“I take it death was somehow involved?” his grandfather suggested quietly.
Brandon was starting to feel defensive. He’d seen a need and he’d taken action. Where was the problem? “This was the way we did things in the war,” he replied. “Create dead zones, establish bright-line perimeters, set limits that people just don’t cross.”
“These weren’t soldiers,” the old man said, slowly understanding his point.
“Are they better for having been civilians? Besides, they all went in armed.”
“But we’re not at war.” He was denying Aunt Callie’s original assessment.
“Aren’t we?” Brandon countered.
Antigone Wells, the lawyer, suddenly sat up straight. “Are you saying you just killed these people?” she asked him. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this!”
She was still damned attractive, Brandon thought, despite being an older woman. He found the look of withering scorn she now turned on him daunting.
“Do you know how many laws you’ve broken?” Wells continued. “How much you have exposed this company to legal consequences?”
“No one’s going to come after us,” Brandon insisted. “Everyone who crossed the fence line is gone. And no one is going to come looking for them.”
He saw Antigone Wells turn to his grandfather with the same bright-eyed glare that Brandon’s mother Elizabeth used to give his father Leonard when she wanted him to speak out. Brandon saw his grandfather lock eyes with her briefly, then glance away, perhaps in shame.
“Oh? So no one’s looking?” Wells said. “Here’s a thought, as I seem to be the only person in the room who’s thinking. These people may have had accomplices, middle men … certainly families, all of whom probably knew what they were planning and where they were going. And those people will come to us seeking explanations, and then they will bring, at the very least, wrongful-death suits.”
“And what will they find?” Brandon shot back. “Nothing. No bodies. No evidence. No mark on the fence. Not a sign of disturbance. If anyone went out to break the law that night, they didn’t come to us.”
“How can you be so sure?” she demanded.
“Because my team is professional, all soldiers. We’ve done this before. And we have a lot of experience policing up our battlefields.”
“I give up,” Antigone Wells said. “This is totally outside the law. As an officer of the court, I can’t be party to this.” She stood up. “On your head be it.” And she left the room.
“It sets an example,” Brandon said quietly to his grandfather and aunt. “It makes a point. It sends a message.”
“A message that won’t be read and can’t be proved?” Callie suggested.
“Damn right. Mess with a Praxis site and you disappear.”
Finally, John Praxis cut off the discussion. “I’ll consider whether or not we’re in some kind of war with the people who would steal from us. But these are unsettled times, and we probably should keep our options open.” He turned to address Brandon directly. “Still, please, before you do anything like this again, let’s discuss it in the family. We’re all involved in this enterprise. If it goes wrong, we’ll all suffer the consequences.”
* * *
When the case of California v. Praxis reconvened in Judge Rudolph’s chambers in Fresno, Praxis himself had no idea how the judge would rule on Antigone’s motion to dismiss. His ears were still ringing from the hour-long harangue of the State’s attorneys at the previous session. Praxis could see that they had brought a mountain of evidence and precedent against a molehill of constitutional amendment from Antigone.
After Rudolph came in, still dressed like a backwoodsman, and the apparatus of court procedure was settled in place, the judge launched right in. “I’m going to grant your motion, Counselor,” he said, facing Antigone.
This drew a burst of objections from the plaintiffs, which he dismissed with a wave of his hand.
“For the benefit of all present,” he went on, “I will explain my decision. You gentlemen—” He turned to the three plaintiffs. “—have tried to end-run the law by alleging the defendant’s negligence and creation of a public nuisance, which you have failed to demonstrate. I spent last weekend hiking in the Stanislaus, and I saw no sign of the degradation you claim exists. John Praxis has held up his end of the bargain and, as far as I can see, been a good steward of the land.
“I probably should let this case go to trial in order to prove that,” Rudolph went on, “except I’m not ready to set precedent on the National Assets Distribution Act. Not all of these cases are going to be as clear-cut as this one, and some tenants in fief have permitted actual damages to occur that need to be redressed. Yet I’m not ready, either, to put the final nails in the coffin of the Forest Service—to which the Stanislaus would revert, unless I found for the defendant. And then, by extension, I would be ruling against the National Park Service, which relinquished similar assets under this law.
“We had something like the NADA in the Federated Republic in the early days of the war. Vast federal lands were released for civilian use and the results were not so pretty. Land rushes, shantytowns, open-pit mining—the worst of the human spirit applied to the best of our natural resources. I don’t want to be the one who unleashes that here.
“I realize that with this decision,” Rudolph said, “I’m essentially kicking the can down the road for another thirty years—until the point at which ownership and future development of the Stanislaus forest land will transfer to John Praxis as a private citizen. Until that transfer takes place, however, the State may still at any time return the principal it borrowed from him and reclaim the land for itself. And even after the transfer, the State of California and/or the Federated Republic may still challenge any plans he makes for the property under environmental or other grounds.
“With that said, I’m dismissing case number 100026-248 without prejudice to either party.” The judge picked up his smartphone and, in lieu of a gavel, tapped its case lightly on his desktop.
John Praxis turned to Antigone—who was also turning toward him—embraced her, and gave her a full kiss on the mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the judge raise an eyebrow.
“Thank you, my dear,” Praxis whispered. “You’ve made me very happy.”
“My pleasure, sweetheart. We’ve saved the property for now, at least.”
“Counselor?” the judge asked. “Would you mind taking that outside?”
6. The Next Generation
John Praxis lay in bed with Antigone, cuddling after a bout of lovemaking. Her head rested against his shoulder and her hand played across his chest. Slowly he shifted to one side and lowered her into the pillows, lifted himself up and stared down at her with a long, thoughtful look. “I wish there was more than this,” he said. It was a lack he had been feeling lately, a sense of purpose left unfulfilled.
“What we have is good,” she said. “What more do you want?”
“I want to have a child with you, someone who shares the best of us both.”
“Then you should have met me thirty years ago—twenty, even.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered then,” he said. “I was still married. Adele was my partner, my wife, ‘to have and to hold.’ We took those vows seriously back then.”
“Do you want to get married again?” she asked.
“We can do that,” he said, almost dismissing it. “But a child would join us—”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You may still be able to get it up, sir. But I’m afraid my uterus is no longer fit for the task.”
“Many people these days use in vitro techniques and surrogate carriers. That takes the work out of it—except for the first part.”
“Maybe for you. But after sixty-odd years, my eggs are long past their sell-by date.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, either,” he said. “We still have usable bits of DNA all over our bodies. If they can rebuild my heart and your kidneys with the stuff, they ought to be able
to find a few good chromosomes to build a fertilized egg. The rest is just chemistry … plus paying the bills for someone to bring it—him, her—to term.”
“And then the sleepless nights begin,” Antigone said.
“We can pay someone for that, too.”
* * *
Melissa Willbrot was a mouse—a powerful mouse, to be sure, because she was assigned counsel to the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works—but still a mousy little person. She stood an inch shorter than Mariene Kunstler, but there the resemblance ended. Willbrot was thin and twitchy, nervous, with strangely yellow-brown eyes that darted side to side every couple of seconds as they talked, as if she suspected an attack from either direction. She wore her dark hair in a cloud of ringlets, each one carefully permed, and they jittered around her forehead and ears like tiny, silent bells. It made Mariene tired just to spend five minutes with her.
But all that aside, from Mariene’s researches Willbrot was shown to be the woman to know in the bidding process on county work. And the subject today was the project for renovating the Long Beach Freeway, the old Interstate 710, which linked the glamorous downtown area and the distant harbor through fifteen miles of sandy lots, dry riverbed, and industrial wasteland. Although the actual construction work would be funded by the F.R. Department of Transportation and the state’s own Caltrans, both of those agencies had been cut back by war and reunification until they could only offer minimal planning and accounting services. The real decisions were made at the local level.
Also from Mariene’s researches—although not explicit in any database, more to be read between the lines and inferred from the stub-ends of various special committee reports—Willbrot was bent. The whiff of corruption was strong, like the scent of cheese in a pantry, but nothing had ever been proven. Time and again, the finger of justice had tapped others—planning commissioners, city council members, accountants and budget analysts—but never Willbrot herself.
And now that Mariene was face to face with the woman in her office, she could sense that Willbrot was bent in another way. It was nothing overt and suggestive, nothing communicated through words, glances, or gestures. But the woman was definitely interested in Mariene. Not in any dominating way, like a predator, nothing butch and obvious. Willbrot was more like docile, willing prey. In the past, certain people had attributed to Mariene a catlike grace and quickness, a tendency to slash first and ask questions later, and an ability to make surprising leaps to save her life. But now, like a mouse fearing the danger yet hypnotically drawn to it, Willbrot was playing up to Mariene’s inner cat. Timidly at first, surreptitiously, but with growing confidence.
All of this was useful information.
“You understand that we have a statutory preference for local contractors,” the woman was saying.
“Praxis Engineering is a California company,” Mariene said, giving her best smile with plenty of teeth.
“Yes, but you’re relatively new and small, with experience limited to Northern California.” Willbrot made a little grimace, as if the cheese wasn’t ripe yet.
“Our principals have a great deal of experience, going back to the prewar firm, which was an international giant in the construction field.”
“Oh yes—the firm that failed.” Willbrot shook her head.
“I think you would be honored to work with them.”
The woman shrugged. “How honored would I be?”
Aha! The first little kink in their conversation!
“This is a major project,” Mariene said in her silkiest voice. “The costs will be huge, eight figures? Probably nine! We haven’t even begun to estimate it yet.”
“I know! We’re still putting together all the elements of the bid package.”
“I’m sure there will be many considerations,” Mariene said. “With many peripheral expenses to be calculated.”
“Of course, I don’t make the final decisions. I just help the process along.”
“But I’ll bet you can be very helpful—very persuasive.”
“I just do my job,” Willbrot cooed, then glanced down at her watch. “Oh, dear! Is that the time? I’d love to discuss the bid process further with you, but I have another appointment. …”
“Such a pity!” Mariene said. She knew exactly what was going on. Only a fool would say anything definitive inside an office in a public building. Oblique suggestions and polite overtures, the first steps of the dance, to test the waters, as it were, all couched in language that would fool listeners at keyholes and microphones—that much was permissible. Specifics and the basics of haggling—those were for later, outside, on neutral ground of the haggler’s choosing.
“Perhaps we could meet later for drinks?” Mariene suggested.
“That would be lovely!” Willbrot agreed, naming a time and place.
Drinks would become dinner, Mariene knew, and then the evening would progress along now-predictable lines. The things she was expected to do for the family!
* * *
Antigone Wells still wasn’t sure she wanted a child. After all, she had lived her whole life without becoming totally responsible for another person—let alone for that hypothetical person’s genetic inception, birth, growth, intellectual and emotional development, and ultimate presentation as a human being. She had never kept so much as a cat in her apartment. Orchids were as much personal commitment as she felt she could make.
But John was gently insistent, even though he already had three grown children of his own—well, two now, and one of them estranged. He still felt the hunger of fatherhood. And so, for his sake, as well as for their future together, she was willing to give in vitro fertilization and all the rest a try.
The trouble was, she didn’t know where to begin looking for such services. In the old days, before the world fell apart, she would have gone to her primary care physician, the internist or general practitioner who was her medical insurance plan’s gatekeeper to the universe of specialists. Together they would have discussed the problem, what services were available within her preferred provider network, and how much her insurance would pay. But then, did designing a child out of two adult human genomes come under the heading of “elective surgery” or “reproductive therapy”?
Wells could remember when a huge bureaucracy had tried to run the business of health care across the entire country. It had started with the insurance companies and their health maintenance organizations, or HMOs—or perhaps it began with the federal government itself, back in the nineteen-sixties, when it introduced Medicare and Medicaid. In either case, the bureaucracy established huge buying structures, leveraged volume purchases into advantageous price schedules, and forced the development and consolidation of doctors’ associations, hospital corporations, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. People who were signed up with the system could get medical appointments, hospital and laboratory services, and drugs for next to nothing, or for just a few dollars per visit—called “copays”—so long as they stayed within that circle of preferred providers. Those outside the system, individual buyers without such leverage, paid much more than the market rate. In fact, there was no market, no matchup of producer and consumer, since everything passed through an impersonal middle man. Consumers got what the bureaucracy could negotiate or they suffered the consequences.
But the business of medicine in California had changed since the end of the war and reunification, although seeds of the old pricing structure’s dissolution had been sown long before. For one thing, what was now on offer was no longer “health care,” implying some overall responsibility for the human body, human life, and its well-being, served through the primary care physician and designated specialists. The business was back to passing out “medicine”—not a lifetime commitment to the individual but a marketplace for separate ills, procedures, pills, and surgeries. If you wanted holism or top-to-toe health, you went to a spiritual guru or a yoga teacher.
The biggest change was that the government was no longer in the medical b
usiness. The economic collapse that had preceded the civil war had taken care of that. Not that the old United States, as practiced on both coasts, didn’t try to continue offering some form of government-funded health care—a wheezing steam calliope with a bunch of broken and missing pipes. The Federated Republic had dumped that monstrous obligation in the first year after secession.
Without a national bureaucracy of accountants, working either for the insurance companies or for the Department of Health and Human Services, to support a multi-tiered pricing system, with good deals for the volume buyers and sticker shock for everyone else, the whole system eventually collapsed. Hospitals, doctors, laboratories, and drug makers had no incentive to maintain such a monster. Even with computerized billing to keep track of what they might charge through different accounts, they simply could not explain the fee structures and choices to their patients, and they got tired of the haggling. Consumers—forced for the first time to think about what they were paying—became conscious of price and quality. Prices flattened and then began to fluctuate according to the local supply and quality of service. Competition between providers held prices and service offerings in line with consumer expectations.
After a hundred years of being the country’s wealthiest class of professionals, the nouveau riche of every community, with pricing expectations to match, the doctors returned to being just fee-for-service working stiffs—the same as any accountant or attorney. After fifty years of being cash cows, hospitals and drug companies went back to being just service providers. Standards slipped for a while, as charlatans and snake oil salesmen practiced their range of gimmicks, and scandals ensued. Finally, the medical fraternity reimposed serious review and licensing, and let their members compete and advertise on the basis of quality, skills, and experience.
Without government support and volume deals, patients suffered for a while. Then they wised up and began paying for their medical expenses in the same way they paid for educating their children or putting a roof over their heads: they planned and they saved. To guard themselves against the unexpected—the original purpose of “health insurance”—people joined mutual funding associations that grew up among neighborhoods, professional groups, social clubs, churches, and even some extended families. Variations included market rating associations for individuals with particular diseases or conditions, and limited liability pools for patients who were more risk conscious. Each association was structured, funded, and paid out a little differently. Since most of these organizations never grew beyond the local community or county level—although some of the professional associations might attain statewide status—they never established the kind of national buying power wielded by the old federal government, and so prices and expectations remained relatively flat.
Coming of Age: Volume 1: Eternal Life Page 30
