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GWOT V - Truth Is Life
GWOT V - Truth Is Life
The next day, I got to go through all the same gavotte with the gate guards.
Different shift, different officers.
It took video review of me taking the oath for the second SFPD officer to relent and let me in.
###
We were sufficiently VIPs as to get our own personalized tours.
I was efficently handed off to the Public Information Office which duly found me a suit wearing flack, who in turn offered me a briefing pack and a list of bars and nightclubs in the area.
I therefore met expectations and suggested that we knock off early.
After he left, I discarded my briefcase in an empty conference room after taking out my secret weapon, my hall pass to anywhere and everywhere.
A silver alumninum inspection clipboard with a yellow canary note pad on it.
I then returned to the Project administrative building. And discreetly started poking.
###
Heirs and Assigns seemed a reasonable place to start the party.
When tens of thousands of people, mostly neighbors, take the Big Dirt Nap at the same time, you get some very interesting problems in inheritance.
Joanne and Fred are married. Fred was vaporized. Joanne died of radiation poisoning. Do his kids, hers, both or neither inherit? She lived longer, which matters sometimes, but not other times. Depends on how your insurance policy was written.
And there was a lot of concatenation going on. Several properties, quite a chunk of stuff, bank accounts, etc. all ending up in the hands of a family's first cousin who was on vacation, had moved to Florida, etc.
I used my friend as their test case to walk me through it. Grinning at me through their last cups of tea.
"So what happens to the real property?"
"That goes to Zoning. Sometimes it sits. Sometimes it gets an offer to purchase, especially if it's part of another holding. Hmmm, outer Sunset ... yes, we made an offer on it, it was accepted, the house was salvaged then demo'd, and the block is part of the hospice living project."
The Heirs and Assigns clerk was very helpful. A friendly voice in person was so much better than E-mails and angry phone calls, some through the international telephone system to America.
###
I then hitched a ride out to the hospice living project.
The wind is onshore, meaning from the water to the land, so a lot less concern about fallout.
The wearing of a particulate face mask is absolutely required.
When the state of California gets to pay for your cancer, anything that can be done to keep you from breathing in radioactive particles needlessly is not optional, "on pain of trespass from the City and County."
Housing for forty-five thousand San Franciscans.
You had to meet three requirements - destitute, meaning dead flat broke (and if you were an edge case, you gave whatever you had to the Project in your application); dying, meaning two doctors gave you less than six months to live; and a pre-War resident of the City and County.
There was still a rather massive waiting list, which grew and shrank often.
The first units were RVs. Then were manufactured homes. Then cargo containers and slightly upgraded sheds.
Now the Project had its own manufacturing facility for one bedroom manufactured homes. They built three a day, and placed them immediately.
There was a list of patients who were eager to talk to people.
I took shameless advantage.
And took notes.
###
It turned out that one way you could both acquire San Francisco residency _and_ become eligible for hospice care was to work on the Project. Someone pointed me to someone who knew someone who'd been a Project worker under Homeland.
They were very, very eager to tell their story.
I only had to excuse myself to throw up twice.
I was a trier of fact at Alviso Prison. I sentenced over one thousand people to death, and watched each and every one of them die horribly.
The way Homeland ran the Project was worse.
They were looting. Anyone who objected too strongly was shot. Others were put to work. A classic technique was chaining them to a hand truck and sending them into the hot zone, and they got a break and food depending on what they came back with.
The women and children had mostly been evacuated. Mostly. But they put children to work crawling through the sewers to repair cables and open up access to vaults.
Imagine, if you can, a nine year old child wearing SCBA in a IDHL environment. That's Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health.
The banks were broken into. Explosives were used.
Accidents were blamed on 'anti-American partisans' and a rationalization for convenient executions, without due process or trial.
Finally, she leaned back and asked me to turn her nasal cannula and nebulizer up.
She hadn't mentioned her own family or friends. Just stories of what she'd heard from other people.
The caretaker's thanks was effusive.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to her. Most people run out the door screaming."
###
The visitor hours at the hospice center closed at 1800. So I got a ride back to the administration building.
There were three cafeterias. One for VIPs and visitors, which I skipped. One for middle management, which I'd noted and ignored. Then the one in the basement that operated on cash and had two sides - CLEAN and DIRTY.
Dirty side is for those who want to catch a bite to eat while still contaminated. Not grossly, of course, but prior to showering to go home.
So I joined the dirty side, clipboard and handgun and all, and chatted people up.
###
Some snippets:
"It's pretty good here now. Not like before the Resistance. For one thing, there's a share plan for salvage. There's a work share, a percentage share and a bonus share - all semi cumulative, all calculated based on what you've done for the Project, your time clocked in, the areas you've worked and bonuses when they're available."
"You don't have to pay for healthcare here. The problem is getting away from the healthcare. Blood tests depending on your exposure level. High rad zone gets vampired weekly. If you hear someone bitching about their count, that's their white blood cell count."
"Depends on the cancer. Some people keep working even though they are getting chemo. I remember one time ..." and they went into a story about how someone's radiation treatment set off the radiation alarm at one of the portals, and they scrubbed down six people and a passing manager for ultimately no reason.
"They have a point system. You can get money and send it to people, a lot of people do that, but you can also earn points towards residency. The magic number is five years. Not their idea, they were told ... told! ... that five years was California policy, and they could make it work or else."
"They recruit heavily for certain skills. And they have a technical college in San Mateo now. Certificates in radiation safety, machine work, general salvage, confined space operations, forensics, inheritance law, jewelry assay..."
"There are a few crazy people who still live in the Zone. It's their right. If the property is still habitable, which depends on the water system - but getting the water system back up was a high priority in the early days. Some have even gotten jobs with the Project."
"Where does everyone live? There's the barracks of course, and some people live in them to save money. The old Daly City jail complex, you understand. But a lot of people want a little more flexiblity in their days off. There's buses to San Mateo and Hayward BART."
"They talked about using inmates on the Project. They did for a while. But most of them ended up in the Shock Troops in China, and it was just easier to free the others."
###
All good things come to an end.
Everyone was really quiet when two SF Police Officers walked up to the table. One looked at ... dum dum DUM! ... his electronic tablet, to verify my face.
"Captain 18, you will accompany us please."
I'd finished my food, and bought at least ten meals for others. So I did.
###
It was almost 2000 hours. My flack, looking miserable, was seated at a table with his boss, her boss and the PIO for the Project. Then there were the six cops. More importantly, two executives and three managers.
"What are you doing?" they asked without preamble.
"Gathering my own impressions of the Project."
"Who gave you the authority to do that?"
I looked around the room.
"I am a commissioned officer of the California Military Department. Regrettably this nation is still under martial law. I used no special powers, I made no promises or threats. I merely talked to people.
"Does the Project have something to hide?"
They were expecting me to be intimidated.
It doesn't work that way.
I'd been rolled on a gurney into a furnace.
I had an order from the Governor of California, in the Governor's own handwriting.
The session became an interrogation.
I interrogated them.
###
"The median time from hiring to lifedose on the project, for an unskilled worker with no dependents, is about twenty two months. That's when they've taken a sufficiently high dosage that we withdraw them from unskilled work."
"We've had those discussions. Ethics and practicality."
"We follow one rule. We never ask anyone to do something that we wouldn't do ourselves. And we test it. Three times a week, two names are drawn from the executive team. We gear up and go out."
"There were some bad things that were done in the Homeland era. We're fixing them as much as we can."
"The Project is about six percent of California's GNP."
"Yes, I would let my child work on the Project. My daughter is a Process Manager One in Embarcadero. She had ova put into storage before she accepted the promotion."
###
I agreed that tomorrow I wouldn't try to dodge my handler. Sigh.
An appointment was made for two SFPD officers to meet me in the hotel lobby. They would drive me in.
On the drive back to the hotel, one of the managers shoehorned her way in with me.
"Good questions. You do realize, if your suspicions were correct, you could have had a dreadful accident?"
"Yes. So? If _I_ had a dreadful accident, what do you think would happen to the Project?"
"I don't know."
"You'd be back under military control. California military control."
"But you'd be dead."
"Your point?"
The rest of the ride back to the hotel was quite silent.
The next day, I got to go through all the same gavotte with the gate guards.
Different shift, different officers.
It took video review of me taking the oath for the second SFPD officer to relent and let me in.
###
We were sufficiently VIPs as to get our own personalized tours.
I was efficently handed off to the Public Information Office which duly found me a suit wearing flack, who in turn offered me a briefing pack and a list of bars and nightclubs in the area.
I therefore met expectations and suggested that we knock off early.
After he left, I discarded my briefcase in an empty conference room after taking out my secret weapon, my hall pass to anywhere and everywhere.
A silver alumninum inspection clipboard with a yellow canary note pad on it.
I then returned to the Project administrative building. And discreetly started poking.
###
Heirs and Assigns seemed a reasonable place to start the party.
When tens of thousands of people, mostly neighbors, take the Big Dirt Nap at the same time, you get some very interesting problems in inheritance.
Joanne and Fred are married. Fred was vaporized. Joanne died of radiation poisoning. Do his kids, hers, both or neither inherit? She lived longer, which matters sometimes, but not other times. Depends on how your insurance policy was written.
And there was a lot of concatenation going on. Several properties, quite a chunk of stuff, bank accounts, etc. all ending up in the hands of a family's first cousin who was on vacation, had moved to Florida, etc.
I used my friend as their test case to walk me through it. Grinning at me through their last cups of tea.
"So what happens to the real property?"
"That goes to Zoning. Sometimes it sits. Sometimes it gets an offer to purchase, especially if it's part of another holding. Hmmm, outer Sunset ... yes, we made an offer on it, it was accepted, the house was salvaged then demo'd, and the block is part of the hospice living project."
The Heirs and Assigns clerk was very helpful. A friendly voice in person was so much better than E-mails and angry phone calls, some through the international telephone system to America.
###
I then hitched a ride out to the hospice living project.
The wind is onshore, meaning from the water to the land, so a lot less concern about fallout.
The wearing of a particulate face mask is absolutely required.
When the state of California gets to pay for your cancer, anything that can be done to keep you from breathing in radioactive particles needlessly is not optional, "on pain of trespass from the City and County."
Housing for forty-five thousand San Franciscans.
You had to meet three requirements - destitute, meaning dead flat broke (and if you were an edge case, you gave whatever you had to the Project in your application); dying, meaning two doctors gave you less than six months to live; and a pre-War resident of the City and County.
There was still a rather massive waiting list, which grew and shrank often.
The first units were RVs. Then were manufactured homes. Then cargo containers and slightly upgraded sheds.
Now the Project had its own manufacturing facility for one bedroom manufactured homes. They built three a day, and placed them immediately.
There was a list of patients who were eager to talk to people.
I took shameless advantage.
And took notes.
###
It turned out that one way you could both acquire San Francisco residency _and_ become eligible for hospice care was to work on the Project. Someone pointed me to someone who knew someone who'd been a Project worker under Homeland.
They were very, very eager to tell their story.
I only had to excuse myself to throw up twice.
I was a trier of fact at Alviso Prison. I sentenced over one thousand people to death, and watched each and every one of them die horribly.
The way Homeland ran the Project was worse.
They were looting. Anyone who objected too strongly was shot. Others were put to work. A classic technique was chaining them to a hand truck and sending them into the hot zone, and they got a break and food depending on what they came back with.
The women and children had mostly been evacuated. Mostly. But they put children to work crawling through the sewers to repair cables and open up access to vaults.
Imagine, if you can, a nine year old child wearing SCBA in a IDHL environment. That's Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health.
The banks were broken into. Explosives were used.
Accidents were blamed on 'anti-American partisans' and a rationalization for convenient executions, without due process or trial.
Finally, she leaned back and asked me to turn her nasal cannula and nebulizer up.
She hadn't mentioned her own family or friends. Just stories of what she'd heard from other people.
The caretaker's thanks was effusive.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to her. Most people run out the door screaming."
###
The visitor hours at the hospice center closed at 1800. So I got a ride back to the administration building.
There were three cafeterias. One for VIPs and visitors, which I skipped. One for middle management, which I'd noted and ignored. Then the one in the basement that operated on cash and had two sides - CLEAN and DIRTY.
Dirty side is for those who want to catch a bite to eat while still contaminated. Not grossly, of course, but prior to showering to go home.
So I joined the dirty side, clipboard and handgun and all, and chatted people up.
###
Some snippets:
"It's pretty good here now. Not like before the Resistance. For one thing, there's a share plan for salvage. There's a work share, a percentage share and a bonus share - all semi cumulative, all calculated based on what you've done for the Project, your time clocked in, the areas you've worked and bonuses when they're available."
"You don't have to pay for healthcare here. The problem is getting away from the healthcare. Blood tests depending on your exposure level. High rad zone gets vampired weekly. If you hear someone bitching about their count, that's their white blood cell count."
"Depends on the cancer. Some people keep working even though they are getting chemo. I remember one time ..." and they went into a story about how someone's radiation treatment set off the radiation alarm at one of the portals, and they scrubbed down six people and a passing manager for ultimately no reason.
"They have a point system. You can get money and send it to people, a lot of people do that, but you can also earn points towards residency. The magic number is five years. Not their idea, they were told ... told! ... that five years was California policy, and they could make it work or else."
"They recruit heavily for certain skills. And they have a technical college in San Mateo now. Certificates in radiation safety, machine work, general salvage, confined space operations, forensics, inheritance law, jewelry assay..."
"There are a few crazy people who still live in the Zone. It's their right. If the property is still habitable, which depends on the water system - but getting the water system back up was a high priority in the early days. Some have even gotten jobs with the Project."
"Where does everyone live? There's the barracks of course, and some people live in them to save money. The old Daly City jail complex, you understand. But a lot of people want a little more flexiblity in their days off. There's buses to San Mateo and Hayward BART."
"They talked about using inmates on the Project. They did for a while. But most of them ended up in the Shock Troops in China, and it was just easier to free the others."
###
All good things come to an end.
Everyone was really quiet when two SF Police Officers walked up to the table. One looked at ... dum dum DUM! ... his electronic tablet, to verify my face.
"Captain 18, you will accompany us please."
I'd finished my food, and bought at least ten meals for others. So I did.
###
It was almost 2000 hours. My flack, looking miserable, was seated at a table with his boss, her boss and the PIO for the Project. Then there were the six cops. More importantly, two executives and three managers.
"What are you doing?" they asked without preamble.
"Gathering my own impressions of the Project."
"Who gave you the authority to do that?"
I looked around the room.
"I am a commissioned officer of the California Military Department. Regrettably this nation is still under martial law. I used no special powers, I made no promises or threats. I merely talked to people.
"Does the Project have something to hide?"
They were expecting me to be intimidated.
It doesn't work that way.
I'd been rolled on a gurney into a furnace.
I had an order from the Governor of California, in the Governor's own handwriting.
The session became an interrogation.
I interrogated them.
###
"The median time from hiring to lifedose on the project, for an unskilled worker with no dependents, is about twenty two months. That's when they've taken a sufficiently high dosage that we withdraw them from unskilled work."
"We've had those discussions. Ethics and practicality."
"We follow one rule. We never ask anyone to do something that we wouldn't do ourselves. And we test it. Three times a week, two names are drawn from the executive team. We gear up and go out."
"There were some bad things that were done in the Homeland era. We're fixing them as much as we can."
"The Project is about six percent of California's GNP."
"Yes, I would let my child work on the Project. My daughter is a Process Manager One in Embarcadero. She had ova put into storage before she accepted the promotion."
###
I agreed that tomorrow I wouldn't try to dodge my handler. Sigh.
An appointment was made for two SFPD officers to meet me in the hotel lobby. They would drive me in.
On the drive back to the hotel, one of the managers shoehorned her way in with me.
"Good questions. You do realize, if your suspicions were correct, you could have had a dreadful accident?"
"Yes. So? If _I_ had a dreadful accident, what do you think would happen to the Project?"
"I don't know."
"You'd be back under military control. California military control."
"But you'd be dead."
"Your point?"
The rest of the ride back to the hotel was quite silent.