***
One by one, the community members grabbed the rifles, shotguns, and pistols from the sentry’s armory and loaded them into the trucks on Main Street, doing their best to step around the fresh streaks of blood on the sentry’s housing floor.
A few other community members were coming in and out of the meal station, piling any nonperishable goods they could take next to the weapons in the truck. Much to their displeasure, the only food they could find were the synthetic proteins and minerals they’d grown accustomed to tolerating. Anything that was fresh was consumed at lunch, in the largest feast any of them had seen in years.
Alex, however, didn’t partake in the spontaneous potluck. He sat perched at the community’s front gate, his face and clothes still bloodied and dirtied from the night before. He’d barely moved for most of the night and morning. Watching, waiting for another unit of sentries to force their way in. He’d stolen one of the radio scanners, which he monitored for any unscheduled check-ins the Coalition might try. So far, the call hadn’t come.
What he did hear were the Coalition’s forces in the west being overrun. A unit of United States soldiers were liberating communities and farm camps through Wyoming and marching southeast to their main target, which lay in the heart of Topeka, Kansas. It was there where Commissioner Gordon Reath sat atop his throne of skeletons and slaves, and it was where Alex needed to join them in their coup of his oppression. But he first had to make sure his people were safe. That had been his goal since the beginning. Now, with the cavalry heading their way, the job was almost done.
“Alex?”
Meeko appeared to his left, his hands clasped together, his left foot rubbing the top of his right, looking down at the ground and keeping his distance. Alex became more aware of the bloodstains covering his body. He knew the sights from the night before were still fresh in the boy’s mind. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“Yeah,” Meeko answered then extended a plate that had a pile of potatoes, corn, and chicken stacked on top. “Harper wanted me to give this to you.”
Alex examined the small mounds of food. Steam rose from the plate. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually ate something that was hot. But these days, no matter how the food was prepared, everything had the metallic taste of blood. Alex took the plate from Meeko, and the moment he looked down at the food in front of him, he heard the light patter of feet scurry away. The boy saw him differently now. Watching someone you cared about soak themselves in blood would do that.
“You don’t want that to get cold,” Harper said, taking a seat next to Alex at the front gate. Harper and Alex were around the same age, but the past few weeks accelerated the lines of experience on both their faces.
“I’m sorry about Alice,” Alex said. “If I hadn’t left, she’d probably still be alive.”
Harper remained quiet, fiddling with his fingers before he finally answered. “But I wonder for how long? People have been dying every day since the soil crisis, and most have suffered a fate worse than death. Now that she’s gone, she’s spared from any more suffering.” He placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Her death isn’t your burden to bear, Alex. It’s mine.”
The truth was clouded in a series of what-ifs. If it weren’t for the scientists who created GMO-24, then this world wouldn’t have been possible. Gordon Reath would never have risen to power. The Soil Coalition would never have been assembled. Alex would never have joined the sentry program, which would never have put him in the same zip code as Gordon Reath. He would never have had to break Meeko and Harper out of the farm camp, which would have allowed Alice to live, which wouldn’t have sent him to another community to betray one of the most brilliant minds of the century. But this wasn’t a world of what-ifs. This was reality. And the first step in fixing the world was trying to right his unforgiveable wrong against Todd Penn.