Chapter
13
A Serialized Story of the
Not So Distant Future
April 6, 2005
Part Fourteen
When Sam and Martha arrived home, they found Robbie's car in the driveway.
"Dean's here too." Martha said, indicating an old Hummer parked on the street.
They entered the house, and Sam was greeted by the sight of Dean sitting on the couch with a can of beer in his hand, watching baseball.
"Honey, I'm home." Sam quipped.
"Hey Sammy, you're looking a lot better." Dean said, "you been
getting out much?"
"Well, we went to the store yesterday, I felt like I walked a
marathon."
"That's great. Where were you guys today, the city?"
"We went out to the Island to the cemetary." Martha said. "Can I get you something to eat Dean?"
"Yeah, that would be great, Mrs. Quinn."
"Where's Robbie?"
"He's upstairs." Dean answered.
Mrs Quinn went to the foot of the stairs. "Robbie, would you like a
sandwich or something?"
"Sure Mom, I'll be right down."
By the echo of Robbie's voice, Sam was fairly sure that he was in his bedroom. He decided to take a look.
"Hey Sammy, where you going?" Dean asked.
"Upstairs, unless someone has drastically redesigned the house."
"Uh, yeah, I was wondering how long your recovery was supposed to take."
"Could take years," Sam said, and climbed the stairs as quckly as his aching tailbone would allow. When he was younger, Sam knew just how to move in his hallway in order to keep the floor from squeaking. He wished he could do that now, but his gait was still to stiff and awkward.
He found Robbie with a laptop on Sam's bed and some extra equipment
lying on the floor. Sam could see his old printer had been removed,
and a new one was in it's place.
"Hey Bro! I brought you some presents." Robbie said. "We had this old junk laying around the office, so I thought I'd pass it along to you. It's all out of date, so it works on this old system."
"Thanks Robbie, so what have you done exactly?"
"I've copied your whole hard drive here." He indicated the laptop on the bed. "I'm putting it on a thumb drive in case you ever need a backup."
"Cool." Sam said.
"I also brought you a working printer, and a new monitor, cause I
figured your old ones might be worn out."
"That's good, my printer wasn't working."
Robbie closed his laptop and gave Sam the thumb drive. "You can't actually use this on your system, it doesn't have an SSB port, but if your drive should crash, all your stuff is saved. I brought you a BPL modem too, all you have to do is plug this in and you'll get on the internet."
"Excellent."
"Boys, lunch is ready." Martha called.
They went downstairs to find Dean already eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
"Actually Mom, I'm still full from our lunch." Sam said. "I'll just
have some juice."
"That's alright Sam." She said, and got out a container of apple
juice from the refrigerator. Then she took a bag of potato chips out
from the cabinet and put them on the table for Robbie and Dean.
"So Sammy," Dean said between mouthfuls. "Are you coming to the next prayer group?"
"Wouldn't miss it." Sam lied. "Are they always here?"
"No, we all take turns." Robbie said, "the next one is at Clara's house. We usually meet on Wedensday's, but we added last Friday as an extra for your homecoming party."
"That was nice of you guys." Sam thought of the waitress in the diner and managed to keep smiling.
"Religions a great thing," said Dean. "It keeps you out of trouble. I was a total mess until I found Jesus in the army."
"Yeah," Robbie said, "me too."
Sam had to bite his tongue not ask what unit Jesus served in.
"That Smythe kid was getting into some trouble too. He thought he was a member of Chapter 13, spraying their name on walls and stuff. The courts straightened his ass right out. Either find religion, or go to jail." said Dean.
"What's Chapter 13?" Sam asked.
"Buncha freaking athiest terrorists." Dean said, "they don't believe in anything good, they do everything from block traffic to blowing up buildings. Next to the towel heads, their our biggest problem in the country right now."
"Sound pretty messed up." Sam said.
"Yeah, they're pretty scary." Robbie added. "We call them Pinkies, cause they use the color pink to identify themselves. It's cause so many of them are fags too."
"And environmental wackos too," Dean said. "Pretty much any left wing nutball group you can name have all banded together now. They declared war on the U.S., so now they pay the price."
There was an uncomfortable silence, which Sam used to change the subject. "So Robbie, how much does the internet cost these days?
"BPL is 45.00 a month." Robbie said, as soon as you plug it in, you'll be taken to an account set up screen, you can just add it to the monthly electric bill."
"Oh joy, another bill to pay." Martha said.
"I'm sorry Mom, I'll find a way to help out as soon as I'm able." Sam said.
"Well, we better get going." Robbie said, "Dean's got a plugged sink
I'm going to help him with."
"That's nice, have a good day boys." Martha said.
"Goodbye." said Sam.
Once they were gone, Sam went up to his room to connect to the
internet. Sure enough, once he plugged in the BPL into the power
strip, a message box came up asking for an account number. Sam
clicked "New Account" and went through the set up process.
Once he was done, he set up an email account under the SamQuinn2005, and opened up his browser.He clicked on the bookmark for his old brodkerage account, Smith, Shatz and Mahoney. It was automatically forwarded to Emero & Palazzolo International Trading.
Sam had to look up his old account number, so he opened a second tab and typed in Google, just to see how it was doing. He was disappointed to see:
"could not find http://www.google.com the url may no longer exist, or may not be listed in U.S. protocols."
He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that his Google stock was as worthless as his computer.
Fortunately, he had an email with his Smith, Shatz & Mahoney account number. He typed it into the screen.
"Welcome Samuel Quinn (if you are not Samuel Quinn click here)
Smith, Shatz and Mahoney was bought by Emero & Palazollo International Trading on October 13, 2012. All of the former SS&M accounts were assigned new E&P account numbers, please keep a record of this number and use it for future logins. Sam saved the new information, and accessed his account status.
Equities: Google International Holdings Common Stock Series A:
Symbol: GOOGLE
Shares 600
Last traded price: 56.25 EU
Equity Value: 33750.00 EU
Cash avaiable: 1125.25 US, 277.50 EU
Six hundred shares? That can't be right. Sam thought, clicking on the account history tab. Unfortunately, the history was only inclusive for the last three years, and as far as he could tell, 600 shares had been transferred over from SS&M. Maybe the stock had done a six to one split, and why was it being traded in Euros?
There was a link for currency conversions, so he clicked there asking for Euros to US dollars.
Last Traded Price: 1 EU = 3.35 US
Did that mean Sam had more or less money, he was never good with currency conversions. Fortunately, there was a space which would convert amounts for you: he entered 33750 which came out as: 113062.50 US.
He just stared, stunned. If this turned out to be accurate, they wouldn't have to worry as much about money any more.
But why the heck didn't google.com work? He clicked the google icon again, getting the same stupid error message. Perhaps Google was no longer in the search engine business.
The Updates available button was lit on his browser, so he clicked on it and went to mozilla.org.us Firefox v6.0 was out now, featuring a 3D option for the new holographic systems. Sam clicked the download button and went back to surfing.
On a hunch, Sam tried google.com.us, which resulted in success! A red, white, and blue google logo came up, with the traditional search bar underneath. For the heck of it, he typed "Chapter 13" and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky" it took him to the Deptartment of Homeland Security's Domestic Terrorism page.
Going back, he clicked on the main link, bringing up both headlines and websites:
"Chapter 13 sabatoges Naval Radar Test" CNN
"Chapter 13 blamed for California Wildfires" Fox News
"Feds warn Chapter 13 is Growing, ask Congress for 2 Billion to Fight Threat" CBS Newswatch
Under webpages, all Sam found listed were the Homeland Security
sites, and a host of other official websites warning about the
dangers of this group. He finally clicked on one link which was an
article on the psychology of Chapter 13.
Chapter 13 has succesfully embedded itself in the American culture as a counter culture movement. Whether by accident or design (and I suspect the latter) the architects of this evil cadre of extremists have made it fasionable and even "cool" for teens to sport "Chapter 13" wear.
While this sort of behavior is not surprising for those of rebelious age, often idolizing great outlaws such as Billy the Kid, or fictional villains such as Darth Vader, it has provided a field of obscurity over who really is a member of Chapter 13.
This has also made it possible for the group to adopt a hydra like appearance, claiming members in the millions, while the the true criminal core of this organization is probably less than 100, and the total active membership is fewer than 1000.
Of course, it only took three terrorists to destroy the Washington Monument, so the more accurate numbers should not give the reader an illusion of security. The core of Chapter 13 are a pack of anarchistic killers, no matter what their members may claim. The House Internal Security Committee has identified over thirty known felons as members of the group's innermost circle.
Chapter 13's most famous member of course was Tiree Quest. Born Orville Trey Warner to a wealthy Wyoming real estate mogul, Orville ran away from home at 17 and quickly changed his name. His flamboyant nature and excellent singing voice quickly put him on the path to stardom; however, like so many Hollywood stars before him. He was seduced by the sweet lies of the radical left, and his music soon disappeared from the pop charts as he became involved in anti-US demonstrations.
Time magazine summed it up best with their article "America's Good Boy Gone Bad" showing pictures of the wildly popular teen idol dressed in a white tuxedo, contrasted against a picture of him with five o'clock shadow, sporting peace sign earrings while being led away in handcuffs.
The moral damage that Chapter 13 is doing may in the end prove more damaging to this country than all the terrorist attacks put together. If the radical left manages to build a succesful base among the young, they will once again try to cripple American prosperity by strangling our military, passing anti-corporate (so called) environmental legislation, and whatever else their naïve, lopsided, minds can come up with.
The best answer is for federal authorities to clamp down on serious Chapter 13 cells, bring them to justice and really make the young people of America see them for the criminals they are. Once exposed, the romanticism of the movement will fade, and young teenage minds will latch onto a new (and hopefully less toxic) idol.
Well that was pleasant, thought Sam. He tried a search for Blogs: Chapter 13, and came up with some blogger's ranting against Chapter 13, but no one speaking up for them at all. The most telling item he found was an anonymous blog comment claiming that anyone sticking up for Chapter 13 was likely to be charged with Sedition.
"So much for the free internet." Sam sighed.
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Tonight's episode of Chapter 13 has been bought to by the House Committee on Internal Security, protecting your freedom since 1968.
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