Page 2 of Longing for Liberty

ONE

STATE NEWS: EUROPEAN WAR RAGES ON AFTER FORMER USA ATTACKS!

I lay in the darkness, halfway between sleep and wake, nurturing the seed of imagination that came to me while dreaming.

It had been so long—how long?—since a book idea hit me…

I couldn’t focus on time at that moment as I felt for the character my mind had conjured.

She was poor. A seafaring woman with magic in her blood.

What was her plight? Her motivation? Her place in the fantasy world I’d spent years creating, where I’d fabricated countless lives and adventures and lovers?

My fingers ached to open my laptop. To type the words that would come together to form the story that would land in the hands of a reader in need of something I could give them. Hope bloomed in my chest like a bud on a fast-forward reel, pushing out and opening vibrant and luscious and?—

I gasped.

Bright, unnatural light hit my eyelids, jolting my system, heart pounding.

After six years of night checks, my body instinctively knew to remain still in bed with my eyes closed.

If I looked, I would be blinded by a handheld spotlight shining through our curtainless window as the State Force did their rounds, making sure all citizens were at home in their beds.

Jeremy stirred next to me, probably throwing his tanned forearm over his eyes.

Seconds later, it was dark again, but my heart did not settle.

I was still halfway in that mist of fantasy, and it shattered me to let the dream fade back to reality, where American city police forces, sheriff departments, federal agencies, and military branches had all morphed into one entity.

The State Force focused solely on our own country’s issues now, rooting out any lingering dissent and rebuilding after the Third World War’s devastation.

According to our three solitary leaders—Roan, Walinger, and Fitzhugh—we were nearly a perfect nation now.

I kicked off the sheet, my body damp from sweat in the too-hot room.

“You okay, Lib?” Jeremy whispered. In the darkness, I could make out the outline of his raised head looking toward me, then at the window, which only showed the night sky now.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

He shifted closer and kissed the side of my head, pulling me to him and calming my heart. I raised my arm and gently rubbed a hand over the soft, but thick, shaved hair on the back of his head. Seconds later, his breathing slowed, and I knew he was asleep again.

The vivid hope that my tired brain had raised while I slept died on the vine, a shriveled husk I couldn’t help but mourn…

and also disdain. Because why would my mind fool me like that?

I hadn’t owned a laptop in six years. Hadn’t written in seven, since media was outlawed.

My job as a storyteller was over, and it had been cruel and dangerous of my slumbering mind to forget.

* * *

All windows were down on the old shuttle bus, swirling the hot air around our heads.

Still, I sweated as we bumped along, my bony hips flush against the man and woman on either side of me, all of us staring around with blank expressions.

My loathsome maid uniform was itchy and hot, making me long for the past days of tank tops, jean shorts, and sandals.

I let my eyes wander to the picture plastered on the bus wall of the State Three: President Roan, Vice President Walinger, and Secretary of Arms Amos Fitzhugh.

The caption underneath said, “ Serving the State with justice for all .”

Not for all, actually. Just those who looked like them.

And me. If I were to glance around at others on the bus, I knew what I would see: some pale faces, some freckled, some tanned from the sun, but all of them Eurocentric.

White. It still shocked me sometimes…the complete lack of diversity.

The sameness. The wrongness of how it came to pass.

I tried not to glare at the picture of President Roan with his baby face and the cute smile that had won over America—our youngest president ever.

The tiny tyrant. I shivered a little just thinking about that nickname, words which had caused podcasters and other people to be arrested for repeating them.

It had all happened fast from that point.

Without any media, we were like ants without pheromones to show the way, floundering.

Behind Roan in the close-up picture was Vice President Walinger, known for his beard, cowboy hat, and scratchy accent.

The quintessential Texan. I wondered if he still had the belly that stretched the buttons on his shirt as they had on television seven years ago, or if he’d lost weight with the rest of us.

Also behind Roan on his other side was Fitzhugh.

Classically handsome. They looked so harmless, Roan and Walinger smiling, and Fitzhugh giving that signature smirk.

I looked away toward a coughing child with a hand cast standing by her mother’s side as her mother checked her full face of makeup in a pocket mirror.

They must have been on their way to the wound doctor.

All children of workers were homeschooled, so the only time they left their neighborhoods was for church or if they had injuries.

The girl looked flushed and splotchy as she wiped her nose on her dress sleeve and coughed again. I saw the woman beside them slightly turn away and pretend to scratch her nose, keeping her hand hovering over her face for a long moment as if to block germs.

Oh, wait. Germs didn’t exist.

The VP’s expert theologian-scientific academics had proven that germs, in the way that we once believed, were not real.

Germ theory began as a trick to scare and control people.

Illness and healing were spiritual processes.

No longer did Americans, now Statizens, play God by interfering in nature with antibiotics or vaccines.

I dabbed sweat from my brow and neck, schooling my face to hide any negative thoughts that might appear.

Finally, my stop. I held my breath as I pushed through the bodies on the stifling bus to take my exit into the hazy cityscape of downtown State Capital.

This area was in the city formerly known as Dallas, Texas with many changes, including heavily armed State Force at every corner.

State Capital consisted of about a dozen high rises, a mix of residential and business, with a huge, grassy park in the middle where thousands could gather to listen to speeches or witness executions.

In the center was Eagle Fountain. Massive banners of each of the State Three’s faces hung from the high rises facing the park with State flags on flagpoles in front of each building.

Today, the flags hung limply in the lack of breeze.

Other working-class people walking to their jobs wore blank faces like mine despite the misery of the heat.

Some of the women fanned themselves as they walked, probably trying to keep their makeup from melting off.

I wondered how the State Force could stand to wear their full gear out here and manage to remain standing tall.

Although I felt no pity for them. Not as they stared down each of us who passed.

I didn’t dare make eye contact. I’d seen what they do to people they perceived as threatening.

I speed-walked toward Justice Tower, where secondary government officials lived—the lower-ranked men who did the bidding of the State Three.

The three men I cleaned for worked in the department that oversaw the bovine agricultural branch, based on snippets of conversations I’d overheard.

I didn’t really know. They and their wives didn’t speak to me.

I cursed the stupid stockings that went to my thighs under the skirt and button-up top of the maid uniform.

I tended to sweat, and nothing about this outfit was comfortable.

Even the shoes had ridiculous two-inch heels.

It was hard to believe I’d once worked from home in sweatpants and oversized T-shirts, glugging dark roast with my hair in a messy bun while the kids were at school and pre-K.

Those memories felt as fictional as the books I’d published. Remembering the past was as useless as nipples on a man, as my mom used to say. It used to make me laugh. When was the last time I really laughed? I shook my head and crossed the path to the side doors in the lower level of Justice Tower.

The cleaning office was bustling with maids grabbing their equipment when I walked in and was hit with the stringent smells of bleach and detergent.

Boss Kathy was at the counter looking down through her readers to check off the names of girls as they came and went.

She took one look at me and asked, “Did you even sleep last night?”

In other words, I looked like shit. My fingers pressed under my eyes self-consciously, knowing they were puffy from my fitful night of sleep.

I was one of the oldest maids, if not the oldest. I wore mascara and pink rose lipstick, but that was it.

I didn’t contour like the younger women with their perfectly smooth skin.

As stupid as it was, women had to keep up appearances.

That was hard for me, especially since Jeremy had always preferred my face natural.

“Sorry,” I said lamely.

She let out a sigh, almost sounding like she felt bad for me.

“Listen, Libby.” She took off her readers and set them down, looking firmly at me. “You’re being moved today.”

Moved? Had there been a complaint? A familiar feeling flashed hot inside of me, turning my stomach—my anxiety disorder.

“Why?” I asked, lowering my voice. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Nothing like that. Consider it a promotion.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest. We wore the same black button-up with white cuffs at the arms, but she filled hers out much better. She asked, “How old are you again?”