Extinction Level Event (26 page)

Pretzels and cookies were still on the shelves in
other supermarkets in near-normal quantities, and McCarthy was for
one quite pleased that his favorite drinks Sprite and Coke were
still stocked up high. The problem was that, you couldn't keep
giving people Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper while feeding them on
doughnuts and cookies. And that, McCarthy, figured, was where the
problem lay. Actual produce that was even remotely healthy, ranging
from as lettuce, tomatoes, salads, carrots, cauliflower,
chick-peas, potatoes, and any kind of fruit was at point zero in
all the west coast states.

Determined to at least see what the generic rations
were being handed out, McCarthy brushes through the waiting lines
and walks right through the glass sliding doors of the building.
Inside, humidity combined with the sweat of many people waiting has
produced its own undeniably unpleasant stench. Fans running at full
power alleviate this by blowing the air around, yet not cooling it
down enough nor removing the odor. McCarthy walked in and
interrupted the first receptionist he could find. The young Latina
lady quickly directs him to the back, pointing the way to several
offices behind as she continues to interact with the man waiting
for his coupon. McCarthy walks by, and heads towards the back.
Glancing to his left, he sees through the windows dozens of men
removing carton boxes of food around, arranging them into somewhat
organized stacks of rows. McCarthy knocks on the door of the office
indicated, seeing another lady on a phone. The short, plump woman
motions for him to enter. Shortly afterwards she places down the
phone, and extends her hand. "Dolores Menendez. Or Dee for short.
So what can we help you with?" After introducing himself as well,
McCarthy specifies why he's there. "In addition, I want to see what
type of food supplies you are receiving." "Oh, I told them that we
were getting junk. The first week it was MRE's, can you believe
that?" "MRE's?" McCarthy expected that to be the case, asking,
"What about now?" "Oh, still getting MRE's. Now we have a slightly
improved version, though, the Protein Improved Meal Package, or
PIMP. It basically consists of more protein, usually chicken meat
or egg, which still comes from the chicken. Ha. Let me show you."
Smiling lightheartedly, she leads the way outside to the rear end
of the building. Tens of thousands of brown cardboard crates are
piled on top of each other here, creating a seeming cardboard
valley. She points towards the boxes, saying, "See? Those are all
the MRE's. We're still distributing them, not going to run out
anytime soon." Dolores opens a 6x6 foot box lying by the building
door, which had already been opened. "Here's the PIMP." McCarthy
takes a packet out- the wrapping is nearly the same dull plastic
wrap and brown coloring as the MRE- and tears the packet open,
peeking inside.

Three wraps are included in the meal, the largest of
which is labeled "chicken patty". Alongside it comes with a "potato
salad" in a plastic container and two granola bars. "This is what
you're handing out?", asks McCarthy incredulously, "these are
military rations!" "Well, the rest is basically giant bags of
wheat, corn, and frozen fruits", answers Menendez, looking over at
the meal in McCarthy's hands. McCarthy walks over a few meters,
turning around a wall separating one parking lot from another. The
second lot behind is a sight to behold- hundreds of white bags, all
marked with USDA stamped in bold black lettering. He goes through
the bags, casually looking over expiration dates and contents.

"At least they will last a while.", comments
McCarthy, noting the bags' don't expire until a year on. The bags
were labeled as an assortment of lentils, peas, beans, other
legumes, potatoes; basically any food that can be stored in dry
condition for a near indefinite period of time. He continues
walking through the rows of plastic bags, writing down on his small
pocket-sized notepad the assortment and variety of food that he
sees..

A truck's engine noisily breaks the tranquil silence,
coming from behind the rows food aid. The engine sound quickly
shuts down, leaving McCarthy wondering where the sound came from.
He heads in the general direction of the noise. Passing through the
stacks of crates and bags, McCarthy comes across a chain link
fence. Sliding up to the fence, he notices a shallow green pick-up
truck parked adjacent to the food crates. A large, muscular man
with a shaven head in a wife beater shirt is loading the crates
into the back of the pickup truck.
What? Is he stealing the
food!
Looking again, McCarthy figures that
: Yes, he
is!

Figuring that he should do something to prevent the
man from taking food intended for the ordinary people of LA,
McCarthy walks around the fence towards the man, hoping to dissuade
him. "Hey Buddy,", calls out McCarthy to the man, who is even
larger and more dangerous looking up close. Sporting a variety of
large tattoos on his huge biceps, the man brings himself to full
6-foot-1 height turning towards McCarthy. "Hey man, you know that
this is a restricted space. Authorize personnel only? Says it
somewhere over there. You got an ID?" The man looks at McCarthy
distantly through his dark green eyes. "Don't need an ID, man. Just
doing my job", mutters the man. "Let me see an ID", repeats
McCarthy. "You don't need my ID", growls the man, more gruffly this
time. "What do you think you are, some kind of Jedi repeating those
sentences? They won't work, only an ID will", asks McCarthy again.
"Go to Hell.", barks the man, irritated. He turns around and opens
the door of the truck, getting ready to go in.
Crap, this guy
really wants to get out of here."
McCarthy leaps two steps
towards the man, grabbing the back of his wife beater at the
shoulder to stop him. The man backhands McCarthy in the face,
stunning him. Then a devastating blow from his right fist slams
McCarthy's jaw, sending shockwaves through his head leaving
McCarthy to drop down on all fours. The man uses the opportunity to
quickly jump into the truck and drive off. McCarthy opens his eye
taking in the license number, merely glad that the man didn't stay
and land more blows on him or do worse.

Picking himself up off the gravel, he immediately
calls 9-1-1. Describing the vehicle make and number to the
operator, he sees Dolores running up to him talking rapidly into
her cell phone. "Dr. McCarthy! Are you all right?" "I'm fine", he
replies quickly, tasting some blood in his mouth. "You're
bleeding", observes Menendez worriedly. "I'll be alright", answers
McCarthy, wiping away his mouth with his left hand. The right has a
few cuts and bruises over it, but a few band-aids should fix it up
soon. "Who was that guy?" "I don't know", replies Menendez, "But
whoever he is, I'm sure he's not the only one interested in
stealing."

"I better report this to LaJoy. Have you had this
happen before?" "We've had three previous incidents of people
taking boxes, but they've never physically confronted any one of us
before." "So this is a case of escalation?" "Maybe. I don't know",
answers Menendez, closing her phone. "I'm so sorry, you had to get
hit by that thug, we have an officer at the door. If only-"
"Really, it doesn't matter," McCarthy assures her, "But I'll see
that you get tighter security around here. We can't afford to be
losing inventory to criminals like that." The two walk back through
the parking lot towards the district office. "I'm going to the next
stop. Before, though, do you have any band-aids?" "Yes. This way."
Menendez leads McCarthy to her office where she opens a drawer on
her desk, handing him four band-aids. Fixed for the time being,
McCarthy decides to continue rolling.

Heading out the door, he nearly walks headlong into
an officer walking in. "Wow. Sorry, officer. My bad." McCarthy
glances down backing away slightly, seeing the officer's name tag
which reads
Chen
. He points with his thumb backwards. "The
guy left already. But there could be more of them, hiding out back
there." "Are you all right?", asks Officer Chen. "I'm good." The
officer rushes past McCarthy inside, as two more police cruisers
pull up in front of the building.

McCarthy walks into his car taking out his cell phone
as he walks. He calls up LaJoy to tell him about the incident with
the tattooed thief. LaJoy doesn't take the news too kindly, but
doesn't seem surprised. McCarthy surmises that this wasn't the
first time someone had tried to rob one of the distribution
centers. McCarthy hangs up, and drives west in the direction of
Santa Barbara for his next inspection stop. After about forty
minutes of driving his cell vibrates, leading him to pull off to
the side of the highway in order to answer it.
Unlike most
people, I'm not going to multitask on the highway. . . .especially
with all these crazy drivers.

He answers the phone call once pulled over, whose
caller identifies himself as part of the California Highway Patrol
Department. The officer on the line informs McCarthy that his
assailant had been arrested and brought into custody. "Do you know
why he was there?", asks McCarthy curiously, suspecting the answer.
"For now we're assuming theft. The crates described to us by FEMA
have been found in the truck." "Has he committed any other crimes?"
"Yes, he has a criminal record. Also, This isn't the first time one
of the distribution centers has been targeted for robbery, Dr.
McCarthy." "I see. Very well. Thank you." The distribution centers
had to be protected more vigorously, McCarthy decided. There was
too much at stake to let random bandits simply walk in and walk
away with food supplies intended for every other law abiding
inhabitant.

McCarthy calls LaJoy. "We need to change the
strategy." "What strategy?", asks LaJoy, "You're lucky to come out
in one piece and you're already asking for a change in strategy?"
"Yes, to prevent similar things from occurring in the future. Call
the National Guard." "Call the National Guard? For what?" "To guard
the stations. The police don't have enough personnel to do their
regular duties and keep an eye out on all the aid centers. So talk
to the Governor and tell him to dispatch a few troops. At least in
Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas." "I'll consider it."
"You won't regret it if you do it now." "Right.", retorts LaJoy as
he hangs up.
Damn. That guy needs to learn how to be more
security oriented if he's going to continue to run this operation.
Otherwise, things will escalate.

McCarthy starts the engine and pulls leftwards back
onto the highway.
Another hour to Santa Barbara.

Bangladesh

Back in the confines of the FAO office in Dhaka,
Manjak watches a live news coverage of workers being trucked to the
designated areas of the barrier. The plan was to dig two ditches a
mile apart from each other, running parallel, across the country
towards the Himalayas. Everything between the two ditches would be
burned, leaving no trace of any living matter. The Indian
government had agreed to collaborate in extending the barrier
across its provinces of Assam and Sikkim. The plan, basically set
forth by Manjak and Mohammed, dictated for completion of ditches
within 7 days, in order for the burn policy to be initiated. The
final location of the line skirted around all the major cities,
unfortunately there were many farms that still lay in the middle of
the planned barrier.

The camera footage showed people packing belongings
into vans as they prepared to move westward- as the government had
also decreed that all inhabitants east of the barrier would have to
relocated westwards for the time being. People in colorful
sarongs
to farmer's garb packed inside buses, on pickup
trucks, and on scooters all poured onto the roadways. So a mass
exodus of over ten million people began, starting another major
congestion on the country's roads which were already incapable of
handling the traffic required of them. Many of the travelers had
nowhere to go, no family or relatives in the west of the country;
no friends who could physically take more people into their homes.
Already there was a feeling of discontent in the streets as a
result of the government's order to move, but for the moment people
followed the decree.

Manjak counted on that.

In order for the entire idea to work, there would
have to cease to be any type of interaction between biological
entities across the two sides of the barrier. no humans, animals,
plants, fungi, bacteria, or protozoa would be allowed to go from
one side to the other. Looking at the TV, Manjak sees the first
crews get to work with shovels and small bulldozer near some remote
village. For a brief moment he fights an urge to go out and do some
handiwork himself, but realizes that this would be hopelessly
useless. The government even opened up its coffers to finance work
on the project, hiring construction companies, engineers, and
labor; leading to a temporary decrease in the unemployment as
people signed up to work on the barrier. Manjak by himself would
offer miniscule help.

More importantly, he needed to fly to Thailand later
in the day in order to work over the details with the Thais to
follow a similar approach. If the Thais' would isolate the Malay
Peninsula from the rest of the continent, the move could
potentially prevent the spread of EWK-1 to Malaysia, the islands of
Indonesia, and the Philippines. Australia, further south and
isolated geographically, had pursued its own independent policy to
halt all shipping from the Asian and North American mainlands
within the week. After the stop in Bangkok, he would head directly
to Beijing and assess the situation FAO would be dealing with in
China.

Manjak turns his head, hearing footsteps. Zafir
enters. "I'm off to the airport, flight leaves in two hours.",
states Manjak, "See to it that Plan B works out." "I will." "Make
sure that the silos are stocked, with enough food to provide basic
nutrition for four months. Weed out corrupt practices in the
bureaucracy, the only result will be less food to go around. FAO's
job now will be to see food reserves maintained until soil quality
can return to normal. Then it will take four months minimum to grow
a new round." "It is going to be an uphill battle." "Yes it will.
I'm not going to make other recommendations, but in the long run it
will be doubtful if the country will be able to support any larger
population, even assuming that EWK-1 is able to be prevented. Other
countries, including all the neighboring ones, will be experiencing
similar problems." Manjak rises out of the seat. "I better prepare
my bag. Don't want to keep the Thais waiting because of a missed
flight."