 
The Triggering

By

Christopher Gates

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Christopher Gates on Smashwords

The Triggering

Copyright © 2018 by Christopher Gates

Chapter 1

The students seemed to have a dull, glazed look to their eyes as they walked through the smoke. The gunshot sounds of firecrackers went off in the distance.

"Hate speech is not free speech! Hate speech is not free speech!"

More smoke bombs were thrown from somewhere in the crowd. Bricks and rocks occasionally sailed through the air. Campus police stood by doing nothing.

The chanting had become oddly drone-like.

"What brought you out here to see Dr. Peter Jamison today?" Alfonso asked a student who appeared to be making his way to the auditorium. The cameraman, Tommy, got him in frame.

"I had seen a few of his videos on YouTube and he has an interesting perspective on free speech. It's a different perspective than what we normally hear at university, so I wanted to learn more about his point of view."

"You're not concerned that some people consider him transphobic?"

"I personally, haven't noticed him say anything that sounds transphobic. I don't think that being concerned with the government compelling speech regarding pronouns or anything else necessarily makes a person transphobic. I don't want to put him into a box just because some people are labeling him transphobic. I want to hear what he has to say and make my own opinions."

A rock suddenly landed at the young man's feet and he jumped a bit to the side.

Al looked to the crowd of protestors to see where exactly the rock may have come from but couldn't possibly tell.

"Are you surprised at the behavior of the protestors?"

"I can't believe it! I'm a liberal! I'm not even sure if I agree with much of what Dr. Jamison has to say! I just want to hear him out and people are here throwing rocks at me!" He took a few steps back while eyeing the crowd. "I'm getting inside!" He turned and trotted toward the auditorium.

"Thank you!" Alfonso called out to him.

One of the protestors, a girl with glassy, staring eyes, walked directly toward the cameraman. Al held out the microphone thinking this footage would be sure to get him up to twenty-thousand Youtube subscribers. "What do you think about compelled speech regarding gendered pronouns?"

She looked angry. She didn't even blink. Her giant black pupils contrasted her short pink hair. "We have to respect the wishes of transgendered people!"

"So you believe the government should force people to say certain words? Are you concerned where that might lead?"

"Hate speech is not free speech!" She chanted in time with the others.

"How exactly can we decide what constitutes hate speech and who should be in charge of deciding it?"

"Hate speech is not free speech!" She shrieked and trembled.

"Do you have any thoughts on what I just asked?"

She blew an air horn in Al's face.

His ears rang, but he kept his composure. "Can we just have a discussion?"

She shrieked again and dropped her air horn. Her spaghetti strap tank top was tight enough to show the rolls at her sides. She stood rigid with her whole body tense. She stomped her foot and her fat jiggled. "Nazi!" she screamed with spittle. Drool fell from her mouth.

A bit of panic settled into the pit of Al's stomach. "Tommy," Al said as he touched his shoulder wanting him to take a step back.

The girl reached her hands out and grabbed Tommy's cheeks like she was going to kiss him. A COEXIST tattoo showed on her forearm. A bit of drool dangled from her lip ring as she opened her mouth.

"Tommy!" Al screamed.

He dropped his camera and she sunk her teeth into his throat. Blood immediately spurted out in torrents. She pulled away with a little chunk of flesh. Blood dripped from her chin in a red goatee.

Her dead eyes met Al's. "Hate speech is not free speech!" she snarled, but not before swallowing what she had taken out of his friend. Tommy howled madly and slumped to his knees while she kept a clenched hand on his collar.

Al snatched up the camera and swatted her across the face with it. A gash opened up just above her eye. She lunged at him with snapping teeth. Al bashed her face again and again opening up more wounds. He brought the camera back and swung it with all his might hitting her just above the ear, and her head exploded. It exploded. Like a rotten Halloween pumpkin. Shards of her skull scattered high into the air and in all directions. A thick orange ooze splattered out and seemed to hang suspended for a moment before landing on the pavement in scattered splotches. Headless, the body dropped to its knees with arms raised out in front of it. They wavered and twitched a bit. And she fell over sideways into her own slop.

Al wiped a bit of the orange from his cheek and looked at it in utter disbelief.

No time to think about it now; Tommy was already pale lying in a pool of his own blood. Al grabbed him by the shoulders and started dragging him toward the auditorium where Dr. Peter Jamison was giving a talk on free speech issues.

Fights had broken out to their left and to their right. Smoke obstructed Al's vision. Screams erupted on all sides of them. A young man stumbled past them while holding his bloody neck.

A chubby girl with green hair and a nose ring came charging toward them followed closely by a lanky fellow with a receding hairline and neck beard. The bastards each grabbed one of Tommy's ankles. They snarled and growled as they pulled on them creating a two against one tug of war.

They looked at Al with the same dead, black eyes as the girl whose head had exploded. "Women are people too!" They screamed in perfect unison. The chubby girl greedily took a bite out of Tommy's calf. Snorting as she did it.

Al dropped Tommy's shoulders and he fell limp to the ground. Motionless. He was already dead.

They tore into him like a couple of starved dogs.

Al turned to his left and saw an opening through the crowd. He sprinted. A brick sailed through the air and nearly hit him. He leaned and picked it off the pavement in mid stride.

People were storming the auditorium and he heard more screams coming from inside. A group of protestors hunched over another body to his right. The sound of tears and snapping jaws cut through the air.

A double-chinned guy with a pony tail and vacant eyes jumped directly in front of Al and took the stance of a linebacker deciding his next move. "Women earn seventy cents to a man's dollar!" he foamed. His voice shrill, angry and hysterical.

Al brought the brick directly into the middle of his face with a crunch. His nose flattened and he fell backward.

Al kept running and neared the edge of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man with the newly flattened face already back on his feet and loping toward him. The man's pony tail bounced with each awkward stride. Al's car lay just ahead and outside the crowd and mayhem.

Chapter 2

Olivia was disgusted by all the Nazi sexists cheering in the seats behind her. "Who is this speaker again?"

"I forget his name, but he is like totally sexist. He doesn't even believe in the wage gap and I heard he wants to keep women trapped in the kitchen and forced to have babies."

"Uhh, babies? Gross!" Olivia shook her head incredulously, then checked her phone. She had only been in the place ten minutes, but it had felt like she had been in there for an hour. There wasn't even anything interesting on her Facebook feed.

The man at the podium went on and on saying something about how if you want to have honest conversations with people about contentious issues you need to be able to risk offending them.

"Did he just say it's okay to be offensive?" one of Olivia's friends screeched.

They all looked at each other to confirm one another's outrage and then they held up their signs that read, "hate speech is not free speech." They screamed it at him. They screamed at the top of their lungs. He looked down at them disapprovingly and they screamed it again. Olivia jumped up and down a bit.

"Hey, let's get a selfie!" she shouted to her friends.

They all nodded enthusiastically. Olivia got the selfie stick from her bag. They all leaned in while Janice held her sign in the middle of the group. She had carefully added a butterfly in the corner of hers next to the word, "PEACE!" They each looked at their image as Olivia held the phone out in front of them. They adjusted their smiles to look as cute as possible.

"Now let's do one where we look pissed off!" Olivia shouted.

They made serious, angry expressions and Olive snapped that photo too.

Mr. boring had continued droning on the whole time.

"Ladies, if there are any more outbursts, I'm going to have to ask you to leave!"

The girls were startled. The voice had come from a security officer. A man. A tall one.

They stared at him for a moment, stunned. He turned and walked away.

"That is total bullshit!"

One of them shouted the word "asshole" after he was completely out of sight.

"I can't believe he just talked to us that way."

"Classic example of toxic masculinity!"

"Honestly, that was a total buzzkill. What a dick," Olivia said. "And did you see the way he stared at my chest?"

"Yeah, he wasn't even trying to hide it. He looked at me that way too. Seriously rapey."

Olivia had almost forgotten about their selfies. "Which one of these photos should I post on Facebook?"

"Definitely the pissed-off one. We look totally badass!"

Olivia posted it with the caption, "letting Nazis know they aren't welcome on our campus." Within five minutes she had forty likes and a dozen comments. Things like, "Good for you my sisters!," "You are so brave!" and "Keep up the struggle! #BashaFash".

Mr. boring was still talking away. Olivia finished reading through all her comments. She looked around the auditorium. There was a girl a couple rows back wearing embroidered jeans! Hopelessly pathetic and like sooo White! Nazis can't even make good choices when it comes to fashion.

Apparently, it was now question and answer time. Some boy with long curly hair was speaking into a microphone held by some little assistant down in the audience. The boy was actually pretty cute.

"Dr. Jamison, given the unique history African-Americans have suffered in this country, don't you think it is appropriate that they receive re-affirmations?"

The doctor thought for just a moment before answering. "Reparations? Well one problem with that is how could we even determine who would pay the reparations? Would any white-skinned person have to pay them? What if they were one-eighth Mexican? Or one-sixteenth Native American? Would they still have to pay? What if they had just immigrated to the U.S. a few years earlier from someplace like Iceland? Would they have to pay?

The student stood there in front of the microphone with a confused expression for a moment. "So, you hate all Black people!" He screamed it accusingly and held his fists in the air as if he were at a sports rally.

Several pockets of students stood up and cheered at the accusation. Olivia and her friends looked back at them and then looked at each other and then they stood up and cheered too. "That guy is like so woke!" Olivia said.

Another student had a turn at the mic. "Isn't it important to speed up the immigration process for middle eastern refugees and to take in many more of them so other countries will see how tolerant we can be?"

"It's important that our immigration officers have the ability to perform background checks on people from these middle eastern countries for the safety of all our citizens."

"So, then, why do you hate all Muslim people?"

Several pockets of students started booing Dr. Jamison and shouting, "why do you hate!?"

There was more talking and more talking. Olivia looked at her fingernails and thought about painting them purple when she got home. "Hey girls I'm totally bored. I think I'm going to go home soon."

"I'm not bored! I'm mad!" shouted their friend, Stevie. She had started pulling at her hair. She did that sometimes when she got upset. Once last year, she cut herself she was so upset about something or another. Right on her arm.

Some of the other girls tried to comfort her and calm her down.

Olivia looked around for the nearest exit.

Stevie screeched. Really loud. She rushed the stage. She scrambled over to the podium and bumped Dr. Jamison as she shoved her face into the mic, "I love refugees! I love them! I love refugees!"

Two security guards peeled her off the podium and she went limp but kept screaming. They had to pick her up by the arms and ankles. She kicked and struggled as they carried her off the stage. "I love refugees! I'm trying to help! I'm trying to help!"

Another of Olivia's friends had gotten it all on video. "This is going to get her so many likes on social media," she said with a bit of jealousy.

"I've got to get out of her girls. I can't take all this toxic masculinity. This is getting scary."

Chapter 3

"Good afternoon, sir! Can I see your license and registration please?"

"Why the hell you pull me over!? Ain't you ever seen a Black man driving a BMW before?"

"Sir, the rear of your vehicle has a dent and your left tail light is not functioning. I had no idea your race when I pulled you over."

"This is some Bullshit right here."

"I need to see your license and registration sir."

"That's gonna be a problem 'cause I left my wallet at home. But, I'll get that tail light fixed. I was planning on doing that tomorrow anyway."

"I'll still need to see your registration."

"I told you, I'll get the light fixed tomorrow! You know you wouldn't be givin' me this shit if I was White!"

Mya had finished running the plates and saw that the vehicle belonged to a Rebecca Fitzgerald. The car had come speeding away from the university where rioting and looting had been reported. Mya had argued that they respond to the riot but had been ordered to stay put. She stepped out of the cruiser and approached the vehicle.

"I'm going to need you to please step out of the car sir," the policeman repeated.

The driver spotted her. "Hey sister!" He smiled. "Can you explain to this cracker I'm going to get the light fixed tomorrow. I'm just trying to get a few more blocks to visit my daughter. There ain't no problem here. No problem."

"I believe my partner just asked you to step out of the vehicle."

"It's gonna be like that, huh? I've got the registration right here, then." He reached toward the glove box.

"Sir! Do not reach for the glove box! Put your hands up! Put your hands up!"

"Why you gotta be shoutin' at me like that! Scared-ass white boy. You said you wanted to see the registration. I've got it in the glove box. Just calm yo' ass down."

"Step out of the vehicle sir! Put your hands up!"

He opened the glove box and pulled out a gun. He pointed it at the officer.

The officer had drawn his own gun. He looked at the gun pointed at him. He looked at the face of the perpetrator.

"I'm gonna shoot yo' ass white boy."

The officer stood frozen.

Mya began pulling her gun.

Two shots rang out. And the White officer fell backward with two holes in his chest.

Mya leaped forward to get a clear shot, but the car pulled away and sped down the street. Mya knelt down next to her partner.

He gasped for breath.

She radioed for an ambulance and ran back to the car for the first aid kit. She put gauze over his wound and applied pressure. "You should have shot him Jack!"

He shook his head. "No! No, I couldn't do that."

"Don't talk now." She already heard the ambulance in the distance.

Chapter 4

Mike put in his other earbud and turned the volume up on his phone to better hear the streaming news coverage of some kind of riot going on right here in town at the university.

"Members of hate groups started the violence against students protesting the scheduled appearance of alt-right speaker, Dr. Peter Jamison. Don, tell me what is going on there at the university right now?"

"Well Nancy, as you can see a lot of students are just in shock right now. The violence erupted only a couple of hours ago. There are dozens of people who have been hospitalized and some are even in critical condition." Smoke blew through the air behind the newscaster as groups of disoriented students walked by.

"Don, how exactly did this violence start?"

"Well Nancy, from what I've been told students representing anti-fascist and anti-hate groups had gathered outside Che Guevara Auditorium here to peacefully protest the speech being given by alt-right leader, Peter Jamison. And at some point, White-supremacist counter-protestors began throwing firecrackers, bricks and rocks at the students." Don tightened his lips and shook his head.

Nancy's face contorted in shock and dismay as she shook her head. "Oh no. Such a terrible and cowardly act committed against these students."

"Well unfortunately, that's not all, Nancy. The students began defending themselves and pushing back against these neo-Nazis and things quickly spun out of control. I have a student with me here now. Can you tell me about what you saw today?"

A young woman with short hair and wearing a muscle shirt said, "As a trans-man, I came here to make my voice heard and to speak out against the hate that Dr. Jamison represents. I deserve to exist! Jamison has committed acts of violence against trans people on national television by refusing to call them the pronoun of their choice. Members of the trans community were here today along with other marginalized groups and allies. We were making it known that we won't tolerate hate, and they just went crazy! One of them started asking us questions that didn't even make sense. They started asking us to explain our opinions. But we don't converse with Nazis!" She said the last phrase more passionately than the others. "So, we just kept chanting! Then, they, they just started attacking us!" The young woman broke down in sobs.

Don looked at the camera with wide, sad eyes.

"What a brave young man. A hero," said the anchorwoman.

"A hero indeed," said Don with a nod of his head.

Mike's lunch hour was up five minutes ago. He put his phone down and looked at his half-eaten salami sandwich. He turned back to the article he was writing titled, "More Whites Than African Americans Shot By Police."

Lebron muttered something to himself as he rounded the corner and approached Mike's cubicle. But, Lebron marched right past and into the Human Resources office. He didn't quite shut the door behind him.

"Oh, hi Le-"

"Don't you think it's a bit ironic that the pamphlets used in this morning's diversity training featured nothing but White people in all the pictures?"

"Pictures? You mean the clip art characters that are on some of the pages?"

"You mean the clip art characters?" he said in the kind of nasally, overly annunciated tone that Black people use when they are impersonating a White person. "Yes! Clip art, whatever you call it, they are all White!"

"Well Lebron, first of all, I appreciate you bringing this concern to me. We at Unified Media Corp didn't get to be the largest of the three major media conglomerates by allowing the concerns of our valued minority employees to go unheard. I have the pamphlet right here. Let's take a look."

She opened the pamphlet. "Let's see. You know Lebron, these clip art characters don't even have faces," she said in a light tone, "they just have circles for heads and triangle bodies."

"Yeah, but what color are their circle heads?" Lebron asked knowingly.

"Well, they're kind of a light tan. I think they might be Mexican. Or Hispanic-American, I mean," she continued speaking in a soothing and understanding tone.

Lebron was silent for what seemed like an eternity. "I know that! I know they're Mexican! Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"No, Lebron. Of course not."

"What about the next page?"

"Let's see."

"Ah-hah! Do they look black?"

"Well Lebron, this one has a bit of a yellowish hue. I think that's supposed to represent Asian. And this one has that same light-tan hue of the Hispanic-Americans on the previous page."

"Yeah, but are Mexicans and Asians, Black?!"

"Let's check the next page with pictures on it. Here we go on the last page. That one is clearly African-American."

"African- He has blond hair!"

"Sometimes African-Americans dye their hair. I believe, Wesley Snipes had blonde hair in the film Demolition Man, for example."

Again, Lebron was silent for a moment. "Yeah, but look at that suit. You expect me to believe a Black man would wear a suit like that!"

"Well, it's hard to say. It's a triangle shape to fit the triangle body. Um, the collar has a nice cut to it. It's sort of a couple of smaller triangles up at the top here."

Lebron snorted. "That's what I'm talking about! There's no way a Black man would wear a suit with that basic collar. That man ain't got no style! If it had pin strips or something! That looks like the kind of suit that silly chink back there, Mike, would wear."

Mike dropped his pen. Did he really just hear what he thought he did? Is that word acceptable in a corporate human resource office? He listened for Ms. Blankerton's response.

"Of course, Lebron. You're right. I'm so sorry. I feel so embarrassed we didn't catch this sooner. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"You're damn right."

"I'm sorry."

Mike heard every word and thought, she didn't even acknowledge it. Apparently, it is an acceptable thing to say for certain people. Mike remembered how often he used to hear that word when he first moved to America. Mostly while he was getting beaten up. He was in seventh grade when his family immigrated and he had started attending Martin Luther King Middle School. He and the other Asian kids had their lunch money stolen, they were bullied, mocked for their accent, and sometimes beaten up. There got to be so many beatings of Asian kids near the end of his eighth-grade year the local news started reporting on it. His superintendent was on television saying how there was a problem, but the administration was taking serious measures to stop it. When asked if the beatings were racially motivated he laughed. "Of course not! These are just energetic youths. This has nothing to do with race." This is when Mike started becoming interested in journalism.

"Like I said when I first walked in. Not a single Black person in this pamphlet!" Lebron shut the door surprisingly hard on the way out and the framed "Diversity is Strength" poster hanging from it fell to the ground. Lebron didn't seem to notice.

Mike stared at his article. Absolutely motionless until after Lebron walked by. He managed to get his article finished and on the editor's desk before the end of the day.

Mike had to take the train home because his car was still at the mechanic's. He sat there scrolling through his Facebook feed. All his old acquaintances from grad school had some kind of European flag filter over their profiles.

"Hey man. Hey!"

Mike looked up and saw a young man wearing saggy pants and a basketball jersey. His dreads were pulled back.

"Hey man. I need some money. I ain't got no job right now, see. Can you help me out?" A gold chain dangled from his neck.

"Oh. Uh, sure." He handed over a bill.

"A ten? Shit, man I know you got plenty mo' than that! Look at you. With yo' tie and shit!"

Mike handed over another ten. The young man pulled back the skin at his temples to make his eyes squinty. "Thank you," he said as he gave a mocking bow.

Mike opened his front door and saw his wife sitting on the couch. Her blond hair was in a pony tail as usual. She asked him about his day. "Oh yeah, fine hon. Just a regular day."

He changed into work out clothes and went out to the garage. Bruce Lee posters hung from the walls. As did a mirror. He admired his physique for a moment. He blasted some early 2000's nu-metal through his ear buds and strapped on his boxing gloves. He pounded his speed bag for a few minutes and then punished his free-standing heavy bag with lightening quick combinations of punches and kicks. After working up quite a sweat he began bench pressing.

Chapter 5

Kristy stared up at the ceiling as the water ran over her body. She didn't make eye contact with anyone. She tried to just listen to the sound of the water. Almost no one was talking. She needed to at least just get the sweat off. There were a few nervous giggles, and Kristy knew he was there. She knew he had walked in; she could feel it. Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn't want to call him a "she" even though she knew she was supposed to. She had taken dozens of showers after volleyball practices, but now she suddenly _felt_ naked. She instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts and turned to the side. She closed her eyes. She definitely didn't want to see it.

The water turned on from the shower head next to hers and she heard his voice. She didn't know what he said or if he was even talking to her. She just heard his voice. She didn't want him to see her. She tried to keep her face from contorting into the grimace that comes with crying.

She bolted out of the showers leaving the water running. She grabbed her towel as she cried and ran to her locker without drying her hair. She threw her clothes on and ran out of the locker room.

Her soaking wet hair dripped all over her shoulders as she looked for her mom's car in the parking lot. She didn't look at or say hello to her mother as she opened the door. Even in the car, Kristy kept her arms crossed.

"Did the coach let you know if you made the varsity team?" her mother asked uncomfortably.

Kristy tried to speak, but her throat was too dry. She swallowed hard and managed, "Yes. I made it."

"Oh, that's great! How many other freshmen made varsity?" Her mom's voice still a bit shrill.

Kristy looked out the window.

"I bet you were the only one." They drove on in silence for several blocks. "I know you worked so hard for it all summer. I guess that volleyball camp paid off." She giggled a bit and took a couple of quick breaths. "We'll order pizza from Esposito's tonight! We'll get pepperoni," she said as if she had just made the most important decision of the day. She pulled into their driveway and got out in a hurry. "I'll call them right now."

Kristy's older sister, Olivia, was already sitting at the dining table. She had gotten home from the speech a few minutes ago and had finally calmed down from it. She was reading, Women's Voices: Feminist Vision, for her women's studies course. She had a side shave. That is, her hair was shaved on the left side of her head but it was long everywhere else. She sat there in her new outerwear bra. No blouse whatsoever.

Her dad walked into the dining room and looked at Kristy. "There you are! Did you make-" he turned his head with a start, "You didn't wear that to class did you?"

"Dad, we've already talked about this. A woman has to own her sexuality. Being in control of our sexuality is one of the surest ways to female empowerment." She spoke monotone and didn't look up from her book.

He looked back at Kristy and forced a beaming smile onto his face.

"Did you make varsity?"

Kristy nodded her head.

"That's great, sweetheart!"

"Like, oh my God!" Olivia shouted while staring wide-eyed at her phone.

Her father's expression shifted. "What?"

"There's totally a riot going on at my school! My friends are still there! They wanted to keep protesting the campus rape culture!"

"Thank God people are finally taking some kind of action about that!" her father said. "I mean I don't advocate riots, but people need to make their voices heard on this. There is no way I'd allow you to live on campus. I don't know how any father would allow his daughter to live on campus when- what is it? What did we hear on the news the other day? One in four college girls gets raped and sexually harassed on campus?"

"It's one in two," Olivia said with deadly seriousness.

"Well how did the riot get started?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out from my friend." Olivia's thumbs furiously pecked out messages on her phone. "I guess some neo-Nazis showed up to counter the protest."

"What? So neo-Nazis are pro rape now? My God, these times we live in."  
"I guess they started shouting and then started a huge fight."

"Kristy, I don't want you going away to college either. I'm saying it right now. We want you to be safe. I would be sick with worry if either of you were living on a college campus. Our universities in this country are turning into a complete mess. Neo-Nazi groups, the way women are treated. We finally have record numbers of young women attending college and this is how our patriarchal society reacts. With rape culture! It's sick. I don't know how fathers of female college students can sleep at night."

Kristy's mother sat the pizza down that had just been delivered.

Olivia looked at the box. "You got Esposito's? Gross!"

"It's your sister's favorite," their mom said earnestly.

"I want to quit volleyball."

"Did any of your friends end up getting hurt?" their father asked.

"Tasha hurt her hand from punching some Nazi in the back."

"Good for her!" He turned his head, "what do you mean you want to quit volleyball?" Kristy's father asked. "You just told me you made the varsity team! I thought that was what you had wanted so bad."

"I think she just feels some pressure with volleyball and wanting to keep her grades up," Her mom said as she passed out plates and silverware.

"Your grades have always been perfect. And you've always played sports. What's really going on? You seemed glum since you walked in the door."

"Robert, I think it might have something to do with the other players on the team."

He put his fork down and shook his head. "What, are some of the older girls giving her a hard time because she's a freshman? Like, some kind of hazing? I thought it was mostly boy's teams that did that sort of thing."

"Dad, girls' teams are mean just as often as boys' teams." Olivia rolled her eyes.

Kristy sighed heavily and looked at her dinner.

"You've got to fight back, Kristy. Tell the coach. I'll call her for you and I'll talk to her. Bullying shouldn't be tolerated. Wasn't that one of the topics at the PTA meeting a few months ago. A zero-tolerance policy for bullying?"

"It's not bullying Robert."

"I don't understand." He looked at his wife. He looked at Kristy. "Well, it's clear you don't want to tell me what's really going on. Do I have to keep guessing?"

"Robert," she hissed at her husband. "I think it has to do with one of the players in particular. The senior that we all thought wasn't going to be allowed to play."

An awkward silence fell upon the room. No one moved.

"Oh, you mean he joined- I mean she did end up joining?"

"Do you need more bread sticks?" the mother asked to no one in particular and shot up to go to the kitchen.

Another moment passed. "Oh," her father said quietly. "Well, it is important to focus on grades," he said while looking at the pizza. He stared for a moment and then picked up a slice. "Oh, you got pepperoni."

Chapter 6

Alfonso had filed a police report after the riot.

"I never thought you'd have the nerve to show your face in here again," said a short female officer with a double chin. "And we've heard about what you've been doing since you got let go. Making videos for Youtube that try to justify your racism and-"

"He's dead. My friend is dead!" he told her and went on to explain everything that had happened.

"We don't know he's dead until we have a body," she replied coldly. "And frankly, what you are saying is a bit hard to believe, Al. You know it's illegal to file a false police report."

He insisted on filing it.

Alfonso had waited at the station for hours before having the chance to see an officer. The police station was terribly understaffed since the massive layoffs that had begun months ago. He, himself had been let go in the first wave of layoffs. The new presidential administration had encouraged sweeping reforms to police forces across the country. Any officer who was suspected, or had ever been suspected, of racism of any type, including microaggressions, was let go as a way of curbing police brutality against minorities.

After leaving the police station, Alfonso flipped through his Youtube feed checking for news clips on the riot. The media gave no mention of fatalities and certainly no mention of cannibalism or of students' heads being filled with a mushy, orange goo. Dramatic and outraged newscasters only went on about the plague of transphobia sweeping the country's universities and the violence it brought upon peaceful students. One of the news segments finished with a montage of students looking into the camera asking, "why do you hate?"

Another clip showed a saddened and deeply sincere news anchor saying, "once again, tragedy strikes one of our nation's college campuses as roaming bands of White supremacists and Islamophobes began attacking students protesting a speech given by an infamous alt-right leader."

"It's unbelievable!" Alfonso said to his wife, Mya who was sitting next to him on the couch. "We've got SJW's cannibalizing people! We've got students with brains that have literally turned to mush -- a mush that explodes right out of their heads when they are struck the right way. But, the media labels it as a White supremacist riot and everyone ignores what's really going on!"

Mya had listened thoughtfully. "People have been ignoring what's really been going on for years now. It started with little things. Some of them grew out of the civil rights movement. Good things like being tolerant of homosexuals. And by tolerant, I mean, not beating them up. Not harassing them or destroying their property. And that idea of tolerance grew and changed over the years and now being tolerant means ignoring the public nudity and sex that goes on during pride parades. People now think they need to be tolerant of everything. We've got boys saying they are girls and getting into girls' locker rooms in colleges and even high schools and parents just ignoring it. We've got teachers that have been teaching little kids that there are dozens of genders and people ignore it. If you can get a population to believe that it is better for their teenage daughters to be forced to shower with boys on school grounds than to be called intolerant, you can get them to believe anything. Absolutely anything. So at this point, I'm not surprised what people are believing about these riots."

"You're right. It's like everyone has fallen into a mass hysteria about proving how tolerant they are."

"They're either hysterical, or they've completely given up. Like my partner when he got shot. He was completely unwilling to fight back. He refused to fire his gun. Whereas a couple years ago my partner was one of the most assertive men on the force."

"Oh, I remember working with him. Total bad ass cop. So many people have changed so fast."

"We have to fight back," Mya looked her husband in the eye. "Things are so bad now, that we have no other choice. These riots aren't going to stop. They're only going to get worse. We've got to find other like-minded people, even though it's so hard to know who to trust. If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, you will be outed. And it doesn't even matter what skin color you are."

"Right, for as obsessed as liberals are with race it's really just about ideology."

Mya nodded. "It's all about ideology."

"We'll have to get as many people on our side as possible. But, we'll have to be extremely careful doing it. The problems are coming from the news and the universities. Constantly pushing the same narratives, the same agenda and people have been getting brainwashed. But now there's something even more sinister going on."

Chapter 7

Alfonso returned to Che Guevara Auditorium the following day. It was almost as if nothing had happened. There were a few vague stains on the pavement from the blood and orange goo, but overall things were pretty well cleaned up.

Now Alfonso turned on the video camera app of his phone as students were quietly walking to class stepping right onto the stains. He asked a student, "what do you think about the violence that happened yesterday?"

"What are you making a video for Youtube or something?" The young man spoke in typical millennial upspeak.

Al was relieved how he had never picked it up even though he was only a few years older than these students. "Yes, I have a Youtube channel."

"Oh, cool. Yeah, so I guess the White supremacists got what they deserved. It sounds like a few of them were even sent to the hospital."

"You know it was a protest for Peter Jamison, right? He was here yesterday giving a talk on the importance of free speech. I don't think there were any White supremacists here. The violence happened between people who were in support of free speech and a bunch of students with different ideas."

The young man looked confused. "There were definitely White supremacists here. Don't you watch the news? Jamison is insane. He says racist things. He denies that White privilege even exists."

"What racist things has he said specifically?"

The young man snorted. "Dude! He's like literally Hitler. He denies that microaggressions count as real racism!"

"Jamison is actually of Jewish descent. You know that, right?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well then, that's all the more reason he shouldn't support White supremacy. And you can't use this free speech thing as an excuse to go around promoting hate." He took a swig from his little carton of soy milk.

"How is Dr. Jamison promoting hate, exactly?"

"I already told you he is like literally Hitler. We won't tolerate Nazis on our campus! I've got to get to class!"

"What about the people who died here yesterday?" Alfonso called out.

"No one died! There were just a few Nazi's who got their butts kicked. My female friend almost broke her hand punching some Nazi in the back!" the student called over his shoulder.

"People did die here yesterday!"

"No. Check the news. The only real damage was just a few Whiteys getting their egos hurt." He walked off toward the auditorium.

No matter how many students he talked to, Alfonso couldn't find anyone who was aware of, or willing to acknowledge, what really happened.

He went into the auditorium and saw that a class was about to start. He was only a few years older than most of the students and easily passed as one of them. He took a seat in the back. There must have been over two hundred students in the auditorium.

The professor adjusted the microphone and turned on a projector for a presentation. "We'll be finishing up with chapter seven today. You'll find it to be quite pertinent especially given what happened here yesterday." He shook his head. "Go ahead and open your notebooks. You'll want to take plenty of notes since a lot this material is going to be on the exam next week. Hate speech is not free speech." He looked out at the body of students for a moment. "Hate speech . . . is not . . . free speech." He nodded his head and began to pace back and forth in front of the auditorium. "Hate speech is not free speech. Hate speech is not . . . free . . . speech." He used his hands as he spoke and periodically made brief eye contact with various students. "Hate speech is not free speech." He changed up his intonation with each repetition. Sometimes he uttered the phrase with great passion.

Alfonso fought the urge to bolt from the room. He positioned his phone on the desk to capture good video footage.

The students around him busied themselves with note taking. One of them raised their hand. "Hate speech is not free speech?"

"Hate speech is not free speech."

The student nodded earnestly.

The professor brought up the first slide of his PowerPoint presentation. It was titled exactly what Alfonso expected. Each slide of the presentation had the same words on it and the professor continued on with the mantra. Some slides had faces on them. Each face had a look of either utter astonishment, anger, or outrage. The repeated sentence of the professor eventually grew monotone and Alfonso found himself growing sleepy. But then suddenly the professor jumped forward with wide eyes, put his palms out, and shouted, "Wage gap!" He held that pose for about half a minute, then continued on with the original utterance with a renewed energy.

Some time later he began pointing at individual students and asking, "Hate speech is not free speech?" And the students would nod and repeat it back to him.

The professor suddenly locked eyes with Alfonso, "Hate speech is not free speech?" he bellowed. Silence fell upon them. The other students turned and looked at Alfonso. He nodded his head, "Hate speech is not free speech."

The professor cocked his head perplexed. The other students glared angrily at Alfonso. He put his phone in his pocket and slowly stood up. He walked backwards to the door keeping his eye on the staring mob. He opened the door and slinked out.

Al's heart pounded as he drove away from the university. His head spun. He took a chance and dialed the number. "Mike! It's me. Hey . . . Something is seriously, seriously wrong. They're reaching a new level of insanity . . ."

Chapter 8

Mya attended the hearing with her partner. The chief of police, Shaniqua Jackson looked at them from across the desk.

"I've reviewed the body cam footage." She looked at Jack with disappointment.

Jack sat there in a wheelchair. He looked away from her and nodded his head.

"We both know you could have handled that differently Jack."

"What!? He did everything perfectly!"

Jack sighed heavily. "No. She's right Mya."

"Jack! I was right with you! You followed every step of procedure!"

"Mya, there were several points where he was rude to that young black man! Now, maybe it's because of your lack of experience, so you didn't notice, but there were two times at least where he raised his voice. And at least one time where he took a tone with that young man."

"Took a tone! What are you talking about? The guy repeatedly refused to follow police orders!"

Shaniqua looked at her with pity. "Mya, it seems that you have internalized White oppression."

"Mya, on one hand I appreciate you sticking up for me, but don't internalize-"

"Shut up Jack! I can handle this! Do you think I need the White man's help with this!" Shaniqua fumed.

Jack looked at the ground. "Sorry."

"Mya, internalized oppression is when you use the methods of the oppressor against yourself."

"I am not oppressed!"

Shaniqua tossed her head back and laughed. "Honey, you saying that is just all the more proof that you have internalized White oppression."

"I've always had White friends. I got into a good university partially for just being Black. I got this job partially for just being Black. I am not oppressed."

"Mya, if you keep this up, you're going to be looking at a suspension!"

"Now Jack, you know we can't tolerate your kind of behavior on the force. With all the history of police brutality. White male police brutality. And with the news finally covering it, you know we don't want negative press brought to our department."

"That is exactly why I knew I couldn't pull the trigger."

She glared at him.

"And there were other reasons of course!"

"I'm not even going to get into all of that," she shook her head.

"He didn't pull the trigger and he almost died because of it!"

"What about all the black men that died during slavery!" Shaniqua shouted furiously. "Huh, what about them? Have you forgotten where you come from, girl?"

"That ended over 150 years ago." Mya said quietly. "My grandparents came here from Nigeria in the 1960's."

"I have had enough! Jack, you know what I'm getting to, you're fired!"

"Yes, mam."

"He's the last White man on this force! What does that say about us?"

She snorted. "What does it say about White people?"

Mya shook her head in disbelief. "I can't work for a police department like this. Now, you're down two officers instead of one." She tossed her badge on the chief's desk.

"Go on then! Go on home to your White husband!"

Chapter 9

"Quiet! I have to listen to this news story for a paper I'm writing." Olivia stared at the television.

"Fourteen men were arrested today for sexual misconduct against girls ranging in age from twelve to nineteen. The abuse happened routinely for over five years."

"College rape culture and now this!" Cried Olivia's father. "What is wrong with American men!"

"All fourteen of the men are Pakistani and Syrian immigrants."

"What? That can't- why bother to mention their nationality! What does their race have to do with anything?" He said annoyed and crossed his arms.

"Springfield city mayor, Todd Boyer, met with local Imam, Muhammed Ahkbar, today at the Downtown Islamic Center to offer a heartfelt apology in advance for whatever Islamophobia local Middle-easterners may experience as part of the backlash that may come."

The news program cut to the mayor standing teary-eyed in front of the Islamic Center. "This is not a time for judgmental thoughts, harsh words or discriminatory actions against our Muslim neighbors. Islam is a religion of peace after all. Do you think there isn't a single bad Christian or atheist out there? So I beg you, do not indulge in a racist, selective outrage." He turned to the Imam. "I'm sorry, dear Imam, for whatever discrimination you or your followers may endure." He turned back to the camera. "As a sign of my sincerity, I will lobby for our city to take in double the amount of Middle-eastern refugees as we did last year!"

"My goodness. I sure hope those rednecks can keep their hands off their guns for the next few days," said her father.

Olivia copied down a few notes.

Kristy shook her head.

The news anchor switched to the next story. "Republican Congressman Donald Bunt landed himself in hot water once again for having said something eleven years ago that people today consider to be sexist. An audio tape surfaced this morning that has the congressman saying this . . ."

Audio of the congressman's voice played while subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen, "when you're as rich as I am, I mean like filthy rich, women throw themselves at you. I mean, it's ridiculous. I could get any woman I want."

The female news anchor's face expressed shock as she shook her head. "This audio was captured at a small private party by a former friend of the congressman, Ronald Shyster, who recently announced he will be running against Bunt in the upcoming election. A woman's march protesting sexism is already planned to take place tomorrow at the state capital. We have the director of the woman's rights group, More Than Equality, and organizer of the march, Gretta Mcdougal, joining us now. Welcome Gretta. What do you think about the congressman's shocking comments?"

"It's an outrage, Nancy! Who would have thought that in 2018 we'd still have men in positions of power pushing for the subjugation of women? It's a disgrace to our nation, and to the political office to have such a blatant sex fiend and womanizer creating our public policy."

"A disgraceful, level of sexual immorality indeed. Shocking, really." Nancy looked at the camera. "We'll have more with Gretta right after this commercial break."

Robert looked at his oldest daughter, "We can't tolerate this kind of behavior from men anymore. It's maddening! A man from our own city! What's going on with American culture?"

The television showed women walking down a city street sporting outerwear bras. "On the next Real Ex-wives of Atlanta, Debbie takes the reigns of her sexuality!" The camera cut to a close up of a fifty-year-old woman's sassy face, "girl, you're gonna sleep with your new boyfriend's brother! You're wild!" The narrator cut back in, "and Cassandra is trying to break records." The sassy woman looked back into the camera, "You gonna sleep with ten men this week? You've never done that before!"

The tune of the news program came on again before quickly fading out. "We're back with Gretta Mcdougal. So, how many women do you expect at the march tomorrow?"

"There are sure to be thousands."

"And what is the primary goal of this march? What do you hope to accomplish, exactly?"

"Well, we want men to know, and all people really, that sexism has to end. Men can't take advantage of women anymore. It simply won't be tolerated. Gone are the old days, when the good ol' boys could just sexually harass and get away with it."

"Powerful, Gretta. And when you say sexism has to end, how are you defining sexism?"

"Well, sexism isn't something that can be defined in words, really. It's just something we as women feel. We know it when we feel it." She looked at Nancy, the news anchor, in a sympathetic way and nodded her head. "Yeah," she said with a bit of sadness.

"Yeah. Yes we do." Nancy echoed the sympathetic tone. "So, Gretta, without any solid definition of sexism, women can keep claiming sexism forever, right?"

"Exactly! And that's what's so freeing about More Than Equality. We aren't going to be restricted by any male definition of sexism. We just know it when we feel it. And we go a step beyond other women's groups by demanding more than equality. We don't want to stop at making things equal for women, we want to get more. Never mind about equalizing the pay gap, we want to be given more money than a man. Never mind about getting half the top CEO's to be women. We want all the top CEO's to be women!"

"Wow! So you are actually even more virtuous than other women's rights groups."

"That's right!" Gretta cocked her head, smiled and giggled.

"Truly inspiring. Thank you, Gretta. Next we have a psychologist, Dr. Ronald Jefferson, joining us to analyze some of what congressman Bunt said. Doctor, what do you make of the line, I could GET any woman I want."

"Given the context, and the tone he used, his particular cadence and so forth, it's obvious to me as a trained psychologist that what he meant was that he could rape any woman he wants."

"No!" she shook her head. "What an outrage! Frankly, that is even worse than I imagined. How disturbing that we have this man in our own state who thinks he can go on raping whoever he wants and just get away with it for years on end."

"It certainly is. And what's worse is you can tell by the downswings he gives to the words at the end of his sentences that he probably has an interest in underage girls."

"Shocking. And what does this imply about Congressman Bunt's mental health?"

"Well, it's clear that any reasonable psychologist would say that our congressman is quite possibly insane."

"Oh dear." Nancy shook her head and looked at the camera. "You heard it here. Congressman Bunt is insane."

"And he should be removed from office immediately."

The news woman kept chattering away.

Olivia had dropped her pen on the floor. Her head was back resting on the top of the couch and her mouth was open. She had fallen asleep.

"Dad, don't you ever think the news is a little biased in its reporting?" Kristy asked.

"Of course not! Journalism is an essential part of any healthy democracy honey."

"And that's why it's so important to have unbiased reporting. I mean, it seems like the media is more concerned with the feelings of Muslims than with the feelings of their victims."

"Sweetheart, I think you are confused. It's not Muslims, it's just a few bad apples who happen to be Muslim."

"How can you expect that men who have just come over here from countries where women aren't even able to divorce their abusive husbands, where they can't drive or show their faces, to instantly embrace Western ideas of feminism?"

Her dad laughed loudly and uncomfortably. "Well, that's just their culture sweetheart! All cultures are equal!"

"The news always rushes to their defense and seems suddenly oblivious to the women's rights they pretend to care so much about. And the newscasters are always inserting their own opinions into everything. It seems like even a few years ago the media wasn't nearly so bad. Why aren't we even allowed to acknowledge these things or to ask questions?"

Her dad had become panicked. He was sweating a bit and had loosened his tie. "Look here young lady," he said with a strained voice. "I don't like where this is headed. We are good people in this household. Yes, we're White, and yes I am also a heterosexual male, but we are," his voice went to a hushed whisper, "no racists!" He looked around. His eyes darted quickly to the windows than back to her. "We are tolerant!" he said with as much sincerity as he could muster. "We aren't like all those other White people! All those rednecks and uneducated fools out in fly-over country. I got my liberal arts degree! I check my privilege! We don't have any foolish religion anymore to distract us with being repentant to an angry made-up god for nonsensical things like eating meat on Friday and a bunch of other mumbo-jumbo. Now we are repentant for this!" He pinched the white skin of his arm. Then he laughed and smiled. "We are enlightened now! We are making amends and we are repentant for real sins. So, sometimes you have to push away those questions that creep into your head Kristy. You just push those questions right out. There are just some things you aren't to acknowledge. Some things you aren't supposed to think about." He was quiet for a moment and then looked back at the TV.

"Tomorrow we'll begin our new segment highlighting the contributions transgenders made during the Civil War." Nancy smiled. "But that's all the time we have tonight. Good evening everybody!"

The lights behind the cameras turned off. Nancy yelled something shrilly to a person off set. A moment later a young man trotted up to her with a glass full of a dark red liquid.

Chapter 10

Mike Chow sat nervously in the human resource office. He wasn't exactly sure why he had been called in, but he had an idea. Nonetheless, he thought it would have made more sense if he would have been called into his editor's office.

"Michael, this kind of information is never easy to give. But you are fired."

"What?"

"You're fired. You know we have a zero-tolerance policy for racism here at United Media Corp. See, look, it's right here on page 137 of our employee manual. It says it right there, we here at United Media Corp. have a zero-tolerance policy for racism." She spoke rapid fire.

"I know what the policy is! What on earth did I do that was racist? And I'm Asian! Doesn't that at least count for something anymore?"

"Yes, you being Asian definitely counts for something. But unfortunately, it doesn't give you free reign to blatantly disrespect African-Americans. You see African-Americans have had a unique experience in American history." She paused a moment. "Editor Bernstein told me about the last article you wrote." She picked up a copy of his article from her desk and read. "African-Americans make up 13% of the population, but commit 52% of the crime." She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Care to explain why you wrote that?"

"Because it is a verifiable fact."

"What?" She was absolutely flabbergasted. "How dare you . . . how dare you say that! What do facts even have to do with anything?"

"We are a newspaper, Ms. Blankerton. Aren't facts what we should be concerned with?"

She pounded the desk hard enough with her little fist that the framed picture of her and her two, sweater-wearing Pomeranians shook. "What do you think it is? 1950? Do you know how people would feel if they saw this information? It's like you are trying to convince people that there might be reasons for the high incarceration rate among African-Americans besides White racism!" She leaned forward and began a whisper, "How do you think Lebron would feel if he saw this article? Do you want him to wonder if part of the problems of his community have to do with the level of their own self-responsibility? I'm beginning to think you haven't even taken a single university course!"

The picture frame for the dogs said, "Mommy's Angels."

"This statistic, this story, seems quite relevant since African-American protests regarding incarceration rates have been going up recently. Sometimes these protests end in violence or with the shooting of police officers. It's even rumored that White officers are withholding fire from dangerous criminals because of the fear of backlash from the media and community. I have heard of one officer who withheld fire and ended up getting shot himself! If more information was given as to the nature of some of these arrests, it might quell some of these protests and problems."

Ms. Blankerton's face turned bright red. "They're protesting because of the system! The system! And the idea that a White cop would withhold firing his weapon toward an African-American is preposterous."

"The reasons for high African-American crime rates may be complicated, but the fact remains they are far higher than that of other races and as the article explains, this is why there tends to be more frequent interactions between African-Americans and police."

"Institutions!" she pounded her desk again. The framed certificate that said, "Certificate of Completion of Happy Barks Obedience School" fell over. Her eyes seemed to go blank. Her pupils had become huge.

"Ms. Blankerton, as my article also explains, African-Americans are three times less likely to comply with police orders than people of other races. This leads to altercations. And this is another verifiable fact that might make African-Americans feel less victimized and more in control of their own destiny."

"Institutions . . . systemic . . . Hey . . . Hey ho, Hey ho, racist cops have got to go! Hey ho, racist cops have got to go!" she began chanting.

"Ms. Blankerton?"

She only continued chanting.

"Shouldn't these facts be shown in our newspaper? Can you respond to me?"

She sat there, mindlessly repeating the same words.

Mike became unsettled. Was she losing her mind? He got up and backed out of her office as she stared at him chanting.

He cleaned out his desk with shaking hands. He copied all his notes from his work computer onto a USB. He had several long-term projects that he knew United Media would never publish because they'd find them far too controversial, too damning, but he was compelled to work on them anyway. Conspiracy theories like the negative psychological effects of augmented satellite tv signals on the populous, or social engineering experiments being conducted through the coordinated efforts of global elite that any non-discerning twenty-first century human would scoff at.

Deleted. Recycle bin emptied.

At the bottom of his drawer was a heavy, hardcover edition of the novel, 1984. It was filled with notes he had written in the margins about the dangers of propaganda. He always felt that a certain power came from that book. He dropped it in the box with his other stuff and walked out to his car.

Traffic became worse than usual as he neared the university.

His heartrate was still up. He needed to get home and pound the speed bag. He had a lot of decisions he needed to make.

Ms. Blankerton had always been a bit of a loon, but she had never lost her ability to have a discussion. The country had been getting more and more polarized for some time and there were clear lines of what kinds of people were on what side. People working at mainstream media companies were clearly on the left, and leftists were having a harder and harder time holding conversations with people who disagreed with them. But still, he had never seen anyone in the workplace break down into chanting rather than conversing.

He wished so badly he could have slapped her. He wanted to snap her out of it.

Some horns beeped up ahead. He heard screams. The cars ahead of him started doing u-turns and speeding back from where they came. A bunch of what looked like university students were marching down the street towards him. They had their arms locked and they covered the entire width of the road. There appeared to be several rows of them. It seemed that they were mostly Black students.

"Blacks aren't safe in a White Supremacist Country! Blacks aren't safe in a White Supremacist Country!" they shouted. Some of them carried signs, "End the racial wage gap" and "Stop the open season on black men."

The car in front of him was too close, so Mike couldn't pull forward and do a u-turn. He couldn't back up because there were cars behind him.

The protestor's shouting had a strange monotony to it. They stopped marching right in front of the cars effectively blocking all six lanes of traffic.

A couple people got out of their cars on either side of Mike. A White guy in a tie, and a truck driver who had stepped out of his rig. They each started talking to the protestors, but Mike couldn't hear what they were saying.

Mike stepped out of his car too. He took a few steps toward the protesters. They had these blank expressions, these dead looks in their eyes. They looked the way Ms. Blankerton did this afternoon.

"Blacks aren't safe in a White supremacist country!" They continued shouting.

Mike figured he would try pandering. "Look, guys, I know you face all kinds of oppression. I know the system is rigged against you and that you're angry. As a person of color, I know what oppression feels like. I just want to get through. I'm on my way home. Why don't you just make a space for me to get through. I'll be on my way and you can keep up the fight."

They kept mindlessly chanting. No change in facial expression, no acknowledgement that they even heard him. Mike couldn't even tell what they were looking at. Their eyes seemed to be unfocused.

A scream came from Mike's right. A protestor was biting the hand of the White guy who'd gotten out of his car just before Mike. The protestor jerked his head back and with it came the guy's finger.

The man held his four-fingered hand up in disbelief and screamed. Blood spurted up in pulses.

The attacker lunged forward and tackled the man to the ground. He bit at his neck. Two other students darted toward the White man and began biting at various limbs.

The chant "Blacks aren't safe in a White supremacist country" continued. Other students ran toward cars and began banging on car windows. Some of them leaped on hoods and car roofs. They jumped up and down and kept up the chant. People were being dragged out of cars.

The students stepped closer to Mike.

Mike put his hands out in front of him and started backing up. They stared at him with their empty eyes and repeated so eerily, "Blacks are not safe in a White supremacist country."

"I'm not White! I am not even White!" He carefully opened his car door and slipped inside. He locked his doors. There were still cars on all sides of him and he had nowhere to go. He looked frantically for something he could use as a weapon. He shuffled through the box of his belongings from work. Nothing even remotely resembled a weapon except the heavy, hardcover edition of '1984'.

He picked it out of the box and held it with clenched fists as the protesters approached. They kept staring straight ahead and walked right by Mike's car.

Horns continued to blare and Mike heard the sounds of cars crashing as people desperately tried escaping the traffic jam. Screams filled the air as more and more people were pulled from their cars. Most of the victims tried fighting back but to no avail. Any punch they landed didn't even slow down the attackers.

Mike heard a scream from the car behind him. It was a young woman and she was being pulled out of her broken window by her hair.

Mike jumped out of the car and charged the protestor holding the woman. The protestor wore a shirt that read, "I have a dream . . ." He held the woman's hair in one hand and her upper arm in the other. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth.

Mike swung the book around and hit the SJW in the jaw. Several of his teeth flew out of his head. He dropped the girl and roared. A silvery goo dripped from his mouth where his teeth had been.

He looked at Mike. The tendons of his neck stood out. "Blacks are incarcerated at a rate five times higher than Whites!" he shouted in garbled words.

"Blacks commit violent crimes at higher rates than other races!" Mike shot back.

The SJW pointed his finger at Mike and shouted incredulously, "That's racist!" as blood dripped from his knuckles from a previous victim.

"That's according to the FBI!" Mike swung the book again and struck the bridge of the protester's nose with a crunch. Blood instantly flooded from it.

He brought his hand to his nose and growled angrily. "Blacks are ten times more likely to be harassed by police, than Whites!"

Mike brought '1984' around again and this time hit him just above the ear. The book went clean through the man's head. Skull fragments and an orange goo exploded into the air and landed on the faces of some of the other rioters. The headless body fell to the ground.

Mike looked down at the book. It had orange goo streaked across it. Black smoke poured up behind him from two cars that had crashed. Car alarms went off. More people screamed. News helicopters circled high above them.

A surge of adrenaline shot through Mike's body and he jumped toward a group of students banging on the cracked car window of an old lady. He swung the book like a club and hit another protestor just above the ear. There was a spectacular crunch of breaking bone as the skull shattered into pieces. The orange goo shot out like water from a quick burst of a fire hydrant. The body fell to the ground. Another protestor stopped banging on the window and turn to Mike, "The average White commits five microaggressions every-" His skull got bashed into oblivion. Mike wiped orange goo from his face.

He jumped and leaped and swung his weapon powerfully like a Spartan warrior. He moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, but with the power of an Asian tiger. Orange goo splashed and sprayed into the air like the fireworks of a fourth of July finale. Car horns and screams provided a cacophonic background music. The steady beat of the chopper blades provided the rhythm.

Cars farther back started revving their engines and some lurched forward desperate to escape the melee. The car that had been blocking him in had managed to escape by plowing through the crowd.

Mike wiped goo from his forehead. Dozens of headless student bodies lay around him, but hundreds more continued causing chaos. He couldn't stop them all.

He jumped back into his car. And sped forward. He mowed down the protestors in his way. His car went over them like speed bumps. Sirens came from behind him. He heard gunshots and saw tear gas canisters going off as he glanced in his rearview. The road was clear in front of him as he headed home.

He put his car in the garage and briefly assessed the damage. Not as bad as he thought, considering how many people he had run over.

His wife was in the living room. Her naturally blond hair in a pony tail. "What happened!"

Mike was wiping the goo off his face with paper towels in the kitchen. "You wouldn't believe it!" He ran around the house to make sure all the doors were locked and then ran to the bedroom to grab all his favorite books. The books with the ideas that Western civilization was founded on. He grabbed his baseball bat, tennis racket and hockey stick. He ripped pages out of the books and wrapped them around each piece of sports equipment holding them on with packing tape.

"What are you doing?" His wife asked from the doorway.

"I don't know for sure. But I think this might be able to help save us."

"What is going on? What are you talking about?" his wife grew more frustrated.

She turned on the bedroom tv to see the breaking news coverage.

Live footage was shown from a helicopter. "Police have just dispersed a group of White Supremacists who attacked a group of African-American students. The students were marching to raise awareness of racial inequalities and the danger that people of color face every day."

"That's a total lie!" Mike shouted.

"Social media is already awash in rumors that these protesters were bleeding an orange goo when they suffered injuries to the head." His wife looked in horror at a bit of orange goo that was still on Mike's cheek. "But rest assured this preposterous idea is nothing more than fake news. Facebook has announced it is doing what it can to crack down on the fake news and rumors. As usual, it is suspected that Congressman Bunt supporters are responsible for the misinformation."

The footage showed fire trucks hosing the streets down and washing away all evidence.

"Several White supremacists suffered severe injuries during the riot. And there are reports that several of the student protestors have gone missing. This relates to the Che Guevara Auditorium riot that happened last week. Several of those students had gone missing as well and have still not been found. It is suspected that White Supremacists are kidnapping people that stand up to them. Police are investigating this further."

"Oh my God, Mike! What did you do? Did you fight these protestors?"

"They weren't protesters! Judy, they were attacking people!"

"The news said they were marching for equality! I know you had some trouble from bullies in middle school, but Mike, you can't think equality is really so bad can you?" she asked panicked.

Mike dropped the bat and marched to his wife and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Judy it has nothing to do with equality! Nothing! Those students were dragging people out of their cars and killing them. Innocent people sitting in traffic! I fought them to save some of the victims!"

Judy's eyes had gone a bit dark. "But Mike! The protestors were," her voice dropped to a reverent whisper, "African-Americans. They've had a unique experience in American history and-"

Mike shook her. "Judy, my God, you've got to snap out of it! I know what you were taught in high school and in college and what you hear on the news all the time, but you've got to snap out of it! This whole movement isn't about race; it's about ideology! This ideology is infecting people of all races. Stop watching the news! Stop letting them manipulate you with White guilt! Don't surrender every remaining ounce of rational thinking! You can acknowledge things; you can ask questions; you don't have to believe everything you hear from the left! I am telling you as your husband, these people out there today were doing terrible things."

The life returned to Judy's eyes and she grabbed him in an embrace.

Mike's phone rang. The caller id read, "Alfonso."

Chapter 11

"You know Kristy, I was thinking about some of what you said the other day. And in a way you're right. I mean even a few years ago I would have thought some of these ideas were crazy. A biological boy taking a shower with my fourteen-year-old daughter! Against her will! If someone would have told me a couple of years ago that I would allow something like that to happen . . ." He brought his hand up to his forehead. "It's just that I had clung to the core beliefs for so long. Equality, tolerance, diversity. I had clung to them so tightly that I couldn't allow myself to accept how those values were being twisted by the media. How things were being taken farther and farther. And then I was at the point where I couldn't just admit that those hillbillies, those rednecks I had come to loath so much could have been right about anything. So, I buried my head in the sand all the deeper. I doubled up on my efforts to live out the crazy things the media was telling me to believe in. And that was wrong Kristy. I was so wrong and I'm sorry."

Broken glass sprayed out across the living room as two SJW's burst through the bay window. "That's hate speech! Check your privilege!" They shouted. There was one male and one female. The hair on both of them was dirty, long and uncombed. The female wore black shorts and had hairy legs. Their skin was dirty and grimy. They crunched broken glass under their feet as they approached.

"How dare you say those vile things!" The female hissed as she pointed at Kristy's father.

"No! Get out of here!" Kristy's father said in utter shock as he took a step back.

"You transphobe! Transgendered people are a marginalized group! They face oppression every day!"

He took a step back shaking his head in disbelief. He stuttered as he began to speak. "Uh, well, I'm allowed to have opinions! I am allowed to question what I hear!"

"How dare you say things like that!" she roared.

"Surely, we can have a discussion? I'm really open-minded!" he said optimistically.

"We don't compromise with Nazis," the male said arrogantly and with a nasally voice.

"Check your privilege! Check your privilege!" Their eyes became dark orbs as they both chanted in unison.

Kristy ran to grab the field hockey stick from her closet.

They moved toward her dad. The male had a long but sparse moustache and thin patches of hair on his neck from not shaving for a couple weeks or so. He knocked over a lamp as he approached. They continued the chant.

They backed him into a corner. He shouted hysterically, "I just have some concerns! I care about the rights of trans-people! But I'm not comfortable with them taking showers with my daughter after volleyball pra-"

The female blew an air horn in his face. He recoiled as far into the corner as he could. His face grimaced painfully at the loudness of the horn.

She finally stopped and they picked the chant right back up, "Check your privilege! Check your privilege!"

He stared into their blank faces and their dead eyes. "Can't we just consider some options here!? Maybe special locker rooms for trans-students? Or a separate locker room open to any gender comfortable with using it?"

They were shouting so loudly in his face that he could barely think. Their breath was awful. Their skin was pimple covered. The female had a couple oozing sores. She had a bit of a hair lip.

His knees bent and he began sinking lower into the corner. He looked up and raised a trembling fist, "Fuck you SJW's!"

The male grabbed his wrist and bit.

He screamed.

The SJW bit harder and shook his head until he pulled away a chunk of flesh. "Check your privilege!" he chanted with a spray of blood.

"You, check your privilege!" Kristy screamed.

The SJW turned his head just in time to see the end of the field hockey stick coming at his jaw. The jaw shattered upon contact. A couple teeth shot from his mouth as he spun completely around. And then he crumpled to the ground next to her father.

The female turned and screeched and reached out toward Kristy.

She swung the stick at the SJW's hairy knee and broke it with a loud pop.

She fell to the ground howling in anger. She dragged herself across the floor toward Kristy. "Check your privilege!" she continued to scream.

Kristy brought the field hockey stick back behind her shoulder and swung with all her might at the beast's head.

Orange goo splattered across the wall. All had gone completely quiet, and Kristy watched as the clumps of goo stretched out and started to slide down the wall. She looked down and saw that the monster was now completely headless. A trail of bone chunks ran between the thing's body and the wall.

Adrenaline surged through Kristy's body. She felt a sudden release. It was like she had been mute all these years but could now suddenly speak.

She turned her head upon hearing a groan. The male SJW lay there uselessly with his back against the wall. His chin and jaw a sunken bloody hunk of mush. He swatted his hands our toward her as if he wanted to grab her.

Kristy jumped toward him and smashed the stick down upon the top of his head. Blood came down from under his greasy bangs. He groaned angrily, but still had some life in him. She swung the stick sideways and caught him at the temple and she got that great orange explosion just like with the other one. It splattered out toward the kitchen. She stared at it. It held a certain beauty for her. The various shapes and patterns of orange ooze. She was going to need to do this again.

"Kristy . . ."

She came out of her trance.

Her father was hurt worse than she had realized. The patch of blood-soaked carpet around him was growing. She ran toward him and knelt down. He was holding the wound at his wrist but the blood kept coming out. His face was pale.

"Kristy, you were definitely right. How you questioned what you were told. How you doubted. I knew you doubted even though you didn't express it much. Your hunches were right all along. And I'm starting to see it now too. It's the so-called egalitarians who are ushering tyranny. Keep fighting them." He took a deep breath. "Keep fighting them and never give up." His eyes lost focus and they rolled back into his head.

Chapter 12

"The real reason we invited you over wasn't just to talk about how people have been acting strange lately." Alfonso looked across the table at Mike with complete seriousness. Mya stared at him with equal seriousness.

A clock hanging over Alfonso's head ticked away the seconds.

Mike's heart pounded. Had they heard about what he had done at the riot near the university? Did they want to turn him in?

Mike had been to the their home many times before, but it felt different now. All their shades were drawn. Alfonso had locked both locks of the door after Mike had come in.

"We've known you a long time. We know that you have always held values and beliefs similar to our own. You were the only reporter that I liked when I was on the force. And you always seemed to know everything that was going on in our city. So, we're going to be honest with you. We're going to tell you things we haven't told anyone."

Mya jumped in, "There's so much to say! And it's going to sound crazy!"

"There have been murders, Mike. Lots of them. And the media's not covering it!"

Alfonso studied Mike's face trying to read any reaction and saw a sense of relief come over him.

"The police, what's left of them, they aren't taking the reports seriously," Mya said. "I had to quit my job, Mike. They've become completely illogical with how they are carrying out procedures."

"And what's even crazier is how student protestors-"

"Are cannibalizing people?" Mike asked. "How their heads explode into orange mush when you hit them in self-defense?"

Alfonso and his wife nodded their heads surprised and relieved at his words.

"I know. I know, I've seen it too. You know the incident yesterday on University Avenue? I was there. I fought these things. They're not students. Not anymore. They don't even seem human."

"Oh thank, God," Mya said with relief. "We were so afraid you may have become like the rest of them. Refusing to acknowledge what's going on while believing everything the media tells you."

"I was afraid to speak up too!" Mike said. "I've been walking on thin ice at work for over a year. You can't keep up with who you can speak honestly with. Even my own wife scolds me if I question anything that's PC!"

"Right! You could be at a work meeting and you would look around at the faces of your coworkers, people you've known for years, and you think, could I trust that person? Could I speak honestly with that one? It used to be we just worried about losing our job, or friends, or being completely ostracized from social circles. Now, people worry about losing their lives for having the wrong opinions," Al said.

Mike nodded his head gravely.

"We knew we could confide in you!" Mya exclaimed with joy.

"I fought them too. Saturday at the Che Guevara Auditorium. And that riot didn't go down the way the news described it."

"I've had suspicions for a long time about the company I worked for. The corporate culture has changed. Now, reporters are even more open about their bias. The agendas are clear and employees cooperated with each other to push them. I was the only one questioning anything." Mike leaned in. "My curiosity lead me to do some independent research. About topics I knew United Media would never let me publish. At times I thought I was going down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, but yesterday it became strikingly clear there was no rabbit hole at all."

"What kinds of theories?"

"After a recent merger United Media inherited a team of scientists that had been studying the effects of TV satellite signals on the human brain. From what a source has told me, they also experimented on augmenting those signals to influence thought processes and behavior. It was done under the guise of making people more susceptible to our advertisements, but now it seems clear they had different goals in mind."

"Why do you think university students are so susceptible to this control?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just because the signals effect younger brains differently. Maybe it effects people more strongly if they are already left leaning. I only have theories; I don't know anything for sure."

"It's not just the students, the professors are totally insane too. And equally prone to violence," Al said.

"It's like they go into a trance before they become violent, right? Their eyes go a glassy dull and they start mindlessly repeating some social justice slogan. They lose all rationality."

"We've got to keep fighting them. We've got to try and slow the spread of this insanity before it keeps infecting more people. Let's go back to the university tomorrow!" Al shouted. "Let's learn everything we can about what's going on."

"I've discovered an effective weapon we can use against them if we have to," Mike said. "I'm not sure how it works, but it makes any potential weapon far stronger."

"And what might that be?"

Mike smiled. "Truth."

Chapter 13

The administration building was the tallest on campus. It was six stories high. It was rumored to go six floors underground. The number of offices per floor was six. At the top of the building was a gothic spire where the university president conducted his business. A shadowy figure stared down upon the university through the spire's window. Large gargoyle statues were on either side of the spire. Even while looking up at them from the ground, you could see their menacing, fanged snarls and their dagger-like claws.

The administration building had to be the largest building on campus because it needed to house the ninety-seven vice presidents and the dozen assistants they each had. It needed to house the grand ball room and banquet halls of the subterranean levels, the chefs and servants' quarters. And the inquisition and reprimanding chambers of the most subterranean level. It was in these chambers where rogue professors and graduate students were corrected after disseminating, what the administration deemed, pseudo-science, or for not fighting hard enough for social justice. Sometimes the inquisitions only took a few hours, other times they went on indefinitely. There were several individuals who had gone into the depths of the building months ago and hadn't been seen since. Regardless of how long the reprimanding took, those that came out of the chambers were never the same.

Mike had heard details of the administration before, but he had never been inside it himself.

"State your business here!" One of the guards shouted as Mike began climbing the stairs toward the doors. He looked to be nearly seven feet tall and had a huge, square jaw. A police-style night stick was at his side and a huge paw of a hand rested on it at the ready.

"I'm here to interview Vice President Victor. I'm with United Media."

The guards looked at each other.

Mike hoped he hadn't already been blacklisted since losing his job. The VP himself certainly hadn't heard about it when he made the appointment yesterday.

"I'm with the print and web division."

"Okay," the guard's voice boomed.

The two guards swung the great doors open and Alfonso stepped into the lobby. The floor was made of shimmering gold tile bathed in light from a giant crystal chandelier. Alfonso stepped onto a finely woven red carpet that lead to a staircase.

A boy of about eighteen trotted up to Alfonso and asked, "Where are you headed, sir?" His voice was high as if pre-pubescent. His sandy blond hair was in a bowl cut. Not the slightest hint of facial hair on his pale skin. His cheeks were covered in a heavy rouge. He wore only a Romanesque robe.

"I'm going to see Vice President Victor."

"Certainly! Vice President Victor is in office six of the second floor. Right this way."

Alfonso followed the boy up the stairs. His robe slipped down his shoulder a bit and revealed a series of linear scars. The boy pulled the robe back up as they reached the second floor.

"Here you are sir," The boy bowed slightly and held out his hand toward office number six.

Inside he saw Peters sitting behind a large heavily lacquered desk ornately carved. The desk had an arrangement of gourmet foods. Lobster tails, chocolate covered strawberries, escargot, tiramisu, chocolate sauce, and more. Two more boys, who looked strikingly similar to the one that lead him to the office, were standing on either side of the VP. One of them was holding a lighter to Victor's cigar. The VP himself was monstrously rotund. He wore an expensive suit with the tie loosened and the upper half of the shirt unbuttoned.

"Handcrafted," he said in a gruff and slovenly voice. "The desk. It's handcrafted. Made from redwood. One of the last redwood trees in Oregon. The Oregon redwoods tend to have a more pronounced grain. You can see here." He ran greasy fingers across the desk. He took a puff from his cigar and coughed. "You're the reporter?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead and have a seat. You don't mind if I do this during lunch do you?" The VP said as he struggled out of his suit jacket. The two servant boys helped him. Great sweat stains shown around his underarms. "Help yourself to a lobster tail if you like." The VP grabbed a tail and brought it to his mouth taking a huge bite. Juices ran all down his chin. "This is about the rise in tuition, right?" He spoke with his mouth full. Bits of lobster meat landed on his chest and great stomach.

"Correct." Mike tried to hide his disgust.

"Just tell them, the tuition increase is absolutely necessary to pay for the salaries of the administrators. We have to attract the best talent and the only way to do that is to offer competitive salaries." The lobster tail had disappeared. "Without high quality administrators there wouldn't be such a high-quality education." He shoved a massive hand into the tiramisu and then brought it to his mouth. He chewed mightily and then moaned with delight. The cake was smeared all around his mouth and clung to his fingers.

Alfonso recorded everything with his phone.

"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world!" He laughed with self-satisfaction. "Write that one in your article. Write that I said that. I made that up just now."

"Of course, Dr. Victor. I will make it clear how much you care about education and our youth."

He laughed. "Oh yes, I do care about the youth!" He grabbed one of the boys around the waist and pulled him in close for a moment and laughed again. The boy maintained his blank stare. "If you're not going to try any of the lobster, at least try one of these boys before you leave."

Alfonso wasn't sure how to respond.

"Oh come on now, I'm only joking of course!" He smashed another glob of tiramisu into his mouth. He tilted his head back with his mouth open and poured in some chocolate sauce. It ran down his chin and onto his shirt. "You can't put a price tag on education!" Chocolate sauce sprayed across the desk. "Put that in the article too."

One of the boys looked nervously at the grandfather clock. "Sir, it's almost time for your scheduled massage."

Dr. Victor turned and backhanded the boy across the face bloodying his nose. "I know that you imbecile! I'll go when I'm good and damn ready!"

Mike squirmed in his seat and pretended to check his phone.

The VP looked back at Mike. "Education is the passport to the future!" He smiled proudly and child-like as clumps of cake fell from around his mouth. "I made that up too! Make sure that goes in the article." He turned back to the boy, "Okay, I'll go to the massage appointment now!" he barked. He looked back at Mike, "No rest for the weary," he chuckled. "Sorry, about these two. They're usually more attentive and less annoying. It's like they are always determined to embarrass me when I have a visitor." The boys continued staring straight ahead. Expressionless.

"Um, no problem."

"Be sure to send me the article after you've written it, so I can make the final edits!"

"Of course, Dr. Victor."

"Alright, I've got to get to my appointment. You can see yourself out." The boys helped the Dr. to his feet.

"Dr. Victor, I was also curious about the protests that have been going on lately."

"Oh yes. Such a shame all those White supremacists causing problems. Your company has done a great job reporting on it though."

"I was more curious about how the students at the protests have been acting."

"How so?"

"They repeat the same slogans, the same chants to the point where they seem to go into, well, a trance."

"Of course! They spout the tenants of social justice just as they are educated to. That's part of the university's mission in this day and age. To advocate progress and social change!"

"Yes. Yes, it certainly is. Thank you, sir."

"It's sick. They're sick." Mike told Mya and Alfonso. "I always knew college administrators were bloated, self-important and overpaid, but I was still in no way prepared for what I saw. I believe they are all in on it. That they are all cooperating towards a common goal."

Alfonso felt nauseous after hearing Mike recount his experience. "I say, we attack them! We declare an all out war against the university! We start with the liberal arts departments and then we take it to the administration."

Mike stood up. "Yes! We'll go onto campus tomorrow and we'll trigger the hell out of them! That's what seems to get them acting violent. We'll question their PC dogma and we'll tell them uncomfortable facts."

"We'll have to go heavily armed with what is most destructive to them. Just like you told us," Al said.

They spent the next couple hours covering weapons in laminated pages from western classics. The two men would check out an academic fair and Mya would check out a lecture. When things got violent, they would be prepared.

Chapter 14

"Yes of course you will be highly marketable to employers if you major in a liberal arts field," the coordinator for the liberal arts department said as if they had asked a stupid question.

All of the liberal arts majors were represented at the academic fair.

"You will be marketable for nearly any type of job because we teach you a little bit about everything."

"Don't many employers want specific skills these days? Specific business knowledge, or math and science skills?" Alfonso asked.

"We don't like the word, skills. You can obtain skills at a trade school. We, in the liberal arts department, teach you what to think. And that is far more important."

"You said, teach us _what_ to think?" Mike asked.

Alfonso looked at Mike, "yeah, that's what she said."

She laughed. "I mean, we teach you how to think. If you are a good critical thinker you will be adaptable to almost any employment situation." She had a shaved head. Like boot-camp style. She wore black rimmed hipster glasses and black lipstick. "Oh, and I'm gender-queer," she said proudly. "Don't call me, she."

"What?"

"Gender-queer," she rolled her eyes. "I don't subscribe to conventional, binary gender distinctions," she said in a nasally voice. "Instead of she, you can refer to me as snoogle-dee."

"Snoogle-dee?" Alfonso couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Yes. That's my preferred pronoun."

"I've never heard of that."

"That's because I just made it up."

"When?" asked Mike.

"Just now," she smiled as if she had accomplished something.

"Got it," Alfonso nodded his head. "Anyway, how do you go about improving students' critical thinking skills?"

"We indoctrinate them into social Marxist ideology."

"I'm not sure how critical thinking and indoctrination go together," Mike noted.

"Well, we don't indoctrinate exactly. You see we're pretty clever, we present both conservative information and social Marxist doctrine so students think they are seeing both sides of the argument. But we present the information in a slanted way and ask leading questions to make students think they are coming to pro social Marxist opinions on their own!" She laughed with excitement.

"Interesting, but not altogether surprising. What percentage of your graduates find meaningful employment after graduation?"

"We don't keep track of statistics like that. But we do know that 100% of our graduates leave ready to make a positive difference in the world."

"A positive difference in what way?" Mike inquired.

"They are well equipped to fight for social justice."

"Oh! Social Justice! Of course."

"We prepare you for life here. And life is more than just making money."

"What else is life about?" asked Al.

"It's about spreading social Marxism which is undoubtedly they only way for achieving progress."

"It sounds like you are telling students _what_ to think and that you are indoctrinating them," Al said without the least bit of restraint.

She looked annoyed. "Uh, no. I already said we don't do that."

"You're just contradicting yourself," Mike said calmly.

"Hey! I don't subscribe to your male, patriarchal ideas of rationale! I spoke my truth and you have to respect that! Now, register as a liberal arts major!"

"I'm not sure we're ready to do that." Al said firmly.

She groaned in annoyance and shook her head. "Look, you have to become a social Marxist, because it is objectively, morally correct to do so. That's how we teach critical thinking. By just telling you what to think and by discouraging questions. The fact that you don't want to take liberal arts courses strongly suggests that you may be . . . Sexist. Sexist! Now, sign up right here!" She was furious. "On this form! This form right here! Sign it!" She pounded the form with her fist.

They didn't move.

"Sign it!" She realized she wasn't going to get her way and her eyes glazed over and she stared for a moment. Her pupils became huge. "Stop rape culture! Stop rape culture!" she began chanting.

The womens' studies recruiter looked over and her eyes had glazed over too. "Stop rape culture," a few other voices began joining in on the chant.

Alfonso opened his backpack, "We appreciate you encouraging us to learn, but we've also got a few lessons for you. My friend Mike here taught some lessons about propaganda from the book, 1984, to some of your buddies on University Avenue a few days ago. It proved to be extremely effective."

"1984? I hate that book! The only propaganda we have today is what comes from vast rightwing conspiracies!"

Al continued, "this is a quite heavy, hardcover edition of a book by Aristotle. It's the complete works. I'm guessing it will be as effective a teaching tool as 1984, and I'm very curious to find out."

"Aristotle!" she stood up and shrieked. "Oh, another book written by some old, dead, White man!" She put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "Please!"

She stared at them.

They stared back without flinching.

"Stop rape culture!" She shrieked. Drool fell from her mouth.

"There is no rape culture at American universities."

She shrieked again and leapt on the table. She lunged at Alfonso.

He swung the book and hit her snapping jaws. She fell clumsily to the floor. Smoke started coming from her ears. "Nooo!" she shrieked. She brought her hands to her ears as if she was trying to keep the smoke in. He slapped her across the face with the book again. Her hair grew to shoulder length almost instantly.

Al looked at Mike.

Mike shrugged. "I've never seen anything happen like that before!"

She felt the hair with her fingers and shook her head almost going into shock. "Noo!" she screamed again. More smoke poured out of her ears.

He swung the book again and her COEXIST tattoo changed to a butterfly tattoo, but the smoke coming out of her ears changed from gray to black. He swung again and her military boots changed to high heels.

"It's like you're healing her!" Mike said with excitement.

All of the recruiters had now picked up the chant and some of them began standing up.

Mike ripped off his track suit and revealed his armor of laminated and duct taped pages of "Ideas Have Consequences" by Richard Weaver. He took a billy club covered in 1984 pages from his backpack.

Alfonso swung the book again and her head exploded into orange and partially charred, blackened goo. The blackened goo sizzled. Her lifeless body hit the floor.

"Damnit!" Al yelled. "I thought I was saving her."

More recruiters approached. They continued the chants of "Stop campus rape culture!"

Al ripped off his track suit and revealed his armor of pages from a freshman level calculus textbook.

"Saying there is a campus rape culture is altogether fallacious!" Mike yelled at the approaching mob. "There are only six sexual assaults per one thousand students per year! Of course, sexual harassment in all forms, is terrible!" Mike yelled at the approaching mob. "We wish it could be stopped entirely but trying to end all sexual harassment is like trying to end all theft or all battery! It's just not realistic!"

A chubby neck beard took a swig of his soy milk and stood up with glazed eyes. He stepped away from his desk for the gender studies majors and joined in the chant.

Mike ran at him, leaped, spun around mid-air and brought the 1984 club down onto the soy boy's head. It exploded like a watermelon being shot with a fifty-caliber assault rifle and the body fell over.

The feminist literature recruiter tried taking a bite out of Mike's arm, but his teeth melted into a silver-colored syrup as soon as they touched the laminated pages of "Choices have Consequences." He held out his hand and caught some of the syrup and looked at it, then screamed the chant again and tried to slap Mike. But Mike's club tore through the air and it sliced through the arm of the soy boy as if it were a light sabre. Mike swung the club through his attacker's head and the orange goo spilled across the floor as the body fell.

"If the stat that one in five women on campus experience sexual assault were accurate, I'd be totally with you on taking a militant stance to protect female university students!" Al shouted.

"We don't need your protection you sexist! We are just as strong as men!" a female recruiter called out.

"But the truth is, that statistic seems to be severely inflated! And constantly talking about rape culture seems to just divide the sexes even more! Can't we have honest conversations about this?" Al asked looking at the neck bearded recruiter who was nearest him.

"Stop campus rape culture!" he responded mindlessly.

Alfonso swung the book at his head and his neck beard turned into a full beard right after the blow. Alfonso hit him again and he stood up straight and appeared to be waking up. "What's going on?" he shouted.

"I think you are snapping out of it!" Alfonso told him with surprise and excitement. "You're becoming rational!"

"What am I doing holding these pamphlets titled, "Discover Your Gender: A Course for the 21st Century Student?"

"You were confused for a long time, but you seem a little better now!"

He dropped the pamphlets and then kicked them across the floor. "I feel dizzy," he put his hands up to his head and stumbled toward the doors.

Mike and Al continued working together and rid the room of the remaining SJW's. By the time they had finished headless bodies were strewn everywhere. Slumped over tables and sprawled out across the floor. Orange goo dripped down the walls and from the ceiling.

Alfonso and Mike grabbed the cans of gasoline they had hidden near the doors. They doused the entire lobby of the Gender Studies' wing of the Liberal Arts building where the academic fair was being held. They ran outside and were about to light an M-80 firecracker.

"Wait!" It was the young man they had saved earlier with the new healthy beard. "Let me do it! I had been wanting to fight back for so long, but they got to me. After a year in that nut house, they had me chanting about the pay gap and trying to figure out what gender I was!"

Al nodded his head and handed him the firecracker.

The boy threw it through an open window and in a moment the Gender Studies wing was up in flames. "Take that you bastards! Take that!" He laughed overcome with joy and vindication.

The fire spread to the second-floor library and the flames danced around and tickled copies of books by Virginia Woolf and Bell Hooks until they finally burst into flames. The fire consumed them and turned them into black smoke and ash.

Mya joined the three men on a wooded hill side next to the campus. They peered through the trees and watched the fire.

"Thank you for this," said the young man they had helped. The fire reflected in his glassy wide eyes. "They've had this coming for so, so long."

A brigade of all female fire fighters arrived as the sun set, and they struggled with the equipment and shouted at each other. The top floor collapsed onto the second floor and then the second collapsed onto the ground. An explosion of sparks shot out in all directions. They got the hose working in time to save the rest of the Liberal Arts Building.

The four of them heard a groan in the darkness behind them.

"Men of quality support equality," moaned a weak and raspy voice.

Mike turned on his head lamp and it shone on a stooped over male college student. His clothes were in tatters. His smell was nearly overpowering.

"It looks like he's been living in the woods for weeks!" shouted Al.

He had dried blood on his hands and around his mouth.

Maya stepped forward with her philosophy covered baseball bat.

"Wait!" Al shouted. "There is so much to learn. What weapons work best. What books. What words? It seems that maybe words alone can be used as weapons. We need to experiment."

Chapter 15

"A group of Nazis destroyed a portion of the Liberal Arts building of PCU last night. Fortunately no student lives were lost. Several Nazis were badly beaten and some of them have likely died." The camera showed a bony girl of eighteen and with blue hair. "Yeah, there were Nazis here yesterday marching around the Gender Studies department. They were shouting stuff like, men's rights are important too, and we want to rape everyone, and free rapes for all straight, White males and stuff like that. So I walked right out of my class and confronted them and they said stuff like, wow, you are so hot and God, you are so sexy and I told them to F off and get out of here you privileged Nazis; the whole system is set up for your success, so no matter what you ever accomplish in life it will never really count for anything, so you might as well just go home and start doing meth and get yourself to OD you scum! And then I beat the crap out of like ten of them. It was so easy because they were so pathetic. A bunch of them started crying and I'm pretty sure three of them ended up dying because I beat them up so bad. But it was too late, because a few of them had already set the building on fire."

"Ha! That's not quite how it went down!" Mike shouted at the TV.

"And it's only the beginning!" Al shouted. "There is so much more to come!"

The camera showed Nancy again. "What a brave young woman. A hero, standing up to all those Nazis. Many other brave anti-fascist groups have formed and have been fighting back as well. And remember it is no longer a prosecutable offense to assault someone identified as a Nazi or fascist."

"Of course. They've finally made it official. They just have to declare you a fascist before they attack you," said Al.

"My next guest is a professor from Canada who advocates hate speech, Dr. Peter Jamison."

"Mya! They've got Jamison on the news!" Al called out to his wife in the other room. He stared at the TV with wide-eyed excitement.

"Most of you have probably heard of him by now. He says this is going to be his last public appearance! He joins us now from an undisclosed location. Professor, why do you hate?"

"I have no idea how to react to such a ridiculous question. I fear we are now far past the point of no return and there is no possibility of saving Western civilization as we know it. I am appearing on your program only to give a message to the few remaining sane people who may hear it. Hide. Go into hiding immediately. Travel to an uninhabited island, build an underground bunker. Do whatever you have to do to hide and wait this out. This new world order created by the various powers-that-be cannot sustain itself on any level, there will be mass starvations and deadly in-group fighting of the likes humanity has never seen before. In my estimation, it will take one to three years and the SJW's will be gone. You just have to survive that long."

Nancy had begun laughing hysterically. "So, you admit that you and your White Supremacist followers have lost? What kind of backlash do you personally fear Dr. Jamison?"

The professor stood up and walked off camera. His video feed turned to static a moment later.

"Shocking news from the alt-right leader. Declaring a loss for his side and encouraging his followers to go into hiding! This certainly marks a victory for progressives. But there is still much to do before full equality can be achieved. We're out of time. Good night."

The camera turned off.

"That's a wrap!" shouted the director.

Nancy stood up and let her hair down out of the bun it was in and it flowed down over her shoulders. She took off her glasses. She untucked and unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall to the floor. Her skin below the neck was covered in scales. Her eyes, without the glasses, were reptilian with vertical and elliptical pupils. She dropped her skirt and wiggled out of her tights to reveal the rest of her scaly body. The spade at the end of her tail twitched back and forth. Only her face was that of a human female, but the body was lizard-like and entirely sex-less.

She walked in a jerky, unnatural fashion toward the elevator. She pushed the emergency stop button and it started taking her down. Far down. Deep into the Earth. Soon she could hear the familiar screams and feel the familiar warmth.

The elevator opened and she stepped into a great cavern. Pools of sulfur steamed and bubbled around her. Lava sprayed up through some of the cracks in the cavern floor and flames danced up through others. A group of other reptilian beings greeted her in a language made up mostly of frequencies both too low and too high for human ears to hear, but the sounds that did fall within what humans could hear was a blood curdling series of screeches, moans and growls. They had the faces of other prominent newscasters. Some had the faces of historical figures. There was Karl Marx with a forked tongue. Kim Jong Il with a scaled portly belly. Che Guevera handed her a pitchfork as he flicked his tail back and forth.

A man wearing hipster glasses dangled from a living vine that resembled a squid tentacle growing out of a stalactite. One portion of the tentacle was wrapped over his mouth so he could only groan but not speak. Another portion was wrapped around his arms and legs holding him tightly in place. He was held over one of the cracks emitting flame. The flame danced up high enough to burn his feet and legs. At the end of the tentacle was a mouth lined with needle like teeth. It bit him every few moments at various parts of his body. He winced with pain.

Nancy gave him a few good pokes with her pitchfork and the tentacle lowered him further into the flames. She emitted a high pitch cackle.

Thousands of humans hung from vines scattered through the cave.

"But I thought I was helping!" a young woman screamed as she was held over flames. "We were called progressives for God's sake!" A beast with the face of newscaster Don LaMoan gave her a stiff poke and then laughed heartily as she wailed.

A music came from deeper in the cave. Nancy and the other demons danced around their victims and periodically stabbed them with their pitchforks.

A low voice beckoned them from deeper in the cave. They skipped toward it.

A sort of black hole that sucked in all excess flame light spoke to them in low tones. They nodded their heads in understanding. They clapped their heads with excitement. Once it was finished, they returned to the surface and reassumed their human disguises.

Chapter 16

It worked. The door shut behind them and they were trapped in the math lab. Alfonso looked down upon them from the balcony. He shouted illegal immigration statistics through the bullhorn and routinely said that facts didn't care about their feelings!

The crowd grew increasingly agitated and shouted, "We don't converse with Nazi's!"

"That's a lie!"

"That information makes me feel uncomfortable!"

"That's racist!"

Al shouted over them. "Facts don't care about your feelings!" He had discovered that was one of the most powerful phrases that could be used against an SJW.

They began covering their ears. "He will not divide us" they tried to drown him out. One of them started wobbling. His dark eyes began spinning in all directions and a bit of smoke escaped from his ears. And then he popped. His head exploded into a fiery ball. The bang from the explosion echoed off the walls. Most of the blood and ooze sizzled into nothing but some of it managed to reached the nearest wall. His body dropped and twitched. Alfonso kept going. Another one popped and then another. Several popped at once. It sounded like a bag of microwave popcorn.

One girl walked confidently amongst them. She seemed a little younger than the other students. She carried a field hockey stick. She watched the carnage around her with a silent fascination. Soon, there was only one other student remaining. She had her hands over her ears and she ran frantically back and forth screaming, "he will not divide us!" The girl with the hockey stick walk up to her and swung the stick mightily. It was the most impressive orange explosion yet. Now the entire lot of them were quivering their final spasms on the math lab floor. The tables and walls dripped blood and ooze. The girl with the hockey stick looked up at Al and smiled.

Chapter 17

"Welcome to Whiteness Studies. This class is mandatory for all White freshman. You cannot drop the course and you cannot fail the course if you want to remain at this university. We're going to begin by talking about what you think Whiteness means. Let's brainstorm some ideas and I'll write them on the board." She looked out at her class. "Let's go. I need to hear your ideas."

"Being bad at basketball."

There were a few laughs and the instructor laughed a bit too. "Yes, that's certainly true. But instead of just basketball, I'm going to write, bad at sports. And I mean real sports. I know some of you white boys like skateboarding, but that's not a real sport. Okay, what else."

"Can't dance."

"Right! Your people ain't got no rhythm! I went to a white wedding reception once and, my Lord, it was just hilarious. Bunch of flat-ass white folks jerkin around to Lil' Wayne and Chingy and all kinds of brothers coming through the speakers! Ha, I'll get myself crackin' up just thinking about it. What else?"

"We're bad at music."

"Thank God, for that white boy Eminem. If it weren't for him and a few others that ain't too bad, ya'll wouldn't have anything. Now besides being bad at all these things what's something White folks are good at?"

"Technological innovation."

"What? Who said that!" The teacher was irate, but everyone was quiet. "Who said that! Oh, now that's some wise-ass bullshit right there. Innovation! This country was built on the backs of slaves and everything a black person invented got stolen up by some white man! Innovation, uh-uh." She shook her head. "Uh-uh! I'm gonna find you by the way. You think you're funny, but I'm gonna find you. And we'll see how funny you think the rest of the semester gonna be. Now, what's something crackers be good at?"

"Racism."

"Yes! That's one of the easiest questions you could get. Whites are the most racist group in America."

"Lying."

"Yes. Whites lie. And they trick other groups of people. They get ahead by exploiting other groups and tricking them. The only thing that whites innovate are racist systems and institutions."

"Slavery."

"Yes! Whites are great at enslaving other peoples! They enslaved some of the Native Americans and they enslaved millions of Africans."

"Whites bought African slaves from black African war lords and slave traders," the same voice called out.

"What! Who said that?" The room went deadly silent. "Whites climbed off their boats and marched into the African jungles and captured whole communities of peaceful Africans! That is the only way blacks were ever taken from Africa!"

"The Arabs stole African slaves for many centuries more than Whites ever did."

The teacher screamed and threw her book across the room. "We ain't talkin about no damn Arabs! Do I look like I give a shit about Arabs! This course is called Whiteness studies! We're talkin about all the shit all you crackers did! We ain't talkin' about no- and that can't be true anyway. No other races ever took slaves. Now hold on and let me break this down for you."

"Whites did not start slavery, they ended it."

The teacher began laughing wildly. "That is the stupidest shit I ever heard."

"Slavery, in one form or another, was practiced by all people from all around the world for most of history."

"Hey! I'm running the class here!"

"White Americans ended slavery during the civil war."

She ran across the room and picked up her book so she could throw it again.

"Until the 1980's, slavery was still legally practiced in Mauritania by light-skinned Africans who enslaved darker skinned Africans."

The teacher ran to a skinny white kid seated at the front of the room and grabbed him by the lapels and began shaking him.

"I understand that you should be angry at me! I apologize on behalf of my ancestors," he said as his glasses were shaken off his face.

"Half of your ancestors probably fought to end slavery!" that same voice called out from the back of the class.

The teacher screamed with rage and picked the boy out of his seat by his lapels.

"I am the inheritor of privilege because of my white skin! I am always met with affirmations and kindness!" he said terrified.

"You are fifty times more likely to be assaulted by a black person than a black person is to be assaulted by a white person!"

The teacher looked up, but continued shaking. The boy remained totally limp. "First of all, why do you have to drag race into everything? And second, most crime happens within racial groups not between them."

"Yes, and the black community experiences crime at a rate ten times higher than that of other communities!"

"That is bullshit! We only commit the exact same amount of crimes as white folk do!" She threw the boy against the wall. He bounced off it like a rag doll.

"All black crime is merely the result of the poverty that the White system has put upon the black people!" the boy moaned.

"Yes!" she said while feeling greatly affirmed as she kicked him.

"African countries with nearly 100 percent black populations have some of the highest crime rates in the world."

The teacher gave one final roar and snapped the boy's neck. Then she came charging up the stairs toward whoever had been speaking in the back. She held her arms out in front of her. Her eyes had completely glazed over and a bit of smoke came from her ears. Drool streamed from the sides of her mouth and she emitted a low growl.

A slender figure in a hoody rose from the back row. A hand came up and pulled back the hood. The face underneath was that of a young, black woman. The entire class gasped in utter shock. The teacher stopped her charge and for a moment a bit of the color came back to her eyes as she tried processing what she was seeing.

Mya took the nightstick covered in pages from Aristotle's Complete Works from her bag.

The teacher re-started her charge with a primordial roar. Mya leaped into the aisle and swung the club. It met the side of the teacher's chubby cheek with a sploosh and spun her face to the side with blood and drool and a single tooth spraying out.

The teacher slowly turned her head back toward Mya. She rose several inches in height as cloven hooves grew out of its ankles and burst through its shoes. Its fingernails grew into claws. Two bumps arose from its head and grew sharper into horns. The bloody mouth stretched out into a muzzle. The beast snarled a low, otherworldly snarl and revealed a set of fangs that rivaled a grizzly bear's.

Mya struggled to control her shock and terror.

The beast slashed its claws through the air, but Mya struck the paw with her club and broke the claws off the fingers. The monster looked at its bloody hand. Smoke came from the fingertips and a sizzling sound. It screeched in pain and then roared, "All racial disparities can only be the result of White racism! All racial disparities can only be the result of White racism!" The voice was not human but otherworldly. Demonic. A few of the other students picked up the chant.

Mya looked at her club and whispered a favorite Aristotle quote. The club seemed to glow a bit with beautiful blue light and a calm confidence swept over her.

The beast spun round and thrust out a cloven hoof in an attempt to kick Mya in the stomach, but she swung her club to meet the monster's ankle. The club seared right through the ankle with an explosion of blue sparks. The hoof dropped to the ground with a thud.

The beast tossed its head back and howled in pain while balancing on its remaining hoof. Mya shoved it and it tumbled head over tail down the stairs grunting with each bounce. It landed splayed on its back at the auditorium floor. It panted heavily with its tongue flopped out the side of its muzzle.

More of the students had picked up the chant. A few of them stood.

Mya charged down the stairs with both hands clenching her club over her shoulder. She leaped over the last few stairs and brought the club down onto the muzzle of the beast as she landed next to it. A blue light flashed at the contact point. The muzzle exploded into bits. Its teeth shot out in all directions. Blood gurgled out from its mouth as it screamed. Mya brought the club down again between its eyes. Another blue light flashed at the contact point. She heard the skull crunch a bit. The head glowed and pulsed with the blue light. Mya took several steps back. What looked like blue lightning bolts began zapping their way from its head down the body and back up again with electric buzzes. The whole body started convulsing and the head pulsed more rapidly. The head exploded. Skull shards bounced off the desk. A black goo landed on the textbooks, "A Guide for Whites: Assuaging White Guilt by Refusing Success," and, "Neutralizing White Privilege Through Self-Degradation." The body continued convulsing and then burst into flames.

"All racial disparities can only be the result of White racism! All racial disparities can only be the result of White racism!" The chanting was drone-like and mindless. Nearly all the students were standing. A few started walking toward Mya. Their arms were out raised.

"I'm black! Do you see this?" She pointed to the black skin of her arm. "Not all racial disparities are the result of White racism! I believe that many problems are the result of culture and lifestyle choices!"

The SJW's kept chanting and they kept walking toward her. She backed toward the door and slipped out.

Alfonso, Mike and their new friend Kristy barricaded the door by driving a maintenance vehicle in front of it. Al tossed a couple gas canisters through a window near the flames. Fluid slowly leaked out.

The three of them watched from a hillside as the building exploded. Flames soared high into the air. Burning books and SJW body parts sailed across the quad and landed on other liberal arts buildings. Those buildings too caught fire. A few books landed on the physical sciences building and a few on the math building, but those buildings failed to catch on fire.

"This is Kristy," Al told Mya. "She's fifteen years old. She lost her family to the SJW's. And she is great with a field hockey stick."

Chapter 18

Mike and his wife helped fortify Al and Mya's home when they decided to move in a few days ago. They boarded the windows shut. They installed extra locks on the doors. They had a stock pile of weapons. No guns, of course since they had all been seized by the government in recent years.

They were planning on following Dr. Jamison's advice and going into hiding. But first, they would go on at least one more offensive. Then they would go east to an island in the Mississippi River and wait out the rest of the chaos.

There was more safety in numbers, and it was decided Kristy would be staying with them too. They were in the process of readying supplies for their final battles and their departure.

Mike hunched over the dining table and inspected a recently acquired compound bow.

Nancy, the newscaster, was on the TV behind them. "Rumors have begun circulating that student protestors have begun wandering neighborhoods and woodlots in a trance-like state and that they have even begun attacking innocent people. Please rest assured that this is fake news and should be ignored. There have, however, been cases of White supremacists attacking people in their homes."

Al opened the refrigerator. They were almost out of food. "We need to stock up. We don't know how much longer society will be functioning. It might not be long before food is no longer distributed to stores or before food is no longer being produced in sufficient quantities."

They piled into Al's SUV. It had been a few days since he had driven anywhere. Trash was no longer being collected and it was scattered in the streets. Few other cars were on the road. A couple separate columns of smoke rose in the distance. Now and then they came across a small group of students wandering in tattered clothes. Sometimes they carried signs or chanted slogans. Several of the gas stations appeared to be closed. Al pulled into the first one he saw that looked open.

The pump worked much to his relief. Three female students stumbled into the convenience store of the gas station.

A police car pulled in and a female cop got out and stood with her hands on her hips. She stared at him suspiciously.

His heart pounded as he continued to fill his tank. "He will not divide us!" he called out in a serious tone.

She slowly nodded but continued staring at him.

His tank was full and he walked into the store to pay.

"Of course, I recognize my male privilege!" A skinny clerk squealed to the three female students who had walked in.

"We're taking this!" the largest one called out while clutching an assortment of snack cakes with both of her arms.

"Consider it a patriarchy tax!"

They glared at Al as they walked toward the door.

"Love Trumps hate," he said meekly and they let him alone.

The store was a wreck. Doritos and Funyuns were spread through the aisles. Melting ice cream dripped onto the floor from an open freezer.

The clerk looked traumatized and guilt-ridden. He had a black eye.

"I don't suppose I get the feminist discount?" Al said with a bit of a smile.

"Female reparations is nothing to joke about!"

"Of course not. Sorry. Pump three." He held out a twenty.

"Women have been systematically oppressed for hundreds of years. The least we can do at this point is offer them free snack cakes!"

Al dropped the twenty on the counter and backed away. "He will not divide us," he said before he went out the door.

The grocery store down the street was in equal disarray. The four of them walked through it together gathering as many essentials as possible.

"Like, can you believe how much progress has been made in just the last few weeks?"

Kristy instantly recognized that millennial upspeak as the voice of her sister, Olivia. She pulled the drawstrings of her hood tight to cover most of her face.

Her sister stumbled through an aisle with a basket dumping ramen noodles into it. She was with three of her friends.

"Like, yeah I know. We can finally call out White supremacy and sexism when we see it. It has finally become socially acceptable to use any means necessary to stop the spread of toxic masculinity," said a chubby friend with a pink streak in her hair.

A young Middle Eastern man who'd been trailing them flipped up the girl's skirt for a moment to reveal a G-string slightly covering a pair of chubby buns. He looked at his friend and laughed and the two high-fived each other.

"Hey!" she squealed angrily. She turned like she was out for blood, but when she saw the men were Middle Eastern she didn't know what to do. Her expression changed to one of confusion. She looked at her friends and they were all silent for a moment.

"That was seriously rapey!" One of them finally called out.

"That is our culture!" the man shouted with just the hint of an Arabic accent. "When we see women dressed as you, it is acceptable for us to do as we please. To be, rapey, as you say."

The girls looked at each other again not sure of what to do. "I think they like, internalized western patriarchy or something." Olivia said to her friends.

The two Arabs looked at each other and laughed. "Yes, today's Western men are so strong and patriarchal!" They laughed more. "That's where we got it from!"

The girls nodded their heads feeling satisfied with their conclusion and started walking away.

The same Arab lifted the same girl's skirt.

"Hey! You have to stop that!" she shouted as she turned.

He tried lifting the front of her skirt and she slapped his hand away.

He raised a fist and punched her square in the jaw. She almost fell over.

"How dare you hit a girl! Are you crazy?" Olivia shouted as she lurched toward him.

"In my culture it is not frowned upon to strike women!" He cocked his fist back like he might hit Olivia.

"You can't . . . You can't do that! Get away from us!"

"I can't!?" He looked offended. "Why? This is my culture. This is what we do! Are you an Islamaphobe?"

At the word Islamaphobe three more Arabs rounded a corner and walked toward the girls from the other end of the aisle. "Are these girls Islamaphobes?" One of the called out in a husky voice.

A group of inquisitive White people started to form at the end of the aisle. "What happens when a group of feminists disagrees with a group of Muslims?" One of them asked another.

"I don't think it's possible for them to disagree with each other."

"He's right. They can both disagree with straight White males, but they can't disagree with each other." Said a tall, slender male with a protruding Adam's apple.

"But I think it's happening right here!" He pointed to the girls and Muslims. "Right in front of us!"

"No. This must not be happening." He shook his head in confusion. "I know it seems like it is, but we must be interpreting it wrong." He stepped forward. "Excuse me. I apologize for interrupting, but I think all of you are mad at me as a straight White male. Right? It must have been something that us straight White males have done that caused this tension you are both experiencing right now." He spoke with a certain dignity. A paradoxical authority.

"No. We were just about to take these whores and have our way with them. It has nothing to do with you."

"Excuse me! But as a straight White male, I can tell you this misunderstanding you are now experiencing with these females," he looked over at the girls.

"Yes, we identify as female."

"This misunderstanding must have its roots in something straight White males have done!"

"No! In our culture, we don't have to respect women dressed as this!"

"Don't you believe in multiculturalism?" another Arab shouted.

The group of Whites at the peripheral muttered to each other and looked utterly confused.

"You Westerners always say how you value diversity and how diversity is a strength but when confronted with diversity you harass us!"

"Islamophobes . . . Islamaphobes! Islamaphobes!" they started chanting. They began to seethe with rage.

The girls looked at each other not knowing what to do. Olivia finally turned to the straight White male who had come up to take the blame and she shoved him. "Hey-hey, ho-ho, toxic masculinity has got to go!"

He stumbled backwards then looked upwards and triumphantly shouted, "yes!" He looked her in the eye. "Yes! I'm sorry!" He nodded his head fervently. "I am sorry!" he declared proudly.

All the other White women at the scene joined in with Olivia's chanting. Their eyes dulled and their chant took on the typical drone-like sound.

Not to be drowned out, the Arabs began repeating the word, islamaphobes, louder and louder.

All the straight White males joined in the chant of, I'm sorry! Their eyes also glazed over with a dullness.

Each group competed to get their chant louder than the others.

Olivia grabbed the man she had shoved, by the ears, and screamed her chant in his face while shaking his head back and forth.

He responded with, "I support women's empowerment! You are justified in your anger!"

Outnumbered, the Arabs could barely be heard over all the other shouts and chanting and that made them angrier and angrier. The lead Arab could no longer contain his rage as he grabbed Olivia by the shoulders and took a bite out of the back of her neck.

"I support women's equality!" the White male told Olivia with great sincerity as blood spurted from her neck.

Olivia spoke her truth one last time, "Hey-hey, ho-ho, toxic masculinity has got to go!" She said before breaking her gaze with the straight White male and letting go of his ears and falling to the floor. The Arabs tore her to shreds.

Free from Olivia's grip the man turned to the group of White people behind him. "Straight White males! Instead of engaging in an angry backlash against our Muslim neighbors, ask yourselves, what did we do to bring this conflict about!" He was tackled by an Arab.

Other Arabs began tackling and biting other women while accusing them of Islamophobia. "Why do you fear our culture!?" they asked between bites.

The last words of most of these women was something like, "I do value diversity!" or "I do celebrate multiculturalism!"

One straight White male charged a Muslim about to take a bite out of a woman he had just tackled. He grabbed the Muslim by the shoulders and pulled him off the girl. He looked him dead in the eye and screamed, "I am not Islamophobic! I couldn't wait any longer to tell you that! Please believe me! And, I am sorry for the intolerance you have experienced since coming to this country! I am sorry! I am sorry!"

The woman who had been tackled rose to her feet and kicked at the White male's knee from behind. He fell to the ground. "I don't need your protection, patriarch! I am perfectly capable of defending myself!"

"I'm sorry!" he called out in pain. "You are justified in your anger!"

"Don't patronize me!"

"Okay! I won't! You are right! I'm sorry!"

The woman screeched and took a bite out of his throat.

He fell over dead and she tossed her head back and laughed victoriously through a blood-stained mouth.

An Arab came up behind her and bit the side of her throat severing an artery.

The remaining straight White males continued chanting, "I'm sorry" in unison and had begun wandering in and out of the chaotic scene. Every once in a while, an Arab would take one of them down.

A few of the women had taken their chants of, toxic masculinity has got to go, to the Muslims and began biting at their throats. Another woman, upon seeing this, shook her head in horror and shoved a woman away from an Arab's bleeding throat. "Islamophobe! You are more likely to be struck by lightning than be attacked by a Muslim!"

An Arab shot through the air and tackled her to the ground.

"We've got to get out of here!" Al shouted and they went tearing out the grocery store doors with their carts of food and supplies.

"You have to pay for that!" shouted a clerk.

They tossed the food into their vehicle and sped away.

"We've got to attack them at their source!" Alfonso shouted as he sped back toward their home. "If we want any hope of saving humanity we're going to have to take this fight to the leadership of the university." He looked at Mike. "The administration building," he said gravely.

Chapter 19

There was still over an hour of daylight left when Mike started packing his bag. He tried thinking of everything they might need. He had put in a crowbar, headlamps, a hammer wrapped and taped up with pages from Atlas Shrugged.

Mya had her claw hammer and Al had his ball-peen hammer.

Kristy was applying a fresh page from Plato's The Republic over a scuffed and bare spot of her field hockey stick.

Al put his hand on her shoulder, "This is mainly going to be a reconnaissance mission. It's only going to be Mike, Mya and myself going into the Administration building. You stay here and watch over the house."

The guards at the steps of the Administration Building were gone. The building cast a long shadow across the abandoned quad. A wind swept dust across the pavement before them. Alfonso, Mya and Mike climbed the stairs and walked between the Roman pillars and up to the great doors. They opened with a creak.

The lobby was quiet. No one to be seen. The gold tile floor had lost its sheen. There were dead bugs scattered across the floor, and spider webs were everywhere. They were on the chandelier, they were on the receptionist's computer screen and across parts of the desk. A coffee stain stretched across the desk that came from a mug with a rainbow flag on it.

Alfonso hit light switches, but they didn't work.

The elevators didn't work either.

"Listen to this!" Mya called out in a hushed tone as she held her ear near the elevator doors. The faint sound of music and jubilant cries drifted up from the depths below.

No stairs led into the basement.

Mike took the crow bar from his backpack and pried the elevator doors open. He switched on his head lamp and peered down but couldn't see the bottom. He looked back at Al and Mya. "I'm going down," he said and leapt across the void to grab a hold of the cable. He began climbing down and the other two followed.

Primitive writing, perhaps from some pagan script, had been scrawled on the walls of the elevator shaft. As he descended farther, he noticed scratch marks on the walls that looked like they were made from some dangerous clawed animal. He looked down again and saw the top of the elevator car. He stepped on top of it. The other two reach it as well. The music was much louder now but still far away.

"I'm going to chance it," Al said and opened the elevator's hatch.

After carefully hopping down they saw a dusty, brick floor outside the elevator's doors. A rat, or something, scuttled by. There were some kind of cloven-hooved animal tracks in the dust. The bricks of the floor and walls looked ancient like they had been carved with primitive tools. A faint light flickered in the distance and they went toward it.

Alfonso clenched his hammer tightly.

The sound of music and partying grew louder as they approached. The music was something terrible. It was as if Katie Perry, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus had been ground together through a sinister corporate machine and then had a dash of something hellish and otherworldly added.

Alfonso and the gang approached anyway. As the light grew stronger he switched off his head lamp. They rounded the corner and looked down upon a great chamber lit by torches along the walls. SJW's mindlessly pulsed to the erratic beats of the music. They chanted slogans in unison like, "he will not divide us," and "men of quality support equality" and "hey-hey, ho-ho, toxic masculinity has got to go!"

A giant and upright cloven-hooved beast stood at the opposite end of the chamber. Mya brought her hand to her mouth to contain a gasp. The creature held a conductor's stick and conducted the rhythm of the music and dancing. It was a hairy beast with the legs of a goat and the upper body of a fat and flabby man. He had a goat-tee and it looked like . . . His face was that of the university dean. Two great goat horns came from his head. His lips had curled into a sinister smile as he looked over his minions.

Smaller goat-like beasts turned the crank of a giant meat grinder. And others lead bound and struggling prisoners into a huge funnel at the top of it. You could just hear the crunching of bones over the music. A sign on the grinder read, "The Blood of The -ists, and The -phobes." The SJW's filled goblets from a spout near the bottom of the grinder and appeared to be getting quite drunk from the brew. There was a bust of Karl Marx and Max Horkheimer near the far wall.

The dean suddenly flicked the stick and all the torches on the left side of the chamber were extinguished. He flicked the stick to the right and all those torches were extinguished leaving everyone in total darkness. At the same instant the music had stopped. Mya heard the sound of her own breathing.

The music exploded back from wherever it was coming from and twice as loud as before. Strobe lights burst on and the entire floor of the chamber was filled with writhing SJW's who looked like they were having seizures in time with the pulse of the weird music.

"Men of quality support equality!" was shouted just behind Alfonso's head. Instinctively, he turned and ducked just in time to miss a set of snapping jaws coming at him in the still frames offered by the strobe light.

Alfonso rose while delivering his hammer to the patchy-haired jaw of the SJW-zombie. It stumbled back with significant damage. It looked enraged. "Why do you hate!" it screamed from a bloody mouth while readying for another lunge. Alfonso's second blow was right on target just above the ear. The head exploded in a spray of skull fragments and orange goo.

The zombies stopped their dancing and looked up to where Al and his companions stood.

Al looked at both Mya and Mike though the pulsing light. "Let's go! There are way too many!"

They ran back toward the elevator.

A female zombie leapt out at him from behind a pillar and screeched the way activists did immediately after Congressman Bunt's election. Her rage-filled eyes could have burned a hole right through Alfonso, but he silenced her screech with a single blow from the hammer.

Alfonso reached the elevator first. He pushed the button for the ground floor. Nothing happened. He began frantically pushing all the buttons hoping to get the elevator to move. Mike jumped up through the elevator's hatch and began climbing. Al and Maya followed. They heard the mob stampeding toward them as they climbed.

The monsters packed into the elevator and shouted and screeched looking up at their enemies.

A motor whirred and the elevator car started ascending. The zombies snapped their jaws inside of it eager for fresh meat.

Mike neared the ground floor and climbed the cable even faster. Once parallel to the open doorway, he swung his legs back and then forward and let go of the cable. He cleared the void and landed on the tarnished gold tiles. Mya made it next.

The elevator car had nearly caught up with Al when he dropped down onto its top. He swung his hammer mightily at the claws reaching up towards him through the hatch. Each time one of the hellish beasts tried pulling itself up out of the hole he beat it back down until the car had ascended enough for him to leap out the open doorway.

The three of them charged across the lobby and out the doors of the administration building.

Al slammed the front door shut and locked it. Maya struggled to catch her breath and collapsed into a dining room chair.

"What happened?" Kristy asked.

"We would need a whole army to take on the administration building!"

"Did any of them follow us?" Mya asked.

"I don't think so," Al said looking through a slit in the boarded window.

"The administration building is too much," Mya said. "We should focus on a different target."

Mike looked up. "The United Media awards banquet is next week. All the company's top media personalities will be there."

"We'll go heavily armed. We would accomplish so much good by serving justice to even one of those propagandists!"

Over the next days they planned, they speculated, and they worried. They made trips to sporting goods stores. They practiced with a new array of weapons.

Chapter 20

Mike pushed the cart of baby back ribs between the tables. The cart and the tray were made of gold.

"Welcome to the annual Awards in Journalism Banquet," Don LaMoan said into a microphone on stage. He wore a tuxedo with a bowtie covered in sequins.

Mike knew the catering company United Media used and about when it would be arriving on the evening of the awards banquet. They made quick work of the caterers and had put on their clothes.

Don also had gloves of sequins that shimmered as he used his hands while speaking. "Our first award is for the most effective suppression of Black crime statistics." Don beamed with excitement as he opened the envelop. "The award goes to . . . Jean Acoster!"

Everyone burst into applause. Jean stood up and walked up to the podium. The award he was handed was a golden statue of a man shouting through bullhorn at a flock of dumbfounded sheep.

"Thank you, Don. I had a strong feeling I would win this award after my interview with Sherriff McCoy. We were doing our story on the Freddie Brown case, who was the third Black man to lose his life at the hands of police that year, and the Sherriff was starting to say something about how there are more Whites killed by police annually than Blacks, or something about how Whites are on average far more likely to follow orders while being arrested and that leads to fewer altercations and so forth, but every time he started to drop some pertinent information I interrupted him with a question like, aren't Black lives just as valuable as White lives? Or, something like, what about the grieving mothers of McCoy's children? And then of course we showed the footage of their wailing. And then of course the real gotcha moment is when we dropped that audio of the Sherriff telling his daughter he would prefer she not go to the prom with Tyrone Johnson thereby utterly branding him as a Nazi for the rest of his life. I'll never forget the look on his face. He had no idea his daughter had even recorded that conversation." He held up the award and cheered the way an athlete does after scoring. Everyone applauded and he stayed up on the stage for at least several minutes basking in it.

"You can serve us now!" said a man seated at a table.

"Of course," Mike said. He removed the cover of the food tray. What he saw weren't beef or pork ribs. Not at all. They were much too small. They were about the size of a . . . He dared not even consider the possibility. He tried to keep his hands steady as he scooped up the tiny ribs and set them on the plates.

Don stepped to the microphone. "Such a great example for all of us journalists. Many of us have been studying your interview tactics for a long time and we have learned a lot from you about how to craft the narrative. Thank you, Jean. Next we have the Most Pertinent Doxing Award. This one goes to the man who discovered the identity," Don stepped back and looked down. He sighed. "The creator of that meme," his voice shook with anger, "that meme where our logo was defaced using that footage of a certain politician and a certain wrestling event. This award goes to Chris Bomo!"

Chris stood up to thunderous applause.

Each journalist who had been served ate voraciously. They ate the bones and all. They crunched right through them. Barbeque sauce dripped down their faces. They looked at the ribs with strange fascination and delight. They looked at each other and laughed as if they were all in on the same secret.

Chris went to the stage to take the award. It was a statue of the same man with the bullhorn but he was using a judge's gavel to beat a smaller man in the head. "Thank you Don. I am happy to say that the creator of that meme has finally died from the injuries he sustained after we doxed him." The crowd cheered. "And his child is still in critical condition!" The crowd cheered louder. Chris stood there holding the trophy over his head and basked in the applause.

From the corner of Mike's eye he spotted Alfonso stooping down and pulling out the compound bow from under his waiter's cart. He drew back the arrow with the shaft wrapped in a page from 1984. "You are fake news!" he shouted thunderously and let the arrow fly. It sailed through the air over the heads of the baby eaters and went right through the heart of Chris Bomo.

He made a face like he'd been sucker punched. He dropped the trophy and its head broke off. Blood shot out in great fountains from the hole in his chest. His tail wriggled out from under his waist line and shook violently back and forth. His eyes blacked over. His mouth opened into a giant O and he screamed a demon's howl. Then blood shot out of his mouth like water from a fire hose.

The crowd dropped their ribs in disbelief and those nearest him began screaming as the blood from Bomo's mouth showered them.

Smoke began coming from his ears. His blackened eyes bulged from their sockets. One of them popped in an explosion of black goo. Smoke arose from his clothes and they burst into flames. Within moments they burned from his body and revealed his scaly skin. The blood had stopped flowing and he fell backward and convulsed. His tail flailed around wildly. His cloven hooves danced around in the air as if he were doing an epileptic jig. The wound in his chest grew and gaped. It began sucking in nearby flesh. It made the sound of a vacuum cleaner sucking up a thick soup. His shoulders sunk in toward it. His waist moved up toward it. More and more of him disappeared into it until finally he was completely gone.

Mike, Alfonso and the rest of the group had whipped off their formal wear to reveal their armor of truth. Alfonso stood upon his waiter's cart and let arrow after arrow fly. An arrow pierced the head of a journalist still trying to eat his ribs. He slumped over and his face fell upon his plate. Another arrow pierced Don LaMoan's shoulder. He tossed his head back and howled while his forked tongue stuck out and waggled violently back and forth. Flames erupted from his shoulder and his arm popped off and hit the floor still on fire.

He now stared at Alfonso with reptilian eyes. He whipped off his sparkly tux and showed his true scaly, demonic self. He lifted his remaining hand before him and the nails grew into menacing claws. He leaped from the stage to the nearest table and landed on his cloven hooves. He leaped again and neared Alfonso.

Al drew another arrow and fired into Don's eye. He grabbed the arrow and pulled on it. He ripped it out and black goo streamed from the socket. Don looked at Alfonso and roared. His forked tongue waggled between fangs.

Don leaped into the air again. Kristy swung her club and caught the beast's ankle in mid-air. The club sliced through while shooting out blue sparks. The severed hoof fell to the floor. The demon's expression changed from rage to surprise. His remaining hoof came to land on the table he was jumping toward, but he skidded across it dragging the table cloth with him and knocking over everyone's glasses and plates with a great crashing sound. Don's arms went out to his sides and he jerked them in different directions trying to maintain his balance before finally falling backward. The back of his head landed in some type of meat loaf that splattered out around him.

Mya had shot dozens of arrows that had met the vitals of as many journalists. The more demonic they were the more spectacular their deaths were. Some simply slumped over with some orange goo coming from their ears. Others exploded into an array of flame, lightening, and goo of all colors of the rainbow.

Kristy had been an acrobatic whirlwind over the past several minutes leaving a trail of severed limbs and heads in her wake.

Mike had made good use of his book-page armor. Dozens of teeth had melted across his forearms and he bashed and hacked the stumbling, toothless journalists.

Finally, the entire banquet hall was still. A whole room of death and gore. Blood and ooze, hacked limbs and lifeless bodies. Spilled barbeque sauce and scattered ribs. The smell of bile and burnt hair hung in the air.

They heard a slap on the table and turned to see Don struggling up to his hoof. He looked at them and snarled and then began hopping toward the elevator.

Alfonso was out of arrows. The whole group charged toward him with their weapons.

Kristen hacked off his remaining clawed hand so he was of no threat to them and he fell upon his back. Alfonso took the plastic explosives from his satchel and strapped them to the beast while Mike pried open the elevator shaft. Al lit the fuse.

Don struggled and flailed and the flames of the fuse burnt his chest.

They tossed him down the elevator shaft and saw his tail wriggle as he fell.

"Run!" Alfonso screamed and they all began running toward the door. A great thunderous rumble came from far down the shaft. "I don't know how much time we'll have!"

They burst through the doors and kept running down the street. The rumbling got louder and the earth began to tremble. Loud crackling pierced the rumble. They turned and saw the windows of the news building blow out with bursts of flame. Cracks shot up the sides and the whole building began crumbling down. Dust and smoke rolled out and down the streets. The crumbled top of the building came to a rest where the foundation once was. The gateway to that hell, that source of fake news and demon propagandists was now completely sealed.

They stared and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nice job, fellas," said a voice from behind them. It was Dr. Jamison. He stood tall and was covered in paper armor as well. A couple dozen young men stood behind him in the same attire.

Alfonso almost fell to his knees.

"You've discovered the power of wisdom contained in all these pages." He looked at their armor and then his own. "You've found the hellish gates, the epicenter of lies, and you've destroyed it. You got here before we did." He smiled.

A few zombies rounded corners of nearby buildings. "Mainstream media is not fake news," they started chanting.

"We are on our way to refuge. We will wait it out while these stragglers begin to turn on each other and finish themselves off. But . . . why not have a little more fun before we go." Dr. Jamison marched toward the mob clutching his staff wrapped with the pages of his own books. Then he began jogging; then he began sprinting toward them. "Take this you SJW scum!" he shouted as he leaped through the air and brought the staff down upon the head of a slovenly liberal arts student.

Dr. Jamison's young male followers roared and then charged after him brandishing their wisdom enshrouded clubs, war hammers, hockey sticks and baseball bats. Al and the others joined the battle fighting alongside their hero and covering the streets in SJW blood and orange goo.

Chapter 21

It was clear the SJW's had lost the ability to swim. Their brain rot had progressed during the days it took them to reach the Mississippi river and it seemed their transition was complete.

Alfonso and Mike paddled hard putting distance between them and the shore. The mob of SJW's gathered near the dock. "Brains! Brains!" they chanted. This seemed to be the only word they could still say. Perhaps that was all they wanted all along. A properly functioning brain.

They paced the river bank. They bumped into each other but kept pacing. A few of the SJW's stumbled into the water and walked toward the escaping boats. They walked out into the deepening water. A bit more of their bodies disappearing with each step until even their heads were underwater. For a few moments they gave away their positions with their rising bubbles. But then the bubbles stopped. And a few moments after that their lifeless bodies floated to the river's surface and they drifted downstream and out of sight.

The boats scraped up to the edge of the island and Al and all his new friends quickly jumped out and pulled them to shore. The remaining SJW's continued pacing along the riverbank.

"Don't worry. With no supposed oppressor to rail against, and with no one left to blame their problems on they will quickly lose the will to live," said Dr. Jamison.

They pulled the supplies from the boats. Alfonso grabbed the fishing equipment. Mike began setting up the tents while his wife searched for firewood.

Kristy explored the island and discovered it was rich in berries. She also came across a lush grove of pecan trees.

Days passed and they had settled into their temporary home. The fishing was good and the berries were delicious.

They sat by their campfire one night. Dr. Jamison spoke. The light of the fire flickered on his face. "I can't be sure. But, I believe it had something to do with altered satellite signals. My guess is those in power had wanted to dumb down the population to the point of making them docile and easy to control. Perhaps the proper change in frequency was enough to push some people over the edge and change them into mindless ideologues. But those in power had been too successful in their experiment and they produced people no longer capable of any rational thought or any ability to control their aggression. They produced people so easily triggered. In my estimation, it may have been a connection to the occult that gave them a power so unwieldy."

"But why not us, Dr. Jamison? Why were we completely unaffected?" asked Mike.

"Those who are left leaning tend to have lower levels of serotonin and oxytocin in their brains. Perhaps the frequency of the satellite signals only worked on people with that particular brain chemistry. And that is why they were affected, but we weren't. That is why they will soon be gone and we will be free to restore and rebuild Western civilization."

The next morning Kristy picked wild strawberries from a meadow near the shore.

Occasional moans came from across the river. The SJW's paced the riverbank with their shoulders slumped. It seemed they were depressed. Kristy saw one drop from the bank into the water. The body floated right down stream. Another dropped. And then a few minutes later another.
