GWOT First They Came For
Oct. 28th, 2018 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT First They Came For
It's never the first visit from a government agency that means you're in deep shit.
It's the second.
I knew this, of course. I'd planned accordingly, without ever leaving any traces either paper or electronic of my intent to do so.
In the Room, Wyatt and I had pondered carefully the linkages between the propaganda, our observations on the ground, and what would happen when Homeland eventually got around to us again.
Homeland had created five categories of persons to be taken into internment.
1) Enemy Aliens & Adherents. That meant anyone Chinese. "Adherents" was their way of saying anyone who is legally American but looks Chinese. These folks were all gone. Employees with this characteristic simply hadn't made it to site. A lot of them hadn't made it to internment. They'd been killed by neighbors, or sidewalked to save space and prevent fights on the buses.
2) Persons Unlawfully In The United States. That meant student visa overstays, illegal immigrants, anyone else who couldn't fix their paper with Homeland shutting down the offices and arresting everyone who showed up to fix their paper - and of course, them too. After the passage of a certain deadline for answering his refugee claim, that now included our bomb tech, Mo. Short for Mohammed. And his family.
3) Deserters. Anyone who had ever served in the United States military, any type of law enforcement or corrections, or certain government jobs, who had not reported in as demanded. Brooke, who'd thought that 245% disability meant she didn't need to report in.
4) Enemies of Civil Order. This was anyone who unlawfully assembled, pissed off Homeland, passed out leaflets, or was turned over to Homeland by local law enforcement as being suspected in crimes. [Oliver Stone]. If they ever figured out what we were up to, basically the entire [Company] security force.
5) Vagabonds. Technically anyone without a fixed residence was a vagabond. Pre-war homeless, but also anyone suddenly made homeless by the Firecracker(s). If they had registered as a refugee, and someone gave them an official address, they were OK - but we also knew that about two months into the War, Homeland had thrown a snit and interned everyone who was presently in a Red Cross or other disaster relief shelter. Several Red Cross people had protested and immediately entered Category Four.
We had - quite literally under duress - provided lists of employees, contractors, dependents and other persons. Through a variety of means fair and foul, we'd managed to get three bus loads of high priority targets out of our area. Our effort at volunteerism had created a safer route off campus - take them to the school as volunteers, sneak them off campus, good luck and don't come back.
Over two hundred remained in the perimeter encampment. We weren't admitting to their existence, but presumably Homeland had eyes and cameras.
So the appearance of a single Homeland MRAP at the front gate flying its signature huge American flag was not exactly something we welcomed.
But we didn't expect what happened next.
They literally made a U-turn and left, turning on their lights and sirens as they did so.
Found out later that we owed the Resistance a really big favor.
It's never the first visit from a government agency that means you're in deep shit.
It's the second.
I knew this, of course. I'd planned accordingly, without ever leaving any traces either paper or electronic of my intent to do so.
In the Room, Wyatt and I had pondered carefully the linkages between the propaganda, our observations on the ground, and what would happen when Homeland eventually got around to us again.
Homeland had created five categories of persons to be taken into internment.
1) Enemy Aliens & Adherents. That meant anyone Chinese. "Adherents" was their way of saying anyone who is legally American but looks Chinese. These folks were all gone. Employees with this characteristic simply hadn't made it to site. A lot of them hadn't made it to internment. They'd been killed by neighbors, or sidewalked to save space and prevent fights on the buses.
2) Persons Unlawfully In The United States. That meant student visa overstays, illegal immigrants, anyone else who couldn't fix their paper with Homeland shutting down the offices and arresting everyone who showed up to fix their paper - and of course, them too. After the passage of a certain deadline for answering his refugee claim, that now included our bomb tech, Mo. Short for Mohammed. And his family.
3) Deserters. Anyone who had ever served in the United States military, any type of law enforcement or corrections, or certain government jobs, who had not reported in as demanded. Brooke, who'd thought that 245% disability meant she didn't need to report in.
4) Enemies of Civil Order. This was anyone who unlawfully assembled, pissed off Homeland, passed out leaflets, or was turned over to Homeland by local law enforcement as being suspected in crimes. [Oliver Stone]. If they ever figured out what we were up to, basically the entire [Company] security force.
5) Vagabonds. Technically anyone without a fixed residence was a vagabond. Pre-war homeless, but also anyone suddenly made homeless by the Firecracker(s). If they had registered as a refugee, and someone gave them an official address, they were OK - but we also knew that about two months into the War, Homeland had thrown a snit and interned everyone who was presently in a Red Cross or other disaster relief shelter. Several Red Cross people had protested and immediately entered Category Four.
We had - quite literally under duress - provided lists of employees, contractors, dependents and other persons. Through a variety of means fair and foul, we'd managed to get three bus loads of high priority targets out of our area. Our effort at volunteerism had created a safer route off campus - take them to the school as volunteers, sneak them off campus, good luck and don't come back.
Over two hundred remained in the perimeter encampment. We weren't admitting to their existence, but presumably Homeland had eyes and cameras.
So the appearance of a single Homeland MRAP at the front gate flying its signature huge American flag was not exactly something we welcomed.
But we didn't expect what happened next.
They literally made a U-turn and left, turning on their lights and sirens as they did so.
Found out later that we owed the Resistance a really big favor.
