easy compared to the rigors of military life. I quickly climbed the ranks to become the Secretary of Defense. And defend America I did. By staging a wildly successful coup. I had the military and the people on my side, and we were all sick of Nicholas Jenson anyway. He’d started as president, but was practically a dictator, thanks to Unitary Executive Theory which had somehow managed to gain popularity even among scholars. Something about giving the president more power during times of war? We weren’t at war with anything but Icarus and the ocean, but whatever the Supreme Court said went at that time. The federal courts and state governments had been dismantled by now, which would have had Washington rolling in his grave. Every decision came out of the capital, so no one was surprised when Jenson formally declared himself a dictator.

So yes, I am a traitor and a liar and unbelievably handsome. I’m also wanted in 37 countries, but that’s unrelated. Mustard gas doesn’t win you any friends, I guess. I played a part in dismantling the UN, not that they had any power to begin with. But is it really a crime to take power from a brutal and repressive dictator? At least I have fashion sense instead of wearing a black suit every day. Sometimes Jenson even had the audacity to wear a uniform, despite not spending a day in boot camp. It was part of his strong man persona, as if the man could even grow a beard. He was weak, I am not. He is dead, and I survived all of this. End of story. I’d also slitted Veronica Lewis’s throat, but that was more of a personal vendetta. The Secretary of Education’s worst sin was wearing too much perfume and being unbearably irritating, but that was enough to me. Plus, she’s very passionate about democracy. well, was.

“There is no country if it cannot defend itself.” My personal motto which I had tattooed across my forearm, only slightly smaller than my daughter’s name. I would have to get the latter lasered off. I can’t be strong if I flinch looking at my own arm. Already I am starting to forget what she looked like in life, and all I can see is the burnt out mess my recklessness had made her.

So yes, I am a populist dictator, but I am popular, if nothing else. I didn’t have to be violent, because I brought security and food and vaccines to my country. I do everything for my people, and I do it gladly. I would do it all again, everything, even when it had cost me my only child. I didn’t mean for her to be the sacrificial lamb to my war, but the loss is an acceptable one. How could I bomb other children and then weep for my own? My mentors had taught me better than that.

And it is my war. I’m going to let you all in on a very dangerous secret. But before I do, please remember what I do to people who betray me. I might not prefer senseless violence, but I am more than willing to dole it out if the need ever arises. Just keep that in mind, alright? Nobody can ever find out what I’ve done. Your head and mine depend on this secret remaining a secret.

Alright, enough preamble. I who orchestrated the beginning of this war. I paid the engineer to sabotage that plant, to take the fall for it and spend the rest of his life in prison. And I had ordered the very bombs that took the life of my daughter. I would do it again, over and over until this “rebellion” had been stomped out. Why? It’s a show of strength, of course. An excuse to destroy my enemies. Because the unfortunate thing is, there really is a rebellion brewing, and they are more than happy to take credit for this bombing. They call themselves the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, and they have amassed in the South, just as the old separatists had. Originally, they had been nothing more than a thorn in my side, one that had long shed its rose, devoid of anything that had once made it beautiful. Because it had been beautiful, or at least useful. They had provided a scapegoat, a reason that my programs were failing. They aren’t Jenson’s loyalists, though. Those don’t exist. They also aren’t my greatest fans, but they have the decency not to shout about it during their very public protests. Now if only I could locate their headquarters…

Perhaps they are afraid of me, but maybe a part of them respects me too much to insult me to my face. Delusional, I know. Freedom of speech had flown out the window when Jenson took charge, and I see no sense in bringing it back. Some words are illegal and punishable by death. What good are rights when you can’t eat, when your flesh turns liquid from that horrible disease. Nobody has the gall to complain out loud, thankfully. Probably because it is illegal and punishable by death. A lot of things are punishable by death these days. I have no qualms about a bit of blood, but I am practically bathing in it by now. First, most members of Congress who had been stealing the money they were supposed to be putting into social programs. Then I executed 13 officers who had refused to join me in the days leading up to my coup, and killed their families too. The others were eager to join me after that.

All in all, 231 people had met their death at my command, and I’m sure I killed at least a thousand when I destroyed the power plant. Probably even more during the bombing. I am the villain, yes, but somebody has to be in this world that would fall apart without one. I’ll bear the burden, I’ll commit the sins, because somebody has too. And why pretend otherwise, a part of me enjoys the power. The darkness wrapped around me grows with every passing day, and I let it. I welcome it like an old friend. I have no regrets in this life, because every decision I make, cold and calculated as they might be, is for the benefit of my people. My land that shrinks with every inch the ocean grows. But it is slowing, the laws I created are doing their work in healing this world. Soon it will stabilize, soon we will be rid of the diseases and wars that plague us. But first, I’m going to have to spill some blood. Blood is not so beautiful as roses are, but it has its place in the circle of life we all choose to participate in. I destroy, yes, but I build things from the rubble more beautiful than anything that was or ever will be: A lasting peace, tranquility. Eventually. The way we would get there might be horrible, but every last drop of blood would be worth it in the end. The end of wrath, of greed, is nearing. They are nothing but love gone astray, easily reformed by the right person. And that person is me.