Our War

by Craig DiLouie

  America was fast becoming a nation where nothing was real. Among the greatest casualties of its war was truth.

  “Webb won’t be able to keep it suppressed,” Aubrey said. “The UN already knows about it. They’ll publish a report, and it’ll get out.”

  Eckert leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet on his desk. He blew a plume of smoke and regarded her with his one good eye. “Awesome.”

  “Awesome?”

  “You think I like kids shooting guns at each other? I want the story to get out.”

  But the Chronicle couldn’t publish it.

  Deep booms pounded like thunder in the distance. The building vibrated for an alarming second. The windowpanes shivered.

  Past Eckert’s shoulder, a smoke cloud mushroomed across the river.

  The editor turned in his chair. “What was that?”

  Another explosion hurled debris sky-high. The crackle of small arms fire thickened until it became a constant muted thunder.

  “That’s not Brickyard Crossing,” Aubrey said.

  Eckert jumped to his feet. “Come on!”

  He shoved her out the door and led her to the stairwell, where they joined a stream of colleagues heading up to the roof for a better view of what was happening.

  Excited staffers crowded the parapet, talking and pointing.

  “Garcia, what are you doing?” the editor roared. “The rebels are launching a counteroffensive. Get your ass out there and bring back the story!”

  The reporter rushed off with a grimace. “I’m on it, boss.”

  Aubrey and Eckert found a spot facing west. From where they stood, it was impossible to see anything other than a pall of smoke and dust hanging over the skyline.

  “That’s Haughville,” she said.

  The rebels were hitting the Free Women hard.

  Another explosion rocketed into the dusty air. The First Angels militia in the south wanted in on the action and were firing their mortars into the district.

  “This new development might solve our ethical problem,” Eckert said. “If they break through, they’ll kill every one of us.”

  The rebels had their chance to do her in yesterday but hadn’t taken it. “I don’t think—”

  Then it hit her.

  They hadn’t harmed her and Gabrielle because they were preparing an offensive. Killing or taking them hostage might have drawn attention. Instead, the rebels had put on a show. Look at us doing nothing. We’re not about to attack.

  If this offensive weren’t occurring, she might be dead or wish she was.

  She shuddered. “I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking the day off,” she called over her shoulder. “And you’re an asshole.”

  “Shooting the messenger. Now you see how it works.”

  Aubrey returned to the stairwell. A long way down. She unlocked her bike, brought it to the street, and started riding.

  An air-raid siren revved up at city hall, its wail building in volume until it drowned out the distant roar of guns. The streets were already clearing. The few people still out hurried to get home. Red and blue lights flashing, a column of BearCat armored police vehicles roared past.

  She and Eckert were too much alike, except for one critical difference. He put the newspaper above everything else. She put the truth first. These priorities were supposed to go hand in hand, but they didn’t always.

  He was right about one thing, though. Every so often, a story became the reporter. What the reporter wanted, and how far she’d go to get it.

  Aubrey had one last card to play. She pedaled as hard as she could toward the Castle.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Clusterfuck, Mitch thought.

  The intel had been solid. The chatter on the company net told him the Indy 300 had bugged out. But an army of Amazons had taken its place. They were disorganized, but there were a lot of them, and they were fighting like maniacs for this building.

  He scanned the street with his close combat optic. The platoon had an open road out of here, but a jam of burning vehicles blocked it. His men were stuck until they cleared the wrecks, losing precious minutes while the enemy rallied and probed from the south.

  Frantic voices filled the platoon frequency.

  “This is Root One-Six,” he said. “Clear the net, over.”

  Nobody was able to raise the lieutenant. He was either dead or cowering.

  “I said, clear the fucking net.” Mitch was now in command of the op.

  One by one, the voices dropped off.

  “Move the vehicles to make a path so the dozer can get the wrecks off the road,” he ordered. “Establish security until it’s done. This is a speed bump, nothing more. One-Six, out.”

  He spotted Alex Miller running toward the daycare’s iron fence. Jack and Donnie bolted from cover to join him. The kid was thinking like a soldier. You find the enemy, you attack. The enemy finds you first, you attack.

  A bullet whined past Mitch’s ear and cracked into the road behind him.

  “Now we’re having fun,” Tom said.

  Somehow, the platoon had stumbled onto what appeared to be the enemy’s base. If they captured it, they’d disrupt the resistance and hopefully free themselves from contact so they could continue their advance.

  Mitch visualized the operation. Take the building, clear the wrecks, leave a screen facing south, and then remount and keep driving east toward Indy’s heart. If they stayed too long, the libs would come in from the north as well and snag their collective balls in a vise. If that happened, it’d be the aborted assault on city hall all over again.

  Forget Stalingrad. It’d be Custer’s Last Stand.

  “Follow me,” Mitch shouted to his squad.

  They ran through a hail of fire. A militiaman yelped as his legs gave out. Two other fighters tossed his arms over their shoulders and hauled him wincing and hopping to the fence.

  Jack fired at a window. “You want some freedom fries with that?”

  Alex’s eyes were wild. “We didn’t know what to do, so we moved up.”

  “We’re taking that building,” Mitch said. “Move out.”

  The squad threw covering fire. One by one, the men scaled the iron railing and raced across the courtyard to the wall. Enemy fire slackened as the airport firefighting vehicle pounded the windows with water.

  Then it was his turn. He went over the fence and landed hard on his bad ankle. He grunted and kept going.

  Tom planted C-4 on the doors. The men plugged their ears.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  The doors disappeared with a crash. The fighters charged in and swept the area with their rifles.

  Crack, crack. A scream.

  “Got one,” one of his men yelled.

  “Make sure she’s down,” Tom said.

  Mitch entered a large open space filled with cardboard boxes, gear, and trash. An old woman lay bleeding on the floor. Somebody had graffitied WELCOME TO HELL on the wall.

  “Clear!” the men called out.

  Shook burst through the doorway with his SAW, followed by panting fighters. “This is my building.”

  Bravo squad jogged to the stairwell and started up.

  Mitch exchanged a glance with Tom. Shook would either sweep the building with his machine gun or get killed before he reached the top.

  Knowing Shook, he’d probably make it. In Mitch’s view, the man was the worst kind of soldier, a psycho with a lucky charm up his ass.

  Alex headed up the stairs after them. The kid had a little psycho in him too but wasn’t as lucky as Shook. Mitch and Tom followed while the rest of the squad finished clearing the first floor.

  Mitch heard a woman crying in a room down the hall. Her voice turned into a terrified howl. Shook’s SAW spat a burst. Somebody laughed.

  Tom shot another look at Mitch, who knew what the soldier was thinking: We should put him down like a rabid dog. Mitch wagged his head. Shook had been a liability from the beginning,
but there was no use starting a fight within the platoon right now. He may have been a psycho, but he was their psycho.

  They split up at an intersection. Mitch cleared the rooms one at a time but found nothing living. Broken glass and shell casings covered the waterlogged carpet. A dead militiawoman sat propped against the wall surrounded by bloody bandages.

  No sign of Alex Miller. Mitch was starting to worry a little and not just because Alex was one of his own. He’d taken a liking to the kid.

  He was limping now, wincing with each step.

  One more room to go. Then he’d radio the platoon to start mounting up. Leave one squad here to hold this building while the rest continued their eastward advance.

  The room was an open office area filled with grimy office furniture and computers. Bullet holes scarred the walls. Bits of drywall floated in the air.

  A child was crying.

  Mitch crept forward until he spotted her across the room.

  The little girl knelt by a dead militiawoman. She looked up at him and wiped tears from her cheeks, leaving behind a dirty smudge.

  With shock, Mitch realized he’d seen her somewhere before but couldn’t place it. By the look in her eyes, she recognized him too.

  Then it came to him. A moonlit wreck by the side of the road.

  He smiled and relaxed a little. “Hey, little one. I see you made it to Indy all right.”

  The girl grabbed the militiawoman’s AK-47 and raised it.

  “Put it down,” he said. “I’m not shooting a kid today.”

  Click.

  He jumped. Son of a bitch. “You try that again and I’ll—”

  She ejected the empty magazine with practiced ease. She reached for a fresh one from the dead woman’s pouch.

  Mitch aimed his rifle. “Stop!”

  She slammed the magazine into the well and loaded a round in the firing chamber.

  “Don’t do it! I’ll shoot!”

  She was going to make him kill her.

  The girl heaved the rifle to her shoulder.

  “Shit,” he said and dove for the doorway.

  The AK-47 cracked behind him on full auto. The rounds destroyed the doorframe. Mitch crawled through freezing water and filth as the gun chewed through the wall and filled the air with dust and splinters.

  Christ, I’m getting lit up by a ten-year-old girl—

  The firing stopped. A hand reached under his armpit and pulled. It was Tom.

  “A kid in there with an AK,” he said as he got back to his feet.

  Tom’s eyebrows shot up.

  Mitch growled, “I gave her every chance to give up. I don’t shoot little girls.”

  “Then she’s going to shoot us. You know how this works.”

  “I don’t shoot little girls,” he repeated.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ll distract her, then you grab her.”

  Tom shrugged. “It’s your neck.”

  Mitch moved to the edge of the doorway while Tom roamed deeper down the hall to take her from the far entrance.

  “This is it, kid,” he called out. “Last chance to put down your weapon.”

  He wished he had a flash bang grenade. The girl was crazier than Shook.

  Hannah, he remembered. That was her name.

  Mitch shot his head around the corner for a quick look inside.

  To his relief, the room was empty save for the dead.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The church was filled with writhing forms barely visible in the weak light of oil lamps. Smoke drifted along the ceiling from cigarettes lit by wounded fighters who were still awake.

  Hannah stood guard with her AK-47, cocking her ear at the odd splash of gunfire that interrupted the night’s quiet. The commander sat with her back against the altar, her blood seeping into the carpet.

  “Today, it’s income inequality,” Abigail said to nobody in particular. “Tomorrow, climate change. So stupid. We’re so, so stupid.”

  She’d started raving an hour ago. Curled up like cats on the floor, the girls stirred in their sleep. Any minute, the rebels would burst through the doors.

  “We didn’t have enough sense to solve any of it.”

  Hannah was barely listening, not that she understood much of it anyway. She was far more worried that Abigail’s wound was still bleeding. She eyed the nuns ministering to the wounded and wondered if she should say something.

  “Soon, it’ll solve us,” the commander said.

  The doors banged open. The church inhaled a breath of freezing night air. The oil lamps sputtered where they were hung.

  Electrified, Hannah raised her rifle.

  Then lowered it. Sabrina had come.

  Abigail’s eyes were bright and feverish. “The world’s coming to an end so slow that nobody cares. Do you think we’re giving our blood for capitalism? So the few can take it all? The only answer…” Her words dissolved into a pained growl.

  Sabrina fixed her gaze on the commander and marched up the aisle to crouch next to her. “How bad is it?”

  “They had to fix her arm,” Hannah said.

  The soldier unslung her medical bag. “Take your finger off the trigger before you shoot yourself. Why are you smiling like that?”

  “I’m really happy to see you.” Everything was going to be okay now.

  Sabrina removed the dressing around Abigail’s arm to reveal a jagged red line seamed with crude stitches. The flesh was swollen, bloody, and bruised.

  “Revolution,” the commander gasped.

  “This is going to hurt.” Sabrina poured alcohol onto the wound.

  Abigail growled again. “Goddamn, yes, it does.”

  “Will she be okay?” Hannah said.

  “The bleeding is slowing down,” Sabrina said. “She’s strong. She’ll survive the wound. Infection’s another matter. If gangrene sets in…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence. Hannah didn’t want to know. Outside, a short machine-gun burst broke the night’s stillness.

  “That woke me up,” Abigail said. “I need a drink.” She accepted Sabrina’s canteen, drank thirstily, and gave it back. “Now give me a real drink.”

  Sabrina handed her a silver flask. “Here.”

  Another long pull. “Talk to me.”

  “We stopped them at Tremont, but tomorrow, who knows. The front line’s a mess. We might have to bug out in the morning.” Sabrina looked around the casualty collection station as if trying to figure out how she was going to move all these people.

  “How many did we lose?”

  Sabrina redressed the wound. “So far, nine dead, twenty-six wounded, seventeen missing.”

  The commander gritted her teeth. “Nearly a third…”

  “We weren’t ready. It’s like they knew. One big setup.”

  Hannah stared at her with growing alarm. This she understood.

  “Central committee?” Abigail asked.

  “Among the missing,” Sabrina said. “They were at HQ. You’re it now.”

  “No,” Abigail said. “You. Take command.”

  “We’re in a bad spot. We lost most of our supplies at HQ. The IMPD won’t come. They’re fortifying the bridges behind us.”

  “The Centrists don’t care about winning. Just holding on to what’s theirs.”

  “I was thinking, yeah, we might be on our own for now. We should send people to the Indy 300 and Rainbow Warriors on our flanks, see if they’ll help.”

  “I’ll go,” Hannah said.

  Sabrina shot her a look. “We’ll talk later.” Code for zip it.

  Abigail gripped the soldier’s arm with her good hand. “No matter what happens, hold the line. You hear? If you don’t, the whole front will collapse.”

  Sabrina prepared a hypodermic needle. “We’ll hold.”

  Abigail sighed as the drug flooded her system. “The government is selling us out. We can’t rely on them.”

  “You need to rest now.”

  “We speak truth to power,�
�� she said dreamily. “This is them speaking power to truth.”

  Her eyes drifted closed. She was finally asleep.

  Sabrina stood and surveyed the room. A small crowd of women had gathered, walking wounded with bandaged limbs and slung rifles.

  They raised clenched fists in a power salute. Wanting back in the fight.

  “It’s on us now, sisters,” Sabrina said.

  Hannah said, “Me too.”

  The militiawoman held out her hand. “Give it here.”

  Hannah tightened her grip on the rifle. “If you don’t want me to come, I’ll stay here and protect Abigail.”

  “She doesn’t need protecting. She’s not the commander anymore.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “She knew what giving up command meant. Now give me your AK.”

  Sabrina wasn’t asking. Fuming, Hannah handed it over. The Free Women’s new commander checked the magazine and passed it to another fighter.

  “I fought today,” Hannah said. “I was at HQ.”

  “I know.”

  “I can help. You won’t let me.”

  “Tomorrow, sister,” Sabrina said. “I’ll be relying on you to help me forge the new line. Get some sleep. It’s going to be a tough day.”

  The band of fighters left the church.

  Hannah bent over Abigail to make sure the woman was breathing. Whether Abigail was in command or not didn’t matter. She’d given Hannah a home. The woman would always be Hannah’s commander.

  The cause didn’t work like that, however. It wasn’t any one person.

  Now the Free Women had a new leader, and everything would change again. Abigail was tough but maternal. Sabrina was just tough, more a big sister. Maybe that was okay. Maybe that was what the militia needed to survive this.

  A massive yawn overtook her. There was no point in standing watch anymore. She curled up next to Maria and pulled the blanket over both of them. The girl flinched and whimpered in her sleep. Hannah wrapped her arm around her shivering friend and closed her eyes. It was calming, sleeping next to a human being.