The Rebels, page 14
part #2 of Feed Series
“What? You mean Elliot?” The Director laughed. “I didn’t send him. Had I known who he was going to interrogate, I’d have gone myself. Don’t be childish, man. You know your mind belongs to Kirkwood at the moment, and thus your discoveries and creations. So then, come, let’s go.” He waved an impatient hand, gesturing for Ramone to join him.
“Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen,” Bethany counted.
“What’s she doing?” Marci hissed at Ghosteye.
He turned to look at her and shook his head. “I thought she wanted to trade him. Maybe she just wants to slaughter the soldiers.”
“And Ramone? This wasn’t our plan,” Marci said, sounding irritated.
Ghosteye squeezed her hand. “I don’t know, Marse. It looks like he has his own plan.”
“If I go with you,” Ramone was saying, “You swear there won’t be any bloodshed here?”
“I can’t promise that, my good man, this is war, after all.”
“Swear it!” Ramone shouted, nearly growling, his voice sounding more violent than Ghosteye had suspected it ever could. “Swear it! Or we have no deal and your men will die as surely as these people will,” he motioned toward Bethany’s side of the meadow.
“Fine. Fine, come on then. I swear it. Come with me,” he beckoned for Ramone to join him.
Ramone hesitated. He straightened his back and began unwrapping Blythe’s fingers from his wrist. She pled with him, looking into his face. Ghosteye couldn’t hear what was said, but he could see the frustration in Blythe’s movements. She shook her head fervently, and Ramone shook his back. He touched her cheek and then stepped away, striding across the uneven ground, his movements sure and confident.
God! No! Ghosteye breathed out, frustrated. He wanted to pace, to charge like a bull-moose and break up this idiotic move. What did Ramone think he was doing? This wasn’t their plan! How could he trust that slimy, evil man? Just for the promise of no bloodshed? Was his life, his freedom, really worth that exchange? They would exploit him somehow. Ghosteye was certain of it.
“No, no, Ramone.” Ghosteye heard Marci whisper, and he felt the same anguished cry in his own heart.
Everything happened at once and slowly, as though a slow-motion effect were applied to the scene.
There was the deafening crack of gunfire, a terrible, final sound that split the meadow air in half. Ghosteye gasped, feeling the entire moment cross a point of no return. Dread welled up in him as he searched, unsure which side the first bullet came from. His gaze swept over the meadow and then suddenly, the choppers were returning, their blades hacking through the air, kicking up a stiff, cold wind.
Ramone ducked and then broke into a run, his hands up as though to protect his head. A soldier behind the Director dropped, and the others began to charge forward, their guns held to their shoulders, stocks by their cheeks, scopes sighted, while Bethany’s hippies took a knee and fired almost indiscriminately at the mass of soldiers. Some of them turned away and ran back over the crest of the hill toward camp.
The Director had somehow managed to slink to the side of the meadow, out of the path of gunfire, and latched himself to a rope that dropped from the first chopper to arrive. And then Ramone was next to him, shouting at the fish-lipped man, though from the looks of the struggle, he no longer want to go with him. The Director brought an elbow down on Ramone’s shoulder, near his neck. Ramone collapsed and the Director caught him beneath the arms, and held onto the nanoengineer as they were pulled upward, away from the skirmish, away from Blythe who reached the spot directly beneath the rising Director and Ramone, and away from Marci who was muttering protests beside Ghosteye. How he heard her, he couldn’t be sure, but he put an arm around her and pulled her into his shoulder.
***
“Strip him,” Bethany ordered Quinn.
“What?” Quinn choked, disbelief turning the corners of his wide mouth downward.
“He’s a non-entity,” she explained, continuing. “We need his body armor. Don’t you get it? When he joined their military, he was erased. He’s effectually dead. Well, he’s literally dead now, but before we killed him, he was figuratively dead. The cameras didn’t see him. None were assigned to him. They do it for all their soldiers. They even tell the families they’re dead and put on a funeral, closed-casket, claiming they were horribly mutilated in some kind of explosion. I know. Personal experience.” She looked down at the body. ?The head was a bloody mess from the several gunshot wounds. Her innards turned cold, confronting the dead like this again.
Quinn glanced at her, then at the body, then at her again. With a sigh, Bethany bent down and began removing the corpse’s vest, boots, and body armor. “They left them here. You think I’m a monster? What kind of group does this to their men? Leaves them, dead, on the battlefield for the vultures and other scavengers? And why would you go along with that, as a soldier?”
Bethany put the items she removed into a pile. She tried to do it slowly, reverently, with respect for the fallen soldier. She may not agree with their methodology, but she could still be respectful of the dead. Quinn still hadn’t found his voice. He was shell-shocked. Killed his first man only an hour before. She’d seen it before. “Listen,” she said with a sigh, still working on removing the armor. “I know how you’re feeling. Detached. Cold. A little sick. It will pass. Battle is ugly. It’s kill or be killed. We lost men too. And women,” she said, remembering that one of the girls who’d accompanied her to the bunker had been killed. She lay only fifteen feet away, pale, cold, and caked in dried blood. Bethany still hated the vacant expression of the dead. The empty, dull eyes that screamed how the soul was gone. Until she’d seen the eyes of the dead, Bethany had been sure there was no soul. No god. Nothing but emptiness.
“It’s just,” Quinn said, his voice catching, sounding sick, disgusted with himself. He rubbed a dirty hand across his face, smearing it over his cheeks. “They’re gone, you know. Gone. And I did that.”
“Say a prayer, if it helps. This is war, Quinn. The rules are different during war.” She finished and stood, dusting her hands off. These soldiers wore body armor on their trunks. The wounds that killed them were in their heads. Or upper thighs, where a major artery was severed and untreated—they bled out in a matter of minutes. Beth had even seen a small caliber bullet in the thigh kill a man—it went in and ricocheted around, never actually exiting, just bouncing off bone, tearing up the major organs till he was dead. Or she, Beth thought, with a chill.
Most of the casualties were on her side, she noted, pursing her lips in chagrin. That was to be expected, really, what with the technological advantage of her opponents, not to mention their superior training. Bethany hadn’t even had a chance to school her soldiers in how to fire a damn RPG at a chopper. So over two-thirds of Kirkwood’s soldiers got away unscathed. Two-thirds of Bethany’s men were dead. It was like pitting a pre-Columbian tribe against World War I era soldiers.
Her heart was heavy as Quinn and now William, followed her around the meadow, the post-battle quiet a deafening roar in her ears—as much from having no protection against the blasts of gunfire during the skirmish, as from that unearthly sound of being surrounded by the dead.
If she hadn’t been more accustomed to battle, to watching men die, and if she still believed there was no God, no soul, nothing that followed afterward, her sorrow at the sight of the fallen would have been unbearable. And still, she knew that later, in the privacy of her own tent, she would grieve. For now, graves must be dug.
“Gather the others,” she said, turning to William and Quinn, raising her chin in defiance at the grief staring her in the face. “Do what I just did to Kirkwood’s soldiers. Do it. Look at me,” she said when they shifted uncomfortably and avoided her gaze. “It’s a necessity. The next battle may depend on it. Oh, you thought this was it? Because Ramone’s gone? Nothing’s changed. We accomplished nothing.”
“But almost everyone’s dead,” William answered, his baritone managing to sound fragile and scared.
“Ramone was trying to avoid this,” a nearby voice said. Turning, Bethany saw Ghosteye gesturing at the dead with his crutch. “He was going to give himself up for you. It didn’t work, obviously. But that’s what he was doing. And now he’s gone. But so is most of your force, unfortunately.”
“How can you be so sure that’s what he intended?” Quinn asked, looking like he might punch Ghosteye for suggesting the man who’d aided in stealing his privacy actually had good intentions.
“I know him,” Ghosteye answered. The blonde college-girl hovered behind him, her eyes shifting as though she expected the dead to rise and begin attacking her. She kept rubbing her arms like she was cold. “He had a different plan, of course, well, we did. Beth’s plan was to give him up as a bargaining chip, wasn’t it, Beth?”
Everyone looked at Bethany, an accusing look in William’s brown eyes, a look of doubt in Quinn's green. “Is that true?” William asked.
“Er, well, the thought occurred to me,” Bethany admitted.
“Tell us the truth,” Quinn pled, his voice a whisper. There was a desperation in his face, like he couldn’t stomach the truth. How could she explain that she was willing to do almost anything to restore some semblance of privacy, to stop the maddening trajectory of their society, somehow, without sounding like a heartless beast?
“If I could have struck a deal with them that guaranteed some form of a restoration of our privacy—and by our I mean the people in our country who wish for it—I would have traded him, yes. But not if their intent was simply to kill him,” she admitted, knowing that a fight of the he said/she said sort with Ghosteye would have undermined her leadership.
“Did he know that?” William asked, folding his arms.
“I didn’t tell him, no,” she answered, her eyes flickering to Ghosteye. She suspected that Ramone had known and she could guess who had told him. “The point is that now, Ramone is gone.”
“Yes, and he’s probably in for it, if you ask me,” Ghosteye said, slumping to one side on his crutches. “We need to help him.”
William and Quinn turned to Ghosteye, their mouths dropping open. They looked back at Bethany, shaking their heads. “No way,” Quinn said. “Over half of us are dead. And I’m sure, almost one hundred percent sure, that they have over a hundred more trained soldiers, just waiting to kill the rest of us.”
“Actually, they have two thousand soldiers,” Bethany said, clasping her hands behind her back, beginning to pace in the small patch of trampled grass, the nearest body a good thirty paces away. To their gaping faces, she added, “But we’d have to do some recruiting before approaching them, or figure out some very clever tactics.”
She looked up to see what their response to that was. Their expressions made her turn in time to catch a fist to her cheek. “What the—” a burst of stars clouded her vision.
“That’s for not saving Ramone,” Blythe said, winding up to hit Bethany again, “And—whoa!” This time Bethany stopped her with a defensive block, turning it into a throw. The other woman slammed into the ground as Bethany let go of her arm.
“Don’t tell me what that one was for,” Bethany said, rubbing her cheek as she straightened.
“Bitch,” Blythe muttered, rolling to her knees.
“Thanks,” Bethany said, noticing that Ghosteye was trying to hide a smile. As were the others. “Didn’t look like he wanted to be saved,” she finished.
“There was enough bloodshed here that you could have simply added the bastard who took him,” the other woman said, standing and dusting off her behind. Her cheeks were puffy as though she’d been crying, her face pale like she’d been sick.
“The point is to restore our rights! What’s with the obsession? Who is Ramone, that the three of you follow him around like puppies? Like sheep?” Bethany asked, her temper flaring. She’d never been in command of so many soldiers and now to have lost more than half of them in one battle. That was her fault. She hadn’t trained them. One part of her wanted to run away from this fact, the other wanted to regroup, restructure, and be a better commander.
Ghosteye shrugged. “We can’t explain it.” He looked between the college girl and Blythe, inviting them to contribute.
“I can’t, not really,” Marci said, looking away. She was holding her stomach now, like she might vomit any moment.
“Well, I for one . . . love . . . him. Something like that. Yes, love. God!” she threw her hands in the air and spun, looking frustrated. “You hear? He’s brilliant, and good, and honorable. Something none of you have ever been, particularly, you, Bethany. You were going to sell him, like you had that right.” Blythe’s fists were clenched at her side. If she’d thought it would work, Bethany was certain the other woman would have punched her again.
William turned to leave, shaking his head. Bethany noted that he didn’t appear to be about to follow her orders. At that moment, a figure crested the hill coming from the direction of camp and ran toward their small group.
“Oh no,” William muttered, looking back at Quinn. They exchanged a glance. Bethany had seen that look before. A mutinous one.
“Come quick!” the newcomer shouted, a boy, not more than twenty with a round face and a squat build—definitely not designed for distance running. He slowed to a trot as he drew nearer.
“What is it, Nate?” Quinn asked, taking a few steps toward him.
“Can’t explain, just come, they’re here,” Nate said between gasps.
“Who?” Beth asked, a surge of concern and frustration rising in her throat.
Nate didn’t answer verbally, he simply turned, waved for them to follow and ran back the way he’d come.
“Guess we better follow him,” Ghosteye said, turning his crutches horizontally and beginning to do a run-hop, placing a little weight on his hurt foot. Beth noticed that the bandage was covered in twigs and dried leaves.
All at once, everyone broke into a run. There were others milling about the battlefield as well, closing the eyes of the dead, crying over the fallen. They noticed, rose, and followed. They’d all need to return soon with shovels and grave markers, and perhaps their prayers for those that were religious among them. Beth would see to it.
She swung her gun off her back and gripped the barrel as she ran, mentally preparing for another battle on a different front, hoping that wasn’t what the messenger was for. He didn’t seem alarmed, and surely he’d have conveyed that if it were so.
Beth ran up beside the boy, “Nate, is it? Nate, are these hostiles?”
He shook his head, breathing hard, “Don’t think so,” he huffed.
“Do they have guns?” she asked between breaths.
Again he shook his head.
Beth dropped back, slowing on the side of the rough trail until Quinn was beside her. “He knows what a hostile is, right?”
“Probably,” Quinn said.
“You know him, don’t you?”
Quinn tilted his hand back and forth to indicate so-so, never slowing in his gallop.
Bethany grunted and fell in behind Quinn.
Soon camp came into view. Beth slowed, waiting for Ghosteye to catch up to her. “Thanks for almost causing a mutiny,” she said when he hopped up.
“Anytime,” he answered with a cheeky smile.
“You’re lucky I still have a soft spot for you, otherwise…” she didn’t finish, letting his imagination fill it in.
“You’re lucky Ramone has so many fans,” Ghosteye said, pointing toward the north end of camp.
“What?” Beth asked. Then she saw them. Hundreds, no, more, perhaps a thousand, people wandering into camp, backpacks on as though they intended to stay, their faces old, young, and ages in between, all of them hopeful. “Who are they?”
“His followers,” Ghosteye said.
“They’ve been arriving since this morning,” Nate said, wiping sweat from his cheek. “They’re asking for Ramone.”
“So it worked,” Blythe said, stepping up beside Bethany.
“It worked for me. I’m not surprised,” Marci answered, appearing on the other side of Ghosteye.
“But, how’d they know we were here?” Bethany asked.
“Same way we knew,” Blythe answered, pursing her lips. “Not that you deserve them, or us, for that matter.”
“My message,” Ghosteye said with a hesitant grin. “My parting message to the world. They actually listened.”
“We have to go after Ramone, now, don’t we? Please?” Marci said. Ghosteye nodded and looked down at her. Marci continued, “If you won’t, Bethany, then I will.”
“Not that there’s a question, but I’m obviously going after him,” Blythe said.
“And me, of course,” Ghosteye said, taking Marci’s hand.
“If they’re his, do I really have a choice?” Bethany asked, feeling overwhelmed. What was she supposed to do with them? Turn them into soldiers? Yes. She supposed that was it. Better soldiers. She would do better this time. She owed that to the dead lying vulnerable and cold up in that meadow.
—The End
Continue the adventure in the Feeds with Feed 3: The Traitors! Leave a review to let me know what you think! When readers forget to leave reviews, I learn nothing about what they liked or didn’t like about my books. Think of it, your review could help me know what you love and didn’t love about the story! Turn the page to check out a special note from me!
A Note From Me
Hey! Thanks for checking out Feed 2: The Rebels.
If you’re into a short prequel to the series, check out this one here.
Sometimes when I think about freedom versus safety, I really think I have it dialed. No way would I give up my privacy for the sake of being safe. I’d rather risk it, just for those sacred moments of clarity, of being totally alone.
And other times, like tonight, I’m just not sure. I saw a headline about a missing five-year-old girl in a small Utah town. A friend from college lives near the family of the missing girl, and her own daughter is seeing it unfold.
