Her coffee was getting cold but it didn't matter to her. Cathy was more interested in the complex pattern printed on the side of the cup. It was a delicate mixture of flowing lines and flowers with a touch of eternal measure. The designer would never be known and it was a simple set of china dinnerware she had purchased the previous year. She had just never paid attention to the pattern. And, in the mixture of colors and metallic shadowing, there was a calmness to it. She could almost feel the peace settling in on her. The brief escape was short lived as her son interrupted her travels. "Should I wear the tie father gave me?" Jerrod was displaying it in his hands with a gentleness reserved for items much more fragile. He would be thirteen today. At exactly 2:03 pm, thirteen years ago, the doctor had shown him to her and her life would become one of servitude and love for him. He was beautiful at birth. The glow from him was indistinguishable from the imagination one could have of the angels themselves. And the nurses almost paid as much attention to him in the nursery as his own mother did. She had always felt a sense of pride and wonder in her child as the years had passed. He was almost destined for this moment. She would never be ready for it. It was in the first few hours the gentlemen from the Hungerford Institute had first made contact. Her husband and her had no money. The offer seemed too good to be true and they assured her that many others had already undergone such testing. There would be no harm of any kind that would find its way into Jerrod's life. They would only be required to make an hour journey to the institute on a monthly basis for adjustments to the equipment and a download of data from the memory drives contained in the miniature video device. Her husband gave the initial approval for the testing to see if Jerrod was even compatible with the device. She was not so sure of using her son for such a program. But after the accident at her husband's work and with no money coming in, Jerrod's future would consist of tenant housing and very little food. She wanted more for him. And her husband was being logical about the proposal given by the doctors from Hungerford. It would only be years later, after Jerrod's father realized the full extent of what the procedure meant, that the implications drove him away. He never even told her goodbye. She had left for the market with Jerrod and Jim had made a final exit from their lives. He did find it in his heart to leave her with a small reserve of cash in the checking account after withdrawing a large portion of the funds. In the end he was the jerk her mother had always warned her of. In the thirteen years since the implant first started recording, many changes had occurred within the country. The implementation of the Patriot Act, and the four revisions the Congress had approved, gave way to an industrious take over by the scientific community for lobbying using the act as a basis for more controlled monitoring of the public. In test trials, over a course of limited years, the results of monitoring the public had become common place and was found to be a necessity for the safety of the common man. Within the past three years lobbying within the scientific community had brought even tighter controls of enforcement of monitoring and had lead the way for technological breakthroughs in the areas of predictive behavior profiling which allowed for tighter monitoring of subjects found to be of higher risk for terrorism involvement. What Cathy and Jim did not realize was the implications the future would hold and the judgement Jerrod would come under upon his thirteenth year. What would normally be a time of celebration had become a moment of parental terror for Cathy. Jerrod, as limited in years as he was, understood too well the judgement meant for him. He would be the first subject that had fully been involved in the program for the full extent of the thirteen years required for full execution of the newest laws in terrorism prevention. On this day, instead of cake and presents, he would find himself standing in front of a military tribunal and if found to be an imminent future threat, the law would find him guilty without ever pulling a trigger or assigning allegiance to any foreign entity. He would be labeled a terrorist and found guilty of future possible acts of terrorism against the United States. Somehow, in the madness of the moment, Jerrod found a connection to his mother through that tie he presented to her. And in those final moments before they made the trip to Southhurst Air Base for convening of the tribunal, Cathy found a strength from the love she felt from her son. She had no words of comfort but only arms to reach for him. Today would be the first of many for the children involved in project Freedom. My name is Rueuhy and I approve this blog.
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