GWOT III - Finger

GWOT III - Finger

[This is a snippet for Global War of Terror III, in which Echo 18 is stripped of all but his life... the one thing he no longer valued after Day 2 of the Firecracker War.]


I am intimately familiar with this cell.

I've measured it with my hand. It is 34 handwidths long by 25 handwidths wide. It contains a built in concrete bunk, a combination sink/toilet for input and output respectively, and a built in shelf above that, one handwidth by seven hand widths, left over from when this was a human detention cell.

There is, set above the corner where I cannot reach it, an unblinking reflective mirror, a corner of a rounded dome. Within it, of course, is at least one camera. Likely audio monitoring as well.

No soap, no toilet paper. After my last session they finished taking away the last of my clothing. I am wearing a medical paper gown. No more underwear. Damn. I'd had hopes for that elastic waistband.

My left hand is swollen, especially the last two fingers. The ones the interrogator pulled on.

Worse is coming. Far worse. But he managed to dislocate them.

I have to reduce them. There is no medical care here, only more torture.

I hold my hand under the water in the sink to numb it. I have no way to block the drain unless I tear a strip across the bottom of the gown, and I have a better use for that.

Then I sit on the bunk, brace my right elbow against the wall, and ram my injured ring finger hard into my clenched right fist.

I do not scream. I have to thank the vet surgeon for her lessons in pain management, debriding my previous injuries without anesthetic.

The finger sets back in the socket. One more to go.

I brace my pinky and jam it in the same way.

When I wake up, I am lying on the bunk. I fouled myself. Damn it. Fortunately there is no such thing as a sheet or blanket.

Wow. That really, really hurt. And my pinky finger is still not reduced.

If I leave it out of socket, I could lose it. Then again, I might lose it anyway.

I numb the hand under cold water again. I brace more carefully.

I ram the pinky again.

"Ow... ohhhh..." I murmur, as the pain in the socket resets like a light switch.

Now I can clean up the bunk and myself, the most old fashioned way there is, with handfuls of water in the sink.

Afterwards I clean my hands carefully. Then I drink from the sink.

Only then do I look at the hem of the gown.

I am cold. There's no heating here. It is my duty to stay in as good a shape as I can.

Survival, evasion, resistance, escape.

That of course is why I am here. I am suspected of being a member of the Resistance. It is my duty to escape. Even though I am not.

The hem of the gown can be torn with my fingers. I tear off a strip four hand widths wide, all around the garment.

I wrap it around my head, for warmth. I curl up in a ball on the bunk, to preserve my body heat.

They chose my side for me. Long before my first arrest, my team was picked.

Picked in fire, by the flash and thermal pulse of the Firecracker. Picked in water, by the drowned sailors who didn't know what they were nuking. Picked in earth, by the spadesful of dirt we shoveled out to bury our beloved dead. Picked in air . . . by . . . by . . . the fallout from the strikes.

I have no faith. I am already dead. It is a matter of watching them strip my corpse, plundering my brain for the secrets they think I have.

Plot twist. I have none.

I prepare myself for the next torture session. They will take something that will mark me forever. An eye. A ball. A limb, perhaps by cutting a tendon. Maybe nose or ears.

Not just a finger.

I flex my left middle finger. Over and over again. Exercising it.

I'm going to need it soon.

GWOT IV - Lottery

GWOT IV Lottery

[This is a preview snippet for GWOT IV. Having survived the Firecracker and dragging thousands of lives along with him, Echo 18 has now also survived Homeland interrogation. He has new duties.]


I dress carefully for every execution.

I have one pressed pair of khaki pants, one khaki uniform shirt, name tape ECHO 18 unit tape SF RESIST. Rank tabs, Major. A leather belt with a gold buckle that matches the tabs.

My duty belt is so much lighter than before. I don't even carry a radio. I carry merely the handgun and one spare magazine in a single pancake holster.

My shoes are carefully polished ... not by me. That is what orderlies are for.

I finish shaving with my right hand. My left does not work so well any more. The four missing fingernails are prominent.

I limp to the door, turn back, and tighten my shoe laces again. I will not have an orderly tie my fucking shoes.

"Ten-HUT!" calls the sentry at my door. He is fully equipped. He escorts me to the field out back, which we have grandly named the parade ground.

There are bleachers. This had been a high school once. Maybe it will be again. But not soon.

Waist high metal barriers separate the bleachers from the field. Guards here and there with rifles, wearing white gloves.

In pride of place, a stage. But this is no ordinary stage. We cover it with a tarp during inclement weather. The stage is like a staircase - or a pyramid, if one side, the side to the right of the watching crowd, is instead a sheer drop.

A small rigging crane is parked across from the stage, its boom fully extended to reach 30' above the stage. A cable dangles from it. Note: not a rope. I repeat, a cable not a rope.

At the end of the cable is a noose made from hemp, connected with a metal connector rated for tons.

The three guests of dishonor are bound with their hands behind their backs.

Beyond, there is a hill of dirt and sandbags against a cinder block wall, all marked with pock marks, and a thick wooden waist high baulk with rope tied to it. That's for honor. We're not using that one today.

I mount the stage to the podium at the first level. A microphone is waiting. Papers are spread out.

I begin.

"Attention. By the solemn and unanimous decision of the Resistance Military Commission, the Governor of California declining to hear appeal, these sentences have been decided and will be carried out herewith.

"Mr. Manuel McAlberts, formerly a Colonel in the organization formerly known as Homeland, you have been convicted of participating in the capital murder of over three thousand men, women and children in and around Gerlach Nevada. You will therefore hang by the neck until dead."

The man is dragged forward and up the stairs. He starts to shout something and is efficiently slugged in the gut, then dragged to the top. This is an execution, not an opportunity for him to speak.

One of his executioners puts the noose around his neck. They both hold him still at the top of the ramp.

The privilege of pressing the button - the REEL IN button on the cable winch - is granted by lottery. Anyone interested is able to submit a piece of paper torn in half with whatever word or number they wish.

"ANNA" calls the executioner at the winch control. A woman comes forward; the torn pieces of paper are confirmed against each other. She is allowed inside the controlled area. She looks up at the man on our improvised scaffold.

"You son of a bitch! Anna, I say! Anna! Think of Anna as you choke!"

She presses the button and the executioners push his body away as the noose digs into the flesh of his neck. He dangles horribly in the air as the button takes up the slack another ten feet.

The executioner at the winch control throws a second switch that disables the button.

There is nothing about this process that will break his neck. He's going to choke to death, windpipe crushed and blood to brain impaired.

He turns purple and kicks.

All too soon he is still. I watch for a timed ten minutes, then signal for his body to be lowered. It is carried off on a stretcher, to the convenient sports building we have repurposed as a morgue.

There, a doctor confirms death. I've already worked out what we would do if he were still alive. I would go over with a baseball bat and gaff him like a landed fish.

The second condemned man is dragged forward.

I see the look in his eyes. He has been going through the motions, not really believing. Not believing that this is the last day he will see the sun, the last moments he will feel the cool morning breeze on his cheek, hear the angry murmur of the crowd denied as much blood as they want.

If it were up to the crowd, everyone who carried a gun for Homeland would be dealt with in the same fashion.

The Commission - of which I am a member - has decided. Officers who ordered or participated in atrocities will be hung. Officers who violated the laws of war only against combatants will be shot. Enlisted troops or their equivalent who merely followed orders will be exiled to China, to atone for their sins far from here, with no right to return.

"Mr. Peter Scofield, formerly a Flight Officer in the organization known as Homeland, you have been convicted of murdering over thirty persons by using a helicopter to set them on fire. You will therefore hang by the neck until dead."

We have a treat for Peter. The boom is lowered to its travel position.

A single fixed wing aircraft - an armed close-support aircraft of the San Francisco Resistance - flies overhead, so low that Peter can see it. Taste it. Flight. It circles once and proceeds on its mission, to assist in the continued operations to take Sacramento.

I hear the thwop-thwop of rotor blades. Another Resistance combat aircraft, a small helicopter. It has been rigged with a winch, a cable and ... a noose. It flies once around the field, low and slow, then hovers carefully two hundred feet above the stage.

The cable lowers as the killer pilot is dragged up to his death.

They rig the noose around his neck.

He's going to fly one last time.

He does.

The crowd roars its approval.

I am so sick of these theatrics. But if we're not to descend into civil war after civil war, cycles of retaliation and revenge, we must temper mercy with justice.

"Mercy to the murderer is cruelty to the innocent."

I am also a murderer. I should climb the scaffold, put the noose around my neck, be raised to my death.

But not today. I still have duties to perform. Better that the dirty tasks be done by the dirtiest hands.

The boom is raised again, a fresh noose fastened and ready to go.

The third prisoner voids herself, screaming, until she is subdued by kicks and punches and dragged forward.

"Miss Penelope Riordan, formerly a Support Services Analyst in the organization known as Homeland, you have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the atrocity known as Homeward Bound. You processed records which you knew would be used to select innocent non-American civilians for murder under the false promise of repatriation. In so doing, you selected individuals based on Excel spreadsheet lines for death based on your opinion of their last names. You will therefore hang by the neck until dead."

She is dragged forward and to the top. The tiresome thing is done.

I wait ten minutes. Her body is lowered.

"This finishes the executions for today. Executions are scheduled for the same time tomorrow."

I painfully limp from the stage. My leg will never properly work again, thanks to Homeland.

These three mass murderers will never murder again, thanks in part to me.