Chapter Two
The Beginning
April 9, 2018

The day Brian Fallon received his orders to Washington DC was the happiest day of his life. He was to act as aide to General Henry Simon who was the head of the Joint Chiefs. Brian would get the chance to advise President John McNamara on matters of state importance. It was rare that an officer with his limited experience would get such a prestigious posting. He liked to think that he had worked hard and earned it. But he knew that his family history had a lot to do with it as well.

Most days he loved coming to work. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else with his life. He had dreamed of a military career since he was a child. Dad had been a career military officer and had been an advisor to President George Bush. He remembered how proud he used to be of his dad when he was younger. He remembered the way his dad looked in his uniform. His dad loved America and had told Brian many times what an honor it was to serve your country. Brian knew as a small child that he would follow in his father’s footsteps.

Dad had died twelve years earlier in a terrorist attack. Brian had been 17 at the time. At the funeral, he promised his dad that he would make him proud someday. He was pretty sure that his dad would like the fact that he was now working in the White House and advising President McNamara. He was also sure his dad wouldn’t like the current state of affairs in the country.

Yeah, most days he loved coming to work. Today wasn’t one of them. Congress was voting on a very controversial tax bill and it had caused quite an uproar throughout the country. People had been protesting this bill for months. The country hadn’t seen a protest of this magnitude in his lifetime. It was all anyone could talk about. When Brian walked around his Georgetown neighborhood, he could hear people saying how unfair the bill was and that it should never pass. It struck him as odd that if the people who could afford to live in Georgetown didn’t like the bill, then what were the people saying outside the beltway.

Brian knew the bill was going to pass. He had sat in on a few high level meetings and the outcome of the vote was already decided. Decided. That’s how it worked today. The tax bill was going to save the true power running the country now, the conglomerates, billions of dollars. Who cares if it will make more people poor. We already had 50% of the population living below the poverty line. Living conditions in the country had deteriorated to a point that most people lived like animals. People couldn’t afford health care so disease was rampant in the cities. Crime was up, well except where the wealthy could afford to live. They had plenty of police protection. But the police didn’t even bother to control the ghetto neighborhoods anymore. The ghettos had their own laws and if you lived there, you were on your own. It was as if the people in the ivory tower didn’t even care what they were doing to the rest of the country.

As he approached the White House, he could see the protestors. There were thousands of them lining Pennsylvania Avenue. It was like they actually thought they could stop the bill from passing. If they only knew what he knew.

He had watched the news this morning and saw that similar crowds surrounded the capital building. Crowds had formed all around the country, in every capital, around every government agency. They should have surrounded the Stratum Building. The Stratum conglomerate really ran the country. They got Senators and Congressmen elected and they single handedly elected this President. Maybe if the protesters were at the Stratum headquarters then the board members might hear them. Although it’s unlikely that would change the outcome of the vote. There was too much money riding on this bill. Besides, the government stopped being about the people a long time ago. Brian thought how disappointed his dad would be with this country he had fought and died for.

The whole thing seemed a little sad to him. The country he had wanted to defend his whole life was being destroyed from within. He had watched it happen over the last few years. Recently, he watched it from inside the inner circle. He had witnessed the sheer disregard for the people by those elected officials who had sworn to represent them. He wondered when it would all end. He had no idea that this day wouldn’t be the end but would actually be the beginning. This day would go down in history as the catalyst to the start of the revolution.