Chapter 186

1531 hours, local time
Friday, 31 October, 2014
The Chancellery Complex
The City of Haven, Province of Oregon
The Commonwealth of Haven

Driving through the capital city of Haven at last was a genuine “wow” moment, without any doubt or question whatsoever. This city had been my intended destination for seemingly forever, or at least it felt that way. There were other places that I was assigned to go after this point, but it was apparently crucial that I arrive here and directly confer with the Lawgiver himself. I felt as if I should be more anxious or nervous than I was, but then I recalled that neither of us was truly human now.

We drove through a city where pedestrians were everywhere, many of them in various states of undress, from topless, to bottomless, to bikinis, to costumes that concealed far more of the face than other body parts, to body paint, to full, brazen nudity in broad daylight. We saw people committing various sex acts in public as well, people ignoring as well as filming, photographing, gawking, and encouraging them. Some people even joined them and nobody objected in the least.

We saw practically no crime, at least on the streets, and the one mugging that was attempted, bystanders completely intervened and restrained the culprit. The bystanders were rougher than the authorities proved to be when they arrived on the scene and arrested the guy. The expression on his face was one of “oh, fuck, I’m screwed now!” He was dragged off to jail amid taunts from the crowd. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but it sounded ominous. Somehow, the fact that the police stripped him naked in front of everyone just increased that sense of an unpleasant future. They kept the clothes, but made a point of removing them. Why?

While pondering that, I noticed how lush and green the city appeared to be, in spite of all of the concrete. There were plenty of brick, stone, and wooden structures as well. I saw gardens, cafés, taverns, malls, hotels, etc. everywhere. I saw grocers, some larger, some smaller, but no chains in the old sense. I saw herbalists right next door to pharmacies. I saw clinics, both for human and for veterinary health. I saw bookstores. I saw a public library or two. I saw a lot of gyms and spas. I saw convenience stores, liquor stores, theaters, auditoriums, etc.

Everywhere we went, it was clear that no one seemed to judge people on their weight, height, shape, state of dress or undress, financial status, social class, etc. Property rights were respected, but people were shockingly generous to others. I didn’t see people who looked all that old, but then this was a very new city and probably skewed young. Zoning laws were evidently well thought and rational. There were no signs of racial segregation, either. Hell, there were public showers and baths, where people of a wide variety of races and ethnicities openly bathed in a communal manner with each other and all restrooms were unisex as well as complete with bidets and whatnot.

I noticed that few houses of religious worship were around except for Havenite ones. Well, I saw roughly two synagogues, one Catholic church that seemed to predate the regime change and had a few dozen parishioners, all of them older on average than the general population, and one mosque that looked older than even its imam. He was much more clothed than most people around him and even he more boldly ogled people than he might have in the recent past. The three hijabi women who entered the mosque were all fairly elderly compared to most of their neighbors as well.

The local schools were busy with students exiting in a hurry, particularly with the double holiday of Halloween and the Lawgiver’s birthday. The college and high school students wore even less than they used to in my day, which wasn’t really that long ago, after all. The junior high ones, well, you could easily tell who was the age of consent by how they dressed. The ones who were tended to wear as sexy of outfits in many cases as possible, intentionally advertising to people around them that they were old enough to fuck.

The girls often threw their panties at total strangers in an effort to get their attention. It seemed to work reasonably well in many cases, with several men and lads laying some pipe soon afterward, very much in public. The ones not even wearing panties tried other tactics. The lads did so as well, one young man even shouting that if any ladies wanted to get knocked up, he had an IQ of 155 and would thus sire intelligent offspring on them. That technique must have intrigued someone, because a woman old enough to be his mother bent over and let him raw dog her for at least five minutes.