Calm Act Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Ginger Booth

  Reluctantly, tenderly, he enfolded me in his arms and stood holding me, cheek to cheek. He started crying. “I was so afraid I’d lost you.” I just held him, letting him cry. “Canton sent me a video, Dee, of him…”

  “Raping me,” I completed the sentence. “I don’t remember it, Emmett. Only the first part, before he gave me a rufie. I was already sky-high on oxycontin. I mean, being raped, that’s repulsive. But, I’m not hurt.”

  “That wasn’t directed at you,” Emmett whispered.

  I stilled in his arms. So Canber had said, and I had concluded. But Canton, Emmett had said, not Canber. And no, that rape scene was directed at a video camera, not me at all. Canber drugged me to keep me out of it. “How well do you know Canton Bertovich, Emmett?”

  “Well,” he reluctantly supplied. “We were friends once.”

  I drew Emmett to the bed and sat cross-legged beside him, while I drew the story out of him.

  They weren’t just slightly friends. During their first year at ILE school in Leavenworth, before they’d ever heard of the Calm Act, Canton and Emmett had apartments in the same building. They carpooled to classes together. Ate together most days, at least one meal. Studied together. ILE was a course full of happily married men and women, like Dane and Marilou Beaufort. Their classmates eagerly seized the opportunity of being stably stateside for the year to bond with their families. The social scene was replete with family barbecues and kids’ ball games. Meanwhile, Canton was enduring the last death throes of a vicious divorce, and Emmett was recently and miserably divorced as well. Both ardent environmentalists. Both brilliant and analytical officers. Doing outdoor sports and weekend trips together to escape the happy families. Both roped into planning and vetting the Calm Act the following year.

  At one point, Emmett even considered Canton as a replacement best friend for Zack Harkonnen, the man who’d brought Emmett and me together. Zack had left the Army behind, and never really enjoyed it. At the time, Emmett thought maybe he should let Zack go, let that friendship fade. He and Canton had more in common, it seemed.

  “That was then, this is now,” I murmured. “He’s a mass murderer now, Emmett. Did you see the signs?”

  Emmett plucked at the bedspread. “Uh-huh,” he finally settled on. “I don’t think they’ll ever catch him, Dee.” He wouldn’t look up.

  My eyes narrowed. “Never catch him? Or never look?”

  “Uh-huh,” Emmett breathed.

  The Ohio Army attack force hadn’t even gone after the Judgment camp in West Virginia. Just kept them occupied while Emmett’s team extracted us. Then we left. No one was going after Judgment, or Canber.

  “Why did he kill Dane, Emmett?” I hazarded. Judging from Emmett’s flinch, my guess was right.

  “Dane had gone rogue,” he whispered. “Moral crusader. No other leverage to keep him quiet. And Canton didn’t kill Dane. Just beat him up. Didn’t know the head injury was serious.”

  “What leverage does Canber have against you?” I demanded. Emmett just shook his head. “Emmett, I think I deserve an answer. It’s one thing to honor a promise to your secret SAMS club. But Canber dragged me into his secrets, not you.”

  Emmett didn’t want to answer the question, but I waited him out. “You,” he eventually said. “Among other things. Other people. For leverage.”

  It felt like a sucker-punch. Based on what Canber had said, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Canber was certainly angry with Emmett. I was so caught up in my own thoughts, it was a few minutes before I glanced up at Emmett again. He looked scared.

  “It’s not your fault, Emmett,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.

  “Uh-huh,” he breathed.

  “Canber is responsible for what Canber did,” I insisted. “Not you.”

  “Uh-huh.” He grasped my hand back, hard. His mouth worked in several false starts. “Maybe I should get another room this time?”

  “No.” I sighed. “Emmett, you say you want to marry me. If you really mean that, we need to face things together. No matter how –” I hesitated. “Life sucks sometimes. I thought we were good at facing that together.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Emmett left with Drum the next morning, to serve up a final harangue to the Pittsburgh community leaders, church leaders, and ex-militia, at a large auditorium at Carnegie-Mellon University. I followed along separately with the IndieNews team. Blake Sondheim recorded the event.

  The address was a command performance – the audience was required to attend. No-shows were to be rounded up, stripped naked, and locked into public stocks for display. A Puritan-era punishment for resurrecting the wars of the Reformation. Attendance was good. Only a dozen or so individuals volunteered for the stocks to help Drum make her point. They were all religious dissenters, so later Drum displayed them on the front lawns of their respective churches.

  The Resco manual, which constituted the written orders for Emmett and Drum and other Rescos, advised that a Resco must first, last, and always establish himself as the biggest bad-ass in the neighborhood, the authority that cannot be thwarted. And simultaneously, he must establish himself as the community’s best asset and opportunity for help from outside the local district. What a Resco declares is law, and the citizens’ best hope for a good life is to cooperate and implement the Resco’s plans.

  And there were ample rewards. Drum laid out a one-year plan for Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County. Based on local agricultural output, everyone could earn a full meal ticket – a 2500 calorie per day Pennsylvania meal ticket at that – if they were willing to work full time. Power would be rationed, but free, and restored throughout the city within a few months. Every household could have enough power to run a refrigerator and freezer, and a few lights. The details were complex, but homes could be heated to at least 55 degrees in winter, and might have hot water, depending on their equipment. Jobs would be available accomplishing all this. God knows, if it took steel and machinery, Pittsburgh had the means.

  The churches were to remain shuttered and barred except during religious services. No food was allowed in church. No discussion of religious views would be tolerated outside church or the home. There would be no single-sect work crews. Punishments for infractions would remain harsh.

  The city’s primary and middle schools would reopen after New Year’s. Religious groups were forbidden to operate a school, and mention of religious ideas at a public school would be punished.

  The re-industrialization joint venture with Ohio was off the table, pending proof of restored order in Pittsburgh. General Schwabacher of Ohio–West Virginia wouldn’t invest until he was convinced that Drum was in firm control, not only in Pittsburgh but all of western Penn.

  Based on personal interviews and Dane Beaufort’s records, Drum found most of the rural and outer suburban militias to be perfectly sound, and re-authorized them. Inside the city and certain suburbs, the militia units were permanently disbanded in favor of expanding the Pittsburgh police department. Ex-militia were invited to apply for the new jobs. If hired, they would be isolated from previous team-mates and co-religionists for a fresh start, and receive training.

  I rather thought Paddy Bollai, Dane’s handyman, would make a good cop. Also the Apocalyptic militiaman who asked if Emmett could stay on as Resco during Q&A that night in the tornado shelter, despite glares from his fellow militia. There were good people to be freed from the old dysfunctional militia structure.

  Drum’s speech to her new flock comprised most of the lecture, but Emmett took a turn. He recounted the investigation’s official findings, that a terrorist organization called Judgment had waylaid and badly beaten Dane Beaufort and his second, Dwight Davison, and that both men had later died of their wounds. Judgment was not to be mistaken for a religion. They were a sophisticated and highly dangerous terrorist group. Any suspected Judgment activity should be reported to the police immediately.

  Emmett also hammered home that Drum had the complete trust and authority of the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania behind her, and the backing of Hudson and Ohio–West Virginia as well. He said that anyone who dared to call a Lieutenant Colonel a ‘whore’ or ‘harlot’ deserved every minute they spent naked in the stocks as a result. Verbally abusing a woman for her clothing, or non-conformity to someone’s idea of her proper role, constituted a violation of the rule prohibiting the mention of religion in secular life. Treating women with respect and courtesy, at all times, was required.

  Drum happily added that women were encouraged to apply for jobs in the Pittsburgh P.D., and any other job funded by the Resco government. Pittsburgh would be an equal opportunity employer, with equal pay for equal work. Absolutely. Day care would be subject to the same religious prohibitions as public schools.

  No religion in public. Period.

  Brandy O’Keefe of IndieNews sat next to me and took copious notes. At the end, outside the auditorium building, she handed me a distilled bulleted list, and made me introduce, then summarize the meeting on camera. To do that required looking directly into the camera, but one side of her face was still too battered for that. Her face wouldn’t make it past the censors, because we couldn’t explain the injuries.

  Brandy did carry out exit interviews with attendees, getting reactions of the locals to their new Resco and her plans. For that, she could turn the unmarred side of her face to the camera. Her interviewees ended up looking mighty shifty on video, embarrassed by the obvious signs of abuse written across Brandy’s face, which our Internet viewers never saw.

  I left most of my email to catch up on during the long train ride back to Hudson. But one item leapt out at me. Jean-Charles Alarie of the gran caravans wrote back about their experiences with ‘sixers’ and the huge swath of Pennsylvania not controlled by any Resco.

  Heavily encrypted, Jean-Charles’ email told me what the gran caravans knew and suspected about Canton Bertovich and his far-flung operation. That the culling of the American people was by no means left to chance and rogues, but was carefully orchestrated. The sixers and other doomsday cults were fronts for systematic extermination. And their East Coast operations found their best sanctuary in central Pennsylvania.

  Jean-Charles strongly recommended that I not mention this to Emmett or any other Resco. At some level, they already knew. But civilians like myself tended to disappear if they knew such things. The end of the U.S. hadn’t changed that.

  Good warnings. Sadly, his email had arrived in my inbox a couple hours after Canber abducted us.

  I had a late farewell lunch with Brandy and Blake before we went our separate ways back to Hudson. IBIS agent Donna Gianetti joined us. Mrs. Wiehl’s buffet was as magnificent as ever. But we’d eaten our fill. None of us were very hungry.

  “I don’t see how that speech solved much,” I admitted. “It’s like Drum and Emmett just played good cop bad cop.” I didn’t care for my hero playing bad cop. I’d worked too long on his PR campaign painting him a hero, perhaps.

  “I think it was good for Pittsburgh,” Brandy surprised me by saying. “They need a public act of contrition, to work their way back from this mess. Strong punishments and firm rules will make them feel better. Not that I’d support this high-handedness on IndieNews, of course. Not allowed to say anything about this on IndieNews.” Her voice trailed off, haunted, on the last.

  We had both been informed by our censors that our abduction had never happened. And specifically that Canber did not exist and would not be mentioned. Our original explanation of Dane’s death, that we filmed just before our kidnapping, as edited by Brandy’s producer in our absence, was approved for publication. Modifications or corrections would not be approved.

  “You can always talk to me,” I offered. “If you need to talk, Brandy. Any time. You too, Blake. I owe you. And I care about you.” Blake, sitting next to me, engulfed me in a hug.

  Brandy nodded. “Same here.” She sighed. “Although you’re still going to know more than us about what’s going on. And you’re still not going to tell me.”

  “One day in the garage,” I reminded her, “you told me you didn’t want to know. You were right. You don’t want to know.”

  Gianetti backed me up. “Dee’s right. I know more. Maybe not everything, but… It wouldn’t make you happy and you can’t change it. You know, the long range weather forecast was updated while you were gone. The pattern looks like a repeat of two years ago. Hundreds of tornados for Pittsburgh. Strong thunderstorms, Alberta Clippers, hurricanes, blizzards, freaky ball lightning, the works.”

  “And that’s what it’s all about,” I said. “Martial law and the Resco Raj. Just a way to maintain order while the weather goes to hell and the whole social structure unravels.”

  “The semblance of order, anyway,” Gianetti quibbled.

  “I’m damned glad the Rescos are in control,” Blake argued. “I’ve never seen something as beautiful as those Army helicopters when they came to fly us away from Judgment.”

  We could all agree on that.

  “Oh, hey, Donna,” Blake added, “did you ever figure out Paul Dukakis and Matt1034?” I was glad he asked. That had bothered me, what the original poster of the death video, Matt1034, was trying to accomplish. And why Paul Dukakis tried to save Dane, failed, and delivered the body, yet claimed it all happened in Green Tree.

  Donna Gianetti nodded. “Paul Dukakis was a militia informant Dane planted with the Judgment sect. Paul led Dane Beaufort and Dwight Davison back to Station Square later that day, after the rally, to surprise a Judgment operation. Judgment got the drop on them, but Paul managed to escape. He snuck back later and found Dane beaten and unconscious. He didn’t find Dwight. We think Dwight went into the river during the fight with Judgment. Anyway, Paul loaded Dane into his truck and tried to get him to a doctor. But Dane died on the way.

  “Matt1034 was Paul’s girlfriend. She recorded the rally on her cell phone. Paul edited together her footage with his own snapshot of Dane and posted it on Amenac using her account. The Green Tree encampment was Judgment’s headquarters here in Pittsburgh, so he tried to direct interest there.”

  “Judgment caught and killed him,” Blake offered. “I found him hanging from a high-voltage power line pole in Green Tree.”

  Donna nodded. IBIS had already found the body of Paul Dukakis. “With Dane and Dwight both dead or missing, Paul didn’t know who else to turn to. He figured posting that video on Amenac would get high-powered attention from other Rescos outside Pittsburgh. He succeeded.”

  “Why didn’t he flee Pittsburgh?” I asked.

  “According to his girlfriend, they planned to,” Donna said. “But he left her to pick up some things from his apartment first, and never came back. She escaped. We found her hiding with a cousin in West Mifflin. Anyway, Paul Dukakis was one of the good guys here.”

  With many hugs Gianetti and I saw Blake and Brandy off to the IndieNews van and waved them good-bye. I tried to be just as fulsome in my farewells with the Wiehls and Caroline Drumpeter at the train station. But I was happy to wash my hands of Pittsburgh. Pretty nice town, really. But as fellow Americans, we’d drifted apart.

  And Pittsburgh was less than 400 miles from Brooklyn, still a northeastern city. The ex-US spanned over 3000 miles in just the contiguous states. How much further had the rest of America drifted apart from us? Or we from them.

  27

  Matthew 5:38-46, Good News Translation (GNT): You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too. And if someone takes you to court to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. And if one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles. When someone asks you for something, give it to him; when someone wants to borrow something, lend it to him. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you?

  Homecoming was strange. It gave me a whole new appreciation for how alien it must have felt for Emmett to visit me in Connecticut after months in the city during the evacuation.

  We’d been gone not quite a month. But with the summer heat fled, and plenty of rain, Brooklyn had greened. The warehouse district by the ferry terminal was orderly these days. No more broken glass on the streets, no more endless conveyor belt of trash dumpsters and debris. The engineers had frowned on the ziggurats of salvaged bricks past the warehouses. A good hurricane wind could turn the loose masonry into so many airborne projectiles. So the step pyramids were now smoothed with a concrete exterior. A team of artists were busy painting a mural on the second tier wall.

  But the biggest change was in the Calm Park past the pyramids. This green belt, and fifty like it around the Apple, was burial ground and memorial, the very soil built of demolished buildings and the city’s millions of dead bodies. The grass and forage plants, still tender and threadlike when we left, had grown in well, for a vivid carpet of deep emerald green, glowing in the overcast daylight. The long-awaited young trees had been installed, and brick walkways and picnic table pavilions. Workers were hammering together the stage for the local Halloween dedication event. The dust and the stench were gone. The Calm Park was becoming beautiful.

  Like many, I hopped atop the knee-height brickwork wall edging the greenbelt to walk, holding Emmett’s hand while he walked along below me. I smiled. He didn’t. Halloween would soon be upon us, the day Ash Margolis had selected to finally hold a memorial service for the dead of New York, and consecrate the Calm Parks. A colossal ceremony was in the works. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.