by Jack J. Lee
There were over a thousand ships following me. I was not able to refuel; my ship could no longer move. All of the black hole generators that in the past would have transmitted unlimited energy to my ship had been destroyed.
The Armada came into range. I had enough weaponry on my ship to destroy at least half the ships that were pursuing me. I saw no need for pointless destruction. I focused all my efforts into strengthening my defense. The final destruction of the Zutar was an important moment for the Consortium. I knew that I was being recorded and that for millennia their historians would study my final words. I could only hope that my words would help them achieve wisdom.
“My children, I am Dalak Naar, the last of the Zutar. I am not your enemy. My species has a recorded history that goes back six million years. Our only purpose was to try to do what was best for all intelligent life. We are old and you are young. We look upon you as members of our family, our children. I do not blame you. It is the nature of children to rebel against their parents. You look upon our acts and see only destruction. With the fullness of time, you will understand that our actions have preserved hundreds of thousands of sapient species. You do not realize the consequences of what you do.”
My ship shuttered; it was being pounded by the lasers and missiles of the Consortium ships. I only had a few seconds.
“Please remember our restraint. Ask yourselves why we never used our full power against you. I die without anger. I die without fear. I die only with the regret that the Zutar can no longer serve you.”
Chapter 1, Mike Kim, September 11th, Year 65
“Mr. Kim, you will be on in a few minutes.”
“Thank you, I’m ready.”
I was waiting to be interviewed on national television for the September 11th celebrations. I have difficulty recalling things that happened recently, but my memories from the dying times are still crystal clear. My first interview ten years ago was for a local paper. As time went on and people my age, my competitors for interviews died, my fame rose. Today I was going to be interviewed on the highest rated morning show in the US.
A pre-outbreak comedian once said that ninety percent of success is just showing up. He was right. I learned the hard way that when a crisis occurs, rule number one is first, don’t die. Not dying has been the prerequisite of every achievement I’ve ever had.
I’m 89 years old. There aren’t that many left that remember a terrorist attack that occurred in the US on September 11th several years before the outbreak. I’ve always wondered if it was just coincidence that the zombie outbreak that killed off 98% of all Americans, two hundred and ninety-four million people, started on September 11th. I know Mark Jones was convinced that the Outbreak was an act of sabotage and that the date was chosen on purpose. He always wanted to find the ones responsible and punish them. He was never able to do this. I believe he regretted that until the day he died.
The questions I’m asked have changed over the years. Earlier I was asked about the people who survived the outbreak. They wanted to hear stories about Mark Jones from the early weeks and months of the outbreak when he was still the Director. They asked what it was like to meet Prophet Levin. As time has passed and people have died, men like Mark Jones and Ari Levin have morphed from being celebrities to historical figures. A lot of things have changed since the Outbreak. What has not changed is that Americans are fascinated by celebrities and they have absolutely no interest in history.
I no longer get questions about ‘dead white men’ like Helen Hansen (If she was still alive, she would be irate about being turned into a ‘dead white man’.), Hiram Rockwell, or Art Bingham. I get questions about what it was like when 6.8 billion people lived on Earth and over 300 million lived in the US.
Well a lot of the differences are obvious. Back then, there were more people. Even now, 65 years after the Outbreak, there are fewer than twenty million Americans. It’s cleaner now since all our vehicles now run on compressed air. We only use renewable energy sources now. Almost all of our energy needs come from hydroelectric power with a little bit of backup from wind and solar. It’s hard to remember what the air quality was like when every American family had at least two vehicles that used hydrocarbons.
The problem with renewable energy sources it that there is only a limited amount (i.e. hydroelectric), or that it is fairly expensive (i.e. wind and solar). Before the Outbreak, there were too many people to rely primarily on water for energy. We had to use petroleum, natural gas, coal to sustain the lifestyle that Americans demanded.
After 98% of our population died, we had more than enough hydroelectric power for everyone. There was no need to maintain the infrastructure to drill for oil and natural gas or mine coal. In fact there is no reason now to mine for any substance. It is so much easier to recycle metals and plastics from the remains of our ruined pre-Outbreak cities.
We have much fewer minorities. Before the Outbreak most of America’s minorities lived in cities. In small numbers zombies weren’t dangerous. In large numbers they were devastating. More often than not if 400 zombies went up against 400 humans the humans would win. Humans require military training and a viable command structure to cooperate in groups larger than a few hundred. Very few cities had effective military command and control during the Outbreak. If 400,000 zombies went up against 400,000 humans, the humans didn’t have a chance. Cities with more than half a million people were almost always completely wiped out. Salt Lake City was the rare exception. The fewest losses were in small rural towns; currently our population has the same percentage of minorities as those old rural towns.
People now days don’t realize how wealthier we are as a society compared to before the Outbreak. It took time, money, and energy to manufacture things like bottles, toilets, glass window panes, and copper wire. Things we now just salvage from our ruins. If we had to build these items from scratch, we would be a much poorer society.
There was a lot more noise back then. We used gasoline and diesel engines for ground travel and jet planes over cities and suburb close to airports that created God-awful noise. Our cars and motorcycles which are powered by compressed air make hardly any noise at all. There are some noises I miss like the distinctive sound of a well-tuned Harley. But all in all, having less noise is better. Since jet airplanes require hydrocarbon fuel and we no long drill for oil, our air travel is on blimps. We no longer hear sonic booms over our airports.
We had a lot more laws back then. One out of every 100 American adults, close to two million people, was in jail or in prison before the Outbreak. We had a legal system that added thousands of new laws every year. We had tens of thousands of tax laws, traffic laws, and environmental laws. We had rules and regulations about everything. The height of fences, how much sand you could put into bricks, and how much salt you could put into baked goods.
Music was better back then. The things kids listen to now is crap. I miss how easy it was to find good ethnic food like Ethiopian, Thai, and Vietnamese. I can’t even find the ingredients now to cook my own Korean dishes.
I remember thinking, “Why he does he think that’s necessary?” when President Jones proposed two new constitutional amendments.
The first was to limit the maximum number of laws/regulations for any government entity to 1000, requiring that a law or regulation be eliminated before another could be instituted over that number.
The second that said any law or regulation passed must clearly state its purpose and that after two years it had to be reevaluated to see if that purpose had been achieved. If a law was passed to decrease crime, the law had to state exactly how crime would be measured and by what percentage crime was to decrease in two years. If in two years crime was not decreased by the percentage mandated in the original law, then that law was automatically nullified.
Because of these two constitutional amendments, bad laws and regulations died and good ones got better. Laws and regulations make sense now. A reasonably intelligent citizen can file his own taxes even if he has a bu
siness, and most people don’t need to hire lawyers.
I used to believe that Mark Jones would be remembered for showing us how to destroy zombies and vampires. I know now that his greatest achievements were the two constitutional amendments that he helped pass. Kids now days have no idea how complex the legal system and the bureaucracies were back then and how helpless the average American felt when faced with taxes or legal issues.
Any idiot can kill a zombie; you have to be skilled to take out a vampire; it takes a genius to permanently decrease the number of lawyers.
“Mr. Kim, we’re ready for you now.”
I took one last look into the mirror before I stepped out into the studio. I grinned at myself. I was looking pretty good for an 89 year-old. Not dying works for me; I should keep on doing it. I was ready for my close up.
Chapter 2, Ari Levin, March 12th, Year 0
I had been waiting for Bahsir Baglani for three weeks. The US government was willing to pay a cool million for his head, dead or alive. Dead was easier. Getting paid was simple. I didn’t have to bring his body in. All I had to do was be the first to report the time and location of death. Once intel came back confirming that he was dead, a million US would deposited in my Swiss bank account.
There were guys out there with bigger bounties. The leader of the Afghani Taliban, Mullah Mohamed Omar, is worth 25 million. It’s my policy to avoid going for guys worth more than a million. The men with bigger bounties have too much protection. Killing a target is easy, getting away with it is hard. When there is enough protection it’s almost impossible for an assassin to get out alive. It’s a risk/reward thing. I kill to make a living; dying is no way to make a living.
I was in a small Afghan village in the middle of nowhere. I was undercover as a Tajik Taliban fighter. I’m fluent in the two most common languages in Afghanistan, Pasto and Dari and can make myself understood in a couple others. I speak Dari like a native, which is why I was playing a Tajik. The village I was living in was small. When I arrived I announced I was Taliban, and then took over one of the eighteen homes in the village. There’s no rule of law in most of Afghanistan. To make the home mine and to be safe in it, I had to eliminate the original owners. I wasn’t happy about having to do this, but I had a role to play; the Taliban takes what it wants. All Afghanis have lived through decades of war and are used to having to fight to keep what they have, it would have been too dangerous and out of character to leave the original owners alive.
It’s fairly easy to convince Afghanis that you are Taliban. Act like a religious fanatic, have a gun, and use it. The best way to mimic a religious fanatic is to ask yourself, “WWAAD; what would an asshole do?”
Joining the Taliban wasn’t like joining the US military; it is an informal system. The majority of the middle management Taliban are guys like me. They show up with a gun, claim they are Taliban, and take over a village. The ones, who don’t die in the process, rise up in the ranks.
I was scary enough that people started sucking up to me. Some of the locals actually “joined” my Taliban group and started lording it over the rest of their neighbors; human nature, got to love it.
I’ve been hunting men for years. Men with bounties on their heads have to keep constantly on the move. The easiest way to find a man on the move is to wait for him. Bahsir Baglani had been the Governor of Baghlan Province before the US had invaded. He was still at large and the US government was willing to pay a million to have him killed.
Word on the street was that he was in this area and I figured sooner or later that he would pass by this village. On March 12, he arrived. He was accompanied by 14 bodyguards. As expected since I was claiming that I was Taliban, I made a big deal out of it when he visited. I had a feast set out for him and his men. After dinner, I passed out traditional Afghan desserts and cigarettes. I made sure that none of Bahsir’s men were Aimak and then I told an Aimak ethnic joke.
“A fourteen year old Aimak boy is sent off by his family in Kabul to the countryside to stay with his relatives for the summer. Once there, he’s sent off with his cousins to herd sheep. He learns to his disgust that his cousins are having sex with the animals. Even though his relatives say that there is nothing wrong with this perverted practice, the boy refuses to do it.
Finally after months with his cousins and the sheep, out of boredom and curiosity, the boy runs out grabs a sheep, pulls it behind a bush, and does the unnatural. When he goes back to join his cousins, all of them are laughing at him. He says, ‘Why are you laughing at me? So what if I had sex with a sheep. All of you do it.’
His cousins respond, ‘Yeah, we have sex with sheep, but we don’t fuck ugly ones.’”
Right at the punch line, my forearm was in line with Bahsir’s throat. He had just started to laugh when I fired a dart I had under my sleeve. The dart was filled with tetrodotoxin, a poison I extracted from the liver and ovaries of a puffer fish. I get my puffer fish from an online fish store.
When I was a kid, my greatest ambition was to be a stage magician. I spent years practicing sleight of hand tricks. Those years of practice were surprisingly useful in my current career as an assassin. No one saw the dart fly out of my sleeve and everybody was too busy laughing to notice.
It had taken me months to design and build my spring powered dart gun. Designing a dart gun is easy. The hard part was figuring out a way to attach a dead horse fly to the dart. My gun was only accurate to four feet because the fly messed up the aerodynamics of the projectile. The dart worked exactly like it was supposed to. It entered the right side of Bahsir’s neck penetrating completely into the muscle next to his throat. The impact of the dart felt like a painful insect bite. He slapped at his neck and crushed the dead horsefly that was now glued to his skin. I tried over 20 different glues before I found one that reliably stuck the fly to the entry site. There was a dab of blood along with pieces of dead fly on his hand when he wiped his neck. No one, including Bahsir, made much of his insect bite.
The tetrodotoxin was surrounded by wax that would dissolve completely in 8 hours. Bahsir was dead, he just didn’t know it. A small percentage of a gram of tetrodotoxin is deadly. It completely eliminates a man’s ability to move any muscle including the ones that he uses to breathe. I had timed it so Bahsir would be asleep when the poison took effect. He would wake in the middle of the night short of breath. The tetrodotoxin would prevent him from moving a single muscle. He wouldn’t even be able to open his eyes. In a few minutes, he would die by suffocation.
Men who have million dollar bounties on their heads have to be paranoid. Bahsir was going to be a guest in my house for the night and maybe for the next few days to weeks. Guys who have the US government after them don’t announce their traveling plans. There was also no question that while he was here that I would sleep in that same house. The US military and the CIA had a habit of using drones to take out terrorists in the middle of the night. It was standard procedure for men like Bahsir to keep any potential informant like me in the same house during the night. The thought was that traitors would be less likely to call a drone strike on a house while they were in it.
In the middle of night, right around the time the tetrodotoxin was kicking in, I set off the mines I had placed in each room of my house. I had lined one wall of every room of my house with explosives mixed with lead shot, small pieces of metal, and stone. The explosives were placed in a horizontal line three feet off the ground. My house was a typical Afghani villager’s home. It was made out of mud brick; the explosives and shrapnel weren’t strong enough to destroy or penetrate the walls of my home.
I was pretending to be asleep on the floor right below the explosives. It was the only place in the room that was not sprayed with shrapnel. Two of Bahsir’s bodyguards were in the room with me. One was dead. His entire face was missing; the poor bastard must have been sitting up facing the mines when they went off. The other was crouched forward moaning. His body was covered with blood. I took a small hatchet, the kind you find in farms an
d villages all over the world. I struck the back of the wounded man’s upper neck. The hatchet sunk an-inch-and-a-half into his spine. An injury that severs the upper spinal cord is instantly fatal. I pulled out the hatchet and dropped it on the floor. Blood seeped from the hatchet wound. I put my hands into the wound and rubbed blood on my face. I took off the wounded man’s jacket and put it on. I left the room moaning like I was injured. Everyone else in the house was either wounded or stunned or both. Only a couple people were dead. The explosives had been designed to wound rather than kill.
I went into the hall and into the room where Bahsir had been sleeping. Three of his men were in the room trying to get him up. He had a couple of shrapnel wounds and the tetrodotoxin was starting to take effect. He was weak and couldn’t stand on his own. The roof was on fire and there was smoke everywhere. No one was paying attention to me. I palmed my cell phone in my hand and took a picture of Bahsir. I helped Bahsir’s men pull his body out of the house. As we walked out, I set off a second set of explosions that collapsed my entire home. I yelled “Take cover, we’re being attacked by Predators!”
By the time we laid Baglani on the ground he wasn’t breathing. I raised my arms into the air and cursed the Americans who had killed a great man, a man who I had loved like a father. I swore vengeance.