River City
The politicians wouldn’t admit to it but the whole country was in a deep recession. Some would say that it verged on a depression. Some places were hurting real bad. River City for example had double digit unemployment. It would have been much worse but for the fact that it was losing population as fast as it lost jobs. When people lost their jobs they just left the area. The unemployment percentage stayed the same.
A mental midget deep in the bowels of the burrocrazy (note: a burro is a type of ass) must have thought that transferring disabled veterans into an economically depressed area would somehow, benefit both the veteran and infuse money into the economy. They were either unrealistically optimistic or they believed in magic. Where were homeless combat vets getting any money?
Not that it mattered to me. One place was as good as another as far as I was concerned except that anywhere was better than Sam Snead. Everyone I’d known were long dead. As it happened, I was more fortunate than many of the other vets. A criminal organization was active in the area that I was sent to. Much like Al Capone’s soup kitchens the Ryujin of the_Ninkyo Dantai_ ran programs that benefited me, and the locals much moreso than anything the government had devised. The Ninkyo Dantai, sometimes called the Tong intimidated the HELL out of the local cops too.
No one, but NO ONE wanted to mess with the Ninkyo Dantai. No one ever did.... twice. The cops, the local politicians and the criminal element were well and truly intimidated. Ironically a black (very black) market economy existed in the area controlled by the Ninkyo Dantai that was more free under the Ninkyo Dantai than it would have been under the law. The little businesses weren’t regulated and inspected out of existence. I settled in fairly easy. I didn’t need much, I had a modest pension since I, unlike most vets, had served more than a twenty year career. It didn't matter that I was in a coma for much of that time. I was still a member of the military. I wasn't discharged from the military until I was discharged from Sam Snead. I only needed to supplement my retirement a little bit if I wasn't extravagant, and I wasn't. Anything was a luxury compared to Sam Snead. I wasn’t too proud to take any kind of work.
Ahem
Now’s a good time to interject a bit of information, just to keep everything in perspective, don’t you know. Years later, I learned from a well known and dear source, Chad I’m looking at you, who learned more about Viper. When Chad met director McCarthy he kind of lost his head. McCarthy’s not Chad, but more about that later.
Suffice to say that Chad acquired some information. I’m including it in chronological order in this story. A bit here...a bit there...where ever that I feel that it is appropriate.
Now about viper. About the time that I moved to River City Director McCarthy was having a bad day. Not as bad as it could have been but he didn’t think so at the time.
Director McCarthy sat at his desk and fumed. He viewed the file with disgust. He had another lead on the mysterious technology that he kept in what he had come to think of as Vault 13. A recently discovered file indicated that years ago a patient at Sam Snead had exhibited some VERY unusual capabilities. McCarthy read through the file again then threw it at the wall. Bah, not only had the file been MIS-filed and only discovered after all files had been converted to a computer database but there was no mention of the patients name, any identifier, or what had become of him. Damn government ineptitude.
“Did you sanitize?” McCarthy asked needlessly. Of course they had. If they hadn’t heads would have rolled.
“Yes Sir.” his subordinate replied. “All of those who expressed any knowledge of anything odd about that patient were ‘taken out’”
“Killed you mean” McCarthy snorted. “No need for euphemisms. It’s just us here.”
“Yes sir.“ The subordinate replied. “They were all killed.”
“How did you hide it from the press? Not that, that’s very hard. They are willfully ignorant. They’d rather talk about each other than actual events. What ruse did you use?” McCarthy asked.
“Their favorite one.” the subordinate replied smugly. “A crazed shooter with an assault weapon.“
“Ah... very good.” McCarthy said. “No need to tell them any more than that. Their imaginations will work overtime. They’ll fill in all of the blanks.”
That made me sad. Viper had killed any and all of the people that I had known, and all of the people that had any knowledge of me, whether I'd known them or not, who had been at Sam Snead with me. I hoped that the nurse had survived. Somehow I didn't think so. If she had been there she would probably have died trying to protect her patients. She was that kind of gal.
THAT pissed me off. I marked VIPER off my Christmas card list. They would get no love from me.
We don’t have anymore information about Viper during that period of time. When they finally caught up with us it wasn’t pretty. Viper, in a manner of speaking is the reason we are all here today. Running for your life is a powerful incentive. We were running from them. I suppose we still are.
That aside, which I didn’t know about at the time. Those weren’t bad days. I was happy enough considering everything.
To Be Continued
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The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
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