The Catalyst: Chapter Two

Amber Franklin (also known as Little Bit) was seven years old, with honey blond hair that hung in two loose pigtails that fell to her shoulders and were tied with turquoise ribbons. Her soft brown eyes were speckled with yellow flakes, and she had a little button nose and pouty lips in the shape of a bow. There was a dimple in the middle of her chin, and her two front teeth were missing where she had lost them, the permanent ones having not grown in yet. She had a habit of sticking her tongue through the gap that the missing teeth made when she was concentrating hard on something.

Amber lost her entire family in the Salinas riot last year. Her mother, father, grandmother and two older brothers were gunned down and killed outside of the municipal building in Salinas, California along with five-hundred and seventy-six other unfortunate people. The only crime that they committed was the crime of trying to stand for kindness in a country that was becoming callous and uncaring with swift abandon. And they would no longer stand for The Directorate's extreme laws.

The first law that The Directorate passed was to do away with any occupation in the medical field. Their main focus was to initiate population control. Humans had depleted the earth of too many vital components necessary for life and it was beginning to fight back. People that were on dialysis, chemo, ventilators began to die out because they were no longer being treated. People that needed oxygen to live, were suddenly left without any and succumbed to a simultaneous but very uncomfortable death without it. People that needed medication also died because medications were no longer being doled out. People that had to take blood thinners and could no longer get them were dropping dead of strokes and heart attacks. People that had to be administered anti-seizure medications on a regular basis were now having seizures and some resulted in brain damage or death. People that acquired infections could no longer get antibiotics to treat them and were dying awful deaths involving gangrene, sepsis. Women and their babies were dying in childbirth.

The Directorate had the only set of medical professionals in the country at their disposal. This was supposed to be kept confidential from the public, but the news was leaked, and people were furious.

Millions lost their jobs when The Directorate shut down all medical facilities, which resulted in millions losing their homes. These people had no money and nowhere to go; no jobs were available since a vast majority of them had been wiped out with the first law. Then came the significant upswing in violent crime. People with children to feed will do anything to in order to put food in their mouths. The increased crime rate caused everyone to flee from the cities, and they all ran to more secluded areas. Now there are no more secluded areas left to run to. Vast corn fields were turned into shambling communes where drifters congregated. If you were brave enough you could take your chances living in the heavily forested areas, where food, water and shelter were hard to come by if you weren’t wilderness savvy. The bands of rovers calling the forest home had caches of weapons and ammo that would undoubtedly last decades, and they weren’t afraid to kill strangers the moment the strangers stepped one toe into their part of the woods.

The second law that The Directorate passed stated that in order to keep a child in the household, that household must make a combined income of three-hundred-thousand dollars per year. The Directorate had foot soldiers in every county that went door to door checking for babies and unregistered children. If someone was found with a child that was not registered, they and their child were shot on spot. If you were not one of the fortunate few that made the required amount of money when the law was passed, then your child was taken and relocated to an adequate household that made the correct amount of money. Even the few that made this requirement were only allowed one child in the household. So if there was not a family to be found to take the child in question, that child was placed in the foster care system.

Each state only had one building for the use of foster care and once they hit five-hundred children, the oldest were taken out to make room for new arrivals and they were euthanized. "Very humane," Archibald Maverick, the leader of The Directorate claimed. “They don’t feel any pain before death; it is like falling asleep.”

People felt that something had to be done. The first organized protest in Salinas, California was supposed to be ‘peaceful.’ So many had lost a loved one due to the new laws and the turnout was estimated at 1,900 pissed off citizens. Their motto was a quote from the 1700s, by an Irish British statesman, Edmund Burke. Signs were held in almost every hand, with his words splayed across, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

The Salinas Riots

As the rioters stood silently displaying their signs and refusing to leave, the man who was the leader of The Directorate, Archibald Maverick, stepped through the doors of the municipal building and casually approached a podium to address the rioting citizens in front of him. Whispers went through the crowd of protesters. “We have made a difference… he is going to speak. They have to listen to us now.” Archibald Maverick stared out into the crowd with a look of boredom on his face and then began to speak:

“Good morning to the fine people that felt it their duty to stand up for their fellow men, women and children. What a courageous thing to do… so altruistic. All of you here today have hearts of gold and a deep bravery inside of you. But I tell you… you are utterly wrong to have stoked that fire burning inside of you.” Here Archibald Maverick paused and scanned the crowd with narrowed eyes and the beginnings of a smile starting on his face. “Bad choice I say, friends. But you have made your choice… I’m sure that you will reap your rewards in what comes after.” He gave the crowd a wink and then spread his arms out from his sides, palms facing upward and the grin on his face grew until he looked terrifyingly maniacal. An army of men appeared behind him, in gas masks, and full combat gear, carrying semi-automatic assault rifles and large shields that would protect their whole bodies.

One of the soldiers stepped out of line toward Archibald and handed him a spiked club. Archibald took it in his hand and walked down the steps of the municipal building to stand before a woman in the first row holding a sign with the words “We fight for our children!” written in black marker. She was thin and wiry with wispy white-blond hair. She held the hand of a frightened boy with the same white-blond hair, who looked to be about four years old. As Archibald Maverick approached her she did not cower or back away, but stood her ground. She looked Archibald Maverick directly in his eyes, that were so dark brown they could be called black. She inclined her chin and held her head high. Archibald held the spiked club up over the woman’s head and smiled that beaming smile down at her. She didn’t move and he brought the club down hard over her head. Once, twice, three times the club came down and blood splattered on his expensive, tailored, black suit and onto the dirty and emaciated little blond boy’s face as the woman crumpled to the ground, involuntarily releasing her tight grip on her little boy’s trembling hand. A collective gasp came from the amassed crowd as the little boy threw himself over his mother’s lifeless body, screaming “Mommy, Mommy!”

Archibald Maverick turned his back on the bloody scene and began to walk back up the steps to the podium. The little blond boy lifted his head up from his mother’s body and looked toward the man that had just killed his mother. His mother’s blood was splattered across his cherubic face and his hands looked to be covered with shiny red gloves. Although only four years old, a look of complete hatred, felt for the first time in his young life, flashed across his face and he stood on chubby little legs that shook with fury. He stomped up the steps with his little bloody fists balled at his sides and kicked Archibald Maverick in his calf as he was walking to the podium. Archibald didn’t even turn around, only motioned for a soldier in the front row of his army on stage. The soldier mechanically walked towards the bloody boy crying halfway up the steps, aimed his rifle at the child’s head and pulled the trigger. A spray of blood flew backward to the crowd of rioters as half of the boy’s head was completely blown away. Clumps of blond hair matted with blood, bone and brain matter landed on the citizens closest to the steps. His little body flew backwards and landed at the bottom of the steps by his mother’s body. The little boy was completely still, but for a tiny twitch of the little boy’s right foot inside of his light-up sneakers that had begun blinking red as he hit the ground.

Angry shouts throughout the crowd began to grow louder and higher in pitch. A rough, bellowing voice screamed from the middle of the protesters and broke through the cacophony of noise. “THIS WILL NOT STAND! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT BACK!” the man screamed, his voice cracking from emotion. The crowd began to surge toward the podium and Archibald Maverick. Archibald stepped to the side and with a wide sweep of his outstretched arm, the armed militia moved systematically forward, rifles trained at the oncoming crowd of angry citizens. Shots rang out and the people at the front of the swarm crumpled and began to pile up at the bottom of the steps. The protesters didn’t give up and kept trying to get to Archibald, crawling over the mound of dead bodies accumulating before him. Not one person got close to Archibald; they were all shot before they made it up the steps.

Loud booms resounded from the back of the crowd of protesters, and broken asphalt and dirt rained down on their heads. Now people lay in agony with their legs blown off, or with head wounds resulting in distorted facial features due to the caving in of their skulls. Then people began to run; some attempted to crawl away. Survival instincts overcame their anger as they tried to get away, but soldiers carrying weapons appeared on all sides of the crowd and even the people fleeing were killed. It was a massacre. Through the whole hellish ordeal, Archibald Maverick stood at the podium smiling down on the reign of terror that he had unleashed.

It is estimated that around one-hundred protesters were able to get away to safety and the news of what happened at the Salinas Riots spread across the country. Amber’s family never came back home and were never seen or heard from again.

The Steadfast heard from their inside informant that the orphanage in Telluride, Colorado was due to be culled to make room for newer and younger orphans and they didn’t hesitate to get as many children as they could out. They saved thirty-seven children by breaking them out of their cells in the middle of the night. Not even close to the five-hundred kids that were living there, but they tried their hardest and in doing so gave thirty-seven another chance. They brought the children back to The Steadfast’s headquarters in Johnson City, Tennessee and Stella’s mother volunteered to be a mother to Amber and care for her as if she were one of her own children.

Three months after Amber had come to live with them, Fury also became a part of their family. Furiosa Belle King was ten years old and tall for her age at five feet and five inches already. She had a thin and lanky stature, but sinews of muscle could be seen stretching under her deeply tanned skin. She had a mess of thick, loose, black curls that stuck in all directions around her head and fell to shoulder height. Her eyes were big and round and an icy blue that shone with intelligence. Everyone called her Fury, and with the demeanor of a pissed off rattlesnake, the name fit her well. She had an extremely short fuse and a fiery temper, but she had a huge heart and always stood up for the downtrodden.

Fury had been placed into foster care after her father and his girlfriend were caught cooking crystal meth and selling it out of their single-wide trailer in Virginia. When The Steadfast made a trip to the orphanage in Virginia, forty-nine children were saved. Stella and Amber had went to the orphanage with their parents. Their parents wanted to see how the world really was and didn’t try to hide the inhumane things that the Directorate were doing. Fury had caused a scene by punching a boy in the nose for pulling one of Amber’s pigtails and making her cry. Stella’s mother and father really didn’t have the money, resources or space to take in another child after Amber, but they had a brief whispered conversation there on the front lawn of the orphanage before leaving. Stella and Amber heard the phrase, “She sure does have some grit though honey,” from her mother’s mouth every time her father brought up another reason for not being able to rescue another child. Eventually it was decided that Fury would be coming to live with Amber and the Henderson’s in Tennessee, so a total of fifty children were saved that day.

Fury talked all of the time, so it was no surprise that within a week of her moving in with the Henderson’s they all knew her entire life story. Fury never seemed to have trouble talking about the hard times and never felt sorry for herself. Of course, that is all she had ever known… hard times. She knew no other way of life. Struggle was normal to her. She did seem to say a little more when it was only herself, Stella and Amber. Fury repeated her memories and stories so many times that Stella could play them like a movie in her head now.

Stella stood in the doorway looking at her little, thrown-together-by-chance family and her eyes stopped on Fury and Amber laying huddled together in the corner of the room under an old, mildewed blanket. Fury had her chin nestled on the top of Amber’s head and her arms around Amber’s tiny body in a gesture of affection. Seeing them there together, Stella speculated on how Fury’s hard-headed protectiveness seemed several years ahead of Amber’s shy meekness, even though the girls were only two years apart in age. Her thoughts again were carried away on a wave of memories of Fury.