Gary Lombardo

The Thought Police Gary Lombardo

In the peaceable country of Vandara, an autocrat named Franz Hayden runs for premier and wins, albeit dishonestly. His objective? To foist his progressive, godless policies upon the populace. To achieve this, he sends his thought police across the land with mind scanners to determine if citizens tell the truth when questioned about him and his totalitarian agenda. The penalty for lying? A $25,000 fine and five years' imprisonment. For the second offense, the citizen is publicly hanged. No lawyer. No trial. No jury. No judge.

Federico Padula, former mayor of Sanducci, Sicily, and lover of God, the truth, liberty, and justice, despises Hayden and vows to remove him from power. So Federico invents his own brain reader that garners him a meeting with Franz, but when he informs Franz that his mind scanners are fake and that two hundred Vandarans died in his modular prisons, Hayden feigns ignorance. Thereupon Federico convinces him that he has spies in his regime who see and hear everything, and promises not to go public with what he knows if Franz disbands the Thought Police Department and releases all the prisoners. Franz reluctantly but sincerely agrees.

In the ultimate double-cross, Federico records a video of his exposé of Hayden and uploads it to the Internet. It quickly goes viral, and millions of irate Vandarans take to the streets demanding Hayden's removal. The premier staunchly refuses to step down, and a fierce battle for the soul of the country commences.