It's Harder This Way Read online

  ***

  I dreamed of Sandra and her faceless, nameless girlfriend. It almost got weird for a moment when I felt myself stir at the sight of my sister and another girl kissing with tongues, but that quickly passed when Sandra waved to me then gestured for me to hurry up. I ran toward her, amazed that I’d finally get to hug her and hold onto her once again. I promised myself I would never let go even if I had to keep her against her will.

  It seemed like an hour passed before I realized I was no closer to my sister and her girlfriend. I ran faster but only seemed to lose ground. I charged ahead, pumping my legs as fast as I could. Sandra began to fade in the distance. I screamed her name at the top of my lungs but she was too far away. I slowed down then stopped as a massive shadow darkened the world. Sandra’s face was turned to the sky, her lover pointing to something only they could see. I shouted again but neither turned to look at me. Both raised their arms to the sky just as a plasma bolt from an orbital weapon vaporized them and at least ten square meters of dirt.

  ***

  “Hey,” Tony said, holding on to my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  His voice in my ear was soothing, calming. I kept my eyes closed as I waited for my heart to stop racing. Sweat covered my body, even my feet, and they felt as if they had been frozen in ice for a century.

  “Bad dream?” he asked.

  He was no stranger to my random nightmares. We never talked much about it, but then again, we never talked much about anything during our time as scouting partners.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, my mouth as dry as old carpet. He handed me my canteen. I took a swig, relishing the feel of the cool water as it slid down my throat. “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “I’ll add it to your tab,” he said.

  He rolled back over and was instantly asleep, or at least pretended to be asleep. I stayed awake for another hour, my mind a jumbled blur of memories, the nightmare, sexual thoughts about Druscilla, even more sexual thoughts about Rebecca Collins, and the general direction of our mission which was veering far off the original path. I finally fell asleep at some point. The only dreams I could remember after waking again were about Jenna and Druscilla, though thankfully none of those involved both women at once.

  ***

  Our group settled in and began to feel at home over the next two weeks. The work assignments were doled out by a computer program which didn’t discriminate based on rank. I never saw Pryor or Livingston shovel shit in the fields or scrub tables in the cafeteria, but everyone else was fair game.

  I didn’t mind, to be honest. Not even when I had to shovel shit myself. It was a good opportunity to see the army in action on a daily basis. Their way of life wasn’t much different than ours other than the zeal at which they worked on cranking out weapons and tech to eventually eradicate the Bulls.

  I spent a lot of my time talking to whomever was assigned to the same job as me, learning little details that generally weren’t important yet made my heart increasingly brittle when it came to finally executing the mission. It worried me that the longer we stayed, the more I wanted to stay. It worried me more whenever I talked to others from The Farm who felt the same way.

  Dru slipped away and returned within two days, no one the wiser as far as we could tell. Larry Mellon and Jackie Nunez, the commanders of the two hundred still hiding out in the wilderness north of Crater Lake, hadn’t run into any of the base’s soldiers though they’d tracked half a dozen who patrolled through their area. Tony and I both questioned how Larry and Jackie had kept two hundred human beings out of sight, especially now that we knew the scouts close to home carried some of the upgraded weapons. A few even had night vision visors, which made it harder to believe, but Dru assured me that the two commanders were playing it smart. She had to travel an extra twenty miles just to reach their perimeter. According to her, Jackie was overly paranoid about being spotted, something Tony and I gave her kudos for.

  After our work shifts, the three of us would gather outside the complex and walk the trails along the canyon. Our favorite place was Upper Annie Falls, a small but beautiful waterfall north of Base Charlie. It was green, rocky, and most importantly, noisy. The sounds of rushing water over ancient rock, birds chirping, and the buzz of thousands of insects was soothing while it also drowned out our conversation beyond a meter or two. We hadn’t spotted any tails or spies, and from what we could tell, the soldiers at Base Charlie accepted us as if we were a blessing.

  In some cases, we were a blessing. A good number of us were experienced at farming thanks to the mandatory assignment back at The Farm for anyone who wanted to be a citizen. Two years in the fields not only strengthened bodies (and minds, to be honest), but it showed the rest of The Farm that you could hack it, that you could obey the rules and work hard toward the common goal. The side benefit was that everyone at The Farm was capable of growing just about anything, not to mention proficient at milking cows, shearing sheep, and any number of other non-gardening skills. Since food and clothing were the two most important components of survival, everyone had to be able to step up in case of sickness or some other disaster. The flu and other diseases didn’t go away just because ninety percent of humanity had.

  “We’ll be getting our first round of upgrades for weapons in a couple of days,” I said as we sat with our backs against the sun-warmed rocks. I took the joint from Tony and put it to my lips. “Kevin, Duncan, and Xang are a big hit down in the lab,” I said after blowing out the smoke I inhaled. “Who knew three kids who had never seen a working computer in their lives would be natural geeks?”

  Tony laughed but Dru had a blank look on her face. I passed her the joint and chuckled until a coughing fit overtook me.

  “It’s okay,” Tony said while Dru inhaled from the joint. “You’re too young to know what that means, but essentially, it was anyone who became so engrossed with a subject or activity that they sometimes forgot to bathe or eat.”

  “I’m still getting used to the idea that you old farts felt gross if you didn’t shower every day,” she said after handing the joint to Tony. “But I’m starting to understand now. I’m not comfortable with how showering every morning or evening has become second nature after only two weeks.”

  “The rest of the troops are getting too used to it as well,” Tony said, offering the remains of the joint to me.

  I shook my head, as did Dru when she was offered. He nodded and stubbed it out on the rock next to him then slipped it into his shirt pocket. We felt safe enough to relax and get high even though we’d left our weapons inside. The base commanders warned everyone to do the same unless they were going out for an extended period. No one knew if a Bull patrol would sweep the area, and it wouldn’t end well for armed soldiers if the aliens spotted them. The threat from other humans was practically nonexistent for almost fifty miles in every direction, farther than that to the north when considering The Farm’s sphere of influence.

  “A lot of them are unhappy about our mission,” Dru said, her eyes red but alert.

  “Which part?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “All of it. Or at least more of it as the days go by.”

  “I never liked the idea of murdering a few hundred soldiers,” Tony said, leaning back against his rock. “And I didn’t really care for the idea of only murdering some then turning the rest loose into the wild unarmed before blowing up their base. The civilian families at ‘Base C2’ make the whole thing extremely distasteful. I don’t see how we can do it without it becoming a complete disaster. I don’t think I can do it, to be honest, Evan.”

  “I hear you,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. “We’ve all killed before, but I like to tell myself those were times when it was me or them. This felt like that at first, but not now.”

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Dru asked, her voice slurring enough to get a middle finger from Tony. “Eat shit.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said while the two flipped each other off and made th
reatening faces. I did my best to not laugh since the subject we were discussing was serious. “If we’d taken them out in the first few days it would have stained our souls, but it would have been over quickly. We’re mixing, fraternizing, whatever you want to call it, not to mention getting used to having lights, heat, showers, and even entertainment.”

  The three of us became silent for a while until Dru tried to hum a catchy tune she’d heard through one of the computer’s speakers. It was a song that had been popular back in the 1970’s, one Tony and I were intimately familiar with. I almost cried again the first time I heard it. A few my age or older did break down and cry, no matter the song.

  Almost one hundred of us bawled like infants when Sergeant Draper projected “The Godfather” onto a flexible screen similar to the one Colonel Hardaway brought to The Farm. The movie made less sense to anyone younger than me since they’d either never seen it or had been born into a post-invasion world where such forms of entertainment were slowly fading into myths or legends. A lot of the younger men and women cried along with us anyway—either at the beauty of such an art form, or at the injustice of having such art forms stolen from humanity by the invaders.

  Word got around quickly about the movie, which made everyone who hadn’t seen it demand it be shown to them. Sergeant Draper laughed when he found out and made it a regular event on Fridays. The soldiers of Base Charlie had already watched the twenty-one movies stored on the computers so much that they were thoroughly bored of them. However, that didn’t stop the soldiers from watching the movies with us.

  Usually it was because a new “friend” had never seen it. Some of it was sheer curiosity and even joy at the expressions on our faces as we sat, enraptured, completely absorbed by the action on the screen. I witnessed a number of Base Charlie’s regulars mouth the lines while holding hands or the waists of their new partners (or just nightly partners). It made me smile, but at the same time, I knew it was another barrier to our mission.

  “Just about every one of our people are questioning their ability to go through with it,” Dru said softly.

  “They’re not alone,” Tony said but kept his eyes on me. “We can’t destroy the base and leave them stranded. We can’t murder all of them. If we did that, the families at C2 would never willingly join us. We could force them to go to The Farm, but…”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “They’d disrupt our little utopia. The ones who didn’t go would probably be smart about their revenge and pick us off one by one instead of trying to attack a community of four thousand armed humans. They could bleed us slow, or force us to send out search-and-destroy squads, which would likely be a different disaster for The Farm.”

  “Can’t we just pick up and leave?” Dru asked. “Just slip out one night? Or maybe sneak away in groups of twenty over a few hours or something?”

  “We could, but I’m afraid a lot of our people wouldn’t want to leave. That could be bad, especially if our true mission ever came out. I don’t want to have to fight our way out, and I damn sure don’t want these guys suddenly gunning for both the Bulls and us.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Dru asked again.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Tony shrugged his shoulders. “Wait a little longer.”

  “We gotta do something soon,” Dru persisted.

  “Why?” I asked. “Are you itching to slit someone’s throat?”

  “Fuck you,” she said, but was too high to be angry since it was a bit of a joke between us. “Larry and Jackie are worried about supplies. The longer we delay, the harder it is for them to stay hidden and stay fed.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’m torn between sending them home or having them join us.”

  “Whatever we do, it needs to be soon,” Tony said with a shake of his head. He looked as pained about it as I felt. “I have a feeling that whatever we do, it’s going to end badly.”

  “Especially with Pryor and Livingston convinced this is just the beginning of a good recruitment run,” I said. “Let’s hold out for another week. I want those upgraded weapons, regardless of what we decide in the end.”

  “You are thinking about staying and playing army with them, aren’t you?” she asked. It stung like an accusation because of how close to the truth it was.

  “I won’t lie and say I’m not seriously considering it,” I admitted. “But I also won’t say I believe there’s a single chance in hell humans will ever do more than annoy the Bulls. The Farm is great, don’t get me wrong, and it’s a very secure, very safe place. But Base Charlie… It just feels like we might not be getting the most out of life at The Farm, you know?”

  Tony nodded his head. I could sense that he felt the same pull, the same siren’s call of pre-invasion tech, pre-invasion luxuries. We would never fly to another human outpost unless we stole a Bull ship, and we would never get to drive down a highway with the windows down and the radio blasting—but we would at least have a goal beyond simple survival.

  “This is crazy talk,” Dru said and stood up. The frown she scoured us with made me wince.

  “That’s all it is for now,” Tony said, standing up and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Unlike you young punks, we old farts have learned to talk it out as much as possible before acting. It’s how we make it to such advanced ages.”

  I stood and wiped off the seat of my pants. “One more week. I’ll get with Pryor and feel out his plan for fighting the Bulls some more. If he’s insane, or just too focused on the idea of making it happen without being realistic, we’ll pull out and let anyone who wants to stay remain. Even at the risk of Pryor or someone else finding out what we originally planned.”

  “Seems like the least amount of bloodshed,” Tony said in agreement.

  “I won’t stay if the general is nutty or just too far gone in his fantasy of kicking Bull ass, but if his grand plan is to stay quiet until sometime down the road when there’s five thousand of us, ten thousand, whatever, and a ton of weapons and tech… I probably will stay. I’m not sorry about it either, and it’s not like I’d be a sudden traitor to Mom and The Farm, so wipe that scowl off your face.”

  Dru looked ready to spit in my eye but only shook her head.

  “Look,” Tony said, reaching out to put his arm around her shoulders. “Regardless of who stays and who doesn’t, it could turn out to be good for both groups. The Farm could trade for tech and Base Charlie could trade for food, hemp, whatever The Farm produces that the army can’t. A large number of our people staying voluntarily could also have the effect of changing the mission plan of Base Charlie. Instead of going after the Bulls, maybe in a decade enough of us would be entrenched to point Base Charlie’s efforts in a different direction.”

  “Maybe,” Dru said. She hugged Tony then stuck her tongue out at me. “One week.”

  “One week,” Tony said.

  “One week,” I echoed.

  5. Decisions

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” General Pryor asked.

  “We need to have a talk about our mission,” I said, standing somewhat at attention before his desk. “My people are starting to question exactly what it is we’re supposed to be doing other than cutting down trees, picking weeds when we’re not picking vegetables, or marching around the campground singing songs. To be honest, sir, you haven’t given us much of anything to go on during the three weeks we’ve been here.”

  Pryor nodded his head as if he’d been expecting this very conversation. He gestured for me to have a seat.

  “Greggs, don’t go thinking we’ve kept you in the dark just to use you as slave labor,” he said after leaning back in a chair that looked to be a century old. “Frank Livingston and I are still alive because we’re careful. Nearly tripling our size overnight, while exciting, is also an extremely hazardous cocktail of chance and trust. We took a chance that your people really were here to join up, but I’ll admit we didn’t trust you.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. “Bein
g suddenly outnumbered two-to-one overnight is a lot more worrying than suddenly outnumbering someone two-to-one or even five-hundred-to-none. I assume we’re on the way to earning your trust?”

  “No, you’ve already earned it by the fact you’re finally sitting here asking me what the hell is going on. I know your people are chomping at the bit to get some new gear, and I can imagine some are about to go crazy if they don’t start doing whatever it is they think the army is supposed to do.”

  “What exactly are we supposed to be doing?” I asked. “Again, other than helping you as well as ourselves get the base furnished to support the sudden rise in occupants. We get that part. No one is complaining about sawing logs to make beds because no one wants to sleep on a concrete floor longer than necessary.”

  “We plan on opening the armory tonight,” Pryor said, watching me as if I might leap out of my chair and attack him for some unknown reason. “Bring us one hundred of your best so we can get them fitted out and started down the road to their real mission.”

  “Which is?”

  “Since it’s not likely they’ll need to spend much time training in survival, stealth, or tracking techniques, we’ll begin a new series of patrols that are designed to last up to thirty days and take the squads as far out as one hundred miles.”

  “To do what? Attack Bull patrols or outposts? Recruit new soldiers? Resolve disputes between settlements?”

  “Yes. Our goal is to keep growing our numbers so we can eventually set up linked outposts and move our perimeter—our sphere of influence if you will—outward until we’ve recruited or at least befriended as many humans as we can reach.”

  “So where do the Bulls come in?” I asked. His plan wasn’t much different than our philosophy at The Farm.

  “If a patrol happens upon them, their orders are to follow and log the Bulls’ movements instead of assaulting the bastards. We know they have a base or outpost of some kind within a few hundred klicks of here, but we haven’t been able to discover its exact location. Those Bull towers are extremely deadly at long range and they don’t care if a human being is armed or naked.”