Cassidy turned to Pendwight and asked, "How many states have been converted by the census program, now?"
"We've accelerated the program, and the South is done. We'll have the Northeast completed in the next two days and be finished with the U.S. in another week."
"How have the electronic transmissions been doing?" she asked as she pondered stacks of figures and documents on her husband's desk, which she was signing and executing on his behalf. Terrone had been sent off for some private R&R after discovering her new or true nature. He also needed drying out and rehab would do it. Two weeks of no President was just the chance she needed.
Pendwight was becoming more scared of her each day. She was inexhaustible; and at his age, he was having problems keeping up. He was up to ten Tylenol and five lower-tabs a day to help his body aches and pains, along with a gallon of Maalox to settle his stomach. Her dark nature was far more powerful than he ever imagined. It seemed to be gaining momentum. Her ideas were darker, and her taste for believers' blood was surpassing his. He just wanted to pay them back for their righteous arrogance, but she wanted them to pay with their lives. Even though he had suggested their total annihilation, he blamed it on something beyond him. He wasn't himself when he suggested it. It was as if he had been taken over by something dark within him, and he kicked himself for making that terrible suggestion now. He kept thinking, how many people would die, and how many newborns would be among them. He was in too deep now. If he walked away now, he knew she'd have him tracked down and killed because of what he knew.
She asked him to give her a detailed plan on the execution of the commune attacks. He spent days making arrangements for timing of the attacks on paper and had an immense clay-and-plastic model of the United States with every commune pinpointed with small flags. He was barely able to keep up with their accelerated growth. Thankfully, the new aircraft were being built at a phenomenal speed. They would have enough to handle 200 million by the end of the next three weeks.
"We've added a hundred new communes to the charts yesterday, Cassidy. Look how populated the South is with them. Tennessee is the worst. There must be a thousand in Tennessee alone. Some aren't that big, being very specialized."
"Cassidy, have you heard any rumors about a new neurological disease that affects the motor functions and is terribly painful to the muscles and joints?"
"What? Do we have an epidemic going on or something?" She was thinking about not wanting to lose her most important pilots for the commune attacks. She couldn't afford to have that happen, not now.
"I'll tell you what you do. Call the Surgeon General and have him get me some research labs to check it out. Where is it mostly concentrated, so far?"
"Funny, it seems to be following the census kickoff. It started showing up in the South last week and is moving to the Northeast at an alarming rate. It literally disables anyone who gets it. It doesn't seem to be fatal, just terribly painful. The hospitals are full."
"Britain, Canada, and Israel are being hit with it at about the same rate; 10,000 new cases per day are showing up."
"This sounds suspicious, but I bet we can turn it to our advantage. Can anyone tell if the communes are affected? You know, those with a mark on their foreheads?"
"That was mentioned on an e-mail from some spies we put into some of the bigger camps. The communes are fine. They're thriving. The marked believers seem to have only migraines every once in a while but none of the disabling pain affecting everyone else. Are you feeling okay, yourself?" he asked while watching her carefully to see if he spotted any symptoms. He wouldn’t mind her being out of it enough to slow these murders down a little.
"I guess you'd be the best person to ask about that, wouldn't you?" she asked, then picked up the phone to call London.
"I want to blame the believers for this outbreak. I want everyone to believe they've done something to poison our water. Tell them that they have the antidote and aren't sharing it with the rest of us. That should send everyone into a killing orbit."
Releasing The Scorpion Tails
Apollyon took a key from his pocket and flew down to the vast, dark abyss that housed the scorpion tails. He turned the key while he listened to the quiet anticipation of his sharp-tailed hordes. This was the promise he had made to Angelica.
He shouted a victorious scream, "The Jehovah One has said the time is here. You are free, my great scorpion tails, to torture the earth and any of those marked for me, but you cannot touch those with the seal of God on their foreheads. Go my winged menaces. Fly to the ends of the earth. Pay mankind back for making me stay just the Prince of the Earth! I will give you five months to torture its peoples! Start with America first!"
The angels spread like a silent, vast army into every home, and every hiding place in the United States and its alliances—no one was spared. The sickness they brought went from 10,000 to millions per day. The EU watched as America and its allies were brought to their knees by this terrible infliction. The scorpion tails followed the census and located the marking stations, then struck people down minutes after they were marked. Some couldn't even make it home after receiving their implant. Cars littered the streets as people dragged themselves into hospitals unable to do the simplest tasks without doubling over from the spasms and torturous pain.
Nothing prepared the alliances for this disease. Even Pendwight finally fell under its curse. He could barely drag himself from bed, and the President's doctors finally had him drugged with mega-doses of morphine. He felt like he would die, wished he could, but didn't.
Cassidy, Angelica, and the EU countries outside of the American alliances weren't affected by it. It was as if special attention was on the American alliances. This was by Apollyon's design. He'd get to the rest of the world later after he'd had his angels inflict his primary targets first. When the participants could get enough street drugs to overcome the abusiveness of the disease, attacks on the communes became more regular. Government scientists and biologists were working 24-hour shifts to come up with a cure for it. They had finally named it simply the Plague 2000 for lack of a better one—nicknamed P2.
The Scorpion International manufacturing plants continued to ship and supply the alliances at a record rate while meeting and surpassing all the goals. The money was flowing, and there hadn't been any problems yet. There were now 95 percent of all commercial stores and retail shops manned with scanners for accepting the funds. Cassidy had finally made a drop-dead date for the attacks on the communes. With the new Olive Tree and Candlestick surveillance capacity, they now were able to track every movement to and from the communes. They found that Sundays were the best day of the week for an attack. They had to increase the original number of reserved nukes because of the alarmingly accelerated rate of the commune populations, which was doubling each week. Now, they made arrangements for one million new aircraft to hit all the believer communes at once. Two attacks were ordered on each commune—one missile with another for back up. They picked a date coordinated with the soon finished census in California. Extra morphine shipments were brought in to inoculate the pilots to carry out the strike. They would do it a 12 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. Central, 10 a.m. Mountain, and 9 a.m. Pacific. Top military commanders agreed that this purging was necessary for the prosperity of the nation. Nothing like it had ever been done on earth, and everyone doubted if it would ever be done again. They would relieve the world of what they considered to be millions of new believers nationwide.