C ¢ Spring 1967 Tt was the day after the victory of the Outs. They had won overwhelmingly, with only a few of the Northern cities showing any kind of heavy vote for the Ins. Julius Orange, the former swimming champion, had swept into office after only six years in polities, "JO", as the headlines called the new Chief of State, met with his key people at the hideaway on the Coast. Sitting around the pool, they talked about who was going to get what, who might be useful from the Ins, who had to g0, how to deel with certain Ins who had strong power bases. JO's wife came in with tea and a box full of the Chief's favorite lettuce cigarettes, and asked, "What are you going to do about the kooks and Commies and the dam Coloreds? Everybody cheved on his tea and lettuce for a while, ‘thinking about that one, The Outs had promised to get rid of all the dirty- ‘traiter-no-good-commic-kid-bum-cutside-agitators —~ but how? A few days later, JO made a decision. He dialed the private numbor of the Generel Attorney's mistress and passed the word. "Lock "em up.t The General Attorney, one of the Ins who had stayed on because the Outs (now In) didn't feel they could dump him yet, was startled, “Lock up who, Mr, Chier?" "Those people. You know, the 32,149 hard-core trouble-makers, ‘the Niks and the Nags. Just lock ‘em up," "Ig I may say so, sir, the previous Chiefdom found it easier just to have them over to the House for coffee and drop a few sugar-lumps here and, there, so to speak, They just can't resist those invitations, And when there was any real threat, something could alvays be done. Plant an agent to start argu ments about whether they should let people with beards get on the picket line -- that can tie then up for days. Vaybe fake a little dynamite plot, drop a wordrear Geese -2 about the Bureau's file on somebody's honosemality, then you get a few syndicated columists going -~" "That's old stuff, we got to do better now. Lock ‘en up. The camps are veady — don't tell me they're not, And I want a nice show of it — no secret stuff in the night. One thing I want you to remember: just get the 32,149. No confused liberals, no Uncle Tom niggers -~ we got other ways to deal with then," In the next fewdays, the PR people got together to design a format for the lock-up. First came the name, They kicked around things Like Operetion Clean-Up, Operation Start-Up, Operation Get-it-Up -~ and finally settled on Just plain Operation, ‘Thep they started the Research girls looking for ideas. One of the brightest, a blonde named Tiffany Tomorrow, found an old engraving from the French Revolution showing people being taken through the min streets in trundle-carts with large crowds watching, That set the tone, Within three days, the whole format was worked out end ready to go despite some problems in getting the trundle-carts manufactured quickly enough. A Cuban refugee carpenter came up with the solution for that protlen. JO had ordered specifically that the Coloreds be picked up last. He wasn't sure what would happen in their areas because he had been across the tracks only once, and he didn't want to take any chances, So first the Bureau Picked up the old white Nags, the lesser-known ones, Then the better-lnown ones, then the young white Niks, JO had also ordered that there mstn't be any violence, The whole thing was done neatly, usually in the morning around 8 or 9, Anybody who showed signs of resistance got a fast injection of a very powerful tranquilizer and was quietly escorted to the trondle-cart. A number was written on his back and Zap! — off they rolled,-3- In the streets, people on their vay to work watched the carts rumble by. Leaflets were distributed, explaining the people in the carts, and everybody cheered, "Dirty traitor -- they should burn youl!" "Jail'e too good for you, you rati" [nen eae person was seen, they shouted "They'll make you take a bath now, hal ‘The most coumon shout, for everyone, vas "Now you'll have to go to work, you bastard!" A certain faint grumbling could be heard here and there when the numbers hit 30,000 but it died down again after the Operation stopped with 31,149. Everyone seened very satisfied. When the Bureau picked up the Coloreds, the cheering in the white streets was especially loud, Everybody thought that JO was going to send them back to Africas many telegrams and letters arrived at the House that week urging this. Extra staff had to be taken on just to answer the messages and Tiffany Tomorrow got a new job as head of this phase, When Operation was finished, JO began to enjoy himself for the first time in office. Mo more protests, no more booing, no more snooping joumalists. ‘The whole country quieted dow, JO made a lot of speeches about The People and ‘The Threat and Law and Order, Once the Bureau reported thst some of the Coloreds were getting upset again, so JO announced that the Coloreds in the camps would get movie privileges like the whites, People thought that wae very nice of him, The Ine (now Out) were worried. They had to f'ind something to make them sound different from the Outs (now In), something to hook onto for the next election, What could they stir up? ‘Their only hope was the camps, It was hard going at first, because a lot of the Ins! friends didn't really like those people in the camps, But slowly they got a little agitation going. They helped to smggle @ reporter into one of the camps, and he did a series on the horrors there, Thon somehow a story broke about maladministration of tax-payers! money,-he ’ and they knew they could tie that in with the camps — people had never been very happy about spending money on feeding the traitors. The big break cane when JO goofed and let a big steel company automate itself out of workers, ‘The Workers' Chief had to come out against that, and pretty soon he was having a lot of coffee with some Ins. The Ins moved quickly now, In 9 large city at the center of the Nation, they found a perfect candidate: colorful but not too colorful, younger than JO but serious-looking. ‘Tiffany Tomorrow, who was now working with the Ins, camo up with a new slogan: “Let the People In." The Ins announced that, if elected, 0 rhe Compuses- Senbhorsanps. ‘they would legalize The Potion -- and that got a lot of support People were sort of bored, ani that helped too. Miso, Folimninntine-citties-had-ncthingtowamguenainaninstpasbiSsy the wars (two big ones and four smal ones) weren't going too well. ‘hen the mother of the ins! candidate got very sick, and every front page showed the candidate by her bedside looking sad. That clinched the women, and the Ins knew-they were in again, After the election, the camps were opened and all the prisoners released. During the next six months, some of the better-lmown prisoners appeared frequently on television with the In leaders to express their gratitude and make rosy prophecies about the Redemption of the Nation. Others were angry about this, and a year later, a group of Coloreds picketed the new In Chief, Some of his advisors muttered about losing people up again, but the Chief just smiled at such suggestions and said: "That really is!t necessary." Flecherh Mertinez