Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Thanks to Gamblnluck for allowing me to write in the world of his excellent Slave Camp and Gotta Pay the Piper stories(if you haven't read them you should, both because they're very good and because it will help you understand the setting.

Thanks also to Ogshadowraven for inspiring me to try writing.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord:

Charleston, South Carolina FBI field office:

"Chief, you know this is a wild goose chase right?" Agent Carl Simmons SROD(Slavery Regulatory Oversight Division) asked his boss, SC(Station Chief) Mike Gibson.

"Of course, but the governor demands we 'do something' in response to these vandals, and they did use some Liberationist symbols and rhetoric, so..."

"So I drive 500 miles to conduct a meaningless interview with people who hate us"

"Yup"

"Your tax dollars at work" sighed Simmons as he started to move towards the office door.

"Oh Simmons? Take the rookie along for the ride, get him out of our hair for a few days"

Simmons rolled his eyes "Yes chief" This is going to suck he thought.

In the morning Simmons stepped out into the hall after checking his email to find 'the rookie' looking for him. Agent-in-training Blackwell wasn't a bad kid, he was just way too earnest and chipper for Simmons, or anyone else in the office's, taste. He was assigned here for a few weeks for field training and half the guys were ready to strangle him.

"Agent Simmons sir," He practically snapped to attention and Simmons half-expected him to salute. "Chief Gibson said to report to you sir!"

"I've got an assignment and your to ride along, bring a change of clothes, we'll be gone overnight"

The kid gestured to the Data Retrieval sign on the door Simmons had just left and asked "Getting intel for the mission sir."

Simmons held up a half full Styrofoam cup "No, they just have the only drinkable coffee in the building."

An hour later they were on the road.

"Where are we going sir?" the rookie asked.

"New Hampshire"

"So what's the mission sir, I mean if it's not classified or something, it must be important to send us all that way, kidnappers? hijacking?"

"Taggers"

"What?" Blackwell looked like he thought he must not have heard correctly

."Graffiti artists spray painted anti-slavery propaganda outside the governors favorite golf course and the local news got pictures before they could clean it up so now he's pissed and embarrassed and wants action taken."

"Wouldn't that be a job for the local police sir?"

"You'd think so, but you know the governor's stance on slavery 'it's the greatest thing since sliced bread' and all that, so with re-election coming up..."

"But what does that have to do with New Hampshire sir?" The kid was clearly baffled, understandably so.

"The graffiti used terms and symbols reminiscent of the New-Hampshire-based 'Church of Divine Liberation', so to appease the governor the Chief is sending me, to 'interview them about possible connection to the incident'."

Even the rookie looked skeptical at that. "Do you really think they know anything about it?" He asked dubiously.

Simmons snorted "No, and even if they did they wouldn't tell me."

"But the chief thinks they do?"

"No, he knows it's pointless."

Blackwell looked confused. "Then why...?" He trailed off.

"Because the taggers got away clean but the chief still needs to be able to tell the governor that he 'took action', and this way the governor gets to save face by blaming 'spineless bleeding heart dissidents' who are conveniently out of his reach to actually do anything about, for this 'disgraceful attack on American values'." Simmons explained.

"But the FBI is supposed to be apolitical, and focused on major crimes. Why would we be wasting time on something like this?" Blackwell looked troubled.

"It's the way the game is played kid, everything is political somehow. If we give this the inattention it deserves the governor might withhold cooperation on something that does matter."

"Surely he wouldn't sabotage an investigation just because-"

"No no, but he might not return our calls promptly, or local or state authorities who know he's unhappy might be less willing to share information, or uncooperative in an investigation, stuff like that"

There was a long period of uncomfortable silence in the car.

"What is this Church of Divine Liberation anyway" Blackwell asked a while later.

"Pretty much what it sounds like; a Christian religious group that considers any form of slavery to be an offense against God and man alike."

"But the Bible condones slavery."

"The Bible also condones stoning people to death for wearing mixed fabrics"

"But slavery is a societal good, it allows us to gain compensatory labor from those who have harmed the public while deterring future criminality. Boosting the economy instead of being a massive drain on public resources like the old prison system was." The rookie sounded like he was practically reciting verbatim.

"You memorize that out of a high school social studies textbook kid?" Blackwell flushed.

Simmons continued; "Yeah, from a certain point of view it does all that, but that's only part of the story. What are the costs?"

"Well, there's still some overhead to regulate the system but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue generated by sales and transfer fees, and occasionally a violent slave will do some damage before their collar takes them down. But the penalties are serious enough that that doesn't happen much and even the most violent slave can be dropped with a touch of a button..." Blackwell trailed off when he noticed Agent Simmons sigh heavily and shake his head

"No I mean the overall societal costs."

"Like what?" he asked.

Simmons pulled the car into the parking lot of a road-side Diner

"First lunch, and more coffee."

The Diner was a typical greasy spoon joint, slightly dingy and moderately busy, attached to a truck stop. From the number of big rigs out front Simmons figured it to be about half full, so service shouldn't be too slow. As they came in a harried-looking waitress wearing a slave collar, a thong, fishnet stockings, and high heels glanced over at them from behind the counter and faux-cheerfully called "Please seat yourselves, I'll be with you shortly!"

They sat down at a small booth in the back and looked over the laminated menu.

A few minutes later the slave-waitress made her way over to them, dodging a few handsy patrons.

"What can I get for you masters? she asked

"Burger, fries and coffee"

"Roast beef sandwich and coke"

As she walked away Simmons noticed a few recent-looking pinch marks on her ass. Blackwell was following her with his gaze too, though less perceptively than appreciatively.

Their food arrived about 10 minutes later. On her way back to the kitchen the waitress then lost her balance while evading a grope and fell into another diners back, a big guy with the logo of a major trucking company on his jacket. The man spilled his drink all over himself and rounded on her. "You stupid bitch!" he shouted and backhanded her to the floor. A manager-looking guy hurried out from behind the cash register.

"Terribly sorry sir, she's so clumsy, your meal is on the house."

The waitress was getting to her feet holding her cheek painfully. The big man grinned.

"I want an apology from her too"

She cringed and looked at the floor.

"I'm very sorry master, please forgive this clumsy slave"

"Not quite the apology had in mind"

The waitress shuddered and looked beseechingly at the manager. Simmons was pretty sure he could see her silently mouth 'please no' to her superior.

"You heard him slave" He growled at her. "take the gentleman in back and apologize properly"

The woman whimpered but obeyed and led the trucker into the back room.

When the two agents had finished their lunch about 20 minutes later the same waitress, now with streaked makeup and tears in the knees of her fishnet stockings, delivered the tab.

"You masters can pay up front, please come again"

Back on the road Blackwell asked;

"Why did the manager give him a whole free meal, she only spilled his drink?"

"Because" Simmons replied. "That guy was with the company that owns almost 20% of the trucks that move along this stretch of highway, a bad review from him could have significantly cut into their sales. And I guarantee the cost of the meal, and those torn stockings, will be coming out of that poor girl's hide once her shift is over."

Blackwell shrugged "Life of a slave, she should have been more careful"

Simmons took one eye off the road for a moment and raised an eyebrow at the rookie.

"Would you say that if she was your sister"

"Hey! My sister's no slave slut!"

"Every slave is someone's sibling, parent or child kid."

The rookie didn't look convinced.

"Now, back to the societal costs of slavery, what are they?"

"Well, I guess there's some diplomatic static from it because most other countries are run by bleeding hearts"

"True, and most have heavy tariffs on slave-produced goods which makes them un-profitable to export. Now what aspect of the diplomatic issue is most directly relevant to the Bureau?"

The kid looked lost, Simmons waited a few moments and went on.

"Extradition. It used to be that the US had extradition treaties with much of the world that if one of our criminals turned up in their country, or vice versa, a simple request would get the offender shipped back home for trial. Their were a few limitations, some countries that rejected the death penalty refused to extradite anyone to here unless we promised not to kill them for example, and there was always red tape to be dealt with, but mostly it worked alright."

"I've heard of that." Blackwell acknowledged. "But it hardly ever seems to happen any more."

Simmons sighed "Yeah, that's because when the 30th amendment got ratified most of the world refused to renew those treaties without adding an exception for enslaveable offenses just like the old one for capital crimes"

Simmons could see it dawn on Blackwell what that would mean.

"And since pretty much all serious crimes are now punished by either enslavement or, in extreme cases, death..."

"No more extradition." Simmons finished for him. "Except for minor offences that often aren't worth the headache to even pursue."

"So if a criminal can flee the country before they're caught they're basically home free?" The kid seemed incredulous.

"Not entirely, they can never come back here, all their domestic assets are frozen or confiscated and if they're Americans we revoke their passports. But they never wear a collar no. That's why there's so much border security to leave the country, it used to be we tried to keep people, especially criminals, out not in."

"Alright... I can see where that's a drawback" The rookie allowed reluctantly.

"There have also been some mighty big stinks when some prominent foreign citizen gets busted over here and his country wants him back right now before he, or she, becomes some work gang's bitch."

"This is America, no one can tell us how to handle our criminals!" The kid was indignant.

"Not even when there's a billion dollar trade deal that will provide thousands of jobs here at home about to collapse over someone getting pulled over for a DUI?" Simmons asked.

The kid gnashed his teeth.

"So what does happen?" he asked grimly.

Simmons smiled internally, the rookie was learning that nothing was as straightforward as it 'should' be.

"For smallish stuff the state department usually leans on the prosecutor to let the foreign bigwig plea bargain down to a huge fine. For more serious offenses they may allow the family or employer a special exemption for foreign purchase of the slave and fit them with one of the explosive foreign-travel collars, or maybe do a deal where the criminal serves his sentence in a prison in his home country."

The rookie sighed. "I guess that's something."

A few minutes later Blackwell pointed to the car in front of them "What's that?"

"What's what?" Simmons asked, the car looked perfectly ordinary to him.

"That bumper sticker, the one with the big '30' in the spikey circle with a line through it"

"Ah." Simmons took a look at the sticker. "I think the 'spikey circle' is supposed to be barbed wire, and... yup, Massachusetts license plate. It's a protest sticker against the 30th amendment. You'll see more of that sort of thing as we get further north."

"Oh, I've heard the northeast had a lot of bleeding hearts but I've never been north of DC."

"It's more than just 'bleeding hearts', New England in particular is 'John Brown' country."

"John Brown?, You mean that psycho abolitionist guy before the civil war who chopped people up with an axe in Kansas before getting hung in Virginia?"

Simmons took a deep breath. "That's him, though be careful about calling him that. Some folks up there hold him in mighty high esteem an would consider those 'fightn' words'."

The young proto-agent looked baffled. "Who would want to defend some crazy murderer?"

"The people who pronounce that 'noble martyr to the cause of freedom'. Did you know that when he was hung in 1859 many northern abolitionists held mourning vigils for him?"

"Seriously?"

"Yup, and many of the people today who oppose judicial slavery have pretty much adopted him as their patron saint."

"Holy crap!"

There's several neo-abolitionist organizations named after him too; 'The John Brown Society', they do a lot of political lobbying and grassroots activism. 'John Browns Army', an coalition of militia organizations who say there preparing to resist 'when the'tyrannical government tries to enslave dissenters'. And most concerning, the 'Knights of John Brown', an open-secret society of militant abolitionists and slaves rights activists, kind of like a mirror-universe version of the old KKK who makes their Real Strong Disapproval of slave-based businesses and what they consider 'slave abusers' unmistakably clear.

The rookie thought he finally understood something. "Sort of like a civilian volunteer version of the Bureau's SROD?" He asked.

Simmons almost choked on his coffee. "Oh lord no! Well... maybe in their minds. Most slave laws are enforced at the state level, the SROD is is very small department, mostly part-timers like me who mostly work regular cases but get called in for occasional review or assistance, and for the rare cases that cross state lines. Now you need to know that the State slave-abuse laws up there are stricter than the Federal ones, largely thanks to the work of the John Brown Society. But the KoJB aren't even satisfied with that! They see slavery it self as 'morally illegal' and think that pretty much anything that would be abuse of a free person should be abuse of a slave."

"Oh my gosh."

"Yeah, those guys consider the SROD to be criminaly negligent for permitting the 'abuse' of slaves that the law allows for."

"Wow, so definitely not our friends."

"No, as far as they're concerned you and I basically fellate the devil for a living."

"Are we going to be safe?" he asked nervously.

"Yeah, they aren't stupid enough to attack us in broad daylight or anything like that. But don't wander off alone in the woods, it wouldn't look good for me if you had a 'hunting accident' on my watch."

Blackwell gulped visibly. Simmons smiled inwardly, that should keep the rookie from putting his foot in his mouth too much when they got to their destination. He was exaggerating a bit for the sake of a good scare story, but not as much as he might like to be.

It was now late afternoon and they had passed New York city, moving into Connecticut. As predicted bumper stickers with with messages like 'NO TO 30' and 'Praise John Brown' had been spotted, but the most common one was the blue "Make America Free Again!"

"What does that mean?" Blackwell asked, pointing to the inset on a coffee brand's truck that proudly proclaimed 'MADE BY 100% FREE LABOR!'. "If slavery is unpopular up here why are they advertising their unpaid workers?"

Simmons chuckled. "They aren't kid. That means 'no slave labor was used in the manufacture of this product' Some folks will pay extra for that."

"Why, what's the difference?"

"Mostly to feel good about themselves that they aren't 'subsidizing oppression' or some-such. It's also a big deal for people in organized labor, unions and the like, who feel that the availability of unpaid workers who can't quit undermines free workers collective bargaining leverage, drives down wages, stuff like that."

"But most slaves, except a few specialists of course, are used for jobs that nobody else wants to do."

"That's the usual counter-point. This is an argument that goes back way before the 30th was passed though, it used to be about 'illegal immigrants stealing American jobs' instead of 'slaves undermining the value of free laborers', but many of the points are near-enough the same. Migrants used to do a lot of the jobs we use slaves for now; hard labor under brutal conditions that nobody else was willing to do. They had to pay them of course, but it was usually pennies on the dollar next to what American workers would have demanded"

"Please tell me this nonsense is unique to the Northeast" The rookie almost-begged.

"Not entirely, I mean the 'John Brown' stuff mostly is, but as more people are, or were, or know, slaves and former slaves, calls to reform the legal standards for the treatment of slaves are slowly growing. I hear the California legislature is getting pressure to tighten up the slave-treatment laws for example but with so many big agri-corps out there relying on work-gangs for labor there's some big money opposition too."

"How did they do it before the 30th?" Blackwell asked.

"Seasonal migrants from south of the border mostly, often here illegally. Of course that source dried up quick after the 30th was passed. Not many people willing to risk getting collared for such a lousy job. In fact there was a major labor shortage for several years until enough slaves became available to fill the need."

As they passed into Massachusetts Simmons glanced at the clock and turned on the radio, after a little tuning a voice said "Please rise for the Liberation choir." and a chorus of strong young voices began:

"Old John Brown's body lies moldering in the grave,

While weep the sons of bondage who he ventured all to save;

But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,

His soul is marching on."

Blackwell looked at the senior agent in confusion, but Simmons held up a hand to silence him.

"John Brown was a hero undaunted, true and brave,

And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;

Now, though the grass grows green above his grave,

His soul is marching on.

He captured Harpers Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,

And frightened "Old Virginny" til she trembled through and through;

They hanged him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul is marching on.

John Brown is John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,

The Christ who of the bondsman shall the Liberator be,

And soon throughout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,

For his soul is marching on.

The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,

On the army of the Union with it's flag, red, white and blue,

And heaven shall ring with anthems o'er the deed they mean to do,

For his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of freedom then strike while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on."

Vigorous applause and cries of 'Hallelujah' followed, then the sermon thunderously began:

"Brothers and sisters, today Saint John the liberator is turning over in his grave, for not only has the vile serpent of slavery returned to our once great nation, but it it is no longer confined to the south indeed it has extended it's foul taint into every corner of the land!

Men and women, some scarce more than children, beaten and raped countless times over periods of years for minor offences, forced to work under the lash in conditions so terrible as to rival perdition itself!"

"But you can't rape a-" Blackwell began before Simmons hushed him.

"Because of the wicked perversion of technology that gives us slave collars, modern-day metal marks of Cain, these slaves do not even have the one recourse that slaves have had from the dawn of time, the option to rise up against their oppressors and strike them down in righteous fury. Misuse of modern science has robbed them of the one right that even a slave has always had; the right to rebel!

And instead of casting the perpetrators of these atrocities into the deepest pits this life has to offer our so-called leaders celebrate them!

They extol the the profit born from the misery of their fellow man, and the defamation of God's own image in which man was made!

And when their time comes to meet their maker how shall they justify these heinous sins?

'We maximized quarterly profits'?

'But prisons were too expensive'?

'They were criminals who deserved whatever happened to them'?

And from the Father's right hand the Son shall say;

'As thou didst unto the least of these thou didst unto me, every lash, every cruelty, every violation thou didst inflict upon the slave thou didst inflict upon me!'

And then the Father shall proclaim; 'let you now be cast into the pit, to suffer a thousand times every sin you inflicted upon the helpless!'

And the ground shall swallow them up.

Then shall He turn His gaze upon the poor miserable wretches who have suffered so and declare; 'Now you who have suffered as no man nor woman ever should, be at peace, be your sins forgiven, and your toils ended, and be you welcome in my kingdom.

Then shall the Pearly Gates open before them and welcome them into paradise."

Simmons turned off the radio.

The rookie looked aghast, "What was that?" he asked.

"That" Simmons replied "Was the Reverend Joseph Brown, head of the Church of Divine Liberation. The man we are going to see.

They stopped for a late dinner at another diner on the New Hampshire border. Coincidently this one also had a waitress in a silver collar, and she looked harried as waitresses tend to do. But that was where the resemblance ended. She was fully clothed and not at all timid. When she took their order it was with a simple "What'll it be fellas?" And the only time it looked like somebody might try to pat her butt they had their wrist grabbed by another patron and were met with glares from many of the other diners.

They spent the night in a cheap motel about an hour further north. As they were laying down Blackwell asked; "Do people here really believe all that stuff the Reverend was going on about?"

"His congregation do, most folks don't take it that far though. But you gotta understand that the state motto of New Hampshire is 'Live Free or Die', and some take that pretty seriously."

"But how can he get away with saying that though? He all but suggested that slaves should murder their owners!"

"Yeah, that makes a lot of people uneasy, but he didn't actually say so. Also religious freedom counts for a lot and it is a core doctrine of his religion that slavery is inexcusable and fighting it is virtuous."

"So what do they do with criminals up here?" Blackwell wanted to know.

"There are slaves here, like that woman at the diner, but the laws mandate much more 'humane' treatment of them. Also the courts are big on using 'alternative sentencing' whenever possible, house arrest, probation, ankle monitors, even super-large fines that can be paid-off over a period of years. There's even a few actual State Prisons, without federal funding of course. Also, in New Hampshire, someone facing a long term of slavery can demand their 'right to die free', basically insisting on the death penalty for themselves instead of the other sentence.

"Does that ever really happen?" the kid asked incredulously.

"Once in a while."

In the morning they drove the last couple hours north to the town of Freedom New Hampshire, right up against the Canadian border.

"The Bureau made an appointment for us, so he knows we're coming and has agreed to talk to us. It also means everyone there is going to know who we are, so expect to get a lot of dirty looks. Just keep your mouth shut and follow my lead, and for the love of God do not reach for your weapon unless I do first. Got it?"

"Uh-huh"

"Say 'I understand'"

"I understand"

At the "Welcome to Freedom NH, Live Free or Die" sign someone with a cell phone noted their government plates and took a picture of their car as they went by and posted it to the town's social media account with the caption; "The serpents are in the garden."

The town itself was actually rather charming, but with strangely little activity. Many of the shops were closed up and not many people in the streets, though upon every brow was a blue MAFA hat.

"Where is everybody?" Blackwell asked.

"A lot of the residents are former slaves and their families, we're trauma triggers for them. They won't come out until we're gone."

Blackwell looked troubled. "I wanted to become an agent to help people, not be their boogieman."

"Welcome to real life kid, one persons savior is often another person's monster."

They pulled up in front of the towns church right next to the town common with it's prominent Civil War memorial. Here a small crowd was gathered, obviously because of them. Most held protest signs with broken shackles, struck-through 30s and American flags with swastikas' instead of stars. One old man wearing a Marine dress uniform with a chest-full of medals held a placard that said "My great grand father fought at Gettysburg, my father stormed Omaha beach and I served in Vietnam to defend the land of the FREE!. Don't think I'm to old to re-enlist to restore it!"

As they parted to let the agents through Blackwell stopped by the uniformed man and solemnly said "Thank you for your service sir." then almost broke down whet the old veteran spat at his feet and turned his back.

A young woman held open the front door of the church and gestured for the agents to follow her.

"This way please agents." She led them into the church. Just inside the door was a well-worn doormat that had once looked like the classic 'stars-and-bars' confederate battle flag.

She led them into an ante-chamber. "Please take a seat, my father will be with you shortly."

They sat and less than a minute later a middle aged man with a white(cloth) collar entered and sat down. From his resonant voice it was obviously the same man they had heard on the radio.

"Welcome to the church of Divine Liberation, what brings you so far from home?" He asked, although he must know.

Simmons began; "Reverend some of your churches rhetoric has been used in graffiti that the governor of South Carolina finds very troubling. The Bureau was hoping you could shed some light on how that might be happening."

"Well I'm afraid I couldn't say agent, I didn't realize we had any adherents that far into the belly of the beast."

"You realize of course that while you have every right to your opinions and your faith, criminal vandalism does not fall under the protection of religious freedom."

"Of course agent, I in no way condone this act, and I assure you my parishioners had no part in it."

"Very well reverend." Simmons withdrew his right hand from his pocket and stood to proffer it. "Thank you for your time sir." Reverend Brown likewise stood and shook the agents hand before putting his own into his pocket. "Come back anytime agents, always happy to help the servants of justice." with a nod to Blackwell he then departed.

"Wait, that's it?" The kid asked "We drove all the way up here for 2 minutes of conversation?"

"I told you this was strictly pro-forma and meaningless appeasement of the governor kid." Simmons answered him as he led him outside."

"Yeah, I know, but-but..."

Outside the church the small crowd was now gathered around their car, or rather between their car and the church, with no-doubt-licensed firearms visible under their now open jackets. Seeing that the two agents were alone they parted and allowed them to get in.

As they drove away Blackwell asked; "Why does it feel like if we had led him out in handcuffs we'd be leaving in pine boxes?"

"Probably cause you paid attention in class about reading the mood of a crowd."

On the way home:

"I don't know if I can do this sir."

"Do what kid?"

"Be an agent when it means having good people look at me like something they would either scrape off the bottom their shoe or expect to grow hooves and horns..."

"Yeah, that part sucks sometimes, just try to make sure you help people whenever you can, and don't hurt anyone unless you absolutely have to."

"Can I ask you a personal question sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Well, I've been wondering for a while now, you seem awfully senior to be given a low-priority high-inconvenience assignment like this, especially with a green kid like me in tow..."

"So who'd I piss off?"

"Well, yeah."

Simmons said nothing for several minutes as he thought back. "I turned in my partner for slave abuse a couple years back. We were escorting a slave whose owner had crossed the line, and then fled across state lines once he sobered up, to a hearing to testify against him and we were well ahead of schedule so he decided to 'have some fun' with her. I told him not to but he just blew me off. Long story short, one of her fractured ribs broke and slightly punctured a lung. He tried to pass it off as a pre-existing injury but I handed over her prior x-rays and told them what happened. The man should have worn a collar himself but his great uncle had recently been promoted to station chief there and he had enough connections to get it swept under the rug with a reprimand for 'unprofessional conduct' on his record, and I got transferred. As you can imagine no ones real eager to partner with me now and I mostly work headache-inducing cases nobody else wants to touch."

"Isn't there a review panel for abuse cases to catch things like that sir? Or shouldn't his lawyer have caught it?"

"The defendant informally agreed not to contest the claim in exchange for a sweetheart plea deal, nothing in the official record raised a flag because they spun something up about his 'assistance in other cases' to explain it. I could have pushed the issue and maybe won, but that would have been the end of my career and they might have been able to turn it around and blame her new injury on me instead. Buy not trying I avoided any real punitive action."

"No safeguards are perfect kid."

"You didn't hear this from me, but in my opinion the slave abuse laws are half theatrics anyway. If they really gave a rats ass about the welfare of slaves there'd be stricter controls of what people are allowed to do to them. Now it's mostly just so that when what you call 'bleeding hearts' complain they can point to what's on the books, backed up by a few highly publicized incidents, and say; 'but look how serious we are about punishing real abusers' to appease the voters conscience."

Back in Freedom NH:

Once the agents were gone Reverend Brown wasted no time in retrieving the small thumb drive agent Simmons had slipped him during their handshake from his pocket and plugging it into a non-networked laptop. He carefully reviewed the FBI files on plans for raids on suspected abolitionist dissidents they thought they could pin actual crimes on and quickly re-wrote next Sunday's sermon to include certain carefully selected phrases that would sound normal to his radio listeners but have special meaning to a few.

2 Weeks later:

Agent Simmons was doing paperwork at his desk when he heard the yelling in the chiefs office. As nearly as he could make out 2 search warrants executed on private residences had yielded absolutely nothing despite having seemed like solid leads and one of the individuals was threatening to sue for damages caused during the search. But the real fiasco sounded like the milk processing plant where informants had sworn they would find stolen slave-collar schematics, but not only had they come up empty but the raid had happened during a video tour of the facility being live-streamed to several local elementary schools. Worse yet the agents hadn't realized this until after smashing open lockers and roughing up employees on camera! Somebody's head was going to roll for this and future warrant requests of this nature would be subject to considerably stricter review.

Simmons smiled.

The End