“It’s all ancient history now, water over the dam. Why not just concede and move on? Let the Jews have their ‘Holocaust,’ real or otherwise?”
“Because they affect us, man! Their social, economic, and psychological clout shapes our world and our lives.” Wrench waggled his fingers. “We have a right to examine what they’re telling us. We have a right to freedom of expression, to the truth. We have a right to defend our own ethnos.”
“Some see that last as ‘racist.’ A lot of people think ‘racism’ is un-American.”
“Let ‘em. Shows what they know about the real will of the majority. Enlightened ‘racism’ is the shortest way out of our present mess. We don’t hate anybody; we’re not out to slaughter Jews or other minorities. We’re not backwoods hillbillies who hate anybody who looks different. We’re for America: for freedom from lobbies and ‘interests,’ for freedom of expression, for freedom for our people to run their lives as they see fit. It is very American to want our nation, our ethnos, to succeed and prosper, to defend it against those who would tear it down and turn us into something we don’t want to be.”
Lessing rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “God, Wrench, but you’re an asshole when you talk about this stuff! Like my dad used to say, ‘God save us from priests, patriots, and pickpockets!’” He paced away, then back again.
He had never found anything within himself that he could call patriotism, idealism, or religion. Back in high school one of his girl friends, Emily Pietrick, had found a term in some poem or novel or other that she said described him perfectly: “the empty man.” He had shown her that he was not empty — not in bed anyway — but the idea still niggled at him. In an odd sort of way he found himself envying Mulder.
Wrench dutifully changed the subject: “Did you hear what George said to that big fucker, the guy with the red nose who looks like a banker?”
“No. And what does a banker look like?”
“Like him. Honest. Anyway, Outram wants some of his guys to head for New Orleans to organize things.”
“So?”
“He’s sending some others into Washington to secure the central terminal of Eighty-Five, the big mainframe computer. There’s a rumor that certain unfriendlies intend to take it over.”
“How’s that affect us? We’re going back to Ponape.”
Wrench grinned, a halfmoon of glimmering blue-white. “Morgan’s off to whomp up the parade in the Midwest. Mulder goes with Outram to New Orleans. But us… you ‘n’ me, poor dipshits…” he paused for effect “…we’re travelling with Outram’s boys into Washington, whatever the hell Pacov has left of it.”
Lessing stared. “What/or?”
“Some of the movement’s corporations had offices in Washington. A few of our political groups and lobbies had headquarters there, too. We’re gonna pay ‘em visits to see if they’re croaked.”
“Why us? Any Party grunt can do that!”
“Yeah, but it makes a good excuse to give Outram. The real reason we’re along is to see if any of our own insiders at Eighty-Five’s main terminal are still kicking. If they’re okay and green-light, then we stay low. But if the opfoes are digging through Eighty-Five’s ‘forgotten’ files, we take action. With extreme prejudice.”
“I repeat, damn it: why us? I can’t tell a mainframe from an electric shaver!”
“I can. Didn’t you know? Never sneak a look at my personnel file at Indoco? I sure looked at yours!” Wrench stifled a bubble of laughter, Morgan stirred on the farther bed. “Hell, Lessing, I have a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT!”
“Jesus! And you were working security for Indoco out in India?”
“Reasons.” Wrench rarely spoke of his past, and even more rarely of his personal goals. He might just be telling the truth.
“Okay, that explains you. But why me?”
“You’re going along to protect me. You ‘re Mulder’s soldier-boy, general of his forces, the Herr Generaloberst of his Wehrmachll That’s how he sees you.”
Lessing exploded, “Goddam it, I’ve told you and I’ve told him: I’m not a member of your Party! I only work here.”
“That’s what I meant when I called you the Generaloberst of the Wehrmacht… not the Obergruppenfuhreroi the Wqffen-SS. You’re the apolitical military man, not the ideological Party soldier.”
The distinction was lost on Lessing. He was tired of political game-playing, and he was fed up with Wrench’s coy attempts to recruit him for the “cause.” He growled, “I said: I only work here. Leave the rest alone.”
Wrench struck a soulful pose. “Mulder sees you as something else, too.”
Lessing asked before he thought; maybe he didn’t want to hear the answer. “What?”
“The son he and the Fairy Godmother could never have.”
For some reason that struck a very sore nerve. “Bullshit!” he snapped. Hadn’t he had enough trouble with his own parents? Memories tried to push up into consciousness, but he swatted them away like summer gnats.
Wrench eyed him, a trifle apprehensively. “Right. Okay… okay! Back to the job. Mr. Lessing goes to Washington. Saves Mr. Charles Hanson Wren and gorgeous Miss Eighty-Five! All for democracy, for America, for the world!” He added a weak cackle.
Morgan was up, hair disheveled, rubbing at his eyes, and yawning hugely. “You guys talk too much. My watch?”
Lessing turned away to peer out at the pallid, snow-silvered desolation framed in the door’s single windowpane. He found himself staring at his own reflected image. God, he didn’t look any better than Morgan. In fact, the old phrase “like death warmed over” came to mind — or in his case “like death frozen over.”
He let out a long, careful, slightly shaky sigh and went to bed.
Unlike communism, which proposes an end both to private property and to market capitalism, the National Socialist state infringes upon traditional rights, privileges, and behavior patterns only to the extent that it must in order to curb anti-state tendencies and a return to the weak, confused, and frequently contradictory structures of “liberal democracy”— which was never truly “liberal” nor truly “democratic” in the first place! Communism demands fundamental changes in both human nature and human society; National Socialism strengthens and streamlines familiar societal structures, and enhances those values with which members of a given ethnos feel most comfortable. A modern National Socialist state requires: (a) a complete, holistic ideology; (b) a single organization dedicated to serving this ideology, headed either by one charismatic leader or by a small group of leaders; (c) complete authority over the military, the police, and the judiciary; (d) a centrally planned economy, together with the necessary enforcement structures to implement this efficiently; and (e) total control over mass communications. To the above, one may add a new feature, one that has only become possible within the last three-quarters of a century: a centralized information-retrieval system. The almost unimaginable complexities of modern society necessitate efficient record-keeping, data storage, and correlation of such interrelated issues as industrial production, transportation, education, food supply, jobs and labor, human services, and much, much more. In earlier times this either would have been impossible or else required an army of civil servants! Now it is possible through computer technology. Such a computer system cannot be allowed to make decisions, of course— this prerogative belongs intrinsically and eternally to humankind— but it can be used to store vast amounts of data and to integrate, correlate, extrapolate, and play out “what if?” scenarios, providing new insights and saving human energy.