OR2-EP2: The Heir of the Forefather (3)
Egon Schuller, the only person able to provide direct assistance to McNeil, has been busy lately, traveling hither and yon to find supporters for his space-based weapons project, hoping to get mainstream opinion in the United States to embrace his whimsical ideas. On the day Egon Schuller departed for Washington for another conference, Michael McNeil and Captain Alfred Shields went together to the Army's testing facility to verify Captain Shields' suspicions. The results were, unsurprisingly, that with the exception of Capt. Shields himself, the other four members of the STARS team did not possess any super-powered potential at all, and could be described as completely ordinary.
"I thought you'd be very disappointed." After realizing that McNeil's mood didn't fluctuate much, Captain Shields couldn't help but feel strange.
"There's no need to be disappointed, I was just banking on the fact that a stronger power would allow me to accomplish more ... If I didn't have this talent, it would be reasonable." McNeil walked side by side with them down the street, they could have just taken some time off to take advantage of the few holidays they had left before the army or other authorities actually asked them about their work in the Ukraine, "Besides, like Corporal Randal said, Magicians have Magician's troubles, and we, as commoners, certainly don't have to worry about those matters. "
McNeil had expected that they would be called in for something like a hearing like an investigation by someone sent by the Marines immediately upon their return to the mainland, and his thoughts fell flat. Had they indeed fled from the Ukraine alone, the Marines would have found a way to punish these cowardly cowards, except that the STARS' current feats almost counted as international highlights, and with their inexplicable connection to Senator Curtis Sr. taking the risk of punishing the five servicemen could have had unintended consequences. This Curtis favor wouldn't last long, either, and while they could still use Curtis's name to woo them, McNeil intended to test the NFFA's opinion. He was dissatisfied with many of the NFFA's practices and styles, and he was powerless to change the status quo; the NFFA, which had already taken root in the southern states, was not something that a common soldier like McNeil could shake, and even the army would not dare to do anything rash. They should have the support of the NFFA, an insurance policy to keep their potential enemies from doing anything rash. However, Captain Shields made another comment on McNeil's idea: becoming under the NFFA's wing meant that they would be inviting a lot of tricky new enemies.
Of the five, McNeil and Captain Shields had the decision-making power, and McNeil had a tendency to overtake Captain Shields and seize the reins, which was something Captain Shields did not want. This antipathy does not stem from his own possible bias against McNeil, but rather from the shaky relationship between subordinates. Officers may listen to their subordinates, but subordinates shouldn't and can't have more power than their officers, or the proper functioning of the organization or institution goes awry. Unreserved trust continues to be predicated on the assumption that the chiefs hold the reins of power, and these chiefs have not been overshadowed by their subordinates.
"McNeil ..."
The group walked through the streets of New York, whose inhabitants had stubbornly held on to the city despite the new ice age that had turned the northern states of the United States of America into areas as unfit for human existence as Siberia had been in the previous era, thanks to high technology and strong financial resources. A projection screen in the plaza showed the mayor's new speech, in which he said confidently that New York's poverty rate was falling year by year - needless to say, the poor who couldn't fit into their houses were freezing to death, and the poverty rate was naturally dropping immediately. Compared to the ever-noisy and bustling New York that McNeil remembers, this white New York has a rare stillness to it. Plenty of supplies meant that citizens didn't have to line up on the streets for relief rations, especially when the relief rations themselves were in the hands of foreign countries where the lives of citizens were not guaranteed.
"I'm listening, sir."
"I don't think it's a good idea ... My upbringing doesn't allow me to fight alongside an organization that lacks reason and humanity."
"Sir, they are the ones in control of the situation and seem willing to make overtures to us. If we reject their goodwill, then we will not only lose a potential ally, but we will also have an additional enemy of great power."
"Equal strength is what makes an ally." Sergeant Salas looked at the merchandise in the window, he was probably thinking again of his family still back home in Texas, "Relationships like the one my country has with some of NATO ... that's suzerainty and vassalage."
"Well, call it what you will, the facts won't change." McNeil shrugged, "Sir, you probably don't want to be thrown back to the Ukrainian front, going back would be a death sentence. With the influence of the NFFA, we could potentially go on new missions in other theaters, wherever it is, it certainly won't be any worse than the Ukraine."
No one wanted to go back to Ukraine; Eastern Europe was a nightmare they could never escape. If following the NFFA's instructions would prevent him from being placed in a new Eastern European dispatch, Capt. Shields would certainly choose to be in cahoots with the NFFA. He was a Californian, born and bred with a dislike for the traditional crooks and godfathers of the Southern states who were full of who-knows-what, and the NFFA was, in his eyes, a conservative organization with a combination of shortcomings, and working for such an organization was no less important than defecting to the Russians. But when McNeil laid the facts before him, Captain Shields honestly chose the path that was best for him. Surrendering to the NFFA was their only option; the initiative was out of their hands.
A group of men in white coats passed them by, and McNeil was quick to see the NFFA logo on the men. A black cross in a white circle on a red background, resembling the flag of some crazy nation that had started World War II in the history of this world. He preferred to believe that it was just some kind of aesthetic coincidence, that these conservative people who respected their traditions and religious beliefs might have taken inspiration from a similar flag and used it to design their own symbols. People along the way watched these strange monks leave along the narrow road either with respect or fear.
"Their expressions are almost identical." McNeil found things a bit eerie.
"You noticed that too?" Captain Shields nodded, "That's rare, I don't know how they've trained themselves to be able to put on the exact same expressions, I don't think those specialized training companies can do that either. Why don't we follow them up and see what they plan to do."
The proposal was a bit risky; the NFFA had not been explicitly involved in violence since its creation, but according to some unsubstantiated accounts, most of those loud and violent incidents were related to the NFFA, and the organization had cleverly allowed itself to stay out of it. With the consent of the others, McNeil went to the front of the line and followed these NFFA members. The other side didn't seem to care if they were followed as they left the busy neighborhoods and gradually approached one of the few remaining slums in the New York City area. It wasn't any one policy of any one mayor that had wiped out the slums, but rather the natural disaster itself, the brutal miracle of extreme cold and the small-scale famines that had briefly occurred in the United States at the onset of the New Ice Age that had drastically reduced the population of the poor, a cruel miracle that had been utilized by a few unscrupulous individuals to make their own political achievements. Whatever the NFFA's goals were, at least they dared to do what no one else cared to do, and McNeil's score for them went up considerably.
The houses were getting progressively shorter, and New York City had no interest in building new buildings in areas known to be ghettoized. The continued growth of the human population had made land an inch too expensive, and building taller buildings in the city had become the only thing architects were after, and there wasn't even a chance that this reprieve would be used on the poor, who were already God's gift to be able to stay off the streets, and to want clean, tidy houses would be patently uninformed. Several NFFA members in the rear saw McNeil, who was gradually approaching them, and reported the situation to a member who seemed to be the ringleader. The ringleader only took a cursory look at the five men's attire, paying no attention to his men's report, and simply continued on his way. Two large trucks were parked alongside the road, blocking half of it, and McNeil had to wait for the NFFA team to pass all the way through before continuing to follow them.
"The smell in here is sickening." Seeing the sewage flowing across the street and freezing, Tom reflexively covered his nose and took a few steps back.
"It's a fate the people who have lived here for generations can't escape." Captain Shields didn't even look at the ragged civilians who appeared on either side of the street, though he vaguely sensed hostility and greed in their gaze, never minding opponents much weaker than himself. "The poorer they are the less they can escape, and the less they can escape the poorer they become, creating a cycle."
"If they all freeze to death, could the mayor of New York City say the poverty rate has dropped to 0%?" Corporal Randal uttered this downright treacherous statement with a big grin, and McNeil immediately felt an even stronger hostility from the masters who were secretly watching their gaze. Knowing that he had committed an offense, Corporal Randal did not dare to gossip further; he shut his mouth and followed McNeil forward.
Members of the NFFA, wearing white coats with the black cross in a white circle on a red background on their chests, were carrying supplies from the trucks, opening the bags or boxes and distributing the contents to the residents who flocked around them. These were ordinary food items that could be bought in the stores; the poor people who lived here could not afford to buy food, and McNeil guessed that the NFFA purchased large quantities of supplies and distributed them to the poor. Looking at the overflowing joy on the poor people's faces, McNeil was at a loss as to whether or not to criticize the NFFA. It was a shame to let citizens starve to death, and New York City would rather bear that shame than waste money or supplies to rescue these poor people trapped in the slums. The big-bellied elitists arrogantly proclaim that the poor are lazy, and that only those who don't work hard become poor - unfortunately, McNeil has seen many poor people who work a hundred times harder than the rich, and whose tragedies stemmed from the fact that they weren't born into an affluent family. If God will give new life to the dead after the judgment of Armageddon, may those who have been beaten down by fate be given a new start.
"Excuse me ... Are you all here to receive relief supplies?"
A young man in a white uniform walked up to them and asked the crowd a question in a gentle tone.
"No, we ... we're soldiers just back from the front and want to see a different New York." McNeil gave the answer ahead of Captain Shields, "Frankly, I didn't know there was such a thing as New York before, in the stories I've heard, New York is the utopia that can make everyone's dreams come true."
"That's a scam." The NFFA member dropped the comment, left them, and went straight back to the van to go back to his work. It was a cardinal rule of the United States that the average person should not lightly mess with a soldier who had just retired from the front lines unless they were faced with a veteran asking for their paycheck. It's also not news that veterans who had got PTSD suddenly start fights with each other when they encounter the police, and these soldiers whose mental health is severely damaged will spend the rest of their lives in all kinds of torment.
The NFFA team didn't stop the five outsiders, who claimed to be soldiers, from crowding around to watch them hand out the relief food, and one of the NFFA members, who wasn't very old (McNeil guessed that the other man was probably less than 20 years old), complained to his companions that they didn't know when this work was going to be over at this rate, and that the number of poor people continued to be staggering, and that the NFFA couldn't afford to spend all of its funds on it. After waiting for a few minutes, McNeil offered to volunteer to help the NFFA team with the job at hand, and for once his idea was supported by all.
"Thank you for your help, and may the Lord bless you." The NFFA leader at the head of the group was busy thanking them, and suddenly looked in surprise at McNeil, who was lifting the bags off the van with Sgt. Salas, and asked shakily, "... You, you're Mr. McNeil, aren't you?"
McNeil was so scared that he nearly dropped the bag into the dirty water, he didn't even expect a small NFFA leader to know his name. After dropping the bag in his hands, McNeil came to the other man and sincerely started talking to the man. He desperately needed to know why this NFFA leader, who didn't look like anything special, could tell his name, and the other man replied that the NFFA had its own internal news channels, and that most of the NFFA members had already been informed of the incident as early as when the STARS team had rescued the eighty or so American hostages, and that the Tetragrammaton Council was said to have publicized the five servicemen as righteous people who had lived up to the traditional concepts of the United States of America. These claims were very embarrassing to McNeil, who did want a certain amount of attention for himself, but definitely not near-universal popularity, that would backfire on them.
"You guys are overdoing the compliments!" McNeil was embarrassed to deal with the enthusiastic NFFA members, who, upon learning that the five strange stalkers were the brave men who had fought in the Ukraine, quickly gathered around McNeil in a kind of heroic admiration, discussing with the soldiers a number of topics related to the war itself. It never occurred to the crowd that the NFFA already knew the details and used them as an example to be used in their internal propaganda, and it remained to be seen what role this preconceived notion, which had already entered the minds of most of the NFFA members, would play before they actually made effective contact with the NFFA.
McNeil was determined to ask for information related to this special phenomenon of NFFA members' general expressionlessness, only that the NFFA members didn't seem to give him a chance to ask questions in return, plus the work of distributing relief supplies wasn't easy, by the time the poor people in the neighborhood dispersed, the crowd was already tired and out of breath, with no intention of prying for information. Seeing this, the NFFA leader invited them to a nearby restaurant and briefly introduced them to the local situation. He was the head of the lowest level of the NFFA organization cell, under which there was a relatively well-established office and a relatively independent censorship agency. According to this head, the NFFA is not only organized within the United States, they have recently established branches in Canada and Mexico.
The lunch was fairly simple, and the recipes provided by the NFFA made for a lack of appetite. McNeil finished his macaroni and looked at his comrades, who were still struggling to swallow their food, and quickly moved on to talk to the leader about issues related to the NFFA itself. The NFFA wasn't hostile to them ... at least not for a while, and that was a good thing. They needed to maintain that relationship and find out what the NFFA's true intentions were towards them. Owners of mad dogs occasionally show an inordinate amount of tolerance and kindness to their pets. The NFFA members around them prayed before and after their meals, and Corporal Randal, who had grown up with the habit, followed suit, while Tom was a little embarrassed. However, the other NFFA members didn't seem to blame them for skipping the step of prayer.
"So that means you have your own news channel and online media ..." McNeil jotted down the details, "All orders come from the Father of Truth and the Tetragrammaton Council's counselors, so have you met the Father of Truth himself? At the moment we don't have any public information about him, only that he used to be a chemist."
At the mention of that mysterious chief the Father of Truth, the chief's overall mental outlook immediately changed, and an indescribable fervor and devotion appeared. He kept telling McNeil that the Father of Truth was the contemporary saint who could maximize the spread of the Lord's teachings to the earth, and could be described as another prophet of the 21st century. It was unwise to criticize the idol he worshipped in the presence of such a fanatic, and McNeil hinted with his eyes that the others should try to keep quiet as he himself continued to extract more information from the mouth of this NFFA leader. Captain Shields ate his meal without a word, his mind turning over as his alarm about the NFFA was climbing at an alarming rate. Their identities should be classified, and throughout the course of the operation, the people who had been in direct contact with them were the embassy staff, the rescued American hostages, and the Ukrainian servicemen who had acted as collaborators, and there must have been undercover agents of the NFFA among these people to be able to transmit real information back to the homeland quickly after the incident in order to create new propaganda material for the NFFA. At the same time, he also secretly admired the organization and discipline of the NFFA, it was reasonable to say that even if their media was only open to internal members, there would always be some people who would tell the news in casual conversations, but if any outsiders learned about the soldiers who were carrying out the tasks behind the series of events in Ukraine, they would choose to inform the media of the information in order to make a big news to gain public attention. It had been several days since they had returned to American soil, and there had been no news reports against them in the country; it appeared that not only were the NFFA's propagandists tightly controlling the news, but those NFFA members were also keeping their mouths shut.
Those who could meet the Father of Truth were either the top management of the NFFA or those who had a close relationship with the NFFA and could be considered as firm allies. If any of them wanted to secretly take a few photos and pass them on to the outside world, it would be easy to do so. As for why no one ever did so, it was probably because these guys who were allies in terms of interests didn't want to offend the mysterious person who didn't want to appear in public. This makes McNeil more and more curious, a person who rarely appear in public can get so much support and form a large scale of influence in the United States, how in the world he did it? According to his own experience, McNeil always thought that this leader who could call the shots would inevitably exist in close contact with civilians on occasions, so that he could show his human side in front of the people, and the unapproachable and perfect figure would only make the ordinary people fearful. The Father of Truth will always have only the photos and images that the NFFA officially allows to appear, and in these media materials, he is the tall and magnificent prophet and seer, surrounded by his loyal subordinates and devout followers, always ready to give new instructions to the citizens of the United States. Except for necessary occasions, most of the day-to-day affairs and public activities of the NFFA are handled by his deputy, the Tetragrammaton Council's chief of counsel, who appears on the web with far more specific information than the Father of Truth, and also with many images of an unofficial nature - less sacrosanct.
"That's exactly what we need right now." McNeil couldn't think of what to say about the Father of Truth and had to offer a relatively neutral conclusion.
"Yes, the United States is almost three hundred years old, but the crisis is never far away. The dregs of society have taken advantage of the fraternity of the United States to infiltrate here, stealing the fruits of our labor and undermining our proud morals and traditions, and the cowards sitting in the White House are too bribed by these people to stand up and do what needs to be done." The ringleader muttered, "I'm sure you think the same way we do, the guys who are content with cheap humanity and progress won't understand your efforts ... One day, when the Great Judgment comes, we'll remove this garbage from the United States once and for all. "
McNeil made some small talk to divert the conversation away from the matter. He had a more concrete judgment of the state of thought within the NFFA, and in general, even within the NFFA, the conservatives, who all thought they were defending tradition, had not formed a united opinion, with some targeting blacks, some hostile to Hispanics, some antipathetic to Asians, and others simply boycotting modern technology... ...Following this trend, by the time the NFFA actually controls the entire United States, there will be unprecedented civil unrest within it, and only one school of thought will prevail. These believers, who call each other brothers and sisters, will blindly follow their identified leader out of the gate and raise the butcher's knife for a goal that even they cannot say they understand.
After lunch, the crowd bid farewell to the NFFA team and returned to their temporary accommodation at the hotel. Along the way, no one spoke, as everyone unspokenly plotted their own countermeasures to be used against the NFFA.
"We're in a den of thieves." At the door of his room, Captain Shields spoke in a low voice to McNeil the only conclusion he had reached all day.
"There is also a great deal of variation within the NFFA, they are not all madmen and psychopaths who resist reality, perhaps we can find the most moderate of them and persuade him to take advantage of this opportunity and gain the trust of the Father of Truth."
"With believers like that, no matter what, nothing can change the status quo." Shields shook his head, "It is not the prophet who awakens the faithful, but rather the mortal who chooses to play the role of the prophet in the minds of the faithful, ah."
TBC
Chapter Notes:
In any case, I hope my readers will not take this story, which was conceived several years ago, as an allusion to current events.
Ironically, in some ways, Kane is also at a disadvantage of being kidnapped by NOD's public opinion. When he announced his partnership with GDI, the more radical NOD supporters quickly launched the longest running rebellion in NOD history. Prior to that, Kane had almost always been able to eliminate opposition as quickly as possible.