by Billy Roper
Salt Lake City, angling for any support it could find in the more anti-theocratic E.U., generously offered diplomatic recognition for the Basque Republic, the Republic of Catalonia, The Kingdom of Corsica, and Scotland, in hopes that they would reciprocate. Kelly wondered what weird political prejudice had made them leave out the North Italian Republic in the public offer? Probably some obscure shadow diplomacy going on, there.
The economic news, if it could be believed, showed that things seemed to be coming together. “In Provo, the Deseret Commerce Commission is regulating standardized barter exchange between Wisconsin cheese and dairy products, Nebraskan wheat, and Iowa corn, with the Deseret Dollar. All three states are expected to have produce and crop surpluses this year, and will be exporting to neighboring states, as well as to Europe, once the buyers have brokered a deal with the Republic of Quebec and their partner France to safeguard maritime shipping through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, where the French navy will escort convoys of grain and agricultural products to a hungry Europe. The continuing multinational European defense against Godless Islam has stretched resources thin for the European civilian market. Discussions are already underway in the Council to prioritize manufactured items needed here which can be obtained from European sources, from armaments and automobiles to factory machinery and industrial parts…”
It wasn’t often that news crept into the local paper from the East Coast, especially since the bombings last month. They had merited a special sermon from the Prophet about God’s just punishment for wickedness, sin, and lust. A lot of Mormons had friends and family back East, though, so he didn’t lay it on too thick. Now, an epidemic seems to have broken out: “The Superflu epidemic being called “Da Trots” continues to ravage occupied regions of the East Coast. Individuals in the most devastated areas, where many of the radiation poisoned survivors have weakened immune systems, seem especially vulnerable. United Nations spokesperson Sue Chi-Len, in an interview from Brussels, denied that continuing conflicts between infected minority groups in the quarantined sectors of lower Manhattan are spilling over into areas previously unaffected by the outbreak. She did confirm, however, that some carriers of the disease had been shot in the water while trying to float away from the internment hospital grounds for the infected on Staten Island. Vigilante groups in southern New Jersey have begun forming firing squads armed with weapons taken from U.N. peacekeeping force posts which they have overrun, and are reportedly executing any and all persons who show symptoms of infection. U.N. Patrols all along the Atlantic seaboard have been reduced until more vaccine shipments arrive under heavy guard from their laboratories at Fort Dix.”
In other international news, the banner story was “Calcutta government broadcasts re - transmitted to North America from the Indian space station via short wave indicate that troops from the surviving Indian Army units east of New Delhi have crossed the Ganges to block Chinese human wave attacks which have overwhelmed Bareilly from encircling the badly stricken capitol. Tens of thousands are estimated dead in the battle, and several thousand more were killed last week when the Indian Air Force used tactical nuclear weapons in the destruction of the Chinese railroad hub of Shiquanhe, a major staging area of the invasion.” Kelly thought back to the article about trade through the Great Lakes, and wondered where the Canadian maritime provinces loyalties lay, these days. She would have to find the station broadcasting from Halifax, again, and listen between the lines. For now, other employees were filtering in. Time to start her day.
As she had passed Mrs. Murphy’s door this morning, she had heard the trial broadcasts already blaring away inside. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The more things changed, sometimes, the more they stayed the same. Lately, Kelly had been thinking about getting a cat. Large animals like dogs weren’t allowed in her building, and besides, people had learned that their domesticated canines would run off and join the packs of wild dogs eating scraps and cats and small children, if they got the chance. But, she was thinking that she might get a cat. Either that, or go on a date. One or the other. Maybe it was the Spring weather, making her feel like birds and bees and snuggling with someone or something.
There wasn’t much dramatic in the day’s courier messages or interdepartmental mail she processed and forwarded, regardless of the ‘urgent’ stamps. Just more troop movement reports from Nevada and requests for material and equipment and reinforcements. Some minor crime reports, hearkening back to the days when that was the only kind of issue this office handled, but those took second place, these days. The shift from crime fighting to armed forces had been motivated by one of Prophet Rammell’s first secular sermons, in which he had stated that "We seek a paradigm shift in our values, a revolutionary worldview in our people, and a fundamental change in the form and focus of our governing bodies." The leader claimed that "the guiding principle of the State should be that what is good for the Church is good, and what is bad for the Church is bad." He added that, "at this stage of the revolution, our weapons of choice are the pen, the leaflet, the keyboard, the videocamera, and every other weapon of mass construction which allows us to reach out to our people and awaken them to the dangers which threaten our very existence." Things sure had changed, since then.
A little after six she had reached a stopping point. She never got caught up completely, but sometimes she could draw a line in the sand, or on her desk in between piles, and call that ‘quitting time’. As it was, she was the first to arrive and the last to leave, which helped her supervisors overlook her…questionably adherence to accepted religious doctrine.
There definitely were more stores open along her walking route home. Gas was for sale again to civilians, for $10.35 per gallon, limit five gallons per household per week with ration card, and push-carts selling hot sandwiches and cold drinks were on every street corner. Kelly grabbed a roast beef and cheese and a bottle of tea in a recycled water bottle and got back two pre-1965 silver dimes for the new ten Deseret Dollar note she handed the old man. As she passed by the school, she was reminded that it was nearly time for the Church’s semi-annual General Conference next Sunday, the first Sunday in April, by the adolescent Priesthood class belting out “Father Abraham” in cracking but enthusiastic voices. They were practicing for the big event, when Kelly knew that Prophet Rammell and the Council of Fifty would present their plan to drive east through Nevada and take San Diego, as an outlet to the sea. It would be like Saturday night in Sioux City when the Reconquistadores caught wind of that.
The roast beef and cheese sandwich was so good that she wished she had bought two. Maybe Mrs. Murphy was still up. Sometimes the old lady actually cooked something worth eating, when she had the groceries. Kelly didn’t feel quite like being alone tonight. Not yet, anyway. She went over for a visit. Mrs. Murphy was happy to have the company. They laughed a bit about Emma’s fear of spiders after two big ones crawled out of the corner of the kitchen. Then she smashed them with some old newspaper and enjoyed some deviled eggs Mrs. Murphy had made the day before. The chickens on the roof, tended by the landlord and his wife, were producing more again, it looked like.
When Mrs. Murphy began yawning, Kelly excused herself and crossed the hall to her humble commode. She fidgeted and fussed about in an obsessive compulsive manner until it was nearly 9:55, then broke out the set for her nightly ritual.
One of the strongest signals she could receive lately had been Radio New America, the St. Louis station run by the staff of the Post Dispatch. She tuned in just in time to hear their top of the hour news: “The Arkansas State Guard, augmented by local militia, The Knights Committee, and separatist groups, probed south of Interstate 30 last week, driving fifty miles deep into New African territory without encountering any organized resistance. Reports from similar sorties out of Tennessee and all along the border indicate a paralysis and power vacuum in the New African military, as civil unrest and anarchy have been reported throughout the lower Mississippi Valley. Reports of starvation and cannibalism in Vicksbu
rg may be the result of infrastructural instability following what is rumored to have been the third internal coup in Atlanta so far this year. Self styled “Tribal Chief” Demarcus (Dubble D) Donroy, the military commander in charge of New African defenses in Jacksonville, stated in an interview with Havana television news reporters recently that he was willing to open discussions on “mutual coexistence”, widely considered to be code for New African withdrawal from Florida, if a cease fire could be brokered by the Republica government.. Donroy also stated in the interview that he felt a great calling to lead his soldiers to Atlanta “to clean house and restore peace and prosperity to my people”. The Cuban Army has not yet officially responded, but has withdrawn their front lines from Gainesville to Ocala in an apparent gesture of good will. Their inability to force the surrender of the privateer fleet at Guantanamo Bay has led to territorial losses at home for them of late, losses which they are sure to want to make up for….” Kelly switched it off.
After the newspaper at work this morning, she felt like she had information overload. There was nothing she could do about any of it, not even share it with anybody. Her world would probably change again next Sunday after the General Conference, and she was like a leaf on the breeze. Not for the first time, she considered leaving. Getting out of Deseret wasn’t the hard part, it was who got in that they kept a tight control over. But where would she go? What could she do? In the end, she was better off here in Salt Lake. She had an apartment, a job that paid better than most, and plenty to eat. She also had access to more inside information than most of the sheep. She just didn’t feel at all motivated. That was her problem. Maybe, she thought as she drifted off to sleep with a book, maybe she really should settle down and get married and raise some kids and be a good Mormon woman. Maybe. And just maybe there was still some sin going on in Las Vegas worth bombing them for, too…but somehow she really doubted it.
The next day at work, her supervisor called Kelly in for an unscheduled job performance review, just before lunch. A black uniformed Gull officer stood silently in the corner of the office, watching her. Was this about her Thor’s hammer? Surely if it had been about the radio, they wouldn’t have bothered with all this trouble. They would have done to her what they did to Jimmy, right? Her supervisor began by praising her job performance, her work ethic, and her discretion. She had never leaked any of the secret or classified material which had crossed her desk. That had even been confirmed through interdepartmental false message correspondence, she learned. In light of her proven trustworthiness, she was being offered a promotion, of sorts: an independent field command. She knew what that meant: she was being recruited to be an undercover agent for the D.D.P.S.. A spy. In enemy territory.
At first her heart leapt, hoping that there might be a position out west, near to where Karen was, or had been, so she might find out something, anything, about her sister. As it turned out, they wanted to send her in the other direction. The officer told her with a smile that her solitary lifestyle made her perfect for this particular assignment. She didn’t know quite what he meant, until a quiet knock came at the office door. When her supervisor answered it, in walked Jimmy, looking as awkward and embarrassed as ever. She was doubly surprised to see him, since she had never expected to, again. Not alive, anyway. Over the next few minutes, he explained with a red face that his ‘arrest’ had been a setup, to test her ability to keep potentially dangerous information to herself, and to gauge her hunger for knowledge. They had also been keen to measure her ability to live a double life without breaking. She had passed, with flying colors. Kelly was still in shock. First being dragged on the carpet, then Jimmy being alive, and here, and everything for so long being a sham? She was fighting to hold back tears of confusion. It took her a moment to regain her composure.
“Look, Kelly, this isn’t about being a fanatical Mormon, or even being a believer. It’s about being an asset to the Church, and to our mission to protect our people, and our faith. You’re already doing that. There is no litmus test for faith involved. You have all the skills for the job.” Jimmy reassured her.
“Okay, but if I go, I have somebody I need you guys to check in on and look after, and
I don’t mean a cat”, she joked.
“Alright, Kelly, we’ll take care of Mrs. Murphy, we promise.” Jimmy smirked. Blaine County, Nebraska. The armpit of the universe. The largest town, Dunning, only
had a hundred people left in it. The whole county only had about four hundred souls, but over a third of them were Mormon, and surrounded as it was by more heavily non-LDS territory, it made the perfect easternmost listening post for the Deseret Department of Public Safety. Her duty would be to file reports weekly on the local situation, and most importantly on any news about the political developments in New America, which Nebraska was firmly a part of. “Since we have lost our other sources of New American direct intelligence with I-80 being closed down at Omaha, your job is a front line operation,” Jimmy explained to her while showing her a map of the state. Now, it’s too deep, too far forward, to send couriers back and forth without arousing suspicion, so you’re going to have to use a shortwave radio to be in touch with regular encoded reports.”
“Gee, I guess it’s lucky I’ve been around one of those things lately, huh?” Kelly kidded him.
Jimmy turned serious. “Luck had nothing to do with, Kelly, but we’ll need to teach you how to transmit, and how to encode, and decode. We also have to ingrain your backstory: You’ll be travelling with another young woman, an E-2 from Hill who is a believer. At Kelly’s blank look, he explained further “She’s an Airman. Not an Airwoman, not an Airperson, an Airman, that’s her rank. But forget that, because to you, she is Sister Patricia, and you are Sister Kelly. Sister Missionaries.”
“Wonderful cover, I’m sure I’ll be very convincing”, Kelly jibed. “Yes, you will be, after your briefing”, Jimmy reassured her, “but let her do most of the talking. She’s also trained in martial arts and hand to hand combat, so while you’ll be armed, let her do most of the fighting, if it comes to that, too.”
“And what do I do for the mission, smile and look pretty?” she asked. “Yeah, that’s what you’re good at”, Jimmy flirted in a more direct way than she would have believed he was capable. “That, and send in those reports until we tell you otherwise.”
She met her partner the next day. Patricia was a quick-witted, kind of nervous acting Paris Hilton type in her early twenties. They got to know each other while the operation of the shortwave transmitter function was explained. Jimmy taught the code to both of them over the next three days, ‘in case one of them was incapacitated’, as he put it. Kelly soon learned that the ditsy act Patricia put on was just an act. The E-2 taught her to disassemble and clean and reassemble and fire and load the identical .40 Glocks they both would carry on their mission trip. Then she taught her how to do it again. Then she taught her how to do it right.
The trip would be 750 miles, 650 of that on I-80. The only town along the way they might face interrogation in was Cheyenne, a major New American Army base, and Air Base, now. The 115th Field Artillery Brigade of the Wyoming National Guard, part of the Unified Command of New America, controlled all traffic coming and going, but their cover story should pass muster. Being two young females made their chances much better.
The area had been well reconnoitered while the LDS Air Force had generously provided air support for the New American struggle to keep the Wyoming Rancher’s Co- op Militia, enthusiastic amateurs, from being overrun in Fort Collins. The cowboys had been lured into a trap and ambushed by probing advances of Mexican Army units. The Republica del Norte ‘advisors’ had snuck through Lamar, around the dead zone of Colorado Springs, up and around the fallout-choked free-for-all of Denver, and hit the forward units of the 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment of the Colorado National Guard south of Windsor. The 157th had been expecting an attack straight through Boulder, and dug in to receive a frontal assault. Unable to withdraw quickly withou
t leaving behind the slower 3rd Battalion, 157th Field Artillery Regiment they were covering the flank of north of Boulder, 1st Battalion drew back slowly. Third Battalion, unwilling to abandon their heavy cannons, were about to be overrun. Their brass called for air support from any friendly forces. Before the 153rd airlift wing of the Wyoming Air National Guard in Cheyenne could scramble and respond, Hill had F-16s en route. It was a diplomatic gesture of friendship of brotherhood, of course. The pictures they took of New American ground defenses and positions were just a bonus.
While the birds from Hill were en route, the Cowboys had ridden in, hell-bent for leather, in their two hundred SUVs and pickup trucks. By the time the Wyoming Rancher’s Co-op Militia hit the brakes, they were sitting in front of Boyd Lake. The 3rd Battalion 157th Field Artillery Regiment had made it back to Lake Loveland, a mile away. They were in sight of each other. One of the cowboys sardonically declared it a successful rescue, over the radio. With regular Mexican Army units in sight, they both put their backs to the water and made a fight of it. Three companies of Mexican mounted infantry in commandeered civilian vehicles tore up Hwy. 287 between them, while flanking units engaged them to the east and west. The Cowboys broke through the line at Eisenhower Blvd., and took over fifty percent casualties as they were encircled again at the soccer field in Loveland Sports Park. Meanwhile, the Third Battalion’s point-blank artillery barrages at the Statue of Liberty replica kept the Mexican forces from closing to finish them off.