ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS,TEMPORARY NATIONAL GOVERNMENT (TNG) DISTRICT (FORMERLY IN GEORGIA). 2 PM EST. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2025.
Cameron Nguyen-Peters
hadn’t cared one way or another at first when the mixture of
colonels and ex-business execs who were the Board of the Temporary
National Government had asked to begin every meeting with an
“inclusive non-denominational” prayer. A third-generation
Washington bureaucrat, it hadn’t occurred to him that down here
“inclusive non-denominational” meant “equal time for nuts and total
nuts.”
He’d learned to nod
without hearing. The Board met in a small amphitheater where
presidents of the University of Georgia once panhandled groups of
wealthy alums; it had a long heritage of talk with no attention.
Reflecting through droning had become Cam’s soothing review time
before the acrimonious politics.
Not
today.
Reverend Abner Peet,
head of the Post Raptural Church, had been kept out of the praying
rotation for three months by the votes of General Grayson, who was
Cam’s Deputy Commander in Chief; the colonels who headed up
Defense, Intelligence, and Security; and Collum Duquesne, the
freeholder of Castle Newberry and Cam’s advisor on economic
development. Their five votes tied the Board at 5-5, with Cam
casting the deciding vote.
But Collum Duquesne,
a wily old bastard who had managed to cobble together the
manufacturing complex in Newberry, South Carolina, that was
supplying black-powder weapons to the Army, rehabbing tons of
museum technology, and supplying parts for half of the TNG’s tech
projects . . . Collum, with his big laugh, warm hug, and sheer
charm . . . had flown in for Board meetings, showing off his
exclusive use of his rebuilt Piper Cub. On his way home from the
last meeting, he had slammed into a mountain in a summer
thunderstorm just outside Newberry.
Five Post Raptural
Christians on the Board outvoted four military officers. Cam would
not be allowed to appoint another advisor on economic development,
because “if that’s something the private sector should take care
of, then let’s let them take care of it,” as Reverend Whilmire put
it.
I could just dissolve the Board. I created it and
recruited it under the rules laid down in Directive 51;
surely if it had been his to create, it could be his to alter or
abolish? Cam was the Natcon, the only person in the room whose
authority derived directly from the vanished Federal
government—
Reverend Peet’s
cadences were rising and building; he was soaring to the end of the
prayer with metaphorical drums banging, cymbals clanging, and horns
blazing away. “—guide the Christian men in this room, and bring
Christ to the men who are Christian in name only, to see the clear
hand of God in the Rapture of so many missing millions, to
recognize the Tribulation now under way, and to make the
declaration, here and now, to move toward the God-ordained
Christian States of America, and to cease the persecution of those
of us who try to do Your Will. Hear us for we ask in the name of
Jesus Christ, who taught us praying to say, ‘Our Father,’ . .
.”
Everyone except Cam
and the colonels leapt into the Lord’s Prayer; the rest jumped in
later, Cam latest of all, and then he screwed up again by
forgetting that it was “sins” and not “trespasses” that were
supposed to be forgiven.
At the end, the five
Post Rapturals on the Board rose and applauded before rushing down
to congratulate Peet at the podium.
When that clown sprang the Lord’s Prayer on me, Grayson
was right on it. I’m not sure whether I’m more worried that he was
listening, or that I was caught not listening. Next Sunday Peet’s
going to be trumpeting why-won’t-the-Natcon-say-the-Lord’s-Prayer,
and the Athens Weekly Insight will be
pushing to make me say it in public.
He rose from his
chair, mechanically thanked Reverend Peet, and watched Peet’s exit,
as stately as a king leaving the minor business to the lackeys and
minions. And what’s with the black robe and a
doctoral stole? Up till now every preacher managed to pray in a
black shirt with a funny collar.
When the Board
finally took their seats for business, Cam hammered his way through
announcements: For issuing new money, engravers were ready, paper
wasn’t yet. The first Stearman copy with the new no-electric
all-diesel engines would test-fly this week. Tribals had attacked a
train outside Las Cruces, and Rangers were on their way to lead New
Mexico Guard and allies from the California Castles for a punitive
raid. Talks between the Springfield and Quincy governments in
Illinois/Wabash were stymied. Foreign Relations had asked for
military backup for Post Raptural missionaries in the Caribbean;
Cam bluntly told them he was not going to use scarce military
resources to rescue preachers who were trying to subvert friendly
governments. The Post Rapturals used their new majority to record a
protest and declare that the Board should have binding
powers.
“I have the power to
create and appoint a Board, which is then to be self-governing,”
Cam reminded them. “And the Board is to serve at my pleasure. A
Board that is hell-bound to overthrow the Establishment
Clause—”
“A strong perspective
on the Bible and the Constitution,” General Grayson said, “is well
within the bounds of real American political thought.”
“This strong
perspective seems to be that the way the Reverend Peet reads the
Bible supersedes the way anyone with eyes reads the Constitution,”
Cam said. Ouch. Grayson brings that out in
me.
“The context of the
Constitution,” Grayson said smoothly, “is that the Framers were
Christian—”
Colonel Chin, advisor
for Security, asked, “Does this matter?”
Bless her heart. “No, and I’m ruling it out of
order. Under Directive 51, I am to hand over power only to a
competent Constitutional authority. If we don’t follow the
Constitution here—including the Establishment Clause—then it is we,
not those hippie nuts in Olympia, who are outside the Constitution.
I might find it necessary to rule that Graham Weisbrod is competent
after all, and that you would owe your allegiance to the Olympia
government.”
“This state has been
a home of rebels before.” Albertson, the former Louisiana State
Secretary of Education, was the staunchest Post Rapturalist on the
Board.
“It has, and the
answer to your proposal was delivered by General Sherman. This
meeting is closed.”
On their way out,
General Grayson tagged Cam’s elbow. “You know Reverend Peet is now
urging Post Rapturals to pray for your death?”
“Does that make a
difference?” Cam asked the general.
“It might.” Cam could
never decide whether Grayson’s weird smirk was cynicism, contempt,
or Grayson kidding God about making the world so silly. “God has
been known to find human hands. We have to go over the incoming
reports this afternoon, we can talk more then. Take a long lunch
with a friend and decompress—it’s what I do. Later, my
friend.”
“Later,” Cam said,
trying not to visualize Grayson’s “long lunch” with Jenny.
Well, I guess it probably does decompress him.
My problem is I can’t buy lunch at the prison. Guess getting lunch
isn’t as important as seeing my only friend.