CHAPTER IV, About Ten Years Later
They weren’t all
dead. The Past Old Workers, no longer contributing to the needs of society,
were housed in Retirement Resorts. Past Old Workers and Retirement Resorts were
the official names that he knew first hand. Fred remembered that day with his
brother too. He had been so naïve then. Yes he had been correct in his sense of
things, but reality was another thing all together. The planet needed people
like him with sense and dedication to a moral and just cause.
He turned the
volume up to maximum on the satellite radio. The music kept out the sound of
the thud of the bodies as his tank hit them and their screams under his treads. A 100 tons could really mess up your
weekend plans, he laughed to himself. He considered combat in the senior ghetto,
against the Oldies, always a messy affair. The soldiers called them oldies or POW’s, if
only among themselves. The terms were used against all those that strained the
resources of the planet and no longer mattered.
The small groups
that had the independent resources to pay their way, or were still contributing
to the good of the planet, were left to live as they chose. And these were the
ones the propaganda machine utilized to assure the populations that their loved
ones were doing just fine.
That falsehood
coupled with the improved holographic technology, one that captured each new POW
in their entirety, allowed a Turing machine like response to family calls. It
made the lie complete. Visits were
always promised, but for some official new reason for every request, never
consummated. The families never spoke
up. They just accepted the official explanations
“Thank god”, said
Fred and he laughed at the term god. It
was a term that would not go away no matter what was dictated by the
authorities, “Thank god for satellite radio and especially for automated
vehicle Wash & Decontam.” Cleaning
the tank manually after one of these excursions was disgusting at best. The oldies could really gum up the works.
His gunner slewed
the turret and immolated another group charging his tank, named Autodafe. That name was painted in red/orange letters
across the turret. “Shotguns and light semi-automatic weapons were they crazy?”
he shouted to his gunner, as another group of oldies attacked from the rear. “They
were either stubborn, or senile. They had no right to exist. They were drags on
the planet.” Everyone knew that.
“Kill them all.
We’re wasting ammunition even doing this. We should just run them the fuck
over,” shouted his driver.
“Fire in the
hole,” laughed his gunner. Another group
of Oldies was incinerated. They all
laughed.
“Okay which
building are they supposed to be holed up in and is next on the list? Give me
the coordinates. We’ll end this group once and for all” commanded Fred. The
five tanks sat there idling while the crews discussed the day’s events and some
government sponsored event, and waited for Frank to give the orders to attack.
Glass crashed
against the back of the tank. They all heard a thunk and the tinkle of glass over
the idling engine as bits of the glass got sucked into the intake and chewed
up.
“What was that, a
beer bottle? What a bunch of idiots.” One of the crew asked. The gunner was
about to swivel the turret. He was in no hurry. A fucking bottle he thought. What’s
next, a baseball bat? He slowly turned the turret to the right and with a
light 5.56 machine gun, cut a few of them down.
The com went on,
“Lead tank you have….”
The fire alert and
suppression system went on. Was his tank was burning. Fred’s only words, “What the….?”
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