“Today, we’re going outside the wire. We’ve had reports of a nest of rats in Zone 21, and a possible infected cat. Blue and Bruce will be on point.”
“Yes!” Bruce whispered.
I held myself completely still while Sarge’s hard gaze pinned me, examining me for any sign of weakness at the prospect of killing rats. And a cat. After an age, he moved his glance to the others, and I could breathe again.
“Tae-Hyun, you’ll be spotting for Blue. Mitch, you’ll be spotter for Bruce. You’re to proceed now to the armory, where Juan will issue you with your rifles, sidearms, ammo and optics. I’ve told him to zero the scopes to 100 meters for you. And when you get back, first stop is the armory again to return your weapons to lockup. And that is how it will always work, hog-people! Cameron and Leya — I want you to ride along and observe for today and also scope the field for civilians. Fiona will meet you in fifteen minutes in transport bay C. Now haul ass, you lot!”
“Um, Sarge? Should we wear gloves and masks?” I asked.
He stared at me for a long moment, tracing a finger over his mustache. “That’s entirely up to you, princess. Think you can shoot a rat before it gets close enough to spit in your face?”
I had been thinking about more general contamination, touching the transport or objects in the outside world, but Sarge didn’t look like he would have much patience for such concerns, so I simply nodded.
The armory was located at the rear of the compound, beyond the decon unit and doors which separated the main building from transport bay C. In the interests of keeping the nature of our work secret, I guess, we were the only unit who used either the armory or that exit. The only camera in the area pointed out towards the bay where our vehicles collected and deposited us.
Twenty minutes later, we headed out of the compound, and no one in the black van wore either gloves or masks. Bruce cradled his rifle in his arms like a baby. I stood mine upright between my knees where I sat, swaying, as we hurtled through the mostly empty streets. I stared out of the tinted windows. It was great to see something new and different.
Everyone peered out as we passed by a line of about twenty protestors, mostly women dressed in red PPE suits stationed outside an old abortion clinic. They had all been closed under the official Moratorium on Voluntary Population Reduction Act passed two years into the plague. The protestors were holding up cardboard signs, and I was able to read a few of the messages as we whizzed past: Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide! Stop the war on our rights! Keep your laws off my body! Support Freedom, support Choice!
“Effing civil lib traitors!” said Bruce.
What would Quinn have thought? Probably that when the government said it wanted to “save lives and ensure all human beings were protected by our laws,” it meant fetuses, rather than the illegal immigrants who still tried to slip over the border into the US, despite the colossal wall that now ran the length of our border with Mexico.
Leya evicted Bruce from his seat beside me and took his place.
“Hey, girl, are you okay?” she asked softly.
I pulled a face and shrugged.
“Listen, don’t worry about Quinn. He’s overreacting, and he’ll soon realize it. He won’t want to lose you. You’re some kind of special, you know that? Beautiful on the inside and the out. He’ll come around.”
“You think?” I wanted to believe her, but she hadn’t seen Quinn’s face.
“I do. And if he doesn’t, it’s his loss. And maybe,” she said, winking at me, “Bruce’s gain?”
That tugged a laugh from me. “No way!” I whispered.
“Now, we still have some time left in our session. Tell Dr. Freud what else is bothering you.”
“Ah,” I sighed, “the usual.”
“Killing critters?”
I nodded.
“Worried you’ll lose your nerve today and shoot like a blind Democrat?”
“Right again.”
“And that Sarge will boot you out?”
“Three for three.”
“Listen, sweetie, that is so not going to happen. I’ve seen you under pressure. And you’re cooler and calmer than anyone I’ve ever known. You’re a professional sniper, and when the time comes to take the shot, you’ll take it like a true marksman. Besides, the critters you’ll be shooting at today are infected. They’re plague-spreaders — you know they need to be put down.”
“That’s true,” I said. I was feeling a bit better.
“And if there’s an infected cat, then I’m sorry about that, but better it dies a quick, painless death at the hand of an expert” — she poked a gentle finger into my upper arm — “than dying a slow, painful death full of suffering.”
“You’re right.” She was. I really didn’t need to have any moral qualms about today’s mission.
“Sugar, I am always right.”
I laughed with her at that, but when I said, “Thank you, Leya. You’re a good friend, you know that?” I meant it.
Zone 21 was a pretty area northwest of the city. Middle-class and upmarket neighborhoods nestled in pockets between the urban forest and the old strip malls — now mostly boarded up with signs referring shoppers to new, online addresses. We had spent days practicing in the urban arena, camouflaging our faces with dark skin-paint and taking cover behind bins and dumpsters and burnt-out wrecks of cars, but this mission was in the middle of solid suburbia, and there was no need to hide or wear camouflage. We were all wearing the same black jumpsuits, with the addition of the badges and neckwear that had offended Quinn so mightily.
We would need to keep well back from the rats, so we didn’t get bitten or scare them off with our noise and movement, and we would have to observe the field before we went hot. Sarge had trained us to scan for potential enemies — I guess that’s what he knew from his war service years ago — but we would also be scanning for any civilians who might be endangered by our shooting.
The van pulled into a street which led down from the main road and into a crescent which looped through the subdivision. A deserted communal recreation area was located on the north side of the street. Weeds grew up against the walls of the clubhouse, several of its windows were broken and the front door hung ajar. Outside, the communal pool was empty except for a sludge of dead leaves and rainwater in the bottom, and the blue surface of the tennis court was cracked and bulging in places. Nature was reclaiming the places we had abandoned.
On the south side of the street stood a row of houses, each with a decon-unit at the front door. Most of the front and back yards had been cleared of vegetation and cemented over so as to leave fewer place for infected animals or M&Ms to hide. Only a couple of houses, perhaps abandoned, had let the rear of their properties get overgrown with weeds and bushes.
“As you can see,” said Fiona, who was heading this mission, “the back yards slope down to a small stream which runs along the rear of the properties. We’ve had reports that there’s an infestation in the wooded area beyond, and confirmed sightings of at least one pet suspected to be infected.” She checked her notes on a handheld device. “A tabby cat called Marmalade.”
“Soon he’ll be toast,” said Mitch, and Bruce and Tae-Hyun laughed.
We pulled into the drive of 11703 Peachtree Drive, a double-story house painted white with gray trim, and piled out of the van. I stood still for a moment in the fresh outside air, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my whole face and taking in the trees flowering nearby — magnolia and sourwood, going by our online introduction to local fauna and flora modules. Loose strands of hair moved in the light breeze, tickling my cheeks. I felt almost naked being outside without my mask and gloves, but no one else seemed fazed, so I acted like I wasn’t bothered either. I stooped to pick up a fallen leaf from the drive. It was brown and crinkled, a veined and almost transparent pane when I held it up against the light, and when I crushed it between my fingers, it crumpled into dry dust which drifted sideways as it fell.
“Checking wind direction and
speed? At least someone remembers the lectures,” said Fiona.
I hadn’t been. I was simply fascinated to be out, allowed to touch and listen and feel. I sniffed my hand. The earthy, musty smell was unfamiliar, and the dusty feel on my skin was a completely alien sensation.
“Blue, you set up in the drive by the garage. Bruce — up those side stairs,” said Fiona, pulling out her phone, “while I instruct the occupants to move to the opposite side of the house. Leya and Cameron, check the field is clear.”
We fell into our positions as we had been trained. I moved to the far corner of the house, loaded my rifle, then set it up on its bipod and checked the safety catch. I lay down on my belly close up against the protection of the side wall more from game-playing habit than necessity — there was no real need for cover here, since the rats would not be shooting back. Like me, Tae-Hyun lay down on his belly and adjusted his high-powered binoculars.
“Field of fire is clear of civilians,” called Leya from somewhere behind us.
“Confirmed.” That was Cameron, who had positioned himself behind the boys upstairs.
I scanned the bare, concreted back yard. The sun bounced off the hard surfaces in a blinding glare, so it took a minute or two to adjust my vision to the shady, overgrown patch of shrubbery and trees about 250 meters beyond.
“See anything?” Mitch called down from his perch on a balcony above us.
I peered through my eyepiece, looking carefully into the dappled shadows. Leaves moved in a slight breeze, and now and then one drifted to the ground. But other than that, I could discern no movement.
“Nothing,” Tae-Hyun called back.
“So we wait?”
“So we wait. As long as it takes,” confirmed Fiona, leaning up against the side of the house while she scanned her tablet.
It took the better part of an hour, lying in the increasingly hot sun with the rifle stock pressed up against my cheek and my eye trained on the eyepiece, listening to Tae-Hyun click his tongue-stud against his teeth until I snapped at him to cut it out. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and an ache grew between my shoulder blades. A fly buzzed annoyingly around my face, and I was waving it off when Tae-Hyun called the target.
“Tango at nine o’clock. Moving right.” He spoke softly, for my ears only.
“Got it,” I said. I was already adjusting the focus on my eyepiece.
Tae-Hyun called the range and the wind, and I entered the data into my scope. I eased the safety off and chambered a round as softly as I could.
“Do we tell the others?” I whispered.
“Sure,” Tae-Hyun murmured. “After we’ve taken our first shot.”
The rat, a large mutant for sure, was moving quickly from left to right, just beyond the first line of trees. I took a lead on it, aiming one mil-dot to the right of my crosshair intersection and then taking the shot. The rat walked into the bullet as the report of the rifle cracked the air.
“Hit!” called Tae-Hyun.
“Good job, Blue,” said Leya. Their voices were muffled by the ringing in my ears.
I pulled the bolt of my rifle up and back, ejecting the spent cartridge, and then reloaded — Sarge had said that residents had reported a nest of rats, not just one. Fiona stooped down and picked up the spinning brass casing from the drive and handed it to me.
“Your hog’s tooth, Blue. Juan will punch a hole in it at the armory for you.”
I swallowed. I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the symbol after what had happened with Quinn. But I tucked it into my breast pocket anyway.
“Just to the left of twelve!” Mitch called excitedly above us.
I returned to my shooting position and took the shot within a fraction of a second of Bruce. The reports cracked in overlap, and the poor damn rat exploded in a red blossom of flesh and blood and shattered bone.
“My kill!” said Bruce. “That was my shot.”
“Whatever,” I said.
Tae-Hyun caught the cartridge which fell down beside us and tossed it back up to the balcony. “Your hog’s tooth, dude.”
“Hell, yeah!”
We spent another hour cramped in our positions, with me growing uncomfortably aware of my full bladder. Bruce took out another rat, while I downed another three — wouldn’t Sarge be proud? — before Tae-Hyun muttered a new set of coordinates, adding, “It’s the rabid cat.”
I could see it clearly, a blotched mix of yellow, orange and rust fur, staggering and falling on skinny legs in a patch of sun near a scrubby bush on the far bank of the stream. Unnecessarily, I checked that I had already chambered a round.
“Are you going to take the shot?” Tae-Hyun asked, with a sideways glance at me.
“Of course,” I said. “Give me those coordinates again.”
He restated the coordinates, and I repeated them back to him, louder than necessary, then fiddled a bit more on my scope. The loud report and cheers from above told me that Bruce had taken the shot. I looked away.
Bruce and Mitch came running down the stairs.
“Did you see the teats on her?” Mitch asked.
I had, and I knew what it meant. My stomach clenched.
Bruce placed his rifle behind where we lay and asked Cameron to keep an eye on it. He was already unholstering his sidearm as he and Mitch walked toward the patch of trees.
“You got my six, Blue?”
“Sure.” I followed them, taking out my own handgun and tagging Tae-Hyun to watch my rifle.
I was okay to check that no rabid monsters pounced on Bruce and Mitch from behind — just as long as I didn’t have to put down a litter of kittens. I moved after them, walking backwards, checking the way with glances over my shoulder, moving slowly and carefully, so as not to trip.
“There they are. Eyes not even open yet,” said Mitch.
The soft mewling tugged at my heart. Maybe I still had time to run.
“Safety off. I am hot,” said Bruce.
I kept my back to both of them, flinching with every one of the five shots. Then I led the way back to the house.
“Did you wimp out on taking that shot, Blue?” Fiona asked, her eyes hard on mine when I returned.
“No, sir,” I said. We all called her that — she seemed to expect it. “I lost concentration for a moment, guess I was getting tired. Won’t happen again, sir.”
“It had better not.”
After another half-hour of surveillance, I was desperate to go to the bathroom. When I could stand it no more, I rang the door of the house and asked to use their facilities. It was easy for the guys, they just peed against trees or, if they couldn’t move, into bottles. But the jumpsuits meant being a girl wasn’t easy — you had to take almost the whole thing off to go, and I had no intention of exposing myself to rabid critters, or the guys. The homeowner wasn’t too enthusiastic about letting me in, but perhaps she could tell my eyeballs were floating, because she buzzed me through the decon unit and showed me to her bathroom. Sweet relief!
A folded newspaper lay on the counter beside the basin, and I scanned the front page as I washed my gloved hands to see what was happening in the outside world. Of course we had T.V. news and access to the internet at the Academy, but I’d been so busy, between the intensive training and spending time with the heartbreaker, that I’d lost touch.
Between the advertisements for germ-resistant copper faucets and doorknobs, respirators with filters containing both activated charcoal and a “selection of pleasant-smelling power-herbs guaranteed to repel rat fever”, and an invitation to join the Church of the End Times in an online course about “apocalyptic revelations in scripture”, were the sorts of articles that might have appeared any day these last few years. Headlines such as Public Warned of Heightened Terror Threat, New Amendment to Immigration Reform Bill delayed by Civil Lib Filibustering, and Hulitechtron Worx secures Defense Contract, were nothing new.
“My, but you’re so young!” the homeowner said when I reappeared. “I must say, I think it’s wonderful what y’all
are doing. I hope you know that we are sincerely appreciative.”
“Thank you, that’s good to hear,” I said. It was like a balm to my raw feelings that somebody approved of my killing skills and efforts.
Back outside, the unit was moving our post to the drive of another house two properties down. We kept the area under close observation for a further hour but spotted no more targets. Fiona called the Disposal Unit, and their white van and hazmat-suited techs arrived as we were packing up.
“That was a good job, people, well done,” said Fiona from her seat up front once we were en route back to ASTA.
“We owned that kill-zone, man!” said Bruce. His eyes were shining with excitement. No doubt about it, the boy liked killing all right.
“It was great to get out and all,” said Leya. “But it’s not too exciting sitting around and watching.”
“Next time,” said Cameron.
“Yeah, you’ll get a shot next time, Leya. It’s not like this city’s going to run out of plague-spreaders anytime soon,” said Fiona.
I was surprised to see Leya pull out her phone and start texting — I hadn’t considered taking my phone on a mission. Bruce polished his rifle with a soft cloth, and Mitch and Tae-Hyun stared out the window as we drove, while Cameron, as usual, watched Leya.
I fingered the casing from my first kill-shot on a live mission. It had been a good shot. Not impossibly difficult — the target hadn’t been too far away, and conditions had been excellent — but still, a rat was a small target, and it had been moving. I was proud of myself. Today, because of what our unit had done, there were half a dozen fewer mutant rats in our city. And fewer cats, too, of course.
At the armory, Juan flattened the open ends of the casing together then punched a hole through the brass, and I threaded it onto the leather thong, where it lay alongside the wooden round. Sarge had said that in the wars he’d fought, snipers had recovered the next round from the barrel of the rifle belonging to the enemy soldier they’d shot — the round that had been intended for them — as their hog’s tooth. Or sometimes they retrieved the actual round they themselves had shot from the body of the dead enemy soldier. I was glad that in our case, disease-control measures prohibited retrieving the round from an infected carcass. Wearing the casing felt like I was keeping a memento of the shot; wearing the slug would feel like I was celebrating the kill. It was a distinction that wouldn’t have mattered to any of the others in the unit, perhaps, but it mattered to me.
Recoil Page 13
