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Infection Year Ten
Alan “Skull” Denham put his eye to the sight of his venerable Barrett sniper rifle. Mexico City sprawled smoggy as ever; he could just barely see his target area. The fascist United Governments of North America hadn’t done any better than the old Mexican regime had in cleaning the place up. Annexation of Mexico and Canada by the former US had proven to be the proverbial anaconda swallowing the buffalo; the process seemed inevitable, but very, very slow.
Skull was indigestion.
The cold logic of insurgency dictated that he kill as many northerners as possible and spare the locals, sowing distrust between Latinos and gringos. When he did, government cracked down, locals protested and rioted and bombed.
Skull loved it.
This target was special: a Security Service Psycho officer, one of the tiny percentage of infected humanity that the Plague turned evil...or at least narcissistic. Most people considered the two the same.
Like many low-level Psychos in the Unionist-Party-dominated UG, this one led an SS death squad, searching out the UGNA’s enemies, criminal or political, real or imagined.
Crosshairs drifted downward to rest on the norteamericano. Skull inhaled, then let his breath out most of the way and paused naturally. His finger gently squeezed the trigger, surprising him with the sharp report. All well-aimed shots were unanticipated; that was a secret of the sniper, especially for shots like this at over eight hundred meters.
He didn’t have to see the Psycho fall, didn’t have to observe his head explode like a ripe melon. Zen-like, as soon as the bullet left the barrel he had felt the shot was good. Skull was already moving from his position before the first sirens wailed and the SS airmobile reaction team spun into the air.
He slid the weapon into the beat-up guitar case, barely large enough to contain the gun. A sombrero settled onto his head, completing his mariachi costume. With his dark eyes and deeply tanned face wrinkled from a lifetime of outdoor exposure, he became just another local musician heading to a concert. His Apache grandfather had bequeathed him the ability to tan darker than any ordinary white man, and he blended in among the South and Central Americans with ease. Down the stairs, off the roof of the building and into the slums, in two minutes he had disappeared among the bars and cantinas and squalid apartments.
Helicopters pummeled the air overhead, too late. The crowds on the dirty streets hid him, one among many, as he made his way to his dwelling.
In his tiny rented room he searched his own face, dark eyes like pits in the cracked mirror. Over fifty now, he was resigned to the aging as long as he could keep the hate alive. He nursed it like a beloved child; the killing gave his life meaning. Perhaps someday the fear of age and infirmity would tempt him to accept the emasculating Eden Plague virus that had upended his world.
But not today. Today he had filled his cup of death. Today he was whole.
Water on his face, on his hands. In the fading light coming through the cheap curtains it turned to blood, but he ignored the sight by long practice. He reached for a bottle of mescal. “Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa ´dentro,” he murmured, and then drank a slug from the neck. The traditional toast of “up, down, center and in” seemed to make the smoky liquor taste better.
Opening the guitar case, he gently removed his exquisite rifle. Before he stripped it down and cleaned it, he took out a knife and made a thin hash mark at the end of the row on the stock.
His fingertips touched the four hundred and fifty-five tiny indentations, one for each kill with the weapon. The first ninety-six had been the enemies of his country, back when he had a country, back when the United States was something to believe in. He’d killed in Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and countless other places.
The rest of the marks...those were personal. Payback for his old commander Zeke, payback for hacker Vinny, payback for the innocents in the death camps and for the other millions murdered by the chickenshit jackbooted thugs of the Unionist Party and the United Governments, those that had corrupted his flag, stole his Constitution, and murdered all he held sacred.
Who needs sex, he thought, when killing is so much more satisfying.
Closing the knife, he began to lovingly service his weapon.
Infection Day. Daniel Markis looses the Eden Plague in over one thousand cities around the world. US employs nuclear weapons against its own citizens in an effort to control the Plague; President declares martial law. Propaganda claims the infected become mentally ill; Homeland Security begins immediate arrest of Eden Plague “Sickos,” quarantining them in camps.
Infection Years 1-2. Wars and chaos break out across the globe. More than twenty nuclear weapons used in various conflicts. The world economy teeters on the edge of collapse. The North American Unionist Party, formed from extremist groups in the US, explodes in a grass-roots fascist movement driven by fear. The Unionists sweep Congressional and State elections. Internment camps for Plague carriers grow and multiply in the US, Russia and China. Nations with Eden Plague-infected leadership become havens for refugees and declare themselves Free Communities under Chairman Daniel Markis. Russia reconstitutes the Soviet Union, re-annexing the Ukraine, Belarus, and the Central Asian republics. China annexes Mongolia, conquers Taiwan.
Infection Year 3-5. Unionists win the Presidency. The United States becomes a one-party state. The U.S. annexes Canada and Mexico to form the United Governments of North America. The Big Three – the UGNA, the new Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China – declare the Free Communities “Enemies of Mankind” and “Bioterrorists.” Eden Plague concentration camps, slave labor and extermination expand in the Big Three as carriers lose all civil rights and are declared “enemies of the state.” The Big Three continue to use atomic weapons to punish or pressure FC nations into compliance with their anti-Eden policies. Many mid-level powers declare neutrality and independence from either side, but secretly oppose the superpowers and cooperate with the Free Communities.
Infection Years 6-10. The New Cold War settles in as major conflicts burn out. The Neutral States Union forms in Geneva, Switzerland, based on the bones of the old UN and NATO. Neutral States tolerate Plague carriers but their leaders and military remain largely uninfected. The NSU coordinates political, military and economic pressure to oppose Big Three interventions, and extends its nuclear deterrent to cover the Free Communities. Big Three impose extreme border security measures and expand their security apparatus, becoming repressive police states.
