Fifth Rider of the Apocalypse

Chapter 10

   Parking was the easiest battle to incite. With the influx of tourists to see the new working castle complex, there was no parking to be found anywhere in town. People not only parked in spaces on the street, but often times made up their own parking spaces. Lawns, parks, and any open area became fair game to the thronging crowds that grew every day. It only took grumbling while seated behind the mayor in the diner about the dearth of spaces and how residents were getting fed up with vehicles everywhere not contributing a dime to the city road maintenance.

When Racheal asked just what he thought the city should do, that was when Jacob rattled off the idea of parking meters, paid lots and raised fines for those who chose to leave their car wherever they saw fit.

The mayor (who had been dining with two councilmen) found he needed to cut the meeting short and a week later, the roads were being marked with space numbers and kiosks were installed to accept payment. The local news station also announced an increase in parking fines.

Jacob smiled, but it was only the first part of his parking plan. For the second part he visited a local contractor who installed driveways and maintained store lots. He asked for general pricing on repairing the driveway next to the cottage he rented. While the man considered the pictures on his phone and gave him some ballpark numbers, he mentioned that if  he was the contractor, he would be chatting with the castle management about putting in a proper parking structure next to their facilities, as the current place they had available was nothing more than a muddy field.

As predicted, the contractor noted that the muddy field in question belonged to the park district and that talking to castle management would do little good. Jacob pretended to give this some thought before suggesting that the contractor might want to approach the city with the problem. Seeing as they had put in metered spots, they would certainly want to generate the revenue from this important site as well. Armed with quotes for a driveway he never intended to fix, he left the contractor humming.

Racheal met him next to the coffee shop on campus.

"How did it go?" He asked.

"Oh my gosh, when I said I was checking to see what kind of permits were required to add a new structure on campus, I got a stack of paperwork and an hour long talk about how to apply." She waved her coffee cup in the air. "I acted shocked, which actually wasn't hard as I really was shocked by all the ridiculous permits they require. Did you know that the city requires a permit to take out permits?"

"No, I didn't." Jacob replied.

"Well anyway, I asked them who had applied for permits at the castle. Told them I had some friends over there and I might ask for a little help filling out paperwork if the project goes through."

"I bet that stumped them."

"I got some spiel about confidentiality of records."

"That's nonsense. Permits are a matter of public record."

"Well I know that!" Racheal rolled her eyes and took a drink of her coffee. "But I could see my question sure stirred up the clerk's interest."

"The castle will be getting a visit soon." Jacob predicted. "And notification of fines for not filing said permits or having work inspected. War is going to have a stroke."

"I just hope when he has his stroke, he doesn't kill anyone."

"It is going to be a government agent who goes, so no big loss if he does."

"Jacob! How could you say such a thing?"

"Sorry." Jacob apologized. "I'm just fed up with politicians and the governing body in general."

"I am too, but I don't wish anyone dead."

"If someone were to die from the government offices, it would stir up a police investigation." Jacob held up his hands at her protest. "I was just speculating. I don't want anyone to die. That's why we're doing this in the first place. To stop people from being killed."

"Well don't speculate." Racheal pouted.

"Okay, I'll stop speculating." Jacob pulled a notebook out of his messenger bag. "So we got two items crossed off the list. Now for our next attack..."

"Taxes."

"Excuse me?" Jacob looked up from his list.

"Taxes." Racheal repeated. "I don't think the horsemen are paying any. Doesn't seem fair since everyone else has to pay property tax and sales tax."

Jacob looked at Racheal blankly.

"Wasn't that on your list?"

Jacob shook his head. "No, but it's a brilliant idea."

Racheal beamed. "Thank you."

"Except we have one problem. Neither of us pay property tax and we don't have a business that has to pay sales tax. How do we complain?"

"Easy." Racheal smiled. "We work for the college, which is a private institution, and they DO pay taxes. All you have to do is assign a research project for class about the history of taxes up to current times. Part of the assignment can be about tax inequality."

"Just how do I justify assigning a tax research paper to a class in the antiquities department?" Jacob asked.

"Start with books."

"With books?" Jacob was lost.

"People didn't use to pay a tax on books, but now, well writers have to pay income tax, book sellers have to charge sales tax. Then there are wage taxes for the people the printer had to hire to publish this book."

"A lot of manuscripts were hand copied by monks. They didn't get paid."

"Just think about the potential costs." Racheal sloshed her coffee as she used the cup to make her point. "How many of those ancient manuscripts would have come into being if taxes had been applied as they are in today's market. What is the future of manuscripts and will later generations have the ability to study them as we do today?"

"That's actually pretty good." Jacob mused. "Our department is very academic, so an odd assignment like this wouldn't likely generate much notice. Still, I don't know how this is going to spark a feud between city hall and the castle."

"Well, if you happen to mention to the dean how impressed you were by the research your students were doing... you might make a joke about the next assignment being about institution taxes versus say, castle taxes."

"A bit of a rough strategy, but I think I could work with the concept."

Racheal finished her coffee and stood up. "Well good, cause I have to be going. I have class in twenty minutes."

"Can we meet later to fine tune the details on the assignment?"

"Uh, no. I have a date with Alex." Racheal smiled. "Maybe that new intern Bobby can help you."

"Bobby is a moron."

"Bobby is the deans nephew. I'm sure if Bobby has input, the dean would be sure to listen to you when the students have completed the assignment. Especially if you heap praise on his nephew. The dean thinks Bobby is brilliant."

"Of course he does." Jacob grumbled. "All right, I'll involve Bobby."

"Give him the most credit for the project conception." Racheal advised as she breezed off.

"What I'd like to do is flunk the asshole." Jacob muttered into his own, now cold coffee. "And fire him."

"Hey prof, everything okay?"

Jacob looked up to see Bobby beaming down at him. "You're just the person I wanted to see today."