Bob Page: Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the Senator.
Walton Simons : I take it he was agreeable?
Bob Page: He didn't really have a choice.
Walton Simons : Has he been infected?
Bob Page: Oh yes. Most certainly. When I mentioned we could put him on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine, he was so willing it was almost pathetic.
Walton Simons: This plague... the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.
Bob Page: Why contain it? Let it spill over the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end they'll beg us to save them.
Walton Simons: I've received reports of armed attacks on shipments. There's not enough vaccine to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate.
Bob Page: Of course they're desperate; they can smell their deaths, and the sound they'll make rattling their cages will serve as a warning to the rest.
Walton Simons: Mmm. I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think -- intelligence indicates they're behind the problems in Paris.
Bob Page: A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world. But the world left them behind long ago. We are the future.
Walton Simons : We have other problems.
Bob Page: UNATCO?
Walton Simons : Formed by executive order after the strike on the Statue. I have someone in place though. I'm more concerned about Savage. He's relocated to Vandenberg.
Bob Page: Our biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience, and their... 'ethical inflexibility' has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider.
Walton Simons : The augmentation project?
Bob Page: Among others things. But, I must admit, I've been somewhat disappointed with the performance of the primary unit.
Walton Simons : The secondary unit should be online soon. He's currently undergoing preparations and should be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on his progress. If necessary, the primary will be terminated.
Bob Page: We've had to endure much, you and I, but soon there will be order again. A new age. Aquinas spoke of the mythical city on the hill, soon that city will be a reality and we will be crowned its kings. Or, better than kings...
gods!"
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