World Down: Episode 1 - River's Rising

WORLD DOWN

  River’s Rising

  by

  Dan McNeill and Kevin Morton

  Blackburn International

  CEO Letter to Shareholders

  Fellow Shareholders,

  Thanks to the on-going hostilities between revolutionaries in Europe and our brave Coalition forces, I am pleased to say that Blackburn International saw improvements across a number of key operating metrics this past fiscal year. On an annual basis, we expanded gross margins by 2.3 percentage points, increased operating income by $63 billion, grew products and services, and closed the year with an increase in cash flow from operations of $2.2 billion to total $10.3 billion. In addition, we bought back 951 million shares of our own stock for a total purchase price of $2.76 billion during the fiscal year.

  Despite this progress, it was a challenging year for Blackburn. Due to continued media attacks from the secular left, we were not able to secure a contract for supplemental military services in the Japanese theater as we had planned. Although it is fair to say, that with the recent escalation of tensions in Asia, the U.S. government may revisit that decision. I have it on good authority that they will indeed.

  There is no question that the liberal biases of bloggers and an over-zealous U.S. media have had a profound impact on our customers and impeded our ability to grow the top line, especially in the latter half of the fiscal year. Our concentration in some controversial industry segments, particularly biological warfare and battlefield neural-networks, exacerbated the challenges we faced. But remember, as our late President used to say, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.

  With that second amendment truth as our mantra, Blackburn International's acquisition of Costello Pharmaceuticals, announced three days ago, will surely bring a more profitable year for our shareholders. While I am not yet at liberty to disclose our first planned venture with the fine folks at Costello, I can say this. What we plan to announce at our shareholders meeting in D.C. next month not only will ensure the continued profitability of Blackburn International – it will also change forever, Lord willing, the way we wage war.

  God Bless,

  John W. Blackburn

 

 

  Archival Control Number: DIGI 01860561

  – Transcript from video footage captured three days after first report of deaths from R17 virus (commonly referred to as the “Rapture” virus)

  Ok. Here we go. 3…2...1...

  Hello folks, as you can see, I am reporting live outside Times Square on this night of...silence. I am my own cameraman now. My assistant Kate, bless her sweet Kansas heart, fell victim to the Rapture early last night. The Rapture. That is what some have whispered. Before dear Kate turned to...dear God...[muffled sounds, perhaps crying or clearing of throat]...she begged me to continue. To spread the gospel as it were. With talent on loan from Grace, I shall honor her deathbed request.

  Now let me show you...you...whoever you may be, what is left of Gotham. I just passed by Macy’s a few blocks back. Empty. Windows shattered. White bone and rapidly decomposing corpses grasping Alfani dresses. Cold flesh to dust in days. Guess they won’t be doing the Thanksgiving Day parade next week, will they?

  Now…Broadway. Mighty Broadway. Empty. A chill wind blows Gotham's ashes into sewers that lead to the Hudson. Right here, across from the Marriot, more bodies of the Raptured litter the street as rats feast on their bags of junk food, grocery items and, occasionally, before I can shoo them away, remnants of their rapidly decaying flesh. Even in death, the cancer continues to do its work, turning its victims into lumps of dust swathed in designer blue jeans. Within a month, all that will be left of the human species I’m afraid is expensively garmented bones. One of the gifts of the Rapture I suppose. It buries it's own.

  Continuing on...A yellow taxi here, an old lady’s cashmere hat there, all serving as the final grave markers for the dead. It vexes me! Lying spread eagle next to an Indian man holding a camera lies a half-naked cowboy clutching his guitar on the corner of Broadway and 46th Street. I saw Meghan Galloway from Entertainment Gawkers News, dead. Her make-up assistant a barely recognizable heap of bone and cracked flesh. Rapture cremation. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all a testament to our morally irrelevant, electronic society that when pop culture dies, it dies nameless.

  The asphalt cemetery repeats itself across Broadway, across 7th Avenue, across all avenues and the reason is simple. There are no people left to sweep them away. The authorities have abandoned us. The last person I spoke to, some three days ago, a frightened National Guardsman from Albany, himself infected, mentioned that the President, whoever was in line for it at this point anyway, Raptured from his supposedly bio-secured location outside of Omaha. Does anyone else know this? More importantly folks, does anyone care?

  As I move up past the massive, now dimmed, electronic billboards, and theaters…and, ha, look at this…fool. Some shop owner, looks like he sold fake designer handbags…has the entrance to his shop draped in barbed wire. To protect it from looters. Looters! What I wouldn’t give right now for an encounter with an angry mob of handbag-grabbing looters. It would prove that I wasn’t the only one left alive.

  As I make my way towards 43rd Street I see the remains of our mighty military. Dead. The tanks parked out by the Toys R Us are silent. I would like to take it upon myself, as the recently self-appointed Mayor of New York City, to declare martial law officially lifted. For, as you can see...there is no one left to enforce it. Until man can find a cure.

  A cure. That's rich. [clears throat, spits] Come on folks! If I thought there were enough able-bodied citizens left to provide such a thing, maybe I'd be less cynical. But look around folks. Rotting flesh turned to ash cannot discover a cure for a virus intent on making us extinct. And make no mistake folks, the virus is still out there. If by chance you are able to view my broadcast here today, know that it will find you.

  Oh, but wait. The EMP bursts, remember? The nukes they set off over Manhattan, over Chicago, over LA. Over everywhere to stop a death that seemed pre-ordained. Fried out most everything but my camera! Ha! Must have been divine intervention. The Authorities can’t step on Butch Becker’s 1st Amendment rights!

  But it doesn't matter. None of it does. Alas, we're on our own now folks. And on our own without our precious electronics to keep us alive. But not on our own.

  All I know ladies and gentlemen is what I'm seeing here. Dead. They're all dead. Men, women, young, old. Black, white, Muhammadans, Christians. No one has been spared. No, let me clarify. No one worth saving has been spared.

  You know with whom I refer to. You've seen them. There's a plan folks! My God, we know there is! They kept them alive for a reason. Mark my words folks, whenever we put our trust in the corrupting lies of big government, THIS is the end result. Look around. Anyone? Is anyone even left to listen to my report? This final report? …hah…

  No matter. For what it's worth folks, I want to be on record. I know why they spared them, and not us. It's easy. Even a simpleton with oatmeal for brains could figure it out! Hell, even that shopkeeper with the barbed wire, I bet even he could have figured it out if he’d set his money-grubbing mind to it. A population of smiling sheeple will be easier to control in the New World Order. Cattle, folks. That's what they want us to be. Well they got them. Mules. All that survive, will be mules.

  So. What to do now? Well folks, we wait. Wait it out. We hope. Like all Americans, we pray. As I told you all from the start, I'm not exactly sure why the virus chose, so far at least, to spare my life. I call it a miracle. Call me vain, but maybe God spared me so that I could fulfill some g
reater destiny.

  So folks, that's what I intend to do. Unravel what that destiny may yet prove to be. I shall head west. Into America's heartland. Into her core. And while I'm not quite sure what I will find there, I will continue to report it. This is Butch Becker, signing off fo- [video ends abruptly here]