Neytopia › Part 2: Noon › Chapter 14

Making history

He replaced the officers in the neighboring city with men he could trust or at least threaten. Once all rioters were arrested, he brought the doctors from his city to heal the wounded. Later came state-enforced volunteers to repair the shops and houses that had been vandalized. The next morning he gathered all the people in the main square and spoke to them from a wooden platform:

These past days have been terrible. We set out to make a brighter future, and so far all we’ve found is death and despair.

He stopped for a moment to think about the abysm between how he had thought things would be and how they actually were. He felt like giving up but composed himself and continued with more conviction,

I promise you one thing: no matter what comes our way, we must go on. If not for ourselves, for our children, and their children after them. All I’ve ever wanted, all the Party has ever wanted, was to speak up for the downtrodden. For those of you who bleed your life away only to have others with more money take away the fruit of your labor. And it is precisely for you that I am going to impose order in this city. Order and unity are necessary to survive and prosper. And mark my words, there will be unity.

All the Party members, who were dispersed amid the crowd, broke out in applause. Other people, who only yesterday wished his death, now competed with Party members to applaud the loudest as proof of their loyalty. He continued his speech, more composed now:

But there is justice to be made. The riot leaders that acted yesterday have been identified and brought before you. We also have with us the despicable criminals who started the fire. The neca has assured me that they have ties to the North Liberation Party, those filthy clandestine saboteurs and petty terrorists trying to undermine our Glorious revolution.

After hearing these words, which were their cue, neca officers took the prisoners out to the platform and forced them on their knees, facing the crowd.

Look at these men and women, the scum of the earth—He spat on them—They, they are more dangerous than the Tyrant—He turned to be face to face with them—Just look at you, look at what peddling lies has brought you—One of them, a former aristocrat plundered of all his property by the government, spat back at him. He struck the aristocrat with the back of his hand and smiled, wiping the spit from his face—You stand here today, accused of opposing the state publicly, attempting to undermine—

One of the prisoners interrupted him,

Bullshit! It’s all bullshit and you know it!

He just raised his voice.

… OF ATTEMPTING TO UNDERMINE popular loyalty to the revolution through vile propaganda and the murder of key Party members.

The crowd erupted in vile insults at the prisoners. Some of them had been in interrogation the whole night, and a couple of them were simply gone. The ones who were still sane just looked down at the ground and cried in silence, not understanding why they were there. The loyal Party members threw what they could find at the prisoners, and the rest of the citizens soon joined in. Rotten food, shoes and even stones hit the prisoners, who didn’t even try to defend themselves.

When the crowd finished, some prisoners had died and others were badly hurt. He hung the survivors one by one until their bodies rested, swaying to the wind. They were left there for a whole day as proof he would stop before anything to bring order. By the next day, the square and the streets were completely clean. Now they could finally live their lives in peace.

He returned to his city and celebrated his victory. His yes-men lavished him with immense applause and such statements as,

A brilliant accomplishment, sir!

There has never been any leader greater than our great Visionary!

Over the coming weeks his groveling minions exhausted the dictionaries for new epithets to describe the leader in their articles. They published small pieces in the only newspaper, the Party newspaper Free Press. Each day the newspaper reported new acts of sabotage, murder or theft by the North Liberation Party, or NLP. Workers and farmers had no time to question the veracity of these articles as they worked thirty-two-hour days.

Now that there was finally peace and unity, he decided it was time to liberate the next city. He appointed a top Party member as mayor to rule the neighboring city and his brother as mayor of his city. He organized a public ceremony in his city where he shook hands with the new mayors and said a few words:

I hope these men will do a better job than I ever did as your new mayors. I have known both of them my whole life and have complete trust in them. May they bring a better tomorrow.

After the ceremony he headed north with a small company of loyal soldiers. There was a fishing town on the coast which he planned to use as an additional source of food. So he and his company disguised themselves as vagrants. He traveled with two platoons through the road while the other two platoons traveled through the woods at each side of the road, staying out of sight.

They spotted the town in the afternoon. First he studied the layout of the buildings and planned the attack for midnight. Their first target was the imperial guard’s headquarters. He smoked out the men inside to slaughter them as they ran out of the building. Then his soldiers forced the citizens out of their beds and took them to the main square, where he waited on a podium to address them,

Greetings. We are the Liberation Army, here to free you from the capital. We have one lemma: all will rule one city, all cities will rule themselves. We need your help to overthrow the empire, and after that you will become independent and stronger than ever before.

The citizens were shocked and half-asleep, so they just stared at him in confusion.

First, though, I’ll need you to point to the rich, the bureaucratic and the powerful among you. They are the enemies of the revolution and will do everything to stop us, so they must be put in work camps until the revolution is over and the new society can reassimilate them.

Children and women pointed their fingers at imperial bureaucrats and their mayor, who were then separated into a smaller group. Then he made a signal to a group of neca officers, who handcuffed the prisoners and took them out of the city. Their families wept, begging him to stop, but he said,

Don’t worry, we won’t kill them. They will work honestly for the revolution. Once the war is over, you will be reunited. I know this may be too much right now, so take all the time you need.

A woman from the crowd yelled at him:

What world do you wish to build, when the Tyrant will crush you and your little army?

Ugh, one of these,

He muttered. Then she addressed the people, saying,

He will have us all killed, can’t you see? He’s just another megalomaniac fool. Haven’t you read the news? Every insurrection against the empire goes wrong and the citizens pay the price.

While many people from the crowd were wondering what a “megalomaniac” was, not doubting it was a bad thing, he answered to the woman’s accusations by addressing the crowd,

I won’t lie to you and promise the revolution will succeed. What I can promise you is that, if you don’t join me, all that waits for you is a life of regret looking back at the lost opportunity to make things right. Even if we fail, other cities and entire regions will rise. Will we die? Of course! Everyone dies someday, the question is how. And in our case it’s clear: making history. Saying: No, I will not take it anymore!

The passion in his voice made people feel like they were part of something great for the first time in their lives. Many decided right then and there that they would follow that man to death. The woman spoke again, her voice trembling to get people to sympathize with her,

Noooo. You can’t just revolt against the Tyrant! Those who tried were wiped off the Earth along with their families, lands and their entire history—She got down on her knees—Please, leave us be, I beg you.

There will be no mercy, neither for them nor for us. The Tyrant has shown no mercy, so why should we? Do you think we can win if we play by the rules? No. What do you use to fight fire?

Water?

Wrong. Fire! Say it with me friends: what will we use to fight fire?

Fire!

I can’t hear you, say it again!

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Soon they were all chanting “Fire!” They believed a messiah had come to save them. Because what he didn’t know was that the capital had stopped sending supplies to that town years ago but they still collected taxes. The fishermen barely caught fish anymore, and they relied on harsh agriculture to stay alive. They were all undernourished and tired of living there. Most of them just wasted away drinking potato vodka.

Both sides believed they had the better end of the deal, but in time they would learn how wrong they were. For now, he watched his soldiers drink and dance with his new citizens. Meanwhile, some neca officers took the potential enemies of the state out to a nearby mountain, where they were executed and buried in deep mass graves, deep enough that no one would ever find their bodies.

His experience with the neighboring city had taught him a valuable lesson: He couldn’t leave any of his enemies alive but he couldn’t kill them in public either.