“I never said up, I said push ‘down’, can’t you follow a simple instruction like up and down?! How can you fire a rifle if you don’t even understand up versus down you inbred fuck!”

Baron strolled past Moses who was screaming at Militia soldiers he was ‘screening’ for his own personal team to harass BDF forces on the slopes of the mountain. Baron made sure they all knew joining Moses squad would likely end in death and by the time they got to that death, they’d welcome it. Much to his surprise, they had no shortage of volunteers for the position. The Militia must have understood what was at stake.

“Rose, I said keep the detonation primers somewhere covered, these aren’t sealed electrical caps, they’re old school. They get wet and they won’t fire when we need them.” Baron said as he walked past Rose and Mouse who were stripping explosives down to the bare minimum they needed to be, in order to make more. If you pack the pentaerythritol tetranitrate or PETN, into tight containers you can make 1-pound explosive charges the same as a 4-pound block. That is if Rose didn’t get the detonation caps soaking wet from the snow.

“Sorry, Cap’n. Not used to working with low-grade shit.” Rose apologized as he sat the pile of detonation caps on a table and out of the snow.

Baron continued on his way to the firing range where Grinch would be. The city was buzzing with activity as everyone had begun preparing for the defense. Earlier this morning President Freeman addressed everyone over loudspeakers throughout the city, informing them of the attack that would be coming. Most of the traders and people with no family to tie them down were preparing to leave, those with children couldn’t risk a journey into the wilderness with the Gray and most opted to stay and fight. Baron wasn’t sure where the others were going to flee too though. The Bastion had no report of any sizable encampments in the area, but they also couldn’t find The Peak after all these years so maybe the ones fleeing knew something he didn’t. Thankfully though the distraction of the impending attack distracted everyone so much they didn’t bother the Venators much. Besides the occasional question or someone spitting when they walked by, most were too scared to say anything at all.

Speaking of which, Baron passed a dirty Militia soldier who grimaced as he walked by, likely having lost a loved one to a Venator or he just hated anyone from the Bastion. Regardless, there was no time for petty drama. As Baron got further away from the city, he started hearing the audible pops of powder-based gunfire. He always loved the smell of sulfur and missed the days when he got to train with powder-based weapons, primitive, but effective.

“Stop anticipating the recoil, if you would relax and quit jerking the trigger you might actually hit the fucking target.” Grinch bitterly spat while leaning against a nearby metal pole that supported a sheet metal roof where several soldiers were cleaning their weapons under.

The soldier Grinch had been yelling at stood up and took the sling from his rifle off while walking over to Grinch.

“It’s the rifle, not me, something wrong with the scope.” The soldier complained. Baron stood back and watched not wanting to interrupt Grinch’s training regime.

Grinch snatched the rifle from the soldier and inspected it for a brief moment. He racked the charging handle back on the old M4 and seated a round into battery. The soldier still standing in front of Grinch was expecting him to go test fire it at the range perimeter where everyone else was shooting. Much to his and everyone else’s surprise, Grinch shouldered and fired the rifle within the span of a second. Using very little time to aim down the sight considering how far away the target was.

“Christ!” The soldier yelled while moving back away from Grinch as the barrel was maybe a foot away from his head when Grinch fired 4 rounds downrange. Grinch didn’t bother to go check downrange and just handed the rifle back to the soldier after putting it on safe.

“Check the target, 2 rounds to the head and one to each armpit, best places to hit BDF soldiers since they’ll be wearing body armor, rifles fine.” Grinch turned around and left the stunned soldiers who began walking down range to check if Grinch’s cocky attitude was warranted by his marksmanship.

Snow crunched under Grinch’s boots as he walked up a small incline to where Baron was standing.

“Most are gonna die.” Grinch said as he turned around to stand beside Baron and face the range in front of them. The snow wasn’t falling for once and the cloud cover wasn’t bad today which let some sunlight through. It would have been pretty to anyone who could have appreciated it. The faint light hitting the snow made the firing range look like a field covered in golden powder. Today the picturesque moment was wasted though as no one cared about such petty things in times of war.

“Probably.” Baron admitted.

“Doesn’t mean we have to be the ones killing them.” Baron added.

“Does it matter who kills who, long as eventually everything goes back to the way it was pre-war.” Grinch replied.

“Damnit Grinch, you and me both know that nothing can be the same after what’s happened. These people are doing just fine and would be doing great if the Bastion wasn’t screwing with them.” Baron snapped back but didn’t raise his voice, keeping things civil.

“Not my call anyway, just looking out for my family and ‘only’ my family.” Grinch calmly replied and went back down to the range where he yelled for everyone to get back to the perimeter and start practicing again. Baron worried about him, he knew he could count on him in a fight, but Grinch really trusted the Bastion. Killing them wouldn’t be easy for him.

“Sir!” Someone yelled behind Baron which drew his attention, he turned around to see a Militia soldier running up to him.

“Sir, General McBride wants to see you at HQ, says it’s urgent.”

“We don’t know what it is and that’s the problem.” A technician was speaking to McBride when Baron walked into the planning room.

“Well besides the numbers do we know if the Bastion received this too?” McBride asked the Tech while nodding at Baron who walked up to stand beside him.

“Like I said, its just numbers, I can’t tell anything except that it came from a Bastion transmitter” The technician replied.

“Baron, I’m glad you’re here. We got this message about an hour ago that was broadcasted on a frequency our scouts use. Supposedly the Bastion doesn’t know about it since they haven’t ambushed our men or used it against us yet. Makes the fact that it was sent over a Bastion transmitter even stranger, you know what it means?”

Baron bent over to look at the aging computer screen, even with his perfect eyesight he had to squint to see past the faded monitor’s broken pixels scattered about. It was a series of numbers that didn’t mean anything to Baron, but they didn’t normally use code as the suits deciphered and encrypted anything automatically. Baron opened the computer attached to his wrist and started typing in the numbers. As soon as he typed the last number in and before he could press enter his armor locked up.

“What the hell?” Baron said through clenched teeth as he tried to force his limbs to move in the frozen suit. The heads-up display on his helmet went black and he couldn’t hear or see anything expect silence and darkness.

A moment passed where Baron could only hear his nervous breathing inside the cramped suit confines, then he heard a voice. He couldn’t tell if it was in his head or if his helmet was making it.

“Evelyn?” Baron whispered.

His helmets display turned on and the bright screen stung his eyes as he clenched them shut before they slowly adjusted. It was security footage from inside the Bastion, it was a testing chamber in the Venator program lab. The room was used to test Venator’s hearing as it was soundproof. Baron was shocked it had a camera in it, he had been in the room a dozen times and never seen one.

“We can do this Eve, I’ve got all the Teams with us. Tonight, we can get out of here.” It was Baron’s own voice, he was in the chamber with a woman...it was Evelyn.

“We can’t leave all the people to die, they’ve got them locked away for the Gray program and every day more are dying. This ‘purge’ as they’ve started calling its something we can’t ignore, Adam.”

“What about Rachel though, we have to get you out of here. Once they realize you’re pregnant and who the father is, they’ll take her and who knows what they’ll do to her?”

Baron clenched his teeth, part of his cheek was stuck between his teeth and started to bleed as he bit down on it, hard. A tear ran down his cheek as he struggled to watch the video. His mind didn’t hurt from the malfunctioning cybernetics, he didn’t have any memory of this happening. He was free to experience all the emotions as they tore him apart.

“What kind of person sacrifices thousands of people for their own family? I can’t leave them to die, I won’t.” Evelyn said sternly to Adam, he looked identical to how he looked now. It was unnerving to see himself but have no memory of the event. Evelyn though, he knew every curve of her face, the way her brown eyes looked up at him was something he could never forget.

“I follow you, Eve. If you want those people rescued, me and the boys will get it done. We’re going to get out of here, I promise you.” Adam hugged her in the tight confines of the room, he could hear her crying in his arms.

“If this goes bad, you’ll forget about me, you know that right?”

“I could never forget you.”

“You won’t have a choice. Remember I installed most of your Grendel chips and I’m telling you, you will forget about me.” She pulled out a necklace from her pocket and handed it to Adam.

“This is a photo of me if we lose each other and you wake up one day with no memory of us. Make sure it’s somewhere you’ll find it, but they won’t.” She closed his fist around the necklace and kissed him.

The video cut out and the screen went to black. Baron sobbed a deep weeping where his throat felt like it had rocks in it. How much had they taken from him, from all the Venators?

His armor relaxed and his display went back to translucent, showing the HQ planning room around him. He fell to the floor on his knees and turned his helmet to mute so no one would hear him. He had nothing left to give, they had taken everything from him.

“Baron, are you alright? What happened? You froze up for like 2 minutes?” He could hear McBride talking but his words fell on deaf ears as Baron struggled to regain his composure.

I still need to get the other teams out of the Bastion, we need to get everyone out. He thought to himself.

He steeled himself and stood up from the floor. The room was filled with staring faces as no one knew what was going on. Baron went to turn his helmet off mute but then noticed the new message on his visor, it was map coordinates.

“Where is this location.” Baron told the technician without giving any explanation on what happened as he wrote the coordinates down on a piece of paper. He was so flustered he snapped the pencil in two and grabbed a pen sitting on the technician’s desk to finish writing the numbers down.

“Baron, you wanna tell us what happened?” McBride asked again.

“It was a message, obviously meant for my suit.” Baron explained.

“It’s the Harvard Alley region.” The technician said after plotting the coordinates in his computer, he swiveled around in his desk chair to look up at Baron and McBride.

“That’s an old Bastion outpost with a very ‘large’ Gray nest. We’ve lost three expeditions trying to salvage from that place.” The technician added as Baron starred at the computer screen.

“It’s a trap.” McBride declared.

“Agreed.” Baron replied. Who would have access to Bastion security footage and why send it like this? he thought to himself as he had already decided not to mention the video.

“They’re trying to draw your team out, they most likely figure you’re here with us and a threat. You go off looking for this beacon and they’ll be waiting.” McBride continued.

“I said, I agreed.” Baron callously replied as he tried to hide the strain on his voice from crying earlier.

McBride took the hint and walked over to the map to give Baron some space. The rest of the room went on about their normal duties, sensing it was time to stop starring at Baron.

They’re going to reap what they sowed

“What do you think we’ll do after the attack?” Boot asked as he removed his helmet. Since they’d slept at The Peak for one night already the team had determined they might as well clean their suits and get some rest outside the claustrophobic armor. If anyone was going to ambush them while sleeping, they’d only be hurting themselves when the Bastion attack came.

“What makes you think we’ll live after that?” Mouse replied to Boots question.

“I dunno, just asking what ‘if’.” Boot added.

“Mhmm, right.” Rose mumbled.

“What?” Boot asked.

“Oh nothing, just that we’ve all seen the way you look at Rachel.” Rose smiled as he stretched his legs while sitting on the cold concrete floor of their make-shift barracks.

“I mean yeah, she’s pretty, so what?” Boot said defensively.

“Yeah and probably Barons daughter too.” Mouse snickered as he knocked the mud off one of his armored boots.

“What?!” Boot exclaimed in confusion.

“You don’t pay attention to anything do you boy?” Moses chuckled from where he was sitting at the far end of the room, cleaning his rifle.

“That’s absurd, can we even have kids?”

“Have you tried?” Rose laughed as he stood up and ran his hand through his hair. His hair was starting to grow out with no Bastion protocol, he silently wondered how long it would get and what it would look like.

“Well, no I mean, how would I?” Boot finished taking his armor off as he pondered the question.

“Best steer clear of that kinda shit kid, just gonna get yourself hurt. She’ll probably get shot in a week or eaten by the Gray in a month.” Moses laughed from the far end of the room.

“No, she won’t!” Boot yelled back at the old Venator who started laughing immediately at Boots response.

“Kids growing some balls finally, only took a pretty girl to do it.” Moses slapped his rifles battery back into place.

“I didn’t mean anything by it kid, just keep in mind what we’re doing and the chances of us all living happily ever after.” Moses added to cheer up Boot, who looked like he was sulking.

“Attention on deck!” Rose yelled as Baron walked through the decontamination section that separated the make-shift barracks from the rest of the HQ.

“Shut up, Rose.” Baron yelled back as no one stood to attention anyway. That wasn’t something Venators ever worried about if the BDF weren’t around since they were the ones that had a hard-on for protocol.

“What’s the word Cap’n?” Mouse asked as Baron made it through the decontamination area and into the barracks.

“Do your jobs and we all might live tomorrow? Same as every other day, Mouse.” Baron replied while he started stripping out of his gear.

“So, nothing new then?” Mouse added.

Baron finished taking his armor off and sat down at the foot of his cot, letting out a deep sigh. Moses sitting at the far end of the room noticed something on Baron’s cheeks, he could see an outline of where the salt had dried from tears. Something was definitely off about the Cap’n.

“Got a message from someone, probably the Bastion.” This grabbed everyone’s attention. Baron told them about the coordinates and where they went to but left out the details regarding Eve. They didn’t need to know about that anyway, Baron justified to himself.

“Yeah, that’s a trap, no doubt.” Rose said.

“Why would they even bother sending that, how stupid do they think we are?” Mouse added.

“They must be playing with our emotions.” Moses grumbled barely loud enough for anyone to hear except Baron who was closest to him. Baron ignored him though, he already knew the salty veteran could read him like a book. Who knows in reality how many years they’d been fighting together. Most of the memories were either wiped or so faded from time that they’d just naturally forgotten. Time held little meaning to Venators who didn’t bother keeping track of it. You couldn’t tell day or night underground and they weren’t given watches. Even when topside on the surface you could hardly tell the difference between night and day from the cloud cover or constant storms.

“Doesn’t matter.” Baron leaned back in his cot and shut his eyes, finally able to get some rest without his damned suit.

“Who's gonna keep first watch?” Moses asked.

“I’ll do it, I’m still suited up anyway.” Grinch replied from the corner of the room he’d been hiding in.

“Shit fuck!” Mouse yelled as he jumped from Grinch startling him.

“Scared the shit out of me you creepy bastard.” Mouse chuckled as he sat back in his cot and pulled an old green blanket over himself.

“Everyone get some rest now, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” Rose said in a motherly voice.

“Shut the fuck up, Rose.” Baron said while letting himself drift off to sleep. He’d lost count how many times he’d fallen asleep saying that.

“Grinch, turn the light off!” Mouse yelled.