JDY Fiction - Rainbow Currency Rebellion

Jerry D Young · Thu Nov 04, 2010 6:13 pm

Rainbow Currency Rebellion

Tristian Cathay wasn’t overwhelmingly rich. But he was very well off. And he intended to continue to be so, despite what might come. He’d scrimped and saved, done without, and suffered more than a few hardships to get where he was.

He was careful to keep his assets diversified in several different banks so he would never have more than the maximum that the FDIC would cover in any one bank. And he was diversified. He thought. CDs, savings accounts, blue chip stocks, high quality bonds. Even a couple of overseas accounts.

Tristian was meticulous about his record keeping and tax reporting, including his off shore assets. He didn’t particularly like the taxes, but he paid them, in full, on time, every year. Already having some unsettling thoughts about the way the economy was going, Tristian began to look at some ‘alternative’ investments. Gold and silver, primarily. But he was old school. He’d put his faith in the US government.

During his research into the other types of investments, Tristian read what he considered a scare mongering, inflammatory report on the possibility of the US attempting to redistribute the wealth from the non-elite wealthy, to the ‘deserving disadvantaged’.

The mechanism would be a redesign of all US currency, with ‘old’ money assets converted to ‘new’ money on a sliding scale that would give certain groups of people more in the new currency than they held in the old.

And the reverse would be true. The wealthy, except, though not stated, the political elite, would get literally pennies on the dollar in exchange. And it would start with a redesign of the actual bank notes. They would be in many different colors and sizes. A rainbow of new currency. “Ridiculous,” he remembered muttering at the time.

Tristian didn’t think too much about the situation for a long time after reading that report. Not until 1991. And then the first slight uneasy feelings began. It was the year that the new anti-counterfeiting one-hundred-dollar bill made its debut. But there was no accompanying financial change, such as had been suggested in the old report that came to Tristian’s mind when he first saw the new bills.

Satisfied that the report was just as wrong as ever, Tristian paid little attention to the ongoing changes in the physical currency of the US. But as time passed, and the financial scene began to darken dramatically, that uneasy feeling came back. Not so much the Rainbow Currency possibility, as Tristian considered that a done deal with no repercussions since all denominations had been updated and no wealth re-distribution had taken place, but the entire economic status of the country, and the way it was being handled. Or mishandled, in Tristian’s opinion.

Then came late 2010. Gold and silver were declared strategic metals and all gold and silver bullion, including bullion coins, were required to be turned in. The only exceptions were pre-1933 gold coins of any nation and pre-1946 silver coins. All post 1945 silver coins were subject to a single numismatic collection per household exemption. All not in a formal collection were to be turned in. Assurances were made that collection worthy coins would be kept from the furnaces, but they had to be surrendered.

Possession of gold in any form other than approved jewelry carried high penalties, including huge fines and jail time.

The world market price of gold and silver skyrocketed, but the US maintained the surrender prices well below even what the prices were when the law was signed into being. A huge outcry was heard, and Tristian took note, rather glad that he had never succumbed to the gold bug.

People heavily invested in gold, physically and in paper assets denominated in gold, lost fortunes. At least those that complied with the law did. Many of those that resisted died. A Presidential Order was signed, bringing about widespread gun control, including not only registration, but the surrender of several classes of weapons. Tristian just shook his head and did his taxes dutifully on January 5, 2011.

Like the gun and gold confiscations, Amateur Radio operations were limited. The FCC’s new enforcement department began going to licensed amateurs and pulling their long range communications gear, often at the point of a gun. Only the short range VHF High and UHF bands were allowed to continue in operation and all repeaters that extended the range of the radios were taken down under FCC authority.

The banks failed to open on Monday, January 31. Beginning February 1, 2011, not only was a new one-hundred-dollar bill introduced, but ones, fives, tens, twenties, and fifties were as well.

When the banks reopened the following Monday, February 7, 2011, there were long lines at almost every bank in the country in the eastern time zone at opening time. There had been little news released during the week about why the banks were ordered closed. Many people didn’t really care. They just wanted their money out of the bank.

When word got out, as the first transactions of the morning began to take place on the east coast, the lines were even longer in the lines that formed across the nation. Tristian wasn’t one of those in line, despite a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

What was he going to do? His assets were known to the government. Tristian watched helplessly over the next two weeks as his assets of three and a half million old dollars dwindled to under one-hundred-thousand devalued new dollars. At least he didn’t have any ‘unexplained’ wealth. If you couldn’t prove how you got the money, it was confiscated without any conversion at all.

He even had to transfer back to the US all of his foreign holdings, again at a few cents on the dollar. It nearly broke his heart to take his cash reserves in to his bank to convert them to the new dollar.

Tristian noticed the officers of the newly expanded and renamed BATFE that was stationing uniformed officers in every bank and branch to deal with anyone a bank employee might have trouble with. Now the BATFEPM, to include the authority over precious metals, was as large and insidious as the IRS and FCC.

Not only was the money devalued, but additional taxes on several commodities were enacted, raising their prices dramatically. The primary one was fuel. Gasoline went from an average of about three dollars per gallon to eight.

The things that made it most galling to Tristian were seeing those within specific groups lose little, if any, of their assets, and on the other extreme, those that fit the qualifications for the higher rate of return spend their newfound wealth immediately and wantonly, putting themselves right back in the situation they’d started in. It wasn’t universal, but it was common enough to irk Tristian.

It irked enough that when Tristian overheard two people talking quietly about the situation in the booth behind him in the large tavern he occasionally stopped at to get a drink on the way home, that he kept very quiet and eavesdropped on the conversation. Something he’d never done before.

“I tell you, Jake,” said one of the two men, “These problems are not going to go away until someone does something about them. I can barely feed my family on what I’m making with the new dollars.”

“I know, Steve. I’m in the same boat. I may lose the business. With the money for the upgrades I was planning now only worth less than half of what it did, I can’t do them. And without them, I can no longer compete.

“I’m ready to do something. I’m going to that rally this Saturday in the park. See what some of the others in the same boat are going to do about this.”

“Could get ugly, Jake. I’ve heard rumors that some people are going armed.”

“You heard right, Steve. I’ll be one of them.”

The cocktail server approached their booth and the two men went silent. It was their check. Tristian heard one of the men mutter something about ‘currency’ as he paid the tab. The two men got up and left, leaving Tristian to his thoughts.

Nursing his drink, Tristian thought about what the men had said, and suddenly made up his mind. He was going to go to the rally in the park that Saturday.

Tristian couldn’t believe how nervous he felt when he drove toward the city park where the protest rally was to be held. He couldn’t even get close to the park. He found a parking space three blocks away and parked his Corvette, making sure to lock it up.

He was amazed at how many people were walking in the same direction he was. And even more amazed at the way they were dressed. Mostly like he was. In casual clothes. For some reason, he’d thought those attending would be wearing camouflage clothing with masks on their faces so they couldn’t be identified.

But it seemed that people from all walks of life were attending the rally. When he got to the park, he did see a few people decked out in camouflage, and there were some people wearing masks and dark glasses.

But many of the people were wearing dark glasses. It was a bright sunny day. As he looked around, he began to notice the occasional holstered gun. He knew enough about guns to tell the difference between revolvers and semi-auto pistols. The semi auto pistols were one of the classes of guns that had been prohibited. Every hand gun he saw was a revolver. But there were a few long guns in evidence, too.

Mostly shotguns of one type or another, and a few lever action and bolt action rifles. No semi-autos that he could see. The park was ringed with police in riot gear, with two armored vehicles with water cannon parked ready for use.

The rally officially started at noon, but there were many groups of three or more standing around and talking quietly as they waited. Tristian walked over to join a group of men and women that seemed open to approach.

“Hello,” Tristian said.

He was looked over carefully, and one man asked, “You a narc?”

Tristian shook his head. It seemed to be enough to be included in the conversation. Tristian kept silent and just listened to the tales of woe that each one of the group told. Finally the others looked at Tristian. A bit hesitatingly, he described losing the majority of his hard won wealth to the program.

“Tough, man. But you don’t have a family to support. Don’t have much sympathy for you if you didn’t try to protect some of your wealth. Gold. Silver. Guns. Ammunition.” The man gave Tristian a hard look. “Doesn’t seem to me like you lost that much compared to some of us.”

“Give the guy a break,” said a woman. “He’s clueless.”

Fortunately for Tristian, the rally officially began and the group broke up before any more comments could be directed at him. People moved closer to the speakers stand in the center of the park where a group of speakers were sitting. A speaker squealed with feedback and a microphone was adjusted.

The first words were barely out of the first speaker’s mouth when the sound system went dead and the first rounds of teargas were fired into the crowd. “You are ordered to disperse!” was repeated from the speakers on the armored vehicles, their water cannon hosing down anyone slow to move away from the speakers stand.

People, trying to get away from the teargas, trampled others in their rush. The police line, with protective shields up, began to sweep from one side of the park to the other, using batons liberally on anyone that didn’t stay clear of them. Tristian gasped when a young boy, trying to get away, was clubbed and fell on the ground, the police line just walking right over him.

Tristian was one of the first to get clear, as he’d been near the back of the crowd. He ran, gasping for breath, eyes streaming tears and burning from just being exposed to the edge of a teargas cloud.

He headed directly toward his vehicle and left the area still coughing, barely able to see, his eyes hurting from the effects of the teargas.

“They had no reason!” he muttered to himself. “It was peaceful! This is America!” When Tristian made it home he stripped, putting his clothing directly into the washing machine and started it.

A long, lukewarm shower made him feel better. But when he was dressed again in clean clothes, his mood was even worse. The coverage of the attempted rally in the park was heavily slanted. The attendees were portrayed as just what Tristian had thought they would be before he arrived. A bunch of camouflage wearing, gun toting, fanatics. They had been a tiny minority, but every video clip only showed them. There were no video of the overwhelming majority of those that had showed up.

Tristian had been there. He’d heard no shots before the police acted, the way it was being reported. There had been guns, but no shots. At least not when Tristian was there. But he suddenly had the feeling that had he been armed, he might just have started shooting when he had seen a child go down under the batons and boots of the police.

He’d never felt so angry in his life. This was his country. People weren’t treated this way in America. The police were there to serve and protect, not carry out the unconstitutional orders of a corrupt and fascist government that now seemed to be in power.

Tristian thought a great deal about history the rest of the day and all day Sunday. It wasn’t until Monday, when he showed up for work, that everything came to a fine point for him. He didn’t even get to his office. Tom Banks, his direct supervisor called him to his office as soon as Tristian stepped out of the elevator.

“Cathay, clear out your desk. You no longer work here,” Tom said as soon as Tristian closed the door.

“What? Why?” Tristian asked, stunned.

“Orders from on high. You’re on a list of people we’re letting go.” Tom seemed to almost relish the fact. “You were at the rally in the park Saturday.” It was an accusation.

“What does that have to do…”

“Clean out your desk. We don’t want your kind here.” Tom was staring at Tristian, hate on his face. They’d never been friends, and Tom had always been a little envious of Tristian’s success at the firm, and his steady accumulation of wealth. Before the Rainbow Currency. But it had been hatred in Tom’s eyes, not envy.

Tristian didn’t say anything else. He simply turned and walked out of the office. He was out of the building fifteen minutes later.

“What do you have to lose, now?” Tristian asked himself on the way home. “They’ve taken almost everything from me.” Tristian suddenly made a decision. One that a great number of other people had made and would make in the near future. He was going to fight back. Take the country back from those that had corrupted the ideals set forth so many years before. He was going to create a Rebellion in the best sense of the word.

Diverting his course, Tristian headed for his bank. He only used one, now, since the money he had now was covered by FDIC. He didn’t withdraw some, he closed his account. At least, he tried to. It would take two months before he could get all his money out. And there was a ream of paperwork to fill out.

Tristian looked at the currency in his hand and shook his head. So much for the greenback. The new currency just wasn’t right for the US. But it was the only thing a person could use now, if one used currency. The government was pushing for all electronic transactions, with the elimination of even the new currency. He’d come very close to asking for the withdrawal in one dollar coins. They were yet to be totally distorted. But that would only bring more unwanted notice to him.

With the money in his wallet, Tristian went on a buying jag. He began to fill up the smallest bedroom of his house with canned and packaged foods. There could come a day when he wouldn’t have the money to buy any. Or be willing to show his face in public to buy some, even if he had the money.

He looked for work during the day, and surfed the web for information at night. Each time he could get another withdrawal, he did, and bought more supplies. He wanted to buy a gun, but couldn’t find anything in the classifieds, and gun shows were a thing of the past.

That goal was still unmet when he turned on the computer after another fruitless day of looking for a new job and found that he could no longer get to any of the sites that even remotely protested the way things were going. The internet was now censored by the federal government. Only approved sites were on.

Tristian quickly logged off and sat back in his chair. “Seems like the days of talking and thinking about things are over,” he said aloud. “Can’t research now. Time to take a stand and actually do something.”

But what could he, one lone person, with no weapons, do? There had been a few suggestions on some of the sites. Tristian thought long and hard about one of them and finally decided that it was about the only thing he was capable of doing. At least, for now.

“Sleep on it and see what you think in the morning,” Tristian said to himself.

Sleep didn’t change his mind. He was going to take action that night if the opportunity presented itself.

Tristian had a couple of things to do before nighttime approached. His flashy red sports car was too noticeable for the things he would be doing in the future. The Corvette was amazingly easy to sell. Many of those ‘deserving poor’ had been given significant amounts of money. And many of those were burning through it like there was no tomorrow.

Though much of the money went to illegal activities such as drugs and prostitution, local liquor stores and strip clubs were getting much of the money. Las Vegas and Reno both had a huge influx of gamblers with money to burn.

Another group of the newly solvent was dropping much of the money they received on luxury goods. Jewelry, premium clothing, high tech electronics, and luxury and sport vehicles were going as fast as new stock could be brought in.

So when Tristian stopped at a used car dealer that advertized cash for cars, he wound up walking away with almost as much as he’d paid for the Corvette originally, and an older model nondescript pickup truck. He wasn’t even out of the lot when the Corvette was leaving the lot on a test drive.

Tristian shook his head. So be it. He headed for home, by way of a large open air shopping center. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for in the big home improvement store. Tristian just knew he’d find something suitable for what he had in mind.

He was in the gardening section of the story when he saw what would work. He gritted his teeth thinking about using it, but he picked up the mini-planting tool. It was essentially a small pick/mattock with a short handle.

A few minutes later Tristian was back in the truck with the tool and a box of plastic gloves. It took him a while to get to sleep when he returned home, but he knew he’d be up most of the night, so forced himself to take a nap.

He planned to eat when he got up, but the thought of food made him a little ill. So, dressed in black jeans, black T-shirt, and black athletic shoes, Tristian went out to his truck and got in. It was some time before he started it.

Tristian had already picked the bank where he would fire the first symbolic round in his battle against tyranny that the US Government had become. Because of many cases of bank employees aiding and abetting bank robberies since the start of the program, night security had been taken over by the BATFEPM.

No inside guards were allowed. The uniformed BATFEPM officers were stationed outside the bank buildings. This particular bank, in the corner of another open air mall, was on beautifully landscaped ground.

Parking in the lot of another store well down the street, Tristian pulled on a black ski mask and got out of the truck. He left the planting tool on the floor board of the truck. This was a scouting run, not an active one.

Moving as cautiously as he knew how, Tristian made his way close enough to the bank where he could watch the movements of the BATFEPM officers. Despite his nap, Tristian was nodding off before midnight. But he’d learned what he hoped was enough to carry out his plan the next night.

So he went home, stripped and went to bed. When he got up the next morning Tristian was ravenous and ate a large breakfast. Wanting to keep to a normal routine in case his neighbors were one of the ones enthusiastic about the ‘Watch Your Neighbor’ program that asked people to report their neighbors if there was any suspicion in their minds about the neighbors’ activities, he went job hunting again.

Tristian almost changed his mind about his activities when he was actually accepted for a position at a hand car wash facility. But after seven hours of hard work, hearing most of the men talk about all the things they’d bought with the redistribution money, Tristian was just as determined when he got home as he’d been the night before.

So, with a light meal in his stomach, Tristian took a nap until a bit before midnight. Then he was up, dressed as he was the night before, and on the way to the bank he’d staked out. Once he got there, this time with the planting tool in hand, Tristian watched for only a few minutes to verify the two guards’ pattern of movement.

He’d noted the night before that the men seemed to take the job seriously, working their way on alternate rounds through the evergreen tree landscaping on the back side of the bank. They were doing so again. He had his chance to get into position in the landscaping when one of the men left it on his round. It would be a minute or two before the other guard came through, going the opposite direction.

Tristian thought he was ready. But when the guard came through, Tristian didn’t move. He was shaking so hard he could barely hold the planting tool in his hand. He cursed silently at himself and stilled the shaking. When the next guard came through, Tristian rose up behind him and started to swing the pick end of the tool toward the man’s back.

But he just couldn’t do it. Not in the back. He whispered, “Hey!” The guard turned, his hand going to the holstered handgun. This time Tristian swung the planting tool with all his might toward the man’s neck, fearing it wouldn’t penetrate body armor if the man wore any.

The blow was a little off mark, but close enough to take the man down, the life gurgling from his ripped open neck.

Shaking again almost too hard to control, Tristian fumbled the man’s gunbelt free, having to release the keepers that kept it fastened to the uniform belt. He dropped the paper he’d written up, and backed up into the landscaping again. He was halfway across the mall parking lot before he heard a shout behind him and then a shot. Brick dust flew at ankle height as he made the corner of the building he was headed for. A quick change of direction and he was across the street and up an alley before the second guard got to the corner of the building and carefully looked around it.

Hidden, the first guard’s gun now in his hand, hopefully with the safety off, Tristian watched the man take a step or two forward, but then turn and run back to the bank.

Tristian had to quickly muffle the radio on the gunbelt in his hands against his stomach when the other guard began using the radio to call for assistance. Finding the right control, Tristian turned off the radio, put the pistol back in the holster, and then headed for his truck at a rapid pace.

He made it without being spotted. It took a couple of minutes of sitting in the truck before he could start it. When he got home, and into the house, he had to run for the bathroom. What little he’d eaten earlier came up, with a vengeance.

Tristian finally quit throwing up. He removed the plastic gloves and flushed them down the toilet and made his way to bed. He fell asleep, mentally and physically exhausted. But when the alarm went off, he got up the next morning and got ready to go in to his job as a car wash hand.

The execution of the BATFEPM guard, or murder, as the media was reporting it, was the talk of the car wash. The carefully printed note he’d left on the body had called it the first execution of official members of one of the organizations carrying out the suppression of the American people. Either the media had not been given information on it, or they were suppressing it on their own.

Tristian kept silent and worked as the others talked. But he listened. He was a little surprised that two of the twelve person crew weren’t outraged at the act the way the others were. They didn’t say much, but Tristian was perceptive enough to see that they at least sympathized with the man that had done the deed.

It was two days before Tristian took the gunbelt of the dead agent from the place he’d hidden it in the basement. It was heavier than he remembered, with hardly a spare inch of space not taken up with equipment.

He gingerly took out the gun and looked it over, keeping his finger well away from the trigger. It was marked as a Glock 21, .45 ACP. He found the magazine release and the magazine dropped free. It hit the floor before Tristian could grab it.

It didn’t seem to be damage any when he picked it up so he set it aside and continued examining the gun. Finally racking the slide, Tristian paled when a cartridge flew out. He’d almost pulled the trigger a couple of times, thinking that with the magazine out of the gun, it was empty.

He tried to put the cartridge into the magazine, but he just couldn’t accomplish the task with his fingers. Tristian wondered how the magazines were reloaded. Setting the gun aside, he went through the rest of the things on the gun belt.

There were two double magazine pouches holding four spare magazines, all loaded to capacity, Tristian realized when he noticed the witness holes in the back of one of the spare magazines. He checked the one that had been in the gun. It, too, had the holes. He just hadn’t noticed.

Besides the black leather magazine pouches and holster for the gun, there was a pouch with two pairs of handcuffs, another with a set of six zip tie plastic cuffs, a pouch with a very large can of pepper spray, a pouch with an extendable baton and one with a very bright flashlight.

Another double pouch held a Leatherman Surge multi-tool and what Tristian finally decided was a cutter for the zip tie plastic cuffs. There was a flat pouch with four pairs of exam gloves. Another pouch held the radio. The last pouch held a large folding blade knife. The blade was marked Spyderco G-10. Tristian realized it could be opened one handed after studying the large hole in the back of the blade. He practiced a few times and then set the knife aside.

He’d apparently lost two of the four belt keepers when he was running the night before. It was by chance that he saw that one of the ones still with the belt held a handcuff key. He tried it on both pairs of handcuffs. It worked with them both.

The only thing he’d really wanted had been the gun and the radio. The rest he decided to put aside until some use for them came to him. After putting everything except the gun, magazines, and radio back into the appropriate pouches, Tristian hid the gunbelt again in the plenum of the furnace, behind the return air filters.

He took a few minutes to examine the radio and figured out the battery compartment. It used a rechargeable battery pack. He noted down the number. The pistol and magazines Tristian took to his bedroom and put in the drawer of the nightstand, along with the radio.

The next day, after work, Tristian hit a couple of pawn shops, looking for information as much as hardware. The first one the clerk was a little too nosey about some of the questions Tristian asked, so he made himself scarce.

The second stop was a different matter. It wasn’t as brightly lit, or nicely laid out as the first, but it had what he wanted, both in terms of information, and equipment. And he didn’t even have to ask any questions.

He was looking over the selection of handguns and noticed a Glock similar to the one he now had. “Don’t even think about the Glock,” the clerk said, seeing where Tristian was looking. “Can’t sell it until this mess with the gun restrictions is over. Just got it there for reference.”

Copyright 2010

JDY Fiction - Rainbow Currency Rebellion

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