Patriot Smith, page 40
part #1 of Patriots Series
“Sure. How big do you want it? I’ll call the local hardware stores first. I don’t really know how to do that kind of plumbing…”
He was able to smile then and mean it.
“Ah. I have that part, actually. It isn’t hard. I can show you, if it’s possible to get something like that. Next spring, I was thinking of putting in a shower facility. Sharing one shower doesn’t work with twelve people. Not well. Come on, I’ll measure the space we have for it.” Not that there was any real reason for the guy to come along with him. The closet he’d built for that purpose was insulated on the outside, just like the walls were. It was part of the structure but hidden on the back, in a little box, which would allow for it not to be shown in any video taken from the front.
Making sense or not, the other man followed him to the workshop area, to get the measuring tape. Then all the way down to the Coldwater, where they were going to find out that they needed something that would fit in a six and a half foot, by three foot, by three foot vertical box. It was a larger space than that, being seven by four each way. Except that the insulation was decently thick on each wall. His hope had been that it would help prevent the pipes from freezing in the depths of winter.
Once they had that down, Marc claiming that he could remember it without any issues, Sebastian looked back up at the house, and shrugged.
“So. Frank and Janice tried to get you all to go on a suicide mission? I wasn’t too clear on that part, from what you were saying at dinner last night. It wasn’t just bombing a highway or bridge though, right? Something like they pulled with those high school kids? Have you go in and attack, then kill yourselves to protect them?” He waited, wondering if the man would lie to him about it. That or if the information from Rene was wrong or a joke. That might have been the case but if so, it was about to backfire in a big way.
Also, it would be pretty tacky to do that kind of thing.
Looking at him, seeming surprised, Marc shook his head a tiny bit. There were blue veins in his neck that showed in the bright sunlight. Things that didn’t come out on camera. Everyone had imperfections like that, so it wasn’t a big deal. That was part of why makeup was used.
“What… I mean…” He stared at Sebastian then, who did it back. It was a relaxed thing, not the kind that would start a fight. At least hopefully.
He needed the man for the shoot the next day.
When the words came out, they were stilted and a little slow from the normally articulate man.
“That’s… pretty close. We were supposed to hit an IRS building. Bombs first, followed by us going in like commandoes, I think. It was a horrible plan. Not only would it have gotten innocent people killed but it wouldn’t have fixed anything. There was no mention of us dying at the end but I think that had to be the plan. We all said no. I mean, when I got in here, at first… Janice had kind of told me that this was part of their plan. Like, you and everyone here would be in on it. Chloe… She’d been put here to seduce you, I think. Not that anyone told me that directly. Everyone there had lost it. They kept going on about how we were obligated to do it for our people. Our comrades.”
Which was a moronic thing to say to people that thought outside of the box for a living. It would be too clear that the ones they were killing weren’t evil state minions. Just other people that had little jobs that they used to make money to keep their kids fed.
“That sounds about right. Is it part of some bigger thing, do you think? More attacks. It could just be them. It sounds a bit like they picked up the rails and shot them into space, just to make sure they could never accidently get back on them.”
Looking up at the house, seeing that no one was outside at the moment and that it was probably time to go and make dinner, got Marcus to look the same direction.
“I just don’t know the answer to that. I think their group is a lot bigger than what we saw. There was some talk about that. They grabbed Vina and told us that they were going to kill her if we didn’t do the mission for them. It was a stupid thing to do. They should have taken more time to set us into action. We were here too long, I think. Working and actually making things. Living a real life, if a weird one. Then, well, we had to listen to all your common sense for too long. Not just you but Hal and Rene. The rest don’t get that political. It’s changed us all though. I mean, I still believe a lot of the things that the Progressives want are good. Equality for everyone and all that. We just can’t do it at the point of a gun. Not with an insane lynch mob either.”
Which was the heart of their entire plan. If you took away the threat of violence from any authoritarian movement, it simply died. Generally, because they were bad ideas that no one wanted to have to live with the fallout from. Nothing was perfect, as far as ruling systems went but killing people to get your way only worked until everyone turned on you in order to survive.
“Oh, I was wondering. What about the weird sex stuff? I mean there was that orgy with Vina and Chloe… Rene was there too, right?” She’d claimed to have walked into the room and saw it happening but that sounded a little off. He didn’t know how much noise that kind of thing made but was willing to bet that ten or more grunting and slapping bodies put up a racket that most people would understand at a distance.
“Sure. We all were. I managed to hang back some. Frank was really into the idea of me doing Kara in front of him and Jan. Don’t get me wrong, she’s cute but way too young for me. So, Frank did her instead. That was… Gross. I mean, like Rick actually got sick and had to leave the room. The other kids… They were young but also not his daughter. Some of them were girls, which wasn’t really brought up. Mainly because I kind of had my behind kicked by four of them. I ended up with a college girl though and camped out with her for the whole time. Jan kept trying to get with me but… You know, I’ve done that before. She’s too crazy for me.”
The words of the story were a bit different, if close enough that they scanned with what he’d been told before. Except Rene being there. Taking part.
“Mel was there, too?” He wasn’t certain on that one but it matched what had been said a bit before.
“Oh… Ah… No? I don’t think so. She was drunk off her behind by then. In the bedroom they gave us all to share. I mean all of us. The kids, too. The place was getting a bit ripe.”
Thinking, trying to keep it all clear, he shrugged.
“Good you got out of it. I think I get the orgy idea. They were probably trying to set you all up. Get you to do things with the kids and use that as leverage to turn you into pawns. It will depend on how the video footage came out. Are you certain that that girl was in college and that you didn’t do Kara?” It would be hard to hide it if there was actually video of them doing anything illegal.
“Crap! I hadn’t even thought about that. I didn’t see a cam but that almost had to be the point. We weren’t all beaten up at the time, either. That means we look like ourselves. Worse, we’re all over the net, thanks to the different shows we’ve done. Even if they can’t get the cops to come after us over it, just putting that kind of thing online could ruin us all. I should be fine. Legally speaking. Rick, too. I’m pretty certain on that, anyway. We were all a little drunk at the time. Vina and Chloe both had sex with all the boys there. So, if one of them was too young by enough to count, that could be an issue. They weren’t little kids. Highschool but nearly ready to get out. That isn’t great blackmail material.”
Which was true. A lot of people might well give even men a pass on something like that, if they could show that someone else, like a group of terrorists, was trying to entrap them by using lies.
“No, it’s not. That doesn’t mean they might not have tried to use it as leverage against you, anyway. Sounds like you all dodged a bullet. If not… Well, it really will depend on how good the spy cam video was, in that case. If it comes back to bite you, lie and keep lying. Say that it wasn’t you, any of you, at all.”
He’d have to take off for the hills himself, if that ever happened to the others, since otherwise he’d be honor bound to tell everyone all he knew. At least if they asked. Then, maybe not.
Sending a good looking, slightly famous, guy like Marcus off to prison, for even statutory rape, was probably going to end up with him being hurt pretty bad, if not killed. Sebastian had always told himself that he’d lie, if it was to save a life. He just hadn’t thought that it would ever really come up.
Chapter twenty-six
It was a lot easier to get information from Rick, since the man was so tall. Nearly half a head more than Sebastian was. That meant, when he said that he wanted some help moving sets around for the shooting the next day, an actual project that he had to get done, the dark-skinned man grabbed some gloves and followed him, with only a small amount of grumbling.
Which was followed by a look that seemed a bit dire but not totally outside of what was normal for a conversation about seemingly unpaid work.
“Not that I was doing anything else. I’m just a little sore. I guess everyone is though, right?” There didn’t seem to be any real thought in the words. Just a person making small talk with someone that he probably didn’t want to alienate all that much.
Sebastian didn’t bother lying about it. After all, some of them had been beaten, then fled for their lives. The rest had worked and that did take a toll on the body but it wasn’t going to be even near the same level of discomfort.
“Not really. I just wanted to get you alone to go over what really happened with Frank and Jan’s new little Antifa cult. Or was it related to BAMN? By Any Means Necessary, right?” The fact that he didn’t know that off the top of his head was mainly due to not having heard the name openly for about four years. They’d made a splash for a while, being the most violent level of Antifa at the time. Then they’d all gone underground, when their leaders had been arrested.
There was an eye roll from the other man, though he didn’t stop walking up the hill toward the barn. After all, there really was stuff to be moved and arranged. Having help was useful for things like that.
“Of course, you’d be up on that. It’s the problem of living this close with other people. It really is hard to hide much… Eh… I guess they’re something different than either of those. I mean, when Jan got me involved, it was always presented as a communist workers party deal. Without any violence, though there were some pretty strong hints that way. They got me in here and you know, it’s pretty much what we’d been talking about. The whole communism thing?” There was a sidelong look but it wasn’t snarky or a dig.
Meaning it wasn’t a problem for Sebastian. Even if they were selling things, it was fair to count their little studio project that way. As a commune. They didn’t really hold everything in common, because he had the reins on all the money. So far it hadn’t been an issue when people had wanted to do things. A few times he’d had to honestly go over the books with everyone, to show that it was a bad plan to overspend on things that would have been nice to have but weren’t needed at the moment. That was all though. Really, everyone had been pretty understanding about it, for the most part.
As they walked, Sebastian nodded.
“I can see that. Did you think that I was in on it the whole time? That…” It wouldn’t make any sense.
After all, Jan and Frank would have had to tell people what they were going into that way, or they would have made too many mistakes. They hadn’t screwed up that much. Then, honestly, they didn’t sit around and talk about politics all that much. There had been some times when political ideas had started to creep into programs and the others had mainly shut it down. That was the problem with Patriot Smith. It had been presented in the same light each time, as they tried to stop it from taking place. It had been the same for the other shows as well.
Not as if the person wanting to bring things up was right or wrong, just that they, as a studio, didn’t want to risk being shut down for saying the wrong things. Rene had brought it up just the day before as they’d worked on the scripting. Several times. He’d done it as well. PS was all about a pro-America, decently pro-government mindset, and they still felt they had to be careful. Mainly because they weren’t painting the feds as perfect all the time. They had good people and bad involved. For that matter, so did the terrorists, though that wasn’t really going to show until the very end of the first season.
As they got to the door of the studio, which would be empty, at least until someone else came to help, which probably wouldn’t be happening if he didn’t invite them to do it, Rick answered. His voice was casual about the topic.
“Oh, no. We were actually only told that Chloe was in charge. I didn’t even guess that Marcus was in with us until the trip came up. I mean, I’d figured on Rene but not him. Vina I got, and Chloe. Vina let things slip a little too often. Early on, I mean. She’s a bit of a bigot, against white men. That… I used to be, too. Where I grew up everything was their fault, all the time. Not really, I mean, we didn’t blame the rain on whitey or anything but if things were hard, it was their fault. If gangs took over the area, even if they were Latin or black, it was the CIA doing it. Not that we had gangs where I lived. I mean, I’m from the suburbs. Still, it was always kind of there, in the background.”
Sebastian had to admit that he’d sort of missed that part of things growing up. He wasn’t white himself but was light skinned enough that most people would have lumped him into that group if they weren’t paying attention. His parents had always told him that he was the one responsible for his own life though. That his own hard work was the only thing that he could control, so it was up to him to make it in life or not.
In the corps they’d taught him to work with other people but it was still about work. The best marines weren’t always the smartest or strongest, they were the ones that put the effort in to what they were doing. They also didn’t blame anyone else for the problems that came up, all that often.
Sebastian did that, he knew. For instance, he wasn’t taking any of the blame for what the Black Masks had done over the years. All of their actions belonged to them. His part was in choosing to do the right thing for himself, when he could. Like working hard and keeping himself motivated, instead of giving up.
Being radically honest all the time was part of that for him. A conscious decision that meant he had to face his issues and problems directly, even when they were hard. It wasn’t a cure-all but it made doing the wrong thing a bit harder to manage in life.
“Okay. I didn’t really get that about her. She seems fine. I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s slept with Marc, anyway. Doug as well.”
That got a sour grin, if ever there was such a thing.
“No doubt. Really, that’s one of her best points. I’m not saying that to be mean, either. She’s pretty much willing to give anyone a try if they ask her nicely. Not all at once but she doesn’t make it hard to be her friend that way. In any way. She kind of calmed down on the anti-white stuff, after a few months, too. That might not be real but when they were screaming at us to…”
The words froze in the air, as if he didn’t want to admit to what had happened.
“Have sex with kids and then go and blow stuff up and shoot people for them?”
There was a nod, as they worked their way to the back of the studio, Sebastian had to stop to get the lights on. Then he waved toward the right-hand side.
“We’re setting up in the second section. I want to leave the Neighborly set up for the season, if possible. I hate having to put things up and tear down each week.”
“No doubt. I can get behind that one, to tell the truth.”
When they got to the back, they started doing the work he wanted done. Which honestly did mean moving some large backdrops and props into place, a thing having two people helped speed up a lot. He had to give some directions, which kept the conversation light for about ten minutes.
Sebastian shrugged, eventually.
“You were going to tell me about that thing with the orgy, in order to deflect from the death part?” It wasn’t the plan, most likely. He wasn’t really asking a question. Not totally. It was a suggestion as to what the man should address.
Even why he might do it.
“Yeah. That was a bit of a surprise. I mean, I was just talking smack about Vina but she sort of dates a lot of different people. One at a time. We don’t have orgies or anything here. Plus, a lot of those kids were young. I mean, fifteen or so. Frank kept trying to get everyone to fuck his little girl, too. I kind of caught on that something was up then. I was wasted but not so much that I was going to do bareback anal with a thirteen-year-old.” He shook his head then. “I should have jumped the asshole right then or gotten her out of there when we left. They had guns, and we nearly didn’t make it out as it was. If I were… You know, not a wimp, I would have done something. Instead I just let it all happen. I did some stuff with Jan, then claimed I was too tired to perform again that soon. It got me out of doing the rest of it but I was kind of forced to stay and watch. We all were. It wasn’t normal, or a good scene.”
It was one of the points that most of them had mentioned so far. Rene had made it seem a bit more isolated and like she wasn’t part of it. Marc had been a bit more interested in the whole thing, as a bet. As if that kind of sex scene didn’t really bother him on a deep, emotional level. A thing that was probably just true.
“That’s horrible. Then, the next day Frank started trying to get you to do acts of terrorism?”
The man didn’t freeze or anything, just working for a long time. They moved fast, and got the new set, which was supposed to be a bakery, most of the way up before going on again. Then he nodded and kept speaking as if it weren’t nearly an hour later. It was getting really late, too. Sebastian didn’t have a watch on but it was well after midnight. Maybe closer to two in the morning.
