The Actor.(Kevin Hughes) The Senator flowed with the gentle crowd on his back deck. Walking leisurely, even gracefully through the throngs of supporters, hanger ons, even a few power brokers who were kind enough to come to his daughter’s sixteenth birthday. He looked down over the sloping grass to see all three of his daughters and his only son, all playing on the swing set they used to love as grade school kids.

They were laughing as Michael pushed Melinda, who even though she was now 21 years old, was squealing with the glee of a five year old being pushed to the sky. The next swing over held his sixteen year old daughter, Lorelei. She was being pushed with the same determined energy that Michael displayed, but she was being pushed by Dorris, his eldest daughter at 27. It was, as usual for his kids, both play and competition.

It made him smile. A real smile. One of the few smiles that week that weren’t generated for the Public, or Publicity. The Senator didn’t notice the tall man glide up next to him. He did become aware of him a moment later. The tall man was looking at the same scene as the Senator. The Senator could see the gentleness in the man’s eyes. Even a bit of a tear.

“It is a moving scene, isn’t it?"

The Senator had spoken with that carefully cultured voice that made him sound wise, thoughtful, caring, even when he wasn’t.

“Yes. It is. Like they were in a play or something.”

“A play?”

“Yes. I mean aren’t you the Senator who said the friends of the Victims in that recent School Shooting were just Actors in a Play designed to discredit the Evil Liberals, and dismantle the 2nd Amendment."

The way the tall man said it, it didn’t sound like a question. Just a statement of fact. The tall man continued.

“In fact, didn’t you go on record saying that most of the kids weren’t even friends of the victims, but just Crisis Actors. Actors that could fake grief, guilt, confusion."

The Senator did not like where this conversation was going. He looked around for either the Secret Service, or his own two private body guards - none were nearby.

“In fact, you thought it was staged. Just actors, doing their jobs. That the victims were actually the weak and worthless of their generation and needed to be culled anyway. Just Actors. Right?”

The Senator wasn’t scared. The tall man had made no moves towards him, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the man was armed. So he told the truth.

“Yes. It is easy to get people to act like they saw a tragedy - actors are trained to respond with real emotions to fake settings. Just like those kids at the shooting. Some bad Actors though, or bad acting.“

The Senator laughed at his own joke. But then he saw the tall man hold up a go pro camera. He held it so that it framed the Senator, the sloping lawn and the swing set. The Senator turned to look at where the camera was aimed- at his four children playing on the swing set. The kids were really into it now, and both the kids pushing, and the kids swinging were flinging and being flung with furious abandon to see who could go the highest.

He started to smile, but before it could reach his face a fusillade of bullets tore through his kids like bb’s through tissue paper. Bones, hair, blood, and chunks of flesh flew off in ballistic trajectories as unyielding bullets penetrated the soft skin of youth.

A scream started in the Senator’s throat; and he clearly remembers the tall man’s voice stating in calm, almost professional tones:

“Well, Senator, your turn to start Acting. Remember, this is all a play- none of it's real. You said so yourself. So start Acting.”

—————

Trent was in a hurry. He had a board meeting with the NRA, and then had to go meet with some gun manufactures. He was one of the major Lobbyist’s in Washington - for guns. He was smart, well funded, and knew when to press, and when to hold back. He is the one who quietly shelved the whole House Bill that would have made the adapter used in the Vegas Massacre - legal.

He advised all the Senators and Congressmen he “Lobbied” to chill for a while. Give him and the PR folks some time to spread disinformation, get some Authority Figures to speak to the Press about needing more guns, more firepower, more technology to fight the war against bad people with guns. It worked for the Cigarette Companies. It worked for Climate Change. And it worked for every war since WW II.

He spent a few hundred thousand smearing the reputations of the kids who were killed in the recent shooting. Picturing almost every victim as a angst ridden, disease infested, weak drug dependent, sexually active slacker. It was working on the Right really well, the victims families and friends were still too deep in grief to come up with a coherent response. They just came across as witless folks with no where to turn, filled with bitterness and anger. In other words, too emotional to think straight. Perfect.

That is why he didn’t notice the new driver. A tall man who opened the door for him quietly, competently, and with grace. When the Limo turned towards the Highway towards his house, the powerful Lobbyist tapped on the glass. When the shield was lowered - he spoke to the tall driver. Not yet understanding what was going on, he merely commanded him.

“Driver, this is the way to my house. My itinerary clearly shows that you are supposed to take me to the Omni Hotel for a meeting, and then an hour later over to another meeting. So sorry you didn’t get the memo.”

“Oh. I got the Memo, Sir. I just thought you might want to see something at your home first.”

“What? Is this another one of my wife’s crazy surprises? (He laughed) I bet she has all my kids doing a hula hoop routine for me. Okay then, but we don’t have time to stay. We will just stop by for a minute, let the kids impress me, and off we go.”

With that the Lobbyist settled back with a smile. Not noticing that the tall man had not raised the glass shield back up.

“Aren’t you the guy who said the victims of the school shooting last week were hopeless and ne’er do wells, just like their Left Leaning Parents?”

“What? Who the hell do you think you are? Close the glass, and believe me, you will be out of a job when we get to my house.”

The Lobbyist was surprised when his phone didn’t work. Nor his back up. Nor the Limo phone. It was only then that he got nervous. He didn’t get scared until they pulled in the driveway of his home. Because the tall man got out of the car and got in the back with him. He didn’t have a gun in his hand, but a Go Pro camera.

“Well, Sir. You said anyone who cried at those shootings were weak people. Dregs. That no innocents were killed at all. That Actors were brought in to display real grief, that was all faked. So let’s see what kind of Actor you are. Watch carefully."

Somehow the horn on the Limo started blaring. I mean blasting like those old air horns on the big Peterbuilt Rigs. The Lobbyist’s wife, and all their children, plus the Nanny, ran out onto the front porch to see what was going on. His wife’s expression was caught between “ha ha, that’s funny” and “you are going to have to explain this tonight.”

The tall man framed both the Lobbyist’s face and the front porch…and it caught both the explosion that tore through the house, blasting the family into the air in shredded raggedy ann doll pieces, and the expression on the Lobbyist’s face. You could clearly hear the voice of the tall man in the background:

“Time to see how strong you are, how good of an Actor."

——————

It was a major radio show. The host was well known for his conspiracy theories. He was also known for his highly charged polemic rifts on every shooting. Sandyhook was a hoax. Nobody died. He said with faked sincerity and concern leaking from every word: “I am sorry, the evidence says it was all a hoax. Just a way to get bigger ratings for the Left, and stricter gun laws. All of the parents are Actors, as were the supposed victims. All a hoax."

He was on the air when the Producer waved into the studio with a big smile on his face. He pointed out the glass wall with glee. The Host looked over to see not only his kids, but his brother’s two kids, his sister’s four kids, and his ex wife’s two children. He waved them in to the studio.

“What is this all about?”

“What? You are the one who told us all to come here for a surprise. You said it would be a blast."

“I didn’t tell you to come here. What is going on?”

The kids were all looking around the room at the weird electronics, the adults looked confused. Through the glass into the Producer’s room a tall man made eye contact. He bent over to touch the intercom.

“Hello, I am your next caller. What happens next is just a hoax, designed to improve your ratings. Enjoy. Hope you are all really good Actors."

The Radio Host wasn’t a dumb man. Deceitful, slimy, narcissistic, but not stupid. He started to rise from behind the desk, to yell a warning to all the kids, his brother and sister too - but he barely got his ass out of the seat when an explosion riddled every inch of the room with ball bearings moving faster than the speed of sound. Two claymore mines separated by only 12 feet turned a room full of people into so much spaghetti.

In the silence left behind with the oozing mass of pulverized flesh still leaking down walls, and off glass windows - the Host clearly heard a voice say:

“Don’t worry. They are just Actors. Doing their job. Time for you to act grief stricken. Do a good job.”

——————

And so it went. Week after week another story would pop up. Newscasters for certain networks were afraid to go to work. Thirty Eight Senators, 104 Congressmen, more than fifty talk show hosts on both radio and television were targeted. In just three months - almost every single person who claimed guns were necessary, or called grieving parents “weak, unstable, trash” were left without children, spouses, and occasionally even pets.

No one knew who was behind all this. They simply called him: The Actor. The largest manhunt in the world was unable to find this man. Even as the Authorities expanded their search for him, the Actor expanded his actions to include people who should have spoken up, but didn’t. Senators who knew better, but wanted the gun money, the power, the position. Corporate shills who tried to create Fake News and confusion using sophisticated data mining, emotional cues, and confirmation bias to keep the status quo, found their loved ones mowed down in front of them.

Sometimes at parties, or on boats, the Actor would strike. No where was safe. The Actor was reeking havoc, revenge, or justice, depending on your outlook. It got to the point that children and wives were turning on their husbands- telling them to leave them alone. Go away, we don’t want to die because you won’t stop the horrors.

Even with all that tragedy …it took almost a thousand innocent lives before the message became clear. Only the Truth would save you. Trolls were revealed by name, address, moniker, hashtag, and all of their hate filled rhetoric was traced back to them. And any misdeeds in their own lives were made public. No one knew how the Actor pulled that off, but it caused many of those Trolls to be beaten by their very own neighbors. Sometimes by their own families.

In the end, 72 Senators resigned. 346 members of the House. All but nine of the Fortune 100 CEO’s retired. 1,123 Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Officers of all kinds, across the country either quit or were voted out. Television and Radio had the biggest fallout of all, almost a million talking heads left the field.

The new Amendment passed unanimously. It was called: “The Golden Rule Amendment”. Beliefs were no longer allowed to trump facts. News reporters had to be credentialed journalists - with degrees that included Ethics Courses, and Evidence Based Research. Opinion was relegated to the Editorial Page, and subject to the same scrutiny. Transparency in all departments of government were met with cheers. Personal, corporate, and religious transparency - well that led to the Privacy laws.

So you could be a private citizen, but in public, you had to have the facts. The Actor made sure of that. No one ever found him. Hero? Horror? It was unclear. What was clear, is after the Actor finished his vendetta, there were no more mass shootings in America. The murder rate dropped to double digits for the entire country. Science was removed from the petty dealings of corporate profit. Basic research replaced profit based funding. Which made almost everyone richer in some way.

Anxiety levels dropped off the charts. It was a brave new world. Safer, saner, smoother. Somewhere out there lurks the Actor to hold you accountable. No one wants the Actor to take action; and that left the door open for all of us to take action.

Things are real now. Not a play with many actors. One Actor remains, alert, aware, around. The Actor.

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