- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 7: Tunnel Vision

Sickleford might have had impressive form, but her shot veered off and hit the car wrapped around the support pillar. By then I had the crap scared out of me and the sense knocked tightly back into the hole it belonged and took cover. I opened my revolver and made sure it was fully loaded and snapped it back shut. Sickleford didn't do any sort of plan other than walk towards me. She was right out in the open peering through her scope and hobbling along. Nothing looked wrong with her legs… but given the state of her body it'd have to be a miracle to walk normally. She fired again and again while I stayed out of sight. She fired several times in succession and all managed to land them on target in my direction. I popped out, aimed and promptly missed. It was hard enough to get this gun to hit things when I had two hands. Working it with one hand just turned it into a flashy noise maker. If I had all the ammo in the world, I could have hit something, but Sickleford had an edge since she had a rifle and knew how to use the damn thing. I had a horrible realization that if I wanted to make any shot count I was going to have to get closer to her.

"Sickleford!" I yelled. "Why does it have to be me!?"

"Because you're here."

Another shot hit the car and I scrambled across the tunnel to the support pillars lining the median. I could probably play a ring-around-the-rosie with her assuming she didn't get wise and pull something spectacular. I doubted it in her condition… but at the same time she was in so much pain that anything seemed possible. She had flowers growing out of her and she was still walking around firing off a rifle. I kept dodging her shots while getting closer and closer. My revolver got more and more useful the closer I got, and at the same time Sickleford didn't have to think as hard about getting her shots on target. The moment of truth came when I ran out of pillars to hide behind; several had collapsed and were nothing more than concrete stumps. Sickleford stopped shooting and started to wait me out.

"How long have you been running around like that!?"

"Since the first time we crossed the bridge… it started to bloom almost as soon as we started the operation."

"Wait," I started to think. "You didn't… did you shoot anyone else on our side!?"

I leaned too far out and almost got my shoulder blown out as she fired.

"Heckler. He was bleeding badly anyway."

"The lucky shot at the train station that got Victor?"

She hissed, like someone who had just a door slammed on their hand. I quickly looked to see her holding a hand to her throat. I wanted an answer so badly I forgot to take a shot.

"I did that one. He was so pale… and gaunt."

She fired forcing me back behind the pillar.

"He was fine!" I yelled.

I heard a magazine clatter to the floor and looked to see that Sickleford was reloading her rifle. It was about as good as it was going to get as I pointed my revolver at her and fired. She took the large caliber round to her waist and didn't even flinch. She continued to reload her rifle like nothing had happened. I was so caught off guard that instead of firing again I retreated back behind the pillar. I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. At first I considered the impossible chance that my revolver had suddenly turned into a peashooter and quickly remembered that Sickleford was a full blown Creeper case. All I could think was the pain- so much pain that trying to shoot people seemed like the only way out. Could it have been that she was hurting so badly from Creeper that she couldn't even feel getting hit by a bullet?

"God dammit." I whispered.

I heard her moving up, she was tired my hiding act. And after seeing her take a near gut shot like a champ I began to panic. I looked over my shoulder as I was running to another pillar. I saw her round the bend, and the place I had hit her Creeper had quickly spilled out. She was firing from the hip now. We were that close. Using a scope just wasn't necessary. Where ever I ran, she followed firing every now and then when it struck her. I wondered if I could just wait for her to run out of ammo. How many rounds could she have anyway? Maybe I could just wait until the Creeper completely overwhelmed her. But how long would that take? She spent the entire operation running around with flowers growing out of her, going crazier and crazier until it came down to chasing me in a tunnel around a pillar like we were playing tag. Then I tripped on some twisted piece of rebar sticking out of the pillar and toppled over into the road. Sickleford rounded the corner and saw me. We both pointed our weapons at each other and pulled the trigger. I missed until I was empty. She took all the time in the world to aim her gun and pulled the trigger.

An empty click echoed through the tunnel. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and at the same time nearly made my heart stop working. Both of us were empty, and both of us went to reload. The problem was… I had to reload with one hand. I balanced the revolver with the chamber open in-between my legs and brought out a fresh clip. She fished for another magazine strapped somewhere on her uniform, only she had to navigate vines and the Creeper flowers growing out of her body. I didn't look at her anymore as I tried to line up the clip with six bullets with the revolver with six empty holes. It wasn't working. I was trying to put a square in a triangle shaped hole. I fidgeted with it to the point where I thought Sickleford wasn't shooting me so when I got the thing closed she would kill me and have a good laugh. But I finally got it in, closed the chamber and heard the snap of her getting the magazine in place. Before she could cock it I raised my revolver and fired.

I hit Sickleford right in the chest. She made no sound. She stumbled a bit, but seemed unaffected. I fired again, and again, and again, and again, and finally the last shot I had. She still stood. I couldn't see any blood, just Creeper plants. I slowly lowered my gun and watched. After a long time she dropped her rifle and fell to her knees. Her head sagged down and slowly her body toppled over onto her side. The plants covered her face, I couldn't see her expression anymore, and for that I was thankful. I considered poking her, either with my revolver or the rifle she just dropped to make sure she was dead and immediately hated myself for it. How hard was it to see that she was finally done for? I was pretty good about searching corpses for stuff… but not this time. I didn't touch Sickleford's body. I left her there in the tunnel and walked away only to stop three steps later, turn around, and come back. I prefer not to wonder just how long I stood there staring at her dead body. Just somewhere during that time, I heard engines. A vehicle drove up and stopped behind me.

I looked to see a recon truck had arrived, with two men getting out running toward me. They were on our side.

"Hey, it's one of ours!" One of them said.

"Are you okay?" The other asked me.

I didn't answer them. Instead I looked over to Sickleford.

"Oh… ehh… nothing we can do to help her."

I was impressed they could tell through the Creeper vines that it was a woman. I knew of course but... I suppose you could still make out black hair spread out over the ground.

"Hey, are you okay soldier?"

"My arm is broken." I said.

"Good thing you got it in a sling. Let's get him back to HQ."

"How long have you been out here?"

"Just long enough." I told them.

When I got back to base I didn't go to see any medical officers. Instead I went to a lonely tent in the communications division. I had to debrief with Relay. It was just big enough for a table, two chairs and a radio system. There were lots of maps and charts on the table, and it all belonged to Alex Kine. I called him Relay on the radio, because that was the standard operating procedure. He was a rail thin man who wore a long coat and hunched over most of the time like he was trying to hide from the world. He put together the team and the operation that I participated in and was now the sole survivor of. I kind of expected it to be important and hush-hush. But the way the recon team and everyone else at base reacted, no one knew just why I was found so far out. Not that any of that mattered to him, he was very pleased when he stepped inside the tent for some reason.

"I'd have to say Fencer; you've done a great job out there. Things were touch and go for while."

Kine took the chair across from me and folded his hands. He smiled, shuffled some of his papers. I didn't say anything.

"I was concerned for awhile after I lost communication at the Aquarium, but the way the IDS forces reacted… well, I knew you had done it."

"Done it?" I repeated.

"You sounded like you weren't going to kill the IDS commander. Glad you came through when it really mattered."

"What happened with the IDS forces?"

"Well, they were advancing. The Great Owl was dropping its bombs like clockwork and then… suddenly… they all stopped. Things on the IDS side became a mess. They had several divisions of Anti-tanks and Wartanks in the area of the aquarium that would just not move. We were able to take some considerable ground. Even with the Great Owl, it's looking like this fight will be over soon."

He grinned until his teeth showed.

"I didn't kill the IDS commander, Kine. I took her little stuffed bear hostage and tiptoed out of the Aquarium with a million guns on me." I told him flatly.

Kine shifted back in his chair and turned his head like he didn't believe his ears were working properly. He shook his head… several times.

"What?"

"I said I didn't kill a little eight year old girl. It wouldn't have done any good anyway. We were wasting our time."

"Are you telling me she's still out there!?"

"Some guy named Caulder broke into our communications. He practically told me to kill her. Said he'd just clone another Penny, a better Penny."

"Penny? I don't care what her name is! You're telling me you were right there and didn't kill her?"

"It wouldn't have done any good. Does Commander Lin know that?"

Kine wasn't smiling anymore, he was tapping his hands on the table and made that little hum when he was forming a plan.

"Commander Lin doesn't know anything. Why should she? This mission is a total failure, because you couldn't come to terms with the state of things."

"What state would that be, Kine? That it takes seven plus men and women to kill one little girl? She's off her rocker anyway. Penny isn't the problem. You think knocking off one brick from the top will collapse the whole wall? It doesn't work that way. And what the hell do you mean that Commander Lin doesn't know?"

Then I could see it. Only Kine ever talked to us. We never went through anyone else. He was the only one who ever answered our radio calls. Kine was everything but a relay. Everything that reached his ears, all the information that he came across stayed with him. He horded it. He kept it hidden under the ability to act like he was doing his job. We were his special project. I bet anyone lost under his watch could be chalked up to Creeper cases or desertions. I had only figured it out too late, and he could tell.

"What's wrong Fencer? You agreed to all of this. All of you agreed to this. You said you'd do whatever it took. You even used one of your stupid expressions. That'd you'd run down an eighty year old woman and choke her to death if it meant ending all of this," Kine said in a low tone. "Are you telling me that if it was an old woman in command of IDS you would have gone through with it? Is it just my horrible, horrible luck that they had a tiny girl in command over there? And you couldn't do it? Even though the whole world is ended? There isn't a single person left who can stand on the moral high ground. Who cares?"

I was staring at the floor. I wasn't looking at his face. But when he talked I heard Caulder talking. The calm sounding guy over the radio who wanted me to shoot his youngest daughter because I could on the basis that no one would care. I didn't see how it changed anything. Some meteors fall and kill most everyone around and suddenly common sense no longer applies? No, it wasn't my problem that IDS used little girls to do their dirty work and that I didn't want to just nod my head and kill her. I didn't have to play their game. I didn't have to play Kine's game either. And even if I did… Caulder would clone another. I wouldn't be half surprised if I was sent out again, to shoot a whole row of little girls who talk to stuffed bears. I wouldn't be surprised if I spent the rest of my life hunting down little girls and killing them. And it was horrible.

"I could." I answered without thinking.

"Who gives a shit what you think?"

"Commander Lin? Wait till she hears what you've been doing with the men and resources you've sidelined. I'm sure she'll understand."

Kine got white and stood up out of his chair. He clenched his fists together. I knew he spent the majority of his time behind a desk, but I also knew he could fight with the best of them.

"Don't threaten me, Fencer! You see how I recruited all of you? You think I can't do it again? You think I can't find someone to shut you up? Don't even think about. You're lucky I'm a man who sympathizes enough with what you've gone through to let this one slide. Don't go causing trouble, or I'll make you regret it."

He did a little circle in place and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"What are you going to do? Put together another team?" I asked.

"I'll find someone who isn't so goddamn useless," He said. "I have to go to an officers meeting for the counter-attack. You better not still be here when I get back. I better never have to see you again except off in the distance and when we pass by each other."

And with that he huffed out of his tent. I hated Kine, but I didn't believe for a second he couldn't do what he claimed. He could sell all sorts of things. He probably did sell all sorts of things before the meteors fell and he was picked up by Brenner's Wolves. Suicide missions seemed to be his specialty at the point. That's when I pulled out the proximity mine I still had from a dead IDS Agent. I set it on the underside Kine's table and turned it on. There was an initial beep to notify that it had been armed but after that… well, he wouldn't know it was there until it did its job. An explosion in camp wasn't so unusual that anyone would spend more than five seconds thinking about it. I couldn't do what Kine asked me, but I did manage to bring something back for him. I had a mine. I had a mine for Kine. I left the tent and started off towards medical to see if they could do something about my arm. Hopefully, it would be able to heal.

- End of Story

-- Thanks for reading!