"That's the place?" I asked.

"Yep."

The Inquisitors had all gathered around a table, whose glass surface was showing a map of the extreme southeast of Cascadia, near the American border. The map highlighted an indent into one of the dry, rolling hills.

"Can't believe the patterns lead worked out."

The patterns in question were the camera blackouts that had randomly occurred all over the place hours before the attack. Only road cameras had been affected and only for a minute at a time, but nearly every major roadway in the state had faced the blackouts. The purpose was to supposedly hide a car passing through their views, and blacking multiple, innocent cars statewide made things hard to pin down.

But they'd done it.

The Inquisitors had explained to me how The Throne had calculated every possible route cars along the blackout could have taken and where they could have come from. Apparently a connection was made in the middle of nowhere.

The how didn't matter much to me though.

My Emerald Fir was enough to have my request granted. I would be on Watcher-Six mission to kill the sons of bitches responsible for That Day.

The footage of the attacks were still fresh in my mind.

The bridge in Bellevue over the freeway exploding with hundreds of people on it for a parade. The people instantly killed, the cars underneath flattened, the following screams.

The beer festival in Portland that was blown to the moon. The music still playing as smoke wafted into the air of the Rose City, the intoxicated unsure of what just happened, and the screams.

Raining Man, the big performance of the afternoon. Alternative music blaring, audible from miles around. The people, cheery, wet, drunk, happy, having the time of their lives. Suddenly, so many of those lives ended. Once more the screams.

My scream.

I got up and left.

I made my way towards the armory where I began pulling on my Haubrek and loading up on weapons. As I finished, Charlie walked in and we embraced. I'd always figured her a hardass but she'd helped me through a lot since the attacks.

"Don't die" she whispered to me.

I left without responding.

The Galaxy VTOL was waiting for me outside. Most of the Watchers, decked out in advanced weapons and armor of their own, were already ready to go. I took my seat and ran the plan through my head again. Bust, 9-12-3. Bust, 9-12-3.

Someone said something that I didn't hear, and the VTOL took to the air. The peaks of evergreen trees quickly turned to the peaks of the Cascades as not a single cloud conspired to stop us today. Inside of twenty minutes the landscape below resembled a desert more than it did anyplace else in the state.

"Five minutes!" someone yelled at me. The Watchers were practically trained their whole lives for shit like this, but me? I was trained but I would never catch up. Status alone had gotten me on this mission, and it had been agreed beforehand that as long as I stayed out of the way, it'd be fine.

What happens when Cascadian spirit meets Imperial rigor.

We set down, and hopped out into a sea of yellow. The grasslands extended for miles around, the Cascades long having been left behind.

The Watchers made their way forwards and I followed. They spoke in their comms about contingencies. Personally, I didn't care if I died during the mission.

The signal to stop arrived and this time, I followed rank with the Watchers. We dropped to our knees and observed. The location we were trying to bust was a small dugout in the hill. No windows, just a dark, wooden, door.

Just as the signal to approach was given, a new order came from above.

"Wait" ordered the Throne.

Suddenly, several men in civilian clothes rushed out. I would've mistaken them for farmers if they hadn't been carrying TRACs.

They saw us and opened fire. We all dropped, which gave them time to seek cover amongst the grasses themselves.

"Fire at will."

The Watchers were surprisingly conservative with their fire, but a few bursts was all that was needed to silence them.

Their futile resistance lasted all of four minutes, and we were running towards the door now. Seven in total had been killed thus far. Seven out of how many?

Behind the door was quite the surprise. The bastards had set up barricades to take cover behind. Cowering on the sides of the dugout entrance, one of the Watchers tossed an explosive inside and ended their lives swiftly.

Inspecting the entrance room to their little hellhole, we found nothing of significance, though something was beginning to bother me. The original intel had said three middle-eastern guys, not an army of white farmers.

From the sounds of yelling down the hallway, it was clear that there was one last barricade. I lobbed an explosive down through the open door. As one might imagine, I was quite surprised to see it fly back at me two seconds later.

Suddenly, I was on the floor. Some of the Watchers behind me were firing inside, but the other side of the door kept responding, and showing no signs of stopping any time soon.

"I got this" I heard myself say as I raised my rifle and stormed through the door.

Time seemed to slow as I scanned the room, 9-12-3. Seven enemies. I systematically allotted three bullets each towards them, and was overall quite successful. Seven enemies became seven dead bodies as my adrenaline began to wear off.

Then I felt it.

Some even or eight rounds had struck me in the sternum, some of which got through the silk armor. I collapsed to the ground in intense pain, the much wiser Watchers rushing to my aid.

I pulled off my glove and gave a last longing look at the ring on my finger as I slipped coolly into oblivion.

[Meta] I don't think action's really my thing lol. There's more to come btw. Eventually.