The truth always comes out. One way or another, it imposes itself upon people. The Scythes knew the disturbing truth behind the science labs in Borderland. They knew it all along, but their warnings were disregarded when they tried to warn the West, because of the latter's discriminatory ignorance of Scythian concerns and interests. Only the United States of Gomora enjoyed the exclusive privilege of always being heard by the world community. They just had to shake some test tube with someone's piss in it saying it was a biological weapon from Mesopotamian labs and BAM! They invaded and bombed Mesopotamia. Fortunately, times were changing, and Gomora was losing its totalitarian hegemony. Even still, the Scythes needed proof to substantiate their accusations. Those accusations were serious, and this time Gomora wouldn't escape justice.
An investigation of the Scythian Secret Services showed that over the past thirty years Gomora funded their scientists to test dangerous drugs and pathogens on people of the former Union states. Every country neighbouring Scythia hosted at least one of these Gomorian-placed research labs, except for Scythia itself. Over thirty labs were stationed in Borderland. Each lab specialized in particular pathogens such as the AIDS virus, various strains of influenza, bacterial diseases such as Ebola, tuberculosis, and anthrax, and many more.
In the beginning, to gain people's trust, the Gomorians set up a campaign advertising the superiority and healing force of their drugs, this way pushing out the local pharmacists from the market. This had the effect of making people distrust and see as inferior their own medications and medical specialists, causing them to turn to Western doctors and technologies. Step by step, over the course of some years, they made people of the former Union states dependent and addicted to their drugs and methods of medical treatment. Those drugs didn't possess any healing qualities. They weren't meant to improve people's health. They were mainly heavy painkillers, sedatives, and antipsychotics. The real purpose of promoting the use of these drugs was to suppress people's awareness of what was really going on.
While the people were dealing with unexplained mental problems and physical deterioration, the Gomorians secretly took over their hospitals, gaining access to public medical records. After obtaining a large DNA database, they moved on to testing. The Gomorians didn't care about the well-being of the people they'd affected or the damage they'd caused. They saw them as mere test objects of inferior racial origin. This occurrence was reminiscent of how the Yugoslavians were treated during the Turbid Times when people were seen as involuntary organ donors. Young Yugoslavians were abducted and killed so that somewhere some old Westerner would get a fresh, healthy kidney or a young, beating heart. The Yugoslavian donor project didn't last for too long. The Scythes came in between and interfered with the West's ubiquitous scheme. So, Gomora started a new project in Borderland but this time they dealt with it differently. As they were bombing Musulman countries, taking down governments, destroying their cultural legacy, and robbing them of their national treasures as they did so, they successfully distracted the world's attention from their bigger and more ambitious project. That project was the annihilation of the Scythes. The Gomorians made sure to deal with it quietly, so as not to raise any suspicions.
Over the next decade, Gomora introduced at least ten different types of pathogens such as SARS, Ebola, the swine- and the avian flu, and many more. The proliferation of these diseases always occurred in third-world countries, and the cause was blamed on poverty, poor hygiene, wars, the country's economic or political situation, withholding the fact of the presence of BioMeta or other Gomorian charities in those regions. These diseases were lethal in certain cases especially if left untreated, but they didn't bring the Gomorians the desired effect. They were weak in effect and not contagious enough to cause sufficient harm and depopulation. That is until the Gomorians found the perfect equalizer.
COVID was introduced to the world in the beginning of 2020, a respiratory disease that if not treated in time could affect the respiratory system, resulting in death. At first people didn't take it seriously, thinking the authorities were exaggerating when imposing draconian rules on social interactions in order to reduce the steadily growing number of infections. The first stage of denial was characterized by the conviction that only Far East nations were infected with the virus. The Western world blamed Zhongguo for the pandemic, raising division and racism towards its people all over the world although the very first cases were reported in Latium where all the plagues usually started. Eventually they discovered that not only were the mongoloid races affected, but the next target demographic were old Westerners. Seniors were prohibited from leaving their houses or receiving guests. But even their complete isolation didn't save the West. Something went wrong. The experiment got out of hand. More people, no matter sex, age, or nationality, got infected. The situation in the West was piteous. The hospitals were overcrowded and understaffed with hundreds of deaths occurring each day. The Scythe Empire developed a vaccine and started a vaccination campaign. They soon got the situation under control. The West also produced vaccines, not all of them effective, some even dangerous, more dangerous than the virus itself but nonetheless they managed to suppress the plague of their own devising.
Meanwhile, a catastrophe was taking place in the United States of Gomora. The Gomorian dream existed only in their movies. The reality, however, was abominable. Due to the many homeless people and drug addicts COVID hit Gomora like a tsunami. The hospitals couldn't handle the influx of COVID patients and victims. As Gomorians were digging a hole for the Scythes, they didn't notice how they fell in it themselves. Their news agencies were even so imprudent to release an article stating that Gomora failed to beat the virus and seemed to wonder why more Scythes didn't die during the pandemic. That news report was deleted the following day, but the Scythian intelligence made sure to save it and share it with the world.
Gomora hadn't fully recovered from the consequences of COVID when the Special Military Operation started, which was extremely convenient to the Scythe Empire. It added to the many problems the simple Gomorians struggled with after all the sanctions their government imposed on the Scythe Empire, sanctions which turned out to be a bigger punishment for the Gomorians than anyone else. The gas and food prices rose to the point people couldn't afford to own a car. Their government tried to blame it all on Vladimir the Lucent personally, saying those were his gas prices. But the Gomorians weren't stupid, they knew better. A wise man once said that nothing and no one was to blame for inflation in the world except for the United States of Gomora. They were the cause of it because they were the only ones who constantly printed out money. The financing of wars abroad and development of biological weapons only accelerated the rate of printing.
Gomora's days were numbered. Their final countdown started together with Borderland's. But Gomora had to be taken down from the inside and only its own people could accomplish that. Their world-wide dictatorship would soon fall; the world just had to be patient. In the meantime, Emin would do everything that was required of him to facilitate the takedown of Gomora. He didn't really care about the well-being of Gomorians, either.
The special unit cars were nearing one of the labs. There were more than thirty of those labs all over Borderland, equally divided between the Coal Mining Region and the territories that were still under Borderland control. Because the existence and criminal activity of these labs were hidden behind private clinic façades, the Coal Miners didn't suspect their presence in their own territory. Emin found a lot of interesting information in Wolferl's documents, including the addresses and locations of those laboratories, what was developed in them, the purpose of those developments, and the private contacts of the lab technicians. He reported the information to his superiors and subsequently asked for permission to raid the labs and arrest everyone who worked there. His permission was granted, and he received the aid of special unit forces with whom he'd execute his mission. The units were sent out to the different locations the next day after Emin got hold of Wolferl's briefcase.
Right after he left that day, the Aces battalion surrendered, and the Steel Factory was finally liberated. Almost three thousand Nazis were arrested and placed under special surveillance pending tribunal. The news of their surrender soon reached the whole of Borderland and the West. Although, in their news reports they called it a heroic action to save human lives, not mentioning the fact that all the hostages were released long before their brave withdrawal from the mill. The Scythes found the bodies of the foreign officials and identified them, but Emin insisted on withholding that information until after they raided the labs. He was afraid they would escape and destroy the evidence. And his intuition didn't fail him. They were just in time to catch those bastards red-handed.
The lab technicians were hastily loading their cars with plastic and cardboard boxes when three military vehicles drove through the gate and armed men in balaclavas jumped out. They commanded for everyone to lie prone on the ground with their hands on their heads. As his men were cuffing and leading the failed Frankensteins away, Emin inspected the contents of the boxes they so carefully tried to hide inside their trunks. Most of them contained thick files with reports on the testing of highly transmissible pathogens and test tubes filled with turbid liquids and blood. Emin ordered his men to confiscate all of the boxes and other belongings they found in the cars or inside the building and transport them back to their base. Their specialists would take care of that.
Every corner, every room, and every inch got inspected, making sure not to miss a spot. While the special forces were doing their job Emin decided to examine the building by himself. He walked through long hallways that were only accessible through metal doors with electric locks. The confiscated electric keys granted them access to specially protected labs of the building. It was obvious that Gomorians were hiding something important behind those secured doors. Something that had to stay out of sight of the uninitiated. From the outside the building looked like a typical private clinic but inside all the information signs and nameplates were written in Anglo-Saxon. Not a word in Pan-Slavic or Borderlandish. Emin found this to be curious.
The entire ground floor resembled a basement, with whole sections being desolate and the windows and exits concreted. That was why it took him some time to get out of the obscure maze and find the stairs. On the second floor he discovered storage rooms filled with various medicine bottles. Emin didn't understand the Latin names printed on the labels, but he suspected the contents to be hazardous because of the word TEST written in capital letters on each bottle. The imprisoned Borderlanders told the Scythes that before every battle their commanders gave them pills. The men said those pills turned them into zombies, not feeling any pain, fatigue, or fear. Emin had no doubts they would find those wonder-pills in the extensive medication stock kept inside the walls of the clinic. But what he was really looking for was hidden on the third floor.
He walked into a dark hallway. At the end of the corridor, he saw a metal door with a special lock on it and warning signs informing the staff that they were entering a dangerous zone and that it was required to wear gloves and a mask upon entry. Emin wasn't of the fearful kind. His curiosity and dedication made him ignore all safety precautions. As soon as he turned the lock with the special key and swung open the door, he heard a loud bang. Something heavy fell onto the floor in one of the labs. Suspicious, he quickly found the room where the sound came from. The door to it stood wide open. Emin looked inside and saw a man in a white coat, turned with his back to him. The man was frantically gathering files from the lockers and piling them onto a counter by the window, occasionally looking outside to check if the special forces were still out there. Emin silently watched him as he found a large bin and tossed all the gathered files in, preparing to set it on fire.
"Drop the lighter and turn around slowly," commanded Emin in Anglo-Saxon, his eyes trained on the technician. The man in the white coat jumped in surprise. The lighter fell from his hand and he briskly turned around. Emin held him at gunpoint.
"I said slowly, you idiot! Now, sit down in that chair and push the bin towards me. What were you trying to destroy there?" Emin took out the files and noticed that they all had the same stamp and layout as the documents they found in the cars of the lab techs. There were also references to the Gomorian Ministry of Defence. He carefully placed the files on a table behind him without breaking eye contact and studied the man sitting before him.
"You're a Gomorian, right? What the hell are you doing here, Gomorian?"
"Nothing. I work for BioMeta, a pharmaceutical company …" stuttered white coat.
"A pharmaceutical company? Is that what you call it? So, you just make lotions to soften the skin? And I thought I was trespassing some secret military object with all those secured doors. Let me see, what do we have here," he opened a glass door of a locker and took out a sealed petri dish. Inside were fungus-like patches sticking to the sides. On the cover was written anthrax in black permanent marker.
"So, if you rub your balls in with this it'll soften the skin? How about we try it out," Emin messed with the cover, trying to open it.
"Please, stop! Don't open the box! It contains anthrax bacteria and it's extremely contagious!" implored white coat.
"You don't say! I thought you said you worked for a pharmaceutical company!"
"We're not! Look, we experiment with microbes here. We're scientists!"
"Oh, really? Why didn't you test those microbes in Gomora, scientist? Why did you come to Borderland?"
"I don't know, man, they just sent me here. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were just trying to make the world a better place …"
"Excuse me, what did you say there? You're trying to make the world a better place?! For whom?! For you Gomorians by testing deadly diseases on us?!"
Emin felt his blood pressure rise. As he reflected, surmising the Gomorian, black blotches formed before his retinas. They were trying to make the world a better place. To achieve that they infected and killed people, chasing their Gomorian dream. He blinked, shook his head slightly, took a few deep breaths and lowered his gun. He walked around in the laboratory, looking at what was kept behind the glass. They had a considerable collection of disease samples, some were lethal, others merely toxic. A few even surprised him because he thought humanity had gotten rid of them a long time ago, but no, there they were, brought back to life by Gomorians, to make the world a better place. As he was standing facing the other way, absorbed in his thoughts, white coat tried to escape.
"Sit down, Gomorian! I'm not done with you yet," he raised his gun again, levelling it at the scientist. White coat wet his pants. He meekly slumped back into his chair.
"Besides, it's silly of you to believe I'll let you live. You say you weren't doing anything wrong but admit it, somewhere deep down in your rotten Gomorian soul, if you people have one, you know you're the bad guy. And what do the Gomorian movies teach us? The bad guys always get what they deserve. Since the moment I walked in this lab I thought of ways of killing you. Shooting you is an option. Not that anyone would care let alone persecute me, but I could always get away with the classic it was self-defence. But that would be too merciful a death for you. Then I saw all these test tubes labelled with the names of diseases I haven't heard for many years. Infecting you with one of them would make a more suitable and prolonged death for you. How about the aforementioned anthrax? Too risky, you could infect innocent people with it. Maybe AIDS? I'd love to inject into one of your veins but after you're imprisoned my government would have to pay for your medication and treatment. So, that's also not what I'm looking for. Don't worry, I found the perfect cure," Emin walked towards a small white locker, hanging in the corner. He took out a little bottle and came back with it, showing white coat its' label.
"Strychnine, see? You'll die, but first I'll get to see you suffer. Every muscle in your body will contract in excruciatingly painful spasms and only death will release you from the agony," suddenly Emin grabbed white coat by the chin and pushed it down violently. White coat tried to fight him off, kicking his legs and trying to reach Emin's flaming dark eyes with his hands but all in vain. Emin was in a mental and physical state completely resistant to outside stimuli. Even if he were on fire, he wouldn't feel it or let go of his grip. He forced the cover with his thumb and poured the poisonous powder in white coat's open mouth. He forcibly closed his mouth and covered his nose to make sure the Gomorian swallowed most of the strychnine. Then he took a step back and watched his slow, horrible death. At first, white coat tried to empty his stomach of the poison by puking it out. But soon he lost all control of his own body. He fell on the floor and screamed as his limbs were twisting in the most unnatural, demonic ways. When his contortions stopped, Emin straightened his clothes, cleaned his sleeves of the powder that fell on them amid the struggle, and went downstairs.
"Make sure to pack everything you find on the third floor but be careful. They keep samples of many dangerous poisons and pathogens in those labs. Oh, and by the way, I found one of the lab techs upstairs. I think he committed suicide. I found a bottle of strychnine next to him," he told one of the special force's guys.