***
The longer the tank rolled forward, the larger the tight ball of stiffness in Alex’s lower back grew. His wrists were cuffed directly to the tank’s frame, and the restricted mobility was wearing him down. And the entire time, watching with the barrel of a gun pointed at him, was Ray.
Ray kept the thousand-yard stare while Alex shifted uncomfortably. He looked at the way Ray held the pistol in his hand. It was a 9mm Smith and Wesson with a solid-black finish. The pistol had quite a bit of recoil, and Ray was holding it in one hand.
“You ever fired one of tho—”
“You need to shut the fuck up,” Ray answered.
“I’m trying to help, Ray.”
“I don’t give a shit what you’re trying or not trying to do,” Ray replied, a dribble of spit rolling down his chin to accentuate his disdain. “The first chance I get, I’m going to put a bullet in the back of your skull.”
Despite all the anger and frustration Alex had received so far, he knew that underneath the vengeful demeanor portrayed on the surface was just a man who was scared. Ray’s eyes were the same beaded angry that Alex saw at the seed silo he was charged with guarding over three years ago. Eyes centered in a pool of hate-filled purpose fueled by a hunger that swelled from the deepest wells of the soul. And just like those angry extremists Alex was forced to fight at the silo, he couldn’t blame Ray for what he felt toward him. It was nothing more than the man’s own inability to see past what he couldn’t control. And it wasn’t something Alex would be able to change Ray’s mind on.
“I know what you think of me, Ray. I do. I know you’ll want to fight, but if you do, you need to be prepared, and if you fired that pistol the way you’re holding it right now, it would fly out of your hand.”
For the first time since the trip started, Ray’s eyes shifted from Alex to the gun. Finally, he brought his left hand over to keep a firmer grasp. A radio call arrived, and the tank tracks were ordered to come to a stop. The soldiers removed their seat straps, and one of them tapped Ray on the shoulder, and he reluctantly unlocked the cuffs around Alex’s wrists.
Outside, the distant thunder of gunshots echoed from what looked to be an oil refinery about three hundred yards in the distance. The other caravan of tanks and trucks transporting soldiers had come to a halt, and Luis was standing in the center of a circle, surrounded by tired faces and sagging shoulders.
“All right, everyone, listen up!” Luis said. “The seizure of that refinery is our main objective. Coalition forces have embedded themselves inside, and every attempt to flush them out that won’t damage the integrity of the refinery has been attempted and failed.”
“How many sentries?” one of the soldiers asked.
“Intelligence indicates that there are over thirty combatants inside, but that’s not the only piece of information we received. The sentries inside are Class 3s,” Luis answered.
A whistle broke through the quiet murmur spreading throughout the crowd, accompanied by a silent hesitation and a few of the soldiers taking a step back. When Alex had been in the sentry program, he was given an aptitude test that would help the Coalition gauge what type of sentry he would be. The results of the exam were categorized into three separate units. The first and lowest was Class 1. This was your typical foot soldier or individual tasked with simple jobs and functions. The only real qualification needed to make it as a Class 1 was that you had a trigger finger and were vicious enough to use it on anyone.
The next classification was Class 2, which was what Alex had been. These individuals were officer material. Each Class 2 was assigned a unit of Class 1s to lead and manage in a specific area. It was the responsibility of a Class 2 to ensure that the men under their command followed orders and didn’t exceed their given mandate.
The final category was reserved for individuals who possessed a high mental capacity which would be applied in the application of war. Once it was determined they were smart enough for the category, they were then put through a physical examination to determine strength, endurance, speed, agility, and pain tolerance. Nothing but the highest marks on the physical portion of the exam were accepted. These individuals could solve a Rubik’s cube during their five-minute-mile run. These elite specimens were Class 3s.
During Alex’s tenure both in and out of the sentry program, he’d only seen a group of Class 3 sentries once. It was just one year after the formation of the Coalition, and Gordon was sending “special” units for an annual inspection of the communities to ensure their compliance with all Coalition policies.
At the time, Alex’s community only had two children. Meeko and another slightly older boy named Benny, who lived in another one of the Coalition houses with two older men whom Alex would have trusted with his own children if he had any. Everyone was marched outside and formed a line, just like during a blood sampling. The Class 3s rolled in and piled out of their truck. There were only four of them, each decked out in a dark-blue, rather than the solid-black uniforms the other sentries wore, adorned with some very top-of-the-line hardware.
But aside from everything they wore and despite their size, what Alex noticed most were their eyes. Each pupil Alex came into view with had the vicious sincerity of ruthlessness. It was something more powerful than just raw, unbridled emotions. It was a vicious intelligence Alex had never seen before, and even he couldn’t stop the chill running up the back of his spine.
One of the Class 3s looked each of the community members over until he finally stopped when he arrived at Benny, who was no older than thirteen at the time. The Class 3 reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. He bent down to meet the boy at eye level, and Alex remembered his entire body tensing up.
The sentry told Benny that if he would run as far as he could without stopping, then he would give him the candy bar. Everyone, including the Class 1 sentries permanently stationed in the community, had their eyebrows raised. And just as he should be, Benny was skeptical.
Finally, Benny took off at a trot, slowly breaking out into a sprint, kicking up dust behind him as he pumped his legs harder and harder. The Class 3 kept urging him on, challenging him to keep going, even if he had to run beyond the community’s gates. The boy ran for almost two minutes before he finally came to a stop two hundred yards outside the front gates. Alex had to squint his eyes to see the boy, who looked nothing more than a speck of flesh against the rolling hills behind him.
The next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion. Alex remembered seeing the boy bend over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath while the Class 3 brought the scope of the rifle to his eye. Alex watched the sentry’s finger move to the trigger and suddenly became aware of his feet pushing him forward to the sentry’s position.
Alex felt every pulsating beat in his chest and every inhale and exhale of his breath as a red-hot flash of heat consumed him. He tried to bum-rush the sentry but was tackled to the ground before he could reach his goal. Despite the other sentries holding him down, Alex kept clawing at the earth to try and stop the Class 3, who didn’t break concentration no matter how much Alex screamed for the boy to run. But Benny just stood there, frozen outside the gates on the side of a hill.
When the Class 3 finally squeezed the trigger, Alex screamed until he thought his lungs would cough up blood. The bastards even had the audacity to drive out to where the boy’s body lay, tie a rope around his ankles, and drag him back up the hill for the community to see him.
The Class 3s didn’t say anything after that or perform any further inspections. They simply got back in their car and drove away. The community had received the message loud and clear. Even when you’re not doing anything wrong, even when you’re following the rules you’re forced to comply with at gunpoint, they still hold your life in their hands, and they can do whatever they want with it.
That same ruthlessness and skill were waiting for Luis and his men inside the oil refinery. Alex knew they could eventually outnumber them, but he didn’t believe Luis understood how many men they’d lose in the process. They would take the oil back, but every gallon of oil they reclaimed would cost an equal amount of blood.