Rock Island (eBook)

Introduction

In the year 2049 much had changed in the world, much had changed in America. The Great Consolidation had begun ten years earlier as the Great Party pursued the new direction, a visionary framework to re-distribute wealth and commerce in the post-modern western world. This would be a sweeping policy that would touch every segment of society and every individual’s life from birth to death from that point forward.  The creation of larger provinces that could be more centrally overseen by the government signified the beginning of The Great Consolidation with the dissolving of the former fifty states, as they had been previously known and of the United States in name as a nation. This newly formed government—the only political entity that remained in existence was now the sole power that controlled and directed the people who lived in all of the northern Western Hemisphere. This entity was the only political party to survive, the only one left in tact after the final power struggles that dominated the 2030’s, the triumphant juggernaut now known as—The Great Party. In this period of dramatic and sweeping change across the land, the former country once known as Canada was swallowed up by the great nation state beyond it’s southern border—the former U.S.A.  A few regions were fraught with social unrest due to people of secular or tribal beliefs. The Great Party preferred to build its power with as little overt, and by their own admission primitive, violence as possible. Thus, their methods were to destroy these last unconsolidated regions by starving them of any assistance of commerce or security. The central government chose to temporarily allow these few unconsolidated lands to struggle in a self-exiled existence confident of their eventual demise. These few remaining pockets of rebellion would soon become the home of the disenfranchised citizen, the tribal misfit, religious zealots, drifters, thieves, and rebels. All of these people and more were given the temporary freedom to try to survive in the now forgotten wastelands simply called the Open Territories by the Great Party. The state once known as Alaska was one of these areas now called Juneau Territory. The lands that once were within the borders of the states of eastern Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas were called the Northern Plains Territory, or T.N.P. Territory. Another of these areas left to waste away was the former state of Utah, long a religiously controlled state it was labeled the LDS Territory after its Mormon zealots. Another forgotten and obstinate people were the Pueblo and Navaho Indian communities that occupied the northern portion of the formally known states of New Mexico and Arizona. This area was called Mesa Territory. The final holdout land was in the former eastern part of Canada. Here the French people that defiantly rejected the Great Party clung to the heartland of what had been the province of Quebec; an area now called Quebec Territory. The remaining lands on the North American continent were divided into new nation provinces more easily overseen and regulated by the Great Party. Columbia Province was carved out of the states of Washington, Oregon, northern California, Idaho, western Montana and the former western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. Central and southern California, Nevada and western Arizona had become the South California Province. The former states of Colorado and most of the Midwest of the U.S. were given the name of the Chicago Province. Another large region that occupied the former states of Texas and the western half of the former South and the southern half of the former state of New Mexico became a part of the Rio Grande Province. To the northeast was the province of Fundy containing all of the former Atlantic coast and inland provinces of Canada. South of this province was the New York Province. Continuing southward along the Atlantic Ocean was the province known as Piedmont. Farther south still was the Atlanta Province and a newly created province that contained all of the former state of Florida and the country once known as Cuba. This very hot and steamy region had been named the Tropic Province. The ultimate plan that would restructure the country into provinces would form the remaining outlaw territories into four additional provinces. This would create thirteen individual provinces collectively to be known as The Great Land. The somewhat esoteric party leaders, who held the highest positions in the Great Party, were a strange mix of practicality and sentimentality. Dividing the newly created country into distinct regions was purely a black and white decision based on economy and simple uncomplicated control. But deciding on the goal of thirteen provinces was a direct reflection of the party leader’s somehow twisted acknowledgement of history and the thirteen original colonies that once made up early America. This conflicting view of reality would strangely appear in many areas of policy in the dictatorial society. Rebel scholars would suggest that this strange policy view was a characteristic that resulted partly due to the many generations of people in the western world that had been subjected to over one hundred years of fanciful media, most notably the Hollywood movie-making machine. This powerful social influence, long since prohibited in the western world, created a complex and abstract human view of the world, its history and of society. The practical mechanical world of efficiency mixed with a kind of timeless romanticism of heroes and villains.

A mundane darkness had covered the land and society and was like a great shadow cast over everything and everybody that now called the western world home. As a result of the Great Party and its desire for control over all commerce and aspects of its people, a mild case of depression resulted in all of daily life. At the root of this depression was a powerlessness that the working class felt—the individual. Since the goal of the powerful and all encompassing Great Party was to concern itself with the success of the greater group, the individual identity of each citizen had become increasingly and almost completely lost. This change hastened a trend that had begun before the 21st century’s arrival; aspects of culture such as the arts slowly degenerated with only those ideas that were directly connected with commerce able to survive. In other words, art for art’s sake was an aspect of society that slowly disappeared and was increasingly part of the distant past. Even aspects of the diet were reduced to a daily repetition of simplicity. This was partly due to the increasingly unavailable foods that were once so common only fifty years earlier. The oceans held far less life, long since commercially exploited beyond regeneration. The changing earth atmosphere had increased world temperatures to a level that many food crops were difficult to commercially grow. This, with the ever-increasing shortage of fresh and available water worldwide reduced the variety of foods for human consumption. Most of the now singular working class population consumed a consommé eaten in the late afternoon. This was a kind of meat soup that most ate six days a week. This dull soup was called gratis, an old word that had meant without charge. This was a sarcastic slang description that came from the hidden dark humor that existed in the working class mind. A subjugated working class that was forced to toil now only for the benefit of the Great Party. Slang words were not officially permitted in public, but were still tolerated by the officials for the time being as the ability to control was ever increasing on society but would take time to reach the Party’s ultimate goal of total control. Sundays were now called Give Thanks Day. An attempt of the Great Party power brokers to wean all of society away from what was viewed now as pagan religious and spiritual beliefs. The Party felt that these ideas of sacrament competed with the goals of productivity and ultimately of total control over the hearts and souls of its citizens.

The Great Party had also combined the military with all local police forces. Members of those authoritative factions were now one—the Public Peace Reserves or PPR as they were collectively known. The descriptive slang used by the common people reflected the intrusive and somewhat paranoid behavior of the PPR officials. They were simply called the hawks, always watchful from a distance.

The details that ultimately created the Great Party were complex and tied to many actions and events that had marked the period of the last ten years on the North American continent. As resources dwindled worldwide, and environmental conditions were increasingly degenerating, overall human society became poorer. Many countries collapsed or consolidated with others to survive. The world strangely became more isolated; organizations such as the United Nations and NATO had long ceased to exist. It seemed that the world had retreated inward and the corners of the globe had become distant once more in a kind of fearful self-preservationist isolationism. The societies of North America were no different. The alliance that formed the Great Party was a blend of individuals who had been leaders in the federal government, a few of the remaining super corporations and the military. A new post-modern form of fascism fueled this source of power that now struggled to control its helpless citizens. The people of this new nation would somehow endure it, as the...