NOTE: The Mojo City News is trying a new form of journalism. We figure most people have a TV and know what's happening. So we're going to provide some background on the events through conversations with Cody Barstow and Riley Collins over morning coffee. They meet at the Mo-Jo Shop (once called the More Coffee Shop, but shortened, "Bring me some Mo' Jo"). We will continue to report on the Clown invasion and other events as they warrant, however.
The
Real
Anthrax Target.
PART II
MOJO CITY, Oct. 31, 2001 -
RILEY: You got it figured out this morning?
CODY: Yeah, eggs Benedict.
RILEY: I'm talking about that anthrax thing. Last time we met ... you said you thought you had a glimmer on the real problem.
CODY: Yeah. I do. [The surveillance videotape shows Cody leaning back in his seat, almost visible collapsing with emotion].
RILEY: Give.
CODY: Everybody's saying that the terrorists are trying to create terror in the heart of people ... make them afraid it's going to happen where they live.
TV.
It's all we've got to entertain us with the madness. Let the show play
on. You'd think that, from the news exploitation of it all.
But then, pigs wallow, don't they?
Previous
Stories
Clowns
Fell Tyler Poofs
The Gunman
Old Glory
Additional
Stories
Cody's
Travels with Fred
Prior
Cody/Riley Stories
Concert
for New York
The
New Anthrax Killings
It's too damned late.
The weather sucks.
CONTACT:
Scott
MacGregor
managing editor
Cody Barstow
contributing editor
RILEY: Well?
CODY: That's not
the way this one works out, Riley. The government's screwing up. The systems
aren't living up to the expectations, and the officials are making big
mistakes, like not checking that Brentwood mail facility. Giuliani in
New York announces an inhalation first-case in New York Monday night,
was it? Can't remember for sure. And now that person, who worked in a
health care facility's dead.
Even with that, though, things don't look so bad because nothing large-scale's
happened. But look at this ... as of Wednesday night, six people, now
seven, have come down with inhalation anthrax. Four of them are now dead.
Most of the others are still in hospital and there seems to be some increasing
count in probable cases. But four out of seven inhalations have died ...
that's over a 50 percent death rate. God forbid any of the others die.
RILEY: You're saying ...
CODY: The bad boys with the anthrax... they're not trying to create terror this time around, Riley. They're trying to show us that our system and our government don't work.
RILEY: Aw, fuck. So, when we see just one case of smallpox ...
CODY:
We've already learned that our government can't handle a minor, non-communicable
outbreak of anthrax. When that first case of smallpox comes, that's when
the terror comes.
This thing we're living now ... it's not the act of terrorism they're
really aiming for. This is nothing more than a learning phase they're
trying to put us through ... to force us into acting the way they want
when the coming terror hits.
