the bottle reaches its apex.
I cut off the looping audio file and look back down at the crowd. “Alright! Now I have your attention, let’s try this again. Go home. Do you really think burning down a Wally World is going to make things better? When they finally do get the food moving across the highways again, how does this help?”
Pointing at the cops and the guardsmen, I continue, “Maybe if you all weren’t here, they’d be somewhere else fixing other problems around this city instead of wasting their time with you dipshits.”
“Where’s the damn food?” self-appointed bullhorn guy yells. “People are starving here!”
The bugs would have given old Charlie Darwin something to smile about. If figures were to be believed, world population was down about half a billion. Those that couldn’t work were allowed to die off and did so with a smile on their faces. Those who were overweight got on an involuntary weight loss program. Statistically the world is now a much healthier, but not terribly happier place.
As evidenced by the crowd below.
I try the nice guy approach. Yeah, that’s a bit unusual for me, but I’m open to suggestions. “Look. Things will get better. Keep rationing what you have and stop burning shit to the ground.”
“When are they lifting Martial Law? What about our freedoms?”
“Do I look like a guy who knows when that’s going to happen? No, I’m on my way to another riot in Columbia, South Carolina and got diverted to your little pep rally here. Maybe the governor will consider lifting martial law when you stop rioting? Ever think about that, genius?”
After a few more exchanges with the idiot with the bullhorn and the crowd completely agreeing with him, I had my fill of being a nice guy. A quick check on wind direction and speed and I fire a spread of tear gas grenades. Four quick thump thumps from the forty millimeter and I had a nice little cloud of gas spreading across the group of rioters.
I suppose settling an argument with tear gas is poor sportsmanship, but Athena and her ilk consider me a warm body, good for shit like this. That’s not a very high bar to meet, and I’m not really trying to exceed their expectations. Besides, the way I look at it, I gave the guy a good five minutes of my time and now it’s time to pay up.
Of course, picking up one of the overturned vehicles and threatening to throw it at the guy might have been excessive and I’ll probably have to try and hack whatever footage might show up online, but the crowd is now officially scattering. As a former president might say, “Mission Accomplished!”
I stick around long enough to move the overturned cars and let the fire engines get in there before flying south of the city to Interstate 85. The one functioning police helicopter is reporting another one of those “toll booths” has cropped up. Entrepreneurs or modern day highwaymen – probably a bit of both, but since they have guns and are bent on terrorizing the people trying to get into the city that puts them in the way of what the current ringmaster at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is calling The Great Recovery.
From my perspective I’m going to get a clean start, a paycheck, and at least for the moment, I can rough up a few idiots without pissing anyone off that much. It’s a win-win scenario. Most scatter when I land, but a young mother and her maybe eight-year old kid fire once at me and immediately drop their weapons. The kid’s looks like a pellet pistol. They want to be arrested.
“What exactly are you two doing?”
“I heard there is food at the jail,” the woman says. “You can leave me, but please take him.”
“They’re in as bad a shape as everywhere else. Sorry.” I try not to look at their faces. “Just try and hang on.” I hope they straighten the food transportation problem out soon. There haven’t been any reports of cannibalism yet, but it is only a matter of time. The milk of human kindness is a bit curdled
I cut off the looping audio file and look back down at the crowd. “Alright! Now I have your attention, let’s try this again. Go home. Do you really think burning down a Wally World is going to make things better? When they finally do get the food moving across the highways again, how does this help?”
Pointing at the cops and the guardsmen, I continue, “Maybe if you all weren’t here, they’d be somewhere else fixing other problems around this city instead of wasting their time with you dipshits.”
“Where’s the damn food?” self-appointed bullhorn guy yells. “People are starving here!”
The bugs would have given old Charlie Darwin something to smile about. If figures were to be believed, world population was down about half a billion. Those that couldn’t work were allowed to die off and did so with a smile on their faces. Those who were overweight got on an involuntary weight loss program. Statistically the world is now a much healthier, but not terribly happier place.
As evidenced by the crowd below.
I try the nice guy approach. Yeah, that’s a bit unusual for me, but I’m open to suggestions. “Look. Things will get better. Keep rationing what you have and stop burning shit to the ground.”
“When are they lifting Martial Law? What about our freedoms?”
“Do I look like a guy who knows when that’s going to happen? No, I’m on my way to another riot in Columbia, South Carolina and got diverted to your little pep rally here. Maybe the governor will consider lifting martial law when you stop rioting? Ever think about that, genius?”
After a few more exchanges with the idiot with the bullhorn and the crowd completely agreeing with him, I had my fill of being a nice guy. A quick check on wind direction and speed and I fire a spread of tear gas grenades. Four quick thump thumps from the forty millimeter and I had a nice little cloud of gas spreading across the group of rioters.
I suppose settling an argument with tear gas is poor sportsmanship, but Athena and her ilk consider me a warm body, good for shit like this. That’s not a very high bar to meet, and I’m not really trying to exceed their expectations. Besides, the way I look at it, I gave the guy a good five minutes of my time and now it’s time to pay up.
Of course, picking up one of the overturned vehicles and threatening to throw it at the guy might have been excessive and I’ll probably have to try and hack whatever footage might show up online, but the crowd is now officially scattering. As a former president might say, “Mission Accomplished!”
I stick around long enough to move the overturned cars and let the fire engines get in there before flying south of the city to Interstate 85. The one functioning police helicopter is reporting another one of those “toll booths” has cropped up. Entrepreneurs or modern day highwaymen – probably a bit of both, but since they have guns and are bent on terrorizing the people trying to get into the city that puts them in the way of what the current ringmaster at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is calling The Great Recovery.
From my perspective I’m going to get a clean start, a paycheck, and at least for the moment, I can rough up a few idiots without pissing anyone off that much. It’s a win-win scenario. Most scatter when I land, but a young mother and her maybe eight-year old kid fire once at me and immediately drop their weapons. The kid’s looks like a pellet pistol. They want to be arrested.
“What exactly are you two doing?”
“I heard there is food at the jail,” the woman says. “You can leave me, but please take him.”
“They’re in as bad a shape as everywhere else. Sorry.” I try not to look at their faces. “Just try and hang on.” I hope they straighten the food transportation problem out soon. There haven’t been any reports of cannibalism yet, but it is only a matter of time. The milk of human kindness is a bit curdled
Similar Books
