The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

“Wha-what?” the man stammered, and then realized what the square pupils meant. “Oh gods, you’re Citybound...”

There wasn’t much sound, but the Wrath was bright red, and a little black, as his head blew apart under Fred’s Grit, and only ash reached the old green paint on the office wall.

Fred retrieved the man’s cell phone from his pocket, and turned to the frozen director.

YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHY I AM HERE, Fred’s words flamed up and were gone, the man paling.

“This is impossible... Baltimore doesn’t have any Citybound...” the man protested.

I’M KIND OF A FREE AGENT. IT’S A SHAME. IF YOU HAD KEPT YOUR EFFORTS POSITIVE, YOU COULD HAVE BEEN MAYOR.

The man’s face plummeted. “Wait, wait! I’m sure I can make the money back...”

The sound of the shot was silent, and his head also vanished. His body slumped into his comfortable chair, the stump of his neck smoking.

Fred turned around and took two steps out, then paused, turning to look at the secretary, who was on the phone and about to speak, but couldn’t under his eyes.

MISS HARRINGTON, YOU KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON AND FAILED TO REPORT IT. BALTIMORE IS NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. YOU HAVE A WEEK TO LEAVE TOWN. YOU WILL DONATE THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR RETIREMENT AND PENSION TO THE SOUTHSIDE RESTORATION SOCIETY, AS YOU WILL NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO COLLECT IT IF YOU DO NOT.

The phone slipped from her hands down to the desk with a clatter, and she stared at his backside as the uncompleted phone call droned at her loudly...

There were more than a few people watching as he walked out, gaping as he strode out, turned right, and paused right in front of a slender fellow of mixed heritage who instinctively stepped back as Fred looked right at him.

ABNER JEFFERSON?, Fred asked the man calmly.

Sweat beads broke out on his forehead. “Y-yes?” he managed to reply with a wince.

THE CITY OF BALTIMORE INSTRUCTS YOU TO TAKE OVER YOUR PREDECESSOR’S JOB AS DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS. FURTHERMORE, YOU WILL UNDERTAKE AN IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONTRACTS WITH THE COMPANIES BELONGING TO THE O’DONNEL FAMILY, WHO HAVE DIRECTLY BILKED THE CITY OUT OF OVER HALF A MILLION DOLLARS, ARE PADDING THE ROLLS OF PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE UNIONS FOR THEIR WORKERS AND POCKETING THE EXCESS, TO OVER TWO MILLION DOLLARS.

THE CITY IS INTERESTED IN ACCEPTING YOU AS A CITYBOUND. YOUR FAMILY HAS BEEN HERE FOR FOUR GENERATIONS ON BOTH SIDES. GO TO THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT AND ANNOUNCE YOUR INTENTION TO SERVE IF YOU AGREE.

Fred reached out and clapped the younger man’s shoulder. WELL SERVED, MR. JEFFERSON.

He turned and walked away, ignoring the crowd that was peeking out and hastily slamming up against the walls to let him pass, leaving Abner Jefferson gaping after him. He strolled back to the window, Rode the Light back down to Sleipner, swung on, and his bike was heading out before he laid a hand on the bars.

He was a Citybound acting under the direction of the city. There were federal laws put in place exactly for this purpose... mostly in recognition of the fact that making the actions of the various Warlocks running around illegal wasn’t going to stop anything from happening, because their sponsoring entities just didn’t care. Making the actions of the Spirit of the land upon which you stood ‘illegal’ was just asking for all sorts of coincidental ways to die to happen to you, as more than one legislator of one sort or another had fallen out of, down, or through messily...

The Warlocks sworn to the Profound Forces fell under the rules of religious conflicts among the Powered, but the genius loci basically came under the “Environmental Dictates”, an ever-evolving set of guidelines on how to respond to the Spirits of local areas... which basically came down to not pissing them off and not getting in their way, and everyone would pretty much be better off for it.

Naturebound and Citybound could and did get into shooting matches... but as long as it involved only them, the law was hands-off. The Warlocks were expected to claim responsibility and victory in such disagreements, which often were basically duels over whether development and expansion, or abandonment and reclamation, would proceed in certain areas.

A Citybound executing a governmental employee was now basically a hazard of the job for either gross incompetency, or more likely, outright corruption. It turned out that Citybound getting into positions of authority soon had the government humming along sweetly, and local business leaders tended to either fall in line, or move operations... to another City Spirit who might be happy to get them, but still wouldn’t put up with anything their prior city was pissed at them for. Someone fleeing and owing their prior city a debt might keep their life if they brought business to a new city, but still end up having to pay that debt off if they didn’t want unwanted visitors stopping in to collect... with interest.

His next public stop would be to the MacConnel spice company in the suburbs. They were starting to use alchemical additions to their spices, generating some pretty bad odors and contamination of the air. Their company had a decent history to it, but this change had really annoyed the city. Baltimore suspected something else was at work, and his Heavenbound Pact was curious, too.

His Stormbound Pact was definitely interested in shutting down all sorts of atmospheric pollution, and Baltimore had thus lined up four different businesses for him to visit and deliver a final notice about cleaning up, or else.

MacConnel Spices was holding a board meeting in a few days. Fred expected that it was going to get exciting...

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The librarian was very helpful... especially after she recognized me. I explained that I wasn’t American-born, it was just my Human accent, and I would like to learn some basic history. She helped me to the local history in the Young Adult section, which would give me a quick background. Then showed me to their magazine section and newspapers. She left me there with my index finger up next to my eyes so I could read everything coming out in English, and see how much the world had deviated from what I knew since the 1940’s.

It was drudgework, but it was necessary, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t interested in what had and hadn’t happened since the undead had come here.

It was truly an enormous pity that I couldn’t simply use the internet and bury myself in the information deluge for hours through self-directed browsing. I wondered if all Shroudborn had this problem...

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There were indeed many, many changes to the world. October 11, 1941 was a date every single person in the world knew, now.

World War II had naturally collapsed on its face. Germany had lost its entire invasion force into Russia, and Russia had lost pretty much everything from the Ukraine to Siberia. The dead massacred by uncaring tyrants had risen up, done for the living, and at least five Shroudzones existed outside the massive thousand-mile circle centered on Moscow.

The Jews and other ‘undesirables’ disposed of by the Nazis had risen up and brought down Germany in death and damnation. The German armies in France and Belgium were basically the last survivors of Germany, save for the few who managed to flee the massacre and undead rising from the mass graves... and ancient tombs. Hitler was believed to be a rotting zombie carrying around a Jewish Dark Rabbi in the Berlin Shroudzone...

Italy had been rocked by small areas of undead, but the only one that might have become a Shroudzone, Rome, had been assaulted by newly empowered Clerics of Aru, Scriba, and Harse, and Paladins of Mithar and Bulwark, basically pouring out of the Vatican. It was notable that a significant number of the clergy did NOT get Awakened to the Gods of Good, which created some rather nasty fighting as they broke off to form the Church of Imprus hastily... or fell to the Tyrant Huul, or diabolism.

Multicontinental empires, be they trade or government, basically collapsed on the face of things. Nobody wanted to be overseas fighting the dead of other nations. Colony states were basically abandoned, whether they wanted their freedom or not. That basically instantly generated governmental collapse, and might have been devastating if the new Priests and Shamans hadn’t risen up to unite the people still living against the dead.

There still had been massive societal upheaval, as the Powered were spread evenly across the living, wealth and heritage meaning nothing... and naturally they weren’t going to be denied. Ancient and wealthy lineages of power, kings and queens, and dynasties of influence fell all over the world under the assaults of men and women armed with supernatural powers and skills who realized they didn’t have to be bought when they could just take the wealth for themselves!

China was subjected to no less than five major Shroudzones, including all of Nanking, and the entire length of the Great Wall... it was basically a set of chopped-up sets of balkanized Powered sects, warlords, and would-be Emperors who didn’t want to fight one another with all the undead around. At least, that was what I was reading, and there hadn’t been reliable updates for years there...

Half of Turkey collapsed when the Armenians they had marched to death in the desert rose up out of the sands and butchered them in return, then threw the dead relatives of the living at them in series.

Central America’s Shroudzones seemed concentrated and focused on their Pyramids, especially in Mexico. Brazil had lost Rio de Janeiro and a couple cities, while the rest of the continent was remarkably clear... although Macchu Pichu was a fell and brooding place now.

North America’s major Shroudzones were Roanoke, Arlington, Gettysburg, and New York City, although there were some minor ones out west where Native American tribal dead had risen up in their outrage at having their lands stolen and people conquered, or where Civil War battles had been fought.

There was no Pakistan or Bangladesh, as the religious differences between them and India had disintegrated, and the caste systems and tribal differences had likewise been crushed and hammered aside by the rising Powered. Magic had helped bridge many language problems, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that they were the nation endorsing Human the loudest, as it bypassed all cultural pride and unwillingness to learn a new language with the very loud acclaim that THIS was the HUMAN language, and if you couldn’t learn it, you just weren’t Human...

Japan had been pushed out by the dead from every place they had conquered, abandoning their dreams of empire, and sailed home to find city after city populated by the undead, risen from graves used multiple times over the centuries who had fallen hungrily upon their descendants. Only the more rural areas managed to put up enough of a defense to flee in time, and the aghast Japanese basically had to abandon their homeland to the dead. They had sailed down to Australia with the last of their fuel and thrown themselves on the mercy of the Aussies, who had let them in... but not in Sydney, where slaughtered aborigines from a century prior had risen up and taken out the whole city...

The undead Armenians basically wiped out every major city in Turkey, and Istanbul’s graveyards only added to the havoc. The dead slain in the sack of Tehran centuries ago by the Mongols rose up to wipe that city out, while both Mecca and Medina had erupted in undead, some not so ancient, and were now Shroudzones, the Muslims who had gone there on pilgrimages staying there forever. Baghdad had suffered similarly, as ancient ziggurats had been re-erected in the Shroudzone there...

Giza and Cairo were Shroudzones; the dead who had built the Pyramids, and the masters entombed in them and all through the Valley of Kings, rising up to take back their lands and empires. Jerusalem was black as night, undead from a dozen different factions battling each other through it, only to rise again at dusk to do it again. There was nothing holy left about the Unholy Land, and there definitely was no Israel here.

World War II was now almost a footnote to the coming of the undead. A lot of people believed the sheer amount of killing and slaughter had called the undead here to punish them. Nations and governments had collapsed, and been rebuilt by the newly magical people who had risen up to save everyone.

Oh, and they were saved by the supernaturals who had come out to defy the undead, too.

The werewolf and vampire clans existing had shocked everyone, but their savage and organized responses to the rising of the undead had, among other places, saved London, Chicago, and Atlanta from being taken by the undead, as the Elder Vampires and Alpha werewolves had managed to kill the Dark Ministers there before a true Shroudzone could be formed and the former were enslaved.

Werewolves in rural communities across the world had been the ones to contain the undead rising from graveyards, and the outbreak of ghouls, gaining them instant credibility in the eyes of many...