What are you? What are you? The Others, my father called you, but aren’t we also that to you? Other-than-us, therefore not-worthy-of-us. Not worthy of life.
What are you? The shepherd culls the herd. The homemaker buys the bug spray. The blood of the lamb on its knees, the herky-jerky of the cockroach on its back. Neither has an inkling of the knife or the poison. The shepherd and the homemaker will lose no sleep. There’s nothing immoral about it. It’s murder without crime, killing without sin.
That’s what they’ve done. That’s the lesson they’ve brought home. We’ve been reminded who we are—not much—and what we were—too many. Roaches can scurry, sheep can run, it’s no matter. We’ll never get too big for our britches again; they’ll see to that. I’m looking at an object in our sky that will be there until our sky is gone.
Our escorts peel off as we shoot straight toward the landing zone. They’ll stay in the air to monitor the situation after we land. There’s a swarm of activity beneath us, trucks and armored Humvees racing toward the strip, troops swarming like ants from a kicked-over mound. Sirens blare, searchlights stab into the sky, antiaircraft guns swing into position. This should be fun.
Ringer pats Bob on the shoulder. “Good job, Bob.”
“Fuck you!”
Oh, Bob. Gonna miss you. Gonna miss you so bad.
Ringer climbs back into the hold with me, grabs the bag of Sammy-bombs, and plops into the seat across the aisle. Her dark eyes shine. She’s the bullet in the chamber, the powder in the hole. You can’t blame her. Evan pointed it out a long time ago: For any of this shit to mean anything, you gotta live long enough for your death to matter. Not necessarily make a difference—neither her death nor mine will—just to matter.
Suddenly I need to pee.
“VQP, Sullivan!” she shouts. We’ve taken off our headsets.
I nod. Give her the thumbs-up. VQP, you bet.
Our descent begins. The hold is lit up by searchlights. Motes of dust sparkle and spin around her head: Saint Ringer, the raven-haired angel of death. Outside the blue circle upon which Bob puts us down, a ring of soldiers inside a barricade of armored vehicles, surrounded by watchtowers manned by snipers, beneath four attack helicopters patrolling overhead.
We are so doomed.
81
RINGER LEANS BACK in the seat and closes her eyes like she’s going to grab a quick power nap before the big final exam. Bag in one hand, detonator in the other. I’ve got a rifle, a handgun, a very large knife, a couple of grenades, a half-full (think positive!) bottle of water, two high-energy bars, and a full bladder. Bob throttles the chopper down and now you can really hear those sirens blasting. Ringer’s eyes pop open and she stares at me like she’s memorizing my face—I decide that so I don’t obsess about my crooked nose.
Then she says so softly I can barely hear her: “See you at the checkpoint, Sullivan.”
One-Eyed Bob throws off his harness. He whips around and screams in Ringer’s face, “He wanted you to come back, you stupid bitch! Why do you think you’re still alive?” Then he flies out of the cockpit, his legs pumping cartoon-fast before his feet even touch the ground, waving his hands over his head and screaming loud enough to be heard over the sirens.
“Pull back! Pull back! She’s gonna blow! SHE’S GONNA BLOW!”
Ringer goes right, and I go left toward a terraced garden of fatigues identical to the ones I’m wearing, rifles pointed at my head, the front row kneeling, back row standing, and then Ringer hits the detonator and the chopper hops five feet in the air with an emphatic whuuu-uuump. The concussion shoves me right into the line of soldiers, the heat from the blast singeing their faces and burning away the hairs on the back of my neck. I bowl into the pack while the pack reverts to its instincts, just like Ringer said it would, everybody flattening on the tarmac and covering their heads with their hands.
You’ll want to run but you gotta hold, Ringer told me back at the cave. Once the chopper blows, they’ll lose you, so you have to wait for me.
So here I am, just another recruit lying on her belly like the hundred others around her, hands over her head, her cheek pressed against the freezing concrete. Dress just like ’em, look just like ’em, act just like ’em: It’s Vosch’s own game turned against him.
People are screaming orders but nobody can hear them over the sirens. I wait until somebody taps me on the shoulder, but I’m no higher than hands-and-knees when Ringer sets off the IED somewhere in the vicinity of the hangar fifty yards away. That sets off full-panic mode. Any semblance of order breaks down as troops run for the nearest cover. I take off toward the control tower and the cluster of white buildings beyond it.
A hand grabs my shoulder, whips me around, and then I’m face-to-face with some random teenager who, as bad luck would have it, I’m going to kill.
“Who the fuck are you?” he screams in my face.
His body stiffens, welcoming the bullet. Not my bullet. I don’t even have the gun out of the holster. The kill belongs to Ringer, Vosch’s inhuman human firing from half a football field away. The kid’s dead before he hits the ground. I take off again.
I turn back once, at the base of the control tower. Searchlights crisscrossing the field, the chopper burning, squads running willy-nilly, Humvees screeching in every direction. Chaos is what Ringer promised and chaos is what we got.
I sling the rifle into my hands and sprint toward the white buildings, heading for the command center located in the middle of the complex. There I’ll find (I hope) the key that will open the lock that bars the door that leads to the room that will keep my baby brother safe.