by Trent Reedy
—• As the hottest summer on record winds down, experts estimate the number of deaths from heat-related causes in the thousands. But given that the northeast region of the Pan American territory has experienced harsh winters in recent years, many now fear the coming cold. Empire News’s Erin Heddleson reports.”
“Coping with record snowfall and cold is nothing new to the hearty citizens of the Keystone Empire, but with gas and electricity supplies uncertain this winter, national and local authorities are rushing to prepare safe houses. These will be large barracks-style buildings where those whose homes lack heat can come to get warm. Keystone Empire President Caroline Craig warns that besides United States military aggression, the coming winter is the greatest threat we face. •—
—• Adam Coleman has recently returned from a long reporting trip around Pan America. Adam, what can you tell us about the war? How long do you think this can go on?”
“That’s a good question, Adrienne. I have been to each of the now fourteen countries in Pan America, and I wish I had good news. The last time I traveled this widely was covering the US presidential campaign, and on the campaign trail, you see a lot of the country, the best of so many great cities and towns. Now those communities are in ruins. I saw millions of homeless refugees, desperate for even the most meager scraps of food or basic supplies.”
“But without food, how can the soldiers go on fighting?”
“Oh, the soldiers are well fed, Adrienne. But more and more, this isn’t a fight among the different Pan American armies, but among rogue groups battling over dwindling resources. These are good, honest people, whole families that have been forced to band together and arm themselves for protection. Then they run into another group that has been forced to do the same. Throw some food or a little gasoline in the middle, and suddenly the members of the groups are killing one another. I saw this over and over, nearly everywhere I went. It was heartbreaking. •—
—• Brothers and sisters in Christ, I call upon you to repent! Repent of your sins! For the time is near. For the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Second Peter, chapter three, verse ten.
And I know, brothers and sisters, that in this war, you think you have known fire. You think you have seen suffering. But in Ezekiel chapter twenty-five, verse seventeen, God warns us: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.” For now this evil and corrupt nation pays for its sins. Our people have worshipped false gods! We’ve forbidden prayer in our schools and in all our public places, and put in its place the mosque, the Buddhist temple. And some of you listening to me even now say, “Reverend, we have not gone to these temples of false gods.” But you put your faith in your government! You worshipped at the altar of your technology! Your military and your own weapons have become your idols! And what have your false gods brought you? They’ve brought you death. They’ve brought you disease.
Repent! Throw yourself on your knees before the righteousness and the power of God. “For it is written,” Romans chapter fourteen, verse eleven, “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” But time is running out. Now the signs are clear. The signs are clear! The vengeance of the Lord is upon us, and you must repent now, brothers and sisters, or face the hellfires for all eternity! •—
“Absolutely not!” Mr. Keelin leaned forward. “They aren’t our concern. Our job is keeping our families safe, not running around trying to play superhero.”
Us thirteen members of the council were in our seats around the long wooden table, arguing whether we should try to free the people we’d found in that Brotherhood camp. Mrs. Pierce sat at the head of the table with Dr. Nicole around the corner to her left. Then it was Mr. Shiratori, Pam Bean, Dwight Robinson, me, and Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Stewart sat across from Mr. Morgan. Alissa Macer was on her left. Then it was Samantha Monohan’s dad Jim, Kristie Ericson, Mr. Keelin, and finally Mr. Grenke up by Mrs. Pierce.
The weirdest part of today’s meeting was that Sergeant Kemp, JoBell, Sweeney, Cal, Becca, TJ, Jaclyn, and some others were standing at the end of the table opposite Mrs. Pierce. I should have been with them, not sitting at this table. But I knew they were all eager to attack the camp and try to save those people, and when I looked at them, I wondered how many of my friends we’d lose if we tried a mission like that. We’d come here to hide from the war. Why charge into the middle of another fight?
Kristie Ericson spoke up. “Even if we wanted to help those people” — she nodded at Toby Keelin — “and I’m not sure we do — I don’t think we are capable of helping them. This isn’t an Army base. We’re not soldiers.”
“Some of us are,” said Sergeant Kemp.
“Isn’t everybody a soldier now?” said Mr. Shiratori.
Dr. Nicole smiled. “This war has forced all of us to take on roles we didn’t plan on.”
“You stitched me up just fine.” Mrs. Stewart laughed. “For a veterinarian.”
“Yes, but how much more stitching am I going to have to do if we attack this Brotherhood base?” Dr. Nicole asked.
I was kind of surprised she’d said that. I would have thought she’d be up for the mission.
“These people are locked up as slaves,” Alissa Macer said. “And it sounds like the men are the lucky ones. They just have to work the fields. How am I going to look Cassie in the face knowing that there’s a Brotherhood camp where girls like her are being …” She looked at her mother, Mrs. Pierce. “Tell me that if I were locked up in a camp like that, you’d do whatever you could to save me. Please say you wouldn’t leave me there to be …”
“They’re being raped,” said Mr. Morgan. “They’re being used as sex slaves. Let’s not confuse the discussion by an unwillingness to face all the facts.”
“Let’s also face the fact that most of the slaves are people of color,” Mr. Shiratori said. “The Brotherhood may have locked up a handful of others who have caused problems for them, but for the most part, they are gathering up anyone who’s not white, and enslaving them.”
“But the team said they talked to a white man,” Mr. Keelin said.
“There were some white guys.” Cal spoke up. “Most were Hispanic, black —”
“Or Asian,” Sweeney said.
“I don’t think we need to go making this a race issue,” Mr. Keelin said.
“You know, I am getting a little bit tired of white people complaining about things not being ‘race issues’ when they are absolutely all about race,” said Mr. Shiratori. “And I don’t understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the idea that people of color here take it a little personally when we hear about people like us whose lives are being destroyed, simply because they’re not white.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pam Bean. “But we came up here, brought our children up here, so we could escape the Brotherhood. We need to stay out of their way.”
“The fact that people tried to stay out of the way of the Brotherhood is what led to my parents’ deaths,” said Jaclyn. Jackie didn’t talk much anymore, but when she did, people listened.
“We’re all horrified by what happened to your parents,” said Dr. Nicole. “But this situation is different. Let’s suppose we launch this mission, and it goes exactly as planned. Our people don’t get killed or wounded. We don’t use up a ton of the very limited and important ammunition that we’ll need if we ever have to defend our community here. The Brotherhood doesn’t follow you back here and kill or enslave us all. Let’s say your mission is a complete success and you free those people. What will you do with them then? Hmm? You can’t send them back to their homes, because their homes are probably all over Idaho and the whole damned northwest, and we almost died trying to make it here in the first place.”
“And their hometown
s are probably run by the Brotherhood,” Mr. Shiratori said. “They’d be killed or recaptured immediately.”
“We’d have to bring them here with us,” Mrs. Macer said. “We’d have to find room for them.”
“Room for at least thirty men?” Toby Keelin asked.
“Probably fewer, because some would be killed trying to escape,” Dr. Nicole said. “And who knows how many women? And who knows what diseases those poor people have? Who knows what injuries?”
“We could get you some help taking care of them,” Mrs. Stewart said.
“I’ve already learned so much from you,” Becca said. “I could help.”
Tears stood in Dr. Nicole’s eyes. “I’m not a doctor. I’m a veterinarian. If I have the right drugs and supplies and equipment, I can help most animals the best that we know how to help them, and some of that knowledge works for humans too. But there are things about treating people that I do not know.”
“Everybody here is grateful for all you’ve done,” said Mrs. Pierce.
“You saved my life,” JoBell added.
“That’s not the point!” said Dr. Nicole. “I’m not sure you all understand how fragile our situation is. I have very little medicine. I’m low on surgical supplies and every other basic medical tool. You think that joke of a hospital in the Freedom Lake gym was bad? Think we were underequipped there? That place looks like an advanced medical facility compared to what we have here. What if the war goes on for years? What if it lasts a decade? We have to accept that this could be a permanent community. And I have no vaccines! Zero. None. Our children will not have the same immunity we have. If one of those people we rescue brings any kind of disease here — not just measles or whooping cough or one of those nineteenth-century nightmares, but anything, the flu — we could all be in serious trouble.”
I finally spoke up. “Those are good points. And there are problems with the mission. It would have to be a full-on assault. Getting those people out of there would take time. We can’t move all of those exhausted people out on foot. That means we’d have to take the whole place over, take out every Brotherhood turd in the entire camp.” I saw Jaclyn had started crying. “I’m sorry, Jackie. We all came up here to get away from the war. We can’t go back to it.”
“And how would we feed them?” Mr. Keelin asked.
“Where would they sleep?” Mrs. Ericson said. “We’re squeezed pretty tight into our cabins as it is.”
“Then we build more cabins,” JoBell said in a what-the-hell-type voice. Silence hung in the room. “Or we put them up in the chow hall or the rec lodge or the hallways of this building. Damn it! These are human beings we’re talking about.” She shook her head. “I was in the radio room last night and heard some scary stuff about Russia and the war. It’s getting worse out there, all over the world. Dr. Nicole is right. We may be here for … well, forever.” JoBell gestured toward the walls lined with books as she turned around. “Look at this place. This might be the last library. The kids we brought with us will grow up here, others will be born here, and these books, along with what we teach them, will be all they know about the old world we grew up in.” She pointed at Mr. Shiratori. “There’s our historian, writing down the minutes of these meetings, laying down the first pages of a new book. The story of us. What story do we want our children to read? That we knew there was a terrible evil, and we didn’t even try to stop it?”
Mr. Grenke was about to speak, but JoBell held up her hand. “During the occupation, I was down in the dungeon, in the secret bunker under Danny’s auto shop. Montaine had just made a radio address, telling people that southern Idaho was still holding out. He asked everybody to start fighting the United States.”
“Right!” Mr. Keelin said. “You used to be against fighting, weren’t you? I know you were at protests and —”
“I was against the war because it was a mistake. Look what it’s cost us. Everything. First Sergeant Herbokowitz said then that the world is governed by the gun, that whoever has the biggest, most powerful guns, or whoever fights with no rules and nothing to hold them back, gets to choose the way things will be.
“But it’s not always like that. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can choose something — we have chosen something better! Right here! Where we share with one another and help each other and live in peace!”
Mr. Shiratori was smiling. “But you’re not suggesting peace. You want us to attack this Brotherhood camp.”
JoBell stepped forward to face the council. “The Brotherhood are the guys with the bigger guns, the ones who have no rules, no conscience. And the big-gun psycho can’t always win. Damn it! Not this time. Sometimes good people have to take a stand, even if it requires our own guns. Sometimes in the face of pure evil, we have to say, ‘Enough.’ Sometimes the weak have to win one.” She shrugged. “We just have to.”
She paused. “These books are a record, a monument to a world that has failed, a way of life that doesn’t exist anymore.” JoBell pointed at Mr. Shiratori’s notes. “Don’t let the story of us be a record of failure.”
She put her arm around Jaclyn, and the two of them walked out of the library. The room was silent for a long time. Mr. Shiratori seemed happy. Maybe he was proud of JoBell, his former student. Nobody else on the council would even look at one another.
Finally, Sergeant Kemp approached the end of the table. “I’ve talked it over with a bunch of people, and we think we can figure out a way past the difficulties Private Wright pointed out. We’re willing to give the mission a try. It is my professional opinion that we can succeed if you want us to.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Kemp. That will be all,” said Mrs. Pierce.
Kemp nodded at me and then at Mrs. Pierce before my group of friends walked out, leaving only the council in the room.
“Right,” said Mr. Keelin. “I call for the vote.”
Mrs. Pierce nodded. “The question is, should we attack the Brotherhood slave camp to free the people trapped there? We’ll go around the table.” She pointed to Dr. Nicole on her left. “Dr. Nicole?”
“No,” said Dr. Nicole. “I’m sorry, we just don’t have enough —”
“Debate is closed,” said Mrs. Pierce. “Votes only, please. Mr. Shiratori?”
“Yes,” Coach said.
“No,” said Mrs. Bean.
“Yes,” said Dwight Robinson next to me.
I hated the idea of another op, another firefight. It had been great to live here in peace for the past few months. I was almost getting used to it. But JoBell was right. We had to do this. Otherwise it really would be just like letting Jaclyn’s parents hang all over again.
“Danny?” Mrs. Pierce asked.
“Yes,” I said. There were some hmm sounds. I guess people were surprised I’d changed my mind.
“No,” said Mr. Morgan.
“Sarah?” Mrs. Pierce asked Mrs. Stewart.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Stewart.
Alissa Macer smiled at her mother. “Absolutely yes.”
The yes votes were ahead five to three, but we were coming up to Mr. Grenke’s crowd.
“No,” said Jim Monohan.
Mrs. Ericson shook her head. “Hell no.”
“Nope,” said Mr. Keelin.
The vote was six to five against the mission. All eyes were on Mr. Grenke to see if he would kill the mission or send a tie to Mrs. Pierce. I couldn’t remember the last time Keelin, Ericson, and Grenke hadn’t voted together. It was like they’d formed a political party on the drive up here.
“When our bus was pinned down under Brotherhood fire, Danny and his guys came back for us,” Mr. Grenke said slowly. “I know if I was in that camp, I’d be praying for someone to come break us out. I vote yes.”
It was a tie, then. Mrs. Pierce would decide.
She stood up. “We need to make plans to feed, clothe, house, and otherwise take care of a lot more people.” There were a few groans around the table. Mr. Keelin slid his chair back and folded his arms, looking pissed. �
��Danny?” Mrs. Pierce let out a long breath. “Please go tell Sergeant Kemp to begin preparing for the assault.”
When I got back to our room, everybody was busy cleaning weapons and loading rounds into magazines. I paused outside the open door. My friends and I were heading into another firefight. Voting for the mission had seemed like the right idea at the time. Of course we shouldn’t allow human beings to be treated like cattle or worse. Through the whole war, I’d been wondering if it was right to continually value me and my friends more than the Feds or others we’d fought. But now, facing a situation where we were going to risk our lives to help strangers, tipping the scales the other way, I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.
Or maybe this mission wasn’t a change for us at all. We’d be going into that camp, having decided that the lives of the Brotherhood guys running it were less valuable than our own, less than the lives of the people locked up there, and so we’d kill them. I squeezed my rifle. But the Brotherhood had already decided their lives counted more than those of the people they’d captured. With that in mind, maybe this battle would be the clearest case of right and wrong in the whole war. I prayed it would be our last fight. I rubbed my hands over my eyes, my head almost aching just thinking about it all.
“I know I’ve been … kind of out of control … sometimes. One time Danny even told me I shouldn’t fight with this sword anymore. But I …” I looked inside the room, where Cal ran an oiled whetstone along the blade of his cavalry saber. “I can’t wait to get back at these bastards, you know? One final battle with this sword.”
“The mission is to kill ’em all?” Jaclyn smiled bigger than she had in months. “Yeah, I’m in.”
I swung the door open all the way and came into the room. “I stop to take a dump on the way back from council and everybody knows how the vote went?”
JoBell didn’t look up from cleaning her rifle. “It’s a small village. Word travels fast. Anyway, I knew the mission would be approved.”