One in Ten Ch. 11

Everyone 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 back.

With 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 investigators.

By 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 custody.

Within 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 UN 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 UN 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 WHO and the EMM with preliminary information on Carabolix 37. By this point, various international organizations condemning her mother for playing Genetics Goddess by altering Gender Plague and turning it into an 'anti-viral' were the least of anyone's problems. Worse/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 to smithereens.

To 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 obey.

Those 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 reservists.

Now, 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 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 AND POWER}

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/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 cells.

The decade following the end of the Plague, many nations experienced an economic bloom 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/Goddess 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 A 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 Bethany cried.

"I 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 like."

Maria 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 -- the man.

"Let's 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 EMP (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.