Chapter 30: Jill X Jerry

Even though Jill had considerably more significant problems to worry about at this point, the entire way back to Iowa all she could do was obsess over how she had come off to Homer Ikari. Jill hadn't seen him since Chicago and what does she do, the first chance she gets? Babble like some stupid schoolgirl! Jill kept groaning at her own stupidity. Homer must think that she was an idiot for sure now.

But in between moments of romantic fixation, as Jill would hop trains, ride horses, and every so often have to murder a rapist or gang of would-be rapists in the wild, Jill was transfixed and haunted by what Homer had told her. Her goal, as now was ever, had been to make the world a better place. And as far as Jill could tell she was succeeding admirably on that front, fomenting moments of socialist action across the country. Unfortunately, if Homer had doubts than the rest of the Rainbow Shirts would too. The only way to fix that problem would be by getting the full story from Jerry Shankar directly.

It naturally did not occur to Jill Smith that Jerry Shankar might be difficult to find, and that the Rainbow Shirts had already been unsuccessfully searching for him for quite some time. This was because Jill Smith already had a fairly good idea as to where Jerry Shankar was, or at least where he would eventually show up.

The anaerobic swamp where Jerry Shankar had murdered a few dozen Rainbow Shirts was located near Storm Lake. There were other anaerobic swamps in Iowa, of course, but the Storm Lake location was the only one so putrid and destructive it could be reliably used as a weapon. After the Great Blackout corporate mismanagement quickly resulted in the small town's disposal centers for the various hog-related excrement being completely overwhelmed. At one point the fumes had gotten so bad they could be smelled from the town proper. Consequently the whole area was evacuated. Of course, even absent the Great Blackout the population had drifted so low at this point the fumes were really just an excuse.

In actuality Storm Lake was a perfectly habitable area, as could be evidenced by the large numbers of animals who had made the place their home. Far more than the fumes, Jill was considerably more worried about the plains lions that were likely lurking around the area. Storm Lake offered a large number of warm places for animals to hide and was especially popular in the winter. Even in summer there were some crucial underground units, very cool. And while the actual Storm Lake after which the town was named was long gone, there were plenty of more modest sources of water to keep from dying of thirst.

To a human like Jill Smith, Storm Lake also held the advantage of for the most part having its extant supplies of canned goods as of yet intact. Jill had tired of eating meat while on the road. Besides that she wanted to maybe try living in a little peace with the animals for once. Killing them was just a matter of life and death, for countless many people. But Jill, on her own, was a woman of modest desires when it came to the appetite department.

She spent much of her time reading books. There were plenty in the high school library. It wasn't necessarily the most complex, high-level material, but it was good enough. Besides that, Jill wanted to stay close to the high school because she quickly figured out that this must be the main locus of activity for Jerry Shankar. While everything else in Storm Lake had a rustic decayed quality, including most of the high school itself, the Information Technology department of Storm Lake looked suspiciously clean and well-used. It was also equally suspiciously locked down, quite literally the only locked door in the entire town.

Jill did not need to exert much effort to remove the lock. She even went to the trouble of doing it in a non-destructive manner, so that the lock could be easily replaced. Jill was shocked to discover on the inside a brightly lit up array of computers- not normal ones with a common interface either. Most of them just looked like giant servers, and they extended all the way into the basement. Jill couldn't make any sense of them. But she could tell they were online- no small accomplishment in a state where the Internet for the most part didn't even exist anymore. Jill Smith found the entire experience baffling. Who was Jerry Shankar, anyway?

Jill only needed to wait about a week before Jerry Shankar arrived. At first she didn't recognize him, with his goofy looking glasses, his colorful outfit, and hair all the way down. But Jill saw so few dark-skinned people on a regular basis in Iowa she made sure to take a closer look, finally satisfying herself that this had to be the same person. Upon confirming that Jerry Shankar was alone, upon getting off his bicycle, Jill walked up to him, pointing her rifle at his head as politely as possible, making sure he heard the clicking noise.

"Nice and quiet," Jill said. "You're going to explain to me what the hell is going on."

Jerry put his hands on his head and turned around slowly. At first his expression was one of genuine fear, but upon seeing Jill and recognizing her, Jerry burst into a giant, outrageous smile.

"Jill Smith!" he cried out, extending a hand. "It's good to see you!"

"Oh no, simmer down," she said, rifle still pointed.

"Look," Jerry said, slowly lowering his hands. "You don't want to to kill me, right? You want me to explain everything. And I definitely don't want to kill you. After all, you're critical to my plans."

"I don't like being used as a pawn," said Jill, not lowering her weapon.

"A pawn?" asked Jerry, incredulous. "You're out there doing all the work while here I am, still giving tours to the usual imbeciles."

"What work?" asked Jill. "What have I been doing?"

"Spreading socialist revolution of course."

At this point Jill finally lowered the gun, scratching her head in confusion. That's what she thought she had been doing too.

"This is going to be a long story," said Jerry. "I presume you found my laboratory? Let's go there."

"It was very considerate of you not to destroy the lock," said Jerry. "I'll have another guest soon, and I need an excuse for why we can't go into this room."

"Right," said Jill, looking about the servers, just as perplexed as she was before. "So what exactly is this place?"

"This is where I do Internet," said Jerry. "It's also where the bots do Internet when I'm not around, which is quite often. Most of my posts are on time releases and signal boosted by the bots. To date no one has caught on. No doubt it helps that my posts frequently contain references to high-profile suspicious accidents, typically before they happen."

"Why do you even have Internet here? And how? Nobody else does."

"Storm Lake was the beneficiary of a low bid contract for a server farm back before the Great Blackout," said Jerry. "The Great Blackout wiped out the company, and in the immediate chaos wherein the town was abandoned, everyone forgot about the server farm. I researched this one and others back when I first came to the state. The unusually high concentration of server farms in rural Iowa is, in fact, the main reason why I live here. They're very easy to spoof."

"As to the why," said Jerry, wandering around the servers, stroking them, and appreciating their warmth. "Powerful people who live in places that still have Internet are very frightened of it, and me. This leads them to do very stupid things in order to try and stop me from spreading my bile and hate across an overly impressionable population. This makes the problems worse, allowing for revolution to spread."

"Oh, OK," said Jill. "So this was all just a giant complicated plan to spread socialist revolution...that you tricked me into, even though that's something I want too."

"Not exactly," said Jerry. "I'm not a socialist. I'm an anarchist. And socialism today means anarchy tomorrow."

"What's anarchy?" asked Jill suspiciously. "That sounds bad."

"That's a more complicated question than we have time to get into," said Jerry. "I'm afraid we have bigger problems at the moment."

"Excuse me?"

"Why are you here, Miss Smith?" asked Jerry, sitting down. "What were you doing that made you suddenly decide to seek me out?"

"I was in Oregon," she said thoughtlessly. "I met up with Homer Ikari, he's one of the Rainbow Shirts. He told me this was all your plan."

"And what made him think that?" asked Jerry.

"I'm not sure," said Jill. "He seemed to figure it out while we were talking."

"Well that explains a lot," said Jerry, wistfully. "Because it looks like the Rainbow Shirts are out of the revolution business. At least until they manage to hunt me down."

"What about Oregon?"

"Ah, I see you haven't been reading the news," said Jerry. "That particular revolution has been put down. The Rainbow Shirts decided not to interfere."

Jill stared at Jerry, horrified by what she was hearing. Jerry gave her a sort of odd look, not really understanding her thought process.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

"I should never have left," Jill whispered, fighting back tears. "I'm such a fool!"

"If you had stayed I doubt the situation would have improved," said Jerry. "The Rainbow Shirts were always the more critical part of the operation than you."

"That's not the point!" Jill screamed. "They were my friends! They trusted me! And I abandoned them!"

"Look," said Jerry, "the whole situation with Oregon is extremely tragic, I know. But the Rainbow Shirts stopped because they started to see the bigger picture. Which is what we need to do now. If we don't come up with a plan-"

"I have to change their minds," said Jill, practically to herself. "This is all my fault. I have to fix this."

"Change their...?" Jerry shook his head, and started snapping his fingers at Jill. "Hey! Have you been listening to any of this? You want socialist revolution everywhere don't you? Well forget Oregon. The already liberated states might pick up the slack if we knock the Rainbow Shirts out of commission now, but-"

"No," said Jill, still completely intractable and stubborn. "The Rainbow Shirts are our allies. They want to make the world a better place. And I can prove to them that I didn't know about whatever nutty thing you're on about."

In a single swift movement before Jerry had any time to react, Jill swept the chair from under Jerry's feet and knocked him to the ground. She put his foot on her neck, and once more aimed her gun at his head among the whirring sounds of the servers. Jill pulled out a small device.

"I recorded this conversation," she said. "This proves that I don't know anything about you. And it exposes you as a fraud. We'll fix this country together, without having to worry about your crazy anarchist plans."

"Have you lost your mind?" asked Jerry, straining against Jill's foot. "The Rainbow Shirts aren't going to listen to you!"

"We'll let them be the judge of that," said Jill, taking out some handcuffs she lifted from the police station. "This is going to be a long walk."

As Jill and Jerry left the high school, a car pulled up into the high school parking lot. Jill was briefly perplexed. Over the past week not a single solitary soul had come anywhere near this town. Who could possibly be here now?

"Hey! Hey!" screamed Jerry, breaking free of Jill's hold, clumsily charging hands tied toward the car. "Over here!"

The car appeared to react to Jerry's sudden movement, speeding up with its door opening and Jerry charging inside before Jill had any time to react. She held up the rifle with an intent to fire, only to immediately realize the futility of her effort. Jerry Shankar was gone. And she couldn't risk killing him, not yet. The recording would be enough to at least make her case to the Rainbow Shirts. For now, Jill needed to escape. There was no way of knowing what kind of back-up Jerry Shankar would return with.