The market and price for security services climbs through the roof, and anyone who has served as a soldier, marine, or cop is getting in the game. Many times, the protection detail will keep their principals alive, at least from the attacks of thieves, building up a reputation, only to take a kill order from the Kremlin, or DC, or whatever the nearest capitol may be. After all, if the principals are paying hundreds of thousands, or even millions; when the nearest capital comes along offering ten times as much, then the tables usually turn. There are a few times when that is not the case, but that only means that the State sends more, and more firepower. It doesn’t matter how good an operator may be. If the government stands to score billions . . .
Civilization has returned, sort of, though there are still many places where the money is no good. The governments work hard to get the world operational, but do so in their metropolitan areas first. After the rise of Sasha the Great, they call him outside of Russia; the remnants of governments begin to fall in line, even though, for the most part, they were living in false economies.
From DC to New York, the general uselessness of the culture was beginning to show real signs of failure right away. Much of the government shut down, not because of any announcement, or decision, and not because of a political impasse, but because so many of the military just took their families and went to their native homes, or started hunting in the wilderness somehow. The government types still had their tendrils in many regional farming enterprises, and they were able to leverage the Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite communities into providing for the elites, as well as some subservient sycophants. Along with the religious communities, whose farms were still large, though their populations were small, there were the Hippy Organics. These people didn’t believe in fighting back, and they did grow a lot of veggies. They were taught to not use all of their space-taking, time-wasting organic ways, swiftly becoming production farmers.
They quickly gained absolute control of the utilities, blackmailing people en masse, for their services. The party line was, “Do your work, or we’ll find you work, and get all the needs met.” Depending upon who was listening, it was perceived as either a promise, a threat, or a gift. But politicians make promises (only when they are running for office), and none of it was a gift. I think you understand.
Next to be taken in was Boston, followed by a streak of leveraging down the southern end of the seaboard. California was already leveraging itself. Someone had the good sense to open up the irrigation to the San Joaquin valley, which used to provide 12% of the produce for the United States. Now it is only a fifth of that, but what the hell, it only reaches as far as California, Vegas, Portland, and Seattle. Utilities and food are all they have.
Tech income is a goner and the movie industry is only substantial as much as the government uses it, the products of both are crap and everyone knows it, so the produce is literally the meat and potatoes of the territory. They call themselves Ameristan, because they resent everything that America used to stand for, and the name became so popular that, when the jihadis take power, they officially declare it the national moniker. President Harrison couldn’t care less, so long as his power and leverage remain in place. His hope is to have both wealth and power when it all clears up.
144,000
The sun became as black as sackcloth made of goat’s hair, and the full moon became like blood.[26]
E-Day Minus 3.5 Years
Riots arise in the streets of Israel, but they are not riots at all. There seems to be a national celebration of some sort, and what there is of the UberWeb is afire with reports of what the pirate news is calling revival and crusades. What the real news is calling it is sedition and open rebellion, bringing deliberate deleterious impact to the World Peace. It is as if a switch has been flipped, and there are thousands of Orthodox Jews, all men, all unmarried, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is celebration, and mayhem, because, not only are there millions of converts in a week, but the old, staid, hardliners are in flames with anger over this mass proselytization. It is as if their world, their power, their control, and their significance is crumbling away, washing into nothingness, like matzah on a rainstormed windowsill.
Closer examination shows that it appeared first at a single Yeshiva in Bethlehem, then, in what seems to be ten-minute intervals, it moved into Yeshivas across the nation, to the borders of every surrounding nation. Seventy schools in all, come to the sudden realization that Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are about Jesus – Y’shua! There are twenty, thirty, or forty students and rabbis in each shule, suddenly aware, livid with understanding, instantly compelled to tell someone. They are not under the control of some outside force, only so intensely aware of the need for the message to escape, they begin dialing everyone they have in their phones. Acceptance is like a virulent spread of contagion, imbuing everyone who comes in contact with the message. Like Rev Sha’ul of Tarsus, long ago, they are suddenly and acutely aware of what truth they have received in their training, and what is wrong. In a very few days, Israel is on fire like the second chapter of Acts, ready to tell the world.
The elder men and women involved have family obligations, but the younger, the unmarried, the unsullied and undefiled, they are sent into the “remotest parts of the world.” How they went, no one knows. But at the end of a week, there are one-hundred-forty-four-thousand of them, in groups of two, or three, or more, in every culture, able to speak whatever language is needed in that locale. Imagine young men arriving in your village, never having left Israel, speaking to your elders and youth, as if they were born into your language and culture! What would that impact be?
They were in South Africa, Viet Nam, Poland, New Guinea, Jamaica, Texas, and even California, getting amazing results. Unstoppable in their message, even though many are locked up, it only led to greater prison ministries. When they are shot at, even when they are hit center mass, they are wounded, and a medical ministry is begun. And they are from Israel!
“How soon can Israel be invaded?” is all the Ayatollah wants to know.
“The troops are amassing on the east side of the Euphrates, even as training continues, but the bridges are only half done. It will still be another five months, even with all the encouragement we have given.” Smotritel is definite in his words. “In the meantime, we can send out teams to destroy them. The press can shame and humiliate them on a global scale, so that when they disappear, no one will care.”
“Get it done!” is all the Ayatollah will say, slamming the door on his way out.
The FSB are tasked with locating and exterminating every Zealot Jew that has taken up the mantle of Gospel Preacher. The assignments are shared with all security agencies of the world. If they would not commit the orders, they are to make arrangements for the Russian contractors to get it done. They don’t have the manpower to do it alone, but the Russian Mob is willing to help. After all, the toll on their industries has been devastating. The Mullahs and Ayatollahs don’t have any love for the Mob, and vice versa, and the Islamists have even done the Mob some damage in recent years, imposing Sharia and forcing their gambling, substances, and whoring to go farther underground. But the Mob answer was to increase the prices on everything so that it balanced out. Besides, contract killing is in their wheelhouse, and in their unique profit plan.
In a move to get control over all of cash versus crime, the government – by the insistence of the Ayatollah and his disciples – impose a chip-based security on all transactions, planting an identifier into everyone, which would work to corroborate their identities when making a purchase. Without the ident chip, none of your credit cards or social service cards would be any good. Imagine if food stamps would suddenly dry up until the owner of that card would get an ident chip installed, so that spending could happen. The major credit card companies were on board, if only because it put a near end to fraudulent purchases. To order something online, a person now had to have an ident reader on their computer, and had to physically scan the ident chip,
or the sale didn’t go through. The ident chip would communicate through the reader, secure and exchange an updated approval number for each transaction, verifying that it was doing business with a validated citizen ident chip. The chip is as small as a flea, but a hundred times more complex than those nasty little chips that went into credit cards so long ago. Cash is a thing of the past, now traded only for its value as a collectable item. The older the money, the better; adjusted for its condition.
The barter system started gaining popularity, though the word “system” may imply more structure and order than is there. In practice, it is that this person has something that another person is willing to trade for, so they do. If it is an adjustable commodity, such as foodstuffs, then less could be offered in a trade, or more.
The government agents and mobsters began getting their kill orders, flying around the world to fill them, and one of the greatest problems of all time happened. No one was dying! Old people quit dying. Hospitals, urgent cares, and cancer centers began to see healing on a global scale. An agent or a mobster would shoot a target, right in the center of the chest, or in the head, and though there was tremendous bleeding, pain, and even incapacitation, there was no death. Even a multiple bullet chest wound, or a shotgun to the head, would land someone in the hospital for a few weeks, but death would not happen without the body being destroyed. One may think about infant survivor’s rates, but for some reason, there hasn’t been a single birth since nine months after the first disappearance, with the survival rate in those months was 100%. And the bridges are done.
The pirate news agents had a field day with the whole “no one dying” thing, and once it was proved before their eyes, they became a bit more brazen in their transmissions. They began coming out of hiding, seeking out new equipment, building more mobile units, finding followers who wanted to become leaders in the news movement. Now, instead of seven, there would be seventy, most of them sub-divisions of the previous seven. When a new one would spring up, they took a new name, spread their messages and, when it all shook out, they couldn’t be killed either. One of the pirates started with thirty mobiles – trucks with radio, Wi-Fi, news studio, and police-watching equipment so they knew where the fuzz was. They actually had access to the vehicle transponders for the GPS locators. Their combined name was Incumbent Laceration, and like Anonymous a century before, they seemed to be everywhere, and nowhere. They were everyone, and no one. In a few months they were two hundred units strong, invisible, indivisible, and totally dedicated to providing two messages – the corrupt nature of the Islamo-Commie connection, and the blatant Gospel of Y’shua’s total payment.
“Damned by Allah! They must all die!” The Ayatollah seems to scream at every opportunity. He had Aleksandr meet with, and abuse, every national leader on the planet, either in person, or by vid conference, though he is never appearing on the UN floor, or on a newslet, even for a minute.
The strangest thing happens about now – the moon moves from its orbit into another, more complex orbit at about three times its previous speed. From the surface of the earth, it would be almost unnoticeable with the naked eye, though it did seem to cross the sky quicker. But with all the romantics of the world living in misery, only the science nerds realized what had happened. Their first really good clue what when they got a solar eclipse nine years early. Their next was when the next eclipse happened in another month, and another. To exacerbate the situation, the waters of the seas seemed to change in viscosity, so that when a ship would pass, the wake would die down in a few dozen feet, instead of in thousands of yards. There were no storms at sea, no hurricanes, no monsoons, no nuthin’. The surface of the water was like glass from one side to the other.
There is no surf, and the breeze is little more than would drive a boat, but the surface is still highly reflective. Sunburns ran rampant, becoming a medical problem for the populace living near the oceans, Great Lakes, the Med, and more. The weather men of the world are thoroughly flummoxed, and soon, they quit predicting anything but that tomorrow would be like today.
Another interesting effect is that every four to five weeks, the moon, which is now closer to the earth, covers the sun for a great portion of the surface of the earth. It blackens the sun out completely, though the errant red glare that would have been visible in the lighted parts of the planet are refracted and reflected back at the moon; making it appear as red as blood. And the sun, for everyone else was as black as a mohair coat. As the moon continues to get closer, the darkness of the eclipses get longer. It is terrifying to a great many cultures.
Then the news around the world is afire with the last great transmission from the Rocky Mountains, sharing one final world of vile, hateful, sedition – at least that is what the “legitimate news agencies” will call the 144,000.
Poking the Bear
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with . . . [27]
E-Day Minus 6 Weeks
The final weeks are winding down, but not everyone knows it. Even most of those who know it aren’t as certain about how near it is. Those people around them are uncertain in everything but their need for one another. They teem and herd, commune and bond, so that they can stand against whatever part of their world is their personal or group affliction. Mike and her alliance, her friends, family, and neighbors have enjoyed relative safety, but their great affliction is an evil on the other side of the planet.
She sits, quiet and still, reading, enjoying a beer at the end of a long work day. There are a few dozen people in her little compound, some having been there for several years. The land and buildings had been the property of an old newsman named Jeremiah, and he had given it to Mike as a station. For the first three plus years, it had been where she brought people to hide from the terrors that had become the world. She had, at one time, fifty or sixty people in her care; that is, until the Second Great Disappearance. On that day, many disappeared with the rest of the missing of the world. In the next week, a light came on for her, but it was still too late for her to catch the train, so to speak. Still, she could be a light for others. And she is.
Sundown is coming and so is a caravan of fancy buses. One of the advantages of her porch is that it can see down the road, ten miles in the distance, both ways. Today there is traffic on both roads, but she has a peace about it, for some reason, staying in her chair. Besides, her Sig is by her hand. She whistles and a few others respond by coming to the porch as well. Some from inside the house, and some from the barn or the bunker below, but together, they number two dozen. Most of them have rifles or pistols in their hands, but Mike says, “It’s okay! I sent for ‘em.” She sets down her beer and her Bible, standing as she picks up her gun, returning it to its holster.
There are five buses coming down the southern road and six smaller coaches, coming from the north. There is also a coach, a smaller one, coming from behind the large buses by a few miles.
Mark’s caravan arrives first, not noticing the others through the woods, or the single coach coming from behind. He pulls his coach to a stop in front of the main house, so that the bumper is just past the porch where Mike is standing. One articulated coach pulls to his right, shorter coach to his rear. The next articulated coach pulls behind the first, and the final coach settles in, second behind Mark’s. By the time the third coach is stopped, Mark is already out of the bus with Rita, holding hands, heading for the porch, where Mike stands before her clan.
Releasing Rita’s hand, he leaps to meet Mike, taking her in a grand embrace, spinning her around once, saying, “I am damn glad to see you, soldier!” She’s glad to see him too. “I want you to meet someone extra special, Mike . . . this is my wife, Rita.” Some of the others have cocked and pointed their guns when Mark got close enough to grab Mike.
Mike reaches over toward Rita, for a handshake, saying, “I’m . . .” but her greeting is interrupted. Rita throws an arm around her sh
oulders, puts her hand on the right side of Mike’s head, and kisses her on the left cheek. The locals realize that this is a friendly situation, and one, by one, they lower their firearms.
“I’ve heard so much about you, Mike!” Rita says, kissing her again.
The crowd behind is rather taken aback, seeing Mike kissed like this. She’s completely off balanced, mentally and emotionally, by this tiny, little, woman, barely out of her teens, but her enthusiasm has taken Mike thoroughly by surprise. Her associates readily see her flummoxed state, and there may even be some blushing.
Gaining composure, Mike turns to her crowd, pointing to Mark, saying, “This is Sergeant Mark Schwarz, and old friend, and an older soldier. We would do well to have him and his with us.”
“I don’t know about all that,” says Mark. “I’m not really that impressive. And most of these people are not fighters. Rita’s first taste of combat came by saving my ass a few weeks ago, just a little after we met. She’s part of a church group that was left behind.”
“You just met her a few weeks ago?” Mike asks.
“Well, yeah! But in this world . . .” Mark replies, getting interrupted by Rita.
“Besides, E-Day is coming soon. I think we can love one another ‘til then. Don’t you?”
“E-Day? What is E-Day?” asks Mike, and Mark’s eyes are asking without words.
“E-Day is the final great Evacuation of the believers. The library in the bus is excellent, and it has allowed me to learn a ton of stuff about what has happened, based on what was predicted a couple thousand years ago.”
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 28
