Discovery Of The Cave Dwellers

In general, those who serve on the Royal Council operated under two rules: 1) Do whatever is necessary to get on the Tribal Council, and 2) Do whatever is necessary to stay on the Tribal Council.

The Moquot Nation is small, consisting of about 2,000 citizens. The citizens have a much different view of the nation than the Tribal Council, which is part of the reason why the citizens referred to the Tribal Council as the Royal Council. The nation had a famed history and a skilled citizenry.

The nation's drawback, as with all governments, is the citizens' reliance on their elected officials to act in the best interest of the nation. Other than the ability to vote for their elected officials, the citizens had almost no other powers. The nation's affairs were conducted entirely by the elected officials and the non-Moquot executives hired by the elected officials.

Once in office, the elected officials avoided The Truth. They lacked either the ability or the desire to analyze and recognize The Truth and they avoided telling the citizens The Truth. At Moquot, The Falsehood became The Truth.

The Moquot Nation's territory was in the New England region of the United States. The federal government permitted the Moquots, as well as other Indian tribes, to own and operate casinos. The Moquots had the only legal casino in the state that surrounded their small territory. When the casino opened fifteen years earlier, the hopes were high that the Moquot Nation would have the resources to become self-sufficient for eternity and all of its citizens would become millionaires if only a sliver of the profits were divided up among them.

Over the past decade and a half, the Moquot citizens began returning to their homeland to work for the Moquot government and business operations. Families were reunited but had to live outside of the nation's land base until the nation could buy back former lands that once belonged to them centuries earlier. This is what the citizens assumed would happen - that land would be bought, that housing would be built for its citizens, that recreational facilities and new businesses would be added and, basically, that the quality of life for Moquot citizens would be a priority.

Years after the casino opened though, the citizens' share of the wealth never increased, land was not bought and substantial housing never materialized so that the citizens continued to live outside the nation's reservation land base.

The nation has to pay its debt first, the citizens were trained to believe. The Royal Council and the government newspaper led the citizens to believe that everything was going great.

One casino expansion after another was built. After every expansion, the casino became less and less profitable even though more money was spent by customers visiting the casino. The overhead became a tremendous weight on the nation's shoulders. Even as the amount of money pumped into the slot machines levelled off, the Royal Council approved of yet another expansion. The Truth in the numbers was ignored.

The nation's debt kept growing. All expansions, it was later learned, were built on borrowed money. The profits became losses, ensuring that the debt would remain. The nation bought a casino in another state and called it the Keystone Casino, owned entirely by the Keystone Korporation which was owned entirely by the Moquot Nation.

The government newspaper, month after month, told its citizens that the Keystone Korporation was a huge success but, in fact, it had never made any money. The losses kept accumulating and money had to now be borrowed to make up for the losses. The Keystone Casino would never be profitable because its purchase and subsequent expansions were done on borrowed money. The interest payments on the money borrowed for Keystone Casino - approaching three quarters of a billion dollars - would guarantee that it would never become profitable.

As long as the citizens believed the Keystone Casino was successful and the Royal Council's judgment was impeccable then the Royal Council would be re-elected. The government newspaper ensured that The Falsehoods became The Truths.

That was why Seven Snakes wanted to stop whoever had printed and distributed the pamphlets found in the village two days earlier. Fortunately, a breakthrough in the case was made. It happened when a newly-hired security guard tripped on a wire at the periphery of the forest. He first followed the wire into the edge of the village where it came from one of the government buildings. The security guard then followed the wire into the forest. He walked slowly along for two hours and came across a cave.

He pushed the brush aside that covered the entrance and saw tables, chairs a copying machine and a coffee maker. The wire sent electricity from the government's buiding in the village to the cave. In one corner of the cave were pamphlets stacked in boxes. "This must be it!" thought the guard and he ran back to the village to report his find to his supervisor.

The entire security staff was told the day before that finding out where the pamphlets came from was a priority. The security guard rushed into his supervisor's office and, almost out of breath, blurted out the news of his discovery. The guard's boss was a tall woman in her mid-forties that had an impeccable record. After the guard told her the news, he was puzzled that she didn't seem to share the same excitement he had. She picked up her can of spray paint, the standard sidearm of the Moquot security staff, and followed him to the cave.

Upon reaching the cave, the supervisor told the guard he could leave. And because he did such a good job, he was entitled to two weeks of paid vacation. The guard immediately left the cave, even happier than before, to rush home. The supervisor, after putting the brush back to cover the cave's opening walked back to her office. Distracted, she left the can of spray paint inside the cave. The Moquot security staff carried around the spray paint cans so they could immediately paint over any graffiti that they came across that portrayed the Royal Council in a bad light.

The security supervisor left a message about the cave discovery with the Minister of Propaganda. Within minutes the head of the Royal Council, Seven Snakes, was in her office demanding to be shown the cave. The security supervisor led Seven Snakes through the forest to a cave that she said was suspicious. Upon entering the cave, Seven Snakes looked around puzzled.

"I thought you said there were pamphlets and a copying machine here."

The security supervisor seemed irritable, "They must have taken everything out. Maybe they saw us here earlier."

Disgusted, Seven Snakes turned on his heels and began walking back to the village. The security supervisor followed closely behind.

"Go on ahead. I'm gonna walk around the woods for a litte while," Seven Snakes told the security supervisor.

Seven Snakes went back to the cave, looked around for paths but could find none. He walked a short distance, sat on a log and looked at the cave's entrance which was barely visible through the trees. "How 'bout dat," he mumbled over and over in delirious fashion for the two entire days he spent staring at the cave from that spot on the log.

The security supervisor, upon reaching the edge of the forest, looked around and after seeing that nobody was in the area, picked up a small rock, put a folded-up piece of paper on the ground and put the rock on top of the note. She then went home to make dinner for her four children.