Routine Affair

I get the feeling the UAS isn't going to back down no matter what happens. Pride is a strange thing, and while we don't suffer from the kind of criminal stupidity needed to die on the sword of pride, I can sort of understand why they're forging ahead with their plans even knowing how dearly it will cost them.

Take this morning, for example: right there on the edge of UAS territory, where they are known to patrol heavily both day and night, hang the bodies of seven of their operators. These people were caught trying to rig a grain silo with explosives in such a way that it would topple onto a community's wall. This was a good two hundred miles inside the border, and the folks that caught these assholes yesterday had to work at it to make sure they could move and prepare the bodies.

No, they weren't alive when they got strung up. We're hard, not cruel. Death was a given as they're enemy combatants--infiltrators, even--but they were quick deaths.

The Union is treating this as a routine matter. We'll make the point in similar ways as often as we need to until the UAS finally gets it. Simple as that.

I feel I should cut away here to mention that my wake-up call today was Will Price knocking on my door. I answered, sleepy and freezing cold, and he slugged me in the gut. Then we sat down and had coffee.

Turns out the council read my post yesterday and decided a day off for Will was in order. They made it clear that no one was questioning his ability to perform his job, but others have had the same concerns I expressed. Will wasn't very happy about it--he did punch me in the stomach, after all--but he's a stickler for rules, so he is spending the day doing anything but work. I suggested he try to find a reasonably attractive person, play them with sweet words, and attempt to spend a little time pursuing mutual pleasure together.

He gave me the flattest look I've ever seen from a human being and told me it wasn't that easy. I replied that there were plenty of people around here who'd be happy for a bit of commitment-free sex. It's not like we have video games to keep up entertained any longer, right?

The subject seemed to make him uncomfortable, so I let off. Will left after half an hour, told me he was going to find something to do. I wonder if someone will find him hunched over looking at some men's magazine, but secretly hiding a copy of The Art of War or whatever inside it. The guy really needs a social life. If I knew more people I'd try to set him up, assuming the attempt wouldn't get me shot.

I deserved the little love tap he gave me, but I'm no dope. I won't stick my nose in where it can get slapped off. I try not to repeat mistakes. Being human, I usually fail at that.

We're closing in on the third anniversary of this blog, and I feel weird about that. I'm so proud of what we've managed, and of course so sad at all we've lost. It's a strange feeling to celebrate the adaptability of survivors, because like most things it has two sides. That ability to cope and align ourselves to new situations has allowed New Haven and groups like it to make great leaps forward from where we started after The Fall. But it's that same malleable nature that allows us to kill enemies and hang their corpses up as warning signs to their brothers, and to keep doing it as long as we have to.

I can't see an end to this conflict any time soon, but I try to keep perspective. Where we've been, where I've been, and the healing that has happened for the group, the society, the race, and even just for me. It's never perfect; nothing ever is. But it's what we've got. It's what we fight to keep.