Dominion (2 page)

Artillery shells flared from the turrets, demolishing the few clay houses that still stood. Most of the neighborhood was already shattered and smoldering, probably from aerial bombardment.

The tanks’ loudspeakers broadcast, in English, “Lay down your weapons. Insurgents will not be tolerated. Lay down your weapons. Prisoners will find mercy. Lay down your weapons.”

The turret of the lead tank turned directly towards Ruppert, and he found himself running down a narrow alley; he was a captive audience to whomever had shot the video. He had a jagged, bouncing view of broken walls, a sky full of dark smoke, the ground strewn with rubble. The videographer, along with a few armed mestizo men who apparently accompanied him, turned down a steep flight of stairs—Ruppert could not tell whether the stairs were meant to be outdoors, or had once been inside a house—into an narrow, underground tunnel. Ruppert glimpsed scrawny, dismembered bodies in the shadows. The videographer hurried into the darkness under the city, and the video ended there, the rebels apparently not wanting to give the outside world a look at whatever subterranean passageways existed in San Juan.

Ruppert was standing again in the bolivarNet data archive, surrounded by floating spheres and cubes etched in several languages, each geometric form representing a different video, audio or text file supplied by Argentine rebels. He could move into other “rooms” if he wanted updates from Brazil or Venezuela, but he felt shaken already, and was in no hurry to see more.

He’d already committed enough crimes to draw the wrath of the Department of Terror, which held jurisdiction over all forms of foreign propaganda. One of their agents, George Baldwin, occupied an office at GlobeNet down the hall from Ruppert. His job was to ensure that no terrorist propaganda accidentally slipped into GlobeNet’s broadcasts, to help sort the true from the untrue. He also facilitated conveying information from official sources to the news writers.

According to the story provided by Baldwin and presented to the public by Ruppert, the Argentinean people lived under a brutal Neocommunist dictator, and they were begging America for help. President Winthrop, in his mercy and benevolence, wanted them liberated.

Ruppert had become a junkie for foreign news, which would automatically mark him as a sympathizer. The Chinese data console, with its built-in language translation software, was extremely illegal—no good citizen desired information from unofficial, foreign sources. Ruppert had felt for years the urge to discover the truth behind the stories he reported each day, probably because he’d been young enough to study journalism at a time when it was considered important to find multiple sources on each story, cross-check them, sift them for solid facts. The Propaganda and Sedition Acts had eventually killed that method of journalism, and now the younger reporters at GlobeNet never questioned whether the story was true or false. The story was only reportable or nonreportable.

Ruppert unplugged from the console, the images of the shattered neighborhood still burning on the backs of his eyelids. One would be enough for tonight. It was always best to stay cautious, in case you faced interrogation by a Terror agent. And there was his wife Madeline to think about—who may as well have been an agent herself.

He stashed the console away, locked up the storage unit, returned to his car. As he accelerated north on the broken freeway, he felt stupid and ashamed. He could not gain anything from learning unofficial information. He could only put himself and Madeline in danger, as well as his job and home. Already he could imagine himself packed into an Emergency Penitentiary cage pit, brawling like a starving dog with the other prisoners for protein goop at mealtime.

Ruppert hammered the accelerator and roared northward, pushing away from the forever murky and incomplete world of the truth, towards the bright order and superficial sanity of the officially sanctioned world.

TWO

Ruppert sat at the glossy green desk and faced a smooth, blank wall of the same color. A single, glossy shade of green covered every surface from floor to ceiling. Video technicians would add graphics around and behind him, and they would fill in this month’s look for his studio. Black convex lenses protruded from each wall, capturing a 360-degree view that editors could slice into dynamic visuals, sweeps and pans to keep the eyes of a jaded audience interested.

Sullivan Stone took the green chair several feet to Ruppert’s left, his blond hair cropped in a tight jarhead cut (Sully had never served in the Marines, or any branch of the military). Animated holograms on his tie depicted clips from the previous night’s Dodgers game, the big story he’d be reporting for most of the news hour. Twenty-two minutes of the program were devoted to sports, thirty to commercials, two to weather and three to Ruppert’s beat, national and international news. As the more “serious” reporter, he wore his usual severe blue suit embellished by the New America flag at his lapel.

Amanda Greene (“with the weather,” his brain filled in automatically) sat off to his right.

“Daniel!” Stone punched Ruppert’s arm with his usual ludicrous enthusiasm. “What do you say? Catch those Snipes?”

Ruppert hadn’t seen it—he’d been busy watching illegal data. He mentally kicked himself for not checking the score this morning.

“Yeah,” Ruppert said. “Crazy, huh?”

“You said it. That triple in the top of the ninth? Who saw that coming, am I right?”

“Your department, Sully.”

“I know. God forbid I do my own research. No offense there, Amanda.”

Amanda looked up from the digital weather report scrolling across her desk long enough to give him a scowl. Her data came prepackaged from the Central Weather Authority.

“Video up,” a tech’s voice spoke from overhead. “Audio okay. Everybody ready?”

“Ready and willing,” Stone said, with a wink at Amanda, who answered him with a sharp look, lips pressed into a tight line. Ruppert frowned automatically; it was always safest to feign disapproval at any indiscretion. He was always being watched and evaluated.

“Great,” the tech said. “Ruppert, here comes the count.”

Ruppert drew himself up in his chair and cleared his throat. The flashing blue-and-chrome sphere of the GlobeNet logo materialized in the air before him, and he heard the swooshing chords and chimes of the nightly news theme music. Floating holographic numbers counted down from five to one.

“Good evening,” Ruppert said. The logo disappeared and his script appeared in tall floating letters in front of him, one line at a time. “And welcome to GlobeNet-L.A. Nightly News. I’m Daniel Ruppert.

“The citizens of San Juan, Argentina held a spontaneous rally today celebrating the arrival of democracy in their city. Old and young alike gathered to thank us for…” Ruppert stumbled. He’d just seen last night that San Juan was a war zone, but he was used to reporting untrue stories. What caused him to stumble was the video played to document the event—crowds of Latinos cheering and waving thousands of tiny New America flags. He recognized the footage. They’d used the exact same video a year and a half ago to illustrate the gratitude of Venezuelans in Caracas following American victory there. He doubted whether the original footage had even been shot in Venezuela, for that matter. Would nobody at home notice?

“…For liberating them from the brutal oppression of left-wing Mercosur forces that had seized control of their country,” he continued. “It was a stunning victory for freedom. Final score: three hundred leftists dead, two hundred twelve captured. For more, we go to our South America correspondent Robert Maxwell.”

The video flicked angles, and now tall, pale Maxwell stood among a cluster of Latino children waving flags and pushing forward to be caught on camera. Ruppert was impressed—Maxwell had been digitally dropped into the old footage.

“As you said, Ruppert, a stunning victory for freedom indeed. People are flooding the streets to celebrate the arrival of Hartwell Security Services…As you know, I’ve been here for the last six months, and I can tell you that it’s never been a more exciting time for the people of Colombia.”

“He said Colombia,” Ruppert said.

“Thanks, Ruppert,” a techie’s voice replied from the ceiling. “We’ll fix it in post. Get ready for your next load.”

The image of the Latin crowd—Argentinean, Venezuelan, Colombian, or other—vanished, replaced by a new stream of bright words.

“Vice President Hartwell,” Ruppert read aloud, “Whose Hartwell Services contractors brought home the victory, said our soldiers fought with unrelenting courage and valor.

“In other news, the Chinese Navy continues its blockade of the Korean peninsula, interfering with supply lines to American bases there.” Stock footage of battleships and aircraft carriers emblazoned with red stars appeared in front of Ruppert, reflecting what viewers would see at home. Ruppert changed his facial expression accordingly, from enthusiastic to grim. “President Winthrop was attending the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and unavailable for comment. However, the Secretary of Defense issued the following statement.”

The pasty, obese Secretary appeared at a flag-draped podium and read in a flat monotone:

“Once again, we warn the prime minister of China that the Atlantic alliance possesses a full-spectrum, first-strike capability against Chinese cities and installations. Our Skyfire orbital weapons system is online and fully operational. If this unwarranted aggression continues, China will find itself incapable of wielding its nuclear arsenal against the American people, because that arsenal will no longer exist.”

“Strong words from the Secretary of Defense,” Ruppert said. “And speaking of strong words, imagine what Del Ray Snipers head coach Richard “Rusty” Keyes must have said to his team after their brutal, bloody defeat by the Dodgers. Am I right, Sully?”
“Absolutely, Daniel,” Sully said. “Last night’s game was a steel-toed kick in the head for Rusty…”



Ruppert and Stone took a late lunch at the Soyballs Bistro, a small, dirty nook of a restaurant far enough from the studio to avoid their co-workers, though still within the concrete walls of the Westwood Secured Zone (Sealed for Your Protection by Hartwell Security Services, as the billboards said). Soyballs was a good place to escape their co-workers. The dingy restaurant specialized in meatlike dishes from its own secret soy recipe, which was of uneven quality and had been known to cause constipation, or the opposite. As a result, their co-workers treated Soyballs like a leper colony, naturally preferring the high-end spots on the other side of Westwood. Ruppert felt more comfortable talking among the janitors and day laborers who ate here.

The waitress arrived, but said nothing, just thumped her pencil nub against a stained notepad. Ruppert ordered the soy patty with cabbage, and raised an eyebrow when Sully asked for the Soy-Ton salad. The waitress nodded her head and jotted these down, and left without having spoken a single word.

“Chinese themed food?” Ruppert asked Sully, with a slight grin. “Not exactly patriotic these days, Sully. You should watch out.”

Sully poured hot tea from the table top dispenser. At Soyballs, you didn’t have a choice. You drank whatever was supplied at your table that day, or nothing at all.

“It’s not as if Chinese food really represents what they eat in China,” Sully said. “It’s more of a satire.”

“What do you think about China?” Ruppert asked. “Do you think it’ll be war?”

“I think their new president exhibits a horrendous sense of fashion.”

“Does that matter?”
“A great deal. It’s a crime for a man to rule two billion people but dress that poorly. That should raise alarm bells all on its own.”

Ruppert poured his own tea. It was pale and green and tasted like boiled tree bark.

“What are we doing, Sully?”

“You mean like on the planet? Whether we have a driving purpose, like the Warrenites are always screaming on the street corners? Or whether life is just stupid noise, as the punk bands teach us?”

“I mean our jobs. The network.”

“We inform the public.”

“It’s easier for you,” Ruppert said.

“How? My segment’s much longer than yours.” Sully smirked as his Soy-Ton salad arrived. He looked down at the three pale, membranous, vaguely won-ton-shaped lumps on top of his green salad, then began picking them off.

“But you just report scores and injuries,” Ruppert said. “It’s easy. What you report is always true.”

Sully’s blue eyes flared and he leaned back.

“You should watch what you say, Ruppert. In a time of war, you know.”

“It’s always a time of war.”

“Listen.” Sully whispered through his teeth, his boyish face suddenly taut and hard. He sounded to Ruppert like a snake that had been backed into a corner. “I know what you think. You know what I think. Just leave it, okay? I do not want to get picked up and questioned right now.”

“Sully, I’m not trying to bait you. I’m not with Terror.”

“I know that.”

“Why are you so paranoid today?” Ruppert looked at the only other customers remaining, a table of three Mexican men in stained, threadbare coveralls. “I don’t think they’re with Terror, either.”

“How can you know that?” Sully whispered.

“Jesus Christ, Sully.” Ruppert shook his head and jabbed a fork at the fried black lump of soy patty. He wasn’t hungry. “Things used to be different, didn’t they?”

“I can hardly remember,” Sully said. “It’s like the bomb stopped time. Now every day is just the day after the bomb.”

THREE

Ruppert parked in the guest lot at District 118-4 Public Secondary School 171E, a twelve-story cinderblock building in Brentwood Glen. Cameras mounted on razor-wire fences swiveled after him as he approached the bulletproof window of the guard station by the school’s front door. The security guard, a heavyset white guy with a shaved head and drooping eyelids, was engrossed in a glossy sports magazine.

“Hi,” Ruppert said. “My name is Daniel Ruppert, I’m here to see my wife, Madeline—”