Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 Read Free Page A

cameras so the idiots could beg all the citizens to turn in their weapons . . . for the sake of the children, of course. That’s how the State and Protection get everything done—threaten a hen with her chick—she’ll kill a priest if she has to.
    Then that bitch senator started squawking for tougher laws and more Protection enforcement again, and everyone bought it—ate it up like kindergraders mowing through All Hallows candy.
    When they finally got all the sheep baa’ing in the right direction—begging for safety—everyone’s favorite uncle tipped his red, white and blue riot helmet and smiled at his ignorant nieces and nephews. “Uncle Satan” was what we called him now. The State asked for them all back.
    “Asked”. . . not the right word, because in his left hand were the bastards over at “ratfuck” and in his right was Protection. Neither of them was “asking” for shit.
    Ratfuck? It’s not pleasant, I can tell you that. Hah, one of the only freedoms a citizen has left—sarcasm and bitching. They do it in private and mostly to themselves, of course. No one wants to get remanded for unlicensed dissent.
    R.R.A.T.F.—Revenue, Religion, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms. None of them are sanctioned anymore, and they took control of them in that order. Okay, that's not entirely true. They nationalized the most profitable ones—the ones they could keep people drunk, diseased and devout with. Take a guess which ones those were. And the revenue. . . the State gives just enough back so that the citizens don’t pull out their pitchforks.
    Most of us—I guess I'm one of them now—just handed our guns over. Not much more than fussing and cussing. Sure, the few faithful left, yelled and bellowed about tyranny and the old Constitution.
    Eddy and Muffy dummy, tucked safely in their habitat in one of the State Scrapers downtown, had never even read the relic, much less wondered what might happen after State dissolved the damn thing. They didn't miss a lick of latte, watching the nightly snatch-and-grab playbacks on the PIN. To them, we were dangerous, old wolves. They were happy to see us lose our teeth.

    A few hardcores knew it was all over—downhill for the red, white and bruised from then on—grizzled old Iraq Protection vets, or Iran and Syria amputees—they knew the drill.
    In haji-land, the first thing they did was limit each Muslim household to one AK-47 each . . . for “protection” purposes. Then, after too many insurgent “incidents,” they took those away, too . . . for protection purposes. A few Syrian citizens protested the wrong way and ended up on the business end of some nineteen-year-old’s M7 riot rifle.
    Didn’t much matter—after Iraq and Afghanistan, we were all used to seeing bearded Middle Eastern dudes lying dead in the dust. We sipped our coffee while unmanned drones blew the living shit out of anything that looked remotely unfriendly. One less “terrorist,” the media dogs told us . . . over and over again. Shit, we barely winced at the images of dead babies that slipped out through the State wavewall. We just clicked away as fast as we could—pretended we never saw a thing—hoped our browse history didn’t show up in Utah. Then the drones started flying over us, and that finally got our attention. The “sheeple” went bat-shit crazy.
    What did they think would happen when the wars were done? Let’s just shut down a multibillion credit industry because the fighting is “over.” Hell no! You gotta find a new enemy to point the revenue at, that’s all. And they did. Only they pointed it right at us, “We the People”—enemies of the State.

    I keep the rant in my head burning as hot as I can. It’s all I got left to help me climb. Nothing like some pointless rage while you run.

    They tested the waters in Wyoming first. Hardly anyone in the little hamlet of Kaycee to cause much PIN media attention—some guy bakin’ up some judgment in his shed—last ditch effort to