Aside from him we’ve got a young man named Derek. About twenty-three years old, he’s got short blond hair and a tall, powerful frame. He’d only been in the military for a year before the EMP hit. An explosives specialist in the Army.
And then there’s me. I’m not an instructor. Heck, I don’t even know if I count as a student. But I’m here. I want to do everything I can to help this group — I owe them that much for rescuing me from prison. Besides, with no clue where my dad is, what choice do I have but to keep busy? If I sit around and think about all of the things I’ve lost since the EMP, I’ll turn into a delusional downer.
Kind of like Harry.
One of the first things Chris wants the new recruits to learn is how to handle a weapon. An army is kind of useless without weapons, and since Omega is equipped with guns and bombs, it’s only fair that we fight fire with fire. The militia has amassed stockpiles of weaponry from Omega storehouse raids, abandoned houses and other sources. Chris starts newbies like me at the very bottom. My knowledge of weaponry is limited to what my dad showed me when I was in high school. And most of that consisted of, “Do this if you’re attacked in a dark parking lot, then run like hell and call 9-1-1.”
There’s no 9-1-1 anymore, so I’ll have to think outside the box.
We start day one with something I like to call the “Dummy Course.” Chris and the other instructors roll out rugs and mats along the edge of camp and nail targets to trees. We’re all given an empty, harmless rifle and told to lie facedown on the rugs.
I settle onto the rug and prop myself up on my elbows, watching Chris assess the line of trainees. His lips twitch in an obvious attempt to try not to laugh at us. We must look pretty bad.
“Form good habits now,” Chris says, “and you’ll make active combat a lot easier for yourself and your team. You actually have an advantage if you’re completely new to this. You haven’t had the time to form bad habits, so everything you learn now will be the right way. You won’t have to unlearn bad habits.” He stops at the end of the line and kneels next to me. “I want you to learn how to shoot straight and steady,” he says. “Omega’s got numbers and firepower, but if we make every single bullet count, we can even out the playing field. We’ll be neat where they’re sloppy and we’ll be fast where they’re slow.”
He positions my left hand under the barrel of the rifle, bringing the stock into my shoulder. “Bring your right knee up,” he says. “Let your body relax.”
“I am relaxed!”
Well, not entirely. I could probably use some de-stressing therapy, now that he mentioned it. But now isn’t the time to get into that. I crane my neck to the right to try to see down the sights of the rifle. Chris places his hands on my head, moving it to a more relaxed position. “Don’t do that,” he instructs. “Just fall into it. Find the natural place for your cheek to rest against the stock of the weapon.”
“I can’t see through the sights if I don’t tilt my head.”
“Yes, you can. If you’re in the natural position everything will be easier.”
I try. It takes me a couple of hours to get the hang of it, and I’m not the only one who’s having issues. Sophia almost chokes herself to death when Max teaches her how to use her rifle sling. I tease her about it - until I have to do the same drill. It’s not as easy as it looks.
Next, we learn how to shoot standing up. This is a lot harder for me because I’m relatively wimpy and at first the weapon feels like it weighs twice as much as I do. Chris shows me how to use the rifle sling to take the weight off my arms, which helps, but thanks to weeks of manual labor under Kamaneva’s command, my arms are a lot stronger than they look and I adjust quickly.
For two days, this is all we do. We run through basic drills over and over with unloaded weapons. Alexander Ramos gives everybody long, detailed lectures about guerilla war fighting techniques, drawing in the dirt to illustrate his points. Chris shows us how to use the features of the terrain around us to our advantage, like hiding in plain sight or firing from cover. Max lectures us on Omega inside secrets. Their routines, their chain of command, their fighting methods.
Yet through it all, there’s a constant theme: simplicity. We’re learning to keep things simple, quick and lethal. We have to. Omega is way bigger than us, and the only way we’ll stand a chance against them is if our little army is better organized than theirs. Hit hard, hit fast, and get out. It’s really no different than the guerilla techniques used centuries ago during the Revolutionary War.
On the third day, Chris lets us shoot. We apply all of the techniques we’ve learned and set our sights on various targets at different distances. Chris doesn’t want us to blow through too much ammunition, so our practice with live fire is limited. But it’s okay. Some of us are hitting accurately enough to kill an Omega soldier up to four hundred yards away. Even I’m getting good at this, which is an amazing accomplishment in itself. Chris has noticed my skills improving, and he continually makes comments like, “Nice work, Cassie,” or “Good job.”
In Chris speak that means, “Wow. I’m very impressed right now.”
At the end of the week, Chris and the other militiamen in charge seem satisfied with our progress. Personally, I’m impressed with how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. A week ago I couldn’t put a magazine into a rifle without fumbling around like an idiot. Now I can do it with my eyes closed.
“I feel so hardcore,” I remark, sitting cross-legged next to Sophia. We’re eating lunch. It’s a warm day. The sun is filtering through the tree branches, reminding us that it’s almost April.
“How so?” Sophia asks.
“Oh, you know. Joining the army kind of gave me a confidence boost.”
She laughs, but a few seconds later she turns her head.
“Harry,” she hisses from the side of her mouth.
I look over my shoulder. He’s sitting alone on the edge of camp, stabbing his food with a camping spork. He’s also glaring in our direction. Part of me wants to go over and start a conversation with the guy — he’s obviously lonely. But common sense tells me that it would just be a waste of time. Nobody is making Harry sit in the corner of camp, and nobody is shunning him, either. If anything, he’s shunning us.
“He’s bitter, isn’t he?” Sophia comments.
“Seems to be.” I shrug. “I think he’s mad at himself for screwing up. And I think he’s terrified of Chris, which is understandable. I’d be scared of him too if I was Harry.”
“Still… Harry’s weird.”
I return my attention to my lunch. Harry’s not really weird. He’s just…confused.
“Mind if I join you, ladies?” a gruff voice rumbles.
I look up, meeting the gaze of Alexander Ramos. I’m too stunned to say anything. He hasn’t spoken directly to me since the day I met him — and that was an odd encounter.
“You’re doing well,” he says, sitting down in a vacant chair.
“Excuse me?”
“In your training. You’ve advanced fast.” Alexander folds his hands together. “Both of you have.”
Sophia blushes. It makes me want to gag. Lately she’s been nursing an ill-concealed crush on Alexander, one that I keep trying to discourage. True, I don’t have any real reason to not like the man. I just trust Chris when he says that he doesn’t think Alexander is completely stable.
Then again, Chris seems to trust him.