People's Republic

by Kurt Schlichter

  “You need to find them,” Rios-Parkinson said. “You need to do that tonight.”

  “Cyber Division is screening the web for likely searches and map queries. We also have the best photos we could download out to every sector gate,” Larsen said.

  “Yet you had them out this morning and they still got inside the sector without us picking them up.”

  “The pictures were grainy, with no good shots of their faces.”

  “Because they are trained in counter-surveillance. They are aware of cameras, and they kept their faces down, wore glasses, and they never looked at the lenses.”

  “We are devoting all of our efforts to finding them, Director.”

  “They obviously know we are looking for them. Do you need more men – I mean personnel?”

  “All you can spare.”

  “Which would be none,” said Rios-Parkinson. “We are still engaged in arresting those associated with the various unrest incidents, including the Westwood riot. If you had not shot all of the ones taken into custody at the scene, we might have gotten some information from them about how our guests managed to inspire them to murder a number of our Westside citizens in broad daylight this afternoon.”

  Larsen said nothing in his own defense; they both knew that Rios-Parkinson had ordered that maximum force be applied to suppress mobs. The lack of prisoners Rios-Parkinson was lamenting was a direct result of his direct order to summarily execute on the spot anyone caught engaged in “lawless rebellion against the will of the People.”

  There was nothing left to say on that topic, so Larsen moved on. “The team is prepared to clear the Jews’ building on your order, Director. The PSF will secure the perimeter. Surveillance teams are still in place.”

  “Keep them back. I do not want them knowing we are watching. They are not to have any warning. But nothing happens until I order it, and I will not order it until the spies have the hard drive and we have the spies.”

  “I understand, Director.”

  “You had better. Now get out,” said Rios-Parkinson. Larsen turned and walked out, followed by the man, the woman, and the other, xis muumuu rustling as xe walked.

  Rios-Parkinson sat back in his leather chair once the door slammed shut. The reports were uniformly bad. The ration cuts applied to Privilege Level 5 and below, meaning almost everyone, and the impacted majority was angry. There were outbreaks of violence everywhere along the West Coast, his area. It made him feel only slightly better to know that the East Coast was doing no better, and perhaps even worse. Near Boston, a routine anti-firearms raid had led to a shootout with a bunch of rebels, leaving several PBI and PSF officers dead. The town where it happened was called Concord; Rios-Parkinson had a sense that name was significant somehow, but because his study of history had focused mostly upon America’s legacy of oppression he could not quite put his finger on why.

  Still, it was bad enough in his own backyard. In San Francisco, mobs of largely oppressed peoples had looted several food centers. Their irrational ingratitude angered him; the People’s Republic had given them so much after liberating them from the tyranny of the United States and now they could not even take on this small sacrifice in the name of the greater good. The dozens of deaths his forces inflicted quelling that unrest were a just, measured response to these hate crimes.

  He picked up the phone and called the West Coast Media Justice Ombudsperson, who was on his speed dial.

  “Delores, hello, this is Director Rios-Parkinson,” he said.

  The Ombudsperson replied cautiously, as she always did when addressing him. “Yes, Director. How may I assist you?”

  “Yes, I am going to need you to emphasize in your messaging tonight and tomorrow that this criminal looting and counter-progressive rioting is not going to be tolerated by the internal security forces. You may direct your outlets to explain how deadly force is authorized to preserve order.”

  “But Director,” the Ombudsperson replied. “Our messaging guidance was to not mention any unrest or violent counter-progressive acts at all.” This was true; the Ombudsman had been told that the subject of unrest was to be ignored, and she had duly informed all of the licensed media and journalism outlets she oversaw of this mandatory guidance in her daily messaging memorandum. The memo had instead directed that stories focus on the groundswell of enthusiasm for the new ration cuts, with emphasis on patriotic citizens who were eager to sacrifice even more to ensure the coming triumph of progressivism.

  And the outlets had responded obediently. Channel 5, formerly KTLA and now called “The Voice of the Voiceless,” had run a lengthy interview segment on the work of a UCLA nutrition professor regarding how an ultra-low calorie diet actually improves health and longevity. But because the professor was a Jewish male, a female student named Nasser was chosen to appear on camera to do the actual interview, which she conducted from behind her burka.

  “I did not say that you should mention the unrest, only that you will explain the consequences of any unrest,” Rios-Parkinson replied impatiently.

  “Of course, Director. I understand.”

  Rios-Parkinson hung up and drummed his fingers on his desk.

  Thanks to a phone call he did not expect, Rios-Parkinson had an appointment at 6 o’clock, but not in his office. It was across the street and down Figueroa, only a few minutes by foot, but he took his SUV anyway. It was worth the carbon cost not to break a sweat in the sun.

  The vehicle turned off to the right into the ramp underground leading to what had been a massive parking lot before the climate laws ended most citizen automobile use. Fewer cars on the road made his life, and the lives of the others still authorized private vehicles, much more convenient. But what Rios-Parkinson really appreciated about the climate laws was how much control over the masses they provided the elite. Global warming, he mused, was the best thing that ever happened to progressivism.

  His office had called ahead and he was received underground by staff members who shepherded him and his security goons Arthur and Sam to an elevator. Arthur hit the single button – this was an express elevator that went only to the top and the bottom subfloor. It actually worked; important people needed to go to the top floor and so what was necessary to make the elevator function was done.

  The doors opened to sunlight – the lounge was light and airy, with soft music provided by a gentlemen at the piano off to the side of the foyer. The bartender stood awaiting requests before a remarkably well-stocked bar. A dozen security officers stood waiting for their principals; his own guards joined them, for the lounge was not for the likes of them. Rios-Parkinson ignored the goons and the music, his eyes flitting from one well-dressed, well-fed guest to another, searching.

  He knew most of the faces, and their expressions upon seeing him ranged from fear to quiet disgust. He filed those away; he would address them later. Right now, he was searching for one man.

  There, in the prime southwest corner, of course, set off by a buffer of four to five tables from the other, lesser diners, sat his guest. The maître d’ approached, nervous but solicitous. Rios-Parkinson ignored him, making his way past the other diners and over to the man in the perfect blue pinstripe suit with the deep red silk tie.

  Odd, but he had a black leather bag of impeccable quality by his feet. Normally, one of his security guards would be holding it in the foyer.

  The man saw him, smiled warmly and stood, extending his right hand. Was this a provocation? Shaking hands was publicly discouraged as emblematic of unequal power relations, but among themselves the elite still performed the old ritual. No, Rios-Parkinson assessed, it was not a calculated insult, but a message that something was serious, that there was no time for the usual kabuki dances that they performed in public.

  “Senator Harrington,” Rios-Parkinson said, shaking the extended tanned hand.

  “Director,” replied the senator, sitting down as Rios-Parkinson took his own seat. “I am so glad you could meet me on such short notice.”

  “
Well, it is always a pleasure, Senator,” Rios-Parkinson lied. He knew Senator Richard Harrington of California quite well; in fact, before coming he had reviewed the special file his team had assembled on the senator. It was just like the ones he kept on all the major political figures on the West Coast, except only thinner. Not much in there of use; routine phone and electronic surveillance had not uncovered anything that might provide leverage either. Harrington certainly had an active sexual life for a sixty year old, but nothing useful there. The senator made sure to include as many men as women in his rotation so there could be no irritating claims of cisnormativity that some enemy might use to derail him.

  Still, Harrington was deeply connected, and since senators were now directly appointed they had to be extremely politically savvy. Each Senate seat was like a little principality unto him or her or xes self. Harrington had negotiated his own precarious position after the Split remarkably well, for rich males of English descent – his mother had tracked his family back to the Mayflower, but he had suppressed that tidbit effectively – the People’s Republic hardly seemed fertile ground to cultivate a political career. But he had managed to do it. A little sexual flexibility here, a little use of compromising information against opponents there, and he had improbably remained in the highest circles of power.

  Rios-Parkinson resolved not to underestimate him.

  “I am glad you suggested we meet. I am sure it is something important.”

  “Oh,” the senator replied. “It most certainly is.”

  The senator reached down to his bag and pulled out a small, oval electronic device with Chinese characters and several buttons and lights. He placed it on the table and pushed the green button, which illuminated a small green light and made the object whir quietly on the table.

  “Director, I assume you won’t mind if I scramble any microphones that someone might have emplaced here. I’d like to be able to talk with you…frankly.”

  “Of course,” said the Director, hiding his irritation. Of course there were microphones. They were his microphones, at least two at every table. Often people would forget themselves and the next morning the Director would be delivered the most interesting transcripts, which he filed away for future use.

  “I picked up this little item in China,” the senator said. “Obviously illegal here. You aren’t going to arrest me for having it, now are you?”

  “Well, Senator, I am less concerned with this item than with what you might want to say that requires it. Are you planning on saying something no one else can hear?”

  “I am, Director.”

  “Something compromising?”

  “Oh, yes. Certainly compromising. But not to me.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Well, allow me to put it in context, Director. And that context is that you seem to be losing control of the area in which you have been appointed to keep order.”

  Rios-Parkinson bristled, which the senator noted. He continued.

  “There were almost two dozen deaths in Westwood this afternoon. Right inside the secured sector. You know, nobody notices a food riot by the hungry slobs out there outside the walls. Yes, I know they are getting more common, especially after the ration debacle, and I know you have given orders to use the force necessary to shut them down.”

  “We will be focusing on the economic criminals too, Senator.”

  “Economic criminals – don’t talk to me like I’m one of those true believing fools. And I’m not going to insult your intelligence by treating you like you’re one either. I ran companies before all of this. I know how to make things, how to get them to the people. The people we work with, that you and I compete against, they don’t, but they still naturally accrued all the power to do so themselves. They cannot abide anyone else choosing or doing or thinking without their approval, and that’s why we can’t even feed ourselves anymore.”

  Rios-Parkinson remained calm, fascinated that the senator was saying these things to him. Why would he do that? What did he want?

  “We could not compete with the reds after the Split, so we just stopped trying. We shut the borders and pretended the rest of the country was not even there anymore. Do you think they have hungry people rioting for food in Dallas, in Kansas City, in Atlanta?”

  Rios-Parkinson had read the intelligence summaries on the United States – the accurate ones, not the ones modified and massaged for consumption by those less ideologically solid than he. He knew the truth too.

  Harrington leaned in. “We don’t produce anything, except propaganda to stoke fake outrage so people forget they’re hungry. And since we don’t make anything or grow anything or pump anything out of the ground because of global warming or social justice or why ever, there’s no more money coming in. We are near the end of our credit line. No more loans. Russia, China, the EU already hold everything of value we have as collateral, and they are sick of carrying us. Do you know what that means? If we don’t change, we collapse, and when this all falls apart, people like you and I are going to be swinging from broken lamp posts.”

  “We can suppress the unrest, control it.”

  “With who? Your PSF and PBI thugs? Pretty soon your own people will be leading the riots. They already rob citizens in the streets outside the secure sector – don’t think I don’t know about that. But there is an answer.”

  Rios-Parkinson silently considered what Harrington was telling him. Unmet expectations and anger were powerful weapons against an ossified establishment – he knew that from having exploited them himself before the Split.

  The senator continued. “Remember the free market? Well, it works. And now we are seeing what happens when you replace it with a bunch of useless college professors, untalented artists, moronic movie stars, and San Francisco chardonnay sippers who think they can personally run every aspect of a country when they know absolutely nothing about how a country works.”

  “There is a reason you are telling me this. What is it?”

  “I need your help, and you definitely need mine,” the senator said.

  “What help do I need from you, Senator?”

  “Good,” Harrington replied, smiling. “Enlightened self-interest. That’s the right question. What can I do for you? Well, I can warn you that your problems have not gone unnoticed outside your little empire of the security services.”

  “The riots…”

  “Not the riots. Well, not just the riots. That has people talking, important people. No, it’s come to my attention that you have managed to lose a certain item that would be of great interest to people on both sides of the border. And that there are infiltrators – spies – here trying to get it.”

  Rios-Parkinson froze. The senator sat back in his chair.

  “Did you think you were the only one who collects information?” the senator asked.

  “How did you –”

  “Don’t bother asking. My informer network is nowhere near as extensive as yours, but what my intelligence assets lack in sheer quantity I like to think they make up in quality. But if I know, then other people know, or they could know, and you cannot have that.”

  No, he could not have that. The hard drive’s files not only set out his entire informer network – that was bad enough – but provided proof of what loyal friend, devoted confidant, or faithful lover was actually an informer. The reds obviously wanted it for their own purposes, but here in the People’s Republic, there would be two kinds of people seeking it: those being spied upon, and those doing the spying.

  “If someone gets a hold of it, your position becomes precarious,” Harrington said. “Like a man hanging out there on that ledge while another man pounds his fingers one by one with a ball-peen hammer.”

  The server, a young woman in a short skirt that would not play anywhere else in the PRNA, hovered a few feet away with two bottles of French sparkling water and two cups of ice. Harrington gestured for her to approach, and she dropped two coasters on the table then placed the glasses on them and
filled them up without a word, leaving the bottle. Harrington remained silent, waiting. Rios-Parkinson’s eyes never left him.

  “Can I bring you something else, a drink maybe?”

  “Go,” said the Director, and the server vanished. Rios-Parkinson leaned forward.

  “And you will help me by …”

  “By not telling anyone about your fuck up.”

  “And in return for this gracious favor?

  “Well, nothing now. You can bank that favor. Do you know what I mean by that, since we have largely done away with banking as part of our quest for ideologically unimpeachable impoverishment?”

  “So sometime in the future, you anticipate requiring my assistance.”

  “Oh yes. You run the security apparatus on the West Coast. I expect – assuming you solve your problems with the rioting and the spies and the missing list – that you will run the national security apparatus in the not too distant future, something I can certainly assist in making happen. National Director O’Malley is, well, you understand. Ineffective. A figurehead. But you could make that job into something more, bring the East Coast under your control, and then you would be a very useful ally for an ambitious man like myself.”

  “You want to be the President?”

  “I do,” said the senator. “And once I am, I intend to stay president for a good while. And to do that, to keep from being hanged from a lamppost whose lamp hasn’t worked since 2028, I need to bring people some measure of prosperity. I at least need to ensure they can eat. And if I am seen to feed them, they will love me and no one will be able to topple me.”

  “So I watch your back?” said Rios-Parkinson.