30th of December
Prague Castle
"Venomous snakes! Just like their one in Garden of Eden. Is this how their appreciate everything we've done for them? To approach a foreign leader, to attempt to breach the unity of our people, that is bordering on high treason. Comrade President I suggest our response to be swift and decisive. The People's Militias must end their demonstrations and we surely have a list of the most reactionary priests we could arrest?" Shouted František Weisser still under clear influence of alcohol from celebrating the election of Albína Reiserová two years ago. Heads of many of the other Government officials were clearly hurting from the shouting as they were dealing with a hangover.
"We do keep a track.... but Comrades, our intel is limited since the founding for the secret police was lowered." responded Bohumila Dvořáková, looking paler than usual.
Weisser, a longtime member of the League of Militant Godless wanted to continue, raising his hand, but a simple short sigh by the President stopped him before his mouth let out any more words and he again lowered his hand. "You know I don't like to do these things František." she said after finishing to massage her temples. She set in front of a portrait of herself, she had installed in the meeting room, as she herself started to believe that her portrait had beneficial effects on human health. After she said her sentence she looked to her right to see Karel Šin, one of the few completely sober members of the government staring into his phone, before she took it from him and placed it on the table before him.
"Comrade President is correct, too strong of a response could tarnish our image on the international scale. We don't even yet know how Inquista will respond." Jasmína Dlouhá quickly came in support of the President's words.
"I see all the arguments are on your side," conceded Weisser with a wide smile, not daring to openly disagree, "I can now see why a more moderate approach would be of most benefit."
"Good, and let the League of Militant Godless know that I wish for them to calm down and moderate too. And besides, you know, Christmas is a nice holiday, we could make that a national holiday." Reiserová smiled at Zuzana Saková who smiled back at her. "Who's in favour of proposing making Christmas a national holiday to the National Assembly? The decision was adopted unanimously." she smiled very slightly.
"Comrade President, what about the trust of foreign investors? We can't afford to let the new mall in Kroměříž without a parking lot and we can't afford to let the protests go for a very long time." Lubomír Mejzlík voiced his concern and for a while there was silence while the President was looking at him.
"You are right Lubomír.... well, you know, can't we move the church, like we have done in Most in the 70s? To demonstrate our dedication to cultural heritage and the, you know, strength of scientific socialism?" she asked.
"We could, but it will be horribly expensive." confirmed Heřman Švestka
"Perhaps the Catholic Church could be told to raise money for moving of the church and we could get people to lay down the rails on a subbotnik?" asked Saková and she was rewarded by an approval from Reiserová, before the President's phone started ringing, she answered and talked a while with her kids before leaving the room for half an hour, returning with red, watery eyes from crying. She wanted to spend today preparing for the New Year celebrations with them, but instead she was forced to sit here and talk about religious affairs. Saková soon rushed to her to give her a hug and after Reiserová sat back down Šin tokk her hand for a moment.
"Share our position with the Archdiocese of Prague and demand from them cancellation of their demonstration as a requirement." she told him, still sobbing. "Any other business?" she then asked the members of her government.
"Yes comrade President." confirmed Viktor Hladík, whose alcohol tolerance allowed him to still take a shot of vodka after the confirmation.
"How important is it?" Reiserová asked, hoping she could leave the presiding over the meeting to Švestka.
"Most important." Minister Hladík soon shattered her plan to leave. "Comrades, we have all heard the blood thirsty wolves in the Council going mad, barking about war, threatening sovereign nations with war breaking down if we do not submit to their will. Now we have great advantage of knowing how cowardly those wolves truly are, but that still shouldn't make us overtly confident... I believe that we need to increase the defensive capabilities of our armed forces in these most difficult times.... comrade President, comrades, I propose to form a biological division of our army and initiate development of biological weapons, in particular botulism, which outbreak we tragically experienced recently."
The room fell completely quiet and so Hladík continued, "We must understand, that our enemy could have nuclear weapons and know too well that if we deployed ours, we would doom ourselves, thus he would know that they are unusable in practice due to their destructiveness. On the other hand they must realize our willingness to use much less destructive biological warfare. And what could their response be? They cannot use their nuclear weapons as a response, for we would seal their doom with our own nuclear weapons." Hladík was still convinced that abolishing ranks in the armed forces drastically reduced their defensive capabilities, but he could not convice Reiserová of it, and thus was willing to increase them through other ways.
"That is horrible, what about the civilians?" Reiserová voiced her concern, "and isn't it, you know, illegal?"
"Comrade President, I assure you that the threat of us using biological weapons would deter any potential invader, we learned of their cowardice recently. They would serve only as a deterrent, this way we are saving civilian lives from war altogether. And war is what should be illegal, when a war erupts all civilized ways have been lost, that must be avoided.... still we would have to take proper care that our program does not get revealed, as it technically is illegal,... others must be only allowed to suspect and be afraid." another long silence.
After about two minutes of complete silence Reiserová finally swallowed heavily, "Better call Silas. He has an understanding of these issues and, you know, he can tell me the Inquistan position."