The Debt Collectors War

by Tess Mackenzie

  Forgettable was an important thing in an insurgent, and that made her suddenly suspicious. It made her wonder if this place was a little more credible than it had first seemed.

  The young man was standing in the gateway, looking at Ellie. Standing there holding the gate a little way open, half-blocking the opening with his body. He didn’t seem to be blocking it on purpose, Ellie thought. Not like she would have. He just seemed to be standing where he had happened to end up after he pulled the gate open.

  “You could have closed the other gate…” he was saying, irritably.

  Ellie stepped forward, towards him, and then stepped forward again. She got close enough that she was crowding him, and was close to the gate as well. She moved into the space between the gate and the gatepost, where he was too, and in doing so she bumped against him, nudging him backwards, pushing him so he stumbled, slightly off-balance, surprised.

  He stumbled, and said, “Hey,” but he seemed offended rather than worried. He seemed like he was about to shout at her, and get angry.

  Not like he had realized anything was wrong.

  Ellie was satisfied. She had moved enough that she was standing where she wanted to be standing. She was in the gateway now, blocking it with her own body, making it difficult for the gate to be closed, and the man in front of her still hadn’t realized anything was wrong.

  He was too busy being offended she’d bumped him, rather than thinking about why she had.

  She drew her sidearm, quickly. She hadn’t risked taking it out earlier, in case it was visible on a camera. Now, she drew it, and kept it down beside her hip, and fired twice towards the man’s legs without aiming, just pointing it by instinct in what felt like the right direction. She needed to be quick. She needed to incapacitate him as quickly as possible, and she didn’t want to take the time to raise the weapon and aim properly.

  She fired once, and missed.

  She fired again and hit him with the second shot.

  She knew she’d hit him. She saw it from the way his expression changed, the way his face suddenly showed pain. He was hurt, and shocked, so she stopped firing and glanced down to check where she’d hit him.

  It was his knee, right on his knee, which would be a fairly serious injury. Enough it ought to stop him moving for a while, anyway.

  He was hurt. He wasn’t a threat. He was already starting to hop, to lift the injured leg, and take his weight off that foot. He was also starting to open his mouth, to shout, to raise the alarm.

  Ellie pushed him backwards, roughly, so he fell over, and then looked around, scanning for danger, raising her sidearm in front of herself to aim as she did.

  It only took a second or two to get her bearings.

  The compound was an open space, with cut grass around the outside, and a flat concrete area in the middle. There were several buildings placed haphazardly around the inside, mostly one- and two-story houses, but also sheds and what seemed to be a workshop. The buildings were all canter-cornered to one another, with doors and windows facing in all directions. There were spaces and pathways between them, and porches and verandas, too. There were piles of crates, and rusted-out broken-down old cars, and a few scrubby trees.

  There was a lot of cover and concealment, Ellie thought. There were a lot of corners she couldn’t see around and places she couldn’t see into from where she was standing right now.

  “Start a scan,” she said quietly to Sameh.

  Sameh didn’t answer, but Ellie didn’t need her to. She knew Sameh would be reaching for the sensor bot packets, and getting her tablet out. Getting ready to do as Ellie had asked.

  Ellie scanned the area in front of her, ready to move, ready to act.

  The compound was still quiet. Only a few seconds had passed since the gunfire, and there didn’t seem to be much reaction yet.

  She could see two other people in the compound in front of her, both men, both looking her way.

  One was closer to her, ten steps away. He looked as if he had been on his way towards her when she came through the gate. He might be John, come to see the guns, or he might just be some kind of quartermaster. He seemed to have stopped, surprised, when she began shooting. His mouth was open, and his expression astonished, but he had stopped moving for now.

  The second man was further away, between two buildings, and had probably just been going from one to the other when Ellie started shooting. He was standing still, as if he had stopped and glanced over when he heard the gunshots.

  He was standing still, but only standing. He wasn’t running or lying down.

  Ellie could see his face, and could see he wasn’t yet alarmed, not even when a gun had just gone off. For now, he was only curious and slightly puzzled, nothing more than that.

  He would be worried in a second or two, Ellie thought. Once he realized one of his group was down, on the ground, and someone he didn’t know was forcing her way into the compound. He would be very worried in a second or two, but right now, right at this instant, his first reaction was only curiosity. That was good to know, Ellie thought. It meant gunshots weren’t necessarily a reason to panic, here. It meant people played with guns inside the compound often enough that shooting wasn’t especially something to notice.

  That gave her a little more time to work.

  She shot the second man, because he was further away, and because, even as he stood there, he was starting to realize there was a problem. She shot him, calmly, before he could warn anyone else, twice in the centre of his body where the fragmenting hostage-rescue rounds would tear open his heart and lungs, killing him quickly and also stopping him taking a breath to shout while he died.

  She watched him, making sure he fell, and then pointed her sidearm at the closer man’s face.

  “Do you want to live?” she asked him.

  He stood there, and looked at her, and didn’t react at all. He was startled, confused, too overwhelmed to think.

  Behind Ellie, the first man she’d shot, the one who had opened the gate, began screaming. She’d been expecting that to take a little longer.

  She lowered her sidearm, and shot backwards and downwards, without looking properly where she was aiming. She knew approximately where the man’s torso was, because she’d just stepped over him and her back foot was still beside his hip. She also knew Sameh was paying attention, and would anticipate what Ellie was about to do and keep herself out the way.

  She didn’t need to aim or check. She pointed her sidearm backwards and downwards, and shot twice, three times, and then the screaming stopped. She didn’t look and see where she’d hit him. She didn’t actually care. She’d quietened him down, and that was enough.

  She pointed her sidearm back at the face of the man right in front of her.

  “Do you want to live?” she asked again.

  He swallowed, and then nodded slowly.

  “How many people are here?” she asked. “Where are they?”

  He looked at her, and didn’t answer. He still seemed confused. He probably wasn’t hearing very well past the gunfire, and probably couldn’t think properly either with the shock of what had just happened in front of him.

  Ellie gave up, and shot him too, in the centre of his chest. He looked surprised and then fell over. She watched him for a few seconds to make sure he was down, and while she did she reached backwards, behind herself, and said to Sameh, “SMG please?”

  Sameh put her submachine gun in her hand.

  “The sensors?” Ellie said.

  “They’re going now,” Sameh said. She threw two packs of sensor bots out in front of them, front left and front right, to begin scanning and mapping and warning them of movement.

  “Thank you,” Ellie said, and began to move.

  She went sideways along the fence, moving quickly, first going behind some crates, then an old shipping container, and then the nearest of the buildings. Sameh followed, staying carefully behind Ellie, watching Ellie’s back and staying out of Ellie’s line of sight, ready to
tidy up after Ellie as they moved.

  The most important thing was to be away from the gate, Ellie thought. She wanted to be out of sight, and fairly hidden, at least until the sensor net began to work and she knew where all the militia members were.

  The amount of noise in the compound was increasing. The amount of confusion was too. The shots and screams had drawn attention. People had begun coming out of the buildings to see what was happening, and shouting to one another, raising the alarm.

  It was all starting to become quite chaotic.

  Ellie was pleased. Chaos would help them. Now that they were inside the gate, chaos was actually useful. If the kid was here, and still alive, the sensor net would be operational in a moment, and looking for him. It would find secure rooms, rooms with thicker walls and no windows, and rooms that still had people inside them. Since they were going to look for that combination particularly, occupied rooms with thick walls, it was useful to cause as much chaos as possible, so as many people as were able went outside to see what was happening. Then, in a few moments, when the sensor net became active, anyone still left in such a room would be far more obvious. And then, Ellie and Sameh would go to those rooms and see who was inside.

  Chaos would help with finding the kid, and it would also help to keep the kid alive. Confusion kept everyone off balance. It stopped people from making decisions, and implementing plans, and it ought to keep the militia from panicking too much, too. At the moment they knew something had happened, but probably no-one yet knew quite what. Probably, this didn’t yet seem like an organized attack. Not without helicopters or armored vehicles or thirty-person assault teams anywhere nearby.

  For now it wasn’t an attack. For now it was just confusion. And for the time being, confusion was good, because once someone decided this was an attack, they might also decide to kill their hostage. But for now, there were no sensible reason to, not until it became clear what was actually happening.

  If the kid was here, and alive, which Ellie very much doubted, then she and Sameh could very likely get to him before the militia got around to deciding to execute anyone.

  If he was here.

  Which Ellie was almost certain he wasn’t.

  It didn’t especially change her plan, either way.

  For now, they would wait, while the sensor net did its imaging, and while they waited they would spread a little confusion around, to make whatever they had to do next a little easier.

  Ellie kept going sideways along the fence, moving at a quick walk, but not actually running, because running was awkward in tactical armor and best avoided unless it was absolutely necessary. She walked fast, in a careful, controlled shuffle, keeping her torso upright and her submachine gun leveled, turning her head to look around, swiveling her gaze separately from where her body was facing.

  She went along the fence, staying behind the junk that was lying around. No-one seemed to have seen them. There were shouts in the distance, and doors banging open, but nothing audible nearby. No shouts anyway, which was what concerned her. And no gunfire either.

  She kept going, assuming without checking that Sameh was following.

  A man stepped around a corner in front of her, looking bemused, as if he was running around with no real idea where he was going. He might have been heading out of a building, towards the perimeter fence. He might have just been joining in the panic, without knowing what was wrong.

  He came around the corner, looking startled as he came into sight. He was turning his body towards Ellie, though, and holding a rifle.

  He was a threat, so she shot him.

  Her submachine gun was set to fire three-round bursts so she didn’t waste ammunition. She fired, aiming at the centre of his body, and was fairly sure all three rounds hit his chest. He went down without a sound, and she kept going, towards him, and then over him when he didn’t move.

  Behind her there was a single gunshot. Sameh making sure the man would stay down, and was not going to be a threat behind them.

  Ellie moved up to the corner the man had just stepped around, and stopped briefly, to glance around it. She was between two buildings, a house and what might be a garage. She had two choices. She could go up the space between the buildings, toward the middle of the compound, or she could keep circling around the fence-line.

  She kept circling. It was safer to stay near the fence for the moment, until she had a proper idea of the situation. Beside the fence she could be certain no-one was outflanking them on one side, and it was better to stay away from the centre of the compound, where the militia were probably concentrating. They would have to move further into the compound soon, but for now, circling made more sense.

  Ellie threw a smoke grenade into the space between the two buildings, just to add a little confusion. She threw another up into the guttering of the house’s roof, hoping someone might see billowing smoke and be distracted, thinking there was a fire.

  She had plenty of grenades to waste. They were small, the size and weight of shotgun shells. She had twenty of them on her, enough she didn’t need to be economical. She had the plain white-smoke grenades she was using now, and several other types as well, some with red- and green-colored smoke for marking wind direction for helicopters, and a few that made whistles and sirens and pulses of flashing light, mostly used as distractions. A collection of different types was useful to have around, just in case, and Ellie had several.

  She threw, and kept moving. Behind her, the grenades began making a considerable amount of smoke. She went further, carefully, walking along behind the garage, her submachine gun raised, covering the two windows she could see. She glanced upwards occasionally, checking the roof, and around behind herself, but mostly she looked ahead and towards the centre of the compound, the direction from which danger would probably come.

  Once, as she glanced around, Ellie noticed Sameh take off her cap, and drop it beside herself, and then shrug off her jacket too. Sameh kept moving as she did, switching her submachine gun from one hand to the other as she pulled her arms out of the sleeves. They didn’t need their disguises any more, Ellie supposed, and removing the jacket meant Sameh could move more freely, and access equipment inside the pockets and on the harness of her tactical armor. Sameh dropped the jacket and kept walking, and Ellie decided to do the same. She pulled her own jacket off as quickly as she could, the same way Sameh had, tugging at it, switching her submachine gun from one hand to the other, while still covering the windows and gaps between the buildings. She dropped it, and then took off the cap too.

  She kept walking. She felt confident. They were badly outnumbered, but they were also well-equipped and trained and very good at this kind of operation. Training and practice counted for a lot. Ellie knew that she and Sameh could shoot straight, and weren’t afraid, and were very familiar with situations like this. As well, they had surprise, and speed, and could operate with Tactical Agility, which was the currently popular corporate warfighting-theory buzzword, but which also actually made some sense, too.

  Tactical Agility said that Ellie and Sameh, because they were outnumbered and had no fixed tactical plan, could stay fluid and fast-moving and keep their enemy off balance. It said they ought to deliberately not plan their way through this battle, and should instead react to the situation as it evolved, deciding second-by-second what to do. Doing that would be to their advantage, because they retained flexibility and so the reactive initiative, while the militia, with greater numbers, would be forced to plan in order to coordinate and cooperate with one another, and in doing so would sacrifice the ability to actually respond.

  That need to plan was the weakness of all larger combat formations, Tactical Agility held. Increasing numbers of people allowed you to deliver greater firepower and force, but simultaneously caused a diffusion in that firepower and force, lost to the friction of organization and planning. Once a squad became more than four or five people, or became more dispersed than could be seen and spoken to simultaneously, then that squad wer
e forced to plan, and stick to its plans, however rudimentary, and those plans locked them into a set course of action and prevented them responding to events. Planning trapped you, Tactical Agility said, and made you sluggish and easier to defeat. Planning also wasted critical resources. It wasted time and effort and concentration and focus, because once combat began, the plan fell apart, and all the effort spent was wasted. Worse, the plan could actually be dangerous, because people tended to stick to it long after it should have been abandoned. They lost sight of their actual mission, their most important objectives, for the sake of resolving small-scale, immediate crises like capturing a doorway or a building or a ditch. By avoiding distractions like overly-elaborate battlefield plans, Tactical Agility said that Ellie would be able to pay more attention to their more important strategic goal, that of finding the missing kid.

  Ellie didn’t completely accept everything that Tactical Agility doctrine claimed, and she didn’t especially like the way these little trends took over so quickly in military circles, but she still paid attention, and read what everyone else read, because sometimes they had some sensible ideas.

  Now, in this situation, she was fairly sure that something of what Tactical Agility said would be useful. If nothing else, remembering to concentrate on the missing kid, and not on the combat she might be involved in at any given moment, that was a useful thing to keep in mind. Not planning at a tactical level was sensible here, Ellie thought, so it was what she was going to try and do.

  She felt confident. She felt sure this whole compound full of disorganized debtors couldn’t do a thing about it if she decided to kill them all.

  Which perhaps she would have to, in the end.

  *

  Ellie reached another gap, where two more buildings met. She threw a smoke grenade over the nearest one, throwing it as far as she could, several buildings away, hoping that by now some of the militia had realized she and Sameh were hiding behind the smoke and using it as cover, and so would go in the wrong direction looking for them.