Chapter 231
.
On the ight of Feuary 28th Eve heard the debate between Miranda and her main opponent, Gabrielle. This was broadcast on the PA system, Eve and Tara heard it in the infirmary. There were two main issues of disagreement. Both involved the vultures. One was what to do with the prisoner vultures. Gabby believed they had the right to execute them. Miranda was against this, she said it amounted to lynchings. The other issue involved the upcoming spring farming and the coal mining. Gabby believed they had the right to refuse to do any work for colonel Sadler unless he cracked down on guards who were stealing. Miranda said they needed to work with the guards more if they expected to survive. Miranda even suggested that they should discourage escapes. Eve and Tara weren't sure who they wanted. Eve noticed Tara seemed nervous when Gabby suggested executing vultures. Eve figured she knew why. Tara and Eve were both criminals. It would ofcourse make them nervous when some poltician began talking about killing people like them. The other possibility, Eve wanted to give her friend the benefit of the doubt, she refused to let her mind go there.
On Thursday March 1st Eve was released from the infirmary. She was able to go straight to the voting booth. After what had happenned Eve voted for Gabby. For now she was drawn to the candidate that could help protect her and other prisoners from the vultures. Camp 81 was divided into five sections. Each station elected one representative to the council. From what Eve could tell Gabby had popular support. That night, she was listening to the PA system like everyone else. The announcer said that Miranda had won. This suprised most of the people in Eve's barracks, angered more than a few of them. The rules stated that the winners needed colonel Sadler's approval before taking office. Maybe he was lying about Miranda, and the other four moderates, winning the popular vote. Or maybe prisoners were pretending to go along with the angry crowd, and changed their minds in the privacy of the voting booth.
After the election Eve heard more reports of the war. Austen fell to the loyalists. Governor Santos was dead. He and his wife had died in a shoot-out with the enemy rather than surrender. Rumor was they'd even dressed as cowboys to die. Israel and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire, would likely reach an agreement over the Arks by April. The fighting in Sangala had reached genocidal levels. The Bawa were on the verge of extinction. In a desperate attempt to save their race they'd begun organizing mass rapes of Askari women, passing their genes along to those going inth the Arks. Some prisoners were talking about moving elsewhere after the fighting ended, some to the country of their heritage. American muslims were thinking of moving to Arks controlled by the current Saudi government. American jews wanted to move to Israeli controlled Arks. Some Americans even wanted to move to North Korea. North Korea had claimed to have built enough Arks for their entire population and might even take in refugees from other countries. Most experts doubted this claim, but some were desperate enough to believe them.