Fraya Vallon looked through her binoculars and saw a convoy making its way down the main avenue of the burned out city of las angels. Fraya was perched twenty stories up on a building that had been so severely damaged form a missile strike that the building groaned as it swayed in the slight breeze, anytime now the support beams could finishing snapping and the whole thing would come down.
Fraya ignored the danger and continued to watch the convoy. The convoy of heavily armed humvees and an armored truck where coming from the massively militarized shipping port. The port was the only section of las angels in United California Free State’s control below the line. The line started twenty miles north of here and had antipersonnel mines, barb wire, AI controlled weapons and mortars, tanks, and thousands of soldiers of the United California Free State Army stretching hundreds of miles and cutting the state in half. Anyone getting within a thousand feet of the line was blown up and made another rotting corpse along with thousands of bodies that marked the line.
This convoy through was not form the UCFS army, they had markings of Union of Texas army emblems. The Union of Texas was nominal allies against the Northern Union of America who wanted to reunite the states and resurrect the dead United States of America that now consisted of 6 major and dozens of other smaller warring parties.
The convey was just reaching an intersection when an improvised explosive device, IED, detonated under the lead humvee, turning it into a burning funeral pyre for the five trapped Texas soldiers. As soon as it detonated the wolves came out from every direction. To give credit the soldiers were well trained and exited their vehicles firing at the ambushers. The fifty cal machine gun operators also split their fire, the one behind the burning humvee aiming left and the third vehicle aiming right. The last three humvees behind the armored truck were doing the same when a wolf fired a rocked propelled grenade, RPG, at the last humvee taking it out and boxing the now trapped soldiers in.
The fifty cal’s were decimating the wolf’s. Dozens simply disappeared in a spry of blood, visceral, and meat. Then two trucks with their own machine guns mounted in the bed rolled out in front of the trapped convey and unleased retribution on the second humvee in line. The rounds punched through the armored torrent’s platting and turned the operator into so much meat.
The third humvee operator had no choice but to return fire on the trucks, lessening the fire on the wolves and in turn putting more pressure on the soldiers. The battle continued until two armored personal carriers, APC’s, screeched to a halt behind the convey and the hyenas unloaded.
Fraya was terrified, disgusted, and enraged at seeing those sadistic fucks. In a city filled with dozens of gangs they were the most brutal, sadistic, and insane group of them all and that was saying something. The emaciated bodies, with their eyes and tongue ripped out, hung form the sides of the APC, showing clearly just how depraved the hyenas were. Fraya had come across numerous victims of the gang who had their eyes, tongues, and limbs hacked off and left for died on the side of the road. Fraya had put a bullet into each one, a mercy the hyenas did not offer.
Snarling Fraya dropped her binoculars and picked up her M24 sniper rifle. She had liberated it off a dead soldier and it had served her well. Taking aim at a hyena, Fraya lightly touched the trigger, and exhaling, sent a round into the head of the gang member. Without stopping Fraya targeted the hyena next to the one she just shot and pulled the trigger again. Fraya did not stop until all ten rounds in the magazine were empty. With muscle memory form years of practice and use, Fraya ripped out the spent magazine with her right hand and jacked anther in with her left. Centering her aim again, Fraya continued massacring the hyenas.
Fraya targeted the last hyena but was not fast enough with the shot to prevent him from unpinning a canister. Fraya eyes went wide and dropping the rifle, leaped up and ran for the storage closet she prepared beforehand. Slamming the door closed, Fraya donned a gas mask quickly, then turned and, using tape, finished sealing the room. Fraya had made the room into a makeshift clean room, hanging plastic sheet on the walls, floor and ceiling.
Grabbing the nuclear, biological, and chemical suit on the self, Fraya started to don it, thankful for her preparedness. The nerve gas would kill everyone for blocks.
It just was one more example of how deprived the hyenas were, willing to kill everyone, even themselves, through considering they came from the completely blood filled streets of Mexico, that was not surprising. Mexico gangs did not even have territories now, they just had thousands of armed groups butchering each other and everyone that got in their way. There was no large unified gangs like they had before the world war, the gangs had disbanded into smaller roving groups each out for themselves.
People fleeing the daily massacres in Mexico fled north into California. Texas had used tactical nukes to irradiate the Mexican line so anyone trying to escape through there died horrible days, or weeks, later of radiation poisoning. The roving bands of sadistic gang members followed the fleeing countrymen and turned southern California into a war zone. The United California Free State sent out daily sorties of bombers and fighter jets to bomb and gas the Mexican line trying to stem the tide.
After Fraya was in her NBC suit and the effects of the nerve agent should have lessened, she untapped the door and exited. Returning to her rifle, Fraya used her canteen to quickly wipe down the gun. Throwing the gun strip over her head, she secured it behind her back. Fraya then kicked a large pile of rope over the edge and watched it unravel as it fell towards the street below.
Grapping the line in her gloved hands, Fraya jumped out of the building and fell towards the street. In seconds Fraya was on the ground and sprinting towards the covey, everything silent and dead. The wolves had to have a jammer to prevent the port’s fast response team form deploying. The fast response team consisted of two attack helicopters and four black hawks filled with soldiers, soldiers who would not hastate to massacre woman, children, and even babies in mothers arms, Fraya had witnessed it before and Fraya did not want to witness it again, this time with herself as the victim.
Someone had used an RPG on the armored truck and it was now on its side with one of its doors ripped off. Looking inside the armored compartment showed it relatively undamaged. A large container about eight feet in length, five feet in width, and five in height, was one the side wall of the truck having fallen over when the truck toppled.
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The box had built in wheels so if Fraya could right it she could drag it out. Wedging herself against the side wall, which would have been the roof if the truck was on its wheels, Fraya used her feet to push the box over. When it landed Fraya grabbed the tow line of the box and hauled it out of the armored truck.
Dragging it around the truck and around the bodies that littered the road, Fraya made for one of the wolves trucks. She did not have time to inspect the box but whatever it was must have been important for two gangs to go after it, one even killing everyone, including themselves, to prevent their rival form having it.
Fraya was sweating profusely in her NBC suit by the time she got the box positioned behind the left wolf’s truck. Taking down the tail gate Fraya was relieved to see a ramp tossed inside. Positioning the metal ramp, Fraya used all her strength to haul the box onto the bed of the truck. Once it was loaded, Fraya turned to the body of the wolf who had been manning the machine gun. Quickly unstrapping his vest and taking it off, along with his assault rifle, Fraya unceremoniously pushed the dead gang banger over the side of the truck.
Running down the ramp, Fraya tossed the ramp alongside the box and slammed the tail gate closed. All this took eight minutes and Fraya could feel the time slipping away before the convey missed a check in and the fast response team would be sent out to investigate.
The driver’s side door was open and Fraya jumped in. Closing the door, Fraya then had to adjust the seat as far as it would go forward, being under 5 foot 3 inches was a pain and she could not wait for another growth spurt. Barely reaching the pedals and seeing over the staring wheel Fraya put it in reverse and backed up. Not having many opportunities to drive Fraya gave it to much gas and the truck flew backwards. Slamming on the brake, Fraya took a calming breath and switched to forward drive, this time easing the petal down.
With a lurch the truck began to move and Fraya twisted the wheel to turn at the intersection and down the street the convey was headed. Turning left a few blocks later she took a winding course of streets to finally arrive at a half collapsed parking garage. Turning into it she followed the down ramps into the lower levels, scrapping the side of the truck several times as she misjudged the turns. Going down and down, five levels underground, Fraya arrived at the secured parking area. Stopping the vehicle Fraya picked up the pistol left on the passenger seat, the snipe rifle was too unwieldy in close quarters, and the wolf’s assault rifle was in the bed, so Fraya settled for the wolf’s pistol.
Jumped out of the truck Fraya made her way to the heavy steel doors of the secured parking lot. Pushing the heavy steel door open, Fraya slowly swept her gun form left to right looking for any movement. The scan showed only expensive cars rotting away and signs of trash form prior visitors. Satisfied no deranged killer would jump out at her, Fraya made her way back to the tuck and climbed back in.
Fraya let the truck roll forward without using any gas and after she was a dozen feet in stopped the truck. Getting out Fraya walked to the steel doors and closed them, then turning she made her way to the tail gate. Fraya proceeded to unload the box and setting it off to the side, climbed back into the still running truck. Switching the gears to reverse, this time Fraya slowly backed up, till the truck hit the steel doors and pushed them solidly closed. Fraya finally turned off the truck and hit the emergency breaks for good measure, anyone trying to open the doors would have to ream them or use high explosive to get them open.
The only light in the underground garage was the trucks headlights so Fraya had to find out what was in the box and make further plans fast, before she drained the trucks battery. Getting back out of the truck, Fraya went to the box that had probable cost hundreds of people there lives when the nerve agent hit, and opened it. What was inside made her gasp.
A high end medical and virtual immersion pod was inside gleaming. What made Fraya gasp was she could tell form a glance that this was not the poorly made, cheap pod that regular people had access to.
During the world war, as America battled China for control, development into new technologies had ramped up. A consortium of American companies, the American government’s defense advanced research projects agency, DRAPA, and the Japan’s own researchers made a breakthrough into nano technology. The nano machines themselves were horrible inefficient, extremely fragile, and broke apart spontaneously when in use but they worked.
The nano machines would not have amounted to much if the Taiwan’s researchers had not almost simultaneously invented the first true artificial intelligence using IBM’s quantum computers form America. The merging of quantum computers, AI’s, and nano machines created the first medical pods.
They were badly needed as nuclear attacks and biological and chemical weapons form the war, were decimating the earth and killing millions. With the help of AI controlled nanos, humans could be repaired and food grown indoors. Also true fusion reactors and superconductors could be built. All this lead to the development of immersive virtual reality, at first to train soldiers at an accelerated rate, then as a means for humans to escaped the war ravaged planet into virtual worlds and games.
The end of the war finally came when China descended into chaos as a que’de’ta was attempted and lead to a multisided civil war. The devastation and aftermath of the brutal war soon lead to America and the European Union following China into vicious multisided civil wars.
Billions of people now survived locked into pods, housed in former military bunkers, buried in mine tunnels, or large underground warehouses, as war still ravished the world. The nanos through had an extreme downside to them, when they broke apart they caused micro tears inside the human body and the human brain, this lead to needing more nanos to replace the destroyed ones, and repair, as best they could, the damage done which lead to scaring, minimal at first but it added up. If someone spent years inside the pod they looked emaciated but weirdly heathy and could not survive outside the pod for long because of the continued need for nano repairs, their minds literally could not work without the nano and AI’s help.
The other downside to nanos was manufacturing, the more precise and intricate the manufacturing was, the more nanos would be destroyed, leading to the crudely made medical immersion pods billions used, as the manufacturers lowered the precision and intricately to lower the loss rate of nanos.
All this meant that the precise lines, the perfect form, the absolutely faultless medical immersion pod had to cost exponentially more to manufacture then the cheap mass produced pods that Fraya used. Once a year the port military base would allow, under heavy guard, woman and children to use their pods to remove virus, radiation, and chemicals form their bodies. Not out the goodness of their hearts but to stop plagues and epidemics form starting and spreading again.
Fraya read the embossed stamp on the top ‘Experimental Medical Immersion Pod 0009’
That shocked Fraya, if this was an experimental pod it could be worth a fortune, more than the pods the rich had access to. The rich, being rich, could afford pods that were better than the masses got, that had better safe guards for nanos breaking apart. Those pods people could use for years without suffering a fraction of the damage the poor did.
If the wolf’s and hyena’s knew about this shipment it was no wonder they attacked as viciously as they had, for this could literally be the one chance they had between living and dying for them.
Fraya began to shake as the enormity of what she had fully settled in her mind. The United California Free State, the Union of Texas, the Northern Union, everyone would be after this pod.