What I'm about to tell you would be highly classified in normal times. Suffice it to say these are not normal times. Also, please note that I had no control over any of these events, I'm just one of the guys from Security Forces. Also note that for most of us, you don't join the Deep State, you don't PCS here, you don't transfer in or get seconded by some other agency. You get denounced and dumped here by Republicans. There's nothing wrong with that, by my count right now, we're roughly three quarters of America.
Estimated, Seven Days Ago.
Deep State Sector Victor Seven.
Former United States Air Force SAGE control bunker.
Somewhere near Richmond, Virginia.
Picture a dimly lit room, viewed through the one-way glass common to interrogation rooms from Abu Ghraib to Lefortovo to Rikers. Some shitty old Republican bound and gagged, tied...rather artistically...to a chair by a Dominatrix who stands quietly in the corner on the other side of the wall, seen dimly in profile, I can't quite make out who it is. He's seated in front of an empty metal table, the kind they make in Federal prisons. An armed guard standing at attention, in Arctic/Urban pattern BDU's and wearing a ski mask impassively keeps watch from over by the door.
My battle buddy is watching the CCTV screens for the security cameras in the hall.
A knock on the door, which the guard opens, then snaps back to attention. Barack Obama walks in, the former President is wearing Khakis and a brand new, still crisp Biden/Harris 2020 T-shirt, and carrying a small bundle. A second guard follows him in.
He addresses the seated figure, his voice seeming to be at once serious and full of concern.
"So, you want in? You're sure about this, bro? Are you sure?!" His deep voice echoes slightly in the silence of the small space.
The seated figure nods nervously, sweating.
Obama lays out the contents of the small bundle on the empty table, four peppers sit on the unrolled white Cheesecloth.
A Jalapeno.
A Habanero.
A Carolina Reaper.
And some nasty-looking mutant orange thing labeled in Thai with internationally-recognized danger symbols. In the small room, I'm certain they can feel the heat radiating from it.
The seated figure mumbles. Obama carefully removes the gag.
There's a knock on the heavy steel door, the guard opens it and a broken-looking Bill Kristol shuffles in, carrying only a single, clear glass of ice water on a small round tray.
Obama looks meaningfully at him, then at his seated fellow-traveler, then at the peppers.
He nods to the dominatrix, who comes up behind the seated figure and carefully cuts the rope with a knife.
The old Republican stretches, massages his wrists and looks around, confused, his features now more clearly visible.
"You see those peppers, John? Eat three out of the four without reaching for that glass of water and you're in. No pressure, It will not be held against you if you fail, you will simply be returned to your home with an interesting story you can maybe tell over drinks in a few months. I'll be back in ten minutes."
He nods to the dominatrix and the guards. "We should leave these gentlemen to their moment of truth. I really don't want the Governor to feel unduly pressured into making a decision he's not comfortable with. Either he passes the test, or he does not. It's up to him."
The four of them leave, leaving only the two old men.
It's apparently some kind of personality test the psych guys came up with. Something about terrible people not liking to eat spicy foods.
Just then, my radio crackles. There's a knock on the door. My buddy opens it, and my relief arrives, next step in the rotation.
I step out into the smaller service hallway. Five meters to my left is another door, A couple of seconds later I knock on it, thumb the switch for the radio on my shoulder "Positive Control Unit, Rotation Kilo 0300, Go." The door opens, I step in, the troop I'm replacing steps out and I look through the one-way glass.
A brown-haired older woman is seated at a table, on it has been set a contraption that clearly resembles the gadgets Representatives and Senators use to cast votes on bills electronically.
She's rocking back and forth in her chair, holding herself and plaintively wailing "But I'm very concerned! I'm very, very concerned."
Another older woman, blonde-haired, shorter, and who's clearly been trying to nudge the seated woman to make a decision for at least a few minutes, appears to have had enough. "Oh, come on, all you have to do is vote 'No." Is this what you really want to be associated with for the rest of your life? We're giving you a free shot, here."
There's a knock on the door. The guard opens it.
It's Obama, followed by one of the guards.
"Time's up, time's been up, I stopped to use the bathroom just to give you an extra few minutes. How's she doing?"
The blonde woman walks over to him, shaking her head.
A staffer joins the huddle thumbs up on the Governor!
It's not my business to follow the decision making process from here, so I don't.
I look over at the other troop "What happens now?"
"She'll be sent home, slightly drugged, probably with the suggestion hypnotically implanted that she really did smoke two joints in the afternoon, and it made her feel alright, and that any other weird shit she remembers flows from there."
Near Palm Beach
August 18th, 2020
Estimated Time 22:30
It's one of those small apartment complexes you mostly find in a place like California or Florida, a motel...the kind with kitchens in the rooms...converted to an apartment building, these places usually provide housing to lower-income seniors and young couples, or those who might only temporarily be residing in a given locale, usually on a seasonal basis. There's another category in play here, too, crazy people...and this is, after all, Florida.
A car pulls up. The driver leaves the car running, lights on, there's a slight mist in the humid night air. A young woman gets out. She's prim and proper, dressed professionally in a red pantsuit and carrying a fairly decent-sized cloth-and-zipper binder labeled "Florida Republican Party" and a tablet. She looks around, as if seeking the proper door, there's a few political signs about, mostly Republican in this kind of a place, Democratic district or no. Her eyes settle on the proper place, the lights are on, back-lighting a sign in the window that says simply "Loomer 4 Congress." The young woman gulps. Here we go.
She steps up to the door, knocks. It sounds as if the TV is on with the volume cranked up and someone on the other side of the door is having an intense argument, particularly loud sex, or maybe both. She belatedly notices a noise complaint taped to the door. Oh shit.
No response.
She knocks harder, looking rather nervous about it.
The door opens, a smell like the combined odor of cat piss and mothballs comes rolling out, yet there is no cat obviously present...and apparently nobody else, either, just her boss.
"Oh hi, Jamie, come on in!"
Fuckkk. No choice. Couldn't we do this at the office tomorrow? She steps into the apartment, to say that it's messy would be charitable. It's..typical crazy person...stacks of boxes in one corner, the kitchen table full of various boxes and half-empty food containers, kitchen sink full of unwashed dishes, the smell of cigarette butts smothers out the harsher scents that greeted her at the door.
The desk. Oh fuck my life. Stacks and stacks of papers, as if she's been writing proposed legislation already...in notebooks, with a pen, in longhand?
Something dies inside the young woman's soul.
Laura grabs the remote and turns off the TV, then pauses the Youtube video that's playing on the laptop sitting on the couch cushions. She looks around, as if to clear off a spot, but the only bare spot on the desk is occupied by a rather abused copy of Unveiling Islam by Ergun Caner that appears to have doubled as an ashtray at some point. A couple of clearly more scholarly books by Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the former-Muslim Atheist Ibn Waharraq sit untouched, somehow not even dirty, atop a stack of papers.
They settle on sitting on the couch, the young woman opens the binder, turns on the tablet...
"What have you got for me?"
"Well, it looks like you won..."
A whoop of exhilaration, probably worthy of another noise complaint itself at this time of the night.
"...And it wasn't even close, but remember this is a heavily Democratic district and you're running against Lois Frankel, who is extremely popular here and heavily favored to win."
'But Mr. Trump said I was going to win big against this Pelosi puppet!"
"Wut?"
She pulls out her phone, the first thing on screen is the campaign Twitter account.
"No, listen. Laura, honey, we got shit to do, Okay?"
"But I'm going to WIN, I'm the FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!! That's what people are saying, everybody's talking about Meeeee!!"
She's positively giddy, and for a second looks like she might actually try to kiss the young campaign staffer, who scuttles backward a little, protectively.
Who knows what Lovecraftian horrors lurk in this place?!
"Well, if you're so sure, why don't you just go over that stuff, and we'll talk strategy in the morning. See you around nine?"
"Ten, maybe Eleven."
"Okay."
The young staffer carefully makes her way to the door, and manages not to run to the car.
Once safely in the passenger seat, she looks at the driver, a burly Cuban man wearing a US Army ball cap, an unlit cheap cigar sticks out of his mouth. His eyes are bright, alert. He is, as always, calm, cool and collected as only someone who has faced the fear and horror of combat and learned to control their fear can be.
"Lazaro, please just take me home."
"You Okay, Ma'am?" He sounds worried for her.
She doesn't reply. As he drives, she pulls out the business card, the one that grizzled old bald guy from that Lincoln Project thing gave her in the bar last Saturday night and she looks at it in the city lights and the glare from her phone, gradually, slowly tapping out a text message, she finally hits "Send."
Okay, U said U could get me out. What do I gotta do?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This set of disasters has been brought to you by 50 years of racism, 40 years of Creationism, 20 years of escalating conspiracy theories and dumb shit, and five years of Trump.
Now the key question is, what are you going to do about it?
Because that's how we really stop this.
You wanna have a better country? Be a better citizen.
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