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Civilian Casualties Somewhere in the middle of the country, a few miles from the roadside rest stop, sat the city of Tiel. It was a quiet city, not because nothing ever happened there, but because everything had already happened. Within the first few days of the war, Alliatus and Shadow fought bitterly over this city, and a bloody conflict played out. Within the first few days of the conflict, the blood, the collateral damage ate up all the resources and drove away all the business in the city, and it was abandoned by both sides. Now, it was ghost town full of people trying to rebuild their lives, trying to survive, some using more moral means than others. One such group was the Mercenary Camp Omicron. Vincent, Robert, Stephanie, and Alice had arrived about a week ago with Colonel Strikov, and they were quickly assigned to various training sessions. Omicron was very thorough in teaching its members to survive. Within a week, they were trained to use weapons, including light and heavy firearms and explosives, and subjected to exercises to toughen their bodies. It wasn't easy training. On the third day, after running four half-mile laps, Stephanie collapsed, but Vince was quick to catch her in his arms. "Are you all right, Steph?" Vince asked compassionately. "I'm all right," Stephanie said, almost in whisper. "I'm just tired, that's all." A few minutes later, Alice, who had collapsed halfway through her fourth lap, crawled over to them, cutting through the center of the field. "Oh, Vince! I'm tired of all these laps we have to run," she complained. "And I'm tired of the push-ups, too, and the pull-ups, and the sit-ups, and the squats. It's too hard! Can't I please quit?" "Oh, come on, Alice," Vince said. "We need money, you know? If you don't want to work for anymore, then the rest of us will have to work even harder to make up for the money you don't earn. You wouldn't want to tire us to death, would you?" Alice groaned, but Robert quickly picked up off the ground and supported her. "Alice, don't think of it as torture," he reassured her. "Think of it as a game. Oh, how about this? If by the end of the week, if you can run four laps without collapsing, I'll treat you to some ice cream." "What if they don't have ice cream anymore?" asked Alice, still held by Robert. "Well, I'll find something to treat you with, okay?" Robert said. Reluctantly, Alice gave in, saying, "All right." Later, Vince asked Robert if he would have worked extra hard so that Alice wouldn't have to work at all. "Yeah, I would," Robert replied. "Chivalry ain't dead yet, and if Alice doesn't want to put herself through this, I'll gladly let her sit out. Wouldn't you do the same for Stephanie?" "I would," Vince said, "except that Stephanie's work ethic is too strong for her to quit anything, even running two miles a day for war training." Joining Omicron also brought them closer to new people, who quickly became new friends. There was Leon, a young man with much sword skill but could never hit anything with a gun. His polar opposite, Kruger, was an old man and talented marksman. He had only missed once because someone accidentally nudged him too hard as he pulled the trigger. Alice soon found a friend in Sarah, a 15-years-old gymnast, from whom she received much support. They also met Molly and Lorina, two girls who opted to become service girls, only to found out that it was a sick joke perpetrated by Colonel Strikov. There were many service girls in other Mercenary Camps, but not in Omicron. The food was always good, for Jack, who doubled as a kitchen-master, knew how to cook good meat. Unfortunately, he couldn't even make a mediocre salad, so they often ended up eating lettuce with salad dressing instead. Omicron was kind enough to provide Vince and the others with spare sets of clothes. They even controlled buildings in which Vince and the others could take showers, but since Tiel's power plant had long since been destroyed, there was no furnace to provide them with warm water. Since it was already well into December, many opted to skip showers rather than to attempt to wash themselves with freezing water. It turned out that by the end of the week, Alice could run the whole two miles without collapsing, but only barely. (She collapsed into Robert's arms right after he congratulated her on making it.) Unfortunately, there were no working freezers in the city (because there was no power), so there was no ice cream. Robert found something, though, something especially rare nowadays, with the war disrupting everything. "Chocolate!" Alice screamed in joy. "Oh, I haven't had chocolate in such a long time. Thank you, Robert! Thank you!" "Don't mention it," Robert replied. It wasn't difficult adjusting to their new life at Omicron, especially since Omicron provided them with protection and stability. They no longer had to worry so much about money anymore, and they no longer had to flee. This made it incredibly easy to adjust. "I think it's about time you new guys worked a mission," Strikov said to Vince. It was the day after Alice ran her two miles and won her chocolate. By then, Vince and the others were in considerably good shape. They weren't Olympic athletes yet, but they were strong enough to fight, at least according to Strikov. "Don't worry," Strikov reassured them. "It's not a difficult mission. There won't be much fighting, hopefully. We're going to be making a transaction with one of our clients. We give them the artifact we stole for them, and they'll supply us with more weapons. However, with all the competition going on between the Mercenary Camps, some of our rivals would love to sabotage the meeting. That's why we need you and some of the others to snipe down any possible intruders." Vince hesitated for a moment. "Come with me, we'll explain it at the briefing." Vince, Steph, Alice, and Robert followed him into a small room half-filled with people. A lieutenant stood by a podium and spoke to the gathering of people. "You will each be assigned to a specific perch," the lieutenant explained, "each with its own specific optimal firing zones. The perches have been specifically chosen so that every square foot of the field is within the optimal firing zone of at least two snipers. This way, if one sniper fails, the other can still take out the target." At the same time, several others were passing out rifles to the people present. Upon receiving it, Vince took a good look at his sniper rifle. "What's 'QS'?" he asked, reading the label on the gun. "That's our client," the lieutenant explained. "Other than that, we don't know. In any case, the transaction will occur precisely 46 minutes from now, so be ready." Vince had been sitting on his perch in his tree for about an hour, and nothing had happened. Once or twice, he had considered taking a nap, but he thought better of it, deciding that it was better for him to stay alert. Alice, on the other hand, had taken a half-hour nap, and woke up only a few minutes ago. She was perched on the second floor of an unfinished building and her zone overlapped with Vince's--one of the reasons why Vince chose to stay awake. Steph, perched on the second floor of the abandoned building where the meeting happened, doubled the other part of his zone. Robert was perched inside an abandoned crane near one of the entrances to the construction yard. "Well, this mission's easy, all right," Vince thought, "but it's no fun at all." No sooner had he said that than did something happen. A young woman walked into the construction yard into Robert's zone. Vince, however, distinctly saw Robert raise his gun, hesitate, then lower it again. As the woman passed through Alice's territory, he saw Alice's hands shake with fear, unable to lift her rifle. Next, as the woman passed through Stephanie's territory, Vince saw Stephanie lift her gun. Her hands shook and her trigger finger twitched, but she couldn't bring herself to fire the shot. "Good Heavens," Vince thought. "They can't even do something as simple as shooting an intruder. Well, she's a little far--right at the edge of my zone--but it doesn't look like Steph's going to fire. Okay, here it goes." Vince lifted his sniper rifle, put the woman within his scope. Slowly and carefully, he centered the crosshairs over the woman's head, but he hesitated. "Come on, Vince," he thought. "This is important. She's too close to the meeting place. I can't let her in. I have to shoot her now." Still, he could not pull the trigger. "God damn it! It's only a little girl that I don't even know. I have to kill her. It's no different from when I killed that Death Knight. I had to kill. Same goes for now." His trigger finger twitched. "Focus, Vince," he thought. "Do what you have to do." A few more seconds and he would no longer have the opportunity to shoot. He centered the crosshairs on the woman's head again, then closed his eyes and fired. He never heard the shot, but he heard the scream. When he opened his eyes again, the woman lay on the floor, a hole through her head. For about a minute, Vince seemed not to realize what he had done. Then, all of a sudden, a mental dam collapsed, and the rivers of understanding rushed into his mind. He had killed for the second time. He saw the sword skewer the Death Knight's face again. Then, he saw the bullet blow a hole in the girl's head. Those were people, real people, and he had killed them. Those were people, real people, and someone was going to cry now that they were dead. Those were people, real people, no different from himself or Stephanie. What had he done? He had killed for the second time. Unable to move, Vince simply stood there in the tree, his hands still clutching the rifle, covered in sweat. Yet, killing wasn't as bad as he remembered. Within minutes, he had managed to calm himself down and climb down the tree. Still panting, he leaned against the tree and wiped his forehead. Vince saw Stephanie walking toward him, so he went over to meet her halfway. As he approached her, he noticed she held something in her hands--a softball. Steph pointed toward the young woman. Vince could see the girl clearly now. She wore a sweatshirt with the Tiel Softball League logo. "She's... innocent," Steph said, her voice broken and her eyes teary. Vince looked from the girl to the ball and understood. "Oh, no," he said, in shock, and he dashed for the central building, the unfinished building where Strikov and the others met for their transaction. He had not killed an enemy. He had killed an innocent girl who had simply come to fetch a lost ball. If she had been an enemy, it would have been different, but she wasn't. As Vince ran toward the building, sprinting as fast as he could, he hated himself bitterly. Within seconds, Stephanie was chasing after him, calling his name, yelling at him to slow down, but he didn't listen. Vincent Zeng, the murderer, ran straight for the front door. As soon as he reached it, Strikov threw it open. Vince stopped. The two men stood face-to-face, silent for a moment. Stephanie caught up to them, but she, too, said nothing. Strikov's face told them that he understood what had happened. "I was watching through the window," Strikov finally said. "I saw it all." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," Vince yelled out all at once. "I didn't know. I thought she was an intruder. I didn't--" "It's all right, Vince," Strikov interrupted him. " You didn't know. If it were me, I would have shot her, too. You did the right thing. You did what you were supposed to." Vince stared at the Colonel, his eyes full of anguish. Slowly, Stephanie came around in front of her boyfriend and held him. "It's all right, Vince," she said, her voice broken. "I'm here for you." That night, Vince dreamt a most terrifying dream. He, as the Dark Fiend, stood in the middle of meadow, an automatic rifle in his hands. From all sides, swarms of soldiers charged down toward him. Without thinking, Vince lifted his machine gun and fired, mowing down the people one by one. With each death, unrealistically large amounts of blood spilled everywhere. With each death, he heard a scream. Death by death, the green grass became red, stained with the blood of the fallen. Death by death, the screams grew louder and louder, until he finally heard his own among them. He himself was screaming, screaming in agony, screaming in shock, screaming in disbelief as he killed so many. Eventually, so much blood was spilled that the grass was completely red. The soldiers still alive were themselves covered in blood. So much blood soaked the ground that thousands of red pools formed. Dismembered limbs and torn bodies littered the floor. Still, Vince heard his own scream, a scream of anguish. By now, it was deafening. Vince dropped the gun and covered his ears, but he still heard the screams with perfect clarity. The screams, most of all his own, tore through him. He was in pain, unbearable pain. Vince woke up with a scream. He was back in his tent, wrapped up in his sleeping bag. He was breathing hard and his face was covered in sweat. Stephanie, who slept in a sleeping bag next to him, turned toward him. "What's wrong, Vince?" she asked. "I killed," Vince answered. "I know," Stephanie replied. "It'll be all right. It was only once, and next time you'll be more careful." Vince was skeptical. Vince was physically in top shape, but mentally, he was a mess. He had killed, and he knew he would have to kill again, for this was war. No, he was physically fit, but he had much psychological training ahead. Vince set up straw dummies and imagined them as real people, imagining every detail with such care to make them as human. Then, he would blast this "human" with a machine gun or another weapon, blowing it to bits. Another exercise he often did was visualizing in his mind someone he knew from school, then imagining himself killing the person. It was a cruel thing to do, but they were in a war. Vince was going to kill again, and he had to make sure he was psychologically prepared. Four days later, Vince found his opportunity to prove himself. "Rho, a rival Mercenary Camp, is camped here," said Lieutenant Claren as he marked a map of Tiel. "We will strike tonight at 7 pm. The Red Team will attack here, down Lynthan Boulevard, which will put them in the front courtyard of the Rho encampment. Red Team's primary objective is to distract the Rho forces so that our Blue Team can complete its covert operations with little resistance. The Blue Team will attack from the side, down 54th street, precisely five minutes after the battle on the Red side begins. Using a new heat beam cannon we have obtained from QS, Blue Team will cut a hole into the wall to reach the supply rooms on the other side. While the Red Team distracts the Rho forces, Blue Team will sneak in, steal some much needed food rations and clothing, and sneak out, ideally completely undetected. After the Blue Team is safely away, Red Team will make its strategic retreat. Any questions?" "Yeah," said one soldier who had been assigned to the Blue Team. "What happens if we get caught?" "Then, fight," Lieutenant Claren answered. "You've been trained for combat." Vince, Steph, Robert, and Alice had been assigned to the Red Team. The Blue Team was filled mostly with specialists and experienced saboteurs, as they would be doing a highly technical job, as opposed to the Red Team's simple combat. Many of Vince's newfound friends were also placed on the Red Team, but it didn't make any difference to him. Vince only wanted to prove one thing--that he was ready to be a soldier. He was ready to kill again. |