Update!
[FONT="]Part VI: There Will Come Soft Rains[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Last City on Earth [4][/FONT]
[FONT="]The Black Snow was melting. The season of spring was slowly arriving late to Cleveland. Some argued that there would be no summer this year. To most, spring would be enough. [/FONT]
[FONT="]After the first broadcast of Voice of America the refugee situation in Cleveland had finally normalized. The few refugees that still trickled in told stories of piles of dead scattering the highways. Frostbite, radiation poisoning, starvation, fights, accidents, and thousands of other causes ended their lives. Conservative estimates would put the figure that nearly 100,000 died trying to make their way to Cleveland. More liberal would put the number closer to 500,000 as they included some people as far away as Canada taking part in the trek.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The very young were the worst off. Few people below the age of 3 survived the first month of the attacks. Highly susceptible to disease, pneumonia, radiation poisoning, and strep throat killed thousands of small children. Yellow fever was just as deadly. All infant mortality post strike climbed to ridiculous levels. 45% of children born within one month would die over the next year from various causes, most dying of starvation or disease over the coming winter.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Whole cemeteries were devoted to the “pure” as the small bodies came to be called. The worst thing for a new mother was to hear that your child was pure; their child would only have a precious few more hours to live.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Slowly joining the diseased ridden child corpses were radiation victims, still births, fatal mutations, and those with premature brain tumors. Suicide rates among maternity ward staff exploded within a few weeks of Armageddon. Few would rise up to fill their ranks, the job was too “damning on the human soul.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The deaths of such skilled medical workers only spelled disaster among expecting mothers. As more and more medical staff began to succumb to disease, suicide, or resign in pure depression, more and more mothers and their children began to die in childbirth. Many would later say that childbirth killed more women and children after Armageddon than all of the nuclear weapons used during the war combined.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The adult refugees fared little better. Before being relocated, most were kept in the concentration type “relocation camps.” With few quality latrines and fewer quality sources of water, the unsanitary conditions caused diseases to rip through the camps with a fury. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Cholera, dysentery, and even in some camps, botulism, killed hundreds. The poor quality of corpse disposal only made the problems worse. Soon refugees were put to digging mass graves. It was said that one couldn’t walk within miles of these camps without smelling the stench of rotting corpses.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Being relocated was the best day in most of the refugees’ new lives. The chance to leave the disease riddled refugee camps would prove to improve the life of a refugee exponentially. Mortality plummeted in most cases after leaving the camps. The refugees were broken into four “relocation classes,” based according to their skill set and experiences.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Primes were supposedly those with extremely rare and important skills. Specific types of scientists, military officials, and political persons found themselves in this. Most were given free housing in some of the better off areas in Cleveland where they worked for the government in administration and planning roles. However it came to be known that corruption when assigning the Prime rank was rampant. Many people whose skills would normally have placed them among the ranks of the skill-less Refugees with good enough personal connections could easily find a plush job, at high pay and with little risk. Primes were mostly housed in abandoned houses left behind after the strikes.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Below Primes were Vitals, also known as “Vees.” Most “Vees” were people with experience running factories, farms or offices. Other “Vees” include people with industry or military vital trade skills and experience. It is not uncommon for both a welder and floor manager to both be considered Vital. Finally Vitals included medical professionals needed as the sick and dying quickly grew. Vitals were most commonly housed in abandoned community centers and schools. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Below the “Vees” were Refugees. Normal “fugees” had little to no useful skills. Many middle class and low class jobs afforded one the rank of a refugee. Lawyers, day laborers, and accountants found themselves thrown in the same classes. Most fugees lived in slum like conditions in loosely organized favella like towns on the outskirts of Cleveland. Life barely improved for “fugees,” however they had jobs and food. The luckiest worked on factory floors, where they were sheltered from the elements. The worst off worked in the sewers or on corpse clearing crews. Disease and death among these refugees was rampant.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The final classes were the innocuously named “Type Four” refugees. Type Four were refugees who wouldn’t survive the week. Radiation poisoned, sick and dying, they were left to rot in “relocation camps.” No people were recorded to have survived after being classified “Type Four.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]While life for a refugee was filled with hard work and few comforts, the locals to Cleveland were living almost their normal lives. Most locals whose jobs were vital to running the city kept their jobs, and it wasn’t hard for a local to get classified a Prime and allowed to stay in their old jobs and houses. Besides the currency change, the overt presence of law enforcement (to prevent another riot,) and exploding prices of food, your normal Clevelander could almost claim that life was almost normal after Armageddon. Children went to school, parents went to work, choosing to ignore the rampant poverty just outside their walls.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Around this time was also one of the first “resource location/acquisition missions” approved by the Mayor’s council and the local military commanders.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Soldiers would locate a town that had either a food warehouse, a granary, or in some cases, a factory farm. They would swoop down on the town and offer the local leaders a deal. Give Cleveland some of your surplus food and they would protect them from bandit raids. As bandits and criminals grew bolder over the weeks following Armageddon, many towns agreed to join the Cleveland Continuity Cooperation Program. Through the poorly named “CCCP” Cleveland was slowly able to feed itself and its growing population.[/FONT]
[FONT="]*The Refugee was returning to his house after his day at the factory. The snow had almost all melted by now and as he joined one of the lines leaving the city limits he could almost feel a warmish breeze play across his face.[/FONT]
[FONT="]He walked up to the fence. After handing the military policeman at the booth his “R card” he was waved through the first gate, and then the second. He smiled with pride at the double layer chain-link fence surrounding the whole city.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The city said that the Columbia government had warned that bandit attacks could be coming with the spring thaw. The Cleveland government had decreed “to protect our citizens” they would build the wall.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Some argued that it was to keep the refugees out. The Refugee had no idea who to believe so he didn’t. Better to not waste thought on such a silly matter. Politics was dead, replaced by the gallows he was passing. Dissenters and criminals of all kinds were hung day after day. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Farther beyond the gallows and just before his home slum of Anytown, he passed the girls. Scantily clad in the cold spring night, everyone knew why they were out there. Their skeletal frames looked awkward in such ill fitting clothes. Few if anyone would find them all that attractive.[/FONT]
[FONT="]They were trying to take advantage of the 12 hr shift rush. The Refugee shook his head with dismay at the sight of a small, definitely younger than 17, girl being lead off by a guy on his shift. He couldn’t blame them though. Food was worth almost any price nowadays. [/FONT]