the ozone epidemic
1
Perhaps when the idea existed only in thought it was good but the human consumption of ozone was an epidemic. Ozone was more addicting than crack and more physically addictive than heroin. Some say things got out of hand but that phrase can hardly describe the madness or carnage that ensued globally. Ozone junkies destroyed America and the rest of the world followed.
It’s not like I can say that I was exempt from this crazy carnage. I was no Ozo and as the saying goes, money over everything so I saw it only as a way to get rich. Ozos I just killed and there were roving crews of others like me but I worked alone. By this time the whole country was in a state of emergency. There were camps for the Ozos but if they went into the city they could be shot on sight. They always went into the city.
2
At first light I set out.
Had to get some jewelry today.
Most of the major retailers had been hit but I was close to tracking down a supplier warehouse, which would be much more protected than anything and Ozo could handle.
It was on the far side of town. I was new to this city but been in enough of them to know my compass settings. I always had a good sense of direction and I honed that talent through the years and now it was almost like I had gps in my head. I had the real thing on the dash just in case. Shotgun on the seat and two guns in holsters another in my waist and a sniper rifle I had found a bit back.
Some days for fun I would sit on a rooftop and pick off Ozos. I had my radio with me and I listened to the Ocland Barr station. He was really just some college kid who barricaded himself in a radio station with a couple friends and together they ran the station. Fourteen months they have been inside and I don’t think I missed a day.
Clap-clap.
I took a 400 m shot and my aim was true an Ozo’s head exploded. It was a gross explosion of orange and red blood and blue skin. The ozone did terrible things to a human’s body. It was easier just to think of them as nonhuman. The automated ozone drop was where the Ozos hung out and lived. Many things in space were automated and the entire Ozone collection operation was led by a company called Interhabit it was Chinese/Japanese company with it they changed the world for the worse or so I was led to assume.
There was a war going on in the Far East but here in America just surviving was enough of a headache. Mine was not the popular opinion. Crews took over Interhabit sights, warehouses, stores and parks. I was in with a couple of the larger crews for food mostly but I did fight. American was now truly a Gangland. The government must be running somewhere probably in Washington DC. I felt certain that the government had troops and probably had territory but they were a long way from cleaning up this mess.
I came up to the staging area and parked the car. One thing being in the military will teach you is that you never go in without a plan. I had a plan developing but I needed intel. The warehouse was surrounded by a fence and when I got over the fence I got to the wall behind it. I scaled both after some blundering with the harness.
I was in!
That’s when I knew I was in a little too far. This wasn’t a one man operation, there had to be 15 guards. Then I saw it, the eagle’s nest. I looked through the scope and it was empty. I went back over the wall and walked around the side to the eagle’s nest. Then I scaled the wall. As I stood at the top I saw someone below.
Shit!
I was going to have to jump.
I tied everything down and practiced then I jumped. I caught the rail with my hand first and my feet fell to a lower rung. Some rust fell off. I pulled my wrist but I was able to get to the top of the eagle’s nest and from there I could see everything. I set up.
The sniper rifle had a silencer and a restrictor a device that erased the light from the bullet being fired. They would not know where the shots were coming from. I shot one of the guards and he fell down dead. Then I set out killing the rest. Some more came out from inside and I killed them too.
Then as I went down the ladder, my killing completed, or so I thought, I startled the guard below me. I pulled out the .45 and killed him too. This let out a resounding boom that echoed across the courtyard. Anyone left alive would have heard that and I double timed it to the gate and opened it.
I brought the truck from around the corner and in through the now open door. There were three warehouses but the men had come out of the middle one. So I rolled through to the entrance put on my high beams and went in.
3
Inside was nothing like the outside. There was a building inside the monstrous warehouse.
I got out of the truck.
I went into the building.
There was nothing. I searched and searched again the whole process taking several hours. I wondered when the next shift would come in.
This had to be the place if not than what the hell were they protecting? My handler Jonas Stillvereth hadn’t fucked up. Had he? I couldn’t be sure it was an easy thing to mess up like a number on the road. What was I going to have to attack all the warehouses? Did they all have security like this?
Then I felt it…
A slight give when I walked. I took out my Kbar Fighting Knife and cut the carpet. As I pulled I realized that it was already cut. I threw the two pieces behind me. Well this was it. I was sure as I saw the safe door that had previously been hiding under the carpet. I plugged in my computer and ran the algorithm that calculated safe combinations and input them at a thousand a second. After a couple minutes the safe latch clicked.
I opened the door. I looked down it had to drop twenty feet.
I climbed down into the darkness.
Damn. I should have brought flares. I had a mag lite though and what I saw was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
The compartment was actually the basement, and sub-basement for that matter and it was completely filled with valuables. Art, sculpture, jewelry huge blocks of cash and literally more than ten thousand gold bricks. I was set for the rest of my life. That’s when I heard the voice behind me.
4
“You didn’t expect to find this did you?”
I don’t think I responded but things are so cloudy now it’s hard to tell. I have been blessed with a certain affinity for aficionados and this man was definitely one. I was certain that what I had stumbled upon was much bigger than a simple jewelry and gem warehouse. So I kept my mouth shut and let him talk, make him feel comfortable so the kill would be sweeter. I spit on the floor.
“Don’t mind him.”
“What?” Then a small robot came and cleaned up my spit.
“Micro bots they are programmed to remove any liquid, gas or hazardous material to ensure the safety of what has been collected here.” He paused and pushed his surprisingly thin glasses (glasses engineering made thick lenses a thing of the past) but the old stereotype still fit. He was thin, wore a suit and tie that could have cost fifteen thousand before the Ozos were around. What it would cost now I had no idea. “Which is all the art that the surrounding area had including several private collections.” He turned to walk down the hall along the sides of which were gigantic I-beam shelves that were in some instances over filled. “So how are you going to get it out?”
“Not sure but I think I will take some of the gold and jewels, maybe a few hundred gold bars and go on my way.” I thought it over. What I was standing within was priceless. The collection had to be worth billions. There were still wealthy individuals holed up waiting for the Age of the Ozos pass. “Who do they belong to?”
“No one now… You. What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know there’s just so much.”
“This is Underground A. There are tunnels to twenty more compartments like this, basement and sub-basements of all three bunkers. Whoever holds this will be the wealthiest man on the continent.” He looked down. What was he doing? “But there are many more like this at least six that I know of. Maybe you could find some of those if you don’t die right now.”
He turned gun in his hand. I drew and shot him through the skull. I must have hit a nerve ending because his trigger finger started twitching and he fired the clip off one of which caught me in the shoulder and the other which took off the top of my left ear and brazed my skull. I fell bleeding but I would be ok.
5
My personal army came at the cost of one of the stacks of cash and a thousand gold bars but I didn’t trust them. I knew at some point they would try to rob me.
So I sat in the eagles nest and watched them for the first few months. Gradually I came to trust them and what came after that was something I never knew I could do. That was lead a skilled squad of men into battle but that’s exactly what I did.
The first thing was to eliminate any Ozos in the area. They kept coming so we organized patrols.
I was a rich man now. I could afford anything that I wanted. I stockpiled food goods, furniture, house wares and appliances. We installed solar panels and became energy independent. We got the power plant running and phoned in to the XM radio that we had a safe Ozo free city and all were welcome to join. Food would be sold for cash or literally anything that the residents could bring. Soon I had to ‘acquire’ (kill a gang of thugs) the whole block of warehouses. My empire was building.
I had come to trust the men in battle so I planned missions to take over other cities. Things went so well that soon there were a half dozen cities under my control. Then we switched our focus to the bunkers.
We took down five of the American storehouses only Underground E proved to be too much for our men. We lost a lot of good men but we swept the Central and South American storehouses and my personal army now numbered upwards of 250,000 men. With over 50 million citizens now settling back to the city. I created jobs and infrastructure. We sold back the housewares, furniture and appliances which turned into several other companies doing the same thing. Prices came down many of the inhabitants started farms. Useless houses and buildings were removed and farms popped up in previously urban sprawl. It was happening before my eyes, the country was becoming whole again.
6
Several of the politicians came back around and were captured and executed as quickly as possible. Any threats were dealt with ‘maximum stopping force’. There were no police only my army.
I would soon rise to my rightful position as President.
Two Years later I was exactly that and what was better was that I was President of the United States of the Americas which included Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and all the islands in the Caribbean as well as Argentina which with Brazil were the South American states.
China had taken over Asia and the islands. Russia grew as well and the Swiss conquered Europe. Their claim to the throne came when many countries were fighting for control of the area all the Swiss did was fortify and welcome any non-Ozo into the country obtaining refugee status. Soon the resources and man power of the other countries dwindled the Swiss became strong. The got ahold of several nukes and destroyed the last vestiges of the European armies and then set about bulldozing everything and building defensive lines. They signed peace treaties with Russia and China but India (which now controlled all of northern Africa) went to war with them. This war would last longer than all the wars in the Middle East.
In the days before the Ozo South America had become the South American Union or SAU. The SAU held strong but did eventually break down. All I know is that I have much of the world’s treasure and my own personal collection museums and I have been buying legal and illegal art sculpture or relic from anywhere. Many refugees come to the USA(s) and we have come to be the largest country in the world (which has so few now). In Africa the fighting continues but I did manage to claim South Africa and some other lands around it. Now I have a room full of uncut diamonds that I can lay in. Lasers emanate their light upward as I lay down on them at a warm 80 degrees. And that was where I would one day die.
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