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From: Jason Pruitt ''
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To: Edward Barnick ''
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Hey Ned,
Another week, another checkpoint. Correction: Another fucking checkpoint. I don't know if this stems from the fact that I'm a naturalized alien, or from my job, or even through my old blog, but every single week I'm flagged down and stopped at one of these little pieces of purgatory. It's Friday, I'm tired and getting pulled on Flamingo is a great way to get home from work two hours late.
This is all pointless bureaucracy taken to a new height. Christ, I'll step out and say that it's like having my citizenship interview anew every week. I'm expected to pontificate about my love for the administration just so I can stay here. Oh aye, so long as I keep my mouth shut it's a painless procedure, but should I ever should rise above my station and actually complain about anything the thumbscrews come out: They take you aside, gently question you for an hour about your ''disappointingly unpatriotic'' opinions so they can record ''feedback,'' make a Notation of Protest on your permanent record and then send you on your way.
What's worse is the police and unity officers can't... won't change anything. ''It's for everyone's security,'' they say. ''I'm sorry, I don't like this any more than you sir, but orders are orders.''
Christ. That's was the ******* line the Nazis used and look where it got them in the end.
What's worse is the fact that I'm one of the silent and compliant masses. I have a hard enough time here as an alien, especially after '15, so I swallow the bitter pill and keep quiet for the sake of Kaylee and the kids.
In my worst moments I try and convince myself how much it is now for me than it was after Black August: I have a job, a home, a family, and no one is trying to kill me. But...
...it pains me to even admit it here, but every other month I'll wake up screaming and sobbing in Kaylee's arms. I remember the noose around my neck and watching Pete up on the scaffold kicking out his last. I don't know how I escaped that screaming mob. I still have all my scars, both physical and mental. I spent six months in physiotherapy learning to walk again, and I'll always have that distinguished, thick scar around my neck. None of that is ever going to go away, no matter how hard I'd like it to.
As always I roll up to the pre-screening stand hoping that they'll just wave me through, but I have such luck tonight. The police officer gestures for me to stop, so I roll down my window and wait for his directions.
''Good evening, sir, may I please see your ID?''
He swipes my card. I wait. Then there is an Ominous Beep.
''I'm afraid we'll have to search your vehicle sir. I'll need you to pull into the parking lot and present your identification to the unity officer.''
Homeland Unity swears blind that after being searched at a checkpoint they add a flag to your card that exempts you from a stop'n'search for up to three weeks, unless you have a criminal record. In practice any legal alien or person in a sensitive position will also be checked weekly (undocumented feature?).
''It's easy, convenient and makes our great nation a safer place!'' What bullshit.
I pull into the car park and stare down the officer hard as he takes my card. He's young, black, has tight cropped hair, a nasty squint and he won't acknowledge as he swipes it He looks like he's barely eighteen and I wonder briefly what he remembers of 2015? Sleeping in a shelter, just in case? Refugees from San Diego? The Panic? The Northwest seceding? Whatever it was, I can see that he didn't have a pleasant time.
His face tightens when he hears my accent and he coldly instructs me to park up. ''Go park over in C4. Remain in your vehicle, switch off your phone and refrain from using any electronics.''
None of us has a good time. You could tell him about Portsmouth, Calais and Cork, and I could tell him about Los Angeles emptying.
I pull up in my appointed area and wait under the steady gaze of two Pacifiers, along with the ten-odd other sould.
The Pacifier is a novel piece of technology. It's looks innocuous enough, Ned, just a black plastic dome on a stand. Inside the dome is a high-calibre gun whose sole purpose is to shoot potential suicide bombers. A completely autonomous weapon, it decides the threat and appropriate response, without oversight. The Israelis invented it because human reflexes are simply too slow when someone is wearing a belt. If I twitch I die, simple as that. I hear quiet whirring as it tracks me inside of it's dome, but the big warning light up on top stays green, thank God. I sit there for almost an hour, until the H-loop trundle and it's operator makes their way over to my car.
To me the H-loop is the foremost sign of the new America and it's approach to security. So critical to our civil protection infrastructure that it's very method of operation is secret. Expensive, infallible, high-tech, new and shiny. Thoroughly invasive, yet completely hands off. And apparently HU bought the whole technology off the ******* shelf from the Japanese.
That reminds me, there was a ruckus here last month because some bastard up on Owens had an asthma attack while a Pacifier was trained on him during a random stop'n'search, and promptly got shot for it.
I give the controller my keys and then move toward a van under his direction. When I'm far enough away he starts up the H-loop, which happily hums away as it searches my car for contraband.
... have you noticed a trend, Ned? A plethora high-tech toys to protect us against foreign threats... that were themselves designed in foreign countries.
Japanese scanners, Israeli guns. Most of the back end database for OneID was designed by a French/Canadian consortium, their card scanners run Irish firmware and the user/operator support is (of course) Indian. All to protect ''traditional American homeland values.'' Hypocrisy as its finest, Ned. There are still refugees freezing to death every winter up in Oregon, yet the government can afford to carpet bomb Seattle and Helena on a weekly basis and splash out for 20 million dollar scanning arrays.
Every checkpoint is arranged according to a standard template: There are always several big vans, usually one for command and control, one to transport equipment and one for questionings. The fourth is rarely spoken of because many people are too afraid to acknowledge what it means for America. No one ever talks about it at work, and even Kaylee is uncharacteristically quiet on the subject. Only the kids really speak up on it, when one or another person at school has a relative put into it, with all that it implies. It terrifies me too Ned, for what it's worth.
Enough drama for you?
Its formally known as a Retention Vehicle, but everyone else calls it the Black Van. The people who wind up in there are poor bastards who are either (typically) illegal aliens, unpatriotic legal aliens or especially unpatriotic citizens. There's always a few Mexicans in it crying away to themselves, god help them. If they have the funds available to pay for a flight, they're deported back to their home country. If they don't, they're sent off to work in California or elsewhere for 30 cents an hour on decontamination and reconstruction, until they can afford a flight home. Usually their husband or wife is forced to join them too, depending on their circumstances. If you're rich, you stay home. If you're poor... well it's one less Social Security dependent.
It's just like every other measure Ned. Homeland Unity will try to protect us (or their asses, they are as bad as the DHS used to be) against something that's already happened, or use it to create a scare so they can round up warm bodies for conscription into either the army or the incredibly dangerous work in Old San Diego. There's still some fallout, toxic waste from a thousand other sources and bands of armed squatters, in the ruins. They can't pay enough to get people to work in SD willingly, so they simply don't. It's cheaper to round up undesirables and pack them off. I'm convinced that a that a day will come when unity personnel will be given a quota to fill.
What's makes all of of this so upsetting to me is that a few kilometres from here there's more than one hundred thousand foreign visitors watching shows, pounding away at the one-armed bandit, getting wasted and generally having the time of their lives in the Las Vegas Special Economic Zone. No supervision, no questions, so long as they stay in the Zone.
The writing is on the wall: Visit but don't stay.
Returning to my impending interrogation:
These days they don't bother searching you. No removing clothing, no frisking. Instead there is a sedator mounted on the inside wall of the van (also Israeli) that shoots me full of searing agony if I give the untiy officer so much as a double entrende. The unity officer in question is a not-unattractive lady named Jess who begins by greeting me with a cup of coffee and a warm smile before escorting me over to the Table and Chair. Many wonderful and terrible things have been said and heard while occupying them, and I always wonder just what I'll say. Jess makes sure I'm seated comfortably before she slips a gom jabbar headband over my head. After some calibration and small talk she begins to ask me some fairly generic questions:
''How is your job going going? Do you get on well with your co-workers?''
''Are you happy here? Have you had thoughts of going home?''
''Have you seen or heard anything suspicious? In your friends or neighbours?''
''Do you keep in touch with your family back home? What do you tell them?''
And so on. The interrogator will tell you otherwise if you ask, but questions are only the axis of the test. Jess goes on to ask about me staying here, how do I feel about the United States, how do I feel about my rescinded vote, do I want to stay here. I try and pick my answers as best I can: Do I like it here? Yes, from a certain point of view. Are you family, Ned? No.
The questioning lasts for around ten minutes, just long enough for a thorough background check, before Jess thanks me for my time and lets me out. I retrieve my car from the grips of Squinty and hand my card to another surly kid (white, long hair, sneer, name of Timothy) to be swiped. Half an hour later I'm home and pissed off.
I couldn't stay in the house after that so I took Kaylee and the kids out to dinner at the casino down the road. Looking out the window during dessert I saw a Retention Vehicle going back to the ''emigration'' centre up near Nellis. It's enough to chill the warmest person.
Someday I'm going to fail the dedication test and I'll wind up in a Black Van of my own. I love this place, Ned. This is a beautiful county, and I wouldn't give up Kaylee or the kids for anything in this or the next world. I just don't love what some people have made it into.
Jason
Copyright 2008 Mark Grealish
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