Zoey sat at the table sipping her cocoa, lost in thought. Margo was pacing anxiously.
The Shifter app on Zoey’s iPhone made a pinging sound. She pressed the accept button.
“Hey, the MPs just took Mrs. Matthews out of the building on a stretcher with a bubble around it,” came the voice.
“You get a look at her?” Zoey asked.
“Rashes all over her, lots of inflammation. They cut her clothes off.”
“Thanks for the update,” replied Zoey into the phone.
Margo couldn’t take it anymore. “What the hell is going on?”
“The thing mutated, obviously. A guy I know said he watched combat engineers and their trucks flood into the old train yard over by the Mass Pike, behind Nickerson Field last night, and start building something like a motherfucker well into the night. Finished it this morning. A huge medical and quarantine complex, from scratch. Concertina wire, Texas barriers and everything.”
“Why all that?”
“Extreme unrest, maybe? It’s been 20 months. Their “reopening” was a disaster. Supply chains are crumbling, everyone’s broke…thank God the Sheriffs and constables aren’t evicting.
Plus, they botched the mail balloting plan for the election and the crazies on the right got so out of hand that Murdoch sacked all of Fox News’ opinion talent overnight.”
Margo rolled her eyes, “about a decade too late. They’ll turn up elsewhere, like Alex Jones did.”
“Then our ‘brilliant’ New York Times leaked that National Intelligence Estimate, told everybody about the warning orders that were put out. The press is also fear mongering about MARKETGARDEN too.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s now called CONPLAN 3502; it’s the plan for the military to restore order with federal troops. If locals can’t bring control and prior approval from the President can’t be sought in time, Army North’s commander can act on his own, as can his subordinate commanders.
And If they’re building a detention center just down the fucking street, they think the “extreme emergency” provision of DoDD 3025.12 is met. They can’t use military facilities to detain civilians otherwise.
I’m in the FBI Index, too, being a schizo, and an ex-spook. If things get bad enough, they’ll pick me up.”
“FBI index?”
“The Index used to literally be a file of index cards in every FBI office of people who could be a threat. Hoover was a library clerk with the Archives in his early years and used his librarian skills to make it. The Feeb had 10 million people in it…back in the 40’s. Today? Who the hell knows? Martin Luther King and Howard Zinn were in it. I’d bet I’m in it. The idea was, if doomsday comes and we can reconstitute, take the biggest loonies and troublemakers out of circulation so they have one fewer problem to deal with in rebuilding.”
“Despite your talk, you don’t look as worried about all this as me. What gives?”
“I’m an introvert. Less socializing means I have more energy. Plus, in disaster lies opportunity. Let those protestors protest. It will thin out their ranks.”
“That’s a bit macabre, even for you.”
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