Recoil (15 page)

On the south side of the street stood a row of houses, each with
a
decon
-unit at the front door. Most of the front and
back yards had been cleared of vegetation and cemented over so as to leave
fewer place for infected animals or M&Ms to hide. Only a couple of houses,
perhaps abandoned, had let the rear of their properties get overgrown with
weeds and bushes.

“As you can see,” said Fiona, who was heading this mission, “the
back yards slope down to a small stream which runs along the rear of the
properties. We’ve had reports that there’s an infestation in the wooded area
beyond, and confirmed sightings of at least one pet suspected to be infected.”
She checked her notes on a handheld device. “A tabby cat called Marmalade.”

“Soon he’ll be toast,” said Mitch, and Bruce and Tae-Hyun
laughed.

We pulled into the drive of 11703 Peachtree Drive, a double-story
house painted white with gray trim, and piled out of the van. I stood still for
a moment in the fresh outside air, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my whole
face and taking in the trees flowering nearby — magnolia and sourwood, going by
our online introduction to local fauna and flora modules. Loose strands of hair
moved in the light breeze, tickling my cheeks. I felt almost naked being
outside without my mask and gloves, but no one else seemed fazed, so I acted
like I wasn’t bothered either. I stooped to pick up a fallen leaf from the
drive. It was brown and crinkled, a veined and almost transparent pane when I
held it up against the light, and when I crushed it between my fingers, it crumpled
into dry dust which drifted sideways as it fell.

“Checking wind direction and speed? At least someone remembers
the lectures,” said Fiona.

I hadn’t been. I was simply fascinated to be out, allowed to
touch and listen and feel. I sniffed my hand. The earthy, musty smell was
unfamiliar, and the dusty feel on my skin was a completely alien sensation.

 
“Blue, you set up in the
drive by the garage. Bruce — up those side stairs,” said Fiona, pulling out her
phone, “while I instruct the occupants to move to the opposite side of the
house.
Leya
and Cameron, check the field is clear.”

We fell into our positions as we had been trained. I moved to the
far corner of the house, loaded my rifle, then set it up on its bipod and
checked the safety catch. I lay down on my belly close up against the
protection of the side wall more from game-playing habit than necessity — there
was no real need for cover here, since the rats would not be shooting back.
Like me, Tae-Hyun lay down on his belly and adjusted his high-powered binoculars.

“Field of fire is clear of civilians,” called
Leya
from somewhere behind us.

“Confirmed.” That was Cameron, who had positioned himself behind
the boys upstairs.

I scanned the bare, concreted back yard. The sun bounced off the
hard surfaces in a blinding glare, so it took a minute or two to adjust my
vision to the shady, overgrown patch of shrubbery and trees about 250 meters
beyond.

“See anything?” Mitch called down from his perch on a balcony
above us.

I peered through my eyepiece, looking carefully into the dappled
shadows. Leaves moved in a slight breeze, and now and then one drifted to the
ground. But other than that, I could discern no movement.

“Nothing,” Tae-Hyun called back.

“So we wait?”

“So we wait. As long as it takes,” confirmed Fiona, leaning up
against the side of the house while she scanned her tablet.

It took the better part of an hour, lying in the increasingly hot
sun with the rifle stock pressed up against my cheek and my eye trained on the
eyepiece, listening to Tae-Hyun click his tongue-stud against his teeth until I
snapped at him to cut it out. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and an ache grew
between my shoulder blades. A fly buzzed annoyingly around my face, and I was
waving it off when Tae-Hyun called the target.

“Tango at nine o’clock. Moving right.” He spoke softly, for my
ears only.

“Got it,” I said. I was already adjusting the focus on my
eyepiece.

Tae-Hyun called the range and the wind, and I entered the data
into my scope. I eased the safety off and chambered a round as softly as I
could.

“Do we tell the others?” I whispered.

“Sure,” Tae-Hyun murmured. “After we’ve taken our first shot.”

The rat, a large mutant for sure, was moving quickly from left to
right, just beyond the first line of trees. I took a lead on it, aiming one
mil-dot to the right of my crosshair intersection and then taking the shot. The
rat walked into the bullet as the report of the rifle cracked the air.

“Hit!” called Tae-Hyun.

“Good job, Blue,” said
Leya
. Their
voices were muffled by the ringing in my ears.

I pulled the bolt of my rifle up and back, ejecting the spent
cartridge, and then reloaded —
Sarge
had said that
residents had reported a nest of rats, not just one. Fiona stooped down and
picked up the spinning brass casing from the drive and handed it to me.

“Your hog’s tooth, Blue. Juan will punch a hole in it at the
armory for you.”

I swallowed. I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the symbol after what
had happened with Quinn. But I tucked it into my breast pocket anyway.

“Just to the left of twelve!” Mitch called excitedly above us.

I returned to my shooting position and took the shot within a
fraction of a second of Bruce. The reports cracked in overlap, and the poor
damn rat exploded in a red blossom of flesh and blood and shattered bone.

“My kill!” said Bruce. “That was my shot.”

“Whatever,” I said.

Tae-Hyun caught the cartridge which fell down beside us and
tossed it back up to the balcony. “Your hog’s tooth, dude.”

“Hell, yeah!”

We spent another hour cramped in our positions, with me growing
uncomfortably aware of my full bladder. Bruce took out another rat, while I
downed another three — wouldn’t
Sarge
be proud? —
before
Tae-Hyun muttered a new set of coordinates, adding,
“It’s the rabid cat.”

I could see it clearly, a blotched mix of yellow, orange and rust
fur, staggering and falling on skinny legs in a patch of sun near a scrubby
bush on the far bank of the stream. Unnecessarily, I checked that I had already
chambered a round.

“Are you going to take the shot?” Tae-Hyun asked, with a sideways
glance at me.

“Of course,” I said. “Give me those coordinates again.”

He restated the coordinates, and I repeated them back to him,
louder than necessary, then fiddled a bit more on my scope. The loud report and
cheers from above told me that Bruce had taken the shot. I looked away.

Bruce and Mitch came running down the stairs.

“Did you see the teats on her?” Mitch asked.

I had, and I knew what it meant. My stomach clenched.

Bruce placed his rifle behind where we lay and asked Cameron to
keep an eye on it. He was already
unholstering
his
sidearm as he and Mitch walked toward the patch of trees.

“You got my six, Blue?”

“Sure.” I followed them, taking out my own handgun and tagging
Tae-Hyun to watch my rifle.

I was okay to check that no rabid monsters pounced on Bruce and
Mitch from behind — just as long as I didn’t have to put down a litter of
kittens. I moved after them, walking backwards, checking the way with glances
over my shoulder, moving slowly and carefully, so as not to trip.

“There they are. Eyes not even open yet,” said Mitch.

The soft mewling tugged at my heart. Maybe I still had time to
run.

“Safety off. I am hot,” said Bruce.

I kept my back to both of them, flinching with every one of the
five shots. Then I led the way back to the house.

“Did you wimp out on taking that shot, Blue?” Fiona asked, her
eyes hard on mine when I returned.

“No, sir,” I said. We all called her that — she seemed to expect
it. “I lost concentration for a moment, guess I was getting tired. Won’t happen
again, sir.”

“It had better not.”

After another half-hour of surveillance, I was desperate to go to
the bathroom. When I could stand it no more, I rang the door of the house and
asked to use their facilities. It was easy for the guys, they just peed against
trees or, if they couldn’t move, into bottles. But the jumpsuits meant being a
girl wasn’t easy — you had to take almost the whole thing off to go, and I had
no intention of exposing myself to rabid critters, or the guys. The homeowner
wasn’t too enthusiastic about letting me in, but perhaps she could tell my
eyeballs were floating, because she buzzed me through the
decon
unit and showed me to her bathroom. Sweet relief!

A folded newspaper lay on the counter beside the basin, and I
scanned the front page as I washed my gloved hands to see what was happening in
the outside world. Of course we had T.V. news and access to the internet at the
Academy, but I’d been so busy, between the intensive training and spending time
with the heartbreaker, that I’d lost touch.

Between the advertisements for germ-resistant copper faucets and
doorknobs, respirators with filters containing both activated charcoal and a
“selection of pleasant-smelling power-herbs guaranteed to repel rat fever”, and
an invitation to join the Church of the End Times in an online course about
“apocalyptic revelations in scripture”, were the sorts of articles that might
have appeared any day these last few years. Headlines such as
Public
Warned of Heightened Terror Threat
,
New Amendment to Immigration
Reform Bill delayed by Civil Lib Filibustering
, and
Hulitechtron
Worx
secures
Defense Contract,
were nothing new.

“My, but you’re so young!” the homeowner said when I reappeared.
“I must say, I think it’s wonderful what y’all are doing. I hope you know that
we are sincerely appreciative.”

“Thank you, that’s good to hear,” I said. It was like a balm to
my raw feelings that somebody approved of my killing skills and efforts.

Back outside, the unit was moving our post to the drive of
another house two properties down. We kept the area under close observation for
a further hour but spotted no more targets. Fiona called the Disposal Unit, and
their white van and hazmat-suited techs arrived as we were packing up.

“That was a good job, people, well done,” said Fiona from her
seat up front once we were en route back to ASTA.

“We owned that kill-zone, man!” said Bruce. His eyes were shining
with excitement. No doubt about it, the boy liked killing all right.

“It was great to get out and all,” said
Leya
.
“But it’s not too exciting sitting around and watching.”

“Next time,” said Cameron.

“Yeah, you’ll get a shot next time,
Leya
.
It’s not like this city’s going to run out of plague-spreaders anytime soon,”
said Fiona.

I was surprised to see
Leya
pull out
her phone and start texting — I hadn’t considered taking my phone on a mission.
Bruce polished his rifle with a soft cloth, and Mitch and Tae-Hyun stared out
the window as we drove, while Cameron, as usual, watched
Leya
.

I fingered the casing from my first kill-shot on a live mission.
It had been a good shot. Not impossibly difficult — the target hadn’t been too
far away, and conditions had been excellent — but still, a rat was a small
target, and it had been moving. I was proud of myself. Today, because of what
our unit had done, there were half a dozen fewer mutant rats in our city. And
fewer cats, too, of course.

At the armory, Juan flattened the open ends of the casing
together then punched a hole through the brass, and I threaded it onto the
leather thong, where it lay alongside the wooden round.
Sarge
had said that in the wars he’d fought, snipers had recovered the next round
from the barrel of the rifle belonging to the enemy soldier they’d shot — the
round that had been intended for them — as their hog’s tooth. Or sometimes they
retrieved the actual round they themselves had shot from the body of the dead
enemy soldier. I was glad that in our case, disease-control measures prohibited
retrieving the round from an infected carcass. Wearing the casing felt like I
was keeping a memento of the shot; wearing the slug would feel like I was
celebrating the kill. It was a distinction that wouldn’t have mattered to any
of the others in the unit, perhaps, but it mattered to me.

Back at the compound that afternoon, everyone from our unit was
still discussing the morning’s mission as we jogged in a group around the track
in the gymnasium. Bruce, who always ran directly behind me — so he could check
out my ass, I suspected — made a frustrated noise.

“Can’t he stay away? I thought you guys were over.”

Quinn was striding across the AstroTurf center of the track
toward us. As we came to a halt, Bruce moved to stand next to me and took my
hand in his. Annoyed I tried to tug free, but he just held tighter. Quinn’s
hard glance flicked from our hands to the new addition to my neck thong.

“Congratulations.”

I wish I could say that sneering made him unattractive. But it
didn’t. The words, “You’re so cute when you’re angry” bubbled up in my mind,
but I managed to stop them spilling over my lips. Unfortunately, I couldn’t
completely suppress the hysterical giggle which accompanied the thought.

Quinn’s eyes narrowed even further. What must he think I was
laughing at — killing rats? Or at how he felt about my work? He moved his
attention off me and spoke softly to
Leya
.

“I don’t think it’s wise to criticize your Unit Commander in
communications which might be intercepted. And if you text anyone information
about where and what your missions are, you’ll be bounced out of here for
sure.”