Out of the Ashes ta-1

by William Wallace Johnstone

  “You said authorized weapons…?”

  “Rifle, pistol, knife, hands, fists, feet… whatever is available. Our citizens”—he smiled—“do not possess nuclear weapons.”

  Barney shuddered. He had discovered how swiftly events could occur in this state. All over a little joke.

  “Explain those permanent IDs,” Roisseau was asked.

  “Each ID is numbered, the same number is on the person’s bank account, driver’s license, home title. That number is placed in a central computer bank. Along with the number is placed the person’s vital statistics. It’s very easily checked and almost impossible to hide an identity.”

  “What comes next, Sergeant: tattooing at birth?” It was sarcastically put.

  Barney resisted an impulse to tell the reporter to please watch his mouth.

  Sergeant Roisseau smiled patiently. “No, sir, it’s past 1984. Your government is the one who turned on its law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, not ours.”

  “What is the penalty for carrying a false ID?”

  Roisseau’s eyes were chilly as he said, “It’s unpleasant. I hope you all have a nice stay in our area. It will be as nice as you make it.”

  A member of the armed forces of Tri-states rode in each van and bus. As they pulled out of the reception center, a soldier rose and faced Clayton Charles’s group.

  “My name is Bridge Oliver. During the ride to the governor’s house, I’ll try to answer as many questions as possible and show you some points of interest.

  “Coming up on your left is the first emergency telephone on this highway. You’ll find them every four miles on every major highway in the Tri-states. They are hooked directly to an army HQ in whatever district the motorist is in, and each phone is numbered. Pick up the phone, give that number to whoever answers, state the nature of the problem, and someone will be there promptly.”

  “That isn’t anything new,” a reporter said. “It’s been tried before in other areas… before the bombings. Vandals usually ripped the phones out. Destroyed them.”

  “Sir,” Bridge said, “in other states, punks and hoodlums were—and probably still are—pampered and petted by judges, psychologists, counselors, and petunia-picking social workers. Vandalism, in your society, under your laws, is accepted, more or less, as part of a young person’s growing up. We do not subscribe to that theory. As you have been told, and will be told a hundred times more during your stay here,”—until you get it through your goddamned thick skulls, Bridge thought—“crime, lawlessness, is not tolerated here. Our children are taught that it is wrong. They are taught it in the homes, in the schools, and in the churches.”

  The same reporter who had asked about tattooing at birth, now asked: “What do you do when you catch them, shoot them?”

  Barney looked out the window while Judith busied herself with a notebook.

  Bridge held his temper in check. Ben had told his people to expect sarcasm and, in certain instances, open hostility from some members of the press.

  “No, sir,” Bridge said quietly, “we don’t shoot them. I would like all of you to understand something. Some of you—maybe all of you—seem to be under the impression that we here in Tri-states are savages, or that Governor Raines is some sort of ruthless ogre. You’re wrong. We’re all very proud of what we’ve done here: jobs for everyone who wants to work; our medical system; elimination of poor living conditions; but we’re also somewhat of a law-and-order society. Not as you people know law and order, true, but we’re not monsters.

  “We do a lot of things quite differently from what you people are accustomed to. But that’s all right, because it works for us.”

  “That’s all very good, Mr. Oliver. And, I suppose, commendable, to your way of thinking. But I would still like to know what happens to the kids when they’re caught. Just for having a little fun.”

  “Fun?” Bridge questioned. “Fun? Is destructive vandalism your idea of fun?”

  “It certainly isn’t a criminal offense.”

  “Isn’t it? What’s the difference between stealing a great deal of money or ripping out a piece of expensive equipment that might save someone’s life?”

  The reporter shook his head. “I don’t intend to argue the question with you. It still doesn’t answer my question.”

  Bridge sighed. “After they’ve all been warned, repeatedly, not to commit vandalism, and taught it in the schools, we attempt to find out why they would do so. Is it because of their home life? Are they abused? Do they have a mental problem? We try to find out and then correct the problem. But they will also work while we’re doing that: painting public buildings or working for the elderly, picking up litter—which, if you’ll observe, we don’t have much of—public-service work of some kind. But they’ll give us twenty dollars of their time for every dollar they destroyed.”

  “That’s rather harsh, don’t you think?”

  Bridge shrugged and tried not to smile. He knew their way of life, their philosophy, would not be understood by many of the younger members of the news media. About half of the newspeople now converging upon the Tri-states area were in their thirties, the products of the permissive ‘60s and ‘70s, which Bridge knew, only too well, was a time of poor discipline in schools, disregard for law and order, a downgrading of patriotism, morals, values. One could blame the time, but not wholly the individual.

  “What about the police?” a woman asked. “I haven’t seen any.”

  “We don’t have police,” Bridge said. “We have peace officers. And really, not many of them.” He smiled, attempting to put the people at ease. “Here,” he tried to explain, “the people control their lives. We have very few laws, and they are voted on by the people before they become laws. A fifty-one/forty-nine percent for and against won’t make it here. It’s got to be much clearer than that. That may be a majority in your system, but not here.

  “Living here is very simple on the one hand, and very difficult—if not downright impossible—if you’re the type of person who likes to spread malicious gossip, if you’re lazy, if you like to browbeat others. If you’re inclined to cheat and lie… you won’t make it in this society.”

  “What happens to them?”

  “Well,”—Bridge grinned—“you start spreading lies about somebody in this society, you’re liable to get the shit beat out of you. It’s happened a few times.”

  “And the law did what to the parties involved?”

  “Nothing,” Bridge said flatly. “I don’t know of anyone, male or female, who doesn’t gossip; that’s human nature. Just don’t make it vicious lies.”

  “I’m surprised there haven’t been any killings, if that’s the kind of laws you people live under. If you want to call it law, that is.”

  “There’ve been a couple of shootings,” Bridge admitted. “But not in the past three or four years. We’re all pretty much of one mind in this area.”

  “Who shot whom, and why?” Clayton questioned.

  “One fellow was messin’ with another man’s wife. He kept messin’ with her even though, as witnesses pointed out, the woman told him, time after time, to leave her alone. She finally went to her husband and told him. The husband warned the man—once. The warning didn’t take. The husband called the man out one afternoon; told him he was going to beat the hell out of him. Romeo came out with a gun in his hand. Bad mistake. Husband killed him.”

  The press waited. And waited. Finally Clayton blurted, “Well, what happened?”

  “Nothing, really.” Bridge’s face was impassive. “There was a hearing, of course. The husband was turned loose; Romeo was buried.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly. I told you all: this is not an easy place to live. But that’s only happened three… yes, three times since the Tri-states were organized. There is an old western saying, sir: man saddles his own horses, kills his own snakes. And if I have to explain that, you’d better turn this bus around and get the hell out of here.”

  The bus dri
ver chuckled.

  The press corps absorbed that bit of western philosophy for a moment… in silence. Clayton broke the silence by clearing his throat and saying, “Let’s return to the people controlling their own lives, if we ever indeed left it. Elaborate on that, please, without the High Noon scenario, if possible, and I’m not sure you weren’t just putting us on about that.”

  “I believe that Sergeant Roisseau told Mr. Barney Weston that this is a one-mistake state and he’d had his—right?”

  Barney felt his face grow hot. “Mr. Oliver, maybe I was out of line, but I just got mauled and humiliated. Don’t you think that’s going a bit far?”

  “Would you do it again?” Bridge asked.

  “Absolutely not!”

  Bridge laughed. “Well… you just answered your question.”

  “Mr. Oliver?” Judith said. “Are you taking us on a preselected route? I’ve seen no shacks or poor-looking people. No crummy beer joints. No malnourished kids. Nothing to indicate poverty or unhappiness.”

  “I’m not qualified to speak on the unhappiness part of your question. I’m sure there must be some unhappiness here. But I can guarantee you there is no hunger or poverty. We’ve corrected that—totally.”

  The newspeople had just left an area—America—where people were still dying from the sickness caused by the bombings: cancer-related illnesses from radiation sickness; where people were starving and out of work; where gangs of thugs still roamed parts of the nation; where the sights of devastation were still very much in evidence. Now, for Bridge Oliver to tell them that here, in the Tri-states, there was no poverty, no hunger… that was ludicrous.

  “Oh, come now, man!” Clayton’s tone was full of disbelief. “That is simply not possible.”

  “Perhaps not in your society, but it certainly did happen here. You’ll be free to roam the country, talk to people. The only hungry people you’ll find in Tri-states will be those people who might be on a diet.”

  “Well, would you be so kind as to tell us just how you people managed that?”

  “By ripping down any slum or shack area and building new housing, and not permitting a building to deteriorate. We have very tough housing codes, and they are enforced….”

  “I can just imagine how,” Barney muttered, his face reddening at the laughter around him.

  “…We have no unemployment—there are jobs going begging right now. We’re opening factories, little by little, but the process of screening takes time; it’s long and slow. As I’ve tried to explain, it takes a very special person to live in our society. We won’t tolerate freeloaders, of any kind. We have no unions here, and will not permit any to come in. They are not necessary in this society. You’ll see what I mean as you travel about. Our economy matches our growth, and wages are in line with it. Wages are paid commensurate to a person’s ability to do a job, and a person’s sex has nothing to do with it. It’s equal pay right down the line. There is a minimum wage for certain types of work, but I defy you—any of you—to find a sweatshop anywhere in the Tri-states. The people won’t stand for it.”

  “That doctrine is somehow vaguely familiar,” a reporter said.

  “If you’re thinking socialism or communism, put it out of your mind; you haven’t got your head screwed on straight. I’d like to hear you name any communist country—ever—where the entire population was armed—to the teeth! No, none of you can. Believe me, if the people living here ever decide they don’t like the government, they’ve damned sure got the firepower to change it. But they won’t. Because, as I’ve told you, we like it this way.

  “Now in terms of wealth, it would be very difficult for a person to become a millionaire—not impossible, but difficult. Taxes get pretty steep after a certain income level. But if a person is poor, it’s that person’s own fault, and he or she can blame no one else. But, it’s as I said; we don’t have any poor people.”

  “And no rich people.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Number of churches here,” a woman observed. “Is attendance mandatory?”

  “No!” Bridge laughed. “Where in the world are you people getting these off-the-wall questions?”

  “But you people do place a lot of emphasis on religion,” Judith said. “Right?”

  Bridge shrugged. “Some do, some don’t. Hell, people! Prostitution is legal here.”

  The newspeople all looked at each other, not believing what they had just heard.

  “Well,” Clayton Charles said, “I’d certainly like to get into that.”

  The bus rocked with laughter.

  “I didn’t mean it that way!” the chief correspondent said, his face crimson.

  Judith shook her head. “I’m… still very confused about this area. I just witnessed a young lady—a teenager—beat up a grown man with nothing but her hands for weapons, and you people obviously thought it perfectly all right for her to do so. It’s obvious you are teaching your young that violence—in some forms, and incidents, I suppose—is acceptable. Yet, I have only to look out the window to see that your society is religious. You people claim to have completely obliterated hunger, poverty, and slums…. That’s the height of compassion. Yet capital punishment—so we’ve been told—is the law of the land. Tri-states seems to be, at least to me, a marvelous combination of good and evil.”

  “We agree on the definition of one word, but not on the other,” Bridge replied. He found himself, for some reason, liking this reporter; he believed she would report fairly. “Here in our society, we have, I believe, returned to the values of our forefathers—in part. Much more emphasis is placed on the rights of a law-abiding citizen than on the punks who commit the crimes.

  “There is honor here that you don’t have in your states—that you haven’t had in your central government for decades. You people still want it both ways, and it won’t work; I’m amazed that you can’t see that. We believe our system will always be worlds apart from yours. We set it up that way.”

  “Then where does that leave Tri-states and the rest of America?” he was asked.

  “In a position of separate but workable coexistence.”

  “But that violates the entire concept of United States.”

  Bridge glanced at the bus driver, the man who would soon be moving into the area. The driver smiled and shook his head.

  He understands, Bridge thought. Even if the others don’t. “I suppose it does,” Bridge said. “But that is not our problem. And it’s yours only if you make it a problem.”

  He sat down and turned his back to the reporters.

  The town of Vista lay quiet and peaceful under a warm early summer sun. People tended gardens and mowed lawns. Kids played along the sidewalks and yards, their laughter and behavior reminiscent of an age long past. No horns honked, no mufflers roared, no huge trucks rumbled about. Trucks, unless they were moving vans, were forbidden to enter residential areas. The only exception was pickups. Unless it was an emergency, horns did not honk in Tri-states. Straight pipes, glass packs, and other such adolescent silliness were banned. There were lots of sidewalks—all of them new—to walk upon, and there were bike paths for the pedalers. Speed limits were low, and they were rigidly enforced.

  A contentment hung in the air; a satisfaction that could almost be felt, as if everyone here had finally found a personal place under the sun and was oh, so happy with it. A mood of safety, tranquility, and peace surrounded the area.

  To the newspeople, that was unsettling.

  The buses and vans parked in front of a split-level home on the outskirts of town. In the two-car garage, there stood a pickup truck and a late-model (the last year automobiles were made), small station wagon. Parked in the drive was a standard military Jeep with a whip antenna on the rear and a waterproof scabbard on the right front side. The flap was open, exposing the stock of a .45-caliber Thompson SMG.

  “You people are certainly careless with weapons,” a reporter remarked.

  “Why?” Bridge looked at him.


  He pointed to the Thompson. “Someone could steal that.”

  Bridge shrugged. “Everyone in this state, male and female, over the age of sixteen has an automatic weapon and five hundred rounds of ammunition assigned to them, also a sidearm with fifty rounds of ammunition, three grenades, and a jump knife. Why would anyone want to steal an old Thompson?”

  “Well, goddamn it!” The reporter lost his temper. He quickly checked it. “There are children, you know.” Being from a large city—that no longer existed—the reporter’s knowledge of firearms was limited to pointing his finger and making “bang-bang” noises.

  But Bridge was under orders to be patient. “Sir, do you see that metal object on the top of the weapon, just above and in front of the stock? The stock is that long, funny-shaped wooden thing. You do? Good! That is a bolt lever. When it is pulled back, locked in position, as it is now, that signifies the weapon is void of ammunition. In Tri-states, any ten-year-old would know that.”

  If looks could kill, Bridge would have fallen over.

  A young man wearing starched and creased tiger-stripe field clothes suddenly appeared by the side of the garage. He wore buck sergeant’s stripes and carried an automatic assault rifle, much like the Russian AK47/AKM.

  “Who is that?” a reporter asked.

  “The governor’s driver and bodyguard. Badger Harbin,” Bridge said. “Don’t make any sudden moves around him until he gets used to you.”

  Badger looked at the growing mounds of equipment and then at the men whose jobs it was to set it all up. He pointed to the rear of the house.

  “Take it all around there,” Badger said. “There are tables and chairs and plug-ins. If any of you are armed, declare it now.”

  “None of us is armed,” Clayton said. Then with a smile, he added, “What’s the matter, Sergeant, don’t you trust us?”

  “No,” Badger said shortly. He stepped to one side, allowing them to pass.

  The crowd was ushered onto the patio, then seated. Badger stood by the side of the sliding glass doors leading into the den. “When the governor and Mrs. Raines come out,” he said, “get up.”