A Monument to Man's Arrogance: Arizona to Virgin Earth

[ScottishMongol]

I sit with Howard Conway on the sidewalk as he strums his acoustic guitar. Some people throw pocket change into the open guitar case in front of him, but most continue walking.

So. I guess some of it might come from the fact that I was a refugee. I came from outta town, didn't know anyone in Bullhead. I guess there was all sorts of work that needed to be done in those days, stripping cars and of course working on the farms. Well I was an able-bodied young man, so they put me to work on a farm husking corn, I had a gun so they made me part of the farmer's militia too, had a badge and everything...then the Battle of Fort Mojave happened and-

He taps his wooden foot on the sidewalk to keep a beat.

One stray bullet and you're not much good at hard labor. So it was off the farm, and into a hospital long enough for the stump to heal, then out on the sidewalk in a city where even if you had money, it was useless.

Not proud to say it, but I drank a lot at first. Partly to dull the pain from the...foot, but as one week turned into two and I still couldn't find work...yeah.

I've stayed in cars on the salvage lot, on floors, couches, hotel rooms...and I do mean hotels, I know in most places they turned them over to more useful things like cheap housing or for government buildings, but Bullhead gets enough travelers from out of town that we can afford to keep one open.

[If you don't mind me asking, why can't you find work?]

Who's going to hire a drunk with no skills? I didn't even have a high school diploma, I was probably going to be flipping burgers in the Old World until I was old and grey.

Maybe if I could drop the "drunk" part, but...well, when pretty much everyone needs to learn new skills, it's a competitive job market.

[Do you think the City Council has failed you?]

I suppose I do. Shit, I fought for those folks same as anyone else, and when it was over they cut me loose. I know we're not exactly prosperous, no way we can go back to the days of the GI Bill...but then again we didn't exactly treat our vets all that well back in the Old World, did we?

So yeah, I guess having to rely on the charity of strangers makes you realize just how little of that there is to go around. I ain't asking for a handout, but somewhere to stay and time to train up would be...ah, shit, no use asking for mana from Heaven at this point.

He strums his guitar, humming quietly, seemingly composing a tune.

[Do you consider yourself a veteran of Bullhead City?]

What do you mean? I suppose I fought for the place, but it's only my home cause I can't go anywhere else. I suppose if you ask someone better they'll talk about our ideals or our culture, but for me it's just a home with no roof.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Neil Cullen is the owner of Bullhead City's largest hotel. I was able to purchase the room with money issued by the Yuma government, which is accepted tender in Bullhead City. As I check out, Neil talks to me about currency and trade.

So yeah, I know you mentioned the legitimists - sorry, Government-in-Exile -

He rolls his eyes.

Have credit with Yuma, but I'm pretty sure no one's ever taken their money. Which is probably why you took out a bunch of Yuma dollars, which we do accept. Most businesses take them anyway, along with Flagstaff dollars, which, I assume you're also getting?

Anyway those are the two currencies we accept other than the local money the government prints.

[Do you know the exchange rates?]

Um, I know it's about three Yuma dollars to one Flagstaff dollar. And ten of these Yuma dollars you gave me are probably going to fetch one Bullhead dollar.

He shrugs.

There's just not a lot of money in circulation, period, and to be frank barter is still the most common currency across the state.

[What about Old World dollars?]

Useless paper. I know Flagstaff tried using it, but that ran into some big problems when people started bringing out hoarded money, and then there was that salvage operation in Phoenix that brought back the contents of a fucking bank vault.

Ugh, salvage.

[I'm sorry?]

Right, so, salvage is one of the biggest ways to get rich quick. Of course, it's also real fucking dangerous, and it's Flagstaff and the eastern side of the state that has the best access, but...

Every now and then some team from Bullhead will go into the city, sometimes they partner with folks out of Flagstaff. The main problem is the raiders, they're between us and the big corpse city, but the Prescott valley is closer without as many raiders. The roads are mostly clear, too. So, a salvage team goes in, and if they come back alive then most of them wind up pretty damn rich. All you need is one good score.

[What do they bring back?]

A lot of people think you go in for like, jewelry or other valuables, weapons can be a good haul too, but the real good stuff is cookware, clothes, blankets, anything that's still intact after these last five years and will keep, and be useful for a while after this. People won't buy the new handmade underwear if they can get their hands on a fresh bag of it from some salvage run, whew.

Anyway one of the major problems with trade, including salvage, is the western regions of the Northern Government's control aren't really in hand.

[Are they in rebellion?]

No, nothing of the sort. It's just that the Northern Government is still pretty decentralized, and aside from the big development area around Lake Mead, the western third of the region is just, too sparsely populated, there's so much distance between settlements it's easier for them to, pretty much go their own way while paying lip service to Flagstaff.

[Is it dangerous?]

Well, I hear bad things about the Mormons, up north of the Grand Canyon, but the ranchers who'll be taking you to Flagstaff, they're...well, they trade a lot with Bullhead City, cattle and sheep in exchange for whatever they need, but they're just kind of stubborn, and sure you'll get a few cattle raids between them but they're not like, raiders or anything.

The only thing is that since that whole region is so spread out, you don't get too much trading coming from the main population centers of the Northern Government, which is what we really want, but...ah, that's for Flagstaff to worry about, not us. C'mon, let's finish this up.

Neil finishes checking me out and takes me out front to where a caravan of men on horses are loading several wagons and hitching them to oxen. This is my escort, set to take me to Flagstaff.

***

And that was Bullhead City! Next up a little side trip as we meet these rancher fellows, then it's on the Northern Government.

As always, this is a good time for questions.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 4: State of Arizona - Northern Government
​

The caravan winds its way over through the desert, over and alongside the old highway, now in a state of disrepair this far west. The ranchers, gruff and hairy men, spit and sing and talk to each other, occasionally riding ahead in pairs to scout the road. Michael Ettinger, the head of this caravan, rides next to me as I sit in the lead wagon and tells me about this part of the state.

Well, you've got four main factions out in this part of the country - that's country as in countryside, though I suppose seein' as it's all part of Flagstaff in name at least, we're a sort of country in that way too.

First faction is us ranchers, proud an' free, right boys?

The riders in earshot whoop and whistle.

Most of us were only young bucks back in the Old World, some of us were getting ready to move on from the old ranch and head off for better prospects, but then it turns out the best prospect you can ask for in this day and age was the only source of fresh beef and clean water for miles around. None of us were about to leave after that.

Now things've had time to shake out and we're doing pretty well for ourselves, all the little ranches hereabouts are tied together by one thing or another, trade or marriage, I myself married Rancher Lake's oldest, that's my dear Jane.

[How are your relations with the capital?]

Well, I'd be lying if I said any of us were so fond of the tax man or the inspector, but they don't come around so much anymore. Flagstaff's too far away for all that, and besides, they're too busy with every other front - paving roads and digging wells out east, and sending prospectors into the big corpse city.

[Do you ever send people on salvage?]

Not particularly. A few folk'll join up with a salvage team for a season, bring back a little extra something, but for the most part we leave the ruins well enough alone. Too many raiders the further south and east you get, and we've only got a handful of workable trucks ourselves, maybe one to each ranch - and not much gas for any of them.

Anyways, the only time we see government officials is when we visit Flagstaff on a trade caravan, like we're doing now. Sold a bunch of cattle in Bullhead for salvaged gear, we'll trade that in Flagstaff for bullets - they've got their own munitions works there, and good mechanics. The taxman'll take his cut, but we'll make it a haggle. Why do you think we kept the goats?

He winks at me.

[What about the others?]

Right, the other three. Well, there's the Lake Mead Project. Big settlement and rebuilding program by the government, trying to keep Hoover Dam in shape and use the water to grow crops, set up their own little communities. Also a good base of operations on the upper Colorado. They do damn good work on the dam, we make sure to keep them supplied in beef while they bring the crops in, and unless there's a drought they'll keep the country watered.

There's the Indians, the Hualapai and Havasupai that live down in the canyon, they keep to themselves, and out of the way. They're poor but they have a bit to trade. Then there's the Mormons north of the canyon.

He spits.

You don't want to mess with them, trust me. The Indians have a little contact with them, and they don't like what they hear. I don't either.

[What's life like out here?]

Oh, it's all in the rhythm of the seasons nowadays. Winter, summer, rains, dry spells. We move the cattle between pastures and work on our gear, and once in a while there's some excitement. Cattle raids, just young bucks doing it to prove they can, but those don't lead to deaths. Not like the raiders.

We'll get a band out of Prescott once a year, mainly on foot, but once they sent a war rig, and at that point everyone had to band together just to drive em off.

He sighs.

It's getting harder to get our hands on Old World stuff. We picked over Kingman a long time ago, and most salvage goes to the big markets in Flagstaff or Bullhead City. A lot of our own old gear is breaking down, too, and we either gotta buy replacements, which are rarer than they used to be, or make do with what we can. Most of the men are in homespun and cured leather these days.

But. It beats being dead in Phoenix, or working on a line in Flagstaff. It's our own life, to do with as we please.

***

LIVE! I COMMAND YOU TO LIVE!​

 

[ScottishMongol]

Flagstaff shows signs of growth everywhere. Open-air markets and new industries show the economic growth the Development and Prosperity Party has promised, the suburbs have been deconstructed to provide materials for new housing developments, and while people mostly walk or ride bikes, I can hear the whistle of steam engines from the train yards, and once I'm passed by a diesel truck carrying a load of heavy goods. The food in the markets is fresh, a product of the government's investment in community gardens and small farms.

I meet with William "Billy" Brown, a DPP Congressmen, in his downtown office. Before I can even sit down he begins talking animatedly.

I was just a lawyer at City Hall when, uh, when it first happened. I remember that first night, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, the City Council, and some odds and ends were crammed into the Council Chambers, everyone talking over each other and trying to figure out what was going on, while outside past the police cordon were the crowds, trying to find out the same.

Still, we managed to put together some semblance of order over the next few days. All the essentials - requisitioning food and housing, beginning to expand our agricultural base, recruiting skilled labor. We lost a few members of the Emergency Council over the next couple months, one to suicide, two to disease exacerbated by stress and a shortage of medicine. But by the time Phoenix had fallen apart, we had not only established a working government but we were reaching out to the mayors of Show Low and Sedona, and the Tribal Councils. We were talking about exchanging supplies and shutting down the roads to Phoenix.

[And then the Emergency Government evacuated.]

Yes. Our own Emergency Council looked around and realized we didn't want the rogue's crew from Phoenix - military officers, politicians without constituencies, who just wanted to take over from our hard work and run things as they saw fit. Well, that's why we told them to get bent, they weren't taking over, and if they wanted to be rulers of Phoenix in exile they could do it somewhere else.

[Is that the exact wording?]

Oh, uh...you know, I don't know. I wasn't in the room at the time, it was just the mayor...but the rumor is she gave him an earful before hanging up. Like I said, I wouldn't know.

[You didn't even want the military?]

Not desperately. We had our own National Guard unit who had been following our orders independent of Phoenix. They were with us and we made sure of that before shutting down the Emergency Government.

[And that's when the Northern Government was formed.]

That's right. The Emergency Council declared that the Phoenix Government had fallen - I won't repeat the propaganda line, you can hear it on the radio - and that we'd be holding elections, with a constitutional convention to follow.

He pauses.

You know, that first winter wasn't so bad. Very little dieoff, thanks to a largely rural population base. Admittedly we lost a lot of old folks, and from what I understand the folks on the reservations had a rough time of it once the medicine ran out, especially once the insulin went.

But once the votes came in, when you grouped together all the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Hualapai, and Havasupai, on and off the reservations...they were a plurality of the Northern Government's population. The census has confirmed that since. And once you subtracted those parts where we couldn't bring in the votes, like the ranchers or the folks north of the Grand Canyon...then added their allies in the legislature...

He sits back and points at the logo of the Development and Prosperity Party hanging above his desk.

The DPP has been the majority party in the Arizona General Congress every year since. Our first major legislative accomplishment was the Lake Mead Project - bringing Hoover Dam under control and putting all those new settlements around it. After that we focused on the west. I won't sugarcoat it, once the DDP was in power we took the earliest opportunity to pump everything we could spare into the regions which have been, as our platform says "historically underdeveloped".

[The reservations.]

That's right. I don't know what anyone expected once a majority-Native government came to power. Oh, we didn't neglect anyone, but the new railroads and schools went on tribal lands first, the oil and natural gas drilling are all happening on tribal lands - and we're hiring workers from tribal lands too, keeping the wealth in the region. The new plans that encourage small-scale farming and manufacturing, well, those just help everyone.

[What do you have to say about accusations from the opposition that members of your party are using the economic growth to line their own pockets?]

Heh, "the opposition". Well, I assume you'll be talking to them too, their office is just across the street. But in the meantime, I can just say the DPP is firmly against corruption in government, on both sides of the aisle, thank you very much, and I like to think our voters feel the same way. If there've been a few scandals...well, that's just the democratic process sorting out the bad eggs, right?

I thank Mr. Brown for his time and gather my notes. He escorts me down to the front office, and I wave goodbye and walk outside and across the street to the offices of the opposition party: the New Zion Coalition.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Hyrum Stewart is a clean-cut man in a white shirt and a black tie. He eagerly shakes my hand and offers me a seat.

The New Zion Coalition has three main goals in our platform: enforcing law and order in the western part of the state, a greater emphasis on salvage companies as a path to economic growth, and the establishment of a theodemocracy.

I check my notes.

Haha, you probably want me to explain a little.

[Yes, please.]

Alright, well, first off we want to enforce law and order with regards to the ranchers and, ahem, the area north of the Grand Canyon. Not that we bear any ill-will towards the ranchers, but we'd prefer to have secure lines of trade to Bullhead City and to develop the area more economically, maybe enforce some laws against cattle rustling so they don't get out of hand. As for the FLDS...

He takes off his glasses and polishes them on the corner of his shirt.

The New Zion Coalition strongly believes that the FLDS has been in violation of numerous laws and statues for some time. We've been preparing for some time now to draft legislation that will allow a...federal taskforce to travel north of the Grand Canyon and investigate the current situation. We expect this to be followed by a lengthy legal battle.

But anyway, we've already successfully passed legislation that allows for the creation of salvage companies. Do you know much about those?

[Explain for me.]

Most freelance salvage teams are only interesting in certain high-price goods. Clothing, valuables, electronic parts, that sort of thing. They usually go in on commission, make a big score, and disband. We're establishing salvage team registries to prevent a black market from forming, and we've already passed sensible regulations for salvage teams working as government contractors. Benefits negotiations and labor laws are...well, we're doing our best on that one, but the caucus is split. We'll figure something out.

So that's salvage teams. Salvage companies, though, those are another matter entirely. They have the resources to bring back materials in bulk, to go in and stake a claim on a neighborhood and just deconstruct them house by house. We've got two of those, VultureCorp works in the Prescott area and Aquino Associated Salvage has a claim on Fountain Hills, that's one of the richer neighborhoods in the Greater Phoenix Metro.

What we're doing is passing legislation that recognizes these claims - not to the land, but to the resources on them in the form of salvage. Now we're also passing limits on how much they can claim at a time, but we believe this will just encourage more salvage companies to form. Permanent employment by salvage companies will bring a lot of jobs to the Northern Government, and pump more money and resources into the economy. Not to mention opening the door on reclaiming the central part of the state.

[Do the other governments recognize these claims?]

The only real competition in the Phoenix market is the Safford Government, and we have a cooperation treaty. Aquino Associated helped us work that one out, they have offices in Globe.

[You mentioned reclaiming the central part of the state. Is the New Zion Coalition expansionist?]

Only in the sense that we believe the Northern Government is the legitimate successor to the State of Arizona. The DPP believes the same thing.

[Can you tell me about theodemocracy?]

Haha right, you've probably been waiting for me to get back to that.

Theodemocracy was a political system proposed by Joseph Smith that involved a combination of democratic representation with theocratic principles. He believed that theodemocracy would become the world government following the collapse of end of secular governments during the apocalypse.

He gives me a sad smile.

Do you think we're living in the apocalypse? Nevermind, you don't need to answer that. All you need to understand is that the greater number of Mormons in the state of Arizona - outside Phoenix, that is - lived in territory that is now part of the Northern Government. One of the two surviving Mormon Temples in the state is located in Snowflake. Lots of Mormons made it through the early dieoff, and we were open with charity, which gained us some early converts. You can imagine that there's a...religious fervor that has yet to die down.

You wouldn't be wrong to say that the majority of the New Zion Coalition is made up of Mormons.

[But there are others?]

Yes. We've had lots of Protestants slowly come over to our side, and of course we adopted pro-salvage policies out of political necessity. It's a small coalition, but not insignificant.

[So what does theodemocracy look like?]

Well, freedom of religion for one, let's get that out of the way. Our intention is not to create a Mormon theocracy, and we believe in the representation of non-Mormons by non-Mormons.

The "theo" in "theodemocracy" refers to that fact that power should reside equally with God and the collective will of the people. All authority ultimately stems from God, and God gives us religious laws which we are free to accept.

And so, we are working, incrementally, towards realizing a representative democracy by men of God. I myself have a degree in theology from an Old World university, and we have several ordained priests serving in the legislature - not acting priests, of course, but these are men who have practiced overseeing a congregation.

[What do you think of the state of political discourse in the Northern Government?]

Is this about the comments some of our members have made about the, ahem, Native American community? Look, politics is politics, but there was no call for, ah, condescension. We like to think we're a party of integrity and dignity.

[Do you see yourself or your party as fundamentalist?]

No. Admittedly, we're more fervent than we were back in the Old World, overall, but...the real fundamentalists are the...cult, up north of the Grand Canyon.

Do you really plan on visiting them? Because, if you are, I really have to warn you. These people are not...they're not safe. We've left them alone up there for too long.

I promise him I'll take the proper precautions. Before we can continue, he receives a phone call, and politely asks me if we can conclude our meeting.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Seth Jeffs is a balding man with tired eyes. He looks more like a high school teacher than a prophet. In the Old World, his brother Warren Jeffs held that position, dispensing doctrine from a prison in Texas. Our meeting place is the Short Creek Community Center. I was received by a unit of "district police" at North Rim after being taken across the Grand Canyon by a pack mule. They did not relieve me of my personal firearm, which I am glad for. Short Creek, formerly Colorado City, is perhaps a little run-down. The women wear full-length prairie dresses and the men wear long-sleeved button-up shirts and trousers.

I would ask you to refer to me as President Jeffs. It was a heavy burden, having to receive this task after my brother was taken up to Heaven.

He pauses, seemingly caught up in genuine emotion.

He was our spiritual rock. But the people of this sinful world rejected him, and sought to imprison him. Thankfully, the Lord Almighty has freed him, and I know in my heart that the walls of his cell were pulled down by an angel of the Lord, just as he prophesied.

[So what happened to the rest of the world?]

Since they rejected his message, the Lord took him and all his congregation away from them. The prophet was taken up to Heaven, and we were sent to a paradise, a new Eden. There is an entire world of untouched wilderness, a gift freely given to reward his followers. It is here that we shall dwell until the end of days.

[And the...others?]

The apostates. Some were punished for their wickedness. The authorities in Phoenix long schemed to undo our great work here. Now they are as Sodom and Gomorrah. Those who followed the words of Joseph Smith but fell away from the righteous path long ago - what you would call Mormons - they have been spared, and given the chance to correct their ways. Some will see our example and come to our shining city, or else they will be led astray by the Lamanites, like those that rule from Flagstaff.

[So there have been some converts?]

Oh, yes. After we were brought to the New Eden, there were some who still sought to usurp me. There was no question that as the brother of Warren Jeffs I was to lead the church, but others were led astray by evil men.

[William Jessop?]

We do not speak his name. He and his followers were dealt with, for the Lord stirred the hearts of the people with righteous anger.

[You killed them?]

Obey the prophet when he speaks, and you'll be blessed. Disobey him, it is death. That is the first commandment that all the flock keep in their hearts.

I pause.

[So, how did you restore order?]

There was very little chaos. Not only was I able to lift the hearts of our congregation by revealing to them the will of God, but we were fortunate enough to count many members of the local civilian law enforcement among our number. They helped us to spread the news, and to find food to nourish our bodies. They recognized that all secular authority would be stripped away, and there was only need for the authority of the church.

[So the police helped you secure food supplies? What happened to those outside your congregation?]

We were generous. Those who wished to join us would share in the food. Many refused, but as time went on they were convinced. Others merely joined because we could explain to them what had happened, or because we remained orderly and calm, thanks to our faith in God.

Of course, we also were preparing for the future. This land was famous for its herds of sheep, as well as its herds of deer. Hunting and herding is now the basis of our livelihoods, along with some simple farming.

[How did you secure the livestock?]

By this point the remaining secular leaders had relinquished their authority. Many had perished due to the hardships of the time, others had acted against us. We took it upon ourselves to eliminate those servants of the Devil. Soon the church remained the only source of leadership north of the Grand Canyon, and I took it upon myself to attempt to organize the people, giving orders that all resources were to be doled out by the church.

The Lord provides. Those who refused my edicts found themselves being punished at the hands of our loyal police. As I said, to disobey the prophet is death. We were still graceful in victory, though. The wives of these rebels have been taken care of, they are provided for by the men of our congregation who became their husbands.

I pause again.

This is how everyone north of the Grand Canyon came to follow us. They saw our hard-won prosperity and the strength God had given our hands and became convinced of the truth of our gospel, or else they turned down the path of the apostate.

[What is life like now?]

Quiet and orderly. The only music you will hear are joyous praises to God. There is no crime, for we are peaceful among ourselves, but the police remain to remind us of our moral duties and to protect us from the depredations of our enemies. We do not suffer moral degenerates or those who resist the will of the prophet.

As the Lord wills, the upstanding members of our church have many wives, who are obedient to their husbands and who are fruitful in producing children. There is plenty of good work for young men, and we raise them to be strong - when they turn sixteen, each boy is sent to spend a year in the wilderness, on pilgrimages. Those who return are strong in body and in spirit.

So you see, this is a land of prosperity, where all submit themselves to the authority of God. It is a shame that so many wish to continue down the path of sin.

I check my watch. He smiles at me.

You do not need to fear. We want you to return to those sinful lands, to carry our message and that of Warren Jeffs. Apostate that you are, you can still be an unintentional deliverer of his good word.

I still did not sleep that night. One thing that strikes me throughout the conversation is that Seth Jeffs, President of the FLDS, is a completely devout believer, and sincerely considers himself the voice of God. I am glad to take my leave of this place.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Ella Aquino is the CEO of Aquino Associated Salvage, the largest salvage company in the State of Arizona. Her wealth shows - she sits behind her elaborately carved desk in a perfectly tailored suit, in an office with numerous oil paintings of the Arizona landscape hanging on the walls. A bottle of wine sits in a bucket of ice between us.

People are surprised to hear that most of this is local. I want to create an image of supporting a new economy, instead of just feeding on the leftovers of the old one. It's all about image.

These clothes were made from cotton grown on tribal land, the desk was made by a local carpenter, the paintings were bought at an auction held by an NAU alum.

That said, I have a weakness for Old World wine. Care for a glass?

[Maybe after the interview.]

Good call. So, what do you need to know?

[How did you found Aquino Associated Salvage?]

I was a freelance scavenger, one of the small teams that are a dime a dozen. We would go into Prescott or maybe way North Phoenix and dig through the rubble looking for valuables and intact trade goods. I made about three good scores, and in exchange we only got into one shootout with raiders. I've still got the scar on my wrist, it's about the size of a quarter. Fingers never bent quite the same as before, but that's the risk you take.

Well, after three good scores, I could've put the money into a bank, but I figured there was a way to stay in the business. I found a partner - he runs the Safford office - and we pooled our money to buy the gear we needed. See, anyone can go after trade goods, but I had a bigger job in mind.

[Raw materials?]

God, there was so much of it! An ocean of asphalt, concrete, brick, and steel that nobody was using! And in this climate, you'll get some minor erosion but ninety percent of it is still there! We started small - marked out a small town that'd been abandoned, got the permits, hired some old salvage buddies and a few workers straight off the deconstruction of the Flagstaff suburbs.

In year three, Aquino Associated Salvage completed its first job. We brought back slabs of concrete, a couple hundred feet of piping, absolutely truckloads of bricks and lumber...plus all the contents of those leftover houses. Even the seemingly useless stuff we kept in storage, and it paid off when they started looking into that plastic recycling plant. The haul was like nobody had ever seen before. I'm still not convinced we were the first to think of it, but we were the first to do it, and damn if we didn't reap the rewards.

[At what point did you get government subsidies?]

When we wanted to move into Phoenix. Paradise Valley, one of the richest parts of the city back in the Old World, and it was home to, what, five to ten survivalists, maybe a mountain lion, some packs of feral dogs? Cost-to-risk analysis took no time at all.

[Still, those were actual dangers.]

Oh, I'm not saying they weren't serious threats. But the constant flow of resources we were going to be sending back to Safford and Flagstaff, that we're still sending to this day? The government was practically salivating when they cut us a subsidy check.

But still, threats. Environmental hazards - floods, fires, sandstorms - those you just have to prepare for and have a backup plan. We don't worry about wild animals either. Sure, a lot of them were feeding on human corpses for a while, and they still have a taste for it, but unless you're an idiot who goes off on his own, and you keep your gun with you, you'll be safe. Mountain lions weren't exactly an endangered species in the Old World and now there's a whole hemisphere without humans hunting them, so we can bag as many as we want, theoretically. But we're not a hunting party, we're salvagers, which means the priority is protecting our workers.

And fuck me if survivalists don't make that a problem. Animals you can fend off, and in a fight they're easy to take, but the survivalists...they're the mad, crazy bastards who lived through the apocalypse, most of them by being lucky and killing anyone in their path, with a frighteningly high rate of cannibalism thrown in.

And so even through most of the city is fucking wasteland, they're still holed up out there, and they're all scary good at fighting, sneaking, breaking and entering, and at doing absolutely anything necessary to survive. Most of them wouldn't come back to society if we wanted them to. You think raiders are bad? Try a guy who's lived off canned food and bottled water for two years, then rainwater and rabbits after that, and now some people come rolling in to kick down his door looking for loot?

You feel bad for them, sorta. And then you realize that to them you're probably just two hundred pounds of meat, and they've got a gun and more ammo than they know what to do with. Fuck, you would not believe how many guns we find.

If there's any advantage, it's that most of them are loners. You get a few gangs, maybe a couple enclaves, some of them even making attempts at farming, but they're isolationist and they stay in one place, unlike the loners who move around a lot, or the gangs who have turfs they patrol. But the gangs have more to lose, and they clear out when an armed convoy rolls into the neighborhood.

And then of course there are the raiders themselves. They come into the city, doing the same thing we're doing but with cars. Hundreds of thousands of cars, and in a hot dry environment like this where corrosion is muted, they'll have spare parts for the next generation, maybe two if they know what they're doing. And they have permanent bases on the east end of the city...we haven't encountered any, but we know they can get pretty far into the city, clearing the roads to make things easier. I'm pretty sure at the pace things are going we'll meet right in the middle, and then things'll get...interesting.

[That's why you hire private contractors?]

Call a spade a spade, darling, they're mercenaries. But yes, we employ bodyguards, actually we employ lots of people. Drivers, deconstruction workers, sappers, not to mention we're at the point where we can starting specialize our salvage experts. We've got a government contract to cooperate with Flagstaff's intelligence agency, because we do stumble on some valuable intelligence. Which requires scouts and spies and people who know the terrain, which is to say we employ a lot of people.

We've also been doing a nice side business in acting as guides for, oh, ecologists, water management experts, you know, people who want to study the Dead Zone to see how the plants and animals are doing, and to check the waterways to see how much crap has been washed out of them. And we'll probably be looking at that a lot more thanks to the new environmental regulations, which...

She rolls her eyes.

Okay.

[Could you explain?]

Well, keep in mind that there are a lot of useless materials, things that were broken or that are completely worthless. Expired stuff, you know, just general garbage, and then of course all the houses and cars that've been ruined by floods and fires and the elements in general, where the best thing to do is to just tear it down and move on.

Well, they want us to properly dispose of all that stuff. Dig a hole and dump everything in it and cover it up, make sure we're not leaving piles of garbage exposed. I guess I can see why, we don't want more crap getting into the water down there, and if the eventual hope is to resettle it...

Still, you just gotta question at what point we're putting a bandaid on a missing limb. These are the same people who make such a big deal about human remains. Even though there's something like three million sun-bleached skeletons, we gotta make sure all of them are "respectfully interred", which means no dumping them in a landfill, and like, I get it, really, but skeletons don't stay together, especially when animals and birds have been at them, and half the time they're way too scattered to collect all the fragments of a skeleton. Skulls stick around, we've buried a lot of skulls. But you just can't find all the bones, they just keep turning up, and we're not going to have a funeral for every rib or vertebrae, so yeah, we make some mass graves, what do you want us to do about it?

Phoenix will always be the Corpse City, and no amount of picking up litter will change that. All we can do is take what's useful and leave the rest to rot.

She glances at the wine.

I'm sure this is all terribly interesting, but if you fully intend on meeting with our Safford office...?

I nod. She opens the bottle of wine and pours me a glass.

A toast to good business, then.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Russel Begaye stands on the back of his beaten-up pickup truck and looks across the plain, his hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket. A few oil pumps move up and down, piping natural gas out of the ground. Between us and the oil field is the end of the road, cut perfectly through as if with a razor.

It's a bit strange, I'll admit, thinking about how many times I've driven down this road to visit the people up...

He nods towards the east.

They're gone now, of course. Along with the road, but the land...the land was the same. And so were the deposits.

He grins.

Back in the Old World this never would've flown. We were against drilling on tribal land, mainly because it was going to be the feds leasing out the rights to drill to corporations. Now, though...

[Is this still tribal land?]

Oh, land ownership, what a snarl that was. I mean hell, nearly all tribal land was held in trust by the federal government. Ain't no federal government now! So then, who owned it? Well, whoever was living on it at the time, bein' honest. You had the same problem all over the state - who held the deed didn't matter so much to the people squatting on it with their guns. We - meaning the Flagstaff Government - tried to settle the most egregious cases, where people'd been run off their land, but mostly it didn't matter.

Now, here's the thing. The feds may have held the land in trust, but the tribal government administered it. We had our own courts, and police, and seeing as the Navajo Nation was the most populous of all the reservations in the Old World we had a government worth talking about. Of course then most of our government goes and joins the new one in Flagstaff!

Ah...this isn't boring you, isn't it?

[Not at all.]

Right. So the long and short of it is that you had a situation where there were two governments operating side-by-side. Couldn't have that! Well, since we controlled the Flagstaff legislature we merged the remaining tribal administrations into the new state government. Complicated, and I'm sure you don't have the time to interview a judge, but take my word for it when I say that legal precedent was a real bitch to establish.

So, what happens to tribal land? Well at that point we decided to run it as a legal entity, almost like a publicly-owned company where the stockholders are registered members of the Navajo Nation. So in short, the land is owned in common. There's an elected board that decides where to drill and where to farm and graze, and negotiates with Flagstaff to put in roads and schools...and we also have the right to claim new land. Lake Mead, the whites can have that, and old Phoenix too, but all this untouched land, this Virgin Earth? That's ours again.

He takes a deep breath.

Things are getting better. We're still dealing with some of the same old problems, true. Corruption, that never went away, and sometimes money doesn't get where it's supposed to go. We try and hold people accountable, but...yeah.

If we're still getting by on scrap and second-hand gear, well, so is everyone else, and if running water and electricity are still spotty then we're used to that too. But things are getting better a little bit at a time, and we've got room to grow, out there.

So, you're heading down to Safford next?

[Yes.]

I'll give you the name of a buddy of mine to look up, lives on the Apache reservation. Might tell you a thing or two.

We look out at the Virgin Land. It really is surreal.

Why do you think it happened? Sorry, I know you're asking the questions, but...you remember Ghost Dance? That belief that one day the spirits would make all the white men go away? Well, it never caught on with the Navajo. I don't think anyone here believes it. But sometimes I think...there's a lot fewer white men in the world, and a lot of our people are still here. That might be sort of close.

He steps down from the bed of his pickup and offers me a hand.

Alright, miss, let's get you back to town.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 5: the State of Arizona - Safford Government​

"Little" Alex Silversmith is five foot ten and spends most of his time in an outpost in the hills in the northern part of the San Carlos Apache Reservation. He has discarded his jacket in the summer heat and instead the strap of his assault rifle is slung over a black tank top.

Things looked pretty good in this part of the state, at first. You had some farms and ranches, a national guard base, and the university up in Safford. There was only one road leading to Phoenix, and that was through a narrow pass that we were able to bottle up. It's been cleared now, but there's a checkpoint down at Lake Roosevelt. But back then, the mayor of Safford was coordinating local efforts, and he would be recognizing Flagstaff's authority soon enough.

That said, the real problem came from within. The national guard was stretched pretty thin. The mayor was recruiting more, and then you had the cops and the militias, but there was still a lot of unrest. Globe was...a bit too full, just a bit too many mouths to feed, including some refugees who'd been accepted in before we - they - closed the pass.

[How many was too many?]

I dunno, I'm not one of the eggheads at the university. They crunched the numbers and it came out afterwards that...well, you know how some places had to make the choice between everybody starving or half the population being fed? Yeah, that was gonna be us real soon. So yeah, Globe was coming apart at the seams, and the national guard wasn't having an easy time of it keeping everything together. And then, the mayor of Safford decided to arm the folks on the rez -

He hefts the assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

- while at the same time pulling back some of the guard to Safford. Well, people started talking real quick. I don't know what he planned, but there was one road between Globe and Safford, and it led right through Apache land. If Globe collapsed, the refugees'd hit us first. So it sure looked like he was putting us between him and the city. Well, not much we could do about that, but by this point Globe had some shit-stirrers. Maybe you didn't need to be an egghead to know that if you got rid of enough people then at some point there'd be enough food for the rest of us. And the locals figured it might as well be all those refugees...

Then El Presidente came to talk to us. He wasn't El Presidente then of course, just some national guard officer. I think he was one of the people who joined up after, and he just got promoted real fast. Never found out. But he pitched us this plan...pretty damn ballsy, but he needed some outside guns.

I don't know if he woulda gone through with it if it hadn't been for Globe. The city finally went blew up, it was local cops and the city militia against the national guard mostly, but there was something like five factions. National guard only controlled part of the city, and bandit and refugees - no real difference at this point - were spilling east into Apache land. We'd had some firefights but the real storm was still comin'.

So, around sundown, about four months after Phoenix had collapsed, the boss gathered up the Safford garrison, marched into city hall, and hey presto, you got another place calling itself the State of Arizona. Now, our guy didn't call himself the president, but the name got around somehow, so, El Presidente is what most people on the street'll call him.

[Why do you think he did it?]

Probably because he wanted to be the little tinpot dictator of a couple backwoods towns. Shit yeah, I can say that, why do you think we're up in the hills? Anyway, he's welcome to it.

[But he did stop Globe from collapsing.]

Maybe so. True, lots of people weren't pleased with how the old mayor handled things, El Presidente spread the word around afterwards that he saved the day. That's probably why so many folks fell in line behind him, at first anyway. But hey, maybe the national guard could've restored order, or maybe the old mayor would've been able to handle it. Who knows?

[What happened after the coup?]

After that? He split the Safford Garrison, half was sent to sort out Globe. We joined up with them and rolled into town, backup for the national guard. By the time that was over...yeah, too many mouths wasn't a going concern anymore. There's all sorts of conspiracy theories - that the old mayor was gonna let Globe collapse on purpose, that the fighting in Globe was a false flag or some shit, that El Presidente was behind it, or that we were behind it somehow...most way you'll hear it, either he wanted us to be his private army, or he was planning to wipe out the pure white race and put us in charge. Shit, I wish. Maybe we'd have gotten something better out of it than the guns and a cut of the salvage.

[So things haven't been that great since then?]

Things haven't ever been that great. But nah, after El Presidente had Globe sorted we got a pat on the back and we went back to the reservation. At least we got to keep the guns and stuff. But well, you see those mountains?

He points to the peaks north of us.

White Mountain Rez is right over there. There's some trails through there, and we do a bit of trade with our relations out there. Out of the way of any government officials, their side or ours, and word goes back and forth all the time. We know what kinda deal they get on their side of the mountains, and we'd like a slice. Don't forget, we were almost part of the Flagstaff Government before the coup.

[How did he last this long?]

Cooperation. He's not some nutcase, he's got trade agreements and open borders, and he let one of their salvage companies put an office in Globe, and its not like we shot any of theirs so they're not mad at us breaking off or anything. They've got enough on their plate, from what I hear, so as long as he doesn't cause problems for them, they'll leave him be.

[What about internal trouble?]

He winks at me.

Like I said, why do you think we're in this outpost up in the hills?

 

[ScottishMongol]

Linda Glenn, like many, shows signs of stress - hair graying before her time, dark circles around her eyes, a lined face. However, Linda works in the Safford University Library, one of the highest concentrations of knowledge in the world outside of Flagstaff.

People might not understand just how much knowledge was lost, all at once. The moment the...Event, the Translocation, the...whatever. In the instant it happened, we lost access to the sum total of all human knowledge in the form of the Internet. An incalculable amount of collected learning that we will never get back, poof, gone.

We have to make due with what we had left. And that knowledge pool is rapidly shrinking. The chaos of Phoenix burnt up...so many libraries. So many private and public collections, even just things like government records that could have been useful in studying the 21st Century. It's possible that the Government-in-Exile squirreled some of those records away, but it's doubtful.

Still, even with the damages done by fire, there was still a monumental amount of information hidden around, in books and other forms of media. Ever since then, it's been a race against the elements. Fires tear through Phoenix yearly, and the rain - the yearly monsoons are starting to tear down buildings that have been structurally weakened. This is, admittedly, primarily a concern for the salvage teams, but my department has been begging and borrowing for every expedition to bring back salvaged books, and I mean good reference books, so that maybe we can preserve something.

We've had...mixed results. Usually the salvage teams can be counted on to bring back something good - every book is precious, in my opinion - but some hauls are better than others. And that's not even to mention digital media...we gave up on that as a bad job, reluctantly in my case.

[Was it not worth the effort?]

God, wasn't that the big debate? At first we thought that maybe searching through hard drives from select, targeted expeditions would turn up something, but the results were way into diminishing returns, and the higher-ups scrapped any further attempts to bring those back. Our computer hardware isn't going to last outside a generation, anyway, and we...probably won't have the technology base to build more for a long time.

That's basically the problem with all forms of digital media, though to a lesser extent. We just don't have the capabilities to build more cameras, DVD players, or even VCRs, and when those break down...they're gone for good, that's it. I know in some places you get like, movie theaters doing re-runs of classic films, and yeah we've got a few of those stored away in the vaults, but you can only find replacement parts out of Phoenix for so long.

This isn't to say that we don't know how. If we wanted to, we could probably re-invent primitive photography and film. The chemical processes would be difficult, and might require trial and error. But well...it comes down to the will and the resource base.

Oh, and, I'm not trying to denigrate the people who have made new films these days. I know a lot of people don't like watching the footage shot by people who made it out of Phoenix...too real, I can sympathize. But I-17 is one of my favorite films. So beautifully edited. Then there are some of the amateur films written and shot in Flagstaff...it'll be a damn shame to see that little industry disappear.

[You think that's a foregone conclusion?]

It is, in my opinion. Everything breaks down eventually, you hear about this problem in Yuma, their beloved military hardware breaks down and they can't fix it, for want of basic replacement parts that they can't build without the tools to make the tools...that's going to happen all over, in the next couple decades, and who knows where it'll stop?

I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle most days, tossing little messages in bottles into seas of time, hoping they reach someone in the future...

Because, now that you understand how hard it is to preserve this knowledge, understand that some people, people in places of power, don't even think we should bother. They ask why we're spending resources trying to remember how to build spaceships, or computers, or record what happened a hundred years ago in some part of the world that doesn't "matter" anymore. Like we can't learn anything from the history of Rome or the British Empire, like it's not worth knowing about the ecology of the Amazon or Australia!

Why can't our children's children's children know that men walked on the Moon and know how they did it and dream to do the same?

And then you have - ugh, fundamentalist groups who see an opportunity to rewrite history, to erase the work of decades to support a literal interpretation of...sorry. There's a sizable Mormon contingent in Safford, and they've been agitating here, and in Flagstaff, for schools to teach the "controversy" of the Book of Mormon's...let's say, unorthodox claims about New World archaeology. There are also some people, and I won't name names, who have actively campaigned for wiping out records of "dangerous" political or philosophical movements, which I'm sure you can understand is extremely dangerous.

It's...endlessly frustrating. The worst part of it is, they're right, in a way. Most people just don't care anymore. People aren't going to be teaching their kids about real history, about real science, just about whatever it is that will help them survive. The majority of people are probably some form of subsistence farmer or pastoralist right now, and that's not going to change any time soon. There are maybe three real metropolitan areas in the world right now, and Safford isn't one of them.

Which comes back to what I said about the will and the resource base. When most of your effort is spent just staying alive, just getting a functional economy, you're not going to have people around to innovate, to research, to learn. The people running things right now aren't anti-science, not most of them anyway, but they're short-sighted. They do want knowledge. "Practical" knowledge. Information on steam and diesel power, natural gas and mineral deposits, those they want. Military R&D, there's always something in the budget for that. Agricultural knowledge, we can all agree that's a priority. But putting money into history courses? Political science? Anything that's, oh what did he tell me, "pie tomorrow, never pie today".

And even while we're trying to preserve what we know - we're copying books, sharing them with other collections, looking for more, writing new sources that compile and comment on Old World knowledge - there's so much more we could be learning!

She waves at the east-facing windows, beyond which lie, eventually, the Arizona state border.

We don't even know what the rest of the world looks like! We think we're alone, but what if there are people on the East Coast, or Eurasia? Why are there no megafauna?

If there are no people in this world, the megafauna should never have been hunted to extinction. So why are there no Columbian Mammoths, no Sabre-tooths, no Giant Sloths? Maybe there were humans and they died out in the Americas. Maybe it was something else, something that could completely change the way we see the world! We've explored a radius of maybe 500 miles around Arizona, and that only very, very lightly. We haven't scratched the surface out there - for all we know a single archaeological dig could turn our understanding of this - this New World on its head!

It's become common to refer to the pre-Translocation era as "the Old World". It's a way of separating themselves from the United States, from another civilization and another culture. We're too different now, we've been too changed by what we went through. People don't like to talk about it, or even think about it. It's only a few people who really bother to ask why this happened. Why it happened to us, to our state. They're usually insane theories - like the Fundamentalists north of the Grand Canyon, or the raiders out beyond Phoenix - or they're just...extremely unpleasant to think about. Some god or alien's laboratory test, some research experiment.

That's why there's no common name for the Event. The Translocation...I was the first to write an actual research paper on it, and it's only been picked up on by a handful of academics in Flagstaff.

I worry that...if I fail, people will forget the Old World entirely. It will fade into myth, and people won't understand what's really important about those days, and about why we are the way we are. Someone will come up with a creation myth, and "explain" how this all came to be, and we'll lose something extremely vital to our species' success - the ability to learn from our past and build on it.

She shakes her head.

I wonder what we're going to look like in a few generations.