Speaker 1: Chapter six, Sasha, history is a messy thing class. Even
Speaker 1: a question as simple as when did the Second American
Speaker 1: Civil War begin doesn't have a clear answer. Some scholars
Speaker 1: say the first shots were fired during the failed Montana
Speaker 1: Seccession Movement of twenty forty. Others will name the Dallas
Speaker 1: Water Riots of forty one or the bombing of the
Speaker 1: Diamond Building six months later by leftist militants. You can
Speaker 1: make a good evidence based case for any of these.
Speaker 1: Mister Dane was a good lecturer, with a rich baritone
Speaker 1: voice and a habit of animating his lectures with vibrant
Speaker 1: hand gestures. He was Sasha's favorite teacher and one of
Speaker 1: her favorite people. Mister Dane was a heathen, of course,
Speaker 1: but he was still a sweet man. She appreciated his
Speaker 1: even handed perspective and his commitment to the unbiased study
Speaker 1: of history. It broke her heart that no one else
Speaker 1: in her Advanced Placement Continental History class seemed to appreciate him.
Speaker 1: The other twenty four students stared ahead with slackened aws
Speaker 1: and unfocused eyes. They were all deep in their decks,
Speaker 1: messaging friends, browsing snap bids, or playing whatever game was
Speaker 1: popular right now. Decks were far too entrenched in modern
Speaker 1: life for schools to force them off during class time. Instead,
Speaker 1: the school filtered the WiFi and forced students to download
Speaker 1: apps that restricted access during school hours. This had led
Speaker 1: to a thriving underground trade and apps that countered the
Speaker 1: school spyware and covertly lifted the blocks. The district I
Speaker 1: T team was locked in a perpetual losing battle to
Speaker 1: spot and crack these programs. But on a practical level,
Speaker 1: the teachers, like Mr Dane, just had to accept the intrusion.
Speaker 1: The students didn't ignore him entirely, but very few of
Speaker 1: them gave him their full attention. They didn't give anything
Speaker 1: their full attention. Really. Most of her peers went through
Speaker 1: their days half reading two or three conversations, playing games,
Speaker 1: and scrolling through several social media feeds, even when they
Speaker 1: were out in the world surrounded by people. Pastor Mike
Speaker 1: called it the death of Joy. That was the name
Speaker 1: of the essay and revelator that had first turned Sasha
Speaker 1: on to the heavenly Kingdom. He'd railed against distraction culture,
Speaker 1: which he said not only robbed mankind of a relationship
Speaker 1: with God, but it also robs us of the little moments,
Speaker 1: the quiet joys of living are drowned by a flood
Speaker 1: of data. It's a mosquito bite on the human soul,
Speaker 1: and the masses have convinced themselves that the abatement of
Speaker 1: discomfort from scratching this itch is the same ashappiness. All
Speaker 1: around her classmates scratched their itches while mister Dane lectured.
Speaker 1: He looked so lonely up there, they all looked lonely.
Speaker 1: So mister Dane cleared his throat in an attempt to
Speaker 1: pull at least a few of his students out of
Speaker 1: their stupor. As we close this unit, I'd like to
Speaker 1: ask you all a simple question. What should we call
Speaker 1: the war that split the United States? Your textbook calls
Speaker 1: it the Second American Civil War. In the Northwest, and
Speaker 1: the Christian States they call it the Revolution. By next Monday,
Speaker 1: I'd like each of you to upload an essay arguing
Speaker 1: which name is more appropriate. One thousand words please. The
Speaker 1: bell rang. The other students got up slowly in twos
Speaker 1: and threes and made for the door. Sasha was one
Speaker 1: of the first up, but mister Dane called to her
Speaker 1: before she reached the exit. Miss Marian, would you mind
Speaker 1: holding back a moment, Sasha stiffened. She glanced involuntarily up
Speaker 1: to one of the government's propaganda posters on the wall.
Speaker 1: It showed a young man with a brightly colored backpack,
Speaker 1: surrounded by burnt out buildings in rubble. A green rocket
Speaker 1: hung above him like the sword of Damocles, an instant
Speaker 1: away from impact. Next to the young man were the
Speaker 1: words think again, step back, Yes, sir, she asked. As
Speaker 1: she approached his desk. Mister Dane fixed her with a
Speaker 1: kind smile. He looked around forty, although that was no
Speaker 1: guarantee of anything. His eyes and lips were creased with
Speaker 1: smile lines. Though she liked that about him. You seemed
Speaker 1: a bit distracted to day, Sasha. That's not uncommon for
Speaker 1: most of my students, he gave a slightly forced laugh.
Speaker 1: But you're normally so engaged. I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure everything's okay. Over the last year, Sasha had started
Speaker 1: building up a dock pile of what she called defensive smiles.
Speaker 1: She had one for when her parents were worried, another
Speaker 1: for her few friends, and another for the school administrators.
Speaker 1: The smiles were calculated to reassure everyone that she was
Speaker 1: still normal. Sasha and she certainly wasn't planning to escape
Speaker 1: to the heavenly Kingdom. But she'd never worked up a
Speaker 1: smile from Mr Dane. She genuinely enjoyed his class, so
Speaker 1: it hadn't seemed necessary. She just decided to go with
Speaker 1: her friend smile and hope that worked. I'm okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just you know, inspiration head her. The news today is
Speaker 1: so scary. What's happening down in Texas. I'm worried. Mr
Speaker 1: Dane visibly relaxed. Ah, yes, I can see why you'd
Speaker 1: be troubled by that. I think it's taken everyone a
Speaker 1: bit by surprise. He paused and struggled with his words.
Speaker 1: I expect it must be somewhat more difficult for you
Speaker 1: than the rest of the class. Being a Christian. Her
Speaker 1: smile faltered a bit. She knew she was supposed to
Speaker 1: act like one of the tame preachers the government trotted out,
Speaker 1: the men and women who'd Christianity was all about peace
Speaker 1: and love. They'd say that the Lord's truth could coexist
Speaker 1: with the equal truths of other faiths and with the
Speaker 1: secular world of the am fed. That all felt wrong
Speaker 1: to her, but a little irritation was worth avoiding suspicion.
Speaker 1: My faith is stronger than a handful of terrorists, she
Speaker 1: said to mister Dane. There are a lot of Christians
Speaker 1: in the secular forces. You know they'll when in the end,
Speaker 1: won't they. Mister Dane's smile remained unchanged, but his eyes
Speaker 1: bored into hers. Sasha was more comfortable with eye contact
Speaker 1: than most teens, but she found this deeply uncomfortable, invasive.
Speaker 1: Even after several long seconds, he spoke, I fear it's
Speaker 1: going to be a long, bloody fight before that happens.
Speaker 1: We're very lucky to be insulated from all that madness,
Speaker 1: you know, he sighed. An eleventh grader, However, A Jefferson
Speaker 1: I was killed fighting in Dallas yesterday. The news just broke.
Speaker 1: Sasha hadn't been aware, but thank God for him and
Speaker 1: his sacrifice. She thought, that's awful, she said, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine what his parents must be going through. No, you can't,
Speaker 1: he agreed, And then mister Dane broke eye contact. He
Speaker 1: looked down at the ground, and his voice dropped an
Speaker 1: octave as he asked, did you know I had a son?
Speaker 1: Genuine surprise passed over Sasha's face. No, sir, I didn't.
Speaker 1: He shrugged and gave up on his smile. It wasn't
Speaker 1: much more than a ghost now, Anyway, I married young,
Speaker 1: I was a dad at nineteen, and by the time
Speaker 1: he was nineteen, the whole country was coming apart. He
Speaker 1: reached down to his desk and picked up a small,
Speaker 1: rather battered looking red button. It had the letters R
Speaker 1: J printed in lower case letters across the front. Mister
Speaker 1: Dane stared at it. Something twitched under his left eyelid.
Speaker 1: He bit his upper lip. He was silent for a
Speaker 1: long beat, and he swallowed and looked up at Sasha.
Speaker 1: Do you know what this is? No, she said, reluctant
Speaker 1: and pretty certain. She ought to have known. In the
Speaker 1: years leading up to the revolution, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of different activist movements founded and spread by anonymous radicals.
Speaker 1: They'd organized flashed demonstrations and co ordinated direct action campaigns.
Speaker 1: The pins were one sort of I D badge, so
Speaker 1: when you showed up for a flashed demo, you could
Speaker 1: quickly identify your comrades. He shook his head ruefully. It
Speaker 1: sounds silly now. All I can say is, at the
Speaker 1: time it made sense, and it felt meaningful. The anonymous
Speaker 1: voice I listened to was a guy named Red John.
Speaker 1: He had all these videos about history, politics. He explained
Speaker 1: the whole world and what was wrong with it in
Speaker 1: a way that just felt right. I started playing his
Speaker 1: stuff for my boy Mikey when he was thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1: I just wanted him to know what was going on.
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing the right thing. Mister Dane's
Speaker 1: eyes looked watery and heavy with the ghost of old tears.
Speaker 1: He seemed to have trouble keeping his voice steady. Mikey
Speaker 1: grew up believing hard, and when the fighting broke out,
Speaker 1: he was young and strong and so very ready to
Speaker 1: fight for the world he believed we all deserved. Mr
Speaker 1: Dane set the pen back on the desk with its
Speaker 1: cover facing down. His eyes were red. He died in Denver,
Speaker 1: mister Dane said, and his voice broke a little shot
Speaker 1: through the head. When the National Guard pushed into Westminster,
Speaker 1: Sasha put a hand on mister Dane's shoulder. It was
Speaker 1: an instinctive move, blessedly honest. She silently thanked God for
Speaker 1: this moment of connection to the educator she so admired.
Speaker 1: He smiled back at her, Thank you. I don't mean
Speaker 1: for this to be a lecture. I don't think those
Speaker 1: tend to work. Just he glanced back at the table.
Speaker 1: Just be careful about putting your faith in charismatic men
Speaker 1: and their ideas. I will, she said. A minute later,
Speaker 1: as she left the classroom, a notification pip lit up
Speaker 1: on the top right corner of her vision. She wink
Speaker 1: clicked it and saw a message from Brother Andrew bus
Speaker 1: stop twenty three a four thirty p m. The rest
Speaker 1: of the day passed normally enough. In the afternoon, they
Speaker 1: had an assembly about the suicide of a classmate. It
Speaker 1: was the third this year. Principal Hargrave delivered the same
Speaker 1: platitudes they'd all heard a hundred times. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about suicide hot lines and chat rooms.
Speaker 1: Of all the counseling services the school had available, Sasha
Speaker 1: knew none of it would help. Almost twenty percent of
Speaker 1: teens in the m FED would attempt suicide Every year.
Speaker 1: That number ticked up a few tenths of a percent,
Speaker 1: and the government had no idea how to stop it.
Speaker 1: Pastor Mike blamed the rash of suicides on the emptiness
Speaker 1: of secular life, the spiritual whole. At the center of
Speaker 1: capitalism and the self worship had fed. Sasha thought he'd
Speaker 1: hit that right on the money. Even the United Christian
Speaker 1: States still engaged in global capitalism and doing so that
Speaker 1: a dark God in permanent opposition to the Lord Almighty.
Speaker 1: Pastor Mike again, she knew Principal hargraves lectures were pointless,
Speaker 1: but she sat through the assembly and gave the right
Speaker 1: smiles to the right people. The rest of the day,
Speaker 1: she focused on her studies as best she could, despite
Speaker 1: the growing anxiety in her gut. Two weeks ago, she'd
Speaker 1: read a Pastor Mike article and revelator, don't talk yourself
Speaker 1: out of Heaven. It had clearly been written for the
Speaker 1: conflicted faithful just like her. I've received messages from hundreds
Speaker 1: of you who say I'd love to open myself up
Speaker 1: to martyrdom. But I'm a doctor, or a police officer
Speaker 1: or an engineer, and I think I can do more
Speaker 1: to glorify God where I am right now. Brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: these are the doubts of the serpent. Don't be fooled.
Speaker 1: No one stays in comfort because they want to bring
Speaker 1: glory to the Almighty. Our Lord does not speak to
Speaker 1: us from comfortable places. He spoke to Moses in a
Speaker 1: desolate desert, from a burning bush. He delivered his greatest
Speaker 1: sermon atop a mountain. Jehovah wants our souls to be
Speaker 1: so on fire with devotion that our own lives mean
Speaker 1: nothing before his flame. The heavenly Kingdom is that cleansing flame.
Speaker 1: What a gift it is here now in your lifetime.
Speaker 1: What a tragedy it would be to miss this chance
Speaker 1: at salvation. She recited that passage again and again throughout
Speaker 1: what she now knew would be her last day at school.
Speaker 1: The words steadied her as she waved goodbye to mister
Speaker 1: Dane at the end of the day. These are the
Speaker 1: doubts of the serpent, they calmed her. When she looked
Speaker 1: into her backpack, which held the small go back she'd
Speaker 1: put together that morning. It was just a change of
Speaker 1: clothes and a handful of hygiene items that seemed woefully inadequate,
Speaker 1: but anything more would have looked suspicious. Leaving, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: It was only now, on the cusp of leaving, that
Speaker 1: Sasha realized how much she was going to miss movie
Speaker 1: night with her friends. Central heating in the winter, reliable
Speaker 1: internet access. Our Lord does not speak to us from
Speaker 1: comfortable places. It took her an embarrassing amount of time
Speaker 1: to find the bus stop. She was scared to use
Speaker 1: her deck. She'd shut it off as soon as she'd
Speaker 1: left school, and she didn't know the city bus system
Speaker 1: very well. She'd taken buses to school for years, but
Speaker 1: her parents car had always driven her around the city.
Speaker 1: She was ashamed of how anxious she felt about riding
Speaker 1: a city bus. Here she was on her way to
Speaker 1: a war zone and possible martyrdom, scared of public transit,
Speaker 1: Be strong and courageous and do the work. She recited
Speaker 1: David's advice to Solomon, do not be afraid or discouraged
Speaker 1: for the Lord God, My God is with you. That
Speaker 1: helped a little. Thinking of Alexander's smile, his green eyes,
Speaker 1: and the strong lines of his jaw helped more. Sasha
Speaker 1: didn't like admitting that to herself. It felt too carnal,
Speaker 1: almost sacrilegious, but she knew that what mattered to God
Speaker 1: were her actions. Even if her flight to Zion wasn't
Speaker 1: done with a completely pure heart, God would forgive her
Speaker 1: her sacrifice to build the new Jerusalem with outweigh the
Speaker 1: sinful part of her mind that couldn't stop imagining how
Speaker 1: Alexander's strong arms would feel when they finally wrapped around her.
Speaker 1: She waited at stop twenty three. A four thirty came
Speaker 1: and went by four forty five pm. Her chest burned
Speaker 1: with barely restrained panic. She was sure the people passing
Speaker 1: by all knew her secret plans. A pair of police
Speaker 1: officers passed her at one point. One of them, a
Speaker 1: woman not much older than Sasha, flashed her a smile.
Speaker 1: For a long time, she was convinced it had been
Speaker 1: a sign that her communics had been intercepted and the
Speaker 1: police or the FBI were onto her plan. But the
Speaker 1: police didn't come to stop her, and after a quarter
Speaker 1: hour that felt like days, a brown sedan rolled up
Speaker 1: to the bus stop. Its window peeled down, and Sasha
Speaker 1: locked eyes with a careworn young man in the back.
Speaker 1: Sasha Marian. He asked yes, She said, are you brother Andrew?
Speaker 1: As I was with Moses, so will I be with
Speaker 1: That was the pass phrase Alexander had told her to expect.
Speaker 1: It was all Sasha could do to stop from bawling
Speaker 1: right then and there. She got in the car. The
Speaker 1: man inside was exactly what she'd have expected of a
Speaker 1: man and brother Andrew's profession. He had long, straw colored
Speaker 1: hair and a ragged beard. There were deep pockets of
Speaker 1: exhaustion under his brown eyes and well creased smile lines
Speaker 1: around his lips. He wore a simple black suit with
Speaker 1: no tie. Everything about the way he looked and the
Speaker 1: way he dressed spoke of quiet devotion and humble service.
Speaker 1: Here finally was a man of God. Not a pressed,
Speaker 1: preening dandy like the pastor at her father's church, not
Speaker 1: a hip, young pretender like the Baptist minister who had
Speaker 1: given a speech on inclusion at her school last year.
Speaker 1: Here was a real, road weary man of the Lord.
Speaker 1: I know how you must feel right now, Sasha, he said.
Speaker 1: You're relieved. You never thought you'd make it this far.
Speaker 1: You didn't know if you'd have the courage to take
Speaker 1: the final leap of faith. But you have now, child,
Speaker 1: and your soul is secure. Sasha melted. The knot of
Speaker 1: anxiety that had twisting in her guts suddenly untied itself.
Speaker 1: Her eyesight blurred, and she realized that she'd started to cry.
Speaker 1: It was all she could do to look over to
Speaker 1: brother Andrew and whisper thank you. Together they drove to
Speaker 1: a little, white walled suburban house, maybe five miles away
Speaker 1: from the only home she had ever known. The car stopped,
Speaker 1: but Brother Andrew gestured for her to stay in the
Speaker 1: vehicle while he stepped out and knocked on the door.
Speaker 1: Another man, shorter and balding, stepped out. They both hustled
Speaker 1: back to the car, their eyes darting left and right.
Speaker 1: As soon as they made it inside, the car sped
Speaker 1: off fast enough that the acceleration pushed Sasha back in
Speaker 1: her seat. The new man sat across from her in
Speaker 1: the autonomous car, second row of bench seats. He was older,
Speaker 1: in his fifties. If he hadn't taken any juven treatments,
Speaker 1: he had tired eyes with deep bags beneath them. While
Speaker 1: Brother Andrew radiated calm, self satisfaction, this man seemed nervous
Speaker 1: and a little frantic. He clutched a small briefcase with
Speaker 1: white knuckled hands. Sasha smiled in an unconscious attempt to
Speaker 1: call him. He smiled back. Brother Andrew spoke, Miss Marian,
Speaker 1: this is brother Brian. He's going to disable your deck.
Speaker 1: It's the only way we can get you across the
Speaker 1: border to our people in the Christian States. Brother Andrew
Speaker 1: smiled and put a hand on Brother Brian's shoulder. The
Speaker 1: other man took this cue to open up his suitcase.
Speaker 1: He started to assemble something small, silver and intricate. Brother
Speaker 1: Andrew kept speaking, All it would take is one phone
Speaker 1: call from your parents or your school when the police
Speaker 1: could spot your precise location from the GPS unit in
Speaker 1: your deck. This car is a dead zone, so you're
Speaker 1: safe inside it, but as soon as you exit, you'll
Speaker 1: be back on the map, so we need to remove
Speaker 1: your deck before that happens. Will it hurt? Sasha remembered
Speaker 1: how it had felt when they'd first implanted her deck,
Speaker 1: like having a new tooth forcibly inserted into her jaw.
Speaker 1: She'd been four or five at the time. Her head
Speaker 1: had hurt for days. Brother Brian didn't look up from
Speaker 1: his briefcase as he answered her. Yes, I've got a
Speaker 1: topical anesthetic, but nothing stronger. It'll hurt. Sasha nodded gravely.
Speaker 1: She had anticipated this. A little pain was a small
Speaker 1: price to pay to become one of God's elect few.
Speaker 1: She thought of Paul and Silas stripped and beaten with
Speaker 1: clubs on the orders of a heathen magistrate. God shows
Speaker 1: his love through salvation, We show ours through sacrifice. The
Speaker 1: memory of Pastor Mike's words helped ease her fears she'd
Speaker 1: miss her deck, but Alexander had said there'd be replacements
Speaker 1: in the heavenly Kingdom. In another minute, Brother Brian had
Speaker 1: finished assembling the tool. It looked like a cross between
Speaker 1: a syringe and a handheld shot back. At Brother Andrew's urging,
Speaker 1: she moved over to sit on the bench seat next
Speaker 1: to him. Now lay across my lap, an angle your
Speaker 1: temple towards Brother Brian. A pang of fear flitted across
Speaker 1: her heart. These were men of God, but they were
Speaker 1: also men she didn't know, who were much older and
Speaker 1: larger than her. She had to fight down the urge
Speaker 1: to panic and flee. You were trusting these men to
Speaker 1: smuggle you across a border, dummy. She hesitated for a
Speaker 1: few sweaty seconds, but eventually Sasha nodded and laid down
Speaker 1: on Brother Andrew's lap. Her heart beat so loudly that
Speaker 1: she could hear it crashing in her skull like ocean waves.
Speaker 1: Brother Andrew put his strong hands on her. He tightened
Speaker 1: his grip. He's holding me down, she realized, and although
Speaker 1: he tried to restrain her in a comforting way, the
Speaker 1: liquid mass of panic in her chest almost boiled over.
Speaker 1: There was a sudden, sharp pain as Brother Brian plunged
Speaker 1: the needle in through her temple, and then a dull,
Speaker 1: throbbing feeling like a migraine. Sasha felt dizzy, disoriented, and
Speaker 1: then nauseous in turns. She blacked out for a few seconds.
Speaker 1: When she came back to herself, she realized she had
Speaker 1: been vomiting. The floor of the car was coated in
Speaker 1: the remains of her lunch. Some of it had gotten
Speaker 1: on Brother Andrew's pants leg. Brother Bryan looked disgusted, but
Speaker 1: Brother Andrew was all smiles and comfort. Jesus, here's your
Speaker 1: suffering sister. He knows what you are giving up in
Speaker 1: his name. You will reap the dividends of this investment
Speaker 1: in your soul. He helped her up and guided her
Speaker 1: to the opposite bench, where she laid down and continued
Speaker 1: to clutch her throbbing head. She drifted off or passed out,
Speaker 1: and when she came to, the interior of the car
Speaker 1: had been scrubbed clean. Leaving behind only a brown stain
Speaker 1: and the lingering smell of sick and antiseptic. Sasha guessed
Speaker 1: an hour or more had passed, although without her deck
Speaker 1: it could have been more. They were in the woods now,
Speaker 1: driving along a country road. Brother Andrew explained that they
Speaker 1: were just a few minutes away from the border, and
Speaker 1: almost as far as an automobile could take them. Soon
Speaker 1: they'd stop in the town of Franklin, right on the
Speaker 1: border of the U. C S, and she'd meet the
Speaker 1: men who would help her on the next stage of
Speaker 1: her journey. The main border stations are blanketed with cameras,
Speaker 1: Brother Andrew said, but we're right in the thick of
Speaker 1: the Blue Ridge Mountains here. They can't watch every inch
Speaker 1: of them. We have some coyotes here who know where
Speaker 1: the holes are. One of them will spirit you across. Coyotes,
Speaker 1: Sasha asked. It's an old term, he said, A coyote
Speaker 1: is someone who helps smuggle people across national borders. Usually
Speaker 1: the phrase has somewhat mercenary connotations. But the men we
Speaker 1: work with, our true believers, soldiers in the Army of God.
Speaker 1: You needn't fear, Miss Marian. A few minutes later, they
Speaker 1: rolled into Franklin. She'd never heard of the place before,
Speaker 1: but a quick look around told her most of what
Speaker 1: she'd needed to know. Most of the bill things were empty,
Speaker 1: the storefronts were boarded up, the city hall was in disrepair,
Speaker 1: and the skeleton of a once mighty Walmart supercenter dominated
Speaker 1: the south side of town. There was clear fire damage
Speaker 1: around its roof and entrances. Twenty or so years ago,
Speaker 1: when the Civil War had been at its height, Franklin
Speaker 1: had swollen with refugees. When the war had ended, the
Speaker 1: refugees had gone elsewhere, and the city had been left
Speaker 1: gutted and exhausted in their absence. The car stopped outside
Speaker 1: of a public park. Sasha noticed that the grass was
Speaker 1: overgrown and the sidewalks around it were cracked and broken.
Speaker 1: She shared a quick prayer with brothers Andrew and Brian,
Speaker 1: then they bid her farewell. The car pulled away and
Speaker 1: Sasha was alone. She'd been told to find a park
Speaker 1: bench and wait just a few minutes, so that's what
Speaker 1: she did. A few minutes turned into ten, then fifteen,
Speaker 1: then twenty. Sasha began to worry again. That was when
Speaker 1: she really started to miss her deck. Normally, she'd been
Speaker 1: able to catch up on the latest news from Zion,
Speaker 1: read one of her favorite issues of Revelator, and maybe
Speaker 1: even touch base with Alexander. Without it, she only had
Speaker 1: the throbbing pain in her head to keep her occupied.
Speaker 1: Sasha's mind wandered to the rolling mountains on the horizon.
Speaker 1: She'd never spent so much as a night out camping before.
Speaker 1: The wildest animal she'd ever seen was a squirrel, and
Speaker 1: there aren't bears out there. That scared her more than
Speaker 1: the prospect of being arrested, or even the fear of
Speaker 1: what might happen to her nearer to the fighting. Dying
Speaker 1: alone in a drone strike or from a sniper's bullet
Speaker 1: would be quick and expected. Given where she was going,
Speaker 1: She'd spent a lot of time thinking about dying from
Speaker 1: sudden violence. It had acquired a patina of romance in
Speaker 1: her mind's eye. But dying on some mountain to a
Speaker 1: slavering monster from another age. Sasha shuddered, seized by a
Speaker 1: chill entirely at odds with the extreme heat of this
Speaker 1: August day, it was a hundred and nine at least.
Speaker 1: Sasha rooted through her bag and pulled out a small
Speaker 1: leather bound bible she'd received as a Christmas gift from
Speaker 1: her dad two years ago. She opened it at random
Speaker 1: and found herself in the Book of Jonah. In my distress,
Speaker 1: I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From
Speaker 1: deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help,
Speaker 1: and you listened to my cry. She read on through
Speaker 1: the rest of Jonah's cries to the whale, vomiting him
Speaker 1: up onto the shores near Nineveh. The word of God
Speaker 1: calmed her. She grew so engrossed in her scripture that
Speaker 1: she was taken completely by surprise when the coyote found
Speaker 1: her on the park bench. Miss marian a man's voice,
Speaker 1: weathered and gravelly, said from behind her, you'd serve us
Speaker 1: both whale by putting that book away. This is not
Speaker 1: a safe place. She looked up the coyote. He was
Speaker 1: older than she'd expected, in his mid forties at least.
Speaker 1: He had a mop of greasy blonde hair, a round face,
Speaker 1: kind blue eyes, and a slight paunch that spoke more
Speaker 1: to his age than an activity. He had thick biceps
Speaker 1: and forearms that bulged with corded muscle. His thighs were
Speaker 1: large too. He had the look of a man who
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time on his feet. Mister, she
Speaker 1: asked Jonah. He said, you can call me Jonah. And
Speaker 1: again the knots and her stomach melted away. She rejoiced inside.
Speaker 1: Over and over her faith had flagged, and over and
Speaker 1: over the Lord had sent her signs of his love
Speaker 1: and approval. That's what trusting and reason gets you. She
Speaker 1: had missed herself fear and pain. God is watching out
Speaker 1: for me. Her childish fear of bears faded away. Suddenly
Speaker 1: the world and her future felt bright and exciting again.
Speaker 1: After years of delay, she was finally on the doorstep
Speaker 1: of Zion. Jonah, I'm ready to go. You lead the
Speaker 1: way and I will follow. It took about an hour
Speaker 1: for Sasha to decide that she liked camping, and then
Speaker 1: two more hours to decide that she never wanted to
Speaker 1: camp ever again. By the time they stopped for the night,
Speaker 1: she'd gouged herself open on half a dozen different tree branches,
Speaker 1: smashed her left toe into a rock, and somehow managed
Speaker 1: to draw every allergy on the East Coast into her nose.
Speaker 1: The headaches from her improvised surgery and her throbbing sinuses
Speaker 1: warred for dominance. She couldn't sleep, food had no taste,
Speaker 1: and her hands were too grubby and generally snotty to
Speaker 1: allow her to read the Bible. Jonah was not as
Speaker 1: talkative as brother Andrew. He'd given her a brief rundown
Speaker 1: of things to avoid out in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Speaker 1: He'd told her how to recognize timber rattlers, diamondbacks, and
Speaker 1: copper heads, although for some reason she had much more
Speaker 1: trouble retaining that information than she'd had memorizing the Pythagorean
Speaker 1: theorem or the date and importance of the Battle of Hastings.
Speaker 1: She was supposed to watch for pointy heads, she knew that,
Speaker 1: but every time a snake slithered past her, it moved
Speaker 1: way too fast for her to tell the shape of
Speaker 1: its head. Other than that quick lecture and a few
Speaker 1: admonishments for her to step lightly, Jonah hadn't said much.
Speaker 1: He'd given her food each night, protein bars and nuts. Mostly,
Speaker 1: he'd been kind enough to let her snuggle with the
Speaker 1: heated blanket he'd brought along. She knew she'd gotten snot
Speaker 1: on it, but he never complained. When they settled into
Speaker 1: camp on the second night, Sasha was surprised to see
Speaker 1: her coyote start to gather wood and build a fire.
Speaker 1: He laughed when he saw the dumbfounded look on Sasha's face.
Speaker 1: He pulled out a small yellow bottle of lighter fluid,
Speaker 1: squirted it onto the wood, and then lit the edge
Speaker 1: of it with his lighter. The fire leapt to life,
Speaker 1: burning away at the pine needles until they caught the
Speaker 1: smaller sticks and limbs stacked round in a small box. Next,
Speaker 1: he pulled two silver pouches out of his backpack and
Speaker 1: handed them to her. The labels informed her that one
Speaker 1: contained chicken and dumplings and the other Macaronian cheese. Her
Speaker 1: mouth was watering before the first and to night, Miss Marian,
Speaker 1: Ye get a fire and a hot mail. We're over
Speaker 1: the line. And that was how Sasha learned she'd crossed
Speaker 1: the border into the United Christian States. She had successfully
Speaker 1: fled her country and the secular rule of law entirely.
Speaker 1: The u c S wasn't a true godly state, not
Speaker 1: by her standards. It's multi denominational acceptance was a denial
Speaker 1: of the harsh truth of God's love. Not everyone who
Speaker 1: called themselves a Christian truly lived in such a way
Speaker 1: as to earn God's gift of salvation. But just being
Speaker 1: in a country that acknowledged the primacy of God Almighty
Speaker 1: in their law and public policy was enough. For now.
Speaker 1: There's no abortion here, she thought, with awe. No atheists
Speaker 1: on television mocking the Lord no callow acceptance of primarital sex.
Speaker 1: She felt a thrill at being in a place that
Speaker 1: was so much closer to her conception of right. It
Speaker 1: didn't even matter that she was still stuck in the woods. Jonah,
Speaker 1: she asked, do you live here most of the time? Yes.
Speaker 1: He had a quiet, soulful voice that made him seem
Speaker 1: even older than he looked. What made you decide to
Speaker 1: start smuggling people out of the am fed? She stared
Speaker 1: into the tree line as his hands stuffed thin sticks
Speaker 1: into the base of the growing fire. Sasha watched his
Speaker 1: jaw clinch and unclinched, as if he was mentally rehearsing
Speaker 1: his response before he said it out loud as a
Speaker 1: United States armor arranger. Once been a Christian my whole life,
Speaker 1: though Southern Baptist, grew up in a country just as
Speaker 1: lost to sin and vius as yours is, and when
Speaker 1: the fighting started. I saw an opportunity to bring my
Speaker 1: nation back to its godly roots. Hands emptied, Jonah rooted
Speaker 1: around his bag and pulled out a kettle. He filled
Speaker 1: it with water from a heavy fabric bag and placed
Speaker 1: it on a flat rock near the edge of the fire.
Speaker 1: Then he stood up, gestured for her to follow, and
Speaker 1: walked over to a nearby copse of trees. I joined
Speaker 1: a local militian Marietta near Atlanta. He said, most of
Speaker 1: us are Vettes like me, anither Baptist or Pentecostal. He
Speaker 1: crouched down next to a tree that had been cracked
Speaker 1: in half by lightning. It was dead and very dry.
Speaker 1: The ground around was littered with tree limbs and thick
Speaker 1: slabs of bark. He started gathering up some of the
Speaker 1: larger pieces. Mom, get down, are and l Some of
Speaker 1: these are a little damp, but we'll stick them around
Speaker 1: the edges to dry out. The most important thing right
Speaker 1: now is to get some middle in size logs in
Speaker 1: there so we can build up a little bit of coals.
Speaker 1: Sasha wiped a runnel of snot from her face and
Speaker 1: knelt down to help. Jonah continued his story while they
Speaker 1: filled their arms anyway, things heated up. The army started
Speaker 1: calling in their deep reserves guys lack maidman out for
Speaker 1: Dagham near a decade. That was after the fids Nut
Speaker 1: Dallas so go an active duty again didn't sound good
Speaker 1: to anyone. He lifted away a fallen limb and revealed
Speaker 1: a massive log, roughly the size of Sasha's torso. Jonah
Speaker 1: shifted everything he'd gathered over to his right arm and
Speaker 1: then hafter the log with one hand. He nodded at
Speaker 1: Sasha's much smaller pile. We've probably got enough, he said.
Speaker 1: They headed back to the camp site. She could see
Speaker 1: Jonah was doing that twitchy jaw thing again, thinking carefully
Speaker 1: about every word. I grew up real patriotic, you understand.
Speaker 1: I love my country, fought for it down south. But
Speaker 1: I also grew up with a Confederate flag on the
Speaker 1: back of my dad's truck. I wasn't on board with
Speaker 1: those Marxists who started the Civil War, So when Governor
Speaker 1: Galen had his referendum on secession, well I fell right.
Speaker 1: I was on board with the u c S back
Speaker 1: before it was even born. They sat around the fire again.
Speaker 1: Jonah started to add in larger branches. He slowly built
Speaker 1: the fire in a U shape around the flat stone. Now,
Speaker 1: I is never a fanatic when a church most Sundays,
Speaker 1: but I had jew neighbors, a couple of Muslims in
Speaker 1: the unit. Good guys. Wasn't real political, you know. But
Speaker 1: Pastor Elgin's gave a speech only time I saw him
Speaker 1: in person. He said, diversity wasn't making us strong anymore.
Speaker 1: A melting pots all well and good, but the quality
Speaker 1: of the soup depends on the recipe. That made sense
Speaker 1: to me. He sat back, popped the kettle onto the rock,
Speaker 1: and looked over to Sasha. The ideal was a Christian
Speaker 1: recipe would make for a stronger nation, but the U
Speaker 1: c s wound up being a dag un prosperity gospel
Speaker 1: pile of nonsense better in the Amphid. Sure, maybe we've
Speaker 1: got less queer politicians, less rich Jews running things, but
Speaker 1: it's still corrupt here. Sasha wasn't really sure how to
Speaker 1: handle this disclosure. She'd run into similar attitudes among believers online,
Speaker 1: uncomfortable references to Jewish gay or gay Jewish conspiracies. That
Speaker 1: sort of nonsense had always gotten on her nerves, but
Speaker 1: she'd written its purveyors off as edge lords and trolls.
Speaker 1: Part of her thought they might be CIA plants hell
Speaker 1: bent on making the Kingdom look bad, but she knew
Speaker 1: they didn't speak for the actual heart of the movement.
Speaker 1: Sasha wanted to speak up, but she held her tongue.
Speaker 1: The fact that Jonah had been nothing but kind and
Speaker 1: respectful to her didn't change the fact that he was
Speaker 1: twice her size, who knew what he might do if
Speaker 1: he got agitated. Sasha fought for calm and recalled a
Speaker 1: specific passage from Revelator and one of their guides for
Speaker 1: young women immigrating to the Kingdom. No, daughters, that our
Speaker 1: Lord made your brothers and husbands both strong of body
Speaker 1: and quick to anger. It is your job to soothe,
Speaker 1: not in sight. And if his wrath falls upon you
Speaker 1: in a sudden burst, remember the forgiveness and patience of
Speaker 1: our Lord. Let his example guide your reactions. So she
Speaker 1: smiled at Jonah and said, tonight, I'm happy enough to
Speaker 1: be in a godly land. He smiled back. Sasha hoped
Speaker 1: God was proud of her for being meek as Mary.
Speaker 1: When she thought about it that way, The rest of
Speaker 1: the night was surprisingly tolerable. The food wasn't good by
Speaker 1: her normal standards, but it was hot and savory, and
Speaker 1: after days of protein bars, it was exactly what her
Speaker 1: suffering stomach needed. Sasha wasn't aware of wind she drifted
Speaker 1: off to sleep. Jonah woke her up the next morning,
Speaker 1: not long after the crack of dawn. He handed her
Speaker 1: a box of wet napkins and walked off into the
Speaker 1: woods for a few minutes while she cleaned herself off
Speaker 1: as much as possible. When she was done, he led
Speaker 1: her down the mountain and into a small town on
Speaker 1: the border. It was Sasha's first real look at life
Speaker 1: in the UCS, and it did not disappoint. In the
Speaker 1: twenty or so minutes they were outside, she saw nine churches.
Speaker 1: There were crosses on every house in a dizzying variety.
Speaker 1: She saw Bible quotes printed on windows of shops and cafes,
Speaker 1: and the strangers who passed them in the street all
Speaker 1: flashed warm smiles of you, offered their blessings. Sasha had
Speaker 1: never seen such public to splay of religion. She floated
Speaker 1: through those first few minutes on a cloud of giddiness
Speaker 1: unlike anything she'd ever known. The architecture and the environment
Speaker 1: were similar to what she'd grown up with, but everything
Speaker 1: else seemed alien and the most exciting way possible. Sasha
Speaker 1: felt so light she did almost feel the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: lift her up. Her gleeful reverie only ended when Jonah
Speaker 1: led her up to the door of an unassuming brownstone house.
Speaker 1: They were taken in by another man, whom Jonah had introduced,
Speaker 1: a Saul. Saul looked a little younger and a lot
Speaker 1: less weathered than Jonah. He had the thin arms and
Speaker 1: stooped posture of a lifelong scholar, and his conservative, button
Speaker 1: up white shirt made him look more like a youth
Speaker 1: pastor than a people smuggler. Welcome sister, he smiled, but
Speaker 1: his voice was more haggard than warm. You want to
Speaker 1: get inside, please, There's no sense tempting the law. Saul's
Speaker 1: house was packed to the rafters with toilet paper, jugs
Speaker 1: of water, bends of freeze, dried food, and bags upon
Speaker 1: bags of clothing. The house had almost no furniture and
Speaker 1: no decorations aside from a large wooden cross above the hearth.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of stools arranged around a crate
Speaker 1: on the round, which seemed to have served as an
Speaker 1: improvised coffee table. Saul sat them down, left for a moment,
Speaker 1: and came back with a hot French press filled with coffee.
Speaker 1: I'd suggest drinking your fill. It's hard to come by
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom right now, most things are. I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: I'm not scared of hardship, she said, a little too loud.
Speaker 1: You sound like a little kid. Keep your stupid mouth
Speaker 1: shut or they'll think you can't handle it. Saul was
Speaker 1: conspicuously silent, but Jonah spoke up. She handle yourself well
Speaker 1: out in the woods, he said, not bad for a
Speaker 1: city girl. Didn't have a lott a woodcraft, but did
Speaker 1: have an open heart. He took well to it, ma'am.
Speaker 1: Saul chuckled as he began to pour in hand out
Speaker 1: cups of coffee, first to her and then to Jonah.
Speaker 1: Sasha wasn't entirely sure why, but she waited until both
Speaker 1: men had taken their first SIPs to take hers. She
Speaker 1: didn't know much about coffee, but she was pretty sure
Speaker 1: this wasn't the beverage at its best. Would you like
Speaker 1: to pray with us, miss Marian, Saul asked, Of course.
Speaker 1: He extended his hands out on either side, so did Jonah.
Speaker 1: Sasha took Saul's left and Jonah's right. Havely, Father, Saul began,
Speaker 1: bless this young woman who comes to you with a
Speaker 1: full heart from a land of sin and shirk. She's
Speaker 1: given up all pretense of control and yielded herself fully
Speaker 1: to your grace. Lord, Please guide her in this next journey.
Speaker 1: We pray that she makes it safely to your kingdom
Speaker 1: and into the arms of her husband to be. Sasha
Speaker 1: almost paid. Where did he hear that she and Alexander
Speaker 1: hadn't even met yet, there'd been no proposal. Was he
Speaker 1: just speaking in the general hope that she'd get married,
Speaker 1: or had Alexander told him something? May she obey him
Speaker 1: as she does you, Heavenly Father, and may you quicken
Speaker 1: her womb like Rachel, so that she delivers a new
Speaker 1: Joseph to our cause. That didn't sit well either. Sasha
Speaker 1: wanted children very badly. She knew they were in her future,
Speaker 1: but not now, certainly not soon enough that she'd be
Speaker 1: praying for them already. She was grateful that they had
Speaker 1: their heads bowed in prayer. If any of this had
Speaker 1: come up in conversation first, she was sure she'd have
Speaker 1: reacted an obvious shock, but Sasha calmed herself, thought of
Speaker 1: her duty to God, and centered her mind just as
Speaker 1: the prayer ended. And A Sam A lady, it is
Speaker 1: a brave thing you're doing, Sasha said, as he reached
Speaker 1: for his cup and took another sip. Even here in
Speaker 1: God's country, not many are willing to answer the call.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, they'll all tell you it's the drone strikes
Speaker 1: that scared them. I can do more good by working
Speaker 1: my job and sending money, as if the Lord asked
Speaker 1: Abraham to sacrifice a bag of gold in his name.
Speaker 1: Saul kept talking, but Sasha's attention drifted the spot on
Speaker 1: her head where the deck had been itched. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, she scratched it, and for the second time,
Speaker 1: she found herself truly missing the gadget. If she had
Speaker 1: her deck, she could call Alexander and find out what
Speaker 1: was going on, But instead she just squirmed a little
Speaker 1: in her chair and hoped the men didn't notice how
Speaker 1: uncomfortable she'd become. Miss Marian You all right, Jonah had noticed,
Speaker 1: of course he had. Sasha cursed herself and then cursed
Speaker 1: herself again for cursing. Yes, sorry, I'm kind of tired,
Speaker 1: even with the coffee, and I'm um worried about my
Speaker 1: friend in the Kingdom. She definitely stressed the word friend
Speaker 1: too much. Do you think I'll be able to find
Speaker 1: a deck once I'm there? I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: different ma'am that with Saul, and his voice had no
Speaker 1: more feigned mirth. You're about to be smuggled illegally across
Speaker 1: a heavily fortified border. There are all sorts of worldly
Speaker 1: goods in the heavenly Kingdom. Were not poppers or savages.
Speaker 1: But as to whether you'll get a deck, well, that
Speaker 1: rather depends on what our Lord wants for you. Sasha
Speaker 1: lowered her head a little in submission. There wasn't the
Speaker 1: time to press further. Maybe that time would never come.
Speaker 1: You knew there'd be sacrifices, she reminded herself. How are
Speaker 1: you going to smuggle me across the border? She asked.
Speaker 1: Saul finished his coffee and set his mug down on
Speaker 1: the makeshift table. I'll show you, he said. He let
Speaker 1: her pass the living room and into a spacious and
Speaker 1: very chilly garage. They're a trio of workers with face
Speaker 1: masks were busy sealing up large crates of unfinished wood.
Speaker 1: She couldn't quite make out the words stamped on the sides,
Speaker 1: but the blocky font looked military. There was a time
Speaker 1: when it was easy enough to sneak the faithful across
Speaker 1: on foot, Saul explained, but international concerns have forced the
Speaker 1: government to take a rather hard line. I'm afraid this
Speaker 1: is the best way to get across the border. Wait.
Speaker 1: Sasha's gut went sour. She felt the acid in her
Speaker 1: stomach churn a greasy boil. Are you trying to tell
Speaker 1: me I'm going to be nailed inside a crate? Saul's
Speaker 1: face turned. There was no pretense anymore. He was disgusted
Speaker 1: with her. Sasha didn't really know why. All she'd done
Speaker 1: was asked questions. But then Jonah was there with a
Speaker 1: hand on Saul's shoulder and a calm voice in her ear.
Speaker 1: Think of this as a blessing, said Jonah. Most people
Speaker 1: never test the blind part of blind faith. He was right,
Speaker 1: darn it, and there was something freeing in the idea
Speaker 1: of just giving herself up to Providence. She'd done everything
Speaker 1: God had asked of her. Now he would either deliver
Speaker 1: her desire on or the arms of the law. Either way,
Speaker 1: She'd done everything she could to obey the call of
Speaker 1: her faith. All the little sins of her life, the
Speaker 1: cursing and the anger, and those dark, gnawing desires she
Speaker 1: still struggled to tamp down. Those would all be forgiven.
Speaker 1: She was truly giving herself to Christ now, so nothing
Speaker 1: else mattered. You're right, she said, I'm sorry, I questioned it.
Speaker 1: I'll do whatever it takes to reach the heavenly kingdom.
Speaker 1: She took another hard look at the cramped wooden box
Speaker 1: and the piles of aid supplies surrounding it. How was
Speaker 1: she going to fit in there? Whatever it takes? Chapter
Speaker 1: seven Manny Manny was used to war, he wasn't quite
Speaker 1: as used to being on the losing side of one.
Speaker 1: As chaotic as things gotten Sida de Muerta, his guys
Speaker 1: had always held the upper hand. Manny had come to
Speaker 1: expect safe supply lines and reliable transport to and from
Speaker 1: the battlefield. During past defensives, the martyrs hadn't controlled the skies.
Speaker 1: His first hint that this had changed came when the
Speaker 1: fifty caliber machine gun atop their transport fired into the sky.
Speaker 1: It was soon joined by the echoing boom of the
Speaker 1: lead vehicle's twenty millimeter cannon and a sparking whoosh as
Speaker 1: anti drone rockets arched up into the sky. Nuts Reggie
Speaker 1: yelped as the gunfire jolted him awake. He drifted off
Speaker 1: a half hour or so into the ride. Manny grabbed
Speaker 1: onto him and looped his own legs around the bench
Speaker 1: for stability. An instant later, the transport veered off of
Speaker 1: the road and into the high grass surrounding the highway.
Speaker 1: There was a flash somewhere to the left, followed by
Speaker 1: the roar and heat of an explosion. When Mannie looked back,
Speaker 1: he saw the smoldering wreckage of one of their escort
Speaker 1: vehicles drones. He shouted into the journalist's gear over the
Speaker 1: blistering gunfire. Mannie scanned the skies as their transport plowed
Speaker 1: through the tall grass. Wounded soldier screamed as the vehicle
Speaker 1: banked and bounced and sent them slamming into each other.
Speaker 1: He caught sight of a small drone, maybe the size
Speaker 1: of his torso. It was matt black and an almost
Speaker 1: perfect oval. The only break in its seamless form was
Speaker 1: the bulge of a missile pod on its belly. A
Speaker 1: red light blinked above the weapon. The drone slowed to
Speaker 1: a stop, maybe a hundred feet above them. There wasn't
Speaker 1: time to think. The fixer shoved his journalist hard off
Speaker 1: the back of the transport and then leaped off himself.
Speaker 1: He hit the ground with a painful thump that knocked
Speaker 1: the air out of his lungs and the scents from
Speaker 1: his mind. For a second, the whole world was stars
Speaker 1: and shock. Mannie rolled to a rough stop against what
Speaker 1: felt like a large rock. Something cracked inside his chest,
Speaker 1: and then there was another explosion, this one louder and
Speaker 1: closer than the last one. The heat hit him like
Speaker 1: an ocean wave. Many was vaguely aware of the scent
Speaker 1: of burning hair, his hair. He cried out, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't hear his own screams. Many's ears rang like the
Speaker 1: inside of a church bell. It was several moments before
Speaker 1: the pain and shock subsided enough for him to open
Speaker 1: his eyes. He looked down at himself. First, his pajamas
Speaker 1: were scorched and his arms were scraped and bloody from
Speaker 1: the fall. His backpack was gone, but there were no
Speaker 1: signs of serious injury. None of his bones seemed broken.
Speaker 1: What remained of the transport smoldered half a football field away.
Speaker 1: He saw a few writhing, burning shapes. Inside Many's stomach
Speaker 1: turned Reggie. The pain of the fall head momentarily wiped
Speaker 1: the journalist from his mind. Many scanned the field and
Speaker 1: found the other man curled into a fetal ball a
Speaker 1: dozen or so feet to his left. He ran over,
Speaker 1: gave the journalist a quick scan, and determined Reggie wasn't
Speaker 1: seriously injured either. A small slipper of shrapnel had pierced
Speaker 1: the other aunt's bicep. He was just as scraped and
Speaker 1: bloody as Manny, but also basically intact, except his eyes
Speaker 1: didn't quite focus when Manny looked into them. Maybe a
Speaker 1: minor head injury. The journalist said something, a lot of something's,
Speaker 1: in fact, but Manny's hearing was all tenitus. There was
Speaker 1: no time to talk anyway. He hoisted Reggie up by
Speaker 1: the armpits, ignored the other man's pained expression, and pulled
Speaker 1: him along as he beat feet away from the flaming wreckage.
Speaker 1: In the ongoing firefight, another blast way of rolled over him,
Speaker 1: this one more distant, and then another coming from somewhere
Speaker 1: above them in the sky. The extent of their injuries
Speaker 1: meant that their run was more like a hobble. Reggie
Speaker 1: had dislocated his unshrapnelled arm. Manny had fucked his knee
Speaker 1: up in the fall and done something awful to his ribs.
Speaker 1: The two stumble staggered as fast as they could manage
Speaker 1: towards an abandoned gas station by the side of the
Speaker 1: old highway. They reached their temporary salvation and took cover
Speaker 1: inside the dusty, cobwebbed building. Cut cut, cut, cut, cut.
Speaker 1: Reggie screamed as he slumped down against the wall. It
Speaker 1: took Manny a second to process the fact that he
Speaker 1: could hear again. You're all right, he out it. You're fine.
Speaker 1: We're going to be okay. Manny had no idea if
Speaker 1: that was true, but he knew managing fear would be
Speaker 1: critical to their survival. The gas station had been abandoned
Speaker 1: for a decade or more. Most of the glass was gone,
Speaker 1: but the basic structure of the inside counter was still intact.
Speaker 1: He and Reggie took cover behind it, careful to avoid
Speaker 1: the piles of shattered glass and shrapnel. There were old
Speaker 1: bullet holes in the wall all around them. At one
Speaker 1: time There'd been a plexiglass window on the inside wall
Speaker 1: behind the counter with a little bucket in it, so
Speaker 1: the cashier could do business at night without letting customers inside.
Speaker 1: Most of the plexiglass had been removed, leaving a gaping
Speaker 1: wound in the building's concrete hide. Manny stuck his head
Speaker 1: out of the hole and looked out at the sight
Speaker 1: of the massacre. Both transports had been hit. Much of
Speaker 1: the field was a flame. The six sweet smell of
Speaker 1: burning human flesh wafted over them like a dense fog.
Speaker 1: Manny saw two of the escort trucks still firing into
Speaker 1: the sky. There was another flash above as one of
Speaker 1: them hit a drone. It corkscred out of the air
Speaker 1: burst on the ground and ignited the dry grass. What
Speaker 1: the funk do we do, Reggie shout asked. There was
Speaker 1: panic in his voice and quite a lot of pain,
Speaker 1: but the journalist didn't seem to have lost his wits.
Speaker 1: We need to get out of here, Manny said, Well,
Speaker 1: those drones are still occupied. The highway was a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred feet away. The civilian vehicles following them had
Speaker 1: scattered when the attack began. Some of them had clearly
Speaker 1: been hit by machine gun fire from one of the drones.
Speaker 1: Others had crashed, rolled into ditches, and been abandoned by
Speaker 1: their occupants. Manny spotted one, an ancient white jeep that
Speaker 1: looked like it had taken around Through the window. He
Speaker 1: could see blood inside the vehicle, but the engine and
Speaker 1: wheels seemed intact. The tree line of a sparse forest
Speaker 1: was just on the other side of the highway, a
Speaker 1: half mile away. If they could reach it, Reggie, he
Speaker 1: put a hand on the journalist's shoulder. The two men
Speaker 1: locked eyes, and many tried to force all the fear
Speaker 1: out of his voice. When I say so, run very fast,
Speaker 1: straight towards that white jeep. Understood the brit brought a
Speaker 1: hand to his dislocated shoulder and winced in intense pain,
Speaker 1: but then looked back to Manny and let out a
Speaker 1: sharp sigh. Fucking all right, shit, yeah. Manny took that
Speaker 1: as a yes. He glanced back at the firefight in
Speaker 1: the field. The fire part was literal, now at least
Speaker 1: a full acre was aflame. The smoke seemed to have
Speaker 1: interfered with the drone censors. That was probably the only
Speaker 1: reason their last two escorts had stayed unfucked for so long.
Speaker 1: Manny watched in horror as a large beetle black drone
Speaker 1: buzzed down low and opened up with a machine gun.
Speaker 1: He saw bursts of red as the rounds tore into
Speaker 1: the escorts gunner and flung him off the truck's bed.
Speaker 1: Time to go, Manny slapped Reggie's uninjured shoulder and sprinted
Speaker 1: as fast as his jankie ankle could carry him. It
Speaker 1: was increasingly obvious that his leg was supremely fucked. The
Speaker 1: middle of Manny's back itched the whole run in anticipation
Speaker 1: of a bullet. That peculiar sense was even louder than
Speaker 1: the pain. They reached the jeep, Manny went for the
Speaker 1: driver's side door, pulled it open, and jerked back as
Speaker 1: the soupy remains of a pulped human being oozed out
Speaker 1: onto the asphalt. He heard Reggie start to wretch behind him.
Speaker 1: It was fucked in there, for sure. The man he
Speaker 1: was sort of sure it had been a man, had
Speaker 1: taken a couple of rounds from a very large weapon.
Speaker 1: Manny guessed they'd been fifty caliber mass reactive bolts because
Speaker 1: the impact had torn the man apart. He wasn't sure
Speaker 1: if additional rounds or bone shrapnel had hit the two
Speaker 1: kids in the back seat, but they were all exceptionally dead.
Speaker 1: Many pulled his shirt off and did his best to
Speaker 1: wipe the corpse from as much of the seat as possible.
Speaker 1: He hopped in and glanced over to the journalist. Reggie
Speaker 1: wretched outside, Hey, get the funk in, We don't got all.
Speaker 1: A concussive blast echoed from the field. That was one
Speaker 1: more escort down. The fight was as good as over.
Speaker 1: Many felt a tinge of panic rise up in the
Speaker 1: base of his spine. Reggie still hesitated. Dude, either deal
Speaker 1: with some gore in your clothes or stay here and die.
Speaker 1: Your choice. The Brits snapped out of it, went for
Speaker 1: the passenger door and hopped inside. Manny wasn't a great driver,
Speaker 1: or even a very good one, but this was a
Speaker 1: simple vehicle, and he was blessed with the motivation of
Speaker 1: not wanting to die. He turned the car back on
Speaker 1: and the engine woke up with a rich electronic hum.
Speaker 1: The fixer flipped the vehicle into drive and gunned for
Speaker 1: the tree line. The jeep bounced and swayed over the
Speaker 1: lumpy grassland ter rain. Reggie puked out the window. Manny
Speaker 1: felt nauseous too. He honestly wasn't sure if it was
Speaker 1: more for the pieces of people scattered inside the vehicle
Speaker 1: or sheer motion sickness. Fifteen seconds went by, thirty a minute.
Speaker 1: Manny allowed himself to think they might make it out
Speaker 1: of this alive. And then he heard the buzz, that sickening,
Speaker 1: familiar machine hum that every war zone kid knew, as
Speaker 1: well as the sound of their own mother's voice. A
Speaker 1: drone closing in. Manny jerked his head out the window
Speaker 1: and scanned the sky. The jeep had a pothole, and
Speaker 1: his head slammed to the top of the window frame.
Speaker 1: He saw stars and almost lost control of the vehicle entirely.
Speaker 1: It veered to the right and lifted up onto only
Speaker 1: two wheels. He righted the jeep, spun it back to
Speaker 1: the left, and gunned it again. As he turned the
Speaker 1: other way, he stuck his head out again and scanned
Speaker 1: behind them. There it was the black beadily fucker buzzing
Speaker 1: towards them. It was close enough that he could see
Speaker 1: the glint of its camera optics and the barrel of
Speaker 1: the heavy machine guns slung underneath it. Manny knew it
Speaker 1: was picking up speed to compensate for the recoil of
Speaker 1: its weapon. It would be low on ammunition now and
Speaker 1: probably wait to fire until it was too close to miss.
Speaker 1: The tree line was so near he could almost grab it.
Speaker 1: Another fifteen seconds and they'd be there, But the drone
Speaker 1: was close. They didn't have that long. He looked over
Speaker 1: to the journalist, get ready to bail, Get ready to
Speaker 1: what Manny saw the muzzle flash, and in the same
Speaker 1: instant he spun the wheel hard to the right. The
Speaker 1: drone's first round chunked through the back of the jeep,
Speaker 1: cracked the axle, and blew apart the left tire, but
Speaker 1: the jeep was in the air. An instant later. It
Speaker 1: flipped over like a drunken dolphin, and the rest of
Speaker 1: the drone shots blasted chunks out of the ground where
Speaker 1: the jeep would have been. By the end of the burst,
Speaker 1: the recoil had robbed the drone of its momentum and
Speaker 1: brought it to a spinning halt in the sky. The
Speaker 1: jeep rolled twice and bounced Manny and Reggie around like
Speaker 1: rocks in a tumbler. It hurt it hurt shiploads, but
Speaker 1: Manny was high enough on adrenaline in fear that he
Speaker 1: could almost ignore the pain. Blood streamed from his forehead,
Speaker 1: something ached terribly between his shoulders. When the jeep came
Speaker 1: to a stop, he was deeply surprised to be alive.
Speaker 1: Let's go, he shouted to Reggie, not even a hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure if the journalist had survived the crash. Manny
Speaker 1: pulled himself up out of the open window and then
Speaker 1: reached his hands back blind into the jeep while he
Speaker 1: scanned the sky around them. He felt reggie small hands
Speaker 1: grip his own. They were wet with sweat, maybe blood
Speaker 1: probably both. Manny squeezed pulled him up. The too hopped
Speaker 1: down quick as they could with their sundry wounds. The
Speaker 1: drone had probably veered around and started another loop so
Speaker 1: it could build up the speed for one more accurate
Speaker 1: burst of fire. Many couldn't quite hear the buzz yet,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't hear much of anything over the sound
Speaker 1: of his pounding heart. Reggie pulled ahead of him in
Speaker 1: a lopsided run. Manny tried to pick up speed, but
Speaker 1: his knee just wouldn't let him. Ah. There it was.
Speaker 1: He had three, maybe four seconds before that big gun
Speaker 1: opened up again. The tree line was only about a
Speaker 1: hundred feet away, so close and yet too far for
Speaker 1: him to possibly make it in time. I really didn't
Speaker 1: want to die here. I was so close to getting out.
Speaker 1: He thought of a picture he'd seen of the Bavarian Alps,
Speaker 1: white snow filled valleys and rich pine forests. I'm never
Speaker 1: going to see that or anything else, Reggie looked back
Speaker 1: as he neared the reline. Many appreciated the gesture. It
Speaker 1: was dumb as fuck, though I run. The fixer bellowed
Speaker 1: at the top of his lungs. The journalist didn't hesitate
Speaker 1: this time. He bolted past the tree line and disappeared
Speaker 1: into the wooded thicket. Manny felt a weight lift off
Speaker 1: his shoulders. He was about to be torn apart by
Speaker 1: some nut fuck martyr with an itchy trigger finger and
Speaker 1: a joystick. But he'd done his job. He'd gotten his
Speaker 1: journalists to safety. Well not quite safety, he thought, but
Speaker 1: whatever best I could do under the circumstances. The hum
Speaker 1: grew louder. Manny tried to coax a little more speed
Speaker 1: out of his wounded leg, even though he knew he
Speaker 1: was too far away now to make the tree line.
Speaker 1: Even at a dead sprint. It would have been nice
Speaker 1: to see Berlin or Paris. Oh well. He heard the
Speaker 1: thumping sound of heavy gunfire and braced himself for the
Speaker 1: instant of agony that would precede his end. But instead
Speaker 1: he heard the sound of impact and crunching metal behind him,
Speaker 1: followed by a high pitched mechanical wine. Something heavy and
Speaker 1: black crashed into the ground ahead of him. He made
Speaker 1: it to the tree line, pushed the underbrush, got perhaps
Speaker 1: twenty feet into the woods, and collapsed against a tree.
Speaker 1: For a few seconds, he just let the pain wash
Speaker 1: over him, his knee, his shoulders. He could feel something
Speaker 1: stuck deep in his back too, maybe a shard of
Speaker 1: glass or some shrapnel. From the start of the firefight,
Speaker 1: he had quite a few deep cuts the trauma nanites,
Speaker 1: and his circulatory system had clotted most of them, but
Speaker 1: the deeper ones still oozed blood. It was hard to
Speaker 1: tell just how injured he really was, since his body
Speaker 1: was also covered in blood and viscerraph from the jeep's
Speaker 1: previous occupants. Espera, he thought, how am I alive? His
Speaker 1: brain gradually spun up to meet his body. Someone had
Speaker 1: shot that murder beetle out of the sky. But who Reggie?
Speaker 1: Where would he have gotten a gun? And the man
Speaker 1: was British. He couldn't shoot Reggie. He shouted over here.
Speaker 1: The brit called back. He sounded weirdly cheerful. I'm er
Speaker 1: think we've made some friends. For the first time in
Speaker 1: his life, Manny found himself face to face with two
Speaker 1: post humans. The first appeared to be a lady. She
Speaker 1: was hunk it up in the branches of a tree,
Speaker 1: and she cradled a very large gun in her hands.
Speaker 1: Most of her body sort of faded into the forest.
Speaker 1: She was only easy to see now because of her smile.
Speaker 1: The shine of her teeth was quite unlike anything else
Speaker 1: he'd ever seen. They appeared to be made of some
Speaker 1: sort of strange, swirling colored metal. Where a normal person
Speaker 1: would have had incisors, she had long, curved fangs. The
Speaker 1: other chrombed was a black man. He was of average height,
Speaker 1: with a muscular body and a wide build. His head
Speaker 1: was shaved, and he had a plump, friendly face and
Speaker 1: round cheeks that accentuated his broad smile. He wore a
Speaker 1: red kilt and a silver breastplate over his muscular chest.
Speaker 1: It gleamed in the afternoon sun. His only weapon appeared
Speaker 1: to be an enormous sledgehammer, larger than Reggie's entire body.
Speaker 1: He smiled and nodded in Manny. His whole body twitched
Speaker 1: as he stood there, as if a constant stream of
Speaker 1: electricity buzzed through him. Reggie stood in front of the man.
Speaker 1: It looked like the journalist had run into the post
Speaker 1: humans during his flight from the drone. He looked terrified
Speaker 1: in the friendly sort of way only the British could manage. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: Manny said. He wasn't sure how nomadic half god warrior
Speaker 1: people preferred to be addressed. Y'all seemed a safe bet,
Speaker 1: hey guy, said the woman up in the tree soap
Speaker 1: said the kilted man um. Can we help you, Manny asked?
Speaker 1: The man chuckled. He had a deep, throaty laugh that
Speaker 1: bounced off the trees and seemed to get louder as
Speaker 1: it reverberated. Na, buddy, you guys a look pretty near death.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess you don't have anything I want nice pajamas, though,
Speaker 1: He pointed down to Manny's blood soaked and burned pajama bottoms.
Speaker 1: The fixer's face turned red with embarrassment. They might have whiskey,
Speaker 1: said the woman. Ask if they have whiskey. The big
Speaker 1: man smiled, lowered his mall, and spoke the name's schoofucker Mike,
Speaker 1: He said. The lady who shut down your drone is
Speaker 1: Topaz McMillan. Do you guys have whiskey? Manny didn't, but
Speaker 1: Reggie did. Holy fuck, he shouted, I actually do. Somehow,
Speaker 1: the journalist hadn't lost his backpack in the chaos. He
Speaker 1: unzipped the main compartment, dig around for a few seconds,
Speaker 1: and produced a small metal flask. Reggie passed it off
Speaker 1: to skullfucker Mike, who took a belt of it and
Speaker 1: let out a dog's bark. He didn't bark like a dog,
Speaker 1: it was the exact sound of a large hound barking.
Speaker 1: Schofucker Mike passed the flask up to Topaz. She took
Speaker 1: a poll and cooed appreciatively. All right, Scully, I like
Speaker 1: these guys. They get a ride. A ride, asked Reggie,
Speaker 1: a ride to where to rolling fuck? She said, to
Speaker 1: the City of Wheels Chapter eight Rowland. So you were there, right,
Speaker 1: Sardar asked you saw the white house burn. Sardar was
Speaker 1: Jim's mechanic. He was a short, slightly pudgy kid with
Speaker 1: a wide, handsome face and scan a couple of shades
Speaker 1: darker than Roland's own. This was maybe his twentieth question
Speaker 1: since Jim's aircraft had dropped their transport off two hours ago.
Speaker 1: The other members of Jim's team hadn't said so much
Speaker 1: as a word to Rowland. They all listened, though he
Speaker 1: could see the tension in their shoulders and feel the
Speaker 1: vibrations in the air as their ears twitched and their
Speaker 1: eyes darted over to watch his replies. The fact that
Speaker 1: they were all cramped together inside the armored confines of
Speaker 1: a maddis a PC made it easy to read the room.
Speaker 1: Roland wasn't a hundred percent sure if the young mirk
Speaker 1: had been put up to the task of questioning him,
Speaker 1: or if Sardar was just an inquisitive soul. Roland smelled
Speaker 1: a light drizzle of nervousness waft off the boy. He'd
Speaker 1: caught several glances between Sardar and Bigsby, but neither of
Speaker 1: those facts were proof of anything. Nervousness was a perfectly
Speaker 1: natural reaction to hanging out in a cramped metal box
Speaker 1: with a guy you'd just been trying to murder. I
Speaker 1: remember pieces of it, Roland replied, fucking somebody in the
Speaker 1: Lincoln bedroom, stealing liquor from the kitchens, shooting in the
Speaker 1: ball return the White House bowling alley. Sardar shook his head.
Speaker 1: That's fucking loco. You're like a history book. I bet
Speaker 1: I read about ship you did back in high school. Probably,
Speaker 1: Roland said with a shrug. He had about nine clear
Speaker 1: memories of his life before the shack on Camelback Mountain,
Speaker 1: and none of them felt very his story. Rick, can
Speaker 1: I get your autograph? Man, Sardar asked Bigsby the post
Speaker 1: human Rowland had been about to arm club in a
Speaker 1: submission a day ago. Shook his head and groaned in embarrassment.
Speaker 1: One of the women he'd buried in his collapsed hovel
Speaker 1: grunted out a laugh. Her name was Nadine or something
Speaker 1: with an inn. Anyway, she and her partner as Ame
Speaker 1: were both close assault specialists, like the rest of the crew,
Speaker 1: except Sardar. They've been cold to Roland ever since he'd
Speaker 1: beat the living hell out of them. Something occurred to him. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got a question for you, he said to Sardar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your crew has been real pissy to me this whole ride.
Speaker 1: Roland nodded at Bigsby. How exactly did you guys expect
Speaker 1: that fight to go down? Sardar pursed his lips. He
Speaker 1: seemed at a loss for a second. Then he said,
Speaker 1: Jim framed it as just a standard quilt team action.
Speaker 1: We've done that sort of thing a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Last year. There was this crumbed out Nazi in Idaho,
Speaker 1: so he tricked you. Then Roland interrupted, convinced you this
Speaker 1: was just another assassination when all he really wanted to
Speaker 1: do was get my attention. Roland looked around and realized
Speaker 1: the rest of the transport was glaring at him. Bigsby
Speaker 1: spat on the ground in front of Roland's foot. We'd
Speaker 1: deviced you if he'd given us another minute. Roland just
Speaker 1: laughed and turned his eyes back to Sardar. It's clear
Speaker 1: you and the other guy, he gestured at the young
Speaker 1: man next to Sardar, are the only smart bastards in
Speaker 1: the unit. Since you didn't get back up when I
Speaker 1: beat you down, Sardar squirmed a little, clearly uncomfortable me
Speaker 1: and pedro He gestured to the other man. We're just engineers.
Speaker 1: We don't go toe to toe with the with whatever
Speaker 1: you are all this conversation, the most he'd had in years,
Speaker 1: made Roland feel uncomfortably lucid. He rooted around in the
Speaker 1: tattered old backpack he'd brought with him. It contained one
Speaker 1: rusty Mateba auto revolver that he'd found under the floorboards
Speaker 1: of his collapsed shack, and five point oh eight seven
Speaker 1: kilograms of assorted narcotics, mostly opiates. Roland remembered how fun
Speaker 1: it was to watch things explode while high on oxy.
Speaker 1: He pulled a pillbottle out of the sack, delauted, and
Speaker 1: poured half of it into his mouth. Roland swallowed, then
Speaker 1: guzzled the second half. Jesus said, will the man he'd
Speaker 1: stabbed in the throat with a piece of wood yesterday,
Speaker 1: This is the guy who kicked the ship out of us.
Speaker 1: I am sorry about that, Roland said. If I'd known
Speaker 1: we were going to wind up sharing an a PC,
Speaker 1: I probably would have just choked you out. Mortar fire incoming.
Speaker 1: Roland's hindbrain ran the calculations estimated it at a round
Speaker 1: eight miles out. He sat up straight, since his focus
Speaker 1: towards the sound of the fire. Bigsby and asime reacted
Speaker 1: the same way. They'd clearly splurged on the good ears.
Speaker 1: The rest of the team didn't seem to have heard.
Speaker 1: They're shooting ahead. As Amey said, sixty millimeter mortars. Get up, folks,
Speaker 1: Biggsby added, as he pulled his own S thirty barret
Speaker 1: assault rifle from its resting place on the wall behind him.
Speaker 1: The funk was that Asimey cocked an eyebrow, her left
Speaker 1: ear twitched, her tan, lean face flushed red with excitement.
Speaker 1: I don't recognize that one me either, Biggsby grunted. The
Speaker 1: other post human looked to Roland with clear frustration. You
Speaker 1: recognize that, Roland did. It's an M one forty two,
Speaker 1: he said, Mobile rocket Artillery Antique U S Military issue.
Speaker 1: Will looked over to Biggsby, confused, I've never heard of
Speaker 1: anything like that in the s d f's armory. It's
Speaker 1: not the s d F, Roland explained, slurring his words
Speaker 1: more than a little. The opiates had just started to hit.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, I loved allotted. He thought, that's in coming,
Speaker 1: can't you tell? He said, not a not from this distance.
Speaker 1: Asimee answered, she glanced awkwardly over to her partner, Nadine,
Speaker 1: put a hand on her thigh and squeezed. Could you
Speaker 1: not be monstrously fucked up when we're about to go
Speaker 1: into battle, Biggsby asked. He seemed angry. Roland debated, offering
Speaker 1: one of his handfuls of pills. He decided he'd much
Speaker 1: rather save them for later. First off, I didn't sign
Speaker 1: up for battle, he explained, as he popped and chewed
Speaker 1: a pair of morphine tablets. Second, we still got about
Speaker 1: almost eight miles before we at the front. Plenty of
Speaker 1: time to sober up. Eight miles, asked Sardar. The Richardson
Speaker 1: line is fifteen miles out. More mortars crumped in the distance.
Speaker 1: Roland heard blossoms of heavy machine gun fire too, and
Speaker 1: the hums of dozens of assault drones. Hey Beggs, the
Speaker 1: voice of the APC's driver crackled over the vehicle intercom.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of craziness coming in from the man
Speaker 1: S d F channels. It sounds like a major assault.
Speaker 1: The martyrs have pushed all the way to deep Ellum.
Speaker 1: Some of the field commanders are talking about a full retreat,
Speaker 1: Jesus shitting christ Will, Bigsby, and Nadine all cursed at
Speaker 1: the same time. Roland thought it was cute. It tugged
Speaker 1: at his heart strings a little. He missed being part
Speaker 1: of a close knit team. Some of his stronger memory
Speaker 1: fragments involved really good times he'd had during and after
Speaker 1: the war. He remembered blowing up an armored school bus
Speaker 1: with a guy named Mike, throwing rotten oranges at a
Speaker 1: government sniper with Jim. His brain also brought up snatches
Speaker 1: of late night drinking sessions and watching cartoons on an
Speaker 1: old projector in the desert. When he closed his eyes,
Speaker 1: he could smell the burning man's innita smoke of their
Speaker 1: camp fire. Payne tugged at his heart, but he was
Speaker 1: jerked out of his reverie by the sound of an explosion.
Speaker 1: It was big and close enough that everyone in the
Speaker 1: APC heard it, even though Roland's hind brain put the
Speaker 1: distance at over seven miles away. V. B. I, E. D. Bigsby,
Speaker 1: and as Amy said at the same time, real big one.
Speaker 1: As Amy nodded. Roland could tell that the explosives rigged
Speaker 1: vehicle had been an E series Mercedes truck. But he
Speaker 1: didn't bring that up. No one liked to know it all.
Speaker 1: Biggsby's mouth opened and closed, the telltale sign of someone
Speaker 1: having a subvocal conversation through their deck. Roland could have
Speaker 1: read his lips, but that would have been rude. Instead,
Speaker 1: he looked over to Sardar. If the gig gets called
Speaker 1: on account of war, you want to get ship faced
Speaker 1: in Austin with me? The kid blinked, then replied, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, but I'm pretty sure boss Man's gonna want
Speaker 1: us to do the job, even if it's hot out there.
Speaker 1: Roland growled a little without thinking, and Sardar cringed. I
Speaker 1: did not sign up to defend against an act of invasion.
Speaker 1: I'm here to funk up property, not people. Jim says,
Speaker 1: that's still the plan. You funk up the property, Biggsby grunted.
Speaker 1: My fam and I are here to funk up the people.
Speaker 1: A red hot cherry of anger bloomed in Roland's heart.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the deal, he said, and Jim knows it.
Speaker 1: One of you call him and loot me in on
Speaker 1: your screen. I'll set this right. Call him yourself, spat
Speaker 1: Biggsby he can't, Sardar pointed out, he's got a dead deck,
Speaker 1: no signal at all, true null. Why the hell would
Speaker 1: you go null? Asimee started to ask, Biggsby interrupted her,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter why this ascopters null. I'm on with
Speaker 1: Jim and he says you're under contracts. Still, we'll make
Speaker 1: sure you don't have to cack anybody. For a moment,
Speaker 1: Roland focused his attention outside the little a p C.
Speaker 1: His hindbrain coalated the bursts and vibrations that echoed out
Speaker 1: around the battlefield. It compared them with his peda bites
Speaker 1: of stored combat data and the last map of Dallas
Speaker 1: he downloaded before severing his deck. In a couple of seconds,
Speaker 1: he had what his hindenbrain assured him was an eighty
Speaker 1: percent accurate projection of the current fighting. It didn't look
Speaker 1: good for the defenders. And what if it's too much
Speaker 1: for you guys out there? Rowland asked, you can expect
Speaker 1: my ass to murder a bunch of strangers to get
Speaker 1: you and your fam home safe. Biggsby rolled his eyes.
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of fucking martyrs. Maybe they caught the
Speaker 1: s D off with their pants down, but they'll loose
Speaker 1: steam soon enough. Those savages are all baseline sapien. We
Speaker 1: got chrome on our side, Roland shrugged. If you're wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take one of your nipples home with me.
Speaker 1: Just a heads up. The other post human's face turned purple.
Speaker 1: It grew purpler still when Sardar laughed at the remark, Sorry, Beggs,
Speaker 1: it's fucking funny, man. It wasn't a joke. Roland has
Speaker 1: shared them both. They hit Dallas proper ten minutes later.
Speaker 1: Their arrival was heralded by the sounds of car horns,
Speaker 1: squealing brakes, and frustrated shouts, the songs of a city
Speaker 1: at war. Flashes of memory from this same city in
Speaker 1: a different war shot through Roland's mind. They kept him
Speaker 1: occupied while Bigsby and his squad prepped their combat gear.
Speaker 1: There was something almost comforting about the sound of men
Speaker 1: and women arming for battle. He remembered the way Mike
Speaker 1: ran through the lyrics of Iye of the Tiger before
Speaker 1: every op, and the careful way Jim had loaded his
Speaker 1: pre battle meth pipe. The crump of mortar fire and
Speaker 1: the boom of heavier artillery grew louder and outer. The
Speaker 1: sour sinse of gamma, amino, butaric acid, cortisol, and epinephrin
Speaker 1: filled the cabin. Bigsby's team had good game faces, but
Speaker 1: they were nervous. Biggs the driver's voice crackled over the intercom.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a shipload of hostile drone activity. Sky is
Speaker 1: fucking angry right now. Might be best at dismountain hit.
Speaker 1: Roland smelled the fuel burning off in the wake of
Speaker 1: the hell fire missile roughly a second before it hit.
Speaker 1: He knew the archaic munition didn't have the ability to
Speaker 1: penetrate a man as a PC, but he still warned
Speaker 1: his fellows missiles are common. What Sardar asked, and then
Speaker 1: it hit. The impact rocked the vehicle on its axles
Speaker 1: and bounced its hapless passengers into the hard metal edges
Speaker 1: of the cabin. Roland bounced with them, although for him
Speaker 1: the pain of impact was more curiosity than actual discomfort.
Speaker 1: The driver braked hard. Roland heard and felt as the
Speaker 1: APEC collided with what sounded like the outer wall of
Speaker 1: a large concrete building. He smelled blood on Sardar and
Speaker 1: nadine from the sound of the blast and the resulting crash.
Speaker 1: He guessed the APC's front axle had splintered. Ryan, the
Speaker 1: driver was unconscious. He'd hit his head hard enough that
Speaker 1: the trauma nanites in his blood stream had knocked him
Speaker 1: out while they worked to stop the swelling in his brain.
Speaker 1: Out out, move it, motherfucker's, Biggsby shouted. There was a
Speaker 1: hiss as the rear inside exit hatches of the a
Speaker 1: PC fired open light streamed into the vehicle. Biggsby was
Speaker 1: out first, his very large rifle at the ready. Nadine
Speaker 1: and Asime followed behind him. The former had a Juggernaut
Speaker 1: auto shotgun, the latter had an IM fourteen sniper rifle.
Speaker 1: There were no infantry near by, not yet, but Rowland
Speaker 1: closed his eyes, concentrated, and after a second his hindbrain
Speaker 1: guessed that the nearest ground troops were about a quarter
Speaker 1: of a mile away, six men in Airy's pattern powered armor,
Speaker 1: followed by fifty unmodified human soldiers, a half dozen technicals,
Speaker 1: and two drone carriers. The men in the Airy suits
Speaker 1: were the only thing that concerned him. Powered armor couldn't
Speaker 1: make an unmodified human into a true match for a
Speaker 1: god fucking monster engine like himself, but it could give
Speaker 1: a squad the firepower they needed to do some real damage.
Speaker 1: If they could hurt Rowland, they could kill Biggsby and
Speaker 1: his team. His hindbrain told him that the power armored
Speaker 1: soldiers would be in weapons range within two minutes, just
Speaker 1: enough time to roll a blunt. He grabbed a blunt
Speaker 1: wrap and a bag of ground weed out of his
Speaker 1: backpack and started to roll. As he walked out of
Speaker 1: the abandoned a PC, Sardar and Pedro had taken cover
Speaker 1: behind the vehicle and started to administer basic first aid
Speaker 1: to their wounded driver. Will was a few meters ahead
Speaker 1: on overwatch, covering them all with his heavy M ninety
Speaker 1: four belt fed grenade launcher. The others were nowhere to
Speaker 1: be seen. Roland heard them though, About fifteen meters west
Speaker 1: of the stricken transport. He felt them take up firing positions.
Speaker 1: Should I warn Biggsby about the armored guys, Roland wondered.
Speaker 1: He shook his head and said nah out loud. Sardar
Speaker 1: stared at him. The weed was dry and slightly yellowed
Speaker 1: with age. Roland had certainly smoked better, but he'd smoked
Speaker 1: worse often enough not to complain. He drizzled the crumbled
Speaker 1: herb into the blunt wrap and rolled it between his fingers.
Speaker 1: He licked the seam and sealed it. As he watched
Speaker 1: Sardar shoot a stem capsule into Ryan's neck, the driver
Speaker 1: started to regain consciousness. Roland lit his blunt, took a hit,
Speaker 1: and offered it to the man. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: land of the living, he said, with a cheerful grin pot.
Speaker 1: Sardar gave him a stern look. Is this really the time?
Speaker 1: The screech of a rocket propelled grenade filled the air
Speaker 1: outgoing fire? It must have been from a nearby SDF
Speaker 1: position engaged with the advancing martyrs. Of course there's time,
Speaker 1: said Roland. We got a solid ninety seconds until they're here.
Speaker 1: Might as well get high. The kid rebuffed his offer.
Speaker 1: Roland would have been a little hurt if he hadn't
Speaker 1: secretly hoped they'd turn him down. It took a lot
Speaker 1: of pot to get him high. One whole blunt was
Speaker 1: about the right amount for where he wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Bigsby opened up with his heavy machine gun. A vague
Speaker 1: worry started to grow inside Roland. The armored martyrs had
Speaker 1: moved faster than anticipated. Am I going to have time
Speaker 1: to finish smoking. He was thankful that he'd at least
Speaker 1: loaded up on pain killers before reaching the front. The
Speaker 1: machine gun was joined by the sharp crack of Nadine's
Speaker 1: sniper rifle and the rich bellow of Asime's auto shotgun.
Speaker 1: It sounded like she was firing tungsten core penetrators rather
Speaker 1: the explosive Dragon's breadth round she'd loaded during the assault
Speaker 1: on roland Shack. That was probably smart. Are you going
Speaker 1: to do something, Sardar asked. Roland could smell his fear
Speaker 1: wafted off him like a fine mist. He heard the
Speaker 1: heavy hum of a suit mounted rotary chain gun, and
Speaker 1: then another incoming fire. A few rounds arced and ricocheted
Speaker 1: off the body of the a PC Stardar and Pedro
Speaker 1: dove for cover and pulled Ryan with them. Roland didn't move.
Speaker 1: His hindbrain had plotted the trajectories of the errand rounds
Speaker 1: as soon as they'd left their barrels. There'd been no danger, well,
Speaker 1: no danger to them. By the sound of it. The
Speaker 1: power armored martyrs had pinned a Biggs be down. Roland
Speaker 1: could smell Medine's blood in the air. She was alive,
Speaker 1: but injured Will started to fire and pumped a steady
Speaker 1: stream of explosives out in a high arc in front
Speaker 1: of the martyrs. Roland felt as the men scattered. He
Speaker 1: also felt the footfalls of dozens of normal infantry two
Speaker 1: meters behind the power armored vanguard. He heard the rich
Speaker 1: thunk of Recoilis rifles being bolted into the ground. Roland
Speaker 1: puffed on his blunt as he considered the tactical situation.
Speaker 1: Bigsby and his team seemed to have knocked out one
Speaker 1: of the armored martyrs, but they were alone and unsupported.
Speaker 1: The STF was in full retreat, and the small squad
Speaker 1: didn't have the firepower or the chrome to hold off
Speaker 1: what was coming. Roland did, but he very much disliked
Speaker 1: the idea of murdering several dozen brainwashed idiots. These kids
Speaker 1: weren't responsible for anything beyond buying into artful propaganda and
Speaker 1: lofty promises. He didn't see them as worse than any
Speaker 1: other gaggle of armed eighteen to twenty two year olds
Speaker 1: in the history of war. Hey, Sardar, you got a wrench,
Speaker 1: Roland asked, what, Yes, Sardar replied, can I borrow it? Um?
Speaker 1: The young mercenary raised an eyebrow in confusion. It's not
Speaker 1: a sex thing, Roland has shared him. I never assumed
Speaker 1: it was, Sardar said, then can I have it? Sardar
Speaker 1: stared at him for a long beat and then said, okay.
Speaker 1: He handed over his wrench. It was nice, more than
Speaker 1: two feet long and made from fifteen point four pounds
Speaker 1: of stamped steel. This is perfect, Roland told Sardar. Perfect
Speaker 1: for what Sardar asked, wounding, Roland replied, and with that
Speaker 1: he was off. Roland could break thirty miles an hour
Speaker 1: at a dead sprint, but with all the pain killers
Speaker 1: in weed he'd just taken, and that didn't sound super fun.
Speaker 1: So he strolled along at a brisk eighteen miles per hour,
Speaker 1: darted by will and zig zagged his way past a
Speaker 1: few hundred errant rounds. The armored Martyrs fired to suppress
Speaker 1: bigsby squad. Two of the big recoilist rifles fired their
Speaker 1: giant explosive tipped munitions. Roland reached Nadine and Asame's position.
Speaker 1: The former was down, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Her
Speaker 1: lover fired from cover. Roland felt as one of the
Speaker 1: explosive rounds arched towards their position. The other was headed
Speaker 1: towards Bigsby. Roland's hindbrain guessed that Biggsby would survive the
Speaker 1: hit Nadine and Asame wouldn't. He jumped forward and grabbed
Speaker 1: them both while still airborne, and the second before missile
Speaker 1: met masonry. He threw them back out of the blast radius.
Speaker 1: He knew the landing would hurt, but both women were
Speaker 1: chromed enough to survive. After he tossed them, Roland slid
Speaker 1: to a stop on top of the pile of ruined
Speaker 1: bricks they'd hidden behind. The rocket propelled munition hit Abou
Speaker 1: up three feet below him. The seventy five millimeter round
Speaker 1: contained a half kilogram of hexagen, enough explosive power to
Speaker 1: tear a hole in the side of a small tank.
Speaker 1: It detonated and turned the pile of bricks into a
Speaker 1: shrapnel volcano. Roland hopped again. His hind brain made it
Speaker 1: clear that he wouldn't avoid all, nor even most of
Speaker 1: the shrapnel. Medlin brick tore through his biceps, his gut,
Speaker 1: his legs, and his pectorals. Most of the shrapnel stopped
Speaker 1: at the subdermal carapace that protected his vital organs. A
Speaker 1: few pieces went further. They tore one kidney in half
Speaker 1: and pierced one of his hearts, But Roland had multiple
Speaker 1: redundant backups for every important organ. His medical nanites had
Speaker 1: already started to purge the foreign matter and repair the damage.
Speaker 1: When he hit the ground, the battle high rolled in,
Speaker 1: and roland synapses flooded with endorphins, serotonin, and enough morphine
Speaker 1: to kill a middleweight elephant. The chemical elation of imminent
Speaker 1: combat filled his senses. Roland wasn't just high on war.
Speaker 1: He was tripping balls. Sweet shitting fox, I've missed this.
Speaker 1: Roland flipped a jaunty salute to Biggsby as he rented
Speaker 1: forward past the man. This time he let his legs
Speaker 1: pump as fast as they could and rushed towards the
Speaker 1: five advancing armored martyrs in the quarter second before contact,
Speaker 1: Roland had his first solid look at the enemy. Their
Speaker 1: suits were definitely some iteration of the basic Aries design.
Speaker 1: They had the familiar insectoid helmet with its bulbous eyes
Speaker 1: and heavy nasal sensor blister. The shoulders, chests, growing thighs,
Speaker 1: and shin were all heavily reinforced. These were breaching suits
Speaker 1: meant to lead in advance and absorb an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of incoming fire. The armor was painted the dull yellow
Speaker 1: of a Texas grassland. Roland could see red and blue
Speaker 1: on the edges of the pauldron's Republic of Texas colors,
Speaker 1: but the suits had clearly been painted over repurposed by
Speaker 1: their new owners. Two of the men had large white
Speaker 1: crosses daubed across their chests. One man had a cross
Speaker 1: painted over his face plate. The paint jobs seemed new.
Speaker 1: These suits had been captured or handed over recently. Their
Speaker 1: wearers moved like competent fighters who weren't used to the
Speaker 1: capabilities full powered armor. Two of the martyrs had shoulder
Speaker 1: mounted missile pods with angry looking rockets inside them. Three
Speaker 1: of them mounted rotary chain cannons between their targeting systems
Speaker 1: and reflex augmentation hardware. They could have hurt him if
Speaker 1: they'd had their ship together, but they didn't, and he
Speaker 1: hit the point man like a bag of concrete thrown
Speaker 1: by a gorilla. Roland didn't even bother to swing the
Speaker 1: wrench yet, He just let his substantial body weight turn
Speaker 1: him into a post human battering ram. The first soldier
Speaker 1: hit the ground. Roland atop him with a whine of
Speaker 1: pistons and internal motors. He tried to bring his as
Speaker 1: salt cannon to bear on Roland, but the barrel was
Speaker 1: too long. Roland slammed Sardar's wrench into the man's crotch
Speaker 1: eleven times in the space of a second. The suit's
Speaker 1: growing armor was rated to stop a fifty caliber rifle round.
Speaker 1: It caved in on the third hit. Stop, he shouted
Speaker 1: inside his own mind, Stop, you're going to kill him.
Speaker 1: Roland pulled back with considerable effort. His brain wanted more
Speaker 1: in every impact fed a few more endorphins into the hopper,
Speaker 1: but he managed to stop himself before he did a
Speaker 1: reparable arm This hesitation made him a target, though One
Speaker 1: of the armored martyrs shot him four times and ripped
Speaker 1: deep gouges in his torso. Roland rushed the man and
Speaker 1: slapped his weapon aside. The drugs flooded into him again
Speaker 1: as he swung his wrench up underhanded into the poor
Speaker 1: fellow's chin. Bone shattered on the first swing. Biggsby fired.
Speaker 1: Roland felt one of the other armored martyrs go down
Speaker 1: knee caps and throats, shot out. The two remaining martyrs
Speaker 1: opted to retreat, but it was a fighting retreat. They
Speaker 1: bounded backwards and launched a flurry of rockets towards Roland.
Speaker 1: Discover fire these he had to avoid. Roland could eat
Speaker 1: small arms fire all day. Rockets were not small. He
Speaker 1: shoved the wrench into his waistband and threw himself into
Speaker 1: an elegant back flip. He may be wanted to impress
Speaker 1: Bigsby a little. He landed fourteen feet back from his
Speaker 1: prior position, and the same continuous motion he picked up
Speaker 1: two fist sized chunks of concrete off the ground, flipped
Speaker 1: back again, and launched both improvised missiles at the retreating martyrs.
Speaker 1: The rockets impacted one after the other and spaces Roland
Speaker 1: had been in the millisecond before. Shrapnel from the detonations
Speaker 1: tore at his skin and penetrated his less critical organs.
Speaker 1: Roland's hindbrain registered at least thirty new injuries, none of
Speaker 1: them were serious enough that he felt actual pain. He
Speaker 1: backflipped again, definitely show boating, and landed eight feet ahead
Speaker 1: of the last rocket and right in front of Biggsby's
Speaker 1: fighting position. Right as he landed, the chunks of concrete
Speaker 1: he'd thrown impacted the face plates of both martyrs at
Speaker 1: around eleven ft per second. That impact wouldn't be enough
Speaker 1: to kill men in Airy's armor, probably, but it was
Speaker 1: enough to break most of their suit sensors and shatter
Speaker 1: a lot of the bones in their faces. Roland fixed
Speaker 1: Biggsby with an evil grin as the last two power
Speaker 1: armored men staggered back, wavered on their feet and collapsed.
Speaker 1: Son of Biggsby started to curse in a low, odd voice,
Speaker 1: because I'll be taking that nipple now. Hey, everybody, Robert
Speaker 1: Evans here. I hope you just enjoyed the chapter you
Speaker 1: listen to. I hope you enjoyed the chapters to come.
Speaker 1: If you would like to read the text version of
Speaker 1: this book either on the web or on your e
Speaker 1: reader as an e pub, you can find those on
Speaker 1: the website a t r book dot com. So again,
Speaker 1: the free ad free e pub and the text of
Speaker 1: every chapter will be on a t R book dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks