Joel trudged through the forest in absolute misery. Had winter always been this cold? The worst of it was that at the same time he also felt extraordinarily hot, bundled up under so many layers of clothes, sweating all the while. How could the Hunters' Guild possibly tolerate this kind of exertion on a daily basis? They must smell terrible in the summertime. Although in Joel's case there was also the added inconvenience of his having to carry a suitcase, as well as the outer clothing being deliberately colored in such a way as to provoke gunfire. Speaking of which, Joel was moving ever closer to the distant sounds of traditional firearms- which ended up not being so distant as he had thought when he felt the whiff of wooden shrapnel past his ear. Joel raised his arms in the air and started frantically waving.
"Shit! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" cried out a husky yet feminine voice in the distance.
Through leaps and bounds, a dirty blonde tumbled out of the brush and ran toward Joel. She was dirty beyond the shade of her hair as well- visibly she seemed even sweatier than Joel, in part because she wasn't wearing as many clothes, but Joel could tell from her rugged physique that this kind of weather was no major obstacle for her. What clothes she did have looked fancy- compression clothing, maybe, the kind usually given to Olympic athletes, back when there were things like the Olympics anyway. That much led credence to the legend- that Jill Smith was an international sharpshooter before she came to lead the Iowa Hunters' Guild.
"I've just, you know, never seen a person like you out in the woods," Jill said, furiously dusting Joel off. "And that weird hunch! It makes you look like a deer!"
"Are you alone?" asked Joel. He nervously lowered his hands. "If I had been a deer, how would you have taken me back?"
"The squad's about half an hour behind me," said Jill, smiling. We've been having a really good day, so that's why I'm the only one in front. I'm the best shot, and the worst at carrying deer carcasses."
The Hunters' Guild was critical to the continued existence of the Free State of Iowa. Once the food shortages started, people couldn't afford to be picky about what they ate. Venison is intrinsically no better or worse than any other kind of meat, but unchecked deer population over the last several decades had rendered the animals sickly, and an increasingly unchecked vector for the spread of disease. The Hunter's Guild found the meat- the Free State of Iowa cleaned and distributed it. Of course back then they were just called the Department of Health and Human Services. This was before people realized that the elected officials of the state were completely useless.
A similar pattern had arisen in other states. But as hunters tended to be not necessarily the kind of people on whom you wanted to trust the fate of human civilization, other states that had come to rely on deer hunting in order to feed people had drifted off into less than ideal forms of government following the Great Blackout. Iowa was an exception to this trend in large part thanks to Jill Smith. As legend had it, at the earliest meeting of the Iowa Hunters' Guild she had rallied the other sharpshooters by combining the rhetoric of social justice movements to the aloof administration of justice highlighted in old Western movies. Joel Rotierre had no way of guessing the content of the speech, but there was little reason to doubt it. Many a Hunters' Guild member had stopped into a bar for a drink, spoken of Jill Smith's legend in this regard, and delivered more than a few fists to the face of anyone who would deride a man for taking orders from a woman.
There were other subtexts to the legend, though most people had the sense to avoid saying them when a Hunters Guild member was nearby. As Jill was a woman in a social group dominated almost entirely by males, some believed that Jill simply used the promise of sex to achieve her goals. Whatever the truth of the matter was, the Iowa Hunter's Guild as it existed today upheld socialist principles when it came to resource scarcity, and was only ever willing to turn its guns on people in the event that those people were also armed. When necessary Hunter's Guild units had obliterated corrupt police departments which had tried to abuse their authority since the police, as the sole gunholders, formerly got to decide who was fed.
"So what are you doing here?" said Jill, hands on her hips, still smiling. "Did your vehicle break down? Are you really lost? Because I'd think in this day and age people had more sense than to wander the woods at random. People have died out here you know, and not from us. More likely they starve to death, or die of thirst, or get eaten by mountain lions."
"Oh!" she cried out suddenly, putting her mouth over her lips, before Joel had a chance to react. "Can I ask you something? Should we be calling them mountain lions? That's been the big debate lately, whether we should change their name to forest lions or pumas or maybe even cougars. Forest lions is the logical name, but it sounds silly. Puma would be accurate wherever we found them, but some members think it sounds too ethnic. Cougars makes them sound too sexy. We really don't want anyone getting too close to them these days you know."
"I'm just a city slicker idiot," said Joel, nervously forcing a smile in return. Jill was such a positive minded person it was hard not to. "I don't know anything about such matters. I should just go back the way I came."
Joel turned around. In a single swift movement, he tripped over a rock. Jill rushed over.
"Hey! Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine," said Joel, although the fall was more severe than he had planned. The pain was so brutal Joel could even feel it through the padding. The left knee had taken a big hit.
"There should be painkillers in the suitcase," said Joel. "The password is four twenty."
"Four twenty?" said Jill. "Do you smoke reefers?"
"No, it's an old suitcase and I don't know how to change the password."
Jill looked at the suitcase and giggled a bit. The suitcase wasn't old at all, it just had an old-fashioned mechanical lock rather than a digital one, which made Joel's referring to it as a password all the more amusing. Besides that it wasn't actually locked. In any case when Jill opened it up, there were no painkillers. There were, however, quite a lot of newspapers.
"Hey, uh, I could maybe make a tourniquet," said Jill, "but I'm not seeing any bandages."
But even as she was trying to stay on topic Jill was unnerved by what she was reading. All of these newspapers were from big cities. Mostly Chicago ones, though there were a few from the East Coast cities as well. Most of it was information she already heard about through rumors. Food riots. Police crackdowns on gang violence. Rampant homelessness. A non-functional economy. A new cybernetic enhancement that could be used to play video games in a person's imagination.
One recurring thread in these headlines really started to gnaw at her though. It was the frequent references to Nazi Dogs. They were listed as the cause of nearly all of the big social problems in the cities. One headline posited that Nazi Dogs were the reason why food supplies had become so scarce ahead of the coming winter. Another blamed them for forcing the hand of the Chicago police to engage in regrettable violence. Still more stated that resources wasted on the Nazi Dog problem had rendered the city of Chicago incapable of dealing with the lack of shelter for the upcoming winter months. The Nazi Dogs forced shut downs in commercial districts wherever they went. The launch of a new cybernetic enhancement had to be delayed because a lead designer had made an unpopular remark about the Nazi Dogs, calling them funny.
"What is this...?" mumbled Jill, staring in shock. She only belatedly realized that Joel was still injured. She abruptly turned around.
"Oh, don't mind me," said Joel, snorting some unknown substance. "I must have forgotten where I put it, what with all the shock of being shot at."
"Why are you really here?" Jill asked.
"I'm making a report to the Free State of Iowa," said Joel. "It's nothing you need to be concerned about."
"I disagree," said Jill, suddenly stern. "It says there's going to be a protest on the winter solstice. Is it true that no one in Chicago has guns?"
"What are you getting at?" asked Joel.
"I've seen this happen before," said Jill. "Innocent people getting slaughtered by bad guys with guns, because there aren't any good guys with guns around. Who's guaranteeing the safety of the protest? Will the Rainbow Shirts be there?"
"I am not privy to their plans," said Joel.
Jill let out a sigh. She walked up to Joel with a deliberate swagger and stared him dead in the eyes. The effect was so intimidating that Joel had to avert his gaze.
"What's the purpose of your report to the Free State of Iowa?"
"I am not at liberty to say."
"You do realize that the Free State of Iowa is just the domestic side of the government, right? That the Hunter's Guild is in charge of security?"
"I don't know much about the political system here."
"And you know that I lead the Hunter's Guild? That I can summon a meeting and ask for volunteers to go help our fellow Americans fighting against fascist oppression?"
"I just got lost. Really," Joel insisted, not making eye contact. "And if you'll just let me go back the way I came-"
"I don't know what your deal is," said Jill, extending a hand. "But I'm glad you came. Come back with me."
Joel cautiously looked up. Once more, Jill was smiling- but this time, she was bounded by sunlight that was obscured by the trees. For all the wear of the day, she looked angelic. It was then that Joel understood just how it was that Jill had been able to alter the destiny of this state so effectively. The woman was a natural leader. He took her hand.