Revolution 2.1

Everett, WA, USA

2 June, 2030 1700 UTC-

The van was back where it belonged, behind the cultural center we'd “borrowed” it from. all the gear had been cleaned, packed away in water-tight pelican cases that had been secured to the pilings under a dockside warehouse somebody else owned. The squad was back operating under our legends as blue collar wage slaves and motorcycle enthusiasts.   Ensconced in the sprawling Victorian revival that Tobe and Mick owned everyone was decompressing, or at least trying to.

Mick was outside on the grill; steaks and salmon was the order of the day and I could smell the fragrant smoke all the way upstairs. I could hear Tobe in the kitchen cooking...something; probably everything else that wasn't meat. Bob and Jake were playing backgammon of all things, in the upstairs parlor so as to keep away from what they termed “noise”.

The noise was Fred on his 12 string and Sam on his U-bass attempting, with varying degrees of success, to wring out old Greta Van Fleet tunes. The air in the drawing room was hazy with reefer smoke, not improving their odds of success. Normally I would be down there with them, armed with my Harmonicas and enjoying the contact high and the fellowship that comes from a good jam session. But I had a problem.

My problem was a six-foot tall, 17 year-old Yupik kid named Ezekiel Bayayok. I sat in the armchair across from him on the bed. The thousand yard stare told me he was behind the recruiting station rather than in his room.

“Easy?” I asked.

“Yeah boss?”

“Talk to me.”

“I-I don't...”He trailed off.

“Consider it a hot wash. Tell me what happened up until the ball dropped.” The kid took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“We- Jake and I,” he stumbled “We stacked up at the door, I was beside it and Jake was behind the dumpster. The music started and we waited just like you said. After a minute, man it must have been seconds because the music was still playing, the guy came barreling out the door. It opened away from me and I just stuck my foot out, kinda by instinct. He tripped and hit his head on the ground. Musta knocked him silly because he didn't try to get up.”

“Probably. The sudden impact after the sensory overstimulation probably shut him down like flipping a light switch.”

“And then you called clear and...” he trailed off again.

“And I told you to kill him.” I said gently

“Yeah.” He looked at me with a mixture of fear and disgust. I understood and didn't begrudge him the feelings.

“OK. How did that make you feel?”

He stared at me uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“What was the first thing you felt when you knew he was alive after he hit the ground?”

“Relieved.” he sighed.

“Because?”

“Because I hadn't really hurt him.”

“Killed him, you mean. You hadn't killed him.”

“Easy's hangdog expression said more than his whispered “Yeah.”

“OK, tell me about what happened next.”

His face went very still and he took a long breath. “You said to do it quietly, and in ACT they told us that a man with a cut throat make a lot of noise. So I took out my 'hawk and I thought about where to hit him. I thought hitting him in the body would cause him to make as much noise as a cut throat and make a huge mess.”

“Why not his neck?” I asked

“I didn't-I didn't want his parents to have to see that. I figured that they might have to ID the body or something and I thought how horrible it would be for them to come in and see his-his-his..” He broke down sobbing.

After a minute I passed him my handkerchief and he took it, using it to wipe at his eyes and nose.

After he calmed down I asked “OK, so why the back of the head?”

A shuddering breath and then “The occipital lobe in in the back. It controls all the autonomic functions, breathing, heartbeat, like that. If I hit him there- When I hit him there, he'd die pretty quickly and wouldn't make much noise. I set the blade against his head, just above his neck and then...”

“Tell me how it felt. Not emotionally, tell me about the physical sensation.”

“It was like...It was like splitting shakes for the barn roof when I was a boy. Just up and down with a snap of the wrist at the end of a the swing. Felt kinda like hitting a king crab with a seal club to make it let go of my coat. Just a crunching sensation with something soft behind it.” He looked sick. “And then-then it wouldn't come out.”

“The axe?”

“Yeah. I had to put my foot on his back and use both hands to pry it loose. That was the worst part. When I stepped on him, he didn't feel like a person anymore. It was like...like he just became a person-shaped machine that ran outta juice. The joints moved, but there was nothing there to make them go and I could see his-his..” He began weeping again.

“His brain. Yeah I saw.”

“Why did I do that to him?”

“WE did that to them because they are the tools with which the feds try to enslave us. He had to die because he made the choice to let immoral men dictate his actions.”

“Are we any better?” He asked in a hushed tone.

“Yes. We don't kill civilians. We don't enslave people. And we don't tell people how to live their lives. We want what any sane person wants; to be left in peace to raise our families and do our work and find our own happiness. That kid I ordered you to kill, he would have helped to recruit hundreds, if not thousands of people to murder us and people like us all over the world. The ONLY place we're fighting is HERE, for our freedom, so NAMDO pulls out of The Zone and leaves us alone.” I realized I was starting to rant and forced myself to calm down. “I know you feel bad for the guy, and I know you feel like it wasn't a fair fight.” 

Easy's face showed first surprise and nodded “You need to realize that there ARE no fair fights kid. Fair fights are for duels and kids on the schoolyard. This is about life and death, mine, yours, your family's, your tribe's, everyone back home's.”

He stared at me bleakly

“And when this much in on the line, “fair” don't enter into it. You do what you have to to keep your people safe.”

I could see him mulling it over in his head. “They- The instructors I mean, at ACT told us-”

“-If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'” I interrupted and he smiled for the first time in hours.

“Yeah.”

“That was probably ol' Gunny Havisham, wasn't it?” I asked with a grin.

Easy's eyes widened a little “Yeah, it was. You know the Gunny?”

Now I smiled. “Who do you think taught me how to do this, lo, many moons ago.”

Easy sighed. “So what do I do?”

“With what?”

“With this...feeling.”

“Feeling?”

“I feel...dirty. Like I need a shower. Like I'll never be clean again. Like the dirt is under my skin.”

I leaned back in my seat. “Start by taking a shower. Then go downstairs and hang with Fred and Sam for a while. Do what they're doing. It's not a permanent fix, but it'll take the edge off. This is your first active operation, right?”

“Yeah. Six weeks ago I walked at ACT and shook the Commandant's hand and then I was here.” He said, looking me in the eyes.

“I've been telling them for a couple of years now to only put blooded troops into active ops. This is a different kinda war than the passive stuff they get up to in The Zone.”

“Whadda you mean boss?”

“I mean that fighting a defensive war, where it's you and your mates trying to keep THEM from getting in your home is a far cry from us being out here on the sharp end, surrounded my millions of THEM and ambushing people who think they're safe. Did you notice that not a single one of the civs had a piece today? And only one of the Tangos was under arms? When was the last time you saw 20 people in a room at home and there wasn't at least a dozen firearms?”

He thought for a moment “I think the last tribal meeting I went to was firearm-free, but there were more than a couple of harpoons and everyone had a knife on them.”

“High-trust society.” I said a little impressed. “Means your people don't worry much about being robbed or assaulted by each other. The knives are just tools and everyone carries one of those anywhere outside of A-Town or Squarebanks.”

He chuckled a little at my mockery of the big college town.

“The harpoons were probably a status thing. Whalers making a point that their voice is still heard, or at least that it had better be heard.”

“Yeah, my Uncle Charlie is a whaler and he was carrying one there.”

“But here, no one carries, not for years. Ever since the Dems made the hat trick back in 2020 and then managed to use their presence in both houses and the executive to stack the courts. No one has legally carried a firearm in the US since 2022.”

“So they have a high-trust society?”

“Not according to the crime statistics.” I said with a wry smile. “But that's neither here nor there. You take a shower and go get high and connect with your mates. I'll do what I can to help you get through this. Sorry this was your first op kid.”

His face fell and he nodded. “Sure boss.”

After Easy had gone into the head, I pulled my phone out and booted up an app that didn't appear on the screen. This brought up a security screen. If I (or anyone else) entered the wrong code, it would activate a thermite charge in the phone that would turn the entire thing into slag in less than 5 seconds.

The app allowed me to use the Polaris Secure Satellite Network that kept my  data stream off the local ISP's 6G network (and thus out of the NSA's grasping clutches). Then I booted up the Llolth darkweb app (fucking geeks, right?) and looked around for an outcall service in the Seattle area. After a couple of minutes I found exactly what I was looking for.