Besides being a pastor, the second man, Bill Harris, was a sergeant in the local Militia. The Militia was a recent development due to limited Federal funding and the continuing shrinkage of the U.S. military. The Militia was voluntary, the men paying for their own weapons and uniforms. They mustered under their state’s control and had National Guard drill instruction every summer for those who wished for advanced training. Bill was one of those. The states with the largest Militias per capita were Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Alaska. The three southern states had large Militias due to the proximity of the Mexican border; Alaska did because so many of the state’s population were hunters and fishermen.
Stan used his ping-pong paddle and bounced an orange ball up and down. Bill stood at the other end of the green table, waiting. The single bulb above the middle of the table flickered as the light dimmed. Brownouts were common these days and electrical grid repairs constant.
“Think the lights will stay on tonight?” Bill asked.
Stan grunted noncommittally. They had played four games of ping-pong already, tying at two wins each. Their wives talked upstairs as the children played board games.
“Just a minute,” Bill said. He moved to a shelf and checked his cell phone. “It’s getting late. Should we call it?”
The bulb stopped flickering then as the light strengthened.
“We can’t leave the series at a tie,” Stan said.
Bill nodded. “It’s more fun with a winner. Since this is the last game, should we volley for serve?”
“I lost the last game. Loser gets first serve next game.”
“Oh, okay,” said Bill, with an at-least-I-tried grin.
Stan kept bouncing the ball on his paddle. There was a distracted look on his face. He had been trying to forget about his dilemma all night. Trying to beat Bill had done that, but now…
“Is anything wrong?” asked Bill.
Stan nodded. “It’s Sergeant Jackson.”
“The police officer?”
“I think he wants to bust my dad.” Then the words gushed out as Stan asked, “Is it wrong to hold a grudge?”
“Do you mean is it wrong for the officer to hold a grudge against your dad? Or is it wrong for you to hold a grudge against the officer?”
Stan looked up, letting the ping-pong ball bounce off the table and onto the floor.
“Bitterness never helps anyone,” Bill said.
“I know.”
“You need to forgive Sergeant Jackson for what he did to your dad.”
Stan scowled. “I understand what you’re saying….” He shook his head.
“Well, think of it like—”
“I’m sorry,” said Stan, as the bulb flickered again. “It’s late. We’d better finish the series before the power cuts off.” He retrieved the orange ball and took his serving stance.
“I know this can be a hard topic,” Bill said.
Stan didn’t want to think about it anymore. He should have known Bill would tell him to give his worry to God. Now Bill would start talking about it. Stan decided to put an end to the lecture by serving the ball, using a crafty spin.
Surprised by the serve, Bill moved too late. He still managed to hit the ball, but it zoomed into the net.
“One to zero,” Stan said.
Bill glanced at him. “One to zero,” he said, his voice changing from its reflective pastor’s tone to his competitive voice. Then the two friends began to play in earnest.
Jian Hong rode in the back of a limousine as he passed big Chinese cars. City traffic moved past massive buildings in the heart of Beijing. The construction boom had altered the city. The rich lived in palaces, sprawling villas with gold inlaid marble, redwood furniture and magnificent gardens. The latest craze was having a zoo on one’s property, with tigers, leopards, pandas, baboons—Jian had recently purchased a polar bear. He was inordinately proud of it and hoped to buy a male so he could mate them.
The heart of Beijing possessed titanic structures, showing the opulence of oil-rich China. It was a tribute to the nation’s greatness, to its power. Above the massive structures was the even larger Mao Square with the Politburo Building and the Chairman’s quarters. Glass towers reflected the sun’s light, while gigantic statues beggared the imagination. The Chairman had a mania for architecture. He wanted to show the world and China’s millions that nothing could compare with the present government. The construction boom flowered throughout China’s coastal region, particularly here in Beijing.
The big cars manufactured in Chinese automotive plants moved along wide avenues as hordes surged along the extra-large sidewalks. Beijing had become the mightiest city on Earth.
Jian witnessed this, but he enjoyed none of it as his security personnel escorted him to Mao Square. He was late for a meeting with the Chairman, a meeting that could well decide his fate in the world.
Jian Hong hurried into a large room on the third floor of the Chairman’s governmental quarters. Huge paintings of former chairmen hung on the walls, beginning with Mao Zedong and ending with the present ruler of Greater China. They were painted in a heroic style. The portrait of the present Chairman showed a strong, youthful man with a wild shock of hair and an outthrust chin. It had little in common with the old man in the wheelchair sitting at the head of the table.
Jian nodded a greeting to the Minister of the Navy, an old admiral with a bald dome. Compared to the Chairman, the admiral was an example of youthful vigor.
The Chairman’s chin presently touched his chest and his eyes were closed. His withered hands rested on his lap, one covered by a plaid blanket. The formerly wild hair was combed to the right, and it was much thinner, showing patches of skull. A degenerative disease had been eating away at his strength for years now, radically altering a once hard-charging dictator. In earlier days, the Chairman had re-forged the old Communist Party into the Socialist-Nationalist organ that now swelled with the pride of nearly two billion Chinese. His vision had led the country through the terrible crises of 2019—the fact that it had been the Chairman’s guiding hand in 2016 that caused China to unload her U.S. Bonds had been carefully weeded from the history books. That maneuver had brought about the American banking and stock market collapse, which in turn had started the Sovereign Debt Depression throughout the world. That worldwide shock had, in turn, brought about the crises of 2019 in China.
Despite his role in causing it, under the Chairman’s brilliance, China had emerged from the Sovereign Debt Depression as the most powerful nation on Earth. He had led them in the swift but profitable war against Siberia, then in the orgasmic Invasion of Taiwan, and lastly in forging the Pan Asian League. Wresting Japan from America’s military orbit had been his greatest diplomatic coup.
The Chairman snored softly at the head of the table, gnome-like in appearance, but still holding the reins of power in his arthritic hands. His security personnel surrounded the building, hard-eyed killers chosen for their loyalty and willingness to murder anyone that the Chairman indicated. Ruthless secret policemen backed them. Those policemen used computers, truth serums and secret chambers to tear needed information from suspects. In the majority of cases, however, the Chairman used a velvet glove in his dealings. His deftness had won him much. But the iron was still there, as was the willingness to crush any opponent.
Like the others, Jian Hong feared the Chairman. Jian wondered, as surely the others must, if the degenerative disease might one day cause the Chairman to institute a bloodbath as Mao had done during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Despite the fear, Jian and the others attempted to maneuver the dying old man toward their particular projects. The Chairmen had become like an emperor from a bygone era, with Deng Fong as his prime minister and the others vying to gain the Chairman’s ear.