Free Scarcity (Special Forces: FJ One Book 1) by Adam Vance Page B

people are welcoming our new visitors with wide open arms, we need to make some plans, you and I.
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN – DOWN WITH THE NANNY STATE
     
    The Captain put on civilian clothes for the first time in a long time. It was strange, looking in the mirror and just seeing “Dieter Chen, citizen.” He’d had to ask his team what to wear that wouldn’t make him look too rich or too poor.
    “Kind of ironic,” Hewitt said, shaking his head at the pile of clothes that Chen had left behind on Earth. “You’ve ‘gone native’ so many times that you’ve got no idea how to live at home anymore.”
    “FJ One is my home,” he replied automatically.
    He laughed. “Right. Okay, good thing we’re the same size then. And a good thing that I’m still a bit of a clotheshorse.”
    He’d outfitted the Captain in a pair of polycot khakis, a dark blue polo shirt, and a pair of white Adidas. “You’ll look like a businessman who’s uncomfortable in comfortable clothes. Someone who doesn’t know how to wear anything but a suit, which is close enough to your situation.”
    Mr. Chen took a side exit from HM’s apartment building across from Museum Island. The building had once modestly housed one of the last leaders of Germany, who’d given up the stately home that came with the job to remain here in her comfortable home instead. HM had taken the apartment herself, as much for the symbolism as anything else.
    Now he was just another Berliner on a stroll on a balmy summer evening. Unter den Linden was a piece of the old world that could let you believe, for a little while, that nothing had changed. Thousands of linden trees had once lined this old world boulevard, and even now, there were still hundreds, an island of greenery in a drought stricken city.
    Year after year, Berliners voted to sacrifice a part of their water allotment to keep the trees alive. For centuries they’d thrived, until Adolf Hitler had uprooted all the trees and replaced them with Nazi flags. But the city’s attachment to them was so strong that even he had caved in the face of massive outrage and had to replant the trees. If Hitler couldn’t kill the trees, Berlin had decided, then even the end of the world didn’t stand a chance against them.
    Only a small strip of it now had any nightlife. A few cafés and used bookstores, a couple bars and restaurants, all stayed open as long as the solar power collected on their rooftops would last. Since this was the end of June, and the sun set as late as it would all year, it was the most festive time on the calendar.
    There were no private cars anymore, so save for a bus lane, the wide lanes of the street had been taken over by artists, jugglers, and musicians. Mr. Chen got an ersatzcaffee from a vendor whose stall had a long line – a good sign that it would taste something like the real thing, which was too expensive for most people now that it that no longer grew on Earth.
    He took a seat near an animated group of young people, obviously students from Humboldt-Universität, and eavesdropped on their conversation.
    “I think it’s wonderful,” one girl exclaimed, her face bright and clear. “If they can clean up Hanbit, and Chernobyl, and Fukushima, well, just think what else they have for us. Cures for all the cancers! Lazarex for everyone, not just the rich!”
    A young man snorted, his dark curly hair and five days’ beard marking him as a Humanities student. “Oh yes, they want us healthy, so that we’re tasty when they eat us for dinner.”
    A clean cut Business-student type laughed, siding with the girl, clearly trying to gain her favor. “I think it’s wonderful, too. Imagine a future where we don’t have to fight for a slot on a colony ship. Where we can have new lives, right here.”
    “Right!” the girl agreed. “I don’t want to end up on some distant planet with those FJ people telling me what to do every second of the day.”
    “Yeah!” her would-be suitor said. “Don’t