TRU aka Tactical Recovery Unit showed up just a few hours after we reported the chamber full of preggy Orcs. Their ride came down from the sky, sleek and silver, like a flying autopsy room. I've always said to my goons that the TRU folks were a mix of surgeons, mad scientists, and serial killers with a license and a mandate. The kind of people who ask if you're alright while peeling the skin off a creature's face.
To their credit, they were polite. Enthusiastic, professional even. Called our find "extraordinary," "seminal," and "potentially game-changing." One even used the word "miraculous," which I found darkly hilarious considering we'd committed what could charitably be described as industrial-scale infanticide.
I mean, nothing brings out the compliments like chemical war crimes.
We watched them poke, prod, scan, and slice open the remains. I stood off to the side, leaning on my rifle, watching one of them was Garn, who looked like a raccoon in human form as he cut into a pregnant Orc like it was a Sunday roast. He was muttering into his recorder, talking about musculature density, uterine lining, and "adaptive fetal resistance." I wasn't sure if I was going to throw up or fall asleep.
"You know," Garn said, not looking at me, "the womb lining on these things is dense enough to resist small-caliber penetration. And the gas, too. You see that?" He pointed at the incision as this pale yellow acid spilled out with a hiss, eating into the floor like it had a personal grudge. "You wouldn't believe the pH levels in this shit."
"How nice," I said. "Do I get a badge for participating in the worst baby shower in recorded history?"
Garn either didn't hear me or didn't care. He reached in and extracted one of the fetuses that barely the size of a dog and dumped it into a container filled with some glowing blue fluid. It floated there, twitching slightly. Still alive, somehow.
"They survive the gas," he went on. "Most of the time. But that's the problem, isn't it? You let one of these bastards crawl out and breathe long enough, they'll have kids of their own. And those kids might not die so easily."
"Sounds like they have some selective evolution," I muttered.
He grinned, showing teeth. "Exactly. We can't let that happen."
I watched him seal the container. "So that's what we do, huh? Prevent evolution."
"Somewhat. TRU's duty is to find what makes these lesser creatures tick. And then make sure they don't keep ticking."
"How charming," I said. "Ever thought of talking to them instead?"
That made him pause. He gave me this look like I just suggested marrying a toaster.
"Second Lieutenant Rus Wilson," he said, "humans spent most of their history murdering each other over melanin and imaginary sky people. You think we're going to start holding hands with something that has tusks and its infants swim in stomach acid?"
Point taken.
After their harvesting was done, Garn and his team left the place looking like a butcher shop at the end of a plague year. We were told, ordered, really, to finish the job. Foster and Gino rigged up the charges and set fire to the whole thing. I watched the flames crawl along the rock and up the walls. The smoke stank of burning meat and gore, and for a moment I almost felt something.
Then I didn't.
That's the thing with this whole thing. You have just enough time to feel horrified, then something clicks, and you stop. Like your brain flips a switch marked Indifference to keep you functional. The gassed chamber full of pregnant Orcs became just another box on our mission checklist. Another few dozen enemies we wouldn't have to face on the battlefield in the next few years.
Progress, right?
Outside, the rest of the Cyma unit stood in a loose half-circle, staring at the smoke as it belched into the sky. No one said anything. Berta was chewing on a protein bar like it owed her money. Stacy was fiddling with her rifle's scope, eyes glassy. Dan had a cigarette lit, but it burned down to the filter without him taking a drag.
Then the other Counters showed up.
Armored like walking tanks, moving with that stiff military precision that made it clear they weren't here to negotiate. Veterans mostly likely. They swarmed into the tunnels with orders to find any Orcs that survived the gas or the bombings. Some had. A few poor bastards had hunkered down in cracks or holes, coughing and covered in their own bile.
It was a summary execution when they got them out under the sun.
No process. No trial. No hesitation. Just Bang. Bang. Bang.
If they'd been human, it would've been a war crime. Hell, it still might be, depending on who's keeping score. But they weren't. They didn't look like us, didn't speak our languages, didn't worship anything we could recognize. They were monsters, and that made it easy.
Too easy.
As I watched one of the Orcs fall—head blown clean off by one of the Veteran's rifles I realized just how little I felt too. Like they'd just swatted a particularly annoying mosquito.
"This is what we've become," I muttered. "Pest control. With extra steps."
Berta walked up beside me, watching as another Orc tried to crawl away and got lit up by Kate and Amiel in perfect sync.
"Are you expecting guilt?" she asked.
"No. Just... some kind of reaction. Something."
Berta shrugged. "We kill monsters, Wilson. Do you want a medal for it or a therapy session?"
"Wouldn't mind both," I said.
She smirked. "Fucking softie."
There was a loud boom from deeper in the tunnels, probably someone found a supply cache or a methane pocket. A moment later, Garn's voice crackled over the radio.
"Cyma, we've got a live one. Bring containment gear. Now."
Stacy tapped her helmet. "Guess we're not done yet."
I sighed. "Of course we're not."
We started moving back in, and as I stepped over another body, burnt, unrecognizable, I thought to myself that if this war has a hell, we're probably going to end up in the VIP lounge. Front row seats. Complimentary drinks.
And honestly?
We'd probably still crack jokes on the way there.
***
The next week rolled in like a hungover giant. Somewhat slow, clumsy, and vaguely resentful of its own existence.
That's the thing about serving. Doesn't matter the war, the world, or even the species you're fighting, time always blurs. One day you're gassing Orc wombs, the next you're peeling sun-warmed MREs and betting cigarettes over who can spot the most mutated wildlife. The mind adjusts in awful ways. Waiting becomes second nature. Watching everything go by without blinking? That's just another Tuesday.
Dan and Amiel brought the Humvees back, bless them. A long, dull convoy of engines and fumes and dust. They'd made the journey with three others from a nearby depot, all mud and dirt-smeared and belching black smoke, like a parade for a very disappointed apocalypse.
We set up camp near a cliffside overlooking a ruined stretch of the area. Someone found an old billboard and used it as a makeshift canopy. We tied cords between burned-out trees, strung up tarps, laid out the rations. The whole thing looked like a failed Boy Scout jamboree hosted by armed superhuman sociopaths.
Then we waited. Cards, reading, pacing, polishing weapons, cleaning gear we already cleaned twice. Stacy and Gino played poker. Berta was sunbathing, shirt half off, daring people to look and daring them harder to say something. Foster smoked like a chimney and pretended to read a philosophy docs he clearly didn't understand. I sat on a crate and counted soldiers as they passed, for no reason. Just something to do.
The world was overgrown. Twisted metal and jungle vines. Half-sunken buildings and trees that looked like they'd grown angry at the concept of architecture. The world here didn't wait for us. It kept moving when the people here all ran screaming from Rift. And now, as the people return, it started down like a landlord inspecting property damage.
I had time to think. Too much, honestly. The dangerous kind.
I've never really understood why I'm here. Maybe I got caught up in way of a wrong God. Or maybe I was just distracted when the universe gave everyone a choice and I signed the wrong line like an idiot at the DMV.
All I know is I keep marching. Day after day. Mud and dirt in my boots. Blood on my gloves. Gun at the ready. Eyes forward. Like a wind-up toy that doesn't know how to stop.
And the calm that's what unnerves me.
It's not that I don't feel anything. It's that I feel too okay with it. The gas, the shooting, the screaming. All of it just settles in my chest like background noise. White noise with a body count.
I don't flinch anymore. I don't dream. I don't panic.
And I can't decide if that's because of this, the thing in me, the gift, the power, whatever the hell it is or if I was always like this. Always a bit cracked in the wrong direction.
And if that's the case, well… I suppose I've always been fit for war. Like a teacup that only shatters in the cupboard but somehow survives every battlefield.
Which is, frankly, deeply concerning.
Like discovering the soup spoon you've been using is actually a scalpel and wondering just how long you've been eating your cereal wrong.
So I sat there, boots in the dirt, staring at this half-dead world with a rifle in my lap, and thought maybe I'm the crazy one.
Or maybe everyone else just hasn't caught up yet.
And maybe I'm the sanest.
Honestly, I don't know what to think lately.
"Someone's brooding again."
Berta wandered over, still half-lounging like a sunburnt cat with too much confidence and not enough shame. She'd found a pair of sunglasses somewhere, probably traded for a favor, I didn't ask. She wore them like a movie star walking through a landfill.
"Hey, Rus," she said, dragging out my name like it owed her money. "You always sit around looking like the war stole your puppy, or is that just your face?"
I didn't even blink. "This is my happy face. Any more joy and I'd have to be sedated."
She grinned, leaning on the frame of our Humvee just close enough for her shadow to touch me. Her arms were crossed under her chest, which I assumed was entirely intentional. The smell of smoke and sweat trailed off her like a weaponized cologne. "Y'know, with how serious you always look, I'm starting to think you've never even had sex."
I looked up at her like a man inspecting a cracked ceiling. "Berta, if I ever wanted to simulate the emotional toll of being screamed at during a prison riot while enduring the scent of burnt rubber and regret. I'd still avoid sleeping with you."
"Ouch," she said, but she was still smiling. That kind of smile that said she liked being insulted if it meant I was paying attention. "So you're telling me there's no part of you that's curious? Not even a tiny, sad, lonely part that wonders what it'd be like?"
I sighed like she just told me her favorite book was a coloring one. "If I ever feel the need to contract a mystery rash and lose what's left of my will to live, I'll consider it."
"You're such a drama queen," she laughed, poking at my boot with hers. "I bet you sit there at night writing poems about how no one understands you."
"I would," I said dryly, "but the last time I tried expressing myself, my therapist asked me if she was the one going insane."
"You know what your problem is?" she said, tilting her head like she was studying a piece of abstract art that deeply offended her.
"Yes," I said. "I was cursed at birth by a vengeful god with a sense of humor and zero artistic restraint."
"No," she said, ignoring me as usual. "You don't know how to have fun."
"Berta," I said, turning toward her like a man preparing to read a will, "your definition of fun involves either explosives, alcohol, or convincing others to regret their life choices. Forgive me for not signing up for the 'Fun With Berta' suicide tour."
She laughed, loud and carefree, slapping the side of the Humvee. "You're such a fucking mood-killer, I love it. Bet you'd be amazing in bed. Silent, efficient, and full of resentment."
"I aim to disappoint," I said flatly. "It's the only thing in life I consistently excel at."
She leaned in a little. "Maybe one day I'll break you down. See what's under all that doom and gloom."
"Oh please," I muttered, "what's under this is just more doom. And probably an athlete's foot."
She gave me a wink and strutted off like a victorious cat, hips swaying with mock pride. "See you at chow, dildo," she called over her shoulder.
Behind her, Dan leaned around the Humvee and deadpanned, "You two need a room or a therapist."
"I need a firing squad," I said, "but thanks for the suggestion."