Day One

As the frail, withered men, women and children shuffled onto the buses, they looked back once more on the broken and hopeless landscape they once called home. It was not long ago that Freda, with the naturally curly hair, was playing in their suburban yard - laughing and running among the roses and petunias that Chester had taken so much care planting and maintaining.

"Come on Freda, the buses are always on time and it's scheduled to leave any minute now."
"But Daddy, I want to go find Robert!" whined Freda, as she adjusted her freedom scarf. Robert, her cute brown teddy bear, was simply a relic of the past, a time before the sweeping changes instituted by the HNIC (Head Nabob in Charge as he semi-ironically referred to himself).

"Freda, if we don't get on these buses we will not make it to our re-education seminars in time! THERE IS NO TIME TO ARGUE!"
Chester was not a strong man by any account, but when pressed or nervous his paternal instincts came out in full force.
Freda stomped onto the bus, Robert right behind her, looking around nervously.

When the bomb fell after the speech it was a message not only to the country but to enemies and allies alike - No one is exempt. No one will be spared. Changes will be swift. Changes will be mandatory. Change is good. Hope for a new day. Change is something we can believe in. The subliminal messaging was there all along. The bloggers had seen it but they had been written off as alarmists, lunatics and fear-mongering racists. The mongering had come and gone. The election was over, the transition complete. Appointments made, legislation rushed through a fillibuster-proof congress in an all day and all night marathon session.

The news filtered in slowly. The corporate CEOs that ran the TNCs that controlled the MSM were provided with VNR to give succinct answers to the FAQs. The next morning, construction crews around the country quickly installed loudspeakers and large outdoor screens throughout the country, ensuring you could hear the new, 5 time a day address from the HNIC. The 2.5 trillion on infrastructure was being spent amazingly fast and amazingly efficiently. The grassroots organizations that were built and tested in the primaries and honed in the general election were really just a prelude to the master plan being put into place nationwide. It was never about delegates in rural areas, it was about recruitment. They had e-mail addresses, complete demographic information, names of children, grandparents - everything to get you to do whatever they wanted. Orders were sent out that evening through social networking sites and text message.

The next morning the orientation packets came in the mail to every American. Freedom scarves, patriot mats, copies of the newly revised Constitution that incorporated the "Five Pillars of America". All this and more.

Chester had gotten e-mails about something like this from his cousins in Utah but he always politely referred them to snopes.com or factcheck.org for the "truth". The truth was those sites had been under his control for years now, expertly infiltrated by his exploratory committee in the early days.

A thousand miles away, a man smirked as he gently rubbed his chin and upper lip, relishing the ability to finally let his beard grow back in. He turned to Axe, and asked calmly, "Are the buses being loaded?"

"Yes Sir, transports on the East Coast are leaving on scheduling. We expect a 92% rate of attendance. Those remaining will be...found."

"Sir, if I may interject," stammered H-Dawg, still getting used to the Team of Rivals approach that was being used, as well as the name she was now officially being addressed as. "When I was dodging laser fire in Bosnia and talking to refugee women, I heard of a story that may help us. In order to increase obedience by the people, executions of dissidents were staged on national TV,"

"Staged?" he scoffed. "Those Allah-damned Serbs didn't know how to do things right. Get prisoner Angler out of the dungeon. Alert DHS that my afternoon freedom address and prayer session will need to be streamed in HD nationwide."

"Right away Sir," J-Pole replied, as she quickly picked up the phone and started barking orders to her staff.

Hours later Chester was in one of his classes when the video came on the Democracy Pillars that were installed nationwide. A professor in his class had referred the pillar as a 'minaret' earlier, but Chester was pretty sure that was just a Dave Matthews Band song that the professor's egghead, drug addled mind was getting confused.

"As-salam alaykum, which I hope you have all already learned today is new slang for hello. This is the afternoon prayer video podcast. For anyone who missed the buses this morning either accidentally or willfully, I would like you to meet Richard. Richard, or Dick as some may call him, doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy. Today is his answer. Today we see young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled uniting together under a common purpose. Under hope. Under change. We do not need people like Dick in our new America. In these important times, agents of intolerance like Dick cannot spread the gospel of fear anymore. We must reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

As the people around Chester replied to the speech with that timeless creed, Dick Cheney's head was quickly removed from his body with a large machete. The 46th Vice President of the United States was dead.

"Now, let's all please turn east towards the 9/11 memorial and begin our afternoon liberty readings."

Freda thought she saw a little smile in the man's face when he mentioned the memorial, but she ignored it as she pulled out her Patriot Mat and got into position.

It was January 21, 2009.
Day One of the Obama Administration.