Chapter 77 -- EWYBDETMVKZMUXTKAZ
Carter opened his eyes in a still dark room, lying quietly, all his senses on
alert. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw Jessica sitting on the
edge of the bed. That was what had awakened him - she seldom ever awoke
before he did.
"Everything all right?" he asked.
She turned, lay back down beside him, her head against his shoulder and a hand
on his chest. After a while she spoke.
"I guess it is. Isn't it?" she said. "My head tells me so, everything says
yes, it's over now. You can rest for a while. But is it, really?"
"It's never really over," he replied. "I hope it goes the way it seems to be,
and continues until we're where the Council will be satisfied. If it does,
then I'd say things are pretty good. And at this point, unless I'm missing
something big. I believe it will.
"But as for being over - that will never happen. All we can do is roll it
back as far as we can and try to keep it there for a while. Eternal vigilance,
as they say, is the price of liberty."
"You think it will go back to the way it was, where the government is concerned,
two hundred, even a hundred years ago?" Jessica asked.
"To think we can go back to the beginning, I think, would be unrealistic," he
said. "But a hundred years - that would take us back to the 1920s, 1930s.
That wasn't such a bad time, compared to now. We were seeing the beginnings
of problems - income tax, the Federal Reserve, powerful labor unions existed
but the full effect of them was not yet felt. If we could go back that far
and apply what we've learned, that would would be good."
"I wonder if we can even do that," Jessica said. "We're counting on the most
corrupt and inept people to do what is right, even when shown how."
"Yeah, the only reason they'll do it is because there's a gun to
their collective head. So they'll do what they have to do to survive for the
moment."
"While counting on being able to start reversing the reforms at the earliest
opportunity. I wonder how we prevent that, or if we can."
"Well, one of the key elements is election reform. The reason everything went
south so fast was that they had complete control of system. Every election of
any consequence was decided in advance. I believe if elections are made
honest again, they may never win another presidential election. Or not for
a long time. Which is what
they had in mind for their opposition."
"That does give me some hope. I guess for some reason I'm more
worried now than before, when I should be optimistic. Maybe it's the enormity
of the whole thing. It's hard to wrap my head around it."
"Well, it is the biggest thing since the founding," he said. "Literally. We
were threatened in maybe one war, in reality. And then the cold war could
have gone badly, but it didn't because we weren't this far gone yet. We are,
almost, starting over."
"You don't think there's a chance it can be reversed, by force, now?"
"I believe that is pretty much as improbable as anyone can envision. The
result would be a resumption of hostilities, and a few cycles of that would
leave the country in ruins. Balkanized, central government irrelevant or non-
existent. I expect they'll play along, planning to regroup and restart the
campaign when the time is right."
"That won't be in our lifetime," she said. "Will it?"
"I doubt it. They'll be wrangling over this for some time, years probably.
As long as we're making progress they can't start to reverse it."
"It'll be left for our children to deal with," Jessica said. She sat up,
slipped off the bed and stood up and turned to look at him.
"Our children? Is there something I should know?"
Jessica smiled.
"Just thinking about future plans. Neither of us is getting any younger.
When things begin to settle somewhat, we need to talk."
"I'd like that."
"We should get over to Dad's house," she said. "Even now, especially now with
some of the pressure off. I'd still like to stay on top of things."
The rest of the group was already there, but the atmosphere was much more
relaxed than in the past. It was already after nine, and the others had
already finished breakfast. Carter and Jessica had a couple of breakfast
pastries and took their coffee into the command post.
The television scenes were back to the ubiquitous anchors, reporters, analysts
and other denizens of the media world, with as little useful information as
ever. That left time for casual discussions. Donald had been at the office
in town and had the latest League news.
"At this point things are remarkably calm," he said. "Particularly for the
freeholds. We're all in a mode of relaxed vigilance, which is to say we've
shot the tiger and he's down but we're remaining alert for any twitches."
"What's the prognosis," asked Jessica, "in terms of this being a smooth
transition? That is, getting enough of what we want without resuming
hostilities?"
"The consensus is that a resumption is extremely unlikely," Donald said, "to
the point of near negligibility. What they witnessed over the past weeks
was frightening, and they know we can do worse. I believe they'll
do anything to avoid that.
"Our immediate assessment is that they'll begin compliance, with that threat
hanging over them. They'll do their best to put in whatever tricks and traps
they can dream up, but in the end they'll go along. To the point
that we have the basics, what people need to be secure again from fear of the
government.
"The other things, dismantling the welfare state, bringing order to the inner
cities, tax relief for the working citizens and tax accountability for the big
corporate entities that have been escaping taxation for so long, those things
will take longer but the process will begin.
"And as we demonstrated, we can speak directly to the people in near real time,
with printed communications that don't disappear when people turn off the
television or computer. No one else has that capability, at the level we do."
"Any idea on how things are going on in the White House?" Carter asked.
"Some," Donald replied. "General Anthony and the army chief, a General Talley,
are soundly in our corner. The president is aware of it, but apparently the
other staff members are not. They may suspect there's nothing they can do. We are able to communicate freely with them,
since they aren't having to do it surreptitiously. So we're effectively in
the room with them. We left the president a one-time pad, General Anthony
knows how to use it, so we can send messages in if we need to. But he's got
things pretty well in hand. Once the president took the leap, there was no
going back."
"Am I the only one finding this anti-climactic?" Tommy asked.
"Probably not," Jessica said. "I expected worse, I guess. And out there" she
gestured to the television screens "it was. They'll be cleaning up for a long
time."
"I'd say that's a good thing," said Tommy. "Keeping people busy helps reduce
mischief."
"All that training and practice," Jerry said, "and we didn't see any action.
But I can't say I'm sorry. I wouldn't have wanted to do what some of us had to."
"It wasn't easy," said Scott, "necessary as it was. The doubt is always there,
about whether you did the right thing."
"You going back go Valle de Oro?" asked Jessica.
"Yeah," Scott said. "I wouldn't mind staying here for a while, but someone is expecting me."
"Glad to hear it," Jessica said. "I hope we all can find a normal dull life
after all this. And Tommy and James can get busy on their families. Either
of you got anyone in mind?"
Tommy laughed.
"You trying to get us married off already?"
"None of us are getting younger," Jessica said. "And you've given up a good
part of your life already."
"I'll see what I can do," said Tommy. "Now that I don't have to look after my
kid sister. Take care of her, Darrell. She's one of a kind."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that out," Carter said. "So are you going to stick
around, James."
"If you don't mind having me, I think I'd like to. Little Rock is no place
for me. Or for any sane person, for that matter. When we eventually get all
of this sorted out, I hope the unspoiled boonies will be here."
"It's about lunch time," said Donald. "If anyone's interested."
Back at home, Carter and Jessica found themselves sitting in front of a
television neither of them seemed interesting in turning on. Eventually
Jessica spoke.
"Why don't you bring us some wine and I'll put on some music."
Carter opened a bottle and brought two glasses into the living room. Across
the room from the couch an old high-end sound system was lighted and was
playing music.
"Nice," he said, handing her a glass.
"Tangerine Dream. Something from the 70s or 80s, I believe. I learned
what little I know about music from Jerry. He was an audiophile, hated what had happened
to music, and especially the quality of the sound. He thought the decay of
society was demonstrated in what had happened to music."
"I wish I'd known him," Carter said.
"So do I," she said, very softly. Carter sat silently, knowing she was, quietly,
still grieving. Eventually she looked up at him, leaned over to rest her head
on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and the sat silently for a
while.
"It's all right now," she said after a while. "The last thing Jerry would have
wanted would be for me to stop living because he wasn't here any more. It's
always been hard, but these last few years have helped push it aside. But it's
going to be all right."
They finished the wine and he got up to take the glasses into the kitchen.
Going back into the living room he looked out the large picture window. It
was well after dark, and the field of stars was framed in the window, a
thousand points of light in a deep darkness.
"I guess we should get some sleep," he said.