The news reports said that pork rations were being increased. What they didn't tell you was that a deadly strain of swine flu was wiping out herds and we were being served animals that had succumbed to disease. It wasn't long until the flu tore its way through the slums where I lived, the place I and a few thousand others begrudgingly called home. Empty fields turned into makeshift graveyards and even boiling water no longer guaranteed its safety. The corpses were piling up and creating a new threat of disease that seeped into the water table.

Government suppression of our protests was swift and brutal. If I stayed here on the outskirts of Altan any longer, death was almost certain, but the military patrols posed an even greater risk if I tried to escape and I was too cowardly to deliberately place myself in harm's way. At least there was the Circus, our local bar serving up alcohol of dubious quality. You can't drink yourself to death when something else will kill you first.

It was into my fifth shot of what was probably industrial cleaner, muttering things that would land me in jail anywhere else, that I was approached by a raven-haired woman who, judging by the gas mask, looked to be returning from gravedigger duty. She claimed to be a messenger, working for a resistance group, and she was recruiting. They needed heavy equipment operators like myself, and they could get me out of Altan if I agreed to join them.

Some join out of fear, others out of duty. I'd be lying if I said I did it for any reason other than lust; I joined the resistance for a pretty face.