Supreme

 

Stephanie watched through the living room window as her neighbor was thrown into what used to be a police car that would take him to a conversion therapy camp. 

It was still hard for her to comprehend that so many police cars were confiscated and rebranded RTTVs – Reparative Therapy Transport Vehicles. (The New Guard believes Reparative Therapy sounds less severe and more pleasing that Conversion Therapy.) The sole purpose of these vehicles is to round up known LGBTQ+ people and take them to the camps. The Guard decided police cars would be the most practical because of the dividers between the front and back seats, meaning those being transported could not physically fight with the drivers once the vehicle was in motion. The fighting had been a problem in the beginning of The Reconstruction until police officers in New Carolina suggested using their cars and, once it proved to be a successful solution, the New Guard ordered that one-third of all police vehicles currently in use be renamed and used as RTTVs.

The fact that LGBTQ+ people were now being rounded up meant one thing to Stephanie: She needed to get out. Soon.

Stephanie wasn’t gay or bisexual but was in one of the lowest classes of women: The class that, in states that transitioned earlier, had been “sentenced” to hard labor for the “crime” of having a hysterectomy while still of child-bearing age. No matter that this happened to Stephanie 15 years ago, she was still guilty in the eyes of the Supreme States’ powers that be.

She had a little bit of time, but not much.

Gay people were typically the third group to be rounded up. First were usually post-op transgender people, who were taken to mental institutions. Pre-op transgender people were the second group. After extensive interviews by various doctors they were either taken to institutions or conversion therapy camps. Next were women who have had abortions. They were executed. No questions asked.

They were followed by people who had been caught stealing or altering womens’ medical records. Tamper with the record of a woman who had an abortion and be put to death. Tamper with the record of a woman who had a hysterectomy and be sent to a labor camp. The punishment for those tampering with the records of a transgender person were not cut and dried, but there was a punishment. There was always a punishment.

The latter groups got smaller with each transition. Thousands of people were picked up in Florida, the first state to transition. But by the time the latest – New Virginia – transitioned it was down to a couple hundred. 

It was hard for Stephanie and others to tell what would happen as Pennsylvania got deeper into the transition process. To this point it was the state that had shown the most resistance. Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky went willingly with very little resistance. It was almost as if they welcomed the transition. Virginia resisted but West Virginia, with military aid from Kentucky and Ohio, helped move the process along. Kentucky and Ohio remained on standby as the Virginias worked out the details to become one state: New Virginia.  Parts of Ohio resisted in the beginning but the Reconstructionists far outnumbered the Resistance and eventually prevailed. It would seem that Pennsylvania would be a logical choice to help the Ohio Resistance but, with the Reconstructionists moving so quickly in the Commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Resistance had few people, and even fewer resources, to spare. 

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and their suburbs were holding their own against the Reconstructionists but the pockets of Resistance fighters in other parts of the state – especially the northern tier where Stephanie lived – were severely outnumbered and morale was getting lower by the day.

While she hated to leave Pennsylvania she knew, at this point, getting to New York State and fighting from the outside would be more beneficial and productive than trying to gain ground in her area of the Commonwealth. Although most of the southern tier of New York was similar to the northern tier of Pennsylvania, the cities were able to send enough Resistance fighters to keep the Reconstructionists at bay. The only thing that worried Stephanie was how to get across the state line. 

The Reconstructionists set up checkpoints on state lines between transitioned and non-transitioned states. Pennsylvania had not fully transitioned yet but, with the Reconstructionists outnumbering the traditional lawmakers in the state Legislature, many of the rules governing fully transitioned states had already been implemented. One of those rules is that women are not permitted to travel from a transitioned state to a non-transitioned state when not accompanied by a white man. Seeing as she had no men in her life that she trusted enough to get her across the border with no questions asked, Stephanie knew she was going to have to do this with only her closest female friends that were willing to take the risk.

She had been friends with Jeanne Anne, Terry Leigh and Lori Beth since college. One of their earliest – and still-running – jokes was about Stephanie going by only one name. They all knew the jokes wouldn’t be funny to anyone else, but they cracked each other up. They had all kept in touch until they were in their 30s, when their contact dwindled down to Christmas cards and, maybe, birthday cards. In the year of their 39th birthdays they all reconnected on Facebook (back when social media was permitted in all 50 states) and planned a get-together to celebrate their 40th birthdays. They’d been getting together at least once a year ever since then. 

This year’s gathering would be much different.

Like Stephanie, Jeanne Anne was divorced. Terry Leigh never married. Lori Beth was a widow. Jeanne Anne’s and Lori Beth’s sons were adults now, so the women had no ties to keep them in Virginia and Pennsylvania, respectively. Jeanne Anne was still in denial about the Supreme States and the Reconstruction when Terry Leigh decided it was time to leave, and now had already managed to escape from Virginia before the border crossing checkpoints were put up. She hoped she and her friends could make it into New York before it was too late, but things had progressed much faster than anticipated.

Stephanie wished her friends’ sons didn’t live in California and Colorado so it would be easier for them to help in the border crossing. But even if they did live closer she knew asking them to take the risk would be too much. And, with the country in such turmoil, who even knew if the men would be able to go back out west if they did help and weren’t caught. And what would be the punishment if they were caught? That punishment wasn’t common knowledge, but everyone knew there must be one. Again, she thought, there was a punishment for everything these days. 

Be that as it may, there would be more satisfaction in four women who were practically senior citizens escaping to a still-free state, becoming Resistance fighters and helping to re-liberate their own state. Underestimating women had been a weakness throughout history. Would men ever learn? And would the women ever fully recognize their own power?

With those thoughts in mind, Stephanie, Jeanne Anne, Terry Leigh and Lori Beth started putting their escape plan into place. First, they each bought burner phones that they would use to communicate only with each other and only about the escape. Most retailers were not selling burner phones any longer because the Supreme Tribunal (formerly the US Supreme Court) ruled that they contributed to high crime rates, especially drug crimes. Although they ruled that doctors cannot be sued for malpractice for any drug-related death of a patient, a person using a burner phone to sell Ritalin could be sent to prison. Not just jail. Prison. So, the women were thankful that Walmart of all places was ignoring the Tribunal, for now, and still selling the phones. 

The main thing they had to communicate about was the route they were going to take out of Pennsylvania and into New York, and what mode of transportation to use. Buses still crossed the border but were subject to random checks.  They thought about disguising themselves as men – or at least two of them disguising themselves – but thought that was too risky. They didn’t even want to think about what the punishment would be for that.

As they brainstormed they kept coming back to the most logical, but possibly most difficult, solution. They were going to have to walk through the woods to cross the state line. Luckily the area had excellent trail systems that they would be able to use. While there wasn’t a direct, straight-line trail from where they were to New York, there were enough connecting trails that they could make it work. The part that worried them the most was looking suspicious. They would have to carry some kind of supplies and provisions with them but couldn’t look as if they were trying to escape. They could carry backpacks, of course, but how full could they be and still look natural, and not be heavy enough to weigh them down and, thus, slow them down. They would also have to stay on the trails, and off the city and township roads, as much as possible. The fewer people who saw them, the better. It was too hard to tell who might tell the authorities about four suspicious-looking women with backpacks roaming the streets. 

They also needed to figure out how long it would take them to make the journey. It shouldn’t take more than two days in perfect conditions, but they couldn’t plan on perfection. They had to think of the worst case scenarios and plan for those. 

Ever since the Supreme Court made its “presidential immunity” ruling and a couple of years later, ruled that the court itself would make final decisions on any governmental action, worst case scenarios weren’t all that hard to come up with.

First things first, though. They had to map out a route. They weren’t sure how much surveillance was being done on personal computers so they were a bit frightened of doing too much searching of the trail systems. The women eventually came up with a plan in which they would each take a section of land and map out a route. They would then piece them together like a puzzle and hope everything fit. 

One of the most important things they had to consider while mapping the route was water. They had to be close enough to a water source to be able to get drinking water. Carrying bottled water would be too much of a burden, would leave them with trash they wouldn’t be able to dispose of or recycle properly, and would be a waste of plastic. Several sources came to their minds, but they had to figure out a way to make them fit into the puzzle.

They also had to balance the difficulty of the trail with how well it could keep them protected from the elements should they encounter heavy rain or unusual heat, not to mention the watchful eyes of the Reconstruction crews. 

The women knew they also had to come up with a believable story should they encounter a suspicious Reconstruction crew member. More important than that, they had to have a code word to use when and if they came in contact with a crew member that not all four women knew was a crew member. So many people they knew had already been taken before lower tribunals for what they thought were innocent comments made to someone who had been a friend or acquaintance but was now a crew member. The comment could be something as simple as, “Can you believe this shit?” That’s what one of Jeanne Anne’s friends said to a beloved aunt. The next day police officers were waiting outside the home of Jeanne Anne’s friend as she was leaving for work. They handcuffed her, put her in the back of a police car and took her to the office of the lower tribunal, where the judges voted 2 to 1 to send her to jail for a month. 

Jeanne Anne’s friend had been out of jail for about a week but, as far as anyone knew  she had said only a handful of words to anyone and had not returned to work. No one seemed to know which “shit” she was referring to when talking to her aunt but, because she was a teacher, some people speculated that it was the Reconstructionists either segregating the public schools or making them all same-sex. Starting in kindergarten and going straight through college, co-ed schools would no longer exist.

There was no word yet on how the Reconstructionists planned to handle private schools and institutions of higher learning like St. Bonaventure, Notre Dame and Loyola, but everyone assumed there was a plan in the works. Ever since the Pennsylvania State Legislature denied state funding to the University of Pittsburgh because its federally funded medical research facility was using stem cells and tissue from non-viable fetuses, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision, governmental bodies believed they had free reign regarding education.

Or the shit to which she was referring could have been that she would eventually be forced to stop teaching. She was of child-bearing age and, in states that had fully transitioned, women of that age must quit their jobs and make getting pregnant their top priority.

As for the dissenting judge on Jeanne Anne’s friend’s case, he was put on administrative leave for a week and, since his return to the tribunal, had not offered a dissenting opinion. 

All four women admitted they were frightened of saying the wrong thing. It was bad enough when all they had to think about was whether they were talking to a Democrat or a Republican and if what they said would start an argument. Now saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could get them sent to jail. Or worse. 

 As they planned their escape they also still marveled at the fact that it had come to this. With every step along the way to the Reconstructionist takeover people would say to those who saw this coming that they were overreacting or nothing like this could happen in America or they were taking “The Handmaid’s Tale” too literally. Relax, they said. Everything will work itself out.

Denial. Complacency. Stupidity. Or a combination of all three. Stephanie and friends realized they were not entirely blameless. They saw it coming but did little besides vote, thinking that the majority of the country couldn’t be that stupid or blind or subject to being conned. They admitted they were in denial almost until it was too late.

They were too late to help save Virginia from falling, but they still had hope for Pennsylvania. The women hated that they would have to leave the Commonwealth in order to help save it, but they couldn’t see any other way. They didn’t even know what they could do once they got safely into New York, but they would find something. Somehow they would find something.

As their escape plan started to take shape they realized the great irony of it because of the way they were forced to live. If they were still allowed to travel without fear of being imprisoned for simply being female and alone, and if they were able to cross the state line they would be literally minutes away from freedom. But as it was now, they would have to travel for miles, and at least a day or two, to get to New York. And once they got there they would have to find the right person in order to declare that they were seeking asylum.

The southern tier of New York was a tricky political landscape to navigate with a near-even split between Democrats and Republicans, as well as Indian Nations in the mix. Getting to the right people would be just as difficult as getting to the right place. But Stephanie and her friends were up to the challenge. They knew they had no choice.

Stephanie, especially, felt the urgent need to get out as soon as possible. None of her friends had undergone a hysterectomy while of child-bearing age so they would not be sentenced to hard labor as she would. They would more than likely be assigned to a family to help raise the children and leave the wife more time and energy to bear more children.

They could, however, be given one of the few jobs women were still allowed to have outside the home. They could be screening the post-menopausal women to see which family they would fit with, and which job within the family they would be best suited for. Besides caring for the children, older women were also assigned to be cooks or maids. This also gave the wife more energy to bear more children and make it less likely that there would be complications in her pregnancy.

Another screening job that some older women were given had them arranging marriages for single women of child-bearing age. In the Supreme States, no woman of at least 18-years-old is permitted to be single. If she does not give birth within two years, extensive medical testing is done. If she is deemed healthy and able to bear children, she is then assigned a new husband and given another two years. If the doctors find she cannot bear children, she is assigned to a family to help raise their children, just as the post-menopausal women are.

The husband who cannot impregnate his wife is not punished and may, under certain circumstances, be assigned another wife. One of those circumstances being his financial situation. While it’s not said publicly and would likely be denied if anyone were to bring it up, many people believe wealthy men have been paying the government to allow them second marriages. Because it was so early in the Reconstruction no one knew yet whether this practice, if it really was happening, would extend to third marriages or beyond.

Then there were the men who impregnated women to whom they were not married. It was rare, of course, because women of child-bearing age were forced into arranged marriages. Should a man impregnate a woman before her marriage, the marriage would be called off and the woman would be forced to live with the man and his family. In some cases, the woman would live in a cottage on the man’s property but, more often than not, she would be given only a room in the main house and have to deal with everything that entailed.

Stephanie couldn’t even imagine the humiliation and anger these women must feel.

Before deciding she was going to escape and be a Resistance fighter Stephanie had been thinking about being sentenced to hard labor versus being assigned to a family as a nanny and realized the hard labor would be preferable to her. How cruel would it be to assign a woman who couldn’t have children to care for someone else’s children? While some women might see it as a blessing, Stephanie could see it only as a reminder that she could not bear her own children, and the emptiness she felt sometimes. And, should she still be in Pennsylvania after it fully transitioned she would be punished for that, something completely beyond her control.

If this wasn’t really happening, no one would believe it. All of it was just too far-fetched, she thought.

But she knew she couldn’t waste time thinking about the past, what could have been and what cruel fate was in store. She had to keep working on her part of the plan. Back when it was safe for women to wander around freely by themselves Stephanie often walked the local trail systems for exercise and as a means to meditate. She felt so free on the trails deep in the woods, and even those that only felt as if they were deep in the woods. For all those years the trails metaphorically freed her. She thought it was only fitting that the trails would now be her path to actual freedom.

She hoped the other women understood and agreed with her logic when she suggested they would have to go the opposite direction that would logically seem to be the right way to go. It made perfect sense to her. It would have to make perfect sense to them, too, wouldn’t it?

Stephanie would find out in a couple of days what her friends thought of her idea on how to start their journey. Using their burner phones, they devised a scheme to make copies of their plans and leave them in certain library books for each other. They would go into the library at different times and no two of them would ever be in the building at the same time. 

All four women thanked God that public libraries were still, well, public and free. They weren’t entirely sure the government wasn’t heavily surveilling them, though, which is why they decided to only drop off and pick up their plans instead of meeting there to discuss them. The only thing that could go wrong at this point would be someone checking  out a book where a plan was stashed before one of the women could retrieve it.

When Stephanie entered the library at just after 10 a.m. she was happily surprised to see how many people of all ages were in the building. At least the Reconstructionists hadn’t scared people away from the library, she thought. She even thought this could be a good sign that Pennsylvania wouldn’t go any further down without a fight. People who use libraries tend to be more well-informed than those who don’t, she thought, and as long as the folks she saw now weren’t buying into the gaslighting and rhetoric, there was hope. 

As she made her way through the library she smiled at the few people she knew, but didn’t stop to say hello. She didn’t want to risk still being in the building when Terry Leigh arrived. The time they scheduled for her to arrive was still two hours away, but who knew how long a conversation or two could last, especially with so much Reconstructionist and Supreme news to discuss? She lucked out by getting a computer station at the end of a row and next to a wall so no one would be walking behind her as she worked. Even with that assurance, she worked quickly so she could complete the task and get out of the building before her nerves got the better of her. She was practically shaking as it was. She opened up her burner phone to the text she’d sent herself with the links to the trail maps. She then brought up those pages on the computer, hit the print button, closed the pages and, as quickly as she could without raising suspicion, made her way to the circulation desk to pay for and pick up the copies before the library volunteer stationed there had a chance to see what she’d printed. With copies in hand, she made her way to the self-help section and put copies in the ninth, 15th, and 17th books on the second shelf from the bottom in the second row. Terry Leigh would put her copies in books on the third shelf in the third row, except one set would be in the second book instead of the 15th. Jeanne Anne and Lori Beth would do the same except in the religion and spirituality section, and using the 13th instead of the ninth and the 10th instead of the 17th.  The numbers were their birth dates, which they thought would be the easiest numbers to remember. After Stephanie placed her copies in the books, she took some papers out of her backpack and walked out of the building, hoping anyone who saw her make the copies, and cared what she was doing with them, would think she was taking them with her. If she got stopped for any reason and was questioned about the copies, the questioner would more than likely let her go when he saw the papers were recipes for easy but hearty family meals.

Back at home, Stephanie was too anxious and nervous to concentrate on anything. Mainly, she was concerned about someone noticing she went to the library twice in one day. She would have to go back to get the copies of the plan the other women had left for her. As she looked at the clock in her kitchen and noticed that only seven minutes had passed since she’d walked through the door, she wished she hadn’t volunteered to be the first one at the library that morning. She didn’t know how she was going to make it through the next few hours, but she knew she would do it somehow.

Later, after she got home from her second trip to the library, Stephanie was relieved to discover that she and her friends were pretty much on the same page as far as the escape plan. They would have to iron out a few minor details but, other than that, they believed they were ready to put the plan into motion.

Because they were paranoid, for good reason, about doing anything that might make them look suspicious they knew they couldn’t take sleeping bags with them, although they knew they would be spending at least one night, possibly two, in the woods just off a trail. They decided that, despite the fact they would be heavier and bulkier than sleeping bags, they would take collapsable chairs with them. They might not be able to sleep very well sitting up in them (But would they sleep anyway?) but at least they wouldn’t be lying on the ground. If they happened to get stopped along the trail and were questioned about the chairs, they would simply say they were going to have a picnic near the water before heading back home. Plausible and innocent-sounding, they thought.

Still, because of their paranoia and the ever-increasing surveillance by the government, they knew they couldn’t be seen walking together, into the woods with their backpacks and chairs. Because Stephanie lived closest to their starting point, the other three women would drop off their chairs and backpacks with her and she would covertly (she hoped) drop them off at a hiding place along the trail where they would pick them up later, barring any unforeseen circumstances. 

It was getting real now, Stephanie thought. In a matter of hours – not weeks or months – they would be ready to officially join the Resistance and defeat the Reconstructionists. All they needed was lots of luck and, if it wasn’t too much to ask, she thought, some good weather. They also needed to be true to their belief that law enforcement had more pressing things to do than walk the trails.

As Stephanie waited at the designated meeting place she felt bad that her friends had to walk farther than she did to get to that spot. They realized they would have to leave their cars at home rather than drive and leave them at a trailhead or in some other parking lot. Better to leave them in their driveways and parking lots, where they were unlikely to be noticed. After all, it wasn’t as if they had anywhere to go. By the time anyone realized the cars hadn’t moved in weeks, it would be too late for the Reconstructionists and their minions to do anything about it.

The other women arrived at the meeting place shortly after Stephanie did. After assuring each other that they were all still 100 percent in favor of going ahead with the plan, they set out on their way. About a mile later they picked up the collapsable chairs Stephanie had stashed under and behind some bushes and under some tree branches just off the trail. 

After about an hour of walking they came to their first break spot – a small clearing with access to spring water. They topped off their water bottles, set up their chairs in a shady spot near the clearing and sat quietly for 15 minutes or so. They decided to take a break every hour so they didn’t get over tired, but also decided the breaks shouldn’t last very long so they didn’t get too comfortable or complacent.

On their way again they stayed quiet, figuring that not talking would help them conserve energy. Three and a half hours later, they decided to stop for a meal break. If you can call Keebler cracker sandwiches a meal, which Jeanne Anne and Lori Beth did. Stephanie chose a protein bar. Terry Leigh opted for a pop tart. Their other choices were dry cereal, granola bars, trail mix, Slim Jims and Combos. All non-perishable, relatively cheap and not totally unhealthy. 

After eating, they decided to walk for another couple hours before calling it a day. They all felt as if they could go longer. They wanted to get to New York as quickly as possible but also wanted to find a safe place to camp for the night while there was still enough light to help them make the right choice. They wanted someplace flat, near a water source for drinking and washing, and that gave them some protection from the elements and the possibility of prying eyes. 

They had considered the fact that they may come across animals who called the area home but hoped if they didn’t bother the animals, the animals wouldn’t bother them. What else could they do? The only animal that really scared them was skunks. They prayed they didn’t see any or, rather, that no skunks saw them.

Just as the sun started setting they found the perfect spot to spend the night. It even had trees spaced far enough apart that they could have some degree of “bathroom” privacy. They’d shared actual bathrooms – in dorms, hotels and homes – and didn’t have a problem with that. But this felt different in more than the obvious ways and they were grateful that they would have some alone time, such as it was.

When they decided to call it a night, they pulled their blankets out of their backpacks, placed their chairs in a circle with their backs to each other and wished each other luck in getting at least a little bit of sleep.

Stephanie didn’t know how much time had passed as she sat there trying to sleep but not even able to close her eyes. She spent several minutes watching some distant fire flies then whispered, “Is anyone else still awake?”

“I am,” Jeanne Anne whispered back. “I can’t stop thinking.”

“About?”

“Everything, but nothing in particular. My mind is going everywhere.”

“I understand,” Stephanie said. “I was just thinking about Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.”

“Why?” Jeanne Anne asked, stifling a laugh, “because we’re havin’ a party?”

Stephanie stifled a laugh, too. “Remember how much fun we had at that concert …?”

“And the after party?”

“The drummer for the opening band really liked you.”

“If he liked me that much he would have thrown his drumsticks to me.”

“I still think he just had bad aim,” Stephanie said.

“Not that any of that matters now,” Jeanne Anne, sadly.

“Hey, remember why we’re doing this. It’s not only about getting our freedom back. It’s about getting our whole way of life back, and that includes movies and theater and concerts with hot blond drummers.”

Jeanne Anne was quiet for a couple of minutes before saying, “He’s probably bald now.”

“We told you that way back then,” Stephanie said, again stifling a laugh. “That’s why he wouldn’t take the baseball cap off… or let you take it off him.”

“Ah, yes. Such a sad end to a beautiful three-hour relationship. So beautiful that we didn’t even exchange names. I don’t even remember the name of the band.”

“Dancing Candy,” Terry Leigh said in a stage whisper, startling Stephanie and Jeanne Anne.

“We didn’t wake you, did we?” Stephanie asked.

“No,” Terry Leigh said. “I wasn’t really sleeping.”

“God,” Stephanie said, “college seems like a million years ago.”

“The way everything is now,” Jeanne Anne said, “I can’t believe our biggest concern was whether we’d still be hungover for an 8:30 a.m. class.”

“You had 8:30 a.m. classes?” Lori Beth asked, laughing.

Jeanne Anne laughed. “Well, not senior year.”

“Do you think we’ll ever be that carefree again?” Terry Leigh asked.

“If we keep fighting,” Stephanie said. “If we keep fighting.”

“Sometimes I can’t help but think we’re really not fighting,” Jeanne Anne said. “We’re running away.”

“It might seem that way sometimes,” Stephanie said, “but we can’t fight from the inside. Not right now, anyway.” 

“How exactly are we going to fight from the outside?” Lori Beth asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Stephanie said. “But we’ll find out soon enough.”

The women didn’t talk for the next few hours, but they didn’t sleep much either. They waited anxiously for the sun to come up so they could continue on their journey to what they hoped would be safety and freedom.

They also didn’t talk much during the hours they walked toward New York. They stopped once for a bite to eat and a brief rest and then were on their way again. They figured if they kept walking they could make it across the state line before dark.

A couple of hours after their break, Stephanie noticed a stone marker a few hundred feet in front of them. Despite how tired she was and how her legs ached, she ran toward the marker. 

“This is it!” Stephanie shouted. 

The others told her to keep her voice down.

“No,” Stephanie said. “We don’t have to keep our voices down anymore. We’re here. This is the state line marker. I’m standing in New York. Join me, won’t you?”

Her friends ran toward her and, once they were all in New York, hugged each other for many, many minutes. They didn’t keep track of how long.

“Now what?” Lori Beth asked as they released each other from the group hug.

“We look for someone in a uniform and say we’re seeking asylum,” Stephanie said. “From there, I don’t know but we’ll figure it out. We made it this far, after all.”

As they made their way down the mountain, single file, following the narrow path that was already there, they didn’t say a word. They were still too afraid to believe that something bad wouldn’t happen to them as they got closer to the finish line. They had to remind themselves, and each other, that a good number of Reconstructionists lived in the southern tier of New York, so they weren’t completely safe yet. They were also scared and apprehensive about what was going to happen next.

They had walked about two miles when Stephanie pointed to a blue trail marker on a tree a few hundred yards ahead of them. 

“We’re on an official blazed trail,” she said. “I think this is a good sign, and we actually made it to State Park like we planned.”

All of their steps quickened as they grew more anxious about getting to the end of the trail and finding someone to whom they could declare their desire to seek asylum. The feeling of apprehension didn’t leave any of them, though.

About 45 minutes later they could see the road at the end of the trail. A few minutes after that, as they set foot on the pavement, they engaged in a group hug and cried tears of joy, relief, and just about every other emotion. As they were hugging, a park ranger in an SUV pulled up next to them and asked if they were all right.

“We’re fine,” Terry Leigh said, as the women disengaged from the hug. “We, uh, we’re just not sure what to do next.”

“Next?” the park ranger asked.

“We’re from Pennsylvania and Virginia,” Lori Beth said, “and we … We aren’t sure …”

“It’s against the law for me to say it for you,” the park ranger said, “but even if you don’t get it exactly right, I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

Nervous because she hadn’t changed any of her licenses or other paperwork to reflect that she had moved to Pennsylvania, Terry Leigh went first. “I am from New Virginia and I fear persecution because I am a woman. I am seeking asylum in New York.”

Stephanie and Lori Beth followed, separately. “I am from Pennsylvania and I fear persecution because I am a woman. I am seeking asylum in New York.”

Jeanne Anne went last. “I am from New Virginia and I fear persecution because I am a woman. I am seeking asylum in New York.”

“Very well,” the park ranger said, his face still stoic but his voice seemingly friendly. The women hoped the tone of friendliness wasn’t their imaginations, something they just wanted to hear.

They heard his end of a conversation on his phone and it sounded as if he was making arrangements for them to be taken to one of the park’s group camps. Although they didn’t discuss it until much later, at the time they were nervous because they weren’t sure the camps here were all that different from the facilities some women were taken to in Pennsylvania, New Virginia, New Carolina and the other states that had transitioned. So when the park ranger told them to get into the SUV they were more than a little nervous, but they did as they were told.

After the park ranger stopped the SUV in front of a large cabin-like building, a friendly looking woman came out, greeted him and motioned for the women to get out of the vehicle.

“Welcome! I’m Elizabeth. I’m your current liaison and I’ll be helping you get settled and acclimated.” After seemingly noticing the looks of uncertainty on their faces she added, “You’re safe now. You can relax.”

They didn’t quite relax but they did feel a bit more at ease. 

Inside the cabin they found dozens of other women, many of whom appeared to be around their age, and they all seemed happy but serious. Some children, from toddlers to teenagers, were there as well. They also saw a cafeteria-style set up with all kinds of food. Pizza, sandwich fixings, breakfast items, cakes, cookies, vegetables – raw and cooked – burgers, hot dogs.

Elizabeth led them to an empty table, told them their belongings would be safe there while they helped themselves to some food, then she asked if they’d rather shower and get settled in a room first. They all opted for food.

They didn’t really talk while eating aside from saying how nice it was to eat real food, and wondering what would happen after they ate. While they were each drinking a cup of coffee, they got their answer. Elizabeth said, when they were ready, she would show them to their cabin and that they had one open with four beds so they could stay together. She would show them where the bathhouse and showers were and, if they were up to it, she would show them around the rest of the area. She explained that, even if they had been to State Park before, they would notice some changes so the tour would be beneficial. After the women decided they would wait until morning for the full tour, Elizabeth told them a new liaison would be assigned to them in the morning, but she would see them later in the day tomorrow.  After their showers and changing into clean clothes, none of the women felt like talking. Although it was only 5 o’clock in the evening, they all slept through the night and didn’t wake up until they heard children playing outside at just after 8 a.m.

After dressing, the women found their way to the dining area again where the gigantic buffet was still set up. Janet, their new liaison, later explained to them that asylum seekers show up at all hours of the day and night and they want to make sure everyone feels welcome no matter what time they arrive.

When they’d finished eating and were each drinking a second cup of coffee, Janet explained to them what the next steps would be. She also gave them packets with information on how to obtain new driver’s licenses, copies of their birth certificates and any other official paperwork they would need. Janet told them she knew it was a lot to take in, and that’s why everything they could possibly need to know was put into the packets.

Janet then told them they were welcome to stay at the camp for as long as they liked, but they were also free to leave whenever they were ready. She did suggest that they wait until all their paperwork was in order before leaving, though, so it would be easier to obtain housing and apply for government services that they might need.

Then she told them they may not need all the information she just gave them after all. The organizers of the New York Resistance, Janet told them, were very impressed with the parts of their story they told Elizabeth and were interested in hearing more of the story and, possibly, hiring them to help other women throughout the country who wanted to seek asylum but didn’t even know where to start.

Janet explained that if they did decide to work for the state their housing and all other expenses would be taken care of. They would, of course, have to travel back into the Supreme States but they would be accompanied by men who are part of the Resistance so they would be able to travel in broad daylight.

“This is what I had in mind all along,” Stephanie said after Janet left their table. “I was hoping after we got here we’d be able to help other women get out of Pennsylvania. This is much better than I expected.”

“After the last couple of days, are you sure you want to go through all of that again?” Lori Beth asked.

“I am,” Terry Leigh said. “And, remember, it’ll be easier this time. We won’t have to sneak through the woods. We can openly cross borders. We can …”

“But how would you find the women who need help?” Jeanne Anne asked. “You can’t just stand in the town square with a bullhorn and ask who wants to be rescued?”

“I’m sure the Resistance leaders have plans or ideas for that,” Terry Leigh said.

“And we can come up with our own ideas,” Stephanie said. “I mean, didn’t Janet say they were impressed with us? We can do this.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Lori Beth said. “At least not right away.”

“I’m with Lori,” Jeanne Anne said. “I’m sure we can find something meaningful to do but I’m not ready to be part of a rescue mission right now.”

“So it’s just Terry and me?” Stephanie asked.

“I’m in,” Terry Leigh said. “Let’s do this.”

Note: I wrote the first 5,300 pages of this story in 2022 but, for a number of reasons, put it aside. I wrote the final 1,917 words November 11 and 12, 2024, because I wanted to finish it before it became a reality. 

 © Copyright November 2024, Anne Sweeney Holliday