CSI: American Carnage (Wednesday, March 6, 2019)
CALEXICO, Calif. — Listen carefully, the Professor says, you can hear the cries of the women and the children echoing through the tunnel. Little Timmy, pup reporter, and his small strike force, stop and cock their heads. They hear faint wails and some sobbing coming from a long passageway leading toward Mexicali. Boris, genial triple agent, says, I am so hungry. We should head to surface, map show Jack in Box above us, we can discuss next move there. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, says, This is ground zero for the autocrat’s dictatorial plans. The Professor says, Yes, Sarah, you are right. Countless parents have been wrenched from their children and deported, with much of the dirty business happening right here. Their children were sent off somewhere, perhaps even, god help us, to a medical prison, some tent in the desert. Reports say that many deported parents have returned seeking their little ones. Sarah says, Yes. And the autocrat has arrested them and thrown them back over the border. Boris says, This is worthy of Pooteen! The cruelty. Sarah says, The autocrat cares nothing about cruelty. He cares nothing about the mothers and their pain or the children and their trauma. He doesn’t see it, he doesn’t care about it, he is completely indifferent to it. For each desperate father’s anxiety, broadcast on the state propaganda network, the autocrat cements one follower to his base. These deportations are his glue. He needs to tear these families apart and the more suffering the better; his viewers enjoy it. They feel it is their birthright. They revel in the destructive power of the autocrat. This is why the border is ground zero — the autocrat can display his cruelty as resolve and suffer no personal consequences. It has the added advantage of providing important training for his shock troops in the paramilitary immigration forces. As Sarah speaks, the ground above begins to rumble. Dust and clumps of earth rain down. Sarah says, Oh my god! Those must be the Black Knights deployed for testing here on the southern border. Timmy says, What are the Black Knights? Sarah says, They are massive unmanned tanks, robots, armed with a 30 mm gun and a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun. The cruelty of the autocrat is unfathomable. Boris says, let us go topside and see. The small group heads for a ladder that leads up to the streets of Calexico. The professor pushes away a manhole cover just as a line of enormous tanks rumbles past. Their serial numbers have been blacked out. They have no windows. Timmy says, Let’s go! The group follows the driverless line of tanks crashing its way south, eventually coming to the banks of a river. The tanks spread out, guns pointing over the shallow water, a line of fat black bugs. A lone man is sitting on the banks of the river, watching. Timmy goes up to him and asks, What is going on here? The man is silent for a long time. He finally says, I am from Guatemala. I managed to get in to seek my child. He could be anywhere. We do not know. No one knows. But I will seek him out. Time doesn’t matter. Our love for our child has no price.