[ RF ] Instead of scrapping the Russian submarine 's and ships it bought , Pepsi goes to war with Coke

The cadaverous old man took a long drag on the smuggled cigarette and savoured the flavour of real tobacco, eyes tightly closed. His face, a maze of crags and wrinkles, visibly relaxed and softened. His throat was mostly bundled up in a generous cravat, but the skin that did show seemed to quiver in some obscene and cancerous orgasm. After a long while he finally exhaled – slowly, and with clear reluctance. 
 
 He reached out with knotted fingers that jutted at unsettling angles from swollen and arthritic joints, and grasped the three precious packs. With surprising speed he slipped them off the table and tucked them safely into a fold of his finely textured dressing gown. 
 
 “ So what did you want to know? ” he asked. 
 
 The young reporter, lean and hungry and sensing victory, looked the old man steadily in the eye. “ I already know about the fleet. It took years to sort through the tangle of paperwork after the wall came down. But I've got it now. Almost all of it. ” He lowered his voice. “ There ’ s just one thing I can ’ t find out... how did it go wrong?'' 
 
 The old man let out a sharp laugh, emitting a cloud of blue-gray smoke that dissipated slowly into the air of the nursing home. “ You would n't be the first to ask that question, boy, ” he replied. “ But sure, why not. What can it matter now? ” He smiled slyly. “ I ’ ll tell you. ” 
 
 The reporter flipped open the cover of his notebook, and put his practiced pen to paper. 
 
 “ The plan was flawless, ” the old man said. “ It was something our military division came up with, but hadn ’ t been able to put into action for years until the Soviets offered to sell us the fleet. 
 
 “ The three surface ships were useful, but it was the submarines that were the stroke of genius. We shuttled them all up through the Arctic Ocean and over to the seaport we ’ d paid the Soviets to build for us in the Yamal Peninsula. There the subs went through a complete refit – half with batteries of surface-to-surface missiles, the other half as assault troop carriers. “ 
 
 The old man stopped and took another long drag. He smirked as he saw the reporter had n't written anything – this was information he ’ d already uncovered. But why rush? After another long pause, he exhaled and continued. 
 
 “ After months of training the assault troops were camped in tight order on the steppe and ready to load first thing the following morning for departure. 
 
 “ The plan was set on a careful timetable that took into account currents, ice floe patterns, the whole bit. After loading, the subs would sail unseen out under the Arctic ice, and then make one big turn and head straight down into the North Atlantic. Then it was an easy slip down the east coast into warm water, to assault and overwhelm Coke ’ s primary naval facilities Charleston. ” 
 
 “ Of course, ” the reporter said impatiently. “ I've got all that. I wondered for a long time how you were going to cross the distance to their Corporate HQ in Atlanta, ” he continued. “ Until I found the pact you ’ d signed with UPS. ” 
 
 “ Exactly. It depended on the surprise UPS attack in Atlanta itself to keep Coke pinned down while we headed inland from Charleston. But in the end… it did n't matter. None of it mattered. ” 
 
 “ Why? ” the reporter pressed. “ There ’ s nothing in the archive about what stopped the attack. ” 
 
 The old man ’ s eyes flared with anger. “ That ’ s because nobody else but me ever lived to tell, ” the old man spat. “ Oh god... how could we have known? And who would have believed me if I had tried? But you had to see them to believe them... and nobody had ever seen the likes of those… *things*, boy. Those monstrous, hulking *things* that tore into us that night. ” 
 
 The old man took another long drag on the ashen cigarette, but this time it did n't seem to grant the same effect. He looked down in disappointment with his aged gray eyes, and with trembling hands flicked the butt onto the tiled floor. 
 
 “ They came in waves, and before we knew what was happening they ’ d torn the assault units to pieces, massacred them down to the last man… *and were feasting on their flesh as they died! * They just tore through the rest of us, unstoppable, shrugging off the small arms and barreling through doors and windows. There was nowhere safe. 
 
 “ By the end they stood there dripping among the dead, in a sea of blood and shredded corpses, and sang their victory. Hulking monsters of muscle covered with the gore of five thousand men, glistening red in the dawn. And that was the end of the whole thing. “ 
 
 The old man paused, his haunted eyes seeing once again a nightmare vision of carnage that the reporter could only imagine. Then the old man reached up with a crooked hand and pulled down the ample cravat. “ They did THIS to me, ” he said. The exposed skin of his throat revealed the ragged shapes of three deep, parallel scars, raked and ripped deep into his flesh that had torn and never fully healed. “ But somehow I lived, and I was the only one to escape with my life from that terrible place. ” 
 
 He shook with horror and asked plaintively of the young reporter, “ How could we have known? How could we have possibly imagined… *that Coke controlled the polar bears!? * ”
