The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  There had been a time, right after he had first gotten out of the service and was thinking about running for the Manitoban state legislature, when Paul had almost gotten married. She had been a nice lady, a pretty blonde war widow whose husband had been away on business in Toronto when it got hit. But she was Quebecois, and her parents and extended family were back home in Ottawa. It was occupied by the French ‘peacekeeping forces’ in the aftermath, and she had left Winnipeg, and him, to be with them. He had never seen or heard from her again. It was easy to lose track of people without an unregulated social media world to Google. Since then, he hadn’t taken the time to date, in single-minded pursuit of political power. The months and years had left him alone; a powerful man, but a lonely one.

  Governor Martin had visited Anchorage last year, for the annual New American Governor’s Conference. The growing city, home to the Unified Command Northern Pacific Fleet, had actually been warmer than Winnipeg. The very eligible, if aging, bachelor had definitely noticed, by the way the women dressed. In fact, the new census showed that it was the largest metropolitan area on the West Coast, surpassing Seattle, Portland, and Coos Bay. With the exception of Whitehorse, the former Canadian states usually voted and conferenced as a block, except for last year. British Columbia had broken ranks and voted with the Pacific states, for the first time, too.

  The former 2nd Lake Winnipeg Cavalry Sergeant understood that Russian expansion was forcing them all to close ranks on the Left Coast. Fortunately the Czar was looking South, these days. And, his situation with the frogs wasn’t the only hotspot to be watched. They had the same kind of distractions down in the Bay Area, still rebuilding after the temporary Chinese invasion and occupation there. Southern California was pretty firmly Deseret territory, up to Bakersfield, just as Nevada was. The Pacific States Coalition were facing a resurgent missionary effort by the F.L.D.S., as the Mormons found a new zeal for land and souls. The regime change in Salt Lake had all of them worried out West. But he felt sometimes like he was facing the Quebecois on his own.

  With the Western half of Ontario added on, Manitoba was the largest of the prairie provinces, and Alberta and Saskatchewan generally marched in lockstep with what Paul said. Having Balderson’s endorsement, he counted on being reelected, once again. He just wished it was a sure thing, though. His hernia was killing him.

  Over the last couple of years more French colonists, first from former French possessions in what had been third world nations before they were depopulated, and then from the European continent itself, had been setting up shop further and further West of Sault Ste. Marie. Maybe he had gotten complacent during all the remigration and settlement of New England following its’ occupation and pacification by the united Francophone forces of Quebec and France. Maybe they all had.

  The New France border at the Hudson River had long stabilized, and after the brief conflict which had ended in a negotiated cease-fire, things had been quiet on that front. The wounds cut by the Poughkeepsie Massacre had healed, somewhat. Here in the North, though, a discontented minority still resented having been reigned in from winning what they had felt sure would have been an easy victory.

  That fringe had put Paul Martin, a Nationalist Party candidate, himself, in a hard primary fight he had barely won. For an incumbent, that stung. Especially since the hawks were threatening to boycott the election in protest. That might tip the ballot boxes to the Unionist Party, whose candidate wanted to placate the Quebecois in hopes of convincing them to strengthen ties with the other North American continental powers, specifically and primarily New America, and wean Montreal away from Paris.

  Governor Martin had heard that down in New York, the blast craters could be seen from the orbital platforms, when their orbit was just right. They looked like acne scars, the pockmarks of a new nation’s pubescent growing pains. Baltimore and Philly and the flooded ruins of Toronto and its suburbs were still dark from space, too. Nobody had, or would, reclaim those ghost-filled ruins. Sometimes he lay in bed alone at night and wondered why one of those offcourse Chinese missiles couldn’t have hit Montreal, or Quebec City, instead. It sure would have made his life easier. So would a wife, but that chance had passed him by.

  On this particular night, his fitful tossing and turning was interrupted by an unexpected phone call from the Surgeon General’s office. An UnderSecretary was calling each state executive leader personally to advise them that due to the imminent threat of future biological warfare involving genetically targeted viral agents, an Executive Order would be forthcoming within the next week, at the request of the Surgeon General’s office. A new round of mandatory DNA tests, this time for every citizen over the age of eighteen. They wanted to make sure that everyone was safe.

  “What we’re going to ask is that just as with a selective service call up, all males of legal age must report for a cheek swab and remain on the facility premises for an hour until the test results are tabulated and signed off on,” the scripted statement was read.

  Paul promised the young man on the phone from St. Louis that he would call a governor’s cabinet meeting in the morning to begin mobilizing the state health department and militia units, in preparation for the tests. They would be ready by the end of the week, as ordered. That should shut the Unionists up.

  “Some will win, some will lose Some were born to sing the blues Oh, the movie never ends

  It goes on and on and on and on…”

  The Soldiers of The Cross Training Center had grown over the years since its’ founding to finally consist of several multistory academic and dormitory buildings scattered across a hillside, and an annual class size strictly limited to one hundred students. Nestled securely in the Northern Arkansas Ozarks, it lay at the heart of The Knights Committee’s empire within an empire. The eight County area controlled as a private fiefdom reflected the neo-feudalism emerging in various corners of the continent. Even before Northern Arkansas had liberated the remainder of the state, the sole legislative representation from the region in the national government had been, and remained, a member of the dynastic family which ruled there.

  Jack spent his sparse evening free time after his political science and history classes in the Heritage Museum, wandering through the Hall of Martyrs and pouring through the archives. The purpose of his education was not just to fine tune his diplomatic skills and his understanding of human individual and group psychology. His was a journey of inspiration and motivation through embracing the history of his people.

  The normally year-long leadership training course had been compressed into a semester on the special request of the Attorney General, Jason Roberts, whose family had originally established the college. Jack took a week of classroom instruction in each subject as a foundation, then completed the courses through independent study with tutoring from his academic advisors. This required the First Lieutenant to endure a rigorous eight hours per day of classroom study and tutoring.

  The other students, who also lived in the on campus dormitories, looked at him with some awe. Most of them were his age or a year or so younger. All of them were from leadership families and elite new nobility from throughout New America. His dormmate was a wealthy importer from Chicago’s son named Seth Rollins. Seth was kind of an electronics wizard, but an anti-social nerd. They had very little in common to talk about. Seth also snored like a chainsaw.

  Although he was mentally exhausted every evening once his classes and meetings ended, Jack usually found a couple of other students loitering in the Heritage Museum, when he unwound there. Several of the girls took their hero-worship of his celebrity status a step further and developed crushes on McNabb. He caught a lot of sidelong glances, smiles, appraising looks, and outright stares from the twenty or so young ladies around campus. One of them, from a plantation family recolonizing central Virginia, was always sitting in the Hall of Martyrs hoping to have a moment to talk with him, whenever his classes ended. Tracy had memorized his schedule and even engaged in some small talk with him.
During his second week, she made her move.

  At first, Jack almost said ‘no’ to the invitation to go hiking in the woods with a group of the students. He had spent his first weekend on campus meeting with the Roberts and Pender families, old friends of his parents, and settling into his dorm room, then exploring the Museum and Hall. He hadn’t really planned what he might do on the weekends, after that. Probably just sleep and read and study. Sundays, of course, were for mandatory church services. Tracy had other plans. Her winning smile, and a flash in her eyes that reminded him of a brown haired girl in the desert of Colorado, convinced him to go along.

  In addition to Tracy and himself, the hiking group consisted of Jeff, from Emerald Coast; Joey, from Kentucky; Mike, from West Pennsylvania; and two brothers, twins named Parker and Steven, from Idaho. The other two girls with the group were Tracy’s friends, Shawna and Lynn. They were both from Arkansas, so they were considered local girls. Considering that over eighty percent of the student body was male, that reflected a pretty even split, he reflected, as he stepped out of his dorm to join them.

  As usual for a hike in uneven terrain, Jack wore hiking boots, heavy cotton jeans, and a long sleeved flannel shirt over an issue t-shirt. Looking over the other assembled teenagers, he recognized that they must have grown up soft and spoiled. Their sneakers and shorts blared it, loud and clear. He would have to take it easy on them.

  The only thing working to mute his competitive spirit and helping him to relax and just enjoy the outdoors was Tracy. She had braided her long reddish-blonde hair into twin loops that were tied behind her neck efficiently, and wore a common sense cotton shirt and ankle high walking shoes, at least. Before they had made it down the first gully she had paired up to walk beside him and ask him about the capitol and the Battle of Freeport. She had seen a BBC documentary just a couple weeks before about his heroics, apparently. He tried not to be evasive, even though he didn’t often talk about the bloodier aspects of his experience with civilians…especially girls. He held back the more vivid elements. As they reached the creek at the bottom and the others stopped to rest, already winded, Tracy seemed to accidentally stumble towards him, and he caught her, instinctively, without thinking about it. Her smile told him that she hadn’t fallen on accident…at least not physically.

  “Ooops,” she whispered, her breath hot on his neck. “You saved me.” She fogged up his glasses, or something did. Tracy held on for a second or two longer than it took to regain her balance, gripping his side.

  Jack had been more places and seen and done more than most men twice his age, and he knew what she was doing…but that didn’t change a dang thing about how it affected him. And she knew it.

  “You probably fell a lot further when you came down from heaven,” he teased, letting her know that he could be cheesy with the flirtations, as well. She laughed and squeezed tighter, then let him go with a look of promise.

  Shawna and Lynn each paired off with one of the Idahoan twins in some kind of petty adolescent female competition, leaving the other three boys to horse around and throw rocks in the creek. Jack and Tracy moved off downstream a bit and found a small cave they climbed into. It was really more of a rock overhanging bluff, but it suited their purposes. She sat close to him in the loose chert and told him about how her family, whose last name was Cavanaugh, had originally been from Mississippi, but joined the refugee trail north when their enclave had collapsed. That was before she had been born, of course, but her parents still talked about those days, when they were feeling nostalgic.

  Jack, in turn, told her a couple of stories that his mom and dad had told him, about the Balk. Talking about them stung more than he had expected. His voice trailed off and after a moment he realized that she was looking at him with compassion. She knew what had stopped him. Tracy gave him a quick hug, then a kiss on the cheek, leaning into him for a second before jumping up and skidding out of the cave. On the way out, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him, flashing a daring grin that invited pursuit. Somehow, Jack knew this territory was more dangerous than any pirate-infested beach.

  On the way back up the other side her hand found his, and he helped steady her as she climbed up the steep ravine, from tree to tree. He took it deliberately slow, helping her find firm footholds in the leaves and downed limbs. The group regathered, Shawna and Lynn looking like cats who had swallowed canaries, and the twins beet red and flushed.

  “Where did all ya’ll get lost to?” Lynn asked Tracy, twinkling, as her hip seemed attached to the boy beside her.

  “The same place ya’ll did, I reckon.” Tracy answered. The three stag boys guffawed and hooted and ran around in circles, like silly kids.

  Jack and Tracy led the way on the return hike out. As the others fell behind, she told Jack about Virginia, and her adventures exploring the ruins of the old U.S. Capitol with her father and uncle on day trips. Aside from those outings, life on the huge farm had been boring for her, she claimed. That’s why she wanted to enter the diplomatic corps, and become an ambassador. So she could travel and see the world.

  Jack learned something about a certain class of people, the new nobility, that day. He discovered that their sense of entitlement didn’t just cover themselves, it extended to those whom they recognized as peers, as well. Tracy seemed to simply assume that at some point Jack would become Speaker. So maybe his celebrity status was as much for what they expected he would be, as it was for who he was, and who his parents had been?

  Fate was inexorable, he knew. But noone had ever told him that he had inherited any title or office. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

  The third and fourth weeks, he spent a lot of time with Tracy. Sometimes they would walk through the Hall of Martyrs together after classes until dark, then sit out under the stars until the curfew bell sounded, looking at the nighttime sky. Their cafeteria trays usually ended up going on picnics into the treeline. Lying flat on his back in the soft grass, beside a soft warm girl who idolized him, Jack felt that life was pretty good. A couple of times after curfew they slipped out and thrashed through the brush to ‘their’ cave together, using a pair of night vision goggles he borrowed from the college armory. Tracy looked good in green and black.

  On Sunday mornings, they sat together in church, respectably, and helped keep each other awake after the night before. When he wasn’t attending a Congressional session in the capitol, the regular minister at the church was Rev. Andrew Pender, the representative from Arkansas. Attorney General Roberts, his uncle, often visited, as well. Whenever Congress was in session, guest speakers were invited to speak from the pulpit. Tracy was delighted, and Jack surprised, when one of his Psychology tutors, Dr. McCorkle, asked him if he would give the message the next Sunday.

  Not being a theologian, the Lieutenant nonetheless agreed. He gave a personal testimony, beginning with how important faith had been to his father, and to the establishment of the national government. As he ended with a description of the conquest of the Bahamas and a call to action against the Muslim Javanese, Jack was answered with a standing ovation by the congregation. Three of the girls fainted.

  Academically, Jacks’ grades hadn’t declined in the least. Following his first month there, he was given his first academic standing report, and held a solid 4.0 g.p.a.. The second month, his course of study shifted to basic engine repair, welding, and carpentry, to remain in line with the S.O.T.C.’s vision of a balanced psyche. Except for the mechanical books, that meant that he had even less homework than before, so he had more time for Tracy. The two were openly dating, now, in public, as a known couple. Halfway through his second month, they took a Saturday afternoon trip into town together, using a borrowed S.U.V. from the college motor pool. Jack took Tracy for pizza, and afterwards, when she had to stop to use the restroom, he slipped into a corner shop and bought her a silver necklace with a celtic cross on it. She was thrilled, and nearly cried when he dangled it in front of her face after she came out.

  “Do you like it?”
he asked her, teasingly. Tracy reached for it, but he swung it away, past her grasping fingers.

  “Oh yes, I love it, is it for me?” she gasped. Jack laughed and told her to turn around. She did, and lifted her hair so he could put it over her head. All the way to their next stop, a book store, she beamed.

  Just as they were leaving town, a busload of tourists from the Republic of Texas pulled up beside them at a red light. Within seconds, shrieks split the air as Jack was recognized. Cameras clinked against the bus windows. It dampened their spirits for a few minutes, but by the time they got back to the college, the couple were laughing about it.

  When the celebrity pictures of Jack McNabb and his mystery date appeared as stills on first the Austin and Dallas and Houston, then the global news service broadcasts, the response was quite different in some quarters. Young women from the Arctic to the Gulf fumed in jealousy, but none so much as two in particular. In St. Louis and southern Colorado, doors were heard to slam and glass objects to break. And along the shores of Lake Anna, one of the most powerful families in the Virginia territory hosted a party to celebrate.

  “So you think you're lonely

  Well my friend I'm lonely too

  I want to get back to my City by the bay Ooh, ooh…”

  Being a minor official in as large an organization as the Front Nationale’ in France, where patriots pushily demanding equal footing with their big brother Greater Germany could only gain it by stepping on their smaller siblings the Republic of Catalonia and Sardinia and the Belgic successor states in turn, had made it hard to stand out. Here in New France, Yvette’s more subdued, passive aggressive tactics reaped greater dividends. Let her bosses in Lyons worry about whether England was going to pay their share for the Chunnel maintenance, or if the new Prime Minister of the Republic of Northern Italy was serious about annexing a third of Switzerland. She could do more good, over here.