The doomsday preppers, as a class, had been put on a master list in order of importance. A sophisticated algorithm regularly updated the list of Level One sites, the ones Homeland Security thought worth taking over in the event of any insurrection. NSA scanned the Internet for any mention of key phrases or credit-card transactions. Anyone buying, say, an electric generator and freeze dried food, or ammunition, during the same credit-card billing cycle would be added to a list of possible doomsday preppers. Homeland Security would search the target’s email correspondence going back five years, while the NSA program compiled property records, credit card purchase records, photo records, voice and messaging records. A Homeland Security drone would fly over any sites, once identified to take photos, sometimes during construction. Rural properties, especially those built expressly as “forts”, and with adjoining farms, were ranked Level One.
NSA had shared its information with important government contractors, asking them to build a database of all the important doomsday prepper sites in the country. A private intelligence organization reported 10,000 of them, and had built the database. Google had worked closely with Stratford and NSA; the special Google/NSA map of the Sierras was marked with several electronic red pins, all Level One forts. A click on Google Earth revealed photographic details under each pin.
An NSA employee had deleted the Phelps site’s coordinates from the agency’s computer records, along with hundreds of other doomsday forts in California. The records had been part of an extensive database that listed all the Level One doomsday-preppers’ sites in the country, including Hawaii. But the talked-about Phelps strong house had been relocated and added back to the list.
Prince had decided to use the Phelps site as his headquarters during the campaign to clear the Sierra Nevada of Howlers. The provisional government being formed in Washington thought he would be safe there. The region’s other doomsday sites would serve as forts in the new government’s war against the Howlers.
Senator Prince had two satellite radios on the table. CNN was playing behind him on one of the room’s flat-screen televisions. CNN was broadcasting live feed from the destruction of Washington, DC by huge mobs of Howlers. Prince, however, knew something the reporters didn’t: the DC Howlers were fakes, a false flag using the Western states’ outbreak as the opportunity for a coup.
A helicopter pilot was providing dramatic voiceover. The news ticker at the bottom of the screen said that the White House had been abandoned, and that the President and his family had been airlifted safely to Camp David. Due to the extraordinary emergency, the anchorperson said, the President had declared martial law “until further notice.” The military would be providing “continuity of government,” according to the President, who’d spoken to the country via a radio hook up early that morning. There was no further message at this time, nor any kind of explanation of what had happened in several major American cities on the West Coast.
The military had ordered all radio and television networks to stop broadcasting and to carry only approved news. CNN had been designated the official voice of the “provisional government.” Newscasters were using this term to suggest that the U.S. constitution had been abrogated, but no one at CNN questioned any of the military’s press releases.
With the help of government contractors, Senator Prince was cobbling together something called the “New Freedom Army.” Forces within the government had been waiting for any kind of social disorder to allow them to spring into action with a secret plan to “save the republic.” The emergency was the excuse needed to take over the U.S. government and run America with the super-rich at the wheel. The Howler emergency had been just the kind of national emergency they’d been waiting for—in fact, hoping for.
The senator was in close communication with other important members of the secret government. The Provisional Government’s first priority was the formation of something called the “Steel Ring,” which would both protect them from any counter-coup and insure their personal safety from the Howlers—which were real, and a threat.
The senator had had Rebecca brought to the Presidential Suite on the ground floor of the hotel. She’d been tattooed and was ready to be shipped to one of the new comfort stations the Provisional Government planned to open for its mercenary army.
The Provisional Government’s contractors, in anticipation of this takeover, had devised a new social order based on caste system, with slaves at the bottom. Slavery would make the new state able to compete economically against the rising Asian superpowers, especially China. Slave labor would build new factories. All prisoners of the New Freedom Army were to be tattooed with their new caste designations: BS for Blue Slaves, a category for the meanest hard labor tasks; CGS for comfort girl slaves; CBS for comfort boy slaves. OCSO-class slaves would be used in offices and big box stores, government relief centers, and in hospitals, and as support staff and domestic help. G-4-Zeros would be used in factories where reading and writing were required. The lowest castes would not be citizens, but would be “Use Slaves” and would work without any political rights. These castes were the property of the state and would be treated as chattel. A simple C would be used to brand conscripts to the army and police castes. Mercenaries were to be used as Special-Ops troops, and as a Pretorian guard for the top castes.
Army Conscripts would have full citizenship in the new state, but no political rights. Praetors, Bankers, and Consuls — men and women — would not be tattooed, but would wear uniforms with their caste clearly marked on their lapels.
The top caste, R1s, owned everything, including the State. R-1 ranking was reserved for the “Hundred Families,” and all their blood members. The Hundred Families would be represented on “The Council of One Hundred” by one male member from each family. Council members—called Praetors—would rule America by decree. Each Praetor would have one vote on the Council.
“What’s it stand for?” Rebecca had been stripped of her jeans and Pendleton shirt and was standing in just her bra and panties. A cruel new tattoo on her left shoulder read CG.
“Comfort Girl,” said Senator Prince. He wore a plush white hotel bathrobe.
A messenger stuck his head into the suite. “A large group of the things has been sighted near the hotel. Looks like they’re massing.”
“Stop them at the entrance,” Prince said. “We’ll be leaving soon for new digs by U.S. army helicopter. We’ll have two M1 Abrams tanks to clear the strong house at Timberline. They’re on their way from the Army’s Reno proving ground.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Comfort Girl,” Prince said again, turning to Rebecca. “That’s your designation now.”
“Designation?” Rebecca said.
“Yes, in the new country we’re building. This is a gift. Something we’ve been waiting for,” Prince said.
Rebecca looked at him blankly. He sounded like a crazy man. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Well, you’re a Comfort Girl now. You don’t need to understand. That’s the beauty of life in this new nation. People like you can do what you do best: serve us.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Rebecca said.
“It means you’ll give comfort to important people. Like me. It will be an honor to serve us. You’ll see. You will be happy in your work.”