The Federal Bureau of Utter Nonsense: New Washington

By Raoul Hawkins

Real life and politics in the 21st Century are even stranger than the elaborate world of virtual reality in which modern citizens spend most of their time. Cryogenically frozen for fifty years, Neil Hamilton was resuscitated and just started his new job as department head of the Federal Bureau of Utter Nonsense. He’s a naive outsider trying to make it on the Washington inside.

Thanks to virtual reality, Neil receives any number of unexpected visitors. One is Harvey Fisk, an old buddy from Neil’s time spent working for the Los Angeles Tribune. Another is Janet Kennedy, the Secretary of State and Neil’s boss, who just happens to closely resemble the woman Neil loved before he was frozen.

When Harvey disappears in the virtual reality world, Janet asks Neil to go find him. It turns out the Secretary of State is about to marry Harvey, but, first, he must be found. With Congress about to open for the year—and the wedding scheduled for the same week—they descend into a world of secrets and deception that makes virtual reality seem tame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532029943

Raoul Hawkins

Raoul Hawkins is a musician and teacher from Australia. He has a bachelor’s degree in contemporary music from Southern Cross University and a Diploma of Education from the University of Western Sydney. This is his third book.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I t didn’t occur to him at the time, but the overcast and wildly windy day that raged outside the window was a portent of things to come. He gazed down on the old city of Washington that splayed out before him with its forest of quaint buildings, streets and avenues, chaos and filth. He could see the dust and litter tossed into the air by the atmospheric turbulence and almost smell that hot summery restlessness, even though it was only January.

High above it all, his office was in a building so enormous that it flanked the city like a medieval castle towering over a village. The building was, in fact, a modern castle of concrete and steel, black glass, and some new miracle fiber Neil had never heard of.

Neil knew it was his office because it said so on the door. Neil Hamilton, Head of Department, it proclaimed. It was the words underneath these that disturbed him. As the department head, Neil knew he must have important responsibilities. He just didn’t know what they were.

Underneath the title Department Head in large black letters bordered with gold were the words The Federal Bureau of Utter Nonsense. How had it come to this?

The most disturbing thing about Neil’s new job as the department head of the Federal Bureau of Utter Nonsense was how it so eerily paralleled his own life. Once upon a time, Neil had worked as a newspaper journalist, but he had been involved in an accident while on duty and then inadvertently frozen in a cryogenic deep-sleep facility. He had been suspended in time for fifty years until they discovered the oversight and resuscitated him. Afterward, they gave him his old job back and sent him off to work, but the world—and Neil—had changed.

Now Neil had a new job. He had been appointed to this new position as a Washington insider, but he was having difficulty adjusting. Anyone who resided within the castle’s vast expanse was regarded as an insider. Not surprisingly, those outside the castle, who endured the ravages of a planet scarred by the scourge of a changing climate, were known as outsiders. They weathered scorching heat waves, torrential storms, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Everything they breathed, drank, and ate left its mark on their faces and bodies and in their lower intestines.

Neil had been an outsider as a journalist for the Los Angeles Tribune for more than two years after his resuscitation. In that time his body had aged ten years because of the daily assault from the acidic air, polluted water, and toxic food. Now his eyes focused on his own reflection in the glass as he gazed at the dusty metropolis through the window. In the four months he had lived as an insider, he had received medical treatment that had reversed the aging his body had experienced during his two years as an outsider. His hair was thick and black again, the creases and pockmarks that scarred his high cheekbones had smoothed out, his skin was taut, and his complexion was clear. Even his hazel eyes shone. He was looking more like his thirty years of age.

Neil had been comatose for fifty years. Now he was an inhabitant of a twenty-first-century, single-structure, autonomous megacity in a world where machines did everything and life was programmed to stay in sync. But Neil still remembered a world populated by people, a world where a person stood behind a counter or on a shop floor, a world where people performed all manner of functions from the most menial to the most sophisticated. Now, as he occupied his new automated utopia, Neil didn’t know what his function was.

He spun his swivel chair around and cast his eyes around the empty office. Apart from his desk, all other furnishings were holographic projections. Today he had the feudal Japan decor with the rice paper screens. One side of the room was hung with a rack of samurai swords, the other with delicate scrolls of Japanese characters in black ink. Spartan wooden benches lined the walls, and the ceiling was a pagoda-style canopy. Tomorrow, he’d press a button and change the scene to anything he wanted. Yesterday he had spent the day in a jungle glade with a pond and the occasional macaw screeching overhead.

The only thing that was real, in the tactile sense, was the old city of Washington outside the window he had now turned his back on.

Suddenly Neil realized something wasn’t quite right. The courtier who stood in attendance by the door was wearing a dark double-breasted pin-striped suit that would have looked more comfortable on a 1920s gangster than the eighteenth-century ninja he should have been dressed as. There was something familiar about the man’s long, gangly frame as he leaned irreverently against the wall, but his face was hidden, concealed by the brim of his hat. He was carrying a tommy gun that hung by his side, gripped by the hand that dangled from his lanky arm. His other hand fiddled with his tie as his long, bony fingers flattened out the knot.

The boss wants to see you, the courtier said, raising his head and sauntering to the center of the room.

Harvey! Neil gasped. Where did you come from?

I’ve been hanging out at the Speakeasy nightclub, actually. You should come down. They’ve got a great floor show.

Harvey Fisk had been Neil’s cameraperson—and his best friend—at the Tribune when they gave him his job back after he was resuscitated. But since Neil had begun his new job in Washington, he had been too busy doing nothing to stay in touch.

Harvey stared menacingly at Neil, a sadistic sneer streaking his angular face as his lively gray eyes narrowed. He raised the tommy gun to firing position and pointed the weapon at Neil. She’s mine, Neil, he said grimly. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I’ve got to drill you.

Neil went pale and glanced from side to side, looking for somewhere to escape. Harvey, what are you talking about? he pleaded.

I love her, Neil. I looked it up on the Internet. It’s a feeling you have for another person.

Harvey, I know what love is.

I know, Harvey muttered. You love her, but she’s mine, and that’s why I’ve got to drill you.

Harvey! Neil screamed, but it was too late. Harvey squeezed the trigger, and the gun barked into life. Fire flashed from the barrel, and a cloud of gun smoke engulfed the room. Neil fell back against the window, his body jerking involuntarily in response to the bullets spraying from the machine gun.

Goodbye, caveman, Harvey said, cooling the end of the barrel by blowing across it. Anyway, catch you at the Speakeasy. As he lowered the weapon, Harvey’s image began to fade, the pixels of light separating and disappearing until he was gone.

His victim picked himself up off the floor. Feeling for bullet holes that weren’t there, Neil eased himself into his chair, his heart rate slowing as he took several long, deep breaths. In the future, he would make a greater effort to stay in touch with his old friends. In moments like these, he was glad he inhabited a virtual world of unreality. Harvey’s holographic projection could call him names, but his sticks, stones, and machine gun bullets could do no harm.

Neil’s resuscitation, after he had been lost in the cryogenic facility for fifty years, had been something of a secret. He found it embarrassing that no one had seemed to notice he was missing.

When Harvey had discovered his partner had been born in the previous century, he had begun referring to Neil as the caveman. Neil had several friends on the outside who lived in very nice caves. Every American, he considered, deserved to have his own cave, a cozy retreat of rustic simplicity in which he could take refuge from the world. Sometimes Neil wished he had a nice, warm cave to which he could retreat. Instead he had a nice, cold office into which anyone could intrude in the blink of an eye.

Just then, he made the mistake of blinking and quickly realized he had another visitor. She was sitting regally in a high-backed armchair, her short blonde hair circling her rounded face. She was wearing a dazzling turquoise top, decorated with a brooch that appeared to be a cluster of golden moose antlers.

Helen! Neil addressed her, his voice a mix of surprise and delight.

Janet Kennedy was the US secretary of state and Neil’s boss. At twenty-nine years of age, she was the youngest woman to ever hold the office. She also bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman Neil loved, his wife, Helen, whom he had not seen since the accident that led to his internment in the cryogenic facility. Though Janet looked like Helen, Neil had learned that she was, in fact, a very different person. Where his darling Helen had been a simple country girl, full of bouncy friendliness, Janet Kennedy was a short-tempered professional with no sense of humor.

Mr. Malters. She spoke curtly and then burst out laughing.

Neil waited patiently for her to recompose herself.

Sorry. She smiled knowingly. Mr. Hamilton. You see how it feels to be constantly mistaken for someone else.

Neil knew that Janet was not his Helen, but the resemblance was so uncanny that he found it difficult not to mix them up. "Sorry, Janet. I mean, Madam Secretary. I’ve had Helen on my mind lately.