Lobo Malo

Chapter 19 - Huff

The Theater
0732 EST

"This is gonna suck," mutter Ryckmen softly. The layout of the District Union Arena before him was dangerously incomplete, based off scavenged fliers, a few video clips still playable on portable devices, and recollections of the few surviving sports fans who'd been there more than once in their lives. One of Sawyer's recovery teams had tried to find the building blueprints, but discovered the records office had been completely burned out. Worse, the plans hadn't been digitized, which meant ISAC couldn't pull them up for inspection.

"Fog of war, Lowell," Sawyer said philosophically, putting a tin cup of coffee next to his elbow. "We're not guaranteed to know the terrain all the time."

Ryckmen stuck his tongue out at her. "You do know that was one of my many jobs in the 10th Mountain, right? Finding out the terrain so the rest of the guys would know what they were getting into before the shooting started?"

"Yeah, yeah. Probably went uphill both ways in the snow, too."

"Well, there was that one job..." Ryckmen began, causing Sawyer to laugh.

"It's good to see you finding the humor in things again, snake."

"Let's not get too ahead out of ourselves, Oddball," said Ryckmen in a gently warning tone. "I'm not likely to start showing up at open mic nights around here."

"You stewing about the Hyenas or something else?"

"You know the something else."

Sawyer sighed softly, drinking from her own coffee cup. "Is Peace wrong?"

"I want him to be wrong!" Ryckmen snarled, smashing his hand against the map table, sloshing some of the coffee. "Jesus, Odessa, everything has fallen apart. I am sick and fucking tired of watching it all crumble in front of me. I get it. We're in this 'for the duration.' But I don't think anybody anticipated 'the duration' lasting this long. This isn't some nice neat little war against a foreign threat we can rally around. This isn't even like the Civil War with Yanks and Rebs sharing food and stories between battles. The brass certainly didn't anticipate the lunatics like Joe Ferro and Emeline Shaw coming out of the woodwork, and probably figured full bore traitors like Charles Bliss and Antwon Ridgeway would have been put up against the wall sooner rather than later." He shook his head slowly. "It's getting harder and harder for me to keep the faith, Odessa. And right now, I gotta believe Ellis is the President and exactly that much is right with the world. Because anything else is likely to get me, Peace, and everybody else killed." A hard, almost pitiless, expression came over Ryckmen's face. "I've lost too many people already because of this debacle. And I'm not going to be taking any unwarranted risks with the people I've got left."

"Nobody's asking you to, Lowell, at least not outside of yourself. But be honest. How many times have we been harmed by the people supposedly on our side? How many ops have been blown because some dumb shit couldn't maintain basic trigger discipline? To say nothing of the suits and REMFs throwing bureaucratic grit in the gears? Lowell, you really do have to worry more about your friends than you do your enemies."

"Why do you think I'm so frustrated with Paxton?" Ryckmen growled softly, causing Sawyer's eyebrows to shoot up.

"I'm gonna pretend for a moment you did not just say that," she said coldly. "There's friends and then there's real friends. Buddies, comrades, the guys we trust out on the sharp end with our lives. Has Peace done anything to make you think he's trying, even unintentionally, to fuck you over?"

"The last week or two, he's been seriously damaging my normally Zen-like calm, Odessa. And that is a bad idea. Particularly with us gearing up to put the other factions out of business for good. Do you really want to see me distracted in the middle of a firefight?"