“Are you my lawyer?”
“No. I’m simply here to explain your situation.”
Summer adjusted Byron and sat up in bed, still carefully cradling her son.
“I think it’s best if the nurses take your baby to the nursery,” Major Fellows said.
“No,” Summer replied.
“Let’s not make this difficult.”
The two male nurses approached Summer’s bedside. “He’ll just be in the nursery,” one of them said.
Summer leaned away from their large hands. “Not right now.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Fitzgerald. We have to take him now.”
Tears slipped from Summer’s eyes. “Please don’t take my baby.”
“Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “He’ll be well cared for.”
The nurse leaned over the bed, put his arms around Byron, and pulled, but Summer held tight. Byron woke and started to cry.
“Please,” Summer said.
The other nurse pried Summer’s hands from Byron, and they whisked the baby from the room. Summer sobbed, her face wet with tears, and her nose running with mucus.
Major Fellows watched the scene, impassive and silent, as Summer’s sobbing slowed and eventually stopped. Major Fellows grabbed a box of tissues from the bedside table and handed it to Summer. She wiped her face and blew her nose. Holding a wad of tissues, Summer glared at the major.
“You ready to talk now?” Major Fellows asked without an ounce of sympathy.
Summer nodded.
“You’ve been classified as an Unlawful Enemy Combatant and would’ve been scheduled for a military tribunal and tried for treason.”
“Would’ve been?”
“You’ve tested positive for antisocial personality disorder.”
Summer put her hand to her chest, her eyes bulging. “That’s ridiculous. That can’t be right.”
“Similar to a civilian trial, the positive test would also supersede a military tribunal.”
“What does that mean?” Summer held out her hands like a beggar.
“It means you’ll be shipped on the next boat to US Penal Colony East.”
Summer felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. “There must be some kind of mistake. Test me again.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Please. This is a mistake. Test me again.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”
“What about my child?”
“He’ll be transferred to Social Services.” Major Fellows turned and walked away.
“Wait! This is all wrong. It’s a mistake!” Summer dissolved into tears again.
56
Naomi and the Headlines
Naomi’s autonomous Toyota eased through the morning traffic, headed for her office in the US Capitol. She glanced from Independence Avenue back to her tablet. Naomi scrolled and tapped her way to the headlines for August 1, 2051.
Sharia Law in Belgian City
Michigan Man Arrested for Hate Speech
Stock Market Down in Pretrading
European Heat Wave Continues to Kill
Bond Yields Trending Higher
Arctic Oil Drillers Take Advantage of Ice Melt
Water People Living in Miami High-Rises
Venezuela Surpasses Saudi Arabia as Top Oil Producer
Pensions Underfunded with Stock Market Crash
Googleplex Connects Chimp to the Cloud
Algae Oil Still Not Profitable or Scalable
Naomi tapped in and out of various article links, scanning the information. A large section of Antwerp, Belgium, was ruled by Sharia Law. Those unable or unwilling to comply with Sharia Law were asked to relocate. In the 2010s and 2020s, primarily Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa settled in countries with generous social safety nets. Many did flee war, but many others fled for economic reasons. For example, Syria boasted a per capita income of almost $3,000 in the 2010s. During this same time, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the UK, France, and Germany offered benefits somewhere between $17,324 and $38,588 per year. Many migrants responded to the incentive, leaving their home countries and building their own communities within these western-style democracies. Doomsday predictions were common, citing high birth rates among Muslim migrants and low birth rates among the locals. Many also predicted how these countries and their governments would be usurped from within, and non-Muslims would be arrested, murdered, or converted.
In the early 2020s radical Islamic violence reached its zenith in Europe, the US, and Australia. Consequently, the rise of nationalism also reached its peak. This violence and the clash of ideologies still existed, but it was mostly contained now. The Greater Depression of the 2020s and the collapse of fiat currencies eroded the purchasing power of welfare benefits, and consequently slowed the tide of migrants. This was partially offset by climate-related refugees. The rise of facial recognition cameras, government surveillance, and the adoption of the Chinese and Russian policy of psychopath expulsion reduced the violence even further.
The Muslim migrants did have much higher birth rates, but the moderates assimilated into western society. The fundamentalist Muslims preached hate for the nonbeliever or the Kafir, but their children often rebelled, left their communities, and practiced a more moderate version of Islam. What was left were self-segregating fundamentalist enclaves.
Policing these communities was near impossible for local cops, so agreements were made, allowing these enclaves to police themselves. Abuses of woman, children, and homosexuals, which were illegal in a typical western democracy, were legal and common under Sharia Law. It was legal for a man to consummate a marriage with a nine-year-old girl. Homosexuals were executed. Raped females had to produce four male witnesses to prosecute, otherwise they ran the risk of being accused of adultery, which was punishable by death. Males convicted of rape could have their conviction overturned if they married the victim. Men could beat their wives for insubordination. Polygamy was legal, husbands allowed up to four wives, yet women allowed only one husband. Polygamy also tempered the rise of fundamentalist Islam, as many young men were denied mating opportunities, causing them to leave these communities, and leaving the eligible young women to the elderly leaders.
Naomi tapped another article. She read about the Michigan mechanic who used the word “black” to refer to a person of color. When corrected, he continued to use the term “black.” The exchange was videoed, and the mechanic was arrested for a hate speech violation. He faced fines of up to 10,000 Fed Coins and up to six months in prison.
Canada, the US, Russia, and Norway were now producing a combined total of seven million barrels of oil per day from the Arctic Circle.
Naomi scanned another article, reading about the off-grid water people who lived in the decaying high-rises of Miami. From 2014 until 2040, as sea levels rose, Miami was forced to use expensive pumps to keep the city dry. This became impossible because of the porous land and the limestone that the city sits on. Most left the city as blackouts and floods were commonplace. In 2046, when the city was destroyed by Hurricane Yasmine, most residents had already relocated. The city wasn’t rebuilt, is now under two feet of water, and home to an apocalyptic version of Venice.
Naomi read about the Orinoco Belt of Venezuela, the biggest oil deposit in the world. The heavy oil deposits were being developed, despite the environmental destruction, with 100 percent of the exports going to the US. Even with the rise of Arctic Oil and now Venezuela, the 2051 world oil production was roughly 67 million barrels of oil per day, down from 99 million barrels of oil per day in 2020.
Googleplex successfully connected chimpanzees to the cloud via DNA strands called nanobots. However, the chimps had shown little increase in practical or abstract intelligence. Scientists believed this was because they didn’t have the language skills or sufficient abstract intelligence to make use of the information.