I would like to thank the volunteer editor Kenjisato, for his time and skill in editing this story
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The New Republic
Justice was quick in the Republic of Siegel. Matthew Crowley reflected on this, as he watched a line of prisoners being marched towards the courthouse.
As they trudged up the steps, a massive statue of Marcus Siegel, the founder of the Republic, looked down at them, a grim expression etched into his stone face. The prisoners were immigrants, Marcus suspected, and recent ones at that. Citizens of the Republic or even long-term residents would have known better than to participate in yesterday's protest turned riot.
He looked at the line of prisoners; they were all women, of course. Probably refugees from the disaster caused by the latest attempt to establish a national government in London. It had been tried repeatedly over the last eight years, every time collapsing into a mass of competing factions fighting over limited resources, with disorder, chaos, and occasional famine resulting.
It had been eight years since the last true British Government had finally collapsed. It had tried and failed to lead the country through the series of calamities that followed Scarlet Death, a worldwide pandemic that had killed an estimated sixty percent of the world's population.
The Scarlet Death was still not fully understood; he had heard it described as being similar to hemophilia. It had appeared and burned itself out in a vicious eighteen-month cycle. Unlike other diseases, however, it had not killed entirely without distinction. While most young, healthy females were immune, every male got it, and nearly four in five died, particularly older men.
Matthew, himself, had suffered through two weeks of agony, as his body hemorrhaged and bled. He had caught it early on, a young soldier who had only been in his regiment for just a few weeks. He had emerged on the other side to discover that everyone else in his regiment had likewise gotten it. They had been sealed off in their barracks to die, lacking even basic care, resulting in an even higher death rate.
Recovered but still weak, he had emerged with a handful of others from the graveyard that was his barracks, to be put to work by a government that was already much changed.
He had been angry at his treatment, and the deaths of his comrades. Angrier still, when the government that had abandoned them, then seemed determined to exploit them, using them to enact policies that seemed both divisive, and to make little sense. The anger built up inside him, and the small number of surviving male soldiers, but through the rage, the one thing he and his comrades began to focus on, was that the clique of people giving them orders--were all women. Then Marcus Siegel had appeared, and he had changed everything.
He looked up at Marcus's statue and sighed--those were hard years, and Marcus had been a hard man.
More vans pulled up and started to unload additional women. Looking at the scene, he wondered if this was the shape of things to come.
There were currently eighteen women for every man in the Republic; immigration was strictly regulated by the Republic, at least for men. However, the same laws that denied women full civil rights within Republic territory, also meant that the immigration restrictions didn't apply to them. Any woman could enter Republic territory one time, and she could leave at any time; however, she could not return without special dispensation.
Matthew looked at the line of women, as they traipsed dejectedly through the door of the courthouse. Even now, these women could leave, they could turn to a guard, and ask to be shown to the border. However, he knew that any of those women that had been outside the Republic's borders in the last few years, was unlikely to exercise that right.
It was made worse by factories and employers who wanted cheap labor. The whole system was open to exploitation and the Senate, used to passing legislation to control women, had only grudgingly started to enact laws to protect them. Matthew knew, however, that the fundamental problem would not be solved; there was no chance that the Senate, or the citizenry, would ever allow male immigration that might dilute the small pool of voting citizens. A return to full civil rights for women wasn't even considered.
As he watched the female Auxiliaries drag prisoners from the van, he thought back to the arguments over the creation of such a force. The recruitment of a female security force had been resisted for years, but it was inevitable. There simply weren't the men to do it. Even the men that they did send him, were the dregs of their units. Marcus commanded the security forces for an entire district; yet, he was becoming more and more reliant on women to exert the state's authority.
There had been plenty of applicants for the new force, that quickly gained a reputation for viciousness. Matthew had thought that a force consisting of women would be sympathetic to other women. That they had inadvertently created a force that was far more abusive to the female population of Siegal, than the regular police ever had been, was still a source of consternation for many people.
"Excuse me, sir!" a female voice said, behind him. He turned around to see a grey-clad female Security Auxiliary.
She curtsied neatly, as Auxiliaries did in lieu of a salute. "Ms Baker asks if she should start to bring the rest of the prisoners in."
He looked at her sternly; he looked at her nameplate--Auxiliary third class Smith. "AC3 Smith, why are you out of uniform."
She hesitated and looked down; she was wearing trousers. "Ahem. Ms Baker said that we should..."
"Ms Baker ordered you to violate Ministry regulations and wear men's trousers?" he questioned, his anger growing but not for the reason Smith thought. "When did she order you to do that?"
Smith looked at him, she didn't look stupid and seemed to appreciate she needed to choose her words carefully. "Yesterday, before--"
"Before the protests." he said, cutting her off. That vicious bitch had given the order before sending out her women to police what was initially a lawful protest. She had expected trouble, or rather intended to start it.
"Tell Senior Auxiliary Baker that she and her section commanders are to make their way immediately to the courthouse guard room, and to wait for me there." With a wave of the hand, he dismissed her. Smith curtsied quickly and double-timed it to find Baker.
The organisers of the protest had gone through every hurdle to secure permission, prior to the march. Even though none of them were citizens, they still had some rights and one of which was the right to assemble and make their grievances known to the authorities, provided it was lawful and 'respectful'. There were many in the Senate that remembered the days of the old government, when protests were declared violent. The police and army being ordered to use live ammunition to disperse them. The Republic was a strict, and sometimes brutal, society, but it was one that had laws.
He had made it clear to Baker, that her job was to ensure that the protest was peaceful; instead, she had behaved with her characteristic viciousness and provoked a riot. He kicked himself for not being there himself. He turned around and shouted for a passing Auxiliarie to find Captain Howard, the officer that was supposedly in operational command.
As he walked to the courthouse, he came across a line of prisoners, some looked the worse for wear, but all were well dressed, in compliance with the Republic's strict dress codes. All wore dresses that came to below their knees, their shoulders were covered; these were hardly radical feminist agitators coming to undermine the Republic from within.
Some of the group of prisoners looked to be limping. He ordered them to stop. As the group of eight women turned to face him, some immediately curtsied. The other women took a moment and then followed their example, performing the act with various degrees of success.
He looked at the group, "Turn around, and lift your skirts above your hips," he ordered.
