GWOT Crunchy Roll
Nov. 19th, 2018 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT Crunchy Roll
I am in my mandatory weekly counseling session with Dr. Betty Rize.
Ribald speculation has it that our counseling is horizontal in nature. This is all on her ... and I know for a fact in several cases that there is no slander of her virtue here. Even if I hadn't stooped to talking to Janitorial, which knows everything about everyone.
As for why I have weekly mandatory counseling with the campus psychotherapist, that is merely the cover story. It's actually the other way around - she is the one compelled to meet with me.
For an hour, we blissfully ignore patient confidentiality while she vents about her week, tells me about patients who are on the verge of losing it, smokes a spliff (a recent innovation courtesy of our bomb tech) and flirts with me. I don't let it get very far.
For once it's a light week. Only three potential suicides; people are starting to get a handle on their shit; and Betty is of all things introspective rather than faking enthusiasm over life threatening suicidal ideation. Hers, you understand. Or maybe you don't. Hell, it's complicated.
"So, [Echo 18], let's pretend you're actually seeing me for counseling. Anything bothering you?"
I blink a little. But turnabout is fair play.
"Yeah... a funny thing happened during one of those early convoys."
###
"Taking fire!" Sharon barked from the gunner's ring of the Hate Truck. George was driving for her, which was a good thing because he'd neatly made a sharp left turn around two J-barriers and an abandoned UPS truck.
I was solo in the chase truck. My driver was in the back trying to hold pressure on his own wounds - we'd had to do a fire drill type swap under fire, and no chance to stop long enough to do a good job.
We'd sent the shuttle bus back with the other truck and the tail gunner, which was a damn good thing because we'd bit off more than we could chew.
I'd decided to push north, to check a couple addresses of distribution centers and do a little route reconnaissance. But this was turning into somewhere between a Mogadishu mile and a Spandau ballet. Those aren't good things.
"Break contact south!" I ordered as I did my best to stay on the rear bumper of the Hate Truck.
As we were not shooting back, we were the more attractive target between the two vehicles.
"How you doing back there, John?"
No reply. Shit.
"We need to laager up, I've got a casualty," I repeated again.
"No can do," George barked as we skidded together through another turn.
A glance in the rear view mirror told me why. We were being pursued by two pickup trucks, beds full of shooters. If we stopped they would turn us into leaky colanders.
We were now wrong-way down a one lane road, headed for a particular freeway bridge that lacked on and off ramps - and therefore should not have a checkpoint.
Shit. Checkpoint. No flashing lights. So not police. I looked again.
"Punch it!" I ordered.
We made the final turn before the bridge. I heard a weak moan from the back and smelled copper.
That wasn't good.
As the Hate Truck sailed up the bridge, we saw that there were some shopping carts at the top. And tents. And people. And we were going to plow right the fuck through them.
George started hitting his horn, which on the Hate Truck was extremely loud, and then flicked on the technically illegal siren as well.
I followed closely in the path of the Hate Truck. I held the steering wheel hard as we went over heavy spine-jarring bumps. Thud, thud, thud.
We kept going and screams dopplered behind us. I checked my mirror. Our pursuers had stopped, or at least weren't driving through the encampment the way we had.
On the other side, we made two more turns and George double tapped his brakes. We both went to a herringbone stop and Sharon dismounted and ran over to my vehicle.
"Fuck," she said as she climbed in the back and started shoving gauze into John's open wounds.
"Roll!" I ordered on radio, and George perforce did.
John died on the way back.
###
"How do you feel?" Betty asked.
"It was fucking stupid. It was a waste of time and life."
"Did you know that before you decided to do the recon?"
"No." And we'd learned from it. We'd gotten the armored trucks. We'd rolled bigger convoys. We'd done more route recon, at different times of day and even on occasion at night. We'd started developing an external agent network, later transformed into the Working Group. John hadn't died for nothing.
But he had died, horribly, and I had been too busy driving to staunch his wounds and save his life.
"How do you feel about the encampment?" Betty asked, a note of curiosity in her voice.
"What? Our perimeter camp? It's a necessary evil ..."
"No. The people you and George had to run down."
"What should I feel about them?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
"They were stupid. They were in the way. I have no idea..."
No, I did know. They were up on the overpass so they could see threats coming from both sides. They were just trying to stay alive in a world turned mad. Just like us.
"..." I continued briefly, then stopped.
"What would have happened if you hadn't ordered George to go through?"
"Curtains." Given a static platform to fire from, and unarmored vehicles for targets, the pursuers would have killed us in moments.
"So you decided their lives weren't as important as ours. And you've made that decision every day since the Firecracker."
"Huh?"
"If you'll recall, the only reason I'm still alive is because you took rude and very personal exception to my chosen exit strategy. So if you'd allowed them to gun you down, you'd have lost four people in exchange for idiots who camped at the top of an overpass. Plus me. Plus everyone else you've saved since, which is essentially the current campus head count."
I nodded. I'd still had to hear them go _crunch_ under my tires.
Those are the choices you make, in Apocalypse.
I am in my mandatory weekly counseling session with Dr. Betty Rize.
Ribald speculation has it that our counseling is horizontal in nature. This is all on her ... and I know for a fact in several cases that there is no slander of her virtue here. Even if I hadn't stooped to talking to Janitorial, which knows everything about everyone.
As for why I have weekly mandatory counseling with the campus psychotherapist, that is merely the cover story. It's actually the other way around - she is the one compelled to meet with me.
For an hour, we blissfully ignore patient confidentiality while she vents about her week, tells me about patients who are on the verge of losing it, smokes a spliff (a recent innovation courtesy of our bomb tech) and flirts with me. I don't let it get very far.
For once it's a light week. Only three potential suicides; people are starting to get a handle on their shit; and Betty is of all things introspective rather than faking enthusiasm over life threatening suicidal ideation. Hers, you understand. Or maybe you don't. Hell, it's complicated.
"So, [Echo 18], let's pretend you're actually seeing me for counseling. Anything bothering you?"
I blink a little. But turnabout is fair play.
"Yeah... a funny thing happened during one of those early convoys."
###
"Taking fire!" Sharon barked from the gunner's ring of the Hate Truck. George was driving for her, which was a good thing because he'd neatly made a sharp left turn around two J-barriers and an abandoned UPS truck.
I was solo in the chase truck. My driver was in the back trying to hold pressure on his own wounds - we'd had to do a fire drill type swap under fire, and no chance to stop long enough to do a good job.
We'd sent the shuttle bus back with the other truck and the tail gunner, which was a damn good thing because we'd bit off more than we could chew.
I'd decided to push north, to check a couple addresses of distribution centers and do a little route reconnaissance. But this was turning into somewhere between a Mogadishu mile and a Spandau ballet. Those aren't good things.
"Break contact south!" I ordered as I did my best to stay on the rear bumper of the Hate Truck.
As we were not shooting back, we were the more attractive target between the two vehicles.
"How you doing back there, John?"
No reply. Shit.
"We need to laager up, I've got a casualty," I repeated again.
"No can do," George barked as we skidded together through another turn.
A glance in the rear view mirror told me why. We were being pursued by two pickup trucks, beds full of shooters. If we stopped they would turn us into leaky colanders.
We were now wrong-way down a one lane road, headed for a particular freeway bridge that lacked on and off ramps - and therefore should not have a checkpoint.
Shit. Checkpoint. No flashing lights. So not police. I looked again.
"Punch it!" I ordered.
We made the final turn before the bridge. I heard a weak moan from the back and smelled copper.
That wasn't good.
As the Hate Truck sailed up the bridge, we saw that there were some shopping carts at the top. And tents. And people. And we were going to plow right the fuck through them.
George started hitting his horn, which on the Hate Truck was extremely loud, and then flicked on the technically illegal siren as well.
I followed closely in the path of the Hate Truck. I held the steering wheel hard as we went over heavy spine-jarring bumps. Thud, thud, thud.
We kept going and screams dopplered behind us. I checked my mirror. Our pursuers had stopped, or at least weren't driving through the encampment the way we had.
On the other side, we made two more turns and George double tapped his brakes. We both went to a herringbone stop and Sharon dismounted and ran over to my vehicle.
"Fuck," she said as she climbed in the back and started shoving gauze into John's open wounds.
"Roll!" I ordered on radio, and George perforce did.
John died on the way back.
###
"How do you feel?" Betty asked.
"It was fucking stupid. It was a waste of time and life."
"Did you know that before you decided to do the recon?"
"No." And we'd learned from it. We'd gotten the armored trucks. We'd rolled bigger convoys. We'd done more route recon, at different times of day and even on occasion at night. We'd started developing an external agent network, later transformed into the Working Group. John hadn't died for nothing.
But he had died, horribly, and I had been too busy driving to staunch his wounds and save his life.
"How do you feel about the encampment?" Betty asked, a note of curiosity in her voice.
"What? Our perimeter camp? It's a necessary evil ..."
"No. The people you and George had to run down."
"What should I feel about them?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
"They were stupid. They were in the way. I have no idea..."
No, I did know. They were up on the overpass so they could see threats coming from both sides. They were just trying to stay alive in a world turned mad. Just like us.
"..." I continued briefly, then stopped.
"What would have happened if you hadn't ordered George to go through?"
"Curtains." Given a static platform to fire from, and unarmored vehicles for targets, the pursuers would have killed us in moments.
"So you decided their lives weren't as important as ours. And you've made that decision every day since the Firecracker."
"Huh?"
"If you'll recall, the only reason I'm still alive is because you took rude and very personal exception to my chosen exit strategy. So if you'd allowed them to gun you down, you'd have lost four people in exchange for idiots who camped at the top of an overpass. Plus me. Plus everyone else you've saved since, which is essentially the current campus head count."
I nodded. I'd still had to hear them go _crunch_ under my tires.
Those are the choices you make, in Apocalypse.
