Old New Mexico Tales

Nuclear and Psychochemical Warfare during the Fall

The historical records are sparse and chaotic around the period of the Fall. It is now commonly believed that the Stands Virus triggered the collapse of global society from the first outbreak in Louisiana. It very rapidly spread across continental America and to the world. As things became desperate other nuclear armed countries used their arsenals to limit the spread with little real long term effect. The sites of the old cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia are still radioactive ruins close to a century later. Few know that the during the collapsing a prototype Neutron bomb was dropped on Dallas by the remnant US govt. with no effect on the Stands Virus sufferers but it did turn the remaining humans in to bloody thirsty psychopaths.  

There were even several private sector ventures. Dessus Chemicals had a large plant on the Texas coast and worked with Scent Industries to produce a hallucinogenic agent that they hoped would have an effect on the Infected. They adapted plans from old US Govt.’s M43 BZ and M44 generator cluster bombs which had been design for Psychochemical Warfare but used their own Bridge 99 agent instead. Initial deployments seemed to go well and soon Scent Industries were using their own Hawk 6 space rockets to deploy the Bridge 99 chemical agents in Austin, San Antonio and Amarillo. Dessus tankers released huge amounts of the agent of the coast of Galveston, Corpus Christi, Port Arthur and Brownsville.

Bridge 99 slowed the infected and reduced their reactions. It allowed groups of survivors to hold out and better still stopped them being infected by the Stands Virus. Those humans exposed became immune to the contagion but sadly suffered, with varying degrees, from hypomania, aggression and delusions.  In the short term increased energy levels and aggression actually helped to fight back and defeat the infected but the delusional aspect meant much of the facts of this period became greatly distorted.  

Bridge 99 contaminated the land making sure it was passed on to future generations. The descendants of those early survivors also passed on their immunity to their descendants and while the side effects have reduced, they are not totally gone. Texas had a higher number of survivors than anywhere else in North America but they also had the side-effects. The reputation of Texans as hard working, energetic and hard fighting folk has done them no harm though; sadly the delusional fear of the outsider has not always helped their neighbours. History and myth has merged in to one with the chaos of the Fall delusions and it is near impossible to know what is fact or convenient fiction. Instead a commonly accepted narrative exists that is a blend of both.