Children Of Fiends - Part 2 A Nation By Another Name: An Of Sudden Origin Novella by C. Chase Harwood Page A

thundering death rattle and collapsed haphazardly into the canal below. When the dust cleared, the horror of the feast on the opposite side came into detailed focus. The Fiends far outweighed the stranded refugees. Assorted random and pointless pops of small arms fire could be heard above the screams. In a manner of minutes the healthy were either being infected or devoured. For a moment, the Jarvis’ paused in deer-like astonishment, observing the slaughter only 600 feet away. Then the Sentinel prodded them toward the containment camp.  
    That was ten years before. Tillie still thought about it nearly every day, and certainly every time she set eyes on a Sentinel.

    Niles Plimpton stood in front of the bank of curved windows that made up the circular private penthouse level of what had been Delaware’s Delmarva Capital Trust Building. He surveyed the city below him and decided it was good. A black Armani silk suit with a white Egyptian cotton hand made shirt, and a tightly knotted, sky blue silk tie carved his figure into one of refinement and strength. As he brushed a piece of lint off his sleeve and watched it float to the floor, he noted that he was in control of the world outside this window, and after considerable work, he could finally enjoy taking it all in. He was forty-two, with a young face that could pass for thirty. A few grays were weaving their way into his thick black hair, and a considerable amount of time navigating his yacht around the nooks and crannies of the Chesapeake over the years had sun-kissed his eyes with a few crowfeet. Otherwise his skin was smooth and thick with youth. The room behind him was elegantly decorated in a clean modern seaside motif that suggested that the penthouse, rather than being at the top of a six story office building, was instead set along the dunes of the outer banks of Delaware. His view included the short brick buildings that made up the government center and the more majestic legislative building that once contained the rulers of Dover, the capital of Delaware. The capital building had a new purpose: the chamber for the patrician citizens who oversaw the new nation of The Shore.  
    During the formation of the United States, the naturally isolated Delmarva Peninsula had been absurdly carved up between the states of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. This isolation offered a geographical haven during Omega; with the Chesapeake to the West and South and the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean to the East, the Delmarva Peninsula was really an island primarily reached via bridges from Wilmington across the Chesapeake, and the Delaware Canal to the North. It was an island defended by a people who saw their isolation as making them somewhat separate from the rest of their countrymen. Once severed from the rest of the ruined nation, its inhabitants embraced their new status fully.
    In the distance, Plimpton could almost make out the head of the Delaware River and beyond that, the southern tip of New Jersey and a still operational and incredibly critical nuclear power plant that provided so very much. To his right was the Air Force base that he could legitimately call his own – or at least his and the consortium of others who made up the governing body that oversaw The Shore. He briefly glanced back toward the river and saw the big sails of The Eagle coming back from another raiding mission and a smile of pride crossed his face. He surveyed the germs of new commerce coming to life in the streets below and was again made aware of the weight of the challenge that he had overcome. The Shore, infection free almost from the time the last bridge was blown those many hard years before, was also free of the encumbrances associated with being part of the United States. For many Shoremen like himself, it was a dream come true - if only the world hadn’t gone to hell in a hand-basket to achieve it.  
    When he finally heard her repeat his name for a third time, Niles was aroused from