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"Please. Tyler. This just isn't productive. We're never going to admit to committing genocide. And no war crimes. That's ridiculous."
"That's what Stalin said, after WWII. Did you know that? He insisted that there be no definition of genocide that included ideological genocide. Just like you now!"
"How does that pertain to us today?"
"Because you're a supremacist Socialist Fascist pig! You pigs, who accused US of being the worst SOBs that ever lived--that title is YOURS!!! And you're going to admit it, lick it up, and pay for every fucking bit of it!"
Allard smoldered; twitched his face again for self-control. He let out a slow, strained strand of breath as he recomposed himself.
How I would unleash on this guy if I didn't need him.
"Please. Tyler. These childish tirades. . . . Please. Can't we get past these unsettling and rude emotions of yours? It's all water under the bridge! You're alive. You're doing fine! We can start all over. All we have to do is agree on what the new boundaries are going to be: what is your territory, and what is our territory. It couldn't be any more simpler or cleaner. We regret all the rest, but there was nothing we could do. It was war and we had to secure our territory and allegiances!"
"Oh. Oh, that's all it was. You disarmed thirty million people and somehow they were still a threat to you, and so you ideologically massacred all thirty million of them. Yeah. That's perfectly easy."
"Where do you get this ridiculous figure?! 'Thirty million'?! Who are you listening to that gave that perfectly ludicrous figure?!"
"Oh, let's see. Like there's no goddamn surveillance in this world? Um. You ever hear of hi-res satellite photos? You ever hear of eye-witness accounts? How about computer hackers and spies? How about mass burials and graves? How about partisan reports from behind enemy lines?"
Allard waved it away; it wasn't anything.
"You're believing them?! And Fox News, too? Really?! You're telling me you're watching Fox or something? Please! You actually believe them?"
"You want me to show you photographic evidence?"
"What do you have?" Allard seemed almost a little frightened.
"Hi-res satellite photos of mass shootings and burials. I've got hi-res photos from LA, Oakland, San Fran, Seattle, Portland. NYC, Boston, Albany, Philly, DC, Baltimore, Chi-town, Detroit, St. Paul. Shall I go on? What happened? You couldn't get us to knuckle under and stop laughing at you, so your Commies took over?"
"Who has seen the photos?"
"Everybody on our side. All you had to do was look at our news. We sent it to Europe. They wouldn't run it. All you did was ad another thirty million to the redistribution totals, like 130M. You want to see the stuff that turned my stomach?"
"I don't believe you."
Tyler flipped up the nearest pad, angling the screen to Allard. "I got it all at the press of a button. You got a couple days?"
Allard remained icy. "It wouldn't be productive."
Tyler couldn't stand it. He couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. What had happened to this man, Allard? An American! Not a man raised in Communist Soviet Union under Kruschev or Mao. Astonishing. The world turned upside down. It always did in interrogation with true grit redistributionist monsters. But to sit at a table with a sociopath and watch him dodge playfully around the reality that he was fronting for ideological genocidal mania, and it all meant nothing? It stabbed Tyler in his moral being to sit and watch and feel this man think and speak as if he had a metal plate in his head separating his mouth from the reality that thirty million had been wiped off the face of the earth for a failed economic policy that the redistributionists themselves were already souring on, like the Soviets and Chi Coms before them.
How could love and normalcy and prosperity ever mean so little?
Just another Socialist spree of vengeful, opportunistic genocide.
Tyler wondered what was going through the "Political Officer" Folk's head during all this skirmishing? Probably as little as in Allard's.
They were perfectly impervious to their own doing and history.
"Am I hearing you right, General, that the North American Democrat Comintern you represent says that there can be absolutely no recognition and punishment for the Socialist genocide of thirty million Americans and 1.5 million Canadians?"
"Who said anything about a 'Comintern'?!"
Tyler's eyes dilated. "You did!! That was your name for your own government up until last week! What, did you redact that too, now that the war's not going so well?"
"This is ridiculousness and lies! What are you even talking about?!"
"Are you kidding me?! That's what you called your own government!"
"We did not!"
"And you were so proud of it! Gloating at us when you popped it out of the sack, because you had kept your dirty little Marxist secret for so long! Oh, my God! You're unbelievable! So you're redacting it again? Your Marxist taproot; hiding it again! Like none of this shit ever happened. Do you do this dance for our sake--or your own?!"
Allard tweaked his head sideways, sick of this absurd talk. "First of all, we are not surrendering anything. We are reaching a peace accord."
"We also want to list of all Socialist conspirators and spies behind our lines."
Allard lifted the pads of the fingers on his right hand. "Who?"
"Yep."
"You're imagining enemies where none exist. More Red Scare."
"General, you don't seem to understand. America isn't negotiating a forgiving and trusting peace with you. The war is finally going our way--your people are losing faith. They're all living in poverty except for you One Percent Party Member Fascists at the top and your kids. You Sovieted yourselves! You can't afford a goddamn stick of celery, let alone a rope to hang me with, you Marxist moron!"
Allard incinerated; desperately choking his own throat muscles to keep from exploding at this Capitalist maniac and lunging at him. But he couldn't do it. It wasn't the time. Patience. Patience. All in good time to murder every last one of them--and their goddamn viper children. He burned; needing to let it go. To keep up the front. "As usual, you are reading only your own Right Wing propaganda. We are fine. The Chinese are sending us another 10,000 tanks next month and 1,500 Kang Killer Helicopters. We have conquered poverty and hunger on our side of the fence and everyone is flourishing in our schools and universities. We only want a peace accord to save lives, as we know you of course want to do as well."
"General--China isn't sending you dick cause they know you won't win now, and they know you won't pay them back a nickel. Besides, they like us better than you. They think what you did to America is a crying shame. They're not worried about us! They're confident in their role as Number One. They in fact look forward to a little competition on the world stage of commerce and enterprise. They admire us. They admire US! Not you! Can you imagine?! Your own Socialist brethren, they see right through you. Putin, the Chinese, they all warned you about Socialism. 'Stay away! Stay away!' they told you. But facts don't penetrate ideology, do they?"
Allard let all this pass unmolested. "Then why agree to peace with us? Why not stay the course and win?"
"Why do you think you're talking to me? A Colonel? Where's Braham? Where's Walter VanGogh? They're not in another city talking with any representatives of yours."
Allard stared, frozen again, a voice saying to him:
Leap across the table and murder him to shut him up!
"So, why are you even here?"
Tyler plainly saw that this stab about the Chinese had also hit the mark. Allard could see that their "Peace Proposal" wasn't being taken very seriously.
"I'm here to listen. Wondering if I see signs of you Commie shitnerds having your Socialist bankruptcy epiphany."
"Do you see it?"
"Not one bit. I see wealth redistribution reality-deniers still believing in the free ride, blaming us and saying Socialist genocide never happened." Tyler tried again. "So, what happened? I already know what happened by deduction. Your shit didn't work, the Commies came out, took control, pushed you aside--or maybe you're one of them. And bam! They all got your states ablaze and started mass-murdering people."
"After we settle our borders, we can work on a more lasting peace. Doesn't that sound appealing to you? Don't you want peace?"
Tyler spun to Shirley Folk. "How about you, shitnerd 'Political Officer'. You want to start a confession to take the heat off you in your War Crimes Trial?"
Tyler watched the dull, flat reptilian eyes; waiting.
No remorse.
Shirley actually had regular nightmares about War Crimes Tribunals. He hoped he had all his ducks in a row.
Tyler stared at the redistributionist with the metal plate in his head.
Allard renewed, "What we are offering is a generous road to peace; lasting peace. Our kids will never have to fight and die again."
Tyler swallowed. They just didn't do their homework. This guy doesn't know that Khashi and I already lost a child to them and their Godforsaken killing spree.
"We want a lasting peace. You'll have your country and we'll have ours."
"North and South Korea," Tyler muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"Who in North Korea didn't know what they had sucked balls? Huh? Who? South Korea, tearing it up, turning into a world-class prosperity dynamo, and you redistribution clowns up North pretending it wasn't happening and all you could ever think about was jumping the DMZ and ripping them a new asshole. How do you figure?"
Shirley Folk couldn't believe they'd sent this guy to negotiate. They really must be confident of victory if they sent this guy to antagonize us.
Allard marveled at Stowell's wit. Was he a plant by the American Command put here to whittle away at his confidence? That couldn't happen. They'd kill him and his whole family for ideological weakness. It was true; the Commies had materialized out of the woodwork when all the heavy lifting was done. Allard was one of them. So was Tommy. The Commies were the reasons why the witty Americans like Stowell in the re-education camps had stopped laughing and talking back like this. The old leaders of Occupy and other progressives came forward in the breach to literally cut the tongues out of the heads of anyone who refused to be buckled by the softer Socialists. The aging actress Cher had been handed a knife and given an opportunity to cut a tongue out of a woman's Tea Party head. On television. The harder Socialists apparently knew all along that Class Warfare and Socialist Utopia and Equality were ideals that required trenches to be filled with severed heads. Like Marx and Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and Alinsky had all said. And the talk-back had certainly stopped. And the bank accounts and the Power had certainly been seized.
Tommy Evans had cut off Bill Gates's head and moved into his mansion. He had let his guards rape all the women in the house.
It was--surprising, what had needed to be done.
"We have to put all this rhetoric aside, if we are to have lasting peace."
"Alright. I'll humor you. What do you want?"
"Our conditions?" Allard said.
"Yeah. Your 'conditions'."
Allard shot his eyebrows, as if surprised to finally get a chance to speak. "Well, first of all, your side must agree to pay us reparations."
"Reparations. For what?"
"For--obstructing our efforts at social progress. For your racism that provoked this entire war. For traumatizing our citizens. For damages. For crimes against the wellbeing of the poor and the down-trodden."
"This war was of your doing, not ours. We were happy watching TV and making a living, raising the quality of life of the world. Until you gangsters came along."
"No. Reparations. To help the impoverished."
"'Keep the peace' money. Like you pay to the mob?"
"If you want peace, you have to take care of us."
"And how long do I have to carry you around on my back rather than you getting off my back and getting a job raising the quality of life of the world?"
"It's not like that. You have to carry us."
"And for how long? And what if you weigh 900 lbs? What if you have nine kids? Do me and my kids have to carry you for your entire lives rather than you get a job raising your brother and sister's quality of life, like I am? How come you don't have to? How come I can't spend my life riding around on other peoples' shoulders just like you? Why should I raise anyone's quality of life either?"
"None of what you're saying makes any sense or any difference."
"I respectfully disagree. And it's my back you're breaking. Besides, God so made the world that you aren't made healthier by me doing your walking for you. I may agree to get you some supplemental income, but you have to do your own walking. So, no. Me and my kids aren't carrying your lazy asses on our backs."
"You're comparing apples to oranges. It makes no sense."
"When was the last time you turned on the light-switch of your mind?"
"It is only fair to the poor. They're all on our side of the border."
"That's because ours are growing out of poverty! That's because you two made a pact with the Devil together! They gave you power and you paid them off with our money for lifetime worklessness!" Tyler wanted to laugh, but he remembered his child. The old pain, dulled, flatter; yet still suffocating.
"It is a little thing to ask."
"Always is in the beginning. But it grows, don't it? It grew into this, didn't it? You killing me; me killing you. You spinning slow little ideological circles in your mind instead of really thinking? You still wanting to murder me no matter what I ever say."
"It's so little to ask."
"I'm sorry. That was before the war. You lost. We're not paying you jack. In fact, its you that's going to pay reparations, for bringing down the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, the rights of Englishmen, prosperity, the dollar."
"How about we talk about borders, then? You have the interior of the nation and we have the coasts."
"How about we put it to a vote in all the regions you claim to control? And how about we bring back the Second Amendment to all those places too you took it away from and see what you have left after that?"
"That's not going to happen."
"Really? No free and fair elections?" Tyler scoffed. "You guys are back there doing voter fraud in your own country already?" He slapped his hands and laughed coarsely, Reicherstown and Munoz smiling sternly.
Allard stared indulgently.
Shirley Folk wondered how much longer the war would last. And how many more people would die? And how much more misery would there be?
Just the lost technology alone. And watching China leap into clear first place as the major power in the world while America imploded.
Tyler said, "Fine. You can keep all that. You won't hold it long anyway. But we're going to take back DC, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. All your people have to move out and they can't come back in. We'll also come up with a list of other cities where you have to pull back all influence. And your people are only getting one warning. If you pull the same redistribution-creep you did last time, it's over."
"What about all the displaced people? What should we do with them?"
"I don't know. Why don't you genocide them all? That seems to be your solution for everything, doesn't it? Kill 'em all? When your shit doesn't work?"
"Well, these are good places to start."
"Or you could eat them. You Socialists have done that in your countries."
"All good places to start, negotiations."
"I don't even know if you'll get this. I mean, your soldiers aren't shit now. They were at first, but now that they see you in power they're asking themselves what they're dying for. They're losing motivation; they're surrendering to me in droves, they tell me they can't stand you, they want money, prosperity, a job. They don't want to die. They're tired of there being no food. I mean--when do you figure it out?"
"I could tell you the same thing."
"Yeah, but it would be just another Socialist lie. And--we've got more Psyche-Pulse weapons on the way. You guys don't like those at all!"
Allard turned pale, sure enough.
And Tyler noticed. He saw news of the brain weapon stabbed Allard deep.
The dreaded gun.
The gun that supposedly killed by blowing up a guilty conscience. The gun that proved there was no such thing as redistributionist moral relativism.
The weapon that proved God existed.
Shirley Folk wondered what Stowell was talking about.
Allard's fingers trembled faintly when he tapped the table with the flat of his hand, signaling a healthy finality to the proceedings. "This has been very productive."
Tyler shook his head. "No, it hasn't."
"I disagree," Allard smiled. "We've had good exchanges."
"I've kicked your ass."
Allard stood; his "Directors" stood with him. He reached across the table to signal a handshake, but it was far too large a table. Stowell didn't bother to react. He was surprised Allard didn't have the usual redistributionist cool not to have offered friendship. Folk was practiced enough in DC not to budge.
Tyler Stowell had the sense of weightiness and historical identification where he knew exactly the frustration and amazement that the US Army generals had felt sitting across the table from the Soviets at the conclusion of WWII.
Sociopaths. Animals. Unfeeling and blood-caked.
Amazing that they were so good at dragging their brothers and sisters along to ruin. Amazing they could have flipped America ass over teakettle.
Tyler, Reicherstown and Munoz followed the Fascist embassy out of the big tent, watching the men as they walked back to their trucks.
Allard waved, smiling pleasantly, as if nothing had ever happened. Tyler and Munoz just stared. The image brought to Tyler's mind the ancient movie reels of Joe Stalin smiling to the cameras even as he was ordering the re-opening of the old Nazi concentration camps that he would use until his death in 1955.
The Fascists climbed high into the cabs of the troop trucks. The drivers gunned the rattling engines, turned around, the deep treads on the huge tires sifting into the silting dust to send it coiling lazily into the low sunlight of late afternoon.
Munoz asked his superior, "How do you think talks went elsewhere?"
Tyler jutted his chin and swiped his head. "Who cares? Not much better, I'm sure. We are self-critical; they're not."
Munoz nodded. "You think this war is over?"
"Not by a long shot."
"Really?"
"It just ain't over yet, Archie."
The Fascist troop trucks rolled heavily over the uneven dirt track between the air-burned alfalfa fields that stretched out to the long, flat distance. The soft brown buildings of Wichita could be seen lifting up over the distant line of cottonwoods marking the field boundaries at their two o'clock. The white flags of the trucks fluttered heavily and were strongly stained with light brown dust.
The silt burled after the truck convoy.
Ahead of them, a mile away, waited the tank convoy that had been agreed to. Tyler's greens stood off to the west with their long guns trained on the enemy.
No. This killing wasn't done by a long shot.
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