Breaking the Beast

by Steven Bird

  I took a deep breath and decided to take a chance. Maybe by explaining my situation fully, I’d be able to glean some useful information from her as well. It was a gamble I was willing to take.

  For the next half hour, I explained to her my journey from being a Capitol Police officer who was essentially conscripted into service as an ODF Security Officer, and how I had worked my way up to lieutenant.

  While I was telling the story, I had to pause and wonder if my recent promotion was guided somehow by Ronnie’s hand, to get me to where I needed to be so that I could help him. After all, he did know me from my days with the Capitol Police. Shaking it off, I had to accept that there were things that I would now never have answers to.

  I went on to explain how I had inadvertently become aware of the OWA’s actions, both past and present, and how when presented with Ronnie’s plan, well, how I just couldn’t say no.

  I detailed our acquisition of the Symbex and the research data, as well as our big getaway and our struggles afterward. I even explained to her the horrors I saw once we were free from the zones. Those horrors were new to me, although while I told her the stories, I knew she had seen them all repeat themselves over and over again. I was truly preaching to the choir. It was like I was the new kid being dropped off in the jungle of Vietnam, telling the harrowing tale of my first encounter with the VC to a seasoned veteran.

  Once I was finished with my story, and how it had led to them finding me, I asked, “So, tell me. Who are you with, and how are you getting by? You’re clearly no stranger to the wonders of modern, tyrannical medicine.”

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “I’m with… or was with, a small group of people, who like you, knew of the atrocities and couldn’t sit back and do nothing about it. I was a nurse before it all began. The others… my friends who we lost tonight, had various skills in different trades as well. We all had skills that retained value in the eyes of the OWA.”

  “So you’re with the OWA as well?”

  Her eyes quickly met mine with contempt. “No, I was never ‘with’ them,” she snarled. Regaining her composure, she explained, “Well, at first, I guess. As a nurse, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was helping humanity during the most significant medical crisis humankind had ever known. I was… I was doing my part. Or, like you, so I thought.

  “It didn’t take long for me to begin to see how the care we were giving was being directed from above. Some patients were priorities, while some were tolerated, but seen as nuisances, and others were simply steered away. Deviations from that were not tolerated.

  “By that point, they knew we understood how we couldn’t live without their benevolent hand, feeding us the lifesaving drug. Entire communities were left to die the most miserable death, while those with the right connections were given every possible resource.

  “My false sense of service to humanity quickly turned into a feeling of conscription. I was no longer a volunteer; I was property.”

  Feeling that the two of us shared more in common than we initially knew, I nodded and said, “I’d imagine there are more than a few of us out there who had that realization set in over time.”

  “Were there others? That you knew, that is, who felt the same?” she asked.

  “Things are a little different in the D.C. area,” I explained. “Life is pretty good. The OWA does a good job taking care of its loyalists. For the most part, they could live there their entire lives without ever seeing hardship. As long as they were loyal and played by the rules, that is.

  “There were others who I felt were pretty good people who were ‘transferred’ to a new assignment without notice. The more I came to grips with the reality of things, the more I began to wonder just exactly what those transfers entailed. People seemed to know not to speak their minds. Just play along, and life would be fine.

  “Ronnie was the first person to ever truly speak his mind to me about the OWA. That was a conversation I had wanted to have for quite some time. I guess he could see it in me as well.”

  Looking into the darkness for a moment, she said, “Perhaps if I had been assigned to a hospital or clinic in such a place, I’d have never been pushed in the direction I was. Perhaps I would have simply done like the others you describe, going through life with blinders on, being glad my masters took such good care of me.

  Shaking her head, she said, “But I wasn’t. I was regularly being transferred to other locations, seeing the worst that could be found in the outer edges of the zones. Taking in those the OWA chose to care for and turning away those it didn’t.

  “Watching families with children I knew I could have saved be turned away crushed my soul. I cried myself to sleep every night. I became so depressed and traumatized that I wanted to take my own life. Then… I met Phil.”

  “Who is Phil?” I asked.

  “Phil was one of the men you watched die tonight,” she explained while drying her eyes with her shirt. “He was the best of the best.”

  “You were close?” I asked.

  “Not in that way,” she replied, dismissing the notion of anything other than a professional relationship.

  “Phil caught me just as I was about to step over the edge. Figuratively, that is. I was done. Then, he gave me hope. He convinced me I wasn’t alone. He showed me there were others out there who had looked the beast in the eye and were not going to take it anymore. He gave me hope again. He gave me a purpose.”

  Seeing the fire that still remained in her eyes despite her heartache, I said, “I’d venture to guess he merely helped you see your purpose. I believe it was there all along.”

  She smiled at my silly little statement, and it warmed my heart. She had suffered a traumatic loss tonight, and her morning was far from over. But there we were, still in the middle of it all, and still needing a way out.

  “The group you were with,” I hesitantly asked. “Were they militia? Were they part of a larger organization?”

  “In spirit,” she replied. “We knew there were others out there who felt the same as we did, and we hoped our efforts somehow contributed to the greater good, but the way things are these days, long-distance communication just isn’t possible with the OWA’s dominance over technology.

  “Did you ever watch reruns of Hogan’s Heroes when you were a kid?”

  I laughed and said, “My dad used to watch that show all the time.”

  “That’s how we saw ourselves. We would fall in line during the day, then lash out at the OWA, helping others escape their grasp at night or at any other opportunity we could, really.”

  “Were all of you in the medical field?”

  “No. Phil was in transportation. That’s how I met him. He was a trucker before it all went down. Until recently, he drove for the OWA, hauling people and supplies to areas of interest. Others worked in logistics, vehicle and equipment maintenance, and such. A large organization such as the OWA needs far more than just tactical operators and soldiers to maintain its foothold.

  “We were all assigned to the same mobile response taskforce. We were used to essentially maintain order and loyalty among the communities and populations the OWA needed outside the zones, providing services and material support where needed.”

  “Did you have access to Symbex?” I asked. I couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t tried a move such as Ronnie and me.

  “No, they had thugs like yourself guarding it at all times. I never held a syringe in my hands outside of a secure location, with an entire OSS mobile unit watching every move I made. We discussed such things several times, but it just didn’t seem possible. On top of that, we had reason to believe one or more attack drones were circling above at all times in order to prevent any Symbex from slipping away from their grasp. I have no doubt they would have killed every single person on site if an incident ever occurred.

  “We also heard stories of medical personnel who stepped slightly out of line with their handling of Symbex. They seemed to make examples out of such peo
ple.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “What do you mean, examples?”

  Pausing, she said, “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry,” I said, feeling about two inches tall.

  “Long story short, we knew what we could and couldn’t successfully accomplish. We resolved to simply do what we could, when we could, until a situation presented itself to join up with another resistance group to do something bigger, you know, to make more of an impact.”

  Taking a deep breath, I exhaled, and said, “Well, it looks like that day has come.”

  Chapter Twelve

  For the next hour or so, Tamara and I discussed our options. She was well aware that she could no longer return to her former life inside the OWA. The bodies that had no doubt been retrieved by the OSS would lead them back to her and others within their unit. No, that bridge had been burned. And without the OWA’s steady supply of Symbex for its minions, she would soon begin to feel the effects of the virus and would start to suffer the same horrible fate she’d watched far too many others face.

  When asked how much Symbex I had, if it was still where I hid it, I simply kept telling her plenty, without going into too much detail. I had every reason in the world to trust her, but we all had developed trust issues these days and tried to keep some things to ourselves. Perhaps it gave us a feeling of control in an otherwise uncontrollable world. Or, perhaps the biggest betrayal in human history had forced us into a corner of doubt and mistrust. Either way, I simply said, “enough.”

  I explained to her how the original plan had included Ronnie and myself, so we would have plenty of available doses to keep ourselves alive while pressing on with the mission at hand, especially if we scaled back the frequency, which would be risky but possibly necessary if things got dragged out too long. Now, all we had to do was retrieve it, which would be easier said than done.

  “This is your turf; you clearly know it better than I do. What do you suggest?” I asked, seeking her input on how to retrieve the Symbex I had stashed before being captured by her and her fellow freedom fighters.

  After thinking it over for a moment, she answered, “The hunters.”

  “The hunters?” I repeated, confused by the vague statement.

  “There are a group of hunters in the area that travel by horseback. The OWA tolerates them, as they are merely feeding those in need with their harvest. We don’t know much about them, but we’ve watched them from a distance on many occasions. They’re armed only with primitive bows, which is probably why the OWA leaves them be. If they carried anything that could be seen as defensive in nature, that wouldn’t be tolerated.”

  “If you don’t know much about them, how do you know they feed people in need?”

  “Like I said, we’ve observed them for quite some time. We’ve tracked them several times, following them from a safe distance,” she explained.

  “Safe distance?” I asked. “I thought you said they carried only primitive weapons.”

  Shooting me, the look, she said, “For one, who knows what they’re hiding? And two, it’s not just for our safety, it’s for theirs as well. We are carriers, and making contact with them, even inadvertently, would be dangerous for them since they have no supply of Symbex to fight off the virus once contracted.”

  Nodding that I understood, trying to avoid another look, I said, “So, you’re saying we disguise ourselves as hunters, then attempt to recover the Symbex without being noticed?”

  “Yes, exactly. If drones are patrolling, the observers on the ground will be able to spot any suspicious activity and call in for an intercept. If they see two hunters on horseback, it’ll appear routine.”

  “Whatever we do, it needs to be right away before more OSS arrive to sniff out and crush any other dissenters. And they will. They won’t let this go unanswered.”

  “I guess you’d know that as well as anyone, wouldn’t you?” she chided.

  I have to admit, she had me on my toes. I didn’t know whether she truly saw me as an ally, someone who shared her own mission, or as a threat that may be temporarily convenient. Was my inherent mistrust getting in the way of reading her properly, or was it her mistrust of me that was getting in the way? It was likely a little of both, but at that stage in the game, it was probably for the best.

  Letting someone in close would either lead to betrayal or heartache. There really weren’t many other likely options anymore.

  She went on to explain how a local man named George had been rescuing abandoned horses from farms where the owners either couldn’t take care of them or had died off and were simply no longer around. He took the horses in, nursed them back to full strength, and then he worked with them, using his decades of horsemanship experience to help them become fine saddle horses once again.

  If through his working with them, he found them not to have previously been saddle broke, he would train them to pull a cart or a plow. He tried to see to it that every horse in his care had value for its next owner, ensuring it had a productive future, and not simply to be seen as a protein source.

  She explained how he was sympathetic to the cause, yet refused to get involved directly. He didn’t want to be pushed out by the OWA and have to leave his horses behind for a fate that would almost certainly result in slaughter.

  The OWA tolerated him because he provided a means for the local population to provide for themselves without the use of technology, which was something they seemed to be tightening their grip on. After all, the only steady source of gasoline and diesel was through the OWA and was for official OWA use only.

  Survivors had to scavenge for what they acquired, and that supply seemed to be just about exhausted. What remained to be found was often beginning to varnish from a lack of stabilizers having been added to them before the collapse.

  She explained that we could sneak onto his farm and take a few horses.

  “You mean to steal them?” I asked.

  “It wouldn’t be stealing,” she explained. “Like I said, George is sympathetic to the cause, but can’t risk being suspected and doesn’t want to contribute directly to our support. He said if we were ever in need, to simply take what we wanted, and to leave him a sign that it was us in the form of a knot. That way, he would know it was us, and would not pursue the matter.”

  “A knot?”

  “Yeah. Each horse corral has rope for catching and haltering horses. He said to wrap it around the post in a specific manner that only he would recognize. To anyone else, it was just a length of rope hung around a post. No one else would ever think twice about it.”

  Handing me a small pack she retrieved from the corner of the room, she said, “Here. It’s got three days food and water, as well as a basic first aid kit, a knife, a solar-rechargeable flashlight, and a single person emergency shelter that doubles as a thermal imagining cloak as well. It’s heavy and will sweat you like you won’t believe on a warm day, but it’ll help you evade your friends from the OWA. We’ll each take our own pack. We have several of these go-bags stashed in numerous places in the area for just such an occasion.”

  “Where’s my stuff? The pack I had with me when you so politely invited me down to your dungeon,” I asked. “There were a few important items in that pack.”

  “Sorry, it’s gone,” she said bluntly. “It’s gone, along with my friends.”

  With no further protest on my part, I picked up the CX91 and said, “All right then, let’s get moving.”

  “Not with that thing you’re not,” she barked. “It’s bad enough to be caught with a weapon, but do you really want to be caught with a weapon taken from one of their dead comrades?”

  “Good point,” I conceded, “but do you really think it matters at this point? After what went down tonight, the OSS won’t be tolerating any armed civilians. Being armed at all will be a death sentence.”

  “Still,” she said, standing her ground. “That thing isn’t going with us. Take this,” she said, tossing me a
Sig Sauer 556.

  “It was a police carbine in its previous life,” she said. “It runs the same ammo and mags as my AR, so we’ll be able to run the same rounds, just in case.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember these,” I said as I admired the weapon. “I always loved gas-piston-driven rifles. They run so much cleaner than a direct impingement AR.”

  “You probably won’t live long enough to get it dirty, but okay,” she said dismissively.

  “Just don’t try to wish that into being,” I joked, to see her crack a half-hearted smile. Man, I still couldn’t figure her out. Maybe I never would. Oh, well, get your head back in the game, Joe, I thought to myself as I followed her up the ladder and back out into the moonlit night above.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I followed Tamara as she slipped stealthily through the darkness, avoiding the moonlight wherever she could. She moved with grace and skill through the abandoned suburban neighborhoods on the east side of Chattanooga. No wonder they were able to sneak up on me while I slept, I couldn’t help but think while I watched her move. She was nearly silent and moved with such agility and precision that she barely disturbed a thing around her, while I felt more like an elephant tromping through the woods. If there was a twig to snap, I stepped on it. In one back yard, I even tripped and fell over a toy dump truck that was hidden in the overgrown grass of an abandoned home. Don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t survived up until that point by being a big, clumsy oaf; she just put things on an all new level for me.

  In retrospect, I imagine her being an OWA insider doubling as an insurgent required her to operate at a very high level to avoid capture. She and her late friends had obviously been doing that for a while and had no doubt perfected their craft. It was their interest in me, a watched, pursued man that had been their downfall. I hoped like hell not to be the cause of such losses again.

  After working our way east for what felt like an hour, Tamara positioned herself in the shadows of a backyard privacy fence, staying well clear of the moonlight. She motioned for me to move up to her position, so I joined her.