Project Reunion

by Ginger Booth

  “I’d estimate 60,000 now,” a Resco called out.

  I grinned. “Is that avm89?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Also known as Ash Margolis. You’re the Mangler?”

  “No, sorry, I’m the Deeb. The Mangler is one of my colleagues.”

  “You don’t look like a Mangler,” he allowed, with a smile.

  “Thank you. Though I’m not sure I want to look like a Deeb.” That got some chuckles.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “based on examples like Poughkeepsie, we plotted Resco estimates versus distance from the city.” I showed the following slide. “That doesn’t seem to matter. Buffalo and Burlington are just as willing as Poughkeepsie and New Haven. The entire Northeast is connected to New York City by blood and friendship.

  “But we’re connected to Boston-Providence the same way. Western Mass, New Hampshire, and Maine are more concerned with Boston-Prov. They seem willing to accept up to 5% of their pre-border populations in New York refugees. Plus relatives. But they want to reserve capacity for Boston-Prov later. They’re very eager to do something about Boston-Prov. Yet they seem to agree that New York is more urgent. Across New York state, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont, the average seems more like 8%.”

  Emmett clarified, “And that’s without food subsidies, correct?”

  “Yes. Some communities might be willing to take more if food subsidies are offered. But their Rescos vetoed the idea. Rescos are only willing to take in sustainable numbers of refugees, fed locally.”

  “It’s our job,” Emmett agreed, echoed by ‘avm89’ with, “It’s what we do.”

  I added, “Pennsylvania... I’m sure you’re all aware. We’re getting no word out of Pennsylvania.”

  Cameron, the northeast Connecticut Resco, raised his hand. “Major, these numbers seem lower than what I saw on the Amenac boards. I offered to take 10% for Tolland and Windham counties.”

  “Right, Major Cameron,” Emmett agreed. He took a moment to introduce Cameron for the benefit of the out-of-state Rescos. I was a little surprised that Cameron was a major. He seemed so young and earnest compared to the rest of Emmett’s flock.

  Getting back to business, Emmett said, “After Dee’s analysis, I pruned the numbers down to 8%. If some areas are willing to take more, later in the process, great. But – Dee, photo 2 again?”

  I displayed the quarantine graduates from Long Island. Emmett continued, “These are urban and suburban dwellers, Cam. They’re in rough shape. They have no agricultural skills. They’ll include elderly and children. They need to be taught how to farm. They can’t make their own shelter, not going into winter. It’s a big burden. So, yeah, for planning purposes, for now, I pruned it to 8%. And 5% for the other three states, but those areas aren’t as populous, anyway.”

  “But my prison offer?” Cameron persisted.

  “Oh! Absolutely,” agreed Emmett. He rummaged for a backup slide himself on my laptop, and put it up with the remote. “I’ll just let y’all read that. Sorry, Cam, I had to cut some details from the presentation. There are prisons to deal with in New York. And we might imprison some more bad actors. Let’s talk about that during your presentation. OK, Cam?”

  “Thank you.” Cameron sat back satisfied.

  “Why the hell are you saving prisoners?” demanded General Testy.

  Niedermeyer cut him off. “We’ve decided to discuss that during Major Cameron’s presentation, General Tolliver.”

  “I won’t be here for that,” he argued.

  “These facts are not unrelated,” Niedermeyer said. “These are local civil matters, General. Now, Major –” And he launched a long period of detailed military and operations Q&A.

  I was fascinated, but much of it went in one ear and out the other. Occasionally I fielded a quick question, but this was Emmett’s arena. I fell into a daze of locating backup slides for him.

  When the key question came, what alerted me was the way Emmett’s posture changed suddenly, attentively.

  Another general who hadn’t spoken yet asked, “Emmett? Where did you get that picture? Of the soldiers, playing with the...” The man’s voice sounded desolate.

  Lips pursed, I helpfully flipped up the image of soldiers playing ball with a child’s skull. If he was responsible for these soldiers, he could rot in hell, was my general thinking.

  “I took that picture in Greenwich garrison, this past week, sir,” Emmett said gently, kindly.

  The general’s face blanched as the image came up again on the screen. I saw Colonel Mora gesture urgently to Emmett. Emmett turned, saw what I’d shown, and quickly backed the screen to the boring logistics slide he’d had up before. He gave me the tiniest head-shake of warning.

  “Those poor kids,” the sad general said. “We need this, Major. God help us, we need this.”

  “You need to control your people, Cullen!” barked General Testy – or Tolliver. “What if this Amenac got hold of a picture like that, and published it?”

  I must say, the thought had crossed my mind. In fact, I’d intended to do just that, from the moment I saw that photo.

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Emmett promised General Cullen softly.

  I shot Emmett a skeptical look. But his eyes were glued to General Cullen. Niedermeyer was paying just as rapt attention to the interchange behind him, up in the brass ghetto section of the auditorium.

  “Are you threatening me, General Tolliver?” General Cullen growled. “With what? Who else would take my post? This man,” he pointed to Emmett, “offers me my only chance out, besides swallowing my own gun. And the only reason I haven’t done that was right there. Those poor young men and women in my charge. There’s no way out for them. They can’t be discharged, can’t go home again. Ordered to pen up their own American people, shoot them down like animals – ”

  “Watch yourself, General!” cried General Tolliver in anger. “There is a civilian in the room!”

  “Yes, and I thank God she is,” General Cullen bit out in return. “Thank you, Major. And thank you, especially, for including the retraining time.” His voice caught. “I hope you’ve allowed enough time.” Emmett’s plan called for taking soldiers off the borders for several weeks of training before the relief operation.

  “Even if this plan doesn’t go forward,” Emmett offered, “let’s take some of your people out on furlough, sir. We have vacant college campuses. A penitentiary in Niantic, if that’s needed. We can start this week. Majors Cameron and Papadopoulos and I, we’d be honored to help you.” Cameron and Papadopoulos stood and nodded emphatically at Cullen.

  General Cullen nodded gratitude, as though he didn’t trust himself to speak.

  And suddenly I got it. When Emmett played for souls, he played for all of them. Including the young soldiers who’d gone off the deep end, and played with a child’s skull as though it were a toy. They were his people.

  This meeting wasn’t just to persuade the other Rescos. Judging from what I’d seen, they were probably on board already. Emmett’s primary target was this General Cullen. He apparently commanded the border garrisons that penned up New York City. Testy General Tolliver seemed to think he held some authority over Cullen. If so, I suspected he’d just lost it.

  Niedermeyer nodded to Emmett in salute. “Final question, Major. This proposal is huge and audacious and fascinating. I’m sure we could spend days sifting through it. But we just don’t have the time today. Bottom line. When could we move on this?”

  “It’s tight, sir. But I’d like to move by Thanksgiving. I think that would give a huge symbolic morale boost. There’s nothing to make you feel grateful for what you have, like giving it away to someone less fortunate. Failing that, Christmas.”

  “Nice touch,” Niedermeyer agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “Alright, everyone. Let’s take a break before the other three presentations. Be back in 15 minutes.”

  It was already mid-afternoon. I couldn’t imagine how we’d review three more presentations today. I left for the hallway, to mingle
with avm89 from Poughkeepsie – Lt. Colonel Ash Margolis – and the other Rescos from outside Connecticut. Emmett just sat down on the edge of the stage in the auditorium, to speak one-on-one with anyone who came up to chat.

  Chapter 7

  Interesting fact: Maine sent no representative to the summit meeting in New London. The sole Resco from New Hampshire caught a ride down on a Coast Guard boat. The U.S. Coast Guard no longer patrolled Maine, having cut a deal with Canada to cover it. Maine was deep in negotiations to become a Canadian province. But the Maine Resco insisted that they would accept their share of New York refugees regardless. Contacts in Canadian intelligence confirmed this.

  The final session for the day was long, but not as long as I’d feared. Of the three other presenters, two stood and said they backed Emmett’s plan instead of their own. Like Emmett, they’d accepted the challenge to plan a resettlement of New York refugees. Unlike Emmett, they hadn’t gotten nearly as far in the limited time available. They did have some details worked out to elaborate Emmett’s plan, and offered to work with him on it. Emmett gladly accepted their collaboration.

  “And that leaves you, Colonel Hoffman,” Niedermeyer prompted with a grin.

  “For the record, I also support Major MacLaren’s proposal,” Colonel Hoffman replied. He got up anyway, to hand off his laptop to the A/V technician, and take the slide control device in return.

  “Nevertheless,” Niedermeyer replied cheerfully. “Colonel Hoffman is here from south Jersey. He’s the ranking Resco there. And he gamely took the short stick, to develop a proposal to relieve New York in situ. I think Emmett got the easier assignment, Pete.” That got a few laughs.

  “I didn’t think so at the time,” Hoffman replied, with a rueful smile. “First off, I’d like to thank Major MacLaren for making his epidemiology team and his own progress available to me at every step along the way. I’d also like to help your planning team any way I can, Emmett.”

  Hoffman went on to present the options he’d evaluated for how to add food and remove illness from New York City and its suburbs, without removing its borders or people. Essentially, the best he’d come up with was to extend Tom Aoyama’s work out on Long Island – quarantine zones, growing inward as a diseased core shrank.

  Geography and demographics were not kind in this pursuit. The moving Long Island quarantine line would hang up shy of Queens and Brooklyn, unable to swallow two whole boroughs of the city. Instead they’d need fully armed borders-within-the-borders there, to pass a controlled flow of refugees into the disease-free end of Long Island.

  They could start another moving quarantine line. Naturally, Hoffman focused on trying to reclaim northern New Jersey, which wrapped around the city proper to its south and west. The border-within-border challenge would be even more personnel-intensive there.

  “After Long Island, the second best agricultural opportunity inside the city epidemic borders, is northwest Jersey here,” Hoffman pointed out. Naturally he had a map of the city environs on the screen. “General Cullen... Do you have any authority over the Pennsylvania border here, sir?”

  “I do not,” Cullen confirmed.

  Hoffman paused. “That’s...essentially the same down the entire western edge of New Jersey, in or out of the epidemic borders. I’ve been unable to secure any kind of cooperation, or even communication, from fortress Pennsylvania.”

  Another Resco volunteered from the audience, “We have the same problem in western New York state.” The New York–Pennsylvania line ran about 225 miles west to the Great Lakes.

  Niedermeyer turned to the testy general. “Is there any light you could shed on this for us, General Tolliver?”

  “If you have specific requests, I could forward them to the appropriate personnel,” Tolliver replied smugly. A bureaucratic ‘No’ if ever there was one.

  The Niedermeyer-friendly Admiral pushed harder from the brass bank. “What we’d like to know, General, is what exactly is going on in Pennsylvania. The scuttlebutt down in Norfolk says that Penn has become the Army’s own private reserve state. Though I don’t recall the Calm Act authorizing the Army to take and fortify a private – reserve – state. And the Army in the Northeast doesn’t appear to be sharing in the fruits of this private Army state – in the Northeast.”

  “That is precisely the way the borders were intended to work, Admiral,” General Tolliver replied testily. “Each area within a border is charged with developing its own sustainable local economy, without commerce with other areas. It’s the rest of these states in the Northeast that are violating that directive, not Pennsylvania. And I shall be reporting back to Washington on those violations, rest assured!”

  “Uh-huh,” Emmett commented softly beside me.

  “As I will certainly inform Norfolk,” the Admiral assured him in return.

  Tolliver simply snorted and relaxed back in his seat. Apparently he didn’t consider the seat of the eastern seaboard Navy to be much of a threat. As well he wouldn’t, I supposed, if his base of power was Fortress Pennsylvania. What was going on in there?

  “Let’s continue, Colonel Hoffman,” Niedermeyer invited, after a pregnant pause. “Apparently we’re not going to secure cooperation from Pennsylvania today. Either.”

  “Right,” agreed Hoffman sourly. Emmett had already conveyed in his presentation that Pennsylvania could save another 750,000 New Yorkers if they were willing. But apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

  Hoffman moved on from the problem of how to establish viable quarantine borders-within-borders, to the problem of how to feed the people within those new quarantine zones.

  “Essentially it takes land, and people, to provide the food. Emmett calculates – and I agree with him – that we can only commit to donate about 5% excess food. Emmett’s plan puts the refugees to work, to increase agricultural capacity, given time. Instead, donating the food as charity, we can support less than a million excess people. And that’s never-ending. We can’t even feed them well enough to survive, let alone get back on their feet.

  “The remaining 7 million people at risk seems small, compared to what they started with. But it’s huge compared to who’s left outside. We only have 15 million, outside Pennsylvania, New York City, and Boston-Providence.”

  Niedermeyer asked, “So what population do you think we could support in there by charity?”

  “Without food from the strategic reserves, possibly 900,000. Some people in there would find ways to support themselves. How many depends on whether they can establish any public order. Under the circumstances, I doubt they can.”

  “Your recommendation is that we not do this,” Niedermeyer suggested.

  Hoffman flipped to his final slide. “Correct, sir. I believe Major MacLaren’s plan will save as many lives from New York as it is possible to save.”

  “And if we could release food from the strategic reserves?” Niedermeyer prompted.

  Hoffman shrugged. “I was unable to find a way to apply it effectively. Too many people. Too sick. Too little order. Too few troops.” He opened a hand, and let it fall. “I tried.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” Niedermeyer, and led a round of applause. After that, he said, “I don’t think there’s any need for a Q&A. Let’s break for dinner. Breakfast will be served back here at 8 a.m. Thank you all.”

  -o-

  Emmett leaned into the door jamb leading to the bedroom of our little housekeeping hotel suite. He’d stashed our bags in there, while I transferred beer into the kitchenette fridge.

  “You want to get that fight out of the way now?” he offered softly.

  “No need. I think I get it,” I replied. I stepped up to lean on a wall next to him, where I could reach his front shirt button to toy with. “You gave me credit as your co-author. Thank you. As your girlfriend, I didn’t belong in there.”

  “Yeah. Not even socially. Dee, we’ve only been together a couple months. You’re not an Army wife. You’re here as a presenter in your own right. You’d never be here as m
y date.”

  “Understood.” I looked up at him and smiled. “I meant it, you know. Impressed as hell with your presentation.”

  “Thank you. And thank you for all you put into it.” He narrowed one eye. “I’m not sure we’re done with the fight yet, though.”

  My heart sank. “Look, I’ll tell Adam no more touching in public.”

  “Not that easy,” he said, shaking his head a bit. “He still cares about you. You still care about him. You broke off with him because he was going to sea. But, darlin’, Adam’s not at sea. He left the ark. Hell, he could commute back to Totoket, now.”

  “I chose Emmett,” I said firmly, meeting his eyes.

  “You sure about that? Why?” he demanded softly.

  “Emmett, I – Gah,” I said, as someone knocked on our door. “I’ll get rid of them.”

  “Not what I’m here for, darlin’,” Emmett murmured, and reached the hall door before I did. “Captain, Commander, come on in.”

  Niedermeyer and Adam walked in to our housekeeping suite’s miniature living room, and froze at seeing me. “Ah, didn’t mean to intrude, if you’re busy. Emmett, Ms. Baker,” Niedermeyer said. Adam just raised an eyebrow.

  “Not a problem, sir,” Emmett assured him, and waved them to the little couch. “Care for a beer? They brew some good stuff in Totoket. Only a little warm from the car.”

  Once we were all settled with glasses of beer – and on a first-name basis, at John Niedermeyer’s insistence – Adam got down to business.

  “Emmett, I didn’t want to bring this up during the Q&A,” Adam said. “But we had an alternate suggestion for your exits from New York.” He pulled out a convertible tablet computer, and brought up the map from Emmett’s presentation. He set it on the coffee table where we could all see.

  “You point out – rightly – that the refugees are in rough shape. But these exits are at the periphery. Your most awkward logistics are creating corridors to move them out. But here at the periphery, the population is lower, maybe even sustainable. I mean, suburban lawns aren’t much smaller in Westchester than they are Fairfield County across the border. So your plan expends a lot of troops and effort just to move people out of the center, New York City proper, by land. While traveling past people who want to get out, but who are your lowest priority. Lot of conflict there.”