American Dreams | Book 1 | The Decline Read online

  For starters, the forced program of brainwashing and propaganda that she’d been subjected to the entire time I was gone had taken its toll on her. She was more reserved, more fearful of the State and what they could do to people who dissented with them. I was reasonably sure that she knew more about the System—which was a new term to me—than I did. But my education had been centered on the New Constitution and federal NAR laws, not the other agencies that were being stood up for the so-called “good of the people.”

  Patriot Estates, the neighborhood where we’d been assigned to live, was nice. It was by far the nicest place I’d ever lived. There were a few hundred homes within the gated and guarded perimeter, including a pool and community clubhouse. We took a lot of walks, partly to get a layout of the land, and partly to get away from the house.

  I agreed with Cassandra’s assessment that the house was bugged. She was right; it absolutely had a creepy vibe to it, like somebody was watching. I searched through all of the obvious places like lamp shades, picture frames, and the back side of curtains, but didn’t find anything. Of course, that could be because my knowledge of listening devices was from 1980s spy movies. There could be any number of ways the technology had improved in the almost fifty years since those were made.

  Regardless, both of us were uncomfortable talking about anything of political importance inside our home, so walking outdoors was the only freedom we had to do so. No one seemed to know what happened to the original residents of the neighborhood. There were signs of minor wear and tear that the community was at least a couple of years old, so where did everyone who used to live there go?

  None of the furniture in our new house was ours. In fact, only three or four pieces made it from the apartment to the new place. My old couch was on the back porch and our bedroom dresser was in the garage. The television, which had been new right before the lockdown began, was mounted on the wall in the living room and the old credenza we’d had it sitting on in the apartment was in the foyer as a decoration now instead of a functional piece. Everything else had presumably belonged to the previous owners.

  Fucking creepy.

  The time for my first day at the office came quickly after my four-day pass was over. I wasn’t ready for my time at home to be over, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had a job to do and that job justified our house, the SUV, and the extra food ration we’d been allotted because of my status as a CEA agent. We’d even been given pre-authorization to start a family, something that was apparently going to be closely-controlled beginning in the next few months.

  It wasn’t that Cassandra and I didn’t want kids, we do, but now was definitely not the time for her to be pregnant. Starting a family would make it harder for us to walk away from it all, to just melt into the tree line and disappear. That was my dream, after all, even if it could never be a reality.

  I drove the Tahoe to the address I’d been given in downtown Austin. It was a high rise building with views of the Texas State Capitol, the mostly empty highway, and the University of Texas football stadium, the Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium. Seeing the stadium made me wonder about whether there’d be a football season this year. It would be a shame if there wasn’t.

  A security guard greeted me at the entrance to the high rise’s underground parking garage. I only had the badge I was issued at graduation and my Citizen ID, but that seemed to be enough for him and he waved me through. I decided that the car was probably lowjacked as well, giving the CEA a heads up as to where I was at all times.

  I spiraled down several levels until I found an open, unmarked spot and backed the Tahoe in with the help of the backup camera. I gathered up my meager possessions, which included the aforementioned badge and ID card, a few copies of my orders, and an empty paddle holster that I’d been issued at the course. That was it besides the wrinkly suit I wore, which was another issue-item. I hadn’t had time to get it altered or pressed, so it was a bit worse for wear after its time in the duffle bag

  Another security guard met me at the exit from the garage elevator. This one was much more concerned with my presence than the previous guy had been. He had me remove my belt and everything from my pockets, then go through a metal detector. The guard gave me a thumbs up and I stood there like a jackass hiking up my pants to replace the belt.

  “Where are the CEA offices?” I asked.

  “CEA?” he said, opening a binder on the desk. He ran his finger along a list of offices. “Uh, says here that it’s on the sixteenth floor right now. Eventually, it will take up three or four floors.” He pointed across the lobby. “Those are the elevators.”

  “Thanks.” I pocketed my badge and wallet, then made my way through the main lobby to the bank of elevators that went to the upper floors. I stepped in and pressed the number sixteen.

  The doors slid closed. They were a mere three inches apart when a hand appeared, tripping the safety sensor to open them once more. Standing there with a goofy grin on his face was Jesse Newman. The same former high school basketball player-turned-grocery store stocker who’d attended CEA-ATC with me and was severely beaten that first day in the parking lot. He’d turned it around after that, but I always half-expected him to go Full Metal Jacket and start killing people at the range.

  “Look at what the cat dragged in,” he said, leaning in to give me a hug. Oh yeah, did I mention that he was a hugger? He said that it was a habit that he’d picked up from his hippie parents who lived in central Austin, probably not too far from where we were now.

  “Hey, Newman,” I replied. “How goes it?” I’d known after the first week or so at the course that he planned to come back to Austin. There were eight of us who’d gone to the course from Austin, but only four had planned on returning to the agency here, and one of those failed out. The other four used the opportunity to go to different cities and states.

  “Man, I’m excited. I can’t wait to get out and start interacting with the people. Really show them that the government cares for them and their well-being, you know?”

  The doors slid closed and I sighed. “Yeah. It’s gonna be a big adjustment.”

  “All these new rules aren’t bad though. They’re for the best. I mean, there’ll be some growing pains, but once everyone realizes that we want the very best for them and that we’re finally on the right track for full equality, then they’ll get in line and follow the rules. That what real citizens do.”

  I glanced at him, already bored with his eternal socialistic optimism. “And what about those who just want things to stay the way they were before all of this? Those that liked the Original Constitution and the way the country was back then?”

  “They’ll shut up and color in the lines or go to jail,” he said, smiling. “We’re bringing everyone along into the 21st century, man. Those holdouts need to get with the times. We aren’t gonna repress people of color anymore, or shoot up schools with automatic rifles, then claim it’s our constitutional right. Everyone gets the same opportunities in our new society.”

  The doors opened and I gave Newman a thin-lipped smile. “I hope so,” I managed to say. I wanted to laugh in his face at his utopian ideals, but standing in the belly of the beast—the Civic Enforcement Agency lobby—probably wasn’t the best place to do so.

  We walked up to the receptionist desk, or was it the desk sergeant station? I didn’t know. I sure as hell didn’t want to offend somebody. That probably came with a fine or some bullshit. The woman sitting there wore a simple black blouse, not a uniform or suit. She looked up at us and smiled pleasantly.

  “Ah…”

  “We’re here to report in,” Newman cut me off. “It’s our first day back from Assessment and Training.”

  “Well, alright,” she responded in the Texan drawl that seemed to permeate the communities outside of the city. “I was told to be on the lookout for three of y’all. Do you know where the other one is?”

  “No, ma’am,” I replied. “We just happened to meet up in the elevator
.”

  As she nodded, her blonde curls bobbed back and forth along her jawline. “Well, that’s alright. Y’all probably weren’t told to report together. I’m Caroline, the front desk manager.” She leaned forward and put the back of her hand along one side of her mouth. “The receptionist,” she whispered.

  “Jesse Newman,” my uninteresting companion said, sticking out a hand.

  She looked at it and frowned. “The H5N8 may be on the ropes, but it ain’t out yet, Agent Newman. Please remember to practice proper social distancing techniques, especially in this closed-in office where we’re all piled on top of one another in the first place.”

  He dropped his hand and I chuckled. “Good morning, Ms. Caroline. I’m Bodhi Haskins.”

  “That accent… Mississippi? Alabama?”

  I smiled, impressed. “Alabama. I didn’t think I really had that big of an accent.”

  “Well, I’m pretty good at picking up little things like that.” She looked down at a sheet of paper on her desk, then back up at us. “Okay, you boys are in luck. You’re both going to be on Team One underneath Sergeant Nguyen. He’s a great guy. Transfer from the FBI. He really knows his stuff.”

  “Great?” I replied, not entirely sure what the proper response was supposed to be.

  “Let me call him,” Caroline said, picking up the phone. I couldn’t believe it, but her phone had a spiral cord attached to it. I hadn’t seen a corded phone in a long, long time. “You boys have a seat.” She pointed at the chairs behind us.

  We sat and I pulled out my cell phone, clearly indicating to Newman that I wasn’t interested in talking to him, but he didn’t take the hint. “So, Nguyen, huh? Wonder what he’s like.”

  “We’ll see in a few minutes, right?” I made a point of scrolling up on the article I was trying to read about the state of UT football in the wake of the H5N8 quarantine.

  “If he’s a transfer from the FBI, then we’re probably going to be doing a lot of policework, right?”

  “I don’t know, Newman. We’ll just have to wait and see what he’s like and what his priorities are for us.”

  “Gentlemen,” a man’s voice said, causing me to look up from my phone. A thin, Asian man in a white button-down shirt and black trousers with a badge clipped to the belt beside a pistol stood beside Caroline’s desk. “I’m Sergeant Nguyen,” he said without offering to shake our hands.

  We went through a quick round of introductions and he thanked us for being on time, unlike Agent Patterson, who would be going to Team Two anyway. He led us through a room full of empty desks and chairs, with laptop computers and the same ancient telephones sitting on each one. Only a handful of them had anyone sitting there.

  “We’re just getting established,” Nguyen said, gesturing at all the empty desks. “Once things get up and running, these will be full and the CEA will be like any field office.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Newman said.

  “Sergeant,” Nguyen corrected him. “We’re still working on that too. The agency is leaning toward more of a police-style ranking system versus a military system, but we’ll see where things ultimately shake out. For right now, though, I’m a sergeant.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. How long until things get ‘up and running’ as you put it?”

  The sergeant shrugged. “I don’t know. Scrubbing citizen files takes a long time. The agency is looking for people who don’t have a criminal conviction—that one’s easy—who meet the physical and psychological profile that they’ve established, and want to work for us. Oh, and who are willing to enforce all aspects of the New Constitution, not just cherry-pick certain parts.”

  “Why can’t we just force people to do it?” Newman asked. “We were brought in on a compulsory service mandate, so why can’t we just do that with all of the jobs?”

  Nguyen stopped and looked back at us. “How do you feel about your compulsory service, Haskins?”

  Oh shit, I thought. What should I say here? I didn’t know this guy at all and I knew Newman well enough to know that he’d turn in his own mother if he thought the State wanted him to do so. “Uh… I wasn’t happy about it at first, but I’ve learned that we need agents out there on the front lines to interact with the citizens who are inevitably going to experience growing pains as we transition into our new system.”

  “That’s about the biggest bullshit answer I’ve heard yet,” Nguyen huffed. Then he smiled. “You’ll fit in well here.” He turned back around and began walking. “Team One has commandeered the back corner here by the coffee pot. Prime real estate.”

  I followed his outstretched hand to where three other people sat. There were two men and a woman. When they saw Nguyen, they all stood and met us in the middle as we walked toward them. Introductions were made by the sergeant. Jason Rogan was a Special Forces engineer sergeant. He was on a two-year interagency tasking to support the establishment of the CEA, then he’d go back to the SF community to take a team sergeant position. Chris Plummer was an Austin cop and amateur bodybuilder who hoped to get his pro card within the next couple of years as long as he could keep eating and lifting. He’d been on the SWAT team and was a master breacher. Looking at the circumference of the beast’s arms, I could see why. Taya Farley was our cyber specialist transfer from US Customs and Border Protection. She’d signed up with them thinking it would be all high-speed chases and drug interdictions, turns out it was mostly sitting in a truck in the middle of nowhere watching thermal sensors. So, she’d transferred to the CEA—not with the idea that there’d be more action, but at least she’d be in civilization while monitoring the activities of our citizens.

  When the introductions were complete, I looked at the group in awe. All of these guys had legit street cred, whereas I was just a college student who happened to be tall and have big muscles. What the hell was I doing here with them?

  “Go ahead, Haskins,” Nguyen said. “I can see the fact that you’ve got a question written clearly on your face.”

  “Gonna have to work on that poker face, man,” Rogan said, smiling amiably.

  “Well, I mean…” It was hard to put my thoughts into order while remaining neutral about my inner feelings about the new political system we were rapidly descending into. “All of you guys seem to have a law enforcement or military background. We,” I indicated Newman and myself, “did a ton of weapons training at the ATC and learned a lot about the New Constitution, but that’s about it. What the hell is the CEA’s mission? What are we expected to do on a daily basis?”

  Nguyen’s smirk turned into a toothy smile that stretched completely across his face. “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” he asked. “One that we’ve been asking ourselves for the two weeks we’ve been together. On our team, we have two cops, a Green Beret who specializes in blowing shit up, a computer hacker trained to spy on people, and two rookies who are both intimidating physical specimens to the average citizen, but have no real-world experience. We’re supposed to get a few more people assigned to us in time, but why the mix of personnel? Team Two has roughly the same type of breakdown, different agencies and specialties, but all the same flavor. We were told that we’d be working shoulder-to-shoulder with the FBI, but that’s a wide range of missions from investigations, to surveillance, missing persons, and even direct action. We’ve got a new field office lead coming in today, a transfer from the Rationing Board of all things. Maybe he’ll be able to clarify the agency’s role, or at least what we plan to do here in Austin.”

  I nodded. The organization was just standing up, so it was understandable that the “worker bees” didn’t know all of the ins and outs, but shouldn’t we at least have some idea of what we were supposed to do?

  “Okay. That’s fair,” I replied truthfully. “So… What’s next?”

  “Well, we don’t have office IT folks yet, so Taya will help you get your computer accounts set up. Then Chris will take you over to the supply locker and the armory. You’ll get your gear and be issued a sidearm and a rifle. I—�
�� He frowned. “I don’t want to insult your intelligence, gentlemen, but I have to say it. Make sure you bring your weapons inside your home and secure them each night. I’ve seen young agents make the mistake of leaving them in their car overnight and the vehicle got broken into. There’s no quicker way to end a promising career than to have your weapons stolen. Understand?”

  Newman and I both nodded. “Okay. After you get your weapons, Rogan will take you down to the range and put you through the paces. Zeroing your rifles and letting you get familiar with your issued equipment. Then, you come back up here, clean weapons, then go home for the day. Easy peasy.”

  Our first administrative day went fairly quickly. We were about halfway through our familiarization training with the pistols at the range in the basement when the PA system came to life announcing that the new Chief of Station was going to hold a briefing in the bullpen in ten minutes. It was mandatory, one hundred percent participation by every person assigned to the Austin Civic Enforcement Agency.

  “Oh, goodie,” Rogan said as he rolled his eyes. “We get to have a meeting. I’d hoped to get a break from all that crap.”

  We finished firing the rounds in our magazine and did a quick sweep up of the shell casings. Rogan promised the range manager that we’d finish cleaning up after the new chief’s briefing was over, but the guy waved him off, saying it was no big deal and that he’d get the few remaining items after the brief.

  We hustled up the stairs from the second subfloor all the way to the sixteenth floor. Rogan’s reasoning was that the elevators would be overcrowded with people trying to make it upstairs from the coffee shop. I think that played a part, but that he also wanted to assess our fitness level. I’m not going to lie. I was sucking wind by the time we’d made it up the seventeen flights of stairs.

  When we swiped in to the office, Caroline wasn’t at her desk. Crap, we were late. I could hear a woman talking around the corner, it sounded like she was addressing the crowd. A quick peek showed that the speaker, a tall blonde woman, was directly on the other side of the wall facing away from us toward the rest of the agents and employees. We slipped into the cubicle farm and walked around the edge to where the other half of Team One sat at their desks, hoping to be unseen. No such luck.