by Schow, Ryan
“Can your men do this?” Quan asked, the first real question he wasn’t sure he’d get a straight answer on.
“That’s a bold affirmative,” Longwei said, sensing the importance of the question. “I repeat, bold affirmative.”
“Copy that,” Quan said.
The night was still, the air so cold it seemed to compress his skull. He turned and checked his two counterparts, then took a deep breath and second guessed himself for the tenth time. He didn’t need to do this. It wasn’t worth it. Getting to Oregon was the foremost objective, not wiping out everything in between there and Oregon.
After a moment of reflection, he heard the two men he was with shifting in their gear, a sign to make a move.
He got on comms and called OC5 forward. There was no reason for the RPG, but it never hurt to have the extra firepower.
“On my count,” Quan said, his sphincter tightening once more, his breath high in his throat. A bead of sweat trickled from his brow down his temple. He quickly wiped it away before anyone could see it.
“Let the raid commence,” Quan said.
And so it did.
The men moved swiftly through the dark, taking out targets with knives at first, and then with their semi-autos second. Twice the snipers saved his bacon, but not before he realized there were more then twenty-six troops.
The troop transport still had another five troops on board. The second they started pouring out, an RPG tore through the night, hit the target and created a boiling rush of fire and destruction. The truck’s rear end jumped a good foot then slammed down hard enough to stall the surge. The men caught in the inferno immediately caught fire. No one wasted any rounds on them. There was a man who made it out, however, but the snipers took him down fast.
All in all, it was a clean strike.
Quan was impressed.
Longwei, never once resting on his laurels, was quick to find the keys to the supply truck. He backed it out of the space next to the burning troop transport and moved it closer to the team. Not only did they dispatch the enemy targets, there were no casualties and they kept the weapons, as well as the supply truck.
To the snipers, Quan said, “Eyes on the surrounding perimeter. If one of these guys was taking a dump before all this started, I don’t want him playing Jack in the Box with us, copy?”
“Loud and clear, IC1,” a voice said. “Nice run.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“Copy that.”
When they looked at the stacks of contraband in the back of the supply truck, everyone got giddy. Not overtly joyous, but happy enough that you could feel the emotion in the air.
“Good call on the hit, Quan,” Longwei said.
Quan smiled, nodded. Longwei congratulated his team.
“We need to get whatever gas these guys have,” Quan said, referring to the gas cans stored on the backs of every vehicle. “Also, we should top off our rig as well as the supply truck. Longwei, take your choice of vehicle, then let’s roll out in ten.”
“I’ll take the supply truck, but we need to double time it,” Longwei said. “This fire is a beacon, and it’s not leaving me with the best feeling.”
“Alright, let’s go!” Quan clapped, spurring everyone into motion.
They were out of there in eight minutes flat, back on the road and feeling good about their prospects.
When the man riding up front with him said, “That wasn’t the convoy we were looking for, was it?” Quan replied, “No, but it’s the one we found.”
“What made you decide to hit it?” he asked.
“What’s your name, son?” he asked. The kid was young enough to be his son, if he had one, but he had the look of someone who had been around the block.
“Steve Daily,” he said.
“You originally from California?” Quan asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“This state has changed,” he said, more to himself than to Steve.
He remembered coming to California when he was a child. His parents took him there on vacation. They went to Disneyland, Universal Studios, The Hard Rock Café. They even saw Elvis, though later he realized that wasn’t the real Elvis, but a paid impersonator.
When his sister was born, his parents were adamant that they have her at home. He helped his father deliver the child, but four days later they were visited by the authorities. They found his baby sister, killed her in her crib with a single shot to the head, then dragged his parents out of the house into a mobile execution van and killed them.
Quan ran.
He was later picked up by the authorities and taken to a work camp where he was eventually given the opportunity to either live in slavery or serve the state in the ground force of the People’s Liberation Army.
Later he would get the chance to do to the Chicom authorities what they did to him: take every last thing from them. From that day on, his mission in life was clear, the pathway set.
“I meant no disrespect, Mr. Li,” Steve said.
“Asking about my decision to strike is not disrespectful when it is just you and me. If you question my decisions in front of the others, it could be perceived that way.”
“That’s why I waited, sir.”
“We were behind them with the cover of night and the element of surprise on our side. There aren’t many vehicles out right now. They’re too busy picking up food, weapons and supplies from the ports of Long Beach and LA. On this caravan, I took the chance that they had items we could use, but I was hoping they were occupied more with their new stock than operational safety.”
“That’s why you hit them?” Steve asked.
“No,” he said. “But that’s why I felt comfortable hitting them.”
Steve clearly wanted to ask the next question, but he hesitated, like he didn’t want to offend him.
Quan decided to answer honestly.
“I hit them because these monsters have oppressed the Chinese people for decades with no repercussions. I have no wife and kids, no immediate family, no friends but the men I serve with, and even then, they are not friends but comrades, brothers in arms. I long for only two things in this life: the tranquility of a peaceful life, and the unrelenting desire to kill as many of them as I can. I understand there are times when I cannot do that without risking the overarching mission or compromising operational security. Today, I took a chance and it paid off.”
“Plus it was satisfying, taking them out,” Steve said, a light grin on his face.
“Indeed it was,” he replied, allowing himself a moment.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Sure,” Quan said.
“Have you heard of Skylar Madigan?”
“Of course.”
“You’re high up in the SoCal Resistance,” Steve said. “Have you…met her? I mean, talked with her, or anything?”
He chortled to himself, then said, “She’s smart as hell, tough—from what I hear—and she’ll eat your face off if she needs to.”
“Jesus in heaven,” he said with that same grin.
“Say all the prayers you want, she’s the kind of girl you want on your side.”
“What about Harper Whitaker?”
“She’s in charge of west coast communications,” he said. “I haven’t seen her, but she ran the hub. Actually she oversaw everything on the west coast. That’s why we chose her to lead the entire west coast Resistance.”
“You said she was in charge,” Steve said. “Does that mean she’s no longer in charge?”
“She’s out of range, and the EMP killed traditional communications. Which means no one is really communicating worth a squat right now.”
“We have two-ways we can use when we get there. Maybe start the network back up. I saw boxes of them in the back of the troop transport.”
“Everyone’s got them already,” he said. “At least, they were supposed to have them.”
“In Faraday cages?” Steve asked, speaking of the cages built to protect smal
l electronics from an EMP event.
“Standard protocol when we got advanced warning.”
“What’s she like?” Steve asked.
“Skylar or Harper?”
“Skylar.”
“She’s MIA.”
“Have you seen her before?” he asked. “Not since she’s gone missing, but, like…ever?”
“Video phone.”
This seemed to rouse him a bit.
“And?”
Quan felt himself smiling in his eyes, like he was reminiscing. “For a white girl, she’s something to behold.”
“Her looks?”
“That, but more than that. The woman could cut us both in half and not think twice,” he said. “And when you’re looking at her, it’s like she’s sizing you up. Even if you’re on the same side, it’s like she’s trying to figure out all the ways she’s going to kill you if you cross her.”
“That’s so hot,” he said, breaking through the stiff, no-nonsense exterior he had when they met.
“There’s something else about her,” Quan said, unable to truly put his finger on it. It was more of a recognition than something he could quantify, or even explain. “It’s like she doesn’t care about things you’d expect a twenty-something year old girl to care about. There’s a driving force in her I can’t figure out.”
“Good God in heaven,” he said, looking deep into Quan’s eyes, “you’re in love with her.”
He looked over at Steve, as serious as he’s ever been, then he said, “All of us are. And trust me, if you ever get to see her, if she’s not dead, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“What does she look like?” he asked.
“Thick black hair, perfect skin, thin but muscular. And the way she carries herself, you can see Alpha males rethinking their position in the social order when she walks by.”
“You got all this from a video phone?” Steve asked.
He nodded his head, a smile forming on his lips. “That and I met her once. Not really met her, but saw her at an informal briefing. That was last year though.”
“This is why I wanted to come,” Steve said. “I wanted to meet her.”
“If I had a third goal in life,” Quan admitted, allowing his guard to come all the way down, “it would be the same as yours. To meet Skylar Madigan.”
Chapter Eleven
The morning after the school shooting wasn’t an easy one. Logan was rattled from the killing in a way that he hadn’t been just after it happened. And Harper didn’t sleep all night long. She just tossed and turned, sweating, sometimes crying out in her sleep. She shot up in bed sometime in the middle of the night and scared Logan so bad he reached for the gun and aimed it at the door.
“I’m sorry,” Harper said before laying back down.
When he finally got out of bed, he went to check on Stephani, found her asleep. She wasn’t like Harper, who’d torn the bed apart from all the tossing and turning. No, Stephani was lying still, so quiet she looked dead. She wasn’t, but she looked like it.
“Hey,” Connor whispered, putting a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He turned around, nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m gonna need your help.”
“No problem,” Logan said.
They moved into the kitchen where Orbey had a big basket of eggs. Seeing the two of them working already well into the day made Logan feel bad for sleeping in.
“How is your side?” Orbey asked.
“Better than before,” he said. “Especially with the pain pills.”
When Dr. Quinn helped get Stephani patched up and back home, she checked on Logan. She gave him some antibiotics for the infection, cleaned the area, then said, “It’s actually healing pretty well. There’s just this one place.” She put in a couple of stitches, then said, “Try not to exert yourself too much.” He nodded his head, promised he’d take it easy, but then asked what he needed to do if he wasn’t going to take it easy. She didn’t say anything, she merely frowned. When he got up, he checked the wound and already it looked much better.
“Do you want some eggs?” Orbey asked. “You’ll need the energy.”
“He can get some when he gets back,” Connor said.
Logan smiled, then asked, “What are we doing, Connor?” Cooper was suddenly there, at his side, nuzzling into his leg.
“I know you’re not feeling so hot, but I wonder if you could give me a hand. I just took down a rather impressive buck, but it’s too big to transport. You ever gutted a deer before?”
“Does anything about me make you think I have?”
He laughed, then said, “I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. You an animal lover?”
“Who isn’t?” Logan answered.
“Some people aren’t affected by cruelty to animals. I personally think those people are evil, but everyone’s wired a bit differently.”
“I feel like you’re setting me up for something,” Logan said.
“I just told you,” he replied. “I’m taking you down the hill so you can help me field dress this thing and get it back here. Plus I need someone to keep Cooper off the animal, and maybe have an extra set of eyes and a separate gun with me.”
“Field dress it?” he asked.
“Gut it and prepare it for easier transport.”
“Oh yeah, okay,” Logan said. “Are we walking? Because my feet are better but not great, and my side hurts like a mother—” he said, cutting off because Orbey was there and he was a gentleman.
“I get it. We’ll take the quad down there. I’ll go slow because I know you’re healing. You can drive the essentials back when we’re done. We have to go now though, otherwise the animal’s going to bloat and that’s no good when you’re working below the sternum.” To Orbey, Connor said, “Can you hand me that plastic bag? I need it for the stuff.”
Orbey frowned, then handed him a bag.
On the way out, Connor said, “She doesn’t like any part of this. Orbey thinks the deer are cute.”
“They kind of are,” Logan said.
He snorted and said, “Typical city boy. Let’s go Cooper!”
The dog came bounding down the stairs and over to the quad where he tried to jump up and join them.
“No, Cooper,” Logan said as the dog put his paws on Logan’s leg and tried again to hop up.
“There’s only one person riding bitch today and that’s Logan,” Connor said. Logan shook his head as Connor fired up the quad. Over his shoulder, Connor said, “The bag is for the heart, the liver, the kidneys and the tenderloin. The rest of the guts we’re gonna pull out. I’ll show you how it’s done and you can do the next one.”
“I have to admit,” Logan said, “I haven’t been hunting before.”
“Don’t worry,” Connor replied over the noise of the quad. “Lots of people haven’t. Up here they have, but down in the city, I don’t expect that.”
“I’m not naïve,” Logan said. “I know meat comes from animals, so you don’t have to tiptoe over the subject. We need to kill animals to live, so I have to get accustomed to it without being judgmental, I get it.”
“Some people get sticks up their butts about it while partaking, and some people get their sticks up their butts about it and don’t eat meat. I have no respect for the hypocrites, but you know, I try to be fair to those who don’t—”
“I don’t do that politically correct crap, Connor. Just say what you’re going to say already.”
“Just checking your sensitivities is all.”
“I got it already.”
When they got to the buck, it was laid out on its back, front legs curled into its chest, back legs up. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel, standing before the deer, but the animal’s face bore no expression, even though the eyes were wide open. The buck was beautiful, once alive, now about to be their sustenance.
“Okay,” Connor said, pulling out a retractable blade. “Not sure how you feel about buttholes, but the first thing you’re going to need to do is get up in there.”
>
Logan gave him a slow, sideways look.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “You’re going to have to get over that.”
“Okay,” he said, plainly.
“First off, there are tips and tricks, but if you learn the basics, and you do this enough—which we will unless you plan on starving to death—then you’ll find your own groove in time. You can’t really make a mistake, you can only make it harder on yourself if you do it one way over the other.”
When he was ready, Connor started cutting around the anus. “We’re going to cut around the colon here, freeing it up so we can bring everything out in one piece.” He worked the blade quickly, then he moved above the testes and made an incision in the hide. “You need to get in the habit of cutting up and away, rather than down and through the hide.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“It lets the blade slide right up through the hairs rather than cut them in half. It basically keeps you from creating a mess you’ll later wish you didn’t have to clean up.”
“This is not the way I wanted to get ready for breakfast,” Logan said.
“Sure it is,” Connor replied, working with his head down, undeterred. “Now you’re going to cut through the hide, not touching the muscle.”
“What about the balls?”
“We’re going to cut around them, get all this hide pulled back, and then we’re going to make a clean incision, cutting through the meat, down to the pelvis bone.” Connor slipped through the purplish-red meat, no real blood whatsoever, straight down to a long ridge of bone.
By that time, Cooper couldn’t help himself. He’d gotten close enough that his sniffer was working overtime.
“Cooper, go for a walk,” Connor said. The pup whined, his attention split. Connor stopped what he was doing and looked at the dog. “Am I going to have to ask you twice?”
Lowering his head, he turned away, then heard something and took off running in the direction of the house.
Getting back to it, Connor said, “Now you’re going to cut on the other side of the pelvis bone, too, pulling that meat away. After that, you’re going to cut open the adjoining hide, but be careful here, you’re going to spill a little urine.”
