Terran Oblivion

Chapter 13

Robert Kushner

May 30, 2203

Jacmel Safehouse

9:17 AM

One of the most difficult parts of ruling over humanity is the sheer...irrationality involved with them.

That's the reason why Marxism fails.  You can't science the stupid out of people.

How many nations have been lost because a ruler couldn't think with his head instead of his penis?   How many people murdered promising people because of stupid arguments?   I could go on and on.

Humanity is a mess.  We are so intelligent and yet so stupid at the same time, almost to a fault.  Yet that is what makes us so human.  The mess and all.

-The Ideal Martian State.

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"21," Robert called out.

A nameless and somewhat annoying soldier across from him groaned. "Seriously. 21?"

Robert showed his hand. A queen and an ace. "Drop the chips."

"Fine," huffed the soldier, placing some chips on the table.

Behind them, Robert felt Simon's eyes drilling into him incessantly. The two had hardly spoken in days beyond a few barely stated greetings before going about their days. Worse yet, Robert hadn't seen Courtney in days either. She didn't go with them from Port De Paix down here to Jacmel and hadn't been logged into any form of social media the whole time. Even texts did not go answered, very much unlike the woman who answered every single text within a few minutes if she was awake and as soon as she woke up when asleep. Robert always felt a bit astounded when she replied within seconds, even with a simple reaction or a funny meme that made sense to her being young but went truly over his head being incredibly old and barely able to react to all the new trends amongst the kids.

Robert took the deck and placed two cards face up on the soldier's side and one on his side while keeping one face down.

"Sixteen," he told the other guy.

"Fuck, I hate that number," said the other guy, muttering something.

"Stay or hit?"

He tapped the table. "Hit."

"Your pain," Robert mumbled and put down a card. A jack.

"Fucking shit," said the other guy. "How do you win all of these?"

"I'm not a dumbfuck like you."

Truth be told, Robert didn't want to play anything right now. He was worried and feeling the strain of being cooped up in some safehouse with the ability to really head outside except for a small garden area outside. If Courtney was here and Simon was in good spirits then perhaps this would be a fun time where he could relax, but all the worries of the world were quickly piling upon his back, making it very difficult to rest and sleep. He hadn't gotten a full night's rest in a few days.

"Well, that was harsh."

"It's true," Robert sighed. He really wanted to get a gun and blast some enemies at this point.

"When are we going to get out of here?"

Robert shrugged. "When command says that it is prudent to finally leave here and go kill some people."

The new guy was someone assigned to the unit. Robert didn't know what he did what his name was, or anything. He must have told his name at one point but it went out Robert's ears without him processing it and ever since then it would be far too awkward to ask him for his name at this point. Uniforms here also didn't have names either for safety reasons, so Robert just went without saying anything.