Ground rushes by. Unimportant. More white noise and red haze. The trip is long. Has been longer coming.
Warning beeps. Closing in on coordinates. Slow now, stealth. Distance meaningless. Topping a rise. Looking down.
Her.
A small commune—no other word for it. Mostly civilians. Revelations nowhere in sight. Minimal armaments. Moderate defenses. Assessment complete. No match.
Feels like there should be more to this moment. Genesis and Revelations. Alpha and Omega. Beginning and end. Beginning ending end. Irony, justice, revenge, something.
White noise. Her.
Crosshairs. Trigger. Squeeze. End.
Stopstopstopstopstop
She has turned. Still unaware. Kneels, arms open. A girl. Barely younger than Delilah. Mouth moves.
“Mommy!”
…Mommy?
Not Ma’am? No respect, no structure?
Heresy.
Squeeze.
An embrace. A little girl; that forgotten word: mommy.
Peace. They have peace.
Red haze. White noise.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been there. Lying just beneath the crest of the hill, watching. Genesis’ sniper position is second nature. She can’t tell if the time crawling by is made of seconds or weeks. Watching.
A small collection of surface-dwelling civilians. Not raiders; almost a community. The forbidden stuff of bedtime stories told to the youngest, the children too small still to understand. Old-world concepts, passed through the generations, of a safe life, a life without military order and the constant struggle to survive. Twisted. Idealized. Peaceful, yes. Helpless. The only reason they’ve lasted this long is—has to be—Her.
Static peaks at the thought of Her. Her.
She’s holding the little girl, the little heretic, Her daughter. No rank, no order, mommy and daughter. Abomination.
How dare She? Not only to leave, but also to betray the entire system? Is She trying to end the world again?
Not that She cares about anyone but Herself. She proved that. She left.
Red haze. White noise.
The little girl in Her arms. Mommy.
The child isn't much older than Delilah-- less than a year's disparity in their ages. She wonders for a moment who the father is. Could the child come from her own bunker? Is the child much different than Delilah? She shakes her head, minute movement. Invalid comparison. Delilah has all the tools she needs to survive. She and Jerome saw to that.
And she will come back. She will not abandon Delilah. Not like—Warning: Forbidden thought –not like she was abandoned.
Crosshairs. Squeeze.
Pulse. Red haze. White noise.
Mommy.
No more hesitation! The little one is an abomination—everyone in this mockery of a commune is! Revolution against the system. Intolerable.
And then there’s Her.
Her.
She has to die.
She murmurs under her breath, solace in the official procedure, the scripted words. “For the following crimes against the state: incompetence of command. Desertion from Bunker ACL61, and the standing army therein. The murder of Kara Hall, and subsequent impersonation of the same. Abandoning the responsibilities and duties of command.” Abandoning me.
“The accused, who styles herself Kara Hall, is hereby sentenced to death.”
No more hesitation.
They all have to die before their heresy can spread. For Delilah. For Jerome. For all that’s left of civilization. Only way to survive.
For the child she was when she was abandoned.
She has to die.
Her.
But not first.
Crosshairs. Inhale, exhale. Squeeze.
White noise.
White noise.
White…
No comments:
Post a Comment