Hannah Beck still had to adjust to the reality of it all. There were troops at the Marriott, tanks rolling through Charleston, and gunboats sailing along the Kanawha River. Ever since the bizarre spontaneous combustion wiped out most of the world's population, the remnants of the various nation-states suffered complete anarchy for a while.
No one was yet sure what had caused the situation, but the selective nature of the event made many suspect that it was manufactured by extra-terrestrials concerned over the manner in which humanity had developed. In the absence of empathy, a cold calculation that the dominant Terran species had to be cut back in numbers made some chilling sense. Either that, or the aliens were preparing the planet for their own invasion and colonization program.
On the plus side, there were now plenty of available resources, so that the price of everything had dropped once sufficient salvaging had commenced. That had to wait, however, until the political situation had stabilized, which did result in some waste. Much of the eastern USA outside of the Ohio River Valley had become the Gray Zone, a designation for a no man's land open solely to the National Salvage Monopoly by law.
The entire USA east of the Mississippi, where populated or not (and there were plans to colonize the entire area in time), was officially known as the Federation of Trans-Ohio. Its iron-fisted dictator didn't take long to impose his authority on the populated counties, either. The former state of West Virginia was sparsely inhabited east of Kanawha County, but that still left a corner of the Mountain State in Dr. Joshua Powell's ruthless hands. The self-appointed "President" permitted no other political organizations beside his ruling National Union Party.
What few people lived in the Gray Zone were either salvagers or dissidents seeking to move outside of the FTO's effective authority. The latter made sure to stay hidden and not cause trouble, of course. The usual problems with a lawless area were avoided because of the desire to keep a low profile. Even so, by far most people chose to live under the authoritarian regime in power in the civilized region instead of opting for a life without the security and stability of a strong central government.
The issue for Hannah was what exactly she might expect from the new authorities, now that they had expanded their de facto control to her hometown of Charleston. She had heard all kinds of horror stories about the new regime, but she was a strict Lutheran and believed that one must obey the government, unless it contradicted the laws of God. Dr. Powell couldn't be too bad, if he had a Christian name, right? At least that was what Hannah and her husband, Stephen, told themselves when the Federation Army marched into the former state capital.
She wasn't prepared for the first order of business by the new commander of the military district (an apparently standard method until a section had been properly brought to heel). Brigadier General Erwin Bates was more than a little fed-up with "born-again" Christian women. He had been married to and divorced from a Pentecostal woman, before he caught her in bed with a deacon of the very church to which she had tried to drag him. He now had a distinctly sharp dichotomy about women, which was rather unusual. Since he had sweeping powers in the interim and virtual carte blanche, he chose to make his point with his new authority as military governor.
The harsh truth of things was that many of the horror stories were true, as they were based on the policy of "broad discretion" that Dr. Powell applied to encourage his occupation forces to use to prepare the newly recovered sectors for complete integration with the rest of the Federation. The President of the Federation and Chairman of the NUP wanted his territory to expand at any cost, and he didn't ask questions about the men that he chose to lead his troops in the field.
They were selected on not only the usual military bases but on their "aggressive" and "ruthless" enforcement of the central authority. Beyond that, they were permitted to rape, loot, and terrorize those in their charge. Such a system didn't always draw the most honorable of soldiers. Hard-core mercenaries and disgraced officers found this army very appealing in many cases.
The fact that the official rhetoric of the FTO exalted "traditional family values" and the "Judeo-Christian ethic" was beside the point. Those words were lip service paid to the religious fundamentalists who gave the government much of its solid support. The very regime that publicly outlawed same-sex marriage and increased the draconian penalties for violations of "blue" laws that controlled booze and porn also had unofficial bordellos that catered to both heterosexual and homosexual government and Party officials.
Dr. Powell, a psychiatrist who thundered against free condoms in public schools as "sending the wrong message" and demanded even tougher laws against drugs and promiscuity, had an ongoing affair with his 21 year old niece Susan that was now 3 years in progress. His wife, Nancy, was herself engaged in a lesbian relationship with an academic colleague with his tacit support. In fact, she was gay and those in his inner circle knew all about this. His other mistress, a former college intern named Kelly, had a secret (and now illegal) abortion with his full knowledge and approval (after all, it couldn't get out to his supporters that he wasn't the family man that he claimed to be).
In essence, the Federation used religion as a smokescreen for its true ideology: a fascist corporate state. Realizing that the evangelicals would buy anything sold to them as "saving America from Godless heathens who brought this judgment down upon our great Christian nation", Powell had thrown them puritanical laws as sops that he had no intentions of enforcing except when it suited him. He had won them over to his agenda without them even suspecting as much about his secret objective.
