1. WARGAME Journal Entry #2 – Lisa Rosenberg
Just back from a food run for the refugee camps. Another strange encounter with the
guards at the checkpoint. Made me tally and re-tally the jugs of water, bags of rice, cans
of stew. For what? They know it’s not enough. They know we’re pulling supplies from
everywhere for the camps, fast as we can. Sometimes the tally changes when I’m
counting, and I’m too wiped to know whether it’s my foggy brain – or did some boxes
disappear, when I was back inside the second or third convoy. The guards just level their
guns, disappear behind their shades, order another count. No one to report what I’m
thinking to. All the top commanders still doing battle on the outside, with what’s left of
the Corporation’s goons.
Sometimes, I don’t know what’s worse. The army of human machines that the
Corporation mustered? Weapons experts, techno whizzes, career military, cool and slick
as they mowed down the Earth as we knew it? Too bad they weren’t on the side of most
of the world. Too bad they were so easily for sale.
Or is it the jokers on our side? Warriors for hire that every government was desperate to
get, once they ran out of trained fighters. Guess a volunteer force is no match for a real
disaster. Some of them are bush league, just doing the best they can.
But what about the guys who barely know their own names, but can sure make holy
mayhem? Others are eerie smart, great at strategy, casual as hell about the body count.
No time to screen out the real lunatics, silent drunks, killers for fun. Guys you wouldn’t
want in your town, much less bunking right next to you. And no way to know, with
recruitment records blown to cinders, computers destroyed, and the National Crime Lab
Computer database, a trap of contaminated codes. What if you draw a full crew of them,
packed so close in the turret basket that you can smell what they had for breakfast?
Starting to pick up the pieces, starting to put together what life is going to be. Moving
forward into something more unknown than anything we’ve ever done. How are we
supposed to know who’s next to us? How can we tell, minute to minute, who to trust to
drive a truck, deliver meds without “losing” a few, build the knock-together shacks we’ve
got to have on the ground before winter? Who of these guys is out for the greater good –
or just for his own good?
Still getting closer to defeating the Corporation. Long days trying to get things working
again. A freezer for meat, generator for a field hospital, cell service anywhere in the city.
The mortar blasts sound more distant. Once in a while, I sleep most of the night. We’re
always on alert, always at the ready. But we’re pounding the enemy, and barricading the
cities to protect what we’ve salvaged. Tools, fuel, trucks. Getting ready to go forward.