The Park Ranger

They stood before me, all gathered at the base of the fire tower I occupied. It had started with a few, and then came hundreds, and now thousands, all occupying this out-of-the-way national park I called home. Grown from a single tweet, and now me, a veterinary school dropout turned Park Ranger, Mr. Internet as my coworkers had called me, surveyed the area below. There stood campsite upon campsite, trailers, buses, makeshift lodgings, and the thrall of people who stood, silently waiting for me to speak.

I turned and looked at my cat, who I had put in my backpack for the climb up, and his return gaze was, "Way to go, dumbass. See what you started."

I could only think of one thing, a single line from a 70's disco song, and I shouted it at the top of my lungs, "We are family."

The response from the crowd was deafening, the roar of the beast I had created now rumbling in the valley below, echoing for miles to be heard.

I looked at my cat, "Now what do I say?" as if he would respond. I could not think of anything except Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote, "We shall overcome."

The crowd went crazy again. Thousands of lighters and flashlights illuminated the night, like lightsabers from a Star Wars Movie. I was running out of quotes.

What in the hell had I done? 

I was in way over my head. I thought back to how this all started and almost regretted putting that first tweet out. I was pissed off at the newly elected President, and what he had wanted my organization, the National Park Service, to do. He wanted us to remain silent. We did not have a voice and he had put a moratorium on our speech. 

I decided to give us that voice by creating a fake Twitter account, eventually classified as a rogue account, in protest. I was the first to speak out and I had no idea of the beast it would create. After I went live, I was followed in immediate succession by rogue accounts from other agencies. The government decided to crack down on the accounts, account holders, and anyone that supported them. 

First, it was NASA, and then they went after the CDC, EPA, FDA, NOAA, USDA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Weather Service, U.S. Postal Service, and any governmental or quasi-governmental agency that had anything negative to say about the President. A secret police force was created, with the backing of the FBI, CIA, and NSA, and they started arresting the top officials from the major agencies that had been causing the problems. 

Fortunately, they never found most of the people who actually created the accounts and were met with failure when they tried to shut them down. The social media site owners were not having anything to do with what the government wanted and started moving their operations offshore, so the federal government could not touch them. The President went so far as to implement an executive order banning the use of social media sites in the United States, under the guise of protecting national security. 

Not only was he laughed at by Congress, but there was such an uproar by the American people, many of his own supporters, that the U.S. Supreme Court intervened. With the help of a filing by Congress, they ruled his executive order unconstitutional and he rescinded it within twenty-four hours. That had been a pattern for him; write an executive order, get ridiculed as no other President had before, and then rescind it. It was as if he was testing the limits of his power. 

They even came after me, when all I wanted to do was parody the sheer insanity of what the President was doing through his gag order. They did not catch me as I went on the lam. Having been a Park Ranger for over 15 years, I knew a number of the parks well enough to hide from anyone. My Park Ranger buddies helped by feigning ignorance whenever the authorities came looking for me. With a laptop and hacked wireless signal, I was able to continue broadcasting my discontent about the government, and it spread like wildfire. 

Being a Park Ranger, and very familiar with wildfires, this was one conflagration they could not extinguish. The President became desperate. The discord against him and his policies was escalating, and with the Supreme Court and Congress firmly entrenched against most of his executive orders, he decided to take drastic action. No agency was allowed to speak out against any of his changes, nor rebut the lies that were coming out of Washington, D.C. 

Eventually, military appointees of the President occupied the agencies under scrutiny. It was not long after that when the people started to realize that the President of these lovely United States was attempting to impose a dictatorship, through use of his executive orders. The power of an executive order would allow him the ability to dictate the use of military forces inside the borders of the continental United States, and now with military appointees running all the major agencies, what most people thought would never come, did.

With the backing of the military, he occupied Washington D.C., taking over Congress, and most government buildings. All of the Supreme Court justices were arrested for treason and spirited away to some unknown location. This all happened on January 1, near the end of the first year of his presidency. He had feigned a coup against himself and used the military to establish martial law in the capital. The biggest problem was that nobody could prove it. 

With his public relations machine running at full strength and having their hooks into most of the major media outlets, which he previously touted as being fake news, he made it seem legitimate. Most people knew he was full of shit. For those news media outlets who attempted to report anything differently from those he controlled, they were immediately silenced, and their management was taken into custody for attempting to incite civil unrest, and treason against the U.S. government. 

Most of the American public was not sad to see many of media clowns thrown in jail, but not at the cost of one of their most basic freedoms; freedom of the press, even if most of it was bullshit. From that point forward, the airwaves pumped out only pro-government rhetoric, and they fought hard to control the access to the internet. Most of the big providers had their management teams leave the United States as a precaution, leaving only the bare minimum of staff at their facilities.

According to the government, there was anarchy in the streets. Sure, people were pissed off and wondering what the hell was going on in D.C., but there was no rioting. Too many people, far removed from politics, were glad that someone, aka the President, had finally done something about the Supreme Court and Congress. Most people did not like the government anyway, and as long as their benefits did not stop, they did not care what happened in D.C. What they didn't realize, is without Congress and the Supreme Court in place, the President was pretty much free to do what he wanted. The ones who saw it coming went into hiding. I was already there, so I had grown comfortable with it. I was a Park Ranger and was used to uncomfortable living conditions. 

As if a 21st-century version of the Manifest Destiny was realized, the implementation of martial law began; its origin on the east coast in a small town in Massachusetts. You guessed it, Concord, where a riot took place and the National Guard was sent in and the Governor declared martial law. The National Guard troops were eventually supplemented and then replaced by active duty army troops, putting the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in charge of the operation. 

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It grew from there, the martial law expanding to the larger cities on the east coast, and then westward. The more martial law was implemented, the more riots occurred, creating the greater need for martial law. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, carefully orchestrated by the President. Martial law, more riots. More riots, martial law. Everyone was playing into his hands. He disbanded his cabinet, had them all arrested, and then sequestered in one of the newly created internment camps. He had secretly created these camps for political dissidents: governors, local politicians, and anyone that opposed him. 

The Vice President, who openly spoke out against him, was summarily executed on national television for sedition, treason, and a bunch of other trumped-up charges. The only thing that stood between the President and total control of the United States was a group of internet savvy geeks and nerds with access to material to bring his reign to a halt. 

What bothered me the most was that many of the American people did not see anything wrong with what he was doing until he started implementing martial law in their area. Crime had dropped in those bigger cities due to the martial law, and with the federal government still working, still providing assistance, and the agencies still helping the people, they were content with the rule over them. They had been turned into sheep. 

We had tried to warn them, but it was a like an American version of the movie Red Dawn. Instead of the Russians and Cubans landing, it was our own troops, sent into to set up shop in a number of small towns, slowly moving westward. They did not come in with guns blazing, although there were a number of armed incidents. They came in as the saviors. The ones who were going to right the wrongs, that local and state government had allowed to happen. The big cities were the hardest for the government to control. Some cities and their agencies folded right away due to the President's influence, but others put up a good fight, refusing to capitulate to the President's demands. Some of the governors managed to convince a number of their National Guard units not to give up their authority to the U.S. Army, creating some fierce fighting, especially in some of the Southern states.

Vicious battles raged in many of the Midwestern states, and as the news traveled across the country, even though delayed by the President's war and PR machine, the citizens started to react ahead of time. They organized and united, forming resistance groups against the U.S. government. The fallacy of the "I'm here to help you" rhetoric was reaching the ears of the people, and they were not going to idly stand by and allow the President to destroy their nation. Many of the military units realized what the President was trying to do, and began acting on their own accord, aligning themselves with many of the now state-run military units. Military unit clashed with military unit, sometimes falling under the same major command. Many lower level officers took up the reins of the resistance, while the senior officers, not in the field, followed the Washington D.C. based leadership blindly. 

While many of my rogue internet cohorts were found and arrested, I continued to broadcast on what remained of the public internet, and deep into the Dark Web that had become more prevalent. Organizations such as Anonymous lent a hand, ensuring my messages were broadcast to all parts of the country and the world, relayed through covert servers. Many of the big social media sites became ghost towns, with the major internet pipelines controlled by the U.S. Government. 

New organizations began to form. Geeks with Guns, and Nerds with Nukes, who in a combined show of force, were able to hack into NORAD, and gain access to a couple of the facilities that housed long-range nuclear weapons. The President had not counted on those brilliant minds, which he had discarded or ignored, turning against him in a show of force to counteract what he was trying to do. He ordered two tactical nuclear strikes on American soil against them. After the outrage from so many, including people from the military who still supported him, the strikes were falsely reported as resistance fighters attempting to subvert the United States Government. The resistance groups had managed to get control of two underground silos. Even with thermonuclear warheads, damage to these facilities was next to impossible. The PR machine controlled the news and the American people got what they deserved for their support of the tyrant. 

In the major cities controlled by the U.S. Government; FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, became militarized and began openly setting up political internment camps. The President had been a staunch supporter of cracking down on illegal immigration and many of the "Undesirables", as he had labeled them; people of other nationalities, illegal immigrants, non-Christians, political dissidents, and anyone else who spoke out against him, were placed in the internment camps. There was no more traveling on the interstate highways. Checkpoints were set up in the controlled cities and on most of the major interstates from the Midwest going east. The only safe way to travel was on the back roads, including some of the state highways, making movement over long distances very difficult. 

It was not until the genocide started that people began to realize just how psychotic and maniacal the President was and began to fight back. It started as a peaceful demonstration, mostly women and children protesting the lack of food at one of the internment camps when the American people finally began to see the true nature of the President's motives. The troops opened fire, quickly turning the peaceful demonstration into a bloodbath, slaughtering over one thousand people, most of them under the age of thirty. This massacre became known as the New St. Valentine's Day Massacre, happening on St. Valentine's Day in Chicago. 

The state of Texas, never a big supporter of the President, to begin with, overthrew its Republican leadership, and closed off its borders. All of the military units including the federal Armed Forces stationed there decided that they would not allow the President to do in Texas, what he had done to the Eastern half of the country. The President reacted by sending in massive airstrikes against the state of Texas but with the number of military personnel stationed there, they were able to counter the attacks. They inflicted massive damage on the President's loyal forces, causing them to withdraw beyond the borders of Texas. Texas might have been safe, but most places were not. Texas did welcome the fleeing refugees, creating a safe zone for people fleeing the violence. Many of the other Midwestern and Western states were not so lucky. 

I continued my broadcast and the number of responses we began to receive from resistance groups across the country grew ten-fold every day. I had unintentionally become the voice of the resistance to all those people who found themselves devoid of the freedoms they once had. Rumors of where I was located began to trickle through the dark web, and although most locations were wrong, people started showing up at national parks around the country, hoping to find refuge in the wilderness that gave me sanctuary. 

With the resistance increasing in the western states and moving Eastward, even the President's loyal forces had difficulty moving at the pace they had established through the Eastern states. Their advance slowed to a crawl, only able to take small towns, and the more I broadcast, the more I heard of the President's troops being defeated at various locations. This was not how I wanted to become an internet sensation, but I had a duty not only to myself, but also to the National Park Service and the people of the United States of America, and I was scared shitless. 

I had chosen this line of work to keep me away from people, and now they were using my voice as a compass. I was known as "The Park Ranger" and the U.S. government put a bounty on my head. It was not until one day when three Special Forces units rolled into the national park where I was hiding, when I thought the gig was up. I went deeper into the forest hoping to be able to hide, but I was no military man. They found me and brought me before their Commander, and I was afraid. I thought they were going to turn me over to the government but to my surprise, they told me they were there to help. 

They were not many, but they were a beginning; and really, how many Special Forces guys did I need to stay safe. Following that, more people showed up. People from all walks of life: politicians, farmers, hippies, drug dealers, and many military units, who had found themselves betrayed by the same Commander-in-Chief to which they had pledged their loyalty, arrived for sanctuary. I was not a leader but a leader they made me. 

Word eventually reached the President as to who I was, and he sent people after me, but thankfully for those people who had shown up to help, the President's loyal forces failed at every attempt. God, I really loved those Special Forces guys and their cool guns. With the help of the politicians who believed in me and became my advisors, and with the help of the rogue military leaders, we began to organize resistance groups across the country. I felt like Admiral Ackbar of the Rebellion. I really should have studied harder during my civics class. 

We established our communication through the Dark Web and the remains of the internet. The Geeks with Guns and Nerds with Nukes banded together, setting up satellite relays and resistance held Technology Centers that helped get the word to the people who were suffering the most. We could not provide them with rescue, but we provided them with hope. In times of desperate measure, legends are created, and I had become one.

I had been that voice in the darkness that had brought them to the light, and now I stood before them shaking in my boots with my cat, Karma, at my side. I had no earthly idea what to say to these droves of people who looked to me for salvation. I was just "The Park Ranger".