Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,15

and into my veins.

The camera zooms out, and Dr. Chapelle is sitting at a sleek white table with an older man on either side of her. Behind them, on risers, are at least eighty other assholes, all wearing suits that probably cost more than the mortgage payments on their Malibu summer homes.

The smug bastard front and center is our fucking president.

“For the past year, the World Health Alliance has been working in conjunction with the United Nations”—she gestures to the world leaders standing behind her—“to implement a solution to the global population crisis. A correction, if you will. We call this correction Operation April 23.”

“Wes, what is she talking about?” Rain whispers, gripping my arm tighter.

“Approximately three years ago, our top researchers discovered that, at the rate that our population was growing, Earth’s natural and economic resources would be depleted in less than a decade. To put it bluntly, human beings were facing extinction, and the cause was simple—our species had abandoned the law of natural selection.”

The camera pans to the man on her left, a skinny guy with a haircut like Hitler’s. The caption below his face says, Dr. Henri Weiss, World Health Alliance Researcher. “Every s-species on the planet is s-subject to the law of natural selection,” he says, tugging at his collar and taking a sip from his glass of water. His accent sounds German, and he looks like he’s about to shit himself. “It is the very f-foundation of evolution. Since the dawn of living organisms, the weaker, more infirm members of the s-s-species die off, and the strongest, most intelligent, most well-adapted members live the longest and procreate the most. This p-process promotes the survival of the species by ensuring that each g-g-generation inherits only the most adaptive genetic traits and by p-p-preventing resources from being depleted by nonproductive s-s-s-subgroups.”

The camera slides back to the French bitch. “Over the past century, human beings have become the first species to ever circumvent the law of natural selection. Through advances in technology and lavish government programs, we have been actively prolonging the lives of our weakest, most disabled, and most dependent members of society to the great detriment of our entire species.”

She gestures to President Dickhead standing behind her.

“The American government, for example, spends over one trillion dollars each year housing, feeding, and caring for its disabled, incarcerated, and unemployed citizens—citizens who contribute nothing in return. As a result, the World Health Alliance calculated last January that the number of disabled and nonproductive members of our species outnumbered able-bodied, productive members for the first time in the history of any species. Immediate action had to be taken.”

The camera cuts to the man on her right who looks a little like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. The caption below his name reads, Dr. Hiro Matsuda, World Health Alliance Researcher. “We needed a way to thin the herd, so to speak, while ensuring that the strongest, healthiest, most intelligent members of our species would survive. Engineering a super virus or inciting a world war would have been … counterproductive … due to the loss of healthy, able-bodied citizens that would have resulted. Therefore, my team and I came up with a plan to introduce a global stressor so intense that it would trigger our least resilient citizens to behave in self-destructive ways while simultaneously encouraging our most resilient citizens to become even stronger and more self-reliant.”

The images of the horsemen appear again, eliciting gasps from the audience, but this time, they’re presented as icons at the bottom of the screen.

“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Grim Reaper, Death—these archetypes have appeared in almost every society throughout history. By planting these iconic images in every digital media source worldwide—paired with a single date: April 23—we were able to tap directly into the collective human subconscious and plant the idea of an impending doomsday.”

“Oh my God, Wes,” Rain whispers, looking up at me like a child who just found out that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real. “Those images you found in my phone—you were right.”

“Worldwide subliminal messaging.” I shake my head.

Only it wasn’t at the hands of some evil corporation or a band of sniveling computer hackers on a power trip, like I thought. It was worse.

It was our own fucking government.

“We all owe Dr. Matsuda, his team, and our world leaders a debt of gratitude.” The French bitch grins. “Operation April 23 was a brilliant success. Our researchers estimate that our global population has been decreased by as