Chapter 4
Old Students
"It can't be!" Tod exclaimed. "Mr. Rumsfeld? You should be an old decrepit fart or dead by now! And you should be at least twenty years older than us! Seventy-five or even eighty years old, maybe!"
"I am a bit slow at aging," Ed noted.
Snake/Jim was equally dumbfounded. "This is his son, Hacker, not the Mr. R that we had for seventh and ninth grade history class!"
"Nonsense!" said Tod/Hacker. "Only the actual Mr. R would know our real names."
"But that's crazy!" Snake insisted.
"Small world, isn't it?" said Ed, hoping to change the subject. "And this is my wife of over forty years, Mary."
"Pleased to meet you Mrs. R," said Hacker, but his attention remained fixed on Ed. "Would you care to enlighten us about yourself Mr. R? And please address us as Hacker and Snake. We stopped using Tod and Jim a long time ago. We have somewhat courser images to uphold now, and the names Tod and Jim don't sound very intimidating."
"I don't suppose I have much choice," said Ed. He and Snake sat down in two of the chairs that faced Hacker, with Mary between them. "OK, you've got me. Yes, I'm Mr. R, in a former life your history teacher. Like my wife Mary I'm in my mid-seventies chronologically, but physically I haven't aged in over forty years."
"How?" asked Hacker.
"I was attacked by army ants in Virginia," began Ed.
"As were many people," said Hacker. "Yes, the army ant incident was in the local news and the talk of the school, and it got our folks upset enough to move west. We moved out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it turned out. But your particular neighborhood miraculously survived the army ant attack, correct?"
"Close enough. But what wasn't in the news was how I managed to survive. I didn't even tell Mary about it until years later. I was bit and stung hundreds of times. I would have died for sure but for jants and the experimental drugs given to me by my rogue geneticist neighbor. But there were unintended side effects of those drugs, maybe because I was also bit by a jant; I don't really know."
"Unintended little side effects such as your immortality?" asked Hacker.
"And telepathy," Ed added.
"You ain't a blood-sucking immortal vampire, are you?" Snake asked.
"If he was he'd have passed it on to me and I wouldn't be a decrepit old lady now," noted Mary from her wheelchair. "No such bloody luck."
"Not to mention that we just spent a hot time in the bright sun," added Ed. "Aside from the fact that there probably is no such thing as vampires, sun is a big vampire no-no, according to numerous authoritative books and movies on the subject. Besides if I were a vampire Snake would have been my entree on our flight here and I wouldn't be so hungry."
"But you're immortal?" asked Hacker again.
Ed shrugged. "Maybe. It looks that way so far. But I might also instantly turn into a shriveled dead mummy at any moment now, for all that I know. Ask me again in a century or two if I'm immortal."
"Plus you're also the white Mohawk chief that's been in the news for the last five years," said Hacker. "Back in Virginia forty years ago they said that you moved north to live with the Indians in New York. So your story line is all starting to fall into place. A lot of nifty stuff has happened to you, Mr. R. Interesting! And very illuminating with respect to the mysterious Jerry Green also."
"You always were a smart fellow," said Ed. Brilliant, as a matter of fact. Jim was very smart also but a bully; Tod was an evil genius. The pair dominated their class in Middle School but never gave Ed any trouble. "A lot has also apparently happened to you guys too. And I notice that you have quite a library here, including books on history."
"This is one of my smaller offices and book collections, Mr. R." said Hacker. "I still prefer paper books. Years ago you helped spark my interest in history and other subjects. To some degree the old adage you taught us that 'knowledge is power' has proven to be correct for me and my brother. Thanks for the tip."
"I was just doing my job," said Ed.
"You were doing more than your job Mr. R. You influenced Snake and I more than you know. We learned about many great men in your history class, Mr. R; including Napoleon, Alexander the Great and others."
"Genghis Khan is one of my favorites," said Snake. "And Hitler of course; though he had a really freaky nasty streak."
"Genghis Khan was more or less our early role model," admitted Hacker. "Only we use motorcycles instead of horses and we're much nicer."
"Hey, maybe we could get Mr. R to write our history!" said Snake.
"Or maybe not," said Hacker. "Knowledge can be dangerous. The counter argument to the usefulness of history is that ignorance is bliss. For example history can be used as an excuse to continue trouble among peoples. Look at the Germans being pissed off about World War I and how that led to World War II."
"Most historians regard that to be one conflict with a short rest-period for re-arming and growing more solders," noted Ed. "People should have probably called the conflicts World War I parts A and B. Or maybe simply the World War since now weapons have gotten so nasty that if there's another one there probably won't be enough people left to bother with naming it."
"Look at the Irish problems, and the Palestinians and the Jews, and the Sunnis and the Shiites, and the Indians and the Pakistani," continued Hacker. "Disputes go on for generations because of history, with the sins of the fathers being attributed to the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons. Occasional selective amnesia might be a healthier thing for humanity than history."
Ed shrugged. "Dumbing down the populace and story control have long been useful tools of dictatorship. Maybe you're right about sometimes wiping the slate clean and having a fresh start. But in balance I think that knowing history is a positive thing. Instead of focusing on Hitler or Genghis Khan, why don't you guys focus more on people perceived to be heroes in history instead of the villains? Haven't their stories also been applicable to history? What about Lincoln or Shakespeare or Einstein or Gandhi? Or religious superstars like Jesus or Buddha?"
"Those folks haven't been so applicable for us," admitted Hacker. "These are tough times for tough men, Mr. R."
"Tough like the two of you?" Mary asked.
"Our Stormtrooper Crew controls more than half of what was once California," said Hacker. "That didn't happen passively."
"We've done damn good for ourselves so far," bragged Snake.
"So far?" Mary prompted.
"Grow or die," said Snake. "Historically that's the way these things go, don't they Mr. R?"
"Sometimes," agreed Ed. "But eventually the overly ambitious dreams of such men outgrow what they can actually handle and in the end it usually falls appart."
"But they do end up in history books," noted Hacker.
"But not usually as people that have helped to build something lasting and worthwhile," countered Ed. "Usually something like that takes multiple generations and better motivations than individual greed for power. A society is much more than its contemporary leaders and the followers that support them. There are many flavors of people, institutions, and attitudes that collectively make up a successful civilized nation-state that lasts for multiple generations. Power-hungry men are sometimes remembered if they rise high enough in the food chain and disrupt things but they are not widely revered except perhaps by other power-hungry men and the hero-worshiping people that follow them. In the end it's a lot of peace-loving quiet hard working average people that signify in history, even though as individuals they don't make it into the history books."
"Those sort of folks are supposed to inherit the Earth but it hasn't worked out that way yet," said Hacker.
"Can't have everything," Snake said with a shrug.
"And yet you yourself work for power hungry Jerry Green," said Hacker, "and help the jants and Stone-Coats take over the world. What's with that?"
"Mary and I don't work for Jerry any more than he works for us," said Ed. "We and our Tribe friends help humans work with jants a
nd Stone Coats so that they don't have a need to try to take over the world from humans," said Ed. "Jants and Stone-Coats are here to stay. There's physically no way to get rid of them even if we wanted to, so we have no choice but to make the best deal that we can with them and live with them as friends. They help us and we help them; that's what we've managed to work out so far. At our Mohawk reservation in New York we humans wouldn't be able to survive without Stone-Coats, and the jants with their med-ticks have already saved millions of humans from illnesses."
"We've heard your propaganda, and perhaps further east what you say is true," said Hacker. "Here in our desert we humans rule and that's not going to change if we can help it. Some Stone-Coats we put up with, but we are beginning to have an outright war with jants and jant zombies."
"What the hell is a jant zombie?" Mary asked before Ed could. "A dead ant that keeps on going and going?"
"No, it's people with those giant ticks attached to them, being controlled by jants like puppets," explained Snake. "Some are dead people."
"That's crazy!" said Mary.
"It sounds like a cheap sci-fi plot!"
"Don't it!" said Snake. "There's a big struggle for power going on here in California, and jants are in the thick of it."
"You claim that jants are using med-ticks to control people?" said Mary. "That's monstrous! We've lived with jants for forty years and never seen that!"
"Then maybe you haven't been looking hard enough," said Snake. "Or maybe we have us some rebel jants out here that you don't have on your isolated Mohawk reservation."
"IS THAT POSSIBLE?" Mary asked Ed silently.
"THEORETICALLY IT'S PROBABLY ALL POSSIBLE," Ed answered. "There are no jants near here though." He would have sensed them. "Whatever you're doing to keep them away from here seems to be working."
"We do work very hard at that," said Hacker. "But mostly we have nothing to do with it. It's simply too hot and dry around here for jants to get by without human help. I suspect that maintaining their abnormally large brains puts a significant strain on their survival or intelligence would have happened to them naturally millions of years ago."
"That's true," said Ed. "Brain matter requires a lot of nourishment. Researchers have found that pound for pound jants consume twice the calories of their more primitive ant cousins. They'll eat about anything, of course, but human gathered food and garbage is a must for them in extreme environments and in cities where a lot of them are required to provide medi-tick treatment to humans."
"Harvester ants adapted to hot dry environments rule here," said Hacker. "Along the coast and further north it's a very different story. In milder wetter, cooler climates the jants thrive. One of the reasons I spend a lot of time here in the dry desert portion of our empire is for the natural protection against jants that the encroaching desert provides. There is too little food and water here for jants to live without human help."
"This is all fascinating," said Ed. "But right now we humans need food, water, and then a nap for Mary." He gave a pointed nod towards Mary, who was by now beginning to doze-off as she slumped in her wheelchair.
"You've got it Mr. R," said Hacker. "See to it, Snake. Then when you have Mary comfortably squared away we'll talk some more."
After Ed coaxed Mary awake Snake escorted the visitors to bathrooms and then to a small lunchroom. The lunchroom featured table, chairs, fans, lights, an old microwave, and an ancient looking refrigerator. Snake heated up a bowl of chili for each of them. "The beans and tomatoes are from our farms in the San Joaquin Valley," Snake explained. "Don't ask what the meat is."
"It's yummy," said Mary. "Tastes like fly, if it's not chicken. Am I right?"
"Yes, you are probably right," admitted Snake, surprised and impressed. "The giant flies are pretty rare around here compared to wetter parts of the state. Like the jants, they like it both wetter and cooler. But we catch and eat them when we can. If we don’t keep their numbers down they tend to swarm and eat people. Plus they do sort of taste like chicken, so what the hell? They're even tastier than rattle snakes, in my opinion. In the dessert you eat whatever you can get."
"And stuff in the desert eats you," noted Snake.
"What about condors?" Ed had to ask. Instead of becoming extinct, condors had made a surprising comeback and gotten much larger than ever.
"They taste like chicken too," said Snake, "but they're rarer and smarter than flies and harder to catch. We kill and eat them when we can, mostly because they do attack and eat people, especially people isolated and alone. Our people usually travel in pairs and carry shotguns."
"California condors aren't even a protected species here in California?" asked Mary.
Snake laughed. "In the Confederacy people are the protected species."
Ed extended his telepathic senses but detected no condors. Just as well, he figured. Condors had attacked him decades ago in Virginia. The experience left him a bit leery of the big birds. "We're no strangers to fly chili," he noted. "Despite difficulties you seem to be getting by very well here. You have food, electricity, running water, and functioning appliances. How do you manage all that?"
"Through smart leadership and hard work," said Snake. "There's no free lunch here in our Stormtrooper Confederacy, Mr. R. The electricity is from solar energy; we've been doing that here in California for decades. The roof of this building is covered with solar panels, though maintaining them or any technology is a real bitch. We employ almost as many tech maintenance people as we do fighters, despite our comparatively low-tech way of life.
"Controlling surface and ground water is our main thing though. Before we took over the State government failed to do that. The legal system and law enforcement was too slow and weak to quell the chaos. Hacker and I essentially established marshal law. In our benevolent Confederacy water is strictly rationed and comes from deep wells and from what is collected during our rainy season. We only get two or four inches of rain a year here now but we never got much more than that anyway. We get by here, barely. Further north where we do most of our farming is where we had to clamp down the hardest to manage every drop of water. We maintain the dams and we even managed to save a few aquifers, though most were destroyed."
"I noticed that you have old fashioned water-flush toilets," said Ed. "If you used Stone-Coat toilets you could save a lot of potable water."
"The Ranger Crews in Yosemite has been telling us that," said Snake, "but Hacker doesn't fully trust Stone-Coats and we don't make very much use of them."
"You have a bike crew in sequoia country?" Mary asked. "That's one of the places we want to go for our vacation!"
"And we're supposed to check up on the Stone-Coats there," added Ed.
"That's what your devious friend Jerry told me when he hired me," said Snake. "We'll need to talk about things some more before we decide what to do with you."
"When properly motivated I'm an excellent talker," Ed said.
"Meanwhile I hate to be a party poop but it's old lady nap time," said Mary. "Have you got someplace I can nap while Ed yaps with you guys some more?"
"There's a cot in the next cubicle, Mrs. R," said Snake. "Strangely enough sometimes we sleep here at the office. As I get older I'm becoming partial to siestas myself."
"Sounds like a good employment practice!" said Mary. "Especially in a place where mid-day can get too damn hot to do much else."
"We're building a lot of unground homes lately," said Snake, as Mary silently directed Wheels to take her to the cot. "Basement homes, we call them. We're copying the ways of the desert critters. The homes are cooler in the summer and the energy savings are fantastic."
"I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE YOU ALONE," Ed told Mary silently. She was looking very tired.
"WHEELS CAN WATCH OVER ME," she pointed out. "I WON'T BE ALONE."
"AFFIRMATIVE," said Wheels. "I WILL MONITOR HER HEALTH AND HER SURROUNDINGS CLOSELY. STAY WITHIN THREE KILOMETERS AND WE CAN MAINTAIN COMMUNICATIONS VIA YOUR IMPLANT."
Mary na
pped while Ed returned to Hacker's office and talked with the Williams brothers for several more hours. Ed was open about nearly everything, including what he was generally supposed to do for Jerry during the trip. He wasn't used to telling lies anyway, and it was actually a great relief for him to drop his Smith ruse and behave normally. The Williams twins in turn proudly told Ed more about their empire, which included all of central and southern California from just south of San Francisco and Sacramento all the way to the Mexican border, with the exception of San Diego and Los Angeles. San Diego was securely part of Mexico now, and Los Angeles and several other coastal cities and towns were in dispute.
Gradually more trust and mutual understanding was re-established between Ed and the Brothers, especially when Ed admitted that he didn't fully trust either Jerry or the jants. Stone-Coats were different though, he insisted. They were more open and straight-forward logical than humans or even jants, and they seemed to be incapable of lying or deceit. He told the Brothers that he wished that more people were like that.
Hacker laughed and brought up on his computer display a 'food pyramid' from a Stone-Coat perspective. Plants gathered carbon for the Stone-Coats. Animals including humans and jants helped gather the plants for Stone-Coats and pre-processed some of them, partially breaking down their molecular structure and concentrating the elements that were needed by Stone-Coats. Stone-Coats were shown to reside at the top of the pyramid. "This is from the Stone-Coat website," said Hacker. "This is the Stone-Coat oriented view of the world and our lowly place in it compared to them!"
Ed shrugged. "I can show you a hundred such pyramids that indicate the different perspectives of a hundred different species. It's all relative; I could put your human Stormtrooper Confederacy at the apex of a dependency pyramid if that will make you feel any better. But I've lived with Stone-Coats for forty years, and only gradually developed trust. A suppose it will take a while for you to do the same. This is all very interesting but could we talk about our vacation now?"
Finally it was agreed that Snake would indeed guide Ed and Mary through their long California vacation, though they would skip Los Angeles and nearby coastline and start with visiting the sequoia trees. Mary would be disappointed to be missing Hollywood and Ed would be disappointed to be missing Santa Barbara and the nifty south California coastline, but they would get over it. Ed and Mary would benefit from Snake's experience, resources, and connections, while Snake would later gain valuable insight into Northern California people, Stone-Coats, and jants. Snake often went on dangerous trips to the outside world, but he hadn't been to the North in over a decade. It was the sort of scouting mission role that Snake was used to; while Hacker stayed home and managed their empire.
But first they would stay for a day or two at China Lake, visiting with Hacker and getting outfitted for the long road-trip ahead. The coming road trip greatly worried Ed. He had naively assumed that he and Mary would ride through California in a nice comfortable air conditioned rental vehicle driven by their tour guide. Apparently that wasn't going to happen. The Williams brothers explained that there were many stretches of road that would only accommodate motorcycles; or motorcycles with little trailers or side-cars at most. Plus gasoline was scarce. And despite the heat, air conditioning was non-existent in the Confederacy.
"I don't think that Mary would survive such a trip in an open side-car," Ed told the Brothers. "The heat and the wind and dust would be too much for her, not to mention the bumps and noise. We expected smooth roads and to be in an air conditioned tour bus or rental car. We didn't realize that conditions were so bad out here."
"As we've explained, our roads no longer support cars and trucks," said Hacker, "as you'll soon see for yourself. And there are no Hertz or Avis rental cars south of Frisco. In fact I'm not even sure that they still have them even in the North. On the internet the North seems to be modern and prosperous, but Snake will try to assess such things in person when you travel there.
"First we have to acquire adequate transportation for Mary," said Ed.
"Maybe our mechanics could rig something up that's reasonably comfortable," said Snake.
"Maybe," agreed Hacker. "Take them to the Guest House in town and visit Clancy and Mack. That's the best we can do. But first we should phone Jerry Green."
"Rodger that," agreed Snake. "The fact that his aircraft didn't make it to LAX has doubtless been known by Green for hours. He's probably pretty worried and pissed-off right now. That's not good for a man as powerful as he is. Ed should talk to him first."
"Was there anything in particular that you guys wanted me to tell him?" Ed asked.
"Just tell him honestly what's up, Ed," said Hacker, as he handed a phone to Ed. The phone was probably fifty years old and didn't even have a 3-D imaging system like a normal visicom did. "Except don't tell him that we know he's an immortal like you. Like you he probably prefers to keep his immortality a secret, and Jerry Green is a very powerful and dangerous man."
"How did you find out that he's immortal?" Ed asked.
"Aside from the fact that you just now gave us final conformation, we put together all that you told us and deduced it," said Hacker. "It explains his relative youth. Our long held hypothesis had been that he's a jant zombie. Is he?"
"Definitely not," said Ed.
"Good," said Hacker. "Then we definitely would like to be on his good side."
Ed punched in Jerry's private number and was soon speaking with him. Snake switched the conversation to speaker-phone.
"Mary and I are safe and OK," Ed first explained.
"Excellent!" Jerry said. "But where the hell are you?"
"China Lake in California desert country," Ed said. "We were hijacked by your man Snake."
"I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised," Jerry replied. "Are you also in the company of someone named Hacker, by any chance?"
"Yes," said Ed. "It turns out that he and Snake were school students of mine in Virginia a very long time ago, back in our old neighborhood. It's always nice to meet old friends."
"The infamous Stormtrooper Confederacy Williams Brothers!" said Jerry: "The motorcycle gang leaders of South California! I should have suspected! Snake came with recommendations that were just a bit too glowing. But you've doubtlessly noticed that he has no telepathic ability; I obviously couldn't read him very well. What do you make of the Brothers?"
"I read them basically as friendly or at least rational," said Ed. "They're going to help Mary and me with our vacation."
"That's wonderful news, Ed!" Jerry said. "But what about my aircraft and data?"
"We were disappointed that your transport aircraft wasn't full of weapons bound for the State CHiP forces in LA," interjected Snake. "Our intent was to gain them for ourselves. At first I thought that I had blown my cover for nothing. But then we were pleased to discover that you and Ed are very close friends."
"Old friends that share a common immortality, you have doubtlessly surmised," said Jerry.
"Yes in fact we deduced that from what Ed told us of himself," admitted Hacker.
"Of course you have," said Jerry. "Knowing certain things can be dangerous; I advise that you keep that in mind."
"We also deduced that," said Hacker. "You have no concerns in that regard."
"I want my friends and my airplane back perfectly intact," said Jerry. "For reasons I don't fully understand your California governors have for decades requested that I not interfere with your little empire, but be warned that could very quickly and very dramatically change. Most of our National armed forces are involved in conflicts and humanitarian efforts around the world but we still keep a few hundred thousand troops here at home to mostly help manage domestic unrest such as your little Confederacy. Over the years I've as quietly as possible crushed dozens of rebellions, especially West of the Mississippi where the right-wing gun-toting extremists have long tended to cluster. Given sufficient incentives I could totally crush your Confederacy within a week or two and hit your China L
ake stronghold much quicker."
"That won't be necessary," said Hacker. "A friend of my friend is also my friend. I propose to return your aircraft to you so that you can fill it with small arms and ammunition and return it to us here at China Lake. You can have your cargo plane back after that if you want it. But there is something else that we want in return. Get State forces to withdraw permanently from Los Angeles. In return we will secure Los Angeles, maintain civilized order there, and ensure that it doesn't become part of Mexico. Snake and I increasingly regard our Confederacy to be a United States territory that buffers Northern California from further Mexican encroachment; that's why the State has tolerated our existence. We will also of course continue to refrain from expansion into the North."
"What about the Rumsfelds?" Jerry asked.
"We will escort them safely through their vacation, of course," said Snake, "including your tasking in the Silicon Valley. I will see to it personally, just as we agreed to. I am a man of my word."
"And what about my scientific research data cubes?" Jerry asked.
"We've already sent your data cubes to LAX by motorcycle as a sign of our good intensions," said Hacker.
"And kept the hundred-million dollar aircraft and the Rumsfelds," Jerry noted.
"You'll get both of them back safe and sound if you carry out your part of the bargain," said Hacker. "How does our proposed agreement sound?"
"Reasonable enough, assuming I can convince the California Governor," Jerry said, after a brief pause.
"Can you?" Hacker asked.
"I can be very convincing with state governments," Jerry said. "Anything else?"
"Tell the Tribe that Mary and I are having an interesting and wonderful time," Ed added. "I don't know when we'll get a chance to contact them directly."
"Will do!" said Jerry, signing off.
"That went quite well," said Hacker. "Los Angeles at last!"
"Don't count your cities before they're conquered,'" advised Ed.
"Sound history-based advice," agreed Hacker, "but I'm confident that we will at last take over LA! We just needed more weapons and leverage. We might even get the Mexicans to back off and out of Los Angeles once we get the weapons from Green, if we promise not to attack San Diego. Hey, maybe in conjunction with better weapons and a convincing threat of overwhelming force this diplomacy stuff really works!"
"Swell," said Ed. "It's so nice to see that you guys have a peace-loving humanitarian side."
"We badly needed a seaport," said Hacker.
"And I've always wanted a big city," said Snake, grinning. "Maybe instead of the City of Angels we could call it something more nifty like The City of Stormtroopers!"
"I hear it's a crap-hole," noted Ed.
****