KUNPENG_DING

In the power meat grinder that is Washington, D.C., the Blackstone Group controls political scavenger Emily Watson through barcode tattoos. When avenger Victor Stone scorches her skin with an electromagnetic pulse, a dying Emily scans the barcode on her collarbone, accidentally activating a nerve gas canister buried in an underground pipeline on Capitol Hill.Within 72 hours, a toxic fog containing genetically-targeted technology envelops Washington, specializing in killing politicians registered in the DNA bank. Victor discovers that the biochip under his burn scar is counting down, and a jailed and reborn Adam Crawford holds the key that will shut off all the gas valves-but that will permanently lock tens of billions of the Blackstone Group's dirty money into a blockchain tomb. The trio must choose from the ruins of power: destroy all evidence and be reborn, or save their arch-enemy in exchange for a filthy immortality.

black balance sheet

The musty smell of 1776 parchment spewed simultaneously with the gene-editing virus as the liquid nitrogen chamber of the gene source repository cracked open. Emily NO.01's eyelashes hung with ice crystals, and her clavicle barcode was hand-carved Morse code-corresponding to the Declaration of Independence's deleted Article 28: Permission to trade smallpox victims' blankets with Indian tribes.

As Emily NO.01 stepped barefoot onto Constitution Avenue, the asphalt began to secrete yellow sores of pus. With every step she took, the security cameras swept by the hem of her skirt burst into herpes-like patches of light, and the gas masks of the Capitol Police grew cowpox scabs in thirty seconds.

"You've made a vaccine out of democracy," her voice took on the ancient rhythm of an octave clockwork, "now it's time to inoculate real freedom." Dark red rash patches spread from her fingertips, and the touching clone of Kennedy suddenly recites the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation-the passage deleted by Lincoln in which emancipated Negroes were required to wear copper collars containing smallpox scab powder for the rest of their lives.

Victor is pressed against the marble wall of the Jefferson Memorial as Emily NO.01 carves the Preamble to the Constitution into his back with her fingernails. Milky pus oozed from each bloodstain, and a microscope revealed that these fluids were swimming with pox viruses with double helix structures and blockchain hashes wrapped around their tails.

"Your Revenge Fund account number 47," she licked the plasma off her fingertips, "the password is hidden in the genetic sequence of the smallpox virus on Washington's dentures." The holographic projection suddenly displays the minutes of the secret convention of 1776: the founding fathers signed the Constitution with the blood of smallpox-infected slaves, the parchment soaked in what was actually a mixture of pus and silver.

Adam discovers that the Pentagon's nuclear silos are mutating. The launch pads Emily NO.01 walks on grow pimple-like protrusions, each pustule harboring a miniature nuclear reactor. Even more horrifying, the Secretary of Defense clone's temples burst open, sending out swarms of smallpox mosquitoes instead of brains - swarms of nanobots with compound eyes flashing the binary code of the Bill of Rights.

"Look at the White House lawn!" Victor hissed over the comm. Adam saw through his pus- and blood-blurred goggles that the soil of the Presidential Rose Garden was heaving as hundreds of star-spangled flag-wrapped corpses broke the surface. Clutched between their rotting fingers were yellowing documents, copies of the Second Amendment to the Constitution made from the skin of the dead of the 1793 Philadelphia smallpox epidemic.

Emily NO.01 rips open her chest cavity to reveal the glass vial pulsing up her spine - a sample of Benjamin Franklin's smallpox scab powder suspended inside. As she inserts the bottle into the base of the Washington Monument, the entire obelisk cracks into the shape of a vaccination gun aimed at the emergency session of Congress being broadcast live.

"First dose of freedom, second dose of democracy, third dose..." She turned her head suddenly to Victor, pus dripping from the corners of her mouth into passages from the Federalist Papers, "Eternal Slavery." The cloned remains of President Reagan suddenly rise from the ground, his decaying vocal cords vibrating as he releases a smallpox manifesto in aerosol form, each viral particle inscribed with the date of the Blackstone Group's acquisition of the Federal Reserve.

Chapter 12 - The Founders Plague