Chapter 39

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Chapter 39: I am fiat, I am fate

I got rudely awoken by a meter stick smacking the top of my head. "Ow, goddamn," I mumbled, lifting my head from the desk.

"That's two detentions," the teacher said. "One for sleeping in class, and one for profanity."

"Ugh."

She walked away from me and went back to the lesson. I wiped a spot of drool from the surface of my desk. She started blathering about plate tectonics or something. I didn't really pay attention. The computer on my desk displayed a message. "Bobby!" It was June.

"What's going on?" I replied.

"Class is boring."

"I tried to sleep through Earth Science again."

"You have to sleep with your head up and your eyes open. And no snoring."

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to work."

"See you after class?"

"Meet me in the hall outside Mrs. Hart's room."

I drifted in and out of the lesson, picking up words here and there. Sometimes, I just had the computer record it for me, so I could take notes from it later. But I lacked the motivation to actually do that, generally. Me, a good student? Not likely.

I only wanted practical knowledge. I was never going to go pushing continents around, or spew magma, so why should I care how continents were formed? Mrs. Hart, of course, disagreed. "You never know when you might need this." They always said that, but I thought they were full of shit.

I could understand the use of writing, the need for algebra. Calculus? When would I ever need to derive something? Let's not even talk about "art appreciation."

June, for some reason, soaked all that stuff right up. When she wasn't with Mark, she studied. She got top scores, constantly. Her parents had high hopes for her. They went as far as grounding her from seeing Mark and me if she slipped even a tiny bit. They were rough. My parents, by contrast, hardly paid attention to me before they disappeared. Too worried about the lost souls spread across the galaxy. They were convinced the heathen aliens out there were doomed to eternal torment unless my parents taught them the Gospel. They were always too busy to really drill that stuff into me, and the nannies and sitters they hired just ignored the Bible study plans left for me. I didn't mind--I wanted to play games, cruise the 'net, talk to June, kill time. Things that happened thousands of years ago? Who cares? I was only bothered that they never came back the last time. My older brother, Richard, officially had guardianship of me, but he'd left several weeks ago and I hadn't heard from him since. Other than the housekeepers and nannies he apparently sent to look after me, I was alone. I didn't tell anyone that--not even June.

All that stuff left in the past would be important someday, but not now. Not when I sat, watching the clock, waiting for it to tick up to 9:55 and sound the bell for class to be over.

The date was shown just below the time: Wednesday, March 10th, 2066.

Mrs. Hart stopped talking when she noticed a minor tremble. A little earthquake? She stepped away from the screen at the front of the room, looking a little perturbed. "Did the rest of you feel that?" she asked.

We nodded in unison. It was mild, almost imperceptible, but we felt it. We also heard it, at least a little--a low bass, rumbling for several seconds.

Then, we heard a siren--the one they sounded whenever there was a bad storm coming. A low wail, rising in pitch and volume, and then descending again. Repeat three times.

"I didn't hear about any severe weather," Mrs. Hart muttered, going over to her desk to check something on her computer.

The principal's face abruptly lit up the front screen. "All teachers and students, remain in your rooms and stay calm. I will update everyone as soon as possible. If the broadcast system fails, I'll send other staff to notify everyone."

His face disappeared, and I wondered--what would cause the broadcast system to fail?

We found out in short order. An enormous "boom!" sounded, shattering every window in the room. Glass showered us, and we instinctively ducked. I shielded my face with my arms, and when the tinkling sounds of glass ceased, I chanced a look around. Everyone was terrified. With the windows gone, we could hear everything outside. Shouting. Sirens. Distant gunfire.

We didn't even wait for permission. We just got up and started moving. Mrs. Hart tried to control the situation. "Everyone, sit down! Principal Walters will tell us when we should leave. We don't know what's happening. This is the safest place for all of us right now."

None of us believed her, I'm pretty sure. We went straight for the door and walked out, a crowd of forty compressing through the doorway. Everyone else poured into the halls, too. I heard some crying, but mostly a lot of confusion. Anxious murmurs. A swarm of teenagers, milling through the halls. I pushed through the crowd toward the classroom June would have been coming from. We nearly bumped into each other as we met halfway.

"Bobby!" She quickly hugged me. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea. I heard gunfire. All our windows got blown out."

"What should we do?"

"You're asking me? I don't know, I don't even know what's happening!"

No time was wasted getting to the bottom of that question. Something rocked the entire building, and half the hallway collapsed up ahead of us. "Holy shit!" I gasped. "Where's Mark? Is he even here?"

She grabbed onto me, shaking her head. "He's been out all week. I haven't heard from him."

I pulled her along with me, backing away from the collapsed area up ahead. "We need to go," I stammered.

She nodded and went with me. The crowd suddenly began to move in the same direction. Boys and girls pushing past us. Teachers tried to get control of the situation, but they were just as panicked. Several other rooms had collapsed.

Everything was so noisy, I couldn't hear much of what anyone said. All I got from the things the teachers shouted back and forth was that foreign forces were in the city and had begun shelling. Our only nominal "enemies" were the Eastern Confederation, and they were nowhere nearby, so I didn't have a clue who might actually be attacking. Didn't really matter, either, all that mattered was getting away, getting somewhere safe.

June agreed, and we stuck with the crowd, pouring out the front of the school. Principal Walters tried to barricade the front doors, you see, but everyone just shoved him out of the way. A few kids remained behind, but we wanted to know what was happening, and the building was falling apart around us--clearly, not a safe place to be.

Then again, some of them went straight back into the school once they saw fucking tanks. There was no mistaking the red maple leaf symbols on the tanks, either. I didn't have a lot of time to really process it, other than to wonder why Canada would ever attack us. Had someone stolen their hardware? Who had any idea? Not me. Not June. We just ran.

Somehow, we got separated from everyone else, winding up down some empty side street that went towards downtown Chicago. A massive plume of smoke rose above the buildings, gradually dissipating, but the size didn't leave much to the imagination. June stayed close to me. I knew she wanted comfort and reassurance, but I didn't have any. I was scared shitless. When we heard people, we just moved out of the way. We wound up pretty far from the school, in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Distant explosions, gunfire, rolling tanks, screaming--we kept heading away from those sounds.

Things came to a sudden halt as a group of tanks rolled right in front of us. We stopped dead, right in the middle of the street, holding our breath.

The tanks decelerated and stopped. A small platoon stepped out from behind it. "You kids shouldn't be out here," one of them said. "Come with us."

"Are... are we prisoners?" I asked, trying to hide the anxiety and fear in my voice--not being very successful, either.

"Not yet," he said. Still, they were the guys with the guns. They opened up their little formation to let us in, and we took our places in the center. The group resumed moving forward.

"Where are you taking us?" June asked.

"We're rounding up civilians to get them out of the hot zone."

"Why is this even a 'hot zone?'" I had to ask.

"We can't tell you that right now," he said flatly. "We're sweeping the streets to get civilians out of the way."

So, that was that. There was fighting, but we didn't know why. No one would tell us. We were nominal prisoners of the Canadians. You might think I would have laughed, but you don't laugh at people with automatic weapons, even when they have funny accents.

We walked along in relative safety, glancing around at the empty stores, apartment buildings--seems everyone had evacuated pretty quickly. June clutched my hand and I didn't protest at all.

The near-silence was broken by the "ping" of a bullet against the tank. We all ducked. The soldiers crouched and fanned out. The tank stopped. June and I rushed around the other side of the tank, away from the shooting. We cringed every time another barrage sounded.

"What're we gonna do?" June whispered.

"Not get shot?" I suggested.

The turret on the tank spun around and launched a shell towards the enemy--well, the good guys, really. We were with the enemy. I thought. Very confusing at the time. The loud BOOM! sounded from the tank, nearly deafening the two of us, and then there was silence. Our sort-of captors came back to the tank, pulled us back into formation.

"If that happens again, duck into an alley or something, eh?" the squad leader said.

We both nodded. What choice did we have? They weren't going to arm us. Not that I'd be able to shoot straight in the first place.

We moved on again, and up ahead was the stadium where they were holding all the civvies. I let myself have a little sigh of relief. We were safe.

But we weren't. Men--Alliance soldiers--just popped right out of the surrounding alleys and storefronts, surrounded us, and cut loose. I hit the ground almost immediately, getting myself below the bullets. The others weren't so lucky. June fell on top of me. When I realized she was bleeding, I didn't pay attention to anyone else.

"June?" I gave her a little shake. She opened her eyes. But she was bleeding all over me. Just everywhere. I couldn't even see the holes. Couldn't bear to look for them. The color quickly left her face.

"Bobby?" she groaned, eyes struggling to stay open.

I didn't want that to be the last sound I heard from her. Life rarely gives you what you want.