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Always too late...never there. The beautiful bright spring day would have been something to behold had it been anyone else gazing on it other than Faye Lau. A lone rain droplet from a distant cloud fell on the plastic covering the photograph of Heather Lau she kept in her wallet, smiling brighter than a thousand days like this.
Steeling herself behind a clenched jaw and wrestled emotions, she slid Heather’s picture out a little to reveal the red sweater her mother always wore in the last remaining picture she had of Biyu and Liang Lau. It was too much to look at them, but Faye did anyway. Sometimes the pain of memory felt necessary; kept her grounded.
Faye had been at Basic Training when they were killed. It had been a senseless act of violence that had taken so many and gone on far too long. She’d been granted leave and given an Honorable Discharge with the promise of coming back when she chose to raise Heather rather than see her to a cold and brutal System. Once Heather came of age, Faye vowed to do it right, do it all for them. Once, she thought her mother and father would have been proud: Commander Faye Lau, USN and of The Division.
Now, she wasn’t so sure. She’d been gone for Heather’s death, too. For what? Duty? Duty to what? A broken system that served no one but the worst kind of ghouls this planet had ever seen. Heather begged her to stop, begged her…. Faye let out a broken breath of air and slid Heather’s picture back where it was and turned her eyes to the white gray clouds as they rolled over the remnants of Washington, D.C. The cloud wouldn’t judge her for being angry—at herself, at God, at a thankless System that had stolen everything from her and she had mindlessly served like an idiot.
“Some hero...” Faye mumbled to the sky and to herself. She collected her rifle and rose from her seat on a random concrete block overlooking the Potomac and turned back to the stronghold she and the remaining members of Black Tusk had cobbled together and stopped dead in her tracks at the uniformed sight of Division Agent Sasha Holmes.
“Just great,” Faye said sardonically and smiled through the frustrated sadness bubbling through her person. Agent Holmes was dressed in a hodgepodge of forest green camouflage, kevlar helmet, green ballistics glasses, a classic Medic cuirass no doubt looted from some museum.
The quietness of the day was curious. No sounds of helicopters or drones or any other commotion about. Faye’s scouts had also not alerted her to any other Agents in the area.
The custom short barrel M16 Agent Holmes had at the ready was nicked in places that told more about her engagements than her dossier could ever.
Faye had commanded Sasha briefly when she’d taken over the Keener mission from Agent Kelso. She was a fellow Sailor, but as Explosive Ordinance Disposal, had seen far more combat action than most in-theater Division agents, Faye included. It meant she wasn’t a fool and she wasn’t one to hesitate like she was now.
Seeing her moment, Faye, quickly brought up her M4 and aimed it squarely at Agent Holmes’s pretty brown forehead. “What are you waiting for? You got me.” She said to Sasha hoping to goad her into giving up why she was here and why she was alone.
In the blink of an eye, Sasha’s M16 was aimed at Faye and the safety flicked off. “I didn’t come here to fight,” she said. “And I think you know that otherwise you would have put a hole in me.”
The leaves behind Agent Holmes rustled and Sasha jumped to the side while throwing up a striker drone as Faye’s lieutenants pushed through, guns drawn.
“Wait!” Faye cried out and held her rifle in the air while taking her finger off the trigger. Curiosity was getting the better of her. Sasha had come in good faith, alone. Besides, there were better ways for Sasha to die than like this. Faye had a fleeting thought of Agent Kelso back in Haven, not knowing where her Agent Holmes was and, for a brief, moment felt sorry for wanting to take something from Kelso that she loved. But what was the alternative? This was war right? It was never pretty.
Sasha, Faye, and Faye’s lieutenants all lowered their weapons at the same time.
“Talk,” Faye barked at her counterpart.
“I want to know why,” Sasha said.
Faye laughed and motioned Sasha to follow her back to where she’d been sitting. She gestured to a log opposite the concrete block. “Don’t kid yourself. You know why.”
Sasha retracted her drone and sat. She looked contemplatively at the same horizon Faye had been staring at a moment ago before taking off her helmet and ballistics glasses. Sasha was a pretty woman, she had to hand it to Kelso for having good taste in lovers. Maybe some of Sasha’s influence would rub off on Alani, Faye hoped. “Where are you from?” Faye asked.
Sasha chuckled. “You read my file.”
“Doesn’t mean I remember,” Faye lied.
“Seattle, South Side,” Sasha replied wryly. “You?”
Sasha lifted her dark eyebrows in such a way that Faye knew she’d caught onto this game. “Bronx. I did a stint in Bremerton. Seattle’s pretty. At least for some people,” Faye tested.
That got a small rueful smile out of Sasha, but Faye could tell she was struggling with it in that frustrating way all Division agents did. “Yeah, I guess. Look, I know where this is going, Faye--”
“--Do you?!” Faye snapped.
“Yeah...I do,” Sasha laughed sardonically. “I was a Black girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest.” Sasha snapped back in such a way it was surprising. “I don’t know about you but I’m kind of new to this world-going-to-shit thing and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it just like every other brown vet out there: How do we remake the world out of literally nothing? All I know is, we can’t do it alone. We need you, Faye.”
“That’s the thing, Sa—Holmes--
“--Call me Sasha, it’s fine,” Agent Holmes swatted her hand at Faye earning her a smile.
“Sasha...at some point, we have to decide what world we want to live in. Whose world are we remaking? I lost my parents and my sister to a system that’s just a shill for one kind of thief.” Faye rose off her concrete block and ran a hand through her short, dark hair.
Sasha rose too and rubbed the back of her neck. “I get what you’re saying, but there’s a fine line between justice and chaos and it’s a matter of how many people you push away. Even Superman needed friends.”
Faye couldn’t help a laugh at that, remembering a cartoon from her childhood. “Yeah, and it was the system that killed him,” she said after a moment. “It’s the same system that’s going to get us both killed and at the end of the story they’ll wash away our memories with Thoughts And Prayers. When you were down there in the depths of the Persian Gulf diffusing mines, did you ever ask yourself why you were there, sacrificing yourself instead of having barbecue with your lady?”
Sasha shifted uncomfortably.
“Wouldn’t you rather be with Kelso than sitting here with me?” Faye asked.
“Faye, it doesn’t have to be like this,” Sasha protested.
“But it is! My whole life, I’ve been serving, sacrificing and...only losing...” the last words Faye said mostly to herself than to Sasha. She thought of Heather and her parents, those faces who were slowly fading. “We're not heroes, but we are the good guys, Sasha. Not who you serve...us. At some point, you’re going to wake up like I did and know nothing but regret. I don’t wish that for you.” Faye looked to Agent Holmes. A light breeze kicked up from the water and pushed soothingly against her face seemingly like an omen.
Pain was written in Sasha’s even brow, in her baby cheeks, in those charcoal irises. “This isn’t the way...” her voice was soft almost as though she was begging through her own misgivings. Sasha wasn’t totally convinced and Faye knew, deep down, that the fight was still coming.
Faye touched Sasha’s arm and looked her dead in the eyes, searching for that last shred of hope that maybe her death if it was to come, wouldn’t be in vain. “No...it isn’t.”