Royal Hues of Blue: Book One

by Greg Gotti

  “John, war is glorious sport for a certain type of man,” Martinez was saying. “The type who can set aside all regard for the sanctity of human life enjoys war like nothing else. There is strategy, intrigue, suspense, an uncertain outcome and an adrenaline rush. It is hard to find such men who possess the intelligence, education and leadership qualities necessary to effectively lead men into battle. Then you need more such men to follow them and fight with equal vigor. It is difficult because there is something deep inside us all that whispers it is an evil thing to enjoy taking human life. Life is precious, and we are supposed to fight wars to defend innocent life; not kill it. So we have to take away the enemy’s innocence. We must convince our men that the enemy is inhuman and morally repugnant. Sometimes, this is easy because there are such enemies out there. But it is a tactic; you see? It was that for thousands of years before The Fall. It will be that way a thousand years from now.”

  “Jose, how can we possibly know what it was like thousands of years before The Fall? All the records were wiped out, and the books were lost. Only what is contained within the archives of knowledge remains now, and none of us are ever going to be allowed in there.”

  “John, it amazes me that the Soona Nation manages to remain in existence with the way they lie to your people,” Martinez shaking his head in disbelief. “They get away with it because the state runs the media. You have nothing resembling a free press. Every story has to be approved by government officials before it can be released. They control what you hear and see, and this allows them to control what you think.”

  “They have to monitor the news to make sure no information is put out that would put the army in jeopardy,” John said with sincerity. “Surely you understand the necessity of not jeopardizing the nation’s fighting forces?”

  “I do understand that, John, and we do the same thing here without bureaucrats running the media. We have different newspapers and radio stations that compete against each other. If the people find one to be dishonest, they go to a competitor. This forces the different outlets to do right by the consumer.”

  “Jose, that’s a bunch of crap, and you know it. That just means the rich and powerful own the media instead of the government. Everyone knows the Rista Federation is nothing more than a huge business monopoly that controls everything. They present stories that serve their own agendas and slant the facts to fit their own narratives. I have been in your country many times and read the newspaper accounts of battles I was part of. Trust me; they print what they want you to hear. The truth is arbitrary.”

  Martinez froze halfway through the process of lifting his coffee cup. He set the cup down and smiled broadly as John gave him a puzzled look.

  “You are every bit the intelligent man I took you for, John. Yes, you have a very good grasp on things when it comes to the media. Ever since the printing press was invented, the media has manipulated popular opinion in different countries. It has been a powerful sorcery of the mind that casts spells of illusion upon the brains of otherwise bright and perceptive people.”

  “What do you mean by ‘sorcery’?” John asked.

  “What else would you call a magical spell that makes otherwise intelligent people believe a false narrative?” Martinez shook his head and lifted his cup to his mouth and took a generous sip before continuing.

  “How much do you know about the time before The Fall, John?”

  “Just the basics really,” John shrugged. “The germs wiped out a lot of people, and the war wiped out a lot more.”

  “No, that is The Fall itself. What do you know of the time that came before it? What do you know of the time when all of this land was part of the United States?”

  “I know it wouldn’t be hard for you to get your hands on Soona textbooks,” John said. “So I know you already know what they teach us; not much.”

  “I didn’t ask what they teach you, John. I want to know what you believe you know.”

  John sighed. He hated having to play along with all this.

  “America was the most powerful nation in the world. It had the best technology and the best medicine. It was a terrific place to live until someone created a virus designed to wipe out the white population.”

  “You think the virus was designed to kill only white people?”

  “I don’t know, Jose. I’ve heard it killed Ristas too. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “It only killed people with certain genetic markers, John. Anyone with those markers was susceptible to contracting the disease. Whites and Latinos were hit hard by the first wave of outbreaks.”

  “What are ‘Latinos,’ Jose?”

  Martinez smiled. “Latinos is the term people used to use to describe people like me. It refers to ‘Latin America,’ which was not a country, but a region to the south of the United States. America was known as a ‘melting pot’ where people of all backgrounds could come and assimilate into American culture; adding their own flavor to the stew, so to speak. The virus attacked Latinos and whites with equal ferocity. Some were immune, but they were a small minority.”

  “But black people were immune,” John offered.

  “Some were. There were a lot of people who were classified as ‘black,’ but were actually a mixture of many different backgrounds. Most people in America actually were at that time. A lot of black people died as well. They just didn’t die at the rate whites and Latinos did.”

  “Here is one question I have: If everyone was of mixed backgrounds, why did the black people want to take out the whites and Latinos?”

  Martinez smiled and shook his head.

  “Is that what you’ve been told? John, the black Americans had nothing to do with it. In fact, they lined up to donate blood, bone marrow and anything they could do to save their neighbors’ lives. They fought the legislation that consigned Latinos and whites to the quarantine zones. They actually halted those relocations for a short time, until the Haze developed.”

  “Okay,” John interrupted, “what exactly is the Haze?”

  “The Haze was some sort of mutation of the original virus. Black people didn’t have a natural immunity to it. It began a whole new pandemic. People died in swarms. Americans panicked, and opposition to the relocations evaporated. Fear is a powerful weapon, John.”

  “So how did the virus get started?” John asked.

  “Nobody knows for sure. We know it was manmade, and it was definitely designed to target the non-black population. The information I have read leads me to believe it came from the weapons laboratories of America itself. The American government denies that, of course. They deny everything. Your government, my government, and all the governments that exist now… they all create their own version of the truth and preach it as gospel.”

  “As what?” John asked.

  “What?” Martinez was confused.

  “Preached it as what?”

  “Gospel… you know… the Bible and all that?” John held up his palms, and gave him a look indicating his total cluelessness, and Martinez sighed.

  “John, my friend, there is so much I want to tell you. I have been waiting for you to be ready before I reveal the things that have been kept from you. Little by little, I have introduced you to certain truths. I don’t even know the whole story behind much of what surrounds us. I am absolutely certain there is some mysterious, hidden power that sits above our respective governments; controlling everything. My saying this to you would land me in very hot water with the Federation. This is why we have our meals in this room where we cannot be overheard. I am taking a very big chance by talking to you about these things. Your presence here is unknown to my superiors. Were they to discover I held John Wallace here; they would immediately come for you. You would be their trophy, and you would come to a brutal end. It is only because I answer to no one in the RID that we are able to keep you here secretly. I report directly to the Executive Board; nobody else.”

  “So why are you keeping me here?” John asked. “We both know it
isn’t because you’re lonely and need a friend.”

  “We all need friends, John,” Martinez said with a smile. “You’re right. I do have an important purpose for keeping you here. Everyone believes you to be dead. If you were to be discovered to be alive, both your people and mine would want you dead immediately. I am still in the process of fully understanding why, but you must trust me. There is much more going on than either you or I have ever realized.”

  “What do you mean?” John demanded. “What’s going on?”

  Martinez took a bite of his muffin and closed his eyes in pleasure.

  “Ah… blueberry is my favorite. You really are lucky to be here, John. Our cooks and bakers are really the best here.” He took another bite before continuing.

  “The world you and I know is a lie, John. This whole war is a lie. There is a nation called ‘America,’ but it bears little resemblance to the great nation that was once a beacon of freedom for the entire world. The Soona Nation and the Rista Federation are lies. What lies to our west and the Texans to the east… all of it is shrouded in secrecy and deception. People have been dying in this war for decades, but for what? Nothing ever changes. We just keep plugging in fresh bodies to kill each other. We don’t even know why we hate each other anymore. Sure, we know we want revenge for someone we love being killed by the other side, but why are our two sides at war in the first place? Surely you have come to suspect that your history books are not being entirely honest with you. We all used to be Americans, John. Maybe not you and I specifically, but our fathers or grandfathers before us were all part of the same race: Americans.”

  “Then why did it change?” John demanded. “Why would the people turn on each other and allow themselves to be split into groups that attack each other? If they were the most powerful nation on Earth, why would they weaken themselves intentionally that way? That would be madness!”

  “Yes! That is exactly what it was, John! It was madness! The American people once had a common enemy that kept them thinking of themselves as one united country. Nothing unifies a people like a common enemy that seeks an end to your way of life. That enemy eventually fell, and America was left as the unquestioned dominant power in the world. I have read the old newspaper articles of that period. America stood free and prosperous, and she had no one who could challenge her. The American people, our grandparents and great-grandparents, stood at the precipice of a golden age.

  Only that golden age never came. You see, America was always a blend of many different people from many different places. Each group had their own customs and traditions. Many of these were absorbed into mainstream American culture, but some remained exclusively with the groups that brought them. Different groups developed rivalries or even dislikes of certain other groups. With that common enemy now gone, America turned its fighting spirit inward. People of different skin colors had always quarreled with each other, but they now began demonizing each other in the political process. People of different political philosophies took their disagreements to a more aggressive level. Certain people of wealth and influence saw an opening to serve themselves; rather than their country. They purposely divided Americans against their fellow countrymen in order to advance their own agendas. They created an atmosphere of grievance and hatred. A never-ending cycle of payback and contempt took hold in the nation, and this happened very quickly. The American government devolved into two camps, and each was totally convinced it held the moral high ground. Is it not easy to justify doing questionable things to your opponent if we perceive that opponent to be immoral? We certainly present our war in terms of ‘good vs evil.’ It makes it much easier to hate.”

  John sat transfixed by Martinez’s words. He had never heard these stories before. Martinez could be lying to him, but he doubted that. There had been this urgency, almost desperation on the part of Martinez from the first day he had been brought here, for John to believe him. He got the feeling Martinez needed him for something and needed him to want to do it. He had no idea what it could be, but he was very interested in hearing more as the Rista colonel continued.

  “When America had reached the point where its people resented their fellow citizens, it seems that it became ripe for a drastic overhaul of the existing order. There was some unseen power at work, and it wanted the American way of life drastically transformed or even destroyed. To bring this about, they used one tool: fear. More precisely, it was fear of their fellow Americans. Fear of the common enemy had brought unity to a diverse people for a long time. Now, it was fear of their own people that divided Americans against themselves. They divided the common people into tribes of a sort and made these tribes afraid of each other. Once they were afraid of each other, it was easy to make them hate each other. Once they hated each other, there was no chance the common people would band together and ask why a small group of self-appointed elites possessed an obscenely disproportionate amount of the power and resources. These elites pretended to battle each other through the political process, but this was all a sham. They had managed to “tribalize” America, and they drastically weakened the country in the process. This left America vulnerable, and into this dynamic came the Haze.

  When the Haze began killing people by the tens of millions, nobody knew what was going on. There were all kinds of rumors. It quickly spread to Europe and Latin America. It affected Asia and just about wiped out Australia. Nations accused each other of biological attacks and retaliated. Now, people of all races and backgrounds were dying. Biological weapons were used all over the world, and people died horrible deaths. Governments and nations fell all over the globe. People descended into anarchy and did horrible things to each other. Cries for peace and safety rang out all over the world.

  From the ashes of that world, a group of survivors emerged to establish a worldwide government. They sought to collect the weapons stockpiles of the different surviving nations and bring order to the whole world by uniting all the people of the world under one banner. They organized a military and prepared to impose their will on the world. They had obviously planned for this for some time, but they made their move too early. There were still nations strong enough to resist, and America was one of them. America and some others recognized this one-world government for the tyranny it would be and resisted. The American president at that time, a man named Lamar Jenkins, knew another worldwide war might leave the planet uninhabitable, so he authorized a daring operation that resulted in the capture of virtually all of the leaders of the would-be global government. America and a few other remaining nations took steps to prevent anyone from ever consolidating world power under one group again. They established diplomatic relations and began helping the most devastated regions rebuild. President Jenkins sought to dissolve the American quarantine zones and reunite the different races under the American flag, but the American people were terrified of more outbreaks. Congress, under immense political pressure, blocked his proposals and kept the zones contained. By this time, the Rista Federation was at war with the Soona, the Texans and the Confederation. The whole thing was out of control, and America wasn’t going to touch it. Jenkins has talked about sending in troops to end the wars in the quarantine zones, but the army was afraid of being destroyed by disease. America basically built a wall around the zones and washed its hands of anything that happened inside of it.”

  John sat quietly lost in thought as he listened to Martinez. Everything he said jibed well with what Williams had told him. He wondered if Williams had managed to escape. Had he reached America? Had the Soona captured him? He wasn’t about to mention Williams to Martinez; although, the Ristas almost had to have found Williams parachute hidden in the lake by now. He would know the American pilot had landed just outside Maria’s home the morning before they had found John and Maria trying to cross the river. Yes, John was certain Martinez had to know he had encountered the American pilot, but he hadn’t once asked him about it. He found that strange. Everything Martinez had said seemed to make sense to him. He decided
Martinez was telling him the truth. He wondered why such a high-ranking Rista intelligence officer was telling him all this. One thing was bothering him, and he decided to ask about it.

  “Jose, will you answer something for me?”

  “I will if I can, John.”

  “Are we all on our own in here? If the wars ended, would they consider letting us out?”

  “I wish I knew, John. I don’t think they care anymore. Maybe they never really did.”

  “Well, if we are stuck in here, doesn’t that mean the war isn’t a lie? Maybe we were all Americans once, but now we really are Soona and Rista; aren’t we? So what difference does it make?”

  “There’s a big difference, John,” Martinez said quietly. “The zones are still claimed by the United States as part of the country. America doesn’t recognize the governments in here. They have effectively sentenced us and our children to the world’s largest penitentiary. The different prison gangs war with each other, but they all want the same thing: to be free. I want it. I can no longer turn my head while young kids march off to war; full of hatred for people who should be their neighbors and friends.”