by R E Kearney
Locating the extremely rare kernel of truth, buried deep within the obsequious Faux Cable News quickly became a drinking game for the bored hotel guests. Gathered in the hotel bar, the quests compared Faux News reports with truthful reports from social media. For every obvious Faux News lie or misrepresentation of facts, hotel guests drank a shot. Trying as hard as he could, he never located any facts or truths in any of Faux’s news, so he drank a lot. After two days, all of the hotel guests declared that Faux never provided any facts or truth. But by then, they had found laughing at Faux news’ ridiculous claims and simply drinking a far too enjoyable way to waste time. Then the hotel bar ran out of alcoholic beverages and the fun ended. And as any true Canadian will tell you, when the alcohol is gone it is time to go.
Only because he was a Canadian military officer was he finally allowed to leave the protection of the city for home. But, San Francisco authorities strongly warned him against traveling alone or leaving the main highways in rural America. “They’ve gone crazy in the country! Abaddon’s backwoods bubbas are armed, dangerous and have seized control.”
A fellow Canadian, a Jewish psychotherapist also locked in the hotel, refused to leave until he could fly directly from San Francisco to Israel. He called Robert crazy when he suggested that they return to Canada together. “I know the fools that are out there. I’ve researched these groups for the past decade. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. You cannot reason with these people. Their belief in a highly combustible mix of extreme religious, social, and political views makes them extremely dangerous and incorrigible.”
He continued to caution Robert, as he packed. “If you were Jewish, you’d realize the biblical significance of Abaddon seizing the Presidency and turning his science deniers, Righteous Rightists and other confederates loose to torture and brutalize the US. In Hebrew, the name Abaddon means place of destruction or the Destroyer and according to Revelations is the name of the angel of the Abyss. Now, in Revelations, when Abaddon blows his trumpet, the Abyss, which is described as a great smoking pit, will open, and a horde of demonic locusts will rise out of it. These creatures will be given the power to torture any person who does not bear God’s seal and the pain they inflict will be so intense that sufferers will wish to die. So as the ruler of the Abyss, Abaddon is the king of these demonic locusts or in our case, President of the science deniers, Righteous Rightists and other radical-right, evangelical buffoons.”
As Robert hauled his bags to his rented driverless car, the psychotherapist followed and continued lecturing him. “Small towns spawn small minds. They’re uneducated, ignorant, unemployed rural rubes who finally have some power, after years of being laughed at as the village idiot and dismissed. They are feckless failures and brainless bullies. And those are just the leaders. Worker bees in the movement tend to be much lower-educated. Abaddon is galvanizing militia members who truly think apocalypse is at hand. They see themselves as moving into a heroic domain, a higher purpose. So, I’m staying right here until I immigrate to Israel. I’ve no desire to die in a ditch or nailed to some Christian Militia’s cross.”
Unfortunately, although concerned, Robert had no choice at that time. All non-military airplanes were grounded, forcing him to traverse the three thousand miles between San Francisco and Canada by highway. It was a harrowing, horrifying six day ride. Remembering his earlier experiences with rural regressives in Kansas, he only traveled during the day and never left the main highway. But, despite his best efforts, he was still swallowed up in the Christian Militia and Posse Comitatus violence in rural areas of Nebraska and Iowa. Hate strangled the heartland.
Just outside of Grand Island, Nebraska, a local Christian Militia harassed him at their hastily erected check point on Interstate 80. Six morbidly obese, white men with Confederate battle flags sewn onto their shirts next to a cross forced Robert to exit his car. His new, driverless, electric car enflamed their hate for the robots and the computers replacing them. With hammers and boards, they unleashed their angry abuse on the rental car, denting and scratching it. Later, they laughed as they repeatedly slammed him against his now battered vehicle.
Because he is mulatto, the Militia accused him of being a rag-head Arab. With breath stinking so strongly of beer, cigarettes and pyorrhea that it made Robert’s eyes water, they screamed and spit racial insults into his face. They rifled through his luggage and car tossing his clothes onto the pavement, and stepping on them while they searched. Looking for guns and drugs, they claimed, which Robert considered quite ironic. To him, it seemed that all of the guns in the US were in the hands of the militias and Conservative crazies and not with people like him. Finally, after an hour of abuse and battering, Robert was allowed to proceed. But, the militiamen only allowed him to reload the car and progress after he promised them he would leave America and not return. Ignoring the disappearance of the five hundred dollars inside his Canadian passport also helped facilitate his escape.
East of Iowa City near the town of West Branch, Robert encountered the local Posse Comitatus vigorously enforcing President Abaddon’s edicts. His car was forced to stop by the side of highway by a dilapidated pick-up truck carrying four armed men in its truck bed. This time, the Posse Comitatus was not after him. They were clearing the highway so a convoy, which another battered pick-up truck was leading, could pass. Robert watched packed car after packed car pass. He noticed that all of the people riding in the cars appeared to be Asian or African. He also noticed that there were University of Iowa bumper stickers or University of Iowa parking stickers on the majority of the cars. Sadly, he concluded that even the University’s staff had not escaped Abaddon’s pogrom.
Although still squashed into a corner of his airline seat, a tremendous feeling of relief and exhilaration rushes through Robert as he recalls the moment when he finally passed through Point Edward into Canada. He remembers how, as he crossed the border into Canada, he had promised himself to never venture outside of the major cities of the US again, if ever he was foolish enough to enter the US again. But now, after eight additional years under Abaddon, the country has come to the cities. He understands that America’s major cities are overrun by rural refugees attempting to escape the rampant crime and collapse of civil services in the countryside. Overrun by thousands of the poor, unskilled and unemployable, even Washington D.C. has grown very unfriendly to foreigners – Canadians included.
With increasing trepidation about re-entering the US, Robert returns his attention to the Intel report where he paused it.
“…Abaddon also employed the Treason, Sedition and Subversive Activities laws to oust all Democratic Senators and Congressmen and any Republican Senators and Congressmen who were not members of his Righteous Rightists Republican wing. In a special election, conducted under especially restrictive voter qualification laws, members of the Righteous Rightists wing secured complete control of the US Congress. Four months after the suspect assassinations, Abaddon secured dictatorial control of the US.”
“Having total control of the US government, Abaddon broadened his Treason, Sedition and Subversive Activities laws to include US companies and corporations. His American Christians First hiring laws specifically prohibited employing immigrants, non-Christians, homosexuals, unwed mothers, handicapped, etc. The list lengthened and changed each day, as he added new groups he considered enemies of his brand of Christianity. Corporation officers were given ninety days to comply with his hiring laws. If they did not comply within ninety days, all corporation officials would be arrested, corporation funds would be confiscated and all corporation property would be expropriated.”
“Historians are identifying Abaddon’s ninety day exodus order as the spark that ignited the quest for liberation from centuries-old, obsolete, Westphalian, land-nations by an increasing number of newborn Corporate Cyberstates. Others are proclaiming Abaddon’s order as the start of today’s Economic conflict pitting religion-politique ruled nations against independent secular corporate state
s. Abaddon has simply declared it a war between Christianity and Secular Humanism and he has vowed to take no prisoners.
“Ignorance evicted intelligence,” Robert cringes. He dreads returning to President Abaddon, the destroyer, and his demonic locusts’ treacherous, post-apocalyptic world of intolerance, idiocy and hate. The theocratic Christian dictatorship sought by America’s Evangelists for decades is now the law of the land of the no longer free. And it is Hell.
Chapter 8.
Dulles International
Fat Pat hesitates for a moment to shovel a large bag of potato chips into her gaping maw. Seizing this scarce second of silence, the passenger she has been haranguing tells her that as much as he is enjoying their conversation, he needs to review his arguments for his court appearance. Although, Robert has difficulty hearing the man over fat Pat’s chip chomping, he learns that the man is attempting to recover property for an American company that moved its headquarters to Canada. Robert is familiar with the man’s plight.
Robert recalls how years ago, while safely ensconced in his home in Toronto, he had watched Abaddon execute legalized larceny on a nationwide scale. It was the beginning of America’s plunge into dystopia - a time of turmoil, troubles and terror. Abaddon’s Christian-only laws created an immediate, massive exodus. US Multinationals and corporations rapidly transferred their funds to overseas banks and their officials to overseas headquarters. Foreign multinational corporations recalled their personnel and shuttered their US facilities. Corporate airplanes flew twenty-four hours a day airlifting officials and critical employees out of the US. Freight transporters, FedEx and UPS added airplanes and crews to respond to the demand for relocating materials and equipment.
Scarpering non-Christians, homosexuals, single women, naturalized US citizens, immigrant workers and anti-Abaddon US citizens jammed the highways into Canada and Mexico. Within two days, every room, every house, every trailer and every recreational vehicle in southern Canada was stuffed with Americans escaping Abaddon. Robert rented his two extra bedrooms to business associates from Detroit. They still live with him.
The value of Robert’s properties quadrupled. Within ninety days, thousands of the best business minds, engineers, doctors, educators, scientists and researchers fled the US. California’s Silicon Valley shriveled into silica valley – sand and tumbleweeds. Google, Amazon and the independent space satellite providers vacated the US. NASA soon meant Not A Spaceman Around.
Only corporations and companies lashed directly to US soil, such as mining, petroleum production, railroads, airlines and merchandisers remained. Fat Platte Pat’s Wal-Mart remained, although many of its shelves remain empty of the Chinese products Abaddon banned. But even those organizations suffered a burgeoning brain drain.
Once the human knowledge and skill exodus started it did not stop for three years. The US economy collapsed. Then the world economy followed, cratering into a deep recession. Robert considers himself lucky to still have his renters to help him pay expenses.
Fat Pat shifts in her seat. Her plump, porcine posterior crushes Robert deeper into the bulkhead. He attempts to secure some space, but she is in silent slumber. Snoring and snorting. Although he is uncomfortable, he certainly does not want to wake her. He twists and squirms and creates a little more breathing room, allowing him to return to his SPEA review.
“As with other US multinational corporation leadership, SPEA’s President Dame Gutefrau refused to implement or abide by Abaddon’s laws. With all of its plantations and production facilities outside of the US, SPEA had only its headquarters’ staff in New York City to move to its newly completed artificial island. She and the officers of SPEA fled the US just ahead of more than one hundred SS Deacons storming their offices to arrest them. Thanks to Gutefrau, SPEA was in a far better position to escape than most corporations because she had the foresight to begin seasteading in Kiribati two years before.
“Gutefrau had insightfully recognized that it was becoming increasingly difficult to conduct business in America as Congress grew increasingly conservative and anti-science with Abaddon as Speaker of the House. She and Abaddon butted heads numerous times regarding his anti-climate-change and science denying policies, his anti-immigration policies, his GMO opposition, his anti-female statements, and his imposition of creationist studies in US schools. Abaddon combined bellicosity with arrogant ignorance. Gutefrau combined intelligence with acumen and realized it was advantageous to abandon the US two years before Abaddon’s coup d’etat. She started preparing SPEA to leave after she was dragged before Abaddon’s congressional committee to answer questions about SPEA’s hiring of immigrant scientists to conduct GMO research.”
The statement about Abaddon’s hearings elicits Robert’s memories of viewing some of his committee’s public lynchings. In Canada, his hearings were compared to the Roman Catholic inquisition - tortuous. He was brutal. But he met his match when he subpoenaed Gutefrau. Known for enjoying being controversial and confrontational, Gutefrau relished antagonizing Abaddon during his hearings. Robert remembers how he enjoyed watching her publicly deride him and attack his antiquated, fundamentalist, evangelical beliefs. Thinking about those hearings reminds Robert of what Neil deGrasse Tyson once said, “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
The airplane hit an air pocket jerking Robert’s attention away from his memories and back to the Intel report once again.
“Following her confrontational hearings with Abaddon, Gutefrau started negotiations with the President of Kiribati to buy his nation. SPEA and the people of Kiribati were a perfect match, both of them needed to escape their current countries. Kiribati was quickly becoming swamped by rising seas and losing all its land territory to global climate change. SPEA needed a home free of Abaddon’s onerous dictates. Always considering a problem as an opportunity for success, Gutefrau quickly went to work to once again take advantage of climate change for SPEA’s benefit.”
“As long ago as June 2008, the Kiribati President Anote Tong said that Kiribati had reached ‘the point of no return.’ He added, ‘To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful but I think we have to do that.’ Kiribati officials asked Australia and New Zealand to accept Kiribati citizens as permanent refugees. Both countries declined. In April 2013, President Tong began urging citizens to evacuate the islands and migrate elsewhere. Years later, when SPEA told the Kiribati government it would buy their submerged and sinking islands, the desperate people still struggling to survive there were ecstatic to be saved. Some people buy an island. Gutefrau bought an island nation. She was quickly lauded with an immeasurable amount of international acclaim and good will for rescuing the people of Kiribati. She was also nominated for a Nobel Prize.”
“Using Chinese engineers and workers, SPEA immediately started constructing an artificial island on columns fifteen feet above the semi-submerged island of Kiritimati. SPEA is knee deep in water while standing on solid ground. Experienced by having constructed several artificial islands in the South China Sea’s Spratly Island chain, the Chinese proved skilled and adept. From a purely business point of view, Gutefrau recognized that the Chinese were close, convenient, experienced, fast and cheap. Using the newest 3D layered manufacturing equipment, nanotechnology, graphene, Geopolymer, self-repairing concrete and other composite materials, SPEA’s beautiful new home quickly started rising from the sea like Botticelli’s Venus - fully grown. Which is exactly what Gutefrau named the Earth’s newest island – Venus.”
A video of Gutefrau speaking appears on his PCD. “SPEA must always be the innovator, the inventor, the imaginer, the pusher of the envelope. If you are just looking at the horizon, you are being short sighted. You must look over the horizon. You must…”
“Ping!” The voice of the pilot yanks Robert back to reality. “Flight attendants please prepare the cabin for landing. We are beginning our approach to Dulles airport.”
The airplane glides sm
oothly down toward the tarmac. Outside his airplane window, two drones appear, escorting them to the tarmac. With a small shake and a bump the airplane’s wheels roll onto the landing runway. Then the airplane ride turns rough. The airplane bounces and shakes as it taxies toward the terminal. Small pot holes, breaks and fissures scar the taxiway. Through his window, Robert notices airplane after airplane sitting at the airport gates. The US airlines are still grounded. With all of the gates filled with grounded airplanes, the only space left for the Canadian airplane is outside on the tarmac at the far end of concourse D.
Robert watches a motorized stairway and four uniformed men approach his airplane. As soon as the flight attendant opens the cabin door four armed SS storm inside the airplane. Loudly, they order all passengers to remain in their seats and to display their passports. Passenger by passenger, the SS inspects the offered identifications. Although, they carefully scrutinize every passenger, they appear to be searching for a particular individual. Slowly they proceed through the cabin. Near the aft end, the SS grab a Hispanic appearing female passenger. Wrestling with her, they roughly drag her forward. One of the SS punches her several times when she locks her grip onto a seat and refuses to let go. After several minutes of screaming, biting and fighting, the SS and the woman finally exit.
Five minutes later, the captain releases the passengers. As Robert deplanes past the flight attendant, he inquires about the woman detained by the SS. The flight attendant shares that he heard the woman tell them she is a bioengineering professor returning from conducting research overseas. “When one of the SS noticed SPEA Amare Terra tea bags and a bag of SPEA Amare Terra coffee without tax stamps in her bag, they arrested her for possessing contraband and demanded that she deplane with them. When she refused, they forcibly hauled her off.”