General Carlson paced in the Oval Office, frustration and worry gnawing at his equanimity. He wasn’t a pacer by nature, but the latest developments had affected many people in ways they never suspected. President Clayton’s speech had just ended, and he and his staff were on their way back to the Oval Office to order the General to enact the new End of Violence Act.
Might as well make it a law that all circles now had to be square, he thought bitterly. He had argued against the law right from the start. The entire thing smacked of desperation, and the United States should be seen as a stable leader, not desperate thugs. Desperate times did motivate apathetic people, no doubt, but the results weren’t always correct. This new EVA law was one of the wrong ones. By far!
The door opened and the President of the United States of America walked in, followed by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs—his immediate superiors.
President Clayton smiled wearily and stuck out his hand. “Bob, I’m glad you’re here. I know you don’t want to be.”
Bob Carlson grunted and shook the President’s hand. “Blasted straight, Mr. President. I think this is a grave mistake.”
Clayton waved the comment aside. “We’ve all heard your arguments, Bob. But Congress voted it into law and I signed it. You get to carry it out.”
“I’m not real happy about being the face of this, sir. Shouldn’t you choose someone else?”
The President’s eyes turned sad. “Bob, the very fact that you don’t want to do this is the reason I chose you. I wouldn’t trust anyone else not to abuse the power we are granting him.”
The power alone is an abuse, Bob thought to himself. “I’ll follow orders, sir.”
The President sighed and moved around behind his desk and sat down. He looked at the other men and women in the room. “Is the technology ready to be deployed?”
The Secretary of Defense, a middle aged woman with iron gray hair, nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ve chosen three locations for the public test run. We’ve chosen Wall Street in New York—a place of violent demonstrations—Dulles Airport, and a high school in Houston, Texas.”
“A high school?”
“Yes, sir. The high school is known for excessive violence. And we all know that the most violent group right now are these anarchist teenagers. If we don’t slap a lid on that, we’ll end up like Mexico.”
“I see. And Dulles?”
“The airport is the only active Eastern airport. Anyone coming to do us harm has to come through Dulles. If we are going to make a spectacle of this, I’m hoping to nab someone who isn’t an American citizen. We figure these three locations will give us the best trial run of the prototypes. Once we have refined the settings somewhat, we can mass produce them and place them everywhere. Within a year, the violence should be quelled and you can lift martial law.”
“That’s the goal,” the President pointed out. “We are suspending individual rights so we can restore them later. Right now, the anarchists have stolen these rights. We must take them back.”
Bob kept his mouth carefully closed. He didn’t believe for a second that things would work out the way everyone thought or intended. Good intentions always seemed to have devastating results when the government excused an evil to try to do something good. He had tried—he really had—to get this insane plan shelved…to no avail.
“How soon will you begin?” the President asked.
The woman shifted to her other foot and glanced at one of the Joint Chiefs. “They are being installed as we speak. Public trials begin tomorrow.” She cleared her throat. “Students of Memorial High School will pass through the Ts2 divining field going into the school. The National Guard is on hand to arrest any likely offenders. The other two devices are being situated so that anyone who walks within the field will be scanned.”
President Clayton rubbed his chin. “Are we certain that we’re doing the right things with the offenders we catch?”
The Secretary of State stepped forward, his eyes hard. “Absolutely, Mr. President. This technology will catch violent offenders before they actually commit a crime. We all know, however, that our infrastructure right now is very fragile.” He turned to look at one of the other generals in the room. “How many state and federal prisons were overrun?”
“At last count, more than 60% of them. All the prisoners escaped. Only a few have been recaptured, and we have nowhere to put them.”
“That’s the problem. We have nowhere to put those individuals that we have, much less the ones we are going to get. If we don’t come up with a different solution, we will have no way to actually stop the violence.”
Bob watched the President struggle within himself. “But we are condemning them to their deaths.” His eye twitched. “And in some cases, we’re talking about teenagers—children.”
“It is a harsh reality,” the Secretary of the State replied. “But it is our only one. We give each of these offenders the possibility of parole. As far as everyone else is concerned, it will cause them to think twice before planning a violent act. We can’t reconstruct the country until we quell all the violence, Mr. President. You know this.”
“Yes, I know it, but I don’t have to like it.”
“That’s your prerogative, Mr. President.”
Clayton’s brown eyes snapped in fury, and Bob silently wondered what the Ts2 scan would find if it were scanning the President’s brain at that moment. That’s the problem with technology. He doubted the machine could distinguish between intent and imagination. He knew that many parameters had been built in to reduce such a possibility of an error. He just didn’t believe it would work as advertised. The creators of the Ts2 scan had developed it in record time. How could they have tested it properly?
The President looked over at Bob. “The first three offenders that are caught are to be taken to Celebes Island for the Hunt as per the agreement I made as President of the Council of National Alliances. Make sure it is televised around the world. If we are going to take a leading role in bringing stability back to the world—particularly against some of these upstart nations, we need to show everyone that we have a way of stopping all the violence. Let them hunt the Komodo dragon. Let them die.” He slammed his fist down on the table. “Get my country back, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t want the anarchist to tear any more of it apart! Let’s show the world what the Ts2 can do.”
Bob nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you have someone that can oversee the actual prisoner transfer to the Island?” the Secretary of Defense asked.
“Yes. John Dale. He is a Marine Captain on detached duty, and he is ideally situated for this task. His missions in Colombia often required him to transfer prisoners. He knows what to do.”