299 Days VIII: The War by Glen Tate Read Free Book Online Page A

as they might, the government
     couldn’t get enough of them back up and running to make cornbread.
    Jeanie also found out how devastating America’s pre-Crisis dependence on foreign goods
     had been. It wasn’t just that over half of the nation’s food came from overseas. It
     was that a bunch of the domestic food production capabilities had been shut down,
     much like the corn processing plants. For example, when it was cheaper to grow peaches
     in China and send them on a ship to Atlanta, all the Georgia peach orchards a few
     miles outside of Atlanta were plowed under. It takes years to grow a mature peach
     tree that will produce peaches, so it would take years to bring America’s food production
     capacity back. If it ever came back.
    But the government urgently needed food. The political and military people at Camp
     Murray constantly talked about food riots. They were all trying to calculate the point
     at which FCard food would reach such a low level that people would have nothing left
     to lose and would start rioting. Would the Legitimate troops—they preferred the term
     “Legitimate” to “Loyalist”—shoot fellow Americans? That was a constant topic of discussion.
    It was Christmas Eve. Jeanie sat in her tight barracks room with a little stocking
     that all the staff got. It looked so pathetic, so small, and so fake. It was nothing
     like her real stocking at her parent’s house. She wondered if they were okay. Probably.
     Hopefully. She missed going home each Christmas and going to the Christmas Eve service
     at her parents’ church. She had so many memories of that, like when they turned off
     the lights, everyone lit a candle, and they sang Silent Night . She could hear that in her head. It was sweet and warm, wonderful.
    But there was no Christmas Eve service at Camp Murray. That would be too divisive.
     They couldn’t even say the “C” word (Christmas) there. Instead, they had a “winter
     solstice” event. That wouldn’t offend anyone … except the 99% of people at Camp Murray
     who weren’t Wiccan.
    Jason felt like he was in prison, too. He had gone from being the ultra-cool and confident
     briefer to be being a terrified liaison with the federal government. He had special
     communications equipment that let him talk with the intelligence community in D.C.
     He received their dispatches and told them what was going on in Washington State.
     He knew just about everything that was happening, which was why he was terrified.
     The federal government had essentially ceased to operate. Almost all federal resources
     were devoted to the military, FEMA, and federal law enforcement agencies. No one really
     knew what the “military” was anymore. There were military units on paper, but most
     had simply vanished or were sit-outs. Some units were run by seemingly loyal officers
     but, on occasion, a seemingly loyal unit would just disappear or announce it was sitting
     out. Some went over to the Patriots. Command and control? The federal government had
     neither.
    Jason didn’t know who he could trust. Was this Washington National Guard unit guarding
     them secretly a Patriot unit? How could he tell? Were the federal agents who were
     guarding him secretly paras? Or taking bribes to kill him? He couldn’t sleep at night.
     He cat napped all day long. And each day was so long. He was up most of the time.
     He lost track of time. It was like one long blur. He had aged ten years in ten months
     and lost so much weight that his tailored suits no longer fit.
    Jason knew it was over. Whether the Patriots won or not, it was over. There was no
     way the Legitimates could continue. Food would get dangerously low over the winter.
     Rioting would ensue and most military and police units would not fire on the crowds.
     Some, like the mercenaries and psychos who enjoyed it, would, but most would not.
    Despite all of this, there was a strange sense of hope. Seattle was a stronghold,
     one of the