Harley Jacobs sat in his chair with a Scotch in
one hand and a shotgun in the other. The glass was half filled with ice, just
the way he liked it. He took careful sips from the glass, savoring every
swallow he could. It was more than likely going to be the last Scotch he ever drank.

The notice sat on the table next to him, folded
open to the official decree that was the cause of everything that was going to
happen tonight. The notice had large black text on the front as well as the
official Seal of the Council. It was ornately decorated with flourishing text
and an embossed border, as if the recipient were to be invited to a gala event.
Harley wondered why such pains were taken to dress up a letter that was
essentially an eviction.

He looked at the clock on the handmade mantel of
his fireplace, one of the few handmade pieces that still existed in these parts
Harley thought. It was crafted by his grandfather. In fact, the entire house
was built by his grandfather, plank by plank and shingle by shingle. His
grandfather left it to him when he was nine, though at the time Harley didn’t
know it. He came to find out years later when he turned eighteen. A year after
that the ordinance was passed that nullified estate wills. If a homeowner died,
their property would become domain of the Project, to be used how the Council
saw fit. For many, that was the beginning of the Great Change, a period of war
and destruction that the world had never witnessed before, where the old world
began to be demolished brick by brick to make way for, what the Council called,
more sophisticated and user-friendly models of living. For Harley, however, the
Great Change happened in this living room thirty years ago when he was a nine
year old boy who would be forced to become a man.

It was almost 8pm. The truck would be there at
the stroke of midnight. It was never late and never early. People could count
on that just as they could count on the sun rising and setting. That was one of
the things universal automation took away from everyone; unpredictability, the
element of surprise. He still had a lot of work to do before midnight and he
couldn’t waste it brooding.

Harley laid the shotgun across his lap and
reached for the letter on the table, spilling some of his drink in the process.
He brought the letter up to his face and read it over again. Reading the letter
had become an obsession with him. In the two weeks since he received it he must
have read it about a hundred times, somehow hoping that it would turn out
differently the more he read it. Trying to make sense of it was as futile as
trying to understand what had happened to humanity in the past thirty years. How
everything seemed to have changed so quickly and so fully, so much so that no
one was able to do anything about it. Oh sure, there was the Resistance Core
that attempted to block the changes and organize a coup, but their crusade
ended in blood when one of their members turned out to be a mole of the Project.
He gave up the group and their hideaway to the Council, who ordered the slaying
of all Resistance members and their families; man, woman and child. The event
has come to be known as The Night of Blood. Ever since then there have been no attempts
to organize or go back to the way things were.

People were content to just go about their days
marveling at the new innovations and gadgets running their lives as the
memories of the old world faded away from history. The older generation, those
who were around pre-Change, were steadily dying off and those few who still
remained had neither the desire nor energy to bring up the past.

The letter read as follows:

“Dear Mr. Jacobs,

It has come to our attention that the living
facility that you and your family are currently occupying falls well below the standard
level for a living facility in your sector. As you may be aware, Edict 13A
declares that all living facilities not up to standard be wrecked according to
protocol. We have attempted previous communications with you on the matter, but
have yet to receive acknowledgment from you. As you well know, failure to
vacate your facility within the timeframe set forth by the Council Charter will
result in harsh punishment for you and your family. Punishment for this
transgression may include forced relocation, imprisonment, torture, banishment
and, in some extreme cases, eradication.

Let it be known that this will be your FINAL
NOTICE before we proceed with wrecking. To ensure you and your family’s safety
we strongly urge you to take residence in the Council selected AutoHome that we
made known to you in the previous notice. We repeat:
FAILURE TO VACATE YOUR
LIVING FACILITY WILL RESULT IN HARSH PUNISHMENT
.

Wrecking will commence at the stroke of midnight
exactly two weeks after the date posted on this notice. It will commence
regardless if you are in the facility or not.

We hope this notice has served its purpose in
persuading you and your family to enjoy the comforts and privileges of an
AutoHome, provided to you by the Department of Human Growth and Development.
The Council is dedicated to serving our people and bringing the future closer
every day.

Sincerely Yours,

The Department of Human Growth and Development, Council
of Elysia

Harley folded the letter and placed it back on
the side table. He got up and laid the shotgun across the arms of the chair.
Both barrels were loaded and an extra box of shells were on the mantel piece.
He walked over to the mantel and rubbed his hand across the smooth polished oak
surface. He always loved this mantel as a kid. He remembered, before it was
outlawed, how he and his grandfather would decorate it for Christmas, hanging
stockings and garland.

A picture of his grandfather stood on the
mantel. It was the only surviving photo he had of him. His grandfather posed,
axe swung over one shoulder, with one leg on the stump of a downed tree. The
picture was taken when he was eighteen, just before he joined the service, over
eighty years ago. Harley laughed to himself as he realized he was in possession
of the oldest known object left in all of Elysia, maybe even all of this side
of the country.

Next to his grandfather was a photo of Harley’s
wife, Sara, and his young son, Jasper, who just celebrated his fifth birthday. They
had tried numerous times to have a child, but each attempt was denied by the
Council due to irregularities discovered during one of the required pre-natal
check-ups. If any problems are detected within the fetus, the birth is canceled.

Harley and Sara had seven cancelled births. All
but two were cancelled in the third trimester. Most births are cancelled during
the third trimester. It’s a crucial period for potential parents as the child’s
physical form, cellular structure and mental condition can all be thoroughly
scrutinized to make sure the child will be up to standard. No exceptions are
made. They were getting worried that they would never have a child as they were
rapidly approaching the cutoff age, but fate granted them a gift when all tests
turned up approved and they were finally allowed to have a child. It means,
however, that Jasper will almost certainly be an only child. There were many one
child families nowadays. Most parents who were lucky enough to have a child wouldn’t
want to go through that trial again. Instead they counted their blessings and
stopped. Some do try for a second, but most don’t make before the cut-off age.
Those who are successful are usually on the receiving end of envious looks and cold
greetings from the other single child parents.

Harley sent Sara to her sister’s house for the
night, not wanting her around that evening. He never showed his wife the
letter. When it arrived he hid it in some old files that he knew she wouldn’t
look through. He felt guilty keeping it from her but he knew she wouldn’t understand
the situation. To Sara the house was just a house, something to live in and
keep warm in and raise their child in. Those tasks can easily be done under
another roof. Sara even began to talk about upgrading to one of the new homes,
a topic that Harley quickly changed the subject on.

If she saw the letter, she’d overreact and insist
they move into the AutoHome assigned to them because, to her, it was just a
house. To Harley, it was his legacy, something he was going to pass down to his
son and his son to his. No one was going to force him and his family out of
their legacy. To do that, they would have to die trying, or Harley would have
to die trying to stop them.

He picked up the shotgun again, his
grandfather’s old double-barrel, and brought it up to nose. It smelled like gun
powder and cleaning oil, a scent that he remembered vividly from his youth. He
looked through the sight, feeling the weight of it in his hands. It was years
since he last fired it, ever since the private firearms ban, but he had no
doubt that he could fire off a shot as good as he did when he was younger. Shooting
a gun is a lot like riding a bike, you never forget how.

He had the shotgun hidden away in his basement
in a wall cutout for ten years. His wife didn’t even know he still had it. She
thought he gave it in during the gun recall. It felt right in his hands, like
it was home where it belonged.

The clock struck 8 o’ clock. He still had much
work left to do and not much time to do it in. In four hours he would be in
this house alive or out of it dead. Either way, Harley knew that blood would be
shed.

Chapter 2 –
Thirty Years Earlier

Ancil Jacobs dropped the log he was cutting on
the pile in front of him. The pile was stacked nearly waist high and shaped
like a pyramid. Harley watched his grandfather chop wood out back every Sunday
afternoon, learning the trade that was in their family for generations. Ancil
was a carpenter, a skill that Harley was taught to value. In fact, Harley was
taught to value any craft that required the use of one’s hands.

“This is honest work, Harley”, his grandfather
told him over the heap of wood. “Any man who is worth his salt should be able
to provide for his family with his hands. Don’t let anyone try to tell you
otherwise”.

He reared back the ax and brought it down,
slicing a log in half in one swift motion. He had just finished putting up the
addition to the back kitchen. Harley helped with the construction, measuring
out and cutting 2x4’s and hammering nails. It was strenuous work and Harley
went to bed every night with a sore back and callused hands, but, despite the
pain, he also found it rewarding, more so than he did the computers he was
working with at school. With this he felt like he’d earned his sleep at night
and accomplished something important.

Ancil took out a handkerchief and wiped the
sweat from his forehead, leaving a streak of dirt across it. He was in his
early sixties but didn’t look it. He could easily pass for late forties. Ancil
attributed this to clean outdoor living, something that was becoming sparse in
today’s world. He had a beard that covered most of his face and wore overalls
in every type of weather, hot or cold. He was every bit the quintessential
mountain man that Harley became fond of from the stories his grandfather told
him at night.

Harley began gathering up the excess wood not in
the pile and moving it over to its own little pile. This stack would serve to
light the fire for the wood oven. Despite the amenities that existed in the
world, Ancil insisted on using as little of it as possible, much to the
annoyance of Harley’s father and mother. Harley himself often wondered why they
needed to use the wood burning stove to prepare meals and the fireplace to warm
the house when electric stoves and heaters were readily available. He asked his
grandfather this as he moved the wood in place.

“Because it reminds us to be humble and respect
what we were given and how we got to where we are”, Ancil said. He saw the
confusion in his grandson’s eyes and tried to find the words to explain it
better. “There are people in this world who just want to bury the past and
replace it with new gadgets and machines that are supposed to make our lives
easier, when in fact they take our lives away from us”.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take for instance this pile of wood in
front of us. We spent half the day cutting and sorting it, didn’t we? Not to
mention sweating and straining our muscles, right?”

Harley nodded.

“Now we could have done all that in a fraction
of the time with a cutting machine and we wouldn’t even have had to break a
sweat, but what would we have gained from that? Sure, we would have finished
sooner but would you have learned anything from that machine?”

Ancil pointed his finger at the cutting machine
that Harley’s father had given him. The machine sat idle next to the shed,
covered with a large tarp, its gears slowly rusting and in need of oil. Harley
didn’t think his grandfather even used it once since his father gave it to him.

Ancil continued, “Man doesn’t learn from
machines, he only becomes dependent on them.”

“But isn’t it good to do things quicker?”

“Sometimes, but sometimes it’s better to take
your time and feel the tools in your hands. No good ever came from rushing a
job and no machine ever built a house all by itself. Look at all the great
works of art and monuments that exist. They were built with hands and sweat and
blood and they’ll last forever because of it. But these people want to destroy
all that. They want to make it seem like the past never existed.”

“Do you mean the people in the committee?”
Harley asked. Harley had heard things at school, mostly from older students,
about a group of people wanting to take over and start a “coo”. Harley didn’t
know what a “
coo
” was, but thought it had something to do with the
government. They were a small group, but were making a little more noise and
gaining a few more ears every day.

Ancil pulled on the bottom of his beard and
considered the question. “Yep, they’re a part of it,” he said, “but they’re not
the only part. A lot of it is generational. The younger ones are more open to
the idea of change and breaking tradition. I tell you this in the hopes you’ll
learn something and maybe something I say will stay with you years down the
road when I’m long gone and maybe you’ll pass that little something on to your
own children, helping to keep that memory alive. But I also know that with each
generation the memory will get smaller and smaller, eventually fading all
together. That, I fear, will be the end of us.”

“The end of us?” Harley asked.

“The end of our way of life. Everything we
worked for. That’s why it’s important for you to learn as much as you can now,
so you can be prepared for it.”

“Be prepared for what?”

Ancil brought the ax down hard on a new piece of
log, splitting it perfectly down the middle. The cracking sound echoed in the
wilderness around them. He lifted his head and looked directly into Harley’s
eyes.

“For revolution”.

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