CHAPTER 1: THUS ALWAYS TO TYRANTS

  “Sic semper tyrannis.”

  —Many Individuals including Marcus Junius Brutus [Alleged] and John Wilkes Booth

  Part I: South America

  Oakland, California, Federation of American States, August 10th, 1945, 0930 hours.

  “Blood poppies typically grow in areas where bodies are plentiful. In other words, killing grounds. So let me ask the question: ‘how?’ How is such a volatile, addictive opioid flooding our communities, hmm? We live in the suburbs, low income areas and the like, sure we are more vulnerable to such a drug, but how? Sure our murder rate is high but we do not have killing fields. How would we, in a white man’s world, in a white man’s America, manage to leave our ghettos and travel all the way to the notorious killing fields of Central America to harvest these blood poppies?” the speaker launched his arm into the air, throwing fistfuls of photographs into the crowd. Despite the monochrome filter over the hazy backdrop the signature crooked thorns and flamboyant petals of millions of Papaver cambi were undeniable.

  The crowd roared in anger.

  The man grabbed the microphone once more, careful not to be drowned out by the wrathful screams, “These pictures were taken by a journalist in Managua and New Nicarao, the region formerly known as the nation of Nicaragua, a single state away from the Panama stalemate, where Cambions still cross, where the army still patrols in armored vehicles and Heat Ray cannons! How could a black man or a group of black men venture all the way South with all that security? And to what end? Making a couple bucks off the back alleys? I say no!”

  The crowd roared again, already knowing the verdict.

  “The government blames the other minorities. The natives and immigrants. I say no! Blood poppies are the same opioid used to create the medicines used by Standard Health Services. I propose that the source of this blood poppy outbreak isn’t our fellow brothers and sisters, nay, I say it is the S.H.S. I propose that it’s them and their politicians they bought off! Smearing our name! Using it as a means to divide us! To make the white men fear us! To find an excuse to persecute us all!”

  The crowd erupted again, cheering their chant such that it echoed throughout the streets, “Sic semper tyrannis! Sic semper tyrannis! Thus always to tyrants!” They held up their angry signs, with words engraved with such heart and spirit to burn free of oppression and break their chains. A great variety were here today, aside from the usual black community there were the native Americans: the Cherokee, Shoshone, Sioux, Navajo and immigrants from all across Europe and Asia: Italians, Greeks, Turks, Slavs, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, etc.

  Lucius Armstrong watched the crowd, dropping his bravado and patting himself off, leaving the stage as the next speaker came on. He allowed his hat back onto his thin black hair and readjusted his red tie. He was an African American, descended from slaves abducted during the transatlantic slave trade from West Africa. His father had said that he was from the Yoruba people but that didn’t mean anything to him. Not anymore. Not in this white man’s world. All it meant was that he was hated. An animal. A monster. An inferior form of human. Doomed from birth. Forever scorched by the flames of hatred. The burn scar over his right eye was a constant reminder of that fact.

  Finding his way through a back alley, Lucius departed from the uproar, the faint echoes slowly fading in the background. A black car crept up the road towards him, its metallic surface gleaming with a bright white sheen. It had curvaceous features and had the appearance of an overgrown beetle. A Ford V8 Deluxe. It parked in front of him and the door was pushed out. Lucius bowed slightly and got in.

  “Pretty speech,” said the man in the driver’s seat.

  “Thank you, Ant,” the speaker smiled.

  Ant leant back on the leather and leisurely navigated his way with a single hand on the steering wheel; his other hand held a lit cigar that he occasionally took a puff of. He was a little man in physicality, but even then he could probably out punch anyone of any size in a fist fight, Lucius had learned that the hard way the first time they met. But that was a long time gone now.

  “Where to?” Lucius asked.

  “Top Deuce wants you back at HQ, says they’ve got business to discuss,” Ant shrugged.

  “Vague as always.”

  “Never let anyone know the full plan, that’s always been his style.”

  “I suppose so, doesn’t make it any easier for us does it?” Lucius relaxed his muscles and allowed himself a brief moment of pause from the invigorated words. From the world of debate and showmanship. From all of it. Yet he could not fully let go. He squeezed the armband he had forgotten was wrapped around his bicep. It was red in color with the image of a black panther frozen mid pounce plastered on it. Even now tensions were rising and no moment of silence could prevent that.

  The Red Panther Party was always ready for war with the government at any moment. And perhaps rightfully so. Seeing as the socialism so feared by the far-right in D.C. coupled with the minority African American blood never sat right with the local police or the FBI. Much less so the vocal sympathies they held for Marx, Engels, Uribe Uribe, Sneevliet, Semaun and Gandhi, and their contempt of everything white, blue and not red. But then again, the Panthers were committing acts of robbery and trafficking as a means of procuring funding, not exactly the cleanest of records...

  “Nope. It does not. But what are we gonna do about it, get caught with our pants down by the FBI? Hell no!” Ant swerved just a bit too late and almost hit a passing Chrysler Imperial C-27.

  Lucius caught his hat, wincing as he composed himself, “Eyes on the road, Ant.”

  “I know that! You’d think rich fucks would drive with more care with their oh so precious high end automobiles, but I guess they can just afford another one!”

  “Laying the Marxism on thick with that one,” Lucius laughed.

  “What can I say? Gotta represent!” He swerved again, intentionally this time, steering in a manner such that his bright crimson armband shone through the car window, as well as his other hand showing the finger to whoever he just cut off.

  After a while, the pair stopped. Now they were in the West Oakland Neighborhood, home of the Red Panthers. Black children ran and played in the streets, then paused and all sprung to hug Lucius Armstrong, or as they called him, Uncle Armstrong. His companion watched him as he played with the children. Anthony Amaru Jr. was never good with kids so he always let Uncle Armstrong handle the little ones.

  “Stop smoking, Ant, the children are watching.”

  Ant made a grumbling noise and spat out his cigarette, which Lucius picked up and safely delivered it to the nearest garbage bag.

  “Hogging all the spotlight as usual,” Ant sighed, eyeing one of the children with dirty clothes and bruises all over his face as he ran towards Lucius.

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  “You think so?” laughed the Uncle, but in his eyes was a serious expression meant for Ant and Ant only.

  Saying bye to the children, they headed for the meeting place. The summer breeze swept by them as they entered an inconspicuous restaurant, the records of which had always been muddy.

  They seated themselves opposite two other black men. One was a towering figure, like an elephant in human clothes, his name was Sebastion Marcus Booker, a former boxer and a beefy one at that. He seldom spoke outside of grunts but whenever he did everyone listened, after all he was second in command to the man beside him.

  That man was Isaiah Wyatt Davis, ‘Top Deuce,’ Under Boss of the Red Panthers. This man was a bundle of charisma pretending to be a human, as a testament to that he had three wives and seventeen children in all with perhaps more to come. His face was gaunt but strong, the years had done a number on his appearance but certainly not his heart. Never his heart.

  “Bastion! Top Deuce!” cried Ant, “What’s the business!? Me and yer prodigy rushed here straight from the speech, almost hit a bourgeois driver on the way, flipped off another one though so that settles the score.” He cackled.

  Lucius winced at Ant’s proclamation that he was Top Deuce’s prodigy, that was certainly the first he’d heard of it. He had always viewed himself as a glorified P.R. manager for the party. Then he winced again at Ant’s pronunciation of the word ‘bourgeois.’ “Do you need something from me, boss?”

  Top Deuce closed his eyes, “Eat.”

  “I don’t under—”

  “Eat.”

  A waitress came over and placed a plate of smoked ham hocks and a bowl of black eyed peas in front of each of the four. They ate. Then came a sweet potato pie which they shared as they finally talked business.

  “I have two matters of which I’d like to discuss with you,” Top Deuce began, “Firstly, Ant sent me your speech script yesterday and I was quite astounded at your choice of topic. Your words were very well chosen, I might add.”

  “Thank you, sir. I try to put all of myself into every speech, sir,” Lucius felt a strange sensation crawling up his skin. He did not like where this was going. The praise was too much. This meant that something was up. That was how Isaiah Wyatt Davis operated.

  After a while the man continued, “I hate to deceive you, Lucius, so I must inform you of something… Considering that this is the integrity and backbone of your rally speech I must inform you of the situation regarding the blood poppies spreading in our communities.”

  There it is. Lucius gritted his teeth through the potato pie.

  “Let me guess,” Ant snapped a finger, “It was us who were trafficking the blood poppies after all.”

  “Bingo,” grunted Bastion.

  Lucius placed a palm over his forehead, “Motherfu—”

  “That’s not all,” said Top Deuce with a deep control resonating from his voice, “There is also this.” He signaled to Bastion who placed upon the table a large case he had been hiding underneath his seat. Top Deuce pushed the case over to Ant and Lucius.

  Ant opened the case. Inside was a large… hose, for lack of a better descriptor. It was the size of a battle rifle yet it did not seem like a firearm which shot out ammunition. There was no place for a magazine, instead there was an extended cord which led into a large black chamber with shoulder straps. The weapon was also surprisingly heavy as Ant hauled it up and began inspecting it. On the back of the chamber was the sigil of the FAS Navy, as well as a peculiar horned symbol.

  “The fuck is this, a flamethrower!?” Ant shook the weapon in his hands.

  Lucius had already caught on and his face flushed with terror, “How did you get this!?”

  Top Deuce ignored him and answered Ant, “A weapon we’ve been trafficking from the South, don’t point it around too much, less we risk cutting a hole through the establishment.”

  Ant too went white with terror as realisation crept into his skull, “Old man, how the fuck did you get a Cambion weapon!?”

  Isaiah shook his head, “Simple Heat Ray Culverins are being mass produced for the navy. All we had to do was nick a few.”

  “And you’ve let it loose into the slums!?” Ant smashed a fist onto the table, sending a plate crashing into the floor and shattering into a million pieces.

  “As a weapon it wouldn’t have served us, outnumbered and outgunned as we are, but money… Money rules this world. Purchasing power. Bribes. Influence. That’s capitalism. We needed money, Amaru, money… your father would’ve understood that,” Top Deuce looked him in the eye, half a glare and half apathy.

  Ant was silenced.

  “It’s all for the cause, Anthony,” Bastion grunted.

  The waitress returned with a broom to clean up the shattered remnants of the plate.

  Top Deuce raised his hand, “Alice, get Ant a beer and send him home to Nicole and Judas, I want to talk to Lucius alone.”

  Without a word, the waitress nodded but Ant growled, “You’ll regret this old man!” and stormed off.

  “Nothing alike, those two, you’d forget that they were siblings,” Top Deuce sighed.

  Lucius eyed Alice Amaru as she somberly escorted her brother out of the establishment, then regained his composure and attention. “You’re telling me that I’ve just lied to hundreds of people within the community?”

  “Partially,” Top Deuce took a sip of water from his cup, “Partially… Perhaps it is true that the S.H.S., and say, the NIA are trafficking blood poppies into the black community, but then again it was always a team effort. Buyers and sellers from all around contribute to an underground black market. Ideology never mattered as much as money did down there.”

  “Not to you either, I suppose,” Lucius almost hissed out the words.

  “No,” Isaiah frowned, “It’s all for the cause. I do not doubt your journalistic integrity, or that your claims had no grounds, all I am saying is that the blood poppy rampage is a double edged sword. If a white journalist found out that we really were trafficking Cambion produce,”—he gestured to the Heat Ray Culverin—“he will publish that truth and we will incur the wrath of not only the FBI and the police but also our own cherished communities.”

  “You want to retract the speech?”

  “I want you to lie.”

  “Lie? ……to my people?” He said the phrase with much effort, and Top Deuce caught his reluctance.

  “Yes. All for the cause. It doesn’t matter whether we’re trafficking these deadly products, we’ve been forced into this position. It is self-defense. It is a sacrifice. A necessary evil. What matters is that we succeed! Only then will our sins have meaning. Or would you have this evil we have committed be all for naught?”

  “You’re endangering everyone so you can build up strength. You’re lying, cheating, bluffing your way into winning at the game of politics! You’ll sweep all of this under the rug when you get to write the history books!”

  “That’s right.”

  Lucius remained in a stunned silence. Then after a while, he spoke, “You madman.”

  “Vive la révolution, mon ami,” he said with a thick British accent, taking another sip of water, “This is all I ask of you, Lucius. This is your part. Be my mouthpiece and we can win this war together. You will have a place in this world, as we do. It’s all for the cause.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Atta boy. Do me a favor and convince that Ant as well. He’s a stubborn little bugger and will groan about it to the grave. But you’re different, Lucius, you know what it’s like to lose,”—he pointed to the burn scar on Lucius’ face—“you can make a sacrifice, you’re not like him, you’re not weak or emotional, you know the cause we’re fighting for and you know it’s the right thing to do.”

  Lucius leant back. And all he said was, “Sic semper tyrannis.”

  “Good, now go see Ant, we’ll talk about our second matter once he’s back.”

  “Yes sir.”