Those responsible for the attacks on Washington are not a small group. They are your neighbors, your friends, and your family. It’s time to let them know that if they don’t stand with you, they stand against you.
There is no one who wants to believe that this is what we have come to—that we are now in a time when we must treat those close to us as enemies. Who wants to believe that? But if you don’t open your eyes, it will be too late. Take a stand now—for the sake of your country.
Tags: revolution, attacks on America
Level 7
Selling Our Souls for a Video Game, Part One
Dylan woke up the next morning to a flick on his ear. He looked up, startled. Tommy stood over him with a proud smirk. “Time to get hunting!” Behind Tommy’s shoulder, Dylan could see the sun peeking through the tall trees. He had been offered a tent because of his rank as team leader, but he decided to stay with the rest of his company in sleeping bags on the golf course.
Tommy unzipped his pants and turned his back to Dylan. “Truck will pick you and your men up in an hour,” he explained as he peed in front of Dylan’s sleeping bag. “It will take you a few miles out—close as we can get you without being detected. You’ll have to hike the rest of the way in. I imagine it will take ‘bout a half day. Just follow the map.”
Before Dylan could respond, Tommy threw a map on the ground and skipped off.
Dylan turned on his side and saw Hunter, still sleeping. He was moaning and fidgeting. On the other side of Hunter, Dylan could see where Trinity had gone to sleep, but her bag was empty.
“Hunter, get up,” Dylan said, nudging him. “Time to go.”
Hunter started and stared at Dylan, disoriented. “I had a really bad dream.”
“What was it?”
Hunter kept staring for several seconds, then finally said, “It doesn’t matter—just a dream, right?”
“Yeah.” Dylan yawned, stepping out of his sleeping bag. He walked towards his boots at the end of his sleeping bag, and stepped barefoot into the puddle of pee that Tommy had made. “Great!” he mumbled, picking up his boots and walking towards the chow tent.
Trinity was sitting at a table in the tent, drinking coffee with Milton. Dylan dumped some water over his feet, grabbed a cup of coffee, and joined them at the table. “You’re up early.”
“I wanted to take a shower. Figured it might be my last one in a few days.”
Dylan nodded and looked at Milton, whose shirt, he noticed, was still buttoned up wrong. “What’s your excuse?”
“I don’t sleep.”
“At all?”
Milton nodded. “Got knocked in the head a few months back, and haven’t slept since. Not even tired.”
Dylan noticed Trinity was wearing a hat, which she never did. “What’s with the hat?”
“My hair never looks pretty anymore. This was just easy.”
Dylan asked jealously. “Are you trying to impress someone?”
Trinity blushed and changed the subject. “So what’s the plan?”
“Truck’s going to take us out to the woods, and we hike the rest of the way in.”
“And then?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t even have a clue of how to get there, do you?”
“I have a map.”
“You know how to read it?”
“It’s a map—how hard can it be?”
“I was a scout in Iraq,” Milton said. “I’ll get us there.”
“There you go, Trinity—Milton has us covered.” Dylan stood and started walking out of the tent with his coffee; he passed Hunter, who was also getting a cup of coffee. “You drink coffee, too?”
Hunter nodded, “Tastes like dirt, but Tommy told me that I’ll have better aim with my gun if I drink two cups a day.” Hunter paused and asked softly, “Nervous?”
“No,” Dylan said.
It wasn’t true. He had been awake most of the night. It wasn’t the Cocos that worried him, or even the sounds of fighting in the distance—he had gotten used to all of that. It was the unexpected—nothing could prepare someone for that.
# # #
An hour later, a transport truck was on the same highway the plane had landed on, taking them to an uncertain destiny. Dylan sat in the front with a 12-year-old driver who could barely see over the wheel; Hunter, Trinity, Johnny, and Milton all sat in the bed of the truck. He tried to give the seat to Trinity, but Johnny insisted that she sit in the back with him because he had some things he wanted to discuss.
Dylan peeked over at the dashboard; the speedometer said 20. He surveyed the empty road. “Why are we going so slow?”
“What’s the hurry?” the driver replied, adjusting himself so he could see over the dashboard better.
“No hurry,” Dylan replied blankly, staring out the window as they passed boarded-up homes. He wondered how long ago everyone had left the city.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” the boy said with a smirk, “and won’t make it back.”
“Why’s everyone here so anxious to die?”
“Once you get your rotation at the front lines, you’ll know why. There’s only two ways out of this place—death and reassignment. Nobody ever gets reassigned. So everyone hopes for a quick death.”
“Is that what you’re hoping for?”
He shrugged. “I’m a driver—one of the lucky ones. I know guys who live months as drivers—we got the longest lives out here.” He drove in silence for a moment, looking to the west at the building black smoke over Seattle. “Few months back,” he said suddenly, “I was driving one of them bloggers out to the front lines. He was doing a story on morale of troops out here, and he says to me, ‘You got some of the most courageous, country-loving bastards I’ve ever seen. Every one of them goes out of his way to be a hero.’ And I laughed and shook my head no. ‘They’re not courageous,’ I say to him, ‘they’re just trying to die. And they don’t have any respect for their country—they’d be fighting on the side of the Coco Puffs if it meant they’d die quicker.’ He sat there real smug—thought I was kidding. Then we get closer to the front lines, and the bombing gets closer and closer to the car. Finally, we’re almost there and we’re literally dodging bombs and bullets as I drive, and I look over and he’s wet himself! Took a few near-death experiences to see I wasn’t kidding.”
The driver was quiet for a moment. He took his sunglasses off and set them in the glove box next to a bottle of caffeine pills. He turned and looked at Dylan intensely, and Dylan saw for the first time how bloodshot his eyes were.
# # #
The truck left them at Langlois Lake, about an hour east of Redmond. They ate a quick lunch, then Dylan gave Milton the map, and they entered the woods.
It was the first time Dylan had been somewhere so lush with vegetation. The trees at home were planted, but not well-maintained, by people. He inhaled the pine smell. He closed his eyes and took a second deep breath, this time pretending he wasn’t in a war.
When he opened his eyes, everyone was staring at him, and his fantasy was no more. He looked across the lake one last time, and then into the forest. “Let’s move out—Milton, lead the way.”
The trail was muddy. Their shoes slogged into the mud, which got inside and soaked their socks. Dylan thought back to what his father had told him about socks before he left. All of them longed for the boots some companies had.
It was a sunny day, but it was hard to see; they were surrounded by trees, and, at times, the forest was so tall and thick that it was hard to tell it was the middle of the day.
Milton walked ahead of everyone else. He seemed to know what he was doing, and even claimed that he could use the sun as a second compass for accuracy. Every so often, he’d mumble to himself, point at something, and say, “Just like the map.”
When it was safe to talk, Trinity said softly, “I really think you should listen to Johnny’s escape plan.”
Dylan shook his head. “No one ever escapes.”
> “Just listen—tell him, Johnny.”
Johnny sighed. “He doesn’t want to hear.”
“Stop being so immature—he’ll listen. Just tell him.”
Johnny apparently didn’t need as much encouragement as he’d pretended. “It’s simple, really. We fake our own death. Everyone knows that Cocos collect bodies as rewards. If we can make it look like the company was ambushed by Cocos, we can escape and find somewhere we won’t have to fight.”
“The war’s global,” Dylan said impatiently, “there’s nowhere to go.”
“That’s not true,” Johnny argued. “Even where I’m from, there’re places outside of the city where no one would ever look. There’s about twenty of us in the company. We could move somewhere together. If we work together, we could farm the land and hunt for food. You can survive your whole life like that, but we only have to survive until this war’s over.”
“And how do you plan on getting twenty people out of Seattle without being spotted? There’re checkpoints everywhere.”
Johnny didn’t answer for a second. Then he said stiffly, “I’m still working that out.”
Dylan laughed. “Well, when you have it all worked out, then come see me.” He glanced at Trinity, who seemed disappointed, and then asked Milton, “Where are we?”
“That’s the path right up there,” Milton said, looking forward several hundred yards. “Just beyond the trees.”
Dylan exhaled in frustration. “You’ve been saying that for the past thirty minutes! Can you find the house or not?”
Milton paused and narrowed his eyes, looking carefully at the trees ahead. He mumbled several things to himself before turning to Dylan and saying, “This has to be right—sure of it.”
“We’re lost, right?” Dylan said, doubting him.
“I told you, Dylan—I’m a scout. I know where we’re going. This terrain is nothing compared to Iraq.”
“Let me see the map.” Milton handed it over, and Dylan examined it. Several seconds later, he looked up at Milton, disgusted. “Remember the fork in the trail we hit a few miles back? Why didn’t you take the other way?”
“I’m following what the map says.”
“What color’s that line, Montana?” Dylan asked, pointing at a red line on the map.
Milton squinted and replied confidently, “Blue.”
Dylan groaned. “It’s red—we’re on the wrong trail.”
“It’s not my fault, sir. ‘Bout five years ago, I got stabbed in the eye with a pencil—colors have been all mixed up ever since. It’s fine. We just turn around, go back to the fork, and take the other trail.”
“Wouldn’t have happened if I were in charge,” Johnny mumbled to Trinity, loudly enough for everyone else to hear.
Dylan gave Johnny a dirty look, but said nothing.
As they started to retrace their steps, Trinity came up beside Dylan and whispered, “Maybe if we keep walking, we’ll hit a town. We can hide out a few days until everyone thinks we’re dead, then we can escape to freedom—some of the people in our company wouldn’t want to escape anyway. Let’s just do it now!”
“You don’t just walk off, Trinity!” Dylan whispered back. “It’s not that simple. They’d come looking for us. Tommy would do it just because he’s insane and has nothing better to do with his time.”
Trinity looked away, hurt. Dylan took her hand and explained, “It’s not that it’s a bad plan—it just needs to be thought out more if it’s going to work.”
Trinity nodded but didn’t say anything more about it. Instead, she reflected, “My mom used to always tell me we’d go camping after the war.”
“You will one day,” Dylan lied.
“I don’t believe I will,” Trinity sadly said. “She told me that was her favorite thing to do with her dad. Camp next to a lake and spend the entire weekend eating any fish they got, and telling stories to each other.”
“One day, I want to go sailing.”
“Sailing?”
“I always watched the boats sailing in the ocean, and they seemed so peaceful. I always imagined that the people on them could watch the waves and, for however long they were on the sea, not have to think about war.”
“It’s settled, then,” Trinity said. “When it’s all over, we’ll go camping somewhere with a big lake, and we’ll go sailing in the afternoon.”
Dylan turned away. She was playing games with him; one moment he thought she liked him, and next she acted like she couldn’t stand him; just once he wanted to be brave enough to tell how he felt.
# # #
They did not reach the fork in the trail again. After walking for two hours, everyone was restless and knew they were lost.
“I think we should split up,” Jonny said, removing the sunglasses that had covered his eyes all day and looking at the horizon.
Dylan shook his head no. “We stick together—we’re stronger that way.”
“Maybe we should, Dylan,” Trinity ventured.
“You’re taking his side?”
“Grow up.”
Johnny strode over to Dylan and stopped in front of him. “Just because someone decided you were our leader doesn’t mean we have to accept it—any one of us could lead just as good as you. I say we take a vote.”
“So it’s a mutiny, then?”
“You’re so confident that you can lead?” Johnny challenged. “Then I’m sure everyone will vote in your favor.”
Dylan was losing them, and he knew it. He thought about Lyle and wondered what he would do, and it hit him—He would lie. With that thought, Dylan’s eyes snapped to his left, and he said softly, “Everyone quiet.”
“What is it?” Hunter asked.
“I said quiet—and get down.”
After a few moments, Johnny said, “I don’t hear anything.” He stood up. “This is stupid.”
“No,” Milton said suddenly, “I hear it, too.”
“Everyone wait here—stay low and keep quiet,” Dylan instructed. “I’m going to go ahead and see if I see anything.”
Trinity pulled on his arm. “No, Dylan. The last time you went ahead, you almost got killed.”
“I’ll be careful.”
He went ahead several hundred feet and sat down on a rock. His plan was working for the moment, and he took some time to enjoy it. Five minutes later, he returned to the rest of the group and said confidently, “Let’s move out.”
“What’d you see?” Trinity asked.
“I think we’re close. Someone or something is out there—I heard them walking. Let’s look alive—you hear anything, we stop and take cover.”
For the next 30 minutes, nobody spoke. Eyes roved nervously, scanning the forest for movement. Dylan walked cautiously ahead of everyone else and occasionally would stop, motion for them to get low, and then continue when nothing happened.
“You don’t really hear anything, do you?” Milton asked low enough that no one else could hear.
“‘Course I heard something.”
Milton laughed softly. “You didn’t hear nothing. I know what you’re doing, and it’s smart—you’re a better leader than they think you are. It was a smart move.”
“It was a desperate move,” Dylan quietly admitted.
“Smart, nonetheless. You’re a good leader. I’ve served with enough to know what it takes, and you got it, kid. The soldiers are lucky to have you—that’s why I didn’t say anything. You may not know what you’re doing, but I believe you can make this turn out okay. You have a leader’s intuition.”
Dylan walked in silence for a moment. He wondered how Milton had figured out his plan, and how long it would take the others to figure it out.
“What was the other war like?” Dylan eventually asked.
“It was like a giant picking on a little baby. Most days, we’d stand around and put on our fancy gas suits and parade around for drills, and then in the afternoon and night we’d sit around and play games or read or write letters. It was a lot of waiting, and a lot of p
olitics. And then we finally moved out, and I never once shot my gun. They sent my platoon home and back three times. Finally, one day they sent me home for good and told me I served my country proud.”
“Were you scared?”
“At first. Then I just realized that if you don’t overlook fear, it’ll just get the best of you.”
The n00b Warriors Page 10
