2026 - The War of the Americas

When Sylvia saw the look of distress etched across the narrow lines of her husbands face as he turned from his phone to gaze up at her, she immediately knew the next words to come out of his mouth were not going to be good. "Shit babe, I can't believe it. I can't fucking believe it. That son of a bitch, actually fucking did it, fuck, fuck, fuck. We are screwed here Syl, Trump just bombed Tijuana." Sylvia's heart dropped in her chest. It took her a few seconds to process what she had heard, stunned was the understatement of the century. "Shit Dom, are you sure? Are you certain? What's the source? Maybe it's a mistake, or propaganda?" "It's no mistake hon I have video footage right here. I am looking at it right now." Dom, spoke more gently now after hearing the fear in his wife's voice. He was scared too, very scared, but when Sylvia got scared, he got terrified, because it took a lot to shake her, and this news clearly had. He beckoned her over to sit beside him, and she moved quickly to his side putting one arm around his neck and over his shoulder using him like a swing to maneuver herself into her seat next to him. The warmth and love between them was evident in that moment revealed in the comfortableness of their physical interactions even in such highly stressful circumstances. She stared at the screen of the phone Dom had placed between them and saw smoke clouds rising above the border wall near San Ysidro crossing, the largest and busiest land border crossing in the world connecting the countries of Mexico and the United States just south of San Diego, California. Formerly largest, given what had just happened, Dom thought to himself. Additional footage showed the remains of the crossing itself which had been reduced to rubble and ash along both the Mexican and US sides of the border. The screams of the dead and dying could be heard above the wail of sirens. Mercifully, the strike must have happened in the middle of the night, probably between 2am and 4am local time. That was when the San Ysdiro crossing was slowest, but slow for a place like San Ysdiro still meant potentially hundreds to thousands of border crossers both on foot and by car, not to mention the hundreds of US and Mexican border agents working both sides of the crossing. What about the US CBP agents? she wondered. Had they been tipped off about the strike and evacuated? Likely that would have sent alarm bells ringing along the Mexican side so sadly she guessed, correctly it turned out, that they had not been informed, and instead had been deemed acceptable losses for the greater good. President Trump would call them war heroes for their sacrifice, but a sacrifice made without any choice, is no sacrifice at all she thought. It would also later be revealed that Trump had wanted to strike at the height of rush hour to maximize the impact, but had been talked out of it by his Generals who wisely counseled that the loss of innocent American lives would be so high it might lead to mass defections among the troops and possible insurrection in the military itself. Fortunately, Sylvia knew nothing of this at the time, and, as upset as she was by those thoughts, she also knew that the loss of a few hundred border patrol agents could be nothing more than an footnote in a war that might cost tens, or hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives should things spiral out of control.

She absentmindedly sipped at her coffee as she continued to stare at the horrors on the screen in front of her. She knew the places she was seeing well as she had been crossing the border from their home in Baja, California to her job as a research scientist in San Diego almost daily for close to two year now. Her research job in San Diego was just one of her two full time jobs. The other, which she had only just started in earnest in the past six months, only a very few, including her husband Dom, knew anything about. That job she did from home, mostly, and in secret, but it was highly relevant at the moment. She had been recruited to work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA in their biological agent threat assessment and prevention unit. Technically it was known as the Early Biowarfare Threat Detection and Assessment unit or EBITDA. It had adopted the acronym as a tribute to the much touted financial metric. They liked to say that exactly like in the business world where a strong EBITDA meant a healthy company, a strong CIA EBITDA unit meant a healthy country. The joke within the unit was that if anyone ever asked about the missing I (and so far no one had) you were supposed to respond "exactly" in a meta nod to the super secretive nature of the outfit.

Her primary technical expertise was in the area of highly pathogenic viruses and bacteria and she had worked directly or indirectly with them for much of her career. She was well known as one of the worlds top experts in Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) and had worked in vaccine and therapeutic drug development for it and a host of other highly dangerous pathogens including Yersinia Pestis (bubonic plague), and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI-H5N1), to name just a few. She had left that stressful life behind though (she thought) and had moved to San Diego to start a new career in a different, less high pressure and dangerous field, drug development and had hoped to settle into a more normal life when the CIA had come calling. With the help of her CIA recruiters she had managed to keep her husband Dom, totally in the dark during the entire interview and hiring process which included an extended stay of 1 month at the CIA training grounds in Langley, Virginia in their training program for new analysts. He thought she was in a training program for work (not exactly a lie), and never once questioned her sincerity on that point. When she did finally clue him in, he was more than a little annoyed, but he quickly forgave her and understood all of the reasons behind her decisions in the matter. She had told him then that it surely would not be the last time she would have to lie to him about her whereabouts or activities, and she was genuinely uncertain how he might respond to that matter of fact assessment. He considered it only for a few seconds before saying, "Well babe, can't say I am a huge fan of that, but, on the other hand, I always have thought the ability to accept dishonesty in your partner is the highest form of trust in a relationship. I guess this will be a chance to test my theory in that regard." and then he had laughed his head off for about 30 seconds before grabbing her hand and asking her to go have a drink with him. While they sat and drank, he had asked her what had made her agree to take the job. She replied simply "Its the CIA Dom, you can't say no. It's just not an option." And he understood that too. They had always been that way as a couple, they just understood each other. And, in their cases that was saying a lot, because very few others could understand either one of them. Both were were well respected Ph.D. research scientists, but they also each had a series of side interests and skills that did not necessarily fit the mold of your typically science lab nerd. They also had outsized personalities and enough quirks and peccadillos to fill a cargo ship. All and all they were not the easiest people to get to know or relate to, but for those few who did, they found the couple to be two of the most kind, caring, helpful, interesting, intelligent, and genuinely fun people they had ever met.

The night she had revealed herself as a secret CIA agent as they lay in bed Dom remarked half jokingly to his wife "I can't actually believe the CIA would hire you, given your blatant anti-Americanism over these past six months." It was true that since moving to Mexico Sylvia's regard for the United States, its political system, and its people had dropped considerably. Mostly it was the overheated political climate, but she also felt like Covid had done something to America. Changed it in a way that maybe could never be fixed. She had worked in Covid vaccine research at the height of the pandemic and had a pet theory that Covid19 really should have been considered an encephalitis virus because of how readily it infected the brain. And, once there, it caused all sorts of strange changes and behaviors, all of which were negative, and many of which were permanent, at least in the mice models with which she worked. She firmly believed a similar effect had happened to many people around the world. People had simply become less nice, meaner, nastier, more willing to stab anyone in the back or resort to violence. America's backwards position with respect to vaccine administration meant that many more of them got the disease than in other countries so overall the effect was much more pronounced there compared to just across the border in Mexico which maintained a close to a 100% vaccine compliance rate throughout the pandemic. She gazed at the ceiling as she replied "I couldn't actually either. On my second interview, after I had gone off on like a 10 minute anti- America rant, I stopped myself, looked right at the interviewer and said 'That's it right, I'm done?' Surprisingly, to her at least, he showed no emotion, and simply replied. 'Dr. Platt the CIA does not require that you love America, only that you be willing to die for it.' Dom was surprised that she had been so open about her feelings during those interviews, to which she replied, "It's the CIA Dom, they already know everything, and you can't lie. Besides they were actually much more concerned about my relationship with you and some of your less than savory associates from your other life." Dom's heart skipped a beat for just a moment. "And what did they know about that?" he asked with just a bit of trepidation in his voice. "Definitely not everything, but they knew something and fortunately they did not press me for details which I found very surprising." Dom considered that for a moment, had no answer and instead leaned over across the bed and kissed her deeply on the mouth before saying "Good night babe. I love you." "I love you too Dom, I love you too." That had only been one week ago, but just now, it felt like another lifetime.