299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 331 A Weird Truce

Things didn’t turn out in Seattle like Ed Oleo, or anyone else, thought they would. Ed was glad he never killed those people. He had been ready to use his hidden shotgun on the Lima ringleaders in his neighborhood, but they just took off one day, a few days before the big battles in Seattle in February. It wasn’t a Patriot invasion like everyone thought it would be. Some of the Lima soldiers, or cops, or whatever, started to fight with other ones. It was like there was a civil war in Seattle, at least among the government. The civilians just sat it out—they didn’t have any guns anyway. In the end, military, police, FCorps, and various gangs went street-to-street killing each other. They were largely leaving civilians alone; this was a fight among government people and their associated gangs. None of the civilians, like Ed, even knew who was on whose side, or even cared. It was over pretty soon. Ed didn’t notice a difference in anything. Food was still scarce.

But then, in the spring, things started to get better. The government—Ed lost track of which side won the battles—was still basically in control, but people were starting to do business again. Not just the hand-to-mouth bartering like the little home repairs Ed was doing, but real business. The reason was the New Dollar.

It was technically a crime in Seattle and the rest of the FUSA to use New Dollars, but everyone did anyway. It was technically a crime in Seattle to do a bunch of things that people now were openly doing. It was weird: the military, police, FCorps, and gangs still ran things; it was just that a free or semi-free market was tolerated. The government and gangs still took a cut, but a cut of a much bigger pie. The Limas weren’t stupid. They knew that their thefts were destroying the goose that was laying the golden eggs. They knew that they couldn’t get through another few months without a real economy providing things like food. All the corporate farms in eastern Washington that had been providing food to Seattle were now in Patriot hands, so the people running Seattle needed a new plan. They did what many collapsing socialist economies had always done: allowed a little capitalism.

Ed realized something weird, and good, was happening when he got his first inquiry about buying a house. What? Someone wanted to buy a house? That hadn’t happened for over a year, but it made sense that there would be demand. People were relocating. There wouldn’t be any new home construction for probably two decades. All that abandoned existing housing coupled with all those people who needed a home in the new place they had settled in meant people would start buying and selling real estate again.

But buy and sell with what? Ed wondered. FCards? Nope. New Dollars were the answer. Ed looked into it and found that the escrow company would do transactions in New Dollars. Ed did the sale, got a commission in New Dollars, and went out and bought some fresh vegetables with them. He couldn’t believe it, though it did make sense when he thought about it. It took a long time for the Collapse to build and it would take a long time for it to unwind, at least in Seattle where the government and gangs still tried to control things to the greatest extent they could. Ed noticed more and more economic activity and all of it being done in New Dollars. The military and police were letting all of this happen. They were even cracking down on the gangs. Some of the gangs must have been becoming liabilities or, maybe, the military and police were actually listening to people. Ed couldn’t really believe it, but the evidence pointed in that direction. Most of the really bad people in the government and gangs had been killed. That intra-government civil war and the resulting assassinations and gang wars had thinned out the hard core Limas pretty well.

At first, most people in Seattle had been silently hoping the Patriots would come in and take over. But now that sentiment was waning. Sure, people wanted things back to normal and no one would deny that the economy and freedom were booming in New Washington. But, with the healthy New Dollar economy in Seattle, things weren’t so bad that it was worth fighting another war over. Besides, just about everyone in Seattle had collaborated with the former legitimate authorities so the Patriots coming in would mean lots and lots of hangings and jailing.

A weird truce developed. Seattle was still technically in the FUSA and a kinder, gentler group of Limas was running it. But Seattle had essentially integrated into the New Washington economy and, by extension, the southern and western states’ economies because New Washington was part of that economic bloc. All while everything like New Dollars were theoretically illegal.

New Washington, too, didn’t want to fight a war with Seattle. There was no reason to. Seattle wasn’t trying to invade New Washington and the Lima terrorist attacks had gone down to almost none. New Washington was actually trading with Seattle. In fact, New Washington agriculture was feeding Seattle, and New Washington manufacturing was rebuilding Seattle. In turn, Seattle had lots of smart business people and even squirreled-away money to invest in New Washington.

In the end, New Washington and Seattle developed a relationship like the one between the Revolutionary War colonies and Canada. Many Loyalists during the First Revolutionary War fled to Canada, just like many Loyalists fled New Washington into Seattle. But the two countries—technically different countries with different currencies, but speaking the same language and economically intertwined—were at peace with each other. After a few years, it was as absurd for New Washington to invade Seattle as it would have been for the old America to invade Canada.

Which was why Ed was so glad he didn’t have to kill anyone back when the Patriots took Olympia. He didn’t want blood on his hands. He just wanted all the bad things to stop. And they slowly did.