by Darrell Bain
“My God, what a pretty place that is!” Shirley exclaimed.
“As good as Colorado?”
“Damn near. It reminds me of a place out there I've seen a few times, but this is much larger. I think I'll like it here.”
“Don't get too enamored with it; this is a job, remember?” But Daniel said it lightly, knowing that wouldn't be a problem.
The two of them stood there for a while, admiring the vista. He didn't know what Shirley's thoughts were, but even as he gazed out over the valley, he wondered why he had never seen such a picturesque place on a postcard or in a painting or on the Arkansas and Missouri web sites he had perused as soon as he had known where he would be going. Didn't they want any tourists, or the money they would leave behind when they departed? He added that to the questions he intended to ask.
“Well, shall we get on down there and get started?” Shirley asked while trying to brush away strands of hair blowing around her face.
“Let's do it. I'm anxious to meet these people.”
Daniel got behind the wheel and they began the descent into Masterville Valley.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tyrone Beamer was a natural leader. He possessed charisma in ample quantities, but more importantly, men and women he came in contact with trusted him. His firm, Beamer Research, was the source of more jobs than any other company in the valley and he took that responsibility seriously. He personally passed on every person hired, and once hired, very few of his employees ever quit. Had Beamer chosen, he could have been Mayor of Masterville, or possibly a congressman from the district it was in, but he had no desire to become involved in politics-other than when absolutely necessary, as it was now. His main interest was in genetics, and in another research project just now beginning to bear fruit.
He had asked all the members of the informal council to come up to the plant, leaving only Lisa Berry, the newest member, to stay at the Bed and Breakfast in order to welcome the NSA agents when they arrived. Otherwise, everyone was present, from the Mayor and Police Chief on down. Other than those two officials, everyone else on the council was a private citizen. His assistants worked at the plant; the others didn't. It really didn't matter. The deciding criterion was whether they knew that they differed from men and women in other parts of the country.
Beamer sat at the head of the long conference table, waiting on Tim and Gina to arrive. As each of the other members appeared, he waved to the side of the room where coffee and cold drinks and snacks were arrayed. Most of them were drinking coffee. Seeing that Beamer was still waiting on the other two, Charles Masters, the Police Chief, decided to ask his question now.
“Tyrone, you know we don't mind coming up here, but I'm wondering why? Wouldn't it have been easier to convene this meeting in town and just have you come down? Or you could have plugged in by video and we wouldn't have minded.” He chuckled and added, “Hell, my old truck damn near didn't make it up the mountain.”
The door opened and Tim and Gina came in and seated themselves, Gina carrying a portable connection to her switchboard in case someone in the plant wanted to ask a question or needed help that wouldn't wait.
Beamer nodded and smiled at his assistants then turned to Masters, whose ancestors had been one of the first families to settle in the area. “Well, Charlie, from now on it's a matter of security. I can be fairly certain that this place isn't bugged but I can't say the same about your office-or anywhere else in town. The feds arrive today, and I guess I don't have to tell you, the bugs they use nowadays are so tiny it takes a damn microscope and vacuum cleaner to find them, even if they're active. And if they're not, God himself couldn't spot them.”
“Who in hell would be bugging us, Tyrone? Is that what this is all about?” Eileen Tupper had a sharp voice to go with her brown, angular face, but it didn't seem to prevent her from being reelected Mayor every four years.
“The feds are on to us-and they've started an investigation,” Beamer said simply. “I said they're coming today, but it's possible some are already here and I just don't know about it. That's why the precautions so soon. Besides, we may as well get in the habit. This may go on a long time.”
“Investigation? What in hell—” Charlie Masters half rose from his seat before he realized he was doing it.
“Sit back, Charlie, and I'll explain.”
The Police Chief sat back down but his body remained tense, as if coiled for a gunfight.
“Okay, here's the situation,” Beamer began, making eye contact with each of the five other persons there, besides himself and his two assistants. “Some clerk in the Census department finally put a lot of the things we've discovered about ourselves together. He made a big deal over it, apparently hacking into data where government clerks aren't allowed to go, legally, and pulled up damn near everything that we know about. Then he turned it over to his supervisor. From there it went up the chain to the FBI and the National Security Agency. The President has authorized the NSA to investigate our valley, citing us as a possible security threat to the nation.”
There was silence around the table as Beamer's words sank in. Fred Collins, a feed store owner who liked to play around with how religion shaped societies as a hobby, had stumbled over the rather obvious dearth of religious beliefs in the valley. From there he had gone on to discover a few other of the anomalies and had mentioned them to the mayor, which in turn got him admitted to the club. He was the first to speak, frowning as he did. “Tyrone, you know some of those people in Washington. Why in hell would they think we're a threat just because we're a bit different?”
“We have a hyper-religious President in office and the same kind of fundamentalist in charge of the National Security Agency. We're no threat to anyone, of course, but I believe we'll be touted as one, simply for political advantage if nothing else. Personally, though, I think both the President and Murray Phillips, the NSA Director, really and truly believe our differences could be detrimental to the country. It's just another case of being an unfortunate minority.”
Eileen Tupper nodded silently, having heard tales about the old segregated south from her grandmother, who was still alive and active. And she had encountered some of the modern, more subtle methods of discrimination when she went away to college.
“But how? How on earth could fifty thousand of us threaten more than three hundred million of them?” It was a plaintive question from Eric Buffers, the Library Director. He, too, had independently discovered some of the differences and told the mayor about them, who had in turn informed Beamer.
“It's not even fifty thousand, Eric. Remember, we're in the majority here, but there are plenty of others living in the valley who aren't like us. Anyway, I imagine they think our beliefs might spread and corrupt all the good Christians who put Bobby Lee in office. There's no legal basis for it, of course, but the government can always come up with a logical-sounding reason to do whatever they care to-and in our case, find a religious minded judge to back them up.”
“You said the feds were coming. Is it just the NSA, or other agencies?” Eileen asked.
“Just the NSA for now, so far as I know; but you can bet your bottom dollar others will get involved before too long. Bobby Lee will make certain of that. An election is coming and he'll use us as an example of why he should stay in office. He'll make us out to be the bogeymen under the bed. He might even claim we're the home of the Anti-Christ; I wouldn't put it past him. The question we need to answer here today is what to do about it?”
Charlie Masters ran his hand through his thick thatch of graying hair. “Tyrone, what in hell can we do about it? I can just see myself arresting a NSA agent. About two seconds later I'd be the one behind bars. I know a little bit about those spooks, and they play hardball, believe me.”
“If we know who they are, why don't I just run an article in the paper and identify them-and demand that they tell us what they're here for?” Jeremiah Jones, a small thin man with a huge excess of energy, published the Masterville Clario
n, a twice weekly small town newspaper, but a very good one. He had turned down offers to edit much larger papers. He had begun noticing differences in the valley people compared to the general population soon after Beamer had. He had published one piece about fewer marriages in their population than the national average before Beamer had cautioned him about drawing attention to the valley. It was soon after this that Beamer had formed the “council” as they all called it, though so far it had been mainly a discussion group, a place to vent their knowledge among others who knew, rather than taking it public.
“Jerry, we can't do that; publishing their names would not only give away my source; it wouldn't help. They would just feed some more agents into place. We're just damn lucky we had advance warning, though I'll confess I don't know how much good that will do us. What I'm really thinking about is a pre-emptive strike.”
“How so? You're not talking about physical force, I hope,” Masters said.
“No, that won't work and we all know it. I was thinking more in terms of an internet and media campaign to present us in a positive light, along with seeing if we can co-opt some of the lawyers among us, and the one judge I'm sure of. That and getting Jerry to use his media connections to let the world know we're just ordinary people, not monsters.”
“In other words, you're saying we should go public, is that it?” Eileen asked, a worried frown on her face.
“Yes, but not just yet. Let's see what those NSA agents are up to first, but in the meantime have our preparations ready.” Beamer shrugged and spread his hands. “Hell, it might turn out that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe no one will really give a damn if the people in some little valley don't go to church or marry that much.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Uh uh. I can guarantee you that this is the kind of human interest story that will make national headlines if it ever becomes public, especially if all our little differences are spread out for the public to see.”
“Some of them will get favorable ratings, like our city not always begging for federal dollars and keeping our schools out of the national grid and controlled locally. And paying for our own infrastructure, and so forth.” Eileen said.
Beamer and Jones both nodded a negative in unison. Beamer spoke. “Those things will get favorable publicity if it comes to that, but they can also cause resentment after the government puts a spin on the story. And the religion/marriage thing will overwhelm all other aspects. Remember, we're in the Bible Belt. Once the story breaks, we'll draw all kinds of hellfire and damnation from preachers, and not just locally.”
“And you think it will break, don't you?” Masters asked, looking directly into Tyrone Beamer's eyes.
“I do. I think we should wait before doing anything, but in the meantime, watch those agents. And we need to start bringing more of our people into the loop. Also, we need to co-opt someone real good with the net, so we can publicize our good points, and raise hell with the government for investigating us.”
Fred looked around the table at the others then spoke up, directing his question to Beamer. “Tyrone, we all discovered this thing independently, except for Charlie. How in hell do we know who is one of us and who isn't? Have you discovered some sort of a marker, maybe?”
“No, but some habits of the ones we want to contact are common knowledge. Take Judge Myers. Remember the hoorah in the Capitol when he ruled against us being forced to use state Textbooks? And we all have friends that we know who share similar lifestyles. Just be discreet. Let's try to gather some names but not let them in on the fact that there is a council of sorts and that we're still trying to figure out what to do; not to mention that I'm still studying the nature of what we are.”
All of the council members knew that Beamer had been investigating the phenomenon for some time, trying to discover just what was responsible for making Masterville a city akin to no other that they knew of.
“Have you discovered anything conclusive yet?” Jones asked.
“I'm getting closer, I think. Eric's library records and Eileen's old ledgers from the courthouse are helping. And speaking of, I'm not going to return them to you any time soon. There's no sense making life any easier for the NSA than we have to.”
“So what have you found out so far?” Jones asked the question they all wanted the answer to.
“It's going slow, but it is beginning to look like our particular group originated back in Scotland several centuries ago. I have several genealogists and historians working on it, but none of them know what the others are up to. I'm correlating the data myself, or rather Gina is.” He gave his assistant a fond smile. “A lot of this is still theory, but here's what we think. It turns out that a number of reclusive clans in the highlands of Scotland thought of themselves as different from their neighbors. They never converted to Protestantism because they were never Christians to begin with, though-and I'm guessing here-they probably pretended, just to keep the peace. Then they were given a rather hard time during the reformation, which is when authorities first became aware of them. Some of them went into hiding. Some were executed, some probably pretended to convert. A goodly number migrated to America. From the east coast, they scattered in different directions, still trying to get away from abusive neighbors. One group eventually settled in this valley and managed to live in peace. There was some intermarriage outside the group, but not too much. What generally happened was that the men who couldn't find a woman who suited them left the valley. That's normal, of course and happens anywhere.
“What makes us different is that most of the time, when the men found themselves a woman to love, they moved back to the valley, among their own kind. During the twentieth century, women also went looking and they, too, moved back here when they could convince their husbands. Nowadays, some of us simply keep homes in the valley as vacation spots and secondary residences. However, their roots are here and their friends and family are here, and I expect most of them will retire here, or move back as soon as they can afford to.
“There's something else that's extremely interesting and that will probably give the spooks fits: I've been collecting specimens from a couple of doctors and from the hospital lab and running genetic scans on them. I've compared them to a base population from random samples from other areas of the country. So far, I've found no difference in the DNA of us and other humans.”
Charlie screwed up his face as if he had bitten down on something sour. “Isn't that sort of unethical, Tyrone? Doing genetic scans on people without their permission?”
“Not really, Charlie. I make damn certain that I don't know whose DNA I'm working with. The samples are given to me without labels. It's completely blind, but I had to do something to get a base of sorts from around here, and another from outside. I thought for sure they would show some differences, but so far as DNA goes, we're as normal, so to speak, as the preacher up the road or the crook in prison. It's a damn puzzle.” He paused in contemplation for a moment then continued. “That's good in a way. There are bound to be more people like us scattered around the country, but the feds won't have any way to identify them.”
“They identified us,” Fred said.
“That's because we're concentrated. But let me get back to the genetics of the thing for a moment. I can't find any genetic differences between us and others, but I doubt that we all derive from just those clans from Scotland; Eileen here proves that.”
“Slow down, Tyrone. Some of my ancestors were white, as should be obvious. I could have inherited the gene from them.”
“If I had found a gene. So far I haven't. I'm speculating here, I'll admit that, but I'm willing to bet that there are others like us, maybe in this country, maybe in others, especially since the immigrants from Scotland didn't all settle in one spot.”
Eric Buffer got up for more coffee. From the side of the room, he stood and sipped at it. “Haven't I read that scientists have decided that environment plays a big role in the expression of genes? Maybe that's what's happening,
something in the environment here.”
Beamer shook his head. “What you say is true, but even if not expressed, the genes are still there, and I repeat; our gene pattern is as normal as anyone else's, so far as we can tell.”
Buffer wouldn't let it go so quickly. “Well, if you say so, but suppose something in the environment here causes our traits? Have you checked into that?”
“Yes, I've had my lab doing that for a couple of years now under the guise of an agricultural experiment. We haven't found anything unusual. And even if we did, it wouldn't explain the ones who are found living in other areas.”
Eileen thought that one over, then she had a question. “How is it that our ancestors-and our present day expatriates, so to speak, manage to find like-minded partners so easily? Is there something like a ... a special sense working in us?”
“If there is, it's not genetic,” Beamer said. “The government won't be able to call us mutants unless they lie about it.” He hated not to mention that there was another area he was exploring, and a second that he intended to, but he didn't intend to mention those yet for fear that the news might get out. While the courts and government departments and agencies were about the same as they had been on the surface since the so-called “War on Terror” had begun, a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle shift in rulings and regulations were constantly eroding civil rights, using the threat of terror attacks as an excuse.
“Oh, they'll lie about it,” Eileen said with certainty, leaning back from the table. Her dark complexion and full lips plainly showed her black ancestry. “A politician will lie about anything that suits them. Listen, Tyrone, what else do you have? I've got to get back to town.”