by Ginger Booth
“They pay taxes,” Taibbi said. “Lot of agriculture in those areas. Seem peaceable, so far as I know.”
Sean Cullen and Charles Schwabacher, Taibbi’s neighboring peers, pursed their lips in censure. Schwabacher voiced their feedback. “Seth, if you don’t have eyes on them, you don’t really know what’s going on in there. Twenty counties? Emmett, please make note of this for your recommendations.”
“Sir,” Emmett agreed.
“I could ask the gran caravans,” I suggested. “They cross between upstate and Penn all the time.”
Taibbi and the other governor-generals looked pained. Their borders were supposed to be impermeable. But how could they be? That stretch of border between Penn and Hudson was a hundred miles of depopulated hills, with trees. The border with West Virginia was the same, plus mountains.
Emmett just smiled sadly. “Thank you, Dee.”
“Alright,” Sean Cullen said slowly. “Emmett, I approve your plans.” Taibbi and Schwabacher nodded. Pete Hoffman shrugged, but he wasn’t really Emmett’s commanding officer at present. Niedermeyer looked dubious as well, and Ash and Tony concerned. “Thank you, all,” Cullen said. And the video conference ended.
I didn’t know what plans they were talking about. But I went ahead and emailed my contact Jean-Claude Alarie with the gran caravans, asking for information on Judgment or Sixers, or any other sect they’d run into in Penn that seemed bent on destruction and decimation.
To my surprise, Pete Hoffman called me on the phone. “Hey, Dee? Forgive me if this is out of line, but I hear you and Emmett are having some relationship problems.”
“That’s kinda personal, Pete,” I agreed.
“I’d like to ask a favor, Dee,” Pete pressed. “Put it aside. Live in the moment. Emmett can’t be worrying about you right now. Deal with your relationship after you’re home safe. OK?”
I pursed my lips, unwilling to agree on the principle that he shouldn’t be asking. But then again, maybe he should. What was Emmett up to, anyway? “OK,” I said grudgingly.
Five minutes later, Emmett appeared at my door. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Pete told me to break off and visit you ASAP.”
I laughed. “Your boss ordered you to make a booty call?”
“Uh-huh,” he said with a grin, and closed the bedroom door firmly behind him. “Pete’s a great CO.”
I explained while I drew him toward the bed. “Pete advised we live in the now.”
Emmett pulled off his shirts, and warned, “Good, because I don’t have much time.”
“Use it well,” I suggested.
Later, relaxing for a few minutes in bed before getting dressed again and back to work, Emmett said, “Darlin’? Thank you for that video. It really helped frame a negotiation with the governors. But especially, you backed up Drum. That was really nice of you, to make a whole video to brief her. She needs your support. That means a lot to me. Thank you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said thoughtfully. “So Drum is your pick for new Resco of Pittsburgh? What did you get out of the governors?”
He sighed and sat up. “Gotta go. You’ll see.”
I draped myself over his back. “I love you, Emmett. I know you’ll make good choices out there. I know you can’t tell me now. But you will tell me sometime.”
He snorted softly. “I love you, too, Dee. You’ll be OK with the choices I’m making here. Promise.”
“Good to know.”
Chapter 19
Interesting fact: Though undeniably charismatic, storms in the U.S. weren’t particularly deadly before climate change turbo-charged them, and the weather service stopped issuing warnings. On average, about 300 people a year died from tornados, thunderstorms, and hurricanes combined. In contrast, about 35,000 died annually in traffic accidents, 16,000 were murdered, and 3,400 drowned.
“How was your nap?” I inquired of Emmett the next afternoon. I’d never known the man to take an afternoon nap before. But that’s what he’d done after lunch. He ordered the rest of us to be back at the hotel no later than 3 p.m. I was sitting in the hotel lobby with my computer.
“Great,” Emmett replied, stretching. “How’s the weather report?”
“Overcast, with continued overcast,” I replied. “Not a sunny town, one feels.”
“Great,” Emmett repeated. “Subnets all propagated?” He plopped down beside me on the couch.
“So far as I can tell,” I said.
He nodded and looked at me searchingly. “Want to take part in an operation? I could use you to manage the meshnet.” He leaned closer and kissed my ear, before whispering into it, “You could see what’s going on.”
Pete was right. We’d only spent a half hour playing together last night, but it made a huge difference. Emmett and I felt like partners again. The marriage issue was strictly off-limits.
“Tempting,” I allowed. “If I don’t?”
“You’ll implode from frustrated curiosity,” Emmett predicted. “About 36 hours. Give or take. Locked in the basement. Out of the loop. With no answers.”
I laughed out loud. “You’re right. I’d climb the walls.”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed happily. Yes, the man was definitely wired for action. “You in?”
“I’m in.”
“Then post this ASAP,” he mailed me something from his phone, and mine chirped accordingly. “And be in my office in a half hour. Oh, is everyone back yet?”
“Blake’s not,” I said, concerned. “We sent him to Green Tree to collect footage.”
Emmett raised an eyebrow in pained disbelief. “Dee, I said we wouldn’t go to Green Tree, because it wasn’t worth the risk. With armed guards. Why’d you send a camera guy?”
“Because a camera guy is non-threatening?”
Emmett shook his head. “If he’s not on the road yet, tell him to shelter in place.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“He needs to stay put,” Emmett said, “and find someplace to lay low. Trying to flee in front of what’s about to happen, could be very bad for his health. Dee, you can’t explain it any further. Just send him a text, verbatim. ‘Shelter in place, do not return to hotel.’ See you soon, darlin’.” He rose and headed for his office meeting room.
That was worrisome, but I posted Emmett’s announcement first.
IMPORTANT: Curfew tonight 5 p.m. Everyone proceed to your own home IMMEDIATELY, including militia personnel. All businesses to close NOW. Sirens to command attention. Please notify neighbors not on meshnet.
No exceptions. If you believe you have a valid exception, and have not received separate instructions, contact @RescoCDrumpeter#NoExceptionsMeansNone. And be home by 5 p.m.
By order, Resco Colonel Emmett MacLaren, on behalf of PA Governor-General Seth Taibbi.
That notice would be received by everyone on the Pittsburgh meshnet, with a rude priority blatt for attention. The locals used the tornado siren system to count down the final 15 minutes to curfew, by 5 minute increments, every night. So that was a familiar system to them, and shouldn’t send people scurrying to the tornado shelters. Though to be on the safe side, Mrs. Wiehl scrambled past me to deploy a new sign at the hotel entrance. I loved the Wiehls, I really did.
I wondered what on earth Emmett planned to do at 5 p.m., with only a few dozen troops and borrowed militia on hand. Allegheny County, Pittsburgh’s over-sized Resco district, still held over a million people. It should have had three Rescos from the start, not one, as I understood the Resco guidelines.
I texted Blake verbatim as per Emmett’s instructions, only adding ‘where are you?’ and copying Brandy. By then, Sergeant Becque was bearing down on me to demand where Blake was, and ask for a photo of him and description of his vehicle, including license plate. In minutes, Brandy and her producer also piled into the hotel lobby to demand what all this was about. I introduced them to each other to supply Becque’s needs, and excused myself to clear out the phone charging bank and queue. Facility closed, go home.
I tried to collect some snacks to bring with me into Emmett’s meeting room. But Mrs. Wiehl intercepted me, and assured me she’d dispatch her daughter with a snack trolley. So I just ate my own slice of pie, packed up my stuff, and reported for duty. The door was closed. Tibbs, Nguyen, and a couple of Drum’s people were already waiting, carrying their computers.
Belatedly, I realized I hadn’t tested the contact link. So I sent a ‘testing’ email. I claimed I was a daycare provider with five children on hand, and couldn’t leave until their parents picked them up. True to form, I got a form mail response.
Thank you for contacting the martial law government. We are currently carrying out a police action in your area to insure public order. No one will respond to your email.
We keep a list of public services to consider in the event of police actions, in case they need alternate instructions, such as waterworks, militia units, and power plants. If you have not received such separate instructions TODAY, you are required to obey the general instructions.
In the unlikely event this is in error, you can use the contact link below. If we do not agree that your concern merits our attention, you are guilty of interfering with a Resco operation. The maximum penalty is death. The minimum penalty is 24 hours in jail and a black mark on your record.
@RescoCDrumpeter#ImWillingToGoToJail
“Wow, Drum’s really polite,” I commented, already tapping in my jail bid test email. I didn’t have any milk in the house to feed the children, I claimed.
“That’s polite?” one of Drum’s people asked, with a laugh. Her name was Renata.
“Oh, yeah,” I assured her. “Emmett sure doesn’t thank people for talking back to him. And with people behaving like this? Militia shooting each other in the streets over religion? Emmett would have promised to fire upon anyone who fails to obey instructions. Sometimes he suggests putting them in stocks, naked, for public display. Cam’s actually done that to people, out on Long Island. Apples think it’s funny.”
Funny, once upon a time I was stunned that my boyfriend would say such a thing. After the past three months in Brooklyn and Queens, putting people in stocks naked sounded rather tame. The shell-shocked apples of New York responded best to a firm hand. Besides, once upon a time I was horrified by martial law. The world had changed since then. Martial law sucked, but armed chaos and starvation were a whole lot worse. And to receive this email, you had to be silly enough to argue with a martial law directive first.
“Deeb,” the other of Drum’s pair, Christopher, informed me solemnly, “you are hereby sentenced to spend the night locked in this hotel for interfering with a Resco operation. Running out of milk is no excuse.”
“You got stuck with that mailbox, eh?” I grinned at him. “My condolences. Don’t forget my black mark, now. I’m a known trouble-maker.”
“Oh!” Christopher said. “Yeah, how do I do that?”
We bent heads together as I showed him how to forward a contact for arrest and punishment. Maintaining the word ‘testing’ in the subject line, of course. Sergeant Becque was kind enough to RSVP that I’d been secured and punished, thus pushing my case into its terminal bucket.
Systems test complete. For that subsystem, anyway. The tornado sirens emitted a brief wail on the quarter hour, to encourage people on to their curfew destinations.
Drum opened the door with a smile, and invited us all in.
“Hey, darlin’,” Emmett greeted me with a smile. “Ready for action?”
“Sure!” I said. “Ready to know what the action is, anyway.”
“One step at a time,” he said. “First step. Tonight we’re using subnet slices, instead of closed subnets. I’d like for you – now – to slice the meshnet across the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. Also, slice east of Carnegie-Mellon. So the downtown triangle subnets are sliced off together. They can talk to each other, but not across the slices. Got it? Oh, and slice all Internet-to-meshnet traffic. For everybody.”
He pointed out the slice lines on a map on the big display, the centerpiece of our little operations center. Naturally I stepped up to the screen and peered at a lot of other interesting things marked on that map.
“Dee?” Emmett prodded gently. “First set up your computer, and do the slices, OK?”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I chose a seat, cabled in the computer, and brought up the meshnet administration console to make the slices that prevented any communication across those meshnet borders. For normal users, that is. Our override messages would cross loud and clear, including back and forth from the Internet. In fact, I noted, they’d be louder and clearer than ever. Emmett must have sent people to deploy repeaters, because there were no gaps remaining in Allegheny County.
“Emmett,” I called, “there are a ton of new meshnet users outside the county. There aren’t that many people out there.”
“That’s correct, Dee,” he said. He was busy on his computer, and didn’t elaborate.
After I made the slices, Tibbs asked my advice on setting up traffic filters. Apparently he and Nguyen and Drum’s female militia assistant – Renata – would be our email spying division. They had several lists of keywords to flag on all communications across the meshnet that weren’t from people with override or ‘101’ permission. Apparently 101 was a new type of override group that Emmett had created just for this operation. The crowds outside the county border were chock full of 101’s. So apparently those were the forces Emmett was bringing in for this operation, whatever that was.
I showed Tibbs how to sort flagged messages into buckets automatically based on keyword priority. I gave him another bucket labeled ‘#Escalate’, and suggested Nguyen and Renata divvy up watching all the other buckets. They would forward to #Escalate anything for Tibbs to consider acting on, while Tibbs monitored only that one bucket. More urgent escalations could be red-flagged, or called out verbally.
It was a complicated setup, and these three hadn’t done meshnet administration before. The flagged message traffic volume was also way too high for just three of them to monitor effectively. As one of the meshnet architects, I knew every trick there was. The tornado sirens wailed a couple more times while I tutored and tweaked. But at last I had all three with a comfortable stream of messages to skim. They could open and close the spigots a bit by turning on and off assorted buckets into their visual stream. For instance, I could confidently predict that the #guns bucket would remain turned off for hours, if not the duration. ‘Guns’ was just too common a word in emails, in a situation like this.
I was standing watching them process email when Emmett came up behind me. “They all set here?”
I nodded judiciously. “They could use a couple more people. But they know how to tune down the roar.”
“Excellent,” he murmured. “Time for another announcement. Ready?” He forwarded it to me.
IMPORTANT: Effective immediately, all Pittsburgh militia are disbanded. At 5 p.m. all militia-issued weapons, munitions, and uniforms must be deposited at curbside in front of your home for collection. No exceptions. Personal firearms must also be relinquished at curbside. Tag personal items with owner’s contact info, for return at later date. Electronic surveillance and physical home searches will be used. Report location of any munition stashes to @RescoEMacLaren#Stash.
We anticipate this lockdown will last 36-48 hours. Your full cooperation is required.
That was the version for inside the city and suburbs. There was a softer rendition for the outer exurbs. There, personal weapons would be inventoried at curbside, but not confiscated.
“Wow, Emmett,” I breathed. “How the –” I looked back up at the big map. Emmett stepped in to block my view and playfully frowned at me. I took the hint and broadcast his announcement before asking anything further. The tornado siren pealed again, to mark 4:30.
“Not everyone’s on the meshnet,” I pointed out.
“We have loudspeakers, too,” Emmett said. “You just worry about the meshnet.”
I dutifully sent a test message to @RescoEMacLaren#Stash, advising of weapons, munitions, and pies here at the hotel. Drum’s other assistant, Christopher, proved the unlucky winner of that mailbox.
I selected a nice red bomb icon for him, and demonstrated how to position the red bomb on the hotel on the meshnet map, and paste in my email report, all on a layer privileged so only overrides and 101’s could see the reported arsenals. Christopher was gratifyingly quick on the uptake. But his assignment took a lot more manual fiddling than the mail spies’ job. And he couldn’t ignore anything, while the responses started flooding in.
We also needed to set up a nuisance response form letter (no, you don’t have second amendment rights – that country no longer exists, and your neighbor’s safety trumps your gun collection), plus a one-click system to forward an email for punishment and simultaneously suspend the user’s meshnet privileges, because those who emailed us defiance tended to mouth off repeatedly. Soon another special case came in, a report of a neighbor stealing guns at curbside, and we had to invent a pathway to escalate that for follow-through.
For the final quarter hour of the run-up to 5 p.m., the tornado sirens sounded off every 5 minutes instead of 15. There’s something about count-downs and warnings that really gets under your skin and sets the adrenalin pumping. Christopher and I could have done without the added excitement.
Emmett was behind me again, hands on my hips, as a longer fog-horn of doom from the tornado sirens announced the onset of curfew enforcement. I froze. “Take your time, get it right, darlin’,” Emmett murmured softly to me.
