It's Harder This Way

by Travis Hill

“Greggs,” I said in a small voice. “Evan Greggs.”

  “Well, Evan, I’m a big girl. I like men. You’re not ugly. Get where this is going?”

  “Okay,” I said, more embarrassed than ever.

  “But don’t stare at me like I’m your long-lost lover. It creeps me the fuck out.”

  “Okay,” I said again.

  Tony coughed once more, this time much closer. I glanced over to where he stood. I shook my head slightly to let him know I was okay. At least I hoped I was okay. Colonel Collins wasn’t the first woman to let me know she had no time for games and expected me to be up front about my desires. Colonel Collins was, however, the first woman to scare me without holding me at gunpoint.

  Collins said nothing, her expression not budging an inch away from either anger or disdain for me. She nodded for me to go ahead. I hoped she wouldn’t drive the butt of her rifle into my kidneys. Seconds after we stepped into the passageway, she spun the wheel on the inside of the door to lock it into place.

  “Did you carve all this out yourselves?” Druscilla asked, her eyes just as hard as the colonel’s.

  “Some of it over the last decade, but a lot of it was already here thanks to the steamworks. Pre-invasion tech. Some kind of school research project or something. I was seven when the Bulls came so I never learned about a lot of that stuff. Power plants and electronic calculators weren’t part of the minimal schooling I received.”

  I could easily understand her lack of knowledge about certain subjects. I had just hit high school when the Bulls arrived and ended our world within hours. I wouldn’t have been exposed to things like geothermal energy, mechanical engineering, or calculus for a few more years. My expertise at video games, sports, and cartoons were useless in the new world—the same as my knowledge of Victorian era politics or the main export crop of Madagascar.

  We walked in silence for a while, the passageway morphing into a smooth-walled hallway with overhead lighting after a hundred feet. We took a left at a four-way intersection of hallways then a right a little further on. The hallway ended in a wide set of stairs down. I had a moment of worry that General Pryor knew exactly what we’d done to Colonel Hardaway and we were stupidly walking right into a trap underground where our soldiers wouldn’t be able to intervene.

  That worry died out when we reached the bottom of at least one hundred stairs. The stairwell ended in a wide room bathed in bright white light from the ceiling. Half of the room was divided into cubes that held cots, the other a mix of tables, tools, sinks, and other assorted mechanicals I didn’t recognize. Collins jerked her head and we walked across the room, receiving stares and a few waves from the dozen or so soldiers. She pressed a button next to a door, immediately receiving a buzzing noise in return. Collins opened the door and stepped aside.

  “Welcome to Base Charlie,” said a tall, hard-faced older man who looked as if he’d spent a lifetime commanding others.

  3. Making Plans

  “Color me impressed, Commander Greggs, Commander Galliardi, and… I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”

  “It’s just ‘Evan Greggs,’ Sir,” I said, remembering to show respect to the leader of this group. “This is Druscilla, our best scout and meanest fighter.”

  Dru took a short bow before stepping forward to shake the general’s hand. Tony mumbled something similar to what I said about not having a title, just a name.

  “Well,” Pryor said, giving the young woman a grin that likely had to do with the force of her grip. “It’s going to take a bit to get all of your people settled in, and longer to get them used to the command structure here at Base Charlie.” He looked each of us up and down as if sizing up our ability to both be soldiers as well as lead other soldiers into a fight. “For the time being, Greggs and Galliardi will be given the rank of lieutenant and Druscilla will be a sergeant. Does that sit well with you three?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said, giving him a salute but without any hint of humor or sarcasm.

  “It will be the easiest way to acclimate your people to the system,” another man said after stepping out of the shadows. He let his assault rifle point to the floor. “I’m General Livingston. I guess I’m second in command at our lovely base.”

  He noticed the way our eyes followed his weapon. We stared not only out of concern that he’d been waiting out of sight to shoot us if we didn’t pass the smell test for him or General Pryor. We were realistic enough to understand that allowing anyone into their inner circle was dicey at best, especially the leaders of five hundred armed men and women. Most of my stare at the gun had to do with both its condition as well as the fact that it was a true military weapon.

  “Ah, she’s caught your eye,” General Livingston said with a chuckle.

  He pulled the magazine then the bolt to clear the chamber. After giving it a visual inspection to double-check that it was empty, he handed it to me as if it were an infant. I gingerly took it from him, slowly rotating it around a foot from my eyes. I wasn’t a gun enthusiast other than making sure I knew enough about them in general to be able to use one without shooting myself or a friendly. I knew enough about firearms to know Livingston’s weapon was superior to anything we carried.

  The Farm had a small ammunition production shed and our blacksmith was proficient in both repair as well as manufacturing spare parts. Since Dredge didn’t have a proper forge for smithing hardened composites and alloys, we were limited on what firearms to work with. Citizens and scouts alike had foraged, scavenged, and likely stolen thousands of guns over the years to stockpile The Farm’s armory, but we only had three military-grade guns. One of them hadn’t been in service for more than a decade after running out of 20mm shells repelling a coordinated attack. The other two were salvaged and rebuilt .50cal Bushmaster machine guns that Tremaine rescued from half a dozen US Army Humvees. We still had almost six thousand rounds of ammo for those babies, and they definitely silenced bad guys quickly.

  But for everyday arms, what most citizens carried or kept in their rooms were civilian pistols, hunting rifles, and assault rifles. Most were in excellent condition as too many deaths had resulted over the years from malfunctioning or exploding guns in the middle of combat. I couldn’t think of a single fully automatic weapon beyond the .50cal Bushmasters. My own rifle, an older Armalite AR-17, was given to me on my fifth anniversary of citizenship after Mom and the council promoted me to scouting duty.

  That rifle had been one of Dredge’s favorites, and he customized it as much as possible for me other than making it fully automatic. Some of the worry about having automatic weapons around had to do with safety within The Farm. It was rare for anyone to engage in serious violence beyond a fist fight or drunken brawl, but The Farm wasn’t a stranger to citizens losing their shit once every few years and murdering someone else—usually over a love interest. As a group, we believed our community was more important than personal rivalries or prejudices and we exercised that belief with harsh punishments for any who couldn’t abide.

  “She’s got a few tricks up her sleeve thanks to some of our own abilities but also thanks to the Bulls,” Livingston said proudly. He reached out and pushed a button somewhere below the strange scope. “Selective magnification, it calculates windage, drop, etc. And then there’s the thermal filter.”

  I raised the rifle up, careful to point it away from everyone, and looked down through the scope. Except it was more a small display screen than a scope. General Pryor nodded his head for me to train it upon one of them. I swung it toward Dru and used my thumb to move a tiny stick or direction pad, selecting the thermal imaging filter. The screen immediately became a thick soup of orange, red, purple, blue, and black. I thumbed the button again and it changed to a ghostly black, white, and grey scene. Dru stood out like a burning fire at night with both filters. I smiled and checked the weapon before handing it to her.

  “We’ve got almost two hundred like it, though the model of weapon varies,” Livingston said. “If we can get two or three dozen
of your best technically skilled people on the production line, we can not only outfit everyone else, but we can begin to stockpile them for new recruits and as replacements.”

  “Isn’t having something like this a big red flag to the Bulls?” Tony asked, taking the rifle from Dru. She looked like she didn’t want to let it go, her eyes following it while her ears followed our conversation.

  “Sure,” General Pryor said with a nod. “Bulls zap anyone carrying a gun. But just in case Colonel Hardaway didn’t mention it for some reason, the Bulls are used to dealing with one or only a couple of armed humans at once over the last twenty-three years. They haven’t met an actual combat platoon in two decades. Back then, we were so shocked by their opening move that there was no chance of us ever making a stand.”

  “But twenty years later, they’ve set up shop all over the world,” Tony persisted. “They’re organized and can call in air support and orbital strikes. Plus there’s the fact their weapons and armor are superior.”

  “Ah,” General Livingston said, receiving his weapon from Tony. “But we’ve been hard at work for a lot of that. No offense, Lt. Galliardi, but the weapons your people carry can kill Bulls, while ours most definitely will kill Bulls. Armored or not. Airships, ground vehicles, everything they’ve shown us so far can be easily knocked out. The problem isn’t our tech, though it’s still far below the Bulls’. Our problem is numbers. It has been nearly impossible to find enough enclaves of survivors, let alone convince them to join up with a suicide squad who plans to retake the planet.”

  “What happens when the Bulls finally get tired of our shit and drop a million troops on us?” Dru asked, her eyes still on Livingston’s rifle. “Or they show us something new we haven’t seen before? Like a thirty-foot mechanical warbot or something with even thicker armor?”

  The two soldiers laughed but I didn’t detect any sarcasm or even malice.

  “We’re well aware of those unknowns, Sergeant Druscilla,” General Pryor said. “But I’m old, and General Livingston isn’t that far behind. We’ve spent years studying conflicts from ancient Israel to the wars in the Middle East before the Bulls arrived. What we focused on are the guerrilla movements, rebellions, and uprisings. As much as he was hated by our side, a man like Ho Chi Minh was a true genius at covert warfare.”

  The blank look she gave him caused a frown to take over his face. Livingston grunted and spoke up.

  “He was the leader of North Vietnam.”

  Tony nodded, as did I. Dru frowned, but she was too young to have learned the same subjects in “school” as us. Born after the Bulls decimated human society, she’d been taught only the relevant bits of history, which mainly centered around survival techniques passed down through the ages. Other than assassinations, she didn’t seem interested in history at all. I couldn’t blame her. When I was growing up, history was just another boring subject I had to pass if I wanted to graduate. It was pointless to learn about pharaohs and European dynasties these days beyond the quest for mostly irrelevant knowledge.

  “Anyway,” Pryor said, “we’re in contact with others across North America, and we’ve even linked up with a few other outposts of civilization on other continents.” He gave us a stern, elderly frown. “It is foolish to believe we’re going to arm a few thousand hastily-trained soldiers and push these bastards off our planet. But we’re playing the long game here. A generational army that toils in the background while stealing whatever tech and supplies we can’t make ourselves.”

  I nodded, though what I really wanted to do was shake my head. General Pryor seemed realistic at the prospects of ever being able to drive the Bulls from Earth, but I sensed the same fervor at the idea as Colonel Hardaway had displayed. Our job was to knock this installation out to keep the Bulls from retaliating against our people to the north, yet I couldn’t help feeling energized by their dedication. Would we ever have enough tech—and bodies to man that tech—to do anything more than guarantee the final extermination of human beings?

  “I’ve been told you didn’t bring non-essential personnel,” Livingston said, changing the subject.

  “That’s correct, Sir,” Tony said. “Combat operations are no place for children.”

  “I understand,” Livingston said. “However, if you change your mind, we do have quarters for spouses and their children. Not here, of course, but close by so families can easily stay in touch.”

  I did my best to not give a worried glance to Tony. He kept his face neutral. Dru’s frown morphed into a straight line as well. Murdering a few hundred soldiers was something that had already begun to stain my conscience, and we hadn’t even started down that path yet. The realization we would be murdering mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters… it didn’t sit well with me. They wouldn’t willingly go along with us back to The Farm, especially after we wiped out their relatives and friends. The Farm definitely didn’t want bitter, vengeful types disrupting the mostly stable community we all helped build over the years.

  “I’m sure once our people begin to fit into their roles we’ll be able to convince others back home to join up,” I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  Dru’s glare was murderous. Tony nodded his head in agreement. He knew the stakes and how to play the game. But I could see trouble in his eyes. It was something we would have to either plan around or sneak back off in the middle of the night to avoid. Unless we decided to stay and actually go along with the Army’s insane plans. I glanced at Livingston’s weapon again. Could we wait until our people received their new weapons then disappear? Maybe just announce to them one day that we were leaving and taking our new gear with us and they’d have to either go along with it or risk being completely crippled after a fight with a group who outnumbered them three to one?

  “Let’s get Colonel Collins to show them their quarters so their people can get inside,” General Pryor said to his subordinate. He turned to me. “We’ll meet in the cafeteria in say… three hours? Bring your squad leaders or whatever you call them and we’ll do a quick orientation so they can turn around and present it to the rest of your people.”

  “Roger that, Sir,” I said, remembering the old lingo I’d used when playing military shooter video games as a teenager.

  I gave him a snappy salute, as did Tony and Dru. Collins returned and led us back outside without saying a word. I didn’t like the angry scowl she shot my way whenever she got the chance. I hoped I didn’t have to fight her, as I didn’t really want to suffer that humiliation in front of my people (or from the rumors that would fly should we duke it out in private).

  “Listen up!” Tony yelled once we reached our people milling around near the entrance. As one they became silent and waited to be told the news. “Colonel Collins and her crew are going to take us inside and help us get situated. We have another meeting in a few hours with General Pryor. We’ll assemble after to explain what’s going on.”

  “In the meantime,” Colonel Collins said, her voice booming across the canyon, “you’ll have a chance to shower, eat, and relax. We’re a friendly bunch, but we have rules. There is a zero tolerance policy for unwanted sexual contact.” I saw her glance at me from the corner of her eye. “Please do everyone a favor and never forget that rule. I’ll state once again that it is a zero tolerance rule. We don’t tolerate bigotry of any kind, nor do we look kindly upon theft, violence, or any action that could weaken the mission as a whole. We have some other rules we’ll go over, but those are the most important to our safety and the quality of life we’ve built here. Now, if you’ll follow Sergeant Draper, we can get you out of the sun and into your new lives.”

  Collins turned on her heel after shooting me another frown. Sergeant Draper smiled and raised his hands while calling for everyone to line up in two rows. I left him to take care of it and followed her into the passageway.

  “Hey, Colonel Collins,” I said after catching to her.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” she said icily without breaking stride down the corridor.


  “Look, I’m really sorry,” I said. “I don’t want you and I to have a problem, okay? It was shitty of me to stare at you like you were a Bull in disguise.”

  “Spare me the teenage puppy love,” she said, her words coming out short and clipped.

  “Listen,” I said, grabbing her sleeve. She stopped and stared at my hand as if plotting how to chop it off then kill me with it in a single stroke. “You’re pretty goddamn attractive, but check the ego a bit, will you?”

  I thought for a moment she might strike me with her fist or maybe even the butt end of her rifle. She grinned and brushed my hand off her sleeve. I thought she might say something but she only resumed walking toward wherever we were being led.

  “You all right?” Tony asked after Collins’ stride put her a few meters ahead of me.

  “Yeah. I think I got off on the wrong foot with her.”

  “You’re definitely not a ladies’ man,” Dru said from my other side.

  “And you’re a sneaky bitch who somehow always appears out of nowhere,” I grunted.

  She pretended to stab me multiple times in the ribs then walked quickly to catch up to Rebecca. They began talking animatedly. I could only imagine the subject. Dru probably wanted to give the woman tips on how to kill me silently.

  ***

  The barracks were impressive only in the sense they were underground, had electric lighting, and took up less than half of the massive cavern. I estimated at least three hundred beds. Most were made of wood but a few were old style metal cots with springs. Even though the mattresses didn’t look particularly comfortable, I knew they’d be a thousand times more comfortable than sleeping on the cold hard ground.

  “For now, you’ll have to tough it out on the floor,” Sergeant Draper announced once all five hundred of us were gathered in the barracks. Tomorrow we can assign a number of you to crews to begin building more beds. We have plenty of axes, saws, and chisels, but we’re short on chainsaws, so that’s going to be the hardest part. There’s a powered saw for cutting down logs into proper planks, and enough nails to last ten lifetimes.”