The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (8 page)

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."

***

She 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.

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 was 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."

Normally he kept these thoughts to himself, but he wanted her to understand how he felt.  "Man has done so much damage - to the weather, to all the other life on the planet.  It's like man is the virus, infecting everything.  I say if you are right - if it can't be stopped - then to hell with it.  Maybe you shouldn't even have a plan to help those seventy percent who survive.  Maybe you should let man get what he deserves; let just about everyone die leaving only a few survivors to go back to the Stone Age and try again.  Maybe they'll get it right next time."

They were silent for several long seconds.  Regina broke the silence.  "So, it looks like we have two choices. One, we engage in pointless preparation for an event we can't predict and therefore can't actually prepare for.  Or two, we just throw up our hands and do nothing as we wait for the inevitable end.  Is that right?"

"Yeah, it sucks, but that's seems about right."

She squeezed his hand.  "Jason, follow me here, okay?  Suppose there was another way - a third option.  Suppose we could predict with accuracy what was going to happen.  Suppose we could prepare knowing exactly what we are preparing for.  What would you say then?"

"I'd say that's impossible.  You listed a bunch of SHTF events yourself - there are probably a dozen more.  There's no way to predict what will happen."

Jason saw Regina move her eyes to her dad.  There was a questioning look on her face.  He nodded slightly to her, obviously giving his approval.

"Listen to me, there is a way to know what is going to happen and when.  It's the basis for my plan.

"We're going to know exactly how the shit hits the fan because we are going to cause it and control it.  The world is going to come apart in a little more than two years.  We will control who lives and who dies.  We will set up the new world, cleansed of the masses; one where the best of humanity will be able to thrive.  We're going to make it happen, Jason, and you can be part of it.

"You can take that to the bank."

***

As General Martin looked on, Regina laid out the plan.  It was breathtakingly bold, but it was also brilliant.  Jason had always thought of himself as the smartest man in any room, but the mind that could conceive of this plan - and execute it - was both off-the-charts smart and shockingly ruthless.

General Martin asked him the question, "Jason, will you join us? If you want to not only survive what is coming, but prosper in a way you've never dreamed of - you have to pay the price.  Regina told you what it is; you have to give everything you have.  You have until tomorrow to give us your answer."  He reached for a button and the screens went blank.

That last part had an ominous tone to it.  Long after he went to bed in his suite, he heard the echo of that last sentence from General Martin.  He knew he was being offered an opportunity of immense value, but he resented the threat implicit in those words.  Jason knew that if he didn't accept, he'd probably meet with an unfortunate accident in the very near future.  His stubborn streak wouldn't let him simply accept the priceless gift he'd been offered without trying to think of some other way - some way he could live in the new world and not have to worry about others deciding they didn't need him anymore.

The answer was his battery, of course.  It's why they wanted him.  It's why they took the chance on telling him about the plan.

As he lay in the darkness, he heard the door of his bedroom open.  Soft footsteps betrayed movement to the side of his bed.  An almost imperceptible light escaped into the room through the partially opened door.  He could see the outline of her body.  She looked almost like she was glowing.  It looked surreal, perfect.  He thought of that body, of his use of it earlier, and he started to get aroused.  He then thought of her plan and he became rock hard.

He pulled back the covers and welcomed her.  She lay quietly on her back as he mounted her.  Unlike before, they didn't screw like animals.  This time they made love.  It was wet, slow and delicious.  It lasted well into the night and, in the end, she called out his name.

The next day, he wrote her a check for $275 Million.  It was just a start.