by Trent Reedy
And them kids don’t play no more …
A full-bird colonel came on-screen. “Who is this? How did you get access to this number?” He stopped when he recognized me. “PFC Wright? So the rumors are true. You are still alive.”
“Yes, sir. I’m trying to reach President Montaine. I know you’re all busy with the war and everything, but I was hoping to —”
“Nathan Crow told us you were dead, that US forces had attacked your town and kidnapped and murdered over a hundred people.”
“Crow’s a liar,” I said. “I have dozens of witnesses to his crimes. Those hundred people? We escaped Freedom Lake to get away from the Brotherhood and have been hiding out together ever since.”
“What is your location? Are you safe?”
“Yes, sir. We’re fine.” I didn’t want to tell him where we were in case this went wrong somehow.
The colonel shook his head. “The president will be thrilled to know you’re alive. He could use some good news. Please stand by.”
Sweeney whacked a hanging piece of waterlogged drywall with his cane like he was golfing. “I swear, Wright. You’re a magic man. You should just call all the presidents and get them to stop fighting.”
“Maybe you should have them make you the president — no! The king!” Cal said. “King Daniel Wright the Third.” He marched around with stiff arms and legs, exaggerated movements, like an antique toy soldier.
“Would you two stop screwing around?” Becca said. “Pay attention before someone sneaks in here and jumps us.”
“PFC Wright.” President Montaine spoke in a kind of “aw shucks” tone. “If this wasn’t a vid call, I wouldn’t believe it. You really are alive.”
“Yes, sir. It’s good to see you again, sir.” But it really wasn’t. The president, who had always looked sharp and commanded respect in every situation, now looked shabby and worn out. His hair was longer and shaggier than it usually was. I wasn’t sure if he’d showered recently. He definitely hadn’t shaved. He wore no jacket or tie, just a stained button-down shirt. There looked to be a lot more lines on his face, a lot more gray in his hair.
“Your friends make it too?” he asked.
I gripped the comm so hard that it shook. “Not all of them, sir.”
“I’m sorry for your losses. We’ve suffered too. General McNabb was killed while rescuing some of our civilian experts from a burning section of Idaho CentCom. He pulled almost a dozen of them out, and went in for more before that section collapsed.” Montaine’s stare went blank. “He died in the finest tradition of the service.” Then he seemed to snap back to the moment. “He did save your fiancée’s father. I’m sure he’d love to speak to her. Yes! He’ll be thrilled to know Nathan Crow’s report was in error.”
I bit my lip. “Crow’s report was a lie, sir. But … JoBell is dead. The Brotherhood killed her.”
“Damn. I’m so sorry. We’ve lost so many people. My wife …” Montaine ran his hand over his face. “So many losses.”
“That’s why I’m calling today, sir. This war needs to stop. It has to end. I’m asking you to reach out to the other leaders and call for a cease-fire.”
Montaine waved my suggestion away. “Griffith might’ve gone for that. But we don’t think she’s running the show anymore. It’s all General Jacobsen now.”
I couldn’t tell if Montaine disagreed with me or if he just wasn’t listening. He didn’t seem like himself. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think I was talking to a digi-assistant version of Montaine. I thought about telling him that Griffith’s son was alive and might listen to him if he asked for a cease-fire, but I hedged. “We could try. Sir, we have to at least try. We owe that to all those we’ve lost. We could just, you know, put out the word to everybody else, see if they’re ready to stop fighting too.”
Montaine shook his head and his whole body, like a cold shiver had gone through him. “Stop fighting? When we’re this close to victory? Never! I told those bastards we would never surrender! We’re going to win this war!” He pointed at me. “This is some kind of trick, isn’t it? Maybe you weren’t killed but captured by the US. Brainwashed somehow! Or maybe you defected! Suddenly Daniel Wright appears, saying I should surrender to the United States?”
Lieutenant Griffith stepped up, trying to get himself into the vid call, but I pushed him away. “No, sir. I’m fine. I’m not talking about surrender. Just a cease-fire —”
“The other part,” Stone whispered to remind me.
“Or if I could at least get some ammunition and supplies, maybe an infantry squad or platoon, to help me protect —”
“It won’t work! You tell those Fed sons of bitches that the Northwest Alliance will win! It is the United States who will surrender to me! I’m President James P. Montaine! And I do not surrender!”
The call ended. We all stared in silence at the comm.
“Well, buddy, you tried,” said Cal. “It was worth a shot.”
I slammed my fist on the top of Pale Horse. “Damn it. Why won’t he listen?”
“He seemed kind of …” Jaclyn started.
“Unbalanced,” finished Sweeney.
“The war’s gotten to him,” said Stone. “Broken him.”
“It must be hard being a leader in all of this.” Griffith kicked a chunk of charred rubble. “All that pressure.”
I held my hands up in the air. “Would everybody just stop fighting?” I shouted to the sky. My words echoed through the quiet neighborhood.
“Damn, dude,” Sweeney said.
“Yeah, can you be a little louder?” Cal asked. “I don’t think everybody heard you.”
I set my comm down on the hood. “Cal.”
Cal continued, “Just, you never know what psychos could be around.”
“Cal, you’re a genius!” I said.
“They hear us and find us and next thing — wait.” Cal frowned. “What?”
“Everybody mount up.” I pinned a location on my comm’s map and handed it to Stone. “We’re not finished yet.”
As we drove into the heart of Boise, we could hardly believe the damage. In American History class, we’d seen photos and videos from Germany at the end of World War II. In some cities like Berlin and Dresden, there was nothing left but rubble. Boise wasn’t in much better shape. It took forever getting around, because so many streets were closed by bomb craters or collapsed buildings. Still, some structures were mostly intact. And there were food distribution centers and places where people looked like they were trading stuff they had for stuff they needed.
We stopped at one checkpoint, hoping Montaine hadn’t realized we were in Boise and put out an alert for our capture. Ahead of us was a woman in a dirty Idaho uniform, holding a shotgun, and an older man in torn jeans and a T-shirt aiming a bow and arrow at us.
“Halt,” the woman said without much enthusiasm.
Up in the turret, I laid my rifle on the roof of Pale Horse and held my hands up. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m —”
“Private Wright!” The man smiled. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
The woman frowned. “They said you were dead.”
“You’ve been misinformed,” I said. “But I need to get through. We’re on an important mission.”
The woman wasn’t quite convinced. “Do you have a pass?”
“Are you kidding?” The man gently pushed the barrel of the woman’s gun down. “This is Danny Wright! Let him through.”
“That’s pretty relaxed security,” Sweeney said when we were allowed past the checkpoint.
“What do you expect when they’re guarding a bombed-out wasteland?” said Stone. He handed my comm back to me. “He’ll meet us at the station.”
“I just hope they haven’t moved,” I said to myself.
We reached the corner where we were supposed to meet the Cliffhanger and stopped Pale Horse. After a few seconds, a black man in his thirties calmly stepped out from between two abandoned cars. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt that showed
off respectable biceps. As he approached the side of Pale Horse, he took off his sunglasses and looked up at me in the gun turret. “So, you’re Danny Wright.”
“The Cliffhanger?”
Stone hurried out the back of our truck. “Joe Woodson!” He shook the man’s hand and patted him on the back.
Woodson laughed. “So good to see you, man!” I got down out of the turret. Everyone else set up a loose security perimeter around us. Woodson turned his attention back to me. “Yes, I am the voice of the Cliffhanger. Thanks for setting my buddy free. I never thought I’d see him again.”
“I’m hoping you can return the favor,” I said.
Stone frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s a reason I asked you to meet us down the street from Buzz Ellison’s radio station,” I said.
Woodson laughed. “Want to do a show with the Cliffhanger, huh?”
“To call for a cease-fire, yeah.”
“Seriously, Danny? You really think this guy’s going to make a difference?” Cal nodded at Woodson. “No offense, Mr. Cliffhanger, but you’ve been doing the radio thing a long time and nothing’s changed.”
“Not true!” Woodson smiled. “The peace movement is growing. Who do you think set up the underground communication network that helped the rebels stop General Vogel in Atlantica?”
“Plus we have President Griffith’s son on our team,” Sweeney said.
If Woodson was surprised to see Lieutenant Griffith, he didn’t show it. Instead he shook the man’s hand. “Hoping your mom will go along with a cease-fire?”
Becca put her arm around me. “And we have Danny Wright.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Woodson. “If I didn’t believe in the importance of demanding peace, I wouldn’t have been risking my life so much to get my message out on the air. The Pan American Peace Movement has been gaining strength. If we do this, maybe it will help push it over the edge, and we can make some real progress.” He laughed. “And I can’t pass up the chance to broadcast from that five-hundred-thousand-watt powerhouse transmitter.”
We pulled up outside the building that housed the Buzz Ellison Show. I tried not to think about how the last time I was here, JoBell was with me. When I climbed down out of the vehicle and started up the sidewalk, SAWs were pointed at me from behind sandbag barriers, and three soldiers rushed out to block my way.
“This is a restricted area,” said the youngest sergeant I’d ever seen.
“You have to let me through,” I said. “Buzz Ellison is expecting me on the air today.”
“I would have been notified, and you would have had a security escort.” The sergeant gave a little push to my chest to back me up.
For a second, I wanted to punch the guy out, but I smiled instead. “Right. Sorry.”
Back inside Pale Horse, Sweeney turned away from his gun port for a moment. “Now what?”
“Is there another way in?” the Cliffhanger asked.
“Cal, let’s see if we can go around the block. Maybe we can get into the alley behind this place.”
“Okay, man.” Because of all the debris and so many road closures, Cal had to drive around three blocks to get us to the alley behind the building. But they’d blocked that too. Near the building that housed the studio, two young soldiers, male and female, stood with rifles behind another sandbag wall.
“What do we do about these guys?” Sweeney asked.
I’d ducked down into the vehicle and moved up to the hatch behind the cab. “Couple of kids. They look younger than us. Let’s try the direct approach. Girls, come with me. Sweeney, Cal, when the guards aren’t paying attention, spring the trap. Everybody else wait here. We just need to tie them up.”
Cal pulled up to the barricade. I slung my rifle on my back and climbed out of the turret. An M4 and a SAW were instantly aimed at me. “Hey, guys!” I kept my hands up.
The male PFC with the M4 smiled and elbowed the specialist with the machine gun. “It’s Daniel Wright!”
“I heard you were dead,” the female specialist said. “They made us all watch a video about you and everything.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I said. “You gonna shoot me with that SAW, Specialist?” I noticed she had only about a dozen rounds on the ammo belt in the weapon. That would be more than enough to finish me, but I wondered how hard up Idaho was for ammo.
“Hey, how y’all doing?” Becca turned on the charm as she got out of the turret, then helped Jaclyn out. I jumped down to the hood and was making my way off the front of the vehicle when I saw the specialist tense up.
“This area is restricted,” she said. “Nobody is supposed to be back here.”
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Specialist Harper.” She’d aimed the SAW at me again.
I ignored the gun and laughed a little. “What’s your first name? Your real name?”
“Courtney,” she said.
“I’m Danny,” I said. “This is Becca, and that’s Jaclyn.” I climbed down to the ground.
“You can’t be here.” But she lowered her gun, at least. “Okay? I’m going to get in trouble if they catch me letting people be back here.”
“That’s true,” said the zit-faced PFC. “We have orders.”
Jaclyn touched his forearm. “This is an awesome M4. Are you a good shot?”
“Mason,” the specialist warned. PFC Mason backed away from Jaclyn.
“Right,” I said. “You don’t want people too close to your weapon.” I noticed one unopened MRE on the ground, leaned against the sandbags. Were they supposed to share it? What kind of rations were they on? “I’m supposed to pass on good news. A load of steaks is coming in from Montana. Should be here by tonight. President Montaine is going to make sure all the troops get a big meal.”
“Seriously?” Specialist Harper said.
“Seriously, don’t move,” Cal said.
I moved quick and grabbed Harper’s SAW. When I yanked it away from her, she threw her hands in the air. Jaclyn grabbed PFC Mason’s rifle. Cal and Sweeney had stepped out of Pale Horse with weapons drawn. We had them.
“Please,” said Specialist Harper. She was shaking, tears in her eyes. “Please don’t shoot. I didn’t even want to be in the Army. They made us.”
“I just signed up for the food,” said the PFC.
I handed Becca the SAW. “Cover the alley,” I said to her. I turned back to Specialist Harper. “Courtney. We’re not here to hurt you. Did you ever see the video of me that went all over the Internet?” I held my left fist up at an angle over my head. “The one they made the day my mom was killed?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“We all watched another video on the first day of basic training. You were in Idaho Army uniform, giving a speech,” said PFC Mason.
“Right,” I said. “Well, we’re here to go on the radio and ask soldiers everywhere to stop fighting. We’re trying to end the war.” I squeezed my rifle. “It’s cost everyone too much. So we can either tie you up out here, or you can come with us.”
Cal was about to argue, but I held up my hand. I knew what he was going to say, but he was wrong. These two weren’t dangerous. I don’t think there had ever been any fight in them in the first place.
Moments later, they nodded. “We’ll come with you,” Harper said.
“Great,” I said. “Cal, cover our six. Becca, bring that machine gun up here in front. You keep an eye on these two. Sweeney, Lieutenant Griffith, protect Stone and the Cliffhanger. Remember,” I said as we took off running and entered the building, “we’re trying to stop the fighting. This is not a shoot-first-type situation.”
We sprinted down the hall to the stairs, and in moments, we reached the door to the studio offices. Locked.
“What now?” Cal said. He was breathing heavy and moving fast, in battle mode again.
“Get back.” I aimed JoBell’s badass rifle at the door. These were heavier rounds than the 5.56 from my old M4. I should be able to shoo
t it open. I pulled the trigger, squeezing off four rounds and tearing the hell out of the door all around the lock. Then we were in, and soldiers were shouting from somewhere down the hall toward the front of the building. I sprinted through the front business office. A man rose from his seat at his desk, and I aimed my rifle at him. “Sit your ass down and stay there!”
Paul the producer came around the corner holding up some kind of a metal microphone pole as a weapon. Cal dropped him with one punch.
Behind the glass I saw Buzz Ellison talking frantically into the microphone. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and temples. I tried the door to his broadcast room. Locked. I shot it open and we all rushed in.
“Fellow patriots, I cannot stress enough the danger of this situation. Gunmen are breaking into my studio. They’re being led by —” He finally seemed to recognize me. “But that’s impossible …”
The soldiers from out front ran into the control room outside Buzz’s broadcast studio. My friends held up their guns. Sweeney and Griffith were keeping the unarmed guards from the alley covered, while Becca, TJ, Jaclyn, and Cal aimed at the two guards from the front. Stone and the Cliffhanger were already at work on all the broadcasting and computer equipment in the control room, total professionals, wasting no time making sure our message would go out on as many channels as they could get.
We were locked in a standoff with the other Idaho soldiers, gun to gun, just like that horrible afternoon back in Spokane when I’d killed a man for the first time. Sure, we had more guns. We’d win if everyone started shooting. But I was unwilling to lose any of my friends. This situation was like the whole war. Victory had become meaningless. The cost was too high.
“This time it’s going to go better,” I whispered.
“What do you people want!?” Buzz shouted, red-faced. “If you think I’m going to make statements for you or —”
“Buzz, the Cliffhanger needs your microphone and your broadcast system.” Woodson laughed as he sat down behind the microphone in the other booth.
I pulled Buzz out of his seat and looked him in the eye. “We’ve come to stop the war.”
—• Fires burning across the Dakota prairies are the largest and most devastating in Dakotan history. The problem is compounded by United States snipers and drones, which have been shooting at firefighters attempting to contain the blaze. This fire has already consumed several small towns and cost the lives of hundreds. The Dakota Leadership Assembly has promised a brutal retaliation for United States interference in the humanitarian firefighting effort. •—
