The Plagues Series: Emergency

Chapter 4

"They just shot you down?" Dmitri said.

We sat in our booth at Moon's Light. Marcus' attention was firmly fixed on amounted TV across the bar, making him, for all intents and purposes, oblivious to the conversation.

"Yeah,"I said non-chalantly as I drank.

"But the young are our future; they're our greatest asset in the long-term resolution of racial tensions!"

"I know.But our other big focus is employment, so they weren't wrong."

"There are ways to make intermingling a safe process."

"I don't think intermingling is a word."

Dmitri caught himself before responding and began mouthing the word to himself, tasting it for legitimacy. "No, I'm pretty sure it is."

"No, I'm pretty sure it's not," I said probably more mockingly than I meant to.

Dmitri sighed, exasperated. "Hey, Marcus." He patted his arm.

"What?" Marcus said, his focus never leaving the TV.

"Is it a word?"

"Is what a word?" He shook his head dismissively. "Więcejobiektów – that's more facilities, right?"

"Yeah," Dmitri said. "Why?"

"Guess Asylum's expanding again," Marcus said.

I turned to face the TV to see an orbiting aerial shot of the controversial Asylum site in Toronto. There was some headline in Polish running the bottom of the screen.

"Really?" Dmitri asked.

"Apparently, Rexall stocks have been rallying all week because off this news."

"So they finally cleared their old inventory," I said.

"That was pretty quick," Marcus said. "I mean, when things were going bad back West they made a huge reserve in case things got really bad. Like, a decade's worth, or more, I don't know. It was something the guy who became a mole knew."

"I'm surprised things seem well enough to them to expand," Dmitri remarked, all of us distantly fixated on the screen.

"I guess the economy's picked up since the Exodus, and with the maniacs all gone," Marcus said.

We all fell silent as we watched the screen. I could only get bits and pieces of the Polish newscast, so I was mainly relying on the images to tell the story.

"Think it was bought?" Marcus suddenly said, jarring us out of our trance. We looked to him, his focus back at the table.

"Who would buy that shit? It's useless," I said.

"Didn't you hear about that Russian vamp in Kyiv?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, we make damn good soldiers, and the mutts are damn good hounds."

"Marcus, we're not allowed to breed here," Dmitri said.

"Yeah,I know we're not,"he said. "Not of our own accord anyway is what I'm saying."

"So it's a government conspiracy then," I said, my eyes half-lidded with a matching tone.

Marcus shrugged passively. "Got any better theories?"

"They burned it probably," Dmitri said.

"But think," Marcus said. "America and Canada are alone, dead in the water, ever since the fiasco in L.A.; NATO, and frankly a good chunk of the international community, wants nothing to do with them. They need the money; they spent so much of it in the wars against us and the maniacs."