by J L Bryan
“…For liberating them from the brutal oppression of left-wing Mercosur forces that had seized control of their country,” he continued. “It was a stunning victory for freedom. Final score: three hundred leftists dead, two hundred twelve captured. For more, we go to our South America correspondent Robert Maxwell.”
The video flicked angles, and now tall, pale Maxwell stood among a cluster of Latino children waving flags and pushing forward to be caught on camera. Ruppert was impressed-Maxwell had been digitally dropped into the old footage.
“As you said, Ruppert, a stunning victory for freedom indeed. People are flooding the streets to celebrate the arrival of Hartwell Security Services…As you know, I’ve been here for the last six months, and I can tell you that it’s never been a more exciting time for the people of Colombia.”
“He said Colombia,” Ruppert said.
“Thanks, Ruppert,” a techie’s voice replied from the ceiling. “We’ll fix it in post. Get ready for your next load.”
The image of the Latin crowd-Argentinean, Venezuelan, Colombian, or other-vanished, replaced by a new stream of bright words.
“Vice President Hartwell,” Ruppert read aloud, “Whose Hartwell Services contractors brought home the victory, said our soldiers fought with unrelenting courage and valor.
“In other news, the Chinese Navy continues its blockade of the Korean peninsula, interfering with supply lines to American bases there.” Stock footage of battleships and aircraft carriers emblazoned with red stars appeared in front of Ruppert, reflecting what viewers would see at home. Ruppert changed his facial expression accordingly, from enthusiastic to grim. “President Winthrop was attending the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and unavailable for comment. However, the Secretary of Defense issued the following statement.”
The pasty, obese Secretary appeared at a flag-draped podium and read in a flat monotone:
“Once again, we warn the prime minister of China that the Atlantic alliance possesses a full-spectrum, first-strike capability against Chinese cities and installations. Our Skyfire orbital weapons system is online and fully operational. If this unwarranted aggression continues, China will find itself incapable of wielding its nuclear arsenal against the American people, because that arsenal will no longer exist.”
“Strong words from the Secretary of Defense,” Ruppert said. “And speaking of strong words, imagine what Del Ray Snipers head coach Richard “Rusty” Keyes must have said to his team after their brutal, bloody defeat by the Dodgers. Am I right, Sully?”
“Absolutely, Daniel,” Sully said. “Last night’s game was a steel-toed kick in the head for Rusty…”
Ruppert and Stone took a late lunch at the Soyballs Bistro, a small, dirty nook of a restaurant far enough from the studio to avoid their co-workers, though still within the concrete walls of the Westwood Secured Zone (Sealed for Your Protection by Hartwell Security Services, as the billboards said). Soyballs was a good place to escape their co-workers. The dingy restaurant specialized in meatlike dishes from its own secret soy recipe, which was of uneven quality and had been known to cause constipation, or the opposite. As a result, their co-workers treated Soyballs like a leper colony, naturally preferring the high-end spots on the other side of Westwood. Ruppert felt more comfortable talking among the janitors and day laborers who ate here.
The waitress arrived, but said nothing, just thumped her pencil nub against a stained notepad. Ruppert ordered the soy patty with cabbage, and raised an eyebrow when Sully asked for the Soy-Ton salad. The waitress nodded her head and jotted these down, and left without having spoken a single word.
"Chinese themed food?" Ruppert asked Sully, with a slight grin. "Not exactly patriotic these days, Sully. You should watch out."
Sully poured hot tea from the table top dispenser. At Soyballs, you didn't have a choice. You drank whatever was supplied at your table that day, or nothing at all.
"It's not as if Chinese food really represents what they eat in China," Sully said. "It's more of a satire."
"What do you think about China?" Ruppert asked. "Do you think it'll be war?"
“I think their new president exhibits a horrendous sense of fashion.”
“Does that matter?”
“A great deal. It’s a crime for a man to rule two billion people but dress that poorly. That should raise alarm bells all on its own.”
Ruppert poured his own tea. It was pale and green and tasted like boiled tree bark.
“What are we doing, Sully?”
“You mean like on the planet? Whether we have a driving purpose, like the Warrenites are always screaming on the street corners? Or whether life is just stupid noise, as the punk bands teach us?”
“I mean our jobs. The network.”
“We inform the public.”
“It's easier for you," Ruppert said.
"How? My segment's much longer than yours." Sully smirked as his Soy-Ton salad arrived. He looked down at the three pale, membranous, vaguely won-ton-shaped lumps on top of his green salad, then began picking them off.
"But you just report scores and injuries," Ruppert said. "It's easy. What you report is always true."
Sully’s blue eyes flared and he leaned back.
“You should watch what you say, Ruppert. In a time of war, you know.”
“It’s always a time of war.”
“Listen.” Sully whispered through his teeth, his boyish face suddenly taut and hard. He sounded to Ruppert like a snake that had been backed into a corner. “I know what you think. You know what I think. Just leave it, okay? I do not want to get picked up and questioned right now."
“Sully, I’m not trying to bait you. I’m not with Terror.”
“I know that.”
“Why are you so paranoid today?" Ruppert looked at the only other customers remaining, a table of three Mexican men in stained, threadbare coveralls. "I don't think they're with Terror, either."
"How can you know that?" Sully whispered.
“Jesus Christ, Sully.” Ruppert shook his head and jabbed a fork at the fried black lump of soy patty. He wasn't hungry. "Things used to be different, didn't they?"
"I can hardly remember," Sully said. "It's like the bomb stopped time. Now every day is just the day after the bomb."
THREE
Ruppert parked in the guest lot at District 118-4 Public Secondary School 171E, a twelve-story cinderblock building in Brentwood Glen. Cameras mounted on razor-wire fences swiveled after him as he approached the bulletproof window of the guard station by the school’s front door. The security guard, a heavyset white guy with a shaved head and drooping eyelids, was engrossed in a glossy sports magazine.
“Hi,” Ruppert said. “My name is Daniel Ruppert, I’m here to see my wife, Madeline-”
The guard looked up, and his eyes flared open.
“Oh, shit!” The guard spoke with a tinny echo over the loudspeaker. Then a loud, grinding screech resounded over the same speaker, and the guard clapped his hands over his ears. It was the school’s voice-monitoring system, punishing the guard for inappropriate speech.
“I mean, shucks, or whatever,” the guard said. “You’re the news guy!”
“Yep.” Ruppert gave what he thought of as his photo-op grin. “Thanks for watching. I’m here to pick up my wife.”
“Your wife works here?”
“Madeline Ruppert.”
“Madeline…” The guard leaned forward and tapped at the screen on his console. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen her. Sorry, first week on the job. We're not supposed to admit unscheduled visitors during school hours. It's still ninth period.”
“You really want me to stand here for the next twenty minutes?”
“Not up to me.” Ruppert waited while the guard spoke to a supervisor over his earphones. Finally, the guard nodded, tapped his screen again, and a sliding drawer emerged from beneath his window. Ruppert lifted out a laminated badge with his name, the date and time, and a photograph of himself that had appare
ntly just been taken.
“Mrs. Ruppert is on the eighth floor-Room 82B,” the guard said. “Adults stay to the center lane in all corridors. The badge is radio-tagged, so don’t go off-course or you’ll trigger an alert.”
“Thanks.”
The front doors opened, and Ruppert entered a hallway divided into three lanes by thick black stripes on the floor. More cameras watched him from the ceiling. Posters lined the walls, many of them depicting President Winthrop at a flag-draped podium, the image of the Earth floating in blackness behind him. The pictures showed Winthrop in his prime, rather than the somewhat decrepit and shriveled old man now serving his twenty-third year as President of the United States. The poster were emblazoned with some of the Party’s favorite slogans: “Strength Abroad, Strength At Home;” “America for Americans;” “America: The Revolution Continues.” And of course the inevitable cross painted like the flag, planted in a hilltop and apparently leaking blood into the grass, with the inevitable slogan: "America Everlasting."
As Ruppert continued towards the elevator bank, he glanced at other posters, these depicting the homeland’s enemies. One showed a fierce-looking Latino guerrilla, certainly a leftist, his face painted with black stripes, his machine gun pointed at the viewer. He stood in a jungle under a full moon. The caption for this one: “If You Use Drugs, You Support the Terrorists.” Another poster depicted Arabic jihadis huddled in a cave, staring at a map of the United States: “Where Will They Strike Next? Stay Alert!”
The elevator automatically took him to the eighth floor, since Ruppert was not authorized to visit any of the others. As he walked down a similar hallway towards Madeline’s room, a boy of twelve or thirteen shuffled past in the lane to his left. The boy kept his eyes on his own shoes and flashed a hall pass at Ruppert without looking up.
The door to Madeline’s classroom was next to a poster of an adolescent girl in an orange prison jumpsuit, her lips a corrupt mass of blisters and sores. The poster read, “Remember: Premarital SEX is a SIN and a CRIME.”
The door opened, and Madeline leaned out, smiling, tucking a long strand of red hair behind her ear. Security must have beeped her.
“We’re still in ninth period,” she whispered. “You’re breaking school protocol.”
“I wanted to surprise you. Surprised?”
“Sh. We’re watching a lesson.”
He followed her into a darkened classroom where sixty eighth-grade students watched a standard montage of life in Columbus, Ohio, before the bomb: kids playing baseball, families attending church, a farmer driving a pick-up truck loaded with bales of hay. Whenever Ruppert saw this one, he always wondered how many farmers had actually driven around downtown Columbus with a full load of hay, and for what purpose, but naturally he kept questions to himself.
“The Fourth of July, 2016. Columbus, Ohio, was a quiet Christian city in the middle of the American heartland,” the narrator said. It was the deep, twangy voice of semi-forgotten country music star Olroy P. Toombs. “People lived the traditional American way in Columbus. The good people of Ohio never expected the horrible fate the terrorists planned that Fourth of July.” A few video clips illustrated the Fourth of July factor, families in red, white and blue oohing and aahing at fireworks as they ate hot dogs and waved sparklers.
The movie’s background music shifted from pleasant piano notes to grim, dark oboe and bass tones. Ruppert reclined against the back wall, next to Madeline, and looked over the herd of kids. They all dressed according to the school’s strict moral code: long skirts and long sleeves for the girls, slacks and collared shirts for the boys. The moral code also required boys’ hair to remain less than an inch long, preferably crew cut, while all girls had to grow theirs out to at least shoulder-length. A few of the kids looked bored, but most watched as if the video would soon show Christ rising from his tomb.
Stark video clips cut into each other. The mushroom cloud rising from Columbus, captured from one angle after another. The neighborhoods blown flat. The twisted black hulk of a school bus.
Then the soundtrack shifted again, to a thundering brass orchestra, as hundreds of military, police and FEMA vehicles swarmed into the city. The video cut to President Winthrop, the edges of his face still hard and sharp at age fifty, his steel-gray hair tousled by the wind as he stood under the White House portico.
“Today, on the birthday of our nation, we have suffered a horrendous and unjustified attack at the very heart of our homeland. The entire country mourns with the good people of Ohio.
“Today, our country has changed forever. For too long, America has allowed her enemies to gather in the shadowy realms of the world. We have been generous. We have been just. We have loved peace; today, we see we have loved peace too much, been too forgiving of our enemies, too kind to those who threaten our interests.
“The American people are a good-hearted people, but after this grievous act of war, perpetrated by foreign terrorists against innocent lives, we must show the world a new face, another side, a different view of what our power can be.
“Americans love peace-but we love justice more.”
A roar of cries and an avalanche of applause poured over the speakers, the recorded enthusiasm of the press corps.
“America has suffered today, but America is strong, and America will grow stronger still. Today, I pronounce a Second American Revolution, one that will purge the corrupting influences from our nation and make us pure and upright once again. As we have grown complacent abroad, we have grown complacent at home-and as we all see now, the enemy is present here among us. Perhaps in our neighborhoods. Perhaps in our schools. Perhaps even at our churches.
“We are not safe, America. We must band together, now, as Americans, to fight the enemy in every corner of the Earth. Including our own. Tomorrow Congress will pass, and I will sign, the Articles for the Continuation of Democracy. These emergency measures will grant the executive branch full authority to find every terrorist, to root out every infiltrator hidden among us, to seek out everyone anywhere in the world who might intend us harm, and to destroy them all. To defend our freedom, to protect our children, to fight for our way of life, and-yes, America, for our God.”
After another wave of cheers, the President continued, “Even in this worst of all tragedies lies opportunity. We will reclaim America for the American people, and we will set our nation right. Citizens of America, the Second Revolution has begun. Together, we will build an America that will stand a thousand years, an America everlasting.”
This time, even the kids in the room joined in the cataclysmic applause. They’d been trained that way.
Madeline touched a black panel in the wall and the fluorescent classroom lights came up, while the giant image of President Winthrop faded into a blank whiteboard. Black words appeared in Madeline’s handwriting:
FOR TONIGHT:
Watch today's lesson again. Journalize your feelings on video. We will evaluate you in class tomorrow.
The bell rang, and sixty kids jumped to their feet. Madeline shouted after them as they surged out of the room.
“Mark, no pushing! Keep your eyes on the ground! Sarah, pull up your sock, no one wants to see your dirty leg!”
When the last kid had left, she turned to Ruppert and her hard glare melted into a smile.
“Hi there,” she said.
“Hi there yourself.” Daniel leaned in to kiss her, but she kept him at arm’s length.
“Not here in the gulag, okay?” she said.
He stepped back from her as she gathered her purse from her desk.
“You must have the easiest job in the world,” he said.
“You try babysitting nine classes of sixty little hell-trolls every day.”
“I thought you taught history.”
“What do you call that?” She gestured toward the whiteboard as they started towards the door.
“A movie.”
“It’s the only way these pagan brats learn anything. Just try to get one to r
ead a book. Half of them are just waiting to go home and shoot up virtual Muslims.”
“That’s what half of them will spend their adult lives doing.”
“Right.” They stepped into the crowded hallway, moving quickly into the center, kid-free lane. “I just hope they carry some respect for history onto the battlefield with them. They should know what they’re sacrificing for. Did you get the cookies?”
“Cookies?”
Madeline froze, and Daniel nearly crashed into her.
“I told you three times. I have to bring cookies for the Ladies’ Antiquing Society fundraiser. Butterscotch. Daniel, I told you three times!” Her voice rose an octave. “Do you have Men’s Meeting tonight?”
“It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”
“Then we have to be at the church by five! Daniel, I have to get them from the same bakery. Aunt Frizzie’s Bakery. You know that.” She rushed to the teachers’ elevator. Ruppert hurried to keep up.
“Aren't you supposed to make them yourself?” he asked.
“Shut up, Daniel. Now everybody’s going to think I’m not contributing.”
In the parking lot, Daniel’s Bluehawk unlocked as they approached. They would return later to pick up Madeline’s car.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, Daniel.” Madeline’s voice was knotted with fury.
“Doing what? Hey, what’s that on your seat?”
Madeline opened the door and broke into a smile. A plump white bag, with the blue-haired caricature of Aunt Frizzie stamped on the front, occupied the passenger seat. An empty cookie tin, leftover from a previous Christmas, lay beside it.
“Daniel!” Madeline picked up them up and slid into the seat. He sat down beside her. The car doors silently closed themselves.
“What are those, exactly?” Daniel asked.