by R E Kearney
Robert stands and steps away from the table. Tall and spindly, he considers himself a thinker - a cerebral soldier not a fighter. He avoids physical confrontations and appreciates the security and sanity of Canada. Thinking about traveling into the US, with all of its poverty and bloody, class warfare, causes him heart palpitations. He shudders at the thought of possibly becoming entrapped, as the US collapses upon itself. In Robert’s opinion, the US is a violent, staggering state where the poor are battling the poorer for subsistence. He considers it wise and best for his health to avoid the US.
“I suppose I will be harder for the Russians to kill as a target on the move, but this is definitely not what I signed up for. So do I have a choice?”
“No. Of course not. You wouldn’t be here if you had a choice. Besides, Major Goodfellow, you’re a soldier. You should expect to put your life on the line for Canada.”
“Canada, yes. But, not the US. I’m a cyberwarrior not a killer. When I’m hacked, knocked offline or deleted, I don’t expect it to be physical and permanent.”
Frustration contorting his face, Minister Wilson points toward a map of Canada. “I’m disappointed in you Major. You are defending Canada. If the Russians eliminate Pion and Komfort, they will be able to push what’s left of the Coalition’s forces into the Baltic Sea, and that includes some of our Canadian troops. Once Russia overruns the Baltics there is nothing to stop them from taking Finland, Sweden and Norway, should they want. Then they control the Arctic with its oil and fish, and they’re just a few icy miles away from our northern borders.”
“I apologize, sir. But, aren’t you concerned that if the Russians don’t kill me then they are using me to lead them directly to Komfort and Pion?”
“Yes, we are. That’s why we are doing the only thing that we can think to do in this situation. We are hiding you in plain sight and in public. We don’t expect the Russians to attack you if you’re surrounded by other civilians. And then we are funneling you directly into SPEA.”
From his desk, the Minister hands Robert a specially programmed and hack-protected, PCD. “You’ll need this old personal communication device. Learn the information our Intelligence group loaded into it. I know it’s an antique, but they are so paranoid in the US now that they are confiscating hologlasses. They can’t see what you are seeing and that makes them very nervous. Do you remember how to use one of these?”
“It may take me a minute. But, yeah, I think I can figure it out,” Robert exams the PCD. He pushes an icon on its screen and the words Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture appears. The Intel report begins by paraphrasing the Background passage from SPEA’s annual state of the State report.
As Robert starts to shut it off, Wilson stops him, “Let it play. Let’s hear what they have to say. We can both stand to learn a little more about where I’m sending you. That way, if you don’t come back, I will at least know where to start looking for you...”
Wilson grins wickedly, “…or your body.”
Groaning at the Minister’s attempt at humor, Robert initiates the Intelligence report.
“The Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture, commonly referred to as SPEA, is an independent and sovereign state of more than twenty thousand citizens. SPEA is located on a twenty acre artificial island platform constructed upon columns anchored in the lagoon of the submerged and abandoned Pacific island of Kiritimati in the former island-chain nation of Kiribati.
“SPEA is recognized by the United Nations as an independent, member state under the following international definitions: Entities that have a defined territory and a permanent population, that are under the control of their own government, and that engage in, or have the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities. Sovereign states have three absolute prerogatives: independence, equality and unanimity. Independence means a state is completely free to organize any system of government, proclaim an official religion of its choice, and structure its economy as it sees fit. No outside state has any right to interfere in these strictly internal matters. Equality means every state is of equal rank with every other state. Unanimity means that no state is bound by the majority decisions reached by groups of states. A state is bound only if it agrees to be bound. SPEA operates in full accord with the three absolute prerogatives of sovereign states.
“The state of SPEA’s system of government is an Algorithmic governed Democracy, although it is based upon a modified version of the corporate charter under which the Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture was originally incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia of the United States of America. SPEA’s founder and the current President is Dame Gutefrau. She was elected by a vote of SPEA’s employees, who are simultaneously recognized as both stockholders and legal citizens of the state. Each SPEA citizen-employee owns one share and has one vote. The elected Board of Directors serves a dual purpose as SPEA’s legislature and President’s cabinet. Other standard corporate departments and divisions serve similar dual functions for the state of SPEA in a modified matrix structure as follows: Legal is Justice; Marketing is Commerce; Human Resources is Immigration; Finance is Treasury, Operations is State Department; and Security is Department of Homeland Security. SPEA’s corporate culture created SPEA’s state culture.
SPEA’s Algorithmic governance, enabled by big data, is a pure expression of technocracy and is celebrated as a path to an enhanced society. Its Algorithmic governance is a digital reimagining of government centered on computerized processes unified to create a governing network. Fulfilling SPEA’s needs as a corporate state, it supplants current governing systems with a computerized, politician-minimal alternative.”
“Ok, that’s enough. I get it. SPEA is an independent state built on a metal island in the Pacific. You can listen to the rest of it later.” Minister Wilson motions for Robert to stop his PCD.
Robert shuts it off and slides it into his robe pocket.
Wilson fiddles with his desk computer. “So here is our simple plan. We are flying you to D.C. on a commercial flight, so you don’t attract any extra attention. You need to act as if you’re on a business trip. I imagine that won’t be too difficult for a businessman like you. Once you land, you proceed to the SPEA embassy in DC. They know you are coming. At the embassy, you do whatever their ambassador instructs you to do so you are allowed to meet with your friend Mugavus. Hopefully, this savant cyberwarrior woman named Pion is with her. Then, somehow, you convince them to fight another cyberwar for the US.”
Minister Wilson stops and thinks for a moment then adds, “Oh, and you need to move fast. These assassinations and murders are old news now. Our Intelligence tells us the Russians are beginning to reinforce and redeploy their military in the Baltics. Sounds to me like the Russians are straining at that ceasefire like a snarling, snapping Pit Bull on a fragile leash. They are eager to attack. This is a volcano that is about to erupt and destroy us all.”
Chapter 7.
Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture
Robert’s Air Canada airplane climbs out of Ottawa’s Macdonald–Cartier International Airport headed to Washington D.C. Below him, stuck on the tarmac, are three US commercial airline airplanes and hundreds of angry, stranded passengers. All US commercial airlines are grounded this morning. Their companies’ computers have been hacked. At midnight, when US airlines began experiencing significant problems with their flight dispatch systems, the Federal Aviation Administration quickly issued a ground stop, effectively grounding all US airlines and shutting down air travel in, out and around America. His cramped Air Canada flight has the sky to itself.
Robert contorts in his window seat struggling to manufacture a little privacy space so he can discretely view and listen to his antiquated PCD. It is time he learns some more about this state called SPEA. Unfortunately, the obese, tattooed American woman overflowing her seat into his is a snoop. She is making it extremely difficult for him to privately peruse the Canadian Security Intelligence S
ervice’s confidential reports. Wishing that he had been allowed to bring his hologlasses, he twists away from her greasy, gooey, gluttonous globs of flesh again and attempts to begin his review.
As soon as the words Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture appear, his corpulent neighbor pokes him in his ribs and loudly announces in a nasal screech, “My pastor says them people is evil atheists. Yep, Pastor Bush said he seen them burning crosses. You oughtn’t to be reading that. You oughta be reading the writings of President Abaddon. He’s a pastor and man of God.”
Since his effort to ignore her failed, Robert decides to act as if he does not understand her by responding to her in French. “Je ne vous comprend pas. Je ne parle pas anglais, vous truie obèses.”
Unfortunately, speaking French only seems to encourage her. “Oh, you’re one of them foreigners. I shoulda knowed causa your color. We don’t see many foreigners in Platte. We used to have a doctor from Pakistan that looked like you, but he weren’t Christian, so the local Posse Comitatus runned him off. Now we don’t have no doctor in Platte. Missouri that is where I’m from. I’m Pat from Platte Missouri. Where you from?”
Afraid that she will continue her pointless ramblings, if he answers, Robert remains silent and squeezes himself as small as possible into the tiny part of his seat next to the airplane’s bulkhead, farthest away from her, and turns the screen of his PCD away from her.
She continues to chatter, but now it is the unfortunate fellow on her other side who suffers. “I don’t know how I’m gonna to get back to Platte, what with all them airplanes being grounded and all. I just come up here to Canada for my cousin’s funeral. I don’t like Canada. I can’t wait to get back to Missouri where we ain’t got no funny talking foreigners. Sides, I got to be back to work at Wal-Mart tomorrow. I just pray to God. He’ll make it alright. President Abaddon, you know, he made it a law to pray. He’s a preacher you know, a real believer and saint, and…”
Actually, Robert regards Abaddon as being far from a saint. A smarmy, fast-talking televangelist and mega-church leader, Abaddon collected his fortune by pumping funds out of OIL – Old, Infirm and Lame - believers. Abaddon is the OIL King. In his congressional district he achieved cult status where worshippers such as Pat groveled before him and believed his every pronouncement, no matter how insane. Now as President, the OIL continue their unquestioning adulation of him while the rest of the remaining US population cowers in fear. Publicly criticizing Abaddon has proven fatal.
Meanwhile, Pat babbles. Hearing Pat’s twang and cackling reminds Robert of the painful beating he suffered from four rural regressives when he attended Coalition military training at Fort Riley Kansas. While drinking beer in a nearby Junction City tavern, he learned that rural regressives, as he labeled them, are Peter Pans or men who refuse to mentally mature and persist on living in their invented Never-Ever-Was lands of a glorified, non-existent past.
Remembering his encounter in Junction City, Robert recalls a statement he read by Montaigne. “Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.” Self-deluding malcontents, rural regressives loathe anybody and everybody who is successful. Gays, Jews, Blacks, intelligent women, and, most especially, liberal scientists who propose that humans are causing, what the regressives claimed is non-existent global warming, are all conspiring against them they believe. As they explained to him, they know, with certainty, because they passed basic High School science, and because some radical, right-wing-radio, blather-blabber told them so, that global warming is a nefarious plot designed to steal their livelihoods.
Another lesson Robert recollects learning about rural regressives - never tell them the truth. Foolishly, after he had guzzled too many beers to retain his common sense and had listened to one, drunk man-child complain endlessly, Robert told him that he epitomized the masculinization of poverty. Then, he exacerbated his problem by informing him that his girlfriend had deserted him because he had no initiative, no education, no skills and no prospects.
Rural regressives do not enjoy being told that the women who discard them are smarter than them or that they attended college; moved away; found jobs that paid twice as much as they will ever earn; and forgot them. Robert realized too late that such realistic talk shrivels their penises, shrinks their testes and compels them to buy larger and louder trucks they cannot afford, but most importantly, enrages them.
Robert also remembers discovering that night that when you are inebriated and your lips are flapping faster than your mind is thinking, asking rural regressives if the large FFA initialed on their jackets means future failures of America infuriates them, as does asking them if their NRA patch stands for naturally ridiculous asshole. And just because they are always all drinking together, do not jokingly call them homosocials. They did not understand or appreciate his intoxicated humor. The truth hurts, Robert discovered, but not as much as furious, farm boys’ fists.
Robert rubs his now healed, but previously fractured, jaw and wonders in his current sober and clear headed condition if those four ne’er-do-wells are happy now. Abaddon has turned time backward and returned the US to the world they craved –prejudiced, mediocre and moribund. Laughed at losers before Abaddon took power, they are now in control. Semi-literate, semi-educated, semi-employed, and forsaken by all wise women, they are now the decision makers. Returning to a US under their domination continues to horrify him.
Robert shoves those musings out of his mind and accesses the SPEA report again. He increases his earphone’s volume until it drowns out Pat’s endless ramblings. Although it is painful and makes his ears ring, at least he does not hear her. After being tortured by fat Platte Pat’s prattle, listening to the Canadian Security’s Intel report is a soothing relief as it briefly sketches SPEA’s short history.
“Eight years ago, SPEA fled US religious persecution and prosecution and established itself as an independent state. SPEA departed the US following Speaker of the House of Representatives, Reverend Abaddon’s seizure of the US Presidency after President Clanton and Vice President Moore were simultaneously assassinated.
“Although there was no evidence to support him, Abaddon claimed Muslim assassins from ARTAS killed the President and Vice President. He then used the turmoil and confusion following the assassinations to immediately implement martial law nationwide. To enforce his martial law, he employed the Treason, Sedition and Subversive Activities laws to federally activate Posse Comitatus groups and Christian militias. He established his Society Security or SS force by rolling the FBI, Homeland Security, DEA and other national security agencies together under one director, his long-time friend Reverend Hale Himmler.
“Despite the fact that no assassins were identified or linked to ARTAS or any foreign group, the SS, Posse Comitatus and militias initiated a nationwide religious and ethnic cleansing under Abaddon’s Christian Identity Movement. Purges of suspected, less-than-loyal members were conducted within the original agencies, as well. With Abaddon’s support and encouragement, the SS, Posse Comitatus and militias implemented vigilante justice arresting, imprisoning or deporting any suspected non-Christians, all immigrants and alleged Liberals. Nobody was safe. Everybody was suspect. Everybody was under surveillance.”
Robert vividly and painfully recalls those days of turmoil and terror in the US. He was enjoying a well-deserved vacation in San Francisco when the US’ descent into pandemonium started. Three days before he left San Francisco, US President Clanton was assassinated in Little Rock by a laser shot from an aerodrone. Four minutes later, Vice President Moore was similarly assassinated in Knoxville by a laser shot from a second aerodrone. With both assassinations, the Secret Service agents had curiously separated themselves sufficient steps away from the President and Vice President that they suffered no harm. Neither the President nor Vice President had been declared officially dead when Speaker of the House of Representatives, Reverend Abaddon had himself sworn in as US President under the Constitution’s presidential line of suc
cession. Immediately after his swearing in was completed, Abaddon named Chennai his Vice President and in the same statement declared the US under martial law.
Under martial law and for his own safety as a foreigner from Canada, Robert was confined to his hotel and incommunicado for three days. Three long days of not knowing what was actually occurring outside of his hotel and San Francisco. He and his fellow sequestered guests heard only rumors or propaganda. With the rumors arising from the propaganda and conspiracy theories pumped at them twenty-four hours a day by Abaddon’s long-time, sycophantic mouthpiece – Fox Cable News or False Cable News or Faux Cable News as it quickly became known among those trapped in the hotel. All of the other news providers had been silenced by Abaddon under his martial law declaration. He also attempted, but failed, to block the Internet and social media. He could not control what he did not understand.
Abaddon shut down all other information sources immediately after a reporter working for an objective news network imprudently asked the question, ‘Since the Righteous Rightists could never win the US Presidency through free and honest elections, did they steal it through assassination?’ Faux Cable News reported that the foolishly brave reporter had been arrested and charged with inciting insurrection. One day later, Faux Cable News reported that the arrested reporter had committed suicide in her cell. To everyone, but Abaddon’s cronies, all of the events were extremely suspicious, beginning with the twin assassinations.
International news organizations declared Abaddon as the man who murdered himself into the White House. Within days, Abaddon’s Society Security forces had chased most of the international journalists out. A few, too-slow, foreign journalists were jailed. Robert has heard that an unfortunate few of them remained imprisoned.