Chapter 9: Entertainment

Once they were alone in his office and seated, Anderson said, “Basic management skills. I’m guessing you never took that course, or had to supervise a lot of people, did you?”

“No, Sir.” She was puzzled by his words, as well as the feelings she had. She should be sickened by what he was doing to her. It was degrading. She’d actually killed someone, even if it was the right thing to do. But something felt different inside when he was actually using his hand to correct her, instead of the baton, and it was even stronger when she heard his use her first name.

“You know what Star Wars is, right?” he asked.

She looked puzzled. “Of course, Sir. Does that mean I’m not the prisoner you’re looking for?” she asked, making the waving finger motion from the film.

“Uh-oh! Hoist by my own Picard!”

“That’s mixing genres. No Imperial Star Destroyers going up against the Enterprise.”

His smile and laughter made her feel happier than she had in weeks, if not months.

“All right! I apologize, my Padawan. It’s just this being one of the last bastions of rednecks, and Kansas isn’t much better, the last thing I expected is someone who would know who both Ahsoka Tano and Ezri Dax are,” he said.

“Anakin’s Padawan from the Clone Wars, and the Trill host who took over when Jadzia Dax was killed, which made for an interesting dynamic between Worf and Bashir,” she said, smiling in remembrance. “I grew up watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and of course the old shows, with my father. He loved the possibility the future represented, hoping we would someday not just reach space, but explore it. We would go to the movies, the three of us. My mother would suffer through them, while father and I would marvel at the wonders Lucas created with Star Wars. He laughed so much seeing ET in the Imperial Senate, we nearly got kicked out!” She fell quiet, her eyes full of tears from her sadness at her loss.

“That’s when you turned to the Dark Side,” he said after a few seconds.

“At least you do not snore, or if you do, it did not wake me up. From your perspective as a rebel against the lawful government, I suppose you could say so. I wanted to make a difference, then. To stop something like that from ever happening again, so other girls wouldn’t lose their fathers. I learned the law at Yale, then tried to apply what I learned while working for the US State Department. They didn’t want my kind of help. When Missus Clinton took over, she did. I worked with Huma Abedin a lot, and I truly feel we were doing good for the world, making the world a safer place. Or I thought so. If the world was a safer place, I wouldn’t have killed a woman this morning!”

“What does my snoring, or lack thereof, have to do with anything?”

“Because I had time to think, damn you! I was physically exhausted, but you confuse me! I’ve not been with a man in years. A woman, either, but that’s beside the point. First I am treated like a specimen, a bug being examined under a microscope! Then you single me out, don’t allow me even the dignity of ill-fitting clothing, but parade me around like I’m some prize on display! I am not a supermodel or young woman, with a body that is fit and taut! You make me follow you around like a puppy on an invisible leash, because I know if I disobey, I will be hit with a baton or shot! Then you take me into your meeting, and treat me special! You don’t shave my head, you manage to get me physically excited, you bring me to an orgasm like I haven’t had from another in ages, you treat me like I’m staff when I’m not, and now, you’re spanking me with your hand instead of the baton! I don’t know what to think! You’ve even called me by name, like I’m a person to you!”

He opened his refrigerator, took out two waters, then got up and walked around to where she was seated. He handed her one, which she gratefully took and drank most of it. “Go ahead, finish that one, this one is for you, too.” She did, then exchanged the empty for a full one. He went back to his chair, pulled out a bottle for himself, then tossed her a couple of napkins from his desk drawer.

“You might need those. I’d tell you your mascara is running, but you don’t have any.”

She took them, wiped her eyes, then blew her nose. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Now that we’ve gotten some of the basic emotions out of your system, time for you to be analytical like Data. Or at least listen, and not blather on like C-3PO.” That got her to laugh.

“Okay, basic management skills. That means you praise in public, and punish in private. So, yesterday I didn’t smack you in front of Barracks Four, because those women would have liked it, and politely, that might have encouraged them to move against you, which meant half or more of them would be dead now. Not because I’m particularly being your chivalrous knight or anything, but I really am trying to keep as many of you alive as possible. Even this morning, I smacked you in private. However, your actions this morning were praiseworthy. First, you did something that – well, it didn’t quite take me by surprise, but on the other hand, it did, because I wasn’t expecting it. I honestly thought you’d make a plea for me to try to save Epps no matter what, with some story about every life being sacred or whatever. Then, even knowing that I’d just given you a pistol with eighteen rounds of ammunition in it, you did the only merciful thing, even if you couldn’t hold onto it after firing it.”

She shook her head. “Truly, I can understand that. But what I don’t understand is, why me? I know I asked you about why you chose me, before. I cannot believe that it was purely random chance, not with a hundred women to choose from!”

He snorted. “There wasn’t supposed to be anyone chosen, not yet, if ever. This camp is exactly what it appears to be; a holding facility for people we’ve deemed too dangerous to leave behind in what is now captured territory. Or too stupid, if I can be perfectly blunt with you. What do you think of the women that served our meals yesterday, and now breakfast today?”

“They are eager to please, which surprises me considering they’ve gone through the same things the rest of us have. You called them squeaks, because they are mice.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t believe you meant that they are good at hiding. You were talking about their actual character, something they did before they were arrested and brought here. But it must’ve been recent. I was only in a holding cell in Kansas City for a week, before being thrown into the truck for transport here.”

“Well, civilians tend to not pay much attention to actual combat until one of two things happens. Either you have an immediate family member get killed and you get a visit from the chaplain, or someone is shooting and blowing up your neighborhood. On the whole, so far this has actually not been that destructive of a war, when you get down to it. Neither side are trying to imitate Sherman’s March to the Sea, or Vlad’s sticking his dick into it in Ukraine. Not yet, anyway. Remember I told you about the county map? Visual aid time, come here.”

A puzzled look on her face, she got up, walking around behind him, so she could see his computer screens.

“Okay, here’s the first, general county breakdown. Red is a county that voted for the brash incumbent, blue was for the senile old fart. That’s a hell of a lot of the country, isn’t it? But, the thing is, land doesn’t vote. People do. That’s where this map comes into play.” He put a map up on each screen. “This is from almost five years ago, of course. Things last year didn’t really come to a head until the governors ordered their election boards to not certify the electoral college results, and actually refused to accept them. Then when they went ahead with the inauguration anyway, that’s really when the shit hit the fan. You see these two big blue dots? That’s Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth, and then this big one is Houston. Little one over here is Austin. They spread the red dots around Texas, because that blue are the population centers. Even so, fuckwad lost Texas by more than six hundred thousand votes five years ago. Now, how blue is the west coast?”

“That must be all the cities; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and others,” she said. “It’s very blue!”

“Exactly! There’s seventeen million people voted in California, with a difference of five million between the two. That’s also why we have the electoral college instead of a popular vote. Just that five million vote difference is more voters than live in these seven states combined, let alone the eleven million morons that did vote for fuckwad. Remember I said how all those boxes showed up five years ago? Nobody is going to argue about a vote difference of five million. Look at this. Three point four million votes, with only ten thousand difference. Five million votes, with twelve thousand difference. Three point two million votes, twenty thousand difference. Seven million votes, with eighty thousand difference. That’s three of four states with less than a zero point seven five percent difference, eighteen point three million voters in all four states, and less than a hundred twenty five thousand votes determined the election five years ago.”

He took in a deep breath, then let it out. “As I said, it’s not like they didn’t find proof of more than two hundred thousand fraudulent votes, just in one state. You would’ve at least thought there was some interest in maybe a recount, or checking things. You won your re-election two years ago on an automatic recount, after all, so you know about legitimately close elections. But that was five years ago. Here’s the maps from the congressional elections three years ago. Notice anything different?”

“The blue blobs aren’t as big, and most of the southern states on the county map are now all red, instead of partially red.”

“Exactly. The balance shifted, drastically. The Senate went from fifty – fifty to forty-five – fifty-five. The House went from two hundred twenty-two versus two hundred thirteen to one ninety-four to two forty-one. People vote with their wallets, and inflation spiraling out of control doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. That, and also not accepting responsibility. Sure, we had to deal with Covid. The whole damned world did. But you also had the southern states opening up for business as usual after a while, when the northern states were still on lockdown, or shoving people with Covid into nursing homes that didn’t have it, so they died, well, there’s your two basic different philosophies. You’re either a public servant, and listen to the people that elected you, or you’re a ruler and impose dictates upon them.”

Very quietly, el-Azizi said, “That’s what happened to my mother. She was in an assisted living facility in New York. They were Covid free. Then they got told to they had to take people, regardless of their status. Half the residents of that facility died within three months.”

After a moment, Anderson replied, “I’m sorry for your loss is never enough. I apologize for bringing it up like this. I didn’t know.”