Project Reunion

by Ginger Booth

  Our menfolk emerged eventually, cheerfully bonded. “Sorry about that, darlin’,” Emmett told me. He wrapped himself around me on the couch. “I had to clear something with John and Cam. You know that SAMS thing that came up at the summit dinner? I worked on vetting the Calm Act, and the Resco manual and stuff?”

  “John and Cam were SAMS, too,” I ventured. “You did seem to know each other awfully well.”

  Emmett nodded, and stole food from my plate. “We were roommates at Leavenworth. That’s a secret. Even the other SAMS don’t connect us as a team. John and I didn’t work together outside the apartment. And Cam wasn’t officially SAMS. So, had to ask before outing them. But it wasn’t fair, you being the only one in the room who didn’t know.”

  I said, “I think I did know. I just wasn’t allowed to say so.”

  “Uh-huh,” Emmett said, with a grin.

  “Well, I’m glad!” Pam said. “Pussy-footing around was tiresome. So Emmett, Cam. Now that the Penn war is over, are you backing the Reconstitutional Convention?”

  Since Thanksgiving, without even a puppet U.S. President anymore, agitation was mounting across New England to open a constitutional convention of the Northeast – the recon-con. The Great Pumpkin blogger was especially strident.

  “I’m not convinced the Penn war is over,” Cam said apologetically. “More like a stalemate. Ohio and Virginia put peer pressure on Penn. But Penn still has all of the arms and supplies that were supposed to come to General Cullen and Link. And Cullen’s still a pretty soft target.”

  “You make it sound like a contest between generals instead of states,” I said.

  “They’re the military governors under martial law,” John said. “Penn’s Tolliver has just the one state. But he’s ringed by super-states – Cullen’s New York–New Jersey, allied with Link’s New England, Schwabacher’s Ohio–West Virginia, O’Hara’s Virginia–Maryland–Delaware. Sondi O’Hara is an admiral, by the way, not a general.”

  “Alright, a black woman!” Dwayne cried in enthusiasm. “Nobody ever said that. I thought the military governors were all old white dudes.”

  “You have a problem with white men?” inquired Cam dryly.

  “Yes, sweetie,” stated Dwayne. “I do.”

  “I have a problem with military dictators,” Pam said sourly. “It’s time for that to stop.”

  “Is Link willing to allow a constitutional convention?” Emmett asked her. “I wouldn’t, in his shoes. I know Cullen’s told him we won’t go along with it yet.”

  “We?” Dwayne asked. “You’re on team New England, too, Emmett.”

  “No,” Emmett said, looking at Cam. “Cam and I work for General Cullen. We’re New York Rescos now.” He pressed my hand gently as he said it.

  “I thought Long Island transferred to Connecticut,” Cam said with a frown.

  “I strongly suggest that you forget you ever said that, Cam,” Emmett said softly. “We don’t want an argument over Long Island coming between Cullen and Link. Do we.”

  This visibly didn’t go down well with Cam. But he sighed. “Sir,” he acknowledged.

  “Sir?” parroted Dwayne. “Emmett’s your CO now?”

  “Sounds that way,” agreed Cam.

  Emmett waggled a so-so hand. “We’re both Rescos in the Apple zone. I do outrank Cam.”

  Pam looked even more unhappy. “Emmett? You don’t think Cullen will join New England for a new constitution?”

  “Cullen’s already told Link no,” Emmett replied. “New York–New Jersey isn’t ready to emerge from martial law. Parts are. Western New York, on the Great Lakes – they’re in pretty good shape. But right now the focus is on Project Reunion. We’ve barely started on the Apple. South Jersey and eastern Long Island are isolated. Penn’s a threat. Cullen doesn’t think Link should drop martial law, either. Not until Boston-Prov is resolved.”

  “You agree with him,” John accused.

  “For New York, yeah,” Emmett said. “I was surprised that Mora didn’t censor what Cam said on his interview with Dee, about the social levels in the Resco manual,” he mused.

  “Carlos and I talked about it,” said Cam. “I felt it would help get us volunteers. To say that there is a plan. There is a model. We’re not just flailing around in desperation. We will proceed from level 1 to level 2 in an orderly fashion. Mora agreed.”

  “I’m not criticizing,” Emmett said. “Just surprised how well it worked. You framed the public conversation. In New Haven, DJ got a lot more cooperation than we expected on land use reform. People want to step up to level 8. I never thought that would work.”

  I scowled. Clearly I was in the minority, a ‘winner’ who didn’t like land use reform.

  “You lost me, Emmett,” said John. “How did we go from the recon-con, to Resco community levels?”

  Emmett frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder if that would work to reframe the recon-con question. Our goal right now is not to forge a new democracy. Our goal is to uplift devastated communities back to level 5.”

  “Level 5!” said Cam. “In the Apple zone? Ambitious much, Emmett?”

  “Aim high,” Emmett replied, with a crooked grin. “You’re more likely to reach it than I am, Cam.”

  Cam leaned forward intently. “Reach it,” he echoed. “For what, Emmett?”

  “I’ll be Resco for the Apple Core,” Emmett told him quietly.

  “The whole Apple Core?” John asked, horrified. “New York City?”

  Emmett tilted his head. “We’ll see. I have Project Reunion for now. But I guess that’s what I’m saying, Pam. I don’t disagree with you, or the Great Pumpkin. We’ll need a new constitution. It’s just, I have a job to do. So does Cam. What helps me more? I think martial law does. I think people in New York need food. Water. Sanitation. A chance to survive. Then rebuild. Basic needs first. Democracy? We don’t have the tools to hold elections. It’s too soon.”

  Cam nodded thoughtfully. “I watched elections in the Middle East – I’m sure Emmett did, too. It isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

  I was gratified that Emmett told me before them, about continuing on in New York after Project Reunion. Somewhat less gratified that business took over the Christmas party. After this little bombshell, the three SAMS roommates went deep into brainstorming mode. Dwayne and I left them to it, and shifted to sit at the dining table to socialize. Pam reluctantly joined us.

  But our group just got onto a different political tangle, as I shared my little farming distraction with Dwayne and Pam.

  “Sounds like they’re trying the model we used for Windham,” Dwayne told me. He’d been Coco for Windham township in Windham County, before leaving with his husband for Long Island. “Too bad you missed the local debates, Dee. I think you’d kinda like it.

  “The idea is stewardship, instead of private property,” Dwayne explained. “Even the houses. You get right of stewardship over the house, and a bit of land around it. But you have to manage it well, or lose it. Care for the land well, and you become steward of more. Take on too much, next year you get less.” He laughed. “I would have had 8 acres next year. Oh, well.”

  “I don’t know why they gave me so much,” I confided. “I only grew enough for us.”

  “Emmett used to help you?” Pam prodded.

  “Oh…” I said. “Zack and Alex managed the livestock, then Emmett and Alex. Yeah. I should probably give some land back. But I still feel obligated to at least try, you know? Come up with a plan. Though I don’t know how much livestock is appropriate, for Alex. He’s good. But he’s just a kid. Anyway. I’ll figure it out.”

  “You can do it,” Dwayne assured me. “Remember, you’re just the manager. You hire labor when you need it. It’s that manager part that you can’t delegate to a kid.”

  “When did you learn Emmett wasn’t coming back, Dee?” Pam asked gently.

  “Just the day before yesterday,” I said. “It’s been a rough couple days. We just kinda laid low yesterday.”

  “Wel
come to the life of an Army wife,” Dwayne quipped.

  “Not a wife yet,” Pam observed. “There’s still time to escape.” She cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “Partners,” I said. “Lovers, too, but… We’re partners. Project Reunion, the farm, Amenac, raising Alex. After we talked the other day, Pam, I realized. I do like my independence. You know what I want? After, like, two years of being partners, when we can’t imagine breaking up anymore? Then I’d want to get engaged. But only engaged, you know? Then set a date to get married, like two years after that.”

  “That!” Emmett cried. I hadn’t noticed that the ‘husbands’ had stopped talking behind us. Emmett suddenly took a knee by my chair, and clasped my hand, with his happiest slow grin. “Dee Baker, will you do that with me? What you just said?”

  “What?” I asked, distracted. “Hang out together another two years, then reconsider?”

  “We’ve been partners a year in February,” he quibbled. “Say yes.”

  I laughed, and replied, “Sure. Why not.” Thus cementing my single-with-benefits state for at least another three years, it seemed. It felt strangely secure and liberating at the same time.

  Instead of a kiss, Emmett froze. “What was that?” Suddenly he bolted to the front door. When he opened it, Boris the billy goat barged right in. Emmett managed to tackle the goat before it could do any damage indoors, and dragged it back outside again.

  “Cam! Dwayne!” Emmett called. “Come meet your Christmas gifts!”

  The Niedermeyers and I hung out on the porch to enjoy the show, while Emmett gave Cam and Dwayne a crash course in goat herding. The teens must have left the trailer unfastened while they wandered off. The two pregnant nanny goats were easy enough to apprehend. Dwayne seemed to bond with them.

  Boris was another story entirely – 200 pounds of masculine menace, who could leap onto the top of my car in a single bound, then turn around to leer at the men. Fortunately, Cam enjoyed the male dominance games. I could have done without the hoof dents on my car.

  Leaving Boris with Alex had been a bit much to ask. Bunnies were more his speed. I explained to the Niedermeyers that I’d requested Emmett find a new home for the monster. These days, plenty of people in Totoket had billy goats to breed with our does. Alex and I didn’t need to deal with Boris.

  “Command presence, Cam,” Emmett encouraged, laughing at him. “Show him who’s boss!” And yet again, Cam was sliding face-first into the slush while Boris hopped nimbly away.

  Boris returned to gloat, flapping his long velvety ears in a tease. Cam finally caught the beast around the ribcage, and manhandled him into the trailer. Cam and Emmett shook hands in triumph.

  This adventure led to further present opening, once Cam changed into dry clothes. My favorite was a small package for Emmett, that General Cullen in New York had sent along. That was sweet all in itself, that Pam or John had arranged for a present from Cullen to be waiting here. Emmett read a couple pages of hand-written letter, then opened the package to dangle a cross on a chain. Unlike his father’s, this cross was the current military design, simple arms of stainless steel, battered and bent. Emmett took it in his fingers and read the engraving.

  “Kansas City to NYC, Love Dad,” he murmured huskily. “Cullen found it in the West Point chapel.” I hugged him, and he laid his head on mine gratefully.

  “Emmett’s dad was special forces. KIA,” John Niedermeyer explained quietly to Pam.

  Cam commented, “Follow a guy like that to hell and back.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Emmett thoughtfully. “Cam. You and I should talk more. I’m sorry about that. This weekend is crazy – Camp Upstate and Jersey do their first big refugee releases Monday. Let’s start next Wednesday?”

  “You’re on,” agreed Cam. “I’d enjoy that.”

  “What did you and Emmett get for each other, Dee?” Pam asked. “If I may ask.”

  I rubbed Emmett’s neck. He was sitting on the floor, leaning back between my legs, with me on the couch. “A quiet day yesterday. No presents. No family dinners. No New York. Lots of back-rubs and bath-tubs and quiet.”

  “It was awesome,” Emmett said, leaning his head all the way back. “Just what I needed. Monday… The big debut for Camp Yankee was incredible. Haven’t cried so much in one day since my dad died when I was twelve.”

  “How did you get time off now?” asked Cam. “Seems like a tricky time for it.”

  “I called Link a…never mind,” Emmett replied. “Cullen called back. Told me to take my time coming back to New York.”

  Cam laughed. “I’ve always wanted to call Link an expletive deleted. Did you enjoy it?”

  “Uh-huh. I really did,” Emmett confirmed with a grin.

  It was truly good to finally have couple friends, for Emmett and me as a couple. I loved Mangal and Shanti, and Shelley and Trey next door with Alex. But they weren’t peers like the Niedermeyers and Cam and Dwayne. Friends Emmett could depend on, and me.

  I saw Emmett off at the train the next morning, and got back to business on PR for Project Reunion.

  Chapter 27

  Interesting fact: When people joined the meshnet on Long Island, they received a Help Wanted ad – We Pay in Food, All Skills Needed. Major Cameron’s team planned to use this to compile an inventory of people and skills. But one of the first ten respondents pointed out that the quarantine already collected this information. After that, it was a matter of days before experienced public works crews were located and back on the job.

  Winter spun by quickly. For one thing, it was about the mildest winter I could remember in Connecticut. Climate change was a factor, of course, but our local winters ran the gamut as far back as I could remember. Some years we had bitter arctic winters, blowing straight down from the Canadian Shield, snow-clad from Thanksgiving to April, with temperatures plunging well below zero. And then there were other years like this one, where snow fell and melted within a day. More often than not, it fell as rain in the first place. The mild winter was a great mercy for the survivors in the Apple.

  I saw Emmett again before New Year’s. General Cullen convened a mid-course review for Project Reunion, held at a hotel in Greenwich this time. Even I was impressed when I cobbled together everything the software and media teams had contributed. My presentation got the second longest standing ovation of the summit. The longest, of course, was reserved for Emmett.

  By then, all four quarantine camps were graduating refugees at full capacity, nearly 200,000 people a week. They were no longer strictly quarantine camps, though. Once Clarke Whitfield’s falsified data was out of the way, CDC researchers found that the weaponized strain of Ebola had died out months before. Illnesses of starvation and bad sanitation they had in plenty. But there were no confirmed new cases of Ebola. The four-week program at the camps continued, though, for careful feeding and rehabilitation before release.

  The only major mid-course correction was that Admiral O’Hara of the Virginia states, and General Schwabacher of the Ohio, urged a joint offensive against Pennsylvania to take back the Northeast’s strategic supplies. They were satisfied that Project Reunion was well run, and approved of expanding it. Homeland Security, working jointly with agents infiltrated into Pennsylvania by General Cullen, believed they’d located the caches. Obviously, I didn’t attend the meetings where they planned their strike. Neither did Emmett. But the more supplies they liberated from Penn, the longer Project Reunion could run, and the more New Yorkers would be released for resettlement.

  January brought little news of the Penn war, largely because it was censored out. In the end, outnumbered and faced with ethical instead of territory demands, Penn’s other military leaders chose to execute Tolliver and sue for peace. They had to relinquish three quarters of their food stockpiles, most of which New England’s Link graciously ceded to New York’s Cullen. They didn’t release details of what happened to the rest of the war materiel. Emmett told me they had to fork over most of that, too.

  They never added a Ca
mp Penn. Instead, Camp Upstate and Camp Jersey scaled up and started sending refugees to Pennsylvania within weeks. Camp Yankee also ran an extra couple weeks, processing 150,000 more settlers for New England than originally planned.

  We learned that Penn never lost power or Internet internally. They’d just interdicted the Internet at the borders. Most people inside were in good shape. One Penn Resco came in at level 9 on the 10-level Resco scale, breaking Cam’s previous record performance for the Northeast. Cam was miffed, but conceded that Penn had better raw agricultural talent to work with. None of Penn was below level 3, not even Philadelphia. The level 3’s were ark fiefdoms like those in New York and New England. There were some bizarre new religious enclaves in Penn, some home to people the Northeast thought long dead and gone.

  Bygones gradually became bygones, once sensible people were talking to each other again.

  The meshnet release was a huge success. I didn’t have much to do with it anymore. But it spread like wildfire throughout the Apple and Long Island.

  I bowed out of the PR interviews, too, mostly. There was just too much work to supervise on the PR websites, between the refugee matchmaking and people lost-and-found and volunteer coordinator databases. The steering committee collared me and demanded that I manage more, and travel less. Kyla and Jennifer continued with the human interest stories for the broadcast series. Amiri Baz and his team kept up with the more dangerous reporting. They all did a much better job of it than I could, anyway. They didn’t get sidetracked trying to fix things the way I did.

  I never aimed for upper level management at UNC, back in my corporate days. It felt downright odd to have a full-time job doing that now. Not at all what I’d envisioned when Mangal and I recruited the Amen1 hackers to help us publish weather reports a year before. At least I still telecommuted. But my inbox rapidly grew to rival Emmett’s. He wryly recommended some management texts he’d enjoyed, and encouraged me to hire assistants.