…

“Power to the people!” Che yelled, disturbing about a dozen other senior citizens dozing in the assisted living facility sunroom.

“Right on,” Cherie said. “But nobody will know the initials DLA stand for Data Liberation Army.”

Settled into the rocking chair she had outfitted with two thin cushions to comfort her always aching spine, Cherie pulled the afghan she knitted snug over her lap and waited for an answer. Che stood his ground ready to fight. At 75 his spine ached too, but he stood bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet.

“The Establishment didn’t know what the SLA was, either,” Che said. “Until Patty Hearst made sure they never forgot the Symbionese Liberation Army. These hyperscale AI data center developers will never know what hit them when we launch our first attack.”

“Like your parents naming you Chester and you calling yourself Che,” Cherie said.

“The revolution continues,” he said, adjusting the lint-covered black beret so the hat covered his receding hairline. “Remember the Weather Underground? Well, we’re the Weather Aboveground.”

At 77 Cherie still resembled her high school senior picture. Her once stunning thick black hair now hung gray and lush past her shoulders. Cherie now served as a rebel comandante in the Lackawanna County guerrilla militia holding back the pending invasion of big tech data centers.

“So what does the DLA do first?” she asked.

“Blow something up,” Che said.

“Che, please, I’m opposed to violence,’ Cherie said.

“I don’t mean with explosives,” he said. “I’m talking insurgent psychological warfare. We detonate their plans with our creative energy.”

“We can’t waste time,” Cherie said. “Data center investors are coming here from all over the world.”

“They’re at the top of my list,” Che said.

“CalCow LLC is planning to surround our little town with 50 super AI data center campuses,” Cherie said.

“They’re cutting down hundreds of our beautiful trees as we speak,” Che said, pointing out the sunroom picture window.

In a nearby air-conditioned house trailer turned into a plush office suite sitting on recently purchased farm land, Russian billionaire Ivan Ivanov sipped a cold canned cocktail and petted his pedigreed pet Russian Wolfhound that curled up on the floor beside him.

“I love the taste of vodka in the morning,” Ivanov said.

“You’re so funny,” said Candy, Ivanov’s latest American girlfriend who had six months remaining on her crown as a local chicken wing chain’s “Miss Lip Sync” champion for her rendition of a Madonna medley of songs including “Like a Virgin.”

 “You drink too much, too, Ivan,” said Indian billionaire and business partner Rudransh Singh.

Trying to ignore the heavyweight Russian businessman, as soon as Singh looked instead at his laptop calling up the CalCow (CALcutta and MosCOW) LLC Facebook page he screamed like a thousand wild Hindustan elephants rampaging through the jungle where the pachyderms roam.

“How could you do this to me, Ivan Ivanov?”

Candy got so rattled by the outburst she spilled her espresso martini she learned how to mix at the local bartender college from which she graduated as “Vodkadictorian” after meeting Ivanov who made a contribution to the school’s liquor fund in exchange for Candy’s diploma.

The CalCow LLC Facebook page lit up with sirens, popping flashbulb images and pictures of falling red, white and blue confetti. Wearing a trucker’s baseball cap Ivan Ivanov appeared on the screen in a short video inviting his “capitalist comrades in data center country” to a “FREE all-you-can-eat beef barbecue rib feast to thank the local rural community for their super data center support.

The words “FREE ALL BEEF BURGERS!!! FREE RARE PRIME RIB!! FREE BEEF STEAKS!!!” flashed continuously on the computer screen.

Singh dropped to his knees and began to pray.

“Brahma, Visnu and Shiva forgive me,” he begged. “I am a devout Hindu who reveres and protects cows. Please, oh, please, do not cast me into hell to be reborn as cow dung.”

Singh’s screams increased in pitch so high they sounded like a snake charmer’s flute.

“Beef is sacred,” he howled. “Bad enough you make me call company CalCow, but this is the last swizzle stick.”

“You mean the last straw,” said Candy, leaning heavily on final exam knowledge she learned at bartender college after Ivanov provided her with test answers in advance.

“I did not video that video,” said Ivanov although the idea of a greasy BBQ rib fest appealed to him immensely.  

Back at the assisted living center Cherie quickly Googled the CalCow Facebook page she had doctored with what she learned in the “AI for Fun” course she took online and her daughter paid for to try to keep her mother from smoking too much medical marijuana.

“My Ivan Ivanov deep fake AI video is perfect,” Cherie said. “You can’t trust anything or anyone anymore.”

Che raised his clenched fist in a gesture of bold defiance.

“We put the Boom back in Boomer!” Che said.

Back at the double-wide Singh wagged his finger at Ivanov and said, “Our data center deal is dead.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” Ivanov said. “I forgive you. And if you want to know the truth, I do respect cows.”

Singh almost bought the ruse.

“Respect how?” he asked the oligarch to whom the KGB had taught many tactics of devious deception to win over gullible American voters and investors.

Grinning his gold tooth grin, Ivanov said, “Because I admire cows, I am always willing to turn the udder cheek.”

Candy laughed so hard she passed natural gas and blamed it on the dog.