After America

by John Birmingham

  “Is the president planning on talking to the Commonwealth prime ministers about speeding up the repatriation process, do you know, Ms. Milliner?”

  That question came from Ted Koppel at National Public Radio, and Culver winced as soon as he heard it. Two million of the estimated fifteen million surviving Americans had made the choice to stay in the foreign refuges, mostly in the other English-speaking democracies. They were a real point of friction with the country’s surviving allies. Hell, Koppel himself didn’t even live in the United States, preferring to stay at the NPR field office in London, which made him a bit of a hypocrite in Culver’s book for even asking the question. But Jed couldn’t really blame Koppel or those two million others. Those people were desperately needed back home, but home wasn’t nearly as friendly a place as it had been once upon a time. The hungry time after the Wave was still fresh on everyone’s mind, and many were convinced they had not yet turned the corner on food production and distribution. Food shortages were still a very real problem.

  “Freedom of movement is still one of our fundamental rights, Ted,” Karen said, quickly throwing up her hands. “And before anyone gets on my case about the Declared Areas, can I just say, grow up. They’re declared for good reason, and you know it. As to our expatriate community, what can I say? Every American is free to come and go as they please. This stuff I’ve been reading about foreign governments impeding their return, it’s just hogwash. Obviously, we would prefer to have everyone back home again. We need all hands on deck to rebuild this country, but we are not in the business of forcing people to do anything.”

  Koppel was on his feet again, waving a pen at Milliner to beg her indulgence for a supplementary question.

  “How can you say that, Ms. Milliner, when the administration indentures returnees for five years?”

  Karen smiled.

  “That’s overstating the case, don’t you think, Ted? People are free to return of their own volition, and if they do it at their own expense, they are free to live and work wherever and however they choose. But I don’t think it’s wrong to ask people to give something back if they rely on the taxpayer to get them here and support them when they arrive. There are no freebies anymore, Ted. Everyone works. Everyone pays. Everyone does their bit. The Congress and the president have made that clear, as have the American people, given their repeated endorsement of the mutual obligation policy at the ballot box. Was it not Captain John Smith at Jamestown who said, ‘He who does not work, shall not eat’? We are not asking anything less than Smith did.”

  Culver almost rolled his eyes at Milliner’s chutzpah, but he remained outwardly blank-faced. Very few people had the resources to get themselves home from overseas, which left most returning expatriates with only one option: to hitch a ride with Uncle Sam. And it most definitely was not a free ride. Koppel looked like he was gearing up for a head-butting session with Milliner, but she cut him off with a wave and a disingenuous smile as Kipper suddenly appeared from within the shadows behind her, where he’d been waiting, skimming the notes Culver had prepared for him, they hoped. The boss was notorious for refusing to stick to his talking points and for going off topic at the merest provocation. He did like talking to people, and even reporters were people, as he’d told Jed more than once. Kipper squinted briefly as he passed from shadow into the bright, warm light of high spring. He seemed to sniff the air and took the time to look around as he made his way to the podium.

  Karen Milliner formally introduced him, and everyone stood for a moment, which was where the formalities pretty much ended. James Kipper did not enjoy the formal trappings of office and shook them off at every opportunity. He took his place behind a single microphone that was used to record audio for all the assembled media, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He’d ditched the flak jacket before appearing in front of the press, some of whom were still in their own.

  “Thanks for coming, everyone,” he said chattily. “I know it’s a hell of a trip getting out here, and I appreciate the effort involved. It’s important.”

  Koppel waved his pen at the president, probably hoping to take up where he’d left off with Milliner, but all he got was a cheeky grin.

  “I’m sorry, Ted. I’ll be happy to talk your ears off about the Homesteading Act and the whole mutual obligation thing on the plane going back, but we’re here to talk about one thing this morning, and I have promised Karen and Jed that’s all I’m gonna talk about.” Koppel did a good job of looking chagrined, but he settled back to listen.

  “As you know from the precautions we had to take getting you all here today, this city is not the safest place. My security guys had what my granny would’ve called a fit of the vapors when I told them we were coming here.”

  Jed watched the audience closely. Only a few of them smiled.

  “Right now,” Kip continued, “while we’re sitting here in this old fort, there are probably a minimum of eight thousand looters, scavengers, whatever you want to call them—a horde stripping this city of anything they can carry off. There are tens of thousands more up and down the East Coast and all the way around into Texas. Most of them are just small-time racketeers, crooks, and so on. But there are a couple of big organized criminal groups out of Europe and Africa, too. The navy and coast guard have been doing what they can to interdict them, but we just don’t punch at the same weight we used to. A lot of them get through, and they are stripping the cities bare. Some of them are even pushing into the interior.”

  Jed resisted the urge to let his head drop into his hands. There was just no telling Kipper. As much as he tried to teach his boss the dark arts of spin and issue management, the guy was determined to speak his mind, no matter how damaging. Culver could see the headlines already. “President Admits the East Is Lost.” “Raiders Pushing into the Heartland.” Most of the reporters were already madly scribbling away on their notepads. He shared a quick, furtive, and despairing glance with Karen Milliner as the president pushed on.

  “Now, while I agree that capturing and killing as many of these thugs as we can is important,” Kip said, “it’s not the only answer. I could order the army to kill every single pirate in New York today, and a month from now the city would be crawling with them again.” More furious scribbling. “President Throws in the Towel.” “President Admits Piracy Problem Is Beyond Him.”

  “There is only one way to reclaim the eastern seaboard, and for that matter the interior of our continent. And that is to actually reclaim it.”

  Kipper paused to let the moment sink in. Here it comes, Jed thought. The money shot.

  “This morning I signed an executive order requiring the armed forces to seize and secure eighteen strategically important sites on the East Coast, including here in New York. We will spread out from those sites, which will become colonies, if you will, where any returnee who is willing to take on the risk can settle freely anytime six months after their repatriation. Those six months will be spent in full-time preparation for resettlement. Additionally, any immigrant willing to take the fast track to U.S. citizenship can settle freely after two years, including eighteen months of mandated service and six months of settlement training. Long story short, that’s it. Any questions?”

  It took all of half a second for the press corps to react, but when they did, it reminded Jed of the ringing of the bells at the old stock exchange. In one master stroke the president had outbid the foreign powers for U.S. human capital and most likely performed an end run around Blackstone down in Texas at the same time. The reporters all seemed to explode suddenly out of their seats, flinging questions at Kipper, who smiled and waited for the uproar to die down a little before pointing at Joel Connelly from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

  “So, Mister President, you’re rescinding the requirement for returnees to work in the National Reconstruction Corps for five years?”

  Kip smiled and shook his head. “Only if they take on the risk of settling in one of the new colony sites.”

  “What
about exemptions for veterans?” Novoselic asked. “Will they be obligated—”

  “They’ve already given their pound of flesh,” Kipper replied. “We won’t be asking anything more of them.”

  More furious questions flew up at the podium, but Connelly won out again.

  “Well, just how risky will it be?”

  “Very,” said Kip. “It’s a frontier, Joel. And frontiers, as we know from our old history books, are dangerous places. Some of our efforts will fail. Some people will die—”

  Kipper never finished the sentence. Two Secret Service men suddenly slammed into him, driving him backward off the stage a second before Jed heard a high keening whistle that quickly became a screech before disappearing inside an abrupt, roaring concatenation of thunder. Time stretched out as though the whole world existed on the skin of a balloon that was quickly inflating around and away from him, slowing everything as it receded. He saw the reporters start from their seats, some sprinting in slo-mo replays of Olympic runners flung from the blocks by a starter’s gun, others half standing, then sitting, bobbing up and down like puppets jerked around by a small child. Everything moved so slowly even as he knew everything had accelerated, and then—oof!—an agent clad in black coveralls shoulder charged him, lifting his considerable bulk right off the ground, two clear inches of air between the soles of his oxfords and the white, crunchy gravel as he was driven back into the shelter of the colonnade like a water boy T-boned by a linebacker.

  The world clock caught up with his fear-quickened senses, and a rush of visions flowed over him. Dirty orange blooms of fire consuming the heavy earthmoving equipment on the muddy, torn-up grass outside the fort. An explosion above him, off to the right, as something detonated on the old roofline, sending dark, wicked fangs of black roofing slate scything away through the air. A deep rumbling in the earth as the volcanic eruption of fire and thunder built to a crescendo. A woman, a reporter, running full tilt, right into a blossoming explosion that roughly quartered her body, flinging the remains to all points of the compass.

  Then more men, all clad in black body armor, all over him, slamming his shoulder into something hard and unyielding. A wall? A door frame? It was dark, and he couldn’t see anything beyond the spots of light blooming in front of his eyes. Jed felt himself thrown to the floor, a polished wooden floor he noted just before his cheekbone cracked into the boards. The thunder rolled on outside but became distant, muffled. Black spots spread over his vision, and he fell into them.

  5

  New York

  Yusuf Mohammed was unimpressed by his fellow fighters. Although many of them were older than he, some by many years, they behaved like foolish children. He did not imagine that most would survive an encounter with the Americans when they came. Looking out across the river, craning to catch a glimpse of the great broken spires of Manhattan, Yusuf knew the Americans could not be far away now. He crouched in his fighting pit, chosen for him by one of the emir’s very own lieutenants, and wondered where the other men of his saif might be.

  To judge from the yipping cries and gales of laughter that reached him between the volleys of rocket fire, they were still dancing and capering around the launchers. Yusuf shook his head in dismay. He was no more than fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. Nobody knew for sure. But he had been a soldier for nearly ten of those years, and he had seen unknowable numbers of men and women and of course children, such as he had once been, who had died because they did not take the business of war seriously.

  Another string of missiles shrieked away into the sky, describing a great soaring arc over the river, traced by dirty gray trails of smoke. From his makeshift bunker, where he clutched an AK-47 to his chest and leaned against a canvas bag full of loaded magazines, he could not see the launch of the rockets or where they fell on the far side of the water. But he could hear them as they crashed down on the heads of the infidel, the thunder rolling back across the river like the sound of God’s judgment.

  Laughter and the words of an obscene Somali drinking song also reached him.

  Drinking!

  He sighed heavily. Allah’s judgment would fall heavily on both sides of the river today.

  Yusuf risked a peek over the barricade of broken concrete blocks and bricks and loose black soil behind which he was hidden. Amid the roaring rush of the missile barrage he thought he heard the distant buzzing of attack helicopters, a terrible sound he knew only too well. From his vantage point overlooking a large rectangular field covered in thick, tall swards of grass and a small forest of gray stunted trees, he could not see the southern end of Manhattan, but he had a clear view of another large island directly across from the mouth of the large dock that all but cut Ellis Island in half. A small swarm of black metal insects appeared to be rising from somewhere within the middle of that island. They had been told by the emir’s officers that it was a base for one of the American militias and that they could expect the response to their attack to come from there.

  Yusuf tightened his grip on his weapon and marveled just a little at how nervous he was. He had fought in many battles in his short life, but most of them of course had been in Africa against other primitive forces. As the vague dark shapes resolved themselves into the outlines of the helicopters he knew as Apaches, the young fighter allowed himself a small measure of pride in how far he had come. There was a time when he thought of his first allies, the small band of Ugandan child fighters by whom he had been abducted and with whom he fought for five years, as the finest, the toughest, the most ferocious warriors in the world. Now, hunkered down thousands of miles from home, or at least from the continent he called home, he thought of his first band of comrades and their fabulously cruel commander Captain Kono as nothing more than stupid savages. They fought for the same reason he had fought. Because Captain Kono and his men had taken them from their homes, murdered their families, and threatened to kill them if they did not fight for him. Yusuf checked his weapon one last time, looked around in vain for the other mujahideen who were supposed to be manning a strongpoint with him, and mouthed a quiet prayer of thanks for the opportunity the emir had given him not just to escape Kono and the ridiculous Lord’s Resistance Army but to lift himself up into the light and the forgiveness of the one true God.

  “Allahu akbar,” he said quietly to himself. Not fiercely, not boastfully, but quietly and piously and most of all with great love in his heart for the infinite forgiveness that Allah had bestowed upon a former infidel such as he.

  He crouched down below the lip of his fighting pit. The emir’s men had trained him well. He knew all about the wondrous technology with which the Americans still fought in spite of the great blow God had smashed down upon them. He knew that merely popping his head up for just a second or two might be the last thing he ever did. It made the stupid, animalistic laughter and shouting of the other fighters, who were still apparently dancing around the rocket trucks somewhere behind him, all the more galling. Had they learned nothing?

  The answer came in the form of a sudden high-pitched screeching sound as the Americans finally reached out with their own rockets and missiles. Yusuf burrowed as deeply into his little pit as he could and breathed out to protect himself from the waves of overpressure that surely would follow the impact of the aptly named Hellfire missiles. Huddled into a tight ball, pressing himself into the earth, he had only the vaguest impression of the sky above the island suddenly turning lethal. Whereas their rockets, launched from the back of trucks driven in darkness over the long causeway from the mainland to this former migrant-processing center, had lanced through the air like the spears of Zulu warriors, the American attack seemed to fill the entire space a few feet above his head with roaring death. There was no whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of volleying rocket fire. There was only a huge and instantly terrifying eruption of noise and fire and smoke as the very earth seemed to shake beneath his cowering form. Shock and horror rolled over the boy soldier as he thought it possible the Americans might just demolish the entire i
sland, pouring fire onto the rubble until it subsided beneath the waters of the river.

  He did not know how long he lay there, quaking in fear. His abject terror was so great, so overwhelming, that a few times he felt himself subject to a whole-body hallucination, the feeling that he was being squeezed out of his mortal remains in the bottom of his bunker. His mind seemed to float free of the hell in which his body was trapped, but it did not escape, falling instead down a long dark tunnel at the end of which a smaller, younger version of himself lay quivering in fear many, many years ago. As in a dream, he had no grasp of the hard edges of this vision. It was more a sensation and a few half-remembered images he had long ago tried to forget. His mother screaming in pain after Captain Kono’s men had cut the lips from her face. His tiny, spindly little boy arms shaking and useless, all but paralyzed with mortal dread as he held a makeshift club and stood over his uncle Bongani while Kono screamed in his face to kill the old man if Yusuf wanted to live.

  Of course in those days his name was not Yusuf Mohammed. He did not remember what his name had been when he lived in the village with his mother and uncle and brothers and sisters and all his cousins. He did not remember being happy, but at times even now he assumed he must have been, even if that happiness was born of ignorance.

  Yusuf Mohammed forced himself out of the waking nightmare before it could get any worse. And it could get much worse than the memory of his murdering a kindly and much loved uncle just to save his own life. He forced himself to open his senses to the real world even though it was a hell of fire and death. He was surprised to find himself lying on open ground a few feet from his dugout, which was smoking and ruined as though from a bomb blast. His heart, already trip-hammering, lurched sickeningly in his chest as he caught sight of a disembodied arm and a leg trailing the gruesome tendrils of torn flesh and muscle and meat he knew so well from the battlefield. But as he pushed himself up off the ground, he knew they were not his limbs. He was still all in one piece.