krowface | Liberty Wall

The President’s plan was bold, far reaching, and America believed in it.

Everything was pretty cut and dry, and every single one of us working class stiffs could get behind it in a big way. They made it sound really simple, and excluding all of the politics and economic stuff and other stuff I don’t really have a head for, it kinda was.
Just one big domestic initiative. An infrastructure so big it could feed everyone for years. It made the Hoover Dam look like a canal dredging out in the bay.

One big project. Hire everyone who could swing a hammer or walk a straight line. “Opportunities for All!” You couldn’t escape the billboards and posters. As if they stopped talking about it in the news, you’d somehow forget. You couldn’t forget it. Things were working again. Even the nay-sayers who started off calling it “socialist witchcraft” got behind it when they realized how big the tax breaks were gonna be for their petrol investments.

Outside of the conspiracy nuts and priviledged white art students, no one could find much fault in the program. At least not enough fault to turn down the paycheck.

For so many of us trapped in the bad parts of the cities, those of us who were over-qualified and under-employed (you know, all of us), this was just like winning a lottery. Salaried contracts that would last a few years, benefits after we leave, vouchers for services. The paychecks. Well all felt the same way. Full fridges, finally. No more picking which bill to pay at the end of the month. This was going to pull us out of our debt. Each of us.

My brother-in-law and I were on the first bus out of Tennessee as soon as we got the word we qualified. We didn’t even unpack our documentation and paperwork until we were 100 miles in.

I’m not sure exactly how everything happened so quickly and so easily. When the president introduced that big multi-media simulcast of “Project Liberty Wall”, it was almost too much to take in at once. I could only imagine this sort of stuff must’ve already been on the back burner. Somewhere between Operation SafeGaurd and the TSA meltdown they said. A lot of lobbying, a lot of incredible tax breaks. Mining companies, the transportation industry. They practically couldn’t ship blue collar down south fast enough. This thing was big and it hit the ground running.

There was such a sudden change that the economy bounced immediately back up. There was nothing we couldn’t do wrong. The world basically accepted we did the impossible, and we got our credit rating back up. I think we also ended up taking a Central American country while no one was looking.

Some of the less learned workers from deeper in the burbs where asking about why no one was being sent North, but we were able to straighten them out when we reminded them of when we helped Canada find justice after that Jihadist attack destroyed the reactors and wiped out most of Quebec.

All the cities along the border doubled and tripled in size. Skyscrapers went up in places like El Paso and Nogales. Each bordertown swelled up with legions of new workers. Shipping and receiving logistics centers everywhere. Some days I’d wake up in complete disbelief as buildings were built almost overnight. New Orleans suddenly had the world’s largest shipping yard, and became a metroplex in months.

Transportation and labour laws got pretty loose, and there might’ve been a few accidents, but hey, we were all getting fed. Foodcards went double value in company stores.

Most nights you could see the miles and miles of headlights. They said it twinkled like stars if you saw em from low orbit.

It was considered the 9th wonder of the world once it was done. A continuous wall that ran for miles between Mexico and the US. Averaging between 15 and 20 feet high, wide enough for three men to run down. Occassional gates on major highways. Towers within eyesight of each other.

It was like a high tech modular version of the Great Wall of China, before part of it disappeared when Three Gorges dam went out.

It was amazing how fast everyone can work when properly motivated. We had it way ahead of expectations.

All of the techie stuff got installed fast. With the way they had our work battalions set up, the entire grid was wired for power in a few weeks, instead of months.

Trenches, short retaining walls. This wide flat “clear zone” for yards on both sides. You could see people approaching from both sides for hundreds of yards. And with the motion sensors, cameras, low-lights, infrareds, it was almost too much. There’d be dry tests randomly down the wall during the tail end, and a jackrabbit couldn’t take a dump in a bush without floods and lasers lighting it up almost instantly.

We used to joke the towers had sensors locked up inside of them that could hear someone THINK about looking at the wall, but mostly it looked like they just housed a few antennaes and some weird electric grill looking things that must’ve been speakers or broadcast dishes. More than likely the garage on the bottom part of the tower didn’t really carry much except for a small ATV and maybe some maintanence tools.

Around that time some guys the next tower over thought it was pretty cute to bring paintball markers to work. The second time they hit an animal, they were fired on the spot. They didn’t even get a chance to back their bags, they were on trains heading home so quickly. They even managed to outrun the rumours about them getting tossed in a slam over it.

And then that was about it. One regular morning we all got calls, e-mails, texts. Same general announcement. We all got the same letter on the same HomSec/INS letterhead.

Liberty Wall was complete.

“We’re all very proud of your work. We couldn’t have done it with out all of you patroitic hard-working citizens, blah blah, blah.” All we knew is that it we could go home now. We’d all go back to our families (if they didn’t move down here with us), our old ways of life. Our lives as mechanics and masons, fry cooks and bartenders. And we got to go home with full wallets, and sizable pensions for us to either re-invest in the new technology we knew about, or just blow on very very extended vacations.

We were given special scannable passcards that we could use to get access to our trusts, and we were all surprised by being told while most of our contracts were over, they were instituting an immediate lottery for workers to join this new National Border Guard. Nothing really more than a public works department for Liberty Wall.

I was in before I knew it. I had a winning number, and it was all I could do to send for my kids and their mom. Maybe this new job would be enough to convince her to move down here. Maybe the loose talk about the separation would end.

There was a lot of arguing over the phone for the next few days.

I was able to keep my mind off of it during training. They kept us incredibly busy. Push this button when this light flashes. Go connect this if this light breaks. We were definitely glorified janitors and security guards. However we all got basic fire arms training and some range time, and really none of us thought anything of it. We kinda figured from the new uniforms and gear we were going to be some sort of patrol, and most of the guys in my group were hunters or operators before they even came down. So for us it just felt like part of the job. The top scoring guys got the fancier hardware. I placed well with a scoped bolt-action rifle that was not nearly as heavy as it looked like it should’ve.

After a few more nights of long talks, and promises made, and apologizes made, Sarah and the kids were on their way down. Outside of brief visits once every few months, I didn’t get to see enough of them, and the idea of them seeing their daddy in uniform and being proud of him made my heart sink something fierce. I didn’t realize how badly I missed them until she told me they were on the train.

That same feeling in my gut came rushing back ten times harder when I recognized her through the scope of my rifle three days later.