Lincoln Garvey begins every morning very much like you do now. There are no fancy machines that exercise his body for him, get him dressed, brushes his teeth, or that feeds him. He must do all of those things on his own still. The brands that he uses are different, but the products are similar. Usually made with arguably healthier materials and constructed into arguably better and biodegradable packaging.
There are fancier gadgets and self-driving cars now. In fact, driving as you currently know it to be is illegal in Terrie 2. But that technology isn’t new to you. It was being tested during your time, by a man who owned a company interested in space exploration-- which still hasn’t fully materialized into anything probable as of yet. But it would take another company to perfect the technology and get it right.
After the first secession, the government wanted to ensure that those who weren’t interested in abandoning their communities knew they would still have a home. They even set out to change a few things to make it more desirable to those who were on the fence. All of the streets and cars were upgraded using a magnetic technology that grounded the vehicles to the road and carried them forwards or backwards in order to keep them safely flowing to their destinations.
Computer chips were designed into the roads that talked to the cars that drove over them while they propelled towards the GPS coordinates configured into their dash. The roads also conveniently counted, tracked, charted and identified each vehicle by make, model, registration information and license plate number and each vehicle occupant by passenger ID, as most cars on the roads are no longer owned. Car notes were replaced with yearly road passes of differing specialty packages that allowed a person to travel so many miles per year. Car insurances became a thing of the past, as accidents between vehicles dropping dramatically from once-a-minute to once every 5-7 years.
This was, of course, packaged to the public as a way to keep them safe from the residents of the lawless, murderous terries, like Terrie 14 -- which is the one the media likes to particularly highlight due to it being the pioneer in the legalization of murder-- and other terries that exist just outside their safe and secure bounds. This also served a latent function of ensuring the division between those who had stayed and those who left remained fortified.
There is relatively no crime in Terrie 2; another perk for being such a loyal American. Mild offenders are sent to rehab centers created by the government and taught how to reintegrate back into society. They are also taught a trade if they lack a skill and given the tools necessary to become self-sustaining, law-abiding adults.
Moderate and severe offenders are shipped to Terrie 3 where there are privatized prisons. Terrie 3 receives no aid from the government. So most of the criminals work long hours to pay for their stay. Business is booming to say the least. It is one of the more successful terries. Businesses contract with them to make or sell their products and most, if not all, of the terries were built by prison laborers. In fact, prisoners who had volunteered and were assigned a terrie to build, were granted their freedom when the project came to be complete. This became the most coveted job in all the yards and created for the guards the happy consequence of positive reinforcement; as only prisoners with no recent violations were allowed to be selected.
Although crimes occurring within prison walls, known as counts, has dramatically decreased with the amount of labor that is now required-- idle hands are the devil’s tools-- it is still in every prisoner’s best interest to remain good. But it has been at least 10 years since a petition for a new terrie has been accepted. So, the peace that Terrie 3 is used to experiencing is slowly starting to dissolve.
This should be understood quite early on that there is no terrie that is completely free of the government’s rule. There are 111 territories, each with their own jurisdictions, bylaws, and restrictions. Each of these cultures, like civilized wolves. No matter how far the ropes of these savage beasts’ leashes allow them to roam, there is still a man at the other end ready, willing and waiting to pop them on the nose in order to get them back in line should the time come.
Within the Untied States, the residents of the terries feel free from the rest of America. Some terries have few rules. Others have little authority. Yet each and every one of them who have managed to escape the unending cycle of work-consume-sleep-repeat heavily prevalent in Terrie 2 and who have remained separate, now feel a sense of belonging. Because just outside their huts, or houses, or hovels, there is another soul that thinks, acts and feels just like them and the others who don’t think, act, or feel like them have no say over how they are governed and, in fact, are not even allowed to belong to their community.
And though, within the United States, the residents of the terries feel fragmented from the rest of the world, the image that is unequivocally being broadcasted, even without their knowledge, is that no matter how many territories one chunk of land can be divided into, the government, and in particular, America is still king. To further explicate this ideal, we must revisit the event that started it all. The first secession may have begun through force, but it all happened by sheer divine intervention—if you ask me. If all of these elements hadn’t have come together all at once in the way that they did, a straw could never really break a camel’s back.
Immigration, which had become triggered during your time, really showed its ass just a few years later. It started in the media as a political divide over the issue with no one side actually coming out ahead and with no one living and breathing person actually caring how the thing played itself out despite the insistence from your CNN’s, your Fox News’, your MSNBC’s that the thousands they had each polled were outraged. Then at some point, Nationalists had somehow become the face for the conservatives in the media. The issue was no longer about immigration, as it was the fight to keep a country White. The narrative would eventually grow feet, arms, a back, body and brain until it spooked an entire country into their respective corners. After it was exposed that some of the conditions the immigrants had been subjected to at the border, mirrored those experienced by Jews in Nazi-occupied Germany, suddenly it was the Nationalists vs. The United States.
At the time, racial tensions were at an all-time high. Blacks and Whites had begun bickering over the issues of police brutality, existing-while-Black, and, in particular, slavery. But it was the Black community’s refusal to back down on the issue of slavery, and specifically reparations, that escalated and would help materialize the events that would eventually unfold. See, the issue of slavery had been debated and related at least one hundred million times over the hundreds of years since its withdrawal. Each time, Whites would offer some half-hearted apology while they continued to uphold and maintain the social institutions that served to reinforce their privilege. The same social institutions that also served up crippling symptoms and side effects to the Black population.
Now normally, Blacks would drop the argument. Opting instead to highlight their struggles within the safety of their 280-character count platforms, their television shows or comedy routines. Hoping laughter could help mitigate the heaviness of its presence in America. There was a movie at that time that aired on a streaming giant. It was a thriller about a scientist who invented a cure-all for all ailments but the only side effect was that it would then give the ailment to another random and completely unknown person. She called the cure Kalyoo. It became heavily meme’d when a comedian compared Kalyoo to slavery. Whenever a White person benefits from the system, a Black man is harmed. But a revolutionary with a voice of gold and a hard-on for monetary compensation was born. His refusal to let Whites off the hook for their crimes ignited a surge of Black Americans who did the one thing they hadn’t done in decades—mobilize.
Then came the straw. It was presented as a study written by an anthropologist that claimed the White male was nearing extinction in the United States with mixed race babies the overwhelming majority. The kicker was that the article stated in as little as five years’ time there wouldn’t be a single White male in America and even called for White males to reproduce only with White women. It even pleaded with the government to increase immigration from European countries. Now of course, this study, which had no design specifics or research methodology attached, caused quite a stir.
Articles, blogs and vlogs were splattered with pictures of White men next to extinct animals like the dodo bird, the dolphin and the dinosaur. And our detail-deprived nation couldn’t be bothered to verify facts or even skim through the small, wordy words under those immensely ingenious titles emboldened onto their media screens. By the time a real study had been designed and executed, proving the results of the initial study had indeed been falsified, it was too late.
White men felt abandoned by their country. They felt attacked in their own home, betrayed by the roommates they had initially stolen, but with time would come to think of as friends after having spent hundreds of years living together, eating together, working together, even fighting together since the very first day they signed their lease onto this great nation—the Blacks. As well as by the outsiders, just on the other side of the door, clawing their way to get in and take what was rightfully theirs—the illegals. Tens of millions of Nationalists and their families, believing there was a war on White skin, banded together in the state of Florida, with many of them having driven from thousands of miles away. They came armed with guns, explosives, tanks, shields, food and other supplies and had barricaded themselves within an 150-acre compound overrunning several small cities; including the town of Apalachicola—population 2200.
It was the best executed plan ever conducted on American soil. Hundreds of thousands had been planning this for years. A man by the name of Marshall became the face of the movement but was by no means the brains. It was his land that was carefully selected and had been expanded by him with the donations that began flooding in, in secret. It had crocodile-filled swamps they peppered with animal blood, surrounding three-out-of-four sides, and carefully placed traps inland, making the safest on-foot access in the heavily-guarded north. And with the taking of Apalachicola, it was the intent to consume this town and its residents in an effort to ensure the government wouldn’t attempt to drop bombs on them from the sky.
An underground bunker had been built that had the stores of food, medical supplies, feminine hygiene, clothing, blankets, diapers, tents, batteries, generators, flashlights, jackets, water—anything one could think of to survive for years if need be. It was a prepper’s wet dream, all mailed bit-by-prime-subscription-bit over the course of three years. One percenters, government officials, actors, military leaders, inventors, business men, financial planners, rednecks and racists—hundreds of thousands of Whites of every class, stature and status came together and planned their preservation.
Millions of people of color shouted at their TV screens for the army and National Guard to bomb them all citing convenience. Why wait five years for their extinction? It was heavily pondered. And this is the part where the timing became saintlier than human. With any other President of the United States, an attempt to seize control of that territory would’ve been inevitable. Even if it meant picking off hundreds of thousands of White men and women one-by-one. But there was a new president, and by new, I mean 9 weeks old, and he carried with him into his first term a sympathetic heart. See these weren’t just your ordinary, unknown, White males in camo gear holding guns. These were your neighbors, your coworkers, your elected officials, your friends. They weren’t faceless. Anyone who just so happened to be living under a rock for six months prior could still walk by a television screen for the very first time and point towards someone they recognized. So the President, who hadn’t even fully adjusted to his new roles and rules, followed his spiritual beliefs instead, feeling as though Americans had a right to live how they wanted.
And so the first pilot secession began. The President gathered economists, culturalists, psychologists, sociologists, scientists of varying fields, counselors, judicial officers, contractors, policy consultants, attorneys, accountants. Every kind of specialty came under contract for the government, the best of the best, and were told to come up with a plan that would allow a territory to secede and be self-sustaining.
It took roughly one year for a draft to be developed. Laborers came in and built Terry 1 from the ground up. The Nationalists constructed their rules and laws, all of which were documented and logged into the record of a new branch of government known as the Territory Division. It took three-and-a-half years, from the time the White Nationalists seized control of Apalachicola to the time the government-hired econo-socio-scient-ants left their land with a recorded plan.
Terrie 1 was then monitored for five years with successful results, making small tweaks and changes in order for them to maintain stability. After which they were cut off completely from the government but not without a debt to repay and a few contractual obligations that were promised to come due at an unstipulated time. And on the date of the close of the five year observation process, the Territory Division had received some 3000 applications for new terries.
The government was next to secede. Terrie 2. It was the President’s plan to keep as many people under their rule of law as was possible with as little of a disruption to their daily lives as was necessary. Though many people were forced to sell their homes in order to move within Terrie 2 bounds. But Mr. President also felt that it was an American’s God-given right to choose their own existence. So, he let as many people secede that had wanted with only a few stipulations. Applications that were upwards of 1000-pages thick had to be completed correctly with each proposal for a terrie having to be new and original otherwise were stamped rejected for duplication. Rules and laws had to be documented for each new terrie for every type of behavior possible. A minimum number of members for viability had to be obtained prior to completing a petition and each member had to be counted as part of the population to which they belonged and tracked by their particular terrie’s authority.
Members could no longer rejoin Terrie 2 or any other territory without a formal request for a change in location. And all individuals who chose to secede couldn’t go wandering through any other terrie’s bounds. There were main roads that one could follow to see the national sights within common areas. However, in the case of Susan and Mark Rafter of Terrie 49, who had wondered what it would be like to see Terrie 37 on the off chance they would be interested in switching communities, who made the mistake of driving 3 miles into Terrie 14 before they realized they were lost and attempted to turn around. Terrie 49 received a package with Susan and Mark’s Terrie ID cards, wallets and other personal effects along with a combined total of 14 of their body parts.
Terrie 2 had managed to generate a new income source from its own people, as each terrie, with the exception of Terries 5 and 8, responsible in paying back the costs associated with its creation. Terrie 2 had also managed to save hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly costs associated with housing, feeding, clothing, punishing, and paying millions of Americans. Criminals were sent to Terrie 3. The permanently sick, drug-addicted or disabled sent to Terrie 5 with Terries 2 and 4 paying huge yearly stipends for their care. Many older Americans branched out and created their own community in Terrie 8, a retirement village just for their kind with little to no crime and even a thriving knitting business that helped pay for their extras.
Lastly, Terrie 2 had managed to create an entire new branch of government requiring a need for good people to fill the good jobs with good pay, jobs like the ones that received, reviewed, rejected or processed new applications for terries, or ones that received, reviewed, rejected or processed new petition amendments, petitioner transfers or yearly dues. And with Terrie 2 relatively free of criminals, sick and the elderly, it only left able-bodied Americans happily willing to fill them.
The only public services Terrie 2 provided to the others was public healthcare and a court of Appeals. A hospital was built in each terrie that offered free short-term healthcare to their residents, with government workers contracted in each specificity but it was suggested that each terrie recruit people into their communities who could fill those roles. It was also heavily encouraged that each terrie contract with other terries, and in particular Terries 3, 5 and 10 in order to get permanent services, such as housing for their criminals, long term care for their sick or drug-addicted, and a 24-hour police presence, for the members of their community.
Each terrie had their own laws and had to deal with punishment for crimes as stipulated in their law books, or could contract with Terrie 3 for their criminals to be transported in order to serve time. However, if a resident who was convicted, appealed to the court of higher decision, Territory 2 would step in and decide their case based upon the rules of the land to which they belonged.
Terrie 2 became solely responsible for the provision of healthcare, a court of higher appeals, foreign and global relations and a few other nooks and crannies most terries never even thought to be bothered with. But for the most part, many of the duties the government once controlled had been dissolved or pawned off to other terries becoming that territory’s main source of revenue. This includes the military. The Army, Navy, Marines, and National Guard seceded to Terrie 10, taking along with them other government entities as well, such as the CIA, FBI, DEA, ICE, and law enforcement. This terrie earns most of its revenue by outsourcing their officers and agents to other terries and even other parts of the world for pricey fees. Terrie 10 has also configured into each of their contracts, the expressed understanding that they have the ability to recruit some of that terrie’s youth.
What started as a sympathetic president’s meek blunder became the closest thing the American people ever got to actual freedom. And, if for some reason it ever came time for one of those tiny contractual obligations, each member of a territory willingly signed, to be cashed in, rest assured that each and every single territory, who all have their own set of contractual obligations, will be put on alert. It was explicitly communicated that all territories must fight to defend America should a threat materialize. However, Terrie 4, which is comprised of the half-percenters, who we all refer to as old-money now as they made their dollars before the divisions began. These are your Gates’, your Bezos’, your Rothschilds’. Terrie four was the only territory that didn’t owe the government a huge debt as the money they had made from their businesses paid for nearly all of their creation costs. However, one of Terrie four’s contractual obligations was that it must help fund Terrie 5’s care. So hundreds of millions of dollars are sent to Terrie 2 each year, who then turns around and cuts smaller checks to Terrie 5.
Terrie 10, or the Milliterrie as it is banally referred to within their borders, was contracted to be utilized by Terrie 2 for their local and foreign affairs in exchange for discounted dues. They even had to select a council member who sits on the board in Terrie 2, intermediating information about local and foreign threats to the President. Terries 3 and 5 have similar contracting guidelines, in that criminals and/or the sick, disabled or drug-addicted within Terrie 2 are allowed to be transported to their respective terries free of charge and each even have a council member, as well, who manages the day-to-day needs and requisitions of their terrie.
Terrie 2 wanted to make understood to each individual that chose to leave that they were free. They could choose to be wasps or wolves. They could create rules that said every man must live off human flesh. They could make laws that banned clothing or that made rape, murder, extortion, even polyamory legal. They could ban the consumption of meat like Terrie 25, guns like Terrie 39, Blacks and other minorities like Terries 1, 28, and 73. Anything was possible within the confines of their bounds and no further with no risk of government interference. However, it was unequivocally conveyed to those who chose to secede that they were an American with a debt first and everything else second and in that order. Their creation costs came due on the anniversary of their secession, their contractual obligations must be upheld 365/infinity and if the time ever came to defend this great nation, they must do so at any cost.
As a result, Terrie 2 has become a home for the fearful. With most of the ruffians having migrated, these left your typical lot—your law abiders, your conformists, your squares, your malleable-to-society. The ones too irresolute to risk choosing the wrong community so they settle. The media’s portrayals of violence and mayhem prevalent in the surrounding terries was enough to keep them residents. The threat of being kicked to another terrie for a single criminal act or drug offense was enough to keep most of the residents in line and the way the government refers to their own as the Loyalists, which only mushrooms a holier-than-thou contagion amongst the population further flaring the chasm between them and the others, was enough to keep the residents in line and with content.
So, yes, Lincoln Garvey begins every morning much like you do now except jejunely. He wakes at a specified time. He goes for a run. He blends his breakfast. Showers, dresses and leaves in the car that arrives exactly 11 minutes before he is due to work. He spends 6 minutes traveling, reading the latest trends on his phone, scrolling past the breaking news of the lost dog found roaming on Hwy10 and peeping on the profile pages of his old friends who migrated out of Terrie 2 right after high school.
When he arrives, Lincoln will walk the immaculately landscaped path up to the entrance of the 11-story government building, check his bag through security and veer left down the hall towards room 111 where there will be a blonde in a red dress waiting patiently in his department’s lobby for his arrival. He will not notice her. He will also not notice the influx of men and women of other departments, some who even work on other floors, who have migrated to his department just to notice her.
He will instead make his way to the kitchen, deposit his lunch into the shared refrigerator, and exchange his pleasantries with Carmona, who will have delayed the short trek back to her desk until he arrives. Then, he will migrate to his office, prepare for his Monday meetings until he is interrupted by Simon who will tell him about the woman here to discuss the new filing for a petition currently located in a purple file marked pending on his desk. Carefully concealed, though not enough to his liking, beneath a stack of much fresher papers and receipts. The petition was given to him two weeks ago. He has already reviewed it and it is nearly perfect. It should’ve been mailed back to her 1 week ago, stamped accepted, with the process of implementing the 112th territory underway.
Simon’s announcement will cause Lincoln to cringe at a twinge on his sleeved forearm on the spot where he was branded all those years ago. The sting as mythological as the man who made it, eliciting a dosage of dread nonetheless. Lincoln will tell Simon to inform this woman of his meetings and kindly encourage her to come back at a prescheduled time to discuss her petition. She will match his kindness emotion-for-emotion though with refusal, preferring to patiently wait as long as necessary until a slit in his schedule can be created. So, he will attend his meetings, thinking only of her and what this could all mean. Wondering, if it could all be what he thinks it means-- like a tortoise inches closer towards a time when he can know for sure.
Lincoln Garvey has been longing for an adventure since he was a child but he always knew Territory 2 was not really a place he would ever find one. And when his mother got sick his senior year of high school he stayed behind, while his friends went on to experience life in a way he always envied. And when his mom got better he stayed behind, not wanting to wander too far from her in case she or his father ever needed him. And when he got his job for the government he stayed behind, feeling too established to risk losing it all on a whim. But what he didn’t realize until just right then, when he opened the door to his department and let that red-lipped woman in, was that adventure was not a place but a feeling and when she looked up at him and smiled, he knew it would be a feeling that he was going to follow to the end.
This work is created by, written by and belongs to Aecko and shared here for entertainment.