One in Ten Ch. 11

"Last time I saw a man use a gun, they murdered him," Barabbas pointed out. He meant Robert White, killed by a SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) sniper at the MAL (Men's Action League) not so long ago.

"These women are not those women," I insisted. I thought it best not to mention the Vanishers set off the bomb which instigated the riot that led to over a thousand deaths. "They are no longer part of their society."

"So ... the 'plague-thing' is real?" Lowry's face darkened in concern.

"I'm convinced. I've seen samples and I know my blood holds the antivirals which counter-act this new Plague. That's peripheral to our current concerns. What matters is 'us' ~ we five guys. Actually, the old guy can take care of himself quite nicely. We four have to get with the program."

"And that would be?" Lowry scowled. The problem I faced was the anti-social nature of every guy who had been selected to be 'vanished'. Had we been happy members of society, we wouldn't have qualified and wouldn't have said 'yes' if asked to leave.

"We need to let go of the bad crap which made us so we gave up on the Old Order," I began. "I was raped -- twice. The second time, Campus Security wouldn't accept my complaint and if I had committed myself I would have lost my scholarship ... so I struggled on alone. That second time, I was betrayed by my girlfriend to her sorority."

Pause.

"When I was fourteen, my sister ... older sister had some friends over for a party," Pierre opened up. "Mom worked nights."

"What did she give you?" Barabbas asked.

"A Blazers hoodie ... later, some new high-tops," Pierre smiled feebly. "I got to go to some NC-17 movies and a few outdoor concerts too."

"Oh," I nodded as did the others. That was the reality for most boys. We grew up with single mothers who had to work, so our care was often shared with other women -- either older family members ~ aunts, or sisters ~ or neighbors who were virtually always women as well. We had to trust these women ... and so did our Moms. And if something happened? Our families still had to live, go to school with and/or work with those women and their female relatives.

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 dick." I read somewhere in the old days it was more common to say 'like a little bitch'. Now it was 'like I had a dick' 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 GED (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, butt-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 to Lowry.

"Yes. 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 to go to bed."

"Come 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 NCO 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.

"Noooo ..." 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 butt, 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 Battle for Shanghai.

Five 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.

{MIDATLANTIC}

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 & OCEANIA}

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 year 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 185 kph. 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.