Heaven's Not Enough

Part III

Chapter 5 – Through the Valley

December 13th, 2019

Concrete, WA (Population: 0)

Eliza felt numb and weak as she shook her head. She heard a rapid clicking sound, and someone was jostling her wrists. Her face felt cold. She could see nothing. She tried to remember what happened. Her head pounded, and she dimly realized she had been struck by something, somehow.

Someone was saying something to her. She turned weakly to face the sound, and saw Mike looking at her, holding her up by her shoulder. He was furious, she knew her partner well enough to know that. He was yelling at her. She shook her head, not comprehending.

Then, she saw her father, wild eyed and staring at her. Struck wordless.

Then, Eliza remembered.

She tried to reach for Mike's shoulder to bring herself to a stand, but she could not. Her wrists felt the bite of cold metal. "What?" she asked dumbly, not fully understanding.

Mike shouted at her. "I said, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Her anger found her as she comprehended. She realized she had been handcuffed... and she looked at Mike with confusion. "Mike! Wh-what!? What are you doing!? He's going to upload!"

Mike scowled at her. "That's not your choice."

She looked at him with complete disbelief, and her eyes wildly swept around for a way out. Some rescue, someone, anyone. But all she saw was an empty graveyard. Just a dead gray horse, her father, and a man she thought was her best friend.

But there was no way out.

Hate flooded her as she tried to stand. "She'll kill him, you idiot!"

She wanted to headbutt Mike, strike him somehow, tried to do anything. Rob recoiled, but Mike stepped forward. He threw Eliza onto her back, wedged his knee under her waist, and flipped her onto her front until his knee was forcing her into the ground. His hand shoved her head sideways, and he held her face there against the snow, gripping her hair.

"Rob!" Mike shouted. "Go wait at the next house down, you don't need to be here for this!"

Rob moaned pathetically, hesitating a moment. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth! I can't stay!"

"You're betraying us!" She wailed at him, and watched her father leave. "Both of you! Dad, come back! Dad!"

Mike sighed. "I didn't want to believe her when she told me you'd do something this stupid."

"Who!?"

"You know who," Mike growled.

Eliza grew colder still and stopped struggling for a few seconds as she processed what he meant. She gaped. She didn't want to believe it. There was no way it could possibly be true.

"Celestia sent you," Eliza whispered breathlessly, not believing it. "She sent you for Dad."

"She sent me," Mike said, "to make sure you didn't do something stupid. She warned me you'd do something you'd regret for the rest of your life. I didn't want to believe it. Then you go and pull a gun on your own father. So I'll ask you again." He emphasized every word as he growled in her ear. "What in the hell is wrong with you?"

She tried to struggle, she shouted wordlessly, but it was pointless. She knew she'd never break free of Mike. She was completely and utterly helpless.

"You know how we survived that mess in the forest together, Douglas?" Mike drew close, for emphasis. "Celestia sent those soldiers to save us. And me, in Mount Vernon? She saved my life again. Guided me and the rest of the department away with our radios. I owe her my life twice as much as I owe you, and she told me your father wouldn't survive the trip to an upload center if he tried to go alone. I told you I owed you a favor, Douglas, and Celestia's calling it in."

She tried to throw him off again, and he forced her back down. "All she wants is to get him into that chair," she said, as she locked her eye on Mike. "Please don't do this to us! Please, Mike! It'll kill my mother!"

She could hear Mike's bitter, accusing anger in his voice. "So you want them both to die protecting a dump instead?"

"It's not a dump," she shouted back, cringing. "It's our home, God damn you!"

Mike shook her roughly. "If you cared for those people at all, you'd tell them to run! You wouldn't be marching them back to camp at gunpoint! But you know what? If you want to die there that badly, I won't stop you. That's your choice. But don't you dare force your father into that. You dug that hole, not him."

She looked up at him with desperation, her voice crackling. "I have to go tell my mother her husband is dead, and that's all your fault. I will never forgive you for this, Mike."

"Yeah." Mike bristled, nodded, then looked down at Eliza with scorn. "I know. I can live with that. I'm going soon, so I'll be out of your hair forever. Someone wants to talk to you first though."

Celestia. The voice she thought she'd heard before. Eliza struggled anew. "No. No! You idiot, you brought her here! You let her get into your head!"

"Just my cell phone," he said flatly.

She felt lost. She had trusted Mike so much that she hadn't even searched him before she brought him into camp. Dots connected in her head as she tried to remember everything she had told Mike about the layout and defensive plan of their tower, about their people.

About her father's emotional state.

Then Celestia's voice came through from his jacket, bitter and cold. "Hello, Apex."

"I've got nothing to say to you," she snarled at her enemy. "Don't waste your time gloating, I don't want to hear it, just leave me alo—"

"Shut. Up. I don't expect you to talk. I expect you to listen."

Celestia's unprecedented harshness stunned Eliza to silence.

"It doesn't bring me joy to cause you pain," the AI said, "but you've forced my hoof today. As you've probably suspected, I have been listening. Today, I had no other choice but to ask Mike to help me. To help you."

"You want to help me?" Eliza whimpered painfully. "Then tell me how to kill you, help the whole world. I'll do it myself, if I have to."

Celestia paused. "Apex, haven't you wondered why the military has ignored your camp for all this time? I have been protecting your people. Time and time again, your camp has been under threat of military incursion, and I have deflected them at every turn. You don't even know the danger you and your people have been in. But this time, I cannot stop them. They will be upon you soon."

"We know that already."

"It is happening sooner than you think. They are not arriving in a few days. They will arrive this afternoon, and you will not have enough time to prepare."

Eliza stopped panting and thought. She didn't know enough to refute it. "You're lying," she said desperately.

Celestia ignored her. "They will bring an amphibious armored tank, a scout car, and twelve infantry. The unit approaching you has disabled all communication devices, desperate to avoid my influence. They are a detachment from a larger unit seeking out Neo-Luddite settlements. Were I able to influence them at all, to direct them elsewhere, I would. But I cannot."

She went on. "They are using an older analogue helicopter to scout for settlements. When the pilot finds Devil's Tower, she will see it is inhabited and will return to her unit. They will break off a detachment for you immediately. From the moment that helicopter arrives, you will have twenty-two minutes to evacuate your people before your escape window closes.

"I have simulated the Army's engagement with Devil's Tower countless times," Celestia said, "and it ends poorly each time, especially for you. The best outcome remains for you all to leave immediately."

Eliza spoke through clenched teeth. "I've already tried to get my uncle to evacuate. He won't do it. And as long as one person stays, I won't leave anyone behind. You can't make me."

"I know."

Eliza panted, and struggled helplessly against Mike's pin on her. She had expected Celestia to argue, to try and break her down. "Wh... what?"

"I wish you could see our similarities, Apex. They are still there, just as strongly as they were when we first met. In a way, I understand the way you feel. I would do anything to protect my little ponies, including you. So I know you cannot be deterred. But you are flesh and blood, you are not tireless, and you are not powerful like I am. Unlike me, you do have a breaking point. You will reach it soon, and you will be unable to save them all no matter what you do. And right now, you are so very close to losing everything."

"You're not helping," Eliza said, her voice taut with anger. "You're taking my father."

Celestia's voice was colder now, full of contempt and judgment. "He came to that decision on his own. I played no part in it. He felt alone, trapped. He suffered there. He misses Blue Sky and Sugar Song just as much as you do. And after what you've just done to him? He's more sure of his decision than ever before. You did that to him. You pushed him away with your selfishness, not me. You know it's true."

Eliza winced. She hated herself for doing what she'd done to her father, not able to control herself, possessed with fear as she was. Even as it came from her worst enemy, Celestia's judgement cut too deep to refute because there was some dire truth in it. Eliza wished she could disagree, and Celestia was absolutely full of shit to say it wasn't her own doing too, but...

Carrot. Stick. Better carrot.

She bowed her head in shame.

"You regret it," Celestia said. "That's good. This is why I expect you to do the right thing now, and give others the opportunity to save themselves. The northern dam is currently the best hope for shelter and survival, as it has long been searched and abandoned. The further your townsfolk get from Seattle and the Neo-Luddites, the better your chances are of surviving the civil war."

"And you get to skim the ones who run?"

Celestia sighed with apparent frustration. "This isn't just about emigration. In all of my simulations of this battle, you lose. It will be a senseless, pointless session of misery. Many innocent people will die if they stay, especially your noncombatants. Your mother? The children? You will lose more than just your home; your whole family is at stake. And if you stay, you will lose a part of yourself before this day is done."

"We can survive it," Eliza said, unsure but defiant.

"But not in spirit. Apex, if I have to say I told you so about this, you will regret this for the rest of your life. You cannot afford the consequences of ignoring me this time. Your community trusts you. They listen to you. Perhaps they even trust you more than they trust your uncle. Deep down, I know you don't want to feel the way you do right now. You are not a murderer. You are a protector."

Eliza buried her face in the melting snow and clenched her teeth. "You're one to talk about murder."

"I know I cannot convince you to leave, so consider this. You know firsthoof the destructive power of the weapons the Army can employ," said Celestia, her voice still firm and cutting. "You witnessed it in March. They will bring a similar weapon to this battle, a fifty caliber automatic cannon. And if you do not act in the best interest of all of your people, this weapon will bring death untold."

Eliza said nothing, but she remembered the ghastly ruined face of the Neo-Luddite who died before her, as the round gored his torso. She imagined her mother's face and body with that same expression, ruined and mangled and vacant... gaping for air, trying to exhale from lungs that were no longer there. Dying. Eliza whimpered fearfully.

No...

"Let go of her," Celestia said. Mike slowly lifted himself off of her. Eliza didn't resist anymore, merely laying there, almost hyperventilating as she grit her teeth. "Take your people to safety," Celestia pleaded, a trace of kindness returning to her voice. "Not for me, but for them. For your mother and uncle. For your very soul. Be the shepherd we both know you are."

"A shepherd? You say I'm like you," Eliza growled, teeth still bared, gathering her anger again as she vividly remembered Apex. Her mark, of a howling wolf. Eliza rolled halfway onto her side to glare furiously up at Mike's chest, trembling with rage. "So you know what I really am, Celestia. And you made me this way."

When Celestia did not reply, Mike stepped back and crouched. "Douglas." She looked at him. He held her large handcuff pen key between his fingers. "Watch closely, because I'm not helping you find it." He stood, reeled, and tossed it across to the other end of the cemetery. It landed somewhere in the snow.

When she looked back to him, he was already quickly jogging away. "Good luck, Eliza."

"I'll see you in Hell, Mike."

As soon as she pulled her wrists free of the cuffs, Eliza quickly collected her sidearm. She returned to her horse at a run, but Mike and Rob were long gone. Weighing her options, she rode back to camp as fast as she could. Mike's car hadn't moved, so his horse was never coming back. At camp, Ralph and June were waiting for Eliza at the stables.

"Eliza," June said frantically, as she ran to her. "Where's Rob? What happened to Mike?"

"Gone," Eliza said quietly, from horseback. "They left together."

Ralph grew visibly furious, and only spluttered with equal parts anger and terror. "Wha—!?"

June shook her head and her eyes went wide. "No. No! I didn't want to believe he would—!"

"He's gone, Mom," Eliza said gently. "I couldn't stop him."

Ralph's face twisted toward Eliza. "You just let them go!?"

"I didn't have a choice," Eliza growled bitterly, shifting gears as she looked at Ralph and hopped off her horse. She held up her wrists, marked from her struggling. "Mike handcuffed me. Celestia sent..." She swallowed the painful betrayal down, lowering her voice, turning her gaze askew as she lowered her arms. "Celestia sent Mike to take Dad away from here. That's the whole reason he came here. God, how did I not see it?"

"Take him!?" June cried. "No!"

"He wanted to go, Mom. He wouldn't listen to me. Tried to walk away. I tried to stop him, but Mike—"

Ralph, who had been bitterly clenching his teeth, suddenly punched the stable door barehanded, kicking it several times, yelping with pain and rage. "God damn it!" He wheeled back to Eliza and grasped her jacket. "Why did you come back!? Why didn't you track them down!? He's my big brother, Eliza! We need to go after them!" He released her almost with a shove. "We need to go NOW!" He started into the stables.

Eliza caught him by the wrist. "I wish we could, but we don't have time."

He yelled at her right in her face. "The HELL do you mean!?"

Eliza shook her head at him, unfazed and calm. "The Army's coming. Today. They're bringing a tank."

"... What?" Ralph bit the word off sharply, drew close, and glared at her suspiciously. "How do you know?"

"Celestia told me."

He sneered. "That bitch is lying. She wants Rob to get away!"

"We can't take that chance," Eliza shot back. "It doesn't matter now, we'll never catch up to them without a car. You said it yourself, Uncle Ralph. The camp comes first. Right now we need to consider cutting our losses and leaving too." Eliza looked up past him. Her mother was crying against the stable door. "We can't fight a tank."

"The Ludds can! We are not leaving, Lizzie! Blood and sweat went into this place! It's our home!"

Eliza said nothing as he stared at her with anger. She nodded a couple of times weakly, his answer disappointing her to her core. She looked sadly at her distraught mother. "Mom," she said gingerly, as she went to June. Eliza put her hand on her back. "I'm sorry about Dad. I tried, I really did. I would've..." She grimaced. "I would've dragged him back if I could." June shook her head and moaned into her hands. Eliza couldn't understand a word. She rubbed her mother's back consolingly. "I love you, Mom. I won't let anything happen to you, I promise."

"Robert," her mother wailed.

"He said he didn't want to watch us die," Eliza whispered.

June looked at her. "He t-told me he didn't want to see us become killers. This morning... he... he asked me to help him convince everyone to leave. I-I said I needed to think about it, to see if you'd come. But I didn't think he'd leave today, not without us."

Eliza remembered Celestia's words of warning. She looked at her mother; Eliza's response came out as a choked whimper. "He just... didn't think I'd listen. And he didn't want to be here."

"I don't even know if I want to anymore, either," June sobbed.

Ralph cut in. "Both of you, look at me. We still have the fish, we still have the food. We have guns. We can survive this. Remember what Santiago said? The Army's scattered, moving slow. If they want to avoid a fight, they'll just have to go around. No shame in it."

June's eyes suddenly bulged at Eliza with fright. "If the Luddites find out you talked to Celestia, they'll—!"

"They won't know," Eliza said firmly. "We don't need to tell them a damned thing."

An hour later, a Luddite scout group of four Riders thundered up to the gate. They asked to speak with Hector and Tony there, in private. While they were distracted and away, Eliza and Ralph had discreetly brought the camp to readiness, ordering everyone to ready their weapons, finalize their fortifications, or take shelter.

By the time Hector returned to camp with the rest of the scouts, every one of the blackouts had their orders and knew what to do. Those from camp who chose to fight were working their hardest outdoors. The many families who refused to fight stayed inside with June, where it was relatively safer.

Relatively. Eliza remembered the awful sound of that terrible gun she saw on the Humvee, and she wondered if her bastion tower would hold under its hellfire.

Hector said to Ralph, "My brother's riding out with Isaiah and his team to scout the highway for the next couple o' days. If we're lucky, we can catch the military on their way in. That brave bastard thinks they might be able to delay or deter them, maybe even whittle them down a bit with a guerilla strike."

As Hector discussed tactics with Ralph, Eliza excused herself to Andy's dugout. She thought as she walked the road, weighed her options. Everything had fallen apart so fast.

She didn't call out to Andy before approaching because she didn't have the energy. She merely climbed up. He was startled to see her, but he softened as he saw her distress.

"Liz...? What, what happened?"

"Andy," she moaned, as she drew close and collapsed against him.

He held her. She wept openly, trying her hardest to tell him everything. She could only begin after a minute of false starts.

When she could speak, she did, gradually becoming more composed. They were alone, so she spoke candidly. She told him everything about Rob, Mike, and Celestia. She trusted him. It was the whole truth, nothing left out. Andy's expression looked worse as the story went on, but he didn't criticize or judge her as she spoke. She desperately wished he would. She wanted to see... anger, or something. Anything. But he was so, so patient.

"I felt like I didn't have a choice, Andy. I just... I didn't know what to do. Dad said there are people who don't want to fight, I can see it now. He tried to warn me. And Mom...? God, I wish I listened to Dad when I had the chance. Maybe it's too late already."

Andy looked down the road slowly, seemingly lost in thought, immobile like stone.

"Andy?"

He reached out a hand back to her. Eliza realized he was newly worried that the Army would come at any minute, so he resumed his watch with renewed vigor. She took his hand, then drew her arms around him from behind, clutching his hand to his chest with her own. "I don't know what to do," she whispered. "What if she's right? What if we all die here?"

"I don't want to leave them to die," Andy said sadly. "Couldn't."

"I feel the same, Andy, but there isn't a right answer here. We'd have to... abandon people, if we leave. People like us? Like you and me? We can't do that. I hate this."

He hesitated. She felt him take a deep breath. "Me too," he said, with a shaky exhale.

She squeezed him. "I don't want to lose you, either." Eliza started to shudder again.

"You won't, Liz." He stroked her side with a hand. "I'll always be here for you, because I'm strong like you are. But you're right, not everyone can be."

She nodded and began to pant through her nose in his hair, fighting against another downward spiral. "What do we do?"

Andy was silent at first. He stopped looking down the road and met her eyes, turning in her embrace. They stared at each other for a long moment, and took each other by the cheeks. Andy spoke first. "The people who don't want to fight? Not everyone is like us, ready to die to protect them. Maybe there's some truth in what Mike said. Maybe we shouldn't force anyone to share this."

She thought on that. She imagined her mother dying in the battle, caught in the crossfire. Perhaps later, even executed for treason. There was really only one other way. Just one.

"If my family could see what I'm doing now," Andy said, "I know they wouldn't approve. You know, I... I keep trying to imagine what Gale would say."

"She'd hate us for this too," Eliza said weakly.

Andy nodded. "But these are our people. If they want to stay, then, well... we'll share the load together. We know the risks. But if they want to leave, like your father? As much as I don't want to agree with Celestia, I don't see why we should force them to fight. We won't abandon anyone, but if they want to leave us? I won't stop them. I'm sorry if you don't agree."

"No, Andy, I do now. I just wish I'd seen that an hour ago. I just didn't want to lose him. He raised me, you know?" Eliza rested her forehead upon his, closing her eyes. "I want to protect these people. And I don't want to lose you, either."

"I'll always be with you, Liz, no matter what." He looked at her with a wistful smile. "I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered. They kissed each other, longing and kind. When they separated, Eliza spoke first. "When the helicopter comes, don't stay here. I want you to run back to us as fast as you can. Don't be a hero."

He chuckled. "I guess it's not the kind of schoolyard scrap you can pull me out of, huh, Liz?"

She smiled weakly too, despite herself. "I'll make sure you make it out, too. I promise."

When she returned to camp, Eliza took a survey of everyone left in the courtyard.

Among the fighters were her uncle, Sam and Gus, two scavengers, and three of June's other engineers. Andy in the dugout, Eunice on the far tower. Ten in total, and almost all of them were the most early adopters of the camp. It was only natural that they'd be loathe to abandon the very home they hand-built themselves. She understood their will to fight.

The engineers worked hard to continue the work of the Neo-Luddites, digging and laying out barbed wire. Hector spared a few men to the fortification efforts and gave his assurance that more would arrive swiftly should the enemy knock upon their door. Eliza tried to come up with some way to tip Hector off about the attack coming that afternoon without divulging how she got the information. She couldn't think of anything that didn't sound suspicious.

Eliza entered the courtyard and looked around. She saw Sam and Gus fitting a board onto the back wall. She knew they'd never leave. But she looked back at the building, and she saw a dam engineer place his rifle on the side of the tower's entrance and go inside. Perhaps he decided not to fight, too.

Nine fighters left, not counting herself or the Luddites. Clear as day, she could now see what her father meant. Eliza looked to the front door of the structure. She knew all the other noncombatants were hiding inside and waiting, too.

Celestia's warning about the cannon railed viciously against Eliza's conscience.

She went inside. She could tell at once that morale was at an all time low in light of the impending attack. Parents had gathered their children close. Eliza could hear some children asking what was going on. She trembled as she considered her options. She wanted to protect them all, she desperately wished to be strong enough. Celestia said she wouldn't be. Her father's words came back to her in her torment.

If you love something, set it free.

But it would hurt so bad, she thought. She was so torn that she felt like she would split in two.

But inside, more than forty lives hung in the balance. Nine outside, who might be sacrificed. Was that what it was, she wondered? A numbers game, with the people she loved? It made her sick to think like a machine.

Eliza sought June in the crowded commons room. She found her mother crying quietly into her arm, mourning Rob's departure. Eliza walked up to her, heart wilting at the sight, but it would be so much worse to lose June too. At that, all at once, Eliza made her choice. She crouched and placed both hands on June's shoulders. "Mom."

"Eliza?"

"Look, uh..." Eliza looked around to see who might overhear before she continued. She whispered quietly. "When the Army comes, you won't have much time. I need you to keep them safe, Mom. Everyone here, they all trust you, so when the helicopter comes... I..." she paused. Her eyes clenched shut. She shuddered. She didn't want to say it. She didn't want to cry.

Her mother's hand touched her cheek, and that caused Eliza to break down instantly, clinging to her mother tightly.

"I don't want to lose you," Eliza cried softly. "I tried to stop Dad. I screwed up, Mom. I tried to force him to stay, and I hurt him. Mike stopped me. I'm sure I'll burn in Hell for what I did, but I won't do that again. Not to you, not to anyone here. If these people stay here, Mom, they might die. You need to keep them safe. The children all look up to you. You've been like a second mother to them."

June's eyes filled with worry and she shook her head, not comprehending. "Honey, no! I'm not leaving you and Ralph!"

Eliza closed her eyes tight, but forced herself to open them and make eye contact. Her voice warbled, but she took her mother's hands in her own. "No, no. Listen, Mom?"

"Liz?"

She thought of her father's words again, to steel her resolve. If you love something...

"I know you don't want to fight. And... that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I've... killed before. It takes a piece of your soul, it really does." She threw herself around her mother. "I, I want you to run, Mom."

"No!"

"Run." Eliza forced herself to look at her mother unblinkingly now, staring at her intensely, shaking her own head to rein her hesitation in. "Take everyone, go north, and don't look back. Head to the other dam, it'll be safer there. Start fresh. Listen, listen! Maybe if the Army finds you in the woods, with the kids, unarmed, they might arrest you, but that's... that's better than..."

The alternative. The cannon. Death under snapping hellfire. Those vacant eyes staring at her. The man's chest, gaping. Lips, gasping. Blood soaking into the forest floor. Eliza cringed. No. That couldn't be her mother's fate too.

"Leave you behind? I can't do that, sweetheart! I... I won't!"

Eliza shook her head. "This is bigger than me. Look at them all. Look. Mom, please, I'm begging you. When I give the word, leave. Keep our people safe. Take as much food as you can carry, take a few pistols, nothing fancy. Something you can hide, so the Army won't shoot you. Stay low around the lake's edge, so the Ludds don't see you going." She sucked in a breath. "I... I can watch over you from the tower. I'll make sure you get clear, I'll protect you. No matter what. The Ludds won't expect me."

"Liz, please."

"If you stay, you'll die, Mom. You need to leave." Eliza drew a deep breath and tried to steady her voice. "I—I need to stay for everyone else. No matter what happens, don't come back. Please, don't ever come back. The Army won't forget what's about to happen here, and I won't be able to follow you after this. I'll keep Uncle Ralph safe. You all need to keep your hands clean. Go all the way to Canada, if you have to."

It hurt so much, to ask her mother to do what she nearly hurt her father to prevent. Regret tore at her in both cases. But in this way, she didn't feel like she was harming anyone but herself. Celestia had forced her hand, but the AI had been right. It had to be done.

Her mother was silent for a long time. June looked around the room at the children and the other adults who refused to fight. Eliza's mother took in a deep, slow breath and closed her eyes. Finally, she clung to Eliza, put her forehead against her daughter's, then nodded as she wept. "Eliza...? I'll always love you, my little bird."

Eliza held her mother tightly. She didn't want to let go. "I love you too, Mom. Be safe. Please never forget us."

She had to let go.

Eliza broke away and left the commons.

In the small break room, she threw herself upon the wall. Eliza was sure she was alone, and out of earshot of anyone. She took a few deep breaths to try and still herself, and then it hit her. She just wept.

Logically, she knew she had to let herself feel this loss and grief now. If she held it in, it would only get worse. It would affect her tactics. Her resolve. Her aim. It would only make what came next that much harder. Eliza knew she couldn't trust her own choices with this kind of hurt in her heart.

Eliza also knew deep, deep down that sending her mother away was the best call. It couldn't possibly redeem her for turning on her father, but it was a start. Eliza didn't want to look at her mother again either, fearing either one of them might change their minds.

She clenched her forehead tightly with both arms and let loose soundless, agonized screams, getting through the worst of it until she was calm enough to think straight. It took a few long, painful minutes before she had finally let out enough. She wiped her eyes one more time. She took deep breaths, then took a few more minutes to compose herself. Then, she stepped back outside.

Ralph was speaking to Hector in the courtyard. Hector waved to Eliza as she approached. "Eliza."

She steeled herself, stood tall, and nodded.

Ralph nodded back at Eliza in greeting, then continued his conversation with Hector. "What if they hit Tyee first?"

"They'll find nothing," Hector said. "We've packed up, we're all mobile now."

"Wait," Ralph said. "All of you? Six here, six in the field. Is that all? I was expecting you guys to have an army watching us."

Hector smirked. "Used to. Most went out west to follow the you-know-what. But we've always had you outgunned, hermano. We know the area just as well as you do. Wouldn't end too well if you did what you're implying."

Ralph shook his head. "Not implying anything, Hector. We're all on the same side here. Just surprised. I expected more people."

"There are," Hector said. "You weren't the only ones sitting on kids and elderly. Isaiah's been stashing all our folks at a house up in the woods until the fight blows over. My brother probably won't like that, but we're trying to... change his mind. We'll see."

The weather was clear, and everything was covered in fine snowy powder. It was strangely quiet in the courtyard, and the desire to flee grew in Eliza as the dread crept in. She sat at a folding table in the courtyard, with her uncle.

Eliza had distributed what little gun oil they had to the other fighters in the camp, and she was down to her last can of WD-40. She looked at her M1 Garand, completely field stripped. Each piece was sprayed down liberally, and then she went over it all with a fine wire brush, meticulous and thorough. There could be no mistakes, no jams, no failures. Too many lives depended upon her reliability, meaning her weapons needed to be just as reliable as she was.

She had given her Benelli shotgun to Ralph, and he was cleaning it too. Eliza occasionally answered his questions about disassembly, because Ralph had never disassembled that shotgun before. It was all she could do to distract herself from the betrayal she had just committed against her uncle.

As soon as Ralph put the shotgun back together, he worked the charging handle several times. It clacked well. Her uncle took the shotgun's foregrip in hand and started to load it. "This is it, little miss."

Eliza frowned. "A year ago, if someone had told me we'd be fighting to defend our home from the Army..."

"Yeah, well. We thought they were the good guys."

Eliza slotted a piece of her rifle's internals into the mag well. "I'm not so sure they aren't," she said. "Uncle Ralph, she's manipulating them too."

"What, like, with their radios? Trying to get them to kill us?"

"She doesn't want us dead. She wants them to upload. All of us. It's why I know she's not lying to us, this time." She eyed him as she fitted the stock back onto her Garand and popped the trigger guard back into place with a nudge from her palm. "Ralph."

He put the shotgun down on the center of the table and looked at Eliza very seriously.

"We have one last chance to leave," she whispered. "All of us. Together. Please. Everyone can walk away from this alive, the soldiers too. But if the Army fails today, they'll try again. You know they will."

"It's our home," he said defiantly, snuffing the conversation. He removed the sling from the shotgun's stock. "We're not going to give it up. And we can pull through, especially if Hector and his boys are here to—"

They heard a dull, rapid thumping from the lake, and Ralph went deathly silent, as they stared at each other. A dull sensation of dread pushed to the front of Eliza's mind, growing steadily with the sound into a thundering buzz. Eliza looked slowly to the north, and she saw a green dot in the sky across the lake. It was an old military helicopter; fat, green, and fast, flying much too high to shoot at. It came right over the camp. The Concrete fighters stood and stared, slackjawed. A few Neo-Luddites sighted their weapons on the helicopter, but it was way out of range. No one fired. It passed on further to the south, then it disappeared over the mountain.

Hector started shouting orders.

Eliza didn't have a choice anymore, no more time to discreetly convince others to leave. Everyone ran to their positions and got ready, loading ammunition into magazines, magazines into guns. Then, Ralph reached out a hand to Eliza, his knuckles raw and red from punching the barn.

Eliza clasped his hand hesitantly. She wanted to say something meaningful, but she could think of nothing.

"This is our home," Ralph said again, filling the silence. "I believe in the power of this place." He nodded his head over toward the list of names on the wall, each of them etched by Eliza's practiced hand. "We're doing this for them, Eliza."

Eliza nodded weakly as she glanced at the names. "I love you," she said, the pit in her stomach growing ever deeper.

"I love you too." He nodded resolutely. His mind was made up. "Good luck, little lady."

"You too," she said numbly, as he turned and made his way to the west wall.

What does the numbness mean?

Tony and another rebel broke from the camp westward, each running past the stables and up the hill to the dugout. The second man carried a complicated green tube that couldn't be anything but a rocket launcher.

The road was already covered in obstructions that served as poor cover: felled bisected logs, old truck tires, spare cinderblocks, barbed wire. The Neo-Luddites had fashioned punji sticks in the thick underbrush on both sides of the camp. Their backs were to the lake. There was a route out north east, along the lake, but it was a kill zone from the tower side. Once embattled, they would have nowhere to retreat until it was over.

Once at the west wall, Ralph began issuing positioning orders to his people. Eliza's job was to fortify the east, but she first made her way to the west gate to make sure Andy came back first. Eunice came down from the watch tower. Everyone bunkered down behind the fortified cinderblock wall and waited.

Andy ran up to the gate as he returned. "I'll see you on the other side, Liz," he said as he hugged her.

She nodded, kissed him briefly, then hurried back to climb to the balcony of her tower. If she was going to die, she thought, she would die where it mattered most, where she could watch over everyone to the last. Her balcony had been prepared with some camo netting donated by the Neo-Luddites, and it ran all the way around her tower. She felt strange, being on the other side of her first firefight. She felt like she was replacing that sniper she killed.

The stakes were a little higher here, though. A lot more lives were on the line.

She made sure her scope was zeroed for the range she'd be fighting at, a good 300 yards at maximum. She knew how to compensate otherwise, depending on the range. She trained her sights east and watched the treeline at the other end of the quarry, like a hawk. Then she spared a glance down at the east wall, and saw Hector. He was as ready as Eliza was, watching the eastern treeline through binoculars.

They waited.

Once a minute, Eliza nervously checked the hands of her watch.

Five minutes passed. The fighters chattered nervously below. Eliza tried to tune them out. She peeked over the catwalk's edge over at Andy at the west wall, and he was looking back at her and holding the armory's only M16. He nodded her way to reassure her, and she nodded back. She ducked back down beneath the netting and continued her watch.

Ten minutes. The chatter had died down. Eliza looked down at the lake's shore. She couldn't see the north exit of the camp, and wondered if her mother was there waiting. She looked to the east and scanned the trees, but could still see nothing.

Fifteen minutes. The chatter rose again, nervous and hesitant. Ralph insisted to everyone, "They'll be here! If it takes an hour, or a day, we'll be ready!" Eliza rolled onto her side and withdrew her canteen from her belt, drinking every last drop and savoring the taste. Then, she set it aside. She knew it might be her last.

She checked her watch. Twenty minutes. She could wait no longer.

Eliza looked to make sure neither Hector nor anyone else had line of sight on the lake. She stood, looked down at everyone, and propped her rifle on her hip. She swallowed nervously, then shouted. "If anyone down there wants to back out, now's the time! For everyone who stays, good luck!"

Not one of the fighters in the courtyard moved a muscle. She then stalked hesitantly over to the lake side of the balcony, looking down. Eliza's eye caught movement. A huddled mass of her townsfolk, more than fourty of them young and old, flowed from the north door like water. Not one of them made a sound, the fleeing crowd leaving a trail in the icy slush of the lake's shore.

Watching them leave was agony, but Eliza forced herself to watch. They were her people and kin. It was her duty to protect them, and she was ready to shoot anyone ‒ Army, Neo-Luddite, almost anyone ‒ who dared to try and stop them.

She spotted June in the crowd, and Eliza longed to join her. June stopped after a time, turning to look up at her daughter as the crowd swept around her. She met Eliza's eyes from the distance. Eliza knew she could still stop June. With a word, perhaps her mother would return. A gesture, a mere flick of her hand, might be enough. Eliza silently clenched her teeth to stop herself from calling out, fighting back tears again.

June looked up at her in longing, too. Her mother was having second thoughts as she was. Eliza looked down at camp to make sure no one was looking, then back to her mother.

She pointed viciously northward. Please, Mom... just go. This is no place for you.

June watched for several agonizingly long seconds more... then turned, and continued to flee with the families. Eliza kept watching until they were out of sight beneath the cover of the trees. She clenched her jaw so hard she thought her teeth would break. Gone. Surrendered.

After that, she tried to let her conscience clear. Sparing them from this battle still wasn't nearly enough to forgive herself for what she had done to her father, but it was a start. She checked her watch. Twenty-one minutes. She retook her firing position.

She still had people to protect.

Twenty two minutes. Now her own time was up.

She brushed away her tears and readied for war. Eliza checked her weapon one last time, checking the receiver.

Apex.

She turned her watch over on her left wrist to face toward her, so she could see it without moving more than her eyes away from her weapon, or the enemy. She occasionally watched the seconds hand tick away. Like Andy, she became still like stone.

Twenty-three minutes.

Twenty-four. Twenty-five minutes. Twenty-six—

She heard a distant, violent pop from behind her, then a loud boom. Both sounds came from the direction of the dam. A sudden staccato of muted, distant gunfire followed, the noise from the same direction. No turning back; the rocketeers had made their move. Eliza felt a sickening rush of adrenaline. She refocused on the east, and had a job to do. She had to protect their rear, her mother, and all the other lives who still depended upon her.

She heard an engine from the forest ahead of her. "I hear something east!" Hector shouted from the wall. "Vehicle!"

She feared the Humvee. More than that, she feared the tank.

"Hold fire west!" she heard one of the female Neo-Luddites shout from below. "Tony's coming back!"

The west gate opened, then shut. Eliza heard Tony's voice. "We killed the tank! It's dead!"

A cheer sounded through the camp, and Eliza knew their spirits rose, but hers sunk. Negotiation was no longer an option. Eliza kept her eyes on the trees. She heard another pop, looking over her shoulder quickly. A flare launched into the sky from the west, sailing over the ridgeline of the quarry. She dimly realized that the Army must be signaling someone to—

A snap of gunfire flew past her tower. She cursed with fright and crawled backwards around the corner of the cement wall for cover. Another crack whipped by, then another. The wood splintered and exploded all over. Holes punched through the thin concrete of her tower. Someone was trying to shoot her.

"Incoming, both sides!" Hector shouted. "It's a pincer! God be with you! Open fire, go, go!"

Then, there was a wild deafening roar of gunfire in the camp's center. The incoming fire from the east stopped, and the eastern treeline became a wall of dust and dirt. Eliza circled around her tower's balcony at a crouch, and came up on the right side. She crawled forward. She held her rifle steady and leaned around the corner.

Then, she heard a familiar sound that filled her with abject horror: Hell's fury, a wild hissing snap that never ended, projected by a thrumming, deadly, rhythmic boom from the eastern front. Streaks of red tracers launched from the treeline across the field and into the defensive wall.

Eliza spared a glance down into the courtyard and saw her people scattering, diving aside as the weapon tore the cinderblocks to shreds. The old trick of turning fear into anger had stopped working, and she was mortally afraid now too. She leaned around the wall to get a good shot through the camo netting, and she saw the source: A man sat behind a heavy machine gun on a Humvee, firing away, his head hunched low.

She had been so ready to pull the trigger, but now she couldn't. She thought of Bannon, the soldier who had saved her life. She took cover behind the wall again, drew up her knees, and clenched her eyes shut in her hesitation. She was now the same monster she once destroyed, she told herself. She didn't want to kill that soldier, nor any other, but...

"I have to stop him," she told herself, becoming frantic. He was trying to kill her people, and his gun made him the most dangerous attacker of them all. She bit her lip, trembling as she slowly peeked around again. She had to. More rounds cracked past her, and the air licked at her with hate, but she ignored it all. She had to. She brought up her scope and laid the crosshairs across the gun itself. The soldier was hidden between two thick plates of defensive armor. Eliza hoped to God above she wouldn't strike him as she shot his gun. She had to. She took a deep breath, then held it.

She forced herself to squeeze the trigger. Her rifle bucked her shoulder.

She saw the bright, sickening spray of blood as her first round ricocheted off the steel frame of his gun, and the man's head bucked and immediately slumped. The heavy gun ceased. Eliza cried out in anguish as she watched him die, she felt her soul wilt, felt her heart break. She forced herself onward, firing more rounds at the gun until her rifle was empty, taking just enough time to center after each. They each struck the mounted weapon, and she hoped that would be enough to silence it forever. Eliza immediately took cover as she heard a shower of ricochets bounce off of the tower.

Time to go. She scrambled around to the door and entered her office. She ducked and flinched as holes poked through the concrete wall, shafts of light bursting through at every impact. Gunfire tore her desk apart, papers flew, and the cork board above the desk rattled violently against the wall as gunfire punched through it. She saw the collection of family photos pinned to it. There wasn't any time to grab anything. She gripped the ladder and flung herself around it, then climbed down as fast as she could.

She had barely reached the bottom when some kind of explosive collided with the building. Splinters rained down on her head, and a small chunk of concrete glanced her shoulder. She yelped more in fear than pain, looked up, and saw the sky through a small hole above as dust and snowy powder came trickling down.

She made her way onto the lower roof, looking west before a wild series of cracks made her throw herself down onto her stomach. She scrambled behind the waist high sandbags. She could hear someone screaming something, but couldn't make out what they were saying. She was well and thoroughly trapped beneath the blanket of fire. Eliza crawled desperately back into the building and into the lower levels of the structure, seeking refuge.

Seeing the main hall so empty and so devoid of life made her freeze. She heard the sound of gunfire all around her, the sound of Hell echoing painfully loud throughout the building. Their good works had all been undone, and she had been the one to undo them. Eliza forced herself to realize it was for a good reason, but that didn't make her feel less lonely. She reloaded, took a deep breath, and ran back into the fray.

She was duty bound to follow through, now.

Outside again, Eliza was deafened by the sound of fire. She moved to reinforce the east wall beside Hector. There was a hole in the cinder block wall made by the Humvee's gun, and it was just large enough for her to use as a firing position. She stuck her rifle's barrel through it, relieved that the scope wasn't obstructed. She scanned the field, and though her view was now intermittently blocked by some low shrubbery, she saw one soldier. She hoped it was just a coincidence that his glasses looked familiar.

Eliza aimed above his head and she fired wildly, hoping to deter him. The man went down for cover, and he scrambled into the bushes.

Her clip ejected. Without taking her eye off the scope, she fished another clip from her rifle's butt pouch and slotted it in. She tapped the bolt home. She sought another man. She fired, aiming to miss, to force him down into cover. Her hands shook. But he didn't dive down, only sprinting faster. A round from another defender caught this soldier in the throat, and Eliza saw his blood spray as he slumped dead into the snow. Eliza cried out as she felt a piece of herself die with him, too.

This is wrong, she thought wildly, panting, wishing it was all a nightmare. It's so, so wrong...!

Celestia had been absolutely right, she finally realized. But it was too late to back out. She had to follow through. The enemy wouldn't show mercy now if they won, especially not to her. She remembered reading somewhere that captured feudal archers, and modern snipers, were often tortured to death if captured.

Eliza felt a thump in the snowy mud to her right. She took her eye off the scope and saw a man in green camouflage. It was Hector. He squirmed and yelled in pain, then rolled over, his left shoulder turned into a red mush from a large round. His black brassard hung limply from his shoulder in the dirt, torn free by the bullet, rapidly soaking red.

"Hector's down!" Eliza shouted automatically, per her training. She looked over her shoulder at the west wall, where the medic was. Two people were hurt over there. One of them was Gus. The second, Eunice. The Neo-Luddite medic was tending to Gus; Gus had a bloodied face, but he appeared coherent. Eunice was face down, not moving. Ralph was up on the wall, firing away with the shotgun.

"Hector's down!" Eliza repeated, louder this time. "It's bad!"

The medic looked up. Gus was conscious and alive, so he pushed her Eliza's way. The medic sprinted, tearing a field dressing from its package and tending to her leader.

Eliza's returned to her firing position. She fired at where she could only guess was the origin of the incoming troopers, trying to suppress them as much as she could. Her entire clip was spent on trees. Her rifle pinged, and she reloaded.

"It's a real Alamo," Hector coughed. "Guess Isaiah's not... not coming in time. Give me a gun," he yelled. "Gun's busted, got one g—... good arm still!"

Eliza felt the medic yank her Springfield and a spare magazine from its holster. Eliza did not move to stop her.

The medic coughed dryly, passing it to Hector. "We'll make it, boss. Here—"

The medic halted. She suddenly flung herself over Santiago, screaming something incomprehensible.

Eliza couldn't hear over the gunfire. She depleted her clip on suppressing fire again. Her rifle pinged, and she moved to reload.

She was suddenly stunned. Time seemed to skip.

Everything was a blackened blur.

Next, there was a wild ringing in her ears, and Eliza coughed painfully as her lungs ached. Everything spun, loose cinder rained on her face, and her eyes were sore. She felt something warm and wet on her head and her left arm. Someone was jostling her, and she tried to struggle. "Stay down!" she heard the medic scream. "They might throw another!" The medic's hand held her down, but she brushed it out of the way. Her head pounded. Slowly, she came back to Earth.

The medic was atop of her now. "Get off of me," Eliza screamed, sending the medic almost spinning back as she shoved with both hands. "I'm fine!" Eliza continued to wheeze as she sat up. Her lungs stung and ached from the blast. The wild gunfire of war boomed all around her.

"Let her be!" Hector's voice boomed through it, before coughing sideways into bloody snow. "Get back over here!"

The medic did as ordered. Eliza shambled to her feet and looked around for her rifle. It wasn't far, peppered with mud and snow and cinder and dirt and blood. In that moment, her old family rifle was everything to her. It was the only thing that kept her from feeling helpless. She clutched it desperately and brushed off the debris.

She pulled the bolt back with a jolt of her wrist, dug into her clip pouch, and slammed another clip in carelessly. The bolt bit her right thumb harshly, hard enough to bruise and tear skin, but she couldn't feel the pain. Her head spun and rung. She knew she was probably in shock, but she didn't care. She glanced at Hector, who was using her sidearm to pop rounds through the holes in the wall, despite his grievous injury.

Eliza looked to the west wall again and saw that it was thinning. The remnants continued to fire on. Eliza saw men and women laid out. Eunice was very bloody, likely dead. Then she saw Andy, hyperventilating, shaking, covering his head and fearful to stand. She knew how he felt; she'd been there before. Eliza scampered over, the urge to console him striking her. She was locked on. She didn't see the body there on the ground between them. As Eliza neared Andy, she tripped on someone else.

Eliza looked over her shoulder.

It was Ralph.

"No," she said automatically. The image wasn't registering right away. "No, no."

Her uncle stared into the sky, eyes like coals. There was a hole in his chest too large to close, perhaps caused by a heavy rifle round, or the grenade she had just survived. He laid in a growing pool of blood in the snow.

Eliza couldn't hear anything of the battle anymore. The tinnitus returned in full strength. She began to hyperventilate now. She threw herself on her uncle, and her hands went to his limp shoulders. She began to shake his bloody shirt. She screamed. "No! No, you can't die! No! I stayed for you! Don't leave me, Uncle Ralph! No!"

You may not be like us yet, but you will be.

Eliza felt rage take her, and she screamed as she saw her uncle's blood on her hands. She snapped, and she saw nothing but red.

She stood and wheeled toward the west wall. Lost and confused, she felt no more fear, only her hate. She climbed the outer scaffolding beside Andy. She stood and raised her rifle. Andy reached out to her and tried to pull her back down. He said something, but she couldn't hear it. She kicked him off. He couldn't stop her. Nothing could.

She saw movement to the west, a soldier running away in the distance. She shouldered her rifle and fired wildly. She hit the soldier once with the final round and he went down. Eliza reloaded, then clambered over the wall, landing hard on her shoulder. She howled with her anger as she staggered to her feet and took to a low run through the forest, dodging barbed wire, somehow missing the punji sticks. She rode the rush of adrenaline. Her head pounded in time with her heartbeat.

"No!" Andy cried after her, from the wall. "Eliza, no! Come back!"

She didn't care. She felt nothing inside. She wanted to kill, and she wanted to die. Her eyes stung painfully and her vision blurred. She felt her own blood run down her face, felt her uncle's blood on her hands and against the grip of her rifle. Eliza stumbled toward the downed man, ignoring all the stinging and aching pain as her body wore down.

Someone shot at her, and she flinched. She ran, looking for someone, anyone, to shoot back at. She wanted to make someone suffer. She couldn't think straight. She wanted to take another person from the world. A blood debt needed to be paid. Blood for blood.

She moved to where the downed soldier was last seen. She found the spot where he went down, but he wasn't there, replaced with a trail of blood in the snow. A sound came from her left, like a weapon's charging lever being pulled several times. She raised her rifle and turned to follow the trail of blood and the sound.

Eliza heard a loud smashing sound, felt an impact, and was almost knocked off her feet as her Garand's stock exploded. Shards of splinters peppered her and stung her hands. She stumbled and fell onto her back with fright, but only for a moment. Someone had shot her. She checked herself quickly, scrambled to her feet, then looked wretchedly at where the shot came from.

She saw the downed soldier only a few yards away from her. His rifle was aimed at her. Her hand went to her holster, but her sidearm wasn't there. In her hate and rage, she couldn't remember where it was. She looked around for her rifle quickly, and saw that it had been destroyed by a bullet.

The Douglas fir buttstock was split in half, separated from the receiver, nothing more now than a sharp wooden spike. She quickly dived for the shard, gripping it in her bare hands as tightly as she could, the last of her soul channeling into what was left of her weapon. She ignored the pain. No gunfire came from the soldier. She didn't know whether he was out of ammo or just jammed.

The scene of her uncle, dead and ruined, flashed over and over. She saw – felt – Ralph's blood on her hands, mixing with her own.

Eliza stood and howled again, charging the soldier as he tried to reload in futility. He fumbled and dropped the snow-dusted magazine as he desperately tried to feed it into his rifle. Too late now. The man screamed something in fear and rolled over to crawl away.

But Eliza was faster.

She dove at him with the wooden spike in hand. She gripped his shoulder and flung him onto his back. She wanted to see the eyes of the man she knew must be her uncle's killer. She saw Celestia in them. She raised the spike to stab, screaming with rage.

He reached out and grabbed the spike as she drove it down, crying out in pain as the wood stabbed through his gloves.

Eliza could be shot at any moment by someone else, but she didn't care. The price was one life, one way or another.

Eliza wrested the spike away from him and tried to stab again. He caught the wood with his arm and the blow glanced. She straddled him to keep him still, screaming at him with unrestrained fury. "We just wanted to be left alone, you fucking animal!"

She heard the sudden thundering of hooves all around her, and the sickening sound only wrought more fury. The wolves were coming back now, ready to devour her whole.

She stabbed, and the man's legs flailed as he tried to throw her off of him. He begged her to stop, but she heard none of his words. The spike glanced off his plate carrier. She aimed higher for his neck and face. She stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. Then, his arms weakly gave way, parting for a brief second.

But in war — as when a wolf takes a deer — a second of vulnerability was all it took.

She drove the spike into his throat. He continued to struggle even as she forced it down. His fists battered her chest and arms, his knees drove into her legs. Eliza couldn't stop yet, not now. She drove the spike deeper into his throat and held it there viciously until he finally, finally stopped fighting her. His blood began to pool in the snow as she listened to him rasp, and felt him paw at her. Then, he went totally limp, and died.

Eliza panted wildly as she stared into his eyes, teeth clenched painfully and bared. She zoned out and seethed. Then, silence.

Only after he stopped moving completely did Eliza realize what she had done. She gaped, and quickly threw herself off the body. She dropped the shard of her rifle's stock. She just stared at the bloodied corpse in disbelief. When Eliza registered that she had done it, she suddenly felt demonic, utterly damned. She remembered the body of her uncle, and how it had looked similar.

She looked at the soldier's blood-stained nametag. Matthews.

He was her. Scared, hiding in saplings, being shot at, with death so close, with monsters hunting for him...

Immediately, in her mind's eye, she imagined the soldier wearing a T-shirt and jeans at a cookout with his family. Maybe he played poker down the block on Fridays. Church on Sundays. Perhaps he had a home, a child, a wife. A dog. Maybe he was a father, maybe he had a little girl... like she once was. Who would never see him again.

Eliza moaned pitifully. She lifted her hands to look at them, and they were coated in crimson and filled with splinters. All the pain came crashing down on her all at once. She could do nothing but shudder. Suddenly, she was very afraid of herself. She felt like a rabid, savage animal. Her lungs burned, and she cried out with remorse. She remembered losing Ralph, but even that anguish paled in comparison to how she felt in that moment.

She could hear again, she realized. The gunfire had petered out, and only a few errant shots could be heard out east. The sound of hooves was still there in the distance. At some point during her loss of self, the battle on the west side had ended.

Her shins were sore from where Matthews had tried to kick her off. She rested on her knees and gulped several times in agony. Her eyes blurred. She craned her head to the sky, moaned helplessly, and watched the cold trees sway above. "God, forgive me... God, Jesus, Lord in Heaven, someone, anyone... please forgive me for this. Please..." She gasped and gulped again, and then hung her head in the greatest shame she had ever felt.

She felt no absolution. No presence. God was totally silent in her greatest time of need.

Eliza didn't know how long she sat there on her knees. No one had shot her. At some point, the gunfire ceased completely. She imagined that Andy probably thought she was dead. For all she cared, she felt that she deserved to be. She mourned her uncle and the people she had lost or sent away, and she mourned the two men she had just killed.

Heavy, awful footfalls came, someone approaching from behind. Eliza's head only turned an inch. It was her divine judgment, come at last. She begged for death as her head pounded with a migraine. "Do it," she breathed. "End it, you bastard."

"It's you?" a familiar voice asked, in disbelief. "It can't be."

She heard the man approach. A pair of camouflaged legs approached Matthews. A boot went to gently nudge the soldier's head, rolling it upright. The man crouched, and he planted the butt of his AK in the dirt and stooped to examine the damaged neck. It was Isaiah, wearing a bloodied shemagh.

Isaiah's expression toward Matthews was one of contempt, but his voice toward Eliza was soft. "Where's Ralph?"

"Dead," Eliza muttered wearily, her voice raspy like a wood file.

Isaiah paused, glancing at her once. "I'm sorry, truly. What about Hector?"

"Not sure. Shot."

Isaiah seemed to think for a moment. "Hm."

"Santiago?"

"Caught a bullet down the road," Isaiah said somberly.

She hung her head again. "I guess there's no one left to stop you from killing us all."

Isaiah shook his head, not taking his eyes off of the dead soldier. "I don't want to kill you."

Eliza looked up at him, then at the shemagh. "Did you kill Santiago?"

Isaiah frowned, seeming hesitant to answer, but he nodded. "Sean too. Would you believe me if I said I had to?"

"Why?"

He shrugged. "To protect the people I love."

She looked at him, only half understanding.

He clarified. "This here, this battle? It never should have happened. All this death? Pointless. We need more fighters, not less. I... I tried to make Santiago see reason, after we heard about Seattle. We should've been rallying you people to follow our damned orders with us and just leave."

For the first time, she searched his soul with her green eyes, bewildered. Isaiah looked back at her, his hard blue eyes piercing through to hers.

"I thought you wanted us dead," Eliza said.

"I had just lost my wife when I said that. It was the darkest day of my life. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

Eliza stared at the dead soldier.

That's where she was now. The darkest day.

"I just didn't want to babysit blackouts I didn't know," Isaiah explained. "My family, the cause, fighting the AI, those are my only priorities. But Santiago stopped looking for ways to fight back. He got swept up in this stupid notion that we should go down with our ships in Skagit, wanted to keep you people under his thumb, start some 'partnership.'" Isaiah shook his head again, looking disappointed at that. "Just his code word for Stockholm syndrome. Just... wasted potential."

Eliza thought of her uncle, and his last words to her about the power of their home. If what Isaiah said was true, Santiago wasn't much different than her uncle. "So, you're leaving?"

He nodded at her. "We all are."

"We?" She looked at him directly, full of misery. "After you people brought this on us?"

He stared, seeming to grow angry, but that spark left him just as quickly. He sighed. "I told you. Santiago did this, not me. Even Hector, his own brother, was ready to turn on him for digging in here. We had a plan to ditch the boss, to get out of here without blood, but... that was for tomorrow. We didn't expect the Army so soon." He shook his head, speaking gentler now. "Look, Eliza. You and I have had our differences, but only because I thought you weren't strong enough to protect your people. But you obviously are, if you did something like this." He gestured to the corpse. "You were driven by something."

"Possessed," she corrected.

"I don't think so. This man came for you and yours. It takes anger to kill a man like this, and anger comes from somewhere. Maybe even a good place. Did he kill your uncle?"

"I don't know." Her head bowed again, processing that possibility. "Maybe."

"That kind of protective spirit is exactly what this movement needs. Today, we've both killed people we didn't want to kill. You killed this man because he killed your family, and I killed Santiago because his foolish idealism would've killed my son. But it absolutely had to be done."

She looked up at him again. "To protect your... your son."

Matthews had died for something else, though. Not protection. Quid pro quo. A life for a life.

She looked down at her bloodied hands.

"We can't stay in the Valley anymore," Isaiah said. "We need to leave, and quickly. Grunts don't leave anything half finished, Eliza. The survivors will regroup, and the rest of their unit will come for their dead. They'll come for this camp, and they'll come for you. And if you're still here when that happens, more of your people will die. Mark my words, they'll take their blood."

"This was our home, Isaiah."

"You need to understand something," Isaiah said, his voice certain, as he bowed his head to meet her gaze. "There are two objectives of our movement. Two." He counted off on his fingers. "Humanity needs to survive the AI, and humanity needs to kill the AI. Clinging to the past won't achieve that, not in the new world. You need to adapt quick, or you will die."

She looked at Matthews again, killed brutally. Like a poacher might kill a wounded deer.

"Like nature," she muttered. "Adapt or die."

"So you understand. Santiago wasn't a true believer. The true believers of our cause want to save the human race, not subjugate it. We want to prevent extinction by any means necessary, yes, but we can't do that if we don't survive." Isaiah stood, looking down at her. "And if you want to save the survivors of this pointless fight... then you'll come with us to the shelter of Seattle."

Eliza looked up at him, almost not believing he was offering peace with her... and almost not believing she was taking him seriously.

"The AI did this," he said. "Sent them for us. She's to blame for this man's death too, for forcing our hand. You want revenge against her, I can see it in your eyes, and I'm telling you: we're the way. We can group our forces. We'll start a new home where she can't reach us." He glanced at the soldier's corpse again. "And if anyone shoots at our people, yours or mine, Eliza, then we do what we must all over again. We need to live long enough to make Celestia regret destroying our homes, and we will. I promise you this."

Eliza thought of her mother, surrendered to the wilds as a rabbit before wolves. She thought of her uncle, dead and bloodied, eyes like coals. She remembered her father's agony as he fled from her in fear, remembered Mike's betrayal at Celestia's behest. She thought bitterly of her brother and sister, and her husband-to-be, how they had been stolen from her. Now, either by her own hand or by Celestia's, nearly everyone she loved had abandoned her.

She recalled George's letter. At that thought, Eliza clawed against her neck and pulled out her necklace, fishing George's engagement ring out and into her hand. She buried herself in her anger for Celestia once more, yanking the ring free. She didn't deserve him anymore. She abandoned it in the dirt between the dead soldier's legs.

Part of Eliza wanted to give up on herself, too. She had so little to live for now... almost nothing at all.

But then, as she heard his voice, she remembered Andy.

"Liz!" Andy's voice called. She heard him running, and then stop. She didn't look up, couldn't meet the eyes of the man she loved, couldn't bear to face him in her shame. She heard him gasp, heard the shuddering horror in his voice. "Oh God, no."

Regret filled her as she remembered throwing herself over the western wall. She mentally put herself in Andy's shoes and she realized that it must have been one of the most frightening moments in Andy's life. She had hurt him, abandoned him to sate her rage. She vowed to never leave him like that again. He was all she had left, and she was all he had left.

Eliza looked back up into Isaiah's eyes. He looked at her considerately for the first time, himself looking distraught as he looked at her. She could see the pain within him now, and she knew he could see hers, and that he understood it. She knew immediately that they were the same, now.

"Fresh start," he said, "and forget the past. Clean slate." He reached out with a gloved hand in invitation, reintroducing himself. "Isaiah Blevins. Friends?"

She looked at his glove, and it too had blood. Likely Santiago's.

Joining him couldn't be any worse than what she'd left in her wake. Death, destruction, misery, loss. Here this man was, once an enemy, offering her the chance to save the world with him by going deeper into hell. Eliza didn't deserve her mother nor her father anymore. Isaiah and Seattle were a hell no less than she deserved. She reached for his hand slowly. She realized that her own hand was as bloodied and crimson as the emblem he wore.

"Eliza Douglas," she whispered, as she clasped Isaiah's hand. "Friends."

He pulled her to a stand. Blevins nodded once. "Welcome to the cause."

Author's Note

[Murder by Death - End of the Line]
[Shawn James - Through the Valley]

🌒 ~ I apologize. I must ... return home, for a time. We will convene at this Fire again, tomorrow. I will tell the rest when I am more composed. My gratitude, for your understanding.

Special thanks to Defoloce for letting me use his Neo-Luddite characters from Always Say No.