Chapter 6

“Okay, we have some structure determined around the laws and such. The treaty is going to be called the Treaty of Peking, since they want to make this happen so much. We will drop the entire thing in their laps,” the President said.

It was about six weeks after the initial meeting in the Oval Office during which Sharra had first answered questions about the incident in London. Many meetings had obviously taken place, but most of them had not included Sharra, since she was only a U.S. Marshall. Of course, some Marshalls are more equal than others, she told herself.

In those six weeks, she had gotten a crash course in law and, in particular, Federal law enforcement operations, policies, and procedures. She was about thirty-five percent through the entire eighteen-week program. So many aspects of what she was learning were so very different than what she had studied before, but she was up to the task.

The effects of the meal had fully worn off five days after she had had it, and she found that, much to her guilt and shame, her body craved it once again, although that was seriously fading now that a lot more time had passed. The guilt and shame had been tougher to get over, leading her to spend a lot of time with the departmental psychologist at the US Marshalls building, since she was no longer part of the State Department.

Keith Hansen had been sorry to see her go, but he was glad she had a place to land that would not put her at risk of foreign leverage, which would certainly happen on a foreign posting if word got out. But even that was going to end at some point, since everyone who decided to survive was going to become a cannibal anyways.

Sharra had decided to accelerate the training as much as she could, and as much as the trainers were available to work with her, since things were moving forward on the issue. A phone call from her good friend Tucker, A.K.A. the President, had opened those doors for her, and she was working through the training at almost twice the normal pace. One-on-one attention would do that, as would a willingness to put in ten-to-twelve-hour days six days a week. She was going to finish the remaining twelve weeks in just over seven, which some were complaining was way too fast for her to ‘properly absorb the material’. Her program leader in the training was happy with the results they were getting, so that was all that mattered.

It was a long way from her dual doctorates, one in Human Biology/Physiology and another a year later in Organic Chemistry, she reflected. And the journey had been very roundabout to get here, the Oval, from her Ivy League education. This was NOT at all what she had planned to do.

Now she paid attention from her position in a chair at the very back of the Oval Office, not sure why she was invited to this meeting, but she was bound and determined to exceed expectations if she could.

“Attorney General Bernard, if you could be so kind as to present what your team has been up to, I’d appreciate it.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. We have had a team of approximately three dozen people working on this for the last five weeks or so. Everyone has been required to sign Government Secrets-level non-disclosure agreements, with significant punishments outlined and agreed to in advance should this leak. We are confident that no leaks have occurred and won’t occur moving forward.

“The overall Federal law is going to be the Population Management and Control Act. That will be passed first. The PMCA will then direct the states to pass a number of laws in adjunct to the PMCA. All state legislation requirements that must be met are spelled out in excruciating detail in the PMCA. The PMCA also spells out the consequences of a state delaying or refusing to pass the required legislation.

“Those consequences include total relinquishment of all Federal aid, including aid to local governments and the state government, highway, road, and bridge construction and reconstruction funding, all Social Security funding to retirees, all Medicare/Medicaid funding, and all funding to support education, including direct aid to schools and the availability of Federally-backed student loans of every kind. Don’t pass the state laws, expect to be cut off from DC money. And the loss of Federal funding is permanent. It will not be reinstated once it is gone. They get one chance to get this right. If they take a flyer on this, they can expect to become a third-world equivalent of a ghost-town within a very short period of time.

“First, there will be a state version of the PMCA, called the PCA, or Population Control Act. There will be legislation surrounding the establishment of a registration board requiring eligible women to register, receive an identifying number, and inform them that they are required to provide up-to-date contact information, including current home address, personal phone numbers, and personal email addresses. Failure to update contact information results in a declaration of runaway status if someone is selected and has not updated their info. More on runaways later

“The PMCA also establishes the age range of those eligible to be selected as from the day of a woman’s eighteenth birthday through the last day they are thirty-nine years of age, the day before their fortieth birthday.

“Next, there is legislation around how women are chosen. A lottery system has been proposed, and an initial court case was run out to the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia in a secret hearing to confirm that a lottery can be used for this purpose. That was confirmed. Again, NDAs were signed, including by the legal team that was asked to act in opposition.

“Third is legislation defining exclusions and exceptions to being chosen. Obviously, we wrote the preliminary exclusions and exceptions list to be ignorant of color, race, religion, gender preference, class, and income level. The only exclusions from selection will be in the areas of critical roles in government service, critical roles in military service, law enforcement, social value, and for mothers of male children where those children are under the age of eighteen at selection time.”

She paused, waiting for the inevitable furor at her last two categories, and she wasn’t disappointed.

“Why only mothers of male children? This will tear families apart!” That came from Gerald Northam, the secretary for Health and Human Services.

“I know this will sound cold-hearted, but if being a mother of any child, including girl children, gets you excluded from this, what is to stop every eligible woman from going out and getting pregnant? If any child excludes the mother, then every woman will get pregnant, and the population curves will force us to kill more than can be consumed by the food chain. The entire system will be pointless, and we might as well not implement it at all. You read the statistics. Is it better that we preemptively and randomly kill one out of every six girls on their seventeenth birthday to keep the rest of us alive? Who is going to make that choice?” Grace finished while staring pointedly at Gerald, then looked around the room when Gerald couldn’t think of what to say.

“What’s coming is real. Everyone who has studied this will tell you unequivocally that we are heading to a massive famine. The only disagreement is if it is going to destroy us in fifteen years or in twenty years. It will be sooner, much sooner, if we do not handle this correctly. The ONLY way through where our country, our way of life, and the lives of our citizens survive with anything close to a civilization is this most barbaric, uncivilized act that we must implement.

“I don’t like it. As a matter of fact, I hate it. I wonder how I will be able to sleep after this, if I ever do again. I expect that as the architect of the legal structure behind this, I will go down as the most hated person in the history of this country; not just up to now, but for all time. And the fact that I am a woman will make it worse. I expect to have to get my children to change their names and cut all ties to me.

“I have no other options. Does anyone else? Anyone?” She looked around the Oval Office angrily, aware she was losing control of her emotions in the face of what she was presenting, and no one would meet her eyes. Except Sharra. She nodded solemnly to the Attorney General, a show of support that melted the haunted look in the older woman’s eyes slightly, and she nodded back gratefully.

“Ms. Bernard, Grace,” President Melville said gently, “This will not fall on you. It will fall on me. Your hand in this will be part of the classified documentation on this. I am the President. I have to do this.”

“With all due respect, Mr. President, no, you can’t be the face of this. An Attorney General can be easily replaced. A President can’t. And if it is attempted, the disruption to the world will be catastrophic at this crucial time. At a minimum, it will delay implementation and speed us towards a policy of a high percentage random, selected termination of teen females.” She paused to make sure the President understood her, before continuing. “This has to be me. You have to let me take the heat on this. You don’t have to like it, Mr. President. But you have to distance yourself from the majority of this, in a kind of ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ sort of way, so to speak, so that you provide continuous leadership. There is no other way to limit the deaths that will be coming to us.”

“We’ll talk about this after the meeting. Not saying yes or no at this point. But we will talk. Please, continue with your presentation.”

“Very well, Mr. President. Moving on.

“Forth is the legislation that will compel people to be compliant.” A sigh escaped her. “We knew that this was going to be the most difficult part of this. Like the state compliance measures, these are ... I suppose you could say these are designed to be more barbaric than the actual program. If willingly marching to your death is less troubling than trying to avoid it, the program will be much less ... difficult to get going and maintain.” Grace’s emotions were obviously beginning to get the better of her.

“Grace, do you wish to take a moment to gather yourself?” Tucker Melville was known to be compassionate and considerate of others when he had the luxury to do so, and it was out in full display now, something others in the President’s inner circle had only heard about third hand.

Grace Bernard took a deep breath in, held it for a few moments, then let it out in a sigh. After her somewhat emotional outburst earlier about her fate in this, everyone gave her the time. No one wanted to be in her shoes, and no one was willing to be seen as the one that was coming down on her. She was right, more than one person reflected. Whomever was the face of this was most likely going to become the person without a country.

“Thank you, Mr. President, but I think I’ll be okay for now. Later will be interesting, but...”

“When you’re ready, Ms. Bernard. Take your time.”

“Okay, the legislation to ensure compliance is the most difficult piece of the whole puzzle. Without it, the whole program falls apart, and we end up where we would be without this.

“One, when women become are chosen and become selectees, they will lose any and all rights under the constitution, and as a result, they will have the same legal status as non-human livestock. This change in legal status is necessary to allow them to be killed for this purpose in the first place. They will then be sent to a local facility that will be a human slaughterhouse. We will cover slaughterhouses themselves next.

“The families of those who comply willingly with the selection order will be compensated, either through their tax return at the end of the year or by outright payment of a portion of the market value of what is taken from the selected.

“Two, if a selectee chooses to fight the legal notice to report, any injunction in the case will be rejected outright, and the last date of legal action in the selection will still be enforced.

“Three, if a selectee chooses to ignore the notice, or is unaware of the notice, and does not report by the last date of legal action in the notice, they will be considered a runaway, and subject to immediate public termination. Drivers’ licenses and credit cards will all be flagged, and an immediate response by law enforcement will be required to apprehend the runaway selectee.

“It should be noted that selectees who commit suicide or deliberately try to make themselves unfit for processing will be treated as runaways, and their families are subject to the same ramifications as if they had actually run. More on those actions in a little bit.

“Local courthouses, police stations, or local government centers such as a city hall, will be required to set aside a publicly visible and viewable space where the termination will take place. The termination will be done by impalement, and will take place as soon as possible under daylight conditions. The method of implement will consist of a spike similar to a roasting pole, sharpened on one end, that will be mounted vertically into an elevated viewing platform at a height of approximately six inches taller from the floor of the platform than the vaginal opening of the runaway. The runaway will then be lifted up and the pole will be inserted into the vagina. With hands bound behind her, the selectee will then be left until they are unable to support their weight and, as a result, are impaled. If death does not come immediately, they may be terminated by any locally-acceptable slaughterhouse-approved method.