Chapter 9

Month 76—April on Anouilh

“IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU, Dakota,” I said when she stepped off the bus. I looked over the two dozen plus members of her cast and crew—all females, of course. Man, we’d missed the presence of those girls by the pool the past two months. Then I saw the children. “Captain?”

“I know. I should have talked to you first. Let’s walk by the pool and get a drink. You wouldn’t believe the flight we were on to Miami and how many were seasick on the boat to get here,” Dakota said. She actually leaned on me and the contact was embarrassingly arousing. She didn’t let go, though, as we walked to the bar. I always had a woman at the bar who made drinks for us and our guests and generally kept the pool area picked up and clean. I had almost as many maintenance staff hired from Papillon as we had residents.

“What’s up?” I asked as we took our drinks to a shaded table, letting the rest of the crew sort themselves out at the front desk. I was still a lightweight drinker and had a rum and Coke. Dakota went straight for the scotch.

“Things are getting rough, Teddy. Weird things. We never had problems in California before. Everybody was live and let live. But it’s changing.”

“What’s happening?”

“Kidnappings, for one. Women don’t walk alone anyplace in California, and half the time they can’t even trust their escorts,” she sighed.

“I don’t get it. Why should there be anything going on in Cali? There’s nothing there to get upset with,” I said.

“Boss, you’re still living in a simple world. You and the guys are buried in code and engineering. The real world has changed,” Dakota said. “For one thing, the Confederacy pickups have been decreasing in the US for a couple of years now because of political unrest and outright attacks against them. But there is still a prevailing opinion that the Confederacy is taking all the good women from Earth and the men have nothing left to choose from.”

“That’s ridiculous. There have only been eight or maybe ten million people extracted from earth. That’s one reason we’ve decided to stay. There aren’t enough people going to make a difference out there. So, let’s say a quarter of the extractions are male sponsors and three quarters are female concubines. Way over simplified, but that means only about five million more women than men. Out of a population of seven billion people. There’s no shortage.”

“You can come up with those numbers with a nod to the math. Any man watching the tube and seeing even the edited version of the pickup videos sees men leaving with two or three women and thinks that’s a billion or two billion fewer women on Earth than men.” Dakota took a long sip of her scotch. “Teddy, a lot of people are angrier than hell out there.”

“I can see the illogic in it. But what’s the result?”

“People see California as untouched. Plenty of women. Starlets, movie moguls, rich folks. All the beautiful people are in California. So, with the infantile logic of mud wasps, they’ve decided to create their own harems and kidnap their own women to populate them. And California is the place to get beautiful half-naked women. The girls I brought with me this time? They’re the most scared. Some of them have kids. Some of them are popular on screen. All of them are targets.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” I asked. I was spending more time worrying about the problems of having a country to manage than I ever spent writing game scenarios. “I’m not exactly a world class daddy. More of a world class virgin.”

“Any one of those girls will lay you if you’ll let her stay here.”

“Stay?”

“We’re asking for asylum in the Independent Nation State of Anouilh. It’s time the porn industry—at least the women of porn—had a new location. I’d like to bring a couple hundred with me if you can get them out of California. We were searched and questioned at every port on the way here. It’s going to be impossible to just catch a plane in California soon. Think of it, Teddy. A couple hundred porn stars and your dozen guys.” Dakota leaned back in her chair and looked at me over the rim of her glass as I considered what she was asking. I needed to think this over. I excused myself and told her I’d see her and the crew at dinner.

“Boss, the delegation from Cuba has arrived on Papillon. There is a small military contingent accompanying an ambassador,” Ubie said.

“Any word about our expected Confederacy visitors?” I asked as I yawned. It had been a restless night as I came to grips with what it would mean to turn the island into a refuge for women in pornography. I could see a world of problems. At the same time, it played straight into my plan to turn the women into warriors.

“They have requested permission to stay at the resort this evening and hope to have dinner with you,” Ubie said. “I did invite them to dinner. It wasn’t their suggestion.”

“You and I are a team, Ubie. We’ll invite the Cuban ambassador or whatever he is to dinner with the Confederacy along with Dakota and a guest—her choice. I’d like to have Tatts with me, but please inform the rest of the team, crew, and staff that this will be a private dinner on the pool deck. What are we going to do with the military people? Are we supposed to feed them?” I headed out the door of the resort to grab a golf cart and go meet the guests.

With a military unit to organize before they could leave the dock, they were a while getting here. It seemed there were no suitable vehicles on Papillon for their force and they were marching to the causeway behind a sole 1960s vintage Cadillac convertible. The council had met the ambassador at the dock and simply told him that the capital of Anouilh/Papillon was at the resort and pointed them my way. The soldiers ran a Cuban flag up on the pole at the dock but as soon as they were out of sight it came back down and our new national flag was raised.

“Greetings, Mr. Ambassador. I’m Teddy Frisco. Welcome to my island.”

“I am not an ambassador. I am the duly appointed governor of this Cuban colony, Iglesias Montero. You will show me to my quarters and my honor guard to theirs.” The pompous little twit was a least speaking English, but then he repeated everything in Spanish as well.

“Sorry, Gov. You got here ... oh ... eighty years too late. After the July 26th Revolution, Fidel Castro renounced all claim to remote territories, including Anouilh and Papillon. This is the Independent Nation State of Anouilh,” I said. I was still smiling but the twit definitely wasn’t. “We have accommodations for you and one guest, but your troops will need to billet back on Papillon unless you have a credit card and can pay for their rooms. We charge $200 per night per person, plus personal charges, like meals.”

“No one has the right to renounce the sovereign territories of our nation,” the man announced.

“We will be happy to receive you as an emissary, but I don’t have time for a lot of political folderol. Please have your men move aside so I may greet my other guests. I can’t be responsible for anything that happens to them if they attempt to block the Confederacy party.”

“Confederacy! I was informed this colony had nothing to do with the Confederacy!”

“We are not associated with the Confederacy, but I don’t turn away expected guests. This is a resort, after all.”

“This is a part of Cuba!” The guy was getting very insistent when a horn honked and the soldiers started parting when they saw the Confederacy flag stuck with a magnet on the hood of an old Cadillac as well-worn as the one the Governor had arrived in. I was pretty sure the Confederacy guys could handle themselves, but I had drones in the air with stingers aimed and four guys at the controls just in case. The two Confederacy representatives, a man and a woman, stepped out of the car and walked toward me.