Chapter 185
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On Monday October 2nd president Douglas met with Israeli and Indian ambassadors. This conference was expected to last the entire week. Eve wasn't sure if the United States had suppressed jewish or hindu temples. Any potential alliance would likely be based on neccessity. Israel and India could provide the collective with muscle in negotiations, or war. No doubt they expected some of their refugees to be taken into the Arks when ELE came. It was a question of numbers, deciding what it was worth. The fact that Texas was considering withdrawing from the collective probably hurt Douglas in negotiations. There were definitely some anti-semetic elements in Texas, those who didn't want to take in jewish refugees at the cost of excluding Texans. If Texas secceeded, maybe Amy and Eve could go to another collective state. But their locals might resent Texans, even exclude Texan refugees out of spite. Except for Amy, Eve felt incredibly alone.
Ever since getting away from the oil site Eve had noticed a fair amount of crime in Arnett Texas. Attacks from Maggie's followers were rare, but greatly feared. Most crime was somewhat minor, vandalism, theft. Eve understood some of the reasons. Before 2/4 there had been a school for the mentally handi-capped. Despite their best efforts, they closed recently. This left more than three hundred people wandering the streets with nowhere to live, and little comprehension of what was happenning. Most resorted to stealing food, squatting in abandoned homes. And now, with most highschools not even bothering to re-open, hundreds of teenagers were left with little to do and no way to express their rage. Many came under the sway of radical preachers who talked about "tough on crime" or "taking back out communities." They beat up those who stole food or posted grafitti on the streets. Even the homeless and mentally challenged were targets. One 13 year old girl was desperate enough to rob a grocery store with a fake gun. She was shot and killed by the owner. The police did what they could to stop vigilanties. But some cops took bribes to look the other way. Other cops were actually moonlighting as vigilanties. One case they seemed to take an interest in was the bombing of Janet's office. Janet ran the website that allowed married people to hook up with other married people. Eve wondered how many of these cops were cheating on their spouses. They didn't mind vigilanties beating mentally challenged children nearly to death, but would fight for people's right to commit adultery.