Rules of the DROP

  About fifty years ago, the world ended. It’s hard to put a precise date on it because it happened so slowly. At first it was isolated incidents, scattered across the globe. Almost no one knew it was happening. Practically every government tried to keep it quiet.
Then it got more frequent, and a secret war was declared. The enemy was not named, because who could say anything so ridiculous? The United States of America fought most viciously, they say, enlisting soldiers by the thousands. But maybe that’s why America fell.
By the time my Dad was in high school they were popping up everywhere. The war was well underway but no one knew about it. Most of the stories were dismissed as particularly inventive urban legend. But it kept happening.
In 1989 the United States of America officially collapsed. Canada and Mexico annexed large sections of the land, apparently to help the nationless inhabitants of that land, but more likely to collect the maximum number of warm bodies against the demonic invasion.
Because that’s the word that no one wanted to say: Demons. The Revelation days were upon them, the apocalypse had come. And then it went.
Demons flooded onto the Earth. And other things as well. We got vampires, werewolves, ghosts, ghouls, and beasties and things that go bump in the night.
And after humanity realised that they didn’t have a chance of destroying the invaders, things calmed down. Vampires got into property, bought nice houses with no natural daylight and big basements. Werewolves invested in conservation efforts, looking after wildlife and protesting logging. Ghosts haunted antique shops, demons applied for green cards.
We adapted.
When I was born, ‘96, the words “United States of America” meant a little area on the east coast, more or less where Virginia had once been. The rest of the country, that hadn’t been absorbed by Mexico and Canada, split into five. I live in Pacifica, along the west coast, which continues much as California and Oregon always have. The Sioux Nations, destroyed centuries ago by genocide, reformed, covering most of the midwest, and offered a safe haven to any of the Native peoples who wanted out of impoverished reservations. The South is in turmoil, and keeps establishing a name, declaring war on itself, and fighting until they have a better name. Florida sank into the sea. The original Colonies, minus Virginia, are now called Jefferson. Dad tells me this is funny because he was sure that Pacifica would end up with that name, but I don’t get it. Apalachia is a small mountainous nation, and they don’t like to trade with the rest of us. And Hawaii, which has reclaimed its status as a sovereign nation, of course. They evicted all the descendants of colonists, and instituted a strict isolationist policy for the time being.
Of the last official acts of the departing US of A was the formation of the ORS: Occult Response Service. They were the advance tactical team for all things paranormal. When I was three it was renamed Occult Investigative Service, to sound less hostile, and its several subdivisions were born. Special teams for wolves, ghosts, vamps, etc. And the Demon Response and Observation Program. That’s the one that matters to this story.
Welcome to life on the DROP.