Forgotten Liberty Read online

  ALESSIO CALA

  Copyright © 2016 by Alessio Cala

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Map of Autark

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Published in 2016 by Alessio Cala

  Copyright © Alessio Cala 2016

  Cover design © Alessio Cala 2016

  Map © Alessio Cala 2016

  Alessio Cala asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the work of the author's imagination.

  ISBN-10: 1540732262

  ISBN-13: 978-1540732262

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews - without written permission from the publisher.

  Quote reference: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast by Edward Abbey (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2007). Copyright © 2007 by Edward Abbey.

  Acknowledgements

  To the friends and family who generously gave up their time, reading various drafts, providing editorial improvements, and critiquing elements of both narrative and design. Your input, support and encouragement helped me to see this story through to its completion.

  Thanks to Sofia Cala, Charlotte Mason-Mottram, Winifred Greenfield, Adrian Greenfield, Sam Foot and Caitlin Titmus.

  Thanks to Jenna Moreci (The Cyborg Queen). Your writing vlogs were, and continue to be, an invaluable source of wisdom that guided me along this journey.

  Thanks to my parents, Maria and Salvatore, for supporting me in every goal I've set myself throughout my lifetime - and for being patient when those aspirations occasionally changed from time to time.

  Particular thanks to my auntie Charlotte, for stopping me from naming a horse 'Jane.'

  “A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.”

  - Edward Abbey, Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

  They were surrounded. The raiders closed in on all sides of the log cabin. The ten of them, including the dog, kept low as a chilled silence overthrew the inside of the cabin. For the first time along his journey, the bearded man had reached a dead end. He sat pressed up against the wall below the window, eyes locked on the nurturing woman who hid beneath the wooden table in the centre of the room. His eyes tilted down to the boy held closely in her arms, their faces mirroring that of his own, riddled with anticipation and terror. His heart rattled his rib cage, thumping raw and hard between his lungs.

  He knew that she had developed a tender relationship with the boy over the short period of time they had been together and the boy was comfortable around her. The bearded man understood that, he had known it from the moment she laid eyes on him. When she received the child, she received something that she had always wanted in her life but never had. For she was infertile, and although the boy had fulfilled an overbearing void in her life, the bearded man pondered whether the discovery of the child had been a blessing or a curse.

  “What the hell are we waiting for?” barked the larger man in the black beanie sitting beside him. The bearded man caught a whiff of the oaf’s perspiring body and did well to ignore its ripeness. The oaf pulled the .38 revolver up to his chest in both hands and craned his neck to peer outside.

  “He’s still out cold,” a voice muttered from the back of the room. The plump man with the round spectacles had been unconscious behind the table the entire time. The bearded man glanced at the two men kneeling over him but his view was somewhat obstructed by the table legs.

  He also saw the other woman, huddled with the border collie, eyes fixated on nothing in particular as she sat frozen in the far corner.

  The bearded man tilted his head up to the window but all he saw was the dreary sky. It drifted over the moulting maples and pines that shed their leaves and needles to the bitter cold. The oaf shifted onto his side and used his knees to elevate his body.

  “Don’t you dare,” hissed the red-haired woman kneeling beside the table. “There’s too many of them out there.”

  The oaf's head snapped back over to her with piercing eyes. “I’m not gonna sit here and wait to die over some goddamn kid.”

  “We are not handing him over to them!”

  They argued in low, hushed tones, their throats dry and exhausted. The nurturing woman held the boy tighter. The bearded man saw dread envelop the boy’s face, but his blissful innocence distanced him from their discussion. Outside in the woodland’s clearing he could hear the raiders barking their demands.

  Diez..Nueve...Ocho...

  The oaf continued to stare at the red-haired woman in defiance, his gaze drifted from her, to the boy, and back again. Her eyes bugged wide. She could be just as stubborn as him. Her hand gripped firmly to the sling of the sawn-off shotgun over her shoulder. A final warning. The bearded man felt an overwhelming sense of detachment from the scene unfolding before him. He sat still beneath the window sill and watched. The oaf's face churned with anger. His nostrils flared like a boar, teeth clenching with true grit.

  Siete... Sies...

  The oaf lunged forward. The red-haired woman jolted back in surprise. She felt the weight of his shoulder plunge into her, throwing her aside like a worthless ragdoll. He dug in under the table and snatched the boy with his fat greasy fingers. The nurturing woman cried out and held on as tight as she could. She tried to fight back but could not match the oaf's brutish strength. He wrestled against her and ripped the boy out from under the table. The bearded man’s eyes lit up, his body began to rise without full consent. He felt disconnected, as though a spectator to an out-of-body experience. He acted upon instinct and impulse and the cries of his loved one only fuelled his will to protect. He pounced on the oaf from behind. The oaf stood firmly on his feet, his stance widened to stabilise himself. The bearded man’s forearms wrapped around his neck. He felt the brute shake violently in his arms but the oaf could not contain both himself and the struggling boy.

  Cinco...Cuarto...

  Time slowed altogether. The bearded man saw the red-haired woman snatch the boy’s hand in an attempt to pull him free from the oaf's grasp. The women pulled each arm in opposite directions, almost tearing the child in two. Tears streamed down the boy’s face, his cheeks red raw as he called out to the nurturing woman reaching out to him from beneath the table.

  Using his entire bodyweight, the bearded man yanked back hard, causing them both to fly back into the window.

  Tres...Dos...Uno...

  Together they dropped to the wooden floorboards. Glass and woodchips shattered all around them. All at once the deafening crack of automatic gunfire shook the cabin. The oaf grunted as the bearded man’s arms wrapped even tighter around his throat.

  Frank began to choke him.

  ON
E

  Autarky:

  A country, state, or society which is self-sufficient or economically independent.

  A lot of the time, we as a species strive to better ourselves, to improve our capabilities and advance the world as we know it. We keep building on our existing creations, tweaking and improving every aesthetic aspect of our lives to its utter perfection to the point where it raises the question, 'are we going too far?' It is very rare for us to have ever felt the need to revert our evolutionary advancements. That is until the discovery of Autark.

  Autark wasn't just an island. It was the basic structure for a soon to be practiced ideology. It was an old way of life that many felt was lost through our modern age of technological advancements. Roger Bullon was a historical and geographical professor at the University of Cambridge, England. He set out to explore the North Atlantic waters with a marine biologist in search for alternate behavioural patterns in certain species of fish. The marine biologist who had already been studying this particular area of the ocean was Javier Paraíso of Costa Rica, a man well-respected in his field.

  Their collaborative project continued for several months, discovering successful findings that would improve our knowledge of the ocean and its inhabitants. One evening they sent their crew diving to research the activity of Hexanchidae, or 'cow sharks,’ to compare their activity at night to that of the day. During their study, an unexpected storm threw them off course. Their boat was separated from the divers and their equipment and research was either destroyed or lost to the ruthless storm and sea. Although several divers were never found and later pronounced dead, the storm did manage to bring Bullon and Paraíso some level of fortune.

  The boat had washed up onto a sandy shore. Paraíso woke first to the morning sun shining through the needles of nearby pines. He found Bullon injured and unconscious in the wreckage but managed to carry him out onto this unknown territory. As he carried his groggy partner through the pinewood forest, he contemplated where exactly in the world they could be. He questioned how long they had been unconscious. Could the waves really have taken them half the width of the North Atlantic? He pondered as to whether it could be the islands of Faial, Pico, or one of the other islands in the central Atlantic Azores group, but it could not have been. This land was far colder. It was untouched. There were no roads, no settlements, and no structure. The two researchers had stumbled upon an uncharted island.

  European coastguards managed to locate their position through the intact emergency tracking device in the shipwrecked boat's GPS system. Bullon and Paraíso were rescued and returned to the United Kingdom where they would share their findings with the university. The original project had been a disaster, but this new discovery would change their lives forever.

  Bullon used this misadventure to begin something he had wanted to do for a very long time. He pitched a meeting with the university board of directors for a project that would need government funding and unbiased public volunteers. The idea was simple: revert to the analogue age. Roger Bullon had spent decades of his life studying the ancestors, liberating groups and movements of numerous cultures and felt that we were now missing something that held so many people together all those years ago; Community. Bullon expressed that in the modern world, we as a society do not engage with each other as we used to. We do not speak to our fellow man as we once did. We do not even exchange more than a simple 'hello' to our neighbour. This wasn't a generalisation but more of an observation of the wider general public.

  Bullon did not state that this had occurred globally, but rather pointed out that the majority of people in densely populated towns and cities had lost touch with the essence of the word community, society, togetherness. He had also spent several years of his studies with members of self-sustaining communities based in the outback of Alaska, U.S.A. Bullon wanted volunteers from around the globe to devote their lives and volunteer to live on this island and its primitive nature. In return the people would receive the necessary materials and basic requirements needed to sustain an independent lifestyle. He couldn't expect people to drop everything for nothing, so giving them the basic essentials to start with was a must if he ever expected people to commit to such an experiment. He prepared a pitch with help of some of the country's most respected psychologists. The aim of the study was to see if people would interact more and help each other in this new environment; to see if they could build something from the bare minimum and form structure, form a community.

  Initially the project was declined, but after Bullon's persistence and careful consideration the British Government decided to fund it under two conditions. The first condition was that the study may only appeal to British citizens; the reason being that the government didn't want to be held responsible for funding a study that essentially paid the cost of living for people who were from countries outside of the UK. They didn't want the public backlash, the retaliation and questioning as to why taxpayer’s money and university budgets were being used to transport and fund basic materials and means of living to non-British citizens. Then there was the second condition. As this land was not under any jurisdiction over international waters, they needed to ensure the U.N. was prepared to sign ownership of the land over to the UK. The U.S. appealed at first, but the island was situated outside the two-hundred-mile territorial limit, thereby committing the claim for ownership up to annexation. The U.N. took interest in the community project, and was prepared to sign ownership under the condition that the project was a non-profit based organisation. They could export to the island, but nothing, and they meant nothing, could return. The other members of the U.N. fought long and hard over the ownership of the island. The major opposition being that of South American representatives demanding a fifty percent share in the land for the purpose of oil excavations. They didn't want to miss out on the opportunity. Paraíso had every right, just as much as Bullon, but in the end, the U.N. favoured the community project. It was less of an economic threat to their individual countries.

  The UK was granted access and ownership to the island under certain restrictions and conditions. No economic profit was to be made from the island. Mining for oil and other valuable materials was strictly off limits. Nothing was to be returned to the UK under any circumstances and ownership of the land would fall under the U.N. after a certain period of time. Few people knew the deadline for the call of handover. Some speculated years, others decades. Whatever it was, it must have been a long time for them to allow people to relocate and devote their lives to this community project.

  Another crucial aim of the project was the idea that currency did not exist. Bullon wanted to reintroduce the means of trade, meaning that your trade was your means of surviving. Life was fair in Autark. You could come to the island, but you had to offer something. It was the perfect way to deter the lazy. Everyone had some form of contribution. Whatever you did was eligible for exchange with other settlers. Half a dozen apples could buy you two legs of a rabbit and so on. This archaic way of life was about to become the way of life for selected UK citizens looking for a change. The project appealed to elderly citizens, primarily because they either agreed with the purpose behind the study or they were just looking for somewhere overseas to spend the rest of their days.

  The British Government sent UK military forces to Autark to begin construction of an airfield for air landings. The soldiers sent to Autark would be stationed there over the project's ten-year study period to ensure safety and reinforce stability. They were encouraged not to intervene unless the circumstances were life threatening for the sake of validity in the study. Due to eventual budget cuts, they too would live by the lifestyle of Autark settlers.

  Bullon was a member of the university board which meant he would not be able to leave the country for extended periods of time. He was a man with many responsibilities. That's where his partner, Javier Paraíso, came into play. Paraíso became his front man for recording all findings within the study. He would live alongside the test subjects witho
ut their knowledge of his objective and observe first-hand how the people interacted with one another. The plan was for Bullon to visit once a month and they would meet within the military base stationed inside the airfield to relay his findings.

  The media were hooked during the first few months. Thousands of volunteers had signed on. British citizens of all ages and backgrounds packed their bags in search for a new and simpler life. Paraíso worked closely with the settlers of Autark. Together they built houses, designed ways to access clean running water and implemented solar energy with the materials available to them. It was a huge success right from the start. He pinned it all down to the fact that everybody was in the same boat. They'd given up their life in the UK and this was all they had now. Things in Autark grew quickly, settlements expanded and although there was no television, a radio specialist joined the project and built radios that could connect to the airfield's radio tower for settlers to tune in on second-hand news back home. A few volunteers thought they could dedicate their time to hosting a radio show to increase morale around the island. There were three frequencies, a private station dedicated to the military which was strictly off limits to settlers, one for news updates and topical debates and finally one for music. The analogue radio was really the only technology available to the settlers. Vehicles were hard to come by because of fuel, so horses were the norm, unless you were with the military.

  People from all over the world caught on to the success and praise Autark was receiving. They too wanted a piece of the pie. Refugees from eastern countries experiencing ongoing conflicts and civil wars migrated west through Europe. Riots ensued when EU border forces refused entry to the overwhelming masses, thus sending them further down the river and exposing them to something that would only be seen as a utopia. Migrants soon made their way over to isolated Autark by any means necessary. The UK military forces were not prepared for additional numbers and soon lost count and touch with what was really going on. Little did Bullon know that Paraíso had a different view towards his position in the project. As much as Paraíso loved the concept, he felt neglected and envious of the praise Bullon received back in the UK. Paraíso's reputation among the people led him to become their leader, a charismatic vessel of wisdom and hope. The migrants approached his people and not only did he go against the U.N.'s wishes and welcome them with open arms, but he also contacted the western world and advertised Autark to the people of his home nation of Costa Rica.