Col. Fisher's Story

Colonel Al Fisher, A.Y. pours himself a brandy and sips as he looks over the glistening pink sheen of the Potomac. He spies the seagulls diving over the water, snatching their evening's prey. The military man smirks and laughs into his drink.

They sure do have it easy, don't they?, his mind wanders.

He cocks his head just slightly and gazes at the reams of concertina wire and roadblocks littering the National Mall every few paces. He doesn't have to imagine the anxious faces of the young soldiers manning the checkpoints across the river, fingers primed nervously on their semi-automatic weapons as they watch the few professionals and residents who dare to call the militarized city home walk by. At night the scary calm will end and the SCR partisans from the countryside will sneak in under the cover of darkness and taunt the city with the screams of mortar fire until daybreak when the ritual will begin again until the following night, and the next, and the next.

Colonel Fisher gently places his glass on his desk and flips through the bulging folder beside him. By now he's memorized the contents of the intelligence reports therein, padded as they are with references to "containment" "reapproachment" and "hearts and minds". But these are just empty words written by a flack in a West Virginia bunker somewhere. The real insight lies beyond Arlington and Springfield, in the seemingly bucolic small towns and bedroom communities where young men and women fire off their rifles and seethe with anger at their "Godless" neighbors to the North which wanted nothing but to feed, clothe and educate them expecting nothing in return.

Ten years after the former United States ceased to exist, many questions remain unanswered. Why wasn't more done to protect the integrity of the food supply? Why didn't the powers that be invest in an electronic energy grid when anyone would caught the nightly news could see the price of oil inch steadily towards instability? Why did the powers that be chose to be caught in an endless cycle of **** while tuition rates rose and a population of young people gradually realized there was no "there" to be had?

Long before the Food Riots of 2015, long before Los Angeles was torched to the ground and federal troops were called in to neutralize the protesters, long before the protracted civil war which claimed the lives of one hundred thousand combatants and thousands more civilians before the UN--the fucking UN for Chrissakes--had to get involved... Before cybernetic soldiers were pressed into the fight (and swiftly banned under international law), the writing was on the wall for all to see. Perhaps it was inevitable that the snowball would only grow bigger until it tumbled down the embankment and crushed everyone in its path.

All Colonel Fisher knows is that as long as there are threats foreign and domestic, there will always be a need for people like Trisha Kane. She was right. The lives of five hundred living, breathing civilians--the same staffers and hacks that make it possible for this town to run in the first place--far outweigh the concerns of one bereaved committee chairman, and yet in the space of a nanosecond she'd done more to tarnish her career than a thousand backstabbing careerists ever could.

He leafs through the papers and glances at the statements that were filed immediately after the incident. References to her valor and bravery in the line of fire litter the pages. Yet one sentence stands out, a description of her "cat-like" reflexes as she battled the enemy, literally landing on her feet in one instance as she weaved and jumped over a hailstorm of bullets, and not one scratch on her body--not even a bruise.

If that doesn't describe a cyborg, he doesn't know what else to call it. He recalls one of her subordinates making an off-hand comment about her numerous awards she'd collected in her other hobby as a long-distance runner. The colonel could see how one might reach that conclusion. But cyborgs didn't exist, at least on paper. It certainly isn't unheard of for a few to sneak in and serve quietly in the enlisted ranks. But an elite officer like herself...it seems impossible, and yet it explains so much about her.

More than anything, a rumor like that could ruin her career, possibly put her life in danger if she got caught behind enemy lines. Much as he disagreed with her about tactics or strategy, he couldn't abide seeing her get hurt...and yet if the accusations are true, she would not only be living a lie--the army would be guilty of harboring a prohibited weapon under international law. Colonel Fisher could see prison for war crimes, and meanwhile his prime asset would be incinerated and her ashes scattered so as not to leave a trace of her existence.

As he sips his poison of choice, he mulls over his not-very-good options.
Oh well. As long as he doesn't ask and she doesn't tell she should be okay. He hopes.