Dylan glared at Johnny and then grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. “You’re a fake.” He released him and started walking away.
“And what are you?” Johnny blustered. “You march around pretending to be something you’re not—you’re not a leader. You haven’t done anything to prove yourself. I’m a fake? I’m not the one pretending to have special skills that make me more qualified than everyone else. You’re going to get us all killed.”
Dylan stopped and turned. “Just stay away from Trinity.”
“Or what?”
Dylan didn’t answer. He walked away in fury.
He stopped at the supply closet, where Aimee was taking a mental inventory. “How are we?” Dylan snapped.
“Low as always—how are you?”
Dylan tried to control himself. “I kind of lost it.”
“I’ve seen a lot of leaders out here—good and bad. I know a thing or two about what it takes to lead, and I know you don’t get respect by pulling stunts like that.”
Dylan nodded, embarrassed and now angry with himself. “Have you ever thought about it? Having a baby so you could leave?”
“Never had someone make an offer,” Aimee said with a smile. “But if anyone did, I’d never consider it. So you leave for a few months, but they eventually come back for you, and if you don’t have a family then your baby just ends up with the government. Who wants to bring a baby into a world like this?”
Dylan looked down at the weapons.
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Trinity?”
“Yeah.”
Dylan shrugged. “Who has time for that out here?”
Aimee laughed. “You’re still a kid—stop trying to act grown-up.”
# # #
Just in time for lunch, reinforcements arrived. They were a bunch of older kids from Company A who had come from training in Oregon. They had all the weapons of real war: RPGs, mortars, sniper weapons, landmines. They also had communication equipment and were quickly able to establish contact with HQ and, more importantly, air support.
But most importantly, according to the Company A team leader, they had beer. They had wheeled in two kegs of it over almost two miles.
The team leader’s name was Mac. He was one of the few people on the front lines who could legally drink, though many kids ignored the laws and still got drunk on a daily basis. One of the Company A men had gotten four of Dylan’s men drunk by nightfall.
There was little to do that night except stare at the stars and pray that the Cocos didn’t decide to stage a surprise attack.
# # #
In between the infrequent battles, there was little to do with all the free time. Everyone took turns repairing the constant damages to the trench to keep it from caving in and practiced loading their guns—but mostly, they just hung out and did their best to relax.
The second night at the front lines, Milton taught Hunter and Dylan how to play poker. They sat crammed next to where the ammo was kept and used a small crate as a table.
“First opportunity you have to get me killed, I want you to take it,” Milton said as he shuffled the cards.
“I’m not going to get you killed.”
“Ha! Who are you kidding? The odds are against all of us.” Milton stopped shuffling and pointed at Dylan. “But this is what I’ve wanted—to be fighting here in Seattle. I want to die a hero. When you see the opportunity for me to do so, then you call me out and send me in.”
“You’re a crazy old man, Milton,” Dylan replied.
“So you won’t do it?”
“Who’s going to teach us how to play poker if he sends you off to die?” Hunter asked. “And all that other stuff you promised to teach us? You’re the only person here who can do that.”
Milton thought for a moment, and then started dealing. “Well, I didn’t mean I wanted to die a hero tonight.”
Dylan nodded. “Well, when you’ve taught us everything you know about everything, then we’ll consider it—but not until then.”
Milton nodded and pulled his feet in to give a Company A man room in the walkway; as he passed by, he kicked mud onto Milton’s camouflage shirt. “But soon, Dylan. I’m too old to be sleeping in the mud.”
“Hey, Milton?” Hunter said eagerly. “What was it like—before the war?”
Milton dropped his head and thought for a moment. “Simple, I guess. I mean, I had seen my share of bad things in Iraq, and when I came home all I wanted to do was move somewhere quiet and stay unnoticed, so that’s what I did—became a teacher in a small town and kept to myself. Stayed like that until the rebellion.”
Dylan’s father had been an early supporter of the rebellion. He’d told Dylan about it not long before Dylan left, but he had ignored most of what he said. Now, Dylan asked Milton curiously, “Did you support it right away?”
“Of course not,” Milton replied. “It’s like I said, I tried to keep it simple. I wasn’t about to join some cause and get thrown back into conflict. Besides, it was a small town. The rebellion didn’t exactly reach our doors until later. By that time, you didn’t have any choice—once the big towns decided which side they were on, you pretty much had to follow suit.”
“But you support it?” Hunter asked.
Milton nodded. “Not at first. Not until the Cocos came into our city and I saw what kind of people they were.” He paused and added, “There’s nothing glamorous about fighting. It’s just what you have to do sometimes.”
Hunter nodded, satisfied.
“But when does the fighting stop?” Dylan asked.
Milton smiled. “When we win.”
Later that night, Dylan and Hunter lay flat in the trench, staring upward at the sky, silently watching bombs burst above them. It was like a firework show.
# # #
Everyone spent most of the next day getting acquainted with the new company and repairing parts of the trench. Dylan and Mac decided that a few Company A men would go out the following morning to repair any damage to the wire in front of the trench, and Dylan’s men would connect a bomb-made crater to their trench. The crater was about five feet away, but would provide good fire ground once they connected it. The wire mission was far more dangerous, and Dylan’s men didn’t have the skills for it.
As Hunter fell asleep that night, Dylan watched two Company A men peeing on one of Dylan’s men, who had passed out after having too much to drink.
His scowl was quickly wiped away when he heard Mac scream, “Incoming! Take cover!” Dylan threw himself over Hunter just as the blast hit.
It was one of those moments when everything seems to happen in slow motion. Dylan turned to his right, and he saw soldiers panicking and screaming and crying and wetting their pants; he turned to his left and saw a blaze of fire coming towards him. He saw Mac, the Company A leader, on fire—screaming—dying.
Dylan’s eyes widened as Mac got closer. He could feel Hunter pushing at him, and trying to get up.
Another blast came. This one just missed the trench.
Dylan blinked and focused. He staggered up and ran to one of the periscopes to see what was going on. He looked towards the enemy lines. “What do we do?” he heard a Company A man screaming at him, just as confused as everyone else. Dylan didn’t answer. He kept scanning. He could see the Coco Puff launching a grenade from an RPG. “What do we do?”
Dylan pointed ahead and yelled, “Disable those men.” He ran low in the trench to a Company A sniper and told him to take out the RPG man, then he shouted at the rest of the company to return fire.
He saw an A man—an 18-year-old who had boasted during a poker game earlier that he graduated from an Army academy—in the fetal position, crying. Dylan ran to him and got down in his face. “Do you want to die?”
“No,” the soldier sobbed.
“Then get up and fire that weapon.”
“I can’t.”
“Then they’re going to kill you. Those no-good Coco Puffs will kill you and eat your n
uts for dinner.”
He didn’t move.
Dylan yanked the soldier up by his limp arm and helped him to the firestep. Together, they fired a single shot. “That’s the way it’s done—now do it!”
“They’ll kill me.”
“They’ll kill you either way—at least this way you stand a fighting chance.”
The soldier nodded and slowly peeked his head out of the trench and began to fire. It was slow at first, but then adrenaline pushed him to fight hard. Dylan took aim next to him, and together they killed Coco Puffs. Hunter quickly joined them, but Dylan pushed him back. “Go find Trinity and protect her.”
They were under fire for so long that Dylan lost sense of where the fire was coming from. From all corners. From the air. From planes. From grenade launchers. For three hours, they fought back and forth in a disoriented struggle for their lives.
Then it just stopped.
In the sudden calm, Dylan went to the radio and had the only person alive who knew how to use it call in the Company D HQ. It took nearly half an hour to find Tommy, but finally his crackling voice appeared.
“Better be good—I had to leave a game tournament.”
“There was another surprise attack,” Dylan explained. “We held them off, but half my men—I don’t even know! Maybe more than half are gone.”
There was a pause, and then Tommy said, “I expected it to be worse than that.” Then he laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”
Dylan didn’t speak.
“How bad of a hit did Company A take?”
“Same—maybe worse.”
“Who’s in charge of the company?”
“He’s dead.”
“Very well—congratulations. For now, it looks like you’ve been promoted to Company A team leader.”
Stunned, Dylan put down the radio and drifted away. There was only one thing on his mind: Are Trinity and Hunter safe?
# # #
(Rebel Frosted Flake, Blog Entry)
THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW
Posted: Thursday, January 1, 2015 | 12:33 AM (GMT)
I never thought it would come to this.
I am occasionally the voice of dissent in writing my thoughts; my readers know there are certain people with whom I disagree sharply. But I would have never wished any of this—on them or anyone else.
Last night, a truck came down our street calling for volunteers to fight against the one they call “Coco Puff.” That’s what we’ve sunk to—fighting an enemy who’s referred to with such a ridiculous name. Not even a real name! It’s a cartoonish name, which is appropriate, because society no longer seems human. Everything about what we are becoming is not based on the ethical laws that have sufficed for so long—we are animals.
I didn’t ring in the New Year loudly and joyfully as I usually do. My wife is gone—dead in the Christmas blasts. I rang in the New Year staring out my window into the darkness, wondering how it came to this. I didn’t agree with the President’s policy—I said so in my blog—but I never expected it to come to this.
I never expected my country to drop its guard and not protect me and my family.
People tell me that it’s okay to be angry—that this will ultimately help me cope. But who should I be angry with? The men who rallied against their country, or the country that provoked them?
Tags: Coco Puff, Christmas blasts, new year
Level 12
Scouts
“Sir!” someone said, franticly shaking Dylan awake.
Dylan opened his eyes and saw Aimee. “Ugh, Aimee! Stop calling me sir.” Before she could apologize, he asked, “Time?”
“Six—Tommy’s on the radio. He says it’s urgent.”
Dylan sat up and looked over at Hunter, asleep next to him. He hadn’t slept so close since Disneyland. Still in a haze, Dylan stood and followed Aimee.
Johnny and Trinity were sleeping next to each other near the radio, and Dylan kicked Johnny’s shin as he passed by, pretending that he had merely tripped over him.
“Dylan here,” he said into the radio, then looked over at Aimee and commanded, “Go find me some coffee.”
“Ha! ‘Bout time!” Tommy excitedly replied on the other end. “I got some news that’s going to make your entire morning—heck, it might just make your entire life!”
“The war’s over?” Dylan asked, confused.
“Better! You remember the Golden Wii?”
“What about it?”
“I think I found it.”
Dylan groaned. “I don’t care about the Wii! Call me when you have news that’ll actually make my morning.”
“Don’t you get it, Dylan? This is the kind of thing that could send you home! If you find it, the legend says you go home.”
“It’s a legend, Tommy,” Dylan said firmly, remembering he was talking to a little kid and not a person with grown-up rationality.
“That legend will get your butt out of there. Grab a pen. I’m going to give you coordinates, and you’re going to send three men out to scout it.”
“I don’t have the kind of support out here to run that kind of mission—get me more reinforcements, and we’ll talk about your suicide mission.”
“Looks like someone’s growing up! Taking charge! I like that.” The radio went silent briefly, and then Tommy came back on. “Three men, write the coordinates, or you’ll never get replacements again—I’ll just let you all die off.”
Dylan clenched the radio in his fist. He wanted to break it in half.
“Do this for me, and I’ll see that you’re taken care of.”
Dylan flung the radio down and crouched, clasping his hands together and pressing them against his forehead. Finally, he picked up the radio again and said, “Give me the coordinates.”
“That’s the boy I’ve come to love—I’d hug you and slap you on the rear if I was there right now. You’re going to make this whole company famous!”
Dylan took down the coordinates and then immediately severed the connection. He turned around and saw Aimee, who had returned with his coffee. He could see from the disgusted look on her face that she’d been listening. “You’re going to be in charge while I go.”
“You? You can’t go!”
“Who says I can’t?”
“These kinds of missions are too dangerous—you get killed and then what?”
Behind Aimee, Dylan could see Trinity. She was now awake and snuggling against Johnny, who was also listening. Dylan turned away and said, “Then I guess I’ll just have to not die. You know how to hold these lines better than anyone else out here—you’ve done it the longest. If I die, then you’re in charge.”
“I want to go,” Johnny said, moving Trinity aside and standing.
“Johnny, no!” Trinity protested.
“He needs the best—he needs me.”
“You both are acting so immature.”
Dylan shook his head. “You’re not coming. You nearly formed a mutiny the last time we went out. I’m taking two men from Company A—they need the practice.”
Dylan turned and started to walk away, but Johnny’s hand stopped him. “I need to do this.”
“Why? What are you trying to prove?”
“That I’m making an effort for Trinity.”
Trinity blushed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve asked us both to get along, and I’m trying to make an effort—that is, if Dylan will have me.” He extended his hand. “Truce, Dylan—let me go with you.”
Dylan glared at Johnny, but finally gripped his hand, dropping it as quickly as possible. He went to look for Sanchez, one of the new Company A men. He was the strongest and quickest of the group, and the one who would be most valuable to the company with the right training.
Dylan found Sanchez with his head peeked over the trench, scanning the area for Cocos.
“Sanchez.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pack up. You’re coming with me and Johnny on a scouting exercise.”
“Yes, sir!” He seemed excited and began replenishing his pack immediately.
When Dylan got back to Johnny, Hunter was standing next to him, holding his pack. “What’s this?” Dylan asked Hunter.
“Ready to go.”
The n00b Warriors Page 15