"2025: A Novel"

They're Saying What They're Going To Do; Time To Make It Real

Note: I’ve written five novels and two non-fiction books about democracy. This feels more like a novel. I look forward to your feedback.

"2025: A Novel"

Part 1

Introduction

The November 2024 election showed once again an evenly divided America. The key states remained too close to call late on election day.

But after a few days, margins that were mere slivers late Tuesday grew wider. The margin grew to 20,000 votes in Wisconsin. 5,000 in Georgia. 12,000 in Arizona. 20,000 in Pennsylvania.

Out of range.

And by Thursday, the result was clear.

By those 57,000 votes—.017% of the nation’s population—the man who’d been unseated in 2020 was elected president again.

On Friday, my editor at the Washington Daily Chronicle pulled me into his office. He knew that the tiny percentage difference in the election result was misleading. That massive change was on its way, as every news outlet was already reporting.

But rather than covering that change the way everyone else in D.C. does, he gave me a different assignment.

A special assignment.

“You’re gonna spend some time in the field,” he said. “A lot of time.”

He told me I’d spend the next year depicting how the lives of everyday Americans were impacted by the new regime.

Not through surface-level stories quoting politicians, but deep reporting. Up close and on the ground. A bird’s eye view of American lives.

“Go wherever you need to go. Spend whatever you need to spend. Talk to whomever you need to talk to. Tell the story through their eyes."

He paused.

“One month. One story. One life.”

“Ok,” I said.

“I’m talking bird’s eye view.”

“Ok,”  I said.

And began searching the nation for stories to tell.

Rose Cunningham

December 31, 2024

Chapter 1: January

“Ammon Maher”

by Rose Cunningham

NEW YORK

Yes, it was covered in grunge and grime. Usually smelled of piss and pot.

But Ammon Maher loved the subway.

Every day, the ride in from the Bronx displayed something new.

Strange things. Beautiful things. Terrible things.

The same all-too-human combination he’d experienced throughout his 23 years, growing up in a rough part of Milwaukee.

So just as in life, he’d enjoy the beautiful things. Decipher the strange things. And do his best to make the terrible things better.

At 6’2 and 220 pounds, he could hold his own.  So on the subway, he largely handled those terrible things himself. He’d broken up three fights. He’d stopped a mugging. He waited with two lost children as another good samaritan tracked down their parents. He walked a battered woman to a local precinct to get the protection she needed. He’d only called the cops twice when the problem felt too much for one muscular Egyptian immigrant to manage—either too many people involved, or when he suspected a weapon was involved. And his childhood had trained him to know when a weapon was involved.

But this morning, the ride in was as uneventful as any in the seven months he’d taken the Two line into Manhattan from his closet-sized efficiency. Oddly quiet, perhaps because of what was happening in a world still roiling from November’s election. This week especially.

So with much on his mind, but little he could do about it, Ammon leaned his head back, his long jet black hair cascading over the top of the seat, and tried to relax.

Seconds later, his cell phone buzzed in his sportcoat pocket.

Ezra calling.

Ammon picked up right away, knowing how dire things were for Ezra and a bunch of his other friends.

“Ez, how ya holding up?”

“I’m ok,” his college roommate from the prior year said.

He didn’t sound ok. His faint, high-pitched voice sounded like it had after an all-nighter cramming for exams.

“Even with the makeshift holding cells, there wasn’t enough room to keep all of us penned up,” he said. “So me, Jaya and Ronna all got released. The others are still locked up. Ammon…”

Ezra’s voice caught, on the verge of weeping.

“…It’s so awful in there. We’re being treated like dirt. Like we’re not even humans. So much worse than up there.”

Ammon sighed, closing his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Ez,” he said, leaning forward.

Sorry about what was happening to his closest college friends.

Sorry that he hadn’t been there for them, and still wasn’t now.

The guilt had been eating at him for days. He was supposed to be there too, but Ab (his father) had put his foot down—far more strictly than last spring.

“Ammon,” Ab had warned last week, in their third phone call on the topic. “We’re lucky you got your degree at all after your posse’s protesting last year. Don’t do this again to me and your mother. We’ve worked too hard for this.”

And it had been a close call. Ammon, Ezra, Jaya and Ronna had barely avoided expulsion from NYU following their weeks-long protests of the Israel-Gaza war the prior spring. Their relatively low-key activity didn’t attract the attention that the Columbia students had, nor the non-student participants. So campus police had been casual for most of it. But the small tent city on Union Square, yards from the arch, had triggered a response. On their second night there, just as the sun went down, city officers swept through their encampment and grabbed them all. They were cuffed and hauled into the local precinct.

Ammon hadn’t resisted, but purplish bruises had encircled his wrists for weeks.

Fortunately, NYU’s student-led disciplinary commission had convinced the university’s president to let them graduate with their class, as long as each spent weeks performing community service. Prosecutors had been equally lenient.

But it was all far too dicey for Ab, who’d worked long hours in a Wisconsin brewery all his life, mostly to give Ammon a chance to go to a place like NYU in the first place. Expulsion would’ve been a family tragedy, especially as Ammon’s three younger siblings looked up to him so.

So when national media first previewed the planned inauguration protests, knowing Ammon remained close with what he disapprovingly called his NYU “posse,” Ab came down hard.

“Those others are rich. And they don’t face our issues.”

For Ab, “rich” was anyone who wasn’t poor like them.

And  “our issues” was the unsubtle reminder that when his parents had arrived in Florida with  two-year old Ammon, they had not done so legally. While they later found work visas, Ammon’s status was a mess. He fit into the category the politicians called “dreamers.” But given American politics today, that happy term offered neither comfort nor certainty.

“Ab, they also have—“

“—They can get arrested again and escape it all. But with the new president, and what they’re promising to do, you already have a target on your back. Your siblings too. No more playing with fire.”

The president. Ab was so scared of the new president. Of course Ammon was offended by the man, but not scared of him. He’d been spewing his crazy shit for years. Sure, it served the purpose of motivating his supporters to vote. And yes, that led to occasional violence against people who looked like Ammon. But no one took the man’s hot air seriously—as policy. Just more politics.

Still, the tone of Ab’s voice—capped off by the invoking of his siblings, even though only his sister was also a “dreamer”—meant the discussion was over.

After hanging up, Ammon had cancelled his train trip south to join the more than a million people who would go on to march on the Mall the frigid morning of inauguration day.

But he’d watched it all.  In horror. Like January 6, the whole country did.

At 11 am, live footage showed helmeted troops in black riot gear—but no badges or identifiers—swoop in on the protesters from all sides of the Mall. First came smoke and tear gas, then batons and tasers, followed by the mass arrest of as many as they could. Hundreds were injured in the rush to get away. None of his friends responded to his texts and calls the rest of the day.

By yesterday morning, he’d learned second-hand that his friends had been caught up in it all. All were arrested and pepper sprayed, and two had suffered broken bones in the melee. Tased, Jaya had suffered an asthma attack and had to be rushed to the hospital before joining the others at the makeshift processing site.

Ez’s obvious strain now was making Ammon regret not being there even more. He’d been the group’s unofficial captain. Both the activist and the diplomat. And now they were all there, suffering and scared without him.

“Ammon, they say they’re going to treat us just like the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. The ones who received long sentences.”

“What? How can they even say that?”

“They say we were planning to overturn the new administration. That we were planning to commit violence.”

Ammon shook his head, disgusted. Attempted payback for four years before.

Courts would see through it, but what a lie.

In all the reporting and footage Ammon had watched, there hadn’t been any hint that the large crowd on the Mall had done anything but protest peacefully. Angry, of course. Loud. Some angry signs. But peaceful. And they never left the damn mall, where they had been told protest would be allowed.

Their good behavior was not an accident. Organizers had talked about it in advance. Ammon had been on the calls. As part of looking tough for his followers, the new president would be looking for an excuse to crack down publicly, so every organization involved had committed to the same approach: noise, signs, but no trouble. And from everything Ammon had seen, they’d accomplished their collective goal.

“That’s such bullshit. You guys were the most civil pissed off people I’ve ever seen.”

“I know. But they’re saying they have evidence that we were planning something. That they stopped us in advance of violent actions. They’re already separating us out for interrogations. Ronna came back from her’s shaking. Crying.”

Ammon gritted his teeth at the image. Ronna and he had dated the first two years in college. And had kept hooking up ever since. She was fierce in every way. A shaken Ronna was a terrible sign.

“Do you guys have lawyers? Did she?”

“None. They say we’re not entitled to any because this is a national security issue.”

“Jesus.”

Ammon clenched his fist.

“Ez, I’m coming down there.”

“Don’t.  It’s so bad.”

But he’d made up his mind. And Ab didn’t need to know. Plus, he wouldn’t be protesting. Just helping others.

“No. I am. I’ll take the first train after work today.”

He had a major project he had to finish by the end of the week, and it was Friday.

“What are you going to—“

“Just be there. I’ll figure it out when I get there.  And I’m going to find some lawyers for you.”

His first cousin was a Harvard Law grad at a big DC firm. He’d know some good defense attorneys down in DC, just like he’d helped them work through the NYU situation with minimal damage.

Ez sighed audibly. He wanted help, but hadn’t wanted to ask for it directly.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, my friend…”

“34th street station…coming up!”

The male voice on the subway’s intercom bellowed out Ammon’s stop.

“…I’ll call you later this afternoon.”

Ammon rose from his seat as the train squealed to a stop.

And that was the first time he noticed the blonde man in the dark suit at the other end of the car. He rose a second after Ammon did. Shorter than he was—maybe 6 feet—but thicker. A few others stood up as well, but the man stuck out. Definitely armed.

Then again, maybe he was just being paranoid after hearing Ez’s story.

Knowing that running invited violence—one of the mistakes they’d made on the mall—Ammon walked casually to the open car door and into the crowded station.  A minute later, he emerged on the street, then walked the two blocks to get to the law firm where he worked as a paralegal and data specialist.

The man followed about 20 feet behind. Calmly, and not gaining. Not trying to. Ammon’s  paranoia now seemed justified.

Ammon swiped his ID on the ground floor and moved quickly through the turnstile and then the open elevator door. With security there, Ammon assumed the man wouldn’t keep up, and he didn’t.  The elevator closed without anyone else entering. Ammon let out a long breath.

Fifty-five floors up, he stepped out of the elevator.

His moment of relief disappeared.

Standing to the left and right of an ashen Cindy, the law firm’s receptionist, were two men dressed and built nearly identically to the man who’d followed him. Dark suits. Square jaws. Thick. Reminded him of the bad guys in The Matrix.

One was holding his phone to his mouth like a radio.

“He’s here now,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Come on up.”

Cindy’s eyes were bugged wide, looking up as if Ammon had done something terrible.

“They’ve been here wait—“

“—We’ll take it from here, ma’m,” the other man said, stepping towards Ammon. “Mr. Maher, please come with us.”

The man gripped Ammon’s bicep.

“I got it,” Ammon said, trying to pull his arm away.

But the grip tightened, and the man tugged him forward.

They walked to one of the firm’s conference rooms, where another man was already seated at the end of an oval table. Older and bald. He looked up as they entered the room, nodded slightly toward the man holding Ammon’s arm, but didn’t stand.

“Sit down, Mr. Maher.”

Ammon sat in a wooden chair, and only then realized just how fast his heart was thumping. He could both hear it and feel it in his chest. Something about these three scared him far more than the officers in the NYPD precinct last spring. Even though he had no idea what they wanted.

Then a fourth entered. The man from the subway stepped into the conference room, closed the door behind him, and sat in the chair on Ammon’s other side. The two men from the lobby stood like sentries on both sides of the closed door.

Ammon, already tired of the silence, lifted his hands in the air while scanning the faces ogling him.

“Who are you? What in the world is going on?”

The bald man cleared his throat.

“We’re from the Department of Homeland Security. A new unit created by the president’s executive order number 7, signed the other day.”

Ammon had glossed over a summary of the new executive orders the afternoon of the inauguration. An outrageous, lawless list. Ending climate change policies. Watered down ethics rules. Gutting protections of career federal government employees so they could be replaced by partisans. Blanket amnesty for January 6 participants. Another Muslim ban. Complete border shutdown. And so on.

On the one hand, a predictable extension of the president’s deranged rhetoric on the campaign trail. On the other, crazy—not credible policy. Plus, there was no way they would survive in court. Just more politics. Commentators on TV doubted most would take effect.

Still, he was racking his brain about how any of what he remembered applied to him.

The bald man read his mind.

“Disturbing the peace,” he said gruffly, as if saying the words “triple homicide.”

Without meaning to, Ammon tilted his head and scrunched one eye, as he would with any friend who was bullshitting him.

“What do you mean? I stayed away the other day. For a reason. I haven’t disturbed a thing.”

He shot a quick look at the man who’d followed him from the subway. Maybe he’d somehow listened in on the phone call with Ez. Heard his offer to help.

The bald man flashed a nasty grimace.

“Mr. Maher, believe me, we have many colleagues dealing with the hoodlums the other day, including those you consort with.”

He paused to let the words sink in. The knowledge of his personal network.

“We know you were not down there.”

Ammon nodded. Slight relief. This could be straightened out quickly.

“But this isn’t about the other day.”

The man reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. He lay it out on the table, then pulled a pair of small glasses from his other pocket and laid them on the tip of his nose.

“I’ll skip the fancy stuff and read what matters to you.”

His thick head swiveled left to right as he scanned.

“Here ya go…‘Be it ordered that all undocumented students engaged in disturbing the peace, on or near campuses, which amounts to any level of criminal offense while undermining national security shall be treated, as threats to national security and said students shall be immediately deported back to their home country.’”

Lifting only his eyes, he looked at Ammon over the top of his glasses.

“I’m afraid you meet the bill, Mr. Maher.”

Deportation? Disturbing the peace? National security threat?

The words sounded so absurd Ammon let out a sarcastic chuckle. Still couldn’t be real. Just leverage so he’d rat out his friends in DC. They’d heard the phone call with Ez.

“Just what on Earth are you talking about?”

“Mr. Maher, did you not get arrested last year—taken to the police precinct—held for hours?”

“You mean for the protest at NYU?”

“Yes. Disturbing the peace. Damaging public property. Resisting arrest.”

“C’mon! Except for the tents at Union Square, we barely did a thing. Other groups accused us being too passive. Sell-outs. Those were all overcharges. The prosecutor said as much, which is why we made our deal. They dropped almost all of them. That’s all in the pa—”

“—Almost…”

The deal had been that they plead “no contest” to criminal damaging, which was the hook that led to their community service and no expulsion.

“Criminal damaging,” the bald man said before looking back down at the paper. “‘Criminal damaging’ while engaging in protests threatening national security” is one of the offenses considered disturbing the peace under the executive order. And the order also spells out explicitly that the protests you were engaged in were a threat to national security.”

“How?” Ammon asked. “We were protesting a conflict overseas.”

“How?” the man repeated, pointing at the paper. “Because the president said so, that’s how. It’s as clear as can be. Protesting our allies threatens national security.”

Another echo of campaign rhetoric he’d dismissed as absurd.

“So you’re gonna detain everyone who was involved in the college protests from last year? That’s nuts.”

The bald man winked, then looked over Ammon’s shoulder. “Not everyone."

The man to his left shifted in his chair, laying another piece of paper down on the desk. The letters “INS” were clear at the top.

“Mr. Maher…I don’t think you need any reminding of your immigration status.”

Ammon’s stomach churned, an intense mix of butterflies and nausea. He didn’t look at the paper, as if any reaction to its content would be an admission of guilt in front of eight watchful eyes.

The status his father had always warned him about. The situation he had for so long taken for granted as unproblematic, was now being thrust in his face. His one Achilles’ heel to living in America, but one he assumed would never be pierced.

Now being waved in front of him like he was a criminal.

Maybe these thugs were serious.

Maybe all that political bullshit was actually happening. Maybe all that presidential hot air—which few people he knew no took seriously—was actually going to be acted upon as American policy and law.

Then it dawned on him: if it was, then he was in deep trouble.

And that realization prompted the only sentence he could think of.

“I’d like to ask for a lawyer before I say anything else.”

He said it as firmly as he could, looking the bald man straight in the eyes. He needed to slow things down.

The bald man now raised his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry to tell you, the executive order makes clear you have no right to an attorney. This is a national security matter. And you are not a citizen of the United States. For the security of the nation, we are expediting these cases rapidly.  We must, as the president made clear in his speech your friends were interrupting.”

My friends were arrested before they could interrupt, Ammon thought. But didn’t say.

“I need to at least call my parents.” Another possible lifeline. Anything to delay things.

He reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his phone.  But just as his fingers touched it, both arms were pulled back behind him.

“Don’t move again,” the first gravelly voice from the lobby said inches from his left ear.

Two large hands forced his forearms together behind him, then a sharp edge sliced into each of his wrists as they were cinched—bone pressed against bone. Plastic zip ties.

“What the fuck?” Ammon yelled out. “This is insane. Give me a fucking lawyer.”

The bald man stood up, at least four inches shorter than Ammon. But his steel-eyed glare and jutting chin made it clear he wasn’t intimidated.

“No need to get profane with us. We read you the rules. The law. No lawyer. No calls. The order ensures that the next of kin will be informed of your status within 48 hours. Rest assured, we will follow it by the book.”

“And where will I be?”

“You will be returned to your nation of origin.”

While each syllable came through clearly, the words couldn’t be real.

“Egypt, correct?”

“I haven’t been to Egypt since I was 2. I don’t know a soul there.”

The man to his left, still seated, shook his head. Like a disappointed parent.

“Mr. Maher, we know you have a large family in Cairo. Both your mother and father’s side.”

Ammon closed his eyes, the amount of research they’d done on him becoming hauntingly clear.

“Right,” he said, now quietly. “Whom I’ve never met in my entire life.”

The man smiled as he stood. “Family is family. Hopefully that’s true in any country.”

Ammon couldn’t help himself, muttering, “…it used to be in this country as well.”

A hand reached around his chest and into his jacket pocket, plucking his phone away.

“We’ll take that now."

The other man squeezed his right tricep and pushed him forward, out of the room.

A few lawyers watched from open office doorways, too stunned or afraid to speak. But they did nothing. Just stared. Ammon suddenly felt like a foreigner in the only country he’d ever known.

The one exception was the firm’s managing partner, Chase Shepherd, waiting back in the lobby. One of the most feared trial attorneys in the city, he also happened to be physically imposing. Once a linebacker at Stanford. Later a DOJ lawyer, so he knew the government.

“Just what are you doing to our employee?”

“Sir,” the bald man said with a snarl, “believe me, you don’t want to interfere now, or going forward. The president is not fucking around, and neither are we.”

They brushed past him, one of the henchmen stepping into Shepherd’s personal space to keep him from doing anything.

“Don’t worry Ammon,” Chase said. “We’ll get on this immediately.”

The bald man grunted, sounding amused.

Seconds later, they entered the elevator. Shepherd and Cindy the receptionist gaped wide-eyed as the elevator doors closed.

* * *

The rest played out at warp speed.

Ammon kept thinking something would interrupt it. Would intervene. That someone would intervene. But nothing did.

First came a 15-minute van ride, the two henchmen squeezing in on him from each side.

Then six hours stirring in an isolated square room, hunched forward on a stool to ease the pain from his shackled hands, which soon went numb. Nothing to see, but he could hear the noises of others being whisked in and out. The shuffling of feet. The opening and closing of doors. Some shouts. Questions, echoing the same disbelief he felt. An occasional spasm of crackling, followed by screams or grunts. Taser hits.

Then a bus ride to an air base, joining a line of five other buses. A ten-minute wait. Silence enforced. A dozen heads, largely down and leaning forward. When he caught a glimpse of the eyes around him, he saw the same confusion he was feeling. That he was no doubt showing.

Could this be real? Was there nothing in place to stop it? Where was Chase Shepherd? Other lawyers?

Did people even know?

His group was led onto a dark gray plane with no markings—felt like a converted regional jet. They took off quickly and landed an hour later. Outside his window, a far larger airport. Military markings everywhere, except on the airplanes themselves.

Four more hours of waiting.

Outside, a beehive of activity—planes taking off and landing. Vans and buses on the move. A large, well-orchestrated operation.

Inside, total silence, again enforced by armed guards in dark uniforms Ammon didn’t recognize. No badges.

When they finally were ushered off the jet, they walked single-file, through a cold drizzle, to a far larger military plane. Windowless and gray, it looked like it was made for cargo.

Ez’s words from earlier echoed in his ear: “Like we’re not even humans.”

Ammon looked around.

Eight other identical planes were lined up in a row.  More lines of sagging, subdued men snaking up to them. All leaning forward, forearms zip-tied behind their backs like his.

Same shocked eyes.  This was actually happening. Political words from months ago, now turned into national action. At a massive scale.

Wearing the same clothes he’d worn to start the day, carrying no papers but those that remained in his wallet, Ammon and hundreds of others boarded the massive plane from the back, up a ramp. It opened into a cavernous space which felt more like a basketball gym than an airplane. They filled row after row of hard, upright metal chairs, bolted to the floor.

Jolts rocked much of the flight, mostly vertical, but some side to side. Some near him vomited, adding to the pungent stench of body odor that intensified over the course of the flight.  A few rounds of water and bread. They each were given one bathroom visit.  Any attempts at chatter were quickly subdued—by angry words, followed by baton strikes and grunts of pain.  A man next to him tried to whisper something to him, but he didn’t respond.

Ammon slept when he could.

The plane descended quickly, the most violent turbulence of the entire flight. Several sharp turns preceded a hard landing, which prompted another round of grunts.

The jolt of the ground clearly woke up some around him. The rest were no doubt awakened when a women’s voice announced through the intercom: “Welcome home.”

There were no windows to see outside.

Minutes later, Ammon was led down the ramp onto a wide tarmac.

A bright sun beamed down—the contrast from the dark plane blinding him at first.

His eyes adjusted to the light.

He was standing at the end of another long single-file line, a sprawling airbase all around him, dessert beyond that spanning all the way to the horizon. Another giant plane landed from left to right. A third circled high in the air.

Ammon trudged forward, back stiff and legs tight from the long flight. No feeling in his arms at all, as if they didn’t exist. Just shoulders.

A stiff breeze blew warm air and specks of sand in his face, stinging his cheeks and neck.

Through squinted eyes, he could see exhausted men in front and behind. Zombies—glazed over, beaten down. Guards standing on both sides to keep them all that way.

Between the long flight and all the hours waiting, he had no idea what time it was.

Maybe a day after the subway ride. The call from Ez. Cindy’s wide eyes in the lobby.

His doubts about it all were now erased. The moments of hope as he dozed in the plane—that it was a dream—dashed.

The hell was all too real.

Under the new laws of the the new America, this was his home.

Author’s Note: On May 14, 2024, Donald Trump said: “One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country.”

Will share Chapter 2 next Saturday.