Chapter 41
Dean Wormer jostled about the wagon’s bench seat and studied the eastern ridge of the mountain range in the late afternoon sun. A tight-lipped Zac sat next to him, driving the two-horse team harder than he should.
The rest of the gang silently rode in the back as if leery of the wagon’s symphony of creaks and groans rising louder than the frantic cloppity-clops of the horses’ hooves pelting the ground. Once again, he felt as though he were on the verge of falling through an arcane hourglass that seemed to symbolize the end of humanity.
Dean gave the back of the coverless wagon a thorough once-over. Twila and Mindy sat with their backs bumping against the wagon’s side, deep in apparent meditation while Ella, Justin, Luther, and Scarlett scoured the horizon for drones and dead-heads.
Zac’s clenched jaw belied his cool demeanor as he followed the highlighted path to safety in his mind. What a group of oddballs they made with their so-called—special abilities. According to Scarlett and Twila, even the sleek stallion was psychic. Dean felt unworthy of the company he kept. He was the only one who didn’t have a so-called special ability.
“You’re the glue holding the group together—through the storm,” an unknown voice sang in his ears.
That ring’s true, he admitted to himself. His rational brain ran amok as he tried making sense of the events that had transpired since the undeadly flu outbreak. As if my friends and I are meant to be here. At this particular juncture. Kismet.
It seemed as good of a time as any to pick Zac’s brain. After all, the fellow seemed to be in tight with the Elites. “Say . . .” Dean hesitated, wondering how to put it into words. “Scarlett mentioned you’re in the know, ’bout certain things.” It wasn’t like Dean to hem and haw. Fact was, all this metaphysical mumbo jumbo was beyond his comprehension. “Tell me, how’d the de-evolution of mankind go off the rails so dern fast?”
Zac nodded ever so slightly as if contemplating what to say. Finally, he spoke. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Hell, I’m ready to believe just ’bout anything.” Dean glanced back at curious eyes. They too appeared anxious for some semblance of reasoning as to why the world had gone batshit crazy from a minuscule virus.
“Once upon a time, on a dark stormy night, in a top-secret lab, there was this startup biotech-pharmaceutical company . . .” Zac began. “They concocted a get-rich-quick scheme. That backfired. Bigtime! See, they infected us with their designer-flu virus via chemtrails, masquerading as ordinary contrails laced with nanobots of the virus.
“Naw,” Dean uttered in disbelief. He’d already heard that conspiracy theory. From out of the blue, Operation Sea Spray suddenly sprang to mind. Back during his Chico State days, he and his colleagues used to pontificate over the rumors that the U.S. military had on occasion doused its citizens with nonlethal substances in order to test the efficacy of biowarfare terrorism. Interesting. Perhaps, Zac’s explanation wasn’t so farfetched.
“For real!” Justin cut in. “I hacked tons of super-classified intel back at the Think Tank. These microscopic nanobots actually exist. Seriously, like a hundred thousand fit in a syringe.”
Zac nodded knowingly. “I often refer to the plandemic as the Nano Com-trail flu.”
“Why in God’s name would—” Dean stopped himself. No use going ballistic at this point.
“The pre-made vaccine sat in cold-storage warehouses around the world”—Zac’s Adam’s apple bobbled—“available for a hefty price.”
“Dude, that’s sick,” Justin sputtered in the background.
“That’s why the vaccine was so quick to emerge,” Luther grumbled from behind. “Usually it takes a while.”
“That doesn’t explain people reanimating into cannibals,” Dean retorted.
Zac whipped the reins. “The virus did what viruses do best. Perpetuated its livelihood. It mutated just enough to deem the vaccine worthless.”
Dean turned around to catch his friends’ expressions. Scarlett nodded knowingly. Mindy snapped out of her meditation, and Ella gaped in horrid recognition.
Zac continued in narration mode. “The plot thickens. The Global Elites decided it was the perfect time to launch their New World Dis-order agenda. Taking over the world. To achieve that, the Fiberati needed to manipulate the population. As in depopulation!”
“Naw?” Dean was aghast.
“The Powers That Be wanted five hundred million in their One World Government,” Zac explained with somber calmness. “A population small enough to control yet large enough to serve the Elites’ decadent lifestyles.”
Scarlett cleared her throat gently. “That’s just the surface layer. The plot stems from the cosmos. According to the Silver Lady, ‘the Ancient Bloodlines man-ipulated Hu-manity’s overpopulation by exposing Earth’s children to an engineered nanobot pathogen intended to downgrade Hu-mans’ DNA, thereby quickly creating a slave race.’ Since their former 5G subliminal programming was taking too long.”
“Transhumanism.” Twila’s monotone voice broke into the conversation. “The Global Elites are the Ancient Ones’ worker bees serving to destroy hu-manity by corrupting our DNA sequencing with the introduction of nanos into the human body. Once altered by these bots—we are no longer human.”
Ella let out a whimper. What about our babies?”
“Don’t worry,” Scarlett interjected. “The Silver Lady assured the Starseeds, Lightworkers, and LifeGivers are safeguarded from DNA manipulation and corruption. I suppose that’s another one of our metaphysical gifts.”
“Talk about an info dump . . .” Justin let out a long sigh.
“Damn,” Zac swore through gritted teeth. “I knew there was more to it.”
Dean tried assimilating it all. “That’s enough to make a fella’s head spin. I take it other countries are involved in this wretched plot as well,” he pressed on, not sure he was ready for the diabolical truth.
“You catch on quick,” Zac said. “Apparently, these Elites plan to hit the reset button on global power. Think of it as a game of Risk—”
“Wait, dude, how can you possibly know all this?” Justin grilled as if Zac were lying.
