The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  Will the circle, be unbroken By and by, Lord, by and by…

  The Speaker thought about the cryptic meaning of Kelly’s words as he rode through the streets of the booming capitol, on the way to the port. The last of late winter’s snow was melting away from the side streets. An important shipment, the harbor master insisted, had arrived for him personally, from halfway around the world. They were really eager to get it offloaded, too, for some reason.

  The crowd of military police and S.S. guards clustered around the barge holding containers from Chicago, and before that, from ocean-going container ships, were wearing face masks. That couldn’t be good. The curious onlookers, some distance away, all held their noses. McNabb’s curiosity was peaked. The deck crew foreman handed over a manifest as if it was contaminated, too. All of the workers looked disgusted, and he couldn’t blame them. Reading over the shipment history: Durban to Perth to Oahu to Pensacola to Chicago, John realized that whatever was in there, it come a long way. Looking at the dates, he saw that it was shipped seven weeks ago. Before Christmas, then, he thought, Oh goodie, maybe somebody sent me Santa Claus, and he died along the way. What are those crazy South Africans up to?’

  On the standard rust brown shipping container were stenciled instructions: “This Side Up. Feed normal crew rations, six servings, twice per day. Provide six liters water, bottled, per day. Hose out from top access vent once per week.”

  Now he was really intrigued. Holding his handkerchief over his nose, he climbed up the access ladder and onto the top of the container. He couldn’t see anything down through the vents . John asked for and was handed up a flashlight, or ‘torch’, as the British crewman called it. When he shone the light just right, he could see the tops of some burry heads. They moved around and bumped into the walls when the light penetrated their world. That stirred up the knee deep sludge they stood in, apparently late for its weekly hosing out. Then the smell hit him, stronger than before. McNabb leaned over the vents, and threw up on top of them.

  After he’d ordered the container flushed out from the top vents to empty out the bottom vents, he opened the sealed cargo manifest from the port of departure. Inside was a handwritten letter addressed to him. The enclosed cargo, it announced, was “a gesture of friendship and gratitude from the people of the Orange Free State, in thanks for New America’s aid in regaining control over their destiny as a people, blah blah blah”…there, at the bottom, “from the Johannesburg Center for Medical Research, Drs. Venter, Beale, De Pontes, Gottlich. Six live specimens, virus positive immune carriers. Negroid genotype selected. HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS.

  He confirmed with Pretoria what the manifest meant. The Orangers hoped he liked his present and would use it as they were using theirs, they said. They simply suggested that the cargo be set free at an appropriate place and time to serve as vectors. As it turned out, only four of the live specimens had survived the trip, They had apparently killed the other two smaller ones, either over food or water or a couple of square feet of space…or just because they were animals, more likely, McNabb corrected himself.

  The four Africans left alive were in poor health, even aside from carrying a deadly virus. They had ulcerated, infected sores from their toes to their thighs from the human waste they had lived in, and were extremely malnourished and light-sensitive. Over the next month they were housed in the city workhouse, in an empty wing, and given plenty of food and fresh air and exercise. As February turned to March, their general health improved dramatically. The virus they carried was studied by Dr. Edwards’ team through blood samples taken from them, and found to be a mutation of the Turkish Flu bonded with the genetic aberration for Sickle Cell Anemia, making it only aggressive towards potential hosts of African ancestry…although unlike the original, non-Africans could be non-infected carriers of the virus. With this representing a new strain of viral contagion, Dr. Edwards named it the T.S.U. Flu, for “This Side Up”, the label on the container it had arrived in. John thought that was brilliantly clever, and funny.

  After that month, during which none of them exhibited any ability to read or write English or any other Western language, the test subjects each were given a new set of clothes, new shoes, and a backpack full of food and water. Finally, they were released back into the wild: one in northern Mississippi just south of Memphis, one in northern Georgia, one in western South Carolina, and the final one in central Virginia. The warming early Spring should make fine walking weather for them, the Speaker reasoned.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  It is becoming self-evident that the powers which now sit at the controls of this government have destroyed the Republic. It is no longer trustworthy and the American people for different reasons want the Republic back in the hands of Americans. Racial aliens are not Americans and cannot be made into Americans simply because they cross an invisible border. –Pastor Thomas Robb

  Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't nothing, but it's free.

  They had followed the retreating enemy all the way back to the edge of the water. General Ray-Ray and his Queen Taneisha had watched forlornly as the Bible-thumping honkies and their Uncle Toms tore the pylons out from under the causeway and collapsed section after section with dredging barges and cables and cranes. Then, distracted by their empty stomachs, they had turned back north and raided the villages along the lake’s edge, where Taneisha had spent so much of her life catching fish and selling fish. Her Auntie and her three babies joined the army, along with a couple hundred other broke negroes with nothing else to do.

  Ray Ray led them east, back over the big river and a bit north of the coastline, where the honkies flew their planes around Mobile and farther on. The poor and starving with no future were enraptured by the New African General’s stories of golden beaches and palm trees and shrimp for the asking. The army grew as it continued eastwards like a snowball rolling downhill, expanding with every particle of flake attaching to it. By the time Ray-Ray decided to for reals turn right at Jacksonville instead of heading back to Atlanta to report to Emperor Bling-Bling, he had nearly ten thousand neo-Zulu, New Black Panther, Nation of Islam, Crips, Bloods, and straight up country niggas following him around like a puppy looking for a treat. He’d give them one.

  The defecting general was smart enough to stay well clear of the Emerald Coast perimeter lines as he led the horde deeper into Florida. The Cuban Army soldiers who had survived the Turkish Flu were a remnant, fifteen percent of their original strength, which had already been stretched thin enough, even before the sickness hit. They retreated before the black mob, regrouped in Orlando, and withdrew again to West Palm Beach. Still, Ray Ray’s force kept coming, only briefly distracted here and there for a few days at the time by the isolated White enclaves who had survived several years of postApocalyptic horrors, only to be crushed now by what still called itself a New African Army.

  Inevitably, the two forces faced off in Palm Beach. If the Cubans, who were outnumbered ten to one, had only known that Ray-Ray had changed his plans as he had wandered south and found nothing in Florida that matched his dreams, they might have just withdrawn further and left them alone. As it was, only a couple hundred of them survived the slaughter which ensued and made it back to Miami. But Ray-Ray had seen a tourist brochure Taneisha had found in an old souvenir shop. It looked just like his dreams. The map on the back of it looked so easy, and so close. He ordered his people to find every boat that would float. By the time the T.S.U. flu passed into Florida, Ray Ray had led his new tribe to Freeport, and saved them from the virus.

  Oh you’re where you should be all of the time, and when you’re not, you’re with Some underworld spy, or the wife of a close friend, the wife of a close friend…

  The new German immigrants getting off the ship at Houston for the first time were coming for more than just wide open spaces and big steaks, Scott knew. They were coming for economic opportunity. Many of them were here to manage the corporate export operations shipping crude oil and refine
d gasoline and aviation fuel and different mixtures and petroleum derivatives in direct-to-vendor special shipments, since all of the processing could be done here, prior to shipment. That difference alone in production time and cost made Texas oil competitive with North Sea crude. But they had brought their families along with them, too, the President observed, as he watched three or four blonde-haired children piling down the gangway for every adult. That meant that many of them were putting down roots, buying property, and would stay for the long term. With a lot of re-colonization to do, Texas could use them.

  As for the British, they might not like having a dent taken out of their petroleum export market to continental Europe, but they were taking it in good cheer, because Texas beef was reducing British beef prices, being closer and therefore cheaper to import than their Argentine competitors who had monopolized the market in South America. It was still hard for him to tell the difference at first between the accents of the British beef brokers, who tended to remain in the larger cities like Houston and Dallas and Corpus Christi, and the Australian, New Zealand, and South African cowboys who wrangled herds both here as well as up in Montana and Wyoming and the Dakotas. Right now, Texas beef was cheaper on the hoof than New American beef…at least until the Marines and militia cleaning out Norfolk got it running again. Scott lost sleep at nights worrying about the economic consequences of New America being able to ship exports right down through the Mississippi to the gulf, or worst, right through an Atlantic port, instead of having to go through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, any more. At least that would take the starch out of the Frenchies and their Quebecois allies. Well, one thing about Cinco Day, it had taught people how to love one day at a time. He tried to tell himself not to worry about things that were still months away. Hampton nagged at himself for being a worrier, and that gave him one more thing to worry about.

  On that note, the Russian scientists Texas had been loaned to work on getting things going again out at Los Alamos had a list of special industrial equipment and supplies they had given him. All of it was stuff they needed for the enrichment process of the Uranium from the four Commanche Creek reactors. They had really sped up the research that the nuclear science center team from A & M had started. He was going to speak to the German ambassador about it, but decided instead that he would skip some bureaucratic red tape and go to a private shipping and procurement firm, directly. It wasn’t like the old days, there were salvage crews all over Asia and the Middle East who could find all the things they needed that the Russians themselves weren’t shipping over from their new acquisitions in Iran and Turkey. Scott looked out across the ocean water, sparkling in the summer sun. In a couple of years, the Republic of Texas wouldn’t regret shipping all of their nukes north out of the path of the Reconquista when the Nortenos had eaten up half the country. They’d have their very own.

  He told his girlfriend to wait in the car. There might be some media around, and getting a picture of the President of The Republic of Texas walking dockside alone was one thing. Catching him here with his predecessor’s widow, well, that might be another rodeo, entirely. After all he had done and risked to get her, he didn’t want to lose her, now. So long as Josh stayed on task in his infiltration of the top levels of Deseret, everything should be alright.

  Some people never come clean, I think you know what I mean.

  You're walking a wire between pain and desire, and looking for love inbetween…

  Kelly would rather have died, or at least taken a good buttwhippin’, than have Hope save her. Now she owed her one. Well maybe now they were even, if the sins of the father were visited on the daughter. Stupid Josh had been late getting out of his LDS History classes with his Counselor, and they had been waiting because there was a sale on of the new Russian watches that would perfectly match her earrings, and had a cell phone embedded in it, too. Hope had asked to come along because Kip was busy moving into the larger embassy building, and she wanted to get out of their bungalow. Well, at least they didn’t have to stay in a suite, she thought. ‘You, too, can be a star!’.

  Out of nowhere, right there on the sidewalk, they had come at her, the three bearded men in long coats that should have been a giveaway in the full Spring warmth. One of them had yelled “Here comes the White Horse!”, their stupid White Horse prophecy. Then he had swung a short shotgun up from under his jacket, and the other two were reaching for theirs at the same time. Where Hope had pulled that big hand cannon from, Kelly had no idea. Before she could even reach behind her back to draw, five blasts boomed out, then two more. None of the three fundys got off a shot.

  To give credit where it was due, Josh was right there five seconds later, with his own handgun drawn, a revolver, Texican cowboy style, of course. And the D.P.S. tards were right behind him. Unfortunately, a Deseret News tv crew was across the street filming a fluff piece about the new cell watches, and got it all on tape. There were too many witnesses around for her to take their footage without causing a scene, so she’d just went with it and turned on the waterworks. Poor helpless victim of hateful attack time.

  The Council might not like that it had happened right downtown in a crowd, but she would spin it so they would see the benefit of the propaganda message. More importantly, they would see that the lines were clearly drawn, now. A few of the more rigid fundamentalist members might have to be removed. Only the Council could revise the Council and remove members. Even if he had been more than just a figurehead, Rammell couldn’t do that. So, she would have to convince them that the Council of Fifty should be more like the Council of Forty-two, by her count. Otherwise, the rebels would know everything the government planned against them, before it even got past the planning stages…unless she just took the reins and did it herself, without consulting them. Kelly had been having to do that more and more, lately. It was the only way to get anything done.

  When the cameras left, she stopped crying and sent Josh across the street to get her one of the new cell watches. Watching Hope watching her, apparently still kind of upset by the shooting, she whistled at Josh. When he turned around, she gestured at Hope, smiled, and held up two fingers. Josh, nodded, understanding. Well, it was the least she could do. The very least. Things came full circle, again.

  There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain…

  “I thought you were a pretty cool guy, until I found out you had swastika tattoos all over,” she had said, raising her arms to pull her shirt back over her head.

  “Yeah, I thought you were a pretty cool girl, until I found out you don’t shave under your arms,” he had told the hippie chick, so long ago. How long ago had it been, exactly? Ten years ago? In college, anyway, before Cinco Day. Now, here he was with silver Sergeant’s stripes on his back sleeves, Dave thought. Chauffeuring the top dog in the country. The memory of that conversation came back to him as he drove towards The Warehouse with the marble arch in his rear-view mirror.

  “Hey, Dave, would you mind turning the news up a bit? I want to hear this,” Speaker John McNabb said. Without responding, because that would have drowned out more of what the announcer was saying, the driver just reached down and turned the old style radio volume knob to the right by degrees. It was funny how the new Ford Renaissance sedans had retro classic features like that. Everything hand-cranked instead of electric, too, like an old Cadillac.

  “…And for more on this story, let’s you take you to the Post-Dispatch’s own Misty Chandler in Flagstaff. Misty?”

  “Yes, Bobby, the Deseret government isn’t releasing any new information to the foreign press corps, but sources on the ground here do report that tensions are running high following the attempted assault on their Department of Public Safety director outside a church where her fiance’, the Republic of Texas ambassador, was taking classes to convert. Now, that director, a woman, has in the past been criticized by extremist Mormons associated with the Fundamentalist Latter Day Sai
nts who do not approve of the highest law enforcement official in their country being a female. So far we have no word on the condition of her surviving attackers, who were reportedly shot, according to a brief press release from the New American embassy, by the wife of the New American Ambassador. Back to you, Bobby.”

  “So, am I hearing correctly, Misty, that for once all three nations worked together on something besides higher border fences? That’s amazing! But seriously, what is the government’s next expected move there?”

  “The truth is that no one is sure what will happen next, Bobby. Early this morning, Prophet Rammell called an emergency session of the Council of Fifty, which unanimously issued a proclamation condemning the F.L.D.S. as a terrorist organization, even before they had claimed responsibility for the attack. But here in Flagstaff, public sentiment towards the more conservative wing of Mormonism seems to be divided. Many people I spoke with feel that the LDS has gone too far with their reforms, Bobby.”