The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World

by CW Crowe

  By the time Fallon had taken two bites of his cheeseburger, she was half done with hers. He looked at her as she woofed down her food - her collarbones were clearly visible.

  He didn't plan on asking her the question - it just seemed to come out on its own. "How did you become a whore?"

  The look on her face was one of questioning, like she was deciding how, or even if, to answer him. She swallowed the last of her cheeseburger and started on the fries. She took one at a time between her thumb and index finger and put them in her mouth. Fallon waited for her to speak.

  "I think it was because the state took me away from my parents," she said.

  "Oh, I can't blame the child welfare people. My parents shouldn't have had a kid - they were into drugs and freedom and moving around. I was with them until I was six and then, one night, a man and a woman from Child Protective Services came and got me. I cried and cried. I think my mother and father were probably relieved. I never heard from them again.

  "I went from one foster home to another. Most of my 'parents' were nice. They said I was special, real smart even. They wanted to help me; they set down rules, tried to have me in bed by ten, made sure I was up by seven to get ready for school.

  "I don't remember that I ever learned much at school, but I did learn to cuss. I'd scream at my foster parents that they should fuck themselves or that I didn't give a shit about their rules. That made them try even harder to help me and so I started to run away when I was about twelve.

  "Running away is a big problem with foster parents. They are half relieved that you're gone, but their other half is worried sick about you. I never understood what I put them through, but I do now."

  Dy paused and took a long drag on the shake. Her eyes stared into the distance, remembering. Fallon thought he detected regret in her gaze.

  "I'll never forget my fifteenth birthday. The foster family I was living with planned an outing to Dave and Busters. I remember loving that place and was looking forward to going. My birthday was on a Saturday that year and I was allowed to sleep in. I woke up before everyone else, though, and went online. I went to a chat room and had a private message from a guy I'd been writing to. I'd sent him a selfie of me with my boobs out and he told me how turned on he was. He lived over two hundred miles away, but he wanted to come pick me up so we could party. I should have known that it wasn't a good idea, but I was stupid back then."

  Her face took on a pained expression as she relived that day. She slurped her milkshake dry.

  "Well, you can figure it didn't work out. He picked me up and took me back to his place. I was lucky to get away from him before anything really bad happened. To me, he looked ancient - probably thirty or more.

  "I made my way to the bus station, but the fare home was over thirty dollars and I only had seven with me. I sat on the bench out front and was crying when Billy drove by and asked if I needed help. I was hungry and scared and crying. I remember thinking I had nothing to lose. I got in his car.

  "You know, Mister, I don't think I was ever scared in my whole life until that day. First, I had to get away from that creep and then I was stranded and getting into cars with strangers. I'd found I could make boys do what I wanted if I touched them and let them touch me, but all of a sudden, I wasn't in a world of boys. I was shaking with fear as Billy drove me to his place. I think that day was the day I grew up. That morning when I woke up, I was a kid; but by the time I slept that night, I was an adult.

  "But I was lucky - maybe because it was my birthday. Everyone deserves some luck on their birthday, don't they? Billy was just very nice. He talked to me quietly and fed me and told me about his girls and how they all lived together and how they made money and kept each other safe. He offered to give me bus fare or he said I could stick around and meet his girls.

  "He told me that I should go back to my foster parents; that I should try to finish school and go to college and get a job. He told me if I did, I'd probably fall in love and get married and have kids.

  "I fell in love all right. I fell in love with him. I'd always hated my life, but now I had a chance to leave that all behind and start fresh. It was so new and exciting. I told him I'd stay.

  "The rest is simple. I met the others girls. There were four others, all about my age, and they were all nice. Billy charged $150 for a half hour and $300 for an hour with us. He never tricked us out more than three times a day. He had strict rules - no drugs for us, no screwing on our own, and no talking to anyone about what we did. We lived in his house and he bought us nice clothes and took real good care of us."

  Fallon was both horrified and fascinated with her story. He broke in with a question, "How much of the money did he give you?"

  Dymond smiled wistfully, "It doesn't work that way. He got the money and we got expensive looking bags and designer heels. We went out to dinner at nice places and took vacations together. But Billy put twenty percent of the money into an account for us. When we left, he said he'd give us that money. Billy told us we could leave at any time, but I was with him over two years and no one did. When he died, I had over $40,000 coming to me."

  She went silent as a frown crossed her face. She stared into space, reliving some memory. Fallon had a sudden realization that she wanted to tell him about it, so he asked, "How did Billy die?"

  Her eyes looked directly at his; he could see pain in them. "It was the drugs. Billy was hooked, but he was clean almost all the time. He'd go a month or two or, once, even three without using, but the need was just too strong. All the girls watched out for him, looking for signs that he was going to fall off the wagon. Once we tied him up in his bedroom to keep him from going out until his cravings passed.

  "About six months ago, he went out to meet a new john. Most of our business was repeat customers, but we still needed new blood on occasion. Billy found them on the Internet, but he always went to meet them first himself - he wanted to make sure they weren't going to do anything wrong or hurt us. One time a guy hit one of the girls and Billy broke his leg in two places.

  "This new john wasn't a danger, but we later found out he was a user. He and Billy shot up and they both passed out. When the john woke up, Billy was dead. At least the john called 911; that made it possible for the cops to find him. After he was arrested, he claimed that Billy sold him drugs; that Billy was the dealer. Then the fucking cops took all our money. They seized Billy's bank accounts, claiming that the money was proceeds from criminal activity. None of us ever saw a cent and some fat cop is riding in a new tricked out SUV because of my hard work. I hate cops."

  Their trays were empty and time was passing, but Fallon didn't care. "And Ax, how did you . . ."

  Her face was like a mirror to her feelings. Fallon saw her become instantly sad. "After Billy . . . one of the girls tried to take over - to be our pimp. But no one respects a girl pimp. One day, she made a date for all of us as a group. That kind of thing was unusual, but some guys get off seeing women making love to each other and a five-way means a lot of money. We got to this motel, way outside of town and started getting into it with each other as the john watched. He looked like a biker type, but at first he seemed okay. A few minutes later, he opened the door to the outside and five more of them came in. They put one of us on each bike and took off. I haven't seen any of the other girls since."

  "It was awful. I went from screwing for nice clothes and a warm house, to screwing for food. A couple months ago, Ax won me by throwing knives at a knothole on a tree.

  "That's it," she said as if she was done.

  Fallon, however, wasn't done. He had to ask, "But Dy . . . If you could leave at any time, why didn't you - or anyone - leave Billy? Just take your money and go?"

  Now she smiled at him. Actually, her lips smiled, but her eyes were sad. "Mister, the world is full of bad shit. I learned that on the day of my fifteenth birthday and I know that even more now. It's real simple why we all stayed with Billy - he kept the bad shit away."

  ***

  Sh
e could tell he was hesitating, torn about leaving her all alone. "You go on now, Mister. I'll be fine." Her voice was gentle, almost a whisper.

  Fallon rose and took a step towards the door. She could see the struggle taking place inside him on his face. She had a sudden insight - he was worried about her.

  That thought was unexpected, even shocking. No one had worried about her since Billy. She rose and went to him and embraced him gently. "Thank you," she whispered as she turned to leave.

  His words made her stop and turn back to him. "How do you know that?"

  "Know what?" She sounded confused.

  "How do you know you'll be fine? You made a lot of bad decisions - you went with a man you met online, you stayed with Billy, you fell in with bikers. But now you're free of all that - you've got a new chance. Listen, Dy, why don't you think about it for a day or two. Figure out a way to get your life back on track. Take advantage of your new chance. Not everybody gets one, you know."

  Dymond had lost the ability to think about the future long ago. Her days had been filled with the now, with finding something to eat, with trying to stay safe. Even with Billy, she had no future plans other than to keep doing what he told her to do.

  But Fallon's words triggered her to think outside the moment. Could he be right? Could she actually have another chance at her life?

  Uninvited, a mental picture of his small trailer and meager possessions came to her. She wondered why he had so little; why he lived alone out in the woods. "Mister, are you saying I can come back with you and think about what I want to do?"

  She could feel he was surprised to have it stated that bluntly. "Yea, Dy, I guess I am."

  "Will you do it too?"

  Now he was the confused one. "Do what?"

  "Will you think about a new start for you? Maybe we both could have one."

  He looked up like he might be praying. "I wish I could, Dy, but it's too late for me."

  She took his hand and led him out the door. "We'll see about that," she said. "I told you my story and you have to tell me yours."

  For the next two hours, he did.

  The First $275 Million

  General Al Martin seemed to be right across the table from them. His eyes bored directly into Jason's. "I'm very impressed with how you set things up with your battery technology - how you didn't put all the secrets into any of your patent filings."

  Jason didn't think this meeting was going to be about his battery, but he was proud of what he had done. There was a single step in the process, a single chemical compound that had to be introduced at just the right time to make one of his batteries. Fallon called it his Secret Sauce. The exact process for creating this chemical compound wasn't disclosed in any patent. It meant that no one could make one of his batteries without his active cooperation. He was certain that China would be making his batteries for their military within a month if they knew the whole process - and they wouldn't bother to pay him royalties.

  Jason set up a factory to make the compound. The brilliant part was that, even though the factory spit out the Secret Sauce by the barrel, no one except him knew exactly how it was made. He'd hired retired executives from Kentucky Fried Chicken and Coke to help him set this up. Both companies had valuable recipes that had been kept secret for decades. They told him how it was done and helped him set up him own system.

  It was deceptively simple. One factory supplied him copper pellets created to exacting specifications. Another provided an organic solvent. Yet another, a silicon slurry. There was a web of over twenty of these suppliers and each was sworn to secrecy. But it wasn't the large number of suppliers that provided the security; it was how the ingredients they supplied were combined - and that only happened at his factory.

  It was done by three robots. Actually, they looked nothing like what most people would think of as a robot; they were large cylinders twenty feet high and twelve feet wide. Ingredients from his suppliers went into two of them and then those two fed their output to the third.

  It was the programming of these three machines that was the final and most important part of his security. Even if someone got a look inside one of his robots, they would only find mixers and heaters and pressure chambers where the materials were processed. What they wouldn't find was the programing - what processes were done in what order. Only Jason knew that - he programmed the robots himself and he'd built in a lot of security to protect that programming. The whole thing was protected by a password that only he knew.

  "I didn't think it was smart to rely on government to enforce my patents," Jason said.

  Regina smiled at him, "But what happens if you die? Who will know how to make your batteries?"

  Jason wasn't here to talk about his secrets. "I don't know how much you know and I don't care - my battery technology is safe. Now, I thought you were going to tell me about your wonderful plan." He let a hint of annoyance color his voice. So far, this meeting was a waste of his time.

  General Martin smiled broadly. "Of course. Let's get started."

  ***

  "Most of the things I'm going to tell you about today were part of a plan written by Regina almost twelve years ago. She'd finished third in her class at West Point and had been posted as a new Captain to the Army Strategic Planning Center in northern Virginia. As a proud dad, I followed her career closely, but I had no part in helping her with anything she accomplished.

  "One day, I got a call from her asking if we could meet. I was in South Carolina at the time, but she said it was important so I flew to DC. I met her at her apartment. She handed me a document and told me to read it.

  "To say I was shocked at the contents would be a large understatement. It was a plan - a plan predicting that society as we knew it would collapse in a very few years.

  "Now, that wasn't the really shocking part. Lots of people were predicting that. Groups of people, preppers, were already quite active in preparing for when, as they said, the shit hit the fan.

  "But Regina's document didn't just predict the end of the world, it offered a plan to survive and even prosper after it happened. That day, Jason, as I read her plan, my life changed. It was never the same again.

  "Because you see, I was in her plan."

  The General looked at his daughter with a mixture of respect and love on his face. "Regina, tell Mr. McCrae about it."

  ***

  She looked at him. He noticed her lips were moist. "First, we had the same idea you did about population control. We went back and looked at what happened when China used the power of the state to try and reduce their birth rate. We analyzed it on a village by village basis.

  "In over ninety percent of the cases, the birth rate actually went up as the Chinese imposed sanctions on people who had children. They fined them and occasionally made an example of some poor woman, but it didn't help. There were always exceptions to the rules; bribes were paid, people hid their babies or moved to a new village. It just didn't work. Our conclusion was that it was impossible to stop people from having babies as long as the babies had a good chance of survival. You can take it to the bank, Jason. It won't work. Forget about it."

  Jason wasn't prepared to give up on his idea. "But we'd be rewarding them for doing what we say, not punishing them. A thousand dollars for each poor girl who got an IUD would be a powerful inducement."

  "Jason, I know we don't know each other that well," she paused and smiled and Jason remembered her naked body from only an hour ago. "But when I tell you something with certainly, you need to accept it. I'm careful what I say and I don't want to waste time trying to convince you of what I know to be true.

  "But I'll humor you this one time - the Indian government did almost the exact thing you're suggesting about twenty years ago. They chose a village, and gave all unmarried girls under twenty the equivalent of $500 if they would take an IUD. Over eighty percent accepted it. And the birthrate went up. Some of the girls removed it because it hurt or caused bleeding, other just fucked a lot more because it w
as now safe and the ten percent failure rate resulted in more pregnancies because of it."

  Jason stole at quick look at General Martin. He seemed to take no notice of his daughter's swearing.

  "Now, are you ready to move on to a real plan? One that will work?"

  She reached under the table and took his hand. She dug her nail into the fleshy area between his thumb and index finger. It hurt. Jason felt himself start becoming aroused.

  "Okay," he said.

  ***

  She stopped pressing with her nail, but she continued to hold his hand. "You scoffed at those other people who paid us to provide them security after the collapse. Tell me - what do you see that they didn't."

  Her skin felt warm. "It's . . . it's the time. They are planning on two years of food, assuming that civilization will return in just two years. If there's a real SHTF event, in two years things will probably be going from very, very bad, to much, much worse. They think they know what will happen, but no one can know that."

  She nodded her head slightly, "That is the most profound statement I've ever heard from you. The preppers, rich or poor, don't actually know what to prepare for, do they? The end might come because of financial collapse, because the power grid was targeted by terrorists, because some new disease swept through the population. It could be a natural event like an asteroid strike or an act of a rogue government - like Iran nuking Israel and then everyone else joining in the fun.

  "Our latest estimates show that with any large scale SHTF event, between ten and thirty percent of the world's population will perish within ten years. How does that make you feel?"

  He looked at first Regina and then her father. They were waiting for his answer. "It makes me feel almost disappointed, like maybe it's too low. There will be enough people left to rebuild. In a hundred years, the world will be back in the same sorry state all over again, humans consuming everything in sight, destroying the planet."