Publisher's Synopsis
"Daddy...Daddy..." Missy tugged at her father's sleeve trying to get his attention. "When are we going to see his head chopped off?" "Just be patient, sweetheart... The show will start very soon."Reluctantly she settled back, legs impatiently swinging over the edge of the seat as she waited for the curtain to rise on the third elaborately staged execution extravaganza staged this year in the Cavernium. The audience of more than 20,000 was a strange mixture of the wealthy dregs, each having paid $2,000 per ticket. The tension was palpable, the thrum of anticipation filling the gargantuan space. Backstage, dancers, actors, technicians and assistants flittered and fretted in nervous circles of frenzy. On stage, a guillotine, designed as a surreal monolith, an impressionist construct hinting at death, horror, terror and the balancing forces of justice, community and security. The United States is no more. It is now the United Nation of Communities where geographic regions called Proctorates are each controlled and governed by Community Security Command, CommSec, headed by a Proctor. This is the story of the Midlant Proctorate, its Proctor Gelman Filias, and the struggle of the FLF, the Franklin Liberation Force, to destroy the tightening yoke of CommSec security demanded by the sheeple, those living in GateComms, gated communities, willing to sacrifice their freedoms to preserve their protected enclaves. The choices demanded by some of those involved include: Feldon Murphy who built a Ground Zero obelisk at the bottom of the shallow crater marking the spot on which Calia his wife had been vaporized by a tactical nuke, decided to also build FLF safe bunkers under his Pine Barrens Fish ponds. Delia Sleng who gave up being a GateComm snitch for CommSec to lead a group of armed housewives on a raid on their Detention & Interrogation facility to free their husbands. Wittkopp Perkuskie, a.k.a. "Slither", former sniper, now a live-off-the-land recluse, who decides to accept new targets. Captain Ralen Krause who chose to desert CommSec after learning his gay brother was responsible for gassing 31 people at a retirement party. Sulky, owner and operator of Sulky's Palace of Pleasure, opens an on-site hospital for those wounded in the rebellion, converts her hedonistic paradise into Sulky's Funporium, a family vacation spot and amusement park, finally revealing her true identity to her father. Professor of Physics Asad Abbas who began designing customized explosives after his daughter, sodomized by prison guards, commits suicide. Mangiss Electro, the bearded Harley Hog rider drag queen, who rescued his friend, Gates Abonei, from a CommSec squad seeking revenge. Avi Felker, released from Gitmo, a Krav Maga black belter and expert-rated with an Uzi, who crushes Becky Wilmath's skull after Becky's husband beats her father to death. Harri YoungSmith, head of the Franklin Liberation Force who chooses to ally himself with his greatest enemy in order to acheive a common goal. And Gelman Filias who, long before becoming the Midlantic Proctor, fell deeply in love with Keela, the free spirit who believed fiercely in an America reinvigorated by the independent spirit of the colonial dream. The depth of her commitment to those beliefs and her indomitable strength enthralled and captivated him. Years after she was killed in a demonstration, and after becoming Proctor, her sister passes Keela's last message on to him: "Drive the flock of sheep hard enough to find those with the heart of a wolf." Inspired by this he makes a covenant that, if executed, will destroy the Proctorate, gambling on the independent citizenry to hit the reset button on a path to the country's new destiny.
