Southlands

by D. J. Molles

  “He has zero civilian oversight,” Julia said.

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Lee raised his eyebrows. “Imagine how much more successful the UES would be if we didn’t have to deal with a bunch of dissenters like the Lincolnists.”

  Julia pointed to the ground. “Lee, he’s Julius Caesar out here. And at some point in time, that’s something that’s going to have to be dealt with.”

  Lee looked to Abe, hoping for backup, but Abe shied away from his gaze, and nodded along with Julia. “She’s right. This isn’t what the Coordinators were supposed to do. They weren’t supposed to set up a military regime.”

  Lee grunted. “I don’t think you can call a dozen hideouts in the hills a military regime.”

  “What he said concerns me.”

  “About what?”

  “About how when things are safe enough, then they’ll worry about a civilian government.” Abe looked at Lee, with an uncertain squint to his eyes. “Briggs said a very similar thing to me once. How he couldn’t afford to let Greeley be too democratic, because it wasn’t safe enough yet.”

  Lee couldn’t help but wince at that. Sharing an opinion with Briggs didn’t automatically make you wrong. But it wasn’t a shining recommendation either.

  “We’re supposed to be re-establishing society,” Abe continued. “He has no society. Any civilians that are in his ranks have been militarized. And he’s the dictator-general. I agree with Julia. That’s a problem.”

  Lee shook his head. “So maybe that’s a problem, Abe. A problem for years down the road. What about right now? What about the problems that we’re facing right now? You wanna go back to the UES and tell them, ‘Hey, that twenty-eight thousand gallons is all we’re ever gonna get, so make it last’? We bought ourselves a year. At best.”

  Abe bobbled his head, not entirely convinced, but not arguing either.

  Lee looked at Julia. “You know, the civilians in Fort Bragg accuse us of being a kill squad, too. Did you know that?”

  Julia nodded. “Yeah, of course I know that. But not everyone thinks that way. It’s a small sect of people. If I were to guess, they’d all have ties to Elsie Foster.”

  “My point is,” Lee growled. “We do what we have to, no matter the fact that it’s unpalatable to some people. And I think Tex is doing what he has to do. If he played by the same rules we did, he’d be dead by now.” Lee was getting hot under the collar and took a breath to cool himself. “He’s not a warlord. Not a dictator-general. I trust him. And when the time comes, I don’t think we’ll have to wrestle power away from him.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that. No one knows anything. But I can make a reasonable inference based on what I know about Tex. And I say he’s not like that.” Lee pointed to Abe. “Christ, Abe, you know the guy, too. Are you really worried about this?”

  Abe held up both hands. “All I’m saying is that Julia makes a good point. Allies can be tricky. We gotta think about who we’re getting into bed with. We gotta think about the long run.”

  “I am thinking about the long run,” Lee said. “I’m thinking about surviving the long run. But we gotta fight one battle at a time, guys. Right now, that battle is against Nuevas Fronteras.”

  Julia surprised Lee by being the one to squash it. “You’re right, Lee.”

  He waited for a caveat.

  She reached out and touched his arm, looking earnest. “But just keep it mind, Lee. Play your cards close to your chest, and know that your friends today might not be your friends tomorrow.”

  Lee grimaced. “Sounds like politics.”

  She offered him a grim smile. “It is. And we all know how good you are with that.”

  Lee admitted it with a nod. Politics was poison to him. He wanted to confront all his problems head on, he wanted to defeat them in battle. It was a great way to win fights, and a lousy way to play politics.

  “You do what you’re good at, Lee,” she said. “Just don’t forget that other people might be playing different games, and have different prizes in mind.”

  Lee took a deep breath and looked at each of them. “I got only one prize in mind. And that’s getting Texas and the UES hooked up so that the three of us can get out of here and back to Bragg.”

  ***

  Claire Staley moved through Fort Bragg like it was an alternate plane of existence.

  Like she was a bubble of reality floating through an expanse of nothingness.

  She sometimes felt very strongly, as she did in that moment, that none of this could possibly be real. That it was all a vivid fever dream, and she would wake up at any moment, back in a wooden cage surrounded by a dozen other females whose sole purpose in life was to be impregnated like breeding sows.

  When this thought came to her, it felt like the world was tilting, and only through sheer force of concentration could she stabilize it and keep herself from tumbling off.

  She had escaped them.

  But she would never really be free.

  Anger helped. Her body vibrated with it. It clouded pain like an opioid. It reworked the framework of her existence into something simpler. Life is always simpler when there is an enemy to direct yourself at. It keeps you from thinking too much about yourself.

  Her enemy was all around her.

  They passed her on the sidewalk. Too stupid or too uncaring to see her for what she was.

  These people are not what you sacrificed yourself for.

  And oh, how Claire had sacrificed herself.

  When she’d first been captured by The Followers of the Rapture, three years ago, she’d resisted them at every step. When they came to the wooden cage with all the other females that they kept as concubines, she would fight them, believing that if she held out long enough, her father—the great Colonel Staley—would eventually rescue her.

  What she’d discovered was that he would never save her.

  The only ally she had in the world was herself.

  And then she had sacrificed a piece of herself. She’d given them a great chunk of her soul, knowing that it would eventually allow her to escape them. She had begun to go willingly with them to their beds. She had begun to actually hope she would get pregnant. Because if she could get pregnant, she knew that they would take her out of the cage, and once she was out of the cage, she knew she might find a way to escape.

  She had never gotten pregnant, but she had escaped.

  And she’d come here, amongst these people, and they told her that she was safe. And for a time, that worked, because for a time she still had an enemy. They would capture people suspected of being a part of The Followers, and Claire would positively identify them, and then they would be executed. And she didn’t think she’d ever felt such satisfaction in her life as when she’d looked on the face of their leader, a man named Wiscoe, and knew that she was condemning him to death.

  But after that…she’d had nothing.

  Now that they were all dead, she’d been left adrift in a world she no longer understood.

  And yet the sensation of being among the enemy never left her.

  It was Elsie Foster whom Claire had first confided this to. And it was Elsie who had showed her the truth. It was Elsie that had showed her why she still felt like she was surrounded by the enemy.

  “Are they any different?” Elsie had said, sitting at her kitchen table where she and Claire sometimes talked about the madness of the world.

  On the other side of that table, Claire had frowned. “Who?”

  “The Followers…” she gestured around them. “…and these people.” Elsie smiled and reached across the table and laid her hand on Claire’s. “I think that you know, deep down, that they’re the same. They’re all just warlords, Claire. Power hungry people that have filled the vacuum created in the wake of the fall of the United States. No matter how well the UES dresses themselves up, they’re still another illegal fiefdom. Just like Wiscoe’s Followers.”

  Elsie’s hand was warm. Sof
t.

  Her fingers stroked gently over top of Claire’s.

  Her eyes were kind. Loving, even.

  “You sacrificed so much,” Elsie continued. “Believing that you were going to escape to a better place. Back to true civilization. But then your father threw all of that out the window, didn’t he? He could’ve taken you away. He should’ve taken you to Greeley, back to civilization. But instead, after all that you had given up, you escape here and you find your father bending the knee to these people. You find your father submitting to an organization just like the one you’d escaped from.”

  Elsie looked sad. She shook her head. “Your father betrayed you, Claire. After everything was said and done, after everything you’d lost—your innocence, your humanity—he was never able to protect you. And then he forced you right back in amongst the enemy.”

  Claire opened her mouth to object, but Elsie’s firm, quiet voice overrode her. “You’re not wrong for feeling how you feel, Claire. There’s nothing wrong with you. You know that, right?”

  Claire felt her hand tremble beneath Elsie’s. And she felt on the cusp of absolution.

  It is difficult for a person to feel like they are losing their mind—that what they are perceiving as reality is wrong. And when someone comes to you and tells you that you are not wrong, and provides you with a framework in which your troubles suddenly make sense…

  You can’t help but love them for it.

  Elsie kept stroking her hand. Then her wrist.

  It made her feel forgiven. Absolved. Righteous, even.

  “I can help you,” Elsie had said. “We can help each other.”

  It was in this tumult of memories that Claire pushed the front door of her house open and found her father waiting for her.

  It was unusual enough that she froze in the door when she saw him.

  The door opened on the living room, of which there was only a less-than-sanitary looking couch that Claire had yet to touch. But across the living room was the kitchen, and at the small kitchen table, Colonel Staley sat, facing her.

  He wore his desert digital uniform. The matte black eagles on his collar. His gray hair neatly combed. He sat straight-backed, with his hands in his lap. He looked like he held something there, but the table blocked Claire’s view.

  He looked right at her, and he didn’t smile, or greet her, and she knew that he had been waiting for her. She often came home for a short break around midday.

  Claire realized that her heart was lodged somewhere in her throat. It felt like it was blocking her windpipe, and she had to swallow twice before she seemed able to breathe again. She closed the front door behind her.

  “Dad,” she managed. Single syllables were safe.

  Something terrible crossed over his face when she said this.

  He raised one hand from his lap, and gave a very military-father knife hand to the chair opposite him. “Claire. Come sit.”

  Claire hesitated only for a moment. But even now, the surprise of walking in and finding her father waiting for her—of being snapped out of her dark, strange memories—began to fade.

  She’d been pretending for a long time.

  She was very good at it.

  As her feet got moving, she came back to herself and smiled. “I didn’t expect you here,” she said. “Did you want some lunch?”

  “Claire,” Staley said, sharper now, his gray eyebrows beetling. “I want you to sit down.”

  Claire blinked a few times, as though she couldn’t possibly imagine what this was about. “Okaaaayyy,” she drew out. She pulled out the chair opposite her father, and then sat in it. “What’s wrong?”

  She’d successfully swallowed her heart back to where it belonged, but it was still thumping along. She hoped her pulse wasn’t visible in her neck. She reached up and casually drew her hair across her throat.

  Staley stared at her for another long moment. Wrestling with something in his mind.

  She’d never seen him like this before. It scared the shit out of her, but she was determined not to let that show.

  She raised her eyebrows, prompting him to speak.

  He took a sharp breath, like he’d been stung, and then his hands came out of his lap and he placed something on the table between them.

  A satellite phone.

  Claire stared at it. Her mind racing.

  Staley stared at her.

  “A satphone,” she said. She dragged her eyes off of it and managed to look confused. “Okay. What gives?”

  “Stop.” He said it so quietly, and yet so enraged, that Claire’s teeth clacked together when her mouth snapped shut.

  Father and daughter regarded each other for a long moment.

  “No more lies,” Staley husked. “No more bullshit. This was taped to the back of your dresser. Hidden. You’ve only ever called one number on it. The same number that you called on the satphone from the Watch Commander’s office the night the primals attacked us.”

  Claire felt like her brain was full of flies. Buzzing angrily. Every fly a swirling thought that she couldn’t catch hold of. She needed to adapt. She needed to stabilize herself. Find a way out.

  There was always a way out.

  She forced her breathing to remain level. In. Out. Steady.

  “Well,” she said, after a moment. “What is it you want me to tell you?”

  She was buying time. She needed a few seconds to sort things out.

  “Who have you been calling?”

  “I think you know who I’ve been calling.”

  Staley’s eyes sparked. His nostril’s flared.

  Claire decided to push. It was the only move that made sense: Attack. She leaned forward onto the table. “No bullshit, right? That’s what you asked for. Now do me a favor and give me the same courtesy. You know who I’ve been calling.”

  Staley slammed his hand flat on the table. It made a sound like a gunshot. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

  Claire raised her voice right back. “What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you? This isn’t who you’re supposed to be serving! This isn’t the United States! The president is in Colorado! And you’re sworn to serve him! Not some two-bit dictator that’s filled a power vacuum! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “People died, Claire! You gave information to Greeley, and people lost their lives because of it!”

  “Yeah, I gave information to Greeley. Because someone has to do the right thing. And it’s obvious you don’t have the balls to do it, you fucking coward!”

  Staley slapped her so hard she tumbled out of her chair.

  Her ears were ringing. Her face felt numb at first, and then began to sting like a sunburn. She stared at the cheap linoleum floor. She had one hand on the table and she dragged herself back up.

  Staley rocketed out of his chair, tipping it backwards onto the floor. He let out a string of curses, took two paces away, and then thundered back to her. “President Briggs left us to die out here, do you understand that? Do you?”

  Claire raised her eyes defiantly. She tasted blood on her lips. But it wasn’t the first time she’d been slapped around. “I understand that you’re on the wrong side of history, Dad. And I won’t be a part of it.”

  Staley looked at his daughter in amazement. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Claire had pulled herself back into her chair now. Her hair had fallen over her face. It stuck to her bloody lip. She took a breath and screamed at him. “You never came for me! That’s what fucking happened! I was raped and beaten for a fucking year, waiting for you to find me! And you never came for me!”

  All the strength seemed to come out of the man standing in front of her. His knees buckled and he knelt down in front of her, suddenly looking decades older. No longer a colonel. Just a stricken old man.

  He reached out with a shaking hand and grasped Claire’s on the table. His hands were cold and callused. He tried to speak, but only issued a shallow groan. His fingers felt like they were clawing nee
dfully at her.

  Claire realized that she was crying when thin snot started to pool at the tip of her nose. She sniffed. Grabbed the old man’s shoulder, his Marine uniform bunched in her fist. “Who knows about this, Dad? Who else knows?”

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Weak. “I tried to find you! I tried—”

  She shook him. “Who else knows?”

  “Lieutenant Derrick,” her father croaked. “He saw the calls you made.”

  “Is that it?” Claire demanded. She had him on the ropes. She couldn’t help but feel vindicated. “Does Angela know? Does Carl Gilliard know?”

  Staley shook his head. “No, no. No one else.”

  “We have to go,” Claire blurted. “We can get out of here before anyone finds out. Dad. We can leave here. We can go to Greeley. You can take me. President Briggs will still take you back, I know he will. You can take me to Greeley like you should have done years ago!”

  But her father kept shaking his head. “No, Claire. We can’t do that. We can’t. We have to…” he looked around, desperately. Still kneeling before his daughter, begging her forgiveness with his body, though words failed him. He seemed to seize on an idea. “No. We’re going to make this right, Claire. We have to make this right. We’re going to go to Angela. We’re going to explain everything to her.”

  Adrenaline surged through Claire’s body. “No!”

  “We’ll explain everything to her, and it will be okay. You’re going to come clean, Claire. You’re going to come clean about what you did. And…and I’ll come clean too, for hiding you. I’ll talk to Angela. I’ll make this right. If you give them what you know about the Lincolnists, they’ll let you stay. We can make a deal.”

  Claire was horrified. Her mouth worked soundlessly.

  Her father stared up at her, his eyes pleading. “Please, Claire. We can make a deal. I can convince Angela. I can convince Carl, too.” He reached up, and his chilly, rough hands touched her face. “I can protect you. I will. I will protect you.”

  There’s no way out.

  That’s all Claire could think.

  She was trapped.