generators were finally phased out.
Electricity from nuclear power provided the rich with electricity, most renewable sources were nothing more than a green pipe dream, a ‘plan B’. Only hydrogen was unlimited though the development of the technology and distribution network was a huge challenge. It was the poor who suffered as always.
A new era was born almost unheralded. The new technology repeated past industrial history, transforming society as its predecessors had done: railways, electricity, the internal combustion engine and the computer. It produced its advocates and enemies. Within a couple of decades it was present everywhere for transport and power generation in the industrialised countries.
Oil producing countries introduced laws forbidding the use of fuel cells in their countries in order to support their oil industries and their refining facilities. Their efforts were of little avail, a slow and inexorable decline in the industrialised world's demand for oil commenced.
The instability of the Middle East producers had only accelerated what was inevitable given the finite reserves of fossil fuels.
The major automobile constructers had launched programmes at the end of the last century and competition linked with the arrival of new technologies spurred the development. In 2002 the US government announcement of its programme for the development of fuel cells to reduce the countries dependence on foreign oil was the real turning point with huge funds flowing into research and development of new and existing technologies. The production of hydrogen from demineralised water by a compact plasma process reduced the need for the bulky hydrogen tanks and the risks linked with its storage.
Renault of France and Nissan had commenced by developing cars with a fuel cell that ran on gasoline. The companies invested huge sums for the development and started marketing fuel cell vehicles as early as 2005. Renault had also worked with PSA Citroen to speed the development of commercially viable fuel cell cars by 2010.
The USA was consuming twenty five percent of the world’s oil with Europe and Japan not far behind. The consequence of the new technology was a fall off in demand for oil and gasoline in 2010 that accelerated over the following ten years. From 2020 onwards the decline was less pronounced but the consequences for the producer countries were dramatic, not only their total revenues fell because of the lower demand but prices followed the same pattern, and worse their populations continued to grow.
Medical and health services had lengthened lives but the cost of those services had grown to a level that could only be supported by the better off. France with its tradition of limitless health care for its population had faltered under the burden of rising costs leading to the economic crisis that ended with the revolt. The expulsion of the non-Gallos also exported the burden of health care.
Internet purchasing had finally enabled shoppers to make their basic purchases electronically; however shopping remained an event that had become almost a leisure activity for clothing, luxury goods and large items. It had also transformed television news and entertainment to a point where viewers could choose from a worldwide range of programmes paid and free. News and information from state controlled sources was transmitted on murals permanently in public places inter-dispersed with popular variety video clips and advertising.
Digital identity systems offered secured payment systems but also enabled the authorities to follow every movement of each citizen through RSN, the national web.
Crimes and offences against the Nation were sanctioned by the withdrawal of social and civil rights for a period of time that corresponded with degree of the offence. As a result the poor were forced out of the city to the misery of the almost abandoned suburbs emptied of their non-Gallo population.
The non-Gallo infiltrators who hid in the city were hounded out by the special squads of the RASE and sent to holding camps in the suburbs before being transported to Algharb.
“Our ancestors the Gallo-Europeans and the Celts lived on this land for five thousand years,” d’Albignac had declared to the Nation in his inaugural speech, “and their ancestors since twenty thousand years. Christianity the religion of Rome and our Latin language has been with us for two thousand years giving birth to our present cultural values.
The aberration of the so called multi-racial Republic gave power, flaunting our heritage, to those who were in our land for a mere twenty, thirty or forty years, bringing with them the concepts alien to our culture. Our values were rejected at the end of the Colonial period that we accepted. We are not against Islam but in those lands that embraced it, not in our Motherland the Nation of France.”
The Zone
Cameras, infrared heat detectors and laser beams surveyed the no-mans-land. The images were transmitted to a data treatment centre where the least irregular sign immediately alerted one of the RASE patrols. In most cases it was nothing more than a cat or dog, from time to time.
The Zone was not only the home to day workers but was the refuge of Drogo-alcolos, infiltrators and criminals. There were also other rejects from society, the chronically poor, who were often physical and mentally ill, abandoned and uncared for in their misery. There were not only the rejects but also the Resistance movement that had led an unequal struggle against the regime of le Martel. The resistance was a coalition of old time Communists and other extreme left wing movements joined in an unholy alliance with fascists and other isolated groups.
They ordered coffees and Guiglione flipped over the pages of the Nation Soir, the free evening newspaper he had picked up from the distributor on the boulevard.
“Listen!” he said, and then read an article to Ennis.
“Arms found in Paris. Pan-Arabist group suspected of trafficking. Based on information supplied by the Ministry of the Interior, the special anti-terrorist unit of the RASE raided a house in the Zone, discovering an arms cache belonging to the terrorist organisation El Assad. The authorities have reason to believe that the American, a terrorist agent, using a false identity, that of a journalist a member and sympathiser of a Pan-Arabist terrorist group, John Ennis, also wanted by the police of Algharb for murder, is suspected of being implicated in the affair. According to police sources Ennis is believed to be hiding in Paris.”
“False identity!”
“Keep your voice down! We must be careful, they know you are in Paris,” Guiglione said urgently. He folded the newspaper, paid the bill and they left the restaurant.
“Do you really think they know I here in Paris?”
“No, they couldn’t have followed you, they’re working on supposition.”
“Why this arms business?”
“It’s manipulation, they’re no doubt trying to accuse Washington of interfering.”
“Maybe, it’s possible.”
He felt tired by the intrigue; it was urgent to get out of the country.
“In any case you must be on your way as quickly as possible, if not you’ll be picked up sooner or later, then who knows, a show trial, imprisonment or worse!”
“This is crazy, I don’t know what’s become of France, it so far from what I knew as a student. It’s as if Vichy France had been reborn with Nazis and the rest.”
Suddenly they were violently pushed to one side by a man running as though it were for his life, he was followed by a two RASE agents, one of them pulled by a massive pit bull that strained on its lead. The dog handler let go of the lead and the pit bull in a single bound launched itself onto the fugitive, throwing him to the ground in a savage flurry, then with its jaws firmly fixed on one shoulder, shook him like a helpless rabbit. The dog handler viciously beat the dog with his truncheon whilst grabbing the lead pulling the dog off its victim. The second RASE agent, a woman, pulled out a heavy automatic and pointed it at the fugitive who lay on the pavement, his shirt torn and his shoulder and face bleeding profusely.
“Help! Help!” the man screamed in terror.
“What’s happening?” Ennis asked shaken.
“I don’t know, probably a fugitive or a dealer,” repli
ed Guiglione. “Let’s get away from here.”
The RASE man pinned the man’s hands behind his back, then dragged him along the pavement like a sack of rubbish.
“Help me! They’ll kill me.”
“Shut your filthy mouth,” the woman shouted hitting their prisoner about his head with the butt of her automatic.
The passers by watched from a safe distance without mixing in the affair. A few moments later an unmarked RASE Hydro pulled up and the captive was bundled inside. They agents climbed in and the Hydro accelerated away with sirens wailing.
“Jesus Christ, that was strong arm stuff!” said Ennis his heart still beating fast.
“There’s a lot of violence. The Police or the RASE are everywhere, ready to act at the slightest incident not only against the Zonards but also the Drogos if they step out of line or just about anybody else.”
“Let’s get going,” said Ennis. He had enough for one evening.
They returned to the apartment, it was too early and too hot to turn in. The night was clear and they installed themselves out on the roof top garden sipping beer and talking.
“I suppose the Zone is a ghetto,” Ennis asked.
“That’s right, it’s only a few months ago that they built the wall.”
“Why, they couldn’t control the situation?”
“Why, I don’t know,” he said with a weary wave of his hand, “there’s