Just recently, Zack felt like everywhere he turned he was being pressured to make choices he didn’t want to make, and he made them because… sometimes you had to go along to get along. He wasn’t a man who wanted to make waves, he just wanted to do his job and get paid, and the Night Watch offering fifty credits a week just to wear a stupid armband had seemed like a good deal. To start with.

Only then they’d started expecting him to inform on regular people voicing opinions, people not so different from him, who were just trying to get by, live their lives, pay their bills… And with the state of things back home, how could anyone be surprised if a few folks were feeling a bit disgruntled. Hell, he didn’t blame them, and anyway, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, right? That was what free speech was all about.

And now the Night Watch was going WAY too far, and Zach didn’t like it. Everything was turning into a witch hunt, and he didn’t want any part of it; he just couldn’t see a way out. He wished to Hell he’d never donned the armband.


The End