Vaughn Heppner: Invasion: California

She had come down a long way in the world since President Clark’s reelection defeat after the Alaskan War seven long years ago. From working on the President’s staff Anna had fallen into unemployment. This was due to her membership in a new undesirable caste in America: those of half-Chinese ancestry. It had been a rude shock.

Years ago, she had written the tome on the Chinese: Socialist-National China . It had been a bestseller, had won her a professorship at Harvard and then a spot on President Clark’s staff. None of that mattered now. She was half-Chinese. In besieged America that made her suspect. It didn’t help that Tanaka—her former bodyguard/lover—had died defending her in Obama Park. Tanaka had killed three muggers, shooting two in the head and breaking the neck of the third. The fourth had stepped out from behind a bush, shot Tanaka in the back and stolen Anna’s purse.

Sitting in her CIA cubicle, Anna rubbed her eyes harder, blinked several times and concentrated on the reports. A lamp provided light and several computer scrolls waited for her use. If there was anything in a report she didn’t understand, Anna looked it up.

Her life had spiraled from one tragedy to another. After her mother’s death, Anna had begun a blog on Chinese affairs, winning syndication on National News Internet (NNI). The mass Chinese cyber-assault three years ago in 2036 had ended that. The nuclear terrorist attack in Silicon Valley had ripened the latent Chinese racism into ugly fruit indeed. The only bright spot had been the election of President Sims. They said he was superstitious, in a baseball sort of way. Keep everything the same, if you could, when you won the big game. She had been in the government during the Alaskan War that Sims had won. Therefore, after gaining an interview with him, Anna had received employment with the CIA, as a lower grade analyst. It was better than unemployment and she was good at analyzing and interpreting data.

Anna sipped tea and leaned back so her chair squealed. She reached up and undid her hair. It was long and dark. She opened a drawer and took out a brush, letting the bristles run through the long strands.

She was seven years older since the Alaskan War. Yet she was still slender, keeping fit primarily because of her sparse diet and her pedal-power plan. In her apartment, she supplemented the energy requirement—provided by a nearby coal station—through stationary cycling. She also practiced the martial arts techniques Tanaka had taught her, which kept her amazingly limber.

She missed Tanaka. It was a hole in her heart. Would there ever be a man like him again for her?

Her brushing hand froze. Anna sat up, removed the brush from her hair and set it on the desk with a soft clunk. She concentrated on the report.

Clicking the e-reader, going back two pages, she noticed it came from Mexico City. From the beginning now, Anna read the report slowly. Was this right? The Chinese were moving a convoy to the front near the Californian border. The convoy carried Blue Swan.

“Blue Swan,” Anna whispered. “Where have I seen that before?”

She continued reading and wondered how this person code-named “Spartacus” had known “Blue Swan” was important to the Chinese. There was something missing in the report. She could feel it. It was rated “Yellow.” That meant it was considered third class and only slightly reliable.

Anna swiveled her chair and used a computer scroll’s touch screen. America was a land of great contrasts these days. Coal fed much of the nation’s energy needs and yet some places used the latest technology. Anna put in Spartacus’ name and read other reports written by him.

Why is this one coded “yellow?” Spartacus had proven reliable in the past.

Anna typed in “Blue Swan,” watching the words build on the screen. After typing the “n,” a little yellow note-symbol appeared in the left-hand corner. She moved the cursor over the “note” and clicked. Hmm, it was a reference saying “Blue Swan” concerned Chinese R&D. Where had the note originated?

She attempted to find out. Seconds later, her screen flashed red and the words appeared, sorry, classification exceeds user clearance level .

Anna sat back, picked up her teacup, sipped and grimaced. The tea had become cool. She liked hers hot.

So, what do I do? Let this go or make waves trying to find out what this “Blue Swan” is?

Anna sat staring at the e-reader. Slowly, she clicked back to the beginning of the report. She wished Spartacus had been more honest and put in exactly how he’d come to suspect Blue Swan.

How important is this?

If it proved to be insignificant, eyes might raise and suspicions become whetted. Why did the half-Chinese woman seek higher clearance? Her position in the CIA was tenuous at best.

“I’m an American,” Anna whispered to herself. “This is my country.” Each person had to fight his or her personal battles in life. Some had physical ailments, others fought psychological problems and some had to walk uphill against racism or ageism. She had found it better to do and struggle than to accept these limitations.

Standing, blowing out her checks, Anna picked up the e-reader and headed for her boss’s office. She passed others in their cubicles, reading reports, typing or eating a snack. A few looked up. Two nodded a greeting.

Anna reached the door, hesitated and let her delicate knuckles rap against wood.

“Enter,” a man said. Ed Johnson was the chief analyst of the nightshift. He had gray hair and wore a white shirt and tie, one of the old guard. She had heard others say before that Johnson didn’t like her.

“Yes?” Johnson asked, scowling up at her.

Anna hesitated.

Johnson’s scowl grew, and he eyed her up and down.

Anna felt soiled by it, remembering how Tanaka’s killer had looked her up and down that night in the park. With the smoking gun in his hand—the one that had shot Tanaka in the back—the murderer had stepped up and snatched her purse. His eyes had lingered hungrily. She’d seen his desire to rape. It had frozen her. For months afterward, she had stood before a full-length mirror at home, practicing what she should have done.

At his desk, Ed Johnson scowled, eyeing her as if she was a piece of meat to devour. She wasn’t going to accept it.

With a force that surprised her, Anna slapped the e-reader onto Johnson’s desk. “I’d like you to read this,” she said.

His gray eyebrows lifted. Maybe he hadn’t expected such forcefulness. He took the e-reader and went through the report. When he was done, he set the e-reader down, turned it to face her and shoved it across the desk to her.

“Did you see the reporter’s grade?” he asked.

“Third, yes,” she said. Anna explained about the “Blue Swan” reference to Chinese R&D and that its classification was higher than her clearance.

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Johnson asked.

“Give me higher clearance so I can properly analyze the data.”

He folded his thick fingers together, staring at her. He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Ms. Chen.”

“Then phone someone who can.”

“Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?”

“I’m trying to do what’s best for my country. I think this could be important. Obviously, Spartacus left out a critical piece of information. It’s the R&D information that I need to see in order to make a better-informed judgment on what he is telling us. This is time-sensitive data.”

Johnson’s scowl intensified, and he nodded now. “You’re gambling. You have the guts to back up your gamble, to barge in here and try to face me down. Okay, little girl, I call and raise your stakes. You want to burn yourself, go right ahead.”