Feral

Four Years Ago

Paige wished she wasn't the only one on the bus as it trundled towards the city centre. A bus coming out filled with kids was normal. A bus going in with only one was, if believed, worse. The Boarding school in the city centre was known to be the best, but even the best fruit bearing tree produced some bad apples. You were lucky if you got to live in the City Centre.

Paige doubted her sudden transfer had anything to do with luck.

When the virus first broke two years ago Paige, eleven at the time, had no idea everything would collapse so quickly. Apparently you could block traumatic memories from your childhood – though she guessed those processes started after your childhood ended. At thirteen, there was a long way to go.

One impossible effort to forget was the mad scramble for order, consummating in the ascension of William Roja to what remained of the United States Presidency.

Secretary of Environmental Protection. Before that CEO, part founder and owner of Roja Integrity Pharmaceuticals, made famous by focusing every ounce of publicity on their reputation as the highest ranking pharmaceutical company that refused to test on animals. The man who fought for the rights of the smallest mouse one day, protecting entire cities from being wiped out by a single infected rat the next. A lot of people weren't happy. They wanted a General. A soldier. A leader familiar with death who could drag what remained of humanity from its ashes.

It made Paige sick how badly they wanted him to fail if only to be proved right in their expectations. They wanted a man who could build them a new empire. Roja became the man who dragged their dying one back from the dust.

His first order, exceeding even the extermination protocols, was the public's safety. He moved all citizens into their state capitals. California was so big it had to be split into two. Texas tried to go it alone, but by the end of the second year all of Texas could fit into Austin. Soldiers were assigned in fleets to protect the borders, and Roja's Quarantine Zone initiative was ordered within months.

But the soldiers were scattered too thinly, too many people to keep safe, too many to feed, to house, to promise they would get their share of what was left. Roja's dedication stretched to all his people.

Dedication often held hands with sacrifice.

Roja couldn't build the Quarantine Zones on his own, he couldn't gather the resources as fast as he needed them.

Like a fallen angel, in swooped the Allied Casualty Response Division. The story in D.C told they'd been a private company operated by shady boards making back deals with anyone who could afford their services. What they used as a cover for their excursions changed from person to person: Weapons. Oil. Drugs. One rumour suggested Artificial Intelligence tech, and they'd really replaced the President with a robot they could control. No one had really heard of them (something suspected to be intentional) until they offered Roja their resources, for a price.

Fifteen states. All that remained. The walls were up within the second year, and everything except the people inside became property of the A.C.R.D. Fifteen states protected by Roja, enforced by the power of the A.C.R.D. Against all odds, Roja kept the people alive.

Paige bounced and dipped over uneven roads, worn by years of loaded humvees and patrol cars. No resources could be spared, even to fill in a pothole. The Guard held a heavy presence outside the centre. The angrier the public got the more the A.C.R.D. decided it needed policing. Ration shortages and over-crowding were ever present issues, inside and out, in every Quarantine Zone across the country. The wall around the centre only created more unrest. The people outside believed the people inside were hoarding more food. More space. Riots happened almost every month, most occasionally on the day of ration distribution.