The Human Cost (Month 9-10)

Bleeding into the tenth month was the ninth. Victor Aurelius had less than ninety days left on his clock. The chill brought by autumn, which had little to do with the weather, tightened its hold on the Northern Hemisphere. An ongoing, grinding worry and the normalcy of approaching doom had replaced the initial waves of panic and midpoint despair. The naive and the fanatics hoarded hope, which was a contraband feeling. For the majority, life had devolved into a struggle to endure the present while fearing a future that would be measured in weeks.

Alex watched the world unravel from his remote house on the Cretan coast. The feeds on his encrypted monitors depicted rapid degradation, but the expanse of the turquoise sea was surprisingly serene. He was finishing up the procedures for his psychological ploy, which would be the way the Khartoum betrayal proof was delivered at the right moment to take advantage of Victor's possible weaknesses. Planning an assassination and hoping the target didn't blow up, taking the globe with him, was how it felt. His determination grew more urgent with every news story and intercepted conversation that described the rising human cost.

Now, the slow-motion breakdown was overshadowing the abstract fear of nuclear fire. Already broken, global supply systems were falling apart. According to accounts, starvation is a current reality in portions of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, with assistance agencies handicapped by a lack of fuel, bureaucratic stagnation, and outright piracy. The abundance was gone, even in rich countries. London news footage revealed long, nervous lines for necessities and bare-handed grocery shelves. As winter drew near, fuel shortages in Russia isolated people. There was a frantic struggle for resources, with families trading heirlooms for canned goods, fishermen fighting over dwindling coastal waters, and farmers using shotguns to protect their farms.

Medical care became a luxury. In a Médecins Sans Frontières broadcast from a large refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, a doctor bemoaned the absence of basic IV fluids and drugs while describing halls crammed with cholera patients. "We watch people die from things we could treat easily just months ago," she said in a strained voice over unstable video. "The world argues about the end, while for these people, the end is already here." Black marketplaces flourished, charging outrageous amounts for stolen or counterfeit drugs. Major city hospitals resurrected harsh triage procedures not seen since the war, prioritizing essential treatment and rejecting patients who were thought to have a lower chance of survival.

More and more, law and order became ad hoc. After midnight, Alex examined drone footage that Thorne had shared, which showed that parts of major US cities had been successfully turned over to gang control. Military groups that were supposedly sent in to keep the peace in some parts of South America turned into predatory forces who extorted resources from the people they were supposed to defend. Vigilantism increased, and based on fear and rumors, harsh justice was administered in town squares. According to a French news story, a farming community lynched alleged "hoarders" from a nearby town. The invisible glue that held society together, trust, was crumbling.

Social disintegration increased. Both literal and symbolic border walls increased in height. Panic was the original cause of the refugee crisis, but poverty and the breakdown of local government were now the main causes. Desperate, unstable towns of tents and temporary shelters grew out of the camps. Alex viewed satellite photos of recently constructed fortifications along decades-old borders. Urban versus rural, wealthy against impoverished, and local versus immigrant differences widened within countries. There was a huge psychological cost. Hotlines for suicides went down. Where mental health services were available, they were overburdened. Apathy and hasty, frequently mistaken action were at odds.

But despite the deterioration, glimmering human life persisted. A village in northern Italy that had been decimated by economic collapse set up elaborate barter networks and communal kitchens, sharing everything, and Alex intercepted their communications. He watched phone footage of volunteers risking their lives in rickety boats in a flooded Bangladeshi delta to save families who were trapped by rising seas made worse by deteriorating infrastructure. Children were shown in a grainy video from a besieged Ukrainian hamlet using recycled chalk to make artwork on blast walls as a tiny act of resistance against the looming doom. Even a brief news report from Istanbul, which acknowledged the tremendous burden on the city's resources, emphasized impromptu local efforts to share food and visit senior citizens, demonstrating the resilient nature of the city. These brief but moving moments served as a reminder of what was being lost and of what Victor's icy ideology had rejected.

Every picture and every anecdote struck Alex like a blow. Millions of people were immediately affected by the worldwide paralysis Victor had created, while he was secluded on his Greek island, ready to maybe start Armageddon to stop it. Was he betraying these poor individuals by concentrating on Victor and his morally dubious plan? Would it be more effective to use the resources Thorne was giving him to ease the current crisis? His shame was heightened by the doubt, which paradoxically made him more determined. The alternative to his dangerous scheme was this gradual breakdown. This slide would only become worse till the last scorching punctuation mark if he failed or did nothing.

He examined the information gathered against the Lambda security lead and the strategy to use it to target Victor's mental state at the right times, like a poison dart. It was more like kicking a man who was perched on a brink than a calculated maneuver.

The last eighty-odd days loomed before him, a countdown not only to a possible nuclear apocalypse but also to the collapse of society itself. The human cost was now the daily sustenance of millions of people, not just a theoretical variable in a geopolitical equation. In addition to averting the last explosion, Alex had to stop the world from becoming dark before Victor's heart ever ceased beating. The weight was nearly too much to bear.