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Chapter 539 Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

?Katrina Markov was sitting at a desk in a small, windowless room that had been used as a janitor’s closet before. To her left was a door and on the wall in front of her was a cork board filled with pictures, sticky notes, and small pieces of crumpled paper, napkins, and discarded cups. All of the items pinned to the board were connected by red strings; it looked like a conspiracy theorist’s dream.

She’d had a bad feeling all day and needed to calm down. Looking at her “evidence board” was the way she took her mind off of problems and bad feelings, so she’d been in the room ever since Rick had retreated to his office with strict orders to leave him undisturbed.

‘Who... who did it?’ she thought.

She’d been investigating the murderer of her husband and child for four years, and had uncovered what she believed to be the tip of a conspiracy iceberg. Whether or not it actually was a conspiracy was debatable, to say the least, but at least she believed it to be one. What still eluded her, however, was the person at the top.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and couldn’t help but gasp.

‘What was that?’ she thought. She was in good health and still young at only 28 years old. She controlled her diet very well and exercised daily, and there was no history of heart disease in her family... so why did it feel like someone just stabbed her with an icepick?

The sharp pain came again, more intense this time.

She grabbed her chest and bent over in her chair, panting. ‘No, I have to get to the doctor,’ she thought.

But before she could stand, the pain came a third time. This time, rather than a piercing sensation, it was as if something important had been violently ripped out of her chest. She felt something flowing out of her, slowly at first, but speeding up as the seconds inexorably ticked past her.

She tried to stand, but fell to the floor and could only crawl toward the door of the small room she was in. As she crawled, her skin began cracking like shattered porcelain. She looked down at the fine web of cracks on the back of her hand and screamed. She continued screaming and crawling even as she slowly crumbled, as her arms and legs dissipated, until her vocal cords disappeared.

The last thing Katrina Markov saw in her life was the handle on the door to the room she had spent countless hours in, chasing her obsession.

......

“You know, imperial tech is cool and all, but... I kinda miss doing things the old-fashioned way,” Catherine complained to Jason in the control center of the underground base they were in.

“What do you mean by that?” Jason asked, curious.

“The whole... brain dump thing. It’s just too easy—it takes all the fun out of interrogation.”

“Interrogation isn’t supposed to be fun, you know.” Jason gave her an odd look, wondering if the woman he was with was a psychopath or just bored. With women, he thought, there was a fine line between the two and he had never been good at telling the difference.

“I know,” Catherine sighed, spinning around in her chair. “It’s just... it takes something away from the whole spy game, yanno?”

“I get it. It’s kinda like how reaper enhancements make it feel like we’re bullying little kids on the battlefield, right?”

“Exactly! You know you’re built for bigger and better things, but you’re stuck on easy mode even if you normally play on hell difficulty,” Catherine said, pouncing on her partner.

Their playful banter was interrupted by a screech from the direction of the prison cells. They exchanged glances, then Catherine leaped off of Jason’s lap and sprinted to the locker where they kept their emergency gear. Jason followed shortly after.

“The fuck was that?” he asked.

“You’re asking me, but who am I supposed to ask?”

They grabbed their kits and sprinted to the prison, weapons held at the ready. But when they got there, the sight they saw was... disturbing, to say the least. The cult members they had captured were dissolving into sparkling particles that drifted in the air and fell to the ground before disappearing.

They looked at each other again, for a long minute, until Catherine broke the silence and said, “So... how are we supposed to report that?”

.......

Minutes later, on television screens around the globe, a breaking news cutin began.

“We apologize for interrupting your regularly scheduled broadcast with this breaking report,” the anchor began. “Just minutes ago, people around the world began collapsing.”

The screen switched to a shaky cellphone camera recording of someone on the ground in the middle of a crowded supermarket, an almost inhuman screech ripping out of their throat.

The news anchor switched to voiceover narration and continued, “Reports are coming in from around the world of a wave of brutal disappearances. Everyone affected exhibits the same symptoms: extreme pain, collapse, and finally....”

The video cut to another location, this one in Times Square, which had been damaged, but not completely destroyed, in the attacks at the beginning of the year. A woman was rolling around on the ground, wailing and shrieking and tearing at her hair. She began cracking, then finally dissipated into dust and a wave of panic passed through the crowded landmark as people stampeded out of the square, thinking it was some kind of biological or chemical attack.

The narration continued apace. “They disintegrate into dust from the outside in,” the news anchor said in a grave tone.

“According to the Akashic Record, there’s been thousands of reports so far, and they’re still coming in.... My producer just informed me that the number is now in the hundreds of thousands and still rapidly climbing.

“We here at the imperial broadcasting agency are now asking that if you, or anyone you know, is currently or has been affected by these disturbing events, please report it to your nearest imperial official as soon as possible. Otherwise, please remain calm and shelter in place. More information will be announced as the event unfolds.

“Thank you, and now back to your regularly scheduled program.”