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The last of the three Meme probes released its reentry bodies above the Earth. Their courses varied little from those that released the first two Plague bearers. Only this time, the payload was not chaos, or oblivion, but death. The sole goal of this Reaper Plague was to murder anyone that had not already contracted a Demon Plague.
As throughout interstellar space, six hundred sixty-five times already, the Meme plan was simple: weaken, stupefy, and kill. If the aliens had their way, the only homo sapiens left would be those prepared for Blending, and thus, ready-made for invaders.
Russia and China made valiant efforts to intercept the biological warheads, but they failed. The Reaper Plague rained down, and Death and Hell followed with it. As before, Australia, South Africa, and sparsely populated areas were spared at first, but eventually it reached everywhere. Spread on the winds, in the water, by touch and carried by the insects and vermin, it was cleverly designed for every animal to carry, for every living creature no matter how small or large to be a vector.
The vaccinated survived. Mostly. Statistically. About eighty-seven percent. But thirteen percent of six billion was still hundreds of millions who died in agony. And unvaccinated Edens might as well have played Russian roulette with three bullets loaded. Their death rate approached one in two.
But the Reaper Plague was by far the most virulent and deadly of the diseases and those without any protection died within twelve hours as it ate them from within.
The world’s medical personnel desperately tried to stay ahead of the infection. Sometimes they succeeded; other times the Reaper stalked the streets. The world convulsed and remade itself again as more than a billion human beings died.
