GWOT - School's In
Oct. 18th, 2018 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT School's In
[In which E18 does charity work. Strong trigger warning for childhood abuse survivors.]
This was officially the stupidest fucking thing we had ever done in the history of ever.
But as with other stupid ideas, the Client leadership was fully behind it. I'd explained the risks and the costs, and they'd decided to go for it. I hadn't gone into second order factors because I'd thought it had been so slam dunk obvious that this was stupid that we'd never have to implement.
And now we were going to implement.
We couldn't hold onto the target site 24 hours. There were lots of reasons, mostly staffing. But if we didn't hang onto it 24 hours, we would have to sweep and clear it every morning and it would get looted every night.
We couldn't assure security for the target site, let alone our employees who would be working - no, I'm sorry, volunteering - there. But we would have to anyway.
The target site would lack all amenities. We would have to provide, ourselves, any amenity that would be required.
Last but not least would be the population that would be served at the target site. Reckless, difficult, not obviously dangerous, potentially extremely dangerous.
This meeting of the Ammunition Technical Working Group was my opportunity to vent my spleen.
I didn't. We had to make it work somehow.
My people saw my visible restraint and as one, shivered.
###
"Roll out," I ordered by radio and with a hand wave.
Lead vehicle: Hate Truck. Sharon driving, Brooke on guns. Two experienced supervisors and proven brutal killers.
Convoy: trucks towing trailers, all kinds of crap. Limit of two Employees per vehicle. Except the shuttle bus which had eighteen (18) employee souls. I swear, if that shuttle catches a rocket somehow, I'm going to skin the rocketeer, borrow his launcher, reload, and briefly emulate the Rocket Man ... less painful than explaining eighteen Employee fatalities to the SLE.
The shuttle bus was festooned with anti-grenade mesh and the windows were double reinforced mesh where they were not two layers of bulletproof Lexan.
Tail end charlie: one of our three precious armored trucks carrying the irreplaceable VP of Facilities whose stupid idea this was.
Our first convoy under Arturo had already rolled out. They were taking and securing the target site.
###
"Hands up! Hands empty! [CLIENT] Security! You are trespassing on closed property in a security zone! Gather your items and leave now!"
At the far end of the open plan corridor, figures shuffled towards their shopping carts.
A few bodies didn't move. Pulses were checked. Those with pulses were carried across the street to the shade of a large oak tree that hadn't been cut down for firewood yet. The two without pulses were also carried across the street, but were not placed in the shade. We would have to bury them later. One of a thousand chores.
Three people wearing Tyvek suits started walking the corridors. One waved a rod attached to a meter. One carried a backpack fire pump. One pushed a shopping cart filled with 5 gallon buckets, bottoms filled with sand and sides clumsily painted with a black trifoil.
Decontamination team. And their Geiger counter, properly calibrated and used by a skilled operator, was literally priceless under these conditions.
That's why an additional three Security personnel followed closely, all heavily armed. But not too closely.
###
We closed up on the perimeter road around the target site.
"Dismount according to repair plan."
Some of our trucks carried rolls of chain link fencing. We had some barbed wire, much of it salvaged, as well. With gloves, fence pliers and a single spot welder, we were repairing the south perimeter fence of the target site. We were also welding most of the gates and exits shut.
We were also putting up signage, printed using our ancient (but dirt cheap) mimeograph and covered with otherwise useless thin mil transparent plastic.
"THIS SCHOOL IS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF [CLIENT]. NO ACCESS USE MAIN ENTRANCE. NO TRESPASSING PC 602."
For those who did not speak pre-War bureaucrat, we had thoughtfully added a skull and crossbones.
We would halt on each of the four sides, repairing to plan. But we had a few bonus items. Hardpoints on each corner, for staffing during the day. A reinforced rooftop bunker for the two guard night crew, who would be left at the site each night with night vision equipment, rifles and our thoughts and prayers.
A San Jose police car idled a block away in the intersection, ready to run away at the first hint of trouble. This was their 'help' for the project.
Last but not least, the entrance. I had plans for the entrance.
###
Big, big plywood sign.
"[EAST SIDE] PRIMARY SCHOOL. OPEN TO ENROLLED STUDENTS AND AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. PROTECTED BY [CLIENT] ARMED SECURITY. ANY ATTEMPT AT APPROACH WITH WEAPONS WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE."
Waist high fencing separating the entry area from the nearby public street.
"NO VEHICLES. NO PARKING. NO LOITERING. THIS IS NOT A DROP OFF."
The team pushed off one of the trailers a wrecked vehicle with bullet holes we had brought with us, and put up the plywood signs on each side. It doubled as part of the barricade.
"HE DIDN'T LISTEN. NO VEHICLES, NO PARKING, NO LOITERING."
The outer guard would be in a waist-high bunker quickly created by piling handy debris. No radiation survey here - bullets trump fallout. Later we would install J barriers and sandbags. When the school was open, this position would rotate every thirty minutes.
The inner guards were next to a table with a sign in binder and signs with painted sets of rules.
"SECURITY SCREENING MANDATORY FOR ENTRY. NO EXCEPTIONS."
"DECLARE WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY. WEAPONS CHECK IS REQUIRED. OBEY SECURITY FORCE COMMANDS."
This was a backpack cubby hastily dragged outside. We were set up to tag each weapon with half a playing card and give the other ripped half - unforgeable - to the weapon's owner.
We would lightly gloss over how much of the Education Code this process violated. Especially giving the weapons back to the teens when they left. But the alternative - making no attempt to keep weapons out - was unthinkable.
"ONLY THE ADULT WHO DROPPED OFF THE CHILD MAY PICK UP THE CHILD. NO EXCEPTIONS AT THIS SITE."
"A CHILD MAY CARRY ONE (1) BACKPACK WHICH MUST BE SEARCHED. NO EXCESS PERSONAL PROPERTY. NO STORAGE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY AT THIS LOCATION."
"A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP FROM A PARENT GUARDIAN OR CASEWORKER IS REQUIRED FOR CHILDREN TO ARRIVE OR DEPART ALONE. MINIMUM AGE TWELVE. UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN WITHOUT ESCORT WILL BE CONSIDERED ABANDONED."
"ABANDONED CHILDREN WILL BE PICKED UP DAILY BY SAN JOSE POLICE AT 5 PM / 1700 HOURS SHARP. CLAIM ABANDONED CHILDREN AT SJPD SOUTH SUBSTATION."
"NO ADULTS PAST THIS POINT WITHOUT BADGE AND BACKGROUND CHECK ON FILE. FORCE AUTHORIZED."
One of our largest guards, in full riot gear including ironwood staff and plywood shield that were not a joke, was next to that sign.
A solar panel was deployed with a 12 volt battery and a DC-DC inverter to charge 9 volt batteries for the two scan wands. We would take it inside every night and set it up each morning.
Past the security checkpoint, both outside and inside, the Client employees were setting up their stations. Registration, Triage, Decontamination, Medical. Then Feeding. Then Assessment. Finally the student would be assigned to a classroom and given a curriculum and classwork. But likely not homework. Not with every type of supply in such short supply.
A team was already on the roof cutting skylights with hole saws and installing soda bottles full of water and caulking around the edges. This was a school that would have to operate without power.
Another team was wrestling with the point to point microwave link that would give the school very basic network access. Company E-mail and tactical comms at first - light years ahead of anywhere else.
We had plans for E-mail access, allowing student devices to surf a locally provided "sandbox" (i.e. Wikipedia), and charging once we had reliable power. But that would depend on what Facilities could do with the existing school equipment.
By 1000 hours we had the basics, at least from a security perspective. We had a perimeter. We had an interior from which all unauthorized persons had been removed, never to return. We had separated the school into 'safe' (i.e. swept for fallout) and 'not checked' (i.e. unsafe) areas. We had overwatch and a reaction plan.
The first students arrived, brought by of all things taxicab. (I found out later that vouchers had been involved.)
Parents and children signed in and were searched. No weapons were found.
We were not feeding parents. Sorry. We were feeding children.
Under the cover of our security, a single and suicidally brave Santa Clara County social services caseworker was willing to meet with parents, especially pregnant ones, and try to get them some sort of assistance. She worked with pencil and donated binder paper in site binders that we'd duct taped back together before providing to her.
"Medical emergency, Triage," my radio squawked.
I responded, as did the one medic we'd brought with us.
Even I could see that something was wrong with the boy. He stared listlessly into the middle distance. He did not respond when anyone talked to him.
The parent had no explanation. "He's always been like that." The boy flinched.
Then I saw the bruises. The medic met my eyes and gave that sideways glance confirming what I was seeing. And confirming the identity of the perpetrator.
What I knew well, from my own childhood that I never talk about.
That was it.
Everyone has their breaking point. Their moment. The moment when PTD becomes PTSD. When there's been too many bodies, too much gunfire, too many times you've pissed and crapped yourself, too many people bleeding out under your hands, too many pulses falling to zero. Too many burned and broken kids to be able to handle seeing a battered one.
My entire team backed way off. They saw it in my stance and in my face. I asked George later.
"Yeah, boss, we've learned that's when you start killing people."
But I wasn't going to kill anyone in a school.
I put a big, hearty arm around the man's neck.
"Let's go have a talk, sir," I said as I dragged him along.
My right hand just happened to find his right wrist, and around the corner out of sight of the child my grip became a control hold, wrenching it behind his back as I pushed him forward.
I kept pushing, off balance, until we reached the outer entrance area. Then I tripped him into the concrete, right where his face would meet the edge of the curb.
Sadly he put his arm up in time, breaking it instead of his nose.
I searched him ruthlessly, piling the contents of his pockets.
Drugs. Money - actual bluebacks. No ID.
I left the crap where it lay. He wouldn't be needing it.
I wrenched him up by his yet unbroken arm.
"I'm going on break, Sharon. Take over."
"Sir yes sir," she squawked, terrified.
The man and I kept walking, out onto the wild and wooly streets of San Jose. He may or may not have babbled something. I was not listening. I was hearing red. I was seeing red.
I was red. The world: red. Bring the red. It's all red. Don't paint it black.
Paint it red.
So I did.
###
Well, this was awkward.
Something that once had been human was mewling at my feet, amid the accumulated dust and debris.
My knife was red, my hands and arms were red. Somewhere in there I'd removed my clothing - it was hung up neatly on the entrance of the trash enclosure, armor and blouse and pants.
I looked him over clinically. Unsalvageable.
So I stabbed him in the back of the head and he swiftly died.
I cut off his clothing. Then I sectioned his limbs. There wasn't much blood, he'd already lost most of it.
Last was the head. I'd never decapitated a man before, but once I found a gap between vertebrae, it was surprisingly easy.
###
The man looked at me - cradling his broken arm in his good arm.
I looked at him, my hand on my knife.
"You no longer have a son. Do you understand?"
He stared.
"You are no longer a parent. If you come back, or you to claim the boy you abused, you will die horribly. I will cut you into little bits and feed you to our dogs. You no longer have a son."
He stared.
"SAY IT ASSHOLE! 'I don't have a son!'"
I flicked out the knife.
"I ... I don't have a son."
"AGAIN!"
"I don't have a son. I don't have a son! I DON'T HAVE A SON!!!"
I put the knife away and walked contemptuously past him.
###
I returned to the entrance. I went to Registration.
"I'm sorry, the suspect escaped."
Everyone shivered.
My hands were clean.
The only red was in my mind.
But that was enough.
[In which E18 does charity work. Strong trigger warning for childhood abuse survivors.]
This was officially the stupidest fucking thing we had ever done in the history of ever.
But as with other stupid ideas, the Client leadership was fully behind it. I'd explained the risks and the costs, and they'd decided to go for it. I hadn't gone into second order factors because I'd thought it had been so slam dunk obvious that this was stupid that we'd never have to implement.
And now we were going to implement.
We couldn't hold onto the target site 24 hours. There were lots of reasons, mostly staffing. But if we didn't hang onto it 24 hours, we would have to sweep and clear it every morning and it would get looted every night.
We couldn't assure security for the target site, let alone our employees who would be working - no, I'm sorry, volunteering - there. But we would have to anyway.
The target site would lack all amenities. We would have to provide, ourselves, any amenity that would be required.
Last but not least would be the population that would be served at the target site. Reckless, difficult, not obviously dangerous, potentially extremely dangerous.
This meeting of the Ammunition Technical Working Group was my opportunity to vent my spleen.
I didn't. We had to make it work somehow.
My people saw my visible restraint and as one, shivered.
###
"Roll out," I ordered by radio and with a hand wave.
Lead vehicle: Hate Truck. Sharon driving, Brooke on guns. Two experienced supervisors and proven brutal killers.
Convoy: trucks towing trailers, all kinds of crap. Limit of two Employees per vehicle. Except the shuttle bus which had eighteen (18) employee souls. I swear, if that shuttle catches a rocket somehow, I'm going to skin the rocketeer, borrow his launcher, reload, and briefly emulate the Rocket Man ... less painful than explaining eighteen Employee fatalities to the SLE.
The shuttle bus was festooned with anti-grenade mesh and the windows were double reinforced mesh where they were not two layers of bulletproof Lexan.
Tail end charlie: one of our three precious armored trucks carrying the irreplaceable VP of Facilities whose stupid idea this was.
Our first convoy under Arturo had already rolled out. They were taking and securing the target site.
###
"Hands up! Hands empty! [CLIENT] Security! You are trespassing on closed property in a security zone! Gather your items and leave now!"
At the far end of the open plan corridor, figures shuffled towards their shopping carts.
A few bodies didn't move. Pulses were checked. Those with pulses were carried across the street to the shade of a large oak tree that hadn't been cut down for firewood yet. The two without pulses were also carried across the street, but were not placed in the shade. We would have to bury them later. One of a thousand chores.
Three people wearing Tyvek suits started walking the corridors. One waved a rod attached to a meter. One carried a backpack fire pump. One pushed a shopping cart filled with 5 gallon buckets, bottoms filled with sand and sides clumsily painted with a black trifoil.
Decontamination team. And their Geiger counter, properly calibrated and used by a skilled operator, was literally priceless under these conditions.
That's why an additional three Security personnel followed closely, all heavily armed. But not too closely.
###
We closed up on the perimeter road around the target site.
"Dismount according to repair plan."
Some of our trucks carried rolls of chain link fencing. We had some barbed wire, much of it salvaged, as well. With gloves, fence pliers and a single spot welder, we were repairing the south perimeter fence of the target site. We were also welding most of the gates and exits shut.
We were also putting up signage, printed using our ancient (but dirt cheap) mimeograph and covered with otherwise useless thin mil transparent plastic.
"THIS SCHOOL IS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF [CLIENT]. NO ACCESS USE MAIN ENTRANCE. NO TRESPASSING PC 602."
For those who did not speak pre-War bureaucrat, we had thoughtfully added a skull and crossbones.
We would halt on each of the four sides, repairing to plan. But we had a few bonus items. Hardpoints on each corner, for staffing during the day. A reinforced rooftop bunker for the two guard night crew, who would be left at the site each night with night vision equipment, rifles and our thoughts and prayers.
A San Jose police car idled a block away in the intersection, ready to run away at the first hint of trouble. This was their 'help' for the project.
Last but not least, the entrance. I had plans for the entrance.
###
Big, big plywood sign.
"[EAST SIDE] PRIMARY SCHOOL. OPEN TO ENROLLED STUDENTS AND AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. PROTECTED BY [CLIENT] ARMED SECURITY. ANY ATTEMPT AT APPROACH WITH WEAPONS WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE."
Waist high fencing separating the entry area from the nearby public street.
"NO VEHICLES. NO PARKING. NO LOITERING. THIS IS NOT A DROP OFF."
The team pushed off one of the trailers a wrecked vehicle with bullet holes we had brought with us, and put up the plywood signs on each side. It doubled as part of the barricade.
"HE DIDN'T LISTEN. NO VEHICLES, NO PARKING, NO LOITERING."
The outer guard would be in a waist-high bunker quickly created by piling handy debris. No radiation survey here - bullets trump fallout. Later we would install J barriers and sandbags. When the school was open, this position would rotate every thirty minutes.
The inner guards were next to a table with a sign in binder and signs with painted sets of rules.
"SECURITY SCREENING MANDATORY FOR ENTRY. NO EXCEPTIONS."
"DECLARE WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY. WEAPONS CHECK IS REQUIRED. OBEY SECURITY FORCE COMMANDS."
This was a backpack cubby hastily dragged outside. We were set up to tag each weapon with half a playing card and give the other ripped half - unforgeable - to the weapon's owner.
We would lightly gloss over how much of the Education Code this process violated. Especially giving the weapons back to the teens when they left. But the alternative - making no attempt to keep weapons out - was unthinkable.
"ONLY THE ADULT WHO DROPPED OFF THE CHILD MAY PICK UP THE CHILD. NO EXCEPTIONS AT THIS SITE."
"A CHILD MAY CARRY ONE (1) BACKPACK WHICH MUST BE SEARCHED. NO EXCESS PERSONAL PROPERTY. NO STORAGE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY AT THIS LOCATION."
"A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP FROM A PARENT GUARDIAN OR CASEWORKER IS REQUIRED FOR CHILDREN TO ARRIVE OR DEPART ALONE. MINIMUM AGE TWELVE. UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN WITHOUT ESCORT WILL BE CONSIDERED ABANDONED."
"ABANDONED CHILDREN WILL BE PICKED UP DAILY BY SAN JOSE POLICE AT 5 PM / 1700 HOURS SHARP. CLAIM ABANDONED CHILDREN AT SJPD SOUTH SUBSTATION."
"NO ADULTS PAST THIS POINT WITHOUT BADGE AND BACKGROUND CHECK ON FILE. FORCE AUTHORIZED."
One of our largest guards, in full riot gear including ironwood staff and plywood shield that were not a joke, was next to that sign.
A solar panel was deployed with a 12 volt battery and a DC-DC inverter to charge 9 volt batteries for the two scan wands. We would take it inside every night and set it up each morning.
Past the security checkpoint, both outside and inside, the Client employees were setting up their stations. Registration, Triage, Decontamination, Medical. Then Feeding. Then Assessment. Finally the student would be assigned to a classroom and given a curriculum and classwork. But likely not homework. Not with every type of supply in such short supply.
A team was already on the roof cutting skylights with hole saws and installing soda bottles full of water and caulking around the edges. This was a school that would have to operate without power.
Another team was wrestling with the point to point microwave link that would give the school very basic network access. Company E-mail and tactical comms at first - light years ahead of anywhere else.
We had plans for E-mail access, allowing student devices to surf a locally provided "sandbox" (i.e. Wikipedia), and charging once we had reliable power. But that would depend on what Facilities could do with the existing school equipment.
By 1000 hours we had the basics, at least from a security perspective. We had a perimeter. We had an interior from which all unauthorized persons had been removed, never to return. We had separated the school into 'safe' (i.e. swept for fallout) and 'not checked' (i.e. unsafe) areas. We had overwatch and a reaction plan.
The first students arrived, brought by of all things taxicab. (I found out later that vouchers had been involved.)
Parents and children signed in and were searched. No weapons were found.
We were not feeding parents. Sorry. We were feeding children.
Under the cover of our security, a single and suicidally brave Santa Clara County social services caseworker was willing to meet with parents, especially pregnant ones, and try to get them some sort of assistance. She worked with pencil and donated binder paper in site binders that we'd duct taped back together before providing to her.
"Medical emergency, Triage," my radio squawked.
I responded, as did the one medic we'd brought with us.
Even I could see that something was wrong with the boy. He stared listlessly into the middle distance. He did not respond when anyone talked to him.
The parent had no explanation. "He's always been like that." The boy flinched.
Then I saw the bruises. The medic met my eyes and gave that sideways glance confirming what I was seeing. And confirming the identity of the perpetrator.
What I knew well, from my own childhood that I never talk about.
That was it.
Everyone has their breaking point. Their moment. The moment when PTD becomes PTSD. When there's been too many bodies, too much gunfire, too many times you've pissed and crapped yourself, too many people bleeding out under your hands, too many pulses falling to zero. Too many burned and broken kids to be able to handle seeing a battered one.
My entire team backed way off. They saw it in my stance and in my face. I asked George later.
"Yeah, boss, we've learned that's when you start killing people."
But I wasn't going to kill anyone in a school.
I put a big, hearty arm around the man's neck.
"Let's go have a talk, sir," I said as I dragged him along.
My right hand just happened to find his right wrist, and around the corner out of sight of the child my grip became a control hold, wrenching it behind his back as I pushed him forward.
I kept pushing, off balance, until we reached the outer entrance area. Then I tripped him into the concrete, right where his face would meet the edge of the curb.
Sadly he put his arm up in time, breaking it instead of his nose.
I searched him ruthlessly, piling the contents of his pockets.
Drugs. Money - actual bluebacks. No ID.
I left the crap where it lay. He wouldn't be needing it.
I wrenched him up by his yet unbroken arm.
"I'm going on break, Sharon. Take over."
"Sir yes sir," she squawked, terrified.
The man and I kept walking, out onto the wild and wooly streets of San Jose. He may or may not have babbled something. I was not listening. I was hearing red. I was seeing red.
I was red. The world: red. Bring the red. It's all red. Don't paint it black.
Paint it red.
So I did.
###
Well, this was awkward.
Something that once had been human was mewling at my feet, amid the accumulated dust and debris.
My knife was red, my hands and arms were red. Somewhere in there I'd removed my clothing - it was hung up neatly on the entrance of the trash enclosure, armor and blouse and pants.
I looked him over clinically. Unsalvageable.
So I stabbed him in the back of the head and he swiftly died.
I cut off his clothing. Then I sectioned his limbs. There wasn't much blood, he'd already lost most of it.
Last was the head. I'd never decapitated a man before, but once I found a gap between vertebrae, it was surprisingly easy.
###
The man looked at me - cradling his broken arm in his good arm.
I looked at him, my hand on my knife.
"You no longer have a son. Do you understand?"
He stared.
"You are no longer a parent. If you come back, or you to claim the boy you abused, you will die horribly. I will cut you into little bits and feed you to our dogs. You no longer have a son."
He stared.
"SAY IT ASSHOLE! 'I don't have a son!'"
I flicked out the knife.
"I ... I don't have a son."
"AGAIN!"
"I don't have a son. I don't have a son! I DON'T HAVE A SON!!!"
I put the knife away and walked contemptuously past him.
###
I returned to the entrance. I went to Registration.
"I'm sorry, the suspect escaped."
Everyone shivered.
My hands were clean.
The only red was in my mind.
But that was enough.
