SNEAK by Evan Angler

This story began in Swipe, book one of this series, which describes a world in which all citizens must obtain the tattooed Mark or be forced out of society and treated as criminals.

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DOME’s Mark Program [was put in place so that all] who wish to gain the rights of citizenship may receive the Mark in exchange for their binding Pledge of allegiance to Lamson, Cylis, and country.

And it was around this same time that the chancellor and the general cooperated to bring about the worldwide Inclusion — the doctrine that systematically rid our world of all religions and conflicting worldviews, replacing them with a single, unified belief that the Mark is the only answer, the only security, the only peace anyone will ever need.

Every schoolchild knows that through these two initiatives — the Mark Program and the worldwide Inclusion — General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis are working toward a Global Union, promising a future of peace and prosperity for the entire world.

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While this kind of peace may sound like a good thing, we Christians know that it is a plan for evil. The Swipe series is set in a not-too-distant future in which the prophecies of Revelation 13 have been set in motion, and a group of young people have chosen to stand up against the current system and reveal the truth that is being hidden from the world. This second book in the series, Sneak, continues to follow Logan Langly after he was faced with the life-altering decision of whether or not to take the Mark for himself. Sneak also offers a greater look into the rebel group known as The Dust, which is responsible for the kidnapping of young people before they are allowed to make the Pledge to Cylis. Like the first book, Sneak is fast-paced and provocative. This world of global unity and nanoink tattoos that track a person’s every move is simply not that far-fetched, and these books offer a look into the future that is easily imagined. It is also terrifying to those of us who acknowledge God’s plan and believe His Word. In that chief regard, this series is compelling, and of the two books thus far, Sneak is the greater. It has more action and more roads to travel, yet it is obvious that all subplots are leading to the same destination. But the journey to get there is highly entertaining.

Sneak offers even greater imagery than its predecessor, and I truly could not put the book down. I had just participated in the 24 Hour Readathon, yet all I wanted to do the very next day was sit by the open window and continue to read until this second book was completed. Of course, now I have to wait another year for its conclusion (or next installment?), but I was consumed by the story and the twists and turns that came about. I’m invested now, and I’m excited to return to this (very believable) world.

MEMORABLE PASSAGES
Be warned: this is a continuation of the story from Swipe, so some of these passages will give away parts of the plot. It’s not likely that either book would be ruined by reading these excerpts, but if you want no information whatsoever, you should read no further. I will say, though, this first passage is one of my favorites. Its description of the capital city that stretches miles into the sky is remarkable. And it’s such a sharp contrast to the passage that follows it here; one a gleaming city of technology and the other a community cobbled together from cast-offs.

The apartment was seventy-eight stories high; about halfway up the building. Out the window, two stories above, was the third layer of Beacon’s multi-tiered road-and-sidewalk grid, and taxis and electrobuses whizzed by like the pumping of the city’s blood.
 
Beyond the apartments across the street, hundreds more buildings stood, poking up into the sky with neither tops nor bottoms visible through such an elaborate suspended network of streets and elevators and ramps and bustle.
 
And beyond all of that was the ocean. From this distance, its waves looked still, frozen in time, same as they ever were.
 
On the sides of each building, from the ground floor to as high as [one] could see, were advertisements — bright, flashing, skyscraper-sized screens, demanding that A.U. citizens buy the newest tablet or rollerstick or soyshake… compelling them to vote for so-and-so or such-and-such in the upcoming spring elections…
 
And in the midst of it, hundred-foot-tall projections of Cylis walked from one skyscraper to another, superimposed on top of all of the other ads, each building coming together to make a citywide video screen just for him, so the chancellor could address everyone all at once, and speak “one-on-one” about the myriad advantages of the Global Union merger.
 
Still other buildings displayed bar graphs showing which stocks on Barrier Street were rising and which were falling. And those buildings even seemed to have Markscans where they met the roads, so that anyone who wanted to could walk right up and buy or sell or trade stock as they watched the graphs shift in ten foot increments overhead.
 
Above them, a grid of streets and walkways five layers thick stretched up into the sky, connecting buildings at their fortieth, eightieth, one hundred twentieth, one hundred sixtieth, and two hundredth floor entrances, though only a handful of skyscrapers actually rose quite that high, and the network of streets in the grid thinned substantially in its upper two layers.
 
Erin exited her apartment building on the eightieth floor, onto the third-tier sidewalk of the Beacon grid, and for all her loneliness, it did feel good to be home. The crowded streets, the angry, late pedestrians, the endless line of cabs and electrobuses, the fast-moving sidewalk treads, the lights so bright you had to squint when you came out, even at night. (Chapter Eight: City On The Hill)

She brought Logan to a pillar at the edge of the huddle’s space in the underpass. At its base was a row of boxes, each labeled with something along the lines of “Fiction A–F,” or “History O–Z.” The flaps of each box hung open invitingly.
 
“Books?” Logan asked. “Printed books?” Outside of museums, this was only the second time in his life that Logan had seen so many.
 
“You bet,” Bridget said. “Gotta keep the mind sharp somehow. And we Markless sure ain’t gonna be reading off tablets and plastiscreens anytime soon.”
 
“But where’d you get them?” Logan asked. “How’d you get them?”
 
“There’s been a book circulation for years now among the Markless in New Chicago. Who knows what the source was. There’s rumors it was this kid Peck… but people say a lot of things about that guy.” Bridget shrugged, looking over the collection. “Anyway, this is what’s left after all the raids. We all took what was most valuable to us and ran.” Bridget smiled. “Usually, that was our huddle’s stash of books.”
 
Logan flipped through some of the yellowing pages in front of him. “Any recommendations?” he asked.
 
“Oh, lots,” Bridget said. She passed a thick one his way. “This one here’ll keep you busy for a while.”
 
“Wait a second,” Logan said. “Is this—”
 
“A Bible. Yeah,” Bridget said.
 
Logan stared at it.
 
“We have all kinds of religious texts here, if you’re interested. Not to mention philosophy, politics… any of that sort o’ stuff. It’s all banned, so naturally it’s pretty popular among the Markless.” Bridget winked. “If it’ll get you arrested, we probably have a copy somewhere.”
 
As they walked, Logan began to appreciate what the huddle had done. The surrounding streets were crumbling. The buildings were falling down, and the sidewalks were charred and split from long-ago gunfire and explosions. But the underpass was different. The underpass was bright and warm, like a home. All around it, there was art… finished paintings just lying on the concrete, sculptures scattered about, a shortwave radio chattering in the corner, tapestries hanging by string, poems graffitied onto each rusting pillar… all of it as if out of another era entirely.
 
“We still have time on our hands,” Bridget said. “In fact, it’s pretty much all we have. So we draw, or we write… we do whatever we can to contribute to the huddle.” (Chapter Three: The Setup)

 

CHAPTER THREE: The Setup

Chancellor Cylis has taken our rights, our freedom, and our dignity. He has divided us against our own families and friends with nothing more than a Mark. If we turn on each other now, what do we have left?”

“When Lamson came along… when he teamed up with Cylis like that… it was either take the Mark or lose the farm.”
 
“‘Can’t sell crops without a Mark,’” Papa recited. “‘Can’t own land, can’t sell crops’…. How many times did I listen to those excuses?”
 
“Jean never wanted it,” Mama said to Blake. “Like Papa and me, Jean knew something wasn’t right about Lamson, about Cylis, about their whole scheme… didn’t sit well with any of us. But this farm meant the world to Robert. So he and Jean pledged.

We’re helpless without organization,” Mama added. “But that’s exactly what makes our work here on this farm important.” She pointed to the branches in front of them.
 
“Trees?” Tyler asked. “You… you want to start a new society in the trees?” He began to laugh until Jo punched him on the arm.
 
“Look closer, Tyler. What’s in these trees?”
 
The Dust looked more closely.
 
“Wire,” Jo said, squinting up at the branches. “They’re strung up with wire.”
 
“That’s right!” Papa told her. “Antennas. The fact is, kids, this ain’t really a farm anymore anymore. It’s a radio station.”
 
“A what?”
 
“A Markless radio station! Shortwave. With our equipment, we can broadcast all over the globe. They’ve been doing it in the countryside for years… but ours was the first in the New Chicago area.”
 
Dane, the one musician of the group, was visibly excited. The rest of the Dust just stared.
 
“Shortwave?”
 
“Radio?”
 
Somehow the idea of it didn’t immediately light their imaginations on fire.
 
Papa Hayes laughed deeply. “I’m showing my age, aren’t I?” He clapped Blake on the back. “I know, I know, not exactly cutting edge. But, kids—that’s the whole point. You don’t need tablets to hear a radio broadcast. You don’t need fancy computers or the Internet at all. No power, even! Just a foxhole radio made from junk you can find on the ground. Wire for the antenna and the tuning coil, a clothespin, a rusty razor blade… that’s all it would take for you to hear our broadcast anywhere from here to the other end of the city. Get a little fancier, maybe upgrade to a crystal radio or a vintage radio, like the kinds they used to sell in the pre-Unity days, and with the power supply we have on this farm, you’d be able to hear our station halfway across the country.”
 
The Dust looked up at the tree.
 
“So we can communicate,” Blake said.
 
“Even with no money, no shelter, no tech. We can still organize.”

 

CHAPTER FOUR: Shot In The Dark

“Cylis gave the world the easy path, and the world took it. Can’t blame anyone for that, really—we’d had it pretty hard up until then. War, famine, plague, a devastated economy, environmental destruction…” Peck was quiet for a moment. “The things we fight for… have fought for, throughout history… they’re the liberties. The right to speak your mind, the right to be happy, the right to worship the way you want, to be treated equally…
 
“Dictators of the past took these freedoms away. And the world always fought back.
 
“But Cylis never took anything. He offered. Offered alternatives to freedom that made life so easy, who could turn them down?
 
“The Mark, the Religious Inclusion, the Global Union… they all share a single goal: to give us a life so easy that we want to surrender our freedoms. A life so easy that we want to hand over our individuality and abandon choice. Because to keep them is to take the difficult path.” Peck sighed.
 
“The world was ready for things to be a little easier. And choices are hard.”

 

CHAPTER SEVEN: House Arrest

Hans sighed. “Warfare, environmental destruction, the Mark, the Inclusion, governments unifying under Cylis… any of that sound familiar to you?” He stood and walked to a side room, to a little library with a single shelf of paper books. He pulled one out and brought it over, laying it gently on the table. When Logan looked up, he recognized it right away. It was the same as the book Bridget gave him back at the underpass. It was a Bible.
 
“I expect you kids haven’t heard much about what this book has to say. But it’s all in there. Friends… I’d suggest it’s time you start getting your things in order.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHT: City On The Hill

Her entire childhood, Erin had grown up fearing [the Markless], resenting them, thinking they wanted nothing more than to have what she had, than to be who she was.
 
Tonight, for the first time, it occurred to Erin that maybe they were who they were by choice, that maybe they saw her and her shiny Mark with the same mix of pity and contempt she’d always felt toward them.
 
“What’s the real purpose of a Mark, huh?” he asked. “From DOME’s point of view, I’m speaking.”
 
Erin shrugged. “To separate upstanding citizens like me from riffraff like you?”
 
“EEEH—wrong! Erin Ms. Marky, thank you for playing . . .” Shawn made a little bow to her, like the host of a talk show, and he waved her along.
 
“Hey, wait—seriously.” Erin laughed. “I wanna know!”
 
“Listen, if that’s all DOME wanted to do, they wouldn’t go through the trouble of giving each person his own unique Mark.” He picked up Erin’s hand, and pointed to the tiny numbers in the lines of her tattoo. “No. No—the point of the Mark is that with it, DOME knows everything about you. Think about it. Every time someone buys a sandwich, what do they do? They scan their Mark. Every time someone enters a building, what do they do? They scan their Mark. Every time someone goes to the doctor, or approves a document, or gets on a Metrorail, or goes to a sports game, what do they do? They scan their Mark.
 
“It’s all digital. And all those little scans—everyone’s scans— they go straight into DOME’s network, where they’re logged forever. If you’re Marked, DOME doesn’t just know you’re a citizen— they know what kinds of food you like, they know how you get to work each day, they know what kinds of movies you watch, what kinds of prescriptions you’re on, where you’ve been, where you’re likely to go next… for all intents and purposes, they know everything about you.
 
“It’s control. The Mark is control. Over you. Does DOME invoke it much? Maybe not yet. But they could. And they will when it’s useful to them. So of course DOME wants everyone to be Marked. To be Unmarked is to be off the grid! To be free!” He held up his own Unmarked wrists.

 

“Maybe the reason Cylis and Lamson are scared for us to talk about pre-Unity history and religion in this country is because history and religion are true and inspiring! They show us that people can stand up for something real. They give us something to believe in. These stories really happened and they remind us that it’s okay if we’re not here right now to finish everything. Because we’re definitely here to start something. Big. And maybe that’s enough. Things weren’t always like this. We have to start making it right.”

 

CHAPTER NINE: Beacon’s Shadow

“I noticed the book you’re carrying in your pocket,” Peck said. “So I figure you’ll be interested in that area over there too.”
 
“What is it?” Logan asked.
 
“A church.”
 
“A…”
 
“Church.” Peck laughed. “Don’t look so surprised. You do realize there was a time when every community had one, right?”
 
“I guess so… ,” Logan said.
 
“I mean, not since the Inclusion, of course. ‘No god above Cylis’—that’s the whole point. But underground… underground is a different story.”
 
“Isn’t that still kinda dangerous, though?” Logan asked, fingering the tattered old cover and the whisper-thin pages of the book in his pocket. “I mean, it’s one thing to have a Christian book lying around, but to actually get caught with a real, Christian church down here—”
 
Peck’s laugher interrupted him. “A Christian book? Logan, that’s not a Christian book you’re holding. That’s the Christian book. It’s the Bible—”
 
“The entire religion is based on it! It’s all in there—the whole history of God and His promises to His followers.”
 
Just look around. It may not seem like it, but this space you’re seeing—it’s freedom. Concrete walls and all.” He nodded. “You can think, believe, and speak just as you choose.”
 
“It’s a growing thing, then, isn’t it?” Logan said. “This Christian movement.”
 
Peck frowned. “Look. Everyone has his own reason for going Markless. Plenty of people down here laugh at the Christians. But there’s a good bit of us who take this stuff very seriously. Just like they used to, pre-Unity.”
 
Logan nodded. He was a little nervous, even now, just hearing these words—religion, church, God… he couldn’t remember a time when they weren’t taboo. But it was nice to see Peck so excited. And it was nice, finally, to feel part of a community again.

Deep down,” she said, “Cylis is a vicious, vindictive man. I can see that now. The idea of people anywhere, at any time, not pledging complete allegiance to him… it makes his blood boil. So he had Lamson build Acheron — and all the other places like it—to punish them.
 
“But I think Cylis soon realized that punishment wasn’t going to be enough. Punish people… and they only resent you further.” She shook her head again. “But if you can break them… if you can bring them over to your side…” She shrugged. “Cylis may be vicious… but he’s also brilliant. So he made a brilliant decision. Who, in any country, is more loyal than a soldier? Throughout history, an army has been the very symbol of patriotic loyalty. To fight for your country, to die for your country… there is no greater commitment.
 
“If Cylis could take those who had committed themselves to him least and turn them into those who had committed themselves to him most—turn them into his own soldiers—then, truly, Cylis could rule the world. It does more than kill two birds with one stone—it proves a point. That there has never, in history, been anyone more powerful.”

Man, am I ever thankful that this is not the end of the story! Not in the Swipe series and not in God’s story. To be continued!
 

My copy of SNEAK by Evan Angler was obtained at no cost through the BookSneeze® book bloggers program. All opinions are mine.

Publisher’s Website: www.thomasnelson.com/sneak.html
BookSneeze Reviews: booksneeze.com/reviews/bybook/9781400318421

SWIPE by Evan Angler

With my rekindled interest in BookSneeze, I stumbled upon an interesting new novel about a futuristic society in which all humanity is required to receive a Mark in order to function as a productive member of society. Without this mark a person cannot own property, purchase goods, or retain any civil rights whatsoever. In effect, this mark enables people to go about their business as usual, but without the mark they are labeled worthless beings and swept to the rundown areas on the fringes of society. To a Christian, this story is all-too-familiar; just take a look at Revelation 13. I was intrigued by this spin on the biblical tale because it centers around young adults and is set in a science fiction world, so I signed up to get a review copy in late September. And then I came across a note stating this new book was actually the second in a series. Hmm. I refuse to read a series out of order, so before I could fulfill my BookSneeze obligation I decided to read the first book, titled Swipe. Thankfully, it’s an interesting tale and very speedy to read.

Swipe follows Logan Langly in the months just prior to his 13th birthday, the day he is finally allowed to receive his Mark and must pledge his allegiance to Chancellor Cylis, the leader of the entire world. Logan is already hesitant about the procedure because his older sister died during her own pledge five years before, and since that day he has become increasingly paranoid. Logan is convinced that he is being followed, watched in his own home even. But he also wants to do what is expected, and without making the pledge and receiving the Mark, Logan will be forced to live outside the Law.

As his pledge date approaches, Logan finds a confidante in Erin, a new girl at school, and they quickly learn that Logan’s paranoia is founded in truth. There exists among the Markless a rebel faction called The Dust that is responsible for the kidnapping of several teenagers on the eves of their pledges, and the members of this group have targeted Logan. The story follows Logan and Erin as they run their own investigation in an effort to expose The Dust, all the while Logan is questioning whether to receive his own Mark or resist and take his chances.

What makes Swipe so interesting is the focus on youth and the descriptions of a future society in the “American Union.” I expected the book to be Hunger Games-esque, but Logan’s world is actually shiny and hi-tech and completely focused on “unity.” But the sinister elements are there, and the book’s teenage perspective is certainly meant to target the same audience. Swipe is its own entity, though, and it’s enjoyable to read. I was most impressed by its relatable take on prophecy. Throughout the book I was able to imagine the depicted world without it seeming so very far into the future. And that’s the biggest success of the Swipe series – that it presents a Global Society and Mark program in a way that could happen in just a few short years. Terrifying, to be sure, but something that should always be at the forefront of our minds.

MEMORABLE PASSAGES
Swipe is filled with strong imagery and references that made me shudder even as I was wowed by them, but the following segments stood out the most. The descriptions of the Mark itself were especially interesting to me; it’s nothing more than a tattoo placed on the wrist, but the ink is filled with nanites so that the arm must be swiped under a scanner in order for the Mark to be read. Everywhere a person goes and everything a person does must begin with a swipe of the Mark. Like, I said… this idea of the future is not that far-fetched!

CHAPTER THREE: First Day, New Face

It wasn’t compulsory, getting the Mark, but the idea of spending your thirteenth birthday doing anything else was unheard-of. In the ten years since it had been implemented, the Mark had quickly become the capstone of a childhood well spent, the crowning achievement in a young man’s or woman’s life, the opened door to adulthood and independence.

Out of the laughter, Grandma spoke quietly, but her voice cut through the room and commanded attention. “Shame on you,” she said. “All of you. How easily you’ve forgotten about life before the Unity. Before Lamson, and Cylis over in that awful E.U. It’s not a joke!”
 
“We know, Grandma,” cousin Jake butted in. “Paper money, citizenship from birth—”
 
“Walks to school in the snow—”
 
“Uphill!”
 
“Both ways!”
 
The family all chimed in, talking over one another and laughing. Grandma’s reminder of the old ways was one they’d heard a hundred times. Even Logan knew it by heart.
 
“You laugh now,” Grandma said. “If I could cut this Mark out right here, I would.” She fingered a charm on her necklace as she spoke. Logan had seen it before, but he didn’t know what it meant.
 
“That’s enough.” Mrs. Langly shook her head. “This is hardly an appropriate conversation to be having the morning of—”
 
“It’s the perfect conversation to be having the morning of the Pledge! While there’s still time to walk away!”
 
“Mama, stop it! Today’s about Unity, country, quality of life! The States War—we were falling apart!” Logan had never seen his mother so worked up, especially not at his grandma. “Who knows what would have happened without Lamson? Do you think we’d even be here? This town was burning when he turned the tide. Your home was burning.”
 
“Oh please.” Logan’s grandmother clawed at her Mark until the skin around it was red and chafed. “You all think—”
 
“So why’d you get it, then?” Aunt Susan interrupted. “Why not just turn it down and live with the rest of the bums on Slog Row? Huh? Think we would have missed you too much?”
 
“Well, if I’d have known then what it was starting.”

And it was true what his mom had said, that in the years before Logan’s birth, before General Lamson came along, his family and all the families in Spokie had suffered, had feared for their lives. There wasn’t a year in school Logan wasn’t reminded of this, of the war his generation was born into but just barely remembered, when states still divided the continent and fought horribly among themselves over things as simple as economics and religion and basic human rights.
 
Logan couldn’t remember which state his would have been. Wisconsin, maybe? Minnesota? They’d all been called such strange things. Even the American Union had a weird name—the United States—as if separate states could ever be united.
 
But was it also true what his grandmother had said? Had always said? About life being better before the Unity? It was hard to imagine. In school the lessons stopped short of any real exploration of the topic. They simply didn’t teach the time before the war, except to say that everything about it had led to the fighting, to the chaos, and was worth forgetting and never repeating. On the Internet, Pedia articles that might have explained the era were perpetually “Under Construction” or “Down for Maintenance,” even when the rest of the Web worked fine. And whenever Logan got up the nerve to ask a parent or teacher about it outright, whenever he wondered—innocently, curiously—what possible advantages the old government might have had, or what details separated the myriad religions prior to the Inclusion, he would be told only, “Not to worry, not to worry,” that it was best this way, no doubt about it.
 
“But can’t you just give me a straight answer?” Logan would ask.
 
And the adults would grow nervous and say quietly, “You just never know, Logan. You just never know which walls have ears.”

 

CHAPTER FOUR: The Invitation

The Inclusion was of particular interest to Logan, partly because it was so far-reaching, and partly because it was the least talked about of all the major historical events. Logan knew, from piecing together what he’d read, that there had been a time not long ago when people around the world practiced a variety of different religions, each with its own system of values and culture and beliefs. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism… the idea of it fascinated Logan, even though he hadn’t the slightest idea what those religions taught. After Lamson and Cylis instituted the Inclusion, everything that might once have been considered spiritual was just sort of lumped into a single, bland system that mostly preached patriotism and peace. Not bad ideas by any means, and yet Logan couldn’t help but wonder if somehow, in all of it, something important was being lost.

It isn’t a crime to be Markless, no matter what age you are.”
 
“It’s not, no. Not in itself. But to survive like that… no way to eat… nowhere to stay… it’d make a criminal out of you pretty quick.”

 

CHAPTER FIVE: Spy vs. Spy

When the elevator doors opened, it was to the disk on top of the [building that resembled an] Umbrella. Logan followed Erin out and he immediately felt a horrifying sense of vertigo. The disk was as big as his school’s cafeteria, and the entire enclosing structure was made of glass. Logan looked at his feet and saw nothing below him but the sidewalk, fifty stories below.
 
“It’s tinted so you can’t see from the outside,” Erin whispered. “But the whole floor’s made of glass. Don’t be alarmed.”
 
Thanks for warning me, Logan thought. To him, it felt like standing on a cloud, and about as safe. He tried to steady his balance as Erin led him through the space.
 
Even at this hour of the night, the room buzzed with the frenzied energy of a newsroom or a trading floor. DOME agents worked on long tables that wrapped around the space in concentric circles, the highest ranks at the outer rings along the Umbrella’s glass edge. The tables themselves were computers, their surfaces creating one large composite touchscreen over which each agent huddled, shuffling virtual documents with flailing arms and typing or writing with a stylus directly onto the interface.

Nothing was ever written on paper anymore, since everyone had switched to tablets, and yet here was a boxful of it, yellowed, handwritten, one of a kind, confidential. In an age of infinite digital documentation, paper was the last safe place for secrets. Not to be copied and pasted with the stroke of a stylus, not to be sent around the world at the press of a button, not to be recorded and stored forever in a million irretrievable pieces across cyberspace and time, paper was intimate … fragile. (from Chapter Three)

 

CHAPTER EIGHT: Logan’s Many Friends

Mr. Dirkin was teaching about nanotechnology. Logan and his current lab partner, Tom, had been given vials of nanosyrup, nanosleep, nanosolvent, nano-gas, and nanoink, and it was their job to isolate and determine the effects of the technology in each. The nanosyrup was easy— it’d been engineered to taste sweet electronically, without the need for calories or chemicals. The nanosleep was a little more complex, seeming to attack first the cerebral cortex, then the hippocampus, and then the cerebellum: judgment, memory, and motor skills, in that order. But beyond identifying the glowing green sections of the brain scan, Logan was having trouble deciphering what exactly the stuff was doing to the rats they’d been given to try it on, and testing the nanosleep on themselves had been strictly forbidden.

 

CHAPTER TEN: Street Cleaning

On Slog Row, the sun was bright and the air was warm. “I don’t like this,” Logan whispered to Erin. “This doesn’t feel . . . right . . . to me.”
 
“These people made their choice, Logan. They made their lives what they are. They had plenty of time to turn themselves around.”
 
Ahead of them, DOME agents were storming into house after house, dragging people out in electro-magnecuffs. Some were screaming, thrashing, cursing. Others just kept their heads down.
 
“Maybe they didn’t see it that way,” Logan said. “Maybe they were happy here.”
 
“Stop kidding yourself. Everyone on this block had to have seen this coming. In Beacon, it would have happened a long, long time ago. They should have gotten the Mark. It isn’t any more complicated than that. I can assure you, Logan—life, with it, is good. These people must be pretty dim not to have seen the obvious solution here.”
 
“Maybe they’re standing up for something,” Logan said. “Maybe they think we shouldn’t have to Pledge in order to be contributing members of society. There was a time when we didn’t, you know.”
 
“Yeah, before the States War. When everyone aligned themselves randomly, to whatever idols they wanted, killing each other over the differences between them. That sound like a better system to you, Logan?”
 
“I’m just saying—”
 
“Do you even hear yourself? You’re suggesting these people deserve A.U. benefits without being members of the A.U.”
 
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you what I think their point might be.”
 
“Their point is not worth thinking about. It doesn’t even follow logically. They’re angry at a government that is perfectly happy to give them full benefits and rights and pursuits of happiness as soon as they pledge allegiance to it—which they could do at any time—for the sake of everyone’s safety and quality of life. I don’t see the injustice here.”

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Meeting Of The Minds

We live in the American Union, Logan. Soon to be Global. But true unity is not in a name. It’s a way of thought.” He went, now, to the podium. He planted his hands on the sides. “When the Mark Program began, it was the intention that the Pledge would bring us together. Would create peace. That our allegiance to Lamson and ultimately to Cylis would bind us—give us a common ground from which all ideas could grow, together.
 
Criminals, yes, but also kids who might grow up just to think different. Who might grow up to question. To doubt. They’re weeding us out, Logan. So that all who remain… may be… unified.”

Do you remember?” Logan asked. “Do you remember what it was like? The first thing about it, even? Your procedure?”
 
“Not really,” Erin said. “You go in, it’s a clean room, they give you a spoonful of nanosleep, and while you doze off, they ask you a few questions about—you know, the… test, or whatever. Then you wake up and you’re Marked.”
 
“A nanoink tattoo.”
 
“There’s a shot?”
 
“Well, yeah, in your wrist, so you don’t feel the Marking, but you’re already so dazed by that point—”

 

CHAPTER TWELVE: Pledge

“When I began,” he said, “it was for the cause. I believed in peace, Unity, Lamson and Cylis… I believed in the symbol of that cause. I believed in what it meant. For us to come together, one people, one mind-set… content.”

The room surrounding him was dotted with nervous kids fidgeting on felt seat benches, half a dozen in total. Each celebrating his or her birthday, like Logan, alone in the sterile, white room among the chatterbox televisions of the DOME Center for Pledging and Treatment. One frame projected a woman talking excitedly about all the many daily uses of the Mark—access to shopping, banking, health services, transit services, worker’s eligibility, no-hassle security clearance, voter registration… the list went on and on. Another frame projected a man discussing outreach to those who didn’t yet have the Mark, and welcoming those Markless who had finally decided to make The Right Choice and Pledge Today.
 
“You are here to Pledge your allegiance to General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis.”

 

IN TIME

March 31, 2012 (DVD)

My great love of movies and the fact that I respond emotionally to every one has caused me to only seek films that interest and intrigue me. Whether it be the story or the casting of actors I love or even an interesting concept, I find that I only watch movies that I feel I’m going to love for one reason or another. But in doing that I’ve forgotten that some movies can be entertaining without any of the factors I usually look for. For some reason I’ can overlook a multitude of things in a television show but seem to have no patience for movies that don’t offer me some big draw. Tonight I was reminded how it feels to just watch a movie for the sake of seeing a movie… for pure entertainment and nothing else.

You may have never heard of In Time, a 2011 movie starring Justin Timberlake and Cillian Murphy. I only found it while perusing the rental options at Redbox. I assumed it was just another of the straight-to-DVD flicks, and that is generally my cue to avoid. But when I had a series of free rentals set to expire at the end of this month and my top picks were exhausted, the DVD options became very limited and I was forced to lower my expectations and start considering movies I’d probably never have cared to see in a cinema. The current state of comedy is not entertaining to me in any way, and so many drama offerings substitute gratuitous sex and violence and profanity for good writing, so that left me with very little to choose from. And then I saw an actual preview for In Time on another rental disc this week and took note that many familiar faces appeared in the movie, including Johnny Galecki, Olivia Wilde, Vincent Kartheiser, Amanda Seyfried, and even Matt Bomer of White Collar. It also featured a sci-fi premise and seemed to be somewhat of an action movie. So I put it on my list. Then a pal texted me mid-week to mention that he’d just watched this very movie and wondered if I’d ever heard of it. Suddenly it seemed the right time for In Time.

Though it is not a great film and makes no real impact at all, the movie is enjoyable. It’s not the action-packed thriller that its trailer purported it to be, but it is a decent story with a truly original concept about a world in which minutes and hours have become society’s currency and every person has only 25 years available to spend for the rest of their lives. The world is such that one cup of coffee costs 4 minutes and rent could cost you months at a time, and when your 25 years of time is depleted your heart simply stops and you collapse dead where you stand. Despite some extremely awful one-liners, such as a time thief talking about “cleaning the clock” of his victim (bah!), the movie isn’t really that bad. It’s not that good either, but I was engaged enough to want to see the story play out. The best thing about In Time is Timberlake, whose acting is always so easy and unforced, and Murphy, as a “time keeper” (aka police officer), who is charged with chasing down Timberlake’s character when he violates the laws on time acquisition. Both actors did their jobs well and allowed the story to take center stage. Sure, it could have had much more depth in exploring the concept of knowing when your life will end or the injustice of class differences or even the ramifications of population control, and perhaps some will see wasted opportunities in not exploring those things. Personally, I like that In Time was really just an entertaining movie, and I’m grateful for the reminder that not every film has to compete for my personal top 10 list.

movie still via IMDB

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

March 28, 2012 (DVD)

To round out this Movie Madness month I finally took time to rent the two remaining flicks that were meant to be predecessors to this summer’s Avengers extravaganza. First was Thor, which I wrote about yesterday, and I immediately followed that with Captain America: The First Avenger, which was also released last summer. The viewing order was intentional, assuming that Captain America was the better of the two movies and, therefore, the one that would garner most of my attention. Interestingly, this did not prove to be true. I liked it well enough, but Captain America just didn’t have the same “fun” factor that I found in Thor. And lead actor Chris Evans (whom I really didn’t like in his first superhero appearance as The Human Torch) doesn’t even begin to compare with the adorable Chris Hemsworth. Sometimes I can even surprise myself with what I’m drawn to and what I’m not.

What did work in Captain America was the story itself. It’s beautifully shot with gorgeous World War II period design and a straight-up dramatic narrative. It also features the always-delightful Hugh Weaving in yet another unforgettable role as the villain, Red Skull. And there are a lot of small details that connect this movie to the other films in the Avengers franchise, such as Iron Man Tony Stark’s father in a key role and a mention of the nine realms that are integral to Thor’s story. Of course, the title of The First Avenger tells you to expect such interconnectedness, but I was honestly surprised by mention of other superhero origin stories, expecting this film to be where it all started and for the other films to hearken back to this one. But I suppose it makes sense to mention them in Captain America since it was actually released after all of the other Avenger films. Not that any of that matters, really. And it was definitely a fun feature to watch for as I sat through the movie.

Captain America succeeds in all the right ways: concise story-telling, engaging characters, relatable hero, and quirky supporting players. It doesn’t feel jingoistic, which easily could have been part of a story about the war against Hitler, but it does hit all the right notes about patriotism and freedom and fighting with purpose and honor. I also loved that Captain America himself never acted like a superhero, which is part of the character’s charm. [His origin as sickly young man, Steve Rogers, transformed into a super-soldier ensures that his humility remains intact.] The movie was truly a breath of fresh air within the superhero genre.

It’s a shame this movie didn’t appeal to me on the same emotional level as so many other comic book flicks. There’s nothing wrong with Captain America. I should have loved it. My beloved Neal McDonough even appeared in a few scenes as one of Rogers’s mission recruits, as did Tommy Lee Jones as his commanding officer, but even that wasn’t enough to make me love the film as much as I’ve loved so many others. Still, it won’t keep me from enjoying Steve Rogers in The Avengers later this year. It’s just that he’s not likely to be a focal point for me. And that’s okay. I’ll just leave him to the legions of fans who have literally loved him since 1941. That’s pretty impressive on its own.

REAL STEEL

March 12, 2012 (DVD)

Real Steel is one of those movies that I intended to see in theaters and tried several times to get there but just never quite made it. And after that, time just kept moving and I prioritized other titles over it. But finally, earlier this month, I remembered how much I wanted to see it and made it happen. There’s not a single thing about the premise of the film that would discourage me: rock’em sock’em robots, father-son relationship story, plus Hugh Jackman with just a bit of an edge. How could it go wrong?

It just so happened that Dyl Pickle was spending a Spring Break night with me before I had to return Real Steel to the DVD kiosk, and I was thrilled to learn that it would be mostly appropriate for him to watch with me. I thought he’d love the robots and the bot-boxing, and I hoped that the slower moments of drama would be short so that D didn’t get bored. So we watched this movie together. D was into it pretty well at first, but around the midway point he started getting bored enough to want to do some “art.” I made up for his lesser enthusiasm by bouncing in my seat a lot and punching the air along with the bots. D had to repeatedly tell me that it was “just a movie” and that I shouldn’t be imitating what was happening on screen. Ha! He’ll learn, as we see more grown-up films together, that I’m very interactive in my movie-watching! With Real Steel, I was totally lost in the rock’em sock’em!

Hugh Jackman is terrific as a deadbeat dad forced to find a relationship with his pre-teen son, and watching him in the boxing scenes (where he performed the punches and footwork for a robot to mimic in the ring) made me greatly desire to see him in a human boxing role. Sure, he’ll get beaten to a pulp, but Jackman had such great finesse in Steel that I just really want to see him take that into the ring himself. The boy who played his son, Dakota Goyo, also gave a very strong performance, and his scenes with the bot named Atom (which his character rescued and restored from a scrap heap) were the very best moments of the film. Not since WALL·E have I had such great affection for a machine! But Atom was an incredible character in his own right. Which is what makes Real Steel such a success, I believe. The robots had as much personality as any human in the film, and sometimes even more, and that made for an exciting viewing experience that was deepened by a tremendous amount of goodness and heart. Even with a few “mild” expletives, Real Steel is truly a family film, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to find those from Hollywood these days.