Here's the latest installment of my current dark scifi project. This is chapter 34. If you're just tuning in, consider starting with chapters 1 and 2. Be advised that this work considers difficult subjects, including suicide. If you're in crisis, please seek help. Help is available here.
The news was mostly bad. As Peter had predicted, a wave of reprisal killings targeted incarceration profiteers, then spread to corrections in general, then to anyone in uniform. The CDC quickly diagnosed the perpetrators as suffering from a new variant of 321 Syndrome. Kappa, they called it. Militarized police aggressively pursued and caught most of them, ending several additional lives along the way.
Against this background was an average of two mass shootings per week. About half of these appeared related to White Nationalism, as they targeted communities of color. Most of the shooters were killed by police. Mainstream media used this and sharply rising crime rates to broadcast a message of constant fear.
Around this time, a religious revival that had been brewing across the southeastern part of the country began bubbling over into serious disturbances of local government. They called themselves the True Faith Alliance, and they traveled around in big groups, belting out scripture and casting aspersions on anything they deemed unholy, which was most things. They demonstrated in city halls, courtrooms, schools, and anywhere else they felt led to go.
Horace's involvement with the Chicago 9 was widely publicized. Red news outlets claimed that his involvement proved that Strike 29 and antifa were behind the bombing plot. Blue news outlets described Horace as a hero of the people, and characterized the deaths of the Chicago 9 in custody as a wake up call indicating that prisons and jails needed more money from the government to provide medical services. The Hope Gazette was the only major news outlet to tell the story of what happened.
Once the story was out, Tom put Horace in touch with Hunter Domino, and Horace decided to join him on a tour of large concerts and festivals. Domino would talk about the path to necessary systemic change while Horace would speak on the necessity for that change to be nonviolent. Special Agent Weaver made sure Horace stayed on top of his legal obligations while Dr Winston monitored Horace's health in light of all of the stress.
At the conference, Jo had made a decision to cut way back on her consulting work to put herself into the GSG community full time. There was a national organization and standards to develop, and she was contributing to both, but her passion, as always, was working with people. And right away, she became the go to person for GSG facilitators having trouble.
River, Annie, and Dale were all GSG facilitators in the Northeast with similar issues. People had been coming to their GSG meetings and making others uncomfortable, usually due to intoxication. "I just don't see why we have to let drunks and junkies come in and monopolize the conversation," said River on their Zoom. "It's just not fair to everyone else."
"Sometimes I feel like all I'm doing is creating a space for homeless people to kill time and ask other vulnerable people for resources," said Annie.
"We've had phones and wallets go missing, but yesterday they stole the Buddha statue I bought for the space with my own money," said Dale. "I'm all for tolerance, but too many people are taking advantage of the GSGs and we need to do something about it."
"At The National, we did come up with some ideas to address these kinds of concerns," said Jo. "But I'm hearing a couple of issues here. Mind if I ask some clarifying questions?"
"Go ahead," said Dale.
"First, I'm hearing that intoxicated and homeless people are disrupting your meetings," said Jo. "Is that accurate?"
"More or less," said Annie. "I mean, I get that we serve the homeless along with everyone else, but they're literally scaring people away with their aggressive panhandling in front of our doors and even during meetings."
"I'm more concerned with the chemically-enhanced spewing incoherent nonsense for twenty minutes while people with their own problems have to just sit and listen to the nonsense," said River.
"We decided in Detroit that any facilitator should be empowered to remove anyone from a meeting for any reason," said Jo. "We're still working on the official guidelines for that, which is why you might not be aware of it."
"So I can just kick them out?" asked River.
"Simple as that," said Jo. "The guidance you'll eventually receive will include best practices for removing an offensive party, but the discretion is all yours."
"And the thefts?" asked Dale. "I have suspicions about who it is, but nothing I can prove."
"Okay, let's talk about crime," said Jo. "We talked about it a lot in Detroit. About sexual predators and domestic violence and people using the meetings to harm others in all sorts of ways. We came up with one potential remedy, but it's pretty radical so we're still just talking about it."
"Well, I'm about at the end of my rope," said Dale. "What kind of person sees a Buddha behind a peaceful water fountain and says, 'I should steal this!' It weighed thirty pounds and cost two hundred bucks. What would a pawn shop give them? Five? Ten if they were lucky?"
"I had a guy who reeked like pee aggressively describe an imaginary terrorist plot involving the Mall of America to this poor little grandma sitting next to him," said River. "I wanted to get between them and throw the guy out, but I didn't know if that was okay. Now I'm thinking I should have done it."
"I want to hear about your remedy," said Annie.
"The best we could come up with was a biometric database of meeting attendees," said Jo. "Everyone who shows up looks into a camera to provide a face print. If a problem arises, the disposition of the problem is attached to the face. Then, if a known predator enters a meeting, the facilitator is notified. No names or other identifying information would be stored. Just faces and notable behaviors."
"I don't know," said Dale. "I mean, I get why us facilitators adopted the new face print system. But expanding it to every meeting goer? I don't know."
"I feel like that could work," said River. "But we'd have to make sure to explain to people what data we were collecting and why."
"My concern is legal," said Annie. "The database you're talking about would basically be a national record of GSG attendance. I thought we were anonymous. What if the data is subpoenaed? Are we just going to give up our membership?"
"The current thinking is to make participation in the program voluntary, so your group could decide not to adopt it," said Jo. "If you did participate, this would be noted in your group's information on the website. To be honest, I don't like it much myself. But none of us can think of a better way to keep predators out of our meetings."
"You know, I think I want to be part of the conversation about this," said Annie.
"Great," said Jo. "I'll send you an invite to contribute."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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