Wilkes followed Nate along a dank and narrow alleyway, just wide enough to fit a few trucks through. Choppers circled overhead and heavy-duty engines roared in the busy street behind him. These noises were gradually muffled as they passed into the great open space of the business park, and gave way to women's faint sobbing and wailing and the angry orders of their new male overlords.

The North side of the parking lot was filled with parked trucks bearing both Arrowhead and Bluenorth sigils on the sides, and in the space between them a hundred or so women were being stripped down, hobbled at the wrists with zip-ties and shoved into the backs of the trucks. Wilkes watched as two women, about nineteen or twenty and likely receptionists or administrators, were dragged out of the office block stairwell by their scalps, wailing and sobbing as an Arrowhead man threw them up against a wall and tore their pencil-skirts away with one yank from a pair of heavy hands. The girls screamed and tried to cover themselves with their zip-tied hands before another Arrowhead shoved a shock-stick into their sides, one after the other. They collapsed in a heap of pain.

Rathers appeared in front of Wilkes holding a HandTab with a list of names next to female faces.

'These are the ones we deem to have been at management level,' he explained with determination in his eyes, 'and of them, I have selected what you have allowed us.'

Wilkes took the Tab and scanned through the list, knowing before he did so that their names and faces would mean nothing to him. He handed it back to Rathers.

'Fine,' he waved his hand casually, 'hold your trials for them.'

'Oh, no.' An enthusiastic Arrowhead with an unregistered assault rifle piped up. 'These bitches aren't getting a trial. We've got something special planned for-'

He shut up quickly after Rathers clipped him around the back of the head. Wilkes raised his eyebrows and then moved on through the parking lot. Most of the women deemed fit for use in the Compounds had now been loaded into trucks, with a smattering shoved into the Arrowhead vehicles. A dark patchwork of terrified female faces disappeared behind a roll-down truck door as Wilkes passed by.

'Well?' Nate asked eagerly, hovering at Wilkes' side. 'What do you think?'

'Good enough,' Wilkes said passively, and Nate breathed a sigh of relief, 'this should have been wrapped up by now. First City to go, always going to have some issues. I want it cleaner and quicker next time. Now,' He took off his glasses and breathed mist onto the lenses, polishing them with his shirt, 'I think I'm due for the President's big day. Get the rest of these over to Wickway.'

Nate nodded and set about helping load the trucks. Wilkes walked out of the parking lot and onto Texas Avenue.

A smattering of men were gathered at the pickets lining the road. Some were alone, others with friends, brothers or sons. Most of them seemed oddly quiet and still, muted by the knowledge of what was going on and the fear of retaliating against it. For every worried look he caught, Wilkes saw one man who seemed genuinely pleased to be where he was, and presumably what he was.

Secret Service agents had begin to cordon off parts of the street. Wilkes stopped at a cafe and sat down on a vacant seat outside, ordered a cappuccino and opened a newspaper.

The Houston Herald ran a cover article about the President's visit. Inside was an editorial regarding the Female Control Law and a series of full-page photographs of women being arrested on the street, hit with shock-sticks and thrown into trucks. A separate piece covered what they knew of the Compounds - not that much, it seemed. Wilkes noticed with a smile that every writer for the Herald was now a man.

HOUSTON HERALD STANDS WITH PRESIDENT HOBART

The time has now come to accept the painfully obvious truth; feminism has been an absolute disaster for our country. While we may argue about what the future of women should be, we must now agree that it cannot be a future in which women remain a part of civilised society.

This writer was lucky enough to visit one of the new Compounds which the government has all but confirmed are the eventual destination of all American women. All the hysteria over living conditions and treatment is nothing but a silly distraction from the monumental effort required to carry out this great plan, belonging in part to President Hobart and, if rumour is to be believed, the security and private military contractor, Bluenorth.

I realise at this time, passions are high. Men across the country feel as if they are having something stolen from them; wives, daughters, even mothers. The riots in San Francisco have highlighted this problem, even without the enormous backlash that followed (reports now suggest this was the work of the infamous Arrowheads). It is important to remember that those areas in which rioting has been most prevalent (California, New York and Washington) are among those areas in which the Compound System has yet to be enacted. Have the likes of Philadelphia or Newark seen any such riots? No, and yet these are the regions in which the Compounds have been operating for months. Read into that what you will.

At the risk of going against the popular flow, I believe President Hobart's decision to ban any females from leaving or entering the U.S is absolutely necessary. Our goal is not to eliminate the female function completely, it is to ensure it is controlled and dealt with in a more organised manner than it has been for the last hundred years. Men in San Francisco might feel cheated, and I understand their misgivings; my wife has now been committed to a Compound under the Exclusivity Law. The consequence to my life? We have a stronger relationship, both personal and sexual, than ever before, unburdened by the drive women felt to prove themselves equals, despite all evidence to the contrary. Her life is simpler, difficult perhaps but, in the end, more fitting.

Reports tell us that the women of California are next for the cages. They should wait their turn patiently, comply with the Female Control Officers whichever denomination they be from, and not demean themselves with silly and pointless attempts to escape or hide.

The end of women is, in this writer's opinion, the start of something fascinating.

Wilkes rolled up the paper and took a sip of his coffee. It was good, he thought, almost as good as the article had been. How recently had it been that, much like his coffee, he would have had to buy out a journalist to get that into print? Now it was happening automatically.

Timing was everything now. Houston was the first in a thousand stops on the way to Compound Capacity. The housewives of Houston had three months at best, and by then there would be no way to stop the avalanche. Bluenorth's mission was not really a mission at all, it was simply a force of nature about to be unleashed.

An eruption of cheers at the cross-roads caught Wilkes' attention. He squinted through the sunlight to the street-corner and saw a black bonnet sweeping forward onto Texas Avenue. He got to his feet and started to clap with the rest of the crowd.

Just as the car came fully into view something else appeared, just in the corner of Wilkes eye. It was another flash, silvery in colour and high above him, away where the Stadium met lines of office buildings.

'Right on time,' he bobbed his head, 'not bad.'

As the gunshot rang out, he downed the last of his coffee and paid the check.