VirtuaScape Read online

Grace had finished her second cup of tea by the time Mason messaged her that he was on the way back to the hotel. A relaxing bath had calmed her after the VirtuaScape event, though she still had a hard time coming to terms with how real it had all been. It was so much more than 3d, just as Bradlie had said it would be. More than just sight and sound, it had been a truly immersive experience. She recalled touching the young maiden’s hair, the scent of the tea, the taste of the scones, the warmth of the fireplace. It was all a bit much for an aging Grandmother to take in, she thought. But to be with Bradlie...to spend time with her little angel of joy. To see her laugh, and to spend time with her in such an amazing place...it was worth every second of it. Even if there was the time dilation or synapse compression, or whatever John had called it.

  No, she did not like the process at all. It frightened her to the core. But she would do it again. She would do it again and again. Because with this new technology she could have the best of both worlds. She could spend as much time as she wanted with her beloved granddaughter, and know that Bradlie was always in a safe place. A place far away, where the terrorists...the monsters...could not hurt her. Both Sarah and John worked remotely, so it had been easy enough for the Secret Service to set them up in a safe house with an undisclosed location. A location that Grace herself did not even know. No, she did not have to worry about Bradlie, not for now at least. But she did have to worry about Mason. And herself.

  The world had changed so dramatically over the last hundred years or so, and so had the country. When what was then known as the United States of America was forced into insolvency early in the previous century, it had many severely delinquent debts to the world’s other nations. In what financial analysts world wide considered to be an unbelievably financially risky move, China, the global economic leader by far at the time, purchased the defaulted debts for a fraction of their worth, and quickly became the sole owner of the total sum of the U.S.’s failed debt.

  The U.S. government had no money to service the debt, nor any liquid funds to pay back the debt. When China subsequently launched the oil embargo in retaliation for nonpayment, essentially shutting down the flow of oil into the U.S., the economy stopped. There was no recession, and no depression. It just stopped. Overnight the U.S. dollar was worthless, both worldwide, and within its own borders. In an emergency agreement arranged by the now defunct Isolationist political party that held majorities in the House and Senate, the United States of America agreed to offer the state of California to the Peoples Republic of China, in exchange for the full erasure of all debts, and the elimination of the embargo. The Chinese Republic accepted the deal.

  Over the next year, U.S. citizens residing in California were relocated to adjacent states within the newly redefined borders of the U.S., dramatically increasing the populations of what had always been sparsely populated regions. There were grossly insufficient resources and infrastructure to deal with the refugees. And soon hunger, lack of shelter, and disease had begun to take its toll. Millions died during that first year, but even such a huge number of deaths did little to alleviate the problems. The state of Texas lobbied together with New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma to provide homes for the refugees, but even then the absorption of such a monstrous number of people to feed, house and clothe had been more than they could handle. It was not until the country of Mexico agreed to open its heavily guarded borders and assist, that some relief was finally delivered. The act by Mexico was seen as purely humanitarian in nature at the time, but there remained an undercurrent of suspicion. Since the construction of the great wall by Mexico centuries earlier to stop the illegal immigration of U.S. citizens into Mexico seeking economic salvation, relations with the neighboring economic power had become practically dormant.

  In the aftermath of the Great Migration, as it was later called, the leadership of Texas began to harbor major concerns over their own membership in a country that had willingly given away an entire state, and that had subsequently allowed such a disaster to happen. Strengthened by their newly developed coalition with the states that had joined to help, and its new relationship with Mexico, the Texas legislature voted overwhelmingly to secede from the United States of America. Within days similar votes were cast in the other states in the coalition, and agreements were made with Mexico. What is now known as the Southwestern Union, geographically defined by the borders of the Texas coalition and Mexico, is a republic with a single senate body, and two equally powerful co-leaders. One leader always resides in Texas, and the other, always resides in Mexico.

  The oil embargo had brought the United States of America to its knees, and the loss of California, and its large tax base, had bankrupted what little hope there was left for solvency. But the secession of the southwest states crippled the nation beyond repair. Soon, Northwest states began to speak of seceding. Shortly the Southeast states joined the debate. In response, then President Hernandez, stunned the nation with an executive order that in one swift stroke of the pen, dissolved the United States of America, and brought into being, the Peoples Republic of America. One by one, the remaining states that had once made up the United States, voted to ratify the new government, with the exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii, each preferring to form their own sovereign nations, and the states of Washington and Oregon, that joined to form its own union under the British flag.

  Though similar in structure to the old government of the U.S., the new republic abolished the House of Representatives. The newly formed government had a President, the leader of the country, and the Senate, a body of representatives made up of two persons from each member state, seventy six in all. A simple majority would carry the vote, meaning that for a law to pass, it required at least thirty nine votes, and the signature of the President. For senators, they must have been elected by a simple majority of their states citizens, but the majority threshold was based on the number of the citizens that resided in the state, and not the number of votes cast. To be a citizen in a member state, the resident must have obtained the legal age of eighteen, have completed high school, and have served a minimum of one duty tour (typically three years of service) in the branch of armed forces to which they were drafted. Since the new republic had immediately implemented mandatory conscription into military service upon graduation of high school, most adult residents were citizens. If a state had a citizen population of ten million, then the winning candidate had to obtain a vote count of at least five million and one. It was this stipulation in the law that made voting mandatory.

  Presidential elections had much different rules. In the Presidential election, each state had two votes to cast, one for each Senate seat, for a total of seventy six possible votes. These votes were decided in the general election. For a candidate to win one vote from a state, at least one third of the citizens had to have voted for them. To win both votes from the state, the candidate had to have over two thirds of the citizenry vote. The candidate with thirty nine or more total votes won. And in the remote case of a tie, the seventy six Senators would then have a single vote that could be issued, and it would be determined by a floor vote, where again, simple majority would carry. And in the extreme remote chance that the floor vote resulted in a deadlocked tie, then the totals from the actual citizenry votes would be tallied, and whichever candidate carried the majority would win.

  But even in a country so changed internally and politically, it was the other things that happened that had changed the face of the nation. With the loss of California and the Southwestern states, the tax base had evaporated, and the coffers were empty. What had once been tightly secured borders, became open gateways for the world’s unwashed. All men, women and children were welcomed into the country, to begin the short path to citizenship, and mandatory conscription, regardless of their origin, nationality, race, color or creed. Without concern for whatever criminal or political backgrounds they may have had elsewhere, or troubles they may have encountered or created, they were welcomed into the new natio
n. A nation that was desperate to protect itself from the Chinese invasion from the west coast, and to have other bodies on which to levy taxes.

  For Grace, the country as she knew it had always been the way it was now. Religious persecution had been something she had grown up with in Alabama. Even now she vividly remembered the day her father, a Baptist minister, had died. She had been sitting in the front pew of their tiny church that Sunday, as she, her mother, and two younger brothers always did. Her job was to keep the boys quiet and awake, and to say “Amen” at the appropriate times during her father’s sermon. As usual, her youngest brother, Samuel, was having a difficult time sitting still, and twice she had already admonished him. Her father’s booming voice had echoed through the room.

  “And I tell you, my friends. There is room in this world for tolerance. There is room in our hearts for understanding. We must not be exclusionary of the sheep that have chosen to follow another path. We must be compassionate with those that have been herded by another shepherd. We must rise up beyond our prejudices, and open our arms and embrace our neighbors. In Mark 12:28, Jesus said to us that we must love our neighbor. And that is what we must do, I tell you. Lay down your weapons, put aside your differences and love your neighbor.” Low murmurs tittered through the congregation. One man six rows back stood up.

  “Brother Thomas, you don’t really mean that do you? That we should lay down our weapons. Open our arms. What? And just hug and kiss those dang rag head heathens?” Several others in the congregation expressed their agreement.

  “Brother Dave,” Thomas began, “That is exactly what I said. But don’t listen to me, listen to the Lord, my friend. In Matthew 5:44, Jesus tells us to love our enemies. To pray for them.”

  “All due respect, Brother Thomas, he might have said all that and all, but he couldn’t of been talking about those crazy nut case lunatics that-” His wife grabbed his hand and yanked him downward.

  “David Green! Sit down and shut your mouth!” She scolded. He did.

  “Now Dave,” Thomas began again, “I know just how you’re feeling. It seems like everywhere we turn, there is death and destruction. And sure, some of it has been caused by extremists that just happen to worship Islam. Sam, I see you nodding your head. And you too, Jimmy. But I say to you, that-”

  “They killed my boy.” Sam said quietly from the second row. His wife beside him began to sob.

  “I know, Sam. I know.” Thomas said gently. “And we all know your boy is in a better place. In the Kingdom of Heaven.” Dave stood back up, his wife pulling on his shirt sleeve.

  “Brother Thomas? Jesus didn’t have to deal with all these sand niggers, you know.”

  “David!” His wife exclaimed, turning away from him. The voices began to rise in volume throughout the small room.

  “Brother Dave, I’ll thank you kindly to take you seat.” Thomas said. Dave looked around the room, but could find no support. He slowly sat down. “Thank you.” Thomas said, and waited for a moment to pass. “Brother Dave has brought up an interesting point, my friends. Were there...peoples of Arab descent...when Jesus lived? Well, let’s see. He was born in Bethlehem.” His voice began to rise in volume. “He lived in Nazareth, he traveled to Jerusalem, he was crucified on the mount! So, Brother Dave, I would damn well say that he was practically surrounded by Arabs! In fact, he likely appeared to the people of that time to be of Arab descent himself!” Thomas paused, and silence filled the room.

  Grace remembered that she had turned her head then, looking back across the congregation. She remembered seeing Mr. Green with his head dipped low, his expression unreadable, when the sound had come. The horrible burst of heat and flame had flipped the pew where she sat backwards, spilling her and her family into the aisle behind. The smoke had filled the room, making what little breath she could draw into her seemingly crushed chest acrid. She recalled the ringing in her ears that had made her unable to hear the screams of her brothers and her mother as they lay bloodied and ruined beside her. She reached for Samuel. A broken bit of board protruded from his neck, as streams of blood poured down his white shirt. His eyes searched hers, asking for help. She held him, tears pouring down her cheeks. And she watched as the light dimmed, then disappeared from his eyes.

  The bomb had been planted in the bottom of the lectern where her father had been delivering his sermon. In all, eight had died that Sunday Morning. The first was her father. And for obvious reasons, at the subsequent funeral, his casket had been closed. The last time she had seen her father alive, was as he made his argument for tolerance. His last words had been about acceptance of those not of their faith. And yet, the bomb had been planted, just the day before, by an Islamic extremist from a fractioned terrorist group But though the passing of her father would forever change her inside, she still held his last message close to her heart. Even with the undying grief from the death of little Samuel, Grace still believed that tolerance, or more to the point, acceptance, was the true answer to end the bloodshed.

  Chapter 5