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The giant JumboHoloTron was a three- dimensional upside-down cone that
continuously surrounded the elevator shaft with advertisements, terror alert
status, stock market data, and breaking news ticker tapes. There was also
music videos, commercials, and mini-movies playing on the larger portions of
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it. The size of the screen was such that it could be seen from most of Central
Park. The giant conical holoscreen stretched from the street level up to the
thirty-third-floor ceiling and made contact with the top of the dome.
The JumboHoloTron had a very large captive audience today "captive" being the
key word. The
Seppies had rounded up and packed several hundred thousand citizens and
tourists alike into the main field of the plush green Earthlike city park and
then surrounded them with mobile force fields. There were only a few exits to
the field and at each of these bottlenecks were several divisions of heavily
armed Seppy troops.
"Well, maybe some of this damned waiting will be over with," Vincent Peterson
answered with a bit of an edge to his voice. He sorely needed a cigarette or
at least a beer to take the edge off his nicotine habit.
"Well, maybe the Seppies are finally giving up and going back home to the
Reservation with their tails between their legs." Rod didn't use sarcasm
normally, but there had been nothing normal about this long Martian day.
"Maybe so, bud." Vincent didn't care much for the sarcasm either. The
Separatist flag being displayed on the giant holographic screen faded out and
a familiar face of terror took its place.
". . . Citizens of Sol's System! I am General Elle Ahmi." The most- wanted
terrorist of the system had been long thought to be dead but apparently the
reports of her death had been a bit premature. Ahmi stood in front of a large
bot-mode Separatist armored Stinger fighter craft and beside that was an
American flag. From the view angles of the video camera it appeared that there
was a blue-gray Martian sky behind her that could be seen through an
atmosphere dome. Elle Ahmi was somewhere on Mars!
She wore a Separatist armored pilot flight suit with the helmet off. She was
in full battle rattle as if she actually were going into combat. Over her face
was the long renowned red, white, and blue ski mask and her long straight
black hair hung freely out the back of it. From the image there was little
that could be said about her physical age or attributes other than she was
female and about one hundred and ninety centimeters tall and had brown eyes.
But there was no doubt to anybody who had seen or heard her before that it was
indeed her.
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"This is a tumultuous time for the human race. Earlier today the Separatist
Freedom Fighters dealt a great blow to the tyranny and oppression of the past
century that the Great American Nation has thrust upon the Free People of the
United States! Your President Sienna Madira forced the free people of Mars
across the planet, slaughtering tens of thousands of them in a tyrannical
death march to what is now known as the Reservation more than fifty-eight
years ago.
We
, the Freedom Fighters of the United States of America, have opposed such
tyranny and oppression with the blood, sweat, and tears of our sons and
daughters, our mothers and fathers.
"Today, as the great power of the United States Navy was forcing its way into
the periphery of the so-
called Separatist Reservation near the Elysium fields to slaughter yet more
innocent mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters in the name
of the once great country, We
, the Free People of
America, have risen up and said NO! No more! It stops here and goes no
further!" Elle Ahmi stood stalwart and stern, her brown eyes visible from
beneath the red, white, and blue ski mask through the video camera and into
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the screens of people across the system. There was no doubt of the steel
resolve behind those eyes.
"Today was obviously not the first time that American tanks, fighter planes,
and mecha have rolled and marched over gallant men and women fighting to
redeem the independence of their homeland. Nor is it by any means the final
episode in the eternal struggle of liberty against tyranny, anywhere in this
system, including Earth itself! It will happen again!" She pounded her right
fist into her armored left hand. "But I
say not from the people you would know as the Separatists!
"My entire life I have dreamt of a truly socially just and free society and
exactly for this reason I have always led the Free People of the United States
of America to speak out against tyranny and to strike it down with all of the
might that can be mustered only by a Free People. I believe America, the Great
America of our revered forefathers is lost to history. Then, in those great
days of the Great America and only then, when justice and freedom existed,
could human problems be solved in a peaceful and fruitful way. I have always
felt in my heart of hearts that only through the solution of these problems
could human values be realized and mankind reach its full and amazing
potential. Mankind is meant to live in freedom! True freedom! Freedom from
taxation without true representation! Freedom from being forced to accept the
stagnation and quagmire of a species because political gain is all that drives
the will of those of what is left of the Great America. A truly free
individual, a true American citizen who lives justly, is beaten down by
American law and can no longer offer all that he or she has to offer, all of
the citizen's greatness and all of the citizen's human dignity is lost to the
corruption and self-serving darkness that has become America!
"If the Great America still exists, then why do the average citizens of Earth
read and perform math skills at levels that were far exceeded a century ago?
If the Great America still exists, then why does the average citizen not
understand the nature of government and the concept of law? If the Great
America still exists, then why does only one in a thousand understand how even
the simplest of technologies operate with no hopes of understanding the
sciences that drive them? If this is the Great America, then why has humanity
had the means for interstellar flight more than a century but there are only
four extra-
solar colonies and why have there been only a handful of expeditionary
missions? If this is the Great
America, why is it not safe to walk down the streets at night only a few
blocks away from the White House and the Houses of
Congress? If this is the Great America, why are the prisons overcrowded with
animals who only desire
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personal gain from evil purposes? And why will those evil men and women never
see the executioner for the deeds they have done? If this is the Great
America, then why must the federal government be involved in the approval of
most all aspects of free citizens' lives? It is this final aspect of what has
happened to the Great America that triggered the American Civil War and indeed
what originally drove our forefathers to revolt against England! Why have we
let this happen again to the Great America?"
Ahmi paused briefly and nodded to someone off camera.
"I will tell you why. This is not the Great America of our forefathers and of
history. America died centuries ago with the taking and grabbing and giving [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]