The Rangers Are Coming

by Phil Walker

  Jefferson also started building roads. He used both concrete and asphalt, developed by the cleaver special education centers that were springing up around the country. New steel and concrete buildings were going up in the bigger cities. Larger cities, like New York, Chicago, and Kansas City were inevitable, but they were not ghettos. The expanded rail, and road system kept towns connected, but not over-crowded.

  The wonders of electricity fascinated the research centers and enterprising reverse engineers figured out the secret of the electric incandescent bulb. Soon electricity was going into homes and the night became filled with light. The same process was underway with the Ranger’s radios. That technology with printed circuit boards and transistors was still beyond the researchers, but not the concept of sound being capable of being carried by wire. Soon primitive, but quite effective telephones were popping up in offices, assembly plants, and some public buildings.

  Jefferson had multiplied by many times the amount of electricity that could be produced by using steel and concrete to build bigger and bigger dams across unruly rivers that flooded on an annual basis, but now were backing up great bodies of water that provided water and power to lands that previously had neither.

  The innovative president had a dozen experiments of all kinds in progress at any given time in the White House.

  The French Revolution occurred exactly as Arcadia had predicted and soon Napoleon was running roughshod over Europe. America maintained its strict neutrality, but continued trading food and non-military goods to any country who could afford it, or whom Jefferson was willing to extend credit. England was America’s best customer with a steady supply of food. The United States expanded imports of rubber, rare minerals, and other exotic products that were fed into the voracious appetite of the American public.

  The United States maintained its two brigades of Rangers who saw action in an abortive attempt by Napoleon to attack Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It was a very short engagement and the Rangers were cheered all over the island state of Hispaniola. The Rangers were also kept busy putting down outbursts of outlaws in Central America and occasionally augmenting a local police force in dealing with crime. Usually, all that had to be said to restore order anywhere was, “The Rangers Are Coming.” In fact, one enterprising Spanish General used that tactic to scatter three battalions of French soldiers. Jefferson, made it clear to the Spanish Government, through his ambassador, that this was not the kind of threat the United States government appreciated, emphasizing that America was a strictly neutral, Christian nation.

  The country was now completely used to, and approved of the basic primary election system to choose their delegates to Washington and to their states offices. The schools were doing their part providing excellent educations for students and instilling in them a sense of citizenship with what became known as the Master Civics Examination. Contests were held to see who was best at basic government and current events questions, and the students with the highest scores in the test got trophies and adoration. The result was people intending to run for public office always faced a very informed and questioning public.

  Jefferson took advantage of this improved way of electing high government officials by declaring his vice president. The implication was, “If you liked the way I ran things, my choice for vice president won’t disappoint you. For the last three terms, Jefferson’s vice president was Alexander Hamilton.

  America was the most respected, honored, and envied country in the world. Each year, the number of immigrants came pouring in, no less than a million. The requirements were simple. No matter what country the immigrant arrived from, they took an oath declaring unconditional loyalty to the United States, exclusively. English was the official language and everyone was required to learn it. Citizenship was provisional for a period of five years, at which time the immigrant was required to take and pass the current Master Civics Examination.

  Arcadia was something of a problem for the country. In the beginning, almost 40 years ago, she was the inspiration for a new nation. Now nearly 40 years had passed and she had not aged at all. That was the problem. Her unchanged appearance had the effect of making her seem “other-worldly.” This was not the image she wanted for herself. She felt in might undermine the authority of the president, and she had worked too hard to make that an effective system.

  Still, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison were constantly checking with her about current events and her forecast for the future. All her actions and predictions had proved to be of enormous value to the foundation of the United States, and these men, were still from the original group. She had a large, very nice home in Georgetown, but it was difficult for her to leave it. All sorts of subterfuges were used to get her out of town to the estates at Monticello, and Fort Independence where her own team lived. They were also unchanged, but since they were mostly not public figures, they could come and go about as they pleased.

  Actually, she liked going to Fort Independence. Not only were many friends there, but she loved to see the current crop of Ranger’s in action. Many of the original Rangers had retired and lived comfortably on a generous pension in places all over the country. The new Rangers were every bit as battle ready as the ones who had taken to the field against the British. Their commanding General saw to that.

  “Good Morning, Arcadia, “ said the General when she was ushered into his office. “It’s so wonderful to see you again.

  “Hi there, Robby,” said Arcadia,” How’s everything going with the wagon business?”

  “Business is booming,” said General Pierce, “My brother writes to me they are running three shifts of workers and still can’t keep up with the demand. We have over 500 employees in the plant. I’m constantly feeding my brother, who is in charge of development, little improvements based on having the Special Ed guys take one of the Humvees apart and figure out how they did something. As you know, the technology on those vehicles is very advanced and our people are just beginning to understand some of the technical circuitry. It will be years before they are able to reproduce it. However, there is one thing that we have figured out and I need your counsel on it.”

  “OK,” said Arcadia, “what’s on your mind?”

  “The techs are pretty good, and they’ve found out we don’t really need all the special circuitry to build the engine. I understand it’s called the Internal Combustion Engine. In different configurations, it’s the key to making all our equipment run, from Bradley’s to Blackhawks. They’ve constructed a prototype in the lab, and it works.”

  “Oh boy,” said Arcadia, “you’re opening an enormous can of worms.”

  “How’s that,” asked Robby?

  “About a hundred years from now, your engine is going to get adapted to a simple vehicle that can be mass produced and sold to the public at a price that will make it possible for almost all families to own. This will cause a worldwide revolution, with a lot of serious repercussions to it.”

  Arcadia pulled over a laptop and opened it. She entered the passwords that gave her access to the development of the automobile and the resulting benefits and problems, socially, politically, economically and environmentally to the use of oil, and the refinement of gasoline. “I need for you to watch this documentary of what really happens in the future, and then get back to me with your recommendations on what we should do next.”

  “Looks like I really hit a nerve,” said Robby, “I’ve never seen you so serious.”

  “Imbedded in that documentary are the root causes for the destruction of the United States a little over 200 years from now. Keep this information to yourself and don’t do anything until you talk with me. Take your time, but do a thorough job of studying this branch of our history. While you’re preparing your report, I’m gonna go down to your martial arts school and knock a few heads around as the infamous ‘Black Ninja’.”

  “I’ll call the infirmary and tell them to expect some extra patients. Try not to kill any of my people.”

 
“I’ll be careful,” smiled Arcadia.

  After she left, General Robert Pierce, commander of the first Ranger Brigade, locked the door, and called out to his staff and told them he was not to be interrupted. Then he punched up the documentary and transferred it to the big screen in his office.

  Over the next two days, Robby learned all about the development of the automobile. He also took careful note of where the supply of oil was coming from, and how damaging the burning of fossil fuels was to the environment, from the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He also learned that the United States from Alaska to Mexico had enormous reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas. However, a lot of the supplies would be difficult to recover, and would require the application of technology which did not, as yet, exist. It was not lost on him that the importation of large quantities of oil from the Middle East would put the United States on a collision course with the Muslim countries, which regarded Christians and Jews as enemies and already had the stated purpose, even in 1808 of killing or converting them all. He shivered at the prospects of what he was messing around with, and now clearly understood Arcadia’s concerns.

  He wrote a careful analysis of what he’d learned and made a long list of recommendations of what to do next. When he was finished, he put on his beret and wandered down to the martial arts training center.

  On the wall of the training center wall, was a big permanent picture of Arcadia, clad in her Black Ninja outfit, which concealed everything, and a large caption on the picture that said, “You will never be as good as the Black Ninja, but keep on working.”

  Robby stood in the back of the room and crossed his arms as he leaned against the wall and watched Arcadia working. She had 30 pairs of men and women spread out across the mats, and her current victim standing next to her. She explained the move she was going to do, and then demonstrated it at full speed. The student was an expert in his own right, but was helpless to counter the complicated maneuver Arcadia was teaching.

  She helped her student to his feet, and then broke the routine down into its many parts in slow motion. She had the students work through each part of the exercise and practice it until they were able to do the maneuver perfectly. Then Arcadia stood back and watched her students practice it over and over again. Finally, she picked one student who seemed to be doing the routine the best and had him come forward.

  “I want you to run this move on me,” she said.

  The student stepped forward with confidence and began the exercise. Everything went well for the first part of the sweeps and strikes, but suddenly, everything went wrong. Soon the student was laying on his face, slapping the mat in submission.

  “This maneuver will work for you about 95 percent of the time, but sooner or later, you’re going to find someone who has the defense for it, and then you’ll be dead. There is always one more thing to do in martial arts. “Good work, today, Rangers.” She bowed to the class, who responded by bowing even lower. She then left the building. Robby followed after her.

  “I think you are losing your touch,” he said, “the infirmary says there were only three sprained ankles, five sprained wrists, two broken ribs, and a broken arm.”

  “We do what we can,” smiled Arcadia through her mask, “your troops are light years ahead of where they were when you and I went after it 20 years ago.”

  “Thanks for the compliment and for the training,” said Robby, “the whole brigade is talking about it.”

  “How’s your study going,” asked Arcadia?

  “Go into my private bath and get cleaned up, then we’ll talk.”

  Showered and dressed in jeans and a sweater, Arcadia came into Robby’s office, still fluffing her hair to make sure it was dry.

  The general pulled up his report and projected in onto the screen. “The fundamental problem you have here is the interaction between the United States and the Muslim world. By importing their oil, you will not only make them rich, you will inevitably find our country in conflict with them. This must be avoided at all costs.”

  “I’m glad you have looked beyond all the wonderful advantages that cars bring to the people and have seen the real trap waiting at the end of it, “nodded Arcadia in satisfaction.

  “We have a lot of oil in the United States, enough to be independent of any foreign oil for a long time. Unfortunately, some of it is going to be hard to get and I’ve no idea about the technology involved, even though I have seen it in your comprehensive documentary. It will be many years before we will have developed the technology to get at the oil imbedded in rocks.”

  “However, the automobile will set the population free and allow them to travel further, do more work, and actually provide a whole new industry of recreation and family pleasure. You saw the Grand Canyon on your trip to Veracruz, years ago, you’ve never forgotten it, or the big mountains. Think how wonderful it would be for our people to actually drive to those places and see them with their own eyes?”

  “That would be wonderful,” said Robby, “but as I understand it, the only roads you have built are between the big cities here on the east coast.”

  “That’s true, and it’s also the answer to the problem,” said Arcadia. “We will be able to ration the use of this kind of travel by the rate at which we build roads, and the kinds of vehicles we put on them. After the roads are built, the first vehicles we will use them for is commercial traffic, trucks to transport cargo to and from the ports, and to and from the cities. We can still use diesel fuel for these vehicles. As the network of roads increase, we can start building them to some of our national parks and provide bus service to them, still using diesel and not significantly increasing our carbon footprint.”

  “Our what,” asked Robby?

  “The amount of carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere. Tell me, how close are your wonder boys to taking your prototype engine into a vehicle?”

  “We could probably do that much today. The problem, they tell me is to recreate the shifting system and to figure out the way to stop the vehicles.”

  “All that takes is to reverse engineer the vehicles you already have. If we can get motorized vehicles on the road in the next few years, we will still be almost a hundred years ahead of the rest of the world. I’m going to send you some real mechanics to work with your teams. I want the first truck to roll out in a year. I’ll send you the specifications for what the trailer should look like, along with the design for a bus. You can have your family send some trusted workers here and we’ll build everything in a secret building. I want all of this kept strictly secret while we’re working out the details.”

  35

  Washington, D.C.

  Alexander Hamilton was elected President in 1808. In his first meeting with Arcadia he said, “All my proposals for a national bank and control of the currency were put into place from the beginning, so I’m a little confused as to why I am here.”

  “Because, Alex, you were one of the most brilliant men of the Revolution and would have been a great President if you hadn’t have gotten killed by Aaron Burr in a duel in 1804. As it turns out, your paths have hardly crossed. Now you have been hard at work as Vice President under Thomas for the past eight years and are really ready to take the United States to the next major plateau of development.”

  “I believe your idea of putting the vice president in charge of education in general and the gifted schools in particular is a sound principle. I have been in a position to watch some of the remarkable things coming out of the special schools, and now that I’m president, I’m in a better position to implement the best of the things we are producing.”

  “That was the idea,” said Arcadia. “Now do you see the results of the many developments and research projects developing?”

  “Of course I see the financial picture first. The flat tax is producing $50 million a year from individuals and an astonishing $170 million dollars from commercial business and industry. Our trade picture is very strong. We export over $250 million dollars in
products annually and import only about $50 million. Much of this money is flowing into private enterprise through your ongoing policy of taking the big developments in all fields that were done by the jump-start you gave in technology through the government, and then backing the government out and forming private companies that let ordinary people buy stock. It’s a huge advantage to investors. The average American worker has an annual income of $1,500 a year, and enjoys a standard of living, which is the highest in the world. Your goal of preventing the rise of trade unions is working since workers have benefits such as a 50-hour workweek, vacation, and sick pay. The major manufacturers have learned keeping their workers happy make them infinitely more productive. We have a large and very productive middle class, who are using the investment strategies of companies who combine many different stock investments to limit risk. That’s making it possible for people to multiply future income and use it for their later years when their productive work period has ended. Meanwhile, our unemployment rate is effectively zero, and the continuing dedication of people to the worship of God has made it possible for the churches to pay relief funding for families who are in poverty or are otherwise disadvantaged.”

  “Our Federal budget is now $60 million a year. We have 10,000 Federal employees, and our surplus has grown to an astonishing half a billion dollars, all in gold reserves, and we are receiving about $25 million a year in interest payments for credits and loans we’ve extended to foreign governments.”

  “We currently have applications for immigration of over 2 million people, last year we only admitted half of them.”

  “That’s because we are more cautious of whom we allow to immigrate,” said Arcadia, “and we limit the numbers to what we can reasonably absorb into our work force.”