The U.S. Department of Urban Downsizing, responsible for the creation of Life Avenues, had eventually decided that Coldcash City, Bat-Earth's version of Las Vegas, should _not_ be subsumed into an "Avenue." D.U.D. resources for Nevada were instead being allocated to the western edge of the state, where a Life Avenue would extend from Cool Springs ("Cold Springs" on Original Earth) to Reno.
Beatrice Wayans, widow of Rudyard Wayans, mother of Ben and Deuce Wayans, had only ever embraced one Christian element from her Mennonite upbringing: dogmatic pacifism. Also embracing the foulest elements of modern oligarchies, she had no qualms about misleading, oppressing, displacing and intimidating the little people. Now, she made herself the public face of the groundbreaking for the Cool Springs-Reno Life Avenue. Members of the Oneness Pioneers, and of her own "Be The Change" Foundation, formed the choreographed "spontaneous" admiring crowd, celebrating the latest exuberant step in the majestic march into a hive-mind future.
Part of Beatrice's teleprompter-guided speech went like this:
"Stunning and brave goddesses and princesses; modest and compliant man-babies; child-units with grand potential as living cells in the organism of America! Your enthusiasm in coming here of your own accord proves again that the spirit of agreement will never be extinguished by the un-mutual bandit-capitalist misogynists! From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam, you are gathering to join together in perpetual unanimity, impervious to the toxic deceptions of istophobes who suck the soul out of the working class....."
On and on like this. Reporters from the controlled news media went into ecstasies. And since the ominous Fin-Chin-Zin-Pin had not killed anyone, all of them were perfectly satisfied to cover a news item which _wasn't_ cloaked in mystery. This puff-piece in Reno also diverted attention from recent instances of bureaucrat-owned electric automobiles exploding with people in them.
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The Union of Cooperative Collective Republics had no need of electric cars, because it enjoyed vast reserves of clean-burning natural gas, which did well at fueling vehicles. (Also, its energy-resource overseers were very conscientious about catching any defects in their nuclear power plants.) Gas production in Siberia, Yakutiya and Kamchatka, and on Sakhalin Island, was supervised from the city of Omsk, situated by the Irtish River. (That's not a misprint; the river is not IRISH, it's the I-r-T-ish River.)
Lavrenty Borisovich Bakunin, a major executive in the U.C.C.R.'s energy industry, was dating a Yakut woman from a respectable family. Nariyana Aytalovna Keskil was a divorced woman, both of whose parents had already been divorced before they married each other, had Nariyana, and then divorced each other. Lavrenty could boast of a similar background; so they got on well, aware of having common experience.
This temporary couple occasionally discussed politics, having no serious disagreements between them. We come upon them in one such conversation, over a simple breakfast of kasha.
"When you studied Russian in school," said Lavrenty, "perhaps you noticed ambiguities, double meanings, which didn't occur in your own ethnic language."
"So I did," Nariyana assured him.
"i have one particular instance in mind. Consider our word draka; what were you taught that it means?"
She smiled. "I was fortunate to have an _extremely_ well-educated language teacher in the fifth year. Draka usually means a fight, especially a crazy brawl. But it _also_ can mean a _one-sided_ beating, in which one person is completely defenseless."
He leaned in to kiss her. "Tak tochno! ["Exactly!"] The reason I gave this example is because the same vagueness can serve political ends. If the U.C.C.R. can make people think in these unclear terms, we can launch unprovoked attacks on other nations, yet make _them_ take fifty-one percent of the blame."
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This discussion will become relevant later: not necessarily in a scene featuring Lavrenty and Nariyana, but certainly in a scenario which depicts the same intentional deception-by-unclear-terms.
