by Ginger Booth
“But she gets to the town meeting, a newly qualified voter. Speaks flawless English, British accent. And she asks her neighbors for help with day care. Because she wants to pursue her career. Turns out she’s a trained nurse-midwife. Specialty in women’s reproductive health and family medicine. Yeah, who needs that, right? Only half of Long Island. But no one knew. No one talked to her. Until she was vetted as a Hudson voter. Now she’s out of the house, and women have health care again in the town. For her, for Dewar Booker – their voter qualification was like an entry visa into the Hudson mainstream.”
“That’s great,” Amiri agreed. “Now, how many people pass this test?”
Cam admitted, “Only about forty percent. Sad, right? Governor Cullen and I went back and forth on this. Should we make the test easier? Should we require a review class first? But he’s adamant that we set the bar high. That this is the minimum necessary level of skills to make good decisions. People may have to work for it. And then being a Hudson voter can really mean something. And it does. In our test communities, that’s something you can say on a job interview. I’m a qualified voter, not just another day laborer. Employers even demand it, for a supervisory position. Voters land jobs through their contacts from the town meeting, too.”
“And people can try again, if they fail the test?” Amiri asked.
“Absolutely,” Cam agreed, subdued. “But most don’t. The testers work with them, show them what they got wrong, offer classes, encourage them.” Cam shrugged. “You have to want it.”
“And most Americans didn’t vote before,” Amiri led.
“No,” Cam agreed. “Mid-term elections, you’d rarely see more than forty percent of eligible voters vote. More for a presidential election. Less for local elections.”
“Fascinating. This will be a very interesting experiment in democracy,” Amiri said. “And I’d like to point out to our viewers, there are already petitions up on the HudsonVoter.gov website. Lots of variations on schooling, so kids can pass the test!”
Cam nodded affably. Back in Connecticut, he was the only Resco who kept the primary schools open through the worst of the first year. But he let it pass for now.
“But in the interest of time, we need to move on,” Amiri continued. “Instead of freedom of religion, we have licensed religion! What does that mean?”
The room behind us growled in anger.
“SHUT UP!” Sergeant Becque yelled helpfully.
Chapter 11
Interesting fact: Before the Calm Act, 76% of the U.S. considered themselves Christian, about 1.2% Jewish (religious or not), and 0.9% Muslim, with most of the rest non-affiliated. Protestants made up 47%, and Catholics 25%. The hundreds of evangelical denominations, white and black, combined to 33% of Americans.
I had to rewind and restart Cam’s explanation of licensed religion several times. Five Pittsburgh locals needed to be removed to the buffet room and forbidden to return. Sergeant Becque spent most of this segment of the show standing, the better to glare at our visitors. Emmett and Captain Johnson did that officer thing, where they look away blandly while the sergeant does the swearing. I still found that very odd to watch. The continued throbbing, warbling ululation of the tornado sirens tipped the scene well into the surreal. I could feel that siren thrumming in my bones.
Meanwhile, Cam explained that apocalyptic religions and blamers and haters were behind much of the unrest the martial law government had to put down the past two years. These new religions, and new twists on old religions, were understandably popular. People were scared, stressed, hurting, unemployed, grieving. Their worlds were turned upside down. Unfortunately, it was also easy to whip such people into a mob mentality. Good people were being led to do bad things.
At the same time, religious leaders and their congregations were stepping up everywhere to provide public services that didn’t otherwise exist anymore. Soup kitchens. Day care. Schooling. Counseling. Even hospice care and first aid. Our communities depended on them. They were granted an extraordinary level of trust. And most of them deserved it.
The Hudson folk in the audience were in the same boat I was. We saw both of these faces of religion every day in the broken shards of New York City. Hellfire and brimstone street corner hawkers accosted us to tell us we would burn for all eternity. I had armed guards to shove them off. But every so often, we’d turn a street corner to find a clump of the loonies with a poor woman or teenager backed into a wall, terrorizing a innocent passerby. My soldiers left the guilty bloody on the sidewalk. But the militia couldn’t keep up with them. Street-corner proselytizers infested the city like cockroaches.
Yet nine out of ten apples – our slang for the survivors in the ‘Apple Core’, New York City – probably ate a meal every day at a church or synagogue or mosque. Most apples had serious emotional scars from their starving year, from the survivor guilt of watching 9 out of 10 of their neighbors die. Of the 50 official communities of the new Apple, 6 even had a religious rather than secular leader. Most of the others had serious religious backing.
Religion mattered in our new world order. It mattered a lot.
“So seeking converts is forbidden?” Amiri prompted.
“Absolutely forbidden,” Cam confirmed. “For example, a soup kitchen in a church. You can have religious posters on the walls. You can have a sign inviting people to come back on Sunday. Or Friday, or Saturday. But you cannot – absolutely cannot – disrupt people’s breakfast by preaching at them. You may attract, by being a good example. You can tell people who ask about your church. You can even wear a button saying, ‘Ask me about God!’ But you cannot accost people. You cannot hold rallies to seek converts. You cannot try to persuade people to your faith except during regularly scheduled services. They have to come because they want to. You’re not even allowed to hand out flyers.”
“I see,” said Amiri. “You and I have spent a lot of time in the Apple Zone, of course. And I understand this completely. I mean, we see the abuses every day there. I wonder if the people outside the Apple are as familiar with the problem. If they won’t be more offended at the idea of licensing and… Well, repressing freedom of speech regarding religion, really.”
Cam nodded. “Maybe. But, please understand. If you’re lucky enough to live in a community where these abuses aren’t happening? You aren’t negatively affected by the law. On Long Island, I expected a lot of push back. What I found instead was that the religious leaders were delighted. Ah, I can’t really vouch for the public. I’m a pretty heavy-handed Resco that way.”
Amiri laughed. “You never allowed proselytizing in the first place.”
“No,” Cam said categorically. “Forbade it immediately. Forced a few pushy new religions underground. Where they stayed. And shrank. Because they’re not allowed to seek converts.” Cam didn’t pretend to apologize.
Cam went on to explain that the licensing roll-out would take time. Clergy could continue their duties until after the December holidays, but by January needed to complete the licensing requirements.
The requirements were pretty steep. They needed 20 character witnesses, vouching for 4 different skill sets. Full disclosure of the tenets of their creed. And they needed to attend a multi-day interfaith training seminar, and be sanctioned by their instructors. Continuing education required them to attend shorter seminars annually.
The ban on proselytizing, however, was effective immediately. Street-corner preachers and soup kitchen evangelists were simply a public nuisance, like peeing on a wall or failing to pick up after your dog.
-o-
The tornado sirens ceased earlier than expected, and I paused the program. We stood and stretched. Amazing how a noise like that seeps into your neck muscles. I’d been bracing myself against its onslaught for hours, pushing back at sound.
Most of the local audience remained seated. “Can we stay and watch the rest?” a woman called out.
“And ask questions after?” one of the late-arriving militia added.
; “Is PA getting a constitution, too?” asked a third. Alas, this unleashed the questioning reflex, and lots of hands went up.
Brandy of IndieNews didn’t raise her hand. “Colonel MacLaren! Why aren’t you at the top of the list of successors?”
“SHUT UP!” yelled Sergeant Becque, at a slight glance from Emmett.
Emmett waited until every last whispering voice fell silent. “Mr. Wiehl?” he asked mildly.
“I’d like to see the end,” Wiehl confessed. “I think the hotel staff would appreciate it, too.” Our soldiers nodded their heads emphatically. They could watch it on their phones, but that wasn’t nearly as good as the big screen. And most of them were dying to hear Emmett answer Brandy’s question. He’s got ardent supporters, the Hero of Project Reunion.
“Alright,” Emmett relented. “I need a 10-minute break, then we’ll resume.” He wanted to make sure our walk-in militia guests stayed to talk with him later.
In the meantime, he handed me his phone, which had been chirping mercilessly. The entire senior Resco list of Hudson was on the message queue, but nothing red-flagged. I didn’t read the messages, just wrote back to all of them.
Watching Cam with 50+ Pitts in tornado shelter. Running late. Deeb.
PS Thought center LI was ours. Thief! Deeb.
That second text was intended only for Cam. I realized a moment too late that I’d copied all of them again – including Governor Cullen. The same list I’d used for the first text. Drat.
PPS Oops. PS was joke to Cam. Haha. Congrats C&D! Deeb shuts up now.
I handed the phone back to Emmett when he returned, and showed him the interchange. “Sorry…” He blew out an unhappy sigh, but didn’t say anything.
The rest of the constitution special went fairly quickly. They didn’t have details yet on two sticky bits – how weapons would be collected, and how troops would be released to resign from the military. Up to 10% were free to resign effective immediately, provided they had a community ready to accept them. The hangup was that the border garrisons belonged to no community except the army. So where would they go? And what would they walk away with? Their contracts promised major veteran’s benefits. But the government which made those promises was defunct.
(“PR could do another adoption database for retiring military,” I suggested to Emmett. He nodded, seemingly with reservations.)
Apparently our Governor Sean Cullen and Cam both felt strongly about the anti-slavery clause. At the outset of the Calm Act, all then-serving U.S. forces lost the right to resign. A number of conscientious objectors, who refused to police the borders against fellow Americans, were still serving time in military prisons. Localities and employers had also started offering indenture and sharecropper deals, such as contracts for farmland in exchange for 7 years service, or job training in exchange for long terms. New England had proposed a price for a degree at UConn, that students be required to serve New England for 6 years. This trend reminded Sean and Cam of the migrant slave laborers they’d seen in the Middle East, bereft of their passports and stuck for years in dire working conditions and labor camps, trying to pay off the cost of their airfare. They wanted to set a standard where citizens might not have much, but at least they had the freedom to walk away from a bad deal.
Cam’s original proposal back in March, when the U.S. was disbanded, had been a simple constitution that declared us a country, enough to be getting on with. It skipped any bill of rights, which was the major objection to it. As Amiri pointed out, this new constitution went far beyond the original concept, and granted us a rather quirky set of liberties. As Cam pointed out, quirky was better than none, and we had the means to petition for more.
“This constitution doesn’t require ratification,” Amiri prompted, reaching the end of the document.
Cam shrugged cordially. “We considered weasel wordings. But the truth is, we are under martial law. We sought direct citizen input, by testing the new rules in sample communities. We decided on this document, and the rules by which this document can evolve. And in the end, it really doesn’t require ratification.”
Governor Cullen joined the broadcast briefly to say some encouraging words, and thank Cam for all his hard work. Yes, Cullen had shared the constitution earlier in the day with the other ex-U.S. military governors. They said nice things for public consumption. Sean Cullen didn’t divulge any hints as to their private concerns. He received congratulations from far afield, including super-states we didn’t often hear from, including Florida, Arkansas–Louisiana–Mississippi, and Wisconsin–Illinois.
Canada had already formally recognized Hudson as a nation, our most powerful surviving nation neighbor left in North America. Also chiming in were Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and – surprise! – the Naval Republic of Hawaii. Apparently Hawaii had voted itself a nation a couple weeks ago, but was still drafting the announcements and constitution. Owned lock, stock, and barrel by the ex-U.S. Navy, I wasn’t sure who voted in Hawaii. Cullen didn’t elaborate. He didn’t mention Mexico, either.
Amiri asked when the governor foresaw Hudson getting the right to vote at the national level. Cullen said it really depended on the weather. But for at least the next five years, he anticipated Hudson would need to focus on its primary goal of uplifting all communities to level 5 and above. And communities already above that level should seek to improve locally.
“The first annual address will be this November,” Cullen said. “I encourage Hudsons to earn the right to vote as soon as possible, and make your voice heard via petitions. This constitution is intended to be an evolving document.”
He signed off, and Amiri and Cam discussed how that was possible, to implement widespread voter qualification so quickly. Cam explained that Long Island, with several months’ experience in voter vetting, was offering testers and tester trainers as a work for hire, at reasonable rates. Also do-it-yourself packages for less complex communities, and how-to-test seminars in cities across Hudson. The Apple Core had already contracted for 100 Long Island voter registration trainers.
(I raised an eyebrow at Emmett. He nodded.)
Long Island’s clergy were also happily leading the first religious licensing seminar, already waiting-list-only, to be held in Port Chester. The HudsonVoter.gov website provided details of all this and more. Yada yada. Special ends.
Emmett blew out a slow breath beside me. Reluctantly, he stood up and faced the crowd, as I set the big screen to show the website.
-o-
“Hi, guys,” Emmett said hopefully to our small crowd. “Let’s have just a few questions, OK? It’s past my bedtime. And I have a whole lot of email to answer tonight before I sleep.”
Indeed. Emmett’s phone had gone berserk with the chirping ever since my faux pas. I suspected his Resco peers and coworkers in Hudson were annoyed, to say the least.
The room erupted in babble. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Sergeant Becque reminded them.
Emmett waited for pin-drop level silence, then invited mildly, “Raise hands, please, and I will call on you. Yes, Ma’am?”
This was one of the random Pittsburgh passersby who took tornado shelter with us, a thin but athletic twenty-something in bluejeans. Emmett was likely as curious about her as she was of him. She said, “Your name was on the list. On that constitution. Who are you, please? And why are you here?”
Emmett blinked. “That’s a large question.” With considerable back-and-forth, it became evident that most of the Pittsburghers had never heard of Project Reunion and the relief of New York City. Never heard of Emmett MacLaren. Were a bit hazy on what a Resco was. They’d heard of Dane Beaufort, but most seemed shocked to hear that he was dead.
The militia men standing in back were not surprised, however. They looked grim, and intently studied their boot toes.
“My IBIS associates are here to investigate the death,” Emmett wrapped up. “And I’ve been asked to make recommendations about where we go from here.”
One of the militia stepped forward and ra
ised his hand aggressively. Emmett pointed at him to go ahead. “What are the possibilities? About what happens next?”
“I’m not sure,” Emmett replied guardedly. “General Taibbi has not given me parameters yet.”
“Who?”
Emmett stared at him, discouraged. “Air Force General Seth Taibbi? The military governor of Pennsylvania?”
“What happened to Tolliver?” the militia man returned, equally puzzled.
“Wow,” Emmett returned. “General Tolliver was executed during a military coup in January. Eight months ago? That ended the war between Penn and New York–New Jersey. Now Hudson. Were you people aware that Pennsylvania attacked New York last Thanksgiving? That we were at war? Until the January coup.”
Apparently not.
“Outstanding,” Emmett breathed. “OK, it’s late. Let’s stick to current events. Sergeant?”
If he was trying to avoid this question by not calling on Brandy, it didn’t work. Sergeant Becque asked what was foremost on all our guards’ minds. “Why aren’t you first on that succession list, Colonel?”
Emmett nodded. “I appreciate your loyalty, gang. Really. It means a lot to me. But please understand – I think I belong at the bottom of that list. Obviously, that list is the senior Rescos of Hudson. That makes sense. We’re the intermediaries between the national and local levels. We’re the face of the martial law government. I am the youngest, newest, least experienced, lowest ranked of those lead Rescos. They’re native Hudsons. I’m a hillbilly from the Ozarks. When I grow up, I want to be like those guys. OK? Please don’t be offended for me. Because I’m not offended. I’d be honored to serve under any of them. And – I already do. Next?” He sighed, and said, “Brandy.”