Worlds

48. What Happened Behind Their Backs (4)

Both sides had defensive screens of automatic lasers and antimissile missiles, and they were remarkably efficient: not one bomb in thirty found its target. There were lots of bombs, though.

Nearly two billion people died in the first ninety minutes. In a sense, they were the lucky ones.

One missile containing a biological agent, the virus Koralatov 31, went off a few seconds too early, and dispersed its deadly aerosol into the jet stream over Lincoln, Nebraska. It didn’t infect anyone for several days. But in the weeks and months and years to follow, it would settle and thrive all over the world.

Only deserts and the poles were safe. No one would know that.