by D Krauss
“Yep.”
“So why don’t you stay home?”
“Why don’t you?”
“I got a job to do, Mister.”
“So do I.”
Newbie colored and John prepared his template of answers:
“You’re too old.”-“Yeah, wanna go a couple of rounds?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”-“I know more than you. I’ve been doing this longer than you.”
“You’re gonna get killed.”-“Haven’t yet. And I’ll damn sure take a lot of them with me.”
John waited.
“You’re crazy,” Newbie said.
John considered that. He’d had a long debate with himself on that very subject some months ago and had concluded he wasn’t. A crazy person wouldn’t realize the futility. He did. He wasn’t delusional, either, thinking that, somehow, he was creating a small patch of goodness or hope or some such rot. He wasn’t fixing anything, wasn’t putting things back the way they used to be. That was impossible. He was just finding something to do.
“And what are you?” John asked.
“Huh?”
“If I’m crazy, what are you?”
Newbie blinked and glanced at the sergeant, who was grinning. Newbie shoved his chest badge towards John. “That’s what I am.”
John snorted. “Mine’s bigger. Wanna see?”
“Look, old man,” Newbie was clearly frustrated, “I’m here to protect the city. That’s what I do.”
John stared a moment. “I was doing that before you showed up.”
Newbie said nothing. What could he? John was back into it before MPD was back into it, and that meant John’s motives were their motives, and if theirs were pure (still open to question), so were his. Even if, as Newbie so graciously pointed out, he was too old or an interloper or, as Newbie graciously implied, less capable. Whatever, he reflected them.
All Newbie could do was shake his head, try to give John a hard-eyed look, and step out of the way.
John nodded to him and the sergeant, adding a return grin for his benefit, and stroked the pedal.
4
“Cadet Major Rashkil!”
Oh Lord, Collier thought, frozen for a second by Captain Bocks’s harsh call. What did I do now? “Sir!” he responded and double-timed from the front of his company up to where Captain Bock stood with Spangler and Davis and the rest of the command staff, slight murmurs of sympathy following him.
It was mid-morning, the entire corps assembled on the parade field, even a militia unit from the town. Useless bunch of dumbass civilians, but mandates were mandates.
He hit attention and focused his eyes about an inch below Capt. Bock’s patrician nose. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Davis suppressing a smile and he made a mental note to smack the jackass later.
“Major,” Captain Bock’s cold, raspy voice, “what kind of a fuck up are you?”
Great, just great. He’d missed something. Not the inspection: his company garnered fewer demerits than the other two and his and Davis’s room had been gig free, as usual. Not school: he’d been prepared, for once, in Algebra II – well, enough to avoid making a complete fool of himself and, besides, Davis had pretty much taken over the class, distracting Mrs. Lord. Must be one of his boys... Stick stole some food, missed a class, went AWOL, for God’s sake. Stick’s fuck up was his fuck up, so there was nothing to do but make the best of the situation.
“A Fishburne-trained, Colonel-West-Captain-Bock-forged kind of fuck up, sir!” he responded with normal command inflection.
A snigger ran through the staff and Captain Bock’s eyes widened and it was all Collier could do to keep from grinning. He figured he was dead, anyway, so make it memorable.
Captain Bock studied him a moment and then said, “Well, do you think a Colonel West trained fuck up like you can march this scurvy bunch of criminals around the parade field and bring them back here in something resembling a coherent unit?”
Collier’s jaw dropped and the staff just lost it, busting out laughing and even Captain Bock had to contain himself. “Uh,” Collier said, a most unmilitary response, but, hey, waddaya want? My God, what an honor. He gathered himself. “Yes, sir!” he saluted and stepped up to Spangler’s position, who smiled and saluted him in.
“Nice,” Davis whispered as he took position and Collier warmed.
He faced the battalion. “Right!” he roared, the order echoed down the commanders’ and first sergeants’ positions. He noted Farley had taken his post and Cropp had filled Farley’s when he was called out and they were executing as if born to it. His trained fuck ups.
“Face!” he completed the command and the battalion snapped, even the militia following in a more or less proper manner.
Wow.
5
Foxhall. John coasted past the oh-so-toney mansions and townhouses up to the half-completed Field School, where an overturned dump truck still blocked part of the road, spilled asphalt piled around it. He stopped and scrutinized the wreckage.
No movement, so he got off the Zap, crept up, his .357 ready, and peered around the truck. Nothing. There was usually nothing, just the occasional dog or deer. He had to check, though, because it was a good ambush site – skirting the asphalt put him dead in the middle of Foxhall within rifle shot of another abandoned work project, some kind of embassy they’d been building across the street.
If he saw anyone, he’d just shoot. No questions. Everything of value had already been stripped from the sites, so why are you here, Jack, unless you intend mischief? Well, he’d give them a second before shooting. That’s about how long it took him to distinguish between Loner or Bundy, the former getting a wave, the latter a bullet. Wouldn’t be Raiders; they were off pillaging the houses now and pretty much ignored John when he happened by because he pretty much ignored them. Outside his jurisdiction, so have at it, crapheads. Just stay off the campus.
Funny how they plundered the construction sites before the obviously expensive houses on either side. Difference between a riot and Armageddon. Tools and materials were the first things on most Survivor shopping lists. Raiders were now making up for that initial oversight, but riches were still secondary. Want expensive paintings and furniture? No need to cart them off, just move in. The owners won’t complain.
John hitched the Zap over the pile, remounted, balanced everything, took another long look, pushed the pedal and began his coast, pistol ready. He was more concerned about dogs than Raiders at this point, although dogs weren’t such a big threat anymore. Most of them had retreated to the woods that stretched from Foxhall all the way back to Rock Creek Park. There was a lot more prey out there in the numerous overgrown walking trails, but packs have long memories and may just acquire a taste for human again, so be wary.
Dogs had been everywhere the first few months and you’d think they’d be sated with all the bodies. But, no, they’re hunters and it didn’t take long before they were looking for something fresher. At first, it was smaller and weaker dogs (and cats, of course), squirrels, other rodents, but then the wolf in them emerged and they formed packs, pretty dangerous ones.
For months, John had dog fights – around the house, out with the Pathfinder, later, from the Zap. He’d gotten real good at shooting them on the fly. That had made him good at shooting Bundys and Vandals on the fly, so he supposed the dogs had served their purpose. Training aid.
It had been a while since his last real dog fight, a couple of months or so ago, at the house. Hairbag and Lupus had started a ruckus over by the woods and John had grabbed the 14 and met them about halfway down the street where they were challenging a big pack emerging from the Old Keene Mill side. He’d emptied half a clip, indiscriminately taking out as many of the lead dogs as he could, making as much noise as he could.
The pack broke, scattering back across the highway and John followed them through the Harwood extension, shooting even after they were long gone. Keep running, boys.
He had rewarded Lupus
and Hairbag heavily for their service, even Snuffy, who had kept up running commentary inside the house while all this was going on. The only good dogs left in the world. The rest were enemy.
That was about the last time he’d engaged a Bundy, too, at least while traveling. Some punk on 495 yelling at John, standing on a car hood and hefting a rifle. Roll, hold, sight and squeeze from the left side, crossing his body with the .357 one-handed and getting sight picture in .5 seconds, both rounds in the stomach.
The Bundy’d still been alive when John rode up. “What the fuck, dude?”
“Fuck you, lawman,” Bundy gurgled and died.
Lawman? Disturbing. John shook the lifeless body hoping to get a little spark going so he could ask how the hell he knew that. Pointless, and he’d been extra wary for at least a month after, trying to spot surveillance. Nothing.
He even searched for cameras along his route although he did not credit Raiders, let alone Bundys, with that kind of sophistication. CDC, yeah, army, definitely, but not these yahoos. He’d finally concluded the Bundy was anomalous because there’d been very little bothering of him since.
He didn’t know if he’d killed one of the last so inclined, or if he just wasn’t worth bothering anymore. That didn’t make him complacent. If there was any constant motive in the hearts of men, it was the desire to bother others.
He coasted slowly past the embassy, the Ruger barrel following his shifting eyesight. Dead silent here, like everywhere, but there was a special irony in it. What a fuss the neighbors made when the Field School began construction. Old men and women dressed in their wools and furs, manning tables by the side of the road, waving signs protesting the traffic the school would bring and asking commuters to stop and sign petitions. Be careful what you wish for.
He could avoid it, this ghost town. He could go up Wisconsin and cut back down Mass. instead, forget this dead section of DC where the lawyers and lobbyists and diplomats and SESs and heads of committees all bought their fabulous brick mansions, with fabulous DC addresses, neighbors to other Very Important People, whose wives drove Volvos or Infinitis and whose kids all attended Sidwell Friends or Georgetown Day and who knew more than John and smiled indulgently at John and were so intent on making his life good and righteous and meaningful with their legislations and ideas and plans and ever so civilized diplomatic efforts... he could.
But this was the way he drove to work Before, and he wanted to see the ghosts, the translucent gibbering shades of good intentions standing on the silent corners in bewilderment. See what happened?
He got to the end, made a right on Nebraska, a left at the Parkway, a quick right and then coasted slowly up to the Public Safety building. He stopped at the bridge and examined the halls looming over him to the right. Everything looked okay, so he nudged the Zap onto the bridge, weaving between the barrels he’d set up. Silly precaution, that.
Years ago, when the university was connecting Public Safety to the main campus at the third floor with this bridge (because the lower half of the building was below the hill and very hard to reach), someone made an offhand comment that it ought to hold up a truck. So it was built to do so, buttressed with cement columns and iron, and was even wide enough for a truck to enter and drive right across and smash through the front door.
John had worried about that and placed the barrels. But who had gas to drive a truck anywhere, much less down the bridge? Just MPD and CDC, and if those guys wanted John, all they had to do was shoot him.
But at least it made him weave and that was a good precaution in itself. A punk had set up a sniper’s nest on the side of Anderson facing the bridge a few months ago, about the same time as the 495 Bundy. He would have had a perfect shot of John framed in the bridge; the weaving delayed the shot and a stroke of pure dumb luck that saved him.
John happened to glance up mid-weave and noticed the torn-away window screen and he did not hesitate, leaping off the bridge as the punk fired, damn near killing himself in the fall and doing the punk’s job for him.
He’d cut down the steep bank and made it around the Hamilton Building and across to the back entrance of Centennial. It took John about two hours to find the guy, who’d left the room and set up on the Anderson stairwell, no doubt anticipating John’s approach from there. Obviously, he hadn’t known about Centennial connection to Anderson, across the second-floor mystery rooms, which was another stark lesson in thorough reconnaissance. John shot him in the back of the head as he peered down the hall the wrong way.
The guy was a punk but not one John had seen before. Dressed all in black leather, like a Nazi uniform, he had strange tattoos – rank markings, chevrons, or Hells Angels’ wings, something earned. They reminded John of Egyptian symbols, so many of them John couldn’t tell if the punk was a light-skinned black or a dark-tanned white guy. Weird. And he had planned this out pretty good, too, just that the gods intervened. Too damn organized to be a Bundy, too decked out to be a Vandal, so he had to be a Raider. A Raider acting alone? Bothersome.
No ambushes since that period, and John had lost the expectation of attack, a dangerous attitude, he knew, but one fed by the many weeks of relative quiet. Why mess with him? Only a Bundy would try anymore and there were still enough of them out there to cause concern, but in the same way you were concerned about snakes. John’s presence on the campus was pretty much ineffectual, anyway.
He went home at 1700, so just wait him out.
6
Each day, John found new depredations. Something disappeared or was smashed sometime overnight. Annoying. An indictment of his efforts.
At least once a week, someone carted off a few computers or tools from Physical Plant. He couldn’t figure out why the computers were taken when all a looter had to do was waltz into Radio Shack down on Wisconsin and help himself to something still in the box. Maybe they thought a university computer had spiffy programs and didn’t need a lot of configuration.
At any rate, the systems were walking. The tools made more sense because Physical Plant’s were industrial grade, all laid out and easy to choose from. John had done a little liberal borrowing among them himself. He got the arc welder from there, as well as some choice hammers and drills. But he was a university employee, the last one, it seemed, so who else had a right?
Useful stuff disappearing, he understood, so he treated it like a misdemeanor and didn’t get that upset. Someone came in one night and took a lot of books out of the library and he didn’t even make a report because that was downright edifying. There was at least one good soul out there wanting to expand the mind or at least keep it sharp.
He couldn’t fault that because he’d taken quite a collection from the Fairfax County Library himself. He was a county resident, so why not? And he didn’t really keep the books, just had them out for extended loan periods. When he tired of something, like Adam Bede, he’d take it back for anyone else who dropped by. ’Course there’d been no evidence of anyone dropping by – his stack of returned books lay undisturbed on the checkout desk – but you never knew.
Vandals bothered him the most, and for more reasons than the aesthetic. They were just mindless, and anyone who would destroy stuff for the sheer spite of it would love to capture and torture good ole’ John out of that same spite. So, when he found them, he killed them.
Since the punk firefight, though, confronting Vandals had been somewhat rare. He assumed the word was out, an odd thing given the lack of communication. No phones except cells and those were limited, no local TV broadcasts and the satellite stations went into fits ignoring the Zone, which was such a bummer of a place to talk about, man. No radio, although sometimes you could get a pirate broadcast if the atmospherics were right. Yet, people knew not to come up here and mess around while he was patrolling. Grapevine, best source of information.
And what a contrast from when he first started back to work. People were all over the campus, Bundys and Vandals and Gangs, oh my. It was like school was open and the student body had collective
ly decided to rape the place. Well, he wasn’t going to have that and if he didn’t shoot two or three a day back then, he was slacking off.
Damnably easy work, too. He’d park at the building, check in, heft the rifle or shotgun, and head out to the Main Quad because that’s where all the action seemed to be. Sure enough, as he rounded the library or the McKinley Building or, if he was feeling particularly sneaky, the Battelle Building, there they’d be.
If they were just sauntering along minding their own business, that’d be fine because the university had an open campus policy and Loners rarely started anything. But, inevitably, there’d be a Gang loading up a truck or Vandals breaking a window or burning something. He’d give the Gang a chance, call out, tell them who he was, this was private property, so take the stuff off the truck, leave, and everything will be fine. But they wouldn’t. One of them would make some smart remark and reach for a gun and that was too bad, because John was faster and a better shot.
He’d put the bodies inside their truck, drive it across to the Nebraska Lot and drape them over the hood as a warning. They’re still there. Vandals he just shot outright, no warnings. They were Bundys. They deserved no less. He dragged them across the street and threw them on top of the hedge. They were still there, too.
They tried to get him. Vandals set up ambushes about four times, but he expected things like that and those guys were screaming amateurs, so he spotted them before they knew he was there. Hedge ornaments. The only one who ever came close was Mr. Tattoo, now decorating the hedge.
So what would he find today?
Loners probably, which was fine. Unorganized Neutral Good, Cat 1. Fellow travelers and he always wished them a silent mazeltov as they strolled along the campus not bothering anything. John kept a wary distance, waved, got a return wave, and moved along.
Don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.
“They?” More accurately, “We.” We don’t start trouble but will fight if pushed, seek maximum security and minimum detection, only go out for supplies and are generally law-abiding, at least conscious of the law. We shun company. We have seen where company leads.