Padlockers

Jason O’Neil

Description

In this novel a young couple star in their roles to implement the Civilian Closure Corps (CCC), a unique project to dramatically downsize the federal bureaucracy in an effort to undue a micro-depression caused by the previous Socialist-Democrat administrations. Newly elected President Wicklow challenged the nation to close departments and provide pink slips to more than one-million federal employees appropriately described as disguised unemployment dependent upon national welfare services.
The book details the steps necessary to shutter or dramatically reduce whole departments which either provide no value to the citizenry or provide services best accomplished by the states or private enterprise. In order to absorb many of the fired bureaucrats, long overdue Infrastructure Projects are started. The book highlights the creation of a bullet train between Washington and New York to end a national embarrassment while proving new technologies useful in modernization projects across the nation.
Cole Langford, the “Cornfield Guy,” and Dawn Connelly lead project teams to implement the reductions so the President can keep his campaign promises. Both have automation expertise and high security clearances necessary to reduce the heretofore sacrosanct Intelligence Community. In the process, every other car in the parking lot disappears.
In the end, the couple earns the Presidential Medal of Freedom, gets married and builds upon three years of closure experience to start a new company, Padlockers, Inc. It assists dozens of private companies which close due to the loss of federal contracts. The book ends with the couple enjoying their roles in draining the swamp and reducing the Deep State in Washington while starting a new entity which provides them, and thousands of others, a bright future in a flourishing, free-enterprise economy.

Sujets

• Alternative History
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665572842
• Langue: English

Extrait

PADLOCKERS

Novel Civilian Closure Corps (CCC) reduces Federal Bureaucracy to limit the Slavery of Socialism





JASON O’NEIL








AuthorHouse™
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
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© 2022 Jason O’Neil. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/07/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7283-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7284-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918653




Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.



Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.



CONTENTS
Cast Of Characters

1 Mason City
2 Cape May
3 Annapolis
4 Columbia
5 Bureaucracy
6 Intelligence
7 National Security Agency (NSA)
8 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
9 White House
10 Charlottesville
11 Handbook
12 Aberdeen I
13 Aberdeen II
14 Havre De Grace
15 Hornell
16 Education
17 St. Elizabeth
18 Langley
19 Susquehanna
20 Ribbon Cutting
21 New York City
22 Status Report
23 Medal Of Freedom
24 Newco
25 Savoir



BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Bald Eagle Vision
The Red Box
Turbopod
Turbospace
Sinecure
Cyberclipper
When Baldie Cries
New Age Ark
A Necessary Coup
Micronations
Hypersonica
Mission Embryo
DroneViper
Bald Eagle Vision 2
DragonChip
Cellphonica
Solarmania
Escape from La-La Land
Mirachip
Tough Sale



CAST OF CHARACTERS
Ryan Wicklow
U.S. President
BA: Yale University
Age: 52
Similar to: John F. Kennedy, President
Nancy DeYoung
Vice President
MS: California Polytechnical Institute
Age: 50
Similar to: Amy Adams, Actress
Cole Langford
Project Manager
BA: University of Iowa
Age: 36
Similar to: Young Neil Armstong, Astronaut
Dawn Connelly
Project Manager
BS: Penn State
Age: 34
Similar to: Michaela Schriffrin, Skier
Radford Cook
Director, Civilian Closure Corps (CCC)
BA: University of Maryland
Age: 60
Similar to: Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf
Sherman Owens
Director, NSA
BA: New York University
Age: 56
Similar to: Gen. Colin Powell
Andrew Heath
Director, CIA
MS: Engineering, UCLA
Age: 57
Similar to: Elon Musk, Entrepreneur
Mitchell Lamb
Director, Dept. of Homeland Security
MBA: Northwestern University
Age: 62
Similar to: Peter Falk, Actor
Evelyn Ebbert
Attorney
BA: Georgetown University
Age: 34
Similar to: Helen Hunt, Actress
Peter Cashel
President, Alstrom Company
BS: New York University
Age: 64
Similar to: Harrison Ford, Actor
Emilie Ikeda
Director, Human Resources, CCC
BA: University of Denver
Age: 38
Similar to: Emilie Ikeda, TV Journalist
Taylor Ginsberg
Director, infrastructure Projects
BS: Ohio State University
Age: 63
Similar to: Young Henry Kissinger, Diplomat
Kyle Ridgley
Chief of Staff, White House
BA: Coe College, Iowa
Age: 56
Similar to: Tucker Carlson, TV Journalist
Anthony Goodwin
Leader, CCC Tiger Team
BS: University of Texas
Age: 50
Similar to: Russell Crowe, Actor



1
MASON CITY
“Cole, dinner’s ready!” alerted the youngest of the four Langford sons to stop shooting free throws at the family’s basketball backstop on the side of the barn.
Ten minutes later the Cole family said a small prayer of thanks at the dinner table. Father Harry and Mother Annie anchored each end of the table with two of the four sons on each side. As the dishes were passed around, the family shared the excitement of their oldest son going off to the University of Iowa in the capital city, Des Moines, about ninety miles south of Mason City.
“Just think, Cole, you’ll trade the black and red high school Riverhawks for the black and yellow Hawkeyes,” said his mother.
“Yes, mom. And with any luck, I’ll earn my scholarship by excelling on the baseball diamond. After all, it could be my Field of Dreams. I’ve got my lucky coin, the Morgan Silver Dollar Grandpa gave me, and, of course, I’ll request my lucky number 26 on my uniform.”
“Cole, you’ll do well in athletics. Have you thought about your major? Six months ago, you mentioned agricultural automation as a possible major.”
“Yes, Dad. I think I want to do that with a minor in business. Who knows? Maybe I can start a software company that is useful in agribusiness. And since we’re landlocked here, I thought I would join the Navy R.O.T.C. program so I could get wet during the summers.”
Everyone chuckled at the comment and thought.

The 6-foot, 210 pound lefthanded pitcher had a superlative career as a starter to help the Hawkeyes win the conference championship three out of four-years he attended the university. During his junior year, he was one of twelve students to spend a semester in Washington, D.C. to “learn how the Federal Government really works.” While there, he served as an aide in Senator Nancy DeYoung’s office. He quickly distinguished himself by writing speeches for the senior senator from Iowa. He was one of two aides selected to undergo a polygraph examination to gain a Top Secret security clearance. It proved to be a life-altering event because his knowledge of the Intelligence Community (IC) was often useful for the senator’s support or denial of budget requests.
The “Cornfield Guy” graduated with honors, and with two fellow classmates started a software company in Cedar Rapids, about 40-miles north of the capital. In only 6-months, Cole had perfected an application using satellite imagery to detect/predict crop failures well in advance of conventional techniques. He presented his application to the senator when she was back home. She was impressed and kept the young entrepreneur in mind for greater responsibilities back in D.C.



2
CAPE MAY
Cape May is a century-old resort town in southern New Jersey where the Delaware River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The city is famous for its beaches and restored Victorian homes. It also has the regional high school famous for its state championships in multiple sports. The lead cheerleader, an Irish-Catholic beauty named Dawn Connelly, has the energy of three of her peers and the math mind of a genius.
One year she captained the woman’s field hockey team to a state championship. Her fellow teammates proudly hoisted #26 up on their shoulders in a celebration which made the front page of the local newspaper.
This young “Tigress” won a full scholarship to the University of Maryland in Cyberscience. During the summer of her junior year, she served as an intern at the Cybersecurity Command at the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, twenty-miles north of the campus in North Annapolis, Maryland.
She graduated with honors and quickly landed an analyst position with the consulting firm, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, just outside the gate at NSA. Her Top Secret/Special Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance gave her access to most of the capabilities of the Fort and its NSAnet. She was quickly promoted to a deputy project manager overseeing the development of advanced applications used routinely throughout the Intelligence Community (IC). In just over a year, this “beauty with brains” was teaching cybersecurity applications and techniques all around Washington’s beltway.



3
ANNAPOLIS
In July 2026, both Cole and Dawn were drawn to the Chesapeake Bay: Cole, the “Cornfield Guy” and Dawn, the woman who grew up surrounded by water. They joined the sailing club and took lessons as members of the Wednesday Night School. Routinely a dozen 16-foot sailboats would slowly make their way to the bay for instruction and an occasional friendly competition.
Like the Delaware River, the Chesapeake Bay can quickly turn nasty during August storms. On this evening, an airhorn sounded an alert for the sailors to return to the city harbor ahead of a summer storm. Both Cole and Dawn were the final boats headed back to shore when a monsoon-like microburst capsized their boats. Unable to immediately turn their boats upright, Dawn, a strong swimmer, pulled her craft about thirty-feet to tie-up with Cole’s capsized craft. The two students bobbed up and down in the four-foot swells for about 10-minutes as the storm passed over headed down the Bay. Dawn took the lead and helped right Cole’s “AN2794” craft. Then Cole steadied Dawn’s boat as she used her body weight while standing on the keel to upright the craft. The instructor soon arrived to ask their condition. Both smiled, and with their boats next to each other, did a “High 5” salute of victory over Neptune.
Twenty-minutes later, the new friends helped each other store their sailboats in the marina rack. Cole, in an uncommon act of boldness, asked Dawn, whose wet T-shirt highlighted her figure, if he could thank her with an adult beverage at the pub across the street.
“Well, that would be neat, but I only have an hour before my hungry Golden Retriever will start barking