by Billy Roper
The mom with the baby on her hip lurched sideways, looking up at them, trying to guess which one was most likely to take her kid. The skinny dad suddenly appeared from behind and took him from her, guiding her to the side and out of the shrinking crowd to stand with several others in shared misery. His shirt had been too big for him, after months of short meals. But he had kept his family together.
The world fuzzed out around the corners. Maybe the fatigue and stress was getting to him after all. His mind wandered and every turn of the tire, marked by a whomp as a flat one spun around to join its peers, seemed to take a relentless eternity. He flinched, at least inside, imagining the slaps were bodies falling. If only there was some place to hide until it was over.
There was a stirring as the guy beside him tensed, preparing to stand up, too. Now next in line across the aisle, Wilcox eyed him nervously, a question in his eyes. Should they go, too? Damn Thompson to Hell. Suddenly one of the women, this one younger and once pretty before the hunger had hollowed her cheeks and sunken her eyes, was pacing alongside them, holding a bundle up to him. Not just a bundle. A squawling bundle. A baby, red-faced and blue eyed and screaming in fear. He tried not to look at her, but it seemed silly to ignore her. Some of them were trailing away, giving up, but not her. She was determined. “Please!” she asked, looking right at him, past his scars, to his eyes. Damn her, he thought.
“Please, take my baby!” she begged. Her hair was an unwashed yellow color fading to auburn. It was stringy and greasy, laying on her shoulders. He wondered what she would look like cleaned up and fed. There wasn’t a man with her to pull her back. She stumbled, almost lost her footing, and in a weak moment Sgt. Barnes hoped she would, but she caught hold of the tailgate with the tips of her fingers and with the other hand, like a quarterback dumping a football off to a running back, she had tipped the noisy blanket-wrapped thing over the lip. It tottered over the edge, and he instinctively bent forward and scooped it up before it hit the floor. Barnes looked at it, looked back up and behind him at her in horror as she let herself stop trotting and fell to her knees on the pavement, out of breath. The rest of the mob had run out of gas a few paces back. Caught up in the moment of drama, he hadn’t noticed. She was crying and nodding and saying “thank you”, and throwing it back didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Somewhere to his right Wilcox was calling his name, but he didn’t know what to tell him. Maybe Florida wouldn’t be so bad, after all. He’d heard it was nice, this time of year.
There was enough room on the launches for the triaged civilian children and the women who had stayed in the trucks. Sgt. Barnes directed the human traffic as best he could while holding a crying infant against his body armor with one hand. The Lt. passed by once, but the expression on the noncom’s face dared him to say anything. The young officer just shook his head, blinking back tears, and walked on. He didn’t like it any better than the rest of them.
Some of the civilians staggered up before they loaded the last boats. Wilcox waved them forward, urging them on. Not all of them had given up, and some who had must have gotten a second wind when they saw how close deliverance was. Two more fishing boats were waiting. There was an argument up front between a clump of officers over whether to prioritize the soldiers or the civilians. Barnes figured he was going to be stuck with the baby no matter what, so he was willing to stay to prove a point.
He didn’t think, from his last glimpse of her, that the mom was going to get up again, but just as he was ready to go find Thompson and rejoin the rear guard, or what was left of it, he saw her. She had crept up to the back of the rear truck and was searching the chaotic scene with her eyes for her child. Her knees were scraped and she looked forlorn and lost, hugging herself with thin arms, standing still while everyone around her rushed past towards elusive safety. Barnes held his carbine up in the air with his free hand and waved it at her until she noticed him. The look in her eyes switched a light on inside him. ‘Awww, hell’, he thought, trudging back up the ocean-side pier.
Four men out of the rear guard were able to withdraw to the fallback beach. The rest didn’t make it. Three of them were wounded when he picked them up. They were happy to see him, to say the least, but incredulous that he was their rescue party. Barnes couldn’t blame them. Captain Davis wasn’t one of the survivors.
His men had pretended not to notice when he grabbed the refugee woman by the arm and tugged her back in the other direction towards the marina. He didn’t know enough about boat engines to get one started, but one of the moored houseboats had a two-oared rowboat alongside that he quickly cut loose. The seven of them made it back to the cutter in it, one of the last group to be picked up. He pulled until his shoulders gave out against the tide, then turned the oars over to one of the uninjured privates. Then they traded off again. It took nearly an hour of hard work to make it to the fleet through the green surf.
She didn’t say much on the choppy ride out. Her name was Flechette. The baby boy was Gerard. His dad had died trying to talk his way out of a carjacking in Jackson as they tried to go north, when it all started. Flechette didn’t elaborate on how she and her baby had gotten out of that, and he didn’t ask. Too many stories sounded all the same. He told her he would look after them, and she just nodded. She’d believe it when she saw it, he figured. Once they came alongside the big Coast Guard ship he nearly had to carry her up the ropes while she held onto the baby, then he helped the wounded up and to the infirmary.
Thompson hadn’t just martyred himself, it turned out. He had forced a cabin cruiser at gun point to pick up every civilian they could get on without capsizing, then go back again for more. One line after another had waded out to be saved. Wilcox and Bailey had stayed on the beach, buying time for the women and children, until the strand was empty. The blacks had held off their attack once the big guns of the ships offshore spoke loud and clear at them. Noone ended up getting left behind, after all, but there still were a lot of hard feelings towards the Colonel about it. He could have been the hero of the day, a new Dunkirk, but he had lost his nerve somewhere along the way.
Leaving the mother and child alone together in the emptiest corner of the cutter’s mess hall he could find, Barnes looked for his missing men. Jenkins, Michaels, Reed, and Carlisle had gotten separated and were on other ships, he finally was able to find out after an hour in the radio room as they relayed his inquiries through the fleet. More important communications from higher ranked people kept interrupting his efforts. He had no orders to give them, anyway, as none had been given to him. Lt. Bailey was busy debriefing the auxiliary militiamen who had swept back and forth through the smoldering seaside streets while he had been rowing, to make sure none of the stragglers were left to the tender mercies of the New Afrikaners. He wanted to make sure they all knew who had saved the day after the Colonel had panicked and underestimated the number of boats they could bring in, the Sergeant understood.
When he got back to the mess hall, Wilcox and Thompson had gotten a tray of warm chow for Flechette and a bottle of formula for her son, whom she had cleaned up and changed in the head. She’d washed up a bit, too, and looked better for it. The two unwounded PFCs he had picked up off the beach and a walking wounded corporal with his arm and shoulder bandaged were waiting to ambush him with handshakes and gratitude before he made it to their table. Barnes waved his men off and took a seat. He was so tired, but he wanted to make sure that they were doing okay. They were his responsibility, now.
“What now?” Flechette asked him quietly, asking him about her fate like it was his to decide. It was, at that, he understood, and her baby’s, too. He thought for a second.
“Well, I was thinking about taking a vacation to Florida, but I think I’ve spent enough time at the beach. Have you ever seen Texas?”
She hadn’t.
Lt. Bailey became Captain Bailey to take the place of Davis, who would have replaced the Colonel, since he got transferred to a frontier garrison post in Coleman, out of the way of any veng
eful refugees. Since Davis hadn’t made it, they brought in a transfer from Dallas as company commander, a paper-pushing bureaucrat. The men were all glad that Sgt. Barnes became their new Lt., once it became clear that they were going to keep the command structure together, this time. The platoon remained intact, with some newbie volunteers fleshing it out that he’d have to bring up to speed, but Wilcox would make a good noncom to help him whip them into shape. Thompson had made Corporal for his antics. The two survivors of the rear guard who were fit for duty had volunteered in to be under him, too. After he had told the new sergeant about all the promotions, Barnes left the barracks for the last time. He was an officer now. He ranked separate housing.
It turned out to be just a one bedroom apartment, attached to forty-nine others just like it in a block, but it was plenty big enough for him and Flechette and Gerard, especially since he was shipping back out in a week to Florida, after all. Things weren’t getting any better in the panhandle, and they needed some heroes to come to their rescue. In between now and then there was supposed to be a parade and speeches and awards ceremony. And a dozen days and nights to get to know his new family a little better.
Chapter Four
Jian Ying was grateful for many things. That he had not been conceived as a girl like the three abortions which had preceded him in his parent’s household. That his father was an important man, an exalted servant of the people. That he had come to this place where he was treated with respect by the slothful conquered.
Their own laziness, that had caused them to be overrun by foreigners and milked dry by bankers without fighting back, still kept them in their proper place. Whenever he passed them on the street, they stared at the ground, bowing to him without making face to face contact. It was a powerful drug for a teenaged boy to taste every day.
He could have any of their women, with their out of proportion bodies and eagerness to please, if he had wanted. So far he had resisted. He knew that other young men his age did not. The People’s Expeditionary Force soldiers, many of them no older than him, had comfort stations where local girls “volunteered” as hostesses throughout the city. Jian had avoided them so far. In truth he had only been in Seattle for a month, though. He was still learning his way around.
His bodyguard, an ensign from his father’s office, tried to lead him around and clear of the bad areas of the city. He knew there were neighborhoods where the food kitchens had been robbed, causing reprisals against all of the residents there. Those burned out areas were off limits to the peacekeeping forces, and to him. It also was a good idea to stay away from direct contact with the crowds of smelly, saggy, dirty whites who waited grumpily for their rations around every government building , including the one where he and his father and mother lived. They came and went from the back entrance.
That was how he first saw her. At first glance he could tell that she had never been fat, and she moved with quick grace, not hungry sloth. She was healthy and vibrant and oh, so shining. Her hair was cut short but still had a hint of curl around its light brown edges. She looked to be about twenty. Barely older than him, and not enough to count, considering their stations.
Granted, she was collecting uneaten food from the trash dumpsters behind the ambassadorial residence, but that was no surprise to either of them. What he threw out was better and more than what most of the defeated Americans could hope for from the solidarity kitchens.
Jian’s father had lectured him many times about the people they now lived among and ruled over. Yes, it was proper to think of them as vanquished foes, but they had not surrendered. Formally, the People’s Republic of China Expeditionary Force was attached to the United Nations joint command as a peacekeeping force on a long-term humanitarian mission, and they wore the blue helmets to prove it. Where applicable, such as up in Vancouver and down in San Francisco, the Premier had issued a proclamation to the Security Council that since the formerly United States was, no, were, not able to insure the safety of Chinese citizens in the North American Area of Operations, the people would be sending assistance. The expenses incurred for the heavy costs of such an ongoing mission could be blunted by the nationalization of American businesses, corporate holdings, and military bases and equipment within the expanding boundaries of the New Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. This region, dominated by Beijing, included United Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and the Hawaiian islands, among others.
He had seen the updated world maps in his father’s study. India, having annexed Pakistan despite the loss of tens of millions of their own people in nuclear fire, was now looking east to keep their own economic engine going through the allocation of new territories and resources just as China was, just as Japan had been forced to do a hundred years earlier. As the ambassador explained it, what was happening in this realignment of global power was the opposite of the collapse of the Roman empire. The implosion of the huge American economy and the loss of its consumer market had drawn second rate powers which had depended on selling their cheap junk to the U.S. upwards and outwards in desperation.
For now, China had the upper hand. Russia was distracted in spreading its shadow over Eastern Europe, except for a defensive buildup around Vladivostok. India’s competition could be thwarted by exacerbating rising Muslim/Hindu tensions, and that would keep them busy. Jian had heard from his father’s assistants that elements of the Expeditionary Force had even reached the other coast of the formerly United States from their bases and colonies in Africa, and were liberating decadent Western works of art and capitalist treasures from the oppressed people there who had asked for their assistance against the remnant imperialists.
Here closer to his new home, most of the alleys had been swept clean of scavengers. The curfews, part of the martial law program enacted for the safety of the citizens under their jurisdiction, kept everyone except authorized personnel off of the streets at night. During the day, security patrols were regular and dependable, especially around government administration buildings. This young woman must be very bold.
At the moment, most of the attention of the guards were on the front of the embassy, which was located in a former decadent hotel on the waterfront. She had probably slipped around the side from the homeless camp in the park down the street. Some of the Seattle natives who had been selected to volunteer their homes as housing for the peacekeeping troops lived there, dozens of them, in fact. They had torn down the odd sculptures for their shelters, and inexplicably, to Jian, were very ungrateful towards their new protectors.
His father had been perplexed by the simmering animosity some of the Americans displayed in isolated acts of vandalism, as well. In public, they were politely respectful and obedient, as befit their station. As well they should be. Who was it that was feeding them? Who protected them from the ravages of barbarian black and brown gangs? Who had executed all of the homosexuals, or at least enough so that the rest were in hiding, something the capitalists had never been able to accomplish? Who kept the streets crime free? Who had completed the half-hearted and ineffectual attempts at gun control which even most of these locals had uselessly “voted” for in their sham elections, over and over?
And yet, resistance continued. Windows were broken. Police on patrol were attacked. And yes, food was stolen. Even when it had been thrown away, it was still theft, wasn’t it?
Lee Ho yelled at her to stop, but like most capitalists when caught doing wrong, she pretended not to hear his bodyguard’s command. Jian watched her lift herself up out of the big steel bin by gripping the edge and jumping from a squat. She half fell, half crawled over the side, then pushed herself to her feet and ran. Lee Ho began to draw his pistol, but Jian grunted for him not to. She had dropped something when she fell. That was more interesting than killing her, right then.
His mind replayed the brief sight, searching for detail. Short brown hair curling at the edges, pale skin, big eyes of indeterminate color wide with shock at being discovered, and a big American nose. Her clothes had been tig
ht, showing what he imagined to be a firm and athletic body rather than a starved one. Maybe she wasn’t quite as old as he had first thought, too.
She had been carrying two bags, and one now lay drooping on the dirty asphalt. Lee Ho motioned for him to stay back while he kneeled and pulled the drawstring open, revealing stale rice and beans. That must have been the servants’ dinner. He had eaten hamburgers, and there hadn’t been any left to throw away. Jian had made sure of it.
Back home, before, the government school for the children of high ranking Party members had been strict about Western influences. It didn’t stop the kids from sharing illegally downloaded music and censored videos, not out of any democratic political tendencies, but just because they were forbidden, of course. But he never would have been allowed to eat a hamburger, that was for certain. Here, his father entertained delegations of local officials and collaborators so often that Jian regularly got to eat all kinds of foods, even pizza, his favorite so far.
Lee Ho reported the perimeter security breach to the control room through his headset before they continued their outing. As they came around front, the tall tower that looked like an old American science fiction movie alien spaceship had been speared by a spike rose to his left, while to his right an equally strange wheel loomed. He hadn’t been allowed to visit either one, yet, but he planned on it. Sometimes he thought about slipping away from his guard and heading off on his own, secretly. He doubted he would ever have the courage to, but it was fun to imagine exploring the city.
Today they were only going so far as the art museum, closed to the public now but open to him. The strange and bizarre modern art which was still on display there without an audience confounded him. The West had killed itself on decadence, but gone crazy first, it seemed to prove. On the way back he wanted to stop by the little park with its three small houses and fountain, one of his favorite places to go when they went walking. Jian’s father was pressuring him to take a military commission and go on active duty to follow up his Young Pioneer training, which meant that he would have to, sooner or later. He wondered where he would be stationed. Hopefully not down near Aztlan where the fighting was at its worst.