Sovereign (Part Two)

(An excerpt from The Daily Scroll, an online newspaper, an article posted by Ebriam Scott on March 3rd, 2045.)

CRESTWELL INDICTMENTS READ AT TRIBUNAL

Kenneth R. Crestwell, 65, the infamous war criminal facing the mercies of the Sovereign Trial Tribunal in Washington, D.C., has been officially indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, insurrection, rape, child sex abuse, human trafficking, genocide, and unlawful imprisonment. Crestwell stood before the representatives making up the Tribunal with what a court presider described as, "forced bravado."

U.S. President, Kimberly Huxton, announced Crestwell's sentence before the court just after 2pm: death by vaporization. "We find no solace in allowing you to remain alive, your face still haunting the victims who managed to escape. Let this also serve as a warning to the Sovereign collaborators still at large."

Amy read the newspaper clipping within the scrapbook Joan gave her to look over while Marigold had a private consultation with her doctor.

"Mum doesn't like that I kept tabs on him." Joan commented, sipping her cup of tea wearily. "I know he was a bastard. I knew it firsthand. But he was also my father. We both share that shame every day."

The ceramic teacup was well-used, tinged amber and red from lipstick marks. Amy sipped her own cup sparingly, for it was a bit too strong and had too much milk for her liking.

"I can leave if she wants to have her doctor's appointment in here." Amy offered. "I feel bad that she had to move."

Joan gave a brief smile. "She prefers having her appointments in the spare storage room. We've made its own little examination office, with a sink and hospital bed. Mum didn't want to associate the sitting room with doctor."

Amy turned the page of the scrapbook and barely hid her gasp. It was a photograph of the prison cells where the arrested Sovereign Chancellors awaited trial. Crestwell was a the forefront of the photo, staring broodingly at the camera, his middle finger raised in defiance. Amy remembered seeing news footage of him in full regalia, greeting his mass of supporters (notably mostly male and white). He'd been intimidating in those newsreels, holding his right arm rigidly straight in a Nazi salute, three fingers risen and splayed apart to form a "W" - white power.

His prison photo couldn't have been more contrasting. All the power had been stripped from him, leaving him barely more than a husk. Amy wondered if he'd been bald before he was arrested or his hair started falling out from the stress afterward. He'd lost a considerable amount of weight, no doubt from the lack of decadence he had once indulged greatly in, mainly in greasy, fried Southern meals and generous amounts of liquor. Amy expected to feel some kind of schadenfreude at seeing a powerful fascist dethroned, but she knew his victims faced far worse at his hands. This was barely recompense for the torture and deaths he had sanctioned.

"You know that I actually loved him once? As a child?" Joan muttered, her voice forlorn. 'The way a child loves their father? Because they weren't allowed to be told the evil acts he committed daily. I was told that he was like a king serving his people and that I was a princess. He didn't treat my mother like a queen. Hell, he didn't even treat his actual wife with respect."

Amy looked at her sympathetically. "It's not your fault. None of that was ever your fault. Or any of those women's."

"Some of the concubines were more sinister than others. The wife was painfully jealous. She took it out on the concubines' kids. Some day I'll write my own memoirs. But...some memories are too painful. You have to understand that we went through a great deal of trauma and nobody likes to ruminate on things like that." Joan said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "But I also feel like if she didn't, all that bottled-up pain is going to kill Mum. Her kidneys are already failing."

"Couldn't she afford a lab-grown kidney?" Amy asked, turning the page of the thick scrapbook.

"Isn't that the thousand-pound question?" Joan answered. "She can afford one hundred lab-grown kidneys. It's the fact that she refuses the surgery. Her sense of worth was tarnished so long by Crestwell that she believes she doesn't deserve to live a longer life or not be in pain."

"Alright, you can stop talkin' about me." Marigold said, shuffling back into the parlor with the assistance of a walker and a guard. "I've thought about this long and hard."

She groaned as she was lowered into her armchair. Amy was ashamed to admit that she was disappointed at her frailty. For so long, Marigold Faye had been a symbol of strength, a heroine to emulate in order to make a better world. But she was a broken woman and so desperately human in her seeming resignation from wanting a better life.

"You may record my stories." Marigold said, her lethargy evident in her voice. "But...not one page or recording leaves this house without me looking it over. I'll not have another reporter embellishing things because 'it's not as exciting' or 'too explicit' for print. You are to come on Mondays at 2pm. I won't keep you but a few hours at a time. I know you must have a family to get home to. And family...is essential."

Amy smiled brightly and could have sworn Marigold gave her a faint grin in return.

***

"My footie match is on Monday at four, Mumma Amy!" Charlotte whined obstinately as Fiona combed the tangles out of her fiery bush of curly red hair.

Charlotte pouted, wincing as Fiona battled with a particularly stubborn knot. She was turning ten in the spring and Amy couldn't believe it. It seemed only yesterday a squalling baby was placed in her arms, generously given to them by their surrogate. Their son wouldn't be adopted until he almost two, but he was the final piece to making their family complete.

"Yes, but I will be there." Fiona soothed her. "I will be there, lass."

"Why? Not like she's gonna get any goals!" Owen teased, looking up briefly from his handheld gaming device.

He had grown out of his blonde ringlets into a darker brown as he neared eight years old. He was shooting up like a weed and it seemed like no sooner than they bought clothes for him, he would grow out of them in a month or two.

"Owen!" Amy chastised him. "She's been practicing day and night! Practically have to take away her football so she'll eat and sleep! Speaking of which...go and wash for dinner. You smell like a boys' locker room of sweaty socks!"

"I do not! We barely had P.E. today. Charlie Fink got sick all over the basketball rack." Owen retorted.

"Oh, I do hope that a stomach bug isn't going round." Fiona despaired. "Four girls in me homeroom have had it."

Fiona was a teacher at the local comprehensive, teaching Year 4 mathematics. She'd been on the front lines of the teacher strike in 2057 and was instrumental in establishing a chapter of the union in their parish.

"Nah, they just don't like maths. I don't like it either." Owen commented. "'Specially when my mum is teaching it!"

"Button it, you! Go wash up or I'll spray you down along with the dog!" Fiona demanded.

Charlotte retreated to her room while Owen went to take a bath. Fiona snaked her arms around Amy's waist while she washed the dishes.

"You know, they have laser washers now. Step up from the clunky old dishwashers." Fiona suggested.

"Didn't the Ester Street café fire happen due to one of those things?" Amy asked.

"No, that was idjeets burning trash on a No Burning Day."

"I don't like how laser technology is being used for everything now. They even have a place in capital punishment. That's just too much power, being able to vaporize prisoners in an instant." Amy mused.

"Are you okay, Ames?" Fiona asked worriedly. "You need to think hard about this project with Marigold Faye. You can trust me not to blab to the press...the urchins get enough tosh from the anti-refugee groups. I'm worried this is going to make you a prime target."

"As far as anyone knows, I'm just a relative visiting. Her house has a security fence and guards dressed like they're guarding the US President." Amy informed her. "Any and all files are on encrypted storage devices, as per Panacea Library policy."

"World War III might have ended on the world stage, Ames, but it didn't in cyberspace. Just remember that." Fiona warned.

***

Marigold stared at Amy from her armchair, though her eyes didn't meet hers. She seemed to be lost in thought. Amy sat patiently, tape-recorder at the ready, not wanting to interrupt her deep thinking.

"I'm just wondering...where I should begin..." Marigold mumbled. "So much of the past is like jumbled-up reels of old film. It didn't happen all at once. Took about half a decade for things to really become worrisome. Wish I had heeded the warnings."

"How about we begin with your childhood?" Amy suggested.

"Oh...I didn't have much of one. I had ten siblings that I was looking out for."

"Ten?" Amy gasped.

"Yeah, my parents were part of some old cult that taught them that birth control was Satanic and it was God's choice how many children families should have. Mom nearly died having the last one, had to have a full hysterectomy. Dad never let her forget. Never let us either. He was a stubborn old bull, my daddy. Son of a bitch never missed a chance to thrash us with his belt, buckle and all."

"What happened to them? Your siblings?" Amy wondered.

"Up until the first raids, we all kept in contact. Various social media platforms. Nearly all of us completely cut off contact from our parents. We all found our own families, which were friends and colleagues. Alison was the second oldest. She moved to Roanoke with her fiancé. Linda went to college at the state university. Rachel moved to California, one of the last bastions of freedom in those days. She took Janice and Janet with her, the twins. Corey, the first boy of the family, was utterly spoiled by Dad. I'm sad to say Dad's biases and flaws rubbed off on him. He became just as brash and stubborn, likely to hit you if you mouthed off to him. I wouldn't see what happened to my other three brothers. I left that house without looking back when I turned eighteen. I went to college instead of settling down and having my own brood. When I could choose, I mean. Mom and Dad cut me off, said I was a liberal whore. Yes, seriously, they called me a liberal whore." she added when I raised my eyebrow.

"You mentioned raids?" Amy asked.

"Oh, raids had been happening. To the immigrants, to the LGBTQ, to the people of color...it only became a problem, you see, when it started happening to white people." Marigold recalled with an edge to her voice. "White people who weren't joining the cause to 'reclaim their land.' White women who got prison time for getting or attempting an abortion. I would find that out in person because I was arrested myself."

Amy glanced up from the notes she was making on her Scriblet. Marigold had an almost proud expression, one of defiance.

"I'd been a part of an underground mailing service, you see. We provided abortion pills and contraceptives to those in dire need. We didn't charge. We had smugglers who worked in the Canadian and Mexican boarding patrol. Hell, we even had double-agent Sovereign Adjudicators at one point...before they were purged."

"Adjudicators?" Amy questioned.

"The KGB. The Secret Police. The Eyes of God. Whatever the fuck the dystopia novels were calling 'em." Marigold stated. "They were already hated as policemen. And I do mean men. It was very much a patriarchal hellhole coming to fruition. They were even busting out the Aryan Brotherhoods of prisons, giving them work contracts as Streetsweepers -- which were the ones who did the dirtier jobs, like escorting the Undesirables to the Blocs."

Amy remembered learning about the Blocs from NPR. They were similar to the 1940s Jewish ghettos, only the prisoners worked on a credit system. If they worked efficiently and served the Sovereign Cause well, they could avoid the shock chambers. Gas was too expensive to be used for the liquidation of dissidents and Undesirables, so they instead wired huge metal rooms filled with waist-deep water in which they would send lethal currents of electricity to kill prisoners.

"Anyway...I was given a choice while imprisoned. Facilitating abortion was a capital offense, you see, so I couldn't just be sent to the Blocs. I could be put on trial and killed for my crimes or I could serve as a concubine." Marigold explained grimly.

"So you were basically made a war bride." Amy said, grimacing.

"You could call it that. I would call what it was though: sexual slavery. We didn't have rights, our lives were contingent on the constant mercies of our Patriarch, and our only hope was to have and raise new soldiers and mothers for the nation. Many women killed themselves. I probably would have, if I didn't have constant supervision. It was a choiceless choice. They would try to convince you that you could be 'free in service to the Sovereign States.' Arbeit Macht Frei and all that bullshit." Marigold frowned. "But that was just my experience. I have seen women with far less freedoms than me. The slaves were all stripped of their names, some of them had their tongues cut out. All of them had brands on their shoulders, of the man who owned them. We weren't allowed to talk to them. They were to be like fur-furniture to us."

Marigold's voice broke.

"I actually recognized one of the women made a slave. Natasha...she worked in the mail service with me. My first day there we just...stared at each other. It was like we'd been sent back to the fuckin' 1700s." Marigold said tearfully.

"Maybe we should stop there...for today." Amy suggested.

"How did we let it happen again?! How did we let that shit happen again? What the fuck was wrong with us?" Marigold shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Faye. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have--" Amy stuttered despairingly.

Joan appeared at the kitchen archway. "You should leave for now. It's not your fault. She sometimes has these episodes." She went over to console her mother. "Mum...Mum. It's Joan. It's alright. You're here with me. You're safe."

Amy left the house, wondering if she should have opened this jar of worms in the first place.