His office in the town hall had that same worn feel to it. Gone were the scents of antiseptic scrubbing and buffing, brilliant fluorescent lights on day and night, fresh coffee from a machine that would take a dollar bill, air-conditioning in summer, and electric heat in winter. All of it gone ever since the Day.
Elizabeth still struggled to maintain some semblance of freshness with a semiclean college T-shirt and jeans and a red ribbon tied to her dark, nearly black ponytail. Her wiry frame was typical of everyone, her jeans belted tightly around her narrow waist. What little extra weight she had put on when carrying Ben a year ago was long gone
She put a crumpled piece of paper onto his desk and pushed it across to him. He opened it up and spread it out, quietly rubbing his jaw.
He, like everyone else, had heard rumors about an impending draft to be issued by a remote and seldom-heard-from national government that had evacuated Washington, D.C., and now functioned out of an old Cold War bunker system in northern Virginia. The vague rumors had become true with this single sheet of paper his only surviving daughter placed on his desk.
He looked up at her again. She was eighteen, had seen war and starvation, and was already a mother, the father of her child killed in the fight against the invading Posse that had attacked their community a year and a half earlier. In so many ways, she did look like those long-ago photographs of eighteen-year-old veterans of Normandy and Iwo Jima, aged far beyond their years. But this was his daughter, his only child. He could still see the face of the newborn, the eyes of her long-deceased mother, the eyes that would well up with tears when she came for comfort for a skinned knee, the sparkling eyes of a laughing twelve-year-old, the knowing gaze of a sixteen-year-old who knew that with a glance and a smile she could still con her “daddy.” Like all parents who across the years had gazed into the eyes of their children, whom the government suddenly declared were old enough to fight and to die, his heart was filled with fear. They were taking his child away, most likely never to return.
He gazed at the paper while motioning again for her to sit down.
As she settled into the chair by the side of the desk she offered a gesture a bit uncharacteristic since she had grown up—reaching out to take his hand while he gazed down at the letter.
“Greetings, Fellow Citizen, and by order of the President of the United States of America…”
The president?
The president of the United States. He still thought at times of the one who was in office on the Day. No. Word was that the White House had received some forewarning of the attack, scrambled the president out of D.C. aboard Air Force One… but amazingly, the plane was not sufficiently “hardened,” against a high-level EMP and went down somewhere over West Virginia. The president now? There was actually some debate; a junior senator out west claiming he was the legitimate successor, but most, especially survivors in the east, acknowledging a junior cabinet member headquartered in Bluemont, Virginia. The letter was the standard formula, reminiscent of draft letters of long-ago conflicts, ending with the forceful statement that she was to report to the office of the “federal administrator” in the Buncombe County Courthouse within three days for induction into the Army of National Recovery—or face the full penalty of the law.
He finished it and then quickly reread it. He was tired after having sat through a night rotation of watch duty, and he rubbed his eyes as he looked at Elizabeth, who sat across from him. No tears on her face, no hysteria, no reaction.
The federal administrator in Asheville. That must be this new official, Dale Fredericks, who had moved into Asheville a month or so earlier to replace the full battalion of regular army troops, which had quartered there over the previous winter but were then ordered to move out and head for Texas.
John found the regular army unit to be of tremendous help with attempting to reorganize the region, opening up some lines of communication with radio gear brought back from overseas deployment, their technicians even helped local ham radio operators to fix their equipment and establish some semblance of a network. They had been helpful as well with at least containing some of the raider groups known collectively as reivers, an old Scot/Irish term for outlaws.
As the army pulled out, some administrative replacements arrived via helicopter from Charleston, South Carolina. A printed notice had arrived for John from the postal courier from Asheville, announcing their arrival and that in the near future he would be contacted along with other community leaders for a meeting to discuss reorganizing the communities of western North Carolina. This was welcoming news given the continued trouble with border raiders from north of the Mount Mitchell range, who were calling themselves reivers, but after that notice, nothing else… until today.
And now, this first notice of reestablishing the entity that all spoke of with pride and nostalgia—the United States of America—had come as a draft notice from some distant entity to take his Elizabeth away. I’ve lost one child, he thought. Dear God, not another.
His thoughts drifted to Jennifer, Elizabeth’s younger sister who had died when the so-taken-for-granted medical supply system of America had collapsed and insulin was no longer available. For want of a few vials of insulin, his youngest had died in his arms. That was part of his life he blocked off to keep his sanity. No parent should ever have to bury his child, but he had. He kept his gaze on Elizabeth even as he hid his thoughts about Jennifer, attempting to maintain a calm, even exterior.
He looked at her, trying to collect his thoughts. I’m her father. This is my eighteen-year-old daughter who should still be a kid, not a young mother about to be drafted. He shook his head and then forced a reassuring smile and tossed the document back across the table.
“Ridiculous. You’re a mother of a fourteen-month-old baby. That’s always been a draft deferment.”
“Not anymore, Daddy. You didn’t read it carefully,” she replied, taking the letter from his hand and turning it over. In this age of paper shortages, the document was printed on both sides, front and back. He had actually forgotten to turn the single sheet of paper over to read the addendum.
“By executive order during this national emergency,” she read in a flat, emotionless monotone, “all prior grounds of deferment have, as of this date, been waived, except for demonstration of severe physical disability. Those mobilized with dependent children must find suitable placement for their dependents. Failure to do so will result in punishment as outlined in Emergency Executive Order 303.”
He reread the line and it chilled him. He remembered hearing about Order 303. It gave a government official the right to invoke capital punishment. He had executed people in the months after the Day, starting with the two drug thieves, with no executive orders other than the decision of the town to support such draconian measures during a time when the survival of the town was at stake. He had wrestled with those decisions then; he still did in his nightmares. As he looked up at his daughter, though, the irony did strike him that she was subject to such, as well.
She handed the page back to him.
“This came in with the morning mail from Asheville?” he asked.