Broken Republic and all affiliated Chapters and characters are copyright Steven Swanson 2000-2001. The characters and events in this document are purely fictional, any resemblance between the characters and any person, living or dead, are purely coincidental. UNATCO, the FBI, the CIA, the NYPD, INTERPOL, the Spetznaz, the Mossad, and the NSA are all real organizations and should not be cited as the creation of any single person. Mason Industries is not affiliated with any existing corporations in the real world. Due to mature content, reader discretion is advised. No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission of the author. Steven Swanson is not responsible for any difficult reading caused by the influence of drugs, alcohol, or just plain idiocy. If you are offended by some of the content in this script, that's your problem. Conspiracy theorists are warned not to take this seriously, and that this disclaimer is to simply cover my ass and make aware to plagiarists that ALL the aforementioned agencies feel that that practice could be bad for your health. Uh, well, that's pretty much it. Don\x92t say you haven\x92t been warned, and get reading!

October 1, 2018

It was not only unfair, it was downright unjust, against the standards America was built on. The government didn\x92t care, though. They were siding with the wealthy megacorporations, feeding on soft money and living off the benefits of\x85 staying alive at all. New York was a disaster area. Two years ago, before Spirovirus, the population was booming and, though not happy about it, content to be enjoying a strong economy. It was only a strong economy on the outside, though, a gilded age. In reality, poverty had crept up to epidemic proportions, and even strict government controls proved ineffective in providing for the growing population. That\x92s when things got out of hand. Corporations with "humanitarian contributions" on their minds took control of the government with money, not a big step from the level of corruption before, and had every senator and congressman in their pockets. After the outbreak, the population of New York had dropped to that of 1960, its citizens either dead or fled from the empty shell of a city. Then the protests started. The current one was no surprise. All the official newspapers recorded near peaceful breakups of the riots, but Caulfield knew better. He had seen the bodies of children on the battlefields of New York.

At least he was well off, though. His position in the press granted him a bit of secret publicity, almost an oxymoron, and his various contacts led him to a terrorist cell that, ironically, was out to save the masses from the government. The FAC, the Free America Coalition, was a sort of Robin Hood operation that smuggled Ambrosia from the rich and distributed it as equitably as possible to the poor. In a sense, it was more than that. They thought they were fighting the second American Revolution, the re-establishment of the ideals made by the founding fathers. Their methods were unethical, to say the least, but they gave Caulfield a steady supply of lifesavers. He pushed into the bathroom, leaning into the door to resist its hydraulic shutter. He hadn\x92t taken his dose the other day, so he needed one now or he risked infection. Looking around cautiously, he removed a bottle of pills from his backpack and tapped a single capsule into the palm of his hand. The half-yellow, half-purple surface of the pill was pleasing to look at amidst the dreary white sterility of the bathroom. With a gulp of water from the palm of his hand, he washed down the pill. There was commotion building outside.

He busted through the door, getting ready to see the commotion outside. The bartender, an older woman with a frumpy appearance, rested her hand on a concealed object beneath the table. Caulfield looked away. It wasn\x92t anything new to own a personal handgun in New York. Even he had one, but had neglected to bring it into a protest. It was suicide to carry a gun into the front lines of a demonstration.

"You\x92d best stay in here. The \x91parade\x92 is coming by, and I doubt a little guy like yourself would like to be out there." She said it in more of a cautioning tone than a belittling one.

"Relax, I\x92m a reporter\x85 and no, not for a major news corporation."

"Good, cause I think those types should rot in hell for lying to us all these years. You got a name, sir?"

"Matt Caulfield. I\x92m an editor for a paper called \x91Shade\x92. Ever heard of it?"

"Yeah, I see a lot of mixed media here. You guys are crazy, you know that?"

"Why, because we tell outlandish stories about ridiculous government conspiracies? Don\x92t tell me, I\x92ve heard it."

"Actually, because you tell it like it is. All the big media networks have their heads so far up their asses that they can\x92t see the world around them\x85 Oblivious to the obvious."

A believer. They needed a lot more of those. Yes, he had seen some crazy theories in his time, but he had also seen some downright disturbing ones. Area 51 did exist, to the Russians\x92 credit, but nobody knew what actually happened there. The vaccine for Spirovirus came out only a week after it was publicly announced, which suggested that the release was either a government SNAFU or that it was actually a calculated measure to decimate the population through selective killing. There was Illuminati, or the Templar Knights, a secret organization with aspirations of government takeover. Illuminati, at first, seemed like the antagonists of a bad 60\x92s movie, but the more he looked at how corporations had encroached on basic civil rights, the more he wondered. Even the Canadian Cold War was suspect, speculated to be a NATO plot to strengthen the nation\x92s military so that their own countries wouldn\x92t have to intervene all the time. The UN even had dirty hands, encroaching on the opposite side of human rights in America, narrowing it down to a few basic freedoms. America wasn\x92t its own country anymore. It was just the possession of corporations and squabbling UN delegates. He remembered an interesting development that he had heard about recently. Apparently, a security leak revealed that genetically augmented UNATCO agents would soon join their arsenal, possibly even replacing cyborgs as the favored augmentation for their agents. He had seen all sorts of borgs before, but the thought of humans crossed with animals\x85 it was almost unbelievable. Science was back in the "unethical and suspicious" scene, if it had ever stepped out. He pondered for a moment. New augmentations, new agents, fresh meat in New York City\x85 the value of a government insider at that level was extremely tantalizing. He smacked his dry lips, wondering how they had become chapped in such dismal, damp weather.

After considering the situation, he decided to keep out of the weather and stick around the bar for a while. The business was completely absent as the parade approached, and Caulfield was nursing a Budweiser when he first saw it. Approaching from the opposite end of the street was a National Guard Phalanx of two rows, a moving cordon, and armored vans to back it up. The troops were in their full riot gear, ready to deal with just about anything, and Matt could have sworn that he saw razor wire slipped onto the cordon, with small openings on the side to allow the retreat of the troops. The National Guard had been dealing with protestors for three straight days now, three straight days without proper rest. Three days of going back to base with images of beaten and bloody teenagers in their heads. They were tired, confused, and were increasingly bloodthirsty. The same drudgery had befallen them for 72 hours, and they didn\x92t look like they were going to negotiate. Caulfield almost felt sorry for them and the situations they were forced into, but he remembered that if there were to be true justice, the men would refuse to follow their orders. Matt guessed that at their current speeds, the two separate groups would clash at or near the very bar where he was sitting. His heart skipped a beat. A tiny part of his mind was excited that he would catch what might be one of the most violent interdictions since the 2000 Palestinian crisis, but the great majority of his conscience feared for the lives of the innocent demonstrators. The guard wasn\x92t as gracious as the police. Instead of teargas, they used CS and mustard gas. Instead of rubber bullets and beanbag rounds, they used rubber-coated rounds, or even full-metal jackets.

As the two groups approached, the red and white flashes of strobe lights coated the gray and brown buildings with a pleasant and punctuated red light. They were meters apart now, neither side flinching, neither side visibly swaying to fear nor emotion. Pulling out his digital camera, he began snapping multitudes of photos, attempting to capture the walls of humanity just a few feet apart, before the convergence of the twain. There was not going to be any understanding. There wouldn\x92t be any open-mindedness. Just two stubborn groups meeting each other. The cries of the crowd were now visible, as well as their signs. This was an organized protest, he deduced, as he saw several well-known protest leaders at the front of the line. He also spotted a fairly pregnant woman near the front as well. Suddenly, he spotted one.

One man had just filtered into the crowd. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and his face was concealed. Matt immediately knew that he wasn\x92t here to keep the peace. The crowds stopped, creating little waves of deteriorating motion toward the rear of the massive protest. Accompanying the stop was a deafening silence. Even the native sounds of jackhammers, cars, police sirens, and arguments were absent. A slight vibration rattled a loose window nearby, likely caused by vibrations in the air. A pair of helicopters circling overhead then broke the silence. Their distinctive wop-wopping gave them away, and as he looked up a pair of faceted, polygonal VB- 244 military choppers loomed over the crowd. They were equipped with rocket launchers and machine guns, and their armaments stuck out like steel talons in the pale gray light. They moved slowly, more for surveillance than aggressiveness. As of yet, nobody had even talked to the National Guard, and after the isolated announcement to disperse, the Guard subsequently did little to thwart the crowds.

Nobody wanted violence, but the stalemate between the forces meant that some danger was imminent. Caulfield was impressed at the discipline of the two thus far, but it couldn\x92t hold. He prayed.

A megaphone blared, echoing off the nearby buildings. The voice was strong and clear, showing authority and a hint of aggression "Citizens of New York, be advised. This is the United States National Guard. Disperse now or you may be fired upon. We do not want to instigate any violence, but if you wish to remain in the area, you risk the loss of your life. I repeat, we strongly suggest that you disperse now."

It was, of course, a futile announcement for the most part. Caulfield thought that he saw some stray protestors vanish into the nearby buildings, but he soon discovered that they were only pedestrians and bums getting away from danger. Several took cover inside the very bar he was standing in. Looking again into the crowd, more Anarchists arrived, less obvious than their black-clad leader, but conspicuous due to their entrance into rather than exit from the mob.

Matt mumbled under his breath as a bum in a gray, oil stained trenchcoat nudged past "Shit." He turned to the patrons, just beginning to get comfortable. "Get back, everyone, this isn\x92t going to be pretty." He looked again at the crowd. Men, women, elderly, children\x85 snapping a few more pictures, he only hoped that the National Guard would graciously drive them out, but he knew that the terrorists were up to something. They wanted utter chaos, and it would only take a minor action to start it here.

Several minutes later, the crowd began to murmur again. They were growing restless. By now, their leaders would have negotiated safe passage, but the utter lack of activity was a blatant signal that their leaders had been unsuccessful. They were correct. The leaders had stepped forward, announcing their presence, but the Guard remained vigilant. Nobody was going to fall back. Matt\x92s tensions sank as mild boredom set in. This could take days.

Suddenly, a shadow appeared on a nearby rooftop. Initially, Matt suspected he was a military sniper, but two seconds of time to aim and fire quickly proved him wrong. The terse crack of gunfire punctuated the din of the crowd, and almost immediately the bullet entered a soldier\x92s knee, ripping through bone and ligament to bend it backward in a spray of dark red. The soldier fell backward, scrabbling at the flecks of flesh and skin protruding from near his knee. His nearby allies suddenly became uneasy and pulled their troops behind cover. All the time, they were pursued by the occasional shot, all of which strayed and hit the nearby cordon of armor. Through the commotion, Matt nervously took several pictures of the confusion. Shortly thereafter, more men appeared on the rooftops, this time with assault rifles. They fired small bursts of ammunition toward the troops and into the air, generating chaos and confusion in the crowd. A pair of soldiers isolated from their unit burst into the tavern, squeezing through the door in the clank of metal and the heavy sound of solid boots. A stray round flowered the nearby pane, sending tiny flecks of glass down Matt\x92s neck. He couldn\x92t resist. Raising his camera yet again and ducking slightly behind the window, he snapped as many pictures of the scene as possible, almost indiscriminately catching the chaos and the soldiers under fire.

"Get down, you fuckin\x92 retard!" A muffled voice sounded in a southern accent, one of the soldiers.

The other joined in, just as muffled through his gas mask. "Dammit, we\x92ve got to get those people out of here!"

"We\x92re not the ones with the megaphone!"

"Then tell the commander!"

He did so, and soon an illegible megaphone roared over the chaotic crowd. It was absolute terror in the mob. Many were fleeing into buildings, inducing a series of small stampedes. Others had misinterpreted the firing as repellant by the National Guard and were quickly finding objects to hurl in their direction. The ripping sound of automatic gunfire punctuated the air through the chaos, and soon the soldiers found themselves behind armored cars and a wall of bulletproof riot shields. The situation escalated, and stray rioters joined the fight in hurling rocks, bottles, cans, and stray refuse toward the soldiers, still waiting for some sort of order. It was at this time that the terrorists made their real move. Just as another soldier fell, the front of the crowd the entire front line removed all sorts of weapons. Some of the younger teenagers took out pistols, and still others had a large variety of weapons from pump shotguns to modern automatic rifles. They began firing, adding to the chaos and casualties. A great deal of innocent civilians was still mixed in with the terrorists, and all were clamoring to get out of the way. Paul snapped one last picture, carefully peering through the glass.

A voice cracked in the radio units of both fortified soldiers. Civilians were still streaming in with their arms over their heads and ears. The voice was that of a frightened officer and all around him bullets whizzed and ricocheted. "Colonel Patterson to all units, open fire on all hostile targets! I repeat, open fire on hostile targets!"

"Sir, does that mean you want us to fire into the crowd?"

The man seemed delirious, truly angered at the loss of his men. "Yes, God dammit! Take the motherfuckers down! Now! Now! Now!"

After a second of hesitation, the hidden soldiers rose, aiming their rifles toward the terrorists. Men also materialized from inside the armored units, opening their portals and taking aim with heavy machine guns. The next ten seconds went by at an agonizingly slow pace, each second an absolute horror. The terrorists were the first to fall, crumbling in a perfect line from the soldiers\x92 positions. The column of fire moved backwards, spraying and spilling massive amounts of blood, indiscriminately mowing down women, children, and the elderly. Matt caught a glimpse as a nearby woman, carrying a white bundle in her hand, was shot in the neck and crumbled to the ground. Black flecks of flesh hit the wall nearby, and as her body rolled forward the package in her arms was revealed to be a small girl, no more than five years old. She rolled in front of the tavern, mostly unharmed, and in an amazing act of courage one of the fortified soldiers crawled out, scooped up the child, and moved back into the building. Torn from her mother, the child screamed and reached out, desperately wanting a response and to be freed from the strong grip of the stranger. She would never get a reply.

All around, innocent civilians were being mowed down, and the crowd was either frantically squeezing through nearby doorways or lying on the ground, playing dead. For most of the duration, Matt had taken cover by the window, recording the sounds and snapping digital photos at random, not looking through the viewfinder. He found it hard to hold up the camera while hearing the screams of agony nearby.

Ten seconds passed. Ten excruciating, deadly, merciless moments, and the gunfire subsided. The machine guns halted first, then the rifles, then a pair of last discharges went off. A deafening silence fell upon the scene, and as Matt looked up at the soldier who had rescued the child, he saw one of the men peer around the corner. Neither of them had fired shots through the ordeal, but as one of the soldiers glanced the absolute horror and atrocity of the massacre before them, he retched. Little came out except stomach acid, typical in those hard times when even military personnel couldn\x92t eat excessively. The man crumbled to his knees and embraced his gut, keeling over to vomit again.

Matt couldn\x92t bear it. His conscience told him not to see the carnage, for his own sake, but he couldn\x92t resist. He looked out the now shattered window. The window itself was partially clouded in other peoples\x92 blood, but it was painfully clear what had happened. Hundreds of dead, wounded, and unconscious filled the street. The sulfurous reek of gunpowder mixed with the stench of death and the tang of blood in the air. Too shocked to even react, he looked around at the rioters. The terrorists who had held guns were decidedly dead, but at the cost of the nearby crowd. Matt saw the pregnant woman he had seen earlier, only now her blue dress was covered in dark red blood stains; she had been shot in the torso and stomach three times.

Matt took his turn to vomit. He keeled over, spots forming before his eyes, and white stomach acids mixed with soy foods and orange juice poured onto the floor in the stench of bile. A hand cupped his shoulder as he wiped off his cheek with the back of his hand.

"Sir, please, step back." The voice was shaky and weak, but he recognized the southern drawl as the soldier who had rescued the girl.

Matt did so, revealing his slung camera and raising his arms. The soldier\x92s arm reached around his shoulder, and Matt tried to stand up, putting pressure on his right leg. Pain screamed up his leg and into his brain as drops of blood fell onto the ground. Matt hadn\x92t even noticed it, but a stray round had caught him in the leg.

"Can you move your toes?"

Matt experimented, feeling his toes move with full motor control. He croaked out, his mouth raw from the acidic geyser. "Yes."

"Good, your leg\x92s not broken." He was hoisted over the man\x92s arm. "Come on, there\x92s a medivac outside."

Matt became delirious, accidentally glancing the pile of corpses outside. The wail of mourning civilians and survivors began to dominate the air. "No! Leave me! Help the other people!"

"Sir, you\x92re hurt!"

"Leave me, God dammit!"

The man set down Matt on the nearby floor, crunching broken glass as his heavy boots clomped across the floor. The same hands that rescued him soon manhandled his digital camera, tossing it across the room. It cracked as it collided with the nearby wall, but the nearby soldier soon crushed it with his foot, snuffing its life as the firing line had the crowd\x92s. Matt called out, his voice rasping.

"No! What are you doing??"

"Sorry sir, security measures."

The camera crinkled and cracked under the heavy boot, which stomped it out much as one does a spent cigarette.

"No! Stop! You goddamn baby killers! No!" His shout sunk into a wail as he cupped his head in his hands, tears streaming down his cheeks.

He crumbled to his knees, ignoring the shot of pain from his leg. This would be silenced, the entire massacre. It would be distorted and sterilized to prevent a public nightmare. The survivors would be treated by "psychologists" and silenced. Witnesses and dissenters would be "re-educated", forced to denounce the situation or keep silent about it. Everything from now on was cleanup, and nobody would be punished. Nobody except the next wave of protestors. Those damn terrorists. They tried to become martyrs, but instead fruitlessly committed mass suicide, taking hundreds of innocents with them. It was all so useless.

He later heard that the commander who gave the firing order was demoted a mere one rank for his folly.

Julike? Contact me, Steven Swanson, at jodimest@erols.com