2020: Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

“If you look to your right, you’ll see the River Thames, which flows right through London,” Shari explains in a pleasant, airy tone. Adorned in her flowing cream skirt and a pale blue sweater with the words “Tour Guide” written in white block letters on her back, she looks ever the part of her job here in the United Nations Headquarters.

She continues her languid, slow pace, behind the hallways connecting to the UN General Assembly hall where Kingsley had been chosen as Secretary General, seemingly oblivious to all around her. Overhead, the coffered ceilings are high overhead and from them hang chandeliers every thirty feet down the long, wide halls. The walls, a similar pale sky blue to her sweater, are decorated with the portraits of significant historical events from all around the UN, from George Washington’s signing of the Declaration of Independence, to the Berlin Wall coming down, and many more.

“The United Nations Headquarters was originally in New York, but following Resolution 530, the Expansion Resolution, it was moved to here, in London, at the request of President Ronald Reagan.” She pauses and looks back at the touring group behind her. In her group are four young families from Romania on a group vacation, as well as two single men and a couple. “Who here knows what Resolution 530 is?”

Those single men and the couple have been entirely quiet the whole tour, but Shari is all too aware why and does not press them for an answer. Thankfully, a young girl no older than ten years old raises her hand. Shari points to her, “Yes, young lady?”

The girl’s accent is thick and shew screws up her Slavic features as she struggles to speak in English. “The Expansion Resolution is the one that let UN resolutions become binding on members, right? And if they didn’t follow them, they’d be given… uh…” She pauses, having lost the word.

Shari nods, “Yes, exactly.” The girl looks at her, relieved and proud. “The Expansion Resolution was passed following the expansion of the World Confederation into Indonesia and the Philippines. It gives the UN’s laws binding power over member nations, under threat of economic and even military sanctions, if the disagreement is serious enough.” She pauses once, letting that set in, “Of course, no Secretary General has gone nearly that far in disciplining member nations ever before.”

She turns around, continues walking, and rounds a corner. Ahead, the wide hallway opens into a large lobby with huge Greek pillars stretching three stories into the sky to support a distant, frescoed roof. On the far wall is the entrance to the UNHQ, and is mainly comprised of large glass panels, looking out onto the serene St James’s Park, a large forested green space in the centre of London, northwest of the Palace of Westminster, where the British conduct their national politics.

Steps descend from their side of the room and into the main lobby, where marble floors glisten brilliantly. On the opposite side of the lobby is a mirrored set of stairs which also rise and are joined by halls on either side. Therein is a set of glass doors with the words “Gift Shop” written above. “As you can see we’ve reached the end of the tour, but by all means, please go and check out the gift shop.”

Those behind her offer a brief, but polite, round of applause, and she smiles slightly and dips her head. Her tour group walks by her, offering thanks and nods, before moving off toward the gift shop. One of the single men stops and looks at her quizzically, “Are you interested in learning about what you can to help the environment?” He asks slowly.

“The code,” she remarks to herself silently, and nods at the man, deliberately raising an eyebrow as she does so. “Of course,” she responds in a measured tone, “The world needs everyday heroes to save her from the shortsighted masses.”

The man nods yet again, and walks off. Shari takes this time to move back into the hallway from where she had come, and rests her back against a plain white door, counting down from ten in her head. “Ten,” she looks down the hallway, finding nobody. “Nine,” she feels her heartbeat begin to quicken. “Eight,” she knows that this will be a turning point in her time with Greenpeace. “Seven,” but Lacertus will praise her for this! It’s his plan, after all. “Six,” this is necessary, she assures herself.

She hears footsteps rounding the corner and steadies her breath. Looking up at the ceiling, she eyes the security cameras. None are pointed in this direction: she’s in a dead zone. “Five,” from around the corner, the couple emerges and stands in front of her wordlessly, knowing gazes being traded. “Four,” she can feel her palms becoming sweaty. “Three,” she takes from her sweater pocket her I.D. pass card. “Two,” she looks up at the two in front of her, the brunette woman looking to be in her 30s, while the man is a bit older and, given his greying hair, is likely in his 40s. “One,” a third figure emerges, that of bald man she had escorted through the UNHQ just prior to this.

“Zero.” Overhead, an alarm screeches through the building. Hurried footfalls can be heard throughout the building and someone down the hall shouts: “Security breach in the Security Council’s chambers!” Shari takes this cue and turns abruptly, her pleated skirt flipping with the abrupt movement. Her pass card is waved before a nearby access panel. She quickly punches in her coworker’s four digit access code and opens the door.

The three behind her hurry in wordlessly, and she too follows, securing the door behind her. The four of them stand in the darkness, waiting for the inevitable rush of footsteps outside the door. Minutes pass as numerous employees and government officials flee before they actually move.

Shari flicks on a nearby light switch, and the room is thus illuminated. “Is the lookout outside?” Questions the woman. Shari takes the opportunity to strip herself of the flowing skirt she had worn. Underneath it is a pair of grey slacks, much more appropriate for their job at hand.

“He is, yes,” Shari informs the woman. “Let’s get moving.” Now inside a utility room, furnaces and ventilation shafts blanket the small room, but at the far end is a narrow hallway with an emergency exit sign lighting up the slim corridor with an ominous red glow. “The air return we need is down the hall and in an access tunnel a few floors down, in the second subbasement.” She looks to the other individual, an Irish man in his late 30s, “Do you have the materials?”

The man opens his puffy winter jacket and exposes a lining of strange metal canisters and various other mechanisms Shari can’t identify. “Aye aye, Athena,” he says, using her codename with a serious intonation in his thick accent.

She smirks, her anxious heart palpitations slowing to a more manageable level. “Alright, let’s move out. P2, you take the lead,” she gestures to the bald man, who takes from his own heavy tan wool coat a long bayonet-style knife and twirls it in his hand. “P1, you’re with me,” the Irishman nods and moves up next to her, zipping his jacket up securely. “P3, you take the back, watch for any security guards, they may come searching for the source of the tripped alarm.” The woman nods and procures from the folds of her jacket a pistol equipped with a silencer.

“Winter really is the best time for this kind of thing,” Shari muses as they begin moving down the dank and dirty hall. “Thick coats provide the best cover for our tools…” The hallway is narrow and even P3’s slender shoulders rub against either wall if she walks completely straight. Piping snakes up and across the walls around them and on the low ceiling above.

Below them, their shoes clunk on the slotted metal floor, similar to that of a theatre catwalk. Shari looks down momentarily, and in the dim light provided by infrequent bare bulbs sticking out of the wall can see two more sets of similar set ups of causeways in the restrictive walkways of the UNHQ basements.

Silence is their closest companion here in these dark corridors. Silence and humidity. Shari, not wearing a heavy coat like her fellow conspirators, feels the humidity dampen the armpits of her sweater and make her pants cling to the hem of her pants under her groin and up her backside.

They turn a corner in the narrow corridor and end up at a set of stairs blocked by a mesh fenced gate. “Shit!” P2 swears quietly. “This’ll take too long to get through?”

“Did you even think why I was here?” Shari questions. “Move aside,” she demands in a huff and shoves by him. Next to the gate is a very basic keycard access, similar to the one she used to gain access to the maintenance room. She punches in the same four digit code from before and passes her keycard over the device. The gate unlocks with a click and she slowly opens it. “I have the keycard and access number for a coworker of mine. There’s no cameras in the basements and none where we entered. We’re invisible, people, so let’s keep it that way.”

“Yes ma’am,” P3 responds from the back of their little group.

The corridor after the gate abruptly descends into a set of steep, metal stairs. The four of them begin moving down, though Shari waits to reassume her place second in line, with P1, the Irishman carrying their materials, behind her; P3, the woman with her silenced pistol in the back; and finally, P2 with his bayonet knife in front. Shari doesn’t know their names, and that’s how she intends to keep it. It’s only safer that way. Greenpeace is a brotherhood, she realises, but it’s easily discovered for what it really is if anyone important is caught.

“I’m important,” Shari reminds herself, “Lacertus made it so… I’m his woman inside the UNHQ. He needs me. These three need me…” The feeling of being valued is so strangely foreign it gives her mental pause as she considers it, before coming to a pleasing warmth in her stomach, speaking to the deeply held desire she has had for as long as she’s been alive to have value to something bigger than herself.

The stairs they descend finally end and, as Shari had assured them, they’re now in the second subbasement. Similar corridors shoot off in three directions before them, and those gathered look to Shari expectantly. She drinks in their reliance, feeling that foreign feeling of being needed, drinking it up as greedily as she can, before pointing to her left.

Down here, the silence is ever more powerful. The cement floor below them is much quieter than the metal catwalks above them which join isolated islands of rooms together in the floating undercity of maintenance rooms, bomb shelters and other rooms even Shari does not know their purpose. Down here in the lowest level, the narrow corridors have frequent doors on either side which open into utility rooms and unsurprisingly, more bomb shelters for VIPs.

They follow this hallway for some time and only after a few minutes does it open into a terminal room, filled with vents and a wall of breakers. “This is the vent control room, which circulates air throughout the compartments of the UNHQ. Each part of the building runs on its own ventilation system to avoid mass poisonings, but…” She looks to P1, “We only need to work on one, don’t we?”

“About that,” P2, the man holding a knife, says trepidatiously, “Are we sure this is what Lacertus wants us to do? It’s so bloody…” An uneasy silence falls over the four of them, “I mean, we’re killing representatives of countries. They haven’t done anything but vote how their country’s government tells them to. Why do they deserve to die?”

“Because they’re implicit in promoting the same divisions that caused the Africa nuclear crisis, the same ones that are seeing thousands of innocent Japanese citizens die in Kingsley’s war of revenge, the same divisions that have kept the world split in two since the end of World War Two!” Shari shouts at him, hot anger building up in her system.

“How dare he question Lacertus!” She seethes furiously, “How dare he think he knows better!” She looks back at the two behind her and finds irritation on their faces too. “He’s a damn traitor! He’s going to expose us!” Mad thoughts begin flooding her mind as she looks over the man who had simply asked a question.

Shari looks back once more at P3, the woman with the gun, and steps back to her, P1 speaking imploringly as she does. “What I’m saying is that that’s not their will. They’re just trying to do their jobs. Why do they have to die for that?”

“Because,” Shari begins, taking P3’s weapon, hoping the dim light obscures what they’re doing. P3 lets her weapon move into Shari’s hands. “Because they’re traitors… Just like you, P2...” She hisses angrily, “Now, get back to work.”

The man slowly turns around to open one of the main vent filter accesses on the wall. As he does, Shari shakily raises the weapon before her, hands trembling with fury. Her heart slams against her ribcage, her hands feel cold and damp with sweat, her knees are shaking, and all parts of her feel as though she’s alive with anger. “Lacertus, I’ll save your mission if it’s the last thing I do!” She promises herself and pulls the trigger.

A silenced bullet escapes with only a popping rush of air typical to a bullet being fired out of a silencer. P2’s body drops to the ground, and he begins to groan noisily. “No more words, you fucker!” She demands furiously, leaping over his fallen body and grabbing his knife out of his hand. “No more questions, no more questioning Lacertus. Lacertus is going to save us! You won’t stop him with your lies!”

Shari raises the knife into the air and eyes it as it glints in the dim light of the industrial room in which they are working. “Get going with the gas!” She demands angrily of the Irishman, who hurries over to the half open access panel and sets up his time-delayed release. “You want those stupid UN representatives dead, Lacertus…” She assures him in her mind, a disturbing clarity coming to her, “What’s one more dead body?”

She takes the knife and drives it into the dying man’s throat and begins turning it. Blood rushes from the new wound and he spasms as the tip severs nerves in his spine. He coughs violently, choking on blood, and tears stream down his face as she agonisingly opens his throat. “No more words, you fucker…” She whispers to him over and over.

She tosses the knife away and places her hand on the large gash she’s made in his throat. Warm blood is slick and slippery against her fingers, but she soldiers through it. He can’t talk. He won’t talk. He won’t tell anyone what they’ve done and he won’t Lacertus. This man, nameless to Shari, is the worst thing she can imagine: “He wants to hurt Lacertus,” she seethes, “Lacertus is the only one that matters… He’s needs me… wants me. Lacertus loves me and I’ll do anything for him!”

She slides her fingers into the ribbon-like interior of the centre of his throat where she had made an opening and finds what she’s looking for. Her pointer and middle fingers, slick with blood and trembling with a madness that’s turned P3 away from the grizzly scene, find their target. She grasps at a collection of fibres and with one sure pull, wrenches them outward.

She raises it to the light and eyes with wonderment the fallen man’s vocal cords. Looking up, she sees that P1 is done with his set up. He averts his gaze, visibly ill from the horrific sight. “We’re good to go, it’ll release in an hour.” He looks over to P3 who’s leaning against the wall, also sickened by Shari’s madness. “Ready to go?”

Shari instead answers. “I am, yes…” She raises the same weapon she had taken from P3 who now realises the error in her doing so. Two bullets are fired off, and the two of them stumble over dead, leaving Shari alone. “I’ll protect you, Lacertus…” She assures him, despite him not being present.

“I’ll protect you…”

~*~

“I’m telling you, Bill, this Kingsley kid is in over his head!” The man sitting across from Bill O’Reilly, an American conservative commentator, exclaims, clearly frustrated. “An invasion into Japan over dubious intel? This is 9/11 all over again, and yet here we are, actually debating on whether there should be an involvement of American forces into this battle.”

Joshua leans back in his chair, and takes a moment to look around. Many in the restaurant he and Alisha are at are watching the political conversation carry out with mild interest, though he can only dread it. Every time they say “Kingsley,” it all comes rushing back: tackling the rebel, holding him down, and then… his head practically exploding right in front of him.

He runs a hand through his short, dirty blond hair, and instead looks over at the decorative Christmas trees set up here and there with fake gifts below. “At least Christmas hasn’t gone to shit yet,” he mutters to himself, folding his arms over his chest. The restaurant has a decidedly English feel to it: oaken tables and chairs lacquered to a shine, worn hardwood floors, a ceiling with large, heavy support beams creating a checkered pattern above their heads from which small lights hang over each table.

In the corner is a bar where, as opposed to political commentary, the latest incarnation of the Roses rivalry is playing out: Leeds United and Manchester United are playing, and, an hour in, Leeds is ahead one goal.

Across from him, Alisha sits, texting away on her phone. He doesn’t blame her, he’s been poor company this entire night. “True, James,” O’Reilly pipes up after the guest, James Carville, finishes his diatribe, “But what about the polls? All around the UN, people love the guy. Kingsley’s seen as honest and likeable… But you’re right that he’s seen as totally ineffective. But come election time, are people really going to care whether he was able to end the terror attack threat? Ever since 9/11 it’s been something we’ve had to live with thanks to the damned liberals.”

Carville laughs, “You’re blaming the left, Bill? Come on. What about President Pence’s refusal to allocate any troops to the UN’s war – which is a breach in the Expansion Resolution I might add, given that the UN representatives voted in a majority for increased forces – isn’t that undemocratic? He’s holding the UN hostage so America can get more seats.” Bill O’Reilly shifts in his seat following this, evidently annoyed.

“And if he is? So what?” He questions, leaving a speechless James Carville. “America is holding up the UN! We’re the strongest nation, we’re the ones with the big military, and we’re the ones with the money, even if we had to suffer through eight years of Obama.” Seeing the look on his guest’s face, O’Reilly backs down to an extent: “Anyway, let’s move on. We’re not going to agree on what has to happen for this war to end. What about Lacertus and the World Confederation? The eco-hippies certainly are making a splash.”

Carville leans forward in his chair, folding his hands on the glass desk before him. “Look, Lacertus is nuts. I think we can agree on that. He wants the UN and WC to make peace and focus on environmental reforms to save the world. That’s all a bit melodramatic and unrealistic for my tastes, but people are eating it up! Look at how many demonstrations have occurred at national capitals in the past year since he appeared on the scene. The man has support.”

“He won’t even show his face!” O’Reilly protests angrily, “He’s a coward. All he does is stir the pot and lets the world run wild while he congratulates himself. It’s little more than self-adulation.”

“What about the World Confederation? A bunch of backward post-modern dictators, that’s what they are. No democracy, no freedom of the press, no bill of rights, nothing! It’s just one powerless chancellor and a whole heap of big businessmen doing whatever they want to increase their profits.” Joshua once more looks back to his girlfriend, finding her now boredly sitting, looking off into space.

He reaches over and gently takes her hand in his own, and she looks up, surprised. “I’m sorry if I’ve been distant,” he says, “I just can’t stop seeing that…” His voice fails him and he falls silent. Alisha studies him, and he only feels even smaller as she does so.

“I know,” she says quietly, “And I’m sorry you had to experience that.” Alisha takes back her hand and stands up. “But you’re not the same person you were when we started dating, and frankly I’m so tired of all the politics. Don’t you see I don’t care?” She shakes her head as he goes to speak. “Goodbye, Josh.”

Josh stands up, his chair scraping noisily against the floor below, as he leans over the table, trying to stop her, but to no avail. “Wait!” He calls out, drawing attention from those around him. She doesn’t look back, and so he slowly falls back into his chair, his listless gaze falling onto the half-eaten meal in front of him.

“I saw the signs,” he reminds himself, “I knew this was coming…” That, however, is of little comfort now. “She kept telling me I should go back to regular school and not take it online. But how many sixteen year olds get offers to work at the UNHQ?” He decides to not answer his own questions. A tightness constricts his chest, and he can feel his knees shaking.

Josh removes his wallet from his back pocket, deposits fifty pounds on the table, and hurries out of the restaurant. He feels the burning eyes of strangers watch him as he keeps his head dipped and fumbles with his jacket. Tears are welling in the corners of his eyes – he won’t let them see him cry. He reaches the front of the restaurant, where stained glass windows have been festively decorated with tinsel and wreaths.

He pushes the door open and steps into a chilly London night. Before him, a dark St. James’s Park extends to the southwest, while on the north side the UNHQ sits, its palatial exterior looking similar to that of Buckingham Palace a few blocks away.

The cold winter’s air pricks at Joshua’s hands, and so his plunges them into his pockets and hurries across the quiet street of Birdcage Walk and onto a path slick with patches of ice. He puts shoe to pavement and hurries into the dark park. The path is wide and paved, and on either side, a grassy field extends, dotted with bare trees.

Given the -20^oC weather, Josh is glad to see there’s no one else here. He slows his pace as he goes further into the park and wipes at his eyes with the stretchable cuff of his downy red jacket, sniffing back snot.

The path ahead leads into a four way intersection. Reaching it, he sees a figure on the bridge which leads toward the UNHQ, while left leads to the far side of the park, and right leads toward the Imperial War Museums. Deciding to go where he knows best, Josh moves forward, toward the bridge, absentmindedly spotting a figure on the bridge over St. James’s Park Lake.

Josh moves onto the bridge, eyeing the half-frozen Lake’s glistening surface. “She didn’t have to leave so quickly,” he thinks to himself unhappily. He passes over the middle point in the bridge, ignoring the individual angrily swiping upward repeatedly, likely playing Pokémon Go.

He feels his phone vibrate and subsequently removes it from his pocket, finding an update from a news app: “LACERTUS AND GREENPEACE THROW SUPPORT BEHIND KINGSLEY.” Intrigued, he taps the screen and opens the notification, finding a video. Noting there’s no one around him on the northern side of the bridge, he plays the attached video.

Lacertus stands behind a podium at what appears to be a news conference. “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he says. Predictably adorned in his metal half-mask and entirely black outfit, save his starkly contrasting dark green tie. His blond hair is pulled neatly back as to not interfere with his mask, giving him a decidedly proper look.

“I will keep this brief as Greenpeace is very busy at this time. Many of you have asked me over the past months what my, and Greenpeace’s, stance is on the war, and your questions have only become more insistent since the war broke out in reality.” He speaks with a bit of mirth, and a few chuckles are heard from the crowd.

He lets out a breath and taps his mask, “When I was disfigured in the nuclear attacks on Africa, I swore I would never again allow the world to slaughter millions in the name of justice and peace. I swore I would stop the kind of short-sighted politicking that has raped our beloved Earth and left her a smoldering husk of oil spills, deforestation, and polluted fresh and sea water.”

Lacertus slams his fist down, causing many in the press to jump in their seats. For his part, Josh feels so drained he can only watch, numb to any emotion at this point. Where he would feel anxiety or worry for what the masked man is saying, all he can feel is a gut-wrenching hollowness in his chest, like someone had taken something so critical to his very being that all that is left is just a slowly dying husk.

“That’s why,” the Greenpeace patron begins, “I began my crusade. That’s why I took the leadership of Greenpeace just under a year ago.” He looks over the crowd of reporters, his single dark eye looking over them imperiously. “I will support Secretary General Kingsley, not because I believe he is the best man for the job of reordering the world into a peaceful one, but because I believe the evil men who control the World Confederation: the big business slave masters, care only for themselves and their wretched profits!”

He shakes his head, “The UN is a bureaucratic, inefficient, corrupt organisation. But in it there is hope for change. There is hope for unity. There can be only one mind at the head of this great task before us that is saving the world from ourselves. There can be only one world leader, and they must be responsible to the people! Not to corporate interests or backdoor political conniving.” Lacertus gestures grandly with his right hand, “And that man must be Matthaeus Kingsley!”

“The UN government has hidden the news from you, the official reporters, but the new media has already begun reporting on it. I have removed the impediments before Kingsley, so that he may act swiftly and justly in the name of world peace and environmental prosperity.” Lacertus looks over the crowd of reporters before him, who have fallen eerily quiet. “Yes, I commissioned the deaths of those representatives of countries who think their goal in the UN is to stall progress.”

“The representatives of countries who believe profits come before people, who believe profits come before the majestic lion or humble mouse have been removed.” Lacertus points toward the cameras, toward Josh, “I call on your, Secretary General, to act! Call for the War Measures legislation before the cowardly World Confederation attacks you.”

Josh boggles at what he’s hearing: “Just a few days ago he had Kingsley held hostage and was declaring to the world that Kingsley was a warmongerer?” None of it makes any sense, and in his current state.

“I condemned you, Secretary General, for your cowardly, half-step into war. At this rate, many millions will die. If the UN does not support this war, then I will come for you, and I will remove you too.” Lacertus looks around, “This press conference is over.”

The video cuts out, leaving a thoroughly confused and emotionally exhausted Joshua Jagger in its wake.

~*~

She wants to look away. She knows she should. Yet, she can’t. “I barely knew Dina, when I think about it,” Sasha says quietly, aware of the tall, broad form of Vadim at her side, “But this… this is just evil.” Vadim nods.

Before them, the pale corpse of Sergeant Dina Utkin lies sprawled out on the floor of a preschool. All around her, bodies have been covered with beige tarps. Yet, Sasha doesn’t pay them any heed. Before her, her friend lays dead, her throat slashed ear to ear and her knees are shattered by bullets. Her fingers are curled upward and her eyes stare, dead, upward, face contorted in fear and horror.

“Who did this?” She asks, not looking away.

Vadim shakes his head, “Don’t know. There’s fingerprints on her body, but they don’t match anyone in the army’s database. I sent them to HQ in Beijing to see if they could figure it out, but that’ll take months.” He takes in a breath and turns around, “C’mon. You have a squadron to see to.”

Sasha finally rips her gaze from the terrified, mangled corpse before her and turns around. There, military police are investigating the scene, noting the kinds of bullets used that litter the corpses. The door to the preschool opens, and from it comes the youthful figure of Private Demetri Alexandrov. “We may have better training than the UN’s volunteer forces, but our equipment is just terrible,” Sasha thinks to herself, observing the man’s dated rifle and stained uniform.

“Sergeant, ma’am. Word from Squadron 23, there’s UN forces in bound to this location!” He says, alarmed.

Sasha looks to Vadim nearby before returning her attention to the twenty year old man before her. “What are their numbers?”

“Fifty or so. Maybe more. I think they learned we’re here. They’re coming from the north.” Private Alexandrov’s tone is despondent, though Sasha will not allow his despair to colour her judgement

“So the UN thinks we’re easy pickings?” She says, irritated. Turning to Vadim, she says firmly: “Lieutenant, call in backup. We’ve got hostiles coming, and lots of them.”

Vadim nods and shouts: “Right. Everyone! We’ve got hostiles inbound from the north! Get into defensive positions!” Sasha repeats his order over the walky-talky attached to her shoulder.

With this done, she moves to the entryway of the preschool and grabs her own rifle, a dated piece of equipment from the Soviet era. The entryway has a large single window next to the doors, ideal for laying down suppressing fire, but she knows this won’t be enough. “Ma’am, there’s ten of us including the military police. How are we supposed to hold out?” Private Alexandrov asks as he takes position next to her.

“We’ll just have to hope reinforcements will come in time,” she responds tersely and loads her weapon. “How many others from our squadron are here?” Sasha looks over at her subordinate expectantly.

“Just me, ma’am,” someone says from behind them. She looks back and finds an older man in his forties, likely one of the new recruits taken on shortly before the declaration of war. “Private Igor Krupin.”

She nods, “Right, take position here at the window. We’ll provide suppressing fire and slow down any on-comers.” Outside, ominous grey clouds float overhead, threatening snow and cold weather. The suburbs around the preschool are completely barren of life, leaving an ominous stillness to the world around them.

Minutes pass and two of the military police join them, armed with only pistols. “Lieutenant Ivanov and the four members of the late Sergeant Utkin’s forces have taken point outside. The lieutenant is upstairs in the attic. He’s got a sniper rifle and says he “has some plans,” ma’am.” Sasha nods and continues to wait.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she sees a glimpse of a large, camouflage-green transport, followed by another, and another, and finally a fourth. Their passengers disembark on the far side, protected by the armoured vehicles. “Are they really just going to bum rush this place? How unprepared do they think we are?” Private Alexandrov asks with incredulity.

“Don’t write them off that quickly, we can’t –“ Sasha falls silent as Vadim’s voice crackles to life over their walky-talkies:

“Platoon 53 has responded to our request for backup. ETA fifteen minutes. Our job is to hold the UN back until they can remove the threat they are.” Vadim subsequently falls silent, leaving Sasha and her subordinates to their devices.

Outside, the UN forces move back and forth, still protected by their armoured vehicles which act as a barrier between them and the WC forces inside the preschool. Sasha studies them as be she can see, and then sees something glint between the two vehicles. Using the scope on her dated rifle, she focuses in on this foreign object.

“A rocket launcher,” she says, aghast. Using her walky-talky, she pages out: “They’ve got a rocket launcher! Everyone get back!” Sasha herself drags Alexandrov and Krupin to their feet, the military police following shortly after, to the inside of the house. She slams closed the door to the foyer of the preschool and, as she does, she hears the sound of a burning rocket engine coming ever nearer.

Sasha throws herself behind a desk, likely overturned during the evacuation. Her comrades find similar shelter behind an outcropping wall that leads to the kitchen. Above, she hears the hurried footfalls of her superior and friend Vadim.

Then, the rocket hits. An ear-splitting explosion obliterates the front half of the small building, tearing the foyer asunder. Heat hits her first in the form of a sickeningly hot shockwave of destruction, before debris begins flying inward, shattering windows behind her and piercing walls. Much to her horror, Private Alexandrov, having unwisely peaked around the corner of the wall, falls backward, dead, a piece of wall stud embedded in his skull.

The entire structure groans in protest as the weight redistribution weakens it greatly. Sasha’s ears ring painfully and she can hear nothing but the incessantly squeal, but nevertheless looks over the edge of the desk as the debris ceases flying. A raging inferno has formed where the foyer once was, but she can see the oncoming soldiers, intent on simply overpowering them.

She gestures to her soldiers, shouting: “Suppressing fire!” Though she’s sure none of them can hear it. She herself places her rifle on the lip of the table, crouched behind it, with her eye looking down the scope. She’s killed before – it’s been part of her job since she was 16 and joined the WC patrol forces in Moscow. Even still, this is different. “This is war,” she realises darkly, “I have to fight… For Ivan… For Vadim. For myself!”

She sees someone emerge from the inferno raging before her and doesn’t hesitate. Three bullets are sprayed from her weapon, and the offending party’s body is explodes with blood in his chest and neck before stumbling backward, dead.

The ringing in her ears, still powerful, has begun to subside, and so she calls out to her soldiers: “Don’t waste your bullets! Keep them back! They won’t take prisoners!” She can only guess this to be the case, given what must have surely been a grizzly fight that killed so many UN and WC soldiers in this very preschool.

Bullets begin firing in, and she reflexively ducks, pinned down. Krupin and the two military police look between each other and then at her, the former of the three of them holding in his hand a grenade. She shakes her head and holds up a hand, now crouched behind the desk completely. “Wait for my signal!” She mouths.

More bullets are firing over her head, and even Sasha, familiar with fighting with armed gang members, feels terror in her heart. Her heart races furiously in her chest, her hands tremble on the weapon in her hand from both fear and anxiety, and stomach is in knots of fear-induced nausea.

She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to collect herself and failing to do so.

“Ivan is out there somewhere,” she reminds herself, finally admitting that the Platoon coming to save them, Platoon 53, includes her sixteen year old brother. Her walky-talky crackles on her shoulder: “This is Corporal Mateev with the 53^rd Platoon, do you read me?”

“Sergeant Sasha Alkaev, Platoon 37! We’re pinned down by enemy fire. We were investigating a suspicious sight, looks like the UN were too!” She calls into her walky-talky, her voice coming out urgent and desperate.

There’s a pause, “Roger. Bombers will intercept ground forces. Stay put, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir!” As she speaks she can hear people entering the building. Looking to her subordinates, she nods. The grenade’s pin is pulled and tossed around the wall. Yet another explosion sounds, and screams are its response. She can only still feel the slam of her heart in her chest, reminding her that she’s not safe, there are dead people everywhere, and she could very easily join them.

The urge to remain completely still is overpowering, but she overcomes it for a moment to glance over the desk. Finding a messy display of blood and limbs in a blackened hole only meters away, her stomach turns and she feels bile rise in her throat. She fights it down and waits for the sound of an airplane overhead.

Mercifully, it is near at hand, and the dull roar of jet engines can be heard over the licking flames of the foyer. She braces herself for what’s to come. There’s a pause, and near silence, and then a syncopation of three explosions, with more screams of pain and agony. More lives lost. More orphaned kids, more widows, more destroyed families.

“I won’t be weak, not when I have Ivan to protect…” She swears to herself, the image of a much younger Ivan marred with a black eye and sobbing pitifully in the corner of the kitchen coming to mind. On that day she swore she’d protect him. To this day she has not failed. “I won’t fail him!”

“Squadrons 42 and 43 are here!” Her walky-talky announces, “Coming in from the south-southeast and northwest!” The announcer pauses, “UN reinforcements arriving! Three more squadons! 37^th Platoon get the hell out of there while you can, we need to pull out ASAP!”

Sasha radios back: “Roger! Moving out!” She flips to another channel, “Vadim! We need to go!”

“Roger,” comes his weary reply. Slamming on the ceiling is heard above them as a body falls through. Vadim lands on his feet, sniper rifle now discarded for a pistol. “Let’s go!” He calls out, loading his weapon.

Vadim moves into a run, his large form disappearing into the flames of the front of the building, heedless of the gore around them. Sasha steels herself and follows his huge silhouette, covering her face as she moves through the fiery inferno that is the remnants of the foyer.

She tumbles into a roll on the grassy field in front of the playground, but doesn’t wat long. Her training is now years behind her but she knows the worst thing to do now would be to remain still. Opening her eyes, she sees that four transports that brought their foes are now smouldering craters in the road, as are two nearby houses.

However, new soldiers have arrived. At the far end of the street, two WC transport trucks have blocked the road and she can see soldiers firing around it at an unseen enemy. At the other end of the street is two UN transports.

“Corporal Mateev, where do you want us?” Vadim radios in, already moving toward a cement monument of a few children standing next to a Japanese man, a reminder that neither they nor the UN forces should be in this country.

With no response from their allies, Sasha and Vadim can only watch as their subordinates follow them outside. “Stay low!” She calls out to Krupin and the two military police. However, in a spray of bullets from a nearby source, the three of them spasm, their bodies erupting in blood, before crumpling over.

Sasha looks around the edge of the monument and sees the culprit. Clearly a non-commissioned officer (NCO) given his single pointed bar indicating the rank of sergeant, he holds his rifle with expertise and, despite the blood marring his blond hair and white uniform, he moves with precision from cover to cover, slaughtering Sasha’s allies with cold calculation.

However, as this paragon of battle moves through the battleground, he abruptly stops as he sees a bizarre sight. A WC soldier with a green armband around their bicep shoots a fellow WC soldier in the back before turning their automatic rifle on her allies and mowing down six before being shot. “What the hell is going on!?” She shouts, horrified.

Many more turn on their allies on both sides, and the same young man who had killed her subordinates is abruptly fighting off turncoats with the same green armbands, bludgeoning them with his rifle or simply spraying them with bullets. “Look at the turncoats! They’ve got those green armbands on, just like the corpses inside the preschool!” Vadim says, watching the same UN NCO expertly handle the traitors in his own ranks. “We need to stop them!”

Sasha wastes no time and places her rifle between the feet of one of the statue children. From her scope she sees them clear as day. The first one is pointing her weapon at a nearby UN soldier, and although she can’t make heads or tails of the grey blood-spackled uniform, she depresses the trigger. The rebel falls over, dead.

“Those must be the terrorists!” Vadim calls out, his own pistol firing noisily into the hellish melee.

Sasha can see her own allies moving in and quickly overpowering the situation. UN and WC rebel forces are cut down as swiftly as they rose without mercy or discrimination. Nevertheless, the once peaceful field where children had once surely played is now riddled with bodies and death.

Men and women lay in the grass clutching at organs spilling out of their bodies, stumps where limbs had once been, and others at their clearly dead comrades, screaming in horror. The sight of it all turns Sasha’s stomach ever further, and she dry heaves at the sight of one man clutching vainly at his intestines which have spilt out of his stomach.

It’s then that she sees a familiar face move out from behind cover. Dirty blond hair, a young, clean face, and determined dark eyes. Ivan. He darts around the corner, firing at a few UN soldiers, killing two. As he sprints for cover, Sasha sees the error in her brother’s movements.

The space between his previous cover and his new cover, a park bench, is too far. A private in the UN forces next to the young man who had killed Sasha’s subordinates aims his gun at the sprinting Ivan. “IVAN!” She shouts, terrified for him.

Sasha doesn’t hear the bullet, but she does see her little brother collapse forward, dropping the weapon he had received only weeks ago, and roll forward onto his back. She tries to stand up and go to him, but Vadim holds her down. “Wait! You want to die too!?”

“Let me go!” She shouts, though he does not.

A distance away, the same blond youth who had so deftly taken out many of her allies shouts: “Logan!” as the man who had shot her brother collapses, his face contorted in horror as he falls to his knees, realising what he’s done. The white-garbed NCO grabs her brother’s assailant and drags him back, his own forces now on the retreat.

With the UN forces withdrawing, Vadim lets Sasha go and she sprints across the field, heedless of the bodies she steps on. “Ivan!” She screeches, her heart shattering painfully in her chest as she comes across his bloodied form.

His chest rises and falls sharply, his arms and legs sprawled out on either side. She can’t see any blood on the front of the uniform, but a pool of the crimson liquid is forming around him. Sasha drops her weapon, tears pooling in her eyes as she cradles his head in her lap. “Ivan…” She weeps miserably, her tears falling onto his face.

Ivan flinches as his sister’s tears drip down onto his face. “Sasha…?” He says weakly, coughing up blood onto his new uniform. “Is that you?” He questions, delirious. “What are you doing – “ he coughs violently again, his dark eyes closing for a long moment as pain wracks his body, “… here?”

She holds him tight, her pony tail of auburn hair falling over her shoulder as she strokes his cheek with her bloodied thumb. “It’s me, Ivan,” she says, crinkling his uniform with her other hand as she struggles to comprehend what’s happened to him, “It’s me…”

At his questions, she smiles bitterly, heedless of the bullets still flying overhead and the calls being radioed in. “You came to save Vadim and me, kiddo…” She continually strokes his cheek, “You saved us.”

“I did?” He questions, confused. The glossy, confused look in his eyes fades away as he struggles to sit up. Looking at his sister who’s now supporting him, fear paints his young face. “Sasha,” he begins, his voice trembling, “I can’t feel my legs…”

She looks around him, at his back, and sees what’s happened. Ivan repeats himself, “I…” he stammers, “I can’t feel my legs!” The youth, only sixteen years old, begins to hyperventilate, “I can’t feel my legs! I can’t feel them! Sasha! What’s going on!?”

Sasha pulls him into her bosom, holding him tightly. He sits there, limp from the waist down and unable to say anything but the same words over and over. “What happened!? Sasha? Tell me!” He buries his face in her arms, completely lost to his own grief and hysteria: “TELL ME!”