by Ward III, C.
His dad put a level on the gun and one on the top of the scope. Then he grabbed a weird-looking screwdriver. “This is a torque wrench. These tiny screws have fine threads that can strip out easily. If we over tighten the rings around the scope, we could literally crush the inside of the it. And we all know how superhuman strong I am, this torque wrench will protect the goods.”
Curtis just smirked and shook his head at his father’s lame joke.
“What? You don’t think I’m strong? Let’s unload the Jeep now; then we can go throw a few rounds downrange.”
THROWING BRICS
A global coup d’état
“The US and her allies have bullied their way into a global position of authority using aggressive policies for over two hundred years. We are all in agreement: the time has come for a new global power. One that is fair, one that can work collectively to produce a better future—not for just one region, but for the entire planet.”
President Putin didn’t have to sell the idea of creating a new governing global super power. No, that decision had been made long ago; it’s why they had been meeting annually for the past decade.
The whole world could see the US dropping the ball; they were practically relinquishing the keys to the kingdom voluntarily. They had recklessly spent themselves into the deepest unsustainable debt in history while lecturing the UN council on resource management at the same time. The current president’s foreign policy had laid the foundation for the rebuilding of the Ottoman Empire, which had been successfully dismantled during WWII. Vladimir shook his head. He believed there were more non-Americans living in America than loyal citizens—the Americans were just handing over generations of hard work and astonishing achievements.
Vladimir sat up straight in the plush black leather chair, straightened the sleeves of his custom-tailored Kiton suit, and leaned forward, folding his hands on the large oak table. He didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard; this was a small, discreet, private meeting with no press, no spectators, not even personal advisors. “The time has come. We have successfully accomplished and surpassed all our goals over the past five years with ease. The Westerners simply cannot see the world falling apart around them. If we do not push them off the edge, they will fall on their own when we are least prepared to handle the fallout.”
President Xi Jinping, China’s head of State, stood up and started to pace the small room. “President Putin, I am not exactly clear on your intentions at this time. But I agree with your assessment. The US has simply become too big to exist. Any new laws of theirs have a rippling economic effect that creates tsunamis of damaged currency around the world. This summit, we together, are now in position to challenge the US and their World Bank creation. Our combined purchasing power parity is now double that of the US. This will only grow as other developing nations drop the US dollar as a trading currency in exchange for the BRIC.”
“The universities in the US are in shambles. They used to create the smartest and brightest innovators on the planet. It seems now that political science has overwhelmed the education curriculum with liberal arts.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi lowered his head sadly. “It really is a shame. They are producing the next generation of takers. They will only continue the foreign policy of looting the globe for their own gain. Hell, they are even looting each other. They can’t seem to help it. The majority of our top grads are taking the top-tier professional positions in the US with ease. It seems they must import talented labor as well as goods and commodities. Our universities in India are now producing professional talent surpassing the US educational system.”
Putin listened, but he already knew what they were saying. Frustration was being felt around the world. It truly was the time to act. The rest of the world wanted the US gone and they knew it; they just wouldn’t tell the bully it was time to go home. Russia had retaken USSR territory with only sharp words as a retaliation. The US president was too weak to fight back. Russia had basically kicked the US and their clown-shoe rebels out of Syria. His short Chinese friend here had almost sunk a US battleship last week in the South China Sea with nothing more than a twenty-second media clip before a story about an overdosed sports player. The Great America was already gone. They may as well make it official.
“The time has come for the change of power. It’s time to pull the plug on the old dying empire. The time is now to initiate the final phase.” President Putin announced.
“I agree with what has been said, but I do not feel that Brazil is ready to take on the great empire to the north. We cannot sustain a military engagement with NATO and allies, even if Russia and China are doing the heavy lifting,” said President Dilma Rousseff.
“Nor can South Africa,” said President Jacob Zuma. “Any sort of direct action against the US, militarily or economically, the US military could go rogue by taking retaliatory action on their own without orders from their bureaucratic government. Even if BRICS controls four times the land area than the US, they still have military technology superiority without question. They could launch a drone war on us without ever leaving home.”
Putin leaned back in his chair. “Let’s play the ‘What If’ game. What if the United States was no longer a threat or a concern, if they simply stumble and fall peacefully?”
“We would still have her allies to contend with,” said President Rousseff.
“They’re too weak,” said Putin. “The European Union politicians and IMF World Bank are so self-centered, they are destroying Europe from within just as fast as the Americans. After the fall, we the BRICS will be the governing power of global stability. Yes, they will resist our terms at first. Then we will cripple them with military and trade sanctions, just as they have implemented over the past one hundred years. Once they have destroyed themselves with pride and greed, they will seek our help, which we will assist.”
“Canada and Australia?” asked President Rousseff.
“Canada, without the safety blanket of the US, will take no part in global matters. Australia may do the same, but they will need to be monitored.”
“What of the Persians?” asked Prime Minister Modi.
“I fear they will be the ones to take down Europe. The Europeans will already be in shambles without the support of the US and market instability. They will need to be dealt with in time. I’m sure we can all agree there will be no room in the New World for their caveman religious extremism or their barbaric culture. I do not understand the US supporting contribution with the Arab Spring Uprising. These past few years have put the entire world in danger of an Ottoman reconstruction. It’s just another signal for us to make the final preparations for a global changeover.”
“President Putin, we can play the ‘What If’ game all day,” said President Xi Jinping. “The fact is the United States is still a global superpower with an unmatchable military industrial complex, along with a vast network of allies. Any sort of hostile action we take against them will be a stalemated mutual destruction scenario or worse. Perhaps we wait until after their next presidential election; they might just hang themselves.”
“Of course they will hang themselves! Have you been watching their candidate-selection process? They care more about someone’s gender, ethnicity or age, or grooming appearances, or how much the population can loot from the very people who make their country great. Yes, they have already been hanging themselves for a long time. We just need to kick the chair out from under them to make it a clean transition.”
Putin got up and walked over to the window, where he stood for a good long minute. Then, turning to face the group, he said, “Let me tell you how.”
PANDORA’S PITHOS
Good intentions and all that stuff...
The elevator lobby was another clean, well-lit, and not-too-spacious room. As Anny debated taking the elevator or the stairs, she overheard the two guards who were nonchalantly holding up the wall, rifles casually slung across their backs.
“How many?” the taller of the two said.
“Four last night,” the shorter, stockier man said. “That means you owe me a beer.”
“I think you’re lying. You’ve won three times this week. I want to see the report!”
Anny stepped closer. “I’m sorry to butt in, but what are you talking about?”
“Nothing really,” the shorter guard said as he stood more upright. “We have a running bet on how many transients the night shift has to shoo away throughout the night.”
“Oh…any of them ever get in?” she asked curiously.
“No, night shift has some sort of reward when they catch one lurking; it’s like a game to them,” the tall guard said. “The daytime ones are more trouble. They try to sneak into the building to vandalize and be destructive.”
“Does your shift offer a reward?” Anny asked.
The two guards look at each other and grinned childishly. “Yeah, sort of,” the tall one said.
“All right, say no more. Off to work for me. My name is Anny, by the way.”
“Leprechaun,” said the short man with closely cut red hair, extending his hand. “This is Dan.”
“Nice to meet you. Don’t work too hard. I’ll buy you lunch sometime if I see you there,” she said, turning for the stairs.
“You got it!” they said, almost in sync.
Anny was used to men stumbling and stuttering in her presence. She didn’t think of herself as a supermodel, but she had always had a giddy-making effect on men. Maybe it was her athletic build or maybe her light complexion due to her Mediterranean ancestry. As much as she appreciated the attention, she was very happy with the relationship she was in.
For most of the workers here, this career was a total social buzzkill. They had a very strict no fraternization policy at work. Outside of work, how was she supposed to have a relationship with someone with whom she was forbidden to share the most exciting parts of her life? Back when she was dating, she’d tried using the ‘Health Inspector’ cover story she’d been made to memorize, but telling someone a fake story made her extremely uncomfortable. Luckily, her boyfriend was a security contractor for an unknown employer in an unknown location. His career secrecy matched her own, and so they shared a mutual understanding: don’t ask too many work-related questions.
Stairs it is, she thought. The caffeine-blood mixture needed a stir, and besides, going down was easier than going up. She’d take the elevator up at the end of shift.
She would have thought retrofitting the upper levels of this old building would have been easier and more cost beneficial to the customer. But the risk of a squatter accidentally compromising the lab was too great, and keeping the lab subterranean increased containment protocols tremendously. Retrofitting the substructure probably wasn’t all that difficult anyway, since the infrastructure was already in place.
In its prime, this old building had serviced up to four thousand train passengers a day and held over three thousand office workers. Most of the daily seven thousand Michigan Central Station visitors were unaware they were sitting on top of a 150,000-square-foot munitions bunker. This station had been a major supply-staging area for the Michigan war industry during WWI. Everything from bullets to tanks had been stored under this building.
There were five sub levels: Sublevel One (SL1) was for administrative- and building-logistics staff. Having been here for two years, Anny had yet to go to SL1. Any and all personal admin problems (which she almost never had) were handled though her immediate supervisor.
Sublevel Two (SL2) held a luxurious cafeteria, comfy lounge, decent exercise room, and even sleeping accommodations for the workaholics or in case of emergency mandatory overtime—which also never happened.
SL3–SL5 were where the real science happened. Most new hires started on SL3, where teams would find ways to destroy every harmful virus, parasite, pathogen, bacteria, and fungus known to man—and many unknown to man as well. Being on SL3 was very exciting and rewarding work, although it was a bit easy. Most of these Nasties (a generic blanket term used for all the harmful microscopies) were simple organisms that, once introduced to a certain compound, shriveled up and died. All the scientists needed to do was go through their arsenal and catalog what worked and what didn’t.
If a scientist was really good at their job on SL3, they would eventually get promoted to either a team supervisor position or to SL4 depending on personality. Some people were natural leaders and possessed the passion for killing the Nasties—those were the team supervisors. Others, like Anny, were promoted to SL4, where “cures” were investigated.
After she’d first been promoted, she would reach for the SL3 stairwell door out of habit and swipe her badge while looking into the facial- and voice-recognition system. Of course, she no longer had access to that floor, which prompted an ugly, annoying tone from the access-control box. Do this a few times and the facilities security team would come out of nowhere and throw a bag over your head, dragging you into a dark room from questioning.
SL4 was the meat and potatoes of the entire project. SL4 was where practical science was pioneered. Once the Nasties found a host, how did they kill the Nasties without harming the host? Seemed easy enough, but one Nasty may take years to beat. Even with all the advanced technology in this lab that made her Perdue University–tech look like children’s toys. Very rewarding, yet extremely frustrating work. Hence the sleeper pods on SL2—some of the scientists would get so wrapped up in finding the cure that they refused to go home. Not Anny, though; she did her best work while fully rested and not stressed.
SL5 was the cream-of-the-crop mad scientists. Once in a great while, a new specimen would be delivered to SL3 that must first be identified, cataloged by the kill teams, and then cured by SL4. The “new specimen” was exactly that: new to the world. Created downstairs in the SL5 dungeon. There were rumors once of a new Nasty that SL5 had received from NASA—but again, there were zero facts to back up any rumors of a Space Nasty. Anny had no desire to ever get promoted to that subfloor. In her mind, there were plenty of Nasties on this planet already. No need to create more. But the scientists on SL3 and SL4 looked forward to conquering whatever SL5 threw at them next.
Successfully opening the stairway-access door to her subfloor, she was greeted by the bright lights, white walls, and freshly shined floor of the SL4 lobby. Not really a lobby—more like a foyer, with a conference room to the right and, to the left, a small kitchen with forever-brewing gourmet coffee and snacks. Straight ahead was a singular long hallway, with one door on each side and a door to the supply locker at the end. Cure Team Alpha on one side of the hallway and Cure Team Bravo on the other. These two teams did not interact with each other. In fact, they were in some sort of constant competitive battle. When SL4 had a new project, each team would race to the cure. Whoever won usually received a nice pay bonus and extended vacation—but, more importantly, the bragging rights were a big morale booster.
There had been several occasions when her team was ordered to end research on a Nasty. Sometimes this was a relief because no progress had been made whatsoever; other times it was infuriating because they were 99.9% completed with their cure project. Someone once let it slip that a facility in another city had beat them to a cure. That caused some questions to arise: Which city? How many other facilities like this were there? Of course, those questions were never answered, and Mr. Loose Lips was immediately terminated.
Swiping her badge and looking into the facial- and voice scanner, she said, “Anny, three-eight-six-nine.” The door made a familiar click, and she opened the door to “A TEAM.”
TRIGGERNOMETRY
1.5 Up, 3 Left
After setting up their tents a safe distance from the firepit, the boys grabbed their rifles and equipment, then walked to a different part of the rifle range.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t even see the targets all the way down there. How far is that?” asked Zavier.
“Well, we have some paper targets up close at one hundred yards that we will use to ensure the s
copes are sighted in properly. Then we are going to hit those white steel targets. The closest one is at three hundred yards, the farthest one is about 1050 yards.”
“That’s insane!” said Michael.
“That,” his dad, said smiling, “is mastering the science and shooting fundamentals we have been practicing all day. And a whole lot of bragging rights. Hitting that farthest target is no different from hitting that zombie in the head earlier. The only difference is that we have to compensate for things like gravity, air drag on the bullet, and wind effects. A couple other things, too, but those are the biggies.”
Curtis took three shots on a paper target at one hundred yards. The three holes almost touched each other. “How come they didn’t hit center?” he asked.
“Because we monkeyed with your scope. No problem, though; we can adjust it,” his dad said while still looking through a big spotting scope that looked like it could easily spot people on Mars. “Can you see your holes? How far from center would you estimate you are off?”
“Maybe an inch and half low and three inches right—ish.”
“Math lesson for all: pay attention boys,” Victor said, pulling them all in closer. “If you look though the spotting scope, you can see Curtis’s shots are off-center, so we are going to adjust his crosshairs to impact where he is aiming.
“Scopes come in two different measurement types: MOA (Minute of Angle) or Mil (Mil Radian). Same principle on both, just different units of measurement. All ours are in MOA. One full MOA adjustment at this one hundred–yard target will move the bullet about one inch. So...Curtis needs to move his bullet left three inches. How does he do that?”
Zavier shrugged.
“Three inches would equal three MOA, correct?” Michael said, kind of unsure of himself.
“Correct. And how do we do that, exactly? The top knob on the scope moves the reticle up and down for elevation adjustments. The one on the right side here, that is for windage adjustments, which moves it left and right. Curtis, go ahead and adjust it three full MOA to the left. Use the top to go up how many?”
