Jack of Harts

The Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Metroplex burned during the Second Great Depression Riots. The mayors supported the “peaceful protestors” until the Tarrant County Posse grew large enough to oppose them by recruiting the Marines of Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base and the various police officers resigning from their positions throughout the Metroplex. It was a long and difficult road, and the Metroplex mayors fought the sheriff at every opportunity. The posse eventually marched the mayors in Tarrant County out of their town halls and into the jailhouse after running popular referendums that recalled every single one of them. They had no authority in Dallas, but their cities recovered under county management. Tarrant became a beacon of opportunity in Texas, and soon eclipsed Dallas and Harris in economic power, cultural activity, and even population as the various wars brought in refugees looking for a better life. Tarrant rebuilt itself into one of the vital hearts that powered the Republic of Texas throughout the rest of the century and into the next, and is now the single richest and most powerful county in the entire Republic. All roads lead to Tarrant County.

The Second Great Depression Riots hit Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base for weeks on end. Thousands of protesters, anarchists, gang members, and anarchists besieged the base night after night, setting fires and destroying vehicles outside the defensive cordon. They were angry and filled with passion, but they were little better than useful idiots with no real plans after that first night. Those leading and directing the riots had considered it their finest hour. Months of planning culminated in that night. Like thousands of successful protests before, they would provoke the military into some careless action that would cost lives and be broadcast all over the world in seconds. They would prove how dangerous and unstable the military was with one good video of them murdering a poor innocent protester who would have a name and a beautiful life story within minutes for distribution all over the world. Then all they would have to do is stoke the fires of outrage, and they could win the propaganda war at their leisure. They did not expect Tarrant County’s reinforced posse to localize and target them specifically for capture or elimination. That threw a wrench into the middle of their carefully laid plans.

The Metroplex had been burning on and off for months by the time one of Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base’s Marines saved a family from a particularly vicious gang. The mayor of Dallas ordered his arrest for his “cold-blooded murder” of the “peaceful protesters” in the process, but the base did not cooperate. A large group of protesters arrived to denounce the base that very same day, while the rioters and looters waited until nightfall. But two of the very best AIs who had just come out of the proverbial closet also arrived that day. Dixie and Twilight. Yes. The real Dixie and Twilight of the Texas Tech graduation ceremony battle. Their self-given mission to fight the drug cartels had expanded greatly after that battle. The cartels had tried to kill their students, so they happily put their advanced machine intelligences into the process of weeding the useful-idiot protesters from the ranks of serious rioters and looters. Or the drug dealers. They had plans for the drug dealers.