The Plague of Fire

What have we done?!  The purpose of Project Wormwood was to develop antidotes and treatments in case of advanced biological attack.  They told us that they would never use our research as a weapon.  If we had known what they were planning on doing, if we had had any idea… No, we should have known.  When faced with invasion and near-certain defeat, any nation would have done everything possible to defend itself.  But at such a cost.  Millions dead.  Millions more dying.  The survivors are the unlucky ones, cursed to be plague bearers forever.  God almighty, what have we done?!

– Excerpt from the personal records of early Glaucus scientist Hendrik Poinar, circa 2029.  Poinar and other scientists, members of the covert US research group known as the Biological Computing Laboratory, abandoned their posts once Wormwood was released and joined Minerva soon after.

A couple hundred more plague victims died today.  Our quarantines are proving practically ineffective against the agent.  We can’t even pin down what is causing it, be it virus, bacteria, or something else entirely.  We’ve had to begin burning the bodies of the deceased, because even after death they are contagious.  If we can’t isolate the agent and improve our quarantines, I don’t know what we’ll do with the survivors.  We can’t let them leave, or they’ll just spread the plague even more.  There are some who are saying we’ll have to euthanize the infected unless a cure is found soon.  It’s just too dangerous to let them be.

Some of the patients and even the other medical workers have begun referring to the illness as the “Holy Fire” sent to purge the Earth before the coming of Christ.  I can’t blame them.  With the way the world is going even I’m almost tempted to hope that this is more than just politics gone wrong.  I need to get more sleep, but it’s too hot…

– Last entry from emergency medical technician Nicole Ferringer of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.  Her coworkers’ logs report that she was diagnosed with the plague the next day and confined to quarantine.  I cannot find record of any entries for the response team the following week or beyond.

The Purgers, as they call themselves, are a pseudo-religious military group based in the southeast portion of the North American continent.  Convinced that the world ended during the War, and that we are currently in the ‘Millennial Reign of Christ,’ members of their group actively try to spread their ‘gospel.’  This mostly entails of sending out ‘Missionaries’ to infect communities with the Plague of Fire, or the “Holy Fire” plague, with the belief that the ‘chosen’ people will survive.  Purgers are difficult to identify by sight alone, but they will nearly always begin preaching about the Fiery Purge as soon as they see you, giving you the time necessary to shoot them and back away.

– From Aegis’ Operations Manual under the subheading “Enemy Militant Groups.”  Few realize the historic origin of the Purgers, but to me the connection between them and Project Wormwood is clear.