So the guy acting as this section's plot exposition says that he's keeping his family right where it is. In the middle of lawless territory. When they probably have no guns whatsoever. Somebody slap this lunatic. Ben, of course, treats this as the right decision, because some of the citizens in New Africa are militant. What this has to do with living under Logan, I have no idea. The man has a mostly functional, if corrupt, army. This man could probably live well down in the New US. As a skilled farmer in a time when people will be needing food, he could probably live like a noble for years to come. Of course, we're meant to sympathize with the idiot who basically leaves his family out to dry, so he'll never take the obvious course of action. After a bit of filibuster on race relations and a little more exposition, Raines decides to visit Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the New US. This leads to one of the stupidest comments yet. Raines hides most of his weaponry, save two pistols and a rifle, since the first thing the New US will want to have is law and order, and any lawman wouldn't like the look of a man with a submachine gun. These men of the law also wouldn't like the look of a man with three times the heat they'd be carrying, either, I'd imagine.
On his way into Virginia, he's stopped three times in thirty minutes by the police. They, again, are treated like bad people because they're inspecting a suspicious vehicle containing one man with more firepower than any of them. When one of them asks for the car's registration, and Ben produces it (he filled it out at the dealership he stole it from, for some reason), it's treated like it's some kind of victory. The trooper in that example, by the way, doesn't believe a word of it, and acts as our next plot exposition. Again, Ben tells this federal agent exactly who he is and what he's done. This foul-mouthed trooper reveals to Ben that martial law has been declared, which is just terrible (why is this a bad thing? This kind of situation is why the idea was invented in the first place). Logan's sending troops into New Africa to bring it back in the Union (they're rebels against the New US government, what else are they going to do? This is also used as proof of Logan's racism). We also learn that the New US has begun to hire mercenaries to fill out their ranks. The leader of these mercs (are there readily-available mercenary armies in America? Wow...) is called Kenny Parr, whose primary sin is described as "he'll work for any flag". He's a mercenary. It's in the job description.
Logan is also rounding up guns from civilians, and we get another "gun control makes you evil" speech. It turns out that this policeman is a Rebel sympathizer, who says that they haven't done anything to warrant arrest. Let's just go over some things, shall we?
1) Ordered to destroy government property
2) Ordered to steal government property
3) Ordered to form a new nation on government property
4) Doing all three of the above
We've killed people for less.
So, Ben begins to spread a rumor through his new friend that he's dead. Why? Why on Earth is this is a good idea? The government is literally rebuilding itself from the ground up. They do not exactly have the manpower to put up a nation-wide net for Ben Raines, even with their Magical Disappearing Mercenary Armies. Despite having gone through a world-wide apocalypse, Ben Raines still doesn't seem to understand just how big such a thing it. The government. And the police. Are mostly gone. They're pulling all of their people and supplies back to a small portion of the East Coast because they can't control all of the US at present. Why convince them you're dead when you're leaving their entire sphere of influence two hours later?
He also convinces this guy, who was on the fence literally a minute ago, to join his cause. Again, all because he wrote a book years ago about creaing his own nation. Let me point out something here: just because you write about something does not make you able to personally do it. I used to write (bad) high fantasy. That does not make me able to grab a sword and start slaying dragons This is just as unlikely as a writer/soldier being able to magically pull a nation out of his hat. Everyone treats this as a foregone conclusion, that the Rebs will win. Why? Because they read the blurb on the back of the book. They know who the "heroes" here are already.
I'm going to do us a small kindness and skip a lot to end this section. Suffice it to say that Raines stops ignoring the Call and decides to become the Rebel commander. He meets one more character along the way that is semi-important, so let's pause the skippage here to complain about him. Somehow, Ben meets an aged doctor named Lamarr Chase, who becomes the token "liberal" of the Rebels. I put "liberal" in quotation marks because, in practice, Chase comes off this man's idea of a "good" liberal. Namely, that he mindlessly agrees with everything Raines says, but only after about five seconds of argument. Needless to say, he's the only Rebel I ever got around to caring about, if only slightly.
Oh, and Cecil Jeffries (anyone remember him?), his family, and Future Wife join the Rebels after the New US destroys New Africa. However, not much can be said about him. His family dies at the end, as does Future Wife, so they're pretty inconsequential, and Cecil himself is a rather bland character. The only ways to distinguish him from the rest of the Rebel leadership (who are all geniuses for some reason) are the constant references to the fact that he's black, and occasional "jokes" based off that fact.
Aside from that, though, there's absolutely no reason not to skip the several long scenes between here and Ben finally taking command of the Rebels. We'll get to that later, because despite the relatively short length of this one, I'm bored to tears at 11pm. For now, I'm finally going to sit down and watch the original The Day the Earth Stood Still for the second time. I've been meaning to do it (it's one of my favorite movies by this point), but it slipped by when I realized how much stuff I needed to do beforehand, including finishing up the latest post on my blog which nobody reads.
And tomorrow, fully recharged and having seen how you write a story properly, I shall return to tackle the worst bits of this story: the bits about President Raines. Have a good day, pleasant dreams...and go out and rent the damned movie. Seriously, 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still is a sci-fi
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