Collective Retribution

by Edwards, D. S.

  Her legs trembled as she walked.

  The palace was busy, everyone preparing for the reception. At lunchtime, Mandi went to the kitchen to retrieve the roll cart and the kingly meal that was laid upon it. She repeated the steps she’d taken that morning. She stopped outside Fatty Patterson’s door and knocked lightly. Fatty didn’t come to the door, so she knocked a little louder. Rollie opened the door a crack. A smile formed on his lips when he saw her. He retreated for a moment, then returned wearing a fresh bib and holding a clean set of forks. He sampled the food with renewed enthusiasm and thanked her when he was finished.

  Mandi took a deep breath, mustering all her courage as she approached the door to the president’s private residence. She knocked on the door and turned to retreat. The door flew open. The president stormed out of the room, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. “Did you see anyone here this morning?”

  “N-n-no sir, I came like I always do, sir, and you didn’t come, so I left. I assumed you must be busy or maybe went riding with your wife, sir.” Mandi did her finest acting job and knelt at the president’s feet. “I can stay now, sir, if you need my services.”

  Mandi reached up and tugged on his belt. The president backhanded her, knocking her to the floor. “If I need anything from you, I will ask for it!” he shouted. “Now get off the floor and leave me. I have guests coming!”

  “Yes, sir.” Mandi picked herself up and backed out of the room, bowing. “I will be in the kitchen if you need me. I live only to serve you.”

  The president tipped over the cart and yelled at her again. “Clean up this mess!” With that, he went back into the room and slammed the door behind him.

  Rollie opened his door a crack. He looked ready to cry when he saw all of the delicious food wasted on the floor. He quietly closed the door.

  Mandi cleaned up the spilled food and made her way back to the kitchen, sampling the delicious items as she went. She couldn’t stop thinking about the man she’d rescued. He must know how the war was going. She couldn’t wait to finish her day and talk with him. Hopefully he would tell her. He didn’t have to trust her, and she wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t tell her anything. But if she could talk to him, she might be able to help those who were trying to defeat the president’s army.

  She had more access to the private residence than anyone. She’d been taken to several rooms in the palace for her times with the president. He got excited when they played their games in different rooms. Once, he’d even taken her to a large room full of maps and radio equipment. Mandi assumed this was some sort of a war room. If she could get in there again, she might be able to give the rebel army details about the president’s plans. When she finished her day, she would offer to spy for the man she’d rescued.

  The president’s guests started arriving late in the afternoon. Some were on horseback, some rode in carriages, and the ones from bigger, more wealthy districts arrived in cars. Everyone was dressed in their finest clothing.

  From the doorway of the palace kitchen, Mandi spotted the president on his balcony, watching the guests arrive. He frowned at them. She suspected he was in a particularly foul mood. She turned to the “distinguished” guests and looked out on them with contempt. She hated these people with nearly as much passion as she hated the president. The fact that they’d betrayed all of their friends and the people whom they had been elected to serve sickened Mandi.

  The guests brought an especially large number of their sons and daughters with them, nearly thirty. More girls than boys had been selected. It made Mandi nervous that the president would choose new girls for his pleasure today. What if he found a girl he liked more than her. If this happened, she’d be sent to the troops, and her chance to kill the president would die with her.

  Mandi couldn’t let this happen. When the new girls were taken to the bathhouse to be prepped, she would look over the new crop, carefully studying each one. She knew what attracted the president: shyness; childlike innocence; vulnerability; long, dark hair; soft, dark skin with a scattering of freckles; narrow, soft eyes; long eyelashes; long, well- muscled legs. Mandi decided she would do her best to hide those features before the girls were presented to the president. She might apply extra powder to their cheekbones, crop their hair, give them baggy clothes to hide their natural curves, and add extra eye makeup to give the appearance of larger eyes.

  She felt a twinge of sadness and remorse, knowing she was signing the girls’ death warrants. But it couldn’t be helped. She had to make sure that she remained the favorite. Access to the president’s private living quarters was key in her plans. She was the only person, other than Fatty and the president’s generals, permitted to enter his chambers.

  Late in the afternoon, when all of the guests had arrived and the girls had been delivered for preparation, Mandi went to the bathhouse to see what kind of competition she had. There were fifteen new arrivals. Most were very beautiful, but a few would no doubt be passed among the generals as early as the next day.

  Mandi made her way around the room, speaking to the prettiest among them. She gave them as much bad advice as she could: “When you look at him for the first time, open your eyes wide. Display as much sexual boldness and desire as you can. If you play your cards right, you’ll be honored and enjoy all the luxuries the palace has to offer.”

  When the evening festivities began to wind down and the guests started leaving, Mandi returned to her shack. She spoke softly as she entered. “It’s me,” she whispered. “Everyone is leaving. You should be able to leave soon.”

  Mandi entered her shack to find the man she’d rescued asleep on her foam mat, wrapped up in her blankets. She gently shook him awake. He jumped up, fully alert, ready to fight. Mandi jumped back, then smiled at him.

  “It’s just me,” she said. “Everyone has gone. It should be safe for you to go soon.”

  Mandi dressed in warm clothes and grabbed a small pack she’d stolen from the palace. She loaded it with stale bread and a couple bottles of water. She handed it to the man, and they left the shack under the cover of darkness. Mandi led him across the compound and down a hidden trail behind the garbage heap. They walked for several miles. Mandi began to form a plan in her mind to gather information for the rebels. If she could work with the rebels, the president’s demise would come soon. She smiled as she imagined the horrible death that awaited the most vile, evil man she had ever known.

  Mandi touched the man on the arm. “This is as far as I go. My name, by the way, is Mandi.”

  The man put his hand out. They shook hands.

  “I’m Larry. Larry Collins.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Larry.”

  “You know you don’t have to stay here. You could come with me and join us. You would certainly be happier with the other women in our camp than staying here and facing more brutality.”

  “I want to help you. I hate President Hartley. I want to make sure he’s defeated.”

  She talked with him for several minutes. They worked out a plan. She would come back to this spot in four days. There would be a radio waiting for her. She was to take it back to her shack and report in with anything that might help. In turn, they would warn her of any attack on the palace so she could get her friends to safety.

  Mandi walked away from her new friend with renewed hope in her spirit. She had waited for so long and endured so much pain and loss. She could finally see the end drawing near. Soon she and everyone who was a slave to Richard C. Hartley would be free. Mandi had no grand, noble reason for helping the resistance other than to free herself and her friends. She really didn’t care about anyone else in the country. She just wanted what she was going through to stop, and she wanted the pig responsible to pay.

  It was still dark when Mandi returned to her shack and paused at the door, looking over her shoulder at the grand mansion silhouetted in the moonlight.

  “Soon, pig Hartley, soon.”

  She laughed and went inside, shutting the world out.

/>   42

  RESISTANCE BASE CAMP, RUBY VALLEY, NEVADA

  11:15 P.M., OCTOBER 21

  NIRSCH HAD JUST FALLEN ASLEEP WHEN ONE OF HIS MEN yelled to him from outside his tent. He got up, re-lit his lamp, and groggily rubbed his eyes. Nirsch welcomed the man inside and was greeted with a salute. He reluctantly returned it.

  “They’ve done it, sir,” the man said. “We just received a radio transmission from Colorado.”

  Instantly, Nirsch was fully awake. He scrambled to get dressed. They had all but given up hope that the team they’d sent into the Rockies to establish the relay station would succeed, or even be heard from again. Everyone had assumed they’d either been captured or killed. Nirsch had given in to the idea that his friend Larry was yet another casualty in this crappy war. He couldn’t believe they had actually done it. His spirit leapt at the news that his friend was alive and had actually succeeded in his mission.

  Nirsch bundled up and jogged across the camp to the communications tent. Fall had definitely set in. The temperature dropped into the low thirties at night. Soon, snow would begin falling in the high country. The radio operator got out of his chair and motioned for Nirsch to sit down.

  “It’s Larry Collins, sir. He has news from the Presidential Palace.”

  Nirsch sat down and put on the headset. “Larry, this is Nirsch. Over?”

  “Hey, Nirsch! You have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice.”

  Nirsch spent the next thirty minutes receiving a full report from Larry. They’d gotten the relay up and had avoided detection. Larry had been captured but was rescued by one of the president’s personal slaves.

  A shiver of excitement ran through Nirsch. They could do this. In less than a week, they would begin their assault on the palace. Now that they could contact their troops in the east, they could finish Hartley’s reign of terror.

  It was time to restore America to her former glory.

  Nirsch spent the next three days catching up with his troops on the east side of the country. The main forces had pushed all the way to Topeka, Kansas. Their troop numbers were larger than he’d expected, nearly sixty thousand men, women, and children.

  Nirsch was never comfortable with the fact that kids were fighting for them, yet they had just as much right, if not more, than their adult counterparts to defend the country they were inheriting. Nirsch had told his commanders to avoid accepting anyone under the age of sixteen, but there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Each time they passed through a town, entire families abandoned their homes and joined the column marching toward Colorado. When they passed through Oklahoma City, they gained over twelve thousand people.

  The civilians in their ranks had no military training and zero combat experience. What they lacked in experience, they made up for in passion and conviction. They were angry and hurting. They’d been brutalized, tortured, and bullied for months by the U.C. Whenever the U.C. passed through their towns, its soldiers took what they wanted and left destruction, pain, and death in their wake. Almost every man, woman, and child now fighting had lost a loved one to the bloodlust of the Collective.

  Rebel forces in the north had reached all the way to Rapid City, South Dakota, their numbers growing to nine thousand. They had no presence in the south. The Mexican drug cartels controlled Texas south of Austin, New Mexico south of Socorro, and California from the Mexican border all the way to Bakersfield. Carlos Montoya, leader of the Meta Cartel, had taken advantage of the terrorist attacks, quickly gathering his army in Mexico and coordinating with his soldiers already in place in America. They’d attacked border towns in California, Arizona, and Texas with brutality, killing everyone. Once Montoya’s troops controlled the border, they’d begun to recruit and move northward. The Collective had managed to slow their advance, but the cartel soldiers were well armed and could prove to be a major hindrance to the efforts of the resistance. When President Hartley was removed and the U.S. government restored, Nirsch knew they would have to deal with the cartels and Carlos Montoya.

  The lack of resistance troops in the south posed the greatest threat to the final assault. The president would be able to call on the cartels for reinforcements, and the U.C. would have an avenue of escape if the rebels defeated them in Colorado. Nirsch and his troops had to attack rapidly and with precision. Any delays could allow Hartley to escape and regroup. By the time the attack on Telluride was over, Hartley would have to be captured to face those he’d brutalized—or, if he stood his ground and did not surrender, he would be killed. Part of Nirsch hoped Hartley would resist. Either way, if they didn’t deal with him swiftly and decisively, Nirsch was sure everything would start again. All of their efforts would be in vain.

  Most U.C. troops had retreated all the way back to the Colorado border on all four sides. A few small units were scattered across the West, but they would be dealt with as Nirsch encountered them.

  As Nirsch sat in his tent going over last-minute planning, his mind drifted to his family and his home back in Oregon. He missed them, along with the solitude and peace of his valley. Nirsch wanted this to be over. He wanted to see his home again. He wanted to grow old surrounded by the love of his family. He wondered if he would ever see the spring wildflowers in the meadows again.

  He closed his eyes and dreamed of Eastern Oregon in the fall. He could see everything in his mind: the snow covering the Strawberry Mountains like soft whipped cream; the crisp, cool waters of Canyon Creek rushing through granite boulders; the bright-yellow splashes of color dotting the forest as the Tamarack needles changed colors; the yellow, quivering leaves of Quaking Aspens against the backdrop of the bluest sky God had ever created. He could almost hear the lonely cries of the meadowlarks echoing through the forest and smell the pines as the wind washed through after a late-summer rain—

  “Nirsch?”

  He opened his eyes. Bill stood over him.

  “What is it?” Nirsch snapped.

  Bill looked shocked and a little hurt by the tone of his voice. Nirsch immediately felt guilty.

  “Sorry, Bill. I was just thinking about home.”

  “That’s all right, boss. I’ve been a little homesick myself.”

  Bill removed his baseball cap and rubbed his scalp. Dandruff floated down like snowflakes, glistening in the afternoon sunbeams. “Nirsch,” he said, “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”

  The only time Bill ever called him Nirsch was when he had to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. Nirsch motioned for Bill to have a seat. Bill was having a hard time looking him in the eye. Nirsch knew something was very wrong.

  “About fifteen minutes ago, the Madden boy rode in,” Bill said. “He has news from back home. Michelle sent someone else before, but I guess he never made it here.”

  Bill paused again, and looked at the floor. “It’s about your daughter.”

  “Jillian? Is she okay?” Nirsch instantly felt lightheaded. Horrific visions filled his head.

  “Jillian’s okay, but there’s been an…incident. I don’t really know quite how to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out. Brett was shot and killed by someone four months ago.”

  Nirsch’s vision blurred. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He closed his eyes tightly, his mind flooding with a chaotic mixture of emotions as he imagined how his little girl was feeling.

  He had seen death and had lost people he loved. He’d always been able to detach himself from the grief and pain. He’d always kept his emotions in check, not allowing them to cloud his judgment and resolve. Now the emotions sprang forth, bursting out of the chamber he’d created to contain them. They fought one another in his heart until rage and hatred crushed the others and surged from his throat in a guttural scream.

  “There’s more, Nirsch.” Bill said. “The man who shot Brett knew who your daughter was. He was on your ranch with the purpose of killing your family. He would have killed Jillian and the rest of your family if it wasn’t for Adam. He discovered the man
trying to torture Jillian and filled his chest with buckshot from your 12-gauge.”

  Nirsch had the strong desire to run out of the tent, jump into a helicopter, and fly to the palace. He imagined himself storming the gates, finding Hartley, and closing his fingers around the tyrant’s throat. He would squeeze until the man’s face turned red and his eyes bulged out of his head.

  Yet Nirsch’s heart also filled and nearly burst with pride over the bravery of his boy. The pride was tainted by sadness. Adam had been brave and had saved his sister, but had lost his innocence in the act of taking a human life. No matter how evil the assassin had been, he was still a human being. Nirsch had no doubt that the moment Adam squeezed the trigger would stay with him forever.

  “There’s more, boss.” Bill lifted his head higher and looked Nirsch in the eye. “Jillian’s pregnant. You are gonna be a grandpa.”

  Nirsch’s eyes moistened. A single tear snaked down his cheek, hung suspended on the stubble of his chin for a moment, and fell, splashing on the toe of his boot.

  Bill looked at the floor and twirled his cap in his hands.

  Nirsch wanted to be home now more than ever. He wanted to hold his baby girl in his arms and wipe away her tears. But he wouldn’t go. He couldn’t.

  It was the only choice. His family would have to wait. The president had sent someone to kill them, and he had failed. If Nirsch didn’t end this now, the president would try again. The next time he might succeed. The only way to be sure his loved ones would be safe was to cut the head off the snake.

  Nirsch wiped his eyes, hoping Bill hadn’t noticed, and spoke in an even, authoritative tone.