by Ginger Booth
“Agreed,” I said.
“Emmett said what?” Carlos demanded.
Pete sighed. “You missed that part of the summit. Cam gave us our climate change briefing. Carlos, I’ll update you during our one-on-one. Dee, note that I said I signed off. You need Sean Cullen to sign off, too. Carlos, censorship obeys Sean’s directive, not mine.”
“Sir.”
So far, so good. I got the main concession I wanted today, and decided to go a little farther. “Pete, I’d also like to add an Amenac feature, on the darknet.”
“I don’t know what that means, Dee,” Pete said.
Carlos said, “Dee, my directives say Amenac is censored. That means no darknet.”
“I think you’ll like what I’m trying to put together,” I said.
“Well, he doesn’t like it now. And I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pete observed. “And I need Jersey back online without crashing national morale outside Jersey. So whatever this darknet thing is, can wait. Focus, Dee. The tasks at hand have serious backfire potential.”
“You’re right, Pete. Sorry.” That was sincere, on my part. I was trying to do too many things at once, and that was dangerous. Of course, I still had no real intention to drop any of my initiatives. But the darknet would sell better with a couple wins first from relaxing censorship.
“OK, Dee. Brilliant work, as always,” Pete said. “Figure out your news features to support the Jersey thing. Clear your plate to get this done. Then get back to me with a time-line for restoring Jersey Internet. No one’s bitching yet, but Internet access is a constitutional right in Hudson. I need to restore it ASAP. Cool? Great. Thank you. Now I need to talk to Carlos.”
Dwayne and I were the winners in the morning’s round of Pete pep talks. Dwayne only got a mild scolding for waiting to leave until Cam’s appeal to leave with him was denied. Poor Ash Margolis probably had another day or two of homework, catching up with the status of the Upstate Rescos while still ruling the Apple Core, before he could even start with Pete. Judging by their demeanor, Cam and Carlos got chewed out.
Emmett, to my surprise, claimed he didn’t get chewed out at all. But he had a new assignment and a ton of work to do, and begged off to tell me about it later.
I vividly recalled Pete’s reaction when Carlos, drunk, attacked Emmett in the pool, during the summit meeting when Project Reunion was launched. Pete took a dim view of officers abusing subordinates. I rose from my computer at the dining table to give Carlos a warm hug and encouraging smile when he emerged from the basement with his luggage.
“You got demons, Carlos,” I said. “That’s understandable. But losing your temper in front of Pete…”
“Yeah. He made that clear,” Carlos agreed. His tone of exasperated aggravation evaporated into a sigh. “And he’s right.”
“Let Gladys help,” I whispered.
He smiled in spite of himself. “She already has. Talk to you soon.”
Gladys saw him out.
Poor Cam. I got Sean’s blessing to use him as spokes-goat to explain the martial law crackdown in Jersey, and answer questions from the press. The assignment seemed to cheer him up.
My greatest satisfaction of the day was assigning Eddie York to put together a half hour recap program to brief the people of Jersey on what happened to everyone else while they were offline. I took him down a few pegs first with my mixed feelings on his divisive programming the night before.
“Eddie, your goal in this piece is to gently chide the people of Jersey for thinking they got a raw deal. Instill compassion and amazement. ‘Maybe we were lucky,’ is what you want them thinking.”
“Dee, that isn’t journalism!” he sputtered.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But it’s what we need at PR News. Do you want this gig or not?”
“I want it,” he bit out.
“Then prove to me you can lead positive public opinion,” I said. “Because if all you want to do is bitch, go feed your ego somewhere else. You’re no use to me. We need to be able to do both.”
A nicer person wouldn’t have enjoyed that so much. But Eddie York was the sort who thrived on criticism. He left the video conference inspired to prove me wrong about him.
Pam stayed on for a private word. “You’ve picked Eddie already?” she asked sadly. “He’s good,” she allowed.
I shook my head. “I don’t trust him to take care of my people. Too fond of his own opinion. Pam, I don’t know about managing editor on the story side. But I love what you’ve done with creating and leading that virtual newsroom. Give it your best shot on the news tonight. But I’m wondering if I don’t want both of you, plus some of the reporters you’ve found.”
“Really?” She perked up, eyes shining on my screen. “Do you have budget for that?”
I shrugged. “We’ve barely tapped advertising potential. Hudson’s suddenly doubled in size. We’re giving good value to the Raj. I’m not worried about budget. If we can deliver on this Jersey challenge. And the Hudson–New England merger. And I want some other concessions too, on censorship. So by the end of the week, I need Sean Cullen shaking his head in wonder, thinking, ‘We couldn’t have done it without PR News.’ Let’s just worry about earning it for now, OK?”
24
Interesting fact: During the martial law crackdown in Jersey following the tsunami, nearly 9,000 were summarily executed for the crimes of looting, rape, murder, home invasion, and shooting at militia and army forces. When the following segment aired, there were still 20,000 lesser offenders awaiting sentence.
“Thanks, Amiri,” I said with a warm smile, on camera from a group of office chairs in my living room. I could see myself on the giant wall monitor. Amiri’s production crew had done a subtle job on my makeup, making my face attractive, yet accentuating the remaining bruises.
“PR News is proud to present a very special program tonight,” I said to the camera. “We’ll cover the martial law crackdown in Jersey. A little on the Hudson–New England merger. And, climate change. Because of current events, the Hudson Raj has agreed to relax some censorship rules of the Calm Act. This is an experiment. Our hope is that a more open Raj will increase understanding and cooperation nationwide. Thank you for caring enough to join us. Back to you, Amiri.”
That was it for my lines. My role in the rest of this was as director. My chair and I quietly exited the tableau, and I scooted behind the camera crew. The format wasn’t quite a town hall. We had Amiri Baz, our Pulitzer-winning star reporter, leading the discussion. Cam as spokesman for the Hudson Raj. An illustrious group of ‘trusted leaders,’ attending remotely, had a seat on the panel to ask questions, with their faces sharing screen real estate with us. Two more town-hall style groups of lower-ranked Rescos, Cocos, and voters were entrusted to watch before the censors and editors had their way with the footage, and could ask a few questions. Those were in Ithaca Upstate, and New Haven Connecticut, a few miles from PR News HQ in Totoket.
Amiri turned it over to Cam, who in turn gave an admirably succinct and honest account of what happened in Jersey the past nine days.
Amiri probed, “And the reason for these martial law actions was to maintain order.”
“Restore order,” Cam said. “Or even create order where there hadn’t been, really.”
“Yes, sorry,” Amiri corrected himself. “Order broke down, pretty much immediately when the tsunami hit, from what you’re saying.”
“Absolutely. Murder and mayhem. Looting and rape. Invasion and pillage. Militia barricaded roads to control the panic, and were gunned down where they stood. The opening salvos in Jersey were in self-defense. The militia were caught off-guard by the tsunami, the same as everyone else. Remember, militia are not trained soldiers. They’re your neighbors.”
I suddenly had an all-too-vivid image of Shelley and Trey, relaxedly kibitzing down by the Route 1 reservoir barricade, the way they usually did. Then out of the blue, them facing an onslaught of hundreds of panicked civilians, running for
their lives and shooting at anything in their way. The West Totoket militia would have been slaughtered. I gulped.
On a director level, I hoped the viewers could picture their own Shelleys and Treys in that predicament.
Amiri followed up with, “Do you know how many militia died in that phase?”
“I have estimates for the week as a whole,” Cam replied. “Let’s cover that now, the death toll.”
Amiri nodded for him to go ahead.
“Fair warning. These are some large numbers. Our viewers may not be aware of this, but Jersey was the most densely populated state in the U.S. before the epidemic. Still is, so far as I know. Even now, we have over five million people in Jersey. That’s down from nine million before the Calm. Though a lot of that is from shifting the border. For comparison, all of Upstate is also about five million. Connecticut has two and a half million now. Long Island is under two million. ”
I put Cam’s death toll slide up on the screen, and moved Amiri and Cam’s heads to the corner. Cam walked through it. “The largest number, of course, is people who died directly from the tsunami, or later from exposure – about seventy thousand. South of the Apple, Jersey has a low sandy shore, with barrier islands, similar to Long Island’s south shore. Marshes. In some areas, like Cape May, the north shore of Delaware Bay, and Atlantic City, the death toll was nearly complete. Whole towns washed away.
“I need to point out, about half of these casualties were living on condemned land. Like Long Island, living on the barrier islands was forbidden, or anywhere less than ten feet above sea level. And that’s current sea level, which is rising.”
Amiri interjected, “So the Rescos could have saved lives by enforcing the zoning rules more strictly?”
“Speaking as a Resco, you have to pick your battles,” Cam countered. “In the normal scenario, we’d have time to evacuate before a storm surge of this magnitude. I can’t blame the Jersey Rescos for not being more proactive at forcing people out of their homes. It’s hard to do. I know they had insurrectionists to deal with, and that takes priority.
“Moving on. Another forty thousand civilians died of violence. About five thousand militia. Fifteen hundred regular Army and National Guard troops. The militia were ordered to stand down and get out of the way almost immediately. But, communications were down.”
I returned the screen to Cam and Amiri in their chairs.
“That’s a stunning death toll. And the nuclear reactor? At Toms River,” Amiri prompted.
“All I know is from your excellent report the other day, Amiri,” Cam said. “Four brave men and women, you said? We lost eight at Seabrook, with another couple still in critical condition. In New Hampshire.”
“Yes, the four at Toms River. They left safety in the control room to fix the emergency generators,” Amiri supplied. “Six of the dead at Seabrook did the same. What I was trying to get at, is that there were actually no fatalities from nuclear accidents.”
“Not in Hudson, no,” Cam agreed. “Yeah, thank you, Amiri. That was a real triumph. Kudos to Resco Colonels Tony Nasser and Pete Hoffman in Jersey, Bob Brazeau in New Hampshire, and Carlos Mora and Governor Ben Fallon in Connecticut. All of our nuclear power plants were secured safely. That was no miracle. That was solid planning and execution.”
Amiri nodded judiciously. “I have more questions, but I’d like to open it up to our panel at this time. Lieutenant Colonel Brazeau, you were just mentioned. Why don’t you go first?”
Brazeau was a middle-aged white guy, grey hair, carrying a few extra pounds. New Hampshire wasn’t as hungry as the over-populated south of Hudson. “Thank you, Amiri. Cam, how do these death tolls compare with Long Island and Narragansett? Delaware and Virginia, too, if you know.”
This was where we really ventured onto new ground, freshly un-forbidden from a few years of strict censorship. Cam was free to critique other Rescos in public.
“Well, I’m biased of course, Bob.” Cam grinned. “Long Island did brilliantly. Its leadership is clearly superior.”
“Goes without saying,” Brazeau agreed, with matching grin.
“Alright, kidding aside,” Cam continued. “One of Long Island’s weaknesses, is communications. Ironically, in this case, that saved lives. Because my plans always had to take that into account. Here I was running for my life. I called the play from the playbook. My second-in-command executed. All a push-button operation, ready to go, ‘Run for high ground.’ Nothing fancy. Minimum elevation twenty feet. We hold dry runs of all our emergency protocols. So everyone had practice, knew where to go.
“We were strict about policing our barrier islands. But again, the reason is a weak point. Our population suffers a lot of apple trauma. They wander into bad places. They need hand-holding and reminding. Exceptions cause confusion. So we’re strict.”
Cam paused, and swallowed. He couldn’t say this casually. “And we lost about,” he paused again to clear his throat, “nine thousand.” He blew out a long slow breath. “Excuse me. That’s still not…”
“Understood, Cam,” Brazeau said compassionately. “Take your time.”
“Now, you two already know each other, Colonel Brazeau?” Amiri interjected, shifting the focus to Brazeau to give Cam a breather.
“We do. Cam was an instructor at Northeast Muster,” Brazeau said. Another fact never revealed to the public before. “He trained the rest of us to become Rescos.”
“I did not know that,” Amiri said. “Was he a good instructor?”
Amiri was being glib. But Brazeau nodded slowly, as though considering the question for the first time. “Yes, sir. I believe he was.”
Cam laughed softly. “Thanks, Bob. So, Narragansett. Just wasn’t ready, as I read it. It’s been what, nine months since they started to bring it under martial law? After letting it get out of control, like North Jersey and the Apple. And Long Island, but LI was more cooperative. LI was desperately eager to be organized. Jersey, Boston, Narragansett just weren’t that way. As we impressed on students at that Resco Muster, it’s easier to keep a populace under control, than to bring it back under control after it’s gone violent.
“We don’t know yet how many people died in Narragansett. A lot. More than Jersey. But I don’t know that I would have prioritized differently,” Cam continued. “Greater Virginia, I also don’t have numbers. I know the death toll again will be worse than Jersey.”
“You know that?” Amiri pounced.
“Yes,” Cam agreed. “Greater Virginia made no attempt to keep people ten feet above sea level. Ten feet wasn’t enough for a twenty-odd foot tsunami. But it sure helped. Chesapeake Bay is an environmental disaster zone now. Between the Surry nuclear meltdown, oil spills, and tsunami damage. And these aren’t towns, they’re cities. Their populations are dead, dying, contaminated. They are in a deep dark hole, in Virginia.
“Carolina was well-prepared,” Cam continued his critique. “But geography was not their friend. Tens of thousands of refugees from Virginia, of course. That whole peninsula north of Albemarle Sound is still in active shooting. But they’re bringing it under control. Kudos to the Carolina Raj. That said, they lost around eighty thousand.”
“Less than Hudson?” Brazeau said in surprise.
“A bit less,” Cam agreed. “Far less than Hudson plus New England. But yeah, there aren’t as many people on the Carolina coast. And they’ve been steadily shifting population into the interior hills. Very proactive. They did well. We did better.”
“My understanding,” Amiri intruded, “is that we aren’t getting information out of Georgiabama and Florida? Or Georgia and Floribama.”
“No comment,” Cam settled on.
“Colonel Brazeau,” Amiri said, “it seems only fair to turn this back on you. How did northern New England make out? Were you well prepared?”
Brazeau blew out. “We lost people, and that hurts. I like Cam’s push-button emergency plans. You can believe New Hampshire is about to get some. Our losses were similar to LI’s. But
only because we had Cam’s advance warning, and our coastline is steeper. And we do enforce the ten-foot rule. Nobody lives at sea level. We can do better. And we will.
“Preparation in Boston was probably worse than Narragansett. They were spared by Cape Cod breaking the waves. May the Cape rest in peace. Casualties on the Boston coast were light, though higher than Connecticut. Devastating to the fishing fleets. And the Coast Guard. I don’t know what we could do differently there. We need to talk about that.”
“And are you happy with Hudson’s response to your call for help?” Amiri asked.
“Absolutely,” Brazeau confirmed.
“That was a tough call,” Amiri prompted.
“Ah, I’m very lucky it worked,” Brazeau returned. “But Seabrook going into meltdown would have devastated half of New Hampshire. It’s a Resco’s job to protect his people, call in resources. I’m very lucky that Sean Cullen agreed with that interpretation.”
“Any critique to offer on your previous commanding officer, Governor General Link?” Amiri suggested.
“No thank you,” Brazeau recoiled instinctively. “Well, I will say this. A Resco owes loyalty both ways. To the Army chain of command, and to the people he serves. As you said. It was a tough call. My read is that General Link saw Narragansett as a priority. And that’s true. But New Hampshire also had a need. Luckily, Hudson was willing. Despite having more than enough problems of their own to deal with. General Cullen has confidence, and class. One cool customer in a crisis. I hope New Englanders appreciate how lucky we are to get him. And, we haven’t lost General Link and his skills. Damned lucky.”
“I’d like to add,” Cam said, “I’ve served under both Cullen and Link. Cullen is an incredibly likable commander. Link is also among the best commanders I’ve served under. More focused, more intent. Bit less good at delegating, but who am I to judge that? I’m here in the Apple, gnawing my fingernails to the elbow, because I’m stuck here sick while my husband is leading all of LI. It’s making me crazy. Delegation is hard. Cullen is a master.”