2035: Economic Terrorist

The revolutionaries were fools. Idealistic morons holding onto such simple
morals, raising arms against the government and police, against the ministers
and the generals. Degenerates.

For it was this type of combat, this delusion that any sort of physical war
against the establishment could be won, that had caused the catastrophe to
happen in the first place.

True, the workers' unions had justification for their actions. Vaon Leery did
not disagree with that. Corporationism had reached it's peak, and with it
encroaching regulations yielding to government control. Action needed to
be taken during that period, to be sure. The question wasn’t whether
something needed to be done. The question was what needed to be done.

Perhaps militant action worked for the miners in West Virginia during the
1800s, but the twenty-first century was far more complex than the 19th had
been. A simple call to arms was out of the question. But it had happened,
nonetheless.

Instead of scaring the companies into submission to the workers' demands, the
highest class exploited this situation to raise themselves even higher above
the populace. This angered the citizens and caused more unrest, which caused
more exploitation which caused more unrest and so on and so forth. What it came
down to was this, you can not kill enough policeman. You can not kill enough
army-men. You cannot kill enough prime ministers or even corporate figureheads.

Vaon Leery ran these thoughts through his head nearly every day now. It always
made him think of his favorite piece of literature. The Grapes of Wrath.

It was a banned book, and you faced harsh penalties for even reading a copy,
much less owning one as Vaon did. The words were art. They described the
police-force, the military, companies… You can’t murder anyone to stop an institution. Leery knew this. If any balance was to be regained in this world, it was to be by leveling the playing field, building a nation from scratch.

That end could not be achieved through squashing the officials or the PD, but
the corporations, the industries. 'And the only way to fight those corporations is
through economics.’ Vaon finished his thoughts. He had to repeat his rhetoric to
himself every night, partially out of routine, partially because he had to justify to
himself that he was in the right. He took the necessary action when no-one else would.

But Vaon, who constantly reminded himself of the reality in the situation, the
practical methods to put forward his cause, always put to the back of his mind
the veracity of a single truth: Vaon Leery was one man and he was not God.

One man cannot fight any sort of political battle with any kind of effectiveness in
the world- logic would tell him. Only through countless allies and connections can any progress be made. It was a logical conclusion and Vaon considered himself to
be a logical man. But he could not bring himself to admit that he was
powerless. That was the worst kind of feeling in the world to Mr. Leery. The
absolute worst.

Vaon reached a dirty hand to scratch his nose. His body was constantly itching,
one of the many eccentricities of his person. The scratching was so constant it
often aroused suspicion. Much of the itching he experienced presently could be
attributed to the filth that had built up on his body and on his clothing. He wasn't like the renegade's staying constantly out of reach of government.

He stayed with the civilians, the everyday people in safe houses the majority of the time. Plotting his next attack. He spent the day gathering information, occasionally he had to kill someone for it with his gun, but that was avoided whenever possible. The firearm rested comfortably next to his copy of The Grapes of Wrath in a worn down rucksack. It was a six shot .38 revolver. No more, no less.

A Taraus model, it came with a comfortable rubber grip that had many chunks of handle picked off, a reliable fixed iron sight that had been knocked off of it's balance by a few centimeters, an easily applicable single or double action option but if double action was used, the hammer missed it's target, and a pretty blue finish though the gun looked more like a collaboration of messy colors than anything. The only thing that had remained constant with it over the years was the barrel length. That was unchanging.

Luckily for him, no-one ever checked his bag. But who would give any sort of care
to a hobo? He had an unassuming, unshaven square face with dull brown eyes and an unkempt/long head of black hair which always seemed to rain dandruff. His clothes appeared to have been nice once, however. A classic navy suede button up along with a pair of matching dress pants. Now they were ripped and smelt of mildew. What's more, Leery had a spare just like it.

Although uncomfortable, this attire suited his work well. Inconspicuous. When Vaon was searching through a corporations garbage for info or for any carelessly un-shredded documents, he could easily pass it off as looking for food. That was not an uncommon practice.

But this night, all Vaon wanted to do was lie on an old mattress in the Salvation Army's charity center, listening to the blabbering of drunks and the predictable words of a brainwashed populace. He wouldn't even bother waiting for his soup number to be called. He intended to be asleep long before then.

But he couldn’t will himself to sleep, partially from a sense of obligation to start his
process and partially due to a vague interest in the old stories of an even older man.
The man was a relic, what little remained from a society in transition from democracy to totalitarianism. When analyzed closely, the elderly’s words could be defined as loosely heretical in theme, despite seeming like nothing more than the pointless ravings of a far aged individual.

But Vaon Leery had hardly paid any attention to the old man's story outside of a light curious in taking of his words. It was that lucid type of attention paid when one is either tired or distant,where the words go in as fast as they come out, where it is difficult to recall much less comprehend all of the things just absorbed by a slightly inquisitive mind.

Even if Vaon had been attentive, he would not have recognized any sort of signal on the old man’s part. The subtle codes of conversation used by underground unionists fell on deaf ears. It was true that Vaon's literary background could have enabled him to pick up on the allegory's in the old man's carefully woven tales, but Vaon would have related those analogy's to nothing more than self-drawn coincidences based on his own intellect.

Besides... Leery had stopped looking for allies. He had stopped being hopeful. It was safer to work alone, in more ways than one. To remain detached meant that no-one would betray or forgoe you. It meant that you never had to let your guard down, you never had to get close to anyone.

In the monotony of the night, Vaon was disturbed by his own inactivity. With the dim lighting this was the perfect time to engage in his work. Light enough to read if one strained one's eyes, yet not so bright that onlookers could tell what someone else was doing, especially someone shoved off into a corner and lying on a dusty mattress. With a great deal of self discipline, Vaon brought himself to raise his head from his pillow and shake the laziness out of his head. He had to activate his brain.

Five workable papers. From three months of scavenging Vaon was able to manage only a handful of documents worth any value. These were the pages with numbers, codes. Memos had been discovered of course, but were discarded by Leery just as quickly and carelessly as they had been thrown away by the employees that had received them. But somewhere within the ink that lay folded up within Vaon's jacket pocket, Leery had a feeling that although on face his findings were meager, answers were ready to be obtained.

And so he pulled out the precious dissertations two at a time and began to study them. It was a logic puzzle. The numbers scattered throughout the work orders had to have some correlation. After all, they were all printed for Agelast International employees.

If any link could be established, any sort of relativity be drawn, then perhaps
he would be able to do some economic damage. Perhaps he would be able
to push the Agelast giant closer to the level of the average corporation,
one step nearer to the end goal. Sabotaging all semblance of profit and giving
the system a massive reboot.

At the very least a sector of employees would be fired, adding new recruits to the very popular ranks of the oppressed. Vaon muttered a swear. He had poured over his findings for hours at a time before, always with little to no result, (which was the case at this instant.) And the common rule as Vaon himself had discovered was that any information he found, (or stole as some would put it,) became useless after four-five months of age depending on the importance of said facts. If only he had access to a computer. Not the rented terminals of blood-sucking technicians but a real, Early-Twenty-First-Century computer.

But wishing was pointless and Vaon knew this. He was wasting precious
time and effort wishing, dreaming, praying. "I can't evaluate or calculate anything right now..."

He told himself. "Not until I get some sleep..." It was a dishonest thought and Vaon knew this, but he would not argue with himself.

Instead he would find a comfortable position, (as comfortable as one could get on the excuses for mattresses the government provided,) and attempt to enter the realm of the unconscious... a realm where Vaon's work was appreciated.