Chapter 7

“Oh, my God, did you see that? An assault on the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond, no less! Richmond! These terrorists or insurgents don’t mess around! They seem to be winning, too, since the Governor never expected them to take the war to him. Yep, there it is! Governor’s Mansion in Richmond, Virginia, now in rebel hands. They seem to be moving on the state capitol next. The legislature.

“It seems that they wanted to hit the Governor first, a full-on decapitation strike. Yep, they’re raising some kind of new flag above the Mansion. The Christian flag. Great. Figures. More fundies. Good news is that we’re not in Virginia anymore. The bad news is that now a large part of this country is cut off from the rest of it and under the thumb of a bunch of wild-eyed zealots. I can only guess what they have planned for their new regime,” I grimaced as I held Becca and Taslima close and we watched the news together.

“Well, it doesn’t look good so far,” Becca told me.

Then she pointed to a viral video leaked onto the web which showed Governor Ralph Northam and his entire cabinet being lined up against a brick wall and shot. The insurgents didn’t waste time in obliterating resistance or rivals, that much was clear. Then his state trooper bodyguards, any of them still alive, were executed by the same firing squad. The Speaker of the House of Delegates, already injured by a torn hamstring, was forced to use a cane to stand up to meet his demise. Eight more legislators were quickly dispatched as well. There was no guarantee that the bloodbath would end with that, but this was the end of the video itself.

“That isn’t Hollywood. Did you see the look of abject terror in their faces as they faced the rifles of the death squad? That was real panic, genuine horror, authentic fear. They were, quite possibly, scared shitless. I know that look. I recognize it when I see it. The Governor and his advisers were all liquidated, just like that! It was much like how ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Al Nusrah behaved back in Syria. This is nothing less than a full-scale armed insurrection in one of the most prominent states in your country,” Taslima warned us, deeply troubled by this.

“By heavily armed religious fanatics, no less!” I exclaimed and she nodded.

“Welcome to my world, dear,” she told me with a kiss for both of us, “very sad to see it follow me here.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s theirs. I blame our leaders, and not just in politics. Media, social media, preachers, fanatics, extremists, etc. Last, but not least, the captains of industry were committed to keeping the ‘great unwashed’ poor and powerless. Their lobbyists and lawyers did everything in their power to gain taxpayer subsidies and evade taxes for their clients, too. So, the burden of taxes fell mostly on the shrinking middle class and the poor. Mostly in the form of inescapable taxes such as sales and excises. The only people who got a bargain on the price of their own government were the rich,” I scoffed even as I caressed and embraced both of my ladies.