Operation SERF
Part 12
Chris Sullins (March XV,
2009)
Josiah, Daniel,
Kevin, Jeremiah, and the two Frenchmen crouched on the overpass and looked
through the gaps in the cement guardrail.
From the south a convoy of military vehicles approached with an armored
vehicle in the lead. The olive drab
colored vehicles appeared almost black against the background of white
snow. Phillipe
began whispering in French to Jacques who held a camera up to one eye.
Heavy forest
bordered both sides of the highway for almost 700 yards south. The tree trunks and leafless branches varied
from dark brown to gray. A deep gulley was 150 yards south from the overpass
and went under all four lanes of the highway.
The lead vehicle had just crossed the bridge over the gulley when the
first rocket was launched by one of John’s men who had waited behind a concrete
column below the Shroud men. There was a
thunderous explosion, yet the vehicle seemed to remain intact as it continued
to roll forward but more slowly.
Another rocket
was quickly launched further to the left of the group by another man who was
also hidden behind a concrete column below the overpass. The rocket zipped past the first vehicle as
it veered to one side of the road and through the residual plume of smoke from
the first explosion before hitting the second armored vehicle in the
convoy. The second vehicle was midway
across the bridge and came to an immediate stop when it was hit. As another cloud of smoke rose into the air,
fire blew out of the back of the second vehicle.
A humvee, 5-ton truck, and a fuel truck further back from the
bridge came to a complete stop. The
remainder of the convoy behind them consisted of two more armored vehicles and
a single humvee at the rear. Belt-fed machine gun fire erupted from two
points along the east tree line against the unarmored 5-ton truck sending two
men rolling off the canvas covered cargo area in the back and onto the
snow-covered road. The first humvee moved forward again and began to make a U-turn across
the median south of the bridge when it was hit broadside by a different kind of
rocket which left a more significant stream of propellant smoke behind it
compared to the first two rockets.
“RPG” said Phillipe in a louder voice as the humvee
came to a stop and a screaming man on fire ran out from the side facing away
from the group on the overpass. A short
burst of automatic fire from below the Shrouds dropped the burning man into the
snow.
At the same time
as the lead humvee was driving across the median, the
two more distant armored vehicles at the back of the convoy each gave a flash
of light and a ball of fire and smoke rose from them before the sounds of two sharp
snaps and immediate explosions reached the group on the overpass. The last humvee in
the convoy went in reverse and cut across the median as a smoke trail from an
RPG launched from the same east tree-line went past it, missed, and exploded in
the tree-line on the west side of the highway.
The humvee curved broadside across the other
lane before stopping to shift gears, going forward and heading south away from
the kill zone.
“That one’s
getting away!” exclaimed Kevin.
“Wait for it,”
shouted a voice from below.
The humvee went only a hundred yards before it, too, was hit
broadside by another RPG from a position further away from the last rocket
launch. No one came out.
“I’m going down
there,” announced Kevin loudly as he stood up.
“Stay down you
fat stupid f-ck,” came the voice again from a man wearing white camo who had turned and looked up as he was advancing
forward on foot below the Shrouds.
“Eyes forward,”
yelled a different voice below from the other man who stayed back. A voice on a radio carried by the man staying
under the overpass stated “No movement in the 5-ton. We still have one alive in the fuel truck.”
“Hold fire. Rick is moving south on foot toward the lead
vehicle,” said the man under the overpass.
The voice on the radio replied “Holding fire. Driver in the fuel truck isn’t moving the
truck or getting out. John wants the
fuel truck secured. We’re sending two
out.”
“Rick,” yelled
the man at his partner, “we’re sending two out to take the fuel truck.”
“Got it,” yelled
the man as he raised his assault rifle and looked through the compact scope on
top of the weapon. “I see them.”
Josiah looked
through his binoculars as two men in white camo broke
from the east tree line and went toward the front of the fuel truck. One man stayed off angle from the front right
corner of the truck with his weapon raised as the other man circled wide around
the front and moved slowly toward the driver’s side. Josiah saw the man inside the truck raise his
hands. The man who had circled around
went to the driver side door, let his rifle drop to his side, removed a handgun
from a holster with one hand and opened the door with the other.
The driver kept
his hands raised as he looked at the man who opened the door. The driver used one hand and slowly removed
his seat belt before stepping down out of the vehicle. Although the driver was wearing the gray
pants typical of the uniforms of the new agents and an olive drab military
style parka, Josiah could not see any weapons on the driver. The driver put both hands on his head and
walked toward the median with the armed man following close behind. The armed man stopped and leveled his pistol at
the back of the driver’s head as that man kept walking forward.
“Wait!” yelled
Josiah as he lowered the binoculars and stood up. The man in the parka dropped into the snow
before the sound of a firecracker-like pop reached the group on the
overpass. “G-d d-mn it!”
* * *
The live video
feed to the conference room ended abruptly when the first humvee
was hit just south of the overpass as it attempted to turn and get away. The last audible sentences from the men inside
the vehicle was one ordering “Turn around!” followed by “Go! Go! Go!” as
another man screamed “Oh, sh-t!” The Committee members sat looking at the blank
blue picture on the wide screen TV which stood on a cart off to one side of the
room. The black text of “No Signal”
began to flash in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The frail man pushed the power button on the
remote and the TV went off as the group sat in silent shock.
“I’m not getting
any communication whatsoever,” said the frail man as he looked at his laptop
and made some clicks. “I’ve got signals from
two stationary vehicles, but the others are gone now.”
“Are we having
any satellite feed problems?” asked David.
“No,” replied the
frail man. “Everything is fine on our
end. The transmitters are down. The vehicles are gone. Wait. It looks like we just lost the last two
signals.”
“Farmers with
pitchforks and torches,” said Gilbert.
“Who was it that said that?”
“Our intelligence
didn’t indicate they had anything like that,” said Cass as she thought about
the earlier images of the first two ASVs being hit. “Maybe they had help from the military or the
National Guard.”
“Not from any of
the armories in that state,” said David.
“All of their artillery shells and antitank rockets were removed years
ago. The only thing we left for them was
small arms and ammunition in case we had rioting. I must add the National Guard has been useful
in keeping
“Are you sure,” Gilbert
said as a statement. “Are you confident
that the National Guard isn’t on their way here right now as we speak. Just as
confident about that as you were about four ASVs
being enough for this job.”
“I can see the
National Guard in and around
“Maybe they’ve
had foreign assistance?” asked Stacey.
“It’s quite
possible,” said the frail man. “We’ve
been unable to completely control the waterways around
“I’m going to
lean toward the fascists on this,” said David.
“They must have some teams established in
“But who else could
the fascists be working with?” asked Stacey.
“Which outside country is helping them and why?”
“I can’t believe
this,” said Gilbert. “We’ve got fascists
and nationalists coming at us from different sides now. Now we’ve got an outsider assisting the
fascists and threatening all that we’ve worked so hard to establish here. We need to put the old President back on TV
one more time. We need to use him to get
the military back on board to protect us now.”
“I agree that the
fascists must be working with an outsider against us,” said the frail man. “But, the big question is who on the inside
–on the inside of this group seated here— helped the fascists?”
As murmuring
began to arise from the people seated around the large box of tables, Cass
asked “What do you mean?”
“There’s a
traitor among us,” said Gilbert confidently as the frail man opened his mouth
but before a word could be uttered.
“Someone in this room gave the fascists information about the convoy we
sent north.”
“Who could that
be?” asked David as he stood up. “I’ll
lock the doors. No one should leave this
room until we find out…”
“Sit down!” ordered
Gilbert as he also stood up with his pistol pointed down at his side. “I have a damn good idea who the traitors are
in this room.”
“Oh my god,”
whispered the frail man as he leaned more into his laptop and didn’t look up.
“That’s right,”
said Gilbert as he walked behind the frail man, put his other weaponless hand
on the seated man’s hunched back momentarily before moving toward David. “We found the emails about the neutron
weapons that you tried to send out.”
“Gilbert!” yelled
Cass as she stood up next to David. The
two of them were standing only a few feet in front of Gilbert.
“Shut up!”
Gilbert shouted and quickly raised his pistol at waist level in their
direction. “You took the information
from the Chairman’s bedside and passed it on to David. Both of you are in this together.”
“Traitors!”
yelled Stacey as she stood up and moved away from Cass and David.
“Gilbert,” said
Cass calmly as a single tear broke and ran down her left cheek, “don’t do
this. You’ve got it all wrong. The traitor is sitting over there.”
Gilbert quickly
raised his pistol and cupped his other hand around the one already holding the
weapon. He thumbed back the hammer on
the pistol and sent two bullets, one into each of the shocked faces of Cass and
David.
* * *
The live audio
from the Committee’s conference room was met with excited applause and cheers as
it fed through the four small speakers in the corners of the Governor’s penthouse
living room. There was a pop from the
cork of a champagne bottle which was brought through the small crowd of men in
suits and put on the glass table in front of the Governor. His symmetrical smile from ear to ear was
offset by a tear of joy which ran down from his right eye. The Governor pushed the off button on a small
remote.
The Governor
stood up and wiped away the tear as the men looked at him with elated emotion
that approached unconditional affection.
The fat man guzzled straight from the champagne bottle before passing it
on to another man who did the same before passing it on again. The Governor lifted up his chin and blinked
rapidly to keep another tear from forming.
“I told you this
would happen,” the Governor stated as ‘yes’ or ‘yes, sir’ was uttered by all the
men standing around him. “My timing was flawless.”
He paused and
looked around before he said “This is my work of art I wanted to share with all
of you today. I haven’t been this happy
since I was a kid in college when I saw the Berlin Wall go down piece by piece on
live TV. Some of you were with me then when
that happened. And, I’m sure you can
remember just as well as I can how our own fathers sat us down in the summer of
89 and told us to be ready and watching.
They told us when to mark our calendar and they were so accurate we
could have set the grandfather clock to the minute when the news about the wall
first appeared on TV. I remember it was that
day when we had real understanding about our fathers. We knew they were the ones really in control of
the flow of history. And like all of you
young people are gaining at this very moment, we were instilled at that time with
an understanding like we’d never had before.
It was like a dead man being reborn and stepping outside his dark crypt back
into the light. I’m glad we’ve been able
to share a moment like this now with our own sons gathered here today.”
“Here’s to the
sons who can’t be here with us today,” said a man as he took a drink from the
bottle and then another before he added “And to the ones in captivity.”
“Now don’t you
worry about that,” said the Governor as he wrapped an arm gently around the
man’s neck. “We’ll get him back. This is a war and we’ll have some prisoner
exchanges in the future. Now let’s not
ruin the moment we have here.”
“You’re right,”
said the man as he passed the bottle to another man and the Governor released
him.
“Now that’s more
like it,” said the Governor as the noise of conversation began to rise in the
room and more corks from bottles at the back of the group were popped. “This is a party for the newly reborn, not a
funeral.”
“Governor,” said
an older man in a suit. “A moment of your time please.”
“Anything for
you,” said the Governor as he put an arm the older man’s neck and they walked
toward the door together and turned to go down the hall.
“Let go of me,” said
the older man as the Governor took his arm off and they stopped in the hallway. “Are you enjoying your moment in the
spotlight?”
“Yes,” said the
Governor. “What is it?”
“Our informant
says a set of green vials has moved,” stated the older man.
“And this means
what?” asked the Governor.
“Have you opened
the red vials?” demanded the older man in a louder sterner tone.
“No!” barked the
Governor. “Of course, I haven’t. We can’t protect everyone yet.”
“Keep your voice
down,” said the older man in a quieter voice.
“So you haven’t stolen more greens?
You haven’t kept something like this from me?”
“No, I haven’t
stolen another set,” said the Governor in an anxious tone. “If I had, I’d tell you first.”
“I figured you
would,” said the older man. “I imagine
you would’ve announced it to everyone.
You’d tout it to the group as another victory –as hollow as we both know
it would be over the long term.”
“What does this
mean?” asked the Governor again. “Why was
a set moved? Do they have a traitor?”
“Traitors,”
echoed the older man. “No. They’re Boy Scout fanatics and idealistic dreamers. I believe they also know some red vials were
opened. I’m not sure yet how they know
this or by who, but they know.”
“But we have all the
red vials,” stated the Governor. “We
haven’t opened them yet. You’re asking
me about this so I know we haven’t opened them.
Or, have we?”
“There was a
theft a while back,” said the older man as the Governor’s face went pale and
his cheeks sagged. “Enough was stolen to
cause continental devastation. We’ve
been monitoring areas around our major cities.
We’re already picked up some traces.”
“Oh, f-ck,” said
the Governor as he leaned against a wall.
“Which cities?
Where? This
one? Why didn’t you tell me
sooner about this?”
“Be quiet and
listen,” said the older man. “No, not this one.
Not that it makes much difference.
We’ve found it in
“Well, my moment
of joy was really short f-cking lived,” said the
Governor as he stood straight without the wall for support. “Thanks a lot, Dad.”
* * *
“These men are
extremely dangerous,” said Josiah to break the silence as he sat on a chair
next to the woodstove.
“No kidding,”
said Daniel as he sat on the couch next to Jeremiah and Kevin.
“Those armored
vehicles and humvees were full of guys,” said
Jeremiah. “Probably
ten and four each in those. I’m
not one hundred percent sure. I only
looked in a couple of the ones in the front.
It was too sickening to stand there and count them. My God, that smell.”
“There were also
six guys still on the back of the big truck that got machine gunned,” said
Daniel. “Add that to the two who fell
out. Probably over
fifty dead today. Not bad for two
minutes worth of work and we didn’t even have to do any of it ourselves this
time. Not a single bullet from us. A pretty good deal.”
“You sound so
nonchalant,” said Josiah.
“How should I
sound?” asked Daniel gruffly.
“Different I
guess,” said Josiah in an analytical way.
“To be honest I don’t know exactly how.”
“You don’t have
something from a book to quote to me on how I should be right now?” questioned
Daniel with a hint of sarcasm. “Maybe
something from Revelations or a Greek tragedy would be appropriate for the
moment?”
“I was thinking
something more solemn from the Old Testament,” replied Josiah. “But before I search for something about the
taking of life and the proper attitude of the victors afterwards, I think we’ll
start with something else about children speaking with their parents in the
family home.”
The other men
sitting on the couch shifted in place a little nervously before Daniel said
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t talk like
that to you. I’m just saying I’m not
bothered at all by what happened today.
Those guys were coming here just like John told us this morning. I have to admit I was a little concerned when
I awoke to find this guy in our house and I still don’t trust him, but he kills
men in gray and that’s fine with me.
Given how packed those vehicles were with men and supplies, they
certainly didn’t leave any room to take prisoners back with them after they got
here. They were coming here to kill us
all.”
“I’m fine with
it, too,” said Kevin as he wiggled with a bit with excitement. “That was just, um, incredible today…”
“Kevin,” Josiah
interrupted.
“Yes?”
Josiah raised a
single finger vertically to his lips to indicate silence and lowered it before
he looked back at Daniel and said “Let’s not be too quick to assume the enemy
of our enemy is our friend. Maybe our
new allies are who they say they are or maybe they’re not. Maybe it’s simply expedient self-interest
within temporary circumstances for everyone.
This is why I agreed to cooperate with John. He said they would give us a demonstration
and we watched today. They proved
useful in this particular situation. Nothing more.
However, make no mistake that these men are very dangerous.”
“So am I,” stated
Daniel.
“Not like these
men,” said Josiah. “These men are
fanatics with a cause.”
“But people could
say that of us, too” commented Jeremiah.
“And we do have a cause. A righteous cause. We’re
protecting ourselves. We’re protecting
our land. How is that any different from
what John told us this morning?”
“This is true,”
agreed Josiah. “The gray men will see no
difference between us, John and his men.
There is a difference, though. This
is our land. None of John’s men have
been here before today. They’re not
connected to this place like we are.
They have no family here. They
have no one buried here. If they had a
bigger fight with the gray men elsewhere –if they are told by their leader to
go elsewhere— I’m sure they would all leave just as quickly as they came here last
night.”
“I’m fine with
that, too,” said Daniel. “I don’t trust
them either, but they have their uses. But,
I also know we couldn’t have survived on our own today without John’s help. Not all of us. We’d be hiding in the woods right now. My son would probably be freezing to death in
his sleep tonight.”
“I agree,” said
Josiah. “We really didn’t have any
alternative good choices today. But over
the long run I believe this may still be just the lesser of two evils. That much I’m sure of.”
“You seemed I
guess” began Jeremiah, “so ok with everything this morning. With John and all. The way I understood it these guys were like
ninjas around the house and this guy was sitting in your bedroom when you woke
up this morning. I’d have either sh-t myself or gone for a weapon or both. But I figured if this guy was here to kill
you or something, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
“I wondered about
that, too,” said Daniel. “Dad, you were
almost too calm. Like an eerie kind of
calm.”
“I had a dream
right before he arrived,” said Josiah.
“I think it was about him.”
“What was it
about?” asked Daniel.
“I can’t share
this yet,” said Josiah. “I need to think
about it some more. I need to study some
of those old books you mentioned and try to make sense of my dream. Right now I have too many unanswered
questions.”
* * *
John and his men
gathered up the parachutes and boxes from the snow using their red LED
flashlights in the darkness. They began
to load everything from the nighttime drop onto the back of the 5-ton
truck. There were icy places in the bed
of the truck from the blood earlier in the day and one of the men slipped and
landed sideways on one of the bench seats running lengthwise along the
back. He cursed before picking himself
back up and restacking a box.
“Did we get
everything?” asked John as he powered on his satellite phone.
“Yes,” said one
of the men. “We found it all. Everything is here and loaded.”
John put the
phone up to the side of his head “I’m confirming we got it all and we’re
getting ready to move. I’ll check in
again at the next time.”
“Wait,” said Scott
on the other end of the call. “This is
going to be the last time we use this phone.
I’ll try to make another drop at the alternative time. I’m not sure how I’ll make contact with you
in the future after that. But listen carefully;
I want you to know that when the winter weather forecast calls for more snow
that even dark clouds can have a silver-lining.
And, be sure to check the serial number again on the last item I gave to
you in person. Goodbye.”
John heard the
single low beep of the disconnection before he could say anything. He dropped the phone into the snow and
stomped on it once with his boot heel.
John reached for the grip of the M4 rifle at his side. He thought about looking for the serial
number on the lower receiver, but didn’t when he realized that doing so at that
moment would look strange to the other men.
John’s laptop and
the small case with the “unique item” were in his backpack. He remembered his computer’s desktop had more
than a dozen folders which had remained locked even after he successfully
logged in. There was a single unlocked folder
called “
John had very little
time to explore what was on his computer and couldn’t remember any of the other
folder names. He hoped Scott’s clues in
their last conversation would be enough.
John’s anticipation built into excitement as the group took the supplies
by truck back to an abandoned farm house a few miles away from the Shroud family’s
collective property. The 5-ton truck
would be hidden in the barn next to the fuel truck. John decided he would remain in the truck in
the barn to go through the computer by himself.
John helped the
men unload the supplies they had just received before telling them he needed to
take care of some things. He closed the
main barn doors, took off his backpack and opened the bullet-riddled passenger
side door of the truck. He sat on the
unfolded cardboard from a MRE box that had belonged
to the day’s earlier users of the same vehicle.
One of his men had put the cardboard on the seat to avoid blotting his
own clothing with some of the blood which had soaked into the seats.
After John
powered up his computer and used his thumbprint and user password, he noticed a
locked folder on the desktop named ‘Seasonal Weather Data’, clicked it and was
prompted with the message ‘Password’.
John immediately attempted to enter his rifle’s serial number and found
out it wasn’t the right code when he couldn’t enter any numbers into the box.
John
unsuccessfully entered variations of ‘silver lining’ including once with a
hyphen between the words but found every key other than the alphabet keys and
the mouse was disabled for this password prompt. John tried other words such as ‘cloud’, ‘rain’,
and ‘snow’ and was denied access as well.
As the last of the residual heat from the recent trip completely faded
away in the cab of the truck, John stopped typing and warmed his fingers in his
armpits for a moment. He wished he could
do this work indoors next to the fireplace that his men were undoubtedly firing
up.
“Damn these
Midwestern winters,” John said out loud in frustration as he looked at the
locked symbol across the folder.
John brought his
hands back out, cupped them over his mouth, exhaled warm air onto them, and
rubbed them together. He smiled as he
entered ‘winter’ and the lock disappeared from the folder. There was a single encrypted file inside the
folder called ‘Winter Snowfall Satellite Animation’.
John clicked the
file and was prompted for a ‘Password’ again.
He touched the number keys and noticed they were working again. Using the white setting on his flashlight
John looked at the serial number on his weapon before typing it on the computer
and tapping ‘enter’. The screen went
black and was replaced by slightly smaller video window containing a frozen
close up of Scott’s head and shoulders sitting with the background of the
C-quad shipping container that John had last seen his mentor inhabiting. There were no controls visible on the screen
and John tapped ‘enter’ again. The video
began moving and Scott opened his mouth to speak.
“Hi,
John. I had to send you on this mission knowing that
you were going to watch this video by yourself soon after you arrived on
location. I’m sorry I had to do this to
you. I hope I’ll remember to mention
when we meet in person that these things aren’t normally done like this. We don’t do messages like this by
computer. We do them in person and when they’re
of this nature we often discuss them together as a united group. I hope we’ll all make it through this dark
winter and meet up sometime in the spring.
But events are going beyond our control and it looks like the reaper is
going to catch up with some of us. There
is a big picture again I need to tell you about. What’s happening and what’s going to happen
isn’t just about Mond. It’s related to all the factions.
“I’m sorry to say
this, but a long time ago we made a deal with the devil and now there’s hell to
pay for it. You were born as the Cold
War ended, but that’s the time when many of us who’ve now been in the game the
longest now, first cut our own teeth. It
was a time of seeing old orders being torn down, new ones started, and if you
were really working on the inside you found out it was all just a game for some
people. There was greed, hedonism, and short-sighted
self-interest that would have made the stone bust of a Roman emperor
blush. Now I’m not going to make any
excuses for what we did and the secrets that we kept from that time –about
those we continue to keep— but the nuclear threat we faced during the Cold War wasn’t
the only one.
“The deals we
made to reduce or eliminate WMDs weren’t always
followed. Some of these we told the
public we stopped doing and it was just for their consumption. But, in private among both the domestic
insiders and even among foreign governments, both friend and enemy alike, there
was agreement that the research would continue.
Again, I don’t want to make excuses, but we were always and I mean
always running along a razor’s edge one way or another. This was despite what you heard on TV growing
up. There was never really a break. There was no peace dividend. Peace sells in public, but no one really buys
it on the inside.
“We lied to
everybody and in the end, we even lied to ourselves. We lost focus on what we were doing and who
we were supposed to protect. But by then
it was too late to extricate ourselves, even our faction, from what we had
already done. We had been pulled into
one of the larger globalist faction’s plans.
We had learned too late that we were chumps.
“Ok, I need to
get to the point with this. A biological
weapon has already been released. I can
tell you that Mond released it and it’s already too
late. But Mond
alone isn’t the cause of all this. All the
domestic factions caused this. They all
worked together at one time on the plague that’s been unleashed. We didn’t think this was ever going to
happen. Things had been set up like they
were with the nukes and MAD during the Cold War. Many of us had believed that no one was
actually going to use this stuff. It was
set up with too many safeguards, or so we thought. The power over the weapon and the pieces of
it had been divided.
“Our faction was
the only one which was supposed to possess the only known cure. It was the only way we would agree to work on
the project back in the old days. Back
when we were told it was only for our national defense. It was only sometime later that we found the
other two factions were working different deals with outsiders as part of some larger
global agendas. You need to be aware
that there are many foreign factions, some more powerful than others, a handful
really our enemies and only a couple others are truly our friends and
allies. But the large majority of other
countries we work with on the global stage we only do so because it’s in our
mutual interest. Factions, both good and
bad, overlap in the great majority of these supposedly independent countries.
“Some of these foreign
factions are composed only of fanatics whose sole purpose is human population
reduction. They’ve linked up together on
global agendas. They are the ones who
have taken this biological weapon as a sort of unholy grail to pour out upon
the earth. These foreigners and the traitors
in this country have already carved out this planet in advance and decided what
they think is best for humanity. I can’t
begin to tell you how evil they are. How
despicable they are to the very core of their being.
“Let me get back
to the bio-weapon. I started out as
trigger-puller like you, John. So I’m
going to explain to you how it works in the best way I can as a
non-scientist. First of all, this is not
some fast-acting virus like you see in the movies where everyone gets infected
in a week and 99% of everyone who gets it dies in a few hours. That’s
“Now it’s this
triggering agent that starts this plague rolling in the population. It’s the stuff contained in the red
vials. The red vials that only one of
the factions was allowed to possess at one time. That faction was also not allowed to possess
the cure. I’m totally lost on how this red
stuff works. Quite frankly, as soon as
the scientists started talking about DNA, RNA, proteins, prions,
and amino acids, they lost me and I was falling asleep during the meeting. In any case, this stuff gets picked up by the
birds which carry it places with them.
It doesn’t matter if it’s wild birds which give it to other wild birds
or domestic birds first because it then goes to people. I guess it took many years to get this
carrier, this vector, just right when it came to getting it from birds to
humans. But apparently the migration
routes of the wild birds or domestic birds in normal commerce were naturally
simple in spreading it to more locations.
“After people
pick this up from the birds the epidemic gets triggered. I guess it mutates once inside humans and can
go person to person after that. This part
also takes some time. Again, I’m not
sure how all this works. All I know is
the birds help move it around and trigger it, but it goes faster once in people. One globalist faction’s plan was to infect
birds in various locations at once around the world, especially where migratory
bird locations overlapped. Projections
showed it would only take a year or two for the birds to move completely around
the planet and infect everyone. This
would work even for countries that attempted to seal their borders against
human travel.
“When people
start getting sick it could seem like anything at first. In fact, it’s very hard for most doctors to
even know what it is. There’s no easy
virus or bacteria or something for them to find that looks really fat under a microscope. Patients will have different reactions. Some will have flu-like symptoms while others
have no fever but are having hallucinations and severe memory problems. Also, not everyone who has symptoms is going
to die. But if they are going to die,
then death can take a week or even a few months depending on diet and
metabolism. I guess some people can put
it off, but if they’re still going to die it can’t be stopped. It screws up something at the cellular level
or smaller. The people who never show
symptoms will live and have a regular life.
But, it was unclear to me if they are carriers or for how long. I can’t remember that part very well. It will be a moot point to you given what I’m
going to tell you next.
“The cure that we
have is that unique item you should now possess. Well, I hope you still do for your own sake. But, this is another example of how the cure
can be worse than the disease. I’ll get
to that later since it helps explain some of the big picture. You are in possession of the green
vials. This will have to be
injected. It contains something which
either binds with the stuff from the red vials or blocks something from taking
place in the human cells or whatever.
This is where prions, antibodies and all that
other science talk got really sticky for me during the original presentation.
To make a long
story short, it helps flush all that crap the birds dropped and triggered back
out of your system. It really increases
your chances for survival if you’re one of the people pre-slated in the 100
percent will die category.
“Ok, now there is
a risk with taking the green vial vaccine, too.
Of course, there is, right?
Again, this isn’t like the movies.
If the red death is really underway and you take the green vial in time,
you might still die anyway. It’s something
like 1 or 2 percent. Maybe it was 5
percent. Or maybe that was some
statistical significance or level of confidence for the scientists who did the
studies. I can’t remember. All I know for sure is if someone who’s
predisposed to die waits until after the red stuff binds in their system, then
it’s already past too late. Got that?
“However, death
is also possible from the stuff in the green vial even for a person who the red
stuff wasn’t going to kill in the first place.
So the green vial has a chance of killing someone who would’ve survived
the red death without it. Yes, this
sucks and you can’t really test in advance without a sh-t
load of lab equipment and a team of scientists.
Bottom line is it’s a gamble either way.
“Maybe you’re
asking yourself like I did back at the original meeting,
why not just inoculate the entire
“But the factions
loved this. In retrospect, it was also
something they were working for with the outsiders. Another balance of power to be kept as another
plan was set in place. In many ways this
was one of their perfect weapons. Now I
could get into a very long story about how some of the foreign factions also
attempted to trick us into misusing our own green vials on our population due
to what turned out later to be false red death outbreaks, but we don’t have
time to get into that right now. I’ll
hope to save those war stories for you in person in the spring.
“John, I need you
to use the green vials. Inoculate
yourself, your men, and the Shroud families.
There’s enough for all of you and more.
Use it all and get to as many other civilians as possible in your area
of operation. Remember your oath to the people. Remember the people, John. Unfortunately, as you will find out when you
open the case, there’s going to be far less in there than what you need to take
care of all of them. I’m truly sorry
about that. Please know that we’re also trying
to get to as many people as possible elsewhere with what we have on hand. A significant portion of our green vials were
contaminated in the attacks recently.
“You’re going to
have to make some tough choices, John.
You’re going to decide who’s going to live and die out there. This is why we give those Lifeboat exercises
to everyone very early in their training.
Do you remember that in class? It
was the one class I substituted on. I always
do that exercise for everyone who ever goes through that class. This situation was the reason for it. Because some day we knew it would come down
to this moment and the decisions that would have to be made by the men and
women in the field. I hope we can talk
together again soon in person. Take care
and God bless.”
End of Part 12
Previous Parts:
http://www.oftwominds.com/opSERF/OP-serf.html
Special notes from Chris Sullins:
I apologize to virologists everywhere for
discombobulating their field.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this story, please consider making a donation to the oftwominds.com website. Charles Hugh Smith has graciously provided space for it on his website for your reading enjoyment. Although it’s from a genre outside the commentary and other essays which usually appear on OTM, I thank Mr. Smith in presenting this to a far wider audience than I would have been able to do on my own. He has done this in the spirit of the First Amendment and in the fine tradition of experienced writers supporting new writers. I give similar thanks to those people who’ve also linked from their websites and/or emailed friends and family.
This “strategic action thriller” has been hastily constructed one part at a time and appears as my schedule permits it. There are bound to be some errors. I have every intention of completing this as a free full online novel. If there is sufficient interest, then the story you see here will be BOOK ONE and there will be another. I may post a public email address in the future for comments, critiques, scathing reviews, mark-ups, praise, thanks or indifference from the online community.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons or events in the past, present, or future is probably either out of sheer coincidence or due to the cyclical nature of history. The writer existing at this point in the timeline has no conscious awareness of any pending events which in later hindsight may seem have been due to currently unknown acts of retroactive causality emanating from future points.
For more on a wide array of other topics, please visit the oftwominds.com weblog.
All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images
copyright © 2009 Charles Hugh Smith, copyright to text and all other content in
the above work is held by the author of the story/essay as of the publication
date listed above. All rights reserved in all media.
The views of the contributor authors are their own, and do not reflect the
views of Charles Hugh Smith. All errors and errors of omission in the above
work are the sole responsibility of the work's author.
The writer(s) would be honored if you linked this story/essay to your site, or
printed a copy for your own use.