The storm was passing, but rain continually pounded the windows of the farm house. Kurt and Elizabeth talked into the early evening like long lost friends about mutual interests in history, families, and what they had been doing during the demise of the U.S. Elizabeth got up, stretched, and went over to the window that looked toward the river. Kurt got up and followed her.
“Looks like the barn tonight,” he said.
“No question. It should be okay in the morning,” she said. “You mentioned scotch before. How about a touch before we figure out something for dinner,” she asked.
“That would be perfect,” Kurt responded as Elizabeth went into the pantry off of the kitchen. Kurt was standing by the window looking out into the dark night towards the river he had to cross tomorrow. Even though he couldn’t see the river, he thought about how that water runs wild and free, abundant, while in most of the world it is scarce and people are dying from lack of it. It made him realize how valuable the collection of water in this part of the world was and why the Aquifer system was the most valuable piece of property in the Hemisphere. It not only captured the water in the mountains, it captured water beneath, which Kurt wasn’t aware of until doing his research. Late in development, the U.S. had added a revolutionary recycling system to purify used water.
This ingenious purification system was another bonus in the Aquifer System. The concept would make water a recycled resource which was revolutionary. Kurt discovered this when he read the chip glossary which listed
‘RECYCLING SYTEM TECHNOLOGY’ as an addendum item. This new information would be critical data
for the UN. It was no wonder that Atlantica wanted to maintain the secrecy of the Aquifer System just prior to it going on full capacity. It would give them unprecedented world leverage. It was unconscionable, which in Kurt’s way of thinking, justified what he was doing, especially knowing how his Father designed the Aquifer for universal usage. He realized his actions could be the most critical he would ever make and would define his future.
His thoughts were interrupted by Elizabeth saying, “Here you go, Kurt. This is now thirty-year old scotch. It should settle you down a bit. You look like you’re in outer space.” She then proceeded to sit down and face Kurt.
“Oh, I was just thinking how brief our lives are and how constant nature is , like that river out there. Beyond that, since we have such a brief existence, it is critical to know you are doing what your supposed to be doing. I was thinking maybe I’m at that point. You know what I mean?” he said
“Predestination!” she said. “You must have some Presbyterian in your genes, I do for sure. Jesus, my mother preached that message to me every day of her life. ‘You’re put on this earth for a purpose so find it, and do it,’
she’d say to me. Here I am thirty-three years old and I have no idea yet what that purpose is. Suppose I never will at the rate I’m going,” she finished.
“Well, you’re right. My family did talk of predestination, but more in a literal sense of following your intuitions which I pretty much have done. I really don’t go outside myself, very often.”
“Me either. I don’t know whether it was growing up on the farm, but I have always internalized my thoughts and beliefs. But I think when I went away to school a bit of a genie was set loose. It was the late thirties. As you may remember, things were in turmoil. I was out in the world for the first time. As a freshman at Chatham College, I exploded. I was an activist, if there ever was one. That was when Congress tried to enact voting rule changes that would have denied voting for new citizens. I even wrote protest songs. I was a real iconoclast for peaceful revolution amongst my own people. My family was horrified. My Dad said that I was destroying the foundations of the American way, which I couldn’t understand, since I thought the American way was to foster democracy, for all. I remember saying to them that they didn’t trust their own philosophy,” she finished, slowly sipping on her drink. “Little did I really know.”
“I was in college during those times,” Kurt quietly responded. “I wasn’t worried. Corny, but I was always proud of the way the people in this area handled problems of whatever nature. A significant influx of latinos arrived in the twenties to work the coal mines and Aquifer. In the early thirties, blacks were running government offices.
In the mid-thirties, these two groups, represented the majority of the Western Pennsylvania population. During this same time period, upper and middle class Anglos began to leave the area and settle in other parts of the country. Many immigrated to their homelands in Europe. Even blacks from the middle and higher economic classes began to migrate to Canada, France and even to the stable African countries. The incentives from those countries were incredible. Looking back, even I supported the liberalization of social needs and taxing the wealthy. You know yourself how youth is always opposed to the status quo. I think it was just before the 2038
Constitutional Convention that I began to understand what was really happening. Before I knew it, everything changed. Three years later, I was required to learn Spanish and to speak it within a year in the workplace. The whole turnover happened so fast, for everybody. In the whole country,” Kurt finished.
“You really know you’re history, Kurt. That was an amazing analysis of that time. For me, I was twenty-one, had just graduated from Chatham and went immediately to Brazil to work a archeological dig. I loved the work.
It was fascinating and actually tied into my degree as a social historian. But I was oblivious to what was going on here in the States. I’d get emails from my parents or I’d read that Pennsylvania, along with most of the Eastern states, became the new country of Atlantica. I was stunned. It was hard for me to believe. My hosts in Brazil were jubilant, that the monster to the “norte” had disintegrated. New York was now Nuevo York.
Looking back, twelve years later, I still can’t believe it.”
Kurt responded, “The United States lost its soul. It didn’t know who it was anymore and tried to be what everyone wanted it to be, whether that was all of the citizens or all of the world. It lost its uniqueness, its character, its reason for being. Of course, for their part, the new Latino majority didn’t want to adopt much of the ‘quote American way’. They wanted a Latino oriented country, period. So it was a combination of powerful factors colliding.”
Elizabeth quickly responded, “You’re right, but let me put my social historian hat, too. There was so much more that undercut the country during those years. There was a complete loss of interest in our history, language, and the self-reliant, optimistic attitude of the citizenry. My main thesis was that the U.S. became segregated in a different way than the black/white issue. A new segregation developed between the elitist, educated classes versus the military classes, the very rich versus the lower classes and the secular versus the religious community. By the time the social and then the economic underpinnings collapsed, everyone had chosen sides and there was no American unity. It was ripe for what happened. When the newly enfranchised illegals and the entrenched Latinos, along with the disenfranchised Africanos took over power, there was a shell of a old country remaining. There was no unity among the Anglos to counter the takeover, even democratically. They just went into a shell or left. They lost faith in their own history of accomplishment. Of course, the blinded media didn’t help. By that time, the U.S. was essentially part of Europe, philosophically, economically, and certainly, politically. The world and its media cheered on the demise of the giant superpower, as it became incorporated into Europe and the quote, “World Community”. In reading articles from the late twentieth century and early in this century, the whole psychology of the country changed. It was a brash, innovative, self-critical country, but always looking ahead. Then it became ashamed of itself almost and cowered into a subservient of European and world philosophies. Absolutely extraordinary,” she said.
Kurt added, “Absolutely correct, it was incredible. People from all classes and wealth transferred their savings and investments to British, Irish, Scottish, Polish, German, Italian and Israel banks or investment houses, to wherever they were going. All funds gladly accepted from Americans. He looked at Elizabeth then added,
“Anyway, the democratic revolution worked. We live in a country, Atlantica, made up primarily of Latinos and Africanos from throughout the Northern Hemipshere and around this world. Give it another ten years, and it will probably survive. Right now, the first major threat to Atlantica’s current tranquility is how they handle the completion of the Aquifer system. I don’t know if you have kept up with its development, but how Atlantica reacts to the water needs of the people in this hemisphere will be its first real test as a country. I’m not sure the Administration knows how to handle the absolute power of water resources they have inherited.”
They were quiet. Outside it was completely black. Finally, Elizabeth broke the silence, “As I look back at those times, we were right in the middle of one of great social meltdowns in the history of mankind.”