Thanks again to Avicia for editing.
Chapter 14 Revolt and some Resolutions
A NEW USE FOR THE BIBLE
In a bourbon bar in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 6, 2047, Frau Dir. Marlene Sprengler, German diplomat Lang Weillig, Kultur, Sex and Sport reporter Bernetta Holzwald, Elvis "Neck" Wallace, Lawrence "Killer" Lewis, Doctor Frank Galton, and Thomas Schnupper are meeting in the southernmost city of the Social Democratic States of America before Sprengler, Weillig, Neck, Doctor Galton and Killer fly on to Little Rock. They have made introductions for those who have not already met everyone else.
It is mainly Schnupper who is not already familiar to the others, although they have all read his articles on sex slavery in the Free American States under God, which he wrote at the direction of Lena Fesch, who is now held as a breeding sex slave on a casino-bordello boat on the Mississippi, the Everleigh.
Everyone has some sort of alcoholic drink, mainly whiskey. Frau Sprengler explained that she wanted everyone to meet before they started the serious negotiations in Little Rock and for Holzwald to meet Schnupper.
Bernetta is unhappy that she is not going to Little Rock with the others. "Obviously, Herr Schnupper cannot travel to Little Rock given the arrest warrant for him by various states of the Free American States under God, and he has no reason to go. I do not see, though, why I cannot go with you to Little Rock for the negotiations," Bernetta Holzwald said.
"I am sorry, Bernetta," Frau Sprengler answered, "but I cannot risk another young female reporter of Kultur Sex und Sport becoming a sex slave on one of the Free State boats. You are certainly attractive enough to find yourself having your breasts pumped for milk while a man pumps his seed into your vagina, as I watched happen to Angela. My reputation is already sehr berΓΌchtigt (very notorious) in Deutschland, with Angela and Lena being breeding sex slaves. I get blamed even though they both knew very well the risks they were taking when they did what got them where they are today. This is particularly hurtful to me, with some even suggesting that I set Lena up."
Neck, Galton, and Killer smiled at the last comment before Neck said, "Yep, folks can be so unfair an lackin in understandin."
"Frau Holzwald, you are not missing much," Weillig said. "These negotiations involve a lot of waiting that seems to go nirgendwo (nowhere) while somebody cannot decide anything until he talks to somebody who cannot say anything until he hears back from someone else. Most of what you are missing is a lot of waiting around in a hotel and conference rooms in a rather small town pretending to be a world capital, although Little Rock was picked to be the Free States national capital solely based on geography. It is rather like Bonn once was."
"Discussions on a prisoner exchange have dragged out, but Lena seems to have figured out a way to accelerate the action whether that was her intention or not," Schnupper said. "My contacts in the Free States seem to think that while Bernetta is interviewing me and we both hang out in the Social Democratic states, there might be some Durchbruch (breakthrough)."
"You have to admit that Lena's last stunt was sheer genius," Frau Sprengler said, "that is if she did it."
"It is hard to believe anything anymore, but I believe Lena pulled it off, although no one knows how she did it," Schnupper said. "I do not know how many details reached Europe, but according to what is said in the Social Democratic States news reports, the boat would not let Lena have any writing paper after her letter to her mother, and they were monitoring her room 24/7 after she begged that her baby be sent to her parents. Still, two King James Bibles in waterproof boxes otherwise filled with bubble wrap washed up on the banks of the Ohio River not long after the Everleigh steamed by Louisville.
"One of the boxes landed in Indiana, where the Free State authorities got it. No problem for the slavers. But another Bible landed near Louisville in the southernmost part of what is called the SDSA tentacle, reaching southwest from Cleveland to Louisville.
"That second Bible was inspected by the SDSA media. It turns out someone blacked out letters in the Bible starting at Genesis to spell words that read together tell a tale that makes the Free States look just awful in the opinion of just about everybody. Thousands of identified women have been framed for crimes they did not commit and sentenced to decades-long sex slavery for the profit of sheriffs, prosecutors and the boats. Also, the sheriffs targeted white women who were in relationships with men considered dark-skinned."
"Of course, we all read about that, although we did not know the details about the two Bibles and where they were found," Frau Holzwald said. "What the lawmen have been doing is awful. Lena is blamed for the floating Bibles?"
"Cutie, you shittin us?" Neck said. "Who the hell else would be clever and bold enough to somehow float those boxes tellin all sorts of details that Lena probably got out of politicians, sheriffs and other law enforcement officials between times they were fuckin her? The fact those sons a bitch sheriffs, Hawley, Suney and Tauro, who set Lena up, were highlighted as chargin women with adultery who had committed no crime usin false witnesses was lost on no one, although those three assholes were far from the only ones identified," Neck said. "It seems Lena managed to get the proper names, addresses, and victim names of all 20 of the SOB sheriffs I told her about."
"The only real alternative is that someone else who had the facts released them to make it look like Lena did it." Doctor Galton said. "Nobody has explained how Lena could have gotten all the information or transferred it onto the disks stuck in the Bibles, but the disks could have been slipped to her. On the other hand, some old computers were in the stockroom near a room deep below deck where they worked Lena over. Lena could have transferred data there, although no one is sure when she could have done that.
"Also, there are passages highlighted about Moses' sister making sure that Moses was raised by kin and that Solomon, the child of sin, became the King of Israel after David. These passages were circled in lipstick of a type known to be on the Everleigh, along with a line spelled out like the rest of the statements in the Bible that God favors allowing kin to raise children and the children of sin to rise. This is interpreted as Lena venting her wrath at the idea of the baby being taken away from her and them not allowing it to be sent to her parents and her hopes that her child will nonetheless prosper. There's no question that she is totally enraged about them taking the baby and obsessed with its future. There is also other information that only Lena knew.