Strike

by Jim Heskett

  “Enough,” José said, narrowing his eyes at the dissenting guerrero. “Now is our chance. We’re not going to waste this.” José hoisted his rifle and nodded at Yorick. “No more waiting for the right time to take our power. This has been a long time coming. We’re ready, aren’t we, Reds?”

  The guerreros in the room all agreed. From murmurs to grunts to barks of assent, every one of them stepped forward. Even the hesitant one had no choice once his fellow guerreros had committed. Yorick hoped the sight of real blood didn’t paralyze this one. He would either step up or die. They all would.

  “Okay,” Yorick said. “Stay together and stay sharp. It’s not only Wybert’s men. The army is well-armed and well-protected. If you have to take on a soldado, shoot them in the neck, hip, knee, or side, up near the armpit. There’s no body armor there.”

  “We’re ready,” José said.

  Yorick raised his rifle to the ceiling. “Let’s go.”

  They all rushed outside together. Yorick stowed his rifle and placed the backpack in front of his chest, with the top open, to pass out as many magazines as he could to any guerrero he came across.

  First, he and the others scampered to the back of the warehouse where the Blues had been waiting for him. Rosia was there, and she called everyone to gather. As Yorick ran, he bellowed out the instructions about how to remove the chips and insert them into the rifles. By the time he’d met up with his team, all of their suits were now dimmed. A few of the Blues looked hesitantly at the crew of Reds following Yorick, but no one said anything in dissent. They would have to know what was at stake. If they were to survive this day, they couldn’t treat each other as enemies any longer. There were only serfs and oppressors now.

  When the magazines were all distributed, they stood as a solid, unified force. Twenty Blues and five Reds, armed with real weapons for the first time in their lives.

  Yorick kept picturing the robot falling on the guard in the basement of the mansion. The look on the man’s face as the life fled from his eyes. The main thing Yorick had going for him was that he hadn’t had enough time to reflect on what it was like to take the life of another. If it would get easier out here once the fighting started. Or, if the weight of the violence would drag him down.

  In some ways, he’d spent his whole life preparing for this moment.

  He dashed across the section between the warehouses, with the guerreros behind him. They made it to the grassy hill in the center of the four battlegrounds before any guards or soldados took notice. And, coming up the other side of the hill was the green-eyed soldado with the itchy trigger finger.

  “Hey!” said the king’s man. Weapon lowered, distrustful expression on his face, he marched toward them. “Why are your suits not glowing? And why are you walking around together? Aren’t you all on separate teams? What in the stars is going on here?”

  One of the Red guerreros raised his rifle and pointed it at the soldado. A simple action, not predicated by an order from Yorick or José or anyone else present. There was no discussion beforehand, no angry escalation that led to it. The teenager with a rifle full of live ammunition raised his weapon at the man and wrapped his finger around the trigger.

  For a brief second, time seemed to stop. The world became quiet as Yorick processed everything in front of him. Two armed combatants, squaring off. Life and death with the curl of a finger.

  He could see the change in their faces when it happened.

  And then, everything shifted into real time. The soldado pulled his trigger first and sent a single bullet into the face of the Red. His head snapped back as blood and bone sprayed from the rear of his scalp.

  Yorick’s heart stopped. All around him, guerreros in all four quadrants of the battlegrounds could see what had happened on the hill at the center. Those who hadn’t seen it had certainly heard it. Real bullets had a completely different sound. Louder, with more echo. This shot would reverberate all the way across the plantación.

  A soldado had shot a guerrero in the face and killed him, during a round. During an activity that might as well have been sacred. And not even one of Wybert’s. One of the king’s men. An outsider. Someone who no one thought belonged here.

  Chaos set in. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for that single shot to turn the entire battlefield into a landscape of confusion and violence.

  The Royal Army descended, weapons pointed. Guerreros shouted. The crew of armed Reds took aim and blasted the green-eyed king’s man. His body jiggled as they peppered him with real bullets.

  Real bullets. Real blood.

  The mouths of the guards and soldados in all four quadrants dropped open. Powerless serf guerreros weren’t supposed to have real bullets.

  Within another thirty seconds, an alarm sounded across the battlefield. Yorick took off, with a magazine in each hand. The Blues knew what to do. The Reds knew what to do. All across the battlefield, in every quadrant, they removed the magazines full of rubber bullets, then their suit chips. They inserted the suit chips into the rifles and proceeded toward the meetup spot, south of the warehouses. If they didn’t have magazines already, they would collect them from the ones who were carrying spares.

  Real bullets sliced across the plantación. And as Yorick saw Rosia racing toward the cluster of Blues huddling next to the warehouse, he tossed a magazine to her. Then, he grabbed nearby Paulo by the collar of his suit. “I have a job for you. It’s important.”

  “Of course,” Paulo said.

  Yorick flicked his head toward the south. “Above the cafeteria, where the little kids live. Go make sure they’re okay. Also, free the prisoners in the cages, if you can. We need to do this now before things get too loco.”

  “I’m on it,” Paulo said as he hoisted his rifle and then sprinted away.

  At the edge of the battlefield, Wybert ran, his loose frame jiggling in his tight yellow jumpsuit. A cluster of his elite guards surrounded him, weapons up, pointed in all directions. They escorted him toward the mansion where he could hide. To retreat to his safe space.

  But not for long.

  And then, from the southern edge of the battlefield, came a hundred farm workers, pick axes raised alongside a few dozen with rifles.

  The war had begun.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Paulo sprinted south, headed first toward the cages along the edge of Wybert’s mansion. Behind him, bullets sliced through the air. Real ammo had a different sound than the rubber ones. Faster, louder. As if he could hear the menace coming through as they sped across the universe.

  Along with the bullets, he could hear the shouts and screams of people taking fire. Whether serf, guard, or soldado, he couldn’t tell. And they all would sound the same when they died. From war games to real war had taken only the single pull of a trigger on a hill.

  As Paulo ran, clusters of farm serfs ran in the other direction, toward the battlefield. Some faces he knew, accustomed to seeing them sweaty and hoisting baskets of fruit above their heads. Chanting, staring blankly as they went about their work. There were no blank looks today. They were fierce and determined. Rage in their eyes.

  A few of them clutched rifles, and Paulo had no idea how they could have obtained those. Most had pickaxes and hoes, and homemade weapons with blades taped to sticks. They must have spent months creating those, finding places to hide them. Paulo marveled at how much of the field workers’ plans had been a complete mystery to everyone.

  But were their weapons enough? Probably not. The ones with the rifles might survive for a few minutes, but those sporting handheld weapons would be dead as soon as they met the better-armed and better-trained soldados. Within seconds. These field workers had no idea the trouble they were about to encounter.

  Trouble that could lead to something great, if they were successful.

  Until a couple of days ago, when Paulo figured out the plan Yorick and Rosia were hatching, his dreams had been small. Maybe, one day, becoming the leader of the Blues. Having his own private r
oom and leading his team to victory more days than not. Maybe finding a cute girl among the guerreros he could court. And trying to live one day at a time, since he knew there was no guarantee of a long life on the plantación.

  But now, everything had changed. Hope lived inside these walls. The odds seemed insurmountable, but they were closer now than they ever had been to breaking out. Breaking free. Becoming the owners of their destiny, in a way that had not seemed possible a week ago.

  If they lived out the day, which was a tall order.

  In the string of outdoor cages, Paulo noted three prisoners. Two girls and a boy, roughly his same age. All of them gripping the bars on the cages, panic on their faces.

  “What’s happening?” the boy shouted as Paulo approached his cage. “Why all the shooting?”

  “It’s war,” Paulo said as he raised the butt of his rifle at the cage lock. He slammed the stock down onto the padlock, which didn’t shatter. He tried it again with no luck. “Move back,” he said as he lifted the nose of the rifle and pointed it at the lock. The boy scurried toward the other end of the cage as the two imprisoned girls shrieked. “Hold still!”

  Paulo spat a single shot at the lock on the cage. The rusted thing split into a dozen pieces. Metal flying everywhere. He then opened the cage and reached a hand inside and helped the boy out, who groaned as his muscles stretched. He had trouble reaching his full height after days spent in the confined space.

  A guard stormed out of the mansion, bellowing. He was trying to get his rifle leveled, but Paulo pivoted and shot the guard in the chest. He dropped to the ground, sputtering and gasping.

  The prisoners recoiled in terror, and they all stared at the man on the ground writhing as he took his last few breaths. None of them were guerreros.

  “You killed him,” the boy said. “How did you do that?”

  Paulo pressed on, blasting the locks off the other two occupied cages. “These are real bullets, and this is a real rifle. Everything you see right now is actually happening. It’s all different now, and this is the way it is.”

  When all three of the prisoners had left their cages, they stood there, looking at him. “What do we do?” said one girl.

  “Now, you get a weapon, and you fight.”

  “We don’t know how to fight,” said the other girl. “We work in the kitchen. I’m a food inventory manager and I’ve never done any battle training.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ve never even touched a gun before. What am I supposed to do?”

  “If you can’t fight, then you find a place to escape from the chaos. A place you can hole up, and you don’t come out until the shooting stops. One way or the other, this will be over in hours, or maybe even minutes.”

  All three of them stood there, wide-eyed, frozen in panic. Paulo smacked a hand against the butt of his rifle to get their attention. “You fight, you hide, or you die. There’s no safe option anymore.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Bullets flew as Yorick whipped rifle magazines at Rosia and a dozen other Blue guerreros. Just like mags full of rubber bullets, squeezing the rifle’s trigger for only a couple seconds emptied it. He did everything he could to keep his guerreros supplied in their fight. Running from place to place, advising them how to steer clear of high concentrations of guards or soldados.

  The battle cries of the farm workers merged with the hustling feet of the guards. Smoke filled the air. Blood streaked the ground and the surfaces of nearby buildings. Farm workers swung their axes and hoes. A dozen of them, including Tenney and Malina, wielded guns. Why didn’t they have more guns? Was there a problem with the Quartermaster?

  Malina, meek and small, shot her assault rifle with a blank sort of determination on her pale face. She hung close to Tenney, who roared with every pull of the trigger. The bearded Tenney more resembled a bear and lion hybrid than a man, at this stage. If Yorick didn’t know him, he would have been terrified to face off against him.

  A cluster of three soldados came racing around a building in the block, and a host of farm serfs met them there. They surprised the soldados and killed them, even though the serfs had only one gun between them. Their desire to win accounted for something that couldn’t be measured. And, the farm workers plus the guerreros outnumbered the guards and soldados. They had surprise still working for them.

  But, the guards were all armed. Armed and organized and ruthless. And as soon as this initial wave attack wore off, the rebels might lose the upper hand.

  They had to take advantage of the surprise while it lasted. Had to make a big impression.

  Guerreros raced off into battle, headed back toward the center of the four battle quadrants. Yorick planted his feet to run after them, but Rosia grabbed his arm.

  “No,” she said. “The mansion.”

  “We need to fight out here. This is our chance.”

  “If we don’t open those gates, none of this will matter. Wybert is the only one who can do that.”

  Yorick swiveled his head around, surveying the situation. Wybert had scooted off to the mansion, under cover of his elite personal guard. No way would he allow himself to be caught by a stray bullet in the field.

  She had a solid argument: they couldn’t hold off the guards and soldados forever, and they were all trapped inside this plantación. Snipers up on the tops of the walls were taking positions, preparing to pick them off from above. The shock of the attack was the only reason the snipers hadn’t eradicated everyone already. If the serfs didn’t have a way to escape, they would lose in a bloody slaughter.

  The goal wasn’t to kill every guard inside the walls. The goal was to break free of the walls.

  Yorick nodded, and so he and Rosia sprinted through the warehouse quadrant, toward the tunnel entrance. Off in the distance, Yorick watched a clash between a dozen guards and a dozen guerreros. The guards’ bullets cut down most of the guerreros. Only two or three guards fell. Some of the dead and dying Blues and Reds were among his friends. And they’d never stood a chance.

  As Yorick disappeared into the warehouse, he cast a look back across the battlefield. Bullets flying, many of them slicing through serfs not much older than children. But, he also saw Reds and Blues side by side, taking on plantación guard and Royal Army alike. Fearlessness in their eyes.

  Maybe they wouldn’t all die out here today. Or, if they did, maybe there would be some purpose to it. There had to be a way to succeed.

  Inside, Yorick shed the backpack and stuffed as many extra magazines as he could into his pockets. Between Rosia and him, they carried half a dozen each.

  She flipped back the tunnel entrance door, and a blast of white light emerged from inside it. The lights were on.

  As they slipped down into the tunnels, alarms warbled and rocked his brain. Rosia shook her head, blinking against the noise. In the light, everything looked different. There were arrows on the floor, directing traffic. Words written on the walls, in that same strange language from the classrooms.

  They hustled along the corridor, toward the mansion. For five minutes they ran, swinging their rifles as they hustled. With no warning, the alarm ceased, rendering the hallway silent except for the clanking of their footfalls on the grate below.

  And then, a door up ahead opened. Two guards streamed out. Rosia leveled her rifle and spit some shots. She blasted both of the guards through their torsos. In the confined space of this hall, the sound was deafening. It echoed for a full two seconds. Yorick’s eyes shut. When he opened them, the guards were on the floor, writhing.

  Rosia tugged on his arm. She leaped over the guards and Yorick did his best to keep up.

  He looked down. One of the guards was no older than him. A scared, teenage face, blood rushing out of him, coating the grated floor. Yorick knew he should kill this guard to put him out of his misery, but he also had to hurry. No time. No time. If the battle turned in the serfs’ favor, Wybert might decide to escape. He would find a way to weasel out of here and leav
e them all trapped inside.

  They rushed on for another five minutes, edging closer and closer to the doors below the mansion. With the lights on, they didn’t have to puzzle which way to turn. Some of the turns didn’t make sense, but he kept pushing forward, refusing to let himself lose his sense of direction. They couldn’t afford to get lost.

  Once they were close enough, they slowed. And that’s when a door to the left opened, and a person with long, black hair jumped out.

  Diego.

  Before Yorick could react, Diego knocked Rosia’s rifle to the floor, wrapped a hand around her neck, and placed a pistol against the side of her head. He’d turned her into a human shield.

  “Drop your gun,” said the Red leader, a malicious grin on his scarred face.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Paulo raced across the grass from the mansion, headed for the cafeteria building. The three prisoners had scattered, fleeing back toward the dorms. That was fine. If they weren’t willing to join in the fight, then they’d be better off hiding until it was all over.

  And Paulo hoped it would all be over soon. One way or another.

  Fortunately, this area was clear of melee. The fighting was mostly occurring over in the battlegrounds. But Paulo assumed it would soon spill over this way.

  The cafeteria building housed not only food service but also the training and residential center for the small children. The fresh serfs, many of them only five or six years old. Those too young to have official jobs in the plantación. Paulo had been brought here at age five and now remembered nothing of his life before the previous decade on the plantación. He remembered sitting in the classrooms, learning about war tactics and mathematics and basic skills like how to bathe and wash clothes. He remembered crying himself to sleep at night in those kiddie dorms, huddled in his cot. Surrounded by a dozen others, all of them weeping softly, too. Knowing he was trapped here. He remembered the night he no longer cried. The night he couldn’t remember his mother’s face, and he no longer missed her.