*Editing magic performed by KJ24 and Shyqash, plus contributions by the regular gang of brigands and neer-do-wells*

*A frightened Mother Mouse will devour her young; similarly, a frightened culture will devour its future*

*****

From the final scene in the cabin in Chapter 10

"I'm begging you; understand that it isn't the end of morality to stay. When the madness ends, you need to decide if we will still be worthy of continuing on. You'll no longer be part of that equation if you go now," I declared.

"Because those two are dangerous criminals," Roni answered. Didn't Roni understand that I was a far more callous killer than either of those 'criminals'... and I didn't have to lift a finger, or look at a single grave?

[AND RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT OFF]

I had to take a different tact. I had to find another ...

"Roni," she was the one I had to prove myself to. Angel? Having betrayed me so often, even her convictions about Jethro and Flame wouldn't drive her from my side ... I hoped. Aniqua and Venus, no matter what moral core they based their argument on, wanted to live ... and that meant sticking with a larger group than just two people.

"Roni, I am asking you to trust me," I made furtive eye contact. I didn't want to die and that was the direction this talk was going. If Roni left, could I really let her, Angel, Aniqua and Venus go it alone?

My soul begged for trust ... trust in me for a few more hours.

'Let's see this through together'.

"Please ..."

'Please Angel, Aniqua, Roni and Venus. Please see all the pain I've endured caring so much ... carrying us all so far ...'

"Please, just a little while longer," my voice faltered.

One more hurdle? Was this one more hurdle, or the last one? My psyche reached into the last drawer in my battered cupboard of my sanity ... the dwindling larder of my hopes and dreams, miserly horded and so plentifully spent ... only to find a finger's trace of dust remained.

Was this all I had left? Would I be Debbie finally coming home from the nightmare which had become the only life I had been left ... a life I had still found the strength to live ... or was I Ethan Edwards, finished and spent; no longer welcome in the happy world I'd spent four long years to reach and which lay just beyond the portal?

Arms crossed, I was being pulled away from ... from home -- what I wished home would be like. The door outside to the van would take me down the road, yet it was just an allusion to my fate. Standing still ... taking that step ... both would lead me outside. The pretense of my companions would not matter. I would be alone ... forever more ... I would no longer have the strength -- the certainty of purpose -- to come back.

"Please ..." 'Please love me. Please trust me. Please give me one last chance.'

So damn hard ... for so damn long ... for four years I lived with the denial of hope.

I had discarded that comfortable certainty of hopelessness for love ...

"Please ..."

"No. Trust me, Israel. These are the 'wrong' people. They won't help you. They won't help you get better," she insisted.

I trembled. My chest felt too tight. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to run back into the cellar in my mind where I had run so many times before.

"For fuck's sake!" I snapped. "Don't keep fucking interrupting me!" No one said anything for a few seconds.

"Israel?" Angel whispered.

"Roni, why are any of you here today?" I persevered.

"We are here because we pitched in and worked together -- looked out for each other," she responded.

"Wrong," I trembled with ... was this rage? "We are all here today because everyone in this room has trusted me with their lives. You are here, with some hope of seeing next week, because of me and no one else."

"Israel," Roni started.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" I screamed. "Without me, the rest of you would be living comfortable lives back in the city, safe in your preconceived notions about the relationships between men and women."

Angel put her hand on Roni's shoulder to forestall her friend's bitter comeback.

"Without me screwing up your live; without each one of you -- except Jethro, Paisley and Lavender -- putting trust in me despite knowing how screwed up I am, you would all be facing down the eradication of the Human Race. Me!" I seethed. "Me! Without you trusting me so much you would all toss your safe lives away, you wouldn't be here dropping your idiotic moralistic arguments on me. Every -- fucking -- one -- of -- you ... owes your life to you being able to love me beyond rational explanation. Tell me I'm lying ..." I petered out.

"It is not that simple," Aniqua took up the cause.

"Having trusted me this far, why are you stopping now? Don't give me any shitty excuse about Jethro -- he gave up being a terrorist thirty years ago, or Flame -- the vicious psychopath who dragged her very-wounded teammate to us ... plus figured out we were here in the first place -- proving she is also one of the most cunning people in the room."

"Say something besides 'gee, Israel, they scare me' ... because their approach to life might be the right one, given our precarious position and all our lives being on the line. And I'd rather be in the 'right', even if it leaves Kuiko dead at your feet," I speared her with my gaze. "And NO! I am not exaggerating. I trust Jethro and Flame. Until this point, you have had faith in me, so I want to know what I have done so wrong that your faith is now shaken."

"Gee Israel, why don't I simply shoot these pretentious bitches for you," Flame joked.

"Please," I looked down at my feet, fists painfully clenched. "Please Flame ... please don't."

"Be happy you are my only God-damn friend," Flame snorted. "Continue. Their excuses are going to be doozies."

"Israel, if we go, will you come with us?" Roni ignored everything I had just said.

"No. No, I'll crawl into a corner and die inside, Roni. I can't in good conscious do something I know to be suicidal and I can't abandon you. I trust you four. I do. I also don't trust you to keep any of us alive. You don't have it in you, and Jethro and Flame do."

"I spent every day for nearly three months in a basement with a serial killer. I know theirs is a madness I must embrace to keep all of us alive. I'm not a killer. I probably never will be. I KNOW for our group to survive, we will need to be capable of killing people. We can't stay here long; if nothing else, we'll eat Jethro out of house and home. For a variety of reasons, we can't go back into the city. That means we head into the countryside."

"With civilization going down the toilet, how do you expect us to find food and energy cells? I know where we need to go and our cars won't hold a charge for that long. I've seen the dark underbelly of human nature on a level with both Angel and Flame. If we go hat-in-hand, odds are extremely likely they will kill you and enslave me -- not because they know who I am, but because I've got testicles and men are a rare commodity."

"What are the rest of you going to do to keep the rest of us safe, fed and mobile? By all means, tell me I haven't thought this through in the same way I've worked out every other crisis we've been confronted with in the past two weeks. That's it ... my argument. You get to decide now. I hope you make your choice based on something more than knee-jerk reactions, understanding not one of you have ever had to test your morality against your 'will to survive' before now."

"Top of his class," Capri murmured. "Our kids are going to be geniuses."

"What do we do when one of them murders someone?" Aniqua asked. At least it was an honest question.

"We'll deal with it then," I replied.

"Please take into account: Flame, despite her long criminal history, has never been charged with murder and Jethro, despite his terrorist career, was so cautious he has retained both his freedom and remained free of drug therapy. You are assuming poor judgement on their part, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary. If they weren't both careful, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I bet you kicked ass in debate," Venus shook her head. She also crossed over from the 'departing' crowd to the rest of us.

"Roni, he has forgiven me every time I have betrayed him," Angel sighed. "Not only that, he has used my betrayal to advance his -- our cause." To me, "I'm tired of fucking up around you, Israel. I hope this is the last time I have to apologize." She came over to majority's side.

Aniqua crossed over without another word, leaving Roni alone.

"If you die, humanity dies," Roni shook her head. "I'll stay."

Latest crisis averted. On second thought; this was the first democratic conflict we had faced and it had been won with reason -- not threat, or fear of force.

I ran my hands through my hair.

"Angel, why does this keep happening?" I tried not to sound too desperate.

"We'll deal with that later. Sit back and savor your victory," she chided me. Sometimes -- more often than not -- listen to the woman who holds your health in her hands. I did.

"Wow," Flame looked over to Jethro, "I've never seen so much pussy tamed so fast in my life. He is truly fucking impressive."

We were all surprised when Kuiko hurled herself at Flame, even Flame. Unfortunately, surprise for Flame was measured in milliseconds.

Kuiko barely had her hands on Flame before Flame spun them around, slammed Kuiko into the ground with Flame on top, and began wailing on her. Samantha was the first to attempt a rescue. All it earned her was a judo throw which sent her head of heels over the two combatants. Capri, far more brave than capable, was rushing in when Angel shoved her aside and lit into Flame.

I went in; not to fight, but to drag Kuiko free of the battle. I shouldn't have bothered. By the time I had a hand on Kuiko's elbow, Angel had Flame pressed face first on the floor and her left arm twisted painfully behind her back.

"Get off me, Cow," Flame raged.

"Stay down," Angel warned her.

"I'm going to fucking kill you, Cunt," Flame seethed.

"Angel, please get off her," I requested. "This isn't Flame's fault."

Angel hesitated for several seconds before releasing her hold and jumping back.

Flame spun to her feet and glared fury at the assembly. She came right at me. At the time, I didn't know Jethro threw up a cautioning hand to Angel and I really wasn't sure why she took his advice, yet she did. Maybe her faith in me was growing. I shifted Kuiko's curled up body behind me.

"Get out of my fucking way!" Flame screamed at me as her boot slammed into my ribs. I refused to let go of Kuiko, or stop shielding her. Flame punched me in the ear. "Bitch, get out of the fucking way."

I looked up at Flame.

"I'd never let go of you," futilely spewing forth from my lips. I was terrified. Only the fact I was more terrified of how I would regard myself if I let Kuiko go kept me hanging on. My inner Monster was howling at me to escape -- hide -- evade. Flame slapped, then backhanded me. Flame's eyes were crazy-angry. For a split second they appeared to un-focus. When they cleared again, she was still certifiably crazy ... and then she started laughing.

"I am forever going to regret not killing you on that bridge -- Bitch," Flame snickered. She offered me a hand up.

"I'm a little busy right now," I smiled painfully.

"Okay," Flame nodded. She reached past me. Kuiko flinched before Flame rustled her hair. "Kiddo, keep in mind he owes me a fuck-stun, so don't get greedy."

"Meep," Kuiko responded.

With their bizarre exchange complete, Flame sauntered back to her seat as if nothing had happened. Most of the surrounding ladies were shocked, angry, and/or appalled. Flame didn't care. It appeared she barely gave a damn about my opinion, which was still a milestone for her. I turned to the Kuiko in my lap.

"Okay, what inspired you to attack Flame?" I hugged her tight. My ribs hurt -- again.

"I don't know," Kuiko mumbled. "I was so scared and you promised to try not to die anymore and here you were, trying to die on me again. Then Flame said something and ... I don't know what happened. The next thing I recalled clearly was her punching me in the face. Am I ugly?"

"Oh, you are a hideous little troll," I sighed.

"Really?" she nearly cried.

"Yep," I groaned. "Tonight, all night long, as we are sleeping together, we are going to have to keep the lights out so you don't scare me. Since I need to know where you are, I'll have to keep a hand on you constantly too."

"Oh ..." she blinked. "If I get Flame to punch me again, can I sleep with you tomorrow night too?"

"Bedtime," Jethro dispelled the gathering silence. "Lavender, make sure all the leftovers are put away. Paisley, check the locks and stove. Daddy will make it up to you for letting these sickos into our tidy shard of Paradise. As for the rest of you; Roni, you know where the first spare bedroom is. Venus, you know where the other one is and Capri, I showed you where the sleeping bags were stored."

People began moving about. The tension ratcheted down a notch now that we had something constructive to do which would keep us from dwelling on the last five minutes. Jethro almost snuck up on me (over the last 3 three years, I've cultivated a pretty keen spatial awareness.) He motioned me to step outside. We strode about a dozen steps into the night.

"Do you really think I won't waste one of your bitches if I feel she's stepped out of line?" Jethro asked without looking at me.

"Why do you want to know? The moment has passed," I replied.

"I think you know the answer to that too," I believed he sneered.

"You don't love Lavender, or Paisley, though they don't know it," I explained. "You aren't going to start shooing us because that isn't how you wanted to go out -- in some dumbass quarrel against people you've shared hospitality with. You have the look of a man who wants to explode into violence -- in your case, for a damn long time. I imagine every time you saw a cop alone doing some random shit, you contemplated killing her."

"You didn't, because killing just one wasn't enough," I mumbled. "You want some last, epic, tragic battle and to take as many of them to Hell as possible. I don't know why, not really. It is contrary to my mindset. I don't want to kill anyone so much that I'd die to do it. I certainly don't hate people I've never met enough to kill them."

"Still, I assume you have your reasons. But I don't think you are crazy enough to kill the rest of us to get your wish," I concluded.

"If you thought I'd gamble with the lives of your ladies, you'd tell Flame, wouldn't you?" Jethro mused.

"Absolutely," I nodded.

"Good man," Jethro reciprocated. "Use the right tool for the job." By that he meant not telling Angel. Angel would want to talk it out. Flame would blow Jethro away without hesitation. "Let's get inside. I think you've put your Main Squeeze through enough for tonight."

"Did you stop Angel from jumping back in on Flame?" I inquired as we headed inside.

"Yep. That's part of being a man -- living with the choices you make," Jethro informed me. "If Angel had gone back in for Flame, your group would always be confused about who was in charge. It didn't matter that Flame busted you up."

"All your ladies saw you taking charge and respected you for it. Psychology is important come crunch time," he explained.

"I still got beaten," I sighed. Jethro held the door for me to go back inside.

"Doesn't matter," Jethro patted me on the back. "You took a beating for Kuiko and now they know you'd take a beating for any of them."

"Being a man is much more than kicking ass," Jethro chuckled. "You are a wimpy son of a bitch, but that will change if you live long enough. What matters is they think you care. Simple shit like a hug, a kiss, and asking them 'how they are doing' does wonders and doesn't cost much."

"How come you never got ... attached?" I asked.

"I have a fucking armory in my basement, Idiot," he laughed. "That doesn't mean my advice isn't time tested. You can't go wrong spanking that ass more often. They'll get used to it."

"Did you witness the beating I just took?" I mumbled.

"Some bitches, you tie up first, Son," Jethro teased me. "Some you tie down spread-eagle and use a ball-gag on. I suggest option Two for Flame until she gets addicted to that dick."

"Please stop," I begged. "I've had about as much culture shock, pain and mental anguish as I can handle for one day. By all means, light into me tomorrow, but right now I need to get some sleep."

"Good luck with that, Boy," I laughed again. "I smell some serious arousal and it's more than just my bitches." I froze up. "Say 'no' if you're not in the mood, Israel. Remember, you have what they want and they'll wait until you say 'go' because they'll want it again and again."

"Did you ever love anyone, Jethro?" I requested.

"Twice ... and I never told either one," he exhaled deeply. "One was an officer I served with and the other was the wife of a good friend. I've made all kinds of excuses for my cowardice and I regret them all. You are doing better with this than I was. Better yet, they give a damn about you."

That was it for us. For once, I didn't feel uncomfortable with the silence. We found Roni and Paisley in Silent's room. Roni was currently working on Kuiko and even kept her seated when Kuiko tried to get up and come to me as I entered the room. I looked from Kuiko to Silent.

"She's lucky," Roni answered my visual inquiry. "Five wounds. Nothing life threatening. Her armored vest saved her life, that's for sure."

"So, who are you going to sleep with?" Roni asked.

"How big is the bed?" I requested.

"Queen-sized," was the answer.

"Do you think anyone would be too pissed if I asked Capri?" I inquired.

"I don't see a problem," Roni smiled. Kuiko lowered her eyes and looked sad.

"Is Kuiko okay?" I questioned.

"She's fine," Roni teased. In some ways, Roni understood the undercurrents of my humor.

"Are you coming, Kuiko?" I looked at her. "I did say I wanted a hot, sexy, exotic troll sleeping with me tonight. You still game?"

She almost bowled me over she jumped on me so fast.

"I take that to be a 'yes'," Paisley remarked. I took my best buddy and went hunting for the room I had been gifted with. No one took my request for Capri poorly and the three of us crawled under the covers together.

The lights were out, all movement had ceased and I was fading into sleep. My old nemesis: proximity was crumbling under the rollercoaster of motions and fatigue.

"Kuiko, I'm going to lick his nipple," Capri whispered. "You game?"

"Can I?" Kuiko pleaded. I wasn't sure who she was asking. I'd like to assume it was me.

I groaned. Capri snuggled up against me and she felt out my left nipple in the darkness. Her tongue quickly followed. Kuiko was a few fingers behind her. I groaned again.

"Do you think a little lesbian action will get him turned on?" Capri giggled. "Up for it?"

"Okay," Kuiko chirped. I rolled over onto my stomach and started weeping into my pillow.

"That's okay, Israel," Capri murmured, "We'll stop this time, but don't ever be mean to us again, or the sexual taunts and innuendo will be much, much worse."

I sobbed.

"Good boy."

They left me alone after that.

{PAST MIDNIGHT}

In hindsight, it was stupidly easy to find me ... if you knew what to look for. In this case, all they needed to know were the names of the occupants of my apartment Wednesday morning and the names and home addresses of their closest acquaintances. Everyone on the list had either deactivated their phone and personal computer, or was easily locatable in the city ~ except Jethro MacFarlane. A small, stealth drone fly-over scanning for infra-red signatures suggested a huge number of houseguests. A special 'ping' (courtesy of a blood transfusion a few days earlier) verified I was on the premises.

There were several hiccups between our visitors rolling off the highway and saying 'hello'. Jethro had a number of sensors on his property to make him aware of unwanted trespassers, as we'd witnessed with Flame's and Silent's arrival. Neutralizing them took about five minutes. Figuring out his place was an architectural jigsaw puzzle was another seven minutes in the planning and implementation phase.

Their prime mission was locating my body within the domicile. Their secondary concern was the copious amount of firearms they were discovering around the locale through the use of magnetic sensors. In their favor, they had been chosen time and time again for being innovative, highly adaptive, clever and courageous.

"Israel," a female voice whispered to me. "Capri and Kuiko, is it?"

I awoke, swallowing my heart. A slumbering Kuiko mumbled something. Capri was far more alert. She quickly rose up on her elbows.

"What the -- Jen? What the fuck are you doing here?" she hissed to the newcomer.

"Jen?" I focused. "Ah -- everyone here is friendly. Let me contact the others before something goes wrong." If the Vanishers were inside Jethro's place ... Jethro, Angel and Flame could still cause things to take a tragic twist.

"We have discovered a few automatic rifles and an anti-air missile on site," Jen smiled. "Care to explain?"

Judgement call time.

"The homeowner is former MRA. He quit when they started killing non-governmental targets and has been sitting on the sidelines since then," I explained. "Also, there are two very recently-former mobster here as well -- one badly banged up -- plus one 'very-former' Metropolitan Police Officer -- Angel Kristi."

"Hey," Kuiko tried to make sense of Jen, who was crouched at the foot of our bed. It was difficult to make her out clearly because she had a hood on and what I thought might be night-vision goggles raised up on her forehead. She was otherwise dressed in some drab camouflage-pattern combat dress and body armor, despite Jen being the NASA member of the Vanisher team assigned to 'vanishing' me. She also had a sleekly-lethal looking weapon pointed at the ceiling. It was an ultra-modern, sound-suppressed death-dealer made for close-quarters fighting.

"Hey," Jen nodded slightly. "I don't suppose you feel like departing with us now?" was aimed my way.

"I've already got an exit plan I'm working on," I murmured.

"How about Capri inform the rest of the house you have company then?" Jen grinned. "The rest of us should get off the main road."

"Rest of you?" I gulped.

"Okay," Capri slid out of bed.

"I'll go too," Kuiko offered.

"No," Jen shook her head (to Kuiko). "Yes ~ rest of us ~ and I think we'd rather have 'Red' handle this ..."

"Because I'm a lawyer?" Capri guessed bitterly.

"No; because you are level-headed," Jens snickered. "You are also short, so we can shoot over you if something bad happens."

"Gee thanks," Capri snorted. As she headed for the door, Zara slipped into the room backward. She had a weapon similar to Jen's and a rifle slung over her back.

"Brandi will be sticking with her," Jen informed me. Zara remained by the door, scanning for outside threats. Providence was kind, though Flame insisted I come by before she exited her room. Jethro was ... I couldn't say if he was confused, or humbled. He'd come face to face with Special Forces troopers and been overwhelmed in his own home. A quick look at me confirmed I'd told them the most pertinent details.

When the Vanisher Team Leader, Casper, showed up, she and another member took Jethro aside for a brief chat. I wanted to tag along. They wouldn't allow it. I was rather surprised when they returned because he seemed rather upbeat (and alive). Her pronouncement was he could keep his guns. If he pointed any of them at me, or the other guys, they'd kill him and he'd agreed to the 'deal'. I was thinking 'other guys?'

Fifteen minutes after being awoken, I was part of the pow-wow between what was now 'my' group, the Vanishers and Jethro. Angel, Flame and Capri wanted to be with me. 'Captain' Casper nixed that idea. I could have one and only one. She had one lady -- her cell's 'Intelligence' Officer -- Wendy (later to be known as 'The Good Witch'). Jethro was part of the discussion because he was a combat veteran, the homeowner and had specifics on the arms stockpile they were sitting on.

I thought it over. I chose Flame. Angel was disappointed. Capri was contemplative over me picking the psycho. She got it quickly. I hadn't picked the sick-fuck -- I had picked the career criminal who might have knowledge the cop and very green lawyer might not possess. Both Flame and Jethro were likely to have any piece of obscure city lore as Angel, so I had that angle covered.

The three guys: Pierre Thomas ~ 18 year old college freshman who played 6 musical instruments, Barabbas Chebaya~ 22 year old plumber journeyman, and Lowry Pritchard ~ 23 year old unemployed artist/house-painter/man with a criminal record (anti-social juvenile antics). They all appeared bitter, sullen and were uncommunicative ... except to let everyone know they thought Jethro's place was a dump and wanted to know when they would be moving to someplace safer.

The last question was the reason for Casper's twelve women Vanisher team being in Jethro's house and their conference with myself, Flame and Jethro. Casper didn't beat around the bush.

"We have an issue. The declaration of Martial Law has bollixed our planned exit strategy. We were going to appropriate local Federation Air Force Reserve resources, fly to an unused, closed military base to the southwest and take other transport from there with the eventual goal of meeting with our larger command."

"Now that is no longer possible. Frank -- Mr. Jensen -- Truman, Brandi and Jen seem to believe you have developed an alternate, independent escape scenario," she addressed me. Alternate and independent were polite ways of saying she suspected I had planned to escape from the Vanishers all along, which was almost true.

My first plan had me using the Vanishers to leave our society, then abandoning them too. Later, I had figured out staying with them was the best bet for me and my friends to survive the upcoming calamity, so I'd left breadcrumbs for them to find me -- namely my meeting with Francesca and my parting words with Dimples. I had figured we'd be having this 'reunion' in Cody, not here, but I shouldn't have underestimated them ... again.

"Truman? Truman is Zara?"

"Yeah," Casper nodded. "Truman is Zara."

"Very well then ... I have a medium-term solution. I was hoping Mr. MacFarlane would have the short-term solution to get us from the city outskirts to that destination. Jethro?"

"Which way we headed?" he asked.

"West."

"Fancy that," he smiled. "Just so happens I know of a pre-Plague burgh west of here which is a ghost town now. There is an old ferry there which should get us across the Mississippi," he confided. That should be the biggest issue: the river was utterly un-fordable and all the bridges would be monitored. How foresighted of him. Casper's nod appeared to be in agreement with me.

"Power plant?" she inquired.

"An old diesel I finished converting to bio-fuel around twenty years ago. I've kept it up since then, though I wouldn't put much faith in it being good for more than two, or three trips. The distillery I cobbled together for the fuel doesn't produce the necessary high octane and the lubricant isn't nearly adequate for something that powerful."

"Jethro, why did you keep a ferry in working order?" I wondered.

"It is the last thing the bitches would look for, if they ever came for me and I had the chance to bolt," he grinned. "Every route south and west is blocked by rivers. East is mostly open country and semi-automated agro-businesses. North is lake country ~ broken ground and so the most likely place I'd run to. They'd waste days there looking for me. By then, I'd have slipped west and hopefully be in the Rockies."

"Okay. Where do we go from there?" Casper's gaze settled back on me.

"The Silverhorn Ranch outside of Cody, Wyoming. My former boss in the Mayor's Office has a cousin who lives there. She will by trying to go there as well," I added, feeling somewhat guilty. By trying to save Francesca, I had risked the rest of us.

"Have you ever been there?"

"No," which implied I was running away to a place which might not exist.

"Good. Have you seen a picture of it? A picture in your boss's office perhaps?"

"No ... not that I can recall. We never talked about our families. I didn't get the feeling they were terribly close ... which was probably why Francesca brought it up. She's pretty smart too," I reasoned.

"We are all probably betting our lives on that," Jethro remarked.

"We are. Okay, Wyoming works for us," Casper didn't seem upset. "It is not impossible some other agency could track you there amongst the legion of other possibilities ... in its favor, it is far away from here. There is only one other issue. Mr. MacFarlane -- we need to deactivate your band."

"How is that going to work?" he was deeply suspicious.

"They kill you," I sighed, "then bring you back after inserting a Coroner's Code." It dawned on me the three guys the Vanishers had brought with them had already gone through that procedure. That would be another reason they were unhappy.

"You don't say," Jethro studied Casper intently.

"Jethro, it was done to me years ago. I'm sure they did it to the three guys outside (in the other room) tonight. They'd be doing it to me as well, except a riot cop did them the favor by blasting my bracelet at the MAL Rally two nights ago and I never had the opportunity to have it fixed," I reasoned.

"And just like that, I'm going to let you kill me?" his eyes flickered from me to Casper to Casper's companion.

"Or you don't come with us," Casper offered.

"Why don't we fry it, the way Israel's was by that riot cop?" he suggested.

"It sends out an emergency distress call as it dies," I informed him. "The world may be in chaos, but can we really be certain the authorities won't send somebody out to investigate?"

"And someone to investigate what happened to those people?" Casper added. Sure, we could kill, or kidnap the first band of First Responders. Then what?

"Let me go talk it over with my girls," Jethro evaded.

"Of course. No pressure, Mr. MacFarlane. We can afford to part ways after the ferry if you don't, but that is as far as I can risk my unit if your band stays active," she assured him. Jethro's eyes bore into my soul.

"Fine," he mumbled. Sure, the Vanishers could have been fooling me. It was Casper's genuine last minute compromise which won him over. I imagine placing his life in a woman's hands was the last thing he expected to do 24 hours ago, yet here he was. "How are we going to do this?"

"Not here," Casper gave a sly grin. "We let our vet take your vitals and make you comfortable first. We need to make sure you'll survive the process -- we are looking at a 100% success rate to date."

"Vet?" he gave a start.

"Veterinarian," Casper smiled. "She's a trained combat paramedic too, but she's an honest-to-Goddess Dr. of Veterinary Science."

"I'm not sure that makes me feel better," Jethro grumbled.

"She's also an explosive expert," I tossed out there.

"Not helping," he frowned.

"Oh, Casper, we can use Roni too. She's a paramedic with City Services, or was," I recalled. "Paisley is a college junior studying Biology ..."

"We'll go with the paramedic assisting," Casper nodded. Out we went. Casper whispered some communications to her crew then had Brandi brief Roni on the procedure they were about to subject Jethro too.

After all the crap Roni had been through, putting a man into cardiac arrest hardly fazed her. Apparently they did it all the time -- to large animals, like horses. Jethro calmed his lady-friends down ... 'Daddy will be right back', then he lay down on the sofa. I took the time to get a count of the Vanishers -- we had 12. Meanwhile, Flame had gone to Angel and exchange a few words. They did what I should have been doing -- organizing 'my side'.

As it was, Angel stuck Venus with Flame to watch over things while she, Samantha and Lavender helped the Vanishers move stuff from their vehicles indoors. Capri, Kuiko, Aniqua and Paisley set up sleeping stations for our fifteen new houseguests.

Brandi 'killing' Jethro was rather anti-climactic. She injected him with something. Five minutes later, he closes his eyes, took one deep breath followed by several more stutter-breathes then Brandi pronounced him dead. Wendy had hooked up a wire feed to his bracelet from her laptop computer. She went through a countdown, sent a pre-set command then snipped his bracelet free. Brandi administered the shot to the heart followed by an electric jolt and we got our cantankerous old man back.

"Fuck," he choked out. "Damn, that hurts."

"How was Hell, Old Man?" Flame mocked him.

"Busier than a Drag Bar during Fleet Week," he coughed. "I saw a few of your friends there ... promised them you'd be seeing them real soon."

"Ha," Flame chuckled. She punched me. That brought an unnecessary and frightening number of reactions from the armed women around me. "Nope; you must have been delusional. Israel is still here and he's the only friend I got."

"Please do not hit Israel again," Casper stated in a very tightly controlled voice. "We have barely avoided killing you twice already. Don't make 'third time' the charm."

"Oh!" Flame clued in. "The bitches from the bridge. Which one is the sniper?"

"I will not point her out to you so we can avoid the pointless exchange of lead, Flame," I groaned as I rubbed my arm. "Take into account she has eleven exceedingly lethal friends while all you have is me."

"Point," she chortled. "I'll keep my eye out for the one who looks like she can't live another moment without your dick. It shouldn't take long."

I stared at her, mouth agape.

"Just kidding. They all look like they want a piece of you."

"Not helping!" I shouted back. Yes, I knew every member of the Vanisher team most likely had seen me both nude and having sex with other women. I didn't needed to be reminded of it.

I also caught the glance Wendy sent Casper's way.

"I'm pretty sure her knowledge of criminal enterprises in the Midwest will come in real handy," I preempted them. I didn't want them killing Flame either.

"Oh yeah. I know a mother-daughter team of smugglers who operate out of Cedar Rapids," Flame smiled broadly. "I figure they can get us across the Cedar and Iowa Rivers without drawing anyone's notice."

"Why didn't you mention this when we were discussing our exit plans?" Casper glared at Flame.

"I like him. I can barely tolerate the rest of you, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I figure I'd better carefully dole out the knowledge I have until the situation shakes out more to my advantage," Flame enlightened the Vanisher leader.

I had known all those factors when I brought her to the meeting. Flame was clever and constantly at Little M's side, so what contacts the Keverich Crime Syndicate had, she was at least aware of. She simply came across as so carefree, brutal and brusque it was going to take time for the rest to appreciate her 'finer'/craftier qualities. I hoped I lived long enough to see it.

It had been a long damn day, and with more stress than was remotely healthy for me given my multiple trips to the precipice of madness, yet I had one final duty to perform. I went to my fellow males and gathered them for what my gut told me was something important to discuss. The Hispanic Vanisher from the metro was hesitant about letting us take a stroll in Jethro's backyard.

As I turned to leave, I caught the old man watching us head out. He gave me a nod. I needed the endorsement since I was burning up what little recovery my short nap had given me.

"We are going out," I told the woman.

"Why?"

"Guy stuff," I told her. That didn't satisfy her curiosity. Her eyes flickered back into the room from whence we came.

"Outside -- us -- alone," I insisted. I was struggling to sound firm.

"Is that wise? The alone part."

"Good point. Give me a gun," I gently extended my hand.

"Do you even know how to use one?" she tried to hide her ridicule.

"Yeah. Of course I do," I frowned.

"Who taught you to shoot?" she interrogated me. Anger came to my rescue. I had only started by asking to take a damn stroll after all.

"Experts ... people really good at killing stuff," I evaded.

"I don't recall reading about that in your file," she kept detaining us.

"It was in my dreams ... earlier this week ... by Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph Daly, Company Sergeant-Major John R. Osborn and Colonel William O. Darby. All top notch fellas," I convincingly lied. PR training helps with that. Sadly ...

"William O. Darby was a Brigadier General," she corrected me.

"Posthumously," I counter-corrected. "Ms. ..." was left hanging.

"Wes Prince," she supplied her alias.

"Yeah. He's a bit pissed about the belated promotion along with getting gakked two days before the enemy surrendered and having his training methods nearly discarded," I continued. "I am glad we both agree he was a decorated combatant and thus capable of passing on his Warrior's lore. Gun please." I motioned with my hand once more.

She moved her PDW aside and drew her pistol before presenting into to me, butt first. Gingerly, I took it from her and pointed it toward the ceiling while examining it. First problem.

"Where is the safety?" I inquired.

"This model doesn't have one," Wes informed me. Sigh. I figured out the trick for dropping the magazine, examined it -- yes, it had bullets, and then checked the chamber by pulling back on it slightly to verify it had a round in it. It did.

I put the magazine back in. I made sure the firearm wasn't pointed at anyone as I lowered it from pointed up to only threatening Mother Earth.

"Thank you," I gave Wes a weak smile. "Come on guys." She didn't move so I was forced to shoulder passed her.

I stepped out into the cool night air. I hadn't realized how the hot and humid Jethro's lodging had become with all the people and the lack of internal air-conditioning. We walked away from the outdoor lighting beyond the wood line.

"Hey guys. I'm Israel Jensen. I think there is something we need to get established right now."

"Can I have the gun?" Lowry reached for it.

"Do you have a clue how to use one?" I refused to flinch. We locked eyes. Instinctively my fist tightened around the pistol grip. I discovered there was truth to the mythology ~ holding a gun is its own kind of empowerment.

I didn't think I was about to shoot Lowry. I did believe if he moved one more inch I was going to smash him upside his head with it though. He backed down.

"Do you have any experience?" he sneered. "Actual experience?"

"Yes. A lady inside showed me how to use one," I stated. "I'm sure if we all behave, we will all have a chance to gain some actual firearms' training."

"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.

In a final indignity, thirty-eight years ago, two years after the last gasp of the first Gender Plague, a major earthquake hit Indonesia causing serious destruction and the worse tsunami on record. By that time, only the northern islands of the Philippines had started rebuilding. Indonesia and Malaysia existed as separate, multiple, mutually-hostile, competing city-states and they were the 'good news' of Southeast Asia. All too often, the recovery of the various former nations threatened to bring China and India into conflict, so such efforts were shelved.

Move the clock forward to the present day and there was no political entity north of Australia remotely strong enough to retard the upcoming Global landslide into oblivion. Collectively those Asians knew Death was radiating out of China and they had to do 'something' and all too often, something meant getting on a boat, or a plane, heading south ... to Australia, or, if you had the capability, to New Zealand.

Unlike the disorderly mobs of two generations ago, some of those 'refugees' had the firepower to 'fight' their way to freedom/safety. A UN taskforce had been in the area suppressing piracy days earlier (it was now racing toward Shanghai) and every major metropolis had its own marine paramilitary. They were all island-nation-states after all. Australia was about to be in the fight for its life. Even then, it was too late. The first confirmed case of Plague was to be rolled into a Canberra Emergency Room with 24 hours. Could Tasmania and New Zealand carry on alone?

{SOUTH AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN}

Finally, in South America it was more tough choices time, but not in the way most people were thinking. During the Gender Plague Old Brazil hadn't been the only country to go under though she'd been one of the most extreme cases. As nations, Columbia, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay vanished.

Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia inherited portions of Peru with Chile evolving into the Andes Republic. Venezuela was able to survive and cobbled together much of the northern coast of South America into the Caribbean Federation of States (CFS). In the Central part of the continent, Bolivia absorbed all of Paraguay and Uruguay plus portions of Peru and southwestern Brazil as well. It was supposed to return the Brazilian territory, but never did.

The Caribbean was largely depopulated by the Plague ~ tourism dwindled to nothing in the plague-years and supplying essentials to those island nations was asking too much of too few serviceable merchant vessels. The surviving majority had been evacuated to the mainland. Those in the north eventually joined the Federation. The ones in the south joined the CFS and it was those islands and the CFS itself which was about to cause the most problems.

Forty years had not truly settled South America's border issues and though she didn't possess one of the five economic powerhouses on the planet, they did consolidated power down to six (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, CFS, Ecuador, Andes Republic) from 13 nations ~ not counting the now-extinct Caribbean island-states.

Strongest both economically and militarily was Bolivia. She was also surrounded by hostile neighbors. Argentina resented her invasion and occupation of Uruguay during the Plague. Brazil wanted their western territory back. The Andes Republic, per her claims as the Peruvian successor state, insisted Bolivia 'return' possessions in the northwest of the country ... which Ecuador also claimed.

Bolivia's biggest trading partner was India -- basically gone now. Argentina's was the Republic of South Africa -- still in the fight. Brazil was pro-Federation, the Andes Republic was pro-China (useless) and Ecuador was pro-Japan (nearly useless). Finally, the CFS was pro-Russia with an 'ancient' history of disagreements with the Federation.

Militarily, none of the nations of South America were up to challenging the Federation armed forces, even during the current crisis ~ had the Federation been united. Sadly, one country was being given critical intelligence about a fragile hope for the survival of the Human Species. The CFS was getting up to date information about what I was and their benefactor, Dr. Delilah Fremont, wanted the CFS military to go rescue me. She was 'doubling down' on my retrieval.

Well ... such an activity would basically be an Act of War. There was no way around it. If the CFS did manage to kidnap me, a Federation citizen, from Federation sovereign territory, they still had to keep hold of me and for that, they needed an ally who was unlikely to knuckle under to the Federation and the United Nations.

The best one handy was Bolivia. The CFS would share 'me' with the Bolivians. Their prayer was their combined might could hold off the Federation, Ecuadorans, Brazilians as well as whatever Europeans and Africans the UN could scare up. Response would be swift, but all they had to do was keep me hidden long enough for the Plague to take hold of their enemies and then let nature take its course.

In the cool, clean halls of academia they called it Military-political Darwinism ~ the political systems capable of making the tough yet correct political and military decisions would be the ones who survived. Those who made the proper alliances and who had invested correctly in their national armies got to write the history books while the failures would cease to matter within a month -- two at the outside.

By dawn, two score of armed naval vessels had set sail heading north. At over a dozen air bases, flight crews were working overtime getting their prizes prepared for upcoming combat. Bolivian pilots didn't have the highest opinion of the Caribbean counterparts, but such things couldn't be helped. Both armies went to the highest level of readiness as they traveled toward the borders of their neighbors.

It wouldn't have done my struggling psyche any good to know bands of elite female warriors were being shown stills and videos of me -- their target. English was common among the Caribbean -- not so much the Bolivians. That was okay. They were informed I spoke Spanish.

In a bizarre circumstances of bizarre circumstances, an HUMINT (Human Intelligence) officer for the Bolivian Army had a) gone to my alma mater -- Bowdoin b) during two of the four years I'd been there and c) had actually had sex with me (once) while attending 'said' college. To the Bolivians, putting someone on the ground who I might recognize as a 'friendly' was a definite 'plus' (they were unaware of my psychological history at the moment). She'd dreamed about being a member of the elite Condors Guard regiment. This was her big chance to do so and become reacquainted with an old (male) friend in the process.

{PLACES TWO AND THREE ...}

... were the City and the Capitol and they were intertwined on both a political and personal level. Personally it involved the Treyvon family -- mother and daughter -- who were unwittingly both working to stymie the workings of the Federation government. The actions of the daughter had inadvertently set her mother's career into a fatal spin which, in turn, would impact the lives around her daughter.

{THE CAPITOL}

After 'mother' Treyvon hung up the phone with her daughter (right before I went on GNN to confront the Federation President), she initiated her final actions as a Vanisher conspirator. Unlike the National Security Advisor, she was one of the original people who had been 'in the room' when the 'Vanisher' Contingency was worked out and submitted to the secret Federation Discrete Committee on the Study of Human Extinction twenty years ago.

At the time she was assigned to the project, she thought it was a waste of time. She was a junior Ministry of Security operative between assignments and was given the task because the Ministry didn't want to 'divert' another analyst to the working groups (4 analysts worked on other contingency plans which were also created and rejected). By the time her group submitted their report, the others had convinced her of the necessity of doing something about the situation and in turn, she'd convinced them she could recruit the women capable of pulling off the initiative they were constructing.

Another member of the project team had come to her after their proposal had been shelved. (The government had decided to do nothing at all, aka they were going with The Big Lie.) The two members agreed to work in secret to implement some version of their proposal and then agreed to invite select members of the original group, plus a tiny number of others such as the future National Security Advisor, to participate in the effort.

That other 'member' was about to provide her last service to the project as well. There was some slight chance the civilian government could recover from the President's very public removal and in the Vanisher Plan, they had to remove the possibility. At this juncture, they needed only three people dead.

The original conspirator within the Ministry of Justice strode purposefully into the Attorney General's office which fortunately (for her) was flooded with activity and then detonated the bomb in her briefcase. The force of the explosion collapsed the floor above them as well as sending the wreckage into the floor beneath and the street below. In the subsequent analysis, the explosives were determined to be military-grade.

The National Security Advisor went to the presently vacant office of the Vice President, wrote out her own suicide note on that woman's computer, mailed it to a few impeccable news sources, took a stiff shot of the Vice President's personal stock of Kentucky bourbon ... along with a lethal dose of muscle relaxants, sat down on an available sofa and went to sleep.

They would find her dead body within fifteen minutes, but it would be beyond their ability to resuscitate, leaving the VP incapable of defending herself from the deceased woman's accusations that she, the Vice President, had conspired with the Ministers of Defense and Security to overthrow the legitimate government. According to the confession, the National Security Advisor had helped, yet been overcome with guilt and thus taken her own life.

At the same time, Flora Treyvon, Deputy Director of Operations for the Ministry of Security, met with three trusted operatives (shortly after the time I made it to Jethro's dwelling) and gave them their last assignments. She gave them the entire picture along with each a 'bundle' which would help in their escape. She related she didn't know where I was, yet figured her daughter might be on my trail. If they wished to survive the upcoming pandemic, they might go look her up ... after this final chore.

They shook her hand, then departed. Two didn't have far to go at all. One went up one floor to Flora's boss's office, killed the woman's assistant, then the woman (the Director of Operations) in such a smooth, ruthless, and efficient manner no alarms were set off. Five minutes later she was out of the building and fifteen minutes after that, she had assumed an alternate ID and was exiting the Capital ... right before Martial Law was declared.

The second woman went over to a good patriotic friend (a serving military officer) in the Ministry of Defense and unloaded a 'dirty little secret' on her. It was evidence the Vice President and the Minister of Security were conspiring with the Minister of Defense against the Military Command Authority ~ resplendent with plenty of proof ... including 'their' plan to kill the Attorney General. The officer rushed to meet her superiors. The agent then swiftly did her own 'vanishing' act.

The third agent casually waited fifteen minutes in the Security Ministry's canteen before using her security clearance to access the Ministry of Security's Signal's Department. The agent presented the Chief Signals Officer with Flora Treyvon's coded orders ... which normally had to be verified by the Head of Operations. The CSO had by this time been informed by the Ministry of Security's own Internal Security staff the Head of Operations had been murdered at which point Flora's agent suggested time really was of the essence.

The CSO commanded her unit to send the coded message out to every embassy and consulate of the Federation worldwide. When decoded, it informed the various Foreign Intelligence Chief's that the civilian government had been overthrown by a military coup and they were to behave accordingly -- aka passive resistance. With the Capital in chaos, they would be advising the ambassadors and consuls to NOT help the current military masters, effectively isolating the Federation government for the duration of the crisis.

The Military Command Authority, headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found out about the conspiracy of the Vice President, National Security Advisor, and the Ministers of Defense and Security close to the same time they found out about the explosion at the Ministry of Justice and the suspected death of the Attorney General. And then the National Security Advisor turned up dead. Not wanting to end up like the Attorney General, they ordered the Military Police units to arrest the three civilian leaders in question ... which amounted to a military coup.

The Joint Chiefs had a slight problem. The Capitol was rife with armed, civilian law enforcement while they had only two battalions of Military Police at their disposal. Of greater tactical importance, the largest armed law enforcement groups were the Ministry of Justice's branches -- now leaderless, the civilian Defense Intelligence Agency (in theory, you didn't want military officers investigating the military) and the Ministry of Security 'Special Agents' who usually only went about armed in other people's countries, but were fully authorized to be armed inside the Federation (they simply had no law enforcement powers within the Fed).

With the death of the Attorney General (they were still looking for her body parts; her phone was registering as 'inactive'), the Ministry of Justice command devolved to the Vice President as the senior Chief Executive -- aka the woman suspected of killing the Attorney General and engineering the overthrow of the former President.

The Joint Chiefs had three advantages.

First off, the former President, at the urging of the National Security Advisor, had activated the Armed Forces Reserves (retired military personnel trained for active duty) and National Guard (much like the Reserves except trained for 'at home' duties), so those generals and admirals had several thousand new troops at their disposal and most of those troops specialized in 'rear echelon' administrative duties such as maintaining law and order as well as several additional companies of actual Military Police.

Secondly, while not actual policewomen, the Headquarters for the military's Judge Advocate General's Office was in the Capitol, so they had access to a large body of military personnel familiar with the law and law enforcement.

Thirdly, there was on active duty brigade within 4 hours already on high alert. The elements which could turn that brigade into a fully-functioning division were 72 hours out, yet the core of the brigade would do for now. Also, they could move Special Forces units into the area within 10 hours and another three brigades in 18 hours ... and these troops had armored fighting vehicles plus air support.

Chaos and discord were everywhere. The military leaders began calling in the reinforcements, then sent their available MP's out to arrest the Vice President, Minister of Defense and Minister of Security. They found the Vice President in FBI custody ... they had already arrested her for conspiring with the former President on charges of Treason (concealing the outbreak of the new Plague on the West Coast). A polite, if tense, tug of war developed.

The FBI couldn't simply hand her over to the military. They had no legal justification for such an action. They -- the FBI -- were the legitimate law enforcement agency, not the Ministry of Defense.

'Oh ... you are arresting the Minister of Defense too? Who is in charge over there? The Generals and Admirals ... Under whose authority? You CAN'T do that.'

And then all the fine young ladies began putting their hands on their guns. Very messy.

The Minister of Defense? She'd already fled the Capitol. After the fiasco where she'd tried to grab me by sending the Rangers in for an extra-legal kidnapping, she'd been planning an exit strategy of her own. She had political allies in Old Mexico, so there was where she was heading. She requisitioned a VIP Army transport (think small luxury jet) and was winging her way south when both the FBI and Joint Chiefs figured out she'd bolted.

By then it was too late. The Regional Military Commander in the Southern District (Southern Mexico down to the Panama Canal before the Federation) was an old friend of the Defense Minister. She had nurtured the RMC's career and now was time for some reciprocity.

Of greater importance was perhaps that by sunrise the next day, the Defense Minister was the SENIOR-MOST member of the civilian government NOT in military custody ~ so the legitimate center of any resistance to the Joint Chief's takeover of the Federation. The Southern District wasn't the most powerful military command, but it was too strong to be quickly knocked out ... and it wasn't like the Joint Chiefs didn't have a host of other issues to deal with ... like the Plague AND the collapse of the Global Economy.

Back at the Capital as darkness fell, the lead investigators into the Vanisher Conspiracy case began realizing they had a short list of dead women, two 'fugitives from Justice' and one live one -- Flora Treyvon. Why were those investigators still working on the case? Men were missing. By then, over 2200, and that was something important enough not to ignore, even with the government in turmoil.

The investigators weren't stupid. Flora was a trained operative and still at her place of employment. Walking in and trying to interrogate her was a good way to end up dead, or with a dead end. It took them time to find someone in the traumatized Ministry of Justice who could be sent to a Federal Judge to secure the warrant and then some more time to round up the FBI Hostage Rescue Teams. The HRT were the Special Forces of law enforcement. They brought three 12-women teams.

Why hadn't Flora fled? She needed to fixate the investigators on her for as long as possible. That and she wanted to kill as many as she could in her final act of defiance against the government she felt had betrayed her gender and her race. The women coming for her were merely tools, yet they were the only objects making themselves available to her long-concealed wrath.

"Deputy Director of Operations Flora Treyvon," the first of five women coming through her door spoke in a clear, commanding voice, "you are under arrest for Conspiracy to Undermine the Gender Inequality Act. Don't reach for the gun we know you have in your desk. Stand up, nice and slowly now."

Flora had already done the math. Inside the spacious room were two of the nine special investigators assigned to unwinding the Vanisher Conspiracy. Cameras linked to her monitor showed three more were in the hallway with a four-woman forensic team. Three of the intruders in her face were HRT as were the two just outside, theoretically beyond her sight. There were five HRT with the follow-up team, five in front of the elevators and five on the ground floor. The only Security personnel close by was Flora's personal assistant, Sarah.

'Oh well'.

"Facta -- est verbis," Flora grinned. In front of her desk were three high-backed chairs. Carefully, shortly after she's assumed the office of Deputy Director, she'd personally painstakingly replaced the backing of each with explosives and chrome-alloy, octahedron-shaped, sharp-edged objects. 147 little killers in each one. Carnage radiated out from her in a trio of giant cones. Flora even had the walls between her office and that of her assistant and the one between her assistant's office and the adjoining hallway rebuilt to be hollow so both barriers provided no real shelter.

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.

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.

"Device!" I screeched. "Something to write on!"

The door swung open. I barely noted the person entering the room as they did so at a low crouch, so from the bed I could barely make out the top of their head. Carpi was scrambling to my left. Kuiko lurched toward me, caught herself in that dangerous action and recoiled.

Capri shoved an ancient magazine and pen into my hands. I began writing with shaky hands.

'(AMSA) C50H73N15O11', went down on the corner of some article about the comeback of wood-particle furniture.

"What is going on?" It was Scar Moore.

"Israel had a nightmare," Kuiko answered for me.

"I remembered something the Aurora Slasher gave me when she was giving me the Carabolix 37," I shivered. I was bathed in sweat and now that I was sitting up, the cool air was stealing away my heat. "I recall intense pain ... especially ... down there," which sounded so child-like and lame.

"Frank had a nightmare," Scar murmured into her communication gear then. "Let me see."

She had no better luck than me, or Capri.

"Let's show this to Brandi," Scar grinned my way. "Rest easy, Frank. You are doing your part." I noticed it was already passed 6 a.m. Getting anymore sleep wasn't going to happen. Scar left the room. I began crawling over Capri.

"Where do you think you are going, Mister?" she teased.

"I need to think," I mumbled. "Run ... on the treadmill."

"I'll come with you," Kuiko volunteered.

"It only has room for one," I pointed out.

"I will keep the other girls at bay," she smiled. "So you can think in peace."

"I'd appreciate that," I gave in.

"Have fun," Capri groaned. She flopped back on her pillow, then took mine and put it over her head to cancel out the minimal light already in the room. Kuiko and I dressed, leaving her in silence. I had barely started the machine on a pre-recorded 5 km run when Brandi, Roni and Paisley found me. Kuiko tried to intercept them, but she was too small and they were too determined.

"Israel, are you sure about this first part?" Brandi pointed at my notation -- the (AMSA). I screwed up my thoughts, trying to grapple with that elusive dream fragment.

"I think so," I shrugged. "Those memories were pretty thoroughly suppressed in therapy. I can only imagine ... this place reminds me a tiny bit of her place as in was old and had an old smell to it. She was a neat-freak."

"Her?" Paisley frowned.

"The Aurora Slasher," Brandi whispered. "He's the one who survived."

"Oh," Paisley gave me the normal female look of surprise girls gave me when the realized I'd gone through something 'bad' without understanding how bad it really was.

"Okay," Brandi screwed her 'thinking cap' on. "Israel, what can you tell us about this medication. What effects did you feel after she gave it to you? Was it given orally, or injected? If injected, where did she inject it?"

"Give him a break," Kuiko grew fierce. "It hurts him to remember this." I nearly fell off the treadmill. Kuiko had come through yet again. She got it. She knew. I felt so justified in loving her. I also felt I needed to push harder.

"Thank you, Kuiko," I sighed. To Brandi, "It was injected ... in my penis shaft and scrotum -- the artery leading in, I believe. I ... I think it was ... relief. Not immediate ... but definitely something I associated with the injection ... say anything between five and thirty minutes," I struggled along. Running actually helped going back into the darkness. "The pain didn't go away ... it lessened. Does that help?"

"Describe the pain. How did it lessen?" she kept at it. I could only shrug.

"Well C50H73N15O11 is an ACE inhibitor -- it lowers blood pressure by enlarging blood vessels," Roni added to the discussion.

"If it was BSA," Paisley snickered, "we'd know what that is."

Brandi's head turned and regarded her as did Roni's.

"What is BSA?" Kuiko asked.

"Bovine Serum Albumin," Brandi stated in an off-handed manner.

"It is used to stabilize DNA," Roni added.

"Ummm ... if 'SA' is Serum Albumin and 'B' is for Bovine then what is 'AM'?" I wondered out loud.

"It is two letters of the alphabet. It could be anything," Roni shook her head.

"No," Brandi corrected her. "It had to be something which had been researched at St. Jerome's as well."

"They didn't advertise altering the Gender Plague so they may not have advertised this concoction either," I showered them with reason.

"You can lie about the research, but not the researchers," Brandi sent a devilish smirk my way. "All I need to do is access St. Jerome's records and find out who has done research there in the past 40 years then cross-reference that list with 'AM' and see what pops up."

"Aren't those classified?" Paisley questioned. How adorable. It seemed the full effect of the hateful world spinning out of control around her last night hadn't fully impacted on her yet.

"A little -- I'm with the government," Brandi consoled the college student. "I'll go talk to Jen." Brandi left as did Paisley. After a bit I realized Roni was staring at me.

"Yes?"

"Oh," she blushed. "I apologize. It has been a while." She meant her and sex.

"I'm doing the best I can," was my best excuse.

"I know."

"You know if we had left last night we wouldn't be with the Vanishers now," Roni prodded. She meant had I abandoned the others over Roni's moral qualms I wouldn't be in the Vanishers' 'custody' now.

"Correct. We wouldn't have three extra men for the rest of you to romance, twelve highly-trained women to protect us, an exit route over the Mississippi and a plan to get us to the Rocky Mountains undetected. Yeah," I didn't look her way. "We'd be out there, somewhere, making up our survival plans as we went along until far better funded, equipped and trained agencies hunted us down, killed you, Angel and Venus and enslaved me -- Roni. Yeah. I know precisely what's going on."

Lacking an adequate comeback, she left.

"I love you," Kuiko said out of nowhere. Yet another point for Kuiko. She was lauding me for my mind and eloquence, not my physique.

"I love you too, Kuiko," I smiled at her. I had a sudden desire for nipples. Kuiko read my mind, stood up and came my way. I was still jogging. We could make this work.

"Crazy-K, the Vanishers want to give us some basic firearms training," Venus intruded. She took in the two of us. "That means -- everybody."

"Fiddle-sticks," Kuiko pouted and snapped her fingers. I ramped down the machine, stepping off as it wound down. Firearms training ... what could go wrong?

{ZARA}

Firearms training; each one of us who needed help had an aide. Flame and the Vanishers Ballard, Ross and Wilson kept watch over the premises while Jethro and Angel were coopted as trainers. Casper 'explained' to Angel why she couldn't train me. Of all the people they had to 'bring up to speed', I was the one they couldn't lose so it made sense they put the most reliable trainer with me -- Zara.

Thankfully, Angel took Kuiko. Jethro ended up with Lowry -- that poor, stupid Sonofabitch. He must have thought the Old Man would take it easy on him -- being old and a man. Scar, whose name was actually code for Oscar, doubled up with Aniqua and Lavender. Scar/Oscar was a qualified Drill Instructor and they deemed Aniqua and Samantha the 'most trainable' from their preliminary background check.

Back to me, a gun in my hand and a woman wrapping her body around me ...

"Now aim carefully, squeeze the trigger with a steady pull and the bullet will go right where you want it to go," Zara instructed.

"I hope it goes out the barrel," I muttered. Zara gave me this look. "I mean, it would be bad if it stayed in the barrel, right?" I got another look. "Okay, aim, pull trigger, try to put it on target."

"No, Israel," Zara explained patiently. "Losers try -- winners do." I stopped joking around and griping. If I couldn't defend myself with some level of competence, someone would have to put their lives in danger to protect mine.

"I'll do my best," I sighed.

"I know you will Israel," Zara gave a wisp of a smile. "You will surprised how good your best is."

"I'm glad one of us has faith in me," I joked feebly.

"You've done so much already, Israel," she soothed me with her grace and kindness, so unlooked for. "You don't need to rush things."

If there was any consolation, I wasn't the worst. I wasn't even the worst guy. The worst were Kuiko, who was the lightest weight, and Barabbas, who had an aversion to loud noises. Our weapons had sound suppressors ~ Jethro's neighbors were some distance away, but we opted to not tempt fate ~ so I was worried what he'd do when we found ourselves in a real fire-fight because I clearly recalled guns being very loud.

"Squeeze, don't jerk, be smooth, take a breath, let it out, squeeze the trigger, the gun will fire itself ... sight picture, sight alignment ... you fire between breaths. Now, I'm going to place a coin on the front sight. You squeeze the trigger until the hammer falls ... did the coin stay on the front sight?" It didn't.

"Let's try again ... you do this until the gun doesn't move, even with the lightest ... then you load the weapon and do it again, and again, and again, and again ..."

We did that until we were called in for breakfast. It didn't take a first-year sociology student to realize the Vanishers were dividing us up into mentor-student duos and working at keeping us that way. It also meant at any given instant they knew precisely were most of us where.

"What's next -- once I've mastered lesson #1?" I asked Zara.

"Next you learn to draw and fire," she continued. "Empty weapon holstered ... face a mirror, reach down, draw the weapon ... assume your stance ... I use a two-handed hold. Rest your hands in front of your belt ... draw the weapon while at the same time you bring your support hand up to grasp your gun hand."

"Your gun-hand is glued to the weapon, it does not move once you have got your grip ... finger out of the trigger until you have a clear target ... your support-hand cradles your gun-hand. The support-hand can move if you are using a revolver. Use your support-hand to cock the weapon ... with practice you can draw and fire quickly and smoothly."

"I've been timed at 1.2 seconds to draw and fire six rounds ... all were hits on the target and were close enough together to be covered by a silver dollar. I don't expect you to be that level for some time. It is something for you to aim for. I believe in you. You'll get there because you need to have that skill and proficiency."

"That sounds incredibly fast," I gulped.

"It won't seem that way when you become that good," she assured me in a way which really made me think I might, one day in the distant future, make her prediction a reality.

"What if I can't shoot somebody? I mean point, aim, shoot and attempt to end another person's life with malice of forethought," I elaborated.

"It is not a matter of courage, Israel," Zara spoke softly. "I think you are brave. Bravery is not a factor. Plenty of cowards kill. You possess the clear perception the person you are shooting at needs to be killed so that people you care for will live. When the time comes, your understanding of that principle will remove all other complications and morality. Your clarity is what separates you from a murderer."

"Like Flame?"

"Yes, and Mr. MacFarlane," she stated.

"He was fighting for a cause too," I defended his choices long ago.

"He could not win, Israel. All those deaths were for nothing. Had he killed 100? 500? What would it have changed?" Zara challenged me.

"I don't blame him for being angry about what was done to him and his Generation. I simply don't accept his actions could have had any other action except failure. He had neither the numbers nor organization to overthrow the Federation. Failing to do that, what purpose did killing those women have?" she continued. I gave her words serious thought.

"No," I mused several rather successful rounds later. "Sometimes you must resist, regardless of the outcome. Surrendering to tyranny was as much a mistake forty years ago as it is now. The only difference was how many boys grew up not knowing the difference."

And Zara smiled.