The end of the cruel Peace & the start of the desperate War.
Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.
A frightened Mother Mouse will devour her young; similarly, a frightened culture will devour its future.
It
wasn't like a magic force field bubble protected us until our 16th
birthday. I couldn't recall all the times after I was 13 some woman
asked me, or my Mother, when my 16th birthday would be. Back then, I
didn't think much about it. In hindsight, those women were wondering
when I would become legally sexually vulnerable. In way too many cases,
women with access to teenage boys didn't wait.
Even if they did,
"It was my Aunt," Barabbas confessed. "She and her boss."
You
would think a sixteen, or seventeen, year old guy getting to sleep with
a Milf would be a trip. It could be. For the boys with better developed
empathy, you started to realize a woman you trusted was using your
sexuality for their own advancement. Then you began feeling like a
whore.
"She got me a job, but I quit after four months, you know,” he trailed off.
"Yeah," I sighed sympathetically.
"Yeah," Lowry snorted, "when the rest decided you should be putting out for free."
"That was completely unnecessary," I glared at him.
"But true," he defied me.
"True," Barabbas agreed with a familiar degree of rejection.
"Mom
flipped out when she figured out what Tamara; my sister; was doing,"
Pierre picked up his tale. "I was seventeen by that time. She helped pay
for my college." We assumed the 'she' was his sister; the one who
pimped him out.
"I hit one once," Lowry bragged. I found that somewhat difficult to believe.
"What happened?" Pierre asked.
"She
kicked my ass," he chuckled. "Ex-military Reservist. Beat me like I had
a cock." I read somewhere in the old days it was more common to say
'like a little bitch.’ Now it was 'like I had a cock' because they
didn't like teaching men to be 'too violent' aka how to defend
ourselves.
No one else felt like inquiring, so Barabbas did the deed.
"Go to the cops?"
"For
what?" he shook his head. "I threw the first punch, and the second.
Fucking Bitch. We both looked pretty rough, but I lost."
Another pause.
"What was it like to hit one with your stick?" Lowry shot me a look.
"Good,
damn good, and stupid. I mean, I could have ended up like you with a
crowd of women on a subway kicking and stomping on me and I would have
ended up in jail too," I related. "Still, it felt good, just to tell one
to keep her hands to herself, ya know?" I got nods all around. We were
all young, healthy and relatively handsome.
"Yeah, you could have gotten your ass kicked," Barabbas reminded me.
"In
fact, one of the major reasons I didn't, gave me the pistol I'm
carrying," I twitched it slightly. "The first time they came for me, I
asked them ~ the Vanishers ~ to wait, and they did."
"Why in the fuck would you do that?" Lowry blurted out, shocked and skeptical.
"At
the time, I didn't trust them since I figured they were nothing more
than another bunch of women telling me what to do. I wanted to use them
to escape. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life serving them if it
meant the same
fucked-up existence I was currently living," I shared the enlightenment.
"What changed your mind?" Pierre's eyes lit up.
"I
figured out their prime motivation, the nature of the conspiracy and
that I had no rational chance to escape them," I answered. "Every angle
I was figuring out, they had figured out years ago. On the plus
side, their core philosophy requires them to engage men as equals for
both biological and social reasons ~ which means they are the best game
in town. In case you missed it, the Vanishers didn't 'vanish' me. I
escaped on my own. They have agreed to join forces with my group; no
lie."
"Your group has a lot of girls," Lowry drolly noted.
"Lowry, exactly how was I going to recruit any male to my cause without dropping the entire Metropolitan G E D (Gender Enforcement Division) on me?"
"Flyers?" Barabbas joked softly.
"He's
got a point," Pierre rallied to my cause. "As far as any of you have
confessed, none of us had any guy, or girl, friends. It is why we were
selected."
"Okay, fine. Now what?" Lowry conceded to the consensus.
"We
wake up tomorrow working toward equality," I huffed. "We are all going
to have to learn to fight and shoot because the entire group is going to
be in danger for some time to come. Society, as in Global Society, is
going to come crashing down. And that means anarchy, lawlessness and
barbarism before it violently spasms off into extinction."
"We
have lived our lives effectively as slaves, though no woman inside that
house will admit it truly in their hearts. For the first time in our
lives, we can change our futures. I'm sure if we surrender to whomever
kills the others, they will enslave us once more and leave us with far
fewer illusions about our status. Or, we can chose to fight and, if
worst comes to worst, die free. I'm not going back to what I was. That
means I will need to learn how to survive; and that means fighting. Not
because I hate women, but because there are several I love and respect
and I don't want to let them down ~ as their equal."
"Tonight, think about what I've told you. Tomorrow morning, I hope you join up with us," I concluded my 'pep talk.’
"And if we don't?" Lowry stared defiantly.
"That
is something you are free to do too," I shrugged. "I'm not going to
tell you what to do. Let's go back inside. It is late."
We'd almost made it back when Lowry put a hand on my shoulder.
"Can I see the gun now?"
"This thing? Like this?" I half-turned, made eye contact then flick my eyes down to the pistol then back to him again.
"Yeah."
"Have you ever handled a loaded firearm before?" I requested.
"Yeah, plenty of times, in my dreams," he mocked me.
"You are a moron," I felt my blood simmering. "This isn't a game, this (the pistol) isn't a toy, and you have not been
paying attention." I put both hands on the pistol, removed the magazine
then removed the chambered bullet. Lastly, ass-first, I handed him the
empty pistol with my left hand while keeping the ammunition in my right.
"Moron, huh?" he chuckled. "Gonna give me the bullets?"
"No,
no, I'm not going to give you the bullets because you don't know what
you are doing. Unlike you, I actually have had a firearm lesson. More to
the point, I won't give you a loaded firearm because I think I've
stressed the lady, or ladies, watching over us right now enough for one
night."
"Huh?" Lowry and Barabbas echoed. Pierre looked around.
"Wes
didn't keep us inside to play '20 Questions' for her own amusement. She
kept us occupied so her other teammate, or teammates, could move to
this side of the house, so they could watch over us while giving you
three the delusion we were alone. They are professionals in camouflage
gear with night-vision goggles, so unless they had to move rapidly
through the underbrush, we weren't likely to detect them."
"I
played along because I felt it was necessary for you three to open up a
little bit. Life is only going to get tougher over the next few months.
None of us want to have a chat with heavily armed women staring over
our shoulders, so I took us outside where it would appear we were
alone," I explained.
"You lied to us," Lowry snipped.
"No.
My words were true. What I did was allow you to deceive yourself as to
our level of security and amount of company. I did what I did for the
good of the group, regardless of gender, Gentlemen. It is how we all
need to start thinking. Something else you might want to think about is:
everyone I love is with me here today. A good number of people who
decided getting in my way was a good thing aren't even alive anymore. I
will gladly embrace any one of you as brothers. If you are an obstacle, I
will
fucking see you gone, one way or another; clear?"
"We are guys," Lowry insisted smugly. Old thinking: women protected men.
"I;
don't; care," I glared back. "You may be a sperm-shooter, but inside me
is the only surefire cure for the Gender Plague. I repeat: people I
love, and there are several, are all alive today because I cared and
took an active hand in their survival. My enemies are mostly dead. Being
a man will save you from the women in there. It won't save you from
me."
"You'd kill us?" Pierre whispered.
"Pierre, my Mother died over a year ago. Where are your Mother and Sister? You don't give a damn about a single fucking
human being and yet you expect me to trust you? Why?" I challenged him.
"I've already proved to multiple people I can reach beyond my shell and
give a fuck.
Until you rejoin the Human Race, I value the rest of those battling
alongside me far more than you, or anyone else regardless of whether
they have a penis, or a vagina. I'm not going to snap your neck, stab,
or shoot you. I'm simply not going to bother trying to save you. The
World is doing a bang-up job of killing the rest of Humanity off,
without my assistance."
"I really ought to punch you," Lowry threatened.
"Give
it your best shot," I took a step toward him. That wasn't what he, or
I, was expecting. I put down my poor judgment and combative demeanor to
exhaustion.
"Don't, guys," Barabbas interceded.
"You are an Asshole," Lowry snarled.
"And
you are consistently ignoring reality," I snapped back. "For instance,
we are not alone out here, plus we are also at the door." I knocked
once. The door swung open to reveal a rather attentive and unhappy Wes
Prince. I handed her the bullet and magazine.
"You
were listening in?" Lowry turned his anger on her. Wes' eyes went from
me, to him, out into the darkness then back to me, though her words were
Of course I was listening in. I wouldn't call him an Asshole. I'd go
for Smart-ass." To me, "Do you enjoy being annoyingly correct?"
"No.
I'd be ecstatic to realize I was completely wrong about everything and
had lapsed into a mad delusion," I related, my own anger seeping away.
"Being right means I have to keep appreciating and respecting you and
your compatriots and taking responsibility for my own clumsy
contributions to our current situation, which I don't want to do. I want
on in and go to bed then," she softened. She made a slight hand
gesture. "My pistol, please, Mr. Pritchard?" she requested of Lowry.
Grudgingly he gave her the firearm. She stepped aside. Lowry went first,
Barabbas second. Pierre gasped slightly because as he went up the steps
he noticed the two Vanishers coming toward us from outside ~ the ones I
had predicted to be watching us.
I
went in after Pierre. Wes followed along. Capri and Kuiko were waiting.
The lights had already been dimmed throughout most of the rest of the
dwelling.
"Who were those other two guys?" Wes stopped me.
"Sergeant
Major Daly was a Marine N C O and improv poet renowned for his
battlefield musings. His most famous philosophical insight into the
fighting spirit of men came in World War One. In his words
"Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" He also won two Medals of Honor, so he must have had some talent."
"Company
Sergeant-Major John Robert Osborn was a Canadian; that was the country
which now makes up the northern third of our current Federation; who
found himself misplaced on the island of Hong Kong in late 1941; him, a
handful of lads from Winnipeg and a shitload more Japanese. He and the
Japanese ended up in a game of grenade tag,”
"Grenade tag?" one of my two 'silent' guardians interrupted.
"Yes ~ grenade tag. Apparently in the olden days,
grenades didn't airburst, or explode on impact. You pulled a pin and
threw it at the enemy, then waited for the fuse to burn out and the
grenade to go 'Boom!.’ Quick, brave, and or stupid people could grab
that grenade and toss it back. In some cases, one grenade might make
two, or three trips before detonating."
"Anyway,
the Japanese were so very rudely throwing grenades into the position he
and his Winnipeg Grenadiers were defending, so he kept returning them.
After eight and a half hours of such fun, he came across one he couldn't
toss back in time. He covered it with his body to shield his comrades
from the blast, dying instantly. The British Empire gave him something
called the Victoria Cross for his actions. He was the first Canadian in
World War Two to receive it."
"Why
do you know such stuff?" she grinned. "Oh, I'm Scar and this is Nat,"
she indicated the third member of the Wes-Scar-Nat Vanisher trio.
"I
considered myself a coward, so I read a lot about brave men. I was kind
of hoping to figure out how I could be brave myself, one day," I
disclosed.
"Mission success," the third one smiled. "Go to bed."
I
gathered up Capri and Kuiko and did as instructed. As I rested my head
on the pillow, lights out and my mind gratefully shutting down.
"Less impressive sex, Bitch," Capri teased.
"No," I groaned.
"They definitely think you've got the 'sexy'," Kuiko enlightened me.
"Can we please just go to sleep?" I begged.
Capri
rolled onto her side, back to me, gave me a bump in the hip with her
ass, then moved away a tiny bit. Kuiko wiggled close, kissed me lightly
on the cheek, and then did the same. Unconsciousness took me before any
other worries could steal my much needed slumber.
The Larger World:
As
I struggled for sleep a second time, events unfolding in three
different places around the Globe (Asia, the City and the Capitol) would
impact my fate.
Asia:
First;
the brutal agony still going on as the Sun disappeared over the horizon
wasn't over when I woke up the next morning. It was largely
misunderstood for some time afterwards, but was referred to as; the
Chinese regular force divisions fought the garrison division of
Shanghai, its 'reserve' division, hastily gathered volunteer female
formations and a hodge-podge of ancillary forces the United Nations
could throw into the fray. The goal for both sides was to seize a mother
and her unborn child. Within them were the only other active resistant
viral factory killing the T2 Gender Plague. By the time I woke up, both
sides were sure the other side had killed them both, pretty much
insuring the extinction of all sentient life in Eurasia.
I
say 'Eurasia' because by dusk of the previous day, the Federation knew
for sure I, the other source of a cure for the T2, was still alive and
kicking, as were my sons. My sons held a nebulous promise for a future
date. I was of immediate importance since my adult body could produce
enough antivirals to protect tens of thousands of people on a relatively
continuous basis, or so it was projected.
With,
or without the mother and child, China was done for. Japan and Korea
were rapidly circling the drain. North of China, the Plague was racing
across Siberian Russia. Central Asia had never really recovered from the
first round of the Gender Plague all those years ago so, now off the
beaten path, would be longer in dying. India had too many outbreaks to
even dream of containment. Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Levant
Republic all had reported cases as well.
Europe:
Beyond
the Urals, the Europeans were grappling with the looming fear of a
global economic collapse along with the Specter of Death though 48 hours
into the crisis, there were no cases to report yet. Civil order was
teetering. Several nations had either closed their borders, or were
considering doing so. Women began hording food, and men.
Africa:
South
of the Mediterranean was more doom, gloom and gathering dark clouds.
There were outbreaks in Cairo, Nairobi, Cape Town and Addis Abba. The
North African Republic closed its border and even shot down a commercial
airliner which refused to return to Egyptian airspace. Their biggest
immediate problem was they didn't produce nearly enough food to feed
themselves. Starvation fears trumped unemployment. The pandemic trumped
both.
Mid Atlantic:
Various
islands like the Azores, Bermuda and Canaries became Quarantine Zones;
Plague free for the time being yet suffering from glaring economic
dependencies.
Southeast Asia, Australia, & Oceana:
Australia
and New Zealand were in total lockdown mode; nothing in and nothing
out. A combination of cool relations with the rest of the United Nations
and the evacuation of much of Oceania after the Plague; Round #1; had
left those two nations surprisingly self-sufficient. Theirs was a
problem of numbers, or their lack thereof.
You
see, forty-seven years ago, the government of Myanmar collapsed as
their armed forces disintegrated and rebel factions tore the country
apart. The anarchy spilled over the borders to eastern India,
Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam over the next eighteen
months. China, Indonesia and India did what they could to stem the tide,
but they had a host of homegrown problems themselves.
That
summer and fall, Southeast Asia experienced seven category 5 typhoons
with winds exceeding 13 miles per hour. Two, back to back, stomped all
over the Philippines. There was never a complete accounting of the lives
lost. The resulting economic crisis broke the Philippine's back.
Indonesia,
struggling with the disruptions in trade, an influx of refugees and
internal strife, had a military coup. More discord. Somehow Malaysia
found itself allying with the civilian government. The Free City of
Singapore was overrun, looted and virtually destroyed by the warring
factions. In the midst of this carnage, the tidal wave of human misery
was building to devastating proportions. In an act of either extreme
callousness, or desperate self-preservation, Australia closed its
borders and sealed them with lethal force exercised by their air and
naval forces; no refugees allowed.
In
a final indignity, thirty-eight years ago, two years after the last
gasp of the first Gender Plague, a major earthquake hit Indonesia
causing serious destruction and the worse tsunami on record. By that
time, only the northern islands of the Philippines had started
rebuilding. Indonesia and Malaysia existed as separate, multiple,
mutually-hostile, competing city-states and they were the 'good news' of
Southeast Asia. All too often, the recovery of the various former
nations threatened to bring China and India into conflict, so such
efforts were shelved.
Move
the clock forward to the present day and there was no political entity
north of Australia remotely strong enough to retard the upcoming Global
landslide into oblivion. Collectively those Asians knew Death was
radiating out of China and they had to do 'something' and all too often,
something meant getting on a boat, or a plane, heading south, to
Australia, or, if you had the capability, to New Zealand.
Unlike
the disorderly mobs of two generations ago, some of those 'refugees'
had the firepower to 'fight' their way to freedom or safety. A U N
taskforce had been in the area suppressing piracy days earlier (it was
now racing toward Shanghai) and every major metropolis had its own
marine paramilitary. They were all island-nation-states after all.
Australia was about to be in the fight for its life. Even then, it was
too late. The first confirmed case of Plague was to be rolled into a
Canberra Emergency Room with 24 hours. Could Tasmania and New Zealand
carry on alone?
South America & Caribbean:
Finally,
in South America it was more tough choices time, but not in the way
most people were thinking. During the Gender Plague Old Brazil hadn't
been the only country to go under though she'd been one of the most
extreme cases. As nations, Columbia, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay,
Peru, Suriname and Uruguay vanished.
Ecuador,
Chile and Bolivia inherited portions of Peru with Chile evolving into
the Andes Republic. Venezuela was able to survive and cobbled together
much of the northern coast of South America into the Caribbean
Federation of States (CFS). In the Central part of the continent,
Bolivia absorbed all of Paraguay and Uruguay plus portions of Peru and
southwestern Brazil as well. It was supposed to return the Brazilian
territory, but never did.
The
Caribbean was largely depopulated by the Plague ~ tourism dwindled to
nothing in the plague-years and supplying essentials to those island
nations was asking too much of too few serviceable merchant vessels. The
surviving majority had been evacuated to the mainland. Those in the
north eventually joined the Federation. The ones in the south joined the
CFS and it was those islands and the CFS itself which was about to
cause the most problems.
Forty
years had not truly settled South America's border issues and though
she didn't possess one of the five economic powerhouses on the planet,
they did consolidated power down to six (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
CFS, Ecuador, Andes Republic) from 13 nations ~ not counting the
now-extinct Caribbean island-states.
Strongest
both economically and militarily was Bolivia. She was also surrounded
by hostile neighbors. Argentina resented her invasion and occupation of
Uruguay during the Plague. Brazil wanted their western territory back.
The Andes Republic, per her claims as the Peruvian successor state,
insisted Bolivia 'return' possessions in the northwest of the country,
which Ecuador also claimed.
Bolivia's
biggest trading partner was India; basically gone now. Argentina's was
the Republic of South Africa; still in the fight. Brazil was
pro-Federation, the Andes Republic was pro-China (useless) and Ecuador
was pro-Japan (nearly useless). Finally, the CFS was pro-Russia with an
'ancient' history of disagreements with the Federation.
Militarily,
none of the nations of South America were up to challenging the
Federation armed forces, even during the current crisis ~ had the
Federation been united. Sadly, one country was being given critical
intelligence about a fragile hope for the survival of the Human Species.
The CFS was getting up to date information about what I was and their
benefactor, Dr. Delilah Fremont, wanted the CFS military to go rescue
me. She was 'doubling down' on my retrieval.
Well,
such an activity would basically be an Act of War. There was no way
around it. If the CFS did manage to kidnap me, a Federation citizen,
from Federation sovereign territory, they still had to keep hold of me
and for that, they needed an ally who was unlikely to knuckle under to
the Federation and the United Nations.
The
best one handy was Bolivia. The CFS would share 'me' with the
Bolivians. Their prayer was their combined might could hold off the
Federation, Ecuadorans, Brazilians as well as whatever Europeans and
Africans the U N could scare up. Response would be swift, but all they
had to do was keep me hidden long enough for the Plague to take hold of
their enemies and then let nature take its course.
In
the cool, clean halls of academia they called it Military-political
Darwinism ~ the political systems capable of making the tough yet
correct political and military decisions would be the ones who survived.
Those who made the proper alliances and who had invested correctly in
their national armies got to write the history books while the failures
would cease to matter within a month; two at the outside.
By
dawn, two score of armed naval vessels had set sail heading north. At
over a dozen air bases, flight crews were working overtime getting their
prizes prepared for upcoming combat. Bolivian pilots didn't have the
highest opinion of the Caribbean counterparts, but such things couldn't
be helped. Both armies went to the highest level of readiness as they
traveled toward the borders of their neighbors.
It
wouldn't have done my struggling psyche any good to know bands of elite
female warriors were being shown stills and videos of me; their target.
English was common among the Caribbean; not so much the Bolivians. That
was okay. They were informed I spoke Spanish.
In
a bizarre circumstances of bizarre circumstances, an Hume In (Human
Intelligence) officer for the Bolivian Army had a) gone to my alma
mater; Bowdoin b) during two of the four years I'd been there and c) had
actually had sex with me (once) while attending 'said' college. To the
Bolivians, putting someone on the ground who I might recognize as a
'friendly' was a definite 'plus' (they were unaware of my psychological
history at the moment). She'd dreamed about being a member of the elite
Condors Guard regiment. This was her big chance to do so and become reacquainted with an old (male) friend in the process.
Places 2 & 3
were
the City and the Capitol and they were intertwined on both a political
and personal level. Personally it involved the Treyvon family; mother
and daughter; who were unwittingly both working to stymie the workings
of the Federation government. The actions of the daughter had
inadvertently set her mother's career into a fatal spin which, in turn,
would impact the lives around her daughter.
The Capitol
After
'mother' Treyvon hung up the phone with her daughter (right before I
went on GNN to confront the Federation President), she initiated her
final actions as a Vanisher conspirator. Unlike the National Security
Advisor, she was one of the original people who had been 'in the room'
when the 'Vanisher' Contingency was worked out and submitted to the
secret
Federation Discrete Committee on the Study of Human Extinction twenty years ago.
At
the time she was assigned to the project, she thought it was a waste of
time. She was a junior Ministry of Security operative between
assignments and was given the task because the Ministry didn't want to
'divert' another analyst to the working groups (4 analysts worked on
other contingency plans which were also created and rejected). By the
time her group submitted their report, the others had convinced her of
the necessity of doing something about the situation and in turn, she'd
convinced them she could recruit the women capable of pulling off the
initiative they were constructing.
Another
member of the project team had come to her after their proposal had
been shelved. (The government had decided to do nothing at all, aka they
were going with The Big Lie.) The two members agreed to work in secret
to implement some version of their proposal and then agreed to invite
select members of the original group, plus a tiny number of others such
as the future National Security Advisor, to participate in the effort.
That
other 'member' was about to provide her last service to the project as
well. There was some slight chance the civilian government could recover
from the President's very public removal and in the Vanisher Plan, they
had to remove the possibility. At this juncture, they needed only three
original conspirator within the Ministry of Justice strode purposefully
into the Attorney General's office which fortunately (for her) was
flooded with activity and then detonated the bomb in her briefcase. The
force of the explosion collapsed the floor above them as well as sending
the wreckage into the floor beneath and the street below. In the
subsequent analysis, the explosives were determined to be
National Security Advisor went to the presently vacant office of the
Vice President, wrote out her own suicide note on that woman's computer,
mailed it to a few impeccable news sources, took a stiff shot of the
Vice President's personal stock of Kentucky bourbon, along with a lethal
dose of muscle relaxants, sat down on an available sofa and went to
would find her dead body within fifteen minutes, but it would be beyond
their ability to resuscitate, leaving the VP incapable of defending
herself from the deceased woman's accusations that she, the Vice
President, had conspired with the Ministers of Defense and Security to
overthrow the legitimate government. According to the confession, the
National Security Advisor had helped, yet been overcome with guilt and
thus taken her own life.
At
the same time, Flora Treyvon, Deputy Director of Operations for the
Ministry of Security, met with three trusted operatives (shortly after
the time I made it to Jethro's dwelling) and gave them their last
assignments. She gave them the entire picture along with each a 'bundle'
which would help in their escape. She related she didn't know where I
was, yet figured her daughter might be on my trail. If they wished to
survive the upcoming pandemic, they might go look her up, after this
shook her hand, then departed. Two didn't have far to go at all. One
went up one floor to Flora's boss's office, killed the woman's
assistant, then the woman (the Director of Operations) in such a smooth,
ruthless, and efficient manner no alarms were set off. Five minutes
later she was out of the building and fifteen minutes after that, she
had assumed an alternate I D and was exiting the Capital, right before
Martial Law was declared.
The
second woman went over to a good patriotic friend (a serving military
officer) in the Ministry of Defense and unloaded a 'dirty little secret'
on her. It was evidence the Vice President and the Minister of Security
were conspiring with the Minister of Defense against the Military
Command Authority ~ resplendent with plenty of proof, including 'their'
plan to kill the Attorney General. The officer rushed to meet her
superiors. The agent then swiftly did her own 'vanishing' act.
The
third agent casually waited fifteen minutes in the Security Ministry's
canteen before using her security clearance to access the Ministry of
Security's Signal's Department. The agent presented the Chief Signals
Officer with Flora Treyvon's coded orders, which normally had to be
verified by the Head of Operations. The C S O had by this time been
informed by the Ministry of Security's own Internal Security staff the
Head of Operations had been murdered at which point Flora's agent
suggested time really was of the essence.
The
C S O commanded her unit to send the coded message out to every embassy
and consulate of the Federation worldwide. When decoded, it informed
the various Foreign Intelligence Chief's that the civilian government
had been overthrown by a military coup and they were to behave
accordingly; aka passive resistance. With the Capital in chaos, they
would be advising the ambassadors and consuls to not help the current
military masters, effectively isolating the Federation government for
the duration of the crisis.
The
Military Command Authority, headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found
out about the conspiracy of the Vice President, National Security
Advisor, and the Ministers of Defense and Security close to the same
time they found out about the explosion at the Ministry of Justice and
the suspected death of the Attorney General. And then the National
Security Advisor turned up dead. Not wanting to end up like the Attorney
General, they ordered the Military Police units to arrest the three
civilian leaders in question, which amounted to a military coup.
The
Joint Chiefs had a slight problem. The Capitol was rife with armed,
civilian law enforcement while they had only two battalions of Military
Police at their disposal. Of greater tactical importance, the largest
armed law enforcement groups were the Ministry of Justice's branches;
now leaderless, the civilian Defense Intelligence Agency (in theory, you
didn't want military officers investigating the military) and the
Ministry of Security 'Special Agents' who usually only went about
unarmed in other people's countries, but were fully authorized to be
armed inside the Federation (they simply had no law enforcement powers
the death of the Attorney General (they were still looking for her body
parts; her phone was registering as 'inactive'), the Ministry of
Justice command devolved to the Vice President as the senior Chief
Executive; aka the woman suspected of killing the Attorney General and
engineering the overthrow of the former President.
The Joint Chiefs had three advantages.
First
off, the former President, at the urging of the National Security
Advisor, had activated the Armed Forces Reserves (retired military
personnel trained for active duty) and National Guard (much like the
Reserves except trained for 'at home' duties), so those generals and
admirals had several thousand new troops at their disposal and most of
those troops specialized in 'rear echelon' administrative duties such as
maintaining law and order as well as several additional companies of
actual Military Police.
Secondly,
while not actual policewomen, the Headquarters for the military's Judge
Advocate General's Office was in the Capitol, so they had access to a
large body of military personnel familiar with the law and law
there was on active duty brigade within 4 hours already on high alert.
The elements which could turn that brigade into a fully-functioning
division were 72 hours out, yet the core of the brigade would do for
now. Also, they could move Special Forces units into the area within 10
hours and another three brigades in 18 hours, and these troops had
armored fighting vehicles plus air support.
Chaos
and discord were everywhere. The military leaders began calling in the
reinforcements, then sent their available MP's out to arrest the Vice
President, Minister of Defense and Minister of Security. They found the
Vice President in FBI custody, they had already arrested her for
conspiring with the former President on charges of Treason (concealing
the outbreak of the new Plague on the West Coast). A polite, if tense,
FBI couldn't simply hand her over to the military. They had no legal
justification for such an action. They; the FBI; were the legitimate law
enforcement agency, not the Ministry of Defense.
'Oh,
you are arresting the Minister of Defense too? Who is in charge over
there? The Generals and Admirals, Under whose authority? You can’t do
that.'
And then all the fine young ladies began putting their hands on their guns. Very messy.
The
Minister of Defense? She'd already fled the Capitol. After the fiasco
where she'd tried to grab me by sending the Rangers in for an
extra-legal kidnapping, she'd been planning an exit strategy of her own.
She had political allies in Old Mexico, so there was where she was
heading. She requisitioned a V I P Army transport (think small luxury
jet) and was winging her way south when both the FBI and Joint Chiefs
figured out she'd bolted.
By
then it was too late. The Regional Military Commander in the Southern
District (Southern Mexico down to the Panama Canal before the
Federation) was an old friend of the Defense Minister. She had nurtured
the RMC's career and now was time for some reciprocity.
Of
greater importance was perhaps that by sunrise the next day, the
Defense Minister was the senior-most member of the civilian government
not in military custody, so the legitimate center of any resistance to
the Joint Chief's takeover of the Federation. The Southern District
wasn't the most powerful military command, but it was too strong to be
quickly knocked out, and it wasn't like the Joint Chiefs didn't have a
host of other issues to deal with, like the Plague and the collapse of
at the Capital as darkness fell, the lead investigators into the
Vanisher Conspiracy case began realizing they had a short list of dead
women, two 'fugitives from Justice' and one live one; Flora Treyvon. Why
were those investigators still working on the case? Men were missing.
By then, over 2200, and that was something important enough not to
ignore, even with the government in turmoil.
The
investigators weren't stupid. Flora was a trained operative and still
at her place of employment. Walking in and trying to interrogate her was
a good way to end up dead, or with a dead end. It took them time to
find someone in the traumatized Ministry of Justice who could be sent to
a Federal Judge to secure the warrant and then some more time to round
up the FBI Hostage Rescue Teams. The HRT were the Special Forces of law
enforcement. They brought three 12-women teams.
Why
hadn't Flora fled? She needed to fixate the investigators on her for as
long as possible. That and she wanted to kill as many as she could in
her final act of defiance against the government she felt had betrayed
her gender and her race. The women coming for her were merely tools, yet
they were the only objects making themselves available to her
long-concealed wrath.
"Deputy
Director of Operations Flora Treyvon," the first of five women coming
through her door spoke in a clear, commanding voice, "you are under
arrest for Conspiracy to Undermine the Gender Inequality Act. Don't
reach for the gun we know you have in your desk. Stand up, nice and
had already done the math. Inside the spacious room were two of the
nine special investigators assigned to unwinding the Vanisher
Conspiracy. Cameras linked to her monitor showed three more were in the
hallway with a four-woman forensic team. Three of the intruders in her
face were HRT as were the two just outside, theoretically beyond her
sight. There were five HRT with the follow-up team, five in front of the
elevators and five on the ground floor. The only Security personnel
close by was Flora's personal assistant, Sarah.
'Oh well.’
"Facta;
est verbis," Flora grinned. In front of her desk were three high-backed
chairs. Carefully, shortly after she's assumed the office of Deputy
Director, she'd personally painstakingly replaced the backing of each
with explosives and chrome-alloy, octahedron-shaped, sharp-edged
objects. 147 little killers in each one. Carnage radiated out from her
in a trio of giant cones. Flora even had the walls between her office
and that of her assistant and the one between her assistant's office and
the adjoining hallway rebuilt to be hollow so both barriers provided no
in the room had been in an overlapping kill zone. They had been torn
into ragged pieces of flesh and streams of blood. Flora picked herself
up from behind her armored desk (to protect herself from the blowback
from the chairs), retrieved her PDW, 'goodie bag' and a pistol. Two
divots in quick succession impacted her exterior windows. She'd secretly
replaced those too. The multi-layered clear metal-crystal and gel
design could stop 14.5 mm projectiles. The HRT snipers were going to
need bigger guns if they wanted to hurt her.
In
the room, everyone was clearly dead. The same went for Sarah's office.
In the hallway, a 'lucky' forensic technician had been saved by the body
of an HRT member and her equipment carrying case. Flora put a bullet in
her head. She heard a few more 'thumps' from her office; one sniper
simply wouldn't give up. Flora pulled out two bundled groups of White
Phosphorous and concussive grenades, saluted out into the darkness
wherever the sniper and her spotter were and then tossed the parcels
into her old office and down toward the elevators. She was never coming
that, Flora began to sprint. The explosion and resulting fire would be
something the building's particular fire retardant systems wouldn't be
able to deal with; all part of her plan. On the far side of the building
was a custodial closet. Inside, it had nothing of significance except
unmonitored space. Flora used a pre-prepared thermite cord to burn a
hole in the exterior wall, then yanked the burned out section inside.
Just
outside her new exit point was a drainage pipe which ran down from the
roof. Flora grabbed hold of it and rapidly climbed to the ground. She
was off the grounds, in a stolen car and miles away before anyone knew
she'd even left the building. Sure, the video surveillance in the
building showed everything which happened, but it would take time to
access this; due to the nature of the blaze and dubious authority of the
then, Flora had performed her own final mission. See, she'd just killed
five of the nine 'Vanisher' investigators leading the charge. She had
to see how many more she could kill before she too made her escape from
the Capitol. She did get the lead investigator and the principle Federal
Prosecutor on the case. After that, there were tanks in the streets. It
was time for her to go.
The
last three investigators had been combing over the affairs of the
now-deceased National Security Advisor and had far too many people
around them for her to have any hope of success. Besides, there were
still three dozen other local law enforcement groups investigating the
vanishing of men. Flora couldn't do anything about those either. She'd
cut off the head of the investigation which was the best she could
accomplish. Now, she might just have to explain some things to her
daughter, over Christmas dinner after all.
The City:
I
had left the City leaderless and in the cusp of a riot. By the time
Flame left, Martial Law had been declared and a definite shift in power
had taken place. By sunset, things had gotten more confusing, not less.
Why? The Capitol was sorting out its issues of the Joint Chiefs being in
charge, not the civilian heads. This meant the Federal apparatus for
the provinces, as well as the City, were uncertain regarding what was
going on, what they were supposed to be doing and whose orders they
should be listening to.
In
the city's power structure, the Mayor was dead with the police
operating on the theory she'd been murdered by Keverich mobsters.
According to the City's Charter, the senior member of the City Council
should have taken over, but that woman was both a political animal and
particularly worried about her personal survival. She deferred all
decisions to the 'former' Mayor's Chief of Staff, Isobel Diaz. For the
time being, city services were functional, if limping along.
On
the higher governmental level, a dichotomy of inheritance took hold.
The City was the population and economic center of the province. The
provincial capital was a small, sleepy burgh a hundred kilometers away.
It had been an historic political center during the Gender Plague sixty
years ago, but when the Federation began rebuilding, the geographic
importance of the City plus political conflict between the province and
the Federation Capitol, meant the City prospered while the provincial
capital withered.
Basically
that meant the provincial government had little power within the City
while every Federal ministry had offices there. The issue among the
federal officials was who were they going to listen to? All morning
long, their chain of command dropped out of communication, either
arrested by the Ministry of Justice, or later ending up in military
the federal structure, a turf war was being waged. Due to the
President's declaration of a State of National Emergency, extreme police
powers had been given to the Ministry of Justice; chief among them
Shelia Montanyard, Chief Civil Affairs Attorney. She, along with the
Chief Criminal Law Attorney and District Bureau Chief of the FBI, should
have had civilian control.
Countering
this was the very real issue of the new plague outbreak and the
activation of the miniscule Emergency Management Ministry. Normally the
EMM was relatively powerless, begging resources from other agencies. By
long-standing Federation Law and U N Regulation, if a pandemic was
declared, the EMM became all-powerful.
This
mandate wasn't a pipedream, even during this calamity. After all, there
really was a global pandemic and the only agency prepared to combat it
was the EMM. That would have ignored the coup and the Big Lie though.
To
add to the urgency, the EMM was getting a host of bad news. First, they
learned about the U N failed effort to rescue the mother and child from
Shanghai. Then, through the military's Medical Corps, they were
learning from intercepts of Chinese internal communications the Chinese
military were afraid they had killed those two in their attempt to seize
them hours earlier, so the only known cure for the T2 Plague was in the
City, and the EMM there wasn't sure who to ask to find him; me.
Secondly,
Dr. Delilah Fremont had provided the W H O and the EMM with preliminary
information on Carabolix 37. By this point, various international
organizations condemning her mother for playing Genetics God by altering
Gender Plague and turning it into an 'anti-viral' were the least of
anyone's problems. Worse or better, she had all but two of my sons and
three of my daughters under her 'protection' in an undisclosed location.
She was more than willing to 'negotiate' and 'help out' in the crisis.
There
was one final, critical issue on the Federal level. Early in the
morning, the Attorney General had tasked a trusted subordinate to round
up my missing offspring and their mothers. That designated official had
them moved to another 'undisclosed' location under the protection of
Ministry of Justice's Federation Marshals Service: Witness Protection
Division under a 72 hours Material Witness Warrant. The Attorney General
undoubtedly knew where she had them hidden away, before she was blown
say her trusted subordinate was suspicious of the military government's
intentions was an understatement and Witness Protection was in the
business of hiding people, it was what they did. The subordinate was
with the kids (it was theorized) along with several agents. It wasn't
like the head of Witness Protection could go on GNN and tell her agents
to turn the mothers and children over and realistically expect them to
agents had no idea if someone was holding a gun to their boss' head
off-screen, or holding their child hostage. Their orders were to keep
the 'protectees' hidden away for 72 hours, so they were going to keep
them safe and hidden for three fucking
days. So they had a few of my children, but they didn't and the Joint
Chiefs had to explain that complexity to the United Nations and make it
look like they weren't secretly hiding them for their own purposes,
Meanwhile,
in the midst of all this, every military reservist was being called up
to their unit. Women in federal service were immune as they were already
in 'federal' service. Unfortunately, the women in provincial and
municipal positions weren't as fortunate, and that put a humongous
strain on police, fire, hospital, administrative and communication
infrastructure which tended to hire a disproportionate number of
less we forget, there were two regular military formations; two Ranger
Battalions and the greater portion of an Airmobile division; who were
not under the authority of the Old Northwest (the military region the
City was situated in) Regional Military Commander in the area. That
woman was, in fact, a Rear Admiral (Federation Navy) and her closest
immediately effective units were the Great Lakes Coast Guard flotilla
and the Great Lakes Naval Induction Center; not ground troops.
Mind
you, within 72 hours she would have two complete Armored Brigades and
enough Air Force, Army, Marine, Coast Guard and Navy support troops to
reconstruct a small country. But they were still forming up and everyone
wanted resources from her, right now. Lucky her, she had an old friend
in her time of need to provide clarification.
The advice? "Fuck
everyone else and their petty needs. Find Israel Jensen before the
whole damn world ends. He's got the cure. Whomever has Jensen, has the
Power."
As you might have divined, her old friend was Isobel Diaz.
In
a final note; shortly after 2 a.m., the Joint Chiefs began getting
their act together and the various federal ministries in order, every
ministry except the Ministry of Security. It seemed that agency was
completely fucked:
anyone with an ounce of authority having long since died, or departed,
and the source of the exodus was traced back to one Flora Treyvon,
Deputy Director of Operations.
While
no one could locate Flora, way too many people recalled seeing her
daughter, on GNN, bringing down the President this morning and
precipitating the entire governmental crisis (in some people's eyes).
Logically, they went looking for Dimples aka Special Agent in Charge
Enola ‘Dimples’ Treyvon. Around sunrise, Enola figured out remaining in
the City was contrary to the basic Rules of Survival.
Besides,
she and her team of FBI hotshots had come to the realization the
government and principles they had sworn to uphold and protect had been
betrayed, died and were never coming back. As I had predicted earlier,
they were now self-employed. Dimples also did the same geographic
calculations as Jethro, except she had no secret way across the
Mississippi, so it was off to the Lake Country for her and her gals. Had
I known she was in trouble, I would have wished her luck.
A Note On Energy & Policy:
After
the Gender Plague burned out forty years ago, the world was in
shambles. It also presented the surviving world leaders with a Golden
opportunity to make some long-sought after changes. Clearly 'Women's
Rights' was one of them. Another was tackling 'Climate Change or Global
Warming' and the primary way of doing that was nursing the energy grid
off its dependence on fossil fuels ~ coal, natural gas and petroleum.
They
grappled with the alternatives; nuclear, biomass, hydro-electric,
geothermal, wind and tidal. Nuclear power retained the problem of what
to do with the waste. Hydro-electric had opponents due to its ecological
effects and its vulnerability to climate effects (aka droughts). Wind
power required reliable winds. Large-scale geothermal required a
difficult to find geological 'hotspot.’
Of
great importance was what the Gender Plague did and did not do. It did
create a true sense of global interdependence. This was a global
pandemic and there was a real sense all civilization was going to
collapse. The majority pitched in and helped out. What it did not do was
alter some of the key fundamentals of how the world worked. Many
multinational corporations, just like individuals, set aside things like
'profit-motives' and stock dividends to combat this menace.
The
lines between government and private research blurred, and not just in
the field of pharmaceuticals. The whole world economy was dying. The
free exchange of scientific and technical ideas flourished. While no
cure for the Plague was discovered, several other important advances
were made. Key ones were made in magnetic-coil technology and energy
decade following the end of the Plague, many nations experienced an
economic ‘boom’ which inspired a massive increase in energy needs. In
response, scientists and politicians in the European States came up with
a rather novel approach which satisfied their environmentalists and
political needs (aka control). A Dutch team had already put an
electromagnetic 'rocket' into orbit. The rest was 'old tech.’ The risk
was considered 'acceptable.’
They
built a 'sky farm' which was essentially a high-Earth, geostationary
orbit array of solar panels several kilometers across with a collection
satellite (really a space station) which used microwave pulses to
transmit the energy to a relay station on Earth. The station stored the
power for the needs of the consumers. It was clean,
environmentally-friendly (it only vaporized water particles above the
ground station, not the Ozone layer) and totally under the government's
control.
The risk? Well, if that pulse hit something besides that relay station, really bad things could happen. Things like vaporizing
the surface- and ground-water dozens of meters beneath the surface over
roughly a kilometer diameter area in a nanosecond bad. Apparently,
in simulators, it was the equivalent of a modest nuke going off minus
the radioactive fallout. Needless to say, they had advanced computer
systems on both the space and ground stations to ensure something like
that never happens. Apparently, that was why God or God made terrorists
and Doomsday cultists as well.
Anyway,
the European experiment worked so the Federation copied it ~ four
times. One of those was southwest of the city. It was so large it alone
supplied 2.3% of the Federation's power needs. It was a supplemental
source of power for the City. The City ran mostly on a lone hydro
facility and a host of smaller Geothermal Heat Pumps, lakeside Wind
turbines and local biomass plants (chemically breaking down our waste
for heat). It was the primary source of energy for the Capitol, and that
made it a target.
Meanwhile, at the spa, down south..
"Thank
you, Warden Sullivan," Maria Keverich stepped over the corpse of the
former head of the Coleman Federation Minimum Security Penitentiary,
"but I've been forced to make alternate plans." Around her sirens were
going off. She didn't care. She had her cadre of prison stalwarts and
guards who had wisely decided to invest their future in one of the
Globe's most criminally-connected individuals.
The
warden and three guards had been coming down to her cell to assassinate
her on someone's orders. Maria had been tipped off and a bloodbath
ensued. At the same time, another party had assaulted the prison from
the outside. That was a situation she had to deal with. Five helicopters
were in evidence ~ all Italian manufacture though she suspected they
belonged to some South American country's military inventory. They were
still a long way from home here in Florida.
Two
helicopters floated over the carnage, taking potshots at any guard
stupid enough to make themselves a target. Two medium-sized
combat-transports had landed in the prison yard, wrecking the flower
garden, such a pity. The final bird was a large transport model capable
of carrying at least forty individuals and was getting ready to land.
Of
immediate interest were the three women coming her way. One was a
definite She-Wolf ~ a soldier, or mercenary of some ability. The second
was a warrior, scarred, silent and vigilant. The third was 'baggage' so
most likely attached to the employer of the She-Wolf.
"Mrs.
Keverich," the young woman stepped forward nervously. "I am Bethany
Fremont. I would like to get you out of here." The young lady made it
sound like an invitation instead of an opening to an obligation.
"I
have 26 people who are coming with me," Maria stepped up. This was not
the time to be shedding loyal 'family' members and reliably
'bought-and-paid-for' guards.
"Okay.
We should hurry," Bethany reached for her arm. Maria's hand latched
down on it faster than a viper, pinching the flesh painfully until
don't like to be touched," Maria established her dominance then, "let's
go." Her group sprinted for the main vehicle. Bethany nursed her hurt
hand until after liftoff.
"So, who do you work for?" she addressed the She-Wolf.
"Dr. Delilah Fremont ~ her mother," she flashed some teeth. "We have worked together for years."
"What does she want from me?"
The She-Wolf deferred to the child.
"We
need you to access your contacts in the Midwest to find one man ~
Israel Jensen. Can you do this for us?" Bethany stated loftily.
Delilah's original plan had been to use Maria to remove Little M and
Isobel Diaz, but things had become fluid, so she was adapting.
"Beyond getting out of here, what is in it for me?" Maria's gaze bore through Bethany.
"You've heard about the new outbreak of the Plague?"
"Yes. Is it is bad as they say?"
"Worse,"
Bethany struggled to remain confident in face of a woman who was
clearly a sociopath. "It is killing men and women equally and the only
known cure is in Israel; Mr. Jensen. He's my boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?"
"Yes.
He's been kidnapped. We need to get him back so my Mother and her team
of researchers can reconstruct the cure which was previously developed
within his endocrine system into something for mass production," Bethany
regurgitated her Mother's lies. She even produced an (old) picture on
her phone for Maria's perusal. It was of her and Israel together back in
college; a young couple apparently in love. "This is what he looks
Keverich did some quick mental calculations based on what she already
knew (she had never lost her eyes and ears outside the penitentiary
walls) along with what the twit in front of her was and wasn't saying.
The Jensen character wasn't the 'Cure'; only a component. Sometime
before she found him she was going to have to figure out what other
components were necessary. Otherwise, her erstwhile allies would kill
her, or she would kill them and have something of only limited value;
go to Memphis," Maria grinned. "I understand my home ground is a bit
unhealthy at the moment. Besides, the Federation is going to shut down
air and rail travel pretty soon and search everything going by road and
river. That means your '
kidnappers' will have to smuggle him out, and I know all the best routes."
"What should we be looking for?" the She-Wolf inquired.
"Yeah," Maria scoffed. "Like I'm telling you? Get me to Memphis and I'll start making those phone calls."
The She-Wolf looked to Bethany. They came to an unspoken agreement, after which Bethany left to the helicopter's cockpit to make a call of her own.
Meanwhile,
in their wake a small E M P (electro-magnetic pulse) device they had
left behind detonated, frying the prison surveillance systems as well as
the controls of the arriving law enforcement aircraft and land
vehicles. In the resulting mayhem, it would be days before anyone was
sure exactly what had happened at the prison and with that, the chilling
realization not all the prisoners had been accounted for.
The Morning Comes..
I
woke up screaming. I hadn't done that since I was eighteen, although
until quite recently I'd frequently woken up in a cold sweat and utterly
terrified; thanks to Bethany Fremont and her 'Sisters.’ This time was
different because married to the familiar terror of my memories of being
a prisoner of the Aurora Slasher was a memory-shard and if I didn't
record it quickly, it might fade away forever.
"Device!" I screeched. "Something to write on!"
The
door swung open. I barely noted the person entering the room as they
did so at a low crouch, so from the bed I could barely make out the top
of their head. Capri was scrambling to my left. Kuiko lurched toward me,
caught herself in that dangerous action and recoiled.
Capri shoved an ancient magazine and pen into my hands. I began writing with shaky hands.
'AMSA C50H73N15O11', went down on the corner of some article about the comeback of wood-particle furniture.
"What is going on?" It was Scar Moore.
"Israel had a nightmare," Kuiko answered for me.
"I
remembered something the Aurora Slasher gave me when she was giving me
the Carabolix 37," I shivered. I was bathed in sweat and now that I was
sitting up, the cool air was stealing away my heat. "I recall intense
pain, especially, down there," which sounded so child-like and lame.
"Frank had a nightmare," Scar murmured into her communication gear then. "Let me see."
She had no better luck than me, or Capri.
"Let's
show this to Brandi," Scar grinned my way. "Rest easy, Frank. You are
doing your part." I noticed it was already passed 6 a.m. Getting anymore
sleep wasn't going to happen. Scar left the room. I began crawling over
Capri.
"Where do you think you are going, Mister?" she teased.
"I need to think," I mumbled. "Run, on the treadmill."
"I'll come with you," Kuiko volunteered.
"It only has room for one," I pointed out.
"I will keep the other girls at bay," she smiled. "So you can think in peace."
"I'd appreciate that," I gave in.
"Have
fun," Capri groaned. She flopped back on her pillow, then took mine and
put it over her head to cancel out the minimal light already in the
room. Kuiko and I dressed, leaving her in silence. I had barely started
the machine on a pre-recorded 5 km run when Brandi, Roni and Paisley
found me. Kuiko tried to intercept them, but she was too small and they
were too determined.
"Israel,
are you sure about this first part?" Brandi pointed at my notation; the
(AMSA). I screwed up my thoughts, trying to grapple with that elusive
think so," I shrugged. "Those memories were pretty thoroughly
suppressed in therapy. I can only imagine, this place reminds me a tiny
bit of
her place as in was old and had an old smell to it. She was a neat-freak."
"Her?" Paisley frowned.
"The Aurora Slasher," Brandi whispered. "He's the one who survived."
"Oh,"
Paisley gave me the normal female look of surprise girls gave me when
the realized I'd gone through something 'bad' without understanding how
bad it really was.
"Okay,"
Brandi screwed her 'thinking cap' on. "Israel, what can you tell us
about this medication. What effects did you feel after she gave it to
you? Was it given orally, or injected? If injected, where did she inject
him a break," Kuiko grew fierce. "It hurts him to remember this." I
nearly fell off the treadmill. Kuiko had come through yet again. She got
it. She knew. I felt so justified in loving her. I also felt I needed
you, Kuiko," I sighed. To Brandi, "It was injected, in my cock shaft
and scrotum; the artery leading in, I believe. I, I think it was,
relief. Not immediate, but definitely something I associated with the
injection, say anything between five and thirty minutes," I struggled
along. Running actually helped going back into the darkness. "The pain
didn't go away, it lessened. Does that help?"
"Describe the pain. How did it lessen?" she kept at it. I could only shrug.
"Well C50H73N15O11 is an Ace inhibitor; it lowers blood pressure by enlarging blood vessels," Roni added to the discussion.
"If it was B S A," Paisley snickered, "we'd know what that is."
Brandi's head turned and regarded her as did Roni's.
"What is B S A?" Kuiko asked.
"Bovine Serum Albumin," Brandi stated in an off-handed manner.
"It is used to stabilize DNA," Roni added.
"Um. if 'S A' is Serum Albumin and 'B' is for Bovine then what is 'A M'?" I wondered out loud.
"It is two letters of the alphabet. It could be anything," Roni shook her head.
"No," Brandi corrected her. "It had to be something which had been researched at St. Jerome's as well."
"They
didn't advertise altering the Gender Plague so they may not have
advertised this concoction either," I showered them with reason.
"You
can lie about the research, but not the researchers," Brandi sent a
devilish smirk my way. "All I need to do is access St. Jerome's records
and find out who has done research there in the past 40 years then
cross-reference that list with 'AM' and see what pops up."
"Aren't
those classified?" Paisley questioned. How adorable. It seemed the full
effect of the hateful world spinning out of control around her last
night hadn't fully impacted on her yet.
"A
little; I'm with the government," Brandi consoled the college student.
"I'll go talk to Jen." Brandi left as did Paisley. After a bit I
realized Roni was staring at me.
"Yes?"
"Oh," she blushed. "I apologize. It has been a while." She meant her and sex.
"I'm doing the best I can," was my best excuse.
"I know."
"You
know if we had left last night we wouldn't be with the Vanishers now,"
Roni prodded. She meant had I abandoned the others over Roni's moral
qualms I wouldn't be in the Vanishers' 'custody' now.
"Correct.
We wouldn't have three extra men for the rest of you to romance, twelve
highly-trained women to protect us, an exit route over the Mississippi
and a plan to get us to the Rocky Mountains undetected. Yeah," I didn't
look her way. "We'd be out there, somewhere, making up our survival
plans as we went along until far better funded, equipped and trained
agencies hunted us down, killed you, Angel and Venus and enslaved me;
Roni. Yeah. I know precisely what's going on."
Lacking an adequate comeback, she left.
"I
love you," Kuiko said out of nowhere. Yet another point for Kuiko. She
was lauding me for my mind and eloquence, not my physique.
"I
love you too, Kuiko," I smiled at her. I had a sudden desire for
nipples. Kuiko read my mind, stood up and came my way. I was still
jogging. We could make this work.
"Crazy-K,
the Vanishers want to give us some basic firearms training," Venus
intruded. She took in the two of us. "That means; everybody."
"Fiddle-sticks,"
Kuiko pouted and snapped her fingers. I ramped down the machine,
stepping off as it wound down. Firearms training, what could go wrong?
Zara..
Firearms
training; each one of us who needed help had an aide. Flame and the
Vanishers Ballard, Ross and Wilson kept watch over the premises while
Jethro and Angel were coopted as trainers. Casper 'explained' to Angel
why she couldn't train me. Of all the people they had to 'bring up to
speed', I was the one they couldn't lose so it made sense they put the
most reliable trainer with me; Zara.
Thankfully,
Angel took Kuiko. Jethro ended up with Lowry; that poor, stupid
Sonofabitch. He must have thought the Old Man would take it easy on him;
being old and a man. Scar, whose name was actually code for Oscar,
doubled up with Aniqua and Lavender. Scar, a k a Oscar was a qualified
Drill Instructor and they deemed Aniqua and Samantha the 'most
trainable' from their preliminary background check.
Back to me, a gun in my hand and a woman wrapping her body around me,
"Now
aim carefully, squeeze the trigger with a steady pull and the bullet
will go right where you want it to go," Zara instructed.
"I
hope it goes out the barrel," I muttered. Zara gave me this look. "I
mean, it would be bad if it stayed in the barrel, right?" I got another
look. "Okay, aim, pull trigger, try to put it on target."
"No,
Israel," Zara explained patiently. "Losers try; winners do." I stopped
joking around and griping. If I couldn't defend myself with some level
of competence, someone would have to put their lives in danger to
protect mine.
"I'll do my best," I sighed.
"I know you will, Israel," Zara gave a wisp of a smile. "You will be surprised how good your best is."
"I'm glad one of us has faith in me," I joked feebly.
"You've
done so much already, Israel," she soothed me with her grace and
kindness, so unlooked for. "You don't need to rush things."
If
there was any consolation, I wasn't the worst. I wasn't even the worst
guy. The worst were Kuiko, who was the lightest weight, and Barabbas,
who had an aversion to loud noises. Our weapons had sound suppressors ~
Jethro's neighbors were some distance away, but we opted to not tempt
fate ~ so I was worried what he'd do when we found ourselves in a real
fire-fight because I clearly recalled guns being very loud.
"Squeeze,
don't jerk, be smooth, take a breath, let it out, squeeze the trigger,
the gun will fire itself, sight picture, sight alignment, you fire
between breaths. Now, I'm going to place a coin on the front sight. You
squeeze the trigger until the hammer falls, did the coin stay on the
front sight?" It didn't.
"Let's
try again, you do this until the gun doesn't move, even with the
lightest, then you load the weapon and do it again, and again, and
did that until we were called in for breakfast. It didn't take a
first-year sociology student to realize the Vanishers were dividing us
up into mentor-student duos and working at keeping us that way. It also
meant at any given instant they knew precisely were most of us were.
"What's next; once I've mastered lesson #1?" I asked Zara.
"Next
you learn to draw and fire," she continued. "Empty weapon holstered,
face a mirror, reach down, draw the weapon, assume your stance, I use a
two-handed hold. Rest your hands in front of your belt, draw the weapon
while at the same time you bring your support hand up to grasp your gun
hand."
"Your gun-hand is glued to
the weapon, it does not move once you have got your grip, finger out of
the trigger until you have a clear target, your support-hand cradles
your gun-hand. The support-hand can move if you are using a revolver.
Use your support-hand to
cock the weapon, with practice you can draw and fire quickly and smoothly."
"I've
been timed at 1.2 seconds to draw and fire six rounds, all were hits on
the target and were close enough together to be covered by a silver
dollar. I don't expect you to be that level for some time. It is
something for you to aim for. I believe in you. You'll get there because
you need to have that skill and proficiency."
"That sounds incredibly fast," I gulped.
"It
won't seem that way when you become that good," she assured me in a way
which really made me think I might, one day in the distant future, make
her prediction a reality.
"What
if I can't shoot somebody? I mean point, aim, shoot and attempt to end
another person's life with malice of forethought," I elaborated.
"It
is not a matter of courage, Israel," Zara spoke softly. "I think you
are brave. Bravery is not a factor. Plenty of cowards kill. You possess
the clear perception the person you are shooting at needs to be killed
so that people you care for will live. When the time comes, your
understanding of that principle will remove all other complications and
morality. Your clarity is what separates you from a murderer."
"Like Flame?"
"Yes, and Mr. MacFarlane," she stated.
"He was fighting for a cause too," I defended his choices long ago.
"He
could not win, Israel. All those deaths were for nothing. Had he killed
100? 500? What would it have changed?" Zara challenged me.
"I
don't blame him for being angry about what was done to him and his
Generation. I simply don't accept his actions could have had any other
action except failure. He had neither the numbers nor organization to
overthrow the Federation. Failing to do that, what purpose did killing
those women have?" she continued. I gave her words serious thought.
"No,"
I mused several rather successful rounds later. "Sometimes you must
resist, regardless of the outcome. Surrendering to tyranny was as much a
mistake forty years ago as it is now. The only difference was how many
boys grew up not knowing the difference."
And Zara smiled.
By FinalStand for Literotica
Post script: Finalstand often leaves novels at a point where the reader can continue imagining the unfinished events.
