Systemic Shock Read online

  India's Casimiro, taken alive near Nagpur by New Zealanders, was released on October 3, disappearing again into Madhya Pradesh with a Turkish delegate from the UN. It took Casimiro two weeks to assemble something that might be called a Parliamentary quorum, with a few members voting arguable proxies. The chaos of India was hardly more chaotic than it had been a decade, or two or three, before.

  In some ways Indians stood to gain; many US troops in western India were to remain as an army of occupation. For the first time in Indian history, hungry Indians had reasonable hopes that surpluses in certain regions would be diverted in the interests of full bellies instead of mountainous bribes.

  Still, angry Moslem tribesmen sniped at the garrisoned infidels and were targeted in turn. It had always been thus. It might always be thus. The winter of 1997-8 would see as many deaths throughout moribund Asia as had been suffered in the opening weeks of the war.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Blanton Young, Vice President of the United States, stood and stared out the window of the Presidential suite toward the dusting of November snow atop the Uinta Peaks east of Provo. His hands were pressed to his ears as if to guard against more bad news. Finally he turned, blinking back tears, shoved hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Six months, Mr. President? And just when we'll need you most! These are tears of self-pity," he added wryly.

  Yale Collier draped an arm over the broad shoulders of his friend, felt the physical strength and forgave, as always, the internal weaknesses. "Six months at the least, "he reminded Young. "I might still be around to nominate you three years from now, if this chemotherapy works."

  "But—Yale, I know my limitations," blurted Young, and pointed toward the fax folders on the desk across the room. "Do you honestly think I can handle all that?"

  "You'll have help, just as I do. You'll make mistakes, and you'll learn from them. Don't underestimate our strengths; the Church has never been stronger, Blanton, and—"a wan smile, "God's work may be much easier with the 'Streamlined America' package."

  At the phrase, Blanton Young smiled too. It was a common ploy of any government to phrase weakness in terms of strength. Using semantic differential programs managed by a brilliant young naval officer, Collier's savants had obtained the new catchphrase, a 'Streamlined America', and hoped that the verbal mask would hide some unpleasant restructuring beneath that slick surface.

  US boundaries had been streamlined into a broad, roughedged diamond with apexes near Cleveland, Houston, Eureka, and Pollock, South Dakota. The secession of the eastern states had been bloodless—even amicable, once it became clear that the quarantine line was necessary and would be maintained indefinitely. White House Deseret had suggested a protectorate status for the eastern seaboard, but the Old South preferred to confederate on its own.

  Alta Mexico now extended its hazy borders from the Texas 'Big Bend' country to the central California coast. Canada, perhaps with more politesse than was really necessary, had 'provisionally' accepted most of our northern states as territories. Despite returning troops—a mixed blessing—the plain fact was that the US could not maintain civil order in regions where illegal immigrants, paranthrax, deserters, and armed zealot groups abounded. The physical streamlining of the US, by November 1997, had finally stabilized.

  Internal streamlining had scarcely begun but, with the help of far-sighted industrialists, Collier's administration was taking the necessary steps.

  The President, seemingly as healthy as ever, placed his cancer-ridden body at the work carrel of his desk; waved Blanton Young to the seat beside him. "Take the reform of the Federal Communications Commission," he said, selecting a fax sheet. "With lifetime appointments, we can count on a majority of good conservatives for decades to come."

  "The FCC is the least of our troubles," moaned Young.

  "How very right you are," Yale Collier said softly. "Blanton, with full unrestricted control of network holovision in this country, we can remake it into the true Zion. How beautiful upon the mountains," he murmured, glancing out the window.

  For the past six weeks, the Vice President had been immersed in the process of nationalizing our fossil fuel sources; had only skimmed daily briefs on other topics. "Print media will be tougher," he hazarded.

  "What print media? The price of newsprint and Polypaper are forcing the dailies to offer subscription by holo—which we can influence in several ways. The outlaw media can be dealt with by—law enforcement," he said vaguely. "And I hardly need tell you how much more effective American business can be under the control of new conglomerates like International Entertainment & Electronics. Look," he urged, turning to his carrel display.

  The President keyed an instruction, smiled at the multihued organization chart that swept across the big holo-screen. IEE was little more than a set of interlocked intentions so far, and had provoked liberal outcries when those intentions reached the Securities Exchange Commission. But the nation still reeled from its war losses: we had failed to obtain full reparation in the peace so recently negotiated by Canada, Brazil, and Arabia between the allies and Sinolnds. The war had begun over the price of oil, and impoverished America now found the stuff dearer than ever. Islam had not really fought the war, but had won it nevertheless.

  The United States needed efficient reconstruction, did not want it from outside, and could not obtain it from inside without ‘streamlining' a few checks against repressive monopolies. This kind of cooperation between government and industry had fertilized the Union Pacific and Standard Oil, and it could boost the growth of International Entertainment & Electronics.

  IEE was a set of commercial broadcast networks, interlaced with the Holo Corporation of America, tied to Loring Aircraft, engaged to Entertainment Talent Associates, in bed with Deseret Pacific Industries, romantically linked to Latter-Day Shale. It would have to tread carefully around a few other surviving consortia and necessary evils such as organized labor—but tread, it would.

  Blanton Young asked the pivotal question: "And how much of all this is in the hands of devout stockholders?"

  "Enough to assure us," said the President, 'of the very most cordial relations. This country must never allow the identities of Church and State to merge," he said, the great voice rolling across the room, "but in Zion I foresee that both government and business will serve God."

  "A magnificent vision," Young murmured as Collier wiped the display. "I presume the Apostolic Council will recommend men for key positions in IEE. You'd be surprised how many shale company executives forgot they were Latter-Day Saints the day we confiscated their present-day mineral leases."

  "Regrettable—but predictable in sight of so many heretic groups. That's one job IEE will undertake early: to lead our strays back to righteousness through media. As it happens," Collier went on, "I have in mind a certain young man for IEE's Chief Executive Officer—who is not even a member of the Church."

  "You always have your reasons; I'm waiting," said Young, always most comfortable when working under supervision.

  "Commander Mills is a decorated war hero, a media genius, and a great organizer. No liberal rabble-rouser can show he's one of us."

  "Then how do you know he is?"

  "By their works shall ye know them," said Collier, "and Mills is working for a vision of Zion that is very like our own." The smile he turned on Young now was one of sadness, but not of self-pity: "It will be your task to preserve that vision; to win more hearts; to keep the hearts we've won. In all loving kindness, Blanton, I offer you this warning: you have a tendency to persuade more by punishment than by reward. If this nation is to regain its old glory, it will be by the same old path of reward, with less emphasis on retribution. That is partly what I had in mind with the establishment of a Search and Rescue bureau," he said, tapping another fax-sheet.

  "Yes, Mr. President," said Blanton Young, using the full title to suggest agreement with a philosophy he could never espouse. Raised in a strict household, Young respected punishment. His father had
often said it: “An ass will use up bushels of carrots, but you only need one stick."

  "I'd like you to get back to work on this S & R bureau so the media people can give it exposure," said Collier, renewing an old topic shelved during the secession months. The big hands flew over the keyboard, the voice resonant and vital as ever. It seemed implausible to Young that his chief was a dying man as Collier outlined a favorite scheme, a small arm of government that would come to represent the best any administration could offer.

  Search & Rescue squads, chiefly underpaid paramedics, had long been on a few county payrolls and enjoyed enviable reputations. Now, living in ruins and short on dedicated paramedics, many Americans needed S & R teams more than ever. It was Yale Collier's dream to organize a federal cadre who would search out the lost; rescue the imperiled; and would do it on camera with panache, a reminder to Americans that a Godly administration would go anywhere in support .of its people. Smart uniforms, the latest equipment, the sharpest personnel, the best training. Such was the vision of President Yale Collier.

  The Vice President questioned, advised, concurred, silently filed away some thoughts for further study. An S & R bureau might achieve great things with sparse funding, he saw, and said as much; but he cautioned that some rescues would inevitably involve victims of the paramilitary bands that defied the central government.

  Collier tended to gloss over this facet of the S & R charter; yes, yes, certainly an S & R team should be capable of handling a few armed outlaws on occasion, but it was important that S & R build an image more of rescue team than SWAT team.

  Thus was oral agreement reached without a meeting of minds. As he sat beside his old friend and made notes on organization details, Blanton Young again mulled over the sort of recruits he might prefer. It was certain that some of the clear-eyed young S & R men—and women, of course, for show—would be confronted by brutish, bewhiskered ruffians who swaggered up to spit into the eye of Authority. The kind of rebels now termed by the LDS as 'Gadianton robbers'.

  And how should God's judgments be meted out to the wicked? Young was in no doubt here; he knew the passage well from the Book of Mormon, iv, 5:

  "…the judgments of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished…"

  Young was pleased with the neatness of his secret solution. Forty years before, an American administration had recruited the wartime wicked of the OSS into an ostensibly peaceable CIA. Surely, the armed forces still harbored a few young cutthroats who would not look out of place among the clear-eyed exemplars of Streamlined America…

  Chapter Eighty

  "… and in the coming months we'll be seeing a lot of these special, dedicated people," hummed the voice of Eve Simpson. On the big holo screen of T Section's briefing room near Santa Fe, a powerfully built young man winched himself to the portal of an open elevator shaft carrying a limp and lovely girl to safety. The voice-over continued on the slickly made documentary, but no one was listening anymore.

  "Ethridge, you let 'em pluck your eyebrows," crowed Barb Zachary, glancing from the screen to the blushing Kent Ethridge. The gunsel, Ethridge, was one of perhaps two dozen in the room. T Section survivors; a small elite assembly.

  "We made a deal; they let me pluck the blonde," Ethridge replied. Actually, Ethridge had played the part only on orders, after a computer search cited his gymnastic grace, and after Eve Simpson saw him on an old holotape.

  Max Pelletier, tiny and dark and lethal as a Brown Recluse: "You should've held out for the Simpson hotsy, Kent."

  "Fat as a pig," Ethridge protested. "I don't know how they hid that on the holo."

  "I can see this isn't holding you spellbound," said the disgusted instructor Seth Howell, flicking on the room lights and freezing the holo frame. Howell wore a uniform identical to the one Ethridge had worn in the holotape: flare-leg black synthosuedes, long-sleeved black blouse with turned-back cuffs and deep vee collar, set off by a brilliant yellow side-tie neckerchief. On his left shoulder was a yellow sunflower patch with centered, stylized S & R in black; soft black moccasins completed the outfit. Howell was a big man, heavy in the trunk with a bony neck and long slender limbs. For all their sarcasms, the gunsels could see that the exquisite cut of the S & R dress uniforms enhanced the image of the wearer.

  "Of course they hyped it—even stuck Ethridge in a dress uniform. On assignment you'd wear a mottled two-piece coverall and overlap-closure boots."

  "Always assuming you could make the grade," put in Marty Cross, who'd been harping all morning on the difference between the simple requirements of T Section and the broad-spectrum charter of the Search & Rescue people. Cross was in civvies—but boasted a tiny sunflower emblem on a neck chain.

  "Hype, hype, hype, hype," chanted Des Quinn, as if counting cadence. "I joined up for the duration. The war's over, gentlemen, and I say fuck it, all I want is out. And they can start by taking this out," he said, tapping himself ominously behind the ear.

  Quantrill exchanged a glance with Sanger, several seats away. Her eyebrow lift was cynical reply to Quinn.

  "I'll say it once more," sighed the portly Sean Lasser with good humor; "when your implant energy cell runs down, that's the end of it. There's always the chance they could trigger the terminator or cause infection when taking it out, and there's no danger in leaving it in there, so—"

  "I don't buy that," said Quinn. "That goddam cell could be energized again by accident or maybe on purpose for all we know. Am I gonna have to find a surgeon myself?"

  "Anyone but a T Section surgeon would almost certainly set it off, Quinn, even after the energy cell is kaput. The Army did not intend those things to come out," said Lasser softly. "Ever."

  A three-beat silence. You could always gain rapt attention by telling a man more about the time bomb in his head. "I could file suit," said Quinn, looking around for support but finding ambiguity—the ambiguity he might have expected from T Section survivors, who had not survived by forthright honesty.

  "Right now you're begging for court-martial," rasped Howell, then caught himself and shrugged. " 'Course I'm just an interested spectator now, recruiting for a strictly civ-il-yun agency. Got my discharge over the Christmas holidays."

  "I just bet you did," from Quinn.

  "I can vouch for it," said the laconic Cross. "He buggered an ape in a tree." Cross surveyed the pained expressions, gave it up. Cheyenne humor seemed lost on this bunch.

  "You two may be civilians," Lasser waved at Cross and Howell, "but I'm still on duty." Turning to his gunsel audience, he went on. "T Section's cutting orders for you, but I'll summarize them and then dismiss you.

  "You've all got thirty-day compassionate leave with pay, beginning zero-eight-hundred tomorrow, 13 January. We , don't want to see you around Santa Fe for a month. Bum around solo, look for work, see how rough it's going to be on the outside,—whatever. Use your covers; you know better than to talk about T Section. No buddyingup; solo means just that.

  "Don't stray beyond, ah, streamlined America—but that's in your orders, too. You'll probably be seeing more about Search & Rescue. Think about it. For the record, I wish I weren't too old for it; it'll be a snappy elite bunch and the pay will be good." A pause, an old reflective grin: "A lot of young starry-eyed Mormons will be competing against you for S & R; it offers medical training, airborne and mountain survival stuff, urban disaster work,—you name it." He saw Quantrill's hand rise lazily, nodded to ward him.

  "That's not where we specialize," said Quantrill. "I mean,—I'd stick out like a bullet in a box of bonbons, Lasser." Murmurs from Pelletier and Zachary; a nod from Sanger. "All day you and Howell and Cross have been dropping hints about needing us for what we do."

  "Yeah; tell us what you can't tell us," prompted Graeme Duff.

  Lasser's raised brow and lopsided smile implied, fair enough. He stroked his chin, looked thoughtfully at his old colleague Howell, saw that the responsibility was properly his own. "It's all innuendo, "he admitted,
"so I'm guessing why certain people might want to see you apply for S & R. It takes a certain kind of dedication to put your arse on the line for some idiot who's caught in a collapsed building. That's the image of Search & Rescue, to save the lost sheep.

  "But if I read the signs right, there'll be times when S & R will need muscle—a sprinkle of gunsels, maybe. How many stray nuclear warheads are in the hands of private citizens now? How much binary nerve gas? Maybe S & R will have to deal with those questions. Simply put: there may be occasions when they'll need to search out treason and rescue the system. It's a system in shock, and first aid may hurt a little. I say 'maybe' about all this, because I wasn't told." He darted another quick look at Ho well.

  The big man stood with folded arms, resplendent in black synthosuede, and said nothing. The twitch at the corner of his mouth said, you got it, Lasser.

  Quantrill again: "Why can't I apply today and avoid the rush?"

  "Officially? Because you're still in the army, fool," Lasser said, scowling in mock irritation: "Still off the record, I don't know. All I do know is, they don't want any of you for a few months yet—not even your applications." He surveyed the gunsels he had trained, palms out; a friendly little fellow who, as they all knew, could be hiding two dozen deadly weapons on his person. "Any more questions?"

  Sanger was yawning. Pelletier muttered a joke to Quinn. "Dis-missed." said Lasser.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Cedar Rapids and Dayton would be knee-deep in snow this time of year; Quantrill scratched them from his mental list. The port of Eureka was a boomtown, perhaps not too cold for a few days of desultory job-hunting. Bakers field and Odessa would be warm, if you didn't mind the brawling and the sidearms. Maybe in a week or so…