CSI: American Carnage (Thursday, March 12, 2020)
THE CENTRAL PLAINS – Beneath the hollowed-out towns, where bodies lie in the streets, fallen and unmoved, and where savage dogs snarl at the corpses, rip off limbs, and fight over rancid entrails, the Dark One reclines in the Memento Mori Mausoleum, a favored chamber on the north spur of the vast Central Plains complex. The screens along the walls are blank; the phones silent. At the far end of the room, the final parts of his younger brother slowly putrefy. The older brother, the last of his line, although there are off spring of a mutant order, contemplates his brother, a mound of decay. My brother, he says, how well I remember our success in controlling the servi and their pathetic ambitions, their thin dreams to work and receive pay, their desire to live beneath a roof, their sad efforts to receive medical care and educations. The Dark One sips his green tea, the last he received before the ban on China trade and payments. This shipment slipped in with a special exception made by the Gambler Showman’s famously bribable vassals. The Dark One chuckles softly at the memory. He says, My brother, I must inform you that our wealth has diminished by billions over the last week or so, thanks to the Showman’s unerring ability to do the wrong thing and communicate his raw fear. The chamber is silent, and smells sweetly. The Dark One sips his tea. He says, Do not worry. Father would understand. You recall his stories of the Great Contagion. Millions of the servi dropped, never to rise, but those who kept their heads rode the boom that resulted, a roaring boom it was, with billions fleeced from the fearful. The Hoosier Puppet is doing well, he has steered the Showman into critical decisions, making sure that the theft of our funds is curtailed and compensation commences — theft by the servi, so misguided, to pay for their so-called security and safety, theft from our extraction services, which are under attack by the Eastern Despot, theft from our general well-being , which must be justly reimbursed, with interest, for all we have done. My brother! This is the opportunity of a century! When this is over, the billions that have appeared to vanish from our holdings will reappear 50-fold and more, like magic, like a miracle. Just as Father foretold. Tea shipments and payments will resume from the desperate Chinese. Demand for our extraction services will explode as nearly pauperized business seek to ratchet up. It is the way of the land, the dream that makes us great. We are like the phoenix and are blessed with ability to take advantage from on high. – Thursday, March 12, 2020