Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  “Right! An exemption, my ass! I especially like those disability percentages in there. Hey, Billy! How much, you said, do they give for a missing arm or a missing leg?”

  “Thirty percent, if I remember right,” William replied from the entrance door. He just arrived while Mark was still reading the orders.

  “And here they write: thirty-five! So freaking nice, your entire family could be on crutches, but you still have to go for the full three years. Hey, Billy, you didn't blow yourself up quite right. If you had lost enough limbs to become ninety percent disabled, I would have some slim chance to exercise the bloody exemption.”

  “Sorry, Mickey. I blew myself up to my best ability,” William laughed at Mike's black humor. “What part of the Forces are they calling you to?”

  “Infantry, bro.”

  “Butt in the mud. Fine occupation. Better than being a digger, anyhow.”

  “I recall, two years ago you said just the opposite. Something about the Engineers being far better than the Infantry,” Mark asked.

  “I had no first-hand battlefield experience back then. And now I have a lot. The first-hand experience, and the second-hand experience, laughing out loud! All the way to the shoulders!” Another masochistic joke was brewing.

  “So! What can we do now?” Clarice asked.

  “Nothing. Orders are orders. Do I have a freaking choice?” Mike replied.

  “I don't know. Move to some other city, something like this.”

  “Once the draft orders are issued, running away is like deserting from the Army at the time of war. Punishable by a firing squad – bang! I probably can run to Mexico, but this is pretty much the only option, and it's not too bloody attractive. We are at war with the Mexos, right? As soon as they figure out I'm fit to serve, I will be conscripted – but for the other side. Serving in the stinking Mexos Army – not my piece of cake. Nope. My only way out of the Army – if I fail the medical.”

  “For the medicals, don't hold your breath, bro,” William remarked, “my medical was a short and brutal ten-minute affair. If you are able to walk, see and pull a trigger, you are perfectly good for the Infantry.”

  Mark scrutinized the paper once more. “You are due to report on duty next week, right?”

  “Yeah. The medical is the day after tomorrow, on Monday.”

  “Oh, shite! Why so soon?” William asked, “when I got my orders, they cut me full two weeks to get the affairs in order, and all…”

  “No idea. Maybe, because you were married and was a school grad? At the 'Fill, everybody got just a day notice. I reckon, they're afraid that the draftees from our shit-pile are too bloody smart and run away if you give them enough time. The real pity – is my current job! I get five grand per week, sometimes more. Will be a shame to lose such a place. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mister Stolz is really pissed off. His Arne got the orders too! Plus myself. Our plant will be losing two key hands at once.”

  William suggested: “Well, it means we can keep this lucrative place for you, Mickey. Why don't you go talk to Mister Stolz? Surely, in his plant, he would prefer a trusted neighbor to an abstract Day-Pay dude.”

  “Who do you have in mind?” Mark asked.

  “Our Sammy is fourteen already. She can take Mike's position.”

  “No way!” Mary interjected angrily. “Samantha will graduate!”

  “The value of school education is grossly exaggerated, Mom. I have graduated, so what? Without my Ris, I can't even read a letter or count the donations in the bloody bucket. What have I studied Calculus for?”

  “I am telling you once more, William: only over my dead body!”

  “Calm down, honey,” Mark scratched his head, “you both have a point, but what William suggests sounds right at this time. We all wanted Sammy to finish the school, yes. But William came back with no arms… Sorry, William… And now Michael got drafted! And now…” no, he was not ready to tell Mary that he might soon leave the FBI. “Never mind. I will go talk to Fred Stolz. Besides, he still may very well say ‘no’…”

  Mark pulled out his telephone and located the right contact. They agreed to meet in fifteen minutes: Mr. Stolz and his family lived three houses down the same cul-de-sac. The house of Mr. Stolz was roughly identical to Mark's, but had somewhat larger front deck. The owner waved for them to come in and sit around an old glass-top table. He quickly went into the house and reappeared with a jug of local beer and four beer mugs. Frederick and Elvira Stolz were slightly older than Mark and Mary, but only had two children. The older son, seventeen-year old Arnold, soon joined them at the deck.

  “I guess, we will not be waiting for your twenty-first birthday, boys,” Frederick joked without smile. “Old enough to go to the Army, probably old enough to drink beer, right?”

  Arnold took the glass and made a little sip. Mark always liked this boy. He was serious and reserved, and spent most of his free time reading technical books and inventing various useful contraptions. Mike and Arnold started working at the 'Fill in the same year, after Frederick decided to expand his synthetic gasoline plant. Mike often described at home how Arnold solved all these little technical problems around their chemical reactors (or ‘bombs’ as they called them.)

  “Mike told me, he got the orders too?” Frederick said sipping his beer. “What a heck am I going to do now? We built this shop from scratch – three of us here. I surely can run to the Day-Pay and hire few new hands, but with the casual labor the things will start falling apart real soon. Our bombs are too tricky to operate and maintain. Not everyone can do it.”

  Arnold lifted his fingers asking for a permission to speak. Mark liked this habit too, – Mike never asked for permissions prior to offloading his valued opinions on any unsuspecting listener. Arnold's fingertips were blackened from touching chemicals or operating the equipment – same as Fred's and Mike's. “We still have this Sunday, Dad. Marty can look after the bombs instead of me. He has been around, and understands how the equipment works. I'll check what he has missed and fill the gaps rather quickly.” Martin was Fred's second son, studying in the same class as Mark's daughter Pamela.

  “I don't think it's a workable idea, Arne,” Frederick disagreed. “He's only twelve. Helping out on Sundays is one thing, but quitting the school and working full-time? Remember, you started at the age of fifteen. Besides, it would be illegal. What we do – hardly qualifies as a safe business for an underage child employment.”

  “Who on our shit-pile ever care about the laws, Mister Stolz?” Mike intervened.

  Mark stopped his son: “Don't interject, Mike. Mister Stolz is completely right. Martin needs at least another two-three years in school.”

  He turned to Frederick and continued: “this is exactly what we wanted to talk about, Fred. My Samantha is fourteen, so she can work legally.” Mark felt as a traitor. Or, more precisely, as one of these Day-Pay lazy adults. He was about to lose his job and was in hurry to send his daughter to work at the 'Fill. “Certainly, it's a shame she quits the school, but considering… She can study little-by-little in the evening. Arnold and Michael did.”

  “Mister Stolz,” Mike nodded in confirmation, “our Sammy is pretty good in Chemistry, at least as far as the school Chemistry goes. Arne and I – we leave her good notes. You, sir, will be able to teach her the rest in rather short time.” Unlike Arnold, Mike almost finished his beer.

  “Oh, I didn't even consider this option. This is, indeed, a good idea! I surely appreciate your offer, Mark. Really! You are probably as strained as I am. OK, I would not rush the decision. What if Mike takes Samantha to the plant tomorrow? We can see if she likes the equipment, and the equipment likes her, ah? She can work for a week or two before making a full commitment with the school.”

  “Decided, then,” Mark nodded.

  “By the way,” Frederick pointed, “today I had a chat with one of the AFCO ladies while they were delivering the orders. She leaked they are starting registering all the girls. Not as the volunteers, but for the conscr
iption. Although, ‘leaked’ is not the right word. It has been in the works for quite a while – hardly a secret anymore. All the females from fourteen to twenty, she said, a mandatory registration.”

  “Holy shit,” Mark nodded sadly. The news itself did not surprise him much. The rumors had been circulating for about a year that the Pentagon wanted to institute the limited female draft. He thought about the legless Kate. She had no luck in the Navy, but at least it had been her own decision to go and serve. Apparently, it was turning out his own daughters would not even have a choice?

  “Nothing to worry about – yet,” Frederick said, “the plan for this year is only ten female draftees from the entire Sheldon-Res area.”

  “Our freaking generals ran out of the cannon feed again. Honestly, I don't understand what strategy the government is pushing. We are at war all over the world, and it's not clear why. Every young man is sent in harm's way. And now – the girls too. You might think the Washington has no clue how much damage the bloody draft does to the economy…”

  “I can tell you, Mark: the Washington does not give a damn about the economy and has no strategy whatsoever,” Frederick replied, “and they did not have any for the last forty years. Do you remember the Cold War?”

  “Vaguely. I was still in my elementary school.”

  “Well, I, too, don't remember it too well. But I think, back then, it was much easier. Here is America, and here is Russia. That is, not Russia, the Soviets, or the Communists. Call it whatever you want, it's all the same. But: there was the strategy! Make more warheads and missiles, so your potential enemy shits his pants and spends more money on his own weapons. An extremely stupid strategy, as a matter of fact, but it was clear what to do. And then, in the nineties, the Soviets bit the dust, and all the US government got out of it – was one giant mess in the head. Rather than solving our problems, they only talked gibberish.”

  “Wait, but what about the War on Terror?”

  “The War on Terror, my ass! You're about the Nine-Eleven? It was a freaking set-up from the CIA! After the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era, the CIA had nothing to do, so they had to come up with another good target: the Islamic terrorists! To milk more dollars out of the taxpayer.”

  “Well, this is a bit overboard, Fred. A Conspiracy Theory, first-class! Do you have any facts?”

  “No facts,” Frederick admitted easily, “I'm not about the Nine-Eleven itself. Remember, what happened after the Nine-Eleven? We immediately went into Afghanistan and Iraq, right? Do you remember the Iraq War?”

  “I think so.” Mark was eighteen back then, just started his University, and the war on the other side of the world was not on the list of his worries… He recalled the recent old man, that veteran in the slum… “Was it the Desert Storm?”

  “Storm, my ass! That, man, was the first war, when Iraq messed with Kuwait. I'm talking about the second, the real war. We wasted there many thousands of our men, and about five to ten times – the locals.”

  “Well, it was about getting that bin Laden ass-hole.”

  “And again you missed, man! In Iraq, they had Saddam Hussein. Neither Afghanistan, nor Iraq had anything to do with Osama bin Laden. For your information, bin Laden was popped dead right after the GFC version 2.0, by our Navy SEALs, and not in Iraq, but in Pakistan! About thirty Marines, all it took. It was not a war, but a special operation. Thirty men! Just thirty. Can you possibly call this a ‘war’?”

  “I had a different view on the War on Terror.” Mark remembered vaguely all these anti-terrorism briefings regularly conducted within the FBI prior to the Meltdown. After the Meltdown, the radical Islamic terrorism in the USA disappeared by itself. One could not hijack a passenger plane – the passenger planes simply did not fly anymore. And blowing up a skyscraper would not make much news. Strippers blew the empty skyscrapers every week – all by the plan.

  “No, man, I'm not about the terrorism. The terrorism – it was an excuse. Do you want to know why we really got involved in Iraq?”

  “Well?”

  “To help some nice guys, like Dick Cheney, to make their outstanding retirement packages, that's why. In general, it's all about oil, gas and other resources. And now – I'll explain you why the Washington has no strategy.”

  “Why?”

  “How many government energy and resources initiatives can you recall? Let say, from the moment you graduated from the Uni?”

  “Well, let see. There was something about hydrogen cars. Then, the Program of the Energy Independence and Security came out. This was even before the GFC. Then, there were ones on the bio-diesel, on the solar energy, on the horticulture. After the Meltdown – oh, we had some new Presidential program every year or so. Only they all don't work! Perhaps only the ‘Bicycle-2020’ was a bit useful, right?”

  “Yep! You buy a new bike, and the government gives you a discount on taxes, – equal to the price of the bell and the headlight! We would move to the bicycles without any freaking programs. Did we have a choice not to? OK, I take for my example the business I know first-hand. Right after the Energy Independence came out, everybody-and-his-dog rushed to drill for the shale gas – remember?”

  “Yes. I also remember politicians kept saying America had now secured its gas supply for one hundred years.”

  “Yeah, man. For one hundred years! Although all professional geologists and geophysicists counted from ten to twenty years – max! Well, we had to drill every seven hundred feet and frac.”

  “Frac?”

  “Well, ‘fracking,’ or ‘hydraulic fracturing,’ is like pumping a mixture of sand and water into a well. Under high pressure. I had just got my PhD and worked for the 'Burton – on this very hydraulic fracturing technology thingy. The technical details do not matter, we are talking a big picture here. And alas: by 2012, we'd drilled so many wells, the price of gas in the continental US had fallen to almost zero. Two or three dollars per thousand feet.”

  “Well, you can't count like this, Fred. The dollar in 2012 was much stronger than it is now.”

  “Well, if you want to split hairs, multiply by the twenty-years inflation factor. In today's dollars, it would be three to five hundred bucks per thousand feet. Still cheap! Ignore the small details, Mark. I'm talking the big picture here, and you keep talking some basic math. Another beer?”

  “OK, keep on the big picture, then,” Mark said, pushing his nearly-empty mug towards Frederick. Mike made the same motion, but Mark gave him a stare, and the mug was quietly retreated.

  “That's it. The country was awash with cheap gas. As how to use it wisely – we did not want to learn. How many public buses and taxis do you remember in Houston in 2012?”

  “The public buses – few, almost zero. The taxi – yes, sure, but not too much. Everybody had a car…”

  “And how many public buses in Houston were on natural gas in 2012? Zero! And the taxis – also zero. And the private cars – zero.”

  “Yeah, but there were no gas stations! Sorry, not that. There were gas stations everywhere, but ‘gas’ meant: ‘gasoline,’ not ‘natural gas.’ Not like now, we have ‘gas stations’ for those monstrous motor-buses still in operation…”

  “About the ‘monstrous motor-buses’ – no worries, man. They're on their final. Omnibus with ponies is the public transportation of the future! Back to our business, are you aware that outside the US in 2012, there were more than fifty million cars driving on natural gas?”

  “Really? I must admit, it's an eye-opener.”