“The war escalated over the next few years until there were three main alliances. China controlled much of Asia, the Islamic State had the Middle East and much of Eastern Europe, and the U.S. and Western Europe more or less controlled the rest. There had been a few isolated nuclear attacks, but it wasn’t until China had opened up another war front on the Middle East that nuclear weapons threats became a reality. China was afraid they didn’t have the resources to fight two wars, so they decided to make a last ditch effort and a full scale nuclear attack was the result. Once the nukes started flying and it was obvious the war was going to get worse before it got better, both China and the U.S. decided to eliminate any potential threat from California. You see, after the secession, the President of the United States had ordered federal military forces to be evacuated out of California. The now sovereign nation of California had no protection, and was left scrambling for militia. They managed to put together a sizable ground force, and even managed to keep a lot of the assets from the military bases on their soil. They did not, however, have codes to launch the nukes that they had kept, and certainly had no viable missile defense system. They were an easy target and they were hit hard, worse than any other place in the world. Today the land is mostly radioactive wasteland. Not only that, the pounding they took was so intense that the fault lines that criss-cross the state were... aggravated. Earthquakes tore up what the nukes didn’t. Despite it all, there were still some small areas that were left inhabitable, and the survivors there were not happy. The world had turned their back on California, and you could say that even after over two hundred and fifty years, they still hold a grudge.”
Jack took it all in, not entirely surprised. He was from California, and he could definitely see where they could self-destruct like that. “So there is limited trade. How do you balance that with them being hostile? Is there something else going on that I don’t know about?” The elevator had reached the fourth floor and they had exited and walked down a hall. There were heavy doors on either side of the hallway for about a hundred feet, and at the end of the hall was a set of double doors. As they talked, they approached the doors.
Teague nodded as he went on. “They are very aggressive, and figure that none of the other communities, with the exception of the Yanks, pose any real threat to them. They don’t bother to live below ground, and even the Mutes don’t trouble them. The area they control is a maze of radioactive zones, and, unlike the day the bombs dropped, their air defense systems are as good as can be. They have regular patrols looking for people to add to their population, and they don’t usually ask whether the people they find would like to be a part of their community. We lost a patrol about five years ago, and it was pretty clear that Cali was responsible, even though they denied it. If it weren’t for the resources they have, New Hope and many other small communities like us would have long ago stopped trading with them. Unfortunately, we need what they have, and they know it.” They reached the doors and Teague put his eye up to a lens next to the door. There was a beep and a click and they proceeded through the door.
“You said there were two large communities. Are the Yanks the other one?” Jack was starting to get a mental picture of how things really stood, and while New Hope was in an excellent position because of the discovery in Montana, the question was quickly becoming whether or not they could hold that advantage.
“Yes, the other group is the Yanks. They are the largest single community in the world that we are aware of. We estimate their numbers at over two thousand, but we have no idea how many of those are fertile and how many are clones of the originals. We do know they live above ground on the east coast and that there is a facility similar to this one below their city. It is only inhabited by their core government, which numbers in the dozens. They are located between two major radioactive sites: New York, and D.C.”
“Two thousand? How did they get so big?” Jack was astonished at this. Until now it sounded like there wasn’t a community bigger than a few hundred.
“They merged three large communities together, pretty much by force, and in the last forty years have increased in size by ten times. Their size is only limited by their resources right now, and they have their eyes on expanding to other communities. They are similar to Cali only much larger and much more aggressive. The only upside for us right now is the distance from us to them.”
They entered a room that was set up like a classroom. Banks of tables were lined up, all facing what looked like a huge sheet of white glass. There was a short table in front of the glass that had some controls on it.
Jack mulled over the information, and then asked the question that he felt was most relevant. “So what keeps you and the other communities from joining the Calis or the Yanks? It seems that the best chance for humanity to survive would be to combine groups and work toward a common goal.”
Teague gathered his thoughts before answering. “It comes down to a matter of philosophy. The Calis are driven by greed. They don’t care who they hurt to get their way. They learned from the mistakes of the EoS, but they never learned the value of individual life. The Yanks, on the other hand, are driven by a government that is not much different than that of the EoS. The only real difference is they don’t turn people away when they can no longer contribute to the community, they simply clone them. Their cloning facilities are rumored to have a capacity of over fifty people at a time.”
“Wait; in order to clone them, they have to kill them first, right?” The thought sent a shiver up Jack’s spine.
Teague nodded grimly. “The last we heard, the governing body is able to do this by convincing their people that they are ‘reincarnated’ in the cloning process, and the death of their old body just paves the way for them to enter their new body.” Before Jack could react to this, Teague quickly shifted gears, “You see, the leaders of the EoS didn’t have any fundamental respect for life, but it went beyond that. If you lived in an EoS city, you were evaluated for your strengths and weaknesses and given a job that suited your abilities. Despite being safe and living in relative comfort, nobody was truly free. In many cases, some people found themselves working harder than others, and dissatisfaction turned to contempt. The population was looking for change, regardless of the nature of the change. They didn’t necessarily know what they wanted, but they knew they were unhappy. When the new religions formed, the general population flocked to them. The struggles for power that ensued were fueled by the follower’s anger. Cali and the Yanks may have learned that war is not the answer to any dispute, but we don’t see any signs that either have really learned that keeping their citizens’ freedom and happiness are the key to preventing the situations that lead to war.
“New Hope is founded on the principle that not only is all human life valuable, but freedom of choice and freedom from oppression are just as important to the health of a community as survival. Why survive if only to live at the whim of your government?”
Jack felt he now had a full understanding of the situation. He was a firm believer in the Constitution of the United States, and had put his life on the line to prevent the spread of ideas like Communism, which he believed were a threat to personal freedom. He was aware that a capitalistic driven democracy was not perfect, but in his mind it was far better than having a government that looked at its people as a whole at the expense of the individual, or worse, looked at its people as a tool to increase their power and wealth. “Teague, my own personal beliefs are in alignment with New Hope, but I have to ask, how are the people here represented? Are your leaders elected?” He believed that in order to have a government that is truly a democracy, the majority population has to have the right to choose who will lead them.
“New Hope is run by a council; all of us in the council are clones of the original founders of New Hope. There was no need to elect anyone as there were only a handful of us. Marcus was a natural leader, so if there was ever conflict when a decision had to be made, he was the one who had the final say. As we grew
, most decisions were made as a community, but only in the past few dozen years have we grown large enough to even consider a specific leader.”
Teague looked at Jack and grinned. “You are, quite frankly, the first one to ask this question. The few people we have found over the years never questioned our leadership, and neither did their children. The fifty people we have brought back in four years have all taken for granted that Marcus was our leader, and so far they have followed without question. Sometimes things have not worked out and people left New Hope. This was usually because of a relationship gone bad, but there have been cases of people leaving because they believed we were not aggressive enough, or because we didn’t take from others what we were capable of taking. Those of us who are still here all agree that only destruction lies down that path. Within the next few years, perhaps even sooner, we may very well find ourselves in a position to hold an election, but for the time being the council sets the rules.”
Jack was a bit disappointed in the answer, but it made sense. When there were very few people, you put them where they could help the most. In this case, the ones with almost two hundred years of experience were probably best suited to lead. At least they were open to the idea of a democracy. Teague gestured to one of the chairs at a table in the front row. Jack took in the room before sitting down. It was a fairly large room set up like an auditorium or large classroom, perhaps fifty feet wide and just as deep. The multiple rows of tiered seating curved slightly so everyone who was seated could focus on the front of the room where a large flat glass wall about ten feet high and twenty feet wide stood. The front row had a table curved along the length of the seating, and in the center was what looked like a control station of some sort. Teague walked over to the controls and started pushing buttons.
“What about other communities? How many are there and where do they stand on Cali and the Yanks?” Jack recognized that New Hope was very small in relationship to the other communities and that made them vulnerable. He was thinking that perhaps there were other communities they could ally with to prevent the big dogs from walking all over them.
“There are six other communities that we trade with, all in North America. We know of one more in the far north, and one down in Central America, and we have confirmed at least a dozen more throughout South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. They are too far away to be either a threat or a benefit however, so we have mutually avoided them. Occasionally we pass information back and forth, but contact is usually only a couple times per year with each.
“The six that we do work with are mostly similar to us.” He pressed some buttons and the lights in the room dimmed before the big sheet of glass lit up with a map of North America. “There is New Phoenix, Swamp City, Wisner Camp, Sunnyside, Deering, and NewBury.” As he named them, dots popped on to the screens with a flash, signifying their location. New Phoenix was actually in Texas, to Jack’s surprise. “Populations range from fifty to two hundred. They all more or less share our philosophy. Most of those who choose to leave end up at one of these locations. We have been discussing an alliance for about twenty years now, and quite frankly we were on the verge of agreement back when we found the Montana site. Since then we have stalled, knowing that if we form the alliance, they will either figure out for themselves or we will have to tell them about the cryogenics facility. Just like with Cali or the Yanks, we worry that just the knowledge of this could cause trouble for us. Soon we will have to make a decision.”
Jack wanted to talk more about the importance of keeping the cryogenics site secret, understanding that its value to any of these communities was high enough that it could easily start another war. First, however, he had a question burning in his mind for quite a while that he wanted to answer. “Teague, tell me more about the trade arrangements. How do the males feel about being traded off to other communities?”
“Well, as I was saying earlier today, the men and women understand what is necessary if we want humanity to continue, and sex, while pleasurable, is simply a tool to get the job done. The trade arrangements were usually a man for a man, and the details would be worked out as to how many conceptions, et cetera. Sometimes though, like in the case of Cali, there are resources or supplies that we need, and we do not always have enough to trade for them. Since genetic diversity is perhaps the most valuable thing in the world right now, it makes sense to trade a man’s seed for other items of value.”
“What about the reborn men? Do they have a problem trading their morals for resources?” Jack would be offended to be the one offered up for trade, but he was wondering how the other men like him felt about it.
“We have decided not to use the reborn in trades, for a few reasons, moral issues being one of them, but less of an issue than you think. The men born later in your century are far more flexible in that area than you.” Jack shrugged at this, he wasn’t really all that surprised. “The secrecy of the cryogenics facility, however, is of paramount importance. It is the ultimate irony though, we have the most valuable resource on earth but cannot use it for fear that others will discover we have it.”
“So what do you do for trading?”
“We now trade only fertilized eggs. It accomplishes the same task, and although they have less value, as it takes time and resources to do artificially what otherwise comes naturally, it serves the purpose of keeping our secrets. It was easy to pass it off on Cali; after they broke some trade agreements we simply said we would no longer give them that opportunity. The other communities, though, have been asking questions, and currently think we are dying off and are afraid we will lose our men permanently if we trade them. For now this works for us.”
“Does that happen a lot? People wanting to leave and go to another community?”
Teague started shaking his head, then reconsidered his answer. “As I said before, occasionally there are issues, almost always with relationships between men and women. The men and women of my generation may have a different philosophy about sex than you are used to, but they still form relationships. Any time you have a relationship between two people, you have the potential for that relationship to end. Sometimes when it ends, it does not end well.” Jack grimaced knowingly. He’d been down that road once or twice.
“So how do you handle it? I imagine in such a small community the tension between two scorned lovers would be amplified.” Jack could see something like this getting out of hand in a hurry.
“Well, in the past we would just arrange a permanent trade with another community. This worked well because the man had another set of women in which to find his personal happiness, and both communities gained more diversity in the gene pool. It has become a greater issue with the reborn though. Most of the women here are from my world, the post-war world, and only a handful are from your world. Our women simply do not develop feelings for the men that impregnate them. This has not gone over well with some of the reborn men, especially when the women are fornicating with another man weeks after giving birth to their child.”
Jack thought about Wendy, and how he would feel if she started screwing another man next week. Or worse if he had his baby and then moved on to other men. “So what do you do in those situations? You can’t send the reborn to other communities, especially under those circumstances – they would talk about the facility for sure.” Jack knew the answer was not something he wanted to hear.
Marcus probably sensed his tension and put the appropriate grim expression on his face when he responded. “It puts us in a difficult position, and we decided we cannot allow anyone to migrate to other communities for the time being. Instead, we do what we can to ease the tension. We rearrange work schedules to try to keep the men, or women, from being around the people causing their distress. We offer psychological counseling and medication where necessary. We also move their residence to other locations in the facility so that they are not seeing each other all the time.”
“I have to admit Doc, this is a sore spot for me. It makes me feel like I’m a pr
isoner here. I understand the reasoning behind it, but it still doesn’t sit well with me. I spent a good portion of my life defending my freedom to do with my life what I chose. Just answer one question. When you have revived all the people you can from the Montana facility, will you continue to hold people here against their will?”
Teague mulled that one over for a few moments, then answered, “Ideally, no. However, until we are in a position to assure that allowing people to migrate from here will not affect the security of other members of our community, we will have to take it on a case by case basis. Like I said, we will do anything we can to make life better, and we do not forget the individual when planning for the whole. But we will also not put the whole at risk for the betterment of the individual.”
It made sense to Jack, and for now was a good enough answer.
* * *
In Jack’s day, visualizing an overview of a battlefield or even of a large project site was difficult at best. Looking at this giant screen, he couldn’t help but marvel at the tactical possibilities it presented. However, tactical overview was not on his mind, but radiation was. “Can you use this screen to show me more about how bad the fallout in California is?”
Teague pressed some buttons and a large amount of red shading covered the map. Most of California was covered in red, with some small dots and lines being the only places that were not red. Western Montana was all red, as was the most of the south central part. As Jack looked around at the map he saw that the areas representing about fifty to a hundred miles around every major city were covered in red. It was actually easier to look at the area that was not covered in red. There were a few dozen large areas, maybe forty to sixty miles in diameter, but most of the continent was just speckled in white, complex patterns swirling about the whole map. In general you could see great swaths of red, usually starting at a major city location, then sweeping off in some direction.
The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) Page 18
