“Skivvies too, junior. Ain’t nothing you got none of us haven’t seen before.” It sounded like Early was talking through gritted teeth.
“Why do you want me to strip?”
“You think I can miss you from here?” Early almost shouted, the end of his rifle quivering. Jason hurriedly tugged down his dirty jockeys, wanting to cover himself but knowing somehow that he shouldn’t.
“We’re looking for bugs, boy, the electronic kind. Tracking devices. You afraid we was gonna start flirtin’ with you? Pull up your package, want to make sure you got nothin’ hidin’ underneath. All right, now turn around and spread your cheeks. Christ, boy, I got more hair in my ears than you got on your whole body.”
“Nothing in the pack,” someone said.
Early let out a deep breath, and lowered his rifle. His shoulders were screaming. “Looks like you’re clean, unless you swallowed it. Turn around already, it ain’t like we want to eyeball your crack.”
Quentin and Bobby finished going through his clothes and shook their heads. Early grabbed Jason’s pants and tossed them at the boy. The flashlights went off in quick succession, and the crowd around him spread out. Jason blinked, blue spots swimming in his vision.
“Welcome to the squad,” Ed said dryly. “Everybody, this is Jason.” Hands clapped him on the shoulders, and there was laughter at the expression on his face.
He didn’t think it was funny at all. Not one damn bit. Even in the darkness it was clear he was furious. One of the dark figures leaned close and spoke quietly. “If you’re here to join the fight, that means you’re here to kill people. Maybe get killed. If getting your feelings hurt is all it takes to make you want to go back home to mommy, you don’t belong here anyway. Go ahead and fuck right off. Or grow a pair.” Then the man, whoever he was, moved away.
Jason blinked. He was still angry at being treated the way he had been, but could he blame them? They didn’t know him. And this was war, they were risking their lives every day. He swallowed his anger and pride and finished getting dressed.
“Did I miss anything while I was gone?” Ed stepped around an overturned desk and peered out one of the windows, trying to blink his night vision back after the bright flashlights. Diagonally across the intersection was a long, low building, still mostly white. Once it had housed cable or phone company offices, he couldn’t remember. The big satellite dishes on the roof were all mangled from explosions or fire, and the fifty-foot antenna lay crumpled across the small parking lot. Nothing moving, even after all the light and noise they’d made confronting the kid. He turned away from the window.
George glided up silently, peered out the window with his typical lack of expression. “Weasel found fresh piss spots in the back corner,” he murmured. “Rain trap’s been damn near emptied as well. Somebody left here right before we arrived. In a hurry, too, looks like. You got any idea who?” Ed shook his head, considering the information. The bucket into which the tarps on the roof drained was concealed behind ceiling tiles on the second floor. Unless you knew where to look you wouldn’t just stumble across it accidentally.
“Something big’s in the works,” he told the squad’s most veteran man. “Uncle Charlie’s sending us south. Not just us, apparently. I want an ammo and gear check, including water. Briefing’s in ten minutes.”
George, looking thoughtful, went to spread the word.
Jason sat next to a young kid named Bobby who really was nineteen. Once Jason’s night vision came back he could see Bobby had a big sheaf of brown hair and permanent red spots on his cheeks.
“Relax,” he whispered to Jason with an apologetic smile. “It’s nothing personal. We’ve had a run of bad luck lately and they just wanted to make sure. They’re really good, don’t worry. Just do what they tell you and you’ll be fine.”
Jason wasn’t entirely placated but he kept his sharp words to himself. Intellectually he knew he had no right to be angry, but he’d always had a hard time controlling his emotions. However, yelling at guys with guns seemed like a bad idea no matter how mad he was. “How long have you been with them?” he whispered back.
“Six months.”
Sitting on the other side of Jason was Quentin, the squad’s only black member. He looked about thirty, stocky, with a bald head and a shovel-shaped jaw. He studiously ignored Jason, chewing instead on one of Colleen’s biscuits.
Bobby had very quietly pointed out the members of the squad. Ed and Early he’d met. George was another old guy; Bobby said he was second in command. Mark was a big guy, six foot four, but moved very quietly. “This is Q. Quentin,” Bobby said softly, nodding at the man sitting next to him. Quentin glanced over, but didn’t say anything. “And Weasel’s over in the corner.”
“Weasel?”
“Yeah.”
The squad was in a loose circle in the middle of the second floor, all but Mark and Early who were keeping watch. Mark was a dark silhouette near the windows staring out at the street, close enough to hear the discussion. Early was in the back of the building, standing guard on the ground floor. On one knee Ed spread the map out on the floor and twisted on a small penlight with red cellophane taped over the end. The pale red glow illuminated a circle of scuffed boots and fraying shoes, stained and faded clothing, and thin, tired faces behind stubble and scruffy beards. Bobby was the only one of them that didn’t badly need a shave, even though it had been weeks since his face had felt a razor.
“Here we are.” Ed marked it with the penlight’s tiny circle of light. “Today’s Saturday. Next Friday, the fifteenth, we’re supposed to be here.” He ran the light down the map and stopped. Everyone leaned forward.
“What’s there?” Weasel was the one who’d spoken. It was the only name, Jason had been told, that he would respond to. In any case it seemed an apt nickname—hatchet-faced, with oily black hair swept back above a skinny body barely five and a half feet tall, Weasel vibrated with nervous energy. He was somewhere in his twenties, but kept his exact age just as much of a secret as his real name. Everyone understood why. If the government learned you had a relative fighting as a guerrilla, your entire family was detained as sympathizers and interrogated. And there’d been too many disappearances, too many ugly violent reprisals, even though the official word was that such things did not, would not, and never had happened. Across the front of his plate carrier, in black magic marker, had been inked LGBTNBBQ.
“Unknown. Anybody ever been through there before?” Heads shook all around.
“I’ve been near there,” Quentin said. “Block or two over. Nothin’ special that I can remember. Those buildings are big and built with a lot of brick. Hard to take down, if that’s the plan, but I don’t think they’re being used for anything. It’s a school, if I remember correctly. Or, at least, used to be.”
Ed nodded, staring down at the map. “I’m guessing it’s an RP, but why there?” There were a handful of commonly used rendezvous points throughout the city, but they were located near water, or supply dumps. Plus, the dogsoldiers had dozens of safehouses throughout the city they used. The spot Uncle Charlie had indicated wasn’t near anything. And it seemed somewhat exposed. “It sounded like Uncle Charlie was calling everyone out. Family reunion, he said. Anybody heard any rumblings about this?”
Another chorus of shaking heads. “Gators are supposed to be tearin’ it up down south,” Bobby said excitedly. “Maybe they’re ready to push north!”
Ed sighed. “That’s still a long way down the road, if it ever happens. Even though this is our home, we’re nobody’s priority. We’re fighting in a dark forgotten corner of this war. You know that, Bobby.” He glanced at George, intense as always, who nodded grimly in agreement.