Langer aimed the remote and clicked past a dance contest show where the best participants wore weights to negate their advantages, as well as a documentary documenting the many hate crimes the red states still allowed, like sex-separate bathrooms. He settled on CNN. Its headquarters moved from Atlanta to Boston after the Split, and CNN was proud to have obtained the first television news reporting license from the new People’s Republic. It billed itself as “CNN: Your Trusted Source For Approved Information.”
Tonight, CNN had nothing about the attack, but it did have vague rumblings about an increase in “racist hate crimes” across Southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio in recent days. These criminals would be swiftly punished, the announcer assured the audience. Apparently, Jasper wasn’t the only area getting uppity with the overlords.
And there was another important bit of news. The anchor was one of the lesser Cuomos and about twenty-five years old. Xis gender was difficult to ascertain and xis eye patch gave xe away as differently sighted. Xe announced, “And as of today, the border crossings with the racist states have been closed. President Warren today announced that the citizens of the People’s Republic will no longer provide a safety valve for the racist states’ victims of economic oppression and social injustice.”
There was some footage of the doddering President Warren being helped to the podium. “These restrictions,” she said, her eyes wide but unfocused, “will provide a new dawn of freedom and diversity as we eliminate the influence of illegal and unapproved ideas and…”
She stopped, blinked and looked confused, and then the camera cut away.
There was a title card reading “OFFICIAL PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS, INDIANA AND OHIO REGIONS.”
Turnbull stopped cleaning the Beretta and watched as a different newsreader, this one pretty clearly identifying as male, appeared on screen.
“Good evening. Terrorists supported by the racist states are at work undermining our progressive progress. These criminals and their accomplices will be held accountable! Because of the epidemic of racist hate crimes throughout the southern portions of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, the people have demanded strict action. Until further notice, the following activities are banned. All religious services, except Muslim and Wiccan services. Also, witches and crones are authorized to continue their moonlight rituals to the Earth Mother Ge-ga-gia-,” the reader stammered, staring hard at his teleprompter.
“Gaia,” he finally said, triumphantly. “Also, all sports leagues, and all unapproved large gatherings are banned. Travel will be restricted within these areas. Random identification checks will be in effect. Petroleum and food supplies will be reviewed.”
“So they want to starve us,” Langer said.
“Starve the people who grow all the food?” asked Turnbull.
“Also,” the newsreader continued, “due to the demands of students to protest these hate crimes, tomorrow all students will participate in voluntary and spontaneous protest marches in their towns. These protests will be organized by the school staff and are mandatory. Finally, all citizens are urged to support their People’s Security Forces as they continue their successful operations to suppress these racist criminal terrorists. Citizens are urged to report any terrorist activity to their local People’s Bureau of Investigation units. Together, we will hold these terrorists accountable!”
The shot went back to the regular newsreader. “The people of the People’s Republic stand united in defense of diversity and social justice,” the newsreader assured the viewers. “And thank you for watching. This is Castro Cuomo, for CNN, reporter’s license number 474497T.”
Langer picked up the remote and clicked it off.
“I haven’t watched much TV since they banned ultimate fighting,” he said. “Ain’t missed it.”
“It’s on now,” Turnbull said. “These are your folks. You think these people can handle it? Think they’ll fight through it or roll over?”
“Well,” Langer said. “I don’t know about my folks. We were always kind of white trash, the people everyone else told their kids they’d end up like if they messed up. But they’re good people, and you can only push them so far. I think these People’s Republic sons of bitches are underestimating them.”
“Ah, our zampolit is here,” Colonel Deloitte observed as Major Kaden Little entered the operations center. It was located inside an old National Guard armory in Bloomington, one that had not been refurbished in decades. The military had been last in line for everything in the blue since the Split. That, however, might be changing if things continued as they were going.
“I know what that means now,” snarled the Command Diversity Officer. Technically, as CDO, the major had authority to override anyone in the command other than the commander himself – and if Little needed to do that, he had the phone number of Deloitte’s boss on his cell.
“Oh, you do?” Deloitte said. The other staff officers, all either selected by Deloitte or left after he subtly purged the non-hackers and quota fillers from those randomly assigned to him, watched amused.
“It means ‘political officer!’” Little said, having finally looked it up on Guugle, the breakaway, licensed and regulated search engine that remained in the blue states. Following the Split, Google departed to the red after the People’s Republic demanded real time access to its citizens’ web searches.
“So it does,” Colonel Deloitte said. “And you’re late, not that you contribute anything to this unit anyway except to thicken the fog of war.” The staff stifled a collective gasp – no one ever spoke like this anymore and got away with it, except Colonel Deloitte.
“You can’t talk—” Little began, turning red-faced.
“Shut up and sit down,” Deloitte replied icily. The zampolit sheepishly complied. The colonel turned to his staff.
“All right, understand we have no orders yet besides a basic alert. This is my planning guidance. The executive officer will give you a timeline for the process and the decision brief, but I want to tell you what I’m thinking and seeing now. There’s unrest across the sector. Minor sabotage, graffiti, and now worse. Evanston, three PSF cars under sniper fire. Other incidents in Salem and Croydon and elsewhere. And of course, 16 dead PVs north of Jasper. They drove straight into an ambush. Whoever set it knew what he was doing. We are not facing just a bunch of farmers with deer rifles, though that would be bad enough. They’re being organized. I’m betting US Army SOF, because they are doing exactly what I’d be doing. Colonel, put the overlay on.”
The operations officer, a squared away lieutenant colonel with a high and tight haircut, pulled an acetate sheet over the map. It was old school – no computerized maps that might fail when the electricity went out during one of the increasing frequent “Climate Caring” brownouts. The overlay divided the territory into three colors – red, pink and clear.
From Ohio to Iowa, it was almost all red in the southern half of the states. A few of the small towns were pink. Only a few of the areas around the bigger towns showed no red at all.
“Now the fun part. You know the President closed the border tonight. That’s an indicator. We also have credible intel of a build-up of red armored and infantry forces south of Evansville, Owensboro and, of course, at Fort Knox. At least three US divisions. They could come north at any time. If they do, our 172nd Brigade defends the western half of Indiana, with the Hoosier People’s Forest as our east boundary. The 363rd is moving south to be ready to occupy positions in the eastern half. The 416th is on our other flank in Illinois. Of course, the 416th’s troops are on strike right now because their mess hall does not offer a vegan alternative,” Deloitte said.