Adrianna Adamski died painlessly.
She was simply on her way out to work, fishing in the Thames estuary with her 4 brothers, walking across one of the more minor bridges in the capital, when she was simply, vaporized.
Before the infection, the Russian 'Father of all bombs' was said to be the largest non-nuclear weapon ever built, although it had never been fully certified. Now, as super heated steam was blasted from the remains of the Thames along the narrow, people packed streets of the capital, it's destructive power was fully certified.
The bomb had been towed into the Thames by a fishing boat, the driver having no idea what he had been payed to take into the capital. As he drew alongside the buildings of parliament, a timer, set days before, reached its final, fatal tick.
Adrianna had been one of the many that had died instantly, as her body was simply incinerated within a matter of nanoseconds by the blast. Hundreds more were blown off their feet, as super-heated steam from the river ripped the scalded skin from their limbs. Many more died days after, the scalding being so severe. Still more would live on, to live lives full of pain and misery, scarcely able to walk without some sort of pain. Their skin would grow thick, layered and tough like leather across their bodies, clogging their airways and slowly suffocating them beneath their own body.
"We must keep the produce with the gover-"
Michael Armstrong, head of the newly reformed Labour party, was giving another speech, when he died.
Generally, it had been a negative day for him. Firstly, the butcher had weighed out his meat on crooked scales, leaving a burning hunger in the pit of his stomach. Then, he had lost a debate with Nicola, the conservative leader, (in front of everyone that he was now addressing) who was now holding her own conference out of town, for some unknown reason.
And now, he was dead.
As a surge of steam blew out the ancient windows of the commons, he just had time to register a look of pure horror on his combat-weary face, before he was torn to shreds by flying glass and other debris, along with the rest of his audience; the main opposition against the privatisation of state-run supplies.
The cleaner was young, at only 12, And was in no sense built for his job. But, he needed the money, and the job paid. His line of work was currently maintaining the archives kept in Westminster. When the explosion blew out the windows and doors to his room, he was just sheltered by a stack of papers on pre-cure operations, in the days when adults and tin-pot dictators roamed the streets. As the papers burned, lost forever in a whirlwind of smoke and glass, he half stumbled, half ran through the remains of the door, and out into the grand corridors of Westminster, that were rapidly filling up with steam, smoke and the dying screams of the communist Labour Party.
Max Gastowski, CEO of Isle of Wight Fish inc. was trawling through, his business' expenses, when there was a knock at the door. Grudgingly, he slowly arose from his swivel chair, rubbing the sleep from his well-rested eyes, and took another slurp of rich, well sugared coffee.
It was good being rich.
Before the infection, his dad had owned a small grocery shop, but had been forced out of business by the supermarkets. He eventually got a job helping on a fishing boat, (despite the most awful or sea sickness') but for one long, cold December, the Gastowski family had begged on the streets for food, burnt small sticks in a tiny fire for heat, and spent many sleepless nights wondering how to pay the rent, whilst all Max's friends boasted of their iPads that they'd gotten for Christmas.
He knew how awful it was to be poor, and had made a vow never, ever to see his little sister go hungry again.
He opened the grand, wooden door, and squinted into the morning sun. The telegram kid was here. Fishing out a small coin, he took the rough, recycled note and closed the door. A telegram was not an unusual occurrence; some kid had laid cables from the island to the mainland after the adults had subsided, and had linked them up with cables laid by similarly minded kids, until there came a day when a telegram from London appeared on his doorstep.
Shuffling back to his chair, he sat down and returned to his paperwork, but not before another mouthful of coffee. Dazzled by the morning sun streaming through the battered blinds, he returned to his work; evaluating where his money was going. Easily the largest expenditure was going towards paying his workers, whose boats were just visible gliding over the morning sea of sunlight.
However, another significant chunk was going, to what he had codenamed C, to the reformed Conservative party, in return for their promises to reform the economy entirely, and take 'tougher measures' against the SFF to the north.
He didn't trust Nicola, not at all. When she'd turned up at the door to his home, flanked by two rough looking bodyguards, before vividly discussing the atrocities of the SFF and other 'business' over dinner, he'd taken an immediate dislike to her flirting, seemingly dodgy approach to business. There was something about her, that seemed to make him think that there was more to her than serving the people. Of course, when his younger sister came in, she put on a completely different mask, one of a big, caring mother, and for a while, she was a different person. But upon returning to 'business', he could't help think she was more NSDAP than Tory...
None the less, she was the economy's only chance, however dodgy a character. He was a businessman, and knew that money, at the end of the day, no matter how dirty the hands that had passed it to him, was money.
He opened the folder telegram, and studied the writing scrawled on it's crude surface.
'Operation: Reichstag success. £20,000 as agreed owed. N.'
He sighed, knowing exactly what had happened over in London.
Hell, he'd been with them when they'd planned the operation. He was in the meeting during the Conservative party conference, with other businessmen and that strange, David bloke, who seemed to know where and how to get his hands on enough explosives to take out parliament. He'd nodded in agreement and interest at the prospect of a national currency, banning trade unions and seizing the assets of the communists.
He sighed a deep, longing painful sigh, put the note in his pocket, intending to burn it later, and finished his coffee.